Newest Literature Essays

"The Enormous Radio", by John Cheever, can be viewed as a study of addiction and its detrimental effects on the individual and their surroundings. The story introduces the Westcott family and the radio they listen to daily. The radio stops...

The Merchant of Venice has been interpreted over time as both a defense and an attack on Jews. (“Shylock”) While it would seem improbable that Shakespeare was forward thinking enough to completely reject the anti-Semitic sentiment of his time, the...

Joanne Harris’ novel Chocolat and Scott Hicks’ film Snow Falling on Cedars use characters and their interactions to explore the influence of the past on the present. Both texts reveal the influence of past relationships on their major female and...

In Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman criticizes people’s struggles to hold onto time through hyperbole, nameless characters, average themes and simplistic syntax. The people in Lightman’s vignettes have a common problem: how to slow down time;...

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shows a view of women that was widely accepted by society during the period the novel portrays. All of Huck Finn’s women, who are alternatively scorned, mistrusted and venerated by the title...

When Nanny tells her young, naïve granddaughter Janie Crawford, “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see,” (14) she is merely setting the stage for a number of connections between humans and animals that communicate Hurston’s...

Somewhere amongst the fallen pecans, the woolen afghan, and the clandestine photographs, we can find in Animal Dreams a consistent symbol of death. Codi is followed throughout the story by a seeming demise of those around her, from friends and...

“And what stood in their way? Their personalities and pasts, their ignorance and fear, timidity, squeamishness, lack of entitlement or experience or easy manners, then the tail end of a religious prohibition, their Englishness and class, and...

The Female Arab:

Physical and mental lust were eating out my body at the same time I knew there was only loneliness. The CIA had treated loneliness in that city and made the sun into a piece of ice. I decided either I can die or I have to refind...

Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War connects the tragedy of wartime to the loss of youth and love. It is the story of an idealist named Kien and his first love, Phuong, and how the dramatic events of war caused their pure love to diminish little by...

There are many texts that deal with the role of the individual male in society; their positions are discussed politically, socially and personally. However, in-depth discussion of the individual female role in society is often lacking during the...

Narration is a critical aspect of Ford’s The Good Soldier. Since the narrator also serves as one of the main characters, his narrative perspective becomes even more interesting to the reader. One of the most fascinating aspects of Dowell’s...

“Ant Farm” and “Running Out of Choices” express two distinct ideas. The first is how experience, knowledge, and instinct can influence our actions or view of things. The second is that a life with restriction may be more satisfying than the burden...

In Chaucer’s three dream poems, “The Book of the Duchess“, “The Parliament of Fowles” and the unfinished “House of Fame”, universal issues such as love are explored by a narrator recounting a dream. Writing that incorporated dreams was popular in...

Deception is a critical component of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Its appears most significantly in Claudius concealing murder and Hamlet concealing knowledge of the same. Hamlet also feigns madness in order to misguide others and attempt to prove...

In an attempt to defend both divine providence and free will, Milton’s God justifies the inherent discrepancy between destiny and free choice. Supporting the belief that Man is created with sufficient qualities to withstand on his own, Milton’s...

Just one of the many short stories compiled in James Joyce’s Dubliners, “After the Race” is an effective portrayal of the shame and misfortune that result from Jimmy Doyle’s efforts to become accepted by a wealthy group of men. His constant desire...

Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie is a play founded on illusion. Williams uses the devices of illusion and metaphor to illustrate truth, which he sometimes reveals through the use of irony. In the production notes that preface the play,...

The influence of Greek philosophy on the theologies of the traditional monotheisms was immense, shaping each theology’s conception of God according to the doctrines of such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno. The interaction between...

The so-called “Myth of Er” has long puzzled Plato’s readers. Socrates, whose teachings and conversations Plato chronicles, tells the story of Er, who journeyed to the afterlife and came to life again to tell his story. The tale is not found in any...

In his novel The Demon in the Freezer, Richard Preston addresses the American public’s increasing concern about the threat of terrorism after the events of 9/11. As the anthrax scare began spreading through the country, people became more fearful...

The speaker in John Donne’s poem “Love’s Diet” distances himself from his current relationship as his attitude towards love shifts from inconvenience to indifference with intermediary steps of defensive attacks. The speaker Donne presents does not...

George Meredith once reasoned, “The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter.” The importance of encouraging thoughtful laughter in comedy lies in its ability to humorously provoke reflection of some greater idea or theme....

Throughout The Prince, Niccoló Machiavelli explores human nature in the context of ruling and being ruled. In the letter to Lorenzo dé Medici that prefaces the text, Machiavelli explains that he has greatly studied “the deeds of great men” and is...