Literature Essay Examples and Topics. Page 15

8,897 samples

Madeline in “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Poe

Her personality seems perplexing because she appears only three times: toward the middle of the story she passes "through a remote portion of the apartment"; some days after her supposed death she is seen in [...]
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 1
  • Words: 334

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Cervantes’ Novel

Cervantes was, of course, one of the first to notice the disparities between his Sancho and this unsavory imitation, and he defended his character in Don Quixote, Part I portrays master-knight relations between Don Quixote [...]
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1689

“The Star” by Arthur C. Clarke

From the discovery of the impending danger of the destruction of earth through a Supernova, the group of scientists decides to build a vault resembling Pluto which would protect them from the Supernova.
  • Subjects: British Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1514

“All Through Eternity” Poem by Rumi

All through eternity Beauty unveils His exquisite form in the solitude of nothingness; He holds a mirror to His Face and beholds His own beauty.he is the knower and the known, the seer and the [...]
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 1
  • Words: 489

“The Explosion”: Analysis of the Poem

The day the explosion happened / there was a foreboding of an accident / and the sun was the foreteller. The poem's central topic is the explosion which happened in a coal mine."At noon there [...]
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 1
  • Words: 298

Hercules by Seneca and Euripides: Comparison

The key similarity of both stories can be seen in the fact that the authors wrote a tragedy for Hercules in order to explore the role of violence in his acts of heroism.
  • Subjects: Comparative Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 565

Supernatural Elements of Act I and II in Macbeth

In the play, the supernatural things are central to the plot of the play as they provide a basis for action as Shakespeare meant them to fit in putting the play together.
  • Subjects: Plays
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 635

Geoffrey Hill’s “Genesis” Poem Analysis

The miracles illustrated in the poem represent the deamonic revision of aspects in Book of Genesis. The result is the restoration of the sacrality of the Earthly kingdom.
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 1
  • Words: 300

Critical Approach Analysis of “The Scarlet Letter”

Generally, such important themes as legalism, guilt, immorality, and sin related in the novel may be discussed through the prism of historicism, and even the very title of the novel featuring the word "scarlet" or [...]
  • Subjects: British Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1389

William Shakespeare: Hamlet and Macbeth

It is important to examine the role that the setting plays in Hamlet and Macbeth in relation to the tragic flaw and developments of the plot.
  • Subjects: British Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 559

Interpreting “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The theme and problem of woman's rights looming over the society of that day is demonstrated as the main issue at the core of the story.
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1420

“Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri

The plot revolves around the trip of the Das Indian family from the USA to India itself. Kapasi to discover the difference in "interpreting" their national and personal perception.Mr.
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 1
  • Words: 389

“Budapest” by Billy Collins: Explication

The pen and the arm are included in the description, hence the mention of the snout and the clothing. Billy Collins' "Budapest" is a representation of his creative process and the forces involved in it.
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 853

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by Thurber

Mitty also uses his authority as a commander to instruct his crew to an extent they term him as a man who fears nothing, not even hell, "The Old Man is not afraid of hell!" [...]
  • Subjects: Dramatic Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 858

Shakespeare’s Influence on Arts

The impact of his work is sometimes direct although in most cases, the impact is indirect but whichever the case; the impact of his work is felt in the arts all around us.
  • Subjects: Writers
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1465

Dante’s Poem “The Divine Comedy ”

The Divine Comedy presents three aspects of objective reality such as personal drama of the poet, the story of humanity and the structure of the universe.
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 915

The Poem ‘Song of Myself’ by Whitman

All in all, through the Song of Myself poem, Whitman presents a description of himself that demonstrates that the poet is intimately related to the concepts of life, death, and The Universe.
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 8
  • Words: 1120

Psychological Strategies to Understand Literature

This approach explores the motivations of a writer, his characters, and that of the audience, drawing on Sigmund Freud's theories and other psychoanalytic theories to understand fully the meaning conveyed in such text. The characters [...]
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 568

Parallelism in the Declaration of Independence

This is the technique that Jefferson uses in writing the Declaration of Independence. In using this technique Jefferson enumerates to illustrate the patience of an oppressed people.
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 556

Mark Twain’s Excerpt From “Life on the Mississippi”

As a result of working continuously in the steamboat on someone's payroll, the author is astonished at his failure to appreciate the marvelous qualities of the great river since he was being desensitized to its [...]
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 846

“Old Friends” by Tracy Kidder

The concept of his role is to highlight the fact that it's never too late to do what you have always wanted to do.
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 693

Magical Realism in “Tropic of Orange” by K. T. Yamashita

The extension of borders of the tropic, the contraposition between the life in LA and the life in Mexico, the change of events is a typical technique of Magical Realism, namely, hybridity that implies extensive [...]
  • Subjects: Themes in American Novels
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 660

Ovid’s and Indian Versions of the Creation Myths

In this paper I am going to compare and contrast three versions of the creation of the world: the Greek one presented in the first chapter of Ovid's Metamorphoses and two Indian myths of the [...]
  • Subjects: Mythology
  • Pages: 7
  • Words: 1912

“Nothing in That Drawer” by Ron Padgett

Additionally, the object that is for is not being found and therefore the search continues repeatedly. The use of "that drawer" suggests the use of choice and effort in evaluating and deciding which drawer to [...]
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 761

Behavior for Zeus in Lucian’s “Zeus Cross-Examined”

Zeus' opponent, Cyniscus, succeeds in setting traps for the god and becomes the unquestionable winner of the argument due to his eloquence and because of Zeus' wrong conduct and the disadvantageous position he adopts in [...]
  • Subjects: World Philosophy Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 641

“Superiority” by Arthur Clarke

The reading of Arthur Clarke's short story "Superiority" had brought me to the following set of conclusions, in regards to how story's motifs relate to particulars of my professional affiliation: The implementation of groundbreaking technologies [...]
  • Subjects: British Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1349

Chaucer’s Use of the Fabliau Genre

The most famous writers who compiled tales in this genre were Douin de Lavesne, Gauter le Leu, and Jean Bodel; some of the fabliaux were reworked by Geoffrey Chaucer in his collection of "Canterbury Tales" [...]
  • Subjects: Writers
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1111

“I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen

Olsen, portrays the hardship and low status of women in society, poverty, and the realities of working poor women. Olsen's mother understands the aimlessness and pointlessness of her life caused by the necessity to work [...]
  • Subjects: Gender in Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 584

“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” by Rowling

Hogwarts is a high street located in London it has accessibility to the wizardry world and is of economic importance to the country, it is clear from this statement that the people of London rely [...]
  • Subjects: British Literature
  • Pages: 7
  • Words: 1920

King Henry in the Play “Henry V” by W. Shakespeare

From the play's very beginning, Shakespeare establishes Henry V as responsible ruler of his subjects, who does not only impose law on others but also lives up to the requirements of the same law.
  • Subjects: Plays
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1593

“The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol

Much of the satire derives from these oppositions and from the fact that it is impossible to reliably describe the difference between doubles and opposites."The Nose" treats the seriousness of life with comicality; the author [...]
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1123

“The Gift” by Puerto Rican

The analysis of the story "The Gift" is to be concentrated on the identification of the key concepts, elements and stylistic devices, used in the author's writing for the successful representation of the main idea.
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 858

Emersonian Idealism Main Characteristics

Emerson's outlook embraced an idealistic view of the world together with the key role of nature in it, and the ultimate objective of one's life was seen in cognition and understanding of the world with [...]
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 948

Sieg Heil! War Letters of Tank Gunner Karl Fuchs

The most significant parts in the book, as for me, is the description of the acquaintance with T-34, the best tank of the World War II, and the parts, when Karl tells about the books, [...]
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1386

Langston Hughes’s Fine Clothes to the Jew Poems

Rampersad, the biographer of Langston Hughes, says that Fine Clothes to the Jew is not a successful volume, though it is Hughes's greatest collection, which was published when the poet was at the height of [...]
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 963

“In Another Country” by Ernest Hemmingway

The age of comic books that started in the 1930s brought a new breed of heroes that were the ingenious combination of the Hemmingway hero and the classical Greek Demigods; The Superheroes.
  • Subjects: Romantic Literature
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1600

“The Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes

In his famous work "The Leviathan", Thomas Hobbes refers to the natural mode of people's existence as "war of everybody against everybody", while suggesting that such war comes as a result of individuals taking a [...]
  • Subjects: World Philosophy Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 959

Athena and Gender Roles in Greek Mythology

According to Eicher and Roach-Higgins, the elements of her dress were important because they immediately communicated specific ideas about her character that was as contradictory as the physical gender of the birthing parent."In appropriating the [...]
  • Subjects: Mythology
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1608

“Ante-Bellum Sermon” the Poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Paul Lawrence Dunbar's poem "Ante-bellum Sermon" attempts to provide them with hope logically giving a Biblical example of historic events as a means of calling for a leader, physically by giving the words an easy [...]
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 687

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Kino plans to travel to another city to sell this pearl, but his brother warns that the pearl is evil and he should just sell it.
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 926

“The Displaced Person” Novella by Flannery O’Connor

O'Connor uses symbolic descriptions s and irony to create a story conflict and depict the mysterious character of Guizac. Guizac is one of the most intriguing characters: he is a Pole, a Catholic, and a [...]
  • Subjects: American Novels Writing Style
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 582

“Congo” Novel by Michael Crichton

The novel starts with the end of an expedition when people were attacked and killed by an unknown enemy, and the contact between the expedition and the outer world is lost.
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 587

Three Struggles Faced in the Aeneid

The Aeneid is a struggle between the mortal and God in the pursuit of the mortal to set up a newfound land.
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1711

Differences in the Context: Seneca, Medea & Euripides, Medea

Seneca describes the wedding in details and on this stage Medea already hates Creusa and Jason and starts thinking over her plans to take the revenge whereas in Euripides's Medea the scene with the wedding [...]
  • Subjects: Dramatic Literature
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1402

New Criticism in the English and American Literature

Consequently, any effort to state the meaning of the poem appears to be heretical, as it is an affront to the honesty of the complex arrangement of sense within the literary creation.
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 1111

“Hatchet” the Novel by Gary Paulsen

Gary Paulsen's works are different from other novels designed to appeal to young adults because of his ability to celebrate the natural terrain and the interactions of the characters with nature. The identification with the [...]
  • Subjects: Aspects of American Novels
  • Pages: 8
  • Words: 1636

Sarajevo Blues Poems by Semezdin Mehmedinovic

The honesty in which the poems of Semezdin Mehmedinovic were written might lay in the fact that for the whole period of the Serbian nationalistic siege he remained a citizen of Sarajevo.
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 865

Tennessee Williams: “Glass Menagerie” and Autor’s Life

His sister Rose, the closest person in his life and the prototype of Laura in "The Glass Menagerie", actually suffered from epilepsy and underwent a prefrontal lobotomy in the mid-1930s, which has a clearly negative [...]
  • Subjects: Writers
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1284

“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain

When the novel starts, Tom is appointed in and often the arranger of childhood tricks and make-believe games. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom's obsession with Rebecca Thatcher is obvious.
  • Subjects: American Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 482

The Role of Teachers in “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse

Vasudeva, the ferryman and the river act as the best teachers for Siddhartha in his pursuit for enlightenment; however, one cannot undermine the role played by his own father, the Samanas, Kamala, Kamaswami and Buddha [...]
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 7
  • Words: 1982

Ovid’s, Catullus’, and Sappho’s Love Poems

Again, the original rhyme is lost, though much of the original character of the words are intact, due to the close resemblance of Latin and English in much of the inherited vocabulary from French, a [...]
  • Subjects: Poems
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1807

“Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides

Another problem tackles through the utilization of expressive means is the issue of gender in general and its social construction in particular.
  • Subjects: Themes in American Novels
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1598

Hell in Dante’s Inferno and Sartre’s No Exit

For Dante, the Divine Comedy was not a substitute for the two Testaments, but an extension of them and because of this, Inferno is a critical part because it serves as a reminder of the [...]
  • Subjects: Comparative Literature
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1831

Underworld in Greek and Roman Mythology

The human personality traits determined the gods and goddesses to be immortalized, hence the actions that were observed in the myths were as a symbol of the actual actions of men.
  • Subjects: Mythology
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1642

“Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke

A balance between good and evil is the main theme of this story with its focus on character development, both within the characters of the larger text as well as with Fenoglio and the characters [...]
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 4
  • Words: 1298

Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”: Response

The utilization of children will reduce the number of "papists who, according to Swift, were "most perilous enemies" and also the "principal breeders of the nation".
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 543

Homer’s The Iliad and John Milton’s Lost Paradise

It was written after the Restoration, but the powerful voice of the poet declared that the spirit of the Revolution was not broken, that it still lived in the hearts of the people.
  • Subjects: Comparative Literature
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1907

Happiness in “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury

In the first chapter Guy Montag, the protagonist finds himself in a position that allows him to recognize the lack of genuine happiness in his life, viewing those around him as uncompassionate and disinterested shades.
  • Subjects: Themes in American Novels
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 676

“Seven Fallen Feathers” by Tanya Talaga

The existing residential school system is one of the examples provided in the text as it contributes to the deterioration of the institution of family and the native culture of people.
  • Subjects: Historical Literature
  • Pages: 6
  • Words: 1761

Director’s Notebook for “Pygmalion” by Shaw

In retrospect, the cultural context of the play was that of a period of transition from the Victorian values to the new ones and the desperate search of the ideas that could constitute a new [...]
  • Subjects: Plays
  • Pages: 20
  • Words: 5532

1950s in Wilson’s “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit”

Happiness becomes accessible through product attainment, and even the opening of the story deals with the fact that the protagonist and his wife, Tom and Betsy Rath, want to live in a better house.
  • Subjects: Themes in American Novels
  • Pages: 5
  • Words: 1474

“The Monster” Story Analysis

The identity of the character is not clear, and although the writer tries to engage the reader into understanding the uniqueness of the featured characters, there is still some aspect of ambiguity, which makes the [...]
  • Subjects: World Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 573

The Tale of Sohrab and Oedipus Tyrannus

The story of the poetic love of Rustam to a beautiful Tahmina and the betrayal of the insidious and envious Shah of Cavus create an atmosphere of tragedy and inevitability.
  • Subjects: Comparative Literature
  • Pages: 3
  • Words: 834

Robin Hood’s Case and His Strategic Issues

He was not able to stand the rule of the sheriff who had been employing the dictatorship. By creating this group, there were more plans that Robin was to make to accomplish his task of [...]
  • Subjects: British Literature
  • Pages: 2
  • Words: 590