The 1975 film, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” directed by Milos Forman, is an award-winning masterpiece based on the novel by Ken Kesey of the same title. It follows the lives of obscurely-diagnosed patients in a mental hospital, posing an overarching question of “what really defines mental instability?” The incoming patient, R. P. McMurphy…
Category: Critical Analyses
An Image of the Modern World through the Poetry of Eliot and Yeats
The poetry of T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats is harmonious in its attempt to capture the chaotic state of their modern world. The poets do not appear to present two separate senses of the era, but to write in conversation with one another, co-creating a picture of their time that can be seen through the…
Mary Shelley’s “Primordial Vision” in Frankenstein
Of the many mythic elements within Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, notions of creation, a lost Eden and the danger of acquired knowledge arise most prominently upon initial inspection, as the author herself directly references the classic myth of Prometheus and the Miltonian work, Paradise Lost. These references demonstrate within Shelley a unique ability to comprehend the…
Chasing the Fruit and the Preference of Innocence: Contextual Influences of William Blake and Mary Wollstonecraft on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
In the wake of John Locke’s philosophical reintroduction of ‘tabula rasa’ into English society, a popular discourse arose on the subject of proper education for children—those whose minds were completely formidable and dependent on the careful instruction of both morals and knowledge-based intellect for their successful development and progression through life.1 Among the critics who…
Blindness in Oedipus the King
The exchange between Oedipus and Tiresias in lines 299-462 of Oedipus the King reveals several comparisons that center on a theme of blindness. It is evident in the world and also through the text that there can be varying degrees of blindness, or visual impairment. Words to describe one’s vision often involve ideas of light,…
Disguise and Identity in The Odyssey
Throughout the numerous adventures annotated in Homer’s The Odyssey, one theme pertaining to the main character and hero, Odysseus, stands out prominently within the text. It is the concept of disguise, a feature that marks Odysseus’ famous journey from Kalypso’s island all the way to the last moment of his homecoming. This theme is driven…
A Quick Thought about Hesiod’s Works and Days
In the leading paragraphs of Hesiod’s Works and Days, the author presents a situation of discord within his family; a conflict between himself (Hesiod) and his brother, Perses. By opening the narrative for the audience in medias res, Hesiod indicates that both parties have already spent a considerable amount of time justifying their arguments. While…
Symbolism in Oedipus the King
With an applause, the satisfied viewers steadily rose to their feet and turned toward the great stone doorways at the Theater of Dionysus. The rumble of voices grew louder as the crowd’s thoughts shifted from their inward pensiveness toward outward discussion. “Oh the wretched manner in which he suffered!” One Athenian would say. “The fates…
Perspective in Euripides’ Medea
Throughout the first half of Medea, Euripides presents the audience with an ambiguous understanding of whose actions are justified within the familial dispute between Medea and Jason. While the chorus agrees that Jason was wrong in his action toward his family, the nurse’s concern about Medea’s emotional stability—“her savage mood and the willful ways of…
Coming-of-Age in The Odyssey of Homer, Book I
In the first book of Homer’s The Odyssey, it is evident to the audience that Telemachos, the son of Odysseus, does not embody the necessary characteristics of a man—courage, fierceness, and strength to stand against the impostors in his home. He lacks even the strength to stand up to his own mother, aspects which all…