Newest Literature Essays

Death is often a sensitive subject; after all, most individuals relate death to the loss of someone who was especially important or beloved. In Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night,” a strong message is delivered to those who are...

Set during the throws of the Cold War offensive and the threat of the domino theory in Asia, Graham Greene's fiction annexes his experiences as a war correspondent in Indochina during the years 1951 – 1954 into his works, impart reasoning and...

Although the title of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story “In a Grove” may not be familiar, the story may well be. In 1922, Sincho magazine published “In a Grove” as a kind of ancient Japanese detective story, with the mystery at the center of the...

Death has been a prominent theme across literature, with its countless interpretations showcasing the diverse ways it has influenced different authors. Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is described by Hardy as "The life and death of...

In today’s society, women are frequently thought of as helpless “damsels in distress,” or that they must rely on a man to rescue them from difficult tasks. This stereotype is furthered by television, literature, and Hollywood. An article by Salma...

The First Crusade took place from the year 1096 to 1099. According to Robert the Monk’s retelling of Pope Urban II’s speech at the Council of Clermont, the Pope describes the enemy as, “…a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a...

There was a trend toward well-rounded, realistic characters during and throughout the Renaissance that arguably began with, or at least along roughly the time frame as, Thomas Malory’s famed Le Morte D’Arthur. The characters in older pieces of...

Hemingway’s beliefs are generally understood to be existential. This is a largely accurate generalization, but Hemingway’s writings lean toward a more pessimistic view of existentialism than that of his peers. His novels and short stories do not...

Love. A simple yet ever so complicated emotion. How can an emotion that supposedly brings about such happiness and joy also bring about some of the worst characteristics of today’s world and lead to such catastrophe? The loaded concept of love and...

How is it that one’s purpose or direction in life always seems to be predetermined? Nowhere is there a check point where it is appropriate to pick what one’s hopes and aspirations are and magically expect them to happen. The only plausible...

When you meet someone new, perhaps the best thing to do is not to “judge a book by its cover,” but is not doing so that a possibility in the world we live in? Not only relevant to today, judgment based on physical attributes traces back to the...

The preciousness of life is something that can often be forgotten. Things come and go, seasons change, and in a modernistic culture the day can shift beneath our feet in a moment’s notice. In this modernizing world, the real question that comes...

The name Salem or any mention of the Salem witch trials almost always turns heads, and usually this sudden attention is not due to a reputable history. Most people think of the Salem witch trials and begin to picture an out of control environment....

Youth is malleable. A child’s surroundings, after all, shape the person that the child becomes. Leah Price, who witnesses the most dynamic shift in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible, consistently challenges the established culture of...

Life is filled with dualities and opposing figures: love and hatred, light and dark, male and female, life and death. Aristophanes addresses a duality in the context of love in Plato’s The Symposium. The Symposium raises the question of what love...

How should we fight against evil? The question is an eternal one, one which will have bearing on life during all ages. Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry is a good example of this because it crosses the lines of multiple time periods - it is...

Death is not the only way to lose a person. Often in life, people are lost to their career, to their friends, to their struggles, to their countries. Death is the physical end of one’s life, but people sometimes speak of losing a person who is not...

In “She Wasn’t Soft”, T.C. Boyle uses dynamic and static characterization in his portrayal of an unhealthy relationship. Dynamic characters are characters who change throughout a story, the dynamic character in this story being Paula, while static...

In his preface to Lyrical Ballads,William Wordsworth describes good poetry as being “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (6). The style of confessional poetry seems especially fitting to this description; to think that confessional...

“‘I wouldn’t be in that orphan’s shoes for anything” – The Rejection of Maternalism in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables

Maternalism is a huge theme in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables; however, not in the usual way. Typically, women...

Peter Pan, the 1911 novel by J.M. Barrie, has been a popular read for over a century. In the one-hundred and six years of its existence it has inspired numerous adaptations for film, stage productions and other works. Among the film adaptations...

Within the span of British literature, it should come as no surprise that the themes and motifs which appear in written works evolve in nature. Times, cultures, and peoples change, so it is only natural that the things they write down change as...

In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, first person narration is used in order to focus on Emily Grierson, a recluse who has captured the attention of the townspeople, and dictates the conversation, gossip, and action of the city. Faulkner uses a...

Throughout the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the protagonist, Pi Patel struggles with survival yet manages to maintain a level-headed outlook on his situation. He does not lose his belief in God, in whatever form He may take, although...