In the novel A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, the author uses many minor characters. Although labeled “minor”, these characters contribute fully, and are essential to the depth and excitement of the novel. Three such characters are: Miss Pross, Gaspard, and Jerry Cruncher. These three characters take on a couple different roles, depending…
Plot Summary Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are the March sisters. Their father is off to war and they rely on their mother, Marmee, to see them through the hard times of the Civil War. In the first part of this book, the reader is introduced to the characters. Meg is the sensible one, Jo…
John Neufeld is the author of “Lisa Bright & Dark”. He lives and works in New York City these days. He was educated at Yale. His style of writing is usually touching stories. Finding information about John Neufeld is quite difficult since the Internet nor the book has provided any help whatsoever. Lisa Shilling is…
In Laura Esquivel’s novel, Like Water for Chocolate, the food (recipes) and tradition are the main part of the book just as they are the main part of the Mexican tradition. Esquivel’s novel is very different from most books. Her novel incorporates recipes into the book in order to tell a story. These recipes, however,…
In William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, there is a major difference between two of the characters, Brutus and Mark Antony. Brutus was very honorable and Antony was very persuasive. When Brutus spoke at Caesar’s funeral, he appealed to the people’s logic and Antony spoke to the emotions of the people. Antony is very smart and…
Howard Griffin was a journalist and a specialist on race issues. After publication, he became a leading advocate in the Civil Rights Movement and did much to promote awareness of the racial situations and pass legislature. He was middle aged and living in Mansfield, Texas at the time of publication in 1960. His desire to…
Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O’Dell, is an unforgettable tale about courage, hope, and discovery of yourself and the world around you. It deals with love and respect for animals and people. The story takes place on an island in the Pacific Ocean that looks like a big fish sunning itself on the…
Through Gregor Samsa’s death, we see the truth behind his parents, which in itself is ironic. It is difficult to pinpoint one specific thing to write about in the story; there are just so many things that can be brought to light. If I happen to lose sight of my topic bear with me, there…
Author Jon Krakauer is the author of three books, including Eiger Dreams and the acclaimed bestseller Into the Wild. He is also the contributing editor of Outside magazine. He and his wife live in Seattle Into thin Air is a great adventure story about Jon Krakauer’s ascend of Mt. Everest. Krakauer was a member of…
The Truth about Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind History is consistently used in films as a technique to teach the values and morals of events that occurred. But what’s the point in teaching history through films when they are terribly fictional? In films, the director finds the best scheme to intrigue their audience only by…
In the novel Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck goes through many adventures on the Mississippi River. He escapes from Pap and sails down the Mississippi with an escaped slave named Jim. Huck goes through the moral conflict of how wrong it is to be helping Jim escape to freedom. Eventually, Huck decides he will…
Hoop Dreams is a story about two young men who want to become basketball players in the NBA. The author Ben Joravsky wrote the book. The idea for the book came from the documentary movie, Hoop Dreams, which is a true story. Arthur Agee and William Gates are the names of the two boys who…
Anne Moody was born in Mississippi on September 15, 1940, in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Coming of age in Mississippi focuses primarily on the experiences of racism and daily struggles from a child’s perspective to the hardships of being black during these times of racial inequality and despair. Aunt Moody’s life of struggle is definitely an…
The story “Haunting of Hill House” has great examples of people changing just to fit in. The author Shirley Jackson, who died in 1965, was one of the most brilliant writers of her time. She was widely acclaimed for her hair-raising stories and novels of the supernatural. Although the “Haunting of Hill House” fits this…
In D.H. Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” Mabel “did not share the same life as her brothers ”(195). Mabel Pervin was not close to her brothers, because there were personal and physical separations. Mabel was a plain, uninteresting woman. She seldom showed emotion on her face. In fact her face usually remained impassive and unchanged.…
In the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, the main character Brian Robeson is a thirteen-year-old boy from Hampton, New York. Brian’s parents just got a divorce. Brian is on his way to visit his father in Canada when the pilot has a heart attack. Brian manages to crash the plane in a lake in the…
Utilitarianism is the assumption that human beings act in a way that highlights their own self-interest. It is based on factuality and leaves little room for imagination. Dickens provides three vivid examples of this utilitarian logic in Hard Times. The first; Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main characters in the book, was the principal…
Many authors write books about events, their lives and their environment, and their corrupt government. One satirical author who wrote a novel about living in a corrupt society is Jonathan Swift who wrote Gulliver’s Travels. The places the protagonist had visited reflected on the author’s English government. The life of the author will be shown…
Authors often have to choose between concentrating on either plot or social commentary when writing their novels; in John Gardener’s Grendel, any notion of a plot is forgone in order for him to share his thoughts about late sixties-early seventies America and the world’s institutions as a whole. While Grendel’s exploits are nearly indecipherable and…
In life, symbolism is present all around us. Whether it is in the clothes we wear, the things we do, or what we buy, everything has a meaning. Symbolism is also present in literature and it is shown in Charles Dickens Great Expectations. The symbols of isolation, manipulation, the tragic hero, and wanting to be…