Sharon Duncan
eNotes Educator
Achievements
8
Educator Level
285
Answers Posted
102
Answers Bonused
About
I have a BA and an MA in literature and am currently pursuing my Ph.D. I have taught high school English in the past but am currently teaching Literary Analysis to college sophomores.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
Aunt Jennifer, though she is "mastered by" an abusive husband, finds an artistic outlet in her needlework. The embroidered tigers stride proudly and without fear across the screen she... -
Answered a Question in Moll Flanders
Social status in eighteenth-century England was fixed for the most part, meaning that if one were born in the gentry class or the aristocracy, they would most likely stay there. By the same token,... -
Answered a Question in Good Country People
When Mrs. Hopewell refers to others as "good country people," she means it as praise for people who are "simple" and "the salt of the earth." O'Connor uses this dialogue ironically, however,... -
Answered a Question in Hard Times
The fact that the students are referred to by numbers rather than called by their names at school reflects the school's severely utilitarian philosophy. Individuality and imagination is not valued,... -
Answered a Question in Hard Times
In Chapter V, the narrator speculates that there is indeed an "analogy between the case of the Coketown population and the case of the little Gradgrinds." Both groups live in settings that are... -
Answered a Question in Hard Times
Two primary relationships are explored in "Hard Times"--the father-daughter relationship and the husband-wife relationship. Two contrasting father-daughter relationships in the novel are between... -
Answered a Question in The Sun Also Rises
Hemingway is often considered by feminists to be a misogynistic writer. While I think this label might be a bit severe at times, in this novel Hemingway portrays his few female characters as... -
Answered a Question in My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold
Lines 3-5 are an example of anaphora, a device where sucessive phrases begin with the same or similar words: So was it when my life began, / So is it now I am a man, / So be it when I shall grow... -
Answered a Question in Wuthering Heights
In Heathcliff, Emily Bronte creates an exaggerated character prone to extremes. He is an excellent example of the archetypal "Byronic" hero, a kind of anti-hero who is isolated, arrogant,... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
It is in Chapter 4, when the boys miss a chance for rescue, that the two groups' differences emerge most definitively. Jack and his hunters chase and kill a pig, and in the process, let the signal... -
Answered a Question in A&P
Sammy has just realized that he lives in a world where heroism is often not rewarded nor even noticed. He has just quit his job in protest because the A & P's manager, Lengel, has chided three... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
In Chapter 23, Pip visits the Pockets' home with his new friend Herbert. The narrator mentions that when Mr. Pocket was young he was "not quite decided whether to mount to the Woolsack, or to roof... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Nick describes his home in Chapter 1 of the novel. It is a small home on the island of West Egg, "squeezed between" two opulent mansions, one of them Gatsby's. Nick's cottage is an "eye-sore"... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
The scaffold represents the restrictive lives of the Puritans, as Hester has to endure the "world's ignominious stare" on the scaffold at the beginning of the novel. At the end, it is rather... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
In Chapter 9, Holden informs the reader that "last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass." He goes on to admit, however,... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
In Chapter 8, Governor Bellingham and Reverend Wilson suggest that Hester may not be fit to raise Pearl. When Hester pleads with Dimmesdale to intervene, he does so and convinces the men that Pearl... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
There are several symbols that achieve a larger significance beyond the literal meaning of the text. Many of these symbols attach a moral dimension to an image or object. For example, the... -
Answered a Question in The Lottery
I would start by identifying certain themes/topics in the story that would be fruitful to write about--the tradition of violence in societies, the function of customs, etc. There is a helpful list... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
The "Beast from Air" referred to in the title of Chapter 6 is actually a dead parachutist. He was killed in an air battle above the island, and his corpse floats down to rest on a mountainside. The... -
Answered a Question in The Destructors
The Wormsley Street Gang, made up of young boys who grew up in post-Blitz London, have lived in a world full of destruction. They are so entrenched in the hardship and difficulties of post-WWII... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Nick makes the comment that there is no difference "so profound as the difference between the sick and the well." He makes this observation when he sees Wilson after he has discovered that Myrtle... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
Kurtz's report for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs is a seventeen-page treatise written in "eloquent" but "high-strung" language. It is, Marlow says, a "beautiful... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
A couple of reasons: first, there is a thick fog in which the natives could get lost. Secondly, Marlow does not see any canoes that they could use to pursue their boat. What makes the thought of... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
As the boat approaches Kurtz's station, the men see natives gathering on the banks of the river. Fearing they will attack, the manager tells Marlow that he is "authoriz[ing] him to take all... -
Answered a Question in The Joy Luck Club
The mother in this scene believes in the principles of feng shui, and she believes that a mirror at the foot of a bed will make someone's "marriage happiness bounce back and turn the opposite... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
It's not that the littluns shouldn't go near the fruit at all, but that they need to stay away from it when they go to the bathroom. Ralph reminds them that they need to use the rocks that get... -
Answered a Question in Hamlet
As Hamlet and Horatio return from England, they encounter a graveyard and a gravedigger who sings as he works. Hamlet is surprised by the gravedigger's cheerful attitude and remarks that a... -
Answered a Question in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Connie has led a fairly shallow existence prior to the appearance of Arnold Friend--a life consumed with boys, clothes, and her own looks. Because she has so little sense of who she really is,... -
Answered a Question in A Rose for Emily
Miss Emily does not actually keep the dead body of her father. It is, rather, the body of Homer Barron, the man with whom she had a romantic relationship. The narrator hints that Emily poisoned... -
Answered a Question in Hills Like White Elephants
Traditionally, a "white elephant" is a possession that, while valuable, is not wanted by its owner. Today, we see in our culture "white elephant" gift exchanges, often between people who are... -
Answered a Question in Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff is a hero in the broadest sense of the word because he is the chief character or protagonist of the novel. He is not, however, a hero in the strictly tragic sense like Hamlet or in... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
Roger's throwing rocks at Henry seems merely like a boyish game at first. He is, after all, "throwing to miss" the child. The narrator tells us that Roger does not hit Henry because around him... -
Answered a Question in Jane Eyre
These are the chapters that the young Jane spends at the Lowood Institution. During these eight years, Jane learns how to survive in spartan, even cruel conditions. She also, from her friend Helen... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
When Piggy tells Ralph this fact about himself, he goes on to explain that he was the only boy in his school that had asthma. One gets the sense that Piggy takes pride in being different. This may... -
Answered a Question in Home Burial
This poem is a dramatic dialogue that takes place between a man and a woman whose child has died. The conflict between the two characters stems from the fact that the woman cannot accept the fact... -
Answered a Question in Home Burial
In this dramatic poem, the child's grave symbolizes how a man and a woman deal differently with the tragic loss of their child. For the father, the grave is something practical, something he... -
Answered a Question in Araby
The fence physically separates the narrator and Mangan's sister, but it also symbolizes how untouchable she is emotionally. The boy exalts and worships Mangan's sister so much that she seems almost... -
Answered a Question in The Odyssey
When Odysseus encounters his mother Anticleia in the Underworld, she explains why they are not able to embrace one another: " . . . All people are like this when they are dead. The sinews no... -
Answered a Question in Frankenstein
As he tells his story to Victor, the monster admits that he liked to call the De Laceys his "protectors" even though they were unaware of his presence. He says that it was "an innocent,... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
Pip asks Wemmick for his opinion as to whether or not to help his friend Herbert get started in the business world. Wemmick's response is a cynical one: "Choose your bridge . . . and take a... -
Answered a Question in The Bluest Eye
There are many scenes and references that allude to the sexual mistreatment of little girls, a theme that will pervade the novel and come to a tragic climax when Cholly rapes his daughter Pecola.... -
Answered a Question in The Bluest Eye
The two novels you mention could not be more different in terms of style, characters, time period, setting, and cultural background. However, there is one "issue" that both novels explore--the... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
At the beginning of Chapter 28, Scout and Jem experience a "false" attack from Cecil Jacobs on the way to the pageant. Cecil's prank, along with the fact that it is Halloween night and they are... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
One powerful literary device used by Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter is its chiastic structure. A chiasmus is a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases. For example, JFK's... -
Answered a Question in The Scarlet Letter
Although Hawthorne writes about the Puritan era in a later century, his novel suggests that the hypocrisy of religious extremism transcends a particular time and place. Through his portrait of the... -
Answered a Question in My Antonia
In her characterization of Antonia, Cather rejects many traditional gender stereotypes. After her father's death, Antonia is forced to renounce most of her feminine activities and instead enter the... -
Answered a Question in My Antonia
For Cather, setting is not so much about physical locations as it is about seasons and weather--the most important and most uncontrollable factors in being a Nebraska farmer. Cather moves her... -
Answered a Question in My Antonia
Antonia has a passionate internal nature that allows her to thrive under any circumstances. Raised in poverty by weak parents, she nevertheless manages to make a way for herself throughout the... -
Answered a Question in Sula
After Plum returns from WWI, he moves back into his mother's house. After a warm welcome, the family begins to notice that Plum is stealing from them, disappearing for days at a time, and spending... -
Answered a Question in Great Expectations
In the previous chapter, Pip decides that he will return home and propose to Biddy. When he arrives, however, he learns that Joe and Biddy were married earlier that same day. The news forces Pip to...
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