This is a short letter of complaint aimed at helping ESL/EFL candidates at B2 level tackle a writing task which asks them to write a letter or email complaining about a product or service. Before you read any sample dealing with complaints, you might find it helpful to take a quick look at some useful phrases to include in these kinds of letters, which I gathered in an earlier post of mine (click on the image below) on how to write letters of complaint.

This is the fourth part of the overview to Monica Wood's short story "Disappearing" which covers the story's themes: body image, assistance, silence, and acknowledgment. If you want to read an introduction which includes a link to the story, a short biography of the author, the setting of the story as well as the characters that interact in it, click here .  Part two deals with the plot and the "growth" process through which Wood intimates how destructive others can be and how -- as traumatizers -- they can permanently stunt development (to read that, click here ).  Part three about the story's point of view and symbolism can be found here .

This is part three of the overview to Monica Wood's short story "Disappearing". It covers the story's point of view and symbolism.  If you want to read an introduction which includes a link to the story, a short biography of the author, the setting of the story as well as the characters that interact in it, click here . Part two deals with the plot and the "growth" process through which Wood intimates how destructive others can be and how -- as traumatizers -- they can permanently stunt development (to read that, click here .)

This is the second part of the overview of Monica Wood's short story "Disappearing". Before reading, please take a look at the introduction I've written here which includes a link to the story itself, a short biography of the author, the setting of the story as well as the characters that interact in it. This second part will cover the plot and deals with the "growth" process the story describes. Through this process, Wood intimates how destructive others can be and how -- as traumatizers -- they can permanently stunt development. In part 3 ,  the point of view and sym bolism are discussed.

People's cries for help often go unnoticed because as a society we have either become immune to other people's plight or we have become too self-centered to notice others at all. Monica Wood captures this feeling of insignificance, a kind of nullity of human existence imposed by others by dint of their disregard for their fellow man (and woman, naturally), in her short story "Disappearing".  The title says it all. The passage from one existence to a non-existence is depicted in a matter of pages. Twenty-eight paragraphs is all it takes to erase one's physical identity. Yet how much longer it takes to erase an individual's entire existence -- both body and mind -- is what lies at the heart of this story. The answer to this question is a terrifying "few people, a few comments, several reactions" rather than a specific time period. In fact, I would contend that this is not a story just about anorexia --  anorexia is simply a by-product of a great...

Read part 1 of this overview which includes a brief introduction, includes a link to the full text of the story, some details about the author's life as well as an analysis of setting and plot. Part 2 contains an analysis of the characters that appear in the story and the point of view. Part 3 discusses the symbolism found in this complex short story while this final post deals with the themes and the title of the story. 

Read part 1 of this overview which includes a brief introduction, includes a link to the full text of the story, some details about the author's life as well as an analysis of setting, plot. Part 2 contains an analysis of the characters that appear in the story and the point of view.  This part discusses the symbolism found in this complex short story. Part 4 follows to discuss the themes and the title of the story.

Read part 1 of this overview which includes a brief introduction, includes a link to the full text of the story, some details about the author's life as well as an analysis of setting, plot.  This second installment contains an analysis of the characters that appear in the story and the point of view.  Part 3 discusses the symbols found in the story. Part 4 deals with the story's title (how it foreshadows the ending) and themes.

Many read "Like a Winding Sheet" and conclude the drama that ensues has to do with race. Yes, that indeed would be the obvious conclusion. However, details pertaining to lipstick, tossing one's head back, lifting hair away from one's nape tell a different story.  This story is Ann Petry's primary narrative, I feel, as more care has been given to leave a trail of feminine breadcrumbs against the manifest backdrop of racial inequality and heartless behavior by those in a position of power, which happen to be the destructive forces behind further victimization. Petry manages to show just how everything comes full circle in the worst possible way when people try their damnedest to be the brutes they shouldn't be in their dealings with others.

More and more companies are requiring job applicants to send in a video of themselves as a precursor to an interview. What this means is that whether or not you get that precious invitation to appear for an interview depends on the effect the video you send will have on those in charge of the hiring process.  Another key fact to keep in mind is that although the video might also be complementary to an applicant's CV, there are times when it is the only piece of evidence firms will ask to see, meaning that you will have to condense education, experience, achievements and personal interests into a short minute or minute and a half audiovisual commodity. Many are at a loss about where to start or what to cover in their application videos as soon as they discover that a prospective employer requires one to be sent, which is why the following post was drafted. In it, applicants can focus on  a) the factors that a video brings into play that CVs do not

When a wife dies and leaves her husband her diary, all is possible. In Gil bert Clandon's case, the legacy his wife leaves him is much more than he could ever have imagined.  Virgi nia Woolf signs an exceptional short story which questions the foundations of marriage, people's need for communication by any means possible a nd their inclusion in a mutually beneficial partnership . When one reneges on that contract, the other will seek new outlets to grow , as p ersonal d evelopment in any marriage is inevitable. If that development is undertaken without any consideration for one's spouse, then problems will unavoidably ensue.

As you might have come to realize, short stories are my favorite literary genre because they are like little cans of double concentrated tomato paste that add that extra zing to narratives other genres are incapable of delivering. In fact, the shorter the story, the grander the zing.  Well, Kate Chopin's story is as short as good short stories come and she manages to deliver the goods quicker than the title she chose for her piece . The advan tage of such crisp little tales is that they're easier to dissect because of the limited number of words they contain. Every sentence and paragraph can be analyzed al most ad nausea m , a task too g ruelling to undertake when reading a novel. Because of this comprehensive examination, the full extent of an author's powers is appreciated and though ma ny would be prone to co nclude that restricted tales offer very few developments , angles and insights, the reader's knowledge that every word written was mindfully selected ...

Native American culture had become synonymous with axe-wielding, bow-and-arrow-carrying savages chasing after homely pioneers to scalp them, as early Hollywood productions of the 20th century would have us believe.  Fortunately for the world, those days are long past, and Native American writers have reclaimed their cultural heritage much in the same way as other writers from colonies struggling  for independence successfully did whilst "writing back to the Empire" through works we now come to categorize under the term post-colonial literature. Louise Erdrich has captured the torturous existence of individuals trapped within themselves and stripped of their very foundations in this story. To top it all, one of these characters is further stripped of his serenity as he is used by politicians and warmongers to fight in their stead, then cast aside to suffer the harrowing effects of modern-day warfare unassisted by a system willing to ship his remains back home in a b...

You hear "Joyce" and something in you cringes or ruptures or you sense retroperistalsis in its inception. You've had a hor rendous e xperience reading Ul ysses and would rather not pick up another Joyce novel in your life.  Well, "Eveline", thank God, is not U lysses. It is a short story, to begin with, meaning that whatever torture Joyce would have us experience, it wa s intended to be a short one. It is a 'normal' short story , to continue, meani ng that it follows in the vein of the other outstanding stories found in Dubliners .  Cr itics have demoted th is collection of short stories in that the y have chara cterized it as simplistic , ignoring the fact that simplicity is not always as simple as it seems. Spelling the wo rd "cat" for instance is simple if we are to comp are it to the word "gneissoid", but the cognitive processes involved in spelling "cat" are no less complicated than those employed by the bra...

This is the second part of the plot summary of Victoria Hislop's novel The Thread . For a brief introduction and the first 10 chapters of the book, please read Victoria Hislop - The Thread (Plot Summary) Part 1

Victoria Hislop's novel The Thread is a book that combines fiction with early, mid and late 20th century Balkan history in a fast-paced narrative that tells the story of a changing city through the experiences of its protagonists.  By User:MWD - english wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6885987 It is the story of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, a pivotal harbor that has experienced war, migrant influx, grandeur during the Byzantine era, sacking and subjugation for 482 years under Ottoman occupation. All this is not mentioned in the novel which touches upon modern times, from the Great Fire that raged for 32 hours and ravaged 32% of the city in 1917 to the great earthquake of 1978, the magnitude of which was felt in nearby Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.  It is also the story of Dimitris Komninos and Katerina Sarafoglou, how fate brought them together, to grow up on the same street though their backgrounds demanded the...

The short story An Intruder was incorporated in Nadine Gordimer's short story collection Livingston's Companions, published in 1970. As such, it must be read and viewed through the prism of her somewhat earlier works which dealt with South African society's inequality and the problems arising from the diseased status quo of the times. An Intruder focuses on relationships between characters and how perceptions of a situation differ in the eyes of each individual based on a combination of nature and nurture, or at the very least that is what Gordimer would have the reader gauge. What made James Seago what he is? Why is Mrs Clegg, Marie's mother, such a typical depthless wishful socialite with an exaggerated respect for higher social status? Couldn't Marie judge the merit of the man who treats her like a child or is she turning a blind eye to his behavior because it suits her? Whatever the answers to these questions, the one certainty we have is that the noti...

Karl Shapiro's poem "Auto Wreck" was published in 194 2 in his book Person, Place, and Thing , a collection of 51 poems. December 7,1941 wa s a turning point in World War II when the Americans, devastated by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , decided to actively engage Axis forces by deploying the military . A fter years of 'neutrality' (the US ha d already been helping the British by sending money, ammunition and food supplies since the spring of 1941 ) , action had been imposed on them, so to speak. It seemed his being drafted into the army and serving in the Pacific Theater brought about Shapiro's inspiration to write . Four book s of poems were published from his days in the army. Stationed in New Guinea, he wrote V-Letter and Other Poems which gave him the Pulitzer Prize in 1945.  "Auto Wreck" can be con strued as the direct result of what Shapiro experienced during the war. The hollow logic of war, the arbitrariness of human li...

I've often found that students aren't taught how to write about literary texts. They attend a Literature course either in school or university, but their work is devoid of that little extra something that would make it commendable.  The reason for this is because either they haven't been told what work of this nature requires or because they haven't paid close attention to what their teachers or professors have expressly stated they base marks on.  Whatever the case may be, the following pointers should prove useful. If you're a student, make a checklist of the notes hereinafter and check them off when you reread your finished assignment. If you're a teacher, you can make a handout and go over the points in class at the beginning of the academic year.  Knowing what is expected of you will make your writing more to the point, show your knowledge of

"Powder" is a short story intended to quickly state the obvious - a father's bond to his son is always a difficult thing to forge when parents aren't on good terms with each other. The level of difficulty in achieving this increases as fathers aren't used to explicitly explaining to their sons that they are trying to forge a stronger bond at a particular moment in time to begin with. Accordingly, the complications the father in this particular story is required to overcome are not only the time constraints the mother has placed on the trip as a whole or the mistrust towards her husband she has allowed her son to bear witness to which the father feels he must compensate for, but also the disparity in character traits that father and son exhibit. Having read the story for the first time, students predominantly respond to the query "What was the story about?" either with "I didn't get it. Some father and son skiing" or "S...