Newest Literature Essays

Throughout most of human history, it has been difficult or even impossible to change social classes. Those born into poverty tended to remain there as slaves or peasants, and wealth tended to remain concentrated in the hands of the hereditary...

Sadaat Hasan Manto was one of the most consequential and controversial writers of his times. He has produced over 20 collections of short stories, a novel and a series of radio plays; despite such prowess, he was severely criticized for his erotic...

Writer and satirist Jonathan Swift stated that “satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own” (Swift). Such beholders, as Swift mentions, use satiric narrative to convey social and political...

Familiarizing oneself with philosophical ideas of 18th century Europe means understanding the ways in which writers during this time dealt with the unique philosophical problems - social, political, scientific and religious - of the Enlightenment...

George Orwell had been a police official in Burma for five years, so he witnessed the real life in Burma and the rigorous management of Britain. However, he gave up this high-paying job because he opposed British colonization and racial...

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;/ Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (10) demands the pedestal of the statue of the previously named ancient ruler. Out of context a casual passerby of the king’s shattered sculpted likeness might...

Money is one way to achieve one of the “American Dreams.” The “American Dream” is different for everyone and that dream for most people depends on how they were raised. There are many plays that critique the “American Dream” but only two will be...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther is the embodiment of the Sturm und Drang literary movement that swept through Europe. Werther reached the height of popularity and inspired many young people, even leading them to dress...

In René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, he argues that the senses do not accurately help us understand the world. Descartes writes that he has begun to doubt all of his ideas. He decides that all those ideas come from the senses, which...

In The Story of An Hour, Kate Chopin uses a variety of literary devices ranging from third person narration, juxtaposition and irony to vividly illustrate the dramatic process of grievance, and alternately liberation, that Mrs. Mallard experiences...

The Faerie Queene Book Two, by Edmund Spenser, is a book entirely devoted to the concept of temperance and moderation. Espoused as a cardinal virtue in Plato's Republic, and referred to similarly in several other influential works from across...

Tennyson's The Lotos-Eaters is a poem which can be interpreted as having several meanings. While it can be understood as a lament for masculinity in peril, it can also be interpreted as expressing regret for the mariners' indulgence in forbidden...

The Land of Green Plums, by Herta Müller, is a novel arguably as defined by its language as its content. There are many interpretations of Müller's literary style, and one of the most cogent is that it serves to show the reader how indirect, and...

In “Sweat” and the accounts of Zora Neale Hurston in, “How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, there are many elements of the modernist period in play. The most important being the welfare state of African Americans in America at that point in time....

Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde is a novel which is arguably entirely about duality. The most obvious example is of course that of the contrast between Jekyll and Hyde themselves, but underneath that is a...

“I am writing a woman out of legend. I am thinking how new it is – this story. How hard it will be to tell” (Eavan Boland). Much of twentieth-century Irish literature engages in issues relating to gender. Although stereotypical representations of...

Throughout The Poisonwood Bible, author Barbara Kingsolver uses Nathan Price as a representation of the dangers of the combination of religious fervor and power in the wrong hands. This is not meaning to state that religion on its own is bad...

With the advent of both modernism and post-modernism, the twentieth century was a time in which poetic expression was extremely diverse. Especially in the aftermath of World War Two, poets sought to widen the scope of their craft; they...

In Yukio Mishima’s classic twentieth century novel, The Sound of Waves, one might initially hold some misconceptions towards the message of the story. It’s simple enough easily spot certain seemingly-sexist elements and immediately make the...

Everyone has dealt with troubled times, which can accurately be described as ‘dark times’ or ‘internal storms.’ In the poem “Storm Warnings”, Adrienne Rich organizes the poem’s main statement in the middle of the poem in order to mimic the buildup...

The works of T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf represent the eve of first-wave feminism, where traditional Victorian principles have been challenged by controversy in the Royal Family, the more assertive role that women played in the First World War...

Victorian literature, like almost all literature, speaks inherently of the social, philosophical and religious issues which molded the people of the time. The Romantic ideals of the singling-out and celebration of the self are often challenged by...

Young Adult Literature is shadowed by misunderstandings and biases. The genera is seen as a negative influence upon young adults or it is seen as a stepping stone in which teens use to work their way up to the “classics.” The stories in YA novels...