Newest Literature Essays

In an essay concerning the components of the Romantic novel, James P. Carson frames the difference between Gothic and Romantic attitudes as a “disagreement over values inherent in attempts to represent people” (Matthews). He succinctly describes...

Divides Made By Fences Built

By definition, the structure of a fence is said to be a barrier that controls access or prevents escape from a specific area. In August Wilson's Fences, this definition stands for much larger boundaries being set...

To what extent is social class and wealth perverting to judgment? Jane Austen’s 19th century novel Pride and Prejudice explores the precarious theme of social standing to create an ironic depiction of its relation to love and happiness. Rather...

The question of whether or not Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” conforms to the conventions of the memoir genre is a complex matter quite simply because it is a novel that deliberately blurs the lines of fact and fiction. The stories are...

The Cherry Orchard, a classic of modern theater by Anton Chekhov, portrays the coming of age in a Russian society that is beginning to witness a rising middle class upon freeing the serfs. The characters of Firs (the manservant to Gayef) and...

Children as a whole have a propensity to rebel and cause mischief when they are younger, but this trait tends to disappear as they face challenges and begin to grow up. Mark Twain's classic novel from 1876, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, follows...

In order to truly grasp how John Donne (1572 - 1631) regards and treats the concept of love in his poems, one must be well aware of the fact that his love poems never refer to one single unchanging view of love. Instead, in Donne’s love poems, not...

The main character in Perfume, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, sets on a long journey through 18th century France, which starts and ends in Paris. The changes in the landscape during his travels reflect the inner changes in personality he undergoes...

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a novel full of individuals, within a tribe, as they deal with the frequently tragic and disappointing events of their lives. Okonkwo, the protagonist, and his son, Nwoye, are two of these individuals who must...

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury presents a recurring theme that individual activism can fight government oppression. An allusion is a literary device in which the writer refers to another work or author, and Bradbury relies on this to show...

“All happy families are alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (1.1.1)

In this famed first sentence of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy alludes to the two kinds of familial happiness, almost comically simplifying the idea of ‘family’....

John Webster’s The White Devil portrays an inherent brutality within the human condition, which, while humanity may strive to do good, ensures its ultimate destruction. He draws on genuine fears of the Jacobean era to attribute immorality to every...

Natural occurrences are often portrayed in literature as accurate reflections of mankind’s actions. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the weather patterns frequently correspond to the happenings on the island. Upon the arrival of the...

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 33). Atticus Finch tells this quote to the main character, Scout Finch, in the book To Kill a...

Kindness, when given out, is habitually expected to be returned. More often than not it is seen that kindness, in fact, is given so that something else of value may be returned. Kindness is often exchanged for similar invaluable things like...

With the advent of sophisticated industrial machinery and colonialism on a grand scale in previously unheard lands during the Victorian period came a thirst for knowledge. Accordingly, the purpose and value of education, which involved the...

‘Eating and drinking are valued by Dickens as proofs of sociability and ceremonies of love.’ Discuss the significance of food and meals in the novel Great Expectations.

Throughout the novel Great Expectations, numerous meals which have symbolic...

In Mrs. Warren’s Profession, one of Shaw’s central concerns is the hypocrisy of Late Victorian Society and the impact of this hypocrisy on human relationships. Accordingly this essay will discuss Shaw’s literary presentation of social hypocrisy by...

Show how the theme of love is shown in the novel Silas Marner.

Most literary discourse about Silas Marner accepts love as one of its key concerns. Any discussion of how love is ‘shown’ in the novel requires an examination of the role and function...

What defines loyalty? Loyalty to a friend, to a family, or simply to oneself? The analysis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s character Long John Silver from Treasure Island is complex and interesting, yet in some ways ultimately subjective. Silver...

Published in The School of Eloquence in 1978, Tony Harrison’s “National Trust” is the embodiment of his frustrations at the British social-class system. Through this poem, he divulges how, after receiving a post-War opportunity for education, he...

The 1930s: a pivotal point in the birth of literary modernism. After Sigmund Freud’s publication of studies of human emotion through psychoanalysis in the early 1900s, writing was forever changed. Authors added masks of character development...

The 1868 novel Little Women is not only a heartwarming and heartbreaking story set in the midst of the Civil War, but also a series of veiled narratives of the life of the author, Louisa May Alcott. The story coincides with many of the economic...

“Optima dies… prima fugit,” (Virgil). This simple yet powerful statement is the quote chosen by Willa Cather to set the expectational theme for her 1918 novel My Ántonia. The classic adage translates to “the best days are the first to flee”,...