Category: Literary Criticism

In the book, Things Fall Apart, the author, Chinua Achebe, embedded many traits of the Nigerian Ibo people. Achebe blended an abundance of themes to create a detailed characterization of the primitive clan of Umofia. Two powerful themes presented in this novel include parallelisms and gender roles. Parallelisms Within Things Fall Apart, there were numerous…

‘Macbeth’ is a tragedy, in which the protagonist, Macbeth, embarks on a dark path of betrayal and bloodshed that leads to his own demise and death. The play was written by William Shakespeare and dedicated to James 1 in 1606 who succeeded the throne in 1603. This tragedy deals with major themes such as ambition,…

Appearances often hide reality is a significant part of the play, revealing the tragedy in which the characters must cloak up their nature, indicating things are not always as they seem. The reality of someone can be changed depending on their desires and ambitions. Shakespeare presents appearance as a visual outforward form of what we…

Shakespeare uses symbolism to depict ambition and express Macbeths inner conflict which he encounters subsequently from his actions. Blood is a symbol of the way Shakespeare displays ambition throughout the play as blood illustrates the change in Macbeths character. At the start of the play, blood is a representation of Macbeths loyalty and honor. Throughout…

Marxist philosophy believes that society views the world by way of a purely financial lens. Marxism dictates that society is separated into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie makes use of ideology to suppress the proletariat in the major with the useful resource of manipulating their perceptions of their free agency. One…

Roderick Frazier Nash’s essay Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth in the Fourth Millennium explains an argument that in order to correctly executed an island civilization, the populace needs to minimize to a quarter of todays population, which would result to around 1.5 billion people, meaning there will be fewer of them.…

In this essay, I will analyze two poems. I will aim to discuss the main themes that are evident throughout the poems, as well as how the writers show these themes through the structures of the poems. The two poems which I will analyze are The Soldier and In Flanders Fields. The first poem which…

Toni Morrison is one of the most recognized and honored authors in the world. In addition to her timeless essays and stories such as Recitatif and Tar Baby, her classic novels have earned her numerous reputable awards including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize (Nobel Prize in Literature 1993). Needless to say,…

I have chosen to deal with the Salem witches, a myth that inspired Arthur Miller who wrote The Crucible in 1952. Firstly, in 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts, the Reverends daughter, Betty, fell sick and the only explanation given by the physician was that she was under the influence of the devil, and this led to…

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, depicts the human struggle against vengeance and the wrath of another human being. It explores many relevant topics such as hysteria, morality, and reputation, many of which relate back to Miller’s experience with McCarthyism during the 1950s. The play unfolds in the town of Salem during the 1690s, where an…