6058 samples of this type
Introduction Alien presents a short science fiction regarding a strange individual being returned to Earth after supposed abduction by a UFO. Told from the perspective of a blogger that encounters and connects with the man by accident, the short story offers a lighthearted but also tragic narrative of someone being...
Introduction The theme of patriotism and honor is a crucial element in understanding the literature and film created to depict World War I. The poem “The Absorption” in particular focuses on the ideas of patriotism because Sassoon contrasts the horrors of wartime with the soldier’s changing attitudes towards the battlefield...
Introduction Words, especially sincere and true ones, are people’s most powerful and influential weapons. They can go deep into humans’ hearts and souls and touch the innermost and most essential parts. Some crucial concepts, including dreams, freedom, equality, fairness, and family, are sometimes so difficult to discuss that persons decide...
‘The Laughing Man’ is a fictitious story told by Chief John Gedsudski to the Comanche Club members, a twenty-five-member group of baseball players, in between breaks from their regular sports. The Laughing Man was an only child to a rich missionary couple, abducted in childhood by Chinese bandits. His parents...
Reasons Why The Pursuit of Daisy Buchanan Was Justified “Great Gatsby” is a novel written by F.S. Fitzerald and published in 1925. The book follows the narrator as he enters the world of the American socialite after returning from war and meets the eponymous main character. Jay Gatsby gained his...
Introduction Literature is an important tool in people’s lives because it plays a central role in connecting individuals with larger truths and societal ideologies. It allows people to document their experiences and thoughts, which are then shared with other individuals, and passed from one generation to another; hence, it is...
The House of the Seven Gables is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the middle of the nineteenth century. The story revolves around a gloomy mansion in New England, which is believed to be haunted since its construction – this aspect has even made Hawthorne’s work “the father of...
Do you know the feeling where you cannot enjoy the present and live in the past? Such a character is Lois from “Death by Landscape” by Margaret Atwood, who survived her friend Lucy’s death as a child. The girls were walking in the camp’s highlands, and one of them fell...
Literary art began to develop in ancient times, many centuries before our era. People recorded the events they experienced, described natural phenomena that they saw, and passed on their wisdom to future generations. Later, they started adding fantasy to literary works to make them more interesting and let impossible become...
Introduction William Shakespeare is one of the most significant figures of the United Kingdom and the whole world. His contribution to the development of culture and literary and theatrical art is priceless, and the fact that this ingenious writer lived and created literary works is a gift for all humankind....
The poem Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson is one of these works which overthrow readers’ expectations. At the very beginning, the main character is presented as a successful and wealthy man who can afford anything he wants. Richard is envied by people he meets every day in the streets...
Opening the essay with personal experience proves to be an efficient introduction. The author starts the novel with the story of his first favorite sports teams at the age of two or three. He then jumps to the description of his high school games and the first time paying attention...
Social class and status were extremely important during the Victorian era. People did not have a chance to climb to the top if they were born into a lower class. Poor and less educated people remained the members of their class for life. A person’s belonging to a certain social...
Charlotte’s Web is a novel by American author E. B. White. It was first published in 1952 and is intended for children. The story of the novel revolves around the friendship of a livestock pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte. The book is considered to be one of...
Introduction Hemingway’s The Soldier’s Home is a story of a war veteran who faces the dilemma of choosing between being a welcomed member of his old social circle and staying true to his morals and ideals. When the book’s main character Krebs returns to his hometown, he is forced to...
Daniel Inouye Pena is a Pushcart Prize winner writer of Mexican-American origin. “Bang” was his debut novel that receives major appreciation among American readers. It tells the story of an undocumented Mexican family living in South Texas. The piece addresses the problems related to the current U.S. migrant policy as...
War is a central theme in books of numerous authors, and Tim O’Brien is no exception to the rule. What makes him stand out from the rest is the source of information he uses and the way he presents the war. Being a war veteran, O’Brien writes about his personal...
The main character of We Need New Names is called Darling. The first half of the book follows her in a post-colonial Zimbabwe. Even though the country is officially independent, it is going through dramatic changes and is economically unstable. Later, Darling moves to her aunt living in the U....
Introduction Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th-century British author and philosopher, was among the first people who openly drew the public’s attention to women’s rights in society. Her fundamental work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, explores several important topics, and education is one of them. The situation in this regard...
The novel Sula by Toni Morrison, published in 1973, centers around female friendship and its challenges in the context of black feminism. By describing the life challenges and memories of her characters, Sula and Nel, Morrison encourages women to cherish their friendship and support each other in overcoming every hardship...
Introduction Civilization is one of the most significant achievements of the whole world. However, is it indeed rational to consider people who fail to meet local norms uncivilized? When it comes to a postcolonial analysis, the concepts of “civilized” and “uncivilized” are interpreted differently from their modern meanings. It refers...
The embodiment of the rival for Oedipus is Creon who does not represent the same interpretation that takes place in Sophocles’ Antigone. In Oedipus the King, this character does not want to obtain power and aspires rather a share of it. The chorus reaffirms the reliability of Creon’s words, as...
Introduction Reading the poem One Today, I think that the most important phrases start with the word “one.” One sun, one ground, one sky. These lines mean that all people in the USA live in one state, and they are all united by this fact. The author also refers to...
Introduction The works of William Shakespeare have lived through centuries in order to be awarded the title of unprecedented classics. However, with the major change in the overall perception of society and its behavioral patterns, many creators felt the urge to interpret this classic to mitigate the gap between the...
Kanjincho is one of the most famous plays of the Japanese kabuki theater. The kabuki genre is a classic dance drama; kabuki theater plots usually reveal historical events. Kanjincho story happens in the mid-to-late 12th century; the main characters are Togashi Saemon, the guardian of the gates, Yoshitsune, the emperor’s...
Introduction Millions of people all over the world consider books to be a form of entertainment and use them as a gateway from their busy daily routine. Nevertheless, most of the writers aim at raising essential topics in their novels and stories and encourage individuals to think and gain more...
Setting is an element of fiction often used by authors to support the ideas and themes presented in a literary work. Setting refers to the place and time where the story takes place and may include social statuses, weather, historical period, and details about immediate surroundings (Elements of Fiction). The...
The main characters in “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “Araby” by James Joyce are people of different ages and backgrounds. However, there is a certain similarity between the events that happened to them as well as their reaction that was triggered by the need for readjustment. Both characters...
Introduction This book is characterized by a horrific mystery that makes it very fascinating and thrilling for the audience. In the book, Laura Wexler gives a detailed insight on lynching, which was so rampant in 1946. As she describes the events that took place, Wexler connects with the readers by...
Songs are often viewed as the next stage of poetry transformation, which is reasonable given the additional opportunity for emotional expression that songs offer. Likewise, when viewed through the lens of thematic development, songs may become the tools for expanding the themes and ideas conveyed in poems. The themes of...
Overview The main reason why intelligent tests were initially conducted was to determine the level of mental ability among students (Matthews, Zeidner & Robert, 2002). However, it is still debatable whether one’s intellectual ability is similar to the IQ ratings. However, it is evident that most people who are perceived...
Facing lack of opportunities to earn money and good standing in their homelands due to political and economic crises, 20th century European citizens thought of migrating to America as a quintessential success. The overseas country promised wealth and stability to any person or family who was willing to dedicate their...
It is worth noting that the work of Zora Neale Hurston called “Sweat” brought up a gender conflict as the main subject for discussion. In particular, this short story reveals aggression and sexist oppression against black women by black men. In this story, the husband attempts to kill his wife...
The poetry of the Romanticism era shares quite a few characteristics defined by the time in which it was produced, yet each author also left their own unique imprint on the poems created at the time. Three of the most prolific Romantic poets of the time, namely, Byron, Keats, and...
Introduction Gerald Graff is a specialist in English language studies and a researcher in the sphere of education. He wrote more than five books covering controversial and complicated topics, such as conflicts between a pupil and a teacher, the problem of diversification of cultural backgrounds, and the negative consequences of...
‘Sacagawea’ is an excellent biography book intended for children. Liselotte Erdrich is a Native American writer, so she shows a deep understanding of the life and values of a Native American woman, Sacagawea, who has become a part of history. This book is marvelously written and reads like a legend...
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 Christian Marclay’s famous The Clock (2010) is a 24-hour video that can be discussed as looped in its structure. The video consists of a variety of clips that represent clocks, and the time a viewer can notice in the film is synchronized with the real time. From this perspective,...
Over the years of its existence, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” may have lost its edge as a horror novel, yet it has entered the pantheon of horror classics due to the unique nature of its conflict. On the one hand, the story of an insane scientist trying to play God and...
Frankenstein is a novel written by British author Mary Shelley in 1818. The novel describes the story of a young gifted scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who created a living creature as an unorthodox experiment. Frankensteins creation occurred to be hideous and, therefore, rejected by the scientist and humanity (Shelley 28). This...
Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of people who failed to be up to the image and likeness of God the humankind has been created after. Janie Crawford is the protagonist of the novel. Ever since her grandmother arranged 16 years old Janie’s marriage the latter succumbs to...
Introduction The story “Tartuffe” and “The death of Ivan Ilyich” have expansive themes, which touch on various issues and aspects of society. They expose the evil in unexpected places in society, including evil in religion and within families, where people should love and protect one another besides staying loyal to...
Introduction Kingsolver addresses various issues in this best-selling novel. Using a young Kentucky woman as the main character, the writer explores several concerns facing middle-class Americans in their daily survivals. A brief overview of the writing points out Taylor Greer as a woman with strong intentions. She had made up...
Sad circumstances in life… always leave deep wounds on people’s hearts and may change the entire personality of any individual. This is the very situation that has happened to Eliezer, the main protagonist of “Night” book by Elie Wiesel which represents the author himself. In the final scene, we learn...
No one wants to die. Understanding this fact is what enables a connection between seemingly opposite human viewpoints. Taking this extreme into consideration is most important now in struggles with the environment, because these struggles mean life or death for generations to come. “A study published in the journal Science...
Wiesel’s intention in writing the novel ‘Night’ was to give a testimony of the horrors that took place during the Holocaust; consequently, the themes from the book reflect these intentions. Themes in the night When Elie was a young boy, he grew up in a sheltered environment where he assumed...
Mythology is a term derived from Greek and can be broken into two terms, “mythos” which means narrative and logos which relates to speech or in other terms; argument. Mythology can then be defined as the act of studying myths, which are stories that are held to be true by...
Introduction The Delphic Oracle’s motto of “Know Thyself” applies to many stories from Ancient Greece. The characters of Oedipus, Socrates, and Achilles can all be examined from the point of view of the extent to which they knew themselves and the extent to which knowing or not knowing themselves led...
Odyssey is a Greek poem attributed to Homer; and is an essential aspect within the contemporary western principle. In this epic Odysseus had traveled to fight the Trojan War and due to his return, suitors tried to convince his wife Penelope that he had died in the war so that...
Introduction In the myth of the Latin woman; Judith Ortiz explained how she grew up under stern observation, since virtue and humility were equated to family honor by culture. From her story it can be seen that as a teenager, she was required to conduct herself as a good ‘senorita’....
The problem of human relations to each other has been reinforced in literature from the beginning of the twentieth century. More and more literary works manifest the idea of the “raising wall” among the people. The conception of separatism has gained force within the last 100 years. Sociologists believe that...
Dylan Thomas was a master of the form, and the poem Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night is a wonderfully powerful villanelle. Each line builds upon the previous and the power grows like successive waves upon a lake. The rhyme scheme and the metaphors create an image that...
One of the most famous short stories of the acclaimed English writer D.H. Lawrence is ‘The Rocking Horse Winner’. The story mainly focuses on a mother, and in other words, we can say that she is the most important character and also the driving force of the story. Though in...
Introduction Ever since Freud’s methodology of psychoanalysis has gained an academic validity, during the first part of twentieth century, it became possible for psychiatrists to get an insight onto the actual roots of their clients’ mental anxieties, which were revealed as such that reside deep in people’s subconsciousness. In its...
Handmaid’s Tale is a novel that is set in the year 2195, it is written by Margret Atwood. The society in the novel refers to a lot of examples from the Pre- Gilead era. The main character Offred encounters several challenges that are revealed in the epilogue by Professor Pieixoto....
This story commences in Manhattan at the beginning of the 17th century but it is written from Paris. It is a very interesting story talking about an American setting with American characters. It has several themes including family betrayal, deception, truth, and imagination, and family domesticity among others. However, the...
Introduction People are different with a view to their intellect and abilities, features and appearance, beliefs and views. Some people have good intentions and make good actions; other people do not seem to be good at all. Nevertheless, good and bad actions and even thoughts can be argued; it is...
It is hard to lose a loved one. My father passed away 15 years ago and he died in front of me. What can a person do to cope? No one is prepared for an event as tragic as that. No amount of study and knowledge acquisition can steel the...
Introduction Aldous Leonard Huxley was born in the year 1824 and died in the year 1963 at the age of 69 years. He was born in England but spent several years in United States in his latter life from 1937 till his death. He was a humanist and in later...
Introduction Learning is the process that determines the further life of every single human being. The more knowledge you have, the stronger you are in all respects. Here, knowledge does not necessarily refer to the scholarly knowledge as such. It encompasses all the possible spheres of the life experience including...
Introduction Othello is one of the most popular plays by William Shakespeare. It has a lot of themes that intricate the mind of a viewer and a reader as well. The role of this play is really significant for contemporary human beings. It was outlined by William Shakespeare in the...
The Beggar’s Opera is the first of a new form of opera that was developed by John Gay in the early 1700s as a reaction against the superficiality of the popular Italian opera and its effects upon his culture. This form of entertainment came to be known as the ballad...
On 18th July 1898, Kate Chopin wrote a short story titled “The Storm” which played around the events happening in the life of a woman (Calixta) over a stormy afternoon. Calixta was a typical traditional housewife bundled with the task of taking care of the home while her husband (Bobinôt)...
The Ireland is a country of ancient myths and traditions whose magical stories are emotional and appealing. Those narrations are always a mixture of love and hate, sufferings and pleasure, joy and grief. The myth about the Selkies narrates about the seal people who have all the qualities of the...
Introduction Every poem expresses a certain idea presented by the poet. It could be a personal thought or a story. Sometimes a poem describes a certain scene with certain events. In this case, the poet draws an image. Many poems have paintings to describe their events. The painting helps the...
“Omnia mutabantur, mutantur, mutabuntur” as the Latin proverb has it. Antiquity has supplied us with perfect food for reflection since ancient literary sources are the treasury of wisdom, just as the sayings that have lived during centuries to supply humanity of the present with eternal wisdom. Everything changes. It is...
Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is surprisingly touching in its depiction of the courtly way in which Death personified escorted her to her final rest. The six stanza poem tells the story of a woman’s experience of death, but rather than being the horrifying thing...
Introduction People usually appear before the choice: whether to do this or not, whether to go there or not, whether to stay with the person or to leave him/her. Analyzing the story “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and imagining the conclusion of the story, three main developments may...
As we can see in “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, written by Tracy Chevalier, the author can be free in selection of facts and settings. The novel is a kind of composition on a free topic or the description of one’s feelings at the time of looking at the picture....
The term “deception” has a lot of synonyms: deceit, lie, fraud to name just a few. Such diversity of terms to describe the act of deluding and giving false information proves the seriousness of the concept of lie for human beings: deception can cause a dramatic change of life of...
Criticizing and evaluating a particular literary work is not an easy task. In doing so, the analysis of such works is addressed toward the reader to whom this work might be interesting. In that sense, such an evaluation is rarely done by the author of the work, where the author...
Introduction Poems at most always appear enigmatic for ordinary readers. They remain just a puzzle of words that at most must have been written by madmen and women who had nothing better to do. But for the many who have come to understand and appreciate the importance of poems for...
Introduction It is not by an accident that such literary genre as poetry requires the possession of strong metaphoric and imaginative skills, on the part of its practitioners – by exposing readers to metaphorically expressed messages, contained in their poems; poets enable them to derive a strong aesthetic pleasure out...
Biography Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972) was a Palestinian writer and a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). While studying Arabic literature in Damascus he became a member of the left-wing Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) but moved to Kuwait before completing his degree to edit an ANM...
Introduction John A. Garraty is considered to be an outstanding American historian who devoted his life to the presidency of the American Historians Society. He is a significant writer; Garraty is the author of several historical books disclosing the facts of American National Biography. One of the most prominent works...
“Death belongs to the dying and those who love them.” This is a quote from Sherwin B. Nuland’s book How We Die, Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter. Throughout his book Nuland demonstrates this message; he takes us through the significant education he has received in his forty years as a...
Homer is regarded in the Roman and Greek world as the father of rhetoric. This reputation of Homer is clearly evident from the 9th book of the Iliad, an embassy right from the leaders of the Greek towards Achilles, who is both sour and furious. The speeches framed by Homer...
In the scope of classical literature, the writings of Francois Voltaire occupy a prominent position. Voltaire’s renowned shrewd outlook and sober judgment found reflection in his famous satire Candide, or Optimism – a book which, met with a scandal immediately after publication, has enjoyed great popularity for centuries due to...
The story A Good Man is Hard to Find written by Flannery O’Connor is considered to be rather tragic through the author’s breakage of traditional “happy ends”. The short story is rich in literary devices and expressive means; O’Connor managed to create a symbolic and imaginative work provoking and stimulating...
“The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin (1894) tells us the transition of a woman from shock to grief to joy and then again to shock within a span of an hour or so. But it should be mentioned in the initial stages that there is no change of...
This short story is called “The story of an hour” because it describes with clear detail the occurrences of an hour in its protagonist’s life. Louise Mallard is the protagonist of this story. Her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards got eh news of her husband’s death in a...
On Bullshit is a 2005 nonfiction bestseller by acclaimed American philosopher, Dr. Harry Gordon Frankfurt. A compact 67-page philosophical investigation, and emanating his distinguishable blend of philosophical acuity, wry humor, and psychological insight, Frankfurt sketches/develops a revolutionary theory of bullshit – defining the concept and analyzing its application, effect, and...
The focal point of the paper is to present a Comparison and Contrast essay between the poems, “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain“, by Emily Dickinson and “The Widow’s Lament in Spring Time“, by William Carlos Williams. The paper would look into the parameters of the inner world of...
Introduction In most cases our backgrounds characterize us, for instance, where we grew up, our beliefs as well as traditions, the forms of education we acquire and the friends we make. It only becomes a problem when your background clash and as a result we are left torn between the...
The work of Handsome Lake How America was discovered is a fiction that bears more ideological and precaution character for a reader. The story of a white preacher who once met the Creator telling him about a country where people would be cruel and corrupt because of money greed and...
Introduction Literary works dealing with serious subjects such as woman rights, discrimination and oppression can be completely different in genre and style, but nevertheless sharing a mutual theme, each approaching it from a different perspective. In Everyday Use by Alice Walker and A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell,...
Introduction Symbols are the types of stylistic devices which writers use in order to extend people’s perception of the story. Symbolism is a very frequently used way of text representation. This special type allows the writer not to express his/her ideas directly. The expression of the plot and author’s thoughts...
In his poem “Ithaka,” Constantine Cavafy encourages his readers to go off on a journey that will last most of their life. In the poem, he talks about how the journey needs to be full of adventure and discovery but he also warns against monsters like Laistrygonians and Cyclops, and...
Introduction Tragedy and comedy are the classic genres which became most popular for the elegant audience. The thing is that people are intended to see art examples of vital things terrifying or gratifying a spectator which can be implied in the play that is why the flow of people’s thought...
Comparing characters of Mathilde and Charlotte In these two short stories, Mathilde is portrayed as the pretty and charming wife of Mr. Loisel, a minor clerk in the Ministry of Education. She is disillusioned with her small time life, with no grandeur or high living. Charlotte Prime is a governess...
Much is said and written about the unique, unprecedented, historical situation the world is in today. The so-called new type of warfare, terrorism, the economic and different environmental-related concerns are among the things that make this world situation seem unprecedented in history. This story is about the voyage to the...
Both these epics of contain themes that fascinate us and keep us enchanted through the centuries. The basic plot of the two epic poems is the oldest theme in the history of literature, that of good vs. evil. However, we find that through the centuries there has been a change...
There is a great deal of different methods and techniques to introduce the main characters of the story, to organize the text and to make the reader interested in the book from the very beginning. Authors usually use various methodologies in their work, as they want to be unique and...
Hills like White Elephants is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. This work is a real masterpiece being rich in various themes and concepts. The author managed to create an atmosphere of sophisticated relationships and family metamorphosis. He strived to depict a kind of conflict between hedonism and personal...
Introduction Lanval, TheWife of Bath’s Tale, and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnel have much in common in the plots and the ideas they suggest. In the current paper, I will look at how satire is used in the works to disclose the problem of gender and chivalry....
Introduction Jonathan Swift was popularly known as a satirical writer during his era. Aside from being a poet, essayist, and a political pamphleteer, he became the dean of Saint Patrick’s in Dublin. Swift was born on the 30th of November, 1667 and died on the year 1745. Most of his...
“Who controls the past controls the future. And who controls the present controls the past.” By the above quote, it is meant that Orwell claims those historians to be in power who govern our society. Only such historians who lead the society through their deeds or words are in a...
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...
In all societies and all epochs, judging individuals by their appearance was a prevalent tendency, which normally allowed creating a first impression about the person, their possible nature, lifestyle, and behavior. However, there is a negative side to such practice, which consists of prejudices against those, who look different in...
Introduction Books are written to deliver ideas, whether they fictional or based on real facts. There are cases when delivering the idea requires that the author recreates the truth even if it is based on real facts in order to have the readers relive a particular experience. In the book...
Brief Summary Pelzer (1994) in his book A Child Called “It”: One Child’s Courage to Survive has related his story of the sustained horror of maternal child abuse that he underwent. Narrated in first person account, Dave Pelzer has told his story of how his alcoholic mother singled him out...
“The Barrelmaker Brimful of Love” is a short story written by a famous Japanese poet Ihara Saikaku. In this work, the author addresses several issues: first, the relationships between love and religion, in particular Buddhism. Secondly, he explores the conflict between individual happiness and general welfare within the context of...
Introduction In the novel, The House of Mirth Lily’s development as a character is certainly not negligible to the novel, her primary role is as the means through which Wharton reads and writes this culture. Thus, The House of Mirth is not primarily the story of Lily; it is rather...
Ibsen’s drama ‘A Doll’s House’ appears to be influential literary work, as it revises and reconsiders traditional male and female roles and reveals the threats underlying gender discrimination. The author definitely portrays courageous and goal-oriented women, who struggle with the challenges of the androcentric society and find their niche in...
Themes Fate is apparent in life and everyone has to work hard to realize it. The alchemist is a novel that has the story of a boy called Santiago who had a dream of going to the pyramids to look for treasures. His dream turned out to be true after...
Introduction To a person who is reading Gertrude Stein’s Three Lives, for the first time, there is usually a predominant question in the mind: is the book really what it is: (an account of the lives of three people) or is there some deeper meaning hidden between the lines? The...
Introduction Self-consciousness, as a significant part of personal identity, largely determines not only the views on certain concepts but also the ability to adapt to society within the framework of specific living conditions. Those communicative, religious, and other beliefs that a person follows are the background for the perception of...
Gulliver’s Travels is the novel that became extremely fashionable as soon as it was issued (John Gay said in a 1726 letter to Swift that “it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery”), and it is probable that it has never been out of print since then....
The current essay deals with a difficult but quite important topic tied with the role of race in Shakespeare’s Othello. As Alvin Kernan remarked Othello is probably the most perfect plays by Shakespeare in terms of the formal and structural design of its composition. Structural elements are organized in a...
Introduction Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (Paton, 1948) is a classic story of South African apartheid in the years after World War II. The story is about a Stephen Kumalo a Black pastor who is searching for his son Absalom in Johannesburg. The son has been charged with...
Introduction In the early novels of Thomas Mann, the readers can often follow the rethinking of Friedrich Nietzsche’s postulates. The influence of philosophical attitudes can be traced concerning the art of dance in the novel Death in Venice, written in 1911. In this story, Thomas Mann addresses his favorite topic...
It is generally agreed that different symbols tend to be used as the way of the author’s ideas’ interpretation. In case of Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”, blood might be one of the metaphors which is reclaimed as a reference for either genetic relationships or committed crimes and their consequences. That is...
The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant is an intriguing story with an unexpected ending that any average reader might find at least interesting. The author is highly esteemed for the skillful structuring of his writings’ composition as well as for their plot. A massive part of his legacy comprises the...
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...
Introduction The novel All quite on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was one of the first novels in modern European literature to present another side of the war which was rarely disclosed earlier in literature. Earlier war was mostly presented as a heroic glorious and patriotic event, described...
Introduction In the short story, Desiree’s Baby Kate Chopin depicts truth of life speaking about social problems of women and role of racial differences. In this short story, a women character of embodies qualities and unique characteristics typical for many 19th century women, and reflects their expectations, values and morals....
“A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen is one of the most influential plays of Victorian times which not only opened new dimensions to the English Drama but also left an indelible impact on the future writers and dramatists at large. The theme of the play seems to revolt against the...
Introduction Great works refer to the collection of all things, the creation of a man by himself. This refers to putting the full and entire faculties and his future expectations to the public this clearly indicates a person’s will or his way of thought. Great work may be based on...
The classic Antigone by Sophocles is one of three plays about Oedipus and his family. It tells of the daughter of Oedipus Antigone, who fights to bring her brother’s corpse home to a proper burial when the new king, Creon, rules against it for his “betrayal” of Thebes. Sophocles uses...
The purpose of Candide according to Voltaire was to “bring amusement to a small number of men of wit”. (Aldridge 1975, p. 251–254) Voltaire’s biographer, Ian Davidson, describes Candide as “short, light, rapid and humorous”. (Davidson 2005, p. 54 52) Voltaire is positioned with Jonathan Swift as one of the...
There are times when a person would just want to find solace in a place where they can hang out and do nothing but feel they are just drifting over their weary existence in the outside world. It is just one of the nights when depression sets in and a...
Introduction The book that has been taken into consideration is a marvelous as well as an imperative chronological work in literature. Voltaire was a Renaissance Christian humanist who took part in the growth of the Enlightenment. First of all, the composition of his narrative Candide is Homeric, it is of...
“Pride and Prejudice” was first issued on 28 January 1813 (Bloom, 1987). This book is considered to be the most well-known of Jane Austen’s works. This novel is related to one of the first works in the genre of romantic comedy. The author of the novel Jane Austen (16 December...
The story compares commonplace details of current life with a barbaric ceremony known as the “lottery”. The setting is a small American town where the inhabitants display a commemorative mood as they meet on June 27 for their annual lottery. After an individual from each family draws a small piece...
Greek legend has it that when it was time for men to be created, it was delegated by the gods to Prometheus, the Titan who had sided with Zeus in the war with the Titans. Prometheus whose name means forethought was very wise, wiser even than the gods. Prometheus took...
Fences is a play by August Wilson, an American playwright, a Pulitzer’s laureate, who wrote about the life of African Americans in different periods of the 20th century. He chronicled the African-American experience through a series of 10 plays. In the 1950s, the South was still officially segregated, and in...
Modern technological developments are transforming human activities, processes, and behaviors. The proliferation of handheld devices and smartphones is discouraging more people from visiting libraries physically. The traditional reading culture in this community has also been affected negatively. Many people are currently busy focusing on their career goals and aims. Long...
The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now is a must-read book for those who are in the “twentysomething” phase and want to make their life better. Meg Jay, who has worked with clients of this age, has discovered some common problems...
Introduction The Victorian era in English literature coincided with great reformations in society due to changes brought upon by the Industrial Revolution. Traditional agrarian communities were dissolved, family units became smaller, and the degree of economic instability grew. The expansion of cities and the creation of factories in major English...
Introduction Sophocles’ work Oedipus the King belongs to the genre of ancient tragedy. This literary style is characterized by personal conflicts, as a result of which the main character comes to the loss of personal values that are necessary for life. The contrast of happiness and unhappiness is often shown...
‘The Last Night of the World’ is a short story by Ray Bradbury written in a genre of speculative fiction. It presents an evening dialogue between spouses who are drinking coffee and watching their daughters play on the rug. It is an entirely ordinary evening except for the dream they...
Introduction The American Dream is a major ideal based on the ideas of liberty and equality of opportunity. It promises the possibility of success and happiness to everyone who works hard to achieve them. However, the American Dream is often presented in art as an impossible or corrupted ideal that...
Introduction Both Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles and Equus by Shaffer cover tabooed and socially unacceptable behaviors, but while the Greek drama stresses punishment for breaking societal conventions, the contemporary one struggles with the impossibility of helping the perpetrator to correct his ways. Main body The crimes committed by the titular...
The construct of class and race can have a considerable impact on the life choices of individuals. In “The Wife of his Youth,” Charles Chesnutt describes the story of Mr. Ryder, a prosperous African American with light skin which meets his wife, Liza Jane, after a long period of being...
Introduction One of the most famous plays created by William Shakespeare is Hamlet. The play deals with multiple themes. However, the most dominant theme that overshadows everything else in the play is the theme of revenge. The issue of revenge is questioned from the point of view of violence. This...
Finding a balance between acting reasonably and daring to go on dangerous quests, despite a mature age, may be challenging. In his short story “The Swimmer,” Cheever portrays an upper-class man’s unusual night journey home, wherein he decides to swim back instead of walking. From one perspective, the man’s quest...
Introduction “Young Goodman Brown” is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicting the eternal battle between good and evil. It is a tale of a young man walking through a gloomy forest with an elderly companion to perform a wicked deed. Throughout the journey, the main character, Goodman Brown, doubts...
Introduction The problem of discrimination and biased attitude towards the representatives of particular groups of society has always been an ongoing issue. Even today, despite significant progress in this sphere, some manifestations of this remnant of the past can be observed. The situation was even more complex a half-century ago...
Back in 1968, Philip K. Dick made its readers consider what it truly means to be a human being with the help of the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The central theme of the book, the struggle between people and artificially developed androids, is relevant for showing how...
Introduction The book The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry presents a detailed model for understanding poets’ artistic styles and their precursors. Since its publication in 1973, it has remained a source of argument or debate among literature students and educators. This short essay gives a personal reflection of...
Children learn about morality while being educated by their parents and teachers in the contexts of certain communities and cultures. Depending on what they see and perceive as ethical and normal, children form their own views and behavior. In her short story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson discusses numerous provocative themes...
In the late part of the 19th century, short stories written by female authors shared certain similarities with reference to the topics they addressed. Thus, it is possible to compare literary elements in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” when determining similarities...
Spoon River Anthology is a 1916 collection of short, free-verse poems by American poet Edgar Lee Masters. The universe of Anthology, a small imaginary town on the Spoon River named after a real city in Illinois, contains 212 original characters and 244 accounts of their life plights with their joys...
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...
James Joyce’s “The Boarding House” is a short story published in 1914 that focuses on the life of Mrs. Mooney, a butcher’s daughter. After divorcing her husband because of his alcoholism, Mrs. Mooney sets up a boarding house, where her daughter engages in a premarital relationship with one of the...
Home/family The entire family is brought down by the slave trade. Clotel, Currer, and Althea are completely separated from each other. Currer later dies of yellow fever while Althea is left to suffer under the ruthless hands of slave traders. Even after being married to Henry Morton, her life is...
Introduction Plato was one of the outstanding Ancient Greek philosophers. Most of his teachings were based on his conception of the ideas, which explained human nature, life, soul, relationships, and the state. Plato expressed his philosophy in the dialogues, among which the Phaedo and The Republic take a very important...
Chedgzoy, Kate. Shakespeare, Feminism, and Gender: Contemporary Critical Essays. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Recently, feminist criticisms of Shakespeare’s works have greatly expanded. Chedgzoy notes that the modern field of feminist criticism is not as obsessed as it once was on whether Shakespeare’s works were feminist or proto-feminist, or in the...
Introduction The Arab American writers have always employed several literary components and literary devices that reflect the true history and traditional values of Arabs living in America. The literary works of Diana Abu-Jaber in her two novels, Crescent and Arabian Jazz are some of the most important Arab American novels,...
The characters of Macbeth and Smeagol/Gollum in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings seem at first glance to be drastically different characters. Macbeth is a relative of the king, in line for leadership. Smeagol is a cut-throat of dubious, possibly Halfling origins with none but himself and his...
