Literature Essays

In the midst of family and political conflict, both Cordelia and Edmund suffer tragic deaths in the play, King Lear, dying young and at the hands of their siblings. Ultimately, the sisters Goneril and Regan bring about the death of Cordelia in a sister against sister murder.

After taking a close look into the archetype Wilson utilizes as the foundation for his commentary, the internal conflict of the Charles family and their attempt to maintain their African-American heritage and values in a world of Christianity and white man culture is demonstrated by their understanding of the value of the family piano.

The Iliad is an ancient story that analyzes the actions and motivations of many relatable characters. These characters are driven by their strengths and weaknesses. In this story, I see how the human psyche has remained constant throughout time. Ego, greed, loyalty, and the greater good is a constant theme that the characters possess.

The story of this character is very rich coupled with numerous intertwining layers. This paper therefore traces the journey of Macbeth as presented in the entire play through a complexity of the themes within the play.

One of the themes in Maria Conception is the primitive laws of justice that the villagers use to protect Maria. When Maria goes ahead to attack Juan’s woman and even steal her baby, the villagers still protect her by gathering around her even when she committed murder.

This paper will comprehensively analyze the story. There are several people who exist only for themselves, their selfish existence is of no use to other people and this is one story which explores the selfish existence of the grandmother and how she tries her best to deceive the misfit ultimately failing in her endeavor and getting shot three times in the chest.

By looking into the history of the world at large, it becomes crystal clear that wars and conflicts always bring death, destruction, devastation, and despair. This is particularly the case with the two Great Wars, which deteriorated the social, cultural, and financial activities of the affected states.

In the poems ‘The Unknown Citizen’ by Auden and ‘Richard Cory’ by Robinson, the reader is witness to two works which satirize the human condition in quite similar ways of style, poetic devices and use of irony.

Vanity is a sin, an indulgence of the spirit in which importance is put on the exterior instead of through character and values. In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the theme of vanity is taken to its extreme, a supernatural connection allowing the protagonist to exist in unending youth and beauty without the consequences of his immorality reflected in his face or body.

In the modern setting, racism is still a very sensitive topic that everyone tries to avoid because of the complexities that it may convey. Consequently, creating unconventional characters such as a protagonist who is black, noble and respectable and carries a high rank in the army, and an antagonist who is white and evil, is something that is totally outrageous when Shakespeare first brought ‘Othello’ to his 17th century European audience.

The theme of death remains one of the most popular and challenging in the world poetry. The complexity of the death phenomenon and the fact that no one actually knows what stands behind death drive the hearts and minds of outstanding poets. Death is a common object of romanticism and dreaming.

The army of Agamemnon king of men has commanders who themselves are kings (king Diomedes of Argos and princes (Nester). Even king Priam holds Agamemnon in awe. However, there is an emphasis on beauty whose benefits that seem to hide behind the action packed folds of this poem. Beauty or lack of it is a source of conflict in the Iliad.

Such is the impact of the holocaust that mankind can talk in support of it or express their disgust but can never ignore the incident in human history. The point is that the dark hand behind this holocaust was that of Hitler’s but he was not alone in his venture.

The first character under analysis is of Holden Caulfield who is the protagonist of the novel. The growth of Holden throughout the novel is quiet exemplary and needs avid analysis of the audiences.

One will find many similarities between Candide and Rasselas the most paramount of which is the fact that both of them are trying to find lasting happiness in their lives. Both of these characters are from very privileged backgrounds despite the fact that Candide is an illegitimate child.

The opening sentence of the article concedes that in the fifty years since the novel’s publication, there have been many studies of To the Lighthouse . Nevertheless, little consensus has been reached on identifying some key ideas in the novel.

In "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson explores the unfortunate reality of a greedy, selfish, and self-centered society. It was written in the 1940s when capitalism was gaining ground and the country seemed to embrace the dog-eat-dog mentality. Tessie Hutchinson was selected to be stoned to death as a symbol of "the one" that must die for the sake of others.

In his letter from 1782, Benjamin Franklin articulated an important difference in attitudes between Americans and Europeans toward people of dissimilar births. One generation later, Washington Irving disputed this claim, chastising the American culture for first destroying and then systematically excluding Native Americans from the “Land of Labour"

Various literary personals have discussed the vital issues raised in the Adventures of Huckleberry and several other books of Mark Twain. Some analysts praised views of the writer and some argued about very harshly. The goal of the writer represented that he identified unsung immoral values of the society and presented a realistic picture.

Oscar Wilde’s play ‘The importance of being Earnest ‘is a typical Wildean firework giving a clue as to the light nature of comedy that is presented to the audience. Much of the complications of this splendid comedy arise out of the confusions and misunderstandings caused on account of the fictional identity created for his own convenience under the pseudonym ‘Ernest’ by the hero of the play.

The work centers on medical or health care situations. There is a lot of racial, class and socio-economic discrimination going on, more so against the minority groups. Rebecca Skloot combines several genres in her work is a professional manner. The genres used in her book include biography, memoir, history and scientific writing.

When the story of the shepherd and the lion (Aesop, 2002) is taken into consideration, the primary message conveyed does get changed, when the crucial points pertaining to slavery of ancient Greece are taken.

Stopping by woods in a snowy evening – Robert Frost Whoever says that poetry is a manifestation of poet’s life and thinking process will have to reconsider the statement after he or she reads Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by woods in a snowy evening’.

Both the films have been based on film noirs and this has made the depiction of the respective novels very prominent and professional. The visual effects have been immensely used and the directors have been successful in creating a suspense film.

England was politically stable during most of Shakespearean time. Queen Elizabeth had appointed wise and efficient advisors who ensured that all the political structures were run smoothly and addressed the needs of the populace.

The chestnut tree in Jane Eyre and Mrs. Sparsit’s staircase in Hard Times. Two of the most important novels in the history of English literature, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Hard Times by Charles Dickens were significant for the complexity of their themes and the innovation of the stylistic devices that they were able to introduce into their novels.

Machiavelli wrote “The Prince” as an instructional manual for a Renaissance ruler. Some of the secular aspects of governance have changed much since the time of Machiavelli, and as the ruler, I will follow what is relevant and practical in the present political scenario in the world.

There is something in the manner the author wrote the story that triggers the thought that Galila is frequently soliloquizing or she often makes a dialogue with herself. For instance, right at the start when Galila was taking a bath inside the shower, she says that if she would have a mirror inside the shower, she would gaze herself over. 

The very mention of the word ‘dollar’ takes the poetic theme away from the travesties of fate and nature to a socio-economic plane, where its gets easier for the reader to grasp the economic and political dimensions of the issue being considered, thereby starkly portraying the pain, hunger and misery inflicted by humans on other humans owing to racial prejudice.

One take on pi as a number representing infinity is Pi's take on life and what reality is, as something that is grounded not on the intellect, reason, and the mental faculties, but on something infinite, It is based on love, with fuzzy and undefined boundaries, not something that cannot be grasped fully, but only lived.

Kate Chopin’s story “The Storm” is a short, but a transfixing tale that explores a superfluity of tumultuous sensations of the protagonists engrossed in the middle of the milieu of a sudden “storm”.

Othello, a tragedy by William Shakespeare focuses on theme of suspicion, love and treachery. Othello, a black general is detested by Iago for he has promoted Cassio, a man younger to him, to a position that was desired by Iago.

The story happens mostly in the room with the yellow wallpaper. The yellow wallpaper eventually evolves into a character, wherein the main character, the narrator, sees a woman caged within the wallpaper.

One of Espaillat’s books which are being taken into account over here is “Her Place in these Designs”. She is thought to have been quite a feminist and her poems give one confirmation regarding it.

The article written by George Newtown entitled “Sex, Death, and the Drama of Aids” and published in the Antioch Review, Inc. was a highly prolific and verbose discourse which presented controversial issues apparently emphasizing contemporary society’s underpinning for the emergence and increased propensities for contracting AIDS to homosexuals.

A person who speaks out his thoughts freely, hiding nothing and unmindful of what other people would think of him, Li Bo’s poetry is one of the most contemporary of his time. Apparently, he seemed to be more inclined to write about nature, his appreciation as well as his communion with everything the universe could offer.

Kordich, Catherine J., and Harold Bloom.Bloom's how to write about John Steinbeck. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2008. Print. The author delves into the application of symbolism and epiphany within John Steinbeck’s story “The Chrysanthemums.”

This essay intends to explicate the impression of the surrealism that can be traced through the style of Franz Kafka, inherent in his timeless novel “Castle”.

Pride and Prejudice is one of the most loved novels of Jane Austen. Published during 1813, the novel tells an intensely personal story in which the money mindedness and pride of the then people influence the family life. This novel unravels the triumph of true love above all barriers of financial security and status offered to all on the basis of monetary benefits.

Paulo Coelho's enthralling novel ‘The Alchemist’ has provided a philosophy for life and hope for many on the very simple ways of life and self belief. The novel has inspired extremely committed following across generations of people around the world. The story, incredible in its simplicity and inspiring wisdom, accounts for the life an Andalusian shepherd boy, Santiago. The author of the essay discusses the main proplems of the novel.

The great Gatsby tells the story of the protagonist who is called Nick and his life as a bond sales man in New York. Nick settled in Long Island next to a rich and mysterious neighbor called Gatsby.

On the speaker’s journey to her final resting place, she and Death “passed the school, where children strove / at recess, in the ring / We passed the fields of gazing grain / We passed the setting sun (Dickinson, 2010, p. 459).” These images are pleasant, and depict, as previously mentioned, the life that the speaker is leaving behind.

The sign, as elaborated by Ferdinand de Saussure in Course in General Linguistics opens up the field of linguistics to that of literary analysis as well. The main contribution of Saussure’s with this work lies in the fact that it made it possible for theorists o look at language as not merely something that existed but also something that shaped existence.

The author suggested that the Shepherd in the poem is not the type which gathers the flock of sheep but rather a feudal owner of flocks of sheep to afford such refinement as expressed in the poem. It would also seem inconsistent that the poem could be written by an uncouth shepherd considering the discipline used in the meters of the poem.

Sin, guilt and redemption, the tripartite structure of Christian theology which suggests the ways of God to men held a very important role in the lives of the puritans of early America in particular.

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre tries to affirm human existence to have existed before it has ever obtained its meaning or fundamental nature. The ultimate goal of Sartre in writing the essay was to validate that indeed “free will” is real and is existent (Levy 111).

Revenge is part of man’s nature and is a typical reaction, especially when one is slighted or insulted by another. Revenge can even be taken as a form of justice to redeem one’s honor and to teach the offender that the insult will not go unpunished, as what Poe portrayed in his “Cask of Amontillado.”

Gender roles and relations are reflected in The Oval Portrait that depicts how men use and exploit the physical beauty of women in the name of art and cultural values. The narrator finds a portrait that is “absolute life-likeliness” (Poe).

This paper makes a comparison of Don Quixote and Oedipus as a true hero from oral tradition, highlighting the main differences in their characters.

Figuratively, fire and ice could refer to emotions. The Free Dictionary defines fire as “the burning intensity of feeling, ardor or enthusiasm. From the phrase, “From what I’ve tasted of desire”, it could be well understood that the term fire as used in the poem refers to such feelings.