Essays On Books

Plagiarism is a problem that many people face daily whether it is a student struggling with a research paper or an advertising agent trying to get new ideas together for a sales pitch. Is plagiarism limited only to a student using material copied from a book without giving credit to the author or for turning […]

Dylan Thomas’ poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, is written as a dramatic monologue. It is a brief poem with nineteen lines, divided into six stanzas. He communicates with his audience through alliteration and the consistent repetition of the last line of each stanza. Through a combination of literary elements, Thomas is […]

Enduring Love and Wuthering Heights are both novels that confront several issues of violence, conflict, death and most prominently, love. Though the narrative styles are similar, with accounts and perspectives given through love letters or gossip, and pathetic fallacy dominates the settings and subsequent events, contrasts still cause these novels to be different, yet effective […]

“I remember growing up and feeling there is not a lot of room for acceptance. You are taught at a very early age to conform to certain things. It is a situation that is very prevalent and starts from day one at school: this person’s smart, this person’s not smart, this persons good at sport, […]

Say how far you agree with the views that Drummer Hodge is presented in a romantic, idealised way, and that Graves’ German soldier is presented with stark-realism. Hardy wrote ‘Drummer Hodge’ as a poem depicting the way in which a young drummer boy from Dorset dies and is then buried without ceremony, on the South […]

The immediate thing that strikes me, when comparing Tennyson’s “eagle” and McCaig’s “sparrow”, is the great contrast in length between the two poems. In just two verses, Tennyson manages to convey the pure majesty of the eagle in its natural habitat, following the instinct that has driven it to hunt its prey like countless generations […]

In regards to the departure of the soldiers, Owen and Tynan offer contrasting presentations and s ignificantly different moods can be observed in their respective poems. The poem ‘Joining the Colours’ sets the tone from its title, as Tynan’s use of the verb ‘joining’ suggests that the soldiers believed they were merely becoming part of […]

In this text, I will examine how Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Isaac Rosenberg address the theme of war. I have analyzed Rosenberg’s poem titled ‘Break of Day in the Trenches.’ The title itself implies a serene atmosphere, as the break of day signifies a peaceful and tranquil beginning of a new day. Throughout the […]

There is no focal genre within Enduring Love, though it tautly delves into the genre of science fiction and weaves into several others. It becomes, at different times, easily identifiable as a psychological thriller, detective story and a love story. The first concern to clarify is whether or not Enduring Love embraces multiple genres. The […]

Chapter 12 allows McEwan to move along the plot as he is able to describe in retrospect Joes feelings as he is driving. The chapter begins with Joe reflecting upon his ‘sense of failure’. Joe reflects upon the fact that he no longer finds comfort in work nor what he did before. He states ‘twenty […]

‘The old lie’ was the traditional view of war, which is honourable, glorious and heroic to fight and die for your country. During the time when Tennyson wrote his poem, ‘The charge of the light brigade’ (1854), everyone felt that dying for your country in action was honourable. But this view of war slowly changed […]

The crime-fiction genre is a longstanding genre which deals with the thrill and suspicion of ensnaring a villain, often by means of a fascinating process of thoughtful deduction. The perennial interest generated by villains and their associated crimes means that the genre is still very popular, though it has undergone development to make it more […]

In this essay I will compare two poems from different cultures: “Night of the Scorpion” by Nissim Ezekiel and “Nothing’s Changed” by Tatamkhulu Africa. Both poems convey a sense of poverty, but while in “Night of the Scorpion” the neighbors unite and support each other, in “Nothing’s Changed” the community remains divided due to racism. […]

The poem “Lament” written by Gillian Clarke, and “The Flower-Fed Buffaloes” by Vachel Lindsay are two very similar poems which both illustrate the problems that affect nature. The poem “Lament” portrays ideas to do with ecological disasters and that of conflict and war. On the other hand, “The Flower-Fed Buffaloes” illustrates how modernisation leads to […]

Carol Ann Duffy has written many poems and many of them are linked but in different ways, to substantiate this I am going to refer to three of her poems and compare them with one another. The poems that I have chosen are ‘War Photographer’, ‘Valentine’ and ‘Before You Were Mine’. My first impression of […]

“Mid-term Break” is an autobiographical poem by Seamus Heaney about the death of a schoolboy’s four-year old brother and the reactions and atmosphere surrounding it. Heaney uses plain matter of fact language to create mood and atmosphere for the poem. The use of ‘sounds’ is significantly used by Heaney to convey words of condolence. The […]

Mid-Term Break’ is set in three places, unlike ‘Follower’, which is based in one place. The introduction of ‘Mid-Term Break’ is based in the college sick bay. Heaney is sitting there, waiting for the neighbours to drive him home. This is because he is going to go to his brother, Christopher’s, funeral. Christopher was hit […]

The Merchant of Venice is set in Venice, though mostly in Belmont. Venice is a very old and well-known Italian city. There are several different types of religions in Italy, but the most common were the Jews and the Christians. The Jews and Christians resented each other; an example of this is in the merchant […]

Have you ever seen someone strange? Strange enough, in fact, to chill you to your bones, and boil your blood all at once? I haven’t seen someone like this, but I have read about someone like this. In the fantastic story “The Ratcatcher” by Roald Dahl I will ‘travel’ down into the depths of the […]

Madame Bovary was written in 1857 in a time of great social unrest in France. The Revolution in 1772 had led to some movement towards the establishment of equality between the sexes, however, this was to be temporarily abolished with the re-introduction of the monarchy and women’s roles within society were redefined once more. The […]

During the late sixteenth century, when Spenser was writing The Faerie Queene, he had a wide range of literary influences to draw from. These included the classical epic poets, ancient philosophers, as well as more recent Italian epic works and the Arthurian legends as chronicled by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Latin chronicles, Historia Regum […]

In times like these of unrest and turmoil the world will often turn to its history for answers. The history of warfare is a dated and overflowing one. In his book ‘Gallipoli’, Les Carlyon writes of a place and a battle. His descriptive writings take the reader into trenches and introduce them to the politicians […]