Newest Literature Essays

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...

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Animal Dreams epitomizes the themes of love and loss by means of its protagonist, Cosima (“Codi”) Noline, a young woman who returns to her small, rustic hometown of Grace, Arizona to take care of her demented father...

William Shakespeare’s theatrical comedy Twelfth Night follows the story of Viola, who finds herself entangled in a complicated love triangle between her master, Duke Orsino, and his beloved lady, Olivia. In the finale, Viola ends up falling in...

Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio is a composite novel which depicts the lives of emotionally struggling men and women in a fictional town of Winesburg. Each story follows characters who are misunderstood, lonely, and experiencing estrangement...

The American Dream has always been considered the ideal that every United States citizen has an opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work and success. Many people came to follow and believe in the magnificence of the American...

Junior summarizes his lifestyle when he says “I guess a fake life inside a cartoon is a lot better than…real life.” (Alexie 23) In Sherman Alexie’s book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the main character is a Native American boy...

The industrial revolution brought about numerous technological innovations that increased humanity’s ability to harness nature for their own pleasure or utility. However, it also revolutionized social structure with the emergence of the factory...

Within ‘Othello’, Shakespeare’s portrayal of the fragility of power and hierarchy is exposed through the downfall of individual characters who have a desire and need to maintain status. This consequently becomes the cause for what Kastan believes...

Within the opening act of Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’, deception is a central theme that is also prevalent throughout the play and the result of the tragic ending, which, in the view of Kastan is the ‘genre of uncompensated suffering’ that is either...

For poets writing in the Romantic Era, their work appeared to be a response against the Enlightenment movement which valued logic and reason and rejected emotional and subconscious appeals that the Romantics found to be more favorable. Through the...

Within ‘Songs of Experience: London’ by William Blake and ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’ by William Wordsworth, both poets portray their appreciation of natural locations through their embrace of the rural aspect of life and their rejection of...