Study guides - Page 15 | Just Great DataBase

“The Secret Life of Bees” of the authorship of Sue Monk Kidd is a book about a 14-year old girl who lost her mother. It is a story about losses and gains, faith and forgiveness. It is also a story about people who have faced the tough decision of choosing what really matters. Lily Melissa Owens still vaguely remembers the day when her mother died. Her father, T. Ray, treats her badly...

The Secret Sharer is the short story by Joseph Conrad that is considered a true masterpiece of the genre. On its pages the author presents his audience the tension of the adventure novel, the mystic secret of a Gothic novel and the investigation worthy of a detective story. It tells us about the events in the life of a young captain on his ship, who feels not enough confidence to be accepted by...

“The Song of Roland” is the oldest French rhymed text. It is the historical epic poem that depicts the events of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. It is a fascinating text that is a must read for any citizen of the world. Even those who aren’t fond of poetry must read “The Song of Roland”. It is exciting, thrilling, impressive and useful for your general knowledge of...

“The Sound And The Fury” is a major creation of a great American writer William Faulkner. The author has perfected his writing style while compiling the novel, especially the parts that employ the stream of consciousness tool. The book was published in 1929 and it took the novel a couple of years to gain acknowledgment of the critics.  Words. Lots of words, different words, in...

There’s no way to describe Scottish literature better than Robert Stevenson did it in his gothic novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. It is a lengthy story that constitutes the culmination of author’s mastery. We are only left wondering what would be the fate of Stevenson’s talent if the destiny were just a little more kind to this man and his life...

The legendary Albert Camus composed “The Stranger” in 1942. The book is also often referred to as “The Outsider” – in the light of the themes of the novel that are about absurd philosophy, consequences, death, conflict of the soul and human personalities.  The protagonist of the book is named Meursault and he is the one that narrates the story. He is a...

"The Sun Also Rises” was published in 1926 and at that time its author, Ernest Hemingway, received dubious feedback on his creation. Today it is considered to be one of the best novels created by Hemingway and an outstanding representative of modernist literature. The book is centered on a trip of a group of expatriates, one of them is Jake Barnes, who travel to Spain for the festival...

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is a comedy that can be seen as controversial if we apply today’s moral standards to it. It involves things that are now considered forced marriage, abusive relations and domestic psychological violence. We should take into consideration that the severe misogyny was the usual thing in Shakespearean times and a strong-willed woman who...

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a perfect example of Edgar Allan Poe’s beliefs about how the story should be written. It is short, concise, can be finished in one sitting, and relates to many readers. How many times do people feel annoyed by little things? And how many times do you actually do something about it? The novel fascinates readers with its simplicity and intrigues the minds...

The great poet of all times, William Shakespeare, is known not only for his distinctive style, but also for great productivity. Even though this is one of the reasons why some experts still have doubts over the real authorship of his works. “Tempest” is believed to be his last work and might as well be his best. It is also much more organized in style and is believed to signify...

Most of the war stories that have acquired wide attention among the public are about World War I or World War II. Tim O’Brien wrote a popular book about Vietnam War that was published in 1990 and provoked a lively debate, both among political and historical circles.  “The Things They Carried” is a collection of stories about a writer who is also a veteran. During the plot...

“The Three Musketeers” is a historical novel about four names the whole world knows about: d’Artagnan, Athos, Parthos, and Aramis. Alexandre Dumas was exposed to the great political events in French history, which gave him lots of material to base his text on.  One-of-a-kind France, formidable villains, political intrigues, mystique characters – all this and much...

There’s no more popular plot in the science fiction genre than traveling in time. And Herbert George Wells is considered to be the father of time traveling as his works dwell a lot on this topic. “The Time Machine” was published in 1895 and has inspired many films, books, comics, TV series and other works of art that discover the concept of displacing the body forward and...

The Trial is a surrealistic novel by Franz Kafka that tells us the story of a single average man fighting with the incredibly complicated and incomprehensible bureaucracy. The horror of the story is in the fact that each single element like trial, interrogation or searching for a lawyer makes perfect sense, but altogether they look like a nightmare where anyone understands what is happening...

Henry James wrote “The Turn of the Screw” in 1898. James is a well-known author of the world’s classic literature. He is a fine psychologist, very attentive and thorough in his observations of life. He masterfully implements these skills in the process of writing gothic stories. “The Turn of the Screw” is a mystical novel about the ghosts, written in the style of...

Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare is considered one of the best comedies of the Bard, but from the modern point of view this comedy has rather dark undertones. Despite some classical plot turns used in it like cross-dressing and double wedding in the end, Two Gentlemen of Verona takes the theme of love, friendship and betrayal much more serious than most of the comedies by...

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a novel that describes the family life of Czech couple, Tomas and Tereza, where Tomas is obsessed with his work and is an incurable womanizer, who considers flirt, sex and affairs a necessary part of his life, completely disconnected from love. Other characters are his lover and friend Sabina and her own second lover Franz, who loves her sincerely. The author...

The Way of The World by William Congreve is a play that is mostly dedicated to displaying a single vice: lust and infidelity. The play starts from a classical plot: the two young people in love want to marry, but to do so Mirabell must get permission of Millamant’s aunt. Everything seems very clear, especially when we see the character of Lady Wishfort, the aforementioned aunt, seemingly...

The Wild Duck is a play by Henrik Ibsen that is considered the first modern example of tragicomedy. It, as his another play, The Enemy of the People, tells us the story about an idealist, who believes that absolute truth is an absolute good. He comes to the family of his former classmate to reveal the truth to everyone and take all the skeletons out of the closets. He is sincerely surprised...

The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare is one of his several “problem plays”. It starts as a classical tragedy, but ends in a comedic and light-hearted way, despite even this can undo the death of the innocent at the beginning. The main plot turns were borrowed from Robert Greene’s pastoral novel Pandosto. The names of characters and places are changed, but the...