5621 samples of this type
Elie Wiesel’s “Night” is a detailed description of the processes that happen in a young boy’s heart, soul, and mind, when he observes people being tortured, starved, and burnt alive, when he gets betrayed, insulted, and humiliated. This short but shocking book contains preserved images and evidence of how far...
Introduction There is growing recognition today of the importance of cultural differences in many spheres of life, including health care. Anne Fadiman wrote a nonfiction book entitled The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which is the story of a young Hmong girl named Lia Lee who had epilepsy....
Materialism is the belief that comfort, pleasure, and wealth are the most desirable things in life. Do you agree? I do not agree that comfort, pleasure, and wealth are the most desirable things in life. All of these things are fickle and have temporary value. Focusing only on them blinds...
The poem “Motives and Thoughts” by Lauren Hill, discloses a distinctive way of life in many societies at present. It is evident that corruption is a significant meaning of the poem. The poet explains that corruption is a vice with deep roots in every human life, “While vice and corruption...
Introduction Amy Tan used two books, “The Rules of the Game” and “Two Kids” to address parenting roles in different scenarios. In “The Rules of the Game”, she exposes a mother’s supportive attitude towards her talented daughter. The mother would always induce confidence in her daughter by being supportive in...
Introduction In the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor focuses on the lack of the ‘good’ aspects that are supposed to lead to ‘grace’ among human beings. The author shows the frailty of human beings and how they lack in spirituality. The story is presented through...
Summary of the story The recess queen story is about recess and playing with other children. The book is about schoolyard bully who is lightened through gentleness and friendship. The Mean Jean is regarded as the recess queen in the story as depicted in the words, “Mean Jean the Recess...
“The Miser” is a 1668 five-act comedy of manners by a French playwright Jean-Baptist Moliere. Being first staged at the Palais Royal in 1668, this play is popular among contemporary theatre lovers, who are not less indignant at avarice and inhumanity of Harpagon, the miser and the main protagonist of...
Introduction Frances Ellen Watkins was an influential African American writer and abolitionist. Harper, an African American poet and abolitionist, composed the poem The Slave Mother during the antebellum era. This 1857 publication portrays the inevitable hardships working mothers who are separated from their cherished children face. Harper employs poetic elements...
Introduction In his short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Washington Irving uses a variety of figurative devices to represent the depth of his characters’ feelings and the setting where real and supernatural themes are properly intertwined. The personification of birds and the environment underlines the unique nature of Ichabod...
In the short story Two Kinds, Amy Tan explores the complex relationship between a mother and daughter. Set in the US, the story is about a girl named Jing-Mei who struggles under the weight of her mother’s expectations for her to become a prodigy. The author’s purpose is to highlight...
Over more than 60 years in the 19th century, the British Empire, one of the great empires of the past, progressively colonized Burma, resulting in three Anglo-Burmese wars before eventually incorporating it into British India. It was ruled as a province of India until 1948 when it declared its independence...
Roger Mais’ short story, Red Dirt Don’t Wash, has its setting in Jamaican society but follows the American style of narratives. The story is about a farmworker, Adrian, who is in love with a woman, Miranda. Adrian always stares at her as he admires her prowess in kitchen work and...
Introduction “The Metamorphosis,” a short story by Kafka, explores the implication of losing one’s physical body and the abilities that it provides. The process of metamorphosis itself represents the lack of the protagonist’s self-understanding and self-reflection. Further, verbal communication and its challenges play a pivotal role in the narrative development,...
Whether Hamlet actually is insane or not, remains among the most debatable questions in studying Shakespeare’s masterpiece. In one respect, the plot includes his decision to imitate mental illness, to which many appeal as to the main argument that it was not real. On the contrary, the essential specialty of...
The Seagull is a famous play by Russian author Anton Chekhov who significantly influenced worldwide theater arts. The comedy was primarily performed in 1896, and the central theme it addressed was the distinction in world perception and values between generations. The play contains four acts and thirteen characters of diverse...
One of the main characters of the Journey to the West is the Monkey King, Sun Wukong. The book has become a famous novel in many countries and one of the most popular in China. The story plot tells about the Journey of Xuanzang, the monk, to India in order...
Introduction Returning to the completed writing and considering its primary characteristics is necessary for creating a comprehensive understanding of the work. My chosen novel, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, is an intriguing piece that regards the subjects of surreality, human alienation, and betrayal within the story of Gregor Samsa. The...
Like many other stories addressing the complexity of human nature, Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” introduces a complex moral issue under the guise of a seemingly simple ethical problem. By showing how evil can assume the disguise of morality and, thus, affect unsuspecting people, O’Connor proves that both experiences, when...
One of F.S. Fitzgerald’s most influential works, Babylon Revisited, has the pursuit of pleasure and the “American Dream” as its central theme. The primary character, Charlie, has a tragic backstory, which the author detailed together with his historical period. The story is considered autobiographical since the author established parallels between...
American dramatist Arthur Miller wrote about the moral predicament of the working class. Playwright David Ives uses the last twenty-four hours of his protagonist’s life as a montage of dreams and recollections to explore the theme of identity loss. The play’s central plot revolves around the American Dream. Many people...
Introduction A famous quote attributed to Confucius says, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall,” and teaches people the main principle of resilience against all obstacles and struggles. Being resilient means keeping a positive outlook on life, never giving up, and carrying...
“The Man From Mars” by Margaret Atwood is a short story about a young man who finds himself on another planet and the psychological implications of his experience (Atwood). In this work, it is possible to see how repression can structure and inform the work, as the protagonist is attempting...
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...
Introduction The horror literature of the Victorian era contains references to class relations, women’s roles in society, and the family and often deals with the psychological aspects of fear. An example of such work is Elizabeth Gaskell’s Old Nurse’s Story, which raises questions about family relations, class relations, hypocrisy and...
There is a saying that differences between men’s and women’s perceptions make them appear as beings from different planets. The differences may not seem evident in everyday activities and interactions. The theater allows viewers to observe the distinct worlds of men and women. Trifles is a one-act play written by...
Introduction The wolf in sheep’s clothing is a traditional trope born from the same-named fable that teaches that appearances can be deceiving. The fable tells the story of a wolf wearing a sheep’s skin to blend with the rest of the sheep and lure an innocent lamb to make a...
There is one constant throughout the ongoing evolution of the human species. Simply because it is human nature, people are motivated by money and power. King Lear, one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies, is a nihilistic story of destruction, money, and power conflicts that was originally performed in 1606. The...
When Dee, an intelligent young African-American woman, visits her childhood home in the Deep South, the story’s first-person narrator, Mama, explains her relationship with Dee. As Maggie and Mama, Dee’s sister and Mama’s younger daughter, get ready for the visit, the story begins. Maggie dresses into a new outfit as...
In “From He to She in First Grade,” Frankel tells the story of a child’s gender transition. The book is written from the perspective of the child, who is in first grade and has recently decided to start living as a girl. The book chronicles the protagonist’s experiences during the...
The sadness of Hamlet is not the most apparent theme of the work, which, as a rule, fades against the background of madness. However, the protagonist’s anxiety and depression can be read in the lines of Hamlet’s dialogue with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two unusual but very similar characters. This fact...
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about a woman feeling trapped and suffering because of her isolation. The story is told from the perspective of a wife who has recently given birth to a child she has not been able to see. The narrator is sick...
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...
It should be noted that in “The Gift” by Rosario Ferré, several social issues are addressed, ranging from patriarchy and racism to institutional corruption and indoctrination. Puerto Rico serves as an ideal framework to assess and analyze the vast differences between the poor and the rich, which is the result...
In one of the sermons, Martin Luther King Jr. proclaims that “love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals” (King para. 24). The ideas of love and redemption are fundamental for The Kite Runner. The central characters of this novel are...
Phyllis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a book of poetry in 1773, was the author of the poem “Being Brought from Africa to America.” Wheatley represents the start of a long tradition of African American poets. She described her African ancestors as non-Christian (“Pagan”) and believed that she...
The idea of beauty has always been important to human society. People use specific standards to consider someone more attractive than others and provide them with privileged status. At the same time, failure to meet dominant standards might result in exclusion, isolation, and loneliness. Thus, beauty is one of the...
The poem “The Gamble” by Laura Hershey explores the concepts of gambling and risk as they manifest themselves in human life. The author claims that although people are taught not to gamble, they embrace the risks when their freedom is concerned. The short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous...
How I Live Now is a novel written by Meg Rosoff that centers on the life of Daisy, a 15-year-old girl. The novel presents a coming-of-age story of Daisy and her relatives. In a way, the novel represents the author’s perception of what will happen if a third world war...
In the distant 1949, Arthur Miller wrote one of the essential tragedies in American literature named The Death of a Salesman. However, while describing Willy Loman, the main hero, the author illustrated the essential obstacle of the whole middle class. The tragedy is presented ambiguously due to the refutation from...
Introduction Edgar Allan Poe was a poet, publicist, writer, and cultural critic in the United States of America. Poe’s poems and short story collections, notably his narratives of mystery and the grotesque, are his most notable works. He is generally considered a significant character in both American Romanticism and American...
Homer’s Odyssey is an excellent piece of literature that inspires many people to this day. Its story is well-known, but it does not cease to be retold in various forms. Movies, cartoons, books, and comic books appear from time to time, honoring the original Odyssey. The Odyssey: A Graphic Novel,...
Introduction ‘Kubla Khan’ is a fantasy epic authored by Coleridge, an English romantic poet in 1797. The poem revolves around the dream vision whereby a Mongolian leader called Kubla Khan orders some of his servants to build him a domed building for recreation and pleasure at the banks of river...
Introduction Rudy Wiebe’s short story Where is the voice coming from? Focuses on life events of indigenous people and early white settlers. Wiebe’s work explores the conflict between Almighty voice and the Mounted Police and questions the aspects of reality in traditional indigenous stories (1974). The author examines how events...
Junot Diaz is among the most artistic, literary writers of all time. Diaz has won many awards for his creative writing, including the innovative 2008 Pulitzer award for best fiction literary works. Diaz’s literary works mainly focus on racial issues, prejudice, Dominican attitudes and immigrant assumptions on U.S culture. Diaz...
There are many different negative features that are common for people of all times, be it the eighteenth or the twenty-first century. Greed, indifference, anger, corruption, immorality, and the readiness to sin for one’s own benefit destroy humans and everything good in society. To show the full horror of the...
A person telling a story is likely to provide some setting to help listeners acknowledge relevant contexts. The setting, being one of the central components of literary works, serves as a background where certain events take place (Khrais, 2017). Some may even think that authors mention the place where their...
The poem “The Bitter River”, written by Langston Hughes, may be regarded from different angles. This ambiguity is rooted in a meaningful metaphor of a river, which is the poem’s foundation. One of the themes disclosed in “Bitter River” is restrictions on art, creativity, and imagination. The author examines the...
Introduction “The Persian Letters” are detailed accounts of the European experiences of two young Persians named Rica and Usbek. The intellectual tourists explore French manners and morality while their people rebel against the tyrannical authorities that have been subjected to years of misery. The seraglio, as defined in the text,...
The play Macbeth depicts the similarities and differences between the characters Macbeth, Banquo, and Macduff as they play different roles in the tragedy. Both Macbeth and Banquo receive a prophecy about kingship, and this prediction directs the events in the play. On the other hand, Macduff is King Daniel’s trusted...
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 The short horror stories “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wall-Paper” have similar and different features, which are manifested through the authors’ use of the elements of gothic literature. “A Rose for Emily” is a short story by William Faulkner that was first published in 1930. The story...
Interpreter of Maladies is included in the collection of short stories of the same name. The plot of the story is built around the trip of the couple Das and their children – Indian immigrants of the second and third generation, who grew up in America – to the Sun...
In the ancient Mesopotamian poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the most important elements of the story is the friendship between the protagonist Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The formed friendship was unlikely given the opposite nature of the characters, but the two supernatural men forge the bond based on their...
Introduction The peculiarity of Rowling’s books is that, as in life’s reality, good and evil tend to penetrate each other, replace one another and intertwine so closely that it is challenging for the hero to distinguish one from the other. Consequently, the choice of his path is complicated enough as...
There is a number of brilliant writers whose genius helps them create truly amazing writings that rarely leave the readers indifferent. One of such masterpieces is the story titled “The far and the near” by Thomas Wolfe. While reading this short text, one can feel various emotions and start thinking...
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,...
Introduction Earlier Asian immigration to the United States was driven by dreams of a better life espoused in the American dream. Even today, America is among the most preferred destination countries by potential immigrants. For most people, the desire to migrate is to escape extreme poverty locally and build a...
The topic of mental health is not only studied by psychologists but is also widely used by authors in fiction. Psychological problems and mental disorders are complicated and understood differently by various authors. The following essay will examine and explain the differences and similarities in “A Rose for Emily” by...
Insanity in Gothic Literature Gothic authors submerge their readers into the dark and depressing atmosphere as they slowly lead the characters through the traps of their minds. In many cases, the heroes are experiencing some forms of insanity, imagining or seeing the scary phenomena while others do not. Description of...
Art Spiegelman made his book sound very human, and his characters are real and complicated. Vladek causes controversial feelings during the course of the story. First words about Anja’s personality in his narrative include that she was from a rich family (Spiegelman, 1987). One may assume that if not for...
Introduction Within the current state of government and society order, it is difficult to predict the future regarding the abundance of current issues that can jeopardize a better future. The current civilization should consider the specific laws and ways of living in order to set to ensure a bright future...
Several people in the tragedy are guilty of Mercutio and Tybalt’s deaths, including Romeo and these two men themselves. Tybalt is the first to blame since he was an instigator of the fight. If he had correctly understood the reason for Romeo’s presence at the party, he would not have...
Academic research on literary works in college is usually closely linked to history. Using characters from plays and novels as examples, students understand the aristocrats’ lifestyle from past centuries and even learn about the tragedies of Ancient Greece. The critical question remains why such works are still relevant. The answer...
Introduction Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen was first published in 1993 and is an autobiographical account of the author during her period in the psychiatric ward. The storyline follows Kaysen’s voluntary admission into the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, when she was eighteen years old. Kaysen reflects on her life...
Introduction In his book, Bruce Knauft describes the life and culture of the Gebusi, a people living in Papua New Guinea. His anthropological research is deep and covers various aspects of the development of this unique culture. The evaluation of life, religion, social relations, spirituality, and other features of the...
The poem “Annabelle Lee” is considered the last poem by Edgar Allan Poe. It is believed to be related to the love of Poe’s life, his wife Virginia, who died at an early age of tuberculosis (Syafitri & Marlinton, 2018). Since Virginia was much younger than Edgar, her image could...
Introduction Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake expresses a complex combination of the emotions and feelings of the main characters who are trying to understand their places in society and identify themselves. The author shows an immigrant father, Ashoke, and his son, Gogol, who, despite different upbringings and cultural affiliations, go...
Introduction “A&P” is a short story written by John Updike, an American novelist, poet, and literary critic. The story was initially published in 1961 in The New Yorker. Updike tells the story of Sammy, a nineteen-year-old working in a small-town grocery store. The central conflict in the plot revolves around...
Introduction A challenging task faces writers who want to evoke readers’ emotions and provoke them into thinking about crucial life issues. They need to make readers believe their characters, sympathize with them, and identify with them; otherwise, the audience’s attention will be lost. Joseph Conrad once stated his opinion about...
Introduction The short story A Good Man is Hard to Find, written by Flannery O’Connor, which holds the same title as her debut collection of short stories published in 1955, is deemed as her most disturbing work of fiction given its content. It is dark, and it centers upon two...
Introduction “A Late Aubade” is a poem by Richard Wilbur, one of the most prominent American poets of the 20th century. The title of the poem suggests that it is a morning farewell song from one lover to another. The poem consists of seven paragraphs and “features a carpe diem...
Introduction Past experiences, achievements, and challenges will influence people’s lives and the decisions they make. Individuals who acquire appropriate guidance or support will eventually develop a powerful philosophy that can inform most of their actions and aims. Many authors and novelists focus on their past observations and experiences in an...
Introduction Jane Austen is generally accredited to be one of the most widely read and accepted writers in the world of English literature. Effective use of realism, indirect speech, and crucial social criticism is very common in Austen’s writings. Austen has a deep insight into the family dynamics and she...
Introduction Aldous Leonard Huxley was born in the year 1824 and died in the year 1963 at the age of 69 years. He was born in England but spent several years in United States in his latter life from 1937 till his death. He was a humanist and in later...
William Faulkner is often considered as one of the most widely accepted writers in English literature. Faulkner’s story ‘A Rose for Emily’ explains the story of Emily Grierson. Emily Grierson is a strong woman with a great sense of tradition and a very dynamic character. The final paragraph of Faulkner’s...
Author’s name: Flannery O’Connor This author has published a number of short stories apart from two novels. Her writing slants towards a compulsive Southern Gothic tradition with a strong narrative pace and most of her writings are based on old Southern styling. The readability of her works derives from the...
Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House was an influential and to a certain degree shocking literary work, as it challenged the traditional roles of men and women in society and depicted the poor outcomes of gender discrimination. The major female characters of the play are definitely bold and determined women,...
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...
The work of Handsome Lake How America was discovered is a fiction that bears more ideological and precaution character for a reader. The story of a white preacher who once met the Creator telling him about a country where people would be cruel and corrupt because of money greed and...
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...
A Doll’s House is one of the many plays written by a Norwegian playwright and theatre director Henrik Johan Ibsen. Now Ibsen is often referred to as one of the most influential writers of his time and even as “a father of realism”. In this work, the plot revolves around...
The Hollow Men is a soliloquy by one of the hollow men, representing a modern generation of rootless, faithless, lonely, and aimless wanderers. The hollow men are bewailing their lot in the modern Waste Land. They are in Death’s dream kingdom from which they cannot cross to Death’s other kingdom...
‘‘Barn Burning’’ by William Faulkner provides a comprehensive look at a typical family relationship as it existed in the XIXth-century America and was affected by history, traditions, and society. The story depicts both emotional and ethical aspects of a young boy’s struggle to behave appropriately with his father. As the...
Despite Guy de Maupassant’s ‘The Necklace’ being written in the late XIXth century, this story successfully transports its moral lessons to modern life. The author engages symbolism around the main object of the story, the diamond necklace, and the deep character portrayal of two heroines to reveal the common deceptiveness...
Pride and Prejudice: Reaction Paper Introduction Jane Austen is one of the most classical female authors in the Western literary canon, most famously known for her famous novel Pride and Prejudice. Originally published in 1813, this novel defines classic Regency fiction and is attributed to being a novel of manners,...
Introduction/Thesis When it comes to writing a novel, authors must first make sure that the would-be produced literary work will have what it takes to prove discursively relevant. This, in turn, can only be accomplished if the novel’s themes and motifs are consistent with the prevailing socio-cultural climate, on the...
Reading short stories introduces multiple opportunities for people to meet new characters, learn their lives, and get several important lessons. Each story is a piece of human life with its strong and weak aspects, and it is the decision of a reader on how to use this information. There are...
The age of the characters Overall, I began to suspect that Jack and Hope could be elderly people when the author mentioned that in the past these characters were married to other people long time ago. In particular, the narrator says that Hope was a widow, while Jack had divorced...
Chain of events: Epic of Gilgamesh Summary Generally, the entire event in Gilgamesh starts with a journey and makes the journey more important. All journeys provided in Gilgamesh reflect his inner flight to become altruistic and loyal king. The hero is obliged to set off on a journey or mission...
Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Blackberries” and Sylvia Plath’s poem “Blackberrying” are two of the many poems that have utilized the theme of blackberry picking as a plot. Both poems belong to distinctly different eras of American History. Sylvia Plath is a confessional poet while Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem is deep-rooted in his...
The Southern setting of the short story “Good Country People” affects characters’ way of identifying themselves and others. Hulga’s mother, Mrs. Hopewell, judges people by their perceived characteristics and shows a tendency to divide people into familiar and foreign types, treating both differently. Her use of the phrase “good country...
“Salvation” is a short narrative by Langston Hughes, the famous Harlem Renaissance writer. The narrative addresses Langston’s childhood experiences with issues of Christianity, faith, and salvation. Langston wrote the short narrative as an adult more than twenty years after this childhood experience. “Salvation” is quite a short narrative and it...
Edgar Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado illustrates some of the main techniques developed by this author in order to create a sense of suspense that engages the readers. In this case, much attention should be paid to the use of foreshadowing and irony. They are particularly relevant when...
The story of Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo is about the final day in the life of Eric Packer, a billionaire financial trader. The story is set in 2000 on “A Day in April” as delineated before the beginning of part 1 of the story (DeLillo 3). The novel opens with...
Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is based around the concept of how humans imagine the world, how they dream, and how they invent. However, the story of the nine-year-old Oscar Schell is much more about the story of invention and imagination. With the setting taking place...
Introduction The book Man’ Search for Meaning is one of the most influential works on the psychoanalysis of the modern time. It was written by Viktor Frankl, a former Auschwitz prisoner, and the outstanding psychoanalyst. The existential vacuum is one of the most important concepts explained by Frankl in his...
The success of the tragic comedy genre is confined to such dramatic effects as recognition and reversal. These devices contribute to the complexity of the plot and allow the reader to gain the depth of pity, tragedy, and fear experienced by the main protagonists. In particular, the recognition and reversal...
Introduction El Señor Presidente (Mister President) is a landmark text in Latin American literature authored by Guatemalan diplomat and writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899 – 1974) as it details the nature of political dictatorship and its impacts on the society. The award winning work, originally written in Spanish, tells the...
Introduction Henrik Ibsen’s play ‘a doll’s house’ is intriguing as it provides insight into love and relationships. The author uses several characters to depict various forms of relationships and how each is perceived in the society. From the play, major characters are Nora and Torvald Hermer, Christine Linde, Nils Krogstad...
Introduction Shakespeare truly does still matter. More than four centuries after his death, his works resonate with contemporary audiences worldwide, embodying universal themes and exploring timeless truths about human nature. His mastery of language, profound understanding of human emotion, and insights into the human condition are as relevant today as...
Introduction: Identifying Universal Themes in the Story In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” the universal themes of human nature and faith present themselves throughout the narrative. Analyzing the Presence of Two Key Themes The theme of human nature is evident in how the villagers treat...
Music and poetry are interrelated since many poets have dedicated their poems to various musical genres. This article by Beugre Zouankouan Stephane explores how Langston Hughes expressed his love for Blues and Jazz in his poem “Fantansy in Purple.” The author observes an as close link between the two genres...
Mona Lisa Smile tells the story of feminist teacher Kathryn Ann Watson, who leaves her boyfriend in Los Angeles to teach at a conservative private women’s college. Instead of the bright minds of her generation, Kathryn meets girls with the primary life purpose to get married. Watson tries to convince...
Introduction Modernization refers to the transition from a pre-modernistic and agriculture-focused society into an industrialized and modern one. Industrialization is a complex process during which an economy is transformed from a mainly agricultural one to one that depends on the manufacturing of products. Therefore, manual labor can be significantly reduced...
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...
Fight Club – The Novel Describe the Narrator’s life before Tyler The narrator’s life before he meets Tyler is characterized with chronic insomnia which has been disturbing him for a while. His condition becomes a problem at his Work place where he works as a product recall specialist and prompts...
Introduction Today, feminism is widely discussed in both academic and popular spheres. However, it is often forgotten that the origins of feminism can be traced back to early works of literature. One such work is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in which she challenges traditional gender roles and offers a more nuanced...
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 It is hard to disagree that many literary works are mysteries to some extent, and it may be interesting for the audience to solve them. Reading between the lines is a challenging but engaging process that can provide new views on the writing and interpretations of characters’ lines. Some...
A Good Man is Hard to Find is a masterpiece by Flannery O’Connor; this work contains thought-provoking topics for discussion. One of the most concerning issues is the theme of redemption, which is found in the book’s episodes. O’Connor links the characters to Christian belief, goodness, and grace, intentionally creating...
Comics rely heavily on such a visual element as color. This is due to the fact that this aspect helps to fulfill many different tasks that the author faces when creating a work. So, the color helps to convey the characters’ mood and the narrative’s general atmosphere. Thus, this response...
Introduction Various literary symbolism and devices allow poets and writers to talk about complex issues through allegories and metaphors. They can raise philosophical topics and topics not usually discussed in society, using symbols of nature or everyday objects. Rhina P. Espaillat, thanks to her flair, uses extensive and very vivid...
The novel Frankenstein is Mary Shelley’s most famous novel. It is a story about a young scientist Victor Frankenstein who wants to learn how to animate lifeless matter and, as a result, an ugly monster. The novel touches on many fundamental themes and ideas of a philosophical nature, one of...
Thomas King explores one of the many challenges of living in a world where his race has been marginalized in “Borders.” It is challenging to uphold culture and self-identity in a nation as diverse as America. The dilemma in King’s short story “Borders” is one that concerns the issue of...
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is an impressive short novel that narrates the story of an intriguing but cruel tradition in a small village in the United States. The villagers annually conduct a lottery on 27 June, and shockingly, the “winner” gets brutally killed with stones by other residents. “The Lottery”...
“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut is a short dystopian story that explores the notion of equality. However, the author takes the dystopian genre to an extreme length by portraying all the characters as handicapped, which makes no one superior in this piece. Overall, as “Harrison Bergeron” is based on a...
The chosen reading is Bock’s “Building a bridge: Founded by marine veteran-turned-actor, arts in the Armed Forces seeks to unite military, theater communities.” Bock has overviewed the activity and benefits of the non-profit organization Arts in the Armed Forces (AITAF). This topic is described through the stories and interviews of...
A.E. Housman’s poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” is about a record-breaking athlete regarded as a legend. The poem’s tone abruptly changes, causing the reader to realize that the athlete has died. The poem is notable for its themes of the bitterness of death at the pinnacle of greatness. Housman...
In human life, lies are found in various forms and for many reasons. However, often, if not always, deceiving other people leads to lying to oneself. Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” tells about the senselessness of the pursuit of pretentiousness and brilliance of high society, which can turn out to...
Introduction Few writers inspire as many controversial thoughts as Flannery O’Connor does. Yet, the sense of controversy is exactly what distinguished her writing. O’Connor wrote stories that were filled with violence, despair, and loss. These themes are not accidental, as she viewed violence as having the capacity to uncover the...
Summary Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is one of the most well-known and culturally significant short stories in the history of American literature. It provides an insightful and horrifying look at the comfort people take in passively accepting horrifying events as long as they are part of the accepted stability. Set...
Under Fire by Henri Barbusse is a masterpiece that belongs equally to literature and history. An unforgettable and immortal document of the era remains the best book of all written about the war of 1914-1918. The book received a profound response not only in France but also in almost all...
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles is the continuation of the adventures of the genius detective Sherlock Holmes, who, in this case, faces the conflict with the main villain, Mr. Jack Stapleton. The title suggests to an unfamiliar reader that the story revolves around a mysterious and...
In “Earth Poem,” Darwish shares his love, grief, and expectations for the future in these Palestinian poems with other world peoples. Through his perceptive metaphors and detailed descriptions of the country, the author sounds the voice of the Palestinian Resistance. The main themes of his poetry are his nation and...
Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave. A True History by Aphra Behn is considered to be one of the first English novels – it was published in 1688 when the genre was only beginning to emerge. The story’s protagonist is Prince Oroonoko – an African king’s grandson who possesses all the...
Emily Dickinson was a famous American 19th-century poet born on December 10, 1830, in New England to a Puritan family that had lived in Massachusetts since the 17th century. Emily’s father, Edward Dickinson, was a lawyer and politician, who for a long time resided in the House of Representatives and...
Introduction Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is considered one of literature’s most complex and intriguing characters. The depths of his emotion, the impact of psychological trauma, and the everbearing moral conflict within him contribute to a seemingly erratic but also highly philosophical character. In finishing Act one of the drama,...
Gilgamesh is one of the most interesting epic stories in the modern-day, even though it was composed 28 centuries ago. The epic illustrates the success of a king, Gilgamesh, who built high walls for its empire and laid out its orchards and fields. He was regarded as a wise person,...
Introduction The Song of Myself is a 52-part poem written by Walt Whitman in 1855. In the poem, the speaker praises the human body for its ability to join with self and nature. This union between the body and self provides a religious experience for the speaker and all humanity....
Introduction Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a Colombian Nobel prize winner commonly regarded as one of the best authors of the 20th century (Echevarría). His works famously blend elements of fantasy and realism to explore solitude, violence, and the human condition (Echevarría). A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is 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...
Summary “Defender of the Faith” is an original story about a Jewish American Army Sergeant Nathan Marx who resists attempted manipulation by a trainee Jew Sheldon Grossbart to exploit their mutual ethnicity for a particular benefit. The fiction focuses on the conflict between two powerful characters, Marx and Grossbart. They...
The famous short story The Lottery, written by the American writer Shirley Jackson was published in 1948 in The New Yorker. The work caused a great stir among the population that still not recovered from the sufferings of World War II (Sar and Pradika 2). The feeling of anxiety, masterfully...
In many literary works, the house is presented as one of the most essential parts of the novel. The authors give it a particular character, like living characters, a specific meaning, add important plot events to attract the reader’s attention to it. In the work “There Will Come Soft Rains”...
The literary canon concept is used to describe the most valuable and influential texts of a particular time. The current paper argues that a short story “A Man of the People” written by a Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, should be included in the literary canon to be taught as part...
After finishing the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the reader may be left wondering about the validity of the events that took place during the narration. That hypothesis can only be tested through the assessment of clues that Poe leaves for the...
In Speak, the author, Laurie Halse Anderson, illustrates the idea that people can recover after trauma and become stronger. The writer utilizes the first-person point of view to show the path protagonist goes through to her transformation. The first-person point of view is the type of narrative in which events...
The novel ‘Sula’ focuses on the lives of blacks soon after they were freed from slavery. They formed a community, The Bottom, and tried to lead normal lives, struggling to meet their daily needs. The novel focuses on various themes such as black-white relations, the fear of death, deceit, slavery,...
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...
Introduction It is common for authors to use historical events as a foundation for exploring pressing issues. The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller in 1953, is one of the examples of such a choice. In the play, the city of Salem is overcome by the fear of witchcraft,...
The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most astonishing short stories that has been interpreted in numerous ways. Most notably, the work is considered to be an allegory due to the biblical image painted through the human foot crushing the head of a serpent (Saxton...
“The Necklace” is a short narrative by Guy de Maupassant that largely focuses on Mathilde’s life. The story has been used to educate people about the different issues they experience in society. Mathilde is a pretty and charming woman born in a middle-class family. Although Mathilde is adorable, she does...
It is challenging to understand unique characteristics and shape self-identity when actions are dictated to people and there is no basic freedom. Never Let Me Go is a story about a world where humans are cloned then told to donate organs when they become adults. The main character of the...
“The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas” is a fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin. Through the elaborated imagery of reflective narration, the author explores urgent moral issues still relevant to our society. This paper aims to apply Le Guin’s short fiction to the cultural analysis of our modern society....
Jennifer Egan’s “The Black Box” has emerged as a unique short science fiction about future citizen espionage. Published in 2012, the story is a bold and triumphant experiment of narrative presented in new media. Besides Egan’s ability to embrace the wide-ranging virtues, forms, and pleasures that accompany traditional storytelling in...
The Cask of Amontillado is one of Poe’s most transparent short stories, every aspect of which in the background adds to the ultimate ironic effect. The unity of the short story and the plot is very straightforward. Montresor seeks vengeance on Fortunato for unspecified provocation by including him in his...
Homer’s Odyssey has made an indisputable contribution to all Western civilization’s development and remains relevant in the modern world. In addition, the protagonist’s personal qualities, such as courage and strength, make him famous and reflect the spirit of the society of Ancient Greece. These stories are an excellent illustration of...
“Go Down, Moses” is a poem that became a folk song, calling for the freedom of slaves in the US back in the nineteenth century. It links the story from the Bible with the situation happening in South America before the Civil War. The work constitutes of several poetic form...
Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers” explores the reality of growing up and being brought up as an African American in the United States of the 1950s. Yet even though race features prominently in the text, the essay is about more than just racial matters. At the core of “A Talk...
