Historical Context Essays

  • The Historical and Colonial Context of Brian Friel’s Translations

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Historical and Colonial Context of Brian Friel’s Translations Regarded by many as Brian Friel’s theatrical masterpiece, Seamus Deane described Translations as “a sequence of events in history which are transformed by his writing into a parable of events in the present day” (Introduction 22). The play was first produced in Derry in 1980. It was the first production by Field Day, a cultural arts group founded by Friel and the actor Stephen Rea, and associated with Deane, Seamus Heaney and Tom

  • The Historical Context of Terrorism and Our Next Steps

    1119 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Historical Context of Terrorism and Our Next Steps As the horrific tragedy of September 11 settles into permanent corridors of our conscious life, our reactions as a society are manifold. There is shock, grief, anger and other emotions that we have not fully understood or found words to describe. As we search for explanations, our sages in government, the media and the academy try to help us articulate what we have experienced. We have been told that our innocence is gone, that the third

  • Historical Context of The Jewel in the Crown

    786 Words  | 2 Pages

    Historical Context of The Jewel in the Crown The historical context of Paul Scott's novel - The Jewel in the Crown - serves to explain and interpret a tragic love story between two characters; Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. The love story serves to clarify and interpret the social/racial and historical significance of the time period in which it is set - 1942.  Their love - a product as well as a victim of the time and events - is an allegory for the relationship between England and India - the

  • A Passage to India:An Examination of the Work in a Historical Context

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    truth about British Colonialism. The novel aids greatly in the ability to interpret events of the time as well as understand the differences between the social discourse of then and now. To fully understand A Passage to India and its cultural and historical significance one must first understand the world in which it was written, and the man who wrote it. Forster published the novel in 1924 England, a place much different than the England of today. At the time the sun still didn’t set on the British

  • Puerto Rico in a Historical and Cultural Context

    1681 Words  | 4 Pages

    Puerto Rico in a Historical and Cultural Context By tracing the roots of Puerto Rican development from the Spanish invasion to today, one can see the influence of the dominant power in the interaction between different races of Puerto Rico, effecting how they viewed each other, and themselves. Isabel’s family, which is composed of Spanish and Corsican immigrants, reflects the attitudes that helped form Puerto Rican racial divisions. While she speaks from the point of view of a member of the upper

  • A Revolution of Values: The Promise of Multicultural

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    and segregation first hand. Her writing explains how it was to live during these times and also exhibits how her experiences effected her emotionally. Hook’s essay successfully achieves her purpose because of the credibility instilled by the historical context of her writing and expert opinions and her appeals to pathos through the use of personal experience. In Hook’s writing she had one specific purpose. She wanted to help people understand the depth and complexities of racial injustice. She

  • Assasination Vacation

    1427 Words  | 3 Pages

    presidential assassins, most people will not use the word amusing and assassins in the same sentence; however; Dan Danbom, a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, proved otherwise and stated that Vowell has succeeded in creating a “humorous” historical context by writing “I can confidently say that Sarah Vowel’s Assassination Vacation is the most amusing book you’ll read this year about presidential assassinations” (Danbom). Sarah Vowel’s purpose of Assassination Vacation is to allow readers to have

  • Modernism vs Postmodernism

    2440 Words  | 5 Pages

    'Purity' meant self-definition, and the enterprise of self-criticism in the arts became one of self-definition, with a vengeance.' (Greenberg, 'Modernist Painting', Art in Theory, p.755) 'Greenberg's aesthetics are the terminal point of [an] historical trajectory. There is another history of art, however, a history of representations ... for me, and some other erstwhile conceptualists, conceptual art opened onto that other history, a history which opens onto history. Art practice was no longer

  • Conflict and Harmony in The Tempest

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    confusion.  To illustrate this idea best one must examine the historical context upon which The Tempest is based.  Because this play was published in the early 1600s, controversial cultural and political events undoubtedly surface.  Furthermore, by analyzing the sub-plots in the play, the reader has a better understanding of Shakespeare's purpose for including multi-plots, which is to create conflicts that all have a different context but coexist to create a more natural harmony.   Finally, one must

  • Margit Stange’s Literary Criticism of Chopin’s The Awakening

    1358 Words  | 3 Pages

    Chopin gave Edna, Margit Stange evaluates The Awakening in the context of the feminist ideology of the late nineteenth century. Specifically, she argues that Edna is seeking what Chopin’s contemporaries denoted self-ownership, a notion that pivoted on sexual choice and “voluntary motherhood” (276). Stange makes a series of meaningful connections between Kate Chopin’s dramatization of Edna Pontellier’s “awakening” and the historical context of feminist thought that Stange believes influenced the novel

  • Emily Bronte and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

    616 Words  | 2 Pages

    style. Her poetry is also unique in that it has a personal flair not typically seen in previous poets. It is a very personal reflection of what she is enduring at the moment. That interpretation, however, is not entirely clear without the historical context.  "A little while, a little while, The noisy crowd are barred away; I can sing and I can smile A little while I've a holyday!" (WH 296) could be interpreted as any number of things without the reader being fully aware that at this point in

  • Literature - Postmodern Literary Criticism

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    totality. "Truth itself is a contingent affair and assumes a different shape in the light of differing local urgencies and convictions associated with them" (Fish 207). Critical knowledge has no choice but to exercise complicity with the cultural historical context in which it is hopelessly mired. As Lee Patterson states, "Even scholars who are dealing with chronologically and geographically distant materials are in fact examining a cultural matrix within which they themselves stand, and the understandings

  • Contrasting Worlds in Dover Beach and Quiet Work

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    poems of Matthew Arnold always seem to portray two contrasting worlds. In this essay I will examine his poems more deeply and show what these two worlds are, what they express. I will also attempt to see his work in relation to its social and historical context. One of the two worlds to be found in Arnold's poems is a disappointing or pessimistic world, while the other is a heavenly, ideal world. In most o f his poems the disappointing world is the real world, the actual world. In 'Quiet Work' he complains

  • Western Heritage

    1139 Words  | 3 Pages

    influences have spread across the globe through time (Headrick, 1981). In order to understand how these influences or principles have spread, it must also be figured out how these principles developed. Again here, it must be asserted that the historical context is of vital importance because it reveals the manner in which some actions that took place at particular points in time had formed consensus notions. It is these notions that were carried through and developed into what have become western democratic

  • Social Construction Of Race

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    one’s life chances. These are the chances of getting opportunities and gaining experience for progression. The social construction of race is based on privileges and availability of resources. Looking at society and the formation of race in a historical context, whites have always held some sort of delusional belief of a “white-skin privilege.” This advantage grants whites an advantage in society whether one desires it or not. This notion is often commonly referred to as reality. In order for one

  • The Men Who Knew Two Much A Compairson of Hitchocks Classic Original and Remake

    1708 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many works of art can be considered artifacts that hold volumes of information regarding the culture of the people that created them and the historical context in which they lived. Films are also treasures of culture, filled with clues and insights into the attitudes and perceptions of the people of the day. While documentary films obviously present a historical record of people and events, dramatic fictional movies can also reveal the same. Comparing the main characters in Hitchcock's 1934 The

  • The Power of Women in Richard III

    1485 Words  | 3 Pages

    of Women in Richard III In Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Richard the Third, the historical context of the play is dominated by male figures. As a result, women are relegated to an inferior role. However, they achieve verbal power through their own discourse of religion and superstition. In the opening speech of Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 1-30 Lady Anne orients the reader to the crucial political context of the play and the metaphysical issues contained within it (Greenblatt, 509). Lady Anne curses

  • Submissive and Evil Women of The Holy Bible

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    see why our religious society could interpret the Bible this way: Let a woman learn in silence with all submission, and        do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. We must look at the historical context of the passage. Written approximately 2000 years ago, many parts of the Bible seem outdated. The passage portrays a time when women were property and were “trained” to be weak and fragile. This stopped only about 30 years ago. Before this

  • Comparing the Theme of Technology Versus Nature in Frankenstein and Neuromancer

    4534 Words  | 10 Pages

    more, more at any price that has led to the despondent conclusions of both works. Indispensable to understanding the complexity of the problem of technology, in both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and William Gibson's Neuromancer, is the historical context in which the two were written. Whereas Frankenstein was written in a period of dramatic change - that of the Industrial revolution, in Neuromancer, Gibson echoes the opinion of economists who believe that we are currently experiencing the beginning

  • Imagery and Themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh

    1133 Words  | 3 Pages

    Historical Context - Imagery and Themes Rosenberg notes that Gilgamesh is probably the world's first human hero in literature (27). The Epic of Gilgamesh is based on the life of a probably real Sumerian king named Gilgamesh, who ruled about 2600 B.C.E. We learned of the Gilgamesh myth when several clay tablets written in cuneiform were discovered beginning in 1845 during the excavation of Nineveh (26). We get our most complete version of Gilgamesh from the hands of an Akkadian priest, Sin-liqui-unninni