Imagine moving to a foreign country overseas and not knowing your way around. You’re in need of guidance with directions, but you don’t speak the language of the country. Wouldn’t you feel lost? Clueless? Perhaps, excluded? This is what the author, Amy Tan, in “Mother...
Girls Like Us (2014), a novel by Gail Giles, takes the reader through the lives of Biddy and Quincy, two special education graduates. The structure of this book alternates between the two girls point of view, knowing their thoughts only makes Giles message stronger. Girls...
A deeper look at Joyce’s ‘Eveline’, and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at a feminist angle, shows the many stereotypes of women present like helplessness, in need of saving, male oppression, only caring about looks and female characters that are portrayed in demeaning ways such as...
In 2003, aged 17, Kent leapt at the chance to travel to Iceland as part of a Rotary exchange programme when the opportunity arose, interested in the Scandinavian countries having never seen snow as a child (a considerably commonplace experience lacking for many Australians). Though...
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, depicts the lives of four mothers who were born in China but eventually immigrated to America. They hoped to live better lives for themselves and for their daughters. A major portion of the novel focuses on the relationship between...
Considering the fact that I did not know a substantial amount about the Middle East, besides what I have learned in class thus far, as well as what I have seen on the news, I found Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns extremely eye-opening. Not...
Archetypes are an important foundation for building literary work. As “reoccurring patterns, images, or descriptive details” (Crisp 2), they not only define the identity of an author’s characters, but the course of the plot, the journeys and the tragedies. Archetypes are utilized as a useful...
The societal structure of eighteenth century London was grounded in rigid class hierarchies. In Burney’s novel Evelina, the title character is born as an illegitimate child without a name because her father refuses to accept her. This situates Evelina at a particularly difficult intersection of...
“The beauty of the world lies in the diversity of its people.” (Unknown). Attempting to really connect with people who are a part of an entirely different culture than your own is a very difficult thing to do. Whether they belong to a different religion,...
This Boy’s Voice Tobias Wolff’s style in his memoir, This Boy’s Life, is very different from many other memoirs, and personal narratives. He is a master of manipulating voice, and through his use of voice, he was able to make his story more real, and...
Disgrace is a novel written by John M. Coetzee, a novelist born in South Africa, which greatly influenced both his worldview and his creative activities. The fame brought by that particular literary work, Disgrace, is rather contradictory, though. On the one hand, it is the...
Has it happened that you read a book in one session despite the first impression you have had of it? I usually judge books by their title or covers, and I only read them if I like the color of the books. However, this time...
Introduction The novel Indian Horse takes a look back at the character Saul Indian Horse’s life after his last run with alcohol led him to be checked into a rehab facility. Saul’s journey begins with his childhood on the land, then is captured and taken...
The novel Life of Pi demonstrates throughout the book the conflict of reconciling between illusion and reality. Self-perception is one’s ability to hear, see or become aware of things from their senses. This is demonstrated through the main character of the story Pi who goes...
When comparing the book Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy and the movie Amistad, we are able to experience the advantages and disadvantages of each first hand. Both these mediums have strengths...
The ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Gilman provides insight into the life of the narrator- a woman censored and unable to express herself due to the nature of her controlling husband. The narrator leads the reader into the character’s downfall into insanity, allowing for her inner...
In 1892, feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman published her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” describing an intense summer vacation for a woman recovering from mental illness. The story takes the reader through the narrator’s erratic journal entries of a three month stay in a rented...
The book I chose for my second semester book review is titled ‘Elvis Presley’ by Bobbie Ann Mason. The book a summary of the amazing things that Elvis Presley did in his life. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn about or...
According to the book, Irl Solomon’s history class is described as the highlight of the school. The teacher, Mr. Solomon, who has been teaching in urban school for the past 30 years, mentioned that his original goal was to studied law but after a short...
Summary The story is about two young teenagers, Eleanor & Park. They meet each other in the school bus. Park has a seat on which he always sits alone it is in the back of the bus, Eleanor is new at this school when she...
In this essay, I intend to discuss Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel “Nervous conditions”. I will be discussing how Babamakuru and Nyasha represent Tambudzai’s aspirations. Babamakuru represents Tambudzai’s aspirations to become educated and improve her life. Nyasha represents Tambudzai’s aspirations to escape her traditional family. The extract...
The narrative of disempowerment is one that is woven extensively through Edwidge Danticat’s postcolonial novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory. Placing great emphasis on the politics of the domestic sphere and the stories told between women, the novel spans the childhood and young adulthood of Edwidge’s main...
The reality of war unfortunately creates an oppressive system that causes soldiers to struggle with internal conflict and individual thought. In the book Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien, Paul Berlin’s thoughts and emotions are presented fluidly in the observation post as he accepts ideas...
“Note to Sixth-Grade Self” is a coming of age short story where the narrator comes to realize how even though people might be show sympathy towards, one can only rely on themselves for strength and confidence. This is an important concept for the narrator to...
There was a woman in Portland who got her dating profile taken down after disclosing that she has not fully transitioned from male to female. There are stories of bullying no one hears of until it is taken to the extremity of death. There are...
In this next essay it will be expose an analysis of the book “The Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, which include the situation that the Europeans had to fight and overcome the situations that they found while they start to explore those territories while...
Imagine becoming someone you have always wanted to be, and using your imagination to get you through a troubling time in your life. Would you use your imagination to become someone wealthy? Or would you go beyond to become a superhero? No matter what it...
The book I am researching is ‘Catch-22’ by Joseph Heller. It is a book set in WW2 and focuses on the terrifying aspects of the war and how the soldiers had no power or control over anything they did or even whether they lived or...
In Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” there are three characters that represent the different expectations in their society. Reisz who represents independence and freedom, Edna who represents entrapment, and Adèle who represents the ideal female of society. Adèle is a mother who devotes her entire self...
What many people don’t know is that Oprah Winfrey came from nothing born in rural poverty and raised by a mother dependent on government welfare payments in a poor urban neighborhood but still came up to be really successful becoming a millionaire at the age...