Newest Literature Essays

In Carson McCullers’ “The Ballad of the Sad Café”, his theory of love is a central theme, with different characters representing different roles. Lymon is a grotesque character, both in his physically deformed appearance and in his vulgar,...

John Steinbeck believes that all works of what he refers to as “honest” writing, are grounded in themes of empathy. However, being able to understand others is not only indicative of a good story, but also a good author. For example, some of the...

Throughout history, in every society, there has been a constant form of gender expectation and gender roles. The idea of masculinity and femininity existing as something much like an equilibrium constant is a common theme; one balances the other,...

In Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s “The Black Bird”, Mangara, the main character, believes that the black bird is responsible for deaths in his family. His spends his whole life looking for the black bird after it kills his close family members. Mangara looks...

In the pre-industrial and pre-democratic society that Harvest is set in, Mistress Beldam has no power over what happens to the land because political power is in the hands of the landowners: Master Kent and Edmund Jordan. However, due to her...

In Homer’s The Odyssey, tears are a reencountered motif that lends insight to the characters’ motives, true emotions, and defining qualities. The Odyssey splits tears into two categories-- restrained and unrestrained. The criteria for making the...

When it comes to the topic of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre in literary circles, the critical attention given to Eliza and Georgiana Reed, the title character’s cousins is practically non-existent. Most critics do not seem interested in delving...

The high red cliffs jut out against a tableau of clear sky so blue it is almost violent. Below, a terracotta flat dotted with thickets of small verdant things, the cactuses looming like idols in their midst. When the sun sets, it does so in long,...

In the play Master Harold and the Boys, Athol Fugard forces his readers to go back in time to the 1950’s when apartheid was predominant in South Africa. Athol Fugard connects the themes of pride, privileges and freedoms (or lack of them),...

Gender roles are a basis for the family structure which supports the larger societal structure, Charles Dickens argues in Hard Times. Women, especially, as the bearers of children carry a large part of the burden of ensuring a balanced society....

In life, humans are faced with many challenges and though finding a solution is significant, it is how we deal with the aftermath of these situations that are of utmost importance. Afflictions are bound to happen as they are inevitable in life....

Langston Hughes’ “ On The Road” uncovers the relationship between organized religion and racism by chronicling the suffering that Sargeant goes through, in the hands of members of organized religion, because he is black. He is dehumanized instead...

Throughout the French Revolution, the chaos and insecurity that ensued in France was scrutinized and prompted an English nationwide sigh of relief that chivalry and civility defined English society and legality. These characteristics made...

There are cases where parents can have tumultuous relationships with their children. In such cases the parents fail to understand their children’s needs. At times it becomes too late to remedy the relationship. Tillie Olsen’s short story explores...

The works of Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath are often presented in stark, binary contrast to each other – Bishop as a generally reserved, often cryptic observer of the natural world and Plath as a brutally expressive, easily legible vessel of...

Walters said of her 2009 novel The Little Stranger that it was driven by an interest in the capacity of people ‘to contain a range of emotional experience’, and this is particularly evident in her evocation of Doctor Faraday, its narrator. We see...

Religion shapes and reshapes social relations as well as patterns of racial interaction in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Phillis Wheatley’s poem, On Being Brought from Africa to America. As becomes evident from examination of specific quotes of...

The binary frame that is evident in Los Vendidos are: acculturation/de-acculturation. The Mexican-Americans who abandon their culture in favour of the American culture are considered to be “sell-outs” whereas those who stick to the Mexican culture...

The mode of address is the relationship between the writer, the text and the audience and the way that this is communicated and controlled by stylistic features of narration. In the case of Castle Rackrent, Edgeworth has created a complex mode of...

The protagonist in “The Drover’s Wife” by Leah Purcell is Molly, known as the drover’s wife, whose perspective dominates the entire play. The play is centered around the hardships that she encounters at the time she is solely responsible for...

In the story A Meeting in the Dark”, Ngugi wa Thiong’o describes patriarchy in the Gikuyu (a tribe in Kenya) culture. Patriarchy dictates the social aspects of the Gikuyu people such as education, religion, circumcision, gender roles and marriage....

In Pablo Neruda’s “I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You”, the persona does not explicitly state whether he is in love or not. Pablo Neruda advances subjects that are mutually exclusive such as Love/Not to love; wanting/not wanting;...

Charles Dickens’ 1841 serialized novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘80 is filled with complicated webs of characters and confusing plot lines that can be difficult to follow even for the most talented of literature experts. Since the...