... a package that encased a set of beautiful gemmed combs that she's had her eye on for quite some time. Though she couldn't use the combs until her hair grew out, Della was grateful and cried tears of joy. She was so happy that she almost forgot to give Jim his Christmas gift. In doing so ... by Guy de Maupassant. The main character, Madame Loisel, was a simple woman in a family full of artisans. Her simple life also contributed to the fact that she married a store clerk, even when she felt as though she should be living in luxury. Her endless fantasies of being royal and wealthy only led ...

• Word Count: 1490
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... winter, a major turbulence started, Ellie the younger sister started vomiting, weeping, running around in circle. In addition, her periods had stopped. In fact, she was only pregnant. Robert told Flora the truth about their affair. As a result, Ellie and Robert got married. The baby was then born dead after ... narrator of this story is the teacher's daughter that is still alive. She is a person who admires her mother and dreams everyday about her mother. Then, she remembers how her mother was, when she was still young, full of liveliness. So she starts narrating her mother's journey at...

• Word Count: 955
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... collection. Adam Meyer, in his book, Raymond Carver, argues that "Carver is at the height of his powers here, having arrived at his full maturity, and Cathedral as a whole is certainly the most impressive of his collections." "Cathedral," like many of Carver's other stories, portrays ... is also spare, and lean, and the epiphany he offers is in keeping with this style. Further, one of the characteristic responses to an encounter with the sacred is speechlessness, the inability to adequately put into words the reality of the experience. Consequently, the narrator's final utterance, ... C...

• Word Count: 11148
• Approx Pages: 45
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... conclusion of the story would end like they thought it could, and therefore keeps the reader wanting to read more. Edgar Allan Poe is an expert in writing stories full of suspense and uses this particular writing style exceptionally well. "The Tell Tale Heart" is just one of Poe's many masterpieces that possess ... he is, and if the character is some psychopath, obviously you are not going to believe him. Putting foreshadowing in the beginning of a story is an excellent way to start a story because that way it keeps the reader's attention at the beginning of the story. Just in the first...

• Word Count: 1300
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a then, Lee 2 flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment" ( Faulkner, 144). Like her father, Emily possesses a stubborn outlook ... didn't have to pay taxes and since her father made a generous contribution to the town, she felt that the gift was still good. Also, when she goes to purchase the rat poison and the pharmacist inquires repeatedly why she wants it, Emi...

• Word Count: 1168
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... hypercritical and superficial, not to mention, annoying. On the vacation, after the family crosses path with the Misfit, the grandmother's personality changes dramatically, she goes from being vain to being sympathetic. The grandmother and the Misfit start to grow a connection, focusing on the fact that they both don't ... also possible. The grandmother is full of self-absorption, however, she starts to change during her last moments alive. When the misfit murders the family, the grandmother doesn't even seem to bat an eye. Although the grandmother doesn't seem upset about the killings, ...

• Word Count: 523
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... sure the reader examines deeper than just the words on the pages almost as if the audience had to be very analytical. She also did not give away the end of the story, she lets you figure it out which makes the title very ironic and suspenseful. Jackson does a great job at dropping in clues ... blooming" which is very ironic to the end of the story. Summer is usually a time of happiness and new life, but not for this community. As she goes on describing the community, Jackson begins to throw in clues foreshadowing the evil and brutal act at the end of the story. For example, Jackson tells ...

• Word Count: 992
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... " is about a woman who is forced to live in a way that is not natural to her instincts. She is a woman that full of creativity and spirit and wishes to express herself through her writing however, due to her environment and the people around her she is unable to do so. Her husband, family and friends expect her to be a simple-minded mother and ... become alive in the yellow wallpaper and forces her to deal with it. When the woman first meets this thing she hates it. She finds it confusing and repulsive as she describes her first encounter with it, " It is dull enough to confuse the eye i...

• Word Count: 643
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... cat. Because of this, he decides to cut one of its eyes with a penknife. Later on as his drinking led him to reach insanity to its full extent, the narrator hangs the cat and explains his reason for hanging it by saying "I knew that it loved me, and because I felt it had given ... does what he does, when he feels he should not. A part of this theory is that these characters want to hurt or kill someone alive because he/she has been good to them. According to J.Rea, "perverseness" in "one of the primitive impulses of the human heart"(308). Sometimes human beings may feel a ... they have c...

• Word Count: 1637
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... she decide to let him get killed. And he was anxious to decide whether he preferred living without her or dieing without her. In the end, only one character could decide the fate of the other, and therefore, keeping the tradition alive. The gardener, in the flash of an eye ... just a false mirror. Usually, irony can be deciphered by a different, tone that the writer uses while describing a certain scene or talking about an instance. For instance using the commoner's point of view to depict the emotional turmoil of the lovers but changing it to royalty when he wants ... castle, with a ...

• Word Count: 1579
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... El Paso and at Syracuse University, and in 1983 he won a literary award whose generous annual stipend freed him to again focus on his writing full-time (Encyclopedia Britannica). In his last decade Carver taught creative writing at Syracuse University, living with the poet Tess Gallagher, whom he married in 1988 ... . Winning Mildred Harold Strauss Living Award in 1983 finally paved him the way to devote his full time to writing. He divided his remaining years between Syracuse and Port Angeles, Washington. Carver's personal victory in 1977 over decades of alcoholism featured ... audio ta...

• Word Count: 3978
• Approx Pages: 16
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... people's inner feelings and mental activity. It can make the character's image more distinct and accurate to reproduce. Psychological characterizations, as an essential writing technique, occupy an increasingly important place in the fiction writing" (Junfeng and Haiyuan 326). Psychological characterizations of the characters are always needed as it helps ... ; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. I loved the old man. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!"" (Poe 1).3 Here, the protagonist is expressing his fear for the old man's eyes and it ...

• Word Count: 2343
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Misto C and Rachel, having a conversation on the front porch of a farmhouse. Rachel is a sixty year old servant who always leaves Misto C questioning why she is always so joyful and full of excitement during their conversation Misto C asks Rachel, "Aunt Rachel, how is that you've lived sixty years and never had any trouble?" (Twain ... felt as if they should be treated better, but why should they make fun of them when they are the ones who are restraining them from an education in the first place. Also the critic stated that dialect and slavery were not the only reasons this story was wri...

• Word Count: 1889
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... very important to the point that Cheever is trying to make. In the story, the characters are described in great detail in order to get the full textual understanding of each character and for the reader to become familiar with those who populate the story. He gives each character very different personalities and ... children - the "all American family"". Mr. Weed is a business man and by all accounts, a successful one. He has his own office and receptionist. From the outside, Francis eye seems to have it all; a good job, a happy family, a nice house and a beautiful wife. But Mr. Weeds d...

• Word Count: 891
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... speaking, symbols are images that have a meaning beyond its literal role. They make the reader sense that there is more than meets the eye. Especially in literature, the symbolism of an object, a setting or an incident may be very important for a better interpretation of the meaning of the text. A good example is the short story "Hills like ... , which is sacred and blessed by the people. The girl defines it as "bright" and "lovely" as well. It represents a promise of life that she just can't sweep away although her apprehension towards the arrival of the precious child. The drink that th...

• Word Count: 757
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... of grace. First, the grandmother's judgments of others are totally twisted. She pronounces Red Sammy Butts "a good man" despite the evidence he is a lazy slob who treats his wife like a slave. Throughout the story the grandmother is a full-blown agent of disaster, a Geiger counter for catastrophe. Her fuzzy fantasies about a southern mansion combined with some assistance from the smuggled cat manage to ... was doomed from the outset. And it is with no small degree of pleasure that O'Connor finishes off this family. Her fictional world is basically satirical, not theological. She casts a...

• Word Count: 2384
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... soon dissipated in the rapture of young love. "When you're full of life, you only have time to love and be alive. [ ] What's an old man? You think you know?' Of course she didn't know either. And since neither she nor I could, at the time, imagine an old man, we started laughing and then we made love like ... plane will soon crash. He sits in peace as the whole world around him panics "all the passengers fear death as it stares them in the eye, yet he rejoices for the very same reason. When devoid of its nebulous shield, death is his not much of a foe. As he ages, death ... leaves its l...

• Word Count: 1109
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... fluid from the numbered 451 tanks strapped to their shoulders, they coated each book, they pumped rooms full of it." (38). After responding to an alarm, the men are drenching the house of an old woman with kerosene because the house held books inside it. The actions of the firefighters prove how ... who is uncooperative with the firemen. "A fine bit of craftsmanship, a good rifle that can fetch its own target, and guarantees the bulls eye every time." This is Captain Beatty describing the hounds hunting skills. (27). The robotics of the hound is very complicated. The hound is ... sophi...

• Word Count: 1336
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... is violent and rude towards everyone including his wife, his pets and eventually Pluto, his cat. His violence grows so much that he cuts out Pluto's eye and eventually ends up hanging him. This is a major turn in the character and in the story. However, it is not the climax of the story ... in the first person narrative, it is usually pretty reliable to the reader, because the narrator will not typically lie when talking about what he or she experienced. However, it is very limited because you only get the perspective of that one character, and experience nothing of the other's. The fort...

• Word Count: 2283
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School