David Alberts, Ph.D.
eNotes Educator
Achievements
12
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1098
Answers Posted
160
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About
Educator, author, playwright, and theatre professional. Dr. Alberts has been an actor, theatre director, and producer, a high school music and drama teacher, and college theatre professor. He's a published playwright, and he's written several articles and five books on theatre-related subjects.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Macbeth
MACBETH. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. (act 5, scene 5, lines 26–28) Macbeth, written about 1605, is the last... -
Answered a Question in Diving into the Wreck
The entirety of the poem Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich is symbolic of a journey of discovery, not only of the wrecked ship at the bottom of the sea, but through the myths of the sea, the... -
Answered a Question in Othello
Expediency—the need to do something in one's best interests no matter the political, social, moral, ethical, or financial implications—is often summed up in the adage "the end justifies the means."... -
Answered a Question in The Tell-Tale Heart
In Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator explicitly states only that "I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him."... -
Answered a Question in Sonnet 116
Sonnet 116, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds," is one of the most well-known of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Sonnet 116 was published with the other sonnets in 1604, but these aren't the... -
Answered a Question in Peter Pan
Towards the end of chapter 5 of J. M. Barrie's fantasy adventure, Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, first written as a play in 1904, then as a novel, Peter and Wendy, in 1911, one of the... -
Answered a Question in A Christmas Carol
Although Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge's now-deceased former partner in the firm of Scrooge & Marley, gives Scrooge one specific warning in stave 1 of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol—“I am... -
Answered a Question in A Christmas Carol
In stave 2, "The First of Three Spirits," of Charles Dickens's classic novella A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Past guides Ebenezer Scrooge through memories of the important people in his... -
Answered a Question in Othello
In act 1, scene 3 of William Shakespeare's Othello, Iago's initial plan is to have Brabantio, Desdemona's father, denounce and disgrace Othello in front of the Duke and his council of Senators for... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
When Romeo first appears in act 1, scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, he tells his friend, Benvolio, that he's in love with a woman whose name he won't reveal. Romeo says only, "I... -
Answered a Question in The Merchant of Venice
There is one allusion to Venus in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. This occurs in act 2, scene 6, during the scene in which Shylock's daughter, Jessica, elopes with Lorenzo. At the... -
Answered a Question in The Monkey's Paw
"The Monkey's Paw," by William Wymark Jacobs (known as W. W. Jacobs) is a gothic short story first published in 1902 in a collection of short stories entitled The Lady of the Barge. There's no... -
Answered a Question in William Shakespeare
In October, 1592, a pamphlet entitled Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance (usually referred to as Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, or simply as Groatsworth of Wit) was... -
Answered a Question in The Crucible
In act 4 of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, a fictionalized dramatization of the Salem witch trials of 1692, Reverend Samuel Parris tells Deputy Governor Danforth, who was presiding over the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In contrast to Macbeth, who is almost immediately enthralled by the witches' prophecies that he will be made Thane of Cawdor and "shalt be King hereafter" (1.3.51–53), Banquo is skeptical of the... -
Answered a Question in The Tell-Tale Heart
In Edgar Allan Poe's classic short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," the old man's "vulture eye" doesn't symbolize the window of the soul of the old man whose eye it is, as might be expected, but... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
In act 1, scene 2 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo reluctantly agrees to go to the Capulet's party uninvited, and in act 1, scene 4, Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are talking in the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In the "apparition scene," act 4, scene 1, of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth goes to the witches in the heath—possibly the same heath where the witches appeared to Macbeth and Banquo in act... -
Answered a Question in The Crucible
When Mary Warren first appears in The Crucible, the stage notes indicate that she's "seventeen, a subservient, naïve girl." Mary Warren is modeled after the historical Mary Ann Warren, born in... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
From the moment that Macduff sees King Duncan's bloody body lying dead in Macbeth's castle in act 2, scene 3 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macduff suspects that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
At the end of act 3, scene 4 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, in which the ghost of the murdered Banquo appears to Macbeth at his coronation banquet, the unnerved Macbeth decides to visit the... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
The title of William Shakespeare's romantic comedy fantasy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, written in about 1595 or 1596 and first published in 1600, is derived from a pre-Christian European holiday,... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
There's a strong, unceasing undercurrent of uncertainly that begins with the very first line of Shakespeare's Hamlet and flows through the entire play. By the time Hamlet gets to his "To be or not... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
In act 1, scene 2 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Lord Capulet, Juliet's father, tells Paris, one of Juliet's suitors, that Juliet "hath not seen the change of fourteen years" (1.2.9).... -
Answered a Question in Dante's Inferno
Allusions abound in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the third part of his fourteenth-century epic poem, The Divine Comedy. In Inferno, Dante uses allusions—references to historical or cultural persons,... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
In act 4, scene 4 of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, young Fortinbras, a Norwegian prince, is crossing a plain in Denmark with a large army on the way to Poland. Fortinbras tells one of his captains... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
The "players," a traveling troupe of theatrical performers, are first mentioned by Hamlet's childhood friend, Rosencrantz, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are spying on Hamlet and trying to... -
Answered a Question in Galileo
In German playwright Bertolt Brecht's play The Life of Galileo (in later versions, simply Galileo), astronomer and professor of mathematics and physics Galileo Galilei believes that truth is a... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
After the brawl in the streets of Verona between the families of the Montagues and the Capulets that opens act 1, scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the streets are cleared by order... -
Answered a Question in The Raven
Point of view is the "eye" through which a story is told. The narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" uses the words "I," "me," and "my" throughout the poem, indicating that the poem is told... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Act 3 of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet is fraught with foreshadowing from beginning to end. The hints, clues, and implications of events that happen later in the play... -
Answered a Question in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Although much of Washington Irving's classic American short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is purely fictional, there are certain characters, locations, and incidents in the story which are... -
Answered a Question in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The anonymous chivalric poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is one of the best-known medieval Arthurian romances. King Arthur assembles the entirety of his court at Camelot for the fifteen days... -
Answered a Question in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
In Washington Irving's classic short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Brom Van Brunt, known locally as "Brom Bones" for his imposing physique and legendary strength, tells a story about the... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
In Tim O'Brien's collection of post–Vietnam War short stories, The Things They Carried, the narrator, a fictional version of the author, first mentions Linda in the fourth story of the collection,... -
Answered a Question in Moby-Dick
Although Ishmael is only a junior member of the crew of the whaling ship Pequod, his narration provides a steady and reliable frame of reference and point of view from which the reader can see,... -
Answered a Question in Literature
The character of Shelby Eatonton—married name, Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie—remains fairly consistent throughout all of the stage and screen iterations of Steel Magnolias. Shelby is the youngest woman... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
Bob "Rat" Kiley is the medic of Alpha Company, the platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War in Tim O'Brien's 1990 short story collection, The Things They Carried. The narrator—a fictional... -
Answered a Question in Night
Section 1 of Night, a book by Elie (Eliezer) Wiesel, begins in 1941, at the outset of World War II, in the Jewish ghetto in Sighet, a town in the Carpathian mountains of northern Transylvania. The... -
Answered a Question in In a Grove
In Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's intriguing "Rashōmon"-like short story, "In A Grove" (sometimes titled "In A Bamboo Grove"), the murder of samurai warrior Kanazawa no Takehiro is presented from the... -
Answered a Question in Heidi
The subject of reading first arises in Johanna Spyri's beloved children's novel Heidi in chapter 4, "In The Grandmother's Hut," when Peter visits his blind grandmother. "Good-evening, little... -
Answered a Question in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
America's first home-grown ghost story, Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is set in a part of the United States and in a time in its history that never seem to change. The location... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
From early in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia's brother, Laertes, and her father, Polonius, express concern to Ophelia about her relationship with Hamlet. The first time Ophelia appears in the play,... -
Answered a Question in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
At the opening of chapter 39, "Tom Writes Nonnamous Letters," of Mark Twain's classic American Novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn have been out all morning catching... -
Answered a Question in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
In the classic gothic short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the character of the country schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, is presented somewhat comically as tall, but exceedingly lank, with... -
Answered a Question in The Tell-Tale Heart
The unnamed first-person narrator attempts to use his moment-by-moment, step-by-step description of a murder he's committed, and his concealment of that murder, as the basis for proving his... -
Answered a Question in General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
At the time Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the General Prologue and the twenty-four stories in The Canterbury Tales, pilgrimages—journeys to sacred places undertaken as an act of religious devotion, an act... -
Answered a Question in Two Kinds
"Two Kinds" is a short story excerpted from Amy Tan's novel, The Joy Luck Club, which contains sixteen interrelated stories about four immigrant Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters.... -
Answered a Question in The Source
The Source, a historical novel by James A. Michener published in 1965, draws its narrative from the archeological excavation of an ancient fictional tell called Tell Makor, which is located in the... -
Answered a Question in There Will Come Soft Rains
Ray Bradbury's anti-war science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" was first published in Collier's magazine in May 1950. The story was published later that year in a revised version...
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