To her mother (An-mei), Rose reveals that her marriage is falling apart. Paralyzed with grief and indecision, Rose can do nothing but weep. An-mei understands that by refusing to do something decisive about this problem, Rose is, in effect, choosing to do nothing. She knows that her daughter must make […]
Read more Summary and Analysis An-mei Hsu: MagpiesSummary and Analysis Sonnet 17
Summary In the earlier sonnets, the poet’s main concern was to persuade the youth to marry and reproduce his beauty in the creation of a child. That purpose changes here in Sonnet 17, in which the poet fears that his praise will be remembered merely as a “poet’s rage” that […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 17Character Analysis Margot Macomber
Macomber’s beautiful wife, whom he married because of her beauty, secretly despises Macomber because she knows that he married her for one reason only: She is his “trophy wife.” She despises herself because she knows that she married him for one reason only: He is very rich. He will never […]
Read more Character Analysis Margot MacomberSummary and Analysis Part IV: Queen Mother of the Western Skies
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 Adams