Recent Posts - page 2
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Analysis of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, evolved over a 10-year period. In 1941, The New Yorker accepted Salinger’s “Slight Rebellion off Madison,” with Holden Caulfield as protagonist; however, because the magazine thought a story about… Read More ›
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Analysis of Stephen King’s Carrie
Carrie was Stephen King’s first blockbuster novel. Constantly in print since its publication in 1974, it remains in the vanguard of the popular works—including more than 20 novels—by the prolific modern-day Edgar Allan Poe. In the introduction to Carrie, King… Read More ›
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Analysis of Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller, Jr., saw the publication of the first of his Leibowitz short stories in 1955. His story about a brotherhood of monks and their connection to a long-dead scientist amid the ruins of civilization was a landmark in… Read More ›
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Analysis of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row
Several critics have suggested that Cannery Row grew out of Steinbeck’s disgust for the battlefield during his assignment as a war correspondent in Germany and his desire to escape to something light and cheerful. Steinbeck affirmed this in various letters,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Jean Toomer’s Cane
Comprising three self-contained yet interrelated sections of prose, poetry, and a play, Cane presents scenes of African-American life and features characters that attempt to reconcile opposites of the African-American experience. The book’s narrative events seem disconnected, and time flows irregularly…. Read More ›
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Analysis of S. S. Van Dine’s The “Canary” Murder Case
The “Canary” Murder Case was the second of Philo Vance’s 12 interventions into the murder investigations of New York City district attorney John F. X. Markham. Vance is a young aesthete with “a liberal independent income” that enables him to… Read More ›
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Analysis of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild
The Call of the Wild is a fabulous version of the young adult adventure story (including brave animals, Indians, a contest, etc.), and it is also a sophisticated exploration of the roles of Nature in shaping destiny in a naturalistic,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep
Henry Roth’s autobiographical first novel Call It Sleep (1934) has come to be recognized as one of the most poignant and honest depictions of immigrant, specifically Jewish immigrant, life in all of American literature. Its account of living conditions in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a military novel in the manner of Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens. It offers a formal view of military life from the perspectives of officers who, for the most part, are committed to that… Read More ›
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Analysis of Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones
Set in Brooklyn during the 1930s and 1940s, Brown Girl, Brownstones is Paule Marshall’s first novel. Following the classic structure of a bildungsroman, it recounts the story of Selina Boyce, the daughter of Barbadian immigrants, from age 11 to 20…. Read More ›
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Analysis of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City
Along with Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York and Bret Easton Ellis’s Less than Zero, Jay McInerney’s first novel, Bright Lights, Big City, explores and details the frenetic club life and drug scene of mid-1980s New York. Bright Lights, Big… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey
An immediate national and international best-seller that was also well received by critics, The Bridge of San Luis Rey earned Thornton Wilder his first Pulitzer Prize. (He is still the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes in both fiction and… Read More ›
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Analysis of E. L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel
E. L. Doctorow’s 1971 novel focuses on Daniel Isaacson, the disturbed son of parents executed for giving the secret of the atomic bomb to the USSR. While working on his Ph.D. in the late 1960s, Daniel tries to reconcile what… Read More ›
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Analysis of Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers
According to Louise Levitas Henriksen, Anzia Yezierska’s daughter, Doubleday celebrated the publication of Bread Givers in 1925 with an advance printing of 500 numbered copies of the book to be presented to “important people” and a garden party in honor… Read More ›
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Analysis of Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story
Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story—the first in his semiautobiographical trilogy, which includes The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997)—has become one of the classic “coming-out novels” that were a staple of emerging gay literature during… Read More ›
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Analysis of E. L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel
E. L. Doctorow’s 1971 novel focuses on Daniel Isaacson, the disturbed son of parents executed for giving the secret of the atomic bomb to the USSR. While working on his Ph.D. in the late 1960s, Daniel tries to reconcile what… Read More ›
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Analysis of Joan Didion’s A Book of Common Prayer
At least four of Didion’s five novels have as their central characters wealthy or upper-middle-class women with both significant strengths and profound weaknesses. They are prone to flee rather than fight, and usually make a series of poor choices that… Read More ›
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Call for Papers Literariness Journal September 2026 Issue
📢 Call for Papers Literariness Journal A Peer-Reviewed Quarterly Journal of Literature and Cultural Studies P-ISSN: 3108-1614 | E-ISSN: 3108-172X Doi.org/10.67147/literariness Vol. 1, Issue 4 (September 2026) https://LiterarinessJournal.org Full paper deadline: 17 August 2026 Literariness Journal invites original research articles… Read More ›
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Analysis of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities
Tom Wolfe’s first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, was published in 1987 to widespread critical and popular acclaim. Only days after its release, the dizzying pace and boundless decadence of 1980s Wall Street so enjoyed by the novel’s protagonist,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone
Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone revolves around the tragic suicide of a daughter of a San Francisco Chinatown family and the personal, cultural, and social questions this event forces the characters to negotiate. Leila Leong, Mah’s daughter from her first marriage,… Read More ›
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