Notes

The effects of the Atlantic slave trade on West African societies were complex and characterized by change over time. At first, the slave trade was actually controlled by West African kings, who offered enslaved people instead of the gold that many early European voyagers sought to trade for. Over time, as the kingdoms of Europe established colonies overseas, the increased demand for labor that accompanied this transformation altered the trade. The slave trade enriched the kings of such empires as the Kongo, but it did so at a massive cost. It led to endemic warfare in the region, as Europeans sought captives to enslave. It later led to major social stresses, as village life was often disrupted by slave gangs who kidnapped young people for sale. Over time, European powers sought to conduct the trade on their terms, building large fortresses that served as the centers of slave trade and the ports of departure for millions of unfortunate people. One very significant way that the trade af...

Julio Cortázar employs Magical Realism and Gothic techniques in his short story "House Taken Over": Magical Realism (elements are in italics) --One aspect of the story that might be identified as  "realist description"  is the portrait of the house in which the narrator and his sister dwell—it has been owned by generations before them and the siblings love it because it holds memories of ancestors and "the whole of childhood." --Another aspect of Magical Realism is that time is "both history and the timeless" with the historic ancestral home and the occupancy of the siblings, who have both lost their opportunities to marry. They then seal themselves from time with their reclusive routine of cleaning the house and spending the rest of the day occupied with favorite pastimes of knitting and reading. --The reader is torn between two concepts of reality . Apparently, there is a supernatural force that enters the house, but the brother, who narrates,...

Throughout Part Two: "The Sieve and the Sand," Bradbury provides a social commentary on the dystopian society through Montag's conversation with Faber and his experience with Mildred's friends. When Montag allows Faber to look through the Bible, Faber mentions that it is a shame how advertisers and the media have commercialized religion. Montag then begins to explain his unhappiness and Faber mentions that Montag is in search of some of the things that books provide. Faber goes on to explain how the populace desires comfort and does not wish to critique themselves. The majority of citizens have no desire to reflect on their behavior. He says, "The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless" (Bradbury 79). Faber also mentions how the society neglects individuality. Society does not value intellectual thought and is content listening to their parlor walls and Seashell radios. Faber also comments on how the citizens do not h...

In Chapter 8, Simon is in the presence of the Lord of the Flies. He tries not to look at the disgusting image of the severed pig's head on top of a stick, but cannot help himself. When Simon looks at the hog's white teeth, dim eyes, and the blood dripping from the head, Golding writes, " his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition " (138). The "ancient, inescapable recognition" Golding references is essentially man's understanding of the presence of evil in this world. Unlike the other boys on the island, only Simon has the insight to realize that the "beast" is actually the inherent wickedness present in each individual. The Lord of the Flies symbolically represents Satan, the manifestation of evil, and when Simon looks into its face, he understands that the boys are inherently evil. Golding refers to Simon's understanding as "ancient" because the belief in some form of ultimate evil has been around since recorde...

Without knowing your thesis, this is a tricky question to answer. I would say, though, that the best concluding paragraphs answer the larger "so what" kind of questions; they connect what you have been saying in your body paragraphs to the larger world. You seem to be on the same page with this when you say you are looking for a lesson that you can globalize.  My suggestion would be to explore some of the prominent themes of the novel and find one that matches the points you are trying to make in your essay. If you are doing the essay on archetypal characters, it seems you're looking at how many dystopian books deal with similar sets of problems and similar characters working through those problems. Consider why we tell the same basic story again and again in this way. How does the dystopian genre capture our fears about the modern world and its problems? Then carry that knowledge over the themes of the book, as these give readers insight into the nature of these problems...

In The Cherry Orchard , there are several characters that represent the past. One of the characters is the mother, Lyubov Ranevskaya. Although her life is falling apart and she is losing her beloved cherry orchard, she refuses to accept reality, believing that everything will remain the same as it was in her past. One scene that is a very good example of this is in Act I, when she is looking out at the orchard and she says, “Oh my childhood! My purity! This was the nursery I slept in, those were the windows through which I gazed out at the orchard, each morning happiness woke with me, and the orchard was exactly the same back then, nothing has changed” (Act I). The audience knows that everything has changed. Ranevskaya herself ran away from her family to escape reality. She lost a son. The family is in a dire financial crisis. Things are not at all the same. Ghayev also represents the past. He is also ignoring the financial situation of the family, acknowledging only vaguely that he sh...

The title “Father Returning Home” by Dilip Chitre is appropriate both literally and metaphorically. In the poem, an elderly man, with his “unseeing eyes,” arrives home by way of the commuter train. The poet describes the evening as the train travels away from the city to the hometowns of its passengers. The man carries a well-worn bag, which contains his life’s work, and wears dirty clothing and muddy shoes. He hurries home but it is evident that he is no longer relevant to his children; they do not interact with him. A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists. His sullen children have often refused to share He goes to his slumber listening to the static of the radio thinking about the future, his grandchildren, and his past, his ancestors and their “nomadic wanderings.” Metaphorically, the Father, his mind gone feeble, is returning to his past, his home. He is a man in the twilight of his life. There is a duality to the meaning of the poem’s words. He will now go to sleep...