Sol Gandy
eNotes Educator
Achievements
11
Educator Level
974
Answers Posted
308
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About
I'm a retired high school English and journalism teacher who specializes in questions about literature, especially American authors including Poe, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck. I'm also well versed in modern and existential literature. I've taught Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at least 30 times so I'm somewhat of an expert on that play. My favorite writers include Shakespeare, Hemingway, Steinbeck and Virginia Woolf. My current favorite author is Hillary Mantel who has written an excellent trilogy about the reign of the English King Henry VIII and the intrigue surrounding his court. I've also gotten into fantasy in the last few years and really love Tolkien. I've recently read Patrick Rothfuss' book The Name of the Wind and am working on Martin's Song of Fire and Ice. I live on the beautiful central coast of California and when I'm not reading or writing I'm hiking with my black poodle Charley.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Night
Upon arrival at Birkenau, the reception center for Auschwitz, Elie and his father face the infamous selection conducted by the "notorious Dr. Mengele." Elie is separated from his mother and sister,... -
Answered a Question in Animal Farm
In Orwell's allegory about the rise of totalitarianism, Boxer is representative of industrial and agricultural workers who were exploited by the capitalist class. He is originally used for his... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
Curley, the boss's son, first appears on page 25 in chapter 2 of the Penguin Books release (1993 edition) of Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men. He comes into the bunk house just as George and... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Gregory and Sampson are servants from the house of Capulet. In the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet, the two are walking down a public street in Verona. While walking, they are joking about how... -
Answered a Question in The Sniper
The Republican sniper kills three of his perceived enemies during the course of Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper." It's not in the least bit surprising that the sniper kills the man in the... -
Answered a Question in The Most Dangerous Game
Rainsford's first conflict in Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game" must be considered man vs. nature. The story itself also includes a man vs. man conflict when Rainsford meets... -
Answered a Question in The Most Dangerous Game
Rainsford hears what he believes to be gunshots as he reclines aboard a yacht on his way to hunt jaguars in the jungles of South America. Just as he reflects on how genuinely "dark" the night is,... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Ibis
The first person narrator, referred to as "Brother" in James Hurst's short story "The Scarlet Ibis," recounts the "crazy" lies told by his physically challenged little brother Doodle while the two... -
Answered a Question in Soldier's Home
Like many of the American boys who went off to fight in World War I, Harold Krebs most certainly looked at the experience as an adventure with possibilities of romance and glory. These are the same... -
Answered a Question in Buried Onions
In Buried Onions, author Gary Soto sets up the ironically named Angel as the antagonist to the novel's protagonist, Eddie. Referred to as a "gangster" by Eddie, Angel lives in the neighborhood and... -
Answered a Question in History
Near the end of World War II, Russian, American, and British leaders met at the Crimean resort city of Yalta to discuss the postwar world. Photos of the conference show British Prime Minister... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare provides absolutely no physical description of Tybalt (a reference to "a very tall man" in act 2, scene 4 is not referring to Tybalt) yet his character is in full view, especially... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
One of the major themes of Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men is the importance of friendship, especially for the working men on the ranch who have mostly been marginalized and isolated. At one... -
Answered a Question in Buried Onions
There are two major conflicts which Eddie has to deal with in Gary Soto's novel Buried Onions, about life in the Mexican-American ghetto of Fresno, California. The first conflict is best labeled as... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
Not surprisingly, Curley shows no emotion, other than a cold anger toward Lennie, when his wife is discovered dead in the barn in chapter 5 of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Rather than cry or get... -
Answered a Question in Religion in the Thirteen Colonies
Calvinism asserts the absolute sovereignty of God, arguing that God has something to say about every aspect of life on earth. In other words, God determines the fate of every man and woman, and he... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Greek philosopher Aristotle defined tragedy in his work Poetics. He writes, A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in... -
Answered a Question in The Most Dangerous Game
After first meeting General Zaroff, in Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game," Rainsford believes Zaroff to be quite civilized and cosmopolitan. Later, however, he learns the... -
Answered a Question in Soldier's Home
At the beginning of World War I, combatant soldiers, steeped in nationalism, looked at war as a way to demonstrate their courage and achieve glory. Although they didn't enter the war until 1917 and... -
Answered a Question in The Necklace
Mathilde Loisel, the main character in Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace," is unhappy because she longs for quite a different life than the one she is living. Although she is a "pretty,... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Act I and Act III parallel each other in the ways they begin and end. Both acts open with violence in the streets of Verona caused by the "ancient grudge" between the Montagues and the Capulets.... -
Answered a Question in History
One of the ways southern plantation owners controlled their slave populations was through the addition of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Along with the ability to count a slave as... -
Answered a Question in Animal Farm
We might very well phrase the external conflict in Animal Farm in Marxist terms. Marx believed that the proletariat, or working class, was essential for the wealth enjoyed by the capitalist... -
Answered a Question in Night
Elie Wiesel grew up in the small Transylvanian town of Sighet which had been mostly shielded from the atrocities taking place during World War II when he and his family were forced from their home... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Friar Laurence marries Romeo and Juliet because he believes such a marriage would unite the Montague and Capulet families, who had been feuding for many years, perhaps even decades or centuries. He... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Lord Capulet displays a number of personality traits, both positive and negative, throughout Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In act 1 alone, he swings from one extreme to the next. In the opening... -
Answered a Question in Night
The thought of losing his father is of utmost importance in Elie's mind during the disastrous march from Buna to Birkenau. The prisoners are forced to essentially run 42 miles in the freezing snow,... -
Answered a Question in Night
During the forced march from Buna to Birkenau, Elie sees Rabbi Eliahou while the Jews seek shelter from the snow in an old brick factory with a collapsed roof. The rabbi was separated from his son... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
After the violence that opens act 3 which leaves both Mercutio and Tybalt dead, Romeo seeks sanctuary at Friar Laurence's cell. In act 3, scene 3, the Friar informs Romeo that the Prince has not... -
Answered a Question in History
Although they became allies during World War II out of the necessity of beating the Nazis, the United States had a healthy distrust of the Communist regime, which took over Russia (renamed the... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
Set in the bunkhouse of the ranch, chapter three of Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men includes several notable events. In the beginning, George tells Slim some of the backstory about his life... -
Answered a Question in History
Despite changing naval warfare for good with their daring raid on Pearl Harbor with aircraft-carrier-based airplanes on December 7, 1941, the Japanese admiralty, as did their American counterparts,... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
One of the major reasons for the double suicide of the title characters in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet can be traced to the sudden about-face by Lord Capulet in insisting his daughter marry... -
Answered a Question in Half a Day
Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz's short story "Half a Day" is constructed as an extended metaphor comparing school to life. As a child, the narrator enters school one morning and is seemingly let... -
Answered a Question in Night
After months of mental duress not knowing what the future holds for them, the Jews of Sighet are finally loaded onto a train headed for the infamous concentration camp at Auschwitz. The train ride... -
Answered a Question in William Shakespeare
Confidence and innovation marked the historical period when William Shakespeare toiled writing plays in London from 1592 to about 1613. This confidence and optimism in England at the time is... -
Answered a Question in George H. W. Bush's Presidency
George H.W. Bush, the forty-first president of the United States, delivered the most consequential speech of his presidency on January 16, 1991 just a few hours after the United States attacked... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
In act II, scene 1 of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the conspirators, including Brutus and Cassius, are meeting at Brutus's house the night before they will assassinate Caesar on the steps of the... -
Answered a Question in The Cold War
With the so-called "Long Telegram" from Moscow-based diplomat George Kennan to American Secretary of State James Byrnes in early 1946 and Kennan's (using the pseudonym Mr. X) article "Sources of... -
Answered a Question in Old Man at the Bridge
During the Spanish Civil War, the first person narrator of Hemingway's short story "Old Man at the Bridge" comes across an old man sitting by the road near where both Republican army and refugees,... -
Answered a Question in Night
The opening pages of Elie Wiesel's Night, a memoir of the Nazi Holocaust, make it clear that before his internment in various concentration camps during World War II, he was a devout Jew who even... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
The imagery of the stars is compared to fate or destiny throughout Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Like today, in Renaissance England stars were associated with astrology, a way to predict an... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
Curley is a classic antagonist to the protagonists George and Lennie in Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men. The antagonist in a piece of fiction is a character who stands against the main... -
Answered a Question in Buried Onions
Buried Onions is Gary Soto's novel about a young man coming of age in the Mexican-American ghetto of Fresno, California. Soto introduces Eddie, the first-person protagonist, who uses the imagery of... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
Chapter 2 of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men takes place at the bunkhouse of a ranch in the Salinas Valley where George and Lennie have come to work. During this chapter, the reader meets most of the... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
When Paris states his wish to marry Juliet in act 1, scene 2, Lord Capulet is at first against the idea, arguing that Juliet is simply too young. Capulet says, My child is yet a stranger in the... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
Mercutio is a casualty of the dramatic irony which runs throughout Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a... -
Answered a Question in Marriage Is a Private Affair
The primary conflicts in Chinua Achebe's short story "Marriage Is a Private Affair" deal with the wishes of the individual against the mores of the greater society. They are also generational... -
Answered a Question in Thank You, M'am
The proverb "it takes a village to raise a child" is attributed to the Igbo and Yoruba people of Nigeria. It was famously used by Hillary Clinton as the title of her book It Takes a Village: And... -
Answered a Question in The Outsiders
Ponyboy and Johnny spend five days at the church. After the episode with the Socs at the fountain, which leaves Cherry Valance's boyfriend Bob Sheldon dead, Ponyboy and Johnny flee to an abandoned...
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