Articles about Shmoop is an online study guide for English Literature (0-50 of 56)
Ap English Language And Ap English Literature What's The Difference? By: Paul Thomson | - There are many rites of passage for a senior in high school. Yearbook photos, prom, and graduation number amongst the most common, and exciting, but there are many other in the academic realm that students tend to dread rather than anxiously await. For high-performing, college-bound high school seniors, a major portion of their last year of high school will devoted to preparing for one or more Advanced Placement Exams.
The Teen Voices In Huckleberry Finn, Catcher In The Rye, And The Outsiders By: Paul Thomson | - Teenagers are famous for being the most powerful voice of their g-g-generation. Stuck somewhere between the limitations of childhood and the responsibilities of adulthood, they have a unique perspective from the fringe of society. To remind ourselves of why the angsty rebellion of youth is so important, lets take a look at some of the teen voices of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature.
Youth Violence In The Crucible, The Outsiders, And Lord Of The Flies By: Paul Thomson | - Its a universal truth that a scary story will be roughly ten times more disturbing if its antagonists are children. This is a common motif in supernatural tales (The Turn of the Screw, The Omen, The Shining), but more terrifying still are the stories with nothing paranormal about them.
Take, for example, Arthur Millers play The Crucible. Set in the 1600s, it begins with a harmless childrens dance in the woods and ends with the hangings of around twenty innocent people. ... Tags:the crucible, the outsiders, lord of the flies, literature
An Ap English Literature Refresher: Gender In To Kill A Mockingbird And The Catcher In They Rye By: Paul Thomson | - One of the biggest problems with the books we read in high school is that most of them aren't contemporary - in the chronological sense of the word. We then assume that they aren't relevance in a thematic sense, which takes most of the fun and practically all of the creativity out of how we approach them. With the AP English Literature exam less than a month away, it's high time to start rethinking the old stand-bys. Let's take a look at how Harper Lee and JD Salinger toy with gender identity in ... Tags:AP English literature, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in
The Dark Side Of Living The Good Life, Through Quotes From F. Scott Fitzgerald"s The Great Gatsby By: Paul Thomson | - F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby is a boozy blur of a book, but its not lacking in darker themes. From the stilted and suffocating nature of class relations, to the pain of lost love, the novel traces a picture of modernity and insists that life can be hard, even for a millionaire playboy who throws fabulous parties. (Wait, that doesnt seem right but try to stay with us.) The roaring twenties, as Fitzgerald presents them, are just as ugly as they are glamorous, just as stifli ... Tags:great gatsby, great gatsby quotes, f scott fitzgerald, book,
Brushing Up On Characters And Symbolism In Shakespeare"s Hamlet By: Paul Thomson | - Hamlet, Hamlet symbolism, Hamlet characters, book, analysis, william shakespeare, play,
Shakespeares Hamlet has so thoroughly been woven into Western culture that you probably cant go a week without hearing an allusion to it, whether or not you realize it. To be or not to be, on its own, has been the butt of enough jokes to last a couple of centuries. This is one of Shakespeares tragedies, so its unsurprising that a lot of what people remember has something to do with m ... Tags:Hamlet, Hamlet symbolism, Hamlet characters, book, analysis,
The Comedy Of Hamlet Quotes By: Paul Thomson | - In the competition for Angstiest Dane, Prince Hamlet ranks way up there alongside Kierkegaard in the "off the charts" division, giving "The Tragedy of Hamlet" a reputation for being exhausting and unapproachable. Hamlet spends four of the play's five acts in an ever-deepening existential funk. And rightly so, considering the fact that a) his dad died two months ago, b) his girlfriend won't talk to him, c) his mom has already remarried, d) his new "dad" was once his uncle, meaning mom is bumping ... Tags:hamlet, hamlet quotes, literature, william shakespeare
Mob Vs. Man In Huckleberry Finn And To Kill A Mockingbird By: Paul Thomson | - Huck Finn and Scout Finch are two of American literatures most memorable and endearing narrators. One of the reasons they offer such fresh perspectives on the world is that theyre still at the age where wiping your hands on the tablecloth is a pardonable offense. In other words, their being only partly sivilized not only gives them an outsiders perspective on the community, adulthood, and social convention, but also allows them to critique their findings with a certain level of im ... Tags:Huckleberry Finn, to kill a mockingbird, scout finch, litera
What The Female Catcher In The Rye Characters Tell Us About Holden Caulfield By: Paul Thomson | - The main theme of The Catcher in the Rye is isolation, which is interesting coming from a guy who spills his guts to the world for 200 pages. Nevertheless, the contradiction characterizes Holden Caulfield perfectly; he cant decide whether to call all his buddies together for a round of drinks and chatting or flee to the woods for some Into-the-Wild style escapism.
Physical And Metaphorical Walls In Poetry: "mending Wall" And "the Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock" By: Paul Thomson | - "Good fences makes good neighbors" is an old British proverb that Robert Frost revitalized in his 1914 poem "Mending Wall." According to the narrator's neighbor, personal space is an unavoidable part of getting along, even if the boundary between people is only psychological. What good fences don't make, however, is a whole lot of sense - especially if nature has anything to say about it.
Playing The Game:power Structures In Mathabane's Kaffir Boy And Achebe's No Longer At Ease By: Paul Thomson | - Mark Mathabane's 1986 autobiography, Kaffir Boy, describes his upbringing under South African apartheid and the process by which he escapes to the United States. A bright student, young Mark devours the books his mother's white employer lends him, and through their relationship, he also begins playing tennis which was pretty high on the list of white and upper-crusty sports in those days. Under the guidance of a black player, Mark becomes so skilled that he is invited to play at an all-white ... Tags:Kaffir Boy, No Longer at Ease, literature, things fall apart
Equal Protection, The Us Consitition, And The George Washington Connection By: Paul Thomson | - Whenever laws aren't explicitly stipulated in the American Constitution (and when it comes to constitutional law, nothing is explicit), each state takes advantage of the wiggle room to create and maintain its own legal code. Although this gives states a lot of leeway in areas, precautions are taken to ensure that the laws most directly affecting people have a certain level of standardization. Enter the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Crazy And Inspiring Quotes From Hamlet And To Kill A Mockingbird By: Paul Thomson | - "The Tragedy of Hamlet" is one of those plays that hovers around a thousand on the quotability meter. "To be, or not to be" and the ensuing inner debate on suicide is one of the earliest and most important moments of existentialism in Western literature. Hamlet's soliloquy is so good, in fact, that sometimes one forgets how brilliant the rest of the play is.
In fact, Prince Hamlet is arguably at his best when he's in the room with other people. Never has the description "crazy smart" been ... Tags:Hamlet, to kill a mockingbird quotes, hamlet quotes
Watching Characters Grow Up: The Catcher In The Rye And To Kill A Mockingbird By: Paul Thomson | - For most of us, reading "The Catcher in the Rye" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" sticks out as a highlight of the high school lit experience. This ain't no Charles Dickens; both stories are narrated by young protagonists in everyday speak and are chock full of youthful insights - namely, that adulthood sucks. Holden Caulfield and Scout Finch are two kids looking down the road connecting childhood and adulthood, only from opposite ends of the trip. Both are full of contradictions, both defy the gende ... Tags:characters, to kill a mockingbird, catcher in the rye
Sacrificing Individuality In Steven Crane's Civil War Novel, The Red Badge Of Courage By: Paul Thomson | - When Steven Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage in 1895, he had never even been in a battle, let alone the American Civil War. Nevertheless, it's now considered one of the most accurate portrayals of war in literature - a characteristic that initially ticked a lot of Americans off as being "unpatriotic." Only when British critics praised the novel could Americans forgive Crane's suggestion that war is no picnic in the park.
Things Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe's Snapshot Of Nigerian Colonization By: Paul Thomson | - Chinua Achebe is a multi award-winning Nigerian writer and one of the most important African authors of all time. He is also the most translated which is saying something, considering that he writes in English specifically for the purpose of bridging language barriers. His three most widely read novels form a sort of trio that explores Nigerian history during British colonization. By focusing on traditional Igbo culture, the novels provide a very human backdrop for the immense social changes ... Tags:Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, No Longer At Ease,
Fdr And Mark Twain Quotes, And Why We Love To Quote Them By: Paul Thomson | - Samuel Langhorn Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt don't seem to have especially much in common except for the fact that they are both as American as apple pie "" which, true to form, is actually a British concoction. Both have cool nicknames ("Mark Twain" and "FDR"), both died in the same month (April 21, 1910 and April 12, 1945) and both were members of the Masonic Order. The ball's in your court, Dan Brown.
Boo! A Halloween Summary Of To Kill A Mockingbird By: Paul Thomson | - For many, Halloween is the time to brave the consumer crowds, dress up like our favorite villains and superheroes, and invest in a dental plan. For those of us who are too old (or too sober) to put on a Halloween costume, however, this is the perfect time to curl up by the radiator and indulge in a scary story.
Harper Lee's American classic To Kill a Mockingbird may not be the first thing that springs to mind, but if you strip the story of its youthfully innocent narration and happy summe ... Tags:To Kill a Mockingbird, Arthur Radley (Boo), Atticus Finch,
A Perfect Day For Dissecting J.d. Salinger's Bananafish By: Paul Thomson | - J.D. Salinger's 1951 classic short story, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," introduces Salinger's favorite character, Seymour Glass only to kill him some several pages later. The story starts in a posh seaside hotel room, where we overhear Glass's wife on the phone with her mother discussing Seymour's mental health. From there, we head to the beach, where Seymour is hanging out with a four-ish-year old girl named Sybil and telling her stories about the elusive "bananafish." The story ends with ... Tags:A Perfect Day for Bananafish, The Catcher in the Rye,
Doing The Wrong Thing The Right Way: A Look At The Characters In Macbeth And Hamlet By: Paul Thomson | - "The Tragedy of Macbeth" and "The Tragedy of Hamlet" are Shakespeares most widely read plays featuring royalty as main characters. Both are about the violent overthrow of the throne, both contain plenty of needless casualties, and both are gruesome enough to drive their leading ladies to suicide. (Kudos to Shakespeare for writing these cleverly enough that they werent banned by the English Crown, which was a tad sensitive in those days.) Superficial details aside, however, these two tales ... Tags:Macbeth, Hamlet, characters, character, analysis, main,
Women's Rights And The Unequal Application Of The Equal Protection Clause Of The 14th Amendment By: Paul Thomson | - Americans may find themselves asking how gender equality particularly in the workplace can continue to be a struggle in the country whose constitution has inspired fledgling democracies the world over. Actually, the Constitution doesnt ever guarantee or advocate equality. All that nice stuff about everyone being "created equal" comes from the Declaration of Independence, which, in terms of legal applicability, was little more than an angry breakup letter to the Brits.
Great Gatsby Character Study. Jay Gatsby: The Myth, The Legend, The"'¦ Really Straightforward Gu By: Paul Thomson | - For most readers, The Great Gatsby is a story about mystery, intrigue, and deception. Even those big floating eyes on the book cover have an enigmatic, come-hither dreaminess. Gatsby is a mystifying figure who appears out of nowhere, buys a mansion, and embarks on what appears to be a crusade to get every person in a five-mile radius completely hammered. His inexplicable entrance into an uber posh area of New York City sparks a flurry of questions. Does he have a secret past? Has he assum ... Tags:The Great Gatsby, characters, analysis, main, minor, roles,
A Basic Great Gatsby Summary, And How Nick Ruins It For You By: Paul Thomson | - Although The Great Gatsby is one of Americas most beloved and respected novels, the basic premise of the book is so simple that it could easily make for a bad sitcom: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl marries someone else, boy buys nearby mansion, tells girl he happened to be in the neighborhood. What gives the story its depth and complexity aside from the tricky love pentagram and depressing double-murder/suicide are the elements added by Nick Carraways narration.
Lies, Innuendo And Oneupmanship In Shakespeare's Poetry: Sonnet 130 And The Fair Youth Series By: Paul Thomson | - Shakespeares Sonnet 130 is unique in its unglamorous portrayal of the so-called Dark Lady to whom it is addressed. In it, the narrator offers us a startlingly generous list of differences between the Dark Lady and your stereotypical beauty: she has ugly lips, a bad complexion, frizzy hair, colorless cheeks, smelly breath, an unmelodic voice, and a funky gait.
For The Girls: Performing Gender In To Kill A Mockingbird And Twelfth Night By: Paul Thomson | - For most of us, the long, lazy days of summer conjure up memories of fortbuilding, skinned knees, sleepovers, and an influx of summer bugs befitting a biblical plague. For girls in particular, though, the summers of childhood were a time of liberation from the dresses and demureness that were unduly expected of them in the classroom. Sugar and spice my ass; childhood is about ROMPING.
J. Alfred Prufrock, And The Dilemma Of Teaching 21st Century Students By: Paul Thomson | - Now that the fall semester is gearing up, youre probably cooking up new ways of getting todays students engaged in their studies. And since conducting class via Twitter sounds neither feasible nor appealing, it might be time to look into your other options.
With more and more sites like YouTube, Facebook and StumbleUpon competing for their attention, its tricky getting students interested in the good ol paper-based classics. In terms of sheer stimuli, even ... Tags:The Love Song, J. Alfred Prufrock, literature,
The Columbian Exchange Beginning With Spanish Colonization By: Paul Thomson | - The Europeans so-called discovery of the so-called New World goes down in history as one of the most important and earth-shattering moments in human history, ranking right up there with the advent of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the discovery of the use of fire. Although the Vikings made it to Newfoundland around the year 1000, they apparently decided that Greenland would make for a much better colony and scrammed, leaving the Spanish with all the glory almost five cent ... Tags:Columbian Exchange, Spanish Colonization, American History
The Whosie-whatsit War: How The French And Indian War Shaped Us History By: Paul Thomson | - To call the French and Indian War Americas forgotten war would be misleading, since that doesnt leave any good nicknames for the Barbary Wars, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, or the Korean War. Otherwise, the title fits; the hugely influential French and Indian war, fought between Britain, France, several Native American nations, and the colonials, is responsible for the fact that, among other things, the US is down here and French C ... Tags:Shmoop is an online study guide for English Literature, Poem
The Lesser-known Facts: A Wwii Study Guide To American (non-)involvement By: Paul Thomson | - This July 24th marks the 65th anniversary of the German retreat from Brittany and Normandy just a month and a half after the D-Day invasion of World War II. Heralded as the major turning point on the European front, the Allied invasion of Normandy remains one of the most celebrated military operations in living memory, having helped put an end to what is commonly known in America as the Good War.
Madness, Futility, And Death: A Shakespearean Take On Poe's The Raven"' By: Paul Thomson | - Edgar Allan Poes The Raven is one of the most easily recognizable poems in the world, ranking it right up there with Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit. Written from a first-person perspective, the poem chronicles its narrators rapid descent into madness, paranoia, and the macabre after a strange encounter with a ghoulish raven. His brooding melancholy at the beginning of the narrative has been set off by the loss of a beloved Lenore, whom we are left to presume ... Tags:The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespeare, Hamlet, study guide
Visions Of Dystopia In The Giver And The Lottery"' By: Paul Thomson | - Lois Lowrys The Giver is only one in a huge series of classic dystopian literature. (Think utopia, then think Third Reich.) What makes it stand out from novels like 1984 or Brave New World aside from the iconic grizzled-old-man cover is that you might have memories of reading it already in the fourth or fifth grade; in this sense, you could put The Giver in the same category as Shirley Jacksons The Lottery, a deceptively uncomplicated dystopian short story ... Tags:The Giver, Lois Lowry, The Lottery, Shirley Jackson, book,
Why Shakespeare Breaks Basic Writing Rules In Sonnet 18,"' Hamlet,"' And Romeo And Juliet By: Paul Thomson | - Shakespeare famously opens his Sonnet 18 with the question, Shall I compare thee to a summers day? and then proceeds to do exactly that. Aside from establishing rhythmic continuity and rhyme scheme, this may not seem like the best use of the readers time especially considering that sonnets have such limited real estate to begin with. As we read on, however, we discover that the poem, which pretends to be dedicated to a mysterious thee, actually ends up being ... Tags:Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet,
Transience, Destruction, And Other Pick-me-uppers In Ozymandias"' And The Great Gatsby By: Paul Thomson | - Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, is a poem about the colossal wreck left over from what used to be a fantastic empire. In the middle of a desert were talking sand, sun, and then more sand are the shattered stone legs and head of what probably used to be a pretty impressive statue of Rameses II (or Ozymandias in Greek, which just sounds way cooler). The inscription at the base reads, My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despai ... Tags:The Great Gatsby, Ozymandias, poetry, literature, novel,
Southern Gothic Writing In A Rose For Emily"' And To Kill A Mockingbird By: Paul Thomson | - Southern Gothic is an American subgenre of the Gothic style, which is probably most familiar to you from the Bront sisters of Victorian England. (No, were not talking Hot Topic here.) Like its European progenitor, the Southern Gothic style relies heavily on the supernatural only with less O, Heathcliffe! and more Oh no, racism! (Unlike Gothic novels, Southern Gothic novels are more interested in uncovering social crimes and injustices than being gloomy for gloomy ... Tags:William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily, To Kill a Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby, The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, And The Trouble With Modern Men By: Paul Thomson | - Jay Gatsby and J. Alfred Prufrock are two modern literary protagonists whod probably never be caught dead in the same room together. Although both turn-of-the-century men are in love with utterly unattainable women, their attitudes toward life, the universe, and everything couldnt be more opposite. Gatsby amasses a fortune, buys a mansion, throws lavish parties, and completely reinvents himself, taking the flamboyant peacock approach to wooing his ladyfriend. Prufrock, on the oth ... Tags:the great gatsby, gatsby, literature, american literature,
Art, Gender, And Domination In Middlemarch And My Last Duchess"' By: Paul Thomson | - George Eliots Middlemarch and Robert Brownings My Last Duchess are two Victorian-era works that delve into the world of bad relationships. (In case you were wondering why theyre both so long.) Interestingly, both pieces of literature also rely heavily on descriptions of paintings and sculptures to explore a skewed male-female dynamic. This technique of using one art form to portray a second art form (ex. painting a statue or writing about a photo) is what high-fall ... Tags:George elliot, literature, middlemarch, my last duchess, victorian era, study guide
A Rose For Emily: Memorializing The Anniversary Of William Faulkner's Death By: Paul Thomson | - July 6, 2009 marks the forty-seventh anniversary of William Faulkners death. Although the date of someones demise isnt the kind of thing we typically celebrate (what, no piatas?), we must remember that Faulkners writing relied heavily on themes of death and decay, and that he would never have us flinch in the face of his or anyone elses mortality.
The Fourth Of July: Us History And The Dream Of America By: Paul Thomson | - With the Fourth of July on its way, Americans are beginning to stockpile their reserves of hot dogs, hamburgers, cole-slaw, sodas, and other heart-healthy snacks. This is the time when the whole family often including weird relatives you never even knew you had gathers around the barbecue or the picnic bench, or the tree your cat got stuck in when the neighbor set off a bottle rocket. This is the time to watch your kid sister in the downtown parade, or to go play baseball with you pals, or to ... Tags:july, america, us, history, american dreams, american histor
Summer Literature By: Paul Thomson | - For most teens and tweens, summertime means hitting up the nearest beach, river, public pool, swimhole, or neighbors garden hose, depending on your locale. For some, it means traveling, or finally getting around to that oft-dreamed-of roadtrip. For others, it means bulking up in secret to astonish your friends and dismay your enemies. But for an increasing number of students, it means mandatory summer reading. Long gone are the carefree summer breaks of childhood, which stretched on for ... Tags:Literature, Moby Dick, Twilight, poetry, stephenie-meyer, herman-melville, Study guide, analysis
Shakespeare, Poetry, And The Power Of Art By: Paul Thomson | - Poetry can have an incredibly polarizing effect: people tend to either swear by at or swear at it. What gives? Well, aside from the fact that good poetry can be dauntingly elitist while bad poetry is, as a rule, truly god-awful, art in general is a very powerful medium and poetry is one particularly artsy and inaccessible form of art. In fact, poetry is so powerful that it can be wielded against other people. Not just in the sense of intimidating your classmates with a spiffy beret, or holding ... Tags:poetry, literature, sonnet, william shakespeare, sonnet 18, shakespeare, analysis
Corruption And Power According To Shakespeare, Ibsen, And Metallica By: Paul Thomson | - As Metallica awesomely misquoted from Shakespeare, heavy is the head that wears the crown. Probably because most heads actually willing to wear a crown are a wee bit on the swollen side. And since big head + big crown + huge responsibility almost never = rainbows and cupcakes, its easy to see why the phrase power corrupts is so universally held as truth.
A Good Man Is Hard To Find Especially During Hard Times By: Paul Thomson | - Whether we like to admit it or not, theres something in the human heart thats drawn to darkness and chaos. You know that superhuman hearing you suddenly get when car tires screech in the distance? Or the strange glee you feel when the Joker blows up a hospital in his finest nurses uniform? This mischievous tendency, which Edgar Allen Poe famously referred to the imp of the perverse, sits just below the surface of most peoples everyday lives. Perhaps our lov ... Tags:literature, Flannery O'Connor, great depression, poetry, stu
French & Indian War The Start Of Us History By: Nate Gillespie | - It's hard for us now to imagine George Washington as anything other than the stately, even regal figure staring back at us from the dollar bill or from the slopes of Mount Rushmore. But George Washington wasn't always a stoic visage carved in granite. He was once just a young man, trying to stay ahead of shifting circumstances just like anyone else. This May 28th marks the 255th anniversary of George Washington's first brush with greatness and also his first brush with catastrophe. He ... Tags:The French & Indian War, us history, american history, study
April In The South By: Nate Gillespie | - April is an important month in American history. The Civil War both began and ended in April; between the April of Fort Sumter and the April of Appomattox Court House, more than half a million Americans died on battlefields stretching from Pennsylvania to Arizona.
Blasts From The Past By: Nate Gillespie | - Sometimes it seems that all is new in the world. New developments in science and technology roll out at a staggering pace, revolutionizing our day-to-day lives and enticing us with the promise of allowing us to boldly go where no man has gone before. (Or, at the very least, enticing us with ridiculously cool CGI effects in the new Star Trek movie.) Sometimes it seems like we'll soon all be communicating with each other only via Twitter.
Black History Month By: Nate Gillespie | - This February, we honor Black History Month for the 84th time since Professor Carter G. Woodson began the tradition as "Negro History Week" all the way back in 1926. In 2009, though, something about our national recognition of the African-American past seems just a bit different. For the very first time, we celebrate Black History Month while a black American sits in the White House, filling the country's top job as our commander-in-chief.
Commentary On Praise Song For The Day: Obama's Inauguration Poem, By Elizabeth Alexander By: Nate Gillespie | - Professor Elizabeth Alexander had the challenging task of writing a poem for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. She read that poem, Praise Song for the Day, aloud to millions of people on January 20, 2009. Alexander, an African-American poet, filled the shoes of literary giants like Robert Frost, Miller Williams, and Maya Angelou, all of whom read original poems at past presidential inaugurations.
It was truly a remarkably moment in our history, for a wide variety of reasons. Obamas inauguration marked a dramatic reversal in our national politics, likely ending a generation of conservative Republican domination in Washington. It brought a successful conclusion to a new kind of campaign, one based in savvy use of the internet for political fundraising and organizing. It captured the collective imagination ... Tags:January, barack, obama, president, united States, history, obama
Obama's Speech: How Does It Stack Up To History? By: Nate Gillespie | - In January, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, taking his oath of office on the steps of the Capitol before what is believed to be the largest crowd ever to witness a presidential inaugural in person.
Following the swearing in ceremonywhich was conducted on Abraham Lincolns bibleObama gave a powerful speech, promising the American people that they could and would unite to overcome the economic and military difficulties facing the nation. O ... Tags:January, barack, obama, 44th President, united States, oath
American History In Obama's Inauguration Speech By: Nate Gillespie | - As anyone who saw a campaign poster in 2008 could surely tell you, Barack Obama is all about change. Change in the White House, most profoundly in the simple, yet stunning, fact that we now have our first black president. Change in the tenor of politics, in an effort to step back from the ferocious partisanship of the past decade. And change in the direction of the country, in the form of a dramatic shift in the priorities and policies of the government.
