5979 samples of this type
Introduction In William Carlos Williams brief tale “The Use of Force,” the narrator, a physician, is summoned to examine a sick child, Mathilda Olson. The child resists the doctors attempts to identify her illness, refusing to open her mouth to be examined (Williams). What ensues is a tense and violent...
Les Miserables is a historical novel that was written by French novelist Victor Hugo in 1862. The novel talks about a life of a person named Jean Valjean, who had been arrested for stealing a loaf of bread from his sister. When Valjean was taken to court, he was sentenced...
Introduction According to the Greek culture, Xenia is an ancient concept of friendship and hospitality. The ancient culture translates Xenia as an aspect of institutionalized friendship rooted in exchanging gifts, acts of generosity, and reciprocity. Iliad and Odyssey books portray the theme of Xenia throughout the journeys. Acts of generosity...
“Tess of the D’Urbervilles” can be seen as a straightforward love tale. However, the book covers many topics that Hardy and the society of that time could view as rather debatable. It includes the humanity of people in that society, the social morals, religion, and their conflicts. Hardy only shows...
“The Dead” is a short story written by a prominent Irish poet and novelist James Joyce and included in his 914 collection Dubliners. In this work, the narration is focused on the Misses Morkan’s annual dance where their nephew, Gabriel Conroy, arrives with his wife. Although there are several essential...
Introduction Realism is a literary movement distinguished by its unique depiction of human nature by depicting specific people in a specific time and place, also known as a slice of life. This is accomplished using vernacular to create a convincing yet true depiction of a culture. Similarly, psychological realism employs...
Introduction In A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor explores such themes as family, prejudice, and finding grace, showing that human compassion could have transformative power. The juxtaposition between the two main stereotypical characters, the Misfit and the grandmother, is used to transfer the key message that in...
Introduction Sonny’s Blue by James Baldwin, written in 1957, explores the different approaches two brothers take on the path to finding meaning in life. The narrator, a teacher, is not impressed by Sonny’s decision to venture into music and his abuse of heroin which lands him in jail. The story...
Introduction David Walliams employs imagination and humor to highlight the relationship between adults and children at a hospital. The story has irresistible characters and highlights many relatable issues that cannot be forgotten. The author further uses different themes to perfectly present his message. Additionally, his work acts as a clarion...
Introduction Gertrude is the mother of the protagonist of the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is the widow of King Hamlet of Denmark, the protagonist’s father, and the new wife of Claudius, the new king, brother, and murderer of the protagonist’s father. Her role in the work is significant...
The Enormous Radio – the short story by John Cheever in the 20th century – covers the themes of privacy and has an exceptional plot with underlying irony. The writer narrates the story from the third perspective to portray the life of a happy first-glance family. The reader witnesses how...
Introduction Novels reflect real life and integrate different aspects of human development through figurative language that reflects human development. This paper focuses on the story I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou in general and Maya’s character in particular. Maya is the narrator and the main character...
Robert Frost’s After Apple Picking encompasses what I value in a literary work in regard to its symbolism hidden behind realism. At first glance, the poem portrays the narrator picking apples and becoming tired in “I am done with apple-picking now” (Frost, line 6). However, as the poem progresses, a...
Brief Summary Sophocles wrote the tragic drama, Oedipus Rex, around 429 B.C. when it was first presented. It depicts the story of Oedipus, king of Thebes, who is said to have slain his father and married his mother by accident due to a prophecy made to Laius, the previous ruler...
The relationship Aparna has with Pranab Kaku is very different in many regards from what she has with her husband. The two shared the same love for poetry, film, music, and leftist politics, and back in Bengal, Aparna and Pranab Kaku came from the same North Calcutta neighborhood. After being...
Introduction Heart of Darkness is a novel written by Joseph Conrad and was first published in 1902. It centers around Marlow, a sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz. As Marlow travels, he encounters cruelty and inefficiency in the treatment of the black inhabitants in Congo....
Introduction Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations,” initially published in August 1954, is a widely distributed, contentious, and oft-reprinted work of science fiction. Science fiction is often defined as the literature of ideas, but the ideas behind “The Cold Equations” depend on one’s assumptions about the genre. If one approaches the...
Rudy Wiebe’s novel “Peace Shall Destroy Many” surrounds the lives of the pacifist Mennonites in Saskatchewan during World War II. The main protagonist, Thom Wiens (a young farmer living in the most isolated community in Saskatchewan) makes the book fascinating by posing challenging questions. During wartime, local males would either...
Summary The short story “Desiree’s Baby,” written by Kate Chopin, touches upon various cultural, psychological, and philosophical topics. Within this story, Chopin discusses the issues of unconditional love, acceptance, self-identification, and race (Hassan and Tayib 139). The last problem has always been the severe obstacle to establishing understanding within different...
Introduction The moral concept of Les Miserables corresponds to Hugo’s view of life as a continuous alternation of light and darkness. Hugo raises the theme of crime as one of the terrible vices faced by the characters. Is it possible to justify a crime that is entirely in the throes...
Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” portrays humble attempts of a lonely English teacher to aggrandize herself and her surroundings and demonstrates the pitfalls of daydreaming. It reveals the inner workings of an ordinary person’s soul showing that everybody has their passions and dramas. The plot and narrative techniques chosen serve the...
In Marxist criticism, the rich exploit the poor to become more powerful and wealthy. In The Lottery story by Jackson, Mr. Summer is seen to entice the poor to play the lottery to gain more wealth. In a capitalist world, the rich protect their family from exploitation by the capitalist....
Many have desired a magic stick at least once in their lives, but few understand the luck of it remaining a fiction. The short story The Monkey’s Paw by William Wymark Jacobs tells the reader about an ordinary family granted the possibility to change their life but bitterly regretting it...
A great tragedian, Sophocles, gave Greek tragedies their conventional form. Specifically, he started the tradition of including a tragic hero with four distinctive characteristics: the presence of a rank, a tragic flaw, a downfall, and a recognition of mistakes. In Sophocle’s “Antigone,” the eponymous character initially seems like the story’s...
Introduction It is complicated for young people to imagine that once upon a time, women and certain sections of society were deprived of the opportunity to get an education and their dream profession. Women, in accordance with paternalistic attitudes, had to work in the household and devote themselves to exhausting...
In 1959, a play by the writer Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, was successfully staged for the first time on Broadway. This play was chosen as a research subject due to its importance for the theater industry and the overall American culture. This work combines well all significant...
The struggle for women’s rights has been fierce, lengthy, and challenging to achieve. Women all around the world continue to work relentlessly towards achieving gender equality. Although a significant progress has been made, it is important not to forget where it all started. For this essay, the focus is on...
William Blake is one of the renowned English poets who enriched world literature with his rich imagery. He is one of the brightest representatives of English romanticism. The focus of the movement is on imagination, freedom, self-realization, rebellion, isolation, and “noble savage” (Canli 16). The poet paid specific attention to...
Introduction Patriarchy is the core of numerous societies around the world, which has different effects on the lives of people, particularly women. In a traditionally patriarchal society, females experience oppression and discrimination due to their innate features, which puts them in difficult situations. The role of women in society has...
Alvarez addresses the domesticated lives of women and the conflict over their duties in a household. Traditionally, women were expected to stay at home and perform homemaking roles such as house cleaning and taking care of their families. From the poem, Alvarez refuses to accept this norm because women should...
Introduction The imagery of hybrid species, encompassing a wide array of bizarre anatomical combinations feature in numerous Greco-Roman myths. These hybrid creatures typically possess humanoid parts alongside beastly characteristics, which intuitively seem to exhibit a certain principle. The true nature of the creatures remains unclear; they may have inhabited alternate...
In his work, Mark Twain extensively used satire, which is defined as the intentional humorous exaggeration and irony, mostly aimed at exposing people’s stupidity and failings. In the books, stories, and essays, Twain sought to shed light on the stupidity and hypocrisy of people around him, specifically to ridicule the...
“The Veldt” is a short science fiction story by Ray Bradbury published in 1950. Concerned with rapid technological development and the spread of consumerism philosophy among Americans, the author sought to warn his readers about the possible negative impacts of these tendencies on individuals and society. The writer argues that...
A raisin in the Sun and Fences are two plays that show African-American families dealing with their daily hardships and tensions. Both families face discrimination, and both have internal problems as well. The storylines of two main characters are in many ways parallel to each other: Troy Maxson and Walter...
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” provokes various emotions, including fascination and concerns about the boy, pity and disappointment about the mother, and misunderstanding of adult behaviors. Such attitude may be explained by the theme, morals, and symbols Lawrence uses. There are two evident topics in the story: a conflict between material and...
Sophocles revealed a deep conflict between ancestral unwritten rules and state laws in his tragedy Antigone. On the one hand, religious beliefs, deeply rooted in the tribal community, dictated people to sacredly honor kinship ties and observe all the necessary rites with blood relatives. On the other hand, every citizen...
Introduction Dystopian fiction is gaining popularity due to its deeply reflective nature and futuristic perspectives on the social order. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley is a dystopian fiction novel written and published in the early 1930s. It presents a society living in the so-called World State, where a strict...
The American Dream is one of the founding concepts of the United States, yet it takes on different forms. As each person perceives the world differently, one may have particular desires and aspirations that do not correspond with the majority’s view. In “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Neale Hurston...
Introduction People have been telling stories for thousands of years and will continue to do so in thousands of years ahead. The reasons for such extraordinary longevity of stories are multiple. First of all, stories reflect the world around us and help us understand our place in it. Ancient people...
Theme and Character Analysis Dagoberto Gilb’s story Love in L.A is an indication of how love in the modern society is considered. The story presents an ironic scenario of love in the modern society. Traditionally, two strangers would meet and after a short time of interaction, the strangers would fall...
Neighbour Rosicky is a short story written in 1928 by an American author Willa Cather. As an immigrant herself, the writer explores the experience of people who devoted their lives to this country. The story of Anton Rosicky is not an exception as he emigrated from the region of Bohemia,...
Each poem carries a unique style of its author and a message that reflects the trends of society. An author conveys these meanings through elements and details such as images, rhythm, and tone to create a coherent story. This paper will interpret the meaning of “The Unknown Citizen” by Auden,...
Introduction Fairy tales have always been a major part of any child’s education and upbringing, which makes a significant impact on their development of worldview. It is important to understand that such stories can have both negative and positive implications, where the tales possess certain agenda as well as controversies....
“The Love of My Life” is a fictional story by T. C. Boyle, an American short story writer, and novelist. The narrative presents the dramatic events in the lives of the two young characters, China and Jeremy, whose irresponsible behavior forced them to make a cruel life-changing decision and question...
Introduction The novel A Man of the People was first published in 1966 by Chinua Achebe, who depicted a wide range of problems concerning the corrupted nature of politics, power, and greed. Despite its date of publication, the novel presents a high relevance even these days due to the acute...
Many scientists agree that Ancient Greece is the cradle of European civilization. Its philosophers, scientists, and poets greatly contributed to the development of Greek culture. Modern philosophical thought would be impossible without the works of Aristotle, Plato, and numerous philosophical schools. Dramatic art would have been different if, at one...
Introduction “A Man of the People”, a novel created by Chinua Achebe in 1966, depicts a situation in an African country. The book describes a rivalry between the Minister of Culture, Chief Nanga, and his former student, Odili. Chinua calls Mr. Nanga “man of the people” in the first lines...
Lucy Lurie is one of the supportive characters of J. M. Coetzee’s Nobel Prize awarded novel Disgrace. Despite being a secondary character, she plays an important role in illuminating some of the key points of the novel, revealing some hidden sides of David Lurie, her father, who is the major...
Introduction In his famous book, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, Mintz studies where and how the goods that were produced on the islands since colonial times were consumed. Spices (ginger, allspice, and nutmeg), beverages (coffee, chocolate), rum, and sugar were exported from the Caribbean region...
Introduction In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, Birmingham, Alabama, was notorious for the harsh segregation policy against black people. In 1963, the Civil Rights Movement started a non-violent campaign to protest against the coeval discriminatory laws. Peaceful marches, sit-ins, and boycotts on segregationist merchants took place in Spring,...
“You ARE dripping on my toes.” The girl seemed to be really angry with the boy, as her deep blue eyes shone almost black. “I’m sorry. I was admiring you from afar, and I wanted to admire you from a-near. From afar you looked terrific.” The boy flushed, pecking at...
Introduction At the end of the nineteenth century, Japanese literature experienced many striking moments. In particular, in the late 60th, it endured the most deplorable declines under the governance of Emperor Meiji. The famous authors were doomed to resort to writing books about formless and meaningless gossips. So far, having...
Introduction Analyzing postmodernism, its description is often examined through such literary phenomenon as metafiction. Metafiction can be defined as a fiction that makes the readers realize and acknowledge the nature and the meaning of the process of creating the fiction. Self-reflectiveness makes the reality of the texts, the author, and...
Throughout history, relations between the East and West have been marked by violence and cultural conflict. However in recent years, disunity the between the West and the Middle East in particular has been exacerbated because of Western foreign policy and increasing Islamic fundamentalism. International terrorism, notably the atrocities of September...
Introduction / Thesis Ever since George Orwell’s famous novel “1984” has been published in 1949, its semiotic significance was being discussed from a variety of political and sociological perspectives, with most literary critics concluding that “1984” was meant to increase people’s awareness as to the sheer wickedness of Communism, as...
Henrik Ibsen lived during the 19th century, having been born in the early 1800s and dying in the first years of the new millennium. Women in this period lived very different lives from women today. However, it was during this period that women began to question their place in society....
Introduction The Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1950s, when the Communist Party of China came into force to build the socialist country based on fear, absence of freedom of speech, and the need to strictly follow all the guidelines of the Party is one of the brightest examples of usurping...
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...
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 story of Heathcliff, an enigmatic and vengeful ‘Byronic hero’ of Wuthering Heights, unravels in front of the reader as the novel progresses. The gypsy-like child faces the challenges of growing up as a hated outsider within his own adopted family, developing into a bitter and, ultimately, miserable man. Heathcliff’s...
Introduction The Wife of Bath’s Tale is considered to be a disclosure of the female role in the society in the period of Late Middle Ages. The Wife of Bath starts in King Arthur’s days; this period was characterized by the great majority of elves and fairies. The story is...
Introduction Since the time of its publication, the book “Self-made Man” written by a famous American journalist Norah Vincent has always been a subject of heated debate. The question arises what is the reason for such close attention to this work of literature. The thing is that the author tried...
Reading of great books has, all through the ages, been recognized as the most powerful contributor to the development of an individual’s personality. The great thinkers and the philosophers of the world have often identified the role of good books as an influential reformer of personal life and attitude. One...
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,...
Introduction The play, Death of a Salesman, portrays the theme of American dream and its impact on ordinary citizens like Willy Loman and his sons. Miller portrays that for Willy, the pride, the disappointment, the suffering are never so deeply felt, or so variously, as in relation to Biff, the...
Introduction The teachings of Confucius have influenced all types of relationships in Chinese society, and they have also affected the social position of women, their status, and their accepted roles. In spite of the fact that Confucius did not directly write specific teachings about women, his approach to treating female...
Introduction Heroes depicted in ancient literature often face the necessity of making challenging life-and-death choices. As one example, Homer’s Odysseus faced such an ethical dilemma when he and his crew approached the area between Charybdis and Scylla as they were sailing. In the story, Circe had predicted that encountering Charybdis,...
Ch 5, Pg 38 “That’s all,” she replied, returning the bottle to the cupboard. “But you mustn’t forget. I’ll remind you for the first weeks, but then you must do it on your own. If you forget, the Stirrings will come back. The dreams of the Stirrings will come back....
Write about the conflicts portrayed in the book as the trial unfolds and intensifies. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird reveals the central conflict of society and humanity that is represented through Boo’s disagreements with the entire town Maycomb, the conflict between the black accused and the white justice...
Themes of Little Red Riding Hood: Thesis Statement Despite the fact that Little Red Riding Hood is typically viewed as a children’s story telling about the perils of the phenomenon known as stranger danger, the tale can also be viewed through the prism of transitioning from childhood to adulthood and,...
Introduction T. S. Eliot is one of the most significant modernist poets, particularly due to his use of vivid imagery in the exploration of social issues about the British community of the time. The Waste Land, written in 1922, is a long poem that has captured the attention of many...
Writing about poems is always interesting and challenging. The analysis of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem is not an exception. On the one hand, it is a real challenge to understand the meaning of each word in the poem and the intentions of the writer. On the other hand, it is...
Author’s Argument Harry Watson’s “Liberty and Power” is a masterpiece focusing on the political changes and events that characterized Antebellum America. According to the author, the Jacksonian ideology played a critical role towards reshaping the political future of the United States. The targeted historical period led to the establishment of...
Introduction Authors usually have unique personalities that make them stand out more than people from other professions. They either live controversial lives or die mysteriously and leave people wondering what makes them prefer these lifestyles. Emily Dickenson has a strange history that surpasses the mysteries of Shakespeare and other ancient...
Introduction Frankenstein, a work of gothic literature penned by the renowned Mary Shelley, delves into an array of profound themes, including the paramount significance of familial ties and the enduring human yearning for love and companionship. Throughout the novel, Shelley adeptly portrays the complex web of emotions that arise from...
Introduction Oedipus delves into the continuous philosophical discourse regarding whether human existence is determined by destiny or personal agency. The play follows the story of Oedipus, and the ultimate resolution is the growing tension leading to his tragic downfall. Oedipus is a character who unknowingly brings about a prediction that...
Introduction Being a vivid example of a gothic short story, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” portrays death from the perspective of the main character’s fascination with immolation for revenge. The short story shows two characters, a narrator named Montresor and a man named Fortunato, whom the main character...
Introduction Written by Mourid Barghouti, “I Saw Ramallah” is a formidable memoir that will resonate with audiences worldwide, especially Palestinians. The book offers a unique perspective on the Palestinian experience of displacement, loss, and the struggle for belonging. The descriptions of local people and the region are nuanced enough to...
Introduction “Salvation” by Langston Hughes is a poignant coming-of-age story about a young boy who has a religious revival and experiences a crisis of faith. The story centers around the themes of innocence, peer pressure, and the struggle between societal expectations and personal beliefs. Summary The story starts with the...
Introduction Dolores Dante, the protagonist of Studs Terkel’s story, is a seasoned waitress with twenty years of expertise. Amidst the restaurant’s din, Dolores is the object of an in-depth investigation. More than just a professional journey, her story takes shape as a thread in the fabric of the working class....
Approach to Poem Analysis John Donne’s poems are known for their startling imagery as the poet has been praised for his playful use of words, including puns and paradoxes, as well as elaborately crafted metaphors. The new criticism approach to literary analysis fits with Donne’s work as it emphasizes the...
Introduction “If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin is a moving examination of love, family, and racial injustice in 1970s Harlem. Baldwin uses various signs and symbols throughout the narrative to encapsulate the multifaceted nature of human experience, particularly within the African-American community. This analysis delves into how Baldwin...
Introduction Simone De Beauvoir is a historical figure for writing about one of the most crucial issues in society. Beauvoir’s work involves gender equality and the position of women in society. In her book “The Second Sex”, De Beauvoir presents a history of women’s position in society from a feminist...
The story of The Kite Runner begins in the pre-war Afghan city of Kabul in the 70s, where there were children who did not know what shelling and explosions were. A favorite pastime and, at the same time, a very serious matter for all the residents were kite competitions (Hosseini)....
Every work that was penned by William Shakespeare – one of the greatest writers of all time – is unique in its own way: they all have their own specific culture, atmosphere, and, of course, characters. For instance, Othello – a tragedy supposedly written in 1603 – is considered to...
Introduction The transformational power of human compassion and grace is demonstrated by Flannery O’Connor in her short tale “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” The story’s message is conveyed via changes in the two characters’ archetypes, which the grandmother and the Misfit symbolize. The author illustrates that everyone may...
Introduction The given analysis will primarily focus on the tone of the story and characters as an element of fiction. The tone in the story by Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephant” is dichotomous, which means that two opposite perspectives and demonstrations are presented in order to provide two lenses...
Introduction During her short literary race, Flannery O’Connor managed to fall into the spotlight of many influential literature experts and critiques and conquer the minds of millions of people. Her status as a devout Catholic woman dwelling in the predominantly protestant South and the times of World War II and...
Nigerian culture and literature have long been underexplored by the world academic community and society as a whole. The short story “The Folded Leaf” written by Caine Prize winner Segun Afolabi is a short story that shows the new wave in Nigerian literature heritage. It touches on the critical themes...
How does this story reflect the challenges put forward by the first wave of feminists? The first wave of feminism refers to the women’s movement against the societal expectations on the role of women in the middle-class and upper-class women in the 18th century to the 20th century. It was...
Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” are two novels that explore the complexities of human relationships in very different contexts. While Hansberry’s play takes place in the mid-twentieth century, exploring the lives of an African American family living in poverty, Fitzgerald’s novel...
The use of symbols by Nathaniel Hawthorne in “Young Goodman Brown” highlights his disapproval of the Puritan religion and the hypocrisy of its adherents. This paper examines how Hawthorne uses symbolism in the narrative and how much he criticizes the Puritan church for its hypocrisy and perversion of faith. Hawthorne...
Introduction One of the primary elements of The Story of an Hour, written by Kate Chopin, that has not only made the short story popular but also has highlighted an important metaphor is the ending. Namely, after the joy Mrs. Mallard feels when finding out about her husband’s death, she...
Introduction The Veldt is a short story by American writer Ray Bradbury, which takes a reader to the distant future, where people model reality at their discretion. The African Veldt in this work is an innovative room bought by the Hadley couple for their children. At some point, the adults...
Introduction The Pillow Book and the List of Hateful Things, written by Sei Shonagon, is a portrayal of the Heian culture in regard to elitist approaches to etiquette, social interactions, and gatherings. Namely, one of the hateful elements that the author highlights is “One is telling a story about old...
Archetypes: A common type of character, conflict, or plot seen in literature Act I Act II Act III Act IV Act V Dramatic Irony: The reader knows some piece of information a character does not Act I Act II Act III Act IV Act V Foreshadowing: A sign of something...
Introduction Ancient literary texts are among the richest sources for research and history analysis. First of all, such works by themselves allow one to get an idea of the culture of a particular people. However, their research can also lead to broader conclusions by detecting intersections and similarities between completely...
The apparent expression of Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the battle to discover and express one’s individuality in a world of constant, all-consuming commitments. For instance, The Metamorphosis discusses a ludicrous occurrence “as Gregor awoke one morning from an uneasy dream he found himself transformed into a gigantic insect.” (Kafka 1), which...
Background James Baldwin is one of the renowned writers in the US whose piece of work covers issues of racial discrimination faced by black people in the country. The author is African American who lived in Harlem, New York City, in the 1930s. Majorly, the themes of Baldwin’s writing are...
The poem is about a man who went on a murder spree alongside his girlfriend. As he went into the badlands of Wyoming, he killed everything that appeared on his way, including humans. The person is not sorry for the murder he has committed. Instead, he insists that he had...
In The Great Gatsby, many of the characters have questionable ethics. The story, written by Scott Fitzgerald, reflects a society where moral decadence thrives. Although the characters do not directly express their ethical positions on issues, their lack of ethical principles can be inferred from their actions. Additionally, they act...
The poem “I Think It Rains” by Soyinka possesses a distinctive structure, which in itself is built in metaphor. A hard-to-follow narrative results from the poet’s ability to express his ideas in rain-like drops, using the images of rain and smoke to explore the author’s state of mind. The rain...
The book Silver Water by Amy Bloom revolves around a girl, Rose, who becomes mentally ill at an early age. The theme of the narration is that of mental illness and how it has a significant impact on the patient’s life and that of their family. It also shows that...
Introduction The concept of conflict in literature denotes the ideological confrontation of the sublime and the low, good and evil. In general terms, a conflict in a literary work is a struggle of opposing forces: multiple heroes, the central character of the work and nature, or the hero with oneself....
Introduction Literature has existed for centuries, teaching, admonishing, and highlighting social issues. Every piece of literature is unique, from the source to the intended message to the audience. In every case, authors are motivated to compose their works by several circumstances and life experiences. Although some authors may not directly...
Rita Dove seems to have an intimate understanding of motherhood and the responsibilities ascribed to motherhood. In the poem, Dove provides strong diction and the female point of view to express the life of being a mother and a wife. In the first stanza, Rita Dove arrays motherhood as a...
Throughout history, women were expected to accommodate the patriarchal perception of gender roles in society. Females had to be perfect as dolls, never complain, procreate with their husbands, and foster flawless ‘doll children’. In the play Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, the exact theme of poor female treatment and marriage...
Introduction William Wordsworth’s poems defined Naturalism and Romanticism since the author was known to be the poet of nature. The poet was a key figure of the Romantic Movement, especially considering his early poems. The life of the author was closely connected to nature, which is why his art was...
Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie portrays a world of illusion to the reader as an escape from the difficulties of reality. Amanda, Laura, and Tom suffer from alienation and the inability to find their place in society, which forces them to focus on their own inner world. Despite being...
“The Double Image” is a rather significant and famous confessional poem written by Anne Sexton. This is an increasingly severe and profound literary work that can have various meanings and interpretations. The poet tells about her most intimate parts of life and her way through post-traumatic stress disorder. It is...
Human relationships are never simple and are usually predetermined by a variety of factors. In Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” the theme of family relationships is described through the vision of a little boy, Paul, and his mother, Hester, and the impact of such issues as money and personal needs. Despite...
Literature of the early 20th century was characterized by the shift from Realism to Modernism. A number of factors shaped people’s perception of the changing world marked by the development of industrial societies and rapid urbanization. Furthermore, people were affected by the horrors of the Civil War and World War...
Tillie Olsen is considered one of the classics of American literature of the first half of the 20th century, and in her books, she raises important social issues through everyday stories. One example of such works is the short story “I Stand Here Ironing”, in which a woman speaks in...
Introduction Jane Austen’s work occupies one of the leading places in British literary history and remains relevant from the Victorian era to the present. The novel “Pride and Prejudice” describes the love story of a young lady Elizabeth Bennett and an aristocrat Mr. Darcy, developing in the complex context of...
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour raises mixed and confused thoughts. In the short story, a woman experiences the sincere grief because her husband died, but eventually, it turns out that she is undergoing the best period of her life from now on. However, this epiphany turns out to...
Introduction Literary works require consideration through the lens of various techniques used by their authors, and in the case of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, symbolism is essential. In the book, the author, Alison Bechdel, narrates about her childhood and relationship with her father with the use of a variety...
The issue of identifying and understanding the possible gender differences in linguistics, specifically in writing styles between males and females has been an area of interest to many researchers for a long time. Even without their knowledge, males and females write differently even when expressing the same ideas and this...
Introduction In literary works, many elements strengthen the position chosen by an author, improve storytelling, and provoke critical thinking among readers. According to Mays, “the language of poetry is often visual and pictorial,” which makes poems dependent on specific words and their creative meanings (834). Metaphors, allusions, flashbacks, similes, and...
Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov is a demonstrably villainous antagonist in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novella The Heart of a Dog. After “a small experiment” on a stray dog, Sharik, conducted by a talented surgeon, Professor Preobrazhensky, and his assistant, Dr. Bormental, the dog is turned into a human (Bulgakov). From the former Sharik,...
Women have always played central roles in literature as they impacted the development of the plot, motivated main characters, and affected their actions. However, because of the patriarchal system of values and the adherence to the stereotypic perspective on females’ duties and rights, their position in stories was mainly passive....
Hamlet by Shakespeare has similar elements in its plot and main characters with Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. This essay aims to show the common features of Oedipus and Hamlet, the main characters of eponymous plays. Both texts are tragedies; this genre largely defines the main characters of respective works and...
A Raisin in the Sun is a story about an African American family trying to overcome poverty and find a place in the middle class written by Lorraine Hansberry. The main plot which the reader can identify in the first half of the work is the conflict between the sixty-year-old...
Jesmyn Ward: A Celebrated Author in American Literature Jesmyn Ward is considered an important author in American literature owing to her ability to showcase an intimate and in-depth understanding of language. Ward’s works explore American families and their diverse cultures. All of Ward’s novels are set in the small town...
August Wilson’s “Fences” delves into the lives of African Americans. More specifically, Wilson uses the life of the protagonist Troy Maxson to explore common social conflicts and themes such as love, gender roles, and responsibility. Troy’s conflict with the Whites, as well as Tory’s relationship with Rose, are two dominant...
Introduction The piece written by Alice Walker is a short story about a 10-year-old girl named Myop, who turned from a carefree child into a person understanding the cruel realities of life in one day. The child was walking through the area she was living in to explore the beautiful...
Harsh realities of war may make many people question their views, and literary characters are not an exception to this rule. Henry from Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is initially eager to play his part in the war, but then is almost executed for no fault, and this lack of...
Introduction The Picture of Dorian Gray is arguably Oscar Wilde’s most well-known and most debated work. Set in Victorian England, the story revolves around Dorian Gray and his slow descent into a life of hedonism, decadence, and immorality. However, unlike any other self-indulgent character, Gray is freed from the effects...
The Odyssey is an integral part of the ancient Greek epic, and its authorship is usually attributed to Homer. The poem narrates Odysseus’s adventures after returning from the Troyan war. The hero faces many dangers during a long journey and returns home after 20 years. On the way, he loses...
Introduction This essay focuses on the analysis of Tony Morrisson’s short story “Recitatif.” The issue of race is explored throughout the story, with Morrison introducing the setting and one character as a “strange place with a girl from a whole other race” (1). Through the interactions between Twyla and Roberta,...
Introduction Hemingway’s The Soldier’s Home is a story of a war veteran who faces the dilemma of choosing between being a welcomed member of his old social circle and staying true to his morals and ideals. When the book’s main character Krebs returns to his hometown, he is forced to...
Katherine’s final speech in Act 5, scene 2 of Taming of the Shrew, is quite surprising and contradictory to her character. A woman who was known for rebellious behavior towards men, including her husband, suddenly speaks as an exemplary wife. Katherina’s husband asked her to talk about a woman’s duties....
Kanjincho is one of the most famous plays of the Japanese kabuki theater. The kabuki genre is a classic dance drama; kabuki theater plots usually reveal historical events. Kanjincho story happens in the mid-to-late 12th century; the main characters are Togashi Saemon, the guardian of the gates, Yoshitsune, the emperor’s...
«Out of the Dust» is a touching and tragic tale written by Karen Hesse which tells the story of the childhood of a girl named Billie Jo. She lives in Oklahoma Panhandle with her family and experiences the hardships and cruelty of life. Billie Jo’s mother and brother die in...
Introduction What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a concluding story in a self-titled collection of short stories written by Raymond Carver. It sets to explores various notions humans have about love. The title itself suggests that there are different perceptions people can have about this concept,...
The European colonists dominated over the Africans by disempowering them by introducing religious ideas that openly challenged their beliefs from an outside perspective. These white settlers managed to cause conflicts between those who are learned and then plant in those new Christian ideas. They also established a government that harassed...
The poem “The Garden of Love” by William Blake dramatizes the conflict between official religion and human instincts and emotions, such as love and sexuality. The feeling of love is treated as a path to God, while the institutionalized Christian church as an obstacle for spirituality due to its hostility...
Introduction The book The Sorrow of War is a narration of one of the Vietnamese soldiers who narrowly escaped a massacre that left almost all his colleagues dead. As he went back to the Jungle of Screaming Souls, Kien, the narrator, remembers how his 27th Battalion was obliterated by the...
Introduction ‘Thinking as a hobby’ is a story written by William Golding where he explained how he considered thinking as his hobby. From the study, it can be revealed that Golding was introduced into the field of thinking by his headmaster who used statuettes in his study. On this basis,...
The Beggar’s Opera is the first of a new form of opera that was developed by John Gay in the early 1700s as a reaction against the superficiality of the popular Italian opera and its effects upon his culture. This form of entertainment came to be known as the ballad...
Overall, any work of literature should be analyzed from various standpoints such as for instance, cultural, social, historic etc, certainly if it is possible. It seems that only one approach cannot reflect all the complexity of art. Thus, it is difficult to single out only one method of criticism. However,...
The play A Doll’s House was written in 1879 by Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian writer born in 1828. It spread to the rest of Europe during the revolution period and sparked off a controversy because of his portrayal of women through the character Nora. The thesis of this essay is...
Introduction Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll House” is now being commonly referred to as one of the finest examples of feminist literature of 19th century. The theme of women’s liberation can be found throughout play’s entirety, even though this theme is being spared of aggressive undertones, with which we usually...
In human life the idea if home occupies one of the leading positions in the hierarchy of traditional values. The famous proverb “There is no place like home” reflects the uniqueness and importance of the place to human heart. The emotional value of home becomes especially apparent in situations when...
George Orwell, the birth name Eric Arthur Blair, was a famous British author whose literary works showed his love for simplicity in language. Most importantly they reflect Orwell’s “profound consciousness of social injustice and belief n democratic socialism (Orwell Archives).” As Orwell states in his 1946 essay “Why I Write,”...
The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the oldest pieces of Western literature in existence today. They are canons of the west’s literary past even now and have a large following. The stories of both have been repeated countless times and used in cultural references and in making big-budget...
Introduction This paper would discuss and evaluate literary traits found in the poem The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop. The focus would be on her tone and particular moral concerns expressed by her in the poem. Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” Elizabeth Bishop is a poetess that is often admired for her...
Since its release, Wuthering Heights has been a subject of criticism for many. The only novel by Emily Jane Bronte, written in 1847, has been put under the spotlight due to its doubtful theme, which is revenge and its causes in people’s lives. The author smartly narrates the story about...
Prospero’s Character Analysis: Introduction While reading William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, one questions himself or herself if the main character’s Prospero’s rule is just or not. To prove his or her viewpoint, one should analyze Prospero’s choices to explain his values; one should also examine and discuss the treatment and the...
The title of the story is ‘The Overcoat’ published in 1842, authored by Nikolai Gogol, the father of modern Russian pragmatism. A Great Russian novelist, Gogol is acknowledged to have quite a name as a satirist. An artist of words he is known to exert enormous influence over Russian literature....
Setting is a critical element of any story and can be used by the author for various purposes. For instance, in Passing by Nella Larsen, this tool is one of the factors creating the mood and helping readers to understand the main message of the author. The whole story takes...
