LitAide

This story is composed of memories of our narrator about a distinguished and artistic shoemaker.  Although, we are aware that shoemaking is literally a craft, not an art. However, this anecdote tells a different view. If a craftsman is devoted to perfecting the quality of his craft, then surely, why shouldn't we call him an artist? Galsworthy shares his precious memories of his favourite shoemaker, who lives and breathes in his shop, devoting his life to his art or craft, shoemaking. The author knew Mr. Gesslar from his childhood. He had a shop in London owned jointly by him and his brother. One can easily recognize his German accent, giving clue to his ancestry. From the narrator, we know the skill of Mr. Gesslar and his finest quality of shoes. Such was the quality and strength of his shoes that the narrator used to meet him in years as the former hadn't feel the need to visit him. And, after each meeting, he can feel the visible ageing of Mr. Gesslar. The shoemaker had unsha...

A tree symbolizes differently to children, mothers, father, and animals. It doesn't stand for a single thing It is interesting to note that although, a tree is a living being but we, human beings, treat it as a multi-purpose object. Every part of a tree is of utility for us, even after it has been cut down,  Birds build their shelter on trees. For children, trees have always been a source of enjoyment. They love playing around trees, and every child wishes to get a treehouse. Swings are suspended on trees and remain a favourite in a park. Children find a tree a perfect place to hide in their game of hide-and-seek. They find it hassling when their kites get caught in a tree. Adults too love to host their tea parties under a tree. In summertime, a tree provides cool shade for everyone, but during winter, no shade is there due to less sunlight. When a tree has been chopped down, its name changes to "timber", which is again useful to us. Mothers usually tell their children th...

According to the dictionary, the word "chivvy" means to nag, "to continuously urge someone to do something, often in an annoying way". Brief summary For children, there is one thing despicable to them, i.e. getting rebuked all the time by grown-up people like parents, teachers, etc. Parents are always mindful of what the children are doing, and it becomes their habit to utter words of caution and prevention to the children like: "Speak up Don't talk with your mouth full  Don't stare  Don't point Don't pick your nose" According to the grown-ups' psychology, children cannot do anything on their own; they need a little push and help from adults. They fear that the children will hurt themselves doing something without the supervision of the guardians. But, on the contrary side, parents complain that children are too dependent on them and can't initiate something on their own. So, the conundrum for the children is that if they take some ...

This story is about a young prodigy of music, who has the disability of deafness. Evelyn Glennie's loss of hearing couldn't stop her from achieving various feat in a field in which one's oral and auditory prowess is vital. She was not born with this disability, it was gradual. Initially, she was reluctant to share it with her parents, but when her grades were falling down, she finally told them.  It was a jolt to everyone including herself. Her parents were advised to send her to Special schools for the deaf and get her hearing aids. It was not in her nature to give up that easily. Her interest in music was immense. Through a chance incident in which she played a xylophone and a percussionist backing her up, she found a way to sense the drum beating, she could sense its vibrations. Her enhanced senses due to loss of one, aided her different body parts to grasp various notes.  "I had learnt to open my mind and body to sounds and vibrations" She received acclaim due...

"A Gift of Chappals" is an excerpt from a novella (a short novel) by Vasantha Surya, a writer, translator, poet, and journalist. This short story is about the playful activities of a group of cousins:- Mridu, Lalli, Ravi and Meena. Mridu, a young girl resided in Madras (present-day Chennai) with her Tapi (grandmother) and Thatha (grandfather). She visited her aunt, Rukku Manni's house and was welcomed there by her cousins, Lalli, Ravi and Meena. In the beginning, when they entered their house, Mridu took off her slippers unknowingly near old and dusty grey slippers. These slippers are important as we will see later. The cousins were excited as they found a kitten which was the centre of attraction for them. They laid the cat inside a torn football and fed it milk stolen from the kitchen in a coconut shell. Interestingly, they named it "Mahendraverma Pallava Poonai", in short, "M.P Poonai", after the emblematic cat belonging to the Pallava empire. Sudde...

"Wind" is written by Subramania Bharti, a prominent Tamil poet, journalist, and social reformer who played a key role in India's independence movement. In this poem, the poet presents the destroying nature of wind, how it threatens man-made creations, wrecking havoc in our lives. It makes fun of us for our frailty and weakness. The poet asks us to be wind's friend by becoming resilient. The wind respects those who are themselves strong, and who can build lasting things. The poet emphasizes the word "frail" by creating alliterative effect as this weakness is detested by the wind:  Frail crumbling houses, crumbling doors, crumbling rafters, crumbling wood, crumbling bodies, crumbling lives, crumbling hearts Our heart should be stoic to all disasters. According to the narrator, the wind tests our strength as he emphasizes this with  the metaphor of fire. If we are weak like a fluttering flame, the wind will blow it out. But if we are fiery and vigorous like st...

Once upon a time, there was a king who had a fascination to know the answers of the following three questions: 1) What is the right time to begin something? 2) Which people should the king listen to? 3) What is the most important thing for him to do? The king made an announcement that whoever would answer his questions, would get a large sum of money. Many people offered various answers. But the king was not satisfied. He heard about a worldly-wise hermit, so he undertook a journey to the woods where the hermit lived. But there was a catch, the hermit used to meet only common men, so the king went there disguised as a plain man. He saw him digging in front of his hut. The king met him and asked him his questions. He ignored as he was digging the ground. The hermit, being old and weak, tired out soon. The king offered him help and he obliged and gave him his spade. The king worked continuously through the evening. Done with the work, he blurted out the reason why he came to visit him in...

The poem is a sestet , a six line poem, describing a single scenery of a squirrel against the backdrop of a garden. In this poem, the narrator describes an imagery of a squirrel sitting on a ground, relishing (enjoying) "his" nut. Its rolled tailed forms the shape of a question mark.  The narrator uses the metaphor of an "overcoat" to describe its furry skin of grey colour. The squirrel is lively and loves playing with the narrator, who teases it by running around its beloved tree. When he runs, the squirrel gets positive reinforcement and it runs along with him around the tree. You must have noted that the poet used the pronoun "he" for the squirrel.

The narrator, a child describes a shed at the corner of his garden. He is afraid to go into it. He can hear the creaking of its rusted door hinges while from being laid in his bedroom. Also he saw spider webs on the door. He resolves to open that door one day   and conquers his fears. The window pane of the shed has three crack on its glass. When he walks past the shed, he fears that someone stares at him from the inside. His brother, taking advantage of his fear of the shed, tells him that a ghost lives underneath the floor of the shed. He cautions the narrator against entering the shed because if he does so, a ghost will chop his head off. But the narrator dispels this ghost theory, owing it to his brother's plan to keep it as his own place. He himself refutes his own misconceptions about it. He plans to go into the shed, some day, but not at the present time. This shows that he is still afraid of the unknown contents of the shed. 

The poem is a ballad which refers to a song narrating a story in short stanzas. Ballads are part of folk culture and passed orally for generations. Summary This ballad depicts a folk tale popular in the northern region of the earth. "Northland" countries are Norway, Canada, Greenland and northern regions of Russia. In the northern part of our earth, there is immense frigid temperature. In such an area, days are short due to the low reach of the sun, and hence, nights are very long in winter. Such harsh extreme cold prevents them from having a sound sleep. Due to intense snow, people use sledges carried by reindeers for transportation. Children are compared to bear cubs in their clothes made of fur. Children are told an old tale, which the narrator finds fictional. But still, he tells the tale because it is imbued with morality. It concerns Saint Peter, one of the apostles (twelve chief disciples of Jesus Christ). Once upon a time, Saint Peter used to travel on foot and ...

The story begins with Margie, an eleven-year-old girl who has just discovered an actual book. To give you the context of the story, it is set in the year 2157, in the far future in which technological advancement has reached its pinnacle. Consequently, it has impacted every aspect of their life, especially education. The school system has been overhauled. There is no separate infrastructure for schools. Students are given education in their homes, by Robotic teachers instead of human ones. One crucial feature of the system is that every student learns at his/her own pace as assessed by their robot teacher. Coming back to our story, Margie came across a physical book for the first time. She found that the book belonged to her great-grandfather. It made her curious to think that paper was used in place of, then prevalent screens and as she had been habitual to reading from the screen on which one can read all the pages on a single screen, one at a time, unlike books whose get old and yel...

This story is concerned with a doctor's encounter with a snake. What amused the doctor was the snake's astonishment at its own reflection in the mirror. It begins with an anecdote by the narrator, a homeopathic doctor to a group of listeners. It was a time when he was a rookie doctor just starting out, staying at a rented house with a minuscule income. One night, he returned to his home after having his dinner outside. After changing clothes, he went to bed. Unable to fall asleep, he got up and tried to read a book. Coincidentally, a mirror was placed besides the study table. Being a young bachelor, he was obesessed with his outward appearance. He came up with different styles and promised himself to take more care of his looks. In the backdrop, an uneven hustle and bustle of rats on the roof could be heard by the doctor. But he remained unconcerned by it. He imagined that he would marry a rich doctor, who is overweight as it would be easy for him to get away from her if he com...

James Harold Kirkup was a English poet, translator and travel writer  of the twentieth century. In his poem, the poet highlights the mistrust that divides the people of different country. Being patriotic is good, but treating people of other nations as "alien" and "enemy" won't help. An ancient sanskrit verse: "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Sanskrit: वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्) teaches us that we are all part of a Global family. Today, All countries are interdependent on other countries for various economic resources. The poem tries to depict the similarities we share with each other. Stanza 1 The poem begins with the narrator emphasizes the point that we, human beings, are all alike and we share so many similarities with each other. Our dresses might be different to each other's , but our bodies are similar. Even the soil on which we walk has the same constituents as the soil of a country which we consider alien. All of us will be scattered one day in the same soil...

The poem presents a vivid yet eye-opening description of an elementary classroom in poverty-stricken slums. He gives us an clear imagery of the children living away not just from the luxury of life but also the basic amenities. Through the poem, Spender makes a satire on the system where these children have no bright future The faces of the children sitting in the classroom reflect a bleak picture of their degraded health and undernourishment. As the poet says that these children's faces have a squeezed faces unlike a healthy child's puffy and round face, their hair seems to him "rootless weeds" and their skin is pale due to. sickness. In the classroom, a tall girl seated with her head down, a skinny boy with "rat's eyes" due to undernourishment, another one suffering from a hereditary disease of his father's recites a lesson from his desk. In the classroom marked by the gloomy conditions of these kids, among them is an unusually sweet and young ch...

The poem "Aunt Jennifer's Tiger" was written by Adrienne Rich, an American poet. The poem subtly reflects the burden of a woman due to the responsibilities and duties of married life on her. A woman has to handle the family and adapts herself to her husband and everything there. The poem begins with the narrator describing the "chivalric" and bright yellow-coloured tiger walking like a royal king upon its green world i.e. forest. These tigers are not afraid of human beings who sit beneath the trees. They just roam there in their care-free and elegant gait. The Tigers the poet is talking about are not real tigers, they are the creative work of Aunt Jennifer who used her sewing and pattern designing skill to create them on screen i.e a cloth. Aunt Jennifer's fingers faint while pursuing her hobby. Now she has a hard time even pulling the needle. Perhaps, it's due to her mental and physical fatigue of carrying out the marriage and its demands. The wor...

The poem "A Roadside Stand" is written by Robert Frost, a prolific American writer. The poem raises the issue of disparity between rich and rural poor people who lead a deplorable life in search of money. Frost is personally anguished by their state and wonders if he gets a chance to change their fate, he would do it but later he changes his mind. In a rural area, a little old house stands at the edge of a high traffic road. Attached to that house, a shed has been built to form a temporary shop to sell modest stuffs. Frost doesn't find it respectable to say that the shop is meant to get just "a dole of bread", he intends to say that it is a little step to earn some money from rich people. The hut-owner wants to earn a little bit of money which supports the city life. The road is busy with fast-moving vehicles passing without stopping or looking at the little shop. If any of them stops there, it is only to look at the signboard which tells the direction of th...

The poem "A Thing Of Beauty" is written by John Keats, a famous Romantic poet. Keats died at a young age who wanted to see himself become a great poet and he achieved it. The poem is an excerpt from the Keats' "Endymion: A Poetic Romance". It deals with the poet cherishing the beautiful objects which give pleasure to the on-lookers. Certainly, he hails these natural creations of God which relieve us from all distresses. Keats hails the things whose beauty mesmerize the on-lookers and its impact will last long for a long time because we can imagine the pleasure of something beautiful long after in our mind. So it will be alive in our memories. A shade of a tree gives coolness and rest to one who comes under its hood. The cherished beauty will ensure peace of mind in a person and he/she will have a sound sleep full of joyous dreams. With it, his health will also improve due to peaceful mind away from distresses. One will breathe fresh air in the lap of flora....

The poem "Keeping Quiet" is written by Pablo Neruda, a Nobel laureate author. In this poem, he conveys the message of mindful introspection and asks his readers to avoid to maintain stillness and avoid hasty life. The poem begins with the poet calling for counting will twelve after which stillness is attained for some time. During this time of introspection, he urges his readers to stop speaking in any worldly language and stop our mental and physical movements for that moment. Everyone would cherish the moment because there would be no hastiness and no one would run in a hurry. This soothing activity would unite all of us because then we would have the time to understand ourselves and others. The word "engine" symbolises the way of the modern fast moving world. To support his claim, Neruda gives instances of fishermen and salt-gatherer. In the moment of silence, fishermen would not harm any living sea creature like a whale. The salt-gatherer would deliberatel...

My Mother At Sixty-Six The poem "My Mother At Sixty-Six" is written by Kamala Das, one of the foremost Modern Indian English writer who was famous for her frank depiction of women sexuality. Most of her poems are personal. The poem describes the narrator's concern towards her mother who has grown old which can also be seen from her physical features. It also depicts the complexity of the narrator digesting the fact of her mother getting too old and understandably, she doesn't convey her fear to her. The poem begins with the narrator driving from her parents home to Cochin (present-day Kochi). Her mother accompanies her. While travelling, she notices that her mother was drowsy, her face looks like of a "corpse" lacking vigour. The narrator sadly realises that her mother has aged older as her facial features show unambiguously. But then she chooses to ignore the painful thought, perhaps to spare her own mind. She tries to look out at youthful beings suc...

The poem "The World Is Too Much With Us" is written by William Wordsworth, the leading literary figure of the Romantic Era in Britain. The poem laments the negative implications of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Wordsworth complains about the human beings transition from a unique and social creature to a mechanical and materialistic one. He grieves that human beings now no longer enjoys the natural entities which give us a permanent joy and serenity. People become gross and machine like in our thought process. For saving himself from such "disease", Wordsworth takes refuge in nature and imagination and find utmost joy. According to the poet, we human beings, are fed up with our natural surroundings. We forget to live fruitfully and without purpose. We are wasting our energies and potential on irrelevant things. We don't observe the nature and its beauty. Like a mechanical object, we renounced our heart, our emotional side and the very thing which make u...