1. Choose a recent event in your life or in your community and write a one-page description of it, in the style of Henry Adams. 2. You are an investigative reporter for the New York Times from 1860 to 1905. Which of the stories that Adams discusses would you prefer […]
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1. The author sometimes associates a major symbol with a major theme. Choose one of each and demonstrate how he uses the symbol to illustrate the theme. 2. Henry spends important formative years in England as his father’s personal secretary. What does he learn? How, if at all, does he […]
Read more Study Help Essay QuestionsStudy Help Full Glossary for The Education of Henry Adams
abate to make less in amount or degree. abet to incite, sanction, or help, especially in wrongdoing. abject of the lowest degree; miserable; wretched. abstruse hard to understand. affiches (French) posters, placards. ame damnee (French) stooge; a foil or underling. anachronism anything out of its proper time in history, especially […]
Read more Study Help Full Glossary for The Education of Henry AdamsCritical Essays The Education of Henry Adams as Experimental Literature
Introduction From its inception, Adams thought of the Education as an experimental work of literature. A part-time novelist, the author here employs several of the devices of fiction. For example, the story is told through a third-person narrator who rarely goes inside the minds of subjects other than Henry. Henry […]
Read more Critical Essays The Education of Henry Adams as Experimental LiteratureHenry Adams Biography
Personal Background Henry Brooks Adams was born in Boston, Massachusetts on February 16, 1838, the fourth of seven children of Charles Francis Adams and Abigail Brooks Adams. Henry’s distinguished family included a great-grandfather, John Adams (1735-1826), who was the second President of the United States, as well as a grandfather, […]
Read more Henry Adams BiographyCharacter Analysis Clarence King
The member of his generation whom Henry admires most is Clarence King. King is brilliant and unorthodox, ultimately failing because he takes on too many risks. But when Henry meets him, on a geological expedition in Estes Park in 1871, he judges King to be one of the brightest and […]
Read more Character Analysis Clarence KingCharacter Analysis Charles Francis Adams
Charles Francis is an especially strong influence on Henry because the son serves as his father’s private secretary for several months in Washington, where the elder Adams is a member of the House of Representatives (1860-1861), and remains in the same position when his father becomes Minister to England (1861-1868). […]
Read more Character Analysis Charles Francis AdamsCharacter Analysis John Hay
It is not surprising that John Hay becomes one of Henry Adams’s closest friends. They share political and personal interests as well as similar life experiences; their lives complement each other so well that they build homes next door to each other. Born in Salem, Indiana, October 8, 1838, and […]
Read more Character Analysis John HayCharacter Analysis Henry Adams
The narrator is quick to point out that few people born in 1838 find themselves in more favorable circumstances than Henry Adams. The grandson of one President of the United States and great-grandson of another, Henry inherits a respected family name, automatic contacts with some of the most powerful people […]
Read more Character Analysis Henry AdamsSummary and Analysis Chapter XXXV – Nunc Age
Summary In this short, concluding chapter, Adams briefly mentions scientific power and politics, but despite the forward-looking chapter title, Nunc Age (Latin for “Now, take action!”), his focus really is on the past and on endings. On November 5, 1904, as he approaches New York City, returning from yet another […]
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