ENL 258 – Literary Studies

Sara Kelley, Fall 2006 Flannery O’Connor, the renowned Southern author, has earned the reputation of writing shocking, violent stories. Strangely, she uses this violence to depict salvation, often through spiritually or physically grotesque characters. “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” one of O’Connor’s best-known stories, exemplifies this principle; a self-righteous grandmother is shocked into… Read more Sara Kelley, “Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find,’” 3rd Place ENL 258

Chloë Krueger, Fall 2009 In Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, a family of four struggles to reach each other through the shroud of absence each has encircled around them, they desperately try to reach each other but their final inability to exist to one another eventually leads to the downfall of the individual… Read more Chloë Krueger, “The Presence of Absence: The Downfall of the Tyrone Family,” 3rd Place ENL 258

Liz Pounds, Fall 2009 Home is more of a feeling than an actual, physical place; it is an ineffable sense of deep belonging that instills in people confidence and security. Home can be anything that makes people feel safe, secure, and perfectly connected with what they love. Unfortunately for the characters in Eugene O’Neill’s play… Read more Liz Pounds, “The Light Is on, but Nobody’s Home: Long Day’s Journey into Night,” 3rd Place ENL 258

Jessica Andreason, Fall 2009 The idea of “home” is a concept overtly and subtly defined in Octavia E. Butler’s work, Parable of The Sower. Through both physical manifestations and metaphysical representations, sensations of home can be seen throughout the text as present entities, which are more often than not victims of destruction through forces such… Read more Jessica Andreason, “Earthseed: Defining an Enduring Home,” 3rd Place ENL 258

Elizabeth Mulready, Fall 2009 The language of literature can affect a reader in many different ways. Intentionally, an author can manipulate the language he or she uses to create a specific meaning. In Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita, the narrator portrays language in a certain manner to stir feeling in the reader. Humbert Humbert’s changing voice… Read more The Deceptive Veil of Language in Lolita – ENL 258: Literary Studies

Katrina Semich, Fall 2009 Seamus Heaney’s poetry depicting the bog is inspired by the people found within bogs in Denmark. Heaney’s Irish background gives him a unique perspective on the violence committed to these people as a form of sacrifice. His bog poems combine the violence of the past and present with an overarching desire… Read more Seamus Heaney’s Bog Poems: Inspiration and Imagination – ENL 258: Literary Studies

Abby Ringiewicz, Spring 2010 Peter P. Remaley’s article, “Chekov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard,’” illustrates both the complexity and the vagueness of Chekov’s play. The common debate among critics, Remaley points out, is whether The Cherry Orchard was written as an intended tragedy or a comedy. The article demonstrates that many critiques have argued both; and truly… Read more Intricacy in The Cherry Orchard – ENL 258: Literary Studies