A good example of that is when he comes back to his home after a concert, he feels a "loathing of respectable beds, of common food; a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of everyday existence." ... He describes his house as containing "his ugly sleeping chamber; the cold bathroom with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, the dripping spigots" (Cather, 216), but when we switch to a third-person narrator, we discover that he lives in a honourable middle-class neighbourhood, on "a highly respectable street, where businessmen of moderate means begot and reared large families...

• Word Count: 886
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Instead, when his beloved mother - the person Tom once said "...was the making of me because she was the only person who truly understood me" - became aware of the situation, she promptly withdrew him from school and began to home-teach him. ... In the meantime, most of his extra income went to outfitting a chemical laboratory that he set up in his home. ... When the War ended Tom decided, to his mother's dismay, that it was time to leave home and "seek his fortune." ... In 1868, after making a name for himself amongst fellow telegraphers as being a flamboyant and quick witted charact...

• Word Count: 3349
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: Undergraduate