Essays on Literary Genres

3136

Purpose of Communication in 'The Dew Breaker'

1 page / 998 words

Many people in today's world have trouble when it comes to communicating. In literature many authors use communication as a way to either create relationships or to create barriers in one. In the novel The Dew Breaker, by Edwidge Danticat, many characters struggle when it...

Creole Novel

3137

Characterization of Macoute in The Dew Breaker

1 page / 1417 words

The Dew Breaker, a novel by Edwidge Danticat that tells of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s inherited dictatorship in Haiti, appears to be a novel about two things. On the one hand, it documents the life and trials of a Tonton Macoute, a government sanctioned torturer; on the...

Creole Novel

3138

Depiction of Culture Clash in The Dark Child

1 page / 1420 words

Camara Laye’s demonstrative narrative The Dark Child delineates the author’s childhood and adolescence in colonial Upper Guinea in the early twentieth century. Simple in construction, the story gives emotional value to the experiences common among young boys of Laye’s social class as well as to...

Literature Review Narrator Novel

3139

Sexual Relations Narration by Dioneo in "The Decameron"

1 page / 2603 words

At the beginning of Boccaccio’s Decameron, both the male and female narrators hesitate to discuss the seemingly lewd topic of sexual relations. On Day I, the Florentines discuss various topics, yet only one narrator is brave enough to introduce sex as a theme: Dioneo. This...

Renaissance Short Story The Decameron

3140

Female Liberation and Power in Boccaccio’s "The Decameron"

1 page / 2862 words

Introduction Giovanni Boccaccio’s medieval masterpiece “The Decameron” is a collection of stories, chronicled over ten days, which highlights the best and worst of human nature. Boccaccio’s tales deal with themes such as adultery, love, premarital sex, devotion, trickery, and manipulation, among others. Yet this work...

Renaissance Short Story The Decameron

3141

Renaissance Implications on Morality and Censorship in "The Decameron"

1 page / 841 words

Boccaccio’s “The Decameron” serves as a fascinating exploration of morality and censorship during the Renaissance period. Written in the 14th century, Boccaccio’s work emerges against the backdrop of a society transitioning from the rigid moral structures of the Middle Ages, dominated by the Church, to...

Renaissance Short Story The Decameron

3142

Significance of Gardens in "Decameron" and "Confessions"

1 page / 1009 words

She told him about country sounds and country smells and how fresh and clean everything in the country is. She said that he ought to live there and that if he did, he would find that all his troubles were city troubles. Made-to-order essay as...

Renaissance Short Story The Decameron

3143

Perspective of Christopher's Ability and Disability

1 page / 995 words

When discussing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Haddon has made it clear that he sees it as a piece of realistic fiction that is actually realistic: no lucky encounters, no interventions from a deity, just humdrum life. However, some have leveled...

Novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

3144

The View of Entropy in The Crying of Lot 49

3 pages / 767 words

In Thomas Pynchon’s novel The Crying of Lot 49, the concept of entropy is intricately woven into the narrative through the experiences of the protagonist, Oedipa Maas. Entropy, in this context, can be defined as both a measure of the efficiency of a system in...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

3145

Social Effects of Christopher's Perceived Disability

1 page / 1827 words

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time introduces fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone, whose counselor has suggested that he write a book. Christopher’s book is about his quest to find out who murdered his neighbors’ dog; however, while searching for clues about the dog Christopher...

Autism Novel

3146

The Use of Imagery to Portray Conspiracy in The Crying of Lot 49

3 pages / 1628 words

Near the end of Thomas Pynchon’s 1965 novel The Crying of Lot 49, the protagonist Oedipa finds herself at a crossroads after trying to unravel the mystery of W.A.S.T.E., a conspiratorial underground postal system, without finding many tangible results. “It was now like walking among...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

3147

Perception of Facts and Truth in "The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time"

1 page / 1282 words

The title of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a reference to a famous Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Conan Arthur Doyle. Baker Street’s most famous resident deduces who committed the crime in this particular story by interpreting a...

Autism Novel

3148

Meaningless Fragments Symbolizing Meaninglessness in 'The Crying of Lot 49'

3 pages / 1277 words

In Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, standard hierarchical structures are abandoned in a setting of postmodern cultural chaos. The use of fragmented pop culture contributes to many aspects of the book, namely the sense of combined freedom in the search for meaning. Moreover,...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

3149

Coming of Age in "The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time"

1 page / 1704 words

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon is the story of Christopher John Francis Boone’s adventures as told by him. The protagonist, Christopher, wrote the book as a murder mystery, describing his investigation of the killing of Mrs. Shears’ dog,...

Autism Novel

3150

The Phallus: The Art of Rejection

1 page / 929 words

According to Jack Halberstam in his book The Queer Art of Failure, “the queer art of failure turns on the impossible, the improbable, the unlikely, and the unremarkable. It quietly loses, and in losing it imagines other goals for life, for love, for art, and...

Fiction Gender

3151

The Crying of Lot 49 and Chaos

3 pages / 1198 words

A recurring theme that can be found in Thomas Pynchon’s novel The Crying of Lot 49 is the conception that chaos has a tremendous effect on society. Pynchon engages in a dualistic method of literary technique to engender the realization of the effect that chaos...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

3152

The Father's Truth Or Lies in "The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time"

1 page / 1411 words

Hiding truths and replacing them with lies are often very devastating to family members and even more so when a son’s whole life has been built upon these lies. Mark Haddon, in the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, explores the...

Autism Novel

3153

Effects of Modernity Described in 'Crying of Lot 49' and 'Snow White'

5 pages / 2436 words

America used to be known as the land of opportunity. That was before the wars and the advent of technology. For post-modern authors, modernity and prosperity has turned America into a disappointment. Barthelme’s Snow White and Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 share similar ideas...

Postmodernism Short Story Snow White The Crying of Lot 49

3154

Conveying Racial and Cultural Truths in The Crying of Lot 49

1 page / 2854 words

“There are still the poor, the defeated, the criminal, the desperate, all hanging in there with what must seem a terrible vitality.” Thomas Pynchon, “A Journey into the Mind of Watts” The challenge posed to any reader of “serious” literature is ultimately one of observation,...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49