Newest Literature Essays

During the Modern period, writers were concerned with discarding Victorian literary traditions, addressing new topics and using new forms. Many of them had become disillusioned by the devastation of the First World War, and they were fed up with...

In Interpreter of Maladies, the book of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, the protagonists are often in an unknown place. The reader can gain insight into the characters based on how they act during while in an uncomfortable situation. In the short...

Erin Erkocevic

8 December 2010

An Analysis of Human Nature in Frankenstein, As it Connects to Freudian Psychology

In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley skillfully laces a chilling tale of horror with social commentary to create an exploration of...

Ariel Dorfman's play “Death and the Maiden” revolves around a husband and wife, Gerardo and Paulina, living under an unstable democracy after a long chapter of oppressive dictatorship. In this moral thriller, Paulina accuses a man named Roberto of...

“Everyday Use” from an Antipatriarchal Perspective

According to feminist theory, cultural definitions of gender roles can be patriarchal or antipatriarchal (Tyson, 83-86). In the short story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker depicts her characters'...

Along with the Fourth of July and apple pie, baseball is a celebrated symbol of America. Since its invention over 150 years ago, the game has served as a powerful metaphor for the American dream, and the hopes and democratic ideals that accompany...

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a story about the futility of self-deception, but it also examines the definition of "success" in post-WWII America and the danger of suppressing one's own inclinations to meet the expectations of others....

The legend of Judas is a constant background murmur in Harriette Arnow's The Dollmaker. It begs us to wonder: is Gertie Nevels a victim or a betrayer? Many believe that Christ's betrayal was preordained and that Judas, with his kiss, was obeying...

A "coyote" is someone who profits from sneaking immigrants across the U.S.-Mexican border. It's also an animal stereotyped as a scavenging coward. In The Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle draws frequent parallels between coyotes prowling the edges of...

Jim’s search for identity throughout David Malouf’s novel Fly Away Peter is represented largely through his actions and interactions with others, as well as through his thoughts and interests. One of the strongest representations of this search is...

Power exists in many forms: weapons, threats, size, and even words. Amidst the violence and volatile power that exists between Israel and Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish attempts to influence people's feelings through his poetry. In Darwish’s...

The Relation To and the Importance of Henry Dawes, and the Dawes Act, to Green Grass, Running Water

Henry Dawes was not culturally enlightened, especially when it came to American Indians. Although as a US Senator, Dawes was very involved in...

When Shane was published in 1949, it was considered a very unusual western fiction novel. Unlike other books at the time, the book’s hero was the title character. Still more unusual was the fact that Shane himself was not a cold-blooded killer....

Literary composition was a fueling element in the Irish nationalist movement of the early twentieth century. William Butler Yeats undoubtedly placed himself as a leader in the Irish Literary Revival. While Yeats’s nationalism was not as drastic as...

In Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee, Luzan asks Henry, "Who, my young friend, have you been all your life?” (205). It is through the narrative form that Luzan is able to see beyond Henry's words. Luzan urges Henry “to take up story-forms” (206),...

In An Enemy of the People, Henrik Ibsen dissects the social malaise that arises from democracy’s twin failures to sanction controversial scientific breakthroughs and to allocate liberty and sovereignty to the area of scientific research. In this...

Sonnet 130 By William Shakespeare is a rejection of the Petrarchan blazon rhetoric, made popular by Italian poet Petrarch in his Canzoniere, in which Petrarch idealizes the beauty of his love subject Laura through an anatomical analysis of her...

Seamus Heaney and Sylvia Plath are two contemporary poets from very different family backgrounds. Heaney grew up rooted in rural Ireland with a close-knit large family, and Plath grew up in a dislocated family with her mother and brother. Her...

Sherman Alexie's Native American characters in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven are modern Indians who are often fixated on the glories of their past. In their modernization, one of the most blatant attacks on their pride and respect...

Cultural and geographical borders within any society are believed to create boundaries that limit similarities between those on opposite sides. Contrary to the belief that the qualities of one side do not merge with those of the other, however, it...

Within any society, there are borders that separate all of the citizens of the populace into different classifications. Among those borders are race, class, and gender. Crossing any of these borders stands as a great accomplishment for the person...

In her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Laura Mulvey argues that a movie audience derives pleasure from the artform by identifying themselves in the characters on screen (Mulvey, 3). Like cinema, the theatre isolates the audience,...

Mary Barton is a story of material temptation, sexual seduction and spiritual transformation. The character Mary Barton is an impoverished girl with considerable material ambitions who is seduced by the lavish wealth of her rich suitor. Mary’s...

The establishment of imperialism can be condensed to the rift between the Self and the Other. One can only believe that he or she possesses the right to will the destiny of another by assuming that there is an essential devaluation of that human...