Voltaire’s Candide is the story of an innocent man’s experiences in a mad and evil world, his struggle to survive in that world, and his need to ultimately come to terms with it. All people experience the turmoil of life and must overcome obstacles, both natural and man-made, in order to eventually achieve happiness. In…
Margret Atwood a long time celebrated author has most recently published Alias Grace. Atwood has taken a different approach to this novel. Although fictional this story has been based on reality. Grace Marks, the main character is indeed, one of the mid-eighteen hundreds most famous criminals. She was the celebrated villain of the Kinnear-Montgomery murders.…
Agatha Christie is the best-known mystery writer in the world. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language. Another billion have also been sold in forty-five foreign languages. Her works have been translated into more languages than those of William Shakespeare. Only the Bible and Shakespeare outsell her novels, thus making…
The conflict between society and the individual is a very important theme portrayed throughout Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Many people see Huckleberry Finn as a mischievous boy who is a bad influence to others. Huck is not raised in agreement with the accepted ways of civilization. He practically raises himself, relying on…
In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain develops the plot into Huck and Jim’s adventures allowing him to weave in his criticism of society. The two main characters, Huck and Jim, both run from social injustice and both are distrustful of the civilization around them. Huck is considered an uneducated backwards boy,…
A Tale of Two Cities has long been one of Charles Dickens’ most favored books. This book opens in the year 1775 by contrasting two cities: Paris, France and London, England. Throughout this story various characters are “recalled to life”, meaning that they have had a new chance at life. Dr. Manette is clearly mad…
The play depicts the feelings and thoughts of the people of their time. Their feelings are different then what we see today in our lives. The family had to deal with poverty and racism. Not having enough money and always being put down because of the color of their skin held them back from having…
Critics usually describe Hemingway’s style as simple, spare, and journalistic. These are all good words; they all apply. Perhaps because of his training as a newspaperman, Hemingway is a master of the declarative, subject-verb-object sentence. His writing has been likened to a boxer’s punches–combinations of lefts and rights coming at us without pause. Take the…
The Call of the Wild has a very interesting plot. It is centered on a St. Bernard and Scotch Shepherd mix, named Buck. At home, which was a large house in the sun, he ruled over all dogs. Buck was Judge Miller’s inseparable companion, until a man named Manuel, who was the one of the…
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World presents a portrait of a society which is superficially a perfect world. At first inspection, it seems perfect in many ways: it is carefree, problem free and depression free. All aspects of the population are controlled: number, social class, and intellectual ability are all carefully regulated. Even history is controlled…
The first reference of blood is one of honor, and occurs when Duncan sees the injured sergeant and says “What bloody man is that?”. This is symbolic of the brave fighter who been injured in a valiant battle for his country. In the next passage, in which the sergeant says “Which smok’d with bloody execution”,…
Black Boy, an autobiography by Richard Wright, is an account of a young African-American boy’s thoughts and outlooks on life in the South while growing up. The novel is 288 pages, and was published by Harper and Row Publishers in (c)1996. The main subject, Richard Wright, who was born in 1908, opens the book with a…
In the Novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison unmasks the horrors of slavery, and depicts its aftermath on African Americans. The story is perfect for all who did not experience nor could imagine how it was to be an African American in America circa the 1860’s. Beloved lends a gateway to understanding the trials and tribulations…
“The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.” George Sand hit the nail right on the head when he said this in 1872. Appearance versus reality has been a central theme in many American creative works…
Erich Maria Remarque had his novel, Im Westen nichts Neues (In the West Nothing New) serialized in the magazine Vossiche Zeitung in 1928. The pacifist work alienated Remarque from Germany. Ultra-nationalists and Hitler’s propagandists incited the hate of the German people against him. He was burned in effigy in 1933 in the Obernplatz, and his…
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has been commended for forming the archetypical basis of all horror films that followed its 1960 release. The mass appeal that Psycho has maintained for over three decades can undoubtedly be attributed to its universality. In Psycho, Hitchcock allows the audience to become a subjective character within the plot to enhance the…
The play “Violet” takes place in the mid-1960’s and focuses on a young woman in search for a miracle, and who bears a horrendous scar on her face from an accident when she was a child. The musical opens with Violet boarding a Greyhound bus that is traveling to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she hopes to…
Alice Walker is an African-American novelist and poet; born in Eatonton, Ga. Her parents, Minnie Lou Grant and Willie Lee Walker, were both sharecroppers. She was raised in a shack minutes from Flannery O’Conner’s house, “Andalusia”. Blinded in one eye from an accidental gunshot wound at the young age of eight, Walker fell into somewhat…
“A Doll’s House” is classified under the “second phase” of Henrik Ibsen’s career. It was during this period which he made the transition from mythical and historical dramas to plays dealing with social problems. It was the first in a series investigating the tensions of family life. Written during the Victorian era, the controversial play…
Shakespeare Insult 1 – The Two Gentlemen of Verona Thou subtle, perjur’d, false, disloyal man! Shakespeare Insult 2 – As You Like It Thou art like a toad; ugly and venemous. Shakespeare Insult 3 – The Tempest Thine forward voice, now, is to speak well of thine friend; thine backward voice is to utter foul…