5909 samples of this type
“The Miser” is a 1668 five-act comedy of manners by a French playwright Jean-Baptist Moliere. Being first staged at the Palais Royal in 1668, this play is popular among contemporary theatre lovers, who are not less indignant at avarice and inhumanity of Harpagon, the miser and the main protagonist of...
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a memorable short story that has been called a piece of gothic horror (Contemporary Literary Criticism – Select). It is also clearly a piece of social commentary. It has even been analyzed as a feminist critique of patriarchy and male oppression (Oehlschlaeger). It gets part...
The issue of money has always been actual. Life of people changed greatly with the appearance of this remedy. Moreover, sometimes money is even said to be the main value in human relations. Very often, people prefer rich and careless existence in a golden cage to some bright and happy,...
Touching upon various ethical and religious issues, contemporary authors define the concepts of physical versus spiritual life and transcendence. It is important to consider all the symbols and the context of the previous works of the writer or poet and his/her life experience for decoding all the messages of the...
The play “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen is a play depicting the immorality that was inherent in the society during his time. Set in a country side home, the play revolves around a dramatic turn of events. It seems the events are in some way interconnected and tied up together by...
Some time ago I reread one of the most famous novels of the 20th century, Franz Kafka’s The Trial (Kafka, 1925). Unlike my first experience of reading it, this occasion of reading, along with some other information I run across soon after, has driven me to many conclusions about the...
It is easy to understand the kind of sadness emanating from a failure to achieve a specific goal. It is easy to figure out the reason why a person is sad after a lover’s rebuff. However, melancholy is oftentimes seen as negative feeling with long-term effects. Nonetheless, it seems to...
Summary Bryan Stevenson is a civic activist and writer with a long history of training and practice as a lawyer. His book “Just Mercy” is the result of philosophical and humanistic aspirations, which he sought to turn into practical benefit for America’s vulnerable classes. The book captures the experience of...
Introduction The poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sarah Teasdale and the short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury share the same name and similar ideas and concepts. Ray Bradbury even used the poem by Sarah Teasdale to illustrate the main ideas of his short tale....
Introduction Virtual reality (VR) was initially marketed to the gaming industry, but it has many prospective applications in other fields, including education, training, simulations, fitness, and healthcare. However, there exists a lack of comprehensive comprehension among individuals regarding the benefits and drawbacks of VR (Servotte et al. 35). In “The...
Introduction In world literature, many stories include tragedy as a driver of change that people can either accept or reject. The process and result of successfully accepting difficulties and dealing with problems can be defined as resilience. How people cope with stress shows their capacity for resilience. This paper analyzes...
The Spiral Structure of Hell as Metaphor The spiral structure of Hell in Dante’s Inferno is one of the most significant aspects of the poem. It is a powerful metaphor that reflects the nature of sin and evil and the consequences of human actions. The spiral structure of Hell is...
Introduction William Wordsworth was an English poet who was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, on April 7, 1770. He was one of the most remarkable Romantic lyricists whose works helped usher in a new era of poetry that emphasized the power of the individual imagination and the beauty of nature. His...
Introduction In the spring of 1818, the novel Frankenstein, which has the rare fortune of being the discoverer, the benchmark, and the starting point of a new literary genre, was published. In her novel, Mary Shelley competently combines chilling horror storytelling with social commentary to explore the human nature that...
Introduction In the vast panorama of human experience, poetry is often an intimate chronicle of the most profound emotions. Among these, the theme of mortality—a universal and profoundly personal subject—has been explored by poets across ages and cultures. For this essay, I will examine and juxtapose how three distinct poets...
The Central Ideas of Shelley’s Essay In Percy Bysshe Shelley’s seminal essay “A Defence of Poetry,” he posits that poetry is a profound human endeavor capable of elevating any subject matter and preserving moments of beauty in a way that transcends the boundaries of time. Shelley views poets as the...
Introduction In the short story “Hell-Heaven” by Jhumpa Lahiri, the characters and their actions spoke to me in a profound way. The story revolves around the narrator’s family, particularly her mother, Boudi, who falls in love with Pranab, a foreign student taken in by the family. However, Pranab falls in...
Introduction The main idea of “The Story of an Hour “is freedom and its importance for an individual. Louise Mallard is a happily married woman with a very loving husband. She doesn’t really have much independence, though; she only obtains it after she finds out about her husband’s passing. In...
Introduction What is worse than being oppressed? The victims of the oppression are oppressing it. The story by Zora Neale Hurston, called ‘Sweat,’ focuses on Delia Jones, a hardworking washwoman, and her abusive husband, Sykes. The background for the story is that it is set against the backdrop of the...
Introduction Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” is a fascinating story of the journey to self-discovery, which resonates with every individual’s life in pursuit of success and destiny. Santiago is the novel’s protagonist whose journey to self-discovery unravels numerous challenges as they search for their hidden treasure. Throughout Santiago’s navigation to find...
Introduction The poem “White Lies” delves into the topic of racial identity and the societal expectations associated with it. This text is filled with various images and meanings hidden behind childhood memories. The innocent little lies that the heroine tells are a serious social problem in a world where people...
Introduction Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is an enchanting tale that transports readers on a whimsical journey through a surreal realm teeming with peculiar individuals and unimaginable occurrences. Although it may appear to be a simple children’s story, Carroll skillfully intertwines themes of youth, maturation, and individuality to impart important...
Introduction Ann Beattie’s Snow is a profoundly moving and evocative tale that strikes a chord with readers on a profound emotional level. The story evokes a sense of wistfulness and yearning as it delves into the intricacies of love and the relentless march of time. Beattie’s vibrant descriptions and poignant...
Introduction In the translated poem “We Are Many” by Pablo Neruda, the speaker delves into identity and the challenge of self-discovery amid life’s intricacies. Through vivid imagery and a sense of self-deprecation, Neruda conveys the idea that societal expectations and personal insecurities often overshadow one’s true self. The poem reflects...
Introduction The Bifrost is a rainbow bridge that connects Asgard, the world of gods, and Midgard, the world of humanity (Earth). It is described as the main route by which Earth is connected to Asgard. It is seen as a shimmering, quivering bridge ‘accessed only to Gods and noble souls...
Summary of The Tartarus of Maids The Tartarus of Maids is a short story by Herman Melville from his collection Tales of the Square. The story centers on an unnamed narrator who visits an isolated farmhouse on a waterfall’s banks. This farmhouse is inhabited exclusively by women who work tirelessly...
Environmental Themes in From Understory The poem “From “Understory” by Craig Santos Perez raises the theme of the environment, in which special importance is given to the effect that human activity has on society and nature. The author asks the question, “How will open air pest drift affect our unborn...
Introduction Josephine is a biography for young adults about Josephine Baker, an African-American actress and singer who came to renown in 1920s France. Josephine Baker is regarded as a notable African-American lady who demonstrated to the nation that she was a civil rights champion, a French spy during World War...
The concept of gender is a significant theme in Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando. In her classic work, Woolf examines the idea of gender identity and the fluidity of gender roles. The novel’s protagonist, Orlando, is a young English nobleman born in the Elizabethan era and lives through several centuries...
Music and poetry are interrelated since many poets have dedicated their poems to various musical genres. This article by Beugre Zouankouan Stephane explores how Langston Hughes expressed his love for Blues and Jazz in his poem “Fantansy in Purple.” The author observes an as close link between the two genres...
Racism and racial disparities are among the significant issues in the world today. The social concern goes back to the enslavement period when white supremacy was a lifestyle. Although the issue has lessened with time, racial disparities are still evident in many sectors such as the justice system, film and...
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer well-known for many of her speculative fiction novels. In 2003, she created Oryx and Crake, set in a near-future dystopian post-apocalyptic world. In her work, the author discusses many social and ethical issues of capitalism, corporate greed, and corruption, in which the novel’s setting...
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of the famous novels which influenced the development of the science fiction and horror genres. Numerous generations of readers were inspired by it and appreciated the atmosphere created by the author. Thus, Frankenstein: The Graphic Novel represents the story from another angle using specific...
Aeneas is the main character of the Aeneid; he is the son of Trojan ruler Anchises and Venus, the Roman goddess of fertility and beauty. In IV’s book of Aeneid, he is depicted as “the most handsome of them all,” who “walks, as lightly, beauty like the god’s shining from...
Introduction The two stories “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway raise the topical issues of humanity, such as racism and abortion, and, more generally, the issues of choice and the right ‘to find one’s way’. Both stories are filled with sadness, showing people’s...
Introduction Primary and secondary sources in history are essential because they allow researchers to establish the course of certain important events. They serve as evidence to analyze the past and either confirm or refute different hypotheses or theories about it. Sources that are commonly considered unique and highly important for...
In the book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, using the main character Janina Duszejko, the author explores the theme of views, misunderstanding, and how they determine personal actions. The story is built as detective and mysterious, but it cannot be considered only from...
One of the most powerful and captivating characteristics of short stories is the author’s possibility to cover significant themes and lessons in several pages. William W. Jacobs wrote his “The Monkey’s Paw” about one family’s day and night at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, as several decades ago,...
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 James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” makes a reader thoughtful of the major issues many people have to face in their lives. Family, challenges, failure, recovery, and every person’s stamina are addressed in this literary piece. Due to the limits of the form, the author has to choose every...
The story of Antonio, a six-year-old who has grown up in a rather complicated environment, is the same as that of the Giver by Lois Lowry. Antonio struggles with himself and his cultural identity until he meets Ultima, an individual who becomes his mentor. With the deaths of those around...
Geoffrey Chaucer uses Canterbury Tales to describe different professionals and their perceived stereotypes. Skipper is one of the many characters who narrate their tales as the pilgrimage journey progresses. The pilgrimage journey brings together people working in different industries. Therefore, it presents a perfect opportunity for the author to expound...
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 Despite being written at the beginning of the 20th century, the play “Trifles” still presents an important source and obligatory to read for people interested in feminism. It was created by an American playwright and journalist, Susan Glaspell, in 1916, and the author conducted pioneer research on the topic...
Lynda Barry is a modern American cartoonist and author well-known for her book One! Hundred! Demons!, which is an autobiographical graphic novel that delves into her childhood and struggles with depression. The artwork in the book is a mix of real-life photographs, drawings, and collages. Each page contains a story...
In part 3 of the above book, the authors look at the essence of reality and how it relates to human existence and philosophy. They contend that reality has objective properties apart from human awareness and is not merely the result of personal understanding. The philosophers begin by analyzing various...
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the author capitalizes on love and lust in many stories and transformations. He employs two themes to showcase their effects on individuals and the wider world, resulting in numerous transformations (Sharrock et al., 2020). In this piece, the writer illustrates how various characters’ aspirations and affections sway...
Literary creativity often intersects with various issues and problems of its time, illuminates essential topics, or ridicules decisions and phenomena. Social, political, and religious factors influence the motives of literary works because they resonate with the personal beliefs of their authors. Religion played an important cultural and social role at...
The attachment to illusion and their inability to embrace reality is reiterated in every character in “Glass Menagerie.” Among the three leading ones, the propensity toward wishful thinking and the inability to meet reality is particularly distinctively emphasized in Amanda. Remarkably, her version of an illusion is substantially different form...
Introduction Desire is one of the most common themes explored in poetry. It is also the subject of Sir Philip Sidney’s poem “Thou Blind Man’s Mark”. On the surface, the text seems to implicate desire as the main cause of harm, yet a closer inspection of poetic devices can show...
Despite seeming incompatible at first sight, pain and humor often go together in fiction writing, creating realistic plots in which the entire palette of human emotions finds use. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is among numerous works that demonstrate the co-existence of the ridiculous and the painful, thus conveying a deep meaning....
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....
Introduction Human suffering is inevitable and may have a long-lasting impact on someone’s life. People grieve the loss of someone they loved much or situations they have little or no control over. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” utilizes symbols to reinforce the melodramatic mood. The conversation between the speaker of...
Introduction The Odyssey is an epic poem written between the 8th and 6th century BCE, narrating a long journey home of Odysseus, a Greek hero. Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, sails from the Trojan war back to his homeland but has to overcome various misadventures and delays because of battling...
Introduction Emerson critiques and distinguishes between two categories of knowledge seekers as a writer. In particular, Thinking Man is against a bookworm, which is, in my opinion, a good stance. According to Emerson, the difficulty is that the holiness innate in creation, the activity of thinking, is immediately transferred to...
Introduction The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” calls readers on a heart-wrenching journey through the life of Frederick Douglass. This memoir is about Douglass’s years in slavery and his resolution to escape freedom. It was published in 1845 and played a significant role in winning the minds and...
Introduction Michael Pearson is the author of Those Damned Rebels: The American Revolution as seen through British Eyes. The book seeks to provide a perspective of the British on the American Revolution. The historical argument that the book focuses on is that the British won the battle but the Americans...
The play Fences by August Wilson covers a variety of complex themes, such as race, family relationships, history, identity, change, morality, culture, dreams, duty, and others. Written in 1986, this literary work “clearly displayed the tensions among blacks who wanted to clutch their African legacy” (Ali 1). One of the...
Introduction This essay will discuss the novel Song of the Hummingbird by Graciela Limon, which tells the tale of the Aztecs’ downfall from the viewpoint of a Huitzitzilin, a hummingbird. The book’s main objective is to emphasize the parallels and discrepancies between Christian and pagan civilizations, recounting the story of...
Introduction Everyday Use is a short story written by American author Alice Walker. The narrative revolves around an African-American family and the conflict they face, primarily the schisms created by money, materialism, and greed. The set of characters is relatively narrow (Mama, Maggie, Dee, and Hakim-a-barber), but can showcase a...
Female characters who played a prominent and crucial part in events occur in the books of different times regardless of the real position of women in society. The authors gave them extraordinary powers, strength, and influence on others’ actions and decisions. For instance, Wealhtheow from Beowulf demonstrated how the Germanic...
Introduction In this book, Erich Auerbach has adopted distinct rhetoric and philosophy of communication that significantly advanced my theoretical knowledge of concepts. For instance, the author assumes a persuasive form of writing whereby he coins around words to present an idea or a thought. Firstly, the book has boosted my...
Enrique’s Journey chronicles the lives of a little kid from Central America who is trying to find his mother after she abandoned him when he was five years old, so she could work in the United States. The goal of Nazario’s description of Enrique’s life is to humanize and make...
Introduction “Sonny’s Blues” is one of the most compelling short stories that effectively conveys its message to the target audience. The fiction story aims explicitly at telling the story of suffering among the Blacks living in America. The story takes the reader through the tales of two brothers who went...
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...
Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a strange, non-historical drama that focuses mainly on an act of injustice. By the unjust conduct, one analyzes Prospero’s brother’s takeover of the crown. Prospero’s efforts to restore justice via the rejuvenation of his power illustrate a dual predicament. In The Tempest, Prospero’s use of mystical...
Captivity, specifically African Americans being trapped by society through racism, prejudice, and unfair laws, are an important theme in American poetry. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” and Langston Hughes’s “I, Too” are both dedicated to these social issues. However, in my opinion, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” is more hopeful than the...
Introduction Various literary symbolism and devices allow poets and writers to talk about complex issues through allegories and metaphors. They can raise philosophical topics and topics not usually discussed in society, using symbols of nature or everyday objects. Rhina P. Espaillat, thanks to her flair, uses extensive and very vivid...
Mills’ purpose in The Sociological Imagination was to unify two distinct and intangible ideas of social existence, namely the concepts of person and society. As a result, he coined the term “sociological imagination,” produced an authoritative book on it, and defined it as the profound perception of the link between...
Individuals tend to perceive the meanings of the words ‘dignity’ and ‘confidence’ differently, depending on their nature and nurture. For some people, honour, and certainty can be obtained and restored via power and money. Others believe praise and assurance come from hard work, honesty, and a pure soul. William Shakespeare...
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...
Henrik Ibsen left a rich literary legacy, including several dramatic works that deal with contemporary issues and seem pretty popular. The issues that he raises in his works are timeless. Worth reading and appreciating. Many stories in Ibsen’s theatrical works are intertwined, which ultimately leads to the disclosure of the...
Introduction Eirik Saethre believes that the illnesses of people can become their weapons. The author sees the rejection of medical advice as a manifestation of a disenfranchised people’s identity. The inhabitants of Lajamanu, a former Australian Aboriginal settlement, face chronic illnesses. Their town is a place where they experience oppression,...
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 The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman that revolves around a young woman succumbing to a mental disorder after giving birth. The work is littered with numerous symbolic elements, but the most prevailing one is the yellow wallpaper in the protagonist’s sickroom....
Introduction Heart of Darkness is a novel written by Joseph Conrad and was first published in 1902. It centers around Marlow, a sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz. As Marlow travels, he encounters cruelty and inefficiency in the treatment of the black inhabitants in Congo....
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...
The Notebook is a romantic novel authored by Nicholas Sparks in 1996. The novel is told in two versions; first, when Noah reads the notebook to a woman by the name Allie. He reads to her how Allie and Noah fall in love young; they are separated for years but...
Author’s Main Message Brain on Fire – My Month of Madness touches on several important themes related to mental illness and the treatment process. Susannah Cahalan writes about the love and care demonstrated by her parents and her boyfriend, Stephen, which were vital for her recovery. She exposes the unprofessionalism...
Introduction Race, inequality, discrimination, and prejudice are the issues that have been significantly addressed recently but will probably remain a part of humans’ nature forever. Since these negative concepts bring too much violence and sufferings into this world, empathetic people try to help those who face unfair treatment. For example,...
The main theme of the play “Riders of the sea” is to represent conflicts between religion and nature. The sea is a representation of fate and tragedies in the play. It is a great factor for the people living on Aran Island. It is a source of living as it...
In her critical paper, Virginia Woolf introduces various binaries and complicates them by placing the opposite states into the contexts of time and place to illustrate and deepen these distinctions. For instance, she elaborates on the binary of women and men by explaining the two as complex socio-cultural categories in...
The author, David Grann, presents his understanding of the relationship between the United States government and the Native Americans. He explains that the adverse treatment of the Native Americans was driven by the jealousy the government had for them. The United States government saw all the wealth the Osage tribe...
Devouring works written by renowned authors; people tend to forget that the actual lives of the writers might have been even more exciting than the fiction that they have created. The personal journey of Samuel Clemens, globally known under the pen name of Mark Twain, is in every way just...
Trifles is a play written in 1916 by Susan Glaspell. It is categorized as feminist literature for highlighting how women are positioned in society as unimportant. The play carries a message for both males and females because it contrasts the women and men characters. It revolves around the murder of...
In the poems “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, metaphors and allegories are used to add depth to the descriptions. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes is an allegorical depiction of the history of the black race. In the...
Eudora Welty’s short story, A Worn Path, narrates the journey of an African American woman while using various elements of literature. The story emphasizes geographical elements that inform the audience about the location of the action and historical elements that suggest a period of historical events. The author also mentions...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an anonymous poem written in England in the second half of the 14th century. It narrates about the adventures of one of the most popular characters of medieval literature (Smith, 2018). While the poem proclaims the chivalric ideals, its plot is based on...
William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in Cumberland, England, under the reign of Queen Victoria. He began his poetry in England as a young boy while in school before completing his college studies. Wordsworth related his composition to the people’s affair with nature and advocated language utilization including, the lecture...
Macbeth is called one of Shakespeare’s most “Greek” plays, and it represents a man who destroys his life through a row of sinful and unfair choices. However, there are several discrepancies between a traditional Greek play and Shakespeare’s Macbeth. For example, the majority of Greek plays are based on the...
Throughout history, fairy tales have served a variety of purposes; however, the earliest examples represent the common beliefs and values of specific groups. After becoming a literary genre, fairy tales started to include various social classes, leading to changing ideologies. The Bloody Chamber, the collection of re-written stories by Angela...
The authors of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl put slaves as the main characters. In those days, it was legal, but it only led to suffering and unhappiness. People in such a situation were forced to endure humiliation all their lives, did not...
James Joyce’s story “Araby” is about an Irish adolescent lad transitioning from adolescent fancies to the harsh realities of everyday life in his birthplace. In a minimalist manner, the author employs a single narrator, a dismal backdrop, and symbolism to remind the reader of the hardships and disappointments we all...
In Marxist criticism, the rich exploit the poor to become more powerful and wealthy. In The Lottery story by Jackson, Mr. Summer is seen to entice the poor to play the lottery to gain more wealth. In a capitalist world, the rich protect their family from exploitation by the capitalist....
The poem “I Think It Rains” by Soyinka possesses a distinctive structure, which in itself is built in metaphor. A hard-to-follow narrative results from the poet’s ability to express his ideas in rain-like drops, using the images of rain and smoke to explore the author’s state of mind. The rain...
Superman is a monumental character in the DC Comics universe. He may or may not like it, but it is impossible to deny his contribution to world culture and influence on generations of readers and viewers alike. Superman has had a significant impact on popular culture and is a role...
The idea of identity and culture has always been topical in the literature. Numerous authors have been cogitating about their culture and place in a particular country or community. For America, this issue acquired critical importance because of the history of the state and its multicultural nature. The diversity of...
In “Earth Poem,” Darwish shares his love, grief, and expectations for the future in these Palestinian poems with other world peoples. Through his perceptive metaphors and detailed descriptions of the country, the author sounds the voice of the Palestinian Resistance. The main themes of his poetry are his nation and...
Introduction The French Resistance to the German threat is the force of good keeping France hopeful during truly dark and desperate times. The Resistance plays a substantial role in the “Europe-wide struggle against fascism” (Faucher and Humbert 209). Nevertheless, the movement should be more mindful of its inner philosophy and...
Ballad of Birmingham Ballad of Birmingham is a relatively short poem written by Dudley Randall in 1963. The poem covers a wide list of controversial subjects, including violence, regret, justice, equal rights, love, death, and hopes. Randall narrates about a small girl asking her mother if she can join a...
New England Bound is a social-historical book written by Wendy Warren in 2016. The book is about slavery and colonization in the period between 1600 and 1775. Warren’s main argument is that the growth of European colonies in North America was closely interconnected to slavery. Slavery existed in New England...
Introduction Many obstacles awaited Odysseus on their long journey home. Odysseus’s team and himself were suffering, going through difficulties, coincidences, and the influence of other gods. At the same time, it is unlikely that the same path would have awaited him before meeting with cyclops Polyphemus, since it was partly...
Geoffrey Chaucer is an extremely famous English poet from the 14th century best known for his “Canterbury Tales.” This work of poetry depicts several pilgrims traveling to the town of Canterbury, which was a very important holy place in Medieval England. Travelers belong to all walks of life and, in...
Introduction “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley and “The Slave Mother” by Frances E.W. Harper are two poems that convey the harsh reality of slavery. The people of African descent had to experience inequity due to their ethnic background for centuries. In the poems, the central...
This paper will summarize the fifth article ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Circumvention of Patriarchy: Gender, Labour and Financial Agency in Jane Eyre’, by Owsley Lauren. The main argument is whether Jane Eyre functions as a primarily feminist text in the modern literary and gender discourse (Owsley). She does this by examining the...
Introduction “Fences” is an American play composed by playwriter August Wilson in the year 1985. The play examines the progressing African-American life experiences related to cultural practices and races among other themes. It is important to analyze the play fences and understand how different perceptions of the characters regarding their...
James Baldwin is a novelist, publicist, playwright, and human rights defender. Born to a priestly stepfather, he was the oldest of nine children. Baldwin never knew his father and partly suffered from it. Nevertheless, he followed in his stepfather’s way and helped him in the church until he graduated from...
Introduction The assessment of poetry is generally conducted with regard to the essential elements that it incorporates. They include characters presented by the narrator and their audience, dialogues, image, setting, themes, voice, style, and tone, and the consideration of corresponding techniques can demonstrate their importance for the message. Hence, poems...
In the distant 1949, Arthur Miller wrote one of the essential tragedies in American literature named The Death of a Salesman. However, while describing Willy Loman, the main hero, the author illustrated the essential obstacle of the whole middle class. The tragedy is presented ambiguously due to the refutation from...
William Blake is one of the renowned English poets who enriched world literature with his rich imagery. He is one of the brightest representatives of English romanticism. The focus of the movement is on imagination, freedom, self-realization, rebellion, isolation, and “noble savage” (Canli 16). The poet paid specific attention to...
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...
Tartuffe is one of Moliere’s most famous comedy plays. Although the first version was published back in 1669, the play is still present in the repertoire of modern theater companies. The reason for this is the bright comedy plot, as well as memorable characters. This essay aims to analyze 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...
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer known for his mysterious and grim short stories. As well, most of his works are characterized by uncertainty, unpredictability, and ambiguity; his death continues to provoke many concerns, questions, and debates. Poe died on October 7, 1849, and no medical records or death...
Excessive pride or hubris becomes a significant concern in Odyssey by Homer and Ozymandias by P.B. Shelley. Hubris defines pride as a destructing quality of a character, which might even be dangerous for the hero and his family and friends. Odysseus and Ozymandias are men from faraway islands; they function...
Throughout Alison Bechdel’s tragicomic Fun Home, the author demonstrates her and her father Bruce’s opposing views on the concept of sexuality. Their different definitions of the significance of gender roles cause tension in their formation of sexual orientations in the presence of each other. The distinct ways in which they...
Tennessee Williams is a pen name of an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist Thomas Lanier Williams. He was born on the 26th of March, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, and died on the 25th of February, 1983, in New York City. Williams is one of the most renowned dramatists of the...
“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...
Introduction A&P by John Updike is a short story describing an incident at a supermarket. The main character, Sammy, is a representative of the typical middle class who works in the store as a cashier. When three girls in bathing suits enter, disturbing the peace in this establishment, Sammy decides...
Introduction Helen Thorpe’s work Just like us: The true story of four American girls coming of age in America made a significant contribution to the development of literature and politics. The main problem of this book revolves around the topic of illegal immigration to the United States. This story is...
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...
Anne Bradstreet, born in 1612 in England, was married to Simon Bradstreet and graduated from the University of Cambridge at 16. A couple of years later, after moving to America and having eight children, she became one of the first poets in the American colonies. Phillis Wheatley Peters was a...
J.D. Salinger’s short story Slight Rebellion Off Madison is a beautiful portrayal of youthful rebellion and nonconforming nature. Holden Caulfield is overpowered with thoughts of leaving everything behind and getting married to Sally in a new city. Hoverer, neither Sally nor the other friends take Holden seriously. The rest of...
Introduction Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zara Neale Hurston is a novel about Janie Crawford, an African-American female. Even though the literary piece depicts post-slavery Florida, meaning that people like Janie experienced many social issues during that time, the book focuses on her inner experiences. In particular, it centers...
The nature of war is excruciatingly difficult to understand, being both disturbingly simplistic in its raw violence and unbearably complicated in the multitude of lives that it consumes and the intricate emotional responses that people build toward it. The Vietnam War is one of the best – or, to be...
Anthology The New Colossus is a famous poem written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 (Lazarus 2000). I chose that poem as it has an interesting history behind it and is related to one of the most well-known sites in the US. The unique aspect of its history is that the...
Paul’s Case by Willa Cather is a short story full of temperament lessons. It is a narration of a few months’ events in Paul’s life. Paul is a student at Pittsburg High School, who prefers theater and music to class. The story begins when Paul is suspended from school; he...
Introduction The poetic legacy of Robert Frost, as one of the foremost American poets of the 20th century, is rich and imbued with images and vivid stories. As an example, his poem “Birches” can be analyzed as a work that captivates the reader with its philosophical ideas about eternity and...
Introduction One of the primary purposes of literature is to deliver meaningful messages through artful images and plots. While some literary works may have a mostly entertaining function, some pieces prove to be seminal in the broader context of topical issues of society. Toni Morrison is one of the authors...
Poetry often has a way of reaching into the deepest elements of the human soul to expose the underlying natural desires and emotions that are frequently otherwise suppressed in ‘polite’ society. It does this by both appealing specifically to human emotion and by remaining sufficiently general to have broad common...
Introduction Scholars and writers rely on different literary styles to complete their works and deliver the intended messages to their readers. The works Trifles and A Raisin in the Sun offer powerful insights and analyses of most of the challenges different members of the selected societies encounter. The books provide...
In his poem, “Sonnet 116” Shakespeare presents the nature of ideal love. According to Gale Cengage Learning, the write-up was done during the Renaissance era, when there was a significant influence by the Catholic church (14). Additionally, the artists wished to create new standards of what could be regarded as...
In the chef-d’oeuvre story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O’Connor presents an ambiguous definition of goodness. The characters in the story including the Grandmother and the Misfit live by different moral codes, with each insisting that he or she is good. The Misfit murders and entire family, but...
Introduction From the poem, the speaker demonstrates an unmatched love and affection for Annabel Lee who died unexpectedly. This love survives considerably after the mentioned death. Poe, the poet, uses literary styles to unveil the theme of lasting love between two characters. It is possible to recognize and understand that...
In Americanizing the White Man, Felix S. Cohen uses the term “Americanizing” to mean transforming immigrants from Europe into the American people. The author uses this term to raise a question about what kind of traditions and culture America heritages. For example, traditional American food and products such as corn,...
All O. Henry’s works are imbued with attention to imperceptible “little” people, whose troubles and joys are vividly portrayed in his stories. The author aims to draw attention to the genuine human values. As a result, the most seemingly deplorable finals of his short stories begin to be perceived as...
Crime and Punishment appear to be one of the most widely spread novels of Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. Despite being created at the end of the 19th century, it is extremely popular both in the author’s native country and outside its territory. All the plot is articulated on the random...
Poem – Back to my Arms In the dark of the midnight, Lay me, eyes open, lacking sleep in the night, Thinking, taxing my mind, wandering the valleys, You crisscross thoughts; within my thoughts are alleys, Wanting to see, hold, and have you again as I remember with nostalgia, The...
Introduction Guy De Maupassant’s story, The Necklace is an example of how a writer uses various characters to develop the plot of the story leaving an everlasting memory on the reader. This essay will focus and determine Mathilde’s character as portrayed in the story The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant....
In Nadine Gordimer’s short story “A Company of Laughing Faces,” Kathy Hack’s dynamic character reflects many teenage girls’ lives in contemporary society. Kathy is provoked by the life around her; she seems lost in the struggle to tap fantasy while embracing reality. She reflects many young people blinded by ambitious...
Disguise can be defined as a behavior or appearance that conceals an individual’s true identity. Many people fear cloaks because they are mysterious and intangible. Every mask has its uniqueness and is created for a specific purpose. Disguises help to shape the characteristics of different people in the poem, for...
“The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him ” (Matthew Henry’s Commentary: Verses 21–25)....
Conforming to the way society defines a woman has made many people live in a shackle, thus, forgetting their true inner identity like Nora. For many decades, domestically abused women have been portrayed to be having revengeful needs which linked to abuse. This assumption is wrong, and thus the pursuit...
Sophocles revealed a deep conflict between ancestral unwritten rules and state laws in his tragedy Antigone. On the one hand, religious beliefs, deeply rooted in the tribal community, dictated people to sacredly honor kinship ties and observe all the necessary rites with blood relatives. On the other hand, every citizen...
One of the fears described in dystopian fiction is the loss of individuality. People become uniformed cogs in an oppressive society, so the government could completely control them. Therefore, individualism can contribute greatly to maintaining freedom and independent thinking. In Harrison Bergeron, the author shares his vision of the future...
Introduction The play The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare contains distinct elements of comedy although it depicts issues of grave importance in the society today. For this reason, some scholars consider it a tragedy while others regard it as a tragic-comedy. However, the comic aspects present in the play are...
The current essay is an analysis of Oresteia based on the book “Aeschylus Oresteia” by Peter Meineck. In this paper, first of all, a brief overview of the trilogy will be presented. Then, the following topics will be addressed and analyzed: the issue of justice and Oresteia’s argument about it;...
The stories with the girls as the main protagonists grew popular during the last couple of decades. They traditionally represent the problems girls usually meet during their lifetime (typically, teenage or young adult years). In “Girl” and “Where are you going, where have you been,” there are two protagonists with...
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick tells the story about Pat Peoples, the young man with psychological issues. He plays the role of the narrator but an unreliable one. According to Sarah Pinborough, the unreliable narrator only has his truth to rely on. These people usually have mental issues,...
Introduction Prometheus Bound contains a plethora of colorful characters, exemplifying the inimitable nature of Greek mythology, where polytheism combines with a very human-centered perspective on the intentions and desires of the gods of the Greek Pantheon. Specifically, the play features a character that readers often barely notice, even though it...
