...In what ways does a comparative study accentuate the distinctive contexts of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Room of One’s Own? A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) by Edward Albee, when compared, accentuate the difference in values and beliefs that pervaded the context in which they wrote. Woolf’s critical yet creative essay explores truth and gender equality in a period driven by progression and the first wave of feminism. Contrastingly, Albee attempts to confront his audience through satirical dialogue and bombastic characters. Although Albee also explores truth and gender equality, the difference in context allows him to examine the way in which these values have been discarded in the moral decline masked by the American Dream. When paralleled, it is evident that both texts reflect the differences of their context. Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own digs beneath the veneer of social progress to expose the patriarchal values entrenched in society. Woolf first establishes the subjectivity of truth, so that the readers draw their own conclusion as “they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.” By making them conscious on the subjectivity of truth, Woolf is forcing the reader to draw their own conclusions on what is logical, rather than accepting the patriarchal beliefs of their context. The anecdotal evidence of the fictitious Mary Seaton’s experience at the British Museum exposes the...
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...Through the exploration of a pair of texts composed in different contexts one can observe the significance of the ability of texts with varied form and context to still present and reflect similar values. A Room of One’s Own (hereafter AROO), a polemic, by Virginia Woolf and the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (hereafter WAVW) by Edward Albee both address gender inequality and truth and illusion even though their contexts and form starkly contrast. An analysis of similar themes will provide a greater understanding of meanings and perceptions of the texts. AROO, written in the post-war period of the late 1920s, was composed in a time of great social change due to the destruction and turmoil of the War. Modernist writing highlights the absence of, and search for, meaning and features experiments with new forms. Loss and absence lie at the heart of Woolf’s art, resulting from the experience of loss as an adolescent – her half sister, father, brother and mother. Her refusal to give one single view of anything, offering instead multiple, often conflicting views which the reader has to balance and bring together is another modernist trait. In contrast, WAVW was written in a far more conservative context, and although Albee does challenge societal roles, he does it in a more blatant way. Written during a time of Cold War tension, where fear and instability was disguised beneath the facade of the Great American Dream, Albee is still able to paint a dystopian image of the stereotyped...
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...different kinds of relationships with our family, our friends and our neighbors. A romantic or sexual relationship is a bit different from other relationships and it can be wonderful, fulfilling and fun, but it can also be stressful or complicated. A healthy relationship could be influence with many different things but the five most important things that a good relationship must have is trust, communication, respect, equity and love. I want to talk about a play that involves a relationship that brings to the forefront the ineffectiveness of a make- believe world. The play defines the "anxieties" and "fears" of two couples "who are born in conflict between private needs and public values. The play is called Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? The play Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play that was written by Edward Franklin Albee. Albee was born on March 12th 1928 in Washington D.C. He was adopted by Reed A. and Frances Cotta Albee. While Albee attends Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, he wrote his first play Aliqueen in 1940s. He published one of his poems “Eighteen” in 1954. A year later his play “Schism” appeared in Choate Literary Magazine. After his graduation he moved to Greenwich Village and tried odd jobs as an office boy, a salesperson, and a barman. He continue writing plays that were staged much later while being supported by a trust fund established by his maternal grandmother. He wrote The Zoo Story in 1958 and it staged at the Schiller Theater Werstatt, Berlin...
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...of wonder, of incomprehension, and at times of despair, at the lack of cohesion that they find in the world. The Idea of the Absurd (in the sense which these writers incorporate into their writing) was first mentioned in Albert Camus’s essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus). According to Camus, the Absurd is the result of human desire for clarity and meaning in a world that offers none. Works of the writers of the Theatre of the Absurd are characterized by - * lack of logic * unconventional dialogue * rejection of conventional characterization and plot. They all express the idea that human existence is essentially meaningless and that in this world true communication is impossible. Camus in his Le Mythe de Sisyphe “In the universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile …this divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity”. This very idea surfaces in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. A mixture of absurdity and reality, illusion and truth, farce and tragedy is condensed in Edward Albees first full length play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1962) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf demonstrates the Mid-20th century American panic towards the fall of human privilege, embedded within both Cold War rhetoric and the changing social climate of America. This is a play not so much about a discontented marriage as a disillusioned...
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...story written by Anna Hope and published in 2008. It is about a 19-year-old girl struggling against the inner voice of her, which is telling her to cut out her studies and have fun instead. By having fun I mean drinking and doing drugs. Because that’s what Ellie is good at. She has been sent to London by her parents to study, but she is not taking it as serious as her parents are expecting of her to do, because she has been partying all night and can’t remember much. She wakes up and starts stressing because of an essay that she has to write, about Virginia Woolf. But she needs printer ink, so she goes out into the world searching for printer ink. On her way searching for printer ink she experiences a lot. The 19-year-old Ellie is the main character. Her parents have sent her to London to study but she doesn’t really care, instead she drinks and does a lot of drugs. But at the same time it seems like Ellie has two sides. Because she’s also stressing about the essay that she still needs to do and she’s okay staying up all night doing it as...
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...story written by Anna Hope and published in 2008. It is about a 19-year-old girl struggling against the inner voice of her, which is telling her to cut out her studies and have fun instead. By having fun I mean drinking and doing drugs. Because that’s what Ellie is good at. She has been sent to London by her parents to study, but she is not taking it as serious as her parents are expecting of her to do, because she has been partying all night and can’t remember much. She wakes up and starts stressing because of an essay that she has to write, about Virginia Woolf. But she needs printer ink, so she goes out into the world searching for printer ink. On her way searching for printer ink she experiences a lot. The 19-year-old Ellie is the main character. Her parents have sent her to London to study but she doesn’t really care, instead she drinks and does a lot of drugs. But at the same time it seems like Ellie has two sides. Because she’s also stressing about the essay that she still needs to do and she’s okay staying up all night doing it as long as she does “she’s going to have to work through the night, but it’s fine” – inside of her...
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...For example, after reading ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ at AS level, I became fascinated by the idea of living up to expectations of society, and the pressures of having a perfect life. This led me to read ‘The Outsiders’ by S. E. Hinton, as the book explored the spirit of rebellion mainly aimed towards social norms and class systems. The story focuses on the negative results of a hostile society, but at the same time manages to stay realistic. C.S. Lewis once said that ‘Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it…’ I agree with this view that books aim to display all of humanity’s universal truths and help the reader enhance their life after reading something that has the ability to change their perception of the...
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...Introduction: The Seventh Sense While completing the exercises in this book, keep in mind these differences between American English and British English: 1. Parentheses are called brackets. 2. Periods are called full stops. 3. Exclamation points are called exclamation marks. 4. 7:30 is written 7.30. 5. Americans place all terminal punctuation inside closing quotation marks, while British usage sometimes “picks and chooses.” Exercises Guaranteed to Bring Out Your Inner Stickler 1) Take a walk or drive through your village, town, or city and write down signs or advertisements that are egregiously punctuated. Look particularly for those “pesky apostrophes” and “delightful/horrific examples of idiotic sign-writing.” (Should you become obsessed with these outings, we suggest you wear a disguise and whip out your notebook when no one is looking. You do not want to be recognized as one of Lynne Truss’s sticklers on the prowl!) 2) When you have found a sign with a punctuation error, write a courteous letter explaining the correct use of the apostrophe and “express the gentle wish that, should the offending ‘Bob,s Pets’ sign, for example, be replaced, this well meant guidance might be borne in mind.” These letters won’t be necessary, after the A.P.S. (Apostrophe Protection Society) has created a more militant wing. 3) Look through your local newspaper and find errors such as, “DEAD SONS PHOTOS MAY BE RELEASED.” 4) Look on Amazon for a film/book review and, keeping...
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...Question: 1 Abstract This paper examines the polemical issues in the application of literary theories to the field of literature and literary criticism. Out of the several modern approaches to literary criticism as employed by the critics, four literary theories are strategically chosen for analysis in this paper; Formalism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism/Deconstruction and Marxism. This work is objectively carried out by consulting articles, journals and books written on the literary theories. The opportunity of information technology via the internet is also utilized. It is established in the course of writing this paper that literary theories are indispensable tools for literature to achieve its goal of sensitizing its audience towards literary awareness. The application of literary theories to literature, that enhance better and detail insight into text or literary works, would continue to be relevant and make literature more enjoyable and meaningful to its readers and users. Further research and enquiry into the relationship between the two (literature and literary theory) is open and should further be exploited. Keywords: literary theory, literary criticism, Marxism, Formalism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism Introduction Literary criticism is the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though the two activities are closely...
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...Дневник читателя READER’S JOURNAL Ernest Hemingway. The Old Man and the Sea (1952). Joseph Heller. Catch-22 (1961). Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire (1959). Iris Murdoch. The Black Prince (1973). Jerome David Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient (1992). Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 (1953). Ken Kesey. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962). Edward Albee. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman (1949). ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Ernest Hemingway. The Old Man and the Sea (1952). ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- FULL TITLE · The Old Man and the Sea ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR · Ernest Hemingway ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- TYPE OF WORK · Novella ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- GENRE · Parable; tragedy ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- LANGUAGE · English ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · 1951, Cuba ------------------------------------------------- ...
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...“Behind the Fair Façade” Representations of Femininity in Three Walt Disney Animated Features Bachelor Thesis Bethany Schouten, 3278972 Media en Cultuurwetenschappen Genderstudies Supervisor: Domitilla Olivieri May 31st, 2011 “Behind the Fair Façade” Representations of Femininity in Three Walt Disney Animated Features Bachelor thesis by Bethany Schouten, 3278972 Index Introduction 3 Methodological and theoretical Framework 4 Corpus 9 The Research: SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS 11 The Research: THE LITTLE MERMAID 18 The Research: THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG 24 Findings and Interpretation 31 Identity Formation 35 Conclusion 38 Literature 41 Media 43 Introduction The Walt Disney Company’s cultural products have been a great influence on popular culture since the 1930s and an inspiration for generations all over the world ever since. For many, including myself, the Princes, Princesses and fantastical creatures of Disney’s animated fairy tales have become symbols of their youth. Seeing the films gives rise to a feeling of nostalgia, they become a memento of one’s childhood world. But what kind of world is this? What kind of realities do Disney’s fantastical representations construct? In my thesis, I will analyze a specific element of Disney films: gender roles constructed through the representation of femininity in their animated...
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...THE RULES OF THE GAME: NOUVELLE EDITION FRANCAISE/THE KOBAL COLLECTION DEEP FOCUS CANON FODDER As the sun finally sets on the century of cinema, by what criteria do we determine its masterworks? BY PAU L SC H RA D E R Top guns (and dogs): the #1 The Rules of the Game September-October 2006 FILM COMMENT 33 Sunrise PREFACE THE BOOK I DIDN’T WRITE I n march 2003 i was having dinner in london with Faber and Faber’s editor of film books, Walter Donohue, and several others when the conversation turned to the current state of film criticism and lack of knowledge of film history in general. I remarked on a former assistant who, when told to look up Montgomery Clift, returned some minutes later asking, “Where is that?” I replied that I thought it was in the Hollywood Hills, and he returned to his search engine. Yes, we agreed, there are too many films, too much history, for today’s student to master. “Someone should write a film version of Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon,” a writer from The Independent suggested, and “the person who should write it,” he said, looking at me, “is you.” I looked to Walter, who replied, “If you write it, I’ll publish it.” And the die was cast. Faber offered a contract, and I set to work. Following the Bloom model I decided it should be an elitist canon, not populist, raising the bar so high that only a handful of films would pass over. I proceeded to compile a list of essential films, attempting, as best I could, to...
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...Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 i RTNA01 1 13/6/05, 5:28 PM READING THE NOVEL General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions. Published Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930 Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Daniel R. Schwarz Brian W. Shaffer Forthcoming Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel Paula R. Backscheider Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel Harry E. Shaw and Alison Case Reading the American Novel 1780–1865 Shirley Samuels Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 G. R. Thompson Reading the Twentieth-Century American Novel James Phelan ii RTNA01 2 13/6/05, 5:28 PM Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Brian W. Shaffer iii RTNA01 3 13/6/05, 5:28 PM © 2006 by Brian W. Shaffer BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Brian W. Shaffer to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and...
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...Resources for Teaching Prepared by Lynette Ledoux Copyright © 2007 by Bedford/St. Martin’s All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. 2 1 f e 0 9 d c 8 7 b a For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000) ISBN-10: 0–312–44705–1 ISBN-13: 978–0–312–44705–2 Instructors who have adopted Rereading America, Seventh Edition, as a textbook for a course are authorized to duplicate portions of this manual for their students. Preface This isn’t really a teacher’s manual, not, at least, in the sense of a catechism of questions and correct answers and interpretations. Because the questions provided after each selection in Rereading America are meant to stimulate dialogue and debate — to generate rather than terminate discourse — they rarely lend themselves to a single appropriate response. So, while we’ll try to clarify what we had in mind when framing a few of the knottier questions, we won’t be offering you a list of “right” answers. Instead, regard this manual as your personal support group. Since the publication of the first edition, we’ve had the chance to learn from the experiences of hundreds of instructors nationwide, and we’d like to use this manual as a forum where we can share some of their concerns, suggestions, experiments, and hints. We’ll begin with a roundtable on issues you’ll probably want to address before you meet your class. In the first section of this manual, we’ll discuss approaches to...
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...Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank to accompany A First Look at Communication Theory Sixth Edition Em Griffin Wheaton College prepared by Glen McClish San Diego State University and Emily J. Langan Wheaton College Published by McGrawHill, an imprint of The McGrawHill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright Ó 2006, 2003, 2000, 1997, 1994, 1991 by The McGrawHill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may be reproduced in print form solely for classroom use with A First Look At Communication Theory provided such reproductions bear copyright notice, but may not be reproduced in any other form or for any other purpose without the prior written consent of The McGrawHill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. PREFACE Rationale We agreed to produce the instructor’s manual for the sixth edition of A First Look at Communication Theory because it’s a first-rate book and because we enjoy talking and writing about pedagogy. Yet when we recall the discussions we’ve had with colleagues about instructor’s manuals over the years, two unnerving comments stick with us: “I don’t find them much help”; and (even worse) “I never look at them.” And, if the truth be told, we were often the people making such points! With these statements in mind, we have done some serious soul-searching about the texts that so many teachers—ourselves...
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