In a writers essay, one can cover a specific piece of literature or the entire creation of a given writer. In such essays, students identify themes, motifs, symbols, key messages, stylistic devices, describe or compare characters, their traits and personal conflicts, reveal personal reactions, their interpretation and attitude towards the ...Read More
In a writers essay, one can cover a specific piece of literature or the entire creation of a given writer. In such essays, students identify themes, motifs, symbols, key messages, stylistic devices, describe or compare characters, their traits and personal conflicts, reveal personal reactions, their interpretation and attitude towards the written piece. When focusing on the entire creation of chosen writers, the typical characteristics of their style are uncovered along with the unique and original elements that set it apart. Additionally, the sources of inspiration, the influences, the evolution in time are analyzed. Review the essay samples below on certain writers and their works – pay attention to the topics, content organization, approaches to writing, etc.
In Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy uses nature to influence the actions of his shepherd and shepherdess protagonists, Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, in two separate episodes involving rain storms. The conflict of Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd centers upon Bathsheba Everdene’s...
Andrea Dworkin, claimed that, ‘Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge’, this is shown within both novels as the female characters are presented as being controlled within society. Hosseini...
Men have learned to harness nature, but they have yet to transcend it. The laws of nature powerfully affect human behavior, and these laws are often antithetical to those of society. Thus the conscientious human being is constantly in flux—at once pulled by primal and...
Hardy’s novels are grounded in a realist portrayal of a society defined by constant advancement. The preceding Enlightenment era developed a sense of shedding traditional values in pursuit of intellectual evolution, and this only accelerated into the constant striving for progress of the Victorians. “Modernity”...
In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy primarily showcases man’s inability to elude fate. Society’s constraints highlight the futile nature of attempting to change the course of one’s life, for the inability to transcend one’s social classes mirrors the impossibility of transcending one’s destiny. Similarly,...
They are American, young, wealthy and in love. Nicole and Dick are the souls of an age, a world of opulence, blurred boundaries and equally commanding desires, and their relationship reflects the ambiguities of its core values. Judged within an American popular culture, their success...
To understand T.S. Eliot as a writer, one must look at his own view of creative writing and his passion for tradition. Eliot’s idea of tradition can be misinterpreted: “Most often it is perceived as a smug and pompous intransigence to change…backward-looking traditionalism, self-satisfied with...
“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.” These are the words of the 19th century writer and poet Oscar Wilde, and they perfectly illustrate the oft-contentious dispute between individualism and conformity to the community. Indeed, this dispute...
Identity is “the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is” (Oxford Dictionary). Identity includes one’s sexuality, age, political views, religious beliefs, or anything that shapes who they are. In Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, identity is a constant theme...
T.S. Eliot’s “Whispers of Immortality” is a close examination of life and death. Penned during the war-torn years between 1915 and 1918, Eliot’s quatrain poem cites the writers John Donne and John Webster as examples of metaphysical poets whose work depicts an understanding of mortality...
In many respects, T. S. Eliot’s poems “articulated the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era” (American National). Eliot used The Waste Land and The Hollow Men to illustrate his feelings of a brutal age...
T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land begins with a latin epigraph that refers to the story of the prophetess to Apollo, Sibyl of Cumae. Apollo wanted to take the prophetess as his lover and offered her anything she wanted in return. Sibyl asked to live as...
The speaker of T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” is one of the magi of the title, who delineates his arduous journey to witness the birth of Christ. What is interesting is that the tone of this poem is not of wonderment, but of powerlessness....
Compared to the poetry prior to the 20th century, the poetry of T.S. Eliot rings vibrant, unconventional and inventive. Eliot’s poem “Journey of the Magi” is typical of his style and illustrates how Eliot’s poetry changed the genre forever. In its compression of image and...
In a radical attempt to forge a new poetic medium, the poetry of TS Eliot possesses an enduring appeal due to its ability to lament universal concerns of the modern era while also subverting conventional literary content and structure. The poems ‘Rhapsody on a Windy...
T.S. Eliot once remarked that poetry must be difficult. The sentiments of this are expressed in much of his poetry and in his esoteric style, especially in Rhapsody on a Windy Night. If read literally, Rhapsody presents a bewildering scene of confusing, albeit beautifully-written nonsense....
The classical stories of Oedipus The King and Sundiata tell the tale of two epic heroes who must seek out and fulfill their own unique destinies. Although the themes of fate and destiny play a major role in the lives of Oedipus and Sundiata, both...
While some of the damage suffered by totalitarian governments appears to be only temporary, most forms of harm are shown to be more permanent and long-lasting. As explored in the figures of both Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 and Funder’s journalistic narrative Stasiland, psychological suffering has greater...
Amongst the ideas presented in the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples, the theme of isolation is prominent. Although Coleridge’s poem departs from Romantic stylistic tendencies, it exemplifies many of the ideas which defined the era, while...