... sometimes changing, characteristics, interactions and conversations. Characters illustrate the action of a story, and make readers see the characters in a specific light. In Revelation, Flannery O"Connor's characterizations make each character seem very real. She combines showing and telling by tying together physical attributes with personality traits drawn out by the events of the story. This story combines dynamic characters that ... , she wanted it on her own terms. In the end, Mrs. Turpin gets her revelation. After snubbing the other characters, admiring her place in society and bei...

• Word Count: 1464
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... them. Many examples of symbolism are given to influence the plot in John Steinbeck's short story, "The Chrysanthemums." He uses the flowers to symbolize the main character's thoughts and ideas. For example, Elisa Allen is a lonely woman who enjoys growing and nourishing her chrysanthemums. Since her husband is always working the cattle in ... Looks like a quick puff of colored smoke?" "That's it. What a nice way to describe them" (91). She now feels appreciated and attractive to the stranger. His compliment to her about her flowers leads her to feel forced to allow him to fix her pots. ...

• Word Count: 1318
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... Elisa's facial features, her fingers as they dig through the dirt, and how strong her crops are. Although the author emphasizes and builds Elisa's character throughout the story that she is such a strong woman, he ends the story with Elisa breaking down and weeping. Symbols are important in the ... I raise them every year, bigger than anybody around here" (249). Notice how Steinbeck describes how Elisa's irritated face has vanished as a result from the stranger's question, which is Elisa's interest. From that moment further, Elisa began to "open up" to the man, feeling more comfortable an...

• Word Count: 1566
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... that take people out of their reality, and into a world where things are much simpler. As the main character, Van Winkle, being loved by all that know him is also a stagnant character. He takes little interest in taking charge of his household with no desire to support his own family. This leads ... Winkle (his wife) would always get angry with him over his duties, enough so for Van Winkle to run away. Irving uses the wife's character to symbolize what Americans were going through with the harsh treatment imposed by the British authority. I really do think the entire first half of the ...

• Word Count: 1834
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... models, from the eighteenth-century, for Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. Apart from the cultural influences, the regional contrast of the main character and Sleepy Hollow causes the major difference in the story. This is seen in the main character Ichabod Crane, who can be related to the Yankee and his enemy Brom Bones, who personifies the Dutch from New York (Ringe ... might have reason to be suspicious of ghostly intervention, whereas Ichabod is disposed, both by what he knows (spooky stories from New England and New York) and by what as a stranger he does not know, to see ghosts in the...

• Word Count: 1590
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... and desires in human form. Some readers have come to the conclusion that Arnold Friend is a psychopathic murderer who has come abduct Connie. This is most likely due to his character's strong resemblance to real-life serial killer Charles Schmid--better known as "The Pied Piper of Tucson." Charles Howard Schmid Jr. acted out the same habitual behaviors exhibited by Arnold ... states to Connie that he "knows all about [her]" (Oates 1229), and then proceeds to give her information about her family and friends. Such invested time and effort into a total stranger, as Arnold shows, is a char...

• Word Count: 1264
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... nearby Columbia College. In 1806, he passed his bar examination, but his heart was with literature. He published History of New York, a comic in which the narrator was his fictional character named "Diedrich Knickerbocker."" Irving's writing was so successful that the New York "Knicks- named their basketball team after Diedrich. Several years later, Irving moved to London and began to study ... the story by using irony. After wandering with his gun and his close companion, Wolf, Rip tracks himself into the upper parts of the mountains. Soon after, Rip comes across a stranger who was car...

• Word Count: 1583
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School