The House in Faulkner’s Story “A Rose for Emily”

The House in Faulkner’s Short Story “A Rose for Emily.” “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, [1870s] set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had…

Something Wicked This Way Comes Chapter 2 and Autumn: Seasons of Life

For this post, I’ll be quoting from the following edition of Ray Bradbury’s masterful novel Something Wicked This Way Comes: Bradbury, Ray. Something Wicked This Way Comes. Large Print edition, Center Point Publishing, 2000. The page numbers will be different if you are reading from another edition of the book. Something Wicked This Way Comes…

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

In my opinion, EVERY writer should read Ray Bradbury and Mark Twain. Those two guys seem to have born few resemblances. They lived in different periods of time and they wrote differently, but these two guys were alike in that they are masters of words, and if a writer is not a master of words,…

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

Back History Before You Read the Story The Veldt by Ray Bradbury.  Bradbury will mention Rima in the story The Veldt. I had to do some research to understand who she was, Rima was an idealized girl of the jungle in GREEN MANSIONS: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by W. H. Hudson, published in…

Jacki Kellum Looks at the Book Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Many of us write, but few of us create literature. Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting is literature. She had created literature before Chapter 1 of the book, Within a few words, Babbitt writes volumes–in the Prologue. Within a few words, Tuck Everlasting had become more than a mere spattering of words. Natalie Babbitt said the following…

A Fence by Carl Sandburg

A Fence Carl Sandburg Now the stone house on the lake front is finished and the workmen are beginning the fence. The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that can stab the life out of any man who falls on them. As a fence, it is a masterpiece, and will shut off…

Circles as Symbols and Themes in Literature

“…the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.” ― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca “Circles are not just geometrical symbols but are also what makes life possible. The sun is a circle, and…

Symbols in Literature – Symbolism

What Is A Symbol in Literature? In literature, a symbol occurs when one word in writing suggests an understanding of something different. Although it is not a powerful symbol, a heart might symbolize love–in terms of visual symbolism. Symbols are important in literature. The night or darkness can be a symbol in literature. Daytime or…