Over the last twenty years, the general development of scholarship about women’ s lives and art parallels an unprecedented flowering of creative writing by American Indian women. But in view of these parallel developments, American Indian women have shown little interest in the feminist movement, and conversely mainstream feminist scholarship has paid strikingly little attention…
Tag: Essay
In Another Country – Analysis – Essay
One of the most often-discussed aspects of Ernest Hemingway’s writing is his distinctive style. Whereas many writers of his day were still heavily influenced by the verbose, extremely descriptive style of English and American authors of the nineteenth century such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Herman Melville, Hemingway was not. His literature is free…
How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction: Analysis
In Mark Twain’s classic American novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist, young Huck, is last seen preparing to “light out for the territories.” This story of Huck, poised on the brink of manhood, prepared to test his character and forge his identity on the frontier has become a master narrative for the American…
The Garden Party – Analysis – Essay
Most criticism of Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Garden Party” concentrates on the story as a truncated bildungsroman—a story of the growth and maturity of a young idealistic character. Critics such as Daniel S. Taylor in “Crashing the Garden Party: A Dream, A Wakening,” for example, see Laura’s initiation as a passage from the “dream…
Flowering Judas – Analysis – Essay
Laura, the troubled young protagonist of “Flowering Judas,” is disillusioned with Mexican politics, but her unhappiness goes much further than this. She walks through life feeling anxious and detached, always afraid, though she knows not of what. “She is not at home in the world,” Porter writes, summing up Laura’s state of mind. This overarching…
Blackberry Winter (Short Story) – Analysis – Essay
Critics of Warren’s finest story, “Blackberry Winter,” have focused on his presentation of universal themes and his deft use of imagery and atmosphere. While it certainly is true that the story invokes age-old and timeless human narratives, like the expulsion from the garden of Eden and the rebellion against the father, it can also be…
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Analysis – Essay
The ‘‘true’’ identity of the narrator of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of the novel to understand. The novel depicts two personalities: the now-dead Phaedrus and the lonely, empty man who remained after undergoing shock therapy. The actual storyteller, it may be argued, is neither…
When Rain Clouds Gather – Analysis – Essay
In When Rain Clouds Gather, Head tells the intertwining stories of several characters and circumstances. Readers follow the successes, failures, and challenges of a South African refugee, a British expatriate, local chiefs, a British inspector, and several Golema Mmidi villagers. Interspersed throughout this storytelling, however, the author (either through her narrator or her characters) often…
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson – Analysis – Essay
In Anderson’s novel Speak, the protagonist’s English teacher remarks: ‘‘It’s all about SYMBOLISM.’’ The teacher is referring to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work. However, because of the stress placed on the word symbolism (placing the word in all capitals), one might question whether Anderson is referring to her own writing as well. If she is, what symbols…
The Scarlet Pimpernel – Analysis – Essay
Baroness Orczy is generally credited with creating the literary figure of the disguised superhero in 1905 with The Scarlet Pimpernel. The character of Zorro was created some fourteen years later, Superman was introduced in 1938, and before long an entire genre was flourishing. The comic book proved the favored medium for superhero stories, which mostly…