Essays on Literary Genres

2737

Realism in The Graphic Novel Watchmen

2 pages / 1107 words

In the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, a more realistic depiction of the superhero figure is achieved by allowing genres to be imbedded separately within the thoroughly developed identities of Rorschach, the Comedian, and Dr. Manhattan. Rather than being bound by...

Novel

2738

Comparison of The Novels Brave New World, Watchmen, and The Day of The Triffinds

11 pages / 5067 words

“Brave New World”, “The Day of the Triffids” and “Watchmen” all use their dystopian worlds to engage in moral discussion, critically assessing the morals that the world deems to be ‘correct’. In the face of destruction, the characters in the novels must evaluate their morality,...

Brave New World Dystopia Novel

2739

Heroes and Anti-heroes in Comics: Alan Moore's Watchmen

4 pages / 1657 words

In comics, it’s never hard to find a good villain to go with every hero: Superman has Lex, Batman has the Joker, and Space Ghost has Zorak. In fact, it’s difficult to find a classic comic in which there is not a clear protagonist and...

Novel

2740

Native Births: The Isolation and Independence of New Mothers in Waterlily

3 pages / 1329 words

Ella Cara Deloria’s novel Waterlily carefully considers the role of women, not only as respectful instructors of etiquette, dedicated sisters, and hospitable homemakers, but also as the primal maternal beings responsible for birthing the tribe’s newest generation. One of the supreme duties of these women...

Novel

2741

Skipping Church on Sunday Morning: an Examination of The Rejection of Systems of Truth in Wallace Stevens’ Poem "Sunday Morning"

7 pages / 3179 words

Wallace Stevens, it seems, never spoke a great deal about his poem “Sunday Morning.” Because Stevens gives us very little insight into his own thoughts, it is important to examine the thoughts of other critics before analyzing a poem such as “Sunday Morning.” In an...

Poetry

2742

Analysis of "Nuances of a Theme by Williams"

3 pages / 1157 words

The title of Wallace Stevens’ poem “Nuances of a Theme by Williams” implies that he intends to comment on, possibly celebrate, and almost certainly explore the potential distinctions and variations available in the poem by William Carlos Williams titled “El Hombre.” Stevens includes “El Hombre,”...

Poetry

2743

Imagination Vs. Reality: "The Poems of Our Climate" and "The Snowman"

3 pages / 1374 words

Wallace Stevens is known for his philosophical meditations on the dual nature of existence throughout his poetry. According to Stevens, poetry should not be concerned with either the body or the mind, but rather “an interdependence of the imagination and reality as equals.” It is...

Poetry

2744

The Life of The Party: Hedonism in Wallace Stevens’s "The Emperor of Ice Cream"

4 pages / 1601 words

An event marked by sex and celebration, the wake in Wallace Stevens’s “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” is inescapably bizarre. Though one might expect an air of sobriety, importance, or – at the very least – reflection to characterize a discussion of death, the poem’s language...

Poetry

2745

Moral Obligations in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Through Thoreau's Ideas

4 pages / 2040 words

Written as an allegory for slavery and the way it affects the people who employ it, Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” questions just how much of an impact living in a society has on one’s willingness to act in ways...

Short Story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

2746

Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable: Escaping Through Mimicry and Mimesis

4 pages / 1686 words

Untouchable describes a day in the life of a young sweeper boy, Bakha, who has been denied even a chance for a free and open-air walk because of his occupation. The novel introduces the caste system of rural India as the setting, and portrays a...

Novel

2747

Venus in Furs and Freud's Theory of Masochism

6 pages / 2572 words

Within Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch’s novel, Venus in Furs, it is possible to see several aspects of Freud’s proposals about the male and female masochistic fantasies, as well as some congruities with masochistic theories from more modern psychologists. The protagonist of the story masculinizes his aggressor,...

Novel Sigmund Freud

2748

The Forces of Nature in Villette

2 pages / 1037 words

Supernatural events and portents are a major theme in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette. While Brontë never crosses into a truly magical realm, it is clear that Lucy Snowe believes that certain events pertain to the supernatural world. Forces of nature play a large part in Villette,...

Book Review Novel

2749

The Societal Regulation of Identity: a Comparison of Lahiri and Soto

3 pages / 1442 words

Jhumpa Lahiri and Christopher Soto, in their respective pieces “Hell-Heaven” and “Winter Sundays”, discuss the restrictions on cultural expression for minority groups. The claim of both authors is that there is a unique cultural identity for each person, and that society has always tried to...

Short Story

2750

Under The Jaguar Sun: Three Themes, One Cohesive Whole

6 pages / 2760 words

Italo Calvino’s Under the Jaguar Sun is based almost entirely on a foundation of three essential themes, all of which relate in some way to the sensation of taste. While Calvino creates many antitheses, the dissonances actually turn into wonderful resolutions. This applies specifically to...

Short Story

2751

White Guilt and Privilege in Underground Airlines

2 pages / 875 words

Underground Airlines traverses many social and political climates, namely, the tension that exists between privileged whites and oppressed blacks. While Ben Winters’ novel is set in an imagined future where institutionalized slavery still thrives in the South, the novel points toward the systematic oppression that...

Fiction White Privilege

2752

Innovative Literary Devices in 1919

2 pages / 1032 words

Too often in literature, novels surrounding a specific time period lack the authenticity of mise-en-scene for the reader. However, author John Dos Passos commits to unique and innovative writing techniques in his novel 1919 (one of the three entries in the U.S.A. Trilogy) to deliver...

Book Review Literary Devices Novel

2753

Escaping from Daily Miseries: Comparing Mitchell and Frost

4 pages / 1908 words

Escapism is a method one uses to focus attention on pleasant or enjoyable things, as opposed to the harsh realities of everyday life. Humans face countless struggles, and to overcome these they turn towards their imagination or other means in life to slip away from...

Novel

2754

A Native Role; Gary Snyder as The Seer and Prophet in ‘turtle Island’

3 pages / 1550 words

Charles Altieri writes that in his collection of poetry, Turtle Island, Gary Snyder encapsulates two roles: the seer and the prophet. Altieri describes the two roles vaguely, the seer being one who is able to look past the irrelevant aspects of modern life to a...

Poetry

2755

The Theme of Authenticity in The Novel Trumpet

2 pages / 837 words

Jackie Kay’s novel Trumpet depicts characters who naturally challenge the conventional perceptions of race, gender, identity, and other socially constructed aspects of humanity. The text is set in the United Kingdom in the early to mid twentieth century, a time when being unconventional in these...

Novel