From Yesterday

Russian Recluse Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, Notes From Underground, takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia in the 1860s. He portrays his nameless main character, the Underground Man, as a recluse who dislikes people and avoids human society. The novel is written as a memoir from notes that the man writes, recounting his life, as he isolates himself off from society. His misery and inability to interact with others only pushes him further away from society into a world of self-loathing and…

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote sonnet 43 in a series of sonnets titled Sonnets from the Portuguese. Although the individuals in the poem ‒ the narrator and the lover ‒ are ambiguous, there is a strong correlation between Barrett Browning's love life and the complex love of the sonnet. Even though there can be an argument made that sonnet 43 is not Barrett Browning’s husband, I will be using the assumption that Barrett Browning is the narrator and her husband is the lover. The theme that…

Notes from Underground Notes from Underground is a novel of notes that the Underground Man writes which expresses his alienation. There are two sections of Notes from Underground, with “Underground” being a shorter version. In the first version, the Underground Man gives an introduction to his position in society. In “Apropos of the Wet Snow,” Underground Man gives events in his life during the 1840’s through the 1860’s. The Underground Man is alienated from all of the people who inhabit this…

In Fyoder Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, many characters deal with internal conflict causing them to commit large and small crimes. Dostoevsky introduces a variety of characters, each of which has their own value that they contribute to the book’s theme. Each character has his or her own opinion which crimes are necessary and what deeds are evil. Some characters need to commit crimes just so they can survive in this harsh world, while others commit crimes because they think it will…

does not meet the intensity of his loneliness. Yet, he turns his sadness towards others, attaching people mentally. It is not until Robert pushes himself into the narrator’s life that the narrator understands he is lonely and desperately seeks more from life. Isolation/Loneliness represents in this story, the narrator gives Robert credit for anything is when the narrator accepts that he is finally happy to have company in his home. Robert shows the narrator the amusement of freedom and quality,…

collected funds from around the world. Most people know that Tagore wrote the national anthems of India and Bangladesh - 'Jana Gana Mana' and 'Amar Sonar Bangla' respectively. But few know that Sri Lanka's national anthem is based on a Bengali song originally written by Tagore in 1938. It was translated into Sinhalese and adopted as the national anthem in 1951.One of Tagore's students at Visva-Bharati University, Ananda Samarakoon, translated the lyrics of Nama Nama Sri Lanka Mata from Bengali…

Fyodor Dostoyevsky created the novel, Notes From Underground, holding insightful thoughts on the purpose and meaning of life. Within the novel, Dostoyevsky creates the character, the Underground Man. He laments human’s inconsistencies and their inability to grasp the meaninglessness of existence; while they work tirelessly to exert control over their uncontrollable environments. Human desire for power is epitomized in their attempts to rebel against the physiological laws of nature that govern…

Throughout Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work, Notes from Underground, the protagonist, the underground man, portrays himself as a spiteful, self-contradictory, and overly conscious melancholy man. He continuously over analyzes and questions everything, and this prevents him from taking any real action. The underground man is lonely and constantly vacillates between wanting society’s acknowledgment or to be socially desired and wanting to be completely isolated from society. He gives off the impression…

deals with within their mind after committing a murder. Both books are centered on one criminal act that allows the reader to delve into the thought process of a convicted murderer, each varying from one another. In The Stranger, Meursault is seen as a static character while in contrast Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment is seen as a dynamic character. Though each have different philosophies and motives for their actions both protagonists carry out an underlying theme in each novel, that…

contradictory elements possible: a scream, a laugh, and finally, a question. The scream takes place at the dinner party, uttered by Lou Levov, who has been in the kitchen of Swede’s house doing his awkward best to stop the inebriated Jessie Orcutt from, in his view, making a complete fool of herself. Distressed by his arrogance, she stabs him in the face with a fork, aiming for his eye and missing by only an inch. But by injuring the family’s father, Jessie is symbolically attacking the…