Many people today feel the celebration of St. Patrick's Day is mostly associated with corned beef, cabbage and lots of beer. Some would add that parades including step dancing and music filled with the blare of bagpipes are integral to the festival as well. These characteristics are true, bu...

Ephedra As you have recently heard, there have been some deaths and injuries where the dietary supplement ephedra was involved. The most recent and most publicized was the death of the Orioles pitcher, Steve Bechler. Twenty-three year old Bechler died of a heat stroke after a mild work out. ...

` Known as the" Comedy of Glams", "that play", "Scottish business", "the nameless play", or just "unmentionable", the play macbeth continues to have a curse surrounding its name and performance. Macbeth is an incredibly dark drama, full of witchcraft, ghosts, bloodshed and murder. First performed f...

A likely Candidate? Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the "monster", lived and studied in nineteenth century Europe. He grew up in a modest family and lived a happy and uneventful childhood. Eager to broaden his horizons, he studied and read constantly throughout his younger yea...

The plague known as the "Black Death," hit sporadically throughout all of Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The rich were able to flee the plague due to their wealth but, because most of the people that lived in Europe were peasants, millions died unable to flee the plag...

Although the female characters in Frankenstein are not given significant importance in a direct role, their influence upon Victor Frankenstein drives the entire plot. Victor's descent into madness begins immediately after his mother's death. Prior to his mother's death he led an ideal life as Vic...

In Edger Allen Poe's poem "For Annie" it illustrates Poe's life as being an illness, which has finally come to an end. For example, on lines 29 & 30 Poe writes, "With a fever called "Living" That burned in my brain". It's odd how Poe reverses the ways o...

Although the female characters in Frankenstein are not given significant importance in a direct role, their influence upon Victor Frankenstein drives the entire plot. Victor's descent into madness begins immediately after his mother's death. Prior to his mother's death he led an ideal life as Vict...

Montague Summers believes "The Vampire is...a man of foul, gross, and selfish passions...delighting in cruelty and blood." It is clear that there are all sorts of different criteria by which one can judge exactly what a Vampire is, especially since the existence of Vampires is greatly doub...

Around the year 542 AD a great plague came to Constantinople that so gripped the city and eventually the rest of Europe that it has altered the course of history completely. The plague reached Constantinople, the capital of Rome, during the reign of Emperor Justinian, 15 years after he took power. W...

Mozart was one of the greatest composers who ever lived, and yet, he did not realize financial success during his life. Today, that would be nearly impossible. Mozart's life was very different from the world of today. The general setting was quite opulent. He often performed in palaces and mansi...

Donna White is a former supporter of euthanasia. She had developed coronary artery disease and often thought about suicide, especially when her pain was incredibly intense. Fortunately for her, help found her before she became another statistic. A care facility heard about her plot to commit suicide...

Criticizing (or Praising) the Author An author may never know if their creation will be popular, liked, or just plain forgotten, but they can rely on one simple fact, that no matter what eventually someone is going to read their book and criticize it in one way or another. There are many differ...