Sara Gruen is a Canadian citizen, moved to United States in 1999 for a technical writing job. After she got laid off she decided to be a writer. She is an animal lover and has written famous novels Riding Lessons, Flying Changes, Ape House and Water for Elephants.
Main characters of Water for Elephants
Jacob Jankowski -- The novel's protagonist. He is a ninety or ninety-three-year-old nursing home resident who spent his life as a veterinarian in a circus during the great depression.
Rosie -- An elephant that Uncle Al bought from another circus. She understands commands only in Polish. She is the target of August's rage.
Marlena -- eautiful star performer of the circus, who fell in love with Jacob Jankowski.
August -- Head animal trainer and husband of Marlena. He is a charming and brutal both to the humans and animals.
Uncle Al -- The violent and abusive owner of the circus.
Camel -- One…...
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Bibliography:
Guen, Sara. "Water for Elephants: a novel." 2007. Algonquin Books.
O'Connor, Anahad. "Always Follow the Elephants: More Surprising Facts and Misleading Myths about our health and the World We Live In." 2009. Macmillian.
Royal Beatings," by Alice Munro, displays an interesting relationship between the main character, Rose, and her stepmother, Flo. The depiction of Flo is one in the middle of the two stereotypical extremes one might expect, either the overly-sweet stepmother or the evil stepmother. Flo's character lies somewhere in between; she is both a good mother and a bad mother. Rose, on the other hand, possesses the stereotypical character of the melodramatic young child, who is not afraid of royal beatings, but rather curious about them (Munro 96), and who sees her father's personality as a stage act when he beats her (109), and therefore retaliates with "self-indulgence" (110).
The relationship between the two is never one of apathy, but always characterized by either closeness or a struggle for superiority. It is obvious from Rose's musings about Flo's past life that they spend time close enough that they relay personal information.…...
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Works Cited
Munro, Alice. "Royal Beatings." Alice Munro: Selected Stories. Random House: New York,
Vandover and the Brute is a book written by Frank Norris who was an admirable writer who used his characters in a way to show how they were influenced and affected by outside sources. The novel, which was written between 1894 and 1895, was first published in 1914 and has become an exceptional text in modern literature. The novel is about the main character, Vandover, who slowly leads his life into inevitable destruction. Actually, this book is regarded as a rich and entertaining novel regarding Vandover, an artist who graduates from Harvard University but ends up in poverty because of bad habits and ill-luck. Similar to his main character in McTeague, Norris paints Vandover as a very brutish individual. In the novel, the main character is not only shaped by the environment but also the author. Frank Norris does not seemingly give room for Vandover to progress, which helps in…...
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Works Cited
ENotes. "Frank Norris Long Fiction Analysis." Enotes.com. Enotes.com, n.d. Web. 17 May 2017. .
Fusco, Katherine. "Brute Time: Anti-Modernism in "Vandover and the Brute."" Studies in American Naturalism 4.1 (2009): 22-40. Print.
Mitchell, Lee C. "'Little Pictures on the Lacquered Surface': The Determining Vocabularies of Norris's Vandover and the Brute." Papers on Language & Literature 22.4 (2010): 386-405. Print.
Norris, Frank. Vandover and the Brute. Dortmund, Germany: Readbox Publishing, 2012. Print.
7) There are several subplots in the film. The first of these is Felix Happer, the chairman of the board of Knox Oil & Gas, and Mac's boss. He is extremely wealthy and powerful, but psychologically somewhat fragile. In order to help face his problems, Happer engages an "abuse therapist" to hurl various forms of ill treatment at him. He is also interested in furthering his chances of immortality. He addresses this need by compulsively scanning the skies for a comet to bear his name. This relates to the theme as a whole in its commentary on how fleeting and futile the world of business is. His extreme wealth does not make Felix Happer a happy man, nor does it bring him peace of mind or any sense of contentment. In contrast, the beachcomber/owner Ben Knox lives in complete poverty and utter contentment in the knowledge that no force on…...
Amy is the main character of the case under study and is facing a problem with Joe who agreed to co-teach with her. The problem that Amy faces is that Joe is not clear about the concept and idea of co-teaching and how it is supposed to be carried out. Moreover Joe says things which hurt Amy and she feels insulted by them. Firstly Amy should realize that she is young and comparatively inexperienced. Joe on the other hand is an experienced teacher who has been teaching for a very long time. He is used to his method of teaching and therefore it is hard for him to accommodate himself to this new change of method. Normally a person who has been teaching for twenty years with the same pattern finds it hard to undergo a change. Amy thus should not find his comments to be insulting and she should…...
October 23rd
Big confession here: when I was ten, I had a party at my parent's. Store-bought cake with pink icing, Snoopy paper plates, pinata, games, favor cups, the whole middle-class nine yards. And I liked it.
8. November 3rd
My dad says I'm changing. hile slurping his spaghetti this evening he couldn't understand why I wasn't that excited about some dumb award he won for an article he published in a journal but I thought it was majorly cool that an/the Olsen twin(s) were in his class.
9. December 1st
Sophie M -- at first I didn't know what to think about the Hollywood connection, and I know hitney thought even less about it, but now that she knows that there can be two queen bees (in different ways) at Tate, things seem to be going a bit smoother. Just call me the peacemaker, okay? Hey, maybe someone will send ME a prize…...
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Works Cited
Karasyov, Jill & Laura Kargman. Bittersweet Sixteen. New York: HarperTeen, 2007.
Antonia, the main character of the novel My Antonia.
My Antonia
The magnum opus, My Antonia is a well-composed masterpiece by the eminent author illa Cather who is well-known for her scholarly depiction of life in the frontiers (Back cover). The distinguished novelist in her masterwork My Antonia has portrayed the strong personality as well as the persisting qualities of a young Bohemian girl named Antonia who migrated from United States to settle down in Nebraska.
This marvelous account addressing various issues has been narrated by one of the characters named Jim Burden who is portrayed as the childhood playmate of the protagonist of the novel named Antonia. According to Jim Burden, Antonia was the eldest daughter of the Shimerda's and a healthy as well as a happy girl with the most beautiful eyes that were "big and warm and full of light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the…...
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Works Cited
Cather W. My Antonia Mariner Books Publishers, September 1995 ISBN: 039575514X 244 pages
death conveniently resolves the problem of the murder of the Soc and is followed within hours as Whissen puts it, "Dally is made into a tragic antihero. He 'fought for Johnny,' and when Johnny dies, Dally, too, must die. And what he dies for is the absence of fairness in the world, for as all teenagers know, life is anything but fair. Again, though, where adults may guffaw at the sentimental silliness of Dally's way of death, Hinton makes it all quite credible -- even moving" (p. 185).
These events also serve as the basis for Ponyboy redeeming himself academically with his English teacher who cautions him that, "Pony, I'll give it to you straight. You're failing this class right now, but taking into consideration the circumstances, if you come up with a good semester theme, I'll pass you with a C. grade" (p. 178). After calling his English teacher late…...
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References
Bereska, T.M. (2003). The changing boys' world in the 20th century: Reality and "fiction." the
Journal of Men's Studies, 11(2), 157.
Herz, S.K. & Gallo, D.R. (1996). From Hinton to Hamlet: Building bridges between young adult literature and the classics. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Hinton, S.E. (1967). The outsiders. New York: Viking Press.
"(Twain,39). Later on, he witnesses with his friends their own funeral service, because they had been considered dead after their disappearance. Also, Tom pretends to be visionary and recounts his so-called dream to aunt Polly, which was in fact only an account of what he himself had seen: "Tom! The sperrit was upon you! You was a-prophesying -- that's what you was doing!" (Twain, 157)
Finally, Tom emerges as a "real hero," when his concern the others outweighs his concern for himself. Thus, one of his real acts of heroism is taking the punishment in Becky's place, for tearing the teacher's book, and getting the latter's sincere appraisal: "Tom, how could you be so noble!"(Twain, 176). Also, he rescues Becky from the cave, and the fact that he persuades Huck to be civilized, putting it as a condition to him, so as to let him be part of the gang: "A…...
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Works Cited
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New Yor
The protagonist's resistance is thus effective, psychologically in the sense that the fire-watcher has been given a gift that other members of society and the world might lack, a sense of his own personal ineffectuality, true, but also a sense of the ultimate transience of all human desires for boundaries and possession. This does not necessarily provide a solution to the problem of social marginalization, or of the historical conflicts presence in Israel and waged in the political sphere, but it does provide a certain ideological 'gift' to the marginalized man.
In contrast, Anita Desai's short story is more lighthearted in its analysis of cultural marginalization. In her story, the central protagonist travels to another city in India and establishes a career for herself, quite contrary to how she has been taught to live. The central, female protagonist does not fall into the conventional mode of simply marrying an acceptable boy,…...
character and nature of Frankenstein's creation, the monster. It aims to study the potential nature of the monster's evil deeds and to provide readers with understanding of the monster's "being" as told in the story. eing the creator of the monster, this paper also looks into the nature of Victor Frankenstein having to be able to create a monster that haunted his family, friends, and even his own life.
Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, shows how humans tend to be influenced by the major factors in their lives, such as people and the environment that they are living in. The novel shows how constant rejection can cause someone to become a monster. It also stresses an idea of human injustice towards outsiders, as the monster experienced from humans.
Throughout this paper, I will attempt to point out some factors in the story that made the two characters, Frankenstein and his creation, the…...
Characters Struggling Authenticity
Character Authenticity
The state of being authentic in our lives, in our personalities, and in our actions can be a difficult, but important concept to come to terms with. As we grow, events and people in life can shape who we are, and we can choose to be true to ourselves or succumb to pressures and assume an inauthentic identity. In the stories "Signs and Symbols," "The Lady with the Dog," and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (written by Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Chekhov, and Leo Tolstoy, respectively), we can examine characters influenced into inauthenticity, and the realization of their example can help us reflect upon the authenticity of our own lives.
Each of the characters in these stories is influenced by a different motivator. Through their judgment of their circumstances, they choose to react in the way they see fit. In "Signs and Symbols," for example, a couple's son…...
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Works Cited
Chekhov, Anton. "The Lady with the Dog." 26 March 2011. .
Nabokov, Vladimir. "Signs and Symbols." 26 March 2011. .
Tolstoy, Leo. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich." The Classical Library. 2001. 26 March 2011.
y the final chapter, although Huck has come to like Silas and Sally, he knows that they are still a part of the society he has come to distrust and fear so, before the dust from his adventures is fully settled he is already planning to detach himself again:" but I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before" (chapter 43, Electronic text center, University of Virginia Library).
In Austen's novel the theme is to show the violation of the moral and social codes and its disastrous results in a humored way. While human follies and stupidities lead to the violation of the code and only the self-knowledge can prevent the human error, Jane Austen's main theme becomes to know yourself. Through self-analysis Emma changes…...
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Bibliography
Twain, Mark (1835-1910)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
Exile can be the self-imposed banishment from one's home or given as a form of punishment. The end result of exile is solitude. Exile affords those in it for infinite reflection of themselves, their choices, and their lives in general. Three prominent literary characters experience exile as part of the overall narrative and in that, reveal a great deal about themselves to themselves as well as to the readers. The three narratives in questions are "The Epic of Gilgamesh," "The Tempest," and "Things Fall Apart." All of the main characters of these narratives experience exile as a result of actions taken by the protagonists at earlier points in the story. The protagonist in each respective story are exiled because of their choices and the exile forces each character to face consequences that ultimately bring their inner character to the surface in a more direct manner than prior…...
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References:
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: First Anchor Books Edition, 1994.
Mason, Herbert. Gilgamesh A Verse Narrative. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
Shakespeare, William. "The Tempest." Ed. Barbara A. Mowat & Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1994.
Sutton, Brian. "Virtue Rather Than Vengeance": Genesis and Shakespeare's The Tempest." Explicator, Vol. 66, No. 4, 224-229.
Remarque challenges the social, cultural, and political notions of war in the way the main characters react to their plight. It is assumed that a nation will rally around its troops, and that the troops themselves will see war as having a great level of value. Since the main characters do not see war that way, they feel cut off from the social and cultural aspects of "going to war." They also don't understand the political ramifications, or why any country would want to invade another. It doesn't make sense to them. Remarque indicates that this may be much more....
There are two main levels of language used in A Streetcar Named Desire. These are the text of the stage directions and the words the actors actually say to one another. The biggest contrast is between Stanley's course, slang language and Blanche's classy, flowery statements. While Blanche's language sounds much more proper, it also sounds very fake and false in comparison with Stanley's speech. This is how Williams wanted it to sound when he wrote the play. By using two styles of writing and language, Williams was able to distinguish the two main characters from one another very easily, which....
The aftermath of the war in All Quiet on the Western Front is most notable in the soldiers who are unable to adjust to civilian life. Paul, the main character, even struggles when he comes home on leave, because he does not really know how to handle family relationships anymore. He feels better when he's with his fellow soldiers, because he knows how to relate to them.
In How Many Miles to Basra, the aftermath is more focused on how the soldiers, translator, and journalist were affected by their attempt to make amends. During war, truth and responsibility can become blurred,....
Dueling Protagonists: Exploring the Roles of Napoleon and Snowball in Animal Farm
Generally, the protagonist of a story is its main character and the center of the action. Many people think of protagonists as the heroes of the story, but that is not always the case. Villains can also be the protagonist of stories, and it is common for the protagonists of the story to view themselves very differently from how the story’s other characters would view them. In Animal Farm, it is difficult to identify a single protagonist because both Snowball and Napoleon play a protagonist....
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