Newest Literature Essays

Family ties are an extremely common topic of emphasis in young adult novels, particularly those that focus on immigrant or minority narrators. Mother-daughter relationships are clearly dominant issues in both Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and Maxine...

In an effort to shed light on the horrid realities surrounding industrialization and capitalism in America during the 1800s, Rebecca Harding Davis wrote a brilliantly realistic prose that captured the tragically enlightening story of a Welsh...

Although previously reprimanded by Henry for her overactive imagination, Catherine’s initial judgment of the General having the “air and attitude of a Montoni” proves to be true when she is ejected from Northanger Abbey. Montoni is the villain of...

Clint Eastwood, the director of the film ‘Gran Torino’, plays and stars as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran and retired autoworker living in a changing society in the 1990’s neighbourhoods of Detroit. This film, informed by a graphic...

When we think of Native Americans, we think of the fictionalized version we were taught as children: those who were met by the pioneers of the Mayflower, the founders of Thanksgiving, the hippy-dippy spiritualists. These ideas, much like the rest...

Todd Phillips's film ‘Joker’ and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver both follow isolated, mentally ill protagonists, Arthur and Travis, as they explore the significant shift in the protagonist’s identity provoked by a callous society. However, Arthur a...

Sherwood Anderson sets up the premise of Winesburg, Ohio, a novel of interlocking vignettes about citizens of an archetypal small American town, with a short literary sketch about an old, male writer. This sketch’s omniscient narrator describes a...

At its surface, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019) is a simple movie about the murder – and subsequent investigation – of Harlan Thrombey, the elusive 85 year old writer responsible for some of the world’s best and best-selling mystery novels. While...

In attempting to maneuver the changing modern world, early 20th century poets struggled to reconcile ‘old’ world views with the new normal. In a letter to his brothers, English Romantic poet Keats mediated this pervasive sense of inner conflict by...

Most have heard motivational speakers, teachers, or grandmothers proclaim: “Dream big!”, “Shoot for the stars!”. In a small town like Endora, Iowa, “You believe it. You can achieve it!” is matched with an adversarial, “It’s easier said than done.”...

Every day and every year, science and knowledge are progressing. As scientists work to craft new technology, society relies more and more on these products. In Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood projects her thoughts on the potential of science...

The preoccupation with the structure of class and class-relations in Austen’s Emma and Brontë’s Villette arises from the particularities of their historical context. Caught in the liminal moment between two social and political paradigms, modern...

While many problems in civilization can be attributed to direct causes, underlying factors manipulate and play a large role towards determining a culture. Psychologists and scholars share a deep curiosity about these factors in order to understand...

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has an uneasy place within the tradition of the bildungsroman. Critics contemporary to Joyce recognized the novel’s preoccupation with growth while acknowledging its dissimilarity to more conventional...

“His silent Griefs, swell up to Storms, And not one God, his Fury spares, He Curst his Birth, his Fate, his Stars, But more the Shepherdesses Charms ; Whose soft bewitching influence, Had Damn'd him to the Hell of Impotence.”

Within the confines...

The one character who perfectly demonstrates how her own luxuries and extravagance lead to others’ modesty is Sarah Millwood, the scheming prostitute in The London Merchant by George Lillo. However, I am going to argue that despite her...

The process of storytelling is an intrinsic element of human society, which fosters the connections of individuals through our shared human experiences and emotions. In particular, the cumulative poetry of Kenneth Slessor during the 20th Century...

Violence, for Ponyboy Curtis, is everywhere―his life in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma is constantly plagued with gang violence, child abuse, stabbings, shootings, and the constant fear of being ruthlessly attacked or even murdered by an opposing...

“Maybe someday you’ll count this one of the luckiest days of your life”, Alister said (63). This quotation from one of the short stories, “Amundsen” in Alice Munro’s Dear Life, illustrates that Alister regards this tragic end of the relationship...

Pudd’nhead Wilson is a novel written by Mark Twain that tells the story of two near-twins who were switched at birth. The babies were interchanged because Roxana, the enslaved mother of one child, Chambers, wanted to save her son from the horrors...

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, there is a greater awareness of social injustices. Although war, disasters, and oppression are prevalent throughout the world, there is still human resilience in the face of struggle. Former United...

In the Victorian era, women were deprived of rights and stripped of their sexuality. Submission defined women, while dominance defined men. This contrast is portrayed in the two most famous dramatic monologues of Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”...