Against Marx: Huck Finn Is About a Boy -- And Is Not a Coming-of-Age Novel
The character of Huck Finn is based upon the idea of the crucial inversion, which Twain develops at every instance of the novel. For example, in the beginning of the novel, Huck is meant to be civilized by Miss Watson -- but instead he is climbing out the window to play at being pirates with Tom. When Pap arrives, Huck is supposed to hand over the money that he won from the previous book -- but money does not mean anything to Huck, so it is in the hands off the Judge, who will not give to Pap. When Huck runs away from Pap, he teams up with Jim, the runaway slave -- and instead of turning Jim in to the authorities, he helps to hide him (even though there are moments of a "crisis" of….

Huckleberry Finn
Suspense: Find examples of suspense in chapter 24-30. What do these events cause a reader to feel anxious for Huck? Is he ever in real danger?

Suspense is maintained throughout the Wilks scam by wondering whether the increasing inventions of the King and the Duke will still enable them to maintain their con game, and then whether the mounting threat of mob violence will claim their lives, or even possibly Huck's. If there is a moment when Huck may face real danger, it is when the mob forms to demand justice.

As a reader, do you feel anxious for the Duke or the king? Why or why not?

The Duke's and king's situation in these chapters is precarious. The Wilks scam seems unlikely to pan out and brings out the worst in them both -- Huck says their behavior makes him "ashamed of the human race." But the lynch mob is clearly….

A description of the entrance of Elmer Stark, father of Eddy and Tony, into the world of the story makes both the masculine and the feminine exotic, other, and unknowable, while at the same time igniting tensions and passions -- outright lust, in fact -- between them in a fetishization of the other. Nettie, the Stark matriarch, is described watching this stranger wash, "his naked shoulders, the gleam of his skin, and the lines of charred bronze where the sun had burned his neck and wrists, the faint red-gold of the hairs that edged from under his belt at his waist" (Lane, p. 144). This description makes it clear that Elmer is not being viewed as a human, but as an other, just as Nettie is creating her own distance and just as distances were created with the native peoples through such objectification. ith such beginnings as these, it….

Telemakhos development into manhood with the maturing of a young male character portrayed in a film
The Odyssey is recognized as the epitome of epics in literature and mythology by which all other epics are judged. Odysseus' journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan war takes many twists and turns and has all of the elements of an action-packed and epic adventure. However, there is another story developing parallel to that of Odysseus and his crew. ack home in Ithaca, Odysseus has left behind a wife, son, and kingdom that suffer in his absence. Telemakhos has a journey of his own while his father travels the world. "The first four books of the Odyssey are often referred to as the 'Telemachiad, or the song of Telemechus as they focus on the difficulties of a young hero coming of age in a hostile environment." (Lucas) In much the same way that….

Kim
Fathering Kim

The concept of a "coming of age" novel or a Bildungsroman is fairly well established, typically exploring the loss of innocence and the growing awareness -- both of the self and of the external world -- of the protagonist of the story, typically an adolescent male. There are many variations on this overall idea of a coming of age novel, of course, with characters and plots the cover a wide variety of different backgrounds, settings, and intentions, and with the overall impact and meaning of these novels also highly varied. Great Expectations and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two examples of Bildungsroman, in certain ways, yet are very different stories told in very different styles, and with very different commentaries on society. Interestingly, despite the major differences in these tales, both of the protagonists in each of these novels is also without a true father in any meaningful….

Her society tells her she needs one, and when Milkman enters her life, she invests her entire personality in him. When he leaves her, Hagar lacks the self she needs to survive. Pathetically, she tries to create a self that Milkman will want by buying makeup and clothes, turning her beautiful African hair a horrible orange (Milkman has been dating light-skinned redheads), and generally abasing herself.
Morrison certainly deviates from a sterotypical feminist perspective when she criticizes Hagar's possessiveness as well as Milkman's cruelty. When Hagar and uth argue over Milkman, Pilate points out that a man is not a house to be owned. Finally, when Hagar is trying to kill Milkman (not able to possess him, she does not know what else to do), Guitar tells her how wrong she is to base her value on the possession of a man. How can Milkman love her if she is….

Multi-Ethnic Literature
The focus of this work is to examine multi-ethnic literature and focus on treating humans like farm animals that can be manipulated for various purposes. Multi-Ethnic literature offers a glimpse into the lives of the various writers of this literature and into the lives of various ethnic groups and the way that they view life and society and their experiences. Examined in this study are various writers including Tupac Shakar, Dorothy West, Petry, and others.

A Rose Grows From Concrete

One might be surprised to learn that Tupac Shakar was the writer of many sensitive poems. Upon his death in 1996, Tupac's mother released a collection of poems entitled 'A Rose Grows From Concrete', which includes various love poems among the 72 poems in the collection. Tupac writes:

Things that make hearts break.

Pretty smiles

Deceiving laughs

And people who dream with their eyes open

Lonely children

Unanswered cries

And souls who have given up hoping.

It is reported….

The fact that she gives up on the name that recalls her Jewish origins is considered to be a proof of her own anti-Semitism. It is very obvious that it is right from within the family that she receives the greatest pressure. This is the only clear act which she makes in order to better define her identity. She declares that she does not feel Jewish and this is how she motivates her act. This was also the easiest if not the only choice that she could do. Otherwise the colour of her skin remained what it was, constantly reminding her and everyone else about her mixed origins.

The idea of constant passage is a central theme to the book under analysis. The fact that the character detaches herself from her body has a very deep significance. It is generally declared that no type of social construct can deeply impact the….

I was stricken at the site of gender representation at the management level in this country, for example.
Jane Eyre and characters like her made me develop a sense of reality when it came to gender roles that was partly distorted. I was of course inclined to think that I had every right to get the same opportunities as my male counterparts and generally I did in my country. but, the trust I had developed in my male coworkers and those I came in contact with was a little far stretched because of characters like Jane. The physical part of a relationship between a man and a woman was not treated in detail because the era did not allow such extravagancy, but the sexual aspects that were left unsaid or that were just alluded to were impossible to understand for a child and hard to explain later for a young….

As for the major dilemma (China vs. President of the U.S. Operations), the protagonist should first check if the two alternatives are available to him. In other words, he should talk to the CEO and ask how eligible he is for the vacant position in USA. If Pierre asserts that there is a high probability for him to be elected, then Michael will have a family council and ask for his wife and children's opinions, which weigh significantly in his decision. If he is still torn between the two alternatives or has a more pronounced appetite for the President of the U.S. operations position, then he can resort to the following tactic. He could tell Pierre that he is highly interested in the vacancy and that he would like to postpone his answer to the China opportunity until the "winner" of the elections is announced. However, going to China represents….

Diaz's Examination Of Culture: Clashes And Identities
Diaz's Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a combination of cultural experiences and influences that are as rich and imaginative as the stories the book contains. Within the main character, Oscar, lies the power to both transcend definition of culture and become victim or prey of a specific culture's stereotypes and norms. Oscar is an obese, alienated person within his own culture, but he is drawn out of his personal problems and violent existence within the Dominican dictatorship through his love of escapist literature and stories. Oscar even refers to himself as a "victim of fuku americanus," or the "Curse of the New World." (Diaz, 2007). This is an integral idea within the novel and helps to shape the cultural struggles that are contained within it.

Throughout this entire voyage through Oscar's life, author Diaz explores the mixture of cultures, languages, and ideas that has….

Individualization in America as Shown in Updike's "A&P"
John Updike's short story "A&P" has been the subject of much scholarly debate over the decades since it first appeared. On the surface a simple tale of youthful lust and rebelliousness, there have been many attempts to read deeper meaning into the story and to assign certain symbolic importance to the adolescent protagonist and other elements of the story. Through an examination of previous criticism on the work and a close reading of the story itself, it will be shown that the character Sammy in Updike's "A&P" symbolizes the emerging individualization of America's youth and it's clash with established norms in post-II society.

Sammy is a nineteen-year-old clerk at the A&P grocery store in a town "five miles from the beachand the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something" to cover their beach attire in the more modest society of mid-century….

Man ho Shot Liberty Valance and the Brilliance of John Ford
John Ford's The Man ho Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a classic western with a few film noir elements included, is elegiac in the sense that its narrative strategy is that of eulogistic remembrance by now-Senator Ransom Stoddard, of horse rancher Tom Doniphan, who once saved Stoddard's life and changed it much for the better, and who was the real man who shot Liberty Valance. According to Robert Horton, "This may be the saddest estern ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose" ("Editorial Reviews"). Upon Tom Doniphan's death in the small fictional town of Shinbone (state unknown) Ransom and Hallie Stoddard arrive back in town to pay their final respects to Doniphan who sacrificed so much of himself, and so much of his own future happiness,….

Charlotte's eb
An Analysis of ilbur's Maturation in Charlotte's eb

The journey of ilbur (the runt-sized pig) from childhood into adulthood is full of perils, twists and turns. hile ilbur's story encompasses the lives of several animals and a few humans, it is more than a collection of assorted characters gathered together in a children's tale: it is a kind of bildungsroman -- a coming-of-age novel in which a pig (ilbur) undergoes a maturation process thanks to some help from a few loving friends. This paper will show how ilbur matures into an adult despite some handicaps and a few very real threats along the way.

As Nancy Larrick points out, E.B. hite's Charlotte's eb contains a "startling note of realism" when it introduces the very first threat of ilbur's life: the ax (Larrick 67). The serious defect of ilbur's size (at least in the eyes of Fern's father) sheds light on a….

No longer is the god of the sea, Poseidon, an active presence in the tale, as the myth of his parental lineage to Theseus is transformed into a rather credible connection based on faith and religious sentiment. In order to illustrate this shift of perception, Theseus's uncanny and intuitive prediction of earthquakes is correlated with Poseidon by metaphor: "The God is coming, I feel him in the ground" (enault 170).
It is in a similarly plausible and humane way that the other culturally relevant aspects of the tale are presented, except for the superstition exhibited in the episode of the athenean witch's curse on Theseus, as he contends that "the charm she put on me was very evil, and if you talk of such things you give them power" (enault 75). Indeed, Mary enault successfully humanized most of the legend's mythical elements, by making Theseus, for instance, earn the kingship….