Free American Literature Essay Examples & Topics. Page 14

1,978 samples

Hills Like White Elephants by Hemingway

The setting of the place also seems perfect for the discussion that the couple had. This demonstrates that she is comfortable with the pregnancy should it happen to be the outcome of their action.
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 571

“Ligeia” a Book by Edgar Allan Poe

Since the fact that the narrator is not in full control of the mind, this is made very apparent by the author, it could mean that Ligeia and Rowena are really the same people and [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1185

‘Burger Boy’ by Jerry Newman

The policy of the management to make the current workers in charge of assignments that were usually not their responsibility had led to the dissatisfaction with the service not only of the clients but of [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1146

“The Scarlet Letter” a Novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This essay asserts that the role of the narrator in The Scarlet Letter functions more as social critic of the Puritanical values that founded the United States; the narrator of The Scarlet Letter represents Hawthorne's [...]
  • Pages: 8
  • Words: 1941

“Into the Wild” a Book by Jon Krakauer

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer tackles McCandless's life, starting with the discovery of McCandless dead body in a bus, Krakauer takes a journey back into McCandless life as a graduate through his disappearance to [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1222

American Literature Course: Reason for Attaining

Literary works have always been a source of fascination and enjoyment for me, and it is due to this that I have taken this course not out of any particular reason outside of that I [...]
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 1087

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

It remains evident that the primary goal of the book is to display the existence of the dramatic social gap in income, inequalities, and the ability of the people to find the way out of [...]
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 846

African Americans in Langston Hughes’s Poems

The tone and spirit of the poems display the author's frustration with the fate of African Americans. In addition, because the poem is the brightest example of Harlem period, the presence of musical elements contributes [...]
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 819

“The Open Boat” a Book by Stephen Crane

The mood in the story is melancholic, partly due to the predicament of the boat and its occupants. According to the description of the boat in the book, there is little space for the sailors [...]
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 831

American Protest Literature: Native American Injustices

Native American protest literature was mostly characterised by non-fictional stories written in the form of autobiographies, short stories and novels that were authored in response to the American society's infringement of the Native American people's [...]
  • Pages: 10
  • Words: 2918

“Breadwinning Daughters” a Book by Katrina Srigley

This paper examines the major tenets of the book and evaluates their significance to the history of Women in Canada. The writer introduces the book to readers by showing how women contributed to development in [...]
  • Pages: 8
  • Words: 2226

“Osage County” a Drama by Tracy Letts

Being also preoccupied with the problems in her marriage and separation with her husband, Barbara Fordham works hard on trying to settle the relationships in her family and on understanding what goes wrong with her [...]
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 562

John Updike’s Story “A&P”

The final line brings closure to the story by showing that despite Sammy's efforts to please the three girls and even going to the extent of quitting his job, they hardly appreciate his gesture and [...]
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 626

Humanism in African-American Literature

The fact that this was indeed the case can be illustrated, in regards to the story's episode, in which Sonny expresses his contempt of the narrator's idea that it is thoroughly natural for people to [...]
  • Pages: 8
  • Words: 2237

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hence is the unique peculiarity of the narration: the short story is interpreted as the text with the contradictions. Hawthorne uses his favorite device of the ironic ambiguous features, the shift of the viewpoint from [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1106

Journey to Self in “Quicksand” by Nella Larsen

From the very beginning of the novel, the author reveals the problem of the individual and its place in society. And vice versa, in the society of the black, she experiences the white side of [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1177

“Sister Carrie” by Theodore Dreiser

The life in the city turns out to be a complete disappointment to her, and she is ready to give up as she does not want to be a burden for her sister.
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1130

Life-Challenges in “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan

Thus, Wu Xing implies that the universe's building blocks exist in the state of circumstantial uncertainty depending on what happened to be the qualitative features of how one of the elements relates to the other, [...]
  • Pages: 12
  • Words: 3328

Local Customs and Traditions in the US

This difference in customs impacting behavior can be seen in the story "My Mother, the Crazy African" wherein Lin is ashamed of her mother who is thoroughly immersed in her Nigerian culture and background despite [...]
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 623

Creating the Illusion of Life in Literature

The black death in the meaning of a shame which has been planted into one's life could also be the death of the young and beautiful Docia, the death of her hopes for the future [...]
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 665

Art of Love by Ovid

Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that the criteria for the evaluation should be applied to the times when the book was created and the materials that do not fear the grip of time, the [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1323

Sea Oak’ by George Saunders

The reason for this is that, despite the unconventional sounding of the story's plot line, it appears innately consistent with what happened to be the socially suppressed unconscious anxieties, on the part of readers.
  • Pages: 9
  • Words: 2541

“Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck

The main problem is that Doc is unable to find his own happiness, and at the end, he is still a lonesome individual who has to seek consolation in music and art.
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1376

Holy War over Ground Zero by Joseph Bottum Literature Analysis

Joseph Bottum makes several powerful points regarding the constitutional independence of religion, but because he begins with some assumptions about the proposal for the building project that is inaccurate, he thus irritatingly casts into question [...]
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 602

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Literature Analysis

One of the reasons for this is that in her novel Plath was able to show that, contrary to what used to be the psychiatric convention of the fifties, one's depression-triggering sense of inadequateness does [...]
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1677

Rise from Gold by Victor Villaseñor

Family plays a pivotal role in shaping the structure and the plot of the novel. The main aim of the paper is to understand how family is portrayed in the novel.
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1466

Perspectives in Fae Myenne Ng’s “Bone”

First of all, its cultural perspective is easy to identify for the mainstream readers, the writer sheds the light to the life of a family of the Chinese immigrants and their descendents.
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 889

Generation Gap in “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan

Though the concept of the gap between generations and the cultural issues are mostly conveyed through the specifics of the characters' interactions, the setting has also contributed greatly to the creation of the unique atmosphere, [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1135

“The Lesson” by Tony Bambara

The primary intention of Miss Moore is to expose the children to the outside world away from the everyday oppression and limited opportunities.
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 570

Literature Studies: The Fat Girl by Andre Dubus

The Fat Girl has a specific plot that helps to understand the connection between culture and identity and define the power of culture over identity through the discussions about the image of American body, its [...]
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1194

The Poem “1861” by Walt Whitman

Furthermore, the description of the character and appearance of the soldier is used in the poem to describe the progress, intensity, as well as the overall effects, brought about by the Civil war.
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 874

The Book “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl's focus on the beauty and loneliness of her journey, through the desert and the mountains, overshadow her quest to reach her destination because the main message in her narration focuses on her experiences, as [...]
  • 1
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1096

“A Desperate Adventure” by Max Adeler

In conclusion, it is possible to note that the central theme of the short story is ability of one person to help people cope with their problems and live on.
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 564

If I Close My Eyes by Nancy Levin

This is one of the questions that are of great interest to this poet because she wants to show that memory is closely tied to imagination.
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1099

“A & P” by John Updike

Updike in the short story "A & P" uses Sammy, a teenager who is employed as a clerk in a grocery shop to illustrate the difficulties involved in the process of growing up.
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 615

The Big Squeeze by Steven Greenhouse

According to the author, in the past three decades, many American workers have continued to work past their retirement age to solve the problem of their insufficient retirement incomes.
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 823

Mental Illness as a Theme of The Yellow Wallpaper

As it appears from the novel, the reason why the narrator and her husband John decided to spend their summer vacation in a secluded mansion is that this proved beneficial to the narrator's mental condition.
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1381

“How to Write a War Story” by Tim O’Brien

The road to maturity for the narrator is through his intercourse with the war, and the readers are made aware that the true nature of the narrator in the story beginning when he relates that [...]
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 903

Jerome Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

Thus, this paper, starting with the outline of characters and plot, discusses potential interpretations of The Catcher in the Rye and proposes the opinion of the paper's author.
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1209

“Henry’s Freedom Box” Review

Children's books are often written to address the issues of the bigger society, in the hope that they will learn what not to do and how to live full and successful lives."Henry's Freedom Box" is [...]
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 560

Comic Elements in The Lieutenant of Inishmore

In spite of the fact the play is full of violence and blood, this work makes the audience laugh because of exaggerated absurdity of the demonstrated actions where brutality and impulsivity are presented at their [...]
  • 5
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 831

Lessons of Wisdom From Seniors to Youth

In this respect, the author's close affiliation with her grandparents came as a particularly valuable asset, because by listening to their life-stories, Hooks grew to realize the fact that, allegorically speaking, one's endowment with the [...]
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1143