Finally!

Henry IV Part I contains all aspects of a play that people enjoy. It has humor, drama, war, family, and the power we all think we have.

Wait...what? Power? Actual power over life, rather than just an illusion?

And that's the beauty of it. There is actual power, instead of the illusion thereof, in this play. Hal exerts this power by keeping his friends and family in the dark of his true nature. The other characters embody the appearance of power, due to their being kept in the dark by Hal. And the brilliance is that Hal is the future king, the one who makes Britain a place of power and paradise. Hal has the power, one of the few which we have seen throughout literature, and uses that power for good, to make his world a better place.

Although Hal is searching for a father figure, or a power source to look up to, the true power is within himself, which he realizes in the final scene, when his father accepts him and shows Hal respect, throwing Hal out of his search and fulfilling his true potential.

Betrayal

A lie, a truth, the appearance of reality or imagination. What keeps mankind going every day is, arguably, being with and trusting others. We want to be able to go out into the world and not be worried of malice and death, it's in our nature. In the early days of humans, this trust was not just wished for, it was needed in order to survive day to day. Having trust is the difference between being attacked by a saber tooth tiger and sharing a saber tooth steak with your buddy. Trust is vital.

In modern times, that trust isn't necessarily as necessary, but is still a huge part of everyday life. From the pilots on planes to other drivers on the road to the people who prepare your food, that trust is vital. But the issue is, that trust is completely out of your hands. People can choose who to trust, choose who to have their back, but if worse comes to worse, one really doesn't know if they are alone or not.

In The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, this trust has been shattered. Laura, the sister of the protagonist, Iris, is suspected to have committed suicide due to the trust she had spiraling out of control. Laura had figured out that her husband and sister were having an affair, and she was completely powerless to do anything. So she drove off of a bridge. She had control of just one aspect of her life at this point, and that was to keep living in a powerless situation, or not.

So she trusted herself, the only one we truly can rely on.

Entrapment

      Wuthering Heights, both the book and the place, bring feelings of hopelessness and entrapment to the characters or readers. In essence, nobody holds power, not the reader, not the characters.

    The reader, a passive observer, reads through the events taking place in Wuthering Heights and is powerless to change anything. Their inputs do nothing to the events in the books, and the reader is powerless.

     The characters within Wuthering Heights can do nothing, they are plagued constantly with illnesses and death, two forces which are all-powerful and difficult if not impossible to stop. The building Wuthering Heights is an emotional anchor, dragging all of the characters towards an inevitable doom.

   The paths which everyone walk are predestined. Free will is an illusion, especially towards those involved with Wuthering Heights.

Fate and the Future

        Oedipus, the story of a man and his struggle through his own life. The never ending twist and turns that keep coming at him blind him from the problems facing him directly. We all know the story, a king and queen get a prophecy that their son will kill them, have a son, send him out in the wild, he grows up, ends up hearing the same prophecy and goes out and kills his dad and marries his mom. And this all started because of one silly prophecy.

        Or was it so silly and little? The mere fact that the prophecy existed and was told to the king and queen caused it to become a reality. There would be no reason for the monarch to rid themselves of their child if they had no knowledge that he would kill them. Even so, due to the circumstances in the play, one could even argue that if the prophecy was never told to the king and queen, it never would have become true.
 
       Yet it is told and the king and queen rid themselves of their heir. Even then, the prophecy wouldn't have necessarily become a reality. But then, just to reinforce it, the prophecy was told again, this time to Oedipus. And Oedipus, taking matters into his own hands, decides to try and stop the prophecy from ever becoming a reality. Ironically, the mere act of attempting to fling the chains of fate from his feet is what caused the future to happen.

      So it all boils down to a lone man, Oedipus, on his quest to feel powerful against fate, to cast the future to the side and say "You don't control me!".  But he doesn't posess that power, here is a madman babbling things about the future, but he cannot  change it. The future becomes exactly what it intended to be, and no puny human could ever interfere with something as grand as the future.

So, strike one Oedipus, Fate wins this round.

Source: 
ciel-in--wonderland.deviantart.com

The Big One!

Yar! There she blows! The Big One! The all-mighty, underlying thematic idea which applies to every work of literature, be it film, text or even theater! Yaaarrrrr! Avast ye question, reveal yourself to mine eyes, and I promise that I will try my hardest not to harpoon ye.
*Water splooshes*
Ah! Look at ye, the great  white beast of the deep, rise further, come up!
*Splashing noises*
*A loud foghorn-like noise erupts from the beast*
Ye speak! To me! Alas, the question you pose it....MAN THE HARPOONS! Spear that beast and reel her into land! Come on mateys, grab her!

-5 hours later-

Men, we tried, we tried good and hard, but...but she was too much to handle. We were powerless.
Speaking of which, she knew the whole time....or at least that what I assume. I mean, the question she bespoke upon me was

"Does mankind really have power, or do we fall into an illusion in which we do?"

And mateys, I guess we were powerless in this one...but never lose hope! This question makes us question reality, our lives in the infinte universe in which we all live, it defends our never-ending struggles against nature and ourselves. So are we powerless or powerful crew?

YARRR!!

Thats what I thought! Now man the sails mateys, we've got a question to catch!