Newest Literature Essays

Loureen, the protagonist of Lynn Nottage’s play, “POOF!”, and Nora, the main character of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House”, are both abused by their husbands. While Nora’s abuse is primarily emotional and Loureen’s is physical, their abuse led them...

The history, culture, and territorial boundaries of the Confederate States of America summarize the fundamental aspects of the South. It is typically described as a region that unwelcomes change and is close-minded towards beliefs that disagree...

Literary fairy tales have always possessed some features that enabled them to convey and reinforce specific binary oppositions more easily than other types of written media. They are extremely well-known by children and adults; they became highly...

A fundamental property of humanity is our tendency to frame issues economically: to attempt to understand our world by assigning numerical values to things which were conceived independently of this rigid economic structure. Presented with a set...

Is Eudaimonia really attainable? One of the most important works that adopted this concept is Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle was one of Plato’s students, but he rejected his teacher’s logic that reality lay beyond the everyday world in...

The resonances and dissonances between Shakespeare Richard III and Al Pacino’s Looking For Richard reveal that composers are responding to the contextual influences of their time. Shakespeare’s Richard III is heavily influenced by the value...

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Apocalypse Now exemplify the cruel and unforgiving nature of humankind through the actions of Mr. Kurtz. Before Kurtz is introduced in each story, the narrator creates an image of the man in his head that is...

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House follows Nora Helmer’s stifled life within the confines of society’s patriarchal edifice and her own household. The depiction of Nora, her childhood friend Christine Linde, and the nurse Anne within this structure is...

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the nameless narrator is invisible, meaning he is not seen for who he is. He believes that pleasing others and controlling his identity will enable him to succeed, yet it does the opposite and allows individuals...

19th Century Russia saw immense economic, political, and ideological changes. With Western influence pervading Europe, Russian society became fiercely polarized between radicals who strove for rapid reform and reactionaries who opposed the...

In P.K. Page’s 1943 poem, “The Landlady,” the main character, the landlady, gives readers an uneasy feeling. This is because the speaker of the poem portrays the landlady in a complexly eerie manner. In the poem, the speaker describes the landlady...

Anna Karenina, an 1873 novel by Leo Tolstoy, is set in Russia. During this time, there were some Russians who disagreed with the Czar’s governing, which started to stir about the idea of communism. Going along with these radical social ideas in...

Privacy is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as being the “quality or state of being apart from company or observation,” or “freedom from unauthorized intrusion.” The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald revolves around the theme of...

Although Astrophil and Stella #1 by Sir Philip Sidney and It is a Beauteous Evening by William Wordsworth were written over two hundred years apart, they share many common themes, with just one major difference. Both poets write about love, and...

If someone was asked to name their favorite book character, his or her answer would most likely be the name of either a person or an animal. While many books and stories contain wonderful human and animal characters, some pieces of literature...

Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is a graphic novel that tells her own coming of age story in Iran during a period of turmoil. Similar to Iran’s ever-changing period of political upheaval, Marji’s character development is marked by conflict. In fact,...

They say that assiduous work fuels the best and happiest lives; but, what if work becomes that life? This immense level of work removes the possibility of any facet of life that does not include labor. Lord Alfred Tennyson in his poem, “The...

The Tempest, is about a marooned sorcerer, Prospero who was exiled from both his land and his ruling position in Naples. As a result of this, Prospero is seething with rage. He uses his magical powers to crash the king-who happens to be his...

Religion is one of the central targets of Voltaire’s criticism in Candide. This topic carries a large significance in the book, as it depicts the controversy surrounding organized religion, and the social paradigma deriving from it in the time...

The novel depicts the everyday-life of Offred – the protagonist – in the Republic of Gilead. Gilead is a totalitarian state and society that has replaced the US. The only goal of this new system is to place women into the center while also...

Many times, in Austen novels, the conflict revolves around some sort of miscommunication between characters.Though it makes for an interesting read, it begs the question of how these numerous misunderstandings came to be in the first place. In my...

Language is definitive of humanity. Spoken, written, or signed, every type of communication is essential to human interaction and is a crucial feature of civilization that differentiates humans from animals. Franz Kafka, author of The...

The crimes that Oedipus and Socrates are accused of in Oedipus the King by Sophocles and The Apology by Plato are intertwined with the boundaries society sets for its citizens in regard to laws that are just or injust. Crossing one of these set...

Every living being on Earth requires water to survive. Not only is water essential on a biological level, it also is one of the oldest and most fundamental symbols of literature. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is no exception to this common...