Michael Foster
eNotes Educator
Achievements
15
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608
Answers Posted
132
Answers Bonused
About
English and Social Studies at Northland Christian School. Born and raised in Kansas City, MO.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Macbeth
In the first act, the play opens with a battle with the king of Norway, who is aided by the Scottish Thane of Cawdor. This is the highest form of treason, with Cawdor’s disloyalty to his king,... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
In Chapter 3, Victor Frankenstein has reached young adulthood and is ready to leave for the university. Before he leaves, however, his mother dies. This loss sets him on the path to questioning the... -
Answered a Question in The Pearl
The community in which Kino and his family live is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. The priest is extremely influential in the affairs of the town. Kino and Juana are firm believers in the... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
The revolutionaries and common people come from the same background—the peasant class. This was almost 95% of the French population, yet the government was controlled by the nobility and the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Macbeth’s first meeting with the witches sets him up for his “triumph” of becoming the king of Scotland. It gives him the impetus to take action, murdering Duncan, as well as Banquo. The prophecy... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Macbeth’s strengths include initiative and strength. He has courage on the battlefield, but since he wavers in his indecision on how much control he should have over his destiny in becoming king,... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
There is a brief glimpse into the human heart of Lady Macbeth. She says that she would have killed King Duncan herself if he had not looked so much like her father. By this we know that there are... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
A “disturbed mind” is portrayed frequently in the play Macbeth. It is always due to a character's guilt for either murder or participation in murder. It is shown in characters, specifically Macbeth... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
The Three Weird Sisters may be considered culpable in Duncan’s death only by giving Macbeth the prophecy. However, they did not specify how Macbeth would be king. There are many possible paths for... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Macbeth is prophesied to be king, while Banquo will be the father of kings. At the beginning of the play, these two soldiers had been friends, fighting together in the battle. With the prophecy,... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
The title of the book, Walk Two Moons, comes from the proverb that Phoebe finds on her front porch: “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.” This is the primary lesson of... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
Sal’s mother liked the myths and legends of the Native Americans, especially the creation myths that explained how things came to be. Mrs. Hiddle was proud of the Native American blood in her... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
Gram and Gramps’s marriage is based on the love and joy they feel in each other’s company. From the very first, when Gramps proposed to Gram, Gram asked about his dog and how she reacted when he... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
In Walk Two Moons, everyone is indeed minding his own agenda, though Sal finds herself wrapped up in the agendas of others, which seem to be related to hers. Sal’s agenda is dealing with the loss... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
It is not until Chapter 42 that the reader discovers the reason that Sal’s mother is not coming back is because she was killed in an accident. She was travelling by bus to Idaho to see her cousin... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
Agency is a term that describes a character’s ability to make his own choices, given the confines of his environment. In Frankenstein, the creature is initially given free agency to make choices... -
Answered a Question in A Raisin in the Sun
Walter begins to show acceptance of Beneatha’s dream of being a doctor when he is confronted with the loss of his own dream of owning his own business. Beneatha has had several “dreams” over the... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
The theme of Walk Two Moons could be described as “home and family.” Both Sal and Phoebe, whose stories become intertwined, have questions about their mothers, both of whom have left home. What... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
The author follows the steps of the Hero’s Journey (a theme developed by Joseph Campbell in his book Hero with a Thousand Faces) in the frame story of Salamanca Tree Hiddle’s journey from Bybanks,... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
In A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens presents three very distinct groups of characters: the good, the bad, and the comic. Each is a caricature, rather than real-life characters. As far as the first two... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In his final battle with MacDuff, Macbeth fights recklessly at first, but ends with giving in to defeat, seeing that his destiny after all is to be vanquished and killed. In the second prophecy of... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In Elizabethan England, witchcraft was taken seriously. Witches (usually women) who practiced witchcraft were seen as tools of Satan, intent on dragging human beings down into Hell for eternal... -
Answered a Question in Rifles for Watie
Prior to the Civil War (the time period of Rifles for Watie), there was frequent conflict between Kansas (where Jeff is from) and Missouri. In 1821, Missouri was admitted to the United States as a... -
Answered a Question in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
In The Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson faces many external conflicts, primarily from Zeus, who believes that he is involved with the theft of Zeus’s lightning bolt. The other gods who side with Zeus... -
Answered a Question in If—
The first stanza has a confident or grimly courageous mood. The speaker warns the young man (later addressed as “my son”) that there will come times in his life when he will be surrounded by chaos... -
Answered a Question in The Miracle Worker
The phrase “at sixes and sevens” means that everything is thrown into confusion because of Helen’s uncontrolled behavior. The phrase comes from a dice game, when everything is bet with a very high... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Darnay protects his wife Lucie not only physically but emotionally. He does not tell her his real name, but he does this to protect her from the knowledge of his family’s vicious past. He... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
Pip’s relationship with Estella begins as playmates, arranged by Miss Havisham. Pip learns eventually that Miss Havisham’s plan is to train Estella to break men’s hearts as a means of revenge for... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
In Victorian England, the role of women was a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, they were seen as “the angel in the house,” a phrase from a poem of the same name by Coventry Patmore published in... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
Mr. Stryver would not have been as successful without Sydney Carton. Primarily, Stryver does not have the eye for details that Carton does, as in his notice of his own similar appearance with that... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
Phoebe and Sal must both deal with the fact that their mothers voluntarily left their families, though for different reasons. Sal’s mother had a miscarriage and a hysterectomy, which meant she... -
Answered a Question in Journey to the Center of the Earth
The setting begins in Germany, where Professor Lidenbrock lives with his nephew, Axel. They journey to Iceland, where they have learned lies the entrance of a passage to the center of the earth.... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
The primary narrator of Walk Two Moons is Salamanca Tree Hiddle, or Sal. She tells the story in two parts. One part is of her life in Euclid, Ohio, after she and her father moved there from... -
Answered a Question in The Remains of the Day
Stevens’ ideas of dignity and greatness are connected, both qualities relying on each other, yet distinct in their presentation. Stevens discusses at length what it is that makes a great butler. He... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
The dichotomy of London and Paris is a central element of the setting of the novel. From the first paragraph, Dickens shows that the two are completely different in their rulers, people, and... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
The name of the town where Pip was born and spent his childhood and youth is not named, but it is modeled after Rochester, a large town in the county of Kent in southeastern England. Rochester,... -
Answered a Question in Richard Cory
In “Richard Cory,” the speaker describes the people’s reaction to and admiration of Cory. He is obviously of the upper class, being a “gentleman from sole to crown.” He “flutters hearts” when he... -
Answered a Question in The Miracle Worker
Anne Sullivan (the protagonist) was shaped by her childhood. Born in poverty to an Irish Catholic family, she was sent to a mental hospital and was raised among the mentally ill. With her brother... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
As in many of his novels, Charles Dickens portrays children as innocent victims of the actions of adults. This is a reflection of his continued bitterness over his being sent to work in a blacking... -
Answered a Question in A Wrinkle in Time
At school, Meg used her intellect to succeed academically, but her social skills were lacking. Intellectually, she was superior to most of her classmates, but this made her an outsider. On... -
Answered a Question in Sense and Sensibility
The terms “sense” and “sensibility” are used to describe the personalities of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, the two sisters who serve as protagonists in the novel. “Sense” refers to common sense.... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
The theme of Walk Two Moons is dealing with the loss of a loved one. In the novel, three characters lose their mothers in different ways. How they deal with that loss is dealt with by interweaving... -
Answered a Question in Walk Two Moons
Sal’s Gram and Gramps Hiddle are an unpredictable pair. They have a peculiar line of reasoning for decision-making that doesn’t always make sense to others. In Chapter 5, Sal tells about a trip to... -
Answered a Question in The Hiding Place
Corrie Ten Boom encountered hardships in her life even before she was imprisoned and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. As a woman, she had to struggle against misconceptions of her skill as a... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
The duality of Paris (the capital city of France) and London (the capital city of England), comparing and contrasting the nature of the two cities, presents a foundational theme of the novel—order... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
Contrasts are presented from the very first paragraph. Dickens gives several pairs of opposites (including “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”), showing the conflicts of the age.... -
Answered a Question in A Raisin in the Sun
Since racism is still around, the basic premise of an African-American family trying to find its place in a predominately white community would be similar to that expressed in the play. However,... -
Answered a Question in A Tale of Two Cities
Two groups are shown to use power for evil in the French Revolution as related in A Tale of Two Cities. The nobility is represented by the Marquis of Evrémonde, Charles Darnay’s uncle. His estate... -
Answered a Question in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Grover has two functions in The Lightning Thief. On the surface, he is supposed to be Percy’s guardian, protecting him from the evil that tends to be attracted to the Half-Bloods. Obviously, he is... -
Answered a Question in Ozymandias
Ozymandias is the Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, who reigned from 1279-1213 BCE. Shelley quotes Ozymandias as saying, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. / Look on my works, ye...
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