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…
The story of The Metamorphosis is one that is very subtle and very delicate. Kafka wrote in a fashion that would allow a reader to interpret the story in a way that may be different each time it is read. From the beginning, we see that a young, hard working, man, Gregor, has turned into…
Throughout Jane Eyre, as Jane, herself moves from one physical location to another, the settings in which she finds herself vary considerably. Bronte makes the most of this necessity by carefully arranging those settings to match the differing circumstances Jane finds herself in at each. As Jane grows older and her hopes and dreams change,…
In his book A Separate Peace, John Knowles represents jocks with Phineas, a character who believes that sports are the key to life. Phineas is more of a sportsman than a jock. Real jocks only care about winning, Phineas makes sure it’s not possible for anyone to win or lose. Chet Douglas is an exaggerated…
Le Romanticisme était un mouvement dans la litterature Française, et aussi dans tous les arts, dans le dix-neuvième siècle. Pendant la révolution, beaucoup de gens voulaient violer les régles strictes qui existaient dans l’art en France. Dans la litterature, les écrivains et dramaturges ont arrêté de utiliser la structure soutenue. Cette litterature est characterisé quelquefois…
Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is written in a way that the reader is expected to temporarily allow him or herself to believe it to be able to understand it. The poem itself is about a Mariner who is telling his tale of sin and forgiveness by God to a man referred…
Charlotte Bronte addresses the theme of Religion in the novel Jane Eyre using many characters as symbols. Bronte states, “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion” (preface v). In Jane Eyre, Bronte supports the theme that customary actions are not always moral through the conventional personalities of Mrs. Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and St. John…
Texts show us how experience often changes people. ‘Rebecca’, a novel written by Daphne Du Maurier illustrates this point. Throughout the engrossing story, the characters experience much and as a result, the characters undergo both temporary and life-altering changes to their thoughts, beliefs, and behavior. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator is the…
One of the main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask Of Amontillado is revenge. This summary theme, it’ll demonstrate how dramatic irony is used all along with the short story as a way of reminding us of the true intentions of the character who vowed revenge. Firstly, a brief summary of the short story:…
Langston Hughes, born in 1902 and died in 1967, wrote some of the most well know works during the Harlem Renaissance. His poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” is one of his writings from this time period. The poem, if literally interpreted is about rivers, but it holds a much deeper meaning to a trained…
Throughout the play of Othello, Iago used many techniques to get what he wanted, and one way or another he somehow all most always got what he wanted. His techniques were that of an everyday sneaky, conniving bad guy, who always got people to trust him, except the person that was closest to him. But…
Sir Lancelot’s intense desire to perform heroic deeds was brought on by his lack of confidence and insecurity. His childhood was spent in seclusion, training for a job desired only to escape the hellish life that his hideous face would otherwise hold in store for him. Lancelot’s adulthood was spent trying to overcompensate for this…
Comedy affords us the opportunity to explore how the world might look and feel with the dead weight of predominance and probability lifted from its shoulders. Whereas tragedy is preoccupied with the annihilation of the potential by the actual, comedy is leveled at the (pitifully) remote horizon of what could be, rather than absorbed in…
In Langston Hughes’ poem “Ruby Brown,” the title character was too pretty, too good for the city of Mayville but the oppression of African-Americans during this period forbade her to take control of her life and realize the dreams she had. She had two options in her cruel and desperate life. In a nutshell, one…
In the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird there are three characters that are considered to be mocking birds. If you are not familiar with the term mocking bird it means someone who does something good and someone else looks down on him or her or hurts them. The three characters that play this role…
Shakespeare uses many motifs to expand on the themes of the story. His most-used motif revolves around filial responsibility. Each of the two plots contains characters who betray their fathers. Goneril and Regan flatter their father, King Lear, and then betray him. The drastic change that occurred in their attitude towards their father is clearly…
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1.1.12) is the infamous line that begins Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This line highlights the relationship between one’s appearance and the reality of their nature. In this play the connection between appearance and reality is paradoxical; what appears in one a way in reality may not be that way. Throughout…
The character Ralph is realistic, independent and civil in this novel. In The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Ralph must do many things for his own survival and the survival of the other boys on the island. I think the obstacles he has to overcome make up his character throughout the book. A…