Newest Literature Essays

Like Christmas morning itself - when each present represents a discrete mystery, separate from the last - the Christmas Carol is divided into a set of episodes. The book's chapters are episodic, with the duration of each spirit a single episode....

An audience member's gleeful first-hand account of Charles Dickens's public reading of "A Christmas Carol" unwittingly exposes an often overlooked contradiction in the story's climax: "Finally, there is Scrooge, no longer a miser, but a human...

The fundamental questions of how and why we read have an infinitude of answers, none of which entirely 'do the job,' simply because they bear too closely upon the automatic, (and therefore, to us, secret) processes of the mind; the act of reading...

"All the darkness in the world could not put out the light of one small candle."

These words from the headstone of a Jewish holocaust victim perfectly define Chaim Potok's use of light as a symbol of knowledge and truth in a world of tradition....

The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, is a novel written about two Jewish boys growing up in Brookyln. Though they lived only five blocks from each other, Danny and Reuven lived very different lives, primarily because of the influence of their fathers. Reb...

Perhaps the strongest theme in The Catcher in the Rye is the main character Holden Caulfield's fascination and even obsession with the ideal of true innocence; a higher innocence from the superficiality and hypocrisy that he views as a plague on...

In his novel, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger narrates the psychological and physical tribulations of Holden Caulfield, an overanalyzing, mentally unstable teenage boy, searching for satisfaction in an ever-changing world. In one selection,...

The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, is seen throughout the narrative repeatedly asking the simple question, ³Where do ducks go in the winter?² The simplicity of this question reflects upon a predicament for Holden that remains of the...

The Catcher in the Rye and The Red Badge of Courage detail the gradual maturation of two immature boys into self-reliant young men. The steady speed at which Salingerís and Craneís language streams enables the reader to see the independent events...

Catcher in the Rye's pallid cover, adorned only with seven multicolored bands in its upper-left corner, is not what one would call eye-catching. Its reverse side lacks criticisms or reviews of any sort; in fact, it is bare of anything except a...

Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22 not only in order to make a statement about the absurdity of war, but also to illustrate the absurdity of the human condition itself. Through its style, language, and characters, Catch-22 vividly depicts the absurdity...

The Knight, as the highest ranking member of the train of pilgrims, is chosen "whether by chance, luck, or destiny" (844) to tell the first of the Canterbury tales. When he finishes, the intoxicated Miller demands to go next, despite the Host...

Chaucer is renowned for his psychologically intricate character portrayals. The Pardoner, an irreverent character in Chaucer's framework narrative The Canterbury Tales, is an excellent example of just such a complex character. Although alcohol may...

The Miller and Reeve's Tales of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, while being intricately crafted examples of the French genre fabliaux, differ significantly in both progression, resolution, as well as the tales' overall connotation and voice. While the...

When the Miller proposes to "quite," or revenge, the Knight's tale in the Prologue to his tale (3127), he alters the host's use of the word "quite" (3119). Whereas the Host is asking the Monk to match the Knight's tale, the Miller wants to requite...

So he waited in the darkness. Suddenly he was struck in the face by a blow, soft, yet heavy, on the side of his cheek. So strung with expectation was he, that he started and put his hand to his sword. The blow was repeated a dozen times on...

In Geoffrey Chaucer's famous satirical poem The Canterbury Tales, the author describes a pilgrimage which commences in the town of Southwark and continues to the burial sight of Saint Thomas Becket. The pilgrims are quite an assorted lot,...

Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales introduces readers to several fascinating and dynamic characters. Perhaps the most fascinating of all is the Pardoner, whose prologue and tale are filled with irony. The Pardoner is a complex character whose...

In her Prologue and Tale, the Wife of Bath attempts to undermine the current misogynistic conceptions of women. Her struggle against the denigration of women has led to many feminist interpretations of her Tale, most portraying the Wife of Bath as...

In the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the first character portrait presented is that of the Knight. Though the knights of Chaucer's time were commonly perceived as upstanding, moral, Christian leaders in society,...

While critics and common readers alike have panned Chaucer's Physician's Tale as one of the more disconnected and weakly written of all the Canterbury Tales, recent thought, and certainly more abstract views, have worked ignorant of each other to...

In 1381, John Wycliffe led a group of people disenchanted with the Catholic Church called the Lollards in an early Protestant movement. In this movement, he attacked the sale of indulgences, pilgrimages, the excessive class hierarchy in the...

Historians have noted that works of literature often adopt the mood of the times in which they were written. It is thus not surprising that The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck in the desperate nadir of the Great Depression, appears to...

âTo love, honor and obeyâ? is a common part of the modern marriage vow. It is taken for granted that both partners will strive toward an equal union, in which neither is completely dominant or completely submissive to the other. While this may...