... children from the first marriage were Joan and Bess. In the second marriage there was Joy, and she died in 1910 (Dyer n.p.g). Jack London's childhood was one of loneliness, insecurity, and deprivation. The reality was that the London's were never terribly poor. Like many other sensitive and intelligent children ... pages of White Fang as brutal, relentless, and destructive of everything soft and gentle. This tests his imaginatively ideas about life (Bryan 1814). In Jack London's literary career he was known as a novelist, short story writer, and political essayist. He worked at a succes...

• Word Count: 1996
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... tectonic plate movement which caused the Earth's axis to shift by several inches. Everything is unstable and now scientists can only predict various outcomes, one prediction that according to the California Department of Conservation Division of mines and geology will occur in the next 20 to 50 years is an ... earthquake magnitude 7.5 or greater and has been given the name, "The Big One". This fault runs along Northern California through Southern California all the way to Baja California, Mexico. The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, an ... for an earthquake magnitude 7.5. Many factors...

• Word Count: 1650
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate

... empty. Often, this interlocking of details becomes thematic or symbolic. The dust which is mentioned 27 times in three pages of Chapter 1 comes to stand not only for the land itself, but also for the basic situation out of which the novel`s action develops. When Tom returns home after four years in prison, he steps off the highway, and performs the symbolic ... ritual of taking off his new shoes and carefully working his bare feet into the dust. One of the novel`s most important symbols, the turtle, is presented in the first intercalary chapter. The turtle is symbolic and its adventures...

• Word Count: 2399
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... Billie Letts Summary: The novel that I read is Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts. The main character of this book is a seventeen-year-old, seven-month pregnant girl named Novalee. The story begins with her and her boyfriend Willy Jack driving out to California for his big music career break. Willy Jack portrays a typical "abusive ... her baby alive with no food, no water, and no shelter. Novalee ends up spending night after night in Wal-Mart. She hides herself so that no one is able to see her. During her stay at Wal-mart, she begins a phase of taking pictures of everyone and everythin...

• Word Count: 541
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... depression. It tells the story of the Joad family from the time of their eviction on their farm in Oklahoma, to their first winter in California. The novel is basically divided into three sections: their time in Oklahoma, their journey to a "better" life in California, and their time while in California. It also ... future. After fixing the Wilson's car, Tom and Al suggest that the two families travel together; and so they press forward the next day. Inter-chapter fourteen displays the gradual recognition of the gathering migrants, which show that there is strength uniting together. It ...

• Word Count: 1730
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

Becoming Californian One of Gertrude Atherton's many novels, "The Californians", captured much about the lives of the privileged class of San Francisco during the late 1800's and early 1900's. In chapter six of her novel, Atherton tells the story of two young women named Magdalena Yorba and Helena Belmont who reside in a very nice part of northern San Francisco. They are the daughters of ... very wealthy and powerful men known as Don Roberto Yorba and Colonel Jack Belmont. The two daughters decide one evening to rebel against their parents ... 's your old New England conscience! if you were m...

• Word Count: 510
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... with a fence stake no more" (Steinbeck, 78) Muley compares himself, as a hunter, to a mean wolf, but as the hunted, a weasel; a life where one must sneak around and attack unnoticed, the life of the hunted. 6.Chapters 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 tell the narrative about Tom Joad and his family the way novels usually ... comes, and not about tomorrow, today. Ma's burning of the stationary box symbolizes the death of an old life, and the start of a new one. The box contained old documents including "a newspaper clipping on which there was an account of Tom's trial" (Steinbeck, 148) and other memora...

• Word Count: 5172
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: High School

... , uprooting the weakened corn, and the air became so filled with dust that the stars were not visible at night." (Chapter 1) Throughout the novel there are several symbols used to develop! the theme man verses a hostile environment. Each symbol used in the novel show examples of both extremes. Some represent man, that struggles against the environment, others paint a clear picture of the feelings ... to never use the words "I" and "ego," because in such a world, individual thinking could not exist. The main character, Equality 7-2521, recognizes this restriction and exclaims, "There is s...

• Word Count: 1049
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... that she has endured, enable her to temporarily protect her family from breaking apart and get them through the hardships that the Joad family would encounter in California. Throughout the novel, Ma is determined to protect the unity of the family and preserve a positive outlook regarding life in California. Ma realizes that in their migrant way of life, family is the ... does not want to leave them behind for she fears that they would never see Tom and Casy on the road or in California. As a result, she grabs hold of a jack-handle, steps in front of the truck to block it, and threatens...

• Word Count: 1488
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Comparing White Fang and Call of the Wild When most people think of Jack London, they think of the wilderness, the cold, and his two most famous novels, Call of the Wild and White Fang. Every major novel or short story of London's is set in the wild and these two are no exception. In both novels, the main character is a dog (or ... ...

• Word Count: 493
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... , he moved to New York to begin a career as a writer. Initially, he was not successful. He returned to California and worked on his first novel, The Cup of Gold in 1929. His first successful book was Tortilla Flat written in 1935. It was a collection of humorous short stories. In Dubious ... followed by The Long Valley, another collection of short stories, in 1938. The Grapes of Wrath, written in 1939, was perhaps Steinbeck's most famous novel, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. During the Second World War, he wrote for the New York Herald Tribune. Those articles were later published ...

• Word Count: 1364
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... of meat and no vegetables. Aside from these pains, fleas and lice infested the camps. Doctors were not to be found, and any one that came by charged outrageously for ineffective pills. Many pioneers, tired of living, succumbed easily to disease. Hundreds of victims were buried without ... -called "apprentice" system allowed settlers to detain indentured Indians until the age of 30. Prostitution of young Indian girls was another opprobrious business. One Nisenan tribe blackened their girls' faces to keep them from being kidnapped into this type of slavery. Two Indians who attempted to re...

• Word Count: 2802
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

... of meat and no vegetables. Aside from these pains, fleas and lice infested the camps. Doctors were not to be found, and any one that came by charged outrageously for ineffective pills. Many pioneers, tired of living, succumbed easily to disease. Hundreds of victims were buried without ... -called "apprentice" system allowed settlers to detain indentured Indians until the age of 30. Prostitution of young Indian girls was another opprobrious business. One Nisenan tribe blackened their girls' faces to keep them from being kidnapped into this type of slavery. Two Indians who attempted to re...

• Word Count: 2802
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

... never give up and to always move on no matter what. Her determination keeps the Joad family together. Ma's ultimate goal is to keep the family together as one. While being occupied by Grandma's sickness, Noah decides to stay back by the river and live on catching fish. Ma responds, "Family's fallin' apart I ... family because of an incident causing him as well as the Joad family at risk. Reluctantly, Ma lets Tom go but is in remorse. Throughout the novel, Ma struggles to hide her emotions from her family. Lovingly, she tries to avoid expressing herself. In conclusion, Ma is an intensely c...

• Word Count: 753
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... the Mexican War was over and Stevenson's regiment of New York Volunteers was disbanded in Los Angeles , three companies came to Monterey. Stevenson's company was one of them. Shortly after that, soldiers set up a theatre exhibition, which was a great success at that time. The managers of the companies were ... " NAN THE GOOD FOR NOTHING" and, at last , the balcony scene from " ROMEO AND JULIET" ( March, 2000).  UNDER THE GASLIGHT Although Mr. Jack Swan's building was not built to be a theatre, after all this performances it became the First Theater in California with the first paid pe...

• Word Count: 1202
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... . Moreover, California bear guns are believed to help exterminate California grizzly bears. Because the traditional single-shot guns no longer satisfied with the hunters for killing the bears with one shot, California gun makers began to make their best guns for killing a California grizzly bear in one shot (Silva 67). The invention of California bear guns resulted in decreasing the population of the bears dramatically ... . In 2014 the US Fish and Wildlife Service received a petition to reintroduce the bears. On the petition, "We shouldn't be closing the book on grizzly recovery but begi...

• Word Count: 1424
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Steinbeck's characteristics with a broad range of literary accomplishments, rather than to judge the "correctness of his position regarding contemporary urgencies and controversies" (Tedlock 20). In George Snell's chapter on Steinbeck in The Shapers of American Fiction: 1798-1947, he notes Steinbeck's strengths and weaknesses: "an enormous gift of story-telling", "catholicity of sympathy" and "'common touch ... subsequently shifted his ground of interpretation and with a desperate earnestness grasped at the most superficial but convenient ideational strategy available to him in the 1930s...

• Word Count: 2015
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The novel On The Road is based on one mans true stories about his craziest adventures through the United States and Mexico. This is one of the greatest novels of all time and nothing I have read so far seems so realistic. Jack Kerovac, who is the author of the book, places himself as the narrator. Sal paradise (jack Kervac) and his best companion dean Morioty start ... of in New York and travels ton California to live life to its fullest. While in California Sal and Dean encounter some people that they knew. The hopes and aspirations of these guys are to find the ultimate type of euphoria. Th...

• Word Count: 278
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... novels are about society's lowest class during the 30's, in which he sympathizes with them. Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 for his novel, "The Grapes of Wrath". This novel is about a poor Oklahoma family traveling to California to find a new life during this difficult era. The entire nation was in ruins ... and felt the impact. This novel was inspired by a series of articles he wrote for the San Francisco News. The 30's was a period of Depression. The stock market crash ... escape. The smaller birds fly until they are exhausted, then fall to the ground, to share the fate of t...

• Word Count: 1667
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

The novel The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, is a story that takes place in the 1930's, the time of the depression and the dust bowl. The Joad family is forced ... becomes short. Like most of the western farmers, they pack up and move to California. During the long, hard trip many members of the family begin to change. Ma is one of the first who changes. When the book began, she behaved like a traditional housewife, taking care of the children and cooking and keeping quiet while the men talked. However, on ... the road when the family wants to split up, she revolts. She takes ...

• Word Count: 554
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... and Men, a reader will understand more about the life of a migrant worker, the environment of their workplace, and the segregation of African Americans. The novel depicts the life of two migrant workers, George and Lennie. George is small, wiry, and sharp-featured while his companion, Lennie, is large and awkward ... find work and make money. The two are life long friends who dream of owning a farm with all of the money they save. The novel states that the two had to live outside in the wilderness during their unemployment. They wore denim and other farmhand attire. They could not ... s...

• Word Count: 497
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

John Steinbeck's classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath follows the trials and tribulations of Tom Joad and his family, along with a supporting cast of characters which includes members of Tom's family, ... He is now working to unite the migrant farmworkers into a solidified front commonly known as a union. They are discovered by the police and Jim is shot and killed by one of them. Tom retaliates by killing one of the policemen and goes into hiding at a nearby stream. In the interim, Tom's family moves to a cotton-picking job which is nearby. When ... milk for her dead child and takes everyone...

• Word Count: 700
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

The Call of the Wild This book is called The Call of the Wild and is written by Jack London. First, the book takes place in California. However, for the majority of the book, it takes place in Alaska during the Alaskan gold rush. The main characters in this ... ...

• Word Count: 410
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... of humorous stories about Monterey paisanos(John Steinbeck). In 1936 Steinbeck wrote, "In Dubious Battle," this story dealt with the strikes of migratory fruit pickers on California plantations. Steinbeck's next novel, " Of Mice and Men," in 1937 became his first big success. Steinbeck followed " Of Mice and Men," with a series of short stories entitled " The Long Valley."(John Steinbeck) In 1939 ... Grapes of Wrath," was the story of tenate farmers who moved to California, because they was unable to live off the land in Oklahoma. To get the idea for this novel Steinbeck had traveled ar...

• Word Count: 402
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... their heads every day especially on the trip west. They did not know whether they had enough money to actually arrive in California. The Grapes of Wrath is realist fiction novel. The author has gone to great lengths in his thick description and inventive but realistic dialogue. This included with the very realistic themes makes good reading. John Steinback shows his ... disapproval of the bankrupt socio-political and economic system that led to the Great Depression of the 1930's that is so well depicted in this book. This novel is as much an insight into the harsh conditions endured by ...

• Word Count: 626
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School