Essays and Research Papers on Mixed & Comp. Literature

A 5 page analysis of Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its Discontents and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. The writer argues that a possible explanation for the depression of Plath's protagonist, Esther, may be found in Freud's work. No additional sources cited.

A 15 page paper analyzing the issues raised by Anne Middleton Wagner’s Three Artists (Three Women) : Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O’Keeffe. The paper shows how Wagner, through a comparison of the lives of Eva Hesse, Lee Krasner, and Georgia O’Keeffe, convincingly presents the female artist’s plight in forging an artistic ...

A seven page paper analyzing the way the writings of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche influenced the development of modernism in general and the works of T.S. Eliot in particular. Works mentioned are Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “The Waste Land,” and “Tradition and the Individual Talent”; Marx’ letters; Freud’s “Civilization and its ...

A four page paper analyzing the degree to which Nietzsche and Dostoevsky are in agreement about the decline of Western Civilization. The paper concludes that although both men considered that nihilism -- the denial of values -- was at the root of what was wrong with European civilization in the nineteenth century, they simply attributed ...

A four page paper looking at the mutable nature of truth according to these three authors. Specific works covered are Dostoevsky’s “Notes from the Underground,” Nietzsche’s “The Anti-Christ,” and Camus’ “The Fall.” No additional sources.

A five page paper analyzing the significance of these motifs in “The Odyssey,” “The Inferno,” and “Don Quixote.” The paper concludes that each hero, through his quest, has brought back to his society a dose of precisely the medicine it needs. Bibliography lists two sources.

A six-page paper comparing the main male character in Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” with Alexander the Great. The paper asserts that both were aristocratic men with little compassion for the masses and a very inflated ego. Bibliography lists seven sources.

A five page paper looking at these five seminal twentieth-century writers and thinkers in terms of their ideas on our search for meaning in life. Writers and works discussed are Erich Fromm’s “To Have or To Be?”, Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Carol Pearson’s “The Hero Within,” and ...

A five page paper analyzing the way the plots of these two works support a feminist argument, with and without explicit rhetoric. The paper asserts that the conclusions reached in each play are inevitable, given the way the plot was structured to produce them. No additional sources.

A twelve page paper looking at these two novels by Henry James and Joseph Conrad, respectively, in terms of their treatment of individuality. The paper seeks to determine whether an emphasis on asserting one’s individuality reflects a naive outlook on life, and concludes it does. No other sources.

A ten page paper looking at these two characters of Arthurian romance -- one from Chretien de Troyes’ “Erec and Enide” and “Lancelot,” and the other from Rosemary Sutcliff’s contemporary novel “Sword at Sunset.” The paper points out that Gawain is demeaned in Chretien’s works because he needed a more distinctively Gallic hero, while Sutcliff ...

A five page paper on the uses of sentimentalism and sensibility in Oliver Goldsmith's 'She Stoops to Conquer,' Laurence Sterne's 'A Sentimental Journey,' and Samuel Johnson's 'Rasselas.' It discusses the way men and women are characterized in these works, and whether these authors see a difference in male and female sensibilities. No additional sources.

A five page paper comparing the ideas contained in Alicia Ostriker’s “Stealing the Language” with Diane Wakoski’s poetry. The paper concludes that both writers feel women need to reject the myths our patriarchal culture has imposed upon them, and reinvent themselves in a more positive vein. Bibliography lists six sources.

A fourteen page paper looking at this groundbreaking book by Jasper Becker. It shows how Mao's 'Great Leap Forward' of the late 1950s and early 1960s affected the Chinese peasant farmer, and charges that thirty million people died as a result of his bizarre agricultural policies. Bibliography lists five sources.

A seven page paper discussing social class and its impact on the lives of characters in Virginia Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own,' 'Orlando,' and 'To the Lighthouse,' and Tom Stoppard's 'Arcadia.' The paper observes that many of Woolf's feminist arguments and all of Stoppard's intellectual ones would have had no meaning to working-class people ...

A six page paper looking at the way these three authors’ short stories demonstrate the movement from works that are plot-driven to those which are character-driven. Specific stories discussed include Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” and John Updike’s “A & P.” No additional sources.

This 5 page paper considers the characters of both Oedipus and Gilgamesh, both of whom were great kings but flawed men. This paper considers whether their experience of loss and suffering was valuable, and why each character, in their attempt to maintain their throne, actually lose everything that is important. Bibliography lists 2 sources.

A 5 page paper which examines post-colonialism in Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient" and Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" in terms of the enemy, both real and allegorical; the confusion over who is the enemy in each; and the reasons for this confusion, from a post-colonial perspective. Bibliography lists 3 sources.

A five page paper looking at the way Chinua Achebe's protagonist Okonkwo in "Things Fall Apart" and Zora Neale Hurston's protagonist Janie Crawford in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" function as subversive elements within their society due to their inability to understand either its changing face (in the case of Okonkwo) or its basic realities (in the ...

An eight page paper discussing how these two very different works can be both classified as epics. The paper defines the term epic and shows how both works define the character of a nation. Bibliography lists six sources.

A 5 page paper which discusses the books "Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert and "Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger and illustrates how the main characters are dissatisfied with the world around them to the point where their lives become somewhat meaningless. No additional sources cited.

This 5 page paper compares and contrasts the styles of two poets John Keats 'La Belle Da Mesans Merci' and Deborah Garrison's 'She Was Waiting To Be Told'. The ways in which the poems are similar and contrast is discussed using phrases from each to demonstrate the observations made. The bibliography cites 2 sources.

A three page paper looking at these two ancient tales in terms of their common story lines but very different tones. The paper concludes that the Greek story shows how the sins of one person could taint an entire country; the Norse tale argues that anything producing a positive benefit for the heroic dynasty would naturally produce a positive ...

5 pages in length. Vastly different in their pursuits, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Daniel Defoe and Harriet Beecher Stowe all contributed something unique to the worlds of art and literature. The writer notes that to discuss each individual's influences in both his or her own era as well as in contemporary society ...

Fairy tales are more than just stories: they are stories that reflect the social norms and expectations of the culture, provide moral guidance and acquaint children with the important aspects of the social system. They consistently offer a moral dimension that is pertinent to both social and political aspects of the social structure. This 5 page paper argues ...