... is clear that the plot is spread out through a number of years and often in-between chapters a large amount of time has passed. This is shown at the beginning of chapter 6 as it reads, "Half a dozen years passed away - This allows Hardy to create a more elaborate story line and use several characters. Whereas, 'The Signalman' ranges over a period of only three ... style to set the scene and describe the movement of characters. The narrator describes the railway cutting signal box as a "solitary and dismal place," with "dripping wet walls of jagged stone," and appeals to our senses by sa...

• Word Count: 2219
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... "dark flat wilderness", "low leaden line beyond", "distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing". Dickens has built up an image in this first chapter of the boy Pip and his background. The theme is on death and is reinforced by the bleakness and wildness of the marsh lands. It is at ... this point in the first chapter that the convict Magwitch is introduced. Dickens describes a situation that would terrify most children and he uses humour alongside the fear. One can feel almost ... reader look at the convict with intrigue and curiosity as to how and why he is in that situation....

• Word Count: 1797
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... then adopts the word as his name. For example from henceforth thou will be called f*ck. Roddy Doyle said when interviewed that when he wrote this chapter I was reaching back to my childhood for the memories and inspiration to write the book, the gang thing seemed important because there was always a gang. ... ; it gives him a chance to express Paddy's feelings about his family. He seems quite nave of the problems his parents are having. In the chapter The Family Outing' he knows something ahs happened when his mum gets out of the car away from their father in the pouring rain. However Pad...

• Word Count: 2123
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... this ending is so right. Dickens genius writing skills in the final line of the novel I saw the shadow of no parting from her' (chapter 40 page 484) allows the reader to make their own assumptions for their future. There is no indication in this line that directly tells the ... Estella delivered them. When told to play with Pip by Miss Havisham, Estella retorted with Why, this boy? Why, he is a common labouring boy! (Chapter 8, page 60) Until now Pip was never unhappy with or fully aware of his social status and took the opportunity to look at himself from Estella's perspective ... , I t...

• Word Count: 2210
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... puts together a bad place during a bad time; an English workhouse just after the Poor Law Act of 1834 (Scott-Kilvert, 48). In the first chapter of Oliver Twist, Dickens moves from comedy to pathos and from pathos to satire. He takes us from the drunken old woman to the dying mother to ... to provide variety and unity, and to give that double opportunity for comedy and pathos that Dickens admired in stage melodrama (Scott-Kilvert, 47). In this first chapter, Dickens also captures life and death in a single sentence, "Let me see the child, and die." (Dickens, 2). This sums up the mother'...

• Word Count: 1649
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... visitor in "as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw." The earlier description of the visitor's climb down to meet with the signalman through a cutting that was "made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down" gives the reader a feeling of discomfort and unease about the bleak environment. "On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged ... stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky" indicates that the signalman was also deprived of sunshine in that unearthly environment. The railway tunnel is described as "this great dungeon" that ... seem rather myste...

• Word Count: 2158
• Approx Pages: 9

WINE, STONE FACES, AND KNITTING After Charles Dickens and his wife separated, Dickens' got an innovative idea. He decided to print his latest book in weekly installments in order to launch his ... smelled. All the images in a literary source together are called the imagery (Sheperd 433). Dickens' uses imagery to help us relate to situations so we may understand them better. The stone faces on the property of the Marquis Evrémonde play an interesting role in the book, especially after the death of the Marquis. The house is burned down by ... four revolutionaries, and as it burns the stone f...

• Word Count: 1330
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... and are referred to by index numbers. The most successful products of this system, for example, Bitzer, have a white complexion -an indication that education has literally stripped them of individuality. A chapter, where this process is described is named "Murdering the Innocents" which refers to replacing the rich personalities of children with cold and impersonal utilitarian attitudes. Dickens accuses Utilitarianism of being ... ...

• Word Count: 1343
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School