American Literature Essays Examples For College & High School Students in PDF

85147 total results

An Analysis of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (309 words, 1 pages)

Huck Finn and the First Amendment The novel Huckleberry Finn by the American author Mark Twain (1835-1910) has caused a great controversy in the United States whether to ban the book or not. One of the main reasons of the censorship concerning the book is the frequent use of the ... Read More

How to Plan a Successful Picnic (832 words, 1 pages)

First of all pick a day, once a week when you'll have them. Picking early is to your advantage, because you can over the course of the next few months to iron out the details. Look at your friends and family and try to find a day most people can ... Read More

Dickens’s Portrayal of the Cratchit Family (930 words, 2 pages)

How does Dickens portray the Cratchit family? What part does this family play in Dickens's intentions for this novel? In Victorian times there was a big gap between middle and lower working class. The working day was 12-hours long, but during the winter the days were shorter because if the ... Read More

Depicting Conflicts between Traditional and Modern in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Desai’s Clear Light of Day (905 words, 1 pages)

In both Achebe's and Desai's novels, tension and conflict between the new and the old, traditional and modern are the strong undercurrents that move the story and the reader into an unconscious emotional uneasiness. In both novels, the backdrop and the story are engrossed in a struggle between two worlds, ... Read More

Are Creon and Antigone Aristotle’s Tragic Heroes (2659 words, 3 pages)

How far do Creon and Antigone fit Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero? Aristotle defined a tragic hero as - "The intermediate sort of person, one whop is not pre-eminently virtuous and just, one who incurs misfortune not as a result of vice and depravity, but by some error of ... Read More

Harper Lee’s Technique on Ending the Novel To Kill A Mocking Bird (1574 words, 2 pages)

How does Harper Lee make the end of the book exciting and satisfying? Harper Lee makes the ending of To Kill A Mockingbird exciting and satisfying by building up tension and resolving key parts to the story in some way or another. It is really chapter twenty-eight that makes the ... Read More

An Essay on Different Writing Styles in Dickens The Signalman (406 words, 1 pages)

The dark oppressive atmosphere which is created by the description used by Dickens in the opening of "The Signalman" to show the conditions of the railway cutting in which the signalman works uses sinister vocabulary to build a vivid impression of the insufferable conditions. The vocabulary used often contains long ... Read More

Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Kafka’s Metamorphosis: Depiction of Imprisonment (1551 words, 5 pages)

In relation to the works Waiting for Godot and Metamorphosis, imprisonment can either be collective imprisonment or personal imprisonment. In both cases, it includes the restriction of personal freedom, the limitation of action and the deprivation of human contact. My objective is to investigate in what ways Beckett and Kafka ... Read More

To Kill a Mockingbird: Literary Depiction of South and Racism (1195 words, 2 pages)

"To Kill a Mocking Bird" is based in about 1935, right in the middle of the depression. It is set in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb. Maycomb, like most small southern towns, has a problem with widespread racism toward Negroes. The novel focuses on one family, the Finches. ... Read More

A Portfolio for Expository Writing Class (637 words, 1 pages)

How I Have Grown Have you ever been enchanted by the actions of a performer or awed by the moves of a dancer? This is what you will be feeling throughout the duration of my Expository writing portfolio. This is not only a portfolio for my Expository Writing class, it ... Read More

Honor Thy Children: Coping with Loss, Death and Grief (1317 words, 2 pages)

Parents are not meant to bury their children. How can you cope with saying good-bye to not just one of your children but to all your children? When I first heard of Honor Thy Children I thought that is would be a mellow drama filled with boring stories about some ... Read More

Anti War Literature: Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1189 words, 4 pages)

In his novel "All Quiet On The Western Front"- first published in German as Im Westen nichts Neues in January 1929 - German Author Erich Maria Remarque purposefully destroys the nationalistic ideas readers at the time would have had about the war. He claims in his epigraph - "This book ... Read More

A Short Story about Personal Sporting Experience (888 words, 3 pages)

It was the last period, tied 0-0. I had the game on my stick, just me and the goalie. The clock was ticking down, 36...35...34. Did you just think that I was going to tell you what happened next? Nice try. I have to build up some suspense first. A ... Read More

Issues of Abortion in Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants (982 words, 2 pages)

Hills Like White Elephants, written by Ernest Hemingway, cleverly and painfully captures the difficulty of talking about abortion. Ernest Hemingway is known for writing stories in which the unsaid is often suggested, and this is very evident in Hills Like White Elephants. In this story, two characters discuss an "operation," ... Read More

Indecisiveness in Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants (656 words, 1 pages)

Ernest Hemingway's opening paragraph in "Hills Like White Elephants" immediately pojects his readers into a landscape that is barren and uncomfortable. It is a scene so simple, yet so the vivid, that the reader physically senses the burning of the sun and the stillness of the day, interrupted only by ... Read More

Harry’s Inner Struggles in The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway (674 words, 1 pages)

The story about pain, about being fed up with the reality, about dying at the foot of the mountain which is said to be the highest in Africa. The thing as uncertain as the unknown presence of the mysterious skeleton of the leopard lying close to the western summit, dried ... Read More

Henrik Ibsen’s Influence on Contemporary Drama (4149 words, 15 pages)

Loyalty, duty, obligation. These are only some of the social laws that Henrik Ibsen wrote out against in his later works. Ibsen believed that these bourgeois beliefs were hindering the individual's, as well as the nation's, realization of the self. To Ibsen, it was far more important to have the ... Read More

A High School to Remember (366 words, 1 pages)

I do not think my best memory of my life has approached me yet. However, I feel my high school years have been the most memorable. I strongly believe that high school is the open door, into the rest of my life. The last days of my high school career ... Read More

The Sin and Redemption of Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter (1247 words, 2 pages)

Hester Prynne Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, a dark tale of sin and redemption,centers around the small Puritan community of Boston during the 17th century. In the midst of this small community is Hester Prynne. She is a woman that has defied the Puritans, taken the consequences and in the ... Read More

A Biography of Ernest Hemingway (692 words, 2 pages)

Ernest Hemmingway Jessica Sheeran Ernest Hemmingway was not only a great American writer but he was also a great showman. His shameless self-promotion made him a celebrity beyond the world of literature. Although his life was a normal one as a child, Hemmingway developed into a great writer and with ... Read More

Marlow’s Disillusionment in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (580 words, 2 pages)

In the novel Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad, Marlow finds himself in a position where he is faced to make a moral accept the fact that the man he has admired and looked up to is a madman. He realizes that Kurtzs methods are not only unethical, but ... Read More

Racism and Discrimination in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (679 words, 1 pages)

Racism in Heart of Darkness In the novel, Heart of Darkness, the author Joseph Conrad makes some comments that could be taken for racially prejudiced remarks. By using different terms to describe people of color, we can depict how Conrad saw Africans as an inferior people. In the book Heart ... Read More

Common Themes in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and T.S. Eliot’s Hollow Men (992 words, 2 pages)

Heart of Darkness and Hollow Men Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, and Hollow Men, by T.S. Eliot have several comparative themes, though each author has an entirely separate way of conveying them. Each work displays a darkened and dismal mood, separation, and obscurity, which are depicted through different characters ... Read More

The Personality of Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (863 words, 2 pages)

Throughout his voyage, Marlow encounters the helmsman. Although we do not know precisely how old he is, Marlow describes him as athletic. Thus we may conjecture, that the helmsman cannot be older than a man in his prime. Marlow meets him, on the ship that is taking them to Kurtz's ... Read More

An Analysis of Linda Constanzo’s Article Narratological Parallels on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola (771 words, 2 pages)

In the article, Narratological Parallels in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now Linda Costanzo Cahir compares and contrasts both the novella and the film. Both writers had the same theme and meaning in mind, but their structure and technique was what made the stories different. ... Read More

A Book Report on Headcrash by Bruce Bethke (1332 words, 2 pages)

The Book Headcrash is a 343-pg. book by Bruce Bethke. It takes place in the year 2005. The world has become a world controlled by computers and large multi-billion dollar companies. Our lead character, Jack Burroughs, has an adventure in Cyberspace (on the Internet). In order to understand the plot, ... Read More

The Journey to Self-realization In a Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1198 words, 2 pages)

Henry and the Priest Masculinity, heroism, and war are often themes in Ernest Hemingways novels, and although evident in his A Farewell to Arms, these things are secondary. Set in Italy during World War I, A Farewell to Arms tells the story of a young mans self-realization. With the use ... Read More

An Analysis of Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener (740 words, 1 pages)

Herman Melville Bartleby the Scrivener The narrators life in Herman Melvilles Bartleby The Scrivener was dramatically changed by his encounter with Bartleby. The narrator thought he was hiring a harmless scrivener but later learns that he has gotten much more than he bargained for. Bartleby had come to the narrator ... Read More

Themes of Love and War in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (947 words, 2 pages)

Hello and Goodbye In the book A Farewell to Arms there are a number of themes. The two main themes that are clearly pointed out are love and war. Love is a word that sounds like a good time and being happy, war on the other hand is a word ... Read More

The Lack of Control That Ultimately Drove Hedda Gabler to Suicide (363 words, 1 pages)

Pursuit of Happiness Every mans goals and ambitions for the future vary from one to the next, yet all share a common bond, all hope for their own personal happiness. For Hedda Gabler, happiness may be achieved by and only by controlling the immediate environment around her. Therefore, Hedda, to ... Read More

American Literature Essay Examples