Category: Book Review
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Masculine Insecurity in Dagoberto Gilb’s “Shout”
In “Shout,” Dagoberto Gilb focuses his story on the emotions and headspace of his protagonist, a manual laborer returning home from a hard day’s work. While he looks to escape the toil of his labor, this laborer realizes that his home life does not provide the relief he desperately seeks. At home, the protagonist faces…
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A Journey and Overcoming in The Memoir of Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward’s autobiography, Men We Reaped, tells of Ward’s life as it relates to five men that she knew, all of whom died atrociously and unfairly. Throughout her memoir, Ward uses several methods to differentiate herself from her community. While many of the characters in the autobiography are devastated by the effects of drugs, Ward…
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Review of Toni Morrison’s Novel “Mercy”
Toni Morrison’s novel Mercy takes place in the late seventeeth century, and is included as being “a slave novel”. the story is told in a very mainly way all through the first-person of the main character Florens; which is black, and one of the two servants along with Lina, who is Native American. Some of…
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Perspective Complicating Human Interaction in Zeitoun and The Laramie Project
Each person has a unique worldview, which is largely shaped by one’s environment, knowledge, beliefs, and more. Those who identify similarly are largely grouped with others who may have the same background. Both Moisés Kaufman’s The Laramie Project and David Egger’s Zeitoun explore the relationship between majority groups and minority groups: In Zeitoun’s case, a…
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The Role of Charlotte’s Ghost in Charlotte Temple
In Susanna Rowson’s novel Charlotte Temple, the main character dies; this spoiler is given immediately at the beginning of the book, leaving no question as to whether Charlotte Temple will thrive on to live a happy life. With a (rather horrific) death undoubtedly present in the story, the potential arises for post-life encounters…especially ones with…
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Necessity and Morality in Defoe’s Moll Flanders
Much of the critical debate surrounding Daniel Defoe’s novel Moll Flanders centers around whether the author makes good on the promise he makes in the preface that the story will be morally instructive. For instance, Ira Konigsberg writes that “One of the book’s contradictions that Defoe never resolves is in the conflicting arguments for necessity…
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Social and Cultural Constraints in Midaq Alley
The seventy-year-old who narrates her own life story considers herself a reformed criminal. But to what degree should her perceived transgressions cause her to actually be understood as such? After all, Defoe’s novel makes it clear that a number of different factors ultimately contributed to the courses of action that his heroine came to regret…
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Barth’s Perseus: from The Young Destroyer to The New Medusa’d Man
In The Perseid, the second novella from the novel Chimera, Barth intertwines gender roles in his postmodern portrayal of the myth of Perseus. The Perseid, akin to much ancient , is unabashedly male-centered as the eponymous narrator and his insufferable conceit render women to be no more than mere opportunities towards his ultimate goal: rejuvenation.…
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A Catholic’s Perspective of ‘Mountains Beyond Mountains’
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder chronicles the humanitarian work of Doctor Paul Farmer. Throughout, Farmer shows exemplary respect for the dignity of people and the basic rights that all humans deserve. In a consumerist society in which people obsess over material possessions, Paul Farmer diverges from the norm by embracing a simple life focused…
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Book Review of We All Fall Down by Robert Cormie
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier is a complicated book. It takes place in Wickburge and Burnside Massachusetts, some time in the 80 s or 90 s. It is narrated by three different people in first person. One of those people is Jane Jerome, she is a 15 year-old girl who lives in a…