Themes in American Novels Essay Examples and Topics

Towards the end of the story, Mathilde Loise decides to tell the truth to Madame Forestier concerning the necklace and the misery that she had undergone.

Based on the actions of the grandmother it can be said that the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" contains subtle religious overtones portraying how aesthetics and what it means to truly [...]

The population had to work hard to pay taxes to the state and various fees required by the Church that assured them of the importance of that.

The first experimental device applied by the author is borrowing of the biblical motives to render the historical events which serve as the basis of the novel.

From the beginning of the story, the reader anticipates the happy ending especially when the author describes the meeting of Desiree and Armand Aubigny who had fallen in love with each other at the first [...]

The focal point of this paper is to present a symbolic criticism of the play "Fences" by August Wilson with a special emphasis on the significance of Gabriel in the play.

The paper will examine how Naylor manages to achieve this through an analysis of the main idea, stylistic devices and classification of the piece.

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 [...]

But the mismatch of the real-life and the world of the primer becomes obvious to the reader from the first pages of the novel.

The theme is very intricate and it finds its realization in different aspects of the book, such as the authorship the author's tone that can be perceived while reading, the genre, the choice of the [...]

The setting is the poverty-ridden streets of Chicago and a realistic peep into the lives of the two brothers Lafeyette and Pharaoh.

African American literature during this turbulent period in the lives of African Americans was heavily influenced by the rise in radicalism, enlightenment and the advent of industrialization.

Its main theme is slavery but it also exhibits other themes like the fight by Afro-Americans for freedom, the search for the identity of black Americans and the appreciation of the uniqueness of African American [...]

The father and his son expect the arrival of God and they see a final destination on God's side. The old man stands near the road for a long time and he is the only [...]

Judging by the way the short story handles the themes, plot, and literary tools, The Last Leaf is a literary masterpiece.

In the story of the motion of light in water, Delany marries a girl after making her pregnant, although the two try to stay together; the relationship ends up in a split after Delany realizes [...]

Joseph Campbell in the introduction to "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" writes: A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and [...]

The constitution was drafted by the framers in such a manner that only White men who owned acres of land and property would be given the right to voice their opinion and decide the functioning [...]

The play shows the contrast between the representatives of American folk and Yankee on the basis of Jonathan's behavior and manners.

Her response is to try her best to make up for her crime by satisfying each and every demand of Beloved to the extent of literally enslaving herself to the girl.

The general mood for this era at least for the creative minds that produce novels, poems, and other works of art can be summarized using the words of one commentator who pointed to the numbing [...]

Through the symbolism they pertain to, both pieces of work are an undeniably true reflection of the socio-economic and political struggles in the turn of the 19th century, as well as within the New Deal [...]

The novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane considers the issue of women's work in the late 19th century United States, and the main focuses of the novel are the unprotected work [...]

The sinister nature of the novel is inferred in the title which derives from the Hebrew word, Ba'al-zvuv which means god of the fly, host of the fly or literally the Lord of Flies a [...]

Being the brain and the intellectual reason of the family, the husband wisely guides the ship of his matrimonial unit through all the possible mishaps and traps and takes the necessary precautions in order to [...]

The novel 'The Third Life of Grange Copeland' by Alice Walker is dedicated to the highlight of economical and racist oppression suffered by the society; it is a set of lives depicting gradual formation of [...]

The nurse behavior makes the readers to help and to think over the mental hospital establishment since the indifference of the doctors and nurses frightens.

Despite the fact that, throughout story's entirety, Cal is being presented to us as "progressive" educator, who seriously believed that endowing Donny with strongly defined sense of self-respect could have helped Daisy's son to straighten [...]

Various attempts by April throughout the novel reveals her desperateness as a teenager to fulfill the criteria set by white, however, as an adult, April feels and experiences the endeavor to observe the creation of [...]

He felt like a living dead, in a coffin still to be drained of his blood, and yet, he seeks spiritual answers and is interested in the "psychic underside of sexuality" as Boroff explicitly suggested.

Through the story, the writer explains the tragic life of the Professor and how she recalls the story of her life which she spent without anybody to care and love for.

In the memoir "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" Bryson advances and proves the thesis about the necessity of childhood reminiscences in everyone's life.

It is necessary to underline the fact that in the modern world the concept of racial profiling is considered to be common rather than unheard or unknown; the essay under analysis allows evaluating the author's [...]

The story begins when the narrator, Amir, is supposedly 38 years old, and the tale he tells is essentially a flashback over the events of his life that have brought him to this point.

There is a powerful cultural perception of the behaviors of the three groups, the father and the brother on one side, the mother and the grandmother on the other side, and the American media and [...]

Though the themes in the stories are different, both convey a message which is strong enough and thought-provoking to the readers.

The image of storm is used by Kate Chopin as a metaphor to describe the romantic feelings that explode in the hearts of the two people, Alcee and Calixta.

By tracing through Hemingway's life in conjunction with his stories such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", one can begin to trace some of the ideas that characterized Hemingway's life and thinking.

The social adaptation of veterans in civil world is one of the main problems which may lead to veterans' estrangement if they are not accepted by society.

The author's aim is to make people know and think, and whether they agree or not it is the problem of these people."Walden" by Henry David Thoreau is the piece of work where the author [...]

The main point of the novel is that there is a certain, indescribable element that draws us out into the wild and out of the confines of society.

To be more specific, the consideration of actions and motivations of the protagonists of the stories so that to see what courage meant to them and to the authors.

Against the background of buying and selling of slaves, the hard work they are forced to do, the inhuman, degrading treatment meted out to them, and the riches made from them by most of the [...]

"The Fat Girl" written by Andre Dubus illustrates the main problem of modern civilization that is the problem of the overweight. Andre Dubus used a number of cognitive metaphors to show the liveliness and the [...]

She is the perfect Victorian example of what Edna is expected to be, but Edna is incapable of keeping up the act, which is all her marriage and family really are to her.

Steinbeck manages to capture the isolation and sexual frustration of Elisa Allen, the reason for her tears, through his characterization of her while she is tending the chrysanthemums, the interaction that occurs between Elisa and [...]

In the novel, we see April and Frank Wheeler as a youthful, presumably flourishing couple who lives a contented life with their two offspring in a well-to-do Connecticut neighborhood in the middle of the 1950s.

In the New Jersey-based stories, the narrators, all of whom may or may not be Yunior, share Yunior's sensibility: the suspicious watchfulness and defensive stance, the blighted relationship with the father figure, and the uneasiness [...]

The novel was written only in some months; it is considered to be inferior to the brilliant author's novels of the 1920s. The novel appeared in 1935, in the period when the USA and the [...]

In the novel, the main character, Clare Kendry, defines herself in terms of her family; she is concerned solely with the welfare of her children and the degree to which her husband's infidelity threatens her [...]

The play is made by the author in the way representing the memories of the main characters through the flashbacks along with the real scenes of the play.

Due to the revolution created by his blatant disclosures in the novel, Ellis began to be considered as the voice of the young generation and literary critics started to refer to the book as representing [...]

In consequence, the book became a model source of reading that inspired people to further take on the issues of race in the USA and throughout the world.

Ana brings out the pains of living in exile in America for most of the Cubans, some of whom had a life in their former homes. A new beginning in Miami is the fate of [...]

The author, as a mother has put a lot of her own reflection and her soul into the novel, still giving her readers the opportunity to form their own opinion about the things in the [...]

The beginning of the novel is quite inspiring and stimulates for reading in order to recognize the details of a true love story...

Deckard's efforts have been constituted by the feeling of an 'emotion', the making of an intellectual connection, the speaking of an utterance, the passing on of a story in the real world beyond it, or [...]

The book covers the mid-life of David bringing to the fore the events which he has contributed to himself and some he has not that are set in motion and lead to his near-total destruction.

The main idea of the book lies in upholding the Marxist belief of the inevitable collapse of capitalism and the accession of the proletariat, or industrial working class.

Bradbury's vision of America and Americans assumes the form of the game of the possible because he wants it to be played out in reality.

He shouts his good fortune to his fellow divers, and before he reaches home, the news is already known to the inhabitants of the village and the town, including the priest and the doctor.

There is a clear lack of humane perspective in the novel, and this is due to the narrator's lack of concern with people.

Hosseini's natures, Mariam and Laila, are memorable; their sympathy for each other and love for their children is overwhelming."A Thousand Splendid Suns" narrates the story of two women against the backdrop of the previous forty [...]

Pudd'nhead Wilson is the ironic tale of a man who is born a slave but brought up as the heir to wealthy estate, thanks to a switch made while the babies were still in the [...]

Nevertheless, while it is emotional, having to deal with death, the pain of losing a son, and having to deal with the sympathy of people around them, the story disguised the emotion of the individuals [...]

First of all it is necessary to emphasize, that the novel is written in the epistolary genre, and it is aimed to highlight the protagonist's sorrows.

Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs. In the casket displayed on satin she lay with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on, a turned-up putty [...]

Another problem tackles through the utilization of expressive means is the issue of gender in general and its social construction in particular.

The Handmaid's Tale is characterized as a feminist dystopia written in direct reaction to the growing political power of the American religious right in the 1980s.

In a combination of short chapters, Sophie comes into New York where she gets to know about her mother, forms social contact with her mother's new boyfriend, Marc, and figures out that she was the [...]

The slaves were remained in the custody of the white masters received the same treatment as that of bondage slaves. The book is a beautiful representation of pre-war life in Virginia and how the widespread [...]

One day, when her grandmother is dying, her mother appears and removes her to Shanghai; An-Mei is then adopted into a new family where her mother is the fourth concubine of a wealthy merchant.

Chomsky is concerned with such issues of the American foreign policy history as the involvement of the United States in Central Asia, the conflict between Russia and the US, the alignment of Israel with the [...]

From the very beginning of the book the problem of evil begins to torment the reader. The work under consideration is the author's flesh back to the past with foreseeing the events of the future.

The misunderstanding between An-Mei Hsu and Rose Hsu-Jordan occurs due to their differences in the views on the roles of females in the family.

At the same time, Troy tries the best way he knows how to direct the course of his own son's life away from the negative influence of the boy's ancestors.

In the book, "The Song of Solomon" such an obsessive love is found in the passionate desire of Hagar and the friendly love of Guitar.

The main conflict of the novel is built around one of the main characters' awareness of the legacy of evil that he has inherited from his mother and his hesitation about whether he is destined [...]

In the short story, Faulkner portrays that the beginning of the 1900s was marked by great social and economic changes but many people fail to accommodate their life to new social relations and a new [...]

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.

The most universal, the most difficult, and the noblest work, one for all and at the same time unique in every family, is the creation of a human.

The latter is about a girl and her conflict with her family, which eventually leads her to leave her home and start living at the post office.

In spite of the fact that the events depicted in Beloved take place after the end of the American Civil War, Sethe, as the main character of the novel and a former slave, continues to [...]

The theme of the struggle between a man and the sea as the power of nature can be traced even in the ancient literature, drawing on the example of Odysseus challenges and Poseidon, the formidable [...]

The main characters in Karen Russel's story The Bog Girl are situated on a mythical island somewhere in Northern Europe, where peat cut out of the bogs is the main source of fuel.

First of all, it is the mystery of a man who wants to preserve the nature of Miami and area, save it from being destroyed by tourists and other people who disrespect it.

Through exploring the characters' lives, the author reflects on the notions of drug use, hopelessness, and escape in the context of the black community.

This effect is reached by opposing the details and the setting of the traditional human world with the magic of the wild forest.

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.

It touches on numerous subjects, such as the opposition of communal values to those of the individual, criticizes dogmatic views and perceptions of God, and promotes art as one of the truest ways of worshipping [...]

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a novel telling the story of Esperanza, a young Latina who moves to Chicago and grows up in a community of Puerto Ricans and Chicanos.

On the one hand, the majority of victims of this social vice are not willing to confront it. In such a scenario, the victims of this vice are discouraged because it appears that their feelings [...]

By incorporating a range of symbols such as the main characters' clothes, their personal belongings, and attributes of their culture, the author conveys the conflict of belonging, sense of being lost, and the problem of [...]

A Travel Writer Tell-All is a new travel writer subgenre, in which writers lists the failures that they had to face in the course of traveling because of the lack of information concerning a particular [...]

The Civil War in the 19th century was the war against slavery and for the liberation of millions of people. His novel is devoted to the American society of that period.

The use of the word Negro and the emphasis on the Negro's obedience and loyalty symbolizes the end of the last traces of slavery.

Stowe has claimed that the anti slavery groups questioned the morality of the white Christians who were at the fore front in the oppression of the Black people.

And that is where I wanted to be, at home. I understood that she was the dearest person in my life and I behaved as a stupid thing.

He also shows the way people responded to the opportunities and challenges of the new times. The girls seem to rebel against the system and conventions of the society, as they dare come into the [...]

In addition, because the movie relates to the period of the Great Depression in America, all the characters of the novel are obsessed with the American Dream, a stereotype, and an illusionary vision of happiness [...]

He is in search of inspiration and all he is doing is rushing here and there to find a hint of something that would make him write at least several lines of his new novel.

In his novel Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed blurs the boundaries between the prose and poetry as well as the past and the present to express his satirical criticism of the legacy of slavery even [...]

First of all, there is a need to point out that Reed is recognized as one of the most influential African American letters. The most interesting point I would like to highlight is related to [...]

Huck, the key character in the book, brings the collision of a sound heart and a deformed conscience, a conflict well illustrated through the theme of racism, civilized society, and slavery among others.

It is in such situations that Dagny works to keep the company in operation single-handedly even after her brother, James, the company's president, decides to overlook the troubles of the company.

Given the nature of family structure and power, it is not surprising that Merricat wanted to rid herself of the oppressive traditions that her family held.

In this essay, the analysis of "Bartleby the Scrivener" helps develop a strong understanding of the culture of the modern workplace compared to the one preferred in the previous centuries and the factors that influence [...]

Also, it is a tragedy of the society the influence of which can be too devastating to heal."The Paper Menagerie" teaches the audience how ungrateful and cruel a child can become under the pressure of [...]

Jimmy Cross, a lieutenant enlisted to take care of the other soldiers is the victim of the guilt burden. Collectively, these soldiers experienced different forms of emotional torture, which boiled down to emotional burdens as [...]

Moses is used to this kind of life and described by one of the other characters as "world-stupid," meaning he does not know how to live in the outside world. He has a strong connection [...]

The main focus of the story is the problem of racism, particularly to African-American people in the United States. In terms of other issues that "Battle Royal" demonstrates and that are further developed in the [...]

This paper aims to explore the themes relating to the American dream and its associated emptiness and un-attainability as depicted in the two novels, The Day of the Locust and Play it as it Lays.

Although the story is told from the point of view of the girl referred to as "Snot" by the troop, Arnetta could be considered the center point of the short story.

In her short story "The Lottery," Jackson explores the problems of traditions and shows people's attachment to the established order in a negative light.

The practice of lynching could be considered one of the worst acts committed by the citizens of the United States. This date would place the events at the end of the period of extreme racism [...]

What is even more because of the story's allegorical clues, concerned with the author's portrayal of "Bacote nigger's" burning by the crowd of White Southerners, readers are hinted at what may be the ultimate consequence [...]

The "Battle Royal" chapter in the novel brings rather controversial reactions and thoughts, due to its being a blend of relief for the main character, the shame for the abusive white society, and the pain [...]

One of the reasons for the triumph of Billy Budd, Sailor in America and the United Kingdom, was the precision, with which the author portrayed the historical and cultural context, particularly Melville analyzed both issues [...]

The events show that in the conditions of racism, the psychological deformation of a person occurs due to the formation of a feeling of inferiority in him or her and the cultivation of fear.

Morrie questions the importance of spirituality and the ability of a person to love and be loved. The virtue is ridiculed by society and is considered to be a manifestation of the softness of the [...]