These essays were submitted by students who took Arts One in 2016-2017 and selected to be published in this annual journal of Arts One student work, entitled ONE. Please see this page for more information about the journal.
Though the essays are provided here for public reading, they are all still copyrighted to their respective authors (listed on each article) and may not be reused or reposted without express permission of those authors. Of course, paraphrasing or quoting from them with proper citation is encouraged!
The Marriage of Science and Art in Carson’s Silent Spring
June 6, 2017
by Neshma Mattu
What struck me the most, after reading Silent Spring, was that it did not feel as if I noticed the notion of connectedness in an explicit way, but instead, I was convinced that it was inherent within her text. As a result of her literary style, it was not something that readers had to be reminded of so frequently, and this is because the idea is so deeply woven into her words.
The Interchangeability of Gendered Traits
June 5, 2017
On Carter’s The Bloody Chamber
By Elizabeth Staudacher
Through exploring the relationship between sex and violence, Angela Carter presents the stereotypical masculine and feminine traits as interchangeable in her writing. By presenting different types of heterosexual relationships and roles, Carter legitimizes the desires of women and encourages them to pursue those desires, while deconstructing gender stereotypes.
The Silence of God
June 5, 2017
On DeLillo’s White Noise
By Saakshi Patel
Death is the most prominent theme in Don DeLillo’s White Noise, manifested in the lives of Jack and Babette, primarily in the form of constant noise in the background. This continuous ‘white’ noise is representative of the couple’s constant thoughts about dying. All the important characters in the book contribute to this noise, with the exception of one – Wilder.
Sayers’ Method of Understanding Academia
June 4, 2017
On Sayers’ Gaudy Night
by Mindy Gan
Within the context of Gaudy Night, the academic women’s failure to catch Annie is attributed to their steadfast intellectual stances and their feelings of bias, two seemingly antithetical states of mind. Gaudy Night proposes that in order to be a successful academic, it is necessary to maintain equilibrium between intellectual honor and human compassion within oneself.
The Feminist Façade
June 4, 2017
On Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night
by Kelly Chan
Being able to take power over one’s inner demons is an essential aspect of feminism according to bell hooks in All About Love. All About Love, in turn, can be used to critique the extent to which Gaudy Night is a feminist novel, as hooks herself discusses the impacts the feminist movement has on these inner demons.
Of Virginity and Violence
June 4, 2017
On Carter’s The Bloody Chamber
By Henrike Scholz
Carter combines the fairy tale, that most basic and innocent form of moral education, with pornography; material that also occupies the realm of fantasy, but for the antithetical purpose of eliciting erotic excitement. In doing so, she challenges the lessons about identity, gender and sexuality disseminated through both genres.
Marriage, Magic and Invisibility
June 4, 2017
On Shakespeare’s The Tempest
by Mabon Foo
The trio of Miranda, Caliban and Ariel, despite the differing individual relationships with Prospero, are relegated to positions of inferiority in part due to their connections with femininity. While both Miranda and Caliban are belittled in response to their uneasy symbolism with potential female power and authority, for Ariel, forced femininity is instead used to neutralize his potential threat.
“Hi non sunt homines”
May 30, 2017
On Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau
by Brandon Forys
To most, vivisection would certainly seem at odds with a humanizing process like personifying animals in our imagination. In the Island of Dr. Moreau, Wells portrays vivisection as a way to, in a sense, literally humanize animals, by physically and psychologically shaping them into humanoid forms through reshaping their bodies and conditioning them to follow laws.
A Heaven of Misery
May 30, 2017
On Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience
by Caleb Verma
In both of his “The Chimney Sweeper” poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake exposes the horror and corruption behind the culture that produces these young chimney sweeps, and delivers a critical commentary on how and why such atrocities and injustices are allowed to take place.
Power to the People
May 30, 2017
On Machiavelli’s The Prince
by Kate Tandberg
Any discussion of The Prince inevitably runs into the problem of Machiavelli’s true intention and beliefs. The purpose of this essay is not to understand why The Prince was written, but to understand what the role of the People is within it, whatever Machiavelli’s personal conviction may have been.
Looking for clothes but grasping at darkness
May 30, 2017
On Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
by Aaron Zhuo
This essay will focus on the use of composition to demonstrate the way that Wiene ‘shows’ as opposed to ‘tells’ meaning. In particular, the essay will explore the effect of the iris shot, camera proxemics and negative space as compositional techniques to direct attention towards the characters and create meaning through a focus on emotion.
Where Black Men Tell White Lies and Silence Turns Loud
May 30, 2017
On Whitehead’s The Intuitionist
by Sophia Turunesh Mufuruki
As Colson Whitehead tells the story of Lila Mae’s life in the dystopian elevator world of The Intuitionist, he explores the complexities of racism and religion by illuminating the invisible grounds in which they are rooted. Whitehead makes real those things that the reader may think are not.
Investigating the Death of the Author
May 30, 2017
On Paul Auster’s City of Glass
by Isaac Fairbairn
It should become apparent that the Barthesian murder of the author – as perpetrated by deconstructive criticism – is the central crime of this detective novel and in keeping with its formula, the reader and detective become jointly involved in a self-deconstructing journey which restores the natural order: of writer over language.
The Sound of Scandal
May 30, 2017
On Toni Morrison’s Jazz
by Eileen Chen
In parallel with the temptation-filled City, the motif of jazz alludes to the danger of indulging in desires, but simultaneously suggests that embracing and recognizing, rather than avoiding, that indulgence is what finally allows the possibility of reconciliation.
Guilty Women
May 29, 2017
On Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” and Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
by Lea Anderson
In her 1975 article, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” feminist filmmaker and theorist Laura Mulvey analyzes how scopophilia imposes narrative roles upon female figures in mainstream cinema. But scopophilia is not limited to film; four years after Mulvey’s article was published, author Angela Carter released “The Bloody Chamber,” a short story driven by scopophilia and male fantasy.
Where did Plato and Galileo search for truth?
May 29, 2017
On Plato and Galileo
By Archie Stapleton
Galileo literally gazes at the sun until he is blind, while Plato looks into his mind at a metaphorical sun, revealing the primary distinction between them in their search for epistemic and metaphysical truth. For Plato and Galilei, in the realm of epistemology, the distinction between inward and outward is evident, while in the metaphysical arguments the lines are blurred beyond recognition.