Michael Weatherly

Revenge tragedy was a popular form of theater among the playwrights and the populace of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. According to Broude, revenge tragedy is “fundamentally un-Christian, based upon a barbaric ethic derived from Senecan tragedy and the Anglo-Saxon blood feud” (1975: 39). The word revenge in renaissance period had a meaning near to retribution, and revenge plays were concerned mainly with divine retribution (cf. Ibid.: 39). During Jacobean period, some conventions were…

“Rikki-Tikki knew he was a young mongoose and it made him all the more pleased to think that he had managed to escape a blow from behind.” (pg. ) Rikki and I share multiple human qualities, one of them is bravery. In my soccer season, I stepped up to be the goalie when no one else wanted to. The theme of the fictional story Rikki-tikki-tavi by Rudyard Kipling is bravery can conquer your fears. Rikki-tikki is a brave and curious character in this story. “It gave him confidence in himself, and…

The Easter Rising began on Easter Monday, 24th of April 1916, and lasted for six days. The Easter Rising was an insurrection against British rule in Ireland and took place in Ireland's capital city, Dublin. The Easter Rising of 1916 is believed to be the most compelling single event in modern Irish history. The number of plays, novels and poems centred around the Easter Rising are endless. For the purpose of this essay I will discuss how the Easter Rising is represented in both Sean O' Casey's…

Everyone sees the play Hamlet as this great tragedy and a quest for revenge, and it is one, but it’s also filled with so much deception. The characters lie to each other, they spy and create plans to find out information. Their use of hidden yet obvious deception just goes to show how rotton human beings can be with each other and how easily they can turn on one another to further themselves to get what they want. It eventually shows that by using all your energy towards a plan of revenge, can…

Though brief and comedic, Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” offers insight into the basic ideas of his philosophy about freedom vs confinement. Sartre is able to portray the applicability of this philosophy to daily life though the commonplace setting of the work and the diversity of the basic character types found throughout the play. The main principles behind this one of Sartre’s philosophies are detailed through the three main characters, Cradeau Inez and Estelle, and their confinement to a…

The romantic comedy, Much Ado About Nothing a play by William Shakespeare, showcases how deception can be viewed in more than one manner. These deceptions rely on the sender, and their tricks and lies can come with good intentions. This play celestially reveals how characters are deceived and how the tricks uncover their emotions, and why they behave in a certain manner. The use of lies and deception in Much Ado About Nothing highlights the idea that tricks and plans are not just for villains…

Throughout Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the author suggests that when people are mourning a loved one, they can express their love for them in ruinous ways. The belief of people acting in regretful methods because of intense love, is another concept that is reflected in the story of the two love birds. Romeo and Juliet conveys an idea of destructive behavior that is caused by impassioned love, when Romeo exhibits disastrous actions when he kills Tybalt, Paris, and even himself.…

The play Look Back in Anger written by John Osborne, invites its readers to think about the changes of the postwar ages. It mirrors the British mood in those days by hate and dislike among its characters. As a realistic play it can be perceived as disagreeable and also associated to protest. Changes of stance, different points of view and a mixture of senses and reactions make up the plot. There is a kind of war of hurting words between people, provoked by differences in social class, painful…

In The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan is cheating on his wife, Daisy with his mistress Myrtle. In the relationship, Myrtle uses her sexuality to attract Tom and he abuses her by breaking her nose. A reader today with a Marxist and a reader with a feminist perspective may interpret their relationship differently. Marxist literary criticism focuses on the struggle between the lower and upper class and the issues of power and money in literature. Readers with this point of view would perhaps look for…

childhood he portrayed the life of the gangster from his childhood perspective and started Goodfellas with the line: "As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster.". In a way he painted a portrait of gangster royalty just like Velasquez did. What this did in the film itself could be the same thing that happened in this film, it introduced instability in a previously stable system of representation, or at least it seemed like a stable system of representation, but there are…