ELA 30 – 1: Personal Essay October 16‚ 2012 Gaddiel O. Matira Is it fair to hold individuals responsible for a choice society pressured them to make? Canada might have been one of the best places in the world but for me and Tim‚ Canada is a lot more than that. For Tim O’ Brien’s “On the Rainy River”‚ Canada is freedom: freedom from the draft letter that pressures him to go to war‚ freedom from the war that he never understood and always hated‚ freedom from the dirt‚ tent‚ and mosquitoes‚
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Explore the themes of Robert Frost’s poetry in The Road Not Taken Robert Frost was an American poet from New England; he is highly regarded for his realistic representations of rural life and his colloquial speech. The poem The Road Not Taken is a narrative poem which was published in 1916 by Frost. The speaker stands in the woods contemplating a fork in the road. Both paths are identically worn and overlaid with un-trodden leaves. After contemplating for a while the speaker chooses a path whilst
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The Prince: Analysis and Response Machiavelli‚ born in Florence in 1469‚ remains one of the most controversial authors to this day. His work demonstrates his expertise with military power‚ political success and historical events. His experience and understanding is a sum of all aspects of his life—from serving on the commune of Florence to carrying out his own military missions. Even when Machiavelli was accused of conspiracy and sentenced to a period of exile and torture‚ that did not keep him
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BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM Biographical criticism begins with the simple but central insight that literature is written by actual people and that understanding an author’s life can help readers more thoroughly comprehend the work. Anyone who reads the biography of a writer quickly sees how much an author’s experience shapes—both directly and indirectly—what he or she creates. Reading that biography will also change (and usually deepen) our response to the work. Sometimes even knowing a single important
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foster parents when they hid a Jewish man from the Nazis by letting him live in their basement. They risked being thrown in concentration camps in doing so‚ but they did it anyway because they believed that is was the right thing to do. It would have taken a lot of courage to do this‚ and I admire them for it. They also gave bread to the Jews being paraded through their town on the way to concentration camps on two separate occasions. The first time they did this‚ Liesel’s foster father was caught
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I hope this letter finds you doing well and enjoying your holiday season with your family. With the mix of school‚ family travel‚ family complications and‚ off-season training‚ it has taken me a bit longer than I had anticipated before I was able to write you. But‚ I wanted to write you and say thank you. In all honesty‚ this season turned out almost completely different than I had originally hoped for and anticipated. I didn’t really picture coming off the first play of our first scrimmage tearing
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The Road written by Cormac McCarthy is a novel based on a post-apocalyptic setting. The story focuses on a father and a son. No names are given to either. But‚ the son does address his father as Papa. The father and the son are trying to survive not only by undertaking the constant struggle of getting the necessary means to live (water‚ food‚ etc.) but by surviving from the cannibals. The father and the son are traveling throughout the entirety of the novel. Before the wife had abandoned her husband
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have liked Leon to guess at it...” [p. 86] This quote shows the change is Emma’s character from part one due to the fact that in part one she only longed for such a relationship and what she read in books and took pity on herself while now she has taken action by committing adultery. When Emma first meets Leon there is a spark and common interests emerge unlike between Emma and Charles. This is seen in the quote “Their Eyes indeed were full of more serious conversation; and‚ while they were struggling
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The Purpose of Criticism: Literary criticism has at least three primary purposes. (1) To help us resolve a difficulty in the reading. The historical approach‚ for instance‚ might be helpful in addressing a problem in Thomas Otway’s play Venice Preserv’d. Why are the conspirators‚ despite the horrible‚ bloody details of their obviously brutish plan‚ portrayed in a sympathetic light? If we look at the author and his time‚ we see that he was a Tory whose play was performed in the wake of the Popish
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Crake; from numbers to words Oryx and Crake is a story that takes place in a not-so-distant dystopian future that Margart Atwood believes we’re heading towards. The world has been taken over by corporations who are driven purely by greed and profit. These corporations have built giant “compounds” where they house their scientists‚ who are referred to as “numbers people” by Jimmy‚ the main protagonist of the story. These “numbers people” are using genetic engineering to “improve” humanity. Anything
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