Newest Literature Essays

William Shakespeare is no stranger to the bending and breaking of conventions. Hailed as an inventor of words from “elbow” to “sneak”, and a master playwright who created some of the most enduring plot structures, like that of Romeo and Juliet,...

In dark and dire situations, humor is often needed to lighten the atmosphere in order to ensure sanity. This proves to be very true in William Shakespeare’s tragic play, Romeo and Juliet. As the plot of the play continues to develop, tragic and...

“Askari” is a word with Arabic origins meaning “soldier”. In South Africa, the word was used to identify those formerly of the ANC who “turned” and were converted into counterinsurgents and informants for the apartheid regime. Askaris are often...

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko are entirely different, at least on the surface; they focus on two separate groups of people who progress through distinct journeys. In Invisible Man, the Invisible Man is...

On the surface, the county of Yoknapatawpha seems to be a close-knit community that provides a support system for the Bundrens in the aftermath of Addie Bundren’s death. While this is technically true, it is not as rosy a picture as Blackman makes...

Early in The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy provides a lucid examination of some of the personal weaknesses of his protagonist, and of the sad ironies that these failings yield. Michael Henchard’s use of alcohol to escape the reality of his...

The Gothic is undeniably intertwined with transformative states, both literally, such as with the presentation of supernatural beings that lie between life and death, and also thematically, with the idea of transitional time periods and settings....

In October 1937, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina—one of Latin America’s most brutal dictators—directly ordered the execution of all Haitians then living in the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic. People suspected of being Haitian were asked to...

In James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, religion functions not only as form of worship but also as a covert site of sexual expression. In the novel’s opening chapters, Baldwin often characterizes religious worship in language that borders...

In the short story, Brokeback Mountain, by Annie Proulx, page 11 describes Alma’s one encounter with Jack. After witnessing her husband kiss another man, she faces them both quietly and uncomfortably, but does not otherwise convey any dramatic...

In The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides has the narrators describe seemingly average daily occurrences as extraordinary, exhibiting the search for something more significant in their uniform, designed-to-be-perfect lives. Through the narrators’...

It does not seem a viable course of action to try to apply our modern developed ethics to a 16th Century mindset such as that which yielded Jonson's The Alchemist. For example, as a civilisation would all at the very least, feel uncomfortable...

In Blindness, José Saramago questions the morals innately present in human nature through characters who ignore or misuse the advice provided by sayings. By inserting old, vague, and contradictory proverbs, Saramago demonstrates that in...

The great aim is accurate, precise and definite description. The first thing is to recognise how extraordinarily difficult this is.’ (T.E. Hulme).

In the works The Waves (1931) and Ulysses (first published in 1922), Woolf and Joyce both use the...

As intricate entities, humans are like prisms: we have several layers that make up our inherent nature. During various interactions and instances, we react differently and thus allow novel parts of us to become apparent. Sula, in Toni Morrison's...

“In what sense is a child of that age a philosopher?” - Coleridge

If philosophy is defined as ‘advanced knowledge or learning’, it can be argued that age is not central to this definition, but the idiosyncratic experiences that are felt by each...

“A hero such as Mac [McMurphy] needs to be perceived as a hero; and as our eyes and ears in the novel, the conventionally mute Chief Bromden becomes the expression of McMurphy's greatness” (Klinkowitz).

Chief Bromden, as an observant narrator,...

There are many factors that work together in motivating human beings to take action or to remain stagnant. Tony Kushner, a gay, Jewish playwright, often displays the underlying effects of homosexuality and religion on a character’s actions....

The role of the primary external narrator in Herodotus’ 3.50-3 is essential in developing the discourse, and transforming the fabula from historical facts into the structure of an Aristotelean tragedy. This essay will examine the role of the...

Eugene Ionesco once remarked that, ‘Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic: it is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing,’ an extremely idealistic perception of children and their lives. Whilst...

In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout's (the narrator's) older brother, Jem, plays an ironically important role. He may seem similar to other boys in Maycomb given his brotherly characteristics, but there is more to his character. Jem is a...

The 1990s and early 2000s were full of revolutionary changes in society, and heralded some of the changes in technology usage and social norms that still define our lives today. Cormac McCarthy is an accomplished, acclaimed, and rather dark...

The short stories of Ernest Hemingway are particularly renowned for their ambiguity and brevity, and the collection of short stories titled In Our Time contains many of these powerfully minimalistic stories. One character that appears in two...

At a glance, Boubacar Boris Diop’s Murambi, the Book of Bones and Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others might not seem to have much in common. Diop’s work recounts the Rwandan genocide through multiple perspectives and storytelling/fiction...