Newest Literature Essays

The rise of the novel is one of the most frequently debated literary themes in the history of literature. Scholars have always been divided in two factions that argue whether Beware the Cat by William Baldwin or Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is...

Ralph Waldo Emerson is generally remembered as one of the most influential writers of the American Renaissance. He is the father of the philosophical movement Transcendentalism, that is, the American equivalent of the European movement...

Literature is one of the best ways to understand a culture. Through literature, in fact, it is possible to analyze the customs and traditions of a specific society and to comprehend its way of life. While the Homeric poems, for instance, offer a...

Heda Margolius Kovály’s Under a Cruel Star recalls the social and political struggles in Prague between 1941 and 1968 that resulted directly from the Second World War and its aftermath during the Stalin era. Under a Cruel Star is a fantastic...

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late 14th Century, featuring several tales loosely linked together that revolve around typical medieval lifestyles with its many modern day parallels. Marriage was a popular theme for debate...

Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl communicates strong messages about both society’s expectations of women, and the way that certain things told to someone can have a large impact on them. The piece is written in the form of a continuous list. This style...

Discovery is the process of unveiling a fresh or renewed understanding of the world which may be the result of an unexpected journey or experience. While relinquishing societal norms can result in the most profound revelations which may be...

Distinctive representations of the symbiotic relationship between natural landscapes and people are reinforced through personal and socio-cultural contexts. Such representations can be brought about through travel, often renewing an individual’s...

Intertextual perspectives of personal and political ideals are often shared by composers, regardless of forms and contexts, due to controversial periods of history causing the historical paradigms to resonate with audiences. Fritz Lang’s film...

The representation of science is a trope often used in Gothic Literature. In this essay, I will compare how two Gothic texts, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and “The Stolen Bacillus” by H. G. Wells, represent...

Though at times confusing, using a contradiction strongly establishes and emphasizes a point and often inspires an emotional response. In George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell effectively delivers these contradictions, or...

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, explores the emotional and spiritual consequences of sexism in the early 1900’s. During this time, women were legally viewed as the property of their husbands, and were often shamed for things like sexual...

Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectation is recognized as one of the most important examples of bildungsroman, that is, a “novel of personal development or education” of its main character (Rau). In this novel, using a first-person narrative,...

Hope; it holds the potential to drive a man insane, feeding on any optimism one possesses, building up and growing larger until reality tears it down. However, It can also be a marvelous state of mind, allowing one to do things they never thought...

The first woman to appear in Meridian is not the eponymous protagonist herself, but rather, a corpse. The body of Marilene O’Shay, the slain wife of a jealous husband resurrected as a carnival attraction, introduces womanhood in the novel’s absurd...

In J.D Vance’s wildly-popular 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Vance recounts his childhood experience of Appalachian poverty and makes a sociological argument against government handouts. Speaking from...

In the present day, poetry is often viewed as an inaccessible literary form – one that is made by and for those with a certain education and class background. T. S. Eliot commented that ‘it appears […] that poets in our civilisation […] must be ...

The "Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee," revolved around a very prominent district magistrate named Judge Dee Goong An, a man famous for his ability to solve mysterious cases. Judge Dee digs deep to solve each case and was successful because he...

America has long prided itself on being a land of opportunity. Since the fifteenth century, pilgrims have flocked to American shores, urged onward by the thought of making money, off the rich lands and resources available here. As time has gone...

As one may look into a mirror, the reflections that they see may vary. For Dana Franklin in Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), she sees her long lost ancestor Alice Greenwood. The story tells the tale of Dana, a young black woman in the 70’s, and...

Ethan Frome and Things Fall Apart are found in two dramatically different settings, with each plot relying heavily on the setting of the novel to tell its story. The setting of a story is a broad term and can contain many layers. While each story...

The character of Alison, who tells the tale of The Wife of Bath in Canterbury Tales, is one of the most complex and outspoken narrators written by Geoffrey Chaucer. Her confident and sarcastic remarks are especially controversial given the social...

In the ancient world, communication was minimal, resulting in contact between nations being few and far between. Because of this, each nation developed its own view of primacy, immediately shunning others and boosting themselves. The Book of...

The manner in which amorphous female identities overlap and echo each other in Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath’s Tale and La Morte D’Arthur may appear to represent the ambiguity of distinguishable female personalities in romances...