Newest Literature Essays

Much like her main characters, anthropologist and world-renowned author Zora Neale Hurston endeavored the pressures of being molded into a perception of a Black person she was not per se, but she chose not to consciously acknowledge. Hurston knew...

The confidante typically is known for being present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in, but that is not the case in Sula. Instead, Nel is there to show how the main character differs from the rest of the women in...

In Annie Dillard’s essay, “Living Like Weasels”, she reminisces on her encounter with a weasel, and even though the weasel was a mere animal, it invoked life altering thoughts from within the author. Dillard compares the life of a wild weasel to...

Writing on the relationship between memories and narratives, theorist Derek Neal argues that ‘consciousness, memory and storytelling are intricately linked’ (954). This statement becomes especially relevant when, as will be explored within this...

The relationship between psychology and narratives is so inherent and well-established that there is a theoretical perspective within psychological thought, ‘Narrative Psychology’, that studies the ways in which humans create, observe, and listen...

Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters is an intricately written novel that weaves multiple threads of narrative through the Philippines of the 1950s. Within its depiction of the disarrayed postcolonial country, various literary devices are used to enhance...

While promoting his new film, Django Unchained, in 2012, director Quentin Tarantino promised audiences ‘ a new, virgin-snow kind of genre’, which he referred to as ‘the Southern’.[1] Tarantino claimed that the originality of the film – which...

Taika Waititi, perhaps best known for directing films like Thor: Ragnarok, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and What We Do in the Shadows, remarked that simply, Jojo Rabbit is an “anti-hate” film. Much more broadly, though, Jojo Rabbit exposes the...

Flower arranging, a lost razor, bestiality–all topics which are discussed in Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia. Despite its seeming inconsequentiality, the discussion of flower arranging in Act I when paired with the destruction of items in...

The wall is a humanly constructed element that reflects man’s beliefs and struggles. The purpose of the existence of the walls is controversial in which walls can be divided into a wall of enmity or a wall of amity (Bradatan 3). Walls of amity...

Brideshead Revisited acts as an ode to the dying English aristocracy which Charles Ryder appears to admire so much. Martin Amis asserts that the novel ‘squarely identifies egalitarianism as its foe and proceeds to rubbish it accordingly’, with...

How there are tyrants while there are no slaves? (Jose Rizal). Colonization is an action done for the aim of establishing control over others or a specific domain because of the colonizer’s assumption of their own superiority and others...

Rife with mechanistic imagery and characterization, the appearance of the water lily in Episode Six mimics the momentary respite which Helen Jones experiences in the presence of Mr. Roe. Nevertheless, the bowl with the water lily and its...

Throughout its long and storied history, the war film has both entertained and informed audiences across the world. Invariably, bad, good, and great war films are released every year. Great war films, though, typically tell an exceptionally simple...

Critics who have worked on Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests invariably make the point that the play was written for the occasion of the celebration of the independence of Nigeria in 1960 and is thus a metaphorical commentary on the political...

Despite the numerous attempts to blur boundaries between the genders, it is inevitable that literature reflecting the city will categorise characters to fit into the expectations of the sexes. In fact, ‘the gender of a character … implies...

In his novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dicken presents the city – more specifically, London – as a place which entraps the people who exist within it, both physically and socially. This is particularly noticeable when compared to the text’s depiction...

British Children’s Literature traditionally tells a story whilst instilling a moral message for the intended children readership – commonplace in genres such as the conduct book and the cautionary tale. In fact, critic Peter Hunt believes that ‘it...

The Duchess of Malfi is a Jacobean revenge tragedy play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–1613. The play begins as a love story, when the Duchess marries beneath her class, and ends as a nightmarish tragedy as her two brothers...

In the past few decades, an expanding market economy and increased interaction with the global world has led to new generations of contemporary Chinese artists working on the global stage. While some have taken on a critical view of the cultural...

Everyone in life has experienced a moment where we feel out of place. The feeling of being unlike all others and going against the norms of society has had major impacts in the lives of everyone. For many years now, society has provided the ideal...

The 1987 film Dirty Dancing has often been dismissed as a trivial coming-of-age story, one which simply centres around a teenage girl’s fantasy – arguably the most denigrated yet necessary narrative in popular culture. The political implications...

John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore is an ambiguous play regarding its position on gender, which makes it particularly fascinating. It certainly utilises the inherited categories and assumptions about female behaviour which were prevalent in the...

Billy Elliot is a British film, released in 2000, by director Stephen Daldry, which tells the story of a miner’s son who suddenly discovers that he enjoys ballet more than boxing. Set in Northern England, in 1984, with the political context of the...