Newest Literature Essays

Athenian citizens believed they had no volition in life, but rather contended with a lack of free will and choice as they struggled with the presence of oracles and belief of destiny. They accepted that deities could foresee the future and select...

By the end of the play, the eponymous, tragic hero Antony has lost the battle of Actium and ultimately kills himself after the defeat. Due to this many would say that Caesar has achieved a complete victory over his rival; however, is it this...

The deliberate manipulation of textual form enables composers to showcase how an individual and social group’s awareness of identity is manufactured and shaped by their prevailing landscape. Colm Toibin’s bildungsroman novel Brooklyn (2009)...

In her novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth, probably better known under the title of Charlotte Temple, Susanna Rowson relates the unfortunate life of a young girl for a specific purpose that she presents in the opening lines of her work, through the...

Written in late 1930, just after the fall of military dictator Primo de Rivera, San Manuel Bueno, mártir was published at a time of economic downturn and political instability. King Alfonso XIII remained on the throne but shared the popular...

The primary ideal of a psychoanalytic reading is that literary texts are similar to dreams because they are both manifestations of a person's psyche, and can be analysed in order to discover the author's unconscious meanings. Eva Luna, written by...

An old Chinese proverb states that, “A family in harmony will prosper in everything.” In the 21st century, harmony looks different in every household––especially queer households, which are not always conducive to the harmony of heteronormative...

Feminist literary criticism has become an integral part of the way in which we study literature in the 21st century. By analyzing the way in which the female condition is represented in works of literature, we can establish how women were...

Life is filled with different twists and turns, unexpected obstacles, and experiences never forgotten. Eudora Welty writes A Worn Path with a sense of symbolism that captures the struggles and pleasures of life. Welty uses symbolism as a bridge to...

The novel Perks of Being a Wallflower, written by Stephen Chbosky, portrays a series of characters that strive for acceptance and understanding from others. Yet, for the most part, they are constantly ridiculed or treated like the second option....

The devastating events of WWII and the dropping of the Atomic Bomb in 1945 ruptured the foundations of both the physical and psychological position of mankind, provoking an Existential crisis of faith that called into question the possibility of...

Throughout modern and historic literature alike, the battle of the sexes has waged on. From Greek dramas to modern stream-of-consciousness novels, the struggle among men and women has been commonplace. In this way, within his novel One Flew Over...

Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical Hunger of Memory outlines his intellectual development from early childhood to adulthood. As the title suggests, Rodriguez recounts and reflects upon the various memories of importance to this development. He...

“Three Sisters” is Anton Chekhov’s only true tragedy, featuring a large ensemble cast of characters facing a downward succession of horrible events. Of all of the characters in the play, Natasha is the only one who seems to gain power by the end....

J.D. Vance, in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, uses his own experiences living in rural Kentucky and industrial Ohio to paint a picture of the problems facing the poor white class—and its accompanying “Hillbilly” culture— which dominates American...

In Graham Greene’s dynamic novel The Power and the Glory, we follow the Whiskey Priest throughout his harrowing journey as he runs for his life, avoiding capture and death at the hands of the Lieutenant. This novel shows the development of the...

Richard Rodriguez attempts to write about learning to write in no unclear terms in his autobiography Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez constantly fluctuates between two extremes: the fear and dislike of writing due to its incredibly personal nature and...

In the tragic spectacle of Riders to the Sea, John Millington Synge explores an essentially Pagan situation. There is a degree of deliberation in the choice of the title and its application is both literal and metaphorical since it is an extended...

In a radical attempt to forge a new poetic medium, the poetry of TS Eliot possesses an enduring appeal due to its ability to lament universal concerns of the modern era while also subverting conventional literary content and structure. The poems ‘...

The metaphysical poets of the Renaissance sought to explore universal concepts of religion and and love against the backdrop of great social and religious change. The movement’s foremost contributor was arguably John Donne, whose poetry was...

In Chaim Potok’s novel My Name is Asher Lev, Asher struggles with self-identity and going against tradition, which ultimately leads him to question whether his gift of art comes from the Ribbono Shel Olom or the sitra achra. Asher’s gift comes...

In an interview, Charles Simic said, “My early life seems like a dream…There’s an element of unreality about it.”[i] Simic’s early life was spent attempting to flee World War Two bombs in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where he “could easily have been a...

The Holocaust is one of the most devastating and incomprehensible events in human memory. The systematic killing of millions of civilians and the attempted erasure of their culture defies logic, and exists outside the realm of everyday...