In the dystopian novel Legend by Marie Lu, the author develops the theme of how nothing is as it seems. In order to develop this theme, the author used the literary technique of point of view throughout the story, switching back and forth between Day and June’s point of view. The examples the author uses…
Doctor Who is a science-fiction television series that consists of a range of science references. The Doctor is a character who displays talent and smarts. David Tennant and Tom Baker was just two actors who have played the part of The Doctor. Tom Baker, the fourth doctor, is the longest running actor to play the…
Shakespeare’s original play, Romeo and Juliet and Luhrmann’s appropriated version, both investigate different types of conflict. The two texts are set in completely contrasting social and historical contexts of Elizabethan England to Southern California in Verona Beach. Despite the contrast of the two settings, both texts explore the external conflict which stemmed from the family…
Chapter 1 What is the World State’s motto? Where does the story begin? In what year? Explain what is happening at the Hatchery and Conditioning Center. What is Bokanovsky’s Process? What is the result? What are freemartins? What symbol are they given? What are the five castes of the World…
The theme of appearance versus reality is central to the Shakespearean play The Tragedy of Macbeth. It is a play full of ambition, betrayal, madness, and the supernatural. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth must hide their true thoughts in order to prevent others from knowing what they have done while different characters comment on the difficulty…
William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience contain parallel poems that contrast innocence and experience. Two such poems that share the name “The Chimney Sweeper” both depict a young boy working the deadly job of a chimney sweeper but in startlingly different ways. The narrator of “The Chimney Sweeper” in Songs of Innocence lives…
Boccaccio’s Decameron is a series of tales told within a frame narrative by ten different authors over a period of ten days. In these tales, the idea of fortune being the controller of actions is visible. The differing characters’ varied experiences show they are at the whim of Fortune, whether this Fortune is a divine…
In December of 1950, William Faulkner was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature, his acceptance speech titled “The Writer’s Duty”. Faulkner’s post WWII speech targets young writers and persuades them to see the importance of literature. He strategically arranges the speech, chooses specific stylistic elements to use, and appeals to his audience in many ways,…
“There was a cold November wind blowing through 116th Street.” You’re alone in an unfamiliar, grimy, and bitter city, just looking for a place to spend the night. The Street by Ann Petry is a novel about a woman, Lutie Johnson, who finds herself in this situation. The relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban…
The poem “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol is very dark and twisted as it paints a mental picture of past events in the southern USA. The poem refers to lynching, which is the act of hanging African Americans, slaves, and other protestors in public venues for a spectacle. Surprisingly, Meeropol was a Russian Jewish immigrant…
Theatre in the 16th Century England The theatre’s transition from the medieval to the Renaissance is more readily apparent in England than in Italy or France. As the rediscovered classics gradually found their way to England, English plays did begin to reflect their influence. Religious and political controversies and religious strife between Catholic and Protestant…
Renaissance and its Implications The Revival of Learning denotes, in its broadest sense, the gradual enlightenment of the human mind after the darkness of the Middle Ages. The names Renaissance and Humanism are often applied to the same movement. The term renaissance, which was first used in England, only as late as the nineteenth century,…
“Each of us write what he [or she] must write and you simply wait to see if there’s an audience for it or not” (Vonnegut), once asserted by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut then follows up that statement with: “I was lucky I found an audience” (Vonnegut). In one of his books, Harrison Bergeron, Vonnegut uses three…
Early Life Chaucer made his living as a civil servant and composed poetry as an avocation. His career, however was such as to contribute to his literary growth. He was born about in 1343 of a prosperous family and reared in London. His father, a wine-merchant, was able to find him a position as a…
Prejudice is a vicious cycle. People all over the world everyday experience being made fun of because of race, smarts, gender, height, etc. In the book Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, Steinbeck emphasizes the way people are prejudice and how it can make people feel unequal. This book is about two migrant…
Since the beginning of time, people have used bravery to continue fighting in order to overcome the hardest things in life. In Markus Zusak’s book, The Book Thief, Liesel has to face many obstacles in order to see that she just needs to be brave and keep fighting through the emotional pain. Liesel is a…
It is often the case that, in literature, the characters that may seem the most insignificant deliver some of the most important messages in that work. Such is the case in Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey. Several lower-class characters play small roles, but teach listeners of the poem the role of the poor in Ancient…
The poem begins with the scene where the two powerful armies of the Tartars and the Persians are encamped along the banks of the Oxus River. During the night the soldiers are asleep. The following day, they are about to witness a great battle. Sohrab, the hero of the Tartar army, fails to sleep. In…
In this sonnet, Shakespeare describes the cruel effect that time has on our human condition. The poem follows the pattern of three quatrains, each with an alternating rhyming scheme, followed by a rhyming couplet that is typical of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Each quatrain presents a self-contained metaphorical description of time’s passage in human life, but the…
The play Hamlet is a Shakespearean tragedy that dates back to the 1600s. It follows young Prince Hamlet as he struggles to cope with the loss of his father, his mother’s hasty remarriage to his uncle, and the truth behind the King’s death: His new stepfather was the one who murdered his father. Shakespeare presents…