“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.(pg.1) The first sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the most famous opening of all English comedies concerning social manners. It encapsulates the ambitions of the empty-headed Mrs. Bennet, and…
Jane Austen’s Persuasion depicts a young woman’s struggles with love, friendship and family. Anne Elliot who is pretty, intelligent and amiable, had some years before been engaged to a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but had been persuaded by her trusted friend Lady Russell to break off the engagement, because of his lack of fortune…
William Shakespeare has written many plays. His most tragic play is Othello. Othello is also the name of the main character in the play, he is quite hard to understand. In order to have a better understanding of Othello’s character, examining his changes throughout the play, flaws, and why he is considered a tragic hero…
Iago’s intelligence causes the self-destruction of Othello. He appears to be the most intelligent person in the play, Othello, by the way, he acts and handles some situations. Iago is set to plan revenge on Othello for not making him lieutenant. He gains the trust of Othello by telling lies to him, and these lies…
Walt Whitman asks himself and the reader of the poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” what significance a person’s life holds in the scope of a densely populated planet. The poem explores the difficulties of discovering the relevance of life. The methods that helped Whitman grasp his own idea of the importance of life are defined with…
This classic is set in 1930’s California and tells of an unlikely pair of optimistic laborers who work the dusty vegetable fields of California. Their names are Lennie Small and George Milton… with George being the leader. Lennie is a man of tremendous size, but due to a mental shortcoming had the mind of a…
In the Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway, a young boy by the name of Nick Adams goes through his life’s tribulations slowly learning and experiencing new things. Nick Adams is a young boy that is very naïve and still has many things to learn before he is considered a true man. Contained in these stories…
In Native Son, Wright employs Naturalistic ideology and imagery, creating the character of Bigger Thomas, who seems to be composed of a mass of disruptive emotions rather than a rational mind joined by a soul. This concept introduces the possibility that racism is not the only message of the novel, that perhaps every person would…
Narcissism can be seen throughout the book Anne of Green Gables. Narcissism has been defined by the Oxford Paperback Dictionary as “abnormal self-love or self admiration”. Narcissism is also synonymous with vanity, conceit, egotism, self-importance and arrogance. The narcissistic tendencies in Anne seem to change throughout the book and are often displayed through her imagination.…
The book, Napoleon by Felix Markham, is a biography about Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest historical figures and legends of all time. He was born on August 15, 1769 at Ajaccio in Corsica, which is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1779, when Napoleon was nine years old, he began his schooling in…
In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s waltz” the reader finds a horrid experience, the beating of a child by his father, which is told in a way of a romantic and beautiful dance – the waltz. The feeling one gets from reading this poem is that the narrator, at least at the time in which the…
My Ántonia has been called nostalgic and elegiac because it celebrates the past. The inscription on the title page of My Ántonia is a quotation from Virgil: “Optima dies… prima fugit.” This sentence, meaning “the best days are first to flee”, helps incorporate all the elements of the novel I would like to discuss. It…
With the words “more weight” Giles Corey, from The Crucible by Arthur Miller, becomes a true hero. Throughout the play, Corey changes from a foolish old man, into a hero who courageously dies for his family’s well-being and honor. With just those two words, the character of Giles Corey is defined. Before the witch trials…
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a very clear moral order is established as the protagonist, Hamlet, completes his journey through the phases which define a Shakespearean tragedy. The play begins with Hamlet encountering his father’s ghost, at which point he learns his father had in fact been murdered by his own brother, Claudius. It is Hamlet’s wish…
The novel The Long March by William Styron is a prime example of anti-war, anti-government, and anti-military writing. William Styron uses marine reserves, which are forced to make a 36 mile march that they are not prepared for, to show the brutality and hypocrisy in the leaders of this country. The reserves are people that…
The novel, McTeague, written by Frank Norris has many ways to understand the events. The relationships between the characters in the story are strange. First, it seems that the first half of the story many of the characters come together. For example, Marcus and McTeague become friends, Trina and McTeague get married, Maria and Zerkow…
William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, is mainly based on the assassination of Julius Caesar. The character who was in charge of the assassination was, ironically, Marcus Brutus, a servant and close friend to Julius Caesar. But what would cause a person to kill a close friend? After examining Brutus’ relationship with Caesar,…
The Tempest, written in 1611, was one of William Shakespeare’s last plays. It has a combination of superb characters, interesting settings, and a good plot line-all held together by the running theme of magic, and its ever-present importance. A closer examination of the magic in The Tempest, and the public’s view of magic at the…
Faulkner’s Light in August is a metaphor. In fact it is many metaphors, almost infinitely many. It is a jumble of allusions, themes, portraits, all of them uniquely important, many of them totally unrelated. In fact no 20th century writer has even approached the sheer quantity of symbolism Faulkner packed into every page, with, perhaps,…
One might choose to assent to the statement, “Macbeth is a tragic hero.” This conclusion may be based upon certain characteristics, proposed by Aristotle, which warrants him worthy of such a title. Aristotle stated that a tragic hero must be of certain qualities: a man of noble stature, good, though not perfect, have a fall…