A streetcar named Desire, "Repetition"
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
In most of the classic plays we studied in high school, numerous events and rebounding occurred one after the other that enabled the plot to move forward. At the end of the play, the situations used to evolve and the characters' lives had often changed. However, in this work, the final situation...
Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Since the very beginning of the play, we realize the essential role of dreams and reminiscences in Willy Loman's life because he seems to live in his own world. Indeed, as soon as he comes back home, we learn that this day, he wasn't able to drive all the way to the place he was supposed to go...
Paul Auster's Brooklyn: between fiction and reality
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
Brooklyn is best described as a city within the great New York City. It is a place associated with top-notch artists such as Walt Whitman, Hart Crane or quite recently Woody Allen; and one of New York boroughs where one cannot ignore the ongoing process of multiculturalism. There are several...
American writers in Paris: Anaïs Nin - Houseboat - ; James Baldwin - Equal in Paris -
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
“Houseboat” is the initial short story in a collection entitled Under a Glass Bell, published in 1944 by Anaïs Nin. It presents us with the complex relationship the artist carries on with Paris - a relationship made of both attraction and repulsion. It also gives us an insight into the...
The emotional and psychological reader's response in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Blue Hotel"
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
"The Yellow Wall-paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane are two short stories which, beyond the colour references in the title, try to develop certain psychological responses within the reader. I will attempt to show how through two different points of view for...
The Fantasy in 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' by Robert Louis Stevenson
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, was an immediate success and had been revisited a number of times since its first publication in 1886. It can be considered as the Gothic tale par excellence. The Gothic genre started in the middle of the Eighteenth...
Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot': Between Modernism and Postmodernism - publié le 30/05/2007
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Samuel Beckett's most famous play Waiting for Godot was first written in French in 1948 and translated in English in 1952, that is to say shortly after the end of World War II. At that time, the threat of the Cold War, the recent horror of the concentration camps and the invention of the...
Book Report: Romantics, Rebels & Reactionaries by Marilyn Butler
Book review - 7 pages - Literature
Offering a precise and coherent definition of artistic movements has always been a tempting prospect for whoever seeks to make sense out of our historical and cultural background. One has to confess, that it is equally tempting to approach the Romantic period in an attempt to set fixed...
Book Report : "Reflections on the Revolution in France" By Edmund Burke
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
When the writer and politician Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790, Britain was particularly focused on what had just happened on the other side of the Channel. At a time when radical societies were emerging in Britain and dissenters were about to claim new...
"Clay" excerpt from Dubliners by James Joyce, 1914 - publié le 15/05/2007
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The passage studied here is an excerpt from "Clay", one of the short stories of the book Dubliners, which was written by James Joyce in 1914. In this story, the main character Maria is invited to spend the Hallow Eve evening at Joe's, a man of whom she once was the nurse but who is now...
English society as depicted in Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews
Book review - 11 pages - Literature
Henry Fielding published Joseph Andrews in 1742, one year after his Shamela, a harsh parody of Richardson's Pamela. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams is supposed to be an elaborated parody of Pamela, but it turns out to be a real description of...
Wuthering Heights - The Ending (An Attempt at a Commentary)
Book review - 7 pages - Literature
The passage, being at the very end of the novel, follows directly Heathcliff's death and stages the final events of Wuthering Heights. Prior to it, Nelly Dean gives her brief account of Heathcliff's death and funeral. Then, we are presented with her conversation with Lockwood who, in turn, puts...
A Scanner Darkly, by Philippe K. Dick
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
The novel, deals with drugs and its consequences, its process of marginalization of distorted social relationships, the subjective deterioration of reality, hallucinations and the paranoia that they generate, Richard Linklater will bring out an adaptation of the letter and the spirit. Adapted...
"Nothing that is so, is so": The extent of role of this statement in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
“Nothing that is so, is so”, says Feste. He says so ironically, talking to Sebastian, who he is convinced is actually Cesario. This is said for a specific situation, but it might actually be relevant for the whole play: Indeed, this apparently absurd quotation raises the question of...
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, Chapter 7 reviews
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
At the beginning of this chapter, a letter from his father explains to Victor the circumstances of William's murder. He leaves for Geneva immediately to comfort and grieve with his family. But it is dark when he reaches Geneva and gets close to home, during a thunderstorm and Victor is started to...
The Wood-Pile
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Frost presents to us here a rather enigmatic poem. Upon a first contemplation the reader may experience the feeling that he has read a poem about nothing, and may read and re-read it, endeavoring to discover some hidden meaning. And indeed “The Wood-Pile” is virtually about nothing, a...
"Araby", James Joyce - publié le 08/03/2007
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
This short story was written by James Joyce who lived from 1882 to 1941; it is an extract from 'Dubliners', published in 1914. The book is compound with several short stories which took place in Dublin, and deals with the monotone life of some people. The text is entitled 'Araby',...
"Araby", James Joyce
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
This short story was written by James Joyce who lived from 1882 to 1941; it is an extract from Dubliners, published in 1914. The book is compound with several short stories which take place in Dublin, and deal with the monotone life of some citizens. The text is entitled "Araby" and tells the...
Black and white imagery in Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
When analysing Lorca's use of black and white imagery in Blood Wedding, a first observation would tend to show that the colour white is much more present throughout the play than black, the white being used, not essentially in the characters' clothing as black is used, but also in totally...
The fantastic atmosphere in The Moon Bog by HP Lovecraft
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
In his short story entitled ?The Moon Bog', Lovecraft adheres to his methods to create a genuine fantastic atmosphere. Both his style and his narration contribute to the setting of a cosmic ambiance in a very effective way. From the point of view of the narrative, the themes in this short...
Wilfred Owen: Anthem for Doomed Youth, 1917
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
The text to be commented upon is a poem written by Wilfred Owen in 1917 entitled Anthem for doomed youth. It is a petrarchan sonnet, a sort of diptych with two different parts which hinges upon lines 9 and 10. The title is a key for the interpretation of the sonnet which is an ideological poem, a...
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The scene takes place in a clearing, close to the Salinas river, “a few miles South of Soledad”, at dusk. Two men come (the two main characters), one following the other. The first one is George and the second one Lennie. They are ranch workers who travel together from a ranch to...
Culture and Anarchy' by Matthew Arnold (1869)
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Matthew Arnold, in his philosophical essay Culture and Anarchy, published in 1869, expresses his view on culture in which culture could be applied to any society or any group of humans on earth. He wrote it during the time where Bentham's Utilitarianism was the prevailing thought in the...
Comment from the essay "Culture and anarchy" written by Matthew Arnold published in 1869
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Matthew Arnold, in his philosophical essay Culture and Anarchy, published in 1869, exposes his view of culture in a generally way, that is to say, that this view could and should be applied to any society or any group of men on the earth. He wrote it at a time where Bentham's Utilitarianism was...
Orwell said in an essay titled Why I write : "It is my purpose to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole." How far does Orwell achieve this in 1984 ?
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Let us remember that, at the end of 1936, Orwell fought for the Republicans (against Franco) in Spain, where he was wounded. We know that Orwell's 1984 (published in 1949) was given this title because the novel was written in 1948, just after the end of the Second World War and the fall of...
Orwell said in an essay titled Why I write : "It is my purpose to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole." How far does Orwell achieve this in 1984 ? - publié le 10/10/2006
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
It is to be remembered that George Orwell fought for the Republicans (against Franco) in Spain towards the end of 1936. It was during this battle that Orwell was wounded. We know that George Orwell's ?Nineteen Eighty-Four' (published in 1949) publication was given this title because the...
Philip Roth, Portnoy's complaint
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
The text under scrutiny presents us an extract of the confession of a man to his psychiatrist: he talks to him more precisely about his childhood, and the way his mother used to act with him during that period. What is interesting about this text is the manner the narrator presents his memory:...
Lewis, Fort Mandan, April 7, 1805 : The Lewis and Clark expedition
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
This text, written by Captain Meriwether Lewis at Fort Mandan on April 7th, 1805, may be regarded as one of the main turning points of the expedition. Indeed, the long and harsh winter they endured when they could not move on westward to the Missouri River since it was blocked with ice and when...
The War (Marguerite Duras)
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Marguerite Duras was born near Saigon in Indochina in 1914. Her parents went to the French colony as teachers. She left Indonesia in 1932 to study political science and law in Paris. His childhood in Indonesia had a great impact on Duras and brought unity to her work. As she was living in Paris...
The Great Gatsby, by F.S Fitzgerald (1925)
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
T. Elliott, writer and critic, referred to The Great Gatsby, as the novel was first published in 1925, as “the first step that American fiction [had] taken since Henry James”. Since this date, critics agree to emphasize it as a the most accomplished and mature book ever written by...
