Newest Literature Essays

Three dollars and fifty-eight cents. To use the money now to buy dinner or wait and let the hunger pass. To sleep on the park bench or try to find availability at the chaotic homeless shelter. To stand outside under the searing sun in hopes of...

“Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Throughout history, this concept has been heard time and time again and has been proven to be true. People can continuously purchase material items, but in the end, those items can never satisfy a person’s innate...

Historically, during the late nineteenth century, there was a high importance set on women to fulfill their roles of motherhood and housewife. Society set ideals into place where a woman had to provide her husband with a “happy home,” so that her...

A recurring theme throughout the novel, Civilization and Its Discontents, is the dogged mission of mankind attempting to achieve happiness, but always falling short. “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains,...

Both Karl Marx and Charles Darwin have proven themselves to be strong voices against the chorus in their respective fields, particularly in their quintessential works, The Communist Manifesto by Marx, and The Descent of Man by Darwin. Both writers...

Symmons Roberts presents to us the idea of primal instinct and savagery which still is a part of human nature; he is comparing our natural demeanour to that of birds. The poem is obviously not about birds attacking people despite the link to the...

In Genesis, it is inherent that power always originates with God, but it is also possible for people to get power from God indirectly. Noah, an ordinary man, is tasked by God with building a giant ship capable of holding beings of every species...

In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates’ eulogy, though delivered with the stated intent of praising love, is not truly about love at all. Instead, Socrates claims that the typical definition of love does not exist and instead praises wisdom. In saying...

This essay will focus on the tenorman passage from “On the Road” and the poem “For Sidney Bechet” from “The Whitsun Weddings” to explore how Jack Kerouac and Philip Larkin both use language to allow the reader to experience the music they write...

The theory that the philosopher Aristotle put forward regarding causation is one of his most well-known and influential. In fact, his ideas have dominated perceptions on this issue throughout most of western philosophy since his work appeared...

It is difficult to justify irrational acts—after all, they are irrational. Thus, perhaps it may seem bizarre to most people that the narrator in “Senior Picture Day” feels the need to regularly squeeze her nose, purely to change its appearance. Of...

The eternal struggle between optimism and pessimism is never more apparent than in the comparison of the creation myths of the Yoruba and the Babylonians, The Creation of the Universe and Ife and The Enuma Elish respectively. Humanity springs...

In ‘Song of Soloman’ and ‘Translations’ Morrison and Friel present racial domination through the viewpoint of the oppressed minority group, respectively African-Americans and Irish nationalists. The concept of racial domination can be defined as...

Literary theorist Terry Eagleton once remarked in 1983 ‘Literature is any kind of writing which for some reason or another somebody values highly’. The literary Canon is comprised of a selection of the ‘classics’, which all fit the canonical...

Gender division has been a global struggle for centuries, from rights to the general treatment of women. Women have been struggling to achieve equality because they have been experiencing discrimination, been steadily concerned about their futures...

In the novel Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien, Paul Berlin’s war experience follows three elaborate storylines in order to explore the effect war has on a soldier. The storyline focusing on the fantastical pursuit of Cacciato reveals many...

Mothers usually have their children’s best interest at heart, guiding them through life at an attempt to prevent offspring from repeating their own mistakes. In the short story, “Girl,” Kincaid depicts her teenage years after her mother gave birth...

The family has long been the most basic unit of human society. In a traditional sense, it typically functions as a support system, often both financially and emotionally, with each spouse supporting the other and together the parents supporting...

“Hitherto I had given to Friday’s life as little thought as I would have a dog’s or any other dumb beast’s—less, indeed, for I had a horror of his mutilated state which made me shut him from my mind, and flinch away when he came near me.” (...

George Orwell continues to be one of the most frequently quoted and best-loved British authors of the 20th century. Even years after his death, he is still celebrated by people all over the world. The political consciousness that pervades his...

Karl Marx introduces the trinity formula to us near the end of the work. One interpretation of the trinity formula is that it's a description of how capital (the collective value of the means of production), land (arable land is the example), and...

In Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, many elements of film are expertly used to best convey the message of the story. One of these elements, editing, is exploited by the use of its many advantageous techniques in order to create ties to the...

In Tennessee Williams’s, The Glass Menagerie, sexuality is a concept developed through the Laura Wingfield’s naivety and innocence. This can first be examined by analyzing Amanda Wingfield’s unreasonable expectations for her daughter, Laura. By...

“Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.”(Fitzgerald) In Peter and Wendy, the child characters do not portray romanticized, heroic behaviors, but instead the realistic...