Laura Guggenheim, M.A.
eNotes Educator
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7958
Answers Posted
551
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About
High school English and Literature teacher who has also taught at the college level. I am especially interested in women's literature and feminist literary criticism.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in The Fall of the House of Usher
The unnamed narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” certainly has an extremely vivid imagination, one that could perhaps become overwhelmed by delusion. He feels an... -
Answered a Question in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Modernist literature, including poetry, tends to focus on the experience of the individual, drawing attention to individual experience—often the individual’s struggle—rather than society.... -
Answered a Question in To Build a Fire
Naturalism is a literary movement that follows, somewhat, the example set by literary Realism. Both reject the idealism of the Romantic movement. Naturalism suggests that it is really our... -
Answered a Question in The Necklace
Literary realism aims to represent reality: the mundane, everyday people, places, and events that occur in routine, daily life for the people who tend to make up the majority of the population of a... -
Answered a Question in Wilfred Owen
Both “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen address the brutality of war, the way it robs young men of their youth, vitality, and innocence, only rewarding them with... -
Answered a Question in Ray Bradbury
In both "There Will Come Soft Rains" and "The Veldt," families have built homes that are meant to cater to their every want and need, and neither home functions in the way that it was meant to do.... -
Answered a Question in Shirley Jackson
"The Possibility of Evil" and "Charles" each focuses on a character whose behavior comes as a complete and total shock to the people around them: Miss Adela Strangeworth and Laurie, respectively.... -
Answered a Question in The Rocking-Horse Winner
There are several literary devices used in "The Rocking-Horse Winner," including exposition, indirect characterization, and irony. The story begins with exposition—the revelation of background... -
Answered a Question in The Adventure of the Speckled Band
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle constructs a villainous antagonist in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" in the character of Dr. Grimseby Roylott. The antagonist of the story opposes the protagonist, and... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne uses several literary devices in The Scarlet Letter. First, setting is used to convey a great deal of information. The story takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-seventeenth... -
Answered a Question in Harrison Bergeron
There are many literary devices used in "Harrison Bergeron." The story begins with exposition—the revelation of background information that can help the reader to understand the characters,... -
Answered a Question in The Veldt
This short story by Ray Bradbury includes exposition (the revelation of background information that will help the reader to understand the story's characters, setting, and conflict) in the first,... -
Answered a Question in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
In the first stanza, Thomas Gray employs a metaphor when the speaker says that the "curfew tolls the knell of parting day" (line 1). A "knell" is a bell that rings to announce someone's death, so... -
Answered a Question in The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe certainly employs mood (the emotional response a writer attempts to elicit from a reader) right away in this short story. The speaker describes the “insufferable gloom [that] pervade[s] [his]... -
Answered a Question in Désirée's Baby
Kate Chopin makes use of irony in this tragic short story. Armand Aubigny marries Desiree Valmonde, knowing that her personal history is shrouded in mystery. She was a foundling, left in front of a... -
Answered a Question in The Doll's House
When analyzing the literary devices found in "The Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield, we might notice the visual imagery within the description of the doll house given by Mrs. Hay to the Burnell... -
Answered a Question in To Build a Fire
“To Build a Fire” makes use of mood, the emotional reaction the writer attempts to elicit in the reader, through the use of description and imagery. For example, the narrator says of the Yukon, “It... -
Answered a Question in Lamb to the Slaughter
In “Lamb to the Slaughter,” exposition is provided from the story’s opening, with a description of the Maloneys’ living room, through the moment when Patrick Maloney tells his wife, Mary, to sit... -
Answered a Question in A Doll's House
Exposition is provided up until the rising action begins, and the exposition in A Doll's House includes a depiction of Nora Helmer’s relationship with her husband, Torvald, as well as her past... -
Answered a Question in The Yellow Wallpaper
At the beginning of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator explains the house in which she and her husband, who is also her doctor, are living; she talks about her “nervous condition” and the... -
Answered a Question in My Last Duchess
In “My Last Duchess,” Robert Browning employs a technique called apostrophe, in which the speaker of the poem addresses someone who does not respond to him verbally in the poem. He appears to be... -
Answered a Question in To Build a Fire
The exposition of "To Build a Fire" takes place over the first seventeen or so paragraphs, while background information is provided about the protagonist’s experience, as well as facts about the... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
From the beginning of the novel The Scarlet Letter to the end, Dimmesdale becomes a somewhat broken man. He is a minister who becomes overburdened by his guilt; he has fathered a child out of... -
Answered a Question in Raymond's Run
Squeaky realizes after her race that her brother Raymond has nothing that he can really "call his own." She has a "roomful" of awards and ribbons and medals for winning races, and she could win a... -
Answered a Question in Raymond's Run
The climax of a story is the moment of the most tension between the protagonist and the antagonist, and the antagonist in the story is Squeaky's society. It is this society that tells her that she... -
Answered a Question in Raymond's Run
Squeaky’s father is faster than she is, and he is the only person who can beat her in a footrace. She says that he can beat her to Amsterdam Avenue even if she has a substantial head start, he runs... -
Answered a Question in Raymond's Run
Squeaky, the narrator of the story, is called Mercury by the big kids in her town because she is “the swiftest thing in the neighborhood.” Her real name is Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker, and... -
Answered a Question in Raymond's Run
The antagonist in “Raymond’s Run” is society. The speaker, Raymond’s sister Hazel, is the protagonist who is essentially willing to stand up to anyone who is mean to her brother or implies that she... -
Answered a Question in Raymond's Run
The main conflict of “Raymond’s Run” is the conflict between Raymond’s sister, the story’s narrator, and society. This relatively young girl, who is called Squeaky but whose name is Hazel Elizabeth... -
Answered a Question in A Red, Red Rose
The meter of the poem is what is commonly referred to as ballad meter, where the first and third lines of each stanza are written in iambic tetrameter, and the second and fourth lines of each... -
Answered a Question in A Red, Red Rose
The speaker praises his love by calling her a “bonnie lass” and by insisting on the incredible depth and long-lasting nature of his love for her. He begins the poem by saying that his “Luve is like... -
Answered a Question in A Red, Red Rose
The speaker of the poem compares his love to a rose, perhaps, because a rose is a beautiful natural object with its own symbolism and which is frequently associated with the seasons of spring and... -
Answered a Question in A Red, Red Rose
The promise made by the lover, who is also the speaker of the poem, is that he will love his beloved until “the seas gang dry” (line 8). He claims that he will continue to love her until the very... -
Answered a Question in A Red, Red Rose
The line “My love is like a red, red rose” contains a figure of speech called a simile. A simile is a comparison of two unlike things in which one thing is said to be like or as the other thing. In... -
Answered a Question in The Crucible
In Act Four of The Crucible, Reverend Parris describes the lack of people who came to witness John Proctor’s excommunication from the church, telling Deputy Governor Danforth, “It cannot be forgot,... -
Answered a Question in A&P
“A&P” is written in the style of Realism, addressing and describing mundane, everyday-life situations and people. For example, it features people who are working at and shopping in an average,... -
Answered a Question in A&P
Yes, Sammy seems to have an epiphany right as the story is ending. He has told his manager, Lengel, that he is quitting his job at the checkout registers just in time for a particular group of... -
Answered a Question in A&P
Sammy calls the girl “Queenie” because she is clearly the leader of her little group of girls. “She was the queen,” Sammy says. “She kind of led them” around the store, showing them how to carry... -
Answered a Question in A&P
Sammy doesn’t like his job because he’s at the mercy of a lot of people who are persnickety and irritating to him. For example, when he accidentally rings up a box of crackers twice, the customer,... -
Answered a Question in A&P
The girl Sammy calls “Queenie” comes into the A&P to buy a jar of “Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream” for forty-nine cents. This particular purchase, and especially the fact that... -
Answered a Question in A&P
Sammy is motivated by a desire to do right and, to a certain extent, to seen as a hero by the girls who have been embarrassed by his manager, Lengel, for wearing bathing suits into the A&P.... -
Answered a Question in A&P
The main conflict in this story is the one between the main character, Sammy, and society, as represented, in part, by the rules and manager of the A&P, a man named Lengel. As soon as Sammy... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
The name "Phoenix" seems to symbolize Phoenix Jackson's almost magical ability to stay alive and make the incredibly difficult journey through the wilderness to the city for her grandson's... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
The purpose of Phoenix Jackson's journey is to obtain the "soothing-medicine" her grandson needs to be able to feel better. He swallowed lye, a caustic chemical substance often used for making... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
Phoenix's grandson swallowed lye several years prior to the start of the story. Lye is a caustic chemical, typically used for making household cleaning products, that can burn human tissue. As a... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
Setting generally comprises both time and place. We learn toward the end of the text that it is the Christmas season, that there are "red and green electric lights strung" all over the streets of... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
On Phoenix Jackson’s path to Natchez to collect the medicine for her grandson, her path runs up a hill. She remarks, as she approaches this hill, that when she reaches this point in the journey, it... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
Certainly, Phoenix Jackson’s poor eyesight is one indicator of her advanced age and frailty, something that should make the arduous trek into Natchez all the more challenging. She is not a young,... -
Answered a Question in The Awakening
Adèle Ratignolle's "condition" is pregnancy. The narrator says that Adèle has been married for seven years and that she has a baby approximately every two years or so; thus, she has three babies... -
Answered a Question in Ode to the West Wind
Some characteristics of Romantic poetry include a focus on the personal experiences of the individual, an emphasis on emotion and creativity, and a belief in the transformative power of nature....
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