Newest Literature Essays

In the world of literature, it is all about your reputation.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, an Orwellian romp into the near future lead by a female protagonist, received both the kiss of death and the gift of notoriety when it was labeled...

Human nature is the term used to refer to that conventionally accepted as what is uniquely and distinctly human. While few deny that such a quality exists, the origins and extent of this quality have yet to be conclusively defined. The following...

Throughout Ondaatje’s novel Anil's ghost, there are a multitude of allusions to an underlying theme of the struggle between the spiritual world and the physical. Ondaatje does a fantastic job in weaving these two world views into the singular...

The four dialogues Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo were all authored by Plato in order to give insight into the trial and death of the famed philosopher Socrates. Each work focuses on a different aspect of Socrates’ personal teachings and...

Modern day interpretations of Thomas More’s critical and controversial Utopia have called into question his messages to sixteenth century audiences. Utopia depicts a collection of similar, ideal cities that work together in equal accordance to...

Writing, like oration, is a deliberate act. Those who speak or debate for a living hone their skills so well that they are capable of arguing either side of a case with equal passion and persuasion. Any reasonably skilled writer is capable of...

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare constructs conflicts between world empire and human passion. The sensual and wasteful opulence of the East, where ‘the the beds are softer’ is juxtaposed to the cold, bare efficiency of the West. Egypt stands...

From the very first pages of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is introduced to readers as a surly and exotic figure. It is ambiguous as to what his unpleasant demeanor and behavior can be attributed. Is it his exoticism, the mistreatment he suffered...

After years of abuse, Mariam, the protagonist of A Thousand Splendid Suns, looks back and examines herself: “What harmful thing had she willfully done to this man to warrant his malice, his continual assaults, the relish with which he tormented...

Anna Barbauld may have believed that The Rime of the Ancient Mariner had no moral, but Coleridge is correct when he insists that “the poem had too much” (qtd. in Coleridge 6: 272). The moral of his ballad is to appreciate all forms of life. To...

William Butler Yeats, the esteemed twentieth-century poet, was in love with the Irish nationalist Maud Gonne; his poem “The Two Trees” was originally written for her. Gonne was very devoted to rather uncompromising ideologies, but in this poem...

The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is set in 1600’s Puritan Boston. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who suffers public ignominy, forced to wear a red scarlet letter for her sin of adultery. The Scarlet Letter provides...

We see playful children - giggling, laughing, not a care in the world - and envy their innocence. Their spirits have not yet been hardened and jaded by the world around them. Our lives are made up of a series of moments, big and small, that...

In the novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a narrator chronicles the events leading up to a murder and explores the mystery surrounding the victim’s innocence or guilt. In the book, Bayardo San Roman, a wealthy...

“Language is not a neutral instrument.”[1]

Literature is never without an ideology, whether intended by the writer, interpreted by the reader, inherent in the language, or implied by the context. Thus, an author or a playwright’s particular...

“I put it all there as a matter of historical record… We will all only exist as my inventions. No one will care what events and which individuals were misinterpreted to make a novel… How can a novelist achieve atonement when… she is also God? In...

In The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare carries his characters from a court setting in Sicilia to a rural area in Bohemia, and then reconciles the plot in the original court. This play incorporates a pastoral theme by showing the role of providence...

In The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe, the protagonist Niki Jumpei leaves his work and family behind in search of a new species of beetle. On his search, Niki finds himself trapped in a hole amongst the sand dunes, and he initially tries to...

Gender double standards, which are among the effects of gender stereotypes, are reflected in Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographic novel The Bell Jar, which was published in 1963. This work tells the story of a young woman named Esther Greenwood, who...

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” features a unique symbolism of the repression of homosexual desire and of the damaging effects of a society that promotes repressive behavior. This short story details the process of imprisoning that...

“Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories.” According to George R.R. Martin, an estimable American novelist, an individual's perspective ultimately decides whether he views himself as a protagonist and deems...

George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) is a cautionary novel which explores a dystopian society mired in propaganda and totalitarianism. Similarly, director Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) is a critique of a futuristic world where growth and industralisation...

The creation of life is a cautionary metaphor for the advancement of science in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Today, however, this type of life-generating science is commonplace. It does not take place in the laboratory of a mad scientist, but in...