Essays

Most of these were written as class assignments and I don’t figure anyone’s going to get tickled reading them, but some may find it useful to mooch off my research.

• Tom Stoppard’s After Magritte: Artistry in the Use of Bad Puns — 1 May 08
  

  Another source of humor in After Magritte comes from the reader imagining how the play must look actually being performed. One scene involves Harris hastily trying to balance the aforementioned fruit basket counterweight: he removes the bulb from the light fixture, causing the basket to descend as the light ascends, so he removes an apple from the basket, but this is too much weight and so the basket begins to ascend, causing Harris to quickly take a bite from the apple and replace it. This small piece of missing apple is enough to offset the weight of the missing bulb, thus evening out the delicate balance of the light fixture and the basket. This is such a comical scene to imagine, mostly because of how silly it seems to be balancing a light with a fruit basket in the first place. The description of Harris balancing the whole arrangement reads like a Rube Goldberg contraption on a smaller scale.

• Discomfort through Visual and Audible Cues: A Cinematic Analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy — 7 Apr 08
  

  The Alfred Hitchcock film selected for review was Frenzy, released in 1972. This was the first Hitchcock-directed film to be given an R rating. It showcases very tense, uncomfortable scenes involving the rape and strangulation of women. Topics examined will include: the camera’s focal point, how the tightness of the frame correlated to intensity of action, and how the musical score contributed to the mood.

• K. Earns the Favor of a Villager — 17 Feb 08
  

  Gerstäcker, who until now had been sitting quietly in a chair across the room, had evidently heard enough of K. speaking in such a harsh manner to his mother, and spoke up. “See here now! It is little wonder you caused such an uproar this morning at the Gentleman’s Inn, if that is the way you go about speaking to people you have only just met! Indeed, it is becoming very clear to me now why it is talk of you has been rampant within the various social circles I must frequent, considering your treatment of your assistants, the school teacher, and, yes, even the landladies at our two inns. What is the meaning in this, sir, that you should so unjustly and without grounds attack my mother, especially in her own home?”

• “You have made time itself…” — 2 May 05
  

  This quotation is from Augustine’s Confessions and specifically from chapter 11, pp. 229. Augustine’s idea is that time is an illusion because past and future do not ever really exist. They are nothing tangible and we can do nothing with them. There is only the never-ending present through which we flow, although that is slightly incorrect as well as it seems to imply that that present is coming from somewhere on its way to somewhere else, which it is not, as it only exists for a moment before it becomes what we call the past, which, according to Augustine, does not exist.

• “We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth…” — 2 May 05
  

  The author of this quotation is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and this was taken from his Oration on the Dignity of Man. Pico’s work surrounded the idea that man is God’s greatest creation and should rightly be celebrated. His ideas seem very radical because they are so different from what Augustine and others believed. The whole feeling of Pico’s work is much more optimistic about the state of the individual man, especially in relation with that man’s trek toward God.

• “I answer that the existence of God can be proved in five ways.” — 2 May 05
  

  The author of this quotation is Thomas Aquinas and this is from his answer to objections one and two of the third article from The Existence of God from Summa Theologica. This pertains to the desire…

• God’s Existence by Rational Argument — 9 Apr 05
  

  The existence of God can be rationally proven, and Thomas Aquinas does a better job of this than Anselm. Aquinas uses strictly logical reasoning while Anselm starts off with a biased attitude; his op…

• Accounts of Religious Conversion — 24 Mar 05
  

  The accounts of Antony’s and Augustine’s lives were both written with a focus on religious aspects. Beyond this, there is little similarity between the two. The life of one was led very differently…

• Two Problems with Christianity, as Discussed by Celsus — 15 Feb 05
  

  Currently in the United States, it can be difficult to hear any solid arguments against Christianity. To find some well-written polemic against this major religion, one might turn to the writings of…

• The History of Santa Claus — 10 Dec 04
  

  In modern-day America, when one hears the name “Santa Claus,” it can be assumed that the first image that will come to mind will be that of a portly old man in a red suit who, one night per year, dist…

• Enduring Philosophical Concepts — 20 Nov 04
  

  While neither the words of Plato nor those of Aristotle seem fully sound in relation to the workings of governments today, it seems that, despite the age of The Republic and The Nicomachean Ethics, a…

• Feminine Influence in Greek Drama — 3 Nov 04
  

  Despite coming from three different playwrights, the four plays Agamemnon, Antigone, Medea, and Trojan Women share one general common theme of strong female leads. The significance of women in each o…

• Variations in the View of God — 23 Sep 04
  

  The importance of the divine in both The Odyssey and the Bible is very pronounced. God is the most significant entity in the Bible and the various gods are main figureheads in The Odyssey. In either…

• Social Gaffes in the Odyssey — 8 Sep 04
  

  Throughout The Odyssey by Homer there are cases of impropriety that range from mild social gaffes to serious breaches of courtesy. It seems that the most obvious instance of impropriety, however, is…

• UK Honors Program Essay #1 — 5 Apr 04
  

  If you had the opportunity to do research on an author, an artist, a musician, a philosopher, or an historical site, whom or what would you choose? Write an essay of about 400 words in which you explain your answer. (We’re interested in what you wonder about—what particular figure or site intrigues you. So focus your essay on why you’re interested, not on how much you already know.)

• The Odyssent of Bent Trent — 6 Jun 01
  

  Right, so this is a crazy quasi-epic poem (I guess it’s poetry?) that I wrote about Trin’s hard drive, which she named Trent. The big idea with this is that I tried to make a whole lot of words, part…