Newest Literature Essays

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote reconstructs the Clutter family murder and investigation case into what Capote calls a “nonfiction novel,” an experimental type of journalism that combines the fluidity and continuity of a novel with the facts and...

Upon first read of Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed,” it appears to be a relatively straightforward piece whose main goal is to praise nature as a source of beauty and inspiration. Conventions of romanticism are employed to...

The Collector by John Fowles examines a battle for power and control between the introverted character of Clegg and the audaciously articulate Miranda. Power is defined as the possession of control, authority, or influence over others...

Countless acclaimed novels attain prestige through their esteemed authors’ tendency to critique their culture and time period; among these belongs Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Garcia Marquez. Garcia Marquez critiques the Colombian culture...

When we think about author and reader in tandem, a question or issue often comes immediately to a head: should the reader’s interpretation of a text take precedence over authorial authority? This question seems particularly pertinent with regards...

In Samuel Coleridge’s “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” the speaker views the lime-tree bower he sits under as a prison, despite its beautiful description. He wishes to venture out with his friends and see the beautiful nature they will see, and...

Mrs.Dalloway by Virginia Woolf was set in London in 1923, five years after the end of the First World War. World War I, which took place between 1914 and 1918, had devastating effects on the lives of soldiers and civilians, to a degree never...

In both the Book of Margery Kempe and the “Wife of Bath’s Prologue” in the Canterbury Tales, the female protagonists manipulate clerical discourse to challenge the male dominated institutional church and create new spaces for women in the late...

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go highlights the human tendency to create hope when forced to confront a harsh reality. In the novel, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy gradually learn of their predetermined fates as clones to donate their organs, yet they...

Temptation lures people to succumb to suppressed human instincts, yet together with surveillance, the opposing forces create a precarious balance between resurgence and restraint. This conflict influences the characters in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We,...

In The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton uses weather in a variety of ways that provide symbolic significance along with a vivid setting. Wharton uses weather, climate, and the change of seasons to foreshadow events in the immediate future and to...

The Mexican Revolution was fought to bring about reform for the peasants in society; on the contrary, no agrarian reform occurred, and the people were left worse off than before the fighting began. Juan Rulfo wrote a collections of short stories...

In Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, allusions to other texts emphasize the importance of human connection and relationships. Mr. Ramsay values his ability to influence others with his philosophical works over his relationships with his wife and...

Early in The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence introduces the farm laborers and an intellectual vicar through the eyes of Mrs. Brangwen, describing the characters’ distinct lifestyles. Lawrence establishes a contrast between the two types of men to...

In “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time,” the speaker asks the Rose to come near him while he sings of old Irish tales, such as Cuchulain’s fighting the sea, the Druid and Fergus, and the Rose’s own sadness. He again invites the Rose close to him...

In his film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, director Jack Clayton develops F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comments on the society presented in the novel. Clayton’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby successfully articulates to a large extent the novel’s theme...

In the contemporary novel When The Killing’s Done by T.C. Boyle, the secondary character Anise is an animal-loving singer who is dating the leader of an unethical organization called FPA, Dave LaJoy, she often helps his organization and...

Men of influence throughout history have endeavored to shape their own identities and public personas, to many effects. America, and its great experiment of democracy, was to foster an equal, equitable, and responsible government and society, one...

A literary tour de force, Alicia Partnoy’s memoir The Little School is more than a memoir. It is an act of public and permanent revenge against not just the individuals who imprisoned, tortured, and humiliated her but against all the perpetrators...

In Nadine Gordimer’s story “Town and Country Lovers,” the oppressive force of racism in apartheid South Africa is expressed in the details of the relationship between Dr. Franz-Josef von Leinsdorf and the girl. At a surface view of their...

Time and time again, humans make a habit of imagining their lives as more glorious than they are. Author Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories about misconception. She exploits the universal yearning for...

Percy Shelley uses defamiliarization in “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” as a tool to dismantle religious belief systems. Defamiliarization is a literary technique used to make that which is known and familiar appear different and new. Viktor...

Throughout several of his poems, Percy Bysshe Shelley celebrates mutability and takes comfort in the fact that change is inevitable. In “Mutability,” Shelley suggests that constant change is positive because it means that no ill feeling can ever...