Newest Literature Essays

During the medieval ages, there was a set of rules and customs the knights referred to as the Code of Chivalry. Leon Gautier condensed the Chivalric Code into the ten commandments of the Code of Chivalry that was expected of the knights to follow....

See the Cat? See the Cradle? These two all-important lines ring throughout the book, constantly confusing both the characters in the book and the reader themselves. It is used in comparison to Angela’s marriage and religion as a whole, although...

In Recitatif by Toni Morrison, the theme of racism is addressed extensively which is rather common in American literature during the late twentieth century. However, Morrison’s approach is fairly different from other literature that tackles the...

The book Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut utilizes satire and parody to comment on the critical issues of religion and science. The story takes place in fictitious settings, first in a town in New York, Ilium while the rest takes place in the island...

Medieval British women had few choices in regards to how they chose to spend their life: marriage to a man or marriage to God through joining a convent. The limitations set upon them by society, even in only this example, show a societal female...

In the 1890s, realization that new knowledge and vast technological innovation created the potential for our own ability to shape the future of humanity, for better or significantly for the worse, prompted the existential crisis of a decade. ...

As a soldier in WWII, J.D. Salinger did not write about the war like his counterparts. He wrote about tragedy, but from a teenage perspective in the shape of Holden Caulfield. Through the psychological theory of trauma in J.D. Salinger’s The...

Carol Ann Duffy’s sinister dramatic monologue, Havisham, is a skillful interpretation of one of literature’s most infamous women. Throughout the text, Duffy deals with the idea of conflict – both in Havisham’s relationship with men and with...

The issue of religion is a prominent theme throughout Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. It is the driving force of the events of the play, as Barabas’s quest for total revenge is kicked off with the Christian governor Ferneze singling out...

Since its publication in 1973, Toni Morrison’s masterpiece Sula has awed readers with its thought provoking imagery and themes. Sula tells the story of the Peace family, which consists of Eva, Hannah, Plum, Pearl, and Sula. The Peace family faces...

In The Little Knife, by Michael Chabon, the main character, young Nathan Shapiro, and is his family travel to Nags Head, North Carolina for an unforgettable summer getaway. Throughout the entire trip, the narrator slowly comes to the realization...

“I am malicious because I am miserable… if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear” (Shelley 129). The creature in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, is speaking to his creator when he says this line. His “maliciousness”-- his violence and bad...

An antagonist is essential to any story. Establishing a clear “bad guy” gives the story more emotion, uniting the reader with the protagonist(s) against a common enemy that is easy to hate. Every story has an antagonist, but only some are evil....

Historical evolution of literary periods catalyzed significant shifts of schools of thoughts in literature over the centuries culminating into a wave Realism in the late 19th century. American Realism movement interconnects through a wide web of...

More so than any other Modernist writer, William Butler Yeats’ life and work reveal themselves to be intricately connected and draw on each other in multifarious ways. What makes Yeats’ poetry achieve so much power is the conscious employment of...

Neal Cassady is the quintessential beat character who seems almost fictional because of how fantastical he is depicted. Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac illustrate Cassady as if he is an unattainable concept. However, he is just as real as they...

In one of the first detective stories, “The Purloined Letter”, E. A. Poe creates an extraordinary character with a powerful personality, a master of ratiocination, and he lets the reader take part in the intriguing process of finding a missing...

“Leaving the Motel” and “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” present exactly different intimate relationships; the former illustrates what happens to the lovers after they had a secret affair, while the latter portrays a married couple...

In both The Crucible and Year of Wonders, characters are put under pressure and in times of crisis their true character is revealed. Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, showcases the grotesque nature of the human form and how it contorts when tempted...

In the novella “The Penelopiad” written by Margaret Atwood, Ancient Greek values predominant in “The Odyssey” are reshaped, including Penelope’s contemporary perspective on justice as one that portrays the maids and suitors as unworthy of losing...

The Miller and the Reeve in The Canterbury Tales are two characters who hold similar views regarding marriage and love but are different in both mental and physical conditions. The relationship between the Miller and the Reeve, as well as the...

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes virtues in two types, one of character and another of thought. Virtues of character include things like bravery, temperance, and generosity, while virtues of thought include wisdom and prudence. In...

In the prior conversations, Cebes proposes that even though the soul is long-lasting, it can be worn out and destroyed (91d). In response to that, Socrates investigates the cause of generation and destruction (96a) and proposes his final argument...

Stephen King’s 1982 novella “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, as well as its motion picture counterpart The Shawshank Redemption, follows the story of a falsely accused murder convict and his journey throughout the bowels of Shawshank...