David Alberts, Ph.D.
eNotes Educator
Achievements
12
Educator Level
1098
Answers Posted
160
Answers Bonused
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.
Earned Badges
-
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... -
Hall of Fame
Educators can earn this badge by contributing over 1,000 answers on eNotes. -
Year One Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over one year. -
Year Two Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over two years. -
Year Three Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over three years. -
Quiz Taker
This badge is awarded when an Educator has completed 10 quizzes. -
10K Points Earner
Educators earn points for every question they answer. This Educator has earned over 10,000 points. -
25K Points Earner
Educators earn points for every question they answer. This Educator has earned over 25,000 points. -
Expert
An expert badge distinguishes Educators who demonstrate strong knowledge in a particular topic, such as Hamlet or Math. It is awarded when an Educator has posted more than 25 answers on a given topic. -
Scholar
The scholar badge recognizes Educators who are especially knowledgeable about a particular author. This badge is awarded once an Educator has posted more than 50 answers on works by a specific author. -
Literature Whiz
Bonuses are awarded when an Educator has gone above and beyond and impressed the editorial team by offering an especially lengthy, nuanced, or insightful answer. This badge is given to an Educator...
Recent Activity
-
Answered a Question in The Monkey's Paw
W. W. Jacobs uses foreshadowing in his short story "The Monkey's Paw" to give hints and clues to the reader about future events in the story. This foreshadowing creates an atmosphere of suspense... -
Answered a Question in The Monkey's Paw
In part 1 of "The Monkey's Paw," a classic "be careful what you wish for" short story written by W. W. Jacobs in 1902, Mr. White's old friend Sergeant-Major Morris has recently returned from his... -
Answered a Question in The Monkey's Paw
When Sergeant-Major Morris throws the monkey's paw into the fire in W. W. Jacobs's short story "The Monkey's Paw," he seems to do so casually, resignedly, even somewhat disdainfully: He took the... -
Answered a Question in Jane Eyre
It's never definitively said whether or not Mr. Rochester is Adèle's father. He acknowledges that it's technically possible, but he very much doubts it. He does not recognize her as his daughter,... -
Answered a Question in Jane Eyre
In Chapter 18 of Charlotte Brontë's classic novel, Jane Eyre, Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester is away from his home at Thornfield Hall, having been "summoned to Millcote on business." Among his guests... -
Answered a Question in Paradise Lost
The first lines of Book I of John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, refer to "the fruit / Of that Forbidden Tree whose mortal taste / Brought death into the World and all our woe..." Adam tells... -
Answered a Question in Paradise Lost
John Milton's ten-thousand-line epic poem in blank verse, Paradise Lost, was first published in 1667 in an edition of ten books. The poem explores Adam and Eve's temptation by Satan, and their... -
Answered a Question in The Winter's Tale
Although Hermione in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale is certainly a sympathetic victim, and what happens to her can be considered "tragic," in the modern, generalized, and overused meaning of the... -
Answered a Question in Little Women
Chapter 1 of Louisa May Alcott's semi-autobiographical novel, Little Women, opens on Christmas Eve in the early 1860s with the four March sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy, discussing their prospects... -
Answered a Question in A Christmas Carol
In stave 2 of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge travels back in time with the Ghost of Christmas Past, with whom he encounters people and places from his past. The reader is introduced to... -
Answered a Question in A Christmas Carol
When the ghost of Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge's deceased business partner, visits Scrooge in stave 1 of A Christmas Carol, Marley tells Scrooge that he "will be haunted by Three Spirits." Expect... -
Answered a Question in The Tell-Tale Heart
The May 1842 edition of Graham’s Magazine contains a review of volume 2 of Nathaniel Hawthorne's collection of short stories entitled Twice-Told Tales. The review was written by Edgar Allan Poe, in... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
Although Agatha Christie focuses primarily on the dark side of human nature in her murder-mystery novel And Then There Were None, she does take a moment now and then to provide examples of the... -
Answered a Question in The Tell-Tale Heart
"How, then, am I mad?" According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, which is a standard reference manual used to diagnose and classify mental disorders,... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
The first part of the two-part epilogue of Agatha Christie's popular murder mystery And Then There Were None, contains the deductions of Assistant Commissioner Sir Thomas Legge and Inspector Maine... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
The epilogue to Agatha Christie's classic murder-mystery novel And Then There Were None is actually in two parts. The first part of the epilogue involves an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard,... -
Answered a Question in Twelfth Night
The setting of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is the fictional country of Illyria, which corresponds with the coast of present-day Albania, located on the Balkan Peninsula, across the Adriatic... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
Hamlet's first reference to acting in Shakespeare's Hamlet occurs not long after Hamlet's first appearance in the play. In act 1, scene 2, Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, and Hamlet's mother, Gertrude,... -
Answered a Question in A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams provides a frame of reference for the age of Blanche DuBois in scene 1 of his classic American play A Streetcar Named Desire when Williams introduces Blanche's sister, Stella.... -
Answered a Question in Speech to the Virginia Convention
Patrick Henry's famous "Speech to the Virginia Convention" was delivered to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775. Among those present at the convention were Thomas Jefferson and George... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
Following is a listing of the order of deaths in Agatha Christie's murder-mystery novel And Then There Were None, with the cause of death of each character, the reason for that character's death,... -
Answered a Question in William Shakespeare
The actual Wars of the Roses were a series of civil wars between 1455 and 1485 which were fought for the throne of England by the House of York and the House of Lancaster, two competing branches of... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In act 3, scene 4 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, the ghost of Banquo—Macbeth's former friend and comrade-in-arms whom Macbeth ordered to be murdered to prevent his descendants from becoming King... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
That morning, they found the body of the butler, Rogers, in the wash-house across the yard from the mansion. He had been chopping sticks as kindling for the fire to cook breakfast. Seven little... -
Answered a Question in Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison began writing his novel Invisible Man in the summer of 1945, during the time that he was on sick leave from the United States Merchant Marine in which he had been serving in World War... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
In chapter 12 of Agatha Christie's murder mystery And Then There Were None, Miss Emily Brent is sitting at breakfast with the six survivors. Emily had cooked the eggs while Vera Claythorne did her... -
Answered a Question in History
This day is called the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day and comes safe home Will stand o’ tiptoe when this day is named And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall see this... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
Philip Lombard said: "She's not a hysterical type." Armstrong agreed. "Oh, no. Good healthy sensible girl. Just the sudden shock. It might happen to anybody." (Chapter 11) Just two days earlier,... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
In chapter 11 of Agatha Christie's classic murder-mystery novel And Then There Were None, Mr. Thomas Rogers, the butler at the "luxurious modern house" on Indian Island off the coast of Devon, is... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In act 1, scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lady Macbeth first appears in the play reading a letter from Macbeth which tells her about the prophecies of the three witches: LADY MACBETH.... -
Answered a Question in Doctor Faustus
Scene 1 of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus opens with a lengthy soliloquy by Doctor Faustus, in which he praises himself as what is now termed a... -
Answered a Question in Dante's Inferno
In 1302, Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence, the city where he was born in around 1265, by the Black Guelph government, which was headed in Florence at that time by Cante dei Gabrielli da... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
As chapter 10 of Agatha Christie's classic murder-mystery novel And Then There Were None opens, Vera Claythorne and Captain Philip Lombard are mulling over what Mr. Justice Lawrence Wargrave says... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
In episode 3 of the tragic play Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles and first performed in 429 BCE, Oedipus, King of Thebes, learns that Polybus, King of Corinth, who Oedipus believes is his father,... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
Madame Defarge, the wife of the wine-shop keeper, Monsieur Ernest Defarge, is introduced in chapter 5, "The Wine-shop," of "Book the First—Recalled to Life," of A Tale of Two Cities, a historical... -
Answered a Question in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The fictional character Sherlock Holmes can never really die, since he never truly lived. Nevertheless, this didn't stop the creator of Sherlock Holmes, medical doctor and writer Sir Arthur Conan... -
Answered a Question in The Tempest
The theme of colonial imperialism is presented most clearly in Shakespeare's The Tempest in Prospero's colonization of Caliban's island and in Prospero's relationship with Caliban himself. Prospero... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
In chapter 7 of Agatha Christie classic mystery novel And Then There Were None, Captain Philip Lombard remarks that if Mr. Owen—Ulick Norman Owen, Mr. Unknown Owen—was still on the island, it would... -
Answered a Question in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Thomas Gray may have began writing "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" as early as 1742, but scholars believes that it is more likely that the poem was written between 1745 and 1750. Gray... -
Answered a Question in Othello
Not only does Shakespeare's Othello have subtle racist undertones, but there are blatant racist overtones that are felt throughout the play as well. Significantly, Othello's name isn't spoken until... -
Answered a Question in The Tempest
William Shakespeare's The Tempest begins, appropriately, with a raging storm at sea which wrecks—or appears to wreck—a ship carrying the as yet unidentified characters of Alonso, Ferdinand, and... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio acts as a foil for Romeo. Mercutio is essentially the opposite of Romeo. Mercutio is wholly unromantic—some might even say anti-romantic—and... -
Answered a Question in Tartuffe
French playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Molière, first wrote Tartuffe in 1663–1664. This first version of the play was immediately banned by King Louis XIV in response to... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus at Colonus
Antigone and Ismene appear as children near the end of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, after Oedipus blinds himself at the sight of his dead mother, also his wife, who committed suicide. Antigone and... -
Answered a Question in Antigone
Jean Anouilh's Antigone was first performed in Paris in February of 1944 during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II. The plot of Anouilh's play is essentially the same as the ancient... -
Answered a Question in Dante's Inferno
The great legendary king and hero Ulysses (the Latin variation of the Greek "Odysseus") appears in canto 26 of Dante Alighieri's Inferno. Ulysses is being punished in the eighth bolgia (Italian for... -
Answered a Question in The Gift of the Magi
O. Henry uses a variety of literary devices throughout his classic short story "The Gift of the Magi," first published in 1905, which has been adapted into many films—as early as 1909—and into... -
Answered a Question in Doctor Faustus
When Mephistophilis first appears to Doctor Faustus in scene 3 of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, he's so hideous that Faustus demands that... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
It is Friar Laurence who first suggests that Romeo go to Mantua, after Romeo is banished from Verona by Prince Escalus for killing Tybalt in act 3, scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and... -
Answered a Question in The Merchant of Venice
When Portia, a wealthy heiress, and her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, first appear together in act 1, scene 2 of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Portia is complaining about her life....
Showing 151-200 of 843