College

House of Mirth

In The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton uses weather in a variety of ways that provide symbolic significance along with a vivid setting. Wharton uses weather, climate, and the change of seasons to foreshadow events in the immediate future and to...

11th Grade

When the Killing's Done

In the contemporary novel When The Killing’s Done by T.C. Boyle, the secondary character Anise is an animal-loving singer who is dating the leader of an unethical organization called FPA, Dave LaJoy, she often helps his organization and...

12th Grade

Interpreter of Maladies

Time and time again, humans make a habit of imagining their lives as more glorious than they are. Author Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories about misconception. She exploits the universal yearning for...

11th Grade

Mister Pip

The conflict between Papua New Guinea and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army between 1988 and 1998 has been described as the largest conflict in Oceania since the end of World War II. The novel Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones examines the impacts of...

10th Grade

1776

“We can either emphasize those aspects of our traditions, religious or secular, that speak of hatred, exclusion, and suspicion or work with those that stress the interdependence and equality of all human beings. The choice is yours.” Karen...

College

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, author J. R. R. Tolkien creates a relationship between Frodo and Sam that people struggle to define in modern parlance because of its depth and complexity. Neither lovers nor merely friends, the essence of Frodo...