Newest Literature Essays

Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography “The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavus Vassa, the African,” presents a created identity of the “enlightened slave,” as a means of appealing to the pathos of the British and American people...

Philip Larkin’s wrote his collection of poems The Less Deceived in 1955, and it became a work which garnered him public recognition. His poems often include a deep sense of his feelings of inadequacy and contain his view that he did not belong...

In ancient Greek Society women were not regarded as equals with men, they were viewed as inferior and incapable of doing what a man could. They had to act submissive and be under a man’s control and oftentimes could not do or speak on their own...

Washington Irving’s short story “Rip Van Winkle” has endured as an American classic that places timeless themes against a backdrop of the American Revolution. Rip Van Winkle, the placid, charitable, idle Dutch-American protagonist enjoys his slow...

Both Regeneration and Private Peaceful are set in the First World War, and are strongly shaped by time and memory. Private Peaceful shadows young Private Tommo Peaceful and his older brother Charlie, and is told in a simple yet eloquent style. It...

Socrates, a famous ancient Greek philosopher, is depicted as ridiculous in The Clouds by Aristophanes yet as thoughtful in The Republic by Plato. In the former, he runs a Thinkery that educates students, and when Pheidippides enrolls, Just and...

The emergent evolution in the traits of human personality, both physically and psychologically created a new and unique dimension to extend the nebulous boundaries of exploration. While grouting the breaches that occurred during the understanding...

In early African-American literature, there is a consistent theme of gaining freedom through assimilation that as an idea slowly wilts and becomes militant as it continues to be ineffective in the black struggle for freedom and equality. Phillis...

Living in a world surrounded by people who function in a disparate way could cause one to feel neglected, but finding another person, fiction or non-fiction that shares similar characteristics can help one feel valuable. In Mark Haddon’s The...

Too often in literature, novels surrounding a specific time period lack the authenticity of mise-en-scene for the reader. However, author John Dos Passos commits to unique and innovative writing techniques in his novel 1919 (one of the three...

A Doll’s House written by Henry Ibsen, a play set in the 1870’s in Norway and Blood Relations written by Sharon Pollock, a play set in the 1890’s in America both have a strong female lead who are faced with situations uncommon today. The...

The concept of the “superfluous man” began appearing in Russian literature in the 19th century. It refers to a man who often has superior intellect, leading him to feel misunderstood and victimized in a society that does not give him the...

In Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer presents decision-making in a variety of ways, including through the relationship between fate, knowledge and freedom of action, ideas that are at the centre of medieval philosophy. Troilus claims to not believe in...

In keeping with tradition, Anne Bradstreet like several other Renaissance writers, introduces her work The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650), through a prologue. Not only does it serve the purpose of acquainting the reader with the...

Love, marriage, and the impact of gender are themes frequently taken up by Jane Austen, but it can be difficult to find where she stands on such topics, given the varying perspectives of her characters. While as readers we are often aligned with...

In The Satanic Verses, it seems that no relationship is a relationship between equals. Everyone is paired with an opposite: dominant and submissive, god and worshipper, angel and devil, faithful and adulterous. This inequality creates toxic, even...

There is a thrill to be had in frightening experiences; this explains the popularity of horror films, roller coasters, and haunted house tours. So many people embrace their fears in order to achieve their desired thrill. In the novel Bastard out...

In White Teeth by Zadie Smith and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, the authors demonstrate the different ways that religion can become a factor in cultural tradition and in friction between different racial groups and nationalities....

In English novels, Jewish characters have been routinely described as greedy, nit-picking, and stingy misers. They are usually but not always merchants, money lenders, or bill brokers—Shylock from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare,...

Setting is an important part of Michael Ondaatje’s novel In the Skin of a Lion, symbolically underpinning the novel’s conceptual concerns. This narrative can be understood as a sweeping contemporary myth in which the setting works ironically and...

Although Shakespeare’s sonnets are frequently read as well as quoted as individual poems, they are threaded together as a series by a number of recurrent themes and characters—for instance, the characters of the young man and the dark lady, and...

Young adult novels set at boarding schools typically feature protagonists that encounter trials not necessarily representative of life outside of fiction on their journey towards adulthood. Rather, these texts amplify struggles and cause problems...

Strength cannot be universally defined. It is, in its truest form, an individualized characteristic. Some perceive strength as staying true to oneself and refusing to bend to the will of another while others may view it as taking in stride what...