Newest Literature Essays

If one were under a small tree and were hit by an apple that dropped off a branch, the main conclusion one would reach might be that the event was slightly annoying and random. One would then stop thinking about it and go back to doing whatever...

At the beginning of the novel Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag is a fireman, a man who burns books, who doesn’t truly acknowledge how much he destroys. He seems to be content to burning things, finding pleasure in seeing houses in flames, smiling...

The human mind is so active that an individual experiences approximately 70,000 thoughts each day. These thoughts are often conflicting in their nature, as the stream of consciousness does not readily divide thoughts into categories, and thoughts...

“I’ll tell you one thing, Fred, darling. I’d marry you for your money in a minute. Would you marry me for my money?” Holly Golightly (played by the delightful Audrey Hepburn) drawls to Paul Varjack (George Peppard) as they banter in the tiny...

When are “we” and “I” of the same importance and have the same meaning? Is it possible not to distinguish these two from each other? The dystopian work We by Yevgeny Zamyatin explores a society in which these two words have been merged in order to...

In The Sound of Waves, Yukio Mishima conveys the loss of traditional values in Japan due to Westernization in after the Second World War. Through powerful symbols and juxtaposition, Mishima effectively expresses his anger towards the devastating...

W.E.B. DuBois and Zora Neal Hurston, undoubtedly, had two distinct ways of writing, one through an analytical form of storytelling with interwoven fragments of moralistic and ethical themes and one through short fiction that exemplified the...

Phillis Wheatley is one of the most influential poets in American history, notably for paving the way from African American poets as well as female poets. Her rare, and arguably liberated, upbringing allowed her to relay her messages of freedom,...

Thrusting into the world of Tokyo in the 1960’s, Norwegian Wood is a novel by Haruki Murakami, which was published in 1987. At first seeming very foreign and obscure, Norwegian Wood proves that even over a span of nearly five decades, not much...

Aristotle believed that in order for a tragedy to be truly fulfilled, there must be a tragic villain who is completely aware of their evil but takes little pleasure from acting evil. In Jean Anouilh’s Antigone that character is Creon from the...

Rings are to medieval lords and retainers as medals are to athletes: a reward that is earned through hard work and dedication to a cause that makes them feel both empowered and worthwhile, while at the same time reminding them to work harder and...

The short story, “The Withered Arm” explores the role of women in society, their submission to men as well as their independence while at all times retaining an understanding of their struggles. The author, Thomas Hardy reflects on the view of...

Lucy Snowe, the narrator in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, delivers a narrative that is very much the story that she wants the reader to hear. She explicitly details some facets of her life and leaves others drenched in opaque clouds of metaphor....

The verse of Alexander Pope often succeeds in conveying far more meaning than its words, taken at face value, might suggest. In The Rape of the Lock particularly, what at first seems like a light-hearted ribbing of upper class preoccupations, soon...

In his treatise Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud makes an interesting statement about advanced society. He argues that “the price of progress in civilization is paid in forfeiting happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt,” to...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, made waves in the German literary scene almost immediately upon its publication in 1774. Just five years later, the novel was translated into English, attaining a...

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, art is viewed as the extension of one’s soul. Through painting, writing, or any other art form, Hailsham students are able to surpass their identities of clones and express their true selves. The art that...

Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb presents us with a fascinating satirical snapshot of the Cold War. It reflects back at us the absurdity of US (and to a similar extent Soviet) nuclear...

James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk and “The Man Child” are both texts that demonstrate how the isolation of characters can yield overtly violent outcomes. Though the perspective from which Baldwin challenges dominant forces differs between...

If the entire world were experiencing hardship, one is forced to wonder, would it be equal? If the entire world were experiencing joy, one is forced to wonder, would it be equal? If the entire world were to experience any one specific event--any...

Both Hesiod’s epic poem Theogony and the early chapters of Genesis from the Hebrew Bible offer unique creation stories for their respective religions. Though these two religions are vastly different, one being monotheistic and the other...

“Love found me altogether disarmed,” declares Francis Petrarch in one of his highly acclaimed sonnets, referring of course to his dearly beloved yet unattainable Laura (Petrarch 2068). This is perhaps a bit of an understatement. Both Francis...

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore -- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over -- Like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags Like a heavy load. Or does it...

“Mere “modernity” cannot kill.” The year is 1897, and European culture is changing. Skepticism about both Christianity and the introduction of Darwinism into common thought is current, and the concept of what we now call “feminism” is planting its...