Newest Literature Essays

The character of Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" represents the dynamic factor in an otherwise static equation. Illyria is an immutable place, and the people who live and visit the land become ensnared in a stasis. Shakespeare uses the device of...

Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Demons" (Besy, in Russian, variously translated as "The Possessed" and "Devils") is a fundamentally political and social novel. It draws directly on the true story of a murder committed in 1869 by Russian anarchist and...

While World War II rages in Europe, a different type of struggle affects the young students at an all-boys private boarding school. "A Separate Peace", by John Knowles, outlines the emotional struggle at Devon during the 1942 summer and winter...

In Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", one of the main characters, Elizabeth boasts, of her ability and skill at discerning character. However, after only her first conversation with Wickham, Elizabeth has already misread Wickham's personality....

In Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, the narrator conceives of art as a reprieve from the grim monotony of reality. Art, in this conception, is a medium that enables one to interpret reality. Tom, the narrator of the play, consciously...

"They are not fit to associate with me," says young Jane Eyre of her rude, spoiled cousins who consider themselves above her.(29) In this simple quote lies all the facets of the young Jane: she is angry, passionate, and subtly - but positively -...

Although Joseph is known for his coat of many colors, the true plurality of Joseph arises not from the appearance of his clothing, but from the multiplicity of roles that he assumes over the course of the biblical narrative. Joseph is both favored...

The world that we live in is governed by a certain reality: when events take place, the fact that they happened becomes an absolute truth. Human beings, however, have the freedom to skew that truth by lying. Why, and under what conditions, would...

"There is, at this time, no general woman, no one typical woman . . ." Helen Cixous (876)

Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is, in its way, revolutionarily feminist. Unusual for its time in its address of premarital sexuality and unwed...

Niko's Kazantzaki's "Zorba the Greek" is a bittersweet portrayal of a romantic idealist that delves into the complex and oftentimes mysterious nature of the human psyche. The novel examines the interpersonal relationships between the two principal...

Herman Melville's "Pierre" offers readers a world simultaneously driven by and struggling against its relationship with the past. Personal and ancestral histories dramatically affect the present interactions and psychology of the book's main...

The name "Odysseus" resonates in the creak of opening doors in the city of Troy, the murmur of waves, and the song of the Sirens. Over the course of the epic tale, Odysseus' heroism proves far more nuanced than the simple feats of his success at...

Moral Hierarchy

by Katherine Shepherd

April 11, 2002

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice captures the essence of English Regency society while using unique characterizations to illustrate the effects of society on the individual. The evolution of one...

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a perfect parallel to the time in which it was composed. Heathcliff, her protagonist turned antagonist, was brought into a world in which he did not belong, in both a social and economic sense. As he joined the...

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.

- William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 62-65

Though Plato died nearly...

Viewed as a Naturalist novel, with its realistic prose, indifferent environment, and an aesthetic network built around motifs, the narrative of Ann Petry's The Street reads like a mid-century black version of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie: a...

Wiesel's Novella, Night, can be labeled a 'religious book' when looked at in light of the unquestionably religious text, the "Gospel According to Mark" from the "New Testament" of Christianity's Holy Bible. This proves to be the case if one looks...

Although the characters of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar can not be easily classified because of their emotional depth and mental complexity, one can draw certain conclusions about them based on the attributes that they possess. Shakespeare uses...

This is that Hamlet the Dane whom we read of in our youth, and whom we may be said almost to remember in our after years; he who made that famous soliloquy on life, who gavethe advice to the players, who thought "this goodly frame, the earth," a...

From the satirical, biting wit of a "been there, done that," college co-ed to the death-defeating witticisms of a middle-aged mother, the monologic voice in Lorrie Moore's fiction hasn't changed as much as it has matured in the years separating...

William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a lyric poem, which deals with the speaker's state of mind. The description of the process, which the speaker goes through, is represented by a natural scene where the speaker, plants and the...

The Romantic Era was a time when people embraced imagination, emotion, and freedom - quite a contrast to the preceding Neoclassic Era, which emphasized the values of reason, judgment, and authority. The values of the so-called Romantics are...

Shakespearean romances are characterized by conclusions in which all conflicts are happily resolved. It is easy to see these resolutions as humorous but unlikely contrivances which the author invents to neatly tie together loose ends. There is...

Following the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the United States and Europe, places such as Dublin, Ireland and Winesburg, Ohio would lie on opposite sides of the spectrum as far as geographic size, population, and industrial production....