“You really have to love words if you’re going to be a writer, because as a writer, you certainly spend a lot of time with words.” ― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting “What is your suggestion for someone who wants to start writing? Be a reader. It’s the only real way to learn how to tell…
Category: Character
A Rose for Emily – William Faulkner
A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner I WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant–a combined gardener and…
Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving – Focus on Characters and Settings
RIP VAN WINKLE. A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER. By Woden, God of Saxons, From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday. Truth is a thing that ever I will keep Unto thylke day in which I creep into My sepulchre—— Cartwright. [The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old…
Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway – Focus on Setting and Home as A Literary Theme – Week 3 Comp 2
Ernest Hemingway, Soldier’s Home” (1925) Krebs went to the war from a Methodist college in Kansas. There is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar. He enlisted in the Marines in 1917 and did not return to the United States until the…
Powder by Tobias Wolff – Focus on Character
Powder is a short story written by Tobias Wolff, who also wrote This Boy’s Life, which is Wolff’s memoir that later became a motion picture by the same name. “Tobias Wolff writes prose that is clean and honest. He deals with the gritty realities of experience, sometimes relying on his own years as a soldier…
The Flowers by Alice Walker – Focus on Plot
Alice Walker wrote the eye-opening, life-changing novel The Color Purple. The story is epic but it is brutal. Notice the climax in the following scene of The Color Purple: Alice Walker is a consummate storyteller. Let’s study her very short story The Flowers. The Flowers By Alice Walker It seemed to Myop as she skipped…
Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin – Focus on Character
What Is Blues Music? Sonny’s Blues Sonny’s Blues James Baldwin I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again. Then perhaps I just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name, spelling out the…
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid – Focus on Character
Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk bare-head in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton…
Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway – Focus on Setting. Character, and Themes in Literature
Ernest Hemingway, Soldier’s Home” (1925) Krebs went to the war from a Methodist college in Kansas. There is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar. He enlisted in the Marines in 1917 and did not return to the United States until the…