Newest Literature Essays

In 1991, well-known sci-fi director Ridley Scott directed a revolutionary film, Thelma & Louise. Focused on two women, the film explores their unconventional road trip and their relationships with men. Written by a woman, Callie Khouri (who...

American fiction has been dominated by historical romances since Sir Walter Scott coined the genre with Waverley in 1814. American historical fiction indicates that the literature is unique in its character to any other nation; but instead, in ‘...

Within this essay, I will discuss extracts from both Ferdinand Saussure and Edward Said, both discussing language and its position in our lives. For instance, within Saussure’s text, we are presented with the idea that language only has a...

Australia is a nation that was built from the slime of another; those who built this land up from nothing were sent here to serve their time but ended up creating a community that is known for their distinct ‘Australianisms’ - “customs or features...

Gustave Flaubert, the author of Madame Bovary, creates a multitude of contrasts throughout his novel between beauty and foulness. By combining the two extremes so often, it results in a camouflage of the nefarious aspects of the novel by the...

Stories are never told by simply listing what happens, and in fact narratives are produced using a wide combination of literary techniques such as time fragmentation, intertexual references and metaphorical imagery. Here, it is necessary to...

Cloud Atlas is a very confusing story at first, with many interconnected storylines and characters spanning hundreds of years. One of the driving forces of this movie is the idea of karma and being reborn over and over again, each new life being...

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin artfully illuminates the struggles the main character John faces when his race, religion, and family structure all intersect on his fourteenth birthday. As John sits on the threshold between his...

The political climate in the United States today generated as a result of the 2016 election is extremely polarized, contentious, and has led many to lose all hope in American democracy. In Gary Shteyngart's dystopian novel, Super Sad True Love...

Living in a patriarchal society has given men a great sense of entitlement. Men often think that since they are seen as the strong and able sex, then they should be permitted to do whatever they like. It is almost like a constant need for...

It’s something every politically-inclined person has heard, a phrase always spoken dripping with condescension: You shouldn’t let your political opinions affect with whom you’re friends. Reasonably, this may have some truth. To go around assessing...

While history has us assume that the idea of masculinity is equated with strength, Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Macbeth epitomizes the play’s understanding of masculinity in relation to power. When Lady Macbeth commands the spirits, “...

When thinking of a bowl of soup, you may conjure up a variety of associations. Perhaps you recall being brought a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup when sick, or having soup for dinner to warm up in the winter. In the case of Gertrude Stein’s...

For a text that so confidently declares itself “an epic,” Lisa Robertson’s Debbie: An Epic demonstrates a peculiar preoccupation with the lyric ‘I.’ Few things at this point could be more tired than to remind us yet again that this ‘I’ is no...

The theme of marriage is a prevalent one throughout the novel, often utilised by Dickens to convey the prominence of values such as wealth and status within its contemporary society. The depiction of marriage in the novel acts as a vehicle through...

René Girard’s theory of mimetic contagion can be seen the public, extralegal execution of innocent Black victims, lynching, starting in the 1880’s. Girard claims that humans are mimetic, meaning they have a habit to want what others desire. As...

Martin Luther King Jr. states in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” that “If this [non-violent] philosophy had not emerged, by now many of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood”, and the non admission of whites would drive Black...

Andrew Marvell wrote his poem “Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax,” while he was serving as a tutor to the daughter of Lord Fairfax and living in his home, Nun Appleton Hall. The poem was written specifically for Lord Fairfax. In historical...

The identity of Native Americans has been challenged by cultures other than their own. The different races in America have created a challenging environment for Indians to find their identity and idea of belonging. Two ways in which an identity...

Tom is one of the earliest characters Fanny, and consequently, the reader is introduced to at Mansfield Park. He is the eldest son of the Bertram family and has been raised accordingly. Although he is not the most present character in the novel,...

Ranjan Bandopadhyay, in the eighth chapter of his book Bishoy Satyajit, makes a comparative study between Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957) and Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (1966) and puts forward his proposition that the role that Bergman’s Wild...

When French Renaissance humanist Thomas More placed the isolated island society of Utopia in the recently uncovered New World, it was not an arbitrary choice. More’s decision to locate this newfound and model world in the Americas endorses the...

Being a princess is every little girl’s dream from the charming princes to the beautiful and elegant dresses. As the girl gets older, that dream slowly dies out but not completely. A tiny part of that dream is still there until she learns the true...

Because of the belief in early modern England that women were more susceptible to sin than men,[1] any literary depiction of a witch – the epitome of a woman who has fallen to sin – is a manifestation of, and an example of pandering towards, this...