Essays on Writers

Forgiveness is a profound and transformative human experience that has been explored and celebrated in both classic and modern literature. It serves as a testament to the capacity for growth, redemption, and healing within the human spirit. In this essay, we will delve into the…

Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy, “Macbeth,” delves deep into the enigmatic realms of human existence, exploring the intricate interplay between fate and free will. In this essay, we embark on a journey through the moral labyrinth of Macbeth’s life, examining how the protagonist’s choices, external influences, and…

“The Alchemist,” penned by the renowned author Paulo Coelho, is a timeless literary masterpiece that captivates readers with its profound exploration of the theme of personal legend. This essay will delve into the essence of personal legend as portrayed in the novel, emphasizing its significance,…

Introduction William Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy, “Romeo and Juliet,” is a story of two young lovers whose passionate relationship ends in tragedy. The central question often debated by scholars, critics, and readers alike is whether Romeo and Juliet’s affection for each other is genuine love or…

William Golding is recognizable for one of his many stories one in particular ‘Lord of the Flies’ which was written in 1954. It is a novel about a group of young British boys between the ages six through twelve that are stranded on an unknown…

Introduction Oscar Wilde’s short story “The Selfish Giant” is a poignant tale that explores themes of redemption, kindness, and the transformative power of love. The story revolves around a selfish giant who learns valuable life lessons through his interactions with children and the changing seasons….

Introduction W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” is a compelling elegy that delves into the depths of heartbreak and desolation in the aftermath of loss. Through its evocative language, poignant imagery, and emotional resonance, the poem captures the profound impact of death on the human spirit. This…

Introduction “Funeral Blues,” a poem by W.H. Auden, is a poignant reflection on the depths of grief and the overwhelming sense of loss that accompanies the death of a loved one. With its emotional intensity, vivid imagery, and powerful use of language, the poem captures…

Introduction The relationship between Portia and Bassanio in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” is a captivating portrayal of love, sacrifice, and personal growth. Their connection is layered with complexity, reflecting the themes of loyalty, identity, and the power of love. This essay delves deeper into…

Introduction William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” is a tapestry of emotions, and at its heart lies the complex theme of love. This essay delves deeper into the various layers of love portrayed in the play, examining the interplay between romantic love, friendship, familial bonds,…

Introduction William Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” delves into the dark corners of ambition, power, and the supernatural. At the heart of the story lies the witches, mysterious figures whose prophecies set in motion the tragic events of the play. This essay examines the profound influence of…

Introduction “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding explores the delicate balance between civilization and savagery within human nature. This essay delves into the contrasting themes of civilization and savagery in the novel, examining how the characters’ behavior and the island’s transformation reflect the fundamental…

Introduction “Romeo and Juliet,” William Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy, centers around the ill-fated love story of two young individuals from feuding families. While their love is profound, the play is characterized by a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings that ultimately lead to the tragic deaths of…

Introduction “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” a short story by Richard Wright, delves into the journey of Dave Saunders as he navigates the complexities of adolescence, identity, and the desire for power. Set in the Southern United States during the early 20th century,…

Introduction “Fahrenheit 451,” Ray Bradbury’s iconic dystopian novel, provides a thought-provoking lens through which to examine the complexities of modern society. While the book was written decades ago, its themes of technology, censorship, and the erosion of human connection remain remarkably relevant. This essay delves…

Whether they are positive or negative, experiences faced by two or more individuals provide an insight into the complexity of a situation through their ability to reveal a range of human emotions. The allegorical play The Crucible (1953) by Arthur Miller and poem ‘London’ from…

The reading I selected to do is The Souls of black folk By W.E.B Du Bois. Du Bois is a very successful black man who is a civil rights activist for the black community in America. He is highly respected by society and has an…

“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”. Christopher Hitchens statement implies that a knowledge claim must have an available body of facts or information that indicates that a proposition is true or valid; if it does not have evidence it…

Christopher Hitchens’ memoir Mortality, published in 2014 by Twelve, highlights his final thoughts as he headed toward a sudden, but not altogether unexpected death. These seven pieces were printed originally in Vanity Fair and later, posthumously printed into this book in 2012. In his life,…

Ian Glasse Mr. Brown English 110 26 September 2019 Submersion As George Orwell said, “The object of torture is torture.” (1984) Renowned author and journalist Christopher Hitchins, however, got the opportunity to experience an interrogation method known as waterboarding first hand. A procedure that includes…

Christopher Hitchens is a renowned Anti – theist in America and some might call him the leader of this so called anti-theism movement. For years now he has increased his creative “expert” opinions and criticism with a surge of anti-theistic tirades, and now this surge…

From the beginning of the creation to our present, people are still migrating to look for a better place for themselves and their families. Migrating people normally change, by discovering new world, new ideas, new people and an impact on people, this is called a…

The Embassy of Cambodia is a short story written by the British and Jamaican novelist Zadie Smith. Set in the town of Willesden, London in 2009. The short story follows the life of Fatou, a young immigrant that works as a housekeeper for a white…

Culture is a difficult term to define and it has a wide range of meanings the term can have. Culture is a social behavior standard that exists in human societies. It is the overall fabric of ideas, beliefs, customs, traditions and attitudes of a society….

As Zadie Smith talks about her cognition of joy in the article “joy”, she states that “joy is such a human madness.” (6) We start to think about what is human madness. In my perspective, I would say human madness is a kind of dilemma….

Zadie Smith is a phenomenal yet amusing intellectual who found a nebulous nook that she could fold herself into and write her unparalleled perspective on life with words that seem inevitably Deja Vu, or, meant to be just like that, and as for her essay,…

Introduction “Nobody says the words anymore, but somehow violence still remains.” (Lee 218). For centuries, racism has been a major discussion all over the world. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, and places all over…

Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures– National regional, ethnic religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character’s sense of identity into question. Select a novel or play in which a character responds to such a cultural collision. Then write a well-organized…

The Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is one of the interesting stories that I have read ever in my life. What I mostly liked about the story is that it is full of mystery and irony as it ends up with so many…

Art Criticism (sometimes referred to as Art Critique) is the discussion or evaluation of a work of visual art. It is tied to theory; it is interpretive, involving the effort to understand a particular work of art using the Elements of Art and Principles of…

Whether weaving athletically between defenders on a NBA basketball court, weaving multiple scriptures into an explosive sermon, or rapping about the vicissitudes of urban poverty and violence, the Afro-American race and it’s unique gifting is not spared from mental health challenges. Resolve, perseverance, and faith…

Although Shakespeare’s lifetime occurred over four hundred years ago, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential and talented playwrights and poets of all time. Because of his powerful characters, lessons taught, plots, and social criticisms, his works have continued to play a…

Most college freshmen are confused when they are asked to read or write academically. They expect what they have learned over the years in their English class to be the same as a college English class. After some time, they realize that what they have…

In T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Prufrock is a man who is emotionally in conflict with himself. Although Prufrock is growing old, he feels the need to attract women but scares of being rejected or having an unstable relationship as in…

Have you ever seen someone under terrible circumstances continue to keep going and try as hard as they can, no matter what? This is always a wonder to behold, but how did this person get to be so perseverant? Chances are they have someone that…

Never have I read a book so inspiring as Barbara Kingslovers novel, The Bean Trees. This novel indeed influences young readers by giving them belief of everything is going to be okay. Reading deep inside this book, spreads a powerful message that could be really…

Some of the cultural reasons why women might have their first child earlier in places like Taylor’s (fictional Pittman County) rather than later in places like San Diego is because more women are expected to raise babies when they are younger because they are in…

Early modern sonnet traditions carried reasonable indecency, so it’s not astonishing to discover farce, absolute opposite and reference among them. Poem 130 satisfies pundit Harold Bloom’s idea of Shakespeare’s ‘balance … between self-distance and self-affirmation.’. Sonnet 130 is a delight to peruse for its straight-forwardness…

In Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Religion plays an integral part in the overall theme of the book, religion governs these characters such as Mr. Brocklehurst, Eliza Reed, and St. John Rivers. Jane experiences and is introduced to many forms/ideas about religion, Bronte wants to show us…

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 depicts love in various manners yet both show the standards of non-romantic love. The three phases of non-romantic love are affection for the mind, affection for the soul and affection of the body. Shakespeare examines the adoration, or need thereof, bod in…

Jane Eyre is a novel written by Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) in 1847, however, the novel was published under the pseudonym of Currer Bell. In addition, the novel could be considered as an autobiographical novel because Charlotte Brontë used his novel as a way she had…

Introduction Game of Thrones is one of the most popular tv series of this century and has been highly praised by the mass viewers as well as the critics for depicting the medieval era with a touch of fantasy inculcated. The show has been based…

The literary aspect of the fantasy genre was absolutely not there in my mind when I at the of eight watched the “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” movie adaptation which was the first installment directed by Peter Jackson based on…

There’s literally no excuse for anyone not to know what Game of Thrones is in this day and age. Social media, commercials, ad campaigns, TV shows, and movies have referenced the Emmy award-winning shows numerous times in the last eight years since it premiered on…

Game of Thrones (GOT) is the most watched, most pirated series with the most awards in the history of television. Television fiction is based on the still unfinished literary work of George R.R. Martin. Directed for David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, GOT is considered the…

The corruption that Hamlet learns of within Denmark is where Hamlet first learns of the truth behind his deceased father’s death, thus causing negative complexity within Hamlet’s emotional and mental state. When Hamlet encounters the ghost of his deceased father, who tells him, “So the…

Hamlet is arguably the most dynamic character to come of seventeenth century literature. William Shakespeare created a human being with a complex mind and elements of diversity difficult to understand. From the first glimpse of Hamlet alone, the audience is engulfed in his opulent intensity….

“To be or not to be” is one of the most famous quotes of all time by an author that has stood the test of time, William Shakespeare in his play, Hamlet. There are several themes displayed in Hamlet, these themes include death, obsession, and…

In The Wheel of Fire by G. Wilson Knight, Knight’s argument that Claudius was not a plausible villain has multiple merits but also some underlying flaws. I will defend that Claudius’ later actions were forced on him due to Hamlet’s dangerous mental state, but I…

The Harlem Renaissance was the development of a neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s, this period is considered a…

Langston Hughes’s poem “Mother to Son” is a poem everyone should read at least a few times throughout their life. Although it’s short it sends a powerful message and that is why “Mother to Son” poem analysis is required for the essay. The poem was…

In soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the eponymous character uses language that displays him in a power driven mood, aiming to extract information from his mother. The presence of dynamic, dark words like “witching,” “bitter,” and “daggers,” is a constant reflection of his intense internal psyche,…

In the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, a mother is relating her own past life experiences to climbing a crystal staircase. She talks about the obstacles that she has had to overcome and then relates these obstacles to climbing a crystal staircase. She…

Introduction Alienation is the emotional detachment or isolation from society. Characters that are alienated feel ostracized and do not take part in their society. It can also be described as the loss of hope, a loss of faith, or unbelief. Alienation is not just a…

Tim O’Brien’s chapter “Speaking of Courage” from his book “The Things They Carried” is very similar to Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Soldier’s Home” when it comes to the way they tell the story of men coming home from war. Although both authors use a different…

What does it mean to be an outsider? Perhaps it is someone who simply does not or can not fit in with societal norms. This someone could be labeled as a social oddball or an alien coexisting in a world that they don’t call home….

It was a serious problem that traditional culture was destroyed by the invasion of Western civilization while Nigeria was invaded by Britain in the 19th century. The story “Dead Men’s Path” begins when Michael Obi is promoted to the headmaster of Ndume Central School. He…

The theme of Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway is of fear, experience, loneliness, faith, connection, and conformism. The message of the author in this story is that the experience of war is different for each solider and war isolates soldiers from civil society norms and…

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, USA, and is a writer and journalist. Hemingway has won many awards in his life. He was awarded the Silver Brave Medal during the First World War. Hemingway’s feelings in his life…

In Hemingway’s story, ‘Soldier’s Home,” we read about a young man named Harold Krebs returns from his tour in Europe during the first world war, but not to a hero’s welcome. The story outlines the main character’s inability to connect and feel anything but confusion…

Traditions have consistently been unaltered, obsolete, and seen today as unconventional, as society keeps on modernizing at a fast pace. Michael Obi, the focal character in the story Dead Men’s Path, endeavors to carry off traditionalism at his new position, while ingraining his convictions of…

The symbolism in these stories both have this colonial theme. In Dead Men’s path, the path represents the importance of traditional beliefs and practices. the path passing through the garden of the school, it symbolizes the way that traditions cuts through the new, modern ways…

In the short story: Dead Man’s Path, Michael Obi emerges as headmaster of a school in Ndume. Michael Obi was a 26 years-old well-educated man. Obi becomes irritated when he sees a lady part through the flowers outside of the school. As a result, Obi…

Starting from January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945, around 17 million people were killed in Germany in what is known as the Holocaust. At that time, Adolf Hitler’s, Nazi Germany aimed to remove people who were not of German descent from Germany and especially…

In the beginning of I, Too (1926), the speaker explains that he is of darker skin and is not accepted as an equal due to his race; however, the reader can interpret that his message is to explain that he too is America. The reader…

A poet conveys diverse information, often tackling sensitive topics affecting the public. To communicate, Poets utilize different strategies, for example, through the application of literary elements such as grotesqueness or morbidity, to influence rhyming and structure. However, in trying to integrate these literary elements, a…

Seamus Heaney’s poem “Digging” is an eminent, esteemed and well cherished piece of art. This poem became the primary literary composition in Heaney’s first revealed book, which acted as milestone in his career and he ultimately became one of the world’s most illustrious writer’s. In…

One point that was commonly agreed upon during the Harlem Renaissance period is the idea that art is the only way to break down the seemingly unsurmountable barrier between black and white Americans. As some black Americans rose to prominence, however, they found that their…

“Ambition beats genius 99% of the time” ~Jay Leno. That’s why we are here to take a look at two examples of that 1%. Macbeth: the fictional character in the Shakespearian play “Macbeth”, and Pablo Escobar: the most notorious and well-known drug lord of the…

To survive is to continue on with life, even when it seems to be a continuous loop of despair. Authors Murakami, Steinbeck, and Hannaford each bring the idea of survival to life through their work. Murakami’s work focuses on survivor’s guilt, while Steinbeck exaggerates dependence,…

Since the beginning, humanity has been both animated and terrified by the movement of technology. ‘The Pedestrian,’ a short story by Ray Bradbury, happens in 2053 and pursues a man named Mr. Leonard Mead. Mr. Mead is one of a kind among of a city…

Certain disasters rise above close to home sentiments of misfortune, injuring a whole society. Here and there, this is the demise of people whose notoriety and notoriety carried them into the hearts of an incredible number of individuals. Different occasions, this can be an immense…

Medieval literature was a period filled with many characteristics and elements such as extended metaphors, romances, and the Church. In the Canterbury Tales, many different genres took place such as romance, beast fable, religion, and poetry. Iambic pentameter is used in the Miller’s Tale as…

Sylvia Plath was one of the most exceptionally dynamic poets of the twentieth century, fostering the confessional poetry genre. Known for her brilliantly thought-provoking poems and short stories, ironically, her most famous works were written during the most turbulent times of her life. Death presents…

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos and Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald were written in the 1920s in the day of age where young women are starting to embrace a more independent lifestyle away from the patriarchal beliefs society has historically set….

‘The Lottery,’ written by Shirley Jackson, is a short story about an obscure village that holds a ‘lottery’ in which an individual of any age is randomly chosen to be stoned to death. The story illustrates the process and which villager was selected to be…

Style, tone, and language are crucial aspects used in writing. It gives the story meaning, or a certain feeling, and helps the reader know what the author is trying to say in a story. The style that the “The Story of an Hour” uses is…

Created in 1905, Mark Twain’s satirical piece The War Prayer was written in reference to the Spanish-American war to condemn the naive prayer of war success. Through euphemistic language showing irony and a tonal shift, Twain makes an appeal to logos to highlight how ignorant…

Abuse exists in many different platforms — whether it be mental or physical, abuse is inhumane and malevolent. Sykes Jones, the antagonist in the short story “Sweat”, creates abusive situations for Delia Jones, the protagonist, with the use of her fears. Delia, who has a…

During the First World War, many soldiers often wrote as either a way to connect with loved ones back home or record their experiences on and off the battlefield. Wilfred Owen was a writer who fought in the First World War and illustrated the horrors…