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Articles from Paul Thompson | Selfgrowth.com
- This little Piggy: Taking a Look at the Meaning of Pigs in Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies Quotes - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonPigs get a bad rap some times. They’re passed off as gluttonous, greedy animals, covered in filth and sometimes their own feces. For humans, being called a pig or a hog is something rude and degrading, intended to make one feel ashamed or inferior.That’s how we generally view pigs: a dirty, ...
Views: 895 - Quotes from Macbeth and a Look at Hamlet in Exploring Gender Roles - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWhat does it mean to be a man or a woman in today’s society? None of us can fit into a neat, tiny, little, stereotypical box based on anything, including our gender. How do we define gender and how are these roles presented in literature? Often, many of our favorite characters defy gender ...
Views: 1839 - Putting a human face to tragic history in The Diary of Anne Frank and To Kill A Mockingbird - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonPerspective is everything. Oftentimes, it makes the book what it is. Consider The Diary of Anne Frank. The Diary of Anne Frank is often considered a literary exemplar that stands for the atrocities during the Holocaust. It is taught in high school classes and served up as examples on CAHSEE, ...
Views: 736 - Persistent Characters in the Old Man and the Sea Could Take On Zeus or AP Macroeconomics - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonPersistent, passionate characters make good stories. We love passionate characters that fight tooth and nail for what they want. Those characters that believe they would take on Thor to get their prize are the ones we return to again and again. Great Gatsby is a clear example of this; Jay ...
Views: 1042 - Mythology, Zeus, the Raven, and the Future of the Written Word - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonTechnology seems to be advancing faster than we can keep up with it in these modern times. With bookstores closing and kindles and ipads flying off the shelves, we have to wonder how it will change the world of print. It is certainly affecting the way books are read. Will this technology impact ...
Views: 1480 - Great Gatsby setting as a Prequel to the Great Depression - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonF.Scott Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby can be considered as a sort of prequel to the Great Depression. Its tale of social-climbing Midwesterners, illicit money making activities, lavish parties and economic class distinctions makes the novel appear as a critical study of the wealth and excess ...
Views: 1536 - Gender-Bending in Twelfth Night and To Kill a Mockingbird - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonMuch stress there is a difference between gender and sex. And there certainly is. Sex is essentially biology, the male and female manifestations or to put it more plainly, the physical parts that come with being male or female. Gender, on the other hand, are the social norms, roles and ideals ...
Views: 1750 - Finding Utopia in Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies (Like Acing your AP Calculus Exam without Knowing Addition) - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonSince the beginning of time human beings have imagined living in a utopia. It seems simple enough. In a perfect world everyone would live together in harmony, help each other out, there would be no war, no hunger, and no hate. It sounds pretty simple on the surface. Writers William Golding and ...
Views: 1353 - Depictions of Racism in To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Social Psychology of Prejudice - by Submitted on Nov 17, 2011 from Paul ThompsonRight around the age of 10, there is a marked shift in a child's perspective. The world is no longer simply a wonderland of curiosities, but a popularity contest. Girls begin to wear makeup and form cliques, and boys become showmen, proving themselves with their fists. Think of Mean Girls or ...
Views: 2788 - Life is Not Futile if You Are Not Macbeth: You Have More Than One Chance on the SAT - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2011 from Paul ThompsonAlthough Macbeth is not exactly an idol for the ages, given that he committed murder in a crazed pursuit of power, he certainly does have some notable words to impart through the illustrious voice of Shakespeare. Catch this monologue:To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty ...
Views: 1178 - From Adulteress to Bombshell: The Continuing Relevance of The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2011 from Paul ThompsonIt bears repeating that history repeats itself. Although Arthur Miller's The Crucible is about the Salem Witch Trials in 17th century New England, it is also a biting satire of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Just as colonists tried to save their own skin by accusing community members of witchcraft, ...
Views: 704 - Considering honesty in literature in Diary of Anne Frank (Written during World War II) and To Kill a Mockingbird - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWriters like to talk about “honesty” and “truth.” They aim to tell an “honest” tale, reveal “honesty” in characters, or get the “truth” of a story on the page. What does it mean? In a fictional novel, the truth authors seek is a sincere understanding of the world and the characters they have ...
Views: 906 - Classics like Romeo and Juliet Adapted for the Screen and the new Great Gatsby Movie and its Setting - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2011 from Paul ThompsonChose a classic and chances are it has been adapted into a movie or television show. Some of the adaptations may be exactly as the original version was and others may take liberties, but it seems as though a classic untouched by Hollywood is about as common as a movie version of the SAT. Why are ...
Views: 782 - Twelfth Night: Dude Looks Like a Lady - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonTo this day, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night remains one of his most widely read, performed and adored comedies. Wonder if it has something to do with the cross-dressing.Seriously. There is a lot of cross-dressing in this one. Yes, true, it’s only one character who does the dressing up, but it’s a ...
Views: 866 - To Kill a Mockingbird: The Effect of Racist Influences on the Young - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonAmerica has a long history of racism. Unless you’ve spent your entire life with your head under a watermelon, you should be well aware of the negative stereotypes that African Americans have long had to endure, and the discrimination with which they continue to be faced. Believe it or not, there ...
Views: 2776 - There’s Something Rotten in the State of Denmark... and It Isn’t the Eggs in Our Hamlet - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonThere’s a major problem with trust between the characters in William Shakespeare’s most famous play - Hamlet. How can you blame them? They’re not the most upright, honorable bunch. In fact, they make Dexter look like a sweetheart.A couple of these Hamlet quotes pretty much say it all in a ...
Views: 981 - The Great Depression - What’s So Great About It? - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonThe Great Depression was an undeniably awful period of time in our nation’s history. The word ‘great’ is really just used here to signify the large extent to which the dire economic situation affected the American population in the 1920s. However, when we examine it more closely, perhaps the ...
Views: 931 - The Frailty of Dreams in Of Mice and Men - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonYou’re still young, so we’re sure you still have plenty of dreams. That’s not to say that we, your elders (hey - some of us are barely thirty!) have lost the ability to dream or no longer have any good ones. It’s just that, after you’ve lived a number of years out there in the real world, you’re ...
Views: 1021 - The Allure of Wealth in The Great Gatsby - by Submitted on Oct 21, 2011 from Paul ThompsonThe vast majority of popular literature has long revolved around the lives of the rich and powerful. Until recently (the last couple of centuries or so), it was almost exclusively just that. Books and plays about kings and queens, princes and princesses, knights, wizards, famous warriors and a ...
Views: 1666 - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: A Classic That’s Just Plain Fun - by Submitted on Oct 21, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWe here at Shmoop know that reading the classics isn’t always easy work. There’s a reason that they’re considered classics in the first place - they are multi-layered and intelligently written (suck on that, John Grisham), and generally require quite a bit of in-depth scrutiny and analysis in ...
Views: 801 - Kurtz and his Heart of Darkness - by Submitted on Oct 21, 2011 from Paul ThompsonIn Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad presents us with two men who are, more or less, polar opposites. Charlie Marlow is a compassionate, humane man with a stockpile of integrity, and he is a lover and pursuer of truth and justice. Mr. Kurtz, on the other hand, is a bit of a &$%!@#.Both men are ...
Views: 651 - Have Great Expectations and You Will Not Be Disappointed - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWe’re sure you’re familiar with the concept of a Hollywood ending. If you’d care for a few examples: the guy finally gets the girl, the bad guy gets caught and locked up, good triumphs over evil, you get a perfect score on your SAT. You know - the stuff dreams are made of.Nearly every Hollywood ...
Views: 728 - Great Gatsby, Not Such a Great Tipper - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonFirst of all, if you the reader happen to be one of the truly disgustingly wealthy that are the subject of this article, then it is probably not for you. We’re likely to do a lot of whining and complaining about how unfair it all is that we have to take the bus to work and you get to travel to ...
Views: 815 - Editing Huckleberry Finn and Removing the French and Indian War from AP US History - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, has been critically acclaimed and the subject of much controversy since its publication in 1885. It’s not surprising that Twain’s fearless exploration of racism through the relationship between thirteen-year-old Huckleberry Finn, and ...
Views: 760 - Brave New World Gives Sleep-Teaching a Bad Name - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonYou may have experienced a phenomenon known as ‘sleep-teaching’ in some of your classes. In your case, however, this probably involved your forehead drooping and gradually coming to rest against your desk as your teacher droned on and on from the front of the classroom about the importance of ...
Views: 836 - Animal Farm Makes Politics Seem Almost Interesting - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonSorry to interrupt - we’re sure you’re probably in the middle of watching an old VHS (VH-what now?) tape of the 1988 Vice Presidential debate. Or perhaps you’re simply catching up on all those saved DVR recordings of C-Span programming. All right, so maybe it’s more likely that you’re ramming ...
Views: 658 - ‘Fear Itself’ in The Diary of Anne Frank - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2011 from Paul ThompsonHundreds of fantastic novels, essays and other writings have been penned about Nazi Germany. Gruesome, shocking portrayals of what went on in the concentration camps, how many lives were lost, the aftermath and prospect of dealing with indescribable grief that followed. But The Diary of Anne ...
Views: 1193 - Endurance as a virtue in The Scarlett Letter, Antigone and To Kill a Mockingbird quotes - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonEndurance is a virtue that we, as a Westernized society, place a great deal of worth in. To withstand intense pain, strife or just plain unpleasantness—or even muster up the strength to resist an endlessly tempting pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby—is to be respected, appreciated and at times, ...
Views: 1413 - Reading Romeo and Juliet and Romeo Juliet quotes as a story of typical teen and parent tension - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWill Smith was right: sometimes parents just don’t understand. Of course, he said that before he himself was a parent of Karate Kid Jayden and Whip-My-Hair Willow, but we digress. Parental misunderstanding is a common angst-ridden teen’s complaint, but it is a complaint that is well founded. ...
Views: 1821 - How the PSAT is Different from the AP Exams: Study Skills - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonIt might seem like the PSAT is not worth a student's time. It's a test that has the word "preliminary" in front of it. The results of this test have no bearing on whether the test taker gets into college, so why all the fuss?There's one very good reason. Besides providing overachieving high ...
Views: 595 - Manly Men…or not: Comparing Masculine Strength and Weakness in Beowulf and of Mice and Men - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonSocietal gender norms tell us men that are supposed to be strong, virile and masculine. They are not supposed to be weak, indecisive or—god forbid—sensitive.At least that’s what stereotypes and gender binaries tell us. But such norms are human conventions, and humans are of course imperfect ...
Views: 2198 - The Cautionary Tale of Shakespeare’s Macbeth - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWilliam Shakespeare’s Macbeth contains a lotof life lessons. Number one: Don’t listen to stranger bearded women when wandering through a fog. Number two: Never let anyone bully you into doing something you don’t want to, even if it’s your wife. And Number 3? If you want to become king, the ...
Views: 1295 - Movin' On Up: Reading Education as Social Mobility in Great Gatsby Quotes and Jane Eyre - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonPink Floyd was wrong. Very wrong. So wrong in fact that its famous lyric, “We don’t need no education,” is an assault on the ears of anyone who considers themselves to be grammar aficionados.As ironically implied by its error-laden sentence, Pink Floyd was definitely wrong about needing ...
Views: 1279 - The Scheming Tom Sawyer and Hamlet - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonEvery myth has its trickster character. In the Greek tradition, you’ve got Hermes. In Roman mythology, there is Mercurius. In many native American folklore, you have the coyote. And in the American literary tradition? Well, we’ve got Tom Sawyer.Technically, Mark Twain’s famous mischievous but ...
Views: 760 - Is The Great Gatsby the Great American Novel? - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonThe concept of the "Great American Novel" is so pervasive that it has become something of a cliché. Burned out businessman and frustrated housewives and everyone in between has said that they'll take time out to write it, but what if it's already been written? What it it's a book that almost ...
Views: 655 - Party Time: Party Settings in Romeo and Juliet and Great Gatsby quotes - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonAh, parties. Who doesn’t love a good party? You’ve got awesome food, drinks, cool people, loud music and unrestrained hijinks abound. Beyond being an opportunity to go buck wild or to be a social animal, parties also serve a purpose of potential serendipity. What we mean is that the human ...
Views: 1152 - Hamlet and Romeo Have Tea with Holden Caulfield: Inside Fan-Fiction - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonFan fiction has grown in popularity over the last decade. Gone are the days when the audience believed that a character's fate was strictly in the hands of its creator; now they seem to believe that they can decide the future (or at the very least, an alternate reality) of their favorite ...
Views: 809 - Teenage Behavior in Romeo and Juliet, Catcher in the Rye and Selection of Romeo and Juliet Quotes - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonTeens are notorious for being impulsive, hormone-driven and conflicted human beings. Though such a statement smacks of stereotyping, such portrayals have been justified by science—just ask any neuroscientist how the teen brain reacts to a deluge of testosterone or estrogen.Yet, this idea is ...
Views: 2990 - What Does the CAHSEE Miss? - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonAmerican high school students are very familiar with college entrance examinations; they come in all forms. SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement tests are amongst the ones most commonly taken while still in high school, and many colleges and universities frequently require that students complete math ...
Views: 663 - Seniors: Declare "Undeclared" and focus on your AP Calculus Exam - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonChoosing a major is one of the most important decisions a high school senior can make. Close runners-up include: who to take to prom, whether to start the wave at graduation, which ACT prep book to purchase and what to write in people's yearbooks. A person's can major can determine he entire ...
Views: 758 - What Your Favorite American Author Says About You - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Paul ThompsonIn his best-selling novel High Fidelity, Nick Hornby asserts that what a person likes (books, movies, music, etc.) is more important that what a person is like. No need to get to know someone well, observe her in a variety of situations and truly judge her character; no, all anyone needs to do ...
Views: 1172 - The Literary Benefits of Having an Orphan for A Protagonist in Tom Sawyer and Jane Eyre - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonOrphans are a go-to favorite for some authors. Think Harry Potter or Cinderella. Or perhaps Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist, the boy who never could get enough of that slop his caretakers called porridge. Then, there is Dicken’s Great Expectations in which an orphan named Pip who falls in love ...
Views: 1434 - Double Double, Toil and Trouble: Assessing the Supernatural through the Macbeth Summary and Quotes - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonThe supernatural is big these days. The Harry Potter film franchise just wrapped up, Twilight is still on the boy-crazed minds of adolescent girls (and a handful of older woman), while the ever popular True Blood book and TV show series is satisfying the grown-up purveyors of the magical and ...
Views: 1087 - Love Stories from Romeo and Juliet to the Catcher in the Rye - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonIt’s pretty easy to name famous works of literature that center around a love story. Troilus and Criseyde, Romeo and Juliet, not to mention the complete works of Jane Austen. The Bible has Adam and Eve, The Iliad and the Odyssey even have a love triangle, consisting of Menelaus, Helen and ...
Views: 795 - Losing Their Heads: Inner Beasts in Lord of the Flies and Macbeth Summary - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWilliam Golding’s classic Lord of the Flies is probably not the best book to read if you want to feel good about humanity or feel comfortable about babysitting a family of little boys all by yourself on a Friday night. It is also not a good beach read for pig lovers. Instead, it is a blunt ...
Views: 1496 - Monster Madness: Fighting and Facing the Unknown in Beowulf and Lord of the Flies - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonThe word "monsters" usually recalls childhood fears of some ugly thing lurking underneath your bed, just waiting for your feet to dangle over the side so it can pull you under. It makes you remember the time when you were afraid so afraid of the dark that you had to dash quickly out of room ...
Views: 865 - Boys Will Be Boys: Tales of Mischief in Tom Sawyer and Lord of the Flies - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonEveryone loves a good bad boy. Our media-driven society is obsessed with them, those rebels without causes, those paragons of the uber-masculine and virile. Think Charlie Sheen, George Clooney or Russell Crowe. They challenge society with a sly, charismatic smile. We’re drawn to them. In ...
Views: 1190 - Forget Romeo And Juliet: Hamlet’s teen-like angst a better way to reach teenager readers - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonFor high school students, the works of William Shakespeare are not the easiest literature to grasp, much less to get them to care about. The first hurdle, of course, is the language. With all the “LOLs,” “ridics,” and “OMGs” used in a teen’s daily vernacular, Shakespearean verse such as “to be, ...
Views: 3479 - Girl Power: Sourcing the Feminine Strength in To Kill a Mockingbird quotes and Antigone - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWhen it comes to being a girl, To Kill a Mockingbird’s Scout is more spice than sugar. In fact, she is particularly sugar-free. No frilly pink dresses, pretty baby dolls, or sweet make-believe tea parties for her. She is more likely to punch you in the face than smile sweetly at you, especially ...
Views: 1668 - Study Smarter, Not Longer: ACT Prep, PSAT and Practice AP English Literature Exams - by Submitted on Jul 07, 2011 from Paul ThompsonWith all the emphasis that is placed on standardized testing these days, you might think that those tests one might think that they truly measured a person’s intelligence. But it’s impossible to measure a person’s intelligence with just one test, especially one like the SAT. What if a student ...
Views: 643