Newest Literature Essays

Many Americans are distantly aware of the Cultural Revolution that happened during the second half of the 1900s in China. It is one thing to be aware of this historical period but another to read about it from someone who experienced it first...

Conflicts of ownership have been around for centuries, including land disputes with Native Americans and still today with the disputes of oil in the Middle East. In the play The Piano Lesson, the main conflict is between the siblings Berniece and...

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie, is a detective novel that is centered around the murder of a wealthy, estate owning woman. In this novel, as in all detective fiction novels, the innocence at the Styles manor is soiled by a...

“Disgraced” is a play written by Ayad Akhtar which focuses on the raw spots of race and culture present in modern American society. Specifically, it highlights the struggles of being a Muslim in the post-9/11 era. Akhtar accomplishes this by...

Struggles of Isolation in Vampires of the Lemon Grove

The short stories by Karen Russell in Vampires in the Lemon Grove share many intertwining aspects. While at first glance, the stories seem to have no relation apart from the quirky thriller...

Disillusionment is everywhere from our careers, to a significant other that turned out to be the very person we thought they were not, to the reality that human activity is pushing the earth towards destruction. Brenda Shaughnessy touches on this...

Flannery O’Connor explores ‘generations’ and the hierarchies between them through her short stories, “The Artificial N*gger,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” and “Why Do The Heathen Rage?”. To that purpose, she uses the narrator as a giver...

Within the nonfiction narrative The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba illustrates his childhood in rural Malawi and the hardships he and his village endured during this time of his life. Throughout the book, William and the rest of his...

Sarah’s Key takes the reader through a split narrative, that of Sarah, the young Jewish girl experiencing the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup, and that of Julia Jarmond, the modern day journalist who becomes enveloped by the events of the Vel’ d’Hiv. This...

W.H. Auden was a visionary writer, portraying myriad themes ranging from the political, social, ethical, moral and individual perspectives of his time and prior to the Modernist period. His work often encapsulates the existential fears of a...

Racism is the main plot theme in the novel ‘Noughts and Crosses’ by Malorie Blackman, through her story of lovers of opposite skin colours in a universe where racism and racial superiority is displayed to the reader through the setting of an...

In the late 1920s, before Nazi occupation, Germany was “crippled” (History.Com Editors) by debt, mainly caused by World War 1 and the Treaty of Versaille; however, the Wall Street Stock Market Crash in 1929 only helped to weaken the already...

The year is 2029. The world has seen no new mutants in 25 years; the few mutants who remain live in hiding, fearful of being found out by a world who doesn’t see outsiders in a positive light. Among those in hiding are 90-year-old Charles Xavier...

Are eyes windows to the soul? In Silas Marner, George Eliot describes the changes in Silas’ eyes in order to metaphorize the changes in Silas’ soul. In the beginning of the novel, Silas’ eyes are nearsighted, symbolizing his narrow view of life....

Poets have long argued over what constitutes real and decent poetry, but how well do these poets exemplify their arguments in their own work? In William Wordsworth’s 1802 “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” the English Romantic poet outlines two major...

The English novel is a mode that is highly sympathetic to the inequalities of sex. At its inception, it was considered a very feminine form, unworthy of serious academic consideration. The novel had to struggle to establish itself as a legitimate...

Aside from the truly remarkable and breathtaking technical achievement, what is most remarkable about They Shall Not Grow Old is how it told the story of WWI through the voices of those who fought in it, something that is so rarely done (and...

In Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler (2014), Jake Gyllenhaal plays a man named Lou Bloom. Lou is an eccentric but driven man who stumbles upon the world of late night T.V. Specifically, he becomes a nightcrawler – someone who tapes breaking news stories...

The nature of the environment around us is governed by the sciences. Chemical reactions can be represented by equations, specific bonds form between certain molecules, and organisms act based upon biological processes. In a world where people can...

In Shakespeare’s play King Lear, King Lear tells his daughter Cordelia that, “Nothing will come of nothing”(Shakespeare 1.1.99). This idea of nothingness plays a major role in Shakespeare’s King Lear and As You Like It. King Lear is a tragedy that...

‘Audiences are not only entertained; they are made to engage with the social concerns explored in the play.’

Two significant plays, ‘The Removalists’ by David Williamson and ‘Norm and Ahmed’ by Alex Buzo, portray the social concerns of past but...

There are many inevitable aspects of life that society attempts to suppress: heartache, loss, hatred.According to James Baldwin, it is an artist’s job to confront and “to correct the delusions to which we fall prey in our attempts to avoid this...

An ego-centered person will always make their decisions based off what will conserve their reputation. Creon, an ego-centered ruler, feels that he must obey the laws set in place by the Gods and does not try to be open minded for his family....