The element I am focussing on is the state of mind of the key characters. Upon reading the short story, it is plain to see the author is indicating there is a deeper meaning underlying than trying to obtain luck. In the dramatic DH Lawrence writing of the Rocking Horse Winner, the deep underlying problems surround a very mentally disturbed boy named Paul. The story's success hinges on the author's establishing the psychological problems of a young boy, stemming from the point that the boy must ... prove he has luck so his mother will love him. In this short story, we meet a 20th century f...

• Word Count: 613
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

As a younger naive child only a few years ago I used to think that I was much like a leaf, withstanding rain and the strongest of winds. I was invincible as did these beautiful leaves appear to me. But time would come to change much as I would. Life seemed so unbearable at times that I wanted to fall, ... to crack and just to give in to all around me. Why be strong? I would remember then the leaf that swayed in the wind; not falling, not giving up. So I would press on and make through these times holding all my feelings of pain and anger deep inside but I was still standing that's all that ma...

• Word Count: 275
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... is another thing that helped Rainsford beat Zaroff. Rainsford's resourcefulness helped him in many situations during the story. Due to these three traits, Rainsford survived the game and beat Zaroff. Rainsford thought that determination was a key idea in winning the game. Rainsford's face was "set and [he] forced the machinery of his mind to function," proving how determined Rainsford really was (52). I could never be like ... a Malay Man-catcher" (51). Being resourceful lead Rainsford throughout the game. Thanks to Rainsford's intelligence, determination, and resourcefulness, he beat Z...

• Word Count: 420
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... A biologist's thinking man are book review's of Daniel Dennett's "Freedom Evolves". The first review praises the book under some aspects and says that it is a mistake for people to believe that all these discoveries about our brains in any way lessen our "free will". The second review emphasizes on this subject of free will, also agreeing with Dennett. The authors of these two articles understand better the meaning of scientific discoveries on genes, and ... do not misinterpret them like many others would. I specifically like the argument that even though we can figure out how the brain...

• Word Count: 602
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... his ideas very effectively using language, structure and features of poetry. Wordsworth creates the feeling of a evolving story, drawing the reader in, especially with his manipulation of the poem's pace and suspense. The opening stanza gives a sense of secrecy and mystery with use of the words "dare" and "in the lover's ear alone." The pace then quickens throughout the poem highlighted by the horse's "quickening pace" and "my horse moved on; hoof after hoof." Wordsworth suggests impending ... darkness with the "evening moon" adding to the suspense slowly, step by ... ...

• Word Count: 791
• Approx Pages: 3

... lightless night, or real dark emotions. It can also be a combination of the two; it is a dark winter night and the speaker is depressed also. The last part of the poem, lines nine through twelve brings the strangeness of the poem. The only sole with the speaker is his horse. The horse was already puzzled by the stop and the horse wants to know the reason for the stop. "He gives his harness bells a shake" to see what was ... going on, and this conflicts with the quietness of the scene. At first all that could ... ...

• Word Count: 639
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... sad. This represents man as having no free will. They are stuck. Man is in the pond of fate; it is fatalism. Those five men are hopeless, discouraged, and angry. What can you do when you are stuck in the middle of nowhere? Either you survive or you don't. Either man conquers the ocean or the ocean conquers him. In the story, the five men thought that they are going ... to be free once they were rescued. Unfortunately, things didn't happen that way. Being in a small boat in ... the middle of an ocean is very tough. It needs courage and faith. In the old times, the Vikings were very brav...

• Word Count: 829
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... his outlook on life throughout the story. The way he viewed himself at the time of the events to the way he views himself after the story takes place. The narrator in this story is well rounded. There are many parts in the text showing the reader this. The story is told in a first person participant point of view, which lets the reader see into the mind and thoughts of the narrator. In the case of "Greasy Lake" the narrator has many thoughts ... out and partying means his parents most likely view him as a clean drug free kid. They probably had no idea that he did drugs or drank. Those a...

• Word Count: 2186
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... his monologue that begins "Now the hungry lion roars," (ll. 357-76) for example. The speech is rhythmically uniform, generally following a trochee tetrameter pattern . The banal element is evident in his deliberate trickery - for example, the turning of Bottom into an ass (ll. 101-6), the prank pulled on the elderly aunt , or his enticement of a "fat and bean-fed horse" (l. 45) by "neighing in likeness of a filly foal" (l. 46). Puck ... serve metaphorically as a triple-faceted representation of the commonalities between human and fey. From A Midsummer Night's Dream, it is evident that t...

• Word Count: 3011
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... , and every lonely heart finds comfort. But with Don Quixote's story, the dreams are part of awake, where every day routine mingles with his adventures, and the real world, a witness to his fantasies. Don Quixote's tale is a story filled with sad truths and whimsical thoughts. His belief in his books and the stories of knights rescuing damsels in distress, of warriors fighting against evil powers, was portrayed by ... the actor with an air of disarming innocence. I could even see my own "lolo" in him ... as the old man that he was. Because in his dreams, he was Don Quixote de la Mancha,...

• Word Count: 644
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... between White River and Crow Butte, every young man is given a horse from the government except two. The chief has a strong desire for one of the government horses, however, he gives away two horses from his own herd to suffice the boys that didn't receive a horse. In this incident, the chief is compared to the "big man" of the whites during this period. Although uneducated, an Indian chief looks after his ... people above all, whereas a white leader will use the office in ways to benefit himself and his family first. The title of chief came with no benefits for his immediate ... ...

• Word Count: 421
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... . Plato's philosophy can be read as a description of philosophic practice. When we see a shadow, we assume that there is something casting the shadow. When we see the shadow of an animal, we think that it may be a horse, but we are not quite sure. So it's only when we turn around and see that the shadow is of the horse itself - which of course is infinitely more beautiful and sharper ... in outline than the blurred "horse-shadow". Plato believed similarly that all natural phenomena ... are merely shadows of the eternal "forms" or "ideas". But most people are content with a life of the e...

• Word Count: 762
• Approx Pages: 3

... all in all we are all doomed to perform a certain way. Our demeanor, our chemicals, experiences make us a certain way. God plays a factor in deciding if we have free will. Since God is the creator of everything, I"m looking at God as if he knows all things, which he does. I think God if was wished, could have it all figured to a T. God could look ... are predestined to do everything we do. Even when you think I"m thinking this thought because I want to. So I have free will? (These sentences together don't make sense to me - you may want to reword a little) No, it's just the illusion of ...

• Word Count: 508
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... she will learn since she is very bright. Mother Matilda, or Matilda Empress, had many things to describe about Eleanor. Mother Matilda, too, thought of Eleanor as a beautiful woman. As Eleanor rides her horse, she can see the fresh air bringing color to her face. She thinks Eleanor's color were no match for her age. Mother Matilda saw her as an experienced and ... controlling person because she does what she wants and knows what to do, even at a tight spot. Henry put Eleanor in charge of the lands that he could not ... , even when it is with her children. Eleanor's description of hersel...

• Word Count: 375
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... is getting, but in the back of her mind she know that she is free, she even says she is free. Finally the wife believed she was free, she could turn her life around and live it to the fullest. It was great how the author gave the wife so much hope, and when the husband walked in, boom! The reader is instantly taken back to the beginning of the story where we were alerted ... to the wife's heart condition. Even though ... I have read this story before it was still ... ...

• Word Count: 309
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... window. She feels the breeze flowing in from the outside. She smells the rain that was still in the air. We are told that she feels something coming towards her. She waits fearfully. It is "too subtle and elusive to name." What could it be wonders the reader? Then it hits us unexpectedly. The thing coming towards her is her freedom. She whispers free, free, free. She is described ... as having a monstrous joy. Her husband would no longer repress her. She was free at last. She prayed that her life would be long, something that she had not ... is amazing how our lives can change in the c...

• Word Count: 721
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... psychological thriller, a murder mystery, and an intricate detective story all in one. It is separated into forty-one chapters with six books and it also has an epilogue. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky delves deep into the life and mind of Rodion Raskolnikov, a destitute student and a resident of St. Petersburg in the early 1900s. His need to become great urges him ... Rodion believes that a law of nature has divided men into two groups, the "ordinary" and "extraordinary." The ordinary group exists only to form the structures of the world and society. The extraordinary men exist to ...

• Word Count: 413
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Interpreting "The Story of an Hour" The final paragraph of "The story of an Hour" is a short, one-line sentence, but contains the final and most important irony of this short story. The doctors knew that Louise died of a heart condition, and made the collective assumption that the overwhelming joy she experienced upon the unexpected return of her husband, Brently, was simply too much of a shock on her weak heart. Of course, the reader understands this not to be true. "Free! Body ... and soul free ... ...

• Word Count: 640
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... something, crave it, or you need it. 3. You can desire for a lottery ticket you have just purchased to be the big winner, or you can also desire to have the touch of your lovers warm skin brush over your body. 4. For the most of us, the major part of out lives are centered around desire. 5. We are all so habituated that we take this as very natural and ... do not ever think twice about it. 6. In modern times we even go to the extent of affirming that the satisfaction of our desires ... is necessary. 7. On the other hand, all spiritual paths insist on the importance of overcoming our de...

• Word Count: 448
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

In this story, the author indicates the point where her family move into a house which her family doesn't have to pay for the rent and doesn't have to share the yard with any body but it turns out that the author doesn't expect such a house. Her family is really pretty poor in term of unwealthy. They used to live on Loomis before moving to Mango Street and before ... Street was in a poor condition, the water pipes broke so the family had to use the washroom next door and carry water over in the empty milk gallon. As the author describes the house on Mango Street she is very disappointed. The ...

• Word Count: 407
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... the Human Psyche The experience of war places stresses on the human spirit that cannot even be imagined. In the short story, "The Red Convertible," Louise Erdrich illustrates the harsh effects of war on one's character. War can turn even the most free-spirited person into a monster of some sort, where almost nothing will bring the person back to who they once were. In the short story, Henry and Lyman are the main characters in the story ... . Henry and Lyman were two free-spirited people, in the beginning. ... "Then, before we had thought it over at all, the car belonged to us ... ...

• Word Count: 949
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... steal everything from two woman. He runs over to the situation, without thinking, and tries to ward the men off. Of course since there were two of them, and one of him, he took a little bit of a beating. But in the end he did succeed. Next he spots a man who has fallen off of his cart in the midst of a thousand other horse carts. These carts were not moving very fast ... , but of course no one was willing to stop to look out for this poor fellow. Again almost automatically the narrators brother puts himself in danger for the life of another. He jumps into the middle of all the commotion ...

• Word Count: 1249
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... these people are either not innocent or die willingly and on a much smaller scale. In the book, The Giver, all free speech is limited and everyone is forced into an easy-to-control unit. There is happiness in that. Those people never experienced all of the emotions involved in free speech, so they found happiness in their small conformist lives. Humans can find happiness in no ... matter how we live our lives. That brings truth to the old adage, ignorance is bliss, because they did not have to deal with all ... the emotions that go along with free speech. Life is meant to be lived to t...

• Word Count: 326
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... these places and people, when in actuality they were two big phonies. The next Theme of this story that I want to talk about is the significance of the novel's title. First of all I have to say why the book was entitle as it was "The Catcher in the Rye." The title of the book is a mystery all the way until chapter 21 when he sneaked back home to see Phoebe. ... only light in this world of phonies hint the name Phoebe Greek for sun. I read a very interesting point in a book review about The Catcher in the Rye that explains the Holden behavior all through the book. In short it said his act...

• Word Count: 2230
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... 's death. As we read the story we are able to see Mrs. Mallard's inner feelings and thoughts. Through these thoughts and emotions we gather that Mrs. Mallard, although deeply distraught over her husband's death, finds that through this tragedy, she is in a way free. Free from the restricting bonds of marriage perhaps, or maybe simply free to experience a new side of life. The ending of "The Story of an Hour,"" displays many different ... instances of irony. We, as readers, gather that Mrs. Mallard is happy that she now is free and has the chance for a new beginning. Therefore, when she s...

• Word Count: 591
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School