In literature (novels, folk tales, plays, movies, etc.) one finds presented two forms of so called "coming-of-age" stories. The traditional method is preparation for adulthood. A youth (generally between 10 years old and 20) passes, by some calamity or other intense situation, from the world...
As I read this brilliant and historical reading called “The Folly of Empire I came to realize that the article is about past president Bush and his administration that has failed to learn from past attempts at American imperialism. This is representing the past presidents...
Pages: 56-60: Diction:“I only remember Nancy’s Teddy bear staring at me” (Capote, 60). This quote was pronounced by two of Nancy Clutter’s dearest friends, Nancy Ewalt and Susan Kidwell after seeing Nancy’s corpse. This is an ideal example of diction from Truman Capote, however, is...
“American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang is a compelling graphic novel that combines elements of realistic fiction and fantasy to explore the themes of identity, self-acceptance, and stereotypes. This essay aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the novel while also reflecting on personal...
There is much literature on the subject of World War II. Catch-22 by Joseph Steller, published in 1961, expressively describes this nerve-racking, gruesome, and turbulent era. The story is centered around a paranoid and homesick Yossarian who is fed up with his military career as...
The book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” is written by Frederick Douglass himself. In this very book, Frederick Douglass has discussed the manner in which the society behaved in that period when going through a slavery phase. This book caters...
The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion is a historical non-fiction narrative written by Stephen B. Oates. Oates narrates the life of Nat Turner, a boy who grew up in Southampton County in Virginia. The book takes place in the early 1800’s, a point...
Every day you wake up with this feeling that you are going to die. Sometimes you do not even have the fear of this happening. Feeling as if go is letting you go. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel he takes his reader to...
Tato Laviera was involved in the affirmation and transformation of the Puerto Rican identity in the United States. Tato was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Sanchez arrived in Lower East Side of New York at the age of 9. Before he migrated to the United...
Bridge to Terabithia is a novel written by an American writer named Katherine Peterson. This book is about two people, who are named Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke. They are both from 5th grade. Jess is a good runner who practiced all of summer for...
I chose to read the book Tattoos On the Heart. It is a first person story that follows a priest, Gregory Boyle, through his many experiences with gangs of Los Angeles in his community. The story take place in the 80’s and 90’s, a time...
The essay, “Mother Tongue,” by Amy Tan, is about how language can be spoken in different ways, all depending were an individual is from, where or whom the person grew up with, and if or not education was withdrawn. Tan was an Asian-American writer and...
In Emily St John Mandel’s 2014 science fiction, dystopian novel Station Eleven, a majority of the world is deceased due to the Georgia-flu pandemic spread unknowingly by a passenger on a flight from Russia to The United States causing an apocalyptic world. All technology and...
In Demian, Herman Hesse discusses the meaning behind an apparently futile war under the guise of one boy’s search for personal identity. While Hesse spends much of the novel illustrating Emil Sinclair’s search for meaning, the tying in of the Great War at the end...
The seventy-year-old Moll Flanders who narrates her own life story considers herself a reformed criminal. But to what degree should her perceived transgressions cause her to actually be understood as such? After all, Defoe’s novel makes it clear that a number of different factors ultimately...
The Bluest Eye: Tough Love at the Core of Color We as humans strive for many things- comfort, success, money, beauty, but among everything, our core revolves around love. A child is born and is innocent, and as that child grows through their experiences, love...
Kaboom! That was the first sound of war in Holland for the Ten Boom family. At times of war, we think of the people declaring it as the worst people in the entire world, even if there have been more evil things done to other...
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. The topic of my essay...
In “Harrison Bergeron” Kurt Vonnegut criticized the way government took advantage of the power they had over civilians and demolished people’s strongest capabilities. A few years later, Joseph Alvarez wrote “An Overview of Harrison Bergeron” to analyze the work. He believed Vonnegut’s use of the...
Introduction and Background Mitch Albom’s memoir, “Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, And Life’s Greatest Lesson,” published in 1997, chronicles a poignant journey of self-discovery and profound life lessons. Albom, a multifaceted American author, journalist, screenwriter, dramatist, radio and television broadcaster, and...
Many of us have preconceived judgments about death. Is it a bad thing? And if yes, why? In his essay, Death, Thomas Nagel ponders the question of why death is broadly believed to be such a horrific misfortune. He proposes a thought-provoking view on if...
“Here begins the book of the Tales of Canterbury…” The Canterbury Tales is full of intrigue and sheds light on the life and times of the Middle Ages. These were times where hierarchy, feudalism, and chivalry were in effect. The tale is of twenty-nine individuals...
Throughout history countries have been going through war, whether its country turning against country, or the country turning against their own people. In the novel, Inside Out & Back Again you learn how a girl named Ha and her family go through the refugee experience....
As being considered one of the greatest books of all times, “Roots” has become one of the most phenomenal as well as most influential books that was written in the 1970’s. This book was written by Alexander Murray Palmer Haley known as simply Alex Haley;...
In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there are many characters who prove themselves to be heroic. This novel is set in the 1930’s, and is all about a family’s life over a few year time period. To Kill A Mockingbird shows how society...
Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness tells the story of a Mennonite teen, Nomi Nickels, and her response to the rise of conflict and tragedy in her family. This novel, however, explores not simply the life of a fictional coming-of-age young woman, but also of the...
The “Combray” section of Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way is an extended meditation on an idyllic past. The book begins, though, not with recollections of Combray, but with a description of the narrator’s half-asleep state, a state of consciousness where he does not know where, or...
When considering the idea of a divine creator one might consider arguments made by analogy, as William Paley does in his work Natural Theology, as indications of such a creator’s existence. Paley constructs an argument by analogy by relating the universe to an intricate mechanical...
In the memoir, “This Boy’s Life”, Tobias Wolff examines the attitudes and behaviours that all human beings exude in childhood. Indeed, Wolff demonstrates how exorbitant hope has the potential to blind individuals, resulting in an unfulfilled and disappointing life. Contrasting against the stereotypical 1950’s ideals...
The story revolves around Phillippe’s experience of poverty and ethnic segregation in New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world. Phillippe is a University professor who sets out for the El Barrio neighborhood in East Harlem in order to research and...