Essays on Literary Genres

2946

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

2947

Language and Humor in V.s. Naipaul’s The Mystic Masseur

5 pages / 2160 words

V.S. Naipaul’s first published novel, The Mystic Masseur, can correctly be described as satirical given the extensive manner in which it employs language in the form of irony, hyperbole, caricature and other techniques to tell the picaresque story of Ganesh Ramsumair, which the frame narrator...

Novel

2948

Relationships, Marriage, and Complexity in The Namesake

4 pages / 1690 words

Within The Namesake, Lahiri presents the relationship between men and women as heavily shaped by their environment, heritage and socio-economic background. The relationship between the Ratliffs, Maxine’s parents, Gerald and Lydia, is directly juxtaposed against the relationship of Ashoke and Ashima as being more loving...

Marriage Novel

2949

Setting and Adaptation in The Namesake

2 pages / 962 words

In the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, the main character, Gogol, is forced to adjust to many different environments as he ages; including Calcutta, the different apartments he occupied throughout college, and his ex-girlfriend Maxine’s house. Gogol’s parents, Ashima and Ashoke, were born in...

Novel

2950

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

2951

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

2952

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

2953

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

2954

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

2955

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

2956

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

2957

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

2958

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

2959

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

2960

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

2961

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

2962

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

2963

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

2964

The Unreachable Prufrock

4 pages / 1808 words

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is at once a comic poem as well as a trenchant satire on the low aspects of urban life. Its speaker, a man going bald and self-conscious about his every gesture, represents a sexual as well as spiritual...

Poetry The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock