Year: 2023

Kathryn Grande, “Linking the Before, During, and After: Cultural Memory in Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl,” 1st Place

Kathryn Grande, “Linking the Before, During, and After: Cultural Memory in Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl” In her award-winning two-part book The Shawl, Cynthia Ozick offers a work of Holocaust fiction that cuts into readers with inconceivable sadness and truth. In “The Shawl,” the gut-wrenching short story at the outset of the book, our protagonist Rosa… Read more Kathryn Grande, “Linking the Before, During, and After: Cultural Memory in Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl,” 1st Place

Stephanie Mireku, “As Convincing as a Baby’s Bottom,” 1st Place ENL 257

Stephanie Mireku, Spring 2008 Family. Healthy food. Laughter. There is a certain aura of feel-good emotions and positive character demonstrated in a joint advertisement with Cheerios and Pampers. In other words, there is a certain ethos, pathos, and logos that the ad communicates. Furthermore, there is a notion that the two companies have common goals… Read more Stephanie Mireku, “As Convincing as a Baby’s Bottom,” 1st Place ENL 257

Rachel Holliman, “Willie Stark: Master Rhetor,” 1st Place ENL 257

Rachel Holliman, Fall 2009 In the 2006 film adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the King’s Men, politician Willie Stark solidifies his status as an attention-grabbing and effective orator. His powers of persuasion catapult him from a virtual unknown to the governor of Louisiana. After realizing that the people of Louisiana… Read more Rachel Holliman, “Willie Stark: Master Rhetor,” 1st Place ENL 257

Matt Tota, “Rhetoric: The Language of Action,” 1st Place ENL 257

Matt Tota, Fall 2011 When we think of war or unrest, we often picture stern-looking soldiers holding Kalashnikovs, frenzied dissidentsmarching through streets, and armytanks lumbering into war-torn cities. Such images come to mind because we are concerned only with theseaspects of the equation. In other words, we do not bother with what occurs in the… Read more Matt Tota, “Rhetoric: The Language of Action,” 1st Place ENL 257

Elise DePlanche, “How Willie’s New Style Creates Stark Contrast,” 1st Place ENL 257

Elise DePlanche, Spring 2010 At a pivotal moment in the 1949 film All the King’s Men, aspiring governor Willie Stark stumbled drunkly onto a state fair stage to give an address the town would never forget. While the audience expected the lawyer-gone-politician to present a calm, stately discourse full of figures and issues they didn’t… Read more Elise DePlanche, “How Willie’s New Style Creates Stark Contrast,” 1st Place ENL 257

Lauryn Nosek, “Change is Bad: Okonkwo’s Resistance to Change in Things Fall Apart,” 1st Place ENL 258

Lauryn Nosek, Fall 2007 The character of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was driven by fear, a fear of change and losing his self-worth. He needed the village of Umuofia to remain untouched by time and progress because its system and structure were the measures by which he assigned worth and meaning in… Read more Lauryn Nosek, “Change is Bad: Okonkwo’s Resistance to Change in Things Fall Apart,” 1st Place ENL 258

Josh Martin, “Reason Versus Passion: An Analysis of the Representation of Logic and Emotion in Antony and Cleopatra and Charlotte Temple,” 1st Place ENL 258

Josh Martin, Fall 2011 “Thrice-nobler than myself, thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros have by their brave instruction got upon me a nobleness in record. But I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into’t as to a lover’s bed. Come then;… Read more Josh Martin, “Reason Versus Passion: An Analysis of the Representation of Logic and Emotion in Antony and Cleopatra and Charlotte Temple,” 1st Place ENL 258

Ana Marie Bell, “Balancing Man and Man Alike,” 1st Place ENL 258

Ana Marie Bell, Fall 2009 Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, in his essay “Today, the Balance of Stories,” advocates the telling of “hitherto untold stories, along with new ways of telling” as a means of healing the trauma of cultural dispossession and advancing a “universal conversation” that respects the validity and vitality of all human stories… Read more Ana Marie Bell, “Balancing Man and Man Alike,” 1st Place ENL 258

John Bell, “Born to Run: A Feminist Reading of ‘The Eve of St. Agnes,'” 1st Place ENL 259

John Bell, Fall 2007 John Keats’ poem “The Eve of St. Agnes” reads like a fairy tale. Its plot centers upon the legend that a young lady will meet her future husband if she performs a ritual on the eve of the feast day of St. Agnes. In the poem, the central figure, Madeline, actually… Read more John Bell, “Born to Run: A Feminist Reading of ‘The Eve of St. Agnes,’” 1st Place ENL 259

Kimberlei Taylor, “Patriarchal Gender Roles,” 1st Place ENL 259

Kimberlei Taylor, Fall 2009 D. H. Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” has been the source of extensive critical focus and is viewed as a story of resurrection. In “D. H. Lawrence and Tradition: ‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,’” Jeffrey Meyer focuses on the religious and the sexual implications in the text and he notes that other… Read more Kimberlei Taylor, “Patriarchal Gender Roles,” 1st Place ENL 259