Abstract
This paper claims that symbolic representation has been lost or forgotten through translations of the story to English. The paper therefore explores the symbolic imagery and shows how it adds to the plot of the story. The analysis also includes historical background, a summary of the novel, and a discussion of the theme of unfulfilled love in the novel.

From the Paper
""It was such a beautiful voice that it struck one as sad." The comparison with beauty and sorrow is made often, evoking a sense of hollowness and pity. In the end Komako is left alone to take care of Yoko with her scarred face and herself with the wounds of rejection and despair. The women are symbols of beauty crushed and disfigured by their circumstances that are ugly despite the magnificence of their environment. The novel revels in contrasts of appearance and fact and how both are changed in time. It describes potential that does not reach its promise and is presented using picturesque language instead of simple narration."

Tags:nature, setting, natural, symbol, allegory, environment, loneliness, description, landscape, terrain

From the Paper
"Jos? Antonio Villareal, in his novel Pocho, examines the subject of assimilation as it applies to the experiences of Richard Rubio and his parents and sisters. The Rubios are Mexicans attempting to start a new life in the United States, and the novel chronicles the difficulties they face. Because the story focuses on Richard, it is as much a coming-of-age story as one about assimilation. In fact, assimilation involves a coming-of-age for adults as well as children, for the need to adapt to the new culture, while holding onto as much of the old culture as possible, results in a "new" individual as much as coming-of-age does. The author presents the subject of assimilation realistically, without romantic illusions about the degree to which the Mexican characters maintain their own culture in the midst of American culture."

Abstract
This paper examines the novel "Midaq Alley" in light of the social reality that it depicts. The characters, Muslims in Cairo, and what they represent in terms of human needs, social class and economic status, are discussed.

From the Paper
"The novel Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz is a portrayal of several individuals living within a particular section of Cairo. Almost all of the characters are Muslim. Several are middle class but others, the most striking of the narrative, are quite poor and simply struggle to survive. Through creating such variety of characters from different social stratum, whom all meet in the context of the alley of the title, the author is able to construct a novel that both tells a tale and yet is also revelatory on a social and on a political level. The book has often been called "important" not just in terms of its humor and striking literary value, but because of the unsentimental social reality it depicts."

Tags:Muslim, poor, society, need, class, status, Egypt, motherhood, middle-class

Abstract
Analysis of Yuan-tsung Chen's 1980 story of a young Chinese woman. Fictional tale is paralleled with struggles Chinese people go through as their country adopts Communism. Role of women in China and how the Revolution effected them. Protagonist's fight for equality; breaking down barriers between the sexes.

From the Paper
"In Yuan-tsung Chen's The Dragon's Village (1980), the coming of age of a young woman, Ling-ling, is paralleled with the struggles that the people of China are going through as their country adopts communism. In the middle of revolution, land reform, and the Korean War, Ling-ling matures and discovers who she is as a woman and a person. Her tale reflects how the role of women in China frequently vacillated between emancipation and oppression during this time in history. Chen uses Ling-ling as well as the other women in her story as an example of what women in China were experiencing during this turbulent time, whether they were old, young, rich, poor, bourgeois, urban, or rural.
To understand how the revolution effected the lives of these women, one should first take a look at Chinese society and..."

Abstract
This paper discusses how the novel "Rabbit Proof Fence" by Doris Pilkington paints an intimate portrait of the remarkable journey of Molly, Daisy and Gracie and how the policy of forced separation of 'half caste' children had a profound impact on the Aboriginal community as a whole for generations. It looks at how through Molly, Daisy and Gracie, Doris Pilkington creates a story that analyses and separates issues such as the Aborigine's relationship with the land and the incredibly deep sense of accomplishment of returning home, the spiritual power within the family and the jarring sense of injustice of the children's removal. This paper contains an annotated bibliography.

From the Paper
"Rabbit Proof Fence expresses the values and attitudes we associate with respect and dignity. This is triggered by the unjust policy enforced by the government during the 1930's and the mistreatment of the Aboriginal people. Through Molly, Daisy and Gracie, Doris Pilkington creates a story that analyses and separates issues such as the Aborigine's relationship with the land and the incredibly deep sense of accomplishment of returning home, the spiritual power within the family and the jarring sense of injustice of the children's removal. Rabbit Proof Fence represents the peaks and valleys of life, and how some things are unfair and out of our control. Molly's journey home to Jigalong represents her fight against what we now consider racism. The unfairness is clearly shown when the girls are taken from their mother in a police car with saddened expressions on their faces."

Tags:Aboriginal, community, Molly, Daisy, Gracie, Jigalong

Abstract
This paper examines the philosophical implications regarding place made in David Malouf's poems "An Ordinary Evening at Hamilton", "Sheer Edge", "Elegy: The Absences", "At the Ferry", "At my Grandmother's" and "Poetry Makes Nothing Happen". The paper also focuses on Malouf's depiction of Australia as a land of genesis. It concludes that Malouf succeeds in stepping back from conventionalities on the philosophy of place to create a world in flux and constant rebirth, where absences are voids to be filled through language and the poem.

Outline:
Philosophy of Place
The Australian Experience of Place

From the Paper
"Malouf does make a distinction between inner and outer place, (Indyk 22) however, in G, where the concept of familiarity ('my grandmother's') and images of comfort ('afternoon late summer') are juxtaposed with nightmarish imagery ('grey wings', 'ghosts of children') to illustrate how a new place or world may be created from an existing one by projecting thoughts on to it. Thus the concepts of "inner" and "outer" places: places that exist inside a person, which may be projected outwards, and what might be called "brick and mortar" places. This sense of separation is emphasized by the 'shuttered room', and the idea of being in an 'underwater world', but is completely broken in OEH where the 'garden shifts indoors' and the world seems to dissolve into a single consciousness."

Tags:Australia, literature, poetry

Abstract
An oddly intriguing tale of loss and recovery, Tim Winton's "Dirt Music" focuses on an unlikely triangle among a myriad of colorful characters set against the hauntingly beautiful milieu of Western Australia. This paper shows how Winton smoothly weaves a rough assemblage of highly individual characters together, united and by the common factor of keen and painful grief. Many of the relationships formed between the major characters are primarily aimed at dealing with the loss of someone or something close to them. The paper shows that, despite the differing approaches to their problems, each of Winton's characters' lives revolves around their loss and their ways of coping.

From the Paper
"The loss of his leg in an accident involving a "dickhead in his Range Rover" has left a permanent stain on Rusty's character; he is bitter with self-pity and mingles his ideas of revenge with frequent morphine injections. A constant "contented" state, as Lu politely puts it, is Rusty's alternative to Bess's jarring poetic outbursts and a far less dignified approach to loss (or impending loss as is Bess's case) than either Beaver or Jim and inspire little empathy from the reader. Winton's intention it appears is to contrast the different reactions to the solitude of death, placing the 'good' characters in a more pleasing light and creating a better understanding of their actions as well as creating a string of memorable characters with which he peppers Lu's journey Coronation Gulf."

Tags:dickinson, dirt, music, solitude, tim, winton

Abstract
This paper explains that, although John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums" and Tayama Katai's "The Girl Watcher" are written by authors from two different cultures, they share a literary device called the chance encounter. The author points out that the chance encounter enables the protagonists to reflect on their unfulfilled desires, allowing them a medium to channel their frustrations and to develop a greater awareness of their self-hoods. The paper relates that, in both stories, the chance encounter comes as a break from the routine nature of the protagonists' everyday lives, leading them to reflect on their unfulfilled desires. The author suggests that both characters not only feel unfulfilled in their roles in society, one as a housewife and the other a male magazine proof-reader, but also in their sexual relationships.

From the Paper
"In Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums", the protagonist Eliza reaches a point in her life whereby she is left feeling unfulfilled, particularly in her relationship with her husband. The chance encounter she has, with a traveling male stranger, leads her to imagine an alternative life as she contemplates acting upon her desires. At the start of the text, we get the feeling that Eliza feels lonely and isolated in her country town. The author uses descriptive language to convey Eliza's sense of isolation in the Salina's Valley,..."

Tags:desires, isolation, train, unfulfilled, negative

Abstract
This paper discusses the different ways that a philosophy of life is used by the authors of 'The Man from a Peddlers Family,' Lu Wenfu and 'The Interview,' Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, to structure their stories. In order to do this, the paper describes the protagonists in the stories and compares their philosophies as they are described in the two novels.

From the Paper
"Even though Zu Yuanda worked hard all his life, selling his wontons, shrimps and various other foods that kept the public content all those years, when the state ideology turned to communism people turned against his philosophy of work. The public then scorned upon the peddler, who had served a purpose for so long. Accused of being a social loafer, for not working in accordance with the state ideology, Zu and his family are sent to the country to work in state-run factories."
"The wonton pole is symbolic of Zu's philosophy of life. It represents his ability to survive in all circumstances. When the wonton pole is crushed, so too is the peddler's illegitimate business. But since the pole also represents Zu's strength in character, his ability to battle on and handle whatever life throws at him, he manages to move on with his life and work for a state-run factory sweeping up iron filings."

Tags:character, communism, society, label

Abstract
Jean Rhys's novel, "Wide Sargasso Sea" can be interpreted as an unflattering account of colonialism in the Caribbean in a time when racial relations were at their worst. The writer demonstrates how the effects of imperialism can victimize one person as they are a source of power to another.

From the Paper
"Antoinette can be viewed in the text as a casualty of the effect of imperialism. The Rochester figure of the text refers to her the lunatic he is tied to for life, but under different circumstances she may not have been a lunatic at all. Her unstable upbringing on the derelict property Coulibri was filled with threats and doubts; both her mother and the community reject her. Antoinette has grown up knowing that she, just like her mother, is a social outcast. To the recently freed Jamaicans her white skin and slave holding family are a reminder of slavery in the past, to them she is the "white cockroach". To English society of the time she is a "white nigger", having the physical features of "any pretty English girl" but in growing up in Jamaica has acquired characteristics and behavior of the Caribbean persona. Antoinette seems to be left without love from the two people she needed it from most, her mother and her husband. These factors, many of which can be accounted for due to racial tension within the region, have led to her insecurities and behavior that entice Rochester into concluding that Antoinette is mad like her Mother before her."

Tags:bronte, colonialism, Caribbean, victimization, racism