... not judging him by his skin color but more on the content of his work. Comparing himself to other American writers in Europe, race no longer stood as a factor as the playing field was leveled. Baldwin states that "it is the writer, not the statesman, who is our strongest arm in the wedding the visions of the old world with the new world."" This is a comparison between his views ... we suspect that it will destroy, as I hope it does that myth of America to which we cling so desperately). An American writer fights his way to one of the lowest rungs on the American social ladder by means o...

• Word Count: 1012
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... brought many positive social and cultural changes to U.S. society. Many things, such as the widespread use of the automobile, transformed family social life, while the new, wide following of Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance created revolutionary cultural changes. As the automobile industry prospered due to new production techniques the automobile gained widespread use. Automobiles enabled rural residents to have greater contact with their ... a blend of West African and Latin rhythms, African American spirituals and blues, and European harmonies. Joseph "King" Oliver helped to spread jaz...

• Word Count: 335
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

J.D Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" should not be banned at all anywhere in the United States. The book's ideas relate to the majority of teenagers throughout the country. Many say because of the book's profanity and teenage sexual relations, that it is a bad influence on many young adults. However, many teenagers have the same feelings as Holden towards many aspects of life. Of course many teenagers don't wander the streets ... 't fail out of four different high schools. But Holden's reactions and feelings can certainly relate to many young adults. There is no reason why this novel ...

• Word Count: 350
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... in Jennings's life, and the only person he was able to feel comfortable with. Unfortunately Jennings eventually had to ride on another bus and wouldn't be able to see Sal anymore. The climax in this story is when Jennings and Sal meet again at the zoo. Jennings is finally able to say, "I love you", to Sal. At the end of the novel, Sal agrees to adopt Jennings ... as his own child. The protagonist of the novel is obviously Jennings. The fact that this all happened ... to the author makes me realize just how lucky I actually am to have family, friends, a home, etc ... ...

• Word Count: 869
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... well as bowling and others. Movies, motion picture, became quite a hit, along with the radio. In the 1930's as well, radio and motion pictures became more popular. The radio in this time used by FDR for "fireside chats", which was talking to the people through the radio, easing them about the economy. In the Jazz Age new mortality was taking affect, with women changing their fashion sense ... brought forward. In 1920, journalism became a huge business. Many African Americans started to become writers and the Harlem Renaissance existed. The increase in black writers carried over into the...

• Word Count: 360
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... their way to find a hydrant to put out the fires. The happiness defied description when the blizzard had finally faded away, but just moments later the blizzard returned. The heavy snow hurled the people down to the ground helplessly, leaving ghastly piles of buried bodies under the snow. In spite of the damage and destruction left in the wake of the Blizzard of 1888, the destruction should also be viewed in a positive ... light: it prepared us for the unexpected. The author showed that after a tragic occasion comes unity ... ...

• Word Count: 372
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... was never ordinary. One of the pieces that he is known for is the picture of the Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup can. His style of artwork was built around a lot of imitations and reproductions of things that have already been done or created. Andy Warhol was known for this type of art, and is the second theme in this novel. Warhol was known for his ... famous pieces like paintings of bananas, Coca-Cola bottles, boxes of Brillo pads, and the picture of Marilyn Monroe. It makes me wonder how an everyday object that does nothing, can be created ... a whole new world for artists, a new per...

• Word Count: 548
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... uproar ever since it was published. African Americans and others, led by the NAACP, began to challenge the book in the 1950s, appalled by the novel's portrayal of the slave Jim and its repeated use of the word "nigger." The book was removed from some schools in the New York City school system, and its place on required reading lists was threatened in other cities. Some people see Huck Finn ... 1835. This does not mean that the use of the word is acceptable by any means, but, Huck Finn was a child, and he only did what he had grown up doing. Religion is a key theme in the novel, but the ...

• Word Count: 905
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... program of relief, recovery and reform aimed to solve economic problems caused by the Great Depression. There are many critics and admires of the New Deal. Though the New Deal was not successful in ending the Great Depression, it permanently changed the relationship amongst government, the economy and individual citizens. The New Deal was a moderately effective program that introduced many different types of ... began in August of 1935. Social Security created a system of insurance for the elderly, unemployed and the disabled. Some complained Social Security went against American traditi...

• Word Count: 745
• Approx Pages: 3

... describe other people, when in reality he himself is a phony. Another symbol that is used throughout the novel to characterize Holden is the hunting hat he had just purchased in New York City. The hat represents Holden's awkwardness; it does not fit in with the environment, nor does he. Throughout the novel, J.D. Salinger uses symbols to characterize Holden in a very unique way, and to get a better ... to call Mrs. Marrow or talk to the girls at the bar is because he is missing something in his life. For example, from the essay "The Structure of The Catcher in the Rye" by Brian Way, "H...

• Word Count: 793
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

On The Road by Jack Kerouac 1957 Sal Paradise, the narrator of the story, is miserable and fed up with his mundane life when he meets a young man named Dean Moriarty during the winter of 1947. Dean is wild, irresponsible, and newly married to a girl named Marylou. Before long, Marylou and Dean split ... his friend Remi Boncoeur and his girlfriend Lee Ann outside of San Francisco. Sal is unhappy staying with the bickering couple and decides to take the bus out of California. He meets a pretty girl named Terry on the bus. They are attracted to each other and stay together in Los Angeles. Terry...

• Word Count: 757
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... things cannot always go back to the way they used to be. The Plot The novel begins in the spring of 1922, with Nick Carraway, who leaves his Midwestern home to enter the bond business in New York City. He rents a small house in West Egg, a village on Long Island made of mansions and the rich. Next door to Nick's house is the enormous home of Mr. Gatsby. One ... 's. The next afternoon, Myrtle's husband makes his way to Gatsby's estate, finding him in the pool. He than proceeds to shoot Gatsby and himself. Nick later discovers both of their bodies in the pool. After Gatsby's funeral, Nick ...

• Word Count: 767
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... in a beautiful and innocent world, and finds the hypocrisy and ugliness of the world around him almost unbearably painful; his cynicism is his attempt to protect himself from the pain and disappointment of the adult world. As the novel opens, Holden stands poised on the cliff separating childhood from adulthood; his damaged innocence also leaves him poised on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Ackley - Holden's ... next-door neighbor in the dorm at Pencey Prep, a pimply, insecure boy with terrible teeth. ... funeral. One of Holden's most prized possessions, a baseball glove on which Alli...

• Word Count: 1065
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... Union. In 1967 he and other prestigious writers signed a letter urging soviet writers to defend Jewish cultural institutions that were at the time under attack by the soviet government. In 1968 his novel Couples received national attention and helped in land on the cover of Time Magazine. In 1974 him and his first wife separated and he moved to Boston where he taught at Boston ... and then received the National Metal for the Humanities from President George W Bush in 2003. One of on the limited list of people to receive both of these awards in their lifetime. John Updike spent his later...

• Word Count: 899
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... All the characters introduced in the novel, have some sort of tie or connection to the main narrator, Marisol. The book begins before Marisol is born, and is comprised of stories that have been told to Marisol throughout her life. As one reads through the story, you can begin to see how Marisol is a reflection of, or ties to each character introduced. Marisol relies on the stories ... which have been passed down through the years as she tries to relate her life to that of her family. The Line of the Sun is a great example of how women do not have a significant role in the world in that ...

• Word Count: 1045
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... things that he cannot solve by himself. The theme of this novel is how innocence is corrupted by society. Holden thinks everybody who is grown up is a phony because their behavior and advice are all false. The title of this book is based on an old game where someone catches children from ... falling off a cliff. This symbolizes that Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye because he wants to protect the ... because he seems to find something depressing in almost everything and everyone. He is also a depressed character because he feels alone in the most of the time, and he never finds...

• Word Count: 859
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... as " deafening chaos" that " had many a tale of woe to tell" (91). A strong sense of hopelessness is evident when he states "Many of the peddlers, too, bore piteous testimony to the calamity which was then preying on the quarter" (91). He writes using such descriptive negative connotations such as: self-torture, "abject effect of begging alms" (91) and he leads us to envision ... an event, and much less to give a gift commensurate with the occasion, no one attended. The disaster of the decision quickly faded after the wedding because Cahan tells us that "So happy were they, that the gang...

• Word Count: 1104
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... / Russian novel does" (lns1-3). O"Hara tactfully uses the "you" here to indict over-sympathetic scholars reading his work. He made the deliberate choice of writing "you say" instead of a colon and making the next line begin with "it" --all affects aimed at making the reader pause or pay close attention to the voice in the poem. O"Hara then shifts the voice to first person "I" in the second stanza. The first ... person perspective in the next stanza and up until the last line of the poem continues to embody the same satirical tone of the "you". He wants his reader to infer the satirical n...

• Word Count: 460
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... Gatsby refuses to relinquish his obsessive dream of Daisy as the ideal girl, events throughout the novel portray to everyone except an oblivious Gatsby that Daisy possesses a true nature of raw carelessness. After Daisy hit Myrtle with the car on the way home from New York City, she "stepped on it," and she would not even stop the car (151). Despite Gatsby's unwavering love for her, she ... a girl who has everything, yet still cannot see beyond what affects only herself. Jordan Baker also comes from the society in Louisville, yet she does not quite belong to the same superior class as ...

• Word Count: 591
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... declines. In most cases, the main reason is because of the government cracking down but also because there is not as many opportunities for them. A very questionable issue regarding the mafia is the morality of what is going on about it. As well as the legal issues including investigations by the police and FBI. "The decline in the mob's power came with the federal RICO or racketeering laws ... which allowed the FBI to focus less on gambling and loansharking cases and target the heads of New York's five crime families." (Guart ... of this is displayed in the book and movie trilogy The G...

• Word Count: 920
• Approx Pages: 4

... . Before Holden was to be sent home from Pencey for good, he decides to leave early and be on his own in New York City for a few days. With a decent stash of money and a desperate desire to repress his depression, Holden roams around the city, meets up with old friends, strikes up conversations with new ones, drinks and smokes profusely, and hardly ... caused Holden to become very volatile because he didn't know how else to express his grief. From then on, many of Holden's emotions are channeled through anger and bitterness rather than the true emotion he is feeling. Later, as Holden is ...

• Word Count: 840
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Good and Evil Midnight in the Garden of Good Evil is a non-fictional novel. Author and narrator John Berendt leaves the hectic life of New York City and buys an apartment in Savannah, Georgia. Berendt makes friends all over the city and tells their stories in the book. Jim Williams is ... a main character, antiques dealer, and public figure. He is accused of murdering a young man working for him by the ... and thrown out. Joe and another woman open up a piano bar in town and begin to pull in some money. With the profits Joe moves into another house and turns it into a museum. Just when ...

• Word Count: 594
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... own money. His second oldest brother Allie died of leukemia at a very young age. His favorite sibling was his only sister Phoebe. He would talk about her the most around people and brag about her. She was only eight years old and was very intelligent for her age. Holden Caulfield started out in his life at a ... parents thought he would do well there and it would set his priorities straight. Unfortunately, the outcome didn't come out the way they were hoping for. His life was pretty much a mess all of the time. He was a sixteen-year-old boy all on his own trying to find his way through hi...

• Word Count: 575
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... amount of 62,000 vacant homes reported at the end of last year. Families were forced to move out due to unpaid mortages or taxes. Banks reclaimed the homes but did not maintain those homes properly. Uncut grasses, broken windows, trash on the lawn, etc. Those vacant properties are nearly ... destroyed due to weather and criminal act. Some people may have entered the homes for prostitution, drug selling and even ... stealing anything valuable that could be resold. Fixing all those vacant homes in Chicago alone will take the city thousands ... If those banks were to tear down those house...

• Word Count: 615
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... and sarcastic humour of John Corey. Asad Khalil's a psychopath with a blood feud against United States of America. Asad's family was killed in an American bombing of Libya on April 15, 1986. The bombs were dropped on Asad's hometown of Al Azziziyah. When his town was bombed his family was killed. Asad's father was already dead but his mother, 2 brothers and 2 sister were killed ... London, England. He then turned himself in to the American embassy in Paris, France to be sent to the U.S.A as an informant. On the plane to America he released cyanide gas into the air killing all '189 souls...

• Word Count: 1075
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School