... single effect and then invent and combine events for this 'pre-established design.'"2 On that account in Poe's short stories every aspect of the tale contributes to its overall tone, including the motif of madness. From this point of view Poe uses madness as a tool to bring about certain effect, ... Amontillado." But in order not to just echo the Gothic writers before him Poe added something new to his borrowings and transformed the Gothic tale into something alive and lasting. He gave it an urgency derived from his personal life5. That brings up the question about biography-orient...

• Word Count: 1406
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... . The major apparition would be the story of the Headless Horseman, but it would be a mistake to see this story solely as a Ghost story. Indeed, most readers probably find the tale more humorous than horrifying. Irving maintains a suspicion of the imagination and an ironic distance from the ghostly. Second, while "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" owes something to European models, it ... the nineteenth century. Irving utilizes the "ancient" and "peculiar" Dutch (p. 272) to add apparent depth to American history and to stand as a sort of American folk. Irving also tethers the tale to local ev...

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

... values, such as understanding and a sense of mutual respect? These are among the themes in the American short story, "The Tower Pig." The tale is set behind, and outside, the walls of the Thomaston Penitentiary in present day America; the exact geographic location of the setting, however, remains ... around a young man who, due to a minor drug offence, suffers the hardships of imprisonment in an American correctional facility. The protagonist is throughout the tale addressed only by his surname, Caine. Caine seems to be liked by his fellow inmates, but he has his own problems; a beloved g...

• Word Count: 2809
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... and a greater level of objectivity. Nevertheless, the narrator of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" steps in at times to pass on commentary and thus creates the impression of an oral tale passed on. I believe that this strategy goes hand in hand with the fact that the narrator is trying to stress authenticity of the ... by the following quotations: "Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic." "The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at the corporation meeting of the ancien...

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

... 's writing is a projection of his inner feelings and thoughts which oozed out on the paper and if possible to argue about his conscious or unconscious intentions for writing this particular tale. 2. Gothic Literature The Gothic, a literary movement that focused on ruin, decay, death, terror, and chaos, and privileged irrationality and passion over rationality and reason, grew in response to the historical ... , piety, etc. Fixation: when something libidinal is arrested in its development even though the rest of the personality keeps on growing up. 4. Discussion At First, when Poe wrote th...

• Word Count: 3098
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... then again at the conclusion, the victim lies near his discarded mask and cloak and is revealed to be none other than a visage of the narrator himself. Both narratives tell a tale of the unsuspecting soul who is pressed upon and repeatedly exposed to what the reader surmises to be their double or their doppelganger. In the story by Edgar Allan Poe ... and feelings through his writing. Strand, on the other hand, chooses to use his lack or words, but his word placement and choices to influence the reader. Both works relate a tale of an innermost fear of our own personal and intimate chara...

• Word Count: 1660
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... acquiring of knowledge. The poet and author Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates these natural truths in the outward appearance of a short story titled " My Kinsman, Major Molineux." Within the contents of this tale, a young lad named Robin sets off from his home in the country, on a journey to the little metropolis of a New England colony in search of his uncle Major Molineux. Robin ... knows that Robin has the potential to bring down his ego, and serves as a guide to help him along in his journey of self-discovery. Ironically, the setting of the tale, addresses this changing of old ideas f...

• Word Count: 1004
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... collection's final story, "Swimming Lessons," as a forerunner to future fiction about the immigrant experience, their expectations fell short when Mistry's first novel, Such a Long Journey, appeared in 1991. This complex tale of corruption during Indira Gandhi's years in office returns once more to the Bombay Parsi community. For a debut novel, it brought the author rare attention, first as a winner of the ... for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true." Balzac's admonition proves appro...

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

... collection's final story, "Swimming Lessons," as a forerunner to future fiction about the immigrant experience, their expectations fell short when Mistry's first novel, Such a Long Journey, appeared in 1991. This complex tale of corruption during Indira Gandhi's years in office returns once more to the Bombay Parsi community. For a debut novel, it brought the author rare attention, first as a winner of the ... for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true." Balzac's admonition proves appro...

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

... world anywhere. The anecdote is to show the tax-gatherer that there is a parallel between him and the tinkers. The old woman is saying that like the tinker in the tale she knew that he was only doing his job and that he unwittingly didn't know his role in the process of applying the rules which make the people to suffer ... so removes himself of responsibility. There is also a more subtle reference to the tale which shows must spark the mind of the old woman to tell it when she can't light the fire for the tax-gatherer who she knows may unknowingly bring harm ... ...

• Word Count: 2163
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... more than one metamorphoses occurring. The German scholar, Heselhause and the American, Angus, have described this interpretation of the novella as an inverted "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale (Sokel 204). The scholars examine how love fails to overcome horror and the beauty, represented as Grete, refuses to save the beast, Gregor, condemning him to death (Sokel 204. This ... ...

• Word Count: 3072
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... finality to all of the stories, the final explanation being that stories keep the dead alive and the retelling of these stories keeps them making new memories each time their tale is told differently....

• Word Count: 685
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... ;grave' connotes death, the life of the beast is what brings the girl to allow him to see her naked showing that death is not the fascination within this gothic tale. However, the short story is still gothic and becomes characterized by the supernatural ending when the young girls skin changes to fur whilst the beast licks her 'I shrugged the ... ...

• Word Count: 1039
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1991), forever showing the importance and impact on the world of literature through her work. The story itself explains the tragic tale of a South African farm owner who misfires a rifle through the roof of his truck to find that he has shot his farmhand and trustworthy work companion. Only later is the ... ...

• Word Count: 1018
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... their attempts at advancement. Farquhar seems to escape right before the rope snaps his neck and embarks on a beautiful, action filled quest to stay alive. The story seems like a fairy tale until Bierce depicts, in the last line, that Farquhar never escaped and the quest was, indeed, just a dead man's dream. The carefully thought out descriptions, the excellent literary details, and ... ...

• Word Count: 1169
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... that O'Brien adds gets more and more intense. He adds in a new story from Mitchell Sanders and through its description, the theme is once more emphasized. The narrator listens to a tale about a troop up in the mountains listening for enemies and their unbelievable account of hearing strange noises there. This story is important in that it shows another example of an ... ...

• Word Count: 979
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... East and the West. This approach, deriving from a geographical crisis, becomes obvious in Stephen Crane's short stories, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky and The Blue Hotel. The first is a tale about a town Sheriff, Jack Potter, who is returning home from a trip where he has married. Jack returns shamefully with his new wife, because the town of Yellow Sky Knows Jack ... ...

• Word Count: 2241
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the reader also experiences it in addition to being torn by the two different explanations and eventually enters into a third which is a suspension between the two. The continuation of the tale purely amplifies the split which at the end is further fueled by the denial of closure. These combinations of factors add to the escalating tension and the choice between a natural ... ...

• Word Count: 374
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

If ever there are two opposite themes offered in the telling of one tale, it is in Herman Melville's short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener". As his perspective swings between the objective and subjective, so swings the theme from comedy to tragedy. Regardless of the ... ...

• Word Count: 925
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... women should do out with the old and resort to drastic methods to break away from their male imposed roles. Ford's explanation can surely help the reader understand that Gilman's tale of a woman's descent into madness is a story with deep feminist undertones. These undertones encourage women to change the paradigm because until the sexes are equal, there can be no respite ... ...

• Word Count: 552
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate