August Spies

The trigger for sympathy for the eponymous character Miss Julie The inevitability of fate as a motor for drama has been used through the ages and August Strindberg’s controversial play Miss Julie falls into this grouping of literary classics. The eponymous protagonist (daughter of a count and a commoner), is driven by a hereditary need to integrate with the lower class yet simultaneously lord over them. Using her sexuality but also tempted by lowering herself socially, she beds her servant,…

During the reading of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, I was often shocked by how misogynistic Nietzsche appeared. His declarations and defamations of women caused a great amount of discomfort while reading as I am a strong feminist and Nietzsche was apparently my nemesis. Throughout Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche offers several witty aphorisms pertaining to women such as “compare man and woman on the whole, one may say: woman would not have the genius for finery if she did not have…

I am probably complicating an easy question, but I’ll try to answer. I’m not convinced there should be any particular order of importance. I would, however, suggest that all three in fact compliment each other and no one element has a corner market of success over another. Although formal education has long been used as setting the benchmark towards a foundation in a variety of professional disciplines, I 'm not convinced it serves as the gold standard for success. In reading the biographies…

opportunities. Blacks were left without the prospects whites had to improve their lives. This inequality created tension within the black community as some searched for any outlet to gain control over their lives. In his play, Fences, American playwright August Wilson describes one man’s desperate fight for power in his life. However, by forcing power over his family, the man loses them. Only negative consequences arise as he searches for power.…

In the 1900s, African Americans faced a lot of discrimination due to color barriers. The play Fences deals with boundaries that hold people back and the trials and tribulations they face when trying to cross them. The author August Wilson focuses on Troy a fifty-three year old man who struggles with providing for his family. Wilson’s Fences reveals the anger toward the racism that failed Troy’s attempt at achieving the American Dream, therefore causing him to establish fences between him and…

“What if I went back to sleep for a while, and forgot all about this nonsense?”(87). The Metamorphosis, written in 1913 by the German author Franz Kafka, tells the story of Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman who wakes up one day turned into a giant cockroach. Throughout the story, the reader can appreciate the consequences that occur when the main character of the story goes through a transformation that subsequently disrupts the family routine. His family is now forced to make significant…

Possibly the most exciting achievement in August Wilson’s career is his creation of the Century Cycle. It is a series of ten plays that illustrates the African American experience in the twentieth century. Each play is set in a different decade as they give realistic encounters of the various events that happens in that particular decade. The cycle isn’t a serial story but there are repeated appearances of characters at different stages of their life. However, many have pointed out Wilson’s lack…

Waking up to find yourself in a completely different body has to be hard, but when you are no longer in a human body, everything becomes more difficult. In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Gregor wakes up to find himself transformed into a bug. With Kafka’s background in reading the Word of God, this novel has been compared to the Bible because Grete played a similar role to Judas, Gregor’s downfall was brought by an apple, his family does not care for him before he dies. In a way, his sister…

The play “Equus” by Peter Shaffer and the short story “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka both demonstrate alienation in the two main characters. Alan Strang in “Equus” becomes isolated from society and his family because of an extreme passion for horses, while Gregor Samsa in “Metamorphosis” is a character who has inherently isolated himself his whole life and he somehow becomes more isolated when he turns into a bug overnight. Both Alan and Gregor go through their estrangement in strikingly similar…

Metamorphosis Symbolism In the story “Metamorphosis”, by Franz Kafka, Gregor Samsa’s father throws an apple at Gregor’s body, the apple causing him pain symbolizes the relation between Gregor’s physical and emotional struggling. Before the catastrophe of the apple being thrown took place, Gregor possessed signs of suffering, as for when he initially woke up and realized he was a bug Gregor had sharp aches and itches on his left side. His job before the transformation caused Gregor some…