This essay is about "The Mouse and His Child" by Russell Hoban, and the importance it puts on the family unit. Provides a plot synopsis.

The novel "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway demonstrates Santiago meeting all the characteristics of a strong male. Santiago's physical strength helps him to achieve the goals he sets for himself. He has shown that although an old man, he still possesses enough strength to catch the biggest fish of his career.

Analyzes the Mai Vo-Dinh story, The Fly. Discusses the intelligence of the boy, the main character. Details how the young boy's intelligence is made use of in many different ways in order to fool the rich man.

Discusses the standards of the society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by American author Mark Twain. Also provides a plot summary and explores how the societal restraints during that time may have affected Huck.

This essay is about how George Orwell warns readers about the dangers of totalitarianism in his novel "1984."

Compares the lives of the characters in "1984", and what they see as reality.

A response to Ernest Hemingway's short story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," about an old man who regularly visits a café late at night to escape from the darkness of the world. Unlike the younger of the two waiters at the café the older waiter can relate to the old man's situation.

Examines feminism, gender roles and family roles in "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen.

Amy Tan's story "A Pair of Tickets" is about a Chinese-American woman's philosophical struggle to accept her true identity. The protagonist Jing-mei grew up with American influences and struggles with her Chinese heritage. She is finally able to resolve this struggle after going overseas with her father and meeting her twin sisters for the first time in over thirty years.

The social conditions of Walter and Beneatha that altered their actions and decisions in "A Raisin in the Sun," a novel by Lorraine Hansberry.

Essay discusses how the novel "A Raisin in the Sun" reveals the author's faith.

A study of the main narrative techniques evident in William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily," the effects that those techniques produce, and how they contribute to the meaning of the story. In manipulating the structure of the story through subtle complexities, Faulkner gives the story a Gothic/tragic element, including a psychoanalysis of the main character and a display of how members of the aristocratic classes can be entrapped by isolation and social constraints.

The story "A Son of the Middle Border" and the journey of Lewis and Clark are similar in many ways. In both the story and the expedition, awe-inspriring stretches of land are found, and new, never-before-seen animals are discovered. Both experiences show how many great lessons can be learned from nature.

The play "After January" depicts three different rites of passage in a young man's progression to adulthood. These phases -- separation, transition, and incorporation -- each show different aspects related to the young man's changing sense of identity.

Essay provides a literary analysis of the novel "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank.

Short Story Literary Insight Essay

"Alway a Motive" by Dan Ross

Civil War as the topic of "An Episode of War" by Stephen Crane and "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" by Ray Bradbury.

In Ambrose Bierce's Civil War short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," southern planter Peyton Farquhar is captured by the Union Army while attempting to destroy a railroad bridge on behalf of the Confederate cause. In the final moments before he is to be hanged for this offense, he undergoes a series of hallucinations in which he escapes and journeys back to his home.

In Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener," the lawyer who employs Bartleby acts charitably towards him only because the lawyer foolishly expects self-gratification and a higher level of humanity in return. Melville portrays the lawyer as an individual who misinterprets charity in order to critique members of society who display the same phony behavior.

Eugene O'Neill's short story "Before Breakfast" shows an unhappily married couple living out sad lives they never imagined when they were married. The story tells of what could happen when dreams and aspirations are dashed by cold reality and hardship. As a result, we see two desperate people struggling with one another in a downward spiral.

Although the book and movie versions of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" are very similar in many ways, the ending of the movie was changed to make it more upbeat than Truman Capote's novel. This is seen often in films; endings in novel' are typically less happy and more conflicted than their on-screen reproductions.

The following essay provides an argument that "Call of the Wild" is Jack London's autobiography.

J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" is an example of a picaresque novel, literature in which a low social class hero experiences adventures that satirize the larger society. A key theme is Holden Caulfield's struggle from adolescence to adulthood.

In Kathryn Ptacek's short story "Dead Possums," the narrator Hank Strasak struggles to mend the damaged relationship with his wife, but at the same time he fails to see his raging battle with alcohol on an equal view. Ptacek uses tone, point of view, and diction to portray the impact broken relationships have on Hank, causing him to ignore his personal predicament and magnify the transgressions of his wife. In the end, like a possum, Hank is a victim of rash behavior and pure carelessness.

Dreams of what one wants out of life often start ambitious choices and actions. Having a dream to live by throughout your life can often lead to false views on what to expect or how you make your choices to adapt to that dream. In the play "Death of a Salesman," the characters' dreams and thoughts that such dreams are attainable create feelings in those characters of misguidedness, deception, and escape from reality.

Linda Loman serves as the destroyer of her family in the play "Death of a Salesman." Serving as the family's only link to reality in the wake of a circle of lies, Linda did nothing to try to get them to see that reality, instead opting to encourage the lies and hide the truth. Linda probably thought she was doing her family a favor by not telling them the truth, but she actually caused a bigger problem for an already dysfunctional family.

In Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby," love plays an important role in Armand and Desiree's lives but pride and the destructive choices the characters make undermine their happiness.

In "Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton, Ethan's desperate life can be reflected in the Henry David Thoreau quote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." His life of hard labor has no escape.

The character Momma in Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" serves as narrator, describing to the reader in her own simple but clear way the dynamics of the family and the conflicts that arise with her daughter Dee's homecoming. Momma's narration helps the reader to understand the background that makes her two daughters so opposite, to comprehend the confusion generated by Dee's arrival and the characters' reactions to it, and to follow Momma's thought process as she decides which daughter should receive the quilts.

Essay provides a comparison of "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston to "Salvation" by Langston Hughes.

A comparison of "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams and "Fences" by August Wilson. Both these plays present the theme of vulnerability and fragility of a woman in a relationship with a domineering male.

Covers the book "Forbidden City" by William Bell, showing how the events Alex witnesses in Tiananmen Square change his views on life forever. Keywords: history, historical fiction, China

The history of the classic novel, "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell and the periodic controversies that arise when schools consider banning it from their reading lists or libraries.

L. Rust Hills' essay "How to Eat an Ice-Cream Cone" offers a twist on the average how-to guide. Hills' use of topic choice, vocabulary, and format present his audience with an ironic and humorous approach to eating an ice cream cone, showing in the process how ridiculous the how-to genre can be.

A plot synopsis of Sherwin Anderson's short story "I Want to Know Why," about a naive young boy who comes to realize that his role model is not what the boy thought he would be.

Maxine Hong Kingston's book The Woman Warrior is about her courageous search for her true identity. A young Chinese-American woman raised by both conflicting cultures and accepted by neither, Kingston reveals in this book the great diversity and impossible demands of living in two cultural worlds, a process that helped her to discover her identity.

Everyone has heard the old line "Follow your heart." In Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, the main character, Hester Prynne, portrays the perfect example of that famous line.

Essay is an analysis of the novel "Lord of the Flies" written by William Golding.

Essay consists of a critical essay on "Notes from a Big Country" by Bill Bryson.

This essay is a literary analysis of "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. This analysis focuses on the connection between Lennie and animals.  

Focuses on the theme of friendship in John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men".

For J.D. Salinger's unique "Catcher in the Rye" character, Holden Caulfield, the mark of a real man must be demonstrated through love, compassion and sensibility. Caulfield rails against the phoniness he sees in others and in society, yet he is guilty of the same thing.

By using the third person omniscient point of view, Mansfeld successfully shows that Miss Brill was trying to avoid loneliness without creating a feeling of sympathyWithout hiding Miss Brill's own point of view in the third person point of view, this understanding of Miss Brill's aversion to loneliness would not be possible. .

The novel "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne can be considered a classical myth. This can be shown by comparing it to three Hawkthorne works of literature designed to be classical myths: "The Minotaur," "The Gorgon's Head," and "The Golden Touch."

The story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin tells of two African-American brothers -- the narrator, a schoolteacher, and Sonny, a jazz pianist -- who struggle to understand each other. This overview focuses on the evolution that Sonny and the narrator undertake throughout the story and how music impacts their ability to understand one another.

In Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," Huckleberry Finn is portrayed as a transcendentalist, which was a broad philosophy developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and others. Transcendentalism stresses the natural goodness of man, individuality and nature. In his story, Huck learns that morality cannot be taught, only destroyed, by society's influence.

In Mark Twain's classic novel, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," the unique relationship developed between the two characters, Jim and Huck, was daring at the time, because it was a relationship of compassion and understanding between boys of different races.

Lawrence Otis Graham's story "The Black Table Is Still There" relates his experiences as a junior high school student, in which he chose not to sit at the all-black table; and his return to the school fourteen years later, in which he finds the all-black table still there along with other segregated tables. In the process, Graham reveals the superficiality of integration in society and the importance of being your own person instead of following the crowd.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" contains a great deal of suspense, fear, and revenge from beginning to end. The reader is always prepared for the events that are about to come, but those events do not keep the reader from being shocked nevertheless.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" is about one person's seeking revenge on another for an unknown transgression, told from the revenge-seeker's point of view. Poe's use of details such as clothing, rooms, and sounds create a vivid image and mood of horror for the readers.