Antonio Vivaldi

To begin with, Montresor and Zaroff may not seem to have a lot in common. Actually, their differences are overcome by their similarities in the way of acting and the lack of empathy. To begin with, the story The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe is about Montresor, an elite man from Venice that is annoyed with one of his servants, Fortunato. Therefore, Montresor articulates a plan to trap poor Fortunato, inviting him for a walk in the mansion’s vaults to find a cask of Amontillado wine. As…

another individual. In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio cares deeply for his best friend, Bassanio and will do anything for him. Similarly, John from We All Fall Down loves his son with all of his heart that he will put his sons well being before his own. After The Duke and Bassanio tried everything they could to save Antonio, Antonio's life was coming to an end. When Shylock was about to pierce Antonio’s chest to carve out a pound a flesh, Antonio said to Bassanio, “Commend me to your honorable…

When working on Portia my instinct was initially fire and I’m happy to say that my instinct was right. Portia’s journey in Julius Caesar led me to believe that she was in fact fire. In an intense proclamation of love for her husband, Brutus, Portia stabs herself in the leg. Act 2 Scene 1, “I have made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound Here, in the thigh: can I bear it with patience, And not my husband’s secrets?” In this case Portia chooses action into order to prove…

Hegemony is a process of coercion and consent. What does this mean, and how useful is it in explaining the role of culture in maintaining dominant ideologies? The expression ‘hegemony’ can be considered in a number of ways, the first and most apparent definition: a leader or representation of a certain ideology with the ability to gain control over another, weaker power. An example of this shown through history is the Soviet Union’s expansion over Eastern Europe, through the use of dictatorial…

A critical review: The Culture Industry The term culture industry, which created by those in power to maintain the status quo in terms of standardization and commodification was first developed by Ardono and Horkheimer based on the economic structure in the western society. It could be comprehended through the operation of cultural hegemony (i.e. how culture industry operates with the consent from the mass by the “dominant fundamental group”) that introduced by Gramsci. The following three…

Journey of a Changed Heart Enlightenment generally comes in increments and rarely with the flash of the proverbial light bulb switching on. Scripture portrays truth as coming “line upon line, here a little, there a little” (The Holy Bible). Within Antonio Machado’s poem “Last Night As I Was Sleeping,” the reader travels through one person’s journey of religious awakening through the use of metaphor, diction, and symbolism. The poem describes baptism, conversion from wickedness to righteousness,…

A brand takes the most idealized version of societally bound standards and commercializes a privileged race, class, or gender to increase momentum of hegemony and racial capitalism. This, as both philosophers Antonio Gramsci and Cedric Robinson would explain, is a direct effect of the formation of prioritizing a particular race and class thus manipulating our culture’s beliefs and values. In Black Marxism, Professor Cedric Robinson traces the concept of competition…

In light of the recent turmoil that has engulfed the Middle East recently, one may think that a new Middle East is emerging, however, due to recent setbacks, one may think the opposite and that the “old” Middle East is making a comeback. Both might be right, on the one hand it can be said that the region is in the throes of a transitional period to a more democratic future, while on the other hand it can be seen that the new rulers installed after the Arab Spring appear to be backsliding into…

As evident by the influence of education in forming class structure, the pigs (here Bourgeoisie), take advantage of the fact that the other animals are not as learned as themselves and they make sure that they remain like that. As Antonio Gramsci also puts in his essay, “There is no unity between school and life, and so there is no automatic unity between instruction and education” (qtd. Gramsci, 52) The pigs who understand that practical education can cause other animals to cause…

The play M Butterfly, by David Henry Hwang, is an extremely complex piece of literature and a fascinating dissection of the East versus West mentality as well the gender binary. Examining Gallimard’s behavior under these lenses leads to many insights to his motivations and provides reasoning for his rather strange actions. These ideas which permeate the play are all grounded in the fundamental concept of ideology and the interpellation of the “subject” by said ideologies. As well as Althusser’s…