Beaming Notes
Your Guide to Literature
Terry Tempest Williams is the author of the book “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place,” which contains this biographical essay. Williams uses the theme of nature and people being linked together throughout her writing. In “Clan of One-Breasted Women,” she uses her statistics and facts and details from her own family history of… Continue reading Analysis of “Clan of One-Breasted Women” by Terry Tempest Williams: 2022
The poem was written on October 27, 1962, shortly before her death. It was published posthumously in the eponymous collection in 1965. The title is perhaps based on the horse which Plath used for her morning riding. It has been understood after the testimony of Ted Hughes, as a reaction to her falling off and… Continue reading “Ariel” Summary and Analysis by Sylvia Plath: 2022
The poem was first published in the anthology with the namesake in 1960. It contained another forty four poems. The title makes us remember the famous lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “ . . . why , man, he doth bestride this narrow world/ like a colossus.” (I, ii, 135-36.) The reference could be made… Continue reading “Colossus” Summary and Analysis by Sylvia Plath: 2022
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer is a robust, playful satire written in the 14th century. This humorous story picks out the bawdy and inappropriate behavior of the time-period and uses a story inside a story inside a story to poke at the hypocrisy inherent in topics that might… Continue reading Analysis of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” by Geoffrey Chaucer: 2022
She rose to His Requirement by Emily Dickinson is a poem with powerful elements of feminism and reflects the poet’s views on a patriarchal society. Note that this poem was written in the 1800s when most women in American society, and to be fair, many other societies across the world, were defined by their roles… Continue reading She Rose to His Requirement: Summary and Analysis: 2022
“Ile,” a story written by Eugene O’Neill in 1817, is a play set in one act about Captain David Keeney, a man obsessed with finding oil, and his wife, who joins him on his ship for what ends up being a two-year voyage in the middle of the ocean that tests the limits of everyone… Continue reading Ile: Analysis: 2023
‘Death is the supple Suitor’ by Emily Dickinson is a poem on the inevitability of death. The poet imagines death first as a suitor and then as a groom, who woos every living being and finally wins them over.The poem consists of twelve lines. It follows an ABCB rhyme scheme. Dickinson has personified Death as… Continue reading Summary and Analysis of Death is the Supple Suitor by Emily Dickinson: 2022
No Man can Compass a Despair is a poem by Emily Dickinson which discusses the nature of despair. It compares a man trying to understand despair to a traveler trying to cover a goalless circular road. A line by line summary is provided followed by an analysis of the poem. Line By Line Summary The poet… Continue reading Summary and Analysis of No Man can Compass a Despair: 2022
The poem “My Father’s Sadness” by Shirley Geok-lin Lim is a very short poem packed full of figurative meaning. The author uses the culture and upbringing of a man, whom she places in the form of her father, to create a character who is so laden with the responsibilities of life that he is dying,… Continue reading Analysis of My Father’s Sadness by Shirley Geok-lin Lim: 2022
“Marita’s Bargain” is an excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers: The Story of Success.” The book, and by extension the excerpt, examines success and why some people achieve it and others do not. In this section, Gladwell focuses on the KIPP Academy, a school in the South Bronx that overcomes the adversity inherent in the… Continue reading Analysis of “Marita’s Bargain,” an Essay by Malcolm Gladwell: 2022
