At the start of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, loyal daughters and sons are bound to their grateful fathers with an indestructible shackle of affiliation. Larry Cook and Harold Clark are two confident patriarchs, who feel securely in possession of their children and their land. As the novel pr...

Just set back for a moment and think about a thousand acres, that's an area of land of almost mythic proportions. Just as the changes the people had to go through in this book. In this book the author takes material possessions and other tangible entities and identifies the characters through...

Robert Adams British Literature 17 April 2001 Families play quite a large role in our world. They shape and develop individuals, leaving their fingerprints on one's life and personality forever. An institution as important as family life could never be ignored in any art form and literature ...

Mary MacKillop came to Penola in 1860, to work as a governess for her Aunt Margaret and Uncle Alexander Cameron. By this stage in Mary's life her health was becoming an issue, so it was thought the clean country air would do her good, as she was previously living in Fitzroy (suburb of Melbourne...

Janie Crawford, the main character of Zora Neale Hurstons' Their Eyes Were Watching God, was an unusually independent woman as compared to the women of her time. The main plot of Janie's story comes from her life, which is permeated by her men. Though she evolved into an independent woman, Jan...

To achieve a fulfilling life you need to stray from the expectations of the world. The one common struggle of the characters in the poems/novels was to separate themselves from the shadows of others. It took the characters time and struggles to stumble upon their personal identity. Through the hards...