9th Grade I asked the class to find biographies and research on the life of Edgar Allan Poe over the weekend. Today, I want four groups of 5 students each to take 5 minutes in groups and list problems that Poe may have had in his life. One student f Continue Reading...
Nature of Death in Life In the novels Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, death stands as a continuous presence, serving as a motivator, a metaphor, a threat, and a theme all at the same time. Death enters into each story as i Continue Reading...
The narrator observes and describes but does not always interpret the events and the feelings of the characters to the reader. In other words, this narrative style could be termed limited omniscient. One should also take into account the fact that Continue Reading...
This sentence, although it talks about bowels, is really describing the mother's love of the baby. This story is written like a detective story. It is very difficult to determine which woman is telling the truth and to determine if King Solomon is Continue Reading...
Jordan has not been honored by naming any street or postal holidays. She was respected and recognized by her own milestones; as she designed modern Harlem with R. Buckminster Fuller, had coffee with Malcolm X, received suggestive teachings from Toni Continue Reading...
Humbert In Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov creates the character of a clear anti-hero in Humbert, a man who has is guilty of pedophilia, possibly rape and murder. The bulk of the book, however, is devoted to Humbert's narration of his affair with his stepd Continue Reading...
Ichabod Crane Tim Burton's 1999 film adaptation of Washington Irving's 1819 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is hardly a faithful or literal adaptation. R.B. Palmer, in his introduction to Nineteenth-Century American Literature on Screen, i Continue Reading...
GOTHIC NOVEL & JANE EYRE According to E.F. Bleiler, "Before Horace Walpole, the word 'gothic' was almost always a synonym for rudeness, barbarousness, crudity, coarseness and lack of taste. After Walpole, the word assumed two new major meanings Continue Reading...
Willlam Hazlitt largely comments on the contemporariness and universality of Hamlet's character: that although Shakespeare wrote the play more than 500 years ago, we have come to know the character of the tragic Prince quite well. Not only because we Continue Reading...
Sherlock Holmes is presently associated with a deerstalker hat, a pipe and a magnifying glass, but few people know that the first description of the character has nothing to do with these items (with the exception of the magnifying glass, which he Continue Reading...
Noah Eli Gordon's book The Source takes on the structure of a new long poem and uses several references from other works in an intrinsic battle between reference and experience. The Source is such a node -- a beaming node -- inside a site-specific co Continue Reading...
Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why What is the speaker's emotional state in this poem? In the poem the poet is clearly melancholy and she frets over the fact that she has had so many lovers and lost them all. There have been so many lover Continue Reading...
This was however, not the view held by the Catholic Church in their view of the novel. The view of the Catholic Church, was that "the latter element" -- that is, human wretchedness -- had appeared "to carry the day" in a way that did injury "to cert Continue Reading...
Gothic, as a term, refers to both an artistic style and a cultural movement that has evolved over time, originating in medieval Europe and continuing to influence modern-day literature, film, architecture, and more. The word 'Gothic' itself is etymol Continue Reading...
Dracula The novel "Dracula" was written by Irish author Bram Stoker in 1897. Set in nineteenth-century Victorian England and other countries of the same time, this novel is told in an epistolary format through a collection of letters, diary entries Continue Reading...
Vienna and Paris in the Decade 1900-1910 Vienna and Paris in the Decade 1900-1910 Europe of 1900 -- 1910 saw the rise of several cultural meccas, including Vienna and Paris. Vienna was a center of literary, cultural and artistic advancement in "m Continue Reading...
This reading also featured Ginsberg's "Howl." Along with the rest of the world, the attendees at the reading also provided wide acclaim to this particular work. Indeed, the poem was seen as groundbreaking in the struggle against the destructive Ame Continue Reading...
Civil Rights historian Steve Estes adds: "the ever-present threat of lynching for supposed sexual improprieties meant that their [Black male] survival could depend on their ability to mask their masculinity" (Estes, 2005). Being able to express one' Continue Reading...
While the winner gets a huge amount of money for supposedly being the strongest human, in fact, the strongest human is merely the one that uses the greatest amount of self-centered cunning and brute strength. If one is going to define humanity, espe Continue Reading...
Bells' by Edgar Allen Poe. The poem revolves around different phases of human life and connects them to chiming of bells. 'The Bells' is considered a near-perfect example of a poetic device called onomatopoeia. THE BELLS The Bells' on first readin Continue Reading...
Cask of Amontillado" Edgar Allen Poe uses a number of elements to increase the shock value of the murder perpetrated by Montresor. The victim is Fortunato, whom Montresor attempts until the very end to convince of nothing but his own friendship and Continue Reading...
She also learns, too late, that the jewels and the life she coveted so long ago was a sham. Hence, the symbolic nature of the necklace itself -- although it appears to have great value, it is in fact only real in appearance, not in reality and the h Continue Reading...
Setting in the Fall of the House of Usher In many of Poe's stories and poems, setting is one of the most important elements used by the author. Poe possessed an uncanny ability to paint a gloomy and supernatural picture in the minds of his readers. Continue Reading...
killer and his victim has been one of the most enduring topics throughout horror and suspense fiction, and it is this relationship which ties together three ostensibly distinct stories: Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Joyce Carol O Continue Reading...
Readers must confront the notion that the narrator is out of his mind and this changes the reading of the entire story. The most compelling aspect of the story is the aspect of internal fear. Poe presents us with an irrational individual to highlig Continue Reading...
vacant and eye-like windows" of the House of Usher spook the nameless narrator and his sickly childhood friend and title heir, Roderick Usher. Decaying trees and a "black and lurid tarn" dot the sullen landscape that greets the narrator on his appro 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...
Discussion Poe constructed the story in a way that the narrator seems to be already in his sane mind while telling his experiences of domestic violence. Sane but not very sane still; this is how a reader may think once he re-reads the first paragr Continue Reading...
Introduction and summary This short story is based on an unidentified narrator who defends his sanity while confessing to a killing of an old man. The motivation for the killing is only the fear he has for the old man’s pale blue eyes. In a det Continue Reading...
Self-Made Man and the Recipient of Divine Grace: Benjamin Franklin vs. Jonathan Edwards Despite the fact that both Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards are honored as two of the greatest authors of colonial America, they could not be more differ Continue Reading...
Tale as Told by another Character: Sweat - Zora Neale Hurston Sweat The spring came along with its flare of sunny afternoons in Florida on that particulate Sunday afternoon. For a given number of women in the small village populated by the black pe Continue Reading...
Human Suffering in the Works of W. Faulkner, S. Plath, T. Roethke, and W. Shakespeare Literature is considered as one of humanity's powerful medium of expression. Different forms of expression are used in literature, such as poetry, plays, novels, Continue Reading...
Self-Reliance and the Road Not Taken American Transcendentalism: Emerson and Frost There are several qualities that are inherent in American literature that help to set it apart from English literature. Among the earliest themes explored in America Continue Reading...
In demonstrating this he shows the audience that he had done a lot of research about all the character's past which led to their present needs. The demonstration of the crime is extremely rational and pieces are put together in a very logical manner Continue Reading...
Wind -- Science Fiction for Adults, a Drama of the Human Heart and Mind rather than Light-Sabers Ursula Le Guin, the Modern Female Conscience of Science Fiction Ursula Le Guin is one of the most highly respected authors of fantasy and science fict Continue Reading...
