Newest Literature Essays

Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a mental institution, where the characters’ mental illnesses reveal much to the reader. Kesey enlightens the reader by characterizing the reticent Chief Bromden, who narrates the main...

The mind tends to remain at a stasis, neither consumed by pure ecstasy nor ridden with fearful anxiety. However, there may come a point in time when thoughts fluctuate between the two extremes until we are jolted back to reality’s state of...

In a world run by major corporations, it is not uncommon to find one’s self in a position of very little control, even over one’s own life. This feeling caused by lack of power and the other grieves of life sometimes brings about a feeling of...

Fear is one of the strongest emotions experienced by humans, so much so that it plays a drastic role in influencing the actions of men and women. This concept is one that appears frequently throughout Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife, a riveting tale...

Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit explores the themes of homosexuality and relationships affected by difference. Throughout this novel, it is clear that there are symbols present that carry the overall meaning in this piece....

The philosophical concept of The Sublime, though typically hard to define due to its complex nature, is most often described as an object or a surrounding which evokes a feeling of profound awe when viewed. The key difference between the concept...

Societies attempt to create a world which is beneficial for all, in which all individuals are happy and content. A world like this, however, is hard to attain: People have various conceptions of how a perfect world operates, and how to achieve a...

Jane Austen, through the development of socially conscious female characters, is able to render a remarkably accurate depiction of the social structure present during the late 18th century. Her social commentary, however, highlights certain...

Perhaps one of the most potent methods to elucidate the strengths and weaknesses of a protagonist, a foil illuminates the meaning of a work with character balance and meaningful juxtaposition. In The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand indeed makes use of such...

Simply by existing as a product of the human genome and becoming integrated into society, one unavoidably becomes aware of the fact that there is a wide range of good and bad that men and women are capable of. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old...

On the surface, William Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice (1604) and Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North (1966) are very similar. The title character of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a man of color whose marriage with a white...

We are all chasing our own fish. We're all trying desperately to grasp something that is just out of our reach. For Santiago, the main character in Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea, he is chasing a literal fish. He exhibits exceptional amounts...

Although Waiting for Godot and Mother Courage and Her Children are quite different in terms of plot structure and setting, there are similarities present in the use of bleak imagery as symbols of religious, social, and political criticism. The...

Henry James is considered the master of subtle psychological fiction, and in The Beast in the Jungle he demonstrates the powerful extent in which determinism can reach and bar an individual from any consideration of free will. This situation will...

Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, is set in Nigeria; the novel examines the clash between traditional African culture, and western ideals by the Igbo tribe, through the protagonist, Okonkwo. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s...

This essay will examine the scene in which Maire and Yolland finally kiss from Brian Friel’s play “Translations” and the poem “Meeting Point” by Louis MacNeice to discuss how both authors present love as something which transcends universal...

Throughout the stories of Mrs. Dalloway and The Artificial Silk Girl, both female characters, Clarissa and Doris carry different goals and ambitions regarding the life that they wish to live. Each of their life journeys further defines their...

Virginia Woolf, 20th century English novelist, successfully wrote and developed her stories with some of the most unique writing styles of the time. Through one of her most famous novels, Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf takes the use of symbolism beyond the...

The societal structure of eighteenth century London was grounded in rigid class hierarchies. In Burney’s novel Evelina, the title character is born as an illegitimate child without a name because her father refuses to accept her. This situates...

In the 1905 short story “Paul’s Case”, author Willa Cather leaves the reader to wonder what exactly Paul’s “case” is. Throughout the story, there seems to be clues left behind by Cather as to what Paul’s obstacles are. Some of Cather’s indications...

As we grow up, our parents teach us life lessons to prepare us for adulthood. Depending on how we choose to approach these lessons, we may or may not understand how to attain a mature way of acting. In the story, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by...

In a society, there are often multiple unspoken rules that members must adhere to in order to fit in. When an individual begins to deviate from these rules, it may be difficult to understand why. In the novel The Age of Innocence, the aristocratic...

In the 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the relationship between Blanche and Mitch is a key subplot in the tale of Blanche’s descent into madness and isolation. Whilst Williams initially presents Mitch as the answer to all...

In “Shout,” Dagoberto Gilb focuses his story on the emotions and headspace of his protagonist, a manual laborer returning home from a hard day's work. While he looks to escape the toil of his labor, this laborer realizes that his home life does...