... tasting the sea salts and moisture." and " but then he would slip away into daydreams, just pretending, walking barefoot along the Jersey shore, with Martha carrying nothing." Jimmy also carries the weight of command and the responsibility for his men's lives. After one of his men dies the author writes this ... . "Lieutenant Cross felt the pain. He blamed himself." There are two main supporting characters, Martha and Ted Lavender. Martha is a junior a Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. The lieutenant dated her a few times before he left for Vietnam. She is a poet ... quite real a po...

• Word Count: 1022
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... face in the short story lead up to what we know as the plot. The main conflict in this story is the conflict between Lieutenant Cross and Martha, his letter lover. When the Lieutenant doesn't take part in his duties at the war, they loose men. He realizes that his problem is fantasizing about ... Martha all of the time. When one of Jimmy's closest and best men dies he is left to make a difficult or even impossible choice, known as dilemma. This ... focus more directly on his job as the first Lieutenant of the Vietnam War. Instead of letting his mind drift off into a daydream over Martha...

• Word Count: 313
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... weight of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross" rucksack and the things he carried could not even compare to the weight of his love for Martha and his responsibility for the death of one of his men because of his love for Martha. This, along with his responsibility for the rest of his men, caused him to choose between the two. He symbolically threw away ... the burden of his love for Martha by burning her letters and throwing away the pebble she gave him. Doing this did nothing in ... removing the burden because he knew them by heart already and his love for Martha would not change. He would still t...

• Word Count: 1072
• Approx Pages: 4

... were "things men carried inside" (O"Brien 972), so they were much harder to bear throughout the conflict. Lt. Jimmy Cross had to rely on his memories and fantasies of Martha to get him through this frightening ordeal and he "humped" "two photographs of Martha because he loved her so much" (O"Brien 961). Though, at one point in the story Jimmy Cross "burned ... " (O"Brien 971) to try and relieve the load because he felt that it was an unattainable fantasy as well. Unfortunately, Lt. Cross was focusing on Martha when he should have been concentrating on his men, "Lavender was dead. You cou...

• Word Count: 461
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... , Where Have You Been? Joyce Carol Oates is no doubt one of the greatest authors of her time it is obvious that her writings endure even today. Upon reading her biography and descriptions of her works it is inferred that Oates is a bit strange in the way she chooses to write. For example, the author explains that: There have been changes ... . Oates seems to be a very deep thinker and she incorporates this into her writing when she writes of the murders in Tucson. It is decided from this research of Oates biography and study of her story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" that Oat...

• Word Count: 1228
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... to him the story of Lazarus, and Sonia does so for the sake of Raskolnikov, despite her hesitation of reading to a non-believer. Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha, who were good friends of Jesus. When Lazarus died, Christ raised him from the dead. In the novel, this story seems to act as hint of hope for Raskolnikov while ... ...

• Word Count: 1095
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... plot comes when Ted Lavender is shot and killed. Boom. Down. After Lavender dies, Jimmy Cross has a profound change and is all business. Cross sacrifices his love and fantasy for Martha for the protection and safety of his men. Everything that fantasy represented is lost. At this point, Jimmy Cross understood. "It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried ... ...

• Word Count: 459
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... to work out his own inner conflicts and psychological struggles. This can relate to mood in that the readers are experiencing a taste of his own life. In a critic written by Martha Womack, she explains how the narrator's "nervousness" is a frequently used literary device of Poe to establish tone through heightened states of consciousness (Womack, Poedecoder). Womack also speculates that the narrator ... ...

• Word Count: 882
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Throughout the Canadian Prairies many people experience loneliness and isolation. This seclusion can be attributed to many different factors. In Martha Ostenso's novel, Wild Geese; these influencing dynamics are presented strongly through the characters of Ellen Gare, and her father Caleb Gare. As each character develops, the segregation each individual experiences ... ...

• Word Count: 516
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography

... humanized into Tong's amnesia. The loss of Tongs family could also be viewed as a reference to China's Cultural Revolution, comparing the change of culture to a loss of uniqueness and heritage. A biography of Ha Jin sates "Jin's plans for returning to China changed in 1989, however, when he saw Chinese protesters confronting army troops in Tiananmen Square in Beijing; the results ... ...

• Word Count: 1019
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The Story That Told a Greater One Woodstock immediately comes to mind; Jackie Robinson as the first African American Major League Baseball player for the Brooklyn Dodgers; Gandhi. All throughout history, there have been times in which a moment or event nearly summed up a generation: what happened during that time period, what the people were experiencing, the emotional state of a country, the impact of a single person all merely examples of stories that helped share a larger one. More often than not, an explanation is not even necessary. Nadine Gordimer may not be a household name here in the ...

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

... the mid-1800's, Poe worked as a writer, creating stunning detective stories such as "Murders in the Rue Morgue", and beautiful poems like "The Raven". According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, "It is not hard to see the connection between the nightmare of Poe's life and his work. Behind a screen of sometimes substantial, sometimes flimsy "reality", his fictional work beautifully resembles ... ...

• Word Count: 820
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... in history, each of those novels is very unique. The reason for that is that each novel will try to convey something different to the reader. It could be a story, a biography, or something as simple as teaching one how to count. Whatever the purpose of it maybe the novel is an intricate part in shaping society and the world in order ... ...

• Word Count: 1195
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... are readers who prefer to read non-fiction books that are based on truth and facts, and real-life situations. Some examples of these types of writings include essay, history, biography, autobiography, and diary. Readers expect the writer to take them away from their stressful lives. They want to put themselves, as a character, inside the books that they read. They want ... ...

• Word Count: 496
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... were buried in the James family cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Henry James work was remarkable and outstanding in his lifetime he put out 112 tales, 20 novels, 2 columns of auto biography and part of a third, travel essays and books, 3,000 pages of literary criticism, and 16 plays. Some scholars criticize James works because of its slow development and deliberate withholding of ... ...

• Word Count: 847
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Edith Wharton is one of America's most celebrated female novelists, with an esteemed devotion to fiction works. Wharton was born Edith Jones in 1862, into an upper class New York City family. She was engaged at a young age, yet the marriage was called off because of the Jones family's snobbish reputation. Jones finally married Edward Wharton in 1885, though and though her marriage soon went to ruins, she remained married to Wharton for over twenty years. Edith Wharton finally divorced her husband in 1913, but never relinquished his last name. The loveless marriage Wharton endured for 28 years ...

• Word Count: 483
• Approx Pages: 2

... was about a complex gifted movie producer who lived in Hollywood. Francis was only able to finish one third of this before his death of a heart attack. Some say it was a biography on his life in Hollywood and his failure to make it in movies but we will never know because it was never finished. Over all Francis Scott Key Fitzgeralds books ... ...

• Word Count: 457
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... choices are enough. The students are still bound by the limits on the structure of the essay. There are various forms of literature, the essay, the poem, the play, the biography, and numerous more. In high school, students try one of each, but little time is spent on any, save, the essay. We are given book reports, we read books on ... ...

• Word Count: 720
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Ray Bradbury A biography on an author known as Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. In his stories, Bradbury put together the intrigue of the changing technology ... ...

• Word Count: 357
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... truly understand the meaning behind the short story, "A Pair of Tickets", by Amy Tan, a reader must first read her novel, "The Joy Luck Club" and know a little about the author's biography. The short story is taken from the last chapter of the novel "The Joy Luck Club" which contains many elements from Tan's life. Tan did not learn until she was ... ...

• Word Count: 423
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... terms. His love and care of patients was very apparent throughout his medical career and was something he was truly remembered for. One other theme I found while reading this outstanding biography, was the pride of being Australian while respecting your heritage and past. This was seen in Chapter 7: Just a Father, the six-year-old Vanessa Chang tells her father: "I don't want ... ...

• Word Count: 886
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Alice Walker was born in Georgia. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965, and taught in various schools including Yale, and Wellesley. In addition to publishing fiction, poetry, and biography that rewarded her with a Guggenheim fellowship in 1977, she received a wall book award nomination. She has published multiple books including "The Color Purple," which was made into a movie that won ... ...

• Word Count: 763
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School