Annie Besant

How did an increased interest in theosophy in the 19th century influence the direction of modern art? Theosophy, as a philosophical belief system, can be traced back to ancient times. Through her two part Isis Unveiled (1877), and her theosophical society, Russian Born Mme Helena Blavatsky, a religious mystic, played a huge part in reinstating the dogmas of theosophy into the art world. Isis Unveiled was written during a time of significant change around the globe. In 1859 Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species”, which outlined his theory of natural selection, whilst Nietszche took the opinion that God doesn’t exist at all. These revelations, coupled with the industrial revolution and breakthroughs in science and technology, led to conventional belief systems facing a crisis. Many found their faith in conventional religion undermined, and began to question the meaning of life. Perhaps this doubt aided the popularity of Theology in the latter half of the century, as the second volume of Blavatsky’s Isis aimed to offer man a “master key to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology” . Her published writings challenged the beliefs of traditional western religions and modern science, by creating a merger of “eastern philosophical thought and western christian morality” , and offered a new perspective to those that felt lost. Blavatskys books put an emphasis on a higher reality; a spiritual realm beyond what we can see; a world that offers mysterious…

crowd of Trump-protesters, whose back of head is spilling blood, and the crowd is hounding him in hot pursuit. When a reporter asks Trump-protesters why they ignite Trump’s “Make America Great Again” caps, she receives responses of cursing Donald Trump without reasonable explanations. The election has ended, but the protests persist; some of the rallies are evolving into organized violence. What could possibly cause those protesters to coalesce and act foolishly? In social psychology, people are…

In her essay “Total Eclipse, ” Annie Dillard makes use of metaphor after metaphor and vivid, descriptive imagery to reveal the main message behind her text: mankind needs to wake up and be conscious of what is going on in the world outside of themselves. Through the sharing of her personal and emotionally driven experience of seeing a total eclipse, Dillard is able to draw the reader in. The eclipse has a very large impact on Dillard’s life and outlook of the world. Under the influence of the…

In the story we see “Momma” being picked on by some white girls while she stands on the porch. “ ““Naw, Helen, you ain’t standing like her. This here’s it.” Then she lifted her chest, folded her arms and mocked that strange carriage that was Annie.” As this goes on, Annie Henderson just stands there and continues to sing. She doesn’t get louder to tone out the mocking or get softer to show that the girls have affected her. As the girls say bye to her she stops sing to say, “Bye, Miz Helen, bye,…

This is a quotation taken from Katherine Mansfield’s short story ‘’The Voyage’’. The story is about a young girl called Fenella, after the death of her mother she went with her grandmother to move in her Grandparent’s house in Picton, which is inspired from Mansfield’s personal life when she had to move out from her home in Wellington, New Zealand to London, England. Mansfield uses imageries, metaphors, and the setting to convey the two main ideas of darkness and light and the transformation of…

In Annie Dillard’s essay, Living Like Weasels, Dillard uses stylistic writing to make her story more universally understandable, starting from her initial encounter the with a weasel and the life lesson she took out of the encounter. The essay gives its readers an unusual comparison between the life of human beings and the life of weasels. There is also a physical description of how Ernest Thompson shot an eagle and found the skull of a weasel clinging to its throat which was a perfect symbol of…

Annie Leonard, best known for the creation of an animated documentary about the life cycle of Stuff and entitled “The Story of Stuff”, explains in a namesake book the polluting process through which the Stuff is created and eventually dismissed. Her message is clear: we not only have too much Stuff (she prefers not using the word goods, “since goods are so often anything but good”), we also do not use it properly. Annie Leonard is an American environmental activist whose greatest aim is the…

Annie Dillard’s mother inspired her to be who she is as a writer. Her mother’s love for language shines through in the way Dillard pieces together words and structures her works. The ideas instilled in her to never settle or conform to norms in life and is evident in many of her works and particularly in An American Childhood. Although her mother may have felt trapped as a housewife, she inspired her daughter to be free to express herself through language. Dillard’s mother was fascinated by…

The idea behind “An American Childhood” by Annie Dillard shows great examples for writers in her how to show and describe something in detail without giving away key notes that could possibly make an individual subconsciously pre-judge. Dillard, throughout the small reading is able to display what her mother was like and who she was without giving her a face as well as accentuating her beauty. Her mother’s personality showed fun and eccentric as her daughter explained how her and her sister…

According to Critical Theory Today by Lois Tyson, “defenses are the process by which the contents of our unconscious are kept to the unconscious” (Tyson 15). Defenses can also be described as helping protect oneself from painful experiences. Sometimes defenses fail which cause anxiety, but anxiety also helps reveal specific core issues. Tyson states, “core issues are those deeply rooted, psychological problems that are the source of our self-destructive behavior” (Tyson 16). In the novel The…