As she plays with her granddaughter, an old woman wonders what she will teach the child. The old woman recalls that she too was once free and innocent, laughing for sheer pleasure. Later, she threw away her innocence to protect herself. She taught her daughter to do the same. She […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part IV: Queen Mother of the Western SkiesSummary and Analysis Sonnet 16
Summary Sonnet 16 continues the arguments for the youth to marry and at the same time now disparages the poet’s own poetic labors, for the poet concedes that children will ensure the young man immortality more surely than will his verses because neither verse nor painting can provide a true […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 16Summary and Analysis Jing-mei Woo: Best Quality
After a Chinese New Year’s dinner, Jing-mei’s mother gave her a jade pendant which she said was her “life’s importance.” At first, Jing-mei did not like the pendant; it seemed too big and ornate. After her mother’s death, however, the pendant will begin to assume great importance to her — […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Jing-mei Woo: Best QualityCharacter Analysis Francis Macomber
Macomber is thirty-five years old, very tall and well built, at the apex of his manhood — fit and good at court games (by “court games,” Hemingway is referring to tennis or squash, games in which there are rules and perimeters for the game). Now, however, the very wealthy and […]
Read more Character Analysis Francis MacomberSummary and Analysis Sonnet 15
Summary In Sonnet 15’s first eight lines, the poet surveys how objects mutate — decay — over time: “. . . every thing that grows / Holds in perfection but a little moment.” In other words, life is transitory and ever-changing. Even the youth’s beauty will fade over time, but […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 15Summary and Analysis Rose Hsu Jordan: Without Wood
As a child, Rose believed everything that her mother told her. A timid youngster, she resisted sleep, fearing nightmares. Her mother told her that Old Mr. Chou guarded the door to dreams. One night, she dreamed that she was in Old Mr. Chou’s nighttime garden, where he chased her through […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Rose Hsu Jordan: Without WoodCharacter Analysis Nick Adams
Nick Adams is the name that Hemingway gave to the fictional persona, largely autobiographical, whom he often wrote about. Like Hemingway himself, Nick is the son of a doctor (“The Indian Camp”; “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife”); he relishes fishing and hunting in the northern peninsula of Michigan (“Big […]
Read more Character Analysis Nick AdamsSummary and Analysis Sonnet 14
Summary Sonnet 13 depends on an intimate relationship between the poet and the young man that is symbolized in the use of the more affectionate “you”; Sonnet 14 discards — at least temporarily — this intimate “you” and focuses on the poet’s own stake in the relationship between the two […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 14Summary and Analysis The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Summary Harry, a writer, and his wife, Helen, are stranded while on safari in Africa. A bearing burned out on their truck, and Harry is talking about the gangrene that has infected his leg when he did not apply iodine after he scratched it. As they wait for a rescue […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Snows of KilimanjaroSummary and Analysis Waverly Jong: Four Directions
Waverly Jong takes her mother out to lunch, planning to break the news that she and Rich Schields are getting married. The lunch goes badly, however, and Waverly does not tell her mother about the upcoming marriage. Waverly is afraid of her mother’s disappointment and censure. When Waverly’s friend Marlene […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Waverly Jong: Four Directions