Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature

become grossly distorted. First, the ruling powers hold humanity (women in particular) responsible for the decline in fertility ...

and supporting themselves, they grow more and more resentful, with Gregor’s father even resorting to violence. Gregor’s death se ...

society: devious alchemists, armed with a bewilder- ing scientific vocabulary and an arsenal of laboratory technologies, who pro ...

emaciated, sallow, and sickly looking. His work also transforms his daughter, who develops immunity to the poisonous flowers he ...

hyde; Vonnegut, Kurt: cat’s cradLe; Whit- man, Walt: Leaves oF Grass. FURTHER READING Daly, Nicholas. Literature, Technology, an ...

head sees the act of sex as the road to disaster, avoids it whenever she can, and blames her sexual relation- ship with Jude for ...

explicitly naming the relationship as a sexual one. In addition, literary critics have long found homoerotic undertones in works ...

born into a caste, a person will face many obstacles in attempting to maneuver beyond certain stigmas or narrowly defined possib ...

education. Christmas internalizes the racial “glass ceiling” and sees it at each possible opportunity. Addressing issues of soci ...

where they attempt to sustain themselves. However, the local authorities confiscate their land because, by an unfortunate mishap ...

more nuanced interpretations of the disconnect between the perceived reality of the physical world and a conceived reality of a ...

ral worlds, such that a divine influence or presence is rendered as an aesthetic sensibility (an artistic, visual representation ...

ing the life span of each living thing, with man in his greed receiving the rejected remainder from the more humble donkey, dog, ...

made to understand that Harry’s flight from young adulthood is not only futile but also destructive. Interestingly, Updike’s thr ...

sue goals that were geared toward making them unhappy. It seems, then, that success might best be equated with, or at least link ...

who manages to rise to prosperity on the strength of his character and determination. Decker believes that these stories allowed ...

Feeling worthy of success in this way is, perhaps, a criterion for achieving it. The underlying reason why many literary charact ...

because she feels she is deserving of it. Like Pecola, she is vastly insecure and has adopted society’s limited standards for be ...

depicting suffering also inspires hope and confi- dence in the resilience of the human spirit. In most stories, suffering is tem ...

and texts of Europe. The inception of the printing press in the 15th century facilitated the transmis- sion of Martin Luther’s a ...