Bye Bye Braverman called him "The Joyce of Brighton Beach," suggesting by analogy a comparison between Markfield and this quintessentially Jewish neighborhood and the essential literary synergy between James Joyce and his native Dublin, but also suggesting other connections. The structure of Markfield's "To an Early Grave", and therefore of the movie based upon it, is to some extent a comic parallel of Joyce's novel "Ulysses", specifically "Episode 6" (which is commonly known as the "Hades" chapter) where protagonist Leopold Bloom and three friends travel in a carriage to attend the funeral of Patrick "Paddy" Dignam who has died in a drunken stupor.
French Revolution and the English Gothic Novel also give the reader need to recognize social theory as the main purpose of the novel. This novel is classified as one of the best examples of the "victim-of-society story. The main character of this novel is a morbid individualist seized with a ruling passion amounting to mania, which no reason can overcome. In this way, the protagonist of this story can be seen as a caricature of a French Revolutionary. Before Caleb Williams, William Godwin published Political Justice underlining the philosophical principals that were pushing the French Revolution. He faced fierce hostility upon its publishing. With his later publishing