Need some tips for writing essays on literature? How about you check our free samples of literature essay topics or order an essay today and leave the hard task for us? Like all academic papers, literature essay topics require you to think critically and produce strong arguments. The outline is ...Read More
Need some tips for writing essays on literature? How about you check our free samples of literature essay topics or order an essay today and leave the hard task for us? Like all academic papers, literature essay topics require you to think critically and produce strong arguments. The outline is similar to most types of essays but what makes it unique is the language style in addition to the contextual analysis. We have tips we would like to share with you concerning every section of literary essays from the introduction to the conclusion. First, avoid giving a plot summary because readers are already familiar with it and focus on advancing an argument. However, you can mention some plot details and extra information to support your arguments.
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...
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...
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,...
For the sake of the audience, a theatre production relies on a well-designed and thematically relevant setting. This is because a setting is responsible for designating the audience in a particular time and place, in addition to creating a specific social or political environment. In...
The miscegenation and racism which Kate Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby” centers upon resulted in a daring piece of work by a female writer in the 19th century. These central themes are also linked to the story’s setting, symbolism, and references of sexism – all...
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 the...
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...
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;...
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...
In Demian, Herman Hesse discusses the meaning behind an apparently futile war under the guise of one boy’s search for personal identity. While Hesse spends much of the novel illustrating Emil Sinclair’s search for meaning, the tying in of the Great War at the end...
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Demons” (Besy, in Russian, variously translated as “The Possessed” and “Devils”) is a fundamentally political and social novel. It draws directly on the true story of a murder committed in 1869 by Russian anarchist and nihilist Sergei Nechaev (Saunders 324). The peasant reforms...
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...
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...
In the play, Death and the Maiden, Ariel Dorfman employs symbolism through the characters and their actions to reflect aspects of the corrupt Chilean society that Dorfman himself lived through. Act II, scene i illustrates the symbols quite well, with the troubled, unjust Paulina, the...
In Death and the Maiden, Gerardo constantly opposes Paulina’s ideas and plans, providing a more rational and less emotionally-charged solution. Gerardo acts as the voice of reason to emphasize Paulina’s irrational and crazed tendencies in the play. Throughout his drama, Dorfman uses Gerardo as a...
Significant dialogue from Act 2 of Death and the Maiden reveals how Paulina’s torture in the Chile’s past totalitarian regime has affected her life in the democratic present day. The ambiguity in the meaning of justice is a key theme that is significantly developed because...
Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop depicts the struggle of Father Latour and Father Vaillant to reestablish Catholic authority in their newly formed, New Mexican diocese. They are tasked with righting a territory that has backslid into heathenistic conduct under the jurisdiction of priests...
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...
One thing workaholics are tired of hearing is “you need a vacation!” The classic workaholic has no idea when they have worked enough, and usually has trouble making the decision to take a break for even a short period of time. Workaholic Gustav von Aschenbach,...