Study Like a Boss
Edgar Allan Poe wrote that the single effect was the most important aspect of a short story, which everything must contribute to this effect. Poe’s gothic tale ‘The Black Cat’; was written trying to achieve an effect of shocking insanity. In this first person narrative the narrator tells of his decline from sanity to madness, … Read more
The play Othello by William Shakespeare is based on an Italian story in Giraldi Cinthio’s Hecatommithi (Grolier). In Othello we encounter Iago, one of Shakespeare’s most evil characters. Iago is an officer in Othello’s army and is jealous of Cassio’s promotion to Lieutenant. Through deception and appearance, we see unfolded many lies and clever schemes. … Read more
What story does the image of a strand of iron-gray hair resting on a pillow invoke? Many people could imagine a horrible ghost story or a beautiful tale of old age. Yet, through the eyes of William Faulkner, he imagined a tortured necrophiliac. The story’s amazing twists and turns take the reader on a terrific … Read more
James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is considered to be one of the finest works of literature of all time. Herbert Gorman, an author from the early twentieth century, stated that “so profound and beautiful and convincing a book is part of the lasting literature of our age,” and with … Read more
Reading To Kill A Mockingbird and A Rose For Emily I noticed several differences and likenesses. I would like to convey my thoughts to you. Females in “A Rose For Emily” are depicted as reclusive, crazy, and nosy. Females in “To Kill A Mockingbird” are depicted as smart, outgoing, and full of pride. For example, … Read more
The Lottery, written by Shirley Jackson, is a short story set around early 20th century in a small American village. Throughout the entire story Jackson plays psychological games with the readers mind. Jackson leaves clues and symbols all through the story; however, it could be easy for a reader to not fully understand the meaning … Read more
In the book Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, gives us a stunning tale about a rooster named Chaunticleer. Chaunticleer, who is the King of his domain in his farmland kingdom. Like a King, he quotes passages from intellectuals, dreams vivid dreams, has a libido that runs like a bat out of hell, and is described as … Read more
Characters, items, and events found in George Orwells book, Animal Farm, can be compared to similar characters, items, and events found in Marxism and the 1917 Russian Revolution. This comparison will be shown by using the symbolism that is in the book with similarities found in Old Major was a prized-boar that belonged to Farmer … Read more
In Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra the two eponymous heroes, and lovers frequently contend with each other in a battle of words and wills. It is from these conflicts, that the reader learns most about each characters true nature. From the start of the play Antony is portrayed as a ruler who has lost his desire … Read more
The plot of Much Ado About Nothing is an elaborate network of schemes and tricks. This statement is confirmed throughout Much Ado About Nothing. The play contains many examples of tricks and schemes that are used to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of characters. The major examples of such manipulation include- Don Pedro, Claudio and … Read more
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was born to traveling actors in Boston. He was hit hard with death at a young age as his mother and father both died within two days when Poe was only two years old. The wealthy John Allan and his wife became the legal guardians of young Edgar. When Edgar was … Read more
The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf is the one of the most important works of Old English literature, and is well deserved of that distinction. The epic tells the story of a hero, a Scandinavian prince named Beowulf, who rids the Danes of the monster Grendel, a descendant of Cain, and of his exploits fighting Grendel’s mother … Read more
Homers characters are real human beings with all the strengths and weaknesses. They live, they breathe, they love, they hate. They are subject to fear and they tend, on occasion, to rise to heroic greatness. His most explored stories The Illiad and The Odyssey both have characters that exert these characteristics. Although the stories are … Read more
William Faulkner elected to write Barn Burning from his young character Sartys perspective because his sense of morality and decency would present a more plausible conflict in this story. Abner Snopes inability to feel the level of remorse needed to generate a truly moral predicament in this story, sheds light on Sartys efforts to overcome … Read more
All the minor characters who appear in the novel, Jane Eyre are only sketched in, so to speak. They are “flat”; not developed in the way that the central three characters are developed. All of them are conventional; behave and speak conventionally, and do not develop at all. They are set merely as foils for … Read more
In the two stories that we have read each story explores the feeling of horror and fear. We are examining how each character in each story reacts to the ghost that they encounter. In each story the characters react very different to the different types of ghost that they meet. Wells story of the The … Read more
A Doll’s House, a play by Henrik Ibsen, tells the story of Nora, the wife of Torvald Helmer, who is an adult living as a child, kept as a doll by her husband. She is expected to be content and happy living in the world Torvald has created for her. By studying the play and … Read more
When one ponders the Greek mythology and literature, powerful images invariably come to mind. One relives the heroes’ struggles against innumerable odds, their battles against magical monsters, and the gods’ periodic intervention in mortal affairs. Yet, a common and often essential portion of a heroic epic is the hero’s consultation with an oracle or divinity. … Read more
Everyone wants to be successful in life, but most often people take the wrong ways to get there. In the 1920s the American Dream was something that everyone struggled to have. A spouse, children, money, a big house and a car meant that someone had succeeded in life. A very important aspect was money and … Read more
Human emotions are something that we seldom find a way to express clearly: from simple hand gestures, to a disgusted face. To understand his novel more thoroughly, Arthur Miller uses the most understandable method of comprehension, music, to express the emotions of the characters in his play, Death of a Salesman. The characters, Willy, Linda, … Read more
In his lengthy literary career, Jonathan Swift wrote many stories that used a broad range of voices that were used to make some compelling personal statements. For example, Swifts, A Modest Proposal, is often heralded as his best use of both sarcasm and irony. Yet taking into account the persona of Swift, as well as … Read more
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Lord of the Flies is a thought provoking novel, the main theme being the fact that men are inherently bound to law/moral society and without the influence of morality and the basic consensus of right and wrong we would slowly regress to … Read more
Is Hamlet Madness Not Likely Madness is a condition of the mind which eliminates all rational thought leaving an individual with no proper conception of what is happening around him/her. Madness typically occurs in the minds of individuals that have experienced an event or series of events that their mind simply cannot cope with and, … Read more
Have you ever heard adults talking about their spouses and all the troubles they have to put up with because they love them? In the poems “The Trouble With Women Is Men” and “What Almost Every Woman Knows Sooner or Later,” Ogden Nash talks about the troubles women go through daily with men and how … Read more
“You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter. that book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There were things which he streched, but mainly he told the truth. That ain’ nothing. I … Read more
“Araby” by James Joyce and “A and P ” by John Updike are both short stories in which the central characters are in love with women who don’t even know it. The Araby story started sad and ended sadder, however, the “A and P” story started happy and ended with a heroic act that went … Read more
“Our Town”, by Thornton Wilder, written in 1938, was first performed at the McCarter theatre, New Jersey, on the 22nd of January1938. It is an example of meta theatre, and chronicles the lives of ordinary, everyday people, during their ordinary, everyday lives. The story is based in Grover’s Corners, a small town in New Hampshire, … Read more
Ethan Frome is the story of a family caught in a deep-rooted domestic struggle. Ethan Frome is married to his first love Zeena, who becomes chronically ill over their long marriage. Due to his wife’s condition, they took the services of Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver. Mattie seems to be everything that Zeena is not, youthful, … Read more
“Love is a universal language. ” This popular quote from many movies and literary works describes the importance of love, and how there are no limits or barriers when dealing with love. Many people cannot even help whether or not they fall in love. There are many types of love and they need not be … Read more
Many people find that their dreams are unreachable. Holden Caulfield realizes this in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. As Holden tells his story, he recounts the events since leaving the Pencey School to his psychiatrist. At first, Holden sounds like a typical, misguided teenager, rebellious towards his parents, angry with his teachers, … Read more
Voltaire’s Candide is the story of an innocent man’s experiences in a mad and evil world, his struggle to survive in that world, and his need to ultimately come to terms with it. All people experience the turmoil of life and must overcome obstacles, both natural and man-made, in order to eventually achieve happiness. In … Read more
A common tool of science fiction writers is the use of a character, to whom the reader can relate, placed in an alien setting. This character will represent the reader in this new alien world or society, allowing the reader to form a link between his or her own world and this new one. Because … Read more
In Sophecles’ Antigone, Creon is not a good person; in fact, he is a stubborn, selfish ruler. Creon rarely listens to an opinion other than his own. He also turns his back on his own niece, Antigone, because she breaks an unfair law by burying her brother’s body. Throughout the play, Creon ignores his son’s … Read more
In the poems “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? ” and “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”, William Shakespeare compares his loved ones to nature. He uses natural elements in order to show that nature is superior to human beings. However, the poet comes to the conclusion that despite the fact … Read more
In consideration of the plays we discussed in class, the dramatic contents of each play reflect and develop a category of it’s own. Some that deal with comedies, morality, and other’s with, tragedies, whichever the case maybe each play has its unique style and theme. A Midsummer Night’s Dream I believe is unusual among Shakespeare’s … Read more
The Secret Sharer written by Joseph Conrad, centers around a character of a sea captain. Its title and opening paragraphs forecast a story of mystery, isolation, duality, darkness and silence. The novel proves true these predictions reveling thematic and image patterns directly proportional to them. The opening of the novel further reveals dialectics in the … Read more
Franz Kafka was a very intelligent writer of his times. Kafka was born in Austro-Czechoslovakia. He was mainly a writer of short stories, and complex diaries, yet he did publish a small number of novels. The works of Kafka have been interpreted as allegorical, autobiographical, psychoanalytical, Marxist, religious, existentialist, expressional, and naturalist. His novels have … Read more
As any reader can see, “A Rose for Emily” is one of the most authentic short stories by Faulkner. His use of characterization, narration, foreshadowing, and symbolism are four key factors to why Faulkners work is idealistic to all readers. Introduction Short biographical description. William Faulkner “A Rose for Emily” Characterization Emily as the protagonist. … Read more
Knowing secret information can be a very enlightening thing. Knowing information that someone else does not helps make the reader feel more powerful. Such is the case when the reader knows of the mythical Phoenix and then reads “A Worn Path. ” Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” the story of an elderly grandmother’s journey to … Read more
This novel, originally published in 1814, is the first of Jane Austen’s novels not to be a revised version of one of her pre-1800 writings. Mansfield Park has sometimes been considered atypical of Jane Austen, as being solemn and moralistic, especially when contrasted with the immediately preceding Pride and Prejudice and the immediately following Emma. … Read more
Thebes is struck by a plague; the citizens are dying, and no one knows how to put an end to it. The people look to their great king, Oedipus to save the city. Oedipus, being a great king takes responsibility for saving the people and the great city of Thebes. As the play progresses, Oedipus … Read more
Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, takes place in1946 near the small rural town of Ixopo in the smaller village of Ndotsheni. The main character is Stephen Kumalo, a native priest who sets out on a mission to find his family. He receives a letter from a fellow priest, Msimangu, telling him his younger … Read more
Characters, items, and events found in George Orwells book, Animal Farm, can be compared to similar characters, items, and events found in Marxism and the 1917 Russian Revolution. This comparison will be shown by using the symbolism that is in the book with similarities found in the Russian Revolution. Old Major was a prized-boar that … Read more
Although Night is not necessarily a memoir–as discussed in the “Overall Analysis and Themes” section–I will often refer to it as a memoir, since that is the genre which closest approaches the mixture of testimony, deposition and emotional truth-telling that is in Night. Finally: it is clear that Eliezer is meant to serve, to a … Read more
Throughout history, writers and philosophers have expressed their views about how the life of man is ultimately defined in their works. The Greeks have played their part in this quest. One of the great plays of the ancient Greek world that led the way for others was Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. In this play, Sophocles shows … Read more
Ernest Hemingways background influenced him to write the short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro. One important influence on the story was that Hemingway had a fear of dying without finishing a work. Hemingway confirmed this fear in many interviews. Baker, in The Slopes of Kilimanjaro, states that Hemingway could well express the feelings of Harry … Read more
The way a person reacts to ordinary situations determines the opinions of others based on their behavior. Yet, when this behavior is abnormal or different from the rest of society, it causes society to form an opinion based totally on a persons behavior not their true personality. In Meursaults case, his strange opinions and unexpected … Read more
Shakespeares presentation and portrayal of his female characters in The Merchant of Venice and Henry V follows a typical pattern that is present in all of the Shakespearean plays that I have read so far. When looking closely at the fate of his female characters, this pattern becomes even more evident for it repeats itself … Read more
In the book, The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, there is a character named Lord Henry Wotton. He is the story’s antagonist and whom critics often think most resembles Oscar Wilde. Wilde remarks “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would … Read more
The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitsgerald, is about the American Dream, and the downfall of those who attempt to reach its imaginative goals. The attempt to capture the American Dream is common in many novels. This dream is different for fidderent people, but in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is … Read more