Michael Stultz, M.A.
eNotes Educator
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About
~ Writer, Editor, Educator ~ Father of three ~ Cyclist
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
In Oedipus Rex, Jocasta plays the following roles: Peacemaker: she intercedes between Oedipus and Creon, trying to get the men to calm down, no doubt a testament to her mother-figure role. Foil:... -
Answered a Question in A Rose for Emily
In "A Rose for Emily," the townspeople narrate the story in the following order, beginning with her death: Miss Emily dies The aldermen visit her about her taxes. Miss Emily give painting... -
Answered a Question in The Grapes of Wrath
Ah, AP Lit! This is a free-response AP Literature prompt, circa 1996. The Grapes of Wrath--perhaps the most unusual ending of any great novel. First, there's a series of endings in the... -
Answered a Question in Things Fall Apart
In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo feels ashamed of his son Nwoye in Part I of the novel and betrayed by him in Parts II and III. In Part I, Okonkwo's greatest fear is that Nwoye will become like his... -
Answered a Question in The Road
This is a discussion question, but I'll start it. The Road is beautifully crafted. McCarthy's ability to transcend the post-apocalyptic genre with lean, tender poetry is a small miracle.... -
Answered a Question in The Stranger
In The Stranger, the relationship between Salamano and his dog is analogous to both the relationships between Mersault and his mother and between Raymond and his Arab girlfriend. The dog... -
Answered a Question in A Good Man Is Hard to Find
O'Connor is an Old Testament "hell, fire, and brimstone" comic writer who uses grotesques to violently and comically expose her luke-warm Christian characters. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In Acts I and II of Macbeth, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are integrated (share the same views) in their desire for power. Their marriage seems to be a practical means to a political end.... -
Answered a Question in Things Fall Apart
The title of Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart is taken from William Butler Yeats' poem "Second Coming." According to Enotes: The title of the novel echoes W. B. Yeats’s poem “The Second... -
Answered a Question in Things Fall Apart
In Thing Fall Apart, education and child-rearing are openly integrated into tribal life and not, like Western culture has it, private and independent institutions. A young child is primarily... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
Santiago is a Cuban fisherman older than Hemingway (age 52) when he wrote the novella. Santiago's wife has died, and he has a daughter who fears he is too old to fish or even live alone much... -
Answered a Question in The Cask of Amontillado
Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" is set during the Carnival / Mardi Gras setting, using motifs of masks and drink to juxtapose the atmosphere of merrymaking (above, in the streets) with the... -
Answered a Question in 1984
In 1984 Orwell uses symbols, motifs, imagery, and objective correlatives to amplify his themes of freedom vs. control, destruction of language, and mutability of the past. Regarding the theme of... -
Answered a Question in Things Fall Apart
In Things Fall Apart, a male member of the Igbo tribe may advance in terms of wrestlers thrown, cowries collected, wives obtained, children sired, titles garnered, heads taken in war, and yams... -
Answered a Question in Siddhartha
Having left the Semanas and his friend Govinda, Siddhartha realizes he must be in the world before he can be removed from it: to look at a beautiful woman without lowering his eyes, to shave his... -
Answered a Question in Things Fall Apart
In Things Fall Apart, the Igbo culture uses a division of labor (gender segregation), polygamy, communes, and a patriarchal hierarchy in order to sustain an agrarian economy. Survival is the... -
Answered a Question in Things Fall Apart
Overall, male against female discrimination contributes to Okonkwo's tragedy, but I don't think it contributes to the collapse of the tribe. White against black racism and Christian... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
Book VI of The Odyssey is one of the least anthologized episodes in the epic because not much happens. Book VI is a "bridge" between Odysseus being lost and found. It is a transition... -
Answered a Question in Othello
A few figures of speech could fit this famous line from Othello. Depending on the translation (I'm assuming it's accurate) and the stage action (the way the line is delivered on stage), it... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Macbeth opens with "Thunder and lightning," portents of the evil to come. The witches enter with thunder in Act I, scenes i and iii, and again in Act IV.i. Off stage, the thunder would have been... -
Answered a Question in Things Fall Apart
In Part I of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo generally protests and revolts against femininity and religion (the Oracle of the Hills and Caves governed by the priestess Agbala). Okonkwo equates... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
In Chapter 18 of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden mentions his former teacher, Mr. Antolini: Anyway, I gave old Jane a buzz again, but her phone didn't answer, so I had to hang up. Then I had... -
Answered a Question in Invisible Man
In Invisible Man, music is a recurring motif. Jazz and the blues, more specifically, relate to the writing style and mood of the novel respectively. Himself a jazz musician, Ellison has... -
Answered a Question in Othello
Obviously, Oedipus conforms more to the ideal tragic hero in that he is born into nobility: he is both prince and king of Corinth and Thebes. Othello, on the other hand, is a former slave... -
Answered a Question in Tuesdays With Morrie
If I were doing this assignment, I would focus on: 1. The death of Morrie's mother. Morrie internalizes his grief because he doesn't know how to share it with others. He is stuck in the denial... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
Hamlet deals with the concept of revenge, a pagan act that goes against the Christian morality of Prince Hamlet. But, Hamlet is ordered to kill Claudius by his father's ghost (who is stuck in... -
Answered a Question in A&P
Updike's style is derived mainly from irony and humor. The story is told from Sammy's point-of-view, so we hear his teenage vernacular and sarcasm. Clearly, Sammy sides with the girls and... -
Answered a Question in The Road
In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, the man and the boy are pilgrims carrying the fire. The family that the boy meets in the end is also made of pilgrims carrying the fire. On this... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
In Of Mice and Men, George plays the following roles: Traveling Companion, Caregiver, and Dreamkeeper for Lennie. Early in the novella, George must care for Lennie's survival and basic needs (food,... -
Answered a Question in Brave New World
In literature, the moon usually symbolizes mystery and imagination. Here's examples of the moon connected with Lenina: The moon is first mentioned early and connected with how she was sleeptaught... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
The gravediggers scene in Act V.i of Hamlet reveals the following about the Prince: it foreshadows his death. This final act begins with death and will end with every major character dead by... -
Answered a Question in Antigone
At the end of Antigone the Chorus, being all males, focuses mainly on Creon, the male tragic hero and not Antigone. Antigone's name is not uttered again after she is carried off by the... -
Answered a Question in Antigone
As is the nature of tragedy, the tragic hero Creon blames himself for causing the deaths of his son, wife, and niece. He says to the Chorus Leader: Lead me away, I pray you; a rash, foolish... -
Answered a Question in Antigone
That's a multi-part question. Please, only one question per day. But, I will try to explain these three characters' motivations. Choragos: He's the head of the Chorus, perhaps the... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
"Situations"? That's a bit nebulous, but I'll try: 1. Man vs. man: Santiago is a fisherman on a dry streak, and he's been the target of the younger fishermen. Santiago fishes in... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
In Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men, chapters 1 and 2 contrast in terms of nature (Ch. 1) vs. society (Ch. 2) and freedom (Ch. 1) vs. work (Ch. 2). The novella begins in medias res (in the... -
Answered a Question in 1984
The motif (recurring mini-theme) of the scarcity of goods is based on the real wartime efforts of the British government (and U.S., U.S.S.R., and Nazi gov'ts) to both conserve and profit from... -
Answered a Question in 1984
Here's the second stanza of the woman's song: They sye that time 'eals all things, They sye you can always forget; But the smiles an' the tears across the years They twist my... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
Holden yells, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" as he leaves Pency Prep on his journey to New York City. The phrase is a sarcastic, passive-aggressive taunt. It's a cowardly act, since no one is... -
Answered a Question in The Secret Life of Bees
In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily is a fourteen year-old narrator who frames her story in the first person. This narration is common to coming-of-age bildungsroman literature, especially... -
Answered a Question in The Secret Life of Bees
Each chapter of The Secret Life of Bees begins with an epigram from a text about bees. Before chapter 1, it reads: The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is... -
Answered a Question in A Rose for Emily
In addition to the wonderful answer above... It's Point-of-View. Faulkner is a master of the modernist stream-of-consciousness narrative shifts. In "A Rose for Emily," we have a collective... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
Hemingway's purpose is to write both a realistic and allegorical novella that mirrors his own twilight in his writing career. The novel is very realistic. Hemingway lived in Cuba and was an... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway's style is a combination of allegorical and plain/tough (journalistic). Hemingway emulates the allegorical style of Biblical fables: the story of Jonah and the Whale and Christ's... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
Two connections come to mind: one contemporary and one Biblical. Hemingway wrote the novella in the 1950s, near the end of his career. Santiago also is near the end of his career, as was Joe... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried is metafiction: a story about storytelling. So, it's more about memory and oral storytelling than it is about war. War is certainly a vivid backdrop to set the novel,... -
Answered a Question in The Guest
In Camus' short story "The Guest," Balducci is a gendarme and a member of the European colonial powers that be. He tells Daru his orders: Those are the orders. ...In wartime people do all... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
O'Brien debunks male heroism in the novel. In "On the Rainy River," he admits, "I was a coward, I went to war." He feels extreme guilt in "The Man I Killed" and "In the Field" regarding... -
Answered a Question in Essays
I think you need to be one level more specific. You're talking about Roosevelt's tone, but you've not mentioned anything that he's said. He's the President of the United States, so of course... -
Answered a Question in Everyday Use
In "Everyday Use," Dee and Maggie are foils: Dee is beautiful; Maggie is ugly. Dee is well-educated; Maggie is slow. Dee is trendy; Maggie is plain. Dee is on-the-go; Maggie is a homebody. Dee is...
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