ShmoopTube

Love potions are tricky business (not that we've ever tried using one, of course). They can make you fall in love with the wrong person…or, in th...

In this video, you'll learn about the original Constitutional Convention and why our Founding Fathers felt it was necessary. Who would you invite t...

So the revolution was pushed along by… pamphlets? Sure, what the heck, let’s go with it.

And you thought a nymph was a naturally lovely woodland creature. To be fair, so did we. But boy did Jonathan Swift prove us wrong.

What would YOU do if the heart of the person you buried under the floorboards started making noise? Only one way to find out... (Note: Shmoop does...

Harriet Jacobs' narrative gave Americans an unprecedented account of what it meant to be a fugitive of slavery. Check out this video for more about...

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.

If you think A Farewell to Arms is about some dude saying goodbye to his arms, you might want to check out this video. Plus, it's got a talking ice...

When you think about it, chess could be a metaphor for just about anything, really.

Who wants to read another story about a kid going off to boarding school? Apparently, pretty much everybody.

We volunteer you as tribute to watch this video analysis of Katniss in the second book of the Hunger Games series. After the berry suicide attempt...

“Happy Hunger Games!” Or not. Katniss’s Hunger Games experiences left a not-so-happy effect on her. This video will prompt you to ponder if...

“Happy Hunger Games!” Or not. Katniss’s Hunger Games experiences left a not-so-happy effect on her. This video will prompt you to ponder if...

Would would the world be like without books? Ray Bradbury tackles that question—and many more— in Fahrenheit 451. Go ahead; read it on your Kin...

Why was Jay Gatsby so great? Was it his ability to get away with bootlegging, his enduring love for Daisy, or his ability to throw epic parties tha...

Old English is just English, right? Can’t be more difficult than reading Shakespeare, right? Hah. Yeah...no. Click on the video to find why tra...

Who is it about? Who told it? Who wrote it? Who are we? What’s the meaning of life? Do you know the Muffin Man? All these answers and more can be...

Movie adaptions always seem to make the hero’s life more complicated than it needs to be. They also always seem to split the last movie into two...

"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." and watch this video about Stephen King's The Shining. After it's over, we may or may not axe you some qu...

Meet Charles Darnay, the nobleman who spends more time on trial and in prison than attending balls and drinking expensive wine. Don't feel too bad...

Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...

What is Dracula really about? Just Count Dracula? Or is there more to it than vampires? This video addresses some major ideas in Bram Stoker’s cl...

Who are Boz and Phiz? We're thinking clowns hired for a children's party, but we could be wrong. 

Was Dickens a good family man? Either way, the man had ten kids...if he wasn't grumpy now and then, he wasn't human. 

What impact did Dickens have upon his society? Besides getting people to yell, "please sir, I want some more" every time he walked down a street.&#...

Whale, whale, whale...what have we got here? Looks like a question about what Kipling was trying to achieve in "How the Whale Got His Throat." Fun...

Common Core 8th Grade 1.3 Reading Literary Texts. Which evidence from the text best supports the inference that Gorgons are dangerous?

What difficulties did Sherman Alexie write about in "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian"? What elements did Capote deal with in his bo...

Contemporary works of literature such as The Help reference important historical events in order to reflect on themes and challenges that have...

Vlad the Impaler was an appropriately named guy, until he went on tropical vacations. Then, he went by Vlad the Imtanner. For some facts that are a...

Readers may be already be familiar with Dracula, but what about the mathematician and author, Bram Stoker? And yes, he graduated with a degree in m...

Looks, wealth, and a super cool castle to live in… Well...maybe not live in, if you happened to be Dracula. But for the most part, this guy had...

Well, if this book doesn't make you want to tape over your laptop camera, we don't know what will.

Imagine a world in which all literature was dystopian. Okay, so we may be getting to that point, 1984 and V for Vendetta helped start it all.

By the end of this video, you will be brainwashed. There's nothing you can do about it; we just wanted to let you know. We like to think we're bigg...

You'd have to be a Grinch not to acknowledge what a huge effect Dr. Seuss had on all of us. Horton may have heard a Who, but hey... we heard it, t...

Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...

We’ll preface this video about Frankenstein’s preface by saying that Mary Shelley is an awesome woman, and she wants everybody to be aware. Che...

What is Gothic Romanticism? It's when two goths fall in love. Duh. Wait, that’s not what it is? Oh. We should probably watch the video and figure...

No HBO? Well then, how does a horror short story writing contest sound? And the winner is...drum roll, please...Mary Shelley. You go, girl. And tha...

Join us for part five of the Hero's Journey: The Collective Unconscious. Otherwise known as every slumber party, ever. 

Join us for part seven of the Hero's Journey: The Initiation. We promise, there are no weird hazing rituals in this video. 

Join us for part one of the Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell. We'll find out who he is, what he's responsible for, and if he has anything to do with...

Dr. Seuss was a failure to start, but he soon learned to follow his heart. He wrote books about things that he knew, and soon enough, his book sale...

Sure, Edgar Allan Poe was dark and moody and filled with teenage angst, but what else does he have in common with the Twilight series?

Shmoop the road less traveled by.

Moby-Dick - una ballena extraña. Nuestro amigo capitán Ahab la había perseguido para años, pero no es el mejor lider en el mundo. Piensas que p...

Si alguna vez te encuentras en una balsa flotando en el río Mississippi, usted va a querer hacer algo. Lectura clásico de Mark Twain, Las aventur...

Whoa, fifty different ways to say the word “whale” just in the Preface? Something tell us we’re in for a whale of a time. Yeah, we know, th...

The combination of religious and seafaring imagery in Moby-Dick is just like the peanut butter and the chocolate in a Reese's Cup––you can’t...

Everyone ready for a whale of a tale? Then it’s time to check out Shmoop’s videos on Moby-Dick.* *Whale sold separately.

A distraught and helpless Oedipus questions fate and free will when he discovers that he's killed his father and married his mother. 

Well, if this book doesn't make you want to tape over your laptop camera, we don't know what will.

By the end of this video, you will be brainwashed. There's nothing you can do about it; we just wanted to let you know. We like to think we're bigg...

This video summarizes the play A Raisin in the Sun. It discusses the Youngers, members of an African-American family trying to better themselves wh...

Find out the meaning behind "a fool's paradise."

Find out the meaning behind "a foregone conclusion."

Find out the meaning behind "A piece of work."

Aren't midsummer night dreams the worst? You wake up all sweaty and gross, and for a minute there, you can't even remember where you are. And also,...

Love potions are tricky business (not that we've ever tried using one, of course). They can make you fall in love with the wrong person…or, in th...

What are the features that make a Shakespearean tragedy? Where do they show up in plays like Othello, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet? This video help...

The micro setting: Enterprise. The macro setting: “Space, the Final Frontier!”

This video defines theme and investigates how it’s used in literature—is it intentional? In this video, we discuss the difference between theme...

What do “characterization” and “archetype” mean? How are they different? This video defines both of these related terms and explains when a...

Add half a cup of post-Civil War, a pinch of Reconstruction, a cup full of race issues, toss it in a Crock Pot called “The South,” and you’ve...

What’s our place in the universe? Sometimes, we find ourselves looking at the sky, pondering where we belong. Then, a voice softly whispers, “i...

Call me Shmoop...er, we mean, Ishmael. It’s time to catch a whale. ...Just kidding, we’ll read about it instead. The WWF told us we can’t d...

In High School we were usually told to "Make like a tree…" Melinda here has to make, like, a tree. Art stuff. We're painting with a broad-brush t...

AP English Literature and Composition 1.2 Passage Drill 4. As which of the following is the object being personified?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.4 Passage Drill 3. How is Burne's view of pacifism best characterized in lines 57 through 67?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 5. Death is primarily characterized as what?

It's the roaring 20s. A time of wealth, partying, and a huge inequality gap. Fun, fun, and, uh...not-so-fun. Hit play to discover more about the se...

East Egg: East coast, old money, and ponies. Maybe unicorns. Those snotty East Eggers won’t tell us anything. West Egg: West coast, new money, an...

Gatsby’s a man who throws huge parties and still has zero friends. Maybe they’re all like...Tupperware parties or something. Check out the vide...

Frederick Douglass was an impassioned public speaker. So are we: we're impassioned about never speaking in public.

Why did Douglass write the book? Easy. Because TV wasn't a viable medium yet. 

When we see it at the movies, our eyes roll. But are we guilty of the same? Shmoop!: The Movie, a Shmoop production, written by Shmoop, starring Sh...

Well, the world has ended, which is a total bummer. We didn’t even get a chance to sell our super valuable Beanie Baby collection. We hope you’...

The Road is full of emptiness and nobody knows where they’re going. So make a note to self, Shmoopers: when the apocalypse hits, grab a GPS.

Always read The Road with a dictionary at hand, because you’re going to need it. Seriously. We’re not known to be perfidious (though we do have...

Free will vs. Predestination. One of the many interpretations for the title Their Eyes Were Watching God. We personally like, “Stop Staring at Me...

Their eyes might’ve been watching God, but our eyes are watching Zora Neal Hurston. Hit play to learn more about Hurston and the Harlem Renaissance.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is about Janie’s coming of age story towards the path of self-discovery, just like Luke from Star Wars. Seriously, J...

Time to learn about metaphors in To Kill A Mockingbird. Yup. We know how to get a party started. 

What is the mad dog a symbol for? If we give it a Snausage, will it calm down? 

Were black people portrayed as stereotypes in To Kill A Mockingbird? Was Harper Lee trying to draw attention to the problems with stereotypes, or d...

Folk tales are all about conveying a deeper meaning—no banjos required. Arabian Nights is one of the most famous collections, so get ready to lea...

In Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, Death narrates the story of one girl who lived during the Holocaust. Not surprisingly, it's kind of a downer—bu...

Crime and Punishment is all about a boy killing for money, literally, and then spending the rest of the book trying to hide it. Although the book c...