All Entries in the "Featured" Category
Welcome to THE QUATRAIN
The Quatrain is a project for people who value quality Undergraduate and Graduate writing on literature and culture. Full-dress researched, academic essays and scholarly explorations, life-writing, cultural criticism, work that has a reflective, autobiographical style, and creative writing in all its forms: We simply seek to display samples of the interesting, original, and quality writing being produced by gifted students and emerging talents from Louisiana, Arkansas, [...]
Secular Saviors: Guidance from Religion to Humanism in Ilium–Heather Castille
In Dan Simmons’s Ilium, humans on Earth are post-literate, sustained by technology that they neither understand nor question. The “old-style” humans live on Earth, confident that their world has always been the way they know it and believing in the post-humans as godlike, omnipotent controllers of the humans’ fate. They also believe that after [...]
“All that we see or seem”: A Memoir of the Poe Bicentennial Conference–John Edward Martin
Upon flying into the city of Philadelphia for the first time—or even the third or fourth time, as in my case—it’s almost impossible for those of us of a certain generation not to subliminally hear the “Rocky” theme-song, “Gonna Fly Now,” echoing in the back of our minds, or to imagine ourselves bounding up the [...]
Exploring the Intersections of Gender, Judaism, and Christianity in Dan Simmons’ Ilium–Rachel Winchel
Very little scholarship in science fiction is dedicated to recent novels, especially concerning the roles of the female characters and even less is dedicated to analyzing Jewish female characters. Ilium is a unique novel that challenges traditional science fiction that depicts Jewish people as being separate or unimportant to the plot of the novel, or as Susan [...]
The Purge: Decimation and Renewal in ‘Big Two-Hearted River’–Caleb Elkins
As I read “Big Two-Hearted River Part: 1”, I couldn’t help but recall my lesson on purging fires. As the fire-destroyed town is physically similar to the effects of the war, I believe the fire ravaged landscape of the forest is symbolic of Nick’s mental state. Furthermore, the town of Seney may have been demolished, [...]
Caddy Compson and La Malinche: American Eves Trapped in the Archetypal Image of Women–AJ King
The Sound and the Fury documents the fall of the prominent southern Compson family through the promiscuity of the only daughter, Caddy, but the Compson boys also are responsible for a fare share of the tragedy. The tragedy stems from roles the Compson brothers force upon their sister Caddy, as a comforting mother figure for [...]
‘To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten’: Preoccupation and Reconciliation of the Fragmented Self in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot–Lauren Coleman
Regarding the play, Beckett himself commented that, “What people make of it is not my concern” (qtd. in Lawley 29), rendering responses that could echo William Burroughs’ staunch assertion that “Beckett is quite literally inhuman” (29) and not only is there “nothing but the writing itself” (30), but also “there are no tricks, no adornment, [...]
Conscience and Guilt in Mark Twain’s Evolution to Naturalism–Emily Howell
As a young man, Mark Twain was filled with bright-eyed hope and idealism about the broad world which was before him. Always one for adventure, Twain eagerly pursued exploits such as working in journalism, riverboat piloting, heading for the West, mining for silver, and exploring exotic, unknown lands. In this young stage, he used humor [...]