Academic Essays
This section contains my academic writing. I enjoy writing essays when I am passionate about the subject. This portfolio contains my favorite essays.
Annotation of Sylvia Plath's "Tulips"
In her poem “Tulips,” Sylvia Plath describes an instance in which a hospital patient receives a bouquet of red tulips. The tulips challenge the emptiness of the room, and force the narrator to confront her desire to be “utterly empty.” Plath creates metaphors to represent contrasting images and emotions in her poem. Plath’s use of color, contrast, and juxtaposition work to create a piece detailed enough to display her complex emotions.
Brutus V. Antony: A Look at the Speeches in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
In his play “Julius Caesar,” Shakespeare explores how different tones, rhetoric, and emotions can sway an audience towards or against justice. During Julius Caesar’s funeral, after he was killed by a group of senators including Brutus, both Brutus and Antony speak of Caesar and his character. Both character’s touch on the leader’s life and death, but the ways in which they present their words produce drastically different outcomes and emotions from the Romans. Antony succeeds in his effort to win over the Roman people by appealing to the masses, alienating Brutus, showing real emotion, and using effective rhetoric. Brutus fails due to his dismissal of the commoners, tendency to talk only of his own honor and esteem, lack of emotion, and his irrational attempt to justify his actions.
Lear's Greatest Fault: Condemning Cordelia. How Fate Was Set in Stone in Act 1.1 of Shakespeare's "King Lear"
From the moment Lear asks Cordelia to praise him and his royalness, he falls, far beyond any abandonment he has ever known. He is disregarded by his older daughters, and by his people. He is exposed to the elements and left to suffer. In the last few scenes, Lear is restored to a quiet dignity, brought back into the world of care by which he was expelled by his own tragic flaws. Cordelia bends to kiss him, and he breaks from his madness shortly. It is here, as he talks to his daughter, that he understands why what he has done was wrong. “King Lear” showcases the consequences of being conceited, and at the same time the play defines loyalty and love. Throughout his troubles and leading up to his death, Lear accepts and recognizes his faults.
A Look at Post-Colonial Literature
Is it possible to define yourself in one word? In both early post-colonial literature and in newspapers today, we see quick, one word definitions used to portray anyone unlike us, whether it’s by race, ethnicity, gender, or nation. “Othering” occurs often and is a type of limiting categorization that hinders opportunities to connect with each other. It also limits our understanding of how cultures collide and create overlap to the point where boundaries cease to exist and categories are imaginary. What happens to the people who do not fit neatly into categories? How do we interpret our own identities? Authors Paul Scott and Gloria Anzaldua explore what it means to be caught in a limbo between race, nation, and culture by presenting people who face hardships because of their hybridity.
A Culture Erased
In Zitkala-Ša’s short story “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” American Indian children are not granted the freedoms often associated with childhood. Their white teachers expect them to seamlessly transition into a new culture and forfeit their own. Zitkala-Ša’s story begins with the scene of eight American Indian children who board a train to travel west and visit the “land of red apples,” where they are to start schooling and learn the ways of the palefaces. The Indian children who board the train to “the land of red apples” experience discrimination and ridicule for the first time. The train ride episode illustrates the Indian assimilation process, which focuses more on eradicating Indian culture than on teaching the children.
Diving Into The Jungle
In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposes the truth about meatpacking plants in the early 1900s, including the horrible treatment, low wages, and long hours of immigrants new to America. The ruthless corporations who fail America are everywhere, from the heads of political parties to the lows of city alleyways. Author Upton Sinclair illustrates how the lies of the “American Dream” crumble apart. We follow characters Jurgis and his wife Ona through their tragic eye-opening experiences living as Lithuanian immigrants in the city of Chicago. In this essay, I connect the ideas from this book to the inequalities that immigrants, the working class, non-english speakers, and many Americans, have all faced and still face today.
The Film Techniques of "12 Angry Men"
On the material level of film, camera work is a very important part that plays many roles in defining a shot. Camera angle, height, distance, movement, and different lens types work together to create different emotions in film. In “12 Angry Men,” we see the use of a wide-angle, panoramic view that is derived from the director Sidney Lumet’s unique perspective from his previous television works and career. The film revolves around one stuffy and sweltering room, and this distance illuminates the idea that we only know merely the surface of each man.
