Social Sensitivity
It is difficult to imagine anyone objecting to A Tale of Two Cities. The novel does contain explicit scriptural references, especially near the conclusion. But […]
Month: August 2008
Topics For Discussion
1. How is Lucie Manette the “golden thread” in the novel? 2. Why does Monsieur Defarge keep the door to Dr. Manette’s room locked? 3. […]
Ideas For Reports And Papers
1. The idea of resurrection or rebirth pervades this novel. How does Dickens use this theme? What does Dickens seem to be saying with it? […]
Adaptations
A Tale of Two Cities has been adapted to film seven times. The most popular and enduring productions were released in 1917, 1935, 1958, and […]
About the Author
John Knowles was born on September 16, 1926, in Fairmont, West Virginia. He lived there until he enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1941, where […]
Setting
The values that John Knowles emphasizes in A Separate Peace reveal his belief that an appreciation of nature’s wonders is fundamental to a life of […]
Themes and Characters
The opening pages of A Separate Peace serve as a prologue in the “present” when the book is being written, fifteen years after 1942, the […]
Literary Qualities
None of the books John Knowles has written since A Separate Peace has achieved nearly the critical or popular success of his first novel. The […]
Social Sensitivity
It is a testament to Knowles’s ability that a story about relatively privileged young men in the 1940s, written from the perspective of the quiet, […]