James Baldwin grew up a neglected child. He was a black man in a white man's world -- gay man who was trying to make his mark in the world of literature. "You write of your experiences," James Baldwin once said. James Baldwin wrote to overcome the ba Continue Reading...
" (Eksteins, 1994) Eksteins writes that Britain had "in the last century...damned her great poets and writers, Byron had been chased out of the country, Shelley forbidden to raise his children, and Oscar Wilde sent to prison." (1994) Pearce (2003) s Continue Reading...
Worn Path by Eudora Welty "A Worn Path" is recognized as one of Welty's most illustrious and often studied works of what is considered to be short fiction. Illusorily simple in scope and tone and, the story is made to be very structured upon a journ Continue Reading...
.." (line 8). This quatrain as a whole makes it clear that the meaning of the poem applies to the poem itself. The third quatrain is entirely regular, as is the first line of the closing couplet, but the final line of the poem has an inverted first Continue Reading...
We see this reality as crude and unfair but, nevertheless, true. In "The Chrysanthemums," we find Elisa in a situation that is similar to those in Cannery Row. Elisa is able to escape her situation through her gardening techniques but even that is Continue Reading...
" While the narrator in Thomas' poem urges his father to resist death, the narrator in Pastan's poem wishes to advise her father to give up his struggle against it by saying, "father let go, and death will hold you up." Both poems show that the youn Continue Reading...
When he steals the truck to look for Zero, he thinks to himself, "He couldn't blame his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather this time. This time it was his own fault, one hundred percent" (Sachar 148). Stanley finally finds hap Continue Reading...
She proves to the reader the little horrors of history become eclipsed by the big horrors in a way that removes all meaning and importance to those who suffered the undesirable fates. To describe the little horrors, Morante uses Biblical imagery, al Continue Reading...
Crime, Punishment & Justice in Great Expectations Crime, Punishment and Justice in Great Expectations In his novel Great Expectations Charles Dickens' characters often seem to be operating outside or just outside the law in gray areas where wha Continue Reading...
One may wonder how a woman could marry a man if she did not love him, but it is clear that she is doing exactly what society -- not her heart -- tells her to do. With all the references in the story to Louise's heart condition, one can't help but se Continue Reading...
There isn't one time in the film that Martin doesn't act out of passion. Unlike Oedipus, Martin does not choose blindness but rather it is a result of his passion and desire for Mini. Watching Mini's First Time, the audience has a sort of god-like Continue Reading...
The last line of "The White Porch" indicates that the narrator deliberately and delightfully subverts tradition and norms by "smuggling" her lover into the bedroom under the cover of shadows. Still, the narrator never notes discontent. She views he Continue Reading...
Claude Brown's Purpose in Writing this Book One never knows another person's purpose for writing a book, especially an autobiography, but it seems Claude may have had three purposes: (1) to tell his life story for others' entertainment (it is very Continue Reading...
" Again, the poet employs repetition (of the word "fair") to emphasize his point. Moreover, "chance" and "changing" provide some alliteration, which is otherwise rare in this particular Shakespeare sonnet. Line nine begins with the word "But," to he Continue Reading...
Tin Drum concentrates on the prime character of the book named Oskar. This paper explains the psyche behind Oskar's thinking and why he had become the sort of person he was. This paper primarily emphasizes on the main theme of the book, i.e. guilt a 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...
It would take an entire paper just to explicate all of the roles that women play today and how society has changed as a result. The point is that it has changed and that women play a much different role in literature today than they did even just a Continue Reading...
The death that occurs at the end of the Cherry Orchard -- that of the serf-turned-servant, Fiers -- is far more comic than the death of Konstantin, however, and that is why this death occurs onstage rather than out of sight of the audience. Much of Continue Reading...
Weaving the stories of characters of types of people from Esther to Freud allows Barker to show a broad-sweeping panorama of history, from the lower classes to the intelligentsia of Europe. While characters come from very different segments of soci Continue Reading...
Often, however, he was more subtle in his effects. In "Sam," for instance, the stanzaic breaks give the text a clear structure, with the very short final stanza adding a definite bite to the poem. The longer first stanza tells the story of Plath on Continue Reading...
Ultimately, Osborn succeeds in using idiom of the period that is immediately accessible through various venues of popular culture (she describes Crockett as seeming to "be half varmint") and weaves the language of the legend into the story. This dif Continue Reading...
God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy shows a surprisingly profound understanding of human nature for such a new author. Her complex novel intertwines the past and present with the subtleties of Indian class and culture to create a rich tapestry of bet Continue Reading...
Traveling Through the Dark darkly inspiring, lyrically lovely poem, William Stafford's "Traveling through the Dark" contains both literal and metaphoric imagery. The main thrust of the poem comes from the theme of death, although chance and choice al Continue Reading...
Sharon Olds Certain eternal questions haunt every human being: are we just body, or body and soul? We are born alone and die alone -- but are we truly alone in this universe? Is there a God? How deep is love, how genuine, how real, and can it be eve Continue Reading...
Euro v Afro Centric Perspectives The unfolding of events can be told from a variety of perspectives that are highly influenced by an individual's background and personal prejudices. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Continue Reading...
Charles Dickens As the Child Is Brought Up Charles Dickens wrote tens of thousands of words in his life on a handful of subjects, returning again and again to the questions that first compelled him to write. These subjects -- primarily poverty and Continue Reading...
Wyche agrees with this notion, adding that the station's position "between two sets of rails, whose significance lies 'in their figurative implications' (Renner qtd in Wyche 34), and between two contrasting landscapes that symbolize the couple's opt Continue Reading...
Bronte and Rhys An Extended Conversation Most conversations we hold in person, sitting next to another as we travel on a train to an unknown or familiar destination, or as we enjoy a coffee break at work, or wait at a busy corner for the light to t Continue Reading...
Likewise, Joyce Carol Oates short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? also involves a basic story of violence with a more symbolic meaning. To summarize Oates' style is to say her works typically mix the themes of Gothic estrangement a Continue Reading...
The poem is not merely about Beowulf, no more than a funeral is only for the dead. In fact, Beowulf's name is more often referred to by the kenning, or poetic stand in of the words great leader, rather than his individual name. Beowulf's funeral as Continue Reading...
Rape of the Lock ay, why are Beauties prais'd and honour'd most, / The wise Man's Passion, and the vain Man's Toast?" Clarissa's speech in Canto Five of Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock" touches on one of the main themes of the poem: vanity. F Continue Reading...
Heart Darkness The Postcolonial Landscape in Heart of Darkness Published in 1899, the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is to this date described as an absolutely critical text in expanding the scholarly discourse on colonialism and its in Continue Reading...
Carver's "Cathedral" An Analysis of Theme and Plot in Carver's "Cathedral" Raymond Carver states that by the mid-1960s he had tired of reading and writing "long narrative fiction" ("On Writing" 46). Shorter fiction, he found, was more immediate. Fl Continue Reading...
(Eliot, 1971). The Subjective over the Objective Modernism was a reaction against Realism and its focus on objective depiction of life as it was actually lived. Modernist writers derived little artistic pleasure from describing the concrete detail Continue Reading...
Yet despite the fact that the play's title is nothing but his name, Othello is arguably not really the central figure of the story. Iago is far more instrumental in moving the plot forward; it is his (not fully explained) hatred of Othello that the Continue Reading...
She is no longer describing her embarrassing romantic relationship with an emotionally unavailable man, but describing the reader's involvement in such a relationship. Furthermore, she is not describing how she contributed to the unhappiness of the Continue Reading...
Ultimately, Mrs. Dalloway's opinion of herself is highest when she is giving parties. Woolf writes, "Every time she gave a party she had this feeling of being something not herself, and that every one was unreal in one way; much more real in anothe Continue Reading...
Human emotions and values are detached and unreal in this work, as well. Pynchon paints vivid pictures of the characters, but they are all flawed, somehow. Oedipa is married to a disc jockey junkie, Dr. Hilarius is a psycho afraid of Nazi retributi Continue Reading...
Tolstoy described the height of rye to be "as high as a horse" to show the temptation that Pahom was facing as he heard this. The temptation is best described by Tolstoy with the words "Pahom's heart kindled with desire." Pahom just could not resist Continue Reading...
