According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American Scholar is one whose individual character is split. The Emersonian character is made up of many different parts, therefore influenced by several aspects of everyday life. As Emerson states, "Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer...

Has there ever been someone in your life that you are supposed to care about, but you find it hard to get close to this person because of his or her decisions? In the short story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin a similar story is told about a brother who finds it hard to care for an...

Taxi drivers, we see them everyday and can regard them as any other day-to-day worker. However, more than likely, society generally thinks of them negatively. For example, there are commentaries that recommend being careful when riding cabs, especially at night, because cabbies can easily seize the ...

My emotional anguish has become my physical pain. Am I imagining these physical symptoms I am having? Am I causing these symptoms? How do I get rid of them? How do I make others believe they really do exist? On Friday night after the Knicks vs. Nets basketball game in Madison Square Garden, I ...

Separated by age and vastly different times, both Dangerous Liaisons and Cruel Intentions relay a social prejudice towards women that are identical despite contrasting setting details. In each time period, a preconception of a "real" lady's character drives the female characters to wear "masks" of c...

The Other Sister, produced by Mario Iscovich and Alexandra Rose was a romantic comedy. The characters staring in this film were Carla Tate (Juliet Lewis), who was a slightly mentally challenged young woman. The overprotective mother Elizabeth, played by Diane Keaton. Carla's father was pl...

HUGGING ... The Celestial Language of Love ... A hug delights and warms and charms, it must be why we all have arms (-anonymous). Ever wonder why God gave us arms? Perhaps to be able to hug the one you love and show him or her your compassion is one of the possible answer. Hugging is a beautiful ...

THE PORTRAYAL OF MARIJUANA THROUGHOUT FILM HISTORY Since the beginning of movie making, filmmakers have tried to mirror society. The counterculture has always been a favorite issue, including marijuana use. As early as the 1920's, marijuana has made many cameo appearances in films as well ...

Losing Face Everyone has experienced losing face. I can remember as a kid, being caught in a lie and trying desperately to weasel my way out without looking stupid. There were times as an adult, I would deny having problems at my job, too worri...

Ecstasy Sometimes when I'm watching the news or flipping through newspapers I stop and realize how many sick and deranged people there are in this world. If you open a newspaper or turn on the news any day of the week there is always some situation going on that just makes you sick or mak...

This book is a fiction, it's a memory story: a man in his sixties looks back on his boyhood of the middle class boy recalling the events that took place on a summer visit to an aristocratic family in Norfolk in the 1900's. The author uses double narrative, the young Leo's actions told b...

After Tennessee Williams had finished his first version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and showed it to Elia Kazan, his long-time collaborator and the man who was to direct the play, Kazan suggested that he change the final act of the play in three ways. The changes Kazan suggested were first that Big Dad...

Why Death€"Nor the use of the poetic techniques of point of view, tone, and metaphor is not to be feared, at least according to Emily Dickinson It is often said that death, because it was a more constant presence in the lives and living rooms of the inhabitants of Early American N...

About seventeen months ago I had one of the most frightening experiences of my life. I spent the night in jail. This entire event could have easily been avoided. My parents, as well as the police, and I over-reacted to the situation. Being sent to jail, for anyone who has not been, is not an exc...

All the guests were seated around the table when Muriel Arbuthnot strode into the room, clutching the morning newspaper. She extracted a long white envelope from the pile and handed it to her oldest chum. A puzzled look came over Anna Clairmonts face. Who could possible know that she was spending...

It's 2050. Fifteen years prior, NASA discovered a meteor shower storm heading towards earth. Researcher's studying this storm reported that this was not like any other storm and that upon impact; earth could be destroyed of all life forms. A lot of this talk was kept in secret to keep t...

As we encounter the story of "Sonny's Blues", on the surface it is the tale of two inner city brothers, and their perpendicular paths through life. The author, James Baldwin, propels us through this story with intrigue and suspense. However, the most inviting aspect of this story is t...

It's 2050. Fifteen years prior, NASA discovered a meteor shower storm heading towards earth. Researcher's studying this storm reported that this was not like any other storm and that upon impact; earth could be destroyed of all life forms. A lot of this talk was kept in secret to keep t...

A Victim of Circumstance: The Popularity of the American Gangster in the 30s "You can dish it out, but you got so you can't take it no more." Caesar Enrico Bandello "I ain't so tough." Tom Powers "Do it first. Do it yourself. And keep on doin' it." ...

Modern Day Parallels to Macbeth Shakespeare Macbeth was a very greedy and unhappy man who was very susceptible to pressure. Everyone in todays modern world fits the Macbeth mold in one sense or another. There is not a living being that has never fallen prey to peer pressure, greed or jealous...

Has this ever happened to you: You wanted something really bad, so you did every little thing so correct and so perfect and you led yourself so high and so far. Yet one simple mistake caused everything you worked so hard for to disintegrate, like there was no point you even tried? Well, this is iron...

Natural Born Killers In 1994, Oliver Stone left movie-goers and critiques alike in awe. His film, Natural Born Killers, was released to theatres all over America. The story, originally written by Quentin Tarantino, was one of two mass-murders who go on a killing spree across the country. At a g...