Linnie Carter

It is true that Waiting for Godot offers very few plot points and no comfortable resolution of the action. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend the entire play waiting for the...

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street" is a darkly comic short story that satirizes the nature of work and its role in ascribing meaning to our lives. The comedy in the story also raises...

One thing the reader quickly learns about Anna Avalon is that she "lives comfortably in extreme elements." Anna is confident where others would be fearful. Most notably, she is half of a...

There are at least two major strains on Walter Jr.'s and Ruth's marriage. The first is financial. Walter Jr. and Ruth live on the border between working-class status and poverty, with both of them...

In his relationships with both Maxine and Moushoumi, Gogol adopts his partner's identity (or what he perceives that identity to be) because he has not yet solidified and accepted his own identity....

The short story "He-y, come on ou-t!" describes a Japanese village where a very deep hole appears after a typhoon. The hole seems to be bottomless. The villagers therefore allow waste of all kinds...

In this story, Marquez is satirizing the shortcomings that prevent humans from being able to adequately show religious faith and reverence in the face of the divine. Most pointedly, Marquez mocks...

The central idea of this poem is learning to define and take pride in one's own identity. The narrator struggles with how to respond to classmates who say she speaks "wrong" because she does not...

One theme that runs throughout Hardy's work is the moral purity of the natural world, and of the people who live by the natural rhythms and impulses of a humble life, close to nature. Hardy...

The plot of Beloved focuses on Sethe's pain and grief, caused by her memories of killing her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery. Thematically, Sethe's grief is intended to symbolize...