Destiny and Free Will: The Wicked Day of Chance
Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. — Lord Alfred Tennyson, “Ulysses” Fate’s threads entangle all in an infinite web, unbeknownst to the players of the tragedy. What happens when a character is aware of his...
Betwixt and between psychoanalysis and liminal theory: A liminal approach to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline
Within the liminal phase, Coraline finds herself in what Turner coins as “a ‘moment in and out of time’” (The Ritual Process 96), in which spatio-temporal boundaries and the constraints of state no longer apply when there are no boundaries or states to be had in the first place.
Why I Chose to Study English and What I Have Learned
To me, it seemed that writing was magical, borderless; writers had the power to transcend history and reach across different nations, affecting a multitude of people.
The Medieval Origin of a Vile New Insult: Cuck
If you happen to frequent the comments section in political Facebook and Twitter posts, YouTube videos, and many other such places on the Internet, you may have encountered alt-right commenters referring to 'those stupid liberal snowflakes' as “cucks”.
Translation as Literary Reconciliation: Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali’s Sounds of a Cowhide Drum / Imisindo Yesigubhu Sesikhumba Senkomo
The 1995 South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) intended to “provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators [of apartheid] to share their stories and bear witness to historical harms and injustices in an open, public forum” (Gaertner 446). The terms and expectations for the TRC’s notion of reconciliation, however, do not account for...
What’s in a Name? The Importance of Being Earnestly Yourself
The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s witty play centering around Jack Worthing and the consequences of having a false identity (named Ernest) to escape social obligations and limitations. As Jack explains to his friend Algernon Montieff, his name is “Ernest in town and Jack in the country” (5). Algernon learns of this deception...
