Newest Literature Essays

When one questions the existence of God, one often reverts to a specific, troubling question: “if God exists, why are there moral tragedies that cause such great suffering?” In other words, humans find it very difficult when there is an event or...

The Grimm brothers’ widely-known collection of fairy tales includes two especially significant stories: “Little Snow-White” and the lesser-known “The White Snake.” The main characters of each tale are, respectively, Snow White, a beautiful young...

In the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, there was an emergence of creativity and imagination. These ideals were portrayed throughout the fields of human inquiry -- artwork and entertainment being especially affected. A powerful example of...

A question of chronology arises among theologians in connection with issues concerning the traditionally assigned dating of the Last Supper as a Passover meal. Mark identifies it as such, and the synoptic (‘look-alike’) evangelists Matthew and...

Throughout Fight Club, the concept of the separation of soul from body appears in various forms. Whether forced upon others by Tyler or originating organically, the gap created between the essence of a man and the reality of his life reveals a...

Through All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr creates a world in which two invariably different individuals connect to one another by way of fate and personal faults. Werner’s shortcomings - or his inability to visualize his hope - are...

“…Bud is sitting on the rail of the bridge. The sun has risen behind Brooklyn. The windows of Manhattan have caught fire. He jerks himself forward, slips, dangles by a hand with the sun in his eyes” (105) . . .

Unlike Realism and Romanticism,...

In all of modern literature, there are few protagonists as self-effacing, miserable, indecisive, or morally contemptible as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Underground Man. Given the Underground Man’s interminable Hamlet-like meanderings, one might surely...

The novel “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” takes place in the 1950s in a small Colombian village near the sea. The narrator is investigating the murder of Santiago Nasar, a rich Arab. He was murdered by the Vicario brothers, who believed took away...

As scholars often note, the Victorian Period was known for its didacticism, especially the struggle between faith and moral decrepitude. Whereas the Romantics idealized their world, the Victorians questioned their surroundings, choosing to...

They are American, young, wealthy and in love. Nicole and Dick are the souls of an age, a world of opulence, blurred boundaries and equally commanding desires, and their relationship reflects the ambiguities of its core values. Judged within an...

When placed in an environment of high stimulation, populace, and activity, one may begin to feel the desire to escape or detach from civilization. Such environments, most notably urban cities, often consist of a variety of tall buildings, which...

Within the historic world created in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, one of the many underlying influences in Sylvan is that of prejudice and bigotry. Many figures within society are not what they seem. The established church gives the...

“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.”

Every person on Earth is...

For centuries, Homer’s epic Iliad was taken as literal interpretation of the Trojan War. Only rather recently has the reliability and accuracy of the Iliad in terms of depicting the war come into question. Modern historians and scholars have come...

Richard II by William Shakespeare is a historical play that chronicles part of the rule and eventual downfall of King Richard II of England. Simultaneously, the play also showcases the rise of Henry Bolingbroke to the throne. Shakespeare employs...

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner is a maze; it is a maze with innumerable detours and dead ends, pathways that lead to a finale and obstacles to be overcome on the way there. One such obstacle is the triangular relationship between Henry...

For some, a leap of faith is easy. Believing in a God comes naturally for some, but for others, it is something that logically seems improbable. What separates the two groups is that one group is willing to use faith as a tool to justify beliefs,...

In many cultures, including Dominican culture, rigid and binary gender roles have shaped and reinforced the development of a mostly patriarchal society. Indeed, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents the traditional gender...

Caryl Churchill’s play Top Girls, which appeared in 1982, depicts key themes such as feminism and oppression throughout history. Through the main character, Marlene, we are able to see aspects of individualism, as Marlene abandons her own...

In 1917-1938, The Harlem Renaissance was in full swing. In a small New York borough called Harlem, black people were beginning to gain social, cultural, and artistic freedom. Black poets, writers, musicians, and scholars flocked to Harlem in...

While Huck periodically shows flashes of progression from the stagnant and bigoted society into which he was born, his inherent attraction and loyalty to the ways of his hometown and specifically Tom Sawyer prevent him from making an overall...

“On or about December 1910 human nature changed. All human relations shifted…and when human relations change there is at the same time change in religion, politics, and literature”; thus, Modernism was born (Woolf qtd in Galens 175). Modernism was...

Dystopian governments often work hard to erase identity through specific social constructs; they work to force the people they govern into a “cookie-cutter” mold. In literature, this molding is often fought by a person within the society, and that...