People have and always will enjoy a good read. The success of classics such as William Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice validate this. Modern authors are no exception to this ideology. In Manuel Puig’s 1976 hit, Kiss of the Spider Woman, the audience is introduced to two characters that inevitably fall into situations of adventure, romance, and deception. These elements are embedded in human kind’s tales all across the ages. The first of the two protagonists, Molina, is an easy-going, homosexual window dresser. Meanwhile, the second of the two protagonists, Valentin, is a non-homosexual, hot-blooded, political anarchist. These two are polar opposites who, in the wilderness of society, do their best to avoid each other’s presence; but being trapped in a prison cell together doesn’t give too much space for options. As the book’s title suggests, there is Spider, and therefore, there must be prey. The question is who is who?
One of the most fundamental laws of nature states that predator must chase its prey. The predator works to consume the prey in any way that it knows how. This is no different in society. No matter the size, shape, or form, anyone and everyone is either predator or prey. One point of view that can be suggested is that in the novel Molina is the predator, while Valentin is the prey. Molina is a man who uses emotions as a weapon of choice. Molina’s constant use of emotion hides the real web of deception that hides underneath. Molina manipulates his emotions, and others, to get what he wants; like when Valentin, the political anarchist, falls ill. Molina creates a bond with Valentin through the telling of his favorite movies. These movies would entail of romance, seduction, and fast paced a...
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...r and fly. From his obsessive desire to keep a story alive, to his manipulation of emotions, and finally to his sinking of teeth, figuratively of course, into Valentin’s flesh, Molina really is, as Valentin put it in the novel, “… the spider woman, that traps men in her web.”(260) it couldn’t have been put better by anyone else. However as this is the circle of life, every predator has something up the food chain. Life is the ultimate Prey to Death, the Ultimate Predator. Molina’s death in the end of the novel, with him ironically not doing something for himself but for Valentin, is the great signifier. This has been the great signifier throughout history. It is discriminate to none; its wrath does not exclude any race, gender, or sexuality; spiders may eat and prey on the weak, but every now and then, a spider will come along and get squashed by the boot of Death.
In the short story “The Hunter” the author Richard Stark introduces Parker, the main character of this book. The main character is a rough man, he’s a criminal, a murderer, and even an escaped convict. He’s described as crude and rugged and though women are frightened by him, they want him. Parker is not the classic criminal, but rather he’s intelligent, hard, and cunning. In this story the author carefully appeals to his audience by making a loathsome criminal into a hero, or rather, an anti-hero. The author, Richard Stark uses ethical appeal to make his audience like Parker through the use of phronesis, arête, altruism and lastly the ethos of his audience.
hooks, bell. "Seduction and Betrayal." Writing as Re-Vision: A Student's Anthology. Ed. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing, 1998. 108-111.
It is my intention to compare the book, Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, to its modern movie version, Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I intend to examine how the original French text was modified in reference to plot, character, morals/values, and themes. I also plan to discuss how these transformations change the meaning of the story and reflect different cultural/historical contexts. There are some major differences between these two works, if only because of when they were written.
One of the strongest emotions inherent in us as humans is desire. The majority of the time, we are unable to control what we crave; however, with practice, we learn not all things we want are necessary. As a result of this mature understanding, we are able to ease our feelings and sometimes even suppress our desires. Something even more mature is understanding that when we give in to our desires, we become vulnerable. In a harsh, brutal world, vulnerability will not work to our advantage. In Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” she writes about a sister who succumbs to her desire and pays dearly for it while the other sister resists her desires and receives the ultimate reward of her sister’s life. By creating such a spectacular tale, Rossetti stresses the importance of being in touch with one’s desires and being able to prevail over their strong hold because in the harsh world we live in, we cannot afford to let our desire get the best of us.
Solecki, Sam. "Introduction." Spider Blues: Essays on Michael Ondaatje. Ed. Sam Solecki. Montréal: Véhicule, 1985. 7-11.
In this essay I will be exploring and contrasting the relationships of two characters. These characters are Stephen Wraysford of Sebastian Faulks' romantic yet graphically violent novel "Birdsong" and Victor Mancini of anarchic social commentator Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke." "Birdsong" darts between the early 1900s and the 1970s, although Stephen does not appear in the latter dates, and his story is accounted by his granddaughter Elizabeth. "Choke" is a contemporary novel, based in America in the late 20th/early 21st century. In both novels, there are strong messages about relationships, and how they can contribute to the development of a person. While both books may share similar messages, there are massive differences. The main point of contrast is the difference between lust and love.
Death, despair, and revenge, these three words form a treacherous triangle to any reader who dare enter the mind of Edgar Allen Poe. In many of his works these expressions seem to form a reoccurring theme. Comparing the works "The Mask of the Red Death" and "The Cask of Amontillado", we will discuss these themes while analyzing the method behind Poe’s madness.
Transgressive sexuality has always been part of gothic novels, and the fear of infectious diseases has easily found its way into the genre. During 1980s, infections spread in bathhouses where men had 30-40 sexual encounters a night leads people to homophobia. (Poole 2011). Gay men were viewed as a voracious creatures of the night with supernatural sexual appetite. Antigay activists used vampires’ drinking human blood as a metaphor for homosexuals eating sperm.
... pretending that Robert was prey; from both of these we could infer even more the corruption that was to come. Both authors showed the idea that there was corruption among every authority figure in their book because Garcia showed how Herculina strangled the inmates without any speculation, but the night matron was also doing obscure things to Maria; and Golding showed this by having even one of the most humane and civilized boys at that point in the book, Ralph, give into the power of killing not only animals, but also pretending Robert was prey as well. Readers learn that the authors tried to show a deeper meaning that stems from the abuse of power which is that evil lives inside everyone, and power can cause that evil to take over a person and cause them to not know when is enough; which was shown through the immoral acts of the characters in both stories.
...all want to believe that the crime was truly “foretold”, and that nothing could have been done to change that, each one of the characters share in a part of Santiago Nasar’s death. Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the true selfishness and ignorance that people have today. Everyone waits for someone else to step in and take the lead so something dreadful can be prevented or stopped. What people still do not notice is that if everyone was to stand back and wait for others, who is going to be the one who decides to do something? People don’t care who gets hurt, as long as it’s not themselves, like Angela Vicario, while other try to reassure themselves by thinking that they did all that they could, like Colonel Lazaro Aponte and Clotilde Armenta. And finally, some people try to fight for something necessary, but lose track of what they set out for in the first place.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. "Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; Or, You're So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction is About You." Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction. Ed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Durham: Duke UP, 1997. 1-37.
Manuel Puig explores that question in his novel, “Kiss of the Spider Woman”. An examination of the life and death of two parallel characters, Molina and Irena, reveals Puig’s assertion that in order to liberate ourselves from oppression that denies us this right to love, we must first find something worth loving, worth living for. In the process of doing this, we find out a lot about ourselves, who we are, what we stand for, and the fear that the oppressors instill begins to lose its hold over our lives.
As we ponder over our reading experiences as children, almost every American will remember reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. How we read as children and how we read as adults is not at all the same. One might state children read for the pleasure of the story and adults simply read too much into the given text. However, one must realize the images being portrayed to our children. How could a story about a pig and a spider relay unwanted messages to our children? It is important to remark how social guidelines are presented in this text. The most obvious is the assignment of gender roles to the characters Not only does this affect the human characters in the story, but it also affects the farm life. The other social guideline found in this text is the barnyard society. This society can in turn represent our human society. These two guidelines of society are taught unknowingly to our children through this story. What is perhaps the most surprising is how little attitudes have changed. This book was originally published in 1952 and these stereotypes still exist in our society forty five years later.
Don DeLillo’s ‘Videotape’ is a short story of man who is absolutely captivated by some footage on the news that can be described as both, raw and shocking. The footage is being repeatedly played over and over. It depicts a young girl with a camcorder travelling in the backseat of her family’s car who happens to be filming a man driving a Dodge behind them. She continues aiming the camera at the man and filming until, suddenly, he is shot and murdered. The man watching the tape at home is clearly mesmerized and fascinated with the footage to the extent that he was trying to get his wife to watch it with him. This story portrays society’s utter fascination of shocking and disturbing content relating to death and other horrible events unless they themselves are involved. This, along with other characteristics, clearly suggests that “Videotape” is a piece of postmodern literature. This report will analyze and describe why “Videotape” belongs to postmodern literature through the in-depth analysis of the selected passage and a brief breakdown of the story as a whole.
The elements at play in the novel and film are quite remarkable for their traditionally universal appeal.3 The fates of two adolescents, one jailed the other unwilling jailer, intersect and are soon bound together in a struggle for survival at the hands of unsuspecting enemies. The filmmaker's aim was to adopt a child's unadulterated point of view in referential opposition to the surrounding adult world. Given the suspenseful plot and the exploration of the young protagonists' fears at coping with a habitat they must disavow, such an aim and narrative scheme were expected to gather much attention.4 The pre-teens Michele, the novel's principal hero, and Filippo the kidnapped child are ultimately elevated from a pit of dirt and fear, the antechamber of death, chiefly by their own heroic praxis. Yet the problematic lack of any meaningful degree of depth in the novel and film seems to lie precisely with its overly schematic construction, tailored to safely weather the otherwise unpredictable market.