Graduation was two weeks away and for the majority of the students it was hard to stay focused on school work. The amount of emotions flowing in the students' bodies was unreal, almost so powerful to take over their bodies. Outside there was the smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of birds chirping and you could see the swing on the rusty old play structure outside of the abandoned children's wing at the infirmary swaying. This play structure has been closed down for almost two years, after a student was found dead hanging from the monkey bars. At the Academy, there is a ritual that the gra...

• Word Count: 1268
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... yourself to become for a few minutes that character within. As I jumped back and forth, trying helplessly to decipher what stories intrigued me enough to write about them, I stumbled upon Alice Munroe. Her two short stories contain "realistic style that is comfortably familiar"(362) to me: "An Ounce of Cure" and "Prue." I can relate ... to Alice Munroe's short stories because I have encountered many of the same experiences as Munroe and her characters have. "Munroe's experience of growing up in a small ... thoughtful, a cheerful spectator"(372). The only time that I don't enjoy being al...

• Word Count: 1285
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... herself confronted with her "real self" and realizes her faults in being a so-called good Christian woman. Flannery O"Connor used grotesque themes and situations to make her stories differentiated from the common story. Many of her works are classified as "Southern Gothic" because of her strong feelings and strong use of moral and physical themes. ... believe in. In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", the Grandmother and Family representing the innocent and the Misfit is labeled as evil. Unlike most good vs. evil stories, it shows a kind of "senseless" evil and "artful" innocence. For Example,...

• Word Count: 1304
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

COMPARE AND CONTRAST Dissecting the short stories, The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich, and An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, by their use of characters, settings and points of view, and plot structures to help distinguish how the writers illustrate their short story. In The Red Convertible, the main character is Lyman Lamartine. Lyman ... At Owl Creek Bridge starts out with the action and detail that demands a reader to continue and pay close attention to what happens next. Ambrose broke the short story into three parts, yet they are not in chronological order. The first...

• Word Count: 1504
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of short stories set in the obscure, hick town of Winesburg, Ohio. Every story contains within it a character with an obsession that labels the ... the novel's many themes and motifs. Moreover, these themes and motifs offer insight into America's involvement in WWI and WWII. The common character among these stories is a 19-year-old reporter named George Willard who, for unknown reasons, connects with the grotesques of the community and listens to their tales. After ... of beginning a "normal" life. The themes of isolation, failure to commu...

• Word Count: 1325
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... period a family would not have to change houses every time its social status changed. Symbolism is also a very important part of the novel. The Rise of Silas Lapham is a comparatively short novel for Howells, and Howells achieved this brevity through the use of symbols which reinforce or give emotional dimension to some deeper meaning already incorporated within the framework of the ... a course of action which is morally sound, but which will ruin him financially (Johnson 938-939). This action by Silas symbolizes the good versus evil struggle that appears in most stories. It also shows...

• Word Count: 1648
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... 't sound like the typical setting for most of us, but for Morrie Schwartz and Jamie Sullivan it was. Morrie and Jamie were grateful for life in its entirety, even as short as it was going to be for them. In Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom and A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks, both characters Morrie and Jamie are diagnosed with ... fatal diseases. The number one standing similarity between these two heart-wrenching stories was that Morrie and Jamie saw every component of the life they had, to be a blessing. "Morrie had always been a dancer but the music didn't matter. Rock and ro...

• Word Count: 1653
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School