Newest Literature Essays

In a play largely about politics, class struggles, and the right of rhetoric versus the will to action, what remains most interesting about Coriolanus is its titular character: a relatively laconic soldier thrust into an unchosen world. Whereas...

Love is one of the most prolific topics in all of literature. From the perverse to the overly romantic, poets and authors from around the world continue to settle on love as a vehicle for relaying their innermost thoughts, feelings, and...

In his essay "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson often radiates an arrogant and self-important tone, writing, for example, “A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me.” Although...

Fundamental human similarities in motivation are at the core of the works of novelist Saul Bellow. Bellow was a Chicago born Jewish author, and as such his protagonists are often of a similar demographic, young Jewish men in Chicago. Despite...

Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart both emphasize the complexities of father-son relationships. The major theme of parental conflict is developed throughout the course of both texts and serves to illustrate...

A man lives his life and evolves over time; he embodies a synthesis of all his experiences with those he meets over his lifetime. What he sees when he finally meets the son he helps bring into this world for the first time is unique to who he is...

Jane Austen's Persuasion is a satirical romp through the cold and arrogant lives of the aristocracy as seen through the eyes of a self-sufficient and free thinking woman, who must realize the false values in her life and learn enough to reconcile...

In James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” the contrast between Mitty represented as a brave hero in his daydreams and Mitty as a cowardly mouse in real life suggests that his daydreams cause him to lose touch with reality, to the point...

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Blithedale Romance is an extremely enigmatic text. Due to its highly complicated and confusing plot, as well as its somewhat unreliable narrative, it is difficult--and some theorists would say impossible--to...

The romantic view of a seamanship is that the crew keeps with the ship through all types of weather and troubles. Yet in 1880, an event happened that shook this romantic belief throughout the world. The abandonment of the steamship Jeddah, along...

On the surface, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (1729) suggests that the most convenient method for dealing with the starving children of Ireland is to convert them into useful -- and edible -- members of society. His horrid proposal...

During the Victorian Era, the status of religion was one of the most pressing social and moral issues. Though Charlotte Bronte grew up in a religious household, she, like many other authors, criticized certain aspects of religion even though, like...

Creating symbolism in literature adds depth and meaning to any story. Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X displays an abundance of symbols that offer insight into the life of Malcolm X himself. Often, the symbols that Haley uses...

William Blake was known for tailoring his romantic poetry specifically for children, particularly in ‘Songs of Innocence’, where the themes of nature and religion were utilised to allow Blake to directly educate his intended younger audience about...

You can hear the waves crash against the shore less than fifty feet from you. Your prized car, the one that you’ve loved for years now, is stuck in the sand, unable to move. All of the money you didn't donate to charity, preventing malnutrition in...

In Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease, a story of injustice, betrayal, and love is delivered from the perspective of Peter Brownrigg. Peter is a fourteen year-old Cumberland farm boy in the Elizabethan times, who ran away from home chased by the...

Being selfishly consumed with shame and pride over a loved one can cause one to treat that beloved individual in cruel ways. In James Hurst’s fictitious short story "The Scarlet Ibis," the narrator realizes exactly these truths through brutal...

In many of William Butler Yeats’s works, he creates a seemingly inescapable gyre or cycle that history and human lives follow. In The Second Coming, Yeats examines the cycle of history in which every two thousand years, a new messiah arrives. In...

“In the latter part of the 19th century, Japan opened up for trade with the West. Merchant adventurers arrived from all over the world, many of them English. Some traded in silk and rice and lived in enclaves around the 'treaty ports.' They...

“Forever” (Marquez, 1988: 352). Thanks to this simple word -- Florentino Ariza’s answer to the Riverboat captain’s question when asked how long he intends to keep the boat going -- it is not hard to understand why many critics would label Love in...

Humans can only experience life subjectively: each of us is rooted in our own individual positions that cause us to perceive differing shades of reality. An awareness of this universal condition permeates Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, as...