5996 samples of this type
Introduction Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” was first published in 1846, and it is widely recognized today as the best or one of the best short stories written by the author. It contains a story of revenge taken by an insidious and dark man named Montresor on his...
Abstract This paper provides an interpretation of one of the aspects of Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. It is stated that the collection of glass figurines in the play symbolizes one of the characters of this piece of literature, Laura Wingfield. The paper argues that the glass animals, being...
Nowadays, it represents a commonplace practice to refer to the policy of apartheid in South Africa, as having been innately racist – something that serves as the best indication of this policy’s sheer inappropriateness. The main assumption behind such a point of view is that the policy’s practical implementation used...
Introduction Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which is also called by its opening line How do I love thee, is a prominent example of English poetry. This sonnet reveals the selfless and pure love of the poetess to her husband. Despite all difficulties on her life journey, despite a...
Introduction In the chef-d’oeuvre book, The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton highlights a form of innocence that comes by simulation. The strict societal rules that govern every aspect of living impose this form of innocence that does not come by one’s choice. In a bid to understand the context of...
People often behave in a certain way not because they want to or think that they should behave in this way because it is the right thing but because they experience the pressure of people around them. The nature of this pressure is curious: it is not that people who...
Edgar Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado illustrates some of the main techniques developed by this author in order to create a sense of suspense that engages the readers. In this case, much attention should be paid to the use of foreshadowing and irony. They are particularly relevant when...
Are you wondering about the theme of Little Red Riding Hood? This Little Red Riding Hood analysis essay compares how the themes of this story differ in the versions written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and by Charles Perrault. Read on to learn this fairy tale’s genre, setting, symbolism, and...
Artistic expressions are part of every society’s collective memories and subsequent history. The main role of historical memory is to make a society remember what it has forgotten. Furthermore, historical memory upholds the concept that forgetting is part of remembering. This is why memories might change over time in the...
Home has an emotional connection to each one of us: it is the place where we feel safe, where we grew up, where we go for security, and to find love. It means different things to different people, mostly sentimental and heart-warming. For example, Silas the dying old servant in...
Even though the book Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Approach by Kenneth Waltz was written as far back as in 1959, it nevertheless contains a number of in-depth insights into what can be considered the main preconditions for wars to occur on a periodical basis. Given the fact...
Thesis The most prominent theme in J. M. Coetzee’s chef-d’oeuvre novel, Disgrace, change. The author sets the scene for events in the book in post-apartheid South Africa at a time when a variety of changes are occurring, thus affecting the characters in the story and the overall outcome in numerous...
Summary of the story The recess queen story is about recess and playing with other children. The book is about schoolyard bully who is lightened through gentleness and friendship. The Mean Jean is regarded as the recess queen in the story as depicted in the words, “Mean Jean the Recess...
Introduction One of the differences between Whitman and Dickinson was the thematic elements that were utilized by the poets. For instance, Whitman’s use of slang and “common” language in his poetry greatly contrasted with Dickinson’s overly formal language, however, this difference in the type of words utilized actually embodied a...
Abstract The villain role of women in the Shakespeare’s plays Othello and Hamlet seems to have inspired the themes in both literary works. Currently, there exists an apparent insufficiency of analysis in the field of literature regarding the actual role of female characters in the plays. This paper seeks to...
The Aeneid is an epic poem written by Virgil. This work narrates the story of Augustus by using the character, Aeneas. The Aeneid is related to Greece and Rome, as the story begins in Troy and ends in Rome. The principal aim of the work is to appreciate the achievements...
Introduction The book shows Eliezer’s struggle with faith in God. This theme is quite dominant throughout the story. For instance, other characters like Akiba Drumer, among others lose faith in God. In the face of fiery problems, God seems silent on them. Moreover, Jews in concentration camps wonder why their...
It is apparent that Olaudah Equano is a Nigerian native who was born in 1745 in Eboe. At the age of 11 years, the young lad was captured and sold to West Indies as a slave (Eqioano Interesting Narrative 32). From a careful review of literature, the young boy spent...
The play “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen is a play depicting the immorality that was inherent in the society during his time. Set in a country side home, the play revolves around a dramatic turn of events. It seems the events are in some way interconnected and tied up together by...
Introduction Klara and the Sun is a novel written by Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel explores the themes of desire, longing, and pursuing things. In the book, a strangely familiar near future, artificial intelligence has overturned the social order, transforming work and human relationships all at once (Ishiguro, 2021). Intelligent machines...
Introduction The Great Gatsby is a timeless classic written by F. Scott Fitzgerald that critiques the concept of the American Dream and the excesses of the 1920s. The events are narrated from Nick Carraway’s point of view. He tells the story of the main character, Jay Gatsby, who leads a...
Introduction Shirley Jackson is a prominent writer, a classic of twentieth-century American literature, and a master of psychological horror. Her literary weapon against injustice and the ugly sides of the modern world is a grim social allegory. The short story The Lottery was written in 1948, and while this fascinating...
Introduction In the path of the First World War, America underwent a transformative era known as the Roaring Twenties. This decade, characterized by economic prosperity, cultural dynamism, and social change, is the backdrop for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s renowned novel, The Great Gatsby. Through the eyes of its characters, the novel...
Introduction Oedipus delves into the continuous philosophical discourse regarding whether human existence is determined by destiny or personal agency. The play follows the story of Oedipus, and the ultimate resolution is the growing tension leading to his tragic downfall. Oedipus is a character who unknowingly brings about a prediction that...
Introduction Prometheus’s story is among the earliest and most important in Greek mythology. A Titan, Prometheus, is said to have rebelled against the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity (De Ciantis 127). Zeus was so enraged by Prometheus’ refusal that he had him bound to...
Introduction The poems The Iliad and The Odyssey were created in the eighth and early seventh centuries B.C. They reflected the worldview, the ideal of human behavior, and man’s place in nature and society. The protagonists of the poems are leaders who stand out for their bravery and strength. Homer...
Memory in Wordsworth In Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” the poet reflects on the power of memory and its ability to shape one’s perception of the world. The poem begins with the speaker revisiting a natural landscape after a five-year absence, and he is struck by how the memory of the place...
Introduction Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña is a heartwarming toddler’s book concerning a young boy named CJ and his grandmother (Nana) as they embark on a bus ride across the town. Notably, the book was published in 2015, and it is a children’s literature genre,...
Introduction The Tragedy of Hamlet is one of William Shakespeare’s oldest but most memorable plays of all his work. In this proficiently written play, Hamlet, the King’s son, is a sad protagonist who plays his character so well that the audience thinks he is insane. The root cause of Hamlet’s...
Historical Influences: Context and Events Shaping the Artist and Their Work Maya Angelou is one of the most prolific writers in American literature. She was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri (Aslam, 2021). She is famed for infusing a dialect referred to as Black Secular in her...
Introduction Every person needs to grow up with a sense of belonging to a family or community, a perspective deeply supported by the nurture theory of human development. In The Bean Trees, the author explores the importance of family and emotional support systems for those who are facing hardships. A...
Approach to Poem Analysis John Donne’s poems are known for their startling imagery as the poet has been praised for his playful use of words, including puns and paradoxes, as well as elaborately crafted metaphors. The new criticism approach to literary analysis fits with Donne’s work as it emphasizes the...
Summary of The Tartarus of Maids The Tartarus of Maids is a short story by Herman Melville from his collection Tales of the Square. The story centers on an unnamed narrator who visits an isolated farmhouse on a waterfall’s banks. This farmhouse is inhabited exclusively by women who work tirelessly...
A short fiction story by Nadine Gordimer questions the authority of a white man in Africa. An African landowner and head of a regional party, Marais Van der Vyver, has killed his Black worker. Even though it might appear unacceptable in today’s culture, it is consistent with the image of...
Introduction Harper Lee was an American writer best known for her work “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In it, she considered the critical social issues of the time that were reflected in society and how unfair and prejudicial people could treat each other. The origins of writing the work were taken...
Have you ever imagined living in a dystopian world where the Party rules with an iron fist and there is no way for freedom? Would you oppress such a life and question the oppressive regime? In the novel 1984, Winston Smith is such a person, a middle-aged man who has...
Understanding Cultural Relativism and Ethical Absolutism Moral absolutism and cultural relativism are ethical understandings of social behaviors and actions. Moral absolutism holds that universal codes of conduct must be adhered to regardless of context. In particular, a moral absolutist believes that right and wrong are immutable and cannot be excused...
Purpose of the Book In this book, DiCamillo tells the story of a mouse called Despereaux, who is different from the other mice in his community. While his fellow mice spend their days scavenging for food and avoiding danger, Despereaux dreams of adventure and romance. He is captivated by stories...
Description of Poems Sonnet 130 is a poem in which Shakespeare sarcastically praises his lover. This poem conveys affection in that the author appreciates his lover despite mocking her physical imperfections. Aside from the subject’s shortcomings, it is a celebration of her loveliness and a statement of respect and admiration...
Introduction Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” challenges stereotypical perceptions of women’s mental health and societal roles and raises questions about freedom of expression. The piece of short fiction has been analyzed from different perspectives, with Conrad Shumaker digging deep into the story’s complexity in his article “Too Terribly Good...
Introduction Josephine is a biography for young adults about Josephine Baker, an African-American actress and singer who came to renown in 1920s France. Josephine Baker is regarded as a notable African-American lady who demonstrated to the nation that she was a civil rights champion, a French spy during World War...
I intend to focus on the master-slave relationship in the history of drama and colonialism in The Tempest. The reason for selecting this area is that it is extensive and explanatory because, unlike other genres, it was written to be understood and appreciated without the opportunity to re-read it. My...
The story of The Kite Runner begins in the pre-war Afghan city of Kabul in the 70s, where there were children who did not know what shelling and explosions were. A favorite pastime and, at the same time, a very serious matter for all the residents were kite competitions (Hosseini)....
The claim that adversity is the most important factor in shaping character is addressed in The Wars at different levels. In particular, on the one hand, it relates to the shaping of the character of the protagonist, Robert Ross. On the other hand, it shapes the characters of readers who...
Many people at some stage of their lives and almost all nations at certain points in history encounter the dilemma related to their cultural traditions. On the one hand, it is widely agreed that the new challenges necessitate new solutions that should eventually substitute the older ‘ways’. On the other...
Introduction Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is a novel that has been a classic for two centuries and is still one of the most popular books for movie adaptations, theater plays, and other artistic manifestations correlating with the original plot. Multiple films have captured the original idea of scientific exploration of...
In “Sonny’s Blues,” light and dark symbolize the human struggle between good and evil. Symbols in “Sonny’s Blues” frequently conflict: for instance, ice symbolizes fear and dread juxtaposed against the music, which provides warmth and an escape to Sonny, the story’s protagonist. At large, there is a light-darkness dichotomy, which...
One of the main characters of the Journey to the West is the Monkey King, Sun Wukong. The book has become a famous novel in many countries and one of the most popular in China. The story plot tells about the Journey of Xuanzang, the monk, to India in order...
Modern society is increasingly concerned about the problems of environmental destruction, which are the consequences of human activity. Although many works have been written in the 21st century describing the possible catastrophic results of long-term human impact on nature, Margaret Atwood in Oryx and Crake does it from a new...
Introduction Cultural competence is a defining aspect in the provision of medical care to people of different cultures. In “The spirit catches you and you fall down” by Anne Fadiman, the story of a family of Hmong immigrants in the United States illustrates the consequences of the cultural insensitivity of...
Introduction During her short literary race, Flannery O’Connor managed to fall into the spotlight of many influential literature experts and critiques and conquer the minds of millions of people. Her status as a devout Catholic woman dwelling in the predominantly protestant South and the times of World War II and...
Introduction The book Children of the New World by Djebar is an insightful source of information regarding the social position of women in Algeria. Importantly, the impact of female activism on the setting in the country has been unrecognized and underappreciated. The book exhibits the efforts and sacrifices made by...
In Othello, Shakespeare aims to bring out the complexity of human relationships through the interactions of the main characters in the play. The experiences and action of the characters resemble human behaviors in social interactions. For instance, Othello evokes different feelings in various characters; some of those feelings positive, while...
Introduction Langston Hughes’ poem “I, Too” is a stirring portrayal of the African American experience in the United States, highlighting the struggle for equal treatment and dignity in the face of pervasive racism and discrimination. The poem speaks to the resilience and strength of those who have been marginalized, and...
It might be argued that myths like King Arthur play an important cultural and historical role in their belief. Legends like King Arthur frequently have their beginnings in genuine historical personalities and events, reflecting the values, beliefs, and aspirations of the civilizations in which they developed. For example, the story...
Nowadays, many peaceful adults go to war not out of ideological convictions but only for the sake of saving their children and ensuring they have a brighter future. Kids should be valued and protected all over the world, both by their relatives and strangers. However, this view was not shared...
Introduction In order for a play to be convincing and lively, it should not only consist of an exciting plot, but also incorporate believable and diverse characters. They serve as driving force for any scenario, helping readers and viewers to live out their story. Moreover, strong and well-written characters serve...
The Great Escape, a non-fiction book by Paul Brickhill that was released by WW Norton & Company in 1950, describes what it was like to live in a German POW camp during World War II. The author was an Australian fighter pilot and became a prisoner of war, which means...
Introduction The two literary works by Melville and Kafka contain several important similarities that have to be considered when making any conclusions regarding the contents of the two stories. First of all, it can be noted how Frantz Kafka and Herman Melville utilize a similar language for their respective stories...
Introduction Gender relationships are always complex and associated with concepts like power, responsibility, and concession. William Shakespeare is one of the authors whose works are intended to change the audience’s opinions on common events and expected feelings. His Hamlet is not just a story of a man who loses his...
Introduction Two German brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, penned the Cinderella tale in 1812 that showcases success despite life’s obstacles. The tale points out how parents should be a symbol of protection to their children, but this is contrary to the tale’s significant happenings that depict negligence. The parent stays...
Kenzaburo Oe, the author of the book “Teach us to outgrow our madness,” has displayed several ways to uphold our passion and original vision for things. A fascinating account of the 1964 Christmas Eve party at Yukio Mishima’s house, where Nathan first met Oe and fellow novelist Kobo Abe, serves...
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, patriarchy plays an essential role in the deterioration of the narrator’s physical and mental state. The author used sy7mbolism, irony, and the unreliable narrator technique to give readers an incredible insight into the protagonist’s state of mind and relive the life of the...
Introduction The horror literature of the Victorian era contains references to class relations, women’s roles in society, and the family and often deals with the psychological aspects of fear. An example of such work is Elizabeth Gaskell’s Old Nurse’s Story, which raises questions about family relations, class relations, hypocrisy and...
A Farewell to Arms, an Ernest Hemingway novel, has a distinctive anti-military rhetoric. While the war is not directly condemned, its atrocities are described vividly, showing that something wrong is happening. Its main character, Frederic Henry, is an American lieutenant serving in the Italian Army ambulance during World War I....
Introduction Ernest Hemingway was a master of short, expressive prose. Moreover, he considered his “best prose” to be the story of a man who never gives up – “Old Man and the Sea.” The harmony of man and nature can be considered one of the main ideas in this work....
The play Fences by August Wilson covers a variety of complex themes, such as race, family relationships, history, identity, change, morality, culture, dreams, duty, and others. Written in 1986, this literary work “clearly displayed the tensions among blacks who wanted to clutch their African legacy” (Ali 1). One of the...
Flannery O’Connor’s work on the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the best work and most loved out of all the works he has done on matters of literature. Basically, he vividly demonstrates the weird morality that occurs in real life, whereby immoral people exercise integrity...
Introduction For several years, novels, stories, and poems have been published daily. The field of literature has expanded significantly over time. Every novel is unique, yet they can share several similarities. The short tales “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman have...
Introduction Justice is a quite vague concept that is perceived and utilized by people differently. Due to its ambiguity, it sometimes leads to misunderstanding and dissonances. Annette Baier explains that men and women perceive the world divergently and have varied values, which leads to considerable differences in their attitudes and...
Cimalová, Natalie. “Feminism in the Poetry of Adrienne Rich: A Comparison of Her Early and Late Poems.” (2015). The present article is devoted to the development of feminism in the poems by Adrienne Rich. The author states that it was strictly formal at the beginning of the 1950s and only...
Jamaica Kincaid is one of the most significant Antiguan-American authors of the present day. Kincaid focuses heavily on the colonial project’s effect in all of her writings, a project from which her country has suffered much in the past (Samirah 124). This paper focuses on the evaluation of the significance...
A.E. Housman’s poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” is about a record-breaking athlete regarded as a legend. The poem’s tone abruptly changes, causing the reader to realize that the athlete has died. The poem is notable for its themes of the bitterness of death at the pinnacle of greatness. Housman...
Homer’s Odyssey gives readers a heroic narrative about a protagonist on his quest to home from war. The protagonist Odysseus is far from flawless, and the reader explores his personality while he faces various opponents and his stupidity. The epic delves into themes of fate, revenge, humanity, and ferocious powers....
Introduction Widely reputed for his mastery in infusing understatements in his short stories, Raymond Carver (1938-1988) is considered to have reignited the art of writing by the time of his death in 1988. As a poet and a writer of short stories, his works were characteristically multi-themed and could explore...
The main theme of the play “Riders of the sea” is to represent conflicts between religion and nature. The sea is a representation of fate and tragedies in the play. It is a great factor for the people living on Aran Island. It is a source of living as it...
Postcolonial era writers made several crucial attempts to deterritorialize their land, which colonists had taken. For instance, Kincaid sets this process in Antigua by narrating how negatively tourism has impacted Antigua. A Small Place by Kincaid primarily concentrates on how Antigua has been exploited and colonized through tourism. Significantly, the...
“Woman Hollering Creek” was first published in a 1991 collection of short stories by Sandra Cisneros called “Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories.” The narration is about Cleofilas Enriqueta DeLeon Hernandez, separated from her friends and family after her marriage to Juan Pedro Martínez Sanchez. Cleofilas was raised by her...
Introduction The period that followed the second world was characterized by an ideological war between capitalism and communism. This essay is based on the book ‘Under a Cruel Star’, written by Heda Margolius Kovály. It details the author’s experiences during the Nazi detention and those of her husband Rudolf Margolius....
The Lost Letters of Pergamum genre can be described as an epistolary novel loosely based on historical context. Longenecker claimed that his story explores “what might have happened during the final year in the life of a man named Antipas” and the “dynamics of friendship, goodness, virtue and honor” of...
Phyllis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a book of poetry in 1773, was the author of the poem “Being Brought from Africa to America.” Wheatley represents the start of a long tradition of African American poets. She described her African ancestors as non-Christian (“Pagan”) and believed that she...
Introduction It is important to note that Margaret Atwood’s book titled Oryx and Crake is a post-apocalyptic story with a heavy focus on the preceding events, which are deeply reflected in the current trends in areas, such as biotech, corporate power, and the erosion of democratic norms. The plot explores...
In Greek mythology, Oedipus, the king of the land of Thebes, portrays a king who brings disaster to himself and to the people he governs by killing his father and making his mother his wife. In search of the truth, Oedipus cares less about the danger his actions are about...
In “Earth Poem,” Darwish shares his love, grief, and expectations for the future in these Palestinian poems with other world peoples. Through his perceptive metaphors and detailed descriptions of the country, the author sounds the voice of the Palestinian Resistance. The main themes of his poetry are his nation and...
In his story, Daniel Alarcon, raises an important topic and conveys the secret of all immigrants from disadvantaged countries. The author says: “leaving is no problem. It’s exciting actually; in fact, it’s a drug. It’s the staying gone that will kill you. This is the handed-down wisdom of the immigrant.”...
The Purpose It is a rather well-known fact that ancient tragedies were written in compliance with certain rules and components. One such component is anagnorisis, which is translated from Greek as recognition. The recognition scene is the one where the main character learns something extremely important and makes a startling...
Oedipus is the main character of Sophocles’ tragedy titled Oedipus Rex, a book recognized as one of the most important in Ancient Greece. Oedipus is a complex character who has both virtues and negative traits, one of which is “hubris,” the Greek word for pride. Eventually, hubris expressed by Oedipus,...
Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of Jerome Salinger’s The Cather in the Rye, may be many things, but responsible is not one of them. Be that himself or other people around him, he rarely has a concern for anything. By highlighting his irresponsible behavior, Salinger contrasts the character’s rather self-absorbed focal...
Sappho’s Poems Sappho was a poet and a singer whose works were meant to be sung and accompanied by music. In one of her most famous poems, “Fragment 31,” Sappho uses imagery, such as “sweet speaking” and “lovely laughing,” to describe the narrator’s fascination with the woman observed from a...
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour follows Louise Mallard, a woman who receives news that her husband has died in a railroad accident. To her own surprise, she feels happiness at the freedom she gains from his death. However, when he returns, the shock kills her instead, and the...
Introduction Although Odyssey is an Ancient Greek poem, it is interesting to read even nowadays, when people got used to twisted plots. There are several basic topics in the poem, several of which are still actual for a modern person. The first topic is free will, which is reflected through...
Summary Future and self-imagination go hand in hand. Whether or not to take a step to the next level is a personal decision that requires a cognitive evaluation. For instance, Coyote’s journey is the book that indicates the outcome of the next step, which is often uncertain in the real...
Introduction The adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a controversial 19th-century humorous novel. Twain is “the leading humorist whom the United States has produced in any century” (Dudden, 1987, p. 38). Twain uses a variety of techniques to create a humorous atmosphere, which nevertheless hides a violent social satire. As with...
Introduction Patriarchy is the core of numerous societies around the world, which has different effects on the lives of people, particularly women. In a traditionally patriarchal society, females experience oppression and discrimination due to their innate features, which puts them in difficult situations. The role of women in society has...
Introduction ‘Kubla Khan’ is a fantasy epic authored by Coleridge, an English romantic poet in 1797. The poem revolves around the dream vision whereby a Mongolian leader called Kubla Khan orders some of his servants to build him a domed building for recreation and pleasure at the banks of river...
Introduction John Kennedy Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces unveils diverse issues people encounter in their lives. These problems include but are not confined to relationships with others, ways to fit in the community, and attempts to realize oneself and satisfy one’s needs. At that, family issues, or rather the...
The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen created the play A Doll’s House in 1879. The play’s central theme is the position of women in society; contemporaries perceived the drama as a feminism manifesto. However, the problems of A Doll’s House are not limited to the women’s issue: it is about the...
“Out, Out” is a poem by the US poet Robert Frost published in Frost’s Mountain Interval collection in 1916, and based on the actual incident which occurred to the son of Frost’s friend. The poem starts in remote Vermont, where his sister calls a young boy chopping firewood with a...
Introduction The purpose of the review of ‘Would you kill the fat man?’ written by David Edmonds is to discover what choices people have made, what influenced them, and how it can be evaluated philosophically. The book suggests that the unbraked train will soon destroy five people tied to the...
“Next to of course god America i” is one of the greatest poems in the history of America, and every reader always defines different meanings of the story, making it multifaced and mesmerizing. It is important to read the poem several times to understand its main essence, get a different...
Introduction William Shakespeare once again successfully maneuvers between various human emotions, constantly changing the reader’s attitude to what is happening. The play’s structure implies a division into actions and scenes, where each subsequent element of the story may well be contrasting. The work shows and indicates what the people around...
Introduction “A Worn Path” is a short story written by Eudora Welty in 1941 which describes the journey of an old African American woman. The Hunger Games is a novel by Suzanne Collins first published in 2008 that depicts a dystopian world. At first, these two books can be considered...
Even though justice is a very straightforward idea, its execution in many cultures remains a challenge. Dante Alighieri depicts a man’s journey through Hell in his famous epic poem, Inferno, a microcosm of society. A book depicts Hell as a place where many humans- historical, mythological, or contemporary-are incarcerated for...
The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel in a dystopian style written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and was published in 1985. The set is based on the near-future state called Gilead, which has dethroned the United States government. The new state is strongly patriarchal, where the main character, a woman...
The poem “Song of Myself” is an epic work of literature as the poet dedicates it to celebrating himself. An interesting aspect of the poem is its length and its free verse nature. It is divided into fifty-two sections, with each part introducing a slightly new concept about celebrating oneself...
Paul’s Case by Willa Cather is a short story full of temperament lessons. It is a narration of a few months’ events in Paul’s life. Paul is a student at Pittsburg High School, who prefers theater and music to class. The story begins when Paul is suspended from school; he...
Shakespeare’s last plays belong to the genre of tragicomedy – plays devoid of genuine tragedy, which, while slightly disturbing for the audience, were still mainly intended to entertain them by delivering a sharp and entertaining experience. Nevertheless, Shakespeare brings an exceptional tone to them, switching them into the fairy tale...
Summary of Text: In her article “Mother tongue,” Amy Tan shares her views on different forms of English and their impact on the life of people, especially immigrants. She raises the problem of the limitations of their activities connected with the language barrier (Tan, 1990). In the article, Amy describes...
Money and class always played a huge role in the life of any society. Since ancient times, people have been marrying for money, undermining the primary value of love and romance. In The Great Gatsby, possessions and class are the factors that could contribute to the initiation of a relationship...
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is a satirical novel written by Canadian writer Mordecai Richler, which describes Duddy Kravitz’s life. The main character, a Jew from Montreal, Quebec, tries his best to become rich, not paying attention to all the sacrifices made for this purpose. The author of the novel...
The lottery theme unites the books “The Lottery” and The Hunger Games. In Suzanne Collins’s book, the inhabitants of Panem were forced to participate in a survival game, with teenagers engaging in such a competition (Collins). Shirley Jackson’s story tells the story of the tradition of an American city throwing...
Human relationships are never simple and are usually predetermined by a variety of factors. In Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” the theme of family relationships is described through the vision of a little boy, Paul, and his mother, Hester, and the impact of such issues as money and personal needs. Despite...
The novel ‘Sula’ focuses on the lives of blacks soon after they were freed from slavery. They formed a community, The Bottom, and tried to lead normal lives, struggling to meet their daily needs. The novel focuses on various themes such as black-white relations, the fear of death, deceit, slavery,...
One of the seminal literary works revealing the theme of historical legacy is The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written as the memoirs of a dark-skinned American slave. The book proper consists of eleven chapters describing, in chronological order, childhood, the stages of learning to write, the periods...
About fifty lines in the chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight take over the significant symbol, the Pentangle, displayed on the Gawain’s shield. Each knight had a different design or symbol placed on his shield, which made it possible to identify people in battle when helmets obscured their...
Humanity has been striving for knowledge for centuries which became possible with the appearance of writing and books. Although even primary education was limited in many parts of the world in the past, people still sought education. Dai Sijie’s novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress tells the story of...
Introduction A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is considered one of the most prominent works of this influential Norwegian author. It tells the story of Nora Helmer, a young woman who goes from sacrificing her and her father’s reputation for her husband, Torvald, to becoming independent and free from her...
Tillie Olsen is considered one of the classics of American literature of the first half of the 20th century, and in her books, she raises important social issues through everyday stories. One example of such works is the short story “I Stand Here Ironing”, in which a woman speaks in...
Introduction Jane Austen’s work occupies one of the leading places in British literary history and remains relevant from the Victorian era to the present. The novel “Pride and Prejudice” describes the love story of a young lady Elizabeth Bennett and an aristocrat Mr. Darcy, developing in the complex context of...
This essay builds on the belief that poetry as art is one of the most intense forms, combining the traditions of the past with innovation. In fact, it is common for authors to imitate idols, but for a poem to be socially and culturally relevant, it must bring something new...
The Overview In Neil Gaiman’s short story Other People, a person finds himself in Hell, and his greatest torture is to relive his life through the eyes of those he hurt. It is a circular narrative in the sense that it ends just like it began: an arrogant person enters...
Arthur Miller’s plays are characterized by the significance of the moral and ethical issues and the application of references to his heroes’ past, where roots of the present behavior lie. The desire to find profound implication in the ordinary, to create an emotional atmosphere from as if insignificant words and...
Pat Mora’s poetry book Chants illustrates the essentiality of heritage conservation and the relationship between different cultures. She is a Mexican American writer who is well-known for her biculturalism style. She puts emphasizes the problem of adaptation of non-acceptance of immigrants of Latin origin in the US. The writer also...
The plot of “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner involves Colonel Sartoris Snopes or Sarty, a little boy from a poor family, whose father decides to burn barns of the people he works for. The setting of the story is early spring in rural America in the end of the 19th...
Introduction The story “Araby” is a first-person narration of a boy who is trying to impress a girl. The narration is on behalf of a boy in love with his friend’s sister. He learns from her that she wants to go to a charity bazaar called “Araby”. He promises the...
The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of the cult books of the 20th century. The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, was the forerunner of an entire literary dynasty of rich personalities with a mysterious past. The novel, which draws the reader into the atmosphere of a continuous holiday,...
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the most important plays in the history of literature, and its main character’s behavior deserves thorough studying. Throughout the book, his state of mind changes and evolves, and it is key to understanding his actions and interactions with other characters. It is essential to analyze...
“Go Down, Moses” is a poem that became a folk song, calling for the freedom of slaves in the US back in the nineteenth century. It links the story from the Bible with the situation happening in South America before the Civil War. The work constitutes of several poetic form...
Argument The key argument that Michel-Rolph Trouillot sets forward in Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History is that history in itself is created by historians, while reality is what is produced by events and processes. History represents the human narration of reality that is viewed subjectively from...
Introduction The term “supernatural” has several meanings and is used in both everyday speech and scholarly works on philosophy, psychology, and literature. In its most general meaning, the adjective “supernatural” means something not explained naturally, which is not subject to the laws of nature. In the field of fiction, the...
The poem Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson is one of these works which overthrow readers’ expectations. At the very beginning, the main character is presented as a successful and wealthy man who can afford anything he wants. Richard is envied by people he meets every day in the streets...
The war in Vietnam…How much pain this short word combination incorporates. This war can be listed among the strangest and the most unsuccessful military campaigns ever held by the United Sates. The new commanding strategies limiting commanders out of their power and authority to control the process on a local...
Introduction Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake expresses a complex combination of the emotions and feelings of the main characters who are trying to understand their places in society and identify themselves. The author shows an immigrant father, Ashoke, and his son, Gogol, who, despite different upbringings and cultural affiliations, go...
“Mending Wall” is a popular poem written by Robert Frost which attracts the reader’s attention due to the importance of the theme covered in this poem. The author touches upon one of the most important philosophical themes connecting with the nature of human existence and the relationships between people. Robert...
Behold the Dreamers is the novel by novice author Imbolo Mbue. The story revolves around Jonga and Edwards families that are both affected by the 2008 economic crisis. Jende and Neni Jonga are immigrants from Cameroon who desperately try to get American citizenship and stay in the country. Employed by...
Introduction A challenging task faces writers who want to evoke readers’ emotions and provoke them into thinking about crucial life issues. They need to make readers believe their characters, sympathize with them, and identify with them; otherwise, the audience’s attention will be lost. Joseph Conrad once stated his opinion about...
Death is a phenomenon that affects all people, and it is a great source of musings. Some people fear death, some people are indifferent to it, and some people may welcome it. Writers, in particular, have a particular interest in death, as their characters face it in one way or...
Introduction “Disgrace” by John Coetzee is a novel about loss, pain, and the efforts to reconcile with oneself. The main characters are disgraced and deprived of all dignity in different circumstances. Even though the characters David Lurie and Lucy Lurie have in common the suffering of facing traumatic sexual experiences,...
Love of the parents tends to be appreciated after a long period of time, sometimes when it is too late. Those Winter Sundays is a poem by Robert Hayden, in which he describes the relationship between a father and his son. The writing is made from the son’s perspective, where...
Love has always been an eternal resource of inspiration for poets. Sentimental and flattering, love helps to reveal the most hidden feeling and emotions. Therefore, the narrators use vivid poetic elements to describe this flourishing phenomenon. This paper seeks to explore how love is addressed in the poems “The Passionate...
Although Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is a fairly short story, it manages to wrap the reader completely in its narrative and recreate the microcosm of the author’s life by using a myriad of intricate details. Tan incorporates quite many descriptive details in the text, primarily, adjectives and adverbs, to add...
Introduction As the adage goes, ‘…two things are certain in this life: Death and Taxes.’ Although one can escape the latter, the former is like a change, it is inevitable, and inasmuch as people continue to hate it, they must encounter it anyway. Everybody has an assigned day of answering...
Becoming one of the most well-known Greek tragedies, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is a sophisticated playwright masterpiece. Written in 430 BC, exploring so many aspects of the human condition, the play’s themes are applied through the centuries. In the tragedy, Oedipus is ultimately responsible for his demise, even though fate uncontrollably...
Blindness, in the literal sense, is the inability to perceive by sight, to see through one’s eyes. In literary usage, however, the term is also used as imagery, giving it an allegorical meaning; it may be referred to as the characters’ failure to relate events to their circumstances. Unlike literal...
Raymond Carver’s short stories pens down a world where people constantly struggle for their self-respect and meaning for existence. This rustic feel about his short fictions exemplifies his life. Born in 1938, Raymond grew up in Pacific Northwest in a rustic environment, which had an inevitable effect on his writing...
Undoubtedly, theater is great art serving vital purposes; however, these purposes can vary. In order to explain them, it is necessary to resort to the recognized authorities in the field. The analysis of the concepts of theater by Artaud and Brecht promises nontrivial results due to their different philosophical grounds...
Introduction The three poems by Anne Bradstreet, namely: In Honor of That High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory, To the Memory of My Dear and Ever Honored Father Thomas Dudley Esq. Who deceased, July 31, and of his age 71, and Contemplations have a number of elements...
Introduction Born in February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, Charles Dickens lived to become a prolific 19th century writer of fiction novels, short stories and plays. His father worked as a pay clerk in the navy office, with a salary hardly enough to support the family (Sanders p.1). Charles was as...
In this research paper, I would like to analyze Oscar Wildes play The Importance of Being Earnest. In particular, it is necessary to focus on those features which are traditionally characteristic of comedy. The play should be discussed from several points of view: the development of the plot, the evolvement...
To an eager reader works of literary fiction represent an inexhaustible source for exploring and deriving the senses encoded in the texts by writers. For the purpose of gaining a deeper understanding of the text, it is crucial to analyze such fundamental basics as the elements of fiction. In the...
