Konteksti

My reading of Bradbury’s  Martian Chronicles  had different stages. Firstly there was an anxious state of expectation. Searching for the truth about horrible Martian race but none was there to be found. Secondly, the desire to meet the truth about fine Martians, the saviors of our doom, but there were also none there. After a while I learned that the Martian Chronicles aren’t about Martians at all. It’s  on the truth of our, human race . Here are two examples. Firstly, the chapter  The Earth Men  is a good example of what can be scary when exploring the unknown land. There is no bigger disappointment than not being accepted as you expect to be. Captain Williams and his team suffer the inevitable death, but the lesson here is pretty simple: never forget that your reality can be regarded merely as a delirium of a madman. And what is more, there is no way you can prove otherwise. Ad usum delphini here is a Bradbury’s logical statement repeating Leibniz’s: ...

Wells is one of those authors who explored the vast space outside known realms and at the same time dug into the questions of inner laws that rule the societies. One thing he managed to convince me, is that some lines aren’t meant to be crossed. In at least two of his superb works. The Island of Doctor Moreau  is a tale of many themes and motifs. I understand it mainly as a tale of frustrated, “mad” scientist, who is banished from the native country because of his idea of mocking the nature itself and having the god-complex. Moreau managed to create the world in which he is the creator and the ruler of all beings. He did everything to create a new civilization, where even laws appear to work as they have to. But things have their inner necessities. As such, “stubborn beast-flesh” (1) can’t become human. That line, as story tells us, isn’t meant to be broken. Another work and even harder argument:  The country of the blind  addresses the argument how the borders of o...

Shelley's novel Frankenstein is one of the best examples of Romanticism. The very nature of a human and his/hers desire to reach his/her individual perfection leads to deadly utopia. The story of Frankenstein teaches that the radical search for perfection ultimately terminates the searcher. Victor is a protagonist of Romanticism par excellence, doing a lot of self-reflection, contemplating the nature and being very sensitive. When his dying mother addresses him her wish (“… my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union…”, p.41) and later his father (“… I have always looked forward to your marriage…”, p.161), this becomes ultimately deadly for Elisabeth. Victor marries her in spite of his knowledge of what will happen. Victor is attached to fulfilling his parent’s wish until the very end. And with this “attachment”, Victor goes to Ingolstadt, where he seems to find his own inner desire,”…animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm” (p.50), to make...

Fantastic literature can often be seen as a writers attempt to tell us what ought to be done in order to keep the world out of the hands of evil. In the case of Stoker's Dracula, the novel can be read as symbolic representation of virtues and tools needed to keep the prosperity of London safe. Dracula is a representation of pure evil. It desires to come to London (" I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London… " p. 60) . Why London? London seems like an allegory of Eden. A Place that is embraced by objective (modernity and prosperity of the developed city) and subjective good (cosmopolitan city with Lucy’s, Mina’s and Jonathan’s stories of love; lunatics hidden behind the bars). This perfection is ruined by a coming of Dracula. Evil works in many ways so there are many things needed to defeat it. What is crucial here is the author's choice of characters: the protagonists could be randomly picked through the story, but we can see their roles of l...

Carroll's stories  Alice in Wonderland  and  Through the Looking-glass  are astonishing works and one can find numerous interesting observations therein. One of those has its beginning a few years before they were published. Science, industrial revolution and especially Darwin, changed a lot in human mind. In this aspect, especially  Through the looking glass  made a very good attempt in telling the world, especially children, that the truth isn't always rational and systemized. And where is the path to the other side. It's just seeing/knowing things differently. Firstly, If Carroll built an imaginary world only to bring smile on a child's face, then no Goats were there, preaching them, what they (like Alice) ought to know (p.32). Author speaks to a child, proving that even vivid dreams have elements of serious life. Secondly, conversations that Alice has with everyone, can help us get to the Carroll's criticism of Darwin and strict science. Remember Al...

Among different perspectives of the tales, this essay will try to focus on one of these, so I would like to point out one: the element of sacrifice. In Grimm’s tales the element of sacrifice is a neutral act in itself, but always bonded to the moral ground of the character who performs the sacrifice . Even the intensity of sacrifice does not change that. It only depends on the person who makes it. Look at the tales of Aschenputtel , The Almond Tree or Snow-white , where really false intentions drive the antagonists to do horrible things to get what they want. In the Aschenputtel we see how the mother tries to put her daughter into the golden shoe with the order ‘’ Cut the toe off… ’’ , just to make the foot fit (p.107) and later it don’t pay. Same happens with the stepmother of Snow-white , who has extremely sick desire to be the fairest of us all – decides to sacrifice the Snow-white (in even more absurd cannibalistic manner), but the stepmother fails at the end. And the most...

J. Lacan, controversial psychoanalyst, once wrote: ” I love you, but because inexplicably I love in you something more than you, …, I mutilate you. ” This is a statement on human relations. It deals with not accepting the loved ones as they are and rather pointing to redesigning them according to one’s wishes. That’s exactly what some of Hawthorne’s and Poe’s works are asking and telling us: how far are we ready to go when we love something in somebody (and not this somebody as a whole)? And their answers do produce horror. Hawthorne’s  The Birthmark , the story of a scientist Aylmer and his wife Georgiana, is evidently going in that direction. No one doubts on his love towards her, but there is the birthmark as “ … a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty … ’’ (p.5). He seems much more intrigued with her small birthmark than with anything else. Obsession that ultimately ends with “ … the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed...