Category: Book Review

The conflict between good and evil is a prevalent theme in literature. Graham Greene incorporates the conflict throughout the text of his novel Brighton Rock. In order to do this he uses two prominent characters, Ida Arnold and Pinkie Brown. Ida represents “good” and is portrayed as a woman with high morals and sensibility, whereas…

John Osborne’s technique in Look Back in Anger reveals his indebtedness to and his contemporary Samuel Beckett in naturalistic plays. He uses images and symbols, both verbal and non verbal for the sake of objectification. These symbols not only include the structure of the play and the location of action, but also stage props, acting…

A Haunted House Virginia Woolf’s short story “A Haunted House” was published in 1985 and offers up an interesting take on the modern ghost story. Using a modernist take on the genre, Woolf turns the conventions of a ghost story on its head, and at times makes it difficult to even understand what is going…

The narrative of disempowerment is one that is woven extensively through Edwidge Danticat’s postcolonial novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory. Placing great emphasis on the politics of the domestic sphere and the stories told between women, the novel spans the childhood and young adulthood of Edwidge’s main protagonist Sophie Caco, highlighting the ways in which Sophie experiences…

In Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, Susannah Cahalan struggles to reconstruct the events during her month of madness in which Susannah’s twenty-four years of normality is suddenly lost in a matter of weeks. As her consciousness and physical body are no longer compatible, she is no longer able to comprehend what she is…

Based on a true story that stunned the world, M. Butterfly opens in the cramped prison cell where diplomat Rene Gallimard is being held captive by the French government – and by his own illusions. In the darkness of his cell he recalls a time when desire seemed to give him wings. A time when…

If you ever wanted to know how would an American, who has spent last twenty years of his life on another continent, behave when he comes home after all that time, then “Notes from a big country” is a great book for you. Bill Bryson explains his advantages and disadvantages of being away for so…

In literature (novels, folk tales, plays, movies, etc.) one finds presented two forms of so called “coming-of-age” stories. The traditional method is preparation for adulthood. A youth (generally between 10 years old and 20) passes, by some calamity or other intense situation, from the world of innocence to the world of experience to join the…

In Margaret Edson’s play W;t, a variety of characters with complex, unique personalities are brought to life. Edson uses vivid imagery and poignant monologues in order to highlight and simultaneously criticize the social structure, doctor-patient relationship, and implicit stigmas associated with terminal cancer. Many themes, such as the ones aforementioned, are displayed within the elaborate…

People will always revert to what is most comfortable, reliant on their natural state. In Celeste Ng’s short story, “Girls, At Play”, the debate of nurture versus nature lies in the struggles between four girls. The theme of “Girls, At Play” is that no amount of nurturing can prevent a loss of innocence, found in…