Newest Literature Essays

Born in 1897 in Mississippi, William Faulkner knew black people as servants and laborers, not as equals. Yet, sharing the same space with blacks led him to a deeper understanding of their plight and circumstances. Despite his negative view of...

“What and how they speak may not be so remarkable as that they speak at all” (qtd in Estess par.1) are words that Ted Estess uses to describe Elie Wiesel’s writing career and, specifically, what Wiesel incorporates in his books. In this critique,...

In the novel The Kite Runner, author Khaled Hosseini focuses on many critical parts of life. The main character, Amir, struggles to find redemption throughout the story, and finally finds it when he rescues Sohrab, his half-brother Hassan’s son,...

Working at the height of the Romantic Era, Percy Bysshe Shelley set the standard for literature of the period. Consistently using the conventional comparisons between humans and nature, Shelley in his poetry emphasizes man’s ability to remove...

During the creation of the Constitution in 1787, Constitutional Framers were faced with the responsibility of crafting an improved court system after the failure of The Articles of Confederation. When analyzing the beginning stages of the judicial...

Considered to be blueprint for the mechanics of tragedy, Aristotle’s Poetics revolves around the assumption that great works of tragedy must include a generous number of mimetic elements, or elements which readily imitate human life. In addition,...

1963 was a particularly important year for American Confessional Poetry Movement for one of its chief proponents, Sylvia Plath famously committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, sticking her head inside the oven and leaving behind a...

Albert Camus was an Algerian-French absurdist author, who wrote novels like The Outsider and The Plague. In The Outsider he tells the story of an emotionless and immoral character, Meursault, and how he deals with the norms of the society and the...

In “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin uses powerful imagery to allow the reader to feel Mrs. Mallard’s true emotions. Visuals in a story can provide an enormous amount of information about a character. What the character sees out a window can...

In the novel Grendel, by John Gardner, the author associates each chapter with a different astrological sign, such as Aries, Gemini, and Sagittarius, not only to enhance the role of nature in the story, but also to better chronologize Grendel’s...

“But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” This quote by Rachael Carson evokes the internal struggle of man in his yearning to survive against the incessant onslaught of nature. “To Build a Fire”...

The literary canon is comprised of texts said to be of considerable value, texts regarded as experimentally profound and which may even be said to change the way the reader perceives the world. A Clockwork Orange can be deemed an experimental...

In ancient Eastern society, written novels eventually rose to a prominent place in culture, following upon a long tradition of oral accounts and short works such as poetry. In addition, with strict government policy on content, many authors and...

When one questions the existence of God, one often reverts to a specific, troubling question: “if God exists, why are there moral tragedies that cause such great suffering?” In other words, humans find it very difficult when there is an event or...

The Grimm brothers’ widely-known collection of fairy tales includes two especially significant stories: “Little Snow-White” and the lesser-known “The White Snake.” The main characters of each tale are, respectively, Snow White, a beautiful young...

In the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, there was an emergence of creativity and imagination. These ideals were portrayed throughout the fields of human inquiry -- artwork and entertainment being especially affected. A powerful example of...

A question of chronology arises among theologians in connection with issues concerning the traditionally assigned dating of the Last Supper as a Passover meal. Mark identifies it as such, and the synoptic (‘look-alike’) evangelists Matthew and...

Throughout Fight Club, the concept of the separation of soul from body appears in various forms. Whether forced upon others by Tyler or originating organically, the gap created between the essence of a man and the reality of his life reveals a...

Through All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr creates a world in which two invariably different individuals connect to one another by way of fate and personal faults. Werner’s shortcomings - or his inability to visualize his hope - are...

“…Bud is sitting on the rail of the bridge. The sun has risen behind Brooklyn. The windows of Manhattan have caught fire. He jerks himself forward, slips, dangles by a hand with the sun in his eyes” (105) . . .

Unlike Realism and Romanticism,...

In all of modern literature, there are few protagonists as self-effacing, miserable, indecisive, or morally contemptible as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Underground Man. Given the Underground Man’s interminable Hamlet-like meanderings, one might surely...

The novel “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” takes place in the 1950s in a small Colombian village near the sea. The narrator is investigating the murder of Santiago Nasar, a rich Arab. He was murdered by the Vicario brothers, who believed took away...

As scholars often note, the Victorian Period was known for its didacticism, especially the struggle between faith and moral decrepitude. Whereas the Romantics idealized their world, the Victorians questioned their surroundings, choosing to...

They are American, young, wealthy and in love. Nicole and Dick are the souls of an age, a world of opulence, blurred boundaries and equally commanding desires, and their relationship reflects the ambiguities of its core values. Judged within an...