Jo Palmore
eNotes Educator
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About
With a B.A. in English and a Masters in English Education, I have taught for over 30 years, most of which have been at a boys school where I served as head of the English Department for 15 years. Currently I teach freshmen and AP English Lit and Comp to seniors; however, I've taught every grade from 7-12. I've also been an AP Reader for the Lit exam as well as scoring essays for SAT.
Earned Badges
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
In Chapter 14 after his encounter Sunny, Holden says he "felt like praying" but he can't always pray when he wants to. Although he admits, "I'm sort of an atheist," he declares that he likes Jesus.... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
Excessive pride is another important idea in the play. At the beginning of the play, Oedipus greets the priest asking for his help by noting that of course, he can help solve the problem of the... -
Answered a Question in I, Too
The speaker in Hughes' poem expresses disappointment that because of race, he is not accepted in American society. The poem is an allusion to Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" in which he... -
Answered a Question in Out, Out—
Frost uses several techniques to ensure that the saw appears sinister and threatening in "'Out, Out--.'" First, "snarled and rattled," the sounds made by the saw, are repeated; they suggest a... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
The cannibals are real. Marlow has hired a crewof natives who happen to be cannibals; however, he greatly admires them because unlike the white "pilgrims," these cannibals have "restraint," a... -
Answered a Question in A Passage to India
The main character in Forster's novel, Dr. Aziz is pleasant man, typically eager to please others. Unfortunately, he often acts hastily, without thinking through his actions carefully, and the... -
Answered a Question in A Passage to India
The tripartite structure of A Passage to India accomplishes a number of objectives that unify the novel. Each of the three sections functions in at least four ways: The first division, "Mosque," is... -
Answered a Question in Literature
I would add Cormac McCarthy to the list as a contemporary writer who depends on dialogue as the main tool for developing character. The Road is an excellent example, and his earlier works such as... -
Answered a Question in As I Lay Dying
Dewey Dell and Darl share a trait: both have the ability to "talk without the words," although Darl possesses the trait more acutely than his sister. When he sees Dewey Dell, he knows she is... -
Answered a Question in Dulce et Decorum Est
The narrator is watching another soldier who has inhaled mustard or chlorine gas choking to death as he coughs up blood and fluid from his lungs. He seems to be "drowning" because he can't breathe,... -
Answered a Question in Death of a Salesman
Willy is referring to his uncertainty about the future and his inability to conceive of life without a father. He doesn't know what his life will be like, especially without a father to guide him.... -
Answered a Question in Shiloh
Although you've phrased your question as if you're asking an opinion, evidence in the story is strong that Mason intends for the reader to see Norma Jean as a woman who seeks her independence. She... -
Answered a Question in Ode on a Grecian Urn
Do you mean the meter of this verse instead? You need more lines of the poem before you can determine the rhyme scheme, which involves listening to the sound of the last syllable in each line. For... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
Marlow's initial goal is simply to pilot a steamboat on the Congo River; however, once he arrives in Africa, he discovers that his goal is to travel to the Inner Station and bring out Kurtz, the... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
First of all, Marlow is surprised that even though the cannibals have run out of food, they do not attack and eat the white men aboard the boat--amazing, he thinks, because the cannibals definitely... -
Answered a Question in Cat in the Rain
The main characters in this Hemingway story are an American couple--George and his unnamed wife--an Italian padrone (hotelkeeper), and a hotel maid. The couple is on vacation in Italy, and they are... -
Answered a Question in All Quiet on the Western Front
Although Paul initially believes that he and Albert are fortunate to be in a Catholic hospital because these are "noted for their good treatment and good food," he discovers that the hospital can... -
Answered a Question in The Stone Boy
After he realizes that he has killed Eugie, Arnold goes into a state of complete shock. He acts automatically and continues the activity planned for the morning: picking peas. An unfortunate... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Lady Macbeth certainly has the opportunity to kill Duncan when she drugs the grooms' drinks and then looks into the king's room. She says, however, that she would have killed Duncan had he not... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
One of the primary themes of the novel is exemplified in its title: the darkness of the human heart. Marlow's journey into the heart of Africa gives him the opportunity to learn much about human... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
The Thebans probably did not chase Laius' murderer because they were distracted by the lifting of the plague laid on the city of Thebes by the Sphinx. When Oedipus arrived in the city and solved... -
Answered a Question in All Quiet on the Western Front
While the young men are in the equivalent of basic training under Corporal Himmelstoss, they find him unfair and even cruel. "He is known as the toughest disciplinarian in the camp, but he pushes... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
According to the story, "...she...had to go through a barbed-wire fence. There she had to creep and crawl, spreading her knees and stretching her fingers like a baby trying to blimb the steps"... -
Answered a Question in Antigone
The reference to Niobe underscores Antigone's pride. Niobe was a figure in Greek mythology who was the queen of Thebes. Daughter of a a goddess, Niobe objected when the citizens of Thebes were... -
Answered a Question in Fences
According to the playwright August Wilson, Fences is set in 1957, and he identifies Troy's age as 53 in the stage directions for Act 1, scene 1. Therefore, this fictional protagonist would have... -
Answered a Question in The Road
By not giving his characters names, McCarthy makes them more universal, more representative of humankind. As readers, we can identify more directly with this father and son, and we see the two as... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
From Robert Fagles' translation of The Odyssey, in Book 16, lines 19-23, Eumaeus' reunion with Telemachus is compared to a father's welcoming home his son after a ten-year absence abroad: "As a... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Odysseus has to plan carefully so that he will be able to exact his revenge against the suitors who outnumber him enormously. If his identity were known, they would quickly kill him so that one of... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
Holden doesn't approve of D.B.'s writing for Hollywood instead of being a novelist. When he calls D.B. a prostitute, he means that his brother is selling his art as a writer to the highest bidder... -
Answered a Question in Fences
Three kinds of music exist in the play: hymns, jazz, and a folk song. Rose and Gabriel rely on religious music for strength and inspiration. Rose does so more consciously because her life with Troy... -
Answered a Question in Literary Terms
Point of view is the perspective or angle from which a story is told. The narrator may be using a pronoun like "I," indicating a first-person narrator, typically a character in the story, telling... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Odysseus is at fault only to the extent that he left his men alone on the island of the Sun God while he went on the other side to pray. The entire crew is starving because the ship has been... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
The fourth apparition is a "show of eight kings." A procession of eight men, all of whom are wearing crowns and some carrying scepters, reveals that Banquo's descendants will become kings because... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
People in Shakespeare's day believed in a concept known as the Chain of Being, an idea in which all of live is connected with God at the top of the chain and nature at the bottom. The king is... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Lady Macbeth has drunk some of the drugged wine she prepared for the grooms: "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold." The success of the drink is mixed at best. She says she would have... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
In Book 9 Odysseus describes the cyclopes' lifestyle: they live in individual caves, plant no crops, have no meeting-place for council or laws, and have no ships to sail and trade with other men.... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
Twice Holden makes inquiries about where the ducks in Central Park's lagoon go in the winter (Chapter 9 and Chapter 12). Both times Holden asks cab drivers where they think the ducks go in the... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
I'm not quite sure where you're identifying the epic's climax, but here are some likely events. In Book 20 when Odysseus asks Zeus to show him a sign, "a good omen voiced by someone awake... -
Answered a Question in Beloved
That these two have selected their own names reveals their independence and their rebellion against slavery. Slaves typically were named by those who owned them, not by their own parents. Stamp... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
The most important difference between the two temptations is the difference between life and death. If Odysseus' sailors eat the lotus, they forget about home, but they live. If, on the other hand,... -
Answered a Question in Out, Out—
This poem, which is based on a real-life event, is full of striking images. The most impressive one, in my opinion, occurs early in the poem when the narrator describes "five mountain ranges one... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
The narrative mode is called a frame technique because it's a story within a story. Marqi is correct in that one of the guests on board the Nellie begins the novel; he describes the others on the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Dramatically, the play's opening with the witches is important for at least two reasons. The first is a practical one: Shakespeare has to get the attention of the groundlings, those attending the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
A war between the Scottish army and invading Norwegian troops reinforced by some Scottish rebels, led by Macdonwald and the Thane of Cawdor, is taking place. Macbeth and Banquo are the captains... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Odysseus describes his encounter with the Cyclops in Book 9 to the Phaeacians during his visit with them. He arrives on the island of Scheria in Book 7, and he stays there for several days before... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
When the Cyclops returns to his cave, he closes the cave with a huge boulder. As a result, Odysseus and his men are trapped inside, and to their horror, the Cyclops turns out to be less than... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
When Odysseus visits the Land of the Dead, Tiresias tells him he will die a "seaborne death." No further details are provided. When Odysseus returns to Ithaca and restores after taking care of the... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
Holden's notion of "catching" children playing in a field of rye before they fall off a cliff is not realistic in the least. The entire idea is completely imaginary, based on the song he hears the... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
Horatio, unlike Hamlet, is calm, level-headed, reasonable, and cautious more often than not. He initially doubts the existence of the Ghost, but once he sees it, Horatio logically decides that... -
Answered a Question in Beloved
Both Ella and Lady Jones help to gather community support for Sethe after Denver finally leaves 124 and asks for help. She goes to Lady Jones because she can remember her, and Lady Jones is...
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