Newest Literature Essays

“The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving and “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne are both short stories that illustrate Puritan ideas about the place of evil in human nature. Both short stories revolve around a central character...

Harry T. Moore, in the afterword to William Dean Howells’s The Rise of Silas Lapham, says, “Much of the criticism of Silas Lapham has been directed at the love-story subplot” (345). Critics of Howells are quick to point out the Romantic elements...

Perhaps the unknown purpose behind an induction, which even the most experienced readers have failed to explain, has finally come to light. Christopher Sly, the principal character in the brief Induction of The Taming of the Shrew by William...

In the foreword to an early translation of the play ‘Spring Awakening’ by Frank Wedekind, his translator Francis J. Ziegler stated that Wedekind’s thesis for the play was “that it is a fatal error to bring up children, either boys or girls, in...

Although the nature vs. nurture debate seems as though it is a rather contemporary argument, it was actually a common thematic element of Elizabethan literature. Christopher Marlowe, in particular, focused on human behavior and the influences of...

After seeing a play such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or A Streetcar Named Desire, a viewer may be hard pressed to remember that there was once a time in Western culture when the revealing of a woman’s bare foot proved entirely scandalous. What was...

As Albert Camus once said, ‘You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.’[1] If ‘order’ within life means a structure that can bring meaning, ‘fragmentation’ deems life’s occurrences, whether fortunate or unfortunate, as...

In Alice Walker’s famous short story “Everyday Use,” Dee is perceived as an unsympathetic character. It is difficult for the reader to feel compassion for Dee since she possesses repelling characteristics; she is as authoritative, manipulative,...

Throughout English history, kings have been judged by both their political strength and by their personal conduct. Each of these criteria is equally important in assessing the success or failure of a King’s reign. In William Shakespeare’s history...

A woman sits alone in her empty living room, overtaken by an unbearable ennui. She sits cross-legged, with one elbow propped up on the faded, beige armrest, and the other resting on her thigh. She sighs with exasperation as she patiently awaits...

The Sound of Waves develops one of its central themes through Mishima’s examination of the motif of strength of character. The novel portrays strength as a fundamental characteristic that dictates human behavior and the journey to self knowledge....

Bilbo’s sword, Sting, plays a large role in The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien -- a role that almost appears to be incongruous for its size. Through each one of its appearances, Sting’s increased significance as a plot element simultaneously...

In a rather prophetic statement about a doomed family residing in an ancestral home, where the curse of the father becomes the curse of the children, Hawthorne writes in The House of the Seven Gables, “Ambition is a talisman more powerful than...

“Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon” (Dickinson, n.d.). At first glance, this utterance by Emily Dickinson conveys a negative attitude towards the unique and the new. However, upon second interpretation, this...

The theatrical device of performing a play within another play has been employed for centuries, most notably in European theatre and literature (Fisher and Greiden xi). The play within a play “describes a strategy for constructing play texts that...

How can a trial turn a religious minister into a man separated from a town’s power structure? In The Crucible, Reverend Hale is sent to Salem to deal with an alleged outbreak of witchcraft. At the beginning of the play, Hale is a confidant man,...

Communities are complicated. Each one is more than just a group of people living together in one place: they are supposed to offer their members a sense of belonging and acceptance, yet often ostracize those who are different. Often, they embody...

Throughout history there have been no shortages of western Christian writers. In a field so competitive, only those who have created work that is theologically influential are remembered by the masses. Martin Luther is remembered for crafting the...

“I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High”-Psalms 82:6

It is an impossible task for an author not to project his or her own private biases onto a page. Theistic writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were...

Over 1300 pages long, Tolstoy's War and Peace presents characters who disappear as quickly as they appeared. But every single one of them has a particular significance in the broader themes that War and Peace displays, whether that theme be love,...

Setting traditionally provides a base for a writer to create a storyline and the characters that populate it. In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky paints the picture of a dirty, polluted city filled with drunks and prostitutes. This setting...

In the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, a more realistic depiction of the superhero figure is achieved by allowing genres to be imbedded separately within the thoroughly developed identities of Rorschach, the Comedian, and...