Newest Literature Essays

In The Perseid, the second novella from the novel Chimera, Barth intertwines gender roles in his postmodern portrayal of the myth of Perseus. The Perseid, akin to much ancient Greek mythology, is unabashedly male-centered as the eponymous narrator...

Emily Dickinson, in most of her poetry, proves to cherish ambiguity. Some of her poems can be perceived in multiple different ways of which none are right or wrong. Depending on how the reader sees and interprets the poem, the meaning is twisted...

Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People” mocks modern philosophy and those who follow it by suggesting that those who turn away from God will be taught, in one way or another, that God is real. The story, which takes place in the...

Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal,” a narrative extracted from the novel Invisible Man, portrays the story of a young African American man who has been chosen to receive a scholarship and give a speech at a gathering of the town’s white male citizens....

He has dark secrets and regrets. The mystery to solve is not only that of John Wade, but that of the narrator of the story himself. Throughout the novel In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien, the narrator uses the case of John and Kathy as way...

William Dean Howells’ short story “Editha,” published in 1905, revolves around ideals about war and the romanticized vision of it. Through each character, Howells presents a contrasting view of war. Editha, and her view of God-intended glorious...

Absence is an exceedingly powerful thing. Absence is not a brief silence, or an easily forgotten moment, or a matter of little or no consequence. It is a feeling of perpetuity, a constant gnawing in the stomach and at the back of the mind. Absence...

Social hierarchies function to elevate a group of elite citizens to a superior position, thus resulting in the disempowerment of groups that are below them in rank. William Blake was one of 18th century Britain’s most prolific Romantic poets,...

In a futuristic world, what part will technology and nature play? Back in the 1950s, during the Cold War, Ray Bradbury published a story about life in 2026. In the story, Bradbury describes a day in a house full of technology but no humans....

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” is the story of Dexter Green and his pursuit of Judy Jones. Dexter wants Judy to be untouched by time, and his dream is the dream of being with her. Fitzgerald, through his writing, endorses the idea of the...

It has been inferred by researchers for decades that Shakespeare used the plots and characters of his theatrical works to comment on the current political climate of England’s monarchy at the time. During the late 16th and early 17th century,...

Life, in essence, is a search for belonging, purpose, and meaning. However, humans often do not possess enough wisdom to determine what is of worthy pursuit in life. While double-digit years of life experience may appear a period of time long...

Both the speakers in “The Gift” by Li-Young Lee and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke look up to their fathers with wide-eyed admiration. In comparing the two poems, what stands out the most is the similar theme; that is, each boy has received...

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself” - Friedrich Nietzsche....

Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, Macbeth, eloquently displays the wildness of human imagination and the consequences of rapid action. The play's plot is written by the ominous whispers of Macbeth's conscience, which lead to avaricious and selfish...

Both vicious and highly intelligent at once, wolves and leopards are often compared to the most venerated hunters and warriors of Homeric poetry. Though the role of predator and prey are switched in each of these pregnant pauses, the skill and...

Carol Ann Duffy’s love poems are often riddled with oxymoronic statements, which affirm the changing nature of love and how it is perceived in different relationships and in different periods of time and life. "Valentine" and "Havisham" are two...

Edith Wharton published an enticing tale of two older women looking back on their pasts titled “Roman Fever” in 1936, only a year prior to her own death. The short story took place in Rome with both women looking out onto what is called “Memento...

Linda Pastan’s 1988 poem, “To a Daughter Leaving Home”, concerns the idea of children growing up and leaving, whether it be for college or simply riding a bike for the first time. The speaker of the poem starts out with a nostalgic feel,...

Virginia Woolf grants us an access to a new concept of time in “Mrs. Dalloway”, through which temporality-moment is investigated in two contradictory ways: one is continuous, deadly, dissolving while the other is placid, immortal, infinite; hence...

Mama Kaide and Pa Mowi, the two protagonists in the novel, were born in the village of Imperi, Sierra Leone, but moved elsewhere after their adolescence. The two main characters assert the necessity to return to their native village to see family...

“Your soul is the whole world” (Hesse 7). While the value of a soul is something that cannot be understated, the belief that it is the whole world does not leave room for many other people. In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha the titular character...

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”, published in 1844, proves to be a cautionary tale of the repression of guilt. The story is told through the perspective of Montresor, a man who is deeply insulted by his ‘friend’ Fortunato. Montresor...

One of humanity's greatest fears is of the unknown. Not only for what may be there but how it could change the person that chooses to venture inside. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a classic novel that details that very fear. One man,...