American Literature Literature Reviews Samples For Students

African American literature is a literature of a rather recent vintage compared to the literature of other civilizations. As a matter of fact, African American literature was born after United States took a break from reconstruction and where segregation emerged. It is this discrimination and oppression of the African Americans that compelled black writers to write. The American social order that was established by the constitution in 1898 was violent and intimidating towards the black Americans. African American literature started taking shape in the 1950s in the context of a challenge to enforce and justify racial exploitation and subordination by law. Art for the ...

American Literature in Fifty Years

American Literature in Fifty Years

With the closing of bookstores and creation of many new technologies every year, it is difficult to imagine that American literature will remain the same. In fifty years from now, there will be many changes not only to how Americans create literature, but also to how they access it.

A large factor behind the evolution of American literature is the changing type of technology developing in order to consume it. For example, Google’s current development of a pair of glasses in its current form allows people to augment reality by peering through lenses, but ...

Using every context and all available information in their own interest, the tricksters are represented in the African American culture by small animals that make their way through stories by tricking people, getting out of difficult situations by outsmarting their much bigger opponents (Harris, “The Trickster”). In Folktales, tricksters act as fable or legendary figures that tell a story about society, about humans’ characters, personifying people, while portraying a caricatured, but vivid image of social Moravians (Rutledge 64).
The tricksters are central figures of the African American literature, exhibiting various characteristics that can be depicted in human behavior, such as ...

Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of Scout Finch, the six year old daughter of Atticus Finch, a strong father, a virtuous lawyer and the defender of Tom Robinson. Scout grows up in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s, among the other interesting and entertaining people in the town. Going through her life and growing up with her friends, she learns many lessons from her father and the town itself. Much like Atticus with Scout, this book is incredibly important because of its teachings of morality and virtue; the book teaches the ...

Given the fact that Charlie and Helen had had a fight that ended up with Helen locked out in the cold, and that this fight led to Helen's death, it is not self-righteous of Marion to be suspicious of Charlie. Her sister is the one who died as a result of this argument. To be fair, both Charlie and Helen were drunk when the fight took place, and they ran with a hard-partying crowd. The fact remains, though, that Charlie is still single, and while it seems that he has turned his back on his former days, the fact that his drunk ...

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thorea was surely one of the finest writers to emanate from the United States before the Civil War. His novel Walden describes an almost perfect settlement where the subject lives simply in natural surroundings and is an ideal introduction to his seminal work. Another important work is his essay on Civil Disobedience which is perhaps one of the best known elements which argues for resistance to civil government which is a moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau’s books and articles number over 20 volumes and he has several contributions on natural history and philosophy where ...

A Comparative look at the theme of nature in the poems “The Oak” Alfred Lord Tennyson and “The Road Not Taken” Robert Frost
Both Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Oak and Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken deals with the theme of nature. Both poets incorporate each word in a specific manner that adds literal and figurative meanings to the overall essence of the poems. Robert Frost and Alfred Lord Tennyson use symbolism, figurative language, and rhyme to convey their views of the road that Frost cannot choose and the oak tree that develops from a human perspective. Tennyson ...

Biographical information

The selected text The Norton Anthology of African American Literature highlights the slave trade of the African population in the United States. In this tale, the author thirstily highlights his experiences in the hands of his owners and his duty as a slave (Henry & MacKay 187). At one point, he slaves were subjected to painful; marking for them, to be identified upon trade top their destined location. According to Henry & MacKay in this times the definition of slavery was still viewed as positive is the society (187). The rich slave owners in America believed they had a right to own slaves. ...

In any literary work, certain factors affect the quality done by its author. In reviewing prose of a particular author of choice, for instance, the viewpoint of the author presented along with the setting, character(s), and others should [definitely] be considered. In so doing, the greatness of the work is revealed. Nevertheless, in this particular paper, it is worthy to consider the comparison of two of Theodore Roethke’s works: “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Wish for a Young Wife”. And this literary review will be done in light of the works’ symbolism and the point of view of the ...

In Sherman Alexie’s story, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the homeless narrator Jackson Jackson is a Spokane Indian. When he describes himself, he says, “Piece by piece, I disappeared. And I’ve been disappearing ever since,” he is describing both a literal disappearance and a figurative one (401). Literally, he has been discussing his disappearance from his lovers’ lives, meaning that he didn’t simply walk out on them with no notice. Figuratively, he means he is slowly losing his identity as a person and as a member of his ethnic background as he becomes more absorbed in his alcoholism and vagrant ...

Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Corey”

Robinson’s poem, “Richard Corey,” fits into the genre of American Literary Modernism because it deals with disillusionment and individuals “trapped by blind laws of heredity and environment or buffeted with uncomprehended chance” (Perkins 130). The poem is written from the point of view of a poor person who goes “without the meat and cursed the bread” who is admiring and envying a rich man of the town named Richard Cory (Robinson 14). Like many Modernist pieces, it reflects back to an earlier era of literature for contrast, using Romantic language to describe Richard Cory. For example, the speaker says, “he ...

The Scrivener’

Perhaps the most sophisticated aspect of Melville’s story is in how effectively he lures the reader into focusing on the character of Bartleby. The scrivener’s inscrutability is oddly compelling and invites one to try and “understand” Bartleby, to fashion a diagnosis, even imagine a treatment or cure. But the story is about perspective itself, the perspective of the lawyer, who can only assess and try to make sense of his enigmatic clerk within the confines of his own singular world view. True, his is the ethic of Wall Street and the pragmatic rationalism that defines the class of people ...

Discussion on Multiculturalism

Until recently the Classical Literature taught in schools has been, really, Classic English Literature. The writings of English poets such as William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickenson, and William Butler Yeats, were offered in literature classes in schools in America. William Shakespeare’s plays have always been taught in literature classes along with Jane Austen and Robert Lewis Stevenson.

American Literature wasn’t thought of as “Classic Literature.” Kocis (2002) points out that between 1975 and 2001 classic literature curriculum hadn’t changed much. She agrees that William Shakespeare is important to teach. And so is “The Adventures ...