The Crucible Chapters 1-5

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes the people in the 1920s via the symbolic elements that intertwine with his characters in his novel. 
The first symbol is the difference between East and West Egg. In West Egg, people have "new" money. While they are generally as wealthy as those in East Egg who have "old" money, there is a definite disparity between the two. Tom and Daisy are examples of characters who possessed "old" money, and Nick and Gatsby have more "new"money. This is significant because Gatsby is in love with Daisy, but they are from two different back grounds. Gatsby has spent the past five years of his life trying to make up for their different upbringings by becoming more wealthy, and Gatsby is eager to show Daisy how well-off he has become. 
Another symbol in The Great Gatsby is the green light. The light first appears at the end of chapter one when Nick sees Gatsby at the end of Gatsby's pier reaching out towards "a single green light". This light symbolizes new life and money, which for Gatsby, means Daisy. The green light also appears in the fifth chapter after Gatsby tells Daisy that her house is right across the Sound from his. He says that she always has a green light that burns all night at the end of her dock. The green light turned into the renewal of Gatsby and Daisy's friendship and possibly a rekindling of their prior relationship.
The third symbolic element is the Valley of Ashes. The Valley is the epitome of dull, mundane life. The other side of the Valley consists of a life where anything is possible. This is very similar to the difference between Gatsby's past and Gatsby's potential future with Daisy. Gatsby dreams of re-igniting Daisy's interest in him, just as one is almost revived as a person when traveling from the dismal Valley to the lively city of New York.

The Birthmark and The Crucible

The Birthmark begins with an exceptionally intellegent scientist named Aylmer who has recently married a woman named Georgiana. Georgiana has a red birthmark shaped like a hand on her cheek, and soon Aylmer becomes strangely entranced by the mark. When his wife faints, he assumes it is because of her evil birthmark. In The Crucible, the fainting girls were said to be possessed in a similar manner. He becomes completely obsessed, just as the people of Salem became obsessed with the persecution of the witches, and decides that it should be removed. The birthmark isn't a mundane trait, similar to the dancing in the woods, so Aylmer considered it wicked; he could no longer accept its obscurity, and he forces his wife to drink a potion that he says will remove her birthmark from the inside out, since it's "deep in her body". Aylmer ends up killing his wife over a fallacy he has created, just as the Salem "witches" were hanged for doing "witchcraft".

On Writing: Essay

Amidst Stephen King’s tales of his childhood, his failures, his triumphs, and his trials in his book On Writing, he makes one message extremely clear:  to become a successful writer, one must write frequently. At an early age, King began developing and fine tuning his writing skills; he continued to advance and evolve these skills throughout his teenage and college years, never skipping an opportunity to further his competence as a writer. King’s incessant dedication to his field allowed him to become one of the best writers of his time; with forty-nine published novels and numerous prestigious awards, Stephen King shows aspiring writers just how much dedication can pay off.
                After completing Happy Stamps in his early teenage years, King was eager to send his piece to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (page 27). He was proud of his writing, and he considered it to be a good story, but instead of a published paper, all King gained was a rejection letter. He nailed the rejection letter into the wall with a nail. This rejection didn’t discourage King, however. He wrote story after story to send off in hopes of publication, only to be rejected a bountiful number of times. As he put it, “the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it”. King was persistent. He had too many failures to count, but he knew that he had significant potential as a writer, and he knew that the only way to advance his abilities was to keep writing.
                Stephen King was not an instant success in any way. At one point in his life, he was a college graduate working two jobs: one at a laundry mat and one at Dunkin’ Donuts. Having a college education and working jobs that a twelve year old could easily fill would be enough to discourage even the most adamant person, but King faced these challenges head on. During his stint at these jobs, King had several small successes sending his stories to men’s magazines, and as he said, the profit was “just enough to create a rough sliding margin between (them) and welfare” (page70). Between washing loads of motel sheets, King continued to write horror stories; little did he know at the time, this undying devotion would turn into a career he couldn’t have imagined.
                The unimaginable accident that King suffered in 1999 would prove to be the most trying obstacle in his writing career. He was struck by a van driven by a reckless driver, and he broke countless bones and required a number of painful operations. Upon his release from the hospital, King decided to continue working on this book, On Writing, but he faced several problems. King not only suffered from extreme pain while sitting upright but also had writer’s block.  “All my old tricks seemed to have deserted me” and “there was no inspiration that first afternoon” show how much trouble King had getting back into the task he loved best. As King’s injuries healed, his spirit improved, and he conjured up the energy to complete On Writing. Even after a disfiguring accident, King never stopped; although he could only write in small increments, he did what he could with what he had, showing that perseverance and dedication yield great results.
                Stephen King’s story is one that every writer should admire as it is one of dedication. Throughout all of his struggles, highs, and lows, King never failed to write. If one wants to become a good, successful writer, he or she must always follow King’s simple message: write frequently.