Exploring social issues through literature

Contains nine essays that describe how labor and workplace issues are presented in major works of literature such as Charles Dicken's "Hard Times" and John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath," and includes plot summaries and historical background information.

Contains twelve essays that describe how racial issues are presented in major literary works such as Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird, " and includes plot summaries, historical background, and a discussion of overt and subtle racism.

Explores how many bioethical and medical debates related to recent advances in science and technology have been addressed in various literary works.

Focuses on the fictional representation of youth gangs in America and traces their origin and development from the early western culture to immigrant gangs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.