Arthur Miller emphasizes some characteristics of a tragic hero in his essay ‘Tragedy and the Common Man.’ He says that the common man in our society is as apt for a subject for tragedy as kings were. Also he argues that the tragic flaw is nothing but the hero’s inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of a challenge to his dignity and the possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. Willy Loman, a protagonist in Death of a Salesman has cherished American Dream and chooses to be a salesman, a job which is against his inner disposition. Even though he has worked for 36 years, he is finally fired in his company. At the end of the play Willy kills himself. According to Miller’s criteria of a tragic hero, Willy can be almost accepted as a tragic hero in the modern society. Willy is a common man and struggles to protect his dignity. However, he does not experience self-discovery, which is an important qualification of a tragic hero, even before he commits suicide. Also it is difficult to say that there exists the possibility of victory in Willy’s death. Therefore we can not call Willy a perfect tragic hero. Whereas Willy lacks the quality of self-discovery, Biff, Willy’s first son realizes his situation and his disposition. He experiences a moment of self-discovery. Biff is a complementary character for Willy and both characters share the qualities of one tragic hero. Miller is interested in writing social plays but he is not a propagandist. He is an artist who is interested in writing a modern tragedy. (Kongju National University)

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship among race, nature, and ecological vision in Cooper’s The Pathfinder. In general, Cooper selects a landscape and natural wilderness of the frontier as a spatial background in his famous The Leatherstocking Tales. He discloses various racial conflicts such as white/white, white/Indian, and Indian/Indian deployed inside of a sublime natural scenery. He also reveals his environmental protection consciousness on nature in contrast to natural destructions by wars, exploitation, and development under the pretext of improvement and betterment of our life. In The Pathfinder, although he exposes inconsistency and impracticability in characterization of characters who have biased views against race and nature, Cooper raises awareness of conservation of the natural environment through the main character Natty Bumppo, ‘Pathfinder’, who lives in the frontier forest after abandonment of material and domestic values. Pathfinder is concerned about the destruction of nature and environment that can occur in the human war, development, urbanization, and civilization. Therefore, Cooper reveals his ecological vision that all kinds of species, including human beings, could live harmonious communal lives beyond the prejudice of race and nature. (Chungnam National University)

Shelly maintains the stance of a social reform in the verse drama, The Cenci, just as his poems represent the reformer’s attitude against inequality, tyranny, and oppression occurring from despots and false institutions. The oppressive patriarch represented by father in The Cenci and the corrupt religious law represented by the pope are the means of restraining and suppressing Beatrice. Therefore, in The Cenci, Shelley reconsiders women’s rights in earnest. In a patriarchal society dominated by men, sexual violence becomes a means of suppressing women. Furthermore, the Catholic Church tolerates sins for property proliferation and does not give any mental comfort to believers. So the society described in The Cenci is a society where the possibility of change is completely blocked, and women’s freedom is impossible by patriarchy and by a corrupted church. But Beatrice’s aggressive behavior against oppression from her patriarchal father and the corrupted church shows that change is possible. Consequently, Beatrice’s act promises new potential for women by breaking and overcoming the oppressive ruling system of a patriarchal and religious order. (Wonkwang University)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of telecollaborative online discussion in fostering critical thinking skills in EFL and KFL college students. For the study, EFL students in Korea and KFL students in Australia participated in the online discussion. To collect data, students’ online discussion scripts, questionnaire, interview, and team reports were employed. The following two results were yielded. First, both EFL and KFL students did not place much value on the role of telecollaborative discussion in developing one’s critical thinking skills. Rather, both groups of students seemed to believe that online discussions can offer opportunities to expose learners into diverse perspectives which can be limited due to sociocultural differences. Second, a majority of EFL and KFL students reported that online discussion should have various platforms to encourage one’s participation. The following implications can be elicited. First, online discussion can be an important platform to exchange one’s cultural and historical background. Engaging in online discussion with various topics including critical issues, students can broaden their insight, recognize different perspectives, ultimately, develop critical view. (Hannam University · University of Queensland)

This study aims to investigate how Korean EFL students in a second year high school English class perceived literature-based instruction using the English short story “Araby,” chosen because of its linguistic accessibility and plot reflecting matters of interest to adolescents. Data included a class survey, a focus group interview with five students, and the teacher’s reflections on teaching the plan and further suggestions. The result indicated that students thought learning language through a short story was very effective for improving their creativity, motivation, and intercultural knowledge. At the same time, the students complained about the discrepancy between such innovative classroom activities and the high stakes college entrance English exam, for which they were under pressure to prepare. They thought that the assessment system should be changed to one that evaluates students’ thinking and maintains their motivation. Based on these results, implications are discussed and some suggestions are made for teachers who are planning to teach literature in their high school English classes. (Pukyong National University)

The aim of this study was to investigate university students’ communication strategies. The quantitative as well as qualitative methodologies were applied for this study. For the survey of the study, 43 students responded to the survey, and 6 out of those university students who took courses related to English communication participated in the interview which was the main method of the qualitative study. First of all, an analysis of university students’ overall English communication strategies identified through the questionnaire, which is a quantitative method, showed that social strategies were most used during the use of the strategy, followed by cognitive strategies, upper-level strategies, and affective strategies. The most frequent use of social strategies by learners who participated in the study is attributed to the fact that the classes they take consisted of participatory classes in cooperation with colleagues. The data were collected through the course of an academic semester. Discussions and suggestions for future study are provided. (Korea Baptist Theological University)

George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara is a representative work of realism on the subject of morality, religion, and materialism across British society at that time. The main characters of this work are, Barbara, Undershaft, and Cusins, whose own values are faithfully reflecting the materialism at that time. However, it is improper to say that these characters are all strictly confined to materialism. This is because Barbara, Undershaft, and Cusins all undergo their own maturing process of human freedom and ideal realization. Barbara displays the human will to attempt practical action to obtain the life force, and Cusins attempts to seek knowledge for accurate and objective perception of the reality. Finally, Undershaft practices solidarity for coexistence with others. In other words, despite the many contradictions and ironies, Barbara, Cusins, and UnderShaft are moving towards the achievement of humanistic ethics of the life force, pursuit of knowledge, and practice of solidarity in their own way. All of these processes and results have become an important factor in humanizing human life and further show the possibility of achieving humanistic ethics. (Daejeon Institute of Science And Technology)

This study explores how Sarah Ruhl dramatizes the process through which the characters embrace the Other and recreate their lives through the ethics of transcendence in How to Transcend a Happy Marriage. Ruhl tries to expand our thinking on desire and love with the motif of polyamory in the play. The play presents two monogamous families, and one polyamorous family. Ruhl delineates the polyamorous family consisting of one woman and two men who are bisexualists as an intimate, democratic family rather than an immoral relationship. At the new year’s eve party, the monogamous couples generate a transcendental, fecund flow of desire in a polyamorous relationship in which all of the four members ride each other as Deleuzian desiring-machines. The characters practice the ethics of embracing the Other’s desire and become new subjects of becoming. And their becoming acts as a power to recreate their reality. The characters recognize the true meaning of marriage relationship, thus pledge a deeper love to their spouses, and the four people keep more meaningful friendship. The ethics of transcendence which Ruhl suggests is in line with the ethics of transcendence that both Irigaray and Levinas affirm in that it respects mutual freedom and growth and pursues a fecund creation. (Yeungnam University)

The aim of this study is to examine Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman through the lens of the achievement subject in the Burnout Society. Willy, excessively pursuing material success in American capitalistic society, is seized by severe fatigue and suffers from neurological illnesses like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD). As an example of an adult ADHD, Willy shows attention problems with driving a car on various occasions, threatening his own life and others’. As core traits of BPD, fears of abandonment, delusions, and suicidal attempts are repeatedly shown in Willy, all of which cause serious conflicts and communication problems among family members. These two neurological illnesses such as ADHD and BPD represented in the play help to reveal destructive effects of American dream on its blind pursuer. In conclusion, the denial of Biff to follow Willy’s material dream, and the desire to go to the West, away from the city shows that Biff performs the power of active negation to the “divisive tiredness” of Willy’s. (Koje University)

This is to study John Clare’s sonnets written in his Northborough period. His Northborough sonnets, organized by a list-structure and groups of seven rhyming couplets, exhibit the alienation from the natural world which has previously been his refuge and delight. The landscape in his Northborough sonnets is clearly no longer a place of safety and stability. Instead, it is filled with fear. The alienation might refect the unstable and frightened mind that he had while he had lived like a shadowy solitary stranger in Northborough. He suffered from the fear: "fear of prying neighbours, fear of madness, fear of poverty and loneliness, fear of disorientation and of being irrecoverably lost". Eventually, throughout writing a poem, he might be anxious to recover the mental stability severed by the move from Helpston to Northborough. (Hanbat National University)