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Earthly and Divine Fulfillment in Leonard Cohen’s “Angels”

Through an intricate poetic structure, heavy-handed symbolism, and the fusion of protagonist and speaker, Cohen conveys the degradation of the protagonist’s mind and body and suggests that displeasure in the living world, brought about by poetic ponderings, elicits the destruction of the divine.

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“I couldn’t find any food I liked”: Franz Kafka’s Criticism of Gender Norms in Fictional Works and Letters

Kafka charges eating in his personal and fictional life with meaning and power: he uses food and nourishment to criticize the gender hegemony in early twentieth-century Prague, which involved an inexplicit control over women by men, manifesting in males performing duties outside the house and women’s responsibilities being limited to inside the house.

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“Who is Represented?” Deconstructing Symbols of National Identity in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee

Dictee strategically allows for both an essentialist and a constructivist view of national identity to coexist in order to resist imperialism and assimilation for those who have been “transplant[ed],” or extracted from their “lineage” (20), and no longer fit seamlessly within one national identity.

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The Threat of Realism in À Rebours and The Picture of Dorian Gray

À Rebours and The Picture of Dorian Gray reject the strict mimesis of the naturalist and realist schools while their protagonists function as cautionary figures against the moral idolization of the artwork.

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Resentment vs Reconciliation: Childhood Representations in Maus and Persepolis

Although Marjane in Persepolis narrates her own historical story in a way that Art in Maus does not, both works represent childhood by selectively detailing certain historical events that they did not personally witness, imbuing literal and metaphorical childlike imagery into their illustrations, and exploring the nuances of parent-child relationships once the latter are also adults.

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