... my opportunities to grow and improve. When reading I feel it is crucial that I learn something from it, whether it is small or great, and that the book leaves a mark of remembrance on me. I read for several reasons; the most important of these is the sense of connection, provoking thought, and the impression of security and escape that all come from my reading and growth as a person ... I read that manages to arouse thought and make me question, is proof that the author has succeeded in doing their job. Harold Bloom, the author of "In Praise of the Greats," is one of the authors that pr...

• Word Count: 1209
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... just did what he knew he had to do, what was right in his heart. Mrs. Dubose shows us bravery throughout the book as she battles her addiction of morphine. She is misjudged by the children, they do not like her because of the way she acts and because of what she says. As they get to know her, though, they realize how brave ... also misjudged by the town. "Cry about what Mr. Raymond?" Dill's maleness was beginning to assert itself. "Cry about the simple hell people give other people--without even thinking." (P. 201 ch. 20) Mr. Raymond simply chooses not to interact with people because he...

• Word Count: 317
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

Loyalty in book Characters Can the perfect ideal of loyalty ever be achieved? What is loyalty, how can you become loyal person? How do the people of today compare to the heroes in the stories that we read Beowulf, Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight, and Camelot. When do you know you are a loyal person, is it something that you ... any cost, if you go to war there is a good chance that you will not come back, but you put that aside just to keep the rest of the country safe. That is the ultimate sign of loyalty when you have to face death. So I think that people of today need to make sure that a w...

• Word Count: 989
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The book Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry mainly deals with the struggles of one family trying to deal with racism and the effects it has on them and their lives. This is important to black people because it was not to long ago that slavery was ended. Racism in this book affects the characters because they didn't try to stop the hatred that was going on in their community. It ... is also about the ... out of his chair and throws down the book and step on it. Because of the racism in the story the conflicts are both internal and external. They deal mainly with racism and the effects it has on the ...

• Word Count: 654
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... of a few years. One of the things that I feel separates a Canadian from any other nationality is the role of culture and heritage. When immigrants come to Canada from another country, they are encouraged to remember their other identity, language, and their roots in their country of birth, while, for example, ... encouraging cultural diversity is a good idea because it makes our cities more interesting. We don't just have cities filled with immigrants from one certain country, but cities filled with Portuguese-Canadians, Chinese-Canadians, etc., who are true to Canada, yet still remember...

• Word Count: 364
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... War. This quote set me in a straight direction for the rest of the book to understand the South's point of view about the Civil War. If I had not read this book, I would have never known that the South recently started recovering from the Civil War only about thirty years ago. Secondly, there was something in the book that I found very interesting. When Tony would include himself in a reenactment of a " ... excuse to have a war involving killing most of your closest friends and family members. There still is not an excuse for having a war at all. Lastly, I think that this book, as a whol...

• Word Count: 926
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

In the stories "The Lesson- and "Good Country People,"" the protagonists undergo a change in the way they are due to events that happen in the story. The authors of both the stories prepare the readers for the events that the protagonists are about to encounter. "The Lesson- is written in first person through Sylvia's eyes. Sylvia comes off like a tough girl; she wants to be better then everyone else. Sylvia is very nave ... and ignorant to the world ... what she is talking about. Sylvia gets to FAO Schwartz thinking that she is better than everyone else and that everyone lives the way she d...

• Word Count: 430
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

The articles I read about Matthew Shepard, by James Brooke were horrifying. To think that human beings could do such an awful and hurtful thing to a fellow person just because they are ... happen everyday to all sorts of people. Matthew was hated against just because he was open about his sexual preference. He was tied to a tree, beaten, and was left in the freezing weather, begging for his life. Knowing that this just happened four years ago is a frightening thought. After so many years of learning how to be equal with other races ... been a part a hate crime that was so extreme. I've seen...

• Word Count: 296
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... great risks in doing so with out hurting myself or destroying myself. ",since he must work either by address or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power." (8). This shows that you can take over countries or Princedoms with force or by negotiation. In which I choose to take over countries ... This brings up another lessen Machiavelli has to teach in being loved and being hated and by which people it is okay to do so by. In the game risk most likely you cannot obtain friendship with those you are playing against because they do not want to be part of something th...

• Word Count: 636
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... you be able to relate to them? If you didn't know your friends how would you be able to help them? If you didn't know the skills of your work, how would you be able to work? In my eyes it all comes down to one thing, and that is knowledge ... . The bible says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge", and if you think about it, it's true. When I talk to people my age we ... cars, videos, clothes, sporting events, and things of that nature; they know everything. I can't remember having a conversation about the government with anyone my age, because it's something they don't know a...

• Word Count: 301
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... civilization is present in a community, eventually, that community will deteriorate. In Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, the boys" society has slowly fallen due to the lack of civilization. The boys on the island, in this book, are extremely self-centered. They care mainly about their personal necessities and not about the necessities of the group as a whole. In a society, if there are not people with these ... that did not help out and were not committed only expected others to do the work for them and to serve them. The members of a good society are intellectual. "This w...

• Word Count: 632
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... a person for what he/she really is, and certainly not because of the values attached to the individual. For if we decide to love a person purely based on values, justifications and reasons, the person can be easily replaced by another individual who possesses the same characteristics and values that the person has affixed to the supposed "beloved-. Moreover, Snow Goose has showed me that one does not love ... a person because of what he/she can get out of the relationship but rather it is what one can ... that it defied her own migrational instincts. Another realization I have made is ...

• Word Count: 559
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... how insignificant they may seem, all serve a purpose and have consequences to them. In "The Necklace", Madame Loisel chooses to not tell her friend that she lost the necklace and spends 10 years of her life trying to pay for the new one. That is a consequence, or an effect. The choice that she made served as a blessing in disguise. You see, before, Mme. Loisel ... was a quite materialistic driven person, who longed for the riches that she thought made a woman. After undergoing those ten very unpleasant and horrible years, she became a real woman. One with grace and inner beauty, whom ev...

• Word Count: 255
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins, is a book about a man who unconsciously drives his wife insane. The story develops around the room where the lady stays, which is covered by an old, torn wallpaper. Charlotte Perkins makes "The Yellow Wallpaper" interesting by using literary values such as point-of-view, characterization, and setting to make ... think that she doesn't want to admit it to herself. Charlotte Perkins, I think, makes the story first person mayor on purpose. By writing the story from this point of view, she gives intimacy with the lady. We can understand the process that lead...

• Word Count: 824
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... also in adolescence. So, I see easily people who are in trouble. There are two characters, which tell adolescent life. Holden, a protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, and Paul, a main character of Six Degrees of Separation, represent our adolescence very well. They do not have any direction to live and ... and teachers help us. But Holden and Paul do not have any of them. Holden has his parents, but they are helpless and never appeared in the story. Therefore Holden and Paul could not think their future. Holden and Paul are immature. They lie to others and they have no direction. Howeve...

• Word Count: 561
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... me apart and making me go absolutely insane. There was also this part of me that didn't want to tell anyone because I wanted to be sick, the thought of losing weight was so strong that I was willing to risk my health for it. It didn't matter how much I tried to talk myself out ... even possible and a whole new world opened up for me. Because it is something special about losing yourself within yourself, having a clear mind and just being in the moment. I went into some very deep meditative states where I felt my whole body floating above my physical body, also known as astral projection...

• Word Count: 696
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... of virtue. The two fathers of this beautiful child "have a much closer partnership with each other and a stronger bond of friendship than parents have, because the children of their partnership are more beautiful and more immortal." (209c, my emphasis) Though the lover is initially inspired by his beloved's physical as well as mental beauty, the emphasis of the homoerotic relationship Diotima describes is not on the sexual gratification ... of the lover, but rather on the perpetuation of the lover's virtue and wisdom through teaching the beloved. Indeed, a step on the ascent to the ulti...

• Word Count: 1318
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... for god to take such actions?" He is a very lazy man and very sheepish and weak willed. He never wants to help the cause of escaping the grip of the Martians. In many parts of the story, all he does is sit and cry, or sit and eat what precious food was left. If there was trouble, he lost it in a second and ran around ... like a chicken with it's head cut-off. Lastly, before this character was killed off, he threatened to alarm the Martians of the two men's whereabouts ... I think was a fair end logical ending. Two weeks after the Martians had landed on Earth, they quickly died off. Thi...

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

... lines 18-20 "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." Frost is trying to get the point across that it is ok not to do what everyone else does just the be yourself. The speaker of this poem is the author Robert Frost. The occasion of this poem is a choice, it could be anything whether ... . Also, I think he is saying that just cause other people are doing it that you do not have to. Subject and the purpose is pretty much the same thing. The tone of this poem is happy and satisfied. In conclusion, the poem "The Road Not T...

• Word Count: 260
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... inferred when he tells her that, at some time in the future, he wants to be the only grown-up with "all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all." He'll stand on the edge of a cliff and catch anybody who starts to fall off the edge of the cliff. He got this image from his misinterpretation of a line ... from the Robert Burns poem, " if a body catch a body comin' through the rye." When situations are described, in person or in a book, they are influenced by the one who describes them, and by his ... often on his mind. Unfortunately, in Holden's case, he seems...

• Word Count: 791
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... her whole tone from being happy with everything that she has and is. Then she gets upset because this guy is telling her where her place is. She gives him the chrysanthemums and sends him on his way. She then goes into the house and takes her bath to get ready to go out. While taking her bath it seems like ... the mood changes again she turns into a feminine woman again. The reason I say this is because while trying herself of she poses in the mirror, looking at her body. She tightened her stomach and threw out ... her womanhood. So she just starts to cry. I think the author has set th...

• Word Count: 601
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... emotions stirred, it makes me feel alive. This is probably in part to my parents and Grandmother, all of whom are involved in psychology. And I really enjoy a good cry - I think it's really healthy. -I'm a hopeless romantic. Yes, that DOES mean that sometimes I sit in my room listening to Lone Star's "Amazed by You" or ... but I sometimes enjoy embracing that emotion and being alone with my daydreams. I sometimes end up walking alone in a park at night, just staring up at the stars and enjoying the quiet calm and thinking of being with a special someone. I like to give flowers. I try to...

• Word Count: 740
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... picking a satisfactory partner like beauty, body contour, class, etc. They seldom search for a person who has a good personality. Most people nowadays judge the person by his/her physical looks before considering having him/her as a partner. People of the older times just allow love to take place. It is only now that a person tries to manipulate someone he/she likes to make ... her/him fall in love with him/her. The individual chooses strategically where to take the person and what to do in every place they go to. The most embarrassing thing that people do nowadays is that they use fanc...

• Word Count: 305
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... has a certain way about him a certain way that he tends to flow to and that way is something that I like to call existentialism. The definition in my words would have to be A man or woman that is not isolated by their experience of a universe that is indifferent and hostile ... . Emphasizing humans freedom of choice to make meaning of world by creating their own lifestyles and changing ethics by the beings around them. Now for another characteristic of Grendel and that would be nihilistic this is when u think nothing is real no moral values . ... immature and unable to form complete ph...

• Word Count: 369
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... Hamlet's first soliloquy (1.2), he expresses his despair due to his mother's hasty remarriage after the death of his father. When he think of how his mother changed from a grieving widow to the bride of his hated uncle, Hamlet exclaims "Frailty thy name is woman!" He leaps from the single example of his mother's impulsive behaviour and condemns all women for all time. This ... is the first of many comments by Hamlet and others, about the sometimes mysterious ways in which people change. Every thought in Hamlet's first soliloquy is painful. Hamlet reveals his own frailty when ... a mont...

• Word Count: 307
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School