... mean, however, that the perfect life is one free from illusions, hopes and dreams. Ideally through the process of disillusionment one will learn the importance of their dreams and hold on to the ones that make them most productive. In Hemingway’s novel, The , the main character Santiago needs this rite of passage to define and seal his destiny, and to truly understand and believe in himself. It is through this journey that he establishes limits and boundaries on the illusions he holds onto ritualistically, and yet opens himself up to the larger possibilities of life at the same time. He goes through very obvi ...

... search for new forms of comfort and security, in the respective forms of Sybil and Esme. In ^A perfect day for a bananafish,^ Muriel and her husband Seymour have different perspectives of life. Muriel is a carefree and complacent person, while her husband is quite strange and slightly paranoid. His paranoia is illustrated when he looses it in the hotel elevator, ^I have two normal feet and I can^t see the slightest God-damned reason anyone should stare at them.^ Muriel, however, is unacquainted with Seymour^s wild breakdowns. She is rather confident that Seymour is perfectly sane as she reports to her mot ...

... makes many mistakes at the end of his lifetime. The want of an untroubled life of second childhood without the responsibilities of a well respected king is the main mistake Lear makes. The slippage of his self- image finally causes him to go mad (Dominic 233). Before Lear goes mad he realizes the state in which he is turning when he states, “My wits begin to turn.”( III.ii.67). Lear’s suffering is primarily mental and climaxes when Regan throws him out in the storm (Bruhl 317). The main mistakes appears “ as he [Lear] enters the phantasmagoria [fantastic imagery, as in a dream] of his ...

... of which can reveal the tragic character of the play. The play, “Antigone” offers many clues that the tragic character is in fact, Antigone. Antigone has a tragic flaw which is her arrogance, or the fact that she chooses to bury her brother, Polynices, even though the law prohibits it due to the fact that he is a traitor. Her downfall is her death which comes after she buries Polynices, she is caught and brought to Creon, whose is king and son Haimon is to marry her. He sentences her to be banished and locked away in a cave in which she hangs herself and later Haimon also kills himself. The tra ...

... time period in which this novel was written, the Great Depression. To make money during the Great Depression many people had to travel around to work which did not allow companionship to develop because they always moved around to different places and lacked a true home. Another cause of loneliness during the Great Depression is discrimination because of age, race, or sex. Loneliness is demonstrated in this novel by many of its characters. One character, Crooks has to live in an isolated shack next to the barn because he is black, his only companions are his books. He shows his loneliness when Lennie and Cand ...

... monarchy. By the end of the seventeenth century England would see the a loss of the monarch's powers in England's "Glorious Revolution." The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the development of "absolute" monarchies and a more tightly-centralized national government. Many historians regard the growth of the "absolute monarchy" as the origin of the modern state. Because this growth in absolute and centralized power of the government and the monarchy, this age is called the "Age of Absolutism" (1660-1789), beginning with Louis XIV and ending with the French Revolution. Crises and tragedies primarily motiva ...

... of their veins. From that day of the dance, a meeting was to take place involving both gangs in which they will once and for all settle the rivalry in a rumble. Alas, tragedy strikes and strikes hard at that. The leaders of both gangs fall to the ground. Riff by the hands of Bernardo, then Bernardo by the hands of Tony. Angry and confused Maria still retains her love for Tony even after her only brother was slain, but little did they know the jealous Chino had caught on to the lovers. In order to escape the justice of the law Tony had to make his escape but first found aid among his friends. A message was sent ...

... spiritual love demonstrates the drastically weakened religious values behind chivalry. An interesting parallel to is the story of original sin in the Garden of Eden. Gawain’s temptation correlates to the temptation of Adam, which is rooted in the sins of the flesh. The women in the story seem to accentuate the downfall of Gawain, which mirrors the downfall of Arthur’s court, as well as man’s fall from grace in the garden. Originally, the first duty of a knight was to be at the service of his church. However, with the rise of courtly love, knights began to give their devotion to their mistress rather ...

... big enough for you to be Luke and the kitchen table and an old sheet dark enough to be a tent in the forest. Your world was the backyard and it was all you needed. With your pink portable tape player, Debbie Gibson sang back up to you and everyone wanted a skirt like the Material Girl and a glove like Michael Jackson's. Today, we are the ones who sing along with Bruce Springstein and The Bangles perfectly and have no idea why. We recite lines with the Ghostbusters and still look to The Goonies for a great adventure. We flip through T.V. stations and stop at The A Team and Knight Rider and Fame and laugh with T ...

... attracted to the outside realm. He ends up feeling uncertain between both of his little worlds, and not belonging to either one of them. This struggle between Sinclair’s two worlds is evident when Sinclair is about 10 years old. While playing one day with some fellow schoolmates, Franz Kromer, an older kid, joins them. In an effort to impress the older boy and his schoolmates, Sinclair makes up a story in which he and another unnamed accomplice stole a bag of apples from a fellow neighbor. Although the story is untrue, Kromer threatens Sinclair with exposure if Sinclair does not pay him off. Unable to pay ...