Essays on Literary Genres

3801

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Book "Dream of a Ridiculous Man": Analysis

4 pages / 1912 words

When Albert Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus [1], he demonstrated the absurdity of human existence in the indifferent universe with the ridiculous task of pushing a rock up a hill an infinite number of times. Every time Sisyphus pushed the rock to the top...

Choices Fiction

3802

Contextualizing "To Room Nineteen" by Doris Lessing

2 pages / 815 words

In Doris Lessing’s short story, “To Room Nineteen” Susan and Matthew Rawling seem to be the perfect couple, until Matthew begins to have affairs and Susan is left alone to her own thoughts and eventually goes mad and kills herself. An underlying theme that Lessing...

Fantastic

3803

Lessing's "A Sunrise on The Veld": Critical Analysis

3 pages / 1335 words

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, Doris Lessing crafted fiction that is deeply infused with autobiographical touches, especially from her experiences in Africa. All of her works center around modern themes such as the clash of cultures, the gross injustices of racial...

Short Story

3804

The Dualities of Good and Bad in Gothic Fiction

3 pages / 1442 words

Two concepts often appear to be in conflict or contrast at the heart of Gothic fiction; the dualities of good and bad are often critical to the formation of the literature. Within ‘Dr. Faustus’ the battle between good and bad is particularly poignant due to...

Gothic Fiction Gothic Literature

3805

Zhivago and Guishar: Love Affair During The Russian Revolution

7 pages / 3222 words

In Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago there is an adulterous love affair between Yurii Andreievich Zhivago and Larisa Feodorovna Guishar that is carried on throughout the novel. Although the affair is essential for the movement of the story, it is not the only significant factor in...

Novel Russian Revolution of 1905

3806

Sacrifice in The Name of Purity

3 pages / 803 words

Human history is characterized by numerous instances of mass purgings, genocides, and tyrannies, all motivated by an unyielding pursuit of purity. In Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a dystopian world emerges from the ashes of radioactive fallout, where individuals with...

Dystopia Fiction

3807

Devil May Cry Or The Tragedy of Mephistophilis

6 pages / 2704 words

Sometimes, the Devil—or, at least, one of his most trusted minions—really is in the details. In Christopher Marlowe’s play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, the most compelling hero is not the eponymous main character. Doctor Faustus, with his puerile egotism and self-absorbed whining, is...

Literature Review Tragedy

3808

Representation of Females in "Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep" and "Blade Runner"

3 pages / 1446 words

Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (a novel) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (a film) insist comparison: Ridley Scott’s film is based on the story told by Philip K. Dick’s novel. These works were created about ten years apart from one another...

Blade Runner Fiction

3809

The Facebook Sonnet: Analysis Regarding The Reduction of Real Socialization

2 pages / 927 words

“The Facebook Sonnet” by Sherman Alexie brings up ideas and controversy over social media because it decreases face-to-face communication. Though Facebook allows people to contact old and new friends, it renders away from the traditional social interaction. Online, people are easily connected by one simple...

Sherman Alexie Social Networking Sonnet

3810

Family Dynamics in "Dinner at The Homesick Restaurant"

2 pages / 791 words

Anne Tyler’s Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is filled with many complex characters that make up the Tull family. However, throughout the interconnected lives of siblings Ezra, Cody, and Jenny, the one key figure they lack is their father, Beck. In Anne Tyler novel, Beck’s...

Book Review Character Novel

3811

Desire Under The Elms: The Desire for a Birthright

3 pages / 1449 words

Eugene O’Neill’s classic American tragedy Desire Under the Elms tells the story of characters that are driven by a number of common, and therefore competing, desires. Many believe that O’Neill intended the Desire Under the Elms to refer to the desire between Eben and Abbie,...

American Literature Literature Review Tragedy

3812

Philoctete’s Wound as The Wounds of Slavery

2 pages / 1102 words

Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines a simile as, “An explicit comparison between two different things, actions, or feelings, using the words ‘as’ or ‘like’…” (Baldick 334). In his critically-acclaimed epic poem, Omeros, Derek Walcott uses similes to connect Philoctete’s shin wound to the sea...

Poetry

3813

Technique, Theme, and Autobiography: Analysis of "A City’s Death by Fire"

2 pages / 1020 words

The poem “A City’s Death by Fire” by Derek Walcott is a semi-autobiographical poem, a recollection of the Great Fire of 1948 in Central Castries (the capital and largest city of St. Lucia). The Great Fire attacked three quarters of the town and left more...

Poetry

3814

The World of Black and White in "Devil in a Blue Dress"

2 pages / 779 words

Introduction There are several subtle images in Walter Mosley’s detective novel Devil in a Blue Dress that suggest the unusual ending. Throughout the novel, the main character, a black man named Easy Rawlins, sees people as either black or white. He is especially aware of...

Color Novel

3815

The Representation of Femininity and Class in Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress

2 pages / 801 words

Traditional qualities of a feminine women usually include a beautiful physique, a gentle, nurturing nature, and a degree of sexual reservation. Throughout literature and film, women that embrace typical ideas of femininity are also portrayed as members of the upper class and the elite, while...

Literature Review Novel Woman

3816

Jack Kerouac’s Fear of Women and Lust

4 pages / 1939 words

In Jack Kerouac’s novels and poetry he is always searching for something to believe in, be it himself, God, or something else. Surprisingly, he manages to also simultaneously be constantly running away. Fear of responsibility and conformity is present in the majority of his works;...

Literature Review Novel

3817

A Poetic Call-and-response: The Discordant Intertextuality of Wordsworth’s "The World is Too Much with Us" and Levertov’s "O Taste and See"

5 pages / 2114 words

Literature is not a static, fixed entity, confined to the parameters of its initial creation. Literary pieces are forever evolving, adapting to new cultural, historical and social contexts through the processes of revision and reinterpretation. The grand scheme of literature is best represented as a...

Poetry The World Is Too Much With Us

3818

Analysis of Derek Walcott’s ‘the Almond Trees’

5 pages / 2080 words

Derek Walcott’s poem ‘The Almond Trees’ expresses the overwhelming power of colonial memory and the brutality of the colonial enterprise. Through his central image of “coppery, twisted, sea-almond trees”, Walcott justifies the critic Mark McWatt’s view that Walcott is “distanced by vocation, by a habit...

Poetry

3819

Impulse Vs Logic in Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

3 pages / 1536 words

In Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, Mann explores the struggle between impulse and logic through the symbolism of luggage presented throughout. The luggage Aschenbach clings to represents the dominance of logic over his impulses, and the effects societal restrictions exert upon his natural instincts. The...

Short Story