Newest Literature Essays

While Walt Whitman’s poem “A Passage to India” romanticizes the idea of blended Indian and British nationalities, E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India realistically explores the emergence of Indian nationalism in opposition to British imperial rule....

While in the play No Exit hell is famously defined as “other people”, it is the setting of hell which will ultimately create the hostile and volatile conditions that the characters find themselves in. Sartre places his characters in his...

Literary critics such as Karl Grun and Johannes Scherr have propped up Johann Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther as revolutionary social criticism that paved the way for many of the rebellions in 1848 – Grun even arguing that the novel prepared...

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw are both satirical plays meant to criticize Victorian society and war, respectively. While both plays were written by Irish authors familiar with London and...

The actions involved in ‘mob mentality’ are a prominent and recurring trend in history, dating back to the beginning of human interaction. Complete social unity was once necessary for the survival and comfort of a group of people. Mob mentality is...

In 1787, women were marginalized members of society, an underclass not able to enjoy the same liberties as men. Combined with some of the abject poverty plaguing England at the time, the result is some of the female characterization in Our Country...

Steinbeck’s characterization of Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath stems from Emersonian thought, as expressed in Emerson’s essay “The Over-Soul”. Jim Casy forms beliefs based on the ideas presented in this piece, as evident through his action of...

It is widely acknowledged that women have often been “forced to occupy a secondary place in the world in relation to men” (Beauvoir 84). The woman is generally considered to be ‘the other’ or the ‘second sex’ and is used as a commodity for the...

Ayn Rand, an influential American novelist and philosopher, endeavored to offer her readers a new perspective on life’s meaning. Growing up as a Jew in a communist country, Rand struggled to find her place in society and, therefore, matured as an...

"Each day mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire, and to plunge...

According to the National Mental Health Information Center, girls are three times more likely than boys to develop body-image problems in their adolescence. From the advertisements on television to the constant glorification of feminine beauty by...

During the twentieth century, particularly from 1920 to 2000, the British national identity underwent a dramatic transformation in response to the major historical events of the century: the conclusion of World War I, the decline of imperialism,...

In Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, several main characters struggle with their cultural identity as immigrants in contemporary London. During the mid twentieth century, economic opportunities in Great Britain attracted many immigrants from former...

In the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, the theme of morality comes into question through the actions of the various vigilante heroes. This is most clearly seen through the character Rorschach. From the very beginning of the...

The difficulty for most contemporary Native American authors is how to present their work to a populace who is not entirely familiar with the modern Indian situation and lifestyle. One way that Alexie Sherman and Velma Wallis achieve this in their...

‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is a dramatic monologue spoken through the voice of a female runaway slave. Browning was an abolitionist. In this poem, Browning deviates from the traditional values of...

“A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, in many ways, addresses the divide between the concept of work itself and the perceptions of one’s own work. In reality, a person’s idea of work can differ from the kind of work actually done. When people think of...

E.M Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’ is a literary work which operates on two levels simultaneously- personal and impersonal. Scenes involving the innermost thoughts and feelings of the characters alternate with scenes vocalizing the voice of the...

Women in the Middle Ages generally had little opportunity to provide influence either in life or in literature. Little is known of their lives and thoughts because little was written from their viewpoint. Yet in an age and a society dominated by...

The late nineteenth century in the United States saw the peak of the buzz and commotion that is presently known as the Industrial Revolution. Caught deep within the gears of this mechanized movement, both socially and financially, was one Samuel...

Lord Acton, a British historian, once said “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Over the course of human history, the Church has been the focus of many criticisms, including but not limited to the relationship with the...

Authors often perform the task of cultural historians, eternalizing with their written word the popular perspectives and social opinions of their time. Shakespeare himself perfectly encapsulated in his writing the Renaissance mentality towards...

Novels that are centered on traumatic events in history have used different tools to access the past. The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is a film (based on a play) that is set during the Great Depression while Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a novel...

Home is oftentimes perceived as one of the places where a person feels safest and as one of the places where one likes being most. This seems to be very straightforward, but in her novel Kindred, Octavia E. Butler complicates this concept of home...