...through life, experiencing the love and loss, very rarely does it occur to you that your story is rooted in thousands of others- that our narrative is simply one facet of the narrative of this world. Considering the cornucopia of stories and poems and movies and songs that are created every year, one would begin to wonder if there was a beginning to it all-a starting point for the thoughts and feelings you share with three billion other people. Many consider the Bible to be that starting point, and the stories in it to be the conception of the human experience. Many consider modern literature to be descended from the Bible, thus, biblical allusions can be postulated as playing a large role in contemporary stories. This influence...
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...Daniel Barton October 27, 2014 Religious Literature Transient and Permanent Qualities in East of Eden: The Relationship Between Good and Evil Torben Grodal talked of art film as possessing two basic elements, transient and permanent, but they are also seen in the novel East of Eden. Steinbeck creates scenes that at first have a transient quality, and then purposefully connects to a permanent nature. These permanent qualities, grappled with by the Trask’s and Lee, examine the never ending battle between good and evil. In the novel East of Eden, John Steinbeck constructs scenes that have an initial transient quality, but then persistently associates these with a permanent nature that examines the conflict between good and evil. Steinbeck portrays Cathy as a very evil character, someone who is just inexplicably evil and makes several allusions to her being a monster and devil. When first introducing the reader to Cathy, Steinbeck writes about the creation of monsters, an obvious parallel. He goes on to say that, “monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience” (72). He wastes no time in comparing a monster to Cathy. He believes that Cathy is not an ordinary evil either, but that she is a very abstract form of evil, the exact idea of evil and that she has no good in her body. Steinbeck does not only believe that Cathy is a monster, but...
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...John Steinbeck, in his novel, East of Eden, utilizes different literary strategies to describe the nature of humans and ... Steinbeck conveys his purpose by including biblical allegories and biblical illusions … He uses a … tone to influence the readers to ... Biblical allusions and allegories best define the good versus evil behaviors of the characters seen in the novel. The Trask family and the Hamilton family, allegories for the good and evil in the world, demonstrate their ability to resist temptation or succumbing to it. Samuel Hamilton represents the good and pure nature of humans; many people would act if they did not listen to tempting evil influences. Samuel parallels God, his pure kind behavior and ability to make friends with Adam and Lee allows for others to accept his influence as many accept the influence of God in...
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...Mary Shelley once said, “I ought to be thy Adam but I am rather the fallen angel…” Allusions are commonly used to stimulate ideas associations, and extra information. In writing, it helps the reader visualize what is going on. It also gives deeper meaning to the story by relating it to another story with a similar theme, and it gives a way for the author to further emphasize the main point which he or she is trying to make with the story. By using allusions it may give the reader a chance to better understand and they can draw the similarities between the two different stories and so how they relate to one another. “Frankenstein” and “Adam and Eve” have a lot of similarities. Both stories have characters that portray curiosity that leads to...
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...Power is strived from many, but not many know how to obtain it. In the novel East of Eden, John Steinbeck wants to propose that self awareness affects the amount of power one exhibits. Steinbeck displays this by describing the relationship between brothers and the perspective of Cathy. He uses allusion,analogy, and diction to present the idea that power is in a one’s own self control which can lead to either good or bad power. In the book the female character Cathy is aware of her own evil strength. She uses her own body to manipulate many men and gain power over them. However, Cathy is a "symbol of the human evil that will always be present in the world," and her loss of power over Adam and Cal strengthens East of Eden's message that individuals...
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...Eve of the 21st century CE Mark Twain, in his Diaries of Adam and Eve, published in May 2000, depicts the day-to-day life of the predecessors of mankind in the form of a journal said to be “translated from the original manuscript”. Adam’s diary begins with his encounter with Eve, that irritating, way too talkative creature with a tendency to name things, following him around. Eve is changing the sights of Eden, that she alas baptized “Niagara falls Park”(Twain, 365). After the fall, Adam eventually learns to appreciate the company of his female companion and ends up falling for her, saying “wherever she was, there was Eden” (377). Eve’s diary recounts her discovery of Eden and Adam, and her growing love for him. Human love, replacing that of God, appears as a feeling that does not need an Eden, a feeling that is in itself a redemption. Throughout the excerpts, an image of the two characters can be shaped but also an image of their respective genders’ roles, behaviors and understanding of love… To what extent does the portrayal of Eve in the extracts apply to the expectations for women today? Millenniums later, some of these expectations may have not changed a lot, but some fundamental changes in the way women are perceived did occur. To begin with, Eve is quite the sensitive kind, and the use of the word “feel” (Twain, 368) repeatedly, and the semantic field of feelings (feel, heart, love, passion, romantic etc.) expended in her first diary entry, highlight her emotional...
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...John Steinbeck’s East of Eden examines the lives and tribulations of several interconnected individuals over the course of decades, while concurrently examining several conflicting ideologies that have plagued mankind, such as free will versus determinism and good versus evil. East of Eden concludes with possibly the most important word in the entire book: timshel. Despite the copious amount of pages that were devoted to debate of the true meaning of timshel, the word still possesses a rather ambiguous definition as it can be translated as thou shalt, thou must, or thou mayest. While, at first glance, these definitions seem similar enough to be used interchangeably, the definition the reader chooses to accept will greatly influence their interpretation...
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...Intertextuality is the shaping of a text meaning by another text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody.[1][2][3] An example of intertextuality is an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As philosopher William Irwin wrote, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence.”[4] Contents [show] Intertextuality and poststructuralism[edit] Kristeva’s coinage of “intertextuality” represents an attempt to synthesize Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics—his study of how signs derive their meaning within the structure of a text—with Bakhtin’s dialogism—his examination of the multiple meanings, or “heteroglossia”, in each text (especially novels) and in each word.[5] For Kristeva,[6] “the notion of intertextuality replaces the notion of intersubjectivity” when we realize that meaning is not transferred directly from writer to reader but instead is mediated through, or filtered by, “codes” imparted to the writer and reader by other texts. For example, when we read James Joyce’s Ulysses we decode it as a modernist literary experiment, or as a response to the...
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...THE BIBLE’S INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH-AMERICAN LITERATURE by Zhang Lanlan June, 2007 Xiaogan University Abstract As the sutra of the Christianity, the Bible has a great influence on both English and American literature and offers an eternal theme of their literary creation .English and American writers use stories of the Bible by three main methods. First, they quote person's names or stories of the Bible as the characters' names or plots of the creations from the Bible directly. Sometimes they make some changes on the original stories. Sometimes they quote stories directly from the Bible as the writing materials. Second, they make use of symbolic meaning of the Bible by some technical such as simile, metaphor and symbolism, so that the stories could exert a great influence on contrasting with the new products. Third, they merge the plots of the Bible to give connotative efforts to the readers. Exploring the methods helps us know the western culture and consciousness, have a good appreciation and study for the English-American literature. key words: English-American literature ; the Bible; methods 《圣经》在英美文学作品中的影响 摘要 作为基督教的经典，《圣经》对英美文化影响深远，为英美文化创作提供了永恒的母题。英美作家化用《圣经》故事的主要方法有：直接引用《圣经》中的人名作为作品的人物名称，或直接引用《圣经》故事或对原型故事进行变形或处理，作为创作素材；通过比喻，隐喻或象征等手法，把《圣经》故事的寓意融汇到作品情节中或人物性格里，使这些故事发挥有力的陪衬作用；使作品中的人物，故事和情节与《圣经》故事大体对应，让《圣经》能穿越时空的限制，从而发挥隐含的参照作用。 探讨英美作家化用《圣经》的方法，有助于我们了解英美文化的思想意识，更好的学习，欣赏乃至研究英美文学作品。 关键词：英美文学；《圣经》；方式 ...
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...From How to Read Literature Like a Professor Thomas C. Foster Notes by Marti Nelson 1. Every Trip is a Quest (except when it’s not): a. A quester b. A place to go c. A stated reason to go there d. Challenges and trials e. The real reason to go—always self-knowledge 2. Nice to Eat With You: Acts of Communion a. Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion b. Not usually religious c. An act of sharing and peace d. A failed meal carries negative connotations 3. Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires a. Literal Vampirism: Nasty old man, attractive but evil, violates a young woman, leaves his mark, takes her innocence b. Sexual implications—a trait of 19th century literature to address sex indirectly c. Symbolic Vampirism: selfishness, exploitation, refusal to respect the autonomy of other people, using people to get what we want, placing our desires, particularly ugly ones, above the needs of another. 4. If It’s Square, It’s a Sonnet 5. Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before? a. There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature—stories grow out of other stories, poems out of other poems. b. There is only one story—of humanity and human nature, endlessly repeated c. “Intertexuality”—recognizing the connections between one story and another deepens our appreciation and experience, brings multiple layers of meaning to the text, which we may not be conscious of. The more consciously...
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...Fern Hill Summary "Fern Hill" is six stanzas of praising and then lamenting days the speaker spent at Fern Hill as a youth. And this speaker is stoked about running through the countryside. Throughout the poem, he talks about how happy he was as a youngster and how oblivious he was that youth was passing. But at the end of the poem, the tone shifts dramatically from joy to lamentation. It's almost like singing, "If you're happy and you know it, think again!" What was a carefree bliss for the speaker turns out to be a fleeting joy that he ever can't recapture. What a bummer. Stanza 1 Summary Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line. Lines 1-2 Now I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green * Welcome to Fern Hill, where the speaker was once young and carefree. Plus, apple trees. Sounds like a great place to Shmoop. * He also hung out in his "lilting house." What in the world is a lilting house, you ask? Well, lilting is an old school style of Gaelic singing, but it can refer to anything with a cheerful, happy tone. * So was the house singing? Well, maybe not literally, but with this personification, the speaker is setting the mood for the rest of the poem. Things are good. * He's young, happy, and the pastoral scenery is like a mirror of the speaker's joy. Lines 3-5 The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes...
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...Nimrod and Abraham: The Fall and Reformation of Human Community In partial fulfillment of: OT 501 - Pentecostal Explorations of the Old Testament Submitted to: Dr. Rickie Dale Moore Church of God Theological Seminary Cleveland, Tennessee Daniel Tomberlin November 20, 2001 COGTS Box # 247 The Hebrew name for Genesis is bƒreÕµ séû tÆ ,_ preferably translated “by way of beginning”1 which is also the overarching theme of the book - the beginnings of the creation of the universe, of humanity and human civilization, and of a covenant people of God. The traditional outline of Genesis is to divide the book into two major sections: Primeval History (chapters 1-11) which is universal in scope and serves to demonstrate the unity of humanity; and Patriarchal History (chapters 12-50) which is particular in scope and serves to present God’s concern for a covenant people. Gordon Wenham offers a similar outline: the origin of the world (chapter 1); the origin of the nations (chapters 2-11); and the origin of Israel (chapters 12-50).2 An outline that better serves the theological themes of Genesis is to present the book in three major sections: generation (chapters 1-2) which reveals God as Creator of the universe and all life therein; degeneration (chapters 3-11), which reveals the fall of the first human family and the continued downward spiral of human civilization; and regeneration (chapters 12-50) in...
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...NORTH AMERICAN FICTION BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Before starting our study of American Fiction we must understand what American Literature is in itself and which pieces of writing we can include within this label. It is believed that when a piece is written in North America, more precisely in the USA, it would automatically be given this epithet. But it should be taken into account that this idea is quite broad and doesn’t reflect the real essence of the term. However, there is also another definition that gathers this essence: American Literature is the one that represents the Americanism, the singularity of the USA philosophy and culture. This way, instead of focusing on who the author is, it is focused on the content of the writing. In that which concerns Fiction, the following documents are the ones considered as narrative: Speeches Letters Short Stories Essays Political Documents Sermons Novels Diaries 1 FIRST LITERARY EXPRESSIONS The first documents in which the idea of Americanism is very present are the Sermons. They respond to the strict Protestantism settled in the New Continent after the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers and Puritans in the Mayflower (1620) and the Arabella (1630). They established a theocratic community whose main and only point of reference was the Bible. That is why the idea of the ‘city upon a hill’ is still very present in American mentality. As we all know...
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...Notes on Song of Solomon 2 0 1 4 E d i t i o n Dr. Thomas L. Constable Introduction TITLE In the Hebrew Bible the title of this book is "The Song of Songs." It comes from 1:1. The Septuagint and Vulgate translators adopted this title. The Latin word for song is canticum from which we get the word Canticles, another title for this book. Some English translations have kept the title "Song of Songs" (e.g., NIV, TNIV), but many have changed it to "Song of Solomon" based on 1:1 (e.g., NASB, AV, RSV, NKJV). WRITER AND DATE Many references to Solomon throughout the book confirm the claim of 1:1 that Solomon wrote this book (cf. 1:4-5, 12; 3:7, 9, 11; 6:12; 7:5; 8:11-12; 1 Kings 4:33). He reigned between 971 and 931 B.C. Richard Hess believed the writer is unknown and could have been anyone, even a woman, and that the female heroine viewed and described her lover as a king: as a Solomon.1 How could Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3), be the same faithful lover this book presents? He could be if he became polygamous after the events in this book took place. That seems a more likely explanation than that he was polygamous when these events occurred and just omitted reference to his other loves. Probably he wrote the book before he became polygamous. We do not know how old Solomon was when he married the second time. The history recorded in Kings and Chronicles is not in strict chronological order. The Shulammite was probably not Pharaoh's daughter in view...
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...Narrative A narrative is a sequence of events that a narrator tells in story form. A narrator is a storyteller of any kind, whether the authorial voice in a novel or a friend telling you about last night’s party. Point of View The point of view is the perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes. First-person narration: A narrative in which the narrator tells the story from his/her own point of view and refers to him/herself as “I.” The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer. When the point of view represented is specifically the author’s, and not a fictional narrator’s, the story is autobiographical and may be nonfictional (see Common Literary Forms and Genres below). Third-person narration: The narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and the third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.” • Omniscient narration: The narrator knows all of the actions, feelings, and motivations of all of the characters. For example, the narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina seems to know everything about all the characters and events in the story. • Limited omniscient narration: The narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters. For example, the narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice. • Free indirect discourse: The narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts...
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