Academic papers on American Literature

Herman Melville's 'Billy Budd'
5 pages in length. What message was Herman Melville attempting to get across within his story of 'Billy Budd'? Melville, himself was considerably preoccupied with the problems of God and God's design of the world as they related to good and evil,...
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Kingston
A 6 page paper analyzing this autobiographical work by Maxine Hong Kingston. The paper looks at the degradation of women in traditional Chinese-American families, and shows how Kingston used myth to build a sense of self. No additional sources.
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Stephen Crane/ Analysis of Two of His Short Stories
A 5 page comparison of two short stories by Stephen Crane 'The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky' and 'The Blue Hotel.' While these two stories differ in their specifics, they have a great deal in common. Both stories incorporate a variety of naturalistic...
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Toni Morrison/Beloved
A 15 page analysis of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize winning book, Beloved, by Toni Morrison. Unlike traditional narrative techniques, there is no attempt in Beloved to deliver a chronological retelling of the protagonist's life as a slave. Rather...
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African-American Literature: Singing The People's Song
A five-page critical analysis on the state of African-American literature, with an emphasis on poetry. Includes an overview of black poetry from Phillis Wheatley through James Weldon Jonson, Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou to the cutting-edge poets...
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Maya Angelou/ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
A 3 page analysis of Angelou's autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which is a complex work that not only details the events of Angelou's girlhood, but also illustrates the sociological structures that were in place in the South at that...
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Leroi Jones/ Blues People
A 3 page analysis of Blues People: Negro Music in White America by Leroi Jones. This book is a comprehensive and highly readable account that traces the birth and development of African American music and the considerable effect that it has had on...
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The Great Gatsby: The Decline of Values
This 5 page paper provides an overview of the issues presented in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. This paper outlines the way in which the novel represents the decline of modern values in the post-World War I era and the depiction of...
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Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
This 5 page paper considers the three ways that Maya Angelou argued that second class citizens infringed on her personal development as she grew up in the pre-Civil War south. This paper reflects on whether these experiences were universal or if...
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Aristotle Would Have Loved Hamlet
This six-page-paper presents a discussion on whether or not Hamlet and his fellow characters fit the description of Aristotle's tragic hero. Hamlet, as well as his stepfather and mother are held against the Aristotle benchmark and analyzed....
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The Appearance Of Birds
The poems, The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe and Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking by Walt Whitman both feature the appearance of birds. This 3 page paper asserts that The predominant symbolic meaning used in both poems for the particular bird is a...
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Raney as "Family Structure Theory."
This 5 page paper discussed Clyde Edgerton's successful novel Raney, as related to the family structure theories of Minuchin, Bowen and Satir. Bibliography lists 8 sources.
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Edward Bellamy/ "Looking Backward"
A 5 page research paper that examines the turn-of-the-century novel Looking Backward. The writer argues that Bellamy's novel, which pictures a utopia in the year 2000, is a reaction to the inequalities of produced by industrialism in the late 19th...
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Comparing/Malcolm X and Maya Angelou
A 6 page essay that contrasts and compares "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and the fifth book in Maya Angelou's serial autobiography "God's Children Need Traveling Shoes." The writer argues that in both books the authors demonstrate that visit in...
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Gus Lee/"China Boy"
An 8 page analysis of Gus Lee's novel China boy, which concerns the trials and tribulations of a young Chinese-American boy. The writer uses this scenario as a springboard to discuss, in general, Western concepts of masculinity. Bibliography lists 3...
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