Newest Literature Essays

"... in the destructive element immerse..."(from Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad)

Through the lens of Humbert Humbert's obsession with la nymphette Lolita, ("Lo-lee-ta... light of my life, fire of my loins..."(9)), Nabokov explores and illuminates the...

You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. So says Humbert Humbert at the start of Lolita in his account to the "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury" (9). He refers to himself as a murderer (he is, after all, "guilty of killing...

I. If there is one word that sums up the pervading atmosphere of Little Dorrit, it is claustrophobic. From the very first chapter, the reader is inducted into a world primarily made up of rigidly enclosed spaces; every level of the novel is in...

Hemingway's In Our Time and Faulkner's Light in August are both pieces of literature that revolve around violence. However, the authors' treatments of violence contrast sharply. Hemingway focuses on culturally sanctioned forms of violence, while...

In his Novel Prize Address, Faulkner states that an author must leave "no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart...love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice." He accuses his younger...

Hobbes begins Leviathan, a primarily political work, with a description of man, whom he sees as an isolated unit, a mechanical automaton whose only connection to the outside world is through the senses. Even his thoughts are determined by external...

The focus of this essay is to examine the political theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as presented in their books, Leviathan and The Second Treatise of Government, through the analyses of their definitions and uses of the terms: natural...

In Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the theme of haunting is dominant; the haunting itself is purely a human creation and is created solely to meet human needs. Though at times it can seem quite realistic due to emotions evoked...

Walt Whitman's begins this excerpt from Leaves of Grass by describing an elusive 'this':

"This is the meal pleasantly set . . . . this is the meat and drink for natural hunger."

These two clauses that are set next to each other describe 'this' as...

Cora Munro's relationship with her younger, fairer sister Alice demonstrates a distinct mother-daughter pattern that manifests itself in every interaction between the two women. Throughout James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, the...

During the Medieval time period, a woman would generally be forced to depend upon a man for her livelihood. However, in the fictional world of courtly love, a 12th century philosophical phenomenon believed by some to have originated as a form of...

Mary Elizabeth Braddon's sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret presents the astonishing and cynical notion that the "sort of surprise at the fictional company one is keeping, or at the view of the world... is central to a whole genre of fiction"...

A careful study of the Koran begs the question: is it a violent text? This question is of critical importance in our day, given recent events. This paper attempts to explore the question in great detail, never straying from Arberry's standard...

"[She] starts to sort it out, to turn over the day, scraps, feelings, words and laughter, all are like a thin layer of rubbish that [she] gathers up and throws into the basket" (9). In A.B. Yehoshua's novel The Lover, Asya utilizes dreams to...

Blindness is not just an inability to see with your eyes. It is a quality derived from lack of wisdom and intuition. True vision is not the product of properly functioning optic nerves - it is the ability to keenly observe one's situation and to...

The concept of creating heroes is as inherently human or at least historically prevalent as creating gods. The latter is motivated by a need to clarify the world, the former by a craving to establish a sort of unattainable glory or ideal to...

In ÃÂÂReflections on the Revolution in FranceÃÂ?, Edmund Burke described the effect a complete perversion of social order had on its citizens. He watched as the French Revolution shredded a monarchy, publicly slaughtered tens of thousands, and...

King Lear is one of the most tragic parables ever brought forth in literature, dealing with betrayal, familial deception, madness and violence. In presenting such tragic themes and ideas in his work Shakespeare uses a subplot to mirror the main...

In a story of a king's treacherous demise by his unfaithful, scheming daughters, Shakespeare leaves little room for lightheartedness, laughter, or even reason. Family turns on each other as sisters plot out of jealousy, a truly dedicated daughter...

"Cordelia is about as far from being a Cinderella figure as it is possible to imagine. She is one tough, ruthless cookie, and utterly her father's daughter." Explore and discuss.

Cordelia differs from the traditional 'Cinderella figure' primarily...

Throughout King Lear, the play's themes and messages are communicated to the audience using a devastating combination of irony; reversal of situation and fortune; and paradox, underlining the harrowing truth of the futility of human existence...

It is odd to think that true madness can ever be totally understood. Shakespeare's masterful depiction of the route to insanity, though, is one of the stronger elements of King Lear. The early to middle stages of Lear's deterioration (occurring in...

Like all Shakespearean tragedies, "King Lear" has several prevailing humanistic themes. Certainly, the plot revolves around the obvious themes of parent-child relationships, sibling rivalries and pride as the downfall of man. However, one common...

"May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?"1 (I.iv.223).

This question, posed by the Fool, is aptly descriptive of the world of King Lear,which is a world turned upside down, a cart before the horse existence, whichsets the characters...