Essays on Literary Genres

2338

True Grit: an Alternate Perspective

2 pages / 768 words

What is true grit? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long term goals.” While the Merriam-Webster dictionary does provide an appreciable explanation of grit, no such definition exists for "true grit." True grit is far more challenging to place words upon;...

Novel

2339

Identity Controversy and Music in Jackie Kay’s "Trumpet"

2 pages / 873 words

Jackie Kay has created a topic of controversy regarding gender identity in the novel Trumpet. Through the difference in perspectives on the gender of Joss Moody and Millie Moody, the novel contests the absoluteness of one’s identity by proving language’s inability to express it. Kay...

Novel

2340

The Devolution of Man: Animalistic Sexual Desire in Tobacco Road and Child of God

4 pages / 1862 words

Both Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and McCarthy’s Child of God concern themselves with quintessential poor white people. Tobacco Road follows the Lester family, a poor family on the outskirts of town, struggling for food and money during the Great Depression, whereas Child of God follows Lester...

Novel

2341

The Shifting Family Dynamic in John Updike’s "Separating"

4 pages / 1817 words

The family has long been the most basic unit of human society. In a traditional sense, it typically functions as a support system, often both financially and emotionally, with each spouse supporting the other and together the parents supporting their children during their ascent into...

Family Relationships Literature Review Short Story

2342

Harrison’s "National Trust" and The Corruption of The Upper Classes

3 pages / 1250 words

Introduction Published in The School of Eloquence in 1978, Tony Harrison’s “National Trust” is the embodiment of his frustrations at the British social-class system. Through this poem, he divulges how, after receiving a post-War opportunity for education, he was dislocated from his family. “National Trust”...

Poetry

2343

Division, Unity and Identity in Tony Harrison’s "V"

4 pages / 1829 words

“V” is a poem in which Tony Harrison illustrates the working class hostility towards the political establishment and Margret Thatcher’s government during the 1984 miner’s strike. However, it also focuses on the unity between himself and his “woman” and well as his parents. It is...

Poetry

2344

Stylistic Choices in Borowski’s "This Way for The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen"

4 pages / 1706 words

Tadeusz Borowski is an inherently tragic author. His life as a guard in a German concentration camp is something to be pitied at best. While Borowski writes about his horrible experiences as a guard in his collection of short stories This Way for the Gas,...

Fiction

2345

Illusory Conceptions of Control in The Good Anna

4 pages / 1871 words

As Gertrude Stein asserts in her lecture entitled “Composition as Explanation,” “Beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic.” This quotation, especially the portion referring to the element of irritation present in much of Stein’s...

Novel

2346

The Socially Revolutionary Nature of Coleridge’s Conversation Poems

2 pages / 1038 words

The Romantics sought to distinguish their work from the Enlightenment Era’s prioritisation of logic and reason by rejecting and, in effect, redefining literary convention. Coleridge’s conversation poems are considered hallmarks of Romanticism for their revolutionary treatment of form and confrontation of core 19th century values....

Poetry

2347

Guarding The Forbidden Fruit: a Young Girl Clings to Her Virginity and Innocence

2 pages / 1134 words

The narrator of Thomas Campion’s “There Is a Garden in Her Face” warns fellow admirers of a young girl’s beauty against taking advantage of her virginity. As indicated in the title, Campion uses words associated with gardens to describe the girl’s beauty; upon closer examination,...

Elizabethan Times Poetry

2348

Perception Versus Truth in Roethke’s "In a Dark Time"

2 pages / 866 words

In Theodore Roethke’s poem, “In a Dark Time,” the speaker crosses over into the undiscovered world of insanity and communicates perceptions that others have disproved. Likely representative of Roethke’s own personal struggles with schizophrenia, “In a Dark Time” displays the thought process of a disturbed...

Poetry

2349

Applying School Skills in Life: The Message of The Wednesday Wars

3 pages / 1523 words

In the book the Wednesday Wars, Holling Hoodhood is a seventh grader at Camillo Junior High in suburban Long Island in the 1967-1968 school year, with the entire book set in the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Holling’s teacher is Mrs. Baker, whose husband is...

Lying Novel

2350

Coming to Terms with Race in The White Boy Shuffle

3 pages / 1479 words

In his novel The White Boy Shuffle, Paul Beatty conveys what it is like for a young African American male to grow up in Santa Monica, a coastal town heavily populated by chauvinistic Caucasians with social dominance – at least in the eyes of protagonist...

Novel

2351

Woolf, Eliot, Modernism, and The Faith of Early Feminism Versus Victorian Values

5 pages / 2404 words

The works of T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf represent the eve of first-wave feminism, where traditional Victorian principles have been challenged by controversy in the Royal Family, the more assertive role that women played in the First World War and receiving the vote for women...

Modernism Poetry

2352

A Lack of Confrontation: Repression and Evasion in The Work of John Irving

10 pages / 4570 words

In The Cider House Rules, Homer, the protagonist, after stifling all of the uncomfortable situations in his life would “lay awake [at night] because the phantoms of those days were not gone” (312). While Homer liked to think that he was in control of his...

Fiction

2353

A Life of Flawed Virtue in The Vicar of Wakefield

2 pages / 948 words

Introduction In The Vicar of Wakefield, although Charles Primrose portrays almost flawless virtue, he retains two major flaws, pride and obstinacy, which lead to many complications in his family’s life. The Primrose family suffers from the retribution of these flaws until they are finally purged...

Novel Victorian Era

2354

The War of The Worlds: a Critique of Imperialism

3 pages / 1524 words

With the close of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th, much of the world was changing. In particular, world literature was shifting from the ideals of Romanticism to the stark realism of novels written after the Great War. At the beginning of...

Novel Science Fiction War of The Worlds

2355

Martians in Wells’ "War of The Worlds" and Movie Adaptions: Cultural Imperialism

4 pages / 2027 words

The Martians in the book and the movie The War of the Worlds are a metaphor for the evils of cultural imperialism because their arrival severs the most important means of communication and transportation technology, challenges religion, and leaves identity unclear. The Martians in The...

Novel Science Fiction War of The Worlds

2356

Lightness Vs. Weight: Kundera’s Persuasive Argument in The Unbearable Lightness of Being

3 pages / 1234 words

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is as much of a philosophical work as it is a fictional story, not following a typical plotline. The novel includes multiple interwoven plotlines surrounding different characters with the same events being narrated many times from different characters’ points of...

Book Review Critical Reflection Fiction