Essays and Research Papers on Mixed & Comp. Literature

This 6 page paper looks at two works, the film 'The Joy Luck Club and Nancy Millers 'Prologue; Writing a Parent's Death', from the book Bequest and Betrayal : Memoirs of a Parent's Death. The paper argues that in the death of the mothers there remained an influence on the lives of their daughters ...

A Comparison of Themes and Messages; This 5 page paper looks at these two epics and considers the similarities and differences, particular attentions paid to the way in which the message of the work is conveyed and the portrayal and interpretation of the gods. The bibliography cites 2 sources.

A five page paper comparing the mother-daughter relationships in Liliana Heker's "The Stolen Party" with those in Amy Tan's "Two Kinds." The paper notes the irony that in Heker's story the mother is convinced that her daughter is shooting too far above her social station, while in Tan's story the mother is convinced that her ...

A 7 page paper which examines how nationalism is depicted in Jakob Walter's "The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier" and Jaroslav Hasek's "The Good Soldier Svejk" by first considering what nationalism is, then how it developed through a series of events beginning in the early nineteenth century until World War I. Bibliography lists ...

7 pages in length. Taking a look at the female protagonists in two such literary masterpieces as Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw and A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen will give the reader a sense of what it means for a female character to actually become an emancipated woman, and, indeed see if she ever does become one. Bibliography lists ...

A 6 page paper which compares a study of rural Islamic culture in North Africa by ethnographer Elizabeth Fernea and the autobiographical memoirs of Leila Abouzeid, which deals with her childhood in Morocco under French colonial rule. Bibliography lists 2 sources.

A five page paper looking at David Henry Hwang's "M. Butterfly" and Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" in terms of the way they approach the conflict of truth and illusion. Both plays demonstrate that our perception of the truth is completely defined by what we want to believe. Bibliography lists three sources.

5 pages. Compares the significance of the Mother figure in the Japanese family to that of the Navajo family as indicated in the book "Kinship and Gender". Also considers the film Dadi's Family in the same context. Bibliography lists 2 sources.

This 5 page report discusses several short stories that address issues associated with the separation that takes place between an individual and his or her place of birth. The narrators of “exile literature” address the many details of the past that have defined the person they have become. And yet that same sense of “exile” also exists in ...

A 5 page paper which examines how Orwell's 1948 book anticipated the Chinese Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, as depicted in Jan Wong's book, including the role of the family and leaders. No additional sources were used.

A five page paper looking at the way Albert Camus, Hermann Hesse, and Edmond Rostand approach this philosophical topic in "The Stranger," "Siddhartha," and "Cyrano de Bergerac," respectively. The paper begins with a definition of determinism and then explores the way these authors interpret it in their works. Bibliography lists one source.

This 5 page paper looks at the approach to romanticism in 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert and 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe by comparing and contrasting Emma Bovary and Werther. The bibliography cites 4 sources.

A 6 page paper examining parallels of visions of the future between Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Vergil's "Aeneid." At the time of Milton's writing and in our present time, we exist in that period of time between pronouncement of judgment and execution of sentence. Sentence was imposed with the death of God's son; it will be executed ...

this 7 page paper looks at the main characters in 'Daisy Miller' by J D Salinger and 'Catcher in the Rye' by H James. The idea of the social outcast can be seen as portrayed in different ways in these two books, this paper looks at the way it is seen in both the books ...

This 10 page paper highlights three works--A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and the film Buena Vista Social Club--and tries to determine the intent of the author. Can a reader or viewer experience these works without becoming involved in the subjectivity of the author? Themes of racism and oppression are also explored. Bibliography ...

A five page paper which considers the definition of heroism, and how it is treated in six works of literature. The writer distinguishes between heroic qualities and heroic acts, and analyses the way in which the hero is represented in Dante’s Inferno, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, ...

A five page paper looking at these two plays by Sophocles and August Wilson, respectively, in terms of their categorization as tragedies. The paper notes that although Sophocles' heroine is a member of the nobility and Wilson's hero is a common man, both have been placed in unenviable positions by fate, and both are undermined ...

4 pages in length. The thematic poetry of Alfred Tennyson, William Wordsworth and William Blake is often seen as quiet and pastoral, dealing with the gentler aspects of existence. There is however, another side of their respective work: addressing the issue of faith and conflict between human beings. Some examples in this ...

7 pages in length. The symbolic nature of life's path toward mortality is made crystal clear in Christina Rossetti's Up Hill, Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death and Walt Whitman's Darest Thou Now O Soul. On the surface, it might appear to the reader as though the authors are speaking ...

A 5 page paper which considers three examples from each story to explain how the authors incorporates the descriptions of the nature of water into each story's action. Bibliography lists 4 sources.

5 pages in length. Giovanni Boccaccio's Tenth Tale, Tenth Day tells his story of Griselda as an answer to Chaucer's The Wife of Bath tale and philosophy. When one ponders the opposition of The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale as it relates to Boccaccio's tale of Griselda, it is easy to see ...

5 pages. This paper will introduce the work by Anzia Yezierska, The Bread Givers, and compare it to the inaugural speech given by Woodrow Wilson on March 4, 1913. By considering the ideals of the American Dream as it appears in each of these works, this paper will attempt to identify that which is most at stake in ...

5 pages in length. Spoken language is the most fundamental form of communication between human beings, yet its origin is quite elusive. From grunts and snorts back in the Neanderthal age to the most sophisticated of speech patterns of present day, the evolution of language has incorporated myriad changes and still continues to ...

5 pages in length. The primary difference between Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" and Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" is that they were written generations apart; other than that fact, however, each author effectively addresses the human ills associated with seeking emotional contentment and economic satisfaction. Found within these two books ...

6 pages in length. What is the American Dream, and who are the people most likely to pursue its often elusive fulfillment? Indeed, the American Dream has come to represent the attainment of myriad goals that are specific to each individual; while one person might consider a purchased home with a white picket ...