Newest Literature Essays

A notoriously psychological composer of satire and comedy, Anton Chekhov employs The Cherry Orchard as a case study of an ensemble of ludicrous characters united in their inability to transform their behaviors or identities. Each character appears...

At the beginning of “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau expresses agreement with the idea “that government is best which governs least”. When carried to its logical conclusion, this concept leads to the realization “that government is best which governs...

In Charles Dickens’ literary satire, Hard Times, geometry--especially that of squares and circles--serves an important thematic function. The “man of hard facts,” Thomas Gradgrind, has a “square forefinger,” “square wall of a forehead,” and a “...

In Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, The Master and Margarita, many types of sin and corruption are exemplified in both Moscow and Yershalaim: people are rude and curt to others for no reason, accept bribes, act and speak hypocritically, spy and betray...

Although Epictetus’s Handbook consists of only fifty-three points, it manages to convey clearly the main ideas of Stoicism and how to act based on those principles. Despite the fact that reading all of the points in the Handbook is important in...

Far from serving peripheral and stereotypical roles, the women who appear in Invisible Man are indirectly involved in teaching IM the lessons he must learn to advance in his journey of self-discovery and to succeed in his reemergence into the...

In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s preconceived notion of the naïve and sheltered woman is revealed early in the novel: “It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are! They live in a world of their own and there had never been anything...

The power of myth and tradition to shape and control the shared consciousness of communities is a recurring theme in Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise. Morrison uses the residents of the town of Ruby and the nearby Convent to illustrate the...

“Poor things, why did I give you to King Pêleus,

a mortal, you who never age nor die,

to let you ache with men in their hard lot?

Of all creatures that breathe and move on the earth

none is more to be pitied than a man.”

——Iliad Bk17: 497-501

Of mortal...

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a book about history and culture; the imaginary town of Macondo is based on the author's hometown of Aracataca, and the many events described in the novel - the civil unrest, the labor/commercial struggles, the...

On the surface, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is on one level about a mother’s dynamic relationship with her two daughters, who have conflicting attitudes towards both family and cultural roots. It is also a depiction of the misguided and...

Eugene O’Neill’s classic American tragedy Desire Under the Elms tells the story of characters that are driven by a number of common, and therefore competing, desires. Many believe that O’Neill intended the Desire Under the Elms to refer to the...

Shakespeare’s history plays tend to focus on the drama of the rise and fall of kings, as we see in both Richard II and Henry IV Part 1. While the outcome of these stories was known to the theatergoers of his time, Shakespeare retold these stories...

How and why does Shakespeare create two distinct worlds of Rome and Egypt in the first two acts of the play?

Antony and Cleopatra is set predominantly in Egypt and Rome and Shakespeare organises the plot around the conflict between East and West....

“A profound and heart-rending study of personality, class and culture” To what extent do you agree with this assessment of the novel?

Throughout “The Remains of the Day”, Mr Stevens, the protagonist, not only explores the world outside of his...

Evelyn Waugh’s “A Handful of Dust” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” both feature memorable female characters. Lady Brett Ashley, of “The Sun Also Rises” is a strong and independent woman who refuses to commit to any one man. Brenda...

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has been hailed as one of the greatest literary works of Modernism. The Great Gatsby set the tone for the movement that defined American literature in the early decades well into the present day. The...

Sir Thomas Malory’s masterpiece version of the Arthurian tales captures the spirit of the classic tales and brings something new to the heart of the stories. An important element in the traditional Arthurian legends is the presence of magic and...

Oliver Twist is a criticism of the society in which Charles Dickens lived. The book directly criticized the Poor Laws and attempted to inspire readers of the middle and upper classes to improve the intolerable conditions in which Dickens himself...

Petruchio’s multifaceted role in The Taming of the Shrew illustrates various themes of the play, such as the concept of domestication, the economy of marriage, gender roles, and the nature of language. Through his experiences at Padua,...

Considered the precursor of Western dramatic criticism, Aristotle’s notes on The Poetics arms modern readers with the language by which tragedy is evaluated and judged. In this essay I will examine how Aristotle’s classical vision of tragedy...

America has undeniably come a long way from its dark adolescence prior to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in becoming a global icon of ethnic diversity. No longer are African Americans relegated to indentured servitude or the “black” water...

Prior to the 1920s and the Harlem Renaissance, the voice of the African American narrative was relegated to stories derived from folk traditions. Tall tales, fables, trickster stories and preacher tales dominated the body of African American...

In Marquez’s Love in the Time of the Cholera, the relationships of the three main characters are predicated upon the different fundamental emotional needs they have. For example, Florentino needs love from Fermina, while Fermina needs not love but...