PAPER Topics

... then goes on to say how she had sought out and verified that this lie was true: . . .I talked to my grandmother and she, puzzled, told me that Edna had never worked in any office, had in fact been apprenticed to a dry-cleaning firm that did tailoring and mending. Steedman later on sought additional opportunities to reveal her mother's evasion of the truth. From the top of page 650: . . .Now I can feel the deliberate vagueness in her accounts of those years: "When did you meet daddy?"-"Oh, at a dance, at home." There were no photographs. Who came to London first? I wish now that I'd asked that question. And so Steedman goes on and on trying to reveal every possible negativ ...

... which related to Charles Dickens' childhood in a blacking factory (which was overshadowed by the Marshalsea Prison ). While working in the blacking factory, Dickens suffered tremendous humiliation. This humiliation is greatly expressed through Oliver's adventures at the orphanage before he is sent away. Throughout his lifetime, Dickens appeared to have acquired a fondness for "the bleak, the sordid, and the austere.² (Bloom 231) Most of Oliver Twist, for example, takes place in London's lowest slums. The city is described as a maze which involves a "mystery of darkness, anonymity, and peril." (Bloom 232) Many of the settings, such as the pickpocket's hideout, the surrounding stree ...

... views change. At first, he thinks he's some sort of individual and different then most people. He finally expresses it on paper. Then he feels rage, because he's jealous of Julia. Then he feels hope, because he's part of a group doing the right thing. Then, he feels hope, but he's not happy. This is after he's captured. Then, he's resistant to the captures, and thinks they can never get to him. When he faces his greatest fear, rats, his spirit is broken. Then, he goes into realization that he loves Big Brother. One of the two minor characters is Julia. “She was a bold-looking girl of about twenty-seven, with thick dark hair, a freckled face, and swift, athletic movement ...

... does not come until the night Mattie is supposed to leave. Their sorrow over Mattie’s departure changes their motives concerning sledding. They see a collision with the elm as a way to avoid parting. Mattie suggests, ”Right into the big elm…So ‘t we’d never have to leave each other any more” (71). The irony is that sledding, an innocent pastime, becomes a tool the lovers use to try to escape their situation. Another ironic element of the sledding ride is the appearance of Zeena’s face, Ethan’s wife, during the scene. Ethan and Mattie are speeding down the hill towards the elm to what they believe will be their deaths. In one of the last inst ...

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... choice of words is similar to those of Jefferson, who asserts that the king had established an “absolute tyranny” over the states. Both men set an immediate understanding about their feelings towards the rule of Great Britain over the States. However, where Common Sense seems to be an opinionated essay, Thomas Jefferson writes somewhat of a call to battle. Paine generally seems to be alerting his readers to the fact that there is more going on than they are aware of. Jefferson, on the other hand, begins his declaration by stating, “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with ...

... in the grandest possible fashion. Cordelia finds that she is unable to show her love with mere words: Cordelia (aside) What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent (23). Cordelia’s nature is such that she is unable to engage in even so forgivable a deception as to satisfy an old king’s vanity and pride. Cordelia (aside) Then poor Cordelia! And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s More ponderous than my tongue (23). Cordelia clearly loves her father, and yet realizes that her honesty will not please him. Her nature is too good to allow even the slightest deviation from her morals. An impressive speech similar to her sisters' would have prevented much tragedy, but Shakespeare has c ...

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... war were made, John Wade lost everything that he had fought so hard to build for himself. In this superficial way, one may argue that it was the war that ultimately led to who John Wade became at the end of the novel, yet many other factors involving his life before the war must be examined. It was John Wade’s childhood and difficult upbringing that played a major role in shaping the man he turned out to be. John was full of admiration for his father, yet he found it difficult to understand the hurtful and remorseless remarks his father would make about his weight and his report cards. His father’s alcoholism also troubled John badly, and he would spend hours in front of the mirror in the ...

... he makes them come “alive.” For eighty-four days, Santiago had not caught a single fish. At first Manolin had shared his bad luck, but after the fortieth day the boy’s father tells his son to go on another boat. From that time on, Santiago works alone. Each morning he rows his skiff into the Gulf Stream where the big fish are. Each evening he comes back empty-handed. On the eighty-fifth day Santiago rows out of the harbor before dawn. After leaving the smell of land behind him, he set his line. The line went straight down into the deep water. Later, with the aid of a hovering man-of-war bird, he sees a school of flying fish but is going too fast and too far away ...