Newest Literature Essays

In Roxane Gay’s “ The Mark of Cain”, the narrator sacrifices her emotional needs to mollify her husband. She remains in the marriage even after her husband deceives her and subjects her to physical violence and emotional tribulations. The title of...

It is notable that within the medieval period, attitudes towards women were notoriously polarised, particularly within Middle English literature; and thus it is no surprise that when a poet opts to focus upon women within their works, their...

In Richard Selzer’s “Whither Thou Goest”, Sam’s organs ,“The kidney, liver, lungs, cornea and heart”, are donated to seven people after his death. His widow, Hannah Owen, finds it difficult to come to terms with the fact that her husband is alive...

In Cather’s Nebraskan novel My Antonia, written in 1918, she touches on the ideals of freedom and opportunity that pervade American literature. In My Antonia some characters are given freedom and opportunity, fulfilling the mythical ‘American...

Some dreams can be “too good to be true”; nevertheless, they depict unconscious wish that can be attained in real life. In her dream, Sultana figures out that life in Ladyland is vastly different from life in her land (India) where the women...

When examining testimony from Holocaust survivors, there are common struggles such as deprivation from food, forced labor, the loss of family and friends but also sustainability. Surviving the Holocaust required people to develop coping strategies...

One of the themes that is dominant in Richard Selzer’s “The Consultation” is cancer.The story shows how both the doctor and the prostitute react to cancer; the reactions to cancer can be analyzed psychoanalytically. A doctor’s long experience in...

Though Agamemnon has no shortage of tragedy, perhaps the most tragic figure is none other than a character who appears only briefly, pushed to the sidelines—Cassandra, the prophetess never to be believed. She serves as a foil to Clytemnestra,...

The themes Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick explore in the story of the Torrance family at the Overlook Hotel in The Shining reflect the cultural values and concerns prevalent in the late 1970s and early 1980s society. These issues are so deeply...

Patricia Highsmith’s classic novel The Talented Mr. Ripley tells a psychologically thrilling tale of murder, obsession, and identity theft through the lens of Tom Ripley, a manipulative and disturbed young man with a gift for fraud and deceit....

In the movie Hard Candy, the director transfigured and subverted the three conventions of the Grimm's version of The Little Red Riding Hood to critique both the social issue of sexism and pedophelia. The subversion of Little Red Riding Hood as the...

After years of living in conformist Puritan North America, Nathaniel Hawthorne was inspired to create works of literature to stand against its flaws. In his work The Minister’s Black Veil, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes the black color of Hooper’s...

It is inevitable that individuals prominent in a person’s life will influence the opinions and actions of that individual. If a person is raised in a religious household, it is most likely that further generations of that family will practice that...

Spider-Man (2002), directed by Sam Rami, was one of the first superhero movies to successfully, and accurately, depict a comic book hero that viewers can both feel inspired by and relate to. Staying true to the pages of Stan Lee’s Marvel Comic,...

The published letters by Louisa May Alcott titled “Hospital Sketches” tell of the experiences she, named “Mrs. Periwinkle”, faced as a Civil War nurse. Her three letters (also referred to as sketches), describe her journey to the hospital, life as...

When asked about the works that inspired Joker (2019), director and co-writer Todd Phillips cited two Martin Scorsese classics (as well as a couple of others films and comic books): Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982). Not...

In today’s society, people are increasingly distanced from the natural world due to the rise of modern technology. Although communing with nature is a cherished tradition of Enlightenment and Transcendental philosophy and has been shown to yield...

The act of self-presentation allows the writer to present a specific image of oneself, often with a clearly identifiable motivation often matching the expectations and preferences of the desired audience/readership; and thus to some extent...

Zora Neale Hurston’s “Spunk” is defined by its heavy use of literary devices; therefore, this paper will analyze the text from a Russian formalist perspective. Russian formalism is based on the notion that a text should be analyzed on the basis of...

Humans are social beings. It is because of this that we, as a species, have survived for so long. But, what happens when an event causes confusion to many people? When the curiosity of the unknown cannot be satisfied by knowledge of one or another...

Throughout much of Macbeth, its titular protagonist is concerned with his future. He kills Duncan so that he can become king, he kills Banquo to protect his throne, and he goes to the witches to help him learn how to protect his life. Most of...

In one of the only two novels written by Juan Rulfo, "Pedro Paramo" is one unlike the stories from the conventional era it was published in, conveying a labyrinth of carefully crafted characters drifting through a world of magical realism and...

A Kaddish is a traditional Jewish funeral prayer which has five sections. In his poem “Kaddish,” Allen Ginsberg retells the true horrors of Naomi Ginsberg’s life, descension into psychotic collapse, and death but slowly begins to find a sense of...

In Keystones of Thought, Austin O’Malley said “We use religion as a trolley car - we ride it only while it is going our way.” In Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks, similarly to how O’Malley stated, Erdrich creates characters who use religion...