Cousin Literature Reviews Samples For Students

The play “The Importance of being Earnest” was written by Oscar Wilde, and was first seen in a theater in 1895. The play is a comedy which uses various literary techniques to bring out various themes in the Victorian era. Irony is a major literary technique in the play in which the protagonist named Jack uses the name Earnest as an alibi whenever he wishes to escape from his reality. He has created an imaginary character in his head in which he has a younger brother by the name Earnest (Wilde 15). In his real world, he is however ...

Literature Review: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone"

Literature Review: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone"
J.K.Rowling’s first book in the serious of the record breaking book series Harry Potter began with “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” The book starts the reader on a journey into Harry’s earlier part of life when he was just a baby. In a horrible fight with the evil Lord Voldemort, Harry’s parents are killed, but somehow he manages to survive Voldemort. This becomes a very big sign for those in the Wizarding world who celebrate Voldemort’s defeat against Harry. Unfortunately Harry is left with ...

The short story, ‘Ethan Frome’ written by Edith Wharton in the early 1900’s, tells the story of Ethan who grew up on a farm where his descendants lived and worked and died. Ethan’s story is told from the first person point of view and details the story of a sad and unfortunate young man who lives in a New England village. The choices that he has made have him trapped hopelessly in situations that befall him one by one. Ethan had left home to study technology at a college in Worcester. He had big dreams of living in the city where ...

1 The short story A&P, by John Updike is in consideration for the essay. The story unfolds in a lazy Thursday afternoon, at a departmental store by the same name. Three young girls, in differently colored two-pieces, visit the store, and cause quite a small turbulence in the lives of the store workers. In particular, the narrator, Sammy causes a whole ruckus in the store, for something that isn’t worth much, in the first place. Or maybe he breaks free of the shackles binding him. The actions of Sammy can be interpreted both ways, and the further discussion of the story ...

The story ‘How to Get into Medical School- Part 1’ is an account written by a third party, about two characters studying hard to get an admission to medical school, and who love each other, but one of them cannot openly admit. The author’s intention is to bring out the conflict by putting the reader in a position where he/ she visualizes the actual events as they occur. This paper analyzes the story ‘How to Get into Medical School- Part 1’. It looks deeper into the characters as portrayed in the story, how the writers theme is brought ...

Plot Summary

The Great Gatsby is a book that focuses and tries to give the events of a fictional town and characters. The plot is focused on Nick a former graduate scholar and a war veteran who is the narrator of the story that the novel aims at putting across. Nick takes up employment as a salesperson in the City of New York, where he settles and takes up residence in long island near the exclusive mansion of the rich mysterious jay Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is known in the town due to the exclusive and huge parties that he holds in his residence. During Nick’s ...

Horatio: "Before my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes.

For they are the actions that a man might play,
But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe. (I.ii)
This passage gives information that makes Hamlet more complex and not simply seem crazy. No one believes that he has seen the ghost of his dead father, and considering that his father’s ghost asks him to get revenge for him by killing the King, he reacts with emotional distress. His emotional outbursts and strange comments have everyone around him believing he has gone crazy and that the ghost ...

Discussion

My primary reaction to this story was that it is a timeless narrative. While the specific context of the colonial era and the technology of travel by steamship certainly places this within a tight time frame, the themes at work will never grow old. The notion that unlimited and unchecked power leads to unimaginable corruption is as old as King Herod and as recent as the era of apartheid in South Africa. The idea that, ultimately, people will do evil, if left to their own devices, is as old as Cain and Abel and as new as the young man who ...

The American Dream lured wave after wave of immigration, primarily from Europe, in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. This dream taught that if you came to America and worked hard enough, you would succeed. There was enough room, enough of a market, enough hope, and enough freedom for everyone who came to the United States to do well. This dream enticed so many people to come to the country from overseas that the government decided to put quotas in place to limit the number of immigrants from each country in the years before World ...