Newest Literature Essays

In “The Good Daughter”, an essay by Caroline Hwang, a young Korean American-born woman struggles with accepting her cultural identity. When Hwang goes to the dry cleaner and is told that she does not pronounce her surname properly by a woman of...

Generally, in Brideshead Revisited, the characters are more concerned with the material than the spiritual. Most of them live in the upper class world where having high status and being wealthy and beautiful are the most prized characteristics of...

The theme of gender and power is prevalent in both Keats’ poetry and Tender is the Night. The power wielded by men and women within both Keats’ poems and Fitzgerald’s novel is often conflicting; Keats writes of beautiful and destructive...

In A Room with a View, E.M. Forster weaves many allusions to music, art, and literature into the plot of the novel. The allusions, though seemingly subtle and insignificant, contribute greatly to the overarching message of the novel. Understanding...

No matter who you are, the people with whom you interact and the environment with which you are accustomed will always impact your behavioral tendencies. Published in 2012, the novel The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling follows the social dynamics...

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is a black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black who is this”.

This Malcolm X quote was sampled in Beyonce’s album, Lemonade...

That level of destructive power and coercion that sovereign mechanisms can bring to bear is awe-inspiring is indisputable, and fixation on and discomfort with this fact permeates the work of both Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. Each of these...

Bennett uses his characters to explore the British education system of the 1980s and convey his views on it in doing so. The play is set once the new curriculum had been brought in by Thatcher’s government, and the publication of ‘league tables’,...

The play “A View from the Bridge” begins with a speech from Alfieri, a lawyer. Alfieri offers the audience the titular “view from the bridge” and acts as the greek chorus in a tragedy. The speech serves as an introduction to the play, introducing...

In George Eliot's Silas Marner, William Dane and Dunstan Cass wrong Silas and alter all aspects of his life. Silas feels betrayed and loses his faith in God. Instead of remaining an unfortunate bystander to his own fate, Silas adopts Eppie who...

Tom Stoppard uses theatre to portray characters whose existence solely revolve around Shakespeare’s Hamlet. They lack a defined identity and are indistinguishable, as would dictate the existential universe they are a part of.

In his play, Stoppard...

The female gaze characterizes Mustafa Sa'eed's self-worth in Tayeh Salih's Season of Migration to the North. As he conforms to stereotypes of Arab-Africans during his interactions with Western women, Mustafa assumes made-up personalities,...

In the ‘Hebrew melodies’ poems, Byron asserts himself as the founding figures of Romantic poetry. Through experimental form, structure and clever use of language, he creates undeniable masterpieces that flood with emotion, beauty and nature.

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Mary March, a kidnapped Beothuk woman whose capture and death are central to the plot of Michael Crummey’s River Thieves, symbolizes historical losses of Indigenous culture. By bearing similarities to the outcomes of other British encounters with...

A stoic man recalls an old memory. He’s a child running through an abandoned factory looking to hide a something before it is stolen by the gang of unruly, marauding kids that is chasing him. Eventually, when he’s an adult, he finds it hidden...

In the time period of Jacobean England, the King’s words and opinions were treated as gospel. The people’s steadfast belief in the Divine Right of Kings, where the King was said to be chosen directly from God, and therefore the King’s word was God...

Mohamedou Ould Slahi's connection to American culture is clear in Guantánamo Diary, where American audiences can read a firsthand account of the atrocities committed in Guantánamo Bay. Slahi successfully juxtaposes colloquialisms and shared...

Both The Iliad and The Republic present a form of hero. Achilles of The Iliad embodies the conventional idea of the hero: physically strong, warlike, and honor-loving. However, Socrates of The Republic, with his never-ending search for wisdom,...

The usage of animals to represent the innermost dilemmas and contradictions of the human-animal mind has been a commonplace practice since the tradition of storytelling. Despite the seemingly revolutionary implications that accompany the...

The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun communicates and explores both the struggle and overall sense of identity through the heavy use of motifs and symbols throughout the book. As the story progresses and elaborates, these remain consistent...

Moby Dick confronts us with problems of language before we encounter anything about whales. The first word in the book—after the table of contents—is “Etymology,” and the tale of the “pale Usher,” and Hackluyt’s quote, immediately raise questions...

Stephen King’s Carrie and Peter Shaffer’s Equus both centre around teenage characters who are torn between their emergent sexuality and the religious views of their parents. King and Shaffer use characterisation to portray lust as a sin, then use...

The subtitle of both of Claudia Rankine’s most recent books, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely and Citizen, “An American Lyric,” frames these works as engagements with the relationship between an “I” and a “We,” understood as a political unit. The phrase...

Though different in many ways, the writings of Kant, Nietzsche, and Sorel all acknowledge the significant role of violence in man's political affairs. Violence is a powerful tool. None of these men belie its importance, and they all accept that...