Genre Essays

The novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a ground-breaking work in American fiction. The topic of emotional/physical abuse, especially that endured by black American women of earlier generations is not openly spoken about or documented in history books. By bringing focus to this sensitive, yet saddening, experience of black women, the novel attracted […]

An exposition on plot, point of view, character, setting, time and style in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and how they constitute the ‘living organism’ of her novel. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is one of the most popular novels in English literature. It continues to remain as popular today as it was upon […]

Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights is a key text in the English literary canon. The first and last novel of the short-lived life and career of Emily Bronte, the novel lends itself to analysis through various disciplines such as psychoanalysis, race, gender and cultural studies. For example, it could be read under the feminist framework […]

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre has now attained an iconic status as a literary work. There are several reasons behind this achievement. The first is the inherent beauty and complexity of the novel. The twists, turns and fluctuations of fortune that comprise the plot are both original and engaging. The second most notable aspect of the […]

Woolf’s novel, published in 1927, was a groundbreaking work that defied traditional narrative and plot-based storytelling. Instead, it embraced impressionistic and modernist approaches borrowed from the visual arts. In his essay, Jonathan Culler examines five aspects of literature, providing an interesting opportunity to analyze their relevance to Woolf’s novel. This essay contends that Woolf’s novel […]

In the contemporary era, commonly known as the ‘Age of Alienation’, individuals are greatly concerned about the problem of alienation. This issue has gained more prominence in the 20th century, specifically after the postwar period. According to Edmund Fuller, people in our time not only face external challenges like war, persecution, famine, and ruin but […]

Virginia Woolf’s essay on Mary Wollstonecraft in the Common Reader is essentially, an active continuation of the experimental method on which Mary Wollstonecraft based her life. “The high-handed and hot-blooded manner in which she cut her way through life” is in essence what Woolf is trying to replicate in this essay, in particular through her […]

It was charless Lukman who said, success is that old abc, ability, break and courage. Man can be destroyed but not defeated, these words were fully influenced by two great novels, The old man and the sea by Ernest Heminguwy which was published in 1952 and Moby dick by Herman Melville in 1852. These two […]

In Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, the reader follows an unnamed protagonist through his tumultuous daily life living in New York City. The use of second person narrative, specifically through the word “you” distances our protagonist from himself, making him seem alienated and alone despite being surrounded by the huge bustling city and it’s […]

It seems that greed never allows you to think you have enough, and in the case of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien it demonstrates how corruptive it can truly be. From the surface one may not think of a half sized person as the usual hero. However, by looking into the personalities of the characters […]

Joaquin brings to life various characters, including Manolo Vidal and his family, Connie Escobar, Esteban and Concha Borromeo, Father Tony, Paco Texeira, and Doctor Monson. Doctor Monson, a former rebel, is hiding in Hong Kong to avoid postwar trials. According to literary critic Epifanio San Juan, Connie Escobar, the main female character, is portrayed as […]

In the realistic fiction novel, Thirteen Reasons Why written by Jay Asher, Hannah Baker is your average new freshman that just moved into town. She’s a simple girl at heart that admires candy, hot chocolate, and writing poetry. However, things are put into a different perspective when she meets Clay Jensen; reputations and relationships will […]

Since its initial publication Modesto de Castro’s prose work Ang Pagsusulatan ng Magkapatid na si Urbana at Felisa (1864)hasbeen highly regarded as a privileged text for a number of reasons. Firstly, de Castro’s work was one of the longer prose narratives written in Tagalog. Thus, it joined Miguel Lucio Bustamante’s Si Tandang Bacio Macunat, another […]

The novel “Broken April” by Ismail Kadare, has given me a deeper insight of how violently the Albanian’s culture is, as my experience is exposed to its context, themes, and ideas. Ismail Kadare presents us a close up view through a character, Gjorg, to show how the isolated people of the High Plateau live under […]

Insecurity, or self-doubt, is a powerful force that prevents a person from allowing him or herself to find true happiness. In Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Rebecca, the protagonist is filled with insecurities due to the haunting memories of her husband’s ex-wife, Rebecca. Examples of this are when the protagonist thinks Maxim does not truly love […]

The book A Beggar At Damascus Gate by Yasmin Zahran explores the theme of love surpassing cultural and ideological differences. It focuses on how beliefs and ideologies affect relationships, with the main characters being Ryya, a Palestinian woman, and Alex, a British man. An archaeologist discovered a personal journal in a small hotel in Jordan […]

The novella focuses on Gustave von Aschenbach, the protagonist whose attributes are emphasized by other characters. One of these characters is Tadzio, who receives a thorough description but mainly serves as the object of Aschenbach’s intense passion. Throughout the story, the author frequently compares Tadzio to a Greek marble statue. The novella emphasizes the significance […]

The novel “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe’s is one of the most excellent existing examples of what is typically known as the “factual story,” a type that Wolfe assisted to form. In narrating the non-fictional narrative of the beginning of the narration of the United States’ manned spaceflight program, the author has used a […]

In the novel, Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas who lived from 1943 to 1990, the author conveys many subjects and captures the reader to the full extent. Reinaldo Arenas, the author and the person who lived the experience writes this book for us in hopes of capturing our feelings and sympathy of the Cuban […]

Social class played a major role in the society depicted in Charles Dickens’s novel “Great Expectations”. Many characters were treated differently because of their social class in the story. Seeing the contrast between how the poor and the rich were treated will give a clearer understanding of how much social class mattered. During the nineteenth […]

Intelligent, strikingly attractive, and distinguished by her deep moral sensitivity and passionate intensity, Tess is indisputably the central character of the novel that bears her name. But she is also more than a distinctive individual: Hardy makes her into somewhat of a mythic heroine. Other characters often refer to Tess in mythical terms, as when […]

‘Oranges are Not the Only Fruit’ is a novel which often uses allegory to create depth and meaning to the novel by blurring the line between fact and fiction. The use of allegory adds to our understanding of ‘Oranges’ as a whole in many different ways. Allegories are used within ‘Oranges are not the Only […]