Julie Feng

The fact that the mixed-up names of the first generation of characters and the second generation of characters are all so similar and confusing is a deliberate literary trick of Bronte's. The...

Another way the theme of language manifests in Frankenstein is through the specific works of literature the monster uses to learn language. The three main books the monster reads are: John Milton’s...

The narrative of Romeo and Juliet is one of the most ancient human stories there is: the tale of tragic lovers. The primary source for Shakespeare's story seems to have been "Pyramus and Thisbe,"...

A salient theme in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is selfishness versus selflessness. Various characters in the novel are motivated by either. Anse Bundren is a character who is very motivated by...

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, a dominant system of exploitation prevails in a world where clones are raised for the sole value of their harvestable organs. The narrative follows...

One cannot discuss the themes of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian without discussing race and racism. When Junior attends Reardan, he encounters a lot of racism. Not only does he...

In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a Cyprian sculptor who created a statue of a woman and subsequently fell in love with it. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Pygmalion is shown as an uptight artist...

The only surviving source of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which seems to have been adapted for a court performance for King James, is centralized around the struggles of different power dynamics....

In “The Little Black Boy,” Blake addresses racism and the slave trade through his complication of the black/white binary. Through examination of the oppression, the clear divide between the...

There are many parallels between “The Little Black Boy” and “The Chimney Sweeper.” The speakers of both poems are victims of oppression who see the world from an “innocent” point of view. Both...

There are many features of William Shakespeare’s King Lear that are reminiscent of the morality play, a genre of Medieval theatre. Morality plays are allegories in which the main player meets...

Robinson Crusoe is particularly characterized as an economic man in the passage in which he charts the “Good” and “Evil” in his life. (“I now began to consider seriously my condition…on the credit...

One of the key ideas of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels concerns the conception of language, which is a fundamental aspect of human nature. It is especially clear in the fourth book, “A Voyage...

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has become a modern symbol for archetypical young love. The terms "Romeo" and "Juliet" (particularly the less common name "Romeo") have become synonymous with...

An interesting consideration is the role of time in Romeo and Juliet. The star crossed lovers' story is characterized by haste and rush. The entire play takes place over a span of about four to six...

Another important Greek idea is hubris. In our modern usage of the word, it means excessive ego or pride. In ancient Greece, it meant specifically excessive pride toward the gods. Many tragedies...

In his essay, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Louis Althusser applies his theory of ideology to the Marxist theories of the State and the conditions of production. He explains how...

The universal ideology of Blake constructs a view of human life that is even more complicated than what conventional binary thinking produces. Blake accomplishes this through his poetic...

As I Lay Dying is rife with selfish and senseless characters. However, Cash Bundren stands out as a character whose dedication, compassion, and sacrifices contrast with the rampant self-interest in...

It depends on the copy and edition of the book, and there are so many of them out there because Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird is such a popular and widely read book. Therefore, giving the page...

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, when Uncle Jack tells Scout Finch that she is "growing out of her pants," there are several layers to this comment. First of all, there is the parallel to the...

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is set in a futuristic dystopian / utopian society. Based on the evidence in the text, the place where Jonas lives seems to be a fairly small community. The community is...

In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the exact age of Romeo is never explicitly stated.  Juliet's age is 13, and she is almost about to turn 14. Based on puberty (girls hit puberty...

Elizabeth March, called "Beth," and the circumstances of her death in Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women, is based on the real life sister of the author. Louisa May Alcott's most beloved sister,...

The author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, based the character of Atticus Finch off her real life father, Amasa Coleman Lee. Like Amasa Coleman Lee, Atticus Finch is a lawyer who represented...

Cultivation of the olive is as old as the civilizations that encircle the Mediterranean Sea. Evidence that people had learned the secrets to making olives edible date from the isle of Crete in...

The pleasure/unpleasure principle, often shortened to pleasure principle, requires the psychic apparatus to automatically discharge excitations when they accumulate above a certain threshold...

O. Henry is a short story writer famous for his ironic "twists" at the end of his stories. In "Hearts and Hands," the conflict and twist revolve around two men who are handcuffed to one another on...

The entirety of the line you are referring to in Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken is "In leaves no step had trodden black."  This line is an apt and pithy description of the road the...

In Chapter 10 of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus shoots a rabid dog. The background of this incident is actually the main theme of the novel. Before a school trip, Atticus tells his two...

In Scout's first grade class at school, a conflict arises between the teacher, Miss Caroline, and one of the students, Burris Ewell. Miss Caroline spots a louse on Burris and freaks out. Another...

In all these years since Daisy and Gatsby (then James Gatz) broke up, Gatsby has been romanticizing her. He does not think of her as a human being, with individual faults and virtues, but as an...

Each caste in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is distinguished by the color of its work clothes. In order of caste from lowest to highest, Epsilons dress in black, Deltas wear khaki, Gammas...

Would you rather set off fireworks at night or in the daytime? At night, of course! That's when the beauty of the pyrotechnics can be seen clearly against the dark sky. If you were to set them off...

Verbal irony is the use of words to convey a certain meaning that is the opposite of the literal or intended meaning. It is using vocabulary to describe something or express something in a manner...

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, we learn that the titular character was born with the name "James Gatz," and known as "Jimmy Gatz" for much of his life, but changed it to Jay...

King Alcinous, along with his wife queen Arete, ruled the land of the Phaeacians. In the Odyssey, the exemplify the ultimate "good hosts." Greek culture values "xenos," which means hospitality...

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "reeling" as an adjective that means "having a feeling of being whirled about and in danger of falling down." For example, "the blood donor experienced...

The vast majority of Hamlet takes place in fictional royal castle in the city of Elsinore in the country of Denmark. The fictionalized historical location is Kronberg Castle located in the real...

The setting of Sleepy Hollow, New York, is significant because one of the story's major themes is the conflict between "country" people and "city" people. The original settlers of the Tarry Town...

This paradox is a reference to the fact that Banquo was the historical descendant of King James, who was the ruler of England at the time that William Shakespeare wrote and produced the play...

In the last scene in which Lady Macbeth appears in person, she has seemingly gone mad with guilt. It is a jarring juxtaposition between her previous state of being--unflinchingly cruel, powerful,...

The three witches (weird sisters) in Macbeth tell Banquo that although he will never be king, his "children" (i.e. his descendants) will become royalty. This is a direct reference to the belief...

Dede Mirabal's husband, Jaimito, brands his three sons with his own name. Their first names are all Jaime as well, so they have to go by their middle names--Enrique, Rafael, and David. This is a...