Recurring events show great significance and elucidate the truth beneath appearances. In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne chooses the scaffold scenes to show powerful differences and similarities. Each scaffold scene foreshadows the next and brings greater understanding of the novel. By beginning with the first, continuing with the middle, and ending with the last platform…
The significance of the words “dying and death” in Jack London’s 1910 novel, “To Build a Fire” continuously expresses the man’s dwindling warmth and bad luck in his journey along the Yukon trail to meet “the boys” at camp. London associates dying with the man’s diminishing ability to stay warm in the frigid Alaskan climate.…
Of all the novels that Jane Austen has written, critics consider Pride and Prejudice to be the most comical. Humor can be found everywhere in the book; in its character descriptions, imagery, but mostly in its conversations between characters. Her novels were not only her way of entertaining people but it was also a way…
Throughout history, the interaction between civilized people and native islanders has caused confusion and turmoil for cultures. In The Tempest, William Shakespeare portrays the character Caliban as a savage, horrid beast and as the slave of the Westerner, Prospero. Through Prospero’s ownership, Shakespeare views Caliban as a lesser being. Prospero symbolizes the Western power dominating…
During the eighteenth century there was an incredible upheaval of commercialization in London, England. As a result, English society underwent significant, “changes in attitude and thought”, in an attempt to obtain the dignity and splendor of royalty and the upper class (McKendrick,2). As a result, English society held themselves in very high regards, feeling that…
Authors use many tactics to reveal a character’s personality. In the short story, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Hemingway exposes the attributes of his characters through narration and dialogue. The older waiter’s characteristics are exhibited through the waiters’ conversations and the observations the narrator makes. The author cleverly associates the older waiter with the old man. …
The Outsiders, an enthralling tale by S.E. Hinton, is an excellent story about the hardships and triumphs experienced by the Greasers and the Socs, two rival gangs. This novel suggests the stories¹ content because the Greasers are a gang of social outcasts and misfits. This novel¹s theme is very specific; people, no matter what their…
Setting: The setting of the story takes place in the lands of Wilderland. It is through Wilderland that the hobbit and the dwarves travel to retrieve their lost treasure. As they move on through Wilderland, they encounter different people and different problems, making it more of an adventure. Characters Protagonists Bilbo Baggins- he is the…
Pique is the inheritor of French-Indian and Scottish-Canadian roots. She is raised her mother in Canada and England. However, her growth is affected by Morag’s life style and Morag’s past life. There are three events in Morag’s past that affect Pique’s life. Morag moves away from Christie when she goes to college and she rarely…
Pearl S. Buck shows her readers the many faces of Wang Lung in her book, The Good Earth. Wang Lung is a rice farmer who gains all his wealth through the land. He struggles to move from poverty to a well respected wealthy man. Wang Lungs character portrays a man’s unselfishness, determination, and loyalty towards…
The purpose of this book was to show us a possible version of a “Utopia”. It was a fantasy oriented book, that was suppose to make you think about the possibilities for the future. The setting is a supposedly perfect society where everyone is taken care of and no one is different. The author Lois…
“The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams shows the struggle of two people to fit into society, Tom and Laura, and how society wouldn’t accept them. They were the dreamers that were unjustly kept out and you may even go as far as to say persecuted into staying out and aloof like the other dreamers which…
Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” is situational irony written in 1884. The story was written in a time when there were very distinct social classes primarily determined by one’s birth. It is about a woman who cannot come to terms with her position in the middle class. Although she knows she cannot escape her class,…
When thinking of progress, most people think of advances in the scientific fields, believing that most discoveries and technologies are beneficial to society. Are these advances as beneficial as most people think? In the novel Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley, warns readers that scientific advances can be a threat to society. This is…
Symbolism in literature is the deepness and hidden meaning in a piece of work. It is often used to represent a moral or religious belief or value. Without symbolism literature is just a bunch of meaningless words on paper. The most symbolic piece of work in American Literature is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne’s…
Superstition, a word that is often used to explain bad luck, misfortune, the super natural, and the world that is not known. In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, superstition played an important role that resurfaces several times throughout the book. A belief that a hair ball can tell the future,…
In two of John Steinbeck’s novels, The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, there are many differences and similarities. The novels tell about people with problems and what they are doing to get through them or how they are solving them. The thing that is noticeable in both of these novels is Steinbeck’s…
What is depth, and what does it mean? Depth is the extent, the intensity; depth is a distinct level of detail. When someone talks about depth of characterization, they are talking about the level of intensity that someone is using in order to describe a character. John Ernst Steinbeck, in The Pearl, Of Mice and…
People sometimes think if they aren’t getting enough sleep they are an insomniac, and other people blame other things on their sleeplessness. There are two characters in the short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, by Ernest Hemingway, one is a possible insomniac, protagonist, and one chooses to be an insomniac, antagonist. These two characters each…
In Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie creates a place of belonging through the acts of his narrator’s imagination. Romanticizing the Bombay of his childhood, Rushdie is in many ways restoring the past to himself. In other ways, he is clearly haunted by the sense of loss that he feels – this sense of loss is further…
