Newest Literature Essays

The transparent eyeball is a philosophical metaphor introduced by Transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The transparent eyeball represents an eye that serves only to be observant rather than reflective. Therefore it teaches us to take in all...

Throughout A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche is caught between the contradictions of her own character and the society surrounding her. She persistently fights to conceal the truth of her personality and past, failing to comprehend the changing...

In The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga initially presents a protagonist in Balram, who is engaging, despite confessing to horrific crimes. His language, thoughts, and deeds convey his initially good nature. However, by the end of the novel, immorality...

The supernatural elements and events involving them are an important facet of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. Many mythological creatures are referenced, and omens are used as symbols throughout the novel, making up some of the instances where...

The opening words of the story “MS. Found in a Bottle” by Edgar Allan Poe are a quote from the French opera Atys, “Qui n’a plus qu’un moment a vivre N’a plus rien a dissimuler” (Poe 1). This translates roughly to the idea that a man who is dying...

Texts continue to be valued long after their composition by virtue of their exploration of contextually pertinent universal concerns. The timelessness of Orson Welles’ 1941 feature film Citizen Kane lies in its treatment of enduring human flaws,...

The epithet “the Land of the Free” is a distinctive phrase commonly associated with America, a country that prides itself for awarding its people with equal opportunity and the freedom to pursue their dreams. Yet, American literature does not seem...

Melinda Sordino is broken. She drifts through her freshman year of high school, failing her classes and being ridiculed by her peers. She might have stayed broken, too, had it not been for key aspects of her life that inspired her to change. This...

Everyone has a specific object or place that immediately floods them with memories. Whether it be the stretch of road where they crashed or a pencil they used to pass a huge test, these items are everywhere. The memories they hold can be painful...

Humans inflict suffering on other humans and when events are forgotten, they are repeated. In the poem “Shooting Stars," Carol Ann Duffy tells a shocking story of a female prisoner held by Nazis in a concentration camp around the time of the...

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying presents an aggressive view of an unusual family. The Bundren family’s mother figure, Addie, dies. While transporting her body to Jackson for burial, the remaining six family members struggle to make it alive,...

In the Native Son, Richard Wright cultivates supporting characters as threats to the main character Bigger in ways that range from being highly significant to extremely minimal. In analyzing the way the African American women are represented in...

From Romeo and Juliet to Cinderella and Prince Charming, there are a few romantic couples whose stories have been echoed time and time again throughout literature and film. Famous pairs such as these have love tales so well-known that nearly every...

Friends are often expected to be brutally honest and tell others that what they are doing is wrong, from shoplifting to dating an abusive person. These are the duties of a friend in modern society, but the same conception of friendship as...

In Laguna culture, stories are as central as the language that tells them. Stories weave the world together and are constantly being reinvented and recreated over time. In Storyteller, Leslie Marmon Silko layers short stories, pictures, and poems...

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls that elaborates her upbringing particularly her experience with her sisters, brother, and parents. In a sincere but loving manner, Walls reveals the irresponsibility and selfishness of her...

Societally, most individuals enjoy believing that they are without bias. Whether it be gender, race, disability, or religion, everyone has preconceived notions about select people groups. While this can be difficult to admit, Toni Morrison...

The poem “My Father’s Song” is based on the wisdom and values, as well as traditions passed from old generation to new one. The speaker uses his life experience between him and his father to depict the variation of values and traditions between...

By embracing the concept of a journey, we frequently reach our destination with a greater understanding of ourselves and current surroundings. After scrutinizing the concept of journeys it has become self evident that our lives can be quite...

It is no surprise that the function of men and women in a society plays a huge role in the pieces of literature that would arise during a specific time. The roles of both men and women in the 18th century, for example, may even align with those in...

The title of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is often criticized, argued that it should be titled Brutus, as Marcus Brutus is the tragic hero. However, the title is appropriate, as Julius Caesar, though insignificant as an actor in the play since he...

Money and acquisitiveness have always had the ability to turn people into someone they are not. Greed can tear apart families and friendships when a person neglects others for their own benefit. This is depicted perfectly in Lorraine Hansberry’s...

In literature, color conveys powerful messages, expressing underlying themes when words fail to do so. Recognizing symbolism is an essential part of understanding any literary work. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece The Great Gatsby,...

For generations great religious minds have been discussing the relationship between faith and reason. Is one's faith even valid if they are supporting their beliefs with rational thinking? Is faith even necessary? Or, is a balance between the two...