Find the answers you need

Depending on one's individual situation in life, the call of home can be either strong or weak, powerful or utterly feeble, loud and clear, or barely a whisper. For some of us, home life is a...

In “At Dusk”, the speaker's neighbor is leaning through her doorway, calling to her cat. She makes a “high-pitched wheedling” sound, the kind of noise with which we address animals, who do not know...

Anne Carson begins her poem, "Apostle Town," by using wind as a metaphor for the effects of grief. The speaker says that after the addressee died "It was windy every day." The wind constantly...

Adult life has been really hard for Bryon. So much so that he wishes he were a kid again, when he seemed to have all the answers. But there appears to be no desire on his part to go back to the...

After coming to power in 507 BC, the Athenian statesman Cleisthenes introduced a series of political and constitutional reforms that went under the name demokratia, or rule by the people. It is...

This poem depicts the selfless and unconditional love of a father. The first description that shows his caring nature can be found in the first two lines of the poem. Sundays too my father got up...

Proverbs are an almost universal feature of human life. Virtually every nation and every culture on the face of the planet uses these short, pithy sayings that impart general truths. Proverbs are...

In Warriors Don't Cry, we see that Melba Beals' grandmother India plays a very important part in her life. She is a constant source of comfort, wisdom, and encouragement, always there for Melba...

The theme of disguise and deceptive appearances is prominent throughout Twelfth Night. The primary case where this theme plays out is through the character of Viola, who disguises herself as a...

As both a Protestant and as someone with a highly critical attitude towards most aspects of the Christian faith, Yeats did not believe in purgatory, the place where souls are purged before they are...

Guy de Maupassant's "Two Friends" is set during the Franco-Prussian War. With that in mind, its characters are worried about encountering the Prussians, who are in the midst of besieging Paris. One...

This line from “Hills Like White Elephants” helps Hemingway highlight the sterility of the modern world. Like many of Hemingway’s stories, this story demonstrates how the postwar generation lacked...

Anzaldúa describes the “Coatlicue state” in Borderlands / La Frontera as either a "way of life" or a "way station." It is a state of chaos, nervousness and turmoil within the unconscious, and it...

Several of Ponyboy and Cherry's conversations could be characterized as heartfelt, sensitive, insightful and honest and discussions that make them seem different from their groups in their ability...

In “Apostle Town,” Anne Carson describes the feelings experienced by those left behind after a loved one dies. Let's look at some of the poetic devices she uses to help her express her ideas....

This question doesn't specify a specific chapter that it is referencing, so it isn't possible to know if it is asking about Phillip being alone because Timothy is off exploring the cay, or if it is...

Rhetorical stylistics examines the choices writers make with regard to their diction, syntax, figures of speech, forms and structures, and other elements of style to see how they contribute to the...

In Oscar Wilde's short story, "The Selfish Giant," the giant puts walls around his garden to keep the children from playing in it, because he wants to keep the beauty of the garden all to himself....

Chapter 8 isn't a chapter that has a lot of action. Consequently, it isn't likely to be a chapter that is on a student's list of favorite chapters. That doesn't mean important things don't happen...

David Leavitt's story "Gravity" tells the story of a young man named Theo, who is dying from complications from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). A detached narrator, or a "third-person"...

One event that’s similar to real life in Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation relates to “the War between the States.” In real life, the United States experienced a devastating war over the issue of...

To discuss the dangers of classifying a diaspora according to Robin Cohen’s typology, think about how Cohen’s formulation might be considered reductive. With any diaspora, one deals with a large...

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland has all the thrills of a zombie horror story, but beneath the fear and the violence, it offers a particularly important message about racism, oppression, and the...

The speaker of this poem begins by imploring the listener to remember her after she dies. However, she never actually directly mentions death. She speaks about it indirectly and with the use of...

In the third line of this short poem, the reader is told that the Flower is beheaded by the Frost. As the poem's title and opening line suggest, this is nothing to be surprised by. Indeed, we know...

In W. B. Yeats's play Cathleen ni Houlihan, the title character is indeed a symbol of a kind of love, but it is not really the romantic love between Michael and Delia. In fact, Cathleen ni Houlihan...

Leola has made the fatal mistake of marrying Percy Staunton, or Boy Staunton as he now calls himself. As well as being an egomaniac, Boy is an inveterate womanizer and regularly cheats on Leola...

The Renaissance was an exciting time for drama and theater, the growth of which was largely centered in England. For one thing, the English language was continually developing, and writers like...

In Teju Cole's book Open City, the main character, Julius, goes through many changes. In the first fifty pages, the changes are subtle but significant. As he wanders through the streets of New York...

In chapter 18, when Bernard and Helmholtz show up at John's apartment, they hear "unpleasant" sounds coming from the bathroom. When they ask John about it when he emerges, he tells them he drank...

In "A Passing Glimpse," the speaker laments the quick pace of modern life. Rushing past nature on the way to somewhere, he realizes that he often is not able to stop and enjoy flowers and foliage....

David Malouf's “Aquarius” recounts a perfect day, one of those “sovereign days” that never seems to have been intended for the dark. This beautiful day, recalled in tranquility, forms the basis of...

In chapter 54 of Great Expectations, Pip and Magwitch attempt to make their escape down the Thames River. All goes well until they realize that they are being followed. Compeyson is in pursuit....

In W. H. Auden's poem "Funeral Blues," the speaker is coping with the loss of some unknown beloved who has died. The speaker makes several requests of how the world should respond to the death of...

In “A Prayer for My Daughter,” W. B. Yeats looks down at his innocent infant daughter and prays that she may retain that innocence as she grows up. He then paints a portrait of the “radical...

Wallace Steven’s poem “Sunday Morning” opens with a woman enjoying a leisurely breakfast: Complacencies of the peignoir, and lateCoffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a...

The trees in this poem are a metaphor for women. These trees are inside a glassed-in veranda. This is an unnatural environment for them because inside the veranda "no bird could sit / no insect...

In this line, the speaker is describing how the lower-class boys in his neighborhood talked and dressed. They were the "rough" boys his parents wanted to keep him away from. The speaker says the...

As the poem opens, the speaker worries about the fate of his infant daughter as a storm howls. It seems hard to protect her from this violent tempest, with only some woods and a hill between the...

A critical reading of Anne Carson's poem “Apostle Town” involves both teasing out the poem’s meaning and then analyzing whether or not the poet achieved her purpose. Let’s begin by focusing on the...

In part 7 of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight enters the great hall where King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and their guests are enjoying their New Year’s feast. The speaker’s...

I believe that the sequence in question is the first half of chapter 18 which is titled "Going for the Doctor." This is the chapter that has Beauty heroically bringing the doctor back to his...

Georg, like Ulrich, is pinned beneath the fallen beech tree that crashed down in the storm. He has been slashed by twigs, and so much blood has run down his face and into his eyes that they are...

Louis Riel is a graphic novel written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown. In it, Brown chronicles a portion of the life of the controversial and possibly schizophrenic Métis leader...

The opening scene of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream exemplifies patriarchal expectations. Egeus bursts in, angry that his daughter Hermia refuses to wed Demetrius. Hermia is in love with...

A social taboo is essentially a social ban or a social prohibition—it means doing or saying something that the society perceives as immoral or distasteful and, in some cases, even disturbing. In...

Historical novels are not simply novels set in the past; they are novels that seek to recreate through their setting a particular period in history. Most novels, like Teju Cole's Open City, are set...

As the vagabond tells us, he seeks nothing more in life than the heaven above and the road below him. His needs are simple; unlike most people, he doesn't even require the comfort of a nice warm...

An ode is a lyric poem in which the author praises and appreciates its subject. In “Ode to My Socks,” poet Neruda exalts a seemingly mundane item: a pair of socks. In fact, this use of such a lowly...

The moral lesson of The Freedom Writers Diary is that education is not merely the acquisition of facts, but a powerful process that brings out students' common humanity by increasing their...