Newest Literature Essays

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a novel about European imperialism and its far-reaching aims, methods, and effects. The author, Conrad, presents his own personal opinions through his central character, Marlow, who learns a great deal about...

In Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, Mr. Kurtz's chilling final words reveal his epiphany about the true nature of man. He has come to realize that the flickering light of his own morals could not overcome the darkness of his human nature. By...

Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, and "Hollow Men," by T.S. Eliot have several comparative themes, though each author has an entirely separate way of conveying them. Each work displays a darkened and dismal mood, separation, and obscurity,...

In his novel, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad comments on man's capacity for evil. Through this tale of European imperialism, Conrad takes the reader from the streets of London to the jungles of Africa, contrasting the civilized, outer world and...

The most nefarious villains are those who understand the evil they commit but pay no heed. In Heart of Darkness, however, the major villain, Kurtz, is not one of these characters. More than anything, he is depicted as being helpless in the face of...

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the narrator is obsessed with a search for the meaning of everything he sees. Marlow, thrust into a new continent, is overwhelmed by its foreignness and his inability to understand his surroundings. The...

In Heart of Darkness, Marlow, in explaining his motivations for venturing into the Belgian Congo, first, almost by way of an apology, draws on the common spirit of adventure shared by boyhood readers of adventure novels; he names a childhood...

'You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie' (Marlow). Examine the significance of this comment in the novel as a whole.

On first inspection this comment seems rather straightforward; a reflection of the protagonist's honest and open...

The journey in Heart of Darkness traverses not only the capricious waters spanning our physical world, but also the paradoxical ocean which exists in the heart of man and all of mankind. Through Marlow's somewhat fanatical eyes we view the enigma...

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown," is an allegory rich in sexual repression. By psychoanalyzing the main character, one can discover that "Goodman Brown" is not simply a battle between good and evil, but also one of a more...

In his short story, "Roger Malvin's Burial," Nathaniel Hawthorne explores such fundamental themes as good, evil , sin, family, pride, and penance. However ,from the onset he warns us, "my tale is not of love"(Hawthorne 25). This is instead a tale...

Critical readings of Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" tend to focus mainly on Aylmer's attempt to overpower the hand of God, and the boundaries between science and nature. In the vast array of scholarship on the story, however, little has been said of...

Hawthorne marks his characters as potential usurpers of God who are undermined by an inability to negotiate with human chaos. Confronted with examples of imperfection or fragmentation, the scientific minds of "The Birthmark," "Rappaccinis...

Charles Dicken's Hard Times is a novel depicting the destructive forces of utilitarianism on the modern world following the Industrial Revolution. Through the vivid characters interwoven throughout the text, Dickens exemplifies the devastation...

This novel is an account of the near future, a dystopia, wherepollution and radiation has rendered countless women sterile, and the birthrates of North America are dangerously declining. A puritan theocracy nowcontrols the former United States...

The central conflict in Shakespeare's Hamlet is between the title character's high moral standards and his quest for the truth. Arising from this conflict is what many would agree is the quintessential problem of the play: Why does Hamlet delay in...

Women living in Elizabethan times, although more liberated than medieval women, were still expected to do their husband's will and obey at all times. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Queen Gertrude begins the play acting as a typical Elizabethan...

In the tragedy Hamlet and the comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare presents two plays that are very different in context but quite similar in foundation. Both plays examine reality throughout the narrative structure. In Hamlet, reality is...

Beginning with Hamlet's encounter with his father's ghost, Shakespeare introduces a line of "action" which his hero then follows throughout the narrative. From missed opportunities to sporadic bursts of movement and progression, Hamlet initially...

In his powerful play, "Hamlet," William Shakespeare utilizes the theme of playacting as a medium through which Hamlet can make political statements, as well as shield himself in supposed madness. Hamlet uses plays to not only inform Claudius that...

The act of revenge never fails to gather an audience, due to the simple fact that revenge raises one of the great questions in regards to human life: how does one seek justice when the law ceases to function properly? William Shakespeare tapped...

Many questions surround the idea of Hamlet's inability to act through the course of Shakespeare's Hamlet. E. E. Stoll makes one of the most audacious arguments simply stating "It is both the traditional form and the natural procedure; obviously,...

"Hamlet is no abstract thinker and dreamer. As his imagery betrays to us, he is rather a man gifted with greater powers of observation than the others. He is capable of scanning reality with a keener eye of penetrating... to the very core of...

William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1600-01), regarded by many scholars and critics as his finest play, is based on the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, which first appeared in the Historia Danica, a Latin text by the twelfth-century historian Saxo...