“A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest Gaines

‘A Lesson Before Dying,’ written by Earnest J Gaines, tells the story of two men who have to fight hard to survive in a world that metes out suffering to them through racism and discrimination. Jefferson, one of the men, falls victim to the white people’s indifference when he gets...

Wilderness Allurement in the “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer

The cover of the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer immediately acquaints the reader with the protagonist of the novel. It says: “In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher...

Emily Dickinson’s Poetry of Privation

The collected poems of Emily Dickinson include joyful ones and despairing ones. Some two hundred of them are regarded as poems of despair, some of them about literary recognition, others about her inability to engage with formal religion but most are about the absence of love in her life. As...

Stereotypes in Ortiz Cofer’s Essay

Discussion When you encounter the term “stereotype” you will remember an individual, or group of individuals being labeled in a prejudiced way either on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender. When human beings are exposed to too many stereotypes, they make them eventually internalize and believe and conceive them...

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte P. Gilman

Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts the inner struggle of a woman unbalanced by post-partum depression, a problem for which even today’s doctors have no treatment. Her husband and brother are both doctors who have her best interest at heart but whose recommended rest cure is based on the accepted...

“The Confessions of Nat Turner” by William Styron Review

The novel “The Confessions of Nat Turner” was written by an outstanding American writer William Styron. The most eloquent fact about this book is that it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1967, but it would be just to state, that the response of the audience to the novel appeared...

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin Review

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...

Emily Dickinson’s and William Carlos Williams’ Poems

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...

Nature of Name in “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri

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...

Hearing “Sonny’s Blues”, by James Baldwin

James Baldwin spent most of his adult life living in France, but is widely recognized as an essential American writer. Through the experiences of his youth in Harlem and the distance of his adulthood in France, Baldwin was able to both illustrate the unique nature of the black community as...

“Midaq Alley” Novel by Naguib Mahfouz

Introduction The novel “Midaq Alley” by Naguib Mahfouz is a novel with many characters that live in a poor neighborhood called Midaq Alley during the Second World War. Among the protagonists are Umm Hamida, a marriage broker and bath attendant, her daughter, who was pimped by Ibraham Faraj; Hussain Kirsha,...

Short Stories by G.G. Marquez and I. Singer

The well-known short story writer Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez was born on March 6, 1928, in Aracataca, Colombia. He had written a collection of short stories and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is a very famous one among them. It is considered a supernatural story with a realistic...

Tragic Hero in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Introduction Aristotle, a well known and generally recognized dramatic tragedies pioneer, highlighted his vision of the true tragic hero which can be analyzed through the work ‘Julius Caesar’ by William Shakespeare. The story is considered to be a masterpiece of the world literature disclosing the era of ambitious political leader...

“The Crystal Frontier” Analysis

The story “The Crystal Frontier” of Fuentes is a wonderful narrative about the meeting of two people from different countries with different life situations – the way they found an ideal they imagined in each other and could not overcome the crystal frontier, which was not just a glass but...

Collins and Moore Works on Poetry Review

Despite the fact that poems “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins and “Poetry” by Marianne Moore are concerned with the same subject matter (poetry), they provide readers with diametrically opposite outlook on what, according to both poets, poetry should be all about. Whereas, Moore insists that the key to poetic...

Protagonist Roles by Mark Twain, J. Austin and C. Potok

Today’s world is full of so many flashy, noisy, and sometimes even rumbly forms of entertainment that it seems boring to spend a great deal more time and energy trying to read through the lengthy pages of a book. Reading has no sound, no pictures, and no possibility of shake...

Other Voices: Literature Review

Literature has a lot of different aims: to entertain, to inform, and to convince. The works of Judith Sargent Murray, Samson Occom, and Phillis Wheatley are very convincing, as they try to implement their ideas in society about religion and gender. Judith Sargent Murray is an American writer whose literary...

Personal Narratives of J. Edwards and E. Ashbridge

People should care about their personal spiritual development. Life without God is impossible as people should believe in something, as people should know that there is somebody who cares about them. People’s faith in God helps them to lead a normal life or to cope with problems that appear. There...

“Absalom, Absalom!” Novel by William Faulkner

Sutpen and his intention of building the Sutpen’s Hundred Thomas Sutpen is a mysterious man, in the sense that people never really understood him and his idea of building the Sutpen’s hundred was borne out of the fact that he realized while he was growing up that men are not...

“Pool Players Seven at the Golden Shovel” by Brooks

The poem “Pool Players Seven at the Golden Shovel” discloses a bright and fashionable presentation of the main characters of the poem, namely the street boys whose fate depends upon their luck. In that regard, the poem is also a protest against the goodness of life, which came out of...

Literature’s Judgment Different Issues

The world of literature is the sphere of entire features and prospects that never die in peoples’ minds. The fact that the literature comprises the wholeness of the experience gained during thousands of years is apparent and presents many themes for discussion. The paper is dedicated to three works by...

The Character of Hamlet’s Mother

Heilbrun: The character of Gertrude cannot be only described by such qualities as weakness, shallowness, and intelligence (201). Gertrude is a strong-willed woman and a rather reserved personage (205). Maxwell: Gertrude could be identified as a weak and neutral heroine, though her role in the story was very significant (237)....

Women as Oppression Victims in American Literature

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,...

“The Road Not Taken” Poem by Robert Frost

Introduction The poem by Robert Frost “The Rod Not Taken” tells about a man who had a situation when in front of him two roads diverged. He tried to rally his thoughts and make up his mind what way to choose. First, he made an attempt to look narrowly into...

Symbolism in “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck

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...

“When Man Enters Woman” by Anne Sexton

In the poem by Anne Sexton When Man Enters Woman the theme of femininity is vividly described throughout its reciprocal attitude toward a male beginning. In this respect, the author implies too intimate a theme into an art form. A woman is intended by “Logos” to be a way for...

“Who Moved My Cheese?”: A Great Allegory for Situations of Changes

People have various visions of changes and usually perceive them differently. Some react aggressively and do not want to communicate with anybody, the others begin to complain about their hard and unfair life. Some people like changes, they look optimistically at them and do not afraid, as think that changes...

Emily Dickenson: Because I could not Stop for Death

The poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” was written by Emily Dickenson and it tells the story of a woman who has died. It seems to tell her story from the time she dies until the time she arrives in her grave. This sounds morbid, but it’s really...

“Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” by Dai Sijie

Dai Sijie and his novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress provide a scope of huge intentions of two young men in China to provide their skills in learning foreign literature in a time when such perspective was banned by the government. The thing is that the events in the...

Heroes’ and Villains’ Views on Money in “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand

Introduction “Atlas Shrugged” is a novel which was written by Ayn Rand in 1957. This novel operates with a number of notions which may puzzle the modern reader. It deals with the concepts of objectivism and human achievement exploring a number of other philosophical themes. “Atlas Shrugged” discloses different facets...

“Fighting Auschwitz” by Josef Garlinski

In the 1940s, the Nazi regime started an international program aimed at “purifying” the racial profile of the European population and establishing the rule of the so-called Aryan race. The powerful instruments of such correction were concentration camps, which combined the functions of labor utilization, development of science and technology,...

Stevie Smith’s and Karl Shapiro’s Poems Comparison

Introduction Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving but Drowning” (1953) and Karl Shapiro’s “Auto Wreck” (1942) differ from each other in form, style and subject. Smith’s poem relates the last thoughts of a drowned man while Shapiro’s reflects on a traffic accident. Smith’s poem is almost light-hearted in the way it reads...

Gay and Lesbian Literature in the United States

Introduction The social conditions make people live according to the moral consent to behave “rightly” not to be blamed or condemned by others. A man still makes up his mind in the American society where to go when it is considered that you are not the same as others. The...

A Comparison of “Hamlet” by Shakespeare and “Wuthering Heights” by Bronte

Literature has a way of continuing to explore many of the same themes that seem to plague mankind throughout history. One of the common themes that continues to appear throughout much of earlier literature is a representation of women as nearly hysterical creatures that needed the guiding and calming hand...

How Decisions Can Make or Break an Individual: Literary Analysis

People make decisions all the time. Do you want steak or chicken for dinner? Should you go to work or stay at home? While some decisions don’t have any long-term consequences, others may change the course of your life. The decision to have steak today may mean you are having...

Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”

Introduction Life in South America had unique conditions. This was because of the unusual race relations, conflicts, problems and its history. Life was different for the descendants of the white aristocrats and of the poor whites. This paper will endeavour to discuss the South and Southerners as they appear in...

“The Necklace” vs. “Paste”: Character Comparison

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...

General Prologue to a Contemporary Version of The Canterbury Tales

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...

Finding Individuality in “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner

Discovering one’s identity is much more difficult than just understanding what society expects of you because it also involves understanding how you feel about yourself and what you feel is right. Although it is very rare that we really understand all the various elements of our life and understanding that...

“Beowulf” & “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” Comparison

As for epics of the oral tradition, Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight never appeared in writing until many years after the story originated. Through the many retellings of the tale, it probably changed significantly over time; however, the essences of the society and the culture of each...

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” Epic Poem Analysis

The epic poems can be regarded as “a beautiful fiction, producing a lovely, apotheosized version of the self with the capability of camouflaging one’s failings and the uncertainties of life” (Weiss 1). Thus works representing this genre of literature could be considered fairytales for children unless they were of great...

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ in Hark’s Article

Introduction The article by Ina Rae Hark (1974) provides the comprehensive analysis of the epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The major argument presented by Hark (1974) concerns the mentioned poems being an atypical example of the heroic literature of the early medieval period. The leading points that...

Similes in The Odyssey – Greek Literature

Introduction The ancient Greeks had a worldview that established a close relationship between the world of the gods and the world of mortals, typically expressed as a close relationship between the natural world and human activity. This was because it was felt the will of the gods was expressed through...

Gods in Homer’s “Odyssey”

Introduction Analyzing Homer’s works, an interesting concept can be examined through the role of gods in his Odyssey and Iliad. This concept can be related to the sense of contradiction in the representation of gods, where on the one hand gods can be seen from the perspective of a believer-...

Analysis of Ferlinghetti’s A Vast Confusion

In a way, this poem is a verbal collage, a vast confusion of created mind images used to convey a mood, a message or just an observation. The poet uses images and sound, movement and symbols to tell us about what he believes. The poem reminds one of the short...

Relationships and Dialogues. “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin

Edna Pontellier, the heroine of “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin, lives in the United States during the 1800s. During those days, men dominated U.S. society while women were considered inferior to them. The Feminism movement that demanded women should be treated equally as men, having the same political, economic, and...

«Hills Like White Elephants» by Ernest Hemingway

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...

Thoughts in “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf

Introduction The complexity involved in the working of the human mind is beyond explanations. The flow of thoughts in an individual is Brownian at a superficial level but looking at it from the perspective of a philosopher one realizes the implicit presence of ‘The Stream of Consciousness’. Throughout the history...

The Killers: Short Story Genre of Earnest Hemingway

The literary style of Earnest Hemingway, Nobel laureate in 1954, is direct, terse, and often monotonous, yet suited to elemental subject matters. His fiction and short stories usually focus on people living essential, dangerous lives, controlling the pain and difficulty of their existence, with stoic courage. Hemingway’s characters plainly embody...

“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carols Williams

The poem’ the red wheelbarrow’ was written by William Carols Williams and is counted amongst the modern day literature. There can be numerous reasons for this but in order to understand them; it would require careful evaluation of the poem itself. The opening sentence itself begins with the use of...

Alice Walker’s Concepts of Everyday Use

In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”, the author places two sisters side by side for an afternoon of visiting. One of these sisters, Maggie, lives with her mother in a small, poorly built shack on the edge of the country and is planning to marry a somewhat unattractive but...

Trip as the Way of Searching the Reality

Introduction The journeys all over the world, which people retort to, are generally aimed to find the new, better life. People try to find other cultures, ways of life, wisdom that will never be met in the motherland. They may simply search for adventures if life is too calm. But...

Effectiveness Techniques in Short Stories Analysis

The concise format of a short story often turns out to be an ideal way of creating sharp and concentrated narratives rich with meaning. The charm and fascination of short stories consist in their focusing intensely on one incident with a limited range of characters developing within a short period...

Uncovering the Wallpaper in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Introduction Being a wife and a mother at the same time can bestow a lot of stress to a woman who is just starting up to fill those shoes. Doing a balancing act of being a mother and wife is sometimes too much too handle for a woman, what more...

Old Angel Midnight by Jack Kerouac

Introduction The narrative that has been taken into consideration goes by the name of Old Angel Midnight and was written perhaps in the year 1959 and was written by the well-known author Jack Kerouac. This narrative can be considered as a consequence of Kerouac’s involuntary experiments of writing that he...

Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis Book I and II

Introduction The book Persepolis I and II, reflects on the life of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian girl who fled to Vienna in Australia after the Islamic revolution in 1979. This occurred after the Iranian warfare augmented the government’s authority over its people. Satrapi’s parents saw the need to send their...

“That Evening Sun” by William Faulkner

‘That Evening Sun Go Down’, a short story written by William Faulkner, portrays the pathetic condition of African Americans in South America. One can identify the hidden hatred that the white men harbour towards the Negro community in America. A Unique Feature of the Story is that it can be...

Strong Woman in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The book The Yellow Wallpaper portrays the values and social traditions of Victorian women, their problems, and their social position in society. Gilman attempts to demonstrate care and love by freeing women from the individual home and developing a unique approach to domestic tasks, such as child-care, As a feminist...

Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” From a Feminist Perspective

The Yellow Wallpaper is a literary piece written from a feminist perspective. There is no need to elaborate on what feminism is all about except to say that the feminist movement wanted to empower women and this is related to the assumption that men are holding them back. One of...

Freiberg on Southwest Airlines’

“Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success” is based on what can be referred to as the success story of Southwest Airlines. It is a guide towards how to achieve success in business, harsh as the business world today may appear to be. Southwest Airlines is the...

Phenomenon of Cinderella Tales

Cinderella is one of the most popular characters in the history of the world’s fairy tales. This character could be modified in some ways by certain national cultures and in other ways by other cultures but the very essence of the story about Cinderella has always remained unchanged. It depicted...

“The Yellow Wallpaper”: A Short Story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1982. The story is a first person narrative with a woman describing her mental health problems and the development of her disease. The story, first criticized by a number of readers for being frustrating and...

A Critical to “Mary Poppins” by Travers

It is a common knowledge that people always thought of something that would make their life easier. Charms and topics related with them have always attracted the attention of different writers who created stories and fairy-tales where people achieved everything they wanted by means of magic not even lifting a...

Daisy Miller’s Personal Analysis in “Daisy Miller” by Henry James

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...

Symbolic Character in “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller

The play by Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman demonstrates the struggle of a man in an attempt to reach success in life. It describes the life and surroundings of Willy Loman who searches for the alleged American Dream. He sees no other way for his satisfaction in life, unless...

“The Blood of Flowers” by Anita Amirrezvani

The fact unknown to most of people is that as inspiration of Anita Amirrezvani’s first novel “Blood of Flowers” served a Persian carpet her father presented her with when she was a teenager. Looking at that carpet every day she imagines the life of a carpet maker and always wondered...

John Schwiebert “Reading and Writing From Literature”

Introduction The poem “The Thread of Sunlight” written by Timothy Young is included in the anthology “Reading and Writing from Literature”, the 3d edition, by John Schwiebert where he raised the most important problems of humanity. The basic theme of the poem is the consequences of the war period and...

Presentation on Ihara Saikaku

Introduction Ihara Saikaku is now viewed by many literary critics as one of the most prominent Japanese poets. He was the offspring of a prosperous merchant; when he was fifteen, he started to take interest in heikai and soon became very popular in this genre. However, the authors talent should...

Dickson’s “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” & Pop Culture

Introduction The question of self-identity and personhood is one of the most important social issues shaped by cultural traditions and values. Self-identity defines the unique qualities of a person and his/her personal traits, life goals, and worldview. Emily Dickson vividly portrays that modern society is influenced by mass culture and...

“Age of Turbulence” by Alan Greenspan

Introduction Alan Greenspan’s Age of Turbulence is a personal memoir combined with the description of his role as Federal Reserve Chairman for the last 18 years. In this book, he traces his evolution from the life of an academic to the post of the Federal Reserve chairman. In this book,...

Some Reasons Why Reading Is Important

Introduction. Books are an integral part of our life. Develop imagination, transfer to the world where magical things are possible. “Haroun and the Sea” is written for a ten-year-old boy, Rushdie’s son. Reading is not just amusement. There is a couple of reasons why reading is important. They are sources...

Mark Twain: Success, Manners and Artworks

Samuel Clemens better known by the pen name Mark Twain speaks best about the American experience through is distinctive literary voice, and through his classic writing skills. His familiarity with local culture and use of local dialect, and his life experiences in the heart of America helped make his writings...

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain

Introduction Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born in Florida Missouri on November 30, 1835, is commonly known by his pen name or author’s alias as Mark Twain. Mark Twain is the author of the book “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. This novel accomplished the esteemed title of “The Great American Novel”. This...

“The Gilded Six-Bits” by Hurston and “Babylon Revisited” by Fitzgerald

The stories “The Gilded Six-Bits” by Zora Neale Hurston and “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald seem to be very different at the first sight. The first one is about the life of two young Afro-Americans who lived happily before meeting a rich white person named Otis D. Slemmons who...

English Literature: Frankenstein by Shelley

Introduction If we are going to compare Victor Frankenstein from the famous and the most disturbing horror novels by Mary Shelley to God, then we will probably suggest that God is ashamed, scared, horrified, and full hatred towards us, just like Victor towards his own creation. Looking at God, just...

“Billy Budd” Novella by Herman Melville

Introduction The novella, Billy Budd depicts a unique character of Billy and his struggle. The form of the narrative is generated by the memory of the narrator. Several features of his narration contradict the closed-form of legal judgment which he tells about. Main body The narrator thereby reveals the dilemma...

Satire in Martk Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

Introduction Satire is one of the tools used by mark Twain to unveil social issues and changing values, new social relations, and self-understand of the main characters. Mark Twain’s satire can be characterized as moralistic and didactic aimed to teach readers. From a natural bent, Mark Twain is always interested...

Cullen’s and Milton’s Poems Review

Introduction The Afro American poets Countee Cullen and John Milton are closely connected with the so-called Renaissance of the African literature. The best known poem “yet, do I marvel” by Cullen is often been misinterpreted and consequently, it was regarded as just one more lament of a defeated soul as...

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Review

“Where are you going, where have you been?” is a beautiful story written by Joyce Carol Oates. The author takes the archetypal theme of seduction and then presents it in the way he finds it today, particularly in America. The way she depicts the emotions of a 15 year old...

“The Spanish Tragedy” Play by Thomas Kyd

The theme of revenge frozen the blood of every person. But only writers in their literary works can present all experiences of the soul of this human vice. A famous English dramatist Thomas Kyd wrote his well-known psychological masterpiece The Spanish Tragedy. By this work of literature, he tried to...

Aesthetics. “The Bacchae” Tragedy by Euripides

The tragedy “the Bacchae” is part of Iphigenia at Aulia. The tragedy tells a story of the divine nature of Dionysiac and punishment. Following Aristotle’s view of tragedy, it is possible to say that this play meets the canon and is based on the main steps of classical tragedy. The...

Effects of Farah’s Account on Society

Among the African writers of world recognition one name that is often mentioned has been that of Nuruddin Farah. His work deals with effectively and in detail the social life and the characteristics of the culture in Somalia. All his works leave a significant impression of the life and culture...

“The Boat” by Alistair MacLeod and “The Loons” by Margaret Laurence

Introduction While analyzing any work of literature, especially prose, it is of the crucial importance to give extra attention to the role of the narrator, because, the reader perceives the events through the eyes of this person. As a rule literary critics single out several types of story telling, like...

Bibliography on the Author James Patterson

Introduction James Patterson is one of very few authors, specialised in the genre of criminal thriller, who provides his readers not with merely the possibility to “kill time”, during the course of reading his books, but who also allows them to get an insight onto the fact that the concept...

Chopin and Shields Literary Works Compared

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is a short story that particularly focuses on the feminine gender’s side of such marriage struggles. Caged in a patriarchal society, women have been rightfully fighting for a life worth living. In this story, it takes an accident, particularly her husband’s death,...

“The Things They Carried” Stories by Tim O’Brien

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...

Wilkie Collins’ “The Moonstone”

Introduction The character of Franklin Blake is depicted as a reliable narrator as he can explain some events of the party and can prove his innocence. Now it is certainly tempting to interpret this silence on Gabriel Betteredge’s birthday part simply as generosity and compassion. Thesis Franklin Blake’s story is...

“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart Things Fall Apart: A Novel is the book that can be called a real masterpiece of the African Literature with the appearance of which Chinua Achebe was concerned started writing his novels and glorifying the African culture and Africans. This book can be viewed as the response...

Crevecoeur’s “Immersion Journalism” and Humes’ “What Is an American”

This essay will analyze the article by J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur, “Immersion Journalism,” and the article by Edward Humes, “What is an American.” The common theme of these essays is implicit and implied. Both authors describe different topics and issues but construct their works on the opposition between the...

“A Child Called ‘It'” the Book by Pelzer

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...

Joseph Conrad’s Book “Heart of Darkness”

Introduction In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the main character Marlow continuously calls into question the modern assumptions that are made by his listeners as well as his readers, blurring the lines between inward and outward, civilized and savage and, most especially, dark and light. The bulk of the book...

“The Barrelmaker Brimful of Love” by Ihara Saikaku

“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...

“A Short History of Nearly Everything” by William Bryson

The Book “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, written by a famous American author William Bryson is considered a brilliant combination of science and fiction books. It is worth mentioning that such a term as science fiction is not quite appropriate in this case because it does not show the...

Symbolism and Expression in “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown is a well-known short story written by an outstanding American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. This story is considered to be deeply psychological and grabs readers’ attention by its symbolism and imaginative expression; the author managed to reflect the contradictory world of the good and evil humanity sides. It...

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Is He Insane?

Introduction The issue of insanity has often been uncomfortable, for the average human being as well as for the writer. It often provides a fascinating subject for drama, as has been demonstrated brilliantly by William Shakespeare as insanity plays a key role in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. In this play, the...

“The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway

The book ‘The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926 and was the first novel published by the renowned Novelist Ernest Hemmingway. The book is also known as Fiesta in some countries because this was the original title that Hemmingway chose for the novel. The Sun Also Rises expounds upon...

Sylvia Plath: Biography Review

Poetry has a beautiful ability to pull ideas and emotions out from the depths of one’s being with only a few short lines and a well-chosen metaphor. Through various literary devices, poets are able to paint pictures for their readers that more concretely define the feelings and beliefs that remain,...

“Two Trains Running” by August Wilson

Introduction It is a common knowledge that African-American experience due to its being sad and this is why dramatic always attracted attention of writers and playwrights as well as other people who could disclose to the world the reasons of oppression due to racial factor, depict, describe or portray the...

“Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom

Introduction The need for guidance in life is something that people rarely admit, especially when they reach a mature age. The loss of such guidance could explain the fact that people do not appreciate the little things in life that they used to enjoy before facing real-life obstacles. “Tuesdays with...

Literature: History of Theory and Criticism

The place of Alexander’s Pope’s An Essay on Criticism in English literature is that of Boileaur’s Art Poetique in French criticism. Keeping in line with the neoclassical tradition, Pope gives a detailed account of his views on literary writing and the art of criticism. His essay has been seriously studied...

Metaphor Is a Many-Splendored Thing

Figurative language or Metaphor encompasses almost any unusual way of expressing meaning through words. As a means of communication through careful control of diction, metaphor is most typical of poetry. “In rhetoric, a metaphor is a figure of speech in which for the purpose of emphasizing a particular quality, one...

“The House of Mirth” Novel by Edith Wharton

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...

Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” Autobiographical Novel

Introduction Marjane Satrapis autobiographical novel “Persepolis” explores such complicated issues as culture shock and the loss of cultural identity. The book is a unique combination of autobiographical prose and comics. The author successfully shows the world through the eyes of a young girl, the task, which is very difficult to...

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by G. G. Márquez Review

Introduction Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, first issued in English in 1982, is one of the Nobel Prize winning writer’s shorter stories, but past and contemporary censors agree that the book’s small size conceals a huge work of art. The book’s supremacy is in the exclusive...

Angela Bourke and Irish Oral Tradition

It is a rather specific matter when one has to write about the peculiarities of the culture of a certain nation because not always people are acquainted with the national customs and traditions. It becomes even more complicated when the cultural peculiarities are to be studied with the help of...

Sexual Violence in The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood

Introduction The Handmaid’s Tale narrates about the events in the Republic of Gilead, a State, which was proclaimed on the territory of the contemporary USA after nuclear, biological, and chemical pollution, which made the most citizens infertile, and after the terrorists killed the president and all the members of Congress....

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by E. A. Poe Characters Review

In the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe creates a unique image of the main character, a nameless narrator, who commits a crime and kills an old ma. Although this narrator claims to be totally sane, he admits that there never existed a real motive for murder. In “The Tell-Tale...

Art of Drama Through the Shakespear’s ‘Hamlet’

Introduction Shakespeare is a master craftsman who depicted almost all aspects of human life and psyche in his great tragedies. Hamlet is one of his all-time great tragedies that have a carefully drafted plot, characterization, development of conflicts, dramatic ironies, and a setting conducive to the development of pity and...

Theme of Judgement in the “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee

Introduction To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee is one of the most vehement novels that break the tradition of ‘ part pour l’art’ and proceeds to provide some strong lessons. Racism and classism are one of its major themes, and in course of exploration of such a theme,...

The Word “Mateship” in Australian History and Literature

Introduction The term mateship as a specific Australian idiom can include various meanings in its essence. Its meaning can differ from the standard definition of friendship in a way that this form of relation or reference can be used between people who are actually not in friendship. This paper will...

Autobiographical Aspects of Saint-Exupery’s Works

Introduction Antoine de Saint-Exupery, to certain extent, can be compared to Leonardo Da Vinci, who, as one knows from the history, succeeded in painting, architecture as well as in exact sciences. Similarly, Saint-Exupery’s giftedness manifested itself in a number of directions: he studied architecture, worked as a sales manager and...

“Pilgrimage to the End of the World” by Conrad Rudolpf

What do people seek when they go on a pilgrimage? I guess it might be either an edification or a strive for forgiveness. The author of the book “Pilgrimage to the End of the World” Conrad Rudolph, who origins in Poland, is going through a series of missionary journeys on...

Anton Chekhov: A Lifetime of Lovers

Anton Chekhov is one of the most talented dramatists, whose plays are included in the repertoire of theaters all over the world. The depth of the thoughts, expressed in these plays, makes readers and watchers seriously think over world history, relations among people. Chekhov himself once wrote: “We have inherited...

A Damned Piece of Rascality: The Business of Slave Trading in Southern Appalachia

Slave trading in southern Appalachia Aaron Purcell is the author of the article, “A Damned Piece of Rascality: The business of slave trading in Southern Appalachia” The article has laid focus on Meek, Hayne, and Company, a firm that dealt with slave trading in Southern Appalachia. The article, which was...

Everyday Objects in Walker’s, Allison’s, Baldwin’s Works

The three works Everyday Use by Alice Walker (Walker, 1994), This is our life by Dorothy Allison and Sonny’s Blues by Baldwin (Baldwin, 1993) bring to light certain ethereal and sublime interpretations of everyday objects. To put it simply, everyday use objects acquire a new meaning and connotations and we...

Hwang’s “Trying to Find Chinatown” and Packer’s “Brownies”

For many minority families, identity and self-determination have been the main problems since ancient times. The play Trying to find Chinatown by Hwang and the short story Brownies by Packer describe life struggle and hardships faced by minority people in America. Both stories describe strong religious values and ideals kept...

George Stroud in “The Big Clock” by Kenneth Fearing

The focal point of the paper is to present a critical response on George Stroud in the “Big Clock” by Kenneth Fearing, published in 1946. This book is a social depiction of the influence of mass media through the protagonist George Stroud, who is the editor of a popular magazine...

Woman’s Progress in “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros

Introduction Most feminist literature seems to argue against the traditional conception of woman as she has been envisioned in the white, middle-class suburban ideal. However, feminist issues extend well beyond this narrowly defined world into the lives of women of color, too, although there are slight amendments as to what...

Death of a Salesman: Imagery & Sumbolism

Introduction The Death of a Salesman was a tale of broken dreams, aspirations of the characters and unfulfilled promises. The Loman family is portrayed in the play as a dysfunctional family, each member with his or her issues. Willy Loman is sixty-three and nearing retirement, his wife, his two sons,...

Gender & Feminism in A Doll’s House

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...

Nora in A Doll’s House: Character Analysis

The literary heritage of Henrik Ibsen counts lots of dramatic works, which appear to be very popular and bringing up the problems of today. Actually, the matters, brought up within his works are eternal. So, the books are really worth reading and analyzing. In Ibsen’s dramatic writings the several storylines...

The Song of Roland as a Folk Epic

Introduction Epic is a significant combination of the style and the theme in the poem reproduction reflecting the flow of historical or legendary events. The world literature contains a lot of examples of famous epics covering the main features of this genre and highlighting the major moments of history. The...

The Essay on Man and Candide: Character Analysis

Introduction The literature of the Enlightenment is generally of the great interest for the philosophers, researchers and simply for people keen on literature of that period. The Alexander Pope’s “Essay on the man” and Voltaire’s “Candide, or Optimism” are regarded as the satiric literature of the eighteenth century. Both are...

Beowulf: Comparing the Movie and the Book

The story of Beowulf has remained a significant work for centuries not only because it is one of our first lengthy works of English, but also because of the timelessness of the themes it contains and its applicability to a modern audience, regardless of the period in which ‘modern’ is...

King Lear and Beowulf: Compare & Contrast

Introduction English literature contains wonderful works related to royal families as well as common individuals that teach the readers ethical principles, moral lessons and codes of leading a dignified life on the one hand, and wide-open new horizons of intellect and wisdom to them on the other. The same is...

Themes in Beowulf: Annotated Bibliography

Introduction Bravery – Beowulf is the most famous poem among the works of the Old English literature. It is the epic creation telling the readers about the strongest and the bravest of the English warriors of all times. The plot of the poem is concentrated around the life and the...

Death of a Salesman: Book Review

On Theme “The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want”… – Willy Loman, Act 1 (Miller, 1998) “The American Dream” is the highlight of this story. There is a...

“Dulce et Decorum Est” and “The Things They Carried”: Compare & Contrast

Introduction The Poem Dulce et Decorum Est and the story The Things they Carried are both about war, but more than fifty years apart. The geography and the weapons have changed, but the conditions are not that different. The men are much the same and war is as brutal as...

Death of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman

The play Death of a Salesman depicts the American dream and the inability of a person to understand the meaning of life and family happiness. The play is often seen as tragic because of the death of the main character, Willy Loman who wastes his life searching for the American...

Women in Oedipus Rex and Death of a Salesman: Compare & Contrast Essay

Introduction The leading females in Oedipus Rex and Death of a Salesman are submissive characters who are unable to avert the imminent tragedies of the dominant protagonists in both the plays. In fact, both works tell the stories of the tragedies that the women characters themselves have to undergo; however,...

Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby

Introduction The novel Great Gatsby depicts the unique vision of the American dream and its impact on life of a person during the 1920s. The mystery of which Fitzgerald wrote the novel was based on mystery of the American ideal and romantic love. In this novel, Fitzgerald uses symbolism and...

Society in The Great Gatsby

Introduction The novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald can be called a bitter satire to the American dream, which according to the ideas of the majority implies the heap of the happiness, which is missing to many, and in reality gold outer shell is converted into the empty...

In the Time of the Butterflies and The Great Gatsby: Compare & Contrast Essay

Dystopia is the common setting in Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies and Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby paints a depressing picture of the corruption of the American Dream during the roaring 1920s. On the other hand, In the Time of the Butterflies is the...

Chaucer’s Satire in The Canterbury Tales Essay

Introduction One of the foundational principles of the courtly tradition was a particular conception of women. According to this view, women, particularly high-born women, were considered extremely delicate and require a great deal of protection and solicitation. Women were expected to be quiet, demure, easily surprised by the grosser aspects...

Knights in Literature: Sir Gawain, Canterbury Tales, & Beowulf Analysis

There are some Knight’s Period stories that everybody knows, or maybe, heard about, but if one strives for a deeper understanding and acknowledgment of their main themes and ideas, it is necessary for him or her to analyze them, compare some of their characters with one another. Therefore, the following...

Coelho’s Alchemist and Homer’s Odyssey: Theme Comparison

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...

Good Wife Penelope in Homer’s “The Odyssey”

The character of Ulysses is very famous and it is mainly associated with two epics namely the Iliad and the Odyssey both these great epics were written by homer. Ulysses was a Greek king who went on an expedition in the later parts of his life leaving his kingdom, his...

The Concept of Sublimity in the Books by A. Carson

Sublimity Anne Carson, one of the most famous writers and poets of the modern world, is famous for her gift of incorporating different literary styles in her masterpieces. Her works are full of creative inspiration combined with deep analysis of ideas and thoughts expressed by the prominent writers and theorists...

Humanities. Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream

Introduction A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a tender comedy by William Shakespeare, offered by “The Knight’s Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, composed around 1594 to 1596. It shows the escapades of four young Athenian lovers and a grouping of amateur performers, their contacts with the Duke and Duchess...

Great Fictional Icons in the Nineteenth Century: Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus”

English Literature has witnessed the formation of four great fictional icons in the nineteenth century. They are Shelley’s Frankenstein, Melville’s Moby Dick, Stoker’s Dracula and Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus is rendered in opulent Gothic prose. It delves into the intricacies of the human mind...

Gilgamesh and Odysseus Visit Underworld Comparison

Introduction While studying literature of the first world civilizations, such as the civilization of the Tigris-Euphrates area, and Ancient Greece civilization, I was interested in two epic books: The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Wanderings of Odysseus. I was really impressed with the two main characters of these books: superhuman...

Lotus-Eaters of Today: Sins of the Lotophagi

Introduction Cardinal Sins, are those which lead to other greater sins. For example, Greed for gold may lead one to steal or even kill to acquire more gold. The Lotus-eaters or Lotophagi was a group of people that Odysseus encountered in his 10-year odyssey to return home. This paper will...

Matthew Arnold. Arguing From Experience

The great poet and critic Mathew Arnold belongs to the Victorian period of English literature. He was very much influenced by the age he lived in. He was a staunch believer of religion. The religious disillusionment of his time pained him too much. His fear and anxiety in people’s loss...

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time” the Novel by M. Haddon

Detectives and investigators, described in the writings of the corresponding genre of mystery novel, are usually experienced and competent specialists, but modern authors introduce novice detectives increasingly more often. These young explorers are normally children, teenagers or very young adults, who are enthusiastic and determined enough to find the core...

The Problem of Faith in Parables by Kafka and Nietzsche

Introduction The problem of faith is a rather controversial one. Different people have different views on what faith is. Some consider it to be a code of moral principles without which one cannot exist; others find faith a human’s failure to explain the life around. As long as humanity goes...