The Secret of Skull Mountain” is the 27th volume of the original ‘The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories’ which were published in 1948 by Grosset & Dunlap. This book was written for the Stratemeyer, Stratemeyer Syndicate was the producer of a number of thriller series for children, which included Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and many others. Edward L. Stratemeyer (1862-1930) is the one who created these mysterious characters for the juvenile fiction for the children, the juvenile genre contains anything that would plead to the teen demographic. Through his Stratemeyer Syndicate, ol' Edward would hire authors to write stories from his outlines. He paid the writers with only a few pennies
On Hitler’s Mountain is a memoir of a child named Irmgard Hunt and her experiences growing up in Nazi Germany. She herself has had many experiences of living during that dark time, she actually met Hitler, had a grandfather who hated Hitler's rule, and had no thoughts or feelings about the Nazi rule until the end of WWII. Her memoir is a reminder of what can happen when an ordinary society chooses a cult of personality over rational thought. What has happened to the German people since then, what are they doing about it today and how do they feel about their past? Several decades later, with most Nazis now dead or in hiding, and despite how much Germany has done to prevent another Nazi rule, everyone is still ashamed of their ancestors’ pasts.
The World Fair of 1933 brought promise of new hope and pride for the representation of Chicago, America. As Daniel Burnham built and protected America’s image through the pristine face of the fair, underlying corruption and social pollution concealed themselves beneath Chicago’s newly artificial perfection. Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City meshes two vastly different stories within 19th century America and creates a symbolic narrative about the maturing of early Chicago.
Mark Danner, an editor for the New York Times magazine, recounts in The Massacre at El Mozote a horrific crime against humanity committed by a branch of the Salvadorian army. He gives multiple points of views and cites numerous eye witnesses to try and piece together something that has been tucked away by the government at the time. In December, of 1981, news reports were leaked to major newspapers in the united states about an atrocity committed and a total massacre of a hamlet in El Salvador, known as El Mozote, or the Thicket. At first, the account was of over a thousand civilians, women men and children with no guerrilla affiliation were massacred. Danner pieces together the testimonies of the survivors, and interviews with officers in the Salvadorian army.
Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" is a lost historical account starting in the late 19th century continuing into the 20th century of the enslavement of an entire country. The book tells the story of King Leopold and his selfish attempt to essentially make Belgium bigger starting with the Congo. This was all done under an elaborate "philanthropic" public relations curtain deceiving many countries along with the United States (the first to sign on in Leopold's claim of the Congo). There were many characters in the book ones that aided in the enslavement of the Congo and others that help bring light to the situation but the most important ones I thought were: King Leopold, a cold calculating, selfish leader, as a child he was crazy about geography and as an adult wasn't satisfied with his small kingdom of Belgium setting his sites on the Congo to expand. Hochschild compares Leopold to a director in a play he even says how brilliant he is in orchestrating the capture of the Congo. Another important character is King Leopold's, as Hochschild puts it, "Stagehand" Henry Morton Stanley. He was a surprisingly cruel person killing many natives of the Congo in his sophomore voyage through the interior of Africa (The first was to find Livingston). Leopold used Stanley to discuss treaties with African leaders granting Leopold control over the Congo. Some of the natives he talked to weren't even in the position to sign the treaties or they didn't know what they were signing.
As a child, Ray Bradbury loved to read fantasy novels. Inspired by his favorite writers, he longed to become a fantasy writer himself. Bradbury lived during the Great Depression with very little money, therefore he could not put himself through school. Instead, Bradbury went to the library every other day for ten years. During this time, he realized that he wanted to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. To get money, Bradbury started publishing his works in a newspaper. Because he wanted practice, he used several pseudonyms to make it look like he had several authors publishing their stories in his newspaper, but in fact, it was written entirely by Bradbury himself. “Bradbury uses [his] stories not only to entertain, but to cause readers to think about their own lives” (Clark, Tracy). He focused more on the message of his story than the popularity of it. “When ask...
Margaret Wise Brown is not the only author that has been able to adjust her writing style to better suite different age levels for children. Another author that could fit into this category would be Ruth Krauss, author of “A Hole is to Dig,” and many more other great children’s books. Both of these authors’ genres could be categorized as simple and defining. For example, Margaret Wise Brown wrote the famous book, “Goodnight Moon” and compared to Ruth Krauss’s book, “A Hole is to dig”, it is easy to see these attributes of writing style.
R.L. Stine is arguably one of the best horror fiction writers of all time. With his use of vivid imagination and lack of real-life experiences, Stine was still able to create works of horror that thrilled audiences after every read. Stine receives criticism on his work daily, with it being negative or positive. Robert is a very diverse writer, with many branches of different genres he writes about. From it being humor, all the way to horror, Stine never seems to fail to captivate his audience on any of his pieces of literature.
The Bell Jar is occupied with several female characters that all represent an assortment of female stereotypes. There are college students who wish to fully experience the city of New York, patients in a mental institution, and psychiatrists who could potentially serve as role models throughout the novel. Esther often finds herself lacking self-confidence due to the fact that she is constantly comparing herself to these individuals. Esther is shown as being stubborn because she rejects the womanhood that is presented to her. Instead, she spends her time worrying about what she thinks it is to be a woman. Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar, diagrams the repressed role women endured due to the restrictions and expectations of societal norms.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy tales and the art of subversion the classical genre for children and the process
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is the most comprehensive and far-reaching analogy in his book, The Republic. This blanket analogy covers many of the other images Plato uses as tools through out The Republic to show why justice is good. The Allegory of the Cave, however, is not the easiest image that Plato uses. First, one must understand this analogy and all of it’s hidden intricacies, then one will be able to apply it to the other images Plato uses such as the Divided Line, or Plato’s Forms.
The one book that started the vampire industry with a boom is the book Dracula written by Bram Stoker. Dracula had the most suspense and dread filled plot along with unique characters. Some characters stood out more than others, especially the foreigner Dr. Van Helsing. Van Helsing is a philosopher and metaphysician with many important roles in this novel. His characters personality, major actions/reactions, themes, and motivations demonstrated made him a useful and significant figure throughout the story.
In The Way To Rainy Mountain, the author N. Scott Momaday makes a clear use of figurative language throughout the story and descriptive language to describe the nature around them, explains their myths about how their tribe came to be a part of nature, as well as the importance in nature that are a part of the Sundance festival and the tai-me.
Lancaster, Ashley Craig. "From Frankenstein's Monster To Lester Ballard: The Evolving Gothic Monster." Midwest Quarterly 49.2 (2008): 132-148. Literary Reference Center. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
The most famous vampire is Dracula, the main character in the book Dracula written by Bram Stoker in 1897. It is said that Stoker was inspired by the Transylvanian Prince VladIII, also known as Vlad Dracula, but other than the name there are not many similarities that prove he was Stoker’s role model. Before Stoker shocked the...
One of the biggest questions that humans have is “what is reality”. Plato suggests that, “ we are born in illusions,” (Plato) and that the truth is initially blinding. “The Myth of the Cave,” is a narrative story about the idea of reality, it is explored though an allegory about a man finding out the truth about reality coming from a life in the dark. They can only learn about true mainly through reason and truth. The story is told as a metaphor for what happens in the natural world and how people can be stuck in the dark about reality. Plato tells the story through the voice of Socrates, his mentor.