Heart of Darkness is a novel that depicts the adventure of one man. ... Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a tale that can be read as an adventure story about the jungle, or, on a deeper level, a story that examines the evils of society. ... The tale ends, and the novel ends with a description of the Thames flowing into "an immense darkness." ... This harshly contrasts the setting of the actual story Marlow tells. ... Heart of Darkness brings this to light perfectly. ...

• Word Count: 1567
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Briar Rose Book Review Briar Rose by Jane Yolen is a heart-wrenching story of Sleeping Beauty intertwined with the horrors of World War II. The novel contains all the elements of the classic Sleeping Beauty: the castle, thorns, princess, and a tale of death and awakening from eternal sleep. Yolen compared a story that fictitiously occurred during World War II with Sleeping Beauty, which allowed one of the main characters, Gitl Mandelstein, to indirectly tell her horrifying experiences during the war. ... After a trip to Poland to speak with Josef, Becca figured out that the fairy ta...

• Word Count: 809
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Later, one of the cousins is assaulted on the grounds of the house and Briony, still stinging from an insult earlier, tells the authorities that it was Robbie, their childhood friend and Cecilia's boyfriend. ... It is at this point that she begins to glimpse a bit of her future, and cleverly, McEwen foretells the tale. ... She has come to realize that affairs of the heart, of the mind, the spirit and body, like those war torn bodies of the war, cannot be mended with nice stories. ... Instead, she chooses to follow her heart and go with Robbie, who does not come from money. ... The w...

• Word Count: 1611
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Both of these novels tell tales of adolescents working their way through an internal or external struggle between the forces of good and evil. ... In Demian, Herman Hesse tells the tale of Emil Sinclair, a young boy who discovers an entire new world outside the life he shares with his family. ... In this novel, he tells the tale of a group of schoolboys whose plane crashed down onto a deserted island. ... Golding, much like Hesse, sees evil as existing within the hearts of men, and explores what happens when a person is removed from all responsibility to society. ...

• Word Count: 1226
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Catherine tells Ellen what she believes will happen with her marriage and her relationship to Heathcliff. ... Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? ... I have not broken your heart--you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine (170). ... Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I. ... Ellen tells Lockwood about the how the country people and Joseph have seen the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine walking on the moors ...

• Word Count: 1133
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Written in 1955, The Quiet American is a tale of a young American who is now dead because of his personal involvement in the French-Vietminh war. A British reporter, Fowler, tells the story from his point of view. ... Greene himself describes his work as being first political, then Catholic, and then political again, distinguishing early novels such as It*s a Battlefield and later novels such as The Quiet American from the major religious works of his middle period, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, and The Heart of the Matter. ...

• Word Count: 783
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

I will tell anybody who asks me questions this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad; hard-hearted. ... Jane is willing to tell everyone the truth about her aunt and cross over her role boundaries. ... Jane is a little riled up when Helen tells her, "'Hush, Jane! ... The role of a servant is to do as their master tells them to do and to not talk back. ...

• Word Count: 1755
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

He then proceeds to rent an expensive red convertible ("The Great Red Shark") and drive directly east toward Las Vegas; and headlong into the heart of his own definition of the "American Dream." ... In fact the first few lines of the book rival that of "A Tale of Two Cities": We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. ... The period when Thompson is getting prepared to go on his "savage journey" when he tells his attorney: "Jesus, just one hour ago we were sitting over there in that stinking baiginio, stone broke and paralyzed for th...

• Word Count: 1026
• Approx Pages: 4

" A young woman absent the social advantages of family, wealth, and beauty, Jane suffers from the cruel treatment of Lowood because her aunt wants to punish her for her rebelliousness to the heartbreak in her many attempts to marry her beloved Rochester, "All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever." ... Her unbridled need for freedom in stark contrast with their want for control led to more tears and disappointments than fairy-tale happy endings. ... " Immediately after Rochester tells Ja...

• Word Count: 1206
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

(Eco, 1984) Eco explains how the historical fiction writer must become immersed in historical evidence: to tell a story, "you must first of all construct a world, furnished as much as possible, down to the slightest detail." ... Made-up events and characters tell us things "that history books have never told us so clearly," so as "to make history, what happened, more comprehensible"(p. 75). ...

• Word Count: 4697
• Approx Pages: 19
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

It tells of the struggles women must go through when they reach menopause; the big change. However, the main plot line tells the story of two women, Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, and the trials and tribulations of their life in the 1920's and 30's. ... It became most apparent when Momma Threadgoode tells Ruth, "Poppa and I just want you to know that we think of you as one of the family now, and we couldn't be happier for our little girl to have such a sweet companion as you."" ... Her wisecracks and tall tales helped her to face a number of less-than-comfortable situatio...

• Word Count: 2942
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School