Literary Analysis: A & P

Prompt: Why do you think Sammy quit? How do you interpret his actions? Response: John Updike’s A&P is a fantastic story that really hones in on the idea of the choices between conformity and rebellion that those coming of age in the world are faced with. This story is an early version of the popular […]

Literary Analysis: Emily Dickinson’s poetry critics

Prompt: How is Dickinson’s poetry portrayed in the work of Wendy Cope, Hart Crane, and Billy Collins? What points do they seem to emphasize about her work? Be sure to bring some of Dickinson’s own work into your discussion. Response: Poetry is a powerful method of communicating not just ideas but the intimate thoughts and […]

Literary Analysis: A Midsummer’s Night Dream

Prompt: What is the function and effect of the play in A Midsummer’s Night Dream? What does the play (in both senses) suggest about the value of drama and imagination in society? What attitudes toward drama does Shakespeare encourage us to adopt? Response: William Shakespeare is perhaps the most well-known and significant author in history. While […]

Film Analysis: Doubt

Prompt: Did Father Flynn abuse Donald? How do race, class, and gender complicate the interpretation of the play? Response: The hook of Doubt is the question of Father Flynn’s guilt or innocence and whether Sister Aloysius was correct in her crusade against him. Yet, that question is not one that is easy or simple to […]

Literary Analysis: Cathedral

Prompt: What does the narrator “see” at the end of “Cathedral”? What is “really something”? Response: The idea of personal growth is one explored in nearly all of fiction as a character changes from one state of mind to another when they are faced with a difficult circumstance or a strange situation. For the narrator […]

2013 Games of the Year

The Last of Us – The opening of The Last of Us is a huge part of why I love it. Showing that great relationship between Joel and his daughter Sarah before cutting it tragically short is one of the most impactful video game openings ever. It immediately tells you that this game is not […]

2014 Games of the Year

Wolfenstein: The New Order – In terms of pulpy genre fare Wolfenstein: The New Order is as good as it comes. The game is filled to the brim with absurdist alternate history imagery. The game uses this alternate history to set up some really great set piece moments from assaults on German castles to the […]

2015 Games of the Year

Fallout 4 – Fallout 4 is a problematic follow-up to one of my favorite games of all time, yet I can’t deny it has its charms. Fallout, as a series, intrinsically appeals to me. The setting, aesthetics, and atmosphere are all great allures of the series and Fallout 4 manages to deliver on those aspects […]

Women in Territorial Utah 1875 – 1895: A Paradigm of Crime

(written in the spring of 2019) What traits defined a woman in the American West? Was it her ability to raise her children or maintain the homestead in even the most dire of times? The immediate answer to this question may raise images of the dutiful wife following her husband onto the prairie with dreams […]

Change in a Culture: The American Reaction to September 11th, 2001

(written in the autumn of 2018) “A day that will live in infamy”—that is how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to December 7th, 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[1] Over two thousand would lose their lives in that attack which would send the United States to war in Europe and the Pacific. The […]