Themes in 5th-year Course Authors

Charles Dickens

  • The Failure of Charity
  • The Folly of Individualism
  • The Countryside Idealized
  • Purity in a Corrupt City

Robert Louis Stevenson

  • Keeping Up Appearances
  • The Duality of Human Nature
  • Violence
  • The Rational vs. The Irrational
  • The Importance of Reputation

Oscar Wilde

  • The Purpose of Art
  • The Supremacy of Youth and Beauty
  • The Superficial Nature of Society
  • The Negative Consequences of Influence

Conrad

  • The Hypocrisy of Imperialism
  • Madness as a Result of Imperialism
  • The Absurdity of Evil

James Joyce

  • The Quest for Paternity
  • The Remorse of Conscience
  • Compassion as Heroic
  • Parallax, or the Need for Multiple Perspectives

Ernest Hemingway

  • The Aimlessness of the Lost Generation
  • Male Insecurity
  • The Destructiveness of Sex

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

  • The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s
  • The Hollowness of the Upper Class
  • Class
  • The American Dream
  • Love and Marriage

George Orwell

  • The Dangers of Totalitarianism
  • Psychological Manipulation
  • Physical Control
  • Control of Information and History
  • Technology
  • Language as Mind Control

Isaac Asimov

  • Social Oppression
  • Science and Technology
  • Sociological Aspects

Philip Dick

  • Reality-Illusion
  • Disorientation
  • Mental Illness and Drug Use
  • God and Religion
  • Robot and Human