Newest Literature Essays

“Her days are practis’d in such noble virtue,

That, sure her nights, nay more, her very sleeps,

Are more in heaven, than other ladies’ shrifts.

Let all sweet ladies break their flatt’ring glasses,

And dress themselves in her” – (1.2.123-127)

These...

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare uses grand evocative imagery for a variety of reasons such as juxtaposing Rome against Egypt, and to add different dimensions to the main characters. Moreover, there are a few overriding themes throughout the...

Critics have noted that unlike his illustrious predecessors who also specialized in Greek tragedy, Euripides bears a far greater sensibility towards the marginalized sections of society such that many of his prominent characters are seen to be...

It is imperative for drama to require much more consideration regarding the intended audience than other literary forms, since in the end, a play is meant to be a performance. In drama and its theatrical depiction, the spectators experience the...

“Wheels that have crossed long, dusty distances with their mineral and vegetable burdens, sacks from the coal bins, barrels, and baskets, handles and hafts for the carpenter’s tool chest. From them flow the contacts of man with the earth, like a...

“I would write a different Sons and Lovers now; my mother was wrong, and I thought she was absolutely right.” (Jeffers 296)

This line betrays D. H. Lawrence’s eventual realization about his maternal fixation. As a corollary, it might be implied...

In James Joyce’s “Araby”, readers are taken on a young boy’s quest of discovery. The beginning of the short story paints a picture of Dublin, a place described as rather dark and lonely. This is a ‘coming of age’ tale, peering into the mind of a...

In the works of Daisy Miller and The Beast in the Jungle, author Henry James provides readers with multiple explanations as to why it is important for one to live a full life. These two novellas share many broad similarities, including central...

In Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs Albert Camus’ The Stranger, we are exposed to two very different characters, Said Mahran and Meursault. Both these characters are alienated from their societies, and change drastically as a result of this...

Males still make up an uncomfortably large majority of published authors; perhaps this, along with many other factors, contributes to the dearth of strong female characters in literature. But regardless of causation, the truth is still evident:...

Years before Black Swan, writer/director Darren Aronofsky exploded across the film universe with his surprisingly low-budget motion picture, Pi. The film is a violently pensive study of the fine line between madness and genius, as well as a...

After eternally transforming the science fiction scene with his groundbreaking film Alien, Ridley Scott returns to his home turf years later with an implied prequel, Prometheus. Though the potential of the new film sent devoted Alien fans into a...

“I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man . . . if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” (41).

So says Henry Jekyll in a heartfelt letter to his best friend, Henry Utterson. His...

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has a host of characters: a cross-dressing woman, an uppity, lower-class servant, a quick-witted, tricky gentlewoman, a rowdy, vulgar nobleman and his misguided friend. With so many characters to keep track of, an array...

Daisy is a pivotal character in The Great Gatsby – Fitzgerald’s interpretation of an old money princess is oft regarded as one of the most selfish fictional characters to exist throughout literary history, perhaps the epitome of a ‘Femme Fatale’....

When Albert Camus’ novel, The Stranger, was first published in 1942, many readers did not know what to think of Meursault, the emotionally disconnected protagonist of Camus’ story. His absurdist views confused the masses that yearned for meanings...

From the wealthiest neighborhood in Kabul to the poverty of San Francisco, Khaled Hosseini creates a story of redemption which transcends cultures and time in The Kite Runner. Hosseini uses the dynamics of father-son relationships to express a...

In Belinda by Maria Edgeworth, portrayals of gender and womanhood have crucial and complex roles. In addition to the binary it asserts between Lady Delacour and Lady Anne Percival, the novel also provides a young generation of female characters,...

In Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, Morrison examines what the degradation of people, by society, can result in. She sets her story in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940’s, which is a society with white ideals and standards of beauty. Morrison...

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer sets up a rich and unexpected portrayal of The Wife of Bath, which is already well established by the beginning of her prologue to her tale. Her honest and shamelessly blunt diction and admissions, along with the...

George Etherege’s The Man of Mode criticizes the rakish society in which it is set, yet is more critical of the foolishness and desperation that women display in pursuit of romantic love, as by-products of the rakish ideals. In particular,...

One of the most striking elements of Paradise of the Blind is its constant discussion of food. Through imagery and description of traditional foodstuffs, the novel emphasizes the Vietnamese’s deep cultural connections to and love of food. These...

Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded and William Godwin’s Caleb Williams are both novels that deal with the influence of social hierarchy on the characters’ psychologies. In Caleb Williams, the protagonist is a young man who learns the...

In an excerpt from Sir Robert Filmer’s The Natural Power of Kings, the defined paternal positions of father and king are inextricably synonymous. In the periods in which William Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and King Lear both...