Narrative is said to be an important way that humans come to understand their world as it is and as it can be. If this is true, then literary narrative must possess significant value since it has historically and cross-culturally received much attention and appreciation. This study gives an account of the cognitive value of literature in terms of…

Fifteen years ago, J. H. Rushing published a seminal article addressing the fragmentation within contemporary society and the ways in which myths (films) may address this exigence. The exigence of fragmentation is relieved, according to her analysis, by mediated recourse to the perennial philosophy of monistic holism that is found across the…

Both film and ancient religious writing have much in common, especially in regard to their ability to convey powerful messages to modern audiences. A study analyzed the timeless meta-narratives in the ancient Hindu poem, the "Bhagavad Gita," and in the 1998 American film, "The Thin Red Line." It used the methodology of…

This paper uses narrative criticism to analyze the ancient Indian religious poem, the "Bhagavad Gita." This important text, the second most widely translated piece of literature in the world, will receive much-deserved rhetorical attention to its narrative and how this helps construct issues of the self, the world, action, and ontology.…

This paper examines the Christian Identity artifact, "The Book of Adam," by Dan Gayman. Using narrative criticism, this artifact is shown to construct the white race as "progressing through time, as occupying sacred spatial locations, as essentially chosen by God, and as separate from other races." This narrative blurs the…

Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action has held much promise for critical theory and its examination of the structure of society. This theory, however, has been accused by some as being limited in regard to other forms of discourse, especially fictional, mythical, and religious texts. Habermas has argued that literature (i.e., fictive…

Seeking the answers as to what makes one speaker more charismatic than another and why some speeches are merely effective while others move audiences to a transcendent state is a difficult task. This paper follows up on this challenge and seeks to provide some answers as to how the prophetic works of Richard Brothers moved his followers to a…

The Christian Identity movement is a religious movement derived from the premise that the white race is the offspring of the lost tribes of Israel and that whites, not Jews, are God's chosen people. The "seedline doctrine," which is taught by Pastor Dan Gayman, a former high school principal, and other preachers of the Christian Identity…

The "Bhagavad Gita" is a didactic dialogue inserted approximately in the middle of an immensely long Indian epic entitled the "Mahabharata." This paper examines the use of narrative in this ancient Hindu religious work, the "Bhagavad Gita"--specific attention is given to how the story in this didactic text uses…

Research that has focused on ancient Indian rhetoric, a sub-category of Eastern rhetoric, has largely eschewed focus on the narrative paradigm as a theoretical guide. These narratives often enshrine didactic elements, contradictions, and mythic traits that often confound and inspire Western audiences. These archaic religious/philosophical texts…

This paper analyzes the interesting narrative structure of the hero-quest myth contained within the 1999 film, "The Matrix," and explicates the implications of this message upon the audience. Initially, the relevance of myth to movies and the format of Joseph Campbell's hero-quest is illustrated. This format is then applied to "The…