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THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
Chapter XIX, which follows the chapter in which the newly deceased Judge Pyncheon is mocked mercilessly (though, admittedly, deservedly), is entitled “Alice’s Posies,” and therein lies the answer…
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HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES
The tenements on New York’s Lower East Side were described in the 1890 pioneering photojournalistic work How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York by Jacob Riis. These…
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THE GREAT GATSBY
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Wilson is quite understandably distraught over the death of his wife by a hit-and-run driver. However, he should bear full responsibility for the…
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THE INVISIBLE MAN: A GROTESQUE ROMANCE
In the first chapter of the novel, the stranger introduces himself to Mrs. Hall and exhibits some peculiarities which take her by surprise, such as his refusal to let her take his hat to be dried….
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THE NECKLACE
Mathilde Loisel, the main character in Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace,” is unhappy because she longs for quite a different life than the one she is living. Although she is a “pretty,…
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A SOUND OF THUNDER
In “A Sound of Thunder,” the safari travelers go back in time sixty million years to the Cretaceous period of Earth’s history, when the Tyrannosaurus Rex walked the earth. Bradbury pinpoints this…
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THE BLUEST EYE
At the beginning of chapter 10 in The Bluest Eye, Claudia explains how she and Frieda had begun a fundraising project at the beginning of the summer so that they could buy a new bicycle. Having…
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THE TEMPEST
Sebastian is Alonso’s brother, who helped Antonio take Prospero’s title of Duke of Milan before being shipwrecked on the magical island. Sebastian is also interested in usurping Alonso’s title and…
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THE SUMMER OF THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE HORSE
Aram gives his Uncle Khosrove as an example of the “crazy” streak he believes to run in his family. In order to illustrate this, he explains that Uncle Khosrove had a phenomenal bad temper and was…
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AS YOU LIKE IT
At the beginning of act I, scene 2 in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the heroine Rosalind is sulking. The reason for this piteous mood is that her father, Duke Senior, has been banished…
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A SOUND OF THUNDER
The answer to this question can be found fairly early on in the story. Readers are told that the initial setting is inside a “Time Safari” office, and then we are told that Eckels walks in and…
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OSCAR WILDE
The swallow is a bird who needs to migrate to a warm climate in the winter months. The swallow in this story instead chooses to stay with the Happy Prince in order to fulfill the prince’s request…
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MANIAC MAGEE
Amanda rescues Maniac from Mars Bar for two main reasons. First, she already knows him from their earlier meeting, when she loaned him one of her books. During that meeting, Maniac showed…
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THE HAPPY PRINCE BY OSCAR WILDE
As the statue of the Happy Prince explains to his friend the swallow, he lived a very sheltered existence when he was alive, in a palace called Sans-Souci. In French, this means “worry-free,” and…
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CAGED BIRD
The poem doesn’t specify exactly why this is the case, but we can interpret that, in the context of the poem, this distant hill represents the freedom which the caged bird longs for, but has yet to…
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THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all the trees and flowers look so fresh and lovely. It sure is a morning to gladden the hearts of everyone in St….
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CAGED BIRD
The caged bird in this poem has been confined to the cage, we must assume, for the whole of his life. He does not know what is beyond the cage because, unlike the free bird, he has never been…
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THE PROPHET OF ZONGO STREET
“The Prophet of Zongo Street” is told from the perspective of a nine-year-old narrator. The narrator lives in the crowded city of Kumasi, found in the West African country of Ghana. Here, the…
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OLIVER TWIST
In Oliver Twist, Nancy is a young girl who is a member of Fagin’s gang. Fagin sells goods stolen by the young boys he recruits and trains. While she is a criminal, and Dickens alludes to her being…
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SOCIAL SCIENCES
The advantages and disadvantages of debating on social media are closely related. The main advantage is that social media is a very inclusive, open platform on which people can express their…
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AFTER TWENTY YEARS
The policeman, Jimmy Wells, is impressive in two ways: as a friend and as a professional. As a friend, he shows just how much his friendship to Bob means by turning up at the exact time at the…
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OLIVER TWIST
Oliver Twist is Charles Dickens’s second novel and centers around the life of a poor boy with the titular name. Dickens’s novel argues against many of London’s social problems plaguing the city…
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THE THIEF OF ALWAYS
There are numerous antagonists in Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always. By definition, an antagonist is something (typically another character, something in nature, or society itself) which opposes…
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A WRINKLE IN TIME
Mrs. Whatsit is a somewhat eccentric older woman. Mrs. Murry has never met her. At the opening of the novel, while Meg, Charles Wallace, and Mrs. Murry are having a late night snack of sandwiches…
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THE SUMMER OF THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE HORSE
Aram does not actually tell us anywhere in this story what his earliest memories were. The story itself represents a memory from “the good old days” when he was a nine year old child, and still…
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A RETRIEVED REFORMATION
Jimmy Valentine is a professional thief, an expert safe-breaker no less. He’s just been released from prison for this very crime, although he claims to the warden that he was innocent all along….
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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
No one could accuse the Prince of Morocco of lacking in confidence. He’s fully aware of the many great qualities he possesses and the powerful effect they have on others, as he’s not shy in…
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BLACK BEAUTY
Black Beauty lives on his mother’s milk before he’s old enough to eat grass. Like all young horses, Black Beauty needs to wait for his teeth to develop before he can eat solid food. Feeding on his…
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THE NECKLACE
When Madame Forestier bumps into Mathilde on the Champs-Élysées, she initially doesn’t recognize her. Mathilde appears to have aged prematurely, and her clothes are all haggard and worn. After…
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MY LEFT FOOT
In the story, Christy has cerebral palsy. He can neither talk nor walk. At five years old, Christy could not even mumble. He also could not sit up by himself or walk without assistance. However,…
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BEING AND TIME
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BEING AND TIME
Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (Sein und Zeit in the original German) is a complex philosophical work with a number of different themes. One central theme, which is manifested as early as the…
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BEING AND TIME
In Being and Time, Heidegger attempts to answer the question “What is being?” He tries to do this through studying the concept of dasein, a German word that roughly translates to “being there.”…
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NO LONGER AT EASE
In No Longer at Ease, Chinua Achebe portrays Nigerians as proud and honorable people with a rich cultural heritage that has been devalued by the colonial power-mongers who forced their European…
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SONNET 30
In this sonnet by William Shakespeare, the speaker “bewails” (mourns or shows great regret for) his past and present. Looking back, the speaker summons “up remembrance of things past” and regrets…
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OLIVER TWIST
Oliver Twist never stops getting into trouble of one kind or another. Here are just a few examples to help you get started: At the workhouse, Oliver draws the short straw and approaches the master…
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UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE
The theme of this novel is the way modernity clashes with—and ultimately refreshes—the old ways of life of the village of Mellstock. Fanny Day, the protagonist, is the symbol of modernity. She…
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SOCIAL SCIENCES
Hitler understood that previous far right movements had got nowhere because they were seen as representing the interests of a social elite. He knew that if the Nazis were to succeed, they had to…
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OF MICE AND MEN
In chapter 5, Curley’s wife quietly walks into the barn and sees Lennie attempting to cover something with hay. After asking Lennie a brief series of questions and attempting to get him to open up…
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KARL MARX
Karl Marx became famous when a work he wrote with his friend Friedrich Engels called the “The Communist Manifesto” was published in 1848. The pamphlet, commissioned in 1847 by the newly created…
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TO INDIA MY NATIVE LAND
This poem is about the fact that India, at the time of writing, had been colonized by the British Empire. The speaker laments that the country’s “glory” days now seem to be only in its past. In…
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JOHANN GUTENBERG
Johannes Gutenberg, who lived from around 1395 to 1468, is credited with being the inventor of the metal movable-type printing press. This was a major technological advance, as it meant that a…
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BRITISH EMPIRE
The battle between British forces led by Major-General Robert Clive and the army of Siraj ud-Daulah at Plassey took place in June of 1757. It was a victory for Clive, who lost around twenty men…
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THE TEMPEST
The mood of the VIP passengers aboard ship is initially one of fear and trepidation. And with good reason, too. The ship is being buffeted by a violent storm—whipped up by Prospero, no less. It’s…
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THE HAPPY PRINCE
In the story, the swallow is shocked when he sees a statue crying. After all, it is supposed to be an inanimate object. However, the swallow does feel sorry for the statue. So, the swallow’s…
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SWEETEST LOVE, I DO NOT GOE
According to John Donne in this poem, a man’s power is feeble because his fortunes, either good or bad, are things which affect him and which he cannot defend himself against. Should a man…
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STILL I RISE
Maya Angelou’s famous poem “Still I Rise” has an empowering, self-assured tone that illustrates and emphasizes how marginalized, oppressed minorities rise up against prejudice and injustice despite…
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ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT
In the end, the German student loses his sanity and is committed to a mental institution. The story is about a young German student by the name of Gottfried Wolfgang. Gottfried is said to be of a…
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LANGSTON HUGHES
Langston Hughes’s poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” has a universal setting. In the poem, the narrator travels through time and space. The poem begins in the Euphrates, which was, along with the…
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HISTORY
As Hitler came to power in Europe, he laid out a series of goals for the German nation. Many of Hitler’s goals sought to address the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler, and many Germans, felt that the…