In “Guns, Germs, and Steel” Jared Diamond tries to understand why certain countries and civilizations developed wealth and power and evolved throughout history while other civilizations did not. He also tries to figure out how these certain peoples were the ones capable to expand and...
Dublin Ireland in 1914 was a place of poverty and religious restraint, under the governing hand of the Christian Church. A place where literary diversity was primarily limited to that of Irish biblical poets. James Joyce, published the short story “Araby” as a modern activist...
The Value of Sacrifice What you value can often be determined by what you are willing to sacrifice. People may believe that they will honor what they value, but that usually only lasts until we are faced with benefits from sacrificing. Many people can say...
In the book “October Sky”, there’s a common theme throughout the book, Determination. Sonny and the Rocket Boys would often have an issue with their rockets. They never lost hope, never gave up, and kept going, determined to overcome their issues within rocket building, school,...
In the novel ‘Grapes of Wrath’ Steinbeck attempts to depict the hard conditions in which ranchers like the Joads needed to endure during the Dust Bowl. All through the novel, he centers around the Joad family and their adventure to California. Steinbeck had blended aims...
“Desiree’s Baby” and “An Act of Vengeance” are two short stories by Kate Chopin and Isabelle Allende that both utilize similar and different techniques to contribute and deliver each stories theme. By the author’s selection of irony and foreshadowing each story delivers the same technique...
In the 1890s, the prejudice against mental illness, especially in women, was reinforced by various physicians. They believed that if a woman was mentally ill, she was either insane or hysteric. They had little to no scientific basis to their theories of the women’s lunacy,...
When examining On the Rainy River from an archetypal perspective, O’Brien emphasizes the importance of free will and how it affects one’s life through the archetypal symbol of the owl, the archetypal symbol of the Rainy River, and the archetypal character of Elroy. Made-to-order essay...
First drink, first prank, first friend, first girl, last words! A poignant and moving crossover novel about making friends and growing up from American author, John Green. The novel Looking for Alaska follows a young boy Miles (pudge) and his journey throughout boarding school at...
Introduction: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third installment of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Background: The story focuses on Harry Potter, a student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and his two best friends, Ron and Hermione...
Historical context of the book; Bud not Buddy is based in the great depression age in the 1930’s. Times were difficult in the united states and poverty dominated a large part of the country, citizens used to make long lines to eat daily, lines that...
The book Hillbilly Elegy is a memoir of J.D. Vance. He shares his memories of his time growing and how he beat the odds and became an accomplished scholar. It starts with his early beginnings and talks about the hillbilly culture that he grew up...
In Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy explores the theme of the self and she tells the story of her struggle to create a positive perception of herself in spite of the ridicule and bullying she endures because of her disfigured face, the result of...
For thousands of years, history has been kept alive through the written word; me and women of virtue, in particular, have recorded social struggles so that future generations can know about the events that transpired over the course of their lifetimes. Through Freedom in the...
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...
Throughout history, there has always been an American dream. This dream is different for every person that has it, but has a simple similarity. The American dream, whether you are white, black orange, or even purple, is the pursuit of happiness. The book I feel...
“Tottochan-the little girl at the window” is an autobiography written by Tetsuka Kuroyanagi and translated by Dorothy Britton. It is a beautiful story which touches the heart of the reader. It has all the elements that a reader needs – humour, happiness, warmth, friendship, love...
In the novel The Call of the Wild written by Jack London, Buck was stationed as a compelling leading character who undergoes multiple character developments throughout the novel due to nature and nurture. London’s approach of characterizing Buck has been highly recognized by Donald E....
When people hear the words war, death, mental health, and pain, the last thing you would probably think about is satire. However in the book Catch 22, author Joseph Heller uses satire to bring light to all of these subjects, point out flaws in characters,...
Life of Pi is a novel telling the story of a teenage boy named ‘Pi’ and his survival through 227 days living in a lifeboat with a male, adult Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker in the Pacific Ocean. Pi’s original home is in India where...
A collection of short stories titled The Thing Around Your Neck divulges a holistic expression of Position Two situation: “To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim, but to explain this as an act of fate…the necessity decreed by History, or Economics, or the...
The protagonist of Fitzgerald’s tragic novel, The Great Gatsby, is that could not use his millions to buy true happiness. The story of Jay Gatsby is a made up lifestyle in which he spends all of his life living the so called “American Dream”. Gatsby...
Injustice is something that a lot of people experience in today’s society. It usually happens to people of color in today’s society when someone is accused of something they didn’t do. This is similarly the case in the book a “Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest...
The responsibility people have when they are developing new technology is to not overstep boundaries. In both Frankenstein and The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks tie down with ethics. One can see how science seems to trample human rights. Both Victor in Frankenstein and Scientists...
The story takes place in Holland with some parts of the book in Germany during the II World War. It is fundamental to the story because the event of the war takes Corrie and her family to take action in the war. I would have...
This book reflects over 15 years of research by Annette B. Weiner on a broad spectrum of subjects concerning Trobriand society and culture. She also researched archives in museums and libraries overseas and in the U.S. Fieldwork has never been simple, but it was her...
Books. As children we peered into these stacks of paper, befuddled by the scattered symbols and lines forming rows upon rows of script, these symbols seemed to be ubiquitous – appearing in mum’s recipe book and dad’s manual. Little did we know, that behind the...
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...