Tag Archives: Cormac McCarthy

The Peace of Wild Things

By Robin Bates | Published: December 21, 2014

My Intro to Literature class explored how a disconnect from nature leads to existential anguish while opening themselves up to nature provides spiritual nourishment.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Ancient Mariner, "Egrets", "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", "Killing the Trees", "Peace of Wild Things", All the Pretty Horses, Bacchae, Barbara Kingsolver, Ceremony, Euripides, Flight Behavior, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lucille Clifton, Mary Oliver, Midsummer Night's Dream, Nature, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, spiritual healing, Wendell Berry, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth | Comments closed

Lit’s Ten Most Sensitive Guys

By Robin Bates | Published: September 16, 2013

To match my 10 strongest literary women characters, here are my 10 most sensitive male characters.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry Fielding, Herman Melville, James Baldwin, Jane Austen, John Milton, John Steinbeck | Comments closed

Father-Daughter Separation Dramas

By Robin Bates | Published: July 30, 2009

My wonderful daughter-in-law Betsy, in response to one of my posts about father-son relationships, began meditating about father-daughter relationships on her own blog. We agreed that, while the dynamics are different, in one way they are similar: daughters like sons must establish separate identities, a process that is difficult and often involves a struggle. […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged All the Pretty Horses, Charles Perrault, Donkey Skin, fathers and daughters, King Lear, separation dramas, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Is Father-Son Conflict Inevitable?

By Robin Bates | Published: July 22, 2009

I had an interesting conversation with my two sons yesterday as we drove them and my daughter-in-law to the Portland airport, marking the beginning of the end of our summer vacation. The conversation began with me wondering why there weren’t works of literature that accurately capture the kind of father-son relationship that I feel that […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Daniel Defoe, David Copperfield, fathers and sons, Great Expectations, Hamlet, Henry IV, Homer, Human Stain, Lawrence Sterne, Nicholas Nickleby, Odyssey, Oedipus, Oliver Twist, Philip Roth, Road, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison, Tristram Shandy | Comments closed

Cormac McCarthy’s Apocalyptic Vision

By Robin Bates | Published: June 19, 2009

When we say that our safety trumps all other considerations, we lose touch with something that is far more meaningful. Sometimes we need a novel as grim and stark as Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” to be clear what is at stake.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged No Country for Old Men, violence | Comments closed