Literary Analysis

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, 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

Matthew Tota, Fall 2011 One aspect of contemporary writer T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story, “Tooth and Claw,” that becomes painfully obvious while reading through the psychoanalytic lens, is the emotional unrest of its narrator and protagonist, Junior Turner. He has low self-esteem and an insecure sense of self, resulting in a monotonic state of depression;… Read more Matthew Tota, “Junior and the Beast: a Psychoanalytic Reading of ‘Tooth and Claw,’” 1st Place ENL 259

Angela Tieng, Fall 2011 History is the study of a human past; but, for Ireland, history is not merely that. History is as much the living, breathing present. Ireland’s people are aware of their dejected “history,” which stares them in the face every day, anew. The violence and innumerable pains Northern Ireland has suffered at… Read more Angela Tieng, “Now and Then,” 2nd Place ENL 258

Sephora Marie Borges, Spring 2010 Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939 in Derry, Northern Ireland at the Heaneys’ family farm of ‘Mossbawn’; as the son of a potato farmer, he would have been expected to follow in his father’s footsteps, but chose a profession in writing instead (Vendler xi). Heaney lived in Northern… Read more Sephora Marie Borges, “The Troubles of an Irish Poet,” 2nd Place ENL 258

LeAnne Coady, Fall 2007 Since childhood, we all have been taught that “racism is bad” and should be avoided at all costs. We have been told that “everyone is a child of God and we are all created equal.” In fact, Americans are praised for the so-called equality they possess. Renowned Author Toni Morrison sheds… Read more LeAnne Coady, “Toni Morrison Writes on Racism,” 2nd Place ENL 258

Steven Martin, Fall 2009 In the Japanese arts, nothing is more revered than the idyllic balance of harmony between nature and man. Such a relationship is at the heart of the Zen-Buddhist notion of “Sattori,” or enlightenment (Suzuki 211). Whether such harmony is found in the minimalist structure of the Haiku of Basho and Myoe,… Read more Steven Martin, “Ask the Art, Not the Artist,” 2nd Place ENL 258

Peter Jansen, Fall 2010 Flannery O’Connor’s 1955 short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” shows a family vacation that quickly meets a violent end by a criminal known as “The Misfit.” As the title suggests, the men in this story are short-tempered, sexist, and at worst, murderers. Although a good man in this… Read more Peter Jansen, “Feminist Analysis of Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find,’” 2nd Place ENL 259

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