Detailed Study of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Jane Eyre is an orphan who has been sent to Gateshead, her uncle's house, early. Her uncle has died and her aunt Mrs. Reed hates her. She always punishes Jane Eyre even if it were her own children who had made a mistake. For example, one day, Jane was shut up in the 'red-room' (that...
A Study on Willa CATHER, O Pioneers!
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Willa Cather was an American novelist who grew up in Nebraska, where her most famous novel "O Pioneers!? is set. It is her second novel, and she was forty when it was published in 1913. Actually, this fictional novel is in keeping with its author's life insofar as the heroine has similarities...
Macbeth, William Shakespeare - the equivocal ambiguities, puns, play with words and mirror effects
Text analysis - 2 pages - Literature
"Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / the instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray / in deepest consequence? (Act I scene 3, 123-126). Banquo warns Macbeth, who is wandering if he can believe the rest of the three witches' Prophecies, as he just had been...
The Home and the World - Rabindranath Tagore
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Rabindranath Tagore was born on the 6 of may 1861 in Calcutta and died on the 7 of august 1941, in the same town. He was a versatile artist, writing poetry, drama and novels, composing and also painting. He was also a huge philosopher in India during his time. He was also known as...
Postmodern American literature: Transformation and commodification within The Crying of Lot 49
Dissertation - 3 pages - Literature
A prominent theme among the writings of many postmodern analysts in characterizing postmodernism is the notion that the age of post-modernity is essentially the age of commercialism and commoditization. In his book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Jean- François Lyotard contends...
"From the Diary of an almost-four-year-old", Hanan Ashrawi (1988)
Text analysis - 2 pages - Literature
The poem, 'From the Diary of an almost-four-year-old' was written by Hanan Mikhail Ashrawi, a Palestinian writer, in 1988. The speaker in this poem is an almost-four-year-old little girl who was fired at by a soldier, during the Israel-Palestine war. She lost an eye and she wonders about...
"They came for the Jews," Martin Niemoller, and "God loves you anyway" Harold Kushnersay - the care of others
Text analysis - 1 pages - Literature
The first essay is a poem entitled 'First, They Came for The Jews', written by a German Pastor named Martin Niemoller. It talks about what happened in 1939-1945, during World War II, where many people died, due to the nazi government in Germany. The second essay is an extract of a book...
"The Witches of Salem", Arthur Miller (1953) - allusions to McCarthyism
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller, in 1953, wrote 'The Crucible' which recounts the puritan trials and alludes to McCarthyism, by the same process that had been used by George Orwell with his 'Animal Farm'; denouncing a political issue by writing a similar story to avoid censorship. Raymond Rouleau...
The history of comic books
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The history of comic books is linked to the history of the american society. Studying the story of comic books is a good way to understand some evolutions of the american society through the 20th century. In this talk, you will also discover where a lot of american heroes are coming from. The...
Freedom and the self
Dissertation - 3 pages - Literature
In Michel Foucault's book Discipline and Punish, “The Body of the Condemned” is a section dedicated to the concept of power and its relationship to modern punishment, which focuses primarily on the soul of the criminal, a sharp contrast to the punishments aimed to inflict pain on the...
Heroism in Beowulf and Macbeth
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Grendel first appeared in Herot, the mead hall of the king of the Danes, Hrothgar. Disturbed by the feasting and celebration taking place in the evenings by Danish warriors and heroes, who often met in the hall to tell exaggerated tales of glory and drink mead, Grendel stole in during the night...
Literary analysis of "The Dead"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
James Joyce was born on February 2nd, 1882, in Dublin. His lifelong obsession with his own Irish culture, and the local city of Dublin, inspired many of his works. In particular, Dubliners, a collection of short stories taking place in Dublin, published in 1914, testifies to this obsession....
Domination and submission in Jane Eyre: An essay on power play
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
In a manner of speaking, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre reinvents the concept of romance. One hardly expects a sordid tale of domination and submission from a sickly country girl, yet Bronte dabbled experimentally with the idea of feminism and power play in her hugely successful first novel. Jane...
In the hands of Yankees: Fitzgerald's "The Ice Palace" as a Northern American captivity narrative
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
The effective removal of the American Indian from North America failed to kill off the American tradition of captivity narratives established by the primarily female Anglo-American authors of Indian captivity narratives. In these memoirs of life among the “other,” Anglo-American women...
The Church's Grasp: Captivity in Joyce's Dubliners - published: 12/04/2010
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
It is easy to recognize when one is held captive by the unfamiliar, but the crippling effect of familiar forces is not so easily realized. Throughout American captivity narratives, typically female Anglo-Americans are ensnared by Native Americans, the “other” of early Anglo-American...
Renaissance Literature is indebted more to emblematic and allegorical modes, than to modern forms of realism
Dissertation - 6 pages - Literature
The aftermath of reformation, mid 16th.Century, left the art and literary world in upheaval. The former art of Catholicism which had been figurative and vivid, depicting the saints in all their glory, was redundant and even despised. Many reformers believed that to idolize the saints and to...
The prose style of an author
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
What is so compelling about Faulkner's work is his gloriously bold approach toward form and content. He embraces the dark side of humanity, through the characters of Jason, Caddy and Quentin, refusing to deny or disguise its existence and in doing so redefines despair, it is no longer, '...
Representations of history and regeneration by Pat Barker
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
Barker has chosen to tell the tale from the viewpoint of the patients and staff of a war hospital, which treats mainly psychiatric injuries caused by battle. Straight away we are dealing with issues of masculinity. These patients have been discharged, not for receiving injuries in the line of...
What role did women play within Anglo Saxon culture?
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Throughout history, the position of women in society has fluxed dramatically. It seems quite clear from looking at historical evidence that most of this movement has been a decline, rather than an improvement in the social attitudes towards women. In Anglo- Saxons times, women were valued members...
How is the notion of woman represented by 18th century writing?
Dissertation - 3 pages - Literature
Throughout the 18th century, we see gender as a site of much anxiety. At this time, women were emerging as key contributors to both political and popular writing, through works such as Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn, and A Vindication of the Rights of Man, by Mary Wollenstonecraft Godwin. This feminine...
Willy Loman and the death of an American dreamer
Dissertation - 2 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a portrait of a man who wrestles with his own delusions of success and happiness within the business world. One of the main themes of the story is how the main character has attached his success and failures in other areas of life to his self-image as a...
The things they carried: Time O'Brien
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
This book is, debatably, a memoir of the Vietnam War. By debatably, I mean to say that it is written in the form of a memoir, although the author denies that many of these events actually took place. This book includes the stories of Tim O'Brien and the soldiers that he knew in Vietnam during the...
The House on Mango Street
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose this book because my aunt recommended me reading it. Although I don't usually read books like this, because it was a book about coming of age, I thought it would be interesting to read. This book was somewhat like The Catcher in the Rye, but instead of taking place in New York, it...
Daisy Miller: Henry James
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book takes place in 1878 and centers around the idea of an extended trip throughout Europe, which was very popular among wealthy Americans at this time. This novel addresses the behavior of the young American girls who visit Europe and due to their new distance from home, become very...
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose to read the Picture of Dorian Gray because I was already semi familiar with the story and numerous friends recommended it to me. This famous novel takes place in nineteenth century England and revolves around the high society of that time and place. There is a supernatural aspect to this...
The Secret Life of Bees: Sue Kidd
Dissertation - 2 pages - Literature
I selected this book because I know a lot of people who have read it before. I was expecting this book to be about animals, well more like bees. It turns out to be more about the story of a young white girl living in a time without black rights. This book is fiction; it takes place in a time...
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Dissertation - 4 pages - Literature
Charles Dickens highlights that facts aren't everything. You can't always rely on them, because they can burn out being untrue and serving you wrong. When Louisa was talking to her father, Mr. Gradgrind about how facts ruined her life and how she didn't know how to rebate and handle her feelings,...
Fyodor Dostoevsky: Coping with flaws and surviving in society
Dissertation - 5 pages - Literature
In Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, the narrator writes from an underground location reflecting on the flaws in man and the society he once lived in. Through examining his days prior to retreating underground the narrator comes to hate the bonds of society and human nature more and...
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book was originally recommended to me by freshman humanities teacher. When I read the book previously, it helped me to make sense of my own beliefs and I recently came to a point in my life where I felt that it was time to read it again. This is really a story of philosophy and religion. It...
Psychological analysis in the Heart of Darkness
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Orphaned at the age of twelve, Conrad's writing reflects solidarity. In his most popular novel Heart of Darkness he states, “We live, as we dream- alone.” Common themes in his works are alienation, confusion, and doubt. He wrote not only about physical threats but also about inner...
