Michael Stultz, M.A.
eNotes Educator
Achievements
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1913
Answers Posted
574
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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 Othello
In Othello Act II, scene iii, Iago uses wine and Roderigo to bait Cassio into fighting. In the end, the drunk Cassio wounds Montano, governor of the island, and loses his rank of lieutenant;... -
Answered a Question in Sonny's Blues
James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," is entitled thusly because of its musical connection to suffering. As you know, "the blues" is the forerunner of rock and roll, jazz, and R & B (rhythm... -
Answered a Question in Brave New World
In Brave New World, the villains are found by looking behind the names: Marx, Ford, Lenin, Benito Hoover, Trotsky, Watson, Malthus, and Pavlov. All of these real people are satirical targets... -
Answered a Question in Brave New World
In Chapter 16 of Brave New World, Mustapha Mond tells of a colony entirely of Alphas which obviously juxtaposes the Savage Reservation (made up of outcasts entirely). His conclusion is that... -
Answered a Question in The Grapes of Wrath
In Chapter 16 of The Grapes of Wrath, the Wilson's car breaks down again, and Tom suggests that he and Casy stay behind to fix it (it needs a bearing, which they will have to wait to buy on... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
In The Great Gatsby, Nick goes back to the Midwest because he wants no part of the consumer culture of the East. He sees the hypocrisy, carelessness, and cruelty of the uber-competitive... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
In both The Catcher in the Rye and Dead Poets Society, two boys in private schools commit suicide because of the problems of conformity and the lack of freedom. James Castle jumps out of a... -
Answered a Question in 1984
I'm not sure I've ever figured Julia out. Orwell does a masterful job of tricking us and Winston about her. Is she who she says she is? Or is she a spy for O'Brien? Does she... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
In The Great Gatsby, time is a leitmotif that runs throughout the novel. It is mainly associated with Gatsby and his quest to repeat the past and reestablish his love affair with Daisy.... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
I would say that The Old Man in the Sea is much more about struggle or the struggle WITH ambition than it is about ambition only. By saying, "Santiago struggles with ambition" makes him sound... -
Answered a Question in Othello
How hard it is to convince a rock that it is hard? Or water that it is wet? Or a green-eyed monster that it is green? Or monstrous? In Othello, Iago's plan to arouse Othello's... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In Macbeth Act II, Macbeth's aside shows that he is jealous of Malcolm and wants to "O'erleap" him in status. Macbeth wants to be next in line to be King, not fourth. Macbeth says:... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
In Frankenstein chapters 8-11, we can deduce that Victor Frankenstein studies chemistry and natural philosophy in Ingolstadt for four years with Clerval, from 1788 to 1792. Then, he... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
In Hamlet, the "to be or not to be" is not about suicide. Hamlet would not be debating suicide here. He had debated it earlier, but the Ghost has presented him with purpose now: kill... -
Answered a Question in Of Mice and Men
In Of Mice and Men, here's the social hierarchy in the novella: 1. The Boss 2. The Boss' son, Curley 3. Slim 4. The white workers: George, Candy, Lennie 5. Curley's... -
Answered a Question in Othello
In Othello Act II, scene i, Iago gives visible signs that he is both a villain and a misogynist. The only problem is that all men acted and talked this way (maybe not to their wives), so his... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
In Chapter 7 of Frankenstein, I think this is the quote you are looking for: I revolved in my mind the events which I had until now sought to forget: the whole train of my progress towards the... -
Answered a Question in Essays
Mechanics, of rubrics I've worked on and used, usually includes: grammar, formatting, and language usage. For comparison and contrast papers, specifically, it should have the language of... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In Macbeth Act I, Macbeth kills the traitor McDonwald for his King and country. He guts him from his navel to his neck, as any good thane would. He and Banquo help defeat the Irish and... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
In Hamlet Act V, I do think Fortinbras means to take Denmark. I have seen it staged as a real cannon with real troops: an invasion. Among these is Branagh's film version Hamlet, in... -
Answered a Question in Poetry
Dramatic poetry is a play that uses poetic language. The most famous writer of dramatic poetry is, of course, Shakespeare, who wrote four types: tragedy, comedy, history, and romance... -
Answered a Question in Othello
In Othello, there are 3 women and 3 men, and here's how they match up: Othello - Desdemona (upper-class); Iago - Emilia (middle-class); Cassio - Bianca (low-class). The two main women, Desdemona... -
Answered a Question in Everyday Use
Dee, at least in the story proper, is a static character: she doesn't change. Her goals are to take the Johnson family artifacts (quilt, butter churn) as museum pieces for which to brag about... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien uses the cataloguing of things to show the dualities between the physical and the emotional, the concrete and the abstract, peacetime and wartime, and the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
This is Macduff's monologue in Act IV, scene iii of Macbeth. Here's what Enotes "Text and Translation" says: O, I could cry like a woman with my eyes, And brag with my tongue! But, gentle... -
Answered a Question in The Old Man and the Sea
In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago uses direct address that functions as an apostrophe (direct address to a person or thing not present) and anthropomorphism (giving human qualities to animals).... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
In this chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is in costume: she's a ham, so she can't see or use her hands. So, Scout feels around with her feet. She pushes around on Bob's body with... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
The Odyssey begins in medias res, "in the middle of the action." Homer begins near the end and reveals much of Odysseus' adventures via flashback in order to compress time and build toward... -
Answered a Question in Othello
Othello loves not wisely and not well. In fact, I don't think he loves women at all. Rather, he loves his status as a male and Desdemona as a status symbol. So says famed author... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
I'm not sure what you mean by "kill." O'Brien doesn't use the active verb "kill." It's the passive verb phrase "was shot," "was dead," and "was shot and killed." All of it is in... -
Answered a Question in A Rose for Emily
In "A Rose for Emily," Emily cannot be convicted of either one, really. She's dead. That's the whole point of the story. The town is clueless. It's the worst piece of... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
In Act I of Hamlet, Polonius gives separate advice to his son Laertes and daughter Ophelia. His advice to his son is general, wordy, and positive ("To thine own self be true"), but his words... -
Answered a Question in Othello
In Othello Act II, Iago uses verbal irony to reveal his misogynistic attitude toward women: Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors, Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your kitchens,... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
Remember, one question per day. I'll answer the first here: We first the tunnel motif on pgs. 10-11 of The Things They Carried. Lt. Cross' mission is for Alpha Co. to locate and destroy... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
Both are songbirds who belong to other songbird families. Both make beautiful music and do no harm to other birds or farmers' crops. These are symbolic of the Finch family, Dolphus,... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
In the eponymous story "The Things They Carried," Martha is a girl in New Jersey who plays volleyball, goes to college, reads Virginia Woolf, and writes Lt. Jimmy Cross letters. Cross wonders... -
Answered a Question in Barn Burning
"A Rose for Emily" is a bit more experimental with POV. Faulkner uses a first person plural narrator who could be either a group of men from the town, a group of women from the town, or both.... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
In Hamlet Act IV, scene iii, the main reason that Claudius cannot take political action against Hamlet is that the people of Denmark love him. Hamlet is the first son of Denmark, a popular... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
In chapters 18-22 of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden's plummets toward self-destruction, but he wisely chooses not to suicide like James Castle. In these pivotal chapters, the book seems... -
Answered a Question in Metaphors
"Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath is a 9 x 9 poem (9 syllables; 9 lines) spoken by a pregnant speaker (hence the 9 months). The speaker uses a barrage of metaphors all of which compare a... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
In Oedipus Rex, two unresolved crimes have plagued the royal house of Thebes: incest (with the mother) and patricide (murder of the father). As such, the gods are punishing the city with a... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
Going into any reading or viewing of Oedipus Rex, the audience would know that: Oedipus has already killed his father married his mother (committed incest) fathered four children who are also his... -
Answered a Question in Oedipus Rex
Oedipus Rex is engineered for disaster. Its tragedy could not have been avoided. Any choices made by Oedipus would only have slowed down the inevitable, not prevented it. These kinds of... -
Answered a Question in A Rose for Emily
In Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Miss Emily represents the Old South: its chevalier culture in which women were to remain pure, be coy and play the role of belle debutantes. Women were... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
Death. It's enough to drive a prince crazy. In Act V, scene i of Hamlet, after the suicide of Ophelia and before the bloodbath in the final scene, Shakespeare uses the comic relief of the... -
Answered a Question in Romeo and Juliet
You're right to say he's rebellious. But, I don't think he's religious. In Romeo and Juliet, and all of his plays, Shakespeare avoids religious dogma. Instead, his characters are secular and... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald wanted everyone to see that there are two Americas, the idealistic America of Gatsby, and the real America of the Buchanans. Gatsby's America looks great from a distance. There's... -
Answered a Question in The Picture of Dorian Gray
As The Picture of Dorian Gray is social satire, you shouldn't put too much literal stock in anything anyone says. If you want to understand how the artist or Oscar Wilde feels about women,... -
Answered a Question in Barn Burning
In William Faulkner's "Barn Burning," the resolution is open-ended: we don't know for sure. But, I've always assumed that Abner died from being shot: ...he heard the shot and, an instant... -
Answered a Question in Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson has many personas in her poetry. Cynthia Griffin Wolff, in "The Many Voices in Dickinson's Poetry" says: One poem may be delivered in a child's Voice; another in the...
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