Newest Literature Essays

The entirety of Coates’ letter writing and consciousness in Between the World and Me shows the influence of the provocative writings and speeches of Malcolm X. After all, Malcolm X became Coates’ favorite writer. The image of a young Malcolm...

As long as history has been recorded, a woman’s role in society was dictated by man, for a long time women accepted this patriarchy. This arrangement can be seen in different societies and cultures throughout history; after all, the great...

In society, many problems are often ignored and stigmatized. Among these are suicide and mental health issues. These dilemmas have become more common to talk about in recent years; however, society as a whole still has a long way to go in...

Thomas Campion and Christopher Marlowe have explored the concept of ‘the ideal’ in ‘A Man of Life Upright’ and ‘Come Live with me, and be my Love,’ respectively. Campion delves into the idea that a man may be more content in life by upholding...

"Uncle Eugene is not a bad man, really. . . . People have problems, people make mistakes" (251). These words are spoken by Kambili, who is trying to explain that the violent Papa is not a “bad man,” but instead a person who has good qualities as...

American popular culture pervades not only America itself, but many other cultures as well, and it says so much about the people and society as a whole that it attempts to define. American Indians are a group not usually connected with the network...

A key motivator to the horrific violence and machiavellian betrayal that is present in King Lear is inter generational rivalry. In modern England the older generation held power and authority over the young, yet in Shakespeare’s Jacobean tragedy...

High school is a time for great physical, mental, and emotional changes in youth. Some students experience a one-foot height change, others, an epiphany. These changes happen over the course of high school, but can be brought about quickly under...

Do you remember how your parents would always say too much television will "turn your brain to mush?" This just so happens to be the case in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which poses an eerily similar problem. This novel is about a society caught...

Michael Runmaker argued that Ginsberg’s "Howl" espoused “hysterical language” and “non-exact vocal,” making this poem antithetical to qualities such as “resonance, historical associations, beauty, or rightness for the particular context” which...

J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is set against the lavender scare and the sexual psychopath laws of the 1950’s. During this time, the United States at large was horrified by the apparent rise in sex crimes in the country. Holden Caulfield,...

In Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, Susan Henchard’s innate dependence on men displays itself in multiple ways and instances. However, the most notable is when Susan reunites with Michael Henchard in Casterbridge after 18 years of...

Although Junior in Salvage the Bones is only 10 years old, his character not only is complicated but also provides complexity to the rest of Ward's novel. His birth resulted in the death of Mama, which leaves the rest of the family motherless and...

Conversation surrounding Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita often entails the controversial discussion of whether Lolita, the young girl involved with the novel’s forty-year-old narrator, has some agency in the relationship, or whether Humbert Humbert...

As difficult to read as William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury proves to be, there are still characteristics to the story that are obvious or obviously out of place. Arguably, just such a characteristic or character would be Mrs. Bland, mother...

The structure of the African novel is seen to be made up from two different frameworks, the external, or international, and the indigenous “mode of discourse and artistic expression.” 1 Therefore, the typical African novel contains elements in its...

American poets Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are best known for their confessional works, in which they express their inner desires and urges. Both poets reflect their own unique qualities through choice of style, form, and language, as they...

All people have quirks that make up who they are. Some quirks are habits that can be changed while others create a permanent lifestyle. “Tania” by Ivan Bunin is a love story in which the main character falls in love with a servant girl. However,...

For both Christina Rossetti and Carol Ann Duffy, the continuation of love after death is seemingly instigated in part as narrators express their fondness for their partners, without addressing the fear that accompanies death. In "Remember" by...

Oscar Wilde once said that “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” In both Blindness by Jose Saramago and in Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, sex is used by the men in the story as a means to exert power over the...

Many of Chekov’s characters in The Seagull resolve to hopelessly love people who do not love them. This tendency presents a clear flaw that Chekov makes fun of, as these fixations inevitably lead to nothing. The hopeless romantics do not end up...

Joseph Conrad’s writing has captivated millions with its vast voyages with places far away, sojourners in distant lands, and an omnipotent force of nature disrupting everything. The concept of writing about seafaring comes directly from Conrad’s...

Although August Wilson’s Fences does not display the degree of senseless violence as projected in King Hedley II, both exemplify the harsh circumstances of African American communities in the 1950’s and 1980’s, respectively. Wilson makes contrasts...

Perception of time plays a peculiar role in The God of Small Things, serving both as linear force, dragging the plot along with it, and as a proverbial tar pit, ensnaring and preserving a moment and time. The entire Kochamma family seems stuck in...