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Essays on symbolism in literature
The importance of symbolism
The importance of symbolism
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A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Importance of the Nighttime Forest
In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night's Dream the dark forest is the center of the world, relegating Athens, center of the civilized Greek world, to the periphery. Day gives way to night, and mortal rulers leave the stage to be replaced by fairies. The special properties of night in a forest make it the perfect setting for the four lovers to set out on a project of self-discovery. Shakespeare implies that in darkness, reliance on senses other than eyesight leads to true seeing. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the nighttime forest, by disrupting and transforming vision, forces introspection and improvisation that help the four lovers on their way to self-understanding.
The darkness of the night setting seems particularly important in a play (and a culture) where the language of love relies so heavily on sight imagery. Fairy magic literalizes the connection between love and sight: appropriately, Oberon's love juice is applied to the eyes. In the language of the play, to look on or at someone is the most common metonymic expression for falling in love with a new person, or for spending time with the one you already love. Lysander steels himself and Hermia against the trial of separation with a call to "starve our sight / From lover's food till morrow deep midnight" (1.1, ll. 221-2). Vision and hunger together become the elements of Lysander's metaphor about lovers and separation; to see is to be with, and a lover's company is elevated in importance to the need for food and drink. But Hermia and Lysander are not going to see each other by the light of day. The scant light of midnight-midnight, when dawn and dusk are both equally far off-will provide all...
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..." which connotes shallow feeling (Garber 10/13); the word "dote" is instead reserved for description of his former feelings about Hermia (4.1 ll. 163-73). His feelings for Hermia are the ones that have metaphorically been snuffed out by the dawn, "melted as the snow" before the sun (4.1 l. 163). What began in night as magic, as introspection and improvisation, has in daylight solidified into deep feeling. Although he speaks of Helena being "the object and pleasure" of his eye, the visual metaphor is accompanied by a proclamation of the faith and virtue of his heart's devotion (4.1 ll. 166-7). Introspection allows keener observation; new ways of looking enrich more ordinary types of sight. Night teaches the four lovers how to see more clearly during the day.
Works Cited:
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. New York: Washington Square Press, 1993.
The hilarious play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, tells the twisted love story of four Athenians who are caught between love and lust. The main characters: Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius are in a ‘love square’. Hermia and Lysander are true love enthusiasts, and love each other greatly. Demetrius is in love with Hermia, and Helena, Hermia’s best friend, is deeply and madly in love with Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander try to elope in the woods because Egeus, Hermia’s father, disapproves of Lysander. Helena, hearing about their plans, tells Demetrius, and all four of them end up in the woods where Lysander’s quotation, “The course of true love never did run smooth”(28), becomes extremely evident due to several supernatural mix-ups, authority, and jealousy.
In the Supreme Court case, Chunon Bailey vs United States, it deliberate on Bailey 4th amendment (unreasonable search and seizure) was violated when the police officer detain Bailey before the warrant was executed. (updated)
Lu Xun lived during what came to be known in China as the Republican period. During this period, China underwent major social changes. An emerging iconoclastic intellectual class, one of the most important societal shifts, began to attack traditional Chinese institutions through literature. Lu Xun, a prime example of this intellectual class, targeted traditional social hierarchies and their effects on the lives of women and the separate classes. During the May Fourth Movement, part of the Republican Period, women’s rights advocates sprung up around China pushing for marriage rights for women to choose their hus...
This brought The First Amendment and Education together for something that ultimately changed history and altered school mornings forever. Engel Vs Vitale was hands down one of the biggest stories in the community. Church and state were suddenly tied together and the legal and educational worlds were not in unison. All this started with one opening statement, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."
In conclusion, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare effectively uses the motifs of the seasons, the moon, and dreams to show that love, irrationality, and disobedience directly cause chaos. By calling to mind the seasons in unnatural order, describing the moon behaving strangely, and discussing the dualistic, irrational nature of dreams, Shakespeare effectively evokes a sense of chaos and disorder. Linking each of these motifs to the themes of love, irrationality, and disobedience allows Shakespeare to illustrate the disarray that is bound to result from any romance.
First, the miners blast the taconite. Taconite needs to be blasted by small explosives since it’s such a hard rock (MDNR,). These blasts would be happening at least once a week. Usuall...
With a name like Walt Disney, it seems like you are expected to do great things and have your name known across America. From a young age, Walt Disney had an interest in all things animation. Growing up in a time where animation and TV was making its first appearances, Walt Disney wanted to be a part of the sensation. Striving and pushing forward with his natural talent of the creative arts and entertainment, Mr. Walt Disney became one of the most well-known entertainers that is mentioned all around the world. His great animation and artistic works but also with his world famous characters and popular theme parks, the first one, Disneyland, being built in Anaheim, California in 1955.
Love is a powerful emotion, capable of turning reasonable people into fools. Out of love, ridiculous emotions arise, like jealousy and desperation. Love can shield us from the truth, narrowing a perspective to solely what the lover wants to see. Though beautiful and inspiring when requited, a love unreturned can be devastating and maddening. In his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare comically explores the flaws and suffering of lovers. Four young Athenians: Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, and Helena, are confronted by love’s challenge, one that becomes increasingly difficult with the interference of the fairy world. Through specific word choice and word order, a struggle between lovers is revealed throughout the play. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses descriptive diction to emphasize the impact love has on reality and one’s own rationality, and how society’s desperate pursuit to find love can turn even strong individuals into fools.
Order and disorder is a favorite theme of Shakespeare. In A Midsummer Night's Dream the apparently anarchic tendencies of the young lovers, of the mechanicals-as-actors, and of Puck are restrained by the "sharp Athenian law" and the law of the Palace Wood, by Theseus and Oberon, and their respective consorts. This tension within the world of the play is matched in its construction: in performance it can at times seem riotous and out of control, and yet the structure of the play shows a clear interest in symmetry and patterning.
Shakespeare creates a situation in which two pairs of young lovers, Lysander and Hermia, are forced to elope from the oppressive authority of their Elders, here we see Lysander asking Hermia to flee to the woods, “there gentle Hermia may I marry thee; and to that place the sharp Athenian law cannot pursue us” Freedom is not permitted in Athens, therefore the two lovers plan to escape into the woods. Hermia has two options given from her oppressive father, ‘either to die the death, or to abjure for ever in society of men’. She disobeys his commands. Shakespeare uses images to reflect Athens, and to magnify and to solidify Lysander and Hermia’s love for each other, which is strong and cannot be broken, without the use of magic. ‘Withering on a virgin thorn, grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness’.
Fairies, mortals, magic, love, and hate all intertwine to make A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare a very enchanting tale, that takes the reader on a truly dream-like adventure. The action takes place in Athens, Greece in ancient times, but has the atmosphere of a land of fantasy and illusion which could be anywhere. The mischievousness and the emotions exhibited by characters in the play, along with their attempts to double-cross destiny, not only make the tale entertaining, but also help solidify one of the play’s major themes; that true love and it’s cleverly disguised counterparts can drive beings to do seemingly irrational things.
Following participation in an Engaged Department Institute sponsored by Campus Compact, a service-learning requirement was instituted for all majors in the department studied beginning Fall 2002. All faculty were encouraged to incorporate service-learning in their courses. A training session on service-learning was the centerpiece of a departmental retreat in January 2002. In order to develop closer relationships with community agencies, the department hosted a faculty-partnership luncheon the following fall semester. Potential community partners were invited to meet with faculty in an effort to forge new relationships with the University. In order to institutionalize service-learning, all recruitment advertisements specifically mention service-learning and all new hires are expected to include service-learning components in their courses. As a consequence of these efforts, this department has gone from teaching only a few courses with service-learning components to offering twenty five different classes (thirteen courses) by Fall 2002.
...e end of the novel, Huck and the reader have come to understand that Jim is not someone’s property or an inferior man, but an equal. To say that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a racist novel is absurd, but there are always some hot-heads claiming that the novel is racist. These claims are not simply attempts to damage the image of a great novel, they come from people who are hurt by racism and don’t like seeing it in any context. However, they must realize that this novel and its author are not racist, and the purpose of the story is to prove black equality. It is vital for the reader to recognize these ideas as society’s and to recognize that Twain throughout the novel does encourage racist ideas, he disputes them. For this reason, and its profound moral implication, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should not be removed from the literary canon. [1056]
Love plays a very significant role in this Shakespearian comedy, as it is the driving force of the play: Hermia and Lysander’s forbidden love and their choice to flee Athens is what sets the plot into motion. Love is also what drives many of the characters, and through readers’ perspectives, their actions may seem strange, even comical to us: from Helena pursuing Demetrius and risking her reputation, to fairy queen Titania falling in love with Bottom. However, all these things are done out of love. In conclusion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream displays the blindness of love and how it greatly contradicts with reason.
Marriage is a very joyful event in a person’s life. However, unless much can be done in order to redefine the status of what marriage is all about, divorce and other marital problems will continue to arise tremendously. Divorce is tumultuous event in a married couple’s life. It does not only affect the financial status of the household, but rather it also affects the people that comprises the family especially the children. Families are experiencing many problems today, but the role of divorce in this picture has been frequently overlooked because its destructive effects have been subtle, yet insidious. When the divorce rate increased in the 1960s, few would have predicted its dire consequences three decades later. Yet divorce has changed both the structure and the impact of the family. Intimacy, time, effort trust and love is the key to have a peaceful and healthy relationship. Marriage for life is God's ideal, but divorce is a reality in our society.