As an English major, I have analyzed and interpreted a wealth of media, including and beyond written literature. The form that has proven to be my favorite to analyze is film. During my academic career, I researched and wrote on a wealth of films, ranging from Ice Age to Midsommar. I have included a selection of these papers.
Ice Age: A Modern Movie with Timeless Tropes
This paper was written for a course discussing early literature from all over the world. In this paper, I discuss how the 2002 film Ice Age shares a number of alarming similarities to these early pieces of literature, including The Epic of Gilgamesh and Arthurian legend.
Medieval literature became one of my special interests thanks to the course this paper was written for. We discussed medieval literature and the ways in which it has been misinterpreted and misappropriated by modern Hollywood. Sword of the Valiant (1984) was slated to be an adaptation of the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. As this paper discusses, however, the spirit of the original poem is barely present in the film.
Found Family: Trauma & Cults in Ari Aster’s Midsommar
For the capstone of my English degree, I researched Dominick LaCapra’s literary theory of trauma and applied it to Midsommar (2019). I discuss, extensively, how the reason Dani so easily assimilates into the Hårga’s community is because she has nothing to tie her back to her old life. The Hårga encourage her to express her emotions, something she’s been suppressing due to the pressures from her boyfriend and American expectations for emotional expression.