Runaway, Trespasses, Extract - Alice Munro (2004)
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
'Every man must define his identity against his mother. If he does not, he just falls back into her and is swallowed up' wrote the American polemist Camille Paglia. Everything is also a question of identity in Alice Munro's short story collection Runaway, published in 2004. The...
Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare (1597) ; Snow falling on Cedars - David Guterson (1995) ; Photo by Annie Leibovitz - Forbidden Love
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
The topic of forbidden love is approached in each document. The first one is an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet written by the famous Shakespeare, a British poet of the 16th century. Corneille, Racine, Aristotle, and Horace are emblematic figures of this theatrical movement. The second one is a...
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act II - Oscar Wilde (1895)
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
'As a man sow, so shall he reap': a biblical saying that Miss Prism, as a good Christian, must have been taught at church. But to feel righteous, it is not enough to utter it as she does when reacting to the tidings of Jack's brother's death, it also takes to apply it personally....
Break It Down, Once A Very Stupid Man - Lydia Davis (1986) - How does the author convey a peculiar writing style and sense to her story?
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
As the American writer, Matthew Weiner wrote « Identity is part of drama to me. Who am I? Why am I behaving this way? And am I aware of it? », this quote could genuinely sum up the quintessential quest drawn from Lydia Davis's Break It Down short story, entitled Once A Very Stupid Man and...
The Figure in the Carpet - Henry James (1896) - The meaning of art and literature
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The narrator, a young book reviewer, is asked by Corvik, one of his colleagues, to write a review of a well-known author's (named Vereker) latest book. Having read the review, Vereker seizes the opportunity, when he meets the narrator, to tease him by revealing that he has missed the most...
Personal and Individual Relationships Between Public and Private Spaces - Students in a Classroom
Creative writing - 3 pages - Literature
This document is a piece of creative writing which contains a dialogue between several characters about personal and individual relationships between public and private spaces. Some people claim to be exactly the same in their public and private interactions, with loved ones or at work for...
Westward expansion: spirituality or reality?
Creative writing - 2 pages - Literature
This document is a piece of creative writing which contains a dialogue between two characters on the ramifications of westward expansion.
The Sun Also Rises, Book 3, Chapter 19 - Ernest Hemingway (1926) - How the Nothingness is Conveyed by the Author Throughout the Extract ?
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
Focusing on the lost generation, in the aftermath of World War I, The Sun Also Rises is mostly autobiographical. In his very first novel, published in 1926, Hemingway depicts the narrator, Jake Barnes, and his wandering from Paris to Spain. Jake is a journalist in Paris. We are in 1925 and he has...
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (2017) - Literary tradition
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
"The Hate You Give" is a novel written by Angie Thomas, its presence and impact on literature is due to the cumulation of all that came before. The story inserts itself in our present, but it is deeply rooted in African American literary traditions. The fact that the book came out in 2017 is...
Arcadia, Act 1, Scenes 3 - Tom Stoppard (1993) - Lord Byron was amusing at breakfast
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
In the context of Tom Stoppard's play, "The Rehearsal," the provided excerpt offers an intriguing glimpse into the dialogue between two captivating characters, Thomasina and Septimus. This passage, akin to a literary microcosm, unfolds as a verbal theater where the characters discuss...
Greek Myths Based Reading journal
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Myths, as timeless narratives that traverse epochs and cultures, have persistently occupied a crucial space in the human imagination. This essay embarks on an exploration of the profound relevance and enduring significance of myths, delving into selected excerpts from Ovid's Fasti,...
The Return: A Rhapsody - Tao Yuanming (2019)
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Tao Yuanming writes The Return: A Rhapsody immediately after retiring from official work. He was one of the few Chinese nationals who held an official position in government during the early civilization period. He is haunted by memories of his past and in his old age, he does not see any change...
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (2017) - What historical events and context gave rise to this novel?
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Angie Thomas's novel "The Hate U Give" is not merely a fictional story; it is a profound reflection of historical realities that have shaped contemporary society. The novel, which centres on the life of a young Black girl, Starr Carter, who witnesses the police shooting of her unarmed friend,...
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813) - Money
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Money, a theme that had been the focus of many novels over the last few centuries. No novelist, however, has mastered to approach it in such a unique manner as Jane Austen. During the Regency period, when wealth and status defined relationships, Jane Austen wrote and published her illustrious...
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813) - Love
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Love, a theme that has been the focus of many novels over the last few centuries. No novelist, however, has mastered to approach it in such a unique manner as Jane Austen. During the Regency Period in 1813, Jane Austen wrote and published her illustrious novel Pride and Prejudice, where she...
The Yellow Bird - Tennessee Williams (1947) - The modernist short story, the figure of the writer
Text commentary - 5 pages - Literature
The modernist movement has its origins in the growing industrialization of the late nineteenth century, which profoundly transformed traditional ways of life and the individual's relationship to society. This period was marked by a questioning of artistic values and conventions, reflecting a...
Leviathan - Paul Auster (1992) - How the Dead Man is Depicted in this Extract?
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
«Leviathan» by Paul Auster is a roman published in 1992. In this short extract, an unknown and unnamed narrator, after reading some news about a man who blew himself up on the side of a road, is about to tell this man's story. In this text's commentary, we are going to see in a more...
Cat in the Rain - Ernest Hemingway (1925)
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This story takes place after WW1, a lot of Italian's people have perished during this major conflict and, this monument is the sign of the great loss the nation is feeling. War is still fresh in memories and while the American couple is here in the context of vacation, Italian people come a...
A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams (1947)
Tutorials/exercises - 2 pages - Literature
The document studies the relationship between Stanley Kowalski and Stella Kowalski as well as a passage from Scene V. The latter is the following: In this extract, Blanche is waiting for Mitch to come to pick her. While doing this, a young paperboy arrives and this scene occurs. Blanche, an...
Sheet on films, novels, and poems
Book review - 10 pages - Literature
This document contains a number of fact sheets on films, novels and poems, detailing the themes, characters and symbols.
Beloved - Toni Morrison (1987)
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
The novel is about the horrors of slavery and how its trauma is bequeathed from generation to generation. Former slaves, such as Sethe, Paul D, or Baby Suggs seem unable to let go of a past when their identities were shattered at the core, they were treated as mere animals or conveniences,...
The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The whole story is narrated in the second person by Akunna, a young Nigerian woman who has just immigrated to the United States of America. Akunna seems to be different from everyone else around her since almost everyone she engages with asks questions regarding her ethnic background, her accent...
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner (1930) - Chapter 31
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Faulkner has always pointed out that he wrote As I Lay Dying only in a few weeks, while he was still working on Sanctuary. A reference to the eleventh Song in Homer's Odyssey, the title right away foreshadows a Homeric epic. As part of the movement called stream of consciousness, Faulkner...
Wireless, The Voice - Agatha Christie (1925) - Questions and exercises
Tutorials/exercises - 2 pages - Literature
This document includes questions, a translation exercise and a creative writing exercise based on an extract of the short story Wireless, written by Agatha Christie.
Modernists of the 30s - Comparative essay
Tutorials/exercises - 2 pages - Literature
This document is an essay on the modernist movement, which appeared in the 1930s, and its followers (writers, poets, philosophers, etc.)
The thing around your neck, A private experience - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 2009
Tutorials/exercises - 4 pages - Literature
In this other short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, two women help each other to find shelter in an abandoned store, after running with no rest, in a hurry. One is clearly Muslim, the other, Chika, seems to be Christian. In an atmosphere of dictatorship and ethnic tensions, they have escaped a...
The Thing Around Your Neck, The American Embassy - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
The document is a 200-word review of the chapter "The American Embassy" of the short story "The Thing Around Your Neck" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Recitatif - Toni Morrison (1983) - Race as a social construct
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
"Recitatif" of Toni Morrison only short story follows a fairly traditional structure: the narrator relates several episodes in her life, all centered around chance encounters with a childhood friend. Yet the narrative is thoroughly informed by an experiment in omission. Indeed, the two...
Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin, J. (2017) - How can a black man, marginalized and silenced, dehumanized, can see in his struggle the struggle of mankind?
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
In the eponymous section of his most celebrated collection of essays, "Notes of a Native Son", James Baldwin, one of the most prominent African-American writers of the last century, explores questions of race through a very personal lens: he recounts his relationship with his father and his...
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley (1818)
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The text studied is an abstract from the novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley and published in 1818. Its genre is fantastic, or horror novel. It is sometimes considered to be a gothic novel.
