
Lyn Hawks
eNotes Educator
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About
I've taught English, creative writing, interdisciplinary courses, and drama for many years, both face-to-face and online. I've published several books of lessons and I've also published fiction in literary magazines and e-zines. My answers are very Socratic: I don't tell you how to think about literature but how to find evidence and draw your own conclusions. You are not going to get my interpretation unless it aids in but helping you build your own interpretation. Look at my answers as me tutoring you and guiding you through the text you need to master. I believe you will build greater life skills by not grabbing someone's answer and copying it, but rather, by considering the questions I pose and returning to the reading to mine as much as you can out of it.
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This badge is awarded to all eNotes Educators. Only official Educators can answer students' questions on our site. Educators are teachers, professional researchers, and scholars who apply to our...
Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in The Guest
Note the excellent summary of this story's themes at the link provided below. A conflict always brings choices. What choice must Daru make? To follow the French colonial system that insists he turn... -
Answered a Question in The Guest
Besides utilizing the helpful characterizations provided at the eNotes summary, you might begin by examining the context, or setting. Leading up to this conversation, Balducci speaks of "wartime"... -
Answered a Question in A Worn Path
ENotes provides an excellent analysis of why the character is named Phoenix. The phoenix is a bird from Indian and other ancient cultures' mythology, a sacred firebird that rises from its own ashes... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Please see the answer to a similar question posted nearby, as it deals with figurative language used in the lines just below. Death is personified here. Personification... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
To say that one thing equals another, as Romeo does here: "worms that are thy chambermaids" is to create a metaphor, and even specifically, anthropomorphizing the worms (making worms like humans).... -
Answered a Question in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
To come of age means to move as a teen or child from a place of innocence into experience. The question you must ask is, In what ways is Connie innocent, and how is that innocence changed into... -
Answered a Question in A Perfect Day for Bananafish
When selecting narrative point of view, a writer has many choices: first, second, or third person, and within third person, omniscient, third-person discerning, third-person limited, and... -
Answered a Question in Everyday Use
Instances of simile, metaphor, and implied metaphor appear in "Everyday Use." Figurative language has many effects. One is to make a complex and idea (by nature abstract) spring to life in a... -
Answered a Question in Why I Live at the P.O.
To get to theme, home in on the details of narrative voice and setting to see what larger ideas rise to the surface. NARRATIVE VOICE: Sister tells the tale, and the first question one must ask of a... -
Answered a Question in The Lovely Bones
If you died at 14 and were looking down from heaven, what of your life would you remember? Would you remember the moment when you were about to experience your first kiss with someone? Why might... -
Answered a Question in Brave New World
This essay question requires that you mine the daily news and history of the last fifty years to see if social, political, and economic trends have panned out as Huxley predicted. I would recommend... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
By role, do you mean his purpose? On one level, he is simply one of the protagonists -- a key character whose choices play a major role in the conflict. By choosing love with the daughter of his... -
Answered a Question in Harlem
You can break the poem down line by line and see how characters and events play out just like the poem. Examine each key verb in the poem for its connotations, and you will find powerful parallels... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
One question you may want to address right away is, do you mean the feelings in that scene, or their feelings overall in acts 3 and 4? Act 4, scene 4, should not be the only measure of the... -
Answered a Question in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Satire's mission is to expose vice and folly in both individuals and institutions (religious, political, social, etc.). Satire uses irony, hyperbole, and incongruity as tactics to expose... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Let's break down the text to examine each reference in Act 2, scene 3. First of all, if you knock at the gate of hell, we can pretty much assume your character has been sinful, so, the... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Deej, I would add to Ms. Charleston-Yawp's excellent and thorough exposition by encouraging you to also look at Act 2, scene 4 and his reference to the "blind bow-boy." Mercutio's... -
Answered a Question in A Good Man Is Hard to Find
I would agree that the grandmother is an instigator -- catalyst -- of key actions, as listed in Amy's post. I would also take the question a step further. Are we asking, Who is to blame in terms of... -
Answered a Question in Araby
Any physical item can serve as a symbol in a great literary work, since great authors choose those details that reflect and resonate with the whole of the work. So keep in mind the global question...