Books Essays

Edwige Danticat’s “The Book of the Dead” is a short, historically based fictional story which describes the reign of a corrupt Haitian dictator, Dr. Francois Duvalier, and the adverse effects of his oppressive rule. In the story, Annie, a sculptor, discovers that her father, who she idolized for his heroic …

“I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person…These seemingly fragile people are the strong people really (Williams: Twenty Years after Glass Menagerie).” Tennessee here captured the very essence of Arthur …

‘The Crucible’, written in the 1950s by playwright Arthur Miller, is a dramatisation of the Salem witch trials of 1962. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism in American during the 1950s. The play explores the notion that a functional society cannot exist without a balance in power. …

It has been a long while since I read an autobiography and this one, contrary to most everything else professors have assigned to read, was pretty decent. Camara Laye’s The Dark Child is at first glance your run of the mill coming of age tale, with a few different odds …

The story ‘The Lottery’ was written by Shirley Jackson, throughout the piece the author builds up suspense towards the climax. The story takes place in a small village, where the people are close and tradition is paramount. A yearly event, called the lottery, is one in which one person in …

The heroic monomyth (also known as the Hero’s Journey) describes the common stages of a hero’s journey found in many stories. Joseph Campbell first described the monomyth in 1949 in his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. Although the nature of the monomyth may not be appealing to everyone, …

Deliberative democracy is a relatively new concept, having been first introduced by Bessette in 1980. This makes it somewhat more relevant in today’s society than some of the other models of democracy. As stated before, a deliberative model is one which can be described as a ‘discursive democracy’. To be …

– Bella Swan – married to Edward – special ability to shield others from intruding on her mind – Edward Cullen – married to Bella – special ability is reading minds, with the exception of Bella – Renesmee – half vampire/half human child born to Edward and Bella – imprinted …

What they fought for is an analysis of a collection of nearly a thousand personal letters and journals entries written by the soldiers who fought America’s famous Civil War. This book seeks to define the ideology of what the soldiers understood they were fighting for, and their comprehension of the …

Charles Wallace Murry: Meg’s extraordinarily intelligent five-year-old younger brother who is capable of reading minds and understanding other creatures in a way that none of the other Murry children can. Meg Murry: The book’s heroine and protagonist, a homely, awkward, but loving high school student who is sent on an …