Literary criticism

Irony is a fundamental part of Greek tragedies. This irony is created when the audience knows something that the characters in the play do not. Through this use of dramatic irony, the audience feels more engaged in the story, creating a feeling of suspense and foreshadowing later events. In the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ use of irony does just that. Through the speech and actions of Oedipus, Iocastê, and others, Sophocles utilizes irony to allude to future events, create anticipation,…

Symbolism the Different Views When reading a book the author will use symbolism, it is up to the reader to decide what the symbol may mean. Although, the readers may read the book, the reader may not catch all the symbolism that the author can be portraying. We all have different interpretations to the objects that the author has presented us with. There are different interpretations that may be looked at in a deeper perspective, but yet we may find that the others interpretation may be similar…

they read a page in a book. They put the book down, look intently into your eyes, and say, “I have no idea what this means.” Fortunately, there are many things, like literary elements, to help you understand what the author means, if you study it carefully. For example, in “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou, she uses an amalgamation of literary elements, such as symbolism, word choice, and figurative language, which eloquently describes the theme in this poem: Stereotypes should not rule your life. …

In “the death of the author” Barthes essentially gives power to the reader. It addresses the power of the author in reading and analyzing writing. It says that the reader has the option to cast off the background of the writer and focus more on his ideas. Volitair’s Candide and Tolkien's opposition to allegorical corresponds to "the death of the author". So what is "the death of the author"? To understand how Tolkien’s opposition to allegorical writing, one must fully understand the…

Response to the Introduction Memory, Symbol, and Pattern affect reading of literature by giving the reader a deep interpretation with more structure of a piece of literature. It also makes the reader associate more things in the piece of literature with his experiences or others types of literature. The Recognition of Pattern helps the reader to have a clearer understanding of the literature for the reason that it makes the reader to relate the patterns of the literature with patterns in real…

A text is an exemplification of humanity that may be used to provide the audience with an insight into the perplex nature of people and politics. Composers are consciously aware about the purpose of their text when the choose their textual forms, media of production and language choices. These factors are effective in influencing and shaping meaning in a text. The responder is situated to consider the ways in which Shakespeare’s play Henry IV: Part 1 and Steve Richards’ TED Talk, Art of Politics…

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, then does it make a sound? You've most likely heard this age-old riddle before. The key to understanding it is recognizing what it's about -- the real question here is, "are events defined solely by their presence in human experience?". But what defines what a human experience is? Is the expression something that should be interpreted literally (in that all that is required is at least one human perceiving the event), or is it…

Fences by August Wilson is a play that follows the lives of one African American family in the sixties and it illustrates how challenging everyday tasks can be. When analyzed from a reader response perspective, it shows how irresponsible choices and not so perfect past can affect the present relationship’s that are presented in the play. Wilson reveals true motives of certain characters like Troy Maxson, who hinders his son’s football dream simply because he was not able to fulfill his own…

supported by Louise Rosenblatt’s reader response theory (1995), Deborah Appleman’s Critical Encounters in High School English (2014), Rick Allen’s Looking for the Literary Canon (2011), and H. Lynn Erickson’s Concept-Based…

Secondly, how poorly Walmart workers are treated is proof enough that the company is bad for America. Walmart is known to take advantage of their employees by offering them low wages, no overtime, poor health care, and are disrespectful of employees race along with gender. This corporation has been proven to guilt workers into working more for no pay leaving the employee with little to no money monthly. They simply tell the employees that they do not know what they are going to do because of the…