Empire of the Sun by James Graham Ballard
Book review - 20 pages - Literature
Jim, an eleven year old boy, and his parents are living in a wealthy European area in Shanghai during World War II. The novel begins the evening before the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Most of the European families had already been evacuated from China, and there were many scrambling to get...
Humor as a Mask for Anguish in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
As the quote from The New York Times points out on the back cover of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou's novel is “Simultaneously touching and comic.” Through language, choice of detail, and the story itself, Angelou introduces humor and comic relief to a narrative filled...
Jo Shapcott's Mad Cow
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
Jo Shapcott is considered to be a contemporary British poet with traits of a Desperado poet. I explore the literal and figurative meaning of the cow in some of her Mad Cow poems as well as the issues that have influenced the usage of this persona. The essay begins with a quote from the Sunday...
Coleridge and the Poetic Imagination:The Link Between True Life and True Poetry
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
There is no single theme that pervades every one of Coleridge's many poems, but a body of motifs relating to familial relationships and friendship imbue both his conversation poems, such as Frost at Midnight and The Eolian Harp, and his “mystery” poems, including The Rime of the Ancient...
Fruitless Labor : Love and Marriage in Joyce's Dubliners
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
In his first novel, a collection of short stories meant to express the paralytic nature of turn-of-the-century Dublin, James Joyce establishes an image of the Irish urban center as a degenerate bed of unhappiness, deprivation, depression, and imprisonment. All of his characters face the daily...
Into the Darkness: Marlow's Discovery of the Relationship between Darkness and Civilization
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In his novel Heart of Darkness, published in 1902, Joseph Conrad explores the deepest reaches of the African continent, and at the same time, the innermost secrets of human nature. The novel is narrated mostly by Marlow, a seaman known for his “inconclusive experiences,” who has, over...
Cyrano de Bergerac hubris and hamartias
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
He has no mortal enemies; his only adversary is death and even then, defeat inevitable, he surrenders gracefully. There is yet forgiveness in his eyes as he is stripped of all dignity. He has nothing to lose except his pride and life; his pride he would take to his grave, his life he would give...
Mingled Voices: The Communication between the Contrary Natures of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In his “Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, books of children's poems” written and illustrated by himself, William Blake explores human perception and the contemporary social milieu, focusing on the transience of opinion and the variability of fact in two contrary states of...
The Rhetoric of the Personal and Pictorial: Portrayal of the Self and the Abstract in Young, Gray, and Collins
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Following the ethical and didactic works popular in the early eighteenth century, which offered a view of Man as an imperfect but scientific being in search of meaning in a universe created by a perfect God, a crop of poets emerged who wrote instead about “a preponderance of sentiment,...
The Poetic Practice of Alexander Pope: The Authoritative Voice of Reason and the Expulsion of Pride of Man
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Alexander Pope was a poet greatly concerned with perception: his perception of God and his fellow man, and how he was perceived by others, both personally and as an artist. Despite his physical maladies, he saw himself as a great poet, destined for the craft and blessed with true talent. Many of...
Political Aesthetes: Emily Mann's Execution of Justice and the Identity Crisis of Documentary Theatre
Essay - 10 pages - Literature
The documentary theatre, unlike conventional theatre, defines itself in terms of actuality, authenticity, and verifiability. Reality plays draw their power and identity from their use of “actuals,” authentic materials such as transcripts, interviews, testimonies, published documents,...
Not Worth Laughing About: Anti-Semitism in The Merchant of Venice
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
As time changes, so do the interpretations of Shakespeare's dramas. Newer productions are supposed to appeal to modern audiences by reflecting current attitudes and cultural beliefs. Anti-Semitic viewpoints existed long before Shakespeare and his play, The Merchant of Venice, which is considered...
"A Hideously Difficult Task": An Exploration of American Racial Identity through the Works of James Baldwin
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
In a style similar to other minority works of literature, James Baldwin's writing encompasses the recurring theme of identity—what it means and from where it originates. This theme stems from incomplete identity of the black American community. Baldwin's writings try to explain the...
Critical Analysis of "Goblin Market"
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
Sylvia Plath once said, “The blood jet is poetry, and there is no stopping it.” This was true for many poets, and especially true for Christina Rossetti. Rossetti had poetry in her blood, art in her veins. When she first wrote “Goblin Market” in 1859, some critics...
Trans formative Exile: Coriolanus' Lack of Evolution During his Banishment from Rome
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
When the people of Rome exile Coriolanus, he seeks refuge in Antium, throwing himself before his longtime enemy, Tullus Aufidius, and offering himself as a weapon against Rome. Although he has fought countless times for Rome, bringing himself to the brink of death time and time again, the Roman...
Essay on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
William Shakespeare is among the most notable playwrights of all time. Some of his works have been so popular that they have been turned into modern movies, aimed at attracting a new generation to this author's works. While Shakespeare has been able to provide audiences with theatrical...
Sir Thomas Wyatt : Lord of Sonnets
Tutorials/exercises - 5 pages - Literature
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a cornerstone of the development of British Literature, and his works influenced the art of literature and made it what it is today. He introduced the sonnet into English civilization, and thus set up the building blocks for many great writers to write in the English...
Symbolism and intertextuality in Cathleen Ní Houlihan by W.B Yeats
Worksheets - 16 pages - Literature
The end of the ninetieth century, Ireland has been marked by the will of William Butler Yeats. Lady Augusta Gregory and Edward Martin had to perform in Dublin Celtic and Irish plays. This aimed at "bring[ing] upon the stage the deeper thoughts and emotions of Ireland [?] which [was] not found in...
How does Shakespeare use or abuse the conventions of romance in as you like it?
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The world of Shakespearean comedies is undoubtedly romantic, poetic and idealized. As You Like It is no exception in this respect. Romantic in all aspects, especially form and spirit, the play presents before you a world of love, of deceit, of vulgarity, of humor, of music and what not! But it is...
Allegory of the Chronicles
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Many have felt that the Chronicles of Narnia were not allegorical. One was the famous author of the Chronicles, C.S. Lewis. Similarly to many, he felt that the stories in which he created were “not allegory but rather fairy tale, a branch of fantasy” (Duriez 97). However, Lewis's theory...
The Sage: Don Quixote
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Don Quixote, titular character of Cervantes' famous novel is certain that a scribe who is recording all of his actions will make him famous in history. Such a scribe, in the Quixotic sense, does not really exist, but Cervantes fulfills the role. If Cervantes had inserted himself into his novel...
Writing Ethically: Essays of John Edgar Wideman and Jane Tompkins
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The essays “Our Time” by John Edgar Wideman and “Indians': Textualism, Morality and the Problem of History” by Jane Tompkins are both written by people who are telling stories about experiences that are not their own. Wideman is writing about his brother Robby and all of the...
Tikai Tevi, Alexandrs Caks; Only You, Poem for Riga
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
"The Buddhists might say that the soul of a secretive and unique poet had transferred itself to a no less peculiar and secretive bird of the night?" This is how a contemporary remember the burial of Alexandrs ?aks, in February 1950. He was born in 1901 under the name of Alexandra ?adarainis ....
Judgment and Portrayal of Character in the "Love Suicides" and "What the Seasons Brought the Almanac Maker"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The two narratives of “What the Seasons Brought the Almanac Maker” by Saikaku and the “Love Suicides” by Chikamatsu present variegated looks at the complications of love and society and the need for harmony between the two. Both are prime examples of Japanese literature, full...
Power and Sexuality in "Leda and the Swan" and "Goblin Market"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Duality and opposition are forces that play beneath the surface of both William Butler Yeats' “Leda and the Swan” and Christina Rossetti's “Goblin Market”, two poems that focus on sexuality while incorporating animal figures as holders of power, both sexual and otherwise....
Essay on "The Boarding Hous", by James Joyce: A well-orchestrated "human comedy"
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
"The Boarding House?: This article, will study the most interesting aspects of Joyce's narrative technique in this short story. Joyce's (1882-1941) short story ?The Boarding House' was published in ?the Dubliners', a collection of stories set in the ?paralyzed' town of Dublin....
All in the Family: The Economics of Interpersonal Relationships in the Gulag
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The synopsis on the back cover of Alexander Solzhenistyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich claims that it is “the harrowing account of one day in the life of a man who has conceded to all things evil with patience, dignity, and enduring strength.” Like so many others, the author...
The Epileptic Loophole: Self-control and the Judiciary in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Epilepsy and the punitive system—two seemingly unrelated items that Fyodor Dostoevsky juxtaposes in order to make a point about Russia and the futility of the judiciary. In his giant oeuvre The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky exemplifies the tension between rational and irrational behavior by...
The Crucible Character Analysis : Abigail Williams "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In any unfavorable situation, we seek a solution and if there is none, then a way out. When one of main characters of Arthur Miller's The Crucible finds herself in a vulnerable position, she not only manages to escape her problems, but also succeeds in placing the repercussions of her actions on...
A critical review of 'A New Birth of Freedom: Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War by Harry V. Jaffa
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
A New Birth of Freedom: Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War by Harry V. Jaffa is the long awaited sequel to the author's 1959 book, Crisis of the House Divided. Although the specific objective of the A New Birth of Freedom is to examine Lincoln's development of the Gettysburg Address, what...
