Newest Literature Essays

The epithet “the Land of the Free” is a distinctive phrase commonly associated with America, a country that prides itself for awarding its people with equal opportunity and the freedom to pursue their dreams. Yet, American literature does not seem...

Melinda Sordino is broken. She drifts through her freshman year of high school, failing her classes and being ridiculed by her peers. She might have stayed broken, too, had it not been for key aspects of her life that inspired her to change. This...

Everyone has a specific object or place that immediately floods them with memories. Whether it be the stretch of road where they crashed or a pencil they used to pass a huge test, these items are everywhere. The memories they hold can be painful...

Humans inflict suffering on other humans and when events are forgotten, they are repeated. In the poem “Shooting Stars," Carol Ann Duffy tells a shocking story of a female prisoner held by Nazis in a concentration camp around the time of the...

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying presents an aggressive view of an unusual family. The Bundren family’s mother figure, Addie, dies. While transporting her body to Jackson for burial, the remaining six family members struggle to make it alive,...

In the Native Son, Richard Wright cultivates supporting characters as threats to the main character Bigger in ways that range from being highly significant to extremely minimal. In analyzing the way the African American women are represented in...

From Romeo and Juliet to Cinderella and Prince Charming, there are a few romantic couples whose stories have been echoed time and time again throughout literature and film. Famous pairs such as these have love tales so well-known that nearly every...

Friends are often expected to be brutally honest and tell others that what they are doing is wrong, from shoplifting to dating an abusive person. These are the duties of a friend in modern society, but the same conception of friendship as...

In Laguna culture, stories are as central as the language that tells them. Stories weave the world together and are constantly being reinvented and recreated over time. In Storyteller, Leslie Marmon Silko layers short stories, pictures, and poems...

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls that elaborates her upbringing particularly her experience with her sisters, brother, and parents. In a sincere but loving manner, Walls reveals the irresponsibility and selfishness of her...

Societally, most individuals enjoy believing that they are without bias. Whether it be gender, race, disability, or religion, everyone has preconceived notions about select people groups. While this can be difficult to admit, Toni Morrison...

The poem “My Father’s Song” is based on the wisdom and values, as well as traditions passed from old generation to new one. The speaker uses his life experience between him and his father to depict the variation of values and traditions between...

By embracing the concept of a journey, we frequently reach our destination with a greater understanding of ourselves and current surroundings. After scrutinizing the concept of journeys it has become self evident that our lives can be quite...

It is no surprise that the function of men and women in a society plays a huge role in the pieces of literature that would arise during a specific time. The roles of both men and women in the 18th century, for example, may even align with those in...

The title of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is often criticized, argued that it should be titled Brutus, as Marcus Brutus is the tragic hero. However, the title is appropriate, as Julius Caesar, though insignificant as an actor in the play since he...

Money and acquisitiveness have always had the ability to turn people into someone they are not. Greed can tear apart families and friendships when a person neglects others for their own benefit. This is depicted perfectly in Lorraine Hansberry’s...

In literature, color conveys powerful messages, expressing underlying themes when words fail to do so. Recognizing symbolism is an essential part of understanding any literary work. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece The Great Gatsby,...

For generations great religious minds have been discussing the relationship between faith and reason. Is one's faith even valid if they are supporting their beliefs with rational thinking? Is faith even necessary? Or, is a balance between the two...

Zamyatin's excerpt "Evening…. digestible concept, by…" illustrates the landscape of D-503's shambolic mind, in order to establish the roots as the irrational pursuit of perfection. Zamyatin begins by establishing the metaphor between the...

In both Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Pop Squad” a regulation of reproductive rights in order to encourage a better future for the society. While both of these regulations differ in terms of application, and level of restriction...

Whether it be a businessman or a chef, writer or teacher, one’s profession often reveals insight into a person and immediately creates a stereotype for an individual. While some jobs hold prestigious standing in societal stereotypes, others may...

Originating in race-based African chattel slavery, racial stereotypes have plagued American history. Antebellum stereotypes characterized African Americans as inferior and unevolved, which perpetuated the opinion of most white Americans that...

The poet Dante, for all intents and purposes, is the God of The Inferno. He is the author, creator, and judge of all the sinners he has placed in his hell. Readers understand that the hell that pilgrim Dante is travelling through is the product of...

The short stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell are somewhat similar. Each story is set in a different time and place, with different characters, different plots, and with...