Davey O'Brien Award

Roberto Benigni and George Orwell explore similar central ideas in the texts Life is Beautiful and 1984. Considering the setting of; a controlled society, a war based on ideological differences and family; the importance or unimportance, the concepts of words, thoughts, actions, death and family structure are explored. Life is Beautiful follows protagonist, Guido Orefice, in 1939 and his experiences through WWll, as later narrated by his son, Giosue. The fable-like tale focuses on the concepts,…

Magical realism is “… characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusions of fantastic or mythical elements into apparently realistic fiction” (Edison). Characteristics of this genre include plentitude, hybridity, metafiction, and an unreliable narrator. A story that shows magical realism is “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez. Márquez is recognized as one of the best authors who combines reality with fantasy: “… García Márquez, combining radically different realities, what…

In the film Real Women Have Curves, which is a coming of age story, the main conflict was between a daughter, Ana, and her mother, Carmen. The mother and daughter cannot get along because of their age and traditional differences. Ana’s mother was old fashioned and wanted her daughter to graduate highschool, lose weight, join the family in their dressmaking business, and find a husband. Ana did not want her life to be this way and wanted to go to college and be and educated women who finds true…

Towards the end of the novel, the narrator uses anatomical precision to describe every aspect of Louise’s body. It can arguably be seen as a romantic approach to describing the body of a loved one. However, it greatly varies from the romantic description of the body that most people are used to. The narrator goes inside of Louise’s body to discuss the relationship between her body and the concept of romance and desire. The narrator’s depiction of Louise’s body is divided up by location,…

From past to present to the inevitable future, we as humans have done terrible things. Things like the Holocaust, countless wars, genocide, sex trafficking, terrorism, and many other events in which people lose faith in the world we live in. Most people will argue the fact that humanity is not beautiful, but ugly for these reasons, but it’s really both: humanity is beautiful because the world is ugly, there are definite relationships between the two opposites. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak…

Consider an instance when you were required to make a choice. A time when you understood all the facts and recognized rationally what path you should follow. However, once it came down to making the choice for some odd reason you didn’t use your head at all. Instead, you realized that you had to act on what you felt because somehow that feeling you felt was stronger than the opposing logical choice. We as humans are caught in an internal struggle because our heads lead us one way while our…

Fictional Literature is something that affects the lives and thinking of many readers from age six to 96. It holds the power to share a story that can reveal a reality on real life, but it can also be there to simply bring laughter in an impossible utopia. Many writers have this plan and idea in mind before they set out to write a fictional work of art, however what the reader receives from that written piece can be totally different; nevertheless, it impacts the reader in one way or another.…

There are plenty great books that can be read about Chicago’s World’s Fair. But, one that stands out the most is the devil in the White City written by Erik Larson. This novel gives the reader a feeling as if he or she is reading two different stories but in the same book. The novel explains how the World’s fair became what it was and how it affected some people’s lives. This book gives all types of different readers a chance to enjoy the same book for a variety of reasons. Whether it be a…

In William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize Award Speech, Faulkner reflected on how a young writer needs to learn the true concept of the universal truths. Faulkner believed that if a story does not include the use of these truths, it is essentially doomed (Faulkner 872). They have been around since the beginning of the existence of humans, and they will continue to endure until the end. Writers have created stories throughout history, and these evident universal truths have and will stay the same from…

In the film, whatever happened to baby Jane, Jane went insane not only because she took care of her sister for such a long period of time, but because she was unable to follow her dreams. Since Jane was so preoccupied taking care of Blanche, she was not able to continue her acting career, which made her into a bitter alcoholic. It drove her mad knowing everything she has done for her sister had been for nothing because Blanche did not even appreciate all the years of Jane devoting her life to…