Essays on Literary Genres

2680

Ashima’s Estrangement

5 pages / 2370 words

In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahari explores the themes of identity, clash of culture, isolation, importance of names and family. Both of the Ganguli parents, especially Ashima, struggle with assimilating to this new culture that they are not accustomed to. Lahiri looks closely at the contrasting...

Novel

2681

Isolation and Identity in The Namesake

7 pages / 2973 words

The Namesake explores the themes of isolation, identity, clash of cultures and the immigrant experience. Through the Ganguli family Lahiri looks at how the immigrant experience is different for the two generations of immigrants, Lahiri does this by first introducing us to Ashima’s experience and...

Novel

2682

Vision Through Voice: The Poetry of Basho in The English Language

2 pages / 1066 words

In Narrow Road to the Deep North, Japanese poet Basho expresses himself masterfully through the traditional forms of haibun, covering themes of nature, folklore, faith, and journeys both physical and spiritual. All these stories and sentiments are contained within a haibun—a short piece of prose...

Poetry Voice

2683

The Representation of Gender and Gendered Roles in "The Monk" by Gregory Lewis

5 pages / 2203 words

The Monk, published in 1796 by Matthew Lewis, holds the distinction of one of the most popular and most controversial Gothic novels of all times. Set in the backdrop of the Protestant Reformation in Spain, the novel addresses and challenges many sensitive, tabooed societal norms,...

Gender Gothic Literature

2684

Criticism of The Fetishization of Purity Found in The Monk

4 pages / 1937 words

Matthew Lewis’s The Monk takes its era’s heightened anti-Catholicism to heart, and uses it to critique social norms. Lewis tackles the problem of the fetishization of purity that the Catholic Church, and society outside the Church hold so highly. Lewis presents the idea that despite...

Gothic Literature

2685

The Cruel Castle

2 pages / 1094 words

“Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni’s; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime...

Gothic Literature

2686

The Moderate Victorian Male Spectator in a Study in Scarlet, The Moonstone, "The Harlot’s House" and "Hermaphroditus"

7 pages / 3035 words

The Victorian depiction of the masculine is divided by not only class factors but also by degrees of gender conformity and morality, it is this conformity and morality that shapes the role of the masculine narrative in Victorian literature. In this essay I will be...

Novel

2687

Delusion and Demise: The Obsessions of Moliere’s Alceste and Monsieur Jourdain

5 pages / 2131 words

Moliere, who built his reputation writing plays that satirize late 17th French society, develops two title characters in his dramas “The Would-Be Gentleman” and “The Misanthrope,” the former, Monsieur Jourdain who attempts to recreate his self image in order to be accepted into high society,...

Drama

2688

Intertextuality in The Moonstone

4 pages / 1615 words

In 1987, Michael McKeon theorized that the novel form developed concomitant with the rise of the individual in English society. This correlation implies that the novel marked a shift from a communal experience of literature to a solitary experience of text: the writer writes alone,...

Novel

2689

The Theme of The Haunting Past Chapter Iv of The Moonstone

3 pages / 1469 words

One of the main themes developed in the passage from the novella “The Moonstone,” by Wilkie Collins, is the indelibility of memories and by consequence, of the past. The past comes back to haunt the present constantly throughout the passage, building tension as well as...

Novel

2690

The Challenges of Multiculturalism in India: Analyzing Sidhwa and Rushdie

3 pages / 1525 words

Cosmopolitanism is defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as “the idea that all human beings, regardless of their political affiliation, are (or can and should be) citizens in a single community”. This belief not only applies to political affiliation but also to religious beliefs,...

Novel Salman Rushdie

2691

Bulgakov’s Devil: not so Evil after All: Gnostic Elements in The Master and Margarita

12 pages / 5465 words

The devil is a common literary icon. This enemy of God has generally been established as an unwavering representation of evil—a figure out to trick and torment his arch-nemesis and readers alike. Whether making pacts with mortals to sell their souls or raising armies against...

Novel

2692

Cowardice and Consequences in "Master and Margarita"

4 pages / 1941 words

In Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, The Master and Margarita, many types of sin and corruption are exemplified in both Moscow and Yershalaim: people are rude and curt to others for no reason, accept bribes, act and speak hypocritically, spy and betray others, and so on. In...

Novel

2693

The Travel Log and Its Depiction of The ‘other’

4 pages / 1788 words

There is something inherently cathartic, inherently exciting about the ‘travel literature’ genre that emerged in the later 17th and early 18 th centuries. The lands viewed were never accurately depicted; instead, the author would embellish local details and cultures to bring the reader into unexplored...

Drama Elizabethan Times

2694

Digory Kirke Heroic Characteristics Analysis

2 pages / 778 words

In 1955 C. S. Lewis wrote and published The Magician’s Nephew, a high fantasy adventure story set in early 20th century England, a prequel to the other stories in The Chronicles of Narnia. In the story, Digory Kirke, a young boy, travels to a strange...

Character Fantasy

2695

Lies and Deception in The Maltese Falcon

3 pages / 1368 words

The Maltese Falcon at its core is a novel about people making up stories. Characters in the novel display a remarkable ability and willingness to lie. As each new character is introduced to the plot, a new host of lies is introduced as well. The...

Novel

2696

The Self Esteem of J. Alfred Prufrock

3 pages / 1486 words

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Elliot, depicts the thoughts of a modern day Hamlet. It follows, what seems like, the typical evening with Mr. Prufrock. He is a man that often loses himself in his own mind, efficiently losing his ability...

Poetry The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2697

Prufrock, Paralysis, and Pieces of The Modern City

4 pages / 1952 words

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” depicts an image of the modern city that is marked by paralysis, alienation, decay, and repression. Prufrock is a modern man who can see the superficiality of the social values of middle class society, and yet lacks the...

Poetry The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2698

Inner and Outer Worlds; The Internal and External in James Joyce’s ‘ulysses’ and The Poetry of T. S. Eliot

6 pages / 2650 words

In the novel Ulysses, a hallmark of modernist writing, James Joyce presents to the reader a particular relationship between inner and outer worlds, blurring the distinction between the internal consciousness’s of his characters and the externality of the world around them. The two become intrinsically...

Poetry The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Ulysses