Shirley Jackson’s insights and observations about man and society are reflected in her famous short story “The Lottery”. Many of her readers have found this story shocking and disturbing. Jackson reveals two general attitudes in this story: first, the shocking reality of human’s tendency to select a scapegoat and second, society as a victim of…
Everybody has read a horror story before at some point, but a story from Alfred Hitchcock is different because at the end he leaves the reader thinking what has happened. In “The Knife” he uses Plot, Setting, and Conflict to do just this. Edward Dawes and Herbert Smithers are just two friends having a drink…
Place and Time Setting The setting and time of my novel plays a key part in the storyline. The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara, is about the Battle of Gettysburg, so it is set in Gettysburg, PA around the early 1860’s. The town is important in the battles because the terrain is situated so that…
The House on Mango Street is a collection of mini stories wrapped around a Latin-girl’s view of her neighborhood and neighbors. Esperanza hates her name, it’s hope in English but has too many letters in Spanish. She is named after her free-spirited Grandmother, and lives with her parents and two brothers and one sister. Esperanza…
Setting The setting takes place in two major places. Reston, Virginia which is a suburb of Washington DC. and the second major area is in Kenya, Africa. The story takes place in the 1980’s. Characters Charles Monet: He was the first host to the deadly Ebola virus breakout in Africa. He was 56 years old…
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit, one of a race of short, timid creatures who live in cozy tunnels and who prefer to keep their lives ordered and predictable. One day, he unexpectedly finds himself playing host to Gandalf the wizard and thirteen dwarfs. The dwarfs, with Gandalf’s help, plan to travel to the Lonely Mountain…
The performer known worldwide as Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874 in Budapest. Although Houdini often claimed to be born in Appleton, Wisconsin, Houdini actually came to the United States when he was four years old. To this day many connected with the small town of Appleton still claim the untruth that Houdini…
Daniel Smith’s, The Great Departure illustrates very well the United State’s evolution from a traditionally isolationist nation to an interventionist nation. WWI literally dragged the U.S. out of its isolationist shell and placed the U.S. at the forefront of international politics. The pressure to join WWI was resisted greatly by the Wilson administration and the…
The Grapes of Wrath was written by John Steinbeck, in 1929. Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. Steinbeck did not like to narrate any of his novels in which he had no background information in. That is why he would often live the life of his characters before he wrote his…
The timeless classic The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck tells the story of the Joad family during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s and how they leave their home in Oklahoma to try to find work in California. However, the novel is more than just about the Joads’ expedition across the western United…
In The Good Earth, by Pearl S, Wang Lung the main character is a poor peasant who buys a wife and moves up in the social ladder during the peasants’ revolution. This story displays many major ideas of ancient Chinese culture, such as the social order, the treatment of women, and the role of the…
The Godfather Directed by Francis Ford Coppola Based on Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather was based in the late 1940’s in New York City. The story is about the Corleone family, which is headed by Vito Corleone. He had four sons. The quick to act older son is Santino, also known as Sunny. The next…
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, is a typical love story. A Romeo and his Juliet placed against the odds. In this novel, Romeo is Frederick Henry and Juliet is Catherine Barkley. Their love affair must survive the obstacles of World War I. The background of war-torn Italy adds to the tragedy of the…
The main character in the book The Epic of Gilgamesh, is Gilgamesh himself. In the beginning of the book one realizes that Gilgamesh is an arrogant person. Gilgamesh is full of himself and abuses his rights as king. He has sexual intercourse with the virgins of his town and acts as though he is a…
Stephen Vincent Benét was born in 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. His education came from Yale University and the Sorbonne in Paris, France. “The Devil and Daniel Webster” has a wide array of characters, each with a distinguished personality, yet an overall temperament that would be fitting of a New England community. The main character is…
The story speaks of the betrayal of wives to their husbands. A rich and sick bachelor wrote a letter, before nine years of his death, to be delivered to his friends by his servant after his death. This bachelor liked to tell his friends about a hidden secret that tortured his soul many years ago.…
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart makes the reader see that Merlin is not just a magician, he is first and foremost a man. Throughout the book the author sucks the reader in to the life of this man, and using imagery and characterization makes him feel that he is actually there watching the life…
The Count of Monte Cristo is a very powerful book. So powerful in fact, that was controversial when it was first released. The Catholic Church in France condemned it because of its powerful message it presented the reader. This theme was one of revenge and vengeance. Monte Cristo had two goals- to reward those who…
The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, is a book about friendship between two boys from vastly different religious Jewish backgrounds. Their initial distrust and hatred for each other because of their differing backgrounds gives way to r, and develops into a deep friendship. Danny Saunders is brought up in a Chasidic environment. His father is the…
In a time when the British Isles were bombarded by raids from the ferocious Vikings of the Scandinavian Peninsula, many works great works of art were destroyed. Often, beautiful works were buried underground for safety. However, many were never uncovered. One amazing work that managed to survive through these tumultuous times was The Book of…
