College

Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems

“Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson, is a poem that explores dying as peaceful and ordinary, which is unlike some of Dickinson's poems focusing on death that are unnerving. This exploration comes from a speaker, who is long...

12th Grade

Owen Sheers: Poetry

In the poetry collection ‘Skirrid Hill’, Owen Sheers explores the theme of sorrow in a variety of different situations and contexts, showing the reader the dire circumstances of many people in Wales, be it in the past or present. Almost all of the...

12th Grade

The Trial

The Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights ensures that any American citizen accused of a crime has the right to a fair trial; in other words, those who have been accused must be informed of the crimes that they are accused of, and are given the...

College

Madame Bovary

Flaubert utilizes the character of the blind beggar to mirror Emma’s descent into corruption. Typical of Flaubert’s realist style, the beggar is described in detail as a needy, terrifyingly ugly man, which reflects Emma’s inner state. Emma has...

12th Grade

The Odyssey

In the Odyssey, the hero of the story, Odysseus, is depicted as a courageous, brilliant man. He keeps much faith in the gods, which pays him good dividends. He is also smart and cunning, always able to escape several of the most difficult...

12th Grade

Crime and Punishment

Can humans accept responsibility for their own deeds once they become aware that they have free will? Crime and Punishment is a platform for Dostoevsky’s own existentialist argument that attempts to answer the above question. Arguing against...

College

Giovanni's Room

Throughout the novella Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, there is a struggle for David to be understood not only by society, but by himself. By showing an internal struggle in David between being able to be completely honest with the events taking...

12th Grade

Philip Larkin: Poems

In ‘Mother, Summer, I’, through a mother and son’s shared distaste for summer weather, Larkin focuses on the dangers of ‘perfection’ which works to hide underlying issues and faults of any given situation. Larkin, through the extended metaphor of...

College

The Lais of Marie de France

The Lais of Marie de France give outstanding examples why true love cannot exist in the real world. “Lanval” and “Yonec” both focus on the theme of true love existing only in the imagination because it has no foundations in the human world. True...

College

In Our Time

Sons have long been taking after their fathers. Such is the case in Ernest Hemingway’s 1925 collection of short stories, In Our Time. In the stories, we see that the character of Nick has internalized his father’s traditionally masculine ways of...