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What are some examples of personification and Maya Angelou's ideas of the past and future in "On the Pulse of Morning"?

In this poem, Maya Angelou uses the images of rock, river, and tree to describe the United States. She talks about the troubled past of this land, on which mastodons and dinosaurs have left their bones ("dried tokens") and where, more recently, humans have left troubling remains. Though Angelou says we are just a little lower than angels, we have lived in "ignorance" and left "debris." The country was settled by people "desperate for gain"...

Although the past has been troubled and imperfect, a "nightmare" for some, Angelou holds out great hope for the future. She invites all Americans, rich or poor, straight or gay, Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, to join in building a better world, for all are "yearning to respond" to the call of this land. We can all give birth to the American dream again. We can "shape it" and "sculpt it." "Each hour holds new chances," she writes. We should meet each other with hope, look into each other's eyes (by which she means really see each other) and come together with a "good morning" greeting that will symbolize the dawn of a new and better America. (It's useful to note the poem is an occasional poem, written for President Bill Clinton's inauguration, and so reflects the hope he wanted to project.) Her hope for the future is that, although different, Americans can come together in community and solidarity.

Angelou personifies geographic features of America by giving them human characteristics. A rock "cries out" to us with advice, as a human might. Likewise, a tree speaks to us and a river sings a "beautiful song" and also speaks to us as a human would, saying, "Come, rest here by my side." The horizon leans forward to speak to us—as a person would in conversation—and the day has a "pulse" like a human pulse, as if it is alive, with a beating heart and blood flowing through its veins.

How do you find critical analysis for a book

There are a few options! If you are looking online and you need a fairly basic analysis (a run down of themes or motifs, summaries, character profiles, etc.), there are a lot of websites made to help you -- including ! You might want to check out the section and see if what you're looking for is there. We have a large number of great teacher-written analyses right here on the site.

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If you need a more detailed analysis, or if you are trying to find an analysis that tackles a specific topic (e.g. "the use of color imagery in the work of T. S. Eliot"), you could try typing the topic into Google Scholar, which compiles journal-published articles and books. If you go to an institution (like a college) that gives you access to journals, you should not have any problem accessing them. If not, you can try getting guest access through a local academic library.

Which brings me to the third option: the library! Not many people use a real library any more, but it still has a huge number of resources, especially for older books. Use the online catalog or ask a librarian and you should be able to find plenty of books about the work you're researching.

In Lord of the Flies, what is the paradox of the boys' attitude toward the beast?

In literature, a paradox is when two contradictory concepts or beliefs are juxtaposed to reveal a significant, underlying truth. In the novel Lord of the Flies, there is a paradox attached to the boys' attitude toward the beast. The beast does not exist, but the boys fear it nonetheless. Their attitude towards the fictional beast reveals their actual fear of the unknown. They try to rationalize their fears by discussing the identity and existence of the beast. While Ralph, Jack, and Piggy maintain that there is no such thing as the beast, the boys remain fearful. The underlying truth in this paradox is that the boys fear what they do not understand. Their fear of the beast represents their fear of the unknown, which is a significant trait shared by all humans. We as humans tend to fear the unknown, and Golding illuminates this common fear in the boys’ attitude towards the beast throughout the novel.

What methods has Jane Austen used to convey her views of the period of time that the book Pride and Prejudice was written?

Austen has employed negative and positive characterization to indicate which characters have views with which she disagrees and with whom she agrees. Elizabeth is obviously characterized in a mostly positive way: she is independent, concerned about love and respect more than money, and she is intelligent and compassionate. Thus, Austen (for the most part) appreciates Elizabeth's view of the world: it is more modern than many of her contemporaries -- she believes in the importance of equality in a relationship, something that not many of her peers do. Miss Bingley, however, is much more interested in impressing Mr. Darcy, maintaining her social superiority and status over the Miss Bennets, and keeping Jane and Mr. Bingley apart than she is in educating herself or exercising compassion or intelligence. We can understand, then, that Austen doesn't care for Miss Bingley's take on the world: the ideas the status should be preserved above all else and that the woman's job to impress and secure an eligible man is the most important of her life (a common idea at the time). Likewise, Mr. Collins is described in the clearly negative terms: he is "not a sensible man," and he is a "mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility." We can understand, then, that Austen disagrees with his views on the importance of status, the reasons for marriage, even his views on women's reading -- that they ought to do it for instructional purposes rather than entertainment: all of which are fairly common ideas for this time.

Further, Austen employs irony in order to convey her views on popular ideas of her time period. The first sentence of the novel is a fantastic example. The narrator says, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." We can tell that such a statement is ironic because it becomes obvious quickly that such a belief is neither a "truth," nor is it "universally acknowledged": Elizabeth, Jane, Mr. Bennet, and Darcy, at least, all seem to think differently. Moreover, it is characters like Mrs. Bennet and Caroline Bingley and even Lady Catherine who seem to subscribe to this belief, and they are hardly representatives of truth or universal belief. Ironies like this help us to understand that Austen disagrees with her contemporaries who subscribe to ridiculous and short-sighted ideas about marriage and wealth.

Why do you think Achebe chooses to create a protagonist for Things Fall Apart that hardly develops across the novel? How does this choice affect...

The power of Okonkwo's story in Things Fall Apart is the relatively static nature of his daily life. He is very comfortably entrenched in the social order established, and questions little of it, even when he is made to feel sad or conflicted (as when he is forced to watch Ikemefuna's murder). The reason Achebe creates an essentially immovable character is so we can feel the monumental shift the story takes when the colonizers appear....

The reason Achebe creates an essentially immovable character is so we can feel the monumental shift the story takes when the colonizers appear. When the outsider is introduced to an already functioning society, Okonkwo finds himself in a situation that leads him to despair. This despair motivates him to act in a way that is a 180-degree turn from the man he has been.

Okonkwo's suicide and the shift in point of view at the end of the novel reinforce the theme of social structures falling apart. Moreover, Ibo society has been corrupted by an outside influence, with no motivation or input from those who have built the society. This represents the loss of personal agency endemic to postcolonial literature.

How does Wuthering Heights display qualities of the Romantic movement?

Wuthering Heightsis a Romantic novel because its hero and heroine, Cathy and Heathcliff, are unconventional. Heathcliff is a former street urchin who is born without connections, and Cathy loves him in spite of her marriage to the better connected Edgar Linton. Heathcliff is the quintessential Romantic hero, in the tradition of Goethe and Byron, as he is alienated from society and misanthropic. He has a dark character and is prone to obsessions, such as...

Wuthering Heights is a Romantic novel because its hero and heroine, Cathy and Heathcliff, are unconventional. Heathcliff is a former street urchin who is born without connections, and Cathy loves him in spite of her marriage to the better connected Edgar Linton. Heathcliff is the quintessential Romantic hero, in the tradition of Goethe and Byron, as he is alienated from society and misanthropic. He has a dark character and is prone to obsessions, such as his love for Cathy. This type of love is transcendent in the Romantic tradition, as it is greater than class barriers, geographic distances, and even death.

Another element of the novel that is Romantic in nature is the solace and release that nature provides to Cathy and Heathcliff. They often gather on the moors as children to experience the kind of freedom that they can't enjoy indoors, and Heathcliff seems like a creature who is more connected to nature than to civilization. It is only outdoors and in nature, with all of its moods and storms, that they can find true freedom.

In addition, the novel places an emphasis on the beauty and inspiration of childhood. During childhood, Cathy and Heathcliff are first drawn to each other, and then adulthood imposes uncomfortable strictures on them. They both yearn for the love, freedom, and beauty that they experienced as children.

What are the two settings in the novel The Kite Runner?

There are primarily two settings: Kabul, Afghanistan, and Fremont, California, which span different time periods in the novel The Kite Runner. The beginning of the novel takes place in 1963, the same year Amir, the novel's protagonist, is born. He spends his childhood in the peaceful city of Kabul playing with his best friend, Hassan. In 1973, Russians troops invade Afghanistan and in the winter of 1975, Amir witnesses Hassan being raped. Amir is filled with extreme guilt because he did not stop Assef, and shortly after the incident, Ali and Hassan move out of Baba's home. Amir and Baba then leave for Pakistan in 1981 and arrive in Fremont, California the same year. Amir lives in America for twenty years where he becomes a successful writer and marries his wife, Soraya. The two buy a home in San Francisco. One day Amir gets a phone call from Rahim Khan. Amir learns that Rahim Khan is dying, so he leaves for Pakistan in June, 2001. Shortly after meeting with Rahim Khan and learning about Hassan's son, Sohrab, Amir travels back to Kabul, Afghanistan. In 2001, Afghanistan is utterly destroyed from years of fighting and is under Taliban rule. Amir ends up finding Sohrab and narrowly escaping to Pakistan before leaving for America in August, 2001. Sohrab begins his new life in San Francisco, and Amir attempts to form a relationship with him.