Reading literature through the looking glass of theory.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros's House on Mango Street tells the funny-sad-happy story of Esperanza, a Chicana girl growing up with her parents and sister in a house on Mango Street in Chicago. Life isn't ea...
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is one of the most important novels in the American literary tradition. In the novel, an unnamed narrator (let's call him—you guessed it—"the invisible man")...
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club was on the bestseller list for weeks and weeks when it was first published in 1989. At the time, this stuff was really new: here was a Chinese American female author, writing...
"The Sacred Circle" by Adrian C. Louis
Adrian C. Louis is a writer from the Lovelock Paiute tribe of Nevada. His poetry deals with a lot of heavy themes, including colonialism and Native American identity and history. Get a load of this...
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only novel by Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of—surprise—Arthur Gordon Pym, who boards a whaling ship, where he gets into all ki...