Introduction John Hoyer Updike is a famous American writer, author of novels and books: collections of short stories, poems, essays. He is the recipient of the Rea Award, a significant award for short story writers. Updike has written several collections of short stories that have become classics of American prose....
Introduction Literary works like poems, short stories, novels, plays, and others provide us with a way of understanding the society we live in as well as true human nature. They usually act as magnifying glasses through which the ordinary man in the society can gain an insight into the complexities...
âA doll’s houseâ is a play written by a Norwegian author Henrik Ibsen in the year 1879; precisely one year after the author had written âthe pillars of societyâ. However, it should be noted that the story became controversial at the time as it provided a sharply critical view towards...
The narrative of Fredrick Douglas is one of the most famous memoirs and narratives written by a former slave, especially those that served in the United States of America in the early 19th century. It is written by a former slave called Fredrick Douglas and it candidly describes the tough...
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson shows the brutality in an ancient ritual carried out by a village. The villagers gather on the 27 of June every year for the lottery. This lottery is not the usual kind where a winner is rewarded with a large sum of money. The prize...
âYoung Goodman Brownâ highlights Nathaniel Hawthorneâs displeasure with the Puritan societyâs pretenses. He blames them for the assaults on innocent Christians and the burning of Indian villages. These acts punctuated the authorâs life and had a significant impact on his writing. The Puritan phenomenon was a religious facade that impacted...
The 2013 book, The Conference of Birds by Peter Sis, develops an understanding of human wisdom and the decisions which people make, following their experiences. The author creates different characters, including the Hoopoe, the Simorgh, and other birds. The characters symbolically make the audience comprehend and relate to the human...
In Kate Chopinâs short piece, âThe Story of an Hourâ, the readers witness a particular situation play out. A woman hears about her husbandâs death and is subsequently shocked to discover that he is, in fact, alive. Chopinâs work tells a nuanced story through a minimal number of words, using...
Introduction The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written in the middle of the nineteenth century, and the book has been considered a masterpiece of American literature ever since. In his novel, the writer discussed many problems and questions that are still relevant in modern times. The main character of...
Walter “Walt” Whitman is one of those prominent American writers who managed to leave a remarkable mark in the history of American literature. His work Leaves of Grass is well-known today by its frankness and valuable content that has undergone many changes throughout a century. Whitman dedicated his entire life...
Introduction Maya Angelou is one of the few celebrated women in the literary world. As an American poet, she uses her creativity to explore the innate nature of social evils, racial concerns as well as his position in society. In her works, she reflects on diverse social African-American features that...
Concept of love In real life, love is a concept that has never been clearly established. Love serves many functions. It is a need that so many people seek in life and a few understand. It is an essential and fulfilling feeling that most people desire in their lives. The...
The presence of a stranger in a place can attract different reactions from different people. While some will provide a warm welcome to him/her, others may fight back the person. However, since this continues to happen, some strangers have turned as blessings to the few who welcome them. The reverse...
Literary figures and critics have recognized the truth that Shakespeareâs plays always communicate a philosophical knowledge of human behavior and it exposes the depictions of a variety of Characters. In the modern world, people like to reminiscence his characters, so most of them are representations of this modern anarchism. Macbeth...
The book is an autobiography of Maya Angelou which tells of her hardships growing up as a black girl. Maya and her brother live a life of movement following their parentsâ divorce until her mother finally marries a positive father figure. The book contains thirty-six chapters which are summarized as...
The poem dramatizes the conflict between nature and the worldly activities, Frost places emphasis on natural things and reinforces his point that natural things are much better and beautiful than the worldly things. The poem is extremely well written and it is written in monosyllables throughout. Lines like âMy little...
Introduction Mary Shelleyâs Frankenstein is based on a creation of a creature by Doctor Victor. He created, what he called, a “wretch” that looked very different from the rest of society. People thought this creature was ferocious, dangerous, and a threat to society. In this novel, the creature tells the...
Introduction The character of Ulysses is very famous and it is mainly associated with two epics namely the Iliad and the Odyssey both these great epics were written by homer. Ulysses was a Greek king who discovered went on an expedition in the later parts of his life leaving his...
A Rose for Emily is a very good short story written by William Faulkner, this short story uses flash back techniques to draw the immediate attention of the readers. It starts with the funeral of Emily, the antagonist of the story. There is no protagonist in the story as the...
Part One âLife of Piâ is a notion infuriating book. The breach of the book tells us how the author is trying to relate fiction with reality and form a story out of it. This book is ageless, time less and context less. The book has many interpretations as it...
Many of us have at one time or the other wondered what really drives a man to do some things. At times, we have asked ourselves questions on if man is responsible for his actions. When something happens to our friends, do we pause and ask ourselves what really drove...
Introduction The Rape of the Lock is Alexander Popeâs mock-heroic poem which was published in 1712 and further expanded and republished in 1714. The poem tells a story of a beautiful woman Belinda whose rejected admirer makes up his mind to revenge the woman and cuts of a lock of...
In the novel Moby-dick by Herman Melville, the characters of Ishmael and Captain Ahab are in stark contrast to each other. While Ishmael is a young lad on his first voyage on a whaling ship, Ahab is an old, battle worn, veteran whaler. At the start of the novel, Ishmael...
The author of the short story âYoung Goodman Brown,â Nathanial Hawthorne, was heavily influenced by the still strong Puritan ideals of his ancestors in all of his writings. He recognized both the altruistic concepts of the religion as well as a deep hypocritical trend as was most famously evidenced in...
Analysis The short story âEveryday Useâ by Alice Walker provides a strong comparison between two sisters during a single afternoon. The author doesnât make it clear which of the sisters is the older, but there is a definite difference between them. One sister is Maggie who lives with her mother...
Summary Inquiring the obscurity of how an evolution at the height of its accomplishment could have driven itself into such a disastrous conflict. In this book, the author details the happenings of the talks among Europe’s crowned ministers and heads of states, and their fated efforts to resolve the catastrophe....
Culture refers to peopleâs way of life and is determined by their values, norms, attitudes, beliefs and cognitive mapping. We acquire culture through socialization. Once we acquire our peopleâs culture we become ethnocentric in the way we relate with people whose culture is different from us. Ethnocentrism basically refers to...
Introduction The Elie Wieselâs novel night is a perfect example in which the narrative style clearly demonstrates the whole tragedy and torment the author has gone through. It is a book that shows the true nature of man that shows the holocaust as a product of this nature that showed...
Introduction Kate Chopinâs short story âThe Story of an Hourâ doesnât have a lot of action in it. But the story tells a lot about how people felt about each other during the time the story was written. The story is about a woman, named Louise Mallard, who is at...
Literature is a rather specific matter for analysis and critical writing. First of all, to compose a critical analysis of a literary work it is necessary to be aware of basic literary principles and ideas, as well as understand the background of that work, and the impacts it might have...
Introduction The main purpose behind the action in Alice Walkerâs short story âEveryday Useâ is to compare closely two sisters in relation to their sense of identity. The first sister introduced is Maggie who still lives with her mother in a poorly constructed home near the country. Sheâs planning on...
Introduction The book âHumanistic Traditionâ written by Gloria Fiero, discloses the development of literature world under the influence of World War I pressure; the author managed to illustrate the changing nature of the epoch reflected through the poems and fiction of the period. The analysis of the principal works of...
The stories of the past are still capable of reaching the modern-day audience, but many are being re-told through the media of the movies. Hollywood has faithfully reproduced classics like Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, but they have also âborrowedâ the plotlines from other classics as a means of creating new...
In the theory of linguistics, Noam Chomsky introduced the concept of generative grammar in the latter half of the 1950s. This concept was also known as transformational grammar, however, Chomsky’s most recent theory is known as the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995). Generative grammar is simply a specific approach to the...
Introduction Auram Noam Chomsky is considered in the linguistic circles as one of the greatest contributors to the development of syntax. He is an American linguistic author, political activist, and philosopher, and he is credited with one of the most significant developments of linguistic in the 20th Century. This contribution...
Introduction The discussion of second language necessitates the elucidation of the term âfirst languageâ more popularly known as the âmother tongueâ. The first language or mother tongue is the primary language which children acquire due to the social impact of their environment and their surroundings. This acquisition of the native...
Introduction American English vocabulary is widely influenced by the language of Native Americans. This is due to the association of migrants with Native American in the North American mainland and the Caribbean. Though some native words continued to be used in the American English vocabulary some words faded away. The...
Introduction Raymond Carver was a famous short story writer who is most known for his ability to capture concepts of American life. His writings are typically centered upon common daily occurrences within the lives of average people. One of the main themes that run through Raymond Carverâs short stories is...
Short stories have a way of conveying sometimes very complex thoughts in very simple and understandable terms. Mary Wilkins Freeman, for instance, takes a complicated subject such as national identity, and makes it easy to grasp through the portrayal of her characters. National identity is a concept that has been...
William Shakespeareâs play âThe Tempestâ is, most probably, the last play he wrote entirely alone and has often been referred to as âShakespeareâs Playâ in that the character of Prospero seems to be orchestrating the actions upon the island in the same creative, artful way in which Shakespeare himself must...
Introduction One of the major themes that can be traced through all of Virginia Woolfâs writings is the involvement of time in the outcome of her stories. Her fascination seems to center upon the concept that time is as subjective as experience. This idea is easily discovered in the different...
The current essay deals with the problem of language socialization in the context of English education in Taiwan. The issues which are connected with bilingual education in Taiwan, institutional and educational difficulties tied with teaching language, and future perspectives for those proficient in English will be analyzed both from a...
The short story portrays emotions and psychology of women, their life grievances and joy. Chopin does not say much about the main character, Mrs. Mallard, but it is evident that she is not happy in her marriage life. From the very beginning, Chopin gives only some hints to readers to...
One of the primary and most important functions of language in humans, (children or adults), is effective communication and the establishment of social contact (Vygotsky, 1962). Very young children learn the use of language by virtue of their interactions with their caretakers and those around them, primarily their mothers. Language...
In The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty, the main character, Gunnar Kaufman, constantly changes his dialect, in an attempt to blend in with his surroundings. For instance, while living in the predominately white neighborhood of Santa Monica, Gunnar speaks improper English, with a major emphasis on extending words, to...
Introduction The main aim of writing this research paper was with a view to identifying the use of English as a corporate language at Siemens. In as much as Siemens is touted as a German company, it cannot be denied that with globalization, comes a need to use a universal...
Until I read biographical information about Robert Frost, I only knew him from his poetry. I always thought he was writing from a first-person viewpoint, but now I think he did much more teaching, writing, and lecturing than actually doing the things of his poems. It was a surprise to...
Introduction English language teaching is a challenging task. Instructors endeavor to teach the learners the target language and become proficient readers of the language. Even though many of the language users have a good vocabulary, most of them struggle with their pronunciations and fluency while reading. As such, the level...
Introduction Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the arrangement of the words within and across- languages and tries to create rules that represent the knowledge of the speakers of those languages or it is the field in linguistics that studies the structure of words, internally. The main subject...
Introduction American Sign Language was discovered and used by people long time before it was documented and officially acknowledged. After it was recognized, historians and educators worked hard to reconstruct its development with its root beginning in the eighteenth century. For centuries, people thought that it was not possible to...
It is a regular thing of the reader to contrast and compares the literary works he or she has read. I believe that this helps one better understand the works. It reveals the hidden meanings that the texts are full of, encourages one to think of the writer’s style in...
English is a language that originated from England. It is the native language for most individuals in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland. English has also been adopted by many other countries in the world as a second language mostly in the commonwealth countries. It...
Introduction Jack Kerouac, a great American poet, author and painter was born on March 12, 1922. He is regarded as the pioneer of âBeat Generationâ, a group of writers who discarded the American values and often practiced the use drugs and alternate varieties of sexuality. His famous works include âThe...
The short stories under analysis, âKillingsâ by Andre Dubus and âAll that you love will be carried awayâ by Stephen King are based on similar themes and motifs which help the author create a unique story conflict and appeal to readersâ emotions. in the fictions of Dubus and King there...
In order to elaborate further on the study we need to know the meaning of the terminologies used. Family structures may adversely have impacts on development of the language. In understanding what a family structure is and what language development is, we will tackle the impacts. A family structure is...
The definition of courage, which is not an effortless task, has been one of the earth-shattering activities of humans from time immemorial and the literary figures have attempted to give a meaningful conclusions about the various aspects of the concept through their writing over the centuries. Two of the most...