Machiavelli's treatment of ethics and morality is amoral. This is so because he simply talks about what it takes to be an effective leader. In no way is Machiavelli promoting immorality. He speaks of immorality acts in order for a ruler to serve the greater good of his people. He looks at polit...

The world of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is a world ruled by chance. From the very opening chapters, where a watchman is accidentally run over by a train at Moscow's Petersburg station, to the final, climactic scenes of arbitrary destruction when Levin searches for Kitty in a forest beset by lightning,...

Naturalism in Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" Naturalism is a sect of literature that endeavors to apply the scientific principles of detachment and objectivity to the study of human nature. It is a subset of realism, but does not focus primarily on literary technique. Its mai...

Iago is an almost subtle villain in Othello. At first glance Iago's character seems to be pure evil, however, such a villain would distract from the impact of the play and would be too stereotypical for an evil character. He does, however, possess the classic revenge motive behind all his actions, ...

Evil: The Covering Over the Divinity Within "No one who conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast and seeks to wrestle with them can expect to come through the struggle unscathed." -Dora (Complete Psychological Works) There exists an all powe...

The Pardoner's Tale is arguably the finest short narrative in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The tale of three men that attempt to kill Death, but instead die themselves is a story of exceptional intellect, moral, and humour. These three qualities are quite unsurprising considering the act...

Duality The theory of duality of personality is exhibited clearly in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment by the character Raskolnikov: Svidrigailov represents the cold, intellectual side of his personality and Sonia is a clear example of his humane, compassionate side. Let us examine these s...

Society Molds Monsters Society has a series of parameters and "ways of acting" according to the situation. If you don't act as you've been expected to, you get rejected and are catalogued as insane and seen as a strange creature. This was the case of Meursault, a man that didn...

Shakespeare's Hamlet is arguably one of the best plays known to English literature. It presents the protagonist, Hamlet, and his increasingly complex path through self discovery. His character is of an abnormally complex nature, the likes of which not often found in plays, and many different th...

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a strange novel that emphasizes a theme of individualism and the corruption that can arise as a result of another's influence. In this particular novel, we see this correlation directly; Dorian Gray is influenced and corrupted by Lord Henry Wotton. ...

The Stranger In The Stranger Albert Camus depicts the main character Meursault as an amoral, insensitive and callous individual. Though Meursault at times throughout the book shows the ability to understand one's feelings, he doesn't show much compassion towards anything. Also at times...

Richard is difficult to understand psychologically because, while he is clearly pwer-hungry and sadistic, the deep-rooted motivations for his malevolent hatred are hard to pinpoint. Some critics feel that Richard is not really a fully developed character in the way that Shakespeare's later character...

Niccolo Machiavelli Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian politician and political philosopher who is thought to be the founder of modern political science. He is most popular for his work The Prince in which he explains that the route to a successful reign is through deception or to whatever ...

A Motivational Analysis of Othello In the play, Othello, by Shakespeare, the motivation of Othello, as well as Iago, has been questioned by various critics. Can a man, heroic as Othello's character is depicted, fall so helplessly before the petty trickery of Iago? Did Iago lack sufficient ...

Culture in ancient times was defined as "the sum total of the equipment of the human individual, which enables him to be attuned to his immediate environment on the historical past on the other". It reflects in effect what humans have added to nature. It comprises the spiritual, material, ...

'An Inspector Calls' has been called a play of social criticism. What is being criticised and how does Priestley use character dramatic devices and structures to convey his point of view? Written in 1945 J.B Priestley`s "An inspector calls" is set almost four decades previous in 1912 at the heart...

When Joseph Conrad wrote "Heart of Darkness" he could not have envisioned director Francis ford Coppola's version of his work. Coppola transformed a story of a man sent to Africa to find a missing trader to the story of a Vietnam soldier sent to kill a rogue marine. He did so without...

A tragic play is one in which the protagonist dies through disaster evoked by a combination of personal faults and circumstances out with the character's control. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is true to this genre, depicting a noble, but flawed, character that is subject to outrageous ...

The Dominion of Evil The term "Jekyll and Hyde", now a part of our common language, can be found in most dictionaries. Random dictionary definitions of "Jekyll and Hyde" include: 1) "One who has quasi-schizophrenic, alternating phases of pleasantness an unpleasan...

Certain uncanny resemblances between Tom Robinson and Boo Radley's lives exist in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Often large groups of people misunderstand certain unusual individuals. Sometimes they stereotype the person; other times, they simply do not bother to find out the truth. When such ...

How Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone use technical aspects of filmmaking to create and disseminate meaning in the film "Natural Born Killers". "Natural Born Killers is an overblown and fantastically creative commentary on violence and the complicity of the media and the public&qu...

People¡¯s insecurity leads them to intimidate others for one reason, which is to feel inferior. When a situation arises with another person, courtesy is presented out of respect, especially in the presence of authority, but not all follow this to the same degree. It is the power of conformity that...

The Justification of a Life-Centered Perspective Santa Cruz is a city known for its beach access and huge redwoods. These redwoods have lately come into an environmental debate regarding their co-existence with the lime kiln, and the subsequent new growth dominance of the redwoods over the kil...

Although both Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman have admirable ambitions and dreams, the ways in which they strive to achieve their goals follow principles that lack any moral compass. The young, adventurous Jay desires a lifestyle of ambiance, prestige, wealth, and status. Most importantly Jay hopes to re...

Machiavelli's The Prince was a practical effort based on his worldly experience and observation of human nature. It was a work so simple in its idea that it was profoundly effective and has become a "cornerstone of modern political philosophy."(Chew 1) In order to understand how trul...