... to families it sometimes turns into a trap. In Rosa's case she has too many kids to handle, and her dream of having the big house and great dinners are now gone. In other case it's not the number of kids, but the parents rules and strictness. In Sally's house her parents are very strict, especially her father. "Her father says to be this beautiful ... not to get an education and some have no choice, but Esperanza is going to try to get the education that her mother wants her to have. Esperanza was named after her great-grandmother, but she never had the chance to know her. Knowing how h...

• Word Count: 1279
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... short amount of time; after that, the consumer becomes bored with having everything that he could possibly want. This is just one of the ways the characters in the novel are swallowed up by these misleading representations of the American Dream. The true meaning of the American Dream is lost by the characters in The Great Gatsby, and leads them to the downfall of their life trying to obtain ... it's illusionary goals. For Jay, in The Great Gatsby, the interpretation of the dream is that through wealth and power ... , one can acquire happiness. To get this happiness, Jay must reach into ...

• Word Count: 1640
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... people and places where he is obviously not wanted. "He is the last chivalric hero, the last defender of an outworm faith, and his function is to illustrate its present folly- to show us, though the absurbity of his behavior, that romantic love is dead, and that one of the great guiding codes of the past no longer operates" (Donaldson 27) Being naive, Cohn dwells on ... the fact that he has slept with Brett and obsesses with her. When Brett begins to show interest ... lesser version of this perfection. He is a man of action and he does not, under any circumstances, compromise his belie...

• Word Count: 2093
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... and became prosperous before his early and unexpected death in a horrific train accident. She was raised by her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who were all French Creole descendants. She spent time with her French Creole grandmother, due to the fact that they both an interest in musical arts and reading in both English and French. She was brought up to be ... Edna Pontellier is experiencing becomes like a reality. Through her descriptive writing techniques, the reader can understand the book clearly and ultimately being on Edna Pontellier's side. Another theme is sexuality. A...

• Word Count: 1384
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... people and places where he is obviously not wanted. "He is the last chivalric hero, the last defender of an outworm faith, and his function is to illustrate its present folly- to show us, though the absurbity of his behavior, that romantic love is dead, and that one of the great guiding codes of the past no longer operates" (Donaldson 27) Being naive, Cohn dwells on ... the fact that he has slept with Brett and obsesses with her. When Brett begins to show interest ... lesser version of this perfection. He is a man of action and he does not, under any circumstances, compromise his belie...

• Word Count: 1988
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... Havisham, Estella and Pip, is an ongoing theme throughout the novel Great Expectations. All of these people , at some point, have their hearts opened up to love after living their lives without showing any feelings towards the people they care for. First off, Miss Havisham's ... inability to feel, mainly towards men, dates back to when she had been betrayed by her lover. Miss Havisham's father disinherited her brother from the ... Estella and Miss Havisham had an argument one night, which really opened Miss Havisham's eyes to what she had created in Estella. During the argument, Estella ...

• Word Count: 1955
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... it's man made or a natural disaster, reminds humanity about generosity, courage, and compassion. With those qualities being reminded in every person brings a unity amongst feelings which connects people together. In the novel Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, uses the theory of the six degree of separation by uniting people through a "steel cable" inside a web of tragic events that eventually leads ... the character to find hope for life again. The theory of the six degree of separation is that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a ch...

• Word Count: 1442
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... beings.its findings deserve to be read by everyone in Western Society." Cohabitation There has been a great rise in the popularity of living together before, or instead of, getting married. In 2004 in the UK, a quarter of non-married people were cohabitation: "Cohabitation is the most common form of first partnership for young adults today." Childbearing within cohabiting unions has become ... in a house-share. Divorce Divorce rates increased sharply in Great Britain during the 1960s, doubling between 1961 and 1969, and rose even more sharply after the Divorce Reform Act 1969 to 124,556...

• Word Count: 1785
• Approx Pages: 7

... from which he draws spiritual refreshment. O-lan O-lan could be characterized as the most appealing character in the book. She doesn't really express herself through words but one can learn a great deal of her thoughts and feelings from her actions. Her poor parents sold her to the great Hwang household at the age of ten, during a famine. O-lan was a good worker and so was kept as ... is nothing but an earthen oven in a shed shared with the ox's stall. When Wang takes his starving family south during the famine, the setting changes to the city in the coastal province of Kiangsu, which i...

• Word Count: 2063
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... son, who died in infancy. She was concerned with the problems of the poor as shown in this book. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote "The Half-Brothers" in the 19th-century. It is a short story about a boy called Gregory, his mother Helen, and his younger half brother-the narrator. This book contains great sorrow, bravery and neglect. It takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster. Elizabeth manages to ... it is a new reason for her to care about life again and now she has something to love and live for. Helen and her sister soon find jobs working for the great Glasgow sewing-merchants, but Hel...

• Word Count: 1890
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... crowds opinion, but Rose formed her own opinions. Rose returned to Paris. Alexander was later elected Estates General to help rebuild the Roman republic. Alexander was also a member of the radical and very powerful Jacobin's Club, Rose made a great number of friends through her husband's prestigious contacts. Rose was respected among her husband's colleagues and friends; this enabled her to voice her opinions ... looked down upon, but was a selfless act and rare. To obtain passes in and out of the city and travel between the lands was often very expensive and dangerous, often Rose would...

• Word Count: 2140
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" (Austen 1). This line illustrates great foreshadowing of the central theme of Pride and Prejudice. It is a tale of love overcoming the obstacles of pride and prejudice. The story revolves around Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five Bennet daughters. Elizabeth is charming and clever, although she is quick to judge others. She ... him inherits her sharp wit. Despite her mother's wishes, Elizabeth is interested in finding a husband with a compatible personality, rather than one with great wealth. Pride is represe...

• Word Count: 1686
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... to produce high levels of intensity, emotion and drama. To do this, it must convey a great deal of information in a short space of time. As a result, the short story usually leaves a great deal of its content open to interpretation and examination by the reader. Also, the denouements of short stories frequently remain inconclusive and unfulfilled. Together, these attributes add to ... on adultery. However, there are other, more subtle, motifs in the story that play a very significant a role in its success. The themes essential in making the protagonist adultery understandable are the land...

• Word Count: 2012
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... Like his other romantic comedies, The Taming of the Shrew focuses on courtship and marriage and the various roles that the man and woman play, but, unlike most of them, it devotes a great deal of attention to married life after the wedding. Throughout the play, using her husband as a dominating force, Shakespeare demonstrates the transformation of one woman into the ideal Renaissance wife. Domestication of ... women is broadcasted in the play's title by the word "taming." A great part of the action consists of Petruchio's attempts to cure Kate of ... discourages Petruchio from undertak...

• Word Count: 1693
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... would have been highly critiqued in a negative manner during that time. Chopin expresses the inversion of gender roles in her stories. The females in her stories, such as Calixta in "The Story of an Hour" experience great feelings and experiences rather than men. Though both Calixta and Alcee enjoy the experience, Calixta shows triumph and not submissiveness (what would be expected of a woman ... during that time). Some say that the storm in the story represents a "rebirth." As the storm ends, everything was better. It may ... are still "penned" into a box. Some women have certainly go...

• Word Count: 1852
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... to depression. Depression, in turn, affects health either indirectly, by promoting unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and drinking, or directly, by stimulating the production of stress hormones (e.g., catecholamine, cortisol), which in turn results in increased blood pressure and heart rate, accelerated breathing and constriction of blood ... , however what they fail to realize is the additional stress that is assumed when a person becomes legally bound to another. One of the great things about marriage is you get to share everything including finances. That is also one of the worst thin...

• Word Count: 2121
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... he would return home and ask his father to make the request for the young lady. His father would agree and early one morning head to the home of the intended. The two older men would drink chicha together and recall stories of their younger days, romances, headhunting, etc. Finally the father of the boy would ask with great sincerity, "Will you give me your daughter to join ... my family as though she were my own? My son wishes to marry her. Though the girl's father had been waiting for a boy's father to come, he would act confused, if ... . Many passages from this book were direct reco...

• Word Count: 2139
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... , Chopin delineates Mr. Pontellier as a kind man who, while following his aspirations of being a successful businessman, selfishly neglects his wife by ignoring her true feelings and emotions and allowing the passion and excitement to fall from their relationship. Kate Chopin describes Leonce Pontellier's attitude toward his wife, Edna, as being very demeaning and unsympathetic. He is said to regard Edna ... somewhere else. Kate Chopin lends Edna's awakening partially to her discontent with her business-obsessed, unsympathetic husband, Leonce. Mr. Pontellier was a man of the 1800's throu...

• Word Count: 1574
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... face lacking in charm but possessing a good heart. Catherine adored her father more than anything and was very much afraid of him; she thought of him the cleverest and handsomest and most celebrated of men (James). Catherine's father said of her " no young man will ever be in love with Catherine" ( ... believes time and distance will open his daughter's eyes to Morris" true character. Doctor Sloper takes Catherine to Europe hoping to dissolve of the relationship between the two. She is blinded by her love for Morris making it impossible for her to see any truth in her father's factual pr...

• Word Count: 1511
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... just a few days shy of his eighteenth birthday. During the first twenty years of his reign he left the shaping of policies largely in the hands of his great counselor, Cardinal Wolsey. Upon receiving counsel from his parents and Cardinal Wolsey, Henry got a papal dispensation from the Church to marry Arthur's widow Catherine of Aragon. The papal dispensation had to be signed to allow Catherine to ... religion thing only to make himself feel better about all the guilt he was feeling from having people killed and all his divorces. Henry's failure to get rid of Catherine was his main reaso...

• Word Count: 1332
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... have never done you justice, or loved you as you deserve."" Elizabeth is more of a realist; she sizes up people, not cruelly, but justly and with the ability, usually, to make a good, valued judgement of their true personality. Her judgment is usually correct, in that she immediately sees Mr Collins as a pompous ... that he is a good man and his pride was only shyness, but unlike with Wickham this change in view does please her and brings her great happiness. She is not as consistent as her sister, and has continually changing emotions, she is more rapid to judge, and has "more quickne...

• Word Count: 1729
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... turn of fate, for he will never be able to see his beloved again, and envies Palamon that he at least will be able to see her from the prison every day. Arcite undergoes a great physical change due to his constant lamenting over his love, Emely. He changes his name to Philostrate, and decides to return to Athens hoping that he will ... husband, praises him for his wise choice, and vows to give him both beauty and loyalty. The pardoner is a dishonest man with long, greasy, yellow hair. Chaucer looks upon the pardoner as a very untrustworthy man. He sells indulgences and gives out pardons...

• Word Count: 1605
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... laundry all day long. It is clearly racism that lands Sofia in jail. Soon after, she is sent to live with the mayor and be his maid for twelve years. Sofia is great to the family. Sofia teaches Miz Millie how to drive and when Miz Millie finally knows how, she wants to bring Sofia to visit her family. What a kind gesture. Sofia ... gets into the front seat, as always, but Miz Millie starts to laugh. Miz Millie says to Sofia, "Have you ever seen a white ... community was furious that she could lower herself to be employed by an African-American shows that the long history of racism will...

• Word Count: 1740
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... there much male/female mixing. Husbands and wives tend to socialize with their own sex. The house is usually a women's place while the men tend to congregate outside the home. Women are continuously responsible for the up-keep of the house and care of the children. The women in these marriages felt a great deal of dissatisfaction. This is mainly due to their feelings of restriction. They complained their ... husbands never want to leave the house. In the cases when men didn't come home from work but ... in fact went out, women felt even worse. For this category of marriage, economics a...

• Word Count: 1329
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... to leave with his mistress. Christine is so upset that she grabs the letter opener off the desk in the room and stabs Vole to death. "Witness for the Prosecution" is a great murder mystery. Both the short story and the movie version present the case of Leonard Vole equally well. The short story does a good job of keeping the reader's attention by constantly questioning something or someone. There is never ... a dull moment. The movie keeps the viewer's attention by letting us see how the characters react to the situation at hand. The tension in the courtroom when Christine ... ...

• Word Count: 1286
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School