Essays on Literary Genres

2718

Representation of Japanese Americans in When The Emperor Was Divine

4 pages / 1730 words

Many scholars have scrutinized the idea of going “beyond Black and White” in relation to the construction of the Asian American identity. Many arguments have been put forward to explain the possible factors that eventually lead to the perpetuation of the “model minority myth” and...

Novel

2719

Man Versus Nature: Descriptions and Messages in When The Killing's Done

2 pages / 1129 words

In the contemporary novel When the Killing’s Done, author T.C. Boyle tells the powerfully relevant story of Alma Boyd Takesue, her antagonist Dave Lajoy, and their attempts to exert dominion over the natural world. Set on the Channel Islands off the coast of California, the...

Novel

2720

Character Analysis of Anise from When The Killing's Done by T. C. Boyle

2 pages / 1072 words

In the contemporary novel When The Killing’s Done by T.C. Boyle, the secondary character Anise is an animal-loving singer who is dating the leader of an unethical organization called FPA, Dave LaJoy, she often helps his organization and consequently dies. Though her actions are misled,...

Novel

2721

"Why I Hate Raisins" and "No More Cake Here": Analysis The Physical and Psychological Hunger

3 pages / 1448 words

The concept of hunger can be used to represent many different things, whether it be in the physical, emotional, or conceptual sense. In Natalie Diaz’s poetry, hunger serves to represent ideas in both physical and psychological ways. She places the concept of hunger skillfully throughout...

Poetry

2722

Joyce Carol Oates and Sowing Wild Oats: Context for "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"

7 pages / 3214 words

The life and times of Joyce Carol Oates dynamically impact the short story, “Where You Are Going; Where Have You Been” in which music, myth and mores shape the social text corresponding with the 1960s. The 1965 rock song, “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”...

Fiction

2723

Creating to Belong: Tuyen’s Artwork in What We All Long for

4 pages / 1854 words

In Dionne Brand’s novel What We All Long For, each of the central characters attempts to define and redefine what it means to belong through their own experiences and interactions. For Tuyen, belonging is not defined by identifying with specific communities, but by fluidity and...

Novel

2724

Women’s Evolving Role in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"

3 pages / 1496 words

The 1950s brought about a multitude of changes in the culture of the United States: “conservative family values and morals were threatened as the decade came to a close” (Literature and Its Times). What was unthinkable in the 1940s gradually became the norm in the...

Fiction

2725

Mendelsund’s Theories Represented in Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters Remix

3 pages / 1316 words

Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters Remix reflects multiple theories presented in Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read. Throughout Palahniuk’s episodic novel, the reader is taken, nonlinearly, through the life of protagonist, Shannon McFarland. McFarland, a former fashion model, purposely injures her face in attempt...

Literature Review Novel

2726

The Giving Tree: The Cost of Altruism in Hedges’s Novel

2 pages / 965 words

The Giving Tree: A Tale of Sacrifice and Altruism The popular children’s book The Giving Tree tells the story of a tree that loves a boy so completely and selflessly that it is willing to give up everything it has for the boy. Gilbert Grape...

Novel

2727

Displacement and Reaction: Analyzing When The Emperor Was Divine

2 pages / 1117 words

The characters in the novel When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka find themselves in a rather comforting place they call “home.” The father has a job outside the home, the mother works inside the home, and the children go to school and make...

Novel

2728

A Leader to Lead Them All: Hazel and El-ahrairah

2 pages / 779 words

In the novel Watership Down, Hazel, leader of the Sandleford Warren escaped rabbits, demonstrates many ways in which he is similar to the bunny-famous mythological hero “El-ahrairah”. To rabbit-kind, El-ahrairah is a rolemodel, a leader and an inspiration. To the Watership Down rabbits, Hazel is...

Novel

2729

Temptation and Surveillance in We

3 pages / 1486 words

Temptation lures people to succumb to suppressed human instincts, yet together with surveillance, the opposing forces create a precarious balance between resurgence and restraint. This conflict influences the characters in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, which follows cipher D-503’s experience in the oppressed One State as he...

Fantastic Novel

2730

Gender and Nature in Alice Oswald’s Daisy

2 pages / 817 words

In ‘Daisy’, Alice Oswald uses the evolving imagery of a narrator considering her actions towards a daisy to symbolise the meekness and conformity socially linked to womanhood- and the poem’s progressively aggressive tone mirrors her desire to reject these feminine ideals. Nonetheless, the constant focus...

Poetry

2731

Zamyatin’s "We" and The Garden of Eden

3 pages / 1347 words

In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We, the reader sees what was supposed to be a utopian society. From the characters’ painfully regimented daily lives to the clandestine desire to break free from the monotony of OneState, we see that not all is perfect; freedom does...

Fantastic Novel

2732

The Landscape of D-503’s Mind

2 pages / 738 words

Zamyatin’s excerpt “Evening…. digestible concept, by…” illustrates the landscape of D-503’s shambolic mind, in order to establish the roots as the irrational pursuit of perfection. Zamyatin begins by establishing the metaphor between the terrestrial world and a notion of paradise, in which there is perfection....

Fantastic Novel

2733

Analysis of The One-state Society in Zamyatin's Novel We

4 pages / 1747 words

In Zamyatin’s We, the One-State society is structured to eliminate all aspects of life that may contribute to negativity. A totalitarian government controlled by the Benefactor sets up a world in which people – referred to by numbers – do not have to make choices....

Fantastic Novel

2734

Water Imagery and The Emotional Status of D-503 in We

3 pages / 1348 words

When it comes to innovative stylistic and thematic techniques in We, Zamyatin does not disappoint. Every detail of this novel is deliberate, from the colors of objects to characterization of names. While a heavy emphasis is often placed on the dystopian aspect of We, just...

Fantastic Novel

2735

Effects of Conformity on The Individual and The Society

4 pages / 1758 words

Robert Anthony once said, “The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity”. Zamyatin’s We depicts the advantages and disadvantages of conforming to a small group of people, an authoritative society in general, and to the extreme totalitarian society of OneState. Through the heroic actions...

Fantastic Novel

2736

The Question of Outsiders as Victims: Analyzing The Wasp Factory and We Need to Talk About Kevin

6 pages / 2531 words

Throughout the novels – Iain Bank’s The Wasp Factory of 1984, and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin from 2003 – the authors depict the protagonists as subversive outsider figures, as they each have only one friend – Frank’s Jamie, whom he can...

Novel