Essays on Literature

Free essays on literature refer to the writing pieces that are available to everyone online without any charges. These essays can cover a wide range of literary topics, such as the analysis of a character or a theme in a novel, a review of a poem or a play, or an interpretation of a literary movement. They can be written by students, scholars, or literary enthusiasts, and can offer diverse perspectives and insights into the world of literature. Free essays on literature can be useful for those interested in learning more about a specific literary work or genre or for those seeking inspiration for their own writing.
The More a Person Loses, the Easier It Will Be to Grief
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The phrase ‘to lose’ is a common verb that is experienced by everybody. Whether it is losing an object, a game, a person, or even an immaterial idea, such as hope, people will come across this rather unfortunate event at many times in their lives. They can either accept it, or let it bother them endlessly. In Elizabeth Bishop’s poem One Art, the idea of losing something allows readers to agree or disagree with the claim that one should get…...
LiteraturePoemsRichard Cory
Life and Creative Achievements of Richard Cory
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Much like his most famous poem Richard Cory, the life of Edwin Arlington Robinson was a dismal and dark one. Born into wealth in 1869, he later wrote that at the age of six, he wondered why he was born. He attended Harvard University, but his family struck financial trouble, and soon he was in the face of poverty. His father passed due to stroke, his mother to diphtheria. He lost both of his brothers, one to suicide. It was…...
PoemsRichard Cory
Ethics, Morality and Responsibility in Modern Philosophies of Our Society
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What is a world without ethics, morals, and responsibility? In a perfect world, active citizenship, social responsibility, and leadership will come naturally. Thomas Paine, Paul Loeb, Steven Pinker, and Robert Reich are individual thinkers who have coined and expanded modern philosophies and ideals that can bring our society closer to a community driven, socially responsible and sustainable state with each other and with our earth. What is holding the change back? Society can be defined by values, beliefs, and by…...
Thomas Paine
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America Is Not the Greatest Country in the World
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People in America believe it is the best due to two facts. Either one, they were born here, or two, there is a huge possibility they have not been to any other country besides America. I have lived in America all sixteen years of my life. I’ve witnessed things quite a lot over the years that involve America and the people in it. I feel that America is not the greatest country in the world, and I also think that…...
Thomas Paine
A Review of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a Sermon by Jonathan Edwards
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                                       Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards In this sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’’, by Jonathan Edwards, the author tries to persuade his readers that being a member of the Church doesn’t prove that you’re not going to hell. You need to personally experience a transforming moment in which you felt God’s grace.…...
Books
Edwards’ Sermon: Imagery & Persuasion
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Paper Type:Persuasive essays
In the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Edwards uses imagery to persuade his congregation to repent their sins so that God will not destroy them in many different ways. He uses imagery by describing into detail of the image he is trying to portray to his readers. He uses words that have a very dark meaning to it, or words that aren't normally pleasing to the ear. The way he uses persuasion and imagery helps the…...
Books
Persuasion in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a Sermon by Jonathan Edwards
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                                 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God EssayGod could throw you into hell at any moment. Jonathan Edwards believed that and shared it with his sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. His sermon was about how God is disgusted in humans and thought they deserved his wrath. It persuaded people using different techniques which made it so successful.Persuading others can…...
Books
The Birth of the American Freedom Ideology
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Thomas Paine’s Common Sense marks the turning point in American history inciting the population take a stand against the oppressive government reforms that the English had imposed following the events of the Seven Year War, which had left England with a massive debt. This pamphlet was the definitive, persuasive and passionate argument that swayed the opinions of the undecided towards going forward with an American Revolution. Coming from England and only living in America for a year, Paine composed this…...
Thomas Paine
A Short Review of the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a Novel by Junot Díaz
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The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao As I read this book, there were many topics that were shocking because they hit so close to home. Though I think that there are many important themes, female sexuality and power is the one that I would like to go deeper into. Even though we like to think that nowadays women equality is not such a big issue, recent events have proven that wrong. Every day I see news stories of…...
Books
Characters in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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When one first sees a copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz they assume it’s simply a boring story about some Asian kid named Oscar and his seemingly short life. They would be completely wrong. Diaz’s very experimental novel chronicles the Cabral family of the Dominican Republic, beginning with Oscar De Leon, an overweight sci-fi nerd that has never kissed a girl. His sister Lola, a tough as nails Dominican girl who’s constantly ruled by…...
Books
Developments in Life in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
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-Developments in Life- In life there are many obstacles and situations that are to be discovered and conquered no matter how much time and effort it takes; it is part of life. Growing up is a form of development that everybody has to go through. Adolescent development and sexuality exposure are two forms of development that are highly recognized. In the book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Oscar goes through many changes and developments through his adolescence that…...
Books
Gender Culture in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoOscar Wilde once said, “A man’s face is his autobiography. A women’s face is her work of fiction.” In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Dominican men are often described as hotshots, while the Dominican women are valued based on their bodies, looks and household abilities. In Juno Diaz’s 2007 novel, men and women are expected to act and to look certain ways and are judged if they differ from the cultural norm.Men…...
Oscar WildeThe Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao
Beli Cabral’s Heartbreaks
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Beli’s Heartbreaks The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a book that deeply focuses on the past and present. The book goes back and forth between the two. If the reader just read the parts of the book that talked about the present, they would not understand why everyone in the DR feared Trujillo, or they might not understand why some characters act the way the act in the present.At the beginning, one of the first characters we meet…...
Books
Solitary Confinement Violates the Basic Concept of Human Dignity
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Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment distinguished by living in single cells with little or no contact to other inmates, strict measures to control contraband, and the use of additional security measures and equipment. It is specifically designed for disruptive inmates that are security risks to other inmates, the prison staff, or the prison itself. It is mostly employed for violations of discipline, such as murder, hostage-taking, deadly assault, and rioting. However, it is also used as a measure…...
A Modest ProposalAmerican LiteratureLiterature
A Satirical Essay by Jonathan Swift
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Swift begins by presenting the horrifying circumstances of the poor in Ireland to gain sympathy - known as an appeal to pathos. He discusses how the mothers are all beggars with many children at her side to feed and clothe. He explains how his plan will contribute to the care, feeding, and clothing of thousands of people. How it will provide an income to the mothers who are unable to work and are only able to feed and clothe their…...
A Modest ProposalAmerican LiteratureLiterature
The Prologue and American Values
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Anne Bradstreet was one of the first American poets in the 1600s, which was an impressive feat at the time considering she was a woman. She continues to inspire people around the world with her works about being a woman in colonial America, about God, and her family. While Bradstreet acknowledged the traditional gender roles in society at the time, she also challenged it greatly. Bradstreet used domesticated metaphors about women’s place in America, which also created a satirical tone…...
American LiteratureAnne BradstreetLiterature
Anne Bradstreet Is the First American Poet to Be Published
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One of the major challenges of the colonial experience was gender roles in an evolving society. A woman’s role was to maintain household order, to encourage faith and instill good moral values in her children, and to be subordinate and submissive to men. Women were thought to be incapable and treated unequal to the task of writing. These four texts reveal traditional Puritan women’s roles, how female authors challenged gender roles, and display women’s abilities in their creative endeavors in…...
American LiteratureAnne BradstreetLiterature
Folktales Are Stories That Begin Within a Culture And Passed On By Word of Mouth
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Surprisingly, with the changing of times, hundreds of American folktales have survived the generations. People often told the tales to help the others understand and cope with the life they were living. Like most stories, a folktale contains characters, setting, plot, theme, style, and tone (Sweetland, paragraph 1-6). Set apart from traditional stories, folktales is a unique use of each of these elements. As in any story, characters are an important part of a folktale; however, the characters in folktales…...
Davy CrockettFolklore
Justice Is a Way to Assess Our Government and Society
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Justice is the focus of a well-managed society, according to philosopher John Rawls. Rawls is responsible for the Original position or the difference principle. To understand the difference principle, you must first understand the “Veil of Ignorance”. Rawls states that the principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. The questions that he asks are; how would a person want to organize society if the person were placed in what Rawls called the original position. (May, and Delston…...
PhilosophersPhilosophyRobin Hood
Real-world Themes: Cupidity and Avarice
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The theme of greed leads to bad things that are still relevant in this modern society. During the social issues of the Medieval Period, Buboes Plague was also known as Black Death. It took place when the Hundred Years War between England and France began in 1337. As the war continued for more than a century, it was unfortunate that England had a crippling climate in the country that made up one third of the population deaths. After Black Death…...
American Literature
An Analysis of Guilt in the Tell-Tale Heart, a Short story by Edgar Allan Poe
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In the short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” author Edgar Allen Poe combines elements of dramatic irony, situational irony, and disturbed syntax to reveal the narrator’s instability. By doing this, the author outlines the greater universal theme that guilt cannot easily be hidden. Throughout the piece, Edgar Allen Poe employs dramatic irony in order to intensify the suspenseful mood. His narrator, an insane man, attempts to disguise his craziness by repeatedly claiming to be sane. However, his actions and obsession over…...
Edgar Allan PoeThe Tell Tale Heart
Narrator’s Mental State in The Tell-Tale Heart
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Edgar Allan Poe, an author of the 19th century, was famous for his short stories and poems. His works often included a dark, gothic theme. People often questioned Poe’s sanity because most of his work featured characters who struggled with their mental states. In Poe’s short story “A Tell-Tale Heart,” he depicts the narrator with an insane mentality by the use of his repetition, erratic punctuation, and the length of his sentences.The repetition in this passage highlights the narrator’s mental…...
Edgar Allan PoeThe Tell Tale Heart
A Comparison of Araby by James Joyce and The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
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What is “Great Literature?": "Araby" vs. ‘The Tell Tale Heart""Great literature" is a heavily debated term. For an eight year old boy. I'm sure “Captain Underpants" is considered one of the best books in the world. When I was in middle school paranormal romance books seemed to be all that mattered in the world of literature. But, does that really mean these books are "great"? I think, that for a book to be great literature it needs to be more…...
Edgar Allan PoeThe Tell Tale Heart
Unfolding Madness in The Tell-Tale Heart
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In 'Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-tale Heart', Poe seeks to show the slow unravelling of madness, as he describes an unnamed figure descend into a complete physiological breakdown. The lack of description for the narrator himself, and the ambiguous ending ensures that the true meaning of his short story is impossible to quantify. However perhaps that was 'Poe's' aim in the first place, as how can one truly come to understand madness?"The Tell-tale Heart” distinctly atmospheric style of writing successfully…...
Edgar Allan PoeThe Tell Tale Heart
Dark Romanticism in Hawthorne & Poe
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Although the movement of Romanticism, which followed on the heels of the Enlightenment has been characterised as nature-centred, God-affirming, idealist and patriotic, and generally associated with several positive values, a dark, subcultured version of this school of thought also co-existed with the mainstream philosphy. Dark romanticism preoccupied itself with evil and sinister themes, focusing on death, wickedness and the ‘freaks of nature.’ Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe rank foremost among some novelists belonging to this school, pessimistically fixating on…...
Edgar Allan PoeThe Tell Tale Heart
5 Interesting and Important Topics That You Should Know About Medieval England
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Medieval England was a great time period because it was fun and happy, but it also had some wars and fighting. In this paper there will be 5 interesting and important topics that you should know about Medieval England.Those topics are kings, the battle of Hastings, bouquets, castles and Robin Hood. Castles in Medieval England were mainly built in Southern Italy before they became popular in England. Castles mainly had 2 main parts which were a stone and a gate…...
EnglandHistoryRobin Hood
The Impossibility of Perpetual Youth
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Since the beginning of time, people have attempted various methods to stay young for as long as they possibly can. Though perpetual youth is impossible, people still go to extremes to try to deceive time and reason to stay young. People quickly decide that youth is the only character worth having, and Dorian Gray is no exception. Perpetual youth is impossible in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Dorian’s obsession with his own youth and youth in general…...
NarcissismNarcissistic Personality DisorderThe Picture Of Dorian Gray
A Rose for Emily From a Marxist Perspective
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A fabulous southern gothic novel by William Faulkner, a Rose for Emily was written during the reconstruction era of the south, sometime after the American Civil War. The time period was one of decline in the southern economy, which brings many problems for the Grierson family. The story focuses on the death of Miss Emily and the events that followed her death, revealing a chilling dark side of the Grierson’s. From a Marxist perspective the novel seems to reinforce a…...
A Rose For EmilyLiteratureWilliam Faulkner
Comparing William Faulkner’s Short Stories, a Rose for Emily and Dry September
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Three key components connect William Faulkner's two short stories 'A Rose for Emily' and 'Dry September': sex, passing, and ladies (King 203). Organizing his two stories against a scenery of cliché characters and a southern code of respect, Faulkner purposely retains essential points of interest, parts ordered occasions, and breakers the past with the present to infer the character's demonstration and inspiration. The characters in Faulkner's southern culture are drawn from three social levels: the privileged people, the townspeople, and…...
A Rose For EmilyLiteratureWilliam Faulkner
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” References in “The Outsiders”
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People say that no one will ever stay the same, that’s true. Especially when your in his shoes. During the whole book, The author used Pony’s third perspective to narrate throughout the book showing his personality and how he thinks throughout the whole situation of the book. In the novel, “The Outsiders” the narrator, Ponyboy, had a character with what seemed multiple personalities. In the beginning and the end of the book, he changed, from being a little scared to…...
The Outsiders
Morals in “The Scarlet Letter”
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In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the characters as individuals who learn right from wrong throughout their lives. People learn right from wrong based upon their own morals and upbringings. Puritanism greatly influences the character’s morals in this novel due to the religious environment. Nathaniel Hawthorne as a Transcendentalist Nathaniel Hawthorne conjects, as a Transcendentalist, that experience is superior to law, while Puritans believe that God expects them to live according to the Scriptures. Although Hawthorne believes that individuals know what…...
Nathaniel HawthorneThe Scarlet Letter
Crafting Compound and Complex
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Jonathan Edwards, an eighteenth-century preacher and writer, attempted to revive the Puritan ideals in New England. His sermons about sin and salvation were received with enthusiasm and helped launch a religious revival called the Great Awakening, marking the beginning of evangelism in America. His sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' was delivered with the intention of making his listeners reexamine their beliefs about grace, salvation, and religion as part of their daily lives. How would the following…...
HellReligionSinners In The Hands Of An Angry God
The Tell-Tale Heart 
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If your like the rest of us humans, you must have felt so guilty about a situation that you had to divulge about what you did. Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet, illustrates in his story The Tell-Tale Heart, how an obsession can drive you to do things that you will only regret in the long run. He then portrays how one’s guilt can ultimately lead to a lack of consciousness therefore pressuring them into confession. Poe shows us…...
Edgar Allan PoeGuiltMind
Viet Thanh Nguyen Helps to Understand What Cultural Identity Is
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“The Sympathizer” written by author Viet Thanh Nguyen is a novel that gives its readers a chance to live through an event through somebody else’s eyes. Viet Thanh Nguyen gives the readers a better understanding of what cultural identity is. The novel as well raises an issue that has been in discussion for the longest time; how are people supposed to be able to truly understand a subject when they do not know the whole story. In this spy novel,…...
American CultureCultural IdentityCultureFictionLiterature
V in V for Vendetta by Alan Moore: Hero or Villain
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We’ve all seen reports of terrorists on the news. They are the people who blow up government buildings. The ones who bomb places in a desperate effort to force the government to do what they want through violence. Terrorists have horrified society for decades. This leads to the gradual influx of terrorist characters into literature - usually as villains. Very rarely have they been shown as heroes, and V in V for Vendetta by Alan Moore is no exception. While some…...
Alan MooreV for Vendetta
Peter Pan Prequel Story “Peter and the Starcatcher” as a Play
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Peter Pan never wanted to grow up, but why? When did he conjure his aversion to grown ups?Peter and the Starcatcher, a novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson; adapted for the stage by Rick Elice, with music by Wayne Barker; paints a beautiful picture of Peter Pan's origin story. All questions are answered and our eyes and ears are satisfied by the whimsical performance. On November 16th 2017, SASHS Drama Club performed Peter and the Starcatcher directed by Luke…...
Peter Pan
Adolescent Girls and the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases
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Sexually transmitted infections among adolescent girls are preventable by using a wide array of innovative resources including but not limited to smartphones, lap top computers, school computers, school tablets, free apps and the wide availability of contraceptives (Brayboy, Sepolen, Mezoian, Schultz, Landgren-Mills, Spencer, Wheeler and Clark, 2016). Parents and family members need to have an open line of communication with their children of all ages on safe sex and safe sexual behaviors. Social media is another avenue where young girls…...
Girl By Jamaica Kincaid
Mickey Mouse from Pop Art to Present
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Concept of Pop Art The concept of Pop Art has been very influential and inspiring to a variety of artists in this generation. Pop Art, which is short for “popular art”, is a type of art that can primarily feature artwork relating back to common household materials and materials we would see on TV, such as newspapers, magazines, comic books, movies, and advertisements, as well as also relating to the concept of consumer products such as Campbell Soup Cans. Within the years…...
Mickey MousePop Art
Hunters in the Snow
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Tobias Wolff is an author known for his journals and practical short stories. Hunters in the Snow is a tale about three companions, who go hunting in the snow. He expounds on humankind through the companionship of the three companions and the occasions they experience. (Bartleby 2018) Environment and Characters The environment performs a totally vital part in describing the theme of the tale. This story stirs deep emotions in the one who is reading the story that moves past balanced notions.…...
Hunters in the Snow
The Use of Suspense in Shakespeare’s Plays 
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William Shakespeare uses suspense in his plays. The suspense adds to the stories and shows different elements of it. The use of suspense in William Shakespeare's plays not only develops the story but it also attracts the crowd's attention. Two of William Shakespeare's plays that include multiple elements of suspense are: Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Caesar. Suspense has different ways of showing itself. In both of these plays they include a villain and elements of foreshadowing. Different parts…...
Julius CaesarMuch Ado About NothingSuspenseWilliam Shakespeare
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Viet Thanh Nguyen Helps to Understand What Cultural Identity Is
...Viet Thanh Nguyen’s spy novel “The Sympathizer” highlights and comments on issues that are still very frequent in today’s world such as misinterpretation in many creative works such as movies for example. Viet Thanh Nguyen additionally emphas...
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