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OLIVER TWIST
In chapter 9, the Artful Dodger and Charlie Bates return from “work,” and Charlie has stolen some handkerchiefs, or “wipes,“ as he calls them. Fagin examines them and says that Oliver will…
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SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
On arriving at Stoke Moran, Holmes, determining which wing the family resides in, first examines all the windows from the outside and is able to determine where Miss Stoner used to sleep, as well…
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ANIMAL FARM
When interpreting Animal Farm, it’s important to recognize that the story is highly allegorical. This means that the dogs, rats, pigs, and other animals and people in the tale represent something…
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THE TEMPEST
Prospero is the central character in the play The Tempest by William Shakespeare. He is a powerful magician and a scholar who lives on an island with his daughter, Miranda. Twelve years before the…
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THE STORY OF MY LIFE
Helen explains how she learned to associate words with objects. This occurred after Miss Sullivan arrived at her home. From her very first day there, Miss Sullivan began finger writing letters into…
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SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
In The Speckled Band Helen Stoner comes to Sherlock Holmes to request help in solving the mystery of her sister’s death. Her sister died after getting engaged; her death was mysterious and Helen…
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OKAY FOR NOW
In Chapter 4 of Okay For Now, Doug Swieteck is utterly distraught when Coach Reed inadvertently rips his shirt off in gym class. The coach was annoyed at Doug for refusing to stay on the skins team…
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STEPHEN SPENDER
The central theme of “The Shapes of Death” by the early twentieth century British poet, Stephen Spender, is that unrequited love can warp a character and that ambition serves only to prevent love….
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SONNET 29
This is largely a matter of speculation, but one could say that “Sonnet 29,” with its tone of hurt and self-pity, is a response by Shakespeare to attacks on his professional reputation as an actor…
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HELEN KELLER
There is some information about this both in the Editor’s Note to the book, and in Helen Keller’s introduction to the first chapter. Keller explains that the thought of writing the history of her…
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THE SUMMER OF THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE HORSE
If we look at the first paragraph of the story, we learn that Aram was around nine years old when his cousin, Mourad, came to his house. It is about four o’clock in the morning when Mourad arrives,…
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THINGS FALL APART
The daughter of Okonkwo’s friend, Obierika, is getting married. A wedding is a very important occasion in Igbo culture, and is always accompanied by a large, sumptuous feast in which the whole…
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THE GRAVEYARD BOOK
In The Graveyard Book, the main character, Bod, starts out as a baby whose parents were murdered. The baby wanders into a graveyard, where two ghosts, Mr. and Mrs. Owens, decide to adopt him. It…
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HISTORY
The people of the Indus Valley may not have left behind huge monuments like the Egyptian pyramids, but they nonetheless made a significant contribution to civilization. Indus cities were laid out…
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THE SUMMER OF THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE HORSE
The two boys, Aram and Mourad, are part of the same family—they are cousins. Aram explains in the story that their family is part of the wider Garoghlanian tribe, which is extremely poor. He…
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NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH: A DOCUMENTARY NOVEL
When Philip comes to sit his winter term English exam, he’s required to answer a question on The Call of the Wild by Jack London. It’s already been established that Philip doesn’t think much of the…
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THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
In order to purchase Della’s gift (the beautiful, jeweled pair of tortoiseshell combs for her hair), Jim sells his most prized possession: the gold watch that once belonged to his father and…
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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Hoping to win Portia’s admiration with tales of his courage and martial prowess, the Prince of Morocco brags to her about his feats with his scimitar. A scimitar is a Middle Eastern sword that is…
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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The young Pip is frightened of the convict. He feels very guilty too about helping him, as he knows his society would consider it a sin and that Mrs. Joe would be angry. Nevertheless, he shows…
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JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH
Professor Otto Lidenbrock is a geology professor from Hamburg, Germany who is also is the curator of a mineralogy museum. It is his purchase of an Icelandic saga that inspires the journey to the…
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AN INSPECTOR CALLS
The stage directions at the opening of act 1 really couldn’t be clearer in telling us about the Birlings’ wealth and high social status. The Burlings live in a “large suburban house” belonging to a…
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HATCHET
In chapter 1, Brian boards a plane to go to Canada to visit his father. His parents had recently gotten divorced: So this summer, this first summer when he was allowed to have “visitation rights”…
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THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM—1963
Momma Watson is the driving force and inspiration behind her family’s road trip to Birmingham. She is at her wits’ end with Byron’s constant bad behavior, and figures that the only way to…
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THE SUMMER OF THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE HORSE
Khosrove is Aram and Mourad’s uncle. He is described in the text as being an “enormous” man with a thick mustache, well-known for his fiery temper and irritability. As such, he is regarded to be…
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HISTORY
The French Revolution had a huge impact on society, though often in ways that were unintended. In its early days, the Revolution brought about greater equality between the classes. The old…
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JANE EYRE
As chapter 4 of Jane Eyre opens, our heroine immediately informs us that she feels a change is in the air. And not before time, we might add. Jane is having a truly torrid time of it at the Reed…
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THE STORY OF MY LIFE
Before Helen could learn to read, Anne Sullivan first had to teach her the concept of language and letters. She did this by spelling into the child’s hand the letters of words, and then putting…
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REFERENCE
The Renaissance embraced humanism, which celebrated the goodness, achievement, and centrality of humans and the human experience. Examples of celebrating the human being abound in Renaissance art,…
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KING SOLOMON’S MINES
Allan Quatermain begins the tale of his extraordinary adventures by telling us what prompted him to pick up his pen and start writing about his expedition to King Solomon’s Mines. The first reason…
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THE BROTHERS
The following are some key quotes from The Brothers (“Adelphoe” in Latin) by the Roman dramatist Terence; the play is an adaptation of a Greek play of the same name by Menander. In addition to…
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THE BROTHERS
While there are many approaches that one could take to The Brothers (Adelphoe in Latin) by Terence—as centuries of secondary literature shows—I choose to focus on the father-son relationship in…
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THE BROTHERS
“The Brothers” (Adelphoe in Latin) by Terence is based on a Greek play of the same name by Menander. Let’s begin with the eponymous brothers: Micio and Demea. Micio is a bachelor and lives in the…
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THE BROTHERS
The three central, interrelated themes of The Brothers are moderation, the filial relationship, and love. Let us look at each in turn. The eponymous brothers, Micio and Demea, epitomize two…
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THE BROTHERS
The Brothers revolves around the lives led by two brothers, Micio and Demea; two brothers who are, more or less, polar opposites of each other. Demea lives in the countryside whereas Micio lives in…
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MRS. DALLOWAY
To the extent that we are still reading and talking about Mrs. Dalloway almost one hundred years later, we would have to say this is a novel that has been successful in its purpose, content, and…
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HISTORY
Those American colonists who supported the British had a variety of motives, some more honorable than others. Many genuinely believed that it was a bad idea for America to go it alone and declare…
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SOCIAL SCIENCES
Internal and external communication as it pertains to workplace diversity is an important topic for any company to address. Internal communication refers to employees, human resources, newly hired…
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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT PUBLISHES A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN
As an old television commercial once exclaimed, women have come “a long way, baby” in terms of gender equality since Mary Wollstonecraft’s day. In fact, the way women lived then in eighteenth…
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THE MARTIAN
Many of the quotes that I feel are most important to the novel are quotes that show how Mark Watney is able to assess a problem, control his fears, not give up or lose hope, and stay positive….
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THE MARTIAN
There are two important themes to consider in the novel The Martian. The first is how we function in isolation. Mark Watney perseveres in his life on Mars through sheer will, creative problem…
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THE MARTIAN
Mark Watney is the protagonist of The Martian. He is left stranded on Mars after his crew leaves him for dead during a sandstorm. He is a botanist and an engineer. The skills he has as a result of…
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THE MARTIAN
Andy Weir’s science fiction novel, The Martian, follows astronaut (and botanist) Mark Watney after his team’s mission to Mars goes terribly wrong. Believing him to be dead, the crew of the Ares 3…
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THE MARTIAN
The Martian by Andy Weir follows the story of Mark Watney, a botanist and member of a NASA team that was supposed to have stayed on Mars’s Acidalia Planitia, a large plain, for a month. However,…
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H IS FOR HAWK
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald is, at its face, a book about falconry and a goshawk named Mabel. But, arguably, it is a book about grief and dealing with the aftermath of the death of a loved…
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H IS FOR HAWK
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald is a book about loss, grief, and humans and their relationship to the wild. The author and narrator, an academic at Cambridge, is thrown into depression and…
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H IS FOR HAWK
H is for Hawk was written by Helen Macdonald and is largely autobiographical. Macdonald wrote the book some time after her father, a well-known photojournalist and falconer, died suddenly of a…
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H IS FOR HAWK
Grief and loss H is for Hawk is a memoir by Helen Macdonald, which means that she is able to employ all the emotional nuances of her own narrative voice to her descriptions of what happens when she…
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H IS FOR HAWK
H is for Hawk is the story of a woman named Helen, whose experience training a wild falcon helps her work her way through depression and come to terms with her father’s death. Helen has been a…
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HISTORY
From 1861–1865, the United States engaged in a brutal Civil War that would determine the future of the nation. When the war came to an end, the changes to the country would be significant. The…
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FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER
The story First They Killed My Father is a passionate and tear-jerking account by Loung Ung, one of the survivors of the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields. Loung, now an adult, retraces her childhood…