virginia woolf
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About
BA, MA, and PhD in English and Literary Studies. I have taught high school and college for many years
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in My Antonia
There are two introductions, one published in 1933, the other in the earlier edition, 1918. I assume you refer to the more common and recent introduction, although current editions include... -
Answered a Question in The Yellow Wallpaper
The narrator’s use of personification indicates her depressed state of mind. For example, in describing the wall paper, she says the pattern “curves for a little distance [and then] they suddenly... -
Answered a Question in Paul's Case
Paul fears his father, who shows little affection for his son. At one point Paul is afraid his father might “accost” him, and at another we see the father hold up as a model of behavior for... -
Answered a Question in Paul's Case
Paul is a very dynamic, complex character, so much so that this story is often studied from a psychoanalytical point of view in an attempt to understand this child’s problem. He neither dresses nor... -
Answered a Question in I Stand Here Ironing
Emily was born during the depression, and the mother had to leave her with neighbors when she went to work. Although she nursed her daughter, she did so according to a rigid schedule because that... -
Answered a Question in Young Goodman Brown
Hawthorne shows in this and other stories that human beings are both good and evil. About half way through "Goodman Brown," the narrator says “in truth, all through the haunted forest, there could... -
Answered a Question in Everyday Use
The tone of a story concerns the attitude of the narrator or character toward the subject matter or the attitude of the author toward the subject matter. In “Everyday Use,” we would describe tone... -
Answered a Question in A Rose for Emily
The druggist should not have sold Emily the poison, just as a bartender should not sell more liquor to a drunk man who intends to drive home. In doing that, the druggist does bear some... -
Answered a Question in Young Goodman Brown
The story demonstrates that evil is the nature of mankind in two ways: first, Brown is evil in rejecting his faith (Faith) that people can also be good; and second by the fact all people in the... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Gatsby is surprised because he does not view a woman as a full human being, which would mean encompassing her sexual as well as her maternal aspects. He sees Daisy as an ideal in terms... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Even as Tom says “I have a—almost a second sight, sometimes that tells me what to do. Maybe you don’t believe that, but science---,” Nick, and we with him, smile at (or ridicule) Tom’s ridiculous... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
This question of Daisy’s reflects back to her question in Chapter One. “What’ll we plan?” she asks; “What do people plan”? Living in the present, vacuous to a fault, she has no ideas as to... -
Answered a Question in Into the Wild
Chris’s mother says half way into the book, “I just don’t understand why he had to take those kind of chances. … I just don’t understand it at all” (132). Krakauer’s placement of the grieving... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Daisy is recounting her wedding when marrying Tom, and she is trying to think of who fainted that day for then, as at that moment, it was very hot. “Blocks Mississippi” had attended their... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
We learn early in the story that Tom is a racist. His comment “next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white” is another example of his expression of this.... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
Tom’s comment is also ironic because that is in fact what Daisy is up to: running around to meet Gatsby, who in Tom’s mind would be the “wrong kind of people” because he is a threat to Tom’s... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
In Chapter Six, Nick advises Gatsby not to ask too much of Daisy, not to ask her to repudiate her love for Tom: “You can’t repeat the past,” he says. Gatsby disagrees: “Why of course... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
The “ladder” signifies success. Even in the 1920s when Fitzgerald wrote the novel, the American Dream embodied the metaphor of a ladder, which signified possibility: success was... -
Answered a Question in The Great Gatsby
It would seem he creates a moment of absolute bliss: “Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete” (117). “Incarnation”... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
In Act 5 Scene 3, after receiving news that Cassius is dead and understanding Titinius is also dead, having killed himself, Brutus says, “O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet; / Thy spirit walks... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
Cassius sees omens that the defeat of their army is at hand: “two mighty eagles fell, and there they perched, / Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands” (5.1.88-89). In addition, it is his... -
Answered a Question in Miss Brill
Miss Brill is a very lonely woman, so lonely that “when she breathed, something light and sad–no, not sad, exactly–something gentle seemed to move in her bosom” just by putting on her fur... -
Answered a Question in Shooting an Elephant
The use of Latin signifies not only a superior education and the class that goes with that (western values vs. values of the orient, which was how Burma was referred to), but also connotes... -
Answered a Question in Shooting an Elephant
Varying the length of paragraphs, just like varying sentence length or structure, provides a way to achieve effect. A short paragraph can isolate a powerful idea for emphasis or drama, it might... -
Answered a Question in Shooting an Elephant
The first two paragraphs set the context for all that follows. They define imperialism, the narrator’s point of view in relation to it, and they also characterize the dynamics of the village where... -
Answered a Question in Shooting an Elephant
It is important to distinguish the narrative voice from the author constructing that voice. Orwell wants to show the reader the harmful effects of imperialism. Even though the narrator clearly has... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
In Act 4 Scene 3, Caesar’s ghost appears to Brutus, telling him first that he is “thy evil spirit” (325) and second that he shall see Brutus “at Philippi” (138). Brutus responds, “Why, I will... -
Answered a Question in Othello
When Iago first arouses his suspicions about Desdemona, Othello says about his wife, “But I do love thee! And when I love thee not / Chaos is come again” (3.3.91-92), foreshadowing his demise at... -
Answered a Question in The Bronze Bow
Daniel begins the story full of hatred for the Romans for what they did to his family, and has resolved to satisfy that hatred through revenge. Impressionable and lacking a father, he turns to... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
I do not think any of the characters in Act 1 show similar styles of leadership for one thrust of this introduction to the main characters is to provide an array of styles of leadership as well as... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
The rhetorical devices used in Brutus’s great speech in Act 3 and in Antony’s speech that follows it offer tricks that we find in many great political speeches. Brutus, for example, repeatedly... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
In Act 1, Scenes 1 and 2 present us with the anxiety brought about by Caesar’s return from war, killing the previous ruler, Pompey. The mood is frenetic. It is noisy. The people in the streets are... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
Brutus does not want to swear an oath because this would lessen the nobility of their endeavor. As honorable and honest men—good Romans all, they are pledging themselves to commit an... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
It is Cassius more than Casca who wants Brutus to participate in the conspiracy to kill Caesar. Furthermore, in Act 1 Scene 3, Cassius reveals that his real motive in wanting to murder Caesar... -
Answered a Question in In the Time of the Butterflies
In “The Postscript” Alvarez explains that she wants us to see the Mirabel sisters as ordinary women who acted with courage to do the right thing. She says that “these sisters, who fought one... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
This quote pertains to the theme that appearances do not necessarily carry the truth, that they can in fact cover, or hide, the truth, or the reality of a situation. Macbeth says this to his wife... -
Answered a Question in Julius Caesar
In Act 1 Scene 2 we see Cassius manipulating Brutus. Cassius’ immediate concern is to convince Brutus to join the conspirators, and his purpose behind that is to murder Caesar because he suspects... -
Answered a Question in Jane Eyre
Your question petains to the "rhetorical" power names: the sound of a character's name or perhaps its origin or what it might allude to--all of these convey meanings that add to our... -
Answered a Question in A Jury of Her Peers
There are two interpretations that respond to your question. In one reading, the absent, imprisoned Mrs. Minnie Foster is the protagonist for the meaning and action revolve principally... -
Answered a Question in In the Time of the Butterflies
In “The Postscript” Alvarez explains that she wants us to see the Mirabel sisters as ordinary women who acted with courage to do the right thing. She says that “these sisters, who fought one... -
Answered a Question in Heart of Darkness
The story has three layers: the author, the narrator, and Marlow, who had the original experience. The voice of Marlow might conflate with that of the narrator, but the... -
Answered a Question in To Kill a Mockingbird
Lee provides a description of everyday life in the Black community in Chapter 25 when Atticus and Calpurnia visit Tom Robinson’s family. “A crowd of black children were playing marbles in Tom’s... -
Answered a Question in The Bluest Eye
The context is that Cholly is having sex with Darlene, and during the act two white men appear, one of whom carries a flashlight, and he puts the light on Darlene and Cholly. They are... -
Answered a Question in The Harlem Renaissance
Besides addressing issues of race, in terms of the beauty of being black the one hand and the effects of racism on the ohter, Cullen also contributed to the Harlem Renaissance a sense of... -
Answered a Question in A Christmas Memory
Friendship is an important theme of the story, the narrator, Buddy, often telling stories about “my friend.” He asks her earlier in the story, “When you're grown up, will we still be friends?" And... -
Answered a Question in The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnestsatirizes Victorian propriety, suggesting that behaving according to all of the rules can result in absurdity. It plays on the double meaning of "earnest" as being... -
Answered a Question in 1984
Chapter 2 opens with Winston discovering that he did not put away his new diary after having written in it Down With Big Brother, which presages many problems that follow later in the... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
The scene serves several purposes. As your question suggests, it provides a way for the audience to see how Macbeth's evil has grown from when he first kills Duncan to this moment now, when he... -
Answered a Question in Recitatif
Yes, the word is a form of “recitative.” The OED gives several definitions, one of which is “A style of musical declamation, intermediate between singing and ordinary speech, commonly... -
Answered a Question in Barn Burning
Mr. Harris is a flat character in that he serves a function in the story –he has an historical grievance against the Snopes, but does not develop or change in any significant way. He, like...
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