Newest Literature Essays

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the novel is formed of three interlinked but ultimately separate narratives. The outer frame for the narrative takes the form of Walton’s letters to his sister Margaret. It is through this conduit that Victor’s...

J.W Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther is heavy with a sense of malaise, as it describes a young man's decent into mental instability which ends in his suicide. The cause of this sense of malaise lies with the narrator himself, as his own...

Russian Formalism was a school of literary thought which emerged in Russia during the 1910’s. Members of this movement attempted to study literary language and literature according to scientific methods, and Peter Brooks states that they focussed...

In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, there is a certain ambiguity surrounding the nature of the titular character. On the surface, she appears to be a reborn and grown up version of the child who was murdered by Sethe in an intended act of merciful...

A key theme in both Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations[1] and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles[2] is cruelty. Both authors treat this cruelty in such a way as to expose the flaws of a society in which the powerful, either in terms of...

Robert Frost is considered one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century. His writings have been lauded for their pastoral imagery, emotional depth, and their masterful use of America colloquialism. Frost's poem, Home Burial, is an...

A Clock Work Orange is considered one of the greatest films made by critically acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick. Based on the 1962 book by Anthony Burgess, the film tells the tale of the disturbed psychopath Alex and his violent gang of thugs he...

Every author has a purpose behind every piece they write; some sort of message or deeper meaning behind their work. Aldous Huxley’s purpose in writing Brave New World was most definitely a warning towards the possibilities of the future. The...

The definition of a tragic character is something that has been considered set in since the times of ancient Greece. Aristotle’s Poetics defined what makes up a comedy and tragedy, and that definition has been widely accepted since then....

Temptation is a central theme in J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings. Many characters throughout the novel are tempted to use the power of the Ring to change the world as they see fit. Some seek to use its power for selfish, personal gain, while...

During the 1600s, women were stereotyped to behave obediently, remain uneducated, and follow the traditions of their own culture. Although these social norms are clearly oppressive and offensive, to fight against these expectations was a brave...

In apartheid South Africa, competing attitudes in the black community regarding how to defeat the oppressive system made accomplishing that change difficult to achieve. In Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa! , Mr. M’s goal of ending apartheid...

Many authors use different types of form in order to inform content, enhance their stories, and stress the messages that they are trying to get across. Yiyun Li effectively uses this technique in her short story collection, A Thousand Years of...

Both Thomas Hardy's tragic novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles, set in impecunious rural England, and Emily Bronte's gothic novel Wuthering Heights, established at two adjacent houses in the Yorkshire moors, question whether the imperfect male...

Many scholars have scrutinized the idea of going “beyond Black and White” in relation to the construction of the Asian American identity. Many arguments have been put forward to explain the possible factors that eventually lead to the perpetuation...

Claude McKay’s “The Harlem Dancer” is a poem immersed in the rich cultural aesthetic of a cultural renaissance that is unable to conceal its somber song of oppression, even in an atmosphere trying relentlessly to exorcise those sour notes. The...

It is rightly said that what a man thinks, he becomes. In light of this, Herman Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf deals with Harry Haller, the protagonist who thinks himself to be divided between his human nature and an animalistic one, considering...

“To an anomalous species of terror, I found him a bounden slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their...

Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence [1] and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple [2] both paint a portrait American culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This culture appears to be male, with no room for the female as any...

The middle class of America is slowly disappearing. Over the past few decades, the ability of the average American to afford a living wage has been deteriorating, with many citizens being forced to hold two or even three jobs at a time just to...

Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a collection of short stories that explores the continuing Native American struggles in the modern era. The product of more than 500 years of oppression and persecution, the world...

In its own haunting and mysterious way, the line between sanity and insanity can be incredibly blurry at times. Goethe’s masterpiece, Faust, is filled with this mysterious case of insanity. In this first part of Goethe’s great work, the embittered...