
Jeanette Burleigh
eNotes Educator
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About
I have worked as an educator for ten years, helping students of all ages grow their understanding of history and literature. I have a BA in Liberal Arts. My areas of expertise include American history, European history and 20th century American poetry.
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eNotes Educator
This badge is awarded to all eNotes Educators. Only official Educators can answer students' questions on our site. Educators are teachers, professional researchers, and scholars who apply to our...
Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in A Long Way from Chicago
Grandma Dowdel, a central character in Richard Peck's novel A Long Way From Chicago, is an ally of the poor, especially against antagonism from rich people and the law. Mrs. Weidenbach is the... -
Answered a Question in Wintergirls
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is about what it's like to struggle with self-harm and eating disorders, especially through incredibly difficult life events. Because of Lia's difficulties... -
Answered a Question in A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche is full of mystery, spinning lies around her life to make it sound like less of a wreck to others and also, eventually, to herself. While it's clear at the beginning of the play that... -
Answered a Question in History
Due to the nature of history itself, it is difficult to understand the history of prehistoric education, or of education in early historical periods as it pertains to skills other than writing. It... -
Answered a Question in A People's History of the United States
In the chapter "Some Kind of Revolution," Zinn seeks to undermine the traditional American idea that the Revolutionary War was fought by and for the liberty of common American people. Rather,... -
Answered a Question in The Devil's Arithmetic
The Nazi soldiers and leadership arrive and speak with the Rabbi while the village waits in anticipation. The Nazis pressure the Rabbi behind closed doors and then use his authority in order to... -
Answered a Question in Holes
The setting in Holes is just about the farthest thing imaginable from a Girl Scout camp. Despite being named Camp Green Lake, which certainly sounds pleasant enough, this juvenile detention... -
Answered a Question in A Doll's House
The play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen certainly makes a strong case that Nora's freedom and independence ultimately require her to leave Torvald. However, Nora had a level of independence the... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
One of Odysseus's biggest weaknesses is his pride. This can clearly be observed getting him and his men into trouble when, after they escape the island of Cyclopes together, Odysseus begins to brag... -
Answered a Question in Julia Alvarez
"Daughter of Invention" focuses on the relationship between a daughter and her mother. The first mentions of the child's father are in passing: the girls, with our narrator as their spokesperson,... -
Answered a Question in In a Grove
When each of the characters in "In a Grove" presents their "side of the story," none of the three is giving a faithful account of what they experienced. Each character presents the story in a way... -
Answered a Question in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
The climax of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson is the long-anticipated Christmas pageant. The Herdsman children have been causing trouble throughout the story, and their... -
Answered a Question in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Connie is a fairly average fifteen year old. She is motivated by trying to discover her sense if individuality, and she finds it by being "the pretty one" in her family, and she spends a lot of... -
Answered a Question in The Seafarer
Loneliness is a key theme in the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Wayfarer". The narrator introduces the idea of his isolation this way: I have spent great careworn winters an exile on the ice-cold sea, cut... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Macbeth is affected by two opposing sets of external influences in act I, scene VII of Macbeth. He is contemplating killing King Duncan, but he is concerned about the consequences that the murder... -
Answered a Question in Let America Be America Again
It is a core myth of American nationhood that America has a great and glorious past that, while it may have slipped away, can be returned to with some intentionality. In the poem "Let America Be... -
Answered a Question in Thank You, M'am
Roger learns the lesson that he doesn't have to choose to steal from his community members in order to survive, because there are people in his community who will choose to care for him. Mrs.... -
Answered a Question in The Fly
The boss lost all sense of meaning in his life after the death of his son. The simple thought of his son would send him into fits of tears, and he did not believe that, even with time, he would... -
Answered a Question in The Furnished Room
The conclusion of "The Furnished Room" by O. Henry seals both the theme of obsession and the theme of how hard show business can be. It contributes to the theme of obsession by invoking the well... -
Answered a Question in The Veldt
When George Hadley says that "Children are carpets, they should be stepped on occasionally," he is communicating that he blames his children for the fear he feels surrounding the strange behavior... -
Answered a Question in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
T.J. gets so upset with Mrs. Logan because she catches him cheating. T.J. has been trying all year to find her test questions ahead of time so that he can cheat. He has already nearly been caught... -
Answered a Question in Martin Luther King Jr.
In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the fact that "white moderates" were calling him an extremist for his use of nonviolent resistance tactics. King makes... -
Answered a Question in Charles
The exposition to Shirley Jackon's short story "Charles" is full of foreshadowing. Laurie undergoes a transformation from "sweetvoiced nursery-school tot" into a "long-trousered, swaggering... -
Answered a Question in Kim
The book Kim by Rudyard Kipling is distinctly pro-Raj. The title character and protagonist, Kim, is a British teenager who works closely with a man he knows in the Indian Secret Service (an office... -
Answered a Question in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The three temptations in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are represented by the three days of the game that Gawain plays at the behest of his holiday host. The game that they play is a... -
Answered a Question in Uphill
The journey uphill won't be an easy one, or a short one, but it won't be impossible either. It's going to take a whole day of walking to get to whatever the person's destination is, or maybe even... -
Answered a Question in In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto attempts to answer the question of what people can eat, and its thesis can be summarized in Pollan's short motto: Eat food. Not too much.... -
Answered a Question in The Pardoner's Tale
When the three men first vow to kill Death there is the apparent level of verbal irony involved. After all, how exactly does one kill Death? As the story develops, they meet an old man and ask him... -
Answered a Question in The Man with the Hoe
There are many analogies which help the reader to understand the condition of the title character in "The Man With the Hoe" by Edward Markham. The first analogy, which establishes the duality... -
Answered a Question in Poem About People
The poem "People" by D.H. Lawrence is about industrialization and how it has affected people who live in urban landscapes, specifically the ways that it makes them scattered and unfocused. It... -
Answered a Question in Literature
Traditionally there are a number of different sounds that ghosts make. Really, ghosts can conceivably make any sound that humans make, but most commonly they are described as moaning, wailing,... -
Answered a Question in The Declaration of Independence
Ideas such as liberty, separation of church and state, and constitutional government are all core to the Age of Enlightenment and also to the Declaration of Independence. The Enlightenment was an... -
Answered a Question in The Lake Isle of Innisfree
To me, the most serene image in the first two stanzas of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats is the "[midnight] all a glimmer". The calm and peace of nighttime alone with the... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare's use of foreshadowing in his play Romeo and Juliet could best be described as generous. It's never a surprise that the couple dies; it's even stated plainly as a fact in the prologue.... -
Answered a Question in Rip Van Winkle
The narrator seems to sympathize a lot with Rip Van Winkle. Rip certainly has characteristics that could (and did) get him lectured by his wife, like his avoidance of profitable labor despite his... -
Answered a Question in Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas is solidly in favor of the idea that life ought to be organized and predictable, and that this is achievable only through the institution of a state which holds a monopoly on... -
Answered a Question in The Pearl
Familial relationships are one of the most important themes in The Pearl by John Steinbeck. The family of Kino, his wife, Juana, and their son, Coyotito, is very tight-knit, and the story begins... -
Answered a Question in The Interlopers
With authors as prolific as Saki, it can often be hard to tell precisely what mixture of imagination and life experience influences their stories. "The Interlopers" is set in the Carpathian... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
Miss Maudie befriends the children and helps to offer them a level perspective on humanity and race, revealing interesting pieces of their father's backstory to them. Scout and Miss Maudie... -
Answered a Question in Midnight's Children
The kind of truth that Salman Rushdie explores in the novel Midnight's Children is the truth that does not appear to be rational, or factual (not encyclopedia facts, at least), but which simply... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
Literary modernism is about intentionally discarding old techniques, and embracing news ways both of writing and of knowing the world. Modernism suggests that rational, fact based approaches to... -
Answered a Question in The Secret Garden
Mary enjoys the way that being outside makes her body and mind feel. The more frash air and sunlight Mary gets, the happier and healthier she seems, and the brighter her outlook on life becomes.... -
Answered a Question in Rutherford B. Hayes's Presidency
The Compromise of 1877 affected the politics of the South because it formally ended the Reconstruction Era. Rutherford B. Hayes pulled US troops out of the Southern states of South Carolina and... -
Answered a Question in Seedfolks
In the novel Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman, the garden is a metaphor for the community, and they grow in parallel over the course of the novel. Just like different plants can grow side by side, and... -
Answered a Question in Happy Endings
The main idea in "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood is that happy endings, if they really are happy, don't actually make for happy stories. By juxtaposing a number of different disappointing... -
Answered a Question in History
The Protestant Reformation caused the British to separate themselves from the Catholic Church, which was the primary colonizing force in the Americas at the time, thanks to the Inter caetera, a... -
Answered a Question in The Necklace
There are many ways to approach writing an essay about the theme of materialism in the story "The Necklace," so here's some different angles you might try to create a hook from. The narrative... -
Answered a Question in Piano
"Piano" by D. H. Lawrence is a poem about hearing a woman sing. The woman's voice reminds the speaker of his mother's, and this memory causes him to miss feelings from his childhood. These... -
Answered a Question in The Chimney Sweeper
Tom Dacre is another chimney sweep, who seems to work with the narrator. The narrator says that he was sold by his father into work, and so it is likely that Tom Dacre suffered a similar enough... -
Answered a Question in The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera is based on a series of stories and rumors told about the Palais Garnier, an opera house in Paris that remains open today. In the prologue to the novel, Gaston Leroux talks...
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