Books 1 month ago The Scarlet Letter”: Sin, Guilt, and Puritan Society Hester Prynne: The Adulteress as Heroine Hester is the novel’s hero. She is punished. She endures. She does not break. She supports herself and her…
Books 1 month ago The Dark Satire of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” Catch-22: The Circular Logic The title has entered the language. Catch-22 is a logical paradox:…
Books 1 month ago Beloved” by Toni Morrison: Confronting the Ghosts of Slavery The Ghost: Beloved as Memory Beloved is a ghost. She is also a child. She…
Books 1 month ago The Social Protest of Charles Dickens in “Hard Times” Utilitarianism: Facts, Facts, Facts Utilitarianism is the philosophy that the right action is the one…
Books 1 month ago Lolita”: Why Nabokov’s Masterpiece Is Still Controversial The Unreliable Narrator as a Trap Humbert Humbert is one of literature’s most unreliable narrators.…
Books 1 month ago The Magical Realism of Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” The Buendía Family: The Circle of Solitude The Buendías are cursed. The patriarch, José Arcadio…
Books 1 month ago How Virginia Woolf Changed Literature with “Mrs. Dalloway” The One-Day Structure “Mrs. Dalloway” takes place on a Wednesday in June, just after the…
Books 1 month ago The Catcher in the Rye”: Alienation and the Adolescent Voice Holden’s Voice: You Have to Hear It The first sentence of “The Catcher in the…
Books 1 month ago The Timeless Misery of “Les Misérables” and Human Redemption Jean Valjean: From Convict to Saint Jean Valjean is one of literature’s greatest characters. He…
Books 1 month ago War and Peace”: How Tolstoy Mastered the Epic Novel The Scope: History and Family “War and Peace” alternates between two kinds of chapters. The…
Books 1 month ago The Existential Horror of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” Gregor’s Transformation: What Does It Mean? Kafka never explains why Gregor transforms. The reader must…
Books 1 month ago Don Quixote”: The First Modern Novel and Its Enduring Knight The Character: Alonso Quixano vs. Don Quixote The hero has two identities. Alonso Quixano is…
Books 1 month ago The Gothic Romance of “Jane Eyre”: Feminism in the Attic The First-Person Voice: Jane Speaks “Jane Eyre” begins with its most famous line: “There was…
Books 1 month ago Why “The Great Gatsby” Is the Quintessential American Novel The Narrator: Nick Carraway as the Reliable Unreliable Voice Nick Carraway begins the novel by…
Books 1 month ago Crime and Punishment”: The Psychological Depth of a Murderer’s Mind The Murder and Its Justification Raskolnikov murders Alyona Ivanovna, a greedy pawnbroker who exploits the…
Books 1 month ago The Art of the Novella: Why “The Old Man and the Sea” Is Perfect The Plot in Brief Santiago has gone 84 days without catching a fish. The boy,…
Books 1 month ago “1984” vs. “Brave New World”: Two Visions of Dystopia When readers think of dystopian fiction, two titles come to mind immediately: George Orwell’s “1984”…
Books 1 month ago How “Moby-Dick” Failed Miserably Before Becoming a Masterpiece What Melville Attempted “Moby-Dick” is not a simple novel. It is a hybrid. It contains…
Books 1 month ago The Tragic Genius of “Wuthering Heights”: Love as a Destructive Force The Unreliable Narrator and the Frame Structure “Wuthering Heights” begins with Mr. Lockwood, a tenant…
Books 1 month ago Why “Pride and Prejudice” Has Never Gone Out of Print The Art of the Opening Line “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single…
