Does anybody know any academic sources which state that fawns and doe are symbolic to innocence and purity? I have tried academic websites like JSTOR and my online university library but nothing of relevance comes up. Any help would be appreciative!
I don’t know if this is technically against the rules, but I have coursework next year which is comparing and contrasting two books, one has to be 21st century. Does anyone know of any books that are compatible with The Picture of Dorian Gray. (The themes that intrigue me in it are male vanity and moral decay) many thanks fellow redditors!!
Hello! So I need help improving my writing and grammar skills before I go to high school. In high school I feel like they don’t really prepare me for how college expects me to write everything was just given to us and teachers in high school didn’t really care tbh…
I sat my English lit paper 1 on Wednesday
And for the comparison question the last one where it said compare how both novel/poems you’ve studied present yearning/desire, I realised I lacked heavy comparison. My mind went blank in the exam and if I’m recalling well I’m pretty sure I only compared like 3 times throughout the whole essay. Idk what got into me and why I forgot to compare I do feel like my overall analysis and explanation answering of the question was good but there was a lack of comparison and ofc the question says compare.
When I mean I didn’t compare I literally separated the poem and novel explanations in different paragraphs
Realistically what’s the highest mark or band I can even get out of 25 since I lacked comparison but I feel like my overall essay was good .
I’m looking to expand my British Lit curriculum and would love some suggestions, especially for modern novels, novels by women, and novels by BIPOC authors, plays, and short stories. Some context: I teach at an all boys school and the students are in 11th grade.
Works we already read (though I may swap some of these out): Frankenstein, Lord of the Flies, 1984/Animal Farm, Macbeth/Othello, Never Let Me Go, selections from Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales, Everyman, and The Importance of Being Earnest. I’ve taught Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice in the past, but not to a class of all boys. I’ve also taught The Tempest, King Lear, Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamlet.
As you can see, my curriculum is begging for some newer voices.
Does anyone happen to know what "Guido's saints" is in reference to? I've scoured as many articles as I could find but many seemed to not have any relevance or importance towards the sort of image Shelley is creating.
Any help would be incredible, many thanks if anyone has a clue!!
My Reading of Frankenstein
I finished Frankenstein tonight.
What a sorrowful ending, yet such a beautiful conclusion.
At first, I believed the creature to be the monster. Yet by the end, I realised Victor Frankenstein himself is the true horror of the story. Not because he created life, but because he abandoned it the moment it opened its eyes.
Victor wished to conquer death. He feared mortality so greatly that he sought to create life itself, believing that through science he could transcend the natural order and become something greater than man. Yet in doing so, he created suffering everywhere around him.
The creature was not born evil.
It was born alone.
That is the tragedy.
The creature longed for love, companionship, understanding, and connection. It watched humanity from afar with admiration. It wished not for violence at first, but for acceptance. Yet the very man who gave it life looked upon it with disgust and horror.
Victor gave life to a being, yet refused to give it humanity.
He wanted the glory of creation without the responsibility that comes with it.
And that is where his downfall begins.
The creature begged for compassion. Begged for another like itself so it would not wander the earth in isolation. Yet Victor, so consumed by fear and self-absorption, tore even that hope away.
In doing so, he created the very monster he feared.
There is only so much weight a bridge can bear before it collapses.
The creature’s bridge collapsed beneath abandonment, rejection, hatred, and loneliness. The murders it committed were horrific, yes, but they were born from suffering. It became the reflection of the cruelty shown to it.
Victor spends the entire novel believing himself the victim, yet he rarely acknowledges that he authored the suffering in the first place.
He feared death so deeply that he destroyed life itself.
That is the irony of Frankenstein.
Victor wished to escape mortality, yet his obsession with immortality killed everyone he loved. William. Justine. Clerval. Elizabeth. Even his own father. One by one, death followed the very man who tried to defeat it.
And by the end, both creator and creation realise the truth too late.
Victor realises he failed his own creation.
And the creature realises revenge did not heal its loneliness.
It only made the emptiness greater.
That is why Frankenstein is not simply a horror story.
It is a tragedy about responsibility, isolation, love, rejection, and the consequences of creating life without compassion.
A creature can only be shown hell for so long before it begins to believe it belongs there.