Newest Literature Essays

Eighteenth-century American humorist and lecturer Henry Wheeler Shaw once said, "To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while." This wise, candid statement highlights the fact that parents play a...

There are several levels in literary criticism. The first - and most superficial - level examines the work in search of sounds and images that might contribute to the overall meaning of the piece. This type of analysis is an excellent starting...

He maketh the deep to boil like a pot:

he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.

Job (ch. XLI, v. 31)

Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Export by Charles Dickens is a novel largely about motion and change. A good place to begin the analysis...

In Hamlet, the philosophy and ideas of Stoicism make their appearance onstage and shape the themes and dialogue of the play. Stoicism, which praises the superiority of reason and civilization over the more base element of emotion, is the backbone...

Charles Forker argues that Marcus Andronicus, upon discovering the maimed, raped and mutilated Lavinia, "erects a barrier of fanciful language between himself and the object of his contemplation." It is an interesting question: does Marcus create...

The Intricacies of the Court and Lanval's Desire to Escape

In the Anglo- Norman lay Lanval, an eloquent and intricate account of the Arthurian courts, Marie de France develops an array of issues that include the hypocrisies and virtues of the...

Forster's story in A Passage to India exists outside the physical experiences of his characters. The novel is less a tale about Indian life under British rule than an endeavor to map religious and interpersonal journeys of people. British...

It can be said that a person's disposition is determined by the condition of their living space, and it is no secret that environment greatly influences a person's character. This idea is taken to the extreme in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and...

Victorious Pagan Beliefs

British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once remarked that "Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age." Though not referring to Old English poetry, Shelley's acclamation is illustrated in the epic poem ...

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the young American establishment appeared to have surmounted the instability of its formative stages. The citizens of what had originated as a disorganized and inefficient alliance of thirteen diverse...

Both The Things They Carried and Apocalypse Now explore the trauma of the Vietnam War and its influence on soldiers' fears. Similar characters appear in both works, their identities crafted to represent different aspects of human nature. The...

"He who influences the thoughts of his times, influences all the times that follow. He has made his impress on eternity."

--Anonymous, ThinkExist.com

Choice Verses Chance: A Boethian Reading of The Knight's Tale

For centuries, Geoffrey Chaucer's ...

Shaken by the effects of World War I and forever changed by the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, 1920s Germany found itself in a dilemma: how to cope with increasingly pervasive technology and the rapid evolution present in every segment...

Being Taken In

How much of a role does deception play in courtship? In marriage? In Volume I of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Henry and Mary Crawford engage in a conversation with their sister, Mrs. Grant, concerning this very question. The...

While the word "epiphany" suggests positive enlightenment, it is only negative in Eugene O'Neill's disturbing "Long Day's Journey into Night." Each family member undergoes a bitter revelation within the course of only twenty-four hours. Through...

Octavia Butler's novel Dawn shows the collapse of a definite, individualized "human nature" through the coercive, hegemonic actions of an alien "other" known as the Oankali. Human identity in its present form does not survive the entire book, but...

In his essay "A Defence of A Womans Inconstancy," John Donne wrote of the female race that "for all their fellowship will they never be tamed, nor Commanded by us." His affinity for the grace and beauty of women is evident in his many works. Yet...

The issue of the gender of the writer playing a crucial part in her or his writing has been much discussed in contemporary critical debate. Feminist critics argue that the patriarchal ideology of society makes it imperative for male writers to...

Many characters in Shakespeare's plays disguise themselves in one way or another. An important component of many of the his plays is the masked revels. A character adopting a new outward persona is not at all unusual. This use of contrasting the...

Achilles, the swift, godlike warrior of Greek lore, is among the most complex of Homer's epic characters. Achilles and his ill-fated tendon figure prominently in the Western archetypal notion of a tragic hero; however, the application of the term...

A Beacon in the Abyss

The voice of reason in this modern morality play, the physically flawed, socially inept Piggy serves as a confidant in The Lord of the Flies, providing Ralph with a balancing presence while embodying the principles of...

In The World Without a Self: Virginia Woolf and the Novel, James Naremore discusses how one is struck, not only by a "certain ... diversity" among the six voices within Virginia Woolf's The Waves, but simultaneously by the "sameness of things"...

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a play rife with moral dilemmas. Religious codes often clash with desires and instinctual feelings in the minds of the characters, calling into question which courses of action are truly the righteous paths. In Hamlet's...

"Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom." Through this statement, Anatole France, a 1921 Nobel Prize recipient, states his belief that irony is only lighthearted reflection. However, Nathaniel Hawthorne employs irony to reveal...