Study Like a Boss
Comedy, Courtly Love, Drama, Fiction, Poetry, Protagonist, Short Story, Tragedy, 1984, A Raisin in The Sun, Animal Farm, Beowulf, Fahrenheit 451, Frankenstein, George Orwell, Hamlet, Into The Wild, Lord of The Flies, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men, A Modest Proposal, All Quiet on The Western Front, Allegory, Antigone, Between The World and Me.
Celia Behind Me is a novel by Canadian author Isabel Huggan. The novel tells the story of Celia, a woman in her late thirties, who is struggling to come to terms with her past. Celia was sexually abused by her father as a child, and has never been able to forget what happened to her. … Read more
Doe Season is a novel by David Michael Kaplan about a group of friends who go on a hunting trip in the woods and encounter a Doe. The novel follows the group as they attempt to survive the night and make their way back to safety. Doe Season is a suspenseful, thrilling read that will … Read more
Atonement is a novel by Ian Mcewan. It tells the story of a young girl’s coming of age, and her relationship with her family and friends. The novel centers around the theme of atonement, and explores the idea of forgiveness and redemption. Atonement is a beautifully written novel that will stay with you long after … Read more
In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the question of nature vs. nurture is explored in depth. The novel tells the story of the murders of the Clutter family, and the two men who were convicted of the crime. Throughout the novel, Capote examines both the background of the killers, and the events that led up … Read more
That Was Then, This is Now is a novel by S. E. Hinton. It was first published in 1971. The novel is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and follows the lives of two teenage boys, Mark and Bryon. Mark is from a wealthy family, while Bryon is from a poor family. The novel deals with issues … Read more
Of Mice and Men is a novel written by John Steinbeck. The novel is set in the 1930s and tells the story of George and Lennie, two migrant workers who travel together in search of work. George is small and wiry, with sharp features. Lennie, on the other hand, is huge and strong, but has … Read more
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus is rich in symbolism. From the title itself, to the characters and events in the story, there are many hidden meanings and messages conveyed through the use of symbols. The hibiscus flower is a significant symbol in the novel, representing both hope and tragedy. The purple hibiscus in particular … Read more
Anna Avalon is the protagonist of The Leap, a novel by Louise Erdich. She is a young Native American woman who has been forced to leave her home on the reservation due to financial difficulties. Anna is a talented artist and hopes to one day have her work displayed in a major museum. When she … Read more
Rufus Weylin is one of the main characters in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred. Rufus is a white man who lives in the antebellum South and owns a plantation with slaves. Rufus is a complex character, and his actions and motivations are not always clear. However, there are some key traits that define his character. Rufus … Read more
Tim Johnson is a character in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Tim Johnson is a dog who is killed by a car. Tim Johnson’s death causes much grief for the people who knew him. There are several themes in To Kill a Mockingbird that Tim Johnson reflects. The major theme would … Read more
The novel Mary Barton, explains a tale of Manchester lifer written by Elizabeth Gaskell. The book was published in 1848. Over the years, there was the disparity in Britain that leads to conflicts between the haves and the have-nots that saw the poor population suffered regarding food and other basic human needs. The author tries … Read more
Religion is something that is mentioned to a great extent in the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Father Mapple delivers the story of Jonah and the Whale, in which he speaks about a man named Jonah who tries very hard to get away from God which has a horrible aftereffect. Every time he tries … Read more
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , Phillip K. Dick creates a post-apocalyptic world that is crumbling from radiation caused by the nuclear war: World War Terminus. As a result, many humans escape to off-world colonies; though some people are left behind. On the off-world colonies, those who emigrate are promised a “custom-tailored humanoid … Read more
In “The Handmaid’s Tale”, a novel written by Margaret Atwood, the Gilead society is largely built upon hypocrisy because it doesn’t truly follow the religious beliefs. Even though the whole society is shaped by religion, the people with authorities stealthily break rules and punish rapists due to religious beliefs when every single handmaid is trained … Read more
In the novel The Secret life of Bees there are many different themes in the novel but my two favorite ones are female power and race-based prejudice. In female power you see Rosaleen being lily mother even though she is not her mother but she does it because she loves lily and August giving her … Read more
When the reader is introduced to Rick in the beginning chapters of the novel, he and his wife are planning their day emotionally on a machine that they had brought. This machine is referred to in the novel as a Penfield mood organ. The mood organ is able to control all emotions from despair to … Read more
Interpretation of war and the relationship between soldiers and civilians are different when discussing World War 1 and the wars of today. Whether one is a soldier, spectator from far away, or a civilian watching it first hand, war cannot truly be comprehended and understood, unless it has been physically experienced. Erich Maria Remarque, a … Read more
The novel starts out with Holden telling the reader the flashback of three days he spent alone in New York City last winter. He was kicked out of Pencey Prep, the latest in a long string of exclusive boarding schools, and wanted to leave the school before his parents found out. Before Holden leaves, he … Read more
If I Die in a Combat Zone tells the personal story of author Tim O’Brien’s experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War. The novel not only focuses on the daily events from face to face combat to hiding in fox holes, but it also follows O? Brien’s thought process from the moment he was … Read more
Blackness is closing in around the eyes of one brave soul. Next thing they know, all they can see is another’s dream, if they’re lucky. In small town, Michigan, Janie has this wild ability. If she passes one dreaming, she is immediately sucked in and cannot escape unless the dream ends. Throughout the trilogy of … Read more
The novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, is a romantic, gothic classic with strange similarity to Mary’s own personal life: the losses, the stages grief, the heartbreak, all relating back to life of Mary Shelley. Oddly enough, her own life experiences are what she uses as building blocks for this story line and creatively worked … Read more
Jimmy Carter once said, “We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. ” What he meant by that was America is a very diverse country. Without the difference of its people, America is not America. In the novel, The Book of Unknown Americans … Read more
Cold Mountain, written by Charles Frazier, is a historical fiction novel written in 1977. Charles Frazier writes about the grand journey of a troubled Confederate soldier on his way to the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, Inman, the soldier, is not alone in his journey. Although separated by distance, Inman’s life long lover, Ada, is experiencing … Read more
In Their Eyes Were Watching God a novel by African American writer Zora Neale Hurston from the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston shows the development of the character Janie Crawford throughout the story influenced by her marriages. Janie was raised by her grandmother, as she gets older she wants Janie to be happy so she marries her … Read more
In the novel, Joshua: A Parable for Today, by Joseph F. Girzone, the author communicates that Joshua is Jesus risen again through the message he conveys and the miracles he performs. Joshua, a kind but mysterious stranger, moves to the town of Auburn and proceeds to stir up a huge debate simply by sharing his … Read more
Authors shape their texts using a range of narrative techniques and conventions designed to influence readers into engaging with the characters and action of their stories, and encourage readers to welcome their ideas, values and attitudes. In the novel Hatchet, author Gary Paulsen demonstrates three heavy themes to readers; the initiation into manhood; man and … Read more
Could a perfect society exist in where everyone is treated like equals? Social Justice is a cause that aims to create equality for everyone in the world. However, this aim is prohibited by repressive groups that view only themselves as worthy of ideal lives. These groups try to put down the vulnerable minorities and keep … Read more
Lila Mae Watson faces drastically different challenges of modernity than those James Axton recognizes. Where Axton is an upper middle class caucasian man with the means and ability to move about the globe and hold a somewhat prestigious job, Lila Mae is the most talented Elevator Inspector in the city and can glean little to … Read more
The saying “be the bigger man” can be applied to many scenarios. It often refers to being the person who takes charge or to being the person who ends an argument. But why do people associate size with taking charge? This is a question that arises in Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s … Read more
In Phillip Lopate’s novel To Show and to TellI, he describes the process of characterization in memoir by saying, “I would further maintain than this process of turning oneself into a character is not about self absorbed navel gazing, but rather a potential release from narcissism” (25). In Lopate’s chapter “On the Necessity of Turning … Read more
The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984 are similar in that they share a “subversion of authority” motif. In both novels, characters continuously rebel against the States that they are subject to, regardless of the consequences of their actions. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred subverts the authority of the State by having an affair with Luke before … Read more
An exemplum is a tale that teaches a moral lesson by an example. The Canterbury Tales displays exempla in “The Prologue,” “The Pardoner’s Tale,” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” by using each character to teach a moral lesson to the audience. “The Prologue” shows the audience that some people are different from their appearances, … Read more
I find the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn very difficult to read. I often find myself re-reading the paragraph just to understand what it means after not getting it the first time. Some of the more difficult aspects for me to understand in the book are based on the way they speak and the … Read more
In a variety of literature, main characters struggle with defining their personalities as their experiences alter and change who they are. In Neal Shusterman’s Unwind, one of the main characters, Lev Calder, has a major personality change from the beginning to the end of the book. When the reader first meets Lev, he is portrayed … Read more
DeNiro’s Game is a novel based around war and the effects it has both mentally and physically. The novel is set in the war torn country of Lebanon. The main characters, Bassam and George, are greatly affected by the war. Families are destroyed, there is major corruption, and they are forced to make the choice … Read more
Doubles, including performance, are present throughout the plot of Harding’s Florence and Giles, with our main antiheroine Florence, a young girl with a murderous streak and an intellect far beyond her years, presenting herself as unknowing in order to achieve her goals… [which makes her] unreliable but highly aware’ (Dinter, 2012, p. 68). The narrative … Read more
Bartleby is described as completely emotionless. He wrote on silently, palely and mechanically, at first when he wrote. He is also described as a ghost. It should be pointed out that the narrator’s problems with his other employees have to do with their unreliability, sloppiness and flaring tempers. Turkey and Nippers are quite the opposite … Read more
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is part one of a three part trilogy called the Millennium Trilogy. The novel was written in Sweden in 2005, by Stieg Larsson. The book sold millions across the world and has been translated into several different languages, including English in 2008. It also has two films, one filmed … Read more
Written by the same author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the two main characters from “Crime and Punishment” and “Notes from Underground” displays similar qualities. Both characters are corrupted in their ways thinking, which indicates their nihilistic behavior. Although these two characters can be considered nihilists, their behaviors can be classified as ethical, or moral, nihilism. These two … Read more
Kanye West’s 2007 hit song, “Stronger” uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”. In his novel, The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt states his hypothesis that people must endure all the hardships of life in order to grow in all aspects. I agree with both Nietzsche and Haidt that through … Read more
Jurasssic Park is a #1 New York best-selling, science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton. Hammond creates Jurassic Park with a small amount of staffs to increase efficiency and money flow. Hammond, instead of a large group of staff, has a computer system that operates all the park’s functions. A large function in the computer … Read more
“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world. ” This is a quote from Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil that speaks of the deeper meaning of things on the surface that often goes unnoticed. It explains the idea that very simple things act as symbols of broader and … Read more
What would you do if you learned that your home and family were directly in the path of an unstoppable, insatiable insect army made up of 68 billion ants that are devouring every living thing it encounters? This is the question that Carl Stephenson asks in his short story, “Leiningen Versus the Ants,” which was … Read more
Crime and Punishment is one of the most famous works by the Russian novelist Fydor Dostoevsky. The novel begins with the double murder of an elderly woman and her sister. They were murdered by Raskolnikoff. While at first it seems like he committed the murder because of his need for money, as the story develops … Read more
Change does not occur easily or without conflict. Change does not occur quickly nor smoothly. Many characters go through change in a novel, like Edna from The Awakening. Edna lives as a simple mother-woman and follows the general rules of society. She later experiences new bearings which lead to her self-discovery toward a better life. … Read more
Is honesty the best policy even if the truth disturbs many people? Kurt Vonnegut bluntly relays his opinion on the war between science and religion and other controversial topics concerning life though his novel, Cat’s Cradle. Consequently, it was banned by the Ohio School Board in 1972, but “without stating an official reason”(Indianapolis Monthly). The … Read more
Zooey Deschanel is an American celebrity known majorly for her acting, having starred in a variety of movies and most recently reprising the role of Jessica Day in the comedy television series New Girl. In addition to her acting career, Deschanel has garnered a decent following by expanding to music, immersing herself in the hipster … Read more
“The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human”(Tim O’Brien). This … Read more
A public spectacle occurs when the performance of the strange autopsy for Santiago Nasar is in the hands of the village priest, who is carless about Santiago’s body, in the novel “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”. In the story Santiago is killed by the Vicario brothers, Pedro and Pablo. Before Santiago was murdered he was … Read more
Critical Overview The Memory Keeper’s Daughter The novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards, is a story of sadness and despair. Throughout the story the reasons and examples for why this happened are clear. Selfishness and lying prove to cause great pain and suffering throughout the story. These two also prove to be the … Read more
