Celianne Celianne is a young woman of fifteen who is on the boat with the first narrator. She is pregnant, rarely eats, and “stares in space all the time and rubs her stomach.” Celianne has been raped and impregnated by the soldiers who had come to her house to arrest her brother. During the voyage…
Category: Literature
Children of the Sea by Edwidge Danticat: Summary
The story opens with an unnamed narrator, a young Haitian revolutionary, thinking of his girlfriend. He is on a small boat that has set sail for Miami, Florida. He is going into exile because he is wanted by the Haitian government. These details are disclosed by the young woman, who is the second narrator of…
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: Analysis
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” appears at first glance to be a simple, humorous story, but actually is a complex satire of American literature, social conventions, and politics. Like the land around the mining settlement of Angel’s Camp, it has riches under the surface, and the patient and careful reader can tap into…
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: Setting
America in the Mid to Late Nineteenth Century “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was first published in 1865, when Mark Twain was living in the American Southwest, which was still in the process of being settled. The Industrial Revolution had brought machinery and factories to the eastern United States, but most of the…
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – Literary Devices
Structure The frame tale structure of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is one of its most important parts. In a frame tale, one story appears in—that is, it is framed by—another story. In “Jumping Frog” the outer tale focuses on Mark Twain and his meeting with the talkative old storyteller, Simon Wheeler. This…
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – Themes
A cultured Easterner relates his recent visit to a talkative old man at a western mining camp. Rather than providing information that the Easterner is looking for, the old man keeps him waiting while he spins a tale about a betting man and his pet frog. Culture Clash “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,”…
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – Characters
Andrew Jackson Jim Smiley’s bull-pup, Andrew Jackson, was used by Jim in various bets. The dog is described as a good dog that does not look like much, and other dogs often seemed to get the better of him in fights. The narrator notes, however, that Andrew Jackson never seemed to be bothered by these…
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – Summary
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” has an “as-told-to” framework. A talkative man named Simon Wheeler relates to Mark Twain (the narrator) the story of a gambler named Jim Smiley and the amazing animals Smiley used in his schemes. Twain has gone to see Wheeler at the urging of a friend back East who…
Araby by James Joyce: Analysis
In his early story “Araby,” James Joyce prefigures many, if not all, of the themes which later became the focus of his writing. Joyce, often considered the greatest English-language novelist of the twentieth century, published few books in his lifetime. Chamber Music, a book of poems, appeared in 1907; Dubliners, a collection of short stories…
Araby by James Joyce: Setting
While Dublin, Ireland, has seen change since the turn of the twentieth century, when Joyce wrote “Araby,” many of the conditions present then remain today. In 1904, all of Ireland was under British control, which the Irish resented bitterly. The nationalist group, Sinn Fein (part of which later became the Irish Republican Army—the IRA), had…