Written by Xiang Zhang for Prof. Bryan Sentes The poem “Sudbury, Night” by Armand Garnet Ruffo takes place in Sudbury, an industrial city famous for its mining activities. It is the speaker’s childhood memory of his family travelling to Sudbury on a Saturday night to watch the slag pour. Interestingly enough, this event is remembered so that different subjects concerning our perception of environmental issues are treated. First, the poem’s imagery reveals the poet’s exasperation apropos our passive reaction to…
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Written by Victoria Ledsham for Prof. Mary Gossage Willie Nelson described country music as “three chords and the truth”, while Lou Reed stated that if music “has more than three chords, it’s jazz.” Two completely different musical genres can be distinguished by a single chord. However, this contrast is only a glimpse into the power of the device. A chord is a musical term that refers to a group of two or more notes sounding together. Chords are typically triads,…
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Written by Maxime Masson for Prof. Christine Southmayd Throughout history, armed conflicts have arisen between individuals and countries, in some cases for political and economic power. During the nineteenth century, authors and artists attempted to describe the consequences of the Napoleonic Wars through print and art. In his famous novel War and Peace, the Russian writer, Tolstoy, evaluates the pros and cons of battle while giving a novelistic account of the effect of war on the lives of various Russian…
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Written by Maxime Masson for Prof. Evelyne Hertel In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison depicts, through effective characterization and description, how slavery in the United States led to the loss of individuality within the black population. Upon arriving in the free state of Ohio, Baby Suggs begins to understand the unfathomable truth: she is the sole owner of her body. Slaveholders, such as Schoolteacher, attempt to control the minds and bodies of their slaves and eliminate any trace of selfhood….
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Written by Florence Yee for Prof. Marie-Thérèse Blanc Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid”, tells the story of a young mermaid and her attempts to end the segregation between her life and her human love interest, the prince. The protagonist’s character development as she overcomes the challenges of the quest pattern, the narrative structure of a hero’s journey, makes this tale far more complex than Perrault’s or the Grimms’. Her love, agency and afterlife play imperative roles…
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Written by Noam Barsheshat for Prof. Marie-Thérèse Blanc In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane, the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel, is under the influence of two conflicting forces throughout her time at various institutions: a form of proto-feminism and a fairly conventional view of Christianity. However, Brontë manages to reconcile feminism and Christianity by presenting a more spiritual form of Christianity as a way of empowering Jane. Through her conflicts with various men―specifically, Mr. Brocklehurst, Mr. Rochester and…
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Written by Frédérique Dignard for Prof. Gina Granter A dichotomy is defined as “a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). In other words, a dichotomy separates individuals of different degrees into two groups of different kinds. In many cases, the first step to make such a dichotomy is to use the language in renaming one of the groups. Thereby the distinction is clearer, and the remaining steps to make the dichotomy complete, which…
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