Essay Examples on book review

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The setting is 1930’s Maycomb County Alabama, Imagine the sights. Everywhere 2 bolded signs letting everyone know that one section is for COLORED and one section is for WHITES as if being a different race other than white is some sort of crime. A little girl with pigtails and ribbons in her hair with a freshly starched dress playing hopscotch while another girl in overalls and a ponytail running through the fields with dirt all over herself. Or that one house on that one street that everyone has their own rendition of the story about the old man who never has been seen in public in years and some chaotic background story of him to match. The main characters of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird struggle with prejudice and rumours throughout the length of the novel. Setting foreshadowing and point of view are all factors in supporting the theme of prejudice of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The setting of Alabama in 1930’s was a very racist time period. It was not only The Great Depression but also a time where White Supremacy groups began to retaliate against colored civilians. Segregation was becoming more and more popular across South America and whites saw themselves as above every other race therefore didn’t have to treat them with any respect. Black people were harshly forced away from jobs and lucky ones were able to get unskilled work picking cotton or pecans like character Tom Robinson. When Tom Robinson sat in that courtroom prejudice hate racism stubbornness and oblivion flooded in with every white person that sat down.

2 pages | 542 words
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The Scarlet Letter Adultery and Punishment of Hester Prynne by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The punishments in The Scarlet Letter such as the public humiliation of Hester Prynne and the execution of Miss Hibbins were true to how Puritans realistically punished those who committed crimes in their society. There were many ideals in Puritan society that set standards for how people of the Puritan religion should live their lives. If an action goes against an ideal it is deemed as a crime. Between disobeying the rules of the Sabbath committing adultery and even witchcraft punishments were given accordingly. Depending on the severity of the action in the eyes of powerful figures, in the society punishments ranged merely from public humiliation to even death. Many of the crimes seem unreasonable as numerous laws in present-day are completely different. Although the laws may seem unreasonable it is what Puritans and many others believed in the sixteenth century as seen in the Two Elizabethan Puritan Diaries. The most striking feature of the Puritan way of life revealed in the diaries is the overwhelming predominance of the ethical element. It was the good rather than the beautiful or the true which occupied the Puritan mind Knappen. This statement was exemplified in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter when Hester Prynne was known to have committed adultery. Immediately, Hester was shunned and forced into public humiliation, a punishment that held true to traditional Puritan punishment. As Hester transforms the meaning of the A from adultery to able by helping the poor she proves that her soul is good.

2 pages | 494 words
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Anglo-Ottoman Relations. Tamburlaine by Christopher Marlowe

It is difficult to imagine a contemporary equivalent to Christopher Marlowe's choice of fourteenth century. Turk warlord as a subject for popular entertainment. The historical Timur had no immediate impact on English culture or history. Those English texts that had taken an interest in historical Muslims had more often than not described figures like Timur as barbarous and bloodthirsty princes of darkness, associated with tyranny, terror and the antichrist. In taking up the story of a long passed Muslim conqueror Marlowe tapped into commercial and diplomatic interests in Asian, Near Eastern and Northern African markets, as well as anxieties over the cultural exchanges accompanying such ventures. English joint-stock companies in the last quarter of the sixteenth century were exploring trade in precisely those areas of North Africa and the Levant that Marlowe's Tamburlaine plays traverse. The English were eager to expand their economy but concerned too with maintaining their standing in what Sir Thomas. More referred to as the common corps of Christendom.

1 pages | 326 words
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Book Review of Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman is a tragicomedy centered on the events that take place at the end of Willy Loman's life. From the opening act, we learn that Willy and his family struggle to behave as a united front when they face financial pressures and strained familial bonds. This causes Willy to become desperate for success and validation. Death of a Salesman has commonly been interpreted as an analysis of the American dream. Within the ideal American society, citizens believe that the American dream allows each individual an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work determination and initiative. According to Willy Loman, the American dream is correlated to someone's likeability as opposed to someone's work ethic. The term American dream has become a phrase that is now attached to the play such that readers interpret it as Miller's only impactful theme. In fact, by saying that the play is solely explained by the American dream we create a blanket that covers up all of the other more concrete and narrowly focused themes within the story. This is not to say that the American dream is not somehow found within the play it's to say that there are more definite and fundamental aspects present within the story. At the core of Death of a Salesman, we see the themes of celebrity abandonment and altered reality arise all of which are more prominent and explanatory themes of the play as opposed to it being solely about the American dream.

2 pages | 500 words
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Psychoanalytical and Postcolonial Discourses based on the work of two very influential figures

The aim of this essay to see how the idea of Third space was appeared and defined in psychoanalytical and postcolonial discourses based on the work of two very influential figures in contemporary cultural discourse Slavoj Zizek and Homi Bhabha. It starts with my reason of choosing Zizek's Architectural parallax and Bhabha's essay DissemiNation for this analysis the comparing of their methods and style of writing. I position next to one another their views on the following questions architecture and its role in the modern world the binary system and its tensions the definition of Third place, its location and possible way of developing in order to come to the view on the impact of this idea for architectural history and theory. Both authors are originally from non-Western cultures have no architectural background and came to the architectural discourse when their main concepts were created and established Slavoj Zizek is Slovenian cultural and psychoanalytical philosopher, influenced by Lacanian school of psychoanalysis and famous by his radical cultural and political critic. He follows Fredric Jameson in his definition of the western modern world as cultural capitalism and criticizes it as an egalitarian project.

1 pages | 384 words
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