Study Notes

American Literature   The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  Mark Twain About the author Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was born in 1835 in Missouri. During his boyhood, he had all the advantages and disadvantages of growing up in a country environment, and grew up in tune with the life around him. Upon his father’s death , he became a printer’s apprentice, but could not earn much, and decided to become a river pilot. After piloting steamers for about four years, he went back to the printing trade. He wrote short pieces for the newspapers he worked on, and met many writers during the course of his work. Mark Twain was a talented writer, speaker and humorist whose own personality shined through his work. As his writing grew in popularity, he became a public figure and iconic American whose work represents some of the best in the genre of realism.   His "The Innocents Abroad " brought him success and he married Olivia Langdon, from a socially prominent New York fam...

  American Literature The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allan Poe Summary  " The Cask of Amontillado " has often been considered to be one of the world's most perfect short stories. The narrator, Montresor, opens the story by stating that  Fortunato had hurt him a thousand times and he had suffered quietly but what made him seek revenge was when he ventured upon insult. He wants to exact this revenge, with greatest care so that he may not suffer as a result. It must be a perfect revenge, one in which Fortunato will know fully what is happening to him and in which Montresor will be forever undetected.  He knew that the greatest weakness of Fortunato was drinking good wine and also he was a trained judge of them.Even Montresor knew old wines well and he bought the best he could find. One evening  about dusk,  during the supreme madness of carnival season,  Montresor encounters his friend Fortunato.  Fortunato  was wearing the multi  coloured ...

American Literature The Native American Oral tradition The Native American literature begins with the oral traditions in the hundreds of indigenous   culture of North America and finds its fullness in all aspects of  written literature as well.The native American oral literature is known for its rich oral tradition.It is primarily studied for its ethnographic interest.The Native American literature also called Indian literature or American Indian literature is the traditional oral and written literature of the indigenous people of America.It includes ancient hieroglyphic and pictograph writings of middle America and also an extensive set of folktales,myths and oral histories that were transmitted for centuries by story tellers.   The collective knowledge that has been passed down orally from generation to generation is an invaluable piece of preserving tribes’ history, culture, beliefs and sense of identity .  It  preserves the cultural legacy and tradition...

American Literature The cask of Amontillado-Edgar Allan Poe The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn-Mark Twain The Five Boons of Life Mark Twain Summary In the story "  The five boons of life" by Mark Twain a fairy comes to a young man and offers him with a gift basket with five gifts which were Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure and Death .She asks him to take one from it and warns him to, choose wisely, for only one of them was valuable. The youth even without thinking chose pleasure. He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth delights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and empty.So in the end he said that  he had wasted all those years and if he could choose again, he would choose wisely. The fairy appeared again, and asks him to choose once more from the remaining four and warns him that time was flying, and only one of them was precious.The man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the ...