Newest Literature Essays

For eons before mankind, even his most fundamental iteration, nature has been. Beyond having shaped the world and birthed the human being, nature is the all-powerful mother that has controlled and molded the human existence throughout its history....

Short it may be, Edward Taylor’s “Another Meditation at The Same time” delivers to its readers a power articulation of both Christianity and the relationship between its Lord and his followers. Though there are several exceptions, the...

It was 1627 when Sir Francis Bacon published his utopic treatise New Atlantis and Europe was polluted by religious tension, much of which revolving around the recent surge of science but some having existed since long before. Of course, one could...

Incisive in his writing and contentious in his time, John Milton, through his prolific publications, provides his readership with a moral outline that extends from the soul to the politic. Given such understanding, one can use Milton and his works...

In describing the characters of Odysseus and Oedipus, Homer and Sophocles both avoid defining these men by typical physical characteristics such as stature or distinctive facial features. Instead, these authors focus on detailing specific bodily...

Throughout The Aeneid, Virgil details the fated trajectory of Aeneas, who follows his preordained path from the ashy ruins of destroyed Troy to the high ramparts of incipient Rome. In the convoluted framework of the epic poem, these two cities...

In Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Mary Barton, class inequality becomes a major theme from the beginning of the book, especially in light of the possibility of a marriage between Mary Barton and Harry Carson. While Mary saw Mr. Carson as an escape from...

In what is arguably his best known work, Charles Dickens addresses the blatant gender inequality that ran rampant in the 1800s. Oliver Twist confronts the disheartening public view of not only women in lower social classes, like Nancy, but also...

Shirley Jackson's 1948 short story 'The Lottery' is an exploration of what it means to belong, or not belong, to a culture and set of traditions. Jackson sets the scene comfortably, describing a traditional little village from the 1920s to the...

Although the past has chronologically been removed from present time, “the past is never dead and buried. In fact it’s not even past,” said William Faulkner. The theme of time is a common expression in American literature, as is seen in The...

Sexual relations have different social implications depending on the society in which they take place. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a 19th century novel and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s Envy is a 20th century novel. Both novels portray the imperfect...

Narrators provide insight into a character with the way they are described and what events are emphasized. In Eugene Onegin, by Alexander Pushkin, and A Hero of Our Time, by Mikhail Lermontov, both have engaged voices, which add a more personal...

In both Before You Were Mine and Pluto, Duffy uses characters to present different viewpoints of the past and present. In Before You Were Mine, the past is seen to be tangible and physical as the character of the narrator's mother is heavily...

The play Wit by Margaret Edson addresses one of the most challenging topics that mankind is forced to grapple with: death. For Vivian Bearing though, death had always been more of a subject to study rather than one to face. Death in Vivian’s...

In both novels, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy and Light in August by William Faulkner, a central theme of heroism and the expectations placed on the two main characters and other’s surrounding them is presented as a pivotal point for...

Getting Lost Along the Way

Various social movements have shaped society politically, economically, and religiously as centuries have passed. Religion especially has had a momentous impact. During the 16th and 17th centuries, a reform movement...

A Time for Preparation

Cemeteries (and other places of burial) are terrestrial sanctuaries for the fragile remains of one’s mortal existence. Wandering these grounds can be a peaceful and hallowing experience. Some individuals speak to the graves...

A Streetcar Named Desire is at its surface, an undoubtedly heterosexual play. Allan Grey, its unseen gay character, makes homosexuality a seemingly marginal topic within the play. But a deeper reading of the text suggests the opposite. Tennessee...

George Bernard Shaw exemplifies values of the “new woman” and “superhero” through the character of Vivie Warren, in the play Mrs. Warren’s Profession, in order to promote individualism and critical thinking amongst females. Even the male...

Tennyson’s reclusive speaker is shown to condemn the actions of both people and society as a whole within ‘Maud’; many of the speaker’s social criticisms are shown to be valid social critiques of the Victorian age, in contrast to his sometimes...

Misanthropic undercurrents have often been detected in Gulliver’s Travels, usually unearthed and expounded in connection to the fourth book of the travelogue. Through Gulliver, the fourth book voices vehement misanthropy, with propounding the...

Sex and sexuality as historical constructs acquired new meanings in the Restoration, with them becoming the essential components of the economy of exchange. Situated amidst the popular libertine culture, the ideals of love, virtue and more...

Milton’s construction of Eve in Paradise Lost is beset with dithering ambiguity, with her identity being defined and redefined within. The text has been construed during the Restoration, on the backdrop of the libertine culture and the...