5700 samples of this type
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
“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...
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” 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...
Culture is the phenomenon that differs human beings from all other animal species in the world. However, culture is also a matter of prejudice and streotype formation against this or that nation or ethnic group. Accordingly, this paper will examine the issues of cultural differences and stereotypes discussed in the...
The 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 book Never to Be Forgotten is written by Beatrice Muchman and is an evocative and moving narration of a Jewish child’s life in Belgium while it was occupied by the Nazis. Beatrice Muchman and her family had come to Belgium from Germany after Hitler’s rise to power. In 1943,...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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 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...
Introduction If there is a novel that can be closer to haiku, in terms of deep meanings that can be extracted from descriptions and short ordinary phrases, this would be “Snow Country” – a novel by Yasunari Kawabata that tells the story of love between a man visiting hot springs...
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...
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...
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...
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...
In her short story “The Storm,” Kate Chopin was undoubtedly interested in presenting more to her audience than simple stories regarding simple country folk. Although there is little room in a short story for the full development of several individuals, significant insights regarding the multiple emotions of characters can often...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
The novel “Felicia’s Journey” by William Trevor presents a story of a young girl who had a tragic love experience in her life. She had a love affair with Johnny Lysaght who abandoned her when he found out that she was pregnant. Some readers keep to the point that the...
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...
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...
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...
Morrie Schwartz Morrie Schwartz – one of the protagonists of the novel is the professor of sociology. It is stated, that he got this job by default, nevertheless, he is an excellent teacher. The action of the novel takes place for the time when he retires, as he starts losing...
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...
Introduction This poem claims that people who do hard work diligently and enthusiastically are rewarded the most and satisfied the most. She has claimed this by stating again and again that she likes people who do hard work, which can be interpreted as hard work being appreciated by everyone. Main...
“Story of an Hour” was written by Kate Chopin in the late 18th century, and is much different as compared to other short stories. It is a dramatic example of a woman who suddenly finds herself blessed with the long-desired freedom that she internally sought from a repressive marriage. The...
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...
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 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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Introduction The Brothers K is a compelling story by David James Duncan about a family living in Camas, Washington in an America rapidly approaching the revolutionary 1960s. Though Camas is a small town still settled in the conservativism of the 1950s, the family soon faces the common division of the...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Reading classic literature provides plenty of benefits to the reader such as a better understanding of other people’s feelings and thoughts and the consequences of their actions. Often, the perception of those benefits directly depends on the narrator of a book. Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights narrated by two characters,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 story Araby is included in the series of the so-called Dubliners written by James Joyce. The series still fascinates its readers with epiphany, used in each story. The use of the device of epiphany means that the end of the story is unexpected and abrupt while the plot of...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Literature always reflects every change in society and it stands to reason that American literature of the nineteenth century was strongly influenced by the tragic events of the Civil War of 1861-1865. Many authors were involved or to some extent interested in the war events, they used their war 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...
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...
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...
Introduction The War of the Roses, speaks of the period between 1455 to 1485 when two powerful dynasties in Britain fought to gain the throne of England. The two houses were the House of Lancaster with King Henry VI as the head and The House of York with King Richard...
Introduction The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano depicts personal courage a man who escapes slavery and fights for personal freedom and human rights. The narrative addresses many themes including slavery, religion, oppression, kidnapping, business relations, ideas of liberty and freedom, economic status of African countries and their...
Good Versus Evil When John Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down was first published in 1942, it received some significant criticism in terms of its themes and the key message that the author communicated to his audience. In his writing, Steinbeck proposed the idea that in the end, evil will be...
Hope is an ambiguous feeling to describe. It is the shining candle in the gloom and the final sprite released from Pandora’s Box to mitigate the swarm of gloom that Pandora inadvertently released. When Flannery O’Connor makes this statement, she speaks with a conviction of a person who knows the...
During a lifetime, each person witnesses a large number of events. Whether pleasant or unpleasant, these instances become an inseparable part of the individual’s life. Because of the ability to memorize things, people keep many events in their minds forever, digging them out under various circumstances. Sometimes, one may desire...
Introduction In the modern world, many people like discussing the theme of true heroes and the required qualities. Ancient literature is probably one of the most frequent sources of information to be applied to find out good examples and evidence. During the last centuries, The Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer’s...
First of all, it is necessary to mention, that the novel, written in 1984, and describing the epoch of the VIII century touch upon the matter, that had been fluctuated humanity for centuries. The striving for immortality and eternity occupied the minds of the greatest philosophers and alchemists. While viewing...
Introduction The pursuit of truth and justice is usually an essential part of the mystery novel; ‘Anil’s Ghost’ and The Lovely Bones approach the themes of truth and justice in unusual ways. The two stories have deep seated relationship regarding truth and justice. These qualities have been promoted, hidden, denied...
Coming across the line “They also serve who only stand and waited” in the well-known sonnet, a reader might wonder whether the modern tramps of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot would have been in Milton’s view the supreme servants of God. Intelligence, to prevent that murmur, would then remind the reader...
Women are an often-discussed topic in literature, not only in terms of their modern emancipation but also in terms of their previous idealized state and their ‘proper place in any given time period. As women gained more rights, more complete education, and greater freedoms, they began to respond to what...
The current essay deals with a difficult but quite important topic tied with the role of race in Shakespeare’s Othello. As Alvin Kernan remarked Othello is probably the most perfect plays by Shakespeare in terms of the formal and structural design of its composition. Structural elements are organized in a...
This essay deals with an analysis of a passage from Shakespeare’s work Winter’s tale. By means of the consistent analysis of idioms, metaphors, allegories, and other expressive tools use in this passage, a conclusion will be made on the specificity of Shakespeare’s writing and a greater idea of the passage....
Introduction Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (Paton, 1948) is a classic story of South African apartheid in the years after World War II. The story is about a Stephen Kumalo a Black pastor who is searching for his son Absalom in Johannesburg. The son has been charged with...
Introduction Literary devices constitute certain elements of the story, without which literature would make little to no sense. One of the centerpieces of any story are their characters, since they are the driving factors behind certain events as well as the eyes and ears, through which the readers are allowed...
Faulkner’s Barn Burning is a story reflecting such crucial issues as class conflict and loyalty. The main one is an internal conflict in the mind of the child-protagonist. Despite the conditions in which the character finds himself, he embodies truly noble features, such as sympathy and compassion. He is eager...
It is generally agreed that different symbols tend to be used as the way of the author’s ideas’ interpretation. In case of Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”, blood might be one of the metaphors which is reclaimed as a reference for either genetic relationships or committed crimes and their consequences. That is...
As portrayed in the first two parts of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Sir Gawain, a legendary member of Arthur’s knight, is a paragon of virtue and modesty. He describes himself as the least of the knights both in mental and physical prowess, and at the first glance appears...
Introduction Widely considered to be one of the most significant American writers of the 20th century, Faulkner concentrates on themes that are universal. His novels, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom! Absalom! are experiments with shifts in time and narrative. A Rose for Emily is the strange story of love,...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a 14th century poem by an unknown author, describing the adventures of the knight Sir Gawain, nephew of King Arthur. The work continues the tradition of Arthurian chivalric romances and most fully reveals Gawain as a character (Florschuetz 158). In addition to the...
Most of the stories written by modern female writers reveal their intolerance against the oppressed life of women. Male domination, for several centuries, made them mere domestic animals, denying mobility and individual freedom. The urge to free themselves from this situation, from their domestic prison, is the main thrust of...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Paper in The Yellow Paper and Other Stories. Oxford University Press, USA, 1996. This short story portrays oppression of women and negligence her husband which lead the main character to psychological distress and madness. Gilman underlines that women have no freedom limited by false social...
Introduction In both poems, Ethics written by Linda Pastan and My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke, the author describe personal experience and perception of life events and ethics of life. In the poems, the narrator calls attention to problems of ethics and morality, and underlines child’s perception of the world...
Introduction No one would deny the fact that Shakespearean works are timeless. They have survived during the centuries and continue to ask readers various questions the answers to which help them to understand the mysteries of life. Drawing parallels between the works of the great poet and playwright helps the...
The Song of Roland is considered one of the great epic memorials of medieval French literature. An insignificant historical fact served as basis for this heroic poem, and later on having enriched itself by several later events it had integrated the story of Roland into many literatures throughout the world....
I was excited to hear from you the other day. It sounds like everyone in your part of the world is doing well. The kids sound so busy with their many activities, I don’t know how you keep up with it all. If I read between the lines correctly, it...
The Prentice Hall Literature’s The British Tradition is a volume that chronicles the various timeless themes and classics that have been a part and parcel of the journey of British literature. Used as a textbook, it has a number of stories that help the learner understand the nuances attached with...
Introduction The book that has been taken into consideration is a marvelous as well as an imperative chronological work in literature. Voltaire was a Renaissance Christian humanist who took part in the growth of the Enlightenment. First of all, the composition of his narrative Candide is Homeric, it is of...
Introduction It is believed that Beowulf can be considered the oldest existing English epic poem, that was written somewhere around the 7th or the 8th century. Beowulf is about the grand Scandinavian hero known as Beowulf’s expedition to gratis Denmark by killing the monster, Grendel. Later on Beowulf is announced...
The short story The Things they Carried portrays war and its impact on young soldiers, their life dreams and expectations, hardship, and fears. This short story can be seen as a reflection of the events which took place during the Vietnam War. O’Brien gives an insightful analysis of the deep...
Outline The paper deals with the marriage as dealt with in the book by Jane Austen, The Pride, and Prejudice. The book espouses evidence of being inspired by writings of that era. Typically, there are instances when the women’s liberation as visualized by Mary Wollstonecraft and the woman as visualized...
Introduction Flannery O’Connor is the brightest representative of the Southern Gothic in US literature. Her prose is filled with violence, erupting evil and dark features of a human being, and many stories shockingly end on a note of horror. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” first appeared in a...
Introduction The Death of a Salesman vividly portrays a life of a middle-class salesman who tries to achieve the American dream and realize his life hopes. Miller writes that, in Loman, he has attempted to personify certain values which civilized men, in the twentieth century, share. In Death of a...
In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby has set his sights on winning back the only girl he ever felt he loved. Because Daisy is already married to Tom when Gatsby returns from the war and because she has always been a child of privilege, Gatsby reasons that the best way...
Introduction A human being is a very complicated structure with a set of different qualities. A single quality does not represent whether a human being is good or bad. However, this quality can give a push to make a negative or positive opinion. Though what is good for one person...
Introduction To some extent, the unique social and spiritual image of the United States attracts the constant attention of many people, including researchers and writers. The latter, as a rule, tend to understand and convey the originality of the American society, its past, present, and possible future scenario in their...
The Canterbury Tales is a book authored by Geoffrey Chaucer (1342 to 1400). The author was well known as a diplomat in the Royal Service, best known for his contribution to the world of literature in the form of writings on various subjects. His work has been notable for the...
The topic of this essay is the comparison of different characters from the masterpieces of world literature and movie-making. The heroes from Homer’s “Odyssey”, Hawthorne’s “Scarlett Latter” and movie characters from Hollywood hits “Troy” and “Hamlet” present a real interest for anybody as they display vividly basic features of a...
The Parson and the Plowman The story of Parson can be described as the sermon on virtuous living. Parson may be regarded as the only member of the clergy in Chaucer’s cycle who is depicted in a positive light. Parson, asked by the host Harry Bailly to tell the fable...
Introduction In Homer’s epic story of Odysseus, the character that stands out most to me is the character, Penelope. Although she has been left behind to run her husband’s kingdom and raise his son with little or no help, she still manages to find a way of keeping her family...
Greek legend has it that when it was time for men to be created, it was delegated by the gods to Prometheus, the Titan who had sided with Zeus in the war with the Titans. Prometheus whose name means forethought was very wise, wiser even than the gods. Prometheus took...
All Quiet on the Western Front is the most famous and influential book by Erich Maria Remarque. The novel is set in the western front of World War I and depicts the life of German soldiers. The futility of war and the devastating effect it has on human psychology are...
Fences is a play by August Wilson, an American playwright, a Pulitzer’s laureate, who wrote about the life of African Americans in different periods of the 20th century. He chronicled the African-American experience through a series of 10 plays. In the 1950s, the South was still officially segregated, and in...
Introduction Augustine was one of the most influential philosophers in the fourth century due to his controversial prospect and his views on Christianity. Marino examines the main Augustine’s works and his thoughts on a person’s will, good and evil, faith, and God. The author demonstrates the main aspects of his...
Introduction Literature is one of the ways to express thoughts related to a particular issue or discuss people’s perspectives on it. Throughout all history of humanity, individuals have been trying to express their emotions and feelings by using the power of the word. Written texts, as the first potent tool...
Introduction Buccaneers of the Caribbean: How Piracy Forged an Empire is an interesting historical book by Jon Latimer. The author chronicles historical events that occurred during the seventeenth century as buccaneers controlled the Caribbean. The buccaneers were confused with pirates, but they were privateers from France, England, and Holland, authorized...
A Doll House is a three-act play that is set in Norway in the nineteenth century. It tells a story about a married couple living in a Norwegian town. At the beginning of the play, the marriage of the main characters is shown in a positive light, but it is...
Introduction The epos of ancient works is rich in vivid images and characters that embody the ideas of heroism and convey the moral character of past eras. Nevertheless, the approaches of some authors with respect to the portraits of the main characters were different, which makes their work even more...
The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History (My Soul Desired Yiddish) The short story, “My Soul Desires Yiddish”, talks about how the Jewish society rejected its language, Yiddish. It is important to discuss the author’s relationship to his subject matter. The writer is a member of the community...
Introduction The novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya is one of the most outstanding works revealing the problems and lifestyle of Mexicans in the United States in the 20th century. At the center of the story, such a family is represented, and the main characters are vivid and deep....
Introduction The book Grapes of Wrath is a national epic written by John Steinbeck. In this text, the author reveals the socio-political life of the country during the crisis years. Against the backdrop of this narrative, Steinbeck talks about the fate of the Joad family – one of many thousands...
Introduction The Story of an Hour, which is a short literary work about a woman who thinks that she has become a widow, was written by Kate Chopin in the 1890s. In her short story, the author describes the metamorphoses and the inner dialogue of Louise, whose husband, as far...
Introduction Sophocles’ work Oedipus the King belongs to the genre of ancient tragedy. This literary style is characterized by personal conflicts, as a result of which the main character comes to the loss of personal values that are necessary for life. The contrast of happiness and unhappiness is often shown...
Introduction The book Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America gives a detailed analysis and comparisons between the United States and the Roman Empire. The author’s main subject matter revolves around the practices and developments recorded in the United States that have the potential...
August Wilson is one of the renowned American playwrights who displayed the complexity of the American society. Fences can be seen as one of his most referenced works that dwell upon the challenges of African Americans’ lives in the USA of the 1950s. The play uncovers the story of the...
The Tale of Kieu is one of the most important works of Vietnamese literature, and it is an exciting object of study and analysis. Throughout the poem, Kieu faces many different circumstances, including prostitution, poverty, slavery, rape, mental health issues, and more. The focus of the story is mostly on...
In her famous short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman explored the challenges women of the nineteenth century had to face. This literary work is still rather up-to-date and can bring insights into the life of women living in many countries. The piece is full of symbols, which makes...
The play “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller is a prominent and well-known work with vivid and deep characters, and each of them had one’s own story. Willy Loman aspired to the American Dream and wanted to have the support of his loved ones. As a result, he received...
Introduction Philip K. Dick might be one of the most significant authors of science fiction. His Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, published in 1968 for the first time, made a high impact on the genre. Dick discusses many issues through the prism of the atomic war threat making an...
For many years, time travel did not fit into the framework of serious science. Nevertheless, this topic has become a kind of side occupation for theoretical physicists. Reflections on such travels lead to rather amusing, but also very thoughtful conclusions. For example, if free movement in time, at least in...
Similar to the case of painting, a talented writer manages to convey his or her message and emotions without creating idealized and flawless images and characters. In her most famous literary work published in 1955, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor tells the story of an ordinary...
Introduction Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, a bright and original writer, who lived at the turn of the XVIII and XIX centuries. The largest representative of the late English Enlightenment, Austen, is well-known as a subtle master of realistic and classic fiction. Although this novel emphasizes...
Introduction In the early 16th century, when Italy consisted of city-states ruled by princes, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a handbook for princes and dedicated it to Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino and the ruler of Florence. This work became infamous because it justified criminal deeds committed for the sake of...
Several former classmates meet in the morning at lunch after an alumnus meeting the previous evening. They want to talk a little more but do not know what else to talk about. Then one of them begins to tell a story about mice, which they subsequently discuss together. At first...
Introduction In her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat narrates her life experiences in Haiti and in the US without following any chronological order of events. The book’s title could be interpreted as the pain that underlines the stories it recounts. Family separation, suffering in a foreign land, becoming refugees,...
Introduction The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which was first published in 1925. The work is a recognized classic of American literature with the characteristic idea of that era – a dream that transforms into a tragedy eventually. Detailed characters and the irony of human relationships...
Introduction Moby Dick: Or, the White Whale by Herman Melville, or just Moby Dick, is an unusual book. It was written contrary to all the existing ideas about the laws of the genre and is not similar to any work of world literature. Melville combines the features of adventure, science...
Butler uses the setting of the bird market and cages with canaries to develop the theme of gender roles in traditional Vietnamese culture. The protagonist’s grandfather had rather patriarchic views regarding gender roles as he believed that females had a specific place in the society or rather their households. He...
Dreams of fantastic technologies of the future usually border on an incredible catastrophe that threatened humanity with extinction. Typically, such ideas are beautifully depicted in dystopian novels. The problem of the post-apocalyptic planet is often reflected in the works of fiction writers, which is typical for the work of The...
Winning with Honour is a fascinating work as the authors transfer the rules of morality and ethics to the history of Singapore. This book can be interesting for many people because its chapters describe the rules and recommendations that apply to both the individual and organisations. However, Winning with Honour...
Eudora Welty is considered one of the most sophisticated prose writers of the US of the 20th century. Her stories began to be published in the 1940s and immediately marked the emergence of a new and genuinely distinctive voice in literature. Moreover, the author gained a plethora of medals, honorary...
Introduction The book comprised O’Doherty’s famous essays “Notes on the Gallery Space,” “The Eye and the Spectator,” and “Context as Content,” published in 1976 in Artforum magazine. It also includes the article “The Gallery as a Gesture,” published ten years later. In these writings, the author explores the social and...
The protagonists of the novel Sula by Toni Morrison have chosen the opposite life paths and held different views. Sula lived in a family that did not follow traditional values and, in many ways, challenged social attitudes, while the Nel family pursued conventional and conformal principles. However, the girls were...
Finding a balance between acting reasonably and daring to go on dangerous quests, despite a mature age, may be challenging. In his short story “The Swimmer,” Cheever portrays an upper-class man’s unusual night journey home, wherein he decides to swim back instead of walking. From one perspective, the man’s quest...
The Harry Potter fandom is among the biggest ones in the world, with new fans joining every day. Since there is always the yearning for more stories, the book’s official site, Pottermore, and the original home for Harry-Potter-themed fan fiction, MuggleNet, are the most well-known sites for fans’ gathering (“Discover...
Introduction Of all the elements that comprise a story, the setting might seem as the only one that is static, yet it is also prone to changes throughout the story. These alterations indicate changes in the development of characters, the mood set within the narration, and the narrative itself, pointing...
Introduction Being one of the most famous Ancient Greek plays, “Odyssey” has entered the realm of global culture, having left its mark on countless artworks and generations of readers. The poem addresses a large variety of themes, yet the father-son dynamics is one of the more subtle ideas integrated in...
The theme of aboriginal people and their relations with people from the Western world has always been topical. The existence of multiple disputable issues, extremely sophisticated relations, many cases of discrimination, violence, and the clash of cultures create the basis for vigorous debates about the behavior of one or another...
