Olen Bruce, Ph.D.
eNotes Educator
Achievements
16
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4315
Answers Posted
395
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About
I am a high school teacher and have worked as a tutor for students in grades 3 through college. My particular interest is American history, and I enjoy reading current history books on subjects related to World War II, Civil Rights, the Kennedy era, women's rights, and other topics. History is a fascinating topic, and I hope to help students enjoy learning it. I've also worked with students on writing and understanding literature. I hope my explanations and answers make students' work more enjoyable.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963
Kenny is often picked on by the other kids on the bus, especially if his brother Byron isn't on the bus. One day, the driver picks up two new kids. Kenny immediately senses that a miracle is... -
Answered a Question in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Foer includes blank pages in his novel as part of the plot and to convey the themes of the book. Grandfather, for example, finds out that Grandma is visually impaired because she types an... -
Answered a Question in Wuthering Heights
According to literary critic Robert Kiely (see the link below), Wuthering Heights is a model of Romanticism. The literary elements he points out that are Romantic in nature include the characters'... -
Answered a Question in If Beale Street Could Talk
Tish refers to "crossing the Sahara" when she leaves the jail where Fonny is being held. She says that she feels that she is crossing the Sahara and that vultures are circling around her waiting... -
Answered a Question in The White Man's Burden
Perhaps some people would be inspired by this poem to go abroad to developing nations for different reasons. With the professed goal of helping people of other countries, people who read this poem... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
Mr. Wopsle says that the prodigal son in the Bible was accompanied by swine after Joe gives Pip more gravy at dinner. The adults at the dinner, including Pip's sister, constantly demean Pip. Only... -
Answered a Question in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Arnold Friend is one of the antagonists in the short story. He at first flirts with Connie, the fifteen-year-old protagonist, but then he becomes menacing and threatens her. When she leaves with... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
The structure of The Heart of Darkness replicates Marlow's journey into the heart of Africa and into the darkness of the human soul. At the beginning of the book, he is on the Thames and retells... -
Answered a Question in On Being Brought from Africa to America
Yes, I agree with Madgett that elements of Wheatley's poem question whether it's worthwhile to accept Western culture. For example, the author's race is referred to, in an alliterative line, as "a... -
Answered a Question in History
The Mandate of Heaven meant that the emperor was ruling with the blessing of the gods. This belief gave the emperor a degree of legitimacy. However, if things were going badly, such as in the case... -
Answered a Question in Coming of Age in Mississippi
Anne Moody writes about attending the March on Washington in 1963. She says that she discovers that there are "dreamers" leading the Civil Rights movement instead of real leaders, and she feels... -
Answered a Question in Guns, Germs, and Steel
Diamond defines the different shapes and sizes of the continents using the word "axis." He writes that Eurasia has a longer east–west axis, while the Americas have a longer north–south axis. This... -
Answered a Question in Rebecca
An allusion in literature is a reference to sources outside that book, including figures in history or characters in other literary works. An example of an allusion in Rebecca is in Mr. de Winter's... -
Answered a Question in A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
The moral of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" is that miracles occur in unlikely ways. Pelayo and his wife do not know what to make of the very old man, but the townspeople treat the man like... -
Answered a Question in The Devil in the White City
The Panic of 1893 was a dire economic collapse. As Larson explains, it involved the collapse of the Erie Railroad, followed by the collapse of the Northern Pacific. Several bank failures followed,... -
Answered a Question in Outliers: The Story of Success
In "The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1," Gladwell dispenses with the notion that success is always the result of innate intelligence. Instead, he states that it is a result of opportunities and... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
The exposition is the background of a literary work. In this scene, two watchmen guarding Elsinore Castle in Denmark speak about a ghost that has been appearing. After the ghost appears, the... -
Answered a Question in Fahrenheit 451
Montag discovers that his wife, Mildred, has taken too many sleeping pills, so he calls emergency medical people who come to his house to use two machines on Mildred. The first machine slides down... -
Answered a Question in Good Country People
An archetype is a typical example of something. In literature, an archetype is a symbol or type of character that occurs often. One archetype in "Good Country People" is the kind of innocent... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
The nurse's name is Angelica, most likely. Capulet says in act 4, scene 4, "Look to the baked meats, good Angelica" when the Nurse is baking and cooking for Juliet's upcoming marriage to Paris.... -
Answered a Question in The Aftermath of World War II
During World War II, A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened to lead a protest of African Americans through the streets of Washington, D.C. unless the... -
Answered a Question in A Jury of Her Peers
Mrs. Wright is a lonely woman whose marriage cut her off from the rest of the world and what she loved. Though the men investigating the case, Sheriff Peters and Mr. Hale, can't find any evidence... -
Answered a Question in Two Kinds
In "Two Kinds," the narrator's mother wants her to be a prodigy—meaning a young person who has an extraordinary talent that makes that child famous. At first, the mother thinks the narrator can... -
Answered a Question in Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth
The main idea of the book is the way racism degrades one's life by forcing one into a role rather than allowing them to express their individuality. In a system pervaded by racism, Wright is not a... -
Answered a Question in A Raisin in the Sun
Hansberry's play is a critique of traditional gender roles. Ruth, Walter's wife, shows the pressures of having lived a traditional female life. Her marriage and her need to work and raise her son... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
I would classify To Kill a Mockingbird as a coming-of-age stories. A coming-of-age story involves a young protagonist maturing and becoming aware of the realities of the adult world. In this type... -
Answered a Question in Everyday Use
In both Maupassant's "The Necklace" and Walker's "Everyday Use," objects come to stand for something larger to the characters. In "The Necklace," Mathilde believes that she must wear an expensive... -
Answered a Question in Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a novel that uses features from journalistic reporting. The narrator is trying to put together an account of what happened to Santiago Nasar 27 years after Nasar's... -
Answered a Question in The House on Mango Street
Sally is a sad character in The House on Mango Street. She is beautiful and has "eyes like Egypt," and she attracts a great deal of attention. Her father is strict and thinks that being beautiful... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee criticizes the blindness of a racist and prejudiced society in her novel. By making Scout the narrator of the story, Lee shows the injustices of the small-town Depression-era society she... -
Answered a Question in History
Social Darwinism was the idea of "survival of the fittest" applied (wrongly) to humans. In other words, this philosophy justified the idea that the rich were entitled to be at the top of the social... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Here are some quotes from Chapter 3 that deal with the American Dream: Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and... -
Answered a Question in The Remains of the Day
In the scene with the pigeon, the bird hits the glass ceiling of Darlington Hall and is then freed by the new American owner of the hall. The pigeon symbolizes the way in which Mr. Stevens, long... -
Answered a Question in A People's History of the United States
Zinn explains that indentured servants were largely forced into coming to America. Many had to escape the impoverished conditions of their countries, and others were brought to the New World, he... -
Answered a Question in The Glass Menagerie
The moral lesson of The Glass Menagerie is that one can try to escape the past and one's ties to family, but to no avail. The hold one's family and past has on one is tenacious and strong. At the... -
Answered a Question in Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution
Ji-li recalls seeing members of the "Five Black Categories" at the foot of the propaganda wall in the market each morning. These people represent the groups that Mao believes are opposed to the... -
Answered a Question in History
The Cheka, or secret police, was established in 1917 during the Civil War in Russia. An acronym for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, it was tasked... -
Answered a Question in Domestic Life in the 1950s
According to the source from the Federal Highway Administration (below), there were about 40 million registered automobiles (commercial and private) in 1950. This number grew to over 51 million by... -
Answered a Question in Aftermath and Impacts of the Civil War
Longhorn cattle were raised in Texas since the time it was part of Mexico. Once Mexico became independent in the 1830s, the cattle were left behind, and cattle raising became a way of life. During... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
As Marlow's boat is eight miles away from the inner station, he encounters a white fog. He describes the fog as "more blinding than the night," and he describes it descending around the ship as... -
Answered a Question in On the Road
One potential way to look at this book is to trace how Sal Paradise, the protagonist, changes throughout the book in response to his friendship with Dean Moriarty. You could make a chronology (or,... -
Answered a Question in The Cay
When Phillip is first stranded at sea and then on an island with Timothy after Phillip's ship explodes, Phillip is dismissive and condescending towards Timothy. Phillip has learned from his mother... -
Answered a Question in History
Reconstruction, the period in which the Confederate states were brought back into the Union, lasted until 1877. During that time, the former slaves gained, then lost, many fundamental rights. They... -
Answered a Question in John Steinbeck
Steinbeck made many contributions to American literature. Having grown up in the American West, he was familiar with its landscape and its people. Many of his books, such as Of Mice and Men,... -
Answered a Question in Three Lives
In the first part of Three Lives, Stein describes the life of Anna, a German servant who takes scrupulous care of the people she works for. During the exposition of the story, Stein explains Anna's... -
Answered a Question in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Nurse Ratched is often silent as a way to exercise power over other people on the ward. Kesey describes her silence as "quiet as an electric alarm about to go off." Her silence is not soothing but... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
This is a tricky question. In the film version of To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus is wearing a watch that he says he will pass on to Jem. When Scout asks what Atticus is going to give her, he says... -
Answered a Question in S. E. Hinton
S.E. Hinton, which stands for Susan Eloise Hinton, is still alive today (January 2019). She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1948. In high school in Tulsa, she believed that the literature for young... -
Answered a Question in History
The 1920s marked the end of Progressive presidents, as Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (all Republicans) sought what Harding called a return to "normalcy" after World War I. To this end, the... -
Answered a Question in Thank You, M'am
This excerpt foreshadows what happens later in the story; however, the events happen (almost) in the reverse of the way they appear in the excerpt. First, Ms. Jones forces the boy to wash his face,...
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