Newest Literature Essays

Arthur Miller’sDeath of a Salesmancan be measured against Aristotle’s notions of tragedy expressed in hisPoetics, involving a fall caused byhamartiaandhubris, and an eventual recognition and reversal of fortune, culminating in the audience...

Central toThe Turn of the Screwis the question of the governess’ reliability. Analyses of the text from both ‘apparitionist’ and ‘non-apparitionist’ perspectives hinge upon a verdict passed by the critic on the trustworthiness, or conversely the ‘...

In the words of Professor Fred Botting, within the Gothic, “transgression is important not only as an interrogation of received rules and values, but in the identification, reconstitution or transformation of limits.” Emily Bronte’s Wuthering...

Emily Bronte’s classic novel, Wuthering Heights, is not simply the tragic love story it may appear to be on the surface, but is an example of class differences and the role of capital in eighteenth century Victorian England. Using Karl Marx’s...

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins and the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson both illustrate the dangers of blindly following ritualized practices and traditions. The stories involve the use of an institutionalized drawing system,...

Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress” offer powerful examples of sensual, carpe diem Renaissance poetry. In both poems, the poet-speakers attempt to spur their beloveds into action...

From Genesis, the true nature of humanity has been closely associated with sin. While the Puritans vehemently believed that sin degraded both God and human beings, in the Scarlet Letter, it is the very nature of transgression and the resulting...

In A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka, one can argue the character of the Hunger Artist is an absurdist anti-hero parallel to the heroic figure of Jesus Christ in the Holy Bible. The Hunger Artist is a narration of a "starving, dying art", and one of...

Few of the episodes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses have resonated so powerfully with audiences as Book VI’s story “Tereus, Procne, and Philomela” has been able to. From the time of Metamorphoses’ publication until the present day, the agonizing myth has...

“Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo is one of the most unique and powerful stories of redemption of all time. This story is unique in many different ways; from its diverse cast of characters to its meticulous blend of storylines. One of the truly...

W. B. Yeats, whose advice J. M. Synge has followed in exploring the Aran Islands in the remote northwestern corner of Ireland in 1898, mentions that in Riders to the Sea one finds “first to last the presence of the sea”. The impression of the vast...

Satan’s Reason

The character of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost is a different portrayal than traditional biblical teachings imply. The Christian tradition provides a dichotomist view of heaven and hell, good and evil, God and Satan. Milton’s...

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is one of the greatest works of American literature of all time. It has been reprinted again and again, and is a staple in almost any writing or history class. There are a number of reasons why it can be...

Years before he became the greatest living writer of comedy, Shaw was an ardent social reformer. "My conscience", he once wrote, "is the genuine pulpit article; it annoys me to see people comfortable when they ought to be uncomfortable; and I...

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s literary work ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is often considered as an important early work of American feminist literature which illustrates common social and physiological attitudes towards women during the 19th century. A...

As a famous feminist writer, Kate Chopin’s writings have been thoroughly studied by scholars for long; however an in-depth analysis of how her text brings the concept of feminism in different perspectives is still rare in the study of feminist...

1. Introduction

Among different topics appearing in literary texts, death is one aspect that many writers will address. For ages, death has been portrayed as an ultimate bad character which is evil, disastrous but sadly inevitable. However in the...

The effects and significance of unequal powers between males and females appearing in literature has been a popular topic in literary criticism. While a universal way of reading texts from a gender approach is yet to be defined. Kimmel, Hearn...

The Practicality of Ethical Principles: Duty Before Fear

In this paper I will demonstrate how Immanuel Kant’s ethical principles presented in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth GMM) provide a more appropriate choice to...

In To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf portrays Mrs. Ramsay as the “model” mother. Loved by her children, depended upon by her husband and admired by her neighbors Mr. Bankes and Lily Briscoe, Woolf creates a seemingly amorphous character made...

In Richard Dyer’s essay, (now book) White, he states:

There are inevitable associations of white with light and therefore safety, and black with dark and therefore danger, and that this explains racism (whereas one might well argue about the...