Robert Halley

"But ain't nobody gonna beat me at nuthin." With these words, Sylvia stands in defiance of everything that has happened within the story. Depending on how you look at it, this notion has various...

In "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, there are many references to religion and faith throughout the story. However, the cathedral itself is not brought up until near the end of the story. Prior to...

Montag has many qualities that make him receptive to Clarisse's influence in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. His curious nature allows him to both listen to and reflect upon what she says to him....

In many respects, Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" mirrors its Disney counterpart. The story's protagonist, a young mermaid and daughter of the Sea King, longs to become human in...

In "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, Arnold Friend's car can represent a number of things. To teenagers, cars can represent anything from maturity to freedom to...

In "A&P" by John Updike, Sammy can be described as both narcissistic and hypocritical. His attitude towards others in the store is negative - and in the case of the three young girls, rather...

There are a few ways to interpret what Miss Moore's character symbolizes in "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara. The most obvious is wisdom and knowledge, as she has been to college and takes it upon...

While there are a few similarities between "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara and "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, there are many more differences. Both pieces involve an older authority figure imparting...

To understand why Sammy—the protagonist in "A&P" by John Updike—uses these terms, one must understand his age and maturity level. Additionally, he is very self-centered, viewing others only in...

Kill Shakespeare, by Connor McCreery and Anthony Del Col, is a twelve-issue comic book series in which a host of William Shakespeare's characters—Hamlet, Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Othello, and Iago, to...

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, the author portrays the children as obnoxious in a way that fits in with the "meanness" of rest of the characters. Lack of kindness is a large...

Between pages 361-369 of Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, the main 'struggle' for power comes from Luke. Though it is reiterated through his discussion with Percy that a larger power struggle...

Anachronism occurs when events in a story are portrayed in a way that is not chronologically accurate (when the sequence of events is told out of order, for instance). Flashbacks are a perfect...

Before we get to your question about Arthur Miller's The Crucible, let us first look at the definition of your chosen term (provided here by Carson-Newman University): PATHOS (Greek, 'emotion'):...

In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, it is neither stupidity on the protagonist's part nor defect on the author's that causes Oedipus to take so long to admit guilt (by this, I assume you are speaking of...

In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the quality of the relationship between Oedipus and Jocasta is not clearly stated, in part because she is absent from most of the play. It is understood that the two of...

While you'll want to research the play further to gain a complete understanding of how "mob mentality" is used in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, there are a few sections of the play that stick out....

Though many literary elements and devices are used throughout Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, two are most prevalent. Irony is used in the sense that the protagonist, Montag, is a fireman. One would...

The external conflict in Sophocles' Antigone between the title character and her sister Ismene is pretty straightforward, but it evolves slightly by the end of the play. In the beginning Antigone...

There are many conflicts in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but there are a few worth noting here. There's an external conflict in Harry's hypothesis that Draco Malfoy is...

As has been stated before, there are several reasons why directors choose to change the ending of a movie adaptation, such as artistic vision, cutting down or extending the story, production...

"The Man to Send Rain Clouds" by Leslie Marmon Silko has both external and internal conflicts. Externally, there is the clash between Native American and Catholic burial traditions. Internally,...

In Antigone by Sophocles, commitment and suffering are common threads throughout the play. Both characters mirror each other in the sense that they each embody one of those terms while exhibiting...

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success features many examples of cultural legacy from around the world. There's the section on Jewish lawyers in mid-twentieth-century New York, whose...

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is very much a story about book burning. In a sense, Captain Beatty and Granger are similar in that they both use fire to burn books. However, aside from this...

In "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara, Miss Moore — a college graduate — has moved to the area and taken it upon herself to educate a bunch of local children. On a random day during summer vacation,...

The answer to your question has not so much to do with Samson and Gregory themselves, but rather the overall relationship between the Montagues and Capulets. The main reason for the brawl in the...

While the female protagonists in John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums" and Ernest Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain" are vastly different, there are a few similarities between the two. Elisa and the...

Annabeth and Grover prove to Percy that they are his real friends many times throughout Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief. From the start of their quest to the moment when they show their support...

There are many examples of personification in Act V, Scene ii of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Before we get into a few examples, let us look at the definition of 'personification' (provided here...

In William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, what complicate's Juliet's life in act 4, scene 2, has to do with her plan to fake her own death. Yes, agreeing to marry Paris complicated her life,...

In Susan Glaspell's Trifles, Minnie Foster Wright has been arrested under suspicion of murdering her husband. A host of characters, including Mrs. Hale, arrive at the Wright residence in order to...

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is set in the unspecified, dystopian future. The issue of "when" is a debated topic, as there are a few areas in the book where it is left open for interpretation. As...

Before we are able to answer your question, let us first look at the definitions of your three key terms (provided here by the Oxford University Press). To avoid turning this into a long-winded...

The simplest answer to your question is that Anton Chekhov's "A Marriage Proposal" is written in the third-person point of view. Throughout the play, the audience sees the actions of everyone, not...

There are quite a few struggles for power in Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, from Titan to Olympian god to demigod. Kronos — the Titan father of the elder Olympian gods — wants to overthrow his...

To answer your question, one must consider the collective background of the story as well as the individual characteristics of each character. In Antigone by Sophocles, the two characters in your...

In order to understand the nature of your question about Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, let us first look at the definition of a foil: a "character that contrasts with another character, usually the...

Race—or rather, racial identity—is a common theme throughout Leslie Marmon Silko's "Yellow Woman." In order to answer your question, we must look deeper into the unnamed narrator's struggle with...

The event your question is referring to occurs in the sixth chapter of Jack London's The Call of the Wild. In order to understand John Thornton's claim, you also need to understand his faith in...

In order to understand the issue of sexism in John Updike's "A&P" you must look deeper into Sammy's descriptions of the female characters as well as the actions of every other male character....

In order to answer your question about Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, let's take a look at some basic information about the hounds as well as the moment in which Montag becomes a fugitive. As a...

Coming up with a thesis statement for John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums"—or any piece of literature—is a process in and of itself. A thesis statement is basically a position you are arguing...

There are a variety of approaches you can take when creating headlines for each scene. First, you can go with the straight-up "news" headlines, outlining the incident through factual basis (based...

Gender roles aside, another major common theme between the three stories is the correlation between death and the happiness of female characters. "Hills Like White Elephants" contains a debate...

"Parenthetical citations" is another way of saying "in-text citations," so the answer cannot be "A" (which incorrectly refers to them as "end-text citations"). Parenthetical citations are always...

While there are many examples within Toni Morrison's A Mercy, the most significant one in terms of understanding Florens and the hardship she goes through has to do with her mother's reasoning for...

In D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner," Paul and Bassett—the young protagonist and his family's gardener—have partnered together to gamble on horse racing. The partnership is equal in the...

To be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing. The significance of this quote is...

There are many times throughout Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief where Percy Jackson's friends are shown to be loyal. Initially, Percy's two friends, Grover and Annabeth, join him on his quest...