The Franklin's Tale

Oates crafts a powerful commentary on the psychologically tenuous sliver of time between youth and the harsh reality of adulthood when the dangers of the real world are met with the storybook mindset of a child. The emphasis of our childhood fairy tales is on the predestined conquering of conflict, on the princess meets prince charming, on true love and perfection. Evil is overcome and love prevails. Because these are often the stories we are exposed to from a very early age, they are also the…

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s collections of stories, The Canterbury Tales, a group of pilgrims traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas Beckett tell each other stories containing different moral connotations. One such fable, The Pardoner’s Tale, is narrated by a licensed pardoner, who explains the evils of one of his main faults: greed; a vice that has indeed made him wealthy, but has done so at the expense of others. The story, although directed towards greed, is also important as a warning against any…

Rotten Tomatoes, a respected website devoted to film reviews, gave Shrek a high rating of 88% while Mean Girls received a slightly lower rating of 83%, respectively. IMDb, another website that consists of information related to films, also gave Shrek a higher rating than Mean Girls, with Shrek garnering a rating of 7.9 compared to a Mean Girls rating of 7.0. Although the margin between the two movies is small, it gives Shrek the upper hand as the better satirical movie. Statistics aside, is…

Beast is enchanted with some sort of magic that aids the objects to move. But, before this occurs, what causes her to lead this fate is a rose. A rose could be seen as a motif in this film, yet it is not one of the motifs seen in the other fairy tales in the course. An additional motif in the film is the magic powers in the castle of the Beast and the magic powers the Beast has. Even though the Beast was not an original magic being himself, magic was a great part of the story in the film.…

folktale is “a tale or legend originating and traditional among a people or folk, especially one forming part of the oral tradition of the common people” (Dictionary.com). The tale can and often begins with “Once upon a time” or “Long, long ago” and has a lesson or meaning behind each one. Each country often has its own set of folk tales, others share the same basic idea but change in some ways to fit their country and ways of life. The story of Rapunzel is one of these such folk tales. The…

In Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid’s Tale, one is given a look into a society where women are deprived of power and live out lives of enslavement under a very strict and vigilant government. The government uses the Handmaids and other people, such as the commanders, in the society to ensure that everyone in the society is complying with its rules. The methods of Gilead’s government are absolutely archaic, “The Handmaid 's Tale brings together pre-Christian notions of absolute patriarchal…

For many critics, her prologue and tale redeem any negative depiction of women in Chaucer’s other work, using her as the ultimate proof of his empathy with women. On the surface, it is easy to see how the Wife is interpreted this way: she openly speaks of her sexual experiences and constantly…

Throughout the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses different literary devices to develop tone and attitude about his character’s and their actions. Chaucer specifically satirizes the Miller in the General Prologue, Miller’s Prologue, and the Miller’s Tale to present his opposing views on education and religion by developing the Miller’s appearance, ignorance, and immaturity undesirably. Throughout literature, undesirable features are given to characters authors disdain, dislike, and satirize. In this…

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don 't let the bastards grind you down(Atwood, 185).” The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel about the collapse of the United States. There was a large population drop and the new government, known as Gilead, created a caste system to best repopulate the country. Women are seen as less than men and are deprived of individual rights. Women who are fertile and are able to have children become handmaids, often times, against their will. Handmaids are…

Canterbury Tales had a completely different meaning for pilgrims then what comes to mind. The Canterbury Tales is Tales told by Geoffrey Chaucer. They run at least twenty-four stories written in Middle English. The tales were originally published in 1478. Multiple characters play apart in the tales, such as the Pardoner, The Wife of Bath, The Knight, The Miller, and the Narrator. The Canterbury Tales were composed by Chaucer, as to where the Summoner played an important role, and the tale…