James Tiptree

Matt Slick in an article on Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry indicates that many Catholics point to James 2:24 which says “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” to refute Luther’s understanding of the doctrine. Slick points out that what James is talking about is having dead faith instead of having a saving faith. He states that “mere intellectual acknowledgement of Christ is a dead faith that produces no…

Washington, May 1, 1847. The day the cornerstone of the Smithsonian Institution was laid. A grand ceremony was planned. Banners were strewn across City Hall. Large crowds gathered, in the size of thousands. People drove in from Baltimore and Philadelphia just to witness the event. There was an air of celebration. It felt like a public holiday. Yet, one important man was not officially invited to the event. The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Henry. This was by no mere accident…

People build their characters such as humanity and personality through their experience. Mary Shelley describes in Frankenstein how the creator and the creature are built through their experience by having a story of conflict between Victor Frankenstein, the creator, and the creature. There are parts where it shows how Victor has no responsibility and no moral while the creature possess responsibility and moral. Through this story, we are able to see theme of revenge and nature vs. nurture.…

Time is subjective: a person’s experience can differ due to the time in which they are experiencing it. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, time is manipulated to reveal the narrative of the creature created by Victor Frankenstein as a character that one can sympathize with. Caused by the creature, the narrative shift, illusion of time, and the authenticity of the creature compared to Victor are crucial regarding the death of William. Shelley’s manipulation of time during William’s death humanizes…

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is far from the basic horror movie with a green monster and has a way deeper meaning to it. When the book was written, the word feminism was not yet known by the world but this book, although quite vaguely, relates to it. Even though Victor Frankenstein and his creature are searching for a female companion through the whole novel, they always ultimately sabotage their hard work because of their isolation and alienation. Victor’s pursuit of knowledge and loathing, and…

John Marshall is most famous for being the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding for 34 years. Some would say he was the greatest chief justice of all time. Being a chief justice was not his only role. He was a lawyer, Federalist, Virginia native, husband, father and to some a national hero. Marshall’s legacy lives on and we are reminded time and time again why he was such a fundamental Supreme Court Chief Justice. John Marshall was born on September 24, 1775 in Fauquier County,…

The Dark Knight is an engrossing tragedy film that leaps beyond its origins. Batman is not the comic character, that you spent many nights reading his comic book anymore. Because of the amazing performances, the writing, the direction, and the technical quality of the entire production, this movie created characters we come to care about. By putting all the right elements in play, this movie had given the character of Batman a literary merit. This movie is not simply present the good and evil…

Although it may seem that many ideas are better unknown, ignorance is not bliss. Written by Daniel Keyes, the short story Flowers for Algernon demonstrates exactly this through the web of thoughts that criss-cross the mind of Charlie Gordon, a 37-year-old man who has a learning disability. While Charlie believes in the beginning that he has friends, oblivious to the fact that they are continually bullying him for entertainment, what he desires most is a chance to have genuine friends and be…

In “The Monster of Phineas-n-Ferbenstein,” an episode of Disney Channels television show Phineas and Ferb, in an ode to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Ferb’s ancestors Dr. Phineastein and Ferbgore create a Frankenstein-like monster so they can enter it into a monster building contest. Although some aspects of the television show are similar to Shelley’s novel, many important themes and plot points are left out because the show is catered to children. The story simply focuses on the creation of the…

The Other, despite its strangeness, functions ironically in the two texts as a parallel to the normal, thus destabilising the normalised and in turn serving as an effective critique of society’s rigid over-simplified belief system – one that involves the flawed tendency to judgmentally delineate what is normal or not. In Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, the monster as the traditionally conceived Other (arising from its distorted looks) disturbingly mirrors his creator Victor who supposedly is more…