Any study of Ernest Hemingway’s (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) short stories must begin with a discussion of style. Reacting against the overblown, rhetorical, and often bombastic narrative techniques of his predecessors, Hemingway spent considerable time as a… Read More ›
American Literature
Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Stories
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s reading in American colonial history confirmed his basically ambivalent attitude toward the American past, particularly the form that Puritanism took in the New England colonies. Especially interested in the intensity of the Puritan-Cavalier rivalry, the Puritan inclination to… Read More ›
Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories
During his life, Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) was a figure of controversy and so became reasonably well known in literary circles. Two of his works were recognized with prizes: Manuscript Found in a Bottle and The Gold-Bug. The Raven, his most… Read More ›
Analysis of Lanford Wilson’s Plays
During his first period of playwriting (1963-1972), Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937 – March 24, 2011) struggled to learn his trade—mainly in the convivial atmosphere of Off-Off-Broadway, where it did not matter if sometimes audiences did not show up. His… Read More ›
Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Plays
Arthur Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) has been acclaimed as one of the most distinguished American dramatists since Eugene O’Neill, the father of modern American drama. Because of his direct engagement with political issues and with the… Read More ›
Analysis of Stephen Sondheim’s Plays
Stephen Sondheim (born. March 22, 1930) was the most critically acclaimed figure in American musical theater during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Sondheim has won the Tony Award for Best Original Score five times, more than any… Read More ›
Analysis of August Strindberg’s Plays
Tremendously influential in both Europe and the United States, August Strindberg (22 January 1849 – 14 May 1912) was begrudgingly praised by Henrik Ibsen as one who would be greater than he, and more generously lauded half a century later… Read More ›
Analysis of Neil Simon’s Plays
Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) has established himself as a leading American playwright of the late twentieth century. As a master of domestic comedy and one-line humor, his popular appeal was established early in his career…. Read More ›
Analysis of Frank Chin’s Plays
It may be said that Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) has pioneered in the field of Asian American literature. His daring and verbally exuberant theater has asserted the presence of the richly unique and deeply human complexities of Chinese… Read More ›
Analysis of Tennessee Williams’ Plays
If the weight of critical opinion places Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), below Eugene O’Neill as America’s premiere dramatist, there should be no question that the former playwright is without peer in either the diversity of… Read More ›
Analysis of Sam Shepard’s Plays
Sam Shepard (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was one of the United States’ most prolific, most celebrated, and most honored playwrights. Writing exclusively for the Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway theater, Shepard has nevertheless won eleven Obie Awards (for Red… Read More ›
Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Novels
“The test of a first-rate intelligence,” F. Scott Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) remarked in the late 1930’s, “is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the… Read More ›
Experimental Novels and Novelists
Literature is forever transforming. A new literary age is new precisely because its important writers do things differently from their predecessors. Thus, it could be said that almost all significant literature is in some sense innovative or experimental at its… Read More ›
Lionel Trilling and The Liberal Imagination
In the feverish political climate of the 1930s and 1940s outlined in the introductory section, American critics with left-wing sympathies tubarned James’s disavowal of any direct purpose for the novel against him. They approved of writers such as Theodore Dreiser… Read More ›
Henry James and The Art of Fiction
The novel has struggled to be taken seriously as an art form. The very title of James’s essay begins his campaign on its behalf: ‘art’ and ‘fiction’, often seen at odds with each other, are placed side by side here…. Read More ›
Analysis of Norman Mailer’s Novels
Some of Mailer’s earliest writing, including “The Greatest Thing in the World,” a prizewinner in a 1941 Story magazine contest, reveals that even at a very early age he could write accomplished, imitative apprentice fiction in the modes of Ernest… Read More ›
Analysis of Larry McMurtry’s Novels
Larry McMurtry’s (1936 -) best fiction has used the Southwest as its location and the characters typical of that area for its subjects. In the early years of his career, he dealt with life in the dying towns and decaying… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas McGuane’s Novels
Thomas McGuane’s (born December 11, 1939) fictional universe is a “man’s world.” His protagonists appear to do whatever they do for sport and to escape ordinary reality. They seek a world where they can, without restraint, be whomever they choose… Read More ›
Analysis of Ross Macdonald’s Novels
Ross Macdonald’s (1915–1983) twenty-four novels fall fairly neatly into three groups: Those in which Lew Archer does not appear form a distinct group, and the Archer series itself, which may be separated into two periods. His first four books, The… Read More ›
Analysis of Carson McCullers’s Novels
Carson McCullers’s (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) fiction has a childlike directness, a disconcerting exposure of unconscious impulses in conjunction with realistic detail. She is like the candid child who announces that the emperor in his new clothes… Read More ›
Analysis of Mary McCarthy’s Novels
Mary McCarthy’s (June 21, 1912 – October 25, 1989) novels often feature herself, with an assumed name, as protagonist; she also exploited her husbands and other people close to her for fictional purposes. Her characters generally have a superior education… Read More ›
Analysis of Jack London’s Novels
Jack London’s (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) fame as a writer came about largely through his ability to realistically interpret humanity’s struggle in a hostile environment. Early in his career, London realized that he had no talent for… Read More ›
Analysis of Sinclair Lewis’s Novels
Early reviews praised or condemned Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) for a blend of realism and optimism; indeed, a curious mixture of almost naturalistic realism and a kind of romance characterized Lewis’s fiction throughout his career…. Read More ›
Analysis of Elmore Leonard’s Novels
Elmore Leonard’s (October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013) early short stories and novels were conventional in terms of plot and characterization; however, writing Westerns was good training. Knowing nothing about the West, he learned to depend on research that… Read More ›
Analysis of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Novels
When Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) has Genly Ai state in The Left Hand of Darkness that “truth is a matter of the imagination,” she is indirectly summarizing the essential focus of her fiction:… Read More ›
Analysis of Jerzy Kosinski’s Novels
The themes and techniques of Jerzy Kosinski’s (1933-1991) fiction are adumbrated in the sociological studies he published within five years of his arrival in the United States. As a highly regarded Polish sociology student in the mid-1950’s, Kosinski was granted… Read More ›
Analysis of Margaret Laurence’s Novels
The major emphasis of Margaret Laurence’s (1926- 1987) fiction changed considerably between her early and later works. In a 1969 article in Canadian Literature, “Ten Years’ Sentences,” she notes that after she had grown out of her obsession with the… Read More ›
Analysis of Barbara Kingsolver’s Novels
Barbara Kingsolver’s (born. April 8, 1955) long fiction is best characterized as contemporary versions of the Bildungsroman with a feminist twist. The main character ventures forth to develop herself and find her place in her community. Many books by women… Read More ›
Analysis of Stephen King’s Novels
Stephen King (born. September 21, 1947) may be known as a horror writer, but he calls himself a “brand name,” describing his style as “the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and a large fries from McDonald’s.” His fast-food version… Read More ›
Analysis of Jamaica Kincaid’s Novels
Jamaica Kincaid (born, May 25, 1949) is known for her impressionistic prose, which is rich with detail presented in a poetic style, her continual treatment of mother-daughter issues, and her relentless pursuit of honesty. More so than many fiction writers, she is… Read More ›
Analysis of Ken Kesey’s Novels
To understand some of the ideas behind the counterculture revolution is to understand Ken Kesey’s (1935 – 2001) fictional heroes and some of his themes. Originating with the 1950’s Beat generation, the 1960’s counterculture youth were disillusioned with the vast… Read More ›
Analysis of William Kennedy’s Novels
William Kennedy’s (born, January 16, 1928) fiction is preoccupied with spirit of place, language, and style, and a mystic fusing of characters and dialogue. The place is Albany, New York, the capital city—nest of corrupt politics; heritor of Dutch, English,… Read More ›
Analysis of Henry James’s Novels
Henry James’s (1843 – 1916) distinctive contributions to the art of the novel were developed over a long career of some fifty years. Leon Edel, possibly the most renowned and respected James scholar, has indicated that James’s mature writing can… Read More ›
Analysis of John Irving’s Novels
John Irving’s (born March 2, 1942) fiction is distinguished by a highly personal fusion of seemingly incongruous elements. Irving’s settings, actions, and characters are often bizarre and violent. The world he presents is frequently chaotic and unpredictable, full of sudden… Read More ›
The Urban Neurotic Jew in Woody Allen’s Short Fiction
Woody Allen is one of the most prolific artists of the twentieth century. He is a highly praised director and scriptwriter, a successful actor, a dedicated clarinettist, an appreciated playwright, and an awarded short fiction writer. His entire work testifies… Read More ›
Analysis of Herman Melville’s Novels
Herman Melville’s (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) career as a novelist breaks down, somewhat too neatly, into a three-part voyage of frustration and disappointment. The first part of his career is characterized by the heady successes of Typee… Read More ›
Analysis of Zora Neale Hurston’s Novels
For much of her career, Zora Neale Hurston (1891 –1960) was dedicated to the presentation of black folk culture. She introduced readers to hoodoo, folktales, lying contests, spirituals, the blues, sermons, children’s games, riddles, playing the dozens, and, in general,… Read More ›
Analysis of Anne Tyler’s Novels
In The Writer on Her Work, Anne Tyler discusses the importance of her having lived as a child in “an experimental Quaker community in the wilderness.” For her, this early experience of isolation and her later effort “to fit into… Read More ›
Analysis of Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels
In his novels, Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) coaxes the reader toward greater sympathy for humanity and deeper understanding of the human condition. His genre is satire—sometimes biting, sometimes tender, always funny. His arena is as expansive as the whole universe… Read More ›
Analysis of John Updike’s Novels
A writer with John Updike’s (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) versatility and range, whose fiction reveals a virtual symphonic richness and complexity, offers readers a variety of keys or themes with which to explore his work. The growing… Read More ›
Analysis of Robert Penn Warren’s Novels
Often, what Robert Penn Warren (1905 – 1989) said about other writers provides an important insight into his own works. This is especially true of Warren’s perceptive essay “The Great Mirage: Conrad and Nostromo” in Selected Essays, in which he… Read More ›
Analysis of Alice Walker’s Novels
The story of Alice Walker’s childhood scar provides the most basic metaphor of her novels: the idea that radical change is possible even under the worst conditions. Although she was never able to regain the sight in one eye, Walker’s… Read More ›
Analysis of Mark Twain’s Novels
It is instructive to note that the most pervasive structural characteristic of Mark Twain’s (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910) work, of his nonfiction as well as his fiction, is dualistic. That observation is not worth much without detailed… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas Pynchon’s Novels
The quest would seem to be the one indispensable element in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon, for each of his novels proves to be a modern-dress version of the search for some grail to revive the wasteland. Pynchon’s characters seek… Read More ›
Analysis of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger’s (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) characters are always extremely sensitive young people who are trapped between two dimensions of the world: love and “squalor.” The central problem in most of his fiction is not finding a… Read More ›
Analysis of Vladimir Nabokov’s Novels
In 1937, Vladeslav Khodasevich, an émigré poet and champion of “V. Sirin’s” work, wrote, “Sirin [Nabokov] proves for the most part to be an artist of form, of the writer’s device, and not only in that . . . sense… Read More ›
Analysis of Toni Morrison’s Novels
In all of her fiction, Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931- August 06, 2019) explored the conflict between society and the individual. She showed how the individual who defies social pressures can forge a self by drawing on the resources of… Read More ›
Analysis of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee’s (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), has gained stature over the years, becoming thought of as more than merely a skillful depiction of small-town southern life during the 1930’s with a… Read More ›
Analysis of William Dean Howells’s Novels
Throughout his career as a fiction writer, William Dean Howells worked against the sentimentality and idealization that pervaded popular American literature in the nineteenth century. He pleaded for characters, situations, behavior, values, settings, and even speech patterns that were true… Read More ›
Analysis of Rolando Hinojosa’s Novels
Beginning in 1970, Rolando Hinojosa (born 1929) published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, primarily in small Mexican American presses and journals. His major work comprises a series of short novels that he titled The Klail City Death Trip series, after publishing… Read More ›
Analysis of Oscar Hijuelos’s Novels
Oscar Hijuelos (August 24, 1951 – October 12, 2013) represents a new generation of Cuban American writers. His Latino roots enrich his chronicles of the immigrant experience. Latino writers often face quandaries when choosing the language for their literary expression… Read More ›
Analysis of John Hersey’s Novels
Critics have generally agreed that John Hersey’s greatest strengths as a novelist derive from two sources: the observational skills he developed as a journalist and his belief in the importance of individual human beings in difficult situations. Reviewers throughout his… Read More ›
Analysis of Joseph Heller’s Novels
At first glance, Joseph Heller’s (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) novels seem quite dissimilar. Heller’s manipulation of time and point of view in Catch-22 is dizzying; it is a hilariously macabre, almost surreal novel. Something Happened, on the… Read More ›
Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Novels
Central to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romances is his idea of a “neutral territory,” described in the Custom House sketch that precedes The Scarlet Letter as a place “somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may… Read More ›
Analysis of Frederick Philip Grove’s Novels
Among Frederick Grove’s (February 14, 1879 – September 9, 1948) primary themes, the foremost is the issue of free will. Through his characters, Grove asks how much freedom anyone has in the face of often accidental but usually overwhelming pressures… Read More ›
Analysis of John Grisham’s Novels
Grisham writes legal thrillers, a type of novel that has virtually become a genre of its own in recent years. Grisham credits writer Scott F. Turow’s Presumed Innocent (1987) for beginning the trend, but his own novels have served to… Read More ›
Analysis of Ellen Glasgow’s Novels
Turning away from a romanticized view of her own Virginia, Ellen Glasgow (April 22, 1873 – November 21, 1945) became a part of the revolt against the elegiac tradition of southern letters. Although she rejected romance, she did not turn… Read More ›
Analysis of Dashiell Hammett’s Novels
Unlike most of their predecessors in the genre, Dashiell Hammett’s detectives live and work, as did Hammett himself, in a world populated with actual criminals who violate the law for tangible personal gain. Significantly, Hammett did all of his creative… Read More ›
Analysis of John Gardner’s Novels
John Gardner (1933 –1982) is a difficult writer to classify. He was alternately a realist and a fabulist, a novelist of ideas and a writer who maintained that characters and human situations are always more important than philosophy. He was,… Read More ›
Analysis of Ersnest J. Gaines’s Novels
Before it became fashionable, Ernest J. Gaines (January 15, 1933-) was one southern black writer who wrote about his native area. Although he has lived much of his life in California, he has never been able to write adequately about… Read More ›
Analysis of William Gaddis’s Novels
Critics have placed William Gaddis (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) in the tradition of experimental fiction, linking him closely to James Joyce and comparing him to contemporaries such as Thomas Pynchon. Gaddis himself also indicated the influence of… Read More ›
Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Novels
“The test of a first-rate intelligence,” Fitzgerald remarked during the late 1930’s, “is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” At his best—in The Great Gatsby,… Read More ›
Analysis of Edna Ferber’s Novels
Ferber was a feminist, a conservationist, a crusader for minorities and immigrants, and a staunch believer in the work ethic and American culture. Strong women characters rising above the limitations of birth and gender dominate her novels; most men in… Read More ›
Analysis of William Faulkner’s Novels
When William Faulkner (1897-1962) accepted the Nobel Prize in December, 1950, he made a speech that has become a justly famous statement of his perception of the modern world and of his particular place in it. In the address, Faulkner speaks… Read More ›
Analysis of James T. Farrell’s Novels
An understanding of James T. Farrell (February 27, 1904 – August 22, 1979) and his work on the basis of one novel, or even as many as three individual novels, is impossible. Farrell’s vision was panoramic, however limited his subject… Read More ›
Analysis of Louise Erdrich’s Novels
In a 1985 essay titled “Where I Ought to Be: A Writer’s Sense of Place,” Louise Erdrich (7 June 1954-) states that the essence of her writing emerges from her attachment to her North Dakota locale. The ways in which… Read More ›
Analysis of Ralph Ellison’s Novels
A masterwork of American pluralism, Ellison’s Invisible Man insists on the integrity of individual vocabulary and racial heritage while encouraging a radically democratic acceptance of diverse experiences. Ellison asserts this vision through the voice of an unnamed first-person narrator… Read More ›
Analysis of Theodore Dreiser’s Novels
Literary historians have shown, by identifying sources and characters, that Theodore Dreiser (1871 – 1945), even in his fiction, was a capable investigative reporter. His reliance on research for setting, character, and plot lines is evident in The Financier and… Read More ›
Analysis of John Dos Passos’s Novels
Readers of Dos Passos’s unusual novels have attempted to define the writer as a chronicler, a historian, or a critic of twentieth century America. To these titles, Dos Passos added another dimension by calling himself “an architect of history.” Indeed,… Read More ›
Analysis of J. P. Donleavy’s Novels
In his Journal of Irish Literature interview published in 1979, J. P. Donleavy (23 April 1926 – 11 September 2017) said: “I suppose one has been influenced by people like Joyce. But also possibly—and this is not too apparent in… Read More ›
Analysis of E. L. Doctorow’s Novels
E. L. Doctorow’s (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015) work is concerned with those stories, myths, public figures, and literary and historical forms that have shaped public and political consciousness. Even when his subject is not overtly political—as in… Read More ›
Analysis of Joan Didion’s Novels
Almost all of Joan Didion’s (1934-) works are concerned with similar themes, and there is an interesting complementary relationship between her essays and her novels. Her essays generally seem intended to force the reader to strip away illusions about contemporary… Read More ›
Analysis of Philip K. Dick’s Novels
Philip K. Dick’s novels are, without exception, distinctive in style and theme. Their style may be characterized relatively easily: Dick writes clearly and plainly and is a master of realistic dialogue. He is, however, also a master of the… Read More ›
Analysis of Don DeLillo’s Novels
What little there is of traditional narrative structure in a Don DeLillo (1936- ) novel appears to serve principally as a vehicle for introspective meanderings, a thin framework for the knotting together of the author’s preoccupations about life and the… Read More ›
Analysis of Samuel R. Delany’s Novels
The great twentieth century poet T. S. Eliot remarked that a poet’s criticism of other writers often reveals as much or more about that poet’s own work as about that of the writers being discussed. This observation certainly holds true… Read More ›
Analysis of Robertson Davies’ Novels
At the core of Robertson Davies’ (1913-1995) novels is a sense of humor that reduces pompous institutional values to a refreshing individuality. Interplays of the formal with the specific—officious academia versus lovable satyr-professor, self-important charitable foundation versus reclusive forger-artist, elaborately… Read More ›
Analysis of Stephen Crane’s Novels
As one of the Impressionist writers—Conrad called him “The Impressionist”— Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was among the first to express in writing a new way of looking at the world. A pivotal movement in the history of ideas, Impressionism grew out… Read More ›
Analysis of Robert Coover’s Novels
In Robert Coover’s work, humanity is presented not as the center of the universe, the purpose of creation, but, instead, as the center of the fictions it itself creates to explain its existence. Only when people learn the crucial difference… Read More ›
Analysis of James Fenimore Cooper’s Novels
James Fenimore Cooper (1789 –1851) was a historian of America. His novels span American history, dramatizing central events from Columbus’s discovery (Mercedes of Castile) through the French and Indian Wars and the early settlement (the Leatherstocking Tales) to the Revolution… Read More ›
Analysis of Kate Chopin’s Novels
When Kate Chopin (1850–1904) began to publish, local-color writing, which came into being after the Civil War and crested during the 1880’s, had already been established. Bret Harte and Mark Twain had created a special ambience for their fiction in… Read More ›
Analysis of John Cheever’s Novels
In a literary period that witnessed the exhaustion of literature, wholesale formal experimentation, a general distrust of language, the death of the novel, and the blurring of the lines separating fiction and play, mainstream art and the avantgarde, John Cheever… Read More ›
Analysis of Raymond Chandler’s Novels
Many people who have never read a single word of Raymond Chandler’s (1888–1959) recognize the name of his fictional hero Philip Marlowe. This recognition results in part from the wide exposure and frequent dilution Chandler’s work has received in media… Read More ›
Analysis of Willa Cather’s Novels
Willa Cather (1873—1947) was a prolific American novelist noted for her portrayals of the settlers and frontier life on the American plains. She once said in an interview that the Nebraska landscape was “the happiness and the curse” of her… Read More ›
Analysis of Truman Capote’s Novels
The pattern of Truman Capote’s 1(924 – 1984) career suggests a divided allegiance to two different, even opposing literary forms—objective realism and romance. Capote’s earliest fiction belongs primarily to the imagination of romance. It is intense, wondrously evocative, subjective; in place… Read More ›
Analysis of George Washington Cable’s Novels
Although George Washington Cable’s (1844 – 1925) reputation rests primarily on one collection of short stories and two pieces of longer fiction, his total output includes twenty-two books. For an understanding of Cable as a writer of fiction, one should… Read More ›
Analysis of Octavia E. Butler’s Novels
Octavia E. Butler presented a version of humanity as a congenitally flawed species, possibly doomed to destroy itself because it is both intelligent and hierarchical. In this sense, her work does not follow the lead of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series… Read More ›
Analysis of Richard Brautigan’s Novels
Short-story writer, novelist, and poet, Richard Brautigan (1935 – 1984) created a stream of works that resist simple categories—in fact, defy categorization altogether. Much of his popularity can be attributed to his peculiar style, his unconventional plots, simple language, and… Read More ›
Analysis of Pearl S. Buck’s Novels
An overwhelmingly prolific writer, Pearl S. Buck’s (1892-1973) reputation for excellence as a writer of fiction rests primarily on The Good Earth and segments of a few of her other novels of the 1930’s. The appeal of The Good Earth… Read More ›
Analysis of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Novels
Marion Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was one of the most prolific authors to write science fiction, with more than sixty novels to her name and others written under pseudonyms. Though she was nominated for both… Read More ›
Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s Novels
Although Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) became arguably the best-known American science- fiction writer, the majority of his work, which ranges from gothic horror to social criticism, centers on humanistic themes. His best works are powerful… Read More ›
Analysis of T. C. Boyle’s Novels
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s (1948- ) novels have been praised for their originality, style, and comic energy. At a time when his contemporaries seem obsessed with the mundane details of everyday life—presented in a minimalist style—Boyle approaches fiction as an iconoclastic… Read More ›
Analysis of Paul Bowles’s Novels
Bowles holds a unique place in American literature. As an exile, he shared with 1920’s expatriate novelist Gertrude Stein, among others, a distanced perspective on his native culture. Through his translations, he earned an international reputation as an author with… Read More ›
Analysis of Arna Bontemps’s Novels
Arna Bontemps (1902 – 1973) was a prolific author, editor and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote or cowrote many children’s books, biographies, and histories. He edited or coedited more than a dozen works, including African American… Read More ›
Analysis of Saul Bellow’s Novels
Often described as America’s best contemporary novelist, Saul Bellow (1915 – 2005) earned enormous critical praise and a wide readership as well. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. His popularity is somewhat surprising, however, as his… Read More ›
Analysis of Ann Beattie’s Novels
Hailed by many as the spokesperson for her generation, Ann Beattie (1947 -) won numerous awards for her novels and short stories focusing on vapid, upper-middleclass characters. Although Beattie’s work has often been criticized as pointless and depressing, there is… Read More ›
Analysis of John Barth’s Novels
Although John Barth’s (1930 – ) novels have ensured his eminence among contemporary American writers, his short fictions have been no less influential or controversial. In addition to his novels, he published a collection of shorter works, Lost in the… Read More ›
Analysis of Toni Cade Bambara’s Novels
Toni Cade Bambara (1939 – 1995) is best known for her short stories, which appear frequently in anthologies. She has also received recognition as a novelist, essayist, journalist, editor, and screenwriter, as well as a social activist and community leader…. Read More ›
Literary Criticism of James Baldwin
James Baldwin’s (1924– 1987) public role as a major African American racial spokesman of the 1950’s and 1960’s guarantees his place in American cultural history. Though not undeserved, this reputation more frequently obscures than clarifies the nature of his literary… Read More ›
Literary Criticism of Louis Auchincloss
For a writer with a full-time professional career, Louis Auchincloss (1917-2010) proved astoundingly prolific, producing nearly one book of fiction or nonfiction each year from the 1950’s into the early twenty-first century. Like that of many highly prolific writers, the… Read More ›
Analysis of Margaret Atwood’s Novels
For Atwood, an unabashed Canadian, literature became a means to cultural and personal self-awareness. “To know ourselves,” she writes in Survival, “we must know our own literature; to know ourselves accurately, we need to know it as part of literature… Read More ›