Old Tokyo Throughout the pages of Old Tokyo, Keiko Imai Packard attempts to recreate the history of this great city between the years of 1855 and 1923. Using her grandmother’s tales as an influence, she uses her writing as a way to describe the culture and social attitudes of the time rather than give the reader only a list of dates and historical facts. She describes Edo/Tokyo’s history

The Nanny Diaries Tell Them Who I AM The book Tell Them Who I Am by Elliot Liebow really shed some light on why many people (mainly women in this study) are homeless. The book makes it very clear that homeless people just don’t have a place to live. Their not all drug users, alcoholics or thieves, they just don’t have a home. Liebow started this participation study after retiring f

The Painted Door The Painted Door Of the many different mood disorders, depression is the most common, and one of the most misunderstood. While modern research indicated that brain chemical imbalances cause the condition, many people still believe that chronic depression indicates a weak personality or character flaw. This makes seeking help difficult as people hesitate before admittin

The Victims In The Victims, by Sharon Olds, the author reveals the dark side of a society where divorce is prevalent, some family members find it hard to cope with. In the first half of “The Victims”, it sounds like a young child is telling the experience regarding her parents’ divorce. The speaker expresses anger toward the father. “When mother divorced you, we were glad.” (Line 1) Th

My Life With the Wave Can a Man really be Happy With a Wave' In the short story, “My Life With the Wave,” the narrator of the story, which is also the main character, goes through a sequence of emotional transitions, all for the love of a wave. Three major traits of the narrator, are that he is a determined loving person, he likes to please others, and he is also a very passionate pers

A Seperate Peace SYMBOLISM OF A SEPARATE PEACE By Jeremiah Noack Thesis: John Knowles uses symbolism in the novel A Separate Peace to show the coming of age, in young people in high school. I. INTRODUCTION II. SYMBOLISM OF CHARACTERS A. Gene symbolizes Phineas B. Complete opposites III. THE DEVON AND NAGUAMSETT RIVERS A. Devon as carefree summer days B. Na

Troy The book the Iliad an epic by Homer which was later followed by the book the Odyssey is one of the most known stories in history. The myth was so historicized some historians believe that the events really did take place. The book the Iliad was recently made into a motion picture which made lots of money. While some critics say the movie was completely off from the book, but I sa

A Vintage Thunderbird Love Is More Than A Heart Love is a very important thing to most people and as the saying goes ‘you can never choose who you love’. This is very true of the love between Nick and Karen, the main characters in Ann Beattie’s A Vintage Thunderbird. This fictional short story is rich in meaning and symbolism. When Nick is mugged, the character Stephanie, and most impor

And Then There Were None / Identity And Then There Were None / Identity Murder mysteries are a type of literature/film which always contain a storyline which keeps the reader/viewer on the edge of their seat. Suspense, action, horror, and drama are all elements which add to the perfect murder mystery. These types of stories, when done right, take your mind on a thrill ride that doesn

Brave New World Brave New World: Cloning In the novel Brave New World, there is no such thing as women being pregnant because the ovaries are surgically removed. In fact there is no such thing as parents. There is a factory that produces human beings and conditions them for their predestined roles in the World State. Today, succeeding in the creation of the first cloned embryo is

Things Fall Apart Okonkwo plays a major role in the novel and is projected as a heroic figure and a wrestler who is constantly at war with others, with his ‘chi’, his legacy of his father whom he despises, his own character and finally, with the white man. Okonkwo’s world consists of the nine villages from Umuofia to Mbaino and areas outside of these boundaries have little significance t

Embracing Defeat Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York : W.W. Norton and Company, 1999. As with most accounts of post-war occupations, history is written though the eyes of the victor. The same can be said for previous accounts of the American occupation of Japan. The Japanese occupation differed from German occupation in that the United

The Tell Tale Heart Edgar Allan Poe is acknowledged today as one of the most brilliant and original writers in American literature. His skillfully wrought tales and poems convey with passionate intensity the mysterious, dreamlike, and often macabre forces that pervaded his sensibility. He is also considered the father of the modern detective story. The Tell Tale Heart is a short story

Do You Think Shylock Is A Cruel Person' Although critics tend to agree that Shylock is The Merchant of Venice’s most noteworthy figure, no consensus has been reached on whether to read him as a blood thirsty bogeyman, a clownish Jewish stereo type or a tragic figure whose sense of decency has been fractured by the persecution he endures. Certainly, Shylock is the play’s antagonist and he

Romeo And Juliet Fate Vs. Free Will A large part of the beliefs for both Romeo and Juliet involve fate. They believed in the stars, and that their actions weren’t always their own. For example, “I am fortunes fool ( 794)”. Romeo cries out these words when the full impact of what he has just done and the consequences of his actions hit him. His secret marriage to Juliet of the Capulet fam

The Ending Of The Scarlet Letter Life was simple and pure for Hester Prynne. After the death of her lover, nothing in the world can mase her angry and anxious easily. She looked white and cold. She kept a proper distance to the world. She lost Dimmesdale twenty years ago. He was the only lover for her in those black days. Now she realized that there were more things lovely in the world.

A Prayer for Owen Meany The title A Prayer for Owen Meany is referred upon several times throughout the story. The author uses the “prayers for Owen” by illustrating the reverend’s difficulty to create proper words for Owen and his needs. Also, the author uses his “prayers for Owen” to illustrate to the audience that this man who is so rare must be a gift of God and must be prayed about

Weep Not, Child During the end of the nineteenth century the British government was planning, with Germany, on the partitioning of African territories so as to create holding on the continent and become part of the growing importance of this area to global trade and expansion. In the section of Africa that would become the British East Africa Protectorate and then Kenya in 1920, there w

The Metamorphosis THE METAMORPHOSIS In the opening lines of German author Franz Kafkas’ short story narrative “The Metamorphosis”, the protagonist Gregor Samsa a disgruntled traveling salesman who lives with and supports his parents and little sister, awakens from a night of unpleasant dreams to find that he has been metamorphosed into a cockroach he calls a “monstrous vermin” (Kafka,

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been' In her short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been'” Joyce Oates introduces a fifteen-year-old named Connie who represents an innocent girl, who in this case is associated with being an adolescent and self-centered, constantly thinking about the way she appears in the mirror or by others. Connie’s innocence is symbolically evident in t

Doll House Is it not ironic how we so often find ourselves pondering the manner in which we have always believed our lives to be led, our system of morals practiced, then due to some unexpected event we are suddenly thrust into a completely different way of thinking' Such is the case of the central character in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” Louise Mallard, in hearing the news of

The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan’s the Joy Luck Club is a prime example of real mother and daughter relationships that are strengthened over time. Through four Chinese pairs of mothers and daughters, Tan shows the true bond that gets stronger as the woman grow up together. The mother’s come from different backgrounds and have all experienced different childhoods than their daughters growi

Diary Of Anne Frank “Can eat when your in the depths of despair'” This can only be said by the very imaginative child Anne Shirley from the book of Anne of Green Gables. Lucy Maud Motgomery created the novel and fictional character, Anne. This novel is about a little Orphan girl whose life was changed by an elderly brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. They live in Green Gab

The Bell Jar Searching For Identity, Finding Pain And Confusion In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar In Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar, the protagonist Esther Greenwood encounters pain and confusion every time she interacts with a man. She finds pain in her heart from her boyfriend Buddy by learning the reality of a double standard, pain in her emotions from a woman-hater by learning the

Why Winston Is A Critical Thinker Being a critical thinker isn’t easy. It’s a skill that has to be acquired over time and practice. Being a critical thinker means that you don’t only look at the facts but you look at an idea from every possible angle, while formulating your own thoughts and meanings. The character of Winston from George Orwell’s 1984 is a perfect example of a critical t

The Red Badge Of Courage The Red Badge of Courage It is a story that realistically depicts the American Civil War through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy who decides to become a soldier. Henry, who is fighting for the Union, is very determined to become a hero, and the story depicts Henry’s voyage from being a young coward, to a brave man. The novel opens with a descri

Under the Tarnished Dome Under the Tarnished Dome is a book about Coach Lou Holtz written by Don Yeager and Doug Looney. Holtz, the University of Notre Dame football coach, has been a proven winner in the game of football. He has earned head coaching jobs at schools such as, William and Mary, North Carolina State University, Arkansas University, Minnesota, and Notre Dame; all the footb

The Revolt of Mother Domestic Disobedience and the role of women in “The Revolt of ‘Mother’” In an essay by Mary Wilkins Freeman Reflecting on her story “The Revolt of ‘Mother’” she wrote that: In the first place all fiction ought to be true and “The Revolt of ‘Mother’ “ is not true . . . . There never was in New England a woman like Mother. If there had been, she certainly would have

Chivailry Is Becoming Extinct Chivalry is Becoming Extinct Le Morte d’ Arthur is a magnificent work on the Arthurian legend. It was written by Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell, Warwickshire. He was evidently a violent, lawless individual who committed a series of crimes, including poaching, extortion, robbery, and murder. Most of his life from 1451 was spent in pri

Inherit the Wind In 1955, Laurence and Lee wrote Inherit the Wind to emphasize Conflicts that arose during the Scopes Trial and the McCarthy era. They illustrated these themes/conflicts by manipulating the events of the Scopes trial and creating characters that effectively convey the themes. Although the Scopes trial already on its own conveys conflicts suck as: Science Vs. Faith but