She Gave Me of the Tree: Seduction in Medieval Literature
“Then the man said ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate (New King James Version, Gen. 3.12).’” From ancient…
Category: Literature Analysis
Genre & Irony in Northanger Abbey & Persuasion
Although Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, the two Jane Austen novels to debut after the novelist’s death, were first published and distributed as a packaged set, it is not to be…
The Modern Merlin
In Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, the legendary characters of King Arthur and the wizard Merlin have something like a father-son relationship. Merlin, the right-hand man to King Uther, removes infant…
When the Woman is Away, the Men Will Play: Early American Folklore
Hannah Duston is a legend in American folklore. The original account of her story was written on her behalf in first person by Puritan minister Cotton Mather in 1697, 1699,…
Cinematic Possibilities in Woolf’s “Solid Objects”
During Virginia Woolf’s career, cinema and literature both took on new forms. Cinema storytelling moved from documentary realism to experimental throughout the early 20th century, following the similar shift in…
Woolf’s Search for Reality in “The Mark on the Wall”
Virginia Woolf wrote her sketch “The Mark on the Wall” as an exploration of her developing Modernist ideas and techniques. In this 1917 sketch, a woman sits in a living…
The Picture of Dorian Gray in the High School Canon
The high school English curriculum is coveted real estate among teachers, parents, school principals, and state legislators. Oscar Wilde is a giant literary figure, evident by the numerous biographies and…
Characterization in Zone One
Colson Whitehead’s Zone One is a book critiquing modern culture and mass-market consumerism through a zombie narrative. The mediocrity of American life is personified through the character of Mark Spitz,…
Roses in Toni Morrison’s Sula
Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel, Sula, is a snapshot of a 1930s African-American community. It portrays the relationship between two girls, Sula and Nel, as they mature into women. The book…
Point of View in Notes of a Native Son
In the essays presented in James Baldwin’s first six essays in Notes of a Native Son, his perspective as a writer shifts from himself to that of a contemporary white…
Mutually Assured Destruction: Analysis of Their Eyes Were Watching God
In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston tells the story of an African-American woman living in the 1930’s Southern black community. Janie is a spirited woman…
Hollow Faith: Decadent Poets
The English Decadent poets of the late nineteenth century were influenced heavily by French writers, especially Charles Baudelaire, as was mentioned by T.S. Elliot in his essay, “Baudelaire” (155). The…