Mind-Forged: Language, Form, Structure and the Anthology Romantics (Part One)
London William Blake wrote his four quatrain dramatic monologue London as a call to arms in the wake of The French Revolution. Known to...
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GULP FICTION BLOG
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Miss Sofo
9 min read
Second Class: The Portrayal of Women In An Inspector Calls
In An Inspector Calls, Priestley creates a masterpiece of socialist propaganda to send a message to the upper echelons of British Society...
Miss Sofo
6 min read
Borrow'd Robes: Honour & Reputation in Macbeth
Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare presents ideas about honour and reputation that greatly contribute to Macbeth’s struggle with good and...
Miss Sofo
12 min read
Hungry Horses: A Guide to Surviving Tyranny
The One Where Ross Keeps his Paws Dry Ambition is not simply the purview of the scheming Macbeths in Shakespeare’s play. Everybody’s at...
Miss Sofo
11 min read
The Inconvenient Witness: Banquo's Heavy Summons
Why did Shakespeare deliberately write Banquo into Act 1 Scene iii and then have him remain silent following the discovery of Duncan's...
Miss Sofo
6 min read
Witchfinder: A Brief History of James I's Accession
When Shakespeare first presented Macbeth, a mere year after the foiling of The Gunpowder Plot, he took a gamble. Ever the businessman...
Miss Sofo
7 min read
Eve Was Framed: The Conflict of Gender Expectation in Macbeth
Was Shakespeare a feminist? In the modern sense - absolutely not. Even though he wrote iconic parts for women and there is no evidence...
Miss Sofo
14 min read
Pulling Strings: The Ambiguous Matter of Manipulation in Macbeth (Part 2)
Part 2: Kings and Other Dead Butchers With the exception of her barrenness, Lady Macbeth is her husband’s strength as far as personal...
Miss Sofo
12 min read
Pulling Strings: The Ambiguous Matter of Manipulation in Macbeth (Part 1)
Part One: Queens and Other Weird Sisters When considering the balance of power between the characters in Macbeth, it could be assumed...
Miss Sofo
10 min read
Who Breaks A Butterfly on a Wheel? The Redemptive Power of Loss in A Christmas Carol (Part 2)
Part Two: Absent Mothers In a speech at the Reichsparteiung in 1935 Adolf Hitler said, “He alone, who owns the youth, owns the future.”...
Miss Sofo
8 min read
Who Breaks A Butterfly on a Wheel? The Redemptive Power of Loss in A Christmas Carol (Part 1)
Part One: Cruel Fathers For such an uncharacteristically short work, Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol packs the punch of an epic. He...
Miss Sofo
11 min read
Pretty Woman: Paragons and Parasites in 'An Inspector Calls' (Part 3)
If the Inspector is the conscience of An Inspector Calls, then Eva Smith is the heart. This blog post explores Eva - the sacrificial lamb
Miss Sofo
10 min read
A Very British Bastard: Paragons and Parasites in 'An Inspector Calls' (Part 2)
While Sheila, Sybil and Arthur use their status and power to oppress Eva, Gerald, and Eric’s conduct towards her represents a double...
Miss Sofo
7 min read
Sheila's Choice: Paragons and Parasites in 'An Inspector Calls' (Part 1)
Part of a series from Miss Sofokleous looking in depth at the role of women and the patriarchy in 'An Inspector Calls'
Sam Reynolds
5 min read
Stables and Starvation: The Two Sides of Edwardian England
We often call the era that ‘An Inspector Calls’ is set in Edwardian. This isn’t strictly true. The Edwardian era was the time that King...
Sam Reynolds
3 min read
Baby James: The Toddler King of Scotland
So we all know Shakespeare wrote ‘Macbeth’ for King James I. We all probably know that James wrote a book about witchcraft called...
Sam Reynolds
3 min read
Macbeth’s 3 Weird Sisters and their 3 Wonderful Pets
When we think of a witch and her pet, I’m guessing most of us go straight to a black cat. This stereotype comes from a way more...
Sam Reynolds
3 min read
Social Darwinism in An Inspector Calls
Before we get to social Darwinism we need to understand what the man himself, Charles Darwin, had to say about things. Before Darwin,...
Sam Reynolds
3 min read
Dickens and the Supernatural
Long before the Ghostbusters were around, with his pet raven Grip on his arm, Charles Dickens was a real-life Victorian ghost hunter. He...
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