Gothic fiction

Of Crime and Punishment and Raskolnikov’s Mental Decline In the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov suffers a gradual mental breakdown from his guilt of murdering the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna. This is evident through Raskolnikov’s actions, such as avoiding his family, and friend, as well as his both his inner monologue and outer dialogue that exhibits his torn nature between good and evil. Dostoevsky characterizes Raskolnikov negatively…

Jeffrey Cohen is a professor of English and Director of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute. He specializes in many areas of research but he is famed for exploring monster; a subject that we will be looking at in this paper. I will be focusing on one of his seven theses of the monster culture by supporting his position with evidence from three different sources. In his work, 'Monster Culture,' Jeffrey Jerome Cohen introduces a new way of studying monsters in the context of the cultures…

Ignorance is bliss, as many believe. However, ignorance also leads man into situations they are unable to control, because of what lies in their heart. In the novella Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad utilizes strong symbolism to display how materialistic value can cause ignorance of the truth, which can lead to a man’s state of vulnerability and destruction. Joseph Conrad utilizes ivory as a strong symbol to display how man’s obsession for worldly items ultimately leads to the obliviousness of…

In Philip J. Riley’s, “Gaston LeRoux, Faust and the Phantom,” he demonstrates to his readers how LeRoux derived “The Phantom of the Opera” from Faust. Riley analyzes LeRoux’s work to show how LeRoux created the entire world of Erik and the opera house. After talking about Erik’s character, based on Faust, Riley additionally refers to how LeRoux integrated the actual Paris Opera House. Eventually, Riley shows how LeRoux incorporated Erik’s disease from the medical reference books he kept on…

Based on gathered evidence and reasoning, I firmly believe that Mr. Karazai did not kill himself. Instead his son did and made it look like a suicide. There is much evidence to be gathered in this case. A piano was open, which is normal for the kinds of talents Karazai had, but the steel wires within were reported by police on the scene to be torn apart, and the illustration confirms this. Related to the wire is a coroner’s report of a “thin skin-breaking line across his neck with blood across…

In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the straightforward style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work because it creates a creepily normal mood. For example, “Gregor tried to imagine whether something of the sort that had happened to him today would ever happen to the chief clerk too; you had to concede it was possible” (Kafka 11). Gregor basically just shrugs off the fact that he is a bug and admits that it could happen to anyone. By being so straightforward about this, the story takes on…

The Fatal Book Both Dorian and Des Esseintes also explore the fineries of clothing, and décor, but more so they strongly draw upon the study of jewels. Dorian wears a dress coated in over five hundred pearls. He could spend an entire day going through his collection of stones of silver, topaz, amethyst, ruby, opal and sapphire. He then explores more exotic jewels and silks that he procures from all over the world. He fills his home with these wonderful treasures and uses them to distract himself…

Film Response Paper Released on September 11, 1987 and directed by Adrian Lyne, the film Fatal Attraction leaves audiences cringing at just the mere thought of an obsession. The film features two main characters. Primarily being Mr. Dan Gallagher. Dan Gallagher is a happily married attorney, who lives in Manhattan, New York. Mr. Gallagher encounters a female editor named Alex. Ms. Alex works for a publishing company. While Mr. Gallagher’s wife, and daughter, are out of town for the weekend, Mr.…

Romanticism is a movement in literature and the arts which happened in the early nineteenth century that stressed on freedom from rules of form and personal emotions. Supernatural is one of the key characteristics of romanticism. The short stories “Devil and the Tom Walker” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” written by Washington Irving are good examples of romanticism as the stories are about supernatural stuff. In the first short story “Devil and the Tom Walker”, romanticism is evident when Tom…

David Tsotsi Madondo is guilty because of violence he has cost to other human beings. Tsotsi is a leader of a gang who strikes fear to the civilians and he's a mastermind of planning who to kill. Also Tsotsi is really a sneaky person. And not a good caregiver even though the child isn’t his. Tsotsi is a violent man who murders, assaults women and attempted murder. “He opened his mouth to yawn but instead a cry came out and when that he brought one of his arms down in a wide swinging arc,…