But, I tell you, in all that I did sometimes forget some Elledge 2 essential elements and that's when I had to rediscover all that was happening in the home...It was my own experiences that I wanted to transmit when I wrote Like Water for Chocolate." Laura Esquivel (Literature and Its Times, Volume 3) Like Water for Chocolate was influenced by parts of Laura Esquivel's Mexican heritage and their history. ... El Semanario de las Senoritas Mejicanas, was specifically published as an educational journal, originally divided into sections on the fine arts, physics, literature, a...

• Word Count: 2483
• Approx Pages: 10

Despite this common thread throughout contemporary fiction, both Virginia Woolf and Michael Cunningham choose to add a twist to this common theme in modern literature. ... It is a very strange twist that both authors have added to modern literature, because suicide is generally seen as a negative thing, while in these two novels it is seen as a positive thing; an escape from the tortures of everyday life. Western society teaches us, through religion and custom, that suicide is a negative thing, while in these two novels the protagonists" suicides are positive for them themselves and for read...

• Word Count: 1558
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Character design is one of the most crucial elements in creating the fabric of the novel. ... According to The Norton Introduction to Literature character is a fictional person, or "a combination of a person's qualities, especially moral qualities, so that terms such as "good' and "bad,' "strong' and "weak,' often apply" (139). ... The unity of the narrative depends on the person of the hero who, as the central figure, binds the otherwise scattered elements together" (Shrivastava 93). ...

• Word Count: 1673
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Two classic pieces of literature, "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe, and "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson offer readers the chance to live this fantasy vicariously through their characters. While there are many story elements which overlap, such as calamity inhibiting the search for wealth, the two books take their adventures in different directions through their starkly different tones. ...

• Word Count: 1319
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography