Jing-mei is on a train to China, traveling with her seventy-two-year-old father, Canning Woo. As the train enters Shenzhen, China, Jing-mei begins to “feel Chinese.” Their first stop will be Guangzhou. Like her father, Jing-mei is weeping for joy. After her mother’s death, a letter arrived from China from her […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Jing-Mei Woo: A Pair of TicketsCritical Essay Hemingway’s Writing Style
A great deal has been written about Hemingway’s distinctive style. In fact, the two great stylists of twentieth-century American literature are William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, and the styles of the two writers are so vastly different that there can be no comparison. For example, their styles have become so […]
Read more Critical Essay Hemingway’s Writing StyleSummary and Analysis Sonnet 20
Summary In this crucial, sensual sonnet, the young man becomes the “master-mistress” of the poet’s passion. The young man’s double nature and character, however, present a problem of description: Although to the poet he possesses a woman’s gentleness and charm, the youth bears the genitalia (“one thing”) of a man, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 20Summary and Analysis Lindo Jong: Double Face
Waverly wants to go to China for her honeymoon but is afraid that she will blend in so well that she will not be allowed to return to America. Her mother reassures her that there is no chance that she will be mistaken for a Chinese citizen. Waverly is American. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Lindo Jong: Double FaceErnest Hemingway Biography
Ernest Hemingway’s colorful life as a war correspondent, big game hunter, angler, writer, and world celebrity, as well as winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in literature, began in quiet Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899. When Ernest, the first son and second child born to Dr. Ed and […]
Read more Ernest Hemingway BiographySummary and Analysis Sonnet 19
Summary In Sonnet 19, the poet addresses Time and, using vivid animal imagery, comments on Time’s normal effects on nature. The poet then commands Time not to age the young man and ends by boldly asserting that the poet’s own creative talent will make the youth permanently young and beautiful. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 19Summary and Analysis Ying-ying St. Clair: Waiting Between the Trees
Lena St. Clair has put her mother in the guest bedroom, the smallest room in the house. Mrs. St. Clair is upset because her daughter does not understand that the guest bedroom should be the best one in the house. To Mrs. St. Clair, her daughter’s house looks as though […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Ying-ying St. Clair: Waiting Between the TreesCharacter Analysis Helen
Harry’s wife seems almost saint-like, especially when compared with her dying husband. She does everything she can to make his illness more comfortable. She is genuinely concerned with his failing strength and tries to give him hope and courage.
Read more Character Analysis HelenSummary and Analysis Sonnet 18
Summary One of the best known of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 18 is memorable for the skillful and varied presentation of subject matter, in which the poet’s feelings reach a level of rapture unseen in the previous sonnets. The poet here abandons his quest for the youth to have a child, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 18Character Analysis Harry
Hemingway does not tell us Harry’s last name; we know only that he is a writer and that he and his wife, Helen, are on a safari in East Africa. Their truck has malfunctioned, and, while trying to fix it, Harry scratched himself and neglected applying iodine to the scratch. […]
Read more Character Analysis Harry