Essays on Literary Genres

2414

Oppression and Isolation in Land of Green Plums

2 pages / 1020 words

The Land of Green Plums, by Herta Müller, is a novel arguably as defined by its language as its content. There are many interpretations of Müller's literary style, and one of the most cogent is that it serves to show the reader how indirect, and...

Novel Totalitarianism

2415

Similarities and Differences of Jonson’s "To Penshurst" and Marvell’s "Upon Appleton House"

9 pages / 4068 words

Andrew Marvell’s “Upon Appleton House” and Ben Jonson’s “To Penshurst” share similarities characteristic of the English “Country House” poem, but they also contain notable differences from each other. Both “To Penshurst” and “Upon Appleton House” describe the respective estates and family life of the poets’...

Poetry

2416

Preserving The Vitality of Love: Analyzing "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"

2 pages / 899 words

Almost everyone, at some point in their life, deals with heartbreak and loneliness from a broken relationship. In “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” Kevin Young utilizes literary devices to depict the cruelty of a past relationship. The poem successfully demonstrates the speaker’s story...

Poetry

2417

Fathers and Father Figures in Women’s Confessional Poetry

5 pages / 2412 words

In his preface to Lyrical Ballads,William Wordsworth describes good poetry as being “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (6). The style of confessional poetry seems especially fitting to this description; to think that confessional poets merely transcribe powerful emotions onto paper is, however, a misconception....

Poetry

2418

The Portrait of a Lady and The Author of Beltraffio: an Exploration of The Aesthetic in Literature

5 pages / 2208 words

Book analysis Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady presents the reader with a novel that uses literary form in an attempt to frame the life of its female protagonist; the very title – ‘Portrait’ – expresses a double meaning, referring both to the representation...

Fiction

2419

The Artist’s Quest: Real Truth Beyond Real Life

2 pages / 1095 words

The Real Thing was written by Henry James in 1891. According to his notebook entry on February 22, 1891, the idea for the story came in the form of an actual incident divulged by his friend George du Maurier. James juxtaposes an upper-class couple, who...

Fiction

2420

Narration and Perspective in The Secret Sharer

2 pages / 788 words

Joseph Conrad’s story The Secret Sharer is a first-person account written in two parts from the perspective of an untried sea captain. The separation of the two segments almost perfectly coincides with a distinction in the narrative voice. In the first part of The Secret...

Short Story

2421

Fantasy and Fear: Examining The Narrator’s Reality

4 pages / 1875 words

The mind tends to remain at a stasis, neither consumed by pure ecstasy nor ridden with fearful anxiety. However, there may come a point in time when thoughts fluctuate between the two extremes until we are jolted back to reality’s state of neutrality, perhaps this...

Fiction

2422

Colonialism and Character Development in Season of Migration to The North

4 pages / 1736 words

Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North was first published in 1969, and has come to be regarded as outstanding in its genre. Originally written in Arabic, the book features notable parallels to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which it is considered by many...

Fiction

2423

An Examination of "Intimate Revenge" in Seamus Heaney’s "Punishment"

3 pages / 1365 words

The poem “Punishment” by Seamus Heaney was written in 1975 as a part of the anthology North. It is a part of Heaney’s bog series, in which he describes the Irish bogland, and the different artifacts and remains that have been found within the Northern...

Poetry Revenge Seamus Heaney

2424

Admiration in Duffy’s "Before You Were Mine" and Heaney’s "Follower"

3 pages / 1330 words

Introduction Both ‘Before you were mine’ by Carol Anne Duffy and ‘Follower’ by Seamus Heaney present the theme of admiration through their poems. As they both capture the parent-child relationship through the child’s perspective showcasing how they each viewed their parent as a role model...

Carol Ann Duffy Poetry Seamus Heaney

2425

The Harmony of Realism and Idealism in Heaney’s Poetry

3 pages / 1225 words

The universal image of childhood that is ‘rang[ing]’ frogspawn on ‘window-sills’, ‘wait[ing] and watch[ing]’, with a fervent curiosity and admiration, until the ‘fattening dots’ dynamically metamorphose into ‘nimble swimming tadpoles’ is one, very relatable and nostalgic aspect of Heaney’s poetry that extols the carefree innocence...

Harmony Poetry Seamus Heaney

2426

Seamus Heaney’s Poetic Struggle with The Past in His Poem "North"

2 pages / 1117 words

In his critically acclaimed collection North, contemporary Irish poet Seamus Heaney reveals a very personal side of himself and of his identity as a writer. Although each individual poem explores its own storyline and employs its own metaphors, one common thread seems to unravel throughout...

Poetry Seamus Heaney

2427

Culpability of The Fisherman in Seamus Heaney’s "Casualty"

3 pages / 1289 words

Seamus Heaney’s “Casualty” is written as an elegy for a friend who was killed in a bombing in Northern Ireland shortly after Bloody Sunday. His friend, who was a Catholic, failed to obey a curfew set in place by the Irish Republican Army. He was...

Poetry Seamus Heaney

2428

The Famine and Irish Identity in Seamus Heaney’s "At a Potato Digging"

2 pages / 922 words

Seamus Heaney paints a picture of Ireland through his poems, at times describing its culture and at other times its politics. In poems like ‘Digging’ and ‘The Follower’ he ascribes a sense of dignity to the act of farming, comparing it to the art of...

Poetry Seamus Heaney

2429

"The Family Life" by Akhil Sharma

3 pages / 1151 words

Family Life is a semi-autobiographical novel by Akhil Sharma. This is Akhil Sharma’s second novel, which cost him years of hardship and emotional stress to write. It was published in 2014 and was released to widespread critical acclaim. The New York Times described the novel...

Family Relationships Novel

2430

A History and Haunting in The Frandsen Humanities Building

2 pages / 902 words

Towering next to Manzanita Lake in the Southwest corner of campus lies a building filled with memories, classrooms, students, and almost one hundred years of history. Originally designed and constructed by Walter O. Lewis at the beginning of 1917 as the College of Architecture, the...

Short Story

2431

A Book Review of The Old Man and The Wasteland by Nick Cole

2 pages / 859 words

The Old Man and the Wasteland is a novel by Nick Cole. This was the first publication in the series of the Westland saga, among other books in the series been Savage Boy and The Road Is a River. The book was first published on...

Book Review Novel

2432

Critique of "Miss Brill" by Katherine Mansfield

2 pages / 881 words

Kathleen Mansfield Murry is known to be a prominent New Zealand Modernist short story writer who wrote stories under the pen name Katherine Mansfield. Miss Brill was published in the 1920’s and is set in post-World War I in France. In “Miss Brill,” Katherine Mansfield...

Modernism Short Story