Elena Petrović

Annotated Bibliography

Aronofsky, Darren. Black Swan. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2010.

Darren Aronofsky's masterpiece Black Swan portrays the disturbing lifestyle of ballerinas, their
(self-)destructive perfectionism, dedication and competitiveness through the character of Nina Sayer,
portrayed by Natalie Portman. When Thomas Leroy, artistic director, announces his company's new
production of ''Black Swan'', Nina has her mind set on getting the dual lead role. Thomas does have her
as his first choice in mind, as she is certainly perfect for the white swan, but he is unsure about her
abilities to portray the black swan. Thomas is ready to push Nina to the limits of her abilities, but also
does everything in his power to get the passion out of her, which is the crucial character trait of the
black swan. Nina also feels threatened by a new dancer in the group, Lily (Mila Kunis), who is the total
opposite of Nina, making her the perfect pick for the black swan. Due to the pressure from the people
around her, and especially the pressure she has put on herself, the audience watch her slowly descend
into madness and mental disease.
We found the character of Nina Sayer to be the perfect example to show the determination to achieve
perfection, and the price one is ready to pay for it. She was ready to put up with her teacher's abuse,
risk her physical as well as her mental health and in the end, sacrifice her life, all for a perfect
performance. It is impossible to watch the movie without asking yourself how far is too far and in the
end, is it worth it? She is the epitome of sacrifice, and therefore we thought she would be a great
contribution to our presentation.

Luka Doderović
Nevile, Jill, and Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde. Oxford University
Press, 2000.

This book was written by Oscar Wilde at the end of 19 th century and it is a psychological book
about a man named Dorian Grey who sells his soul to the devil in order to gain eternal youth
and lives a hedonistic life due to bad influences from his so called friends. This source came
from our earlier courses where we analyzed this book and it naturally occurred to us to use it in
this presentation. It mainly served a comparative purpose as our topic was “Symbols of sacrifice
and commitment in The Queen’s Gambit”. We wanted to showcase that the symbol of sacrifice
is as old as literature itself and that there are many examples that can be found in all eras of
mankind, including the modern era.
We found this book to be really helpful as it fits our subject perfectly and offers variety. Of
course, selling one’s soul to the devil is a concept which had appeared much earlier than this
work by Oscar Wilde, but we find this to be a very unique example of sacrificing something in
order to achieve a greater purpose or goal. It also perfectly introduces the debate on whether
one should go as far as that to gain something precious and is there even such a thing as going
too far to achieve a goal and if there is, how far is too far? Are there boundaries? Which
boundaries should you not cross? Dorian Grey is a rather extreme example with elements of
phantasy, but it’s philosophy can be applied to real life.
 Aleksa Češljar
Tevis, Walter. The Queen’s Gambit. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2020.
This is a novel written by Walter Tevis. The book follows the early life of Elizabeth Harmon, an orphan
girl and a promising chess prodigy, as well as her ongoing chess career and her climb through the
ranks. Other ideas that are also covered in the novel are alcohol and drug addiction, adoption,
sacrifice, commitment, as well as feminism. This novel can be interpreted as a coming-of-age novel,
as we can see the development of the protagonist. Along her journey, Elizabeth will face many
difficulties, and will have to make difficult choices.
This novel is crucial for our presentation, as the main character, whose actions and traits we are
going to be analysing, is the main protagonist of this novel. We will do this by looking at how
Elizabeth’s character is developing throughout the story, how she is reacting to certain situations and
obstacles, as well as what steps she is taking in over to overcome them. We will also be looking at
what kind of sacrifices Elizabeth is willing to make in order to achieve her goals. In the end, this book
should provide us with everything that we need in order to analyse the character of Elizabeth
Harmon. We will analyse her character ourselves, without looking at other people’s interpretations.