Essay

Pity, Duty, and Evil: Bobby DeLaughter's Plea for Justice

Bobby DeLaughter opens his closing statement with, “it is about an unarmed man…coming home to his family, his wife, three small children that were staying up,” to gain an instant emotional response from the jury (297-298). Immediately, he wanted to make the jury of The State of Mississippi v. Byron … Continue reading →

The Essence of Individuality Within a Doll's House

The modern era was a time of change by rejecting the traditional values of society. Henrick Ibsen’s A Doll’s House represents a change that is more common-day, now, during contemporary times. This was a time when the middle-class placed its foot forward and shaped the future for modern and postmodern … Continue reading →

The Real Buffy?

Recently, I had a chance to read the most intriguing article posted in a forum. But let me start from the beginning to explain how I came upon this piece of work. For a while I’d been thinking about purchasing “Buffy The Vampire Slayer (movie 1992).” It was on my … Continue reading →

Taking My Language With Me

I grew up in the Deep South in a small town called Highland Home, Alabama. I’ve lived on dirt roads at times in my life. I know how to use the words “ain’t,” “y’all,” and “yonder” correctly, and I still use them today. In addition, I’m an English major. The … Continue reading →

Shoulder Strap Style

There are people who push the boundaries of the norm. They belong to a group that wears their book bags with one shoulder strap. I prefer to call them single-strappers. However, most people blindly follow the conventions set before them by their peers by wearing their book bags across both … Continue reading →

He'll Always Be Papa

This is who my grandfather is and who he will always be for me. He inches slyly toward me, hiding something in his hand. I am sitting on the floor of the living room, leaning against a recliner. Bending slightly at the hips and knees, he lowers himself enough to … Continue reading →

I Was Sixteen

Oh how sweet that year had been to me. I was climaxing toward the cloudy mountain in my love life. There were mounds of girls and a few more. I played the game with a passion. My standards were always kept high as I carelessly rummaged through the pack one … Continue reading →

Fading Away

“Speak up where I can hear you damnit.” Eugene slammed his tan tote bag on the floor. “You’re supposed to be in bed Eugene,” I try to be commanding, but gentle. “I got to go on my route.” His bushy brows squeezed over the hazel plastic frames of his glasses. … Continue reading →

A Silent Blogosphere Remembers the Virginia Tech Victims

Today, one man asked for a day of silence in the blogosphere. It has been dubbed One Day Blog Silence. Steli Efti, a 24-year-old high school principal, created OneDayBlogSilence.com in response to the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16. The blogosphere’s response – uproar. The very idea of blogging is … Continue reading →

Jonah: The Anti-Prophet

The first thing you will notice about Jonah is that he isn’t the quintessential prophet. He doesn’t follow God’s every command. He is quite the opposite. In the first chapter, God calls to him, saying, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their … Continue reading →

So Say We All: Religion Aboard the Battlestar Galactica

“Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer,” a phrase repeated many times over on the television show “Battlestar Galactica,” is the human call for divine help in the polytheistic culture on the Galactica. There seems to be a problem with that pray however. The Cylons, a species of mechanic beings built … Continue reading →

The Tiger Taxi Guy

Written: February 2007 It is late on a weekend night. Groups of college students are busily rushing into the limited number of taxis to get home. Streetlights in downtown Auburn are bouncing off the orange of Kevin McCarley’s taxi. His work shift is about to get exciting. A group of … Continue reading →

Religious Doubt in Gaskell's North and South

One can clearly see the distinction of the working class and the middle class in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, and many would note that as the novel’s theme. However, the more pressing issue in the novel is that of religious doubt, which the difference of northern and southern England … Continue reading →

The Potential Dangers of Technological Advance

Ray Kurzweil’s work in The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology has brought me a new and profound hope for the future of humankind. Through his detailed discussion of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics, I am now as much as a hopeful optimist as he about the future, and look … Continue reading →

Bedtime Adventures

Jerry Sibley does away with the classic bedtime tales and offers new adventures of a youngster named Harley Earle.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Andrew Jarecki and Christopher Nolan in directing Capturing the Friedmans and Memento, respectively, attempt to show us the difference between what the truth is and what we see as the truth. David is the character in Jarecki’s documentary that refuses to see the truth because his version is easier to … Continue reading →

Brothers, Sisters, and Lost Innocence

Introduction Growing up in southern Alabama I was always the outdoor type because even in the 1980s and 1990s a young boy couldn’t do much other than run around outside barefooted and climb trees. I was the archetypal Southern boy. I took my first job in the fields at the … Continue reading →

A New Hardwood Floor

I grabbed one side of the blanket as Garrett, my friend who decided to visit for the weekend, grabbed the other. Our plan was simple, pick up the blanket that was a holding place for three one-gallon cans of paint, paintbrushes, light bulb covers, and several random screws. I just … Continue reading →

An Early Start

The following is a 10-week ethnographic study that follows two southern Alabama families. The paper focuses on each family’s three-year-old boy as he grows up in a fast-paced, ever-changing society where literacy is paramount. Written in the fall of 2005. Introduction The Wilsons The Peavys Conclusion Why do Bradey and … Continue reading →

Religion in the Vampire Motif

When reading Gothic fiction, one can assume that religion will play a role in the overall evolution of the literary genre itself. The section of this mode of writing that expresses its wishes to delve into the depths of religion is the vampire motif. Bram Stoker in Dracula uses the … Continue reading →

The Antithesis of Fate: Self-determination in White Teeth

In her novel, White Teeth, Zadie Smith argues against fate and the appearance of randomness that the concept of predestination brings along with it. Her counter-argument is the idea of self-determination and its consequences. Interweaving the ideas together one can see that she ultimately shows that fate has nothing to … Continue reading →

The Integration of Social Classes to an Age of Freedom

Using two quintessential modern characters of the Victorian Era, John Fowles seeks to challenge the social conventions of the past in his novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman. In the 1960s, a time when sex marks the dawn of a new era, Fowles felt the need to throw the sexual revolution … Continue reading →

Gothic Fiction and Its Revelations

In Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk and Anne Radcliffe’s The Italian, each writer seeks to shock the audience by revealing a mystifying secret unknown to the main characters. Radcliffe and Lewis unleash familial secrets in order to put their readers into a state of astonishment. This element of surprise is … Continue reading →

Familial Obligations

Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, is a story of change, or the movement of one phase of life to the next. There is a complete turn of Gregor’s character physically and mentally throughout the story. The most striking themes portrayed are the unpleasantness of work, the skewed view of life, and … Continue reading →

Chicago Left Me Inadequate and Dirty

Velma deceitfully slides up to Roxie, trying to convince her to team up as an act. She bursts out into a jazzy exhibition with every bit of natural entertaining ability she possesses. Roxie, showing her true colors since she is now in the limelight, fends off Velma as swiftly as … Continue reading →