Eyes to Watch
Eyes are everywhere in the comic series Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. From the eyes of every character to the pupil-like circles of clocks and “fallout shelter” signs, figures of vision can be found throughout.
The Souls of Black Folk and The Essentiality of Human Connection
Du Bois’ classic text The Souls of Black Folk does not at first read as a cohesive argument. Rather, each chapter offers a different style, a different purpose, and this makes for a complex and at times disjointed reading experience.
Anne Frank: The Young Girl and the Writer
When Hitler began his long rise to power in 1919 and promoted anti-Semitism across Europe, the world was devastated by the horror that ensued. Amongst the approximately 60 million people killed during the war, 11 million of them were Jews.
Where the Road Ends
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road explores the bleak and barren post-apocalyptic world of a father and his son and their journey to find sanctuary. As the father and son travel throughout the novel they travel farther and farther down the road.
The Person in the Picture: The Image and the Self of Esther Greenwood
Throughout The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood is photographed many times. Sometimes the act of being photographed is equated with the objectification of Esther, which is to say, the photographer takes away Esther’s personhood […]
Backstreets: Shadows, Violence and Queerness in Watchmen
The visual language of queerness in 2010s America is defined by brightness—rainbows, glitter—declaring a queer existence fully saturated with light. But the torture and death of the only gay characters in popular TV shows […]
Opposing Oppenheimers
Heinar Kipphardt’s In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer recounts the trial of one of the most prominent physicists in history. Oppenheimer, often called the father of the atomic bomb, was summoned before the Atomic Energy Commission in 1954 […]
We Didn’t Start the Fire
“Are you one of the good guys?” (McCarthy 282). The father-son odyssey of The Road is consumed by constant searching for food, shelter, or safety. The father is searching for something else, as well, something intangible […]
Mulvey vs. Carter: The Power of the Gaze
Both Laura Mulvey and Angela Carter are well-noted female writers in the 1970’s that have talked about feminism through their writings.
The Communist Manifesto and its earlier drafts: Further explanation, or simply an ignorance of the truth?
Inspiring a movement is not only a difficult, but a lengthy process. The perfect combination of motivation in the population, necessity for change, as well as belief that a particular movement will improve the peoples’ lives […]