... weapon so calm and casual shows the reader that this is not unsettling even for the youngest minds. The children are not upset that they are going to take the life of another person because they were brought up to understand that since its tradition that its ok. The villagers did show their fear of being the one chosen for the lottery it just never occurred to them ... that they did not have to do this, that they could decide to throw the ridiculous tradition away. "The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, "Some of y...

• Word Count: 1306
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... obligation of safeguarding own children as a mother and completely shows her selfish trait. After ending the second drawing, her two teenager children Nancy and Bill, Jr., "both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd" (141) because they are not chosen; her husband Bill is also not chosen, but he listens to Mr. Summers' order to vehemently open her hand to show ... her slip, which means she is chosen, to the crowd. Mrs. Hutchinson's kids do not care about losing their mom soon and ... forever; her husband neither wants to protect her nor stands her side. Not only such, when the...

• Word Count: 2165
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... question their own qualities - to self-evaluate. In the case of the chosen pieces, short story "William Wilson"" by Edgar Allan Poe and the poem "The Tunnel"" by Mark Strand, both stories slowly draw the reader into an empathy with the main characters. The short story by Poe forces the reader to attempt to find veiled redeeming qualities within the main character, William Wilson. Even as Wilson chooses to ... alter his own name for the story, it is ... There was really no end to its windings -- to its incomprehensible subdivisions. Most profoundly is the symbolism chosen by Poe of the...

• Word Count: 1660
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... event that would typically be celebrated. The examples further explain the irony of how the story is set up in the beginning to make the reader think one thing while the very opposite will happen near the end. Related to the surroundings the behavior of the villagers play a strong role throughout the story, mainly the atmosphere showing the lack of interest the villagers have towards The Lottery, even with the chances of it being one of ... essentially lost. Furthermore, Tessie's goes on to say that The Lottery is tradition and upon being picked she appears to be completely all for it. ...

• Word Count: 1400
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... . Also, Brown discusses his self-doubt after incidences such as his discovery of the true nature of people, such as Goody Cloyse the governor, and village minister. Browns reluctance to take the devils offerings illustrates his misgivings about becoming one of the devils chosen. Even the setting of the twisting, long journey through the woods demonstrates indecision and conflict, as Goodman has to spend a prolonged time considering his ... actions. Young Goodman Browns personal conflict over his inner desires and its greater meaning conflict between good and evil in the world; is the cen...

• Word Count: 1340
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... paths, "mysterious deep-shaded arbors," and gnarly trees. But what later becomes an obsession is the "sickly," "unclean," yellow wallpaper that covers the walls of the big, airy upstairs room her husband has unilaterally chosen for them. He, however, assures her that it is all due to her "nervous weakness" that ... must be checked as it "is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies." John is away most of the time during the ... day, and sometimes overnight when his medical "cases are serious," so it is his sister Jane who attends to the ... commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous ...

• Word Count: 1709
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... a flaw in the two-stage process by which the victim is selected.... Readers of the story will recall that the first round of the drawing determines a household from which the victim is to be drawn; the second round, the single victim from within that household. Williams points out that under such a system individuals who are members of smaller families are more likely to be chosen as the sacrificial victim, and ... he then proposes a new plan that would keep the two-stage ... process but have the same effect as simply selecting one individual at random from the village. But perhaps ins...

• Word Count: 1406
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... are. Leroy is like a lot like these people, who work less than spectacular jobs, and want to take drugs as a way to lessen the feeling that they are wasting away their lives. Further on, Leroy under-performs in his relationship, and smokes marijuana rather than communicating with Norma ... not wanting anyone else know that she can see such provoking things in the wallpaper. Usually the ending to a story can provide the reader with some closure. However that is not the case in The Yellow Wallpaper, as the ending just makes the reader think what happened in this entire story is nothing mor...

• Word Count: 1328
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... use stones" (Jackson 630). In essence, the rules to the lottery, with the exception of the black box and the stoning, are new. The inability to keep the original rules and paraphernalia for the lottery can be strongly correlated to the abandonment of the meaning of the act itself. This realization by the readers can only bring them to question why the villagers still participate in the lottery without a remembering a reason to do ... , not because it brings any positive effect on their lives. In addition to the final act of the lottery itself, immorality is also seen when Tess attempts t...

• Word Count: 1719
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the story the author uses irony to shock the reader at the tale's conclusion. Jackson twists the concept of a "lottery" as well as the behaviour of the participants in the game of chance. Jackson also shows irony in the names of the characters, and where and when it takes place. Lastly, the words spoken by the characters throughout the story ... seen as ironic is Mr. Graves. He also helps in the making of the slips for the lottery, as Jackson states, "Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up slips of paper and put them in the box"(2). The author could have chosen any other name, but she decid...

• Word Count: 1411
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the story the author uses irony to shock the reader at the tale's conclusion. Jackson twists the concept of a "lottery" as well as the behaviour of the participants in the game of chance. Jackson also shows irony in the names of the characters, and where and when it takes place. Lastly, the words spoken by the characters throughout the story ... seen as ironic is Mr. Graves. He also helps in the making of the slips for the lottery, as Jackson states, "Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up slips of paper and put them in the box"(2). The author could have chosen any other name, but she decid...

• Word Count: 1411
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... is strangely capable of returning...characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace" - Flannery O'Connor From a rather simplistic point of view, both Shirley Jackson's, "The Lottery" and Flannery O'Connor's, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," could be considered as grotesque and cruel stories in which violence takes place randomly and totally unreasonably ... way of life is to "enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him" (O'Connor, Good Man). It may be inferred that he is a...

• Word Count: 1990
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... moments in her works that are disturbing, Flannery O'Connor's use of paradox is an effective literary technique which resonate with the reader, deepening the feeling and meaning of her stories. Her short stories, "A Good Man is Hard to Find,"" and "Good Country People ... the antithesis of everything her mother believed. The name Hulga is also a mask. When Joy changed her name to Hulga, Mrs. Hopewell had made up her mind that Joy "had thought and thought until she hit upon the ugliest name in any language" (O'Connor 299). Although Joy-Hulga chose the name because of its "ugly sound"; it ...

• Word Count: 2129
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography

... an opposite identity to that of his father, based on moral human values. Whether the quest of identity derives from a crisis which is geographical (the East vs. the West, the South vs. the other parts of America), historical (the colonies vs. the English rule), psychological (the ego vs. the id, the conscious vs. the unconscious), cultural (the civilized vs. the uncivilized), social (those who possess belongings vs. those who do not possess), whether ... (individual vs. society, individual vs. nature, individual vs. death) or collective (between groups of people), it nevertheless consti...

• Word Count: 2241
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... "creeping- is symbolic of the rise of feminism. The images in the wall creep around at night, showing how the beginnings of feminism came about because it was not done visibly. She wants to tear the confining wallpaper down that holds this imagery woman in just as she wants to tears the confining way of life her husband has chosen for her. The story continues to progress as ... she deconstructs and analyzes the wallpaper until the climax when our main character locks herself in the yellow room to finally tear all of the wallpaper down so the woman can never be put back and imprisoned fo...

• Word Count: 2055
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... a character, not very over powering in the beginning, but in the end, she has all the attention of the reader and it lays in her lap, which way to lead the mind's eye. After, having a vast read it would be easy to predict upon what the decision of the princess would have been. It is but, psychological, for the princess to have chosen the tiger. And you ask why? Well ... , no lover be it a man or a woman, can ever stand his/ her love to be with another woman/ man. Then how can we expect a princess, who also has a great deal of pride and ego to give up so easily. On the other hand, we take...

• Word Count: 1579
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... that a woman, though in perfect health and well-functioning is still lower in value to a man with a broken leg in this village where the social order places women at the very bottom of the chain. In conclusion, Tessie Hutchinson was chosen as the protagonist in "The Lottery" in order to present the story in its complete sense of female inferiority and male social status preservation. Productivity in ... the economical sense is a virtue the whole village upholds, and with the men being the only ones qualified as contributors, the women are automatically put down in status. Whether the lo...

• Word Count: 1263
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... his decision. Updike suggests that adolescence is an impulsive age as well as a rite of passage into adult hood. The author has chosen to present this story through first person point of view. Updike allows Sammy, the main character, to narrate, giving the reader insight to his personality and background. Since this story revolves around an adolescent's world, it is appropriate for this ... women in several of his writings (ACC par.1), this story would not have provided the reader insight to the raging hormones of Sammy, had the author chosen a less descriptive method of story telling. U...

• Word Count: 1283
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is told in the third person. We read the story through the eyes of another who can only tell what he sees and hears. In "Soldier's Home" we read the story in the third person as well. From what I can tell of my chosen stories, when Hemingway writes a story in the ... third person, he reveals a lot about the character through the narrator; "Krebs went to the war from a Methodist college in Kansas. There is ... a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar. He enlisted in the ...

• Word Count: 2043
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... his fear "It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all nothing and man was nothing to."" Hemingway's word usage throughout the remainder of the paragraph that follows is very carefully chosen to present the reader with possibility that everything, including the church is nothing. Hemingway's trademark style of simple unadorned diction and straightforward conversational dialogue between ... that despair of nothing is enough to warrant an attempt at suicide. The final words of the story must surely have been carefully chosen to cut cleanly free of the story...

• Word Count: 1526
• Approx Pages: 6

... killer or Satan incarnate, he is actually a collection of Connie's unconscious thoughts 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 ... " (Oates 1225). Connie finds herself frightened yet intrigued by Arnold. For example, at one point Arnold Friend chooses to voice the thoughts and ideas that most other boys have chosen to sum up into a single "sleepy, dreamy smile" (Oates 1230). "People don't talk like that" (Oates 1232) ... ...

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

... adulthood through her portrayal of a young narrator. She was also able to examine the different roles that society has defined for boys and girls. Alice Munro's short story, "Boys and Girls," has a very interesting detail written into it. The narrator's brother is named Laird, which was carefully chosen by the author. Laird is a synonym for lord, which plays an important role in a ... story where a young girl has society's unwritten rules forced upon her. At the time of the story, society did not consider men and women equal. The name that the author chose for the narrator's brother sym...

• Word Count: 1386
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... lenses." Because of Harrison's extreme intelligence, he was therefore a threat to the state because he willed for freedom of choice. The government has chosen that freedom of choice is not an option and therefore has shackled the minds of the people. Once Harrison is free from his restraints and given his unshackled mind, the Handicapper general quickly comes and kills him. He is killed because a unshackled ... mind is too much freedom for this oppressive government to handle. While the first two stories are about the shackling of the ... ...

• Word Count: 1252
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... chosen a better title for his story, "Patriotism." Mishimas characters demonstrate his idea of patriotism. In the story, Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama and his young wife, Reiko becomes martyrs. The importance of the information in the first sentence of the story is indicated by the great length of the sentence as well as its placement in the story. First mentioned is the reason the ... can handle this, she goes and retrieves her dagger and places it as Shinji has placed his sword. Just as the Lieutenant has joined the army with the acceptance that he may have to give his life out of love for...

• Word Count: 1287
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... is shown very well in a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe called "The Tell-Tale Heart". We see inner madness brought to the surface because of repressed fears the narrator has. In the same aspect when we read the short story "The Lottery", written by Shirley Jackson, we see this inner madness brought out because antics ... of these stories. Inner madness very much so is a result of paranoia caused by thoughts of getting caught or thoughts about crimes committed. Through out the story the narrator talks about madness like it has not over taken him. When he says "You fancy me mad, Mad...

• Word Count: 1354
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School