... lost amongst Helmer's squirrels and larks. Nora is perfectly capable of handling all that life can throw at her. The idea that Helmer "supports" the household and keeps it from falling apart is ridiculous (Durbach 109, 114). In the end, because of his treatment and views of her, he failed her and forced her to leave him. He not only treated ... know herself or anything of life, except for life as others have arranged it for her and shown it to her (Boyesen 213). Life begins for Nora the second she leaves life as she knows it. When she steps out of the door of the apartment she begins he...

• Word Count: 1947
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... warns his audience against judging Gilead too harshly, because such judgments are culturally biased, and he points out that the Gilead regime was under a good deal of pressure from the falling birthrate and environmental degradation. He explains that Gilead, using the Bible as justification, replaced what he calls "serial polygamy" with "simultaneous polygamy." He explains that like all new systems, Gilead ... nature is fickle and people often have their own ideas of how things should be. The last line of the text, "Are there any questions?" is full of irony and leaves readers with many...

• Word Count: 2464
• Approx Pages: 10

... James, Miss Moran sarcastically tells Minnie, "wasn't it[his fall] stupid of him-( 71 ). In the second scene, Minnie emasculates James by verbally berating him after he accuses her of falling in love with "the oily little Chink[Liu]-( 76 ). In a powerful assertion of her hatred for James, Minnie cries, "For all your[James] six feet of grossness, your small soul ... "small soul,"" implying that real men' possess traits which James lacks as evident by his inability to "protect and care- for Minnie or their child(77). In the end, James leaves without argument or protest, symbolizing Minnie...

• Word Count: 2224
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... rather Edna's entire series of realizations of her entrapment in society. These realizations lead her to eventually leave her husband in search of something more. The main point of the falling action is that of Edna's death at the end of the novel, unhappy with what she was granted in life, Edna commits suicide by drowning in the sea. The main ... . Edna's husband cannot understand or accept her newfangled ideas about women's rights and personal freedom, and this eventually causes her to leave him for another man. The other man, however, leaves her in turn because on the socially unaccep...

• Word Count: 1694
• Approx Pages: 7