Newest Literature Essays

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...

The intrinsic human ability to recognize order has often been a foundation of proof that a higher purpose exists. Many people believe that sequences and patterns in the universe are evidence that human life was intended to have meaning. However,...

All societies must develop some form of social order to be able to function. Often times, the society’s government determines the foundations for social order by creating rules, institutions, or practices that group people more effectively....

Compared to his contemporaries, William Shakespeare is undoubtedly the most appreciated and widely-read playwright of the Elizabethan Era. Among his most popular plays is Hamlet, a tragedy detailing young Hamlet’s struggle to avenge his father’s...

Ruth Mazo Karras argued that “the acquisition of masculinity in the European later Middle Ages was primarily a matter of proving oneself against others.” Strong male characters in texts such as Beowulf and Paradise Lost demonstrate that this...

The agency women possess in The Odyssey and The Book of Genesis is harbored in their traditional domestic skills. These domestic skills, while underestimated by men in regards to the Greeks and Israelites, often play an essential role in the...

King Arthur’s Round table resonates with the medieval reader as an ideal of equality and order: there is no head of the table, so that each knight is depicted as equally worthy of renown and equally skilled in his capabilities. As this Round Table...

Dramatic conventions in theatre play an important role in any production, and provide rules to ensure the best possible experience for the audience. Stoppard, as a member of the Absurdist movement, breaches these conventions in Rosencrantz and...

In The Bacchae by Euripides, the major conflict that results in tragedy is the struggle between Pentheus and Dionysus for control over the city of Thebes, especially through the control of the women. German philosopher Hegel theorizes that the key...

Henry Fielding, in his 1749 picaresque novel “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling,'' comically relates the reactions of a master and his servant to finding an infant in his bed. Upon discovering an abandoned child, master Mr. Allworthy and...

Blade Runner is a 1982 dystopian science-fiction film that takes place in a future Los Angeles where human-like androids called Replicants are believed to pose a threat to human society. Thus, a division of the police known as Blade Runners are...

A comparative study of Homer’s Odyssey and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad reveals that texts are reflective of their context, whereby they reinforce the suited cultural values of its time, composer, and audience. Atwood reimagines the story of...

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood discusses a dystopian society, which reversed the advancements in the feminist movement that came in the twentieth century. Gilead, an enclosed community under the rule of a totalitarian government, contains...

Composed in a time of severe patriarchy and a society based on a strict social hierarchy, it is anticipated that medieval literature mirrors society’s judgement of a woman’s worth, in that representation of female authority is inextricably linked...