American Literature Page 3

Pearls have always held a great price to mankind, but no pearl had ever been earned at as high a cost to a person as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s powerful heroine Hester Prynne. Her daughter Pearl, born into a Puritan prison in more ways than one, is an enigmatic character serving entirely as a vehicle for symbolism….

Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard To Find” presents a family going on a road trip, with an unfortunate ending. The main character of this story is the Grandmother, a self-centered, manipulative individual in the beginning of the story changing into a heartfelt person while taking her last breaths before the Misfit…

David Foster Wallace, an American writer, “Good People” is a short story which is based on two young Christian couple set at the park nearby the lake. The couples, Lane A. Dean and Sheri Fisher, faced with an issue of unplanned pregnancy, which creates a situation of fear, choice between right or wrong and religious…

The narrative “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, represents the specific story from Alice Walker’s autobiography, which had a great impact on her life. The story emphasizes how low-self esteem can effect person’s life. Alice Walker used to be a cute little girl at the age of six. At six, she already memorized…

Kate Chopin lived from 1851 until 1904. She was born Katherine O’Flaherty and was raised in post- Civil War St. Louis by parents who were on the upper end of society. She married Oscar Chopin, moved to New Orleans, and had six children. After her husband died, Chopin moved back to St. Louis to start…

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main character finds himself living in a society that does not suit him. Everywhere he looks there are people who value things that he sees as meaningless. Huck Finn feels trapped and begins his journey down the river in an effort to find someone or some place that will…

Many works of contemporary American fiction involve one individual’s search for identity in a stifling and unsympathetic world. In “Sula,” Toni Morrison gives us two such individuals. In Nel and Sula, Morrison creates two individual female characters that at first are separate, grows together, and then is separated once more. Although never physically reconciled, Nel’s…

The Lamp at Noon Theme Analysis Theme Statement: Sometimes , a person may want to change but it may be too late cause irreparable damage may already be done. The short story “The Lamp at Noon” by Sinclair Ross, It depicts Paul and Ellen, a married farming couple living during the Great Depression. It follows…

Holden Caulfield, the main character in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, is what I believe to be one of the most well-developed characters which I have read about. He has many characteristics that are all his own, such as the way he views the world, his friends and his family. One of the…

In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, the author uses the element of time to enhance details of the setting and vice versa. By avoiding the chronological order of events of Miss Emily’s life, Faulkner first gives the reader a finished puzzle, and then allows the reader to examine this puzzle piece by piece,…