.... the 1600's and to see if our views on comedy are the same today. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a festive comedy. The play takes place in June and this is a bewitched time. In the spring the custom is to celebrate the return of fertility to the earth. During this time the young people spend the night in the woods to celebrate. Shakespeare uses the greenworld pattern in this play. The play begins in the city, moves out to the country and then back to the city. Being in the country makes things better because there is tranquility, freedom and people can become uncivilized versus when they are in the city and have to follow customs and laws and behave rationally. Comedies contai ....

.... a contradiction between morals. ’s side of the conflict held a much more divine approach, as opposed to the mundane path Creon chose to travel. feels that Creon is disregarding the laws of the heavens by ordering it unlawful for anyone to provide a proper burial for her brother Polyneices. ’s opinion is one that supports the Gods and the laws of the heavens. Her reasoning is set by her belief that if someone were not given a proper burial, that person would not be accepted into heaven. was a very religious person and the acceptance of her brother by the Gods was very important to her. Creons order was personal to and his edict invaded her family life as well as t ....

.... elements of evil in slavery. In addition, the protagonist's faults are representative of society's ability to romanticize and gloss over the institution of slavery and are a negation of the sentimentality of slavery, prevalent in society during that period. The stories within the stories, as told by Uncle Julius, relay several themes important in rebutting the sentimentality of slavery. One theme Uncle Julius's stories rebut is that of the relationship between families. One way in which the author addresses this issue is in "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny." Chesnutt condemns the treatment of slaves as capital, while confirming their need for family. To illustrate, when Bec ....

.... two villains are indeed locked in psychological combat to see who can actually ‘out-do’ the other in stalking, capturing and destroying the souls of others. Taking absolute pleasure in ripping any virtue from the hearts of their prey, Merteuil and Valmont wave their accomplishments in front of each other like spoils of war. The less the chance of surrender, the more relentless is the pursuit. The story begins with the Marquise de Merteuil corresponding with Vicomte de Valmont regarding a luscious new act of ‘revenge’, as she describes it, against the Comte de Gercourt. The young Cecile de Volanges has just come home from the convent and her marriage to Gercourt has ....

.... and Banquo reacted to the battles. Shakespeare is taking an unnatural occurrence, such as a war, and characterizing it using natural imagery(life) such as birds. Immediately after Lady Macbeth reads her husband's letter about the witches' prophecies, a messenger comes with the news that King Duncan is coming to spend the night at her castle. After the messenger has left, the first thing Lady Macbeth says is: “The raven himself is hoarse/ That croaks fatal entrance of Duncan/ Under my battlements”(1.5.45-47). The raven is a bird of ill omen, and Lady Macbeth means that the raven is hoarse from saying again and again that King Duncan must die. H ....

.... to and fro Is all the cause and I cried out my woe. Woman or Goddess, which? I cannot say. I guess she may be Venus - well she may!" (p. 49, l. 2-8). Arcite, Palamon's cousin and best friend, also falls deeply in love with Emily as he gazes upon her: "The freshness of her beauty strikes me dead, Hers that I see, roaming in yonder place! Unless I gain the mercy of her grace, Unless I at least see her day by day, I am but dead, there is no more to say." (p. 49, l. 24-28). The knights believe that one man may love and worship Emily from afar and each vehemently contends that he should be this man. The knights' emotions for a ....

.... in a way that usually reflected their own humanlike personalities. These unique personalities also contained many human flaws such as envy and greed, and were where the Greek God’s importance lay. Greek religion was more concentrated on the way an individual dealt with situations that popped up in the world around him than on understanding the world itself. In other words the Greeks were more interested in the workings of the mind than in the workings of the environment around them. This was so because unlike us, the Greeks believed that they already had explanations for trivial questions such as, “Where the world came from?” “Who are we?” and ....

.... goal of being king becomes very enticing. Macbeth’s first act of evil is the killing of Duncan. Before the murder, Macbeth tries to tell Lady Macbeth that he will not go through with it. She has to goad him into killing the King. After committing the murder, Macbeth seems almost delirious. He says that "…all great Neptune’s ocean will not wash this blood clean from my hand"(Act II, Scene ii, lines 60-61). When he murders Banquo, Macbeth is still in torment, but the cause of his anguish seems to have changed. He is afraid of Banquo, because Banquo knows about the witches and because the witches predicted that his descendents would be kings. Banquo’s dea ....