Introduction Among numerous short stories by American writer, poet, and novelist John Updike, one of the most popular and best-known ones is A&P. A&P was first published in The New Yorker in 1961 and later became a part of a short story collection named Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories. The...
The authors of literary works and plays endow each of their characters with certain character traits so that readers and viewers can evaluate the characters, understand their actions and thoughts, and compare them with other heroes. Some tragic heroes have faced a lot of misfortunes, and although they are initially...
Exhalation is a collection of nine science fiction short tales by Ted Chiang. The stories published in 2019 contain time travel, robots, artificial intelligence, and humans coping with an ever-changing environment. Seven of the nine tales had previously been published and had gone on to win Hugo, Nebula, and Locus...
Introduction A community or a person might be evaluated based on their historical contributions. Tanya Talaga’s short story “Seven Fallen Feathers” provides an insightful and critical look at a community shaken up due to circumstances that call their morals and value systems into question. It allows the reader to experience...
Introduction Women are portrayed as both villains and victims in the Gothic novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle, published in 1962, upending the typical portrayal of women in conventional Gothic literature. Mary Kate, a young woman, and Constance, a housewife who appears to be kind and selfless, are...
Introduction The novel Ask the Dust by John Fante tells a semi-biographical tale of a young man in 1939 Los Angeles, in the midst of the Great Depression, seeking to become an aspiring author. Upon arrival, the youthful Arturo Bandini is hopeful and full of ambition but has a level...
The Development of Satan’s Character in Paradise Lost Some of the significant character traits of Satan are pride, selfishness, and evil. In Paradise Lost, Satan comes out as the primary protagonist or a hero of what the story is all about. In this case, Satan struggles to conquer his weaknesses...
Introduction Adolescence is the transitional stage from childhood to adulthood, occurring between 13 and 19 years of age. However, the psychological and physical changes occurring during adolescence usually begin much earlier, in the pre-teenage years, between 9 and 12. Adolescence is both a time of discovery and disorientation. At that...
Introduction Abandonment, manifested from both an individual human perspective and as a general social problem, is one of the main themes of Zusak’s (2016) “The Book Thief.” The children and adult characters demonstrate the worries and anxieties associated with the forced need to endure the difficulties that fell to their...
Introduction Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry is one of the brightest and most heartfelt stories, filled with warmth, light, kindness, and a friendly atmosphere. Consequently, Hoke and Miss Daisy are the main actors in the work, the friendship between which is revealed from hatred to love, respect and recognition....
Introduction The short story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara is a short literary piece of first-person narration interpreting the experience of children’s learning about inequality. Using a simple linear narration structure, the author manages to articulate the complexity of social injustices in American society that has to be challenged...
Introduction Andre Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs depicts the human and canine realms colliding in a fascinating social experiment. The author describes a bunch of dogs that Greek Gods have given human intellect. Readers follow the canines as they battle to repress or adjust to human-like traits in an emotionally compelling story....
Introduction The book Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis spans the personal and political lives of the individuals who were instrumental in setting the course for the United States of America. It focuses on various aspects, including the collaboration of the revolutionary generation, the issue of slavery at the time, the...
Introduction Literature is a highly significant part of people’s lives nowadays, though everyone engages in it for different reasons. Someone likes to drown in the plot and read exciting stories, and someone analyzes everything they read in an attempt to expand their knowledge. However, some people do not appreciate literature...
Sympathy While going through the circles of Hell, Dante observes many sinners being punished for their wrong-doings. The horrors of their damnation induce a great many emotions in the main character, such as fear, perplexity, and sympathy. Having shown pity, Dante is reproved by Virgil, “Who is a greater reprobate...
Domenico di Michelino is one of the most renowned canvas painters born and raised in Florence, Italy. He worked as a painter at the Florentine School, where he was a great enthusiast of the Fra Angelico painting style. Domenico di Michelino is majorly known for incorporating some of the significant...
Target Audience: Adults of all genders, ages, and ethnicities concerned with the compromised position of women in society. Purpose: To use the examples from Glaspell’s Trifles to demonstrate that sex discrimination and family violence are harmful to both men and women and evaluate the play to recommend it to readers....
Oedipus Rex is one of the classical and tragic stories narrated by Sophocles. Throughout the story, Oedipus is a King who faces many challenges which seem to be classified as a tragic flaws of life. After he was born, his parents prophesied that he would kill his father and marry...
Dante is one of the most outstanding artists of all time. Thanks to his most famous work, The Divine Comedy, it can be argued that the writer has a special attitude towards the role of poetry in the life of society. First of all, it is worth noting that this...
Introduction Harriet Jacobs, the author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, was born in 1813 and died in 1897 in North Carolina. Her parents, Delilah and Elijah, were enslaved by Margaret Horniblow and Andrew Knox. Later, while still an enslaved person, Jacobs worked for Dr. James Norcon,...
Introduction Dante’s Divine Comedy continues to be relevant to contemporary studies because it contains a mystery about the structure of the world. The images and ideas he creates are essential for learning something about oneself or the world. Each canto in work gradually reveals to the reader information about the...
Tennessee Williams’s play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof presents a day in a life of a family living in a plantation home and debating on the matters of existence, marriage, heritage, and sexual orientation. One of the main personages, Brick, is a man of misguiding conduct, and, starting from...
Sigmund Freud develops the notion of higher fate forces that man seems to confront as part of reality. This discussion highlights a personal take on Freud’s interpretation and how it has become relevant in the 21st century. In interpreting Oedipus Tyrannus, Sigmund Freud focuses on the entire experience as a...
Introduction People often take inspiration for their choices of self-expression from looking at their past and recognizing the progress made. A similar phenomenon is observed in poetry, where past experiences define the changes affecting modern pomes, both in terms of their content and their formal elements. The latter is especially...
Oryx and Crake is a fiction novel with a speculating genre, that was written by a Canadian author, Margaret Atwood in the year 2003. It mainly focuses on a man named Snowman who finds himself living with Crakers to provide company in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world. Through flashbacks into the...
Introduction Numerous studies have reached varying conclusions as to whether intelligence brings happiness. While intelligence makes a person enjoy numerous things like riches and success, it does not necessarily make humans happier. Indeed, it can be argued that animals with less intelligence live more fulfilling lives than humans. A good...
The article, A Sublet in Washington Heights, by Angie Cruz, is a short personal essay about a lady who lives alone and works as a freelance writer. The lady returned from college upstate in 1997 to study at New York University. She found a one-bedroom rental house in her old...
The excerpt “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros is a work that touches on names and how they are related to one’s identity. Throughout the text, the author speaks about the context behind her name and how she perceives it. Moreover, the main character of the story looks back on how...
Robert Nozick ontologizes the text and its body; it consists of logical constructs such as words, connectives, punctuation marks, and quantifiers. Robert Nozick (1980) writes: “The only thing mere speaking can create, we know, is a story, a play, an epic poem, a fiction. Where we live is create by...
The drama “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is divided into three acts, takes place in a proscenium theater, and has multiple expositions. The play is about the Pollitt family. This is a play about a family, and it involves several different individuals, each of whom represents a different concept....
Introduction The story of Oedipus raises several philosophical questions throughout the narrative and makes readers think about some aspects of life. However, the central issue of “Oedipus, the King” is the conflict between fate and the consequences of human choices. The main character is terrified of the predicted future and...
The major distinction between appearance and reality is that the first notion refers to how something seems, whereas reality refers to how things truly are or the genuine condition of anything. The play’s core issue is the disparity between perception and reality. Nothing is as it seems and nothing is...
The paper shows the story presented by Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “The Most Handsome Drowned Man in The World.” The narrator explains to writers that humanity has created an unhealthy romantic relationship with the surrounding world, and the quote “happily ever after” should not be the source of hope. The...
Dutchman is a one-act drama created by Amiri Barak (whose real name is LeRoi Jones). The play premiered in the 70s of the previous century, at the beginning of the Civil Rights Era. Clay, an African-American male dressed in a traditional suit, and Lula, a white lady, interact on a...
Introduction The Iliad is a cyclical poem that forms the basis of the Ancient Greece heroic epics. The poem is a reworking and combination of older legends about the heroes. It describes the events of the tenth year of the siege of Troy-Ilion by the combined army of the Achaeans...
Introduction The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published on June 26, 1948, in The New Yorker. The action in the story takes place in a non-existent settlement in the countryside that hosts an annual ceremony called the Lottery in which one member of the community is...
Summary The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell portrays the dynamic societal-based gender roles. Over the decades, the difference between masculinity and femininity fostered the significant marginalization and biased distribution of benefits. The play focuses on the impact of societal practices on distinctive gender roles and the trickle-down effect. The play’s...
Introduction Both Aldous Huxley and Bertrand Russell wrote well-known pieces of literature that relate to the global issue of freedom from fear. While Russell calls for courage to reject God’s power and embrace life and liberty, Huxley’s novel is set in a world without wars, pain, or fear. Although both...
Flint, Thomas P. “On the Significance of Civil War References in Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.’” Renascence, vol. 70, no. 2, 2018, pp. 119-128. In the article, Flint describes four references to the Civil war in the short story “A good Man Is Hard to Find”...
Introduction The novel Before We Were Yours written by Lisa Wingate raises the topic of tough childhood with traumatizing events. Even though the novel is fictional, it retells the stories of real people that were living in a Tennessee orphanage. The trauma of being put through human trafficking cannot be...
Introduction Purpose Of the Book The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave is mainly dedicated to promotion of anti-slavery and abolitionism. The Northern Americans of the time limited themselves to “hiding the outcast”, and the book motivates them to welcome the runaway slaves more openly. To...
Introduction The United States has always been a home to numerous talented poets who created their art in different time periods. On many occasions, the American poets reflected the circumstances which surrounded them in their poetry and used their writing as a tool to explore the current social phenomena and...
The novel Ceremony, published in 1977, is rightly considered Silko’s best work to date. The theme of the one-sided military experience of the Indians naturally merges in the book with the theme of bitterness over the lost land, with the rejection of which all the social rights of the “native...
Introduction The following articles have been chosen for my proposal for one of America’s most beloved plays Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. The topic I have chosen is Melancholy, Madness, and the sanity level the main character goes through in the play. Drama is a form of literature made to be...
Chapter 7 of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini explores complicated issues. For instance, the book’s characters Amir and Hassan fell into a disturbing situation that creates tension while reading. Amir was the protagonist and the narrator, an Afghan male who was affected by the betrayal of his friend Hassan....
In The School for Scandal, Sheridan expressively outlined the object of satire – a specific society and a particular social phenomenon – slander. There are a lot of sharp phrases and thoughtful expressions in the play, and the poisonous witticisms of the characters capture and enchant. Three storylines can be...
The play Trifle describes difficult life of a woman in a family and portrays how her husband stands in her way to freedom and acknowledgement. The play is full of details that show the woman’s suffering in the family where she is denied self-expression. This paper hypothesizes that the play...
Civilization is where a society of people reaches an advanced stage of social and cultural development. William Golding explores the need for civilization in his novel Lord of the Flies. In this novel, a group of boys get stranded on a deserted island after their plane is shot down. The...
Introduction Published in 2007, Junot Diaz’s debut novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” raises many though-provoking questions, dealing with the themes of culture, racism, identity, coming of age, love, and family. The novel is set in a neighborhood in Paterson, New Jersey, and follows the life of an...
In poetry, the term “metaphysical” describes pieces that can provide a new perspective to the reader, eye-catching texts, imagery using descriptive words, religious arguments, and analogies. These texts incorporate many ideas, and Samuel Johnson criticizes them, noting that these poems have disorganized points. Metaphysical poems use various opinions with different...
Introduction Yershalaim, a Jewish-based city around 1930s Moscow, was where Bulgakov set his novel ‘Master and Margarita,’ which depicted Jesus’ life and death. Mikhail and Ponyrev, both authors, are debating a poem authored by Ponyrev throughout the introduction. As a result of Mikhail’s complaints, Mikhail accused Ponyrev of portraying Jesus...
Introduction Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is a revolutionary work on the subject of social history. A People’s History is recognized for its vibrant, straightforward writing style as well as its educational value. It narrates the story of America through the eyes and words of women, industrial...
The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara is a powerful story that engages me with its suspenseful plot and well-developed characters. The story follows a group of poor African American kids who are gathered together on a hot summer day to learn about life from an elderly lady named Mrs. Moore...
Published in 1960, Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird has become one of the most well-known works in American literature. Influenced by tense racial issues and the Civil Rights movement, which developed rapidly in the 1960s, Lee managed to create a relatable story that had a major impact on...
Introduction Whether Antigone or Creon is the hero of Sophocles’ play “Antigone” is hotly debated. Aristotle believed that a hero was noble by nature but possessed a tragic flaw, known as hamartia, that made him tragic. To be a hero, one must have a high social standing while still maintaining...
The dramatic impact of parents and their parenting choices in their children’s further development is undeniable. In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily’s father clearly exerts a tangibly domineering presence, which affects the lead character significantly. Despite being eventually freed from his influence and no longer being in the shadow of...
Introduction Kindred are a science-fiction short-story by Octavia Butler, a renowned author in this genre. The novel chronicles Dana’s experiences, which is the main character. She is an African American woman celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday while moving into their newly purchased suburban house in Los Angeles. Her husband, Kevin, is...
Introduction The problem of racial identity as part of an understanding of one’s identity as a whole is one of the most sensitive topics in contemporary society, in which racial discrimination and ethnic tolerance coexist. The strict separation of people into races based on the color of their skin could...
Introduction Adrienne Rich is an American publicist, poetess, and participant in the second wave of feminism. Adrienne was born in 1929 in Baltimore and died from the effects of rheumatoid arthritis in 2012 in Santa Cruz. The author was close to the ideas of the new left and participated in...
Introduction In his short story, John Updike uses imagery and symbolism to convey the message of emotional intelligence and sound decision-making. The author focuses on the character Sammy and through the interactions in the store he works, establishes the detriment of hasty decision-making. Updike also uses descriptive language to place...
The Poems of Rita Joe, first book of the author’s poems, was published in 1978 and has become a classic among readers. In this collection, there is a poem by Robert Frost. An original poem will be created for the occasion by Mi’kmaq poet and vocalist Rita Joe. According to...
Introduction The poetry of Stephen Duck and Mary Collier presents an unusual way of discussing the social severe inequalities of their times. Significantly, while both of the above authors responded to pastoral poetry that called for humility, Collier also responded to her colleague by providing an alternative point of view....
Introduction Having no experience in the theater, Susan Glaspell created a play at home at her desk, but she came to check the characters’ actions on the theater platform and mercilessly deleted scenes that did not pass the test. The debut of Susan Glaspell has proven to be so successful...
Introduction Often, writers reveal their thoughts in works not directly, but through details and trifles. It is these tools that are able to recreate the atmosphere and imbue the spirit of the story with the reader in order to better understand what is happening. Oates does the same in his...
The Plague by Albert Camus is a unique novel, one of the best literary works in existential literature. The main character Dr. Rieux embodies the Camusian principles of existentialism, preaching and putting into practice the philosophy of opposition to social, political, and religious norms (Anene et al. 3). Other heroes...
Hills Like White Elephants is a by Ernest Hemingway popular for extensive application of dialogue as a writing technique. It talks about an American man and a girl seated, conversing about their unborn child while having drinks as they wait for the to come. Dialogue has been used to help...
Introduction In ‘Kindred’, Octavia Butler recounts Dana Franklin’s experience as she travels in time from 1976 to 1815 and back. Through the prism of time travel and the sharp contrast between present and future, the reader manages to see the tragic time of slavery. Diana has to survive in a...
This is how Evgenia Triantafyllou portrays the inner conflict of the main character of her short story My Country Is a Ghost. The ghost of the mother of the main character, Niovi, symbolizes the cultural identity, which ties her to her home country and how lost and longing she feels...
The fantastic law of nature, revealed by the author, is, in fact, worthy of more attention than the natural tradition of a single region. Indeed, the geese arriving in March carry not only an enviable constancy and unprecedented risk but also world experience, a piece of the sky and sunlight...
The poem “Tu Do Street” by Komunyakaa Yusef is a well-articulated piece of art that provides his personal experience in Vietnam. The poem fails to concentrate on fighting and war in Vietnam, but provides an extensive analysis of the social life the soldiers endured. The two main themes describing the...
Introduction Literature is sometimes known as the mirror of life. Regardless of genre, stories that we read reflect on our own experiences and lives. With some, I can relate and make an emotional connection with the characters undergoing the same peaks and lows in life that I have. In contrast,...
The phenomenon of race, particularly the perception thereof and the effects that the specified perception has had on American institutions, has been shaping the discourse regarding the management of crime in the U.S. to a noticeable extent. Specifically, the emergence of nuances regarding the connection between sex-based discrimination, gender roles,...
Introduction M Butterfly is a play written by David Henry Hwang and is a rewriting of the Butterfly myth by Puccini. The main characters of the story are Gallimard, a French diplomat, who falls in love with Song, a Chinese singer and actor, whom Gallimard sees as a woman, but,...
One of the dynamically developing literary genres is a travelogue, describing characters’ travels as part of the discovery of new knowledge and personal development. The basis of this genre was travel notes of travelers, which later transformed into a formalized narrative of fiction with a plot and some morality. The...
Introduction In the poem “Borderlands,” which is the key work of Gloria Anzaldua, the poetic elements that give the work a special meaning and content deserve to be considered. This author is a distinguished researcher and practitioner of Chicana theory, which studies the intermediate mixed-racial people of the Spanish American...
The book In His Steps by Sheldon remains one of the most well-known examples of religious fiction that presents and solves social dilemmas with the help of Christian thought. The novel follows the lives of many characters and narrates how they change because of the simple phrase, “What Would Jesus...
Introduction It is important to note that human progress is a process conducted through a new framework of thought, innovation and collective effort. The Renaissance was a major turning point in human social evolution, where new forms of art, literature, and philosophy emerged. Thus, the printing press birthed and catalyzed...
Introduction Milton’s political context and political poetry are essential for many reasons. Firstly, they help contextualize the work by assisting readers in understanding the historical and social setting in which these works were produced. Secondly, it can also give an understanding of some of Milton’s points within the text. Milton...
Introduction In this novel, In His Steps, Charles Monroe Sheldon shows the readers how different people perceive the city of Raymond. The shabby man sees the city’s residents as hypocritical liars who pretend to be good people. Norman wants to perceive people as truly interested in Christianity, who are innocent...
Despite an overall intention to demonstrate how the role of women in Frankenstein is diminished and minimized, Shelley cannot ignore the fact that gender inequality underlines female impact in society. The story of Victor Frankenstein is based on multiple attempts to challenge women by creating new creatures and recognizing male...
Introduction Women’s empowerment is an ongoing social movement founded on the notions of equality, fairness, and justice. Within the past three centuries, numerous issues have emerged that reveal that such a journey has been a risky and challenging one. From the mid-19th century, these members of society encountered numerous predicaments,...
In the story of King of the Bingo Game, Ralph Ellison talks about twists of fate and the ability of people to control it. The image of a bingo wheel is a metaphor for a person’s life path, where there are ups and downs, and it is as unpredictable as...
Toni Bambara tackles many themes in his short work Gorilla, My Love. If you perceive the story from the point of view of Hazel, the main character, you can understand that the main idea is betrayal. The girl concludes that adults cannot be trusted as they do not tell the...
Introduction Literature can be considered a collection of all written works but narrowed to view the artistic forms of writing such as stories, poems, drama, and plays. They were meant to serve a different purpose with most considered education and entertainment such as folk songs. However, the literature was spread...
An alternate ending is a story conclusion considered, written, or developed but was ultimately rejected in preference for a different resolution. Alternative endings are frequently assumed to have minimal impact on the standard plot. Consequently, whenever critics and test audiences disagree with the filmmaker’s concept, the producers may create other...
Among the variety of dramatic genres that gravitate towards one of the two poles, joy or deep sorrow, tragedy is the apotheosis of the latter. If the genre of tragedy and drama originated in Ancient Greece, then the very nature of this phenomenon should have much in common with the...
In the book Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, Robert T. Kiyosaki presents two opposing perspectives on financial wellbeing. He writes that the main difference between Rich Dad and Poor Dad is the former’s attention to...
Introduction The medical community in the past did not adequately recognize postpartum depression, and this problem was presented in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” It was a short story about a woman who recently gave birth to a child and developed psychiatric issues. She lived in a mansion rented...
Introduction In the literary works of J.K. Rowling, many magical narratives have been handed on to new generations. In the Harry Potter series, the author has produced one of the most well-known and eye-catching storylines in which mythical entities only found in myths are real (Potter, 1998). J.K. Rowling’s Harry...
Metamorphosis is Franz Kafka’s famous work published in 1915 in German and later translated into English in 1933. Kafka’s literature work provides readers with an unexpected persona transformation into a bug and the impact it creates on his family, identity, and state of awareness. The technique used by Kafka has...
Introduction One of the seminal literary works of the past century remains Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. The widespread public popularity and academic acclaim of this work make the play particularly important in the context of literary analysis. Miller based the plot on the tragic story of Willie...
Introduction A reliable narrator is a character whose authority is not questioned. The question of the authenticity of a work of art is essential for the correct interpretation of the author’s intention (Yacobi 113). The feature of unreliability can be endowed with a character of any age and social status....
The European reputation of the playwright Richard Sheridan was based primarily on his top work – the comedy “The School for Scandal.” The main aspects of Sheridan’s play were the portrayal of gossip and slander as a widespread social vice, revealing their role in the life of society and the...
The narrative, A Rose for Emily, is about an eccentric spinster, Emily Grierson, the protagonist of the novel. Emily’s peculiar situations and unusual interactions with her parent and her companion, Homer Barron, are recounted by an unknown storyteller. Emily is seen purchasing poison that the residents believe she plans to...
Introduction It is important to note that the short story “Trifles” was written by Susan Glaspell. The plot is centered around a murder event of Mr. Wright, where the local men investigate the scene separately from their wives. The selected character of interest is Mrs. Peters, the wife of the...
A Doll House play written by Henrik Ibsen focuses on the complications of life and marriage of women at the end of the 19th century. The play explores the conflict between the old world, where women valued for beauty and obedience were treated as objects by their husbands, and the...