Literary Genre essays

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Fahrenheit 451 In The Literary Canon

3 Pages 1152 Words
To some, the literary canon is considered a collection of the finest works throughout literature’s history, whilst to others it can be considered an assortment of boring books that provide no meaningful impact. I’m here today to acknowledge the importance of the literary canon and the relevance these classic novels still have in today’s society. The literary canon refers to...

Ex Machina and The Handmaid's Tale: Social and Political Contexts

3 Pages 1551 Words
Frequently referred to as the ‘What if…?’ genre, speculative fiction is a cover term for a diverse range of literature that diverges from the empirical reality that mimetic fiction implements (Jones, 2016). This genre encompasses science fiction, fantasy, horror, and invites the readers to consider the complex ways their choices contribute to generating the future (Hieroglyph, 2016). The 2014 film...

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Gothic Or Romantic Novel?

3 Pages 1544 Words
The notion of Romanticism started to become prevalent in literature during the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. In this essay, I will present the key ideas of Romanticism, offering close analysis to the novel Frankenstein. Romantic concepts and formal choices often revolve around empiricism, the nature of the human condition, shared humanity and the appreciation for naturalistic beauty....

Waiting For Godot and Absurdist Theatre

3 Pages 1301 Words
Human life is ultimately purposeless, to cope with this confrontation, we employ an array of distractions, in futile attempts to dispute this harsh truth. The Theatre of the Absurd emerged after World War II and found artists struggling to find meaning amongst man’s self-induced devastation (TED-Ed, 2018). “Waiting For Godot” (1955) is a grim tableau, enshrined as a turning point...

The Purpose of Human Life in Waiting for Godot

3 Pages 1509 Words
With no apparent meaning, people attempt to impose meaning on it through patterned behaviour and fabricated purposes to distract from the fact that their situation is hopelessly unfathomable. Samuel Beckett’s 1950s play Waiting for Godot captures this feeling and view of the world, characterising it with archetypes symbolising humanity and its behaviour when faced with this knowledge. The protagonists, Vladimir...

The Representation of Cross-cultural Encounter in Heart of Darkness

3 Pages 1558 Words
Cross-cultural encounter facilitates personal growth and challenges understandings of the self and world. By encountering different cultures, individuals are able to gain an understanding of their own culture as well as the world around them. Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, explores the journey of British explorers up the Congo River and the inhumanity towards various individuals as a result...

Rebellion In Dystopian Societies In Fahrenheit 451 And The Handmaid’s Tale

2 Pages 996 Words
Rebellion indefatigably confronts evil, from which the rebel may rectify blind servitude or unbounded freedom. As such, we see Ray Bradbury’s science fiction Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Margaret Atwood’s dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) explore the deprivation against individual liberty and distortion of knowledge, through heroic protagonists whom are doomed revolutionaries crushed by systematic regimes. Fahrenheit 451 is based in...

Themes and Ideas in Heart of Darkness and The Drover’s Wife

2 Pages 737 Words
Joseph Conrad and Henry Lawson use environment and setting to challenge the motivations and values of the characters in their texts. Specifically, Conrad uses the philosophical, independent-minded and sceptical character of Marlow to juxtapose the hypocrisy of 1890’s British imperialism in his novella, Heart of Darkness. Conrad typically embellished personal experience in his novels, with a specific interest in inter-cultural...

The Stone Gods as a Dystopia

2 Pages 923 Words
Abstract This body of work has targeted to analyze and evaluate on the story The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson, with respect to its dystopian aspects. By evaluating and giving examples from the story, we will try to present what makes this novel a dystopian work. Dystopia is defined in dictionaries as an imagined world in which people as a...
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Waiting for Godot as an Absurdist Play

2 Pages 1130 Words
The “Theatre of the Absurd” was a dramatic philosophic movement in France during the 1950s. This metaphysical theory was thought to be influenced by World War II considering that the Nazi’s were infiltrating France. With people feeling hopeless to the inhumane treatment of other’s it is hard to think that there is a meaning to life. “Absurd” is a term...

Madness in Classic Literature

2 Pages 973 Words
Introduction Madness is a pervasive theme in literature, often serving as a mirror to societal norms and personal conflicts. In the classic works of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," and Emily Dickinson's poem "Much Madness is Divinest Sense," madness is portrayed not only as a psychological affliction but also as a societal construct. These narratives...

Similarities Between Don Quixote And Benjamin The Third

4 Pages 1966 Words
The story of Benjamin the Third represents a turning point in Abramovitsh 's creative growth. Unlike his earlier works, which scarcely addressed the reduction of Jewish 'backwardness' external factors, The Travels address them. Thus, while The Travels certainly ridicules the culture of Jewish shtetl, the work suggests that the primary cause of Jewish cultural stagnation is entrenched anti-Semitism. Thus, when...

Difference Between Utopia and Dystopia

6 Pages 2768 Words
The Dual Nature of Utopia and Dystopia In every second of our life, we need to decide between action and inaction. These pull us towards one of two future, a heavenly and other is more hellish. Other is more utopian versus one that is more dystopian. It’s our human nature to dream about utopia, a place better than our current...

Brave New World as a Futuristic Dystopia

2 Pages 806 Words
Taking the setting of a world where “happiness” is readily served for every citizen with the help of technologies we have yet to imagine, “Brave New World” can be classified instantaneously as a novel of the science fiction and dystopian genre. Science fiction, or sci-fi, is a genre, as perfectly encapsulated in the name, that explores the field of science...

Hedda Gabler as a Bourgeoisie Tragedy

2 Pages 979 Words
Introduction Tragedy began in ancient Greece, of course, and the first great tragedies were staged as part of a huge festival known as the City Dionysia. Thousands of Greek men, that is for no women were allowed would gather in the vast amphitheatre to watch a trilogy of tragic plays, such as Aeschylus’ Oresteia. In terms of genre, tragedy requires...

Dystopia Satire: Hunger Games and the Handmaids Tale

4 Pages 1583 Words
A dystopian satire is a significant and interesting type of literature to read and get engaged in .If you read various types of dystopian based stories you would notice that they normally have three main themes though-out the text. Such as Futuristic , Survival, and Government Control. Those who enjoy it say that it is both a thrilling and depressing...
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Is Medea A Tragic Hero?

2 Pages 1109 Words
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Works of literature are often framed to portray clear distinctions between heroic figures and those who are the complete opposite of them. Typically, readers know early on which character is the one they should be rooting for and are invested in seeing that person prosper. Euripides’ Medea complicates this notion. Medea betrayed her family, killed a king and his daughter...

The Salesman Who couldn't Sell Himself

2 Pages 970 Words
Arthur miller’s, Death of a Salesman showcases a Brooklyn salesman, Willy, attempt to attain the American dream. He had some tokens of success in his life, but never anything that would make you think he was living life to his fullest potential. Willy was so caught up in being someone he wasn’t, it would eventually lead him to dig his...

How Dystopia Is Portrayed In Utopia, 1984 And Fahrenheit 451

4 Pages 1793 Words
Throughout history, many have imagined a world without war, poverty, or crime. Plato imagined an enlightened commonwealth ruled by philosopher kings, many religions profess bliss in the afterlife, and various groups have tried to create paradise on Earth. Thomas More's 1516 book 'utopia' gave this concept a name, derived from the Greek word 'no place.' Though the direct translation means...

Jane Eyre and Her Mental Stability

3 Pages 1484 Words
In Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre, we see Jane go through many scenes where she endures supernatural, and spiritual events throughout her life. Is there a true purpose of why we see theses events happen to Jane, does she try to show the readers how her being in an abusive family changes her mental psyche or do these events seem...

Romanticism And The Gothic Literature

2 Pages 948 Words
The 19th century was a marking era in literature with many movements and genres gaining popularity. After examining the romantic and gothic genre, it is clear that Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley respects the ideals of romanticism and the gothic genre. It is thus because of the setting’s frightening and sublime elements, it t is a work of the romantic...

Symbolism in Catcher In The Rye

3 Pages 1331 Words
Everyone experiences growing up in a different way. Some people have a fear of it and some people look forward to it. In The Catcher in the Rye Holden, a teenage boy who just got expelled from his boarding school, experiences the challenges of growing out of adolescence. Some challenges he faces are the need for security, learning how to...

The Joker As American Gothic Genre

2 Pages 708 Words
American Gothic is a diverse genre that often follows themes of terror, oppression, and danger. A popular film, The Joker, follows many common characteristics of this genre by portraying a subject that demonstrates the severity of numerous mental illnesses that individuals fight every day in our society. The production follows Arthur, a standup comedian and clown, who has numerous medical...

Main Themes of the Novel The The Scarlet Letter

3 Pages 1252 Words
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne tells the story of an affair between Hester Prynne and Rev. -Arthur Dimmesdale two members of the Puritan community of Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1640s. When Roger Chillingworth, Hester's long-lost husband, arrives in the colony and discovers the affair, he is consumed by a desire for revenge. For Hawthorne, revenge is an all consuming...

The Scarlet Letter: Societal Stereotypes and Identity

2 Pages 1037 Words
Our identity is fictional, written by parents, relatives, education, and society. Parents and relatives form children to follow their principles. Society demands that we present an identity that can be comfortably cataloged. We are no longer accepted for ourselves. Judgment based on culture, religion and a plethora of other expectations has created a world filled with formidable situations, filling the...

Influence of Surrounding Individuals in The Kite Runner

2 Pages 813 Words
Individuals are drastically shaped and impacted by the morals display by those they choose to surround themselves with. The novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is set in war torn, Afghanistan in the late 20th & early 21st centuries. The protagonist, Amir, lives in Kabul before and during the Taliban invasion and takeover when the rights of all citizens...

The Conflict and Message of The Kite Runner

2 Pages 894 Words
In the conventional Hero’s Journey narrative, the Hero overcomes adversity in order to obtain their resolution. It is in the face of this adversity that superior works of literature maintain a healthy confusion in which readers find both enjoyment and disquietude, and is in this confusion that readers are able to better connect with characters and find the incentive to...

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