In J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield expresses his cynical views. His opinions are almost always negative, and he often makes harsh judgments and generalizations. Although Holden is normally reluctant to reach out to people and maintain relationships, he dreams of protect...

If I could hear myself speak in an age where gender seems to be two lines merging and immerging, I wouldn't think of myself as a product of this or that. I've always thought that greatness or depravity was not a trait of what we had or did not have, but how we handled that lack or abundan...

The Novel A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley gives us warnings that we need to listen to. It tells us of the dangers of being Atheistic, castes systems, drugs, and the importance of individuality. Almost all of these can be linked to the lack of religion in their society. Without it society will sta...

Long ago, the Earth had a green belt of rain forests around its middle that covered almost twelve percent of the earth's land surface.(Miller & Berry 3) Today, the rain forest covers two percent of the earth's land surface and it is declining rapidly. The following will be a description of the ...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest We, being members of society do not have the authority to judge whether people are sane or insane. Some may say that others are insane but we are all a little bit crazy. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel written...

In London researchers have found that the universe is growing faster than what they thought. At first, they thought that it was growing too slow, then it was speeding up, and now they are saying that it is speeding up way too fast for us. The reason they have found this out is because researc...

One of the earth's most precious resources is in great peril. Water, the substance required by all living beings as a means of survival, is succumbing more and more to the ravages of pollutants, most -- if not all -- of which are the cause of humanity's environmental carelessness and neglect. Inde...

Donne's Holy Sonnet Five confronts multiple inner spiritual and physical struggles while twisting together the struggles between science and religion. With the author claiming himself as a "little world," he uses the metaphor to tie together both his physical and the spiritual str...

Looking back and comparing life during the 1900s in Canada to today's life, I can see how much the past 100 years have left us in a completely different world. I can not even begin to describe how much things have changed since then. My life would have been entirely different. First off, I w...

A dream cannot exist without another person. The Catcher in the Rye illustrates the American dream by revealing the heartaches one must go through while growing up and finding their place in society. Holden Caulfield is amazed by peoples' "phoniness". He believes that no one is truly real and th...

Throughout history, rates at which civilization developed varied greatly from continent to continent. This variance in development can be seen today in almost any country of the world. Take for example, the comparison of the United States (a world super-power), to any less developed, third-worl...

My Dream I am a devoted horoscope reader, and although rarely accurate, these little columns gave me some of the best advice. "Always look at life in a realistic light" is an example of this advice which I find very valuable, but also difficult to live by when everyone including myse...

I was born into a string of privileges: racial privilege, financial privilege, sexual privilege, physical privilege, educational privilege. I was born to parents who considered the education and nurture of their children their highest priority; I was born into a time and class in which my gender and...

Brave New World In the furturistic story Brave New World society as know it is gone; It has become a society that is governed by drugs (soma) and by technology. In this utopian society there is no pain, fear, war, hate, or love, instead there is only the happiness. In doing so the ci...

Communications. I could barely spell the word, much less comprehend its meaning. Yet when Mrs. Rubin made the announcement about the new club she was starting at the junior high school, it triggered something in my mind. Two weeks later, during the last month of my eighth grade year, I figured it...

Sylvia's Success There is risk taken when introducing a deprived child to a world of lavishly expensive items and unattainable attractions. Some may accept what they have seen, and accept their situation. Others may grow stronger, rise above their circumstances, and flourish. Fortunatle...

How do I know I'm free? Well, in the country today, we don't have near as many freedoms as we would like. Most of the freedoms that were originally written in the Declaration of Independence have been distorted from their original purpose. Take freedom of speech, for one. These days you can't just ...

The 1950s was a key point for social and gender changes. Many Americans were exhausted after World War II and desired to return to "normalcy" within their nuclear family. Women's role was beginning to change and there was a rise of another social category and culture: the teenager...

One Foot through the Door, One Foot Out There was change in the air, a fresh noted difference between the world I left and the one I reentered. You lack noticing these small details with daily routine and repetition, but they exist for the whole world to see. Little things like the city, commerce,...

To escape from something is to break loose from confinement; get free and a means of obtaining temporary freedom from worry, care, or unpleasantness. In the novel, Whispers in the Sand, by Barbara Erskine it uses symbols which represent this feeling of escape. The symbols used in the novel try to s...

How would you feel if you had to live by comparing everything to nature? The stories I'm about to discuss are of this nature. The characters are kind of metaphoric, but yet they express their feels very clearly. Welty, which is the first author, was talking about his grandmother. Whitman may...

The Glass Menagerie is a play that is very important to modern literature. Tennessee Williams describes four separate characters, their dreams, and the harsh realities they faced in the modern world. His setting is in St. Louis during the Depression-Era. The story is about a loving family tha...

Flannery O'Connor is best known for her deeply layered characters and the contrasts that she introduces through them. Good Country People is no exception. This story is set in the deep South in the middle of the Bible belt. This story is about the masks that everyone wears to hide who we truly ...

Leslie Silko's Ceremony is a highly informative and insightful work that offers a closer glimpse into the lives of Pueblo people and their culture. The author focuses on the various ceremonies and traditions that are considered essential for spiritual and physical healing in such traditional societi...

A surprising experience of the current healthcare delivery system which has personally affected me involves globalization and the internet. Apparently, as America's population continues to age, a large number of our senior citizens cannot afford the cost of their basic medicines. My neighb...