Newest Literature Essays

In the novels Dracula by Bram Stoker and The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel, the conscious efforts by characters to preserve their humanity and align themselves with others act as barriers to their pursuit of personal fulfillment. Indeed, our lives...

The play The School for Scandal by Sheridan and Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry explore human nature, and the complexities that emerge from social interactions, or perhaps more internally, through our own disposition. Sheridan’s satire took on the...

Athol Fugard’s play, “Master Harold and the Boys,” is at its core a play that examines the complex race relations between two black servants and their white employer and the conditions of South African apartheid. The excerpt from “Master Harold...

The Thief and The Dogs, an intriguing narrative by Naguib Mahfouz, is the story of a man named Said Mahran who had just got out of prison. He was convicted as a thief and feels betrayed by all whom he was close to. One of his ex-colleagues, Ilish...

The figurative use of masks in She Stoops to Conquer and M. Butterfly is present in both the characters and the themes to define genders and deceit. Goldsmith and Hwang use mockery and satire in the two plays interchangeably through time and space...

Christopher Columbus had always dreamt of setting sail to Asia, but there was an obstacle: he needed financial support. At first, Columbus was unable to get funding for his trip, but then he approached the King and Queen of Spain, Ferdinand and...

In Margaret Edson’s play W;t, a variety of characters with complex, unique personalities are brought to life. Edson uses vivid imagery and poignant monologues in order to highlight and simultaneously criticize the social structure, doctor-patient...

Anthony Hecht’s “The Book of Yolek” tells the story of a young Jewish boy named Yolek, a fictional representation of a young boy who died during the Holocaust. The vivid imagery employed by Hecht creates a multifaceted universe that highlights the...

Sleep is a physically and mentally vulnerable state; the body is unconscious, unsuspecting, and the mind is visited frequently by an array of distorted images called dreams. Only devilish and cruel predators hunt sleeping prey, when struggle is...

In his 1956 poem ‘Howl’ Allen Ginsberg portrays a vision of America that is simultaneously both apocalyptic and somewhat hopeful of the future. Ginsberg, one of the primary figures of the counterculture of Beat Writers during the 1940s and 50s,...

In his poem, ‘The Widow’s Lament to Summer’, William Carlos Williams explores themes of mortality, the fleeting beauty of life and emotional attachment through the perspective of a recently widowed woman. Through limited descriptive techniques and...

Revolution was a key idea to the philosophy of the Romantic writers, whether it be social, cultural or aesthetic. It is in the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, however, that the most overt revolutionary political statements are made while ...

Fairy tales serve as important tools in history by allowing countries and societies throughout time to share their cultural beliefs and values. As fairy tales circulate around the world, cultures adopt and adapt the basic story lines that may stem...

Freud’s introduction to the concept of psychoanalysis was one that provided an explanation as well as a potential solution to an issue that was otherwise untreated: hysteria. Although Freud’s theory was met with heavy skepticism, it is a theory...

Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur presents an intent focus on the ill effects of anything not in accordance with Christian morality and teaching. Malory portrays these elements of his story negatively—showcasing how they alter the mind and...

Hughes is well-known for his nature poetry and use of animal symbolism. In both “The Jaguar” and “Hawk Roosting”, the animals symbolize different human characteristics while remaining, on the surface, an in-depth, fantastic poem about the animal...

Daisy’s Ghost: A Feminist Reading of Daisy Miller

The novel Daisy Miller is set in the late 18th century, within high class European society. In that time period, feminism was misunderstood and even unrecognized by both genders and varying...

The message of “Leda and the Swan” is often interpreted in drastically different ways due to the ambiguity of the text. Much of this ambiguity can be attributed to intentional contradiction by the author, William Butler Yeats. This contradiction...

Environmental determinism claims that a society’s physical environment predetermines its social and cultural development. Naturally, environmental determinists would argue that Mexico’s appreciation of nature and agricultural roots influence its...

One Johns Hopkins Study determined that 81% of young adults have been exposed to a traumatic event, while 8% of those exposed have developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (“Blog”). The symptoms of PTSD can be divided into three groups: intrusive,...

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, Doris Lessing crafted fiction that is deeply infused with autobiographical touches, especially from her experiences in Africa. All of her works center around modern themes such as the clash of...

In the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, characters develop and change considerably; in particular, the character of Mr. Rochester demonstrates this clear character development. Mr. Rochester initially appears to be a profoundly unlikable...

For Emerson and Whitman, nature is more than just the trees that line the street, or even the flowers that rest beautifully within the vase. Both men find such a deeper harmony and value within nature, in a way that is very relevant to the...

Culture and language have always been, by their very nature, intertwined. Neither can exist without the other. As the world shifts perspectives and culture evolves, so must language evolve with it. Old tales become wordy and dated, hardly seeming...