«If Holocaust literature strives to portray the paradoxical (the representation of the unrepresentable, the expression of the inexpressible), maybe it too is a paradox. Confessions of the unspeakable, the unthinkable in written word. And yet it...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
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SummaryIf Holocaust literature strives to portray the paradoxical (the representation of the unrepresentable, the expression of the inexpressible), maybe it too is a paradox. Confessions of the unspeakable, the unthinkable in written word. And yet it exists, tangible, published. In memoir and fiction and essays, these expressions and representations brought to life by countless authors, countless survivors. The witnesses to apocalypse found. No, Holocaust literature is only a paradox when it is misunderstood, when the intentions of these authors, men and women like Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, are mistaken for historical value alone. To represent the unrepresentable, to represent the Holocaust, would be paradoxical; but Holocaust literature only represents personal experience. The Holocaust in its entirety is inexpressible, beyond comprehension. But individual stories and the individuals themselves are not. We, the readers, who hunger sixty years later to understand the Holocaust, we are responsible for creating this paradox, for we expect the impossible from these texts. These works are pieces of human experience, maybe even pieces of humanity itself. Experience, not explanation. Holocaust literature is unique to each author, for each experience is unique, each story lived differently, told differently. In a sense, maybe the term “Holocaust literature” is the paradox: it is literature instead about individuals transformed in the face of inhumanity’s darkest hour.
«There is a lot to be said about love. It saturates literature, Hollywood, every means of creative output known to the history of this planet. There is something mysterious about it, something undiscovered. So desperate have populations been to...» Document abstract
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2 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
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SummaryThere is a lot to be said about love. It saturates literature, Hollywood, every means of creative output known to the history of this planet. There is something mysterious about it, something undiscovered. So desperate have populations been to answer the timeless questions of love that it can bring a group of men to a single meeting place to discuss the darkest regions of the heart and psyche. Plato’s Symposium has been hailed as one of the greatest discourses on love ever written. The language, the imagery, it contains quotes and stories that are so embedded in modern thought that they could never be separated again. The dialogue basically serves as a competition between philosophy and poetry; the premise is that the former is correctly educated in the ways of love while the latter is misguided. Symposium is not just an exploration of love; it is an exploration of what it means to be human. The speeches delivered in the honor of Eros go beyond mere contrast. They are used to chronicle one man’s flawed desire for immortality.
«In the preface of the second edition of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne discusses the “unprecedented excitement” generated by the publication of his novel (5). Ironically, this public excitement, and more importantly, the ensuing public...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
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SummaryIn the preface of the second edition of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne discusses the “unprecedented excitement” generated by the publication of his novel (5). Ironically, this public excitement, and more importantly, the ensuing public discontent, originated not in the novel itself but in Hawthorne’s cleverly devised Custom-House introduction, a light-hearted sketch about his position at the Salem, Massachusetts Custom House. According to Hawthorne in Salem, a website funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Peabody Essex Museum, “The Scarlet Letter was not a best seller, but the publicity surrounding Hawthorne's dismissal as surveyor at the Custom House was the equivalent of an interview on the "Today" show and boosted initial sales” (Whitney). Early readers, curious as to the circumstances surrounding such a prominent figure’s fall from grace, purchased the book initially for Hawthorne’s perception of the events before even realizing the merit of the story itself. Yet in his preface, Hawthorne seemingly minimizes the importance of the sketch, claiming it can be “wholly admitted, without loss to the public, or detriment to the book” (5). Since its original publication in 1850, numerous editors have shared his opinion, choosing to omit the Custom-House introduction altogether with the rationale that the “chapter [is] merely Hawthorne taking revenge on his political enemies and [has] no relevance to the story,” but as Terri Whitney concludes, “nothing [can] be further from the truth” (“Introduction”). Regardless of his claims, Hawthorne both realized and expected the implications of his introduction, at least on a political and social scale; the conscious and calculated decision to include the sketch and its subsequent popularity cannot be attributed solely to dumb luck.
«Almost the exact opposite of what The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo represented, this show represented how children should act. They should be open, accepting of their peers, seeking what is on the inside versus what is on the outside. Unlike...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
social sciences
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 2 times
SummaryAlmost the exact opposite of what The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo represented, this show represented how children should act. They should be open, accepting of their peers, seeking what is on the inside versus what is on the outside. Unlike Saving Faces, it downplayed the role of physical appearance in personal identity, but also unlike The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo, it is a strict example of correct social development, and plays up the role of social interactions in development, which can be understood since the audience would consist of younger children who are not quite at a point yet to take true conscious control of their development.
«First impressions are unavoidable. From high school to the work place to any social situation, the fantasies of love at first sight and sudden distaste are brought to life through the senses. The key word is unavoidable: as Ann Gazin states in...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
social sciences
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 4 times
SummaryFirst impressions are unavoidable. From high school to the work place to any social situation, the fantasies of love at first sight and sudden distaste are brought to life through the senses. The key word is unavoidable: as Ann Gazin states in Instructor, “as fallible humans, [it is only] natural to make judgments, both positive and negative” (Gazin). Perception is instantaneous, but it is rarely as accurate as the perceiver may wish to believe. These negative judgments foremost have a permanent impact on attitude and expectation, and in a classroom, this habit of observational assessment can prove detrimental to a student. While on the playground or in social situations, children may be teased because of their clothing or their speech; but in a learning environment, these biased assumptions can interfere with education, especially when entertained by a teacher. High school, a time when adolescents are plagued by the pressure to form an identity amid a whirlwind of responsibilities and questions, is a milestone of both physical and emotional development, and the lessons learned and knowledge gained goes far beyond the teenage years: it is a foundation for adulthood. The effects of this premature judgment have been the basis of many recent experiments.
«For the most part, there are two desirable products of problem solving: personal pleasure and the happiness of others. This difference between selfishness and unselfishness has often defined moral decision making, the former being nothing less than...» Document abstract
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2 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
12/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 0 times
SummaryFor the most part, there are two desirable products of problem solving: personal pleasure and the happiness of others. This difference between selfishness and unselfishness has often defined moral decision making, the former being nothing less than sin and the latter being utterly commendable in its simple self-sacrifice. But neither case provides for a strong society; the egoist will never allow for anyone else to rise to power, but the altruist will never allow himself to rise to power. And a desire for power by all is what propels a nation to dominance. In the hopes of combining these extremities into a more effective model, James Mill and Jeremy Bentham designed the framework for a new belief known as utilitarianism. But its numerous successes and numerous failures leave many modern thinkers unable to accept, or more importantly, discredit the philosophy.
«One can wonder whether William Shakespeare’s sonnets would be memorized in every classroom across the Western world if they were anything other sonnets. So inseparable are the two ideas that they barely have separate identities: Shakespeare’s...» Document abstract
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4 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
12/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
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SummaryOne can wonder whether William Shakespeare’s sonnets would be memorized in every classroom across the Western world if they were anything other sonnets. So inseparable are the two ideas that they barely have separate identities: Shakespeare’s sonnets are accepted without question, and most analytical commentaries approach from the angle of content rather than form. His sonnets just are, and one rarely questions the “why” of his sonnets. Sadly, Emily Dickinson has been equally discriminated, passed off as a “genre” poet: as Shakespeare is the sonnet, Dickinson is the ballad. Yet such a generalization is destructively misleading. Dickinson is other forms as well; she is even poetic freedom. She is not defined so easily, and neither are her poems. And when she does use the ballad form, that very use must be explored as thoroughly as the meaning behind her words, for, to steal the cliché, there is a method to her madness.
«Mythology: the bookstore catalogue designation where religions go to die. When the believers cease believing in their gods, and when the gods cease believing in themselves. We often forget we once worshiped Zeus and those other “primitive” gods...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
12/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 2 times
SummaryMythology: the bookstore catalogue designation where religions go to die. When the believers cease believing in their gods, and when the gods cease believing in themselves. We often forget we once worshiped Zeus and those other “primitive” gods with the same blind passion and fear as we dedicate to Jesus Christ. Yet religions, like the civilizations founded on their tomes and tablets, exist in cycles. They rise and fall. But during the rise, the fall is never visible; the end is forever beyond the horizon. Rome was not built in a day, but what Roman would not contest that stones crumble far quicker than they are carved? Dead religions, stripped of faith, litter the collective consciousness of mankind. Still, they are more pervasive, more persuasive, than we realize. More pervasive and persuasive, in fact, than they were alive. Embedded in culture, embedded in literature, mythologies reach further into the core of humanity than any active religion through the very distance that delegates them to a shelf somewhere behind history, behind World War II and the Middle East, as a study of ancient ways of life far from the shelves of Bible’s and the modern world.
«In the sixteenth century, the ideal was inseparable from the ruling class: it was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, the aristocracy establishing itself as the ideal while simultaneously defining the ideal. The members of the nobility lived in...» Document abstract
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6 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
12/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
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SummaryIn the sixteenth century, the ideal was inseparable from the ruling class: it was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, the aristocracy establishing itself as the ideal while simultaneously defining the ideal. The members of the nobility lived in tightly-monitored roles. Idealism was not about the individual but about the preservation of the entire image, for this image of power and money subordinated the lower classes. A role is an expectation, a state of identity foreclosure, and individuality is lost in the midst of societal expectation. These lords and ladies, courtiers and princes, idolized for their fortune and influence, were secretly stripped of any freedom, of any choice, for the sake of the whole. It would be decades before the very essence of humanity, free will, would be remembered in both literature and society. Baldesar Castiglione realizes the necessity of roles in European life during this period.
«“Dyke,” hiss the schoolboys, to the girls with grass-stained knees and dirt-streaked cheeks. To the girls who run faster, throw further, tackle harder than the prides of fatherhood manifest. A word, but so much more a performance. A stereotype,...» Document abstract
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9 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
12/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 0 times
Summary“Dyke,” hiss the schoolboys, to the girls with grass-stained knees and dirt-streaked cheeks. To the girls who run faster, throw further, tackle harder than the prides of fatherhood manifest. A word, but so much more a performance. A stereotype, but so much more an expectation. Sometimes, these girls are wronged. Sometimes, these boys are right. Playground dykes: a first acknowledgment of sexual beings, independent of sex, distorting the being.
I find it impossible to live separate from the homosexual lifestyle. To pass as straight is to deny gay culture, but to embrace gay culture for the sake of camaraderie is to perpetuate a false image. Sexuality and gender are not interchangeable ideals, nor do they obey the certain analogous formula of normal is to normal as abnormal is to abnormal. I can be gay and still be female.
I find it impossible to live separate from the homosexual lifestyle. To pass as straight is to deny gay culture, but to embrace gay culture for the sake of camaraderie is to perpetuate a false image. Sexuality and gender are not interchangeable ideals, nor do they obey the certain analogous formula of normal is to normal as abnormal is to abnormal. I can be gay and still be female.
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