Essays on Literary Genres

3858

Modernist Tradition in How It Feels to Be Colored Me and Sweat

3 pages / 1655 words

In “Sweat” and the accounts of Zora Neale Hurston in, “How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, there are many elements of the modernist period in play. The most important being the welfare state of African Americans in America at that point in time. However,...

How It Feels to Be Colored Me Short Story Zora Neale Hurston

3859

Birds Symbolism in Laurie Halse Anderson's Novel Speak

2 pages / 948 words

Anguish, hope, and forgiveness may not be the first connections a person makes to the idea of birds. In her novel, Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson is able to transform ordinary birds into powerful symbols. Heavy/controversial topics are discussed in Anderson’s work, and not all of...

Novel Symbolism

3860

Speak: How People's Negative Experiences Do not Have to Define Them

2 pages / 829 words

Sometimes, ignoring reality is easier than facing it. When traumatizing events occur, repression is a common coping mechanism used to deal with one’s feelings and thoughts. As an unknown person once said, however, “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it...

Novel

3861

Power and Identity in Toni Morrison's Sula

7 pages / 3276 words

Toni Morrison novels famously give voice to a black political, social, and moral conscience. Her novels deal primarily with the issues and concerns of black heritage and future and all the triumphs and tragedies of power and identity in between. Morrison uses the very processes...

Novel Sula

3862

Analyzing Silence from Literary and Theological Perspectives

4 pages / 1750 words

Shusaku Endo’s Silence follows the experience of the young Catholic missionary Father Rodrigues and his companion Father Garrpe in their attempt to help the brutally oppressed Christians of 17th century Japan. As a 20th-century novel, Silence presents readers with a historically accurate yet captivating account...

Novel

3863

A Sense of Manhood in Rudyard Kipling's "If"

1 page / 767 words

Rudyard Kipling’s “If-” explores the themes of manhood, hard work, and discipline. The speaker feels that one should have humility, confidence, and several other virtues in order to be a man. Kipling uses literary techniques including anaphora, juxtaposition, and personification to persuade his son to...

Poetry Rudyard Kipling

3864

The Victorian Conceptualization of Gender in Tennyson's The Princess

5 pages / 2357 words

The Victorian concept of masculinity is one caught up a series of interrelated metaphors relating to the empire and national identity. Throughout the Victorian corpus there are a number of texts that create a metaphorical relationship between femininity and the colonised. In Lord Alfred Tennyson’s...

Poetry

3865

Discovering The Theme of Death in ‘out, Out’

3 pages / 1323 words

Death is all around, yet very few people notice it. The poem “Out, Out–”, by Robert Frost, is about a boy that is cutting wood and due to a momentary concentration lapse, chops off his hand and bleeds to death. The people around him are...

Poetry Robert Frost

3866

Construction and Representation of Identity in Dead Poets Society and Frost’s Poetry

2 pages / 1065 words

Discovery is the process of unveiling a fresh or renewed understanding of the world which may be the result of an unexpected journey or experience. While relinquishing societal norms can result in the most profound revelations which may be unforeseen yet wonderful, this experience may...

Dead Poets Society Poetry Robert Frost

3867

The Themes of Sanity and Insanity in Regeneration

3 pages / 1357 words

In Regeneration, Barker presents the idea that there is a fine line between madness and sanity, in terms of the lack of differentiation between doctor and patient. The narrative, moreover, emphasizes the subjective nature of the word ‘madness’ itself. In this way, not only is...

Novel

3868

American Dream Interpretation Through The Prism of Time

2 pages / 1035 words

In E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime, Tateh and Father avidly pursue the American Dream while possessing contrasting beliefs about their individual visions for freedom, wealth/opportunity, and social mobility. While Father’s nostalgia, archaic ideas for the family structure, and lavish, international explorations dictate his quest for mental...

American Dream Novel Ragtime

3869

Phillis Wheatley: a Voice Against Slavery

2 pages / 1120 words

Religion, specifically Christianity, gives Phillis Wheatley an avenue with which to connect and influence her readers. Wheatley appears to embrace Christianity without offering criticism or highlighting hypocrisies. However, a deeper reading of her poetry suggests that she uses her newfound religion to deliver a message...

Phillis Wheatley Poetry

3870

Duffy’s and Rossetti’s Poetry: The Importance of Structure and Form Representing The Concept of Love

2 pages / 1087 words

For both Christina Rossetti and Carol Ann Duffy, the continuation of love after death is seemingly instigated in part as narrators express their fondness for their partners, without addressing the fear that accompanies death. In “Remember” by Rossetti, which was written during the Victorian epoch,...

Novel

3871

Housekeeping and The Other: a Psychological Development of Characters

3 pages / 1474 words

In the novel Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, two sisters are drawn and held together through traumatic shifts in their caregivers. They value the dependability and mutual benefit offered by each other. In The Other by David Guterson, two “blood brothers” come together over shared interests...

Novel

3872

Ambiguities in Shakespeare's "The Tragedy of Macbeth"

5 pages / 2323 words

Dramatic tragedies are by definition plays that enact the struggle and downfall of their main character or characters. “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, by William Shakespeare, is a perfect example of this; the entire play portrays the fatalistic misadventure of the Macbeths. This Shakespearean play is...

Literary Criticism Macbeth Tragedy

3873

The Role of Destiny and Inevitability in Shakespeare's Tragedies

8 pages / 3905 words

In Greek tragedy, inevitability plays an important role, portraying the protagonists as pawns of the fates, whose roles in the tragedy are distributed arbitrarily and without justice. The outcomes of these roles are decided before the play even begins, for example in Sophocles’ Antigone, and...

Macbeth Tragedy

3874

The Significance of Paradox and Equivocation in Shakespeare's Tragedy

4 pages / 1958 words

In the play Macbeth, some of the most significant characters rely upon their ability to equivocate, in order to hide their treacherously covetous, or purely malicious intentions. Most characters take part in these acts of subterfuge, but the three witches, the porter and above all,...

Macbeth Tragedy William Shakespeare

3875

Analysis of The "Harlem" Poem by Langston Hughes

3 pages / 1283 words

Why do we mourn humans, but not unrealized dreams? ‘Harlem’, a poem by Langston Hughes, is a lament for the lost dreams of African Americans living in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. Literally, the poem focuses on the decaying...

Langston Hughes Poetry

3876

Multiple Interpretation of Home in "Kindred" by Octavia Butler

4 pages / 1944 words

In the novel Kindred, by Octavia Butler, Dana, a modern day black woman, time travels between her present day and the time of slavery in the South. Between her various travels, Dana and her husband Kevin experience a series of both cruel and eye opening...

Novel Symbolism