Literature has the power to transport us to other worlds and introduce us to characters who stay with us long after we finish reading their stories. And in Peter S. Beagle’s novel, The Last Unicorn, we meet one such character in the form of Molly Grue. Molly is a woman who undergoes a profound transformation…
Author Theodore Taylor is an American writer who also makes documentary films. His inspiration to write “The Cay” came from his research into German submarines that fought in the Second World War. He is now married with three children and lives in California. Setting This novel is set in the 1940s on a small island,…
The Business Life of Ancient Athens is an informative book about different aspects of Ancient businesses and Ancient ways of dealing with money. This book first starts out by explaining the agricultural aspects of Ancient Athens. Agriculture was not well for Athens, so they had to trade a lot. It is recorded as early as…
“The Bells” is one of Poe’s famous poems, in which Poe tries to make the bells sound real. He tries to make the sounds by using words instead of sound, which is really annoying when you read it because he repeats things so often in the poem. He uses words like shrieking and twinkling. In…
In the book The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler, Duddy Kravitz is the apprentice to life in order to find out the truth about himself. Different characters come in and out of Duddy’s life and act as masters towards him. These people all have specific lessons to teach him, and it’s up to…
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is a science fiction book about the fictional ‘first crisis’ in the biological field. The book starts out by pointing out that technology is growing so rapidly, there are bound to be crises, like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and how the biological field of science has never had…
The poem, “Thanatopsis,” written by William Cullen Bryant, is a wonderful literary work that explores the often controversial questions of death. Within his well written lines, Bryant attempts to show the relationship between death’s eternal questions and the ongoing cycle of nature and life. Upon concluding the poem many readers are able to reaffirm their…
Point of view is important to any story, because it can help create the mood, and setting of a piece. “The Tell- Tale Heart” is a good example of this. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” Poe uses first person point of view to create suspense and tension, while letting the reader try to discover the thoughts…
T.S. Eliot, perhaps one of the most controversial poets of modern times, wrote what many critics consider the most controversial poem of all, The Waste Land. The Waste Land was written using a fragmented style. This is a style that is evident in all of Eliot’s writings. There are several reasons for his using this…
In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, symbolism is abundantly used in exemplifying the overall theme of murder. There are several prominent forms of this throughout the play. The contrast of light and dark representing good and evil plays a major role in the advancement of events in the play. Blood symbolizes murder and guilt. The archetypal pattern…
The Glass Menagerie uses an extensive pattern of symbolism that describes the characters of Tom, Amanda, Laura, and Jim Glass, light, color and music constitute the substance of the dominant symbols and motifs, serving to reveal deeper aspects of characters and underlying themes of the play. Tennessee Williams wrote the play so that each character…
Going through such things as the depression, the Dust Bowl summers, and trying to provide for their own families, which included finding somewhere to travel to where life would be safe. Such is the story of the Joads. The Joads were the main family in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, a book which was…
In the time of William Shakespeare there was a strong belief in the existence of the supernatural. Thus, the supernatural is a recurring aspect in many of Mr. Shakespeare’s plays. In two such plays, Hamlet and Macbeth, the supernatural is an integral part of the structure of the plot. It provides a catalyst for action,…
Canyons by Gary Paulsen is a book written about a young boy who finds a skull on a camping trip and it seems to give him mental messages about where he should go and what he should do. It all starts when Brannon goes on a camping trip with his mom and her boyfriend. Brannon…
Stephen Edwin King is one of today’s most popular and best selling writers. King combines the elements of psychological thrillers, science fiction, the paranormal, and detective themes into his stories. In addition to these themes, King sticks to using great and vivid detail that is set in a realistic everyday place. Stephen King who is…
There can be no argument that D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers is a study of human relationships. Gertrude Morel, because of her turbulent and odd relationship with her husband, ends up developing deep emotional relations with her two eldest sons’. The second eldest in particular, Paul, is the receiver of most of this deep…
When one begins to analyze a military novel it is important to first look at the historical context in which the book was written. On the nights of February 13-14 in 1944 the city of Dresden, Germany was subjected to one of the worst air attacks in the history of man. By the end of…
Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson, is an emotional story in which we see the life of a man who could not move on and a woman that did. The man, Ishmael, is hopelessly in love with the woman, Hatsue. His love for her cannot be dissuaded by anything; not her words, her wishes,…
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English romance poem written by an anonymous West Midlands poet also credited with a lot of other poems written during that time. The protagonist, Sir Gawain, survives two tests: a challenge, which he alone without the assistance of King Arthur’s knights accepts, to behead the fearsome…
In the book Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse, the main character Siddhartha had many teachers along his quest for happiness. Throughout his life, he denounced teachers and their teachings. In his last meeting with his lifelong friend, Govinda, he mentions five in which he was indebted: a beautiful courtesan, a rich merchant, a dice player, a…