The Sun Also Rises, Book 3, Chapter 19 - Ernest Hemingway (1926) - How the Nothingness is Conveyed by the Author Throughout the Extract ?
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
Focusing on the lost generation, in the aftermath of World War I, The Sun Also Rises is mostly autobiographical. In his very first novel, published in 1926, Hemingway depicts the narrator, Jake Barnes, and his wandering from Paris to Spain. Jake is a journalist in Paris. We are in 1925 and he has...
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813) - Money
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Money, a theme that had been the focus of many novels over the last few centuries. No novelist, however, has mastered to approach it in such a unique manner as Jane Austen. During the Regency period, when wealth and status defined relationships, Jane Austen wrote and published her illustrious...
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813) - Love
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Love, a theme that has been the focus of many novels over the last few centuries. No novelist, however, has mastered to approach it in such a unique manner as Jane Austen. During the Regency Period in 1813, Jane Austen wrote and published her illustrious novel Pride and Prejudice, where she...
The Yellow Bird - Tennessee Williams (1947) - The modernist short story, the figure of the writer
Text commentary - 5 pages - Literature
The modernist movement has its origins in the growing industrialization of the late nineteenth century, which profoundly transformed traditional ways of life and the individual's relationship to society. This period was marked by a questioning of artistic values and conventions, reflecting a...
Leviathan - Paul Auster (1992) - How the Dead Man is Depicted in this Extract?
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
«Leviathan» by Paul Auster is a roman published in 1992. In this short extract, an unknown and unnamed narrator, after reading some news about a man who blew himself up on the side of a road, is about to tell this man's story. In this text's commentary, we are going to see in a more...
The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The whole story is narrated in the second person by Akunna, a young Nigerian woman who has just immigrated to the United States of America. Akunna seems to be different from everyone else around her since almost everyone she engages with asks questions regarding her ethnic background, her accent...
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner (1930) - Chapter 31
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Faulkner has always pointed out that he wrote As I Lay Dying only in a few weeks, while he was still working on Sanctuary. A reference to the eleventh Song in Homer's Odyssey, the title right away foreshadows a Homeric epic. As part of the movement called stream of consciousness, Faulkner...
Recitatif - Toni Morrison (1983) - Race as a social construct
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
"Recitatif" of Toni Morrison only short story follows a fairly traditional structure: the narrator relates several episodes in her life, all centered around chance encounters with a childhood friend. Yet the narrative is thoroughly informed by an experiment in omission. Indeed, the two...
Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin, J. (2017) - How can a black man, marginalized and silenced, dehumanized, can see in his struggle the struggle of mankind?
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
In the eponymous section of his most celebrated collection of essays, "Notes of a Native Son", James Baldwin, one of the most prominent African-American writers of the last century, explores questions of race through a very personal lens: he recounts his relationship with his father and his...
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley (1818)
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The text studied is an abstract from the novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley and published in 1818. Its genre is fantastic, or horror novel. It is sometimes considered to be a gothic novel.
King Lear - Shakespeare (1606) - A tragedy from the Renaissance
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The violent language used by King Lear in his speech, marking his anger, leads us to another characteristic: the role of art as an instrument of knowledge. Indeed, King Lear's speech evolves through the extract. In the beginning, Lear orders the storm ("Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!...
Is There a Single Right Interpretation? - Peter Lamarque (2002) - [I]t would be a mistake to give up the truth-seeking aspiration of interpretation altogether
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
Lamarque argues that abandoning the pursuit of truth-seeking in interpretation would be a mistake. In this reflection, I will delve into the significance of truth-seeking in interpretation, drawing on relevant documents and scholarly discourse in the field of literary studies. In his statement,...
British and American literature up to the 18th century
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
Shakespeare's sonnets deal with themes of life such as love, the passing of time, old age and death. They are therefore universal themes that still speak to us today. Among these sonnets, I chose sonnet 73 which deals with the theme of old age because it is a theme that is not sufficiently...
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf (1929) ; Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley (1818) - The Quest for Education
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
While analyzing A Room of One's Own and Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, the quest for education among the youth in England and the prejudices they had to overcome in their quest to receive an education will be explored. The characters will elaborate on various social and system hurdles...
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992) - The complexity of identity
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Michael Ondaatje's thriller novel, The English Patient, tells the stories of various characters after the war that disrupted their lives changed their culture and challenged their identity. Most of the characters have endured traumatic experiences that Ondaatje makes apparent by employing...
The picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde (1890) - Do the seeds of Dorian Gray's destruction ultimately lie in Dorian's self-hatred?
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
From the beginning of the novel, Dorian portrays the essence of male beauty and youth. Basil is taken aback by the perfection in Dorian's appearance. Lord Henry is friends with Basil. Basil is hesitant for Lord Henry to be introduced to Dorian. Basil knows the ways of Lord Henry and is well...
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (1890) - Psychological mechanisms of dissociation and projection
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Throughout the novel The Picture of Dorian Grey, it becomes clear that Dorian Gray's psychological well-being becomes compromised with every negative thing that happens within his life. To make matters worse, the majority of his issues stem from actions that he has consciously taken, making him...
Youth marginality in Britain: Contemporary studies of austerity - Shane Blackman and Ruth Rogers (2017) - Offering evidence-based recommendations for policymakers to achieve social justice for young people
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
The selected book for review is Youth marginality in Britain: Contemporary studies of austerity by Shane Blackman and Ruth Rogers. This book was published in 2017 and is based on case studies on factors affecting young people in the United Kingdom. The book has 17 chapters written by different...
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (1899) - Cruelty
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Within the text of Heart of Darkness, cruelty is a prominent concept. The corruption exhibited is essential to the book, shaping not only the story but the characters such as Kurtz. Cruelty is an important factor for the victims because it serves as a crucial motivation to live and as a major...
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (1849); Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood (1988); Juno - Jason Reitman (2007) - Difficulties in friendship and love relationships
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
This passage is an extract from the novel David Coperfield by Charles Dickens, at the time David Coperfield was married to Dora Spenlow. David felt completely in love with Dora, and they decided to get married. However, their relationship is not reasonable because Dora has no sense of everyday...
Maggie, A Girl of the Streets - Stephen Crane - Maggie is impossible to weep over
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
Individuals are determined by heredity and their social category (which covers the place they live in and their standard of living). Maggie, the protagonist of Stephen Crane's novel Maggie, A Girl of the Streets published in 1896, is modelled, shaped, and ultimately determined by her...
A Book of Dreaming (A bok of swevenyng)
Text commentary - 7 pages - Literature
A Book of Dreaming traces its roots to the Latin Somniale Danielis and has been reproduced in numerous manuscripts across Europe from the 9th to the 15th centuries. In other words, some stylistic effects could have been lost in the translation from Latin to Middle English. Indeed, the editor,...
Is a road trip running away from things or running towards something?
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
A road trip is a travel, an escape by campervan or motorcycle (like a Harley Davidson), through vast spaces and during long hours on the road, to discover new landscape, cities or countries. I will take three texts as examples.
Oedipus The King - Sophocles (425 B.C.) - The Dramatic Power of Fate
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
Over the centuries, people have believed in the influence of divine or diabolical power in their lives. One of the most often discussed themes of ancient Greek tragedy is fatalism, the idea and belief that human actions are guided by the hand of fate, destiny, the gods or some other supernatural...
How to become a part of the Great British story?
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Cultural heritage, representing culture and civilisation, has a vital importance in Great Britain, and in this context the school has an important place. Access to culture is achieved primarily through education and training and, in addition, literature, theatre and art, which are unique and...
Dance of the Happy Shades: And Other Stories - Alice Munro (1946) - Comparaison with Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth (1990)
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
The first text we study here is a story from Dance of the Happy Shades: And Other Stories, which was written by Alice Munro in 1946. From the beginning of the text, the protagonist explains that her mom spends all of her time working on sewing her daughter's dress for the dance. She spends...
