Charlotte Smith’s late poem ‘Ode to Death’, published in 1797 in her collection of Elegiac Sonnets, draws on the idea of accepting death as a ‘friend’ (l.1) rather than fearing it. The ode carries a deep sense of desperation and sorrow, as it alludes to...
The new sensibility that characterizes Romantic literature often leads to the recurrence of melancholy as a powerful and recurrent motif, especially in poetry. Romantic poets recur to their poems to express personal feelings and anxieties and in order to capture this, poets use the imagination....
In Susanna Rowson’s novel Charlotte Temple, the main character dies; this spoiler is given immediately at the beginning of the book, leaving no question as to whether Charlotte Temple will thrive on to live a happy life. With a (rather horrific) death undoubtedly present in...
The concept of virtue in colonial America was a multi-faceted patchwork of varied attributes and values. Its definition was complex and included a range of expectations from primarily women, who were perceived as the weak point in the social order of the new republic. Society’s...
In her novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth, probably better known under the title of Charlotte Temple, Susanna Rowson relates the unfortunate life of a young girl for a specific purpose that she presents in the opening lines of her work, through the following words:...
It seems fitting that Yossarian’s nickname in Catch-22 is “Yo-Yo.” A yo-yo is a perfect metaphor for the recurring images of circularity and linearity that characterizes the chaotic world of Joseph Heller’s novel. On one hand, a yo-yo follows the straight-line, linear path of its...
People will always revert to what is most comfortable, reliant on their natural state. In Celeste Ng’s coming of age short story, “Girls, At Play”, the debate of nurture versus nature lies in the struggles between four girls. The theme of “Girls, At Play” is...
As Daniel R. White writes in Nietzsche at the Altar: Situating the Devotee, “To laugh at the literal behavior of other characters in the social drama, is to change the truth value of what those characters do so as to undermine its seriousness, its claim...
Bees making a commotion in somebody’s brain, a bright red hat, and a water pump in New York City. There seems to be no connection between those objects, but they all in fact have something in common; they are all symbols in the book Chains,...
Charles Baudelaire uses his works to describe his idea of the spleen, or “the restless malaise affecting modern life” (Bedford 414). The spleen is an organ that removes toxins from the human body, but to Baudelaire it is also a symbol of melancholy, moral degradation,...
In her essays “That Crafty Feeling,” “F. Kafka, Everyman,” and “The Rise of the Essay,” Zadie Smith writes about the universal experience of writing using her own personal experience as the standard writing experience. Smith completely blends together her personal experiences with more generalized statements...
George Meredith once reasoned, “The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter.” The importance of encouraging thoughtful laughter in comedy lies in its ability to humorously provoke reflection of some greater idea or theme. In the dark comedy Catch-22, Joseph Heller...
During war, men and woman are swept by emotions that make it difficult to overlook their experiences in war. Jack Croasdile, a prisoner of war, drew under his captivity in 1941 by the Germans a picture titled Anticipating 1942. Featured in the picture, he and...
Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22 not only in order to make a statement about the absurdity of war, but also to illustrate the absurdity of the human condition itself. Through its style, language, and characters, Catch-22 vividly depicts the absurdity of life using World War II...
In the midst of World War II, apprehensive soldier and antiheroic bombardier John Yossarian endures the perpetual torment of war with a tenacious desire to escape. Witnessing a number of horrendous events and ceaseless bureaucratic absurdity, Yossarian and his companions struggle against the surreal parameters...
In Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, the people in the places of leadership manipulate the ordinary citizens for their own gain. In the wartime environment, basic common sense is sacrificed for the benefit and personal gain of people in power. Major Cathcart continually chases his desperate...
Humans inflict suffering on other humans and when events are forgotten, they are repeated. In the poem “Shooting Stars,” Carol Ann Duffy tells a shocking story of a female prisoner held by Nazis in a concentration camp around the time of the Holocaust. This is...
Duffy’s poems, Adultery and Disgrace, portray the theme of betrayal in a number of different ways. Both show that betrayal is destructive and deadly to relationships, however, different diverse, including sibilance and oxymorons, are used across the two poems to portray this. It is possible...
Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “In Mrs Tilscher’s Class” expresses the poetic speaker’s love for literature in the context of an intriguing personal narrative. Such a passion came from her primary school teacher as Duffy’s protagonist grows into adulthood — from a dramatised experience in her...