In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf writes of Clarissa’s anger that erupts after her daughter Elizabeth leaves the house with Miss Kilman in the afternoon just before her party, which is set to take place that evening. In her rage for sweeping Elizabeth away to talk of “religion and love”, Clarissa describes Miss Kilman as a [...]
Mechanistic imagery in Dickens’ ‘Hard Times ‘
In Hard Times, Dickens is forthright in opposing the fact-based state of education and dehumanizing industrialization of city life in Victorian England. He is convinced that the societal systems he sees in place are reductive to the complexity of human emotion and thought, and uses mechanistic imagery throughout the novel to imply that the harsh [...]
The unnatural commonplace in “A Case of Identity” and the appeal of Sherlock Holmes in Victorian England
Sherlock Holmes is a Victorian gentleman who is learned and observational. He is a safe fictional figure, in that he does not compromise Victorian ideals using science, industrialization, or religious belief. He also does not introduce any controversial or otherwise otherworldly aspects that might challenge societal norms. Doyle created an entertaining character that lived and [...]
Serra, Lin, and Abramovic: public and private spaces in Postmodernism
As a movement in contemporary art, postmodernism existed as a means to critique modernity. It altered discourse on public normalities and incited social and political change. In the centuries prior, art was seen as being outside the realm of political demand, existing solely as an interior for the bourgeoisie, both timeless and universal. However, with [...]
Underlying Victorian anxieties in H.G.Wells’ ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’
H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau draws from common Victorian anxieties concerning the human-animal relationship, presenting macabre scenarios as a means to exorcise the fears of its contemporary readers. The concept of vivisecting animals into humans would have unearthed present day insecurities regarding the societal trend to glorify science and deify scientists, science’s threat [...]
The Prince and Pip: the significance of Hamlet in ‘Great Expectations’
In Chapter Thirty One of Great Expectations Pip visits his friend Wopsle in a humorously poor production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, later writing that he “miserably went to bed” upon returning home, and during his sleep dreamt of playing “Hamlet to Miss Havisham’s ghost”. Thus, here lies in this deliberate insertion of Shakespearean high drama (albeit, [...]
A brief formal analysis of Madiha Umar’s ‘At the Concert’
In At the Concert (1948), Madiha Umar creates new meaning in the art of Arabic script. With the limitation of human-based imagery in Islamic art, the use of calligraphy was widely popular among artists, who were able to imbue the script with both classical and contemporary stylings. The letters themselves allow the artist to represent [...]
Residual feudal values in ‘John Halifax, Gentleman’
In John Halifax,Gentleman, the character of John Halifax acts as a paradigm for the emerging working class; a gentleman by ideology and work ethic rather than mere blood. He is an idealic, mythological hero for the emerging class of workers who rely on factory work and mills as opposed the feudal system’s reciprocal relationship between [...]
A brief formal analysis of Franz Kline’s ‘Siegfried’
Franz Kline's “Siegfried” feels as though it is an unclean painting; disorganized, unfocused even, though at its center a deliberate aura of chaos. There is a suffocation of color, with black brush strokes occupying most of the canvas and white just barely shining through, at times mixing with the dense black to produce a muted [...]