ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Memory and the Past Videos
Play All
What? She gets a rose and we don’t? Who is this Emily person anyway? What’s she done to deserve such a delightful, aromatic gift?
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...
Well, if this book doesn't make you want to tape over your laptop camera, we don't know what will.
Have you ever pretended to be super happy for your BFF when they win an award when, really, you just wanted to rip it out of their undeserving, ung...
Ayn (rhymes with "mine," ironically enough) Rand penned this cult classic over 50 years ago, but it still resonates with today's audiences. Our que...
You’re one in a million, buddy. Er...actually, more like one meaningless speck in a sea of billions. Makes you feel kind of insignificant, right?...
Their eyes may have been watching God, but we think we know who won that staring contest.
The Great Gatsby is set in and around New York City and Long Island. On the big L.I., there are two areas known as "West Egg" and "East Egg." East...
Whenever you start regretting the choices you've made in your life, just review Oedipus' story, and you'll start feeling a heck of a lot better.
The Old Man and the Sea was actually Hemingway's second title. His editor wouldn't let him use The Middle Aged Man and the Stubborn Fish.
This video summarizes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby goes from a rich party guy in love with a married woman to dead. W...
Pious Aeneas goes from minor character in the Trojan War to founder of Rome, the city that conquered the world, meetin' ladies and experiencing maj...
Pious Aeneas strikes again. This time, with more destiny and hand-to-hand combat! (Of course, since we're talking about Aeneas, he's still harping...
Maybe it's just us, but we don't like to put off our dreams. After all, who knows? Tomorrow night, we might not want to have hands that are giant m...
Lisbeth Salander is a tough nut to crack. Hero? Villain? Somewhere in the middle? We're not sure, but we're hesitant to accuse her of anything...es...
In The Giver, society is completely conformist. Neutrality rules the day, and no emotion is good emotion. Lois Lowry's novel challenges the value o...
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...
We'd all like to think our families would accept us if we turned into giant bugs, but for Gregor Samsa, that was not quite the case.
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.
How did Scrooge go from being naughty to nice so quickly, and why? (Hint: contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with the ghost of Santa Claus...thank goodness.) Just one question to think about in Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol.
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains just exploded.
A great marriage begins with a blooming pear tree and ends with a hurricane, rabies, and a murder trial…or something like that.
Did you hear the one about the guy who killed his dad and married his mom? Yeah, that’s not a joke, it’s Oedipus’ life. This video summarizes the Greek tragedy Oedipus the King as Oedipus investigates who murdered the old king (spoiler alert: he did). The moral of the story? Don’t investigate something you don’t want to know the answer to and believe the blind fortune teller Teiresias—he’s probably right.