Emma Black, M.A.
eNotes Educator
Achievements
6
Educator Level
123
Answers Posted
32
Answers Bonused
About
If I had the time, I would learn every subject; unfortunately for my student loan balance, I’ve tried. In addition to my main fields of history and linguistics, I have either an undergraduate or graduate-level background in biology, literature, languages, and music, and I’ve recently returned to school to study development economics. I’m always excited to come across interesting questions and look forward to sharing what I’ve learned with you!
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in History
Great question! You have several options for foundational themes upon which you could build a descriptive essay. I recommend that you begin your research with a theme that genuinely interests you.... -
Answered a Question in Born a Crime
Trevor Noah’s grandmother, Frances, has nothing against beating naughty children. In chapter four of Born a Crime, “Chameleon,” Frances beats Trevor’s cousins, Bulelwa and Mlungisi, after finding... -
Answered a Question in I Am Malala
I thought that words and books and pens are more powerful than guns. The quote comes from Diane Sawyer’s October 10, 2013 interview with Malala Yousafzai, a young girl from Pakistan’s Swat... -
Answered a Question in New Moon
Author Stephenie Meyer uses religious themes and allegories throughout her Twilight series, and the second book, New Moon, is no exception. We get an idea of Carlisle’s and Edward’s self-perception... -
Answered a Question in A Modest Proposal
Verbal irony is a literary device used to draw attention to what a character thinks or feels by having them express the opposite. Verbal irony often takes the form of sarcasm, but it can also be... -
Answered a Question in A Rock and a Hard Place
Sedimentary rocks are often created by fluvial processes. First, sediment is carried by rivers into water basins. Then, once the water dries up, the sediment hardens into rock. Fossilization, the... -
Answered a Question in The Diary of a Young Girl
On August 4, 1944, Peter and the others were taken from the annex and held overnight for interrogation at the police headquarters. From there, they were transferred to a prison located about one... -
Answered a Question in Wringer
Until this year, six-year-old Palmer has been a somewhat reluctant participant in the town's Pigeon Day festivities. Not yet old enough to put the birds “out of their misery” himself, Palmer spends... -
Answered a Question in The Hobbit
Chapter 8 of The Hobbit, titled “Flies and Spiders,” builds suspense by using sensory deprivation and restoration to guide the traveling party, along with the reader, deep into the Mirkwood. “Flies... -
Answered a Question in Literature
Whether we like it or not, when it comes to academic writing, everything is an argument. A strong essay does not simply describe a topic; it takes a position and defends it, from the lead-in... -
Answered a Question in Secession and Civil War
The American Civil War (1861-1865) began shortly after the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln personally believed slavery to be a reprehensible institution, but he did not initially seek to... -
Answered a Question in The Giver
The Giver shook his head and made a gesture to silence him. He continued. “If you get away, if you get beyond, if you get to Elsewhere, it will mean that the community has to bear the burden... -
Answered a Question in Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka’s brilliant parable “A Message from the Emperor” illustrates the paradoxical nature of nihilism: if something has no meaning, does that not mean something? In what is perhaps the... -
Answered a Question in The Lady, or the Tiger?
Stockton uses the semi-extended metaphor of heat and fire to describe the princess in "The Lady, or the Tiger?": Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon... -
Answered a Question in The Giver
Jonas’s understanding of Elsewhere changes over the course of The Giver, and author Lois Lowry is not explicit as to which version of Elsewhere Jonas reaches in the end. He may have made it to a... -
Answered a Question in Into the Wild
In “Chapter Six: Anza-Borrego,” Ron Franz is introduced as a kindly, “grandfatherly,” army veteran living alone in Salton City, California. Since his wife and son were killed by a drunk driver in... -
Answered a Question in The Giver
Lois Lowry is too good a writer to tell us why it’s bad that the community isn’t able to understand feelings and emotions as we do. Instead, she shows us the outcome of being stunted in this way.... -
Answered a Question in History
The scale and intensity of the opium crisis in nineteenth-century China was unparalleled by any other drug trade in history. In 1830, there were an estimated three million Chinese citizens addicted... -
Answered a Question in The Giver
Jonas’s father works with infants in the Nurturing Center. Initially, his kindhearted nature and special privileges in tending to the new child Gabriel make it seem as though Jonas’s father is,... -
Answered a Question in The Good Thief: A Novel
Freytag’s pyramid is a structural device that divides a plot into five sections: exposition (beginning), rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement (ending). The expository section of... -
Answered a Question in The Cold Equations
Literal language portrays things as they really are using words that do not vary from their standard definitions. The emergency dispatch pilot describes his ship as “small and collapsible [...]... -
Answered a Question in Empire Falls
Janine Roby, soon-to-be-Comeau, has been looking forward to making an entrance at the Fairhaven High School football game. She doesn’t care much for the sport but is thrilled by the idea of... -
Answered a Question in History
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is the most detailed in enumerating the powers of Congress to control the nation’s financial interests. It enables the federal government to collect taxes,... -
Answered a Question in Private Lives
In act III of Nöel Coward’s Private Lives, Amanda Prynne tells her ex-husband, Elyot Chase, that she was “brought up to believe that it’s beyond the pale for a man to strike a woman.” “A very poor... -
Answered a Question in "I Have a Dream" Speech
In August 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered a speech no less significant in American history than President Lincoln’s address at a... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
The primary themes of “The Lives of the Dead” are humor, resurrection, and storytelling. When O’Brien encounters the old man, dead in a pigpen, he “hadn’t yet developed a sense of humor” about the... -
Answered a Question in History
In forming the first civilizations, we lost a distinctly different future. Without a government, there is no bureaucracy. Without taxation, there is no army. Without social stratification, there is... -
Answered a Question in Frederick Douglass
In My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass revises his popular autobiography published ten years prior in 1845. In his earlier edition, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an... -
Answered a Question in Literature
John Smith’s Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles details the early years of English settlement in the Americas, from 1584 through 1624, the year of the book’s... -
Answered a Question in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
Life’s greatest heroes are imperfect. In fiction, it’s often the flaws that humanize our heroes. In nonfiction, it’s the responsibility of the author to be reliable—to factually recount both the... -
Answered a Question in Colonial America
In economics, it’s said that there are two institutional paths a government can take. One is called extractive, because resources are removed without being replaced. The people who control the... -
Answered a Question in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, four-year-old Hmong American Lia Lee enters a vegetative state following complications of epilepsy. Author Anne Fadiman investigates the complications... -
Answered a Question in The Things They Carried
The title story in Tim O’Brien’s collection of short fiction The Things They Carried establishes an immediate familiarity with the main characters. We do not yet know these men, but it feels like...