Dehumanization of Women In “The Applicant” (Sylvia Plath)

Of all the feminist writers of the 20th and 21st century, Sylvia Plath is one whose influence in the writing community has remained strong even 50 years after her tragic death. While an astoundingly accomplished woman for the time period, graduating summa cum laude from Smith College, and winning the Fulbright Scholarship to attend Newnham … Read more

To what extent is Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess a play for the audience of its time and space?

Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess as a critique on the contemporary socio-political events of Early Modern history. Middleton’s revolutionary English History play, A Game at Chess, was the greatest box-office hit in Early Modern London, filling the Globe Theatre for 9 consecutive days in August 1624 before having its license revoked and Middleton and … Read more

Holden in The Catcher and the Rye

To a large extent I agree that Holden’s mental problems arise is the result of him never wanting to grow up like a Peter Pan figure as his behaviours reveals he struggles when he experiences adulthood when he sees phoniness in adults and innocence in children, so he wishes to save himself and other children … Read more

Masculinity in literature

Masculinity is still a new and fresh field to be ploughed specially in the field of literature. Many researchers have done abundant researches on femininity. Yet, masculinity has never been studied fully neither as a concept nor as a movement. Terms like masculinist or Masculinism are still rarely to be found in daily used dictionaries. … Read more

Racial Prejudices – Native Son (Richard Wright), Fruitvale Station (Coogler)

Ever since the beginning of slavery in America, the existence of the black male population has been compromised and they had to live their lives under the power of white supremacy. Society’s institutions use systematic oppression to create the identity of black males. This “monstrous” identity is created to excuse the unlawful acts of the … Read more

Elsie Browning Michie – Outside the Pale: Cultural Exclusion, Gender Difference, and the Victorian Women Writer

Elsie Browning Michie in her book, Outside the Pale: Cultural Exclusion, Gender Difference, and the Victorian Women Writer, argues that the first encounter emphasizes the power differences between Jane and Rochester.  Michie adds that this difference in power is represented in terms of size and gender, later of wealth and class through oriental imagery of … Read more

J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah

J.M. Coetzee in his novel Disgrace (1999), and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her novel Americanah (2013), seek to criticise the out-moded power structures founded upon white privilege in post-Apartheid South Africa and Twenty-First century America respectively. By examining how Fredric Jameson’s ‘Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism’  (1986), supported by Michael Hardt and … Read more

Once Upon a Shop by British writer Jeanette Winterson

There is something special about local shops. Something beautiful and charming, familiar and irreplaceable. Anyhow, larger supermarket chains are outmatching these local shops and even worse; it is because of us. We accept the rules the government sets out. This issue is discussed in the article “Once upon a shop”. Once Upon a Shop is … Read more

Ink Tattoos – analysing three texts

Text 1. ”Is Tattooing a Form of Self-Mutilation” is an article written by Andy Carrington on his person website. In his article, he discusses different reasons to getting a tattoo across the world.  In his introduction, he writes about some of the more traditional uses of tattoos. He shows how the tattoos symbolize religious and … Read more

The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born – Ayi Kwei Armah

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born unfolds in a post-colonial Ghana grappling with what it means to be independent. The account is unforgiving. Author Ayi Kwei Armah describes a state mired in corruption that teeters on the edge of a military coup. Delving deep into Ghana, it questions the source of the rot within … Read more

The Roamers

The Roamers is set in a world of the mind, far from the concept of realism. It begins with a vague economical description of the city of Naramunz where a toymaker named Darzutash, owns a toy shop near the merchant’s gate. The protagonist, Darzutash is a ‘humble’ yet mysterious character who presents himself merely as … Read more

Would Athena make a good President of the United States?

Pallas Athena, famously known as Athena, is the Goddess of wisdom, courage, civilization,  warfare strategy, law and justice. She is the daughter of Zeus and the Titan Oceanus’ daughter Metis. However, her birth is special in that Athena is born from Zeus’ forehead, as Zeus swallows her mother, Metis, because someone tells him that the … Read more