Newest Literature Essays

The difference between death and dying can often seem minute. The dying are merely those on the way to death. Yet the intrinsic difference between the process of dying and the moment of death is one of great literary obsession, in particular in...

Since its original date of publication in 1925, Franz Kafka’s The Trial has resisted interpretation. At first glance, the novel’s seemingly simple and serial sequence of events poses no problem for the reader. Though the incidents that involve...

Although the mighty king persona is almost always on display in the characters of Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V, the audience is at times presented with the inner workings found within the deep recesses of each monarch’s mind. The reader and...

Often instead of the gallant, chivalrous hero, it is the deceptive, wicked villain that leaves a lasting imprint on the audience. The subversive and incorrigibly horrendous actions of the villains in Shakespeare’s Othello and Titus Andronicus,...

“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it” (389). While this analysis by William Blake recognizes clear...

Shelley uses nature as a restorative agent for Victor Frankenstein. While he seems to be overcome with grief by the murders of his friends and family, he repeatedly shuns humanity and seeks nature for health, relaxation and to strengthen his...

“Daisy Miller: A Study” by Henry James, a story about an American girl in Europe named Daisy Miller, is told by an unknown narrator who only has access to the main character Winterbourne’s thoughts. The story is framed around Daisy Miller and her...

In his free-form documentary F for Fake, Orson Welles, through interview, speculation and illusion, states that art itself can in no circumstance be purely “genuine” in the traditional sense, and that truth, by nature, is relative, and, in many...

The playwright Henrik Ibsen once stated, “Do you know what we are those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society's tools, neither more nor less.” Ibsen was a great anti-idealistic writer of the mid to late nineteenth century. His...

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a literary masterpiece that for the past two centuries has fascinated the imagination and interest of diverse readers. The word “Frankenstein” refers to the monster because it is universally accepted that the creator...

Smith asseverates that she has “tried to show the utility for imperialist ideology of a gender ideology that constructs a feminine sphere as ‘too beautiful altogether’” (Smith183). She presents her thesis through an engagement with feminist “...

Samuel Longhorn Clemens, under the pseudonym Mark Twain, uses southwestern dialects and local vernaculars to create realistic characters that accurately reflect the people and familiar scenes of mid-nineteenth century Southern American life. In...

The character Robert Walton has many functions in the novel of Frankenstein. His role in the story, though relatively brief, is extremely important. He fulfills four roles. First, his own writings anticipate much of Frankenstein’s behaviour....

Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 1 Scene II is his first of the play and, as a consequence, allows the audience to see his inner thoughts for the first time. The subjects of this soliloquy are numerous: his father’s death, his mother’s response to this...

In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein’s behaviour becomes more and more grotesque in the buildup to the creation of the monster. When he leaves for the university in Ingolstadt he is healthy, of sound mind and optimistic....

In writing Oliver Twist, it is clear that Charles Dickens’s main literary objective was to expose the plight of the poor in Victorian London. The story of Oliver is comparable to other Victorian novels, such as Jane Eyre, in its strong didactic...

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road is a gripping tale of survival in a post-nuclear holocaust world full of marauders and cannibals. A man and his son travel the United States in search of food and shelter, all the while hiding from (and...

There is something inherently cathartic, inherently exciting about the ‘travel literature’ genre that emerged in the later 17th and early 18th centuries. The lands viewed were never accurately depicted; instead, the author would embellish local...

At first glance, Shakespeare’s Desdemona may seem like woman remarkable for her beauty and not much else. In fact, Desdemona is a foil and a catalyst who wields power over men who desire her. The male characters in Othello want to control...

That the character Desdemona in Shakespeare’s play Othello holds on to her dignified manner until the very end, when she is murdered by her jealous husband, is indicative not only of her chaste mind, but also of her willful determination. Given...

The concept of the virtuous city is central to both Plato’s and Alfarabi’s treatments of political science. The respective analyses of Plato and Alfarabi bear many similarities, but their final goals differ radically. Plato’s description of the...

Oscar Wilde vigorously attacks the institution of heterosexual marriage in his play “The Importance of Being Earnest” by employing light comedy in order to portray characters that are shallow, immature, and oblivious about the commitment into...

With their significance ranging from one’s place of origin to one’s occupation, last names have been used to distinguish and describe individuals for centuries. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston, the author, experiments...

The philosophy of Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the most revolutionary and unique philosophy of the seventeenth century. Hobbes had a unique view of the world in all its components: society, politics, physics, religion, and nature. Unlike his...