Symbolism plays a major role in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's "Clothes," Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal," and in Colette's "The Hand." In "Clothes," the narrator is a woman in India from a traditional Bengali family. Her parents go through a lot of trouble to arrange a good marriage for her, to an Indian man who now lives in the United States. The husband-to-be flies all the way to India to meet the narrator, who dresses for her bride viewing. What she wears and how she dresses become powerful symbols of cultural and personal identity, also representing specific stages of life. In "The Hand," the narrator is a woman who was recently married to someone she barely knows, as if it were an arranged marriage. While she is in bed as her husband sleeps, the narrator contemplates her life. Her thoughts shift to issues related to gender roles through the symbolism of her husband's hand. In "Battle Royal," the narrator is an African-American man who contends with racism. The titular battle symbolizes the battle for social justice and the struggle to find a strong personal identity within a hostile society. Each of these three narratives uses symbolism to expose issues and themes related to power, culture, and identity. In "Clothes," which is a chapter in a novel called Arranged Marriage, the imagery of clothing is related to gender, personal identity, and culture. The narrator describes her saris, and later her western style clothing, in terms of what is going in her life....
North American Literature of the 20th Century: A Literature of Alienation North American literature of the twentieth century began as a predominantly white male-dominated literature, on the heels of 19th century romantic literary expression, such as within the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, and others. Similarly, in the early decades of the 20th century, American literature was dominated by the likes of William
Psychology and Literature Both psychology and literature explore how people interact with each other. Both psychology and literature explore how prior events affect what follows. Both psychology and literature look at how a person grows, develops and changes over time. However, psychology looks at how events affect what people do and how they act in very precise ways, while literature fictionalizes and supposes what an imaginary person might do. Psychology looks
classroom, regardless of the age of the learner, we realize that there are multiple learning styles and responses to divergent stimuli. The modern pedagogical environment is faced with a number of challenges that are directly related to learning. In fact, as an educational pendulum swings, we find any number of methods that are thought to be new and innovative; yet it is sometimes the tried and true methods that
OCTAVIO PAZ "TRANSPLANTED LANGUAGES" Octavio Paz's 1990 Nobel Lecture accentuated the issue of transplanted languages and the literature that emerged in a transplanted culture. Latin-American and Caribbean literature is good example of the use of transplanted languages since the influence of European and American cultures is quite pronounced. When people migrate from one place to another or are forced to endure foreign rule, the impact on the language is usually the
Courtly love your purchase. COURTLY LOVE AND MIDDLE AGES LITERATURE In this paper, we shall study the tradition of Courtly love in the Middle Ages as reflected by literary works produced in that period. The paper will first focus on what the exact nature of Courtly Love, then proceed to briefly discuss its development and finally take into account the literary works of Middle Ages that contained elements of this tradition. Courtly love
Abbe Prevost's tale of Manon Lescaut performs several different functions at once. It is in part a cautionary story. It is in part a push to create a fully modern sensibility in French literature. It is in part an exploration of the trope of Romanticism. And in all of these things it is partly a story about the New World, for to Prevost, as to other Europeans of his time,
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now