Samuel Beckett

Elusive and transitory in nature, modernism is less of an artistic genre, and more of a philosophical movement that rejects understood notions of the traditional while redefining literature, art, and their boundaries. Seeking to make sense of a changing world, the early modernist revolution saw drastic departures from traditional forms of art, literature, architecture, religion, philosophy, social values, and the sciences. Moreover, among the many factors that shape modernist art and literature…

Research Note #2: “The Most Photographed Barn in America” Paragraph A: In this passage extracted from the novel White Noise, the author, Don Dellilo describes Jack and Murray’s visit to a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America to exhibit the significance of perception in addition to humanity’s lack of awareness regarding reification. The first paragraph establishes the scene in a countryside with a “MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA” sign, the presence of animals and…

Airport Fiasco Every summer since I was ten years old I have gone to my dad’s house for the summer. It used to be a lengthy, mudane car ride to Idaho, but I didn’t mind because my mom always bought us snacks for the drive and I would sleep most of the way there. It was completely stress-free trip, there and back, until about three years ago. That’s when my dad moved to New Hampshire, which is about a thirty-three hour drive, and my mom was not up for it. That meant my sister and I would have…

Postmodernism is a late-20th-century movement in the arts, architecture, and criticism that was a departure from modernism. Postmodernism was a movement in architecture that rejected the functionalist, modernist ideals of rationality and also used to describe a dissatisfaction with modern architecture. Postmodernism is characterized by the return of ornament and symbol to form. The aims of the postmodernism was look back to the past for inspiration of history and tradition, ideas of…

Evaluate how challenges to certainty are shaped by and reflected in the ways texts in this elective experiment with language and form. Textual dynamic texts convey the stark departure from established ideologies such as humanism, capitalism and the notion of progress following the events of World War II that induced a loss of faith in humanity and science. Composers experimented with language and form, attempting to communicate the postmodernist concerns of epistemological uncertainty through…

James Joyce is said to be one of the most innovative and influential writers of the modern time. He was a novelist, poet, short story writer, and a playwright. Joyce made “the modern world possible for art,” according to T.S. Elliot (Litz 16). James Joyce was an Irish modernist writer. His writing was known for its intricacy and vulgar comedy. He pushed the limits with books such as Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. In his writings, Joyce was always meeting himself “in ways which must at times have…

There are a variety of reasons as to why productions of plays specifically add to the meaning and understanding of the context surrounding the content. In this essay, all of these will be examined meticulously with the aid of examples, namely ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Lady Windermere 's Fan’. These two dramatic texts lend themselves both to being read and being performed and it is through this that there is a need to assess which is better; in terms of understanding the texts and their underlying…

King Lear and Waiting for Godot are plays that are very similar in a way that they have the same central concern of recognition within the plays. There are many different ways that the issue of recognition is shown; there is self-recognition, recognition by others and recognition of actions. Whilst these plays differ from each other in almost every other way, they do share this central concern. Recognition means the acknowledgement of the existence, validity or legality of something. The many…

2. Compare the cultures and concerns of young women (and men) as depicted in the American film Ghost World and the Japanese anime The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. What social pressures are put on them? How do they react to this pressures? What does each film seem to prescribe as acceptable behaviors and outcomes for the girls? Both cultures are really different. Japanese people have a more defined culture than North Americans. The mixed of many other cultures and different…

After strict moral standards established many years ago appeared to have failed, and science had proven that it could not prove the origin of the universe, a new philosophical and artistic expression moved in to fill the void of the Modernist Movement. The Postmodern Movement was born out of a lack of faith in society and the established way of life as a whole, and embraced the philosophy of meaninglessness and a rejection of the transcendental meta-narrative. This move has been fully expressed…