5539 samples of this type
From ancient history to modern days, people have worshipped heroes. Whether they were living or dead, fictional or real, those extraordinary individuals inspired others to be better. In A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines explores the theme of heroes in a seemingly brief, but significant way. The novel’s plot...
Introduction The short story titled “Everyday Use” is written by Alice Walker. “Everyday Use” portrays the different understanding of African-American history. For some, it is a part of their daily lives, while for others – something they learn about from books and college lectures. The three main characters – Mama,...
Poems “We Old Dudes” by Joan Murray and “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks are going to be the primary focus of this essay. It might be easy to draw comparisons between the pieces as the poem by Murray derives its leading themes and literary elements from “We Real Cool.”...
“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is a philosophical short story that deserves the public’s attention. In her work, Le Guin describes a utopian city in which all people are happy, but their happiness rests on the misery and suffering of one child. The short story is filled with...
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,...
Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” starts jovial and seemingly happy, with the population of a village gathering for the titular event. The event is annual, and the name describes it accurately, with it consisting of the drawing of lots by every resident of the town. However, as the process...
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...
A Worn Path is a short story laden with meaning and symbolism wrote by Eudora Welty. The narrative is about an old African American woman, Phoenix Johnson, walking a familiar path in the rural areas of Natchez, Mississippi, seeking to get medicine for her ailing grandson. The story is written...
Class Time Cruelty from one party spreads it to others where there are no alternatives left. Such was the case demonstrated in George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” where the main topic of discussion is the author’s inner conflict of serving the British Empire, which he despised with all of his...
Introduction The two stories created by Amy Tan and Alice Walker depict the similar paths of girls that explore their heritage. Both characters have their concerns regarding the history of their families that are initiated from different parts of the world. Girls go through the process of evaluation of their...
In his famous play Fences, August Wilson reveals one of the central themes that were of great importance for African American citizens in the 1950s, and during the whole history of the country as well – the theme of racial discrimination. The short story Girl by Jamaica Kincaid also touches...
Introduction Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman were both American poets during the 19th century. The end of both the First and Second World Wars resulted in civilization BUT for individuals who had been brought up in the previous century, they seemed to get lost and confused with this so-called civilization...
Introduction Jonathan Swift’s political satire, A Modest Proposal, introduces an extreme and appalling plan for reducing the financial burden Irish children had upon their poor families and society as a whole. There is much criticism in this political satire that is directed toward the landlords, government, and wealthy citizens of...
The “Mother to Son” poem written by Langston Hughes depicts a mother who tells her about difficulties she encountered in her life and continues to overcome them. Based on the example with a stair, the woman emphasizes that her life was not a crystal stair, which means that she had...
Although there were numerous prerequisites and indications of a military crisis approaching the world in the early 1910s, World War I swept the humankind into massive bloodshed and introduced it to chaos. “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway deserves to be titled as the most prominent of prose pieces...
The book ‘Montana 1948’ reflects themes of; the importance of family, loyalty, guilt, law, and order, and justice. The book is told from a third-person perspective of David Hayden, who recaps the events of his childhood Bentock, Montana in the summer of 1948. The issue of identity and decision-making are...
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...
Introduction Majority of the modern poets are tend to express things with a negative tint, just differ from the traditional style of writing poetry. The modern poet T.S Eliot is notable for using the same and his great epic, ‘The Waste Land’ exemplifies it. The very opening line of the...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle-English alliterative romance that outlines the adventures of Sir Gawain. He and other characters are being guided by the code of chivalry which shapes the values described in the poem. All of the most important human virtues are depicted in the poem,...
The Invisible Heart: By Robert Russel The book combines fiction and economic realities found within society. It combines Romance and ideas of economics. The author uses the book to radiate economic polemic in the form of an imaginary tale. The whole book is about a romance story that is intertwined...
Introduction The poem has been written in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, fashioned on the lines of Italian poetic traditions, influenced in its form and meter by the work of Petrarch – one of the famous Italian poets of the early renaissance era. Like a classical Petrarchan sonnet, it...
Values are actions that society universally qualifies as good; therefore, the wider community sets them as their goals in life. The play revolves around Atreus’s house in which it seemed there was a revenge cycle. Haunting in the Atreus house by ancient crimes began with the patriarch, Pelops. Atreus invited...
As the title shows, “The Red Convertible” is the main fulcrum of the story and the entire plot is built around it. It is used as a symbol of happiness with its color ‘red’ denoting passion and life. At the beginning of the story, the car belongs to both Lyman...
In the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, there is a long discussion of vernacular, The Vernacular Tradition, and how it impacts the meaning and our understanding of the meaning in African American literature, particularly the blues. The article begins with, “In African American literature, the vernacular refers to the...
Introduction Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960 and adapted for the cinema in 1962, is set in Maycomb, a small Alabama town, in the middle of the Great Depression. The story is told by Scout looking back at the time when she was the six-year old daughter...
“The Diamond Necklace”, by Guy de Maupassant, is one of the best short stories ever written. Taking an inanimate object, the necklace, Maupassant weaves around it human dreams and desires and then contrasts them too hard realities. He takes a beautiful woman as the central character of his story to...
Introduction The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was published in 1989 and is one of the most wonderful books that I have ever come across in my life. It is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. This book has allowed me to look into myself and bring...
Introduction A Rose for Emily is one of the shortest stories by William Faulkner and it tells the tale of a woman named Miss Emily Grierson living in the southern parts of the country with its depleting social structure. The author narrates his story from the point of view of...
The play A Doll’s House has several instances of restrictions in life that mainly applied to women who lived in the 1870s. Ibsen demonstrates specific gender roles and tags to his advantage to show the distinction between absolute and conditional love. In his imagination, Ibsen combined with the drama the...
It is undeniable that life for women during the Victorian period was very different from life for women living today. With the growth of the Industrial Revolution, women were able to find more opportunities to support themselves without remaining dependent on men, particularly within the cities. However, success was not...
The literature inheritance leaves many works that reflect the history and culture of people that lived in that period. While studying the cultural and social conditions we come across some peculiar feature of each peoples and subconsciously identify them with new character traits of the modernized society. In that regard,...
Introduction In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, we see a devastating portrait of a man, Willy Loman, consumed by the wrong dream. For him, the “American Dream” is the pursuit of material wealth as “the whole reason for being.” His obsession is to become a great salesman. This obsession...
Every literary genre is unique and marvelous in its way, but the genre of drama stands apart from other genres of literature, as it possesses certain features that are characteristic for it only. These characteristic features of drama will be analyzed in this work using the example of an outstanding...
Hesiod’s writings are known for discussing universal truths, such as law and justice. One of such works is Works and Days which expresses the idea that labor is an essential part of human beings’ lives, and if they are diligent enough, they will be able to handle even the hardest...
The book ‘Further Along the Road Less Travelled’ written by Scott Peck is considered to be a real masterpiece of world literature; the author managed to contribute to the disclosure of personal psychological and spiritual growth to be reached by everyone in life. It is necessary to underline the fact...
Culture is the phenomenon that differs human beings from all other animal species in the world. However, culture is also a matter of prejudice and streotype formation against this or that nation or ethnic group. Accordingly, this paper will examine the issues of cultural differences and stereotypes discussed in the...
The Glass Menagerie is described as more of a memory play which is how Tennessee Williams has portrayed. His directions in the play have gone into great details in explaining the settings and the moods he desired for the play. It is a little unusual for a playwright such as...
Introduction While analyzing any work of literature, especially prose, it is of the crucial importance to give extra attention to the role of the narrator, because, the reader perceives the events through the eyes of this person. As a rule literary critics single out several types of story telling, like...
The history of writing this poem is not widely known, but it is stated, that it was written in the surroundings of the Egyptian oasis, as such clear and detailed images of the scenery may be attained only after immersion into the atmosphere of the Egyptian surrounding and feel the...
The role of women in the ancient world is generally accepted to be that of possession and house-servant, mother and decorative status symbol, but not human, not thinking and not individual enough to act upon her own volition. This impression comes from a long line of ancient texts and documents...
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 problem of faith is a rather controversial one. Different people have different views on what faith is. Some consider it to be a code of moral principles without which one cannot exist; others find faith a human’s failure to explain the life around. As long as humanity goes...
It is very hard for any reader of Toni Morrison to escape her ‘black magic’. The reason is that this great Afro American writer speaks through history and ages in a language that is dipped in the dual hues of pain and poetry both. The two hundred years of horrid...
Literature is rather a particular topic to write on because it presupposes that the person who writes on it has a profound knowledge not only of the topic he or she deals with but also has a great amount of background knowledge of a certain country’s history, culture customs, and...
Homer’s Iliad is somewhat unique among the ancient tales because of its tendency to include human features in its heroes. Although it displays the same sort of adherence to the early ‘heroic code’, the heroes in this tale retain many of their human frailties and concerns. Each character displays a...
Pride and Prejudice: Reaction Paper Introduction Jane Austen is one of the most classical female authors in the Western literary canon, most famously known for her famous novel Pride and Prejudice. Originally published in 1813, this novel defines classic Regency fiction and is attributed to being a novel of manners,...
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...
The Iliad belongs to a number of the most famous ancient poems devoted to conflicts between states. Numerous references present the work’s characteristics, making it a popular research subject in cultural studies to Greek legends. Among the codes that are related to the events described in the Iliad, there is...
Not once in my life, I was puzzled by the question: Where is the borderline between the reality we live in and the imagined world that this way or another we create every new minute of our life? The borderline is indeed rather fragile and the mystery of its existence...
Introduction Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an Italian poet famous for his Divine Comedy, which is regarded as the most prominent literary work ever written in Italian. The sonnet “All My Thoughts” is a part of the acclaimed narrative poem. The very title of the sonnet resorts to the readers’ attention...
August Wilson is one of the renowned American playwrights who displayed the complexity of the American society. Fences can be seen as one of his most referenced works that dwell upon the challenges of African Americans’ lives in the USA of the 1950s. The play uncovers the story of the...
Introduction The book comprised O’Doherty’s famous essays “Notes on the Gallery Space,” “The Eye and the Spectator,” and “Context as Content,” published in 1976 in Artforum magazine. It also includes the article “The Gallery as a Gesture,” published ten years later. In these writings, the author explores the social and...
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is one of the brightest examples of how a sophisticated theme can be transferred within only a few pages of a short story. However, this is not the greatest feature of the piece. In “The Lottery,” the use of narrative techniques favored by the writer serves...
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...
A theme that can be linked to The Road Not Taken, Fire and Ice, and Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, is that of choices and consequences. The three poems discuss the different types of choices the author should make, and the possible consequences that...
Introduction The wisdom of classical literary works is a valuable legacy that the authors of past eras left to posterity. The images of many characters, their experiences, thoughts, and actions make one think about the serious aspects of human life and the process of cognition. In order to better understand...
In “Night,” which is a semi-memoir dedicated to Elie Wiesel’s harrowing experiences in concentration camps, the topic of a father-son relationship and its development is very important. Elie, along with other Jewish people of his town, falls victim to the German occupation of Hungary. In 1944, Elie and his family...
Introduction Guy de Maupassant is one of the most prominent writers who enriched French literature with a plethora of brilliant short stories. One of his most famous short stories is built around the main character’s distorted self-identity. This essay will provide a brief summary of The Necklace that will cover...
Fyodor Dostoevsky became a classic of Russian and world literature due to his ability to feel the subtle psychology of broken people, to create them in his works so that they seem frighteningly real. In the novel Crime and Punishment, the author tells readers about the tragic events in the...
Introduction Werewolves are one of the most recognizable types of monsters in modern culture. They are almost constantly featured in both mainstream and niche fiction, and the number of interpretations of the same creature grows every year. While the details of the stories vary, the core idea of a werewolf...
This paper discus Everyman, a morality play performed during the medieval ages. The morality plays are also known as allegory essays and focuses on the behavior of man in earth and life after death. In this play, the main character is Everyman who has been used symbolically to represent the...
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...
Written by James Joyce, Araby is a short story describing young adolescent boys eager to learn about sexual awareness. The narrator who is a young boy falls in love with his neighbor the Mangan’s sister. However, he has poor skills on how to approach a girl and therefore secretly admires...
The tone Christopher Columbus used in his letters to the Queen and King of Spain is very official, professional, optimistic, and positive. Christopher Columbus as a person, who was directly involved in the process of discovering new lands had the best level of education and was very well informed about...
Introduction Herodotus’ Histories, a multi-volume literary composition, is not a historical work in the modern sense of the genre. Describing the events that took place over the course of the Greco-Persian Wars serves as the major theme in the book, yet along the way, the author also creates a thorough...
Introduction Most idealists view war as an ideal concept. Idealists support the concept of sacrificing oneself in order that the entire society may benefit. This implies that those who participate in war become glorified and receives dignity and respect. This situation prevailed even at the commencement of the First World...
Introduction “Brave New World” is a dystopian (or utopian, depending on the reader’s view) science fiction novel that was written by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932 (Atwood par. 2). In this novel, Huxley displays a future based on consumerism, free sex, and drug addiction, which has an unyielding resemblance...
In the ancient Rome, slavery was common, and it was highly significant for the growth of the Roman society and its economy. Apart from participating in manual labor, slaves were also tasked with several other domestic services, with others engaging in skilled professions. However, slaves from Greek were highly educated....
The Tempest is believed to be the last play William Shakespeare wrote alone. It was written at the times when a big part of our world was still unknown and European people were fascinated to discover what is hidden in these mysterious faraway lands and islands. Many different ideas and...
Julio Cortazar together with Borges, Garcia-Marques and Asturias began something that became a great boom or El Boom in Latin American literature. The generation of talented writers and the appearance of magical realism made Latin American literature popular all over the world. In his works Cortazar goes beyond sharply detailed...
Eliezer’s faith in God was something beyond question. He spent time in devotion to God. He frequently prayed to Him and at times he even cried. This was to show how deep his reverence to his creator was. It was made even more evident when Moshe questioned his faith and...
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...
Oedipus Rex is a Greek tragedy play written and directed by Sophocles who lived many centuries ago. The play is a classic master piece of Greek talent in theatre and drama and has generously contributed to modern forms of theatrical arts. The play revolves around the tragic fate of Oedipus...
The story of Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo is about the final day in the life of Eric Packer, a billionaire financial trader. The story is set in 2000 on “A Day in April” as delineated before the beginning of part 1 of the story (DeLillo 3). The novel opens with...
“The picture of Dorian Gray”, it turns out, is not about a picture at all. It is about a book. It is about the transmission of that book into the mind of the protagonist and the destruction that ensues. The picture of Dorian Gray is about the spiritual risks of...
“A Streetcar Named Desire” is one of the most popular plays in the US history. Along with two other plays – “Glass Menagerie” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – it brought its author Tennessee Williams tremendous success and fame. The themes opened in the story help the audience...
‘Modern Chivalry’ is an American novel based on Captain John Farrago, who is portrayed as the American frontier Don Quixote. He departs from Pennsylvania to take a “ride” around the world accompanied by his servant Teague presumably to observe human nature. His comparison to Don Quixote is quite justified given...
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...
Introduction Sometimes, the weight of past mistakes feels too heavy for a single person to endure. Sharon Draper’s fictional novel, Tears of a Tiger, is dedicated to exploring this concept. It is a morbid and tragic story of a young man who ruined his life by making just one poor...
Elie Wiesel is a well known American author of Jewish origin and a Nobel Prize winner. His novel called “Night” is a significant and meaningful work that carries multiple functions. Apart from being an outstanding literary masterpiece, the book has a historical character because it is a reflection of Elie...
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...
Poetry is an effective form of communication. Literature students read and compare poems from different eras in order to understand their similarities and differences. This contributes to the knowledge of an array of issues that exist in societies such as culture, religion, and media. This paper outlines comparative literature of...
The Time Machine is a science fiction story by Herbert George Wells, and it was published in 1895. The story involves fascinating narratives with unparalleled implications on contemporary social concerns, and it gives insight to numerous scientific theories. Wells wrote the novel based on personal social and political views that...
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (henceforth referred to as MND) is one of the most popular Shakespearean comedies, most frequently performed on stage. The play has undergone numerous changes since 1595 when William Shakespeare penned it. The play has been performed on stage as a musical, or ballet, and off course...
Various literary works can be closely examined with the help of feminist interpretation, which lays stress on gender and sexuality. This framework is particularly useful if it is necessary to explore the way in which males and females are portrayed by different authors. This paper is aimed at discussing two...
The first six chapters of the novel by Emily Bronte called “Withering Heights” are designed to present the reader with the set of characters dwelling in a mention called Wuthering Heights. The people living in Wuthering heights are very unusual and the relationships between them are non-typical. For an unfamiliar...
Introduction Written by Ken Kessy, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a masterpiece that relates closely to Kessy’s experiences with mentally sick people. Several themes come out clearly and they expound America’s unrelenting efforts to root out communism and despotism around the globe. For instance, themes of individuation and...
In this The Weary Blues analysis essay, you will find plenty of information about the poem’s literary devices, metaphors, and themes. Check it out and get inspired. The Weary Blues Analysis Essay: Introduction Langston Hughes was an African American born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He started writing early in...
Living in the ‘white’ American society, African Americans experience the consequences of prejudice and discriminating actions not only because of their race but also because of a range of associated factors. Thus, the issues of race discrimination towards African Americans are closely connected with gender and sexual orientation issues. In...
There are many instances portraying goodness in the play “the good person of Setzuan.” One has to say that “goodness” as portrayed in the play is a multifaceted phenomenon. During Wong’s absence, the gods show their fears about the possibility of failing to achieve their mission of finding a good...
Introduction The play begins with Prince Hamlet going back home for his father’s funeral. The prince feels depressed when he finds out that his uncle, Claudius, had already remarried Gertrude, his mother. Claudius immediately becomes the king after the death of King Hamlet, yet Prince Hamlet is the right heir...
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse is a psychological novel as it contains a lot of Freudian and Jungian undercurrents in its theme. One finds the hero Harry Haller trying to cope up with the many sides of his personality. In fact, Haller suffers from a dual personality. Throughout the novel, the...
Introduction Gender norms and expectations have been an acute issue for hundreds of years, with both women and men being limited to the stereotypes as to what they should feel and do. For example, one coming-of-age novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, written by Erika L. Sanchez, explores...
Introduction Ancient Greece is known for its many traditions and norms that have been preserved for millennia, emphasizing the values of family, dignity, and integrity. However, Ancient Greece is additionally known for its literature and well-known plays that carry powerful messages and illuminate themes that are often debated even in...
Introduction What Every Soldier Should Know is a short poem in which Brian Turner explores the problems between soldiers of different cultures and worldviews. He reveals how people’s lives change throughout the war and what consequences can await any soldier or civilian. War invariably ruins many people’s lives, and when...
Introduction Literature conveys various aspects of human life with unwavering precision, allowing us to delve into the world of characters and their personal experiences. One such work is Tony Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, which explores the complex theme of racism, belonging, and self-esteem among African Americans in 20th-century American...
Introduction The discussion in this essay will revolve around the short story, Young Goodman Brownwritten by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Four voices—those of the narrator, author, characters, and readers—dominate the narrative, as is evident from once. These voices besides helping control the events of the story are critical in communicating the author’s...
Introduction Black Boy is one of the most prominent works of Richard Wright. The book is considered a fictional biography because the author, Wright, is both the narrator and the protagonist. The book covers his experiences throughout life, from childhood to adulthood, hence its classification as a biography. The fictional...
Introduction World wars became the reason why a man was considered a savage. My friend’s family still does not live according to the rule of partnership that is promoted and used today but follows the rules of patriarchy. They faced a backlash when their son went to school and started...
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 The story in the book “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker discusses the importance of cultural heritage and identity. In her work, the author talks about the life of a mother and two daughters. They went through a difficult path that separated them, and now they must overcome many difficulties...
Introduction A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most iconic plays. The comedy-drama depicts the adventures of several young lovers and novice performers who fall prey to fairies. Such work has inspired countless adaptations and retellings, each with its unique take on the story. Among the works inspired by...
Introduction Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” scrutinize man’s relationship with divinity but tackle the subject matter from divergent angles. While Shelley highlights the hazards of human beings attempting to play God by exemplifying the character of Victor Frankenstein, Milton argues that humanity’s defiance towards divinity is the...
Introduction Literary works often focus on what kind of a cruel joke life can play on a person. One of those things, that many believe in is a phenomenon of karma. In other words, individuals assume that there is a causal relationship between actions and that for all the wrong...
The central idea of Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”, which is vividly formulated, is a dilemma between loyalty to a blood relative and commitment to justice. Sarti, a little boy, realizes that his father’s actions and behavior are inappropriate, but Sarti’s love for him heavily influences the assessment. However, in this paragraph,...
Among the sonnets that we read this week, William Shakespeare’s Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day was my favorite. First, I enjoyed the poem due to my devotion in reading Shakespeare’s works. Second and most importantly is the poem’s artistic element and theme that represents the stability of...
Monsters are legendary creatures characterized by grotesqueness, supernatural powers, and the desire to bring harm and suffering to people. The main difference between monsters and other mythological creatures lies in the sociological aspect that characterizes them. Monsters are essentially transgressive, that is, they violate traditional ideas and social norms. Monsters...
Introduction Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a semi-autobiographical novella by Katherine Anne Porter that chronicles the story of a young woman, Miranda, who survives the 1918 influenza epidemic and World War I. Miranda is a newspaper columnist suffering from a sense of impending doom and the inability to connect with...
It seems reasonable to state that black oppression in “Sonny’s Blues” and “Battle Royal” is the primary theme. The latter will be a good option to focus on within the scope of comparing the mentioned stories. In these pieces of writing, despite the liberation of slavery, black people are still...
Fences, a playwright by August Wilson, is a modern classic that describes the life of African Americans in the United States in the 1950s and reveals all the challenges and struggles people experienced. The drama won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987, and the combination of an emotionally strong plot, bright...
Within Tracks of the Wandering Mind the author expresses the feeling of a deep longing for something unreachable and different from the surroundings. The protagonist is linking the things they would want to experience and the places they would want to see with trains, and they also mention railways. It...
Introduction Jane Austen’s book titled Emma is a novel focusing on romantic misunderstandings and youthful hubris. Initially published in 1815, the book entails events in the fictional Highbury country village that explores the difficulties and concerns of women during Georgian-Regency England. The book is a comedy that highlights social status,...
Introduction The book’s exposition takes us to the time of the Nazi concentration camps and tells about Simon and his friends’ life and hard work. Simon, Adam, Artur, and Jozek are Jews who work in a section of a concentration camp where medical waste is thrown out to prisoners. They...
When it comes to the story of the Sirens in Homer’s The Odyssey, the first mention of them comes from the goddess Circe. She warns Odysseus that upon returning from the Underworld, he will encounter creatures bewitching sailors with the sweetness of their song. Circe notes that there is no...
Introduction Shirley Jackson wrote a work that became a precedent for the entire world community. The Lottery’s story caused outrage worldwide, mainly affecting small towns in America. The report describes the ugly side of small-town life during the annual event. Shirley Jackson’s story shows many sins committed by humankind for...
Today the play “Antigone” by Sophocles, written hundreds of years ago, is still widely discussed, not in the least due to the masterfully created characters of Antigone and Ismene. The readers see that the sisters love each other, and family means a lot to them from the very beginning. However,...
Introduction “The Cask of Amontillado” is a short story by Alan Edgar Poe, first published in 1864 and part of an unofficial collection of stories about murderers’ confessions. The story tells of a deep grievance and the place the narrator chose: walling up a corpse. Grim themes have always been...
Leadership is always a very difficult task, not suitable for every person, especially if leadership qualities need to be developed in a war. Tim O’Bryan describes in ‘The Things They Carried’ Jimmy Cross’ attempts to become a leader. The author demonstrates how important it is to have maturity, discipline and...
Introduction Hope represents a person’s striving forward, expectation, and faith in the best, a premonition of something very important and good. In most cases, this is a positive emotional experience that is formed during the tense expectation of something desired and anticipating the likelihood of its accomplishment. Jonathan Kozol writes...
Tolstoy was prompted to write a work on the meaning of life by a spiritual crisis caused by a sense of disillusionment that appeared towards the end of his life. This feeling becomes the subject of reflection in Tolstoy’s first religious-philosophical treatise. His individual problem – the disgust at the...
Introduction Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is a novel about a young writer herself. It reflects multiple life events: her sufferings, mental breakdown, and the attempt to fix her with glue. The story narrates Esther Greenwood, the book’s protagonist, getting an opportunity to study at a prestigious university. Writers various...
Dramatic Story “The Open Boat” carries many philosophical ideas. The story is based on the author’s personal experience during his life. During the story, sailors have been wrecked and tried to escape on the high seas, after which not all of them survived. During the story, the characters go through...
When examining and analyzing this week’s readings, I was impressed by the power of words spoken by the authors. Both Douglass and Hochschild presented strong insights into the meaning of the American dream and the proclaimed principles of liberty and justice to different populations. The context for the selected quote...
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 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...
Introduction Junot Diaz’s book “The brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” revolves around the story of Oscar Wao, a young Dominican man, and his family after immigrating to New Jersey from San Domingo, Dominican Republic, during the dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo. Since its publication in 2007, the novel has...
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...
Introduction Jorge Luis Borges is a talented writer and a gifted personality who has created many wonderful and influential literary works. Perceiving the library in the context of his multifaceted picture of the world, Borges wrote a significant work, “The Library of Babel.” This narrative focuses on the description of...
Introduction The literary works by Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis,” and Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse-Five,” show that the abilities of the person to change their destiny are limited in many cases, and the individual can only submit to the circumstances to preserve psychological sanity. The lines from Kafka and Vonnegut illustrate the...
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 A famous quote attributed to Confucius says, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall,” and teaches people the main principle of resilience against all obstacles and struggles. Being resilient means keeping a positive outlook on life, never giving up, and carrying...
Shakespeare is a great playwright who created unfading and ageless works that have fascinated readers worldwide throughout the centuries. The secret of Shakespeare’s fame lies in the fact that, in his works, he raised such issues as love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, and truth and lies that are still...
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,...
The poem “She lives in a pat of Butter” by Ramsey Jade revolves around the role of women in conducting domestic chores and setting good examples for their children in the modern world. Even though the efforts provided by mothers and wives are similar, the societal expectation is for women...
Ken Kesey in his widely anthologized work titled “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” features several illusions in the novel while making references to Christianity. Outstanding in the work is Randle McMurphy’s demonstration of martyrdom at the climax of the novel. However, the incident is presaged with a set of...
Introduction In the mythology of the Greeks, Ovid, a Roman poet, is credited with writing the epic poem Pygmalion, published many years ago but has maintained its relevance throughout history and into the modern day. The love Pygmalion feels for the creature he has created is the story’s primary focus....
The work of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche titled The Gay Science features several arguments. Among the many submissions, one claim that significantly impacted my perception was The Value of Prayer. Nietzsche gives his viewpoint on prayer, its importance, and its purpose. Reading Nietzsche’s work titled The Value of Prayer changed my...
Introduction It is important to note that the author uses the strategies of logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos to convince the reader of the arguments in the essay. At the beginning of the essay, the author uses ethos because she immediately states that she is not a researcher of the...
Introduction It is important to note that the key themes of betrayal and trust, family and relationships, as well as pride and prejudice, emerge in many works of literature. The given analysis will focus on “Oedipus Rex” and “Fences,” which do not seem to be linked in any way. However,...
Introduction The most read genres of literature are fairy tales. Folktales and fairy tales discuss the dualism of good and evil. They rely on a struggle between the forces of good and evil. The conclusion is derived from human ambitions to attain justice. Ancient literature had no identified writers or...
Introduction In the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling entraps her audience into the wizarding world with the many different details instilled in each book. People who read the series always ask about how this insane plot came across her mind naturally, so descriptive and creative to no end, including the...
Introduction “The Lady with the Dog” is one of the most famous short stories by Anton Chekhov. This Russian author is famous for his prose works that perfectly address and describe such essential issues as mood, character, feelings, and settings. Numerous international critics and experts highly appraise Chekhov’s short stories...
The book “Crispin: The Cross of Lead” by Avi tells the story of a young boy who has to flee his home after his mother’s death. In the beginning, the main character has a low social status, thinks little of himself, and does not have his own opinions. By the...
When Dee, an intelligent young African-American woman, visits her childhood home in the Deep South, the story’s first-person narrator, Mama, explains her relationship with Dee. As Maggie and Mama, Dee’s sister and Mama’s younger daughter, get ready for the visit, the story begins. Maggie dresses into a new outfit as...
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play since memory molds and inspires both its structure and its substance. The play is narrated by Tom and is based on his memories (Williams and Walker 59). The writer has exceptional flexibility of tradition in a memory play. Tom says that the writer...
After Kafka published his novella “Metamorphosis”, it became a classical piece and continues to be relevant nowadays. “Kafkaesque” is applied as a term describing an experience in which the person does not have control over and loses the connection with the existing reality (Edwards, 1991). Frederick R. Karl highlights that...
Jamaica Kincaid’s short tale Girl was published in At the Bottom of the River (1983). It was published in The New Yorker on June 26, 1978. The conversation in the story comprises one sentence and 650 words worth of to-do and how-to lists. What the girl learns from her mother...
The Primary Message of the Story Susan Glaspell’s story, A Jury of Her Peers, explores a mysterious murder in Dickson County. The short story illustrates gender roles and their significance in the twentieth century, with Martha Hale as the lead character in the novel. The primary message communicated in the...
The Divine Comedy is an epic narrative poem by a great Italian poet and scholar, Dante Alighieri. In the poem, Dante’s character has to travel through Hell (Inferno) and Purgatory (Purgatorio) before being brought into Heaven (Paradiso). During Dante’s exploration of hell, he is accompanied by Virgil, a mentor figure...
Beloved by Toni Morrison is a vividly expressed manifesto of freedom to self-identification. The book shows how slavery as an external circumstance can impact the way how one thinks and annihilate individuality. In this regard, Denver plays an important role in the novel as the site of hope for the...
