Newest Literature Essays

Within Steinbeck’s oeuvre, the 1942 novella The Moon is Down is far less renowned than works like The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flat or even Cannery Row. However, The Moon is Down is an excellent novella and can be used as a meaningful...

In Orhan Pamuk’s masterful 2004 novel Snow, one major theme is that of aesthetic creation or production. This focus on process pervades the book, which itself is an aesthetic object. On a broader level, however, it complicates the aesthetic nature...

One major flaw in the human condition is the inclination to habitually dwell on things that we desire rather than what we actually need to attain genuine happiness. Easy fixes towards desires are humanity’s forte until one realizes that what we...

In "The Historical Novel Today: Or, is it still Possible?", Frederic Jameson considers the various difficulties which face the historical novel today. Especially relevant to the essay, are his ideas on imagined time in the historical novel....

The movie titled Divergent (2014) can be seen and analyzed as a groundbreaker if considering the gendered readings in connection with it. The movie is based on Veronica Roth’s bestseller book series and follows the increasing tendency of having a...

In both life and forms of art, shadows can alter the way the human eye visualizes objects and are representative of fear and mystery. Shadows are used as a device in literature and film to alter the audience’s perception of what is real and what...

The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton is a wonderful, fantastical story depicting the struggle between the ideals of the secular world and religion. Its protagonists are an ardent Catholic, Evan MacIan, and an ardent atheist, James Turnbull,...

Nietzsche’s concern with the analysis of the history of morals, expounded in his work The Genealogy of Morals, allows him to better understand the origins, conditions, and growth of moral concepts. The genealogy leads Nietzsche to argue that there...

Slave narratives were written with the immediate purpose to bring about the end of slavery by abolitionists who were able to communicate its horrors and injustice through a literary format. The importance of slave narratives in African American...

Contextual literature representative of the surrounding world is reflective of the challenges to traditional social and political stances, each showcasing an ideological progression towards transformed societal thought and unified perceptions....

Quality literature provides responders with an insight into its world and its inhabitants, revealing the inconsistencies, qualities, and confrontations that further the understanding of the context itself. It is through the paradoxical outlook of...

Billy Wilder’s 1950 film Sunset Boulevard--today an acclaimed staple of the noir genre--chronicles the demise of screenwriter and narrator Joe Gillis at the hand of Norma Desmond, a silent film has-been clinging desperately to Hollywood relevance....

Composers of negative utopic texts utilize their own contexts so that the audiences’ imagination is challenged to recognize flaws of certain governance, religious cultures and the concept of ‘utopia’ itself, subsequently stimulating readers to...

No matter what Michele Roberts’ work you read, it is clear “that she is interested in (feminist) literary theory” (Gruss, 4). The Book of Mrs Noah, then, adds to Robert’s reputation as an “unashamedly feminist writer” (Falcus, 13). Not only does...

Only when we compare something to its opposite can we see the true value of an object. In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, duality is a very important motif that helps set the theme of the entire book. Gene and Finny are two very different...

Receiving international attention upon publication, Phillis Wheatley’s “On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, 1770” introduced the literary world to the influence of her words, specifically her thoughts regarding death. The eulogized...

In the book of Acts, Luke recounts numerous speeches, many of which come from Peter and Paul while giving defenses of themselves and of the new Christian faith. He composes Acts in such a way that the attentive reader may draw significant...

On the surface, the poem “Notice” by Steve Kowit kind of is about a for all intents and purposes young man whose jeans ripped, which definitely is fairly insignificant. But beneath the surface, the poem is about the untimely death of a friend....

In Alice Walker’s Everyday Use the construct of cultural identity is addressed through the characters Dee, Maggie, and Mama. It addresses the struggle of seeking an identity as a black person in America in view of the stigma from slavery and...

In her short story, Katherine Mansfield a carefully sculpted account of the changing of seasons as youth grows older and is replaced by new generation. Our protagonist, Miss Brill, is a self-appreciating elderly woman who views herself as a...

“Redeployment” is a collection of twelve short, fiction stories that give very accurate accounts of many soldier’s experiences in the war. Written by an Iraq war veteran, Phil Klay, this collection of stories reflects Klay’s own experiences...

It is not an overstatement to label Twilight (2005) as a global cultural phenomenon that revamped young adult literature and inspired new movies, shows, and novels all about supernatural teenagers. This is in part what makes Meyer’s latest...

A commonly reported symptom of clinical depression is a warped sense of time. Everything can feel like its moving in super slow motion. In fact, depression warps everything around it like a star warps space-time. Not only your sense of duration...

Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is unique in many ways, perhaps the most significant being that it was composed over the course of his entire life, a fact that is very significant when one considers this unprecedented opportunity to witness the...