Newest Literature Essays

It is a common fear that people have about whether or not they are wasting their lives with the limited amount of time they were given on earth. In “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Henry David Thoreau explores what he thinks the true meaning...

Masculinity, especially in the context of the early twentieth-century, can be defined through the ability to dominate and control. Throughout Part 1, Barker draws our attention to the way in which the war itself has become responsible for a...

In Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, protagonist Guy Montag questions the rules and teachings of the society in which he lives. Throughout the story, his view of life and books changes. There are numerous differences between the novel...

Quentin Tarantino is known for his symbolism and hidden meanings throughout each of his films. Particularly, in Reservoir Dogs he uses color for an abundance of reasons. It is a major motif in the film, first introduced as a device to keep each of...

According to critics Alistair Rolls and Jesper Gulddal, the genre of detective fiction is “located in a field of binaries: structure versus innovation, stability versus mobility, the one final solution versus the many possibilities of the...

The quietly devastating works of Wong Kar-wai, the auteur from the east, have influenced the filmography of contemporary American directors, including Sofia Coppola. In the Mood for Love, in particular, is a reigning force of this influence. The...

Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats, contained in three acts and set in the bogs of Midland Ireland, follows the tragic story of Hester Swane as she experiences abandonment, betrayal, and prejudice from the Bog’s other inhabitants. Here, authority...

Batman Begins, the first installment of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, offers a Batman that that reflects all the moral complexity and ambiguity of Gotham City’s society. Compared to the Batman of previous films, Nolan presents a...

Frantz Fanon, in his book ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, states, “Decolonization is truly the creation of new men. But such a creation cannot be attributed to a supernatural power: The “thing” colonized becomes a man through the very process of...

Communication plays a crucial role in Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” as the loss of communication eventually leads to the downfall and death of the novella’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa. Communication is of vital importance in order for a family to...

Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (1967) is a thrilling murder mystery set in a small Mississippi town in the late 1960s, shortly after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The story follows a black detective, Virgil Tibbs, who is...

When looking at various historical periods, it is always interesting to consider the social position of women at the time and reflect on how that position affects their actions. In “Andrea del Sarto,” Robert Browning blends aspects of masculinity...

Time is a very strange aspect of life. Because time is a manmade phenomenon created as a measurement system, the way it dictates our lives seems unrealistic. Most people view time as a constant force in life, a mechanism for humanity to create...

The girl who was on fire, the Mockingjay, the star-crossed lover, the fierce survivor, the cold-hearted archer...which of these really defines the hero of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games? Answer: all of them, and none of them. Below the much...

When comparing the way two mediums depict the same story, one has to take into account the limitations of each medium. Films are generally limited by length, while books are generally limited by each reader’s individual imagination. In the case of...

In 1819, the Shelleys were residing in Florence, Italy and, after quickly reconnecting with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley had renewed inspiration to write. “Ode to the West Wind” emphasizes Shelley’s sadness at being separate from the political and...

America claims to be a ‘melting pot,’ a land in which people of all cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities come together to live in peace and prosperity. This assertion of acceptance and shared culture is merely a goal to strive towards and,...

Both of Roy’s novels explore with the isolation of individual characters from each other, from society as well as from the overall narrative arch. The use of varying narrative form furthers this theme by isolating readers from the fragmented...

Romanticism is a literary movement that has been defining American culture for the past 200 years. Romantic literature is characterized by a focus on internal forces, emotion, morality, nature, and fantasy. James Lowell’s, “The First Snowfall”,...

Literature is often used as a medium to explain some facet of human emotion. It exists as a way for people to gain an understanding of others. Certain narrative forms achieve this goal with greater ease than others, but it is truly the...

The narrative of a man who kills women because he feels sexually rejected is unfortunately an all too common one in society. There exists a feeling of entitlement that is remarkably antifeminist, but that also quickly extends into areas of race....

The fifth chapter of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps documents the transformation of protagonist Richard Hannay into his fourth disguise. Hannay, a mining engineer bored with the melancholy of his life in London, is suddenly thrust into the...

The middle of the twentieth century was rife with racial conflict and movement toward equal rights. Unfortunately, the characters of The Long Goodbye have a tendency to maintain this racist rhetoric that had such a negative impact on 1950’s...

Sherman Alexie’s novel Indian Killer is remarkably focused on identity. One of his larger points seems to be that individual identity has a lot to do with feeling a part of a larger group. The central character, John Smith, is a Native American...