Literature & the arts
Literary interpretation, creative work, culture and artistic choices.
Jay Gatsby’s Reinvention and the American Dream
A literary-analysis essay examining how Gatsby’s self-fashioning makes his pursuit of Daisy possible while revealing the limits of wealth and personal reinvention in The Great Gatsby.
Imagination Versus Experience: GRE Issue Essay
An argumentative essay evaluating whether imagination is more valuable than experience, and when each provides an advantage.
Scrooge’s Redemption in A Christmas Carol
A close-reading essay arguing that Scrooge’s transformation links personal redemption to responsibility for the people affected by one’s choices.
Hard Work and Talent in Creative Success
An argumentative essay weighs perseverance against innate ability, arguing that purposeful practice better explains sustained creative development while recognizing talent and external conditions.
Gatsby’s Secrets and His Relationship with Daisy
A literary analysis of how Gatsby’s concealed identity and wealth shape his reunion with Daisy and the novel’s tensions among intimacy, status, and truth.
Must Art Be Understandable to Have Merit?
An argumentative essay distinguishing accessibility from artistic value and considering how ambiguity and audience connection can contribute to a work’s merit.
Frankenstein: Victor’s Decision to Destroy the Second Creature
An analysis of how Shelley’s pacing, physical action, and the Creature’s appeal make Victor’s destruction of the unfinished companion a moral crisis about responsibility.
Cities and the Preservation of Cultural Traditions
An argument that cities are important cultural centers but cannot alone originate or preserve a nation’s traditions. Historical examples show how public institutions can extend cultural work beyond metropolitan centers, while also revealing that institutions may distribute opportunity unequally.
Pip’s Guilt and Self-Deception in Great Expectations
An analysis of how Pip’s shame about his origins damages his relationship with Joe, and how Joe’s care helps Pip recognize the moral cost of his ambition.
Jane Eyre’s Memories of Lowood and Moral Growth
An essay arguing that Jane’s years at Lowood teach her to distinguish principled discipline from unjust control, shaping her responses to authority and her later moral choices.
Dorian Gray’s Rebellion Against Age and Moral Convention
A literary analysis of how Dorian’s resistance to age and moral judgment is shaped by both his desire for consequence-free freedom and Lord Henry’s influence, and how Wilde uses that rebellion to criticize a life ruled by sensation and appearance.
Pride and Prejudice: What Pride Means to Darcy and the Novel
An analysis of how Pride and Prejudice distinguishes self-respect and responsibility from social arrogance, and how its treatment of pride contrasts with the condemnation of pride at the end of Thomas More’s Utopia.