Literary Analysis: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Prompt: What does Jekyll feel guilty about? Why does Jekyll feel the need to create a double? What does Hyde do? Response: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a mystery that draws the reader in with questions of a puzzling relationship between a respected doctor of high social standing and a […]

Literary Analysis: Antigone

Prompt: Who is right–Antigone or Creon? Response: In his 1902 critical look at Antigone, Richard C. Jebb states that “the simplicity of the plot is due to the clearness of which the two principles are opposed to each other.” This is both accurate and inaccurate. It is true the conflict is a simple one on […]

Literary Analysis: Harlem Renaissance poetry

Prompt: How do the poets of the Harlem Renaissance portray Black life, culture, emotion, and consciousness? What do you think these writers hope to achieve in their revelations? Do they live up to Langston Hughes’ dictum? Response: The Harlem Renaissance was a revolutionary period of approximately fifteen years starting loosely in 1917 or so and continuing […]

Literary Analysis: Daddy

The work of Sylvia Plath is defined by its morbid mood, cheerless tone, and the author’s dark reflections of her own childhood. Plath makes no exception in her poem “Daddy”. She has with “Daddy”, as in much of her work, struck a chord of great contention leading to much discussion about this work’s meaning over […]

Literary Analysis: A & P

Prompt: Why do you think Sammy quit? How do you interpret his actions? Response: John Updike’s A&P is a fantastic story that really hones in on the idea of the choices between conformity and rebellion that those coming of age in the world are faced with. This story is an early version of the popular […]

Literary Analysis: Emily Dickinson’s poetry critics

Prompt: How is Dickinson’s poetry portrayed in the work of Wendy Cope, Hart Crane, and Billy Collins? What points do they seem to emphasize about her work? Be sure to bring some of Dickinson’s own work into your discussion. Response: Poetry is a powerful method of communicating not just ideas but the intimate thoughts and […]

Literary Analysis: A Midsummer’s Night Dream

Prompt: What is the function and effect of the play in A Midsummer’s Night Dream? What does the play (in both senses) suggest about the value of drama and imagination in society? What attitudes toward drama does Shakespeare encourage us to adopt? Response: William Shakespeare is perhaps the most well-known and significant author in history. While […]

Film Analysis: Doubt

Prompt: Did Father Flynn abuse Donald? How do race, class, and gender complicate the interpretation of the play? Response: The hook of Doubt is the question of Father Flynn’s guilt or innocence and whether Sister Aloysius was correct in her crusade against him. Yet, that question is not one that is easy or simple to […]

Literary Analysis: Cathedral

Prompt: What does the narrator “see” at the end of “Cathedral”? What is “really something”? Response: The idea of personal growth is one explored in nearly all of fiction as a character changes from one state of mind to another when they are faced with a difficult circumstance or a strange situation. For the narrator […]

Change in a Culture: The American Reaction to September 11th, 2001

(written in the autumn of 2018) “A day that will live in infamy”—that is how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to December 7th, 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[1] Over two thousand would lose their lives in that attack which would send the United States to war in Europe and the Pacific. The […]