London Academic Publishing Ltd.: Arts & Humanities Journals
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Patriarchal and Governmental Violent Discourse: A Suppression of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
No full textMargaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale unfolds a violent dystopian narrative that targets women in general and more precisely a category of fertile women who are assigned by the tyrannical Gilead government to bear children for elite sterile couples. Offred, the protagonist, recounts her life in Gilead, a theocratic and totalitarian state, forced to undergo a ritualized sex with a governmental commander, while her hands are tightly gripped by Selena, in order to bear a child for the commander and his wife. The physical and psychological trauma inflicted upon Offred, the Handmaid, as well as her friends, are transmitted through the nonlinear and introspective style of narration and stand as proofs of the suppression of women’s reproductive rights and female subjectivity as a whole. Offred’s physical and psychological freedom, as a human being, are usurped due to political and religious strict pretexts. The Governmental perpetual violent discourse against Offred will be studied as a case in point of futuristic patriarchal assault towards women, unless fairer legal and social laws will be established across the globe to protect women’s reproductive rights and status within society. Though the novel is dystopian, it still bears a cautionary orientation for feminist trends and groups to move from theories to more practical actions towards ensuring women’s rights and gender equality
Moralising Animals in the Renaissance: A Study of French and English Emblem Books from the 16th and 17th centuries
No full textThe aim of this research project is to explore and conduct a comparative study of emblem books from the 16th and 17th centuries during the French and English Renaissance, through an analysis of the symbolism and moralising function of the artistic representation of animals, namely A Choice of Emblems by Geffrey Whitney and Fables by Jean de la Fontaine. The study seeks to identify the ways in which the pictorial and graphic depiction of animals functioned as a medium of cultural and social transmission in both cultural contexts, by expressing and conveying messages of moral and philosophical nature. The objectives of this study are: the identification and in-depth analysis of the moral and didactic function of animal symbolism in emblem books of the English and French Renaissance, a comparative study of the artistic expression of animal symbolism in emblem books from the two cultural contexts and a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which animal allegories in emblem books influenced the moral ideologies of the wider contemporary audience. The methodology used in this paper is: qualitative analysis, consisting of both textual analysis (of the accompanying texts in emblem books) and iconographic analysis (a visual study of emblematic images), comparative study, involving thematic evaluation through the comparison of emblematic approaches in French and English cultural contexts, archival research, including the consultation of archives for the in-depth analysis of emblem texts and books in their original form and an interdisciplinary approach, integrating multiple research fields such as literary criticism, art history, and iconography.
 
Habeas Corpus: How Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song exposes that corporal existence is dependent upon a hegemonic social construct
No full textHabeas Corpus directly translates to showing of a body and is commonly accepted as a right to a trial; this article explores the subjective nature of what recognises a body worthy of trial within a social construct and how hegemonic influence can present or hide a body at will. The article uses the philosophical lens of Deleuze and Guattari, as their binary metaphor of “root versus rhizome” helps to define corporal subjectivity. The article is based on Paul Lynch’s novel Prophet Song as a way of explaining the philosophy, as the dystopian novel provides examples of the shifting definitions of bodies at the will of the state. Furthermore, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence are compared on a cartesian grid to explain the way a body can shift between definition or ambiguity dependent on the way it is presented to the public. The conclusion is that corporeal definition is contingent on the hegemonic interpretation of what defines a body within a social construct
“America, America, Blasphemous Dream”: Nietzsche’s Metamorphoses and the Immigrant’s Existential Crisis in The Fortunate Pilgrim
No full text Mario Puzo’s The Fortunate Pilgrim traces the existential and cultural dissonance that shapes the Angeluzzi-Corbo family’s struggle to reconcile inherited Italian values with the demands of American individualism. Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Three Metamorphoses” from Thus Spake Zarathustra, this analysis frames Lucia Santa as the “great dragon,” a figure who enforces ancestral authority and preserves inherited values. Her children occupy various stages of Nietzsche’s spiritual transformation: Sal and Lena adopt the Camel’s burdens of duty, Gino and Vinnie charge forward as defiant Lions, and Larry and Octavia reach toward the creative autonomy of the Child. Yet none of the children actualize the Overman’s radical self-creation. Cultural inheritance and the tension between ethnic loyalty and American individualism obstruct their progression. Rather than fulfilling Nietzsche’s teleology, the narrative exposes its limitations. Puzo reframes metamorphosis not as transcendence, but as a cycle of interruption. Through this reconfiguration, the novel foregrounds the fractured subjectivity of second-generation immigrants, who must construct identity amid conflicting imperatives without ever fully reconciling them
Reading as a Resonant Relation between Cultural Creation and Human Universality
No full textIn this article, I claim that moral life begins not in decision or judgment but in attention, the disciplined, loving gaze through which reality becomes visible as moral. Drawing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophy of moral vision, I argue that seeing is an ethical act: a practice of perception purified from ego and illusion. By bringing Murdoch into dialogue with Stanley Cavell and Martha Nussbaum, I trace a constellation of responsiveness that unites vision, language, and emotion. Cavell reveals the moral drama of acknowledgment within the limits of ordinary language; Nussbaum uncovers the cognitive depth of emotion as a form of moral intelligence; Murdoch grounds both in a metaphysics of vision, where perception itself transforms the self. Against the abstraction of moral theory, I recover ethics as an art of seeing, a form of attention in which truth and love converge. Finally, I turn to film as the lived enactment of this moral attention: a medium that trains the eye to dwell, to discern, and to love without possession. In reframing moral perception as a discipline of vision, the article bridges epistemology and aesthetics, suggesting that to see rightly is the highest form of understanding and that art keeps this moral labor alive
Challenging Familiar Boundaries and Blurred Lines in Yoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear
No full textYoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear engages multiple fields—including Asian German studies, animal studies, postcolonial theory, and the public humanities—through the story of an unnamed polar bear writing her autobiography. The novel blurs the boundary between humans and animals, using ambiguous language and narrative perspective to examine questions of identity, agency, and the rights of both humans and nonhumans. Tawada’s polar bear, as narrator and author, challenges traditional hierarchies and compels readers to reconsider what it means to give voice and recognition to the marginalized.
At the same time, the novel aligns with postcolonial and public humanities concerns by decentering dominant narratives. By foregrounding a perspective historically excluded from both literature and society, Tawada’s work enacts a form of narrative justice, inviting readers to engage with experiences of displacement, otherness, and historical silencing. Reading the novel through these intersecting lenses illuminates how literature can serve as a tool for empathy, ethical reflection, and social critique.
Ultimately, Memoirs of a Polar Bear demonstrates the value of attending to underrepresented voices in both fiction and reality. By exploring the ethical and political dimensions of storytelling, Tawada’s work reminds us of the transformative potential of literature to foster understanding across boundaries of species, culture, and historical experience
A Comparative Reading of Positionings within Patriarchy in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and Amirhossein Allahyari’s Qorab Jendun: A Lacanian Approach
No full textInformed by the Lacanian conceptualization of the Name-of-the-Father, this research investigates Amirhossein Allahyari’s Qorab Jendun (2022) and Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (1982). This study dialogically investigates the two authors’ orientation toward and within patriarchy. It also explores the impact of resisting/accepting the patriarchal system and its consequences, and offers insight into the reverberation of (m)Other’s presence in the process of subjectification. The central questions of this research are: How are the two works situated in the continuum of patriarchy according to Lacan’s Name-of-the-Father? How is patriarchy negotiated with or subverted in accordance with Lacan’s psychoanalytical conceptualization of the Symbolic and neurosis? And what are the two authors’ orientations toward patriarchy? This analysis draws upon thematic textual analysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis to confront Eastern and Western patriarchal systems and ideologies in terms of Symbolic, unconscious, subject, Imaginary, and the Name-of-the-Father. The analysis contextualizes Allahyari’s elegiac writing and Churchill’s prescriptive text in light of the time-space features of their lives and their attitude toward the socio-political milieu of their countries, all of which array the two works as consequential or oppositional within the patriarchy. This study demonstrates the unfeasibility of Churchill’s idealistic Symbolic solution and the necessity of having both patriarchy-oriented and matriarchy-oriented stances for a balanced psyche and a healthy society
A Linguistic-Narratological Commentary on the Dialogue of Odysseus and Achilles in the Underworld in Homer’s Odyssey (vv. 465 – 491)
No full textThis commentary examines verses 465-491 from Rhapsody ? of Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus encounters Achilles in the Underworld. Through a narratological and linguistic analysis, the study explores the use of direct speech and narrative techniques that express the psychological states of both heroes. Odysseus, as a secondary narrator, reflects on his sufferings, while Achilles reveals his deep regret about death, stating his preference for a humble life over rulership in the afterlife. The analysis highlights the shifts in time and space, the contrast between life and death, and the emotional depth achieved through Homeric formulas and linguistic structures. Special emphasis is placed on focalization, with both Odysseus and Achilles presenting their perspectives on past experiences and their current fates in the Underworld. This passage from Rhapsody ? offers valuable insights into the thematic richness of the Odyssey and deepens our understanding of Homer’s narrative techniques, particularly in relation to heroic ideals and the human condition
L’éclat de Antigone: For the Plural Form of Lacanian Ethics
No full textIn this paper, starting from the idiosyncratic ethics of heroin, we attempt to follow the thread in Lacan to specifically delineate Antigone with her unbearable splendor. Antigone inherits her debt of the incest from her lineage while pays it off at the cost of her life. In an ambivalent sense, she does not succumb to the desire of the Other and not to the desire on her own, either. This Lacanian Antigonean ethics is antagonistic to the chimera of moral ideals as well as the commensurable politics for the good(s). By powerful and close reading, we rather take the very path to the archi-ethics through her traversal of the limit of Atè and of being human, bearing henceforth “beyond death” the connotation of the ever-presence of the signifier. In conclusion, the desiring subject for the void unravels the particular dimension towards the death-beyond-limit which vindicates the Lacanian ethics in plural form
Different Shapes of Anarchy in Edward Albee’s Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
No full textEdward Albee’s Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961) starts with chaos and anarchy, subverting the traditionally strict gender roles and cultural prescriptions and expectations. Albee’s play has revolutionized dramatic writing by opening the play with a deep male identity crisis. The repressive and oppressive gender roles are mimicked. This paper will try to demonstrate that Albee’s play is a one pervaded by different levels anarchy, instability of meanings and both verbal and structural turbulence. The play’s title indicates two instances of anarchy and sources of fear: the female and the mad. This paper will demonstrate how the reversal of gender roles operates in the play: the husband is feminized while the wife is masculinized, the wife plays an emasculating and unfeminine role while the husband is dominated and in a submissive position. The play’s anti-realistic and post-modern structure conveys ideas of improvisation, structural anarchy. It is unbound, fluid and both regressive and digressive. If anything, the play’s structure is anarchically unstable, defying the traditional realistic strictures. It is written in a grotesque and comic way that subverts the conventions of the comic genre. The disruptive verbal energy and dueling in the play aims at displaying disrespect for some of the main American values and institutions: family, marriage and academia are constantly debunked. The play stages a state of anarchy beneath the happy and tranquil surface of these institutions. This paper will also attempt to show how the play of anarchy has eventually to be stopped in order for the social order to be restored and vindicated