¶ … Fiction with Documentation
"Where are you going, Where have you been
When asked this question, teenage girls like Connie -- past and present -- are faced with few options
Perhaps one of the great hallmarks of a great work of fiction is its ability to appear to have been written for the age during which it is being read, regardless of how far back in time it was written. In other words, Joyce Carol Oates' story might strike a contemporary adolescent or young adult reader as something timeless. Or rather, although it was written during the 1960's, it seems as if it is quintessentially about today's average fifteen-year-old teenage girl. Connie seems to be a perfect Britney Spears wanna-be, disdaining her slightly tubby older sister, refusing to listen to her mother, and glutting herself at the mall in acts conspicuous consumption, and conspicuous, revealing outfits.
Yet, incongruously to the modern eye, the background "Story of Origins" to Oates' tale locates the short story squarely back in the era when it was written, the periods of teenage rebellion of the Beat and hippie generations. (Moser & Johnson 164-165) In such a view, Connie's sexuality is repressed by her prudish society. Adults like her mother attempt to repress her budding interest in sex, but such an interest is brought forth by the appearance of the strange Mr. Arnold Friend in his even stranger car. Of the critics catalogued in excerpts after the story, Mark Tierce and John Michael Crafton argue most explicitly for such a reading, and as...
Either way, what they shared is gone. The interesting thing about this story is the boyfriend's inability to see things from Jig's point-of-view. He does not have to deal with the emotional aspect of abortion, so he can say things like, "It's not really an operation at all" (Hills Like White Elephants 1391). The nameless man is selfish and a liar because he tries to convince Jig "It's really
It is likely that her status within the Powhatan tribe has been exaggerated by her notoriety. That said, it is factually that she was a daughter of the chief of the Powhatan tribe. It is also the case Pocahontas would become an important emissary between her tribe and the colony of Jamestown. Likewise, this relationship would be channeled through her closeness with the high ranking colonist John Smith. She factually
He carefully dismantled the story through diligent research into declassified court proceedings as well as many first person narratives. This level of research successfully captures the tension and emotions of the POWs' experience, which is the primary narrative storyline that drives the overall progression. Although Bradley professes a completely unbiased perspective in looking at this narrative, this was not completely the case within the structure of the narrative. Bradley
Desiree's Baby is an 1892 story by Kate Chopin that examines how the Aubigny family falls apart due to assumptions and misunderstandings. In the story, Desiree, an orphan whose parentage is unknown and whom the Valmonde family lovingly raises, marries Armand Aubigny, a man whose father comes from a prominent family. Desiree eventually gets pregnant by and gives birth to Armand's son, who later is the cause for Armand to
Good Man is Hard to Find For the purposes of this essay, I chose Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." "A Good Man is Had to Find" is an apt topic for research such as this, because the ambiguity of the story's position regarding a grandmother ultimately responsible for the death of her entire family leads to a wide variety of possible readings, each with
Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Fennimore Cooper, Mary Rowlandson, Walt Whitman) describe writing style, a discussion literary work. Edgar Allan Poe: Poe's amoral universe The American poet and short story author Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous mystery and horror writers of the 19th century. Contrary to many of his contemporaries, Poe
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