Masquerade

Delano’s confident, arrogant and absolutely insulting demeanor and perception of slaves being too stupid to be able to formulate a revolt ultimately saves him and Benito Cereno. If Delano is not so unaware of the events encircling him and exhibits a little more suspicion, Babo would certainly have him executed. This confidence that conveys a typical American characteristic is also part of Captain Delano’s. This confidence created a barrier that prevented him from once again seeing the truth in…

He hosts a masquerade ball for his guests, but one appears unwelcomed. According to the narrator, “the figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave” (“The Masque of the Red Death” 209) This figure kills Prospero and all of…

The invention of photography has direct correlations to the notions of documentary. Historically, a photograph represented the means to preserve a snapshot of the world as accurately as possible. This suggests something in opposition to art, the photographer is not portraying his or her vision of the world, in so far as expressionist painters of the time would be. Instead, they are merely capturing and collating information, as a historian would. Slowly it can be seen that these notions began to…

The year is 1800; the events that led up to this year in my life and the lives of every member of my entire family replays vividly in my mind. This beautiful island of Trinidad, although filled with uncertainty, presents such great opportunity that going back now is just not an option. Life as a French coloured planter was changing in Grenada. The French Revolution threatened the economy and most importantly the livelihoods of us planters. In 1776, a French planter…

maids and disapprovingly told that if she cannot have a ceremony, she will at least have a photograph. In this scene, Campion places emphasis wedding dress on the preparations here only as to critically illustrate Ada’s discontent with the female masquerade. The camera then follows Ada outside where the weather is just as melancholic as her temperament. Ada moves to sit down foregrounding a large curtain-framed image of the lush foliage, conceivably a subtle reference to the colonial capture of…

Many great works have been lost to time. Some of the most well-known and respected authors of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome have not been fully preserved, and what could have been their greatest works are gone. Despite the difficulties many of these authors have faced in their conservation, the narratives they tell remain timeless, each reiteration shedding new light onto the subject. One of those timeless tales is that of Achilles, the main hero of the Iliad. The story of Achilles,…

Original Shakespearean text: The original Shakespeare text shows Romeo and Juliet meeting at a Capulet dinner feast. Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio, without invites, sneak into the ‘masquerade’. This is where Romeo first catches sight of Juliet. Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, then recognises the Montague. He wants to initiate a fight, however Capulet stops him. By then, Romeo and Juliet start talking, soon kissing, however are interrupted by Juliet’s nurse. Romeo asks the nurse who Juliet is, soon to…

desire to attain revenge. He takes advantage of innocent people by smiling in their face, yet stabbing them in the back with his scheming manuevers. In his own words Iago states, “I am not what I am”, which demonstrates self-acknowledgment of his masquerade (Bevington, 2014, 1.1.67). Iago is an abusive, sexist, and racist rogue full of jealousy and rage. His demented tendencies generated by jealously relentlessly pursue vengeance against anyone he feels may have done him wrong. Iago’s…

Carmilla’s romantic onslaught of Laura so confuses her as she has no awareness of homosexuality that she wonders if Carmilla may be a boy in disguise? “What if a boyish lover had found his way into the house, and sought to prosecute his suit in masquerade”. Though Laura is unaware of lesbianism, she certainly knows when someone is trying to woo her romantically, as Richard J. Evans talks about in his lecture on Victorians and gender and sexuality “Butler and her fellow-campaigners were harshly…

The Child of Fun Home Put simply, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is an autobiographical graphic novel about what it means to reject “the Child”: the unwilling heir to family and society that we project our future onto. To continue the legacy of the Child is to turn the eternal wheel of heteronormative succession, a subservient maintenance of a status quo embedded deep within society. Diametrically opposed to “the Child” then is queerness, the simple act of refusing the reproductive and reductive…