Short story -- A brief story where the plot drives the narrative, substantially shorter than a novel. Example: "Hills like White Elephants," by Ernest Hemingway. Allusion -- A casual reference in one literary work to a person, place, event, or ano Continue Reading...
Absalom, Absalom! By William Faulkner. Specifically it will analyze what makes the novel Southern Gothic. "Absalom, Absalom!" is the story of Thomas Sutpen, a larger than life hero who wants to create his own southern dynasty in the years before, du Continue Reading...
Holmes always solves the crime, and that fact is very satisfying to the reader. Similarly, the two women are inadvertently unearthing the clues to the murder alongside the searching investigators. Glaspell endears us to the two women through the use Continue Reading...
Studies have indicated that those who are creative and significantly well thought, of often have issues with depression, alcoholism or drug use. The model created guidelines that illustrated commonalities among elite creative people to include: r Continue Reading...
..almost entirely occur within the first sixty pages." If it is true that the best passages of Dracula are found in the early portions of the book, it would make sense that the first chapter (or was it to be the second?), which later became the short Continue Reading...
A sea of buildings would cover the Island of Manhattan, and the iron tentacles of urbanization would extend outward over hundreds of square miles, even into distant Riverdale in Westchester County - the once rural site of Wave Hill. The picturesque Continue Reading...
poetry, but it is only a chosen few who make it to the status of classic. Most poets who are considered classic artists write poems that call forth emotions of the reader through the use of their words. It has often been said that poets lead tragic Continue Reading...
It first appears when he shines the lantern's light on the old man's eye. It is the lantern shining on the eye that spurs him to kill, in contrast to the previous nights where the eye had remained closed. The beating heart is the narrator's response Continue Reading...
The only exception here is "The Black Cat" narrator who initially is very sympathetic and then becomes increasingly insane as he indulges in alcohol. His wife is extremely sympathetic and likeable, and so, he murders her, as if to punctuate the fact Continue Reading...
.. With these materials and with the aid of the trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche." In "The Cask," both insanity and murder operates to create a feeling of the grotesque all throughout the story. Moreover, these themes w Continue Reading...
..in its original atoms" -- that is, humanity shall return to its most natural state, a condition wherein human mind and behavior has no limits, wherein death and insanity is preferred over life and sanity. This kind of preoccupation about the humani Continue Reading...
Duality of Character in Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe In Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "Young Goodman Brown," and in Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The House of Usher," there are main characters who have several characteristics in common. Continue Reading...
While "The Raven" is a powerful poem, it reads more like a story and therefore seems less serious and effective than "Thanatopsis." In their uniqueness, each poem realizes the human condition in that we can and are affected by death in different way Continue Reading...
Ligeia and the Theme of Reincarnation That the narrator of "Ligeia" is one who is frequently called "unreliable" by critics is nothing new (Sweet, Blythe), as he is an admitted opium addict, often susceptible to hallucinations in which he would imag Continue Reading...
Haunted Palace is a poem first published by Edgar Allan Poe as a single item but them incorporated into the story The Fall of the House of Usher as a song written by one of the characters, Roderick Usher. It was meant to be symbolic of how the fall o Continue Reading...
Language Madness Rooms Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" are surprisingly coherent considering that they are meant to represent the thoughts of individuals going insane. Either one could easily have been done in a stre Continue Reading...
Hawthorne Author Nathaniel Hawthorne's literary works constantly reference ideas of the supernatural and the religious ideas of the Puritans who colonized the United States. Of particular interest to Hawthorne is how these two things work together i Continue Reading...
The American Short Story Hearts of Gold Henry L Golemba is of the opinion that the society’s perception of nobility could be somewhat skewed. According to the author, the unlikeliest of all – the unemployed cowboys, prostitutes, gold-seek Continue Reading...
It may be too late but he does come to understand what is right and good. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," we find another type of struggle, which aims at working toward solving a mystery. This story is noted for being one of the first of its ki Continue Reading...
Point ONE: Billy Budd: Critic Eugene Goodheart is the Edythe Macy Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Brandeis University. He writes that while critics are generally divided between those who see Captain Vere as "an unwitting collaborator" with Cla Continue Reading...
The same is true of politics, where there are few women political leaders, and the United States has never seen a woman president or vice-president. It is interesting to note that Wollstonecraft hopes women will "grow more and more masculine" in ord Continue Reading...
"I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time… I lie here on this great immovable bed -- it is nailed down, I believe -- and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, dow Continue Reading...
This interpretation is given further credence by the old butcher's "sizing up their joints." This has been a contentious point in literature, politics, and the social sciences pretty much since the beginning of recorded history (and probably long b Continue Reading...
Whatever the significance of the phrase "He kindly stopped for me," the speaker does not dread Death, as personified by the kindly carriage driver. This poem also suggests that the speaker's perceptions of time and space are different in death; cent Continue Reading...
and, as no two individuals can have had completely identical experiences, it follows that no two individuals can view events in exactly the same way. Thus, they will make different choices, and choose different course of action. So important to Mic Continue Reading...
Finally, the sestet ends with a question about whether any moral lessons can be learned from this little scene in nature: "[w]hat but design of darkness to appall/if design govern in a thing so small." In other words, the speaker is asking whether h Continue Reading...
