Excerpt: “While the locations of Heaven and God as ‘up above’ and Hell and the devil as ‘down below’ were preexistent to Paradise Lost, Milton utilizes this distinction to apply power to height and to identify and challenge these traditional hierarchies” (1).
Excerpt: “We Need to Talk About Kevin delves into the creation of monstrosity from humanity, and allows its readers to consider where monstrosity begins and ends in a human being. The question of existence is a major driving force in this novel, not only for the most monstrous character but for many of those around him as well” (1).
Excerpt: “Environmental degradation, racism, and gender inequality are humanity’s babies. Humanity has nurtured these “fatal flaws” with its own hands. Jennifer Knox’s work supports these hypotheses on the basis that they are humanity-perpetuated, as she highlights, in creating a precautionary post-apocalyptic world, how humans are digging their own grave” (1-2).
Excerpt: “Vuong writes from the “I” perspective, addressing himself and creating a unique presence of poetic voice in the poem, all the while continuing to use repetition, simile, and metaphor throughout. If one was to read the poem as autobiographical, it could be assumed that Ocean Vuong is writing to himself, offering words of wisdom and the reassurance that he will learn, one day, to love himself, or the man he sees as ‘Ocean Vuong’” (1).
Excerpt: “Hamlet, whether it be due to Oedipal qualities in his relationship with his mother, her role as a powerful woman in the play, or societal norms of seventeenth-century Denmark, is only capable of clearing his mother’s name in his head. He is loyally bound to her, either on a sexual or familial level” (6).
Excerpt: “In ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, it is clear to readers that, as Giovanni gives up more and more of his religious, socio-political, and familial beliefs in order to prove himself right and “defeat” those who oppose his desires, he progresses further down a dark path towards insanity” (5).
Excerpt: “Ultimately, one can argue that both Shakespeare’s Othello and his Sonnets 138 and 144 come from a place of sexual discomfort and confusion, as all three works center around deceit, jealousy, and insecurity in relationships, whether they were with women, men, or with both genders” (5).
