Through the eyes of an artist creating art is to go on a journey of self-discovery, which can be deeply personal and or spiritual. The ‘Mecca’ that is spoken of in this play represents the revelation of Miss Helen’s spiritual goal and personal fulfillment through rough challenges she had to face and the courage she needed to have to continue on her path to freedom. Through creativity and exploration she can achieve the freedom that was long desired by Miss Helen.
Miss Helen is spiritually comforted by her artistic expression rather than her religion. Miss Helen devoted her life to her faith, “which brought her to church every Sunday” until one day she confessed to Dominee Marius that it was all a big lie. Throughout her childhood years and years being married to Stefanus she always felt trapped in the village, being forced to be the same as all the other village women. Miss Helen was scared her husband’s death would leave her alone in her own prison of emptiness. However, she experienced a force so strong within her deepest soul it could not be ignored, a revelation when the Dominee lit the candle after Stefanus’s funeral. The light of the candle gave her the assurance that her life can actually be filled with light if only she breaks away from the binds of her oppressive false faith, and only
…show more content…
Miss Helen has a slight different perspective of her “Road to Mecca”, her journey is one of spiritual kind. Her “Road to Mecca” is made of cement and glass materials which are arranged all over her yard, bright and lifeless figures such as owls, wise men and camels, other bird and mermaids, which all represents something more than just sculptures to Helen, they symbolized the conflicts she experienced in her environment and her desire for new found freedom, and the celebration of
There is more to this story than just the interesting story of Paul and the drama that is his life. This critical analysis aims at uncovering some of the aspects of this piece of literature such as the style of writing, the genre, the narrator’s point of view, the
Theodosia claims that her father is sincerely an admirable, honest, and innocent man. As the author, Henry Brands, mentions, “Theo idolizes her father from the moment she can express herself” (7). She acknowledges that one of the factors
John, a missionary, for the first time she is the little girl lost in the woods. St. John is very passionate about his work as a missionary in India, which is what he is home prepping for. Once the reader gets to know St. John he is a hard and cold man, who focuses on one thing and that is marrying a beautiful woman and taking her with him to be his missionary wife. This makes the reader and Jane ignore the fact that he is handsome, blonde, and blue-eyed. Now to focus on that Jane came into St. John’s life poor, starving and alone.
As his journey is told through poetry, each specific depiction of punishment, aside from eliciting a disgusted emotional response out of the reader, is symbolic towards the overall meaning of Alighieri’s motivation. Duality is a prominent
In her society, it is the woman that is left to be alone in her own thoughts, shown through her husband’s freedom to leave the house and not come back until he wants to versus her confinement to the house. This is reflected through the various “hedges and walls and gates that lock”, making her stay isolated in the house. Ultimately, the character is overtaken by the imagination and through the
Historical criticism strives to cognize a literary work by examining the social, cultural, and intellectual context that essentially includes the artist’s biography and milieu. Historical critics are more concerned with guiding readers through the use of identical connotation rather than analyzing the work’s literary significance. (Brizee and Tompkins). The journey of a historical reading begins with the assessment of how the meaning of a text has altered over time. In many cases, when the historical context of a text is not fully comprehended, the work literature cannot be accurately interpreted.
In Viramontes’ novel Under the Feet of Jesus, the author composes symbolic representations about the daily life of a migrant worker. Symbols used throughout the novel was the barn as a figure to represent a church, Petra’s statue of Jesus that symbolized her faith in Christianity and the baby doll with no mouth that represented the views on silence. The author uses symbolism to get her message across on how the difficulties of migrant workers. The symbols, the barn, Jesus statue, and the baby with no mouth represent the migrant workers’ stance on faith.
In Phillis Wheatley’s To S.M., a Young African Painter, the reader can easily assume that Wheatley is expressing her opinion on the beauty of Scipio Moorhead’s paintings. The poem seems to discuss Wheatley’s appreciation for another African-American artist like herself. However, after looking closely at word choice, visual imagery, and deviation from the rhyme scheme one can see that there is much more going on in this poem. Wheatley addresses not only her thoughts on S.M.’s works, but also religion, immortality, race, and freedom. Looking at this poem more in-depth is important because it will allow the reader to better understand the poem’s meaning.
She exists in a time when women are classified as objects of beauty and property, and her heart trouble suggests that she is fragile. Louise’s initial reaction to the news of her husband’s death suggests that she is deeply saddened and grief stricken when she escapes to her bedroom. However, the reader is caught off-guard with Louise’s secret reaction to the news of her husband’s death because she contradicts the gender norm of the 19th century woman. Her contradiction to the stereotype / gender norm is displayed when she slowly reveals her inward
Besides the author and the reader, there is the ‘I’ of the lyrical hero or of the fictitious storyteller and the ‘you’ or ‘thou’ of the alleged addressee of dramatic monologues, supplications and epistles. Empson said that: „The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry”(Surdulescu, Stefanescu, 30). The ambiguous intellectual attitude deconstructs both the heroic commitement to a cause in tragedy and the didactic confinement to a class in comedy; its unstable allegiance permits Keats’s exemplary poet (the „camelion poet”, more of an ideal projection than a description of Keats actual practice) to derive equal delight conceiving a lago or an Imogen. This perplexing situation is achieved through a histrionic strategy of „showing how”, rather than „telling about it” (Stefanescu, 173 ).
The governess’ need to be the woman of the house and compete with the others for the affections of the uncle, combined with the loneliness could have driven her to madness. The uncle left
Throughout Marie de France’s Poetry, she adopts the work of Homer, the Bible, and Ovid through her detailed writing style, her devotion to family and God, and her use of morals. One aspect of Homer’s work that Marie de France adapts is the concept of one’s devotion to family. Throughout their
Jean- Baptiste Molière’s play “Tartuffe” is an unquestionably humorous comedy. The play defines the hypocritical acclaimed “Christians” we have in society. Daily, many people are blinded by admiration of religious figures who they believe are Gods disciples and can lead them to the gates of heaven. In “Tartuffe”, the author uses irony, satire, and tone to uncover a man follies of unreligious faith, the lust of women, money, and power.
The play closes on a positive note with Nora, representative of the supressed female, overcoming Torvald, representative of the oppressive male, however to express the true extent of this achievement, Ibsen makes evident the context of the struggle that society dictated women live by. The progressive characterisation of the protagonist Nora encapsulates Ibsen’s intention of pushing theatrical and societal norms through showing how women deserve to create their own identity and not be restricted by their male oppressors. Ibsen crafted every line to show the development of her dialogue, actions, setting and properties, and in doing so he potently slammed the door on the patriarchal society of the 19th
By this he means that ‘art’ does not want to be accessible only to a few “highly cultivated men” but instead also to ordinary people, like the people in the audience. By using words such as “cheerful freedom”, “open-heartedness” and “reality” in contrast with “sickens”, “selfishness” and “luxury” he creates the sense that the bad things happen because of the limitation of art and that the better things will come if only people learn to enjoy art. He then says that if art has a limit he “does not wish her to live” which is a strong exaggerated statement and was made to convince the audience of his argument. Morris relates “an honest artist” not sharing his work with “a rich man” who eats food in front of starving soldiers, this could also be interpreted as an exaggeration and might have been so by part of the audience, however the use of imagery would have added to his conviction. He ends his lecture on a powerful note, “I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few”, by using the repetition and relating art to education and freedom he heightens the importance of art in the eyes of the audience as a final technique to persuade