Newest Literature Essays

In Regeneration, Barker presents the idea that there is a fine line between madness and sanity, in terms of the lack of differentiation between doctor and patient. The narrative, moreover, emphasizes the subjective nature of the word ‘madness’...

Horatio Alger Jr. was the quintessential class optimist: born to privilege, if not actual wealth, and convinced that poverty could be easily cured with simple hard work, proactivity and good character. The formula didn’t quite work for him...

In Fly Away Peter, David Malouf presents both physical and mental suffering through portraying the experiences of Eric and Jim, emphasizing both the acute and chronic suffering that the soldiers experienced as a consequence of war. Immediately, it...

A narrative is a spoken or written account of events and the structure is the order that the author organizes events; though these definitions may seem simple, much of the interest in a narrative can arise from the distortion or manipulation of...

Oppression is a common theme in literature; this is not surprising in light of humanity’s history of vying for power. In literature as in society, are many factors behind oppression - differences in skin color, sex, religion, and family history...

In Jane Austen’s Emma, Mr. George Knightley chooses to live at Hartfield with Emma Woodhouse, the protagonist and heroine, after their marriage, instead of moving her to his elaborate estate, Donwell Abbey. This decision is significant because of...

The first four books of Homer’s The Odyssey depict Telemachus’ transformation from an immature, frightened child into an intelligent adult as he comes to encompass qualities that the ancient Greeks sought in heroes: an adherence to the rules of...

Whilst some discoveries allow an individual to further confirm their views on their world and themselves, others may lead to moral questioning or re-evaluation evoked by their newfound perspective. These discoveries in particular gain value...

Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life tells the story of a man of slippery character. Known by his neighbors as “Doc,” Franklin Hata is a friendly face around town, always maintaining a respectful, purposeful distance. He assimilates with the people of...

In Doris Lessing’s novel The Fifth Child, there are two main characters that are unaware of some, if not most, of the things they do. This unconsciousness the characters experience is what leads to inevitable conflict in the story: the distance...

“We can always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?”[1] Samuel Beckett’s character Estragon asks his friend Vladimir in Beckett’s tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot. This postmodernist play has provoked an enormous amount of...

Farewell My Concubine takes place during the Chinese cultural revolution, and throughout the novel the political and social aspects of China are constantly changing. As the novel is based around the Peking Opera, the role of beauty is greatly...

In The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector includes a page prior to the story providing alternative titles that she was considering for the book. These titles are significant in the analysis of the novel as several of them originate from...

Comparing The School for Scandal and Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son has provided an interesting venture into the society from over two hundred years ago, representing society and their expectations. Brinsley recognizes the issues in the...

Arthur Miller’s All My Sons explores the relationship between father and son, and the lengths a man will go to for his family and for himself. The main character, Joe Keller, is a father who believed his greatest achievement was his son, and the...

The graphic novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel opens with a series of panels portraying how she and her father used to play airplane. At the same time, Bechdel makes a connection between them playing airplane and the myth of Icarus and Daedalus. It...

In Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story novel we are introduced to a dystopian society that is eerily similar to our present United States of America. The story revolves around the complicated, paradoxical relationship of Lenny Abramov and...

Angela’s Ashes is an absorbing memoir by Frank McCourt, a book that details his early childhood in Brooklyn, New York. However, it tends to focus more on his life in Limerick, Ireland through various anecdotes concerning the author's young life....

Tayo, the protagonist of Ceremony, lives in more than just one reality; he lives in worlds that exist once you begin to feel their touch on your skin. Worlds where nightmares occur while you’re awake, people and animals that say and do things you...

The opening of a play is naturally one of its most important parts, serving as an introduction to its setting, characters and themes; the best openings also encapsulate both the intentions and style of the playwright. In A Streetcar Named Desire,...

Historians, philosophers, and writers alike can attest to the human struggle to follow a certain moral code; history shows a constant rift between what humans claim they should do and what they actually do. If this rift did not exist, many a...

“ I think we must agree that fools are in a terrible, overwhelming majority, all the wide world over. But how in the devil’s name can it ever be right for fools to rule over wise men?” (113). This quote describes Henrik Ibsen’s philosophy towards...

The need to escape from agitation into tranquility is often sought after means to terminate suffering. The term “escape”, derived from the French “eschaper,” is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a noun, “the action of escaping, or the...

Shakespeare’s two plays King Lear and Macbeth take place in two contrasting settings that, from the first scenes, influence the characters’ paths and shape the course of the plays’ events. The action of both plays alternate between the settings of...