Classic Synopsis

Animal Farm

(George Orwell; 1945) An allegoric and dystopian novel. It reflected on the events leading up the Russian Revolution of 1917 all of the way up to the Stalin era of the Soviet Union. Starts as "All animals are equal" later devolves into "Some animals are more equal than others"

Madame Bovary

(Gustave Flaubert; 1856) The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was a notorious perfectionist and claimed always to be searching for le mot juste ("the precise word").

Uncle Tom's Cabin

(Harriet Beecher Stowe; 1852)deep moral conviction; displayed humanity and suffering of slaves; featured agonies of slave families and mother's journey of escape; exposed Northern racism and brought out idea of slavery when before there was not much awareness; over one million copies sold by 1853; alarmed southern whites (what if slavery outlawed?); Makes white people feel good without presenting the issue wholeheartedly but seen as necessary to reach its audience.

A Doll's House

(Henrik Ibsen; 1879) play by Norwegian playwright that became a landmark in the development of dramatic realism. It revolves around Nora and Torvald Helmer, who after tough times are on the up thanks to Torvald's new position at a bank. However, Nora reveals to a friend that she illegally borrowed money to pay for a trip to Italy to help Torvald recover from a serious illness. We find out that the holder of that loan is Krogstad, a low-level employee at the bank who now tries to blackmail Nora with the remained of the loan to keep his job because Torvald is about to fire him, which he eventually does. After some twists and turns Torvald finds out about the loan through a letter and berates Nora. Krogstad forgives the loan and Torvald is overjoyed, but Nora leaves him, saying that Torvald has always treated her like a "doll".

Tom Jones

(Henry Fielding; 1749) Tom Jones is a foundling discovered on the property of a very kind, wealthy landowner, Squire Allworthy, in Somerset in England's West Country. Tom grows into a vigorous and lusty, yet honest and kind-hearted, youth. He develops affection for his neighbour's daughter, Sophia Weston. On one hand, their love reflects the romantic comedy genre that was popular in 18th-century Britain. However, Tom's status as a bastard causes Sophia's father and Allworthy to oppose their love; this criticism of class friction in society acted as a biting social commentary. The inclusion of prostitution and sexual promiscuity in the plot was also original for its time, and the foundation for criticism of the book's "lowness."

Call It Sleep

(Henry Roth; 1934) novel that tells the story of a young boy growing up in the Jewish immigrant ghetto of NY's Lower East Side in the early 20th-century. The boy, David Schearl, is caught between the violence of his father, Albert, and the degradation of life in the streets of NY tenement slums.

Fathers and Sons

(Ivan Turgenev;1862) is considered the first modern novel in Russian literature. It primarily follows two young friends Arkady Kirsanov and Bazarov, who are nihilists, and their interactions with their families and others of the older generation. It explores the generational split at that time in Russia between old-order liberals and young nihilists. Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.[1] Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism can also take epistemological or ontological/metaphysical forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or that reality does not actually exist.

Brave New World

(Aldous Huxley; 1932) Novel that envisions a world in which free will and individuality have been sacrificed in deference to complete social stability in a dystopian world ruled by the World State, which breeds humans into 5 classes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. They all take a drug called soma that represses negative emotions and preserves social harmony. Bernard, a somewhat runt-ish Alpha, takes a girl he likes, Lenina to the Savage Reservation, where people live outside the rules of the World State. There they encounter John, a "savage" who wants to leave the reservation and see the "brave new world" he has heard about. He and Bernard achieve fame in the World State, the former as a spectacle (a savage on display) and the latter as the savage's keeper. The novel comes to a close with John's exile and Bernard's suicide.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; 1962) First published in the Soviet literary magazine. The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Its publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history—never before had an account of Stalinist repression been openly distributed.

The Three Musketeers

(Alezander Dumas; 1844) Novel that combines historical fiction with the romantic. It follows a poor young nobleman named d'Artagnan in his quest to become a Musketeer. In the process he befriends the Three Musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and the four together try to foil a plot by the Cardinal Richelieu.

The Color Purple

(Alice Walker; 1982) Novel focuses on the life of African-American women in the South during the 1930s. The story of a protagonist who is repeatedly raped by a man she thinks is her father. A missionary family in Africa adopts the resulting children. The protagonist's sister, Nettie, works for the missionary family, and the novel takes the form of a series of letters between the sisters.

The Cherry Orchard

(Anton Chekov; 1904) The whole of the action takes place on a Russian estate of Ranevsky, who returns, with her daughter Anya and their entourage, after several years in France because the debt she has accumulated there necessitates that she sell the Russian estate. The action follows conversations about this sale with Lopakhin, a friend of the family who wants to buy the estate and build vacation cottages on the site of an enormous cherry orchard, which Ranevsky does not want to be cut down. In the midst of all this there are conversations and intrigue among the play's lesser characters, including the servents, who are involved in a love triangle with Dunyasha at the center. In the end, Lopakhin buys the estate and everyone leaves as the cherry orchard is being cut down.

Jane Eyre

(Charlotte Bronte; 1847) essentially a bildungsroman of the eponymous protagonist. It involves strong elements of social criticism, not to mention a strong, independent female protagonist, that challenged class, gender, and religious roles of the time. The protagonist is an orphan brought up by a cruel aunt, Mrs. Reed, who eventually sends her to the Lowood School, which is run by the hypocritical Mr. Brocklehurst. He is ousted after an epidemic that claims the life of one of the protagonist's dear friends, Helen Burns, and the protagonist goes on to enjoy the rest of her time at the school. After teaching briefly, she becomes the governess at a manor called Thornfield, which is owned by a dark man named Rochester. The protagonist falls in love with him and he proposes, but it is unveiled that he is already married to a woman who has gone mad. The protagonist leaves, but years later returns and tracks down Rochester, who has been disfigured by a fire set by the mad wife (Bertha) that burned down Thornfield. They marry and live happily ever after.

Cyrano de Bergerac

(Edmond Rostand; 1897) historical romance play that equally parodied and was influenced by Dumas's Three Musketeers. It is set in Paris in 1640, where the eponymous hero, a brilliant poet and swordsman, has fallen in love with his intellectual cousin, Roxane, who confesses to him that she is in love with Christian, one of C's cadets. C writes to Roxane in the name of Christian, who is a bit of a bumbler, and carries his secret for years, until right before his death Roxane realizes it was Cyrano she loved all along. (Guy with big nose; source of self-doubt)

All Quiet on the Western Front

(Erich Maria Remarque; 1929) Novel illustrating the horrors of World War I and the experiences of veterans and soldiers. It was extremely popular, but also caused a lot of political controversy when it was first published, and was banned in Germany in the 1930's. It was about Paul Baumer.

The Mill on the Floss

( "George Eliot" Mary Anne Evans; 1860) Maggie Tulliver has to choose betweeen her each of her suitors and her duty to her family. Adores brother Tom Tulliver. Mr. Tulliver (victim of character and circumstances), Philip Wakem (Maggie's sensible lover-encourages her to give up her unnatural self-denial). Explores the conflicts of love and loyalty and the friction between desire and moral responsibility; accurate depiction of English rural life.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

(1845) a memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass encompasses eleven chapters that recount Douglass' life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man.

The Stranger

(Albert Camus; 1942) an illustration of his absurdist world view. The novel follows the aimless life of the narrator, Meursault, a young man living in Algiers. It opens with his mother dying and him going to the funeral, where he does not cry. He then returns to Algiers where he becomes entangled in the life of his neighbor, Raymond, who abuses his mistress, who has been cheating on him. Meursault also gets involved in an emotionless and indifferent romance with a former co-worker, Marie, who wants to marry him. One day on the beach Meursault takes Raymond's gun and shoots the brother of Raymond's mistress, who has been harassing them, and once he is taken into custody all around him are astonished at his lack of remorse for his crime and his general emotionless indifference to everything around him. His trial focuses mainly on this part of his character, and he is sentenced to be executed by beheading. By the end he abandons all hope for the future and accepts the "gentle indifference of the world", which makes him feel happy.

The Crucible

(Arthur Miller; 1953). Miller chose the 1692 Salem witch trials as his setting, but the work is really an allegorical protest against the McCarthy anti-Communist "witch-hunts" of the early 1950s. In the story, Elizabeth Proctor fires servant Abigail Williams after she finds out Abigail had an affair with her husband. In response, Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft. She stands trial and is acquitted, but then another girl accuses her husband, John, and as he refuses to turn in others, he is killed, along with the old comic figure, Giles Corey. Also notable: Judge Hathorne is a direct ancestor of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Doctor Zhivago

(Boris Pasternak; 1956) challenge to communism, tells story of a pre-revolutionary intellectual who rejects the violence and brutality of revolution of 1917 and Stalinist years, even as he is destroyed he triumphs because of his humanity and christian spirit

Don Quixote

(Miguel de Cervantes; 1605/1615) Spanish novel that follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, an hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthly wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Don Quixote is met by the world as it is, initiating such themes as intertextuality, realism, metatheatre, and literary representation. Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. It has had major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844) and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Invisible Man

(Ralph Ellison; 1952) This story depicts a black man's struggle for identity. In the end, the unnamed narrator runs for his life and falls into a cellar. He decides to remain underground and write a novel about the absurdities of his life., It told about the life of a Southern black man who could not escape racism in the North. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African-Americans early in the twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity.

Native Son

(Richard Wright; 1940) Brutal portrait of a poor black man spurred on to murder by the oppression and hatred of the white world. The fear, hatred, and anger that racism has impressed upon Bigger Thomas ravages his individuality so severely that his only means of self-expression is violence. After killing Mary Dalton, Bigger must contend with the law, the hatred of society, and his own destructive inner feelings. This then leads to the murder and of his girlfriend Bessy. Wright is revolutionary in his bluntness and discussion. He also does a great job of showing oppression through the prosecuting lawyer's-Buckley-racism. It also shows how communists such as Mary's boyfriend Jan, and Max his defending lawyer.

Beloved

(Toni Morrison; 1987) Beloved's identity is mysterious. The novel provides evidence that she could be an ordinary woman traumatized by years of captivity, the ghost of Sethe's mother, or, most convincingly, the embodied spirit of Sethe's murdered daughter. On an allegorical level, Beloved represents the inescapable, horrible past of slavery returned to haunt the present (Also mother/daughter relationships). Her presence, which grows increasingly malevolent and parasitic as the novel progresses, ultimately serves as a catalyst for Sethe's, Paul D's, and Denver's respective processes of emotional growth.

Beowulf

(Unknown; Around 10th century): first major work in Old English, heroic poem. Set in Scandinavia, the epic hero Beowulf defeats the monster Grendel to become king of the Geats. Possibly the product of oral tradition because of its inconsistent mix of pagan and Christian imagery.

Lord of the Flies

(William Golding; 1954) Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of English schoolboys marooned on a tropical island after their plane is shot down during a war. Though the novel is fictional, its exploration of the idea of human evil is at least partly based on Golding's experience with the real-life violence and brutality of World War II. Free from the rules and structures of civilization and society, the boys on the island in Lord of the Flies descend into savagery. As the boys splinter into factions, some behave peacefully and work together to maintain order and achieve common goals, while others rebel and seek only anarchy and violence. In his portrayal of the small world of the island, Golding paints a broader portrait of the fundamental human struggle between the civilizing instinct—the impulse to obey rules, behave morally, and act lawfully—and the savage instinct—the impulse to seek brute power over others, act selfishly, scorn moral rules, and indulge in violence.

Hamlet

(William Shakespeare; between 1599 and 1602) The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, who is Claudius's brother and Prince Hamlet's father, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned madness—from overwhelming grief to seething rage—and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.

Macbeth

(William Shakespeare; between 1603 and 1607) It is considered one of his darkest and most powerful tragedies. Set in Scotland, the play dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects produced when evil is chosen as a way to fulfill the ambition for power. Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, and tells the story of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia, and he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler as he is forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of arrogance, madness, and death.

Vanity Fair

(William Thackeray; 1847-48)satirizing society in early 19th-century Britain. The book's title comes from John Bunyan's allegorical story The Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time of Thackeray's novel. In that work, "Vanity Fair" refers to a stop along the pilgrim's progress: a never-ending fair held in a town called Vanity, which is meant to represent man's sinful attachment to worldly things.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

(Zora Neale Hurston; 1937) The novel narrates main character Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny." Set in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received for its rejection of racial uplift literary prescriptions. Today, it has come to be regarded as a seminal work in both African American literature and women's literature.

Oliver Twist

(Charles Dickens; 1838) The story is about an orphan, Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Naïvely unaware of their unlawful activities, Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin. Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens's unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives. The book exposed the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London during the Dickensian era. An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public's attention to various contemporary evils, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of his time by surrounding the novel's serious themes with sarcasm and dark humour. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of hardships as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own early youth as a child labourer contributed to the story's development.

A Tale of Two Cities

(Charles Dickens; 1859) set in the late 18th century. It has a typically Dickensian plot with lots of characters and twists and turns, but it revolves around the love triangle of Charles Darnay, Lucie Manette, and Sydney Carton and takes place in London and Paris on the eve of and during the French Revolution. Lucie and Darnay marry, and in the end Carton tricks the imprisoned Darnay, switches places with him, and is executed instead of Darnay, giving Carton's life meaning and saving the lives of Lucie, Darnay, and their daughter.

Things Fall Apart

(Chinua Achebe; 1959): set in the 1890s and portrays the clash between Nigeria's white colonial government and the traditional culture of the indigenous Igbo people. Achebe's novel shatters the stereotypical European portraits of native Africans. He is careful to portray the complex, advanced social institutions and artistic traditions of Igbo culture prior to its contact with Europeans. Yet he is just as careful not to stereotype the Europeans; he offers varying depictions of the white man, such as the mostly benevolent Mr. Brown, the zealous Reverend Smith, and the ruthlessly calculating District Commissioner.

Robinson Crusoe

(Daniel Defoe;1719) This first edition credited the work's fictional protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. It was published under the considerably longer original title "The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates." Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)—a castaway who spends years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued.

Inferno

(Dante; 14 Century) Inferno (Italian for "Hell") is the first part of Dante Alighieri's epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.

The House of Mirth

(Edith Wharton; 1905) Novel that combines the characteristics of a novel of manners with literary naturalism. It tells the story of Lily Bart, an aristocratic woman in New York whose lavish lifestyle puts her heavily into debt, which, along with a false rumor that she is having an affair with a married man, causes her to be shunned from aristocratic society. She manages to barely pay off her debts with inheritance from an aunt's death and that very day kills herself with sleeping pills.

Wuthering Heights

(Emily Bronte; 1847) The frame story involves a man named Lockwood, who moves to an estate on the moors next to one owned by the mysterious Heathcliff, so he asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him about this man. As a young girl Nelly worked at the manor for the owner, Mr. Earnshaw and his family. Earnshaw one day brings home an orphan boy - Heathcliff - and raises him as his own, loving him more than his own son Hindley. However, after Earnshaw's death his real son enacts revenge on Heathcliff, treating him very poorly, and Earnshaw's daughter Catherine, who Heathcliff loves, marries another man. Heathcliff leaves and returns years later, wealthy and intent on enacting his own revenge. He drives Hindley and Catherine to despair, destitution, and death, mistreats his wife, and toys with Catherine's daughter and his own. We later learn that Heathcliff dies and the estate passes on to Catherine's daughter and her new husband.

A Death in the Family

(James Agee; published posthumously in 1957, 2 years after Agee's death) Largely autobiographical, the novel deals in part with the death of Agee's own father but also with the growing tension between rural and urban America (and their differing cultures and views on religion) at the time. The novel centers on the family of Jay, including his wife Mary and their son Rufus. Jay goes to see his father after a call from his drunk brother Rufus, who erroneously says their father has had a heart attack. On the way back from this visit Jay's car spins out of control and he is killed. The remainder of the novel deals with the next few days, especially the funeral and the family's attempts to process this tragedy.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

(James Baldwin; 1953) In large part autobiographical, the novel, set in Harlem, focuses on John Grimes on his 14th birthday in 1935. The five sections are told from the perspective of John and three other members of his family and explore John's resentment toward his father, Gabriel, for loving his other brother, Roy, more. The reader learns that the family's history stretches back to slaves in the South and that Gabriel is not John's real father. The novel largely deals with the central father-son conflict and John's coming of age and religious crisis.

The Last of the Mohicans

(James Fenimore Cooper; 1826) based on 1757 French and Indian War in which England and France fought over control of North American colonies. The novel follows white scour Natty Bumppo (aka Hawkeye), and two Indian friends Chingachgook and his son Uncas, the last two of the famous Mohican tribe. They become entangled in the events of the French and Indian War when they rescue the daughters of English Colonel Munro, who are traveling to visit their father at a besieged fort. Eventually the fort is overrun and the daughters are again captured by Magua and his Huron tribe, and in the process of rescuing them again one of the daughters and Uncas, the last of the Mohicans, die.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

(James Joyce; 1915) stream of consciousness novel by James Joyce that is largely based on the author's own adolescence. It deals with the early life of Stephen Dedalus who struggles with questions of faith and nationality before leaving Ireland to make his way as an artist and details his epiphanies along the way. In the process he slowly casts off his social, familial, and religious constraints, and leaves Ireland to escape from all these limiting pressures.

War and Peace

(Leo Tolstoy; 1869) It delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version were serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867. The novel was first published in its entirety in 1869. Story of several Russian families during the Napoleonic Wars and the 1812 French invasion of Russia and occupation of Moscow

The Scarlet Letter

(Nathaniel Hawthorne; 1850) Novel about Hester Prynne, a woman in seventeenth century New England who is convicted of adultery. At the beginning of the story, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her dress as a sign of her guilt. Hester will not reveal the identity of her partner in adultery. Her husband comes to realize who her lover is and takes revenge on him. Eventually, her dying lover publicly admits his part in the adultery.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

(Oscar Wilde; 1890) Innocent and beautiful Dorian Gray, once untainted and pure, soon meets the sardonic Lord Henry, whom influences him dearly. Dorian, getting steadily corrupted and self-absorbed, soon wishes to remain young forever; coinciding with his wish, his self-portrait soon changes in his stead, becoming monstrous and disfigured (driving Dorian toward madness)

Treasure Island

(Robert Louis Stevenson; 1883) Jim Hawkins (narrator), a young boy who goes on a journey to discover pirate treasure. Long John Silver, former pirate, goes to take back treasure; shifting loyalties. Dr. Livesey, steady, practical leader of the expedition. A YAL novel when published.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

(William Shakespeare; between 1590 and 1596) Comedy play. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set.

Romeo and Juliet

(William Shakespeare; between 1591 and 1595) about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. Watch West Side Story or the one with Leo.

Pride and Prejudice

(Jane Austen; 1813)It is a truth well known to all the world that an unmarried man in possession of a large fortune must be in need of a wife. So Mrs. Bennet did her best to help her five daughters find the wealthy husbands. Because their property would be inherited by a distant cousin of Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins after Mr. Bennet died. At a ball, the Bennets met Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy. Both of them were rich and single, so Mrs. Bennet was positive to make a match between them and her daughters. The eldest sister, Jane, and Mr. Bingley fell in love with each other at first sight. However, Elizabeth found Darcy's pride at first sight. But from then on, Darcy gradually loved Elizabeth, and proposed to her. While Elizabeth believed Mr. Wickham's untrue accusations about Darcy. So she misunderstood him a lot and rejected his proposal. Not until Elizabeth read Darcy's letter of explanation did she realize she made the wrong judgment about Darcy. Elizabeth felt ashamed of herself. But she was also touched by Darcy's help for her family and unchanged love for her. Finally, after getting her father's permission, Darcy and Elizabeth got married. Jane and Mr. Bingley also got married after they underwent some difficulties.

Faust

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; 1808ish) 12,000 line verse play based on a sixteenth-centrury classic German legend. Faust is a scholar who is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, so he makes a pact with the Devil (Mephistopholes), exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. Faust and the adjective Faustian imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term.

The Grapes of Wrath

(John Steinbeck; 1939) A book written by John Steinback that brought attention to the plight of the American Farmer in Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. It details what is known as the Dust Bowl, which was basically terrible, conditions for farming and anything agricultural based. Winds blew away all of the fertile soil, and killed nastive crops. The most famous image in The Grapes of Wrath is the novel's final one, in which Rose of Sharon Joad, whose baby was recently stillborn, breast-feeds a sickly, starving man on the floor of an old barn. In this image, Steinbeck powerfully dramatizes the desperate plight of Depression-era migrant workers, whom the author felt had been abandoned by society.

Gulliver's Travels

(Jonathan Swift; 1726) A seventeenth-century English doctor chronicles his travels to four fantastical lands, whose inhabitants the author uses to satirize and critique English society. Lilliput (where everyone is six inches tall), Brobdingnag (where everyone is enormous), Laputa (a flying island), The Struldburgs (unhappy immortals who wish they could die), Houyhnhnms (intelligent, clean-living, right-thinking horses), Yahoos (idiotic, dirty, violent creatures who turn out to be people, or at least look like them).

Heart of Darkness

(Joseph Conrad; 1890) A sailor tells the story of his journey through the Congo, where he met an enigmatic, powerful, insane imperialist who had abandoned the rules of English civilization., story reflects the physical and psychological shock Conrad himself experienced in 1890, when he worked briefly in the Belgian Congo.

Bartleby the Scrivener

(Melville; 1853) Short story by Herman Melville that is narrated by a character known simply as the Lawyer. The Lawyer uses this story as an opportunity to describe the law-copyists in his office, particularly B, who seems to be a model copyist but who one day refuses to help the Lawyer with a document, leaving him stunned. B eventually stops doing his work and is even living at the office, but the Lawyer is unable to make him leave.

The Metamorphosis

(Franz Kafka; 1912) Gregor Samsa wakes up to discover he has been transformed into an insect. This transformation is commonly considered to symbolize the emptiness and meaninglessness of the character's life, and by extension, modern life in general. (Novella)

A Farewell to Arms

(Ernest Hemingway; 1929) The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Rinaldi introduces Frederic Henry to Catherine Barkley; Frederic attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Frederic is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The second book shows the growth of Frederic and Catherine's relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Frederic falls in love with Catherine and, by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Frederic returns to his unit, but not long afterwards the Austrians break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. Frederic kills an engineering sergeant for insubordination. After falling behind and catching up again, Frederic is taken to a place by the "battle police", where officers are being interrogated and executed for the "treachery" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after seeing and hearing that everyone interrogated is killed, Frederic escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine and Frederic reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowboat. In the final book, Frederic and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labor. After a long and painful birth, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Frederic to return to their hotel in the rain.

Collected Stories by Eudora Welty

(Eudora Welty; 1980) collection of short stories, first published by Houghton Mifflin. Collected Stories about the American South that demonstrates the author's ability to write from the point of view of diverse characters ranging from Aaron Burr to a deaf black servant boy, a traveling salesmen, eccentric Southern matrons, and countless others.

Long Day's Journey into Night

(Eugene O'Neill, 1956). O'Neill wrote it fifteen years earlier and presented the manuscript to his third wife with instructions that it not be produced until 25 years after his death. Actually produced three years after he died, it centers on Edmund and the rest of the Tyrone family but is really an autobiographical account of the dysfunction of O'Neill's own family, set on one day in August 1912. The father is a miserly actor, while the mother is a morphine addict, and the brother is a drunk; they argue and cut each other down throughout the play.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

(Flannery O'Connor; 1955) Short story that epitomizes the genre of Southern Gothic. The story follows a family on vacation who get lost and whose car flips before they are found by the Misfit, an escaped convict. The majority of the stories include jarring violent scenes that make the characters undergo a spiritual change. The short stories commonly have tones of Catholicism related to life and death scenarios.

The Good Soldier

(Ford Madox; 1915) Novel that portrays pre-WWI society's shifting morals and loss of steadfast social rules. It is narrated, unreliably, by John Dowell in a form that prefigures stream of consciousness, following Dowell's recollections of his and his wife's relationship with Edward and Leonora Ashburnham in non-chronological order. Dowell's narration mainly explores the discovery of the numerous affairs of his wife Florence and Edward, who end up having an affair with each other. These intrigues lead to Florence's suicide, Leonora's moral torture of Edward and his suicide, and the madness of the Ashburnham's young ward Nancy, whom Dowell eventually takes care of.

Crime and Punishment

(Fyodor Dostoyevsky; 1866) Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her cash. Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless vermin. He also commits this murder to test his own hypothesis that some people are naturally capable of such things, and even have the right to do them. Several times throughout the novel, Raskolnikov justifies his actions by comparing himself with Napoleon Bonaparte, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

(Gabriel Garcia Marquez; 1967) is the story of seven generations of the Buendía Family in the town of Macondo. The founding patriarch of Macondo, José Arcadio Buendía, and Úrsula Iguarán, his wife (and first cousin), leave Riohacha, Colombia, to find a better life and a new home. One night of their emigration journey, whilst camping on a riverbank, José Arcadio Buendía dreams of "Macondo", a city of mirrors that reflected the world in and about it. Upon awakening, he decides to found Macondo at the river side; after days of wandering the jungle, José Arcadio Buendía's founding of Macondo is utopic. Founding patriarch José Arcadio Buendía believes Macondo to be surrounded by water, and from that island, he invents the world according to his perceptions. Soon after its foundation, Macondo becomes a town frequented by unusual and extraordinary events that involve the generations of the Buendía family, who are unable or unwilling to escape their periodic (mostly) self-inflicted misfortunes. Ultimately, a hurricane destroys Macondo, the city of mirrors; just the cyclical turmoil inherent to Macondo. At the end of the story, a Buendía man deciphers an encryption that generations of Buendía family men had failed to decode. The secret message informed the recipient of every fortune and misfortune lived by the Buendía Family generations.

The Canterbury Tales

(Geoffrey Chaucer; End of 14th Century) is a collection of over 20 stories written in Middle English, during the time of the Hundred Years' War. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.

Pygmalion

(George Bernard Shaw; 1912) Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women's independence. (Greek Mythology) A great sculptor, Pygmalion sculpted a beautiful woman whom he named Galatea and fell in love with its beauty. So, he went to the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and prayed for a wife that resembled Galatea. When Aphrodite saw that Galatea also resembled her looks, she was pleased and brought the sculpture itself to life. Pygmalion returned home to be greeted by Galatea, and soon they married. Pygmalion and Galatea continued to bring gifts of thanks to Aphrodite, and in return, Aphrodite granted them happiness.

Walden

(Henry David Thoreau; 1854)a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. It details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. The book compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, about two miles from his family home. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

The Portrait of a Lady

(Henry James; 1881) This novel is considered James's masterpiece. The text depicts the life of Isabel Archer who moves from the States to England to live with her aunt after the death of her father. There she meets her cousin Ralph, her uncle Mr. Touchett, and the wealthy Lord Warburton, who proposes to her shortly after her arrival. She rejects him in favour because she fears to lose her freedom if she enters a marriage. She learns that her former suitor Caspar Goodwood has followed her. She encounters him in London. He proposes to her and she rejects him, but promises to mull the proposal over in the next two years. When her uncle grows sick and dies he leaves Isabel a seizable fortune. While she is staying at her uncle's home she befriends Mrs. Touchett's friend Madame Merle. Later Isabel, Mrs. Touchett, and Madame Merle travel to the Touchett's house in Florence where Isabel meets Gilbert Osmond through introduction by Madame Merle. She marries Osmond despite the urging of her friends that he will not make a good husband for her. She ignores the advice and learns that he is a controlling tyrant who has raised his daughter Pansy to obey his every wish. When news arrive that Ralph is dying Osmond refuses to let her visit her cousin in England. When Isabel learns that Pansy is the child of Osmond and Merle and that she has been tricked into marriage by the latter, she leaves regardless of her husbands advice. She decides to return to him, however, because she believes in the principles of marriage and because she does not want to abandon Pansy with her cruel father.

The Illiad

(Homer; 760-710BC) an epic poem in dactylic hexameters. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege; the earlier events, such as the gathering of warriors for the siege, the cause of the war, and related concerns tend to appear near the beginning. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles' looming death and the sack of Troy, prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly, so that when it reaches an end, the poem has told a more or less complete tale of the Trojan War.

The Odyssey

(Homer; near the end of the 8th century BC) It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second oldest extant work of Western literature, the Iliad being the oldest. It is believed to have been composed somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia. The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Roman myths) and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.

The Call of the Wild

(Jack London; 1903) short novel that draws on London's experiences during the Klondike Gold Rush and on his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence. It is about a dog named Buck who is kidnapped from his California home and sold north to become a sled dog during the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the 19th century. Experiencing brutality and savage conditions, he slowly turns wild, eventually leading a pack of wolves by the end.

The Crying of Lot 49

(Thomas Pynchon; 1966) Thomas Pynchon, possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies, Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero (or Tristero). The former actually existed, and was the first firm to distribute postal mail; the latter is Pynchon's invention. The novel is often classified as a notable example of postmodern fiction.

Catch-22

(Joseph Heller; 1961) The novel follows Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea west of Italy. The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, and their attempts to keep their sanity in order to fulfill their service requirements, so that they can return home. The phrase "Catch-22", "a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule," has entered the English language. "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle." (p. 56, ch. 5)

The Awakening

(Kate Chopin;1899)The Awakening portrays a married woman who defies social convention first by falling in love with another man, and then by committing suicide when she finds that his views on women are as oppressive as her husband's. The novel reflects the changing role of women during the early 1900s.

Slaughterhouse-Five

(Kurt Vonnegut; 1969) novel that recounts the fire-bombing of Dresden with mock-serious humor and antiwar sentiment and is based on Vonnegut's own experiences in WWII. It is narrated in a non-linear, time-shifting way by the protagonist Billy Pilgrim, who has become "unstuck in time". He survives the Dresden fire-bombing as a POW in an airtight meat lock in an old slaughterhouse, but his memories of Dresden haunt him after he returns to the US to lead the epitome of a middle-class life. He is at one point taken by aliens and mated with an actress, but is later returned and predicts his own death.

Ceremony

(Leslie Marmon Silko; 1977) Ceremony follows the troubles of Tayo, a half-white, half-Laguna man, as he struggles to cope with battle fatigue after surviving World War II and witnessing the death of his cousin Rocky during the Bataan Death March of 1942. After spending several months recovering from injuries sustained during his captivity at a VA Hospital in Los Angeles, California, Tayo returns home to his family's home at Laguna Pueblo. Tayo suffers from increasing mental instability and turns to alcoholism to escape his inner turmoil. Tayo eventually turns to traditional pueblo spirituality and ceremony as a source of healing.

Swann's Way

(Marcel Proust; 1922) The first volume, published in 1913, of Marcel Proust's immense novel, Remembrance of Things Past. This volume tells two related stories, the first of which encounters a young Marcel, modeled on the author, exploring the French town of Combray and vowing to become an author. The second story jumps back in time fifteen years to tell about the romance between Charles Swann, a friend of Marcel's grandparents who appears regularly in the first story, and his wife Odette, who is presented toward the end of the first story. Swann falls in love with an idealized version of Odette he has constructed and they eventually marry; after time, Swann realizes Odette has been having numerous affairs and is not the woman he imagined her to be.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(Mark Twain; 1884) sequel to Tom Sawyer; considered Twain's masterpiece; main character is Huck; Huck runs away from his father by rafting down the Mississippi River with a slave, Jim; shows the reader what creulty men and women are capable of and slowly recognizes the hypocrisy of his society; Banned from many school for use of the N-word or edited to remove it.

Frankenstein

(Mary Shelley; 1818) Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein's triumph as he reanimates a dead body, and then his guilt for creating such a thing. When the "Frankenstein monster" realizes how he came to be and is rejected by mankind, he seeks revenge on his creator's family to avenge his own sorrow. Mary Shelley first wrote Frankenstein as a short story after the poet Lord Byron suggested his friends each write a ghost story.

The Woman Warrior

(Maxine Hong Kingston; 1976) memoir known for its blending of voices and styles and for taking autobiography into the postmodern literary age. Kingston blends autobiography with ancient Chinese folk tales as she tells the stories of a long-dead aunt, "No-Name Woman"; a mythical female warrior, Fa Mu Lan; Kingston's mother, Brave Orchid; Kingston's aunt, Moon Orchid; and herself. These stories integrate her own experiences with "talk-stories" - blends of Chinese history, myths and beliefs - that her mother tells her.

Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

(May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first, then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays - Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series, published respectively in 1841 and 1844 - represent the core of his thinking, and include such well-known essays as Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience. Together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul."

Moby Dick

(Melville; 1851) The opening line, "Call me Ishmael," is one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western literature. Ishmael then narrates the voyage of the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ahab has one purpose: revenge on Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white whale which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab's ship and severed his leg at the knee. The detailed and realistic descriptions of whale hunting and the process of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God.

Waiting for Godot

(Samuel Beckett; 1953) Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, meet near a tree. They converse on various topics and reveal that they are waiting there for a man named Godot. While they wait, two other men enter. Pozzo is on his way to the market to sell his slave, Lucky. He pauses for a while to converse with Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking, and Pozzo and Lucky leave. After Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and tells Vladimir that he is a messenger from Godot. He tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming tonight, but that he will surely come tomorrow. Vladimir asks him some questions about Godot and the boy departs. After his departure, Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave, but they do not move as the curtain falls. The next night, Vladimir and Estragon again meet near the tree to wait for Godot. Lucky and Pozzo enter again, but this time Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. Pozzo does not remember meeting the two men the night before. They leave and Vladimir and Estragon continue to wait. Shortly after, the boy enters and once again tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming. He insists that he did not speak to Vladimir yesterday. After he leaves, Estragon and Vladimir decide to leave, but again they do not move as the curtain falls, ending the play.

The Adventures of Augie March

(Saul Bellow; 1953) features the eponymous protagonist. It is a sort of bildungsroman that often comically explores issues of alienation and belonging, poverty and wealth, and love and loss through a series of occupations, encounters, and relationships that follow the protagonist from childhood to manhood. The protagonist is a modern Everyman whose fate is determined only by the typically American combination of luck and hard work. The novel follows him from job to job, woman to woman, and lifestyle to lifestyle, from Mexico to working with the CIO to sailing with the merchant navy to marrying Stella in Chicago.

Babbitt

(Sinclair Lewis;1922) Babbitt, an American real estate agent in NYC is portrayed as a loud, overoptimistic boor who thinks only about money and speaks in clichés. Largely a satire of American culture, society, and behavior, it critiques the vacuity of middle-class American life and its pressure toward conformity. The word "Babbitt" entered the English language as a "person and especially a business or professional man who conforms unthinkingly to prevailing middle-class standards"

Oedipus Rex

(Sophocles; 429 BC) He becomes king of Thebes before the action of the play begins. He is renowned for his intelligence and his ability to solve riddles—he saved the city of Thebes and was made its king by solving the riddle of the Sphinx, the supernatural being that had held the city captive. Yet He is stubbornly blind to the truth about himself. His name's literal meaning ("swollen foot") is the clue to his identity—he was taken from the house of Laius as a baby and left in the mountains with his feet bound together. On his way to Thebes, he killed his biological father, not knowing who he was, and proceeded to marry Jocasta, his biological mother.

Antigone

(Sophocles; 497 BC-406 BC) Antigone is a daughter of the unwittingly incestuous marriage between King Oedipus of Thebes and his mother Jocasta. She is the subject of a popular story in which she attempts to secure a respectable burial for her brother Polynices, even though he is seen as a traitor to Thebes and the law forbids even mourning for him, punishable by death.

The Red Badge of Courage

(Stephan Crane; 1895) Short novel about a young man, Henry Fleming, whose romantic notions of heroism in combat are shattered when he fights in the Civil War. This psychological masterpiece examines Henry's "cowardly" flight and "heroic" attack.

The Bell Jar

(Sylvia Plath; 1963) only novel, originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. The novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef since the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression. In this novel, Joan Gilling hangs herself after the protagonist sleeps with a Harvard professor named Irwin. The protagonist abandons Buddy Willard after he gets tuberculosis. The novelist Philomela Guinea pays for the main character to see Dr. Nolan after Dr. Gordon forced her to undergo electroshock therapy.

The Glass Menagerie

(Tennessee Williams, 1944). Partly based on Williams' own family, the drama is narrated by Tom Wingfield, who supports his mother Amanda and his crippled sister Laura (who takes refuge from reality in her glass animals). At Amanda's insistence, Tom brings his friend Jim O'Connor to the house as a gentleman caller for Laura. While O'Connor is there, the horn on Laura's glass unicorn breaks, bringing her into reality, until O'Connor tells the family that he is already engaged. Laura returns to her fantasy world, while Tom abandons the family (by becoming a merchant marine) after fighting with Amanda.

An American Tragedy

(Theodore Dreiser; 1925) Clyde Griffiths, whose troubles with women and the law take him from his religious upbringing in Kansas city, to the town of Lycurgus, New York. Materialistic Hortense Briggs, farm girl Roberta Alden (who drowns), aristocratic Sondra Finchley. Clyde is found guilty of murdering Roberta, and sentenced to death. Abortion, societal ills.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

(Thomas Hardy; 1891) Novel that aroused controversy for its sympathy for England's lower classes, particularly for rural women victimized by the country's rigid social morality. It follows the eponymous young woman T of the title, whose family discovers they are descendants of a noble family. They send T to be raised by a wealthy family of the same last name, who are not actually related at all. That family's son Alec rapes T, and she eventually flees and gives birth to a baby, named Sorrow, that soon dies. She begins a romance with a young man named Angel and they marry, but when they confess their respective indiscretions to each other, T forgives Angel but he does not forgive her for what Alec did to her. Angel leaves for Brazil. T struggles, her father dies, and they are evicted from their home, but she refuses help from Alec, who is trying to woo her back. Eventually she becomes Alec's lover but kills him when Angel comes back and is eventually caught and executed.

The Magic Mountain

(Thomas Mann; 1924) considered one of the greatest works of German literature in the 20th century. It takes place almost entirely in sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps, where, while visiting a cousin with tuberculosis, protagonist Hans Castorp himself develops the illness and is forced to stay seven years while he recovers. During that time he encounters a collection of people who represent all sides of pre-WWI Europe, exploring all the issues and debates surrounding modernity at the time.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

(Victor Hugo; 1831) The story begins on Epiphany (6 January), 1482, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, France. Quasimodo, a deformed hunchback who is the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, is introduced by his crowning as the Pope of Fools. Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy street dancer with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, a poor street poet, but especially those of Quasimodo and his adoptive father, Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. Frollo is torn between his obsessive lust and the rules of the church. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but the hunchback is captured by Phoebus and his guards, who save Esmeralda. Gringoire, witnessing all this, accidentally trespasses into the Court of Miracles, home of the Truands (criminals of Paris). He was about to be hanged under the orders of Clopin Trouillefou, the King of Truands, until Esmeralda saved his life by marrying him. The following day, Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for one hour, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, offers him a drink. It saves him, and she captures his heart. Esmeralda is later charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy after seeing him trying to seduce Esmeralda, and is tortured and sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary. Frollo later informs Gringoire that the Court of Parliament has voted to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the church and will be taken from the church and killed. Clopin hears the news from Gringoire and rallies the Truands (criminals of Paris) to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda. When Quasimodo sees the Truands, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the King's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and her phony husband Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged. When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo then heads for the Gibbet of Montfaucon beyond the city walls, passing by the Convent of the Filles-Dieu, a home for 200 reformed prostitutes, and the leper colony of Saint-Lazare. After reaching the Gibbet, he lies next to Esmeralda's corpse, where it had been unceremoniously thrown after the execution. He stays at Montfaucon, and eventually dies of starvation. About eighteen months later, the tomb is opened, and the skeletons are found. As someone tries to separate them, Quasimodo's bones turn to dust.

To the Lighthouse

(Virginia Woolf; 1927) novel that is written in fragments of stream-of-consciousness narration from various characters. The events of the novel almost entirely take place in these characters' minds over the course of a single afternoon. It follows Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay and their children at a summer vacation house near a lighthouse. They throw a party one evening, and the memories of the party slip away. The narration speeds through the next ten years, in which Mrs. Ramsay dies, and leaves the last section to detail the return of the remaining family members to the house ten years later, when they finally make a trip to the lighthouse and Lily, a resident painter who began a painting before that party ten years ago, finishes her work.

Candide

(Voltaire; 1759) novel written in response to the questioning of other writers against the pessimism present in his poem regarding the deadly earthquake of Lisbon in 1755. It was a satire attacking war, religious persecution, and what he considered unwarranted optimism.

Leaves of Grass

(Walt Whitman; 1819-1892) A collection of poems written mainly in free verse. Published with revisions every few years in the late 19th century, it contains such well known poems as "I Hear America Singing," "Song of Myself," and "Oh Captain, My Captain." The poems of Leaves of Grass are loosely connected and each represents Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Exalted the body and the material world. Influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement, itself an offshoot of Romanticism, Whitman's poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it. However, much like Emerson, Whitman does not diminish the role of the mind or the spirit; rather, he elevates the human form and the human mind, deeming both worthy of poetic praise. With one exception, the poems do not rhyme or follow standard rules for meter and line length.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

(Willa Cather; 1927) The primary character is a bishop, Jean Marie Latour, who travels with his friend and vicar Joseph Vaillant from Sandusky, Ohio to New Mexico to take charge of the newly established diocese of New Mexico, which has only just become a territory of the United States. The names given to the main proponents reflect their characters. Vaillant, valiant, is fearless in his promulgation of the faith, whereas Latour, the tower, is more intellectual and reserved than his comrade. At the time of his departure, Cincinnati is the end of the railway line west, so Latour must travel by riverboat to the Gulf of Mexico, and thence overland to New Mexico, a journey which takes an entire year. He spends the rest of his life establishing the Roman Catholic church in New Mexico, where he dies in old age. The novel portrays two well-meaning and devout French priests who will encounter a well-entrenched Spanish-Mexican clergy that they are sent to supplant after the United States acquired New Mexico in the Mexican-American War. As a result of the U.S. victory, the dioceses of the new state were remapped by the Vatican to reflect the new national borders. Several of these entrenched priests are depicted as examples of greed, avarice, and gluttony, while others live simple, abstemious lives among the Native Americans. Cather portrays the Hopi and Navajo sympathetically, and her characters express the near futility of overlaying their religion on a millennia-old native culture

The Sound and the Fury

(William Faulkner; 1929) Perhaps his most famous and important. It is written in stream of consciousness and split into four parts, narrated by four different voices out of chronological order. A Southern family on the decline crumbles completely when one of his members has a child out of wedlock. Family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically. Title taken from Macbeth. "tale told from [different points of views], full of sound and fury.

As I Lay Dying

(William Faulkner; 1930) Novel that is much more sparse and clear than many of his works. It is composed of 59 segments narrated by 15 different characters and follows the Bundren family over a series of days as they travel from their home to the town of Jefferson to bury the family's matriarch, Addie, whose body they carry with them. Story about the death of Addie Bundren. Her husband Anse; her four sons, Cash, Darl, Jewel, and Vardman; her daughter Dewey Dell. The story is about the burial of the mother. Faulkner uses the "stream of conscious" technique.

The American

The novel is an uneasy combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe. Newman is looking for a world different from the simple, harsh realities of 19th-century American business. He encounters both the beauty and the ugliness of Europe, and learns not to take either for granted. The core of the novel concerns Newman's courtship of a young widow from an aristocratic Parisian family. The first half of the novel - Newman's courtship of Claire and his efforts to ingratiate himself with her family - is a witty and perceptive treatment of the clash between Newman's brash and assertive American nature and the haughty, traditionalist views of the French aristocracy. This portion of the novel delights most readers with its humor and grace. Unfortunately, the second half of the book descends into dubious and sometimes laughable melodrama, with the duel, the convent, and the deep dark family secret. James still writes with vigor and a sure eye for detail, especially in Valentin's death scene. But many readers have found it impossible to take all the plot material seriously. The American was popular as one of the first international novels contrasting the rising and forceful New World and the cultured but sinful Old World. James originally conceived the novel as a reply to Alexandre Dumas, fils' play L'Étrangère, which presented Americans as crude and disreputable. While Newman is occasionally too forward or cocksure, his honesty and optimism offer a much more favorable view of America's potential.