The Shipman's Tale

“My Last Duchess” and “Checking Out Me History” both express anger through a first person perspective, in the form of a dramatic monologue, although the poems offer two different portrayals of anger. In Browning’s poem, the reader is introduced to a seemingly expressive and biased rant from the Duke about his past Duchess, speaking to an envoy. ‘My’, the possessive pronoun, implies he sees women as possessions. The Duke thinks the world revolves around him because he owns "a…

Question: Which Characters of The Canterbury Tales are the reflections of our contemporary society and why? Answer: INTRODUCTION: “The Canterbury Tales”, renowned and legendary poem of medieval age, is the collection of stories written in Heroic Couplet in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English Poetry and the greatest writer of 14th Century, got distinction among the medieval poets due to realism and the unique art of characterization which varies from character to…

conveying messages and lessons about life. Many times in folktales, there are supernatural spirits that become embodied in human or semi-human characters and their stories are then often left up to the interpretation of those reading or hearing the tale. Much like folktales, ambiguity within “Deer Dancer” by Joy Harjo is leaves the story up to the interpretation of the reader. One way to examine “Deer Dancer” is that the story is an adaptation of a Native American folktale is a modern setting…

John Niles notes in his paper “Tam Lin: Form and Meaning in a Traditional Ballad” that on the night of Halloween, when the Fairy Court rides at Miles Cross and Janet saves Tam Lin, Tam Lin and Janet’s roles in the ballad become reversed (342). In both Dean’s and Jones’ retellings, this certainly is the case as the relationship and power balance between their Janet and Tam Lin characters changes and shifts drastically at this point in the narrative of both novels. In Dean’s Tam Lin, the initial…

Millhauser already introduces us to a dream-like story, to a tale from the very beginning since the title is Flying Carpet. The reference is taken up on Aladdin's tale where the character rides a so-called flying carpet. However, Millhauser transforms this element of wonder into something that will later bring the character's resignation. The oxymoron "Flying carpet" is interesting considering that "flying" corresponds to the air and therefore to dream and wonder whereas "carpet" embodies the…

1 Introduction “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine”. These are the words Jane Austen chose to introduce the protagonist of her novel “Northanger Abbey” and they seem to give the impression of Catherine being “desperately naive, dangerously unsophisticated, and frequently slow to comprehend“(Kindred 196) right from the start. This impression seems to be confirmed as soon as the reader notices Catherine’s disability of…

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is about 2 lovers Hermia and Lysander that run away into the woods. They run away because Hermia’s dad wants her to marry Demetrius who follows them into the woods, but Hermia doesn’t want to marry Demetrius. Helena, Hermia’s friend loves demetrius into the woods. Fairies see the arguments and stuff and try to fix it but make it worse by making the wrong people fall in love. They end up fixing it and get who wants to love each other, to love each other. I think that…

My name is Shiro, I got this weird name from my parents who are just infatuated with Japanese culture. They say they named me after the snow that fell the day I was born. I also have a white cat who so happens to have the name of Shiro. What are the odds? Considering the cat is older than me by a year, I often wonder with their terrible naming sense if they named me after a cat. Of course they franticly insist that I was named after the pure white snow on that day and by no means after a cat. I…

Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, explores the life of the infamous “Wicked Witch of the West,” formerly known as Elphaba. Elphaba is born green. On top of that, she is almost completely/entirely unloved by her parents. Elphaba must navigate through life in Oz, facing the challenges of her appearance, an unjust government, racial injustices, life in society, and a world that seems like it’s out to get her. Slowly and steadily, Elphaba begins to tumble down farther and farther away from her reasonable…

According to Disney, and many people in society, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Pocahontas along with many others are all considered princesses. The glamour and beauty these princesses depict in their movies can be defined as princess culture. As young girls grow up it is not uncommon for them to admire this princess culture. However, in today's society the stereotyping of young girls is recurring and sometimes considered discriminatory. Some feminists may argue that young girls…