Marriage for personal gains In the Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio states that he has “come to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua.” (Act 1 Scene 2, lines 62-73) Petruchio married Katherina just because she was from a wealthy family. He doesn’t care if she’s ugly or mean-spirited, he just…
The novel “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” by John Boyne portrays the innocent mind of a German boy called Bruno who relocates from an ideal wealth of life in Germany to a house next to the Concentration Camp of Auschwitz where his father has been chosen to work as a Nazi commander. Boyne produces…
Act 5 Scene Summaries Characters Themes Motifs Scene 1 Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, acting out washing her hands Lady Macbeth: This is the moment we see all of the fears and conscience finally catch up to Lady Macbeth. The moment that she finds out about the murder of Macduff’s wife and children, and that of Banquo,…
Act 4 Scene Summaries Characters Themes Motifs Scene 1 Macbeth visits the Witches and is given three new prophecies: 1) to beware of Macduff; 2) that no man who is born of woman can harm Macbeth; 3) he is safe until Burnham Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill. Hecate is the goddess of the witches and…
Scene Summaries Characters Themes Motifs Scene 1: Banquo thinks about the prophecy when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth enter to invite him to the banquet that night. He goes riding with his son, Fleance and Macbeth thinks about his fear of Banquo. Some men arrive whom Macbeth sends off to murder Banquo. Banquo’s suspicion rises when…
Act 2 Scene Summaries Characters Themes Motifs Scene 1 Macbeth hallucinates, seeing a dagger in front of him. Banquo and Macbeth grow more fearful and suspicious of each other. Macbeth goes as far as to test Banqo’s trust in the statement ‘If you shall cleave to my consent, when ‘tis, it shall make honour for…
Act 1 Scene Summaries Characters Themes Motifs Scene 1: Three Witches get together and start plotting There are 3 witches. I learnt that they’re somehow related to darkness from the introduction mentioning thunder, lightning etc. Evil, Darkness, Scene 2: Duncan hears that Macbeth and Banquo have won them the war We learn Duncan is…
A Passage to India is a 1984 drama film directed by David Lean and based on the homonymous book written by Edward M. Forster. The story takes place in India in the early 20th century, that is, during British colonization. It is well known that Europeans have always seen colonization as a moral duty; however,…
The fact that Waiting for Godot is classified as an absurdism play already tells us that nothing is truly straight forward in it. It is in the very nature of the play to make us, as the audience, begin questioning things and create our own opinions and interpretations. It is believed that the intention of…
Nathaniel Hawthorne Believed that evil was a dominant force in the world—his work is dark, gloomy and pessimistic. Born in Salem, Mass., descended from a prominent Puritan family. One ancestor was a judge at the Salem Witch Trials, another was known for his persecution of Quakers. For twelve years secluded himself in his mother’s house…
Steinbeck’s opening to his novel; ‘Of Mice and Men’ is an interesting and captivating beginning. It introduces many of the novel’s key themes as well as having an intriguing introduction to the main characters with considerable foreshadowing even in those first few pages of the book. Steinbeck introduces his authorial technique from the start of…
“Waiting for Godot” reflects the sentiments of these quotations to quite a large extent. In the first quotation, the idea of finding something meaningful is explored, we see this on numerous accounts in Waiting for Godot. In the second quotation, the expectation of life is being explored. In Waiting for Godot we know that the…
Woza Albert! is a satirical play written by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon. It was work shopped and took years of research and input from locals before this masterpiece was performed in The Market Theatre in 1983. The play was written in the Apartheid era, as a form of Protest Theatre, which was…
The significance of the words “dying and death” in Jack London’s 1910 novel, “To Build a Fire” continuously expresses the man’s dwindling warmth and bad luck in his journey along the Yukon trail to meet “the boys” at camp. London associates dying with the man’s diminishing ability to stay warm in the frigid Alaskan climate.…
The purpose of this book was to show us a possible version of a “Utopia”. It was a fantasy oriented book, that was suppose to make you think about the possibilities for the future. The setting is a supposedly perfect society where everyone is taken care of and no one is different. The author Lois…
One of the main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask Of Amontillado is revenge. In this summary theme, it’ll demonstrate how dramatic irony is used all along the short story as a way of reminding us the true intentions of the character who vowed revenge. Firstly, a brief summary of the short story: the…
Dave: father, small, wiry, quick tempered, values every nickel, poor Steve: son, twelve years old, big eyes, small, shy, worried POWER OF MONEY AND PRIDE: -Importance of money, very beginning, helps develop protagonist. Money come theme throughout the story. -Dave`s pride hurt from Mr. Hudson; who is a very powerful and wealthy ,man. Dave cannot…
Like many writers of his time, Hawthorne emphasized man’s inner reality, and those thoughts and feelings which are not immediately apparent. As he explored this internal nature, he not only found the source of dignity and virtue, but also certain elements of darkness and violence. In The Minister’s Black Veil, these elements are treated as…
In this novel, the title describes the underlying theme to the book. Pride and prejudice were both influences on the characters and their relationships. Darcy alienated himself from the others at first because of his intense pride. His prejudice against the Bennet’s because of their poverty was also something that he would have to overcome.…
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,…