William Cohen

Comedies and Tragedies William Shakespeare is known all over the world for his dramatic literature. His plays are most commonly known as comedies and tragedies. Originally The Merchant of Venice was placed with other comedies, but since then, critics have been speculating on whether or not it should be classified as a tragedy instead (Fendt). A comedic drama is defined as being humorous and generally having a happy ending, whereas a tragedy involves suffering of the main or several characters…

The point of view in a story can really make or break it. Throughout William Faulkner’s career as an author of fiction, he put much effort into how the stories were told- point of view. Each one of Faulkner’s stories goes in depth with each character and gives the reader a good sense of what is going on. Faulkner achieved this through the skillful use of perspective. He went on to create great stories such as, “A Rose for Emily”, “Dry September”, and “Barn Burning”. These short stories clearly…

use of symbolism is how authors convey their beliefs and messages to the reader and how they explicate on elements in their stories. In Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, he uses the symbolism of the fire escape to illustrate Tom’s character, Laura’s character, and his message about abandonment and escape in relation to human life. One way Williams uses the symbolism of the fire escape is to inform the reader of Tom’s character in more detail. At the beginning of Scene III, Tom appears, in…

Government surveillance programs, Muslim registries, and deportation squads have one essential thing in common; they are the products of xenophobic fear. Although they seem like totalitarian tactics from an Orwellian novel, they are actually inching their way in to the United States’ political discussion. The President Elect Donald Trump used xenophobia to gain support for his presidential campaign. This tactic is not new, in fact, the utilization of the narrative of foreign subversive is an…

unrealistic and dim. From the production note quotes for The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams’s presents, “A free, imaginative use of light can be of enormous value in giving a mobile, plastic quality to plays of a more or less static nature” (Williams 22). Williams’s idea to focus light in on actors and selected areas have made it clear to the audience that the play’s lighting is corresponding to the actual plot of the play, memory. Unlike most plays, throughout the entire production of The…

Nature’s Irrevocable Bond with Humanity Due to a subtle action in A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, the comparison to a loved one in “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” by William Shakespeare, and the continuing conflict in “The Birthmark,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, these literary pieces of work prove that humanity is forever bound to nature and that no act of isolation or disconnection can break that bond. The environment and ecosystem that one lives in has a very profound impact…

“The Birthmark” and “A rose for Emily”, though two different short-stories, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Faulkner respectively, gives out the common them that is, Obsession about things you cannot control can lead us to lose things because we exactly know the result and we strive for it anyway. The idea prevails in both of the stories “The Birthmark” where Aylmer losses his wife and “A rose for Emily” where Emily poisoned her lover and lived with a corpse. If we go through the…

It had, as an important element, a letter written by William Lovett and Feargus O’Connor, named “The Charter”, sent to the British Government several times and for the first time in July 1839. The letter had over a million signatures and included the six main aims of the movement, principally: all men had the…

In the 1800’s, the word “romance” was not used as it is today. The American Scholar A.O. Lovejoy once observed that the word 'romantic ' has come to mean so many things that, by itself, it means nothing at all. Contradictory to the previous statement, F.L. Lucas counted 11,396 definitions of the word, and synonymous usage for ‘romantic’ show that it is perhaps the most remarkable example of a term that can mean many things in accordance to personal and individual needs (Introduction to…

Alfred Pennysworth, butler of Batman once said “some men just want to watch the world burn” in reference to Batman’s villain, the Joker. A similarly destructive attitude is festered in the antagonist; Iago of Shakespeare’s play Othello. Iago is motivated by an undeserved hate toward the protagonist, Othello, which leads to chaos and sparks a classic Shakespearean tragedy. Throughout the play, Iago allows jealous suspicion and anger to fuel a hate for the Othello. From Iago’s perspective, he…