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Roger is a mystery from the beginning, and seems to have a dark character. It seems that while some of the boys know each other, especially the choir, no one knows Roger or where he came from....

One of the most difficult periods of Okonkwo’s life is the seven years that he must spend in exile. Things Fall Apart presents the Igbo society as the traditional ways are being replaced by British...

Old Major's speech represents the original teachings that inspire the ideology of Animalism. His speech is an indictment of the human agricultural system that oppresses and brutalizes animals for...

(eNotes educators may only answer one question per response. If you need more help, submit other questions separately.) The community in which Jonas and his parents live places a very high...

This question asks for your opinion--rather than supplying you with an opinion, I will lay out arguments for and against the Vietnam War and allow you to decide. The U.S. was right in engaging in...

In chapter six, we learn that Gatsby's real name is James Gatz. The name Jay Gatsby emerges in this chapter as a symbol of Gatz's reinvention of himself as a glamorous, mysterious figure with a...

There are many ways in which plants can be propagated. One way of classifying this is sexual and asexual. Sexual propagation occurs from the growth of new plants from seeds. Seeds are formed by the...

“Mirror” by Sylvia Plath contains a few different figures of speech. The mirror itself is an example of personification. This inanimate object actually is the first-person speaker relating its...

On first glance, Hamlet might not seem to be a realistic play. It opens with the sighting of a ghost on the dark ramparts of a medieval castle. At the end of the first act there is another sighting...

In this poem, Dickinson's speaker describes what it feels like to exist in the environment around her while numbed with grief. This is a subjective perception of grief, a personal record of the...

In the essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" by Zora Neale Hurston, the author presents an extremely positive viewpoint towards her African American heritage. Much of the time she doesn't even...

In “The Fur Coat,” Paddy Maguire is appointed the role of parliamentary-secretary to the Minister for Roads and Railways. He and his wife Molly rejoice his promotion. Anticipating having to dress...

In act 5, scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth is annoyed by rumors of the advance of Malcom’s army towards Dunsinane Castle, and he’s particularly exasperated by the negative reports that...

Even in her very first novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling reveals herself to be a master of literary techniques. We will examine three of these (out of many more): irony,...

In the final stanza of “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost assumes a wistful tone. He imagines himself years in the future sighing and looking back on the results of his choice to take one road over...

In "Harlem," Langston Hughes uses similes and a metaphor, as well as vivid and descriptive imagery, to convey the idea that forcing people to delay their dreams can lead to violence. Using a series...

After reaching the ninth sphere of Paradise, where the angels live, Dante enters the Empyrean, a place of light which is beyond matter, where God resides. He says that there his sight was...

John Donne's Holy Sonnet 10, "Death, be not proud," is a metaphysical poem from the early seventeenth century. Metaphysical poems are typically associated with style techniques such as conceits...

This question is a subjective question. Consequently, different readers could argue differently about a potential answer to this question. The word "hobby" does not appear in the text of Chains, so...

Lord of the Flies is a novel written by William Golding. It was first published in 1954 and follows the story of young boys who find themselves on a deserted island. In order to help you answer...

Despite being different from the other women in the village due to her education, Rukmani is nonetheless determined to live her life in the traditional way. Though her married life with Nathan is...

Army veteran, scholar, and author Wes Moore understood that his life could have taken a very different direction than it ultimately did. A Rhodes Scholar who served in Afghanistan and succeeded in...

Most of our understanding of Victor's appearance comes from Walton. When his sailors first rescue Victor from the iceberg, Walton writes to his sister that: His limbs were nearly frozen, and his...

The short story "Tell Them Not to Kill Me!" by Juan Rulfo tells of a man who murders his neighbor and then spends most of his life on the run from the authorities. It begins with a prelude in which...

This quotation comes from Fareed Zakaria's book The Post-American World: And the Rise of the Rest, and it expresses a fundamental tenet of Zakaria's thesis. Following the end of the Cold War and...

In "If I Forget Thee, O Earth ... " a small remnant of humanity survives (and only just barely for that matter) because it was isolated from the destruction of the rest of the species. The story in...

In John Steinbeck's story "The Chrysanthemums," Elisa Allen's life as a ranch wife is often monotonous. She works hard caring for the house and the garden and her husband, Henry, but there is...

There are several major events that transpire in act 2 of The Crucible. The first significant moment concerns John Proctor's argument with his wife about her callous, unforgiving nature. Their...

Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist is told in two distinct formats; the reader hears a conversation between the protagonist Changez and an anonymous American at a café in Lahore, Pakistan,...

There are many ways in which Jack's identity becomes confused in the play. However, the entire pretense of the mistaken identities is only able to come about because of the lies that Jack has told...

In the short story "Thank You, M'am" by Langston Hughes, a boy of "fourteen or fifteen" named Roger tries to steal a purse from a woman named Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones. She thwarts the...

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes's central idea about self-preservation is expressed in the section he devotes to what he calls "the right of nature," which he defines in the following terms: The Right...

Charlemagne thought that widespread access to knowledge was very important. Among Charlemagne’s many reforms were reforms to the field of education. These reforms were some of the defining changes...

Keep in mind, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories are all in first-person point of view, told from the perspective of Dr. Watson. In that respect, the point of view is always limited....

“The Franklin's Tale,” which is part of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, explores the themes of faithfulness, a literal interpretation versus common sense, and illusion versus reality. Let's look at...

In his short story "Old Man at the Bridge," a soldier helps evacuate civilians to safety during the Spanish Civil War. While ushering people across a pontoon bridge and away from enemy troops, he...

In his book Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom records the wisdom of his former professor Morrie Schwartz. Morrie provides plenty of wisdom, and one of his sayings is “Learn to forgive yourself and...

Throughout The Wednesday Wars, the conflict intensifies between Holling Hoodhood’s older sister, Heather, and their father. Some of this conflict revolves around her politics. Rejecting her...

After a black bear invades the family's cabin in Katherine Paterson's novel Lyddie, Lyddie's mother decides that the time has come for them to leave the farm and go to live with her sister and...

"All Summer in a Day" is set on Venus, therein described as a planet whose rainfall lasts years at a time with only momentary breaks in the deluge. This story concerns one of those brief moments of...

In the dramatic 1742 description of the scene of Sir Hugo's death, his throat is ripped out by a giant hound in front of the men who have come out to find him: Standing over Hugo, and plucking at...

In the prologue and first three chapters of In the Name of Salome, author Julia Alvarez introduces the reader to her two protagonists at contrasting points in their lives. First we meet 66-year-old...

In part 3 of the story, the policeman who arrested Tajomaru tells us that Tajomaru is "a notorious brigand." A "brigand" is a robber who ambushes people in remote areas. Tajomaru, the policeman...

When the animals rebel against man and finally remove Mr. Jones and his ilk from the farm, they have thoughts of a life of equality, free from the drudgery and slavery that man had imposed upon...

With the advent of Internet resources and e-books, page number references have become less useful. Further, Thoreau's Walden has appeared in countless editions over the decades, and each of these...

The most important theme from "Embroidery" is the danger of nuclear weapons. Like many of Bradbury's stories, "Embroidery" was written during the Cold War, where nuclear devastation was a very real...

In this chapter, Mother takes time out of her busy schedule to accept an invitation for her and Matilda to have tea with the wealthy Ogilvies. This involves digging a better dress for Mattie out of...

To pinpoint how William Makepeace Thackeray presents Becky’s relationship with Rawdy (or little Rawdon), review the parts that pertain to their bond. Think about how Rebecca is depicted as a mother...

In Chapter 1of Night, the narrator recounts events that Moshe the Beadle tells him after he escaped from the Nazis and came to Sighet. While the overall experience of Moshe and his fellow prisoners...

Born a Crime tells a very personal story, and one that could only come from a particular time and place. For Trevor Noah to effectively tell his story, it is necessary to understand the greater...