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…
Defining the word love is almost impossible. No other word in the English language has so many different connotations and uses. There can be no one true single definition. However, for the purpose of this paper, I have come to the following conclusion. Love is an intense emotion, characterized by unwavering admiration and caring between…
Loneliness is the core of a broken soul. It feeds on exile and hate. It engulfs dreams, pleasures, and certain futures. Those who live with loneliness every day cannot express how deep of a feeling it is to have everything you enjoy crushed by the absence of companionship. In the novel, Of Mice and Men,…
Walt Whitman‘s Live Oak, With Moss, is an intricate portrayal of love, both physical and mental. Throughout the poem, Whitman incorporates an array of metaphors symbolic of love and the many characteristics associated with love. Dissimilar to mainstream poetry, Whitman introduces a friend-lover relationship between two men, describing the pain and happiness associated with their…
The short story A & P, by John Updike, can be broken down into a number of components, which include characters, setting, plot, point of view, and the theme. A & P is a story about a young man, about 19, named Sammy, who is a cashier at a local supermarket. His supporting characters are…
Lionel Red Dog, one of Thomas King’s characters in his novel Green Grass, Running Water, was an employee of the government. He worked in Indian Affairs, and his job took him all over North America. It was in South Dakota that Lionel had his last assignment. Lionel was sent to Utah to deliver a…
The topic of Langston Hughes’ “Negro” deals with an extremely general description of the history of African Americans or blacks from the pre-1922 era until 1922. Hughes lets the reader know about the historic experiences of blacks to show us the impact that blacks have had in past eras. He touches on past, historical events,…
Though seeming to simply be a minor character, Laertes is of great importance in the play, Hamlet, and much more than one would initially believe, due to his extensive inner conflict. He is good, loyal, and honorable, seeming to possess the greatest virtue of all the characters, yet he still is doomed to die along…
In a play that is abundant in evil occurrences, Lady Macbeth is the overriding source of evil in the first act. Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill Duncan, despite Macbeth listing eight reasons against the murder. When Macbeth is alone, we discover that he is a loyal thane to Duncan, not a murdering savage. When…
Aeschylus is primarily concerned with the nature of justice. In the trilogy The Oresteia, the Akhaians evolve from an older, more primitive autocratic form of justice to a new concept of civil justice devised by Athena. He confronts the contrast between the old and new orders, the lives of the members of the House of…
One day, twelve-year-old Alan Parrish was riding down the main street when he hears “Prepare to die, Parrish!”, he starts riding much faster, as Billy Jessup and four of his friends chase after him. Alan heads for his father’s shoe factory. He jumped off his bike and ran inside. Where he meets his friend, Carl…
Joseph Andrews is a novel written in the middle eighteenth century by Henry Fielding. In this novel, Fielding talks of human nature and of the need for control of sexuality. He does not just come right out and say it, but instead expresses his concern through examples of the constant sexual advances throughout the entire…
Jealousy causes many of the characters in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar to commit dangerous and foolish acts. Cassius’ jealousy drives him to kill Caesar. All the conspirators, except the noble Brutus, kill Caesar because they feel threatened by his power. Brutus is the only conspirator who murders Caesar for more honorable reasons. Jealousy is…
Saki’s novella, “The Interlopers”, explores the intricacies of friendship and rivalry. The story takes place in a European forest one night during the winter. The setting of the story is analogous to the plot; the trees have to bind together for warmth to brave the fierce winter, the same way Ulrich and George have to…
A recurring theme in Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’ Arthur is the use of imaginative descriptions of characters and settings. Imagination is what the reader of the story must use to form his or her own mental images of a situation, and the better the storyteller is, the clearer the mental image. His descriptions, ranging…