Edgar Degas

Similar to The Rorschach Test – a famed psychological inkblot test that means different things to different people – Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts can be interpreted in a number of unique ways. It tells a purposely ambiguous, experimental, and daring story that forces readers to question their preconceived notions between knowledge, love, identity, and insanity. The Raw Shark Texts is a flawless example of how emotional trauma triggers psychosis, as well as how losing a loved one disturbs a…

“My stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.” (Updike) this is the very last sentence in A&P by John Updike, it emphasizes the consequences when you let Id, and ego get too far and when your superego starts to kick in. In this short story psychoanalytic criticism is highlighted, It focuses on a work of literature as an expression in fictional form of the inner workings of the human mind. The theories about psychoanalytic criticism were…

Doina Musat English 254, sec: 003 12 October 2017 The Hound of the Baskervilles: Element of Surprise Arthur Conan Doyle is widely recognized as one of the most thrilling adventure novelists during the Victorian era. Through his use of linear writing style and various literary techniques, Doyle is able to captivate the world with his famous Sherlock Holmes novels. In one of Doyle’s novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles, he is able to instill the sense of adventure for the reader to follow…

Narrative and literary techniques are used within various forms of literature to help portray the author’s intentions and thoughts to the reader, specifically to give artistic and emotional effects to the story. These techniques such as style involve the use of metaphors, imagery, alliteration, symbolism and several more. Common techniques applicable to the plot of a story consist of various elements including flashbacks, flashforwards, and foreshadowing specific events. Literary techniques can…

Throughout time literature has been a door to another worlds in which there are many significant heroes in stories. Often times they tell of the great deaded that they have done. I have found that Harry Potter is an example of the greatest hero throughout all of literature. In comparison to Beowulf, Harry Potter is the better hero because he is a classic hero, he has been a hero since birth, and he does heroic acts purely for helping others. In literature there are many different types of…

The mood, or atmosphere, of a story helps a reader to have a greater understanding of what he or she is reading. The mood is established by the writer’s tone, which is a reflection of the author’s feeling towards the subject. Edgar Allan Poe was a remarkable American writer from the 19th century who mastered the use of mood and tone. He is widely known for his ominous style of writing, especially in his short story titled “The Masque of the Red Death”. In this story, Poe engenders a mood of…

“Conrad Jarrett the anxious failure dress this guy in blue and grey”. (Guest 2). Is one of the very first lines that tells you more about Conrad and how he feels about himself. Throughout the book Ordinary People by Judith Guest, we learn more about Conrad and how things affect him such as the colors blue and grey, which represent anxiety and failure. At first anxiety and failure rule over his life but throughout his journey of life something changes. We learn how death and sex impact how he…

Mentally Insane Simon Winchester’s interesting story, The Professor and the Madman, explains the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary by an unlikely pair and rare circumstances. For years, the dictionary has been a common item that is taken for granted. Simon Winchester reveals the masterminds behind the Oxford English Dictionary’s long process and shocking creation story. The main character, Doctor William Minor, is a mentally ill man who is locked away in an asylum for murder. He offers…

A Dream’s Weary Awakening Life is both fearfully wonderful and death mysteriously petrifying. Death holds true promise, the only inevitability for one’s future. With one hand it steals away a life and with the other it has transpierced all who loved the departed soul, eventually knocking upon their own door. In 1915 Katherine Mansfield lived this tragedy when her beloved younger brother passed away, and she was soon after diagnosed with extrapulmonary tuberculosis, ultimately leading to her…

Hurst of Hurstcote E. Nesbit’s short story, “Hurst of Hurstcote”, is an eerie tale that takes place in England. The short story had a confusing start, but the further I got into it, the more it started to make sense. The narrator, Bernard, tells the story of his old friend John Hurst, who would later become John Hurst of Hurstcote, the owner of one of the nicest mansions in England. John attended Oxford and was not particularly popular with the other guys because of his strange infatuation with…