Edited by Robert C. Evans, Professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the perennial theme. For readers who are studying it for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts in the genre. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include Book of Job, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and All the Kings Men, as well as the works of Ernest Hemingway, Flannery OConnor, Emily Dickinson, and Wilfred Owen. Among the contributors are Jonathan Wright, Elizabeth Woodworth, Robert Klevay, and Lawrence Berkove.