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1. Example Introductory Paragraph Considered Mark Twain’s masterpiece and also one of the foremost pieces of American literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is narrated by Huck Finn who fakes his own demise to get away from his appalling drunken father. Together with a runaway slave called Jim, Huck makes his way down the Mississippi on a raft. On the aimless journey, Huck and Jim become involved with a series of contrasting characters such as the feuding Grangerford and Shepherdson families and later the fraudulent “Duke” and “Dauphin”. Like Tom Sawyer, it is an adventure novel, but together its disparate elements become a complex moral commentary on the “American Experience” as seen through the eyes of an innocent boy. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses dialect and symbolism as he leads his readers to see the need for a more humane society and for better understanding of human relationships.

2. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 33). In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the two main characters, Jem and Scout, have the opportunity to consider the viewpoints of many adults in their small town, Maycomb. By following their father’s advice and trying to consider the perspectives of three different people, Jem and Scout learn valuable life-long lessons.

3. A woman’s role in marriage is a controversial subject that has puzzled and fascinated people as long as the institution of marriage has been in existence. Because women have traditionally held a subservient and passive role in marriage in contrast to their male counterparts, it is of great interest to reflect on world civilizations and cultures of the past in order to observe how contemporary societal expectations of a wife have evolved over time. One powerful way of glimpsing into past societies’ views on wifehood is by carefully examining classical world literature. The Ramayana of Valmiki and The Tale of Genji, examples of classical Indian and Japanese literature and culture, reflect their cultures’ values regarding a woman’s role as a wife.

4. Human memory is one of the greatest mysteries known to man. Some scientists claim that the human brain’s capacity to store and remember information in infinite. Despite modern technology and advances in brain research, our gift of memory is still one that baffles scientists, physicians, and psychiatrists alike. The mystery of memory intrigues writers, as well. In her award-winning novel Beloved, Toni Morrison explores the intensity of memory in the story of an antebellum family haunted by the past. The controlling theme of memory develops meaning throughout the novel as a narrative technique that weaves insight and emotion into the characters, plot, and symbols.

5. The 19th century was a difficult time for women. This was an era in which women were denied access to the kinds of education and occupations made available to men. If a woman was not married to man who could provide for her, and being barred from all well-paid work, women were forced into a very small range of occupations, including domestic service and unskilled factory work. In his short story ―The Necklace‖ Guy de Maupassant shows that a happy marriage in Victorian England was viewed in terms of economic and material gain, and that if a woman was unhappy with her situation there was nothing she could do about it. Mathilde’s unhappiness is determined by the societal limitations of being a woman in the 19th century. Mathilde’s desire for a lifestyle above her situation leads to her fatefully borrowing and losing her friend’s valuable necklace. As a result, she is forced into a life of hardship and drudgery, changing her into a coarse and bitter woman.

6. Through pain and suffering a single hobbit must save Middle Earth from tyranny. This is the story of the one ring, and how the hobbit, Frodo, must change who he is to accomplish his one true goal. In Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, Frodo must re-new himself and cast away his childhood innocence and face all the evil Middle Earth has to offer. Tolkien achieves Frodo’s renewal through a symbolic rebirth sequence.

7. Lying on a cold stone, Frodo, the protagonist of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, looks back at his like anticipating his imminent death. The hobbits begin to look pale and old, as if death is about to devour them. As they all close their eyes, death is now standing in front of them, or is it? No, it isn’t! Authors often use symbolic actions to show a character’s change. When the hobbits think they are coming across death, they are actually being reborn from a simple hobbit into an equipped soldier.

8. In the novel, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, the hobbits undergo a change in who they are. Symbolically speaking, the hobbits die and are reborn again. They are changed from innocent, weak and scared hobbits to equipped warriors against the forces of evil.

9. Frodo and his companions experience a rebirth in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings. They go from innocent hobbits of the shire, to being “knights”. The hobbits are cleansed from their “old” lives and made into men of the world. J. R. R. Tolkien made Frodo be “reborn” by using symbols to signify a change in his life and his friends lives as well.