Literature Essays

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Control and Authority in ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ and ‘Paradise Lost’

4 Pages 1988 Words
The instinct to control others is indeed natural for characters in John Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ and John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’. Both Webster and Milton explore the control one exerts over women through Ferdinand and Adam’s desire to control the females, the control of those at a lower status illustrated through the religious figureheads of both works, the Cardinal...

Breaking Rules in 'The Breakfast Club' and 'The Wave'

4 Pages 1779 Words
Rules need to be broken at times. As both the 1985 film by John Hughes, ‘The Breakfast Club’, and the 1981 novel by Morton Rhue, ‘The Wave’, discuss why and what can happen when such acts are done. With so much desire to break the rule, there is little room left to see why they need to be disobeyed sometimes....

Relationship between Dana and Rufus in Octavia E. Butler's ‘Kindred’

3 Pages 1176 Words
Reviewed double_ok
‘Kindred’, by Octavia E. Butler, tells the story of Dana, a 26-year-old African American woman from the 1970s, who is constantly called into the 19th century antebellum South by her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin. After learning she must keep Rufus alive to ensure her own bloodline, she explores her family’s roots while at the same time, struggles to witness and...

Nazi Vs the Narrator

2 Pages 692 Words
Why did the unconscious part of the brains of the protagonists seems as if it were put get them? Carl Gustav Jung, a psychoanalyst would call it the collective unconscious; it's a universal shared memory in which mankind seems to repress their true emotions without being aware of it. This concept is easier to make sense of when one looks...

Narrator's Insanity in Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'

2 Pages 779 Words
The story The Tell-Tale Heart written by Edgar Allen Poe, can be best summarized as a piece of gothic literature in which introduces the idea of a man going insane. In the beginning, it was only a mere obsession with an ‘evil eye’. The obsession itself, however, led to the murder of the man with the said ‘evil eye’. In short,...

Power Dynamics in 'Kindred' and 'The Book of Martha' by Octavia Butler

4 Pages 1682 Words
“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace”, - Mahatma Gandhi. This quote connects to a motif shown in each story, ‘Kindred’ and ‘The Book of Martha’ by Octavia Butler. The motif shown in each story is power dynamics, wherein each, they both develop the motif throughout the books and similarly/differently deals...

Character development in 'Kiki's Delivery Service' and 'Spirited Away'

3 Pages 1550 Words
The transition from childhood to adulthood also known as adolescents (shonen for boys, shojo for females) is heavily shown within the realm of anime. Studio Ghibli is also known as one of the major producers of adolescent films with the help of Hayao Miyazaki, a director, and producer of films such as ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’, ‘Spirited Away’, ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’,...

Irony of Martin Espada's Poem 'Bully'

3 Pages 1197 Words
In ‘Bully’ Martin Espada uses the first stanza to introduce the theme of his poem. “In the school auditorium/the Theodore Roosevelt statue/is nostalgic” (lines 1-3). The statue described emanates a nostalgia for the Spanish-American war, which was considered by many to be a morally reprehensible act of hate upon Hispanic people. The author of the poem, Martin Espada, was introduced...

Interracial Relationship in Octavia Butler's 'Kindred'

3 Pages 1221 Words
In the novel ‘Kindred’, Author Octavia Butler travels back to the time where slavery was the big part of American life. Butler sends the modern characters like Dana and Kevin to experience the past. As Dana traveled back and forth several times and every time she goes there is a new situation behind it. Butler clears up how interracial relationship...

Impact of Narrator Being within a Literary Work

2 Pages 1126 Words
A narrator is one of the most important elements of any literary work, as he, she, or they are the voice that not only shares the story with the reader, but also conveys their thoughts, opinions, and details to make the story more understandable. What is a narrator, exactly? According to the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, a narrator is “one...

The Great Gatsby: Did Gatsby Really Love Daisy

3 Pages 1228 Words
Reviewed double_ok
Is the love that Gatsby feels driving his relentless pursuit of winning over Daisy? Are all of his schemes to ‘win’ over Daisy worth it? In Gatsby’s eyes Daisy represents the American Dream, wealth, power, fame, and beauty which is the reason why Gatsby is attracted to her. Although Gatsby's fantasies with Daisy never become a reality, his love for...

Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth

2 Pages 938 Words
True love. Romantic or unflustered and usually portrayed in a sexist fictional story. Love. Problematic and hesitant and usually kept in the dark of most cases. “The course of true love will never run smooth”. Author and Director William Shakespeare foregrounded the ‘true love’ stigma in his play ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Telling a story of two young star-crossed lovers who...

Black Female Body in Octavia Butler’s ‘Kindred’

2 Pages 982 Words
Octavia Butler’s ‘Kindred’ traces central protagonist, Dana Franklin’s genealogy by physically ‘returning’ her to her slave past in antebellum Maryland. By deconstructing the body of the female slave Butler uses Dana’s body as the site for historical markings, so that she is literally and symbolically scarred by her ancestral past. As Michel Foucault notes, the purpose of genealogy is “to...

Tensions in 'The Merchant of Venice' and 'Schindler’s List'

2 Pages 777 Words
Tensions are created as the culmination of the audience’s sympathy and desire for the individual’s welfare and survival against the visual testimonies of anti-Semitic abuse and atrocity. William Shakespeare’s play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, and Steven Spielberg’s film, ‘Schindler’s List’, depict the tensions inciting the human experience of change and connection through the insights accentuated by the aspects of moral...

Ted Lavender's Fear in 'The Things They Carried': Character Analysis

1 Page 539 Words
The award-winning author, Tim O’Brien, wrote the novel ‘The Things They Carried’, which was a collection of short stories based on O’Brien’s experiences in the Vietnam War. He elaborates on the brutality soldiers go through during battle and the morals of a true war story. Introduced in the chapter ‘The Things They Carried’, Ted Lavender is a young soldier, who...

Symbolism in 'Kindred' and 'Harlem': Butler and Hughes

3 Pages 1177 Words
In the novel, ‘Kindred’ by Octavia Butler, and the poem ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes, they both use symbolism to communicate how racism destroys the dreams and ambitions of those affected by its grasp. The poem ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes uses symbolism to communicate how racism destroys the dreams and ambitions of those affected by its grasp. Hughes opens the poem...

Resilience in 'Night': Surviving the Holocaust

2 Pages 775 Words
During World War II, Nazi Germany committed the most infamous genocide in history, the Holocaust. As a result, over 6 million Jews lost their lives in the horrific conditions inside concentration camps across Nazi occupied Europe. Fortunately, many of the prisoners of these concentration camps survived to share their stories. Among these is Elie Wiesel who, along with many others,...

Suffering and Personality Change in the Book 'Night'

4 Pages 1666 Words
Throughout history society has been tested with catastrophic events that inflicted suffering upon certain demographics. These past experiences show that in moments of enduring pain even good people are capable of making bad choices. In his memoir, ‘Night’ (Weisel, 2006), Elie Wiesel vividly depicts how moments of intense suffering absolutely bring out the worst in the characters rather than the...

Stanley as Villain in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

3 Pages 1318 Words
Scene 3 establishes Stanley as a villain as it shows his complete aggression and anger when people do things that he doesn't agree with. During scene 3 we see that all of the men in the play are participating in a poker game, where Stanley seems to get drunk and becomes more aggressive towards Stella and Blanche. Firstly, in the...

Agency, Resistance, and Victimization in Slavery Narratives

6 Pages 2538 Words
Berlin argues that the memory of slavery promotes a dual message; one of “the dehumanizing force of slavery and the slaves’ refusal to be dehumanized” (Berlin, 1265). The transatlantic slavery trade and chattel slavery violated the freedom and robbed Africans of their basic human rights, but it did not “define the society and culture that slaves produced” (Berlin 1264). Both...

Irony in 'Sweat' and 'A Rose for Emily'

2 Pages 814 Words
In the short story ‘Sweat’ by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character Delia is a hardworking woman who does tremendous manual labor as a washerwoman for white folks. Delia has been in an abusive marriage with her husband Sykes for fifteen years, and he enjoys treating her the way that he does. Sykes doesn’t like that Delia works for white...

Situational and Dramatic Irony

1 Page 482 Words
Irony occurs when a reader sees that the author is showing that there is a gap between what is thought to be true and what actually is true. Irony is not always immediately apparent to the reader. If ironies are too obvious or heavy, the reader is likely to feel that he or she is being treated as a child....
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Should We Stop Keeping Pets?

2 Pages 1087 Words
Linda Rodriguez McRobbie address in her article ‘Should We Stop Keeping Pets? Why More and More's Ethicists Say Yes’, right of animal’s self-determination. Dr. Hal Herzog, cited by McRobbie, claimed we give our pets the characteristics of a family but restrain them with our choices. McRobbie argues that keeping pets is unethical and people are taking away their freedom. Even...

Scrooge as an Outsider in 'A Christmas Carol': Character Analysis

2 Pages 863 Words
This essay explores ideas on how Scrooge is presented as an outsider throughout the novella and will identify and analyze techniques used by Dickens. Dickens presents Scrooge as an outsider through his initial description of the character. “External heat had little influence on Scrooge”. The use of pathetic fallacy emphasizes the idea of Scrooge being a cold and heartless individual....

Romeo and Juliet's Death-Marked Love

1 Page 667 Words
Mercutio curses both the Capulets and the Montagues with the phrase “a plague on both your houses”, as he realizes he is dying; this repeated curse foreshadows Romeo and Juliet's tragic fate. Mercutio's speech is composed in a prosaic form that is spontaneous and unpredictable in comparison to the rest of the play, which is poetic and deliberate. This style...

Romeo and Juliet's Battles with Love

1 Page 494 Words
Love is a powerful emotion that does not always run smoothly, and twists may occur along the journey. Hence, one’s capacity to endure the downsides of love may vary at different rates. In the play, Romeo and Juliet, the lovers are heavily impacted by love through their experiences, shown by their cynical emotions. In William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, actions...

Role of Narrator in 'A Costa dos Murmurios'

3 Pages 1221 Words
Eva Lopo is an extremely active character throughout the book, she observes, she understands, but more importantly, as the novel progresses, she becomes increasingly more informed about Portuguese presence in Mozambique. Throughout the novel, the audience experiences a transformation in the attitude and outlook of the main protagonist. We are taken on a journey with Eva Lopo, from the young...
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