Bridgett Sumner, M.A.
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About
Experienced high school teacher and adjunct college instructor in English and art history. I hold a B.S. in English Education from Ohio State University and a M.A. in Humanities from Hofstra University.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Robinson Crusoe
The climax in a narrative is characterized by a confrontation that becomes a turning point and enables the resolution of the conflicts that have driven the story to that point. In the case of... -
Answered a Question in The Red Convertible
In terms of geographic setting of "The Red Convertible," reservation life for Native Americans, in this case a pair of Chippewa (Ojibwe) brothers, is difficult. Their reservation life is plagued... -
Answered a Question in Songs of Innocence and of Experience
In his 1789 poem, William Blake reflects on the traditional conception of God as Creator. In the first stanza, the speaker first asks the lamb if it knows who made it, expanding the question into a... -
Answered a Question in Kate Chopin
In Kate Chopin's 1892 short story "Ripe Figs," very little is made explicit about the two characters, Babette and Maman-Nainaine. The term "Maman-Nainaine" translates to grandmother, but Chopin... -
Answered a Question in Bloodchild
Certain phrases and sentences in "Bloodchild" call to mind human beings being viewed and used as commodities; for example, in the opening, T'Gatoi was hounded on the outside. Her people wanted... -
Answered a Question in The Stranger
Because the narrator, Meursault, does not explicitly assign an ethnicity to Marie, readers must look to her name and the novel's setting for clues. The novel takes place in Algeria between the... -
Answered a Question in To Sir, with Love
The rising action portion of any work of literature is characterized by an escalation of conflict(s). In the 1959 autobiographical novel, Mr. Braithwaite, the teacher, is tested again and again by... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
The character known as Owl-Eyes has a sort of wisdom; with the glasses that he wears, he is meant to embody the metaphoric idea of correct vision as opposed to the distorted vision of most of the... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
The fact that Nathaniel Hawthorne chose to open the novel with strong imagery of a prison, a cemetery, and dour-looking citizens suggests that he wanted to paint Puritan Massachusetts as a joyless... -
Answered a Question in The Raven
In Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven," the raven that enters the speaker's room is able to speak only a single word: "nevermore." The word means "never again," or "at no time in the future." Ravens... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
To construct a five by five essay with the symbolism in The Great Gatsby as the subject, one could begin by choosing three main symbols to explore in the body paragraphs. A prominent symbol in the... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
To determine whether Hamlet is deserving of being considered among the most famous characters and whether he is emblematic of the human condition or simply annoying, readers should consider his... -
Answered a Question in Old Man at the Bridge
The animal symbolism in the story is quite prominent. The four pigeons are the most likely to survive because of their ability to fly above the fray created by mankind. It is thought that pigeons... -
Answered a Question in Shiloh
To write a character analysis of Leroy Moffitt, a useful approach might be to note what he says, what others say about him and what he does. Leroy seems to be a person who is basically good at... -
Answered a Question in Dance Hall of the Dead
In Tony Hillerman's 1973 novel, Susanne is a young White woman who is friendly with George Bowlegs, a young Navajo man who has gone missing. Susanne has adopted a hippie lifestyle and lives for a... -
Answered a Question in The Pit and the Pendulum
According to Poe's 1846 essay "The Philosophy of Composition," a work of literature must be able to be read in a single sitting and offer a "unity of effect." In many of his stories, the single... -
Answered a Question in Literature
Vernacular is defined in two important ways; it is a language or dialect spoken in a particular place or region. Also, in a literary sense, it is a choice that a writer makes in employing informal,... -
Answered a Question in The Story of an Hour
In Kate Chopin's 1894 short story, the primary relationship is analyzed through the thoughts of the protagonist, Louise Mallard. Believing that her husband has been killed in a railroad accident,... -
Answered a Question in A&P
In John Updike's 1961 short story "A&P," the author makes observations about the social changes the new decade was ushering in as well as timeless and universal insights into the teen psyche.... -
Answered a Question in To Build a Fire
It is arguable that the central idea of Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire" is that each person is ultimately susceptible to forces outside their control. London does not give the main... -
Answered a Question in To Build a Fire
Jack London chose the omniscient point of view of narration for "To Build a Fire." The narrator does not participate in events or interact with characters but is able to know the thoughts of the... -
Answered a Question in Literature
In both "The Necklace" and "The Story of an Hour," the female protagonists are unhappy with the state of their lives and their marriages. Moreover, both the husband of Madam Loisel and Louise... -
Answered a Question in The Catbird Seat
One type of humor that James Thurber uses in his 1942 short story is irony. The protagonist, Mr. Martin, contemplates his plan to "rub out" Ulgine Barrows, but he goes about it in a fair-minded... -
Answered a Question in Young Goodman Brown
Young Goodman Brown's decision to test his faith by spending a night in the forest is an unusual behavior for a Puritan. The forest is thought by Puritans to be the devil's domain. Shortly after he... -
Answered a Question in Literature
Diane Cook's 2014 short story can be viewed through different literary lenses to determine its themes. The post-apocalyptic setting can suggest the naturalistic view that nature will always exert... -
Answered a Question in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Naturalism, a type of literary realism, communicates the idea that there are forces that work against human beings. Among them is nature, as in extreme weather, for example. Other forces that work... -
Answered a Question in To Build a Fire
The dog is described by the narrator as "native," while the man is "a newcomer in the land." Because the dog has lived its life in the area and understands the danger of the extreme cold, it is... -
Answered a Question in Henry Taylor
"After a Movie" is a poem that seeks to capture the thoughts and emotions that sometimes accompany a person as they emerge from the experience of suspending their disbelief in an absorbing film. At... -
Answered a Question in The Metamorphosis
In the Samsa household, it seems that Gregor is treated by his family only as a means to an end. Gregor is responsible for paying off his parents' debts and his sister's educational costs. It is a... -
Answered a Question in Dance Hall of the Dead
When Joe Leaphorn travels to Arizona to search for George Bowlegs and encounters Susanne hitchhiking along the way, Joe notices that George may be being tracked by a man who wears moccasins. He has... -
Answered a Question in David Copperfield
Because of the complexity and scope of Dickens's bildungsroman, it is difficult to identify a single moral lesson the author worked to impart. It is the story of a boy's journey to manhood and the... -
Answered a Question in There Will Come Soft Rains
The title of Ray Bradbury's 1950 short story is an allusion to a poem with the same title written by Sara Teasdale in 1918. The theme of the two works is similar: mankind's tendency toward... -
Answered a Question in John Keats
The Romantic movement in the visual and literary arts was a reaction against Neoclassicism. The subject matter varied, but the subjects tended to be through the lens of emotion rather than... -
Answered a Question in The Story of an Hour
The opening line of the story indicates that Louise Mallard is thought to be physically and psychologically delicate; the narrator says she is "afflicted with a heart trouble." This is the implied... -
Answered a Question in Killings
Ruth knows that Mary Ann's estranged husband is a violent man and that he is jealous when Frank begins dating her. She is afraid for her son when he comes home with marks from a beating that... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
Songs that speak to a desire to escape one's current situation would be appropriate for the early chapters of the novel. One such is "We Gotta Get Outta this Place," a 1965 hit for a band named The... -
Answered a Question in Mother Tongue
The title of Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" is meant to have a few different meanings. One's mother tongue is the language that one grows up speaking; for Tan's mother, it was the Mandarin dialect... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
There are many similarities among Fitzgerald, Nick, and Gatsby. All are sons of the Midwest, and both Nick and Gatsby served in WWI, something Fitzgerald wanted to do before the Armistice ended his... -
Answered a Question in Margaret Fuller
In her 1843 extended essay Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller, a feminist and abolitionist, makes her argument that men who infringe upon the rights of slaves, Native Americans and... -
Answered a Question in The Yellow Wallpaper
In her 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses a fictional narrative to make an argument for the expansion of rights for women. The narrator is a woman who is... -
Answered a Question in Everyday Use
As a tool that writers employ as a form of figurative language, personification assigns human emotions, thoughts, actions or feelings to inanimate or nonhuman entities. Though "Everyday Use" uses... -
Answered a Question in The Horse Dealer's Daughter
Freytag's Pyramid is a tool that enables literary analysis through the structure of a work of literature. It has five parts: the exposition, the rising action, the conflict, the falling action, and... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
A primary symbol in The Scarlet Letter is the contrast between civilization, embodied by the religious community overseen by harsh theocratic society in Salem, and the wilderness, a place that... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
For the purposes of introducing the novel, "The Custom-House" offers a conceit for telling the story of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale's doomed romance. The narrator finds the embroidered... -
Answered a Question in No Exit
Garcin's exclamation that "hell is other people" is an expression of his newfound realization that his eternal existence will be the punishing state of a triangular relationship with Inèz and... -
Answered a Question in Hands
Naturalism can be thought of as a particular type of realism. Realism as a literary movement seeks to capture the lives of ordinary people, those who occupy the lower and middle classes. Because... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
At the beginning of chapter 7, Daisy flaunts her affair with Gatsby in front of Nick and Jordan; she kisses him when Tom steps out of the room momentarily. The drinking that everyone partakes in at... -
Answered a Question in The Bear
In his 1942 short story "The Bear," William Faulkner utilizes direct characterization to develop the characters. The boy at the center of the first part of the story is unnamed, but it is... -
Answered a Question in The Rockpile
In constructing his 1965 short story "The Rockpile," James Baldwin utilizes imagery, symbolism, and vernacular in the dialogue as tools to deliver themes revolving around family dynamics. Baldwin... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne had not only a philosophical interest but also a personal interest in critiquing Puritan ideology, even though The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, long after the demise of...
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