'Guerrillas' and 'A Bend in the River' are two well written pieces of literature written by the same author, V.S. Naipaul. Both novels blend together a good mix of characters and themes accompanied by the setting. Both novels are highly advanced pieces of literature that woul...

An analysis and interpretation of the short story "Cathedral" It is widely recognized that you cannot know, nor understand anyone, before you know and understand yourself! This is one of the main themes in the short story "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver. The main character i...

Culture Clash The two short stories, "The Tenant" by Mukherjee and "The Red Sweater" by Ng bear many similarities as well as differences. The authors of these two stories go about conveying basically the same message, however, with a slight variety. In these short stori...

Helen Garner, in her short story collection, My Hard Heart, uses a wide variety of different narrative perspectives. Each type of narration is closely linked with, and special to, the story or experience being told. Susan Hosking, describes Garners writing style as an 'ability to refine subjec...

The Catcher in the Rye, on of the biggest coming-of-age novels, shows a very unique point-of-view in the meaning of the novel on everyday existence. J. D. Salinger uses a variety of words and expressions, to not only show the tone in the book, but to advance the meaning of the novel. In the novel, w...

"Enduring Love," as written by Ian McEwan is the story of a disturbing incident, and how the central protagonists deal with the consequent events. The reader is told this story through its main protagonist, Joe. Through out the novel there is a lack of trust between the reader and Joe as h...

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" consists of a monologue in which the murderer of an old man protests his insanity rather than his guilt: "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded......

"Hands," by Sherwood Anderson, is a story that seems to be stripped of sentimentality, yet conveys emotion. Anderson tells the somber story of a misunderstood and wrongfully accused man. The protagonist, Wing Biddlebaum, failed to communicate his true self. His inner desires were repressed...

Araby by James Joyce masterfully guides the reader from the age of adolescent wonder to the pinnacle of a young boy's epiphany and subsequent disillusionment. The disillusionment is revealed in his psychic journey from first love to despair and disappointment. The visual and symbolic detail ...

In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie the authors utilized symbolism to convey important aspects of the novel. Symbolism was used to enhance the importance of the novel by using an underlying message to portray the larger picture. These two authors ...

Irony occurs when a reader predicts what will happen in a story, then the story takes a turn and the complete opposite of the prediction occurs. Authors use ironic situations in stories to retain their reader's interest and keep the readers wondering what will happen next. Guy de Manpassant w...

Kay Boyle's "Astronomer's Wife" is the story of an inhibited woman named Mrs. Ames who is married to a domineering and apparently abusive astronomer. In the beginning of the story Mrs. Ames awakens early one morning to a visit from the plumber sent to repair a water leak inside...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Interested in getting direct access to the psychedelic drugs, Kesey took a job as a psychiatric aide at the same VA hospital. Ingesting various substances and working all night at the mental institution became the inspiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ac...

A Synopsis of Lasting Themes Found in "The Child by Tiger" In Thomas Wolfe's carefully constructed short story, "The Child by Tiger," excerpts from William Blake's poem "Tiger" and the King James Bible enrich the central themes of the plot. Although "...

The story is based around a window, hence the name "The Open Window". It all starts with a young girl, named Vera, and a guy named Mr. Nuttel, having a conversation about her aunt who is yet to come onto the scene. The little girl asks the guy if he wants to know why her aunt keeps the one...

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is a short story illustrating the struggle between tradition and life. At the story's heart is a masterful characterization of the protagonist, the townspeople. Jackson's portrayal of the lottery depends mainly on her use of three artistic t...

Pushkin's short story, "The Shot," has an emphasis on the duel as it was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and on the delicate balance of life and death that is brought into existence when a duel is begun. The narrator is not the protagonist, but rather a sort-of nondescript...

Anne Fine uses a number of literary features in her novel Goggle-Eyes to influence the ways the reader responds. These literary elements include: point of view, theme, style, plot, mood/tone, setting and characters. Point of view establishes how the reader sees the story. Lukens (2003, p 168) des...

In literature, irony is a tremendously important facet of fictional work. Irony involves a contrast or discrepancy between one thing and another. The contrast may be between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is meant to happen. In Edgar Allan Poe's The Black...

 It is commonly argued, and not exclusively by sports fans, that competitive sports provide a refuge of clarity and simplicity in a bewilderingly complex and ambiguous world. If it is hard to keep track of who did what to whom and why in Srebrenica in 1995 or Shrewsbury in 1402, it is a r...

Fiction is usually thought of as prose, while poetry is given a separate classification. Essays are a form of prose usually differing from fiction in that the essay is considered a real document and not a tale. The distinction among these three forms is not always that clear, and often the genres ...

The Vagabond, written by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, is a story of romance set in turn-of-the-century Paris and several provincial towns. The novel was published in France in 1911 and later published in 1955 for the English audience. The Vagabond is recognized as one of Colette's best-known pr...

Margaret Atwood: 'Spotty-Handed Villainesses' (1994) BIOGRAPHY • Born in Ottawa, Ontario, 1939 • Studied at the University of Toronto, then took her masters degree at Radcliffe College, Massachusetts, in 1962 • Canada's most eminent novelist and poet, and also writes shor...

The plot of this story , focusing on a seemingly unusual death of Louise Mallard , can be divided into three parts . The first part lies in Richards's occasion access of the sudden accident news of Brently Mallard and his contrived revealing of the news to Louise with the help of latter's...

First Person Narration in Jean Rhys' Good Morning, Midnight The dominant figure in Good Morning Midnight is Sasha Jasnen and all action is filtered through her perception. Her voice is the only one heard while the other characters seem to serve just "as bit players filling out the scenes ...