Essays

Ahh, the academic essay, the backbone of every English undergrad degree.

Just like any other student, I wrote many essays, trying to convince my professors of various theories.
For a Children’s Literature essay, I used Peter Pan as a comparison to The Famous Five to claim that they are in fact dead, I explored the significance of male forgiveness in The Tempest and Dr. Faustus for a Drama and Witchcraft module, and examined the dystopian novel The Day of the Triffids through a feminist lens, openly admitting that I stopped reading after the sexual assault scene — a risk, that luckily paid off.

However, upon re-reading them, I realised that many of them are not living up to their fullest potential: either because I was limited by a strict word count, or simply because I believe that I could now do a much better job, than I did a few years ago. Along with creating this online portfolio, I have started to edit a few of my old essays, revisiting the texts and creating truly persuasive arguments.

So, please enjoy the single essay on here that I deemed good enough for this portfolio (plus a methodology for my short story Out of Sight, Out of Mind).

A comparison of the authors’ use of time as a structuring device in Denis Johnson’s “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” and Junot Díaz’s “Drown”

A methodology to accompany my short story (which can be read here), delving into the language use and its historical context