English Essays

Canterbury Tales
Canterbury Tales In the book Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, gives us a stunning tale about a rooster named Chaunticleer. Chaunticleer, who is the King of his domain in his farmland kingdom. Like a King, he quotes passages from intellectuals, dreams vivid dreams, has a libido that runs like a bat out of hell, and is described as a very elegant looking Rooster. He has every characteristic of a person belonging to the upper class. Chaucer’s hidden meanings and ideas make...

Cat in the Rain Hemingway
Cat in the Rain - Hemingway To marry someone is to accept to live beside this loved person for the rest of the life. While time gives the opportunity to make the beloved happier everyday, it can also have disastrous consequences such as monotony. When a couple arrives at this sad situation, once will do anything to get a little excitements; whether by distracting his mind or worse, flirting with someone else. “Cat in the rain”, written by Ernest Hemingway, presents a couple ...

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and East of Eden
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and East of Eden this essay is based on the FILM VERSIONS!!! East of Eden and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof both deal with the relationships in families. Each of these families tries to hide the fact that they are not fully functional. The main problems in both movies are the relationships between fathers and their sons. Both movies deal with two brothers and their competition to be favored by their fathers. When each family is confronted with a crisis, it is...

Catch 22 Analysis
Catch 22 Analysis Comical in style and language, the message that Catch-22 introduces to its reader is one of a grim world’s decay. Heller’s fictional story portrays absurd characters and situations, but the underlying theme of human decadence is clearly visible, especially in the last portion of the book. Heller’s attitude towards his characters also gives way to an overwhelming tone of pity and sorrow for the world and its population. The overall theme of the novel depic...

Catch 22 Human Character
Catch 22 - Human Character In Catch-22, Joseph Heller reveals the perversions of the human character and society. Using various themes and a unique style and structure, Heller satirizes war and its values as well as using the war setting to satirize society at large. By manipulating the “classic” war setting and language of the novel Heller is able to depict society as dark and twisted. Heller demonstrates his depiction of society through the institution of war (i.e....

Catch 22 Linearity
Catch 22 - Linearity What life can be lead in linearity? Time: defined as a precise instant, minute, hour, day, year, or as every moment there has ever been or ever will be. Time is linear, one minute right after the other, not in any other order but as it falls. A journey is something that happens over a certain amount of time, with generally quite a distance traveled. Yet, in Heller’s novel, Catch-22, we see a man’s journey jump through time, into the past, into other...

Catcher in the Rye Holden and His Phony Family
Catcher in the Rye - Holden and His Phony Family The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, interacts with many people throughout J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, but probably none have as much impact on him as certain members of his immediate family. The ways Holden acts around or reacts to the various members of his family give the reader a direct view of Holden’s philosophy surrounding each member. How do Holden’s different opinions of his family compare and do his...

April Morning by Howard Fast
April Morning by Howard Fast “When I turned back to the house, my father called after me and asked me did I figure I was finished. “I figure so,” I said, and then my father said, in that way he has of saying something that cuts you down to half of your size or less: “Slow to start and quick to finish.” So went the character Adam about his life, and so went the book, April Morning, by Howard Fast. Throughout the book, an underlying theme of startin...

Around the World in Eighty Days
Around the World in Eighty Days Robert Bebber October 11, 1999 Period 3 “Around the World in Eighty Days” By: Jules Verne Adventure Novel Theme: The themes of this novel are calmness and persistence. These two themes are exemplified by one character, Mr. Fogg. Mr. Fogg is always calm in the novel not once in this novel does he show any anxiety or nervousness. Mr. Fogg, under a prolific amount pressure of losing a wager of twenty thousand pounds, remained very tranquil n...

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is a novel about how the conflicting agendas within a family tear it apart. Every member of the family is to a degree responsible for what goes wrong, but none more than Anse. Anse’s laziness and selfishness are the underlying factors to every disaster in the book. As the critic Andre Bleikasten agrees, “there is scarcely a character in Faulkner so loaded with faults and vices” (84). At ...

Atlast Alfred Succeeded
Atlast Alfred Succeeded In life, some people have defining moments that change who they are. For Alfred, the main character in The Contender by Robert Lipsyte, this was his months of boxing. Before he committed to becoming a boxer, Alfred was a timid and weak high school dropout. He couldn’t stand up for himself and was going nowhere. He had just gotten paid at his low wage job when the neighborhood bullies Major, Sonny, and Hollis asked him if he had money. He did, but h...

Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy The Price of Becoming a Barbie Doll Within our society there is an extraordinary want and need for women to be perfect on the outside. There is too much importance and too much anxiety placed on women to surrender to the image of being or becoming a Barbie doll. In the poem “Barbie Doll,” written by Marge Piercy, I see evidence to this idea in the poet’s use of irony, her attitude on the subjects of both inner and outer beauty, and her attitud...

Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville
Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener is perhaps more relevant today than when he wrote it in 1853. Bartleby is the account of a talented young scrivener who possesses great talent and potential in his career of duplicating and composing documents. The tale takes us to the upscale Wall Street area of New York City, among the buildings and law offices of the city. The young Bartleby is thrown into the typical office drudgery associ...

Beat Movement
Beat Movement The “Beat Movement” in modern literature has become an important period in the history of literature and society in America. Incorporating influences such as jazz, art, literature, philosophy and religion, the beat writers created a new and prophetic vision of modern life and changed the way a generation of people sees the ...

Belove Analysis
Belove Analysis Beloved. Who or what is Beloved? Many people think that Beloved is the Devil or a savior. Others just take her at face value as Sethe’s dead child come back to haunt her. I believe that all of these ideas come close to her identity, but they are still not completely right. This is not a story about good or evil, but rather a story about facing your own past. Beloved is simply a physical manifestation of Sethe’s guilty conscience. Sethe’s d...

Beloved Healing
Beloved - Healing The theme of “healing” is ever present in the novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison. Many forms of “healing” take place, with many different characters undergoing the “healing” process. These forms of “healing” range from healing personal conflicts from within, to healing as a community, and by overcoming individual prejudices. I feel that the overcoming of individual prejudices is one of the most important aspects of t...

Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison In Toni Morrisons’ novel, Beloved, the main character Sethe, is a former slave who chooses to kill her baby girl rather than allowing her to be exposed to the physically, and emotionally damaging horrors of a life spent in slavery. There is no other way to say it: she murdered her child. By killing her child, so dear to her heart, the question arises whether Sethe acted out of true love or selfishness. The fact that Sethe’s act is irrational can ...

Beowulf Christianity
Beowulf - Christianity When missionaries first introduced the Christian ideology to the Anglo-Saxons, they left the people with a clear choice; Pagan deities could not coexist with the Christian God. Therefore, they must abandon these ancient icons in order to hold a more monotheistic view. Unfortunately, most of their culture is built around upholding a heroic code instead of a single deity. Rather than completely forsake the standards that they had lived by for so many generat...

Beowulf Hero
Beowulf - Hero The epic poem Beowulf describes the most heroic man of the Anglo-Saxon times. The hero, Beowulf, is a seemingly invincible person with all the extraordinary traits required of a hero. He is able to use his super-human physical strength and courage to put his people before himself. His leadership skills are superb and he is even able to boast about all his achievements. Beowulf is the ultimate epic hero who risks his life countless times for immortal glory and for ...

Beowulf the Hero
Beowulf the Hero In the classic epic, Beowulf, the ideals of conduct held so dear to the Anglo-Saxon people embodies the main character in the story, Beowulf. He was not a hero because of his great accomplishments alone but also by the way he conducted himself in attaining those conquests. Beowulf exemplified the ideals of conduct a true hero should compose himself by. The most obvious pair of ideals were those of strength and wisdom. These are most apparent not only because ...

Beowulf
Beowulf During the Anglo-Saxon period, lasting from 449 AD to 1066 AD, popular belief was that a person’s life was predetermined by fate, or as it was called in Old English, Wyrd. Beowulf is a popular epic poem written during the times of these beliefs. Of the various themes reflecting Anglo-Saxon beliefs, one of the most prominent is fate. Fate is shown as a primary theme throughout the poem. When Beowulf, the main character, announces that he is traveling across the sea...

Better Be Ready Bout Half Past Eight
Better Be Ready Bout Half Past Eight After reading Allison Baker’s “ Better Be Ready ‘Bout Half Past Eight” it made me realize that discovering one’s self is a situation our world is going through right now. In her short story one of Allison Baker’s main characters, Zach tells his best friend of thirty-eight years that he is going to have a sex change. Zach tells Byron that he feels trapped in the wrong body and that he is going to become a woman. Byron is shocke...

Billy Budd Criminal Without a Crime
Billy Budd - Criminal Without a Crime How would you feel if you were told you cheated on a test, that you really did not, by a teacher who hated you, and will be expelled because of it? Herman Melville’s Billy Budd relates an allegory of the righteous versus the reprobate by symbolizing Billy Budd, John Claggart, and Captain Vere as Jesus Christ, Lucifer, and God. The protagonist in the novel is Billy Budd. The experiences that Billy undergoes throughout the novel parallel w...

Billy Budd Individualism
Billy Budd - Individualism There is much to be said about individualism. Feelings of freedom and endless possibilities for individual growth are presented throughout these two novels. Although being an individual has its high points, it is not always the road to take. Billy Budd and Ignatius Reilly were both prime examples of individuals. They both showed individualism in their looks and their actions. Individualism ultimately killed or ran off each of these characters. Bill...

Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Billy Budd by Herman Melville Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were perfect. They were innocent and ignorant, yet perfect, so they were allowed to abide in the presence of God. Once they partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, they immediately became unclean as well as mortal. In Billy Budd, the author, Herman Melville, presents a question that stems directly from this original sin of our first parents: Is it better to be innocent and ignorant, but ...