When Maus I was first published in 1986, Art Spiegelman became the center of controversy. With his use of a typically 'lower' writing form and seemingly lighthearted approach to expressing his views on the holocaust, Spiegelman defied modern writing rules and defined his own. Comic boo...

Realism represents life as it really is or was. It can be identified in terms of the effect on the reader. That is, realistic fiction is written to evoke the feelings of the reader and give the sense that its characters and their experiences are a part of reality. The novel Fly Away Peter by David M...

My Antonia This remarkable piece of literature by Willa Cather is layered with its sense of place, connections between people and between people and places as well as visual, and surprisingly simple, descriptions of prairie life and events. The characters and the story are far more complex tha...

Many authors such as Francesca Robinson and Monique Berkhout, who co-wrote Madame Joy, use their work and artistic licences to write expository texts, encouraging a whole new perspective with which to consider the world around us. In their text, Madame Joy, Robinson and Berkhout review man's r...

The works of James Phelan (Reading Secrets) and Michael Levenson (Secret History in 'The Secret Sharer') both take a look at Joseph Conrad's short story, "The Secret Sharer", from two different critical perspectives. Phelan discusses "The Secret Sharer" from the ...

The novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha has no authorial presence at all, yet the reader gains a richer understanding of the situation than Paddy – or any other 10-year old – could ever have. With regard to the parent's break up, how does Doyle achieve this? There are many factors whic...

Connie and the grandmother: a striking resemblance Two characters, one an adolescent and beautiful, the other aged and outdated, are distinguishably parallel and dissimilar in many ways. Connie is a naive, pubescent girl who is portrayed in Joyce Carol Oates' "Where are you going? Wher...

Perhaps, we are all a little strange in our own way. David Sedaris, in all of his writing, demonstrates the everyday absurdity of life in a way that is not pretentious, but passively observant. He does not assume that he is better than his subject, since many times he is his own subject, but instead...

If it were not for the title of the novel, we might well start to assume that the story has very little or nothing to do with Captain Corelli. Moreover, de Bernieres introduces the reader to so much material, that very soon we have probably forgotten about him long, before he is actually cited .In t...

The House on Mango StreetThe House on Mango Street is a very interesting book about a young Latino girl and her daily life. It is a look through a child's eyes of the world around her. The story is written in short chapters, explaining different aspects of life from a child's point of view. The s...

The epic tradition in "Gosta Berling's Saga".Having been born and bred in Varmland, Selma Lagerlof is conversant with the peasant culture and its folklore. In "Gosta Berling's Saga", she is primary occupied with a provincial type and investigates deeply into th...

What does Harwood say about change and changing self in her poems "In the Park", "Prize-giving" and "The Glass Jar"? How does she communicate her ideas?Change is just and ordinary event that every individual encounters many times over throughout their life's journey. Whether this change is as drama...