Newest Literature Essays

‘Black No More’ by George Schuyler is a satirical race novel that is set during the 1940s America, a time when segregation and racism were highly prominent among white and black Americans. The plot of ‘Black No More’ narrates the consequence when...

Oftentimes when writing historical fiction, authors take creative liberties in their works. William Shakespeare was no different when he wrote his history plays. In Shakespeare’s English Kings, Peter Saccio discusses such discrepancies. In the...

The time that Frances Trollope spent traveling the United States, would prove to be the most tumultuous era of cultural redefinition in our nation’s history. As the years unfolded, the United States firmly rebuked its colonized heritage and...

Throughout the Old English poem Judith, the poet goes to great lengths to paint a clear and decided picture of providential history. A providential view of history leaves no doubt that God is involved and that He clearly favors one side over the...

Violence and other cruelties are such a large part of the world that they can never be fully rooted out, no matter how hard the effort is to remove them. A common coping mechanism of handling the tragedies of everyday life is to ignore or to...

Humans have instincts. However, some are often suppressed and viewed by society as immoral and unnatural because not all of them have pure intentions. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Milton retells the story of Adam and Eve and their fall from...

‘A blush overspread Anne’s cheeks. She could say nothing.’ (JANE AUSTEN, Persuasion)

‘There’s a blush for won’t, and a blush for shan’t— And a blush for having done it. There’s a blush for thought, and a blush for naught, And a blush for just...

Aesthetic critics and writers of the 18th century wrestled with a number of questions regarding beauty, nature, mimesis, art, and the sublime and how they all related to one another. One of these queries concerned mind and matter – that is,...

‘From Pope’s perspective as satirist’, writes Michael Seidel, ‘London is stuffed with the bodies of dunces and awash in printer’s ink’, hitting upon the early 18th century’s proliferation of print culture and its wider implications that Pope was...

Small towns are often considered a safe place to grow up. Many who are born into these small towns never leave, perhaps because they are too frightened to leave all that they have ever known. These towns, however, are not without their problems....

The moral message of a piece of literature reflects the culture which the author belongs to. The three pieces of work here progress in chronological order. The Epic of Gilgamesh is from the early days of human civilization, by the ancient...

When reading The Battle of Maldon, I found myself attempting to grade the noble Byrhtnoth using the heroic code as a rubric. Initially, I doled out poor marks, labeling Byrhtnoth as a failure according to the heroic code. However, after...

The epistolary novel structure, first produced by accident in The Persian Letters by Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, is a series of fictional letters or other forms of communication. The structure allows a writer to present different people’s...

The Marrow of Tradition by Charles Waddell Chesnutt utilizes inequalities tied to the era of the American South where the Wellington Insurrection of 1898 occurred as a result of growing racial tensions coupled with the growing divide of economic...

Upon reading Jonathan Edwards’ Personal Narrative, one would undoubtedly find that Edwards’ descriptions and expressions of his insurmountable love for God (and all things in relation to the Christian faith) are of an extreme degree uncommon to...

Is it possible to live a happy life in spite of the disabilities that plague you? Many who suffer from mental or physical illnesses would say no. However, some have recovered and found solace from their hopelessness through friends, family, and...

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is novel rich with themes and motifs regarding the African American experience of early twentieth century America. It depicts a young African American man’s descent from an acceptance of racism during his tenure at...

Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe in 1719, is considered by many to be the first English ‘novel’, and offers to literature what Ian Watt describes as ‘a unique demonstration of the connection between individualism in its many forms and the...

Today, the good is often overshadowed by the evil. The media is flooded with more crime and negativity than it is the positives and stories of charities and selfless deeds. Similarly, in Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, the bad, those obsessed with...

Shakespeare’s Caesar in “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” is often mistaken as being a tyrant. This view comes from the characterization of Caesar through Cassius and Brutus’ eyes. Caesar’s qualities that make him a martyr instead of a tyrant are...

As human beings, we are fascinated by our past. The past affects society in so many ways most don’t even notice the effect and humans accept that conclusion. Whether it be the language spoken or the city a person lives in, everything around us has...

The weather in “The Wanderer” is reflective of the author’s view of the world following his exile. Throughout the poem, weather is utilized in an effort to paint a picture as wretched and sorrowful as the persona’s view of life. As I read through...

Our day to day experiences are what shape our understanding of the world we know. Every moment of existence shapes the person we will become. However, what if the world as you know it is merely an illusion? How would this affect your behavior, and...

Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula relies strongly on the construction and deconstruction of binaries. Arguably the most prevalent and important of the various binaries are good vs. evil and dark vs. light. At the beginning of the novel, Stoker...