Desperate Passage Critical Review Ironically, one of the most often recounted stories centered around the pioneer trek to California is that of the group of 87 American pioneers known as the Donner Party. The wagons left in May, 1846 and opted to try a new, faster route through Utah and Nevada which slowed their progress and resulted in a loss of wagons, horses, and cattle. Hoping to be in California by

Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest offers an ironic portrayal of mental health and mental illness. The story of Randle McMurphy, told through the eyes and ears of Chief Bromden, shows how restrictive social norms and behavioral constraints are what cause mental illness. Mental illness and deviance are socially constructed. The men in the institution have been labeled as deviants, many of them as criminals too. Yet

Robert Hayden, one of the most important black poets of the 20th Century, was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1913 and grew up in extreme poverty in a racially mixed neighborhood. His parents divorced when he was a child and he was raised by their neighbors, William and Sue Ellen Hayden, and not until he was in his forties did he learn that Asa Sheffey and Gladys Finn were his

Communications networks can be used as a source of profitability, but not according to the traditional model of selling songs, when they are so easy to copy. Despite the existence of pay-for-music services like iTunes, industry insiders confide that they have become convinced that iTunes in the long run will never generate as much profits as CDs. "Worldwide music sales fell about 7% last year...growth in downloads from iTunes, the

In Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," the setting is of a very different nature, but also concerns life, death, and the irony that often accompanies the interaction between the two. The main character and first-person narrator, Montresor, leads Fortunato to his grave for an unnamed trespass. Under the pretence of wanting his expertise regarding a cask of amontillado, Montresor leads his friend into the recesses of an extensive vault, which

For one, the cover art used for each of these media formats is remarkably -- and perhaps not coincidentally -- similar. Spiegelman's graphic novel cover depicts a large white circle front and center. On this white circle is a Nazi swastika with a cat face at its center. The title "Maus" is written in a bloody red font, and below the white circle are characters -- perhaps Vladek and