Literature Essays

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Metaphors' by Sylvia Plath Analysis

2 Pages 937 Words
Written in 1959, Syliva Plath writes about the feelings of being in the state of pregnancy, in her poem Metaphors. Many of Plath's works have been influenced by her experiences in dealing with maternity and fertility. Her works mirror her experiences with loss, motherhood, and family. Metaphors was one of the first poems Plath had ever written about pregnancy in...

Plath’s Poetry is Shaped by the Restrictive Roles Open to Her As a Woman

4 Pages 1682 Words
Plath is considered to be one of the major voices writing about feminine subjects during the 1950s and the 1960s. This was a period when feminists started to acknowledge women’s oppression and the 2nd wave feminist movement began in the early 1960s. Within Plath’s collection of poems, Ariel, published in 1965, two years after her death in 1963, we see...

Oscar Wilde’s Aesthetic Theory in 'De Profundis'

7 Pages 3214 Words
Composed in January through March of 1897 in Reading Prison, Berkshire, De Profundis is a letter of “revelation of all that is feeblest in the writer”. Written by Oscar Wilde addressing his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, or, Bosie, the title of the eighty-page letter translates from Latin to “out of the depths.” The letter describes Wilde’s account of the events...

Love in Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

2 Pages 885 Words
What is love? Since the beginning of time, love has been one of the most spoken and written about topics in everyday life. Some people may say that love is the best feeling on earth and is a necessity to live. That without love, people would have no motivation, purpose or happiness in their lives. However that same love can...

Themes of Tragedy, Rebelliousness, Free Will in 'Antigone'

3 Pages 1139 Words
Despite Greek philosophy not having an accurate meaning of “free will”, it can be either considered good or bad. The act of having “free will” generally comes from what you think is the right thing to do. It is a will that allows us to choose what we feel is right based on how we interpret different ideas and the...

Inferiority of Women According to Plato and Sophocles

2 Pages 720 Words
Sophocles, a renowned author from Athens, once stated that “to women silence is their proper grace,” which suggests that women are better off keeping their opinions to themselves and letting men hold all the power. The quote above reflects Athenian society’s view that women are not equivalent to men. The following essay details the biases held against women at the...

Measure for Measure': Isabella's Human and Divine Powers

4 Pages 1982 Words
Isabella is the strongest female character in “Measure for Measure.” She debates with Angelo on an equal level and is not undermined by his authority. Her strength as a character derives from several sources; her chastity being one of the most significant. Isabella’s chastity provides her with a tool which most of the other females in this play lack, since...

Sweat': A Plot Summary

2 Pages 940 Words
There is a great problem in forensic science to rescue of body fluid for its identification. For the identification of the fluid like blood, semen, saliva and sweat number of methods have been developed. Short time ago Lednev and Virkler profile have published on considerable evaluation on the methods which are well established for body fluid analysis in the forensic...
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Dillard's Values of Life in Her Texts

3 Pages 1306 Words
After the last section’s tone of Dillard’s fascination of weasels violence, the tone changes to a sense of comfort and peacefulness. The sense of scenery Dillard uses like the pond close to her house brings this comfort of nature. As Dillard uses “so” she explains that she already has a motive to go along this path. Dillard depends on herself...

The Pleasures of Ignorance by Robert Lynd

4 Pages 1742 Words
Born in Belfast, Robert Lynd moved to London when he was 22 and soon became a popular and prolific essayist, critic, columnist, and poet. His essays are characterized by humor, precise observations, and a lively, engaging style. Writing under the pseudonym of Y.Y., Lynd contributed a weekly literary essay to the New Statesman magazine from 1913 to 1945. 'The Pleasures...

The Wife of His Youth': The Idea of Racism

2 Pages 801 Words
Colorism is defined as a form of prejudice typically from members of the same race in which people are treated based on their social economic status from cultural implications related to skin color. Within the idea of “race”, various groups of people compete with one another. Throughout the book, “The Wife of His Youth” by Charles W. Chesnutt one can...

The Life of Jack London as Reflected in His Works

9 Pages 3906 Words
Jack London was a prolific writer; over the period from 1899 until his death in 1916, he wrote 50 books and over 1,000 articles. Though he was made most famous by his stories of the Klondike, he wrote on subjects ranging from boxing to romance, from survival in the Arctic to labour strife in Australia. He led a harsh, erratic...

A Brief Overview of Tzvetan Todorov's Theory of the Fantastic

1 Page 579 Words
Tzvetan Todorov is a French and Bulgarian literary theorist and cultural critic who is best known for his contribution to literary theory in the form of his definition of the Fantastic in literature. As an important note, when Todorov discusses the fantastic, he is not discussing fantasy literature. Though fantasy critics, theorists, novelists and fans will often refer to fantasy...
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The Waste Land': Water Motif Showing Decay in Modern Society

3 Pages 1550 Words
TS Eliot uses water as a motif throughout the Waste Land. It is shown in different lights: at the beginning we can see that water is the cause of death and in the last book we see water an essential asset for life. Eliot links water to religion and spirituality to create a clear connection between the decay of the...

The White Tiger': Balram Halwai as an Atypical Character

2 Pages 889 Words
Balram Halwai is a protagonist in Aravind Adiga’s epistolary novel The White Tiger, in the sense that he is the primary driver of events in the story, and due to the fact that he faces great challenge and adversity, and overcomes the difficulties in his path. However, it is that nature in which he conquers his challenges that Balram diverges...

The Turn of The Screw': Searching for Love in a Book

2 Pages 995 Words
In “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, the central character, the governess, feels so isolated that she will do anything necessary to quench the feeling. She decides that the way to do so is to be in love. Unfortunately, because she is located in Bly, such a desire is not possible to actualize. When the governess realizes this...

Birches': In-Depth Analysis

2 Pages 1020 Words
Robert Frost’s “Birches” is one of the most widely appreciated poems. It is a fine example of the poet’s power to fuse observation and imagination. Frost belongs to the pastoral tradition. Most of his poems reveal the beautiful countryside of New England. They also express the national spirit of America. If his poems are closely read, they can be seen...
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Thomas Hardy's Philosophical Outlook

6 Pages 2877 Words
Hardy’s conception of human life was shaped in part by his extensive critical reading of the Bible, study of ancient tragedy, contemporary philosophical and scientific works, and in part by his rural environment. Ernest Brennecke, who wrote one of the earliest appraisals of Hardy’s philosophy of life, argued that Hardy developed “a consistent world-view through the notions of Chance and...

Sylvia Plath Feminist Criticism

1 Page 467 Words
Sylvia Plath was widely regarded as “one of the most celebrated and controversial post-war (‘feminists’)” writing in English” [Oates] in the twentieth century. In her ‘Ariel’ collection, Plath explores the gender inequality and expectations that plagued society at that time, and arguably today. Through her poetry, Plath criticises the social norms and values that socially conditioned both men and women...

Vladimir Nabokov’s Writing Method

2 Pages 908 Words
Few things are more tempting to a writer than to write about writing. Having a couple of novels behind me, along with a dozen short stories, hundreds of pages of clickbait headlines (which I am not particularly proud of), as well as a number of academic texts, I know a thing or two about the craft of words. Vladimir Nabokov...

The History Boys': The Comedy in the Play

3 Pages 1441 Words
Alan Bennett’s The History Boys uses the opposition created between the characters of Hector and Irwin to structure the play and question the education system. The two characters are naturally opposed - in age, teaching style and fundamental beliefs. This creates comedy which is used, perhaps to convey the playwright’s personal beliefs and relay his experience with the ‘Oxbridge’ system....

Measure for Measure': Deep Understanding of Shakespeare's Problematic Play

4 Pages 1814 Words
Throughout the extensive criticism written on Shakespeare plays, the definition of these problematic plays has been a constant topic for debate. Kiernan Ryan suggests critics focus either on these plays all having in inherently ‘political implications’, or a form of deconstructive, or psychoanalytical analysis. Yet the potential for another opinion could still be valid as expressed by critics such as...

Birches': A Plot Summary

3 Pages 1497 Words
The poem opens with the sight of curiously bent birches trees. When the poet sees birches bending to left and right in the backdrop of “straighter and darker ” trees, he likes to believe it is the work of some country boy who must’ve indulged in swinging them. However, he is fully away that it cannot be the case as...
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The Main Statement of Rostand in Cyrano De Bergerac

2 Pages 932 Words
Rostand’s classic, Cyrano De Bergerac, resonates with audiences of all eras and cultures essentially because it reflects on a universal theme. It is conflict, and specifically the internal conflicts of a hero struggling with ambitions of the material with his innermost, spiritual and intellectual self. All of this is within the desire Cyrano feels for Roxane, which guides his behavior....

Post-Colonialism in 'Waiting for the Barbarians'

7 Pages 3318 Words
Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel written by JM Coetzee which has strong themes of Post-Colonialism. To begin, an understanding over what post-colonialism is specifically in literature needs to be elaborated. A simple definition most would define post-colonialism as an issue happening after colonialism in a country and its ramifications. Interestingly, the definition has also expanded; ‘some writers have...

The Chosen': Triumph Over Darkness

2 Pages 1086 Words
These words from the headstone of a Jewish holocaust victim perfectly define Chaim Potok’s use of light as a symbol of knowledge and truth in a world of tradition. Potok uses Reuven’s observations of light to give the reader clues of Danny’s awakenings to the truth and knowledge of the outside world in The Chosen. Danny’s surroundings particularly show the...
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