Literature Essays

The story “Greasy Lake” by TC Boyle is a story about three young men who think they are bad but then find out they are just going through a rebellious phase. Throughout the story there are several themes which are picked up on again and again.

Goodman is very lucid in his demonstration that human beings whether children, men or women have that fundamental freedom to enjoy life to its fullest free from any harm or unnecessary disturbance. People should be very human to other people and treat each other in the most compassionate and benevolent manner.

Many unsatisfying definitions have been given for the word ‘literature,’ with various scholars trying to explain why they think their definitions fit better. For instance, Terry Eagleton sees literature as any piece of writing which is ‘imaginative’ in nature and is not “literary true”(2).

This research paper is a literature review of the book “The Utility of Force” written by Rupert Smith. This is a theoretical rather than a historical narrative and it is intended to persuade the reader to think more deeply about war in general, rather than to be informed about one man’s personal experience.

Racism is still one of the major issues affecting American society. African Americans and other racial minorities find themselves at the receiving end of racial bias and discrimination. This has caused many of them to face an identity crisis given the fact that many of them are Americans by nationality but their colors deny them this right.

Like every of Jane Austen's narratives, Emma is a work of fiction of courtship and societal manners. At the core of the recitation is the heading personality, Emma Woodhouse who is an heiress residing with her widowed vicar at their domain, Hartfield. Renowned for her lovely looks and shrewdness, Emma is fairly wasted in the little community of Highbury other than assumes an immense deal of conceit in her matchmaking talents.

Poetry can serve many purposes, but one of them tends to be an exploration of the life of the poet. Two poems, “Funeral Blues” by WH Auden and Washing-Day by Anna Laetitia Barbauld both express social struggles that the authors would have been familiar with throughout their life.

Analysis of Anna Barbauld. Anna Barbauld was a British poet, who wrote political poems, children stories, hymns, and romantic poems. She is the first British most powerful and eloquent female poet, who also participated in liberal politics. The First Fire symbolizes the initial fire lit at the onset of autumn.

Will compare how the two poets treated the theme of after-life differently and yet wrote these two great poems. The work will focus on the various styles used by the two poets and come up with an analysis of the ideas, the poets, shared and the ideas the two differed on, and also look at the various poetic techniques used by the poets.

Contemporary critics place her as one of the most outstanding poets of the nineteen century. She mostly spent her life alone and always stayed in her house. She did not marry and used to wear white clothes all the time. In her isolation, she composed several masterpieces covering wide-ranging topics including nature and love.   

The conclusion states that in the modern days of Japan, considering that it is one of the most developed countries at the present, countless of unusual things can be seen from lights to the scream of the modern sound system, aesthetics preferences survive from the past. As keen reflected and believe that the Japanese aesthetics past is not dead.

The imagery of light and dark is also brought out in direct relation to man and his activities. As this opening scene is presented, the narrator describes his reverence for the Thames. "We looked at the venerable stream, not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs forever, but in the august light of abiding memories"

Women also have the desire for independence, freedom, and domination much the same as all men. This was is clearly shown in the three characters that will be discussed further below. The most important factor in the changes that women undergo is their environment and the situation they are placed in.

The situation he describes is one that could be told forty years later in the same words and same context, which is to state that little has changed in bridging the gap between the world’s poorest people and the richest societies economically, or even with regard to the most basic aspects of standard of living such as adequate food, shelter, and health care.

The paper tells that Othello’s behavior is “based on military codes of conduct”. A number of elements in the characterization of Othello reveal his inner opposition to the Venetian society. The Moor can serve Venice at virtually any position up to the post of the commander of large military units. But he cannot organically enter this society and merge with it.

The conclusion from this study states that Mark Twain was the representative of the democratic literary current. The creative activity of the writer became the point of the mixture for different art and literary tendencies and that is why the works by Mark Twain can be considered as those which synthesize romanticism and realism. 

It is also the case with literary growth that observed unabated progress by the end of 16th and beginning of 17th century, during which the divergent schools of thought appeared on the horizon of literary developments and left indelible imprints of their intellect and creativity on the future generations to come.

Achebe also uses various native symbols. Locusts are used to mean impeding whites. Fire represents Okonkwo’s nature which is fierce, constructive as well as destructive. Drums are used in the narration to bind the heartbeats of the villagers in unison. All these symbols were unheard of in English by then.

I have to admit that as I was reading The End of Education I did not think the matter had anything to do with me. I have never thought public schools were in danger of becoming extinct, especially if we consider that most parents and most figures of authorities want to exert some control over youngsters.

The reader is aware of the fact that the writer likely intends something more in their lines. “The very making of a poem involves a transformation from perceived reality or experience into a verbal utterance shaped by the poet’s imagination and craft”. The effectiveness of the poem will therefore depend to a great degree on the poet's ability to present her ideas, emotions, and impressions.

William Faulkner’s Barn Burning is a short story that details the life of a child who moves from town to town because his father constantly burns the barns of the people with whom they are staying. The story functions as an investigation into social class and moral responsibility.

During the World War II, North Africa Campaign was initiated. This included campaigns which were fought in the Western Desert as well as Morocco and Algeria (referred as the Operation Torch). The war originated from the invasion of British-America into the French North Africa during early 1940s.

A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens has one of the most memorable openings for a novel that has ever been written. The novel begins with the statement ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of time” setting a rhythm for the writing in which a study in contrasts is made throughout the first paragraph.

A convinced utilitarian, in Taking Life: Humans Peter Singer presents his vision of the euthanasia problem. According to Singer (1993), “euthanasia means a gentle and easy death, but it is not used to refer to the killing of those who are incurably ill and in great pain or distress, for the sake of those killed, and in order to spare them further suffering or distress”.

Contemporary literature captivates the essence of diaspora and enthrals within the compass of its theme, the issue of immigration and sense of uprooting form native socio-cultural milieu.

In the first one-third of the piece, Gwendolyn Brooks initiated rather with a straight affecting cut and gathers all within a sharp word the necessary mood by which the theme must be conveyed. ‘Abortions’ – As if to generate a resonance of accusation somewhere, such word sounds too sharp that regardless of the amount and stress of the pitch used, a mere utterance utters all.

Perhaps one of the most well known antiheroes is Holden Caulfield, the main character from The Catcher in the Rye.

The purpose of many novels is to entertain, but often literary works have a different style and goal as is the case in Washington Irving’s story. Irving is a satirical writer which is no doubt an appealing style to Tim Burton.

Egan attributes the disaster to the collective cause of reckless man-made agricultural practices, even as he surveys the tragic individual stories of the people who suffered from it.  He argues that the combined effects of drought and a heatwave in the early 1930s, and man’s hubris and environmental ignorance and irresponsibility throughout the decade.

King Lear a famous and renowned play of Shakespeare is read and staged all over the world for its tragic connotation. The story, as the name depicts; mainly revolves around the king and his miseries brought up by himself.

“The Great Awakening” was a fire and brimstone approach to the revival of Puritanism in Colonial America. Edwards felt that this society was on a path to hell and through his fiery preaching, he could scare people out of hell. Those preachers who preach in the same fashion are called evangelicals. They and some parts of the media exploit disasters.

There is no way to deny that there are some potent elements of symbolism in Dr. Rank’s character. Probably the most significant is his disease, what Nora calls a “consumption of the spine” (Act 2).

The concept of nature versus nurture is one which is continuously displayed to create a different meaning to identity of characters. In Angela Carter’s story Wolf – Alice, there is an association with the concept of nature versus nurture through the main character of Alice.

Welty and Frost both put forth their divergent perspectives by the use of different themes of the journey in their work. In the poem “The Road Not Taken,” Frost masterly makes a depiction of how choice at the present has a huge impact in future.

The narrative of Sojourner of truth is a memoir written by Oliver Gilbert whereas the book up from slave is an autobiography written by Booker Washington himself.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was undoubtedly one of the greatest playwrights and dramatists that ever lived. There is no facet of human character and emotion that he has left unexplored.

This research is being carried out to evaluate and present how John Irving using Irony engages and involves the readers by making them extract deeper levels of meanings through the suspense created. Though compelling to read, Irving evokes sadness, nervousness, irritation, enjoyment, and hilarity through the entire novel through his writing.

In his famous play “Medea” the Euripides presented a completely new perspective on tragedy. This perspective is worth discussing, thus the given paper will define tragedy and demonstrate in what ways "Medea" can be considered as a tragedy.

All Quiet on the Western Front is an antiwar novel written by Erich Maria Remarque a German boy who was drafted into the Germany war in 1916 to fight the world war I. in this war, Remarque was badly wounded and 10 years after the war, he was motivated to write this book with the purpose of bringing into light what ordinary German soldiers go through during times of war.

The Gilded Six-Bits, by Zora Neale Hurston, illustrates several principles about money and how it is viewed by two people that are married, including paydays and having a savings account before any life-altering events, such as having children.

People and in particular readers of fiction will always want happy endings in real life as well as in fictional stories. However, when viewed from the perspective of creators or authors of fictional works, tragic endings and thereby tragic stories will only make a deeper imprint in the minds of the readers.

The researcher states that the story “Heart of Darkness” is about: ‘Europeans performing acts of imperial mastery and will in (or about) Africa’. By this time business interests predominated over adventurous and exploratory interests in empire building.  The imperialist world that Conrad narrates is sealed within its own circularity; it does not allow for any alternative views.

Joyce represented many themes in his story; which reveal the potential behavior and life style; a person can acquire. The life of residents of Dublin not only revolved around class discrimination but it also showed different phases of life.

The stranger according to Albert, revolve around an emotionally detached amoral young man who defies the societal norms thus deemed a threat to humanity (49). The two different characters from the two novels, Meursault and Gatsby, demonstrate a degree of contrasting oblivion to how they try to attain and sustain the lives they want in a totally contrasting manner.

Rules of conduct may hold true to the sustenance of the love between a man and his beloved on an emotional scale. However, they lack the means to explain how fortune and one’s psychological impetus may affect the outcome of a romanticized relationship. Other romantic works offer a complete outlook on what constitutes the fate of lovers’ relationship.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol is a tale on the subject of change. It is a quite simple story based on an intervallic narrative composition in which all of the major chapters have a clear, fixed symbolic connotation. Dickens' much-loved short story A Christmas Carol was printed in 1843, along with the purpose of getting the attention of the reader to the dilemma of England's underprivileged people.

This story has attracted the need understand how Susan Glaspell uses dialogue and visual symbols that largely surrounds the murder of a local farmer by his wife, to build up the idea that a chasm of misunderstanding exists between women and men. “A jury of her peers” greatly focuses on the various predicaments that are usually faced by women in a society that is dominated by men.

A Critical Analysis of Social Expectation in “The Story of an Hour” and “A Sorrowful Woman” Introduction On the surface level, both Kate Chopin’s “the Story of an Hour” and Gail Goldwin’s story, “A Sorrowful Woman” deal with the protagonists’ reactions to what the society expects from them.

“Oedipus the King” is a play in which Oedipus is the focal character, and is represented as the most terrible hero. Oedipus is shaped as an attractive personality that has many characteristics, both good and bad.

Fate or destiny and karma are two varying concept that feature prominently both in the Indian epic “Mahabharata” and Homer’s “The Odyssey”. One of the overriding principles in the epic Mahabharata is karma, which literary means “acts,” basically referring to the principle of cause-effect governing all life.