Missing the Point

by Sarah Beth Durston The Chronicles of Narnia

Remember Bambi? Cute deer. Cute bunny. Cute skunk. Very scary forest fire. Very traumatic death of Bambi’s mother. . . . Yeah, I don’t actually remember that last part. Seriously, when I saw Bambi, I didn’t realize that his mother died. I thought that Bambi’s parents were simply divorced and now it was time for his dad to have custody. Later, I was the kid in high school English who argued that Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” wasn’t about suicide. I thought it was a very nice poem about a pretty New England forest like the one behind my house, which was quite lovely, dark, and deep. So as you might imagine, I was also the kid who totally missed all the religious symbolism in the Narnia books.

But I still loved the books.

Why? Why do these books hold such sway over the hearts and imagination of … read more»

Recent Free Essays (Still Available!)

Available Until
Tue 2/25

Dancing with the Wolves

by Linda Gerberon the Twilight series

The wolf’s eyes were dark, nearly black. It gazed at me for a fraction of a second, the deep eyes seeming too intelligent for a wild animal. As it stared at me, I suddenly thought of Jacob….

–NEW MOON

I might as well confess up front–I’m one of those people: … read more»

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Mon 2/24

Share Your Glee: Every Girl Needs a Kurt

by Debbie Duncanon Glee

Every high school girl needs a Kurt. Rod was mine.

We met in sophomore English, fall of 1968, and soon gravitated together to the back of the class. When we studied Romeo and Juliet, Rod asked to read the part of Juliet. Miss M wouldn’t let him. Of course, … read more»

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Fri 2/21

Why We Love . . . Buddy Garrity

by Jen Chaneyon Friday Night Lights

Buddy Garrity is a simple Texas man. He loves his red meat. He loves his three kids, even when two of them clearly appeared to be turning into hippies after moving to California with their mother. And he loves, looo-oooves his football. (That’s foot-bawl, by the way. It’s impossible to … read more»

Available Until
Thu 2/20

Signal to Noise

by Jacob Cliftonon Firefly/Serenity

The first moment of the film Serenity contains a powerful clue to the film’s contents and themes: the logo for Universal Pictures, familiar to any filmgoer as a mainstay stretching back more than fifty years, being subtly drawn into the film itself. For more about NBC-Universal and its subsidiaries, press … read more»