Newest Literature Essays

Edgar Allen Poe is, perhaps, the most popular Gothic author in American history. Many of his stories show the darker side of humanity and provoke a sense of eeriness in the reader. But what exactly makes his stories creepy or uncanny? To answer...

Gender roles and relationships in Islamic societies are best understood through historical and religious context. This is because social norms and customs that regulate the behaviours of Muslim men and women are rooted in sacred texts and pivotal...

After a close look at today’s society, an observer will find that within all healthy relationships, both people are equal partners. Today, this equality is something we believe to be a result of our basic human rights. However, in Shakespearean...

Self-destructive behavior runs rampant in this book written by John Green. According to psychologists, self-destructive behavior is used as a coping mechanism when one is overwhelmed. In this novel, this type of response is seen mostly in Miles...

Throughout the novel My Ántonia by Willa Cather Jim is very emotionally absent. He does not have an easy life by any stretch of the imagination, yet his hardships are not evident in his speech or actions. They are not the driving force that molds...

Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is written using very casual language and follows the stream of conciseness narrative of a young boy named Oskar. Oskar’s extreme curiosity and childlike innocence lead him to...

Upon viewing Inherit the Wind, the audience leaves Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee's play with such a conflict of emotions due to the playwrights’ constant changing of the audience’s perspective on Brady’s character, and through the transformation...

In Funny Boy, we find characters who do not conform, and at the same time have to live their lives with a sense of the impending danger of them transgressing the societal norms. Therefore a brief period of liberation followed by an acute sense of...

It is widely accepted that Utilitarianism, as a discipline, is not as unifying or as straightforward a moral theory as it might at first appear; as Crisp highlights, there are, in fact, 'many variations, some of them subtle, others quite radical,...

Patricia Highsmith, the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley, portrays a protagonist on the precipice of insanity. Mr. Ripley shows many qualities of a person with borderline personality disorder, or more commonly called: a psychopath. A book titled,...

The presentation of the way in which Jewish and non-Jewish elements inter-relate within the Gospel of Matthew is a fundamentally significant area of study if the Biblical scholar is to successfully appreciate the aims and values of the Evangelist...

The idea of reliability within the context of Biblical criticism is, in itself, infrequently used; through external sources shedding light on the Gospel and through the Gospel itself prompting work on the context behind its own composition,...

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God follows Janie Crawford’s journey through three marriages and her search for freedom, independence, and love through black womanhood in the 20th century. In the beginning of the novel, Hurston,...

Oscar Wilde hails from the Victorian generation, a set of writers known for its dogmas and oppression. In many of his works, he negates these austere ideas with his own particular brand of humour; however, Helas! and The Ballad of Reading Gaol are...

As legendary poet and hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur once said, “The seed must grow regardless of the fact that it’s planted in stone.” Those who live in impoverished neighborhoods are prone to a life empty of education and full of crime. From the...

Daniel Woodrell creates a protagonist in his novel, Winter’s Bone, who is prideful, resilient and would do anything to preserve her own kin and blood. Woodrell also allows the reader to see her weaknesses, making identification with her character...

In a time when a black man lives in the White House, most Americans believe their nation has moved past racial oppression. Police Shootings may still grab headlines, but adherents to colorblindness view them largely as an isolated problem. In The...

Morally ambiguous characters offer personas that, while difficult to unravel, add depth and nuance to works of fiction. In Invisible Man, author Ralph Ellison depicts Brother Jack as a morally ambiguous figure whose characterization changes the...

The evolutionary aspect of the human race which sets it apart, in knowledge and complexity, from the rest of the animal kingdom, is its ability to express ideas through language. Arguably, our ability to manipulate language in order to negotiate,...

For Frederick Douglass, his Narrative was more than just a powerful story that would go on to be incredibly famous and influential. Telling his story was a major contribution to the abolitionist campaign, therefore, conveying the disgusting...

In the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith sets the scene historically for what is to unfold through place, time references, events, and people. The book covers the time period 1912 – 1919, seven crucial years which completes the bridge or...

Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick is well knows for the epic sea voyage that takes place over the course of the text. However, this journey doubles as not only a physical journey of movement from place to place but also a spiritual one. Ishmael’s...

Happiness is an ideal emotion that everyone wants to experience and will go to desperate measures to achieve. If one wants to explore the facets of how important happiness is for people to achieve, they will have to put themselves in the shoes of...

Maya Angelou was an acclaimed writer and civil rights activist who reached a broad audience through her works. While she is perhaps best known for her autobiographical prose, her poetry has changed the landscape of feminist writing, bringing in a...