Adam Grinwald

As with most of Hemingway's work, there is much indirect characterization and plot progression in his story "Hills Like White Elephants." This operates on what Hemingway calls—and what many critics...

Meursault is a man of great indifference. When his mother passes away, he is neither disturbed nor particularly grieved. He tends to hold this apathetic attitude throughout most of the novel, and...

In Walter Dean Myers's novel Monster, Steve Harmon, a young African American male, is put on trial for murder after a botched robbery leads to the death of a store owner. Throughout Monster, Steve...

In act1, scene 4 of King Lear, Lear goes on a furious rampage after his eldest daughter, Goneril, refuses to follow the aging king's orders in her own home. Lear insults Goneril, telling Albany to...

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, reading and writing as a whole are forbidden entirely for all women. The novel takes place in a dystopian society in which women, under extreme oppression,...

There are many events and plot points in Fahrenheit 451 that impact Montag significantly and force him to change. As the novel begins, Montag is an ordinary fireman who mindlessly burns piles of...

Robert Cormier's After the First Death is a young adult suspense novel written in 1979 that revolves around a school bus that is hijacked by ruthless terrorists. The bus is headed to summer camp...

Portia's eloquent speech in Merchant of Venice is often regarded as one of Shakespeare's finest and most poetic monologues (alongside, of course, with Hamlet, Richard III, and Cleopatra). In it,...

It is difficult to suggest an idea for a second paragraph without knowing what your thesis is. Yet, looking at how Capulet behaves in the earlier parts of the play, I can suggest several quotes...

Throughout the seven Harry Potter novels, Harry and Malfoy engage in what is one of the most famous rivalries in young adult literature. Early on in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry...

Words and Music is seemingly a play that is ultimately about the creative process. The play truly consists of three "characters," though the word can only be used loosely, since the play is...

"Slim Greer in Hell" by Sterling A. Brown portrays the titular character's journey into Hell at the request of St. Peter. Once Slim arrives in hell, he is shocked by what he sees: there are...

In Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie Schwartz is a dying sociology professor who becomes close friends with sports columnist Mitch Albom. As Morrie dies, his Tuesdays with Mitch are often interrupted by...

In Edgar Lee Masters's opus Spoon River Anthology, each character is sketched out in short first person poems that express how they should be remembered. In the case of Harmon Whitney, it is...

Elwin Ransom, the main protagonist in C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, serves as a sort of stand-in for Lewis himself. A relatively ordinary man, Ransom is a linguistics professor who uses his...

"The Judgement" by Franz Kafka is a semi-autobiographical tale of a young man who faces his father's harsh judgment and is sentenced to drowning. It finds a universal application through its...

The protagonist of The Pearl, Kino, is a traditional hard-working man who takes great pride in his dignity and unwillingness to give in. He has tremendous love for his wife and child, which...

As with most of the work by Albert Camus, The Plague is highly critical of organized religion. When a plague hits the Algerian city of Oran, the townspeople are left to live in isolation. Many of...

When reading novels that are set in different cultures, there are often words that English-speaking readers might not be familiar with. Such is the case with The River Between, a Kenyan novel...

In Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms the idea of existentialism is often thrown around. Existentialism basically operates under the belief that there is no inherent meaning in life, but that one must...

Cassius's motivations in killing Caesar are actually quite simplistic. To understand his motivations, it is important to look at two separate passages of the play. When Cassius lures Brutus into...

John Donne's "The Good-Morrow" is a classic love poem, likely written by the poet's wife, Ann Moore. The first two stanzas draw out the poet's love for this woman, proclaiming love itself as the...

Holden Caulfield's conflict with life stems from many different areas, including his family. Most importantly, Holden's brother Allie, who passed away before the novel begins, leads Holden to...

Langston Hughes' excellent poem "Ballad of the Landlord" deals with a number of important societal themes. First published in 1940, and written in the late 30s, "Ballad of the Landlord"...

Throughout the entire oeuvre of Shakespeare, Falstaff remains one of the most memorable characters (something Orson Welles took advantage of for his Shakespeare film Chimes at Midnight)....

The narrator in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" is a self-professed animal lover, who claims to be a tender soul, a humanist, and a completely sane and loving character. The narrator says, My...

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", written by the great James Thurber for The New Yorker magazine, features an iconic daydreaming protagonist who imagines himself as several different characters....

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is not only a masterpiece of American drama but one of the earliest and finest works of modernism in theatrical plays. The play, which is set entirely in Grover's...

The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield is one of literature's most noteworthy young adult characters, and it is because of his inability to let go of his childhood that he remains so...

Meursault, the narrator and main protagonist in Albert Camus's existentialist novel The Stranger, shows many characteristics held to the philosophy of absurdism. As the novel begins, Meursault...

The climax of any story is the part of the story preceding the resolution. It is frequently tense and is the highest point of action in the entire story. In Langston Hughes's short story "Thank...

Joseph Stalin's Five-Year Plan was created with the intent of revolutionizing the Soviet Union and improving the general quality of its productivity. Looking at the history books shows that...

In English literature courses, the iceberg theory refers to the idea that the meaning of a work of literature is hidden under the surface; in other words, understanding what the story is about will...

In To Kill A Mockingbird, the novel's narrator and main protagonist Scout acts as an important female character in the literary canon due to her stubbornness and strong-willed attitude. She...

In Fahrenheit 451, Granger and the other men and women at the camp of intellectual outlaws carry their books by not carrying them at all; they memorize the texts in order to avoid...

In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag begins to question how society had reached its current state in which all literature is completely banned. After discussing the issue with Fire...

One important theme in No Country for Old Men is fate—this could be argued in a thesis. The primary antagonist of the novel, Anton Chigurh, serves as an agent of death and fate. In the...

There are a number of symbols in The Wind in the Willows, many of which act as a satire of early twentieth-century England. With many of the characters, such as Badger, Rat, and Mole,...

The use of a first-person narrator frequently brings to light the question of reliability. Surely we as readers assume that a third-person narrator is reliable, for there's little reason for an...

A common theme in the work of Ernest Hemingway is gender dynamics, femininity, and masculinity. In his epic For Whom the Bell Tolls, these themes are pervasive. The novel takes place...

In David Fincher's adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's satirical novel Fight Club, an unnamed narrator (Edward Norton) suffers from insomnia and depression in a materialistic world. He is...

Throughout Ray Bradbury's masterpiece Fahrenheit 451, the idea of literature—and books in general—becoming illegal plays a pivotal role in the plot and underlying meaning of the novel....

In the work of Arthur Miller, particularly in his masterpiece Death of a Salesman, the role of family plays a vital role.  Willy's psychological weakness and eventual unwinding comes...

Chigurh's behavior towards Carla Jean is certainly consistent with his worldview. Throughout the novel, Chigurh sees himself as a sort of messenger or personification of fate, and his offering each...

The two major DC comic book superheroes, Superman and Batman, are perhaps two of the most drastically different superheroes in the entire world of comic books. While sharing many similarities and...

It becomes difficult to label Willy as "crazy", particularly because of the subjective nature of the word. Throughout Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman begins to come to terms with the...