Valentine England
eNotes Educator
Achievements
13
Educator Level
824
Answers Posted
135
Answers Bonused
About
University-Level English Composition/Rhetoric and Poetry Instructor // B.A. in English Literature // MFA in Creative Writing, emphasis in Poetry
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Walden
Henry David Thoreau's Walden; or, Life in the Woods describes his experience of living in a cabin in the woods by Walden Pond in Massachusetts. The book details Thoreau's spiritual quest to live... -
Answered a Question in Casey at the Bat
The famous poem "Casey at the Bat" is full of figurative language, as the other educator has pointed out. Let's take a look at a few more examples: Personification is the attribution of human-like... -
Answered a Question in The Devil and Tom Walker
Tom Walker and his equally miserly wife live in a house in New England that "stood alone and had a look of starvation." This "forlorn-looking" building is surrounded by a few scrawny, sterile trees... -
Answered a Question in The Devil and Tom Walker
Like many readers, I certainly feel that Tom Walker deserved his fate in Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker." Our first introduction to Tom is brief and to the point; he is... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
In Chapter 17 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mr. Heck Tate, the town sheriff, takes the stand in order to testify. While being examined by the solicitor, Mr. Gilmer, Tate states that he was summoned on... -
Answered a Question in To the Ladies
In poetry, a "foot" is a measure of syllabic meter and stress that includes two syllables. Let's do as you requested and separate the feet within this excerpt from the poem with bold vertical... -
Answered a Question in The Merchant of Venice
Shylock hates Antonio for two main reasons. First and foremost, Shylock is Jewish, while Antonio is Christian. Their differences in faith create a rift between the two, which is furthered by the... -
Answered a Question in The Metamorphosis
It sounds like you've been given a creative assignment as a response to reading Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis! The Metamorphosis is a novella which follows the transformation of Gregor Samsa, a... -
Answered a Question in Barbie Doll
Marge Piercey's poem "Barbie Doll" is an indictment of the socially constructed values of beauty which are forced upon women from the time that they are young. In the first stanza of the poem, we... -
Answered a Question in Literature
This is the kind of assignment that the college freshmen I teach in First-Year English Composition and Rhetoric are given three times per semester. The advice that I like to give my students is to... -
Answered a Question in History
The other educator has outlined many of the beliefs posited by conspiracy theorists about the moon landing, but there are others: Many theorists thought that the quality of the photographs taken... -
Answered a Question in Brownies
The protagonist and narrator of ZZ Packer's short story "Brownies" is Laurel, otherwise known as "Snot," an African American girl attending a summer camp for fourth graders in Atlanta called Camp... -
Answered a Question in Literature
Wolfgang Borchert's short story "The Bread" ("Das Brot") focuses on an incident in the lives of a married couple living in post-World War Two Germany and how that incident naturalistically reflects... -
Answered a Question in Nothing but the Truth: A Documentary Novel
In Avi's Nothing But the Truth, question number four on Philip's Winter Term English exam for Margaret Narwin's class is: What is the significance of Jack London's choice in making Buck, the dog... -
Answered a Question in Rules of the Game
Meimei, the protagonist of Amy Tan's short story "The Rules of the Game," lives in the Chinatown area of San Francisco, California, with her strict mother, father, and two brothers, Vincent and... -
Answered a Question in The Cask of Amontillado
"Fortunato" is an Italian derivation of the Roman proper name "Fortunatus." It refers to a Latin adjective which means "blest" or "fortunate." It is referenced in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 16:17,... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
There are several metaphors within Chapter Two of Lord of the Flies: "He was a shrimp of a boy, about six years old, and one side of his face was blotted bout by a mulberry-colored... -
Answered a Question in The Catcher in the Rye
To put it mildly, Holden Caulfield is not a fan of Pencey Prep. After being kicked out of the boarding school for failing four out of the five classes he was enrolled in and for not better applying... -
Answered a Question in The Masque of the Red Death
I agree with the other educators who have responded here: the "Red Death" operates within Poe's short story as both a metaphor for the pervading nature of death and as a reference to real epidemics... -
Answered a Question in Rules of the Game
Meimei first starts playing chess after her brother Vincent receives a used chess set (missing a black pawn and a white night) at a church Christmas party. Meimei's mother find this gift... -
Answered a Question in The Rape of the Lock
"The Rape of the Lock" was actually written in the 18th century (in March of 1714, to be more specific) by Alexander Pope. In the form of a mock heroic epic, this poem dramatizes a minor theft... -
Answered a Question in The Crucible
In Act Four of The Crucible, Proctor decides that he will falsely confess to witchcraft in order to protect the integrity of his family and to avoid being made into a martyr. However, when he is... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
Mayella Violet Ewell is called to testify in the trial of Tom Robinson in Chapter Eighteen of To Kill a Mockingbird. Mayella takes the stand and asserts that she was sitting on the front porch of... -
Answered a Question in The Crucible
Direct characterizations involve the author of a literary work telling the reader directly what a certain character is like, while indirect characterizations are gradual revelations of a... -
Answered a Question in The Most Dangerous Game
After General Zaroff's henchman, Ivan is killed by Rainsford's Ugandan knife trap, Rainsford—who is afraid that he will be attacked by Zaroff's hounds—runs to the edge of the cliff and throws... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
In Chapter Eleven of Lord of the Flies, Piggy suggests that Ralph blow the conch in order to assemble a meeting of the boys who have not defected to Jack's tribe. The tribe meets and decides that... -
Answered a Question in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
"Pede Claudo" is an abbreviated reference to the Latin phrase "pede poena claudo" which translates to "punishment comes limping." This can be attributed to Quintus Horatius Flaccus (or more simply,... -
Answered a Question in The Cherry Orchard
Arguably the most tragic element of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard is the auctioning off of the titular cherry orchard which belongs to Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya and her brother, Leonid... -
Answered a Question in The Guest
Albert Camus's "The Guest" details the story of Daru, a French-Algerian schoolteacher who is stationed in an isolated mountainous area of Algeria. After Balducci, a Corsican gendarme, arrives at... -
Answered a Question in Harrison Bergeron
In Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," "radical mediocrity" is a byproduct of the push for universal equality that has finally come to fruition in 2081. This equality—in which "Nobody was smarter... -
Answered a Question in The Veldt
Personification—or the attribution of human characteristics to non-human entities—is largely used within Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt" in order to provide a sinister tone to the events... -
Answered a Question in The Thorn Birds
Amir, the protagonist of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, is a young Pashtun boy who witnesses the beating and rape of his friend, Hassan, but makes no effort to intervene. Amir eventually leaves... -
Answered a Question in The Most Dangerous Game
"The Most Dangerous Game" follows the story of Sanger Rainsford, a man who finds himself stranded on Ship-Trap Island after falling off a yacht en route to a jaguar-hunting trip in Rio de Janeiro.... -
Answered a Question in History
The "scramble for Africa" took place for several reasons, according to Schillington: Various other countries managed to catch up to Great Britain in terms of industrialization and manufacturing... -
Answered a Question in Nothing but the Truth: A Documentary Novel
If you're looking for an audio version of Avi's Nothing But the Truth, I recommend running a search through worldcat.org (a database which searches the contents of the country's libraries) to see... -
Answered a Question in The Merchant of Venice
In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock loans Bassanio three thousand ducats without interest for a term of three months with Antonio backing Bassanio to guarantee the loan. One of the conditions of... -
Answered a Question in Film and Television
Although the title may refer to the action within the film rather euphemistically as being "mean," Mean Girls is ultimately a movie about bullying. Upon starting her first day of public high... -
Answered a Question in Lord of the Flies
In Chapter Eight of Lord of the Flies, Jack steals the conch from Piggy and blows it to call an assembly. During this meeting, he inspires fear in the other boys by telling them that there is a... -
Answered a Question in Rules of the Game
Amy Tan's short story "Rules of the Game" bears witness to the psychological growth and development of young Waverly Jong, who evolves over the course of three years from an ordinary six-year-old... -
Answered a Question in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Many traumatic events occur in the life of Arnold Spirit Jr. (or simply "Junior"), the Native American protagonist of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: Oscar,... -
Answered a Question in Greasy Lake
T. C. Boyle's short story "Greasy Lake" follows the story of a group of rebellious teenagers who spend a summer evening at the titular Greasy Lake, where they can drink, smoke, and unleash their... -
Answered a Question in The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Hannah Tupper is forced to live a life of tremendous isolation, with her cottage located at the edge of the swamp on the outskirts of town. The people of... -
Answered a Question in Frindle
Frindle would be a completely different story if told from Mrs. Granger's point of view, as we would be getting the more "truthful" angle! In the book, fifth grader Nick Allen comes under fire from... -
Answered a Question in Harrison Bergeron
Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" examines a futuristic world in which all people have been rendered equal through the use of personalized handicaps for those who excel at a... -
Answered a Question in The Gift of the Magi
Christmas Eve is so significant in O. Henry's short story "The Gift of the Magi" because it presents the opportunity for the exchange of tangible gifts, as is customary during the holiday season.... -
Answered a Question in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
There are many themes present within J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, many of which address and critique real human and social issues. One of the most prominent themes is... -
Answered a Question in Death, be not proud
"Death, be not proud" is a sonnet by the iconic English metaphysical poet John Donne. The fourteen-line poem, which is also referred to as "Holy Sonnet X,"deals with the fear of death, overcoming... -
Answered a Question in The Thorn Birds
Colleen McCullough's Thorn Birds highlights the story of the Cleary family over the course of 54 years, emphasizing the life of Meghann "Meggie" Cleary who lives at Drogheda, a sheep station in the... -
Answered a Question in And Then There Were None
In Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, eight strangers are brought to an island off the coast of Devon by a mysterious man name U. N. Own, where they are each revealed to have caused the... -
Answered a Question in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian follows the story of Arnold Spirit Jr. (referred to simply as "Junior"), a Native American teenager suffering from hydrocephalus who...
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