Brian Ricketts Doctorow's novel, Welcome to Hard Times is an anti-western novel. Doctorow attempts to debunk the western myth of the American dream. The essential theme in the novel is that the west fails to live up to the hope that civilization can conquer evil. In this way, it was first seen as an un-American ... women. These leaders see this as a return to a time when gender roles were more identifiable and less confusing. In modernist writing, rights and wrongs are more identifiable and characterization and theme less ambiguous. Like Doctorow's Hard Times, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale se...

• Word Count: 2490
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

In Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat," the indifference of Nature is a reoccurring theme. The role Nature plays forces man to struggle with his own role in life. With a skewed perception of the universe, man must come to terms with his rightful place among ... ...

• Word Count: 1599
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School