Free essays on books are academic papers that analyze various aspects of literature such as the plot, characters, themes, motifs, symbols, and literary devices used by authors to convey their messages. These essays can be found online and cover a wide range of literary genres including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, and biographies. They offer insights into the literary techniques employed by authors, the cultural and historical contexts that inform their work, and the relevance of these texts to contemporary audiences. Students, researchers, and avid readers can use these essays as study materials, examples for their own writing, or sources of inspiration for their literary analysis.
Comparing Characterizations in 3 Works
Throughout the course of an individual's life, obstacles are inevitable. It is not however the substance of the problems, but the process of resolution. Every situation has a different outcome, yet the journey is always more important than the destination. As read in novels, plays and short stories such as, The Revenant by Michael Punke, Hamlet by William Shakespeare and Bartleby by Herman Melville characters have distinct issues that must be solved. Although these pieces of writing have different issues…...
Bartleby the Scrivener
My Strengths as a Good Listener and My Strong Persistence to Read Books
When I was growing up my mom would read to me daily, I enjoyed listening to the stories she read and begged for more when one was finished. My strong persistence to read then caused her to set a three-book limit before bed. My mom says that I was a good listener and would follow directions when told to do so. For example we used to play Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and Simon Says together. I remember that we…...
Harry PotterLanguagePersistenceWriting
Unjust Society in Cry the Beloved Country
In the novel, Cry The Beloved Country, Alan Paton teaches the reader that a hierarchical society is unjust. This story follows Stephen Kumalo around South Africa just before Apartheid. Kumalo starts in the small farm town of Ndotsheni, The story takes him to various places in South Africa, including the town of Johannesburg, where he finds his family, along with some very important information about his son, all during very critical times in the history of the country. South Africa…...
Cry the Beloved Country
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South Africa’s Issues in Cry the Beloved Country
Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country is a powerful novel that takes a look at many of the problems troubling South Africa. Segregation, economic inequality, decadence, and the destruction of the family unit are some of the problems discussed in this work. The title of the novel is simply saying that all of these problems are more than enough to bring a person to tears; a person like Kumalo cries for his beloved country; a person like Jacob Jarvis cries…...
Cry the Beloved Country
The Role of Gender in Hedda Gabler and The Importance of Being Earnest
Discuss the "performance" of gender in the plays using one character from each play as examples. Gender plays a great role in both plays Hedda Gabler and The importance of Being Ernest. In both plays there are women playing extremely masculine roles. In Henrik Isben's play, Hedda Gabler, it is Hedda herself and in Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest, it is Lady Bracknell. They both have characteristics that a man should have had in their time period.…...
Hedda Gabler
Rebellion in Hedda Gabler and Blood Relations
Plays written by Henrik Ibsen and Sharon Pollock provoke Freudian thoughts, namely, the essence or motivations behind our human existence. Henrik Ibsen boldly stated "our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves" (as cited in Lahr, 2009). Ibsen's claim accuses the conscious human-self by stating we, as humans, lack autonomy over our own actions, as we are subconsciously driven by the desire to fulfill a grim sense of expectations in our lives. This is…...
Hedda Gabler
By the Bog of Cats vs Hedda Gabler
Though written about a hundred years apart, By the Bog of Cats by Marina Carr and Hedda Gabler by Henrick Ibsen are very similar in that they both end on the death of a main character. In By the Bog of Cats, Hester kills her daughter Josie and in Hedda Gabler, Hedda kills herself. Though there is a level of sadness in both these deaths, Josie's is the much more tragic of the two largely because Hedda is a very…...
Hedda Gabler
Daily Struggles of Black Americans in Battle Royal
In "Battle Royal", Ellison gives the reader subtle instruction to maintain their identity while growing up in the racial distorts of America. The characters of interest are the grandfather and narrator, who both face an internal conflict with one selves regarding their place in civilisation. Being black in America was not always easy. Any misstep was a setback for the African American community, being a great challenge as of how to manage life while living in a predominantly white-privileged society.…...
Battle Royal
The Role of the Narrator in Ralph Ellisons Battle Royal
The narrator took the negative ways of Negro life and used it to gain positive results, for him, from his white counterparts. The narrator believes that being asked to give speeches, which expressed the humility that Negroes should have, would serve as a stepping stone towards his goal of gaining their praises; much like that of Booker T. Washington. With respect to his grandfather and to the honor of Mr. Washington, I believe the narrator was right for wanting to…...
Battle Royal
Grandfather’s Race Speech and Battle Royal Briefcase
The first chapter introduces two motifs that will come up over and over in this book: the narrator's grandfather's particular theory of race relations, and the briefcase that he is given after his big speech. They come together nicely at the end of the chapter in the dream that the narrator describes. Discuss. In this part of the book we learn about the narrator's grandfather who we see is dying after having been a slave who was freed 85 years…...
Battle Royal
An Overview of the Social Inequality in the Novel Battle Royal by Ralph Ellison
In Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal social inequality is present with gruesome results. Ellison writes the story in first person format from the perspective of a young black male, in a time when racism was ever so present. From this perspective Ellison takes, the story is easily seen as being very ruthless. The setting is in a large ballroom full of racist clowns waiting for the humiliation of the negroes. The show consists of the Battle Royal, the collecting of chump…...
Battle Royal
An Analysis of the Story Battle Royal by Ralph Ellison
The story "Battle Royal" portraits how human race can be capable of such sadistic actions against themselves. Indeed, the only reason why this actions are being taken is on the account of someone's the skin color. The "universal truth" as it's stated, is clearly the real definition of the human behavior. By describing the situation, the scenery, and the plot in this story, Ralph Ellison unravels and defines this phrase as the hidden window of a human soul; full of…...
Battle Royal
Success Formula & Invisible Man Reflection
After IM was thrown out of school, he reflects on what could have been a bright future. IM acknowledges that there was a "path placed before" him and that he "kept unswervingly" to the path, resistant to change or dwelling off of what he thought was the secret formula to success in life. IM did what he was "expected to do" because he thought that would guarantee a successful life when in fact it did not thus IM did not…...
Invisible Man
A Literary Analysis of the Metaphors in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The violent battle royal, a significant obstacle the narrator must overcome before being able to present his speech, in the opening chapter of Invisible Man serves as a visual representation for the racial inequality still existing in America. And though the narrator seemingly triumphs the situation, achieving a victory for himself and for African Americans as a whole, the author Ralph Ellison suggests in the end of the chapter that the progress may merely be an illusion. To begin, the…...
Invisible Man
The Power of Women in the Rings Trilogy, Three Novels by J. R. R. Tolkien
Women have often been the center of debate within Tolkien‘s trilogy, as they appear very sparsely and only for short amounts of time and interaction. However, the women shown so far are not simply the owner of a tavern or a field hand but instead elven ladies and wives of powerful beings in Middle-earth and have been shown to rival the power of their male counterparts in more than one instance. Not all influence the hobbits and their quest permanently,…...
FantasyFictionJ.R.R TolkienThe Hobbit
The Use of Invisibility in the Hobbit, a Novel by J. R. R. Tolkien
Throughout Tolkien’s The Hobbit, there are many instances of liminality the secret entrance to the Mountain is a door made of rock that is a wall until the correct moment the key is inserted. The opening is also part of the outside and inside; it is both above ground and underground. The tunnel the company becomes trapped in is a liminal space because it is both a passage and a cave these instances of liminality are important because Tolkien uses…...
J.R.R TolkienPhilosophyThe HobbitThought
Bilbo’s Motivation of Desire in the Novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
In the novel, The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, the protagonist is Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo is a hobbit, which is from a race of small, chubby people with furry toes Hobbits are about half the size of humans. In this novel, all of the characters are driven by their motivation to achieve what they need, Bilbo is driven by the motivation of desire, Bilbo’s motivation in the novel is desire because he was trying to get back his lost…...
FictionJ.R.R TolkienLiteratureThe Hobbit
“To Kill a Mockingbird” Atticus Stands For Justice
Andy Biersack once said, “stand up for what you believe in even if that means standing alone” (Goodreads). Often times in novels, characters go to extreme measures for something in which they take pride. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch, a lawyer, and father, stands up for his beliefs. Atticus believes everyone should be given a fair chance, no matter the situation. Despite the challenges Atticus faces, he still treats everyone equally. Atticus helps others because…...
EthicsFairnessPhilosophyTo Kill A Mockingbird
The Symbolism of a House in There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradburry
In Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains," the personification of the house, the uses of medical and psychoanalytic discourses, and ritualistic constructions in the text, revolving around religious discourse frame the house and nature as opposing forces. Through the language of the text, the house is diagnosed as a machine with two sides: the caring, domestic, automated home and the whirring, incinerating, cold-eyed machine. Nature spites the house for continuing its empty and pointless rituals without humans inhabiting the…...
BrainCultureLanguageThere Will Come Soft Rains
Dual Soft Rain Titles
Within seconds all is destroyed buildings, people, and animals, but nature still thrives in every way. Survivors try 0 run away but start to die from disease within a day. Rubble is blown away by the lonely wind, and animals run astray, the sun beams down with sorrow and pity at the dark, destroyed, and dead city. This is what the city looks like in the short story “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury because of…...
AnimalsBiologyLiteratureThere Will Come Soft Rains
Parental Support in Not Bad Dad & Those Winter Sundays
The vital and crucial suppon given by parents and family members is often overlooked in many situations the poems "Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad” by Jan Heller Levi and "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden signify the importance of realizing the diligent work that parents give to their children. The child narrator in “Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad" describes the enduring problems between the child and father through the metaphor of swimming, where the narrator comes to realize the hard…...
ChildCultureLiteratureThose Winter Sundays
Bonds in Not Bad Dad & Those Winter Sundays
At a cursory glance, a prominent theme of life is the conflict between love and hate; people must learn to distinguish between these two forces because they have profoundly opposite effects. Love and hate serve as the basis for many relationships, and their constant friction threatens to distort one's sense of understanding for another, leading to misconceptions and embitterment. Jan Heller Levi and Robert Hayden both apply this connection between love and hate to their respective works “Not Bad, Dad,…...
ChildLovePsychologyThose Winter Sundays
Childhood Reflections and Father in Those Winter Sundays
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden is an emotional poem of an adult looking back at their childhood, and relationship with their father I instantly was attracted to and connected to this poem. There are times in our lives where we look back on certain experiences in regret views change and people grow. The speaker in “Those Winter Sundays” reflects on past experiences of indifference toward their father when he she was young. As the poem progress, and the speaker…...
CultureLiteraturePsychologyThose Winter Sundays
Papa’s Waltz vs Winter Sundays
A key difference between poetry and other forms of writing is that the meaning of poetry often requires a reader 0 “read between the lines.“ In prose, diction is the biggest indicator of meaning; however, in poetry, the structure plays a crucial role in conveying the ideas of the poem. This idea of meaning embedded in structure is evident in the poems “My Papa‘s Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden through the manipulation of the…...
LiteraturePoetryThose Winter SundaysWriting
Remembering the Father in Those Winter Sundays and My Papa’s Waltz
Both speakers are adults reflecting on how they saw their fathers when they were children, each poem focuses on only an occurrence or event that makes a statement about how their father as a whole. In the case of “Those Winter Sundays,” the speaker chooses to only focus on his winter sundays with his father; the speaker of “My Papa’s Waltz” only describes the ‘waltzes‘ he dances with his father. Although both poems essentially have the same topic, they approach…...
ChildCultureLiteratureThose Winter Sundays
Interactive IT Policy-Making in the Netherlands
Alongside quick advances in IT, policies administrating IT and its stakeholders have multiplied. Stakeholder commitment is generally commended as an essential procedure for enhancing Information, Communication and open policy decision making. The purpose for this paper is to inspect how Stakeholder commitment is utilized to create policies in Informational and Communication technology regions and how to promote people (Stakeholders) who are affected by policies involved in the policy-making process, and in addition to recognizing future needs to lead proof-based stakeholder…...
CommunicationPolicyTechnologyThe Netherlands
In the Netherlands, van Eyck created the Ghent Altarpiece
The Arnolfini Portrait is a painting that has many interpretations, is it artwork of woman with child or a celebration of marriage, to commemorate a wife who died in childbirth, to highlight the figures status or a fashion statement? Completed in 1434 in Bruges, Belgium and admired for its profound dexterity and examined for its peculiar imagery, Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait has remained a mystery since the 19th century. The Arnolfini Portrait’s earliest known history is remarkable, it’s rare…...
ArtCulturePaintingThe Netherlands
Netherlands Clothing Fashions in 16th-17th Centuries
In the painting made by Pieter van der Werff, a young boy sits, playing with a toy three-master, which is a three-masted ship, hence the name. The boy holds a bright red string that is attached to the toy boat, indicating that wheels are attached to the bottom of the ship. On the highest mast, the ship flies a Netherlands flag, indicating that this is where the boy is located. The boy has shoulder-length blond hair and is wearing a…...
ClothingCulturePaintingThe Netherlands
Self Understanding in The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
It has previously been established that the African-American community found it necessary to extensively understand and manipulate double consciousness. Essentially in order to avoid further mistreatment, African-Americans would enact a façade while in front of a white man, although they themselves had a different concept of their own identity. The situation described in Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man provides a unique twist into the self understanding of identity because the protagonist is still "looking for himself". (Ellison 264) The unnamed…...
Invisible Man
Activist Policies of Famous Activists in the Book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man details the recollections of an unnamed African- American narrator living "invisibly" in a New York basement. Through his memories and thoughts on his experiences with racism and civil rights activism in late 1940s America, the novel offers insight and critique on many activist policies promoted by famous figures such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Analyzing Ellison's usage of symbolic language can help in discovering the underlying messages of nearly every scene. Color symbolism…...
Invisible Man
Narrator’s Stereotyping Experience in The Invisible Man by HG Wells
Throughout these chapters, the narrator is profoundly self-conscious about his race, about his southern roots, about everything, really. What do episodes like the "pork chop incident" reveal about him? about being Black in America? about being Southern in the North? I feel as though chapter nine shows the first time that the narrator really embodies his grandfather's wise words about whites to the narrator's father about how he should "overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to…...
Invisible Man
Internal Tensions in Ellison’s Invisible Man
Upon analyzing this passage, one is able to better understand the functions of the innumerable societal and internal tensions in IM's life. At the beginning of the prologue, IM makes clear that he is telling his story after the action of the novel has already taken place, from a small basement room, illuminated by 1,369 lightbulbs. For IM, this is a place of hibernation; of fighting silent battles, such as stealing electricity from the Monopolated Light and Power company. IM…...
Invisible Man
The Pivotal Moments in Ralph Ellison’s Novel Invisible Man
Most of us tend to make decisions in our lives that can shape a significant portion of our futures, and there are many literary exemplars that showcase this effect on a character. A common trait of these works is the inclusion of a pivotal moment: a moment where the decision takes place, where the character changes their life. In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, there are many situations or decisions that can be seen as the pivotal moment of the novel,…...
Invisible Man
A Comparison of the Differences Between the United States and the Netherlands
Let us go for a visit to the Netherlands, home of never-ending beautiful canals, windmills, old wooden clogs, and most famously known for their cheeses. Most adults from the United States understand the punitive laws about “soft drugs” like marijuana and “hard drugs” like Cocaine, Heroin, and Opiates that the United States enforces. In the Netherlands, their views and laws about “soft drugs” and “hard drugs” are much different from the United States. Let’s head into one of their many…...
HealthJusticeLawThe Netherlands
George R. R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings
In a Clash of Kings by George RR, Martin is the second book in his A Song of and Fire series. Renly Baratheon the late king Robert Baratheon‘s youngest brotheri declared himself king of the seven kingdoms, at the urging of his future wife at the time, Margaery Tyrell Later, Stannis Baratheon also the middle child in the Baratheon family declares himself the rightful king because Robert left no true heirs. When Robb Stark, the King in the North, sent…...
A Song of Ice and FireFantasyFiction
Epic Fantasy A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
A Song of and Fire is an epic fantasy comprised of five books, with seven ultimately planned for the complete series. The first volume, titled A Game of Thrones, is followed by A Clash of Kings. A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and a Dance with Dragons. The events of ASOIAF take place in a vast world spanning continents and islands each with its own mountains, rivers, and forests, and histories. The complexity of Planets (as fans like…...
A Song of Ice and FireCultureMasculinityPolitics
A Literary Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130
Shakespeare's sonnet 130 is part of the "Dark Lady" sonnets in which the speaker describes a woman he's in love with. In Sonnet 130, the poet compares the beauty of his lover to the traditional beauty standards that are typically written about during this time, things such as red lips, fair skin, and rosy cheeks. In the second stanza he goes on to describe that he loves the sound of her voice, but knows that music sounds better, and that…...
SonnetSonnet 130William Shakespeare
The Theme of Betrayal in The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
William Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury depicts multiple betrayals from family members. These betrayals eventually result in the downfall of the Compson family and the family name. In the novel, the entire Compson family betrays Caddy by disowning her. As soon as Caddy starts fooling around and having sex with Dalton Ames, her family refuses to speak to her. The Compsons, a traditional southern family, help Caddy, but only for their own purposes. Mother tries to find Caddy a…...
FictionLiteratureThe Sound And The Fury
Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury
Quentin senses the lofty shadow that his ancestors cast on him, recognizing the present as an even more pathetic version of the past. Faulkner uses shadows to open Quentin's meditation of time as a critical and destructive agent in his life. From the onset of his day, his ability to decipher time using the location of shadows indicates his extreme fixation on time. To Quentin, his mornings serve as a rude awakening of his obsessions and insecurities. He describes that…...
CulturePsychologyThe Sound And The Fury
Gender Role Defiance in The Sound and the Fury
The Sound And The Fury is a brilliant novel of chaos, tragedy, loss, and search for love. Mr. and Mrs. Compson live in Mississippi with their four children, Quentin, Candace (Caddy), Jason, and Benjamin (Benjy). The novel takes place in the early twentieth century where lots of changes are occurring in the South, one of the most prominent changes being that of gender roles. Gender roles are simply the roles and attributes that are stereotypically placed with a specific gender.…...
Gender RolesPsychologyThe Sound And The Fury
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