Essays on Literary Genres

2870

The of Role of Myth in Morrison’s Paradise

6 pages / 2535 words

The power of myth and tradition to shape and control the shared consciousness of communities is a recurring theme in Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise. Morrison uses the residents of the town of Ruby and the nearby Convent to illustrate the irrationality of dogmatic adherence to...

Novel

2871

How Mechanization Takes Command in Melville’s "The Tartarus of Maids"

3 pages / 1272 words

In Melville’s short story, “The Tartarus of Maids,” Melville creates a foil to the preceding short story, “The Paradise of Bachelors.” Melville juxtaposes these two stories as if in imitation of Blake’s contrasting poems with a theme of balance. One of those themes in the...

Short Story

2872

Make Panic Look Fetching: The Eroticization of Rape by Ovid

5 pages / 2476 words

In both the Ars Armatoria and Metamorphoses, Ovid presents highly detailed, compelling scenes of rape, crafting these moments with an almost exquisite attention to detail that reveals their value to him as a writer. Two of the most notable rape scenes in Ovid’s repertoire are...

Poetry

2873

Nature as a Possible Catalyst for Human Connection in "Mametz Wood" and "Father"

2 pages / 980 words

Throughout the collection Skirrid Hill (2005) by Owen Sheers, nature is presented as a significant factor to both the development of personal and cultural identity and to human relationships. In “Mametz Wood” and “Father”, the speaker’s attachment to the earth is apparent. However, moving beyond...

Poetry

2874

Masculinity in The Poetry of Owen Sheers

3 pages / 1552 words

In Skirrid Hill, Owen Sheers explores many themes, one of which is undoubtedly manhood. Throughout the collection, he often focuses in on adolescence and discovering his power as an individual. In this way, it seems clear that Sheers is a poet who explores exactly what...

Poetry

2875

Nature Imagery in "Out Stealing Horses"

3 pages / 1222 words

After stabbing Captain Hook in an epic sword battle, Peter Pan cheerfully exclaims, “I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg!” This proclamation shows the relationship between adolescence, happiness, and nature. In many ways, Per Petterson’s Out Stealing...

Novel

2876

Doyle’s Manipulation of Language to Create Paddy’s Voice: The Grand National Race

2 pages / 792 words

Roddy Doyle’s novel ‘Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha’, set in 1960’s Dublin, in the fictional suburb of Barrytown, is narrated in first person by Paddy, a 10 year old boy. Doyle effectively crafts the text to reassemble Paddy’s thoughts by manipulating the novel’s non-linear structure...

Novel Voice

2877

Womanhood and Its Implications in Richardson’s Pamela

3 pages / 1395 words

Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1740 and set in the first half of the eighteenth century. It is said that this novel went against the aristocratic dimension of the typical romantic themes that the majority of readers...

Epistolary Novel

2878

Tomorrow Will Be Anxious for Itself: a Close Reading of Devotion and Allusion in "Pamela"

3 pages / 1581 words

On page 496 of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, the young woman ponders her account of God’s mysteries. Her story’s strange circumstances provide sight of both personas of Mr. B___: one foul, one noble. Her successful endurance through frightening displays of his physical control over her fuels...

Epistolary Novel

2879

Virtue in Pamela

2 pages / 946 words

In Pamela, Samuel Richardson teaches a religious lesson through Pamela’s pride in virtue, love through purity, and ultimately forgiveness of others. He presents his character as rigorously devoted to God, which often makes her seem vain, manipulative, selfish, and hypocritical. Although she may seem to...

Epistolary Novel

2880

The Transformative Power of Drama in "Our Country’s Good"

4 pages / 1614 words

Wertenbaker wrote Our Country’s Good in order to depict a developmental process for the characters. Through the Howardian theory of redemption, by learning from each other, and by acting in their production of The Recruiting Officer, they transform into what Phillip calls “members of society...

Countries Drama

2881

Differences in Perspectives: an Analysis of Oryx and Crake and Maddaddam

2 pages / 1088 words

If one were under a small tree and were hit by an apple that dropped off a branch, the main conclusion one would reach might be that the event was slightly annoying and random. One would then stop thinking about it and go back to...

Novel Oryx and Crake

2882

Plato’s Ideal Society in Oryx and Crake

4 pages / 1737 words

Stories are an important part of society, an element that provides humanity with a way to connect, separate, cry, laugh, be happy or be sad. In fact, life is nothing but a story. Human history is a story. The universe is just a massive collection...

Novel Oryx and Crake Plato

2883

Maddaddam as a Biblical Allegory

2 pages / 775 words

The MaddAddam series by Margaret Atwood can best be described as a commentary on every aspect of society. One of the most prevalent themes in Atwood’s series is religion, which is apparent in the names she assigns to different aspects of her society(God’s Gardeners), and...

Novel Oryx and Crake

2884

The Stranger Abroad: Ideology and Impotence in Our Sister Killjoy

3 pages / 1202 words

Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy: or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint follows a young Ghanian woman known as Sissie and her experiences in Europe.  As Aidoo’s story floats from reflections on Sissie’s sexually charged relationship with a Swiss woman to the emotional letter she...

Fiction

2885

The Sacrifices of Creating Democracy

3 pages / 1538 words

Brimming with death, destruction, and despair, the plots of Greek tragedies are often considered the darkest of theatrical genres. However, it is this same dismal theme that occurs in one of the most well-known works of ancient Greece, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, working to represent a past...

Democracy Literature Review Tragedy

2886

The Issue of Science Without Ethics as Shown Through Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

5 pages / 2156 words

In the emerging technical age the idea of science without ethics has turned into a center stage issue. Throughout Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake, science without ethics is explored through two dystopian worlds engineered by Atwood all from the eyes of the protagonist Jimmy,...

Novel Oryx and Crake

2887

Approaching Oryx & Crake: The Name Game

9 pages / 3878 words

To narrow the scope of literature, the science fiction genre is a type of storytelling contains different messages from novel to novel. Scholars and literary critics have the right to label a novel in any way they prefer, yet readers have the right to disagree...

Novel Oryx and Crake

2888

Authentic Love in an Artificial World

3 pages / 1285 words

Margaret Atwood creates a corrupt, futuristic world in Oryx and Crake that places all emphasis on technology and science, therefore devaluing the role of emotion and connection in society. Those who work in the pursuit of scientific breakthroughs are considered to be the elite, whereas...

Novel Oryx and Crake