Tag Archives: Mark Twain

Walmart Practices a Tom Sawyer Economy

By Robin Bates | Published: August 25, 2016

Walmart relies on American taxpayers to subsidize its work force. This is being called “a Tom Sawyer economy,” an allusion to the fence whitewashing episode.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged American businesses, Tax Policy, Tom Sawyer, Walmart | Comments closed

Be Skeptical of Shakespeare’s Skeptics

By Robin Bates | Published: July 5, 2016

Recent evidence further confirms what most Shakespeare scholars believe: that Shakespeare wrote the plays ascribed to him. The Bard’s social anxieties, however, may have communicated themselves to the skeptics, who play out their own anxieties as they attempt to tear him down.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Charlie Chaplin, Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, Shakespeare authorship debate, Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

How Trump Is Changing the Discourse

By Robin Bates | Published: May 12, 2016

Adam Gopnik of “New Yorker” and Andrew Sullivan of “New York” are very, very frightened by the rise of Trump. As they explain why, they quote Tom Stoppard, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Plato.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Fascism, GOP, Huckleberry Finn, It Can't Happen Here, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jumpers, Lord of the Rings, politics, Presidential politics, protofascism, Sinclair Lewis, Tom Stoppard | Comments closed

Cruz as Beowulf? Try Grendel

By Robin Bates | Published: October 28, 2015

Thursday Normally I would be delighted with a New York Times article that matched up presidential candidates with works of literature, such as Ted Cruz with Beowulf, Hillary Clinton with Persuasion, and Bernie Sanders with Around the World in 80 Days. This piece, however, strikes me as so uninformative that it’s all but useless. I’ve tried […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Around the World in 80 Days, Beowulf, Bernie Sanders, Carla Fiorina, Charles Dickens, Democrats, Donald Trump, Election 2016, GOP, Hillary Clinton, Huckleberry Finn, Jane Austen, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne, Mansfield Park, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Oliver Twist, Persuasion, politics, Rand Paul, Tale of Two Cities, Ted Cruz | Comments closed

Trump as the Duke of Bilgewater

By Robin Bates | Published: September 15, 2015

Although a couple of recent articles have compared Donald Trump to Pap in “Huckleberry Finn,” I find him to be much more akin to the Duke and the Dauphin. Which is to say, an ace con artist.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, GOP, Huckleberry Finn | Comments closed

Queasy about Bodies Used for Medicine

By Robin Bates | Published: August 4, 2015

The sting videos by anti-abortion activists are designed to shock. But being shocked by the use of dead bodies for medical research is nothing new, as seen in the grave robbing scene in “Tom Sawyer.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Abortion, Planned Parenthood, Tom Sawyer | Comments closed

The Complex Inner Life of Teachers

By Robin Bates | Published: June 16, 2015

Lily King’s “The English Teacher” is filled with literary lllusions, most of them thematically important.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Voice", Annabelle Lee, Beowulf, Edgar Allen Poe, Homer, Huckleberry Finn, Love Song of J. Alfred Pruforck, Odyssey, Othello, Rose for Emily, T. S. Eliot, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Is It Time to Bring Out Twain’s War Prayer?

By Robin Bates | Published: March 4, 2015

The GOP and Netanyahu are trying to sabotage Obama’s negotiations with Iran. Could Mark Twain’s “War Prayer” knock some sense into them?

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, John Boehner, politics, war, War Prayer | Comments closed

Eclipses in Literature

By Robin Bates | Published: October 9, 2014

Yesterday’s lunar eclipse brought to mind a couple of books that mention eclipses.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, eclipses, Hergé, lunar eclipse, solar eclipse, Temple of the Sun | Comments closed