6124 samples of this type
Starting as a rather serene and slow-paced story, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” gradually spirals into a rather frantic pace with a blood-curdling revelation at the end. Apart from an unexpected and frankly horrifying twist, “the Lottery” incorporates believable and relatable characters and a rather peculiar plot. However, its themes are...
Introduction Upon reading Yellow Woman for the first time, I was amazed by how much the author keeps the story interesting, especially when she connects myths and reality. Leslie Marmon Silko has maintained an appreciation of history and culture and thus the Laguna Pueblo. What she goes through and what...
“When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” is one of the most famous works written by John Milton in the middle of the 17th century. Compared to contemporary poetry and other Italian sonnets, this poem is characterized by complex syntax and the evaluation of serious themes related to human...
In “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the author creates a contradictory image of the main character; the author leads the reader to discover who she is. It is not easy to form one’s own impression of Emily due to the narrative aesthetics characteristic of the author’s modernity. The...
In this passage, there is a conflict between Desdemona and Iago over women’s nature, which ends with the victory of a rational and objective way of thinking. The woman argues with the man and is indignant at his feeble mind. Although she does not have so much experience in life,...
Douglass’s work captures the era of abolitionism, the struggle against slavery, and black Americans’ contribution to their liberation. In Frederick Douglass, the writer and the social activist, the educator and the statesman were happily united. Beginning his life under the harshest conditions of slavery, he achieved recognition through natural talent,...
Introduction “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” one of the first works to be associated with the name of William Shakespeare, doubtlessly is more than a story with a moral. It serves to illustrate the common laws of life, which work on human beings even without their understanding of them. In fact,...
And Tango Makes Three is a real-life story that was shaped into the literary form by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. The book tells the readers the story of two penguins from the Central Park Zoo, who hatched an egg together and practically gave birth to another penguin named Tango....
In chapter 8 of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, Mr. Beaver talks about the experiences of Tumnus. He explains that Tumnus was arrested by Secret police under the White Witch’s spell (Lewis, 1950). Children, to whom Mr. Beaver was talking were scared and wanted to...
The history of the world’s culture has seen a colossal number of seminal works of art and literature. However, even the list of the most renowned cultural achievements demonstrates certain works that hold special significance, and Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is one such piece. This 14th-century poem has become fundamental...
Introduction Sometimes, fate develops in an absolutely unexpected way: a rural orphan boy managed to become the president of the USA but did not get a chance to long this position long enough. James Abram Garfield was an incredibly talented and naturally gifted person who spent his youth in poverty...
The subject of feminism is among one of the subtle and underlying themes of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley, the author of the story, primarily emphasizes the issues of male oppression and patriarchy through the use of subordinate women imagery. In addition, the fear of femininity and the power of womanhood can...
“Hills like white elephants” is a heartbreaking story about two beloveds who are going to make a fatal decision in their lives. This story depicts a couple whose relationship has poorly changed because of the woman’s unexpected pregnancy. The pregnancy implies the end of their frivolous life full of pleasure...
Introduction Beloved by Toni Morrison is an allegory of emotional and physical trauma caused by slavery. It is illustrated through the story of a black woman haunted by her daughter’s ghost that she murdered to save her from servantry’s fate. The genre used in this novel is called magical realism,...
Steven E Ambrose’s Nothing Like It in the World tells the story of the first transcontinental railroad. It follows the project’s history chapter by chapter, from choosing the route for the future road to driving the last spike in Utah. Concluding with the brief assessment of the road’s importance, the...
“Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes is a poem dedicated to the author’s pain about an impossible American dream. The dream of a virtuous republic, which America has not still reached, but achieving this dream is a goal of every generation (Gorski, 2019). The author tells about what...
The narrative Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway commences in a valley in Spain. The story is about a protagonist, the American, and the antagonist is the girlfriend, Jinn. The narrative revolves around the American man’s suggestion to the girlfriend to have an operation that she later agrees with...
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...
Jim and Irene Westcott seem to be ordinary people with no peculiarities. Their lives resemble the lives of their neighbors in many aspects. For example, all of them are married, have two children, go to the theater, and hope to live in a better place (Cheever 1). Westcotts appearance could...
A Doll’s House is a vivid example of the genre of analytical drama. The genre got its name due to the fact that all stage events are the result of what happened to the characters before the action begins and requires a reflexive analysis to understand everything that happens further....
Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, describes a tradition in a small town where members draw lottery slips, and the winner is subject to death by stoning as a community sacrifice for good health and harvests. On the other hand, Sophocles’s play, Antigone, follows one girl’s fight against authority for...
The character of Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello is one of the most unique and multi-faceted villainous characters from all of Shakespeare’s works. The mysterious and deceitful aura of the character makes the play more thrilling to the viewer or reader, who is aware of Iago’s untruthful motives, and makes the...
The poem “Song of Myself” is an epic work of literature as the poet dedicates it to celebrating himself. An interesting aspect of the poem is its length and its free verse nature. It is divided into fifty-two sections, with each part introducing a slightly new concept about celebrating oneself...
Introduction The problem of female agency and the constraints that patriarchy has placed on it became particularly prominent in the West in the late 19th-early 20th century. Due to the pressure of sociocultural, as well as socioeconomic and sociopolitical changes, the opportunity for women to add potency, urgency, and convincingness...
Introduction The story knowledge is delivered to the viewer through a series of symbolic, operational, and discursive cues. A story may be told using a sequence of written or spoken words, still or moving pictures, or some combination of these. According to Blair and McCormack, “the primary elements of a...
Introduction The poem “Desert Places” by Robert Frost depicts the speaker’s lonely mind in a deserted place, resonating with the current times; the inevitable return of depression and universal human loneliness. The poet uses simple vocabulary, “the loneliness includes me unawares,” which underestimates the actual extreme loneliness of human beings...
Books can be a great avenue for exploring ideas. By writing about one’s feelings and thoughts, they can be shaped more clearly, be transformed and be understood by others. As a creative medium, literature is one of the best ways to properly examine the phenomena of the human condition in...
How the setting (time and place of the novel’s events) has impacted the beginning of the plot The plot and course of the story are significantly shaped by the initial events of time and place. The author, Joan Didion, and her late husband, John Didion head to the hospital to...
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...
American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novella The Yellow Wallpaper details the deteriorating mental health of a woman experiencing postpartum depression. The room’s ugly, dirty yellow wallpaper forms the centerpiece of the novel. Her obsession with the yellow wallpaper marks her fall into psychosis throughout history. Thus, in the composition The...
Set in a village background, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” illustrates the height of human potential to execute violence, although, it is depicted as ritual practices, tradition, and community order. The story reflects the society of the ancient time, but it has remained relevant even to today’s society. Through the use...
Reviewing literature to solve an identified problem is different from conducting a literature review to search for a gap in knowledge. At the same time, their common features of both types of literature reviews. On the one hand, the purpose of both types of research is to discern what is...
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...
Women have for ages been victims of abusive domestic situations. In “The Story of an Hour” Louise Mallard, the main female character, fails to prove the validity of the information sent to her by Josephine confirming her husband’s death. According to the telegraph message from her husband’s sister, Brently Mallard...
How to Talk to Girls at Parties is a fantasy story by Naiman, set in 1970s London. Enn, the main character, narrates it after thirty years from the action. He and his friend, Vic, in their teenage years decided to meet young ladies. They study at the school for boys...
In the play, Death of a Salesman Miller says that the latest boom in real estate is one of the testimonies of the success of the American businesses. He particularly highlights the rapid development of residential buildings in Willy’s Brooklyn neighborhood. Those who have succeeded in their careers and businesses...
It is challenging to understand unique characteristics and shape self-identity when actions are dictated to people and there is no basic freedom. Never Let Me Go is a story about a world where humans are cloned then told to donate organs when they become adults. The main character of the...
Langston Hughes and Claude McKay are prominent representatives of the dawn of African American culture in the first half of the twentieth century. Harlem Renaissance was a powerful movement that shaped African American literature and aimed at reinforcing the racial bias. Despite leaving a mark in American poetry and being...
The book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall down by Anne Fadiman is one of the highlights of the Hmong culture and the challenges socializing a family from Laos faces in American society. Misunderstandings and disagreements manifested in day-to-day interactions reveal distinctive values and norms in the two cultures....
The Iliad is a classic work of literature, which has withstood the test of time and become one of the essential art pieces in human history. In ancient times, scholars have already started to question whether including Book 10, often referred to as the Doloneia, was the right choice. Modern...
Introduction Human society is founded on the fact that luck in life is a goal that everyone wants to achieve. From this perspective, in two dramatic short stories, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, the philosophical conflict between luck and its consequences is clearly...
Introduction Fiction is a genre of literature that involves invented characters, they are usually in prose and are primarily novels. Children’s fiction has been used over time, and the question of what impact it had on their lives arose. The parents reading The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires to...
An American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “Young Goodman Brown.” The story’s setting is 17th century New England, which was predominantly Puritan. Hawthorne bases his work on the criticism of puritanism and its central premise that all people are responsible for the original sin. “Young Goodman Brown” is a literary criticism...
Introduction Christian stories and parables carry deep meaning and contain valuable discourses about virtues, goodness, and the righteous path that people should follow to live in a healthy and peaceful society. At the same time, in addition to theological texts, works from popular literature also may contain profound truths that...
In prose and verse, sound extensively contributes to indirect characterization: authors use sound devices to shape readers’ perception of characters and nuance characters’ descriptions. In this respect, such unlike texts as “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Porphyria’s Lover” is exemplary for investigating the connection between form (in this case, sound) and...
The Overview In Neil Gaiman’s short story Other People, a person finds himself in Hell, and his greatest torture is to relive his life through the eyes of those he hurt. It is a circular narrative in the sense that it ends just like it began: an arrogant person enters...
The adventure novel “Moby Dick,” written by Herman Melville, is an excellent example of a literary work full of symbols transmitting the secret message behind the narrative. Most of these symbols are somehow related to religion, and this fact conditions the central place of the religious theme in the book....
Foreshadowing is one of the most important techniques used by O’Connor in her story A Good Man Is Hard to Find. There are two aims of using this technique namely the suspense and preparing the reader for the events which happen further on. The author gives her readers the hint...
The New Jim Crow is a horrifying record by Michelle Alexander based on the race caste system’s return to the United States. According to the story, a large number of African Americans are imprisoned and afterward consigned to a perpetual inferior status (Alexander, 2020). The circumstance denied the rights such...
Introduction The Odyssey is considered one of the first adventure novels in the history of humankind and a kind of encyclopedia of geographical representations of the ancient Greeks. Odysseus, in folk memory, is represented as a famous and even archetypal traveler. However, often readers forget that the legendary king of...
Socio-economic inequality is the unfair distribution of resources and opportunities to the different groups and races in a country. In the contemporary world of capitalism, this problem is widespread in almost any society. Capitalists have secured the means of production while workers provide the labor force. Corporates and business owners...
In the Poem “The Mother,” the writer Gwendolyn Brooke speaks out on the highly debatable topic of abortion. The second poem, “Disabled” by Wilfred Owen, portrays different kinds of pain – physical and psychological trauma of a young man fighting for Britain in World War One. Both pieces express deep...
The book review on “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow them and people will follow you” is a subject to criticism based on many view points. First, the title of the book stands to be questioned itself; it shows some sense of rigidity and also some form of forced...
Closing Statement: The Prosecutor Your Honor, the life of a person, no matter what his or her body may look like, is sacred, which is why the Samsa Family must answer for their actions. There is clear evidence that, despite his transformation, Gregor Samsa still possessed the ability to feel,...
The Eleusinian Mysteries played a vital role in ancient Greece. Moreover, during the Hellenic era, these initiations became a major festival that was later exported as a cultural phenomenon to various parts of the Mediterranean and even encouraged a similar celebration in Ancient Rome. The initial idea behind the initiations...
The importance of each character in a literary work can be either revealed explicitly by the author or implied by the character’s interactions with other individuals or relations to some events. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there is one character that does exist in the same dimension as all the others. The...
Robert Frost was a prolific American poet born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. Although he holds the absolute record for the number of Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry awarded to a single person, Frost struggled to find any recognition in his early years. In fact, he had to work...
Arthur Miller’s plays are characterized by the significance of the moral and ethical issues and the application of references to his heroes’ past, where roots of the present behavior lie. The desire to find profound implication in the ordinary, to create an emotional atmosphere from as if insignificant words and...
Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is a classic tragedy that can be received by the public in any setting because its concerns are timeless. The central themes can revolve around dichotomy, including the image of light as the idea of knowledge and darkness as ignorance. In the original play, all characters’ worship...
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” is a famous short story by Joyce Carol Oates wrote in the 1960s. The story centers around Connie, an attractive girl aged fifteen that has a relentless focus on her appearance and gets in trouble after meeting a predatory man named Arnold....
Introduction The analytical paper is dedicated to the comparison of the stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. “Harrison Bergeron” and Flannery O’Connor “Good Country People”. From first sight, the two narratives seem to be completely different and do not have much in common; however, there are topics covered by both of...
Introduction Susan Glaspell is a celebrated American writer, and Trifles, a one-act play, is among the many works that she wrote in the early twentieth century. At the time, women in American society were facing various challenges and Glaspell used her literary skills to highlight the same, albeit dramatically. In...
Introduction It might be difficult for people to openly discuss the moral dilemmas that can cause one to choose between abiding by the law and helping others. The story that is described in this essay discusses this issue by placing the reader out of his or her comfort zone and...
Despite the fact that Claudius is introduced as the main antagonist in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, he actually posses a number of strong qualities. In the beginning, the character shares his emotions about the death of the king and demonstrates his intention to support the family and “to bear our...
Introduction In the current research paper, the main aim is to answer the question of which conflict does August Wilson uses most to drive all the other elements of the story in his play “Fences.” To address the problem adequately, the following plan is followed. First of all, a brief...
Thesis statement This work aims to study such an aspect of human experience as heroism in Odyssey by Homer and Inferno by Dante Alighieri. Introduction Authors may research and analyze one or several different topics in their literary works. One of the most common themes in the literature is heroism....
The House of the Seven Gables is a romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American novelist of the first half of the XIX century. The romance tells the story of the Pyncheon family and the life of the family members in the mansion in the small town in New England. This...
Introduction In literary works, many elements strengthen the position chosen by an author, improve storytelling, and provoke critical thinking among readers. According to Mays, “the language of poetry is often visual and pictorial,” which makes poems dependent on specific words and their creative meanings (834). Metaphors, allusions, flashbacks, similes, and...
The Hazy London and Its Dwellers The small excerpt depicts the scenery of London in the 19th century. The central streets are small, quiet, and clean from dust. Nonetheless, it is just an illusion of a prosperous city. The text suggests that people are unhappy and unsatisfied with the situation...
Introduction The authors of short stories have to work hard and use their best writing skills to present interesting ideas within a limited amount of words. It is not enough to choose several characters and raise a topic that appeals to the reader. In the majority of cases, the success...
Introduction There are three critical themes explored in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children and Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. The three themes are a myth, fate, and prophecy. The authors of these two novels have vividly presented these themes through actions of the characters like Kafka, Saleem, Amina, Shiva, and...
Introduction In the middle of the 1900s, Ralph Ellison created one of his remarkable novels Invisible Man. Each its passage or phrase has a specific meaning and impact on the reader. Still, the first paragraph of any literature work plays a significant role because it sets the tone for further...
Introduction Animals often have a prominent role in the world’s mythologies and folklore. The fox is a common figure in many traditions, representing a cunning trickster or, sometimes, messenger, figure (Ashkenazi 148; Lihui and An 239). This figure is not necessarily negative or malevolent but is often described as dangerous...
In essence, chapter 8 of the book focuses on the value of fear and anxiety and how defensive pessimism can be more beneficial than strategic optimism. It is stated that darts throwers who envisioned their potential failure were 29 percent more accurate than strategic optimists (Grant 213). The main idea...
Neighbour Rosicky is a short story written in 1928 by an American author Willa Cather. As an immigrant herself, the writer explores the experience of people who devoted their lives to this country. The story of Anton Rosicky is not an exception as he emigrated from the region of Bohemia,...
Introduction Inspiration is a normal process in art creation, moreover, one can argue that all art pieces were created as a result of the artist being inspired by other works or by the world around them. The inspiration for the poem “Autumn” was a poem by Robert Frost titled “Nothing...
“A Streetcar Named Desire” is written by Tennessee Williams and first presented in Broadway Theatre in December 1947. The play is focused on the tense relationship between two sisters, where one is a spoiled young woman who is driven by her desires, and another is desperately in love with her...
The Three Prophecies and Meaning of Each Prophecies in Shakespeare’s Macbeth occurs in act 1 and act 4. These prophecies play a significant role in advancing the themes of good and evil, treachery and betrayal, loyalty, crime, and violence, which are common in the play. Shakespeare used various characters and...
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, in the chapter titled “Coffee and the Protestant Ethic,” talks about the consequences of the introduction of coffee for the European countries in the context of the Age of Reformation. He argues that coffee satisfied the needs of the period of Protestantism and rationalism, and had significant political,...
Introduction Poetry about nature and its features occupies a significant part of the world’s poetic heritage. At the same time, in addition to describing the world, many poets resort to the analysis of such a phenomenon as human nature that conveys aspects of people’s characters and their outlook on life....
How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my bitter binge! What is a man, If his chief good and passing of his time Be but to cry and feed? A wreck, no more. Sure, during this godly feast I gorged Myself to slumber, and forgot That capability and...
Introduction In the short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes the life of Pelayo who discovers an old man with large wings. He accommodates him in a chicken coop and capitalizes on his condition to amass wealth from villagers who come to see him....
The Nature of Schooling is an essay addressing the issue of economic inequality and its impact on children’s educational achievements. Entwisle, the author, argues with misinterpretation of the critical studies on the issue that were understood as proof that knowledge is more genetically related than based on environmental factors. She...
Introduction The most profound meanings are texts in which the conflict is expressed implicitly, and occurs inside the character. The story of the knight Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza is a brilliant example of how a writer skillfully recreates inner-personal conflicts leading to the radical metamorphosis. Thus, a...
Introduction William Shakespeare’s play, Othello, the Moor of Venice, describes tragedy using Othello as the protagonist. Othello is a Moorish soldier in the Venetian army who is highly qualified and respected. In the play, he finds himself in several tragedies resulting from racial discrimination, envy, love, and infidelity. Other characters...
Introduction Both the poem “Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Thomas (1951) and the song “Tears in Heaven” by Clapton (1992) are imbued with the theme of death and reasoning on this topic. However, the authors use different contexts and take distinctive approaches in their messages. Clapton...
Kant’s ideas about enlightenment and its impact on the human mind are essential views. The philosopher’s thoughts on this topic are clearly expressed in his essay “What is Enlightment?” where the author tells about his view of how exactly the human mind is transformed under the influence of progressive thinking...
Chapter 8 in the book discusses forming a cohesive whole out of the disparate thoughts gathered by the author for their writing. Graff and Birkenstein (2014) recommend using transitions and pointing words as well as repeating key terms, phrases, and longer passages (in a different manner). The aim of all...
Art Creation There is a significant number of topics that are especially loved by both authors and readers and used in literature rather often. Though all of them were being discussed for many centuries, poets can still find ways of expressing their thought and feelings about such themes in unusual...
The plays of Moliere’s Tartuffe and Henrik Ibsen A Doll’s House are some of the most famous literary works. Both plays explore the all-consuming topic of money and the obsession with money, which are still relevant in modern society. A Doll’s House and Tartuffe depict the influence of money on...
A Raisin in the Sun is a highly controversial but critically appraised play written by Lorraine Hansberry and performed for the first time in 1959. It tells the story of a struggling African American family living in the poverty of Southside Chicago and looking for a better future. The play...
The story “The Wrysons” written by John Cheever is a typical narrative about an American couple that preferred everything familiar to the unusual that they distrusted. The life of these people revolved around their comfort zone, and they were incredibly unwilling to welcome any change in their well-organized existence (Cheever...
Introduction Death is notably one of the universal fears that translates to almost every culture, time, and age. All people eventually face death in their lifetime: either their own or their loved ones. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that dying is a widely researched topic in many literary works....
The Moldau is the symphonic poem of the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. The poem illustrates the flow of the Moldau river from its spring in the Bohemian forest to Prague. The Moldau theme is played five times and could be characterized as proud and playful by the character. Such an...
There are several elements that can outright describe and reflect Greek drama. The play “Medea” by Euripides is a mythical tragedy that was written in 431 BC. One common element in such plays that is also reflected through the drama is the presence of mythical gods. The story gives relevance...
Introduction Literature has a unique connection with the real world as, through literary works, writers reflect the complexity of human nature and relations. Especially through a first-person perspective, readers have an opportunity to understand a different mindset and culture better. In particular, in Alexie’s short story What You Pawn I...
This paper will analyze the graphic strategies used by Art Spiegelman on page 13 of his graphic novel, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. This page represents a part of the narration when a father tells his son about his past, so it includes both the current timeline of the story and...
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 This paper will be focused on analyzing, comparing, and contrasting two short stories. The first one is “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, and the second is “The Destructors” by Graham Greene. The pieces share some similarities in terms of their approaches and themes, making them well-suited for comparison. The...
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen is an interesting play that considers a variety of themes, including morality, law, social standing, and gender equality. However, the central theme of the play – and the one reflected in its name – is marriage. Torvald and Nora appear to be a happy...
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....
“To His Coy Mistress” is a well-known poem by Andrew Marvell, in which the speaker addresses his lover, who is reluctant to be intimate with him. Even though the speaker seduces his lady, it is mostly a carpe diem poem full of profound contemplation about the brevity of life. “Had...
The narrative is set in a hospital operating room and in-house chapel, perpetuating the atmosphere of democratic conformity that defies morality. The setting serves as the display of the conflict between individual choice and procedures. The author writes, “The on-call room is never dark enough, even with your eye-mask,” indicating...
The exposition begins when the characters and the setting are introduced to the reader. The dialogues between the characters filled with their constant disagreement serve as the rising action. The story reaches its climax when Moris Melnik decides to let the spoon of salt define the state of things in...
Introduction In the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, magic is described as a supernatural force that defies nature’s laws. These books are popular because they contradict the norms and beliefs that people have been raised to know. Rowling has formed a narrative logic to make these stories believable to...
Introduction “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a fictional narrative representing rural American culture. The story starts by telling the reader how “the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractor and taxes.” The population and setup of structures highlighted in the narrative reveal...
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...
Most Western societies have been predominantly patriarchal for most of history. Gender roles and many societal restrictions bounded women for centuries. Fundamental human rights like voting, abortion, and equal pay had to be fought for. Therefore, it is no wonder why many literary works reflect the unfair reality of gender...
Zora Neale Hurston was a writer in the early 20th century. Her book Tell My Horse was published in 1938, which described the hands-on experiences in Jamaica and Haiti held two years prior. One of the book’s central discourses is the preservation of the traditional African customs in the era...
Summary In the prologue, Craig Welch tells a story about two detectives, Ed Volz and his partner Bill Jarmon, of the Washington department of fish and wildlife trying to track down smugglers of a geoduck, the world’s largest burrowing clam consumed as seafood. One night, they meet dealers with information...
Introduction By “I, too sing America” the author means that he also sings the anthem of America as he is a full-fledged citizen of the country, has the right to be a patriot, and can be proud of his homeland. Hughes “sings” and tries to convey the main idea of...
Introduction It may seem that the role of money in society is higher than morality — while abstract concept limits life, the material situation allows the owner to gain more influence and resources. That is why the phenomenon of money is reflected in fiction: the central themes of two plays,...
The issue of human rights, as well as gender-related inequalities, has been on the cultural agenda of humankind for a while. Comparing “The Love Suicides at Amijima” by Chikamatsu Monzaemon and “Tale of Kieu” by Nguyễn Du, one will realize that the two works, while representing different time periods, address...
The activity of civil rights activists was one of the indicative marks of the 20th century, which was largely reflected in the literature. A bias against such themes as culture and conflict appeared, and it is portrayed in Two Kinds and Everyday Use. Both of the stories focuses on culture...
“The Tragedy of Macbeth” by William Shakespeare serves as a reflection of the relationship between the playwright and King James I, however, its implications stay relevant in the modern days. The portrayal of Lord Macbeth at the beginning of the play as an honorable, kind, and valorous man creates an...
Introduction The short story A Good Man is Hard to Find, written by Flannery O’Connor, which holds the same title as her debut collection of short stories published in 1955, is deemed as her most disturbing work of fiction given its content. It is dark, and it centers upon two...
In the play “Othello” by William Shakespeare, a close look at the characters is being taken. Othello, Cassio and Iago are very different people with their own life experiences and this plays a very important role in the play. Each of them was raised uniquely and this makes up their...
Hamlet is an outstanding tragedy by William Shakespeare, which is considered an example of skillful language and complicated plot. The play has always drawn the attention of researchers, and even today, litterateurs still analyze its peculiarities. Through his vivid characters, Shakespeare speaks about eternal issues: the problems of doubts, love,...
Romeo and Juliet are one of the famous tragedies by William Shakespeare. The selected performance for this analysis is the one by Douglas Booth, Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis, and Hailee Steinfeld of 2010. The producer of this work relies on the use of a grave and balconies to stage the...
Phillis Wheatley is central to Barbara Johnson’s argument since Wheatley represents the exact phenomenon that Johnson describes, namely, the fact that African American poets were considered merely as ornaments in American society of the time, while the original, groundbreaking, and even revolutionary ideas in these poets’ works were ignored or...
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...
Introduction In The Great Gatsby, the story concerns a mysterious character named Jay Gatsby. He is exceptionally wealthy, hosting parties at his manor attended by many people, “few [of whom were] actually invited” (Fitzgerald, 1925, p. 45). No one seems to know how he came to be that rich, and...
Introduction Mr. Fox is one of the many novels written by Helen Oyeyemi. Through a set of short stories, the author explores a variety of different topics; however, the subject of violence against women seems to be the most prevalent. The issue is identified in the very beginning with the...
Modern gothic literature involves the use of terrifying, horrifying, and uncertain death events. A gothic story requires a frightening setting and unusual characters. 1408, a story by King, is a reflection of modern gothic literature. It is composed of elements of terror, horror, death and suspense. Great parts of the...
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...
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...
Lisa Lutz’s The Spellman Files is a novel with disordered episodes which combine some genres. It combines literary work with comedy and mystery in a 300-plus-page book. Despite the problems found in the structure of the book, Lutz’s choice of characters, humor and adept narration makes the book an interesting...
William Faulkner’s choice of a perspective as a faceless voice of the crowd serves as a viewpoint that is presented to the reader for a number of reasons. Due to the inconsistent timeline, the story shows reflections of the past from the present point of view. The following essay discusses...
Introduction Dawn Powell’s play “Big Night” portrays controversial relationships both within a particular family and in society in general. The author uncovers the sad but true reversal of values in 1930s America, when love, friendship, kindness, and other aspects of ordinary life were replaced by the desire to make a...
The book “Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism: The Madisonian Framework and Its Legacy” by Jennifer Nedelsky can be acclaimed as one of the most progressive works in the area of constitutional research. The book discusses a row of issues related to private property and its protection in...
Persuasive Essay The preeminent role of literature in society’s development cannot be doubted. Through reading, people obtain valuable means of developing a sense of beauty and imagination. Moreover, the reader can visit many places which he or she might never be able to see in reality. However, the most crucial...
Run by Ann Patchett is a piece of fiction writing. The book deals with the life of an American family of a former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle, who recently lost his wife, Bernadette. Ann Patchett has chosen a very symbolic title for the novel, Run, for all the characters...
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...
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...
The “Mother to Son” poem written by Langston Hughes depicts a mother who tells her about difficulties she encountered in her life and continues to overcome them. Based on the example with a stair, the woman emphasizes that her life was not a crystal stair, which means that she had...
John Maxwell Coetzee is considered one of the most prominent contemporary novelists. His literary talent facilitated the South African writer’s worldwide recognition and won him the Booker Prize and Nobel Prize in literature. Coetzee is the author of numerous remarkable novels such as “Life and Times of Michael T”, “Waiting...
Introduction In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, Birmingham, Alabama, was notorious for the harsh segregation policy against black people. In 1963, the Civil Rights Movement started a non-violent campaign to protest against the coeval discriminatory laws. Peaceful marches, sit-ins, and boycotts on segregationist merchants took place in Spring,...
Love is the ruling force of the evolution. People all over the world consider love as the brightest and the warmest feeling. Love is often the main theme of the greatest works of world literature. The theme of romantic love is also discussed in such masterpieces as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet...
Introduction “The Story of an Hour” is filled with twists, turns, and captures the reader’s attention from the on-set. Kate Chopin goes on to show that women at the time lived for their husbands and they existed solely to fulfil their husbands’ dreams. Twenty-first century critics would find a lot...
“Disgrace” is one of the most significant works of J. M. Coetzee, which brought him the Booker Prize and worldwide recognition. The action takes place in post-apartheid South Africa. In “Disgrace,” J.M. Coetzee’s creates a complex character, Lucy Lurie, which faces the shameful and disgraceful acts of her father, the...
As it is well-known nowadays, a special artistic technique is meant under the term “defamiliarization”. Its main meaning is that the audience is forced to perceive the suggested things and actions from a distance, in an unfamiliar way, as if they were strangers there. The technique is aimed at the...
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...
The book Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China’s Cultural Revolution by Jicai Feng depicts political situation in China during the period of 1966-1976. The author presents information about the decade in the form of interviews (the book contains about 100 of them). This form of narration both demonstrates...
Introduction The work and organization of the medieval society proposed in the Canterbury Tales by Charles Chaucer can be easily connected with the organization of modern society. This is a point that can be established if the two settings were to be compared. Chaucer depicts a society wherein work is...
Introduction Seamus Heaney and Sinéad Morrissey are prominent modern Irish authors who address the past and the present in their poetry; they combine personal experiences, historical events, and stylistic devices to bring the reader closer to the themes they explore. Both of them focus on emotional experience as the mirror...
Introduction At the end of the nineteenth century, Japanese literature experienced many striking moments. In particular, in the late 60th, it endured the most deplorable declines under the governance of Emperor Meiji. The famous authors were doomed to resort to writing books about formless and meaningless gossips. So far, having...
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...
Premiering in 1947, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a play set in the late 1940s about the downfall of Blanche DuBois and the relationship between Stanley Kowalski and his wife Stella. Blanche and Stella come from an upper-class background in Mississippi, where Blanche lived and worked as a...
Introduction Jane Austen is generally accredited to be one of the most widely read and accepted writers in the world of English literature. Effective use of realism, indirect speech, and crucial social criticism is very common in Austen’s writings. Austen has a deep insight into the family dynamics and she...
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...
