Princes in the Tower

Women in the Gospel of Mark are seen breaking free of their societal limitations as women. They are no longer submissive or passive to demands of a male dominated society. Although The Aeneid and the Gospel of Mark both show women defying the traditional view of women in a male dominated society, Virgil and Mark have distinct ways of portraying women such that in The Aeneid, women are portrayed as ones who are often controlled by their emotion which leads them to take irrational decisions,…

When messengers from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus asked the Christians in Europe to help protect his empire from the Turks, an assembly of churchmen called by Pope Urban II met at Clermont, France on 27th November 1095. The pope addressed the assembly and asked the warriors of Europe to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. The response of the assembly was overwhelmingly positive and the first of at least eight crusades was launched. For clarification, I am defining the word…

In Shakespeare’s well-known play, Hamlet, the ghost of Hamlet’s father divulges, “But that I am forbid/To tell the secrets of my prison house/I could a tale unfold whose lightest word/Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, scene v). The people who would interpret this as a hyperbolic autobiography of “Shakespeare” are the same people who are convinced that “William Shakespeare” is a pseudonym. There are hundreds of different theories about who really…

Fundamentally and unilaterally, humanity seeks the same core goals. For the clear majority of us, the recipe for happiness is quite simple. A pinch of love, and dash of faith in one’s own convictions make for a hearty, savory and wholesome life. In Marie de France’s lai’s Lanval and Yonec, our main characters appear to be both lacking these ingredients for reasons that, in majority, are out of their control. To fill this void, a solution may exist by improvising the recipe, and envisioning an…

The story begins with the description of the ‘sad city’ (’the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name’) where lived 'Haroun' together with his father, the well-known storyteller 'Rashid', ‘whose cheerfulness was famous throughout that unhappy metropolis’ and his mother, 'Soraya', who then runs off with their neighbor, ‘Mr. Sengupta’. Thereafter Haroun finds it impossible to concentrate on one thing for more than 11 minutes (his mother left at 11 o’clock), and…

The Lord of the Rings is an epic trilogy that leads the viewer through mystical lands and intense gore filed battles. Lord of the Rings is a series of novels by J.R.R Tolkien that was made into three films and effectively created one of the most loyal fan bases. The Lord of the Rings is a movie franchise that has not only been shown throughout many age groups but also has made impacts on the film industry entirely. These films will go down in history as one of the greatest films of the 21st…

The quiet solitude of the godswood was interrupted by the arrival of a young man. Dressed in a black doublet and breeches and a fur cloak, Jon Targaryen made his way to the pool by which the weirwood tree stood. Why is he coming here? Here? Is there not one place I can find untainted by sour memories? He looked up at the sky, scowling. If he's coming, then that means the rest of them are coming as well. My dear sweet sister and my loving stepmother. My attentive and caring father. And it…

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm (originally published October 2001, last revised February 2014) Ralph of Caen, watching the city from the Mount of Olives, saw “the scurrying people, the fortified towers, the roused garrison, the men rushing to arms, the women in tears, the priests turned to their prayers, the streets ringing with cries, crashing, clanging and neighing.” The Crusaders took over many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast…

Barack and the beanstalk – satirical Once upon a time in the magical land of the Yankees….. So, we all know the classic tale of Barack and the Beanstalk. We all know that it begins with just a few magical beans from an old man in exchange for a cow. This part is all very straight forward so I won’t bore you with the details. Instead let’s fast forward to the part where Barack’s mum throws the magical beans out of the window, because that’s the part where the story was lost. When Barack woke…

Should a person throw away their morals for their pride? Ethan’s Canin’s short story “The Palace Thief” is a story of William Hundert, a history teacher at St. Benedict’s School. Hundert says “that the school was his [Hundert’s] life” showing how truly proud he is to be teaching at that school. (Canin, p. 155). After five years of teaching there, Hundert receives Sedgewick Bell as his student. Sedgewick Bell, son of Senator Sedgewick Hyram Bell, causes much mischief in Hundert’s class and…