Essays and Research Papers on Mixed & Comp. Literature

A 7 page overview of these novels. Written partly as biographies and partly as fiction these books span several genres. Incorporating elements of myth superimposed on historical fact, these novels have sometimes been misunderstood by critics. This paper asserts, however, that this mish-mash of styles provides an accurate picture of the Chinese-American ...

A 5 page essay that examines three books that deal with the American business world-- Upton Sinclair's The Jungle; Lewis Sinclair's Babbitt; and William Heffernan's The Dinosaur Club. These books offer three views of the American business world, and also the way in which Americans would like to see themselves and the American Dream. These ...

This 7 page paper considers the main themes of four short stories by this well known writer. The writers uses the short stories of "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains", "Some Words with a Mummy", "The Power of Words" and "The Balloon Hoax". The themes considers are those of truth, time and knowledge. The bibliography ...

A five page paper looking at James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and James McBride's "The Color of Water" in terms of their presentation of the importance of education. The paper concludes that education has the power to change lives that most people would have considered unpromising at best. No additional ...

A 10 page paper which synthesizes important literary works to determine to what extent humans have power to determine their own destinies, the relationship between the human and the divine, and the role society or tradition plays in the respective texts. Bibliography lists 11 sources.

A 5 page paper comparing the power and effect of the spirit of place in both Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill's plays. The paper concludes that both these works rely so heavily on their respective settings that the oppressive locales predetermines the outcome of the events. No additional sources cited.

This 4 page report discusses the idea that ancient myths, because of their fundamental universality, are still the foundation of many of the plots, adventures, and stories that make up the drama of the modern age. Super-human strength, romantic liaisons between forces of great power, and battles between titans are all a part of the mythos of modern life. What is ...

4 pages in length. Evil - a self-perpetuating entity of myriad literary tales - presents itself as a force that challenges the very foundation of human existence in two classic stories: O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown. The paradox that exists within the literary boundaries of ...

5 pages in length. The religious implications of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and "Beowulf" are both vast and far-reaching; while one is riveted with subtle blatancy, the other boldly proclaims how religious beliefs served to separate two cultures. No additional sources cited.

This 5 page paper considers and contrasts the way in which religion and the state are portrayed in Thomas More's Utopia and Thomas Hobbes' leviathan. The style and approaches of the book are different, and the precipitin of the authors is also at odds, the paper looks at this and also considers briefly why ...

An 8 page discussion of the influence of factors like religion and belief in God, as opposed to factors such as greed, lust, jealousy, and regret in the characters presented in Dostoyevsky’s “Demons” and Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People”. Contrasts these author’s ideologies with those of Freud and Nietzsche. Bibliography lists 4 sources.

A 5 page paper which examines which author is better at presenting a satire on religion, Voltaire in “Candide,” or Swift in “Gulliver’s Travels” Part IV. Bibliography lists 10 sources.

A 9 page paper that discusses microhistorical events of the early to mid-16th century by discussing three specific books: Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worm: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller; Davis' The Return of Martin Guerre; and Nalle's Mad for God: Bartolome Sanchez, the Secret Messiah of Cardenete. The paper comments on ...

A 5 page, analytical discussion of how the themes into literary landmarks -- from two different cultures -- (Spanish and Ancient Greek) have withstood the 'tests of time' and still maintain an appeal for contemporary audiences. The two works discussed are Euripides' 'Medea' and Garcia Lorca's 'Blood Wedding' -- two thematically similar tales. No Bibliography.

A 6 page research paper that examines the history behind the formation of the first union for farm workers and the oppression of the bracero farm workers that led to its formation, focusing on the career of Cesar Chavez. Bibliography lists 7 sources.

A 14 page paper that utilizes the literature of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries to represent common perspectives about the themes of human happiness, love, passion, and the human condition during varying times in European history. Descartes, Hegel, Hume, Keats, & Marx are among the many authors discussed. Bibliography lists 16 sources.

A 10 page paper showing this critical issue as demonstrated in the works of Aristophanes, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Cather (Lysistrata, The Apology, The Inferno, The Tempest, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and The Professor’s House, respectively). The paper shows that throughout history, women’s role has been largely seen as procreative, and completely under ...

A 5 page analysis of the Persian Letters by Montesquieu, published in 1721, and Oroonoko: or The Royal Slave, a true history by Aphra Behn, published in 1688. These are two early examples of the art of writing a novel. They both take the stance that their subject material actually existed, and they both build ...

A 13 page paper which examines how the authors’ cultural backgrounds are reflected in the personal essays “The Execution of Tropman,” “This Too is Life,” “Death,” In Praise of Shadows,” “Pleasure Boat Studio,” “Meatless Days,” “In the Middle of the Journey,” “Criteria of Negro Art,” and “The Formation of the Intellectuals.” Bibliography lists 9 ...

A 5 page paper that presents a critical analysis and discussion of the major theme and primary idea presented in Ray Bradbury's 1943 short story The Crowd. This discussion includes a brief history of Bradbury's writing career and examines how the writer's life experiences and observations are reflected in The Crowd as well as ...

A 5 page paper that presents an interpretation of the definition of Americanism by examining the distinct characteristics and tendencies of Americans and the origins of these traits. Discussed are the definitions of Americanism as presented in Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 essay "The Frontier in American History" and Alexis de Tocqueville's "Why the Americans ...

5 pages in length. Literary history demonstrates that good and evil do not exist merely in people who are good or evil but rather as abstract forces battling within them. As a direct result, readers of such works find few characters who can be called good or evil, with particular emphasis upon Melville, ...

A 7 page essay discussing the difference between art written for art's sake and art written for life's sake. It particularly discusses Flaubert, Ibsen, Dostoevsky and Yeats, and examines how each of these authors fit into the Romantic tradition of the artist as both spokesperson and iconoclast, and how each of these works discussed ...

a 5 page paper comparing Harold Krebs in Hemingway's 'Soldier's Home' with the narrator of 'Bartleby the Scrivener' by Herman Melville. The paper concludes that both these characters have a difficult time risking confrontation, and, despite the fact that one character is a soldier returned from the front and the other a successful lawyer, neither ...

A 6 page paper discussing the reality of the settings and details in these three novels. The paper points out that verisimilitude is very important in fiction, because only when the reader is grounded in reality can he suspend disbelief sufficiently to be drawn into the story. Bibliography lists one source.