Charles Dickens’ Bleak House (1853) paints a diverse cast of characters against the foggy backdrop of Victorian London, of whom the least fortunate is Jo, an impoverished, illiterate, orphaned boy who works as a crossing-sweeper. Dickens sets forth Jo’s mistreatment, misfitness, and the myriad of...
November 2010. It is Tihar, the Hindu festival of lights. For five days, there are fireworks and rituals and prayers; everything is done for Yama, the god of death. Each day something different is celebrated: first crows, then dogs, cows, oxen, and finally, our brothers. Crows...
Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens” is a short story in which human life is glimpsed through snapshots into several characters’ lives. Woolf contrasts these vignette-esque passages with scenes of a snail also living in the garden in order to reveal the dissociation between humans and their...
I’d leave the light on, keep the door unlocked (but you know where I hide the key, the backdoor’s always open for you and Elijah). there’s a place set -- your glass is upside down, so the dust never settles. your empty chair keeps the room hollow, foggy through the fall. I’m sure if you strolled...
Aphra Behn and Katherine Philips were women poets in a patriarchal culture who wrote about sapphic relationships in a heteronormative one. Examining Philips’ “Friendship” and Behn’s “To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More Than Woman” reveals the two women’s ability to...
He is warmth trickling through the trees; their leaves casting shadows that cradle her soft-bodied stem. A tulip to the sun, she unfolds against his touch she is no longer grace and beauty. She is textured edges and tangled roots she unravels herself before him...
Oh! Vexed candle—you! What sorrows you look into? With your crimson heart turning blue, Like my wounds were of you. As a flaming soul in an oyster's shell, In the silent wisps of air, you dwell. Sculpting your masthead with the turn— As you burn! As we burn! Of the rainbow! Of the...
Alice Munro’s prose fiction is lucid, conversational, and charged with a sense of unwavering honesty in its refusal to oversimplify or deny the depth of her characters. As a result, Munro eloquently captures the ambiguity of their thoughts and emotions. She is careful to avoid...
Words—they come out—a blazing golden Showering refulgence upon this night Out from the winter’s waning crescent— An altering air of mystery. In pebbled syllables—tossing and rippling, Trembling and flirting— And constantly vibrating Upon this heart they merrily flow. Freshly coated—some pink upon pink Jewelry—or a painting itself Resting upon the innocent face A portal to the...
Although it may at first appear contradictory to suggest that remembering inherently involves forgetting, upon second consideration this paradoxical statement proves to be legitimate. The quotation, “Only what one has remembered can actively be forgotten” (König), provides a clear premise with which to approach the...