Newest Literature Essays

Meursault, the main character in Albert Camus’s The Stranger, is an intriguing individual with a complicated relationship to the world around him. He is curious by nature, and often wonders about the reality and purpose of the situations he finds...

In Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, the story of the mysterious, prodigious, and devilish Mustafa Sa’eed is told through the eyes of an unnamed narrator. Although Mustafa is not directly present for most of the book, his actions,...

The stigma of death can be traced to many factors, including the fear of life’s end and the anticipation of pain. It is clear that although death is a natural process, the fact that so little (if not nothing) is known about it provides a source of...

In the midst of World War II, apprehensive soldier and antiheroic bombardier John Yossarian endures the perpetual torment of war with a tenacious desire to escape. Witnessing a number of horrendous events and ceaseless bureaucratic absurdity,...

Much of the literature that emerged during the 19th century dealt with the then controversial and incredibly widespread institution of slavery. Nearly equally widespread, however, was white Southerners’ claim to Christianity, a religion that, by...

The latter years of the 19th century brought with them a time of vast change in race relations in the United States. The end of the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction that followed brought a slew of rights to the newly freed Southern...

Wordsworth’s “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” is a short and powerful poem that centers around the loss of someone close to the speaker. The poem is composed of two four line stanzas, which both follow a simple ABAB rhyme scheme and are based on the...

Janet Lewis’ novella The Wife of Martin Guerre describes one woman’s quest for the truth, in the face of breaking her community’s traditional patriarchal and religious practices and beliefs. Set in a rigid 16th century society, which demands...

The question of fate is one that has been posed by human beings throughout the ages. Are our lives determined by that which is “bound” to happen, or is it simply by random chance? Thomas Hardy addresses this question in his poem “Hap,” which...

In his famous poem “Harlem,” Langston Hughes raises the question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” (line 1), and goes on to offer several possibilities for the consequences of deferring one’s dreams—“Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun? /...

Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion explores the varied behaviour of the English upper classes in the 19th century. Through the lens of protagonist Anne Elliot’s experiences and relationships, Austen suggests certain standards of behaviour and...

Throughout the course of history, women have had a variety of social roles, some of which can be seen through the lens of literature written during various different eras. Using several cantos from Inferno, part of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy,...

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the color yellow is a prevalent hue within the narrative's depiction of high society. Although interchangeable with the color gold, there are two distinct connotations in the mention of each color. While...

“During the early 1900s, the burgeoning African-American middle class began pushing a new political agenda that advocated racial equality. The epicenter of this movement was in New York, where three of the largest civil rights groups established...

The past plays a large role in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, as well as in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Both short stories involve women who bring up – and sometimes focus on – the past and how the world used to be....

In The Plague, Albert Camus writes about a plague that strikes the Algerian town of Oran around 1940 and devastates the residents who did not expect a plague. This work of fiction takes on meaning beyond the plague itself by looking at how the...

Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage abandons the idea of war as glorious and ideal, and instead shows war as rough and arduous, able to break an idealistic but untested person. The novel also departs from tradition by depicting its...

56% of audiences for the premier The Legend of Tarzan were women. 34% were men. The same is true for George of the Jungle and 300. Film School Rejects author Kristen Lopez hypothesizes that perhaps the turnout was for Alexander Skarsgard's...

In the play My Children! My Africa! by Athol Fugard, the characters' desires may be similar, but their many limitations due to social and political differences all contribute to conflicted viewpoints. Thami, Mr. M, and Isabel have difficulty...

After the end of World War II, Americans lived under the fear of nuclear war. The government built up huge arsenals of nuclear bombs, and used propaganda to assuage the American people’s fear. The best known example of that is the Duck and Cover...

Being the son of a pyromaniac involves a vast amount of trust and requires protecting the family at all costs. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” Colonel Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes, son of the pyromaniac Abner Snopes, is a young boy who must make...

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is part of a select club of books that yield both fantastic reads and excellent film adaptions. The movie is enjoyable even though it altered the book, both for the sake of brevity and for artistic...

Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a mental institution, where the characters’ mental illnesses reveal much to the reader. Kesey enlightens the reader by characterizing the reticent Chief Bromden, who narrates the main...