Newest Literature Essays

In George Eliot's novel Middlemarch, a successful and happy marriage between two characters involves the willingness to work together on their relationship. Each character must present a broad perspective, which includes the ability to know and...

In her book Towards a Recognition of Androgyny, Carolyn Heilbrum defines androgyny as "a condition under which the characteristics of the sexes, and the human impulses expressed by men and women, are not rigidly assigned (Heilbrum 10). In Thomas...

One of the main themes in Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part 1, is Prince Hal's "act of becoming" as he moves from Falstaff's "sweet wag" (I.ii.23) to King Henry's "fair rescuer" (V.iii.48). The significance of the scenes at Boar's-Head Tavern,...

In the novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe uses Okonkwo's story to elaborate a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of the cultural values of African tribes. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart as a rebuttal to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness....

When Christopher Morley explains in Where the Blue Begins that "All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim," he may not realize how closely he is describing the city illustrated in Jazz, a...

In Henrik Ibsen's acclaimed play Hedda Gabler, the main female character, Hedda Gabler, is a modern woman striving to attain her desires through manipulation. She persistently endeavors to create a world that matches her masculine character by...

Hamlet and Macbeth are two of William Shakespeare's most famous plays. Each share not only fame, however, but format: Both feature main characters with tragic flaws that become their demise. In the cases of Hamlet and Macbeth, this flaw is...

William Golding's The Lord of the Flies is not simply a book about outward conflict between individuals. It is, rather, a novel about one's inner being. When the formerly-civilized British boys of Golding's novel are stranded on a desert island...

In order to fully understand the meaning of a text, different approaches are used in analyzing or interpreting literature. When dealing with Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, one approach that is particularly appropriate is the...

Many consider Franz Kafka one of the most prominent and influential writers of the twentieth century (Votteler 204). Many of his works, mostly short stories, met with critical acclaim only after his death in 1924. His stories usually present, "a...

Why does Hawthorne give Hester Prynne the name Hester? Hawthorne himself, as is well known, changed his family name from Hathorne, to distance himself from those Puritan ancestors whose achievements and excesses haunted his fiction. The Scarlet...

Adolescence is a confusing and vulnerable time in any young woman's life. Unfortunately, the sexual decisions one makes as an immature youth can set a dreary path for a woman's future. Unhealthy sexual lives such as these are displayed in Toni...

The examination of philosophy requires an in-depth look at two aspects of the philosopher. First one must examine their writings to grasp their points and perspectives, and then one must be able to examine the philosophers' personal lives to see...

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, exaggerates the extremes of Russia, saying that "[Russians] need continually...two extremes at the same moment, or they are miserable and dissatisfied and their existence is incomplete. They are wide,...

The core battle in the modern Feminist movement has been the battle against set gender roles. Women no longer feel that it is mandatory for them to be a mother and a housewife simply because they were born female, or that it is a man's role to be...

Truth Dawning:

The Sun as a Symbol for Meursault's Awareness in Albert Camus' The Stranger

In his novel "The Stranger," Albert Camus uses the relentless Algerian sun as a metaphor for the awareness of reality that pursues his main character,...

In many of the metaphysical poems in John Donne's literary canon, the poet assumes a voice that, as John Carey describes "...communicates itself through the dictatorial attitudes [he] adopts, through the unrelenting argumentativeness of his...

In the epic novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude," Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the Buendia family of mythical Macondo. Throughout the generations, the Buendias are plagued with incestuous relationships; by the end, they only succeed in...

The characters in Shakespeare's play King Lear endure immense physical, psychological, and emotional torment before meeting their demises. Shakespeare's exploration of their pain underlines two existential quandaries. First, the play's violence...

The late eighteenth century was a busy time for writers and thinkers. Affected by the French Revolution, such people routinely published their opinions for public review and comment. The entire literary community was abuzz, issuing papers and...

While in Christianity Christmas maintains certain religious icons that help school boys and girls remember the story of the birth of Christ, had Tiny Tim attempted to recite the Christian myth he likely would have earned a swift stroke of the...

Jamaica Kincaid's novel, Lucy, revolves, in large part, around the immigration and acclimation experiences of the title character, who has left her small Caribbean island to forge a new life in New York City. Yet there is another female in this...

First rule of Fight Club: "You do not talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club" (Fight Club, 1999). David Fincher has directed many brilliant movies in his career, including Seven, Fight Club, and most...

Murder, sex, scandal, and drug abuse-all of these sins of the main character thread together to shape Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, a dark tale of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth while his portrait bears the scars of...