Newest Literature Essays

Set against the political turmoil of Libya in the summer of 1979, Hisham Matar’s novel “In the Country of Men” contains characters who are defined by their relationship with Libya and its culture. Although Suleiman’s story is for the most part...

Sincerely, Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain focuses on Tom Sawyer in order to satirize Romanticism, illustrating adventure and the courageous characteristics that are shown throughout Huck’s life, exhibiting his mindset...

The novel Monkey Beach, written by Eden Robinson, can be called an example of what Thomas King has named "associational literature" (King p.14) because, even though the novel includes issues which are directly connected to the impact and...

Charles Dickens was a famous critic of his time. He took on Victorian ideals and issues that he viewed as social injustices and criticized them, both in public speeches and in his writing. In his novels, these were primarily subjects like poverty...

Freedom is a seemingly simple word. General definition states that it is the power to act, think and speak as one pleases. If one wanted to become less concrete, it can also be suggested that freedom itself, is a state of mind. In addition to...

Composed in 1857, Maude Clare is written as a narrative in which Maude Clare confronts her previous lover on his wedding day. As is common in her poetry, Rossetti uses this fictional event to discuss the theme of male and female relationships. The...

Foucault’s Discipline and Punish reads partly like a historic text and partly like a speculative essay. Its themes revolving around power, knowledge, and authority however, conveys fundamental principles that is innate to human nature. Foucault...

Although a contextual shift may result in changed values and attitudes, some traits are inherent in the human condition and transcend time. This is explored in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale (TPT) and Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan (ASP),...

Peter Weir’s film, The Truman Show (1998), presents a powerful exploration of ideas and opinions, providing a compelling insight into the human condition. The film embodies insights into the fundamental issues surrounding the manipulative power of...

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is a classic novel that tells the story of a man’s coming of age. When the protagonist Milkman truly matures, he is in his mid-thirties, and has lived, up until his journey, a life of privilege, complacency, and...

In many religions, arms and hands are regarded as symbols of divine power and expression. Author John Irving uses this tradition in A Prayer for Owen Meany to illustrate Owen’s power and portray Owen as a deity. A Prayer for Owen Meany tells the...

The intention of Andrew Marvell as to publication and public reception was often interfered with by the necessity of his political circumstances, particularly after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. This interference does however...

Aravind Adiga adopts an epistolary form in The White Tiger, depicting the plight of a low caste servant, trying to escape the mental and physical chains that forge his destiny. Adiga initially presents a protagonist in Balram, who is engaging,...

In The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga adopts an epistolary form to depict the plight of a low caste servant, trying to escape the physical and mental chains that forge his destiny. Adiga initially presents a protagonist in Balram, who is engaging,...

Thomas Gray and Thomas Hardy both explore the treatment of loss in their poems ‘Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West’, ‘Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes’, and ‘The Voice’. Each of these works provide a...

The opening scene of The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga uses Brechtian staging techniques, characters, and dialogue, to introduce the theme of man's dominance over nature. Here, the stage itself can be interpreted as representing the idea of...

Innocent Mariam’s execution shows how little society valued women’s testaments due to the triumph of Herod’s rash tyranny and Salome’s false accusations. The powerlessness of women in this society is inescapable, even for the righteous and royal...

Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame presents time in a way that no human has previously had to experience or comprehend. Consequently, when the characters of the play attempt to make sense of their situation, they often seem confused and disoriented....

Among all other feelings, love proves to be one of the most complex emotions humans experience. Usually, people can pinpoint why they feel a certain way. For example, working people are happy when they get paid, but are often sad when they have to...

In ‘The Storm’, Mansfield suggests that the bonds between humanity and nature have the potential to be both destructive and unifying. The adjective ‘breathless’ and past participle ‘half sobbing’ when paired on the second line dramatise the...

Religion has been at the heart of Irish identity for centuries, with Christianity being introduced around the 4th century CE. This has also been the focus for much of the political tension between Ireland and England in the more recent centuries....

As entertaining and lasting as William Shakespeare’s iconic Romeo and Juliet is, the adaptations that the original has inspired contain a more potent representation of modern issues, as is to be expected considering the near four-century-long gap...

Written by Anatole France, The Gods Will Have Blood is a novel written about the French Revolution; though published in the 20th century, the novel focuses on events that every French citizen could relate to in 1793. France paints his picture of...

The theme of ‘otherness’ is prominent throughout the opening chapters of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Otherness can be interpreted as the exclusion of one party or the act of being dissimilar. This being the case, the opposite to this would...