5175 samples of this type
Introduction Any literature masterpiece is composed of numerous layers and themes, which supplement each other and give it new tones and accents. One can read a book looking for some evident events and the plot lying on the surface. However, this approach will not ensure a profound understanding of the...
Introduction “I have a dream” speech belongs to Martin Luther King, Jr., who tried to send a message about civil rights. In his speech, the orator used a wide range of rhetorical and stylistic devices that made the message quite expressive. Main body Martin King uses such a stylistic means...
Introduction It may seem that the role of money in society is higher than morality — while abstract concept limits life, the material situation allows the owner to gain more influence and resources. That is why the phenomenon of money is reflected in fiction: the central themes of two plays,...
In the twentieth century, many artists paid great attention to existentialism. In addition, the theater of the absurd became a remarkable phenomenon, which described in colors all the strangeness and meaninglessness of life. A striking example of such a work is Endgame by Samuel Beckett. One of its theatrical performances...
Introduction The following study reviews in brief three literary works; their authors, the historical and other influences that inspired their composition, the main primary literary devices that were used in their writing, and the major themes that were addressed in these works. The three literary works are then compared and...
Introduction “A&P” is a short story written by John Updike, an American novelist, poet, and literary critic. The story was initially published in 1961 in The New Yorker. Updike tells the story of Sammy, a nineteen-year-old working in a small-town grocery store. The central conflict in the plot revolves around...
Art Spiegelman depicts each nationality in his book as a specific animal: Jews as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs. This form of representation shows the absurdity and horror of Nazi ideologies of dividing people into different species. However, the insert Prisoner on Hell Planet differs in style from...
Setting is an element of fiction often used by authors to support the ideas and themes presented in a literary work. Setting refers to the place and time where the story takes place and may include social statuses, weather, historical period, and details about immediate surroundings (Elements of Fiction). The...
Introduction The short story A Good Man is Hard to Find, written by Flannery O’Connor, which holds the same title as her debut collection of short stories published in 1955, is deemed as her most disturbing work of fiction given its content. It is dark, and it centers upon two...
All conventional norms established by members of society have a specific purpose and a prevailing ideology as a basis. Generally, rules are created by a hierarchical elite based on an ideology that is either initially shared by the majority as in Orwell’s Animal Farm or eventually imposed on it as...
Word and language act as essential criteria for human self-awareness and self-identification. The word as the main character is a feature of postmodern prose; it not only reflects reality but also creates it, causing it to be discursive practices. This feature also applies fully to the work of the famous...
Introduction The book All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is about Marshall Berman’s views on the relationship between different manifestations of modernity, and the concept of modernism as an approach to understanding the world. This academic text talks about the changes that the world is constantly experiencing and the...
Introduction Gerald Graff is a specialist in English language studies and a researcher in the sphere of education. He wrote more than five books covering controversial and complicated topics, such as conflicts between a pupil and a teacher, the problem of diversification of cultural backgrounds, and the negative consequences of...
Annotation The writer speaks of a force that has tried to limit her ability to write in prose and compares this to a time when she was young and they tried to lock her up in a closet in a bid to silence her and make her still. She goes...
The majority of people view other cultures from the perspective of their own one, which can partially be referred to as ethnocentrism. When it comes to such cultures as the Lebanese one, ethnocentrism is peculiar to almost all the people who regard modern society as equal and non-discriminatory. Sitt Marie...
“…Also Belmonte imposed conditions and insisted that his bulls should not be too large, nor too dangerously armed with horns, and so the element that was necessary to give the sensation of the tragedy was not there, and the public, who wanted three times as much from Belmonte, who was...
Introduction Death is like a change, it is inevitable, and however much people can avoid it, they must encounter it at all costs. Religious teachings are dominated by the issue of life after death, a life that theoretically stands out to be better than the current but ironically, though, all...
Introduction Ever since Freud’s methodology of psychoanalysis has gained an academic validity, during the first part of twentieth century, it became possible for psychiatrists to get an insight onto the actual roots of their clients’ mental anxieties, which were revealed as such that reside deep in people’s subconsciousness. In its...
The poem dramatizes the conflict between nature and the worldly activities, Frost places emphasis on natural things and reinforces his point that natural things are much better and beautiful than the worldly things. The poem is extremely well written and it is written in monosyllables throughout. Lines like “My little...
Sylvia Plath’s biography provides several important clues as to the meaning of this poem. As a teenager she seemed perfect in every way, blonde, beautiful, intelligent and talented. After attending Smith College she studied at Cambridge, married the poet Ted Hughes and returned to the United States to teach at...
The romanticism of wandering, freedom, and estrangement from social norms attracted a number of authors; and this cohort of writers who extolled vagrancy includes Mark Twain with his “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. A number of critics and experts refer to the specified piece of literature as a picaresque novel1, or...
Gossips existed in all societies beginning from prehistoric, probably because of the curiosity inherent to each human being. If directed constructively, curiosity can bring positive results such as professional excellence and expertise, whereas the consequences of excessive interest in others’ personal life are hardly predictable, and the only stable tendency...
When asking about the factors that form one’s personality, people will mostly respond by referring to certain events and persons who made the biggest influence in their lives. Definitely, there are major events that made people’s lives turn in a certain manner. Nevertheless, it is also true that the small...
“The Great Gatsby” is a novel written by a famous American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. This piece of literature is believed to be a critique of the idea of the American Dream. It is a lyrical image of American lifestyle, values, an extremely romantic practicalness in which people tend to...
In contrast to other characters in The Great Gatsby, Nick goes through a number of changes from the beginning to the end of the novel. The entire novel depicts flashbacks made by Nick in revealing a detailed account of the mysteries surrounding Gatsby. Nick is the character who puts together...
Bruce Chadwick’s book, I am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation is about the murder of George Wythe, who was a noted law professor. Wythe was a towering figure and had pupils such as Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay and James Monroe. He died...
Introduction Literary works dealing with serious subjects such as woman rights, discrimination and oppression can be completely different in genre and style, but nevertheless sharing a mutual theme, each approaching it from a different perspective. In Everyday Use by Alice Walker and A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell,...
In the poem by Anne Sexton When Man Enters Woman the theme of femininity is vividly described throughout its reciprocal attitude toward a male beginning. In this respect, the author implies too intimate a theme into an art form. A woman is intended by “Logos” to be a way for...
In his poem “Ithaka,” Constantine Cavafy encourages his readers to go off on a journey that will last most of their life. In the poem, he talks about how the journey needs to be full of adventure and discovery but he also warns against monsters like Laistrygonians and Cyclops, and...
Ursula K. Le Guin is considered to be an American writer being well known for her outstanding trilogy A Wizard of Earthsea. This book is the depiction of the fantasy world in which the readers are involved through the adventures of Ged, a young wizard. The traveling across the countries...
“Where are you going, where have you been?” is a beautiful story written by Joyce Carol Oates. The author takes the archetypal theme of seduction and then presents it in the way he finds it today, particularly in America. The way she depicts the emotions of a 15 year old...
Introduction Shakespeare is a master craftsman who depicted almost all aspects of human life and psyche in his great tragedies. Hamlet is one of his all-time great tragedies that have a carefully drafted plot, characterization, development of conflicts, dramatic ironies, and a setting conducive to the development of pity and...
Introduction The Death of a Salesman was a tale of broken dreams, aspirations of the characters and unfulfilled promises. The Loman family is portrayed in the play as a dysfunctional family, each member with his or her issues. Willy Loman is sixty-three and nearing retirement, his wife, his two sons,...
Introduction English literature contains wonderful works related to royal families as well as common individuals that teach the readers ethical principles, moral lessons and codes of leading a dignified life on the one hand, and wide-open new horizons of intellect and wisdom to them on the other. The same is...
Introduction The book by Scot Fitzgerald is hailed as a criticism on the period of materialism during the post-war America when people seemed to pursue relaxation and individual satisfaction. It was a time when alcohol was controlled, and through this, a plot was begun: a bootlegger becoming rich in the...
Sublimity Anne Carson, one of the most famous writers and poets of the modern world, is famous for her gift of incorporating different literary styles in her masterpieces. Her works are full of creative inspiration combined with deep analysis of ideas and thoughts expressed by the prominent writers and theorists...
The focal point of the paper is to explain how “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Marquez can be regarded as a biblical allegory and what this reveals about Marquez’s views on religion. For this, the first measure would be to understand the biblical allegory presented in the...
The Taming of the Shrew is a very light-hearted comedy written by William Shakespeare. It depicts the social attitudes to the institution of marriage as was in existence during the Elizabethan days. The theme of the play can be approached from several angles, but at the surface level, it is...
“Luis J. Rodriguez is a singular act in contemporary American literature. Poet, publisher, essayist, fiction and film writer, music producer, children’s author and youth advocate” in the autobiographical narrative Always Running La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L. A. gives a complete picture about his early life. (Jeff Biggers, Compassion...
“The Philosopher” by Sherwood Anderson is constructed to portray a certain multitude of paradoxical and unexpected contradictions as well implicitly as explicitly. This story has the ironic contrasts that illustrate the various emotions which are introduced by the philosopher – Doctor Parcival. That is why I would like to analyze...
Gulliver’s Travels is the novel that became extremely fashionable as soon as it was issued (John Gay said in a 1726 letter to Swift that “it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery”), and it is probable that it has never been out of print since then....
Introduction The novel All quite on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was one of the first novels in modern European literature to present another side of the war which was rarely disclosed earlier in literature. Earlier war was mostly presented as a heroic glorious and patriotic event, described...
“A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen is one of the most influential plays of Victorian times which not only opened new dimensions to the English Drama but also left an indelible impact on the future writers and dramatists at large. The theme of the play seems to revolt against the...
Introduction Slavery and economics always go hand-in-hand. The state of currency, machinery, and capital which form the basis of economics determine the need of society in slavery as an economic force. Once more efficient means of them are covered, slavery loses its usefulness. Numerous historical examples show that slavery as...
The play, A Doll’s House by Henrik Johan Ibsen is one of the few literary works that openly fought for the rights of women in the 19th century at the time, when women were still considered inferior to men, especially in a family setting and in the corporate world (Farfan...
Introduction Geoffrey Chaucer and Jane Austen belong to two different remarkable periods in English Literature. Chaucer was born in 1334 and Austen in 1775. The birth of the English language and literature in the fourteenth century provided a proper atmosphere in England for the growth of new trends and tendencies...
Introduction This essay will compare and contrast two classic American short stories. The comparison will take the point-by-point approach where one idea will be discussed fully before moving on to the next idea. The two stories that will be analyzed are “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which was...
It is not a rare occasion that authors include some details from their personal life in their works. Sometimes, they explicitly remark that a book or a story is autobiographic. In other cases, writers entitle their characters with some features pertaining to themselves. Finally, there are also situations when nothing...
Billy Collin’s poem The First Dream is clearly an expression of the feeling one has when one tries to explain an abstract experience. In Collin’s case, the abstract experience is a dream. Arguably, people tend to distance themselves from mystery as human beings tend to prefer real-world occurrences that can...
Different cultures and eras have their own perceptions of love that they eloquently communicated through various creations of literature, including poetry, epos, and philosophical pieces. Symposium by Plato is remarkable in this regard because concepts recorded in this work can be traced in multiple poems composed in distinct regions, centuries...
Introduction Literature as art aims at retrieving readers’ emotions by conveying accurately created characters, plots, and symbols. In such a way, those who read a literary work obtain an opportunity not only to receive information but also to relive it through the author’s experience. In its essence, therefore, literature cannot...
Introduction Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” is a short story about an elderly woman of African-American origin, named Phoenix, who rushes to a city to buy medications for her grandson. The work portrays the protagonist’s pain, sacrifice, commitment, selflessness, and devotion, as, during the trip, she was struggling to get...
Children learn about morality while being educated by their parents and teachers in the contexts of certain communities and cultures. Depending on what they see and perceive as ethical and normal, children form their own views and behavior. In her short story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson discusses numerous provocative themes...
In the tragedy, Oedipus the King, the writer Sophocles poses one of the most important issues of his time — the will of the gods and the free will of humans. The mythology served as the basis for ancient poetry, especially for tragedy written by Sophocles. The writer used the...
The end of the Victorian era may be viewed as a period when the movement for female equality gathered momentum. Before that, women enjoyed much fewer rights than men and occupied a lower, subordinate position in society. However, throughout the 19th century, many females aimed to oppose the established situation,...
Introduction All that travelers knew, was that the Emerald Forest was about 350 kilometers north of Prague. Pilgrims from all across the world, who were lucky enough to hear of that magical place made sure to invest all their efforts and pay that forest a visit. Many folks would hear...
Reading short stories introduces multiple opportunities for people to meet new characters, learn their lives, and get several important lessons. Each story is a piece of human life with its strong and weak aspects, and it is the decision of a reader on how to use this information. There are...
The age of the characters Overall, I began to suspect that Jack and Hope could be elderly people when the author mentioned that in the past these characters were married to other people long time ago. In particular, the narrator says that Hope was a widow, while Jack had divorced...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of irony as a literary device was not an afterthought. Writers use irony in the same way that a chef utilizes a certain type of ingredient to add flavor or character to the prepared dish. However, Hawthorne’s case, it is a mistake to perceive the use of...
Introduction “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor in 1953 and is mostly known for its controversial and grim ending. O’Connor, being a Southerner, has been mostly using a Southern Gothic style in her writings; this genre is usually referred to as...
Introduction Misha Glenny’s, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War is a book that gives an account of the events that led to the Yugoslavian conflict. In the book, Glenny gives a detailed account of his interaction with the Balkans and this provides a basis for understanding the origin...
Behind the Writing: Reading the Author’s Mind There comes a time when a person needs to have a place where he or she belongs. When one knows that there is a safe place worth being called home, no matter how far this place might be, one starts feeling somewhat relieved....
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...
Introduction There is growing recognition today of the importance of cultural differences in many spheres of life, including health care. Anne Fadiman wrote a nonfiction book entitled The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which is the story of a young Hmong girl named Lia Lee who had epilepsy....
Introduction J. M. Coetzee is an author of a well-known novel that impressed the public at the end of the 20th century and is still often discussed. Disgrace was positively perceived by critics who appreciated the author’s desire to make the society question the morality of their actions. The novel...
Critical Observations Asked about the barbarians and why they seemed disgruntled, the following was Colonel Joll’s response: I will say nothing of the recent raids carried out on them, quite without justification, and followed by acts of wanton cruelty, since the security of the Empire was at stake, or so...
Introduction The stories by Phillip K. Dick have the philosophical background. Imposter is one of Dick’s works. Although it is written in the genre of fiction and narrates about the imaginary future, its plot shares the common themes with the philosophical teachings of Plato, the Ancient Greek philosopher. The second...
The poem “Motives and Thoughts” by Lauren Hill, discloses a distinctive way of life in many societies at present. It is evident that corruption is a significant meaning of the poem. The poet explains that corruption is a vice with deep roots in every human life, “While vice and corruption...
Captain Nemo is a sea researcher, inventor, and owner of the “Nautilus” submarine. This character is the embodiment of a true hero, courageous, decisive, and fair. Aronnax, a French naturalist, is a participant of the marine expedition organized for the capture or destruction of an unknown creature of gigantic proportions...
A short story The Secret Miracle by Jorge Luis Borges is written in the genre of magic realism and contains such characteristics of this genre as a mix of unreal events and reality and emphasis of mystery that can be found in usual life. Being in jail, Jaromir faces the...
One of the major themes of the famous play Antigone by Sophocles is the sense of justice. It is possible to note that the play focuses on such moral issue as true justice. Antigone is the agent of morality in the play as she tries to make the things right...
In Hawthorne’s stories, men of supposed decency sometimes do very unpleasant things, and these often affect the women in their lives. The gentlemen in these tales demonstrate is a willingness to take risks with or abuse the good will of women that today would be considered thoughtless at best, or...
Introduction The theory of evolution according to which humans descend from animals and inherit their key traits was first introduced by the English naturalist Charles Darwin and was met with a mixed response from the public. Since then, numerous debates have been rising around the problem of people and animals...
Unca Eliza Winkfield wrote The Female American in 1767 as a religious memoir modelled after Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Just like Robinson Crusoe, despite being a work of fiction, there is a series of references to factual historical events meant to create an illusion of reality. From a non-critical perspective,...
Introduction The two stories, The Story of an Hour and The Storm by Kate Chopin, are the representatives of the American literature of the XIX century. The author of the stories touched upon the problem of family relationships in her works. Thesis statement: Love, faithfulness, and the relationships between husband...
Introduction Disgrace was written by Nobel-prize winning author John Maxwell Coetzee. The novelist was born in South Africa and has gained fame thanks to the serious subject matter of his works. There are different views on the central idea of Disgrace, and the ethics of the characters are often questionable...
Summary James Joyce’s story in Araby was written in 1914. The story sketches the glamor of new love and the end of innocence throughout the story. The story is narrated in first person. The boy, the narrator, is mocked by mere narcissism. Thus, he comes to the realization that what...
Nathanael West’s novel, The Day of the Locust, depicts the story of the lives of people who live in the fantasies of their dreams. They dream of a life full of luxury with lots of money to crown their happiness, yet such a life seems unachievable. This creates a phenomenon...
The Homeric worldview resembles the orthodox Greek perspective (Cunningham & Reich 39). The Homeric conception of the world characterized a flat and rounded disk of land enclosed by an endless ocean stream. Based on the above representation, it was believed that the earth’s plateau was amid Oceanus. The sun, the...
In literature, a hero is a type of character who shows courage and ability to endure dangerous or difficult situations or sacrifice themselves for the sake of the greater good. Heroes often perform feats and brave deeds and usually act according to their strong beliefs. Rayhanova (2006) explains that these...
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (1894) uses key literary elements and symbols to provide insights into life and death, marriage, and other topics. This is the story of a woman who, when she believes her husband is dead, seems more vibrant than ever and passes away upon...
Although Ray Bradbury has created many engaging narratives, a particularly intriguing text written by the author is There Will Come Soft Rains. The story concentrates on a house that, hour by hour, performs various duties to serve its inhabitants (Bradbury, n.d.). Nonetheless, the reader gradually realizes that there are no...
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is feminist and tragic. At the same time, the story is very unpredictable for both the reader and the characters. The author recounts one hour in the life of Louise Mallard after she learns of the death of her husband, Brently Mallard. Thus,...
Introduction Satire is a literary technique that considers the use of any genre and combines sharp humor and critique of a subject to improve its meaning, making authors like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope use satire due to many societal problems. By deftly critiquing and making light of society’s concerns,...
In her poem “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid explores a mother’s struggle to explain to her child the place of women in the social structure. The author’s aims are clear from her feminist actions, her relations with her family, and the poem’s format. This short fiction aims to demonstrate how women support...
The twenty-line poem “The Pulley” by George Herbert serves as a spiritual parable that describes how man was created by combining the Book of Genesis with the story of “Pandora’s Box” with the composition of the pulley. The underlying theme might be summed up by saying that humankind’s restlessness draws...
Another win by Squeaky in the fifty-yard run is the climactic and conclusive story element in Raymond’s run. However, this event is not central to the story; it is not what all the premises and descriptions were about. The core element of this short story is that the heroine, for...
Interpretation of the poem line-by-line Did you hear.. Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? – Here, the author appeals to the reader or listener, stating that the rose that grew through concrete is a legendary story that is likely to be around like...
Angelou’s poem, Still, I rise, incorporates figurative language in stanza five. The speaker uses metaphor in the first and second lines of stanza five to express her view and emotions toward racists. “… shoot me with your words” Angelou (line 21) and “you may cut me with your eyes…” Angelou...
Gwendolyn Brooks represents one of the most prominent African American poetic voices of the 20th century. Her works reflect the complexity of the sociocultural environment of the mid-20th-century American community, particularly, the Civil Rights movement and the associated struggles of African American people (Hayes, 2019). Although “We Real Cool,” Sadie...
Introduction The wolf in sheep’s clothing is a traditional trope born from the same-named fable that teaches that appearances can be deceiving. The fable tells the story of a wolf wearing a sheep’s skin to blend with the rest of the sheep and lure an innocent lamb to make a...
Language is a unique phenomenon the role of which is often underrated within modern society. Comprising a myriad of concepts, ideas, and notions, language serves both as the means of communicating essential information and expressing oneself artistically. Moreover, language in its every iteration allows one to develop cognitively and emotionally,...
Introduction The study of the literature of the past centuries is of particular value as it provides an understanding of how their thought represented itself in earlier times. Moreover, this process provides a unique insight into how people perceived the world and what morals and attitudes to culture and religion...
Introduction Susan Glaspell’s Trifles reveals the struggles of women in the society of the early twentieth century. The author’s presentation of genders and their expected behaviors sheds light on the oppressive nature of marital relationships. This paper will discuss the gender roles and the oppression of women in Glaspell’s Trifles....
Langston Hughes was a crucial figure in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, which blossomed black intellectual, literary, and creative life in several American cities, particularly Harlem. In the times of the Spanish Civil War, he was a press correspondent. This encounter made a mark on his writing, particularly in his poetry,...
Abstract This essay focuses on Alcott’s Little Women as a feminist novel and explores the representations of feminism in the text. In that, my exploration is on three areas to showcase Alcott’s feminism in the novel. First, I argue Little Women is a novel that presents writing as a feminist...
The assigned literary device is called epistolary, and the Literary Devices website defines it as follows “Epistolary is a literary genre pertaining to letters” (LiteraryDevices Editors, 2014). So, the use of the literary device contains a wide range of works from journals and newspapers, meaning the genre can be observed...
The novel “The yellow paper” discusses the limitations imposed on women by society and domestic life and shows what impact these limitations may have on a person’s psyche. From a psychological point of view, doing nothing can lead to all kinds of psychological deviations as the desire for self-realization is...
Introduction Novels reflect real life and integrate different aspects of human development through figurative language that reflects human development. This paper focuses on the story I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou in general and Maya’s character in particular. Maya is the narrator and the main character...
Introduction Most storylines require a villain or, at the very least, an antihero. Shakespeare’s plays are a case in point in this regard. The plot is typically advanced by the antagonists, who pave the way for the protagonists to either succeed or fail. In Othello, Iago is the villain who...
Ernest Hemingway recounts to the readers of The Old Man and the Sea a story about an older man named Santiago who loves his life as a fisherman, although he lives in terrible poverty. The novel’s main event is Santiago’s lengthy fishing trip, during which he reels in one of...
One of the most well-known pieces of classical literature is Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour. One of the most evident historical observances that could be made about the story is the telegraph, which plays a great role in the plot as well (Chopin). It is possible to interpret...
This study explores how binary oppositions in the personality of Jo March, depicted in Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, deconstruct the character’s writing adventure. This research uses deconstructive criticism to examine Josephine’s material conditions, other characters’ responses to the girl’s writing, and her attitude towards other characters’ stereotypical gender...
The use of water in the three novels Roumain’s “Masters of the Dew,” Danticat’s “Krik? Krak!” and Paul’s “Praise Song for the Widow” has a symbolic meaning. The main innovation of the writers is the image symbol which replaces the traditional artistic image. The early forms of poetry and visual...
Family is among the most important elements of a person’s life. From one’s birth to the time a person chooses to have their own children, family support and connection help one get through difficulties. However, in some cases, dysfunctional relationships or problems of one family member can burden the others....
Introduction While discrimination occurs in Palestine against women due to their weak state in a patriarchal culture, it also happens in Tanzania to people with albinism in ordinary people’s culture. The story of the albinism nature of Yona makes him weak in a community with ordinary people, a similar weakness...
Joan Didion’s “Goodbye to All That” is a remarkable story about the author’s life in New York City, written in 1967. This essay is about a life of a woman in her early twenties who dreamed about living in a big city. However, after she moved there and experienced this...
Introduction The poem Caged Bird written by Maya Angelou follows the same theme as Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Sympathy. Thus, both poems focus on the theme of freedom through the perspective of a caged bird. However, despite using similar imagery of the bird in the cage, the poems can leave a...
Introduction Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House follows the life of Norah and her attempts to guard the secret about a debt that she took to save the life of her husband, Torvald. On the other hand, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” follows the story of a narrator suffering from...
In the play, Death of a Salesperson, a middle-class salesman, known as Loman, is the focus of a tragic story. Loman, his wife Linda, and their other two kids, Happy and Biff, resided in an ancient house in the city. The story goes into depth of the protagonist’s demise and...
The Cask of Amontillado is a story that combines horror and humor. The author does that in order to make the story not so horrific for the reader, as the comic effect Poe creates throughout the story alleviates the terror of Fortunato’s death. The humor typical of The Cask of...
Introduction As a form of poetry, the sonnet is characterized by strict rules related to the external structure and the internal alignment of the ideas and themes developed according to structural changes. William Shakespeare was one of the poets who made sonnets popular and widely referred to in literature. The...
Those who read The Kite Runner expected from the author another inspiring story about male friendship but received a heartbreaking novel about the women of Afghanistan. Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns was first published in 2007 and immediately received positive feedback (Dhakal 229). The story represents the period from...
In human life, lies are found in various forms and for many reasons. However, often, if not always, deceiving other people leads to lying to oneself. Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” tells about the senselessness of the pursuit of pretentiousness and brilliance of high society, which can turn out to...
The novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson explores the duality of the human soul. Dr. Jekyll is one of the clearest literary examples of multiple personality disorder. The author gives direct hints that duality is inherent in every person, and it depends only...
Introduction The story of Lispector’s main character, Macabea, is told through an additional perspective of the sophisticated S.M. Rodrigo. The contrasting viewpoints on life and principal values consequently provide alternative realities for the reader. Most importantly, the narrator’s judgment and telling of Macabea’s story contribute to the development of a...
Like many other sonnets by William Shakespeare, sonnet number 116 has no title of its own and is named after the first line: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds.” This sonnet rejects the theme of love, which is regularly encountered in the works of the author. In...
“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. While reading it, I did not see any signs of difficult language or complex structure. One might imply that it is relatively easy to read then. However, this is when the story’s comprehension comes to mind. Psychedelic in...
Depictions of imaginary ideal societies, as well as the critiques thereof, are a popular genre and staple of world culture, including literature. One may reasonably argue that the difference between utopia and dystopia is in the eye of the beholder, as it ultimately depends on one’s ideas of a perfect...
Introduction August Wilson was a famous American playwright who is widely known for the cycle of ten plays that is titled Pittsburgh Cycle. They are devoted to the problems, struggles and hopes of African-American people in the USA, who were severely humiliated in the 20th century. For instance, the play...
In his short stories, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses the treatment of strangers to highlight how many characters are treated solely based on their physical appearance, even if we never learn their natural characteristics. A charming man forms the short story The most handsome drowned man in the world, but we...
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...
Written stories have been the source of public entertainment for as long as the very concept of written language has existed. However, as the pace of global community development increases, the fascination with novels and other long-form storytelling types seems to have been subsiding. Due to the increased time pressure,...
Katherine Mansfield Murry is regarded as one of the eminent New Zealand writers. She was born on the 14th day of October 1888 in the middle class of the colonial family. She wrote several short tales, narratives, and poems under the name Katherine Mansfield. In 1898, the First Mansfield Printed...
Summary Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is one of the most well-known and culturally significant short stories in the history of American literature. It provides an insightful and horrifying look at the comfort people take in passively accepting horrifying events as long as they are part of the accepted stability. Set...
The diversity of the Islamic culture is vividly depicted in many literary works. An incomparable embedding into Islamic heritage is presented in the Thousand and One Nights tales, also known as Arabic Nights, which have stirred the imagination of generations around the world for centuries. The account comprises 250 short...
The Canterbury Tales is an unfinished work on which author Jeffrey Chaucer worked until his death. The Canterbury Tales is composed of some passages which are sometimes controversial. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that the text is divided into ten fragments, the first of which begins with the General Prologue,...
Balzac’s short tale “The Unknown Masterpiece” contains several allusions to art. Porbus and Frenhofer have rationally presented two diametrically opposed concepts in the most aesthetically reflective manner imaginable. The two facets of an artist’s existence are depicted, namely love and art. Thus, this conflict is exemplified in the novel Gillette,...
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...
Brother, I’m Dying, a memoir by a famous Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat, first published in 2007, is an outstanding literary work that pushes the boundaries of the genre. The author skillfully applies various elements of the memoir, conveying the life story of her family emotionally and consistently, alternating the course...
Mary Romero’s Life as the Maid’s Daughter is an essential piece of literature highlighting the differences between white upper-middle-class and Mexican working-class societies. The research was assisted by private household workers of color, sharing their experiences and struggles. The narrative follows Teresa’s life, a live-in maid’s daughter, exploring the constant...
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...
Often children respect and honor their parents even after they have passed. In many movies, for instance, Disney movies, a child’s motivation is a result of their parent(s) passing and that becomes their new reason to keep them going. Another example of this is when a child grows up with...
Introduction William Blake’s poem Tyger is one of the most remarkable literary examples of animal imaginary-heavy works that touch on the topics of imagination, religion, and life’s purpose. It remains one of the most famous works in the entire bibliography of the poet, and consecutively has been a subject to...
The civilization of Ancient Greece marks one of the most important chapters in the history of the world. This period has provided humanity with an array of important achievements, including the principles of democracy, theater, art, and sciences. These accomplishments have had an immense impact on the development of the...
Thesis John Updike uses language as far more than a narrational or beautifying tool in his short story “A&P”; instead, he employs linguistic tools such as metaphors and colloquialism to enrich his characters and provide a riveting analysis of the many social trends at war in 1960s America. Introduction John...
Introduction Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is considered one of literature’s most complex and intriguing characters. The depths of his emotion, the impact of psychological trauma, and the everbearing moral conflict within him contribute to a seemingly erratic but also highly philosophical character. In finishing Act one of the drama,...
As material aimed at some of the most vulnerable and impressionable members of society, children’s literature has long been a subject of controversy, both at the time of its release and historically. Contents and permissible topics within the field change depending on both the time period and cultural characteristics of...
Introduction Literature has existed for centuries, teaching, admonishing, and highlighting social issues. Every piece of literature is unique, from the source to the intended message to the audience. In every case, authors are motivated to compose their works by several circumstances and life experiences. Although some authors may not directly...
Introduction Literature is a great device to explore a variety of themes, ideas, and theories, as it allows people to exercise the creative freedom of expression. Writing is a medium that allows individuals to channel their ideals, beliefs into words, inspire others, and relay messages they consider to be important....
Nightwood is a well-known novel by Djuna Barnes, who had to spend time in Paris in the 1930s living with lesbians to develop the novel’s content. Nightwood was published in 1936, but it took a long time to be regarded as her literary masterpiece. Her book has been considered one...
The story of “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan narrates about a Chinese girl who finds it hard to recognize her identity, who is in disagreement with her mother who believes that she can achieve great things in the USA. Her mother motivates her to be a musical expert, to challenge...
Introduction People normally experience crises, problems, losses, adversity, trauma, and other challenges at some point in life. However, there is always the possibility of recovering and return back to the previous position. Resilience is the capacity to recover from difficult or challenging life events and is considered an important characteristic...
Traditions arise due to the accumulation of experience of generations and people’s interpretation of any events in the world. Traditions are a part of the culture and allow the preservation of language, foundations, and nationalities. However, traditions can harm the life and formation of a society. In The Lottery, Shirley...
Starting as a rather serene and slow-paced story, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” gradually spirals into a rather frantic pace with a blood-curdling revelation at the end. Apart from an unexpected and frankly horrifying twist, “the Lottery” incorporates believable and relatable characters and a rather peculiar plot. However, its themes are...
Frankenstein is one of the greatest books of the nineteenth century that remains relevant today. Shelley explores many topics in her work that reflect social and philosophical aspects. In particular, the work refers to the problems of opposing nature and humanity, as well as the issues of ambition and blind...
Margaret Atwood set her novel The Handmaid’s Tale in Massachusetts due to its symbolic meaning. Throughout the novel, the evidence point to the Cambridge town as the center of Gilead’s power. In 17th century, Cambridge, Boston, and Massachusetts comprised the essence of the American society’s intolerance and fierce religiousness due...
Introduction Rudy Wiebe’s short story Where is the voice coming from? Focuses on life events of indigenous people and early white settlers. Wiebe’s work explores the conflict between Almighty voice and the Mounted Police and questions the aspects of reality in traditional indigenous stories (1974). The author examines how events...
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman is not simply a story of a particular unfortunate female but a depiction of what can happen to anyone who lives in isolation and faces oppression. I share Moore’s view that the image of the woman is collective, for which reason she actually remains...
The literary world experienced many challenges, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, many voices were suppressed. Majorly, the male sentiments found their way into the mainstream due to the societal values that exalted men and despised women’s efforts (Luken 2). Educated males dominated the world of literature depicting the...
