Newest Literature Essays

Persepolis is a bildungsroman that tells the story of Marji, a young Iranian girl growing up during a time of revolution, turmoil, and war. Her path of growth and development changes direction at a single moment, and she begins to grow up into a...

As an aspiring Southern gentleman, Edgar Allan Poe longed for the glamour of fame and wealth, prominence and prosperity. To gain this through his writing, Poe understood that he must be able to sell his writing to make money, but he also must...

Claire Messud's novel, The Emperor's Children, is a tip of the hat to Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes and develops the concepts of vanity and invulnerability in Andersen's story that epitomized American culture prior to the...

Many modern playwrights seek to connect contemporary issues with ancient themes by updating the stories of mythic stories into a completely modern milieu. With Blood Wedding, Federico Garcia Lorca seeks to explore this idea of connectivity through...

“This was the Coming” is arguably one of the most impactful lines in Daniel Black’s The Coming, mostly because it captures everything that the novel is dedicated to, which is “the memory and celebration of African souls lost in the Atlantic Ocean....

Have you eaten today? If not, then perhaps it is best that you do, before continuing with this essay. The reason for caution lies in the overlying theme discussed from here on. Both Dante’s Divine Comedy and Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey are...

In the classic allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan explains the journey of a newly-saved believer. Bunyan’s story unraveled in a dream of a man named Christian. After reading a section in the bible, Christian tells his wife and children...

Alice Walker’s short story "Everyday Use" is set in Southern United States during the 1960’s to 1970’s, a time recognized for its importance in the Black Power Movement. After returning from college, Dee showcases a newfound love towards her...

Caryl Phillips’s Foreigners depicts three separate stories based on historical facts and accounts of three Black men living in Great Britain at different times. Their lives, though not literally intertwined, greatly inform one another due to what...

The Harlem Renaissance was a period when African-American writers, artists expressed and articulated themselves through their writing and art. It was a remarkable era, as for the first time in history, African-American writers and poets were...

The Bible states “God saw light was good, and he separated the light from darkness.” Though light and dark are separated in Romeo in Juliet, they have entirely different connotations. The presence of light turns the characters belligerent, while...

The Coen Brothers' 2000 adventure film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is an American adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. This recent comedy follows three escaped convicts as they search for a hidden treasure. Despite the considerable gap...

“He looked like a phantom, a spirit, strayed out of its own world, and lost,” (114) can easily be regarded as one of the most impactful lines in William Faulkner’s Light in August. A very prominent theme throughout the novel is identity, which the...

Ella Cara Deloria’s novel Waterlily carefully considers the role of women, not only as respectful instructors of etiquette, dedicated sisters, and hospitable homemakers, but also as the primal maternal beings responsible for birthing the tribe’s...

In Toni Morrison’s novel, Song of Solomon, the names of people and even of places take center-stage as arguably the driving motif of the book. Names are used to create Biblical allusions and delineate legacy among related characters, but one of...

John Milton conforms much to the popular misogyny of his time - the belief that women are inferior to men, and wives subservient to their husbands. However, his epic Paradise Lost explores the positive and important role women in that society...

William Dean Howells publicly opposed the Spanish-American War of 1898, believing that it was more of an evasive attempt by the United States to achieve territorial and economical expansion of Spanish colonial nations like Cuba and the...

Dave Eggers is a playful author, wiling to experiment and take risks for his audience. At the same time, Eggers is aware of his ploys and sometimes uses these games as a way to pawn off the tragedies that happened to him over the course of the...

Dave Eggers utilizes unusual formatting tactics to present his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, including a lengthy introduction and acknowledgements section, inauthentic dialogue, personal commentary, and even an unconventional...

Benjamin Franklin has a reputation in American – and around the world – as a self-made man for rising from indentured servitude to become a wealthy, independent man. As a founding father of the United States, Franklin’s independence and industry...

Carol S. Dweck is an inspiring author who examines how the significance of an attitude can determine one’s outlook on life through her book, Mindset. The psychological analysis of how a mindset can influence people of all ages in any circumstance...

Southern aristocratic mothers generally did not take care for their children, and instead, they usually had an “African-American woman [care] for (and essentially raise) Southern white children” (Tucker, 35). Caroline Compson is the neurotic and...

Nature is an important feature of poetic realism, an offshoot of German realism in the late 19th century. Gottfried Keller, the author of the novel Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe (Romeo and Juliet in the Village), is a Swiss writer who belongs to...

In coincidence with the clear feminist undertones of his novels, John Irving proposes opposing dichotomies: hypersexualized characters and societies, and the simultaneous criticism of sex. Irving builds societies where sex is inherent. In The...