Wendy Beckett

Throughout Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work, Notes from Underground, the protagonist, the underground man, portrays himself as a spiteful, self-contradictory, and overly conscious melancholy man. He continuously over analyzes and questions everything, and this prevents him from taking any real action. The underground man is lonely and constantly vacillates between wanting society’s acknowledgment or to be socially desired and wanting to be completely isolated from society. He gives off the impression…

• The Absurd: What then is meant by the notion of the Absurd? Contrary to the view conveyed by popular culture, the Absurd, at least not what Camus had stated, that it does not simply refer to some vague perception that modern life is fraught with paradoxes, incongruities, and intellectual confusion. Instead, as he emphasizes and tries to make clear, the Absurd expresses a fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. In effect, he argues that the Absurd is the…

“Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit, but taste completely different,” King should know having written many novels that are adapted to films. Both the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian and screen play of the film Smoke Signals, written by Sherman Alexie, attempts to demolish the idea of an archetypal aboriginal person from a Native “Rez,” but the film addresses this in a more effective way. The film has a naïve Thomas and an indifferent Victor…

There is a major contrast between the way in which the settings of Translations and Stuff Happens are described in addition to the number of places that feature. For example, in Stuff Happens David Hare frequently changes the setting with generally brief descriptions of Hotel Pierre, Camp David and many other locations, cohering with the play’s chaotic style and numerous characters. The stage directions in Stuff Happens are shorter than in Translations and usually fixate on the characters and…

The tv show series Castle is an exaggeration and dramatization of an individual's underlying motivations in the workforce. In the first episode of Castle Flowers For Your Grave1, the protagonist Rick Castle is connected to a murder after a killer mimics techniques from his novel. At first glance one may assume that the episode only tackles partisan politics in the workplace, as the main character was only able to become a consultant on the case because he was good friends with mayor Robert…

As the age of postmodernism dawned, the stigma and nature of literature changed and the idea of the ‘death of the author’ was born. Instead of reaching obvious conclusions in their stories, authors began to leave gaps and ironies in their work, allowing readers to form their own opinions. But, while some people are not satisfied with the idea of these ‘open systems,’ perhaps the most significant pieces of work were born during this era of postmodernism. For example, Thomas Pynchon’s short story…

There are a variety of reasons as to why productions of plays specifically add to the meaning and understanding of the context surrounding the content. In this essay, all of these will be examined meticulously with the aid of examples, namely ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Lady Windermere 's Fan’. These two dramatic texts lend themselves both to being read and being performed and it is through this that there is a need to assess which is better; in terms of understanding the texts and their underlying…

One’s desire to be recognised and moreover acknowledge the truth within relationships, circumstances and furthermore life, is of central concern in both William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot”. The drive and motivation one illustrates whilst craving recognition or validation from those surrounding them is a recurring theme in both plays, as is, the recognition of one another’s identity and the “self” in them. It is the eventual recognition of power and it’s…

King Lear and Waiting for Godot are plays that are very similar in a way that they have the same central concern of recognition within the plays. There are many different ways that the issue of recognition is shown; there is self-recognition, recognition by others and recognition of actions. Whilst these plays differ from each other in almost every other way, they do share this central concern. Recognition means the acknowledgement of the existence, validity or legality of something. The many…

2. Compare the cultures and concerns of young women (and men) as depicted in the American film Ghost World and the Japanese anime The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. What social pressures are put on them? How do they react to this pressures? What does each film seem to prescribe as acceptable behaviors and outcomes for the girls? Both cultures are really different. Japanese people have a more defined culture than North Americans. The mixed of many other cultures and different…