OFFICIAL SITE OF AUTHOR MICHAEL RICKARD

Copyright 2019 by Michael W. Rickard II Charles Dickens’ Hard Times provides many opportunities to explore the text using feminist criticism, particularly with the Louisa Gradgrind (later Louisa Bounderby) character and Stephen Blackpool’s wife. In Gradgrind’s case, she is mistreated by her father, brother, and husband. Louisa’s character suffers throughout the novel because she is unable to resist the strong patriarchal forces at play in the narrative. In Mrs. Blackpool’s ca

Copyright 2019 by Michael W. Rickard II Asa Briggs’ Victorian Cities illustrates the power of new historicism in evaluating literary texts as Briggs’ chapter on Manchester helps to show the historical background depicted in Mary Barton. Briggs provides useful information to help a critic analyze Gaskell’s Mary Barton using new historicism criticism. New Historicism attends, “…primarily to the historical and cultural conditions of its production, its meanings, its effects, and

Copyright 2019 by Michael W. Rickard II The Rock-n-Roll Express Ricky Morton (left) and Robert Gibson(right) took tag team wrestling to new heights during the 1980's The Rock 'n' Roll Express were an innovative tag team whose success led to many copycat teams yet ironically, The Rock 'n' Roll Express were thrown together to emulate the success of a wildly popular tag team. Nonetheless, they revolutionized tag team wrestling in the 1980s and not only does their legacy carry on

Copyright 2019 by Michael W. Rickard II While the Second Golden Age of Tag Team Wrestling is sometimes seen as being started by The Fabulous Ones or The Road Warriors, you can be certain that The Fabulous Freebirds stand out as one of the greatest teams from this era, finding success nearly everywhere they went (with their short-lived WWF run being due to their excessive partying). Michael “P.S.” Hayes, Terry “Bam Bam” Gordy, and Buddy Roberts redefined tag team wrestling as