Donna Matsuoka
eNotes Educator
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3313
Answers Posted
2481
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About
I have a BA in English and taught at the elementary level for several years. I then left the teaching profession to raise my family, and when my children went to college, I returned with them, completing a Master's in Education. I have been writing for eNotes since 2007.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in What the Doctor Said
The title of Raymond Carver's poem, "What the Doctor Said," is deceptively simple. Taken at face value, it merely describes the content of the work, which is the doctor's delivery of bad news to... -
Answered a Question in 1984
The answer to this question lies in the dual nature of laws - on the one hand, they exist so that people will know how to behave, and on the other hand, they exist to protect people from arbitrary... -
Answered a Question in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
In Chapter 22, Tom thinks the storm is intended for him because he has a guilty conscience. It is summer, and Tom is at a bit of a loss as to what to do with himself. In addition, he is still... -
Answered a Question in Death of the Hired Man
Warren believes that "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." In contrast, Mary calls home "Something you somehow haven't to deserve." Warren looks at... -
Answered a Question in Winesburg, Ohio
Elizabeth Willard's legacy to her son George is twofold - the first is the desire to leave Winesburg in search of something better, and the second is the eight-hundred dollars she has been saving... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
Scout remembers that she saw a "row of red geraniums in the Ewell yard." These flowers, planted by Mayella, are the one bright spot in an otherwise ugly and chaotic environment, and they indicate... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
According to Jem, a "mixed child" - one who is "half white, half colored" - is "real sad" because they do not belong anywhere. Jem astutely explains, "colored folks won't have 'em because they're... -
Answered a Question in Milkweed
Uri had been a partisan, who had ultimately helped lead, or at least had been involved in, a revolt by the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto against the Nazis. The uprising, which took place in April and... -
Answered a Question in Seedfolks
The first one to communicate to someone concerning the garden is Ana. She has been watching from her window as Kim plants her seeds and tends to them. At first, Ana is suspicious, and thinks Kim is... -
Answered a Question in Seedfolks
The answers to the questions you are asking are not clearly given in the book. The author tells us that Kim is from Vietnam, but he does not tell us specifically why she and her family came to... -
Answered a Question in Seedfolks
All Amir knows about Polish people when he first comes to America is that "Polish men [are] tough steelworkers and that the women [cook] lots of cabbage." He has gotten this mental picture of the... -
Answered a Question in A Separate Peace
Gene's comment is an acknowledgement of Finny's unique capacity to create his own reality, separate from the real world. The reality Finny creates reflects the way things would be in an ideal... -
Answered a Question in William Butler Yeats
The two central themes of the poem "The Ballad of Father Gilligan" are the tremendous stresses a priest must face in Ireland during the Great Potato Famine, and the omnipresent help of a loving... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
Walton does not fulfill his promise to destroy the monster because he lacks the resolve to stand up to his men and insist that they continue in their dangerous quest. In himself, Walton would... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
Victor motivates the mutinous crew by appealing passionately to their sense of right-mindedness and fortitude. He urges them, "Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm... -
Answered a Question in 1984
This quote explains the government's power over the children in the dystopian society depicted in George Orwell's 1984. Parents have no authority over their children, who are influenced from a... -
Answered a Question in 1984
This quote describes the untimate punishment for going against the Party in the dystopian society described in George Orwell's 1984. Everything about the society is tightly controlled by the... -
Answered a Question in Hatchet
In Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, Brian's first bow nearly spells disaster for him because when he tries to test it, the bow wood explodes in his hands, sending deadly splinters and wood chips into his... -
Answered a Question in Sonnet XIX
The poet John Milton became blind later in his life, and this sonnet is one of the first that he wrote about his condition. The Biblical parable of the talents relates how a man who does not... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
After leaving Ingolstadt, the monster at first wanders aimlessly, overwhelmed by the various sensations of sight, touch, hearing, and smell which are entirely new to his experience. The light in... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
After the departure of the DeLaceys, the monster at first does not know where he is going to go, but he finally decides that he must find Victor, the man who had created him and the only one... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
When the DeLacey family moves away, the monster reacts first with despair, then with rage. His immediate reaction is to return to his "hovel" in "a state of utter and stupid despair." It is at this... -
Answered a Question in When You Reach Me
At the conclusion of the book When You Reach Me, Marcus chases Sal with the intention of apologizing for hitting him, but Sal is afraid and runs away into the street without looking. A truck... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
Victor and Clerval are both scholars, but their intellectual pursuits differ greatly. First of all, Victor is drawn towards the sciences; it is "the secrets of heaven and earth that [he] desire[s]... -
Answered a Question in The Grapes of Wrath
The theme of the turtle vignette is endurance. The turtle serves as an allegory of the experience of the Joads and others like them. It is moving along the same road as the rest of the displaced... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
The image of the folded pants symbolizes nurturing and loving care. Just as a parent might fold the pants of a child and leave it on the bed for him, ready to wear, so someone, whom the reader... -
Answered a Question in Reference
I think that the sense of what Mr. Stallone is saying is more to the effect that life itself is insane, and interspersed with only short periods of sanity. We who are living, then, struggle... -
Answered a Question in Literature
I would agree that public libraries are still very relevant, and when I was teaching, I don't know what I would have done without them. I have long been a proponent of using picture books to teach... -
Answered a Question in Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
It is actually in Chapter 3 of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH that Mrs. Frisby sets off for home and meets someone. The character she meets is a very young crow who is in a predicament... -
Answered a Question in The Cay
The fact that Phillip is initially not frightened by the war reflects his immaturity and lack of understanding about what war really is. When the nearby island of Aruba is attacked, he at first is... -
Answered a Question in The Cay
The Cay was published in 1969, during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement and one year after the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Although you do not specify... -
Answered a Question in Al Capone Does My Shirts
When Moose goes outside his family's apartment on the morning of January 9, he finds Piper stuffing extra clothes in the Flanagans' laundry bags. It is the practice on Alcatraz for the residents to... -
Answered a Question in Al Capone Does My Shirts
Annie and Jimmy each receive one dollar and six cents from the proceeds of Piper's shirt-laundering scheme. Piper herself takes one dollar and eight cents; after dividing the money three ways,... -
Answered a Question in Al Capone Does My Shirts
Moose is proud of his mother's courage and persistence in standing up to Mr. Purdy. Although she accepts that Natalie will not be allowed to stay at the Esther P. Marinoff School at the present... -
Answered a Question in After Twenty Years
Literally speaking, the policeman is commenting that Bob apparently has done well, at least financially, out West. Twenty years previously, Bob had left New York to make his fortune,... -
Answered a Question in A Separate Peace
When Gene speaks to the doctor following the surgery, the doctor tells him that Finny's leg had sustained "a messy break," and that although he will walk again, he will never be able to... -
Answered a Question in Beloved
The carnival scene appears to be a symbol of normalcy, and of family. Paul D. is in high spirits there, and his exuberance influences both Sethe and Denver; "no one, apparently, (was) able to... -
Answered a Question in Beloved
The circle and cross burnt into Sethe's mother's skin was the mark of her slavery. Like an animal, it was a sign that she was "owned," and it was symbolic of her status as a slave with no more... -
Answered a Question in Beloved
Beloved is "hungry" for a number of different things; in fact, her "hunger" is almost insatiable. In a literal sense, she craves sweets, a fact that Denver discovers early in her stay at the house.... -
Answered a Question in Beloved
Denver tends to Beloved because she is lonely. In Beloved, she is reminded of her sister, feeling as if she has "been returned to her in the flesh." Denver perceives Beloved as being needy, and... -
Answered a Question in Social Sciences
In talking about the debate on whether nature or nurture is more important in determining the differences in behavior and personality among individuals, those who would argue on the side of nature... -
Answered a Question in The Egypt Game
The tiny figure that catches April's interest the first time she goes into the professor's shop is, according to the professor, a "pre-Columbian burial figure" which was made in Mexico about two... -
Answered a Question in My Antonia
Antonia approaches the prospect of raising her child by herself with an attitude of strength and determination. Mrs. Stevens says about Antonia, "Antonia's got on fine. She'd loved (the baby) from... -
Answered a Question in The Chocolate War
Emile Janza is the quintessential bully, an "animal," depraved. He is ruthless, and has discovered that the world is "full of willing victims," having learned early in life that people generally do... -
Answered a Question in The Secret Life of Bees
When Lily sees the mother wiping her daughter's nose, the act catches her attention because it is the embodiment of the love that she seeks for herself. As a motherless child, she sorely misses the... -
Answered a Question in The Secret Life of Bees
Lily's comment about "poor news reporting" shows in a humorous way that in her childlike view of the world, the things that are happening to her personally are the most important; she still has the... -
Answered a Question in The Secret Life of Bees
Lily instinctively harbors an appreciation for the natural world, and in addition to this, it is the peace and solitude Thoreau describes in Walden Pond which appeals to her. Beneath the hand... -
Answered a Question in The Secret Life of Bees
To "cry uncle" is an idiomatic expression meaning to concede defeat. T. Ray, Lily's father, is a crude, domineering man. His wife had been killed in the midst of a violent argument with him, when... -
Answered a Question in The Egypt Game
When Elizabeth started playing the Egypt Game, she became the queen, Neferbeth. When Elizabeth had first moved into the neighborhood, the original Egypt girls, and April especially, had not wanted... -
Answered a Question in I Stand Here Ironing
People often laugh to cover their pain; laughter and tears are closely connected. The fact that many clowns paint a tear on their cheeks over their makeup hints that the clown, who acts silly and...
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