... The story seems to be about Ichabod Crane's obsession with a Katrina Van Tassel and Brom Bones who wants to have this lady for himself. It all takes place in a small, remote, peaceful town whose only excitement seems to be in ghost stories. The inciting incident is when the story first introduces Ichabod's love for a lady, ... however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means."" The story takes place in a small market town on the shore of the Hudson River in New York known as Sleepy Hollow. The town is known as a ...

• Word Count: 1805
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... we could again point to the air of authenticity present in the narrative by observing the fact that the valley is very precisely geographically located). The place is described as "drowsy" and "dreamy" and it is stated that the "populations, manners, and customs, remained fixed, while the great torrent ... on the characters which is chiefly the case in the representation of Ichabod Crane's personality. The people are under the spell of this quiet place and therefore grow exceedingly imaginative in shaping legends and tales about its history. History is thus directly connected with legends...

• Word Count: 2890
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... obviously the rose. As people began to visit Emily's decayed fragile body, the imagery Faulkner uses is, " The rose when she entered- a small, fat woman in black with a thin gold chain descending to her waisther skeleton was small and spare" (Faulkner 300). The rose might be compared to the idea that the beauty of tradition is dead. Based how Emily ... is described in the story when she was dead as pale, drowned, small and skeletal. Overall, one of the major themes, death, is emphasized in this story clearly to relate it to the death of tradition. This is even described with gruesome im...

• Word Count: 1189
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... . She now views the clothesline for its real purpose. It is clear she wishes her life remained unchanged as she attempts to rekindle her youth a small pilot light burning' however, she realizes it would be ridiculous too many things are tying me to the ground'. The fact that she remembers every detail ... tense is a clear indication that the women misses what she once had. This was also done in Hardwoods Father in order to contrast the change that takes place. Word choice is fundamental in this short story similes such as washing like coloured flags in a secret code' create a positive out...

• Word Count: 2540
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of the less radical traditions across cultures, especially when compared to the tradition of drawing a sacrifice to be stoned in Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery." Jackson presents a small town that has a yearly lottery on June 27th, that determines which one of its inhabitants will be sacrificed. The head of each household is called up to draw a random slip ... to lesson her own chance of being chosen. Tess yells "there's Don and Evamake them take their chance" (Jackson 629). The notion of sacrificing someone else in her place highlights the fact that the ritual is not an act...

• Word Count: 1719
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... violent infighting among residents. Within this infamous territory-which also featured in the second success of American literature, James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy (1821)-Tarrytown was particularly notorious as the place where John André, the British officer subsequently executed as a spy for his dealings with the traitorous Benedict Arnold, was captured. The "unfortunate André" (p. 292) was a troublingly sympathetic ... ndash;277). Also, his susceptibility to perceiving the uncanny in his surroundings is increased by his fundamental unfamiliarity with the neighborhood and the neighbo...

• Word Count: 1590
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the short stories are presented, to show many similarities and qualities that reflect each other in a noticeable way. The settings of both the stories are both closely related. Both take place in the 1930's during the Canadian depression on the prairies. A powerful storm is keeping both of the couples cooped up in, or near their house, however, in "The Painted Door ... Noon) both live on farmland on the prairies. We can tell that they are located on the prairies because of the way that they describe the long flat and sometimes small hills surrounding the farmlands. One example from "the...

• Word Count: 660
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , at least one that is apparent. He writes more in the tradition of India's English-language fiction before Salman Rushdie came along, followed by Arundhati Roy and The God of Small Things (1997): that is, in a form altogether readable, which is to say a simple, direct, refined, conventional manner. Dialogue, in particular, Mistry handles exquisitely, always catching the rhythms of Indian English ... , though, the social message blends into the narrative structure. Of course, reading the novel nearly thirty years after these historical events and after so many other such events have taken...

• Word Count: 4673
• Approx Pages: 19
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , at least one that is apparent. He writes more in the tradition of India's English-language fiction before Salman Rushdie came along, followed by Arundhati Roy and The God of Small Things (1997): that is, in a form altogether readable, which is to say a simple, direct, refined, conventional manner. Dialogue, in particular, Mistry handles exquisitely, always catching the rhythms of Indian English ... , though, the social message blends into the narrative structure. Of course, reading the novel nearly thirty years after these historical events and after so many other such events have taken...

• Word Count: 4675
• Approx Pages: 19
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... boy, and his adventures one afternoon during the Civil War of Nigeria in the late 1960's. The second selection is, "No Witchcraft For Sale" by Doris Lessing. This story takes place in approximately 1960 when Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was still under British rule. This short story illustrates some of the conflict and relations between the white families of the British ... , and their relations with their cook servant, Gideon. Within these two stories, that were chosen to comparatively analyze, the main characters are both male children who lived in Africa. These small children were...

• Word Count: 857
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate