Amelia (Essie Davis) is a single mother traumatized by the loss of her husband in a car crash six years prior. Overworked, and overtired she struggles to care for her energetic and imaginative six-year-old son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman). When a mysterious and disturbing “children’s” book about Mister Babadook, a claw-handed humanoid creature in a top hat, suddenly appears on their…
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Motherhood Flawed and the Destabilization of the Suburban Myth: Celeste Ng’s ‘Little Fires Everywhere’
Clad in a thin robe and her son’s sneakers, Elena Richardson stands on the lawn watching as every remnant of her perfectly planned life turns to ash. Her three children contemplatively observe as firemen extinguish the charred remains of their childhood home. Arranged in neat row on the hood of a car, they are acutely aware of the problematic fact…
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Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Blind Assassin’: Novels-Within-Novels-Within-Novels
Written by the renowned Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, at the turn of the millennium, The Blind Assassin won both the Booker and Hammett Prize, despite a lengthy list of harsh criticisms. Atwood is perhaps best known for her 1986 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. A dystopic nightmare about the loss of a woman’s right to her own body and selfhood, The…
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Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”
Today, we’re talking about one of Kate Chopin’s shortest of stories and the inspiration for the title of this blog. A masterpiece in precision and irony, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is one of her most popular and widely read works. So, if you’re looking for a quick read—just over a thousand words, I counted—then this is the…
