Guilt and Shame in Oedipus the King
Sophocles’s "Oedipus the King introduces" important questions about the nature of justice and calls into discussion what warrants guilt and shame.
Student Work: Criticism
Freeing Algerian Women’s Histories
How can you reconcile your identity as a liberating force while using the language of your oppressor and benefiting from physical freedom that many of those in your homeland do not possess? Assia Djebar wrestles with these questions in "Fantasia."
Murderer and Trailblazer: Medea as a Feminist Text
Medea possesses qualities that conform to the gender expectations of ancient Greece, but many parts of the play suggest that Medea is a feminist figure who challenges the gender and social norms of her time.
Redefining the View from “Five Flights Up”
Elizabeth Bishop’s “Five Flights Up” simply gives the poem a place to be: a vantage point.
Hamlet: An Identity in Crisis
Life is absurd. We are born into a world without a clear reason and we must play silly little games and perform trivial roles in order to be accepted into said world. And, in the end, we disappear.
The Dangers of Masculinity in Macbeth
The rigors of masculinity have tainted men’s understanding of themselves, their relationships with others, and the societies in which they live. In "Macbeth," the main characters implicitly express their beliefs on what a man should be.
“You and I”: Grammar and Narrative in Kinship
“Look, Doni!” the girl called to me, “I’m like a bird!” She discovering “the other,” organizing the world around her into the grammar of you/I, bird/not-bird, like/not-like.
Mutualism and Parasitism
What form of symbiosis do the Terrans and Tlics of Octavia Butler's dystopian “Bloodchild" exhibit?
B. Horseman
It’s the quality of so much sorrow held at the brink that attracted me to "BoJack Horseman." It’s brilliant, at once both witty and belly-laugh silly, and often capable of being shockingly real.
A New Trend: Reviving Greek Classics
The unique yet universal characteristics of Greek tragedy offer modern directors a creative freedom with both language and interpretation that facilitates space for activism.
A Mountain Made For Two: Landscapes in Gay Cinema
"Brokeback Mountain" excavates the rural mythos for all its possibilities of freedom, while still divulging its oppressive nature.
