Michael Stultz, M.A.
eNotes Educator
Achievements
16
Educator Level
1913
Answers Posted
574
Answers Bonused
About
~ Writer, Editor, Educator ~ Father of three ~ Cyclist
Earned Badges
-
eNotes Educator
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... -
Hall of Fame
Educators can earn this badge by contributing over 1,000 answers on eNotes. -
Year One Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over one year. -
Year Two Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over two years. -
Year Three Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over three years. -
Year Four Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over four years. -
Year Five Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over five years. -
Year Six Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over six years. -
Year Seven Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over seven years. -
Year Eight Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over eight years. -
Year Nine Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over nine years. -
Year Ten Badge
This badge is awarded once an Educator has been in the eNotes Educator Program for over ten years. -
10K Points Earner
Educators earn points for every question they answer. This Educator has earned over 10,000 points. -
25K Points Earner
Educators earn points for every question they answer. This Educator has earned over 25,000 points. -
50K Points Earner
Educators earn points for every question they answer. This Educator has earned over 50,000 points. -
Expert
An expert badge distinguishes Educators who demonstrate strong knowledge in a particular topic, such as Hamlet or Math. It is awarded when an Educator has posted more than 25 answers on a given topic. -
Scholar
The scholar badge recognizes Educators who are especially knowledgeable about a particular author. This badge is awarded once an Educator has posted more than 50 answers on works by a specific author. -
Literature Whiz
Bonuses are awarded when an Educator has gone above and beyond and impressed the editorial team by offering an especially lengthy, nuanced, or insightful answer. This badge is given to an Educator...
Recent Activity
-
Answered a Question in The Importance of Being Earnest
Earnest is descended from the great comic tradition. Like Shakespeare's comedies (particularly , A Midsummer Night's Dream), Earnest gives us: A struggle of old haters to overcome... -
Answered a Question in No Country for Old Men
Structure: the novel weaves three story lines: Llewellyn Moss, Anton Chigurh, and Tom Bell. The story, like The Odyssey, begins "in medias res" (in the middle), and it's all action,... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
There are no less than 10 types of humor found in the novel: anecdotes, asides, banter, anecdotes, caricatures, hyperbole, irony, jokes, parodies, practical jokes, satire, situational humor,... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Nick is Daisy's cousin, and Nick identifies with Daisy because she used to be a middle-class Midwesterner. He is fascinated with and even envious of the status and wealth she has attained.... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
Dignity is honor, respect, self-pride, and high status. Santiago retains dignity throughout the novel. He exhibits the wisdom, humility, and patience of a saint. Not only that,... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
Idealism, in general, is the pursuit of ideals unrealistically. In literature, specifically, idealism is the opposite of realism. Most of The Things They Carried is based on real life events... -
Answered a Question in 1984
At first Julia is the mysterious dark-haired girl who closely resembles his mother. He dreams of her. She is a symbol of something he can't quite put his finger on...(can you say... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
The Friar is both a holy man and a naturalist. He is an expert in plants and natural remedies. At first, he is a trusted advisor to young Romeo, a confidante. By the play's end,... -
Answered a Question in 1984
Scarcity is a form of propaganda, a way The Party gets the proles to jump on the bandwagon. It's a way to manage suffering, to dole out poverty, to build false patriotism: "The Party needs... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
I don't think either Claudius or Gertrude love each other. But, I do think they are loyal to each other in their roles (granted, their roles are adulterous, incestuous, and immoral) Claudius... -
Answered a Question in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The answer is found in the quote preceding the book: "either I'm nobody or I'm a nation." Obviously, the answer is "a nation," and we have multiple narrators--a nation, if you will--to... -
Answered a Question in History
I happen to disagree with Baldwin on this one. I think he's being verbally ironic here, using tongue-and-cheek overstatement. Gandhi was admired for his non-violence. Thoreau too.... -
Answered a Question in George Orwell
Orwell offers in 1984 a satire of communism and fascism in which he creates a dystopia where the state controls its people through telescreens, propaganda, war, and torture. Given the... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
There are three kinds of verbal irony: sarcasm, overstatement, and understatement. The Odyssey is short on sarcasm and understatement; as a work from the epic tradition with elements of... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
Frankenstein is the first science fiction novel; it both praises and denounces science and the scientist. In addition, it presages the cloning and genetic engineering realities of modern... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
Whit invites George and some of the other ranch hands to go into town to the cathouse, or brothel. George says it's better to go to the cathouse and have his fill all at once rather than be... -
Answered a Question in I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
The poem shows the duality of death, that death is most glorious and inglorious, that it is a physical means to a spiritual end, and it is associated with both Christ-like and carrion imagery.... -
Answered a Question in 1984
On pg. 16, Orwell says: Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new heart into him. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it,... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Do you mean in Macbeth's soliloquy regarding Banquo or Banquo's soliloquy regarding Macbeth? Here's Macbeth's soliloquy: To be thus is nothing; But to be safely thus.--Our fears in Banquo Stick... -
Answered a Question in The Cask of Amontillado
Fortunato is intoxicated and has a bad cough. Going down into the catacombs is dangerous to his health. Naively, he proceeds despite Montressor's obvious faux warnings: The wine... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
There are many narrators (inner and outer) in the novel. The first narrator is Walton. He writes letters to Saville. Walton, then, is the outside narrator. You may say that... -
Answered a Question in Trifles
Mrs. Hale say this toward the end of the play. Here's the surrounding conversation: MRS. PETERS. I know what stillness is. (Pulling herself back). The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale.... -
Answered a Question in The Taming of the Shrew
It is difficult for modern Americans to understand the institution of marriage in Elizabethan times. First, Americans are romantic when it comes to love. We believe couples are fated to... -
Answered a Question in Stephen King
In the film script: Andy wrestles the phonograph player onto the guards' desk, sweeping things onto the floor in his haste. He plugs the machine in. A red light warms up. The platter starts... -
Answered a Question in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
All the characters in the novel are like comic book characters: they have mental and physical powers that both make them great and curse them at the same time. This is also the recipe for a tragic... -
Answered a Question in The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a kind of morality tale, in that Basil represents God the Creator of Art. Dorian, or his portrait at least, represents Adam. Lord Henry represents Satan,... -
Answered a Question in Othello
Men. And their reputations. The culture of honor. You cannot blame Iago solely. Elizabethan England and Italy were patriarchal cultures of honor, where the male name and reputation were... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
As with Derek Walcott's poem, "The Sea is History," the sea tells its own tales. Those who venture on it do so on its terms, not man's. The sea is timeless, eternal, has no history.... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Odysseus is losing control of his men. His men make four major mistakes in this book: 1) they open the bag of wind from Aeolus; 2) they are nearly eaten by cannibals; 3) they are turned into... -
Answered a Question in The Road
In addition to the previous post, it is the son's rebellion against the father's paranoid, overprotective parenting that is the turning point in the novel which leads the son to salvation in the... -
Answered a Question in Othello
I respectfully disagree with the previous poster. Jealousy is present before and during the play. We don't see the wedding. We only hear the jealous conversations outside it.... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could... -
Answered a Question in The Cask of Amontillado
It's Montressor (the narrator and protagonist) vs. Fortunato (the victim and antagonist). The problem is...we don't know what Fortunato has done, if anything, to initiate the conflict.... -
Answered a Question in The Plague
Dr. Bernard Rieux, the unnamed narrator of the novel, begins his story some time in the 1940s in the city of Oran, Algeria. The French port on the Mediterranean is a mix of white, brown, and... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Odysseus' good judgement in Book X is that he listens to the gods. Both Aeolus, the god of wind, and Hermes, the messenger of the gods, try to help Odysseus in his journey home, and Odysseus... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
The supernatural can be seen as supernatural if the audience/reader believes in supernatural (i.e., those who believed in witchcraft and the occult at the time). If the audience reader... -
Answered a Question in Everyday Use
Mrs. Johnson wants Dee to be the next matriarch in the family. She wants her to be like Big Dee, Grandma Dee, like herself--strong-willed, self-sufficient. Maggie, after the house fire,... -
Answered a Question in Derek Walcott
Walcott says “The Muse of History” is the “medusa of the New World” and that writers who attempt to redress historical (namely white European) wrongs are being conveniently selective with their... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
I don't know if he used sonnets in the play at all, but he wrote sonnets alongside the play, to parallel and give voice to Hamlet's letters to Ophelia known as the "Ophelia Sonnets": Check out this... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
Hemingways writes, on pg. 120: Finally he put the mast down and stood up. He picked the mast up and put it on his shoulder and started up the road. He had to sit down five times before... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
A connotation is a suggestive meaning or an association of a word. Look at Daisy's quote: "All right... I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in... -
Answered a Question in The Road
There's good "fire" quotes, a symbol of hope, survival, and (ironically) the destruction that caused this post-apocalyptic world: Pg. 83: "Nothing bad is going to happen to us...because we're... -
Answered a Question in Fahrenheit 451
Montag has to memorize Ecclesiastes and Revelation because they are the most symbolic books in the Bible in relation to this novel. Ecclesiastes is symbolic because its title means "to... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
They need his strategic planning, his thirst for revenge, his patience, his ability to string his bow, and help from the god Athena to defeat the suitors. Penelope has tried to trick the... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Gatsby is a Byroic Hero, known for his personal paradoxes. Byron as you know, embodied all that was passionate. He was: •“Mad—bad—and dangerous to know” •“Think not I am what I appear”... -
Answered a Question in Literary Terms
It's known as pathetic fallacy. "The attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature; for example, angry clouds; a cruel wind." John Ruskin coined the term in... -
Answered a Question in Othello
There is very little true friendship in the play. None of the men are friends. All are too paranoid about their women and too worried about their reputations to enter into an honest... -
Answered a Question in William Shakespeare
1) The role of the supernatural is profound in Hamlet, while absent in R & J. Hamlet's Ghost gives impetus to Hamlet. His presence looms over the entire play. It wants... -
Answered a Question in Literature
Novels are the new kids on the block of literature. Two hundred and fifty years ago you wouldn't be caught dead reading one of them. Poetry was literature. Prose was for the... -
Answered a Question in My Last Duchess
I think the two terms have become conflated, which is to say they may be used interchangeably. To delineate a difference is to split hairs, I think. And it is akin to snobbery. I make no...
Showing 801-850 of 934