LitAide

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 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. 

In my academics, there is one thing that I learnt the hard way. Before enlightenment, I used to believe that being very knowledgeable is prerequisite to score the highest marks.  Later, with experience, I learnt that Presentation plays a greater role in disciplines of Language & Humanities. Here, in these fields, subjectivity is the norm with multiple point-of-views. These are my findings which will help you fetch more marks in literature exams:- Remember the themes - The important aspects of a literary text, apart from the story, are the prominent themes associated with the text. For example, Albert Camus' The Stranger has Absurdism as a philosophical theme of the novel. It is a must to mention it in an exam essay related to the novel.  The conventional structuring of your essays or long answers should be kept in mind. Introduction : Begin with a few lines about the author, the novel, themes, then deal with the demand of the question. Body : Use different paragraphs for ...

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 was written by Wilfred Owen, a distinguished poet and foremost, a soldier of the first world war.  The poem alludes to a biblical "parable", which refers to a short religious/morality-based story. The biblical character of Abraham climbs to Mount Moriah along with his son, Isaac. It is the command of the Almighty that Abraham shall offer his firstborn, i.e. Isaac as a sacrifice at Mount Moriah. Abraham doesn't flinch at this unusual and pitiless command, but as he begins to undertake this act, an Angel appears and points to a ram and says that it could be offered as a sacrificial gift in place of his son, and thus Isaac's life is saved. Owen amended the parable and compares it to mass death and destruction due to the erstwhile first world war (1914-19). The poem begins with Abraham and Isaac approaching near their destination, Mount Isaac. Abraham carries a knife and a fire with him. Isaac is done with the preparation of the sacrifice and his asks his father...

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is one of the most famous poems of Dylan Thomas, who wrote this poem for his father who was suffering from a deadly disease.  The narrator urges his apparent dying father to resist the ensuing death. The metaphorical line "Do not go gentle into that good night" acts as a refrain throughout the poem guiding his father to keep up his fighting spirit. It is a known fact that no one can escape death. But mankind has been gifted with infinite courage and perseverance. The virility and strong will of man have pushed him to survive in worst case scenarios. Thomas exhorts him to give a tough fight to death. His old age should burst with vigour at its end and it will push through the final closing of eyes with as much effort as possible. Wise and sagacious people are aware of the inevitability of death and it is conspicuous that all are destined to die. They know the limits of their knowledge and no matter how great or persuasive they may sound...

The quote is taken from the play "The Way of the World" by William Congreve, a famous Restoration playwright renowned for his comedy of manners. The above line is spoken by Millament, the heroine of the play who engages in a witty conversation with her lover, Mirabell. Millament knows that Mirabell loves her and she as his beloved loves to give pain to Mirabell. Women love to give sweet pain to their lovers. They throw tantrums to keep sexual tension between their lovers and them. In a similar manner, this also depicts the power of one's dominant nature; how one's stringent behaviour is necessary to get respect or get things done from others. And if one loses such dominance, nobody listens to them.

This poem was written in the year 1889 by Tennyson and he died three years later. He was old and grappling with the idea of death, he wrote this poem. The narrator is figuratively walking towards his end. He is nearing his death and he compares his impending death to crossing a sandbar (see the below image).  Sandbar It is nearly sunset and the evening star is visible in the sky. It means the poet has lived and savoured his life and now he is on the verge of death, here dusk is compared with old age. He also receives confirmation from heaven that the time has come for him to return. As he returns, he doesn't want to disturb/erode the sandbar. But he has to cross it in order to reach the ocean. Tennyson wants to get carried to heaven on a silent tide peacefully or while he is asleep. In other words, Tennyson wants to die peacefully or we can say that all he wants is painless death.  The tide on which he will be carried, should not be full of foam which will make noise as tides ...

 The narrator introduces herself as a "nobody" and asks about the listener's identity. Before (s)he replies, she enquired whether he/she is also a nobody like her. She feels she has an affinity to the listener because they share a common ground of being "nobody". Her metaphor of "nobody" definitely suggests an ordinary person who attracts no attention from people. She shushed the listener to keep quiet about their identity because if others know, they will no longer be nobody i.e. anonymous. People will "banish"  them i.e. this publicity will cause them to lose their anonymity which is precious to the narrator.  The next line shows how much she is afraid of getting under public eye. She finds it "dreary". She compares a celebrity or an attention-loving person to a frog who does nothing other than blabbering (uttering) his name to a non-living thing like a bog which refer to flatterers who keep repeating artificial or false praises a...