Novel Essays (Examples)

narrative structure of the Grapes of rath
The Grapes of rath by John Steinbeck is a realistic novel that chronicles the journey of the Joad family during the dustbowl era. The Joads have lost their farm and are looking for work in California. They are contemptuously called 'Oakies' because they are itinerant migrants from Oklahoma. Steinbeck weaves the conventional narrative structure of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution with musings about the nature of America, its farmland, and the economy.

The story begins with the Joads getting ready to leave their farm, which has been repossessed by the bank because the Joads have been unable to plant anything in the dusty soil. Steinbeck portrays the banks as greedy monstrosities: "They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money" (Steinbeck 32). The son Tom Joad is currently on parole but he decides to follow his family. His friend, a wandering…

Master Dew
Setting and Socialism in Masters of the Dew

Jacques Roumain's novel Masters of the Dew is at once a deeply personal tale full of poignant and powerful moments ass well as a political parable with a clear and compelling call to action. The degree to which the author, an aggressive activist for Communism in Haiti during the first half of the twentieth century, manages to blend the personal and the political in this work is a testament not only to his skill as a writer but to the depth of his convictions and values. Many different elements of the work stand to exemplify the Communist and socialist principles at the heart of Roumain's work and life, from the protagonist Manuel who like Roumain returns from abroad full of new ideas and new ideologies, to the plot of the novel and the manner in which the Haitian peasants are able to…

Character Development: Novel Review
Novel Review: Character Development

The novels, The Red Badge of Courage' by Stephen Crane and 'The Things they Carried' by Tim Obrien, are among the best depictions of the role played by introspection in helping individuals better understand themselves. This text depicts the journey to maturity of the protagonists in both novels, and how their development contributed to the full meaning of the work.

Character Growth and Maturity during ar

In the novels, The Red Badge of Courage' by Stephen Crane and 'The Things they Carried' by Tim Obrien, the authors effectively make use of introspection to depict their journey towards a greater understanding of themselves. This text demonstrates how they were able to achieve this. More specifically, it assesses how the concept of introspection has been used by both authors, and how it affected their later actions. It begins with a brief plot summary of the two stories.

The Red…

Live vs. China's Past
Memories of China's Past

In 1994, the Chinese celebrated film director Zhang Yimou produced a film adaptation of Yu Hua's novel by the same name To Live (Huozhe). The film received widespread acclaim from the international audience but was banned in mainland China and Yimou, as well as his wife who played the main female character in the film, were banned from making films for two years. That was somewhat an odd development since Yimou had modified the original novel to soften its criticism of the Chinese realities. It may be argued now that the original novel, its film adaptation, and censorship by the Chinese state all represent the significance of disparate retellings of China's recent past.

Since the Revolution of 1949, China went through a series of reforms and political and economic transformations. Each period within these transformations affected generations of Chinese artists, ordinary people, and politicians…

Stereotypes Found in Octavia Butler's Kindred
Many authors are content to mold their characters around standard racial stereotypes, unwilling or unable to challenge typecasting. These authors often give no motivation for their characters stereotypical behavior, allowing the conduct to perpetuate and reinforce the racial divide. Refreshingly, not all authors are as inhibited. Octavia E. Butler, in her novel Kindred, seeks to explain the context in which racial stereotypes are (and have been) created. By using three Caucasian characters, Mr. Tom eylin, Rufus, and Kevin, Butler is able to characterize (and is some cases dispel) the racial stereotypes associated with the Caucasian "Manifest Destiny" attitude towards African-Americans.

Before explaining the characterization applied in Kindred, it should be noted that an African-American female, a group typically victimized by the very characters whose racial stereotyping she intends to illustrate and contradict, authors the book. Additionally, the setting of the novel (mid 1970's and in the…

Gone with the Wind as a literature of witness to forced labor Gone with the Wind, a story of white Southern resilience by Margaret Mitchell, which greatly appealed to readers of the Depression-era, depicted slavery as a world of faithful slaves and lenient masters. The tale also criticized freed individuals who tried to practice their citizenship rights. Since Gone with the Wind embraced most of the same rhetoric as purportedly non-fiction works that idealized slavery, howled freedom, and depicted black political rights as some type of tyranny over the white South, a few readers viewed the resemblances as a proof of the novel’s historical truth. Gone with the Wind’s influence has been multi-generational, and hardly has its fame been matched in longevity or scope (Adkins 11 & 23).
Margaret Mitchell’s tale is most concerned with the affliction of Southern white slaveholders as she pictures this era of social mayhem. Her narrative figures…

He suffers disagreement within himself and his mother, who is yet another strong Asian female figure who embodies the notion of tradition, culture, and the homeland. ecause he can no longer live to fulfill his mother's ideas and loyalty to Japan, a conflict emerges as a manifestation of his ordeal with being unable to choose between an allegiance to his mother and the country that he loves"
The experiences went through by the Japanese-Americans in the novel present several questions on the issue of nationalism and human rights. The novel portrayed how the Americans had provided shelter to the Japanese families, and how they had accepted the Japanese families to become part of their nation. However, because by race the Japanese families are still "Japanese," having the blood of America's enemies, the Americans did not trust them and continued to consider them as strangers, thus locking them in a camp…

Jungle
Updated Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, is a worthwhile piece of literature that can contribute to the understanding of human development within the last century. It is a story of an immigrant family who experiences incredibly difficult and trying hardships in early 20th-century America. The purpose of this essay is to contrast the author's thesis of the story with my own personal interpretation of this novel. It is my understanding that Sinclair wrote this book in support of a socialist, political movement. By dedicating this work to "the working man," this theme is consistently introduced throughout each chapter. In my opinion, Sinclair's unbalanced approach to the truth of the issues, undermined his socialist views of the day. The author's often hyperbolic and exaggerated nature of despair distracts from practical and truthful reflections of the time which could lead to actual social change towards Sinclair's polemic view.

In order to best contrast these…

In spite of the fact that Aisha seemed to be "too strong, too smart" (Budhos 52), Nadira realized that she was actually more powerful than her sister because she did not live in an imaginary world. Her unattractiveness and her average intellect were actually what made it possible for her to see the bigger picture. Leaving the college is most probably one of the main reasons influencing Aisha to accept her condition. The girl goes from being strong to being weak in a matter of seconds as her younger sister urges her to do so and as she realizes that all of her dreams were unattainable.

It is difficult to determine whether Aisha becomes weaker as the storyline progresses or whether she actually becomes stronger by realizing the limited amount of options she has and by experiencing a rapid maturing process. Her ambition is seriously damaged as a result of the…

Jungle
Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle is perhaps best known for its historical and journalistic contributions, because the book opened the public's eyes to the horrors of the American meatpacking industry, and particularly its appalling health and safety standards. However, Sinclair's novel also represents an aesthetic and ideological advancement that is often overlooked in favor of the book's somewhat more dramatic accounts of life inside a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant. In the novel, Jurgis Rudkus travels from naive belief in an American dream to jaded yet-hopeful acceptance of the possibility offered by socialist agitation, and his entire journey is relayed in a kind of naturalistic language that seeks to uncover the larger structures of power and oppression that instigate the specific injustices of the novel. By examining Rudkus' journey in the context of an aesthetic movement designed to capture, as clearly as possible, the objective, naturalistic reality behind experience, one…

Gender and the 19th c English novel
The question of gender in the nineteenth century English novel is complicated by consideration of more recent late twentieth century theorizing about gender. In particular, Judith Butler's highly influential notion of "gender performativity" suggests that gender is, in itself, nothing more than a sort of act. However this becomes an interesting angle to approach the works of creative artists, as a female novelist will quite naturally imagine her way into all sorts of characters who are not necessarily female: although much has been made, for example, of Jane Austen's modest refusal in her fiction to imagine or depict the conversations of men without a lady present, it is noteworthy that in many other female novelists of the nineteenth century, the willingness to imagine different persons is, in many ways, the readiest way to approach the subject of gender metaphorically.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein offers a convenient…

" This fire will not only die out, but will turn into the destructive flames of an obsession.
Werther's descriptions of his deductions, feelings, contemplation fruits and observations are accompanied by various dialogues he has with some of the people he happened to meet in the country. Although in love and obviously preoccupied with Lotte a great deal of his time, he is also keen to go on making observations about those around him. Still in the first stages of his unreciprocated love affair, the occasion of seeing a young couple gives him the chance to express his conviction that human beings are wrong to extract the dark sides of life over the bright ones and let them govern their lives. It seems that he is briefly becoming conscious of his own faults, speaking with the voice of the therapist and not that of the patient. Discussing this opinion with a…

The sense of comparison is not necessarily explicit but rather implicit. It seems that Fanny is a mere observant to the way in which Mary comes to life her life and to adjust to the requirements of her education, both in a spiritual manner as well as in a financial one.
The education of the individual at the time consisted of different aspects, but most importantly, it had one aim which was a good marriage. Especially for the women who did not belong to the higher society education and beauty were the only assets they possessed. Mary Crawford had them and exploited them to the fullest. Therefore, education was not conducted out of spiritual need but rather as a tool for the future. This idea is pointed out in one of the remarks made by Mary as she organizes her first high society get together in one of the most…

objectivity readers a prerequisite reading novels? 2) monster a formal device shelley's Frankensten? 3) How convince a -hater a -lover? 4) -stop horror Marlowe, conrad's heart Darkness? 5) Pamela, In Richardson's Pamela, metaphor " ' binary opposition ' versus '? 6) Discuss 'tme' a major thematic device 'Of Love Demons' 7) How shepherdess teach Santiago, " Alchemist," -love? page answere.
Getting involved in reading a novel initially means employing a great deal of objectivity, given that one cannot simply come up with an opinion regarding a text before actually reading the respective manuscript. hen reading a novel, the reader needs to acknowledge the fact that viewpoint expressed by previous readers are nothing more but interpretations. In order for the reader to form an opinion regarding the novel, he or she first needs to ignore any outside factors and engage in reading the text.

Novel's separate readers from one another because texts…

Regardless of what society believes happens after death, death is a finality for the body of the particular individual. Whether one believes in reincarnation, heaven, or simply nothingness, or any variation in between, the fact that the individual and the individual's body is no longer walking the earth appears to be something that is not actually debatable. What to do with that body then becomes an issue, especially if the individual is perceived as being bad.
People that are very superstitious will not want to become involved with the body of an individual that has allegedly been bad due to the fact that they might pick something up from that individual or might sully themselves somehow by agreeing to perform last rites for someone that they may feel does not actually deserve this. However, they argue so long about what they will do with the body that these individuals actually…

Utopias Explored: THE TIME MACHINE and BLADE UNNE
Science Fiction and Film

Utopian Societies Explored

The Ancient Greek work for "no place," utopia has come down to modern readers as something to be the ideal -- the Eden. The actual word comes from the Greek 'ou -- not' and 'topos -- place,' and was coined in the modern sense by the title of a 1516 book written by Sir Thomas Moore. More's Utopia describes a fictional island possessing a seemingly perfect society in which social, legal, political and cultural systems act in harmony and are ideal for humans (Manuel).

The reverse, dystopia, is life that is characterized by poverty, oppression, suffering, unhappiness, and the lack of basic human rights. The irony and use of the term arises from much of utopian literature and the juxtaposition between the utopian ideals of certain societies with the realities of the way that society actually functions.

Within the utopian/dystopian…

Peter Lovesey Novels
Mystery novels have a habit of portraying murder as a discrete affair for the middle class. Nowhere is this more apparent than in English mystery novels, as novel writers in England, being a literate caste, usually manage to present the world through tweed-colored spectacles. Peter Lovesey exemplifies this, as his characters always seem to evoke images of tea-sipping old women sharing a well-loved table at their favorite local haunt and recounting stories of life during the blitz. This is a far cry from the real world of murder, which is often one of drunken and drug-crazed rage, teenage street rivalries, or quiet, festering sexual perversion. Lovesey portrays murder in the sleepy doldrums of polite society in which his demographic spends the majority of its civil, conventional life.

Although the context for Lovesey's murders is presented as one that the reader can relate to, Lovesey is adept at writing stories…

travel motif in three novels. The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn are compared and contrasted regarding their travel motifs. There were three sources used to complete this paper.
For one to understand and extract a travel motif from any novel one must understand what a motif consists of. A motif is a recurring and persistent theme that is used in any area of work including literature. In three classic novels the evidence of a travel motif is laced and intertwined throughout the stories as they weave their way around the lives of the protagonists. Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, and Huckleberry Finn all make use of travel motifs for the purpose of connecting the plot to the needs of those who live the stories.

The Scarlet Letter is a classic example of the travel motif being put to use for the purpose of assisting the story. Travel is a…

Coetzee and Defoe
Coetzee's novels like Foe and Dusklands are an explicit rejection of the old cultural and literary canons, of which obinson Crusoe has always been part. Indeed, his stories reverse the standard narrative of white male narrators, adventurers and colonizers, who explore and conquer the 'savage' regions of the world and mold them in the image of Western-Christian civilization. White men literally tell these stories, while blacks, Asians, American Indians and other 'natives' are subjects under their control, in both the literary and physical sense. Needless to say, women are either absent from the stories or play relatively minor roles, and are always under patriarchal control. Coetzee's work completely rejects the ideology of this old canon and even reverses it, by attempting to give a voice to women and 'natives' who were voiceless in the past. If his work is part of a canon at all, even if contrary…

Rudyard Kipling's novels
Rudyard Kipling was born in India in 1865 and spent the first few years of his life blissfully happy in an India full of exotic sights and sounds. At the age of five, he was sent back to England and later described his later childhood years as terribly unhappy. Kipling's memories of a blissfully happy childhood in India and the influence of colonial England in his later formative years accounts for Kipling's dual theme of imperialism, yet strong portrayal and seemingly contradictory love and fascination of India. This duality is evident in both Kim (1902) and Plain Tales (1888.)

In Kim, Kipling's predilection for intertwining the logic and rationalism prided by the West with the subtlety and mystery of the East is reflected in Kim's adventures with the lama from Tibet, "bound to the Wheel of Things," and his employment in the Government Secret Service in the service…

Mastery and Female Submissiveness
Prevalence of the model of mastery through female submissiveness: literary analyses of the classic works of Petronius, Apuleius, and Horace Walpole

Literary works created and published in the early classical period of Western history reflects the kind of social order that prevailed during the time. Through the author's point-of-view and interpretation of his/her realities during a particular period in history, readers become knowledgeable of the conditions that people in that society had lived, survived, and adapted to social changes. Evidences from early literary works in Western history showed that one of the most prevalent theme discussed was the dominance of men over women -- the institutionalization of patriarchy depicted through the model of mastery (of males). While males assumed the role of the 'master' in almost all institutions significant to daily life, women were relegated to roles that did not only reflect submissiveness to, but passivity towards…

" (68) These words cement the dramatic conclusion of Chapter 4 of A Morbid Taste for Bones -- and begin the central, driving murder mystery that lies at the heart of the plot of the tale. Brother Cadfael and the Prior of the Abbey are on a pilgrimage to a town in ales to visit the shrine of Saint inifred. The Prior of his Abbey hopes that these relics, if brought to Shrewsbury will bring enrichment to the Benedictine monks, as more pilgrims will visit the Abbey. The dead man is Rhisiart, one of the community activists most angrily against moving the remains of the saint. Cadfael shows that he is still an active man, despite his age and his current retirement in the Abbey, as he pushes back the brush in a desperate search for the elshman.
The quest for the saint's pones on the part of Cadfael's Benedictine Abbey…

On the other hand, Chandler's book has a similar evolution, where the "disparate plotlines eventually converge."
As we can see from some of the ideas presented here above, the initial prejudice according to which there is no obvious connection between the two novels and that no comparison is possible was bluntly false. Albeit different in approach and in psychological needs, the two main characters found common grounds on many of the issues.

ibliography

1. Vianes, Jessica M. American Paradoxes in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony. Georgetown. On the Internet at http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/218/projects/vianes/ceremony.vianes.htm

http://jdcarr.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-307.html

3. Leslie Marmon Silko. On the Internet at http://www.english.emory.edu/ahri/Silko.html

Vianes, Jessica M. American Paradoxes in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony. Georgetown. On the Internet at http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/218/projects/vianes/ceremony.vianes.htm

Leslie Marmon Silko. On the Internet at http://www.english.emory.edu/ahri/Silko.html

Vianes, Jessica M. American Paradoxes in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony. Georgetown. On the Internet at http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/218/projects/vianes/ceremony.vianes.htm

Online review at http://jdcarr.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-307.html

Like Water for ChocolateLike Water for Chocolate is a novel by Laura Esquivel, a Mexican screenwriter and novelist, written in 1989 (Puccinelli 209). The novel's protagonist is Tita, a young girl who is not supposed to get married due to her traditional beliefs. Still, she eventually marries her beloved Pedro, Rosaura's husband. Before this, Tita only expressed herself when she cooked because she was always longing to get married (Puccinelli 210). Esquivel uses magical realism in the story as a combination of the supernatural it ordinary in the novel. The book became more common and won the American Booksellers Book of the Year Award in 1994. Feminism is evident in the theme from several perspectives while some view it as the idea that both women and men deserve the same amount of respect, while others consider feminism as a notion that women should be superior to men. The novel is…

Instead, he works to fit into the social class of which he is a part. His village is dedicated to coal mining and does not have the sort of wide social divisions seen in Pip's London. Instead, the community is more of a piece, though there're still divisions on the basis of education, attitude, and birth to a degree. Paul's father is a miner, while his mother is a well-educated woman. Paul's brother and sister are considered successful. Paul is not yet twenty as the novel begins and works in a factory that produces surgical appliances. He gets sick, though, and spends more time with Miriam Leivers, whom he falls in love with. She is a deeply religious girl, which keeps them apart as lovers, and for that matter, Paul is so smothered by his mother that he is kept from expressing himself fully to Miriam. When the two…

The importance of this ability as Hermione explained to Harry, "It matters because being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."
Lord Voldemort is also a Parselmouth and this is evident in the way he controls Nagini, a snake that does whatever of the Dark Wizard commands it.

In the fifth book of the series, one of Hogwarts' professors, Professor Trelawney, provided an insight on the link between Harry and Voldemort when she went into a trance and uttered in the presence of Harry:

"The one with the power to vanquish the- Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies & #8230; and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not & #8230;and either must die at…

Life of a Slave Girl and the Devil in Silver. The paper will point to internal and external fears the protagonists experience in the two novels, and also will report how the protagonists are haunted and how they deal with it.
The Devil in Silver -- Quick Summary

The book by Victor LaValle blends social satire with horror fiction, and in the process he points (fictionally, with brilliant descriptive narratives) to the unfair and inhumane way in which people who are troubled mentally are treated in institutions. The protagonist is Pepper, a 6-3, 270 pound, who is placed in a mental institution even though he is not crazy. The devil in this story is a monster with the head of a bison that hides behind a silver door; he kills the patients with the good graces of the hospital staff. Pepper makes friends with several patients and they plan to attack…

Friendship
At first glance, it appears that the novels Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer and Fried Green Tomatoes at the histle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flag have little in common. hile Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception is a tale of a secret police agent of the underground fairy world, Holly Short, and her interactions with two humans, Artemis Fowl and his bodyguard Butler, Fried Green Tomatoes at the histle Stop Cafe is a turn-of -- the century tale of a friendship that develops between two women in the deep South, Idgie and Ruth, and how that friendship helps bring together two women, Mrs. Cleo Threadgood and Evelyn, in the 1980s. However, despite their differences, both novels are about the transformative power of friendship.

In both Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception and Fried Green Tomatoes at the histle Stop Cafe, the main characters become friends through adversity, after having some…

" lif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (2007): 68+.
background of Woolf's early life and her continued social and historical consciousness throughout her life.

Eide, Marian. "The Stigma of Nation': Feminist Just War, Privilege, and Responsibility." Hypatia; Spring, 2008, Vol. 23 Issue 2. 48-60.

uthor draws her thesis from the title of one of Woolf's works, and discusses the feminist position on war, exclusion, and "just war."

Froula, Christine. Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury vant-Garde: War, Civilization, Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

n excellent discussion of Woolf and her views on war, including her interaction with groups opposing and writing about war and society.

Hollander, Rachel. "Novel Ethics: lterity and Form in 'Jacob's Room'." Twentieth Century Literature; Spring, 2007, Vol. 53 Issue 1. 40-66.

Discusses Woolf's novel in terms of "gender, urbanism, and war" while reflecting on the differences between modernist and Victorian writings.

Kramer, Jerome V. "The Woolf Pack: Michael Cunningham's the Hours Put the…

adult characters serve novels? How
One of the principle points of commonality existing in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Feed, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is that class figures prominently in all three stories. Specifically, what a person's socio-economic status is plays a powerful role in determining how others treat him or her. In Harry Potter, the principle sort of class associations varies between those that are pure wizards, part wizards, and those that have no magical ability whatsoever. In The Absolutely True Diary, class distinctions pertain to money and the typical trappings of luxury, In Feed, class distinctions pertain to one's consumer profile. As such, the various characters in each of these novels incur certain problems that are directly related to their class. Therefore, it greatly appears as though the authors of these works, Anderson, Rowling and Alexie, are subtly implying that class…

Each chapter provides sufficient entertainment material to draw the interest of lay people, while balancing this with a good amount of academic information for those who wish to study the country and its people. The narrative throughout the book is bound together well by starting each chapter with a narrative about Gloria or those who share her world. Another strong connecting factor is the quotation at the start of each chapter, which is relevant to the specific topic of the chapter as well as to the general ideas in the book as a whole. While these are excellent techniques, I think the structure of the chapters themselves could have been handled better by more consistently organizing the information in each.
One shortcoming of the book is the internal structure of each chapter, which can be haphazard in some cases, and also a lack of consistent focus on the laughter element.…

Robert Slater
This report is based upon the book Titans of Takeover by Robert Slater. This book was originally published in 1987 by Englewood Cliffs, and then re-published and copyrighted in 1999 by Beard Books.

Introduction of the Author

The book Titans of Takeover was authored by Robert Slater, who is famous for his strong stand against President Ronald Reagan's attempts to make the U.S. marketplace a free economy by doing away with the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Laws. He proved to America that although such a move would appear to yield immediate benefits by putting the nation's economy on the map against the vibrant economies that gave no room to antitrust laws, it would, to an equally large extent, produce devastating outcomes on the economy in the long run. Slater has authored a couple of other bestselling business books and authored several articles on the Wall Street Journal, in addition to…

, pp.69-70.] [5: Ibid., p.85.]
The rather stern critique offered of Fee and Stuart herein should not indicate that this book is entirely without value, merely that its presentation in title and chapter headings is somewhat misleading. There is plenty of common sense in what Fee and Stuart are doing here, but the difficulty is that very often an intelligent decision on their part is mingled with an overall failure to highlight many of the most important issues involved in the interpretation of a iblical text. Their last chapter on Revelation indicates both the best and worst of their method. In some sense, Fee and Stuart are going to be on their most careful behavior in this passage, as the idiotic handling of Revelation by any heretic with a penchant for paranoia has been well-evidenced over the past two millennia. ut the history of this particular iblical book, such as has…

Book of Judges defines the historical and period of events between the conclusion of Joshua and the commencement of the Prophet Samuel. The term "Judges" is in reference to the leaders raised by God to lead Israel in the early determinative years in Palestine. In times of crisis, these leaders arose and conserved the inexperienced nation. Although the leadership of Joshua led the people of Israel into the Land, there were not able to conquer all of the people at the time. Some of the people marked for destruction by God were conquered while making enemies of the ones who weren't.
The people of the Hebrew Tribes inhabited parts of the Land and began dwelling as a proto-nation that would later in time of the Monarchy, become Israel. The Book of Judges provides a somewhat vague synopsis a couple of key events during that period. The primary issue facing the…

Bethany Moreton's "To serve God and Walmart: The making of Christian free enterprise." (Harvard University Press, 2009)
Author Bethany Moreton's work provides an insight into Walmart's corporate history and its swift climb, within 50 years, from a little discount retail chain opened up by Sam Walton to an international retailing giant. The author goes beyond readers' expectations to include Walmart Country's religious, social, and cultural history (the term 'Walmart Country' would refer to its politically charged birthplace and surroundings of East Oklahoma, north-western Arkansas, and south Missouri). It is a place where the retailer's customers, supervisors and staff collaborate with missionaries, evangelical housewives, and pastors, within a doctrine of free enterprise and community service.

Moreton has penned an in-depth and captivating analysis of the popular global retail giant, America's largest private-sector employer, and the largest global public company. Through an elaborate case study, the author has effectively assimilated its cultural history and…

Aviation Book
According to Pilarski (2007), "the financial situation of the airline industry, especially in the U.S.A., has been between disaster and catastrophe," (p. 3). Financial wizards like Warren Buffet have made "bombastic pronouncements" related to the economic illnesses of the airline industry (9). Dynamic entrepreneur ichard Branson, himself seduced by the desire to own an airline, has likewise stated, "How do you become a millionaire? Start as a billionaire, and then buy an airline," (cited in "In-Depth Drilldown Of The Airline Industry - Part 1, 2012). Airline companies operate with razor-thin profit margins, if any at all. Moreover, the situation was bad enough befofre but has grown worse since September 11. "Since 9/11, we've seen tremendous changes surrounding the airline industry: security, regulations, and operational costs. Overall, these variables have had tremendous, and far-bearing, negative impacts on the industry," ("In-Depth Drilldown Of The Airline Industry - Part 1," 2012). In…

Optimistic Child
As a child and young adult, the "self-esteem movement" had very little bearing on my experiences or my education. I was a capable well-adjusted student, and I received a good deal of support from my parents and teachers. I felt comfortable in school and progressed without any issues, and while I was a solid student, I was never extremely noteworthy for either positive or negative reasons. I don't recall the adults in my life making any specific effort to teach me about "positive thinking," and as far as I can recall I had a natural comprehension for my own strengths and weaknesses, and did not associate my weaknesses as failures. For example, I was far better at reading and writing than math. I did not see my lack of math skills as a negative, but I simply grew more interested in subjects that involved reading and writing.

During high…

Jonah uses the ocratic method to help Alex think differently about the problems he is experiencing in the plant. Jonah is not always available when Alex would like to connect with him, and after providing a little bit of information -- pivotal though it may be -- Jonah often leaves Alex hanging, presumably because Jonah knows Alex will rise to the occasion and puzzle it out. At periodic intervals throughout the book, Jonah and Alex talk about key points. These discussions are represented in the paragraphs that follow.
One of the first challenges that Jonah addresses with Alex is getting him to begin to think about what productivity is and how it is measured. Because of their conversation, Alex is able to think about what the company is measuring -- what it considers efficiencies -- and how this information is or is not related to the company goal. In particular, Jonah…

Bread and Roses
Watson's book deals with a period in America's labor history that most history books ignore, and it captures this period in a fresh, unforgettable manner.

he strike, in early 20th century New England, commenced on January 12, 1912 with textile workers storming out of a mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It engaged the attention of the International Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies, and the American Federation of Labor, and, from thence, absorbed nationwide interest with charismatic and fearless veterans of other strikes involved. Replete with descriptions of unforgettable acts of cruelty, and the dedicated and inspiring acts of sacrifice of participants from fifty-one nations, with the inclusion of a protracted murder trial that centers around the issue of free speech, the Bread and Roses strike is a story that is as pertinent as ever.

hrough Watson's unforgettable prose, we are drawn into the lives of those…

Mark
The Book of Mark

According to Burton Mack's analysis of the synoptic gospels, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins, the Gospel of Mark was likely written in 70 CE in Syria. The Gospel of Mark tells the story of a Jesus who is not born in an overly divine fashion in the sense that it contains no story of Mary's impregnation by the Holy Spirit nor Jesus persecution by Herod. Nor does it contain an extensive Judaic linage of the figure of Jesus, or extensive sermons, like the book of Mark. Instead, it begins with Jesus' baptism as a teacher by the hands of John the Baptist.

According to Mack, the Jesus of Mark's envisioning is an angry, rather terse parable-teller and speaker of wisdom literature, designed to be obscure in meaning than easily understood. He is a man whom stands outside of conventional, Judaic society and is crucified by…

American colonies can be divided into those in New England, those in the middle region of the country, and those in the South. The histories of each section were different, and though all were basically British by the time of the American Revolution, other European nations had founded or developed different parts of the New orld. New England was developed by the British and the Dutch; the South was settled by the British, Spanish, and French at different times. The image of the Puritans of New England has become emblematic of the colonial era for most Americans, though, and historian Michael Zuckerman describes the life of a community in Puritan New England in the eighteenth century in his book Peaceable Kingdoms (1970), pointing out the importance of the town meeting and other influences of the community as a whole that kept the peace and served as government, police power,…

Christian Holy Bible known as Acts, many people who read Acts may feel or be inclined to believe that it is a book of historical record and fact. However, there are many theologians and scholars that do not look at the book this way and this report shall look at the work of Powell and Boring when it comes to this fact. There are many in the Christian faith that assert that the Holy Bible should be taken "as is" in terms of what it says and so forth but there are others that put forth a great amount of caution when it comes to this idea and they have specific examples when it comes to the same. While many Christians may be inclined to take the book of Acts at its word, there are many reasons why this is less than wise. Analysis

Straight off the top, Powell is quick to…

Morality in Little omen
In Louisa May Alcott's Little omen, Josephine March is able to be moral despite the great pressures and responsibilities imposed on her by her gender, the economic and political circumstances of the time, her role as elder sister, and her immense creative talent. However, Jo is also notoriously stubborn, proud, and easily provoked to anger, vices that consistently challenge her moral resolve throughout her adolescence and early adulthood, but ultimately Jo is able to overcome these vices with the help of moral guidance given to her from her family and upbringing so that she matures into a humble, charitable, and temperate character, far more mature than the fiery character of her youth.

The first instance of Jo's vices getting the best of her is when she remains angry at Amy for burning her manuscript even after Amy apologizes. The next day Jo does not warn Amy about the…

Demian
Although many different themes populate Herman Hesse's novel Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth, in some way they all seem to relate to the concepts of spirituality, and to spiritual enlightenment in particular. In many ways, this novel functions as a spiritual journey for its protagonist, Emil Sinclair, who is guided by his close friend, confident and mentor Max Demian. While chronicling Sinclair's spiritual awakening, Hesse utilizes a number of passages that are emotionally intense in order to better demonstrate the overall significance of the spiritual implications of this story. A close examination of the text in Demian reveals that the author uses emotional language to issue a sense of excitement and enthusiasm in both the reader and in Sinclair to propel the latter towards the theme of spiritual enlightenment.

In many of the passages of this novel, there are concepts and characters that are referred to in a…

book of Matthew is theology. The book, written by an unknown evangelist, is dedicated to the truth of Jesus Christ as the son of the living God. It is without a doubt that the author believed the truth of the conception of Jesus Christ. Therefore, Matthew 1:16, 18-25 is clear about this conception. However, there are numerous views negating this belief. Brown, claims that it is unrealistic to believe in the virgin birth because it is not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament other than in Matthew and Luke. This, according to him, is an indication that it was a late invention or one proposed by the early church, because such a remarkable and relevant issue could have been mentioned by other New Testament writters. In addition, Campenhausen performed a survey of the theology of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ in the early church. He observes that the…

ook of Margery Kempe is about late medieval English life. The central theme is not about simply a woman, but a woman thoroughly rooted in the world. She portrays the manners and the tastes neither of the court nor of the nunnery, but the piety, the culture, the profit-oriented values, and the status-consciousness of the late medieval town.
Margery's disengagement from conventional female roles and duties and consequently her daring rejection of the values of her fellow townspersons s a response to her growing commitment to her spiritual vocation. Her attempt to gain personal, financial, and spiritual autonomy is a tale of radical reversal that touches us on many different levels. Margery does what very few are able finally to do, and the fact that she does so as a woman enhances the force of her story.

Her story begins conventionally enough. She is married, soon thereafter conceives her first child,…

Strangers in Their Own Land, Arlie Hochschild presents what she calls the "great paradox" of American society: why ultra conservatives vote against their best interests. By almost all accounts, red states are poorer economically, have much poorer health and educational outcomes, and a lower quality of life overall than blue states. That being the case, why would the reds continue to vote for the same platforms, even going so far as to make their situation potentially worse by voting in Tea Party candidates or the likes of Trump? The answer, according to Hochschild, is that conservatives tend to vote for emotional reasons. Because of its inherent irrationality, the great paradox cannot necessarily be resolved, as Hochschild points out. However, the great paradox can be understood with an empathetic viewpoint. Using empathy encourages understanding, which can in time tear down the cognitive and emotional barriers that create divisiveness and impede social…

Asia Was the World by Stewart Gordon
A Discussion of a Period in which Asia Thrived

For roughly a millennium, Asia represented on of the most advanced societies in the world at a time in which the West was undergoing a period which was later referred to as the "Dark Ages." China, by contrast, was a cultural and economic powerhouse in which religion, commerce, and intellectual capacities flourished. This contrast would have been readily apparent and enthralling to any individuals who visited the East from the West. Many people made the trip to the West to engage in trade and many of the merchant travelers kept a journal of their experiences visiting this culture. Stewart Gordon bases his work on the actual accounts of merchant travelers and people who lived and worked in the region. These personal accounts provide unique insights into the period in which "Asia was the World" as…

Plot to Kill the President by George Robert Blakey. he paper attempts to define the weak and strong points of the book as well as define the theory that the author believes pertains to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in the 1960's. here was one source used to complete this paper.
he last four decades have been filled with discussions and theories about the assassination of American president John F. Kennedy. While some believe it was a plot planned and carried out by the government's own CIA others hold steadfast to the belief that the president was indeed killed by a lone gunman on the knoll that day. While these two theories are well-known and often discussed on talk shows as well as dinner parties there is another theory that is not as well-known but every bit as intriguing. he book by George Robert Blakey and Richard Billings titled…

spiritual matters do so with an eye to explain spiritual matters in a way that is acceptable to modern man. For these authors, Jesus was a great man, but not the son of God. For this group, the early church was a group of misguided and overly enthusiastic groupies who needed a political leader with divine attributes, and the record of Jesus contained in the New Testament is nothing more than the embellished stories which they told each other in order to find comfort in their political and social misery. Not so for Dr. Stewart Custer. Dr. Custer's treatment of the Book of Acts in his book Witness to Christ is a biblically-based scholarly work which expounds on the record while honoring the identity of Christ as the Son of God, and God the son. For bible students who want to get to know the historical context of the…

The Nature of the Book Trade between China and France
Introduction

In the past, it was apparent that the Chinese government’s approach to matters culture and art did not significantly differ from its stance on a variety of other factors that involved various internal affairs of the nation. However, while it may have exercised some control on the distribution aspect of culture and art, it has largely remained ineffective as far as control on the consumption front was concerned. In general terms literature has always been an important item of culture and art. In recent times, more and more current authors are exploring modern literature. Towards this end, geographical boundaries no longer act like a limiting factor. As a matter of fact, this is increasingly becoming a competitive frontier amongst contemporary authors. Chinese authors, who have been missing in action in this particular case, are catching up. In addition to highlighting the…

Mama Might Be Better off Dead
For the past several decades, health care reform has been on the top of the political lip service agenda. Presidential candidates debate heatedly over which types of Medicare or Medicaid reforms should be instated and purport to want "universal health care." They call out for assistance to low-income families and claim that no American citizen should go without health care services. Yet through all their platitudes one thing remains painfully clear: they really just don't care. Not only has little been done to ensure that every American, regardless of race, receives the best health care services available but the situation seems to be getting worse as the income disparity gap widens with every successive year. In her 1993 book Mama Might be Better Off Dead, Laurie Kaye Abraham illustrates the impact of America's failing health care system by focusing on one family. The Banes'…

alarm clock will break and so you'll oversleep. When you do wake up, you will burn your lips, tongue and liver on your coffee. Your car will refuse to start, and when it does you will discover that one of your tires is flat. While changing your flat tire you will be bitten by a black-widow spider. Just as you arrive at the emergency room, the nurses will go out on strike. A small earthquake will then strike, crushing your car in the hospital garage. You will develop gangrene after you leave the hospital without being treated - but not before a bicyclist runs into you as you walk home, knocking you down and breaking your glasses.
Okay, maybe we haven't all had days that were exactly this bad, but sometimes they come close - which is no doubt one reason that many people are so attracted to conspiracy theories.…

Crossfire by Jim Marrs is an encyclopedic collection of information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. As a trained journalist, Marrs fills the more than six hundred pages of his book with details both commonly known and potentially revelatory. Virtually every conspiracy theory ever applied to the assassination is examined along the supporting and disproving evidence.
The biggest problem with this book is the sheer amount of information it provides. There are so many minute details covered, it is easy to loose sight of the big picture. For instance, regarding the pace of the motorcade through Dealey Plaza, Marrs offers the following:

The [Presidential] party had come to a temporary halt before proceeding on to the underpass." Phil Willis (p. 24)

A]fter the third shot, I heard Roy Kellerman tell the driver, 'Bill, get out of line.' And then I saw him move, and I assumed he was moving…

Earth for Me
Sheehan, Susan. (1983) Is here No Place On Earth for Me? New York: Vintage Books.

When Benjamin Wilder reminisced recently about Sylvia's summer in Chicago, he said he could have tolerated Sylvia's presence in his house for a few more weeks if he had had to, but she was taking such a toll on him that he had asked himself whether it was his mission in life to make her behave acceptably. His answer to that question was no. He felt that if she had stayed with him much longer, he would have lost his mind." (Sheehan, 1983, 223)

he book Is there no Place on Earth for me? is an account of Sylvia Frumkin, a pseudonym used to identify the true identity of a young woman who began suffering from schizophrenia in her teens. Sylvia was institutionalized early in her illness, and spent much of her life going…

Mother to Mother by Sindiwe Magona. Specifically, it will critically analyze the book. The book "Mother to Mother" is a touching and elegant story of race relations and misunderstanding in South Africa. The author bases her book on a true incident, but looks at it from the eyes of a mother who loves her son but recognizes his inadequacies. It is a devastating look at apartheid, violence, and anger in a society long split between black and white. Well-written with emotion and pathos, it is a book that discovers the difficulties of reconciliation and continuing with life after the death of a loved one.
This emotional book looks at both sides of a young white woman's murder in a black township in South Africa. The book begins with the haunting line "My son killed your daughter" (Magona 1), and that line grabs the reader from the beginning, and makes them…

orse Than atergate: The Secret Presidency of George . Bush, by John . Dean: Implications for Modern American Education
The book orse Than atergate: The Secret Presidency of George . Bush, by John . Dean (Little, Brown, 2004) has as its central theme the excessive secrecy of what Dean calls the "Bush-Cheney presidency (xi) or the "Bush and Cheney presidency" (21)since, according to Dean, Cheney, not Bush, often makes key decisions. Dean asserts that "in many ways it is a co-presidency" (11), with Bush as the front man, and Cheney, being the actual decision-maker, preferring the shadows. Both men are excessively secretive, and their secretiveness, argues Dean, threatens democracy, liberty, and public accountability, and also encourages incompetence by allowing Bush and Cheney to escape public scrutiny (185-88). Moreover, Dean portends the potentially harmful effects the Bush-Cheney presidency has had, and may continue to have, on the rights and protections of…

Cheaper by the Dozen
The autobiographical book Cheaper by the Dozen was written in 1949. Since then, it has been reprinted numerous times, most recently in 2003. The book, written by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. And Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, two of the twelve children of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, is about Frank Jr. And Ernestine's recollections of growing up, in the company of ten other siblings and two high-powered engineers as parents, in a huge house in Montclair, New Jersey, around the turn of the 20th century. Much of the humor within this book is because the father of this huge family, Frank, is a good-hearted man who loves his twelve children and their antics, but is also an engineer (as is his wife Lillian) by profession, and an "efficiency expert." Frank Sr. likes to believe problems and conflicts can be solved in a sort of mechanical way, and sometimes…

City and Country in 'The Prince of Tides'
William Shakespeare's comedies often differentiate between the staid, political atmosphere of the court and the city, and the raucous carnival atmosphere of the forest and the countryside. Often, characters will escape the court to the forest to explore their inner depths and their passions. The result is a dichotomy that permeates several of his plays: even from close textual analysis of one passage in a Shakespeare comedy, the reader is able to discern whether the scene takes place in the court or in the forest.

There is a similar breakdown in Pat Conroy's "Prince of Tides." Scenes and flashbacks switch between New York City and the low-country in South Carolina. Like in Shakespeare's comedies, "Prince of Tides" also makes it very easy to discern exactly where each scene is taking place. In a novel of violence, deception and denial, the low-country in the south…

Deputy
Discussing "The Deputy" by Rolf Hochhuth is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks ever and I would consider it almost as difficult as discussing Niezsche's "Antichrist" or any other controversial works, modern, contemporary or from any past period of time.

It is not easy discussing a book that accuses a pope, representative of Christ on Earth, of tolerating genocide and ethnical purification, of tacitly approving them and of thus being part to one of the most terrible and tragic things humanity has been forced to witness throughout its history. Indeed, modern culpability has been, in some way or another, been associated with the extermination of the Jews during the Second World War. Over 6 million Jews have died during that period. The number itself is overwhelming, however, we also need to consider that this came as a result of a systematized and concerted process of extermination. Over 25 million…