character/plot/theme books

Gawain and the Green Knight

It was New Year's day, and all the knights of the Round Table were celebrating the Christmas season at Camelot. Suddenly, a terrifying knight rushed into the great hall. He was broad and thick from waist to neck, and was very strong, large, and fierce. He was green from toe to top. (Green means growth, nature, MAGIC, etc.) Because he was dressed in green, not black, he was not attacked. He also carried a bough of holly (symbolizing peace), and an ax in his other hand. The man strode up to the crowd, and asked "where is the leader of this company?" Arthur came forth, and greeted him. The knight proclaimed to Arthur that he had a challenge. The challenge consisted of one knight chopping off the head of the Green Knight, if the green knight could inane year's time do the same to the competitor knight. No knight responded, all where filled with fear. The green knight openly questioned the courage of the knights of the round table. At this, Arthur accepted the challenge, but his nephew Gawain then asked to take the challenge instead, saying that he wanted to prove he was more than "Sir Arthur's nephew." Gawain chopped off the head of the Green knight. The Green Knight, being magical, gets up and rides away. In one year's time, Gawain searches for the knight who surely kill him. He stops at another castle for rest before continuing his search. The lady of the castle is intent on seducing him, but Gawain resists. The men promise to exchange what each have won during the day. Day one, the lord gives Gawain a deer, and Gawain gives the lord a kiss. Day two, the lord gives Gawain a boar's head, Gawain gives the lord two kisses. Day three, the lord gives Gawain a fox, Gawain gives the lord three kisses, but not the magical green silk scarf that the lady of the house has given Gawain for protection. Gawain feels guilty for this betrayal. He soon leaves the castle, and finds the Green Knight. The Green Knight is about to chop, and Gawain flinches slightly. The Green Knight reproaches him for his cowardice. Gawain asks for a second chance,and as the knight prepares to strike again, he tells Gawain to show his neck. The Green Knight strikes a third time, and nicks Gawain's neck. Gawain, after fulfilling his promise, leaps up, ready to defend himself. the Green Knight laughs, and states that he was never intending to hurt Gawain- it was a test of the courage of the Round Table. The fake swings were like the three days at the castle, the third swing symbolized Gawain's betrayal of the lord of the castle (actually the Green Knight). Gawain is given a green scarf to wear- it symbolizes his great chivalry and adventure with the knight. Gawain feels nothing but shame for his betrayal. Gawain keeps the green scarf, and proclaims its "a symbol of my transgression." Gawain returns to the runs table, and tells the knights of his adventure, and his betrayal- and shows them all his green scarf. He states that he may not hide his misdeed. Arthur then proclaimed that all should wear this green scarf to remember the Green Knight. THEMES: Themes of Gawain and the Green Knight include: chivalry and courage importance of loyalty growth

the dispossessed

The protagonist of the dispossessed is a man named Shevek. Skevek comes from a planet called Annarres- a dry, dusty, desolate planet. The citizens of Annarres once lived with a planet called Urras, but were moved to the planet Annarres after they challenged the government and rebelled. The people of Annarees believe in structure, community, and, most importantly, the idea of "functionality." (communism) This means that luxury is not evident on the planet, and that everything people do (work or other) is in the name of function and if it helps the community as a whole. There are no rules on Annarress, everyone is in charge of themselves and there is no government. Urras is more similar to Earth, there is money, social classes, and competitiveness. Shevek eventually decides to travel from Annarres to Urras to research and continue his work on a much sought after theory that could not have been researched on Annarres. He also hopes to show Urras that Anarres "still exists." The book flips from before his trip to Urras to when he is at Urras each chapter. Both plots meet up at the end to when he is home. Before he goes to Urras he realizes he is sort of a loner, and though he values his community and its rules, all based on the writings of a woman named "odo," a revolutionist on Urras before its inhabitants were moved to Anarres, he finds that the ideas of community and teamwork are not easy for him to adjust to when it comes to sharing his work and taking time away from his work. He questions his community's ideas and values. He meets a woman named Takver, they are both sort of loners and fall in love. They have two children, both girls. Shevek works at a university under a man named sabul, he manipulates shevek into sharing his findings with him in exchange for publishing his works. Eventually there is a famine, Shevek and his family are separated for a while, the famine ends and they live together again. The famine tests the ideas of community and teamwork, Shevek values these ideas more after the famine. Shevek joins a sort of "government," they make decisions but can rule over no one, shevek and a friend talk of how a man should travel to Urras. Shevek ends up traveling to Urras, though many think him a traitor for doing so. At first he thinks the planet is beautiful and enthralling. Visually, the planet is beautiful- rich in natural resources, and unscathed by factories. But just like the people of Anarres, this beauty liesonly on the surface. He meets some fellow scientists who academically match him- this is new to Shevek. He meets one of the scientist's sister in law's, and he goes to a party of her's and gets very drunk. The next morning, he reconsiders his time on Urras, and feels both shame and guilt. Not only is Shevek disgusted by the Urassti culture (including idleness of woman, waste of natural resources, and capitalism) Shevek feels as though he has defied Annarres. He then learns that they only invited him to the planet so that they may take his new theory and use it as bragging and leverage over other colonies. He escapes and visits the slums of Urras, "lights the powder keg," and starts a revolution. Many are killed once citizens begin to act up, and once Shevek begins to publish his revolutionary articles. During the chaos, Shevek escapes to another rival colony of Urras (Terra). He gives them the theory to share with everyone, not just with a rich, select few. He is then able to return to Annarres, and there is hope- he brings home a man from Urras to live on Annarres. The book touches on many themes including capitalism, social pressures, communism, the rich versus the poor, the power of community, negatives and positives of brilliance, etc. Shevek- the protagonist of the novel. Shevek is an outsider in his community. He is naturally an unsocial person, unlike the rest of his colony (excluding Takver). He has trouble fitting in, and thus feels unconnected to the society. He questions its morals and beliefs. Because Shevek is so revolutionary and different, he is shunned. Knowing this, Shevek decides to travel to Urras against the will of his fellow citizens. This is the first time any citizen of Annares has traveled back to Urras after the two colony's separation. At first, Shevek is entranced by the culture and splendor of Anarres- so different from the basic life of the Annare citizens. Shevek begins to forget his own colony, and accept the ideals of the Urrasti. After getting drunk at a party, Shevek recalls his time on Urras, and feels shame and guilt for going against his colony. He also learns that the Urrasti only want Shevek for his theory, and in a stroke of defiance, he runs away from his "captors" and escapes to the slums of Urras. He befriends the poor of Urras, and starts a revolution. Once the government catches news, there is much fighting and chaos. Shevek is able to escape and give his theory to Terra, a rival colony of A-Io, the rich sector of Urras. Shevek then returns to his home country with an Urrasti citizen, and a greater respect of his country's values and morals. Takver- Shevek's "partner." They meet while working in a particularly dusty region of Anarres. The two fit each other, for both are outsiders in society. Takver is a biologist, and studies both nature and mammals. She goes to work on a project far away from Shevek, to her great sadness. Shevek is given a job far away from Takver's laboratory as well. Though this seems like bad luck, it may be believed that this was the work of Sabul, and his desire for revenge after Shevek confronted him about his stealing of ideas. Once Shevek is reunited with his family, he learns that Takver and their children have all suffered from his poor reputation. They have been shunned and isolated from society, and this inspires Shevek to travel to Urras. Sabul- Employer of Shevek. He, like Shevek, is a "physicist." Many of his own ideas are poor and uneducated, and in order to keep his position and stature in the physics community, he mooches off Shevek's ideas and theories. Sabul is almost blackmailing Shevek, and only lets shevek send his ideas by letter to Urras if Shevek allows him to be co-author. Shevek eventually confronts Sabul about this dilemma, and Sabul in turn fires Shevek. Vea- relative of Oiie, one of the scientists sent to "watch over" Shevek. Vea leads Shevek on, and makes him fall in love with her. They both go out to lunch together, and see a movie. Vea invites Shevek to a party where he becomes very drunk, and attempts to take advantage of her. He does not, however, succeed. It is after this party that Shevek reconsiders his time on Urras. Oiie- One of the scientists watching over Shevek. He invites Shevek to come to his house for a weekend. Shevek meets Oiie's children, and during his stay, meets Oiie's relative Vea. Bedap- Childhood friend of Shevek. After many years, the two were reunited, and again became close friends. Shevek becomes friends with Bedap's friends, and Bedap becomes the closest friend of Shevek and his family. THEMES: The book has ALOT of themes, but some of the major themes include: Capitalism vs. Communism Community vs. Individualism Cost vs. gain brilliance

brave new world

by aldous huxley PLOT: The novel opens in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre, where the Director of the Hatchery and one of his assistants, Henry Foster, are giving a tour to a group of boys. The boys learn about the Bokanovsky and Podsnap Processes that allow the Hatchery to produce thousands of nearly identical human embryos. During the gestation period the embryos travel in bottles along a conveyor belt through a factorylike building, and are conditioned to belong to one of five castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. The Alpha embryos are destined to become the leaders and thinkers of the World State. Each of the succeeding castes is conditioned to be slightly less physically and intellectually impressive. The Epsilons, stunted and stupefied by oxygen deprivation and chemical treatments, are destined to perform menial labor. Lenina Crowne, an employee at the factory, describes to the boys how she vaccinates embryos destined for tropical climates. The Director then leads the boys to the Nursery, where they observe a group of Delta infants being reprogrammed to dislike books and flowers. The Director explains that this conditioning helps to make Deltas docile and eager consumers. He then tells the boys about the "hypnopaedic" (sleep-teaching) methods used to teach children the morals of the World State. In a room where older children are napping, a whispering voice is heard repeating a lesson in "Elementary Class Consciousness." Outside, the Director shows the boys hundreds of naked children engaged in sexual play and games like "Centrifugal Bumble-puppy." Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers, introduces himself to the boys and begins to explain the history of the World State, focusing on the State's successful efforts to remove strong emotions, desires, and human relationships from society. Meanwhile, inside the Hatchery, Lenina chats in the bathroom with Fanny Crowne about her relationship with Henry Foster. Fanny chides Lenina for going out with Henry almost exclusively for four months, and Lenina admits she is attracted to the strange, somewhat funny-looking Bernard Marx. In another part of the Hatchery, Bernard is enraged when he overhears a conversation between Henry and the Assistant Predestinator about "having" Lenina. After work, Lenina tells Bernard that she would be happy to accompany him on the trip to the Savage Reservation in New Mexico to which he had invited her. Bernard, overjoyed but embarrassed, flies a helicopter to meet a friend of his, Helmholtz Watson. He and Helmholtz discuss their dissatisfaction with the World State. Bernard is primarily disgruntled because he is too small and weak for his caste; Helmholtz is unhappy because he is too intelligent for his job writing hypnopaedic phrases. In the next few days, Bernard asks his superior, the Director, for permission to visit the Reservation. The Director launches into a story about a visit to the Reservation he had made with a woman twenty years earlier. During a storm, he tells Bernard, the woman was lost and never recovered. Finally, he gives Bernard the permit, and Bernard and Lenina depart for the Reservation, where they get another permit from the Warden. Before heading into the Reservation, Bernard calls Helmholtz and learns that the Director has grown weary of what he sees as Bernard's difficult and unsocial behavior and is planning to exile Bernard to Iceland when he returns. Bernard is angry and distraught, but decides to head into the Reservation anyway. On the Reservation, Lenina and Bernard are shocked to see its aged and ill residents; no one in the World State has visible signs of aging. They witness a religious ritual in which a young man is whipped, and find it abhorrent. After the ritual they meet John, a fair-skinned young man who is isolated from the rest of the village. John tells Bernard about his childhood as the son of a woman named Linda who was rescued by the villagers some twenty years ago. Bernard realizes that Linda is almost certainly the woman mentioned by the Director. Talking to John, he learns that Linda was ostracized because of her willingness to sleep with all the men in the village, and that as a result John was raised in isolation from the rest of the village. John explains that he learned to read using a book called The Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of the Embryo and The Complete Works of Shakespeare, the latter given to Linda by one of her lovers, Popé. John tells Bernard that he is eager to see the "Other Place"—the "brave new world" that his mother has told him so much about. Bernard invites him to return to the World State with him. John agrees but insists that Linda be allowed to come as well. While Lenina, disgusted with the Reservation, takes enough soma to knock her out for eighteen hours, Bernard flies to Santa Fe where he calls Mustapha Mond and receives permission to bring John and Linda back to the World State. Meanwhile, John breaks into the house where Lenina is lying intoxicated and unconscious, and barely suppresses his desire to touch her. Bernard, Lenina, John, and Linda fly to the World State, where the Director is waiting to exile Bernard in front of his Alpha coworkers. But Bernard turns the tables by introducing John and Linda. The shame of being a "father"—the very word makes the onlookers laugh nervously—causes the Director to resign, leaving Bernard free to remain in London. John becomes a hit with London society because of his strange life led on the Reservation. But while touring the factories and schools of the World State, John becomes increasingly disturbed by the society that he sees. His sexual attraction to Lenina remains, but he desires more than simple lust, and he finds himself terribly confused. In the process, he also confuses Lenina, who wonders why John does not wish to have sex with her. As the discoverer and guardian of the "Savage," Bernard also becomes popular. He quickly takes advantage of his new status, sleeping with many women and hosting dinner parties with important guests, most of whom dislike Bernard but are willing to placate him if it means they get to meet John. One night John refuses to meet the guests, including the Arch-Community Songster, and Bernard's social standing plummets. After Bernard introduces them, John and Helmholtz quickly take to each other. John reads Helmholtz parts of Romeo and Juliet, but Helmholtz cannot keep himself from laughing at a serious passage about love, marriage, and parents—ideas that are ridiculous, almost scatological in World State culture. Fueled by his strange behavior, Lenina becomes obsessed with John, refusing Henry's invitation to see a feely. She takes soma and visits John at Bernard's apartment, where she hopes to seduce him. But John responds to her advances with curses, blows, and lines from Shakespeare. She retreats to the bathroom while he fields a phone call in which he learns that Linda, who has been on permanent soma-holiday since her return, is about to die. At the Hospital for the Dying he watches her die while a group of lower-caste boys receiving their "death conditioning" wonder why she is so unattractive. The boys are simply curious, but John becomes enraged. After Linda dies, John meets a group of Delta clones who are receiving their soma ration. He tries to convince them to revolt, throwing the soma out the window, and a riot results. Bernard and Helmholtz, hearing of the riot, rush to the scene and come to John's aid. After the riot is calmed by police with soma vapor, John, Helmholtz, and Bernard are arrested and brought to the office of Mustapha Mond. John and Mond debate the value of the World State's policies, John arguing that they dehumanize the residents of the World State and Mond arguing that stability and happiness are more important than humanity. Mond explains that social stability has required the sacrifice of art, science, and religion. John protests that, without these things, human life is not worth living. Bernard reacts wildly when Mond says that he and Helmholtz will be exiled to distant islands, and he is carried from the room. Helmholtz accepts the exile readily, thinking it will give him a chance to write, and soon follows Bernard out of the room. John and Mond continue their conversation. They discuss religion and the use of soma to control negative emotions and social harmony. John bids Helmholtz and Bernard good-bye. Refused the option of following them to the islands by Mond, he retreats to a lighthouse in the countryside where he gardens and attempts to purify himself by self-flagellation. Curious World State citizens soon catch him in the act, and reporters descend on the lighthouse to film news reports and a feely. After the feely, hordes of people descend on the lighthouse and demand that John whip himself. Lenina comes and approaches John with her arms open. John reacts by brandishing his whip and screaming "Kill it! Kill it!" The intensity of the scene causes an orgy in which John takes part. The next morning he wakes up and, overcome with anger and sadness at his submission to World State society, hangs himself. CHARACTERS: John-Although Bernard Marx is the primary character in Brave New World up until his visit with Lenina to the Reservation, after that point he fades into the background and John becomes the central protagonist. John first enters the story as he expresses an interest in participating in the Indian religious ritual from which Bernard and Lenina recoil. John's desire first marks him as an outsider among the Indians, since he is not allowed to participate in their ritual. It also demonstrates the huge cultural divide between him and World State society, since Bernard and Lenina see the tribal ritual as disgusting. John becomes the central character of the novel because, rejected both by the "savage" Indian culture and the "civilized" World State culture, he is the ultimate outsider. As an outsider, John takes his values from a more than 900-year-old author, William Shakespeare. John's extensive knowledge of Shakespeare's works serves him in several important ways: it enables him to verbalize his own complex emotions and reactions, it provides him with a framework from which to criticize World State values, and it provides him with language that allows him to hold his own against the formidable rhetorical skill of Mustapha Mond during their confrontation. (On the other hand, John's insistence on viewing the world through Shakespearean eyes sometimes blinds him to the reality of other characters, notably Lenina, who, in his mind, is alternately a heroine and a "strumpet," neither of which label is quite appropriate to her.) Shakespeare embodies all of the human and humanitarian values that have been abandoned in the World State. John's rejection of the shallow happiness of the World State, his inability to reconcile his love and lust for Lenina, and even his eventual suicide all reflect themes from Shakespeare. He is himself a Shakespearean character in a world where any poetry that does not sell a product is prohibited. John's naïve optimism about the World State, expressed in the words from The Tempest that constitute the novel's title, is crushed when he comes into direct contact with the State. The phrase "brave new world" takes on an increasingly bitter, ironic, and pessimistic tone as he becomes more knowledgeable about the State. John's participation in the final orgy and his suicide at the end of the novel can be seen as the result of an insanity created by the fundamental conflict between his values and the reality of the world around him. Bernard Marx-Up until his visit to the Reservation and the introduction of John, Bernard Marx is the central figure of the novel. Bernard's first appearance in the novel is highly ironic. Just as the Director finishes his explanation of how the World State has successfully eliminated lovesickness, and everything that goes along with frustrated desire, Huxley gives us our first glimpse into a character's private thoughts, and that character is lovesick, jealous, and fiercely angry at his sexual rivals. Thus, while Bernard is not exactly heroic (and he becomes even less so as the novel progresses), he is still interesting to the reader because he is human. He wants things that he can't have. The major movement in Bernard's character is his rise in popularity after the trip to the Reservation and his discovery of John, followed by his disastrous fall. Before and during his trip to the Reservation, Bernard is lonely, insecure, and isolated. When he returns with John, he uses his newfound popularity to participate in all of the aspects of World State society that he had previously criticized, such as promiscuous sex. This about-face proves Bernard to be a critic whose deepest desire is to become what he criticizes. When John refuses to become a tool in Bernard's attempt to remain popular, Bernard's success collapses instantaneously. By continuing to criticize the World State while reveling in its "pleasant vices," Bernard reveals himself to be a hypocrite. John and Helmholtz are sympathetic to him because they agree that the World State needs criticizing and because they recognize that Bernard is trapped in a body to which his conditioning has not suited him, but they have no respect for him. Lenina's relationship to Bernard is different: she sees him merely as a strange, interesting fellow with whom she can take a break from her relationship with Henry Foster. She is happy to use him for her own social gain, but she doesn't have the emotional investment in him that she does in John. Helmholtz Watson-Helmholtz Watson is not as fully developed as some of the other characters, acting instead as a foil for Bernard and John. For Bernard, Helmholtz is everything Bernard wishes he could be: strong, intelligent, and attractive. As such a figure of strength, Helmholtz is very comfortable in his caste. Unlike Bernard, he is well liked and respected. Though he and Bernard share a dislike of the World State, Helmholtz condemns it for radically different reasons. Bernard dislikes the State because he is too weak to fit the social position he has been assigned; Helmholtz because he is too strong. Helmholtz can see and feel how the shallow culture in which he lives is stifling him. Helmholtz is also a foil for John, but in a different way. Helmholtz and John are very similar in spirit; both love poetry, and both are intelligent and critical of the World State. But there is an enormous cultural gap between them. Even when Helmholtz sees the genius in Shakespeare's poetry, he cannot help but laugh at the mention of mothers, fathers, and marriage—concepts that are vulgar and ridiculous in the World State. The conversations between Helmholtz and John illustrate that even the most reflective and intelligent World State member is defined by the culture in which he has been raised. Mustapha Mond-Mustapha Mond is the most powerful and intelligent proponent of the World State. Early in the novel, it is his voice that explains the history of the World State and the philosophy upon which it is based. Later in the novel it is his debate with John that lays out the fundamental difference in values between World State society and the kind of society represented in Shakespeare's plays. Mustapha Mond is a paradoxical figure. He reads Shakespeare and the Bible and he used to be an independent-minded scientist, but he also censors new ideas and controls a totalitarian state. For Mond, humankind's ultimate goals are stability and happiness, as opposed to emotions, human relations, and individual expression. By combining a firm commitment to the values of the World State with a nuanced understanding of its history and function, Mustapha Mond presents a formidable opponent for John, Bernard, and Helmholtz. Lenina Crowne - A vaccination worker at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. She is an object of desire for a number of major and minor characters, including Bernard Marx and John. Her behavior is sometimes intriguingly unorthodox, which makes her attractive to the reader. For example, she defies her culture's conventions by dating one man exclusively for several months, she is attracted to Bernard—the misfit—and she develops a violent passion for John the Savage. Ultimately, her values are those of a conventional World State citizen: her primary means of relating to other people is through sex, and she is unable to share Bernard's disaffection or to comprehend John's alternate system of values. Fanny Crowne - Lenina Crowne's friend (they have the same last name because only about ten thousand last names are in use in the World State). Fanny's role is mainly to voice the conventional values of her caste and society. Specifically, she warns Lenina that she should have more men in her life because it looks bad to concentrate on one man for too long. Henry Foster - One of Lenina's many lovers, he is a perfectly conventional Alpha male, casually discussing Lenina's body with his coworkers. His success with Lenina, and his casual attitude about it, infuriate the jealous Bernard. Linda - John's mother, and a Beta. While visiting the New Mexico Savage Reservation, she became pregnant with the Director's son. During a storm, she got lost, suffered a head injury and was left behind. A group of Indians found her and brought her to their village. Linda could not get an abortion on the Reservation, and she was too ashamed to return to the World State with a baby. Her World State-conditioned promiscuity makes her a social outcast. She is desperate to return to the World State and to soma. The Director - The Director administrates the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. He is a threatening figure, with the power to exile Bernard to Iceland. But he is secretly vulnerable because he fathered a child (John), a scandalous and obscene act in the World State. The Arch-Community-Songster - The Arch-Community-Songster is the secular, shallow equivalent of an archbishop in the World State society. Popé - Popé was Linda's lover on the New Mexico Savage Reservation. He gave Linda a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The Warden - The Warden is the talkative chief administrator for the New Mexico Savage Reservation. He is an Alpha. THEME: Technology as a harm: Brave New World warns of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies. One illustration of this theme is the rigid control of reproduction through technological and medical intervention, including the surgical removal of ovaries, the Bokanovsky Process, and hypnopaedic conditioning. Another is the creation of complicated entertainment machines that generate both harmless leisure and the high levels of consumption and production that are the basis of the World State's stability. Soma is a third example of the kind of medical, biological, and psychological technologies that Brave New World criticizes most sharply. It is important to recognize the distinction between science and technology. Whereas the State talks about progress and science, what it really means is the bettering of technology, not increased scientific exploration and experimentation. The state uses science as a means to build technology that can create a seamless, happy, superficial world through things such as the "feelies." The state censors and limits science, however, since it sees the fundamental basis behind science, the search for truth, as threatening to the State's control. The State's focus on happiness and stability means that it uses the results of scientific research, inasmuch as they contribute to technologies of control, but does not support science itself.

a separate peace

by john knowles PLOT: Gene Forrester is a quiet, intellectual student at the Devon School in New Hampshire. During the summer session of 1942, he becomes close friends with his daredevil roommate Finny, whose innate charisma consistently allows him to get away with mischief. Finny prods Gene into making a dangerous jump out of a tree into a river, and the two start a secret society based on this ritual. Gene gradually begins to envy Finny's astonishing athletic abilities, manifested in Finny's breaking a school swimming record on his first try. He thinks that Finny, in turn, envies his superior academic achievements, and he suspects that his friend has been taking steps to distract him from his studies. Gene's suspicions transform into resentful hatred, but he nevertheless carefully maintains an appearance of friendship. Gene realizes that he has been grievously mistaken about the existence of any rivalry between them when, one day, Finny expresses a sincere desire to see Gene succeed. While still in a state of shock from the force of his realization, he accompanies Finny to the tree for their jumping ritual. When Finny reaches the edge of the branch, Gene's knees bend, shaking the branch and causing Finny to fall to the bank and shatter his leg. The tragedy is generally considered an accident, and no one thinks to blame Gene—especially not Finny. But when the doctor tells Gene that Finny's athletic days are over, Gene feels a piercing sense of guilt. He goes to see Finny and begins to admit his part in Finny's fall, but the doctor interrupts him, and Finny is sent home before Gene gets another chance to confess. The summer session ends, and Gene goes home to the South for a brief vacation. On his way back to school, he stops by Finny's house and explains to his friend that he shook the branch on purpose. Finny refuses to listen to him, and Gene rescinds his confession and continues on to school. There, Gene attempts to avoid true athletic activity by becoming assistant manager of the crew team, but he feuds with the crew manager and quits. World War II is in full swing and the boys at Devon are all eager to enlist in the military. Brinker Hadley, a prominent class politician, suggests to Gene that they enlist together, and Gene agrees. That night, however, he finds Finny has returned to school. He consequently abandons his plans to enlist, as does Brinker. Finny expects Gene to take his place as the school's sports star now that he is injured. When Gene protests that sports no longer seem important in the midst of the war, Finny declares that the war is nothing but a conspiracy to keep young men from eclipsing the older authorities. Finny tells Gene that he once had aspirations to go to the Olympics, and Gene agrees to train for the 1944 Olympics in his place. All the boys are surprised when a gentle, nature-loving boy named Leper Lepellier becomes the first one in their class to enlist. Gene and Finny go on training, shielded within their private vision of world events. During a winter carnival, which Finny has organized, a telegram arrives for Gene from Leper, saying that he has "escaped" and desperately needs Gene to come to his home in Vermont. Gene goes to Vermont and finds that Leper has gone slightly mad. Leper, who was present at Finny's accident, reveals that he knows the truth about what happened. Leper's ranting frightens Gene and makes him anxious about how he himself might react to military life. He runs away back to Devon. When Brinker hears of what has happened to Leper, he laments in front of Finny that Devon has already lost two of its potential soldiers—Leper and the crippled Finny. Gene, afraid that Finny will be hurt by this remark, tries to raise his spirits by getting him to discuss his conspiracy theory again, but Finny now denies the war only ironically. Brinker, who has harbored suspicions that Gene might have been partly responsible for Finny's accident, wants to prove or disprove them definitively. He organizes an after-hours tribunal of schoolboys and has Gene and Finny summoned without warning. The boys on the makeshift tribunal question the two about the circumstances surrounding the fall. Finny's perceptions of the incident remain so blurred that he cannot speak conclusively on the matter; Gene maintains that he doesn't remember the details of it. The boys now bring in Leper, who was sighted earlier in the day skulking about the bushes, and Leper begins to implicate Gene. Finny declares that he does not care about the facts and rushes out of the room. Hurrying on the stairs, he falls and breaks his leg again. Gene sneaks over to the school's infirmary that night to see Finny, who angrily sends him away. Gene wanders the campus until he falls asleep under the football stadium. The next morning, he goes to see Finny again, takes full blame for the tragedy, apologizes, and tries to explain that his action did not arise from hatred. Finny accepts these statements and the two are reconciled. Later, as the doctor is operating on Finny's leg, some marrow detaches from the bone and enters Finny's bloodstream, going directly to his heart and killing him. Gene receives the news with relative tranquility; he feels that he has become a part of Finny and will always be with him. The rest of the boys graduate and go off to enlist in relatively safe branches of the military. Gene reflects on the constant enmity that plagues the human heart—a curse from which he believes that only Finny was immune. CHARACTERS: Gene Forrester-Gene is the novel's narrator, and he tells the story as a flashback, reflecting on his days at the Devon School from the vantage point of adulthood. He is the source of all of the reader's information in the novel and yet proves somewhat unreliable as a narrator—especially regarding insights into his own motivations. We first meet him as an older man returning to the place where he spent his adolescence; we thus initially attribute the wisdom of maturity to him and assume that he brings a certain degree of perspective to his memories of Devon. But even the adult Gene seems filled with fears and insecurities; his great worry, we realize, is that nothing has changed since adolescence—not the school buildings and not, most important, himself. We are then plunged into his memories of an idyllic summer session preceding his senior year in high school and his friendship with the athletic, spirited Finny. But what Gene initially presents as a perfect friendship soon emerges as nothing of the sort; his account of certain actions, along with statements that seem insincere or strained, soon betray his true feelings. Thus, Gene initially asserts that Finny resents him for his academic success. The reader quickly comes to realize, however, that it is Gene, in fact, who resents Finny—indeed, he resents Finny all the more for Finny's lack of resentment toward him. Finny's fall constitutes the climax of the story, and, afterward, all of Gene's resentments fade away. By crippling Finny, he brings him down to his own level. As Gene and Finny subsequently become increasingly codependent, the reader comes to see that Gene's forced equalization of the two boys may have been darkly deliberate—it may have stemmed from a deep desire within Gene to blur his own identity, to lose himself in another. Gene's act of putting on Finny's clothes and standing in front of the mirror, feeling strangely peaceful, symbolizes his desire to leave behind his own self and become Finny. As the object of Gene's jealousy, Finny is, in the language of the novel's dominating metaphor, the object of Gene's own private "war"; yet, as the mirror scene and other episodes make clear, Finny is also Gene's great love. Because of Gene's own insecurities and smallness of self, however, he can realize this love only after crippling Finny, for only then can his mixed awe and resentment give way to pure devotion. It is never clear whether, in jouncing Finny from the tree, the young Gene is motivated by an unconscious impulse or a conscious design. What he certainly does not know, however, is that the fall from the tree will set in motion the chain of events leading to Finny's death, making Gene Finny's killer, the destroyer of the thing that he loves most. Gene's fatal tendency to blur love and hate, his deep desire to blur his own identity into Finny's, is at the core of the novel's tragedy. Finny-Although we see all of the characters through Gene's eyes, his perception of others is most significant in the case of Finny. Even as Gene resents his best friend and harbors dark, unspoken feelings of hatred toward him, he regards Finny at times with something akin to worship. His depiction of Finny contains a strong note of physical, if not erotic attraction. Finny is presented in classical terms, as a kind of Greek hero-athlete, always excelling in physical activities and always spirited—thymos, to use the Greek term. (These Greek heroes were, like Finny, fated to die young; the archetype was Achilles, who considered it preferable to live briefly and gloriously than to die of old age.) Energetic and vibrant, Finny is a tremendous athlete; friendly and verbally adroit, he is able to talk his way out of any situation. Finny finds himself in his element during Devon's summer session; the substitute headmaster enforces few rules and Finny can let loose his spontaneity and boisterousness without restraint. Yet while he constantly tests the limits and asserts his own will, he seeks neither to emerge "victorious" in any argument or contest nor to "defeat" competing systems of rule. Blitzball, the game that he invents in which everyone competes furiously but no one wins, perfectly embodies Finny's attitude toward life. Finny's perspective on competition speaks to a more profound wisdom and goodness regarding other human beings. Just as he dislikes games with winners and losers, so in life he always thinks the best of people, counts no one as his enemy, and assumes that the world is a fundamentally friendly place. These qualities, according to Gene, make Finny unique; Gene believes that humans are fearful and create enemies where none exist. But Finny's inability to see others as hostile is his weakness as well as his strength; he refuses to attribute dark motives to Gene and he continues to subject himself to what may be a perilously—or even fatally—codependent relationship, never imagining that Gene's feelings for him are not as pure as his for Gene. Moreover, by assuming that everyone thinks like he does, Finny often acts selfishly, insisting that he and Gene do whatever he fancies. This carefree, self-absorbed attitude is one of the roots of Gene's resentment toward Finny, though Finny, aware only of himself and seeing only the good in others, never seems to pick up on Gene's inner turmoil. Finny is a powerful, charismatic figure—perhaps too good a person, as he inspires in Gene not only loyalty but also jealousy. Elwin "Leper" Lepellier-A quiet, peaceful, nature-loving boy, Leper shocks his classmates by becoming the first boy at Devon to enlist in the army; he shocks them again by deserting soon after. Both of Leper's decisions demonstrate important properties of the war: to the students at Devon, it constitutes a great unknown, overshadowing their high school years and rendering their actions mere preparations for a dark future. Leper's decision to enlist stems from his inability to bear the prolonged waiting period, his desire simply to initiate what he knows to be inevitable. Later, his desertion of the army again demonstrates a horrible truth: despite their years of expectation, the boys can never really be ready to face the atrocities of war. Leper's descriptions of his wartime hallucinations constitute one of the novel's darkest moments. He proceeds to outline to Gene, with terrifying detail, the hallucinations that he suffered in the army, disproving Gene's belief that he, Leper, cannot possibly descend into bitterness or angry flashbacks when walking through his beloved, beautiful outdoors. This tension emphasizes the contrast between the loveliness of the natural world and the hideousness of the characters' inner lives. Most of Leper's visions involve transformations of some kind, such as men turning into women and the arms of chairs turning into human arms. In a sense, then, Leper's hallucinations reflect the fears and angst of adolescence, in which the transformation of boys into men—and, in wartime, of boys into soldiers—causes anxiety and inner turmoil. Brinker Hadley-Brinker Hadley is, in many ways, a foil (a character whose actions or emotions contrast with, and thereby highlight, those of another character) to Finny. Also charismatic and a leader of the Devon boys, Brinker wields a power comparable but opposite to Finny's. Whereas Finny is spontaneous, mischievous, and vibrant, Brinker is stolid and conservative, a guardian of law and order. Finny, with his anarchic spirit and innocence, comes to be associated symbolically with the summer session at Devon, with its permissive atmosphere and warm, Edenic weather. Brinker, on the other hand, with his devotion to rules and his suspicious mind, is conceptually connected to the winter session, when the usual headmaster returns to restore discipline, the severe weather puts a damper on the boys' play, and the distant war intensifies, looming ever blacker on the students' horizons. In many ways, Brinker represents the positive sense of responsibility that comes with adulthood. When he convinces Gene to enlist in the army, Gene moves toward accepting obligations and leaving the carefree realm of childhood behind. Yet Brinker also embodies the cynicism and jadedness of adolescence. He suspects the worst of Gene in contemplating his involvement in Finny's fall. Only at the end of the novel does Brinker fully come into maturity: his earlier support of the war is, in many ways, as naïve as Finny's insistence that the war is a big conspiracy; now however, he begins to resent the war for its injustice and madness. Cliff Quackenbush - The manager of the crew team. Quackenbush briefly assumes a position of power over Gene when Gene volunteers to be assistant crew manager. The boys at Devon have never liked Quackenbush; thus, he frequently takes out his frustrations on anyone whom he considers his inferior. Chet Douglass - Gene's main rival for the position of class valedictorian. Chet is an excellent tennis and trumpet player and possesses a sincere love of learning. Mr. Ludsbury - The master in charge of Gene's dormitory. A stern disciplinarian, Mr. Ludsbury thrives on the unquestioning obedience of schoolboys and works hard to restore order after the anarchic summer session. Dr. Stanpole - Devon's resident doctor. Dr. Stanpole operates on Finny after both of Finny's accidents. He is a caring man who laments the troubles that afflict the youth of Gene's generation. Mr. Patch-Withers - The substitute headmaster of Devon during the summer session. Mr. Patch-Withers runs the school with a lenient hand. THEME: The Threat of Codependency to Identity: The central relationship in the novel—that between Finny and Gene—involves a complex dynamic of seeking to establish, yet being uncomfortable with, identity. Early in the book, the boys' relationship seems fueled, in part, by Gene's envy and resentment of his friend's dominating spirit. As Finny demonstrates his physical prowess, Gene feels the need to accentuate his academic prowess. Finny's fall from the tree, however, apparently purges Gene of his darker feelings and steers their relationship in a different direction so that codependency rather than envy characterizes it. The scene immediately following the fall symbolizes this evolution, as Gene dresses in Finny's clothes and sees himself as looking exactly like him. From this point on, he and Finny come to depend on each other for psychological support. Gene plays sports because Finny cannot, allowing Finny to train him to be the athlete that Finny himself cannot be. This training seems an avenue for Finny simply to live vicariously through Gene. But Gene actively welcomes this attempt by Finny, for just as Finny derives inner strength from fulfilling his dreams through Gene, so, too, does Gene find happiness in losing his own self (which he seems to dislike) in Finny's self (which he likes very much). Thus, the boys' relationship becomes a model of codependency, with each feeding off of, and becoming fulfilled by, the other. This codependency preempts the development of their individual identities, perhaps dangerously: by living within their own private illusion that World War II is a mere conspiracy and continuing to believe that Gene (and Finny through him) will go to the Olympics and that the outside world can never curtail their dreams, the boys are refusing to grow up and develop their own ambitions and responsibilities. Not even Finny's death, though it separates them physically, can truly untangle Gene's identity from Finny's—he feels as though Finny's funeral is his own. In a sense, the reader realizes, the funeral is indeed Gene's own; so much of him is merged with Finny that it is difficult to imagine one boy continuing to exist without the other. It is perhaps only his ultimate understanding that Finny alone had no enemy that allows the older Gene to reestablish a separate identity—one that he considers, however, inferior to Finny's. The Creation of Inner Enemies: A Separate Peace takes place during wartime and is emphatically a novel about war—and yet not a single shot is fired in the course of the story, no one dies in battle, and only the unfortunate Leper even joins the military before graduation. Instead, Knowles focuses on the war within the human heart, a war that is affected by the events of World War II but exists independently of any real armed conflict. For Knowles—or at least for his narrator, Gene—every human being goes to war at a certain point in life, when he or she realizes that the world is a fundamentally hostile place and that there exists in it some enemy who must be destroyed. The novel implicitly associates this realization of the necessity of a personal war with adulthood and the loss of childhood innocence. For most of Gene's classmates, World War II provides the catalyst for this loss, and each reacts to it in his own way—Brinker by nurturing a stance of bravado, for example, and Leper by descending into madness. Gene himself, though, states that he fought his own war while at Devon and killed his enemy there. The obvious implication is that Finny, as the embodiment of a spirit greater than Gene's own, was his enemy, casting an unwavering shadow over Gene's life. One might alternatively interpret Gene's statement to mean that this enemy was himself, his own resentful, envious nature, which he "killed" either by knocking Finny from the tree or by obtaining forgiveness from Finny for doing so. In either case, the overall theme is clear: all humans create enemies for themselves and go to war against them. Everyone, that is, except Finny, the champion of innocence, who refuses to believe that anyone could be his enemy. In a sense, Finny's death is inevitable: his innocence makes him too good for the war-torn and inimical world in which the rest of humanity lives.

lord of the flies

by william golding PLOT: In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group. Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy's eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death. At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting. When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror, that the signal fire—which had been the hunters' responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid. The littlest boys, known as "littluns," have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group. Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them. The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack. Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack's feast—and when they see Simon's shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth. The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack's hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy's glasses in the process. Ralph's group travels to Jack's stronghold in an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears. Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow's head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. The officer's ship noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure. CHARACTERS: Ralph-Ralph is the athletic, charismatic protagonist of Lord of the Flies. Elected the leader of the boys at the beginning of the novel, Ralph is the primary representative of order, civilization, and productive leadership in the novel. While most of the other boys initially are concerned with playing, having fun, and avoiding work, Ralph sets about building huts and thinking of ways to maximize their chances of being rescued. For this reason, Ralph's power and influence over the other boys are secure at the beginning of the novel. However, as the group gradually succumbs to savage instincts over the course of the novel, Ralph's position declines precipitously while Jack's rises. Eventually, most of the boys except Piggy leave Ralph's group for Jack's, and Ralph is left alone to be hunted by Jack's tribe. Ralph's commitment to civilization and morality is strong, and his main wish is to be rescued and returned to the society of adults. In a sense, this strength gives Ralph a moral victory at the end of the novel, when he casts the Lord of the Flies to the ground and takes up the stake it is impaled on to defend himself against Jack's hunters. In the earlier parts of the novel, Ralph is unable to understand why the other boys would give in to base instincts of bloodlust and barbarism. The sight of the hunters chanting and dancing is baffling and distasteful to him. As the novel progresses, however, Ralph, like Simon, comes to understand that savagery exists within all the boys. Ralph remains determined not to let this savagery -overwhelm him, and only briefly does he consider joining Jack's tribe in order to save himself. When Ralph hunts a boar for the first time, however, he experiences the exhilaration and thrill of bloodlust and violence. When he attends Jack's feast, he is swept away by the frenzy, dances on the edge of the group, and participates in the killing of Simon. This firsthand knowledge of the evil that exists within him, as within all human beings, is tragic for Ralph, and it plunges him into listless despair for a time. But this knowledge also enables him to cast down the Lord of the Flies at the end of the novel. Ralph's story ends semi-tragically: although he is rescued and returned to civilization, when he sees the naval officer, he weeps with the burden of his new knowledge about the human capacity for evil. Jack-The strong-willed, egomaniacal Jack is the novel's primary representative of the instinct of savagery, violence, and the desire for power—in short, the antithesis of Ralph. From the beginning of the novel, Jack desires power above all other things. He is furious when he loses the election to Ralph and continually pushes the boundaries of his subordinate role in the group. Early on, Jack retains the sense of moral propriety and behavior that society instilled in him—in fact, in school, he was the leader of the choirboys. The first time he encounters a pig, he is unable to kill it. But Jack soon becomes obsessed with hunting and devotes himself to the task, painting his face like a barbarian and giving himself over to bloodlust. The more savage Jack becomes, the more he is able to control the rest of the group. Indeed, apart from Ralph, Simon, and Piggy, the group largely follows Jack in casting off moral restraint and embracing violence and savagery. Jack's love of authority and violence are intimately connected, as both enable him to feel powerful and exalted. By the end of the novel, Jack has learned to use the boys' fear of the beast to control their behavior—a reminder of how religion and superstition can be manipulated as instruments of power. Simon-Whereas Ralph and Jack stand at opposite ends of the spectrum between civilization and savagery, Simon stands on an entirely different plane from all the other boys. Simon embodies a kind of innate, spiritual human goodness that is deeply connected with nature and, in its own way, as primal as Jack's evil. The other boys abandon moral behavior as soon as civilization is no longer there to impose it upon them. They are not innately moral; rather, the adult world—the threat of punishment for misdeeds—has conditioned them to act morally. To an extent, even the seemingly civilized Ralph and Piggy are products of social conditioning, as we see when they participate in the hunt-dance. In Golding's view, the human impulse toward civilization is not as deeply rooted as the human impulse toward savagery. Unlike all the other boys on the island, Simon acts morally not out of guilt or shame but because he believes in the inherent value of morality. He behaves kindly toward the younger children, and he is the first to realize the problem posed by the beast and the Lord of the Flies—that is, that the monster on the island is not a real, physical beast but rather a savagery that lurks within each human being. The sow's head on the stake symbolizes this idea, as we see in Simon's vision of the head speaking to him. Ultimately, this idea of the inherent evil within each human being stands as the moral conclusion and central problem of the novel. Against this idea of evil, Simon represents a contrary idea of essential human goodness. However, his brutal murder at the hands of the other boys indicates the scarcity of that good amid an overwhelming abundance of evil. Piggy - Ralph's "lieutenant." A whiny, intellectual boy, Piggy's inventiveness frequently leads to innovation, such as the makeshift sundial that the boys use to tell time. Piggy represents the scientific, rational side of civilization. Roger - Jack's "lieutenant." A sadistic, cruel older boy who brutalizes the littluns and eventually murders Piggy by rolling a boulder onto him. Sam and Eric - A pair of twins closely allied with Ralph. Sam and Eric are always together, and the other boys often treat them as a single entity, calling them "Samneric." The easily excitable Sam and Eric are part of the group known as the "bigguns." At the end of the novel, they fall victim to Jack's manipulation and coercion. The Lord of the Flies - The name given to the sow's head that Jack's gang impales on a stake and erects in the forest as an offering to the "beast." The Lord of the Flies comes to symbolize the primordial instincts of power and cruelty that take control of Jack's tribe. Jack-id, ralph-ego, piggy-super ego THEME: civilization vs savagery-without rules and society the boys begin to lose themselves and become savages ex. jack is fine and then becomes a raging maniac there are the deaths in the story which mark the transformation-accidental death of the boy in the fire, purposeful death of piggy