Newest Literature Essays

In 1819, the Shelleys were residing in Florence, Italy and, after quickly reconnecting with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley had renewed inspiration to write. “Ode to the West Wind” emphasizes Shelley’s sadness at being separate from the political and...

America claims to be a ‘melting pot,’ a land in which people of all cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities come together to live in peace and prosperity. This assertion of acceptance and shared culture is merely a goal to strive towards and,...

Both of Roy’s novels explore with the isolation of individual characters from each other, from society as well as from the overall narrative arch. The use of varying narrative form furthers this theme by isolating readers from the fragmented...

Romanticism is a literary movement that has been defining American culture for the past 200 years. Romantic literature is characterized by a focus on internal forces, emotion, morality, nature, and fantasy. James Lowell’s, “The First Snowfall”,...

Literature is often used as a medium to explain some facet of human emotion. It exists as a way for people to gain an understanding of others. Certain narrative forms achieve this goal with greater ease than others, but it is truly the...

The narrative of a man who kills women because he feels sexually rejected is unfortunately an all too common one in society. There exists a feeling of entitlement that is remarkably antifeminist, but that also quickly extends into areas of race....

The fifth chapter of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps documents the transformation of protagonist Richard Hannay into his fourth disguise. Hannay, a mining engineer bored with the melancholy of his life in London, is suddenly thrust into the...

The middle of the twentieth century was rife with racial conflict and movement toward equal rights. Unfortunately, the characters of The Long Goodbye have a tendency to maintain this racist rhetoric that had such a negative impact on 1950’s...

Sherman Alexie’s novel Indian Killer is remarkably focused on identity. One of his larger points seems to be that individual identity has a lot to do with feeling a part of a larger group. The central character, John Smith, is a Native American...

The three women characters in Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Maltese Falcon, portray three different types of femininity. While to Samuel Spade, consistently calling them “darling”(Hammett, pg. 25) and “sweetheart”(Hammett, pg.1), seems to group...

When Darwin first published his novel, The Origin of Species, in 1859, it was met with great controversy and backlash, sparking in the process a heated debate between scientists, religious scholars, and the general public over its implications and...

As a homeless man once professed on LA local news after being robbed for the sixth consecutive week, “When we are beaten down, we must always remember that God shall always be waiting as our crutch”. While the words are moving, they are certainly...

It is no secret that Lord Voldemort is the “big bad” of the Harry Potter Series; this is a fact that is established from the very first time he is introduced in the series. In Sorcerer’s Stone Hagrid reveals to Harry that his parents were murdered...

A labyrinth, on the surface, can be described as “a place constructed of or full of intricate passageways and blind alleys” (Merriam-Webster), but it can also be characterized as “something extremely complex or tortuous” (Merriam-Webster). Both...

It was soon after the American Revolution that Thoreau, one of the most influential literary figures of the 19th Century, questioned the effective freedom and happiness of American citizens. The Declaration of Independence stated that all men have...

One scene that rewards extended analysis is the “reveal” scene from Mike Nichols’ The Graduate. This scene can represent the rising action in the narrative of the film and it perfectly shows off the usage of the rack focus shot. The scene also...

Have you ever thought that, if given the chance, you would do everything you could to protect the people you love? Rick Riordan, the author of The Sea Of Monsters, perfectly shows how important friends and family are, that they are worth...

John Irving’s esteemed 1989 novel, “A Prayer for Owen Meany” is a lot of things - but it is not subtle. Over the course of its 600 pages, “Owen Meany” lends to us a surplus of heavily symbolic and provocative moments, which illustrate its...

While all people want happiness in life, most struggle to achieve this goal as a result of various distractions and other factors at play. In Infinite Jest, a maximalist novel by David Foster Wallace, the distraction inhibiting individuals from...

In the novel Girl at War, Sara Nović incorporates the theme of trauma throughout the story from the Yugoslav Wars that impacted most of the characters’ lives. Readers get to experience the characters during the war and many years later as they are...

In his sonnet beginning, “That Time of Year Thou Mayst in me Behold”, William Shakespeare examines the natures of death and love. Shakespeare’s speaker addresses the sonnet to an unknown third party, presumably his lover, and reflects on his...

While some individuals remember Cleopatra as a queen of Egypt with leadership skills better than any man, others emphasise her seduction of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony (Harold et.al, n.d). In his play The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, William...

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Faith is taking the first step with courage even when you don't see the whole staircase.” In the nonfiction novels “A Child Called It” and “The Lost Boy” by Dave Pelzer, Dave survives through hard times with...

The Harry Potter series and the world created by the stories is defined as being magical; in the literal sense of there being magical beings such as witches and wizards, but also in that all the stories show our main characters reveling in the...