Reverend Martin Luther King’s famous letter from Birmingham Jail captures some of the core elements of his public discourse. Although the letter had not been orated in public, it is similar in style to his more popular public speeches and brings out the inspirational and charismatic aspects of King’s personality. The letter was first published…
Category: Literature
Beowulf
The classic epic poem Beowulf is strongly centered on a theme of loyalty. Given that the historic setting and milieu of the epic, it is understandable why this particular quality of human affairs was given centre stage. The author portrays a heroic image of the protagonist, who fearlessly fights enemies in order to save his…
1984 by George Orwell – An Analysis
Nineteen Eighty Four is widely considered to be the definitive novel about the concept of Dystopia. The novel is set in a totalitarian world comprising of three major superpowers namely Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania. The region in which the chief protagonist lives and narrates this story is Oceania that includes most of Western Europe. The…
The discourse of Class Inequality in The Discontented by Leila Abouzeid
In the short story by Leila Abouzeid, the author narrates an exchange of views between two cousins – one a high placed officer and the other a poor worker. The author uses the social backdrop of Morocco to present her story. The story captures the inequalities evident between the affluent and the deprived sections of…
The link between the Roaring Twenties of white writers and the Harlem Renaissance of black writers
While the 1920’s were not remarkable for radical political changes or catastrophic natural phenomena, it is still a very significant period in the history of American cultural evolution. On the literary scene, two important but parallel movements took shape. The better known of these is the Roaring Twenties, a description that covers the whole literary…
Outline and review of arguments and controversies generated by Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion:
Right from the publication of his first major work “The Selfish Gene Theory”, Richard Dawkins is never free of controversy. While Dawkins is impeccable as a scholar and an academic, most of his detractors are from the religious and conservative sections of the population. Over the years, Dawkins’ works on evolutionary biology have drawn equally…
The Storm by Kate Chopin: Analysis
Kate Chopin in her short yet gripping story The Storm explores a plethora of turbulent emotions of the protagonists in the backdrop of an unexpected storm. Though dubbed a sequel to her earlier work “At the Cadian Ball” (1892) it shares little resemblance to Calixta’s daring. All through, there is an undercurrent of nascent feminism….
The Wound Dresser by Walt Whitman: Summary & Analysis
The Wound Dresser is an intimate, graphic and deeply moving expression of the act of nursing the sick and dying. The poem is remarkable for its lack of exaggerated portrayals of pain and suffering. Yet, the attention to detail, the depiction of images, etc. are very sophisticated for a poem written in the nineteenth century….
Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
Uzodinma Iweala’s critically acclaimed novel “Beasts of No Nation” is set a West African country. This unnamed country is in political and civil turmoil. The protagonist in the novel is the child soldier Agu, who is compelled to join the militia amid chaos, fear and uncertainty. Iweala adopts a social-realistic narrative approach in portraying the…
Dream and Reality in The Metamorphosis
The Samsa family around the fantastic insect is nothing else than mediocrity surrounding genius. Gregor Samsa (pronounced Zamza), the protagonist, has for his parents Flaubertian philistines. They are generally interested in the material side of life and have poor tastes in other regards. About five years back, father Samsa loses all his money, which forces…