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- Genre: Novel, Bildungsroman - Title: Maurice - Point of view: Third Person Omniscient - Setting: England - Character: Maurice Hall. Description: - Character: Clive Durham. Description: - Character: Alec Scudder. Description: - Character: Kitty Hall. Description: - Character: Dr. Barry. Description: - Character: Mr. Borenius. Description: - Character: Risley. Description: - Character: Chapman. Description: - Theme: Love and Sacrifice. Description: - Theme: Sexual Orientation, Homophobia, and Self-Acceptance. Description: - Theme: Masculinity and Patriarchy. Description: - Theme: Religion. Description: - Theme: Class. Description: - Climax: When Alec never boards the ship headed to Argentina, it becomes clear that he has chosen to be with Maurice. Maurice rushes to meet Alec at the boathouse at Penge, where they declare their love for each other. - Summary: Maurice Hall is preparing to enter public school at Sunnington when the assistant schoolmaster at his current prep school, Mr. Ducie, pulls him aside for a talk. Because Maurice has recently lost his father to pneumonia, Mr. Ducie sees it as his obligation to guide Maurice into adulthood. In his talk, Mr. Ducie discusses "the mystery of sex," and says that the union of men and women allows the world to continue. Maurice cannot relate, and at the end of the conversation, he tells Mr. Ducie that he thinks he "shall not marry." At Sunnington, Maurice is an average student at an average school. He has two dreams there, one in which he follows a blank figure who turns into George, the former gardener at his mother's house, who Maurice was infatuated with before George left the job. In the other dream, a face he can barely see says, in a voice he can hardly hear, "That is your friend." The dream fills Maurice with beauty and tenderness, and he knows, deep down, that he wants to find that person in his life, a friend for whom he would sacrifice everything and who would sacrifice everything for him. After finishing at Sunnington, where Maurice finds himself popular without fully understanding why, he goes on to study at Cambridge. At Cambridge, he continues to be friends with other graduates of Sunnington at first, not venturing too far outside of the life he has always known. That changes when he meets Risley, an irreverent cousin of the Dean of the college who makes "exaggerated gestures" when he speaks. When Maurice goes to Risley's room to try and talk to him again, he finds Clive Durham instead. Clive and Maurice begin a close friendship, walking arm and arm together through campus and stroking each other's hair, none of which arouses the attention of their friends. Clive pushes Maurice to examine and question his beliefs, and Maurice soon renounces his Christian faith. After months of this kind of intimacy, Clive tells Maurice that he loves him. Maurice is horrified and says that he won't hold it against Clive because he knows he doesn't mean it, and he must never speak of it again. Clive leaves and slams the door before Maurice finishes talking. After the dissolution of their friendship, Maurice is devastated. He feels himself going mad, and, at night, is overtaken by sobs to the point that he can't sleep. In his pain and anguish, Maurice begins to see that he was lied to while he was growing up and that he has accepted those lies as truth. After this realization, he decides he has to save himself and Clive from unnecessary pain, resolving to tell Clive that he loves him. When he does, Clive first thinks that Maurice is just trying to be nice, but then he accepts that Maurice is telling the truth. The two become a couple—though, at Clive's insistence, they kiss but do not have sex for the course of their relationship. Maurice skips lectures to spend time with Clive, and, after he acts impertinently to the Dean, Maurice is expelled from college. He goes back home and wonders if he would have received the same punishment if he had been observed spending so much time with a woman instead of a man. While Maurice does not go back to college, he becomes a stockbroker with his father's former partner. Over the next two years, Clive and Maurice share abundant happiness. But then Clive travels alone to Greece and has a realization. He writes to Maurice to tell him that he has "become normal—like other men" and that he does not love him anymore—he is now attracted to women. Clive's abandonment wrecks Maurice. He doesn't know how to proceed with his life and begins contemplating suicide. He gradually gives up on the idea, but the end of his suicidal ideation does not lead to a renewed sense of vitality. He goes through life dimmed, lonely, and miserable, practicing what he calls "self-discipline." His mother receives a letter from Mrs. Durham, saying that Clive is engaged to be married to a woman named Anne. Maurice, unable to think of other options, decides to see a doctor, hoping that he might "cure himself" of his attraction to men. He visits his neighbor, Dr. Barry. When Maurice tells Dr. Barry that he is "an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort," Dr. Barry says, "Never let that temptation from the devil […] occur to you again." After Dr. Barry's reaction, Maurice decides to see a hypnotist. He attends multiple sessions, though ultimately the hypnotist tells Maurice that hypnotism won't work for him and that he would be better off moving to a country where homosexuality is legal, like France or Italy. Maurice, at Clive's invitation, goes to visit Clive at his family's estate, Penge. During his visit, Maurice goes in a group to shoot rabbits, and they are accompanied by Penge's gamekeeper, Alec Scudder, who is planning to emigrate to Argentina in three weeks. At first, Maurice thinks Alec is rude for turning down the tip he tried to give him, believing that Alec rejected it because it was too small. Alec later apologizes, though, for the misunderstanding. On a different night, Maurice wakes up to hear himself yell out, "Come!", and moments later Alec arrives, asking Maurice if he called for him. The two spend the night together before Alec leaves for work in the morning. Maurice returns to town, and, when Alec writes him asking to meet again at the boathouse at Penge, Maurice does not respond. Alec continues to write letters, and the letters take a threatening turn, as Alec insists that he "knows something" that Maurice wouldn't want others to know. Maurice thinks that Alec is trying to blackmail him and decides to meet him to resolve the issue at the British Museum. When they meet, though, Maurice thinks that the physical love they shared—followed by abandonment—led Alec to act rashly out of fear. He asks Alec to spend the night with him, and the two go to a hotel. When they wake up, Maurice asks Alec to give up the plan he has formulated to go to Argentina, asking him to stay in England so they can spend their lives together. Alec says he cannot do it, and Maurice thinks that love has failed. On the day of Alec's departure for Argentina, Maurice goes to Southampton to see off his ship. When the departure time comes and Alec still hasn't arrived, Maurice knows what it means. He sets off for the boathouse at Penge, the place where they were initially supposed to meet, and finds Alec waiting for him. The two decide to renounce the lives they have lived up to that point so that they can be with each other. Later, Maurice goes to find Clive, who is busy with work. Maurice tells him that he and Alec are planning to be together and to be together forever. When Clive tries to tell Maurice that he can help him get out of this situation, Maurice laughs and walks out the door. Maurice and Clive never see each other again, and Clive is left alone, trying to come up with a lie he will tell Anne to smooth things over if she has any questions about why Maurice visited.

- Genre: Novel, Romance - Title: Me Before You - Point of view: First person limited, mostly from the protagonist Louisa but including a chapter each from the perspectives of Camilla, Nathan, Steven, and Katrina. - Setting: Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England - Character: Louisa (Lou) Clark. Description: The main protagonist of the novel, Lou is a resourceful, cheerful girl who has been wasting her potential in her small hometown because she feels responsible for taking care of her mother (Josie), her father (Bernard), and her sister, Treena. She is also stuck in a long-term relationship with her fitness-obsessed boyfriend Patrick. Lou becomes the caregiver for Will Traynor and tries to show him that life is still worth living, even though Will suffers from quadriplegia. Lou is endlessly optimistic, eventually falling in love with Will and the spark of adventure he adds to her life. With Will's encouragement, Lou fulfills her dreams of going to university to study fashion. - Character: Will Traynor. Description: Will is the second main character of the novel. In the midst of his high-stakes, thrill-seeking life as a financier, Will suffers a traffic accident that leaves him paralyzed in a wheelchair. Will has given up on ever living a fulfilling life again and wants his parents, Camilla and Steven Traynor, to allow him to go through with assisted suicide. Camilla hires Louisa Clark to try and convince Will that there are still good experiences available for him. Will keeps up a sarcastic and difficult demeanor, but it's later revealed that this hides a heart of gold. Though Will and Louisa fall in love, Will can't change his mind about the life he wants to lead. He leaves Lou with the funds to live up to her potential. - Character: Katrina (Treena) Clark. Description: Lou's younger sister, Treena is considered the clever one of the family. Lou has always felt stuck in Treena's shadow, a feeling which persists even after Treena gets pregnant with her son, Thomas, and has to leave university to live with their parents again. Though the relationship between the sisters is strained, they truly care for one another. Treena supports Lou's plan to show Will the best in life, and continues to be a source of comfort for Lou throughout the novel. - Character: Nathan. Description: Will's primary physical caregiver, Nathan cares for all of the health issues that Will's paralysis has caused. Nathan is from New Zealand and has a no-nonsense demeanor and a sarcastic sense of humor that matches up with Will's own personality. Nathan helps Lou with all of her plans to show Will the best that life still has to offer. - Character: Camilla Traynor. Description: Will's mother, Camilla has a cold exterior that hides the immense pain she has felt ever since her son had his accident. Her job as a magistrate also gives her a bleak outlook on life. Camilla's greatest fear is losing her son, especially to suicide, and she hires Lou to make sure that doesn't happen. Though Lou is intimidated by Camilla's high class life and career as a court magistrate, the two women share an understanding because of their pact to keep Will alive. - Character: Josie Clark (Lou's Mom). Description: Lou's mother, a woman who takes great pride in keeping her house spotless and in caring for her two daughters, Lou and Treena, and her grandson, Thomas. Josie is also the primary caretaker of Lou's Granddad, who has suffered a stroke. She endlessly supports Lou, though she cannot condone Lou's involvement with Will's plan to commit suicide. - Theme: Ambition and Achievement. Description: Me Before You celebrates ambition, encouraging the characters to try for their dreams even if they seem unattainable. Yet at the beginning of the novel, both Lou and Will are watching life pass by instead of participating in it. Lou seems content in a dead-end job still living with her parents, unable to understand or sympathize with her far more ambitious sister – though Lou's safe, boring life is later shown to be a coping mechanism after the sexual assault that Lou suffered years earlier. Meanwhile, Will's high-ambition, high-stakes life as a London financier is brought to a screeching halt by the accident that leaves him wheelchair-bound. As Lou tries to convince Will to create new ambitions for the life he has now, Lou has to identify her own ambitions and eventually goes back to school for fashion design the way that she always dreamed. Will's life never completes the ambitions he had for himself, but he is able to push Lou towards achieving more than she ever thought possible. Moyes argues that this support is a necessary part of Lou's success, as some people need the encouragement of another person in order to set their sights higher. It is not easy for Lou to emerge from her comfort zone, but Will forces her to travel the world and advocate for herself instead of selling herself short. By the end of the novel, these choices are the most rewarding things that Lou has ever done and they are all the more satisfying because they were not easy. Ambitions may prove difficult, but Moyes asserts that the effort to achieve these ambitions is well worth it in the end. - Theme: Love and Sacrifice. Description: At its heart, Me Before You is a love story, though it is somewhat unconventional in that the main characters do not end up together at the end. Despite the lack of a traditional "happily ever after," Moyes still argues that love is an essential part of life – a complicated approach to love that addresses both romantic and familial bonds as the characters try to balance what's best for the people they love with what is best for themselves. The plot follows Will and Lou as they overcome their many differences and gradually fall in love, all while trying to avoid the extra challenge of codependency that might haunt a relationship between a caregiver and his or her charge. Lou experiences the joy of caring for Will's needs, but also the danger of believing that Will's needs are more important than her own. In the end, Moyes celebrates the love that Will and Lou share, but cautions against the romantic tendency of making a loved on or a relationship one's entire world. Moyes points out that Will and Lou's love enriches their lives, but it cannot solve all of their problems, as it might in the stereotypical romance novel. Yet the novel also asks how much should you sacrifice for the people you love, using the title "Me Before You" to refer to both Will's death before Lou's and the idea of prioritizing one's self above other people. This lesson is hard for Lou to learn, as she has so often put her family's happiness above her own and then resented them for it. Lou's experiences with Will give her the strength to both support Will as he makes the painful decision to end his own life as well as recognize her own needs to plan a fulfilling life outside of her family after Will is gone. Will, for his part, gives his family and Lou the time that they need to come around to his decision on their own so that his choice does not destroy his family or Lou's life completely. Throughout the novel, Moyes suggests that the healthiest balance allows people to be aware of their loved one's desires but ultimately remain loyal to their own wishes. - Theme: Quality of Life. Description: Moyes considers many answers to the question, "What makes life worth living?" One possible answer is money and status, as the well-to-do and high-society Traynor family seems to have everything that the Clark family, stuck living pay-check to pay-check, desires. Yet though Will owns a castle and can pay for anything he wants, his wealth does not console him after his accident and it does not bring the Traynor family closer together, as Moyes argues that money cannot make people happy or be the only end goal of a fulfilling life. Another possible answer is adventure, given the thrilling life that Will led before his accident and Will's many attempts to force Lou into having those type of adventures as well. Lou learns that some amount of adventure is a satisfying addition to her otherwise ordinary life, but that the true meaning of life cannot be something that is so easily taken away by a loss of health or finances. The ordinary moments of life are just as, if not more, meaningful to Lou in the end. The final answer Moyes considers is love. With Will stuck in a depression that no amount of money or wheelchair-friendly adventures can shake, his love for Lou and Lou's love for him is the only thing that gives Will true happiness in his final months. This love is also reflected in Will and Lou's families, as each of Will and Lou's family members find ways to support and care for each other through the difficult situations of Will's condition. Yet even love cannot be the only reason for life, as Will decides when he continues with his plan to end his life on his own terms. Lou also confronts the edges of romantic and familial love as she has to accept and support Will's dignified suicide even though it strains her relationship with her mother and means that her love story with Will has an end. Though Moyes presents Will's choice to end his life sympathetically, Moyes doesn't suggest (or claims that she doesn't intend to, at least) that some lives are not worth living. Moyes ultimately argues that each person must find their own individual, specific reason to live each day to the fullest. These choices and decisions are what gives life purpose, and Will unfortunately loses sight of all the choices he can still make after some of his choices are taken away by his accident. Moyes' main message is that life is meant to be lived well however a person can manage it, because life itself, in all its various, beautiful forms, is the only worthwhile reason for living. While Lou manages to find her own reasons to keep living after she survives sexual assault and the loss of the man she loves, she has to respect the choices that Will makes to live and die on his own terms, no matter how flawed his choice might be. - Theme: Fitness. Description: In centering the novel around a quadriplegic man, Moyes explores what it means to be healthy and fit. Moyes draws a distinction between mental health and physical health and argues against subconsciously equating mental and physical fitness. Moyes contrasts the mental and physical states of Lou's Granddad, who has suffered a stroke and is no longer fully lucid, and Will, who can no longer use much of his body after a traffic accident but has no trouble with his mind. While it might seem that Will is better off because of his mental fitness, Will's mental health actually suffers horribly because he is aware of how much he has lost. Granddad, meanwhile, seems blissfully unaware of his loss and is still able to enjoy the simple things in life. Will and Patrick, Lou's long-term boyfriend, are also contrasted in terms of physical fitness. According to conventional romance stories, the more physically fit person is often the better romantic partner. Patrick is seemingly more attractive because of his peak physical shape—yet Will is a better emotional and mental match for Lou regardless of his physical disability. Furthermore, Patrick is so focused on fine-tuning his body that he ignores building an emotional connection with Lou. Will is able to prove that he is a better emotional and mental match for Lou because he meets her on those levels and appreciates her for who she is on the inside. In both of these examples, Moyes shows that fitness and health are complex. Mental and physical health are different, but they are also interrelated and hard to untangle, as each has a profound influence on the other. Lou, as Will's caregiver, is supposed to care for his physical needs, yet this requires her to care for his mental and emotional needs as well. Moyes asserts that true health and fitness means finding a balance between mental and physical fitness, as well as the emotional needs that all humans share. - Climax: When Louisa finally comes to terms with Will's decision to end his own life, she joins him at Dignitas in Switzerland to say goodbye to him before his scheduled appointment. - Summary: The book opens in 2007 as Will Traynor is leaving his girlfriend, Alicia, in bed and heading out the door for his job as a high-powered financier. Will decides not to take his motorbike, a thrill that he normally loves, because it is raining hard. When Will steps into the road to hail a cab, he is hit by another cyclist and left unconscious. The book then moves forward to 2009, introducing Louisa Clark, a 26-year-old woman with outlandish fashion sense living in the tiny village of Bishop's Stortford in Essex, England. Louisa is walking home dejected after hearing that the Buttered Bun café where she has worked for six years has to close. Louisa knows that her family sorely needs the money, with her mother Josie stuck at home caring for Lou's Granddad, a stroke victim, and Lou's nephew Thomas, the son of Lou's younger sister Treena. Lou goes to tell the news to her long-term boyfriend, Patrick, who is busy running laps as he trains for another triathlon. Patrick simply tells Lou to buck up and find another job. Lou goes to the job center to find a new position, but hates most of the entry level experiences. Finally, the only job left is a six-month stint as a caretaker for a quadriplegic man. Louisa has no experience as a caretaker, but goes to meet Camilla Traynor for an interview. Camilla intimidates Lou, but somehow decides that Lou is the right person for the job of providing a friendly cheerful presence for her son. Lou then meets the man she will be caring for, Will Traynor. Will is completely dismissive at first, angry that his mother has hired yet another caretaker he does not want. Lou does her best at work, making tea and doing small domestic chores as Will ignores her and sulks in his room. Will sometimes chats with the nurse, Nathan, who handles his physical needs, but never speaks to Lou. Lou keeps at it because her family needs the money even more now that Treena wants to go back to school. Two weeks into this jo, Will's ex-girlfriend, Alicia, and former best friend, Rupert visit. They awkwardly tell Will that they are getting married after bonding in the wake of Will's accident, and Will smashes all the pictures of his old life. Lou attempts to fix the pictures for Will, but he yells at her for trying to help. Lou shouts back at him that just because he has a disability doesn't mean he gets to be an ass, and Will seems to find a new respect for Lou. Lou and Will are now on better terms, and Will even lets Lou drive him to a doctor's appointment, where Lou sees the scars on Will's wrists left from Will's attempted suicide. Soon after, Lou gets stuck at Will's house during a snowstorm trying to care for Will as he struggles with the flu. After that night, Will and Lou become true friends. Lou shares more about her quiet life watching her family and her boyfriend pursue their hobbies and Will encourages her to stretch her horizons outside of their sleepy village. Will introduces Lou to foreign films and classical music, even letting Lou shave his beard and cut his scraggly hair. Despite these promising moments, Lou finds out that in six months is the date that Will has planned to end his life at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland. The book then introduces Camilla's perspective, explaining how helpless she feels in the face of her son's depression at the prospect of such a limited life. Camilla busies herself with her job as a magistrate and her garden, ignoring her husband's infidelity and her son's discontent. After Will's first suicide attempt, Camilla decides that she has to allow him to go to Dignitas and end his life in a less horrific manner. Lou is profoundly uncomfortable with Will's plan to end his life, but she says nothing as she goes into work. Will actually seems to be in a good mood for once, making Lou realize that she can't be a part of his suicide. Lou leaves a letter of resignation for Camilla, but Camilla follows her home and convinces Lou to come back. Lou now has to convince Will to change his mind before the six months is up. Cracking under the pressure, Lou tells Treena about Will's plan. Treena advises Lou to help Will see all the things he can still do from his wheelchair. Lou goes to the library and frantically starts planning excursions for Will. The first excursion is to a horse race, a day that ends horrifically as Lou realizes how little she knows about the logistics of taking a wheelchair out in public places. Will stoically suffers through the day, telling Lou at the end that he has always hated horses anyway. Lou realizes that she has to take Will's desires into account and remembers a time when her own power to choose was taken away. Lou was sexually assaulted by a group of university boys in a maze at a castle near her village, an experience that clipped Lou's desire to leave her safe hometown and take risks in the real world. Lou decides to take a different approach with Will and plans a trip to the orchestra instead. This time, Lou fully researches the wheelchair accommodations and Will thoroughly enjoys himself. He is transported both by the beautiful music and the illusion of being out on a date with a girl in a pretty red dress (Lou). Though Lou feels more secure than ever in her job, her home life is quickly changing. Patrick has started to notice the distance between him and Lou, while Treena has moved back to university with Thomas. As Will and Lou grow even closer, Lou invites Will to her parents' house for her birthday dinner. Will fits easily into Lou's family, charming Lou's parents but putting Patrick on edge. The situation only worsens when Lou is indifferent to Patrick's gift of a necklace but absolutely adores Will's gift of striped bumblebee tights. Patrick starts to act more possessive towards Lou, but Lou remains focused on helping Will as much as possible. As the weeks go by, the news is full of debates over the right to die while Lou's family deals with their own bad news that Lou's father has lost his job. In all the shuffle over beds when Treena comes home from university on weekends, Lou's parents end up sleeping on the couch. Lou starts to consider other places to stay so that everyone can get a good night's sleep. Will offers to let Lou stay in his spare room, and continues to tell Lou that she needs to search for more out of her life. Lou joins quadriplegia support chatrooms looking for excursions for Will and plans events for every day that Will feels well enough to leave the house. On one of these outings, Will convinces Lou to get a tattoo. She gets a small bumblebee, while he tattoos the date of his accident on his foot. With only eight weeks to go before Will's appointment at Dignitas, Lou is starting to despair over all the things that Will can't do because of his wheelchair. She gets no rest at home either, as the sleeping arrangements in the cramped Clark household get no better. Patrick half-heartedly offers to let Lou move in with him and Lou reluctantly agrees. She tells Will how uncomfortable she is, and shares that her father is now unemployed. Will replies distantly that his offer of the spare room is still available, if Lou ever needs it. Will then gets Lou's dad a job as the head of maintenance at his family's castle. Lou's dad is ecstatic, but Lou feels uncomfortable. She calls Will, wondering why he did something so nice when he seems angry with her over Patrick. He simply replies that now she can pursue her own interests without worrying about her family. With seven weeks to go before Will's deadline, Will meets with a will attorney. Camilla and Lou had started to believe that Will would change his mind, but it is clear that he is still working towards his plan to go to Dignitas. Camilla tells Lou to plan a big last trip for Will as a last attempt to change his mind. Lou continues to avoid Will as much as possible during the day, until he finally forces her to go for a walk with him to the castle maze. At Will's prodding, Lou attempts to make it through the maze, but has a panic attack at the memory of the assault there six years ago. Will comes to lead Lou out and she comes clean about her secret, finally letting go of the guilt she has carried for years. Unexpectedly, Will asks Lou to accompany him to Alicia and Rupert's wedding. Will is on his best behavior while Lou accidentally gets drunk. Lou then asks Will to take her for a spin on a wheelchair on the reception dance floor and the two enjoy a beautiful night together before staying over in a hotel, where Lou convinces Will to go on one last trip with her. Camilla is furious that Will stayed out without telling her, but Will is adamant that he is still an adult and can make his own choices. Lou gets to work planning the trip of a lifetime for Will. The book moves to the perspective of Nathan (Will's nurse), as he explains that everyone could tell that Will and Lou had crossed some boundary at the wedding. Nathan is skeptical of the trip idea, but willing to do anything to help Will and Lou. He agrees to go along. Lou tells Patrick that she can't go along with him to a big triathlon in Norway because she has to go on the trip with Will. Patrick is angry and upset, so Lou goes to talk to her sister while he cools off. Treena helps Lou realize that she is much more interested in Will than she has been in Patrick for years. When Lou goes home to Patrick's house, Patrick tries to apologize until he sees the plans that Lou has made for Will. Unable to accept that Lou is essentially going on a honeymoon with another man, Patrick asks Lou to move out. Steven, Will's father, takes over the narrative to tell how Lou moved into Will's house. Steven is highly in favor of the trip that Lou has planned, even if having a quadriplegic son is making it hard for him to leave his dysfunctional marriage with Camilla for his mistress Della. Still, Steven is optimistic that this trip will change Will's mind—until Will gets pneumonia and everything has to be cancelled. Lou is shattered by the sight of Will weak in the hospital, and incredibly disappointed that Will's health has made their last trip impossible. At the advice of Nathan, Lou quickly puts together a calmer resort trip to Mauritius. Lou is deeply worried during the flight and the first two days of the trip over Will's fragile state, but Will soon begins to come back to life in the beautiful beach sun. Will, Lou, and Nathan swim and eat and generally make merry for nine days. Lou even tries scuba diving, unable to believe that she was once too scared to do any of these marvelous things. The last day, Lou spends the night in Will's hotel room and Will confesses that he is planning to commit suicide. Lou tells him that she has known for months and that she has been attempting to change his mind. Furthermore, Lou tells Will that she loves him. Will tells Lou that he loves her too, but it is not enough to change his mind. He then asks Lou to come to Switzerland with him to say goodbye. Crushed and enraged, Lou refuses and doesn't talk to Will for the rest of the trip home. The novel switches to Katrina (Treena's) perspective, telling how Lou returned to their parent's house looking ill. Katrina lets Lou mope, but tells her to wake back up when Lou is accepted to a university to study fashion. At dinner, Lou finally tells their parents about Will's plan to end his life. Lou's mother is aghast and forbids Lou to have anything to do with it, but Lou realizes that she has to go be with Will one last time. Katrina helps Lou get to the airport for the last plane to Switzerland before Will's appointment. As Lou steps into Will's room at Dignitas in Switzerland, she feels oddly relieved. The two share one last kiss before Will drinks the lethal solution that will end his life. Legal council is unable to find any wrong doing on the part of Will's family or Lou in this matter, even though the newspapers spin the story as another atrocious episode in the right to die debate. Lou decides that she has to keep living—she takes the money that Will left her and travels to Paris, as Will had asked her to do. With Will's support and financial help, Lou is on course to finally live her life to the fullest for the sake of both her and Will.

- Genre: - Title: Memoirs of a Geisha - Point of view: First-person - Setting: Yoroido, Kyoto, and New York City; early to late twentieth century - Character: Sayuri Nitta / Chiyo Sakamoto. Description: The novel's narrator and protagonist, Sayuri tells the story of how she went from a poor fisherman's daughter named Chiyo Sakamoto to become Sayuri Nitta, one of Kyoto's premier geisha. With her piercing blue-grey eyes, Sayuri is beautiful, perceptive, and quick-witted. Her cleverness and adaptable personality allow her to survive a variety of challenging circumstances, including when she outsmarts Hatsumomo, her rival geisha, or when she maneuvers her way out of a relationship with the ill-tempered Nobu. An idealist and a romantic, Sayuri falls in love with Chairman Ken Iwamura and decides to spend her entire life working towards being with him. Her steadfast determination ensures that she succeeds in building a relationship with the Chairman and, by the novel's end, she immigrates with him to the United States, where she recounts her memoirs to Jakob Haarhuis. - Character: Toshikazu Nobu. Description: A man in love with Sayuri, Nobu spends much of the novel trying to get Sayuri to become his personal geisha. Injured from his time in the military, Nobu is missing an arm and has burn scars covering his face. Though fiercely loyal, Nobu is inflexible, ill-tempered, and quick to use harsh, cutting words. While Sayuri values him for his loyalty and candor, she loves his business partner, Chairman Ken Iwamura, for his gentle kindness. Clouded by his own desire for Sayuri, Nobu either does not realize or does not care that Sayuri has no love for him. Nobu professes a staunch belief in self-determination, believing that each person must realize his or her personal purpose in life. At times petty and unforgiving, he ultimately forgoes any relationship, whether romantic or platonic, with Sayuri when he learns that she slept with a piggish man named Sato, whom Nobu thinks is beneath her. - Character: Chairman Ken Iwamura. Description: Referred to as simply "the Chairman" for most of the novel, Ken Iwamura is the gentle, dignified, and kind love interest of Sayuri. While most people in Kyoto would pay no attention to a crying girl on the street, the Chairman comforts the young Sayuri when he sees her weeping by a stream. The Chairman falls in love with Sayuri at that moment because he sees an honest openness in her eyes that is different from the lies and deceit in the rest of the world. An honorable and loyal man, the Chairman at first sacrifices a relationship with Sayuri in order to let his friend and business partner Nobu pursue a relationship with her. But when the Chairman realizes that Sayuri feels as much love for him as he does for her, his love for Sayuri outstrips his loyalty to Nobu. After the Chairman takes Sayuri as his personal geisha, he and Sayuri live out the rest of their happy lives in a flurry of passion and love. - Character: Hatsumomo. Description: The novel's antagonist, Hatsumomo is the most beautiful and the cruelest geisha in the book. Though she hides her cruel nature from the men she entertains, Hatsumomo insults or sabotages anyone she dislikes. Jealous of any geisha who might be prettier than her, Hatsumomo fears that Sayuri will replace her as the most popular geisha in Kyoto. As a result, Hatsumomo tries to ruin Sayuri's career by spreading malicious rumors about her. When Sayuri does surpass her as a geisha, Hatsumomo loses confidence in her abilities as a geisha and begins to drink heavily. After damaging her own reputation beyond repair, Hatsumomo leaves Kyoto in shame, most likely to become a prostitute. - Character: Mameha. Description: Mentor to Sayuri and Hatsumomo's chief rival in Kyoto, Mameha is a kind but cunning geisha. She takes Sayuri under her wing as a favor to the Chairman, and provides guidance to Sayuri on how to navigate the complicated terrain of geisha culture. But Mameha also relishes undermining Hatsumomo's reputation in Kyoto, mercilessly chipping away at Hatsumomo's confidence and social standing until Hatsumomo is forced out of the city in shame. A practical woman, Mameha believes that love for a geisha is an impossible dream. She encourages Sayuri to find a wealthy man who can provide stability and security rather than passion and love. - Character: Pumpkin. Description: Nicknamed "Pumpkin" by Sayuri because of her round head, Pumpkin grows up with Sayuri in the okiya. Compassionate but a little slow-witted, Pumpkin struggles to make it as a geisha. With Hatsumomo as her mentor, she also absorbs some of Hatsumomo's vicious cruelty. After spending some hard years as a prostitute during World War Two, Pumpkin tries to sabotage Sayuri's relationship with the Chairman in order to get back at Sayuri for succeeding where she herself failed. - Character: Mother/Ms. Nitta. Description: Greedy and completely self-serving, Mother runs the okiya where Sayuri, Hatsumomo, and Pumpkin live. She only cares about the people in the okiya as much as they can help her make money. Mother tries to hide her physical unattractiveness with heavily applied makeup and a colorful silken kimono. Mother adopts Sayuri after Dr. Crab pays a record amount of money to take Sayuri's virginity. - Character: Satsu Sakamoto. Description: Sayuri's beloved older sister. Since Satsu is not as pretty or as clever as Sayuri, Mr. Tanaka sells her to a brothel instead of an okiya. Satsu despises life as a prostitute, so she runs away to her home village where she reunites with her boyfriend. Sayuri never learns where her life leads her. - Character: The Baron. Description: Mameha's wealthy and aristocratic patron who bids against Dr. Crab for Sayuri's virginity. A drunk and an uncaring man, he forces Sayuri to undress in front of him so that he can pleasure himself while looking at her in the mirror. He kills himself out of fear that the Americans will win the war and take away his landholdings and title. - Character: Noritaka Sato. Description: The ugly, dim-witted Deputy Minister who uses his influence to reverse the American government's decision to strip the Chairman and Nobu's company of its assets. Since Nobu finds Sato detestable, Sayuri sleeps with him in order to infuriate Nobu, hoping that Nobu will lose interest in her as a result. - Theme: Destiny vs. Self-Determination. Description: Throughout the novel, the protagonist Sayuri Nitta describes herself as a river, a metaphor that captures the dueling forces of destiny and self-determination in her life. At times, Sayuri is like a river guided by external forces, unable to control the direction her life takes. For example, when Sayuri was a child, her father sold her and her sister Satsu to an okiya (a geisha boarding house). While Satsu takes control of her fate by running away and starting a life with the boy she loves, Sayuri passively accepts her dismal circumstances and learns the arts of being a geisha. Though the novel doesn't focus heavily on sexism or gender roles in Japanese society, Sayuri's passivity must also be understood through the lens of the sexist conditions in Japan during the 1930s. With few opportunities for women who did not come from wealthy families, Sayuri believes that becoming a geisha is better than her other two options: becoming a maid or a prostitute. Sayuri remarks, "We don't become geisha because we want our lives to be happy; we become geisha because we have no choice."Believing that she is unable to make a better life for herself, Sayuri resigns herself to becoming a geisha. In this way, she is a passive object tossed about by the wills of other people rather than an active agent determining her own life. She is like a river guided by the banks around her. In contrast, Sayuri's friend and client Nobu thinks of destiny and self-determination as the same thing. Nobu recognizes that Sayuri's conception of destiny is simply an excuse for her passivity. He chides Sayuri for sleeping with any man, no matter how boorish or vile, who is willing to become her patron. To Nobu's disgust, Sayuri shirks responsibility over these matters by saying that she must follow the path set out for a geisha. In response, Nobu explains that destiny is not a set of predetermined events that will happen to an individual, but instead a personal purpose or meaning towards which we strive. Thus, Nobu encourages Sayuri to recognize that although a river cannot pick its direction, water moves freely within the river, determining for itself where inside the river it will flow. In this way, Nobu suggests that Sayuri still has the freedom to actively move closer to fulfilling her personal destiny. In an act of tragic irony, Sayuri takes Nobu's advice about self-determination when she decides to betray him. Nobu tells Sayuri that he wants to be her patron, but Sayuri loves his best friend and business partner, Chairman Ken Iwamura. In the world of the geisha, two business partners would never compete over the same geisha, so Sayuri knows that if Nobu shows interest in her, then the Chairman will never be free to pursue her. As a result, Sayuri purposefully sleeps with a man Nobu despises in order diminish his interest in her, leaving her available for a relationship with the Chairman. Through this act, Sayuri asserts her identity not as a passive plaything of powerful men, but instead as a woman in charge of her own destiny. Nevertheless, the book portrays her destiny as revolving entirely around a man she loves rather than around her own autonomy, freedom from being a geisha, or personal self-actualization. - Theme: Beauty, Artifice, and Truth. Description: In the history of Western philosophy and literature, scholars and artists have often suggested that beauty and truth are one and the same: truth must be beautiful and the beautiful must be truth. This idea is encapsulated in the poet John Keat's famous line, "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'" Memoirs of a Geisha, however, contradicts this view of beauty. Though the word "geisha" means "artist" or "artisan," geisha are just as much the art itself as they are the artist. To fit the Japanese standard of beauty, geisha craft a highly artificial appearance: they dress in beautifully-patterned kimono, wear elaborate hairstyles, and paint their faces white in order to appear as if they are wearing masks. While these beautiful artifices conceal the geishas' actual appearances, geisha must also conceal their desires, true feelings, and inner self so that they can shift their personalities in order to please or amuse their male clients. The novel thus argues that beauty is more about artifice and concealment than truth.As an extension of this idea, outward appearances in the novel often deceptively conceal characters' true selves. Despite her cruel personality, Hatsumomo is one of the most popular geisha in Kyoto because of her beauty. She successfully disguises her cruelty from her male clients by acting like a polite geisha, but as Sayuri recognizes, whenever people glimpse the true mean-spiritedness of her personality, they begin to see her beauty wane. On the other end of the spectrum, people often mistake Nobu's heavily scarred face and brash personality for an inner cruelty. Yet Nobu proves himself to be one of the kindest and most loyal men in the novel, affirming the idea that outward appearances do not necessarily correspond to inner personality.While beauty might not provide access to truth in the novel, it does serve a more utilitarian purpose of providing comfort. Working in Kyoto while Japan is at war in Manchuria, Sayuri realizes that her beauty serves an important function in comforting the soldiers returning from the front lines. Sayuri claims that in the dark brutality of war, these men can think about geisha and hold firm in their belief that there is beauty in this world worth fighting for. Though the presence of beautiful things provides comfort in themselves, the novel also suggests that beauty can soothe our suffering by reminding us of the ephemerality of all things. As Sayuri comes to recognize over the course of the novel, all things that are beautiful eventually fade. Like flowers in spring that die in winter, or a young geisha who ages into an elderly woman, everything in life—both the triumphs and the agonies—passes away. While this truth might sound depressing, it provides Sayuri with a melancholy sort of comfort that allows her to appreciate the fleeting joys of the present, as well as to know that her struggles will eventually come to an end. - Theme: Growing Up. Description: Memoirs of a Geisha belongs to the literary genre of the bildungsroman, or coming-of-age. Novels in this genre portray the psychological development of the protagonist as he or she grows from a youth into an adult. Memoirs follows this trajectory as it illustrates Chiyo Sakamoto's transformation from the daughter of a poor fisherman into the renowned Kyoto geisha, Sayuri Nitta. At the beginning of the novel, young Chiyo lives in an obscure Japanese fishing village, and with little education or knowledge of the outside world, she clings to the naive illusion that the world is a place of compassion and fairness. Specifically, she hopes the wealthiest man in her village, Mr. Ichiro Tanaka, will adopt her, transporting her away from her life of poverty as well as from her dying mother and emotionally absent father. But Chiyo quickly loses these innocent illusions as her life becomes upended by the harsh reality of her society. Instead of adopting her, Tanaka arranges for her father to sell Chiyo into slavery at an okiya, where she will be made to learn how to be a geisha. At the okiya, Chiyo matures as she grapples with isolation, grief, alienation, and self-discovery. For example, after Chiyo arrives at the okiya, she learns that both of her parents have died in quick succession. Feeling as if she can never return to her childhood, Chiyo sinks into a deep, year-long depression. As she slowly emerges, she realizes that only her dreams of what the future might hold will give her the strength to go on in the uncaring environment of the okiya. This experience of grief and her subsequent realization mark the beginning of her transformation from the child Chiyo to the adult Sayuri. Yet the novel differs from a traditional coming-of-age story with regards to Sayuri's sexual awakening. Instead of being free to pursue relationships and come into sexual maturity on her own terms, Sayuri loses her virginity to whoever pays the highest amount to have sex with her. Paradoxically, the sexualized life of the geisha actually delays her sexual awakening. Even though she spends years as the private mistress to men, Sayuri only experiences true sexual awakening when, in her thirties, she kisses the Chairman, the love of her life. Thus the novel indicates that romantic love, rather than just sex, represents a key moment of transformation from childhood to adulthood. - Theme: Sex and Love. Description: The events of Memoirs of a Geisha occur during a time in Japan when geisha played an integral part in social life. In the West, "geisha" is basically synonymous with "prostitute." However, in actuality, a geisha was an elite entertainer who mastered the arts of singing, dancing, playing instruments, and telling stories. Though a geisha might flirt with the men she entertains, the clients must satisfy themselves with the illusion of sex rather than the act itself. After all, if a man simply wanted sex, then he could visit one of the many legal brothels in the city. Instead of trading in sex, the geisha trades in the illusion of love, giving men the psychological gratification of feeling as though these beautiful geisha desire their company. But this is not to say that sex plays no part in a geisha's life. Wealthy men bid to take an apprentice geisha's virginity, while more experienced geisha seek to establish an exclusive relationship with a danna, the Japanese word for patrons who provided for the geisha in exchange for sex. Most geisha in the novel see their patrons as privileged clients rather than romantic partners, and so sex itself becomes a currency rather than an emotional connection or even a pleasurable experience for the geisha. It is notable however, that the real-life geisha Mineko Iwasaki—whom Golden interviewed for the novel—has since refuted Golden's sexualized portrayal of geisha culture, and wrote her own autobiography in response.In the novel's world—where love is only an illusion that conceals the true economic relationship between geisha and danna, most geisha believe that love is not possible for them. Sayuri, however, is the exception. After the Chairman bestowed an act of kindness on her when she was only a teenager, Sayuri began to yearn for him, working her entire life to be a good enough geisha so that he would want to be her danna. Even after Sayuri's mentor Mameha tells her to give up her illusions of love—since all a geisha can ever hope for is to have a wealthy danna who isn't cruel—Sayuri's belief in the possibility for love remains resolute. Though it might seem overly sentimental, this conviction, in addition to her growing willingness to define her own path in life, ultimately leads her to a loving relationship with the Chairman by the book's end. - Theme: Tradition, Ritual, and Gender. Description: From the daily interactions with male clients to the ceremony of losing her virginity, tradition and ritual govern almost every facet of the geisha's life. Throughout the novel, Sayuri must navigate the social terrain of these customs, learning when to abide by tradition and when to flout it. Sayuri enters the geisha world as a complete novice who is unfamiliar with how an apprentice geisha must act or speak to those around her. By focusing on a character who is completely ignorant of geisha practices, the novel is able to more thoroughly explore and represent them—because the protagonist (like the average Western reader) must learn them for the first time as well. Over time, Sayuri learns to master these traditions, becoming the most successful geisha in Kyoto. For Sayuri, as well as most geisha in the novel, tradition rarely seems to have value in itself. Instead, Sayuri and the other geisha use tradition as a means to an end—by perfectly embodying these traditions, Sayuri can live up to the expectations of her clients and, in doing so, achieve a modicum of financial security. This practical use of tradition suggests that geisha, at some level, know that the established practices of their profession are oppressive towards women. This is made most obvious in the fact that it is traditional for a teenaged geisha-in-training to lose her virginity to the man who pays the most to sleep with her. Yet it is also evident on a more day-to-day level, in that traditional geisha are forced to conform to the fantasies of their male clientele, who want the women to remain beautiful objects or playthings for their amusement, rather than nuanced and complicated human beings with their own desires and dreams. Thus the geisha only adopt these traditions as a way of succeeding in a society that allows them few other paths for autonomy.These practices, moreover, become a constrictive force for Sayuri. Though she only learned the traditions in order to make use of them, she begins to rely on them so much that she forgets how to break the rules when necessary. For example, the social norms that prevent geisha from expressing themselves make her feel incapable of voicing her affection for the Chairman. Thus, by the end of the novel, Sayuri must, in a sense, relearn her childhood disregard of the rules. She does so when she neglects the traditions of the geisha by sleeping with a man who is not her danna, thereby betraying her loyal client Nobu. This "transgression" allows Sayuri to break free of the oppressive norms that privilege a client's desires as more important than a geisha's. In this way, the novel ends with Sayuri fulfilling her own desire—rather than a client's—by becoming the geisha of the Chairman, the man she loves. - Climax: When Sayuri betrays Nobu in the old theater. - Summary: In 1929, the nine-year-old Chiyo Sakamoto lives with her ailing mother, emotionally withdrawn father, and older sister Satsu in a small fishing village in Western Japan. One day, the wealthiest man in her village, Mr. Ichiro Tanaka, takes notices of Chiyo's beautiful blue-grey eyes. After striking a deal with Chiyo's father, Mr. Tanaka sells Chiyo to an okiya, which is a boarding house for geisha. Geisha are women trained to entertain men with conversation, dancing, and singing. At the okiya, Chiyo works as a maid while she trains to be a geisha. The other people living at the okiya are the young apprentice geisha Pumpkin, the greedy and materialistic Mother who runs the okiya, and the beautiful but cruel geisha Hatsumomo. A few months after arriving in the okiya, Chiyo becomes so homesick that she tries to run away to her home village. The doors to the okiya are locked at night, so Chiyo climbs to the roof, but she falls and breaks her arm. Enraged at Chiyo for trying to run away, Mother stops paying for Chiyo's geisha education. Instead, she tells Chiyo that she will work as a maid in the okiya until Mother sees fit to release her. For two years, Chiyo works as a maid. One day, she goes on an errand and realizes that her life lacks purpose and direction. As Chiyo sits by a stream and begins to cry, a handsome man named the Chairman comforts her. Touched by his kindness, Chiyo decides that she must try to become a geisha so she can increase her standing in the world. Only then will she be able to surround herself with kind men instead of people like Hatsumomo and Mother. Not long after this encounter, a geisha named Mameha arrives at the okiya and takes notice of Chiyo's beauty. Mameha convinces Mother to reinvest in Chiyo's education by saying that she will take on Chiyo as a "little sister"—a geisha apprentice. Since Mameha is one of the city's best geisha, Mother sees an opportunity to make money from Chiyo again and agrees to Mameha's plan. Chiyo thinks that Mameha is only taking her on as a protégé in order to infuriate her rival Hatsumomo. Over the next two years, Chiyo completes her geisha training and makes her debut as an apprentice geisha. Following the geisha tradition of adopting a new name, Chiyo takes on the name Sayuri. At one event, Mameha introduces Sayuri to the wealthy businessmen Toshikazu Nobu and Chairman Ken Iwamura. Sayuri realizes that Chairman Iwamura is the man who comforted her years ago. However, Sayuri doesn't get a chance to talk with the Chairman because Mameha tells her she must cultivate a relationship with Nobu instead. Mameha wants to make Sayuri a success in Kyoto by having Nobu and a doctor nicknamed "Dr. Crab" start a bidding war over Sayuri's mizuage—the ceremonial taking of a young geisha's virginity. After months of cultivating relationships with the two men, Dr. Crab ultimately pays a record amount for Sayuri's mizuage. The plan works and Sayuri gains a reputation as a highly coveted geisha. As part of geisha traditions, Mother adopts Sayuri, because she becomes the highest-earning geisha in the okiya. Over the next few years, Nobu continues to ask for Sayuri's company. Though she likes Nobu as a person, she wishes she could spend more time with the Chairman instead. When World War Two breaks out, the government closes the geisha districts so that the women can more actively contribute to the war effort. Nobu uses his influence to find Sayuri the safe and relatively easy job of sewing parachutes in a village outside of Kyoto. After the war, Nobu comes to find Sayuri. He says that he needs her to return to Kyoto and help him entertain a Japanese official named Sato. The American government wants to seize Nobu's business assets, but Sato can use his connections to prevent this from happening. Sayuri agrees and returns to Kyoto. At a teahouse, Sayuri—along with Pumpkin and Mameha—entertain Sato, Nobu, and the Chairman. For the next year, they meet on a weekly basis and Sayuri feels her attraction to the Chairman growing. Sato successfully convinces the Americans not to bankrupt the business. With the business secure, Nobu proposes himself as Sayuri's danna—a patron who gives a geisha lavish gifts in return for sexual privileges. Because Nobu provided her a safe place to live during the war, Sayuri feels as if she is in his debt. She reluctantly agrees, wishing that the Chairman could be her danna instead. To celebrate the good news, the group goes to an island near Okinawa for a weekend vacation. Sayuri realizes that if Nobu stumbles upon her sleeping with Sato, then Nobu will think that she has dishonored herself and withdraw his proposal to be her danna. Sayuri hopes that this will leave her free to pursue a relationship with the Chairman. Sayuri arranges to meet Sato at an abandoned theater and tells Pumpkin to bring Nobu at a set time. Pumpkin, however, brings the Chairman instead, who sees Sayuri and Sato having sex. Thinking that her chances are ruined with the Chairman, Sayuri feels crushed and utterly despondent. A few days after returning to Kyoto, Sayuri receives an invitation to meet the Chairman at a teahouse. At the teahouse, the Chairman confesses that he fell in love with Sayuri the moment he saw her as a young girl crying by the stream. Surprised that he even remembers her from that day, Sayuri says that she only slept with Sato in order to make Nobu give her up so that she could possibly have the Chairman as her danna. Overcome with emotion, the Chairman pulls her close and kisses her. A few weeks later, the Chairman becomes Sayuri's danna. They live happily together over the next few years. Sayuri even gives birth to the Chairman's son. Eventually they immigrate to New York City, where she recounts her memoirs to the Japanese history professor Jakob Haarhuis.

- Genre: Young Adult Novel; Dystopian Fiction - Title: Messenger - Point of view: Third Person Limited - Setting: Village, Forest, and Kira's cottage - Character: Matty. Description: The protagonist of the novel; though it doesn't give his age, he's probably around fourteen or fifteen years old. Matty is a kind and compassionate adolescent, and he loves learning things. Matty came from a settlement far away when he was a young child (as described in Gathering Blue, where he was called Matt). His settlement was harsh and cruel, and because Matty remembers what it was like to live there, he has even more of a vested interest in maintaining the harmony, openness, and kindness in Village. Matty does his best to follow the rules of Village, but throughout the novel, he keeps it a secret that he has a special gift: he can heal people and animals by touching them. This gift scares Matty and he at points wonders whether he could trade it away. Trade Mart fascinates Matty, even more so since Seer, his guardian, insists that Matty is too young to go. Matty mostly wants to attend so that he can trade for a Gaming Machine. However, when Matty does go to Trade Mart, he sees that people are trading away their deepest selves and are becoming selfish and mean, something that disturbs Matty greatly. Matty is an observant and insightful person, so he's constantly on the lookout for people who have traded. His observant nature also means that he's one of only a few people who can move through Forest unharmed, and for this, he dreams of receiving the true name of Messenger. Matty has a way with dogs and so adopts a puppy, later named Frolic, from Mentor and Jean's mother dog. His crush on Jean means that Matty takes any excuse to spend time with her. Because Matty is loyal to those he loves, he insists to Leader that he must follow Seer's wishes, travel to his old village, and return home with Kira, Seer's daughter. During this journey, when told to do so by Leader and Kira, Matty uses his gift to heal Forest, sacrificing himself in the process. Following this, Leader gives Matty his true name: Healer. - Character: Leader. Description: The leader of Village, who was the character Jonas from The Giver. Though he appears older to Matty, he's still a young man in his early 20s. He arrived in Village years ago on a red sled, and he's responsible for making Village what it is in the novel's present. Leader believes in fairness, kindness, and taking care of others, all of which are reflected in the ways that Village functions. A kind, truthful, and honest man, Leader is friends with everyone in the village. Matty notes that Leader is the kind of person that he can tell anything without fear of overstepping boundaries or being made fun of. Among a variety of other things, one of Leader's functions is to bestow "true names" on people in Village. These have to do with what a person's true nature is, and what their most important contribution to Village is. Leader's sense of honesty and his desire to play by the rules means that Mentor and his supporters are able to vote to close Village to outsiders, something that Leader finds troubling and abhorrent but feels unable to stop, given how Village functions. Leader also has the ability to "see beyond," which means that he can see beyond a normal person's range of vision. He most often looks out into Forest, and he notices that Forest is "thickening" and becoming darker and more foreboding as time goes on, especially after Mentor passes his vote to close Village. He appears to have a close and honest relationship with Matty; he takes Matty's concerns and information seriously, and entrusts Matty with spreading the word about Village's closure. Leader's sense of responsibility to Village is so strong that he asks Matty to sacrifice himself for the good of Village and the people in it. After this, he gives Matty his true name of Healer. - Character: Kira. Description: Kira is Seer's daughter; she was the protagonist of Messenger's prequel, Gathering Blue. She lives in a village a week's walk away from Village, has a "crooked leg" and so walks with a cane, and is a skilled textile artist. She insisted on staying in her hometown years ago, but agreed to one day join Seer in Village. Kira is bright, happy, and confident in what she can do, both in terms of her physical abilities and her artistic abilities. She shows Matty that her crooked leg is part of her identity and makes her who she is, and allowing him to "fix" her leg would mean a massive upheaval in her sense of self. Kira identifies herself instead with her weaving and embroidery. She has the gift of "seeing ahead," which means that when she embroiders and weaves, she can create pictures of the future. Because of this, she's expecting Matty when he arrives and is ready to follow him to Village when he asks her to come. Optimistic by nature, Kira doesn't pick up on the dangers posed by Forest until Matty finally points them out. To this end, she tries to good-naturedly ignore the warnings that Forest gives her until it's impossible to continue doing so. She saves herself and ultimately, Village and Forest by reaching out to Leader with her gift and telling Matty to use his gift to heal Forest. - Character: Mentor. Description: Mentor is the local teacher in Village. At first, Mentor is a kind man who looks out for everyone in Village, especially children who have never been to school before. He's middle-aged, stooped, and balding, and he has a large red birthmark that covers half of his face. His daughter, Jean, tells Matty that Mentor loved literature and language, and believed that stories could teach people about how they should live their lives. Mentor begins to change in the weeks before the novel begins, however. Lonely because he lost his wife a number of years ago, Mentor begins attending Trade Mart to trade away his "deepest self" in order to become attractive and make Stocktender's widow love him. This turns Mentor into a cruel and selfish person, and he spearheads the movement to close Village to outsiders. He also manages the effort to build the wall, and does so in a cruel manner. By the time he becomes involved in building the wall, Mentor's birthmark is entirely gone. Mentor's transformation is extremely disturbing for Jean, especially when Mentor kicks Frolic for behaving in a way that's totally normal for a young puppy. Though the novel doesn't resolve whether or not Mentor succeeds in courting Stocktender's Widow, Matty's sacrifice to Forest returns Mentor to his stooped stature and immediately renews his love of books and poetry. - Character: Seer. Description: Seer (who is named Christopher in Gathering Blue) is the blind man that Matty lives with. He arrived in Village years before Matty was born after being injured and left for dead by men in his and Matty's old settlement. In Village, Seer is a beloved and integral part of the community. Though blind, he knows everyone, and he walks the lanes daily to check on the wellbeing of everyone in Village. He's also a skilled cook who tries his best to teach Matty the finer points of cooking, and teases Matty when Matty expresses no interest. Seer somewhat cryptically tells Matty at one point that Forest is an illusion and that he's not afraid of Forest, something that, by the end of the novel, shows how wise Seer is and how tuned in he is to the negative changes moving through Village (in other words, he sees that Forest's danger is the same danger that trading and selfishness pose to Village). Matty is like a son to Seer and the two are extremely close. Seer also has a daughter, Kira, who still lives in the village where Matty and Seer came from. Following the vote to close Village to outsiders, Seer becomes distraught and tells Matty to go to his old village and bring Kira home. - Character: Ramon. Description: Ramon is one of Matty's best friends. Though he's kind and caring, Ramon is also boastful and self-important, to the point of making Matty sarcastically wonder whether Ramon's true name might be Boaster or Bragger. Born in Village, Ramon has an outsized fear of Forest, especially after seeing Gatherer entangled. He's unconvinced when Matty points out that because Ramon was born in Village, there's no reason for him to enter Forest at all. Not long before the start of the novel, Ramon's parents traded for a Gaming Machine at Trade Mart. Though the Gaming Machine is fun, Matty only discovers much later that this trade is the reason for the illness that plagues Ramon and his little sister. Ramon develops a cough in the beginning of the novel, tires easily, and by the time Matty is ready to embark on his journey into Forest, both Ramon and his sister have been quarantined by Herbalist. Matty's sacrifice to Forest causes Ramon to begin to get well immediately. - Character: Jean. Description: Jean is Mentor's daughter. She's a young girl with curly hair who's about Matty's age, and she has a reputation for flirting with many different boys. She grows flowers and bakes bread, all of which she sells at the local market. Matty has a crush on her and spends time with her whenever he can. Though Jean appears flighty and childlike at first, she and Matty begin to connect in a more mature way when Jean becomes afraid of what's happening to her father as he trades his deepest self away to court Stocktender's widow. She shared Mentor's love of literature and learning, and she finds it disturbing that he's less interested in those things as he becomes more handsome. Jean kisses Matty before he leaves for his final trip through Forest. - Character: Frolic / The Puppy. Description: An energetic puppy born to Mentor and Jean's dog. Thanks to Matty's use of his gift, Frolic and his mother are the only ones to survive a sickness that strikes the entire litter of puppies and kills two of Frolic's littermates. Frolic is a classically destructive puppy, though he learns basic commands quickly and wants to please Matty above all else. - Character: The Woman. Description: A woman who comes to Village with her son, Vladik. Though happy to be in Village, when the residents vote to close Village to outsiders, the woman considers leaving Vladik and returning to her place of origin to care for her other children, whom she'd originally planned on bringing to Village later. - Theme: Selfishness vs. the Collective Good. Description: Messenger, the third installment of Lois Lowry's Giver Quartet, picks up several years after the close of Gathering Blue and follows Matty (Matt in Gathering Blue), who is now an adolescent. Matty now lives in Village, a settlement known for its kindness, generosity, and willingness to accept and help refugees from other settlements where inhabitants suffer at the hands of their governments—and often in the cases of people with disabilities, would face execution in their settlements of origin. Despite Village's seeming utopia, however, Matty and his guardian, the blind man Seer, begin to detect something sinister happening to Village and its residents: people are becoming selfish, and this selfishness is poisoning Village, its people, and Forest, the sentient forest that surrounds Village. Messenger suggests that the true enemy of an ideal society like Village isn't dwindling food supplies or an increasingly violent Forest, as several villagers think. Instead, the enemy exists within Village itself in the form of people's selfishness. The guiding principle of Village is that everyone looks out for everyone else. This way, those who are disabled or need extra help, like Seer, can become an integral part of the community and give back to it in their own way. Seer, for example, is extremely wise and acts as a guardian and mentor for orphaned Matty, while Mentor teaches any child who wants to learn. The success of Village rests on the understanding that in order to function, all residents must behave in ways that are selfless and prioritize the wellbeing of the group, rather than of the individual. However, the vote to close Village to outsiders shows that even in such an ideal society, the rules that give all people a voice can also be co-opted and used for selfish means. This suggests that such a society is tenuous and must be carefully maintained by people who not only understand that working for the collective good helps them, but also see the value in helping others. Matty soon discovers that the rise of selfishness in Village can be attributed to the goings-on at the Trade Mart. At the Trade Mart, which happens sometimes in the evenings and is presided over by a man called Trademaster, Matty discovers that people aren't just trading objects they already have for new or better things or things they need, like they do at the Market: people are trading their "true selves" (which, within the world of the novel, is often a person's sense of responsibility to the common good) for luxury items as well as for less tangible things, like physical attractiveness. While Matty never fully discerns how this is happening, the novel implies that some sort of magic is at work, as these trades appear to happen immediately when Trademaster agrees to accept a proposed trade and marks it in a special record book. The idea that people can trade their true selves away—and that losing one's true self results in cruelty, callousness, and fear of others—suggests, first of all, that selflessness is something innate to all people and is an integral part of one's true self. While certain rules of Village that support the common good, like not lying or keeping secrets, must be learned by newcomers, the general idea that people want to look out for others is, per the logic of the novel, something that exists naturally within all people. Notably, the novel doesn't make any distinctions between trading one's true self away in order to get something that benefits someone else (as when Ramon's parents trade for a Gaming Machine to entertain Ramon and his sister) or when a person trades for something that's purely selfish (as is the case when Mentor trades to become more attractive so he can court Stocktender's widow). The novel suggests that trading away one's true self, which contains one's sense of responsibility to the common good, will harm everyone—even those who, in theory, will benefit from a trade. The situation in Village becomes increasingly dire as the novel progresses and finally, the villagers, led by Mentor, vote to close Village to outsiders. At this point, Matty notices that a number of his friends and neighbors are ill, and nobody seems to care much. When Herbalist quarantines Ramon and his sister and suggests that whatever ails them could start an epidemic, they're not entirely wrong—where Herbalist's assessment goes wrong, however, is in suggesting that the epidemic hasn't started yet and in believing that the illness is physical, rather than emotional. Leader and Matty, however, offer up a remedy for this state of affairs: the ultimate, selfless sacrifice of one person—Matty—for the sake of the common good. When Matty uses his gift of being able to heal people with a touch of his hands to heal the rotting Forest and the residents of Village, dying in the process, he becomes an example of what, per the villagers' understanding, they should all aspire to be: selfless and willing to give up their own futures to ensure the wellbeing of Village for future generations. - Theme: Youth, Memory, and the Future. Description: One thing that sets Village apart from the other settlements in the world of Messenger is that it's very interested in education. Specifically, Village seeks to educate its young people about the past and about the various places its refugees have come from, in an attempt to constantly remind people of what awful things are out there in the world and why the utopia of Village is worth fighting for. The events of Messenger show, however, that the focus on memory can only do so much to mold adult behavior. Instead, the novel suggests, the only ones capable of truly grasping the lessons of the past and turning them into concrete actions in the future are the young people who stand to inherit Village. The design of Village and its education system in particular elevates memory not for reasons of personal pleasure or as a method to torment those whose pasts are uncomfortable and sad, but to remind people that the ideals of Village are worth fighting for. When newcomers speak about the places they come from—places that, oftentimes, wanted to put them to death for their differences, or sought to otherwise control them in a variety of ways—it allows people in Village to see, up close and personal, the way that things can be in a cruel and selfish society. This situates memory as a tool more than anything else, and one that can be used to encourage people to be selfless and work for the common good. While Mentor, the schoolteacher, teaches the importance of remembering the past and knowing about other places in a decidedly didactic manner in school, everyone in Village has access to the museum. The museum houses things that people bring with them from elsewhere, such as Leader's red sled, that also function as reminders of what the wider world is like. This use of memory as a reminder does have its limits, however. Ramon, who was born in Village, behaves in a boastful way that Matty finds annoying and tiring—a manner that possibly arose from the fact that Ramon doesn't have personal memories of what it's like to exist elsewhere. Matty, on the other hand, does remember what it's like to live in a cruel, dog-eat-dog world, since he was born in a village where cruelty and indifference were facts of life. In other words, Matty understands on a personal level why it's important to preserve the way of life in Village, while Ramon and other children like him are possibly less naturally understanding—reminders of memory, in this case, only go so far. It's telling that the insular, selfish, and fear-based vision of the future is one that's espoused only by adults—even those adults who came from elsewhere and remember the horrors of the outside world, like Mentor. Matty and Jean, on the other hand, understand that there's something sinister about what's going on. This suggests that, possibly because children and young people have more open minds and are less set in their ways—and also have fewer rights and responsibilities within Village—they occupy a unique space in which they can see clearly how bad things are getting. This is also why Matty must be the one to save Village, not Leader. While Leader sees what's happening and wants to change it, he understands that it's essential for him to remain in Village and, in his capacity as the leader, make sure that Mentor and his group, who want to build a wall around Village at the end of a three-week period, don't start building even sooner. Matty, however, can leave Village without arousing suspicion, and can therefore use what he knows of the past and what he believes about how the future should look to save Village and adults like Mentor from their selfish actions. In this way, the novel suggests more broadly that while adults may appear at first glance to have more power to influence the world, it's the youth who are better able to marry what they know about the past with what they want the future to look like—and in doing so, make sure that everyone, adults and children alike, have access to a better future. - Theme: Humans and Nature. Description: The presence and the actions of Forest—the increasingly dark and malevolent forest surrounding Village—initially suggests that Matty's journey through Forest can be read as a simple conflict of man versus nature. However, as Matty lies dying in Forest and receives Leader's message to use his gift of healing, he discovers that Forest isn't simply bloodthirsty for no reason or for its own selfish reasons. Instead, the dangers posed by Forest to humans are exactly those that the humans in Village pose to themselves. With this, Lowry positions the natural world of the novel as a mirror for the darkest parts of human nature itself. The residents of Village have a long and fraught history with Forest. Forest is known for "warning" (creating a minor injury) and then "entangling" (strangling, poisoning, stabbing, and ultimately killing people with vegetation) those it no longer wants to travel through it. By turning Forest and the natural world more broadly into a sentient being that's fundamentally violent, Lowry crafts a world where people appear to be rightfully terrified of an entity that seems unknowable and impossible to appease. Notably, with this understanding, characters believe that Forest is something separate and different from themselves, rather than a reflection of them and their society. In other words, the same fear, selfishness, and cruelty that grows in Village is somehow magically manifested in Forest, and people's fear of Forest keeps them from recognizing or accepting their own connection to these changes. The fact that this connection isn't immediately obvious to the characters in the novel speaks to the way that their fear of change and difference is extremely isolating. This in turn mirrors the way that the villagers begin to speak about outsiders with fear and scorn. While once, all people in Village saw refugees as important and valuable to their society, in the novel's present, the villagers' selfishness leads them to see refugees (who, Matty notes, are no different now than they were in the past) as dangerous and unwanted. Matty begins to suspect that the human world of Village and the natural world of Forest are connected when he first embarks on his journey to fetch Kira from her village so she can return with him to live with her father, Seer. When Matty leaves, Ramon and his little sister have been quarantined by Herbalist for fear that whatever ails them will infect others in Village, while Mentor and his group have begun gathering logs to build a wall around Village. At this point, Matty believes that the "thickening" happening in Forest is something separate and distinct from what's going on in Village. What Matty sees, however, is that Forest is suffering just like his friend and his neighbors. In addition to becoming increasingly violent and dangerous, Forest begins to smell of rot and decay—changes that mirror Mentor's shift to become suspicious of outsiders, as well as Ramon's physical illness. Though it takes Matty until the end of the novel and the end of his life to realize it, this suggests that Forest isn't actually the one at fault here—it's the humans, as they don't understand that their actions and beliefs have consequences in the wider world beyond Village. Treating Forest (and, for that matter, other people) with respect and reverence, as Matty does, is the only way to safely and effectively exist in the world—though, as Matty and Kira grow sicker and acquire more injuries on their journey back, the novel suggests that there are times when even this isn't enough. The fact that Matty can heal Forest (rather than simply changing people's thinking or striking down the vote to ban outsiders, for example) and, by extension, Village, reinforces the novel's assertion that the prejudice and selfishness that plague people like Mentor is an illness like any other, though one that only becomes obvious to Matty when he learns to see Forest as "a tangled knot of fears and deceits and dark struggles for power that had disguised itself and almost destroyed everything." Essentially, the issue isn't Forest; it's the "illness" that infects Village and, through the mysterious connection between Forest and Village, infects Forest in just the same way. With this, the novel suggests that kindness as well as cruelty aren't issues that affect just humans or indeed, just the group of people who feel a certain way—one's thoughts, beliefs, and actions have far-reaching consequences in the world, and should be developed with caution. - Theme: Identity and Difference. Description: The non-native residents of Village are overwhelmingly those who have physical disabilities that in other settlements, like Leader's (Jonah) in The Giver or Matty's village in Gathering Blue, would spell death or abandonment for them. In Village, however, the guiding principle is that physical difference isn't anything to be ashamed of or something that should be "fixed"; indeed, Messenger implies at various points that physical difference is often a mark of emotional maturity or kindness. Despite the prevalence and importance of this concept in Village, the characters of Messenger—Matty included—often struggle to truly practice what they preach. As Matty embarks on his journey through Forest, he grapples with this disconnect and comes to realize that it's not people who are born different who need to change. Instead, the world needs to change to become more accepting of those who are different. Messenger takes a very clear stand regarding what constitutes a person's identity, what the most important parts of a person's identity are, and what parts should or shouldn't change. It does this first by introducing the reader to the idea of "true names," which are bestowed upon young people or adult immigrants and confer adult status on them in the community. These true names reflect what Leader, the aptly true-named leader of Village, sees as the truest and most important element of a person's identity. Mentor, for example, got his true name because, prior to the start of the novel, he dedicated his time and energy to teaching and mentoring anyone and everyone. Gatherer, on the other hand, was named for the physical contribution he makes to Village—gathering food—while Matty fears that his regular fishing escapades will earn him the name Fisherman. Instead of Fisherman, Matty wants to be named Messenger, as his admittedly rare ability to walk through Forest unscathed means that he's one of the only villagers able to carry messages to faraway settlements. It's important to note that while the novel offers only a handful of named adults, the names that Leader chooses for people appear to only pertain to what those people can do for the community, whether that be teaching, leading, or working with a food source. They don't, as far as the reader can tell, have anything to do with a person's physical characteristics, either positive or negative—suggesting that, within this society, a person's physicality isn't especially important to the way its inhabitants think about identity. This begins to change, however, when Trade Mart starts to take on a questionable role and allows people to trade their true selves for physical traits. Matty sees this happen most noticeably with Mentor, who, in his middle age, used to be a bit stooped, balding, and had a noticeable belly, in addition to having a birthmark that covered a large portion of his face. Because of his desire to court Stocktender's widow, Mentor begins to trade away his true self in exchange for becoming taller, thinner, and getting rid of his birthmark. Importantly, the novel suggests that trading one's true self for physical traits is always a bad idea, because as he becomes more handsome, Mentor also becomes callous, selfish, and fearful of those who are different than he is. Matty also notices one woman who traded some of her true self making fun of her husband for his limp after trading—something that Matty finds disturbing and unproductive by nature, given that as far as he knows, the woman's husband cannot change his limp. However, Matty's innocent and good-natured view of physical difference isn't entirely without fault. When he arrives at Kira's, he asks if he might fix her limp so that they might travel more quickly back through Forest, something that suggests that Matty sees physical differences or disabilities as a struggle to overcome—and one that he knows he can fix with his gift. Kira refuses, however, and insists that her limp is part of her identity and isn't something she cares to change. As a skilled weaver and textile artist, as well as a generous person with the power to "see ahead," Kira's leg simply has little to do with how she sees herself—her value, as far as she's concerned, comes from what she can do in terms of her craft, not what she looks like. All of this challenges Matty's understanding of what someone's true identity actually is and ultimately, comes to affect Matty's identity as well. While Matty's lack of a true name makes it clear that his identity is still forming, his desire to be called Messenger is, according to Leader, not an accurate encapsulation of who Matty truly is. Leader's choice to bestow the name Healer upon Matty after Matty's death reinforces yet again that identity isn't something someone can bestow entirely upon themself. Instead, identity is something connected to what a person can do for their community and ultimately, comes from that community as well. - Climax: Matty uses his gift to heal Forest and Village, sacrificing himself in the process - Summary: A teenaged boy named Matty tries to hurry through supper preparations so he can go check on something in Forest. His guardian, a blind man named Seer, teases Matty good-naturedly about whatever it is that Matty needs to see in Forest. After supper, Seer tells Matty to light a lamp, and Matty remembers Seer saying once that Forest—which is dangerous for most people—is "just an illusion." Matty goes past the kind schoolteacher Mentor's house in the hopes of seeing Jean, Mentor's daughter, but he runs into his friend Ramon instead. Ramon invites Matty to his homeplace for supper, but Matty lies that he has a message to deliver. Lying isn't allowed in Village, but Matty needs to get into Forest alone. For most this is a dangerous proposition, but Matty can pass through Forest unharmed. Because of this, he hopes to one day receive the true name Messenger, as he can carry messages through Forest to other settlements. He finds what he's looking for: a small frog. On his way home, Matty hears keening—crying and singing about a death—and the next day, Ramon tells Matty that Forest entangled and killed Gatherer. Ramon brags about his family's new Gaming Machine, and Matty thinks that he'd like a Gaming Machine of his own. As the boys go fishing, Leader, the leader of the village, watches over Village and sees something troubling in Forest. Later that evening, Matty tries to convince Seer that they should trade for a Gaming Machine, but Seer insists that it'd be a mistake to trade away reading or music in the evenings for a mechanical thing that dispenses candy. He tries to impress upon Matty that Ramon's parents probably sacrificed something important or valuable for the Gaming Machine, but he refuses to allow Matty to attend a Trade Mart so he can figure out how trading works. One morning, Matty goes to Leader's homeplace so he can deliver messages. Leader's homeplace is filled with books from his old settlement, and he sees them as proof that his old settlement is changing for the better. Leader tries to ask Matty whether there are fewer fish in the river than there used to be, as people are complaining that food supplies are running low. Matty suggests that maybe it seems like there are fewer fish now because he's growing up and the world seems smaller now. He accepts the messages and later, reads the message to Seer. Both are shocked that the message says that there will be a meeting and a vote to close Village to outsiders, and that Mentor is leading the movement. Seer asks if Mentor has traded, but Matty only knows that he doesn't have a Gaming Machine. A few days later, Matty tells Seer that Jean's dog had puppies and she'll let Matty have one. When Matty goes to visit the puppies, however, he finds Jean in distress: two of the puppies have died, and the remaining puppy and the mother are very ill. Mentor is away courting Stocktender's widow, but Matty sends Jean away to fetch herbs from Herbalist and experiments with his secret power in private. It feels like lightning in his hands and allows him to heal things with a touch. He heals both dogs and later, falls into bed exhausted. He remembers how he healed the frog on accident a few weeks ago and how painful and terrifying it was. A group of newcomers arrives the next day. Matty and Seer join Ramon in greeting them, but a group, led by Mentor, arrives and chants that they need to close Village. Leader breaks up the tense moment and assures Mentor that they'll vote on this later. Matty notices that Mentor's large birthmark looks less pronounced, and he also looks taller and thinner. Matty hears that Trade Mart is happening later and he vows to attend. He convinces Seer to let him go, and also assures Seer that he has nothing to trade, but Seer warns Matty that he certainly has things that people will want. After supper, Matty joins his neighbors in heading to the platform. Looking around, Matty notices that everyone seems nervous and secretive. When Trademaster arrives with only a mysterious book, Matty pays close attention. Mentor pushes others aside so he can go first and stands next to Trademaster on the platform. Trademaster asks Mentor, "trade for what," and Mentor says he wants "same as before." Watching Stocktender's widow giggle, Matty assumes the trade has to do with her. Then, Trademaster asks, "trade away what," but Mentor only whispers his answer to Trademaster. Everyone else goes through the same script. Matty tells Seer about it later that evening and says that as everyone dispersed, he saw a normally kind woman make fun of her husband for his limp. He also noticed that Mentor's birthmark is gone. Jean sends word to Matty a week later that it's time to pick up his puppy. Mentor is away again courting Stocktender's widow, so Jean and Matty have the opportunity to speak privately. Jean admits that Mentor is trading away his "deepest self" to make Stocktender's widow love him. Matty is shocked, but reasons that this explains why Mentor wants to close Village. He wonders if he can heal Mentor with his power. Not long after, Matty goes to Leader to deliver messages and ask him to give the puppy a true name. He tells Leader what he suspects about Mentor and about Trade Mart, and Leader names the puppy Frolic. As Matty wanders through Village over the next few days, he runs into a woman who recently arrived. She asks Matty if he's noticed her son, Vladik, and says she's worried about Village's potential closure—her other children are still at her old settlement. In the market, Matty and Jean continue to discuss Mentor's transformation, and Jean cries about Mentor's sudden disinterest in literature and poetry. At the meeting, people who traded say that they're tired of caring for others, and the vote to close Village passes. Seer realizes that this means that his daughter, Kira, only has three weeks to come. He asks Matty to go to his old village to help her come to Village and explains that both she and Leader have special gifts. At Leader's homeplace, Leader admits that he knows Matty has a gift and tells him to not use it. Leader uses his gift to "look beyond," but Forest is "thickening" too much and he can't see through the trees to Kira. He tries to stop Matty from going, but Matty insists he must. Leader succeeds in seeing beyond and asks if Kira is beautiful. Matty isn't convinced she is; she's like a sister to him and has a twisted leg. That afternoon, Jean stops by to bid Matty goodbye. She notices that a tapestry in Seer's homeplace is twisted and snarled, and she explains that Herbalist quarantined Ramon and his sister—who have grown ill—for fear of an epidemic. By his second day in Forest, Matty understands what Leader meant about Forest: it's darker, it smells, and it's harder to find food. He thinks about his childhood and how he first connected Kira with Seer, whom she thought was dead. As he progresses, he becomes ill until finally, he feels like Forest spits him out near Kira's cottage. She greets him warmly, but Matty knows his return trip will be his last one. As Kira gives Matty soup, he watches how she moves and decides he must fix her leg so they can move faster. When Matty brings it up, though, Kira refuses—she says she's whole as she is. She's not convinced when Matty demonstrates his gift on himself, but she does show Matty her gift. As she embroiders, her hands shimmer and she embroiders a picture of the future. It shows her and Matty walking into Forest, as well as Mentor building a wall. They decide to leave the next day. After only a few hours, Matty is glad that Kira didn't let him heal her—she's used to walking with her stick. She packed her embroidery frame and carries it on her back, and assures Matty she feels safe with him. Matty doesn't tell her that Forest doesn't feel safe. Back in Village, Leader looks beyond and tells Seer about Matty and Kira's progress, but he leaves out that Forest will destroy them. They listen to the sounds of Mentor working on the wall. That night, Kira shows Matty her bloody feet. Matty knows that these are Warnings from Forest and stays awake to listen. The next day, Forest begins attacking Matty by dripping poisonous sap onto his arms. It's painful and makes his arms swell, and the stench from Forest starts to bother Kira. The next day, Matty admits that he doesn't know what's going on with Forest. They do their best to navigate a dangerous swamp, but emerge bleeding, muddy, and barely able to breathe. Over the next few days, Matty starts to escape his pain by hallucinating that he's floating above his body. As they stop to rest one afternoon, Matty cuts a vine that tries to wind around his ankle. Kira pulls out her embroidery supplies to use her gift and says that Leader is coming for them. A few mornings later, Matty wakes up and is surprised that he and Kira are still alive. At this point, Leader is several days into Forest and is bloody and bruised. Matty and Kira are in a similar state; Matty's nose is bleeding, Kira can barely see, and she refuses to go on. Matty asks her to use her gift to try to meet Leader halfway and surprisingly, it works: the two are able to meet in "Beyond." They discuss that they're lost and hurt, and Leader asks Kira to tell Matty to use his gift. Matty groans and falls back when he hears this; he thinks it's too late. However, as he rolls into the mud, his fingers begin to vibrate. His entire body tightens and begins to flow into Forest, healing it. Everyone in Village begins to heal, while Mentor abandons his wall building and recites a poem. Leader and Kira feel well again, and Matty feels like he's been chosen for this. He floats above and understands what Seer meant about Forest being an illusion: it was a reflection of human fear, lies, and power. Now, it blooms as Matty dies. Leader finds Kira and tells her that though Matty wanted to be given the true name Messenger, his true name is Healer. He carries Matty's body back toward Village.

- Genre: Gothic Horror - Title: Mexican Gothic - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: 1950s Mexico, El Triunfo - Character: Noemí Taboada. Description: Noemí is a wealthy urban socialite from Mexico City who ventures to High Place to check on the welfare of her cousin, Catalina. As a woman of high society, she pays careful attention to her clothing and appearance, but Noemí is just as focused on education as she is on fashion. Though her parents would prefer it if she devoted herself to finding a suitable husband, Noemí wants to obtain a master's degree in anthropology—this at a time when it was somewhat uncommon for women to attend university. Noemí's progressive values result in multiple conflicts with the Doyle family, who believe in old-world conventions and hold that the only suitable goals for a woman is marriage and motherhood. Noemí often navigates these conflicts with flattery and flirtation—all those parties in Mexico City have taught her how to deal with arrogant, wealthy men. But when Noemí learns the truth about the horrors that have occurred at High Place she rebels against the family patriarch, Howard Doyle, with increasing feminist resolve. Her goal is not just to escape High Place, but also to end the suffering of the women around her. She refuses to leave without Catalina, for example, and burns the body of the long-abused first wife of Howard Doyle, Agnes. Thus, Noemí overcomes the sexist power structure of High Place not only by using both masculine and feminine forms of power, but also by uplifting the other women abused by the system. - Character: Catalina. Description: Catalina is Noemí's cousin. She married Virgil Doyle after a short engagement—her family hardly had the chance to meet Virgil before he whisked Catalina away to High Place. Catalina's parents died while she was young, and Noemí's parents became her guardians. It's to them that Catalina writes her strange letter, appealing for help. Noemí's father dismisses Catalina's letter as melodramatic, but Noemí knows something is wrong with her cousin. Indeed, for much of the novel, Catalina functions as the damsel-in-distress. She's trapped in the bedroom of an old Gothic mansion, prisoner to her brutish husband and slowly losing her mind to the fungus. Yet, Catalina defeats her easy classification as the damsel-in-distress during her and Noemí's escape from High Place. Their escape attempt is foiled by Florence, who brings the group to Howard's bedroom at gunpoint. And it's just as Howard is about to take over Francis's body that Catalina stabs him, allowing for Francis, Noemí, and Catalina herself to resume their escape. Thus, through Noemí's assistance, Catalina is able to regain her agency and demonstrate her power against the people who have been oppressing her. - Character: Francis. Description: Francis is Florence's son, Howard's nephew, and Noemí's love interest. His father, Richard, died when Francis was just a boy, and Francis carries around a picture of him to remember him by. This is significant because Richard was forced to stay in High Place against his will, much like Catalina, and his suicide was a final act of rebellion against the Doyles. That Francis carries around his picture is an indicator that he is not as committed to Doyles as the other members of the family are. Without a doubt, Francis is the best proof that the Doyles' beloved pseudoscience of eugenics is deeply flawed. Though the family insists that people have a certain nature, and that it's impossible for a person to act outside their nature, Francis does just that. Despite the fact that he's been groomed to willingly receive Howard Doyle's consciousness as part of the Doyle family's ritual for immortality, Francis ultimately rejects his family's values and leaves High Place altogether. - Character: Howard Doyle. Description: Howard Doyle is the patriarch of the Doyle family. He's hundreds of years old; the fungus underneath High Place helped him achieve immortality through cannibalism, sacrifice, and slaughter. The first European to discover the fungus in Mexico, Howard killed the indigenous people living there and harvested the resource for himself. He then founded his family's silver mine, treating the indigenous workers brutally and knowingly infecting them with the fungus, which made them deathly ill. He justifies his actions with the pseudoscience of eugenics—which argues that certain races are inferior to others—and with his sexist belief that women's primary duty is birthing and raising children. Howard embodies the greed and oppressive ideologies that fueled colonialism; accordingly, High Place and the surrounding El Triunfo is in many ways a colony in miniature. Howard's immortality allows for these hateful ideologies to persist through generations, and Noemí's eventual triumph over him signifies a needed change in the social order of Mexico—one where the colonized have overtaken the colonizers. - Character: Virgil. Description: Virgil is Howard's only son, and Catalina's husband. Though he would typically inherit his family's estate after Howard's death, his father's immortality robs him of that prize. Virgil therefore secretly plots to allow his father to die, which would leave him with total authority over High Place and the gloom. Like his father, Virgil believes that white men are genetically superior and that a woman's duty is marriage and mothering. He is more suave than his father, however, and he charms Catalina into marrying him, and then he traps her in High Place. Even Noemí often succumbs to Virgil's dashing good looks—she compares him to the wealthy men she would often meet at parties in Mexico City: charming and desirous, but scornful of women who contradict him. The fact the Noemí has moments of desire for Virgil indicates a problem with societies that repress women's sexuality: it makes it difficult to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy attitudes towards sex and desire, leaving women vulnerable to manipulation by men like Virgil. In totality Virgil represents a class of men more modern than his father, those who benefited from the colonial system and carry old prejudices into the contemporary age. - Character: Florence. Description: Florence is Howard's niece, and Francis's mother. She is the only female villain in the novel—the only woman without a redeeming moment. When Noemí arrives at High Place, Florence strictly enforces the conventions of the home: no smoking, silence during dinner, etc. But she has not always been the cruel arbiter of domestic power. When she was young, Florence was as much a victim as any of the women in High Place; Howard raped her in order to conceive a child. His attempt at conception failed, so he sent Florence away to find a husband. She met Richard, and she dreamed that he would change her or rescue her from her family. But Richard started to slowly lose his mind when he became infected with the fungus, and Florence became convinced that it's impossible to deny one's nature. Though she's oppressed in High Place, Florence decides it's easier to live under a sexist system than to fight it. The only space she's allowed authority is in the domestic realm, and she often sternly employs that authority as a way to assert herself in a system that has eroded her autonomy. - Character: Ruth. Description: Ruth is Howard's niece. She died after shooting Howard, her fiancé, and her mother. Ruth fell in love with an indigenous miner named Benito, but Howard had already arranged Ruth's marriage to her cousin, and when he found out about Ruth's feelings, he beat her mercilessly. Ruth knew about Howard's immortality and his ability to control people though the gloom, and she decided that she was going to escape from High Place. This required killing Howard, but she didn't believe that there was anything wrong with that—Howard is evil. She shot Howard twice during her escape attempt, but he didn't die; he controlled Ruth through the gloom and forced her to kill herself. Thus, Ruth is a model for feminine resistance against Howard's patriarchal authority. Her attempt was not successful, but it does serve as a precedent for future women to emulate. Furthermore, Ruth's frequent directive to Noemí to open her eyes during her dreams serves as both a warning and a call to action—Noemí's own escape attempt wouldn't succeed if Ruth's actions didn't guide her. - Character: Agnes. Description: Agnes is Howard's first wife. Though she had no biological children, Howard chose to inscribe upon her tombstone the word mother—for Agnes is the mother of the gloom. The gloom—a fungal network that connects all the Doyles and keeps Howard immortal—was created through the ritual sacrifice of Agnes's body: she was buried alive, and the fungus slowly and agonizingly grew through her body. Thus, Howard's power stems from the suffering of a single woman. His immortality began with sexist violence, and it continues by subjugating women, forcing them to reproduce, and then sacrificing the children. The system clearly benefits men, and it's thus fitting that High Place is destroyed by a woman (Noemí)—especially one who succeeds by uplifting the women around her. - Character: Dr. Camarillo. Description: Julio Camarillo is the local physician in El Triunfo. Though Noemí initially believes that Dr. Camarillo can properly diagnosis Catalina and get her out of High Place, she quickly learns that Dr. Camarillo is no knight in shining armor. His authority is limited to the town, outside the jurisdiction of Dr. Cummins. Though the Doyles are disdainful of Dr. Camarillo for his youth and ethnicity, he often serves as a calming presence for Noemí. Finally, unlike Dr. Cummins, Dr. Camarillo respects Marta and the remedies she creates as the village's healer, showing that modern medicine and traditional herbal remedies can coexist. - Character: Dr. Cummins. Description: Arthur Cummins is the Doyle family's personal doctor, and he has served them for decades. His daughter was Virgil's first wife, but she fell sick after interacting with the fungus and passed away. Dr. Cummins's willingness to sacrifice his own daughter reveals his loyalty to Howard Doyle. He shares many of Howard's racial biases, too, and was complicit in the deaths of many indigenous miners. - Character: Noemí's Father. Description: Noemí's father is the one who sends Noemí on her quest to rescue Catalina—though he's initially dismissive of Catalina's claims, calling her melodramatic. He clearly cares for his daughter and is more modern-minded than someone like Howard Doyle, yet his worldview still relies on a great gender divide. It's with reluctance that he agrees to send Noemí to graduate school, and he's not shy about criticizing Noemí for her unconventional personality. - Theme: Sexism, Female Independence, and Power. Description: Throughout Mexican Gothic, the protagonist, Noemí Taboada, undermines masculine forms of authority and challenges conventions surrounding outdated gender roles. She begins the novel as a socialite in Mexico City, where the only expectation of wealthy young women is that they "devote [their] time to leisure and husband hunting." Noemí, however, is presented as somebody unwilling to simply acquiesce to such limiting expectations, which is why she dreams of pursuing a master's degree in anthropology at a time when few women had access to higher education. Similarly, her strong will and sense of self-sufficiency are on full display when she ventures to High Place to help her cousin, Catalina. She quickly learns that there's no knight in shining armor who will come and solve her—or Catalina's—problems. After all, Dr. Camarillo doesn't have the authority to change Catalina's treatment plan, and Francis (Noemí's only advocate in the household) is easily overruled by Virgil. If Noemí wants to get something done, then, she realizes that she's going to have to do it herself, which means constantly coming into conflict with the sexist power structures at play in the Doyle household. Noemí ultimately succeeds in her struggle against the Doyles, freeing herself and Catalina from imprisonment as coerced brides in High Place. Though Ruth certainly set the precedent for female resistance, Noemí prevails because she attempts not just to escape the sexist horror of High Place (as Ruth did), but also to alleviate the suffering of the other women who are trapped there. She insists on freeing Catalina even though Francis, the person who initially planned their escape, didn't think it was a good idea. Furthermore, Noemí seems to be the only person who recognizes that Howard and Virgil's power over the gloom stems from the agony of a single woman: Agnes. Her suffering keeps the gloom alive, and this in and of itself is a good metaphor for the ways in which male-dominated, patriarchal power structures exploit women for their own benefit. The Doyles are instructed never to look at Agnes's ravaged body, but Noemí upends their power by pulling back the curtain and exposing the atrocity they've committed. She sets Agnes's mummified corpse on fire, thus alleviating the woman's suffering and destroying the Doyle's sexist power structure in one fell swoop. The novel therefore values the idea of female independence while also celebrating women who try to improve not just their own lives, but those of other women, too. - Theme: Nature vs. Love. Description: The Doyles of High Place believe in eugenics, a pseudoscience with the goal of genetically improving the human species by promoting certain traits through selective breeding. It should come as no surprise to readers that this field of study has been discredited as unscientific and racially biased. The Doyles, however, believe that a person's nature is determined at birth, and that their actions in life will always be in accordance with their nature. Furthermore, they believe themselves to be genetically superior to those around them, particularly the local Mexicans. Yet, these beliefs are regularly undermined over the course of the novel. Though Virgil claims that criminals have distinctly recognizable facial characteristics, none of these eugenics experts are able to recognize Ruth's potential for violence before she begins shooting her family. Additionally, Francis's decision to side with Noemí to fight against his family, and his ability to survive outside of High Place, indicate that the Doyles' beliefs about predetermined natures are wrong, too. Surely if Francis's nature was to be a docile servant of Howard, Noemí wouldn't have been able to change that. But the book posits an alternate theory: that love overrides any predetermined, inherited, or learned behavior. Francis initially tells Noemí that the Doyles are incapable of love and that it's against their nature. And yet, when Noemí learns the truth about High Place, she asks Francis why she should trust him. He responds that he can no longer pretend everything is fine; Noemí has changed him, and he can't overlook his family's wrongdoing anymore. The novel thus implies that love is capable of remaking a person's nature into something kinder. - Theme: Colonialism. Description: The Doyles are a European family who moved to Mexico for the twin purposes of mining silver and harvesting mushrooms that grow in the cave under High Place. In each case, they're reaping natural resources from the land for their own wealth and power, and they do this at the expense of the local population. Howard Doyle, the family patriarch, refers to the miners who worked for him as mulch—just as mulch is used to improve the soil so that plants may grow, Howard mercilessly abuses the locals who work in his mine so that he can grow rich from the silver that's extracted. To him the miners are an expendable resource—like mulch. No one knows how many have died under his rule, for no one has ever cared to count. Howard, with his beliefs about superior and inferior races, is a stand-in for old imperial colonizers who thrived from the theft of indigenous resources. His immortality creates a cycle of violence and bigotry that keeps old, racist ideologies alive. Though he claims that High Place has provided wealth and jobs to the people of El Triunfo, his cruel mining operation left the town dependent on the Doyle family's money. Once the mining ends, everything falls into a state of disrepair. Finally, the person who puts an end to Howard's long reign is an urban, multiracial woman with liberal and progressive ideas. Noemí's triumph at the end of the novel represents a long-awaited justice—the colonized have finally overthrown the colonizer, though the fact that at the end of the novel Noemí and Francis still fear the lingering threat of Howard Doyle underlines just how difficult it is to completely move on from the exploitative terrors of colonialism. - Theme: Life, Death, and Rebirth. Description: Immortality in the novel does not come without a cost. Howard Doyle, for instance, chooses to bury his wife alive and let a powerful fungus slowly grow through her body—all because this will grant him immortality. Thus, his immortality is built from a central act of violence against a woman's body. And though Agnes's body is preserved in the chamber underneath the Doyle crypt, the Doyles are instructed never to look at it. Their continued survival requires an ignorance of their family crimes—they persist in their mansion while below them Agnes screams in agony. Furthermore, the Doyles ritually murder and ingest children in order to grow closer to the fungus that keeps them alive. It is not just that their immortality was founded on a horrifying act of violence, then, but also that violence is an inherent part of the cycle of rebirth, in which the old must consume the young in order to stay alive. What's more, the fact that old people like Howard never die ultimately prevents any change or the introduction of new ideas, and that's why High Place adheres to outdated and narrow-minded views on gender and race. The novel essentially suggests that change is a necessary part of human evolution, and Howard's cycle of rebirth prevents that. Though Howard is immortal, his world—High Place—is a crumbling, outdated mansion that lacks modern amenities like electricity and hot baths. His persistence has stunted change and progress, which necessitate the death of old ideas and conventions. In a way, then, the book suggests that change and death are fundamental parts of existence that ultimately make life worth living—after all, what's the point of having the kind of immortality Howard has, if it means living in such despicable conditions? - Climax: Noemí, Catalina, and Francis escape from High Place. - Summary: Noemí Taboada receives a summons from her father while at a lavish costume party. She cuts her date short and returns home, where her father hands her a mysterious letter from Catalina, her cousin. Catalina claims that her husband's family treats her cruelly, that she's being kept as a prisoner, and that she has been seeing ghosts. Noemí's father dismisses Catalina's claims as melodramatic but nevertheless thinks Noemí should go visit her cousin in El Triunfo. If she does, he'll finally let Noemí study anthropology in graduate school. Noemí agrees and leaves the next morning. When Noemí arrives in El Triunfo, she finds it to be a ramshackle town. An automobile is waiting for her at the train station, and the English man driving it introduces himself as Francis Doyle, great nephew of Howard Doyle. He takes Noemí to the Doyle estate, which everyone calls High Place. Noemí walks into the old, Victorian style home and meets a stern-looking woman named Florence Doyle, who explains that she runs High Place and that Noemí should make sure to follow the rules of the house. Florence takes Noemí to Catalina's bedroom. Surprisingly, Catalina doesn't look that sick—even though she claims she has tuberculosis. Catalina tells Noemí that she was delirious with fever when she wrote the letter, so Noemí shouldn't worry too much about it. At dinner that night Noemí meets the ancient-looking Howard Doyle. Howard believes in a pseudoscience known as eugenics, and he quizzes Noemí about it, much to her discomfort. Noemí tries to learn more about her cousin's illness from Virgil Doyle, Catalina's husband, but he isn't very forthcoming. The next day, Francis gives Noemí a tour of the grounds, which ends at the English cemetery. The Doyles own a silver mine—which isn't in operation anymore—and many miners died from an epidemic decades ago. The English miners are all buried here, behind High Place. The next time Noemí sees Catalina, she seems more lucid, and she secretly asks Noemí to visit a local healer named Marta Duval, who's been making her a tincture. Noemí agrees to help, and the next day she convinces Francis to drive her to town. She meets Marta at her home, and the old woman tells her that it'll take one week to prepare the tincture. But the medicine won't help, she tells Noemí, because the Doyle family is cursed. Years ago Howard's daughter, Ruth, went on a shooting spree in High Place and killed many of her family members, including her fiancé and mother. The whole place is evil, Marta believes. While in town Noemí convinces the local physician, Dr. Camarillo, to come to High Place and examine Catalina. After his examination, he tells Noemí that he agrees with her—he doesn't think Catalina has tuberculosis, and she should probably see a psychiatrist. Noemí tells this to Virgil, but he's dismissive of the local doctor. The Doyle family has their own doctor, Dr. Cummins, and he's good enough to treat Catalina. Besides, Catalina is his wife, and he'll decide what's best for her. Noemí and Francis begin to spend more time together. They go for walks, talk about each other's lives, and Francis shows Noemi his collection of spore prints. That night Noemí has a terrible nightmare: she sees Ruth walk through the hallway holding a rifle, find Howard's bedroom, and shoot him. Ruth then shoots and kills herself. Noemí wakes up and realizes that she has been sleep walking—something she hasn't done since she was a child. Noemí retrieves the tincture from Marta Duval and brings it to Catalina. But immediately after swallowing some, Catalina begins to seize. When the episode passes, Dr. Cummins tells Noemí that she gave Catalina an opium tincture that could have killed her. To everyone's frustration, Noemí refuses to share where she got the tincture, since Catalina made her promise to keep it a secret. Noemí visits Dr. Camarillo again as soon as she is able. He tells her that Marta's tincture could not have been opium—those plants don't grow around El Triunfo. Noemí's not sure what to make of this information, so she waits for an opportunity to speak with Catalina. But Florence will no longer allow them to see each other unsupervised. Catalina slips Noemí a note, which she later reads in her bedroom. The note is a page ripped from Ruth's diary. Ruth wrote about how Howard had beaten and abused her. She planned to kill him so that she could escape from High Place. Noemí is shocked by the note; contrary to what she's heard, Ruth doesn't sound crazy or possessed by evil at all. She wants to learn more about Ruth, so she goes in search of Francis. Noemí finds Francis in his bedroom and tells him her theory: she doesn't think that the house is haunted, or that Catalina and Ruth are crazy. Rather, she thinks that there's something in the walls—some kind of chemical or toxin that makes people sick. Francis stands up abruptly and tells Noemí to stop talking. He speaks to her in Spanish, which none of the other Doyles speak, and tells her that she needs to leave High Place immediately. It isn't safe. A loud moan interrupts their conversation. Francis tells Noemí that Howard's condition is worsening, and that he needs to go and help him. Noemí has a dream that Virgil forces himself on her while she's in the bathtub. She has nightmares almost every night, and her sleepwalking is getting worse. She feels exhausted during the day, and she's beginning to hallucinate. Noemí tells Virgil that she's ready to go back to Mexico City—she needs to get away from here and clear her head. Virgil agrees to drive her to the train station tomorrow morning. That night, the Doyles assemble in Howard's bedroom so that Noemí can bid him farewell. When she walks in, Noemí is shocked to see Howard lying on his bed naked. Virgil forces Noemí over to Howard, who grabs her head and shoves his tongue into her mouth. Noemí experiences a series of visions that show her the history of High Place. Howard arrived here more than three hundred years ago, deathly ill. But the indigenous people fed him mushrooms from a nearby cave that healed him. Howard grew stronger, and soon he killed the indigenous people and took the land and mushrooms for himself. Noemí wakes from this vision in her bedroom, with Francis pressing a glass of water to her lips. She's angry with him, but Francis begs her to listen to him for a moment. He tells her that, a long time ago, Howard found a fungus that extends human life. That fungus now grows all over the house, like a spider's web, and it can even preserve the thoughts and memories of people who have died. They call this web the gloom, he explains. Howard uses the gloom to live forever—when his body is about to die, he transfers his consciousness to the gloom, and then from there into the body of a willing recipient. The next recipient will be Virgil, Francis says. It's important to Howard that the bloodline is kept pure, but lately the Doyle's have had trouble producing viable offspring. That's why Howard wants Noemí to become part of the family. Noemí protests, but Francis tells her that it's too late. No one can escape from Howard. That night, Noemí has another nightmare. A woman gives birth in a cave, then Howard grabs the child, kills it, and eats it as part of a ritual. The woman is swaddled tightly and buried alive. Noemí wakes the next day, glad to see daylight. She runs to the front door, which she finds unlocked, and flees from the house. The farther she goes, though, the more she struggles to breathe. She collapses, and Virgil comes to fetch her and brings her back to her bedroom. He throws her in the bathtub and tells her to take her clothes off, otherwise he'll hurt her. Once she's naked Virgil begins to touch her, but Francis opens the bathroom door and interrupts, much to Noemí's relief. When Francis and Noemí are alone in the bedroom, he tells her his plan to break Noemí out of High Place. Howard's body is going to die soon, and they'll use that moment to escape through a tunnel beneath the house. Noemí makes Francis promise to help Catalina too, and he agrees. They should be able to escape in a few days, but until then Noemí has to play along with the family's wishes. Howard expects her and Francis to get married, and he's planning a ceremony for tomorrow night. Noemí is forced to wear an ancient wedding dress to the ceremony, which takes place in Howard's bedroom. Howard reads a few verses in Latin, gives Francis and Noemí a mushroom to eat, and then sends them off to separate bedrooms. Noemí waits for Francis in her room, but instead Virgil walks in. He says that the family figured out about their escape plan. He tries to force himself on Noemí, but she pushes him over and knocks him unconscious. She then runs to Catalina's room and meets with her cousin and Francis. The three begin to leave, but they're caught in the hallway by Florence, who has a rifle. Florence leads them to Howard's room, where it's revealed that Francis—not Virgil—is going to receive Howard's consciousness. Howard begins the ritual, and Francis meekly complies. Everyone is distracted by the ceremony, so no one notices Catalina grab a knife and walk over to Howard. She stabs him repeatedly and then tries to escape. Florence attempts to shoot Noemí, but Francis wrestles the rifle from her and shoots his mother. Noemí then takes the rifle from Francis and, like Ruth before her, shoots Howard. She then runs from the room with Catalina and Francis, toward the tunnel that Francis had planned to take them through. The tunnel leads to a cavern beneath the house—the same one that Noemí has seen in her dreams. Noemí pulls back a curtain behind the cavern's altar and finds the mummified remains of Agnes, Howard's first wife. Agnes's body serves as the epicenter of the gloom. Virgil strolls into the chamber and reveals that he planned for all of this to happen—he wants his father to die so that he can have full control over the gloom and High Place. He's going to bring the three of them back and become the new patriarch of the family. Francis attacks Virgil, and while the two struggle, Noemí grabs a lantern and throws it at Agnes's body, igniting it in flames. With their precious fungus burning, Virgil and Francis collapse, and Catalina stabs Virgil before helping Francis and Noemí escape. They leave the cavern and run down the mountain, eventually finding refuge at Dr. Camarillo's clinic, where they wait for Noemí's father and the police to arrive.

- Genre: Young Adult Novel - Title: Mexican WhiteBoy - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: National City, California - Character: Danny Lopez. Description: Danny is the protagonist of Mexican WhiteBoy. He is from Leucadia, an affluent part of San Diego, but for the duration of the novel he stays in National City, where his dad is from, with his cousin Sofia. Danny's dad, Javier, is Mexican while his mom, Wendy, is white. Danny comes to National City for the summer when Wendy moves to San Francisco with her boyfriend and Danny's sister. In National City he meets Uno, and though Uno and Danny don't get along at first, they eventually become best friends. He also has a crush on Liberty, but she only speaks Spanish and Danny only speaks English. Initially, Danny feels like he doesn't fit in in Leucadia or National City because of his mixed heritage and racial identity. In addition, since Javier left the family a few years before the start of the novel, Danny is anxious and timid, and he barely speaks. He self-harms when he feels especially uneasy. Danny longs for his father's love and approval, and he wants to travel to Mexico to see him. Danny loves baseball and is a very talented pitcher, but he loses control of his pitching when he's under pressure. Over the course of the novel, however, Danny grows more confident and social. The most significant change in Danny happens when he learns that his father is not in Mexico as he originally said, but is actually in prison. By the end of the novel, Danny is much more independent and self-assured. - Character: Uno. Description: Uno, Danny's friend, is an antagonist in the beginning of the novel, as he competes with Danny and at one point punches him in the face. Uno is from National City, where he lives with his mom, Loretta, and his stepdad, Ernesto. Ernesto has a disabled son, Manuel, who Uno loves as though he is related to him by blood. Uno's dad, Senior, is Black. Senior lives in Oxnard, but Uno gets lunch with him once a month. Uno wants to move to Oxnard with Senior—he admires his father though he doesn't always understand him—but he must first make $500. Uno becomes a secondary protagonist when he and Danny become friends, and the two embark on a mission to make money by challenging high school baseball teams around San Diego. Uno is a good baseball player because he is bigger and stronger than most of his peers. He has a hot temper and often gets in trouble for starting fights, though he feels guilty afterwards. There are not many Black people in National City, and Uno sometimes experiences racism from his community (though he is half Mexican). Uno initially feels that it's impossible for him to have a successful future, but over the course of the novel he comes to understand that he can make positive changes in his life and is not destined for any certain path. - Character: Javier Lopez. Description: Javier is Danny's father, and Ray and Tommy's brother. Javier is in prison at the start of the novel, and he appears only in Danny's flashbacks. Javier is Mexican and he grew up in National City. Before he goes to prison, Javier lies and tells Danny that he is going to Mexico. Javier seems to have a complicated relationship to race, and Ray guesses that Javier didn't teach Danny and his sister Julia Spanish because he resents being Mexican. Wendy, Javier's ex-partner, is white, but in Danny's memory Javier is often angered by white people. It's not explicitly clear what Javier is in prison for, but he has always been violent like his brother Ray. He hit Wendy and attacked a white man who he thought was flirting with Wendy. Nevertheless, Javier seems to genuinely love and care about his children. He has a friend secretly watch over Danny while Javier is in prison, and he tells his brothers to make sure Danny stays out of trouble. - Character: Senior. Description: Senior is Uno's father and Loretta's ex-partner. He comes to National City from Oxnard once a month to see Uno, and he has a combative relationship with Loretta. He is generally polished and philosophical, often going on long-winded monologues, but he speaks cryptically, and the meaning of his lectures is lost on Uno more often than not. Senior used to live a life of crime and drugs, and he was abusive when Uno was young. In recent years Senior has turned his life around by focusing on his family and church, and now he has a new wife and baby. Senior encourages Uno to work hard and try to be successful. He distrusts white people. - Character: Wendy. Description: Wendy is Danny's mother. At the beginning of the story, Danny lives with her and his sister, Julia, in Leucadia, an affluent area in San Diego. After Wendy relocates to San Francisco to be with her new boyfriend, Randy, Danny chooses to move to stay with his father Javier's side of the family instead. Javier is Mexican, and Wendy is white. At first Danny resents his mother (and himself) for her whiteness, thinking that it contributed to Javier's decision to abandon the family. As he matures, though, Danny learns about the domestic abuse that Javier subjected Wendy to and gains more sympathy for her situation. - Character: Sofia Lopez. Description: Sofia is Danny's cousin, Tommy's daughter, and Cecelia's stepdaughter. Sofia values her family, and she loves and takes care of Danny. She is well-integrated into the teenage social scene of National City, and Carmen is her closest friend. Sofia never knew her biological mom, but she thinks of Cecelia as her real mother. Sofia is apprehensive about her future because, though she's a good student, she doesn't know anyone who's ever been to college. She develops a romantic relationship with Uno. - Character: Ray Lopez. Description: Ray is Javier and Tommy's brother, and Danny and Sofia's uncle. He is coarse and unpolished, and he has a hot temper, but he loves his family. He intentionally hits a man with his car, creating a gruesome scene which traumatizes Danny, who is in the car at the time. - Character: The Man in the Padres Hat. Description: The man in the Padres hat turns out to be Javier's friend from prison, but for most of the novel Danny and Uno think he is a scout for the Padres baseball team. Javier saved his life in prison one time, and the man in the Padres hat follows Danny around to watch over him. He saves Danny and Uno one day as they are being attacked by a high school baseball team. He works for the Padres selling hotdogs at the stadium. - Character: Liberty. Description: Liberty is new to National City. She is from Mexico and only speaks Spanish, but her dad is American. Danny notices her right away because she looks half white like him, and he develops a crush on her. By the end of the novel, Danny and Liberty form a romantic relationship despite not being able to speak to each other. - Character: Loretta. Description: Loretta is Uno's mom and Ernesto's wife. She speaks very badly of Senior, and she doesn't want Uno to go to Oxnard to live with him. Loretta often acts uncaring towards Uno—she takes Ernesto's side even though she knows he's too hard on Uno. Towards the end of the novel she reveals that she is pregnant with Ernesto's child. - Character: Manuel. Description: Manuel (who sometimes goes by Manny) is Ernesto's son and Uno's stepbrother. He has a mental disability, and Uno loves and protects him. Manuel is always happy, and he cheers for everyone at the stickball derbies. He gets hit in the face when Danny accidentally lets go of a baseball bat during a game, which enrages Uno. Loretta and Ernesto put Manuel in a home for children with disabilities, and Uno makes an effort to see him there. - Character: Coach Sullivan. Description: Coach Sullivan is the coach of Leucadia prep's baseball team. He cuts Danny from the team because Danny's pitching needs more control, though he sees potential in Danny. At the end of the novel, Coach Sullivan is impressed with Danny, and Kyle says Coach Sullivan will contact Danny to recruit him to the team. - Theme: Race and Identity. Description: Danny, the protagonist of Mexican WhiteBoy, is half white and half Mexican, and as such he feels like he doesn't fit in with either white people or Mexican people. His self-image changes depending on his surroundings, and he feels uncertain and unstable in his biracial identity; though Danny feels "too Mexican" at his mostly white prep school in Leucadia, he feels "too white" around his Mexican family and friends in National City. In particular, Danny is ashamed of his white privilege when he's around people of color in National City. Some older characters—Danny's dad, Ray, and Senior—do hold some resentment against white people for the way they treat people of color, which echoes and reinforces Danny's negative image of his own whiteness, though most of Danny's friends in National City don't even know that he's half white. Since he looks Mexican, they think he has two Mexican parents just like they do, and they accept him as one of them. Being biracial is not the norm, so they don't even consider that Danny may not be just Mexican. This oversight is itself what makes Danny's self-image so complicated—he's not able to embrace being biracial in an environment that doesn't recognize multidimensional racial identities. Liberty is also half white and half Mexican, and she is also seen as Mexican and fully accepted into the National City community. Like Danny and Liberty, Uno, too, is half Mexican. Uno's father is Black and Uno looks Black, so his community thinks of him as Black even though he grew up with his Mexican mom. Uno himself identifies more as Black then Mexican, having formed his identity around how everyone sees him, but he also feels torn between the two racial identities. Though he's fully integrated into National City's social scene, Uno is the recipient of a lot of blatant racism from both white and Mexican people, and even from his own Black father against Mexicans. Ultimately, the various communities that Danny and Uno belong to all fail to accommodate complex racial identities, further complicating the boys' fluid self-images, which are significantly shaped by how people in their environments see them. - Theme: Fate vs. Opportunity. Description: At first, Danny and the other teenagers he hangs out with see their futures as predetermined paths, but they eventually grow to understand that their futures are open to many possibilities. As a child, Danny longs to be just like his dad, Javier. He writes at one point that he's "destined" to be a pitcher like his dad. Upon learning that Javier is violent and abusive, though, Danny begins to see becoming like his father more as a bleak inevitability—his other family members suggest that violence runs in the family. The story reinforces the idea of violence as a familial trait when Danny starts to see his uncle Ray mirror some of Javier's violent tendencies. Uno also feels that his social circumstances leave him destined for a certain future; at one point, he says that moving out of his hometown is just not "meant to be." He seems to internalize the racist and abusive narratives of his community and family that tell him that he is incapable and that having money and success is only for white people. Along the same lines, Sofia thinks it's unlikely that she'll go to college herself since she doesn't know anyone who's ever attended college. Each of these characters' perspectives eventually shift from feeling trapped into a certain fate to feeling empowered and optimistic about their futures. Danny's outlook changes when he learns that his dad didn't leave the family to go to Mexico but is in fact in prison for assault. It's only at this point that the reality of who Javier is sets in—Danny is finally able to separate himself from his father, and he realizes that he can avoid taking the same path as Javier. Uno, too, gains confidence when he and Danny defeat the Morse High School baseball team after losing to them before, proving to himself that positive change and upward mobility is possible. Sofia also has a moment of inspiration when she sees a little girl who seems to believe she can do anything, prompting Sofia to realize that everyone has innate confidence and hope which become flattened over time by social pressures. By the end of the novel, these characters each have a newfound sense of autonomy that makes them realize that they can create their own futures—though social environments create obstacles, a person can always find or create new opportunities. - Theme: Violence, Power, and Coping Mechanisms. Description: Many characters in Mexican WhiteBoy use violence and other unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with feelings of powerlessness. Uno, Javier, and Ray all struggle with being members of marginalized communities that they're unable to break out of— they see their lives as limited and regulated by white people, and they use violence to reclaim control. In situations that bring out feelings of powerlessness, they are unable to restrain their violent outbursts. For example, Uno punches Danny at the derby because he feels threatened by Danny's talent, though he later regrets it. Similarly, Javier attacks a white man he perceives as a threat, though he knows it's "crazy," and ends up in prison for the offense. Drug and alcohol use—coping mechanisms of their own—often contribute to violent acts. For example, Ernesto hits Uno when he's drunk to try to exert his power over Uno as "the man of the house." But, though it may be temporarily gratifying, violence is an ineffective and counterproductive coping mechanism for the characters who utilize it. They feel guilty later on, and the legal trouble violence causes ultimately limits their freedom and autonomy even more. Other characters have different ways of managing feelings of helplessness. Danny also experiences a loss of control when his dad leaves, and he self-harms to cope with this loss and the powerlessness it has made him feel. Just like the uncontrollable violent fits of the other characters, Danny's self-harm is an urge he can't resist, but it doesn't provide lasting relief. Danny's mom Wendy, on the other hand, deals with hardship by dating many men and moving around a lot, but she later realizes that she will only be truly happy if she focuses on her family instead. Dating new men provides her with easy and superficial comfort, but taking care of her children—though more difficult—is what allows her to truly gain control of her life. Senior makes a similar positive change—he relies on substances and violence when he's young and feels powerless, but as he ages, he replaces these harmful vices with family and faith. Almost all the characters in Mexican WhiteBoy feel powerless in some way, and many turn to violence or other unhealthy ways of coping, but those who are truly able to gain control and contentment in their lives do so by focusing on what they value. - Theme: Coming of Age. Description: Though Danny struggles with his identity specifically as a biracial person, he also faces the identity challenges that teenagers typically experience as they begin to enter adulthood. For much of the novel, Danny is desperate for a sense of belonging. —. However, at the climax of the story Danny realizes that it's more important to come to terms with being on his own. Danny's overwhelming stress about fitting in in National City is ultimately a manifestation of his longing and anxiety about Danny's father. Naively, Danny idolizes his father. Danny doesn't know why Javier left, but—unable to imagine that Javier is at fault— Danny fears that Javier left because Javier was tired of being around white people, which drives Danny to reject his own whiteness. He thinks that being half white separates him not only from his father, but also from his extended family and his predominantly Mexican group of friends, so he tries to act "more Mexican" to fit in. Though Javier isn't there, Danny constantly imagines his dad watching him and tries to act tough and pitch well to impress him. At this point in his life, Danny bases his behavior and worth almost completely on how he perceives others to view him. This attitude is emblematic of adolescence. But Danny transcends this after learning that Javier is in prison. At this point, Danny finally realizes that his father leaving had nothing to do with Danny or his being white, so he no longer feels that he must perform a certain way to gain Javier's approval. Similarly, learning that Javier is in prison also forces Danny to confront the fact that his father is deeply flawed. Danny's perspective thus becomes more nuanced—a hallmark of maturity. In the aftermath of learning the truth about Javier, Danny gains confidence as he realizes that "he can make it on his own. Even when bad things happen." This transition from pursuing approval from others to turning inward for assurance is the biggest change Danny undergoes in the book. Through this transition, the novel suggests that gaining a stable sense of self-worth is a major step towards independence and maturity and in the progression from childhood to adulthood. - Theme: Family, Friendship, and Culture. Description: The characters in Mexican WhiteBoy come from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. Sometimes cultural differences act as barriers separating certain groups from others, but they also serve to strengthen ties among friends and families. In general, the novel portrays white people, Black people, and Mexican people all living in different neighborhoods and having cultural differences (like wealth disparities) that cause tension among them. The Lopezes, Danny's extended family, have a shared language and shared traditions that allow them to bond, though this excludes Danny. On the other hand, they have a strong family value independent of culture, and they try to incorporate and care for Danny just because he is blood related. Danny's affluent upbringing also separates him from the kids raised in poverty in National City—and Uno is particularly offput at first by Danny's different style. However, Uno is mixed race like Danny, and the two are eventually able to bond over sharing the experience of feeling like outsiders. Thus, the trait that separates them from certain people—and even each other, initially—is precisely what ultimately brings them together in friendship. The relationship that Danny and Liberty form is especially telling. The two have an immediate connection because they're both half white and half Mexican, but they're from different countries and speak different languages. Like Danny and Uno's friendship, the relationship between Danny and Liberty grows from sharing the experience of feeling like "the odd one out." Both are newcomers to National City, so they each have differences that estrange them from the locals. Liberty doesn't speak English and Danny doesn't speak Spanish, so they  find forms other than language to express care for each other. At one point, Liberty gives Danny a lollipop as a way of communicating her affection. Culture does allow groups of friends and families to strengthen existing relationships while separating them from other groups. At the same time, the characters' fulfilling cross-cultural relationships show that these barriers are not absolute—In fact, the barriers themselves can create bonds which encourage new relationships and communities to form. - Climax: Danny finds out that his dad is in prison. - Summary: Danny Lopez arrives in National City to stay for the summer with his cousin Sofia and uncle Tommy. Danny is half Mexican and half white, and he lives in Leucadia, an affluent area in San Diego, with his mom. He wants to use the summer to make money so he can buy a ticket to see his dad, Javier, in Mexico. Almost everyone in National City is Mexican and speaks both English and Spanish, but Danny doesn't speak Spanish. As Danny meets Sofia's friends, he realizes how different he is from them. He feels intense anxiety, and in response, he digs his nails into his arm until he feels sharp pain. Every Saturday over the summer there's a stickball derby in National City—whoever hits the most homeruns wins around thirty dollars. Danny loves baseball and is a talented player, so he joins the derby on his first day in National City. At the derby, he meets Uno. Uno is a strong player, and he hopes to win a lot of money from the derbies this summer. Uno pitches to Danny his first time up to bat, and to everyone's surprise, Danny hits several home runs. Uno is frustrated by this and starts throwing wild pitches. Danny swings and accidentally lets go of the bat, and it hits Uno's disabled stepbrother, Manny. Enraged, Uno punches Danny in the face, knocking him out. When Danny wakes up momentarily, a girl (Liberty) who looks half white and half Mexican is laying a towel under his head. Danny thinks she's very pretty. A couple weeks later, Uno gets lunch with his dad, Senior, who he sees once a month. Uno has been getting in trouble lately, and Senior encourages him to change his ways. Senior invites Uno to live with him in Oxnard, with the stipulation that Uno must first make $500 over the summer. Uno wants to live with his dad but he feels torn because his mom doesn't want him to go. He brainstorms ways to come up with the money. Meanwhile, Danny hasn't left Sofia's house since Uno punched him. He reminisces about how he lost control of his pitching at tryouts for his prep school's baseball team. He didn't make the team, and on the last day of tryouts, Danny's mom told him that their family was moving to San Francisco with her boyfriend, Randy. Danny resents his mom and partially blames her for his dad leaving the family. Danny's grateful that he's spending the summer with his dad's side of the family. A few days later, Danny, Sofia, and the other teenagers they hang out with are getting ready to go to the fair when Danny's uncle Ray shows up and demands to know whether Uno hit Danny. Danny lies and says no, winning the respect of the others. At the fair, Danny learns that the half white girl he saw earlier is named Liberty and that she's from Mexico and doesn't speak English. He gets very drunk at the fair and falls asleep. He has a recurring dream about a family of hawks. In the dream, the hawks fill Danny with joy, but they leave, and he can never find them again. Later on at the fair, Danny, visibly drunk, joins the other boys at a pitching booth. Uno and some of the others bet that he won't pitch over 50 miles per hour, but Liberty bets that he will. Danny pitches at 92 miles per hour, shocking everyone. It's the fastest speed the pitching booth worker has ever seen. A few days later at a family dinner, Ray sees the scars on Danny's arm from self-harm. Ray says that Javier loves Danny and that Javier is coming back soon, and Ray encourages Danny to keep sending Javier letters. Danny enjoys spending time with his extended family, but feels excluded because they sometimes speak in Spanish, and because they treat Danny differently due to his affluent upbringing. A couple days after the family dinner, Danny's mom calls and says that she, Randy, and Danny's sister are happy and doing well in San Francisco. Danny is disgusted and thinks he never wants to live with his mom again. The next time Uno has lunch with Senior, Uno expresses uncertainty about whether he'll be able to make $500 over the summer. Senior says that Uno must work for the money. A few days later, Uno sees Danny practicing pitching and asks to join him. Danny agrees, but he throws an intentionally hard pitch to hurt Uno's hand as revenge for Uno punching him. Uno knows he deserves it. Uno and Danny start working out together regularly. They form a plan to hustle high school baseball teams around the area by betting them that Danny can strike them out. At the park, the boys notice a man wearing a Padres hat who they think is scouting Danny. The next day, they go to Morse High for their first hustle. Danny loses control of his pitching, like he did at his school's baseball tryouts, and they lose the bet. Danny feels horrible and ruminates about it for days. He writes a letter to his dad in which he lies about his life—he writes that he's on an all-star baseball team and that Liberty is his girlfriend. A while later, Danny and Uno run into each other at a liquor store late at night. They go to a spot Uno knows near the train tracks. They play a game that involves aiming rocks at a railroad crossing sign; they imagine that whether they hit the sign or not will determine their futures. When a train comes, the boys go under a bridge beneath the tracks, and they're struck by a feeling of intense energy as the train passes. A few days later, Danny and Uno try to hustle a different team. They win this time, and Uno stops one of the players from attacking Danny. Danny gains control of his pitching, and the two boys successfully hustle several more teams. They continue to see the man in the Padres hat—he seems to be following Danny. Danny and Uno decide to re-challenge the Morse High team that they lost to before. They win this time, but the Morse High players try to steal the money. A brawl breaks out, and the man with the Padres hat breaks it up, saving Danny and Uno. Danny and Uno have now made a good amount of money and they celebrate at a party with their friends. Uno and Sofia start a romantic relationship at the party, and Danny and Liberty also spend time together and express that they like each other. A few days later, Danny's mom calls him crying, and says that she's moving back to Leucadia because she wants to spend more time with Danny and his sister. Sometime in August, Danny is in the car with Ray when Ray intentionally hits a man with the car, beats him up, and runs him over. It is a horrific and bloody scene, and Ray's manic anger reminds Danny of Javier. A week before Danny's mom is supposed to pick him up to go back to Leucadia, Uno and Danny attend a Padres game. There, Danny sees the man he thinks is scouting him. Danny confronts the man and finds out that he's actually a friend of his father's from prison who Javier sent to look after Danny. Danny learns that his father is not in Mexico like he said, but instead is in prison. Danny is shocked and feels drained. Later that day, wanting to cry but feeling empty, Danny intentionally cuts deeply into his arm with tweezers. Sofia sees the bleeding and comforts him. A few days later, Danny and Uno go to Leucadia to challenge the star hitter on Danny's school's team—Kyle Sorenson. Danny doesn't care about winning anymore and he feels no pressure in the situation. He pitches well, but he doesn't strike Kyle out. Another player on the Leucadia team calls Uno a racial slur, and Danny punches him. As a fight breaks out, Kyle protects Danny and Uno, and tells Danny that the Leucadia coach will be in touch with him. Danny feels like a new phase of his life is starting. On Danny's last night in National City, Uno says he is moving to Oxnard and Sofia announces that she's going to spend the next semester in Leucadia. Danny and Liberty kiss. Uno and Danny go to the spot by the train tracks and make plans to visit Javier in prison the next day. They stay up to watch the sunrise, and Danny thinks that while his future is uncertain, he is happy.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Miss Brill - Point of view: Third-person limited (Miss Brill) - Setting: Unspecified town, Jardins Publique, France - Character: Miss Brill. Description: The protagonist of the story, which is named after her. She is an unmarried woman – a spinster according to the time and culture the story depicts – who works as a teacher as well as a newspaper reader for an old man. In both of these aspects of her life she feels bereft of meaning and connection: the children don't listen to her and the man doesn't seem to care whether she reads to him or not. For this reason she comes to the park every Sunday to watch both the band perform and the people playing as they listen to the band. Over the course of the story she imagines herself as part of an elaborate stage production in which she herself plays a vital role, but an encounter with a boy and girl who dismiss both her and the fur coat she cherishes – but that is actually quite shabby – forces her to reassess her place in the world and makes her retreat back home to her renewed loneliness and alienation. - Character: Ermine toque and Gentleman in grey. Description: Ermine is a type of white fur and a toque is a type of woman's hat. Miss Brill identifies the woman by nothing more than her clothes, thus placing utmost importance on this aspect because she understands clothes as a mark of one's importance in and engagement with society. Though the ermine toque and gentleman in grey speak pleasantly with one another, Miss Brill notices how the woman's hair is faded into the same color as her hat, which is also worn-out. - Character: Fine old man and big old woman. Description: This pair sits near Miss Brill on the stands, though they do not talk to each other and so Miss Brill has no one to listen to. They are dressed nicely and elegantly, but, just like everyone else in the stands, they seem tired and aged. After they leave, the boy and girl sit in their spot. - Theme: Loneliness and Alienation. Description: Miss Brill, the protagonist of the story, is a spinster – a word used, at the time of the publication of the story, to refer to an unmarried woman – who spends her days teaching schoolchildren and reading the newspaper to a half-dead man who cares little for her presence. Miss Brill yearns for conversation, yet both the students and the old man don't listen to her. Her weekly visits to the park are a result of her loneliness and alienation and her desire to exist and interact with a wider world. At the park, she watches and listens to the people and goings on around her and in that way feels like a part of the community. And though she is essentially alone in the stands—an old man and old woman sit next to her, but don't speak—she finds a way to include herself in what she watches. She sees all of the people, in their separate interactions, as being part of an elaborate stage production. And she thinks of the people in the stands, including herself, not as audience members but rather as performers too. She thinks of herself as being such a part of the production that if she were missing someone would be bound to notice. Indeed, she thinks that she might tell the old man who cares little for her presence that "I have been an actress for a long time."Yet the only conversation Miss Brill holds in the entire story is with her fur coat. She is not a part of the community, and the reader understands this with the same pang of pain that Miss Brill feels when she overhears the boy and the girl mock her fur coat as old and shabby and speak about her as if she has no right to sit next to them. In this way, the community she thinks she belongs to rejects her, and Miss Brill retreats back to her apartment and lonely life. Her curiosity and desire to connect makes her vulnerable and ends up leading her to realize her alienation from the people she saw as a source of life's excitement. - Theme: Delusion and Reality. Description: "Miss Brill" alerts us to the title character's tendency towards delusion and fantasy from the very start, when she starts speaking fondly to her fur coat. Miss Brill is not actually out of her mind, but she is desperate for communication with others. In order to feel a part of something, she goes to the park each week, where she enjoys watching all the people who come to enjoy the band and play on the field. Though Miss Brill is not delusional about what she sees, nor does she speculate much about what she hears—she takes things as she they come—she does begin to feel how connected everyone is to one another, that everyone is a player on a stage, and that she herself is part of the play. Indeed, she thinks that people would miss her if she were not to be there.However, Mansfield shows Miss Brill to be rather self-deluded about her place in the community when a boy and girl dismiss her, saying, "Who wants her?" The couple's exchange forces Miss Brill to face the reality of her alienation, and the illusion that Miss Brill builds around herself to feel connected to others comes apart. Through the cruelty of others, Miss Brill begins to understand her own self-delusion. And yet, as the story ends with Miss Brill sadly packing away her fur coat, the story asks the reader to think about how important it is to be realistic about one's own life, and whether some delusion is necessary for happiness. - Theme: Connectedness. Description: Miss Brill, during the time she spends in the park, constantly looks for connections between people. She notices how two young girls and two soldiers meet each other and laugh. She sees a boy picking up a bunch of flowers a woman has dropped. She notices a woman in an ermine torque and a gentleman speaking to each other and imagines what they are saying to one another. These are not Miss Brill's imaginings; they are real interactions between separate and different individuals who nonetheless mean something to one another. The theory that Miss Brill develops, that everyone belongs to part of a tremendous stage production, remains a valid way to understand and visualize how everyone together makes up a community or a society.Miss Brill has a strong desire for people not only to be connected to one another, but also for these connections to be positive. The week before an Englishman and his wife were arguing about something so silly that Miss Brill wanted to shake the woman. What happens within the connections Miss Brill observes has a visceral effect on her. Put another way, even though Miss Brill deludes herself about her own importance in the scene around her, Miss Brill herself feels connected to the people she watches. That feeling of connectedness also isn't a delusion: she feels connected, which makes it real. To some extent, that the other characters don't feel as connected to her doesn't matter, doesn't lessen the reality of the connection she feels. Of course, once the cruelty and rudeness of the boy and girl makes Miss Brill view herself through the eyes of others and get the sense that those others don't feel connected to her, she retreats in pain from what to her now seem like unrequited connections. The pain Miss Brill feels, then, asserts both the importance of feeling connection to human beings and how trying to forge such connections makes one vulnerable. At the same time, it is worth noting how much more noble and exciting Miss Brill's sense of a universe of connections is to the callous cruelty of the boy and the girl. The story's power comes not just from the tragedy of Miss Brill's pain after realizing how others see her and then shutting herself away, but also from the ruin of the beauty of her vision of the connectedness of all people. - Theme: Youth and Age. Description: Miss Brill's strange behavior of talking to her fur coat can be seen as her nostalgia for a lost youth, when her coat was new and she was at the hopeful age of marriageability (in Mansfield's time women were married at quite a young age, and not getting married was so looked down upon that spinsters were pitied and shut out of a great deal of social life). As Miss Brill sits in the stands she notices that everyone sitting around her looks just about the same: "odd, silent, nearly all old." These are people who have been relegated to the sidelines, marginalized and ignored by society, and the story connects that marginalization with being old.Though Miss Brill's description of these people could just as well be applied to herself, through much of the story she does not recognize this. The story can be seen as Miss Brill's awakening toward her understanding of her irrelevance and marginalization in society – her oldness. The silent old woman and old man next to her leave and, in their stead, come a young girl and boy who dismiss Miss Brill, call her a "fried whiting" – a cooked fish. This brushoff represents the way generations succeed each other, and how the young often disdain the old. At the end of the story, when she places her fur coat back in the box, the action suggests a kind of retirement for the coat, which Miss Brill finally sees as old and worn—just like her. - Climax: A boy calls Miss Brill a "fried whiting" - Summary: Miss Brill is a middle-aged woman who spends her days as a teacher for children and as a reader for an old man who hardly recognizes her existence. Every Sunday she wears her shabby fur coat to the French public park called Jardins Publiques. She speaks to the coat as if speaking to another person—an act that becomes the reader's first indication of her true loneliness and alienation. Miss Brill sits in the stands watching and listening to the band and to the people who sit around her in the stands and play on the grass nearby. All the things she sees and overhears fascinate her, and she is so curious as to eavesdrop on people without their knowing. This week however, a fine old man and a big old woman sitting near her do not speak, and she notices how the people in the stands with her all look kind of the same, all of them "odd, silent, nearly all old." Continuing to eavesdrop on people nonetheless, she sees a gentleman in grey and a woman who is identified by her clothing: an ermine torque. This couple makes small talk while Miss Brill thinks of what they might say, what might happen, even as she realizes the woman's hat is "shabby". However, the couple does not satisfy her, because they part ways before anything meaningfully interesting can be said. Immediately she notices an old man who nearly gets knocked down by a group of young girls. At this point Miss Brill marvels at how "fascinating" her eavesdropping is, and she begins to develop a theory that encompasses everyone in front of her. She thinks that everyone is "all on the stage", and that everyone here is an actor. She believes that she herself also plays a role in this play, an important role that would be missed were she not there to play it. She thinks about telling the old man to whom she reads: "Yes, I have been an actress for a long time." A boy and a girl take a seat in the stands, replacing the fine old man and big old woman. The boy and the girl look wealthy and in love, but are in the middle of an argument. Soon the two of them notice Miss Brill and wonder aloud why anyone would desire her presence in the park, call her a "stupid old thing", make fun of her old fur coat, and compare it to a "fried whiting" (a cooked fish). Miss Brill leaves soon after, not buying her usual slice of honey-cake on the way. When she arrives home, she puts her fur coat into its box "without looking," but "when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying."

- Genre: Novel of the sea; whaling novel; episodic novel; novel of ideas; precursor to the modernist novel - Title: Moby-Dick - Point of view: - Setting: Primarily on the Pequod, a whaling vessel, throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans, in the late 1840s - Character: Ishmael. Description: The narrator of the novel, and its protagonist, Ishmael is a relatively poor young man in New York City at the beginning of the narrative. On a whim, Ishmael decides to take up a job on a whaling vessel, because he craves "freedom" and adventure. Ishmael meets and befriends Queequeg, a harpooneer, and the two set off on the Pequod, meeting Ahab, the ship's crew, and the terrible Moby Dick. Ishmael documents much of the action on the ship, and also informs the reader of the philosophically, scientific, and religious aspects of sailing and whaling. Ishmael is the only character in the novel to survive the wreck of the Pequod. It is worth noting that while Ishmael tells the reader to "Call him Ishmael," in the famous first line of the novel, there is no certainty that Ishmael is in fact his given name, a fact that both hints at the limits of knowledge that is a theme of the book and highlights the name's Biblical origin, as the Biblical Ishmael was an orphan of sorts, abandoned along with his mother Hagar by his father (and his mother's master) Abraham. - Character: Queequeg. Description: A harpooneer from the Pacific island of Kokovoko, Queequeg left his home and royal position on his Island at a young age to try his luck on whale-ships in the United States. Queequeg is a loyal friend to Ishmael, and the two have an intimate bond that transcends their differences and spans their entire time on the Pequod. Although Queequeg saves a number of characters in the novel from drowning, and almost dies of a fever, he survives until the wreck of the Pequod, in which he drowns. - Character: Ahab. Description: The "monomaniacal" captain of the Pequod, Ahab is a brooding, proud, solitary figure, deathly angry that the monster Moby Dick has eaten his leg. Ahab vows revenge on the animal, even though others, like Starbuck, warn him that no "revenge" is possible against a "dumb animal." Ahab admits that he is not just hunting Moby Dick, but "whatever lies behind" the whale, and his quest becomes a kind of metaphor for the human condition, battling for meaning and life in a world and against forces that are at once incomprehensible and unconquerable. Ahab is eventually killed by his own harpoon-line, in an attempt to harpoon Moby Dick before the whale smashes into the Pequod. - Character: Moby Dick. Description: The novel's antagonist, Moby Dick is a white whale, wild and lethal, hunted by many and killed by none. No one in the novel, not even Ahab, succeeds in catching the whale, and Moby Dick eventually destroys the Pequod and nearly all its crew. Moby Dick is seen by the characters as both a monstrous whale and as a symbol, or stand-in, for fate, divine power, or God himself. - Character: Starbuck. Description: Ahab's first mate, Starbuck is loyal, practical, ethical, and cautious, perhaps overly so. He does not want Ahab to attack Moby Dick, and recognized both the physical and moral danger of Ahab's obsession, but he also lacks the passion and conviction to stand up to Ahab. Starbuck notably passes up a chance to kill Ahab, deciding that to do so would be wrong, even if it were to save the rest of the crew. - Character: Fedallah. Description: Snuck aboard the Pequod by Ahab, Fedallah, or "the Parsee," is a man of indeterminate Asian origin, who serves as Ahab's harpooneer. Fedallah is believed by some on the ship, including Stubb and Flask, to be the "devil incarnate." Fedallah is killed during the second day of the chase, when he is caught in the line and dragged down into the water by Moby Dick. - Character: Steelkilt. Description: A gifted sailor from the area of the United States around Lake Erie, Steelkilt leads a mutiny on the ship the Town-Ho that nearly succeeds, until it is interrupted by the presence of Moby Dick. Steelkilt later escapes the ship and sails back to Europe, without being punished for his treason. - Character: Pip. Description: An African American boy, Pip has small jobs on the Pequod, mostly cleaning the decks, but goes mad after falling out of Stubb's whale-boat (he had been called into rowing duty after another sailor fell ill) and being left alone for some time in the sea before being rescued. Pip, in his madness, becomes attached to the also mad Ahab at the end of the novel. - Character: Gardiner. Description: Captain of the Rachel, Gardiner begs Ahab to help him find his son, who was lost in a whale-boat during the hunt for Moby Dick. But Ahab refuses to help Gardiner, saying he has no time to spare in his search for Moby Dick. Gardiner, still searching for his lost son, finds Ishmael after everyone else on the Pequod has been killed by Moby Dick. - Character: Bulkington. Description: The Pequod's pilot, or steering-man, as it leaves the docks in Nantucket, Bulkington is praised by Ishmael at the beginning of the novel and then forgotten. To Ishmael, Bulkington is a symbol of the many good men whose stories are not told, and who are made to die with the "more famous" or more notable men, like Ahab and Queequeg, who form the basis of the novel. - Theme: Limits of Knowledge. Description: One of the novel's primary themes is that neither nature nor human life can be understood perfectly. At times during the voyage, the Pequod's crewmembers reflect, with feelings ranging from cheerful resignation to despair, on the uncertainty of their fate. This uncertainty parallels the doubts of religious faith. Ishmael notably remarks that "our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it." The implication is that complete knowledge of oneself and of God comes only in death. Ignorance is a condition of human life. Human ignorance is also represented by a lack of knowledge, among the Pequod's crew at sea, about the world beyond its sight: the vessel must rely on encounters with other ships to gather news and information, as well as to gather clues about where Moby Dick might be.In this way, the Pequod's doomed pursuit of Moby Dick symbolizes man's futile pursuit of complete knowledge. In explaining life at sea and the nature of whales, Ishmael's narrative teems with detailed references to scientific, religious, historical, and literary texts relating to the whale and whaling history. However, Ishmael also emphasizes that the whale is "the one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last," and that the only way to know what a whale is really like is to go whaling oneself—a dangerous, often fatal enterprise. The whale, in its ultimate mystery, represents the limits of human knowledge. - Theme: Fate and Free Will. Description: Despite their awareness of the limits of human knowledge, Ishmael and other characters are often trying to interpret signs of the world around them in order to determine their fates. At the beginning of the book, Ishmael intimates that it was fate that led him to decide, after many merchant voyages, to sign up for a whaling ship—although at the time it felt like he was doing so of his own free will. Over the course of the novel, it remains a question whether fate is a real force driving the book's events or whether it is something that exists primarily in characters' minds. As Ishmael and Queequeg head towards the Pequod to set sail, a mysterious and intimidating stranger named Elijah (like the Biblical prophet) drops ominous hints about the voyage they have ahead. Prophecies, portents, and superstitions are a major part of life on board the Pequod. No one believes more strongly in fate than Ahab, whose monomaniacal pursuit of Moby Dick is based, not just on the desire for revenge, but a belief that it is his destiny to slay the whale. This belief, combined with his egotism, actually leads him to ignore three major omens which suggest the voyage is doomed: the breaking of his quadrant, the compass needles going haywire after a storm, and the snapping of the ship's log-line. It remains unclear whether it is fate or Ahab's own free will that leads to his ruin. - Theme: Nature and Man. Description: The novel centers on man's multi-faceted interaction with nature, whether by trying to control or tame it; understand it; profit from it; or, in Ahab's case, defeat it. The book implies that nature, much like the whale, is an impersonal and inscrutable phenomenon. Man tends to treat nature as an entity with motives or emotions, when in fact nature is ultimately indifferent to man. The cautious and pragmatic Starbuck is one character who sees the whale as just an animal; he admonishes Ahab for seeking revenge on Moby Dick, saying, "To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." Ahab gives a long reply that suggests he sees the whale, not just as an animal, but as the mask for a higher entity, "some unknown but still reasoning thing… That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me." The novel portrays this defiance as both insane and blasphemous, contrasting it with the attitude of Starbuck, who avoids foolish risks and remains aware that he is there to kill whales for a living "and not to be killed by them for theirs." - Theme: Race, Fellowship, and Enslavement. Description: The book explores many different forms of equality, fellowship, and enslavement in human relations. A notable example of fellowship and racial tolerance is Ishmael's close friendship with Queequeg. Although Ishmael is initially repulsed and terrified by Queequeg's appearance and background, he soon perceives Queequeg to be principled, loyal, affectionate, and talented. The two men become "married," in Queequeg's parlance, meaning that they vow to join their fates and lay down their lives for each other. The organization of the Pequod is portrayed as more meritocratic and less racist than society at large. The crew is racially diverse, with rank and pay dependent on skill; meanwhile, the men are financially interdependent, since none of them are paid upfront and any profit will arise from collective success. This interdependence also takes a physical form: Ishmael notes that the Pequod is distinct among whaling boats in that a harpooner and the crew member in charge of holding onto him with a rope are tied together, so that if the harpooner is dragged into the sea, the corresponding crew member will be dragged down too. The Pequod does parallel conventional society in that the captain and mates are all white, while all the harpooners working under them (as well as many lower-order crew members) are non-white. However, all members of the Pequod's crew are subject to Ahab's whims and bouts of frenzy; in this sense, they are all equally enslaved. Early in the novel, Ishmael asks rhetorically, "Who ain't a slave?" He is referring to the fact that most people, and not just sailors like him, live at the beck and call of others; everybody follows orders, and everybody is subjugated in some way. Notably, Ishmael's chosen name ("Call me Ishmael," he says in the opening chapter, making it unclear whether it is his real or assumed name) is Biblical in origin, and refers to the prophet Abraham's son with the slave woman Hagar. - Theme: Madness. Description: Through the contrasting characters of Ahab and Pip, the novel presents two very different portraits of madness and its consequences. Throughout the voyage, Ahab's madness holds sway over the sanity of other characters, most notably his reasonable and prudent first mate Starbuck. Insanity of a different kind is seen in Pip who, like Ahab, goes mad after a traumatic experience at sea. However, while Ahab's madness propels him to action, Pip's madness effectively paralyzes him and leaves his mind empty. Perhaps fittingly, then, Pip is the only person on board with whom Ahab develops an affectionate and protective relationship. One of the interesting implications of madness aboard the Pequod, however, is the willingness of the members of the crew to go along with Ahab's strange quest, even when they recognize how difficult, perhaps impossible, it would be to find a single whale in all the oceans of the world. But the crew of the Pequod does sign on for the whale-hunt, motivated not simply by the presence of the gold doubloon (which eventually goes down with the ship), but by the mania Ahab has encouraged, the "monomaniacal" pursuit for one whale. - Theme: Religion. Description: Religion is a major point of reference for Ishmael. In New Bedford, before the voyage, he visits a "Whaleman's Chapel" and hears a long and heated sermon, delivered by the stern Father Mapple, that centers on the story of Jonah and the whale. The sermon recounts Jonah's futile attempt to flee God, and suggests that the harder Jonah tries to escape, the harsher becomes his punishment. Father Mapple emphasizes that, after being swallowed by the whale, Jonah does not pray for deliverance, but accepts his punishment. Only then does God relent and bring Jonah to safety. After being saved from the whale and the sea, Jonah goes on, in Father Mapple's words, "[t]o preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood." Jonah's preaching parallels Ishmael's eventual telling of his own whaling story, when he becomes (whether through luck, fate, or divine intervention) the lone survivor of the Pequod's wreck. Although heavy with references to the Bible and Christianity, the book does not espouse one religion, instead suggesting that goodness can be found in people of any faith. After striking up a friendship with Queequeg, Ishmael quickly becomes tolerant of his new friend's religion, even going so far as to participate in Queequeg's ritual homage to a carven idol—a practice explicitly forbidden by Christianity. Religious tolerance is also a notable part of life on board the ship, with so-called heathens and Christians working side by side. - Climax: On the third day of the chase, Moby Dick causes Ahab to kill himself, by snagging himself in his own harpoon-line; Moby Dick then smashes into the Pequod, drowning all aboard except Ishmael, who lives to report the story of the whale. - Summary: The novel begins with a famous line: "Call me Ishmael." Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, seeks "freedom" from his life in New York City, and decides to head north to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to find a job on a whaling ship. In New Bedford, at the Spouter Inn, Ishmael meets Queequeg, a "native" man from Kokovoko, in the Pacific isles, who is trained as a harpooner on whale-ships—a man who actually hunts and catches whales. Although Ishmael is initially scared of Queequeg, the two quickly become friends, and vow to accompany each other on a ship of Ishmael's choosing, in Nantucket. There, Ishmael comes across a ship called the Pequod, and when he speaks to two of the boats owners, Peleg and Bildad, he realizes that the captain of the Pequod, called Ahab, is a "strange" man, possibly mad, who does not tend to associate with others. Ishmael later finds out that Ahab lost his leg to a particularly nasty whale, who bit it off; this whale is called Moby Dick, and is famous for its whiteness, its ferocity, and its inability to be caught. Despite fears of Ahab—and the harsh-sounding prophecies of a man named Elijah, who warns Ishmael and Queequeg of the captain—the two men decide to ship out on the Pequod. The ship leaves Nantucket on Christmas Day. Once at sea, Ishmael introduces the particulars of the boat and of whaling, and often makes asides to the reader regarding the historical, scientific, religious, and philosophical components of whale-fishing. Ishmael also introduces Starbuck, the practical and cautious first mate, Stubb, the wild and talented whale-fisher and second mate, and Flask, the "mediocre" third mate. Ahab finally makes an appearance on the deck of the Pequod, and announces to the crew that, although they are a normal whaling ship, they also have a special mission—to find and kill Moby Dick. Ahab vows to give a one-ounce gold doubloon to the first man to spot the "white whale." The Pequod has a series of "gams," or meetings at sea, with other boats, some of whom have experienced good luck on the high seas, others which have been devastated by accidents, storms, or encounters with Moby Dick. One ship, the Town-Ho, tells a long story of a mutiny interrupted by Moby Dick; another, the Rose-Bud, simply complains of "sick" whales it has tied to its side. During this long intermediate section of the novel, the Pequod sails through the Indian and into the Pacific Oceans, Stubb catches a whale (and Ishmael describes how the whale is skinned, and its oil drained), and Ahab continues to plot for the white whale's destruction. Ahab has the ship's carpenter make him a new ivory leg when his old one splinters, and Queequeg, believing that he is dying of fever, asks the carpenter to make him a casket, which, when Queequeg recovers, becomes the life-buoy for the ship. Ahab also asks the ship's blacksmith, Perth, to make him a new harpoon, which Ahab then "baptizes" with the blood of Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg, the ship's three "heathen" harpooners. It is also revealed, in this middle section, that Ahab has snuck five men, one named Fedallah, and all from an unnamed country in Asia, aboard the Pequod, to help him find and kill Moby Dick. Stubb and Flask are convinced that Fedallah is the "devil incarnate," and that Ahab has sold his soul to the devil to catch the white whale. Finally, near Japan, Ahab becomes sure that Moby Dick is nearby, after having several other gams with ships that have spotted the whale. Ahab sights Moby Dick first, and the whale chase goes on to last for three days. On the first, Ahab attempts to throw the harpoon at Moby Dick, but misses; his small whale-boat is capsized, but all return safely to the Pequod. On the second, Ahab manages to snag Moby Dick with his harpoon, but Fedallah becomes caught in the harpoon-line and drowns when Moby Dick dives into the deep. On the third, though Starbuck warns Ahab to quit the mission, Ahab again approaches Moby Dick and throws his harpoon—but this time, Ahab is caught in the line, and he is hanged and drowned with his own rope. Moby Dick then turns and smashes into the Pequod, causing that ship to sink, and killing everyone aboard except Ishmael, who escapes "to tell the tale" by floating on Queequeg's coffin. Ishmael is picked up by the Rachel, a ship with which the Pequod previously had a gam. The novel ends.

- Genre: Novel, Bildungsroman, Magical Realism, Supernatural Mystery - Title: Monkey Beach - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Traditional Haisla territory along the Douglas Channel and coast of British Columbia - Character: Lisa. Description: Lisamarie Michelle Hill, named by Mom and Dad in honor of her Uncle Mick (whom they believe to be dead at the time of her birth) is a girl growing up in Kitamaat Village, British Columbia, during the 1970s and 1980s. Daughter to Mom and Dad and older sister to Jimmy, Lisa has a large family in the village including her paternal grandmother, Ma-ma-oo, Aunts Trudy and Kate, and cousins Tab, J.J., and Erica. From a young age, Lisa demonstrates a spunky and vivacious personality, and she tends to get herself into trouble by running away, speaking her mind, and fighting for herself and others. Monkey Beach traces the story of her formative relationships and the struggles she experiences growing up. In early childhood, she hangs out with her girl cousins Tab and Erica; after Uncle Mick's death, her subsequent depression affects her social life deeply. When Erica ostracizes her, she befriends the class bully, Frank, and his cousins Pooch and Cheese. Later, after Ma-ma-oo dies, Lisa's emotional troubles escalate, and she drops out of high school at the age of 16 to run away to Vancouver, where she lives a life of partying and debauchery for some time before returning to the village. Lisa has a strong connection to the spiritual world, like Mom and Lisa's maternal great-grandmother did. She loves learning about family history and the traditional ways of the Haisla people from Uncle Mick and Ma-ma-oo, including the ways that a person can continue to honor and maintain contact with the dead. Lisa continues to receive messages from Ma-ma-oo after Ma-ma-oo's death, and she showcases her determination and love for her family when she tries to help her brother Jimmy recover from the emotional blow of his lost competitive swimming career and when she sets him up with his girlfriend, Karaoke (Adelaine Jones). - Character: Uncle Mick. Description: Uncle Mick is the oldest son of Ma-ma-oo and Ba-ba-oo; he is the brother of Aunt Kate, Aunt Trudy, and Dad; he is uncle to Jimmy and Lisa. Importantly, he is perhaps the greatest single influence on Lisa's young life. Along with his sister Trudy, Mick was a victim of the residential school system when he was a child. He was a basketball star in high school, along with his friend Josh, and it was at this time of his life that he briefly dated Mom. The mistreatment and trauma he suffered at the residential school inspired him to join the A.I.M. in his early adulthood. There he met another life-long friend, Barry, and the woman Mick married, Barry's sister Cookie. After Cookie's death, however, Mick leaves the A.I.M. and returns to Kitamaat, where he lives on the fringes of society—struggling to hold down jobs, sometimes without stable housing—until his accidental death, which occurs when he falls into the water and becomes trapped in the family's salmon net. Mick is vivacious and passionate about justice, especially for the indigenous peoples from whose land was stolen when European colonists began to subjugate and claim North America. He honors and participates in the old ways of the Haisla people and dresses in clothing designed to point to his own heritage as an Indigenous person, from A.I.M. T-shirts to a fringed buckskin jacket, to a bone choker and long hair. He loves the outdoors and spends time camping in and around Kitamaat by himself and with Dad and Lisa. He listens to A.I.M. protest songs when he's not listening to his favorite, musician, Elvis Presley. Mick identifies with his niece Lisa, noting the similarities of their fighting spirits. He takes Lisa under his wing and becomes her favorite relative and most enduring teacher. - Character: Ma-ma-oo. Description: Ma-ma-oo, whose proper name is Agnes Hill, is Lisa's and Jimmy's paternal grandmother. With Ba-ba-oo, she had four children: Aunt Kate, Uncle Mick, Aunt Trudy, and Dad. Ma-ma-oo loved Ba-ba-oo, her handsome and powerful husband, but suffered from his physical abuse after an injury suffered in WWII permanently disabled him and he could no longer support his family. She is a tiny, tough, woman who also has deep reserves of kindness, patience, and love for her family. She and Lisa have a particularly close relationship, and she teaches Lisa about the old ways including telling her Haisla myths and stories, teaching her how to forage for food, and showing her the proper way to smoke fish and prepare oolichan grease. Ma-ma-oo lives a simple lifestyle in her old, plain house, allowing her to leave Lisa a decent inheritance. Her only indulgences seem to be excessive salt consumption (which halts after her first heart attack) and an addiction to soap operas, which she watches on her black-and-white television with Lisa. Ma-ma-oo has a sense of connection with the world of the spirits, and she teaches Lisa how to maintain contact with the dead through ritual and Haisla songs. She dies when her house catches on fire a few years after Mick's death. But even after her death, she continues to visit Lisa in dreams and visions, bringing her important messages from the spirit world. - Character: Jimmy. Description: Jimmy is Mom and Dad's son and second child and is the younger brother of Lisa. He has a competitive and fearless temperament. As a child, he loves to swim in the bay and at the indoor pool, where he excels in swimming lessons. This leads him into competitive swimming from a young age. Jimmy has an intense, focused, and type-A personality that allows him to excel in school and in his swimming career, but this same trait also leads to considerable stress and unhappiness. Also unlike Lisa, Jimmy has always been popular at school and from a young age has his pick of girlfriends. But from a very early age, he only has feelings for Karaoke (Adelaine Jones), whom he finally starts dating in high school, after an injury ends his swimming career. Jimmy has a strong sense of right and wrong and almost always follows the rules. It's his sense of loyalty to those he loves and of morality that leads him to the decision to kill Josh after finding out that Josh molested Karaoke. Jimmy dies by misadventure after deliberately sinking the Queen of the North to avenge Josh's abuse of Karaoke. - Character: Dad. Description: Dad, whose proper name is Albert Hill, is the youngest child of Ma-ma-oo and Ba-ba-oo. He's married to Mom and the father of Lisa and Jimmy. Unlike his older siblings Aunt Trudy and Uncle Mick, Dad was too young to go to residential school when Ma-ma-oo sent the others. Dad studied accounting in college, but he eventually stopped working in this field due to the low pay and high stress, taking a lower-status but steady job at the local Alcan plant instead. He feels intense pride and interest in Jimmy's burgeoning swimming career and invests a lot of time and money into it. Dad has a strong sense of familial responsibility; he takes financial care of Mick when he can, and he invests time and care into Ma-ma-oo as she gets older and sicker. - Character: Mom. Description: Mom, whose proper name is Gladys Hill, is Dad's wife and Jimmy and Lisa's mother. She grew up in Kitamaat Village, the granddaughter of one of the Haisla's last powerful medicine women. When she was a child, she had the gift of contact with the spirit world and could often predict people's impending deaths. She earned the nickname "Crash" when she tried to emulate her favorite movie star by using cookie sheets to ski down one of the hills in town. In high school, she briefly dated Uncle Mick before he left town, after which she began to date Dad and eventually married him. In her youth, she worked in the cannery for a short time and then went to beauty school. Mom is a grounding force in Lisa's life, often counteracting (and reprimanding) Lisa for her wildness—but nevertheless giving her a safe place in which to grow up and learn about herself and the world. She participates in many of the traditional activities of the Haisla life, like fishing and preparing oolichan grease, but she also presents herself as a thoroughly modern woman with nice clothing, delicate jewelry, and flawless makeup and manicures. - Character: Tab. Description: Tab is Aunt Trudy's daughter and cousin to J.J., Erica, Lisa, and Jimmy. When they are young, wild, tomboy Tab is Lisa's favorite playmate. Tab has a complicated relationship with her mother; although she understands how Aunt Trudy's past traumas affect her present behavior, she still wishes her mother were more stable and involved, like Mom and Dad are in Lisa's life. When Lisa and Tab are young, Tab represents an escape from the strict rules of Lisa's own house. But by the time they are teenagers, Tab moves into a more supportive role, teaching Lisa about family history and encouraging her to face the facts of the world around her. - Character: Frank. Description: Frank is the class bully when Tab, Erica, and Lisa are young. His older brother is Bib. He hangs out with his cousins Pooch, Cheese, Ronny, and Karaoke (Adelaine Jones). As he hits puberty, he begins to like Lisa, but he starts dating Julie after Lisa declines his invitation for a date. He later drops out of high school, and after a little bit of trouble with the law, he settles down with a good job. - Character: Pooch. Description: Pooch is Josh's nephew and cousin to Frank, Cheese, Ronny, and Karaoke (Adelaine Jones). He has a troubled life; he lives with his grandmother because his father died by suicide and his mother disappeared. He believes in voodoo and the supernatural and exposes Lisa to the occult. He takes his own life sometime after his grandmother dies. - Character: Cheese. Description: Cheese is friends and cousins with Frank, Bib, Pooch, Ronny, and Karaoke; he's also Josh's nephew. Cheese has a no-nonsense approach to life and doesn't believe in the supernatural in the same way Pooch, Lisa, and eventually Frank do. He likes Lisa, and after she declines his invitation for a date, he drugs and rapes her, and then he tries to spread rumors about her being a slut. - Character: Josh. Description: Josh lives in Kitamaat Village where he is uncle to Frank, Bib, Cheese, Pooch, Ronny, and Karaoke (Adelaine Jones). He and Uncle Mick were best friends and basketball teammates in high school, and he has an on-again, off-again relationship with Aunt Trudy. Like them, Josh went to residential school in his youth and was evidently molested by at least one priest. In turn, he later sexually abuses Karaoke. Josh is a man of inconsistencies and extremes, sometimes very generous with his money, other times penniless. Josh dies at Jimmy's hands on his fishing boat, Queen of the North, after Jimmy learns that Josh molested and impregnated Karaoke. - Character: Aunt Edith. Description: Aunt Edith is Uncle Geordie's wife; aunt to Dad and his siblings; and great-aunt to Lisa, Jimmy, Tab, and Erica. She refuses to let old age or arthritis slow her down or prevent her from participating in family chores like fishing or baking bread. She stays with Lisa in the immediate aftermath of Jimmy's disappearance and busies herself (and expresses care) by cooking and cleaning Lisa's house. - Character: Uncle Geordie. Description: Uncle Geordie is Dad's uncle and thus great-uncle to Lisa, Jimmy, Tab, and Erica. He is married to Aunt Edith. He and Edith remain active in the family, participating in family fishing trips and other events throughout Lisa's childhood. Uncle Geordie has the distinction of rescuing Lisa from disaster twice, first when he found her running away during a tsunami, and later when she taught herself to ride her bike. - Character: Ba-ba-oo. Description: Ba-ba-oo, whose proper name is Sherman Hill, was Ma-ma-oo's husband; father to Erica, Trudy, Mick, and Dad; and grandfather to Lisa, Jimmy, Tab, and Erica, although he died before any of them were born. As a young man, he was the most celebrated and fastest canoe paddler in the village. He served in WWII where he lost an arm. After the war ended, his disability prevented him from supporting his family, and he fell through the cracks of the government agencies who should have taken care of him. He died when he slipped and knocked himself unconscious in the bathtub one day. - Character: Aunt Trudy. Description: Aunt Trudy is the second of Ma-ma-oo's and Ba-ba-oo's daughters; sister to Aunt Erica, Uncle Mick, and Dad; mother to Tab; and aunt to Lisa, Jimmy, and Erica. Ma-ma-oo sent Trudy and Mick to residential school when they were young, and Aunt Trudy never recovered from the trauma of that experience. As an adult, she parties and drinks and proves to be an inconsistent mother to her daughter, Tab. However, she also takes Lisa under her wing at certain points. Aunt Trudy is involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with Josh. - Character: Erica. Description: Erica is cousin to Jimmy, Lisa, and Tab; little sister to J.J.; and Aunt Kate's daughter. She is a girly girl who doesn't like playing with boys when she is young; she thus forms a counterpoint to Tab. She plays by the rules and enjoys the adulation of her clique of friends, including Lou Ann. Unlike Lisa and Tab, she finishes high school on time before settling down and starting a family with her boyfriend. - Character: Karaoke (Adelaine Jones). Description: Karaoke, whose real name is Adelaine Jones, is the most beautiful girl in Kitamaat Village. She's Josh's niece and cousin to Frank, Bib, Cheese, Pooch, and Ronnie. She has had a rough life—near the end of the book, she reveals that Josh has been molesting her—and starts to run away, drink, and do drugs by her early teens. Jimmy is smitten from the moment he first lays eyes on her in grade school, and they begin to date when they are in high school. - Character: Aunt Kate. Description: Aunt Kate is Ma-ma-oo's and Ba-ba-oo's oldest daughter; sister to Uncle Mick, Aunt Trudy, and Dad; and mother to J.J. and Erica. Unlike Trudy and Mick, she missed residential school because she was already independent at the time they went. She judges Aunt Trudy harshly for her poor mothering skills and her maladaptive response to the traumas she suffered. - Character: Barry. Description: Barry is a friend of Mick's and Cookie's brother. He and Mick met when both were activists in the A.I.M. Although Mick quit after Cookie's death, Barry stayed on. He and Mick remain friends until after Mick's death, and Barry comes to the funeral where he gives Lisa deeper insight into her uncle's life. - Character: Cookie. Description: Cookie was Barry's sister and Mick's on-again, off-again wife. She and Mick met at a protest when both were involved in the A.I.M. Cookie was a strong-willed, opinionated woman who earned her nickname (her real name was "Cathy") when she yelled at a residential school nun that she is less like a soft, sweet cookie and more like the tough fry bread that indigenous peoples make. She died under suspicious circumstances when she was still an activist. - Character: Mimayus (Eunice). Description: Miyamus is the nickname given to Ma-ma-oo's sister, Eunice. "Miyamus" is a Haisla word that means "pain in the ass." Ma-ma-oo remembers Mimayus as a beautiful and flirtatious girl who left Kitamaat to work at a cannery in Namu. She died when the boat she was riding to a nearby town for her boyfriend's birthday party and the boat was caught up in one of the Douglas Channel's infamous whirlwinds. - Theme: The Living and the Dead. Description: With its focus on the death of three of the most important people in Lisa's life—Uncle Mick, Ma-ma-oo, and Jimmy—Monkey Beach is, fundamentally, a story about making sense of loss. Lisa's one-time therapist, Doris Jenkins, suggests in their one session that Lisa's dreams about the little man are her (flawed) attempts to deal with death. Lisa does indeed struggle mightily with her losses, initially fighting them and trying to run away from her pain. She begins acting out at school after Mick's death. Shortly after Ma-ma-oo's death, she runs away to Vancouver where she dampens her feelings with drugs and alcohol. It isn't until she learns to accept her losses as part of her own story in her waking life that she regains control of her life. Lisa's experiences repeatedly remind her that death is a part of life, and that the dead nourish the living. The sweetest blueberries grow over the graves at Kemano. The lives of the dead—Mick, Ma-ma-oo, Ba-ba-oo, Mimayus—offer Lisa lessons about how to live her own life. And it isn't death itself that's frightening—it's being left behind. Ma-ma-oo bluntly tells Lisa that the dying have no choice; they must go when their time comes. Moreover, the land of the dead is a place of peace and happiness. Over the course of the book, Lisa slowly and painfully learns to accept the inevitability of loss in her life and to move through her pain. She adopts rituals like hair cutting and carries on Ma-ma-oo's knowledge. And surviving each loss makes her stronger, as Jimmy observes in the wake of his own painful experiences. Death and loss are natural parts of life, and a part of living involves learning to accept death's inevitability and work through the pain of loss. By the time she finds Jimmy in the land of the dead at the end of the book, Lisa has gained enough strength to survive even his loss, and his spirit pushes her out of the water and back to life in the waking world. The book thus claims that, while death is an inevitable part of life, it isn't the same as loss. The legacies of the people one loves remain in the world, through memories (and, for Lisa, through visions) in ways that continue to exercise a powerful influence on the ones they leave behind in the world. - Theme: Myths, Magic, and Monsters. Description: Growing up on an isolated part of the British Columbian coastline in her indigenous community, Monkey Beach protagonist Lisa lives in a world full of monsters and mythical creatures, including messengers from the spirit world like the little man, shapeshifters, ogres, sasquatches, and giants. The mythical beasts in Lisa's spiritual realm teach her important life lessons. The little man reminds her about the inevitability of loss and suffering, and he also reminds her to be present and to look out for those she loves. Shapeshifters—and their animal familiars like seals and bears—remind Lisa that a person can undergo dramatic changes yet remain the same person deep down. Ogres teach her to be wary of people—or experiences, like drugs and excessive partying—that may look benign on the surface but lure people to their doom. But Lisa must puzzle these morals out from complex stories and situations. The spirit realm provides cryptic lessons, which she often struggles to understand, at least initially. The crows use simple words when they tell her how to find Jimmy, but this doesn't make the actual process of traveling to Monkey Beach any faster or easier. Thus, while the mythical proves to be an important tool for understanding life, it doesn't necessarily provide shortcuts around grief, pain, loss, and confusion. And in the end, it's not the spirit world that causes pain and suffering—it's the mundane occurrences of natural forces like wind and weather or human failures like selfishness and greed that wreak havoc on the physical realm. Still, by opening herself to the spiritual realm, Lisa gains insight into the world around her. Monkey Beach thus suggests that while spiritualty can't directly alter Lisa's reality, it gives her the insight, wisdom, and maturity she needs to better understand and confront the pain and hardship she experiences throughout her life. - Theme: Abuse and Historical Trauma. Description: As an indigenous girl, Lisa Hill's individual story lies inextricably intertwined with a deep and complex history of colonial oppression and exploitation, beginning with the arrival of white explorers and colonists in the mid-18th century. With the adoption of British Columbia as a colony and later a Canadian province, colonial exploitation and abuse of indigenous people expanded as the government claimed control over indigenous lands. Lisa remains acutely aware throughout the book that her knowledge of her people's history remains limited because she knows English better than the Haisla language, which she learns slowly and painfully. Importantly, as Lisa's story unfolds, it becomes clear that this broader history of violence and abuse twines around the individual histories of many people in Kitimaat Village—including many of Lisa's own family members. Although Ba-ba-oo, Lisa's grandfather, served honorably in World War II, the government denied him the dignity and security of a military pension, precipitating his abusive behavior toward Ma-ma-oo. Aunt Trudy, Uncle Mick, and Josh were all victims of the residential school system, and they all wear their scars in various ways. Trudy struggles with alcoholism; Uncle Mick fights futilely against government oppression of North American indigenous communities in the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.), losing his wife Cookie in the process; and Josh experienced sexual abuse at the residential school and becomes an abuser himself. ' Thus, the book suggests that abuse is cyclical. Although bringing this history to light is important, the book argues, acknowledging the darkness of the past isn't enough to atone for the wounds that colonialism, white supremacist oppression, and individual acts of violence have inflicted on indigenous peoples. Bringing this history of abuse to light represents only part of the necessary work to unwinding its harm; the fact that Tab and Lisa can intellectually understand the connection between Trudy's or Josh's history in the residential schools and the suffering they inflict on others doesn't negate that suffering. However, the book ends on a hopeful note by suggesting that the younger generation, represented by Lisa, has the potential to forge a new future which actively reclaims its cultural heritage while acknowledging the history of suffering and abuse in ways that break the cycle and start a new story. - Theme: Protest and Power. Description: Growing up as an indigenous girl in Canada, Lisa yearns to be a warrior like her Uncle Mick, who put his body on the line for indigenous rights with A.I.M. and has the scars to prove it. As members of the Haisla community, a history of abuse and terrorism at the hands of white supremacy and imperialist ambitions marks their lives. Mick's experience attending a residential school inspired him to join the A.I.M., but ultimately, he finds that both places just expose him to pain and violence and make him indifferent to the rules and mores of society. Throughout his life, he struggles to maintain a job and dabbles with alcohol and drugs. Initially, Lisa wants to emulate Mick's belligerent example, singing profane protest songs in her social studies class as a form of protest. Yet, when she asks Mick about the time he got shot, he tells her that his fighting earned him nothing but scars—the physical scar tissue from his bullet wound and the emotional damage of losing his wife, Cookie, whom Josh strongly implies was murdered for her activism. Initially, Lisa ignores this lesson, and she tries to make her way through the world—and the painful experience of her life—through fighting. She insults her cousin Erica, gets into fistfights with classmates, and tussles with her brother Jimmy. She exerts herself physically to escape the emotional pain of Uncle Mick's untimely death. Yet acting out doesn't assuage the pain and confusion she feels over her losses. Instead, considerable trauma and suffering, including a rape and nearly getting attacked by a group of angry white men, accompany her youthful phase of indiscriminate fighting. As her losses mount (and her maturity increases), Lisa ultimately learns to refocus her energy on coming to terms with pain and growing into the powerful, spiritually connected woman that she has become by the novel's present. In much the same way that Mick finds purpose and hope by reconnecting with his family and participating in Lisa's education and character development as she grows up, Lisa must also come to terms with the suffering in the world by picking her battles, accepting that there are some hardships she cannot control, and learning how to use her energies productively. - Theme: Love and Family. Description: Lisa grows up in a large, tightknit extended family; when there's a wedding, almost everyone goes is related to either the bride or the groom. Lisa's earliest friends are her cousins; later, she joins a click formed by Frank and his cousins, Pooch and Cheese. Family relations in this book can be complicated and messy. Lisa loves her parents but bristles under their expectations; Aunt Trudy neglects her daughter Tab; and physical and sexual abuse lurk in more than one house in the village. But still, the book largely paints family in a positive light, casting it as a source of emotional nourishment, understanding, and support that provides both a foundation and a safety net for a successful life. Lisa's primary relationships with Ma-ma-oo, Uncle Mick, and Jimmy all exemplify mutual support and love. When the little man warns Lisa about Jimmy, she hovers protectively over him for days, to his increasing dismay. But later, when the spirits try to drown Lisa, Jimmy heeds a message from his favorite crow and returns the favor by rescuing her. When Lisa is little, Ma-ma-oo cares for her and teaches her where to forage for food and how to maintain her connection with beloved ancestors; when Ma-ma-oo grows old and frail, Lisa joins Mom, Dad, and Aunt Kate as one of her grandmother's caretakers. Family also provides a safety net; Trudy takes Lisa in in Vancouver just as Mom and Dad give Tab a place to stay in Kitimaat when things get rough for her. They welcome Lisa home after she runs away and lovingly provide her a safe and secure place to start over. Thus, the book shows how a broad and extended family of people who love one another and offer one another support and care—even beyond the grave—can bring meaning and beauty to its members' lives. - Climax: Lisa arrives at Monkey Beach and the spirits give her a vision of her brother's death. - Summary: Lisa awakes from a mostly sleepless night to the sound of crows in the tree outside her window. The previous evening, the Coast Guard told her family that her younger brother Jimmy, his skipper Josh, and their fishing boat have been reported missing at sea. While Mom and Dad travel down the coast to join the search, Lisa sits on the porch and smokes, worrying about Jimmy and recalling events from their childhood. She and Jimmy were close in age and grew up together. Jimmy took naturally to swimming, although he disliked fishing, boating, and spending time outdoors. In contrast, Lisa struggled to learn to swim and never really liked being submerged in the water, while she loved helping her family with traditional subsistence hunting, fishing, gathering, and preserving the harvest. When Lisa was about six years old, she remembers, her Uncle Mick came home from several years as an activist with the A.I.M., during which time he lost his wife, Cookie, to some sort of political or racial violence. Lisa and Mick quickly became inseparable. Lisa spent large swaths of her childhood with Mick and her paternal grandmother, Ma-ma-oo; both taught her about her Haisla identity and traditions. As she grew older, Lisa also began to piece together bits of her family's troubled history: her paternal grandfather, Ba-ba-oo, lost an arm in WWII and subsequently became physically abusive toward Ma-ma-oo; Uncle Mick, Aunt Trudy, and Josh all suffered through Canada's residential school system; cultural indoctrination and repression basically destroyed the traditional medicine that Lisa's maternal great-grandmother practiced. Lisa began to have visions of a little man, a messenger from the spirit world who warned her of impending events both good and bad. In the present, Dad calls to tell Lisa that the Coast Guard have retrieved the fishing boat's life raft but haven't located Jimmy and Josh. She decides to take the family speedboat down the coast and meet her parents. While she travels, she continues to reflect on her life experiences. When she was in middle school, Uncle Mick died in a freak accident when he became tangled in the family's salmon net and drowned. This sent Lisa into a deep depression. She started to struggle in school and began to hang out with a group of boys—Frank, Cheese, and Pooch—known as class bullies. Within a year or two, Ma-ma-oo also passed away in a house fire. In the present, Lisa stops her boat at Monkey Beach. Jimmy once tried to get a photo of a sasquatch there, and on the night of his disappearance she dreamed she was with him on the beach. Being in this place triggers further memories. Lisa remembers how her life continued to spiral out of control. She ran away to Vancouver at age 16, spending months partying and doing drugs with money she inherited from Ma-ma-oo. When a chance encounter with Frank brought her back to the village, she decided to get sober and re-enroll in high school. But while Lisa's life improved, Jimmy's slowly spiraled downward. A freak accident destroyed his promising competitive swimming career. He began to party and drink excessively. He started dating a beautiful but troubled girl nicknamed Karaoke. When Karaoke left town unexpectedly, Jimmy fell apart. In the present, Lisa hears voices from the spirit world calling her from among the trees that sit behind Monkey Beach. When she offers them a sacrifice of her own blood, they give her a vision of Jimmy's death. When he found out that Karaoke had gone to Vancouver for an abortion after her uncle, Josh, molested her, Jimmy decided to take justice into his own hands. He intentionally sank the fishing boat and killed Josh with a blow to the head. In the confusion, he lost the life raft, and he didn't have the strength to swim to the shore. Half in the spirit world and half in the waking world, Lisa finds herself drowning in the water off Monkey Beach with Jimmy standing beside her. He puts his hands on her shoulders and pushes her back to the surface, and she slowly comes back to full consciousness on the rocky shore.

- Genre: Historical Fiction - Title: Montana 1948 - Point of view: First person (David Hayden) - Setting: Mercer County in the fictional town of Bentrock, Montana - Character: David Hayden. Description: David is the story's contemplative and highly perceptive narrator. He tells the story as a grown man of 52 looking back on his childhood. The events of the summer of 1948 mark for David a rude transition into the unpleasant and more complicated realities of adulthood. David is a thoughtful and somewhat quiet and solitary boy, who loves living in the countryside and going on long hikes, horseback riding, hunting, and fishing. At 12, he believes he is in love with his caretaker, Marie Little Soldier, but when he is older he recognizes that this love was chaste and innocent, though still very real. David's childhood was pleasant and uneventful prior to the summer of 1948, but when unsettling rumors about his Uncle Frank come to light, David must contend with some very adult and unpleasant realities: his uncle is a sexual predator and a murderer, many of his heroes are bigots, and his life will never be carefree again. When David grows up he teaches history—he is in part interested in history because of all of the untold stories and tragedies he believes are contained in many historical accounts; for the story of Frank and Marie Little Soldier was not recorded anywhere, but in many ways describes life in Montana better than any official history could. - Character: Wesley Hayden. Description: David's father and the elected Sheriff of Mercer County. Wesley has always felt inferior to his older brother Frank, who is a doctor and hero of WWII. Wesley has an injured leg (from a horse kick in his youth) that causes him to walk with a limp, and prevented him from serving in the military. Wesley's father was also Sheriff, and though Wesley followed in Grandpa Hayden's footsteps, he has always played second fiddle to his brother, who is by far the favorite son. Wesley graduated from law school, and his wife Gail insists he would be happier practicing law than being the sheriff. Wesley generally dislikes Native Americans, a fact that David often tries to forget or ignore. He believes they are lazy and foolish. His prejudice prevents him from seeing his brother's crimes for what they are, and it takes Wesley some time to realize his brother is a predator who has deliberately victimized many women and has murdered Marie Little Soldier. Once he comes around to this fact, however, he fights determinedly for justice, despite threats from his father and the reality that Mercer County will never convict a man as beloved as Frank Hayden. - Character: Gail Hayden. Description: Wesley's wife and David's mother. Gail is an opinionated, idealistic woman who fights for Marie Little Soldier in spite of the fact that her alleged abuser, Frank Hayden, is a hero of the community. Unlike her husband, Gail does not harbor obvious prejudices against Native Americans, and is the first to believe Marie's story and advocate for justice. It is frequently implied that Gail is tired of Mercer County, and wishes her husband would agree to move somewhere and practice law. She doesn't think he can be himself as the Sheriff, and frequently pushes him to be a better and more honest man. - Character: Marie Little Soldier. Description: David's caretaker. Marie is a vibrant Sioux woman with a great sense of humor whom David loves deeply. The Haydens consider her a member of their family, yet she sleeps in a servant's room off the kitchen even though there is a free bedroom upstairs. She falls ill with pneumonia, but refuses to see a doctor. Wesley calls his brother Frank against her wishes, and Gail is concerned by how afraid Marie seems. Marie tells Gail that Frank is a well-known sexual abuser of Sioux women. She is presumed to be murdered by Frank shortly after her disease seems to improve. - Character: Frank Hayden. Description: Frank is Wesley's brother. He is a highly charismatic and handsome doctor and war hero and is greatly liked by many in the community. However, he sexually abuses Native American women who come to him seeking medical care. Marie Little Soldier discloses this information to Gail, and Frank (presumably) kills her in retribution. Frank essentially admits his crimes to Wesley, and Wesley later comments that Frank showed no remorse at all and thought Marie Little Soldier was less worthy than a dog. - Character: Grandpa Hayden (Julian). Description: Grandpa Hayden is a bigoted and potentially violent man who favors his son Frank over his other son Wesley. He knows about Frank's abuse of Sioux women, but his only concern is that Frank will father a non-white child. He is furious when Wesley arrests Frank, not because he believes that Frank is innocent but rather because he considers the crimes, perpetrated as they were against "Indians," to be unimportant. He is a very powerful man in Mercer County, and Grandpa Julian's influence is one of the main reasons Wesley believes Frank will never be convicted of his crimes. - Character: Ronnie Tall Bear. Description: Ronnie is Marie Little Soldier's boyfriend. He is an all-star athlete, but is not accepted to any universities because of his race. He eventually enters the military. David fondly remembers Ronnie and Marie as members of his "real" family, people bound not by the obligations of blood but rather by bonds of friendship and acceptance. - Character: Len McAuley. Description: Wesley's deputy, Len is an older man who has worked alongside both Wesley and Julian. Len is a reformed alcoholic who begins drinking again shortly after he realizes Frank Hayden has murdered Marie Little Soldier. He remains loyal to Wesley and Gail after Frank's arrest, and rescues Gail and David when Dale Paris and other employees of Grandpa Hayden attempt to break into the house. - Character: Ollie Young Bear. Description: An "exemplary" Native American man in the minds of many white people in Mercer County, Ollie Young Bear is a hardworking man married to a white woman and generally distanced from the Sioux nation. Wesley seeks his help in investigating Frank's crimes, and Ollie is able to find Native American women willing to testify against Frank. - Theme: Law versus Justice. Description: The central conflict in Montana 1948 concerns the tensions and differences between the practice and enforcement of law and the more abstract notion of justice, and the realization that the law does not or cannot always provide justice. The book repeatedly notes how the practice and enforcement of law is susceptible to public opinion and abuses of power.Dr. Frank Hayden takes advantage of the fact that the his brother, Sheriff Wesley Hayden, does not have jurisdiction in the reservations, and abuses Native American women who trust him to provide care for them. His abuse is enabled by a legal kind of technicality. What's more, the Sherriff is an elected official in this town. That means Wesley must make sure he has the support of the people of the town before he makes an arrest. His son David notes, in fact, that his father is at his most social when he is closing in on a suspect. This is in part the reason Gail Hayden, Wesley's wife, wishes he were a lawyer and not a sheriff—perhaps he could pursue justice in the courtroom in a way he could not on the streets. The arrest of Frank Hayden proves especially difficult, because the law is not well equipped to deliver justice. The fact that public opinion of Frank Hayden is so high—and the public opinion of Native Americans is generally low—makes it unlikely that he will be indicted on the murder of Marie Little Soldier, though Wesley is sure of his brothers' guilt. The power that the Hayden Family has in this town is another factor that corrupts the law. Grandpa Hayden (Julian) will make sure that his favorite son Frank does not go to jail—his wealth and influence allow him to bend the law in his favor. Wesley himself is often torn about his duty as the law describes it and his duty to justice. He knows the law, in practice, will not convict his brother. Yet he decides to continue pressing charges anyway. He refuses to be personally responsible for the unjust release of his brother. Gail also pursues justice over law—though her husband has no jurisdiction on the reservations, and despite the fact that the law has historically failed to protect the rights of Native Americans like Marie Little Soldier, she insists that the Sherriff do an investigation. The novella thus portrays how the ideal of justice is often unmet by the practical realities of the legal system in the United States, particularly for the less powerful. Following WWII, the US was experiencing a kind of rude awakening, as the horrors of the war ushered in a clash between idealism and realism—Watson is making a powerful point about the reality of corruption, compromises, and abuses that are present even in "all-American" small-town life. The book takes a stand against the notion that the US is idyllically "free" or "fair" by depicting the profound difference between law and justice. - Theme: Family and Loyalty. Description: Montana 1948 explores different kinds of familial loyalty, and what happens when these loyalties pull people in different, even opposite, directions. Wesley Hayden has a duty to his brother, but also to Marie Little Soldier, who cares for David and is described as being "like family" several times in the novel. He first tries to deny that his brother Frank could have done the things Marie accused him of doing, but Frank's guilt quickly becomes clear. He remembers how, as boys, Frank often saved him from abuse and bullying at the hands of older kids. He feels indebted to his brother—he is torn between two loyalties. What's more, he also feels conflicted about his duty to Marie and his duty to his wife and son, who are endangered when he decides to lock up Frank in the basement (in order to spare him the embarrassment of a jail cell). Grandfather Hayden chooses one son (Frank) over the other (Wesley). He even goes so far as to send men to Wesley's house to break Frank out, which terrifies Gail and David. This is a pattern that, it is revealed, has occurred throughout the boys' childhoods. Frank has always been the favorite—Wesley has never earned his father's love or loyalty.The narrator of the novel, David, feels conflicted about whether or not he should "rat his uncle out." He loves Marie deeply, and hates his Uncle Frank for what he did, but cannot let go of the fact that Frank is family. Tellingly, when David is grown, one memory from his childhood stands out—he remembers playing football with Marie and her boyfriend, Ronnie Tall Bear, and feeling as though the three of them together made a "real family" that wasn't defined by the obligations of blood but rather ties of affection. The book therefore asks what defines a family—is it biological? Should familial love and loyalty truly be unconditional? In many ways the book serves as an account of how an irrational commitment to biological and familial ties can be destructive. But it also maintains that "family" is something individuals can define for themselves—no one is bound to any one definition of family. In fact, the novella portrays the decisions a person makes about what "family" means to them as fundamental to their growth and identity. - Theme: Racism, Prejudice, and the American West. Description: Montana 1948 is a historical fiction about life in the "American West" shortly after the Second World War—it serves as an account of how racism affected individual lives in the specific time and place indicated by the book's title. Bias against Native Americans in the Hayden's community is fundamentally unquestioned. David, who narrates the story as he looks back from adulthood, comments that as a child, he never questioned certain biases, but now he can see them for what they really are. Marie must sleep in a small servant's bedroom off the kitchen, even though there is a free bedroom upstairs. Ronnie Tall Bear, though a star athlete, does not go to college because he cannot get accepted as a Native American. Wesley, though he is Marie's advocate, and (we are led to believe) a generally good man, dislikes Native Americans as a group, believing them to be lazy and dishonest, and their beliefs to be foolish and old fashioned. Frank, meanwhile, is blatantly racist—Wesley believes his brother thought less of Marie Little Soldier than of a dog. And Grandpa Julian is of the opinion that abuse of Native Americans is something that just happens—his biggest concern about his son Frank's abusive behavior is that Frank will accidently end up with a non-white child. In the novella, popular depictions of the American west—"Cowboys and Indians" as they appear in movies, television shows, and radio programs—are often held up against the realities of the town. David spends a great deal of time sifting through these images and trying to reconcile them with the world he actually lives in. His dad, "The Sheriff" is not nearly as exciting as a western cowboy and his job ends up not being about "defeating bad guys" but rather extremely morally complex. David's caretaker, Marie Little Soldier, meanwhile, does not match stereotypes of "Indians" he sees in popular culture. Throughout the novel, Watson calls attention to one of the most forgotten and underplayed struggles in US history: that of Native American communities who want to maintain their culture, identities, and dignity in a United States that has systematically disenfranchised them and looks upon them with little more than prejudice. - Theme: Identity. Description: The novel often asks its reader to consider what determines a person's identity. Is someone defined by their profession? Their familial position? Their successes or mistakes? Their race or culture? Or is there such a thing as "true" identity, some identity that exists independently of all of these things? Gail maintains that Wesley cannot be his "true" self while working as a sheriff, and wishes he would start practicing law instead. When his family talks to him, Wesley often wonders aloud whether they talk to him as a father, a brother, a sheriff, or something else. David's awareness of identity—and its ability to shift and change in different circumstances—is also growing throughout the novel. Before the summer of 1948, Uncle Frank was to David a "hero," an "athlete," and a "doctor." After the events of the novel transpire, David can no longer think of him as any of these things: Frank is a sexual abuser, a criminal, a murderer. And even worse, his father becomes the brother of a murderer—a startling shift in identity that David struggles to accept. During all of this, as well, David is growing into and constructing an identity of his own (See "Coming of Age"). The novella explores these questions about identity in order to outline all of the different ways "identity"—a seemingly stable or constant truth about a person—is in fact difficult to pin down, and is prone to dramatic shifts and changes. - Theme: Growing Up. Description: The narrator of Montana 1948, David Hayden, often describes the events in the summer of 1948 as events that wrenched him out of the innocence and obliviousness of childhood. The novella is therefore wrapped up in a coming of age narrative. Several elements of his coming of age are present throughout his recollection of the story. The first of these is David's increasing sexual awareness. David is 12 years old when the events of the story take place. He is experiencing a kind of sexual longing for the first time (for Marie, for certain classmates, for his Aunt Gloria)—these urges, because he does not understand them, inspire guilt and fear in him. This kind of dynamic is a highly common trope in coming of age narratives. David also experiences an increasing awareness of human fallibility and evil. Like many coming of age fictions, the novella depicts the disruption of a childhood belief in the infallibility and upstanding moral character of adults. David's heroic Uncle Frank is revealed to be a hateful bigot who abuses women and murders Marie. Wesley's job as sheriff turns out to be a position fraught with moral conflict and tragedy—before the events of the summer of 1948 David imagines his dad's job is dull, and wishes his dad was more like the sheriffs on TV. David also sees how racism affects everyone living in his community—he realizes his father's distaste for Native Americans, he realizes the injustices Native Americans face daily, and he ultimately recognizes prejudice even in people he deeply admires. He eventually understands his parents have weaknesses, and that the mere presence of his mother or father does not make him safe. He often finds himself comforting Gail—this role reversal impresses upon him the essential humanity of his parents. His naïve belief that his parents are invincible and will always be able to protect him is shattered. There is also the general sense in the novel that things can never be the same again, that some changes are inevitable and permanent. As David leaves his childhood behind—both literally, when they move from the house, and figuratively—he repeatedly acknowledges a feeling that he will never be able to go back. This is yet another classic figuring of a coming of age story: David realizes that childhood is only temporary, and that time is always moving forward. The coming of age theme in the novel serves to articulate the narrator's coming to terms with new responsibilities and unpleasant realities. It is perhaps fitting that a story about postwar America is told via a coming of age narrative. The Second World War was a time when certain realities—human capacity for evil and atrocity, the horror and threat of new military technological advancements, among others—came sharply to light. In some ways we can imagine that as our narrator David is coming of age in 1948, the US is going through a similar kind of development, maturing out of a kind of innocence and grappling with new and unfamiliar questions. - Climax: Wesley goes down to the basement to discover that Frank has slit his wrists with the glass from Gail's preserve jars, preferring death over public arrest. - Summary: The story is narrated by David Hayden, who is 52 at the time he is telling the story, but is only 12 when the events of the story occur. He recalls the summer of 1948 as the summer everything changed for him. One day David notices that Marie Little Soldier, his Native American babysitter and house-keeper, whom he loves dearly, is sick with a cough. His parents, Gail and Wesley, agree to call Wesley's brother Frank, who is a doctor. Marie protests, but they insist. When Frank is treating her, she is so upset and scared that Gail realizes something bigger is going on. After Frank leaves, Marie tells Gail that Frank has been sexually abusing women on the reservations who come to him seeking treatment. Gail is furious, and tells Wesley what Frank has been doing. Wesley is the Mercer County Sheriff, but is also Frank's brother, and doesn't know how to proceed. He talks to Marie to get a clearer picture of her accusations. David realizes during this process that Wesley already knows his brother is guilty. David and his parents have dinner a few nights later with Grandpa and Grandma Hayden. David hears Grandpa Hayden make jokes about Frank, who is his favorite son, liking "red meat." Frank is there, and Wesley takes the opportunity to speak to him. David sees them talking, but can't hear what they're saying. At the end of the conversation, Frank shakes Wesley's hand. On the way home, Wesley tells Gail that Frank has promised to stop the abuse. Gail says he needs to be punished for the crimes he has already committed. The next day, Marie is found lying dead in her bed when Gail gets home from work. They are shocked, because Marie had been showing signs of improvement. That night, David tells his parents he saw Uncle Frank go into their house in the afternoon. He also says he believes their neighbor and Wesley's deputy sheriff, Len McAuley, saw Frank as well. Wesley realizes his brother has probably killed Marie, and decides he must do something about it. Wesley locks Frank up in the basement the next day, trying to spare him the embarrassment of being imprisoned in a jail cell. Grandpa Hayden comes to the house demanding Frank be released, and accusing Wesley of arresting him out of jealousy. Wesley tells his father that Frank is likely guilty of murder, and that he must face justice. After Grandpa Hayden leaves, Wesley tells David he should never let Grandpa or Grandma into the house if he's home alone. The following day, a truck circles the house. David recognizes some of Grandpa's employees in the truck. They approach the house with an axe, presumably thinking they can break Frank out of the cellar door. Gail fires a shotgun at them as warning, and luckily Len shows up to head them off in time. Wesley comes home and asks what has happened. He realizes Grandpa Hayden has too much influence in this town, and that Frank will never be convicted. They all decide it is best to let Frank go. But when Wesley talks to Frank, he realizes Frank is almost certainly guilty, and that he feels no remorse over killing Marie. Wesley cannot live with the idea of letting Frank go, and says he will take his brother to jail first thing in the morning. That night David wakes up to the sound of shattering glass. He finds his parents awake. They tell him Frank is smashing preserve jars in the basement, for attention, and that no one should go downstairs. In the morning, however, when Wesley goes to wake Frank up, he finds him dead—Frank has slit his wrists with the broken glass. David believes that now everything can go back to normal, and feels grateful for his Uncle Frank's decision. Of course, things do not go back to normal. David's family leaves Montana that winter. His father practices law in North Dakota, and David enjoys a relatively good life. He eventually becomes a history teacher, believing all histories contain concealed stories of abuse and depravity. He marries a woman named Betsy. One night Betsy is having dinner with David and his parents, and she brings up the summer of 1948, remarking that Montana back then really was "the Wild West." Wesley slams the table in anger, and tells Betsy she must never blame Montana. The novel ends with David sitting in his father's seat at the table later that night—he believes he can still feel his father's blow reverberating through the wood.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Moon of the Crusted Snow - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: A remote Anishinaabe reservation near the Arctic Circle - Character: Evan Whitesky. Description: Evan Whitesky is the book's protagonist; he's Nicole's partner and Nangohns and Maiingan's father. Evan has lived on the Anishinaabe reservation his whole life and is a maintenance worker and active community member. At the start of the story, Evan is in his mid-twenties, and he and Nicole are raising their two young children. They have a stable, loving, and warm home environment, and they're dedicated to reconnecting with their traditional culture. For example, when Evan hunts, he often conducts tobacco rituals after killing animals. He prefers to hunt for food, live off the land, and care for his community. His simple, cautious, and conservative lifestyle is characteristic of the traditional Anishinaabe way of life. Evan often reflects bitterly on how little he knows of his own language (Anishinaabemowin) and history, because so much of it was wiped out by colonialism. He strives to connect with the traditional ways by consulting his elders, especially Aileen Jones, the community's oldest member and spiritual guide. After the power is cut off and the apocalyptic crisis takes hold, Evan leans even more strongly on his Anishinaabe values: he takes advice from his elders; cares for the community by clearing roads and distributing food; lives communally with his extended family; and takes Aileen's advice to support his partner and children throughout the story. He butts heads with Justin Scott, an outsider who seeks refuge on the reservation and tries to exert control over the Anishinaabe community. When conditions worsen on the reservation, Evan builds a traditional tipi tent in the woods, in case his family needs to resettle off the reservation. He finds the traditional home extremely efficient for coping with the harsh winter, much more so than the modernized reservation. At the story's climax, Scott shoots Evan, and it's unclear if he survives. However, in the Epilogue, Nicole leads the other survivors to safety, hinting that they will meet Evan in the new settlement he's built. - Character: Justin Scott. Description: Justin Scott is the story's antagonist. He mysteriously arrives on the reservation, heavily armed and seeking refuge, after the power goes out and civilization collapses into chaos. Scott is physically intimidating: he's bigger and stronger than any of the Anishinaabe people. The community is wary of Scott at first, though many are drawn to his intimidating stature and aggression. Scott quickly oversteps his bounds and kills Mark, another person seeking refuge on the reservation, against the advice of the community's elders. Some people believe that Scott's aggression will protect them, however, so they disband from the community and join forces with Scott in an abandoned bungalow complex on the reservation. As time progresses however, Evan and his partner, Nicole, realize that Scott's followers are growing weaker and thinner, while Scott grows stronger and fatter. They learn that Scott is intimidating his followers, subjugating women (notably Meghan, who also sought refuge on the reservation) and forcing them to do his bidding. He even forces several people to steal dead bodies so that he can cannibalize them for food. At the story's climax, the community confronts Scott about his actions, and he retaliates by shooting Evan—but Meghan ends the confrontation by shooting Scott in the back, killing him. Scott's character is a metaphor for historical European settlers who encountered and colonized First Nations people. In the end, however, Scott's domineering personality causes his own demise, as his faction of the community becomes demoralized and erodes beyond repair. - Character: Aileen Jones. Description: Aileen Jones is the community's eldest member and spiritual guide. She's is very old, frail, gentle, and kind—and this makes some people overlook her worth. Aileen is well-versed in traditional customs, and she often conducts sage rituals for the community. She's also fluent in the community's native language (Anishinaabemowin), and she uses myths to teach people how to live off the land. Aileen has also been teaching Nicole how to practice traditional medicine, and she encourages Evan to nurture Nicole, knowing that Nicole's medicinal knowledge will be crucial to the community if the electricity never comes back on. As a frail old woman, Aileen is the kind of person who tends to be overlooked in a patriarchal society. Yet her wisdom, experience, community-oriented values, and indigenous knowledge prove essential to the community's survival. Aileen explains to Evan that although the apocalyptic situation faced by the community seems dire, it's similar to the oppression that previous generations endured when European settlers began displacing First Nations people. When Aileen dies during the harsh winter, much of her indigenous knowledge dies with her. Evan's grief at her passing represents the collective cultural losses of First Nations people who were oppressed under colonialism. Although Aileen doesn't survive the winter, the people who heed Aileen's advice do—and they go on to rebuild their fractured community based on her teachings. - Character: Nicole McCloud. Description: Nicole is Evan Whitesky's partner. She is the primary caregiver for their two young children, Maiingan and Nangohns. Nicole and Evan have a very loving and supportive relationship, marked by mutual respect and a shared desire to reconnect with traditional Anishinaabe customs. Nicole strives to teach her children what she knows of the native language (Anishinaabemowin), and she embodies Anishinaabe community values by patiently nurturing the people around her. She also knows traditional medicine (which she learned from the community's spiritual guide, Aileen Jones); respects the elders' wisdom; and knows how to read the natural landscape for signs of bad weather. While several other characters freeze to death during the frigid winter, Nicole only takes her children outside when there are no signs of an approaching blizzard in the air. Such skills prove essential to her family's survival. Toward the end of the book, Evan is shot in a violent confrontation with the story's antagonist, Justin Scott, and it's not clear if he survives. In the Epilogue, the reader learns that Nicole has assumed leadership of the survivors, and she is leading them to a new settlement, where they will live in connection with "Mother Earth" as they've done for generations. Nicole also reflects, upon the community's departure, on how unnecessary many of the technological advancements on the modernized reservation seem. - Character: Nangohns. Description: Nangohns is Evan and Nicole's three-year-old daughter and Maiingan's sister. Her name means "little star" in Anishinaabemowin. Although she's Evan and Nicole's youngest child, she's surprisingly wise and thoughtful, and Evan thinks that she will be a spiritual leader one day. Along with Maiingan, Nangohns represents hope for the Anishinaabe culture's survival. - Character: Terry Meegis. Description: Terry is the community's "chief"; he heads up the council, which runs the reservation. Terry is deeply empathetic and non-confrontational but somewhat emotionally weak, and he's intimidated by Justin Scott. Though Terry is the figurehead of the community, he doesn't actually wield much power. As the winter progresses, he shifts into a supporting role, increasingly leaning on Evan—who, in turn, takes his advice from the community's spiritual leader, Aileen. - Character: Walter. Description: Walter is the reservation's second-in-command and reservation chief Terry Meegis's closest advisor. Walter is pragmatic, forthright, and levelheaded; he's often the voice of reason when Terry feels overwhelmed. When Terry struggles to maintain control of the reservation, Walter steps in and leans heavily on Evan. Like Evan, Walter is uneasy about Justin Scott, a man seeking refuge on the reservation who ends up terrorizing the community. - Character: Isaiah North. Description: Isaiah is Evan's best friend and Candace's son; he's an active community member. As the winter progresses, people on the reservation begin to lean more heavily on Evan, Isaiah, and their friend Tyler, who all take active roles in clearing roads and checking in on vulnerable elder community members. Isaiah also helps manage the worsening situation with Justin Scott, who seizes power over part of the community. He's fiercely protective of Evan and loyal to the community. - Character: Tyler. Description: Tyler is friends with Evan and Isaiah. Together, the three of them take a leading role in running the reservation as the winter progresses and the elders begin to die. Tyler helps distribute rations, hunt for food, conduct essential maintenance, and collect dead bodies. He also protects the community, notably from Justin Scott. - Character: Cam Whitesky. Description: Cam is Evan's younger brother. He's is somewhat irresponsible, preferring to live in the moment and have fun rather than prepare for the oncoming winter. Cam also doesn't care much about learning the community's traditional ways. His lack of preparation and foresight leaves him vulnerable as the winter progresses, and he falls under antagonist Justin Scott's influence. Cam grows thinner, weaker, and more demoralized as the winter progresses. Toward the end of the story, Scott forces Cam to dismember a dead body for food, which leaves Cam traumatized. - Character: Mark Phillips. Description: Mark Phillips is the second person to seek refuge on the reservation after the power goes out. When a desperate Phillips arrives, Terry begins to handle the situation calmly, but Scott butts in and rashly shoots Phillips, saying that the community needs to protect their territory from incoming threats—even though Scott himself sought refuge on the reservation. Scott's show of brute force in this confrontation enables him to seize power. - Character: Meghan Connor. Description: Meghan is a woman who seeks refuge on the reservation along with her husband, Brad, Alex Richer, and Mark Phillips (whom Scott kills when they first arrive). Brad joins forces with Scott, so Meghan ends up living under Scott's authority. Together, the men subjugate Meghan, forcing her to hunt even though she doesn't know how to and punishing her when she fails to deliver food to Scott. Meghan grows thinner, weaker, and more hateful of Scott and Brad as the winter progresses, ultimately prompting her to turn on them and shoot Scott in the back, killing him. - Character: Kevin. Description: Kevin is Joanne Birch's son and Tyler's younger brother. He and his friend Nick Jonas attend school in the nearest town, Gibson, which is 300 kilometers south of the remote Anishinaabe reservation. The pair emerge part way through the story, having escaped from Gibson, which collapsed into violent chaos when the power went out. Kevin and Nick's situation shows that modern civilization is fragile because of its over-dependence on technology. - Character: Nick Jonas. Description: Nick is friends with Kevin. Together, the two teenagers escape from Gibson (a town 300 kilometers south of the reservation) after the power goes out and their school devolves into chaos. Nick's insights about the chaos in Gibson underscore the fragility of societies that rely heavily on urban infrastructure and modern technology. - Character: Dan Whitesky (Evan's father). Description: Dan is Evan's father and Patricia's husband. He's quiet, thoughtful, and reserved—and he has a lot of respect for the community's ways. Like Evan, Dan works as a maintenance worker and council member on the reservation. He takes an active role in community life, and he conducts tobacco rituals during hunting trips. As the winter progresses, Dan and Patricia move in with Evan to conserve energy. He bolsters his family's spirits with traditional stories that teach his grandchildren Maiingan and Nangohns Anishinaabe values. - Theme: Technology, Society, and Survival. Description: In Moon of the Crusted Snow, an isolated First Nation community survives a harsh winter by reconnecting with their traditional knowledge of the land. When a mysterious blackout occurs during a harsh winter, members of a remote Anishinaabe reservation suddenly find themselves without the modern conveniences they've come to rely on in recent years. The community soon realizes the blackout is widespread, ongoing, and it's debilitated nearby towns and cities (which have devolved into chaos). So, the Anishinaabe commit to maintaining their traditional way of life for good, believing it will best facilitate their long-term survival. Through the Anishinaabe's dramatic lifestyle shift, Rice emphasizes that technology-dependent living is unreliable because technology can fail. Rice also implies that such lifestyles exploit the Earth's natural resources and may one day deplete them, unlike the traditional Anishinaabe way of life. To Rice, humanity would do better to embrace simple living—the Earth's natural ecosystem already provides all we need to survive, if we don't exploit it. Dependence on modern conveniences leaves people ill-equipped to survive in the natural world—which is a mistake, because technology is fallible. Many young adults in the story embody technology-dependent lifestyles centered on television, video games, and amenities like grocery stores, leaving them practically and emotionally unprepared for coping with life without these luxuries. Rice compares the story's protagonist Evan with his younger brother Cam, noting, "When Evan had been out on the land learning real survival skills with his father [Dan] and uncles as a teenager, Cam had chosen to stay behind, learning simulated ones in video games." Cam's lack of foresight leaves him vulnerable during the blackout, and he winds up dangerously malnourished. This suggests that technology is distracting and potentially dangerous, because it takes time and energy away from learning survival skills that prove essential in a crisis. Evan's extended family easily adapts to life without cell phones and internet by reverting to the "moccasin telegraph" (walking to others' homes and sharing updates in person, just as they did for years before the reservation went on the grid). However, students in a dormitory in Gibson (300 kilometers south) quickly become demoralized without phones, internet, or news about the blackout. Within a few days, several students wander into the snow and die. Technology offers instant gratification, which weakens patience and emotional coping skills—a death sentence for young people who are overly dependent on their phones and computers. Rice also suggests that living simply, in equilibrium with the land (as First Nations cultures advocate) is a more viable approach to long-term survival than a fragile, technology-dependent infrastructure. The Anishinaabe way of life centers on connecting with nature and replenishing everything taken from the land to avoid wasteful use of the Earth's resources. They also tell stories to entertain, bolster emotional resilience, and teach survival skills. Unlike modern technology, these customs don't demand complex external infrastructure that exploits (and may eventually deplete) the Earth's resources. For example, Dan's traditional story about a mythical indigenous figure named Nanabush warns about the dangers of being "greedy" and taking too much food from the land. The story suggests that humanity should strive to keep the Earth's natural ecosystem in balance so that it continues to provide in the future, thus facilitating our long-term survival. Dan's story is also funny, so it entertains Evan's family and lifts their spirits. They're able to cope emotionally during long, dark winter nights without relying on technology or a complex urban infrastructure—unlike the students in the dormitory, who are at a total loss without electricity. Humanity's over-reliance on technology—and the complex infrastructure it requires—is therefore limiting. The Anishinaabe way of life—living in balance with the natural environment rather than exploiting it—is a more reliable way to facilitate humanity's long-term survival. - Theme: Colonialism, Oppression, and Trauma. Description: Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Crusted Snow is an allegory for First Nation people's experiences under colonial oppression. Set on a remote Anishinaabe reservation in Northern Canada, the plot revolves around a widespread power outage that throws the region into chaos during a brutally frigid winter. Outsiders begin seeking refuge on the isolated reservation, but they soon exploit the Anishinaabe's hospitality, incite violence, and cause suffering—prompting the Anishinaabe to flee. The Anishinaabe community's spiritual guide, Aileen Jones, suggests that the story's events mirror colonialism's violence and destruction. She thinks that the Anishinaabe people's "world ended" many times over under colonial oppression, yet they managed to survive and rebuild their culture each time the "Zhagnaash [white person]" targeted them. In the book's epilogue, the Anishinaabe survivors push on with sad resilience to rebuild their lives, settling in remote woodland territory to avoid more outsiders. This suggests that modern First Nations cultures are determined to survive, but that they are haunted by past oppression and remain wary of experiencing more oppression in the future. Protagonist Evan Whitesky, a young Anishinaabe man, bitterly reflects on the culture his people lost under colonialism. After European settlers colonized the Americas, First Nations people were forced to abandon many of their own customs and adopt those of the settlers instead. In the modern day, Evan frequently struggles to remember words in his native language, Anishinaabemowin, noting that historical bans on native languages and the forced schooling of earlier generations steered First Nations people toward speaking English. Only a few people with a full command of the Anishinaabe's native language remain alive today. When the community's oldest member Aileen dies, her knowledge of the native language and many traditional customs die with her. Evan's mourning is compounded because he's hasn't just lost Aileen—he's also lost the last link to many of his culture's traditions. In this way, Evan's grief parallels the cultural losses that First Nations people suffered under colonialism. The visitors to Evan's community cause violence and trauma, prompting the Anishinaabe survivors to flee in order to rebuild their society—a process that mirrors historical colonial oppression in Canada. A heavily armed man named Justin Scott seeks refuge on the reservation during the so-called "apocalypse." But after he gains the community's trust, he seizes power and ends up terrorizing the withering community. Scott metaphorically represents historical settlers who disrupted pre-existing First Nations communities. His violent and disruptive actions ultimately drive the Anishinaabe survivors to flee and rebuild their community in more remote territory, much like First Nations people did when Europeans began settling in the Americas. Aileen also explicitly depicts the community's crisis as an allegory for First Nations people's historical oppression under colonialism. Aileen says that the "world isn't ending. It already ended when the Zhagnaash [white person] came into our original home […] and took it away from us," suggesting that the wintry crisis is just another manifestation of events that happened to First Nations people before. Aileen says "the world ended again" when incoming settlers "followed us up here and took our children away from us," suggesting that settlers fractured First Nations peoples' communities for generations—much like Justin fractures the Anishinaabe reservation in the novel. In the book's epilogue, the few surviving characters are traumatized but also determined to rebuild their culture anew, representing the outlook of many First Nations people today. Two years after the blackout, the surviving characters leave the reservation because they can't bear to stay in a place marked by such loss. Rice uses the characters' sadness to reflect on the pain and loss that still haunts modern-day First Nations people. The story's surviving characters carry "the bad memories and the sadness" with them, suggesting that First Nations people—like the story's surviving characters—still experience trauma today, given the painful losses their people suffered under colonialism. The surviving characters head into the woods without looking back, capturing their dogged resilience to survive despite their pain. Rice writes, "they refused to wither completely, and a core of dedicated people had worked tirelessly to create their own settlement away from this town," capturing First Nations people's determination to survive and keep their culture alive. The survivors leave the reservation because they "couldn't be certain there wouldn't be more visitors," suggesting that their past traumas have also taught First Nations people to be wary of future oppression. Rice leverages the story's conclusion to reflect on modern First Nations people's bittersweet outlook: they draw strength from their survival, but they also carry emotional scars from colonialist oppression. - Theme: Selfishness vs. Selflessness. Description: Moon of the Crusted Snow pays tribute to the Anishinaabe people's strong sense of community. When power and communications mysteriously go dark, isolating a remote Anishinaabe community from the outside world, the reservation's residents must band together to survive a frigid winter off the grid. Their collective values like sharing food, supporting one another, and caring for the group's most vulnerable members help many people in the community pull through. Several others, however (notably Justin Scott, a visitor in the community) act selfishly. They exploit vulnerable people to service their own needs, and they steal food, eventually causing the community to turn on them. In the end, only the people who prioritize their communal values (like protagonist Evan Whitesky's family) survive to rebuild their society anew. Strong communal values are essential to the group's survival—and such values also help combat the selfish urges that make people turn on one another in times of crisis. Evan embodies the Anishinaabe people's ethics of sharing and looking out for others. He has the foresight to gather food supplies for the community throughout the year, which helps many people stay alive during the crisis. Evan accounts for others, planning to "share with his parents, his siblings and their families, and his in-laws, and […] save some for others who might run out before winter's end," noting that this sort of thinking is "the community way." Evan's foresight and communal values end up keeping his family and friends alive—which, in turn, boosts everyone's morale and ensures Evan's loved ones (and their culture) will live on. Selflessly sharing resources (as opposed to selfishly hoarding them) is the most effective strategy for long-term survival. Similarly, community leaders Terry and Walter allocate canned food reserves according to people's needs, prioritizing children (who need protein to grow) and the elderly (who are less capable of hunting for their own food). Some people object that this strategy is unfair, but Walter interjects, saying "This is a goddamn crisis! We have to act like a community. We're going to support each other until this all gets sorted out." Walter believes that thinking communally is essential to their survival, and that being selfish will cause more deaths in the long run. Ultimately, Walter's prediction proves correct: those who follow his advice and look out for one another (like Evan Whitesky's family) end up surviving the winter. Those who act more selfishly suffer or die, having wrongly believed that selfish behavior would protect them and keep them alive. Selfish behavior is ultimately futile because it demoralizes other people, causing them to turn on those who act selfishly. An outsider named Justin Scott (who seizes power among a faction of the community) forces his followers to hunt for food but takes most of it for himself. As the winter progresses, Scott's followers grow weaker and less able to hunt, prompting Scott to resort to cannibalism. This suggests that selfish behavior is not a sustainable strategy for people's well-being. A woman named Meghan also reveals that Scott punishes his followers if they don't supply him with food. Scott's exploitative tactics ultimately backfire when Meghan turns on him and shoots him in the back. Scott's fate shows that although a person might assume that they'll get more resources by looking out for themselves above others, selfishness actually sets them back, because it turns people against them. People who unite and care for one another grow closer, stronger, and more resilient—while those who act selfishly create discontentment and chaos, weakening their fragile alliances until they self-implode. - Theme: Gender, Power, and Wisdom. Description: Moon of the Crusted Snow offers a cautionary tale against toxic masculinity. The story depicts an Anishinaabe community struggling to survive through a harsh winter during a blackout. Some members of the community (notably protagonist Evan Whitesky's family) respect the wisdom of their eldest community member, a wise old woman named and Aileen Jones. Others defer to a younger, stronger, and more aggressive man named Justin Scott. Scott's authority relies on his domineering and abusive form of masculinity: he uses his physical strength, aggression, and fear-mongering to get his way. Aileen, in contrast, is physically unassuming: she's old and frail, and she doesn't survive the winter. Nonetheless, Aileen's emphasis on trusting the elders' wisdom and nurturing the community's women (who are its spiritual guides and healers) ultimately saves the community. Scott's followers, on the other hand, eventually clash in a deadly confrontation. The book challenges the traditional idea that the most powerful authority figures are young, strong, aggressive men—the story's wise women are actually the community's most powerful assets. Aileen's character proves that people are wrong to underestimate the elderly, because their wisdom can guide people through difficult times more effectively than physical strength and aggression can. Although Aileen is physically weak, she has a wealth of experience that's essential to the community's survival. Those who listen to her stories take comfort in previous generations' perseverance through hard times. They also learn "critical" skills about "how the old ones lived on the land," which gives them the tools they need to survive the winter. In the community's current circumstances, it's this wisdom and knowledge that will save them—no amount of physical strength or power will help without Aileen's clear direction. Scott, on the other hand, believes that ignoring the elders' advice and intimidating others will protect the community—but his intimidation tactics only cause violent confrontations. When a desperate man named Mark Phillips arrives on the scene, Scott ignores the elders' advice to avoid a violent confrontation and he shoots Phillips dead immediately. He defends his actions by saying, "We gotta make a stand […] I was protecting us." Scott's decision to resort to brute force is catastrophic: although some people defer to Scott's authority and believe he will protect them, he ends up intimidating and subjugating his followers, leading to a deadly shootout that traumatizes the wider community. This tragic outcome shows that in order to survive challenging circumstances, it's better to trust in wisdom and lived experience rather than shows of physical strength. The women in the community, not the men, are the effective leaders, which challenges the traditional idea that power and leadership have to be male-oriented. Aileen encourages the community's men to nurture their women and trust in their knowledge as care-givers and medicinal healers, believing that their insights will prove essential to the community's survival. Aileen advises Evan to spend quality time with his partner, Nicole. She tells him to nurture Nicole's well-being and learn from her, because her medicinal knowledge "will be important if we don't get any new supplies in from the hospital down south." Aileen's advice proves crucial, because Nicole ends up sustaining the survivors and leading them to safety with this knowledge. This implies that communities that respect women's skills and intelligence only stand to benefit from their contributions. Scott, in contrast, encourages his followers to undermine and intimidate women—and another man named Brad follows Scott's example. Together, Brad and Scott subjugate Brad's wife, Meghan, forcing her to hunt for rabbits even though she has no hunting experience. Feeling demoralized and abused, Meghan eventually turns on both of them, shooting Scott in the back and casting Brad out of the community to die in the snow. This suggests that sexism holds communities back and breeds contempt—and that such treatment will inevitably backfire. In the end, the people who embrace Scott's toxic masculine values—centered on physical aggression and sexism—devolve into violent chaos. In contrast, those who respect women and heed the elderly's wisdom end up surviving. This suggests that physical strength is a poor marker of a person's value—it's much wiser to trust those who know the most, regardless of their age or gender. - Climax: The Anishinaabe survivors abandon their reservation and resettle in more remote territory to rebuild their society. - Summary: Evan Whitesky shoots a moose, makes a tobacco offering, and hauls the carcass into his truck. Evan has been hard at work hunting food for the winter, and he'll share his bounty with his Anishinaabe community. Evan drives home to his partner Nicole, son Maiingan, and daughter Nangohns. The television is out, but they think it'll be back on soon. The next day, Evan visits his parents, Dan and Patricia. Last night, Dan dreamed that he saw Evan looking gaunt and scared, standing in front of a fire. A couple days later, at a community meeting, the reservation's chief, Terry Meegis, advises the community to conserve energy because the power grid is offline—they're running on back-up diesel generators. The reservation's oldest member and spiritual guide, Aileen Jones, blesses the meeting with a sage ceremony. Later that week, local teenagers Nick Jonas and his friend Kevin arrive on snowmobiles. They fled their residential school in Gibson (the nearest town, 300 kilometers south) after the power went out and people began rioting. The next day, a large man named Justin Scott arrives on a snowmobile, explaining that the power also went out in his town, which erupted in violent chaos. Terry doesn't want to turn Scott away—but other council members (who run the reservation), like Walter, are wary about Scott's arrival. They agree to let Scott stay if he keeps a low profile and contributes to the community. That evening, Scott bursts in, saying that he may as well meet everyone, and Evan's skin crawls. That night, Evan dreams about a room filled with dead bodies. Some days later, Evan disrupts a party at his younger brother Cam's house, angry that people are wasting energy. Evan grows angrier when he sees a teenager named Jenna sitting on Scott's lap. Evan lunges at Scott, but Scott stands and towers over Evan. Evan backs off and leaves the party. The next morning, Evan learns that Jenna and her friend Tara froze to death while trying to walk home from the party. As they lay the frozen bodies in the community garage, Scott bursts in to say that more snowmobiles are approaching. A man named Mark Phillips dismounts, begging for help. Phillips's town exploded into deadly chaos after the power went out, and he's desperate. Scott rashly fires his gun, killing Phillips. Scott thinks that they need to take a stand because more people will come looking for help. Evan realizes that Terry has lost control of the reservation. A couple months later, Evan is visiting Aileen, as he often does. Aileen is perplexed about why people keep saying "apocalypse." Aileen thinks the Anishinaabe's world already ended when European settlers drove the Anishinaabe north into this harsh territory; it ended again when they took Anishinaabe children and forced them to speak English. Yet somehow, the Anishinaabe are still here. Evan feels comforted. Aileen advises Evan to take care of Nicole, whom Aileen has taught traditional medicine. Nicole's knowledge will be important if the power doesn't come back on. Meanwhile, Nicole takes the children for a sleigh ride and bumps into Meghan, one of the people who arrived with Mark Phillips, who's currently living in Scott's side of the reservation. Meghan looks gaunt, and she's fumbling with an empty rabbit trap. Meghan blurts out that Scott is horrible—he threatens everybody, and he hoards most of the food and wood for himself. Meghan's husband, Brad, does too. Concerned, Nicole offers Meghan a rest and a warm drink, but Meghan declines. She has to find food for Scott before he gets angry. Later, Evan learns that Cam (who also lives near Scott) is growing thinner by the day. That evening, Nicole, Evan, their children, and Evan's parents gather around the kitchen table. Dan tells an Anishinaabe myth about Nanabush, a greedy character who kills all the geese he finds instead of just a few. When somebody steals the geese, Nanabush has nothing left to eat. Some days later, council members dole out canned food reserves to a restless line of hungry, frustrated people. Scott emerges, looking menacing, and cryptically says that he has a plan to feed the community if they'll work with him. A few weeks later, Evan stokes a fire in a tipi tent nestled deep in the forest. He's building a refuge for his family, in case the situation on the reservation deteriorates. Outside, the snow blows fiercely, but the tent is warm and comforting. Evan drifts to sleep and dreams that a snarling monster with Scott's face is running toward him. That night, Aileen dies in her sleep. She was the last person who knew the Anishinaabemowin language and rituals in full. Evan struggles to fight back tears as he drags Aileen's body to the community garage, which is full of bodies waiting to be buried. Suddenly, Evan notices that a body is missing. He knows instantly that Scott took it. Evan, Isaiah, and Tyler head to Scott's complex to confront him. They spot Scott standing by a fire, watching a pot simmer. Cam emerges, sobbing and covered in blood. Evan feels sick as he asks Scott if there's a body in the pot. Tyler lunges for Scott, and Scott fires his gun. Evan crumples to the ground—it's unclear if he's dead or alive. Suddenly, Scott's head splits open—Meghan has shot him from behind. Tyler and Isaiah lug Scott's body to a distant ravine, leaving it for the wolves. In the epilogue, it's two years later, and the power never came back on. Nicole lifts her sunglasses as she takes a last look around the house. She won't need anything in here anymore. The community can't bear to stay in a place filled with such loss, so they're leaving. Outside, Maiingan and Nangohns play with their grandparents on the grass. Nicole scoops up the kids and says, "Let's go see Daddy." They head to a new settlement, deep in the woods, without looking back.

- Genre: Young Adult Fantasy, Steampunk - Title: Mortal Engines - Point of view: Third Person Omniscient - Setting: London, several centuries in the future - Character: Tom Natsworthy. Description: Tom Natsworthy is a 15-year-old apprentice museum worker who has lived in the Traction City of London his whole life. His parents died when he was young in an accident called the Great Tilt. Growing up, Tom's hero was the famous head of the city's Historian Guild, Thaddeus Valentine, but Tom gets his illusions shattered after he learns about Valentine's criminal past from Hester Shaw. Soon after, Valentine tries to kill Tom by pushing him down a trash chute. Tom is a classic example of a reluctant hero, someone who prefers to live a quiet life (only daydreaming about heroics in London) but who transforms over the course of his journey into someone who fights for a cause and puts others' needs first. By spending time outside London with the scavenger Hester, Tom learns how privileged and isolated his old life was. He literally sees what the city of London looks like from the outside and finds that it doesn't match with his expectations, and so he decides to switch allegiances and help the Anti-Traction League, who oppose big moving cities like London. Tom represents how people can grow and change when they break out of their normal lives to meet new people and see new places. - Character: Hester Shaw. Description: Hester Shaw is a teenage girl about Tom's age who has a large scar on her face from the night when Thaddeus Valentine murdered her parents and left her for dead. After losing her parents, Hester spent a lot of time with Shrike, an emotionally distant cyborg who nevertheless seemed to care about her. She devoted years of her life to tracking Valentine and attempts to assassinate him at the beginning of the novel, but Tom interferes with her plans at the last minute, forcing her to run away. Soon after, when Valentine throws Tom off a trash chute in an attempt to murder him, Tom and Hester end up as traveling companions in the Hunting Ground, trying to reach London together. Unlike the more cautious Tom, Hester is willing to risk her own life from the very beginning of the book. Although she doesn't have much formal education, she is clever and frequently sees solutions to problems that the more conventional Tom misses. Whereas Tom learns to be brave from being with Hester, Hester learns how to accept help from others instead of trying to do everything alone. She thinks of herself as "ugly" because of the massive scar on her face, but she proves that external looks can be deceiving and that what's even more important is how a person acts. - Character: Thaddeus Valentine. Description: Thaddeus Valentine is the head of London's Guild of Historians as well as the father of Katherine Valentine and possibly also Hester Shaw. Young Historian Tom Natsworthy idolizes Valentine, but in reality, Valentine holds several dark secrets. He murdered his former assistant and lover Pandora Shaw and seriously injured Hester, all to get his hands on a powerful weapon known as MEDUSA to take back to the Lord Mayor of London, Magnus Crome. Throughout the story, Valentine continues to resort to violence, killing Miss Fang and attempting to kill Tom. Valentine justifies his actions to himself by claiming that everything he does is for the benefit of his daughter, Katherine, but he's forced to realize that this isn't true when he ends up accidentally killing Katherine with his own sword. Unlike Crome, Valentine does have a conscience, but he follows it too late and ends up dying with the rest of London when MEDUSA malfunctions. Like Hester, Valentine shows how external appearances can be deceiving—in his case, showing how a person who appears to be kind and successful on the outside can actually be violent and ruthless on the inside. - Character: Katherine Valentine. Description: Katherine Valentine is the daughter of Thaddeus Valentine and an unknown woman from outside of London who died when Katherine was very young. She was then sent to live with her father in London, and Valentine pledged his loyalty to Lord Mayor Crome in exchange for the privilege of raising Katherine as a member of upper-class society. Despite Katherine's refined upbringing, however, she keeps a pet wolf named Dog, showing that she is not quite the typical upper-class lady she appears to be. Katherine's isolated lifestyle leaves her naïve, and she continues to admire and trust her father even after seeing substantial evidence that he is a murderer. But witnessing what happens in London's underworld and befriending a convict worker named Bevis Pod helps Katherine understand her father's true nature. By the end of the book, she opposes her father and even dies in the process of defending her father's archenemy, Hester. Like Tom, Katherine represents the dangers of naïvely believing in the great reputation and respectable appearances of people like Valentine, but she also shows how empathy can lead people to change for the better. - Character: Miss Anna Fang. Description: Miss Anna Fang (also called Feng Hua) is an aviator who works as a spy for the League of Anti-Tractionists. Although this technically means she is an enemy of the Londoner Tom Natsworthy, Miss Fang takes a liking to Tom and Hester, helping them along on their journey back to London in her airship, the Jenny Haniver. Miss Fang is one of many orphans in the story, and she managed to escape slavery by building the Jenny Haniver out of scraps that she scavenged. She speaks Airsperanto, the language of the sky, and shares a bond with fellow aviators like Khora, who all admire Miss Fang's daring work as a spy. Although Miss Fang is generally heroic, she is willing to use violent tactics like bombings and assassinations if she believes it's for the greater good. When Thaddeus Valentine infiltrates an Anti-Tractionist settlement to sabotage its fleet of airships, he also kills Miss Fang in a sword fight. Tom and Hester take over the Jenny Haniver, and so Miss Fang represents a passing of the torch, showing how leaders in one generation can help guide and inspire the people who come after them. - Character: Shrike. Description: Shrike is a "Resurrected Man," meaning that he was a soldier who died in a war long ago and was turned into a deadly cyborg. While parts of Shrike, including his brain, are organic, much of him is metal, and he has a deadly blade on his one arm. Before the main events of the novel, Shrike took Hester in after the death of her parents. But when Hester leaves to get revenge on the man who killed her parents (Valentine), Shrike goes ahead of her, voluntarily offering himself as a research subject to Mayor Crome of London for an opportunity to make Hester herself Resurrected. But after undergoing experiments with Crome's Engineers, Shrike loses his old self and becomes a ruthless hunter, dedicated to fulfilling Crome's wishes. Shrike symbolizes the dangerous, dehumanizing effects of technology and also embodies the power of obsession to drive a person and warp their perspective. - Character: Magnus Crome. Description: Magnus Crome is the evil Lord Mayor of the Traction City of London. Unlike previous mayors, he is thin, suggesting that times have gotten tougher for London and that its predatory practice of eating other cities for resources can't sustain it forever. As the head of the Guild of Engineers, Crome represents the future, and he is obsessed with keeping London moving forward at all costs (literally moving on its wheels, but also metaphorically seeking out the next big conquest). Crome shows no regard for human life, willing to kill people outside London indiscriminately with his MEDUSA superweapon and even allowing many Londoners themselves to die in the awful work conditions in the city's Gut. But Crome's grand ambitions aren't sustainable, and in his rush to conquer new lands with MEDUSA, he accidentally destroys all of London when MEDUSA malfunctions. Crome embodies the dangers of ruthlessly pursuing forward momentum, showing how violence and technology can be a double-edged sword that hurts the one who wields it. - Character: Bevis Pod. Description: Bevis Pod is a convict who is sentenced to perform hard labor in London's lower part: the Gut. But after Pod accidentally witnesses an exchange between Hester Shaw and Thaddeus Valentine, Katherine Valentine seeks Pod out, hoping he has information. Although Pod is reluctant to cause trouble at first, eventually he opens up to Katherine, and they become friends. As Pod reveals more about himself to Katherine, he proves that he isn't as timid as he first seemed. Pod has a lot of scientific knowledge and is brave in times of crisis. Ultimately, Pod sacrifices his own life to save Katherine, proving that a person can rise above their circumstances and that a person's low social status (like Pod's status as a prisoner in the Gut) doesn't have to define them. - Character: Chudleigh Pomeroy. Description: Chudleigh Pomeroy is Tom's boss at the Museum of Natural History in London. He can be a strict boss, punishing Tom for being late or daring to venture outside the Museum when he should be on duty. But the end of the story reveals that when times get tough and the Engineers attempt to take over the city, Pomeroy is willing to fight back with the other Historians. In particular, he and the other Museum workers try to stall the Engineers long enough for Katherine and Pod to disable the deadly MEDUSA weapon. Pomeroy represents how people show their true nature in times of crisis. - Character: Dog. Description: Dog is Katherine's pet wolf. Valentine found him as a cub and shot his mother but didn't have the heart to kill him, mirroring how Valentine killed Pandora Shaw but didn't kill her daughter, Hester. Dog's wild nature reveals that Katherine is not quite the typical high-society London girl that she appears to be. - Character: Pandora Shaw. Description: Pandora Shaw is the mother of Hester Shaw. She used to be Thaddeus Valentine's assistant, and it's possible they were lovers and that Hester is Valentine's daughter, but when Pandora finds the super-weapon MEDUSA, Valentine murders her and her husband to take it. Pandora's death is what causes Hester to set off on her revenge journey in the first place. - Theme: Social Class. Description: The world of Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines has strictly defined social classes. Much of the story takes place in the Traction City of London, where people live in different Tiers based on their social class. Class also plays a role in "Municipal Darwinism," where the big urban predator cities like London have an advantage against smaller rural and suburban prey cities, consuming them to take their resources—and where wandering scavengers rank below even prey cities, struggling to survive on scraps. The various class distinctions in the book all serve the same function, benefitting the people in the higher classes and giving them a way to control the people in the lower classes. Crome, for example, keeps his position at the top as Lord Mayor of London by sending anyone who opposes him into the prison labor camps in the Gut, at the very bottom of London's social hierarchy. But while social class defines many aspects of the lives of the characters, it doesn't necessarily reflect a character's personality or morals. While some upper-class characters like Katherine are kind and caring, most are more like her father, Thaddeus Valentine, who is the most esteemed Historian in London, and yet is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way—even Hester Shaw, who might be his own daughter. On the other hand, Bevis Pod is a lowly prisoner in the Gut who seems simple-minded when Katherine first meets him, but he eventually reveals himself to be surprisingly good at science. Both Valentine and Pod claim to want to protect Katherine, but while the lower-class Pod actually gives his life to save her, Valentine is the one who ends up accidentally killing his daughter. With a couple of exceptions (such as the small-town slave-trader Orme Wreyland), the lower-class characters tend to act more nobly than the actual nobles. Mortal Engines explores the arbitrary nature of class systems, generally depicting the upper class as hypocrites who did nothing to deserve their lofty positions and depicting the lower class more sympathetically as victims of an unjust system. - Theme: Sacrifice. Description: Near the beginning of Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines, Hester Shaw attempts to assassinate Thaddeus Valentine for killing her parents, willing to give up her own life for a chance to end his. This commitment to her ideals—even at the expense of her own life—defines Hester's character, and it similarly motivates other heroic characters in the story, like Bevis Pod, Miss Fang, and Katherine. Each of these characters dies in the process of sacrificing themselves, either for a cause or to save another person's life. By spending time with Hester and the others, Tom too learns the value of sacrifice over the course of the book, putting his own life at risk to rescue Hester from burning London, even after she tells him to let her die. But while sacrifice is often a heroic gesture, it can also be morally ambiguous. Shrike, for example, voluntarily submits to painful experiments by the Engineers, all so that he can make Hester Resurrected like him. Although he cares for Hester, he doesn't consider whether she even wants to be Resurrected (which involves dying first), making his sacrifice selfish. Similarly, Valentine dedicates himself to serving Crome so that people will treat his daughter Katherine like a lady, but this causes him to abandon his own morals, murdering Pandora Shaw and helping Crome get his hands on the deadly weapon MEDUSA. In the end, Valentine feels so guilty for his decisions that he stays in London as MEDUSA destroys it, sacrificing his own life but accomplishing nothing in the process. Mortal Engines portrays how true heroes will sacrifice themselves for a greater cause when necessary, but it also suggests that not all sacrifices are heroic, especially when those sacrifices have selfish goals or allow people to escape the consequences of their actions. - Theme: Dangers of Technology. Description: Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines takes place in a far-future world where humanity destroyed civilization as it currently existed in a conflict known as the Sixty Minute War, then developed new technology from scratch in the centuries after the war. Although the future London is an engineering marvel—a Traction City that can travel at speeds of 100 miles per hour—the technology in the story also has a dark side. Crome, the Lord Mayor of London, wants to get his hands on MEDUSA, a powerful weapon from the past that can level cities like an atom bomb. As leader of the city's Engineering Guild, Crome rarely considers the moral implications of technology, using London's superior size to gobble up smaller towns and having his Engineers research how to make zombified super-soldiers called Stalkers that will eventually terrorize London's own residents. Not all technology in the book is evil. Miss Fang, for instance, escapes slavery by using her ingenuity to improvise an airship from materials she scavenges. The defensive Shield-Wall also helps protect people in the Anti-Traction League from the aggression of Traction Cities like London. But in general, more advanced technology leads to deadlier warfare. The book ends with Crome attempting to use MEDUSA against the Shield-Wall but accidentally destroying all of London in the process, showing how the more powerful technology gets, the costlier a glitch can be. While Mortal Engines doesn't demonize all technology, it does portray how technological "advancement" can make people's lives worse, increasing levels of violence and raising the dangers associated with inevitable malfunctions. - Theme: The Importance of History. Description: Tom, the main character of Mortal Engines, starts the story as an Apprentice Historian at the Museum of Natural History in a futuristic steampunk version of London. While members of the Engineering Guild, like Lord Mayor Crome, only care about excavating weapons technology from the past, the members of the History Guild care more about culture, extinct animals, and nonviolent technology. The Guild of Historians and the Guild of Engineers are the two most important Guilds for the story, representing the past and the future, respectively. The London that Tom lives in clearly values the Engineers more—they have their own impressive Guild building, and at one point the Engineers even take relics from the museum to burn in order to fuel London's movement. But the Engineers' focus on the future is short-sighted, and by ignoring the past example of the Sixty Minute War (a catastrophe that decimated old civilizations), Crome repeats the same mistakes as the old civilizations, accidentally destroying London when he tries to activate the ancient super-weapon MEDUSA. The members of the Guild of Historians aren't always heroic. Beyond their corrupt and murderous leader, Thaddeus Valentine, even regular Historians play a role in the cruel practice of Municipal Darwinism, salvaging the remains of prey cities that London devours. In many ways, the fictional Historians struggle with the same problems as real curators and archaeologists, who want to preserve the past for future generations but who, particularly during the height of colonialism, have sometimes benefitted from violence and dealt with relics obtained by force. Some of the Historians also get too attached to their work, worrying about artifacts and relics while forgetting about human lives. In the end, however, even the stern Chudleigh Pomeroy is willing to risk his life by fighting Engineers to buy Katherine time to attempt to stop MEDUSA. This shows that despite the Historians' shortcomings, they remain a necessary counterbalance to the relentless Engineers, who only focus on forward movement. Mortal Engines imagines a future world where people fail to learn from the past and repeat the same mistakes, suggesting that preserving the past and learning from history are both important steps for ensuring a better future. - Theme: Prejudice and First Impressions. Description: Mortal Engines is full of characters whose external appearances hide their inner nature. The most noteworthy example of this is Hester Shaw, who has a massive scar on her face and is missing an eye. Because she is not traditionally beautiful, some characters assume that she is evil, as Tom does when he first sees her. He instinctively tries to stop Hester from attacking Thaddeus Valentine, who has a dashing appearance and a high reputation in London. As it turns out, however, Hester is correct about Valentine: he is a murderer who personally killed Hester's family and is willing to help kill many more with the super-weapon MEDUSA. Despite only having one eye, Hester can see people's true natures better than Tom can, and despite not looking like a princess, she is nevertheless the hero of the story. Over the course of the story, Tom has to confront many of the other prejudices that he picked up from living in London. At the beginning, he believes that London is a splendid mechanical marvel, but when he finally sees his city from the outside, he realizes that it's ugly and not so different from any other city. Similarly, he believes at the beginning that the people from the Anti-Traction League, who live on the other side of the shield wall, are backwards and uncivilized. But when he sees the settlement of Batmunkh Gompa up close and gets to meet Anti-Tractionists like Miss Fang and Captain Khora, he realizes that they're people too and that, in fact, their opposition to London seems to be justified. Mortal Engines explores how first impressions can be misleading, but it also explores how exposure to new people and places can help a person overcome initial prejudices and see beyond superficial appearances. - Theme: Friendship. Description: Like many young adult novels, Mortal Engines centers on the power of friendship. At the heart of the story is the friendship (and perhaps later romance) between Tom Natsworthy and Hester Shaw. Running parallel to this friendship is a similar one between Katherine Valentine and Bevis Pod. Both of these friendships involve people from very different backgrounds: Tom and especially Katherine are both part of London's privileged upper class, but Hester is a scavenger from outside London and Pod is a convict-worker in the Gut (the very lowest part of London). In fact, however, these differences become strengths in their respective friendships, helping all of these characters survive longer in the dangerous post-apocalyptic world they live in. Tom's caution and level-headed thinking balance out Hester's more impulsive and decisive actions, while Katherine's leadership abilities complement Pod's practical knowledge. Mortal Engines shows that not only do opposites attract; they can also help create balanced relationships in which people learn to trust and rely on each other, overcoming their weaknesses in the process. - Climax: The super-weapon MEDUSA blows up London. - Summary: In a futuristic steampunk world, humanity has rebuilt technology from scratch following a cataclysmic event called the Sixty Minute War. Cities like London have giant tracks that let them move at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour, catching smaller towns and stripping them for resources in a system called Municipal Darwinism. Tom Natsworthy is a 15-year-old orphan and an apprentice at the Museum of Natural History in London. He idolizes the head Historian Thaddeus Valentine. One day a mysterious scavenger girl from the muddy area outside London boards the city and attempts to assassinate Valentine. Tom stops her at the last minute, chasing her when she flees. The girl has a large scar on her face and reveals that her name is Hester Shaw. Before jumping down a trash chute, Hester warns that Valentine isn't who he seems to be. When Tom brings up Hester Shaw to Valentine, he pushes Tom down the same trash chute, attempting to kill him. Tom survives the fall and finds himself outside London, in the mud next to Hester. She curses him for stopping her assassination attempt, but since they're both trying to make it back to London, they agree to travel together. Meanwhile, back in London, Valentine's daughter, Katherine, slowly begins to learn that her admired father may have a dark side. Tom and Hester struggle to catch up with London, traveling on foot across the muddy area known as the Hunting Ground. After some initial setbacks, they meet a helpful airship pilot named Miss Anna Fang who is willing to take them to London. Their journey gets interrupted, however, when Shrike catches up with them. Shrike is a Resurrected Man, meaning he is a soldier from a previous era whose dead human brain powers a robotic body. He took in Hester for a while after Hester's parents died, but now he seems to be a ruthless hunter. Lord Mayor Magnus Crome of London has sent him to kill both Tom and Hester. To escape Shrike, Tom and Hester steal a hot air balloon while Miss Fang stays back to distract him. They can't evade him for long, however, because he has heat-seeking vision and can track Hester's scent. When he catches up with them, Shrike reveals that, while he does intend to kill Hester, Crome has promised Shrike that he will allow Hester to become Resurrected like him. Although Hester tentatively agrees to this, Tom intervenes, killing Shrike with a sword. Meanwhile, back in London, Crome makes plans to use a super-powered weapon called MEDUSA that can obliterate whole cities. He wants to use it on the Shield-Wall, a giant barrier that protects the people in the Anti-Traction League from predatory moving Traction Cities like London, so that London can expand its hunting. Crome sends Valentine out in his airship on a secret mission. After Shrike's death, Tom and Hester reunite with Miss Fang. She takes them in her airship to a settlement behind the Shield-Wall. Tom realizes that the stories he heard in London are wrong and that the people behind the Shield-Wall aren't evil. While Tom is exploring the settlement, he notices Valentine in disguise. Tom tries to catch him but can't stop Valentine from sabotaging the settlement's whole fleet of airships. Miss Fang confronts Valentine in the hangar and he tricks her during a sword fight, killing her. Tom and Hester head back to London in Miss Fang's old airship to try to stop Crome from using MEDUSA. Tom drops Hester off so that she can finally get her revenge on Valentine. At the same time, Katherine, horrified by MEDUSA's destructive power, collaborates with some members of London's Guild of Historians to attempt to sabotage it. While Tom is flying around above London, waiting to pick up Hester, another airship attacks his. Tom fires back, and the ship falls down to London, starting a fire. Meanwhile, Crome's guards catch Hester and bring her to Valentine. On her way to sabotage MEDUSA, Katherine sees Valentine and Hester. Before Valentine can kill Hester with his sword, Katherine leaps in the way, saving Hester but getting mortally wounded herself. As Katherine falls, she hits the controls from MEDUSA, causing it to malfunction. With no target entered, MEDUSA starts firing at London itself. Tom comes back in the airship and picks Hester up just in time to escape before London blows up. The two fly off to get their ship repaired, unsure what to do next but happy to at least have each other.

- Genre: Realistic Fiction - Title: Mother to Mother - Point of view: First person, Mandisa, addressing second person "You" of The Mother - Setting: South Africa - Character: Mandisa. Description: The novel's narrator, Mandisa is also referred to as Molokazana and Nohenhake by her husband China's family. Mandisa is the early middle-aged mother of three: Mxolisi, Lunga, and Siziwe. Born in Blouvlei to Mama and Tata, she has one brother Khaya. Mandisa was a respectful, hardworking child and talented student, whose life was first disrupted by her family's forced relocation to Guguletu, and then by her surprise pregnancy. Mandisa and her then-boyfriend, China, had purposefully avoided having penetrative sex, but they conceived anyway, and Mandisa has her first son, Mxolisi. Out of duty, Mandisa marries China, and the two are unhappily married for two years. However, one day China leaves for work and never comes back, leaving Mandisa to fend for herself. As she pieces her life back together and starts anew, Mandisa comes to resent Mxolisi for disrupting her life. Mandisa then conceives a second child with a man named Lungile, who, like China, also leaves her. She eventually marries a man named Dwadwa, with whom she has her youngest child and only daughter, Siziwe. Out of all of Mandisa's children, Mxolisi becomes the biggest troublemaker and the most politically charged. When he gets into hot water for stabbing and murdering The Girl—a white college girl who had ventured into Guguletu, earning her the attention of an angry mob, of which Mxolisi was a part—Mandisa feels great guilt regarding Mxolisi's life and crimes. She feels responsible for him, and is made to feel responsible for his murder of The Girl by people in her community. The book, which she narrates, is a way for her to come to terms with her son's actions, and to apologize to The Mother of the Girl for her hand in Mxolisi's upbringing, while also explaining the factors beyond their control that lead to the tragedy at the novel's center. - Character: Mxolisi. Description: Mandisa's oldest son, and her only son with China. He is originally named Hlumelo, but China's family renames him, claiming their right to do so, as grandparents traditionally name the baby. Mxolisi is twenty, but still in the equivalent of middle or early high school, both because of his own truancy and because of the abysmal school system. Mandisa and Mxolisi have a troubled relationship; she blames him for his own conception (he was unplanned), and, because she had never had penetrative sex before giving birth, she blames Mxolisi for essentially taking her virginity. Mandisa, however, tries to compensate for resenting her son by paying more attention to him, at the expense of her other children, Siziwe and Lunga, who accuse her of favoring their brother. Mxolisi began his life as a sweet child, but when he witnessed the police murder his friends, Zazi and Mzamo, he stopped speaking for several years. He eventually regained his speech, and Mandisa sent him to school, where beatings from teachers discouraged him from continuing to pursue his education. He dropped out without Mandisa's knowledge to work and help her support the family, but she convinced him to return. Eventually he became politically active, and joined the Young Lions, spending his days patrolling the neighborhood, sometimes fighting for his education, but often harassing members of his own community. Mxolisi becomes caught up in a mob that forms around the car of a white university girl when she drives in Guguletu—a place that is extremely unsafe for white people—and when the violence escalates, he stabs and kills The Girl. Mxolisi clearly feels guilt and regret for what he's done, which he confesses to Mandisa in their final conversation in the novel. Although not depicted, he likely turns himself in, and spends time (if not the rest of his life) in jail. - Character: Mama. Description: Mama, whose name is Kukwana, is married to Tata, and has two children, Mandisa and Khaya. Mama is a strict parent, calling in her children while other parents allowed their sons and daughters to continue to play, expecting them to do many chores around the house, and demanding academic excellence. Mandisa, however, has a relatively good relationship with Mama until she hits puberty, at which point Mama becomes obsessed with Mandisa's virginity, forcing her to undergo vaginal examinations to ensure she hasn't had sex. Though she balks at the invasive examinations, Mandisa takes Mama's warnings to heart and refuses to have penetrative sex with her boyfriend, China. Over time, though, Mandisa begins to refuse the examinations, and Mama banishes Mandisa to live with her grandmother (Mama's own mother), Makhulu, in Gungululu. Mama, a member of a local church, is concerned with her own social standing and the stigma Mandisa's pregnancy could bring upon the family. She cares about her own social capital more than her daughter's wellbeing, and so when Mandisa does finally become pregnant—despite not having penetrative sex—Mama is ashamed and embarrassed, and unable to bring herself to help her daughter. Once Mxolisi is born, however, Mama warms to him and begins to forgive Mandisa for having sex and getting pregnant out of wedlock, accepting her back into her life. - Character: China. Description: Mandisa's first boyfriend, and the father of Mxolisi. In his youth, China was a respectful teenage boy, a good student with a bright future, and never pressured Mandisa for sex, carefully listening to and acknowledging her boundaries. When Mandisa moves away to live with Makhulu in Gungululu, China writes her frequently, and presumably stays faithful. However, when he discovers Mandisa is pregnant, his entire demeanor changes. He scathingly accuses Mandisa of cheating on him—after all, the pair have never had penetrative sex—and believes that she's trying to trick him into taking responsibility as the father of the child. Although he and his family are eventually convinced to acknowledge Mxolisi as part of their bloodline, and China and Mandisa marry out of duty, China never forgives Mandisa or their son for ruining his future. He is forced to drop out of school to work and support the family, and, after two years of unhappy marriage, runs away, never to be heard from again. Mandisa feels similarly, and throughout her life she resents Mxolisi for getting in the way of her own plans for her life. - Character: The Girl. Description: The white girl whom Mxolisi stabs and murders when she drives into Guguletu—a place that is extremely dangerous for white people like herself. Mandisa believes that The Girl was driving through the town in order to drop of her black friends from college, who had warned her about the risks of going to Guguletu, which she had promptly brushed off. As soon as the Guguletu residents spot a white person in their town, though, they begin to chant, "One settler, one bullet," and a mob forms around The Girl's car, rocking it menacingly. The crowd swiftly turns violent, as they chant that Boers (white people in South Africa) are dogs—"AmaBhulu, azizinja!" When Mxolisi fatally stabs her, he is treated like a "king." Although a fictional character, The Girl based on Amy Elizabeth Biehl, an American Fulbright Scholar studying in South Africa, who was murdered by a group of young black South Africans. The story is occasionally told from The Girl's point of view in the third person, but these passages are always Mandisa mournfully imagining what The Girl's final moments were like. The Girl's internal life is not known, instead it is constructed by Mandisa. Mandisa creates a book-smart, kindhearted, dedicated friend, who nonetheless doesn't fully understand the racial dynamics of South Africa. - Character: Makhulu. Description: Mandisa's maternal grandmother and Mama's mother, who lives in Gungululu. When Mandisa stops submitting willingly to Mama's invasive "virginity checks," Mama banishes her to live with Makhulu, despite the fact that Mandisa has never even met the woman. Luckily, Makhulu is a kind caretaker, keeping Mandisa "sane" and "bodily alive," making sure to cook food she knows Mandisa likes, and making sure she feels love even if Mama abandoned her. Much less judgmental than Mama, when Makhulu discovers that Mandisa is pregnant, she accepts the truth: that this was an accident and Mandisa should not be blamed. Instead, Mandisa should be comforted, supported, and accepted by her family. - Character: Lunga. Description: Mandisa's second son, and her only son with Lungile, who eventually leaves her just like China did not long after she gave birth to Mxolisi. Lunga is small for his age, especially compared to his brother. Unlike Mxolisi he is not (yet) involved in student protests, and more regularly attends school. Both Lunga and his sister, Siziwe, accuse Mandisa of preferring their older brother, Mxolisi, to them. In actuality, Mandisa deeply resents Mxolisi for changing the course of her life, but she does shower him with extra attention to make up for her resentment. - Character: Siziwe. Description: Mandisa's youngest child and only daughter, and Dwadwa's only biological child. Both Lunga and Siziwe accuse Mandisa of preferring their older brother, Mxolisi, to them. This is partly true, as Mandisa objectively does give Mxolisi more attention than her other two children. However, this is because Mandisa deeply resents Mxolisi for ruining her life and blames him for his own surprise conception (Mandisa and her then-boyfriend China never had penetrative sex, but got pregnant anyway). Mandisa gives her eldest son more attention to make up for holding such a fierce grudge against him. - Character: Khaya. Description: Mandisa's brother, and Mama and Tata's son. Like Mandisa, Khaya is a smart, well-behaved child. He and Nono, Mandisa's close friend, begin dating when they are all teenagers, and Khaya eventually impregnates her. Unlike Mandisa, who Mama feels has brought shame to the family, Mama does not see Khaya as responsible for his girlfriend's pregnancy, illuminating a double standard in her treatment of her children based on gender. - Character: Dwadwa. Description: Mandisa's husband, and the father of her youngest child and only daughter, Siziwe. Dwadwa is a good man, who treats Mandisa's first two children, Mxolisi and Lunga, as his own (their fathers are China and Lungile, respectively). Still, Mandisa remains the primary parent of her three children, and is more involved in the internal and external lives of all of her children than Dwadwa is with his biological daughter and adopted sons. - Character: Tata. Description: Mandisa and Khaya's father and Mama's husband. Tata is a more hands-off parent than Mama, going to work during the day to support his family and interacting with his children mostly in the evenings. When Mandisa first becomes pregnant—despite not having penetrative sex with China—Tata refuses to even acknowledge her, but eventually comes to understand her surprise pregnancy is not her fault, and accepts both her and her new son, Mxolisi, back into the family. - Character: Nono. Description: Mandisa's childhood friend, and Khaya's girlfriend and eventual wife. Mandisa and Nono grow apart when Mandisa discovers that Nono has been secretly dating her brother, but the two reconcile over time. Nono becomes pregnant a few months before Mandisa discovers her own pregnancy, which causes Mama to become even more vigilant about monitoring Mandisa's virginity. - Character: Auntie Funiwe. Description: Mama's sister, Makhulu's daughter, and Mandisa's aunt. Auntie Funiwe comes to visit Mandisa in Gungululu and is the first to realize her niece is pregnant—Mandisa herself doesn't even realize it yet. Like Makhulu, Auntie Funiwe is empathetic and supportive of Mandisa, and urges Mama to treat her daughter with kindness and support. - Character: China's Father. Description: A man who cares more about his son, China, and grandson, Mxolisi, than he does about Mandisa, his daughter in law. China's father blames Mandisa for many of his and China's misfortunes, from her pregnancy to China's eventual disappearance after only two years of marriage. He and the rest of his family treat Mandisa as a servant. - Character: Tooksie's Mother. Description: China's aunt and his cousin Tooksie's mother. She is the owner of the house where Mandisa moves in with China and his family after their marriage. Tooksie's mother, like many of the other women in the household actively disrespects Mandisa, and it is Tooksie's mother that gives her a new name, "Nohehake," an insult, which is a "an exclamation of utter surprise" at an "unimaginable monstrosity." - Character: Zazi and Mzamo. Description: Two teenage boys who lived nearby Mandisa and Mxolisi when Mxolisi was a baby. One day some police officers became upset with them, and chased the boys into their home. Zazi and Mzamo hid in a wardrobe, and the police officers searched the house and prepared to leave. However, as they were almost out the door, Mxolisi, who was still a toddler, innocently pointed out Zazi and Mzamo's hiding spot. The police shot and killed the two boys on the spot. In response to witnessing their brutal death, Mxolisi stopped speaking for several years, presumably guilty and traumatized. - Character: Lungile. Description: The father of Mandisa's second son, Lunga. Lungile is Mandisa's lover for a period of years. Mandisa describes him as unattractive but talkative and attentive. He is sweet to her eldest son, Mxolisi, often spending one-on-one time with him. Lungile and Mandisa never officially marry, although they spend years together and have a child. Eventually, Lungile leaves to become a freedom fighter. - Theme: The Legacy of Colonialism and Apartheid. Description: Every part of the lives of the black South Africans at the center of the novel are influenced and informed by the legacy of white European colonialism and apartheid. Although decades of oppression and forced relocation affects every aspect of the black South Africans' lives, the murder at the center of the novel is specifically a result of racist policies and reflects the specific tensions and resentments of the murderer Mxolisi's generation. Mandisa, the narrator and Mxolisi's mother, argues that the conflict at the core of the book, a white woman's murder at Mxolisi's hands, is the logical conclusion of decades of tension and oppression, which lead both to simmering violent resentment on the part of young black South Africans as well as doomed white Western attempts at intervention and de-escalation. Although the murder comes less than a year before the official end of apartheid, the novel suggests that the legacy of three hundred years of colonial oppression remains inescapable and continues to shape every aspect of South African's future. Though a fictionalized account, Mother to Mother is based on a real crime: the murder of Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl in Guguletu, South Africa, in August 1993. By providing a detailed history of the real-life political climate that its fictional characters face, the novel argues that Mxolisi's violence is the logical outcome of centuries of racist oppression. Mandisa, in her letters to the Mother of the murdered Girl, explains, "Your daughter. The imperfect atonement of her race. My son. The perfect host of the demons of his." Mandisa believes that her son was driven by the hatred instilled in black South Africans because of centuries of mistreatment by white South Africans and colonizers. Mandisa also argues that Mxolisi, having seen the bleak future in store for him—a future seemingly guaranteed by the disenfranchisement of black South Africans under apartheid—turned to anger and protests. She explains that Mxolisi "was only an agent, executing the long-simmering dark desires of his race. Burning hatred for the oppressor possessed his being. [...] The resentment of three hundred years plugged his ears; deaf to her pitiful entreaties. My son, the blind but sharpened arrow of the wrath of his race. Your daughter, the sacrifice of hers. Blindly chosen. Flung towards her sad fate by fortune's cruelest slings." Both Mxolisi and the Girl, then, tragically become puppets of a larger, centuries-long conflict. Magona goes on to detail how the more specific political climate of much of Mxolisi's life lead to his radicalization. Black South Africans have become increasingly upset with the white government that quarantines them in segregated slums and then fails to provide them with adequate education or opportunity. Mandisa reports essentially non-stop, increasingly violent protests since the 1976 Soweto Youth Uprising, which have created growing animosity towards all white people. These protests are the result of centuries of colonial oppression as well as apartheid, which began in 1948 and created sometimes-unlivable conditions for black South Africans. Mandisa feels Mxolisi's radicalization was thus not entirely his fault, describing how, with respect to violence, "We had been cheering him on since the day he was born. Before he was born. Long before." Mandisa further describes how the youth were radicalized: "The Young Lions. From near and far, admiration fell on their already swollen heads […] Our children fast descended into barbarism." Again, this wasn't fully the fault of the children, who were deprived of adequate schooling and whose parents were largely absent, forced to work long hours for low wages. Mandisa does accept responsibility for praising the early stages of her own community's violence, which seemed a fair and logical response to the violence of apartheid. Mandisa explains how the younger generation "went and burnt down their schools" before they "graduated from that and from burning buildings. Unoccupied buildings. Public buildings. Now, they started stoning black people's cars. And burning black people's houses." So intense was their rage that it spilled over onto their own people. This points to the immense strain South Africa's colonialist and racist history placed on black communities, whose understandable anger quickly grew out of control. Mandisa also details how her own life has been heavily affected by apartheid and colonialist oppression, thus underscoring the deep roots of racism and how a lack of opportunity and resentment accumulated over generations. Born in the late 1950s, Mandisa grew up under intense government-sanctioned racial segregation. Racism robbed her of experiences that could have afforded her a better life, and, in turn, increased her resentment of her white oppressors. Whereas white communities were free to accumulate wealth and power that then led to a better start for their children, black communities didn't have the chance to build that foundation necessary to create a better life for future generations. Instead, they were stuck in a cycle of oppression and poverty, and this understandably led to resentment being passed down from generation to generation. In explaining how she was forcibly relocated to Guguletu, Mandisa calls the city an "accursed, God-forsaken place" occupied by "a violent scattering of black people, a dispersal of the government's making," so impactful that "more than three decades later, my people are still reeling from it." Mandisa's circumstances also mean she is unable to closely watch her children because she must work six days a week. This is the direct result, again, of limited opportunities for black Africans, uneven wealth distribution, and cyclical poverty that makes it impossible to earn enough money to enter the middle class. All of this contributes to Mandisa's absence as a mother, which prevented her from having greater oversight of her children. The world of Mother to Mother, and by extension, the world of all black South Africans in apartheid-era South Africa, is deeply affected by centuries of racist policies. White settlers—who became governors and eventually politicians, police, and military enforcers—regulate most aspects of black South African's lives, leaving them with little freedom and little opportunity, keeping them from education, quality housing, and opportunities for escape and advancement. The murder at the center of the novel is the result of centuries of simmering rage, in which Mxolisi, a kind of sacrifice of his generation, takes out the pain of the oppressed black South Africans on a white woman, who comes to represent all of white colonialism in the region. - Theme: Family, Tradition, and Obligation. Description: The members of the black South African families at the center of Mother to Mother rely on each other and their larger community for support and structure. In a country where many social support systems and government help have failed, black South Africans are left only with the strong, tight-knit communities and family units that have carried them through since before colonization. These groups, tied by proximity, blood, and tradition, offer a sense of comfort and safety in a hard world. However, as Mandisa discovers most poignantly when she joins her new husband's family, they also create distinct expectations and demands that can be incredibly burdensome. The novel ultimately argues that family and community, and the obligations that come with them, are both a blessing and a curse—at once a support system and a prison. Mandisa's life is a testament to the way that family units can be a source of productive discipline and firm guidance, as well as encouragement and support. As an adult, Mandisa loves and does all she can for her children. At the same time, she believes that as a mother it is her duty to give them rules to follow and keep them in line. She notes, "As I step out of the door minutes later, I hastily throw out a couple of reminders: what they're supposed to do for me that day around the house, what food they're not to touch. […] Not that I think this makes any difference to what will actually happen. But, as a mother, I'm supposed to have authority over my children, over the running of my house." To her, love and respect and authority are all tightly connected, and as a parent she is a figure who alternately offers comfort and discipline when necessary. Mandisa's own parents raised her this way: she recalls how her strict mother would bring her and her brother to church while other children had Sunday mornings free, and would rarely let the kids out to play, instead saddling them with errands and chores. Mandisa implies that even though her younger self felt stifled at times, living in accordance with such rigid rules gave her a structure and set of boundaries that she needed as a child. As she got older, Mandisa was motivated to continue with school because of her mother's pressure, and now similarly encourages her children to attend classes. Though Mandisa's childhood was far from perfect, she benefited from the firm structure and moral guidance that her mother provided her with, and went on to model that combination of support and constructive discipline for her own children. At the same time, the novel highlights how family relationships can require obligations that are too demanding, and how adherence to wider community traditions and expectations can actually burden or isolate individuals and push them away from their families and communities. For instance, when Mandisa becomes pregnant despite having carefully avoided penetrative sex, her mother and father (Mama and Tata) practically disown her and force her to marry China, the child's father, although she is no longer interested in him (and vice versa). Mandisa then suffers in her in-laws' home, as she is treated like a servant as she acclimates to the new household (a common cultural practice called ukuhota) and openly despised by her new husband; however, she feels she has no other choice but to press on and do what her new family and community expects of her. This leads to her own suffering, but also the suffering of China, who eventually leaves her, feeling stifled by his unwanted role as a father and husband. Mandisa's suffering and China's desperate flight reveal how familial and traditional expectations can pull people apart instead of draw them together. The novel also examines how family can be burdensome in the context of parents and children, noting that parents often logically feel responsible for their children. Although she is not directly responsible for the murder Mxolisi commits, Mandisa nonetheless feels she failed as a mother—a view the wider community also holds—and carries his sin with her. She says, "God, you know my heart. I am not saying my child shouldn't be punished for his sin. But I am a mother, with a mother's heart. The cup You have given me is too bitter to swallow. The shame. The hurt of the other mother." Mandisa prays for God to forgive her son, taking responsibility for his spiritual redemption, partially because she feels shame and hurt on his behalf, as well as an obligation to ease his own suffering. Although not directly tied to her son's crime, Mandisa, as his mother, feels bound up in her son's actions and choices. Finally, because so many expect others to honor family and community commitments, when those fall through, people are left even more destitute than before. When family is all a person has, the lack of support becomes even more noticeable. When Mandisa becomes pregnant, her mother is so disappointed in her she sends her away to live with her grandmother Makhulu. When Mandisa eventually returns, her father refuses to recognize her as his daughter, and his soon-to-be grandchild as a relative. This is incredibly hurtful to Mandisa, who, in a time of great uncertainty, needs the love of family more than anything. Furthermore, while Mandisa's family doesn't accept her, they expect China and his family to unflinchingly accept Mandisa as the mother of their child, and to take care of her. When China eventually runs away after only a couple years of marriage, Mandisa is left with no true support system and no clear future. Despite this abandonment, Mandisa ultimately goes on to create a family with her son, who brings her joy but is also her greatest sorrow. This supports the broader argument that family is an important source of comfort but also has the potential to cause great pain and suffering. - Theme: Language, Storytelling, and History. Description: Through songs, letters, chants, legends, and prayers, as well as uses of African languages like Xhosa, the characters in Mother to Mother are able to express more than they could through straight prose or monologues. In each of these instances, language serves a deeper purpose as it brings people together and reminds them of their shared experiences. For instance, Mandisa's grandfather, Tatomkhulu, tells her the story of a prophetess named Nongqawuse, who told her people that if they killed their cattle and burned their fields, a purificatory storm would come and sweep away all of the white settlers who were stealing their land. The people promptly destroyed their fields and cattle, but the storm never came. Through this story, Mandisa's grandfather roots their current struggles in a larger, centuries-long one, and also reminds Mandisa that she is part of a wider community that extends back for generations. The novel ultimately presents language—in all its different forms—as a means for connecting people and evoking a common past. The "letters" from Mandisa to the Mother of the murdered Girl, which are denoted by italics, reveal how language can connect people around a shared experience, even across cultural or social barriers. In fact, the whole novel is an address from one mother to another, a format that allows Mandisa, the first mother, an opportunity to reveal her own guilt and remorse around her son Mxolisi's crime, and allows the reader an opportunity to imagine the thoughts and feelings of the Mother of the murdered Girl, otherwise unrepresented in the novel. By framing her monologue as a conversation or an address, Mandisa is able to consider the tragedy from both sides, ultimately realizing that both women are likely dealing with similar feelings of grief, pain, and loss. Mandisa writes to the other mother, "you whose heart is torn, know this: I have not slept since. Food turns to sawdust in my mouth. All joy has fled my house and my heart bleeds, it sorrows for you, for the pain into which you have been plunged. It is heavy and knows no rest." Through written language, the letter to the Mother, Mandisa is able to express the idea that both women—despite their different nationalities, races, and lives—are bound by the shared experience of grief and sorrow. The novel is also filled with songs and chants, which are often politically charged and passed down from generation to generation. By using them, the novel's characters are able to draw upon the experiences of their ancestors and assert their common history as targets of oppression. Mxolisi and other young adults have taken many chants from their parent's generation and turned them into their own. One of those chants is "AmaBhulu, azizinja!" which means "boers, they are dogs!" or "whites are dogs!" Mandisa explains that children learned this battle cry from their parents: "our children grew up in our homes, where we called white people dogs as a matter of idiom […] heart-felt idiom, I can tell you. Based on bitter experience." What was once an opportunity to vent about private frustrations became a cry for a greater frustration of black South Africans. Another chant, "One settler, one bullet!" similarly refers to the violent rejection of white South Africans, who originally came to South Africa as settlers. This is the chant the crowd yells as Mxolisi murders the white woman, an act that is brought about not just by coincidence—this woman ending up in Guguletu during a turbulent political time—but by decades of black resentment. Mandisa's grandfather tells her stories of black South African history, which end up teaching her lessons and showing her patterns in her life and the lives of other black South Africans. The story of Nongqawuse especially allows Mandisa to contextualize the events of her and Mxolisi's lifetimes. Tatomkhulu corrects stories she's been taught in school, giving her the true history of Nongqawuse, a Xhosa prophetess. Nongqawuse told her community that if they burned their fields and killed their cattle, the white settlers would leave. Tatomkhulu explains that "[d]eep run the roots of hatred here / So deep, a cattle-worshipping nation killed all its precious herds […] burned fertile fields, fully sowed, bearing rich promise too," justifying that "[n]o sacrifice too great, to wash away the curse." He ties it to the present, explaining "that deep, deep, deep, ran the hatred then. In the nearly two centuries since, the hatred has but multiplied," into the intense racial tensions of apartheid South Africa. As an adult, Mandisa compares Mxolisi's murder of the white woman to the Xhosa slaughter of its cattle. Like his ancestors, Mxolisi was acting out "the unconscious collective wish of the nation: rid ourselves of the scourge." The woman's death, therefore, using Mandisa's words, was "the eruption of a slow, simmering, seething rage. Bitterness burst and spilled her tender blood on the green autumn grass of a far-away land. Irredeemable blood. Irretrievable loss." Mandisa recognizes that, like the slaughter of cattle over a century before, Mxolisi's murder will be similarly ineffective in stopping violence, and will only create more pain. Though the story of Nongqawuse doesn't justify or excuse Mxolisi's murder of the Girl, it does allow Mandisa to better understand how such a tragedy happened so close to home, tying together the past and the present. By drawing on the story her grandfather told her, Mandisa is able to see her present circumstances against the bloodstained backdrop of centuries-long persecution that her people have endured. Thus, legends such as this one, as well as chants, songs, and the invented "you" of the Mother of the Girl all work together to connect the novel's characters to one another and to shared experiences or common histories. - Climax: Mxolisi stabs The Girl. - Summary: Mother to Mother weaves back and forth in time, covering the narrator, Mandisa's life from her early childhood, through the birth of her children, through her son, Mxolisi's murder of the Girl, a white American driving through their township of Guguletu. This is interspersed with The Girl, Mandisa, and Mxolisi's experiences on the day of the murder, and the morning after. The novel also includes interludes in which Mandisa addresses the Mother of the Girl, asking rhetorical questions about the Girl's life and upbringing, expressing her grief for the Girl's death, and attempting to explain—but not justify—Mxolisi's actions. Chronologically, the novel begins with Mandisa's childhood. She and her brother, Khaya, were raised in Blouvlei, but were forced to relocate to Guguletu by the South African government. This derailed the educations of many students, although Mandisa and Khaya were able to remain in school for a while, at least until Khaya impregnated his girlfriend, Nono, and Mandisa became accidentally pregnant through non-penetrative sex with her boyfriend, China. Mama, Mandisa's mother, is furious with her daughter, feeling that her pregnancy will embarrass the whole family, but eventually comes to love Mandisa and her newborn son. Mandisa's parents force her to marry China, who is no longer interested in her romantically, and the two lived together unhappily for two years, until one day China runs away and disappears forever. Mandisa then moves into a hokkie of her own and does her best to raise Mxolisi, eventually having another child, Lunga, with a man named Lungile, and finally marrying a man, Dwadwa, with whom she has her youngest child and only daughter, Siziwe. Mandisa recounts Mxolisi's childhood. A talkative precocious boy, he stops talking for several years after witnessing the death of two older boys, Zazi and Mzamo. He regains his speech, but during his silence Mandisa realizes the resentment she feels for him, for interrupting her life with an unplanned pregnancy, and dramatically changing the course of her future. As Mxolisi gets older he becomes involved in youth political movements, like the Young Lions. Increasingly radicalized and violent, this group burns cars, buildings, and even kills black South Africans around their township. On the day of the tragedy, the Girl is driving some of her black South African friends home from their university, when Mxolisi and others spot her in her car. A group of men converge, chasing her from the car, but Mxolisi is the man to stab and kill her. Mandisa discovers this later, spending the first night after the murder anxiously wondering if her son, who has not returned home, was somehow involved. A late night police raid of Mandisa's house furthers her suspicions. In the morning, Reverend Mananga stops by and gives Mandisa vague instructions for how to see her son. She follows them and is briefly reunited with Mxolisi, whom she comforts and who comforts her, before he (presumably though not explicitly) turns himself in to the police.

- Genre: Modernist Fiction - Title: Mrs Dalloway - Point of view: Third person omniscient, free indirect discourse - Setting: London, England - Character: Clarissa Dalloway. Description: The novel's eponymous protagonist, a middle-aged, upper-class lady throwing a party. Clarissa is married to the conservative politician Richard Dalloway but is deeply affected by her past love for Sally Seton and her rejection of Peter Walsh, and she often dwells on the past. Clarissa is sociable and loves life, especially the small moments and sensations of the everyday. At the same time she is constantly aware of death and feels that there is a great danger in living even one day. Clarissa considers the privacy of the soul the heart of life, but she also loves communicating with others and throwing parties, bringing people together, which she considers to be her great gift. Though she is intelligent and was once radical, she has grown conventional in middle age, and others sometimes think her frivolous. - Character: Septimus Warren Smith. Description: A World War I veteran in his thirties, Septimus suffers from shell shock, or PTSD. He was once an aspiring poet, but after enlisting in the war for idealistic reasons and the death of his close friend and officer Evans, Septimus became unable to feel emotion. He married Lucrezia while stationed in Milan. Septimus feels condemned by human nature and is often suicidal and thinks that he has been condemned by the world to die for his failure to feel. In his more intense hallucinations he imagines himself surrounded by flames, or as a prophet with a divine message. Though the two characters never meet, Clarissa and Septimus act as doubles in the novel. - Character: Peter Walsh. Description: Clarissa's closest friend who was once passionately in love with her. They are intellectually very similar, but always critical of each other. Clarissa rejected Peter's proposal of marriage, which has haunted him all his life. He lived in India for years and often has romantic problems with women. Peter is critical of everyone, indulges in long fantasies and musings, and constantly plays with his pocketknife. - Theme: Privacy, Loneliness, and Communication. Description: Throughout Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf gives us glimpses into the minds of her characters while at the same time showing their outward communication with other people. This framework leads to a complex series of relations, and her characters deal with the privacy, loneliness, and communication of these relationships in different ways. Peter Walsh is notably introverted, and gets swept up in his personal fantasies. Even Clarissa, who loves parties, deeply experiences her own incommunicable thoughts and the independence of her existence. She enjoys mingling with other people, but thinks that the true heart of life lies in the fact that the old woman across the way has her own room, and Clarissa has hers.The inherent privacy of the soul is not always positive, though, and it often appears as loneliness. Septimus is the greatest example of this. No one understands his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and inner turmoil. Woolf shows the loneliness of the soul in nearly every interaction between characters, as she contrasts people's rich inner dialogues with their often mundane, failed attempts at communication with each other. Richard tries to say "I love you" to Clarissa, but is unable to do so and gives her flowers instead. Clarissa even sees Septimus's suicide as an act of communication, but by its very nature Septimus can receive no response from the world. The important reunion pointed to by the entire book – the meeting between Clarissa, Peter, and Sally – only takes place beyond the page, just after the novel ends. With all this privacy, loneliness, and failed communication Woolf shows how difficult it is to make meaningful connections in the modern world. Something as seemingly-frivolous as Clarissa's party then takes on a deeper, more important meaning, as it as an effort by Clarissa to try to draw people together. - Theme: Social Criticism. Description: Though Mrs. Dalloway's action concerns only one day and mostly follows a lady throwing a party, Woolf manages to thread her novel with criticism of English society and post-War conservatism. In Woolf's time the British Empire was the strongest in the world, with colonies all across the globe (including Canada, India, and Australia), but after World War I England's power began to crumble. England was technically victorious in the War, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers died and the country suffered huge financial losses. Mrs. Dalloway then shows how the English upper class tried to cling to old, outmoded traditions and pretend that nothing had changed. This is tragically exhibited through Septimus, as society ignores his PTSD. Septimus fought for his country, but now the country is trying to pretend that the horrors of war left no lasting traces on its soldiers.The empty tradition and conservatism of the aristocracy is also shown in the characters of Lady Bruton, Aunt Helena, and Hugh Whitbread, who have traditional values and manners but are hopelessly removed from modern life. Richard works for the Conservative Party, which is portrayed as outdated, stuffy, and soon to be replaced by the Labor Party. All the characters are still preoccupied with social class, as when Clarissa snobbily avoids inviting her poor cousin Elsie to her party. Even the poor Doris Kilman is endlessly bitter towards Clarissa for her wealth and charm. The futility of classism and outdated conservatism then culminates in the figure of the Prime Minister. He is first mentioned as Peter's critique of Clarissa (that she will marry a prime minister and so become a useless appendage to a role rather than the partner to a man) and then his "greatness" is discussed by people in the street, but when the Prime Minister actually appears in person he is ordinary and almost laughable. The Prime Minister belongs to the old order of Empire, repression, and classism, which Woolf shows must be discarded so that England can survive in the modern era. - Theme: Time. Description: Mrs. Dalloway takes place over the course of one day, and in its very framework Woolf emphasizes the passage of time. There are no real chapter breaks, and the most notable divider of the narrative is the chiming of Big Ben as the day progresses. All the novel's action is so compressed (and usually composed of thoughts and memories) that a few minutes can fill many pages. The chiming of Big Ben is a reminder of the inevitable march of time, and fits with Clarissa's fear of death and the danger of living even one day.The circular presence of the past is also deeply intertwined with the forward ticking of the clock. Clarissa, Peter, Richard, and Sally interact very little in the present, but Clarissa and Peter relive in great depth their youth at Bourton, so their past relations add weight and complexity to their present interactions. Septimus is even more ruthlessly pursued by the past, as he actually sees visions of Evans, his dead soldier friend. One of Woolf's original titles for the book was "The Hours," so she clearly finds the idea of time important, and by simultaneously emphasizing the chiming of the hours and the ubiquity of past memories, she ends up showing the fluidity of time, which can be both linear and circular at once. - Theme: Psychology and Perception. Description: The novel mostly consists of inner dialogue and stream of consciousness (a modernist technique that Woolf helped pioneer), so the inner workings of the characters' minds are very important to the work. Woolf herself suffered from mental illness (and ultimately committed suicide), and certain aspects of her own psychological struggles appear in the book, particularly through Septimus. Woolf had a distrust of doctors regarding psychology, which she shows clearly in Dr. Holms and Sir William Bradshaw. Septimus is a tragic example of just how much harm doctors can do when they prefer conversion to understanding, refusing to truly examine another's mental state. In Septimus Woolf shows the inner workings of PTSD and mental illness, but in her other characters she also gives a brilliant, sensitive treatment of how the mind understands external sensations and time. Long, poetic passages capture the perception of images, sounds, memories, and stream of consciousness all at once. The science of psychology was still young in Woolf's time, but in her intricate, penetrating character development she shows her own knowledge of the brain, creating personalities that exhibit the inner workings of all kinds of minds. - Theme: Death. Description: Though much of the novel's action consists of preparations for a seemingly frivolous party, death is a constant undercurrent to the characters' thoughts and actions. The obvious example of this is Septimus, who suffers from mental illness and ends up killing himself. In his inner dialogue Septimus sees himself as a godlike figure who has gone from "life to death," and his situation as a former soldier shows how the death and violence of World War I have corrupted his mind. Peter Walsh fears growing old and dying, and so tries to pretend he is young and invincible by living in fantasies and pursuing younger women. Clarissa is also preoccupied with death even as she goes about the business of enjoying life, making small talk, and throwing parties. From the start she feels the danger of living even one day, and repeatedly quotes from Shakespeare's play Cymbeline, a passage about the comfort of death: "Fear no more the heat o' the sun / Nor the furious winter's rages." In the parallel characters of Septimus and Clarissa, Woolf shows two ways of dealing with the terror of living one day – Clarissa affirms life by throwing a party, while Septimus offers his suicide as an act of defiance and communication. These two characters never meet, but when Clarissa hears about Septimus's suicide she feels that she understands him. - Climax: Clarissa learns of Septimus's suicide - Summary: All the action of Mrs. Dalloway takes place in London during one day and night in mid-June, 1923. Clarissa Dalloway is an upper-class housewife married to Richard, a politician in the Conservative Party. Clarissa is throwing a party that night, and in the morning she walks about London on her way to get flowers. She enjoys the small sensations of daily life and often muses on her late teenage years at Bourton, her family's country home. She passes a car bearing an unknown but important personage, and an airplane sky writing an advertisement. Clarissa returns home and is visited by Peter Walsh, an old friend from Bourton who has been in India for years. Peter was once passionately in love with Clarissa, but she rejected his offer of marriage. Peter and Clarissa have always been very close but also very critical of each other, and their brief meeting is laden with shared memories. Peter leaves when Clarissa's daughter Elizabeth enters, and he walks to Regent's Park, thinking about Clarissa's refusal of his marriage offer. He follows a young woman, idealizing her from afar. The point of view shifts to Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World War I who is suffering from shell shock. Septimus and his Italian wife, Lucrezia, wait in Regent's Park. Septimus imagines that he is a kind of prophet and has hallucinations of his dead soldier friend Evans. Septimus was once an aspiring poet, but after the war he became numb and unable to feel. He believes his lack of emotion is a crime for which the world has condemned him to death, and he is often suicidal. Lucrezia has been taking Septimus to Dr. Holmes, who is convinced that Septimus has nothing wrong with him and is "in a funk." That afternoon the Smiths visit Sir William Bradshaw, a famous doctor who subscribes to a worldview of "proportion" and is a psychological bully to his patients. Sir William plans to send Septimus to a mental institution in the country. Richard Dalloway has lunch with Lady Bruton, a descendant of famous generals, and Hugh Whitbread, a shallow but charming aristocrat. The men help Lady Burton write a letter about emigration. After lunch Richard gets roses for Clarissa and plans to tell her he loves her, but when he sees her finds he cannot say it out loud. Clarissa considers the privacy of the soul and the gulf that exists between even a husband and a wife. Richard leaves and Elizabeth emerges with Doris Kilman, her history tutor. Doris Kilman is poor, unattractive, and bitter, and has been trying to convert Elizabeth to Christianity. Miss Kilman and Clarissa hate each other and are jealous of the other's influence on Elizabeth. Miss Kilman and Elizabeth go shopping and then Elizabeth leaves, leaving Miss Kilman to wallow in hatred and self-pity. Septimus grows suddenly lucid while Lucrezia is making a hat. The couple designs the hat and jokes together, sharing a moment of happiness. Then Dr. Holmes arrives to visit Septimus. Lucrezia tries to stop him, but Holmes pushes past her. Septimus thinks of Holmes as a monster condemning him to death, and Septimus jumps out the window, killing himself as an act of defiance. Peter hears the ambulance go by and marvels at it as a symbol of English civilization. He lingers at his hotel and then goes to Clarissa's party, where most of the novel's upper-class characters eventually assemble. Clarissa acts as a "perfect hostess" but is worried the party will fail, and she is aware of Peter's silent criticism. Sally Seton, a woman Clarissa had loved passionately as a teen at Bourton, arrives unexpectedly. The once-radical Sally has married a rich man and settled down. The Prime Minister visits briefly but his appearance is anticlimactic. Sir William Bradshaw arrives late, and his wife tells Clarissa about Septimus's suicide. Clarissa goes off alone to consider the sudden arrival of death at her party, and she feels a kinship with Septimus. She admires the purity of his soul and considers her own often shallow existence. She sees Septimus's suicide as an act of communication. Peter and Sally reminisce, waiting for Clarissa to join them. Clarissa finally appears and Peter is filled with ecstasy and terror.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Mrs. Packletide’s Tiger - Point of view: Third person - Setting: A village in India, and London, England - Character: Mrs. Packletide. Description: Mrs. Packletide, the protagonist of "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger," is a frivolous and petty high-society Edwardian woman. Her behavior is primarily driven by her competitive relationship with fellow London socialite Loona Bimberton. Mrs. Packletide is determined to one-up Bimberton's exploits in flying with an Algerian aviator by undertaking an even more attention-grabbing exotic adventure. She travels to India with her paid companion, Louisa Mebbin, in order to bring back a tiger-skin. In an extraordinary feat, Mrs. Packletide misses her shot when targeting an elderly tiger at close range, but the pitiful creature is literally frightened to death at the rifle's loud discharge. Mrs. Packletide happily pretends she has succeeded in acquiring her trophy; but back in London, her parading of the tiger-skin at every opportunity is suddenly derailed when Louisa Mebbin threatens to tell their peers the truth of the hunt. The pretentious Mrs. Packletide receives her comeuppance in having to buy Miss Mebbin an expensive weekend cottage in return for Mebbin's continued silence. - Character: Louisa Mebbin. Description: Louisa Mebbin accompanies Mrs. Packletide to India as her long-time paid companion. Unlike the foolish socialites Mrs. Packletide and Loona Bimberton, Mebbin is a rational and thrifty character whose middle-class background has taught her to save money in all areas of life. She is constantly trying to halt Mrs. Packletide's frivolous spending, especially if she can personally recover some of the savings for her own pocket. Louisa Mebbin becomes an antagonist in "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger" when she blackmails Mrs. Packletide into buying her a weekend cottage near Dorking by threatening to reveal the truth of their failed tiger hunt in India. - Character: Loona Bimberton. Description: Loona Bimberton is an attention-seeking London socialite whose sole purpose in the story is to act as a foil to Mrs. Packletide's jealous behaviors. After undertaking flight with an Algerian aviator, Bimberton is supremely jealous when Mrs. Packletide steals her limelight by supposedly shooting a tiger in India. Bimberton politely writes an insincere thank you note after receiving Mrs. Packletide's obnoxious gift of a tiger-claw brooch. However, Bimberton cannot bring herself to also attend the lunch party where Mrs. Packletide proudly displays the tiger-skin—her jealous personality cannot endure witnessing Mrs. Packletide's social coup. - Character: Clovis. Description: Clovis is a peer in Mrs. Packletide's London social circle who encourages her exotic desires and attention-seeking behaviors. Although a minor character in "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger," Clovis is the titular character who stars in many of the short stories in Saki's third collection, The Chronicles of Clovis (1911). Clovis' witty and biting character is very similar to that of Reginald, another young man-about-town who features in Saki's previous two short story collections. - Character: The Villagers. Description: The inhabitants of the local Indian village where Mrs. Packletide pays to shoot a harmless tiger. During the villagers' enthusiastic pursuit of earning a thousand rupees from Mrs. Packletide for the privilege of shooting a tiger, the village children are stationed around the village outskirts to keep the tiger within its boundaries, while village mothers stop singing lullabies to their babies as they approach their homes after daily work to ensure that they don't upset the elderly tiger's sleeping routine. - Theme: Edwardian Upper-Class Pretension. Description: In his short story "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger," Saki explores Edwardian upper-class vanity through the titular British socialite's desire to hunt a tiger in India. Mrs. Packletide is a frivolous woman who is obsessed with her social aspirations. In particular, she must outdo the exotic adventures of fellow London socialite Loona Bimberton. Saki ridicules both women, but particularly Mrs. Packletide, to scorn the attitudes of upper-class Edwardian settlers and travelers at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1911, when Saki wrote the story, the British Raj had formally ruled the Indian subcontinent for more than fifty years. In this context, British colonial exploitation provides an important backdrop to "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger," in which the sparsity of Indian local life starkly contrasts the Edwardian socialites' frivolous behaviors. This contrast further calls readers' attention to Saki's critique of the vanity and shallowness of Edwardian upper-class pretension. Readers can immediately identify the story's principal characters as foolish British high-society women. Mrs. Packletide is consumed by a desire to show off her tiger-skin at her home in London's prestigious Curzon Street, particularly reveling in boasting her exotic trophy in the face of rival socialite Loona Bimberton. Bimberton is equally obsessed with one-upping her peers and cannot face the prospect of attending Mrs. Packletide's lunch if she is not the center of admiring attention. Each of these women's names also appear silly to readers—particularly Loona Bimberton, with its embedded echoes of "loony" and "bimbo," alongside the sounds of "cackle" and "jackal" associated with Mrs. Packletide's name. From the story's outset, then, readers can picture the women as foolish, crazy, and unscrupulous characters. Saki further highlights upper-class pretensions through Mrs. Packletide's hypocritical desire to kill a tiger without any of the risk or effort of big-game hunting—instead, Mrs. Packletide waits for an elderly and almost-tame tiger to be lured within easy shot from the comfortable tree platform that villagers have specifically built for her. She pays an extravagant amount of money for this opportunity, and keeps her paid companion, Louisa Mebbin, and a deck of playing cards on hand to entertain her while she waits for her quarry. These situational factors are so far removed from the realities of an actual big-game hunt as to be ridiculous, especially when Mrs. Packletide accidentally shoots the tiger's bait, a tethered goat, instead of the tiger. The elderly tiger dies of a suspected heart attack at the loud gunshot, but the villagers are happy to pretend that Mrs. Packletide successfully shot the great cat in exchange for their payment. As soon as she is certain she can claim the tiger's death, Mrs. Packletide is vainly and excessively swept away by the imagined social prestige that will result from the false hunt: "And their [the villagers] triumph and rejoicing found a ready echo in the heart of Mrs. Packletide; already that luncheon party in Curzon Street seemed immeasurably nearer." Saki makes it clear that Mrs. Packletide cares far more about admiration from her London peers than the hunt itself. Saki uses a backdrop of British colonialism to heighten his ridicule of Mrs. Packletide when she travels to India to exploit the nation's exotic culture and wildlife. It is Mrs. Packletide's "pleasure and intention" to kill a tiger, and she is happy to exploit Indian peoples and wildlife in her pursuit. Her attitudes reflect those of British colonists, who imposed European authority and culture on numerous nations, including India, for British gains. In the case of Mrs. Packletide, she controls wild animals using weapons and indigenous peoples using money. The absurd conditions of her hunt amplify her unethical behavior—she pays an exorbitant fee to an Indian village for rights to kill an almost-tame tiger, and then fails to accurately shoot the tiger despite its aged movements and close proximity to the comfortable platform she waits in. It is only Mrs. Packletide's elite classist advantages, specifically her wealth, that maintain her illusion of big-game hunter. Saki's ridicule of Edwardian socialites also demonstrates the British colonial obsession with the exotic. Beyond Mrs. Packletide's desire to travel to India and kill a tiger for the resulting social prestige, readers learn that London socialites crave the exotic thrill of flying with Algerian aviators and attending fancy-dress balls as Roman goddesses. They demonstrate a desire to manipulate rather than understand other cultures. Saki's implicit critique of British colonialism, then, further points to Edwardian upper-class shallowness and vanity. Saki skewers Edwardian upper-class pretension using sharp satire and anti-colonial rhetoric. He criticizes Mrs. Packletide's foolish behaviors and opulent spending habits, and further highlights her frivolities as maintaining British colonial traditions by exploiting Indian peoples and wildlife. Mrs. Packletide's humorous caricature demonstrates the Edwardian upper-class's total disregard of concern for fellow society—vanity and selfishness prevent such influential citizens from making positive social change. Indeed, Saki's mocking portrayal of British elitism is the reason that readers applaud Mrs. Packletide's comeuppance at the story's conclusion. - Theme: Female Jealousy. Description: The three main characters of Saki's satiric short story "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger" all happen to be women. Mrs. Packletide, her paid companion Louisa Mebbin, and her rival Loona Bimberton cross paths in their hometown of London, after Mrs. Packletide has taken it upon herself to travel to India with Miss Mebbin in order to kill a tiger. Mrs. Packletide is trying to outdo Loona Bimberton's social popularity after the latter flew eleven miles in an airplane with an Algerian aviator. Notably, by 1911, when Saki wrote the story, social changes had popularized female defiance against a male-dominated Edwardian society. Mrs. Packletide, Loona Bimberton, and Louisa Mebbin similarly threaten conventional ideas about gender as they take on traditionally masculine roles and characteristics. However, Saki undermines this female strength through the women's fiercely jealous behaviors that are evidenced as they wrestle to gain social power over one another. Saki's short story therefore foregrounds female competition and jealousy as the predominant drivers of Edwardian upper-class society. The story's three principal characters are women who claim some of the roles and traits traditionally associated with men. Mrs. Packletide inhabits a male world of hunting and colonial exploitation, for she pays Indian villagers to allow her the privilege of shooting an almost-tame elderly tiger that resides nearby. Loona Bimberton is similarly a woman occupying traditionally masculine roles, undertaking flight in a newly-invented airplane. Interestingly, Saki fails to mention to husbands and sons in the story—suggesting these women do not conform to traditional female roles as wives and mothers. Additionally, the women exhibit traditionally masculine behaviors and traits. Mrs. Packletide collects trophies—the tiger-skin, magazine photos, and bragging rights are all prizes of sorts. Loona Bimberton's escapade flying in an ultra-modern airplane paints her as a dashing and bold character. Furthermore, Louisa Mebbin demonstrates the traditionally masculine tendencies of a cunning and economically-savvy mind. Readers can view all three characters as defying early twentieth-century gender norms through their intrusions into stereotypically male spheres. However, Saki undermines the positive feminism associated with these gender-defying women by simultaneously portraying all three characters as frivolous, selfish, and unethical individuals. Rather than displaying a social conscience, Mrs. Packletide obsesses over superficial societal success that results from peer and media attention. She is a jealous and elitist Edwardian socialite who values image more than reality. She is neither intelligent nor career-minded; instead she is obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses next door. Loona Bimberton is that Jones next door, a double to Mrs. Packletide in her foolish pursuit of elite social standing. Saki contradicts her bravery in undertaking a remarkable airplane flight with her with jealous responses to Mrs. Packletide's exploits in India. Bimberton is also an underdeveloped and superficial character, generating readers' disrespect. Louisa Mebbin is a shrewder character than her counterparts. Readers might believe that Mebbin doesn't play the game of competitive elitism, until the story's conclusion, where Saki reveals Mebbin has in fact played this game most successfully by making the greatest monetary and social gain of all characters. Mebbin is therefore an intelligent and level-headed woman, but Saki still discredits her due to her dishonorably blackmailing Mrs. Packletide to acquire money. Saki litters his story with oxymorons that echo the contradiction of each female character's behaviors—"deviation towards," "elaborate carelessness," "venerable herd-robber," "beast of prey," "immeasurably nearer," "limits beyond which" and "disagreeably pleasant" are all such examples. These oxymorons textually reflect the absurd thematic contradictions of the three female characters' gender reform played against their unprincipled values. Despite displaying some positive feminist characteristics, the three principal female characters in "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger" reveal core traits of vanity and selfishness that destroy any audience goodwill. Saki thereby satirizes female behavior, specifically mocking upper-class Edwardian women who participated in Britain's colonial hold over India. The story's lack of male characters serves to remove men from ridicule, foregrounding only these selfish, competitive women. By discrediting Mrs. Packletide, Loona Bimberton and Louisa Mebbin as jealous and immoral, Saki perhaps goes beyond satire to suggest that Edwardian upper-class women are dangerous and undesirable social menaces. - Theme: Animals vs. Humans. Description: The traditional relationship between animals and humans is flipped in Saki's short story "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger," where he describes the animals as tame and the humans as wild characters. Mostly set in colonial India, the narrative is centered on Mrs. Packletide's undertaking to kill the titular tiger in order to outdo fellow socialite Loona Bimberton. Bimberton has recently completed a daring and exotic trip by airplane with an Algerian aviator, but Mrs. Packletide is quite certain her triumph in personally securing a tiger-skin will become the talk of town. Through his characterization of tame animals and unkind, even beastly, humans, Saki observes that British colonists and their beneficiaries were more dangerous than the predators they hunted. Saki describes the animals in Mrs. Packletide's Tiger as tame in order to undermine Mrs. Packletide's illusion of her exotic big-game hunting. Tigers are often described as fearsome and majestic beasts in literature, but here the tiger is weak and pitiful. Saki explicitly details the titular tiger as an elderly, partially deaf, and perhaps unwell creature that requires plenty of sleep. Instead of hunting wild game, the tiger eats domestic animals such as goats that it can easily find in the village. The tiger is almost domesticated itself, as the village children confine it inside the village boundaries. When it sees a goat tethered as bait, the tiger lies down—not to cleverly disguise its approach, but because it is tired. These narrative details paint the tiger as feeble and tame rather than wild and exotic. The tiger's tamed character is also signaled by the story's title, which foreshadows Mrs. Packletide's transaction of one thousand rupees for her ownership of tiger killing rights. Saki further details two other compliant animals that have died at human instruction—the pitiful, persistently bleating goat that Mrs. Packletide accidentally shoots instead of the tiger, and a "miserable rabbit" that British socialite Clovis imagines killing and wearing to a fancy-dress party. Together, all of these details underscore human cruelty—or at least indifference—toward the natural world. In contrast to the animals, Saki characterizes the principal human characters in this story—British socialites Mrs. Packletide and Loona Bimberton and paid companion Louisa Mebbin—as disagreeable, selfish, and sometimes cruel individuals who are more beastly in behavior than the animals they seek to dominate. Saki likens Mrs. Packletide to a predator in numerous ways. Unlike the almost-tame tiger who tiredly lies down when it sees prey, Mrs. Packletide is a hunter described in active terms as she "crouched" and "awaited the coming of the quarry [the tiger]." Saki furthermore compares her to Nimrod, a biblical figure known for his skill as a hunter, and Diana, the classical Roman goddess of the hunt. Finally, a base or "animal" emotion wholly governs Mrs. Packletide's behaviors: her jealousy of Loona Bimberton. Saki positions Loona Bimberton as a mirror image to Mrs. Packletide, as she is a similarly uncivilized character governed by animalistic selfishness and frivolity. She goes to great lengths to partake in exotic adventures—including a flight with an Algerian pilot—in order to ascend in social standing. Louisa Mebbin is the most animalistic of the women. Although a rational character, she is cruel in her conquest over Mrs. Packletide when she blackmails her into buying Mebbin a weekend cottage. Mebbin achieves this by ruthlessly threatening to reveal the truth of Mrs. Packletide's false killing to London's upper circles. The fact that Mebbin plants "tiger-lilies" at her new cottage and names it "Les Fauves," translated as "The Wild Beasts" or "The Big Cats," is a reminder of her triumph and an enduring statement of control over Mrs. Packletide. Louisa Mebbin therefore wounds other characters to a far greater extent than the feeble tiger. In "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger," Saki flips the civilization versus savagery trope on its head when considering humans and animals. Audiences can easily recognize who is more dangerous—not the tiger as a traditionally lethal predator, but the human beings, specifically female socialites who exploit exotic environments for their own selfish ambitions. - Climax: Louisa Mebbin blackmails Mrs. Packletide by threatening to tell their peers the truth of their recent hunting excursion in India. - Summary: Mrs. Packletide longs to shoot a tiger in India. Her exotic fancy arises from her desperate need to best Loona Bimberton's recent flight with an Algerian aviator, and "only a personally procured tiger-skin and a heavy harvest of press photographs could successfully counter that sort of thing." Mrs. Packletide already dreams of the admiration she will gain from her London peers when she returns home with such a tale and trophy—even better is the personal satisfaction that stealing the limelight from her ultimate rival Bimberton will bring. In fact, Mrs. Packletide plans to brazenly rub her feat in her rival's face by throwing a lunch party in Bimberton's honor with the tiger-skin in pride of display, followed by the act of gifting Bimberton a tiger-claw brooch. Mrs. Packletide offers a thousand rupees for the rights to shoot a tiger in India "without overmuch risk or exertion." Luckily, a village has just the opportunity, offering a hunting experience in which Mrs. Packletide can shoot an elderly, almost-tame tiger from the comfort of the village outskirts. The villagers work hard to ensure the tiger is kept within the village boundaries until Mrs. Packletide arrives for the big shoot. The tiger is so feeble, and likely unwell, that the villagers are relieved the animal stays alive until Mrs. Packletide's arrival. Louisa Mebbin, Mrs. Packletide's long-time paid companion, accompanies her for the hunt and comments loudly to the village headman about the outrageous expense Mrs. Packletide is paying for the unimpressive big-game experience. The two wait for the tiger to approach a bleating goat that is tied up as bait, both relaxing in the comfort of a tree platform. When the tiger appears and notices the goat, it lies down in fatigue before slowly ambling towards its victim. Miss Mebbin, always the penny pincher, urges Mrs. Packletide to shoot the tiger before it eats the bait so that they don't have to pay extra money for the goat. Subsequently, when a great shot rings out from Mrs. Packletide's rifle, the tiger jumps sideways before rolling over, dead. Mrs. Packletide and the villagers are carried away with glee at the successful shot. It is Louisa Mebbin who realizes that Mrs. Packletide has accidentally and fatally shot the goat instead of the tiger. It seems the elderly tiger has died in fright at the sound of the rifle's loud discharge. Although annoyed, Mrs. Packletide is happy to pose for trophy photographs as she pretends she has successfully shot the big cat. She is content in the knowledge that the villagers and Miss Mebbin will play along with her deception due to the money she is paying both parties. Photos of Mrs. Packletide and her dead tiger reach newspapers as far abroad as America and Russia, while at home in London she enjoys the attention of her exploits by hosting a high-society lunch party and gifting Loona Bimberton a tiger-claw brooch as planned. The tiger-skin travels between London houses as it is "duly inspected and admired by the county." Mrs. Packletide takes her farcical deed even further by attending a fancy-dress ball as Diana, the Greek goddess of the hunt. She draws the line at fellow socialite Clovis' suggestion that she hold a "primeval dance party" in which "everyone should wear the skins of beasts they had recently slain." A few days later, Mrs. Packletide is horrified by Louisa Mebbin's unexpected threat to expose the truth of their hunt in India. Miss Mebbin successfully blackmails Mrs. Packletide into buying her a weekend cottage near Dorking for six hundred and eighty pounds. Miss Mebbin names the cottage "Les Fauvres" and plants tiger-lilies around its borders; the property is the envy of all her friends. The story concludes with Mrs. Packletide's acknowledgement to her London peers that she no longer undertakes big-game hunting because "the incidental expenses are so heavy."

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Mrs. Sen’s - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: A small beach town in the United States - Character: Eliot. Description: Eliot, the protagonist of the story, is an 11-year-old boy who lives with his single, working mother in a small beach town. His father lives far away, and he seemingly has no other relatives who live nearby. Eliot's mother is usually away at work, and she and Eliot seem to have few connections. Eliot has had several different babysitters to watch him after school, and his mother hires a new sitter, Mrs. Sen, at the beginning of the story. There are a lot of cultural differences between Mrs. Sen and Eliot—Mrs. Sen and her husband, Mr. Sen, recently immigrated from India—but they develop a pleasant relationship over time. Eliot enjoys watching Mrs. Sen prepare traditional Indian food for dinner, and he often accompanies her when she practices driving or goes to the local fish market. Eliot is an observant, insightful child; on several occasions, Mrs. Sen confides in him about how lonely and unhappy she is in the U.S. Through Eliot's responses and private thoughts, it becomes clear that he's lonely as well: his mother doesn't seem to have much time for him, and Eliot has noticed how isolated they are from their neighbors. Despite the time he spends with Mrs. Sen, though, they never grow close enough to alleviate their mutual loneliness. At the end of the story, Mrs. Sen gets into an accident with Eliot in the car—and although they aren't badly hurt, this incident prompts Eliot's mother to fire Mrs. Sen as Eliot's babysitter. Instead, she gives Eliot a key to their house, and he spends even more time alone. The outcome, in which Eliot and Mrs. Sen both end up isolated, implies that they will continue to be lonely in the future—and that perhaps loneliness is a natural and inescapable aspect of the human condition. - Character: Mrs. Sen. Description: Mrs. Sen is an Indian woman who recently immigrated from Calcutta to the U.S. with her husband, Mr. Sen, so that he could take a job teaching math at an American university. She babysits 11-year-old Eliot at her apartment after school, since she can't drive to his house. Mr. Sen has been trying to teach her to drive, but it makes her nervous—and since driving symbolizes American culture's emphasis on independence within the story, this implies that Mrs. Sen is afraid of becoming even more isolated than she already is. Mrs. Sen is terribly homesick for the extended family and close-knit community she left behind in India—she has no social connections in America and seems to feel underappreciated by her husband. She spends most of her time alone, performing domestic tasks, and tries to connect with her culture and family back in India by reading letters from her relatives and cooking traditional meals. But these foreign foods, and other culture differences like the Indian saris and traditional makeup that Mrs. Sen wears, alienate her from Americans like Eliot's mother. And although Mrs. Sen seems to enjoy spending time with Eliot and confides in him about how lonely and unhappy she is, the two never grow particularly close. At the end of the story, Mrs. Sen gets into an accident with Eliot in the car, which loses her the job as his babysitter. It's implied that Mrs. Sen gives up on driving after this, an outcome that symbolizes her inability to assimilate or overcome her loneliness and homesickness. - Character: Eliot's Mother. Description: Eliot's mother is a single mom to her 11-year-old son, Eliot, and spends a lot of time at work. She hires babysitters, like Mrs. Sen, to care for him after school, and she's often too tired to do much with Eliot on her rare days off. She has no family in the area, and Eliot's father lives thousands of miles away, so she is solely responsible for her son. Eliot's mother also isn't in a romantic relationship—Eliot only remembers one man who spent the night in her bedroom, and the man never came back again. Throughout the story, Eliot's mother is uncomfortable with Mrs. Sen's foreignness (Mr. and Mrs. Sen are from India) and her inability to drive. She tries to refuse the food that Mrs. Sen always offers her when she comes to pick Eliot up in the evenings, making Mrs. Sen feel alienated and self-conscious about her status as a new immigrant. Besides these culture differences, Mrs. Sen and Eliot's mother are also embody very different gender roles: Mrs. Sen is a housewife, while Eliot's mother is a career woman. The two women do seem to have one thing in common: their loneliness and dissatisfaction with their lives. But despite this, they're never able to bridge the gap between them and become friends. When Mrs. Sen gets into an accident with Eliot in the car at the end of the story, Eliot's mother fires her—and she admits that she's relieved Eliot will no longer be going to the Sens' apartment. - Character: Mr. Sen. Description: Mr. Sen is Mrs. Sen's husband; the couple recently emigrated from their home country of India to the U.S. so that Mr. Sen could teach math at an American university. Mr. Sen doesn't play a particularly active role in the story—he's often busy with meetings and office hours, so doesn't spend much time at home with Mrs. Sen while she's babysitting Eliot. He and his wife seem disconnected, and Mrs. Sen clearly feels underappreciated by him. Mr. Sen encourages Mrs. Sen to learn to drive throughout the story, as this would allow her to become more independent. When Mrs. Sen ends up getting into an accident with Eliot in the car, Mr. Sen reimburses Eliot's mother for that month's babysitting fee and apologizes on his wife's behalf. - Theme: Isolation and Loneliness. Description: "Mrs. Sen's" depicts a relationship between two lonely and isolated people: Mrs. Sen (a woman who has immigrated to the U.S. from India for her husband's job) and Eliot, the American boy she cares for after school. Outside of each other, Eliot and Mrs. Sen lack community and connection. Mrs. Sen knows few people in America; her husband Mr. Sen works constantly, and the only other person she speaks to regularly is the man who sells her fish. As the only child of a single mother with a demanding job, Eliot also seems to be without friends or family. Although Eliot and Mrs. Sen enjoy each other's company as a respite from isolation, the two never grow close in the months they spend together—and in the end, they part ways forever. By showing Mrs. Sen and Eliot failing to diminish each other's isolation, the story suggests that loneliness is a natural condition from which a person can never expect relief. Throughout the story, Lahiri emphasizes the characters' near-total isolation. Aside from each other, Eliot and Mrs. Sen are connected to almost nobody. Eliot has his mother, but she works long hours, and Mrs. Sen has Mr. Sen, who is likewise rarely home. Both Mr. Sen and Eliot's mother seem emotionally distant. Beyond their personal lives, Eliot and Mrs. Sen lack community where they live—and with the tourist season over, their seaside town is mostly empty. Lahiri repeatedly emphasizes how isolating this is: the bus has few passengers, many stores are closed for winter, and all of the children have left the beach where Eliot lives. The only sense of community exists among people with whom Eliot and Mrs. Sen have no connection, such as college students and elderly residents of nursing homes. Mrs. Sen contrasts the loneliness of America with the community she had in Calcutta. She describes Indian women preparing food together and talking late into the night. In America, she finds it difficult to sleep "in so much silence." While Eliot and Mrs. Sen's friendship somewhat relieves their loneliness, they never become close, indicating that their isolation is entrenched. Eliot and Mrs. Sen enjoy spending time together while she's looking after him. Eliot finds his mother's beach house cold, and the beach is "barren and dull to play on alone." He's glad to go to Mrs. Sen's warm apartment, where he enjoys watching her cut vegetables and talking with her. Mrs. Sen also likes having Eliot as a companion, and she looks forward to seeing him each weekday. When she picks Eliot up from his bus stop, he always senses that she's "been waiting for some time, as if eager to greet a person she hadn't seen in years." Despite these indications that Mrs. Sen and Eliot enjoy their companionship, they never fully connect with or understand each other. Eliot notices that Mrs. Sen is lonely and misses home, but he doesn't talk about it with her. When Mrs. Sen asks him, "Eliot, if I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?" he says, "They might call you […] But they might complain that you were making too much noise." This is typical of his interactions with Mrs. Sen: her anguish is clear, but Eliot lacks the emotional maturity to respond to it. Likewise, Mrs. Sen intuits Eliot's loneliness—at one point, she asks him, "Do you miss your mother, Eliot, these afternoons with me?"—but they never discuss his feelings or needs. Even though they see each other every day, Eliot and Mrs. Sen never connect enough to completely alleviate their mutual loneliness. Throughout the story, Lahiri indicates that the future will be just as lonely as the present for Eliot and Mrs. Sen. Mrs. Sen believes that loneliness and separation are the conditions that she and Eliot must live in permanently. She thinks that Eliot's isolated upbringing is preparing him for this future in a way that her social, community-filled childhood failed to prepare her. She tells him that "when I was your age I was without knowing that one day I would be so far. You are wiser than that, Eliot. You already taste the way things must be." The story implies that neither Eliot nor Mrs. Sen will have a more connected community or family in the future. Mrs. Sen forecasts a lonely end for Eliot when she asks if he would ever put his mother in a nursing home. Eliot replies that he might, but that he'd visit her every day. Mrs. Sen denies this possibility: "You say that now, but you will see […] you will miss one day, and another, and then she will have to drag herself onto a bus just to get herself a bag of lozenges." This prediction indicates that Mrs. Sen thinks that distance and practicalities prevent people from connecting in the long term—and, because of this, loneliness is often permanent. It is, perhaps, an unavoidable aspect of the human experience, particularly in insular American towns like the one where the story is set (as opposed to the Sens' more community-oriented culture in India). Throughout the story, Mrs. Sen's isolation is reinforced by her inability to drive. She's afraid of driving with other cars on the road, and her lack of mobility means that she can't connect with the outside world. The story concludes with her first attempt to drive by herself, during which she gets into a minor accident with Eliot in the car. Her failure at driving is emblematic of her inability to reach out to others and function socially in the U.S; Lahiri implies that Mrs. Sen won't drive again, which means that she'll never be able to form connections. And after the accident, Eliot stops going to Mrs. Sen's and spends his afternoons alone instead. The severing of Mrs. Sen and Eliot's relationship at the end of the story predicts their lonely futures, leaving them in the isolation—which Lahiri suggests is ultimately inescapable. - Theme: Assimilation and Foreignness. Description: Throughout "Mrs. Sen's," the Sens struggle to assimilate to American culture after they emigrate from India to the U.S. for Mr. Sen's job as a professor in a small college town. The couple's life in the United States is different than they or their family in India expected it to be: while Mrs. Sen's family assumes that living in the U.S. automatically guarantees happiness and a lavish lifestyle, the Sens' standard of living is actually lower in the U.S. than it was in India. Mrs. Sen also has trouble connecting with others in the community, partly because Americans (like the mother of Eliot, the young boy Mrs. Sen babysits) make her feel foreign rather than accepted. These challenges make it difficult for the Sens to assimilate to American culture, showing that the American Dream that many immigrants pursue when they move to the U.S. is largely illusory. While Mrs. Sen's relatives back in India assume that the Sens are wealthy simply because they live in the U.S., the Sens actually have a lower standard of living than they did in India. Mrs. Sen can't tell her family about her life in the U.S. because she knows they expect it to be glamourous and happy in a way it hasn't turned out to be. She tells Eliot that "they think I live the life of a queen […] They think I press buttons and the house is clean. They think I live in a palace." In reality, the Sens live in a shabby university apartment. When Eliot and his mother come to meet Mrs. Sen and see the apartment, Eliot's mother asks if all of the Sens' wealth is in India. In response, Mrs. Sen "look[s] around the room, as if she noticed in the lampshades, in the teapot, in the shadows frozen on the carpet, something the rest of them could not," and says, "Everything is there." Eliot's mother's rude comment suggests that contrary to their family's expectations, the Sens live a modest lifestyle that well-off Americans look down upon. Furthermore, Mrs. Sen's response implies that she left "everything" that matters to her—namely, her loved ones and cultural traditions—behind in India. The dejected way she looks at her surroundings and replies to Eliot's mother speaks to her dissatisfaction with her lifestyle and economic circumstances in the United States. The difference in the Sens' economic situation since they immigrated is further evidenced by the issues Mrs. Sen has with transportation. In India, the Sens were well-off enough to have a chauffeur—but now, Mrs. Sen has to either learn to drive (which frightens her) or take the bus, and she finds it difficult to get around. The dramatic change in lifestyle, from having a chauffeur to being reliant on public transportation, indicates that life in the U.S. isn't what the Sens imagined it would be. In addition to having fewer luxuries, the Sens (especially Mrs. Sen) struggle to become a part of their new community. This is partly because Americans like Eliot's mother treat Mrs. Sen as foreign rather than accepting her. Before she moved, Mrs. Sen lived in a tight-knit community in India. She tells Eliot how she spent time with her family and a community of women in India: on the nights her mother invited other women to help them cook for celebrations, it was "impossible to fall asleep […] listening to their chatter." In the U.S., on the other hand, she "cannot some­ times sleep in so much silence." Here, unlike in India, she has no friends and no easy way to connect with others. In her few interactions with Americans, Mrs. Sen is treated as foreign rather than welcomed and accepted. Eliot's mother is an example of this: when she comes to pick Eliot up from Mrs. Sen's apartment, "she tended to hover on the far side of the door frame, calling to Eliot to put on his sneakers and gather his things." Mrs. Sen invites her in and serves her traditional Indian food, but Eliot's mother resists this hospitality and tells Eliot that she doesn't like Mrs. Sen's food (the implication being that it tastes foreign). Eliot's mother's rejection of Mrs. Sen is indicative of the exclusionary way Americans tend treat immigrants more generally. As a result of these difficulties, Mrs. Sen is unable to assimilate to American culture, and she eventually gives up. Mrs. Sen is only happy when she can connect with the culture and community she has left behind in India, because she finds life in America difficult and alienating. Eliot notices that only two things make Mrs. Sen happy: a letter from home or a whole fish, the latter of which allows her to make the food she ate in India. Mrs. Sen's need to connect with home shows her inability to assimilate and make a new life and community for herself. At the end of the story, Mrs. Sen seems to have given up on assimilation entirely. She gets into a minor car accident, and this failure at driving—an essential skill in her new culture that she did not need in India—causes her to completely retreat from the world. She loses her job taking care of Eliot (because she was driving without a license with him in the car), and with it, her only connection to other people in her current environment. After the accident, Mrs. Sen retreats to her bedroom and shuts the door, symbolically giving up on making any connection with the country where she now lives. In the end, the Sens are worse off than they were in India: their class status has fallen, they're alienated from their new community, and Mrs. Sen is unable to function in the way that American society expects her to. Their immigrant experience is implied to be a common one, and it directly contradicts the message of the American Dream: that the U.S. is a land of opportunity for everyone who lives there. - Theme: Femininity, Gender Roles, and Culture. Description: "Mrs. Sen's" depicts the relationship between 11-year-old Eliot, his mother, and Mrs. Sen, the woman Eliot's mother hires to babysit Eliot while she's at work. The two women play very different domestic roles: Mrs. Sen does more traditionally feminine tasks like cooking, while Eliot's mother fulfills the role of breadwinner outside the home and has little time for these duties. Eliot's mother is like many American women, in that she raises her son without familial support and works outside the home. Mrs. Sen, by contrast, only recently emigrated from India, where family and community support are more central to the culture. In the U.S., however, Mrs. Sen plays the role of a typical American housewife, and she does her domestic tasks alone; both she and Eliot's mother feel disconnected from others and unhappy with their roles. Through its depiction of Mrs. Sen and Eliot's mother, the story suggests that both of these versions of femininity—that of the modern career woman and that of the housewife—are equally restrictive, isolating, and unfulfilling. Instead, a lifestyle that focuses on family and community is more conducive to happiness. From the beginning, it's clear that Eliot's mother is worn out and emotionally disconnected, despite embodying an American ideal of the woman who "has it all" with both a career and family. Eliot's mother takes care of Eliot and supports him financially without help from family or Eliot's father, who lives far away. Instead, she pays Mrs. Sen to take care of Eliot after school. She doesn't seem to have any friends to help, either. When her neighbors have a party she isn't invited, and eventually "she looked up their number in the phone book and asked them to keep it down," which suggest she doesn't know her neighbors and hasn't made connections in her community. Furthermore, despite being each other's only connections, Eliot and his mother aren't close—largely because she has to spend so much time at work. Mrs. Sen finds this sad, saying to Eliot, "You must miss her. When I think of you, only a boy, separated from your mother for so much of the day, I am ashamed." But Eliot and his mother are accustomed to separation, both emotional and physical. That Mrs. Sen can't drive is unimaginable to Eliot's mother, because she works "in an office fifty miles north, and [Eliot's] father, the last she had heard, lived two thousand miles west." In the rare moments when they are together, Eliot's mother is usually so exhausted from work that they don't spend much quality time together. When she gets home from work, Eliot's mother usually orders pizza for dinner rather than cooking and leaves him to put away the leftovers while she smokes a cigarette. This exhaustion shows how wearing it is for Eliot's mother to do the overwhelming job of raising a child on her own—it prevents her from fully enjoying her life or having meaningful relationships. As a housewife, Mrs. Sen occupies a completely different role than Eliot's mother—but she, too, is overwhelmed, unhappy, and isolated. Mrs. Sen spends most of her time completing domestic tasks alone, or with only Eliot for company. She has no connections in the United States other than her husband, but she spends little time with Mr. Sen because he works long hours as a professor. Mrs. Sen seems to feel undervalued by him: when Mr. Sen says that he won't go to the market to buy fish for her, she says, "Tell me, Eliot. Is it too much to ask?" Mrs. Sen dislikes the isolation of being a housewife in the U.S., but Mr. Sen and Eliot's mother both expect Mrs. Sen to take on more independence by learning to drive. Mrs. Sen, however, has no desire to drive anywhere by herself—she merely wonders, "Could I drive all the way to Calcutta?" Mrs. Sen clearly wants to return to her old life, where she could rely on her family and community to help her. While Mrs. Sen is unhappy as a socially isolated and undervalued housewife in the United States, she found doing similar domestic tasks in India much more fulfilling because she was part of a community—and this, the story implies, is the ideal way to live. Mrs. Sen often tells Eliot stories about her home in India and how connected she was to people there. She tells him that in India, if you "raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share the news, to help with arrangements." In addition, when the Sens lived in India, Mrs. Sen was able to cook with other women, rather than alone. At home, she tells Eliot, "all the neighborhood women to bring blades just like this one, and then they sit in an enormous circle on the roof of our building, laughing and gossiping and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through the night." Working communally and having connections made Mrs. Sen happy. In the U.S., however she must work without the help of a community, much like Eliot's mother. The only happy role for women presented in the story is the one that Mrs. Sen had in India, when she performed domestic duties communally with other women rather than in isolation. As such, the story suggests that Mrs. Sen's former lifestyle in India—a version of femininity that's very different from both the American career woman or the American housewife—is a more natural and fulfilling way to live. - Climax: Mrs. Sen gets into an accident with Eliot in the car. - Summary: Eleven-year-old Eliot has been going to his new babysitter, Mrs. Sen's, house after school for nearly a month. His mother found Mrs. Sen through an advertisement outside the local supermarket. She hired her even though Eliot has to go to Mrs. Sen's apartment for her to watch him—Mrs. Sen can't come to their house because she doesn't know how to drive. Eliot and his mother go to meet Mr. and Mrs. Sen's at their shabby university apartment (Mr. Sen is a math professor). Mrs. Sen wears a sari and traditional Indian makeup, and she and Mr. Sen take off their shoes and wear flip-flops indoors. Eliot's mother interviews Mrs. Sen about her experience as a babysitter. She's concerned that Mrs. Sen can't drive, because Eliot's mother works 50 miles away and his father doesn't live nearby. Mr. Sen assures Eliot's mother that he's teaching Mrs. Sen, and that she'll have her license by December. Mrs. Sen also explains that they had a chauffeur when they lived in India. Eliot enjoys going to Mrs. Sen's—the beach house where he lives is cold and lonely in the fall, whereas the Sens' apartment is warm. He especially likes to watch Mrs. Sen chop up vegetables for dinner. One evening, she tells Eliot that when she lived in India, she would prepare food with a community of women for celebrations—but in the U.S., she's lonely. When Eliot's mother comes to pick him up, Mrs. Sen hides all evidence of food preparation. Eliot's mother seems uncomfortable in the apartment, and she tries to refuse the food that Mrs. Sen offers her. When she and Eliot get home, she always drinks wine and orders pizza for dinner. Every afternoon, Mrs. Sen arrives early to wait for Eliot at the bus stop. She practices driving each day with Eliot in the car. She's nervous and distracted while driving, and she's too afraid to drive on the main road with other cars. One day, Mrs. Sen is very happy when she gets a letter from home. She tells Eliot that her sister has had a baby girl, and she seems disappointed that the child will be three years old by the time she meets her. She asks Eliot if he misses his mother each day, but he's never thought to miss her. Mrs. Sen is also happy when she gets fresh fish, because she can incorporate it into traditional Indian dishes. She likes to reserve fish at a market near the beach, which Mr. Sen picks up for her. One day, though, Mr. Sen tells Mrs. Sen that he won't have time to get the fish anymore because he needs to hold office hours. Mrs. Sen is upset, and she confides in Eliot about how unhappy she is in America. Her family thinks that she must be happy and rich here, but she isn't. Later that evening, Mr. Sen relents and drives Mrs. Sen and Eliot to get the fish. In November, Mrs. Sen stops cooking and won't practice driving; Eliot notices that she's also unusually quiet and forgetful. One day, she plays Eliot a tape of her family's voices and tells him that her grandfather died over the weekend. A week later, Mrs. Sen starts cooking again. Mr. Sen takes Eliot and Mrs. Sen to the seaside one evening, where they buy a lot of fish and eat at a restaurant. Mr. Sen makes Mrs. Sen drive back, but she panics when she has to drive with other cars and pulls off the road. She stops driving after that. Soon after this, Mrs. Sen and Eliot take the bus to the fish market. On the way there, they chat about what Eliot will do when his mother is elderly. On the way back, a woman complains to the bus driver about the smell of the fish. Another day, Mrs. Sen decides to drive to the market with Eliot in the car—but she gets into an accident almost immediately, hitting a telephone pole. She and Eliot aren't hurt badly, but the car's fender needs to be straightened. When Mr. Sen takes them back to the apartment, Mrs. Sen goes to her room and doesn't come out when Eliot's mother arrives. Mr. Sen reimburses Eliot's mother for the month's babysitting fee and apologizes on his wife's behalf. Eliot stops going to Mrs. Sen's after that, and his mother admits that she's relieved. She gives Eliot a key to the house, and from then on, he spends his afternoons alone.

- Genre: Fiction - Title: My Antonia - Point of view: First person - Setting: Black Hawk, Nebraska in the 1880s - Character: Jim Burden. Description: The protagonist of My Ántonia and the narrator of most of the novel. Orphaned at the age of ten, he comes to live with his grandparents on the Nebraska prairie. Jim is reflective, studious, and a "romantic." He feels deeply connected to the land. He isolates himself from boys his own age, preferring the friendship of the older immigrant girls. He later becomes a successful lawyer in New York City, but can never forget his childhood friend, Ántonia, whom he elevates in his mind to an almost mythical status. - Character: Ántonia Shimerda. Description: A Bohemian immigrant and Jim's closest friend, Ántonia comes to the prairie when she is 13. She is lively and intelligent, but struggles to remain optimistic while enduring the many hardships of poverty. Still, Jim describes her as having a youthful "vigour" and identifies her with light. Like Jim, Ántonia feels a deep attachment to the prairie, and she works in the fields with the men when her father dies. But when she moves to town to work as a housekeeper, she becomes interested in clothing and dancing, and gains a reputation for being "easy." Although Jim loves her, Ántonia can never view him as more than a younger brother. She becomes a single mother in her early twenties, but later moves back to the farm, marries Anton Cuzak, and raises 11 children. - Character: Lena Lingard. Description: Ántonia's friend in Black Hawk and one of the "hired girls." She becomes Jim's girlfriend when they reunite in Lincoln while Jim is in college. While Jim loves Ántonia with a pure, childlike love, his attraction to Lena is sexual. A Norwegian immigrant, Lena aspires to earn money, success, and independence, and refuses to marry. She is sophisticated and fashionable, and she becomes a successful dressmaker in Lincoln. Lena later moves to San Francisco with Tiny Soderball. - Character: Emmaline Burden -. Description: Jim's paternal grandmother. She is 55 years old when Jim comes to live with her. A devout Christian, she acts as a maternal figure for Jim and also tries to look after the Shimerdas during their first winter. She has wrinkled brown skin and black hair, and is deeply concerned with Jim's education. - Character: Otto Fuchs. Description: An Austrian man who works on the Burden's farm, Otto's previous jobs include cowboy, stage-driver, and miner. Jim describes Otto as just having "stepped out of the pages of Jesse James." He is lively and ferocious, but good-hearted, and he looks after Jim. When the Burdens move to town, he leaves to go back to the "wild West". - Character: Mr. Shimerda. Description: Ántonia's father. A tapestry weaver from Bohemia, he is not suited to the harsh climate and hard physical labor of the farm. He becomes depressed, homesick, and frail, and is found dead in his barn during his family's first winter in Nebraska. It's unclear if his death was a suicide or a murder. - Theme: The Immigrant Experience. Description: In 1862, the United States government urged colonization of Nebraska and other territories by creating The Homestead Act, which stated that any person who was an American citizen, or had declared his intention to become one, could claim 160 acres of government land. Some Eastern Americans, like Jim's grandparents, simply moved west, while others, like the Shimerdas, came all the way from Europe to try their luck at farming the Nebraska prairie. Both groups were in search of a better life, and, as depicted in My Ántonia, both can be considered immigrants in that they suffer the trials of a new and unfamiliar life. But while both Jim and Ántonia encounter loneliness and homesickness for the lands they left behind, in My Ántonia the foreign-born immigrants experience the greater struggle. They face extreme poverty, the barriers of not speaking the English language, and the challenge of cultural and religious differences. In many ways, Cather's novel is the story of these immigrants' acclimation to the American Midwest, as seen through Jim's eyes. - Theme: Friendship. Description: In the mid to late 1800s on the American prairie, friendship with neighbors was important to every family's survival and wellbeing. Neighbors provided both a social outlet and the physical help necessary for survival. The Burdens befriend the Shimerdas, the Shimerdas befriend Peter and Pavel, and Jim befriends Jake and Otto. Yet it's Jim's friendship with Ántonia, with its many ups and downs, that is central to My Ántonia. The novel begins with their pure and simple childhood friendship, and follows their many separations and reunions as they grow up. Through it all, both characters remain loyal to the memories of their childhood, and in doing so they preserve an allegiance to each other. - Theme: The Prairie. Description: My Ántonia is the last of three novels that make up Cather's "prairie trilogy." In My Ántonia, Jim personifies the landscape to such an extent that the prairie can even be considered a character—and one with a complex personality. The prairie functions as an essential means of survival for farmers like the Burdens and the Shimerdas, because it provides food to consume and to sell. But, at times, it can also be dangerous. Jim, for example, becomes sick during the harsh winter, and one summer he is almost killed by a rattlesnake. Still, both Jim and Ántonia form a lifelong connection to the prairie, and as adults they associate it with a simpler, purer life. They are fascinated by its vivid colors, seasonal changes, and vast openness. Jim's and Ántonia's moods often depend on the "moods" of the land. During his first winter in town, for example, Jim becomes lonely and depressed. And when she tells the story of the tramp who killed himself, Ántonia is disturbed not by his suicide but by the fact that he killed himself in summertime, when everyone is supposed to be happy. - Theme: The Past. Description: Jim and the other characters in My Ántonia struggle between living in the present and remembering the past. They share a common longing for the years and places left behind. To Jim, the past represents the lost innocence of his childhood, while to immigrants like the Shimerdas, the past means the friendlier, more familiar villages they left behind in Europe. In Book I, the Shimerdas and other immigrant characters cling to the traditions, people, and places of the "old country." Mr. Shimerda never overcomes his homesickness for Bohemia, and Peter and Pavel cannot escape the dark secrets of their youth in Russia. But the past also functions as a kind of spiritual sustenance. Jim, for example, holds dear the memories of his childhood friendship with Ántonia. And Ántonia eventually moves back to the prairie, where her father's grave reminds her of her last years with him. - Theme: Innocence and Maturity. Description: On the prairie, Jim and Ántonia's friendship is uncomplicated by the experiences and prejudices of adulthood. Though they come from different backgrounds and social classes and are members of the opposite sex, they are too young for these differences to matter. But even though Jim clings to the simplicities of youth, he can't stop time's advance and the maturity it brings. Jim and Ántonia's move from the prairie into town signifies their first steps toward adulthood, and as they mature they grow farther apart. Both characters struggle with the emotional, physical, and sexual changes of adolescence. For Ántonia, the death of her father, the social complexities of town life, and an unexpected pregnancy force her into an early maturity. On the other hand, Jim's entrance into adulthood comes largely when he leaves Black Hawk for college. It is only when he moves to Lincoln (the capital of Nebraska) and has his first serious relationship with a woman, Lena, that Jim begins to view his childhood friendship with Ántonia as the purest, most uncomplicated love one person can have for another. - Theme: Gender. Description: In late 19th century America, gender roles were strictly defined. Men were meant to act as providers, and women were meant to marry and care for the family. During his childhood, Jim believes strongly in these roles and looks up to working men like Otto and his grandfather, Jake. He tries desperately to earn Ántonia's respect by following their examples. Ántonia, however, does not want to conform to the typical female role. On the prairie, after her father dies, she insists on working in the fields with the men. After Ántonia moves to town, Jim is surprised when she forms female friendships and discovers dancing, fancy clothing, and etiquette. He is even more surprised when she laughs off his romantic advances. Only when Jim moves to Lincoln for college does he really begin to question traditional gender roles. He dates independent women like Lena and comes to respect Lena for her ambition. He begins to look back on Ántonia's love for the fields and flirtatious behavior in town not as conflicting, but as different aspects of her personality. Eventually, Ántonia finds a compromise of gender roles when she becomes a mother but continues working in the fields alongside her husband. Jim, who grows into a liberal-minded New Yorker, sees this lifestyle as perfectly suited to Ántonia. - Climax: Jim sees Ántonia again after 20 years. - Summary: In the late 1880s, recently orphaned Jim Burden leaves his home in Virginia to live with his grandparents in rural Nebraska. On the same train is 13-year-old Ántonia Shimerda, an immigrant from Bohemia, whose family is buying the land next to the Burdens. Ten-year-old Jim feels immediately at home on the prairie. He quickly settles into his new life with Jake Marpole and Otto Fuchs, the farm hands, and his loving grandparents. The Burdens soon befriend the Shimerda family, and Jim and Ántonia bond over their love of the land. Ántonia learns English eagerly under Jim's tutelage, although her parents are more hesitant to adapt to American life. Mr. Shimerda, frail and homesick, finds the adjustment to farm life especially difficult. His one solace is his friendship with Pavel and Peter, Russian farmers whose language is similar to the Shimerdas'. But when Pavel dies suddenly, Peter leaves to find a job in railway construction. Mr. Shimerda, having lost his one outside connection to his native culture, sinks into loneliness and depression. He is unable to provide properly for his family. When winter arrives, Jim's grandparents discover that the Shimerdas do not have enough clothing or food to survive the winter. They do their best to help, but when Christmas snow traps them in their homes, the Shimerdas are trapped without hearty food or gifts. When the snow melts, Jim's grandparents invite the Shimerdas to their home, but the visit goes poorly. Mrs. Shimerda is angry and envious, and Mr. Shimerda is saddened, reminded of his cozy village in Bohemia. In January, two days after Jim's birthday, Mr. Shimerda commits suicide in his family's barn. A recently arrived Bohemian man named Anton Jelinek comes from Black Hawk to help bury Mr. Shimerda. Mrs. Shimerda demands that they dig the grave at the corner of their land, where the roads will cross when they are built. When spring arrives, Ántonia insists on working in the fields alongside her brother Ambrosch, and is unable to go to school with Jim. They see less of each other, and Jim longs for their old friendship. When Jim turns 13, his grandparents decide to move to town so Jim can be closer to school. Not long afterward, the Burdens' neighbors, the Harlings, hire Ántonia as their housekeeper. Jim renews his old friendship with Ántonia, until she befriends other girls and starts dancing every night in the town pavilion. When she gains a reputation with the local boys, Mr. Harling fires her, and Ántonia goes to work for a moneylender named Wick Cutter. Jim sneaks out to the dances with Ántonia, until his grandmother finds out and stops him from going. He becomes lonely, and longs for his childhood on the prairie. Ántonia rejects his romantic advances, and tells him she cannot think of him as anything other than a younger brother. When Wick Cutter attempts to rape Ántonia, she quits her job and starts working at the local hotel instead. Jim, meanwhile, graduates from high school. He makes one last trip to the prairie with Ántonia, where they reminisce about years past. They see the image of a plough magnified by the setting sun, and recognize it as a symbol of the end their time together. Jim moves to Lincoln to attend college. One of Ántonia's friends, Lena Lingard, takes a job in Lincoln as a dressmaker, and she and Jim begin dating. But Jim cannot stop loving Ántonia. Eventually he transfers to Harvard and moves to Boston. After college, Jim returns to Black Hawk to visit his grandparents before he begins law school. He learns that Ántonia has had a child but is not married. He goes to see her and finally admits his love for her. But Ántonia disregards his confession, and Jim leaves to go back to Boston. Jim does not see Ántonia again for 20 years. He marries and becomes a successful lawyer in New York City. When he finally visits Ántonia again, she is working on a farm with her husband, Anton Cuzak, also a Bohemian immigrant. They have 11 children. Memories of his childhood with Ántonia overwhelm Jim, but he leaves Nebraska satisfied that he and Ántonia will always be bound together by the past.

- Genre: Roman à clef - Title: My Brilliant Career - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Australia, 1890s - Character: Sybylla. Description: Sybylla is the novel's narrator and protagonist. She is deeply ambitious, and she strives for a "brilliant career" in the literary or performing arts, but she is held back by restrictive gender norms and her family's poverty. Sybylla moves among various homes throughout the novel, each one representing a vast shift in privilege––Possum Gully replaces the refinement and culture of Bruggabrong with weariness and toil, and the brief reprieve Sybylla finds at Caddagat comes to an end when Mr. Melvyn's debts force Sybylla to work at Barney's Gap. Sybylla's first-hand experiences with poverty make her more empathetic with Australia's peasant class than her wealthy relatives are; though she wants more for her life than to be a peasant, she respects the peasantry as the foundation of the nation. Her political consciousness separates her from her family, contributing to Sybylla's feeling of being unlovable. She is constantly seeking affirmation from the people she loves, but no matter how much they reassure her of their love, Sybylla never believes that anyone truly loves her. This insecurity counteracts Sybylla's natural empathy when it comes to her engagement with Harold Beecham. She is so confident that Harold cannot love her that she dismisses the genuine pain he feels at her rejection. Sybylla's insistence to remain unmarried also divides her from her relatives, especially Mrs. Bossier, who believes that a woman's purpose is to be married. By the end of the novel, Sybylla realizes she could only marry a man who has suffered as she has and truly understands her. This reveals why Sybylla has never felt loved: she equates being loved with being understood, and Sybylla is too unlike those around her to believe that they understand her. - Character: Harold Beecham. Description: Harold is Sybylla's love interest and, for much of the story, her fiancé. He is usually quiet and stoic, but people who know him well speak of his bad temper. Sybylla is intrigued by the idea that the stony Harold could experience passion, and she strives to provoke Harold to see his temper flare. Despite Sybylla's dislike of men, she admires Harold's manliness, and she is often ashamed when her own behavior toward him is unwomanly. As the owner of the Five-Bob Downs estate, he possesses great wealth, which would entice any woman in the country to marry him––in fact, many of Sybylla's friends and relatives assume she is marrying Harold for his fortune. She insists this is not the case, and she proves as much when she agrees to continue the engagement after Harold loses his fortune. She is actually more determined than ever to marry him after this tragic turn of events, since she believes that as his wife she can help Harold recover from the loss. Once he makes a new fortune for himself, Sybylla thinks herself free of this obligation and ends the engagement. She is convinced that both she and Harold would be happier without being married to each other, and this belief awakens her "latent womanliness" that enables her to finally turn Harold away for good. Harold's manliness has helped Sybylla define her womanliness, but it is that womanliness that gives Sybylla the strength to reject him. - Character: Mrs. Melvyn. Description: Mrs. Melvyn is Sybylla's mother, with whom Sybylla has a strained relationship. Sybylla loves and respects her mother, but Mrs. Melvyn expects Sybylla to fit a mold of obedient womanhood and daughterhood that Sybylla refuses to abide by. Mrs. Melvyn is a refined woman, the descendent of aristocrats, and Sybylla recognizes the toll that poverty takes on her. Sybylla often defines Mrs. Melvyn's womanhood by her refinement, suggesting that Mrs. Melvyn does not know how to be a woman without following traditions of upper-class femininity, which contributes to her concern about Sybylla's unrefined, untamed nature. Mrs. Melvyn sees Sybylla as troublesome and attention-seeking, and she dismisses Sybylla's distress at Barney's Gap until Sybylla suffers a severe breakdown. Even after Sybylla returns to Possum Gully, the two of them argue frequently––yet Mrs. Melvyn confides in Sybylla, revealing a secret wish to have remained unmarried and her fears that her children will become failures like their father. At the end of the story, Sybylla yearns to connect with her mother. She wishes that she shared her mother's adherence to orthodoxy, or that her mother shared Sybylla's ambition, but ultimately the two are too different to ever understand each other. - Character: Mrs. Bossier. Description: Mrs. Bossier is Sybylla's grandmother, Mrs. Melvyn's mother, and the lady of the Caddagat estate. Wealthy, influential, and old-fashioned, Mrs. Bossier is a stickler for propriety, and though she enjoys Sybylla's company, she will not hesitate to chastise her granddaughter if Sybylla behaves in an unwomanly manner. She believes that every woman's goal should be marriage, and she forbids Sybylla from traveling to Sydney to pursue a career on the stage. Mrs. Bossier scorns any woman who gives up life as a wife and mother to pursue a career, and she feels that ambition is ruining the current generation of girls. Sybylla loves staying with Mrs. Bossier at Caddagat, but after Sybylla has to go to Barney's Gap, she loses faith in her grandmother's love for her. Mrs. Bossier cares for Sybylla, but she refuses to intervene in disagreements between mothers and daughters, so she does not invite Sybylla to return to Caddagat when Sybylla is struggling at Barney's Gap. Instead, Sybylla's sister Gertie goes to live with Mrs. Bossier, and Mrs. Bossier finds the sweet, pretty Gertie much more agreeable than the steadfast Sybylla. This adds to Sybylla's belief that she is unlovable, as she perceives Gertie's presence at Caddagat as a replacement for her own. - Character: Aunt Helen. Description: Aunt Helen is Sybylla's maternal aunt who lives at Caddagat. Sybylla describes her as a noble and brave woman, whose heart was broken in youth by a man who left her for another woman only a year after their wedding. Due to sexist double standards, the divorce had little impact on Helen's husband, but it ruined her socially and she has never recovered. Helen's tragic past represents the dangers of womanhood and the power that women grant to men by accepting their advances. Of the residents of Caddagat, Helen is the most openly loving toward Sybylla, and she works to improve both Sybylla's appearance and her self-confidence. However, once Sybylla is in Barney's Gap, Sybylla's belief that Helen understands her is broken when Helen suggests that Sybylla bear her cross patiently. Sybylla writes a bitter reply, and Helen never speaks to or about Sybylla again. The loss of Helen's companionship challenges Sybylla's belief in any kind of meaningful friendship, since the one person whom she thought understood her has proven untrustworthy. - Character: Frank Hawden. Description: Frank Hawden works at Caddagat as a jackaroo (a laborer working to gain management experience). Though he initially dismisses Sybylla as ugly, he soon becomes infatuated with her. She attributes his feelings to the lack of other young women at Caddagat, and though he insists he loves her and wants to marry her, Sybylla continues to spurn him. His constant advances frustrate her, and her rejections grow ruder and more audacious until Hawden vengefully reports to Mrs. Bossier that Sybylla has made unwomanly advances on him. His treatment of her cements Sybylla's distaste for marriage and her dislike of men. However, when Sybylla has to leave the Bossiers, her love for Caddagat overcomes their tumultuous relationship, and Sybylla and Hawden separate as friends. - Character: Mrs. M'Swat. Description: Mrs. M'Swat is the matriarch of the M'Swat family, whom Sybylla comes to work for after her father falls into the debt of Mr. M'Swat. Mrs. M'Swat is untidy and uncultured, and she overly indulges her children by taking their side when Sybylla tries to discipline them for misbehaving during lessons. Sybylla attributes this lack of discipline to Mrs. M'Swat's ignorance, believing that Mrs. M'Swat does not know how to properly run a household. Mrs. M'Swat lacks the refined femininity of Sybylla's relatives, and her character exemplifies how poverty and ignorance can corrupt traditional feminine values like domesticity. However, Sybylla's representation of Mrs. M'Swat does not dehumanize the woman: Sybylla respects Mrs. M'Swat's good nature and her faithfulness to her husband, and she especially respects Mrs. M'Swat's ability to suffer through childbirth so many times. Further, Sybylla envies Mrs. M'Swat's ability to be content with no ambitions. This envy suggests that although a peasant woman does not fit the 19th-century ideal of femininity, she is not entirely isolated from social groups because she is understood by other peasants. - Character: Mr. M'Swat. Description: Mr. M'Swat is the patriarch of the M'Swat family, and his loans to Mr. Melvyn lead to Sybylla's employment at the M'Swat house at Barney's Gap. Sybylla describes him as "an utterly ignorant man" whose small ideas fit the small life he leads. He is only barely literate, and he spends his Sundays reading the local paper with the enthusiasm an educated man might have for poetry. Mr. M'Swat's house and family are distressingly dirty and unstimulating for Sybylla, but he is kind to her, and she respects his upright morals. Sybylla takes offense when he believes she intends to marry his son Peter, but she quickly realizes he was only trying to look out for her. - Character: Mr. Melvyn. Description: Mr. Melvyn is Sybylla's father. In her early life, he is Sybylla's hero: supportive, chivalrous, gentlemanly, ambitious. However, that ambition leads to his undoing when Mr. Melvyn moves the family to Possum Gully in the hopes of pursuing a career in stocks. This ambition falls through, and Mr. Melvyn descends into alcoholism. He stops providing for his family and becomes a burden on them. Sybylla takes on the responsibility of following him around the pubs in town so she can walk him home once he is too drunk to continue. He takes on loans that he cannot pay back, and this debt is what forces Sybylla to work for the M'Swats. His fall from a loving father to a burden on his wife and children represents the dangers of both ambition and marriage. - Character: Gertie. Description: Gertie is Sybylla's younger sister. Unlike Sybylla, Gertie is pretty, polite, and obedient, and both Mrs. Melvyn and Mrs. Bossier find her easier to get along with than Sybylla. In this way, Gertie models idealized youthful femininity: she is the girl Sybylla wishes she could be. Despite this, Sybylla does not resent Gertie. Rather, she craves Gertie's affection, even though Sybylla acknowledges she has never been kind enough to Gertie to earn that love. When Gertie meets Harold Beecham at Caddagat, Sybylla assumes that Harold will prefer Gertie to herself. The rest of the family also assumes that Gertie and Harold will be married, but Harold only sees Gertie as a little sister. At the end of the novel, Gertie has not followed Sybylla's journey from girlhood to womanhood, instead remaining youthful, happy, and "butterfly-natured." - Character: Uncle Julius. Description: Uncle Julius is Sybylla's good-natured bachelor uncle who lives at Caddagat. He is jovial and affectionate; however, Sybylla suspects that his love for her is less than genuine when he showers Gertie with the same terms of endearment that he once used with Sybylla. Julius also makes fun of Sybylla's desire to help the homeless workers who come through the family property. He believes that the poor experience poverty only because they are too lazy to achieve wealth, revealing that his kindness to his loved ones conceals a deep-seated prejudice against those outside of his social sphere. - Character: Everard Grey. Description: Everard Grey is the orphaned son of English aristocrats and the adopted son of Mrs. Bossier. He is sophisticated, worldly, and well-educated on all artistic subjects. He compliments Sybylla's singing and ability to perform, and praise from such an artistic man brings her great joy. Everard asks Mrs. Bossier if he may bring Sybylla to Sydney to train as a performer, but Mrs. Bossier refuses. He persuades Mrs. Bossier to allow Sybylla to visit him in Sydney the following year, but when Mr. Melvyn's financial straits force Sybylla to leave Caddagat, that visit is canceled. Everard represents Sybylla's hopes of a "brilliant career" in the world of performing, and his disappearance from Sybylla's life mirrors the loss of that dream as a viable option. - Character: Joe Archer. Description: Joe Archer is a well-read jackaroo (a laborer working to gain management experience) from Five-Bob Downs who likes to discuss literature with Sybylla. His fear of Harold Beecham, his employer, stirs Sybylla's interest in the passionate side that Harold keeps hidden from her. His interest in literature also marks him as the only working-class character in the story who is not content in ignorance, a quality that hints that Sybylla's generalizations about Australia's peasantry should be taken with a grain of salt. The fact that he seems to share some of Sybylla's ambitions for a life in which he can discuss matters of culture implies that people of all walks of life can have dreams and share them with each other. - Character: Jane Haizelip. Description: Jane Haizelip works for the Melvyns at Possum Gully until they can no longer afford to employ her. She hates Possum Gully as much as Sybylla, and she is openly disdainful of the place and its people. She specifically dislikes James Blackshaw, who makes constant romantic advances on her despite her lack of interest. The parallel between her relationship with Blackshaw and Sybylla's future relationship with Frank Hawden suggests a solidarity between women of different social classes. - Character: Mr. Goodchum. Description: Mr. Goodchum is a friend of Harold who visits Caddagat with him on Sybylla's birthday. He flirts with Sybylla and teases her about turning 17 without having kissed a boy. His presence is a reminder of the growing importance of men and romance in Sybylla's life as she gets older. - Theme: Womanhood. Description: As Sybylla grows into a young woman, she grapples with what it means to be a woman navigating her social world. She encounters many women over the course of the story, and each of them teach her something about being a woman. Mrs. Melvyn demonstrates refinement and ladylike culture, but she also reveals to Sybylla the dangers of marriage and motherhood when a woman is bound by virtue to a bad husband. Mrs. Bossier teaches Sybylla the behavior and etiquette that 19th-century Australian society expects of women, and her strict moral expectations around Sybylla's relations with men speaks to the deference women are expected to show to men. Aunt Helen, for her part, models nobility and female friendship, as well as the unfortunate weakness of that friendship in the face of external pressures like society's expectations surrounding womanhood and etiquette. Aunt Helen's history with youthful heartbreak also serves as a cautionary tale for the vulnerability of a young woman when she opens herself up to a man in the patriarchal context of 19th-century society. Finally, Mrs. M'Swat represents a womanhood stripped of femininity by poverty and ignorance. Sybylla's definition of womanhood also constructs itself around her relationships with men. She is scolded by her grandmother for being "immodest and unwomanly" because Mrs. Bossier believes Sybylla has flirted with Frank Hawden, and Aunt Helen also calls flirting "horribly unwomanly." To that end, Sybylla often chastises herself for being unwomanly in her conduct with Harold Beecham––specifically when she is assertive, rude, or violent. Her "latent womanliness" only emerges at the end of the story, when she explains her refusal of Harold's proposal through "sincere and affec[tionate]" language. The repeated use of "unwomanly" to specifically describe Sybylla's conduct with men highlights the fact that women living in her time period and circumstances were expected to conform to a very narrow idea of what it meant to be a woman—a dynamic that Sybylla herself struggles against throughout the novel. - Theme: Class and Poverty. Description: Poverty in My Brilliant Career drains the life and spirit from all the characters it affects. By emphasizing the physical and mental toll of poverty, Franklin reveals the tangible hardships of poverty to her middle-class readers. The narrative specifically critiques upper-class perceptions of poverty through the characters at Caddagat. Though Mrs. Bossier and the residents of Caddagat provide meals to the homeless men who visit, Sybylla is the only member of the household who feels any real empathy for the them. She views the poverty that afflicts these men as a failure of the nation to protect its citizens, while the other residents of Caddagat believe poverty is a result of laziness. Uncle Julius laughs at Sybylla's suggestion that Caddagat should open employment to the vagrants, exclaiming that work is the "very thing the crawling d[e]vils are terrified they might get." His demonization and dehumanization of the poor reveals that Sybylla's family only helps these people out of a sense of morality, not out of genuine compassion for their fellow human beings. Sybylla later criticizes this mindset, describing the elite class who profits off of traveling workers as "blood-suckers" who profit from "human sweat and blood and souls." With this description, she dehumanizes the rich and explicitly focuses on the humanity of the people whom the rich exploit. Throughout the novel, even as Sybylla complains of her life as a peasant, she makes clear that she does not disdain the peasant class––in fact, she respects them greatly as the backbone of the nation. However, Sybylla often correlates peasantry with ignorance, which complicates that respect. After she turns down Harold's proposal for the last time, she has "nothing but peasant surroundings and peasant tasks, and [has] encouraged peasant ignorance—ignorance being the mainspring of contentment." Sybylla indicates that the ignorance of peasants is not due to an innate lack of intelligence, but a lack of access to education. The connection she draws between ignorance and contentment also suggests that peasants cope with the difficulty of their lives by willfully ignoring information about a better life. - Theme: Ambition, Respectability, and Pride. Description: Sybylla is largely characterized by her dreams of a life beyond the one she's living. Her own narration treats her ambition as foolish, but she never stops pursuing her "brilliant career," despite the story's increasing emphasis on the link between ambition and unhappiness. She describes herself as "cursed with a fevered ambition for the utterly unattainable," and the words "cursed" and "fevered" cast her ambition as something that actively harms Sybylla. On the other hand, her ambition is what allows her to resist convention and remain independent and unmarried. The positive aspects of Sybylla's ambition come from its internal nature––she craves a "brilliant career" for her own satisfaction. When ambition collides with concern over reputation, the novel implies, pride and a need for respectability warp that ambition into something distinctly negative. Most notably, Mr. Melvyn's pride and ambition directly lead to his and his family's financial ruin. He becomes convinced that he is "wasting his talents" in Bruggabrong, only to discover that he has vastly overestimated his abilities. Though Mrs. Melvyn is not ambitious, she shares her husband's preoccupation with appearances and respectability. She and Mr. Melvyn dress their children up as "swells" (or wealthy, fashionable people), making them stand out from the peasant children at the local school. Ironically, this only hurts their reputation, since when Sybylla lives with the M'Swats, the children mock her for the way her family prioritizes fancy clothing over more practical financial decisions. Ambition, respectability, and pride are thus positioned as opposites of practicality. These qualities are also gendered: Sybylla complains that her "boundless" ambition is restrained by her status as a woman, since "it [is] only men who could take the world by its ears and conquer their fate." The down-to-earth Harold, who is repeatedly described as "manly," is able to recoup his family's lost finances, but the dreamy and feminine Sybylla is trapped by the consequences of her father's pride. At the end of the story, Sybylla seems to have lost some of her conviction in her dreams of a better life. She wonders, "What is there in vain ambition? King or slave, we all must die," and she resigns herself to a life of toil. As she accepts this fate, though, Sybylla celebrates the world around her, hinting that learning to let go of her pride might allow her to find contentment in a life without great achievements. - Theme: Love. Description: Despite Sybylla's independence, she expresses a deep desire to be loved throughout the story. This often manifests due to her insecurities: she frequently calls herself unlovable, to the extent that she believes Harold's affection for her must be false. When she leaves both Possum Gully and Caddagat, Sybylla begs Gertie and Aunt Helen to miss her and think of her when she is gone. Gertie's tearful response fills Sybylla with "savage comfort," as Sybylla's desire to be loved outweighs her own love for her sister. She acknowledges that she has not made herself loveable, but she still envies people who have love "lavished upon them without striving for it"––yet, when Harold repeatedly tries to convince Sybylla he loves her, she refuses to believe him. The three characters who Sybylla most explicitly wants to love her––Harold, Gertie, and Helen––are all described as "loveable" at various points throughout the story. Sybylla's repeated use of the word "loveable" emphasizes her belief that love is something that must be earned, which adds greater depth to her insecurities. At the end of the story, however, it is Sybylla who cannot love Harold as he wants her to love him. She recognizes that she has the capacity to love, and she values the love that she has to give too much to settle for Harold. When Harold leaves and Sybylla resumes life at Possum Gully, she espouses her love for her nation, the peasants, the laboring women, and her readers. These alternate forms of love suggest that even if Sybylla never meets a man she can love to her full ability, she can spread that love to other aspects of her life. - Theme: Maturity and Suffering. Description: My Brilliant Career sees Sybylla grow from a little girl to a young woman, and she grapples with maturing before she is ready. Mrs. Bossier and Aunt Helen note that Sybylla is older than her years, and much of that maturity comes the responsibility she has to take on in her family. Once the Melvyns move to Possum Gully, Sybylla's parents fail to treat her as a child. When she brings her drunken father home from town, Sybylla describes an "appall[ing…] spirit" that is "maturing" inside of her. Since it has no one to tend to it, the spirit is becoming "rank and sour." The growth of this "spirit" parallels the cynicism that seems to overtake and ultimately replace Sybylla's childish innocence. Early on in the narrative, as she is coming to terms with life at Possum Gully, Sybylla expresses a longing for a friend "who knew, who had suffered and understood." This desire for someone to ease the burden of her suffering reappears at the end of the novel, when Sybylla realizes she can only ever love a man "who had suffered, who had understood." The hardship of Sybylla's early life has so defined the woman she becomes that she cannot imagine spending her life with someone who does not understand that hardship, thereby suggesting that the feeling of discontent and suffering has unfortunately become central to her idea of what it means to be an adult. - Climax: Sybylla rejects Harold's marriage proposal for the last time - Summary: In late 19th-century Australia, Sybylla Melvyn comes of age while her family undergoes serious financial struggles. Though Sybylla starts life wealthy, her father moves the Melvyns to a ranch on Possum Gully in an attempt to make a career trading stocks. He fails, and the family turns to dairy farming to make a living. The labor is hard and unrewarding, and Sybylla longs for the chance to make something of herself. Sybylla gets in frequent disagreements with her mother, and when Mrs. Melvyn writes to her own mother, Mrs. Bossier, the older woman offers to take Sybylla in at the Bossier estate. At the estate, called Caddagat, Mrs. Bossier promises to refine Sybylla into a proper lady and prepare her for marriage. Sybylla eagerly leaves Possum Gully and falls in love with life at Caddagat, where she lives with her grandmother, her Aunt Helen, and her Uncle Julius. Also residing at Caddagat is the laborer Frank Hawden, who makes several advances on Sybylla despite her repeated rejections. While at Caddagat, Sybylla meets two young men: Harold Beecham and Everard Grey. Harold Beecham owns the neighboring estate, and he and Sybylla quickly begin a playful, teasing courtship. Everard Grey is Mrs. Bossier's adopted son, and when he visits for Christmas, he encourages Sybylla to take up a career on the stage. Sybylla, who loves to perform, is taken with the idea, but Mrs. Bossier insists that such a career would be unladylike and improper. Eventually Everard and Mrs. Bossier find a compromise, and agree that Sybylla may visit Sydney with Everard the following year. Sybylla and Harold's relationship develops, and eventually he asks her to marry him. She is surprised, but she accepts. When Harold leans in to kiss her, however, she panics and strikes him with a whip. Sybylla is horrified by her unwomanly behavior, but Harold forgives her, and the two begin a secret engagement. Their romance is interrupted when Harold abruptly loses his fortune. He offers to free Sybylla from her obligation to him, but she insists on remaining betrothed, believing that she can help him in his new life of poverty. Harold plans to set out to find a new fortune, and Sybylla proposes a plan: they will not see each other for four years, and if at the end of that time Harold still wants to marry her, then she will marry him. Harold agrees, and the two separate. Soon after, Mrs. Melvyn writes to inform Sybylla that Mr. Melvyn has fallen into debt to a man named Peter M'Swat. To help the family, Sybylla will need to leave Caddagat and work as a governess for the M'Swat family at their home in Barney's Gap. Sybylla is horrified. She tries to refuse, but Mrs. Bossier insists that Sybylla obey her mother. Thus, Sybylla leaves Caddagat and goes to live with the M'Swats. The M'Swats' home is filthy and squalid, and the M'Swats themselves are appallingly ignorant. Sybylla has no access to the cultural refinement she desires: Mr. M'Swat can only barely read, so the only literature about the house is in the form of farming records and newspapers. And though the M'Swats have a piano, it is broken and out of tune. Sybylla's work as a governess is difficult, since the M'Swat children look down on the Melvyn family and Mrs. M'Swat refuses to discipline them. Finally, Sybylla exerts her authority over the children and manages to earn their respect. Sybylla is deeply depressed by life at Barney's Gap. She writes to her mother and grandmother, begging to return to Caddagat, but they insist that she remain at Barney's Gap for at least another year. Sybylla's hopelessness eventually drives her to a complete mental and physical breakdown. She becomes bedridden, and the concerned M'Swats send her back to her family at Possum Gully. Mrs. Melvyn is cross with Sybylla for her behavior at the M'Swats, and the relationship between mother and daughter grows increasingly contentious. When Mrs. Bossier offers to bring one of the Melvyn children to Caddagat, Mrs. Melvyn sends Sybylla's younger sister Gertie instead of Sybylla. While Gertie is at Caddagat, Harold returns to the neighboring Five-Bob Downs––he has earned a new fortune. Sybylla assumes that Harold will prefer her pretty younger sister, so she writes to him and calls off the engagement. Sybylla falls into the monotony and toil of life at Possum Gully, until her boredom is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Harold Beecham. The four years have passed, and he, having taken her rejection as a joke, has come to marry Sybylla. With difficulty, she turns down his proposal. She realizes that she could one day marry a man, but that man needs to have suffered as she has so he can truly understand her. Sybylla ends her story alone, with no prospects, musing on the nature of ambition. It seems pointless to her now, since everyone eventually dies, but she throws off her pessimism and rejoices in her status as an Australian. She is proud of her nation and of the peasants who make it the country it is. She takes in the Australian horizon—accepting that she is simply a woman of the bush—and wishes her reader good night.

- Genre: Short story - Title: My Kinsman, Major Molineux - Point of view: Third person - Setting: Boston, 1732 - Character: Robin. Description: The 18-year-old protagonist. Robin is the son of a clergyman, and is determined to find his place in the world. Raised in the country, he has come to Massachusetts Bay to find his cousin Major Molineux, who has offered to help Robin establish himself. Though penniless at the time of his arrival, Robin is finely dressed thanks to his parents, who have equipped him with a gray cloak and a tri-corner hat. Robin is certain that he will receive a warm welcome from the townspeople due to his illustrious kinsman, and imagines Molineux living in great wealth and pomp. Instead, he finds himself a figure of ridicule from the locals: he is ignored, insulted, and even mistaken for a fugitive. Other than a brief respite when Robin peers into a church and admires a Bible in the moonlight, his night brings one disappointment after another: he encounters an ominous, "double-faced" horned man, an eager but lewd woman who falsely claims to be Molineux's housekeeper, and, finally, a kind gentleman who consoles Robin. When Molineux finally appears, it is as the tarred and feathered prisoner of the townspeople, who are marching in a parade led by the horned man with all the unfriendly figures Robin has met so far that night in succession. Determined not to be made a fool of and imagining a grand destiny for himself, the optimistic Robin only reveals himself as parochial and naïve. When the story opens, he considers himself shrewd and conducts himself with a grandiosity bordering on pretension. By the end, worn down by the night's misadventures, he has come closer to becoming "wiser in time," just as he had hoped he would at the story's outset, but at the unexpected price of painful experience and deep disappointment. He exhibits disassociation between his home and his new environment, wondering "Am I here, or there?" and is prepared to return to the ferry and back to the country, having "grown weary of town life." The kind gentleman, however, urges him to remain and "rise in the world without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux." - Character: Major Molineux. Description: The object ofRobin's search, Major Molineux is his wealthy and distinguished cousin who, during a visit a year or two years ago, showed great interest in Robin. Being himself childless, he offered to set Robin up in the wider world of Massachusetts Bay. But upon arriving, Robin can't find anyone who admits to knowing of Molineux. When the Major finally appears at the end of the story, he has been tarred and feathered by the resentful townspeople, who likely see him as a puppet of the British authority against which the American colonies are rebelling. The Major is being carried in a cart in "foul disgrace" while a parade of townspeople, led by the horned man, play musical instruments, don disguises, and dance about. The two cousins make eye contact and the elderly and once-majestic Major quivers with humiliation, even frothing at the mouth. Robin is horrified, and once the procession has passed, he bitterly notes that he has finally found his kinsman, and that the Major will "scarce desire to see [his] face again." - Character: The Horned Man. Description: The horned man is a mysterious figure with horn-like protrusions on his forehead, shaggy eyebrows, a hooked nose, and fiery eyes—all characteristics reminiscent of classical depictions of the devil. Robinmeets the horned man three times: first conspiring quietly near the doorway of an inn, then walking the streets alone, and finally at the head of the parade in which a tarred-and-feathered Major Molineux is held captive. When Robin meets him in the street, the horned man's is "double-faced," having been painted half red and half black, an effect that Robin likens to "two individual devil, a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness." The nature of his power over the townspeople is unknown, but he is evidently some sort of authority as he leads the masses in their decidedly sinister merriment. Before the parade, he tells Robin to wait an hour if he wants to see Molineux "pass by," foreshadowing the disturbing sight of Molineux that follows. The horned man is a deeply symbolic figure; in his final appearance, he is seated on a horse and bearing a sword, with his face painted red and black. His face is thus characterized as a metaphor for the political dissent, social unrest, and violence happening in New England: "the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the mourning that attends them." He fixes his eyes on Robin, who reacts with horror. The horned man is an agent of chaos, and his role in the story is to represent the infernal power of mob rule, insurrection, and pandemonium. - Character: The Kind Gentleman. Description: The only outwardly kind person Robinmeets is a gentleman who emerges from the shadow of a church steeple and keeps him company as he waits for Molineux. A seeming paragon of Christian charity, he recognizes both the horned man and Molineux from Robin's descriptions, and cryptically asks Robin if a man can have several voices as well as two complexions. Once the crowd has passed by and Robin has asked the way back to the ferry, the gentleman urges him to stay in Massachusetts and rise in the world by himself (just as America is on the cusp of establishing itself without Britain). The gentleman is the counterpoint to the horned man, and can be construed as a Christly figure acting as Robin's savior. - Character: The Old Man. Description: The first person with whom Robin speaks when he arrives in Massachusetts Bay. He is a brusque old man "with a full periwig of gray hair, a wide-skirted coat of dark cloth, and silk stockings." Walking with the help of a cane that strikes the cobblestones as he walks, his voice, punctuated by a cough or quirk that sounds like "hem," is described as "sepulchral," meaning reminiscent of the grave. Robin bows before him, grasps the edge of his garment, and inquires after Major Molineux, only to be loudly rebuffed and threatened with the stocks, much to the amusement of the patrons of a nearby barber shop. Robin thinks to himself that the old man must be "some country representative […] who has never seen the inside of my kinsman's door, and lacks the breeding to answer a stranger civilly." The next time Robin hears the old man approaching—due to his unabating cough and the sounds of his walking stick on the pavement—he quickly makes himself scarce to avoid a repeat of their previous meeting. Though he denies knowing the Major, the old man is watching from a balcony and laughing uproariously when the parade passes by with a tarred-and-feathered Molineux in tow. - Character: The Innkeeper. Description: Robinmeets the innkeeper in the public house of a tavern soon after arriving in town. Initially courteous, the innkeeper receives Robin with the warmness of a "second-generation […] French Protestant." Robin thinks the he must recognize his relation to Molineux, but once the innkeeper learns that Robin has no money with which to pay for supper, he threatens to turn him in to the police due to his resemblance to a wanted man named Hezekiah Mudge. After telling Robin to trudge away, Robin reflects "is it not strange that the confession of an empty pocket should outweigh the name of my kinsman, Major Molineux." Hence, the innkeeper provides Robin with one his first lessons about the harsh social climate of town life, and hastens his growing sense of disenchantment. - Character: The "Housekeeper". Description: In a rundown district near the harbor, Robin chances upon an open doorway where stands a pretty, seductive, and "saucy" woman dressed in a scarlet petticoat who greets Robin with flattery and claims that the Major is inside sleeping off a strong draught of liquor. Taking her on her word that she is Molineux's housekeeper, Robin is almost pulled inside by the woman—who in reality is likely a prostitute—before a watchman appears and causes her to flee indoors. She reappears with the rest of the townspeople as part of the parade at the climax of the story, where she pinches Robin's arm. - Theme: Innocence vs. Corruption. Description: Nathaniel Hawthorne's "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" was written in 1831, but set 100 years earlier, during the long run-up to the American Revolutionary War, when colonial Massachusetts was actively opposed to the governors appointed by King James II. This is the state of affairs when the story's innocent, country-bred protagonist, Robin, obtains passage to Massachusetts Bay and searches for his cousin and benefactor, Major Molineux, who has "inherited riches, and acquired civil and military rank." Robin considers himself "a shrewd youth" and has an inflated idea of Molineux's influence and good standing. But throughout the course of a single evening, Robin encounters cruelty, wickedness, and corruption, culminating in the discovery that Major Molineux has been tarred and feathered by the locals, who are led by a mysterious horned man who resembles the devil. As Robin plummets from confidence and security to total resignation, Hawthorne suggests that the price of experience and worldliness is the surrender of innocence. Robin believes Major Molineux enjoys a high station and prestige in town, but instead finds that the townspeople either deny knowledge of the Major or hold him in contempt (possibly because he represents British rule to the rowdy colonists). Looking about the ramshackle township, Robin can find no house worthy of his cousin's station, thinking that "This low hovel cannot be my kinsman's dwelling […] nor yonder old house, where the moonlight enters at the broken casement." Already, Robin's naïve expectations have set him up for disappointment. Each time he mentions Molineux's name to the townspeople, Robin receives some manner of abuse. He is laughed at by the patrons of a barber shop, threatened with being put in the stocks by a watchman, and chased out of an inn after being mistaken for a runaway servant. He then meets a woman in a "scarlet petticoat" whom he takes to be Molineux's housekeeper, but who is likely a prostitute and attempts to drag Robin indoors. Each of these encounters serves to further disillusion Robin regarding the reputation of his cousin and his prospects in the town. Robin waits outside the church, told that Molineux will soon be passing by. However, when the Major passes by, it is in a cart, having been tarred-and-feathered by the townspeople who bear torches and wear outlandish costumes. The Major seems to recognize Robin and their eyes meet, at which point "a bewildering excitement began to seize upon [Robin's] mind; the preceding adventures of the night […] and more than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety." In witnessing his cousin tarred and feathered rather than honored and adored, Robin is effectively cured of his misconceptions—and, by extension, his innocence—and now sees the madness and injustice of life. Prior to seeing his cousin tarred and feathered, Robin, in his innocence, anticipates kindness from the townspeople, but receives threats and jeers in return. His preconceived notions as to the warm reception he is prepared for are worn down throughout the course of the story. At one point, Robin pompously accosts an old man, whom he greets with a bow and inquires as to the residence of his kinsman. The old man angrily snaps at Robin with such force that it strikes him "like a thought of the cold grave obtruding among wrathful passions." A group of barbers and their patrons witness the exchange and laugh at Robin's distress, further adding to the disenchantment he experiences as he becomes acquainted with his new surroundings. Three times throughout this same night, Robin meets a mysterious and sinister figure with protuberances resembling horns on his forehead. This devil-like figure represents corruption incarnate, and the high cost of experience, namely the surrender of innocence. After encountering the man inside a tavern, Robin meets the man a second time. His face is painted black and red, "as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a friend of darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage." The man embodies the concept of duplicity and appears whenever Robin's innocence or misconceptions are dashed, thus his face also suggests the difference between appearance and face or expectation and reality, reflecting Robin's own disillusionment as he is met with unkindness and mockery from the townspeople. This culminates in the ultimate loss of innocence as Robin sees the horned man leading a tarred-and-feathered Molineux at the head of a parade, the horrible sight of which forces Robin out of his naiveté completely. Near the end of the story, Robin meet a gentleman who treats him with seemingly genuine kindness. Beaten and discouraged, Robin asks him to show the way back to the ferry, only to be told that it is too soon for him to leave and that he "may rise in the world without the help" of Molineux. The story abruptly ends, leaving the means by which Robin will "rise" to the imagination of the reader—one implication seems to be that Robin has landed in a compromised position and will soon find himself exploited. On the other hand, he may enjoy his newfound freedom and rise without a patron or father figure (Molineux), just as the country is attempting to "rise" without its own "father" (British rule). As the story draws to a close, Robin loses the last shred of his innocence and realizes that the world is unpredictable, unruly, and often impossible to navigate. However, the story ends with a surprising note of hope, as Robin is told that he may yet rise without Molineux. Now that his innocence has been replaced by experience, Robin is free to begin again, and with the benefit of a hard-won wisdom that he altogether lacked at the beginning of the story. Robin's trials have been necessary, for they have taken him from an inexperienced youth who expects success and profit to come easy to a boy on the verge of manhood who now has the option of facing the world head-on. - Theme: Civilization vs. Chaos. Description: "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" begins with a lengthy description of "colonial affairs," as pre-Revolutionary America is growing increasingly hostile to English rule. Already, six royally-appointed governors have been either overthrown or imprisoned by their constituency. The sense of civilization at the brink of anarchy pervades the story, culminating in the tar and feathering of the titular Major Molineux. The old authorities are at the mercy of a rowdy colony that has taken to dressing as Native Americans (similar to the events of the Boston Tea Party) and have embraced chaos rather than submit to the rules of civilization. Robin, unaware of the political climate into which he is setting foot, encounters a self-rule that rejects foreign powers, placing unpopular citizens in the stocks, challenging the British via the House of Representatives, and otherwise replacing the stringent policies of British power with a vigilante-minded mayhem that has yet to establish its own charters. For Hawthorne, so-called patriotism breeds chaos, as the rejection of the existing system—British colonial oversight—embraces pandemonium and civil discontent in lieu of any new program of self-governance.  Robin's misadventures bring him face to face with an unruly colony in transition between the English monarchy and self-rule. Accosted by an old man who refuses to aid Robin, the young man thinks to himself that the elder "lacks the breeding to answer a stranger civilly" and considers smiting him with his cudgel. Robin does not yet realize that he has stumbled upon a culture that has already done away with common courtesy. In a local tavern, Robin spies locals drinking punch made available thanks to "West India trade," a reminder of the (heavily taxed) goods that will ignite the American Revolutionary War. On a spacious street, Robin looks for Molineux among "many gay and gallant figures" dressed in decorated military garb as well as "travelled youths, imitators of the European fine gentleman of the period." Both types are significant as they are halfway between English fashion and homegrown American style. Despairing of ever finding the home of Molineux, Robin finally encounters him being dragged along by the very people Robin has met throughout his search and realizes that his "kinsman [is] reviled by that great multitude" due to his lofty position. This is the ultimate realization of the colonists' disdain for foreign-appointed authorities. Over the course of 40 years, the Massachusetts Bay colony terrorizes the governors that James II, the incumbent King of England, appointed. But by merely punishing the king's representatives, the townspeople revert to barbarism rather than affecting real political change. The colonial Americans are suspicious of "power which did not emanate from themselves," and have "rewarded their rules with slender gratitude." Without a government of their own, Massachusetts has descended into mob justice. Of the six governors appointed by the king, two are imprisoned during an insurrection, one is fired upon by a musket, another is "hastened to his grave by continual bickerings with the House of Representatives," and the remaining two are "favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway." With this description, Hawthorne is cleverly setting the scene, as Robin will descend into an atmosphere of resentment torn between self-rule and overseas power. This opening paragraph adds significant context because, at the end of the story, Robin encounters a riotous group of colonists who have humiliated and deposed the Major, another case of structure giving way to unruliness. In lieu of any laws of their own, the colonists have descended into mobocracy, led by a devilish figure representative of misrule. The mob's mysterious leader is "war personified," with one side of his face painted red, "an emblem of fire and sword," with the other painted black in "mourning." This demonic figure preages the coming period of Revolutionary violence. Robin is refused aid or instruction by nearly everyone he encounters, most of whom deny knowing the Major, only to find them attending to the carnivalesque parade at the story's climax, attended by revelry, trumpets, and "shouts, the laughter, and the tuneless bray" of the procession. Hawthorne's literary works, most notably his novel The Scarlet Letter, often deal with how mob mentality and hypocrisy underpin seemingly benign norms. In "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," those norms are overthrown, leaving a populace that is indifferent, callous, and even sinister. At the story's conclusion, it is hinted that that Robin (and by extension the American colonies) may rise from the ashes of British rule. But in the meantime, chaos reigns supreme and violence bubbles up from just under the surface of Massachusetts society. What's more, America will never truly be free of these elements. For Hawthorne, the crumbling of civilization in favor of pandemonium is America's original sin, and the foundation of an essentially lawless society. - Theme: Good vs. Evil. Description: After Robin fails to secure directions to Molineux's house, the horned man he previously met at the inn tells him that Major Molineux will soon pass by on the street. While he waits, Robin looks through the windows of a church and sees a single ray of light illuminating a Bible. He thinks of his family and goes into a reverie as his imagination floats between "fancy and reality." As his homesickness threatens to overwhelm him, he stumbles upon the only kind person he has spoken to so far, "a gentleman in his prime, of open, intelligent, cheerful, and altogether prepossessing countenance." This unnamed gentleman, the counterpart to the horned man, is a reminder of the decency, sympathy, and nobility that still exists even at the center of an evil or indifferent populace. The kind gentleman offers aid to the disheartened Robin as he sits outside of a church, making him a saintly figure that appears in the midst of profound distress. Robin relates the story of how he came from the country to Massachusetts for the gentleman, who listens eagerly and compliments Robin on his "shrewdness." The gentleman mentions that the name of Molineux is not unfamiliar to him, the only person so far who has credibly admitted to knowing of the Major. He seems to know more than he says, as he ensures that Robin remain outside the church as Molineux and his tormentors pass by. As all the wicked and cold-hearted individuals Robin has met pass by, the gentleman alone remains by Robin's side in his time of need. This simple goodness is a buffer against the unkindness that has greeted Robin thus far in Massachusetts. The kind gentleman seems to have an unspecified relationship with the horned man, further proof of the subtle contest between good and evil vying for power in Massachusetts Bay. The gentleman mysteriously tells Robin that he knows the man, but "not intimately." This implies that the kind gentleman as somewhat of a Christ figure, and the horned man as his devilish counterpart, and suggests an unspoken rivalry between the two men—one kind and curious, the other disinterested and crude. In discussing the horned man, whose face is inexplicably painted red and black, and the coming crowd, the gentleman asks Robin if a man cannot have several voices "as well as two complexions?" This can be read as an indication that the colony is halfway between good and evil and this same question lies at the heart of humanity, which is capable of both. All people must choose between the forces of individual order and the temptation represented by the horned man, who leads the townspeople into a frenzy. Seized momentarily by the festivity of the crowd, Robin loses himself and briefly partakes of the mob's "contagion" as it spreads across the multitude. The gentleman brings Robin back to reality and asks him if he is dreaming. With this, the good man rescues Robin from being swept in by the evil power that has apparently taken control of the town. Hence the goodness seems to dispel the evil that has gripped Robin's soul. The ambiguous ending sees the kindly gentleman tell Robin, who asks for directions back to the ferry, that given a few days, he "may rise in the world without the help of [his] kinsman, Major Molineux." Even a town beset by evil may be overshadowed by goodness. It is unknown by what means Robin, according to the gentleman, will "rise in the world." But by promoting self-reliance and imploring Robin to have faith in himself, the stranger becomes the boy's savior. That said, there is the possibility that the stranger means to induct Robin into some dishonest labor. From the story, it is impossible to know, but as Robin has come to distrust everything around him, even kindness feels conditional and potentially criminal. The gentleman is different from every other person Robin has met and seems almost otherworldly, an indication that he is a Christ figure in opposition to the devil that leads the mob. As such, he is goodness incarnate and Robin's salvation. Hawthorne's view of evil, on display in this story, is that it is bred by the masses and thrives on duplicity. Good is always an individual choice and must take root even amidst collective sinfulness. Readers don't know in what direction Robin's fate will take him, but he is warned not to submit altogether to the wickedness that he finds in every corner of his search for his kinsman. Through the story, Hawthorne suggests that people are not born to either total goodness or evil but arrive halfway between the two. Evil can be grotesque, as with the horned man, or spread by more subtle means until it seems to smother the possibility for good; but there always exists the hope of persevering and taking a personal stand against widespread iniquity. - Climax: Robin meets eyes with Major Molineux, who has been tarred and feathered. - Summary: "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" takes place during a single night, as an 18-year-old, country-bred man named Robin arrives by ferry in Massachusetts Bay, where he hopes to "begin in the world" with the help of his wealthy and eminent cousin, Major Molineux. Little does Robin know that the colonies have turned hostile toward public servants who represent the Crown, having already driven out a number of governors. Robin is prepared for warmth and respect from the locals due to his association with the Major, but is only treated with distrust and indifference from the townspeople. Unable to find a house befitting the imagined grandeur of his "kinsman," Molineux, Robin encounters an old man, who loudly rebukes and threatens him, much to the amusement of the patrons and employees of a nearby barber shop. He then visits a tavern full of mariners and craftsmen, all of whom he considers to be lowly drunks. Here, Robin notices a horned man whispering to a group of ill-dressed associates. Robin asks this innkeeper where he can find Molineux, but he erroneously suspects that Robin is a runaway servant named Hezekiah Mudge, whose description superficially resembles Robin's clothing (a gray cloak, leather breeches, and a tri-corner hat). When he finds out that Robin has no money with which to afford supper, the innkeeper throws him out. Surprised at his cold reception in Massachusetts, Robin continues to roam the streets and back alleys of the town, hungry and dazed. He hopes to run into Molineux as he wanders, but only encounters crowds of young people dressed in elaborate, European-inspired clothing. He inspects the faces of every older gentleman he passes, hoping one of them will be his kinsman, to no avail. Robin hears the old man who threatened him earlier approaching once again, and crosses the street to a series of ramshackle houses on the bay. The door to one of these is open, with a woman in scarlet petticoats standing in the foyer. Opting to try his luck once again, Robin asks the woman where he can find Molineux. She claims that this is Molineux's house, that she is his "housekeeper," and that he is asleep inside after a strong draught of liquor. Robin believes her, and tells her that he'll deliver a message from Molineux's friends in the country and then retire to his room at the inn for the night. But the woman tries to pull Robin indoors, only retreating when the night watchman passes by. The watchman calls Robin a vagabond and tells him to go home, lest he be put in the stocks. Robin resumes his wandering, noticing more groups of outlandishly dressed people who seem to be speaking foreign languages as they hurry along the road. He randomly stops a man wearing a bulky cloak and asks where he can find his kinsman, only to discover that it is the horned man from the tavern, now with his face painted half-red and half-black. The stranger tells Robin to wait an hour in the same location if he wants to see Molineux pass by. Disconsolate, Robin looks in through the window of a nearby church and sees the moonlight shining down on a Bible, a sight that evokes homesickness and loneliness, as it reminds him of his father, a New England clergyman, and the rest of his beloved family. At his wit's end, Robin returns to the spot where he met the horned man and is soon joined by a kind gentleman who steps out from the shadow of the steeple and inquires sincerely after Robin's business in the city and general wellbeing. The gentleman claims to be familiar with the horned man, and warns Robin of the riotous mood of the townspeople. Eventually, a parade led by the horned man comes by, full of merriment, music, and costumes. What's more, all of the individual townsfolk Robin has met that night appear on the scene. At the center of the procession, pulled along in a cart, is Major Molineux, having been tarred and feathered. He makes humiliated eye contact with Robin, causing Robin to shake violently with "a mixture of pity and terror." After the revelers and their captive have passed, Robin asks the kind gentleman for the way back to the ferry, having concluded that his ventures in the town are a failure. But the gentleman tells him that if he stays, he may yet "rise in the world without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux."

- Genre: Novel - Title: My Sister’s Keeper - Point of view: First Person (multiple narrators) - Setting: Upper Darby, Rhode Island, 2004 - Character: Andromeda "Anna" Fitzgerald. Description: - Character: Kate Fitzgerald. Description: - Character: Sara Fitzgerald. Description: - Character: Brian Fitzgerald. Description: - Character: Jesse Fitzgerald. Description: - Character: Campbell Alexander. Description: - Character: Julia Romano. Description: - Character: Suzanne "Zanne" Crofton. Description: - Character: Dr. Chance. Description: - Character: Judge DeSalvo. Description: - Character: Isobel "Izzy" Romano. Description: - Character: Judge. Description: - Character: Taylor Ambrose. Description: - Character: Jenna Ambrose. Description: - Character: Paulie. Description: - Character: Kerri Donatelli. Description: - Character: Beatta Neaux. Description: - Character: Duracell Dan. Description: - Theme: Bodily Autonomy. Description: - Theme: Siblinghood. Description: - Theme: Parenthood. Description: - Theme: Control. Description: - Theme: Illness and Isolation. Description: - Climax: Anna confesses on the witness stand that she did not file her lawsuit for her own benefit. Kate asked her to refuse to donate her kidney and, in doing so, let Kate die. - Summary: The protagonist of My Sister's Keeper is 13-year-old Andromeda "Anna" Fitzgerald, the youngest of three children. Her 16-year-old sister Kate has battled acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) since the age of two. Shortly after Kate's diagnosis, Anna's parents Sara and Brian decided to conceive a child via in vitro fertilization who could serve as a donor for Kate. This child turned out to be Anna, who, by the time the novel begins, has donated cord blood, bone marrow, and lymphocytes to Kate. Anna and Kate are quite close, but Anna struggles with feeling as though she only exists to save Kate. At age 16, Kate is in remission from her leukemia, but she is suffering from kidney failure due to the strain of over a decade of treatment. As a result, Sara, a stay-at-home mother who has been fiercely devoted to Kate's treatment since her diagnosis, expects that Anna will donate a kidney in order to save Kate's life, even though Kate's oncologist Dr. Chance has informed the Fitzgeralds that there is a high chance of Kate dying during the transplant, which would leave Anna with one less kidney for nothing. Brian, a firefighter, is more ambivalent about having Anna donate a kidney, but he does not make his protests known. The Fitzgeralds' son, Jesse, often acts out and is generally isolated from the family, though he still lives at the family house. Tired of being a constant donor for Kate, Anna decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation. Without telling her parents, she seeks out Campbell Alexander, a well-known and haughty attorney who keeps a service dog but refuses to tell anyone the dog's purpose. Campbell initially rejects Anna due to her young age, but when she tells him the details of her case, he is intrigued and decides to take her on pro bono. However, when Sara is served papers for the lawsuit in Kate's hospital room and grows irate, Anna begins to second-guess her decision to file the lawsuit. Her wishy-washy attitude frustrates Campbell, who doubts her commitment to the case and fears that he will not be able to prove her right to autonomy if she cannot stick by her own decisions. Judge DeSalvo, who lost his 12-year-old daughter to a drunk driver a few years earlier, is assigned to the case. Sara is a former lawyer who is still accredited by the bar, so she chooses to represent herself. The first time all the parties meet, Anna becomes distraught due to pressure from Sara to retract her lawsuit and cannot make up her mind about what to do. Unsure about Anna's intentions, Judge DeSalvo appoints her a guardian ad litem to help guide Anna in her decision-making and make a recommendation to the court about what would be best for Anna. This guardian ad litem ends up being Julia Romano, Campbell's ex-girlfriend that he abruptly dumped in high school. This leads to tension between the two of them, particularly since Julia suspects that Campbell has only taken Anna's case for the publicity, since Sara and Brian have been publicly scrutinized for conceiving a "designer baby." Shortly after Anna's lawsuit commences, Kate becomes extremely ill and has to be hospitalized, further straining tension in the Fitzgerald household. Jesse, unbeknownst to his firefighter father, has been setting fires around town. Meanwhile, Sara increases her pressure on Anna to drop her lawsuit. Brian decides to allow Anna to stay at the fire station with him so that she can have time to process her feelings without Sara's pressure, which causes Sara to feel betrayed by Brian. During this time, Julia gets to know Anna better, although she also has trouble ascertaining Anna's true motivations for filing the lawsuit. Campbell speaks to Brian, who tells him that he would be willing to testify on Anna's behalf at the hearing. Shortly before the hearing begins, Campbell and Julia go out to talk about the case and end up sleeping together, but Campbell leaves before Julia wakes, making her feel abandoned once again. At the hearing, both Campbell and Sara call a variety of witnesses who present various arguments both for and against Anna's emancipation. Campbell feels confident that he will win the case since he has one of Anna's parents as a witness, but when Brian takes the stand, he cannot in good conscience testify in favor of a decision that would result in Kate's death and breaks down on the stand. Campbell tells Anna that she'll have to testify instead, but Anna staunchly refuses, causing the two to get into a major argument. Judge DeSalvo calls Julia to the stand to make her recommendation on Anna's behalf, but for the first time in Julia's career, she is unable to make a conclusive recommendation due to the ethical complexity of the Fitzgeralds' situation. This spurs Anna to take the stand, where she confesses that Kate, ready to die, asked Anna to file her lawsuit in order to get out of donating her kidney. As Anna testifies, Campbell has a seizure, forcing Judge DeSalvo to call for a recess in order for him to recuperate. During the recess, Campbell confesses to Julia that he developed epilepsy after receiving a concussion and broke up with her because he thought she deserved better. Julia rejects this and vows to stay by his side. Campbell also confesses to Anna, who speculates that Campbell took her case because he knows what it's like to lose control over his own body. Judge DeSalvo speaks privately with Kate and declares that court will reconvene the next morning. That night, Sara and Brian spend time with Kate, coming to terms with the fact that she'll soon die. In court, Judge DeSalvo declares his ruling: he will grant Anna her medical emancipation. His reasoning is that, since the situation is so complicated and there is no correct decision, it makes sense to leave the decision up to whether Anna wants to donate her kidney or not. Anna is deeply conflicted over the verdict, but both Sara and Brian reassure her that they're all right with the outcome. Sara and Brian head home ahead of Anna since she has legal paperwork to fill out, so Campbell drives Anna home afterwards. It is raining heavily, and during the drive, Campbell is T-boned by a large truck. Brian, the firefighter on duty, shows up and realizes Anna has been grievously injured. At the hospital, the doctor informs him that Anna is braindead. Campbell, who was granted medical power of attorney for Anna, signs off on her organs being donated so that Kate can receive Anna's kidney. After Anna's organs are extracted, Sara and Brian turn off her life support, and she dies. In the epilogue, Kate is in her 20s, having survived the kidney transplant and remaining in remission from her leukemia despite her prognosis. After Anna's death, the entire Fitzgerald household was thrown into intense grief, but the family eventually began to recover. Brian struggled with alcoholism but eventually recovered, and Jesse became a police officer. Kate herself became a ballet instructor and carries Anna with her wherever she goes.

- Genre: Fiction, Family Drama - Title: My Son the Fanatic - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: London, England - Character: Parvez. Description: Parvez is Ali's father. He is a Pakistani immigrant in England who makes a living driving a taxi at night. He has a wife, although he does not seem to like her much, and when he seeks emotional support it is from one of his regular customers, a prostitute named Bettina. The story revolves around Parvez's concerns about Ali's newfound devotion to fundamentalist Islam. This unnerves Parvez for two significant reasons. For one, Parvez's early experiences with Islam as a child growing up in Lahore turned him off from all religions entirely, a sentiment that he shares with many of his fellow Pakistani immigrant friends. Most importantly, however, is that Ali's devotion to a radical version of Islam directly conflicts with Parvez's ultimate dream of assimilating totally into English culture and society. He believes his dream for assimilation will only be realized in Ali, who was born and raised in London and was on track to starting a successful, white-collar career as an accountant. Parvez copes with his distress over Ali by drinking whiskey and confiding in Bettina, who coaches him on how to try and talk Ali down from his new fundamentalist ideology. However, each time that Parvez confronts Ali about his new beliefs, the two clash. Parvez defends the lifestyle and ideology that the West has to offer, while Ali vehemently insists that his father is a bad person not only because he has broken so many rules of the Koran (like drinking and eating port), but because he so steadfastly believes in a country that discriminates against, and inflicts violence upon, Muslim people. These repeated insults anger Parvez and fuel increasing disdain between the two, in turn pushing Ali further away and deeper into his radical beliefs. By the end of the story, after Ali insults Bettina, Parvez becomes enraged and drunkenly attacks Ali. In this moment, Parvez becomes the fanatic in the story, and enacts the Western violence against Muslim people that radicalized Ali in the first place. - Character: Ali. Description: Ali is Parvez's son. He was born and raised in London, but both of his parents are immigrants from Pakistan. Ali was successful in school and sports throughout his childhood and adolescence. He had close friends as well as an English girlfriend, and was studying accounting at university. The drama of the story revolves around Ali's sudden shift from a life of assimilation to one devoted to fundamentalist Islamic beliefs and practice. This shift begins when Ali starts throwing out clothes, books, cricket bats, video games, and other possessions that, to him, represent what he now sees as the indulgence and excess of Western culture. While his father views Ali as the family's final step towards achieving full assimilation into English culture and society, Ali's experience of growing up as the child of immigrants in England has turned him against assimilation entirely. Instead, he wishes to reclaim the identity and culture that his family left behind in Pakistan, but in this quest winds up entangled in the ideology of a radical version of Islam that doesn't actually match the former religious practices of his family. While his father delights in Western values like the flexibility and freedom to enjoy life and its excesses, Ali is steadfast in his beliefs that enjoyment and materialism are antithetical to a virtuous life. At times, Ali deploys valid critiques of the West, pointing out the destruction wrought by Western imperialism and the Western violence perpetrated against Muslim peoples and countries around the world. He asks his father how he can love something which hates him so publicly. Ali, however, takes his beliefs to the extreme, and is willing to give his life for jihad to end the persecution that he describes. Ali's unwillingness to give in to Parvez's desire for him to assimilate ends up enraging Parvez, and leads him to drunkenly attack Ali. This final action makes Ali's point that the West is itself fanatical for the hatred and violence it deploys against Muslim people. - Character: Bettina. Description: Bettina is a regular customer of Parvez. She is a prostitute, and Parvez drives her home nearly every night after she's done working. Parvez talks more openly with Bettina than he does with his wife, and their relationship takes on the characteristics of an emotional affair. Bettina becomes Parvez's confidant and main source of advice as he struggles to confront Ali and convince him to abandon his radical Islamic beliefs. Towards the end of the story, Bettina and Ali meet in Parvez's cab, where she and her revealing clothing, flashy accessories, and fragrant perfume come to represent the Western culture of temptation, materialism, and enjoyment that Ali despises. When Bettina tries to advocate for Parvez by confronting Ali about his fundamentalist Islamic beliefs, Ali shames her for being a prostitute. Enraged, and hurt in what was a fight between a father and son, Bettina gets out of the car, and this is her final appearance in the story. - Character: Parvez's Wife. Description: Parvez's wife, Ali's mother, remains unnamed throughout the story, and only shows up in two passing references. She is significant for her absence. A Pakistani immigrant like Parvez, she represents how he has forgotten and abandoned his cultural identity in exchange for full assimilation into English culture, as he confides not in his wife, but his regular customer, the English prostitute, Bettina. Parvez's wife appears in the story only when Parvez is ordering her around. One of these incidents in particular enrages Ali. Ali remembers, and holds against Parvez, the time that he ordered his wife to cook pork sausages, despite the fact that Muslims don't eat pork, because Parvez saw it as part what was required of them if they were to fully assimilate into English culture. - Theme: Immigration, Assimilation, and Radicalization. Description: Hanif Kureishi's "My Son the Fanatic" explores the tensions between a Punjabi immigrant father, Parvez, and his second-generation, British-born son, Ali. Parvez has spent his adult life assimilating into English culture and society after immigrating from Pakistan, and dreams that his son will complete this transformation. He is therefore appalled when Ali abandons his studies to become an accountant and instead devotes himself to a radicalized version of Islam and espouses hatred of the West. Parvez believes his son needs to be saved from these bad choices and ideas, but the story complicates this simple narrative. It does this first by showing how Parvez's own move away from Islam was motivated by his negative experience in religious school as a youth, just as Ali's newfound devotion to a radicalized Islam is motivated by his negative experience of being a Muslim in England. The story's ending—when Parvez is so enraged by his son's behavior that he physically attacks him. to which Ali responds, "who's the fanatic now?"—further blurs the line between assimilation, which is seen in the West as the socially acceptable course for immigrants, versus the socially maligned course of radicalization. That blurring, in turn, highlights that assimilation is itself a choice that is more complicated and harmful than it initially appears. Parvez's desire for assimilation is at least in part motivated by a reaction against his Islamic religious background. When Parvez was growing up in Lahore he went to a religious school where he had to study the Koran. At one point in school, a Moulvi (Islamic scholar) attached a piece of string from Parvez's hair to the ceiling so that he'd be yanked back awake if he started to fall asleep in class. This "indignity" turned Parvez against religion forever, a path away from religion that mirrors those of his fellow first-generation Punjabi immigrants to England. He and his friends, for instance, scoff at the local mullahs in London for what they perceive as their hypocrisy for "thinking they could tell people how to live, while their eyes roved over the boys and girls in their care." For Parvez, distancing himself from Islam and his native culture is also critical to his desire to fully assimilate into English culture and society. In one particularly symbolic moment, he forces his wife to cook pork, representing a departure from his past culture, and justifies this departure by insisting "We have to fit in!" Beyond cultural behavior, fitting in is also directly tied to financial success for Parvez. As a first-generation immigrant his opportunities have been limited, and he's been forced to make immense sacrifices—working ten-hour days, forgoing hobbies and holidays—in order to try and guarantee that Ali will have access to better opportunities and upward mobility as the second-generation. This is why Parvez views Ali, born and raised in England, as the key to full assimilation. His own hard work has set Ali up to get a white-collar job as an accountant, which will in turn allow Ali to easily provide for a future family. For Parvez, "Once this happened, [he] would be happy. His dreams of doing well in England would have come true." For Parvez, being first-generation has locked him out of such opportunities, and therefore he sees the complete assimilation of his son as perhaps the only path to acceptance and opportunity for his family in England. However, Ali's experience of growing up in England as the son of Pakistani immigrants has driven him to adopt a radicalized version of Islam that directly conflicts with this father's dreams of assimilation. Having been born and raised in England, Parvez's view of the country is radically different from his father's. Just as Parvez believes Islam is full of hypocrites, Ali believes that "the West was a sink of hypocrites." Despite his extremism, Ali makes many valid critiques of the West, including that it is materialistic, individualistic, and concerned with pleasure and enjoyment at the expense of other things. The critique which perhaps reveals the most about his experiences growing up as the child of immigrants in England comes when he asks his father: "'The Western materialists hate us'…How can you love something which hates you?'" This critique suggests that, beyond just recognizing the West's political disdain for the Islamic world, Ali has himself felt the effects of prejudice and discrimination despite his having been born and raised in England, which has then contributed to his desire to distance himself from it. The implication is that Ali's experience as a second-generation immigrant has allowed him to see that full assimilation is never possible, and that the West will always view Muslims and immigrants as outsiders. In the West, assimilation is the accepted and highly encouraged path for immigrants to take, while radicalization is condemned and feared. In the final scene, "My Son the Fanatic: complicates this idea by blurring the line between assimilation and radicalization not to advocate for radicalization, but rather to highlight the fact that assimilation is not as harmless a choice as it appears. Parvez's devotion to the course of assimilation leads him to attack his own son, and between punches Ali asks: "So who's the fanatic now?" Ali's searing, final question reveals the fanaticism behind assimilation. Parvez turns on his own son, which is symbolic of the ways in which assimilation requires that immigrants turn their backs on their own culture in order to gain acceptance in their new homes. The assimilationist decision to dilute or even abandon one's culture is a radical choice in its own right, and Kureishi suggests that neither extreme—assimilation or radicalization—should be the path that immigrants choose or are forced to take. - Theme: Immigration, Fathers, and Sons. Description: "My Son the Fanatic" explores the ways in which the father-son relationship is further complicated by the internal and external pressures of immigration and the desire to assimilate. Parvez is a first-generation immigrant whose opportunities have been limited. He works tirelessly in a blue-collar profession as a taxi driver in order to provide for his son, Ali, and guarantee that Ali experiences upward mobility. Many fathers' dreams are wrapped up in the success of their children, and the story captures how such dreams can be even more powerful for immigrants, who see their own assimilation as reaching its fruition through their children. By the end of the story, though, Ali has veered completely off the path that his father created for him, and this departure destroys their relationship as father and son. Through this implosion, Kureishi highlights how the pressure that first-generation immigrant fathers put on their sons to fulfill their dreams of assimilation can backfire and cause their second-generation children to, instead, attempt to reclaim the culture and identity that is lost when immigrants start life over in a new country.  Initially, Parvez is confident that his academically and socially successful son, Ali, will realize his—Parvez's—dreams of full assimilation into English culture. However, this confidence is shaken when Ali starts behaving strangely. As Ali begins to mysteriously throw away his possessions, though, Parvez becomes deeply worried and feels "his son's eccentricity as an injustice" after all the hard work and sacrifice he's made to provide Ali with everything he needs for a successful life in England. Parvez wants to confide in his friends—fellow Pakistani taxi drivers—but is ashamed and afraid to admit that his son may be falling victim to the "pitfalls" of "bad girls, truanting from school and joining gangs" that they've seen ruin other men's sons. Parvez experiences his son's "failures" as something shameful, showing that he sees his own success at assimilation as tied up in his son's success. When he discovers that Ali's strange behavior has nothing to do with drugs, though, and is rather due to his newfound devotion to a fundamentalist version of Islam, Parvez is not at all relieved. Instead, Parvez desperately attempts to get his son back on the carefully constructed path to assimilation that Parvez had set for him. Parvez responds to the revelation that Ali has been praying by wanting to confront him about his sudden interest in religion, because he senses that it directly conflicts with Parvez's goal of assimilating into English culture. The confrontation, however, is disastrous: Parvez discovers that Ali has adopted fundamentalist Islamic beliefs and is staunchly opposed to Western culture and society. Ali is fanatical enough that he is willing to give his life to jihad in order that the "Law of Islam would rule the world" and to stop the persecution of Muslims worldwide. Parvez is deeply disturbed, and feels that he's "lost" his son. Parvez is realizing that his dreams for assimilation that depended on Ali are slipping away. By the end of the story, it is clear that rather than actually leading to assimilation, Parvez's desire for and attempts to achieve assimilation have driven Ali in the opposite direction. In a last attempt to reason with Ali, Parvez sits down to explain his personal philosophy of life in hopes that his son will be amenable to his view of the world and finally give up on his fundamentalist beliefs. Parvez explains that he believes one's life ends completely after death, and therefore the only way for a person to live on is through their children and the future generations to come. With this point, Parvez is expressing to Ali that his own hopes and dreams for success and full assimilation into English culture can only be realized through Ali. Parvez's philosophy, moreover, is one of individual success that explicitly rejects any idea of heaven. At this point in the conversation, Ali responds that he can't enjoy life because "all over the world our people are oppressed." Ali's embrace of all Muslim people as his own marks a complete reversal from his father's views of life. Ali experiences his father's efforts at assimilation as having cut him off from his past and culture, and so he embraces that culture as the core of his identity. The story shows that Ali's reaction is extreme, though: the fact that Parvez has no idea what Ali means when he says "our people" reveals that Ali's attempt to reclaim his Islamic Pakistani heritage is disconnected from the actual reality of the culture of his parents who were actually born and raised in Pakistan. The extremity of Ali's shift in worldview suggests that it is driven as much by a rejection of his father and his father's goals as it is by anything else. In the dramatic final scene of the story, Parvez finally accepts that Ali is "unreachable," and that his departure from the carefully constructed path to full assimilation is final. Parvez has now become one of the fathers he used to pity because they could not prevent their second-generation sons from falling victim to the "pitfalls" of life in England. Parvez's subsequent physical attack on Ali is, in a sense, an attack on the destroyer of his dream of assimilation. That the failed dream leads to such an attack speaks to the pressures of immigration and assimilation, and how that pressure is magnified when such dreams become tied up in relationships between father and son. - Theme: The West and Islam. Description: In "My Son the Fanatic" the modern conflict between Islam and the West is embodied in the strained relationship between Parvez and his son Ali. Parvez delights in what he views as the flexibility and freedom offered by the Western culture of England. He drinks whiskey, eats pork, maintains an emotional affair with a prostitute, and scoffs at what he and his friends perceive as the hypocrisies of Islamic mullahs telling everyone else how to behave. Ali's sympathies, however, go in the other direction. He rails against the West and Western culture for its materialism and focus on personal freedom and pleasure above all, as well as for the way that the West views Islam as both inferior and violent while at the same time oppressing and inflicting violence upon Muslim people around the world. When Parvez, in a moment of fury at the judgement levied against him by his son, attacks Ali, it is an action that replicates the Western violence against the Middle East that radicalized Ali in the first place. In this moment, Kureishi highlights the West's own moral failings and its direct role in the radicalization of Islam that it deplores. Throughout the story, Parvez is deeply committed to the West and what he believes is its superior culture that allows one the freedom to "do almost anything" and enjoy life's pleasures to the fullest. Parvez delights in the materialistic pleasures of the West, from bacon, which he "couldn't deny that he loved," to whiskey, to his friendly relationship with the prostitute Bettina. Not only does he love the freedoms he feels he is afforded in England, but he desperately wants to abandon his former culture in favor of full assimilation into this new culture of his adopted country. Ali, in contrast, is deeply committed to Islam, and though his beliefs are rooted in a deeply fundamentalist version of Islam, he does highlight relevant points about the impact that Western freedoms have on the rest of the world. Ali is deeply opposed to the materialism of Western culture, and this opposition is clear from the very beginning of the story when he begins throwing away possessions that, to him, represent the excess and undue attention that Western culture pays to the pursuit of individual pleasure and satisfaction. But Ali's criticism of the West goes deeper. At one point in the story, Ali asks his father how he can love the West when the West has time and again demonstrated its hatred for immigrants, and especially those from the Islamic world. Through this question, Ali is pointing to the ways that the West inflicts violence and oppression on Muslim people through imperialism that wreaks instability in Muslim-majority countries, and also through the fury and discrimination directed at Muslim immigrants who then move to the West to escape the havoc in their home countries that the West helps create. Ali views Parvez's desire to assimilate as "grovelling to the whites," and as a way of reinforcing the global problems of white and Western supremacy. There is truth to Ali's claim that "the West always thought it was best," and aims to position other cultures as "inferior." Parvez himself briefly admits that there is truth in some of Ali's beliefs about the West, when he confides in Bettina that he thinks "people in the West sometimes felt inwardly empty and that people needed a philosophy to live by." Though Parvez remains adamantly opposed to the philosophy that Ali has chosen, in this moment he acknowledges that the materialism of the West is at least in part problematic. Parvez proves Ali's point about the West in the story's final scene when, drunk on whiskey and despair, he physically attacks Ali. In this action, Parvez asserts dominance over Ali through violence, just as the West does to the Islamic world. Parvez enacts just the sort of behavior and worldview that radicalized Ali in the first place, and "My Son the Fanatic" more broadly implicates the West in the creation of the fundamentalist strains of Islam that the West deplores. - Theme: The Role of Women. Description: In "My Son the Fanatic" women play a secondary and supporting role to the men at the center of the story. In Parvez's circle of taxi drivers, wives are something to be avoided. Parvez's wife shows up briefly in the story, and only in moments when he is ordering her around. As Parvez becomes increasingly concerned about his son, Ali's, new and erratic behavior, he seeks advice not from his wife, but from the prostitute, Bettina, who he drives home each night and with whom he is carrying out an emotional affair. While this relationship seems friendly and mutual, at the end of the story, Ali takes his anger and disgust with Parvez out on Bettina, and thus she is unnecessarily harmed in this conflict between father and son. Kureishi's portrayal of the relationships between men and women in "My Son the Fanatic" highlights the general reality that women bear the brunt of men's inability to deal with their own emotions and vulnerability. Parvez's unnamed wife appears in the story only when he is ordering her around, and her absence itself represents how Parvez has turned his back on his past life in Pakistan to achieve his goals of assimilation in England. The first reference to wives in the story comes early on when the narrator explains that Parvez and his fellow Punjabi cab drivers prefer the night shift not only because it pays better, but because it means they can sleep during the day and avoid their wives. From early on in the story, then, it's established that wives are something to be avoided. As Parvez's concern over Ali's behavior grows, he confides in Bettina, rather than his wife, Ali's mother. When he spies on Ali and discovers that he's praying, his wife is "still awake, sewing in bed," but unaware of what is going on. Parvez doesn't open up to her about what's happening with Ali, but instead orders her to "sit down and keep quiet, though she had neither stood up nor said a word." She appears here in the story only to be ordered around by Parvez, and remains unaware of the emotional turmoil that Parvez is experiencing over Ali. The second time Parvez's wife is directly referenced in the story is in an anecdote that Ali retells and uses against Parvez as evidence that he has been a bad Muslim, and therefore a bad man. Ali remembers that Parvez had, against the dietary rules of Islam, "ordered his own wife to cook pork sausages, saying to her, 'You're not in the village now, this is England. We have to fit in!'" Again, Parvez's wife appears in the story only to be ordered around, but this scene also reveals how his wife, symbolic of his past life in Pakistan, is a casualty of Parvez's unyielding desire to assimilate into English culture. He wants assimilation at whatever cost, and in this moment that cost is the agency and desires of his wife. Bettina, and the emotional affair she shares with Parvez, represents Parvez's preoccupation with the West, but she also simultaneously takes on a role as the dumping ground for Parvez's emotions and vulnerability that he otherwise cannot deal with on his own. While it's unclear if Bettina and Parvez's friendship has ever become physical, it is clear that they are carrying out an emotional affair. Parvez feels protective of Bettina after having once rescued her from a violent client. Bettina always sits in the front of Parvez's cab, like a friend, rather than in the back as customers do. That Parvez can "talk to her about things he'd never be able to discuss with his own wife" reveals both the intensity of the emotional connection between them as well as the ways in which Bettina represents the freedom and flexibility of the West that Parvez loves so much. Parvez completely ignores his wife, part of his past Pakistani life, and instead focuses on Bettina whose "short skirt, gaudy rings, and ice-blue eyeshadow" represent what Ali would consider the shameful pleasure and temptations at the heart of Western culture. Bettina's perfume, "which he loved," intoxicates Parvez just as the West has for the fact that "they let you do almost anything here." What's most ironic about the relationship between Parvez and Bettina is that he considers her one of his regular customers. She pays him to drive her home each night after working her rounds as a prostitute, but on these long car rides back to her house it's Parvez who should be paying her for the emotional labor she provides him. In the story's penultimate scene, Parvez is driving Bettina when they spot Ali walking alone on the street. Bettina jumps at the opportunity to meet Ali, and, once he accepts the ride, attempts to reason with Ali on behalf of Parvez. Bettina attempts to reconcile father and son by explaining to Ali that Parvez only wants what's best for him because of how much he loves him. In response, Ali lashes out at Bettina, and insults her for being a prostitute. Bettina, hurt, storms out of the car. Her final attempt to manage Parvez's emotions and vulnerability for him has resulted in her being hurt in a conflict that was, ultimately, between father and son. In other words, she becomes Ali's punching bag, and Parvez has indirectly brought violence upon her just like the customer he'd once rescued her from had done. Women in the story, whether ignored or confided in, end up being harmed by the men around them. - Climax: Parvez and Ali argue about Ali's newfound love of radical Islam and his disdain for England and the West. - Summary: Parvez, a first-generation Punjabi Pakistani immigrant to England, notices that his college-student son Ali has begun throwing away his possessions and withdrawing from his friends. Parvez's friends—who, like Parvez, are Punjabi and work as taxi drivers—believe that Ali's strange behaviors can be explained by drug addiction. Parvez's closest confidant—a prostitute named Bettina who is one of his regular customers—agrees with this assessment. Soon, however, Parvez uncovers that Ali's new and bizarre behaviors are caused by a newfound devotion to a radical and fundamentalist version of Islam. Throughout the rest of the story, Parvez attempts to convince his son to abandon his extreme beliefs and get back on track with his previous life path: to become an accountant, and more generally to assimilate into English culture that Parvez sees as the final indication that he has done well in England, and that immigration was worth all that it cost. Parvez does not confide in his wife about what is going on with Ali, but instead increasingly depends on Bettina for advice and emotional support as he navigate this conflict with his son. Parvez quickly realizes, however, that Ali is steadfast in his beliefs. Over a disastrous dinner, it becomes clear that Ali is obstinately opposed to Western culture, which he views as full of hatred for Muslims and shallow, materialistic, shamefully indulgent, and concerned only with the pursuit of pleasure. Ali demands that his father abide by basic rules of the Koran, such as refraining from drinking, gambling, and eating pork. It's clear his beliefs are extreme, however, when he tells his father about his desire to aid in bringing the "Law of Islam" to rule the world, and his willingness to give up his life for the cause of jihad. Despite his extreme beliefs, Ali at times levels valid critiques against the West. For example, he points to the negative effects of Western imperialism, white supremacy, and the violence that Western nations inflict upon Muslim countries and people. In a final conversation between the two, Parvez attempts to reason with Ali by expressing his personal philosophy of the world, and pleading that the only way for his legacy to live on after his death is through Ali and his success. Ali remains unmoved. At the end of the story a heated confrontation between Bettina and Ali—in which Bettina tries to reason with Ali on behalf of Parvez and Ali insults Bettina for being a prostitute—sends Parvez over the edge. Enraged, he physically attacks Ali, although he knows that even this final, desperate act will not bring his son back from the brink of his extremist beliefs. As he is bloodied while passively enduring his father's frenzied attack, Ali asks Parvez who is the fanatic now.

- Genre: Psychological realism; documentary novel; African-American 20th-century fiction - Title: Native Son - Point of view: third-person omniscient - Setting: Chicago, primarily the South Side, in the late 1930s - Character: Bigger Thomas. Description: The novel's protagonist, Bigger is involved with a gang at the beginning of the novel, but his run-ins with the law, and his illegal activities, are minimal. Nevertheless Bigger is defined by his rage: against his mother, the rest of his family, his friends, and those whom he believes have not given him a chance in life. Bigger is hired to work at the Dalton house—home of a wealthy, white communist-leaning Chicago family—and on the first night of his job, after spending time with Mary Dalton and her friend Jan, Bigger accidentally kills Mary, then begins covering up the crime. This cover-up includes Bigger's later murder of Bessie, his girlfriend, and leads to his trial and conviction for rape and homicide. Bigger is sentenced to death at the end of the novel, although his interactions with his sympathetic lawyer, Max, cause Bigger to gain some insight into why he chose to kill in the first place. - Character: Buddy Thomas. Description: Bigger's brother, Buddy tends to take Bigger's side when Vera and Ma tell Bigger he must find a job. Buddy, younger than Bigger, looks up to his older brother, and, after Bigger's arrest, Buddy even says he will help Bigger to violently escape the prison, if necessary—although this is, of course, impossible. - Character: Mr. Dalton. Description: Father of Mary and Bigger's employer, Mr. Dalton is a wealthy real-estate magnate in the South Side of Chicago, and his company owns the apartment building in which Bigger and his family live. Mr. Dalton claims that he donates a good deal of money to African American charities, and that he hires black workers in order to help them. But as Max points out in the trial, Mr. Dalton's help is paternalistic, at best, and serves only to make life marginally better for African Americans while continuing to funnel the meager incomes of the Black Belt toward Dalton's highly profitable real-estate company. - Character: Mrs. Dalton. Description: Mrs. Dalton, like her husband Henry, believes that the Dalton family is helping African Americans in Chicago by offering them jobs and by donating to charities in the Black Belt. Mrs. Dalton's physical blindness—she has been blind for ten years—is a counterpart to what Bigger and Max consider to be her metaphorical "blindness" toward the plight of African Americans in Chicago. - Character: Mary Dalton. Description: Daughter of the Daltons, Mary is driven by Bigger on the night of her murder, and the two of them pick up Jan—although Bigger does not want to socialize with Mary and Jan, because their niceness makes him ashamed of his blackness and lack of familiarity with Communism. Bigger then murders Mary, by accident, while trying to "keep her quiet" while Mrs. Dalton is in Mary's bedroom later that night. Bigger disposes of Mary's body by putting her in the Dalton family furnace, thus prompting a city-wide search for Mary, and leading, later, to Bigger's imprisonment and sentencing to execution for his crimes. - Character: Jan. Description: A Communist active in Chicago, and Mary's boyfriend, Jan meets up with Mary and Bigger the night of the murder, and does all he can to treat Bigger with kindness—although Bigger resents Jan's attempts. Bigger then implicitly blames Jan for Mary's murder, hoping that authorities will be fooled, and although some believe that Jan might have "made a pact" with Bigger in order for Mary to be killed, Jan's name is later cleared. Jan has his friend Max, a lawyer for the Communists, represent Bigger at his trial, and Bigger's last words to Max, at the novel's end, are to tell Jan that he says goodbye. - Character: Max. Description: Bigger's defense attorney at his trial, Max is a Jewish-American Communist who believes that the oppressive white majority of Chicago does all it can to "keep down" people of color and members of trade unions. Max sympathizes with Bigger because he, too, is a victim of discrimination, based on his political and religious beliefs. Although Max does not succeed in helping Bigger avoid execution, Bigger is nonetheless grateful to Max for speaking to him as a human being. - Character: Buckley. Description: The State's Attorney and prosecutor of the case against Bigger, Buckley is very much a representative of the city's ruling white majority—he calls Bigger an "ape" and a "savage," and makes it seem that Bigger killed out of a generalized blood-lust, directed particularly against white women. Buckley succeeds at trial in getting the judge and jury to agree to Bigger's execution. - Character: Bessie. Description: Bigger's girlfriend, Bessie tends to go along with what Bigger wants, although when Bigger asks her to help generate a ransom from the supposed "kidnapping" of Mary, Bessie breaks down and worries that her life is ruined. Bigger later rapes and murders Bessie, fearing that she will tell the authorities of Bigger's guilt; Bessie's body is found by the police and exhibited at the inquest, causing Bigger to faint out of shock. - Character: The preacher. Description: An African-American preacher from the Black Belt, the preacher, named Hammond, does all he can to convince Bigger that he will receive salvation for his crimes only in the next life. But after Bigger sees a burning cross, set up by the Ku Klux Klan, in the South Side during his incarceration, Bigger rejects absolutely the preacher's teaching, believing that God can offer Bigger no support or succor in this life or the next. - Character: Deputy coroner. Description: The man presiding over the inquest, in front of the grand jury, the deputy coroner insists that Bessie's body be laid out before Bigger and the remainder of the group assembled. Max objects that this is being done only to incite the mob against Bigger, but the deputy coroner claims Bessie's body is necessary to establish the fact of her murder. - Theme: Whiteness, Blackness, and Racism. Description: Native Son is a meditation on racial relations in 1930s Chicago, told from the perspective of Bigger Thomas, a young African-American man who, enraged at society, accidentally kills Mary Dalton, whose body he later burns in a furnace; and Bessie, his "girl." The novel's author, Richard Wright, drawing in part on his own experiences as an African-American male growing up in the South and moving to Chicago, describes the sensation of "blackness" from Bigger's perspective. Bigger's blackness, and the "whiteness" he encounters in large swaths of society, are not merely skin colors or racial barriers: they become, to Bigger and many others, symbolic distinctions between the morally fallen (blackness) and the morally pure (whiteness).From the beginning of the novel, when hanging out with "the gang" (including Jack and G.H.), Bigger announces that he cannot pursue his dream of becoming an aircraft pilot, because African Americans in Chicago are not permitted or encouraged to gain even a basic education. Bigger is ashamed and angry when he first meets Mary, Jan, and the Dalton family—even Peggy, the Daltons' head housemaid—because he senses that his blackness has led him into a position of servility to a white family. This, despite the fact that the Daltons wish to help Bigger (although to a limited extent, based on their own paternalistic understanding of African-American culture). Mary and Jan truly wish to help Bigger—it is a component of their Communist ideology—but Bigger's response, when asked to sit with, shake hands with, and eat with Jan and Mary, is to shrink back from them, out of a mixture of resentment, anger, and fear. The first part of the novel, then—leading up to Bigger's murder of Mary—shows that Bigger's understanding of his own blackness, and black culture, is determined primarily in relation to the city's dominant white culture. Bigger views his own ethnic background with a kind of internalized racial lens—he has difficulty recognizing his own potential as a human being, and he takes an immediate dislike to those members of white society who attempt to help him.The second part of the novel, Bigger's trial, draws out more clearly these racial divides. Bigger and his trial have become the talk of the city, and a symbol of its racial troubles. The trial divides society starkly between those white citizens who wish to help Bigger—namely Max and Jan—and those who wish to do him harm, to punish him for his crime—namely, Buckley. Max and Jan wish to help Bigger, to treat him as a human being, and to explain, if not justify, his crime based on the harsh realities of life in the Black Belt. Bigger, at first, resents this help, but later learns to respect Max a great deal, and in the poignant final scene of the novel, after Bigger has been sentenced to die, Bigger thanks Max for recognizing his (Bigger's) humanity—for helping him to feel that his own life is worth fighting for.Buckley, on the other hand, refers to Bigger as an "ape," and seems to relish the punishment meted out to Bigger. Thus Buckley, like many white members of the media establishment in the city, wants only an excuse to punish members of the African-American community—a community that Buckley views as "unproductive" and, at worst, capable of terrible crimes. The novel's resolution provides little consolation for this unfairness. But there is a notable change that occurs: Bigger becomes aware, after his crime and through communication with Max over the course of the trial, that his internalized notions of the bleakness and powerlessness of black culture have been implanted in his psyche by a dominant white culture, one that does not recognize the humanity of the city's black population. Although Bigger must die for his crimes—and he never repents for them—he has gained a degree of self-knowledge through which the reader, too, might come to terms with the US's racial divide. - Theme: Capitalism and Communism. Description: The novel is also a detailed examination of the nature of "capitalism" and "communism" in 1930s Chicago—a time and place known for agitation in the workforce, over who ought to control "the means of production."Bigger is often caught between these competing worldviews, and though he expresses frustration at the societal status quo, he is not capable, until far later in the novel, of articulating these frustrations in economic terms. On the one end, capitalism, and the creation of profits for distribution among a small group of people, is embodied by the Dalton family, specifically Mr. Henry Dalton. Dalton is not a rapacious capitalist—he wishes to reinvest his earnings, some of which derive from real estate owned in black neighborhoods, in the community—but he still uses his wealth to insulate himself from the misery of those living in the Black Belt. Other beneficiaries of this system include Mrs. Dalton, who wishes to speak for the interests of their "black help," but who cannot see that her desire to help is itself a manifestation of white privilege; and, of course, Mary, whose communist sympathies embody the interrelation, in the novel, between the capitalist and communist worldviews.Both Mary and Jan, her lover, are active in the Communist Party of Chicago, and it is their desire to help Bigger as well—to "liberate" his people from the shackles of economic servitude. But Bigger nevertheless experiences a hatred for Mary and Jan despite their good intentions, or perhaps because of them: Bigger seems intuitively to recognize that Jan and Mary, despite their best efforts, are limited by a paternalistic impulse to help African Americans, who, they believe, cannot help themselves. In this way, the communism of Mary and Jan is not so different from the capitalism of Mr. and Mrs. Dalton—both these impulses of kindness lead to death and destruction.Finally, at the novel's end, Wright offers a portrait of Max as a sympathetic communist figure, one whose motivation to help Bigger is relatively pure (as Max himself, a Jewish member of the Chicago legal community, has felt the sting of discrimination in his own life). Although Bigger never "converts" to communism, he comes, through his conversations with Max, to understand the interdependence of human beings in a community—and this idea, which lies at the root of utopian communism, allows him to approach his death with a kind of quiet dignity. Communism, however flawed and in whatever limited a capacity, is a way for humans to recognize the humanity of one another. - Theme: Crime and Justice. Description: The novel turns on Bigger's crimes: his murder of Mary, which incites so much protest in the white community of Chicago; and his murder of Bessie, an African-American woman—which, tellingly, does not set off the same firestorm of anger. Native Son is a take on the fundamental story of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: two lonely young men, Raskolnikov and Bigger, kill for reasons they cannot explain, and also kill innocent individuals unrelated to their original targets. Both men must come to terms with their crimes in the maw of the criminal justice system.For Bigger, however, this system is stacked against him to an almost unimaginable degree, as Mary is a member of wealthy white Chicago society. The legal process by which Bigger is tried is contrasted with the "desires" of the Chicago community at large, especially its white community, as represented by the opinions of the State's Attorney, Buckley. Buckley argues that Bigger's crimes deserve to be publicized and "tried" in the community, and that the opinion of the mob, if not admissible at court, nevertheless impacts his own (Buckley's) actions as prosecutor. Buckley asks for the death penalty, and reviews in excruciating detail Bigger's previous gang-related activities, and his gruesome murders.On the other side stands Max—a small beacon of hope for Bigger, that the latter might avoid the death penalty; that he might have his humanity, and the motivations for his crime, recognized in court. Max consistently describes Buckley's argumentative efforts as attempts to turn public opinion against Bigger. Eventually, Bigger is tried, and a great deal of evidence is brought against him by Buckley, evidence that not only shows Bigger's guilt but makes it appear that Bigger is hardly human, an "ape" who has killed out of a hatred for white people. But Max, calling no witnesses himself, makes an impassioned speech in perhaps the novel's high-point, arguing that Bigger has never had a chance in life, that his view of white society is distorted by the difficulties of his own existence, and that, despite his horrific crimes, Bigger ought to be afforded the legal protections of due process, and the chance to learn and repent in prison for the remainder of his life.The judge finally decides, based in part on vociferous public outrage, that Bigger must be sentenced to death, and the novel ends on a particularly somber note. But Wright also makes clear that, though Bigger's life is lost, Max's statements on the nature of human suffering, regardless of race, are true ones—ones that might be applied to the lives of other African Americans who have not stumbled as Bigger has. - Theme: Anger and Charity. Description: Wright attempts to tease out, in Native Son, the nature of Bigger's anger—his hatred of humanity—and the extent to which charity toward man, as espoused by Max, Jan, Mary, and others, is a preferable way of life. Bigger is defined and enveloped by his hate. He hates the white people he believes have kept him out of school, out of the profession (aircraft pilot) he desires; he hates the Daltons for giving him a room and a job, for treating him as someone in need of charity; and, perhaps most importantly, Bigger hates and rejects his mother and siblings, feeling that, although they love him, they can only crowd in on him and demand things of him. Bigger's anger is his default emotional state—his natural way of viewing the world.But others in Bigger's life wish to combat this anger. Jan and Mary seem genuinely to want to get to know him, and though the night they spend together goes horribly awry, and Bigger attempts to blame the murder on Jan, Jan nevertheless takes Bigger's side, and hopes, even during the trial, that Bigger might escape the death penalty. Bessie, Bigger's girlfriend, is a foil for Bigger's mother: both are women afraid of Bigger's anger, hoping that he will somehow realize that, although white society might attempt to thwart Bigger and his aspirations, that there exists, too, a society in that Black Belt willing to support and love Bigger. This all contrasts with the charity offered by the Daltons, who take in members of the black community to work for them, and who give money (evoked most pointedly by the "ping-pong tables") to the Black Belt community. Unfortunately, the Daltons are not capable of understanding that their efforts infantilize and continue, however implicitly, to support the oppression of African-American Chicagoans. Max, on the other hand, is a person outside Bigger's community who, through genuine concern for Bigger's life, and for the plight of all African Americans, shows Bigger compassion, makes a case for Bigger's difficult circumstances, and hopes to avoid the death penalty for his client and friend. At the novel's end, although it is a small victory, Bigger realizes that Max's attempts to understand the story of Bigger's life and circumstances have provided a model for genuine human engagement: a charity of the heart and mind, a form of human communion. Their conversation is not enough to save Bigger's life, but the small smile Bigger gives at the close of the book seems tacit, and poignant, recognition of the possibility of human kindness. - Theme: Death, Life's Purpose, and the Will to Live. Description: Bigger's entire life, leading up to the murders, is characterized by a hatred of his fellow man, and an impulse toward danger and violence. Bigger wishes to rob Blum's grocery, and when his friends do not immediately go along with his plan, he intimidates them. Bigger wants to gratify himself physically (most notably by masturbating in the movie house before the Blum robbery); life, for him, represents only a series of deferrals of death, of small instances of physical pleasure that have no relation to any higher emotional aim.After the murders—when Bigger claims he "felt free" (to Max), because he was in control of his own life—Bigger comes slowly to realize, through his trial and through the exhortations of Max on his behalf and of Buckley against him, that life is more than a series of disconnected physical pleasures. Life, instead, is lived for a certain goal—for making a profit, for helping others, for establishing a family. Yet Bigger has trouble coming to terms with these realities of unselfish living, until Max asks him about his own life. The paradox of Bigger's condition is that his total selfishness, his ignorance of his family's suffering and of the suffering of others, is combined with a total lack of self-awareness and self-interrogation.Thus, by asking Bigger to talk about his own life, Max demonstrates the kind of care for another person he believes Bigger ought to have shown to his own friends and family. Bigger does not articulate his prison revelations in exactly these terms, but he nevertheless admits to Max, in their final meeting before his death, that Max has taken the time to see him as an individual, and that this has caused Bigger to recognize that life has value, death is not simply "another thing" that happens to human beings. Death is, instead, the cessation of life's possibility, which is what makes death so unbearable to most. Bigger realizes life's meaning when it is too late to change his own life—but the novel, as cautionary tale, establishes that we, who read it, still have time to correct our lives, to live with purpose, and to put off death by living for others. - Climax: Bigger is sentenced to death by the Chicago criminal court - Summary: The novel Native Son begins in the Thomas apartment in 1930s Chicago, where Bigger, his sister Vera, his mother (Ma), and brother Buddy all live, in one room, together. Ma and Vera spot a rat, and Bigger kills it with a frying pan, before heading out for the afternoon—a day in which, as his mother and Vera remind him, he has an interview with Mr. Dalton, a rich, white real-estate magnate in the South Side of Chicago. On his way to Doc's pool hall, Bigger runs into his friend Gus, and the two talk about jobs they might enjoy doing if it weren't for the fact that they are African American, and therefore essentially barred from many professions. Bigger tells Gus that he would be an aircraft pilot, if it were possible. Gus and Bigger go into the pool hall and meet up with Jack and G.H. The four plan the robbery of Blum's deli, with Gus the least willing to perform it, since the gang has never before robbed a white man, and Gus worries about retaliation. Jack and Bigger go to see a movie, in which a newsreel of Mary Dalton, Mr. Dalton's daughter, and Jan, her Communist boyfriend, is shown. Bigger and Jack go back to Doc's, and Gus arrives later than the other three; Bigger threatens Gus with a knife, and Gus runs out of the pool hall, putting an end to the group's robbery plan. Angry, Bigger cuts up a pool table, and Doc kicks them out of the hall. Bigger goes home for an hour or two, then leaves for his interview at the Daltons'. Mr. Dalton tells Bigger he is to be a chauffeur for the Dalton family; his first job will be to drive Mary to her lecture that evening. Peggy, the Daltons' maid, welcomes Bigger and tells him his other job is to feed the house's furnace. Bigger drives Mary that evening, but she instead says she wants to meet with her friend Jan; Jan and Mary have dinner with Bigger, and though they wish to be nice to him, they only embarrass him with their kindness. The three get drunk, and Bigger drives Jan and Mary around the park before dropping off Jan and taking Mary back home. Bigger carries Mary, who is unconscious, upstairs and puts her to bed; while he is in her room, Mrs. Dalton, who is blind, comes in, smells alcohol, and believes only that Mary is intoxicated once again. Bigger puts a pillow over Mary's face to keep her from saying that Bigger is in the room, and Bigger realizes, when Mary's mother is gone, that he has accidentally killed Mary. Bigger takes her body downstairs, burns it in the furnace, and goes home, in a daze, to sleep in his apartment. The next day, Bigger realizes that he really killed Mary, and goes back to the Dalton house to develop an alibi. Bigger realizes it is most feasible that Jan is the murderer, so Bigger begins to tell Mrs. Dalton, Mr. Dalton, and Peggy, who have realized that Mary is gone, that Jan stayed late at the house the previous night. Mr. Dalton calls Britten, a private investigator, to ask Bigger questions, and Britten also calls over Jan to the Daltons'. Jan denies that he came over the previous night, and wonders what has happened to Mary. When Jan asks Bigger why Bigger is lying, Bigger threatens Jan with a gun downstairs, in the furnace room, and Jan leaves. Reporters gather at the house, and hear a statement from Mr. Dalton, who says, in the interim, that he has received a ransom note, forged by Bigger (unbeknownst to Mr. Dalton), demanding 10,000 dollars for Mary's return. Dalton says he intends to pay the ransom. But when Bigger is asked to rake out the furnace, which is full of ash, he spills ash on the floor, and the reporters see Mary's white bones inside; Bigger sneaks out of the furnace room, but at this point he is a fugitive from justice. Bigger goes to his girlfriend Bessie's house, tells her he killed Mary, and makes it seem that Bessie can only go along with Bigger's ransom plan, now, since she is an "accessory" to the crime. Bessie, horrified, leaves with Bigger and goes to an abandoned warehouse, to hide. Bigger rapes Bessie in the warehouse, then kills her with a brick, to keep her from speaking to police. Bigger then roams around the city, incognito, hoping to avoid the thousands of police officer searching for him. Bigger is eventually found on the roof of another building in the Black Belt, and is shot with a high-powered hose, debilitating him. He is brought into the police station amid shouts from the gathered crowds, who call him, among other things, a "black ape." In prison, Bigger meets with Buckley, the State's Attorney, his family, the Daltons, Jan, and his lawyer, Max, a friend of Jan's. Bigger also meets with a preacher, who asks Bigger to pray for his own soul. Buckley takes down Bigger's confession, which Bigger signs, and after Bigger sees a burning cross in Chicago, set up by the Ku Klux Klan, he tells the preacher that he does not believe in his immortal soul, and that Christianity has no use for him. Max interviews Bigger, asking about the circumstances of his life, and in the ensuing trial, although Buckley demands the death penalty, Max claims that Bigger's upbringing, and the difficult living conditions of African Americans in Chicago and elsewhere in the country, should persuade the jury to give Bigger only life in prison. But the jury decides that Bigger will be executed, and Max's appeal to the Governor of the state fails. The final scene of the novel, between Max and Bigger, shows Bigger thanking Max for listening to him, earlier, although Max is shocked that Bigger is still largely unrepentant for his crimes. Bigger tells Max goodbye, and, as the novel ends, asks Max also to tell Jan "goodbye" from him as well.

- Genre: Novel, Immigrant Fiction - Title: Native Speaker - Point of view: - Setting: New York City - Character: Henry Park. Description: Henry is a Korean American man living in New York City. The novel's narrator, he works as a spy for Glimmer & Company, a company that gathers information about people for anonymous clients. Most of the people Henry spies on are wealthy immigrants with ties to revolutionary groups in their home countries, but he generally tries not to think about how the information he gathers will be used. Instead, he focuses on inhabiting his invented backstory, which is normally easy for him because he's used to fitting into his surroundings; he feels particularly well-suited to this role because of his multicultural identity, which has taught him how to manage multiple modes of self-presentation. However, his job also requires a lot of secrecy, which puts a strain on his relationship with his wife, Lelia. To add to this strain, Henry and Lelia already have a fair amount of tension in their relationship because of their different ways of responding to their son's death. Their son, Mitt, died at the age of seven, and while Lelia wants to talk about her grief, Henry remains mostly silent about his feelings and simply wants to move on. Feeling alone with her sorrow, Lelia leaves him to be on her own for a while. Around the time she comes back, Henry starts a new assignment as an intern at the political headquarters of a city councilman named John Kwang. Like Henry, Kwang is Korean American, and Henry can't help but identify with him—Kwang even reminds him of his father. Although Henry has spent the majority of his life cultivating the American aspects of his cultural identity, he now gets in touch with his Korean cultural values, admiring Kwang's ability to put those values to use as a prominent public figure. As he works with Kwang, he repairs his relationship with Lelia by opening up about his feelings. In turn, he gradually transforms throughout the book from a secretive, guarded spy to someone who's more open and who wants to empower his fellow immigrants instead of conspiring against them. - Character: Lelia. Description: Lelia is Henry's wife. Originally from Massachusetts, she works as a speech specialist who helps people learn English and improve their pronunciation. When she first meets Henry at a party in Texas, she tells him that she can tell he's not a "native speaker"—not because he has an accent, but because he looks very concentrated when he's speaking, as if he's carefully listening to himself to make sure he doesn't make any mistakes. They end up getting married and having a little boy named Mitt, who dies in a freak accident at the age of seven. The tragedy puts an enormous strain on Lelia's relationship with Henry, mostly because his stoic way of dealing with his grief makes her feel like she has to handle her sorrow all by herself. She doesn't want to just move on from their son's death; in fact, she doesn't even feel capable of doing such a thing, since merely listening to tape recordings of his voice makes it impossible for her to even move for days at a time. Henry, on the other hand, silently wrestles with his sadness while telling everyone that both he and Lelia are doing fine. His unwillingness to talk about his emotions aligns with the fact that he has to keep so many secrets about his job. Lelia knows that he is some kind of spy, but he will never tell her any details. In short, she feels cut out from his life, so she leaves him and travels to Italy for several months, where she has an affair before returning to New York City and living with one of her and Henry's friends. Gradually, however, Henry starts to open up to her more and more, and this makes it possible for them to repair their relationship. By the end of the novel, Lelia feels less alone with her grief, even if the tragedy of Mitt's death still weighs heavily on her. - Character: Henry's Father. Description: Henry's father was a Korean immigrant who came to the United States with his wife and son (Henry), settling in New York City and opening a grocery store. A disciplined man of few words, he was a hard worker who earned a master's degree from one of the most respected schools in Korea. When he came to the United States, though, he essentially started over, working long hours to become the successful owner of multiple grocery stores throughout the city. He never talked about work at home, and his wife never asked him about his day. When Henry started asking about his father's job one evening, his mother pulled him aside and told him not to talk about the grocery stores, explaining that such talk was beneath his father—after all, he had graduated from a highly respected institution in Korea and was only working as a grocer to give Henry a better life; instead of making him talk about the stores, then, Henry should simply keep his father company during his few hours of relaxation. Later, Henry's mother died when he was only 11, but his father didn't spend much time mourning their loss—instead, he announced that he and Henry would be moving to a wealthy suburban neighborhood north of the city. Henry hated the idea of this, but his father didn't care: he thought it was what was best for Henry. Plus, moving into a bigger house in the suburbs was his image of what it meant to succeed in the United States. Not long after they moved, his father hired a young Korean woman—whom he and Henry called Ahjuhma—to care for the house, and though he never showed any feelings for her when Henry was still a child, Henry realized when he was in college that his father and Ahjuhma had become companions and romantic partners. He died shortly after Mitt, but Henry thinks about him often, especially because John Kwang reminds him of the old man. - Character: John Kwang. Description: John Kwang is a Korean American city councilman in New York City. Henry is assigned to infiltrate his political organization and gather whatever information he can about Kwang, but he ends up identifying with the councilman and developing an admiration for him. Much like Henry's father, Kwang is a self-made immigrant from Korea who has managed to become successful in the United States. He's charismatic and is able to make people feel seen and understood, which is why he's able to unite a diverse group of constituents throughout his home borough of Queens. But he also faces political obstacles. The current mayor of New York City, Mayor De Roos, is threatened by him and criticizes him often, since it's rumored that Kwang might run for mayor. The more Henry gets to know Kwang, the more he connects with him about their shared Korean cultural values. He sees Kwang as an elder worthy of respect. but Kwang frequently transcends this dynamic by inviting Henry to treat him like a peer, However, it's always clear that Kwang holds the power in the relationship—on the surface, that is. In reality, Henry's the one who holds the power because he's a spy, which is apparently a dangerous position to be in, considering that Kwang has Eduardo killed after discovering that he's a spy. After the bombing of his headquarters, Kwang begins to spiral and lose hold of his power. He eventually gets arrested for drunk driving and crashing his car on the way home from a Korean after-hours club with an underaged waitress (who is possibly a sex worker). Around this time, Henry steals a list of participants in a "money club" (or ggeh) that Kwang has organized, and that list is eventually used against Kwang and his supporters, as the government rounds up the many undocumented immigrants who participate in the "money club." Even though Kwang was just trying to empower the immigrant community, then, American society villainizes him, and Henry deeply regrets the role he has played in the councilman's undoing. - Character: Eduardo. Description: Eduardo is a young Latino man who works for John Kwang. When Henry first meets him, he's told that Eduardo is a college student studying political science and helping Kwang's organization when he's not studying. He strikes Henry as a very devoted volunteer, though he also looks older than his purported age of 23. Kwang, for his part, is very fond of Eduardo and lets him handle the "money club" (or ggeh) that he has established to help financially empower his constituents. After discovering that Eduardo is actually a spy, though, Kwang hires a Korean gang to handle the situation, and the gang bombs the Kwang headquarters while Eduardo is working late one night. Eduardo dies in the blast, attracting controversy and media attention to Kwang's entire political operation. At first, Henry doesn't know why Eduardo was killed and fears that his own company, Glimmer & Company, had something to do with it. But Kwang eventually tells him the truth while drinking one night, and Henry realizes that Eduardo must have been working for Glimmer & Company, too—perhaps to make sure Henry didn't mess up the Kwang assignment. - Character: Jack. Description: Jack is a Greek immigrant who works alongside Henry at Glimmer & Company. He serves as something of a mentor for Henry, since he's been a spy for a very long time and is thus very knowledgeable about the trade. In fact, he no longer works undercover like the rest of his colleagues, having informed Dennis Hoagland that he didn't want to do so anymore. However, because Jack is such a valuable asset, Hoagland has forced him to stay on as a consultant of sorts, asking him to oversee the other operatives, all the while dangling the promise of full retirement as a way of keeping Jack invested in the job. The reason Hoagland sees Jack as so valuable is because of Jack's past as an operative for the CIA in Greece, where he was often in dangerous situations, meaning that he's quite experienced—and that he has seen and done some very violent things. Nonetheless, Henry likes Jack and frequently asks him for relationship advice, since Jack had a long, happy marriage until his wife died of cancer. Despite their close relationship, though, it becomes increasingly clear over the course of the novel that Jack will remain loyal to Hoagland by pressuring Henry to do various things he doesn't want to do. Jack doesn't like making things difficult for Henry in this way, but he'll do seemingly anything to make sure he'll be able to retire soon. He thus pressures Henry into stealing the list of people who contribute to John Kwang's "money club," which is the vital information that Glimmer & Company has apparently been hired to obtain. - Character: Dennis Hoagland. Description: Dennis Hoagland is Henry's boss at Glimmer & Company. He's a control freak who claims to care about his employees' well-being but, in reality, only cares about them insofar as they're able to successfully complete their assignments. For instance, he frequently calls to check up on Henry in the period after Lelia leaves him to be on her own, but Henry can tell that Hoagland doesn't legitimately care about Henry's emotional state—he just wants to make sure he'll be able to complete his next assignment. To that end, Hoagland frequently sends Jack to check on Henry's progress as he works to gather information about John Kwang. When Henry has trouble transmitting sensitive information about Kwang, Hoagland senses his hesitation and sends Jack to put some pressure on him. On the whole, both Henry and Lelia see Hoagland as an unpredictable, somewhat dangerous person, which is why Henry doesn't simply quit his job in the middle of the Kwang assignment: there is, after all, no saying what Hoagland might do to him if he were to do this. - Character: Emile Luzan. Description: Emile Luzan is a Filipino immigrant living in New York City and practicing as a therapist. Because he supports a controversial cause in the Philippines, Glimmer & Company has been hired to scrounge up information about him. Henry is assigned to learn more about Luzan by posing as one of his clients, and though Henry is normally good at sticking to his invented backstory, he finds himself unable to stop talking about his real life in his therapy sessions with Luzan. There's a kindness and openness to Luzan that makes Henry want to be honest with him—there's also the fact that Henry is still mourning the death of his son. Plus, he goes to Luzan while Lelia is abroad, so he's lonely has a lot on his mind. Eventually, it becomes clear that Henry has lost sight of his assignment. He goes to Luzan for a final session and plans to tell him to be careful, wanting to say that Luzan should be cautious about traveling and when he's around strangers. But when Henry steps out of Luzan's office for a drink of water right before telling him this, he finds Jack and another colleague, who physically force him to leave the building. Shortly thereafter, Luzan dies in an alleged accident while traveling, and Henry gathers that he was killed for political reasons—perhaps by the very same people who hired Glimmer & Company to spy on him. - Character: Ahjuhma/The Woman. Description: Ahjuhma is a young Korean woman who moves to the United States when Henry's father hires her to work as a housekeeper in the wake of Henry's mother's death. Henry doesn't know much about her, since she seems to spend the vast majority of her time in the kitchen. When he comes home from college, though, he realizes that Ahjuhma and his father have developed a close relationship and sometimes sleep together, though their bond has more to do with companionship than romance. Later, Henry visits his father's home every summer with Lelia and Mitt, and Lelia takes an interest in Ahjuhma—whose real name isn't actually "Ahjuhma." One night, Lelia asks Henry what her name is, and she's appalled to learn that he doesn't know. She sees this as a sign that Henry doesn't think his father's housekeeper is worthy of respect, but the real reason he doesn't know her name is that there would never be a context in the Korean language for him to call her anything but "Ahjuhma," which means "aunt" or "ma'am" and is what Korean people call women who aren't related to them. Ahjuhma's presence in the novel serves as a reminder of the differing cultural values between Korean and American society. - Character: Sherrie Chin-Watt. Description: Sherrie Chin-Watt is a Chinese American woman who runs PR for John Kwang's political organization. She's married to a successful businessman, but he's seemingly always away on business, and she appears to have devoted herself to Kwang's campaign. As Henry gets closer to Kwang, he realizes that the councilman is having an extramarital affair with Sherrie, though Sherrie later distances herself from him when he suddenly becomes engulfed in scandal. - Character: Janice. Description: Janice is a young white woman who works as John Kwang's schedule manager. She also handles responsibilities like scouting out the best place for Kwang to make public appearances. She works closely with Eduardo and Henry, training them to make sure that the cameras can always see Kwang when he appears in public. Out of all Kwang's supporters, volunteers, and employees, Janice is perhaps the most dedicated to Kwang's burgeoning political movement, as evidenced by the fact that only she and Henry stick around once he's surrounded by scandal and negative media attention. - Character: Mayor De Roos. Description: Mayor De Roos is the mayor of New York City and one of John Kwang's political opponents. De Roos is actually a Democrat just like Kwang, and he even helped the councilman at the beginning of his (Kwang's) career. Now, though, he's worried that Kwang will run for mayor, so he subtly criticizes him in the media. His main tactic is to imply that Kwang uses illegitimate tactics to organize the immigrant community, accusing him of paying people to support him. - Character: Pete. Description: Pete is one of Henry's coworkers at Glimmer & Company. At the end of his time with John Kwang, Henry gives Pete and their other coworker, Grace, a list of everyone who has contributed to Kwang's "money club." The list ends up being used to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. - Character: Mitt. Description: Mitt was Henry and Lelia's son, who died in a tragic accident at a birthday party when he was seven years old. His death puts an enormous strain on Henry and Lelia's relationship, and it isn't until Henry finally opens up about his own grief that they're able to mend the tension between them. - Character: Henry's Mother. Description: Henry's mother was a Korean woman who immigrated to the United States with Henry's father. She died when Henry was just 11 years old, and he didn't have time to mourn her death: his father quickly moved on with life and made it clear that he and his son shouldn't dwell in sorrow. - Theme: Identity and Multiculturalism. Description: Throughout Native Speaker, Henry Park explores the complexities of his own identity, as he feels simultaneously connected to and estranged from his Korean roots. As a Korean American man raised in New York City by Korean immigrant parents, he's intimately familiar with Korean culture, but he doesn't have the same relationship with this culture as his mother and father do. His father, for example, remains entrenched in his Korean identity even as he lives out the quintessential "American Dream" by seizing new opportunities and becoming a successful business owner. Henry, on the other hand, has spent the vast majority of his life in the United States, so his cultural identity is both Korean and American. In turn, this hybridized identity gives him a multidimensional view of life. However, Henry also has a hard time reconciling the two sides of his own identity. For example, he and his American wife, Lelia, clash over the fact that he doesn't know the name of his family's longtime Korean housekeeper—he only calls her Ahjuhma, which in Korean is similar to "ma'am" and is what people traditionally call Korean women who aren't related to them. When Lelia gets angry at him for behaving in a way that seems rude from her own American perspective, Henry finds himself pulled between the two poles of his multicultural life, as each culture holds him to different standards. Furthermore, Henry's career as a spy dramatizes the tension between the two sides of his identity. The implication is that he's particularly well-suited to this job because of his practice assimilating into different cultures. However, when Henry's new assignment brings him into close contact with John Kwang, a successful Korean American city councilman who reminds him of his father, he suddenly finds himself resonating more than usual with the Korean aspects of his own identity. As a result, he can't stay unbiased and feels conflicted about informing on Kwang, because it would feel like double-crossing his own father—and, by extension, betraying the whole Korean side of his identity. The novel implies that compartmentalizing different parts of one's identity in this way is impossible. But it also suggests that immigrants to the U.S. often struggle with this kind of self-erasure as they try to stay true to their cultural and familial roots while developing their own American identities. - Theme: Silence, Language, and Communication. Description: Native Speaker is a novel that considers the ways people communicate with one another, and how those modes of communication impact their relationships. When Henry first meets his future wife, Lelia, she says that she can tell right away that he isn't a "native speaker," despite the fact that he has a perfect American accent, because of how his face looks when he's talking. It's as if he's carefully listening to himself to make sure he doesn't make a mistake or say something with a Korean accent. Her observation hints at the great lengths Henry has gone to present himself as fully assimilated into American society, but it also suggests that communication can be very complex—there are, it seems, modes of nonverbal communication that can reveal things about people that words themselves might not reveal on their own. To that end, Henry views silence as a useful form of communication because he was raised with traditional Korean values that present silence as respectful and honorable. When confronted with hardship, for example, he's raised to remain silent; when it comes to suffering, he's taught, "the quieter the better." In his adulthood, though, he recognizes that Korean Americans might "depend too often on the faulty honor of silence" and "use it too liberally." For instance, after Henry and Lelia's son, Mitt, dies at the age of seven, Lelia is the only one who ever brings him up, and Henry's silence on the matter makes Lelia feel like she's dealing with the loss on her own. This tension creates a divide in their relationship, and the divide gets increasingly worse until Lelia finally leaves Henry. It isn't until she returns that he finally starts opening up to her about his feelings, talking not just about Mitt but also about the confidential aspects of his job as a spy. His newfound openness transforms their relationship and enables them to heal as a couple, emphasizing the benefits of honest, free-flowing communication. And yet, the novel doesn't condemn the use of silence as a form of communication. Rather, it simply suggests that there's a time and place for silence and that, because of its ambiguity, it can be interpreted differently depending on cultural context. - Theme: Racism and Xenophobia. Description: Native Speaker highlights the intolerance many immigrants of color face in the United States. Henry Park is an American citizen, but he still experiences bigotry because he's Korean. While working in his father's store as a teenager, he hears a white woman make a racist comment about him. This experience makes him feel invisible, since she clearly assumes he can't understand her—or doesn't care. The same woman later bites an apple and puts it back, but Henry's father stops him from saying anything, noting in Korean that she's a "steady customer." Henry thus sees the difficult societal position his father occupies: in order to be successful, he's forced to tolerate mistreatment from wealthy white people who think they're above him. To make it in the United States as an immigrant of color, the novel implies, often means having to navigate and put up with bigotry. It's perhaps because Henry witnessed American society's mistreatment of his father that he later respects John Kwang, a Korean American councilman whose success stems from his engagement with New York City's immigrant community. Kwang's base is made up of immigrants from many different countries, including—or perhaps especially—Korea. The fact that he has so much influence over New York politics is significant to Henry, since it means Kwang has harnessed the political power of a largely nonwhite demographic. In other words, he has risen to a position of power not by acquiescing to racists but by mobilizing a previously disenfranchised segment of the population. This trajectory stands in stark contrast to the way Henry's father gained success by quietly tolerating racism. However, the novel hints that Kwang might have underestimated the intensity of the racism and xenophobia he faces as a public figure. The mere fact that Henry has been hired to spy on him is an indication of how suspicious certain people are of immigrants of color who rise to power. Henry steals a list of Kwang's supporters involved in a "money club," which isn't technically illegal—but that's not the point, since whoever hired Henry's company just wants to arrest and deport the undocumented immigrants supporting Kwang. It's clear, then, that many white Americans in positions of power are hesitant to let people like Kwang join their ranks, and their hesitancy is mainly a reaction to what he represents: namely, a broad and diverse coalition of new Americans. - Theme: Love, Loss, and Moving On. Description: Native Speaker investigates the difficulty of navigating loss alongside a loved one. More specifically, the novel looks at the immense strain that grief can put on a relationship, which is what happens after Henry and Lelia's son, Mitt, dies at age seven. This loss isn't the first one Henry has experienced in his life, since his mother died when he was only 11 years old. When that happened, though, his father responded very stoically by simply moving on with his life. In fact, he saw her death as a perfect time to make the major change of moving with Henry from a Korean neighborhood in New York City to a wealthy, white suburb north of the city. This method of accepting the loss and moving on from it infused his and Henry's relationship with tension, though, since Henry wasn't ready to pick up and leave everything behind. He thus came to resent his father for deciding to wrench him from his old life—a life that was intertwined with memories of his mother. Given that Henry has been forced in the past to deal with loss by silently moving forward, it's perhaps unsurprising that he later adopts this same approach in the aftermath of Mitt's death by putting on a brave face and telling everyone that he and Lelia are doing well. Lelia, however, doesn't want to just move on with their lives. To the contrary, she clings to the past by listening to tape recordings that Mitt made when he was still alive, even though this deeply upsets her. Their different ways of grieving make Lelia feels alone; even though Henry is still processing Mitt's death, he doesn't know how to grieve alongside Lelia. The result of this insular, hidden grief is that Lelia leaves him for a while, and their relationship doesn't fully heal until Henry learns how to share his sorrow with her. In the end, they manage to bond over their loss instead of letting it drive them apart, indicating that even the most harrowing emotions can still form the basis of a strong and healthy relationship—if, that is, both people are willing to openly share their grief. - Climax: While lounging in bed at a hotel on Staten Island, Henry and Lelia watch the news and learn that John Kwang's headquarters in Queens has been bombed. - Summary: Henry Park is a Korean American man who lives in New York City and works as a spy of sorts. His job is to go undercover in a variety of contexts and gather information about a specified target. His boss is a man named Dennis Hoagland, whose firm gets hired by outside clients to gather information about "people working against their vested interests." In general, the people Henry spies on are usually wealthy immigrants who secretly support insurrections or revolutions in their home countries. Most recently, Henry was assigned to gather information on a Filipino therapist named Emile Luzan. It's normally easy for Henry to stick to his invented backstory, but he had a hard time doing this because life was in shambles: his wife, Lelia, had recently gone to Italy alone. Her departure was tied to the fact that their son, Mitt, died at the age of seven. Lelia felt alone with her grief because Henry never talked about it, but Henry just isn't a very expressive person. This is thanks to his Korean upbringing. His family moved to New York City from Korea when he was young, and his father worked hard to open grocery stores in the city. He did this with money from a ggeh, or a Korean "money club." After Henry's mother died when he was 11, his father moved Henry to a wealthy neighborhood north of the city and didn't dwell on his wife's death. Henry eventually became accustomed to his father's silent, stoic ways. These days, Lelia has returned from Italy but hasn't moved back in with Henry. She's still angry about the way he mourned Mitt's death, which happened when they were staying with Henry's father during the summer. Mitt eventually wound up becoming close friends with the white children in the neighborhood, but during a rowdy pig pile at a birthday party, Mitt was crushed beneath the weight of the other boys and died. Back in the novel's present, Henry has been avoiding his company's office because he doesn't want to talk to Hoagland about what happened during his Luzan assignment: Henry developed a real therapeutic relationship with Luzan and planned to warn Luzan to be careful. But two of his coworkers appeared and took Luzan away before Henry could say anything. One of those coworkers was Jack, an older Greek man who's a mentor to Henry. Now, Henry has been put on a new assignment, and Hoagland has instructed Jack to oversee it. Henry is supposed to gather information about a Korean American city councilman named John Kwang. The fact that both Henry and Kwang are Korean Americans living in New York City is supposed to make the job easy for Henry, whose task is simply to work at Kwang's new political headquarters in Queens as an intern. He's supposed to write periodic reports about Kwang's activities and send them to Hoagland. But he's slow to get started, since he's preoccupied with what's happening in his relationship with Lelia. Henry turns to Jack for advice on how to fix his marriage, knowing Jack had a happy marriage before his wife died. In turn, Jack not only acts as a professional mentor, but also as a friend and confidante—and yet, it becomes increasingly clear that his advice to Henry about how to handle the Kwang case comes directly from Hoagland. In the first weeks of his internship, Henry notices how much the other volunteers respect Kwang. They see him as a unifier who's representative of New York's immigrant communities. One volunteer, a young man named Eduardo, stands out as being especially devoted to Kwang. Eduardo is a 23-year-old—though he looks older—college student who has become close to Kwang. As for Kwang himself, he has a magnetic presence and hasn't yet confirmed or denied whether or not he'll be running for mayor. The current mayor, De Roos, is clearly nervous that Kwang will make a run for the position, so he has been criticizing him in public. As Henry works his way into the Kwang organization, he manages to reestablish contact with Lelia. He does this by asking if he can borrow tape recordings she has of Mitt, saying he wants to hear their son's voice. This leads to a late-night conversation at their mutual friend's apartment—a conversation in which Lelia makes it clear that she left Henry because she'd had enough of his silence and secrecy, she hates that he never talks about Mitt, and she also dislikes his commitment to his job. After this, Lelia and Henry begin to see each other more regularly. Slowly but surely, Henry endears himself to Kwang, who takes an interest in him because he's Korean American. Henry likes Kwang because he reminds him of a younger version of his father. The closer Henry works with the councilman, the more Kwang takes him under his wing, which only makes Henry feel worse about sending information about him back to Hoagland. Jack pays him several visits and encourages Henry to do his job, indicating that Hoagland is getting impatient. Around this time, Lelia moves back in with Henry. They've been on good terms ever since a trip to clean out his father's house (his father died not long after Mitt). On this trip, Henry finally opens up to Lelia about his feelings. He even tells her about his difficulties at work, explaining that he's under pressure to dig up dirt on Kwang. He also implies that Hoagland might want him to make something up if he can't actually find anything scandalous about Kwang. But Henry's hesitant to do so because he knows Kwang might get hurt; after all, he recently learned that Luzan was killed in an alleged "accident" while traveling. One night, Lelia and Henry are watching the news and discover that Kwang's headquarters have been bombed. Two people died: a custodian and Eduardo. Henry immediately contacts Hoagland and Jack, but they claim to have had nothing to do with the bombing. After this, Kwang's political operation moves to his house in Queens, where Henry starts working late and taking on many of Eduardo's duties. Everyone on the team is tense: Kwang still hasn't made a statement about the bombing and refuses to be seen in public. He's unraveling. Late one night, he comes downstairs and drinks with Henry. There have been rumors in the news that Eduardo was secretly renting an expensive apartment in Manhattan. People think Kwang was bankrolling him, but they don't know why. When Henry tries to broach the subject, Kwang gets angry, and their conversation devolves into an argument in which Kwang shouts at Henry. Henry backs down, and then Kwang declares that they're going out together. It's almost four in the morning when Kwang tells Henry to drive him into the city. They stop to pick up Sherrie, Kwang's PR coordinator. They then go to a Korean after-hours club where the waitresses shower the (mostly male) clientele with flirtation and physical affection. Henry can tell that Kwang and Sherrie have been here together before; they're clearly having an affair. Once inside a private room, Kwang tries to pair Henry off with the waitress. Noticing that Henry is very uncomfortable, Sherrie decides to leave—but the door is locked. Kwang jumps up and physically restrains her, so Henry defends her by tackling Kwang. Sherrie slips out of the room, and then Kwang turns his rage on Henry. He's quite drunk, and he claims that everyone is against him. Even Eduardo was against him, he says, explaining that Eduardo was stealing information. When Kwang found out, he says, he hired a Korean gang to take care of the matter, though he claims he didn't know they'd bomb the headquarters. Henry is speechless and leaves as Kwang sits back for a lap-dance from the waitress. Around this time, Jack meets Henry in a diner and urges him to give Hoagland information. One of the duties Henry took over from Eduardo is organizing Kwang's "money club," which Kwang has styled after the traditional Korean ggeh to empower his community of immigrants. Henry is in charge of keeping track of all the people who contribute to the ggeh, and now Jack tells him that Hoagland wants a copy of the list of names. After some hesitation, Jack delivers the list. Kwang is arrested the following day. Kwang returned to the club the previous night, got drunk, and crashed his car while driving with one of the waitresses, a 16-year-old Korean girl. His entire political team is thrown into chaos, but not just because of the scandal—there's also a report that the Immigration and Naturalization Service has gotten its hands on a list of people participating in Kwang's "money club." Most of the people in the club are undocumented immigrants, and by the time Henry is watching the news broadcast, the director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service reports that they have all been arrested and will be deported. Henry is devastated. He feels as if he has betrayed his own people, and he refuses to ever work for Hoagland again. He now knows Eduardo was another of Hoagland's operatives. Henry quits his job and spends his days walking through Queens. He sometimes passes by Kwang's old house. Kwang himself has moved back to Korea with his family, but Henry still thinks about him. Otherwise, he spends time with Lelia and helps her in her job as an ESL teacher, going into classrooms and helping children work on their pronunciation—an activity that at least makes him feel like he's helping the immigrant community instead of hurting it.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Neighbour Rosicky - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: Nebraska prarie, New York City, and London - Character: Anton Rosicky. Description: Anton Rosicky is the protagonist of the story, a 65-year-old Czech immigrant to Nebraska who lives on his farm with his wife, Mary, and their children. Rosicky has lived all over the world—in Bohemia, London, New York, and now, Nebraska—and he is by far happiest when he's in the country, where he has his own land, works for himself, and is able to spend time in nature and with his family. After Doctor Burleigh diagnoses him with heart failure, Rosicky is forced to do less physical labor than he likes, and instead he spends many days reflecting back on his life. Time and again, he realizes that he is happiest in Nebraska, where he has been able to feel more connected to earth and to the people he loves. His life philosophy seems to be to appreciate the small pleasures of life, find joy even in struggle, and to focus on living in the moment rather than accumulating money or prestige. By the time of Rosicky's death, at the ends of the story, it is clear that he, more than any other character, has lived a good life. - Character: Mary Rosicky. Description: Mary Rosicky is Anton Rosicky's wife and the mother of their six children. Like Rosicky, she is Czech, and like him, she is kind, generous, playful, and appreciative of life's small pleasures. Mary Rosicky stands out for being quite capable in her role as a homemaker, and Doctor Burleigh notes that she creates a household that is far more warm, supportive, and hospitable than any other neighboring family's. Mary, like her husband, lives a happy life, and she thinks much of that is because of the security of their marriage and their strong connection and shared value system—they both prioritize a strong family life over making money. - Character: Doctor Burleigh. Description: Doctor Burleigh is Rosicky's doctor. He has known the Rosicky family since he was a little boy, since he grew up near them in rural Nebraska before going to the city to get a medical degree. At the beginning of the story, he gives Rosicky the diagnosis of heart failure and is saddened that Rosicky, of all people, is the one to get sick, since Burleigh has always felt such fondness for him and his family. Burleigh realizes, by the end of the story, the extent to which Rosicky's choices have made his life so satisfying and happy. - Character: Rudolph Rosicky. Description: Rudolph is Anton and Mary's oldest son. He has recently married Polly, a woman who grew up in town and whose parents are American-born, in contrast to Rudolph's immigrant parents. Rudolph's perspective on life in the country contrasts with his father's. Rudolph worries that he will not make enough money to live a secure, happy life with Polly in the country, although Rosicky works to change his son's perspective. By the end of the story, it seems that Rudolph and Polly will remain happily in the country, just as Rosicky would have wanted. - Character: Polly Rosicky. Description: Polly is Rudolph's wife, a girl with American-born parents who grew up going to school with Rudolph. Polly is initially cold to Rosicky and Mary and seems to find their immigrant status alienating. She also is worried about life in the country and longs to go to back the city where there's more to do. Over the course of the story, she starts to warm to the Rosickys and to life in the country, and she eventually helps care for Rosicky after he collapses from heart failure. By the end of the story, she feels loving toward and grateful for the family she has married into and seems happy in the country with Rudolph. - Theme: The Good Life. Description: "Neighbour Rosicky" is about the quest for a good life. Various characters in the story live with different value systems and in different circumstances—in cities or in the country, with or without money, with or without families—but the story portrays Anton Rosicky as the happiest character of all. Rosicky searches for the good life on two different continents and in several different cities, eventually settling in rural Nebraska and becoming a farmer. Here, he comes to find what the story suggests are the most meaningful aspects of life: freedom, self-reliance, family, generosity, community, and beauty. None of these things are particularly extravagant or complicated, and so Rosicky's journey demonstrates that a happy, fulfilling life can be based on gratitude for simple things. The central concern of the story is what makes a good life. It's this good life that Rosicky is searching for throughout his life, seeking happiness and fulfillment in different cities, countries, and lifestyles. At the start of the story, Doctor Burleigh considers what, exactly, makes the Rosickys so uniquely happy. He knows that even though they are not wealthy, the Rosickys are a happy family that is "free and easy" and "comfortable." He even ponders if having a happy life is incompatible with acquiring a lot of money. Burleigh's pondering establishes how to live the good life as the story's central question, and it begins to suggest that a happy, fulfilling life is about more than just material success. Rosicky's own trajectory embodies the quest for a good life. Before settling in Nebraska, he traveled extensively, living in both the U.K. and the U.S. in an attempt to establish a fulfilling life. But as he chased money and exciting experiences in cities like London and New York, he found himself dissatisfied with his work, alienated from other people, and cut off from the beauty of the natural world. This taught him that wealth and happiness aren't necessarily linked, and that a good life can be simpler and humbler than people may assume. His unhappiness in the city eventually leads him to settle in a small town in the Nebraskan countryside, where he hopes to build a life that's more meaningful. In Nebraska, Rosicky realizes that owning his own land, connecting to nature, focusing on his family and community, and finding joy in life's simple pleasures are the pillars of a good life. A great deal of Rosicky's happiness has to do with the freedom and self-sufficiency that comes with finally owning his own land (as opposed to renting from a landlord). Moreover, he's now surrounded by nature, something that he finds deeply enjoyable and fulfilling. He takes time to drive home and admire the farms in the High Prairie; rather than envying this land that other farmers own, he enjoys just getting to look at nature's beauty. Rosicky also finds deep fulfillment in providing for and spending time with his family. Rosicky's wife, Mary Rosicky, believes that "life [has] gone well" for her and her husband because they both believe that it's better to enjoy life's simple pleasures than to be preoccupied with building wealth or chasing fleeting moments of excitement. They're both happy to make certain "sacrifices" as long as they can spend time together and with their children, which suggests that these sorts of connections are what make life worthwhile. Rosicky is similarly happy when he's socializing with members of his community, and he appreciates simple moments like getting to talk to the pretty girl who works at the town's general store. Rosicky's happiness with this lifestyle is evident in his outwardly peaceful and content disposition. Even though he's aging and experiencing heart failure throughout the story, he does "not look like a sick man." While he is older, his hair has barely any grey in it, and he appears "reflective" but in a "gay" (happy) way. His internal happiness is visible externally. Consequently, it's important for Rosicky to pass on what he has learned about the good life to his children, especially to his eldest son, Rudolph. Rudolph and his new wife, Polly, are initially wary of Rosicky's way of life. Polly finds the countryside lonely, and Rudolph worries that he will not make enough money to survive. But Rosicky, drawing on his own experiences, teaches them that city living is only enjoyable if one is already rich—otherwise, it's incredibly difficult and unfulfilling. Rosicky is successful in his efforts, as Polly (who had initially been distant and cold) eventually warms up to Rosicky and realizes that he's led a modest yet enviable life. Indeed, when she looks at Rosicky's well-worn hands, she sees them as a symbol of a life well-lived through hard work and gratitude. In this way, Rosicky impresses on Polly—and, by extension, on Rudolph—that meaningful work and an appreciation of simple pleasures (like nature's beauty) are what make for a good life. Most importantly, Rosicky doesn't want his children to experience "the cruelty of human beings." Given that Rosicky experienced this cruelty when he lived in cities, he believes that a well-rounded life spent outdoors, surrounded by loving family and a tight-knit community, is the most fulfilling path. However, the story is also careful to show that Rosicky's life isn't all good—the work he does is physically strenuous, and he often faces financial hardship. Yet this only makes Rosicky more grateful for what he has: for instance, when a corn crop fails, he throws a picnic to celebrate the good aspects of his life rather than focusing on the bad. At the end of the story, after Rosicky has died, Doctor Burleigh reflects again on the question of the good life, just as he did at the beginning of the story. He concludes that Rosicky's life—which consisted of struggling before finally living happily and freely in the country—was "complete and beautiful." Ending the story in this way makes it clear that while Rosicky's life wasn't perfect, it was the good life in the sense that it was happy, fulfilling, and meaningful. - Theme: The City vs. The Country. Description: "Neighbour Rosicky" narrates Anton Rosicky's journey from living a difficult life in various cities to finding beauty and fulfillment as a farmer in rural Nebraska. Overall, the story depicts urban life—particularly for poor and working-class people—as unforgiving. City dwellers are mostly cruel and crooked, the work is hard, the environment is alienating, and there are few opportunities for freedom or joy. By contrast, the story depicts rural life as full of beauty, self-reliance, kindness, and small pleasures. The story is careful not to imply that the city is entirely bad and that the country is entirely good—Rosicky does enjoy various aspects of New York City, and his rural life comes with all kinds of hardships, from crop failure to backbreaking work. Nevertheless, the story does suggest that rural places give people the best chance to live free and fulfilling lives. Rosicky's memories of living in New York and London depict city life as mostly unforgiving. When Rosicky lives in London, he is impoverished and alone, separated by a language barrier and incapable of finding real connection with other people. Even his boss in London, a German tailor, is poor. The city's conditions and job market are so difficult that everyone struggles to survive. Rosicky thinks back on living in London as a time when he was cold, hungry, and without resources or basic living necessities, like food and clean clothes. In addition, the people in cities seem cruel and hard to Rosicky—most city-dwellers he encounters are mean. And because cities are so crowded, Rosicky cannot avoid this meanness. The design of cities, too, is unappealing to Rosicky, even without the hordes of people typically filling the streets. When he walks through an empty New York on the Fourth of July, sees the city streets, architecture, and industrial machinery on its own and finds it "unnatural," like "empty jails." The city seems grotesque and suffocating, even without people in it. Rosicky is, however, temporarily happy living in New York, where he learns English, makes friends, enjoys the attractions of the city, and has enough money to live a relatively comfortable life. But after living in the city for five years, he develops a drinking problem and grows "restless." Rosicky's restlessness is linked to the seasons changing, as it becomes springtime in New York. He finds springtime incompatible with the harshness of the city, and it makes him eager to get away to somewhere else. In contrast to the unrewarding hardships of city life, the story paints country life as being meaningful and fulfilling. Rosicky first wants to move to the country from the city because he believes that living on his own land will make him happier than being a tenant. He turns out to be correct in this assumption and tries to pass this value down to his children—he finds a sense of liberty from knowing that his farmland is his own, and that he is not at the mercy of a boss or landlord. Additionally, Rosicky finds the work he does on the farm meaningful. He likes cultivating his own land and getting to do physical labor that benefits others—and he also likes being able to determine his own schedule, to feel like his personhood is not ruled by his labor. Along with that, Rosicky finds that working on the farm gives him a closer connection to nature than he had living in cities, and he finds the proximity to nature itself to be beautiful and rewarding. But rural life is also difficult and at times uncontrollable—Rosicky and his son Rudolph both struggle financially when there is crop failure or when winter comes. Even so, Rosicky often chooses to see these moments as a reason to be grateful for extra rest and leisure. For Rosicky, the worst parts of a country life are still better than the best parts of a city life. In the story, the city and the country are not just different locations—they represent entirely different beliefs about life. For Rosicky, the city signifies ambition without real hope, a fruitless struggle for economic advancement that strips a person of their ability to live as they choose. The city is, for Rosicky, a place without real humanity or connection to the rest of the world. In the country, he must physically labor, and his income largely depends on factors outside his control, like the weather. Nevertheless, Rosicky feels happier there because he's actually able to do fulfilling work and provide for himself and his family. Rosicky would rather be at the whim of the elements than at the whim of an employer. Most importantly, even when Rosicky is happy living in New York, he still develops a restlessness and a "desire to run away." The story thus suggests that the freedom, peacefulness, and connection to nature that a rural setting offers are key to Rosicky's happiness—and potentially to human happiness more generally. - Theme: Family, Community, and Kindness. Description: Much of "Neighbour Rosicky" is about how living a meaningful life is connected to being generous and being surrounded by people who are generous in return. Rosicky is a happy person because his family is kind, loving, and supportive of one another. All of his children are polite and generous, and they genuinely enjoy spending time as a family. In addition, his wife Mary is a warm and pleasant person, and she and Rosicky enjoy a happy marriage. Rosicky partially sought out his present life of working for himself on a rural farm because he never wanted to be forced into stinginess or unkindness; he wants to be able to give to others and never take money from people who are struggling. In this way, a major reason for his happiness is his ability to give to his community and also provide his family with an enjoyable and fulfilling life. As such, the story suggests that true, lasting happiness isn't found in selfish pursuits—rather, it comes from being kind and generous to other people. Rosicky has cultivated a value system for his wife and children that's based on kindness, and his family's love and warmth make him happy in return. Doctor Burleigh, an outsider to the Rosickys, praises their family and even feels at home when with them, telling Rosicky that he is "one of the few men […] who has a family he can get some comfort out of." Rosicky has cultivated an environment in which his children and wife are genuinely happy, in a way that is visible to other people. And, in turn, Rosicky is able to "get some comfort out of" his family, something that Burleigh suggests other men aren't able to do. Doctor Burleigh also points out that all the Rosicky sons have "good manners" and lack the self-consciousness that he finds typical of adolescent boys. The way the Rosickys have raised their children sticks out (in a positive way) from their neighbors. Burleigh is also very fond of Mrs. Rosicky. He thinks that Mary Rosicky's warm, caring nature is unique among other wives in town. Her demeanor stands out to Burleigh as indicative of the loving home environment Rosicky has built, and Mary Rosicky credits their happy home to her husband's personality. She remembers him playing naked in the water tank with his children on a hot summer day. While this is behavior is unconventional for the time, Mary knows that Rosicky's playfulness and kindness is what has made their home's atmosphere feel so free and loving. Indeed, although the Rosickys aren't the richest or most successful family in town, they do seem to be the happiest. Burleigh compares the Rosickys to other nearby families, including the Marshalls. The Marshalls have an extremely profitable farm and a great deal of expensive, high-tech machinery, but Burleigh is quick to note that they also possess "no comfort whatsoever." Their financial success and abundance have not made them happier people, and Burleigh dislikes the environment of their home so much that he is quick to leave there as soon as he can. While Doctor Burleigh and Rosicky's son, Rudolph, can think of many other families who own land and are wealthier or more "ahead," they cannot say that these families are happier or more pleasant to be around. In fact, it's quite the opposite—these other families seem to have chosen financial advancement at the cost of interpersonal connections built on love and generosity. Rosicky's generosity extends beyond his family—he is kind to his entire community, and it's clear that this, too, is part of what makes him happy. Rosicky enjoys interacting with the townspeople. He looks forward to going into town to talk to the shop girl he likes or to see Doctor Burleigh, which shows that he values connecting with his community. Rosicky thinks of other people in the town with kindness as well, even people he does not know well. For example, he thinks of Mr. Haycock, the undertaker (a character otherwise not mentioned in the story), as "the kindest man in the world." This passing thought makes it clear that Rosicky treasures all people, not just those in his immediate family. Rudolph's wife Polly is initially distant and cold to the Rosickys, but even she, by the end of the story, calls Rosicky "father" and cares for him when he gets sick. Through her time spent with Rosicky, Polly learns that even if she does not know him well and even if she is only part of his family through marriage, she is still part of his family, and that he will treat her with unconditional love. This love and generosity move her to care for him, and to become a warmer, more empathetic person. The high value that Rosicky places on family and community is not just one of his character traits—it provides an answer to the story's question of what makes a person happy. By showing that Rosicky is not only happy but also loved by everyone around him, the story suggests that choosing to be kind, generous, and loving to others can make a person happier overall.  Moreover, Rosicky's pleasant personality and expressions of love influence other people—like Polly, and Doctor Burleigh, and all of Rosicky's children—to behave similarly. Through Rosicky's value system, the story demonstrates how being kind and generous can make a person, as well as everyone around them, happier. - Theme: Money vs. Happiness. Description: Financial instability affects everyone in "Neighbour Rosicky," and while Rosicky himself is not wealthy, he seems to be the happiest character in the story. Notably, Rosicky chooses to spend his money as he pleases and as he feels best serves his family, instead of saving it or trying to push himself to advance economically. While his health suffers from the physical labor of his work as a farmer, he still remains grateful and prefers to not prioritize earning and saving money over using his time as he likes. His contentment with this choice contrasts with his other families in the town, like the Marshalls, who are eager to make as much money as possible. Ultimately, it seems that Rosicky's laidback attitude toward his work and his money is part of what makes him the happiest character in the story. The Rosickys' financial choices differ dramatically from their neighbors, but the Rosickys are the happiest family in the town. Doctor Burleigh explicitly prefers being in the Rosicky household, which he finds comforting and loving, in contrast to other households that seem cold and overly concerned with financial gain. Bureligh's reverence for the Rosicky household reveals how financial success does not determine the overall quality of life within a family—in fact, the Rosickys' willingness to be hospitable, to take their time with things, to spend time together rather than overworking themselves, is part of what makes them a happier family. While other neighbors are devastated by crop failure, Rosicky always responds with gratitude and chooses not to let what is out of his control (nature) prevent him from being happy and making his family happy. Rosicky's willingness to relax and not be pushed by an unrelenting desire to earn money is what gives him the time to attend to the feelings and needs of his loved ones—and what makes his life a happier one than his neighbors, who view the uncontrollable parts of being a farmer, like crop failure, as tragedies. Indeed, Rosicky spends his money freely rather than hoarding it, and it seems that he and his family are happier for it. Although Rosicky is ultimately unhappy living in New York, for the brief time he is happy, he chooses to spend all of his money rather than save it. He goes out at night with his friends—to bars or to the opera—and is more content because he gets to do this. While he could have been saving money for a hypothetical future life, Rosicky would rather enjoy his life as it is in the present. As a farmer in Nebraska, Rosicky knows that he could find ways to make more money—he could sell their cream, for example, for extra cash—but Rosicky chooses not to do this. Instead, the Rosickys use their cream to feed their own children, which Mary Rosicky justifies by arguing that she would rather "put some colour into [her] children's faces than put money into the bank." For the Rosickys, it's more important to have a well-fed, comfortable family than to make as much money as possible. But even though Rosicky is happy to spend money on things for himself and his family, he also is very content living simply, without a lot of wealth or material possessions. Rosicky always chooses to eat lunch at home rather than in town. He finds the food in town too "extravagant" and prefers his simple and loving home environment to any of the more ostentatious pleasures of spending money in town. At one point in the story, Mary Rosicky shares a memory with her children about when Rosicky learned that there had been corn crop failure. While their other neighbors were devastated by the loss of income and the waste of hard work, Rosicky chose to throw a picnic, preferring to be grateful for what they had instead of disappointed in what they lost. This shows that Rosicky's relaxed attitude toward money makes him happy and stable, regardless of the instability going on around him.  Rosicky's decision to prioritize his everyday happiness and his family's wellbeing over money becomes one of his central virtues as a character, and it provides insight into the wider significance of the story. Rosicky does, at times in his life, suffer from poverty, but this is always when he is living in a city, without other comforts to make him happy. Living in the Nebraska countryside, on his own land, he is nearly always happy, even when crop failure leads to hard times. For Rosicky, money does not buy happiness—there is a certain necessity to possessing money, but Rosicky is not interested in having more money than he requires to provide for his family. By the end of the story, he has achieved a happier life by choosing to enjoy life's pleasures (and the pleasure of nature) without trying to "get ahead." - Climax: Rosicky dies of heart failure - Summary: In 1920s rural Nebraska, 65-year-old Anton Rosicky has a check-up with Doctor Ed Burleigh. Burleigh tells Rosicky that he has heart failure and that, to take care of himself, he will need to do less physical labor in the fields. Instead, Burleigh encourages Rosicky to work more in the home and enjoy spending time with his wife and six children, all of whom are a remarkably happy and generous family. Rosicky playfully resists Burleigh's diagnosis. After Rosicky leaves his office, Burleigh reflects sadly on the diagnosis, wishing it were someone else besides Rosicky who was in failing health. He cares deeply for Rosicky and his entire family, whom he has known since he was a poor boy growing up in the country. He remembers a time the previous winter when he had come to have breakfast at the Rosickys' home after spending a night delivering a neighbor's baby. He was struck then by the differences between the Rosickys and other neighboring farm families: the Rosickys are all remarkably warm and hospitable, while other families are cold and overworked, pushing to make as much money as possible. The Rosickys are mostly comfortable financially, but their home is humble and they do not strive for more than they have. Burleigh considers whether it is impossible to both enjoy life and achieve financial success. After Rosicky leaves Doctor Burleigh's, he goes to the general store, buys some candy for his wife, and lingers to chat with Miss Pearl, a girl who works there. On the way home, he stops and fondly observes the beautiful graveyard. It begins to snow as he arrives home. At home, Rosicky's wife, Mary, asks him about the check-up, choosing to speak to him in English instead of their first language, Czech, to communicate the seriousness of the matter. Rosicky tells her that Burleigh told him to take better care of his heart and work less, although he still feels resistant to the idea. Soon enough, though, the entire Rosicky family is trying to help their father, and his five sons have taken on more of the physical labor on the farm. Despite his wishes to work in the field, Rosicky mostly stays indoors now. He tailors for his family—a job he had done when he lived in London and New York, decades earlier—and while he sews, Rosicky thinks back to his time in New York, where he had been poor, young, and happy for a time. In New York, he had lived with friends and spent his limited funds freely, going out for drinks and to the opera. Still, he grew restless after a while and eventually decided to move to Nebraska out of a desire for more open space, connection to nature, and land of his own. On a Saturday night, Rosicky goes to his oldest son Rudolph's house to offer him and his wife, Polly, the family car so that they can go into town for a night. Rosicky is worried that Polly, an American girl who did not grow up in a rural environment, will be so dissatisfied with country living that she and Rudolph will move away to a city. While Rudolph and Polly initially refuse Rosicky's offer to do their dishes while they take the car into town, they eventually concede. On Christmas Eve at the Rosickys' house, the entire family and Rudolph and Polly have dinner together and talk about their fear of crop failure this year, since it has not snowed. Rosicky insists that, even if the crop does fail, things will be all right; his sons, he claims, do not know real hard times. Mary agrees with her husband, telling her sons that Rosicky has always kept a good attitude even when times have been difficult on the farm. Once, when they suffered corn crop failure, he responded by giving them a picnic to celebrate what they did have, instead of fixating on what they lacked. Rosicky then tells his children about his time as a young man in London, where he had lived with the family of a poor tailor, Lifschnitz, and one other boarder, a violin player. One Christmas Eve, Rosicky was so poor and hungry that he ate a goose that Mrs. Lifschnitz was saving for Christmas dinner. Feeling guilty, he went into town and begged four Czech people for money, which they gave him. He was able to use the money to bring back a bountiful meal to the Lifschnitz family, and a few days later, the same Czech men offered to pay for his passage to New York where he could get better work. He accepted their offer and left for New York shortly thereafter. After he finishes the story, Polly seems notably more affectionate towards the Rosicky family. In the springtime, Rosicky goes to help rake weeds on Rudolph and Polly's land, even though he is not supposed to because of his heart condition. While he rakes, his heart starts to hurt and he nearly collapses, but Polly saves him. She calls him "father" and cares for him for an hour afterwards. Still, the next day, Rosicky dies, though just before he passes, he reflects gratefully on having seen Polly's kindness in his final days of life. Several weeks after Rosicky's death, Doctor Burleigh goes to see the family and offer his condolences. On the way to their house, he stops and overlooks the graveyard where Rosicky now rests, thinking to himself that it is a beautiful place, much more beautiful than the oppressive graveyards in cities. He concludes that Rosicky's life was "complete and beautiful."

- Genre: bildungsroman; science fiction; speculative fiction - Title: Never Let Me Go - Point of view: first-person - Setting: Various locations in England, in the 1990s - Character: Kathy H.. Description: The novel's narrator and protagonist, Kathy H. was a student at Hailsham and a friend of Ruth's and Tommy's. While at Hailsham, Kathy slowly realizes the truth of her fate—that she is a clone created expressly to eventually donate her organs to other "real" people, and that her "job" is to work as a carer for other clones who have donated some of her organs and then as a donor of her own organs. Kathy also deals with the more typical problems of an adolescent, including friendship, sexual relationships, and questions of life's purpose. Kathy has a particular attachment to a cassette tape called Songs After Dark, performed by an artist named Judy Bridgewater, and containing her favorite song, "Never Let Me Go." At the close of the novel, Kathy serves as a carer for Ruth and then for Tommy, who becomes her lover. She then turns to her mandated work as an organ donor. - Character: Ruth. Description: One of Kathy's best friends, Ruth is a complex and often difficult person. Her pride is her greatest weakness, and she often pretends to know about things of which she has no actual knowledge. Ruth dates Tommy at Hailsham and later, at the Cottages, only to regret, while serving as a donor, that she "kept Kathy and Tommy apart." Ruth then gives Tommy the information to find Madame, former head of Hailsham, so that Kathy and Tommy can request a "deferral" from donation and to live together as a couple. - Character: Tommy. Description: Kathy and Ruth's friend at Hailsham, Tommy is known there for his temper tantrums, his lack of creative skills, and his "dullness." Tommy dates Ruth though he is in love with Kathy, and by the end of the novel, it is revealed that Tommy, more than the others, has perceived the difficult realities of the life of a clone from a young age. Kathy serves as Tommy's carer until his fourth donation, after which Tommy passes away. - Character: Miss Lucy. Description: A guardian at Hailsham, Miss Lucy is known for her discomfort with the "abstract" teaching methods at the school. Lucy believes the other guardians tend to hide or smooth over the realities of a clone's life—that clones must become carers and donors, and have no other choice. Miss Lucy tells the students some of these awkward truths, but later leaves Hailsham abruptly. - Character: Miss Emily. Description: The head of school at Hailsham, Miss Emily is mostly feared by the students—she is rather strict but helpful, and is known for making long speeches imploring to students to remain healthy. Miss Emily later speaks with Tommy and Kathy and reveals several truths about Hailsham: that it was an "experiment" in reform, conducted by those who felt clones deserved "humane" treatment; that Madame, long thought to be Miss Emily's boss at Hailsham, was in fact co-founder of the school and a reformer herself; and that Hailsham closed because of lack of funds. Miss Emily seems both stern and caring in this final sequence—understanding of the difficulties of clone life, but resigned to the fact that society does not care to treat clones with even the meager dignity provided by Hailsham anymore. - Character: Madame. Description: Long thought to be Miss Emily's superior and the "real" head of Hailsham, Madame is revealed to be co-founder of Hailsham with Miss Emily. Madame reveals to Tommy and Kathy that she has long cared about clone rights, and that she believes the new world, in which clones serve as "organ farms" for "normal" people, is a "cruel" one. Madame regrets that she cannot do more to help Tommy and Kathy change their fate. - Character: Chrissie. Description: Rodney's girlfriend, Chrissie did not go to Hailsham but feels that Hailsham students are "preferred" by the government, and that they might be granted deferrals of up to three years (before they become carers and donors) in order to live with loved ones. Chrissie and Rodney befriend Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy at the Cottages and drive with them to Norfolk, to try to find Ruth's "clone parent." - Character: Moira. Description: Another friend of Kathy's at Hailsham, Moira attempts to befriend Kathy more closely after Ruth kicks both out of the "secret guard" defending Miss Geraldine. But Kathy takes Ruth's side, telling Moira not to make fun of the secret guard, since it really is helping to keep Miss Geraldine safe. - Character: Henry. Description: A boy Kathy likes late in her time at Hailsham, Henry seems surprised when Kathy offers to have sex with him, and equally surprised when Kathy makes several excuses as to why she is then unable to sleep with Henry. Kathy wonders, while "courting" Henry, if she doesn't also have feelings for Tommy, who is dating Ruth. - Theme: Maturation and "Growing Up". Description: Never Let Me Go is an example of a "bildungsroman," or a novel of one person's education. In this case, Kathy H., the narrator and protagonist, details her education at Hailsham and "the Cottages," and then her career as a "carer." The novel is characterized by Kathy H.'s disappointments, anxieties, and moments of happiness as she gets older, and becomes closer with her two friends Tommy and Ruth. Kathy and the other characters recall life at Hailsham with great fondness. As young people at "school" there, Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are mostly free to make art, speak to one another, and take a schedule of relatively undemanding courses. Of course, Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth learn that their lives at Hailsham are not exactly carefree—they cannot really leave the campus, and their guardians' job is to look after them and to make sure that they do not get into trouble or "harm their bodies."Gradually, Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth learn that they are clones, and that, when they grow older, they will serve as organ donors for the rest of the population. But this fact—so gruesome-seeming to the reader, and to the outside world—is conveyed delicately to the Hailsham students. Even when Miss Lucy tells the assembled students in her class that they cannot make plans for their future—that their lives are entirely predetermined—the students are no so much shocked as they are embarrassed and confused, since Miss Lucy's outburst is so unlike the typical behavior of the guardians. In a way, then, the novel's enormous revelation from the reader's perspective—that the students at Hailsham are clones forced to farm out their organs—is not the students' greatest revelation. Indeed, the students undergo the kinds of personal developments and changes that all teenagers and new adults undergo, despite the fact that their end is predetermined. Different characters mature in different ways. Ruth does not really abandon her anger, self-absorption, and desire to appear "in the know," although she does weaken over time, and her relationship with Kathy becomes more intimate. Ruth does recognize that Kathy and Tommy are in love, however, and after at first thwarting their relationship eventually does her best to bring them together, telling Kathy she ought to be Tommy's carer. Tommy, on the other hand, loses his youthful impetuosity and tendency toward "temper tantrums." Although he remains somewhat naïve and less witty than Ruth and Kathy, he cares a great deal for Kathy, and the two have a small amount of time together before Tommy's final donation. Kathy becomes a skilled carer, which allows her to continue in this role far longer than her peers. In particular, she uses her "care" relationship with Tommy and Ruth as a way of reconnecting with them, even as other students from Hailsham drift away from their youthful acquaintances. Kathy experiences tinges of sadness after Ruth and Tommy die, but accept her next role as a donor. - Theme: Individual Goals vs. Social Expectations. Description: Some of the novel's more poignant moments involve the conflict between characters' individual goals and the social world governing those characters. The novel's clones make plans for their futures as though they might be allowed to live their own, fulfilling lives—even as they know, in the back of their minds, that these plans are either impossible or highly improbable. Ruth wants, above all, to have a "normal" office job; only Kathy seems to realize that this idea of an office work-life is derived from an advertisement Ruth has seen, since Ruth has no first-hand experience of finding such a job. Kathy, for her part, worries that her libido is "unnaturally strong," and that perhaps her "original," or clone parent, was a part of society's "lower strata," and therefore passed along to Kathy a host of sexual urges and desires. The novel's stark, underlying reality, however, is that the students at Hailsham have no future—their lives are utterly predetermined, and there is nothing they can "choose," in terms of personal life or career, once they leave for the Cottages. The only allowable jobs are carer, followed by donor. That is, neither Kathy nor Tommy nor Ruth is able to change his or her fate—they all become carers and then donors. But Ishiguro seems to contend that, within this rigid framework, the clones can maintain a humanity, a loving outlook towards others, and a modicum of personal freedom. This freedom tends to be symbolized most strongly by the Judy Bridgewater tape of the song "Never Let Me Go," to which Kathy listens constantly, and which Tommy and Ruth "find" again in Norfolk. Kathy knows that the song stirs in her the kinds of emotions—of love and human attachment to a child—that Kathy can never experience. But it is simply the feeling of wanting these attachments that allows Kathy to feel human and complete, and to live a life that is satisfying to her.A second, and perhaps more bracing point, relates to all humans, not just to the novel's clones. Ishiguro implies that, even as "normal" humans make choices about marriage, children, education, and career, our lives have a beginning, middle, and end, and there is nothing we can do to avert our ultimate fate—our death. When Kathy comes to terms with the contours of her life, and her constrained choices, she does so not really as a clone, but as a human being—someone who is aware that her life is small, brief, and filled with uncontrollable obstacles. Yet despite all this, life is more than worth living, and filled with the kinds of joys, large and small, that Kathy discusses in the novel. - Theme: Losing and Finding. Description: One of the characteristics of the novel's structure is a pattern of losing and finding, both of people and objects. The primary place both of losing and finding is Norfolk, the seaside town in a "lost corner" of England, as explained in a geography class by the guardians to the students of Hailsham. Although this is primarily meant to imply that Norfolk isn't easily accessible by motorway, Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy interpret it to mean, more whimsically, that Norfolk is the place in England to which all lost things are sent to be collected. When Kathy finds that her Judy Bridgewater tape has been taken from her footlocker, she wonders if it might not have "found" its way to Norfolk—even though she knows this is highly unlikely. Much later, at the Cottages, when Chrissie, Rodney, Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy decide to take a trip to Norfolk—and after the group realizes that Ruth has not in fact found her "possible"—Tommy and Kathy go off to a second-hand store, and do in fact find a copy of this tape.More than the magic of Norfolk, which Kathy realizes to be a fantasy, this moment with Tommy forms a bond that allows them to "find" each other much later in the novel, as Ruth's health falters and she recommends that Kathy serve as Tommy's carer. Couples in the novel, too, are deeply concerned that they will lose one another once they are assigned as carers and then forced to be donors. Chrissie and Rodney bring up the idea that perhaps a postponement is possible for Hailsham students, although Tommy, Ruth and Kathy have never heard of such a thing. And Tommy does his best to work on his "animals" so that his donations, or art projects, might "match up" with those of the love of his life—whom he initially believes to be Ruth, but then realizes is Kathy. Finally, two larger, more abstract concepts are "lost"—Hailsham, and the notion of the characters' innocence more broadly.Hailsham is closed in the middle of the novel, after Kathy and her friends have left and moved on to the Cottages and their lives as carers and donors. Although Kathy does not know, at first, why Hailsham is closed, it is later revealed that Hailsham was an "experiment" in a certain kind of compassionate, school-like environment for clones. The shuttering of Hailsham, therefore, represents English society losing its sense of the humanity of clones. Tommy and Kathy, on hearing this, are struck with a double-layered sadness: they know that Hailsham is not coming back, and that no "postponements" are possible for clones; and they realize what Hailsham actually was, a holding-area for clones until they were old enough to serve as carers and donors. But despite losing these stories and rationalizations, which had made their lives more bearable, Kathy finds that her memories and joys at Hailsham remain real and true, that the lie of the place did not alter the truth and humanity of her experience there. - Theme: Life, Death, and Humanity. Description: Although the clones have different biological "beginnings" from other human beings in England—who are glimpsed only fleetingly in the novel, with the exception of the staff at Hailsham—they live lives notable for their fundamentally "human" qualities. That is, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy must learn to live with one another, cope with romantic failures and excitements, and confront the realities of their own deaths. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy and the other clones are remarkably passive regarding acceptance of their fates—that they must donate their organs and then "complete." At first, Ishiguro appears to play with the reader's expectations about this gruesome form of social donation: he reveals information about the donations slowly, and clearly intends for the impersonality of this system to shock. But, as the novel goes on, Ishiguro makes a more masterful and exciting point—that, in fact, the shock we feel at the definitiveness of the clones' fate, and their willingness to go along with it, ought to cause us to think about our own lives, the constraints we accept in them, and the inevitability of our own demise. This "second shock," then, shows us that perhaps our own fates are not so different from the clones'. Although we have a greater variety of choices in our lives, we also must die, and as we approach death, we have about as much choice as do the clones; whether we "accept" our deaths or not, we will eventually die. What is most shocking, too, is the willingness of "normal" members of English society to hold the clones at arm's length. Although the reader begins to recognize that Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are just like us, the novel's "normal humans" insist on dismantling institutions like Hailsham, and the notion of "postponements" and other human facets of clone life are revealed to be baseless rumors. Much of Kathy's adult life has been a lonely one, driving around the country's highways and checking in on the donors for whom she cares. The irony here, then, is complex. Kathy's loneliness is not so dissimilar from the loneliness of any normal human professional. But because UK society has decided the clones are fundamentally different from them, they tightly circumscribe the life-possibilities of the clones. At the same time, however, the reader sees, in the clones' transition from student to carer to donor, similar emotions to "normal" growing up, normal romantic life, normal professional development. The reader, in this way, feels fully prepared to acknowledge the humanity of the main characters, even as society of the novel pushes them to the margins. Kathy is nevertheless able to salvage, from this, a life of genuine human connections and experiences. Although she owns little and has no family, she does have her deep and abiding friendships with Tommy and Ruth, which give her great comfort, even as she approaches her time as a donor. - Theme: Loving, Caring, and Donation. Description: Perhaps the most important theme in the novel is that of love, care, and donation. "Care" and "donation" might be interpreted each in two ways. In the first, technical definition, care is that which a carer provides to a donor—the kind of human interaction a donor needs when facing the pain of organ donation. And "donation" refers either to the giving away of organs or, earlier, at Hailsham, to the giving away of art—which, Kathy realizes, is a process of education for the clones, so that the guardians are constantly reminding the young clones of their duties to "give away" and "give selflessly" as a precursor to their enforced obligation to give up their organs.In particular, art is considered a "representation" of the students, a "part of them." Thus, the donation of art conditions the students to the necessity of "giving away a part of themselves." From a young age, then, Kathy acknowledges that the clones have been educated to find the "donation of a part of themselves" to be integral to their lives. Kathy also admits that she knew, intuitively, even in youth, that this made the students at Hailsham special, different from the rest of (non-cloned) society. Because of the centrality of art-class and the donation of art to other students, Hailsham students are trained to believe that their eventual donation of organs is a continuation of this spirit of giving. Similarly, the act of caring for their donors, in the position of carer, is considered a kind of social obligation, just as giving and appreciating the art of their fellow-students was a facet of life at Hailsham. But, of course, care and donation have broader definitions as well. Kathy truly does care for Tommy and for Ruth, and her "caring" for them means not just fulfilling her job's duties, but rather, it implies a genuine connection, and an attempt to mend the rifts of the past. Kathy and Tommy give their bodies, their time, and their trust to one another; Ruth's primary act of generosity is to acknowledge that she has always come between Kathy and Tommy's relationship. Kathy realizes that she loves Tommy—that she always has—and that this love, and this bond also with Ruth, are the things that make life worthwhile.Kathy also has a genuine love and reverence for Hailsham, the place that made them all feel safe as youths. Although Kathy understands that she cannot have a normal, non-clone life—a life symbolized by the song "Never Let Me Go," which Kathy imagines to involve a mother talking to her child—Kathy nevertheless constructs a meaningful life based on loving, caring interactions with Ruth and Tommy. Only in giving herself to them, and accepting the things they have given to her, does Kathy come to realize the emotional "realness" of her otherwise circumscribed existence. - Climax: Miss Emily reveals to Tommy and Kathy that there is not, nor has there ever been, a "deferral" available for clone couples who are "truly in love." - Summary: Never Let Me Go—set in England in the 1990s—is narrated by Kathy H., a former student at Hailsham, and now a "carer" who helps "donors" recuperate after they give away their organs. The novel opens at Hailsham, an idyllic community flanked by football fields and filled with students and kind "guardians," like Miss Geraldine, Miss Lucy, and Miss Emily (Emily is also the headmistress). Kathy becomes close friends with Ruth and Tommy—the former the head of a clique of fellow students; the latter a rather strange boy given to temper tantrums. Art classes are very important at Hailsham, and Tommy is chastised by his fellow students for rarely placing works of art in the special Gallery selected by Madame, whom the students believe to be the head of school. During their time at Hailsham, the students room with one another, submit art to Exchanges (which other students then receive), and buy small items at periodic Sales occurring on the school grounds. Kathy buys a cassette tape by a woman named Judy Bridgewater, which contains a song entitled "Never Let Me Go." This song stirs up strong emotions in Kathy, and one day, she is "caught" by Madame, while in her dorm, dancing slowly to the music, and holding an imaginary child in her arms. Kathy notices that this dancing causes Madame to cry, and she is initially confused by this, although she realizes later that she cannot have children, and that perhaps Madame and the other guardians feel sorry for the students for this reason. As the students grow at Hailsham, they learn that they are clones, and that they will leave Hailsham and soon begin "training" as "carers" and then as "donors." Donors give their organs away, one by one, for the benefit of non-cloned humans, and "carers" help the donors during these difficult surgeries. Miss Lucy, another of the guardians at Hailsham, tells Tommy when he is young that his art-class exercises do not really matter, and she tells the assembled Hailsham students, when they are older, that they must prepare for the harsh realities of their caring and donating lives. But the students are already aware of their fates—they seem to accept them with eerie placidity—and they are shocked to learn, later, that Miss Lucy has left the Hailsham faculty abruptly. Miss Lucy disagrees strongly with the "abstract" methods—i.e. learning to give away art the way they will eventually give away their organs—that the school uses to inform the clone students of their fates. Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth—the latter two having become a couple in their last year at Hailsham—leave the school and begin a residency at the Cottages, where they read, pursue romantic relationships, and socialize further, before leaving for their training as carers and donors. The three friends, and Chrissie and Rodney, older Cottage students, take a trip to Norfolk one weekend, because Rodney believes he has seen a "possible" clone parent for Ruth there. The trip is a bitter one, however. The "possible" is not in fact Ruth's original, and Ruth becomes angry and informs the group of what they already know—that their clone originals are taken from the "lowest rungs" of society. But Kathy and Tommy, in a second-hand store in Norfolk, stumble upon a copy of the Judge Bridgewater cassette that Kathy believed to have lost forever at Hailsham. Although it isn't the same exact cassette, Kathy wonders if there isn't some truth to the students' long-held idea that Norfolk is a "lost corner" of England, where people go to find things they have misplaced elsewhere. Kathy realizes that she is in love with Tommy, but Tommy and Ruth continue their relationship, even after Ruth belittles Tommy for his new drawings of "small animals." Tommy informs Kathy that he is making the drawings in the hopes of having art to submit to Madame's Gallery, since he has a new theory: Hailsham students may apply for a deferral of their caring and donating duty if they can prove they are in loving relationships, and they do this by showing Madame that their art "matches" the art of their loved one. Ruth finds the idea ridiculous, however, and Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy later leave the Cottages to begin work as carers. After many years, Kathy becomes a carer for Ruth, and Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy go on an outing to see an abandoned boat in a far-off English field. During this trip, Ruth apologizes to Tommy and Kathy for "keeping them apart," and urges Kathy to become Tommy's carer, so that the two of them might them apply to Madame for a deferral. Ruth gives Kathy and Tommy Madame's address and then dies after her second donation. Kathy and Tommy become lovers and, after a while, visit Madame in a seaside town, where they have a conversation with her and Miss Emily about the "truth" of Hailsham. Miss Emily reveals that Hailsham was an attempt to reform England's treatment of clones, but that Hailsham has now been shut down due to lack of funding. Miss Emily also tells them that the deferral for loved ones never really existed, although this idea has long been a rumor among students. On their trip back to Tommy's treatment center, Tommy gets out of the car and has another temper tantrum in a field, because he is deeply frustrated at his inability to live with Kathy as a loving couple. Tommy later dies after his fourth donation, and Kathy transitions into her job as a donor. At the end of the novel, though she rues the loss of Ruth and Tommy, and misses Hailsham, Kathy notes that she will always have memories of these people and places—which she does not worry about losing, since they remain vivid to her.

- Genre: Novel - Title: News of the World - Point of view: Third-Person Limited - Setting: Rural Texas - Character: Captain Kidd. Description: The novel's protagonist, Captain Kidd is an elderly and unsentimental man who makes his living as an itinerant news-reader in backcountry Texas. Born in rural Georgia, Captain Kidd fought as a teenager in the War of 1812 before moving to San Antonio and establishing himself as a printer. There, he meets and marries Maria Luisa, the scion of a venerable Spanish colonial family, and raises two daughters, Elizabeth and Olympia. He goes on to fight in the Mexican-American War and lives through the Civil War as well. Now, as an old man, Captain Kidd agrees to deliver Johanna, a girl who spent four years in captivity with the Kiowa tribe, to her biological family. Captain Kidd is a man of many contradictions. He's lived his life in isolated towns and small cities but, because of his career as a printer, has a broad perspective on history and world events. He fought for a racist regime in a bloody war but is also the novel's most open-minded character, connecting with others across cultural boundaries. He has trouble expressing his emotions yet cares for Johanna with great sensitivity, and his greatest aspiration is to reunite his scattered family in a shared home. At the novel's outset, Captain Kidd feels alienated from those around him and disillusioned with his work as a news-reader. However, as he becomes more invested in Johanna's well-being, he begins to take pleasure in everyday life and to care more about his own future as well. Eventually, Captain Kidd chooses to adopt Johanna rather than leaving her with her relatives, who are cold-hearted and abusive. By doing so, he not only expresses the best aspects of his nature but gains the chance to live out the rest of his life with zest and warmth. - Character: Johanna. Description: Johanna is a young girl who is born into a German American family but is captured at a young age by the Kiowa Native American tribe. She spends four years living among the Kiowa, forgetting English and completely assimilating to their way of life. When she's finally "rescued" by the U.S. military, she's dismayed to be separated from her adopted family and confused by the norms of Anglo-American society, to which she's expected to instantly adapt. Johanna is tough and stoic, suspicious of strangers and unhesitant about using violence to protect herself. Her fierce, warrior-like demeanor causes many adults (including her own relatives) to conclude she's abnormal or permanently disturbed due to her time in captivity. But Captain Kidd, who accepts Johanna's behavior without judgment or reprimand, is able to witness her more childlike and vulnerable moods. Johanna's rare moments of carefree happiness show the universality of childhood experience: regardless of their origins, all children enjoy songs and games and rely on the presence of loving adults. However, the refusal of many adults to recognize that she has the needs and rights of any other child shows the extent to which prejudice dominates her society. Over the course of her journey, she becomes extremely attached to Captain Kidd, treating him like a grandfather figure. Once she leaves her aunt and uncle, Wilhelm and Anna, behind and goes to live with Captain Kidd, she enjoys a stable childhood and adolescence; but she always feels caught between two cultures, unable to completely assimilate into American society or return to her Kiowa tribe. Ultimately, Johanna marries cowboy John Calley and works alongside him as a cattle driver—the closest possible approximation of the itinerant lifestyle she loved as a girl. - Character: Britt Johnson. Description: An African American freight driver who brings Johanna to Captain Kidd at the beginning of the novel. Britt is famous in North Texas for singlehandedly retrieving his own wife and son from captivity among the Kiowa, and he assisted the army in bringing Johanna back. Yet because it's transgressive and potentially dangerous for black and white people to travel together, he doesn't want to undertake the task of bringing her home. Presented early in the novel, Britt's backstory and dilemma foreground the various racial concerns and prejudices at play in the chaotic world of the American frontier. - Character: Maria Luisa. Description: Captain Kidd's wife, now deceased. Maria Luisa comes from a venerable Spanish family, the Betancourt y Reales, who were among the first to settle in Spanish Mexico. Her lineage is a reminder of the various overlapping colonial histories that influenced America's foundation. Appearing in Captain Kidd's memories as a beautiful and calm figure, she represents an era when his life felt more grounded and worthwhile. He's unable to fill the void created by her loss until he takes on responsibility for Johanna. - Character: Simon Boudlin. Description: An itinerant fiddler whom Captain Kidd knows from his travels across Texas. Captain Kidd appreciates Simon's introspective, thoughtful personality and asks him for help looking after Johanna. At the end of the novel, the Captain reports that Simon and his fiancée, Doris, are working as traveling musicians with their six children. - Character: Almay. Description: A sinister figure who dogs Captain Kidd at his readings, Almay turns out to be a criminal running a child prostitution ring. After Captain Kidd refuses to sell Johanna to him, Almay tries to seize the girl by force. In the ensuing shootout, Johanna and Captain Kidd work together to kill Almay and save each other, cementing what becomes a lifelong bond. - Character: Mrs. Gannet. Description: The kindly owner of a livery stable in the small town of Dallas, who helps Captain Kidd acclimate Johanna to Anglo-American society. Unlike most adults, she doesn't treat Johanna with judgment or scorn. Her attitude earns the Captain's affection and he considers pursuing her romantically, but by the time he and Johanna return to North Texas, she's found another husband. - Character: John Calley. Description: A young man Captain Kidd and Johanna meet outside Durand. He's part of a marauding cowboy game making mischief in the absence of any real government after the Civil War. He and his brothers make the Captain bribe them to enter the town, but a repentant John Calley later attends the Captain's reading and befriends him. Several years later, when visiting the captain to talk about his cattle farming work, he meets the teenage Johanna, falls in love, and marries her. - Character: Wilhelm. Description: Johanna's uncle, a German immigrant, whom Captain Kidd and Johanna meet after a long journey through Texas. Although he seems traumatized and outraged by the deaths of Johanna's parents, he's also cold and unwelcoming towards his orphan niece, showing no empathy for the trauma she's suffered or the challenge she faces in adapting to Anglo-American society. Like his wife, Anna, Wilhelm treats Johanna like a farmhand, not a child, until Captain Kidd returns and takes her away. - Character: Anna. Description: Johanna's aunt, a German immigrant, whom Captain Kidd and Johanna meet after a long journey through Texas. Quiet and deferential towards her husband, Wilhelm, Johanna is harsh in her few words to Johanna and insistent that she give up her Kiowa manners immediately. It's clear that she wants to adopt Johanna to have an extra hand in the house, not to care for as a daughter. - Character: Elizabeth. Description: Captain Kidd's older daughter, a determined and formidable woman. Captain Kidd entrusts Elizabeth with the thorny task of figuring out how to legally reclaim the land in San Antonio her mother, Maria Luisa, once owned. While he loves Elizabeth, the Captain also feels distant from her and hides his real feelings and anxieties in the letters he writes her. - Character: Young Woman. Description: A young resident of Durand who chastises Johanna for bathing naked in the river. Even though Captain Kidd explains that Johanna has just returned from captivity and has no understanding of Anglo-American norms, the woman accuses her of purposely being immodest. However, after listening to Captain Kidd's scolding, the woman repents her actions and gives Johanna a well-made dress and pair of shoes for her journey. - Character: Davis. Description: A Texas senator put in power by the federal government after the end of the Civil War. Some Texans support Davis fiercely, while others side with his bitter rival, Hamilton. However, Captain Kidd views both senators as equally corrupt and complicit in the failure of the Reconstruction government to rehabilitate the South. - Character: Hamilton. Description: A Texas senator put in power by the federal government after the end of the Civil War. Some Texans support Hamilton fiercely, while others side with his bitter rival, Davis. However, Captain Kidd views both senators as equally corrupt and complicit in the failure of the Reconstruction government to rehabilitate the South. - Theme: Fatherhood and Masculinity. Description: In News of the World, Captain Kidd, a tough solitary Texas wanderer, embarks on an arduous journey to return Johanna, a former captive of the Kiowa tribe, to her family. As the novel progresses, Captain Kidd becomes increasingly affectionate and invested in Johanna's emotional well-being, eventually viewing himself as a father figure to her. This role draws on the conventionally masculine skills he's honed over decades, but he must also develop skills that his society (like many others) associates with mothers, from mundane housekeeping tasks to managing the emotions of a traumatized young girl. By requiring him to set aside his assumptions about masculinity and develop stereotypically feminine skills, fatherhood helps Captain Kidd become a more complex and more satisfied person. By the time he adopts Johanna at the novel's end, his behavior has challenged conventional ideas of how men should act in order to achieve happiness. At the beginning of the novel, Captain Kidd fulfills traditional ideals of American manhood, but he often feels unhappy and purposeless. Always on the move and owning few possessions, he's a model of self-sufficiency and stoicism. He's adept at physical tasks, respected by others as a source of wisdom, and able to regale younger men with tales of the three wars in which he's fought. Yet he's lonely and often frustrated. He dreams of reuniting with his daughters and grandchildren, who live in Georgia, but sees no way to bridge the emotional distance between them. Moreover, he says at the beginning of the novel that his itinerant life no longer brings the pleasure it once did: rather, "a slow dullness had seeped into him like coal gas." Captain Kidd doesn't expect that returning Johanna to her family will alleviate that dullness or change his outlook. In fact, the task forces him to subvert his society's gendered expectations for mothers and fathers. Captain Kidd's society expects that fathers protect their children and provide for them economically; meanwhile, mores demand that mothers care for the household and attend to their children's emotional and moral well-being. As Johanna's sole guardian, Captain Kidd must take on both these roles. Seasoned by many years on the road and concerned for Johanna's safety, Captain Kidd always keeps his gun handy; the attack they face early in their journey from Almay, who wants to force Johanna into prostitution, shows the necessity of this caution. By physically protecting Johanna from violence, Captain Kidd fulfills a stereotypically masculine model of parenthood, which he expresses (somewhat melodramatically) as "the duty of men who aspired to the condition of humanity to protect children and kill for them if necessary." But he also learns to perform many duties that are more in line with emotional, nurturing stereotypes of female caretakers. Although he and Johanna don't speak the same language, he finds nonverbal ways to communicate so she won't be frightened or confused. Unlike most others in the novel, who dismiss Johanna as wild and unpredictable, Captain Kidd interprets her actions in the context of her life with the Kiowa and is able to anticipate her emotional reactions. And he takes charge of household tasks like keeping her fed, warm, and supplied with clean clothes. This sensitivity and attention to emotional and domestic labor is associated, in his era, with women more than men. By the novel's end, Captain Kidd's new capabilities allow him to act decisively to regain his sense of purpose.  When Captain Kidd reluctantly leaves Johanna with her unfriendly relatives, Wilhelm and Anna, he has to hurry away before anyone can see him crying. He feels shame over his emotions, even though they're a reaction to an important truth: that Johanna's aunt and uncle will not take good care of her. This behavior reminiscent of his callous, studiously unsentimental attitude at the beginning of the novel, and causes both him and Johanna considerable anguish. However, just a few days later he returns to Wilhelm and Anna's farm, where he's outraged to see that "they had not even offered the girl a bath and a change of clothes" and is saddened to see Johanna rushing to feed his horse in order to "make herself welcome, wanted." The Captain's sharp eye for small but telling household details like Johanna's dirty clothes, and his astute interpretation of her actions, demonstrate the capabilities he's developed over the last months and allow him to take charge of the situation. Spiriting Johanna away from her relatives, he gives the young girl a much happier childhood and himself a sense of direction in his old age. Over the course of the novel, Captain Kidd learns not just to protect Johanna in the way that his society expects of fathers, but also to care for her in the way it expects of mothers, embracing capabilities that are associated with both men and women. Through this transition, the novel argues that loosening gender norms doesn't just provide new opportunities for women; rather, it can help men deepen their own emotional lives and form closer connections to others. - Theme: American Multiculturalism and Racial Violence. Description: Just a few years after the Civil War ends, an itinerant news-reader, Captain Kidd, agrees to return Johanna, a young girl recently recaptured from the Kiowa tribe, to her family. Part of Mexico only decades before, Texas is now populated by people from a wide variety of backgrounds, from freed slaves to European immigrants to Native American tribes. The vibrant mixture of cultures that informs Texas's nascent society demonstrates the centrality of immigrants in America's formation and argues for the value of multiculturalism. But by chronicling the phenomenon of "Indian captives," who represent the struggle for land and power between indigenous people and white settlers, the novel grapples with the racial violence and oppression that accompany this meeting of cultures. Ultimately, the volatile frontier world Captain Kidd inhabits is a testament not just to America's essential ethnic heterogeneity but also to the cultural clash at the heart of the nation's history. In the novel's first pages Captain Kidd, a white American whose family has lived in Georgia for decades, reads the news to a Texas crowd composed almost entirely of white men. This scene reflects ahistorical assumptions that most 19th-century Americans were white and native-born. However, the novel goes on to firmly reject these stereotypes of America's ethnic composition. One of the first characters introduced, Britt Johnson, is a free African American who makes his living as a freighter on the margins of white society. Doris Dillon, who helps Captain Kidd care for Johanna, is an Irish woman who compares Johanna's behavior to the actions of children traumatized in the Irish Potato Famine. Johanna's family are Germans who speak English with difficulty. The Captain's own wife, the late Maria Luisa, comes from a wealthy Mexican family, and the Captain speaks Spanish fluently. As these people build towns and societies on the Texas frontier, their various cultures determine the character of new America. Simon, a wandering fiddler, popularizes Irish jigs in the Texas backcountry, while German villages introduce sausage and sauerkraut. Spanish settlers build villages that combine European and indigenous Mexican architectural styles. The novel's vibrant cast of characters and their varied backgrounds argue that immigrants, and the diverse cultural practices they bring, are not incidental but integral to America's character and culture. However, through stark portrayals of the racial violence of frontier life, the novel strongly rejects the fantasy of America as a happy melting pot. Britt Johnson can't take Johanna to her parents because he fears traveling to southern Texas, where racial hostility is high. Captain Kidd meets cowboys who brag about killing "a right smart of Mexicans" even though they're living on land captured from Mexico mere decades earlier. Most importantly, the novel is undergirded by the so-called "Indian Wars," in which the U.S. military pushes indigenous people out of their ancestral lands while European settlers seize the opportunity for expansion and fear bloody reprisals. This conflict emblematizes the violence and displacement which makes possible the American "melting pot." The novel envisions a positive course for American society through culturally fluid characters like Captain Kidd, but it also represents the legacy of violent cultural conflict through child captives like Johanna. While most characters value only the norms of their own societies and dismiss those of others, Captain Kidd is eager to learn about different cultures. He speaks Spanish as well as snatches of Kiowa, German, and Native American sign language. His experience of many cultures makes him broadminded and tolerant and equips him for the difficult task of caring for Johanna. He's a testament to the good things that can arise from mixture between cultures. Meanwhile, child captives, stolen from their families in violent raids and later returned to Anglo-American society by force, show the violence of many cultural encounters in America's history. Captain Kidd notes that most captives experience mental illness or commit suicide after their ordeals. Having experienced the violence and trauma of cultural clash first hand, they're unable to thrive in either of the worlds they've experienced. Their unhappy fates argue that the violence of America's founding is never really over, but will instead play out in human lives and interactions through generations. By luck and Captain Kidd's intervention, Johanna avoids the fate of many (real-life) "Indian captives." However, even as she grows up within a loving family, she's never at ease within Anglo-American society. Through the lasting dislocation she experiences, the novel illustrates the difficulty of fully grappling with the violence, injustice, and hardship that went into creating America. - Theme: News and Storytelling. Description: News of the World chronicles the travels of Captain Kidd, an elderly man who roams the Texas backcountry and reads the news aloud in small towns. Captain Kidd's services are wildly popular with people who thirst for information about the world outside their isolated communities. Yet they are generally unwilling to engage with any news that is controversial or challenges their preconceptions. In order to keep everyone happy and scrape out a living, Captain Kidd focuses on distant and positive events, rather than challenging or political issues. The blurry line between entertaining stories and salient news in Captain Kidd's readings demonstrates both the importance of absorbing and understanding political events and the difficulty of doing so from an impartial perspective. Captain Kidd portrays himself as a purveyor of impartial news, but in order to make money and stay safe he must often dip into storytelling. To make a living, he travels to remote towns with little access to newspapers and low literacy rates. At each stop, he selects articles from all the major papers and reads them aloud to a rapt audience. However, the captain's profession doesn't just entail reading the news. He must dress carefully and speak in a certain way in order to "present the appearance of authority and wisdom" at each reading. For him, the news is a performance rather than a straightforward transmission of information. Moreover, in order to remain popular (and make a living) he must cater to the townspeople's interests and avoid challenging their preconceptions. The captain usually chooses articles about foreign countries or far-off events, rather than focusing on issues that directly affect the towns he visits, like the end of slavery and the tumultuous process of Reconstruction. This isn't a personal failing on the Captain's part. The few times when he does speak about controversial local issues, hostility and even violence ensue: after reading about the 15th Amendment (which gave African Americans the right to vote) in Wichita Falls, the Captain must work to calm his audience. In Dallas, infighting between two corrupt congressmen surfaces at the reading and causes an outright fistfight. To avoid commotion, Captain Kidd must turn his readings into a form of entertainment, rather than a meaningful engagement with politics. The well-intentioned but flawed nature of Captain Kidd's profession exemplifies the tension between being rooted in a community and being able to examine that community critically. The willingness of poor townspeople to pay for Captain Kidd's services shows their desire to engage with political events and feel part of a larger world. Yet their understandable investment in their own communities gives them a limited perspective and prevents them from seriously engaging with the news or absorbing any information that counters their existing ideas. On the other hand, Captain Kidd has a wide understanding of the world around him and is able to examine politics dispassionately. For example, when the fight between Congressmen Davis and Hamilton is consuming Dallas, it's only he who understands that both men are equally corrupt pawns in larger governmental mismanagement. At the same time, he lacks the sense of belonging in a community the way his audiences do, and often feels wistful for their sense of belonging within their particular communities. Through this contrast, the novel argues that it's difficult to reconcile community loyalty with a wider understanding of political events. Captain Kidd's near-universal appeal in the towns he visits indicates the enduring human desire to feel part of a larger, outside world. Yet his readings, which by necessity pander to the beliefs—however wrongheaded—of his audience, show the difficulty of interacting with that larger world without being influenced by one's preconceptions. - Theme: Childhood and Innocence. Description: In News of the World, Johanna, who was captured by the Kiowa tribe as a young child, must grapple with the challenges of reentering a home she barely remembers. Traumatized by repeated dislocations and totally immersed in Native American culture, Johanna often behaves with a maturity beyond her age yet is unable to navigate basic customs like wearing a dress or eating with silverware. Her inability to conform to social norms convinces many white Americans that she is fundamentally disturbed and unlike other children. Only Captain Kidd, by completely accepting Johanna's differences, is able to perceive the light-heartedness, vulnerability, and innocence that links her to all other children. In his eyes, Johanna's true loss of innocence (and, the novel suggests, that of all children) comes only when her new community compels her by force to adapt to their standards. Johanna's mixture of adult capability and childlike incomprehension differentiates her from most children in the Anglo-American society to which she must return. She's extremely stoic, never resorting to tears or expressing fear even after the trauma of being separated from her Kiowa family and returned to a society that feels totally alien. In some ways she's mature and alert: she can cook dinner over a camp stove or identify a hunting party's approach by its footsteps. But she's overwhelmed by noisy town streets and uninterested in learning to eat with a fork. More strikingly, Johanna's capacity for violence disconcerts the adults around her. When the nefarious Almay and his men attack Captain Kidd, Johanna ingeniously topples a boulder onto Almay and kills him. While this action is necessary to save herself from slavery or death, Captain Kidd is startled by her ferocious war cries, which express her comfort with killing. A few days later, Johanna "surprises" her guardian with two chickens she has stolen from a local farmer and slaughtered; the Captain reflects ruefully that unlike other little girls, she thinks of all animals as food, not pets. Because Johanna lacks both the helplessness and the sweetness that Anglo-Americans consider natural and desirable in children, most white people see her as fundamentally abnormal or disturbed; it's only Captain Kidd who completely accepts her idiosyncrasies. For example, when Johanna decides to bathe naked in a river—a practice she's observed for years with her Kiowa family—a young woman accuses her of impropriety and even immorality. Calling Johanna a "hussy" and accusing her of intentionally "parading her charms" before the town's men, the woman projects onto Johanna a grown woman's sexuality. She's unable to interpret Johanna's actions in the context of her turbulent and traumatic life. Rather, she sees her oddities an excuse to withhold the protection and care normally afforded to children. In contrast, Captain Kidd retains his dry, grandfatherly manner whether Johanna is spilling her food or murdering her enemies. For example, when Johanna tries to scalp Almay after killing him, Captain Kidd simply says, "my dear, it's not done." Rather than shaming her or expressing disgust, he accepts that she's simply acting on the norms she's learned in her tribe. As a result, Captain Kidd witnesses the light-hearted and childlike behavior Johanna hides from others. While Johanna screams curses at the woman in the river, she plays clapping games with the Captain, imitates the horse's whinny, and drives him crazy by repeating newly learned English words over and over. Where others are frightened by Johanna's preternaturally calm demeanor, Captain Kidd perceives and allays her fear at entering into an unknown world. Because Captain Kidd overlooks her inability to conform to Anglo-American norms, Johanna is able to relax and act like a child around him, showing that she does possess the same innocence as any other child. Johanna only truly loses her innocence when she's forced to adapt to norms of a community she doesn't understand or like. Captain Kidd returns Johanna to her aunt and uncle, Wilhelm and Anna; but Johanna's relatives express no familial affection for her, and are appalled by her inability to act like an Anglo-American girl. The first words Anna addresses to her niece are a sharp admonition to get off the floor, where she is squatting like a Kiowa. Throughout their journey, Johanna has obeyed Captain Kidd like a parent and expressed little curiosity about their destination. Now, she begs him in broken English to take her away, losing her childlike trust and experiencing adult anxiety about the future. After leaving Johanna behind with her relatives, Captain Kidd is overwhelmed with regret and returns to the farm days later to offer to adopt her. When he arrives, he finds Johanna in the fields staggering under the weight of heavy buckets, her hands scarred from whipping. Johanna has probably endured more arduous work among the Kiowa, but while those experiences gave her strength, she looks helpless and broken now. Her changed demeanor shows that it's not hardship itself but rather the insistence she adopt a different set of norms that causes her to lose her childhood innocence. Fortunately, Captain Kidd rescues Johanna from her abusive relatives. But even though she lives a comfortable life, as she enters adolescence Johanna seems depressed and constrained by the norms of white American society. Her discomfort with social niceties points out the arbitrary nature of all social norms; even when observed among a loving family, they are inherently arbitrary. Moreover, her unhappiness—which continues until she marries a cattle herder and returns to a wandering lifestyle—suggests that the end of childhood comes only when one finally accepts these arbitrary norms as meaningful aspects of one's life. - Theme: War and Reconstruction. Description: In News of the World, Captain Kidd travels through Reconstruction-era Texas while reflecting on a lifetime in service to the American military. In various wars since his youth, the elderly man has served as a runner and a manager of communications, tasks that play on his physical and professional skills and have given him a sense of purpose. However, in the aftermath of the Civil War, Captain Kidd sees that although the Union army has prevailed in battle, it's unable to solve the complex issues that caused the war, from slavery to discord among the states. This disillusioning experience forces the captain to reconcile the sense of purpose that war has given him personally with the ambiguous success of Reconstruction in Texas. Ultimately, Captain Kidd concludes that war is not an effective tool to address the social issues that are deeply embedded in his society. Born at the turn of the 19th century, Captain Kidd has fought in three wars by the time he reaches old age, and his experiences in battle have given him a sense of purpose. As a teenager, Captain Kidd was a messenger with the U.S. Army in the War of 1812, fighting British-allied Native Americans in Alabama. This work built on his capacity for running long distances and his ability to manage danger and hardship; the captain reflects that his time in the army brought him a "lifting, running joy." When the Mexican War breaks out, Captain Kidd is a successful printer in San Antonio. The army asks him to manage communications, a prestigious job that allows him to express his cunning, common sense, and professional capabilities. Later, he lives through the Civil War, seeing one of his sons-in-law die and the other lose an arm. In his old age Captain Kidd isn't very talkative, but he does enjoy regaling younger men with tales of his wartime experience. This shows that his time in the military has shaped Captain Kidd personally and allowed him to believe that his life has direction and meaning. However, the personal satisfaction Captain Kidd derives from military service clashes with his dawning realization that war is an ineffective method of solving social problems. Captain Kidd has fought against the Native Americans and Mexicans, but he's also married a Mexican woman (the late Maria Luisa) and taken tender care of Johanna, a young girl completely immersed Kiowa culture. His own cultural fluidity contrasts with the ethnic and racial divisions that have both caused and been perpetuated by the wars of his youth, and his personal life makes him doubt the meaning of these endeavors. In the present, Captain Kidd travels through Reconstruction-era Texas, witnessing the social repercussions that linger long after wars are over. Union forces have dissolved all Confederate local governments and are attempting to replace them with more loyal administrators. But the Reconstruction governments are wildly corrupt and insensitive to the needs of local people, as the fight between senators Davis and Hamilton shows. Meanwhile, hostility towards the 15th Amendment and the racism faced by Britt Johnson and his men show that the Union's victory by no means assures good conditions for former slaves or a cultural transformation in the defeated Southern states. As a young man, Captain Kidd took great satisfaction from serving as a soldier; his wartime experiences are among the most fulfilling of his life until he takes on responsibility for Johanna. However, the unglamorous aftermath of the Civil War requires Captain Kidd to reevaluate the validity of war, despite its personal meaning to him, and conclude that it's not an effective means of solving larger social problems like national loyalty or systematic racism. - Climax: Captain Kidd delivers Johanna to her aunt and uncle, Wilhelm and Anna. - Summary: Set in the Texas backcountry, the novel begins in 1870, five years after the end of the Civil War. Captain Kidd is working as an itinerant news-reader—traveling between isolated towns and giving public readings of national newspapers—when he's given an important task. His friend Britt Johnson, an African American freighter, has recently helped the U.S. military retrieve a young girl, Johanna, from the Kiowa Native American tribe, among whom she's been captive for 10 years. He charges Captain Kidd to return the 10-year-old (who has already tried to escape her supposed rescuers twice) to her family outside San Antonio, several hundred miles away. Even though he considers himself too old for such an arduous journey, Captain Kidd agrees to go. Johanna speaks no English and has no memory of her life before the Kiowa. She's hostile and defensive towards the men taking care of her. The Captain employs a group of local prostitutes to wrestle her out of her Kiowa garments, rid her of lice, and force her into a dress. When they set out, Johanna is mute and seemingly indifferent to their destination. Captain Kidd doesn't try to coax her into happiness, but he does succeed in teaching her a few words in English—including her own name, which she pronounces "Chohenna." As they drive, Captain Kidd mulls over his own life story. After growing up in Georgia, he volunteered as a teenager to fight in the War of 1812. After several people in his company are killed, he's promoted to captain, earning the nickname that has followed him since. Eventually, he works as a runner, ferrying messages from camp to camp through dangerous territory. He loves this work and is good at it, calling it his "true calling." When the war ends he apprentices for a printer and eventually moves to San Antonio to start his own printing shop. The town is primarily populated by Spanish settlers, one of whom, Maria Luisa, the Captain marries. They raise two daughters, Elizabeth and Olympia, in San Antonio. When the Mexican-American War breaks out in the 1840s, the Captain manages communications for the American generals. Although he's a noncombatant, he's on the scene for several important and bloody battles. Sometime after the war, Maria Luisa dies and his daughters marry and start their own households. When the Civil War breaks out, both of their husbands fight for the Confederacy. Olympia's husband, Mason, dies, while Elizabeth's husband Emory loses an arm. Now they live in Georgia, but Captain Kidd hopes to reunite his family in San Antonio and reclaim some land that his deceased wife owned through her family. Captain Kidd faces many challenges as he tries to help Johanna assimilate to the Anglo-American society in which she must now live. She's frightened by the noise and motion in even small towns and doesn't want to sleep indoors. In one town, Captain Kidd asks his friend Simon to watch over Johanna while he does a news reading. However, when Simon falls asleep Johanna runs to the river, where she sees a party of Kiowa riding horses on the other side. She calls out to them, begging for rescue, but they don't respond and the Captain has to drag her away. In Durand, Captain Kidd employs a local woman he knows, Mrs. Gannet, to help Johanna get used to sleeping in a hotel room. While Johanna is upset and scared by the transition, Mrs. Gannet soothes her with comforting songs. The Captain admires her affectionate and unflappable nature, and even considers pursuing her romantically. But his plans are interrupted when a sinister human trafficker named Almay offers to "buy" Johanna, presumably to force her into prostitution, and threatens to seize her on the road if the Captain doesn't agree. Captain Kidd flees town with Johanna by night, but Almay and his two Native American henchmen catch up with them the next day. Captain Kidd is afraid that the younger men will outmatch him in the ensuing gunfight, but Johanna turns out to be a fierce and ingenious fighter, tipping boulders over onto their attackers and loading the gun with small coins when they run out of ammunition. The Captain kills Almay—but he refuses to let Johanna scalp the man in the Kiowa tradition. While Captain Kidd has kept Johanna safe, the rest of the journey is far from easy. Many towns are completely anarchic, because the federal government has removed all Confederate officials without replacing them. Once, a group of cowboys demands a bribe in exchange for entrance to the town—but one of them, John Calley, repents his actions and later befriends the Captain at his reading. When the Captain reads of controversial issues, fistfights break out at his readings. Meanwhile, Johanna struggles to adapt to her new life: once, she strips down to bath naked in the river, not knowing that this is considered inappropriate. A passing young woman scolds her harshly, causing Johanna to break down in tears. Another time, she steals several chickens from a local farm to eat for breakfast, not knowing that this will damage Captain Kidd's reputation. However, she seems content to travel with him and doesn't try to escape. Indeed, one night they glimpse a party of Kiowa raiders just outside their hidden campsite. Rather than calling out to join her tribe, Johanna remains quiet and watches them run into the distance. She also takes on responsibility for collecting money at the Captain's reading, sternly ensuring that everyone pays their due. As they draw nearer to San Antonio, Johanna grows more anxious. Whenever Captain Kidd tries to explain that she's going to live with her aunt and uncle, she cries and asks to return to North Texas. When they finally reach Castroville, the town outside San Antonio where her remaining relatives live, the Captain takes Johanna to her parents' graves. She remains unmoved, simply asking again if they can leave the town. The Captain doesn't want to give her up, but he feels obligated to deliver her to her relatives. Finally, Captain Kidd and Johanna arrive at the house of Wilhelm and Anna Leonberger, Johanna's biological aunt and uncle. Rather than welcoming their long-lost niece, they scrutinize the oddly dressed and silent girl with suspicion and scorn. Both Wilhelm and Anna still grieve the deaths of Johanna's parents and younger sister, who were killed brutally in a Kiowa raid. They can't understand how Johanna has forgotten her early life and assimilated so completely into Kiowa culture. Moreover, they have no empathy for the many traumas she's endured, harshly correcting her Kiowa behavior and telling Captain Kidd that she will have to quickly learn their ways. Captain Kidd sense that these people will not give Johanna the care she needs, but he doesn't know what to do, so he leaves her there. For the next couple days Captain Kidd stays in San Antonio, visiting his old print shop and scouting out potential places for his daughters to live if they ever return. One afternoon, he drives to Castroville to check on Johanna. When he arrives at dusk, he finds her struggling across the fields carrying heavy equipment for the horses; her hands and arms are covered in whip marks. Furious, the Captain bundles her into the wagon and rides away quickly, promising that no one will take her away again. Crying happy tears, Johanna calls him "Grandfather" in Kiowa and English. For the next three years, Johanna and the Captain travel North Texas together. She helps with his news readings and he teaches her to read. She loves this itinerant lifestyle, but eventually Elizabeth and Olympia (the Captain's daughters) return from Georgia and they all settle in San Antonio. Johanna seems subdued and a little depressed, yearning for her early life. But one day John Calley, the cowboy they met on their original journey, comes to visit the Captain. He's immediately struck by Johanna's beauty and begins courting her. Two years later, they get married and she joins him in his work as a cattle herder, a life of rough travel and time spent in the outdoors. Finally seeing his young charge settled into a life she can enjoy, the Captain spends his old age creating a Kiowa dictionary and dies comfortably in his home two years later.

- Genre: Short Story, Southern Ontario Gothic - Title: Night - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Rural Canada in the 1940s - Character: Narrator. Description: - Character: Father. Description: - Theme: Parenting Across Time. Description: - Theme: The Psychological Effects of Illness. Description: - Theme: Silence and Isolation. Description: - Theme: Coming of Age. Description: - Climax: The narrator encounters her father on one of her all-night walks. - Summary: In "Night," the narrator reminisces on a particular period of time in her childhood. She remarks that dramatic events in her childhood always seemed to happen during a snowstorm. One night, during a blizzard, the narrator's parents must borrow their neighbors' horses to take her to the hospital. There, the doctor removes her appendix. The narrator spends a few days in the hospital. She does not worry about how her father paid for the surgery. After the narrator recovers and returns to school, her mother tells her that, in the process of removing her appendix, the doctor also removed a mysterious lump. There is no mention of cancer and the narrator doesn't think further about the lump at the time. The adult narrator muses on the ways that discussion around illness changes over time; she reflects that present-day doctors and patients take the possibility of cancer much more seriously and discuss it more openly. When school lets out for the summer, the narrator spends most of her day relaxing around the family's property. Possibly as a result of this inactivity, the narrator experiences insomnia. During her sleepless nights in her shared bedroom with her sister, Catherine, the narrator also experiences thoughts of killing her sister. In order to combat these unwanted thoughts, the narrator leaves their room to wander the dark property. She does this nightly, returning to her bed to sleep when the birds start to sing and the sky starts to lighten. One night, the narrator senses a strange presence. To her relief, the presence turns out to be her father, dressed in slightly nicer clothes than usual (as though he were going into town) and smoking a cigarette. They greet each other and her father asks if she is having trouble sleeping. During their conversation, the narrator realizes that her father had heard her walking around all those nights. The narrator confesses her fear that she would strangle her sister. Her father tells her that these thoughts are normal and urges her not to worry about them. The narrator reflects that if she were in her father's position, she might have questioned her child further or sent them to a psychiatrist. The adult narrator continues to reflect on her father's parenting style, which included corporal punishment. However, in that moment, his matter-of-factness calms her and she is able to sleep.

- Genre: Blend of literary, thriller, western - Title: No Country for Old Men - Point of view: 3rd person, omniscient - Setting: West Texas, along the U.S./Mexico border - Character: Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Description: The sheriff of Terrell County, Texas, and protagonist of the novel, Ed Tom Bell struggles to adapt to a changing world where senseless violence, greed, and corruption have become the norm. Bell is a man of faith who values ethics, morality, and honesty, but finds it increasingly difficult to effectively do his job in the face of the heinous violence he confronts in U.S. society. He depends on his wife of 31 years, Loretta, and his Uncle Ellis for support as he comes to terms with the end of his career. Bell is a decorated WWII veteran, and struggles with guilt through the narrative as he tries reconcile his involvement in the war and the loss of men under his command. His desire to make right the actions from his past leads to his striving to protect the people of his community. He goes to great lengths to protect Llewellyn Moss and Carla Jean, and put Anton Chigurh behind bars, but by the end of the novel, he recognizes his powerlessness over the forces of evil in the world, and retires from his duty as sheriff. - Character: Llewellyn Moss. Description: A Vietnam Veteran, Llewellyn Moss is a strong willed and self-sufficient man. Moss stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and takes a briefcase full of drug money from the scene. This action sets in motion a train of circumstances that force him to use his military training and survival skills in order to evade the dangerous men seeking his death. Moss has been disillusioned by his experience fighting in Vietnam, and does not operate in the world with the same moral framework as Bell. His sense of morality comes from within, through his desire for authenticity, autonomy, and freedom. His actions through the narrative are morally complex. Because Moss's objectives are authenticity, autonomy, and freedom, he refuses to cooperate with Chigurh when he offers to spare Carla Jean's life in exchange for the money. Moss's sense of self-sufficiency leads him to believe he can overcome Chigurh, but this mistake ultimately leads to his and Carla Jean's demise. - Character: Anton Chigurh. Description: The novels main antagonist, Anton Chigurh is a remorseless hit man who kills without hesitation. Anton Chigurh lacks a clear personal history, and is often described in the novel as looking exotic because of his tan skin and blue eyes. Though Chigurh is ruthless in his killing, he is described as a man with principles. He is the only person in the novel who doesn't care about the money in the briefcase. He perceives himself as the arbiter of fate, and operates outside of conventional understandings of justice and morality. As opposed to an orientation that posits God as the ultimate judge, he believes only in choice, chance, and fate. He sometimes preaches his philosophy before killing his victims, leaving the ultimate decision of whether the individual lives or dies to a coin toss. While Chigurh often seems above the law, he is subject to the laws of choice, chance, and fate like the other characters, as shown through his injuries in the car accident at the end of the novel. Chigurh's chosen weapon is a bolt gun used for killing cattle in slaughterhouses because of its effectiveness and simplicity, though he doesn't hesitate to utilize an arsenal of guns through the novel to complete his work. In the end, Chigurh disappears the way he entered the narrative, seemingly into thin air. - Character: Carson Wells. Description: A Vietnam veteran and hit man, Carson Wells is hired to track down Chigurh and find the missing briefcase. Wells has worked with Chigurh in the past and understands the danger Moss is in. He finds Moss in the hospital in Mexico, and attempts to convince Moss to work with him to return the money to its rightful owner. Wells is a confident man, which ultimately leads to his demise. He does not take into consideration the role of chance and bad luck in an individual's fate, elements of life that Chigurh is very aware of, and is overpowered by Chigurh. In the end, before Chigurh kills him, he struggles to accept his fate. Ultimately, his oversights and false sense of self-confidence lead to his death. - Character: Carla Jean Moss. Description: The young wife of Llewellyn Moss, Carla Jean is a faithful and strong-willed young woman. Nineteen at the time of the narrative, she married Moss at sixteen after a premonition delivered to her in a dream. Despite the warnings of her grandmother, who also raised her, she married Moss and enjoyed their life together. She loves and trusts her husband, listening to him after he tells her to hide out with her grandmother in Odessa. Even after Moss is wounded, she trusts his advice, and refuses to help Bell as he attempts to track Moss down. Carla Jean bravely confronts Chigurh at the end of the novel, arguing against his philosophy. Ultimately, Chigurh helps her to accept her fate, and kills her. - Character: Loretta Bell. Description: Sheriff Bell's Wife, Loretta is a strong and spiritual woman. Through the novel she provides support for her husband, who often takes note of her spirituality and strong faith. Loretta is involved in her husband's professional life as well, cooking meals for prisoners in the county jail, and making sure they are cared for. These prisoners often return to visit her after they have turned their lives around. Loretta stands by Bell after he quits his job as sheriff, and helps him come to terms with his grief. - Character: Uncle Ellis. Description: Sheriff Bell's uncle, Uncle Ellis is a retired sheriff who uses a wheelchair since being disabled by a gunshot wound in the line of duty. Ellis lives in the family homestead, and Bell visits him to seek guidance and ask questions about his family history. Bell imagines Ellis as an old-timer who upholds a view of justice, faith, and morality that is fading from society. Although Ellis is a moral man who loves his country, he is not as nostalgic as Bell about the past. He is a realist, noting the way in which this country is hard on its people and God does not seem to meddle in human affairs. - Character: Sheriff Lamar. Description: A friend of Sheriff Bell's and the sheriff in Sonoma, Texas, Lamar struggles with the grisly murders occurring in his county. The first man murdered in the novel, a young deputy, was one of Lamar's men. Similar to Bell, Lamar considers leaving the police force, but Bell encourages him to continue his work. - Character: David DeMarco. Description: A young man who gives Chigurh his shirt after a car accident in exchange for one hundred dollars. After Chigurh leaves the scene of the accident, DeMarco and his unnamed friend steal a pistol from the seat of Chigurh's vehicle. Later, after the pistol is recovered, Bell speaks to DeMarco about his interaction with Chigurh. DeMarco is uncooperative. - Character: The Young Hitchhiker. Description: A young woman Moss picks up on the shoulder of the highway, the young hitchhiker is on her way to California. She and Moss have existential conversations about running from problems, and the inability to escape the past. She tries to tempt Moss into a sexual interaction, but Moss remains faithful to Carla Jean. After Moss gives her a thousand dollars, she says she has always been lucky, but Moss tells her eventually her luck will run out. In the end, Moss is right. Two Mexican men searching for the briefcase full of money kill the young woman along with Moss. - Character: Moss's Father. Description: A WWII veteran, Moss's Father did his best to raise his son with good values. When Bell visits, Moss's Father insists that Moss wasn't involved in drugs; he wasn't raised that way. Moss's Father is proud of his son, noting that Moss was the best rifle shot he'd ever seen. He talks about the way Moss visited the families of men lost in Vietnam, and how this experience was hard on him. He speaks in general about the way the Vietnam War affected U.S. society, and the way in which war cannot be fought and won without trust and faith in God. - Theme: Philosophy, Morality, and Ethics. Description: McCarthy's novel explores the human struggle toward a definition and framework of morality and ethics. Several of the novel's characters search for a moral center—some reference point against which they may measure their decision, actions, and beliefs—as they confront extreme instances of violence and corruption. The novel's three main characters, Llewellyn Moss, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, and Anton Chigurh, each operate in the world with different conceptions of morality and ethics. Each man holds a different moral code, and each character's actions work to challenge common frameworks of morality and ethics. Sheriff Bell struggles to find a moral center against which he might explain the gruesome violence he encounters throughout the narrative. Since he was a young sheriff, he has perceived the law, religion, and truth as the reference points for morality. These moral frameworks have not only provided a clear sense of right and wrong, they have given him a clear sense of obligation and duty as a sheriff, husband, and community member. Llewellyn Moss's philosophy is not as clear-cut as Bell's. Common frameworks of morality and ethics defined by law and religion do not guide him. His sense of morality comes from within, through his desire for authenticity, autonomy, and freedom. Moss is operating in a framework that is not defined externally, by society or god, but by his own internal framework. Chigurh provides a counterpoint to these different moral positions. He operates outside of any single understanding of morality and ethics, and continually raises philosophical questions to his victims. His actions do not fall into any single philosophical framework. During the scene with the proprietor, he shifts the situation from a moral decision to chance by introducing the coin. When he kills Wells, his philosophy hinges on pragmatism. And when he kills Carla Jean, he does so out of moral duty. He acts in ways that complicate human attempts to construct moral frameworks and guidelines for their lives and society. Through the exploration of these characters, their decisions, and the outcomes, the novel raises questions about human conceptions of morality and ethics, but does not seem to offer any single answer beyond the fact that the world remains indifferent to the strivings of its people. The novel is not concerned with providing an answer or a version of the "correct" moral philosophy. Instead, the novel aims to explore the limits and frailties of several philosophical frameworks dealing with morality and ethics, leaving the reader to face their own conceptions of these ideas. - Theme: Fate, Chance, and Free Will. Description: No Country for Old Men begins with Llewellyn Moss's chance discovery of the drug deal gone wrong, and later, the briefcase full of money. From this moment forward, the novel begins posing questions about the function of fate, chance, and free will, and the extent to which human beings have choice in the outcomes of their lives. The novel does not refute the idea of free will. It does, however, recognize its limits. In a large sense, the novel suggests free will can only function within the limits of one's mortality. We make choices that influence the trajectory of our lives, but ultimately, no matter what route we chose, life ends in death. Chigurh embodies the idea of universal fate, and becomes the ambassador of the novel's philosophy on fate and free will. In his interactions with other characters, Chigurh continually suggests that each and every choice we make determines our fate—even small actions bring us toward death. The novel brings forward the idea of chance and luck in connection with choice and free will. Luck and chance account for those elements of reality that exist entirely outside of free will and the power of choice. So while we do have agency over the choices we make, we are unable to control the elements of luck and chance inherent in the journey. Chigurh uses the the coin to demonstrate the way in which our choices determine our fate. The coin serves several functions. The coin toss is an extreme example of the connection between the choices we make and their eventual outcomes. At the same time, the coin represents the presence of chance inherent in the nature of decision-making. Other characters perceive fate and free will in different ways. Moss continues to exert free will in hopes that he can overcome fate, but ultimately fails in the end. Carson Wells believes he can overcome Chigurh, refusing to admit his choice to pursue Chigurh will lead to his death. In the end, he attempts to reason with Chigurh, indicating his struggle to accept his fate. Both Bell and Carla Jean seem to accept their fates in ways other characters do not. Bell eventually accepts the fact that he is incapable of overcoming Chigurh and the new way of the world he represents, so he retires, which can be read as an acceptance of his fate. Carla Jean also accepts her fate after confronting Chigurh. Finally, even though Chigurh perceives himself as the spokesperson for fate, he is not impervious to the reality of the message he preaches. After he kills Carla Jean, he himself ends up in a car accident—a function of chance or bad luck—and though he survives the accident and escapes, this moment serves as a reminder that nobody is above the randomness of chance inherent in the universe, and nobody escapes their fate. - Theme: Justice and Higher Law. Description: Sheriff Bell strives for justice within the framework of the state and the community, which are defined by what we might call "the law". This judicial framework is rooted in a sense of higher law, God-given in nature, which provides a clear distinction between right and wrong. In this way, Bell is a representative of the community's belief in justice, an ideal that might also be thought of as an American framework of justice. As a sheriff, Bell perceives himself as a shepherd for the people of his community, which inspires his determination to protect Moss and Carla Jean, and put Chigurh behind bars. From the start of the novel, however, he begins to question the ideology behind the system of justice he seeks to uphold. In confronting a man like Chigurh, Bell's conception of a God-given higher law becomes destabilized. While Chigurh is a deeply principled man, he does not submit to the idea that God is the source of higher law. Instead, he believes that higher law stems from chance and the chaotic order of the universe. For Chigurh, luck replaces the need for God—an indifferent universe deals justice randomly. Without the idea of higher law rooted in a Judeo-Christian conception of God, Chigurh feels free to act outside of the judicial framework in which Bell operates. Moss's understanding of justice and higher law rests somewhere between Bell and Chigurh's. He operates outside the confines of state law, as shown by his unwillingness to cooperate with the sheriff, but at the same time he believes he can escape Chigurh's philosophy of chance and fate through self-determination, as shown by his refusal to submit to Chigurh when he offers to spare Carla Jean's life. The events of the novel reposition the characters with regard to their view of justice and higher law. Although Moss strives to overcome his situation by self-determination, he ultimately fails, suggesting that self-determination is not enough to overcome the external forces of the universe. Chigurh, who operates outside of Bell's conception of higher law, is also not able to escape his own philosophy of justice, as shown by the car accident after he murders Carla Jean. Even though he seems at times outside of the realm of justice and higher law, he is still subject to the chaos and chance inherent in the universe. By the end of the novel, Bell resigns from his position as sheriff, realizing the futility of his mission to uphold God's higher law. He begins to suspect that God does not care about human affairs. His resignation suggests his personal surrender of his old views of justice stemming from a God-given higher law, and in a larger sense, the end of a society based on those views that Bell has upheld during his career. - Theme: Changing Times: Past, Present, and Future. Description: The title of No Country for Old Men speaks directly to the theme of changing times. Throughout the novel, Bell continually considers the distinction between the old ways and the new. He holds to a nostalgic view of the past, reminiscing about a time where order and justice reigned. He talks about a time in America where police officers didn't need to carry guns and knew the people of their communities. Children were safe at school and striving to become good citizens. The senseless violence he encounters, however, leads him to believe that this nation is heading toward chaos. He states that he is seeing "a new type," a kind of person who has "another view of the world out there and other eyes to see it…" Chigurh is the definition of this new type, as shown through his complete disregard for law, God, and the value of human life. His disregard of the value of human life is embodied in his use of the bolt gun, a tool used in the slaughter of cattle, to kill people. Chigurh does not operate in the world with the same orientation as the old type. Bell begins to feel that men with his moral leaning can no longer compete with the changing face of society, which leads to his longing for the past and his fear of the future. As the narrative continues, it becomes clear that this "new type" is not an individual, but a new framework and set of values that have taken hold in American society. Bell realizes that in order for the drug trade to flourish as it does, the market must exist, and that market is comprised of everyday citizens. He laments the young people he sees who live their lives outside of his understanding of societal norms. Moss holds a different position to the world, one between Bell and the young people Bell refers to. While Bell fought in WWII, a war with clarity around the moral objectives in its resistance against Nazi Germany, Moss is a veteran of the Vietnam War, in which moral clarity was hazy at best. Unlike Bell, who ultimately submits to the fact that he can no longer compete with the new ways and resigns, Moss attempts to compete, but fails. While Moss doesn't quite fit the category of a "new type", he feels able to compete in a way that Bell doesn't. At the same time, the novel continually challenges Bell's nostalgia for a "morally clear" past. During his visit with Uncle Ellis, a retired Sheriff and representative of the generation that Bell romanticizes, we begin to see the unreliability in Bell's memory. Ellis did not become sheriff out of a sense of duty, but because it paid well, and he didn't see any other options. He explains that he was too young for WWI and too old for WWII, so policing became his outlet. He believes in God, but doesn't think God cares or has any control over human affairs. Ellis recognizes the way in which this country is hard on people, and sees the absurdity in the way people still love it. He still loves it, but recognizes his ignorance. This alternate view of the past knocks off kilter Bell's romanticization of the past and the older generation. Through Ellis's commentary, it becomes clear that the old generation is not as steadfast in their values, love of God, and love of country as Bell thinks. Through the conversation, it becomes clear that violence, greed, and the struggle for power has always been a fundamental part of American society. While the characteristics and limits of this violence, greed, and power seeking may have changed (or may not have), they are not in any way new to our society, and will likely carry on into the future. - Theme: Corruption, Greed, and Power. Description: The issues of corruption, greed, and power are at the heart of McCarthy's novel. The entire world of the story is tainted with these vices, and the characters fight to overcome and reconcile their effects. To understand McCarthy's novel, one must understand the larger context in which the narrative takes place. Corruption, greed, and the struggle for power provide a backdrop for the novels events and shape the personalities of the novel's characters. The novel is set in the shadow of several wars. Bell, Moss, and Wells, along with several minor characters, are military veterans, and the novel is set near the American/Mexican border just prior to Reagan's declaration of "the war on drugs." There is mention throughout the novel of the corrosive forces of war, and the struggle for power inherent in military operations. The inciting incident of the novel—Moss's discovery of the briefcase full of drug money—depicts the gruesome effects of a business founded on corruption, greed, and the search for power, and the events that follow are backed by these ideas. We later discover that the owner of the money is not some kind of outlaw on the streets, but a high power executive from the Matacumbe Petroleum Group in Houston. This suggests that the corruption and greed are not simply taking place on the streets and in Mexico, but involve American men at the top with wealth and power.On the level of character, both Bell and Moss's narratives explore the individual struggles against corruption, greed, and power. Through the course of the novel, we begin to understand that Bell's entire career is casted in the shadow of dishonesty. The bronze star he earned in WWII was, in his estimation, unearned. He tried to turn down the honor, but was told he had to accept it because it would make the American effort in Europe look like it was worth something. Moss has also been disillusioned by his experience fighting in Vietnam, which becomes a major element in his character and decision-making. While greed certainly plays a roll in his decision to take the drug money and run, his decision to hold onto the money is more complicated. This is shown once Wells enters the story. He offers to give Moss some of the money if he turns it over, but by this point it is not about the money for Moss, but who controls the money. A similar idea backs his refusal to give the money to Chigurh. In this way, Moss is struggling for power and autonomy. Chigurh provides a counterpoint to the corruption, greed, and struggle for power in the story. As Wells suggests, "[Chigurh] is a peculiar man. You could say he has principals. Principals that transcend money or drugs or anything like that." As the representative of fate, Chigurh arrives in the story to demonstrate the futility of greed and power. In the end, he puts an end to both Moss and Bell's narratives—Moss ends up dead, and Bell ends up resigning from his position and living in the shadow of his guilt and shame. Ultimately, the novel depicts the way in which corruption, greed, and the search for power only bring suffering, and in the end, those who engage in these vices must bear the consequences. - Climax: Moss's death at the motel in Van Horn, followed by Bell's near miss with Chigurh - Summary: No Country for Old Men is set in 1980 in the barren West Texas landscape along the U.S./Mexico Border. The novel opens with a monologue delivered by Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a WWII veteran and sheriff of Terrell County, in which he speaks about the evolving evil in America and his struggle to reconcile the changes he is witnessing in society. This monologue, and those that follow, establish several of the novel's themes. The narrative begins with Vietnam veteran, Llewellyn Moss. Moss is hunting antelope when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone terribly wrong. He discovers a dying Mexican man in a truck packed with a large quantity of heroin. The man begs for water, but Moss leaves to search for the man he suspects survived the carnage. He finds the man lying dead beside a briefcase packed with 2.4 million dollars. Moss takes the briefcase, and returns home to his wife Carla Jean. Later that night he wakes with a feeling of remorse, and returns to the scene to bring the dying man some water. When he arrives, he finds the man has been shot and killed. Meanwhile, a pair of drug dealers discovers his truck. A chase ensues, but Moss escapes by jumping into a river. He realizes that the men will track him using the information from his truck, and understands they will never stop looking for him. Returning home, Moss tells Carla Jean she needs to go to Odessa and stay with her mother. She leaves for Odessa, and Moss goes on the run. Sheriff Bell and his deputies begin their investigation of the botched drug deal and several connected murders. Bell, who is haunted by the death of his men in WWII, makes it his mission to protect Moss and Carla Jean, while bringing justice to the criminals involved. Meanwhile, Chigurh, a ruthless hit man who uses a slaughterhouse bolt gun used to kill cattle as his weapon of choice and often flips a coin to determine whether a person lives or dies, is hired to track Moss and the drug money. A deadly game of cat and mouse begins, in which Moss uses his survival skills and military expertise to evade Chigurh and the Mexican drug dealers who have been sent out to recover their money. Chigurh uses a tracking device linked to the briefcase holding the money to find Moss. A shootout occurs in Eagles Pass, in which both Chigurh and Moss are wounded. The shootout continues in the center of town, involving Moss, Chigurh, and several Mexican drug dealers who arrive on the scene. Moss barely escapes over the Mexican border, but before crossing the bridge into Mexico, he tosses the drug money over the bridge into a patch of river cane beside the Rio Grande. Moss wakes up in a Mexican hospital and finds Carson Wells sitting beside him. Wells has been hired to stop Chigurh and recover the briefcase. Wells, a Vietnam veteran like Moss, but Special Forces, tries to reason with Moss about the danger he is in, but Moss believes he can handle the situation on his own. Wells gives Moss his business card and leaves. Meanwhile, Sheriff Bell continues to search for Moss. He visits Carla Jean in Odessa and asks her for any leads on Moss. She refuses to help him, stating that Moss can take care of himself, but Bell is not so sure. He tells her to contact him if he hears from Moss. Wells returns to Eagles Pass, and explores the town, looking for clues. When he gets back to his motel, Chigurh is waiting for him. After a short exchange, Chigurh kills him. Meanwhile, Moss calls Carla Jean from Mexico and tells her she needs to take her grandmother and go to El Paso. After he calls Carla Jean, Moss calls Wells' phone, but Chigurh answers. Chigurh tells Moss if he turns over the money he will spare Carla Jean, but Moss refuses. Moss, still injured, crosses back to the U.S. and retrieves the money from the bank of the river. He begins heading west toward El Paso where Carla Jean is waiting. He picks up a young hitchhiker along the way to help him drive. They are caught by the Mexican drug dealers at a motel in Van Horn, and killed. Later, Chigurh arrives and finds the money, which he returns to its owner. Though Moss has been killed and the money returned, Chigurh continues hunting Carla Jean. Chigurh catches Carla Jean in her grandmother's house, and kills her. While driving away, Chigurh is struck by a car that runs a stop sign. Chigurh buys a shirt from a boy named David DeMarco, and leaves the scene. Demarco and a friend steal the gun used to kill Carla Jean from the seat of Chigurh's truck. A few months later, Bell visits his Uncle Ellis and seeks advice on the guilt he feels about his experience in WWII and his failure to solve the crimes in his community. He talks about quitting his job as sheriff. When he returns home, he receives a call informing him about the discovery of the gun used to Kill Carla Jean. He questions DeMarco, but the young man is unhelpful. At this point in the narrative, Bell feels defeated by the situation. He decides to retire, a decision supported by his wife Loretta. The narrative ends with Bell's resignation, a symbolic surrender to the overpowering forces of evil that will continue to reign in the world.

- Genre: Autobiographical Novel, Japanese I-Novel - Title: No Longer Human - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Tokyo in the 1930s - Character: Yozo. Description: The protagonist of No Longer Human, Yozo is a depressed Japanese man who feels alienated from everyone around him. He has an almost inexplicable fear of humans, finding it hard to understand why people behave the way they do. This fear and sense of alienation seems to predate his own sexual abuse at the hands of his family's waitstaff, but the incident certainly exacerbates his fraught view of humanity. As a defense mechanism, he learns to deceive people by acting gregarious and funny. In reality, he feels that his "clowning" around has nothing to do with his "true nature," which he keeps hidden. He eventually realizes that he can express some of his inner turmoil through painting, but he mostly keeps his artwork hidden, as well. As a young man, he meets a fellow art student named Horiki, who introduces him to alcohol, which ultimately becomes one of Yozo's ways of escaping reality. He also throws himself into messy romantic relationships to try to feel better about the world, but this has disastrous results—as made evident by the fact that he and his lover Tsuneko try to die together by suicide. Tsuneko dies, but Yozo survives and spends the rest of his life seeking refuge from his horror of the world in tumultuous relationships, drugs, and alcohol. By the end of the novel, Yozo has tried to kill himself multiple times and has been forced to live under a maid's watch in the countryside, where he wastes away as life passes him by. - Character: The Unnamed Speaker. Description: The unnamed speaker narrates the prologue and epilogue of No Longer Human, explaining that he never met Yozo—or, in his words, "the madman who wrote these notebooks." Nonetheless, the speaker used to frequent the bar in Kyobashi that Yozo himself used to visit, which is why he knows the bartender from Kyobashi, who used to serve Yozo. When the speaker visits the countryside to see a friend and buy some seafood, he goes into a café and recognizes the bartender from Kyobashi. They talk about old times, at which point the bartender asks if the speaker ever knew Yozo. Even though he didn't, the bartender still gives him Yozo's notebooks, saying he might be able to use them for a novel—a suggestion implying that the speaker is a writer. That night, the speaker stays up reading the notebooks. Although he seems repulsed by Yozo as a person, he can't help but acknowledge how interesting the writing is, so he decides to publish the notebooks without changing them. - Character: Takeichi. Description: Takeichi is one of Yozo's peers in high school. Yozo initially thinks Takeichi is simple-minded and unobservant, so he's shocked when Takeichi is the only person who recognizes that Yozo is constantly pretending to be someone he's not. This happens one day at school, when Yozo purposefully falls over—everyone laughs, but Takeichi comes up behind him and says, "You did it on purpose." From that point on, Yozo is determined to keep tabs on Takeichi, terrified that the strange boy will tell everyone that he's a faker. To Yozo's surprise, spending time with Takeichi helps open his eyes to what true art can be, since Takeichi inadvertently shows him that good artists don't try to make beautiful, pleasant paintings. Rather, they try to depict the world as it really is, meaning that they unflinchingly paint the horror and depravity that Yozo himself sees everywhere around him. Having realized this, Yozo decides to become a painter. In this way, Takeichi helps Yozo find a way to express his "true nature," which he otherwise keeps hidden. - Character: Yoshiko. Description: Yoshiko is 17 years old when she meets Yozo. She works across the street from the bar he frequents in Kyobashi, and she often tells him that he needs to drink less. One night, he drunkenly suggests that they should get married, mainly because he has been thinking about how she's a virgin and how he'd like to sleep with her. She agrees to marry him if he stops drinking. Although Yozo accepts this condition, he gets drunk the very next day. However, Yoshiko is too trusting to believe that Yozo would break his promise, so they have sex and then get married. Yozo later worries that Yoshiko is too trusting, ultimately associating her tendency to unquestioningly trust others with the fact that she ends up getting raped—something that happens while Yozo himself watches and does nothing. Yozo falls into an even deeper depression after Yoshiko's rape, eventually trying once again to die by suicide. Yoshiko tragically blames herself for this, thinking that Yozo wants to die because he feels guilty for not protecting her. - Character: Yozo's Father. Description: Yozo's father is a Japanese politician who lives with his family in the countryside but spends several weeks each month in a townhouse in Tokyo. The novel implies that he's a fairly strict and unforgiving man, which is why he cuts ties with Yozo after Yozo tries to die by suicide—something that leads to a scandal and draws negative attention to his father's political career. Even though Yozo's father doesn't communicate with him after he tries to die by suicide, Yozo's brothers continue to send Yozo small amounts of money. Yozo never sees his father again, ultimately learning of his death after being released from a psychiatric ward. - Character: Horiki. Description: Horiki is one of Yozo's college peers in Tokyo. Horiki is a somewhat self-satisfied painter who considers himself something of a rebel. He takes Yozo under his wing and introduces him to drinking, smoking, and sleeping with sex workers. He often seems to have ulterior motives when it comes to his friendship with Yozo, since he always wants to borrow money. But Yozo doesn't mind, instead embracing Horiki's chaotic lifestyle. Later, Horiki treats Yozo rather coldly, not wanting to associate with him after he tries to die by suicide. But Horiki eventually gets over this and starts spending time with Yozo, ultimately drawing him back into a life of excessive drinking. Just when it seems that Horiki truly doesn't care about Yozo, though, he and Flatfish appear and take him to a psychiatric ward, and Yozo senses that Horiki does this out of a genuine desire to help him. - Character: Tsuneko. Description: Tsuneko is a bartender who serves Yozo one night when he doesn't have enough money to pay for his drinks. A sad soul, she takes pity on Yozo and spends the entire evening with him, eventually inviting him back to her apartment, where they sleep together and talk about how unhappy they are. Tsuneko's husband is in jail, but she commits herself to her new relationship with Yozo—a relationship that accelerates quite quickly. The next time they see each other, they spend the night together and again talk about how unhappy they are, and Tsuneko eventually says she can't bear to go on living. Together, they decide to die by suicide. When they throw themselves into the ocean, though, Tsuneko is the only one to die. Yozo is saved and thus must face the scandal surrounding the role he played in Tsuneko's suicide. In retrospect, Yozo thinks Tsuneko might be the only woman he ever truly loved. - Character: Flatfish. Description: Flatfish is an old acquaintance of Yozo's father. When Yozo is arrested for being an "accomplice to a suicide," the authorities require him to arrange for somebody to pick him up and watch over him. He calls Flatfish, who agrees to take him in. Flatfish thus steps in to fill the void left by Yozo's father, who stops speaking to Yozo after his failed suicide. A kind and practical man, Flatfish lets Yozo live in his house, but he eventually tries to urge Yozo to do something with his life. He's willing to pay for Yozo to return to college, but he'll only do so if Yozo expresses a desire to get his life back on track. Yozo, however, is unable to articulate what he wants in life and, instead of accepting Flatfish's help, ends up running away. Later, Flatfish teams up with Horiki and takes Yozo to a psychiatric ward. - Character: Shizuko. Description: Shizuko is a woman who has a relationship with Yozo after he runs away from Flatfish's house. Her husband died several years ago, and she works for a magazine that occasionally publishes Horiki's illustrations, which is how Yozo first meets her. Enticed by how sad Yozo seems, she readily takes him in and provides for him, apparently finding his melancholy attitude somehow attractive. Shizuko decides—along with Horiki and Flatfish—that Yozo should officially cut ties with his family and marry her. Before this can happen, though, Yozo overhears Shigeko (Shizuko's daughter) say that she wants her "real" father back. He realizes that Shizuko and Shigeko would be better off without him, so he runs away. - Character: Shigeko. Description: Shigeko is Shizuko's daughter. She takes a liking to Yozo when he lives with her and her mother, but she unintentionally wounds him by talking one day about her late father, saying that she wishes she could have her "real" father back. Shortly thereafter, Yozo decides that Shigeko and Shizuko would be better off without him, so he runs away. - Character: The Bartender from Kyobashi. Description: Yozo endears himself to the bartender from Kyobashi by telling her one night that he left Shizuko for her. In response, the kind bartender lets him live in an apartment above the bar. Although he later moves out of this apartment when he gets married to Yoshiko, the bartender from Kyobashi still seems to play an important role in his life, perhaps because she feels that she has a connection to him. Years later, it's she who receives Yozo's notebooks in the mail—an indication that Yozo felt connected to her, too. She ends up giving the notebooks to the unnamed speaker. - Character: The Pharmacist. Description: The pharmacist is an elderly woman who gives Yozo morphine. Yozo first meets her after trying to die by suicide for the second time in his life. In the aftermath of this failed suicide, he is in extremely poor health, so he goes to the pharmacy and instantly senses a connection between himself and the pharmacist, recognizing that the pharmacist is, like him, deeply unhappy. The pharmacist sees this, too, and it brings tears to her eyes. Later, she tells Yozo that he must stop drinking, and she gives him morphine to make it easier to give up alcohol. It isn't long before he's fully addicted to morphine and coming back to the pharmacy at all hours of the night, begging the pharmacist for more morphine. He even starts an affair with the pharmacist, who continues to give him drugs even though she knows it's not a good idea. - Theme: Social Isolation and Alienation. Description: No Longer Human explores what it's like to feel completely detached and alienated from society. Yozo, the novel's protagonist, feels fundamentally at odds with everyone around him, finding everything about humanity unnatural and impossible to comprehend. In other words, nothing about human behavior or society feels intuitive to him, and his only way of getting through life is by mimicking the social conduct he thinks other people view as acceptable. And yet, by constantly performing in this way, he ultimately alienates himself all the more, effectively hiding what he calls his "true nature" and thus guaranteeing that nobody will ever be able to genuinely connect with him. In this way, the novel spotlights how hard it can be for people who already feel alienated from society to meaningfully assimilate into a broader community, since their sense of alienation often drives them to behave in ways that only exacerbate their sense of isolation. However, No Longer Human doesn't necessarily make a specific argument about social isolation or antisocial behavior. Rather, the novel simply follows Yozo's alienation, functioning as a snapshot or document of a lonely man. This snapshot doesn't clarify why, exactly, Yozo initially feels alienated from humanity. Of course, he does have the tragic misfortune of being sexually abused by his family's waitstaff as a child, and this experience undoubtedly plays into his "fear" of humans and his hesitancy to connect with others. However, it's difficult to argue that this traumatic experience is the singular origin of his feelings of isolation, since his misgivings and sense of estrangement begin before his abuse. In turn, the novel perhaps suggests that some people are simply prone to feeling excluded from society—and, to that end, that such feelings often become more pronounced over time, as Yozo comes to feel by the end of the novel that he's so cut off from humanity and society that he's "disqualified as a human being." Feelings of alienation, then, are capable of building on themselves, making it that much harder for people like Yozo to forge connections and find a sense of belonging in society. - Theme: Compassion and Mutual Suffering. Description: Although No Longer Human primarily focuses on social isolation, the novel also considers the kinds of connection that are still available to people who feel alienated and alone. Yozo, for instance, is so estranged from everyone around him that he legitimately fears other human beings—and yet, he still experiences moments of connection throughout the novel. In general, the most meaningful relationships he forms are built on a sense of mutual suffering. For example, he falls in love with a young woman named Tsuneko, and their bond is primarily rooted in their shared sense of despair. After spending a night listening to Tsuneko talk about how sad she is, Yozo experiences a "feeling of comradeship for [a] fellow-sufferer," ultimately suggesting that he is capable of sharing a bond with another person—it's just that this bond is predicated on mutual feelings of sorrow. After all, meeting somebody like Tsuneko is arguably the only way for Yozo to feel less alone and alienated from the rest of society, since he finally feels as if someone shares his turbulent emotions. In a way, then, finding a "fellow-sufferer" is like finding compassion: Yozo and Tsuneko can commiserate with each other and thus ease the emotional burden of feeling alone in the world. Similarly, Yozo later feels connected to an elderly pharmacist because he can instantly tell she's unhappy. "Unhappy people are sensitive to the unhappiness of others," he thinks, confirming that he experiences compassion and empathy when he meets people who seem as depressed as him. This, however, is not to say that Yozo's relationships with other unhappy people improve his outlook on life—in fact, both his relationship with Tsuneko and his acquaintance with the pharmacist lead to disastrous results. Nonetheless, the mere fact that he connects with them at all suggests that it's possible for even the most lonely, alienated people to find camaraderie, even if that camaraderie is based in mutual suffering. - Theme: Depression, Mental Health, and Stigmatization. Description: No Longer Human examines societal perceptions surrounding depression and the unfortunate stigma that is often attached to mental health struggles. Almost everyone in Yozo's life fails to show genuine sympathy about his depression. And though he does have people who technically support him in times of hardship, they still seem to look down on him for his apparent inability to live like everyone else. When he and Tsuneko both decide to die by suicide, Yozo survives and ends up facing the harsh stigmatization surrounding suicide. In fact, he's even taken straight from the hospital to jail and charged with being an "accomplice to a suicide"—something that certainly doesn't help with his feelings of depression and alienation, since this kind of treatment directly ostracizes and penalizes him for his mental health struggles. What's more, his father effectively disowns him, refusing to see or communicate with him. It's clear, then, that the people around Yozo interpret his depression not as something he needs help dealing with, but as a form of purposeful antisocial behavior that ought to be punished. It's therefore not particularly surprising that Yozo has such a hard time investing himself in the surrounding society, since this society has shown him such outward hostility during his most vulnerable and painful moments. No Longer Human thus unveils the ways in which the stigma surrounding mental health issues in 1930s Japanese society actually ran the risk of exacerbating the way people like Yozo deal with and process their own unhappiness. - Theme: Self-Expression, Privacy, and Art. Description: In many ways, No Longer Human is a testament to the human tendency to naturally gravitate toward self-expression. Even though Yozo goes to great lengths in his everyday life to conceal his inner thoughts and feelings, he's still drawn to certain modes of self-expression that allow him to represent his "true nature." When he's an adolescent, for instance, he discovers that painting can be an outlet of sorts, since the artform provides him with a way to recreate his general worldview. He has always been good at drawing cartoons, but he spends most of his childhood doing so simply as a way of pleasing his peers, catering to their preferences as a way of masking what he sees as his authentic self. When his classmate Takeichi mistakenly suggests that a self-portrait by Van Gogh is actually a painting of a ghost, though, Yozo is astounded—the comment helps him realize that art doesn't always have to be straightforward, beautiful, or entertaining; it can also be frightening, heavy, and expressive. With this in mind, he begins creating disturbing paintings that reveal "the true self [he has] so desperately hidden." In this way, art becomes the only way that Yozo feels comfortable expressing himself (though he only shows the paintings to Takeichi). More importantly, though, his interest in art shows that he yearns for some kind of outlet, despite the fact that he otherwise works so hard to hide his internal emotional landscape. In addition, the format of No Longer Human plays into the idea that Yozo longs for self-expression even if he also abhors the idea of actually revealing anything about himself to others. After all, the majority of the novel itself is made up of Yozo's (fictional) notebooks, in which he has spent pages upon pages trying to precisely articulate his thoughts and feelings. The fact that he has put so much effort into expressing himself suggests that even the most guarded, private people often experience the urge to explore certain parts of themselves through art. And though his notebook entries are presumably intended to be private documents of his life, he ends up sending them to an old bartender he used to know, indicating that he has finally decided to open up to the world after decades of stifling privacy. - Climax: Each of Yozo's several suicide attempts function as narrative climaxes. - Summary: An unnamed speaker describes pictures of a man later revealed to be Yozo. There are three pictures of him: one as a child, one when he's slightly older, and one as an adult. The unnamed speaker finds each picture grotesque, saying he can hardly recognize Yozo as a human, even though he knows most people would find Yozo good-looking. But, the speaker says, there's something deeply disturbing about Yozo, especially in the final picture, in which he stands in a run-down room while staring at the camera with a blank expression. The novel then presents Yozo's personal notebooks. He begins by describing his childhood, explaining that certain things about society and humanity never made much sense to him. He has never seen the point of eating big meals, for instance, but he always eats large amounts to please other people. As a young boy, he feels depressed by what he sees as "human dullness," which is something he picks up on when he thinks about the logical, unaesthetic way people move through life. At one point, several members of his family's waitstaff sexually abuse him, and he feels unable to tell anyone about it. The experience makes him feel "corrupted." Yozo feels unable or unwilling to let his "true nature" show, so he develops a technique of performing for the people in his life. He thinks of himself as a clown who's willing to do anything to get others to laugh, and he becomes quite good at endearing himself to people. One day, though, he purposefully falls down at school, and while everyone is laughing, a quiet boy named Takeichi comes up behind him and whispers, "You did it on purpose." Yozo is horrified to learn that Takeichi—whom he thought was unintelligent—can see right through his entire act. He decides to get as close as possible to Takeichi, hoping this will allow him to keep an eye on him. After some false starts, he manages to bring Takeichi back to his house during a rainstorm, and he gently dries his new friend, prompting Takeichi to say that women will surely go crazy for him later in life—a comment that ends up being true, though it unsettles Yozo. One day, Takeichi shows Yozo a famous painting. Yozo recognizes it as Van Gogh's self-portrait, but Takeichi says it's a painting of a ghost. The comment astounds Yozo, prompting him to reconsider the way he looks at art. Many paintings, he realizes, aren't beautiful portraits meant to be passively admired—they're visceral depictions of life's horror. He decides to become an artist himself and starts creating disturbing paintings that convey his "true nature," which he otherwise keeps hidden. He only shows the paintings to Takeichi. Years later, Yozo goes to college in Tokyo and studies art while living in a townhouse that his father owns. His father is a politician, so he uses the townhouse when he's in Tokyo for legislative sessions. For the most part, Yozo hardly sees his father, instead spending his time with a classmate named Horiki, who shows him how to lead the rough-and-tumble life of a young artist. He introduces Yozo to drinking, smoking, and sleeping with sex workers. Despite their new friendship, though, Yozo doesn't actually like Horiki, even if he appreciates having a drinking companion. Horiki also brings him to a Communist Party meeting. Although Yozo finds the people there ridiculous for thinking their Marxist beliefs actually matter, he pretends to feel the same way and eventually becomes widely popular amongst his new "comrades." Yozo spends all of his time drinking, smoking, and running errands for the Communist Party. He hardly attends class. Soon, though, his father decides to sell the townhouse. Until this point, Yozo has been living on a small monthly allowance, but he tends to use that up within the first few days of every month. He usually manages to buy what he needs by putting things on his father's tab at the local stores, but that's no longer possible. He suddenly feels what it's like to experience poverty, but this doesn't keep him from drinking. He becomes deeply depressed. He still fears other human beings, and all he ever wants to do is get so drunk that he can't feel anything. One night, Yozo goes to a bar and bluntly tells the bartender that he doesn't have much money. But she doesn't mind—she lets him drink on the house, joining him in his glum mood. Her name is Tsuneko, and she brings him back to her apartment later that night. Tsuneko talks to Yozo all night about how unhappy she is. Listening to her makes him feel better, as if they're connected through their suffering. The next time they spend the night together, Tsuneko says she can't stand the idea of continuing to live, so they decide to die together by suicide. They throw themselves into the ocean, but Yozo survives. Tsuneko dies. Yozo is taken to the hospital. Upon waking up, he's arrested and charged with being an "accomplice to a suicide." He spends the night in jail, but because he's still recovering from the incident and has a nasty cough, the authorities aren't as harsh on him as they could be. He's released the next day and put under the supervision of an old family friend known as Flatfish. Yozo's father, refuses to speak to Yozo, though his older brothers send Flatfish money. Yozo has also been expelled from the university, so he spends his days doing very little at Flatfish's house. One evening, Flatfish calls him to dinner and asks what he wants to do with his life. He tells Yozo that he'll be happy to help him, as long as Yozo comes up with some sort of plan. Yozo can tell that Flatfish wants to hear him say something very specific, but he can't fathom what this might be. Flatfish gets angry that Yozo's life has no direction, prompting Yozo to finally say he wants to be a painter—something that makes Flatfish laugh. The next morning, Yozo runs away from Flatfish's house. He leaves a note with Horiki's address on it, but he doesn't intend to go to Horiki's house. And yet, once he's out wandering the streets, he realizes he has nowhere else to go, so he actually does go to Horiki's. Like everyone else, Horiki has heard about what happened with Tsuneko, so he greets Yozo coldly. He clearly doesn't want him there, but he still lets him in. Eventually, a woman named Shizuko stops by to collect an illustration that Horiki has made for a magazine she works for. Yozo ends up going home with her, and she seems happy to care for him, as if she's attracted to his sadness. Yozo lives at Shizuko's house, along with her daughter, Shigeko. Shizuko's husband died several years ago, and now she's content to provide for Yozo. But Yozo soon grows restless, so he starts doing illustrations and cartoons for the magazine Shizuko works for, using the money to buy alcohol and cigarettes. He descends even deeper into depression, at which point Shizuko meets with Horiki and Flatfish. As a group, they decide that Yozo should marry Shizuko and have no more contact with his family. However, when Shigeko makes a comment about wanting her "real" father back, Yozo decides to leave. Yozo goes to a bar in the Kyobashi neighborhood, and the bartender lets him drink for free and stay in an upstairs apartment. During this period, he continues to drink heavily until he meets a 17-year-old woman named Yoshiko. One night, Yozo is drunk and starts thinking about how Yoshiko must be a virgin, and he suggests that they get married—wanting, it seems, to experience what it's like to have sex with a virgin. Yoshiko agrees to marry Yozo on the condition that he stop drinking. Yozo accepts Yoshiko's condition but breaks his promise the following day. Nonetheless, Yoshiko is extremely trusting, so she doesn't believe he would break his promise. They end up having sex and, shortly thereafter, marrying. Yozo and Yoshiko move into a new apartment. For a while, life is good. Yozo stops drinking and begins to wonder if he might have a chance at happiness. But then Horiki reappears in his life. Yozo starts drinking again. One night, Yozo and Horiki hang out on the roof of Yozo's apartment. They're extremely drunk. At one point, Horiki goes downstairs to get some food, but he quickly returns and orders Yozo to come see what's happening. When Yozo follows, he sees a man raping Yoshiko in an adjacent room. He's horrified by what he sees, but he doesn't interfere. Later, Yoshiko says the man assured her nothing would happen, and Yozo thinks about how Yoshiko is too trusting. Yozo starts drinking even more. Upon coming home drunk one night, he finds a box of sleeping pills and takes them all, hoping they'll kill him. He wakes up three days later, at which point Flatfish gives him some money to go recover at some hot springs. Yozo goes, but he spends the entire trip drinking. By the time he returns to Tokyo, he's in a worse condition than before, frequently coughing blood and stumbling home drunk. He goes to a pharmacy to get medicine for his condition, and he instantly feels a strange connection with the elderly pharmacist. He can tell she's another unhappy soul, and she seems to recognize the same thing in him. She tells him to stop drinking, giving him morphine instead. It isn't long before Yozo is fully addicted to the morphine and constantly hectoring the pharmacist for higher doses. He starts having an affair with her to get more of the drug. Once again, Yozo decides to kill himself. Before he can do so, though, Horiki and Flatfish take him to a psychiatric ward, where he feels like a "reject" and thinks he has been "disqualified as a human being." Upon his release, one of his brothers sends him to the countryside, where he lives with an older maid who watches over him. His notebooks end with him saying that he has been in the countryside for three years and that, even though he's only 27, he now looks like a much older man. The novel's final section returns to the unnamed speaker, who explains that the bartender from Kyobashi gave him Yozo's notebooks, which Yozo seems to have sent her 10 years ago. The speaker came across the bartender while traveling in the country, and she thought he might be able to turn the notebooks into a novel. Instead, the speaker has decided to simply present the notebooks as they are, without changing anything.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Northanger Abbey - Point of view: Northanger Abbey is told with a third-person limited perspective and an intrusive narrator. The narrator usually tracks Catherine's experiences and thoughts, but occasionally describes other characters' perspectives on the action. The narrator also sometimes speaks directly to the reader, as an essayist presenting a position might do. For instance, when Catherine is deliberating over what to wear to a ball, the narrator cuts in to present some general thoughts on whether it is worthwhile to spend time thinking about fashion. - Setting: All of the book's settings are in Southwestern England. Bath is a town in Somersetshire. Fullerton is an imaginary place in the real county of Wiltershire. Woodston and Northanger Abbey are imaginary places in the real county of Gloucestershire. - Character: Catherine Morland. Description: A seventeen-year-old raised in a rural parsonage with nine brothers and sisters, Catherine Morland is open, honest, and naïve about the hypocritical ways of society. Her family is neither rich nor poor, and she is unaware of how much stock many people put in wealth and rank. Catherine was a plain little girl, and her parents never expected very much from her, though she has grown more attractive as she has entered her late teens. Catherine loves novels, but has not read many because not many new books are available in the out-of-the-way town where she was raised. She is especially obsessed by Gothic novels set in castles and abandoned abbeys, and hopes to experience some of the thrills portrayed in these novels herself. At the start of the novel, she has very little experience judging people's characters or intentions, and does not trust her own intuition. When she is taken to the holiday town of Bath by the Allens, wealthy friends of her family, and meets the Tilneys and Thorpes, she begins to learn the ways of the world. Over the course of the novel, she proves herself capable of learning from the experiences she has throughout the novel, even as she maintains her honesty, goodness, and loyalty to those whom she loves. - Character: Narrator. Description: The identity of the Narrator is unknown, and the narration usually occurs in the third-person. The narrator has special access to Catherine's thoughts and feelings, but also sometimes gives a brief sense of what the other characters are thinking and feeling. The narrator also occasionally intrudes into the narrative to provide a broader perspective on an issue raised by the story, like the importance of dress or the plight of novelists who are looked down upon. In these moments, the narrator resembles an essayist, seeking to put forward a thesis and provide supporting arguments. - Character: Isabella Thorpe. Description: A conniving, beautiful, and charming social-climber of twenty-one, Isabella befriends Catherine because Isabella believes the Morlands to be as wealthy as their neighbors the Allens, and she wishes to marry Catherine's brother James. Isabella often uses reverse psychology, saying the opposite of what she means to influence others to do what she wants them to do. Isabella's hypocrisy and desire to marry for money are clear to those, like the Tilney siblings, who are more experienced than Catherine. - Character: John Thorpe. Description: A college friend of James Morland and brother to Isabella Thorpe, John Thorpe is an unscrupulous, rude braggart. He is a boring conversationalist who is only interested in horses, carriages, money and drinking, and lies whenever he thinks it will impress others or force them to give way to his will. He wishes to marry Catherine because he believes her to be wealthy, but he is so rude and self-centered that, although he sees himself as courting Catherine, she completely fails to understand his true intentions. - Character: James Morland. Description: Another Morland (Catherine's brother) who fails to suspect those he meets of hypocrisy, James is a loving brother, son, and friend who is easily manipulated by the Thorpes. He falls in love with Isabella and never seems to realize that she is a fortune-hunter. Eager to go along with Isabella and John, James pressures Catherine to do things she believes are wrong, showing that he has a weaker, less moral character than Catherine. - Character: Henry Tilney (Mr. Tilney). Description: Henry Tilney is the second son of General Tilney and is Catherine Morland's love interest. Like Catherine's father, he works as a parson in a rural community. He is witty, charming, and perceptive, with a much larger frame of reference and experience than Catherine has, but is also sincere and loyal. He is especially concerned for his sister Eleanor's happiness and welfare. Unlike his father, he is unconcerned with becoming even richer than he is already. - Character: General Tilney. Description: A rich man with many acquaintances, the General is obsessed with his social rank and the wealth of his family. His children all know that he would never want them to marry someone without wealth or high rank. He shows exaggerated kindness to Catherine because he believes her to be rich. The General fixates on home improvement, furniture, and landscaping his property (Northanger Abbey). He is very harsh and even dictatorial with his children, who know that he expects absolute obedience from them. - Character: Eleanor Tilney (Miss Tilney). Description: A well-mannered, sensible, and sensitive young woman, Eleanor Tilney becomes friends with Catherine in Bath. Eleanor, whose mother died nine years before the action of the novel, suffers from loneliness when she is at home at Northanger Abbey with only her brusque and tyrannical father for company. General Tilney encourages her friendship with Catherine because he believes Catherine to be wealthy and wants her to be Henry's wife, but Eleanor is very happy to have the company and friendship of another woman. - Character: Mrs. Allen. Description: A very dim-witted, childless woman, Mrs. Allen is a neighbor of the Morlands who invites Catherine to accompany her and her husband to Bath for a holiday. She thinks about nothing but clothing and how much it costs, and remembers very little from most conversations, merely repeating things that those around her say back to them. Supposed to serve as a guardian to Catherine during the trip to Bath, Mrs. Allen is too incapable of independent thought to properly guide Catherine through social situations. She runs into Mrs. Thorpe, a woman she knew fifteen years before at boarding school, which leads to her and Catherine spending much of their time in Bath with the Thorpes. - Character: Mrs. Thorpe. Description: A widow who thinks and talks only about her children, Mrs. Thorpe hopes for her children to marry well. Mrs. Thorpe went to boarding school with Mrs. Allen and knew her to have married a rich man. She believes the Morlands to be wealthy based on their friendship with the Allens. - Character: Mrs. Morland. Description: A wife and mother to ten children, Mrs. Morland is not very aware of the dangers of society for a young, inexperienced woman of seventeen. She allows her eldest daughter Catherine to go to Bath with Mrs. Allen, whose character makes her an inadequate chaperone, and never imagines that Catherine might fall in love while there. - Character: Mr. Morland. Description: A parson in a rural village, Mr. Morland is the father of ten children, including Catherine and James. Although he is not wealthy, he has enough money to make sure all of his children can live comfortably. This level of wealth is a disappointment to both Isabella Thorpe and General Tilney, who believed the Morlands to be wealthy and hoped to hope to raise their own social status by marrying into the Morland family. - Theme: Novels and the Heroine. Description: From its very first sentence, Northanger Abbey draws attention to the fact that it is a novel, describing its protagonist Catherine Morland as an unlikely heroine. Catherine is "unlikely" because, in most of the novels of the late 18th and early 19th century, heroines were exceptional both in their personalities and in their lives' circumstances, while Catherine is a rather average young woman. Throughout Northanger Abbey, Austen mocks typical novelistic conventions for their predictability, though never suggesting that this formulaicness makes novels unworthy of being read. Elsewhere in the novel, Austen also upends conventions of the typical courtship novel, especially in the way she describes the deepening relationship between Catherine and Henry. Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey during a period when the popularity of novels had exploded and novel-reading had become an obsession, especially for women. British society was divided on the value of these books and debated novels' impact on the values and behavior of the women who were their most avid readers. The most popular works of the second half of the 18th century fell into the related genres of sentimental and Gothic novels. Sentimental novels often portrayed the difficulties faced by a heroine in her pursuit of love and happiness, while Gothic novels placed this same plot into an even more dramatic context, by setting them in spooky old castles during exciting historical times and by including supernatural elements. Many critics condemned such novels as silly, and worried that the dramatic stories of love would influence young women to disobey their families when selecting a spouse. On the other side of the debate, proponents of the novel said that reading about the experiences and emotions of different characters strengthened readers' ability to feel compassion and act morally in their own lives. Northanger Abbey sides strongly with the pro-novel side of this debate, but also does not portray the effects of novel-reading in an entirely positive light. In general, the book presents novels as influencing readers to explore the world and seek to understand it, although this sometimes leads to trouble. That trouble, however, can often lead to better self-understanding and a broader understanding of the world. When Catherine seizes on the wild idea, drawn from novels, that General Tilney murdered his wife nine years earlier, Northanger Abbey is mocking the way that readers of novels can take their dramatic content too much to heart. Yet in this instance, Catherine's mistaken idea leads her into an embarrassing encounter with Henry, which ultimately teaches her to be a better judge of situations. Although her reading of novels led her into trouble, it also forced her to confront her own ignorance and to grow and mature. Northanger Abbey is able both to defend and parody novels, in the end, because Northanger Abbey itself is an innovation in the novel form. In the book, Catherine Morland learns that the drama of her real life is no less vivid than the worlds she reads about in novels. This discovery of Catherine's functions as a kind of turning point for novels themselves, a marker signaling a shift in what constituted a novel. Soon after Austen published Northanger Abbey, novels more generally shifted away from the sentimental works that dominated the eighteenth century to the realist novels that dominated the nineteenth. It was a shift that Jane Austen anticipated. - Theme: Sincerity and Hypocrisy. Description: Northanger Abbey describes the experiences of Catherine Morland, a sincere young woman raised in a small, rural parsonage, as she comes into her first sustained contact with the worldly and sometimes hypocritical world of society. Catherine has grown up being told explicitly how others viewed her and her behavior, but those she meets in Bath society sometimes lie about or hide their true opinions to influence or manipulate others. Specifically, Catherine is taken in by the hypocrisy of Isabella Thorpe, who thinks the Morlands are rich and therefore seeks Catherine's friendship because she hopes to marry Catherine's brother James. Catherine similarly misunderstands the motives of General Tilney, who seeks to marry his son Henry to Catherine for the same reason. Meanwhile, both Isabella and General Tilney belittle the importance of wealth when in conversation, because they want to hide their motives. Their hypocrisy is eventually unmasked to Catherine once they realize that they were mistaken about the Morlands' affluence and then change the way they behave towards the Morland brother and sister. But to a reader of the time, these characters' hypocrisy and their ulterior motive of marrying someone for wealth rather than love would have been clear from the start. Their protestations not to care about money are much too overstated to be believable by anyone with a bit of experience. While Catherine's sincerity makes her vulnerable to manipulation by hypocrites, the novel is not simply criticizing such sincerity. In fact, the novel shows how Catherine's sincerity also earns her the affection and loyalty of true and caring friends. Henry and Eleanor Tilney find Catherine's sincerity refreshing, a bit comic, and ultimately extremely attractive. For them, her sincerity goes hand in hand with her other fine qualities: loyalty, curiosity, and lack of pretension. In the end, the contrast between Catherine's sincere love for Henry and Henry's father's hypocrisy in courting her only because he believed her to be an heiress convinces Henry that he must stand up to his father and marry Catherine, despite her lower social standing. Through the course of the novel, Catherine learns to better understand when others are not being forthright, but does not cease to be so herself. Although her assumption that others are sincere is a sign of her innocence, her own sincerity is not mere naïveté, but one of her most admirable character traits. The novel, then, distinguishes between sincerity as naïveté and sincerity as honesty. The happy ending to Catherine's story, along with the unhappy one to Isabella's, shows that the novel prizes the latter view—sincerity as honesty. Although Isabella sought to marry to raise her position in the world and Catherine (despite her family's lack of wealth) had no such intention, Catherine's sincerity earns her this more comfortable and desirable fate. - Theme: Wealth and Respectability. Description: Northanger Abbey, like all of Jane Austen's novels, looks closely at the role wealth plays in social relationships, especially those between young people considering marrying. For Austen, social rank is not only determined hierarchically, with the wealthiest and those with the highest rank in the aristocracy at the top and all others below. Instead, most of the characters in Northanger Abbey are not aristocrats (with the exception of Eleanor Tilney after she marries a Viscount, much to her status-obsessed father's excitement), but members of the landed gentry. In Jane Austen's portrayal of this class, which drew its wealth from the land it owned and rented to tenants, fortune is important, and rich members of the gentry might strive to marry their children to members of the nobility. But these are far from the only factors that determine social status. Instead, true respectability is wrapped up in possessing the quality of genteelness – of being a gentleman or gentlewoman – which is dependent on each individual's manners. Northanger Abbey presents a variety of characters who do not understand the importance of good manners to social status and only a few who do understand this distinction and are, therefore, truly genteel. Henry Tilney is more of a gentleman than his father, for example because he is polite and principled, along with being worldly and well-educated. Northanger Abbey also satirizes a variety of the ways in which people betray their obsession with money. Some characters fixate on a certain category of material possessions and find themselves unable to talk about anything else, however much they bore their listeners. John Thorpe's intense interest in horses and carriages, Mrs. Allen's interest in clothes, and General Tilney's interest in home improvement all betray their fixation on money and what it can buy, while also making them seem a bit ridiculous. A true gentleman or gentlewoman would show a better sense of what social situations called for and would exercise restraint in expressing themselves. Another way of parodying the obsession with money is by displaying the lengths that characters will go to hide this obsession. Both Isabella Thorpe and General Tilney claim to care nothing about money, when it is in fact the only thing they truly care about. Eventually, when they realize that the Morlands are not as rich as they had believed, their behavior towards the Morlands changes and their hypocrisy is unmasked. General Tilney's terrible treatment of Catherine once he realizes she is not rich proves that he is not actually respectable. As Mrs. Moreland says upon Catherine's return, General Tilney "had acted neither honourably nor feelingly – neither as a gentleman nor as a parent." Even today, to send a teenager like Catherine home alone without making sure she had money and without consulting her parents would be considered both unkind and inappropriate. At a time when the protection of young women was so much more of a concern to all, General Tilney's action showed disrespect for the social codes that governed relationships. This action was not only rude, it was beyond the pale and put his status as a "gentleman" into doubt. At the same time Northanger Abbey does not discount the importance of money. It is a sign of Catherine's naïveté that she does not see through the hypocrisy of Isabella, John, and General Tilney, who all say that they care little for money. Because, as any person familiar with the world should know, of course they must care about money at least to some extent. Money is important! Catherine's own happy ending attests as much. That Henry returns her love is wonderful, but just as excellent is the fact that marrying Henry will bring Catherine much more wealth than she or her family ever thought possible, and the comfort and security provided by that wealth. - Theme: Experience and Innocence. Description: Like most of Jane Austen's novels, Northanger Abbey is concerned with whether a young person will mature into a good judge of character. Some well-meaning adults in Northanger Abbey have blind spots that keep them from being objective judges of character, while other adults are manipulative, cruel, and hypocritical. As she navigates relationships with these different types of people, the pressing question for the young protagonist Catherine Morland is whether, in growing up and moving from innocence to experience, she will become wise. This wisdom is tied to being judicious about whom to trust. Catherine is principled and strong-willed, but also aware that her lack of experience makes her unable to judge how to behave in every circumstance. She wants always to act with propriety, especially when it comes to acting modestly and appropriately when interacting with men, and hopes to rely on the advice of others. At the beginning of the novel, Catherine does not realize that she cannot trust every older and more experienced person to guide her. This is perhaps because Catherine is one of ten children, and her own mother has been so preoccupied with raising young children that "her elder daughters were left to shift for themselves" without much in the way of advice about how best to behave as they began their lives as adult women. As we see at the novel's conclusion, when Mrs. Morland fails to suspect that Catherine is suffering from heartache, Mrs. Morland is an example of a woman who, despite having ten children, has never lost her innocence about the world. She is a good woman, but not a wise one. It is likely because of Mrs. Morland's innocence that at the beginning of the novel she allows Catherine to go to Bath under the care of Mrs. Allen, an adult without the wisdom to help Catherine navigate Bath society. Catherine also assumes that no one she knows would choose to take an unkind, immoral, or inappropriate action on purpose. When Isabella does something improper, Catherine assumes that she is only doing the wrong thing out of ignorance of what the right thing is. She does not understand that part of growing into adulthood is having to make one's own choices, wrong or right, and stand by them, and she often wants to intervene to let someone know that they are acting badly. As Catherine gains experience, she also learns the importance of thinking for herself. When Catherine meets the unpleasant, rude boor John Thorpe and the domineering General Tilney, she assumes at first that her negative judgments of them are mistaken. It takes her time and a great deal of evidence to realize that John Thorpe, despite being her brother's friend, is a liar and an unpleasant companion. As she tries to make sense of her impressions of General Tilney, Catherine takes a different tact. She relies on the knowledge she has gained from books rather than knowledge she has gained from life and imagines General Tilney to be a horrible criminal, rather than just manipulative and wealth-obsessed. Catherine is embarrassed when Henry discovers what she had been imagining his father to have done, and realizes how farfetched it was to assume that General Tilney was similar to a villain in a gothic novel just because she does not like him. But at the same time, she is growing to trust her own judgment. She realizes that she was not entirely wrong about the General, that although he is not a murderer, he may have major character flaws, and that in all people "in their hearts and habits, there was a general though unequal mixture of good and bad." In the end, when Catherine learns that the General drove her from his house because he realized she was not an heiress, she decides that "in suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty." Although this is an exaggeration, it shows that Catherine has come to feel confidence in her own judgment. In a future not described in the novel, it seems reasonable to think that Catherine will be more confident in her judgment and more reasonable in the judgments she makes. She has gained experience of the untrustworthy from her encounters with the Thorpes and General Tilney, and learned also that she was right to place her trust in the good character of Henry and Eleanor Tilney. Overall, then, Northanger Abbey shows that, although experience does not always bring wisdom, if a young and innocent person pays attention to her surroundings and the lessons that experience teaches, she can mature into a person with good judgment that guides her to place her trust with those who deserve it. - Theme: Loyalty and Love. Description: Northanger Abbey is a courtship novel that goes against certain important conventions of "courtship novels," especially to make the point that loyalty is the surest sign of true love. In most of the sentimental novels written during the time when Austen was working on Northanger Abbey, the heroine is exceptionally beautiful and the hero is head over heels in love with her. In Northanger Abbey, on the other hand, the roles are reversed. Catherine is attracted to Henry, and it is her obvious love for him, rather than his admiration of her, that binds him to her. Even once he feels affection and commitment to her, he still recognizes that his feelings for her did not originate as a deep attraction to her, but that "a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought." Indeed, it is only when his loyalty to Catherine is put to the test by his father's command that he forget about her that Henry decides that he loves her. Henry's sense that he would be acting disloyally by following his father's command serves to cement his affection for Catherine. The central importance of loyalty to love is also emphasized in the novel's portrayal of a false love. In the novel's other central relationship, Isabella Thorpe's disloyalty to James Morland in flirting with Frederick Tilney betrays both her lack of true feeling for James and the fact that she is more concerned with marrying someone wealthy than with marrying someone she loves. When Catherine is distressed by the flirtation between Frederick Tilney and Isabella (who is by this point James's fiancée) and asks Henry to tell his brother to leave Bath, Henry's refusal to interfere with his brother is also a testimonial to the importance of loyalty to relationships. Henry explains that any interference on his part would not benefit James, because for Isabella's love to be worth anything she must be loyal to the man she loves without regard to the other men she meets. Similarly, the General's interference between Henry and Catherine only strengthens their resolve to be together. An essential part of love between spouses or prospective spouses is a refusal to let any third person come between them. Northanger Abbey portrays courting couples as needing to have their loyalty to one another tested before a relationship can be said to have a solid basis for marriage, but it also makes a larger point about the nature of love itself. In many of the conventional novels that Austen parodies, love is an almost magical state of emotional attachment and physical attraction. In Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney states that marriage is a contract in which the two spouses must work to be agreeable to one another and keep each other from ever regretting having married. Austen makes the case that for a marriage to work, there should be a conscious decision to enter into a contract and abide by it. - Climax: Henry Tilney discovers Catherine snooping around Northanger Abbey and she confesses her suspicion that his father is a murderer. - Summary: Northanger Abbey begins by introducing us to its heroine, Catherine Morland, an unexceptional but kind girl of seventeen. She has grown up in the countryside, the eldest daughter of a parson in a family of ten children. Catherine is a plain child, but gets prettier as she gets older. She also begins to care about her clothing and obsessively read novels. Catherine is thrilled to be invited by a rich, childless couple from her neighborhood, Mr. Allen and Mrs. Allen, to take her first trip away from home. When she arrives in the vacation town of Bath, Catherine is disappointed to find that Mrs. Allen, who cares about little other than clothing, knows no one. Catherine meets a young man of twenty-four named Henry Tilney. She finds him charming and hopes to see him again soon. Soon after, while in the Pump-room (one of the central meeting points in Bath), Catherine and Mrs. Allen meet an old classmate of Mrs. Allen's named Mrs. Thorpe, and Catherine becomes fast friends with Mrs. Thorpe's daughter Isabella. The Thorpes already know Catherine's older brother James, who goes to school with Mrs. Thorpe's son, John. Catherine and Isabella become inseparable, but Catherine continues to look for Henry Tilney, who seems to have left Bath. One day to Catherine's surprise, she and Isabella run into their brothers in the street. Catherine does not notice that James and Isabella have feelings for one another. Catherine is introduced to Isabella's brother John, a rude man who talks of little but horses, but who asks Catherine to dance with him at a ball that night. Despite thinking John seems ill-mannered, Catherine has too little confidence in her own judgment to decide that she does not like him. At the ball, John leaves Catherine to talk to a friend about horses, and James and Isabella leave her to dance together. Catherine feels that she looks as if she could not find a partner. To her surprise, Henry appears and asks her to dance. She sadly declines his offer, because she is already engaged to dance with John. John returns and they dance, but Catherine continually looks back at Henry. During the dancing Catherine meets Henry's sister, Miss Eleanor Tilney. Catherine hopes Henry will ask her to dance again and feels crestfallen when she sees him lead another woman to the dance floor. John wants to dance again, but she refuses him. The next day, Catherine hopes to meet Eleanor and get to know her better. Instead, John, Isabella, and James convince her go on a drive with them. Catherine rides with John, who scares Catherine by saying that her brother's carriage is unsafe, then takes this back when she becomes alarmed. Catherine is confused by John's self-contradiction. Returning from the drive, Catherine is upset to learn that Mrs. Allen ran into the Tilneys while she was out. The Thorpes continue to get in the way of Catherine developing her relationship with the Tilneys. At another ball, Catherine is asked to dance by Henry, but John interrupts, saying Catherine promised to dance with him. Catherine dances with Henry anyway and has a wonderful time. Catherine plans a walk with the Tilneys for the next day, but when it rains, she is unsure if the Tilneys will come. John convinces Catherine to go on another carriage ride by saying he saw the Tilneys driving out of town. From the carriage, Catherine sees the Tilneys walking through town. She is angry at John, who seems to have lied about seeing the Tilneys, but he refuses to stop the carriage so she can get out. Catherine apologizes to Henry Tilney for missing their walk that night at the theater. She also sees Henry's father, General Tilney, talking to John Thorpe and looking at her. The next day Catherine reschedules her walk with the Tilneys for the following day, but the Thorpes and James beg her to change her plans to go on another drive. Catherine refuses, but John reschedules her walk with the Tilneys without her permission. Catherine runs to the Tilneys to take back what John has done. After an enjoyable walk, Eleanor Tilney invites Catherine to come dine with them the next night. The next day, Isabella tells Catherine that she and James are engaged, but she worries the Morlands will not approve of her as a daughter-in-law. Catherine had not suspected their romance and is shocked and overjoyed. As Catherine is leaving the Thorpes' lodgings, John waylays her. He talks in abstract terms about their marrying, but she hardly listens and understands nothing. At the next ball, Catherine dances with Henry, while Isabella, who told Catherine she did not intend to dance, dances with Henry's older brother Captain Frederick Tilney, who has just come to town. Catherine expresses surprise to Henry Tilney, who observes that Catherine does not understand other people's motives, because she only considers how she herself would behave in any situation, and she is more good-natured than others. The next day, Isabella learns how much the Morlands will give her and James. Isabella seems disappointed about the amount of money and suggests that Mr. Morland has not been generous. Catherine feels hurt, but Isabella says she is only disappointed that she and James must wait several years to marry. Catherine is thrilled to receive an invitation to travel to the Tilneys' home at Northanger Abbey, where she will live in an old building like the ones in the books she loves to read. The next day in the Pump-room, Isabella encourages Catherine to marry John. Catherine is dumbfounded to hear that John wants to marry her, but tells Isabella that she is interested in Henry, not John. Captain Tilney then enters and sits down next to Isabella. Catherine overhears them flirting and feels jealous on James's behalf. In the days before Catherine's departure for Northanger, she observes this flirtation with growing alarm. She asks Henry to tell his brother to leave Bath, but Henry says no outside interference should be needed to ensure Isabella's loyalty to James. Soon after, Catherine leaves Bath with the Tilneys. On the ride there, Catherine tells Henry how excited she is to go to a real abbey like the ones she has read about. Henry spins a tale about the mysterious and frightening events likely to happen to her in an old building like Northanger. Catherine is spellbound, though she knows Henry is teasing her. Catherine hopes to uncover a mystery at Northanger. After finding nothing exceptional in her room, Catherine develops a theory that the General is a villain and murdered his wife. She sneaks alone to Mrs. Tilney's room, where she is discovered by Henry. Learning of her suspicions, Henry urges her to be a better judge of situations in the future. She feels humiliated and sure he will never love her now, but he is only kinder to her after this. Catherine receives a letter from James saying that his engagement to Isabella is off. He advises Catherine to leave Northanger before Captain Tilney arrives to announce that he is engaged to Isabella. Distressed, Catherine tells Henry and Eleanor about her brother's letter, but they say their father will not approve of the marriage since Isabella has no fortune. Catherine is puzzled, because she has heard General Tilney say he does not care about money. Soon after, the General hints that he hopes Catherine and Henry will marry. Catherine hopes that Henry feels the same way. Isabella writes to ask Catherine's help in resolving a misunderstanding with James, but Catherine now sees through Isabella's hypocrisy and resolves to forget her former friend. Soon after, the General leaves for London for a few days and Henry leaves Northanger. One night the General returns unexpectedly. He sends a distraught Eleanor to tell Catherine that she is to be unceremoniously expelled from the house the next morning. Catherine is shocked, but tries to hide this from Eleanor. A miserable Catherine returns home, where she is greeted joyfully. Her family resents the way she has been treated, but counsels that she forget about it. Catherine mopes around the house, but no one guesses that she is in love. Three days later, Henry unexpectedly arrives at Fullerton and asks Catherine to marry him. He explains that the General was misled in Bath by John to believe that Catherine was very rich, then subsequently told by John in London that she was quite poor. The General wanted Catherine to marry Henry when he believed she was an heiress, then rushed back to expel her from Northanger when he learned she was not. Henry, to his father's shock, refuses to obey the command to forget her. The Morlands give their permission for Catherine and Henry's marriage on the condition that the General give his. Eventually, after Eleanor marries a rich Viscount, and the General learns that Catherine is not as poor as he had been led to believe, he gives his permission, and Catherine and Henry are married.

- Genre: Philosophical novella - Title: Notes from Underground - Point of view: - Setting: St. Petersburg, Russia - Character: The Underground Man. Description: The unnamed protagonist of the novella, who is introduced as "representative of the current generation." He is sick, spiteful, self-contradictory, and pessimistic, and his rambling thoughts and monologues make up the majority of the novella. He repeatedly addresses his readers, and tells them that he is "overly conscious." He continually over-thinks and questions things, and this hyper-consciousness prevents him from taking any real action. He is a lonely man who constantly vacillates between wanting society's acknowledgment and approval and wanting nothing to do with any other person. He has a low opinion of humanity and denies the idea that humans are essentially rational and only desire what is best for them, thinking instead that men are foolish, irrational, and cruel. The underground man is obsessed with literature and often models his thoughts and actions on things he has read. He is thus separated in a certain sense from reality, as well as from society. He is presented as a pessimistic exemplar of modern man, and claims that he merely takes to extremes the qualities that most people suppress in themselves. Dostoevsky thus suggests that everyone has a little bit of the underground man's pessimism and spite in him or her. - Character: The Officer. Description: In part one, the underground man tries to get into a bar fight, and he steps in an officer's way. The officer, though, merely moves him aside without saying anything, practically ignoring him. The underground man thinks of challenging him to a duel, but decides to get his revenge by bumping into him in the street and forcing the officer to acknowledge him as a person. When he finally gathers the courage to do this, though, the officer pretends not to notice the underground man. The officer is representative of how society tends to ignore and neglect the underground man. - Character: Zverkov. Description: One of the underground man's former schoolmates, an attractive and popular man whom the underground man particularly dislikes for his bragging and stories of romantic exploits. Simonov, Ferfichkin, and Trudolyubov throw Zverkov a going-away party in part two, and the underground man invites himself to the party. There, he gets drunk and insults Zverkov. He later apologizes to Zverkov, but Zverkov tells him that he couldn't possibly feel insulted by the underground man. The underground man follows Zverkov and his other former schoolmates to the brothel after the party, hoping to slap Zverkov in the face in order to regain some honor, but he doesn't find Zverkov or the other party guests at the brothel. - Character: Simonov. Description: One of the underground man's former schoolmates, whose apartment he visits one night when he feels lonely. Simonov, Ferfichkin, and Trudolyubov are planning a going-away party for Zverkov, and the underground man invites himself to the party. Simonov is reluctant to let the underground man come, as the underground man owes him money. After the party, the underground man shamefully begs Simonov for more money, so that he can go with everyone else to the brothel. - Character: Ferfichkin. Description: One of the underground man's former schoolmates, whom he sees at Simonov's apartment and at Zverkov's going-away party. Ferfichkin was the underground man's "bitterest enemy" in school, where he was a show-off. After the underground man insults Zverkov at the party, Ferfichkin threatens the underground man, and the underground man replies by challenging Ferfichkin to a duel. Ferfichkin and the other party guests find this ridiculous. - Character: Liza. Description: A prostitute whom the underground man sleeps with after following Zverkov to a brothel. The underground man is disgusted with having had loveless sex with her and talks to her about her pathetic situation as a prostitute. He brings her to tears, but then gives her his address, and she visits him soon after, looking for his help in escaping the brothel. He refuses, but then breaks down and cries. She embraces the underground man as he cries, but he then tries to give her money and she leaves, refusing his money. - Character: Apollon. Description: The underground man's defiant, disobedient servant. The underground man tries to exercise his power over Apollon by withholding his wages and forcing him to ask for the money. However, Apollon merely stares at the underground man, driving him crazy, until he gives him his wages. More strong-willed than his master, Apollon is a source of humiliation for the underground man, who calls him his "executioner." - Theme: Thought vs. Action. Description: Most of Notes from Underground is made up of the underground man's rambling thoughts. There is little real action in the plot. This is because, quite simply, there is little action in the underground man's life. As he himself says, he is a man of "overly acute consciousness," and his excessive intelligence basically cripples him. He over-thinks and questions everything, and cannot settle on a "primary cause" of anything that would then allow him to decide what action to take. Similarly, he believes that men of action often act out of a simplistic idea of justice that they think vindicates their actions. The underground man, by contrast, cannot settle for an overly simplistic understanding of justice. He thinks things over ceaselessly and sometimes ponders things so much that he changes his mind or contradicts himself. Thus, he can find no basis for acting in a particular way, since he can easily argue himself out of doing something. The underground man often imagines action but never follows through, as when he is on his way to the brothel in part two and thinks about how he will slap Zverkov in the face. (He never actually does this, as he arrives too late to find Zverkov.) This lack of actual action leads to a pervasive sense of boredom and inertia in the novella, which the underground man describes as key parts of his underground life and which sometimes give rise to his sense of spite toward others. Crippled by his own intelligence, all he can do is retreat underground, talk to himself, and write his thoughts down. Through this pathetic character, Dostoevsky is able to pose a number of troubling (and perhaps ultimately unanswerable) questions: would it be better for the underground man to be stupid and therefore able to act and live like a normal person? What is the value of intelligence or thought if one cannot act on it? And is it possible for a truly intelligent, acutely conscious person to live a functioning life in modern society? - Theme: Loneliness, Isolation, and Society. Description: The underground man is a lonely, isolated character. He speaks and writes from a mysterious place underground, separated from society. But even before retreating underground, he feels isolated even within society, whether at school (where he had no friends) or at work (where he hates all his coworkers). The underground man lives a life effectively in isolation from mainstream society, but it is not clear whether he does this out of choice—does he reject society or does society reject him? Does he crave the acknowledgment of others or does he not even want it? At times, it seems that he disdains society and voluntarily withdraws himself into isolation because he feels that he is more intelligent than everyone else. However, at times it seems that he lives by himself simply because no one likes him, and because he is rude and cruel to others. In the end, it is probably a bit of both: having been rejected by many people, the underground man scorns them and withdraws, but this withdrawal makes others dislike him even more, so that he withdraws still more. This cyclical pattern results in his near-complete isolation from society.The underground man has an ambivalent attitude toward society: on the one hand, he despises it, but on the other hand he envies those who can function in mainstream society and occasionally wishes that he had friends or companions. This ambivalence can be seen especially through his struggles with shame and embarrassment. These are social emotions, as they are only felt in relation to other people: one feels ashamed or embarrassed in front of other people or because one imagines what others might think. Around others, the underground man continually feels ashamed and embarrassed, as can be seen in his interaction with the officer in part one, or at the party in part two. As these feelings hint that he really does care what others think, the underground man becomes angry at himself for feeling embarrassed and ends up vacillating between embarrassment and defiantly acting in a rude, shameful way (as when he paces back and forth during the party for Zverkov).Because of his problematic relationship to society, the underground man lives a lonely, boring life. However, his isolation does afford him certain benefits. By being so separated from mainstream society, he gains a critical distance from which he can observe, critique, and comment on society. Also, when growing up, his isolation from others gave him time to read, learn, and become a very intelligent person. Thus, the underground man does not entirely hate his isolation. He goes back and forth between wanting to be a part of society and wanting nothing to do with it, between feeling unfairly exiled from others and voluntarily exiling himself. Perhaps the most pathetic thing about his character is not so much that he is isolated from others, but that he cannot even make up his mind about what he wants—friendship or solitude. - Theme: Human Nature. Description: Notes from Underground opens with the underground man's famous assessment of his own character: "I am a sick man. . . . I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man." He is pessimistic and sees the worst in himself. Moreover, he often generalizes from his own nature and his own ideas about people to speak broadly of human nature. He presents himself not only as one spiteful, sick man, but as an example of how mankind is truly spiteful and sick. He has a very a low opinion of modern man, claiming that anyone of intelligence in the 19th century cannot be a man of action or character. He disagrees with the idea that humans are rational and naturally improve or desire what is good for them, citing examples from history to prove that human society is cruel and bloody in part one.Additionally, he routinely compares humans to animals. He speaks of people as either bulls or mice in part one, and repeatedly says that people treat him like an insignificant fly. These recurrent animal similes are the underground man's way of bringing humans down to the level of the animal, suggesting that they are simply one kind of animal among many on this planet, with no special dignity. This tendency to degrade humanity can be related to Darwin's theory of evolution, which had recently been translated into Russian when Dostoevsky was writing Notes from Underground. In part one, the underground man mentions the scientific discovery that man is descended from apes (an exaggeratedly simplistic version of Darwinism). This idea is a huge blow to the human ego, suggesting that humans are not special creatures, but merely one evolved species out of many. The underground man thinks of humans as foolish, irrational, cruel, and despicable creatures—including himself. But to what degree does this deluded character speak to a universal human condition or nature? The underground man himself addresses this very question at the end of the novella. Addressing his readers, he says, "I've only taken to an extreme that which you haven't even dared to take halfway." He claims that his pessimism is simply honesty about true human nature, and that others have similar thoughts or tendencies as he does but suppress them or deceive themselves. Regardless of whether one agrees with the underground man that his pessimistic conception of human nature is the truth, it is hard to disagree that spite, malice, and irrationality don't form at least part of human nature. The underground man may take these aspects of humanity to an extreme, but his example serves as a corrective to those alluded to in part one, who would naively think that man can be completely good and completely rational. We may not be mere insects, but we are not always noble heroes, either. - Theme: Reason and Rationality. Description: The Russian writer Nikolay Chernyshevsky and his followers believed that man only desired what was in is best interest, and that mankind could be improved and taught to listen to reason so that society would progress to a kind of utopian existence, symbolized by the image of a perfect crystal palace (which the underground man derogatively refers to). The underground man can be seen as Dostoevsky's answer to Chernyshevsky. In part one, he rambles and rants about numerous topics, but the primary one is a debate over rationality: to what degree are humans rational? Do they really only ever desire what is good for them? The underground man defiantly asserts that man is not rational and insists that human history is irrational. He argues that the perfect existence of the crystal palace, with everyone behaving reasonably, is impossible—and not even desirable. The underground man's major claim is that man will occasionally desire something not in his best interest, if only to demonstrate his ability and free will to do so. If mankind behaved only according to reason, logic, and scientific fact, he would become an "organ stop," as the underground man puts it. Life would be nothing but obeying the rules of scientific and mathematic fact, summed up by the simple equation, two times two equals four. If the whole world operates according to logic, facts, and equations, how can there be free will or human choice? The ability to choose actions that are not logical, that are not reasonable or "right" decisions is the very thing that gives humans free will and individuality, argues the underground man. The only way to stand up for humanity is to oppose the bland rationality of two-times-two-equals-four and delight in the irrationality of two-times-two-equals-five.Not only does the underground man argue for the importance of irrational behavior, but he also provides an example through his own actions. He often contradicts himself and emphasizes his ability to hold multiple viewpoints at once, to change his mind, and even to be hypocritical. His self-contradiction and ability to disagree with himself is a way of championing individuality over reason. Moreover, in part two, we repeatedly see the underground man act illogically and not in his best interest, as he embarrasses himself and gets himself into awkward, even painful situations, such as inviting himself to Zverkov's party, or going to the brothel, or giving Liza his address. Thus, one can see part two as the proof to the argument of part one. In part one, the underground man argues for the irrationality of human behavior, and in part two he shows examples of his own irrational behavior. Both his arguments and his actions form a powerful counter to the optimism and utopianism of those who would look forward to the perfect rationality of the crystal palace. - Theme: Spite, Pain, and Suffering. Description: The underground man is a spiteful man (he himself says so), who takes pleasure in annoying and harming others. He irritates his former schoolmates, fantasizes about slapping Zverkov in the face, and drives Liza to tears by describing her horrible situation as a prostitute. This malice toward others is one way in which the underground man separates himself from others and shows that he wants no part in mainstream society. But if the underground man is to some degree a sadist (one derives pleasure from hurting others), he is also at times a bit of a masochist (one who derives pleasure from experiencing pain). He acts in ways that set himself up for awkward and painful social situations, as when he basically crashes Zverkov's party. And, more literally, he even says that to him the pain of a toothache can be pleasurable. He describes a strange pleasure to be found in pain and despair, and perhaps this is what he seeks by spitefully inflicting so much pain on both others and himself. Another way of understanding all the pain the underground man revels in is as another form of rebellion against oppressive rationality. It makes no sense for the underground man to hurt others for no reason and to hurt himself, but this may be precisely the point. By recklessly behaving in a way that benefits neither him nor others, the underground man proves his ability to defy rationality and live in accordance with his own will, rather than logic—even at the cost of significant suffering. - Theme: Literature and Writing. Description: One of the ways in which the underground man differs from others and isolates himself is through his obsession with literature. As he recalls in part two, he grew up without many friends and spent much time reading. Similarly, he says that much of his time underground is spent reading. As a solitary activity, reading isolates the underground man from others. Moreover, his excessively literary sensibility prevents him from functioning normally in society. He is obsessed with the idea of duels, for example, a dated practice from traditional literature. He imagines challenging someone to a duel in a bar, but then thinks better of it because he realizes everyone will laugh at him for his talking about such literary things as points of honor. And when he actually does challenge Ferfichkin to a duel, everyone does laugh at him. Moreover, Liza tells him that he talks like a book, referring to his highly literary language. The underground man's preoccupation with literature thus makes him socially awkward. Even when among others, his habit of reading has an isolating effect on him.Literature does, however, offer one possible way for the underground man to overcome his isolation: through writing. By writing, the underground man can enter into a kind of conversation with a community of readers. While most of the novella is made of his interior monologues, he is able to turn his writing into a kind of dialogue by imagining the responses of his readers and replying to them. The conversational qualities of the underground man's writing can be seen as an attempted response to isolation, as his writing becomes a conversation with himself and with his imagined readers. However, at the end of part two, the underground man rejects even this community of readers, when he says that he shouldn't have even written his notes. Thus, literature, writing, and reading remain ultimately solitary pursuits for the lonely underground man. Even when not reading or writing by himself, he is trapped within his fantasy-tinged world influenced by what he has read. But literature is not wholly detrimental. While his obsession with literature tends to isolate the underground man, it can also be seen as offering him a kind of personal escape from his bleak life. And, ironically, it is through the very medium of literature that Dostoevsky is able to communicate these negative, potentially harmful aspects of excessive reading and writing. - Climax: The structure of the novella's plot, which contains little action, is somewhat anti-climactic. However, there are several minor climaxes: when the underground man finally bumps into the officer in part one, when he makes a fool of himself at Zverkov's party, and when tries to give money to Liza near the end of the novella. - Summary: A note from the author introduces a fictional character known as the underground man, who the author says is "representative of the current generation," and whose rambling notes will form the novella that is to follow. The underground man begins by telling the reader that he is a sick, spiteful, unattractive man. He says that he doesn't know what he is sick with, but he refuses to be treated by doctors out of spite. He has been living underground for twenty years, but used to work in the civil service, where he was rude to anyone who came to his desk. He tells his readers that he is "neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect," and says that no one of intelligence in the 19th century can be a man of action or character. The underground man says that he is not to blame for being a bad person, but that his "overly acute consciousness" prevents him from taking action. He says that "being overly conscious is a disease." He tells the reader that there are times when he wishes someone would slap him in the face, and says that he would neither be able to forgive someone who slapped him nor take revenge on him. Whereas less intelligent people act impulsively to get revenge, someone of "overly acute consciousness" has too many doubts and questions to take action. The underground man compares himself to a mouse that retreats "ignominiously back into its mousehole." He says that men of action simply accept the laws of nature, science, and mathematics, thinking it impossible to protest that "two times two makes four." By contrast, the underground man hates such facts. The underground man argues that there is pleasure even in a toothache, saying that after a while someone with a toothache finds enjoyment in indulging in loud moans of pain that annoy others. He says that being "a nasty little man, a rogue" is pleasurable, and then asks the reader, "Can a man possessing consciousness ever really respect himself?" Moving on, the underground man says that he is incapable of apologizing. As a child, he would sometimes cry and repent when he did something wrong, but would then realize that this "was all lies, lies, revolting, made-up lies." He says that often gets into trouble because of his boredom, which is a result of his hyper-consciousness. He says that men of action only take action because they are stupid. They think that they have found "a primary cause" of something that gives them a reason for acting. But someone who is actually intelligent questions these causes and can think of multiple causes. So, he only acts out of spite. The underground man speaks of people who believe that humans only do bad things because they don't know their "true interest" and that if people knew what was in their best interest they would only act accordingly. The underground man disagrees and says that sometimes man desires "something harmful to himself." He digresses slightly to argue that human civilization has made men more cruel, citing recent military conflicts such as the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War. He says that some people think that as science advances people will live more and more rationally, and society will approach the perfection of a crystal palace. He argues that this kind of existence would be boring and that people prefer to live according to their "own stupid will" rather than logic or reason. He says that sometimes people "desire something opposed to one's own advantage," simply in order to exercise one's free will. He claims that without desire and free will, mankind is nothing but "a stop in an organ pipe," obeying the laws of nature. He says that human history has been irrational and that such irrationality is man's only way of rebelling against the rationality of "two times two makes four" and proving that "he's a man and not an organ stop." He says that "two times two makes four is no longer life," and that "two times two makes five" is preferable. Continuing to argue against the idea that mankind only acts in his best interest, the underground man says that there can be a peculiar pleasure in suffering and that "man sometimes loves suffering terribly." He says that the utopian idea of the crystal palace is a hoax and that he would reject it because he wouldn't be able to stick out his tongue rudely there out of spite. He tells his readers not to believe "one word, not one little word," of what he has written and says that he has no plans to print his notes, but merely writes to relive some of his boredom. He says that it is snowing outside, which reminds him of a story, and so in part two of the novella he will tell "a tale apropos of wet snow." The underground man's story takes place when he is 24 and living a solitary life, but still working in the civil service. At times he wishes to make friends with others in his office, but at other times he hates them and feels alone. He criticizes himself for being overly Romantic, and then digresses about Romanticism. He says that Romantics in Germany and France or overly idealistic and foolish, whereas Russian Romantics remain somewhat practical. The underground man says that he spent much of his time at home reading, but "sank into dark, subterranean, loathsome depravity," because of depression and a "craving for contradictions and contrasts." He tells his readers that he is not trying to justify his depravity, but then changes his mind and says he is. One night, the underground man sees a man get kicked out of a bar for fighting. He goes into the bar, thinking that he can get into a fight. He purposely gets into an officer's way, but the officer moves him aside without saying anything, barely noticing him and treating him like a fly. He thinks of challenging the officer to a duel but then realizes that everyone would just laugh at him for speaking in literary Russian about antiquated notions of honor. He goes back home and soon after sees the officer frequently around St. Petersburg. He writes the officer a letter, but ultimately doesn't send it. He often sees the officer on a particular street and usually gets out of the officer's way when they are about to walk into each other. He plans to walk into the officer and not move out of the way out of defiance and spite. He borrows money from his office chief in order to buy respectable-looking clothes for his encounter with the officer. He tries to bump into him, but keeps moving out of the way at the last second. Finally, he carries out his plan and bumps into the officer, but he acts as if he doesn't notice the underground man at all. The underground man is convinced that the officer was merely pretending not to notice him, and he feels "avenged for everything." His happiness soon wears off, though, and he seeks escape from his despair in his dreams of "all that was beautiful and sublime." He says that he dreams for three months straight, involving scenarios where he is a hero, like a character from a work by Lord Byron, and where everyone loves him. After three months of these dreams, though, the underground man feels a desire "to plunge into society." He decides to go visit a former schoolmate named Simonov, whom he hasn't seen in a year. He enters Simonov's apartment and finds that two other former schoolmates are there as well. No one seems to notice the underground man and he says that they treat him like "some sort of ordinary house fly." His former schoolmates are planning a farewell dinner for a friend named Zverkov who is leaving St. Petersburg. The underground man remembers Zverkov from school, and hates him for being an arrogant, attractive man. He recognizes Simonov's guests, both of whom he despised in school. He invites himself to the party for Zverkov, and they reluctantly allow him to come. After leaving Simonov's apartment, the underground man berates himself for interfering with the party. He thinks he shouldn't go, but realizes that he will definitely go, even though he doesn't have any money. He recalls his years at school, when he was "a lonely boy," and didn't have many friends. He says he hated his schoolmates and was more intelligent than them. Occasionally he would try to make a friend, but would only use these potential friends to try to "exercise unlimited power" over someone else. The next day, the underground man plans for the party. He is worried that it will be horribly awkward and he will be under-dressed, but he decides to go to prove that he isn't intimidated by Zverkov and his other former classmates. When he arrives at the hotel where the party is being held, no one else is there, and a waiter informs him that dinner is not set to start for another hour. The underground man waits around embarrassedly as the waiter sets the table. Finally, the others arrive and Simonov apologizes for telling the underground man the wrong time for the party. Zverkov and Ferfichkin laugh at the underground man for having to wait by himself for so long. After some awkward conversation, the other party guests speak amongst themselves, ignoring the underground man and leaving him feeling "completely crushed and humiliated." He gets progressively drunker and tries to break into the conversation, but the others notice how drunk he is and look at him like an insect. The underground man stands up and makes a toast in which he insults Zverkov. Ferfichkin angrily says that the underground man deserves to be "whacked in the face," and he challenges Ferfichkin to a duel, at which everyone simply laughs. The underground man continues to drink at the party and paces back and forth, stomping his boots. None of the others pay him any attention. They all leave to go to a brothel, and as they are leaving the underground man begs Zverkov for his forgiveness. He decides to follow them to the brothel and demands that Simonov lend him money for a prostitute. He thinks that he will either win his former schoolmates over as friends or he will slap Zverkov in the face. While riding a cab to the brothel, the underground man decides he will definitely slap Zverkov in the face to regain his honor. But when he arrives there, he can't find Zverkov. He sleeps with a young prostitute named Liza and then wakes up at two in the morning, feeling "misery and bile" growing in him and "seeking an outlet." He tells Liza about a dead prostitute whose coffin he saw being carried to a cemetery earlier in the day, and speaks at length of the horrible life of a prostitute. He and Liza speak about families and marriage, and he encourages her to leave the brothel, describing the "pure bliss" of married life. He tells Liza that if she continues being a prostitute she will lose everything. . . health, youth, beauty, and hope," and will wind up dead with no one to remember her. Liza cries, and the underground man gives her his address. The next day, the underground man writes a letter to Simonov, apologizing for his behavior. He worries that Liza will come and visit his house and see how revolting he really is. Liza doesn't come for a few days, to the underground man's relief. He describes his servant Apollon, who is arrogant and disobedient. One day, he tries to withhold Apollon's wages and force him to beg for his money, but Apollon simply stares at the underground man until he breaks down and demands that Apollon show him respect before getting paid. As the two are fighting, Liza arrives. The underground man feels ashamed in front of Liza and bursts into tears. He tells her that he has no pity for her and wants her to leave him alone. Liza embraces him, and he cries hysterically. After recovering, the underground man feels incapable of returning any love or affection to her, and wants her to leave him by himself in "peace and quiet." As Liza finally prepares to leave, the underground man slips some money into her hand "out of spite." Liza refuses the money and leaves immediately. He starts to run after her and imagines how he could "fall down before her, sob with remorse, kiss her feet, and beg her forgiveness," but then stops and lets her go. He tells his readers that he hasn't seen Liza since, and says that he feels ashamed to have written his notes. He angrily says that all human are "estranged from life," and "cripples." He says that he represents the truth about mankind, claiming, "in my life I've only taken to an extreme that which you haven't even dared to take halfway." He says he doesn't want to write anymore. An author's note concludes the novella, telling the reader that the underground man wrote more notes, but that this seems like a good place to stop.

- Genre: Fiction; Children's literature; World War II fiction - Title: Number the Stars - Point of view: Third-person - Setting: Copenhagen, Denmark - Character: Annemarie Johansen. Description: The protagonist of the novel, ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen is an outgoing and ambitious young girl who maintains a cheerful outlook even as her Nazi-occupied hometown of Copenhagen becomes a dangerous place for her and her best friend Ellen Rosen, who is Jewish. Annemarie remembers the plentiful and carefree existence her family enjoyed before the war with longing—since the occupation and the death of her older sister, Lise, in a mysterious hit-and-run accident, nothing has been the same. Still, Annemarie believes that she and her family—"ordinary people"—will be able to wait out the war peacefully and safely by keeping their heads down, and will never be called upon to fight or act. However, when the Nazis begin shuttering local Jewish businesses and rounding up Jews for purposes of "relocating" them Annemarie and her family take in Ellen, who lives downstairs, while Ellen's parents flee with members of the Resistance. Annemarie and Ellen's friendship turns into something stronger as they pretend to be sisters in order to shelter Ellen from the Nazis. When it becomes clear that the officers are suspicious of Ellen's presence in the Johansen household, however, Annemarie's Mama and Papa decide to bring Ellen to the countryside to seek refuge. Annemarie, her younger sister Kirsti, her mother, and Ellen travel to Mama's brother and Annemarie's uncle Henrik's house at the seaside, and there Annemarie learns that her family is not as ordinary as she thought. Henrik is a smuggler, deeply entrenched in the Resistance—he helps hide Jews in his fishing boat and ferries them across the sea to Sweden, and to freedom. As Annemarie's ignorance lifts and she learns more and more about what's truly at stake for her family, she is called upon to be brave in a way she never has before as she and her family work to ensure that Ellen, her parents, and several other Danish Jews can safely escape the country that has, in many ways, turned against them. As Annemarie learns important lessons about bravery, solidarity, sacrifice, and sisterhood, so too do Lowry's readers. - Character: Ellen Rosen. Description: Ellen is Annemarie's best friend and neighbor. The two girls live in the same apartment building and attend the same school, and though Ellen is Jewish and Annemarie is not, neither of them ever feel any tension or distance on the basis of religion. Ellen plays at Annemarie's apartment on weekday afternoons, and Annemarie and her sister Kirsti attend Friday evening Sabbath dinners at the Rosens' apartment. Even in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, a time of fear and uncertainty, Ellen's childhood is relatively peaceful—until the Nazis obtain a list of all Copenhagen's Jews and systematically begin rounding them up and arresting them for purposes of "relocation." The dramatic Ellen, with big dreams of life as an actress, is forced into her greatest "performance" yet—the Johansens take her in while her parents are hurried off with members of the Resistance, and Ellen must pretend to be Annemarie's sister. Though full of fear for her parents' well-being, Ellen is soothed by the Johansens' kindness as they welcome her into their home and say they're "proud" to have her as a daughter—even if it's just pretend. Nevertheless, Ellen finds strength and happiness in her newly-minted sisterhood with Annemarie, and as Annemarie's Papa points out, the two have behaved like sisters practically all their lives already. Though Ellen is forced to hide who she is—and even surrenders her beloved Star of David necklace to Annemarie for safekeeping—she remains strong as her journey takes her from Copenhagen to the Danish countryside, where she's reunited with her parents and smuggled out of Denmark with the help of Annemarie's Uncle Henrik. Ellen is a steadfast friend, a strong young girl, and a true sister to Annemarie. - Character: Kirsti Johansen. Description: Kirsti is Annemarie's five-year-old sister. A sassy, petulant, and fanciful child, Kirsti has never known life outside wartime—yet she dreams of the comforts of peace and plenty, fantasizing daily about decadent cupcakes and fancy shoes. Kirsti is naïve, and her family attempts to keep her sheltered from the truths of the violent world she lives in by telling her stories—explaining that the bombings in the harbor are fireworks launched specially for her birthday or lulling her to sleep with fairy tales. Kirsti provides a thread of comic relief throughout the novel, and her cuteness, resilience, and pure view of the world gives the other characters hope in a time of fear and confusion. - Character: Mrs. Johansen/Mama. Description: Annemarie's mother is a kind, gentle, and yet fiercely brave woman committed to resisting the fascist regime which has occupied her city and threatened her closest friends. Mama is a nurturer to her core, and though she's reeling from the pain of losing her eldest daughter Lise, she remains attentive and devoted to Annemarie and little Kirsti. At the same time, she understands that she has a responsibility to more than just her own family—and shoulders the burden of working alongside her brother Henrik to help smuggle Danish Jews across the sea to Sweden with grace, grit, and determination. - Character: Uncle Henrik. Description: Mama's brother and Annemarie's uncle, Henrik is a fisherman who lives in the countryside. Unmarried and slightly roguish, Henrik lives alone in his childhood home—and has, since the start of the war, used his fishing boats to regularly smuggle Danish Jews across the narrow sea to freedom in Sweden. Henrik is staunch, determined, and yet gentle and kind—he does everything he can to help those in need, and daily risks his own life and well-being in order to do what he knows is right. - Character: Peter Neilsen. Description: The stoic, rebellious, and generous Peter Neilsen is a dedicated member of the Resistance—a group of Danish people determined to undermine the Nazi occupation of their country no matter the cost. Peter was betrothed to Annemarie's older sister Lise at the time of her death, and though Peter has grown sad and distant in the years since, Annemarie still cares for him and looks up to him as an older brother figure. Peter, sadly, is eventually executed for his work on behalf of the Resistance, though Annemarie and her family never forget him or his dedication to the cause of righteousness. - Character: Lise Johansen. Description: Though Lise is not physically present as a character in the novel, her emotional presence lingers on every page. Her loss in a seemingly random hit-and-run accident has dealt a severe blow to her family's morale, and Annemarie, Kirsti, their parents, and Lise's betrothed at the time of her death, Peter Neilsen, all mourn her each day. It is eventually revealed that Lise was, alongside Peter, a member of the Resistance, and died at the hands of Nazi soldiers determined to bring the faction down. - Character: King Christian. Description: The King of Denmark. Christian is a leader beloved by all his people, and rather than shutting himself away in his palace in trying times, he shows that he is as devoted to his subjects as they are to him by taking daily rides through the streets of Copenhagen on his horse. - Theme: Privilege, Sacrifice, and Solidarity. Description: At the heart of Lois Lowry's Number the Stars is a story of what it means to wield social power and privilege. As her Nazi-occupied hometown of Copenhagen, Denmark, grows more and more hostile towards its Jewish residents, ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her non-Jewish family step up and sacrifice their own safety in order to help their Jewish friends and neighbors escape. Annemarie summons the courage to risk her own safety—and indeed her social privilege—to stand in solidarity with her Jewish friend, Ellen Rosen, and eventually deliver the girl to safety. Through Annemarie's story, Lowry argues that those with social privilege in any society must use their power to stand alongside—and make sacrifices for—those who are underprivileged or persecuted. Annemarie and her family, the Johansens, are struggling emotionally and economically under the Nazi occupation of Copenhagen—but compared to their Jewish neighbors, they move through the city with much less fear and trepidation. At the start of the novel, Annemarie believes that she and her family are "ordinary people" who will never be called upon to act heroically or risk their own safety for others. On the day of the Jewish New Year, though, when Nazis begin actively hunting down the Jews in the community, the Johansens know they must do whatever they can to help their neighbors, even if it means risking their anonymity, their safety, and the little social privilege they still wield. When the Nazis stationed throughout Copenhagen begin the process of "relocating" the city's Jews, the Johansens take in Ellen Rosen, the daughter of the Jewish family downstairs from them, and pass her off as one of their own while Ellen's parents are hidden away by the Resistance—a secret group of Danish people "determined to bring harm to the Nazis" by any means necessary. Though Annemarie and her parents are taking a risk in opening their home to Ellen, they know that they are the girl's only chance at survival. They are thus willing to put their lives on the line to do what's right. Annemarie's Papa even says he is "proud" to shelter Ellen and to welcome her into his home as his daughter; Annemarie, who'd been naïve as to what would soon be asked of her and her family, embraces Ellen as her new "sister" without a second thought. The Johansens prove themselves to be a selfless family willing to risk their safety and stand in solidarity with their neighbors. When Nazis come knocking at the Johansens' door, suspicious as to why they have one dark-haired daughter when all of the rest of them are blonde, the Johansens do not waver in defending Ellen as one of their own. Though one false word could bring their whole lives tumbling down, the Johansens know that it is more important to act in the interest of the greater good, and to use their privilege to defend the defenseless. After the encounter with the Nazis, the Johansens realize that simply putting themselves between Ellen and the soldiers and hoping for the best is not enough—they know that they must risk even more so that Ellen and her family can be safe. Annemarie, her younger sister Kirsti, and Ellen go with Annemarie's Mama to the seaside home of her brother Henrik, a fisherman who regularly smuggles Jews across the narrow sea to the free, unoccupied country of Sweden. Though Henrik risks his life daily for the greater good, it is Annemarie and her mother's first time playing a role in one of his rescue missions. In spite their increasing fear, they all know that they must see Ellen's journey through, and help her to reunite with her parents and escape to safety—even though down at the seashore, in the placid countryside, there are many Nazi soldiers stationed and ready to stop smugglers in their tracks. At Henrik's house, the stakes are higher than ever—an operation to smuggle the Rosens and several other Jews out of the country is in full swing, and yet the presence of Nazi soldiers threatens to undermine the effort at every turn. Annemarie, her mother, and her uncle risk their very lives to make sure that their plans are kept under wraps. Even as Annemarie's mother faces violence from soldiers who arrive at Henrik's house to search it and Annemarie herself is forced to lie to the soldiers, risking her own well-being should she be caught, everyone working on behalf of the Danish Jews knows that their escape will only be possible through the support, solidarity, and sacrifice of non-Jewish allies. Through Annemarie's journey, Lowry shows time and time again how essential it is for "ordinary people" to look out for one another in the face of encroaching danger, oppression, and cruelty. Lowry uses the sacrifices that Annemarie and her family make to show how, more broadly, society's most privileged members must protect its weakest ones. Even if it means risking everything, the privileged must help the persecuted and the less-fortunate; only through sacrifice and solidarity, Lowry argues, can righteousness and justice flourish. - Theme: Bravery. Description: Despite being a children's novel, Lois Lowry's Number the Stars makes a complicated argument about what it means to be brave. Throughout the novel, Lowry creates tension between the idea that bravery comes from knowing the risk at hand and doing the hard thing anyway, and the opposing idea that one is able to act more bravely when ignorant of what's at stake. She ultimately argues that true bravery is not based on whether one knows what he or she is risking in being brave: true bravery is motivated by selflessness. At the start of the novel, Annemarie Johansen is naïve about much of the violence happening right in her own hometown. The dramatic tension of the novel begins developing as Annemarie learns more about the world around her—and about her parents' plans to help get the Rosens out of Denmark. As Annemarie is forced into situations that demand greater and greater bravery, she finds that people around her attempt to help her be brave by either supplying her with information or intentionally withholding it. In the end, Annemarie discovers that it doesn't matter whether she knows what she's getting into or not—in moments that require bravery, she is able to face both violence and fear because of her desire to do what's right. The first time Annemarie's bravery is put to the test is the night the Johansens shelter Ellen Rosen. Nazis arrive at the apartment looking for the Rosens, and ask questions about why Ellen is dark-haired despite being the "daughter" of the fair-haired Johansens. Annemarie staunchly defends Ellen as her sister, and through her and her parents' combined bravery, they are able to stand up to the Nazis, convince them that Ellen is truly one of their own and send the soldiers away. Annemarie knows exactly what is going on and exactly what is at stake during this encounter with the Nazis. Despite knowing the truth, she is still able to lie—her bravery is not contingent upon her ignorance. However, as the novel progresses and the fight to save Ellen and her family grows more dire, many of the adults attempt to shield Ellen and Annemarie from the truth, believing that doing so will help the girls act bravely and lie easily. Out in the countryside, Annemarie is placed in several situations where she must risk everything for the Resistance's mission of smuggling the Rosens and several other Jews across the sea to Sweden by way of Uncle Henrik's boat. The adults around Annemarie often try to hide from her the truth of what's going on, believing that if details of the mission are kept from Annemarie, it will be easier for her to be brave. Yet through two major plot points, Lowry shows that it doesn't matter whether Annemarie knows what's happening to or around her—her bravery comes from a self-sacrificing desire to secure the safety of her friends and neighbors. When a casket is wheeled into the middle of Uncle Henrik's living room, he and Mama tell Annemarie that there has been a death in the family—their Great-Aunt Birte has passed. Annemarie is immediately suspicious. When Annemarie confronts her uncle about the phony death, he tells her that it is "much easier to be brave if you do not know everything," and yet reveals to her the truth: there is no Great-Aunt Birte and never was. When Nazis descend on the "mourners" gathered around the casket that evening, they threaten to open it—but through some quick thinking, Mama manages to distract the soldiers and redirect their attention. The casket is eventually revealed, after the Nazis leave, to be full of supplies for the Rosens and their fellow Jews. Knowing what was going on increased Annemarie's fear that the farce of Great-Aunt Birte's wake would be discovered—but did not stop her from being brave and keeping quiet when it mattered most. The relationship between bravery and ignorance is once again put to the test when Annemarie must deliver a mysterious packet to Uncle Henrik's ship before he leaves the harbor with the Rosens and the other Jews. Though Annemarie does not know what's inside the packet, she has been told that all may be lost without it. As Annemarie hurries through the woods to deliver the packet, she is stopped by two Nazis who demand to rifle through her basket—and who feed the cheese and bread inside of it to their snarling, intimidating dogs. When they find the packet and open it—after repeatedly questioning the ignorant Annemarie as to its contents—they see that it is nothing more than a handkerchief and, after their dogs smell it and don't react, allow her to pass. Later, when Annemarie learns that the handkerchief actually contained a solution which served to dull the Nazis' search dogs' sense of smell, thus preventing them from picking up the scent of the people hiding beneath the deck of Henrik's ship, she sees just how vital her role in delivering the package was after all. She wonders if she would have been able to keep calm and complete her mission as skillfully if she had known what the packet contained—but the answer is ultimately irrelevant. Annemarie was determined to get the packet to Henrik and to secure the safety of her friends and neighbors no matter the cost. Only at the very end of the novel does Annemarie fully understand the truth of her family's story—and her own. In the book's final pages, Annemarie learns that her sister Lise died not in a random car accident, but an attack orchestrated by Nazis in an attempt to decimate members of the Resistance effort of which Lise was a part. The fact that so much of Annemarie's own personal history has been obscured from her by those trying to protect her from the truth doesn't anger or upset her—but she concedes that it's impossible to say whether knowing the truth about Lise would have helped or hampered her ability to be brave for those who needed her. In the end, Annemarie's bravery stems from her personal commitment to helping Ellen at any cost, and her belief in the equality, dignity, and sacredness of the lives of those she was protecting. - Theme: Reality vs. Fantasy. Description: Stories and fairy tales play an important role throughout Lois Lowry's Number the Stars. Annemarie Johansen tells her younger sister Kirsti fairy tales to lull her to sleep each night—and even comforts herself in times of fear or danger by comparing herself to figures of fantasy such as Little Red Riding-Hood or distant, storied figures from real life, such as the Danish king, Christian. By weaving in and out of real life and fantasy throughout the novel, Lowry suggests that stories have the power to sustain an individual's hope, courage, and sense of purpose in moments when their "real" lives become places full of darkness, fear, and uncertainty. Throughout the novel, Lowry shows how blurring the lines between fact and fiction often proves to be a saving grace not just for her characters, but for anyone struggling to make sense of frightening or dangerous circumstances. This is especially evident through the character of Annemarie's five-year-old sister Kirsti, a daydreamer and the youngest character in the novel. She is also the most playful, yet her desire to immerse herself in fantasies full of big pink cupcakes and fairy-tales about far-off places shows just how deeply Kirsti is affected by the turmoil happening all around her. Stories are a way for Kirsti to shield herself from the violence of Nazi-occupied Copenhagen—and for others to help shield her, too. When a bombing in the harbor interrupts Kirsti's birthday, Mama tells her that the city has put on a fireworks spectacle just for her. Months later, Kirsti clings to the story of her amazing birthday celebration—though whether she earnestly believes it to be true or knows it to be a farce is never revealed. Kirsti also demands bedtime stories each night from Annemarie, and loves to hear not just about Little Red Riding-Hood and the characters of Hans Christian Andersen but also the real-life figure of the Danish monarch, King Christian, who bravely rides his horse unguarded through the Copenhagen streets each morning. The stories Kirsti's family tells her are a way for her to both understand the world and to escape it—to confront fearful situations and prepare herself to face the worst while also surrendering to the respite of a fanciful fairy tale about good conquering evil. Annemarie is often the arbiter of stories in her family—she is the one who lulls Kirsti to sleep each night with tales both fanciful and practical, and through her games of imagination with Ellen, she helps her persecuted friend also find respite in the face of uncertainty and danger. At the same time, Annemarie finds herself dipping into fantasy more than once as a way of coaching herself through a difficult situation. While in her parents' apartment in Copenhagen, Annemarie often opens up her dead sister Lise's trunk of possessions and bridal linens, reminiscing about her sister and playing with her beautiful things. Though not telling herself a tale in a narrative sense, in going through Lise's possessions, Annemarie is continuing her sister's story and considering what might have been had Lise lived to marry Peter Neilsen and enjoy a happy life. This ritual is a balm for Annemarie as much as it is a reminder of how dangerous things are in Copenhagen—and how anyone, even good and just people like Lise, could lose their life at any minute. Annemarie's second major detour into fantasy occurs when, towards the end of the novel, she must deliver an important packet to Uncle Henrik's ship—a packet without which his mission to smuggle the Rosens and several other Danish Jews to freedom in Sweden may be doomed. As Annemarie weaves her way through the dark forest between Henrik's house and the harbor, she jumps at every sound and startles at every root her foot grazes on the twisting path. To comfort herself, Annemarie reminds herself of the story of Little Red Riding-Hood—a story she has often told to Kirsti. Because the story is so familiar to Annemarie, in telling it to herself, she is able to convince herself that she knows what's coming next and is prepared to face it. Because of the story, even when she does indeed confront some big bad wolves—in the form of two Nazis and their large dogs—she is prepared to face them, drawing strength and courage from the intrepid figure of Little Red herself. Through the stories within the story of Number the Stars, Lois Lowry demonstrates the power of storytelling to provide both an escape from and a roadmap to life's most difficult problems. As her characters dip in and out of stories and fantasies, these "escapes" actually nourish them and help them carry on in the face of fear, desperation, and sadness. - Theme: Sisterhood. Description: Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen are thick as thieves, and have been all throughout their childhoods. Their mothers, too, are close friends who get together every day for an afternoon coffee—and keep up with the tradition even when the closest thing to coffee left in Copenhagen is hot water steeped with herbs. Even though Annemarie has a younger sister, Kirsti, she still feels a void in her life when it comes to sisters, having recently lost her older sister, Lise, in a fatal hit-and-run. Complicated notions of sisterhood are rife throughout the pages of Number the Stars, and as the novel progresses, Lois Lowry uses the relationship forged between Annemarie and Ellen to show that sometimes sisters are bound together by more than blood—shared experience, mutual devotion, and respect for the other's individuality are what sisterhood is made of. When the Johansens take Ellen into their home, they tell her and Annemarie that if any soldiers come, they will need to pretend to be sisters. Annemarie's Papa insists it will be "easy" for them to pretend, as they're together so much already. As Annemarie and Ellen, who have been the best of friends for years, perform the relationship of sisters in order to shelter Ellen from being captured by Nazis, the pretense becomes real—by the end of the novel, Annemarie and Ellen really do see themselves as sisters, bound together by the love, solidarity, and support they have shown one another. At the same time, Annemarie must contend with her feelings of obligation towards and contempt for her younger sister Kirsti, and the pain of having lost her older sister Lise. At the start of the novel, Annemarie does indeed treat her friend Ellen as something of a sister. They are together nearly all the time, and they play and study together every day. Annemarie even attends Ellen's family's religious ceremonies on the Sabbath each Friday. Their lives are deeply intertwined. Unable to forge a real relationship with her five-year-old sister Kirsti, but desperate for a sense of sisterhood in the wake of having recently lost Lise in a mysterious accident, Annemarie longs for a sisterly relationship, and finds it in her friendship with Ellen. After the Nazis begin arresting the Jews of Copenhagen, the Johansens take Ellen in and decide to hide her while her parents seek shelter with the Resistance. Ellen is frightened to be separated from her family, but Annemarie's Mama and Papa assure Ellen that they are "proud" to call her their daughter—even if it's just pretend. When Nazis storm into the Johansens' apartment, however, the ruse is put to the test—Annemarie swears to the soldiers' faces that Ellen is her sister, and Mama and Papa swear the same. Realizing the city is not safe for Ellen, Annemarie, Kirsti, and Mrs. Johansen take her to the countryside, where on the train Nazis again question the relationship between Ellen and the rest of the family. As Annemarie is made to declare over and over that she and Ellen are sisters, the pretense becomes more of a truth. The frightening and life-threatening experiences they share bond them close together in a profound way, and by the time Ellen is taken from Uncle Henrik's countryside house to be smuggled to Sweden alongside her parents, she is devastated to leave Annemarie's company. At the end of the novel, after the Nazis have been expunged from Denmark and the Allies have won the war, Annemarie asks her Papa to repair Ellen's broken Star of David necklace, so that it will be ready for her to wear when she returns. Annemarie decides that in the meantime, she will wear the necklace. This moment is symbolic of Annemarie's strong feelings not just of solidarity but of sisterhood—she knows that there is no difference between her and Ellen, and that they are bound together forever by the experiences they've shared and the sisterly devotion they feel for one another. The act of pretending to be "real" sisters, sisters by blood, actually serves to show Ellen and Annemarie the ways in which they have effectively been sisters all along. Though not related to one another, Ellen and Annemarie provide one another with the love, support, empathy, and comfort that sisterly relationships often yield. When Annemarie, towards the novel's end, reveals that she has hidden Ellen's Star of David necklace for years inside the folds of Lise's yellowing, never-worn wedding dress, Lois symbolically acknowledges that sisters can be found outside of one's blood family. Though Lise's loss can never be replaced, in her absence Annemarie has found yet another sister—one whose beauty, bravery, and kindness she admires just as much as she did Lise's. - Climax: Annemarie successfully delivers an important paper packet to her Uncle Henrik, despite being stopped by Nazi officers who threatened her ability to carry out the vital mission. - Summary: Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen is an active, excitable, and happy ten-year-old. Even though her hometown of Copenhagen is under a strained and fearful occupation by the Nazis, and food, electricity, and heat are scarce and rationed, Annemarie and her family cling to the fact that at least they have one another. Annemarie's best friend is her downstairs neighbor, Ellen Rosen. Ellen's family is Jewish, and Annemarie and her younger sister Kirsti often celebrate the Sabbath on Friday nights at the Rosens' apartment. The two families are very close, and draw strength from one another throughout the difficult, taxing occupation. As things start growing more dangerous, and local Jewish businesses are shuttered by the Nazis, Annemarie's Mama and Papa receive a visit from the young Resistance fighter Peter Neilsen. Peter was once betrothed to Annemarie's older sister Lise, who died recently in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. Now, Peter works with a group which attempts to destabilize and weaken the Nazis who patrol the streets. Annemarie doesn't believe her family, who are "ordinary people," will ever be called upon to do the kind of work Peter does—but little does she know that things are quickly changing in Copenhagen. On the day of the Jewish New Year, Mrs. Rosen and Mr. Rosen come to the Johansens with a plea. Nazi officials have obtained a list of all the Jews of Copenhagen, and have begun rounding them up and arresting them so that they can be "relocated." Ellen's parents flee, sheltered by the Resistance—but leave Ellen in the care of the Johansens, who plan to pass her off as one of their own daughters, "Lise," should the need arise. That very evening, some Nazi officers come knocking at the Johansens' door. Annemarie instructs Ellen to remove the Star of David necklace she always wears, but when she cannot open the clasp, Annemarie is forced to tear the necklace off for her. The Nazis rouse Annemarie and Ellen from their beds and interrogate them along with Mama and Papa, pointing out Ellen's dark hair—all of the other Johansens are blonde. Papa pulls a baby picture of Lise from a family album—luckily, the real Lise had dark hair as a child. The next morning, Mama and Papa tell Annemarie and Ellen it isn't safe for them to go to school—Mama takes the girls along with Kirsti on a "vacation" to visit her brother, Henrik, in the countryside. Annemarie hides Ellen's necklace away for safekeeping, and promises her distraught friend that she'll return it one day. The journey to the countryside is beautiful but fraught with fear, as Nazi officers are stationed even in the idyllic seaside town where Uncle Henrik works as a fisherman. Things at Uncle Henrik's house are strange, and someone even brings a casket containing the body of Annemarie's "Great-aunt Birte." Annemarie is suspicious, as she knows that there is no Great-aunt Birte. When she confronts Henrik about the strange atmosphere, he confesses that the wake is a ruse, but doesn't tell her much more—he explains that it is "easier to be brave if you do not know everything." That evening, many mourners come to the house to sit with the casket—as the night grows late, Peter Neilsen arrives with Ellen's parents, and Annemarie realizes that all of the gathered mourners are also Jews being protected by the Resistance. A group of Nazi officers shows up to ask why so many have gathered at Henrik's house, and though they threaten to open the casket and reveal the entire gathering to be a farce, Mama saves the operation by explaining that the corpse inside the casket may still be infected with typhus. The disgusted officers leave, and Peter opens the casket, which is full of blankets and warm garments, and begins preparing the gathered Jews for their long journey. It has become clear to Annemarie that Uncle Henrik is planning on smuggling them across the narrow sea to Sweden on his fishing boat. Peter Neilsen takes one group down to the docks, and shortly thereafter Mama leads Ellen and Mrs. Rosen through the forest to the boat. Ellen and Annemarie embrace tearfully, promising to reunite someday. Annemarie, anxious for her mother to return, decides to wait up for her, but is overcome by exhaustion and falls asleep. She wakes in the early morning light to find that her mother has still not come home. When she looks out into the yard, she sees her mother collapsed at the edge of the forest, and runs out to meet her. Mama is all right, but has sustained a broken ankle after tripping on her way back from the docks. As Annemarie helps Mama up to the house, they both notice something lying on the ground—Mama recognizes the small white packet as an important part of the smuggling operation and urges Annemarie to run as fast as she can with it down to the docks. If Henrik does not have the packet when his ship sets sail, Mama says, all may be lost. Annemarie packs the parcel into a basket along with bread and fruit and sets off into the woods, comforting herself by imagining herself as Little Red Riding-Hood. Indeed, she does run into a big bad wolf of sorts just as she's about to reach the docks—two Nazi officers and their large, snarling dogs impede her path. The Nazi officers taunt Annemarie and tear apart her basket, but when they rip the packet open they find it only contains a small white handkerchief, and they let her pass. Annemarie delivers the packet to Henrik down at the docks—he thanks her and sends her back up to the house, promising to come home soon. That evening, Henrik returns for dinner. After the meal he takes Annemarie out on a walk and explains the truth to her: he has indeed been smuggling small groups of Jews out of Denmark and across the sea to Sweden, and the handkerchief—dipped in a specially-engineered solution which dulls the Nazi officers' dogs' sense of smell and allows whole boatloads of people, hidden beneath the deck of a boat, to remain undetected—is a vital part of each mission. Henrik thanks Annemarie for her bravery, and assures her that one day she and Ellen will be reunited. Two years later, Annemarie is twelve, and the war has ended. As Annemarie's family gathers on their balcony to observe the celebrations happening throughout the streets of Copenhagen, Annemarie retreats back into her bedroom and opens a trunk which holds all of Lise's possessions—including her unworn wedding dress. Tucked into the folds of the skirt is Ellen's necklace. Annemarie brings it out to Papa and asks him to repair the clasp so that she can wear it and continue keeping it safe until Ellen and her family return home.

- Genre: Fiction - Title: O Pioneers! - Point of view: Third person - Setting: Hanover, Nebraska in the 1880s - Character: Alexandra Bergson. Description: The novel's protagonist, Alexandra Bergson, is a strong, tall woman, the eldest child of the Swedish immigrant John Bergson. Alexandra is a resourceful, practical person who loves and understands the land as no one else in the novel does. However, she is not nearly so intuitive when it comes to understanding other people. She inherits the farm and brings her family prosperity, but in exchange, she works and toils through the prime years of her life. She deeply loves her younger brother Emil, and sees all of her work and effort as dedicated to giving him the opportunity to have an identity that isn't rooted in the soil. - Character: Carl Linstrum. Description: Carl is Alexandra's childhood neighbor and best friend. He grows to become a brooding, sensitive man, who leaves the Divide for a career in engraving and then eventually leaves again to mine for gold in Alaska. He and Alexandra have a steadier kind of love between them, and they marry at the end of the book. - Character: Marie Shabata. Description: Marie is Emil's childhood friend and the object of his love. She comes from a Bohemian family and is beautiful, with red cheeks and yellow flecks in her eyes, and her liveliness and affection make her popular with everyone she meets. She runs off and marries Frank Shabata when she's just eighteen, but comes to believe that she was not the right person for Frank. She comes to return Emil's love, and though she tries (and fails) to resist her feelings. - Character: Frank Shabata. Description: Frank is Marie's husband and Alexandra's neighbor in the latter half of the book. He is described as a cheerful, handsome man early in life, but he becomes embittered by hard work and turns into a jealous man after he marries. He falls into rages, including the one that eventually kills Marie and Emil. - Character: Lou Bergson. Description: Lou is one of Alexandra's brother, the middle brother in the Bergson family. He is more intelligent than the third Bergson brother, Oscar, but he's also petty, small-minded, and flighty, often involving himself in politics and tirades against those with money. He hates to stand out from his neighbors, and he marries Annie Lee. - Character: Oscar Bergson. Description: Oscar is Alexandra's younger brother and the eldest son of John Bergson. He is solidly built, but a slow thinker. He doesn't mind hard work, as long as it is part of his routine. Oscar and Lou stick close together, and they both resent Alexandra's unconventional ways and relationship with Carl Linstrum. - Character: Crazy Ivar. Description: Ivar is an elderly man with a strong upper body and white hair. He is deeply religious and loves animals, but his unconventional ways frighten most people. Alexandra recognizes that Ivar knows how to care for animals and livestock, and she takes him in after he loses his land to mismanagement. - Character: Amédée Chevalier. Description: Amédée, a light-hearted French boy, is Emil's best friend. Amédée is slight of figure, graceful, and constantly joking around. He is very happily married to Angélique, and they have a newborn son he dotes on. However, he dies, suddenly, of appendicitis. His death prompts Emil and Marie to come together. - Theme: Power of the Land. Description: The novel portrays the Nebraskan prairie wilderness, describing it as a powerful expanse where settlers felt themselves "too weak to make any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness." As Cather famously said, the land is the real hero of O Pioneers, making the real story one about its transformation from wilderness to civilization and its relationship with the characters who try to push this transformation. Lou, Oscar, and their father, for example, all struggle against the land, attempting to treat the soil like other soil they've known, something they can own and control. They tire themselves out without making real progress. Alexandra, on the other hand, succeeds where others have failed because she submits to the land, understanding that she must work with it in order to bring out its riches. When Alexandra has built up her farm, it appears almost to be part of the outdoors: "There was something individual about the great farm, a most unusual trimness and care for detail.... You feel that, properly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, and that it is in the soil that she expresses herself best." Alexandra makes the realization that she belongs to the land and not vice versa.Alexandra further expresses at one point that she has no personality "apart from the soil," to which Carl replies, "Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing…. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder." Carl's point is that Alexandra's connection to the land is what provides her with a unique identity—as opposed to the rootless traveling workers who remain anonymous wherever they go. At the same time, it is Alexandra's goal to allow Emil to go to college and law school and establish an identity separate from the soil. But Emil, too, feels rootless and is unable to resist his attraction to Marie, perhaps suggesting that the effort to separate oneself from the land is inherently destructive. - Theme: Love and Relationships. Description: The relationships in the novel cover both romantic and familial love. Both types of love are complicated. While Alexandra has a chillier relationship with two of her brothers, Lou and Oscar—who resist both the land and Alexandra's management because she is a woman—she genuinely cares for Emil, whom she dotes on from the beginning of the novel. Romantic love falls into two categories as well—there's the reckless, passionate love between Emil and Marie, and the steadier, practical love of Carl and Alexandra. Marie and Emil's violent end at the end of the book suggests that the life of a pioneer has no room for the selfishness and passion that accompany illicit love, however.As immigrants and pioneers, the characters inhabit a world that is in no way designed for them, and they're separated from their neighbors by vast expanses of land, language barriers, and harsh weather. As a result, loneliness permeates the book's rural setting, and the characters struggle to maintain meaningful relationships with one another. Marie secretly pines for Emil, instead of her husband Frank, and when Frank discovers the two lovers, he fatally shoots them, simultaneously ending their relationship as well as his own free life. Alexandra must choose between her affection for Carl and her loyalty to her brothers, who are suspicious of an outsider marrying into the family. When Carl leaves to avoid trouble, he isolates both himself and Alexandra. The characters struggle through their platonic relationships as well; Alexandra, for example, has difficulty understanding her brother's actions until Carl explains them to her. Her biggest flaw is a lack of empathy for other people; inversely, her biggest asset in the book is her relationship with the land, possibly suggesting that in order for pioneers to succeed, their relationship with the land must come first. - Theme: Dignity of Work. Description: The novel suggests that being devoted to one's work and loving the work for its own sake provides a kind of dignity. Alexandra's character is the prime example of this. Although she doesn't demonstrate a vivid inner life or incredible passion, she is the novel's undisputed heroine because she devotes herself to her work with the land. She sacrifices her youth and femininity in order to take care of the farm and carry out her father's wish that she bring success to the family, and she succeeds because she yields completely to the work.In contrast, the other characters who fail to love their work for its own sake—and instead turn to other distractions, like drink or illicit love—meet undignified, tragic ends. Emil and Marie are killed by Frank, who goes to jail, and Lou and Oscar, who are distracted by their jealousy and resentment towards Alexandra and Carl, struggle with the land and never achieve the noble stature or success of their sister. - Theme: Self-sacrifice vs. Temptation. Description: In many ways, O Pioneers serves as a cautionary moral tale. Throughout the book, various temptations pull characters away from their duty to the land—but the characters who succumb are punished for their weakness. Many of the Bergsons' neighbors sell their homesteads in exchange for an easier way of life, for example, and they find relatively small, pointless lives in town. Alexandra, on the other hand, stays behind and yields to the land, taking a risk in buying up other homesteads, and she finds success because of her hard work and dedication to the task at hand. More dramatically, Emil and Marie give in to the temptation to consummate their love, and they're punished by Marie's husband, Frank, who fatally shoots them. Frank is also punished for his reckless action, his drinking, and the jealousy that plagues him throughout his marriage to Marie—he's left alone, with no one to love or love him at the end of the book. Even though the neighbors are spread far apart, it's clear that individual actions still affect the community as a whole. Marie and Emil's inability to resist temptation holds consequences for everyone in their farming community. Frank goes to jail, and Alexandra is left in shock.In contrast with Emil and Marie, Carl and Alexandra act practically throughout the novel. Instead of causing trouble with Lou and Oscar, for example, Carl heads to Alaska for work. Alexandra accepts his departure without much of a reaction—she doesn't show a particularly passionate inner life, except when it comes to the land—and in the end, the two are reunited, thanks to their steadiness and practicality. - Theme: Pioneering and Immigration. Description: In a most basic summary of the book, one could say that O Pioneers describes the difficulties of homestead life. It's a book about inhabiting a land that resists habitation. Loneliness permeates the community, thanks to the distances that separate neighbors, the language barriers between immigrants of different countries, and the often-extreme weather. As immigrants, for example, Mr. and Mrs. Bergson struggle with the harshness of the New World, as they pine for what they left behind. Mr. Bergson's early death represents how easily the harsh New World crushes the Old World when the characters don't make adjustments to the land, and Mrs. Bergson's constant comparisons between life in Nebraska and life in Norway prevent her from ever finding happiness in Nebraska. As pioneers, the characters live difficult lives in an attempt to pave the way for generations to come. Their way of life depends on persistence and the delay of gratification. Those who do give in to temptation are punished, and the ones who succeed, like Alexandra, give away the best years of their lives to the land. - Climax: Emil and Marie are fatally shot by Marie's husband, Frank Shabata - Summary: On a windy January day in Hanover, Nebraska, a 5-year-old Swede boy sits on the sidewalk, crying for his kitten that has run up the pole. When his sister, Alexandra, returns from a doctor's visit, Emil runs up to her, and she enlists the help of their neighbor, Carl Linstrum. Carl fetches the kitten and sends Emil into the store to warm up, and when Alexandra follows him in, she finds Emil playing with Marie Tovesky, a pretty little Bohemian girl from Omaha. John Bergson, Alexandra's father, passes away shortly afterwards, leaving the farm in Alexandra's hands, knowing that she is more familiar with the land than her brothers, Lou and Oscar. Alexandra convinces her brothers that they must mortgage their farm to buy more land, even though many of their neighbors are moving away due to drought and hard conditions of the soil. Carl Linstrum's family is one of the neighbors who leave for the city. Alexandra's premonition about the land turns out to be justified, and sixteen years after John Bergson's death, the family farm is very prosperous. Alexandra, Lou, and Oscar have divided the land between them, and Alexandra's farm is the most impressive of them all. She has sent Emil to university, and he has returned to help her with the farm. Alexandra has also taken in a man whom many others believe is crazy, Ivar, whom she recognizes as offering sound advice on caring for animals. Marie Tovesky has also married Frank Shabata, and now the Shabatas live on the Linstrums' old homestead. One day when Lou and Oscar are visiting Alexandra, Carl arrives, having come to visit the prairie. Alexandra is thrilled to see him and asks him to stay awhile. Carl, however, says he must leave soon to go prospecting for gold in Alaska. Lou and Oscar are wary of Carl's motives in visiting Alexandra, and they are suspicious of his wandering ways. However, Carl stays for a month, and Alexandra is pleased with his company. During this time, Emil also confronts Marie about his feelings for her. She refuses to acknowledge anything, which angers Emil, and he resolves to put off law school for a year. He decides to spend a year in Mexico instead. Meanwhile, Lou and Oscar confront Alexandra about Carl, saying that she is making a fool of herself by spending so much time with him at her age. They do not wish for him to marry into the family farm and inheritance. Alexandra grows angry with her brothers, but Carl is unable to deal with the criticism and leaves for the coast the next day, leaving Alexandra alone, with neither Emil nor Carl for company. When Emil returns to Hanover after his stint in Mexico, Alexandra shows him off at the French Church, where Emil and Marie finally share a kiss when the lights are extinguished. When Emil confronts Marie later, she admits that she loves him—but that she wishes he would leave her alone, since they cannot do anything about their feelings for each other. Emil resolves to depart for law school. However, Emil's best friend, Amédée dies suddenly of appendicitis, and his death leaves the town shaken. Emil rides away from the Sunday Mass to say goodbye to Marie before he leaves for law school, and instead finds her napping beneath the white mulberry tree in her orchard. He takes her in his arms, and she does not resist. Later, when Frank returns home after a day of drinking, he discovers Emil's mare in his stable, and grabs his gun to look for his wife. He wanders to the orchard hedge, where he finds the two lovers. In an unthinking rage, he aims and shoots three times, killing Emil and Marie. Ivar discovers the bodies in the morning, and he runs to Alexandra to deliver the news. When Alexandra recovers from her shock, she resolves to do something for Frank, who confessed to the murders and is serving a prison sentence in Lincoln. She visits the penitentiary and finds Frank much changed, though she still tells him she wants to help him. Having seen the news in a newspaper, Carl returns home while Alexandra is away, and when she goes back home with him to Hanover, the two finally decide to marry, no longer worried about Lou or Oscar.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Odour of Chrysanthemums - Point of view: Third person, primarily from ElizabethÕs perspective - Setting: Mining town of Underwood, Nottinghamshire; early 20th century - Character: Elizabeth. Description: Although the story is told in third person, the narration focuses itself around Elizabeth's perspective. Elizabeth is stern and practical in her behavior and appearance, with exactly parted black hair and dark eyebrows. She resents her husband, Walter, for his drinking and blames him for their failed marriage, though she is pregnant with their third child. Despite the resentment she feels towards her marriage, however, she remains a devoted mother, taking care not to upset her two children, John and Annie. After Walter's death, she comes to realize how her tendency towards criticism and judgment also contributed to the dissolution of their marriage. - Character: Walter. Description: Walter is Elizabeth's husband. He labors as a miner and has a drinking habit that often keeps him at the pub after work. Walter never appears in the story while he's alive, but his mining accident and subsequent death focus the story's plot, and Lawrence hints that the couple's dissatisfaction lies on both sides of the marriage. - Character: Walter's mother. Description: Walter's mother is hysterical when her son's death is announced. She jealously guards her affection for Walter, taking part in washing and dressing the body. Her attachment to Walter as a son is juxtaposed with Elizabeth's detachment to Walter as a spouse, but connected to Elizabeth's own behavior toward her young son, John. - Character: John. Description: John is Walter and Elizabeth's younger child. He wears grownup clothes that have been cut down to fit a five-year-old. John's behavior throughout the story is surly and stubborn, though Elizabeth is kind to him despite this, and he is said to resemble his father in his desire for more light in the house. - Theme: Isolation of Individual Lives. Description: When Elizabeth looks over Walter's dead body, she feels "the utter isolation of the human soul." She realizes that she and Walter have always been two separate entities who didn't understand one another, and even when they were physically intimate, there was a lack of understanding and emotional connection between them. She reacts flinchingly towards the baby growing inside her, as it's a reminder of the distance that couldn't be overcome between her and Walter, even by children. She understands that although the distance is emphasized now by death, they were removed from each other long before Walter passed away.Even before Walter dies, Elizabeth is a picture of isolation. At the very beginning of the story, she watches the miners pass, but her husband doesn't come. She commands the household on her own, and the references to Walter show that she's emotionally removed from him even before he dies. In the description of her son, John, for example, she sees "the father in her child's indifference to all but himself." Finally, the way the story's told—from Elizabeth's perspective, in her head—also emphasizes her solitude by further removing the reader from the perspectives of the other characters in the story. - Theme: Mother/Children Relationships. Description: At the beginning of the story, Elizabeth is seen interacting solely with her children, and although she grows impatient with them at times, she still worries about their safety and acts affectionately towards them. Her differing attitudes towards her children and her husband can be seen when John grumbles that the room is too dark—although his complaints remind Elizabeth of her husband's irritating habits, she laughs affectionately at the appearance of these habits in John. In general, Elizabeth is quickly conciliatory when dealing with John, even though he's surly and resentful.The contrast between mother/son and wife/husband becomes even more obvious when Walter's mother and Elizabeth react to Walter's death. As Walter's mother says, "But he wasn't your son, Lizzie, an' it makes a difference…" When faced with Walter's body, Walter's mother is able to remember all the endearing aspects of Walter from when he was a little boy she was raising, whereas Elizabeth feels suddenly that she was always married to someone she didn't know. - Theme: Wife/Husband Relationships. Description: Once Elizabeth's attention turns towards her husband, her feelings become resentful and angry. She blames him for upsetting the household and drinking too much. For example, Elizabeth regards chrysanthemum flowers bitterly because they were present when she married Walter and when the other men carried Walter back after he started drinking. She connects them with the resentment and regret she feels towards her marriage, holding onto those feelings without the same willingness to forgive that she shows towards her children. Even after she begins to worry about Walter and goes to search for him, she stubbornly believes that he likely went to the pub. Her anger towards him is almost a habit that she's unable to let go of. She realizes this later when looking at Walter's dead body, as his death finally shocks her out of her habitual resentment long enough to realize that the disappointment lay on both sides—she didn't make him happy either, since she never recognized who he was, busy as she was with resenting his influence on her life.Elizabeth's relationship with her unborn child actually reflects her feelings towards her husband more than her feelings towards her children. As the baby is still unborn and unformed, she feels that its presence is more a reminder of the distance between her and Walter, rather than a child she has maternal feelings for. - Theme: Life vs. Death. Description: The story is one of contrasts, the main one being the contrast between the living and the dead. This juxtaposition is shown through the story's symbols, such as the chrysanthemums, which at the beginning of the story, appear alive and growing outside the house, and towards the end of the story, are plucked dead—in one of Elizabeth's memories of Walter, they appear brown and wilting. Their odor, once Walter has passed away, also reminds Elizabeth of death ("there was a cold, deathly smell of chrysanthemums in the room").When Walter's body is brought back to the house, both his mother and Elizabeth are in awe of it. In death, he has a dignity he may not have possessed in life, and Elizabeth realizes that she never knew who he was; death reveals this truth to her. She turns her thoughts to practical questions as well—such as how she might raise her children on a small pension alone—as she realizes that although death is the ultimate master, life is her current ruler, and she has to answer to its demands immediately. Walter's peaceful appearance in death stands in contrast to Elizabeth's striving attitude in life, and yet she knows that she too will one day die. - Climax: Elizabeth and WalterÕs mother learn that Walter has died in a mining accident - Summary: A train passes by a mining town, where a woman calls to her young son, John, as the light fades to dusk. He joins her sullenly, pulling at the chrysanthemum bushes as they walk towards the house. The mother tells her son to stop, before plucking a branch of flowers to smell and tucking them into her waistband. The mother and son wait at the foot of the steps, watching miners heading home after a day of work. The train comes to a stop before their gate, and the engine driver, the woman's father, calls out to ask whether she has a cup of tea. The woman prepares some tea, bread, and butter, and she exchanges words with her father, expressing disapproval of his hasty remarriage. Her father defends himself and mentions that he heard news of Walter, the woman's husband, spending his money in pubs. The woman bitterly acknowledges that this news is very likely true. The woman's father pulls away in the train, and the woman, Elizabeth, enters the house and begins preparing the family's tea. Meanwhile, the day darkens, and there are fewer and fewer miners passing by on their way home. A young girl enters the house, and Elizabeth chides her for coming home late. Annie, the girl, responds that it's hardly dark out yet. Elizabeth asks Annie whether she's seen her father, and Annie responds that she hasn't. Elizabeth bitterly replies that he probably snuck by Annie on his way to the pub. Annie sits before the fire, admiring the flames. Her mother tells her that the fire needs to be tended to, or else her father will complain that the house isn't warm enough when he returns. As Annie tends the fire, John complains that she isn't working quickly enough. The children eat as Elizabeth drinks her tea, growing angrier as she waits for her husband. She puts coals on the fire, and John complains that it's too dark. Elizabeth lights a lantern in the middle of the room, revealing her stomach, rounded with pregnancy. Annie, upon seeing the chrysanthemums, gasps at their beauty and goes to smell them. Elizabeth says that chrysanthemums no longer smell beautiful to her because they were present when she married Walter, when she gave birth to Annie, and when others first brought Walter home drunk. Elizabeth sews as the children play, and eventually, she sends them to bed, promising that there won't be a scene when their father returns home. She continues to sew, growing worried as she waits. When the clock strikes eight, Elizabeth goes outside and walks to town, consulting another miner's wife, Mrs. Rigley. Mrs. Rigley goes to ask her husband whether Walter is in the pub, "Prince of Wales," while Elizabeth waits in the Rigleys' untidy home. When the Rigleys return, Jack Rigley admits that he left Walter finishing up a stint at the mine. He walks Elizabeth to her home before he leaves to search for Walter. Elizabeth waits, growing more and more anxious, when she hears a pair of footsteps at the door. Walter's mother enters the house, moaning. Jack Rigley told her that Walter had an accident, though she doesn't know how serious it is. When the men come to the door, Elizabeth is informed that Walter is dead. Walter's mother reacts hysterically, but Elizabeth warns her not to wake the children. The men bring Walter's body into the parlor, knocking down the vase of chrysanthemums, which Elizabeth cleans up. The noise wakes Annie, and Elizabeth goes to comfort her, while the men tiptoe out of the house. When Elizabeth returns to the parlor, she and Walter's mother strip and wash the body, as Walter's mother reminisces about Walter's childhood. Elizabeth realizes suddenly how far removed she and Water were, even in life. She acknowledges that she also played a part in the dissolution of their marriage because she never recognized Walter for who he truly was. After the women finish dressing Walter, Elizabeth locks the parlor door and goes to tidy the kitchen. She's aware that she must tend to her current master, life, but she fears death, which is the ultimate master.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Of White Hairs and Cricket - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Bombay, India in the 1960s - Character: The Narrator. Description: The story's narrator and protagonist is a 14-year-old Parsi boy living in Bombay, India in the 1960s. He is Mummy and Daddy's son and Percy's younger brother. At the beginning of the story, the narrator is tweezing all of the white hairs out of his father's head while Daddy looks for a job in the paper, like he does every Sunday. The narrator finds the ritual disgusting—and his grandmother, Mamaiji, thinks it will bring bad luck—but he does it anyway to appease his father. The narrator just wants to impress Daddy, who thinks men should "always" be tough, and his old Sunday morning routine with his father, playing cricket, used to let him demonstrate how tough he is. But they have since stopped playing, and now the narrator often ends up caught in the middle of arguments between his parents and grandmother over whether he should be raised to assimilate into Western culture or maintain Indian traditions. Because he looks up to Daddy so much, the narrator often pretends that these sorts of conflicts and difficult emotions don't bother him in the hopes of impressing Daddy. For instance, he teases his best friend, Viraf, for crying and never lets on that his family's arguments upset him. But when the traumatizing sight of Viraf's father on his deathbed reminds the narrator that his own father is aging, he realizes that Daddy is afraid of getting older and dying. Rather than learn from Daddy's stubbornness and accept aging, the narrator joins him in his prideful denial of the aging process, committing himself to plucking out the white hairs in the future and denying his own desire to cry and hug Daddy for fear of showing weakness. - Character: Daddy. Description: Daddy is Mummy's husband, Mamaiji's son-in-law, and the narrator and Percy's father. Daddy used to be a cricket player in school and can't accept that his body is declining as he gets older. While he used to organize cricket games with the boys in the family's apartment building, now he just makes the narrator pluck white hairs from his head to make himself appear younger. Appearing young and being tough are important to Daddy, and the narrator knows it—he often hides his physical and emotional pain just to impress his father. However, Daddy's attempts to appear young, tough, and successful are fairly transparent, surface-level solutions: he wants to lift his family out of poverty by getting a new job, appear prosperous by buying a new stove to replace the Criterion, and look younger by forcing his son to pluck all the white hair from his head. By stubbornly refusing to come to terms with his family's financial decline and his own physical decline, he creates an environment where his son learns to deny his feelings too. Ultimately, the narrator ends up burying all his feelings just to impress Daddy, and Daddy loses out on feeling his son's love. By attempting to live up to an image of ideal masculinity, Daddy ends up hurting himself and his son with his pride and his unrealistic expectations for himself and others. - Character: Mamaiji. Description: Mamaiji is the narrator and Percy's grandmother, Mummy's mother, and Daddy's mother-in-law. Although she was once "handsome," Mamaiji is now a very old woman with white hair, failing eyesight, and a stooped-over walk resulting from her weak spine and heavy stomach. Her body, in an advanced state of decline due to age, is one of the narrator's first impressions of mortality. Since her husband (the narrator's Grandpa) died, Mamaiji spends most of her time spinning thread to make into kustis for the family to wear to pray at the Parsi fire-temple. She often argues with the narrator's parents over how to raise their children: she thinks they don't feed the narrator enough and hates that they forbid him from eating spicy food, which she thinks has made his stomach weak. But since he is her favorite, she sneaks him spicy food when she can. Mamaiji good-naturedly teases the narrator for how his stomach can't handle traditional Indian cuisine, and her character generally represents the traditional Indian culture that the narrator's parents attempt to keep their sons away from. Mamaiji, Mummy, and Daddy's arguments boil down to the conflict between assimilating into Western culture and maintaining traditional practices. - Character: Mummy. Description: Mummy is Daddy's wife, Mamaiji and Grandpa's daughter, and the narrator and Percy's mother. When Mummy comes into the dining room with a plate of toast cooked over the Criterion stove in the kitchen, Daddy complains that the toast smells like kerosene and declares that he will get a new job and replace the stove. While Mummy is usually encouraging of Daddy's optimism, this time, she stays quiet until she eventually says that overthinking things will only hurt his chances. This characterizes Mummy as generally accepting of her lot in life and her role of serving her family, but her frustration with Daddy in this moment shows that the family's poverty does wear on her. The narrator's memories reveal that his parents have argued about money several times, particularly when Daddy used some of the family's money to buy a cricket kit. At the end of the story, the narrator pities his Mummy for being stuck in the kitchen that smells like kerosene. - Character: Viraf. Description: Viraf is the narrator's best friend; they used to play cricket together on Sunday mornings. After the narrator sees Viraf and Dr Sidhwa meet outside and then go into Viraf's flat, the narrator goes looking for Viraf when he doesn't emerge after a long time. Viraf is visibly upset, and after ribbing him for a while about being a "crybaby," the narrator learns that Viraf's father is dying. He overhears Viraf's mother talking about her husband's grim condition and is so disturbed by what he hears that he abandons his plans to play games with Viraf and sneaks back to his own flat. Confronted by his own parents' mortality, the narrator lies on his bed, upset. He feels particularly guilty for trying to seem tough by being mean to Viraf when he had no idea his father was sick. - Character: Viraf's Father. Description: Viraf's father is a fat, older man whom the narrator sees on his sickbed with a needle in his arm and a tube in his nose. The narrator overhears Viraf's mother talking about how her husband is in this condition because he refuses to take breaks while walking up the three flights of stairs to their flat, which causes him chest pain, and refuses to switch for a first-floor flat because he doesn't want to give up "paradise" on the third floor. Now that he is dying, only intensive care could help him, but there is no room for him in the hospital. Seeing Viraf's father makes the narrator realize that his Daddy is getting older and will die someday, too, so he runs back to his own flat and hopes that his father will ask him to keep plucking white hairs from his head so that he can help him fight back against aging. - Character: Viraf's Mother. Description: The narrator overhears his friend Viraf's mother talking about how she has tried for years to convince her husband (Viraf's father) that since he is older and overweight, he needs to take breaks when walking up the stairs to their third-floor flat, especially since the stairs cause him chest pain. She has also tried to convince him to trade their third-floor flat for a first-floor flat so he doesn't have to climb stairs, but he refuses to give up their third-floor "paradise." Now that her husband is terminally ill and in need of intensive care, the hospital has no available beds and she feels lost. Hearing Viraf's mother talking makes the narrator realize that his parents will die someday, too. It disturbs him so much that he abandons the idea of playing games with Viraf and runs back to his own flat. - Character: Dr Sidhwa. Description: Dr Sidhwa is the doctor who lives closest to the Firozsha Baag building complex and regularly makes house calls for sick people in the building. He is known as a pious Parsi man, and the narrator respects him. Dr Sidhwa comes to the building to attend to Viraf's father, who is terminally ill. - Character: Pesi. Description: Pesi is one of the narrator's friends and Dr Mody's son. Pesi used to make the narrator laugh by talking about his father passing gas, making the narrator wish that he felt comfortable telling personal stories about Daddy. At the time of the story, Dr Mody has died, and Pesi is off at boarding school. - Character: Percy. Description: Percy is the narrator's older brother. Percy is in college, and because Daddy thinks he needs to focus on his studies, he never has to pluck white hairs from his father's head like the narrator does. When Mamaiji sneaks spicy food to her grandchildren, Percy's stomach handles it much better than the narrator's does. - Theme: Time, Decay, and Mortality. Description: The characters in "Of White Hairs and Cricket" stubbornly resist the signs of age and decay that that surround them. For instance, the apartment building where the 14-year-old narrator and his family live is crumbling, but his parents ignore this by covering the gaps in the plaster with old calendars. The narrator's parents and grandmother are also visibly getting older, and his father asks him to pluck out all the white hairs from his head every Sunday—a routine that has replaced their old Sunday morning ritual of playing cricket together. Seeing his best friend, Viraf's, terminally ill father drives home for the narrator that his time with his own loved ones is limited—he becomes more committed to plucking his father's white hairs after this, even though he admits that he's "powerless to stop" his father from aging. Indeed, the only thing in the narrator's life that seems frozen in time is the Murphy Baby's eerily enduring smile on the old Murphy Radio calendar in the narrator's apartment, which gives the sense that the family is trying to cling to the past through this outdated calendar rather than accept that time is moving forward. Together, the characters' vain attempts to stop time suggest that while it's perhaps natural to resist mortality and decay, it's ultimately futile to do so, because these processes are inevitable for everyone and everything. The narrator and his family remain stuck in the past and try to cover up signs of aging and decay—but they are only avoiding reality and ignoring the inevitable. Outdated calendars cover the crumbling wall plaster in the narrator's home, serving as constant reminders of the past for him and his family. All of them seem to remember the past more fondly than they experience the present, and they aren't hopeful or optimistic. In fact, Daddy tells the narrator outright that there is "no future" in India, and the narrator spends much of the story longing for the days when he and Daddy used to play cricket together instead of focusing on his present or future. Daddy's focus on the past seems to make him less able to contend with the present: the narrator describes how every weekend Daddy goes through the same routine of looking for a job in the newspaper and having his son pluck out white hairs from his head to make himself appear younger. But he never seems to make any progress in his job search and starts the process all over again the next weekend. This ritual suggests that Daddy wants to believe that he's still a young man and that he has unlimited time to get a job—but his persistent white hairs prove that this isn't true. And by treating time as an unlimited resource, Daddy is avoiding the truth and failing to meet his family's present needs. Daddy's attempts to stave off aging are like his strategy for covering holes in the wall with calendars: only temporary and purely aesthetic. Beneath the surface, the problems the characters refuse to face persist. In particular, the photo of the Murphy Baby on one of the old calendars suggests that stopping time is impossible, and that the characters' efforts to do so are wasted. Since the Murphy Baby is suspended in a permanent state of infancy in the photo on the calendar, it is an exaggerated symbol of the kind of youth-preservation that Daddy is after. But the narrator doesn't seem to find the baby adorable or likeable—instead, he mostly notices the cracks in the wall plaster spreading out from behind the Murphy Radio calendar's curling edges. The Murphy Baby's youth clashes with this underlying decay, suggesting that decay will always set in, even if one tries to stop it. Moreover, when the narrator's parents compare the narrator's own smile as a baby to the Murphy Baby's "innocent and joyous" smile, their observations only serve to emphasize that the narrator has since grown up and lost his former innocence. He notes that the baby "would now be the same age as me," again suggesting that the family's attempts to live in the past and stave off aging and decay are in vain. But even though the narrator eventually recognizes that it's impossible to stop aging and decay, he adopts the same stubbornness as Daddy by the end of the story. After the narrator sees his friend Viraf's father on his deathbed, the signs of his own father's aging stand out to him more: "The lines on his forehead stood out all too clearly, and the stubble flecked with white[.]" That the narrator notices these features just after the traumatizing sight of Viraf's father dying suggests that the experience has made him realize that Daddy is getting older despite his attempts to cheat his own mortality. Rather than learning from his father's stubbornness, the narrator instead resolves to pluck out Daddy's white hairs with newfound intensity—"as if all our lives were riding on the efficacy of the tweezers." And rather than accepting that his father's mortality is a fact of life, he continues the cycle of trying to stop time from passing, even though he knows his efforts are futile. This suggests that even when people logically know that aging and decay are inevitable, it is perhaps natural and expected for them to resist these forces anyway. At the end of the story, the narrator collapses onto his bed and feels like crying when he thinks about how tired his grandmother Mamaiji looks, and how Mummy is "growing old" and giving up on her dreams. He regrets not being grateful enough for happy moments in his past, and he knows that he is "powerless to stop" Daddy's white hairs from growing back. That the story ends on this note suggests that although the passage of time is inevitable, it is perhaps also inevitable that people will cling to the past and dread the future—even to their own detriment. - Theme: Assimilation vs. Tradition. Description: From 1858 to 1947, India was under British colonial rule, and the British exploited India's labor and natural resources. As a result of this long occupation, many elements of British culture became commonplace in India. "Of White Hairs and Cricket" takes place in India 17 years after the country gained its independence from Britain, and the 14-year-old narrator and his family members have very different relationships to Indian culture and Western influence. The narrator's grandmother, Mamaiji, is more aligned with traditional Indian culture: she loves spicy food from street vendors, for instance, and encourages the narrator to eat it too. But Mummy and Daddy are more aligned with British influences: they eat "tasteless" Western food and try to keep the narrator from eating traditional spicy dishes, so those foods make him violently ill when he tries them. Moreover, Daddy wants the narrator to eventually immigrate to the U.S. because there is "no future" in India, and he instills a love of cricket (a British sport) in his son. Mamaiji and Daddy's different expectations of the narrator reflect the conflict between preserving tradition and conforming to outside influences that colonized people are forced to navigate. The narrator's physically painful experiences with traditional symbols of both Indian and British culture (spicy food and cricket, respectively) suggest that there is no clear solution to this dilemma, and that trying to fulfill the expectations of either culture will involve some level of suffering. Although the narrator and his family members all hold onto some Indian traditions, Mamaiji's and Mummy and Daddy's different views of Indian cuisine reflect how different generations respond to colonialism in different ways. The entire family comes together in their devotion to the Parsi faith, wearing the traditional kustis that Mamaiji spins thread for and regularly attending prayers. By maintaining their religious beliefs, the family resists total assimilation into Western culture. Yet the adults' relationships to British and Indian cultures also differ in some ways. For instance, Mamaiji largely rejects Western culture, carrying on the tradition of spinning thread and insisting on cooking traditional spicy meals and eating street food from vendors that travel door to door. Her habits represent a further resistance to assimilation and a desire to keep her own culture alive. Mummy and Daddy, on the other hand, try to keep spicy food out of the house and forbid the narrator and his brother Percy from eating it, thinking that it is unhealthy for their stomachs or somehow contaminated. This suggests that they have, to some extent, conformed to Western culture and now see certain elements of Indian culture as inferior, and even dangerous or dirty—a worldview that was common among British colonizers. As a result of these clashing attitudes, the narrator is caught between his parents' and grandmother's expectations of how he should embody Indian and British cultures. When the narrator was younger, Daddy taught him to play cricket, a British game that was only introduced to India because of colonization. On the other hand, Mamaiji seems to want the narrator to stay in touch with his Indian roots by learning how to haggle with vendors and eating traditional foods. But Daddy doesn't see this as worthwhile, because he believes India as a lost cause. He tells the narrator that the narrator should eventually move to the U.S. because there is "no future" in India, suggesting that his push for the narrator to assimilate to Western culture is partly for his own good (though he doesn't appear to consider what the narrator might want for himself). The conflict between these different sets of expectations comes to a head through food: the narrator often gets caught in the middle of the arguments between his parents and grandmother over what, and how much, he should be eating. Mamaiji wants him to eat spicy Indian food (which represents keeping tradition alive) while Mummy and Daddy do their best to keep him from eating it (which represents assimilating to Western culture). These arguments give the narrator headaches, and his literal pain is symbolic of the more figurative pain of trying to navigate one's identity in a postcolonial society. Beyond headaches, the narrator suffers in various ways while trying to meet both Mamaiji's and Mummy and Daddy's expectations, which suggests that navigating the conflict between tradition and assimilation is painful, no matter how a person goes about it. When the narrator plays cricket with his father, he knows that putting himself in harm's way and enduring pain—like he did when he blocked a shot with his bare shin—will gain his father's approval. But it comes at his body's expense, and he doesn't enjoy the pain. The physical suffering he experiences while playing this British sport represents the idea that although Daddy wants the narrator to assimilate to Western culture, the process would be emotionally and psychologically difficult, because it would mean giving up part of his identity. Conversely, the narrator's actually enjoys eating Mamaiji's spicy food even though it makes him violently sick. This subtly suggests that the narrator may feel more connected to Indian culture than British culture, but that trying to preserve one's traditions in an environment that's hostile to those traditions can be just as painful as assimilating. Importantly, cricket causes the narrator external pain (much like British colonialism is an external influence) while the Indian food causes him internal pain (which corresponds with the idea that his Indian identity is something inborn). This suggests that there is no clear way out of the conflict between British and Indian cultures that the narrator feels, because the conflict exists both around him and within him. Whether he assimilates, resists colonial influence, or chooses a combination of the two, he will have to endure some form of personal suffering and will inevitably disappoint some of the adults in his life. - Theme: Gender, Masculinity, and Pride. Description: The men and women in "Of White Hairs and Cricket" respond to challenges differently. On the one hand, the men in the story are afraid of showing weakness. For instance, rather than face aging (even resignedly), Daddy forces the narrator to pluck all the white hair out of his head every Sunday. He even stops playing cricket with his son seemingly because he doesn't want to be seen as weak when he gets tired. Similarly, Viraf's father, an overweight man, is now terminally ill because walking up the three flights of stairs to his flat taxes his heart so much, and he refuses to give up his upper-floor "paradise" even to save his own life. On the other hand, the narrator's grandmother Mamaiji, whose mobility and eyesight are deteriorating, accepts aging gracefully and warns Daddy against trying to fight time. And Viraf's mother describes how she tried to reason with her husband to take breaks between floors on the steps or move flats, but he refused her. With these differences—plus the narrator's description of how his father taught him "to be tough, always," despite any physical or emotional pain he might be experiencing—the story suggests that teaching men to be strong and silent actively harms the men who try to embody this ideal. Daddy's and Viraf's father's struggle against being perceived as weak ends up harming them (and the people around them) in the long run. Daddy is so fixated on appearing tough and fit—both of which are stereotypically masculine qualities—that rather than adapt to his aging body by resting during cricket games, he stops the games altogether. This decision negatively impacts the narrator's life: he misses cricket but can't share his feelings with his father about it, because his father has taught him "to be tough, always." In other words, the narrator is afraid of appearing weak or emotionally vulnerable in front of his father because these traits don't fit into Daddy's idea of masculinity. Viraf's father's struggle to admit when his body is declining likewise causes problems. However, his problems are physical: because he refused to take care of what seems like a heart condition, he is now dying. And, as a result, he cannot be physically strong or provide for his family. In this way, trying to embody a masculine ideal actually make Viraf's father less stereotypically masculine, as it weakens his body and makes him dependent on other people to care for him. And, more importantly, it makes him terminally ill, thereby putting his family in the position of losing a husband and father. Unlike the men in the story, Mamaiji, Viraf's mother, and Mummy accept their circumstances and encourage the men in their lives to do the same—but the men don't take the women seriously, and so their advice falls on deaf ears. While Daddy can work outside the home, the narrator describes how Mummy is trapped in the kitchen all day preparing food for the family, and how Mamaiji spends her days housebound, spinning thread. However, rather than resist their circumstances, both women make the best of their situations. Because they don't face the same expectations of looking "tough"—and because there are greater restrictions on their movements, abilities, and responsibilities as women—the women in "Of White Hairs and Cricket" face reality without pride getting in the way. Mummy, Mamaiji, and Viraf's mother each warn the men in their lives against ignoring their body's demands as they age. But since men aren't expected to listen to women in the society of the story, their pleas go ignored—and in the end, it is too late for Viraf's father. At the end of the story, the narrator chooses to follow in his father's footsteps and pursue a similarly prideful masculinity, suggesting that these sorts of ideals will likely persist as long as men pass them onto their sons. Although the narrator knows how Viraf's father's pridefulness has made him terminally ill, he cannot break free from Daddy's—and society's—expectations of him to be "tough," which includes denying the natural decline and decay of the human body. For this reason, he commits himself to plucking out Daddy's white hairs, something that Daddy enlists him to do in a vain effort to remain young and strong forever. The narrator makes this commitment in spite of the fact that trying to appear tough has literally hurt him in the past. For instance, when he got hit in the shin during one of his and his father's cricket games, he resisted the urge show pain in order to gain his father's approval. Now, he applies the same strategy to emotional pain: rather than face his father's morality directly or talk to his father about his fears, he lets Daddy's expectations dictate his behavior and sinks into denial. The narrator admits to himself that he knows he cannot stop the white hairs from growing on his father's head, suggesting that at least his denial of the aging process is not as complete as his father's. But he does not go so far as to face aging head-on, leaving the reader questioning whether he will turn out just like his father or be able to learn from his mother and Mamaiji to accept weakness and vulnerability as parts of life. - Theme: Colonialism, Exploitation, and Poverty. Description: "Of White Hairs and Cricket" takes place 17 years after India gained its independence from British colonial rule, but the damage that Britain caused to India's economy is still evident. For one, the narrator's family is poor enough that they can't afford to move out of their apartment building with crumbling plaster walls. In addition, there are hints throughout the story that India as a whole is similarly in economic decline, at least in part because British companies previously exploited India's natural resources and continue to compete with Indian companies. As a result, the narrator's father, whom he calls Daddy, continually tries and fails to lift his family out of their current financial state by finding a new job. Through the family's dire financial straits, the story shows how colonial powers wreak economic havoc on the places they colonize. Moreover, Daddy's fruitless aspirations to be wealthy and successful suggest that even after a country is no longer under colonial rule, formerly colonized people may be left disenfranchised and powerless to improve their lives. Both the British company calendars and the British kerosene stove in the family's home represent colonialism's detrimental impact on India's economy. The Murphy Radio calendar in the family's apartment advertises the British-made radios, and it features a photo of a baby with a wide-eyed smile. This ad is meant to associate the radio it's selling with the ideas of youth, happiness, and prosperity—things that the narrator's family is running short on. So, although the narrator's parents say that the Murphy Baby brightens the place up, it's also darkly ironic in that it reminds them of what they don't have—at least in part as a result of how Britain has crippled India's economy. The Lifebuoy Soap calendar (from another British-owned company that makes medicated soap) likewise reminds the family of what they lack: a lifebuoy, something that will suddenly appear to save them or keep them healthy. The fact that both of these calendars are advertising British companies suggests that this sort of advertising in an offshoot of Britain's former colonial control of India, as Britain still plays a large part in Indian culture and commerce. Yet Britain has not brought the sort of prosperity that the companies promise in these advertisements. Instead, Indian families like the narrator's are struggling to survive in the aftermath of nearly a century of oppression under colonialism. Similarly, Daddy aligns the family's British-made Criterion kerosene stove with the British themselves, casting it as an inadequate interloper in their family home—particularly since the stove is now old and barely functional. When he declares that he will replace it with an Indian-made Bombay Gas Company stove, his statement further links the economic strife his family (and India as a whole) is experiencing with Britain's former colonization. Because the effects of British colonialism still linger, Daddy is largely powerless to raise his family up out of poverty, even though India has ostensibly achieved independence. Notably, the narrator characterizes Daddy's search for a better job as a kind of ritual that he repeats every week. His lack of success despite continuous effort suggests that India as a whole is in decline, and that there aren't many jobs available. This is likely because India's economy is crippled as a result of Britain exploiting the country's labor and resources for so long, and because British companies are now competing with Indian companies (as evidenced by the ads on the calendars in the family's apartment). And given Daddy's weathered appearance and defeated demeanor, it seems that he has lost hope for earning more money and bettering his family's situation. Nevertheless, Daddy feigns enthusiasm over his job prospects and declares that he will buy the family a new stove as soon as he gets hired. While this purchase would perhaps make the family appear and feel wealthier than they are, it wouldn't actually change the family's class status or meaningfully help their money problems (nor would replacing their British stove with an Indian one make India as a whole any more prosperous). Daddy's impulse to consume is similar to how the family hangs calendars on the wall to cover up the crumbling plaster, or how Daddy plucks white hairs from his head to cover up the fact that he's getting older. In each case, the family is superficially covering up a problem because they are helpless to solve the root issue. Together, Daddy's fruitless search for a job and resultant self-destructive impulse to buy nicer appliances suggest that even after a colonized country has achieved independence, formerly colonized people still suffer and have few viable options to improve their lives. In this way, although the India of the story is an independent nation, it is not truly free, as the country is still paralyzed by the after-effects of colonialism. - Climax: The narrator resolves to pluck out Daddy's white hair meticulously and without complaint. - Summary: In the fictional Firozsha Baag apartment complex in Bombay, India, the narrator, a 14-year-old Parsi boy, has to pluck white hairs from his Daddy's head every Sunday morning. As he does so, his father searches the classifieds section of the paper for a new job. When Daddy shows signs of pain during the plucking, the narrator is surprised because his father has told him that he should always be tough. Once, when they were playing cricket together, the narrator blocked a shot with his bare shin, and Daddy was so impressed that told Mummy and the narrator's grandmother, Mamaiji, about it when they returned home. However, that had happened a long time ago, and now Daddy doesn't take the narrator to play cricket on Sundays anymore. While Daddy searches the classifieds, the narrator looks around the room at the calendars covering holes in the wall plaster, particularly the Murphy Radio calendar with the smiling Murphy Baby on it. Although Mummy and Daddy like the calendar, the narrator can see how its corners are curling with age while the smile remains unchanged. Mamaiji enters the room. As she pulls out her spinning thread and spindle, she criticizes Daddy for making the narrator pluck out his white hairs, saying it will only bring bad luck. The narrator is angry with her for criticizing his father and thinks about all the times he has wished that her thread would break while she spun—but when it actually did break, he would feel immensely guilty and run to help her. Mamaiji spun a lot of thread after her husband's death, enough that the whole family had several kustis to wear during prayers. Daddy cuts out a job ad that seems promising and tells Mamaiji that if plucking hairs would bring bad luck, then he wouldn't have found the ad. Mamaiji often argues with his parents about how they raise the narrator and their other, college-age son, Percy. Mainly, she thinks the narrator is underfed and that his parents have made him stomach weak by forbidding him from eating spicy food. When she could, she snuck spicy food to the narrator and to Percy, but it would make the narrator violently sick. As Mummy enters with a plate of toast cooked over the Criterion stove, Daddy reads aloud the ad for a "Dynamic Young Account Executive" he has found. Although Mummy is normally encouraging, this time she stays silent. Daddy turns up his nose at the toast, saying that it smells like kerosene from the stove and that when he gets a new job, the first thing he will do is get a real toaster. He jokes that since the British left India 17 years ago, it is time for their stove to go, too. Looking at the narrator, he says that one day he will find the money to send him to the U.S. because there is no future in India. Daddy keeps excitedly imagining the things he will buy with a new job, like a refrigerator, but Mummy interrupts him and tells him that planning too much will only ruin everything. The narrator likes the kerosene stoves and particularly likes looking into the Criterion's oil drum. He thinks about when he used to make sure the drum was full on Saturday nights, so that Mummy could make an early breakfast before cricket on Sunday mornings. He and Daddy had always left early, before almost anyone was awake, and walked through the city streets together, passing neighbors and homeless people and watching their antics. But he and Daddy don't play cricket anymore, nor do they fly kites. The narrator refuses to pluck Daddy's hairs anymore and leaves to read the comics, and he can tell Daddy is upset from the lines on his forehead. The lines remind him of his friend Pesi's father, Dr Mody, who used to be the building's go-to veterinarian before he died. After reading the comics, the narrator walks outside and sees the complex's doctor, Dr Sidhwa, meeting his best friend Viraf at the door. They disappear inside. The narrator remembers how Daddy arranged the boys in the apartment complex into teams and captained one of them, running and playing with the younger boys. But one day, Daddy had needed to rest in the middle of the game, and the narrator thought he looked old and upset. After that, the cricket games stopped. When Viraf doesn't emerge after a long time, the narrator goes in after him. Viraf is visibly upset, and the narrator makes fun of him for being a crybaby. Viraf tells him that Viraf's father is very sick. Viraf and the narrator sneak through Viraf's flat and the narrator sees Viraf's father lying in his sickbed with a needle in his arm. He overhears Viraf's mother talking about how her husband, despite his weight and chest pain, refuses to take breaks when climbing the stairs to their third-floor flat and refuses to switch flats with someone on the ground floor to preserve his health. Now he is terminally ill, and she doesn't know what she'll do when he dies. The narrator notices that the lines on Viraf's father's forehead look like Daddy's. Disturbed, he abandons Viraf and goes home. Back in his own flat, the narrator looks around at his family and thinks that Daddy looks old and tired. He wishes that Daddy would ask him to pluck the white hairs from his head, but he doesn't. The narrator decides that from now on, he will help Daddy pluck the hairs whenever he asks. Throwing himself onto the bed, the narrator wants to cry. He feels guilty for being mean to Viraf and feels sad for Viraf's father, Mummy, and Mamaiji as they age. Finally, he laments that he never thanked his father for cricket and that he can't stop the white hairs from growing back.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Old Man at the Bridge - Point of view: First Person from the Soldier's perspective - Setting: Near bridge over the Ebro River in Spain, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) - Character: The Old Man. Description: The old man, the story's central character, has fled his hometown to escape the encroaching violence of the Spanish Civil War. Throughout the story, he is sitting by the side of the road, exhausted from attempting to travel to safety and feeling that he can no longer go on. When the narrator (a soldier) stops to try to convince him to move along to a safer place, the old man reveals that he was reluctant to leave his hometown (the very mention of which is the only thing in the story that makes him happy) because he was the caretaker for a number of animals who might not survive without him. While at first he risked his life to stay and care for them, he evidently valued his own life enough to leave them behind when a captain ordered him to evacuate because of artillery fire. The old man says that he has no family, doesn't know anyone in Barcelona (where the fleeing masses are heading), and has no politics, and therefore no stake in the war. Without his animals, he has no great reason to live, and he tries and fails to walk again when the narrator urges him to keep moving towards safety. Feeling that he cannot help the man, the narrator moves on, concluding that the only luck the old man would ever have was that his cat, at least, was likely to survive, and that the enemy planes were grounded for the moment. Presumably, the old man is left to die. - Character: The narrator. Description: The narrator is a soldier for the Republican (left-wing) side in the Spanish Civil War. When carrying out his duties of determining the extent of the enemy advance, he finds an old man who is sitting by the side of the road in the enemy's path. He talks with the old man, trying to convince him to flee to safety, but he is constantly distracted by thoughts of the enemy's advancement. His responses to the man are often perfunctory or dismissive, such as when the man earnestly and emotionally inquires about whether the animals he left behind might survive, and the narrator simply answers, "Why not?" While the narrator does encourage the man to flee, he never tries to understand who the man is or what might motivate him, and he fairly quickly decides that, since there is "nothing to do about" the old man, he must leave. The reader concludes that the old man will die. - Theme: Life, Death, and War. Description: In "Old Man at the Bridge," the narrator—a soldier in the Spanish Civil War—tries to convince an old man sitting on the side of the road to get himself to safety before the fighting arrives. While the narrator clearly worries that the old man will die if he stays there, the old man isn't worried about his own safety; instead, he worries aloud about the animals he left behind when he fled his hometown. Both the old man and the narrator, then, are concerned with the survival of others (the old man about the animals, and the narrator about the old man). However, for both men, this concern is futile—after all, the animals have been abandoned, and the narrator walks away from the old man at the end of the story because there was "nothing to do about him." In this way, Hemingway shows the horror of war without even depicting any bloodshed. War takes lives ravenously and senselessly, even those not directly involved in the fighting, and it leaves people devaluing life, unable to perform even the simplest acts of salvation. From the outset, Hemingway is clear that the war—while still somewhat distant—is ominously approaching. In the opening scene, for instance, many exhausted people are fleeing across the pontoon bridge. The "carts, trucks, and men, women and children" are "stagger[ing]" and "plodd[ing] along in the ankle deep dust," all of them "heading out of it all." If there's any doubt as to what they're fleeing, the narrator quickly notes that his job is crossing the bridge to "find out to what point the enemy had advanced," making it clear that the violence of war has not yet arrived, but it is coming. While the narrator gives no emotional commentary about this approaching violence, the atmosphere is one of anxiety and dread, and his concern for the old man—his repeated urging that the man continue on to safety—betrays that he believes the man will die if he remains there. For the old man, however, the cost of war is not simply his life, since by the time the story begins, the war has already taken what matters most to him. When the old man tells the narrator the name of his hometown, "it gave him pleasure to mention it and he smiled." This is the only time that the story depicts a positive emotion, and it is associated with the memory of the town the old man has since fled (presumably for good) due to artillery fire. Therefore, even this small moment of happiness is merely an indication of what the man has lost. Furthermore, when he fled his hometown, the old man had to leave behind the animals for which he had been caring: two goats, a cat, and four pairs of pigeons. It's clear that this duty was important to him, because he was "the last one to leave" once the town was evacuated. Presumably, he stayed to care for the animals long past the moment when it was wise to flee. The other emotion that Hemingway flags in the story is the old man's anxiety over the animals—he says to himself that, "There is no need to be unquiet about the cat. But the others. Now what do you think about the others?" Clearly, the man is "unquiet" about all of these animals. The danger they're in torments him, and he worries about them more than he worries about his own life, which is endangered by his decision to sit by the road instead of fleeing. To him, though, the weight of what he has lost seems more important than what he might lose—his life—by remaining by the bridge. While the narrator does try to get the old man to safety, his efforts and sympathy are much less than the old man's acute concern for the animals. This begins to suggest the dehumanizing aspects of being involved in war. For example, the narrator doesn't seem to take the old man's concern for the animals seriously. When he tries to comfort the old man that the animals will "come through it all right," the old man asks, "You think so?" and the narrator's blasé and insincere response is, "Why not." Clearly, in the face of war, the narrator finds himself unable to relate to a concern for animal life. Furthermore, the whole time the narrator is speaking with the old man, he doesn't seem to be listening. Twice in a row the narrator asks the man what animals he left, and while the repetition might be because the man was vague in his first response, the narrator is explicitly thinking about the approaching battle while the old man speaks, which makes it plausible that he simply hasn't heard the man respond. Even while asking emotionally fraught questions, the narrator's mind is elsewhere: "'And you have no family?' I asked, watching the far end of the bridge where a few last carts were hurrying down the slope of the bank." Therefore, even though the narrator is earnestly trying to get the man to move, he is not relating to him as a person, which is perhaps why he gives up on the man quickly, stating that there was "nothing to do about him." Tragically, it seems that proximity to war has also made the old man devalue his own life, while the narrator—a soldier whose job is to kill the enemy—has seemingly begun to disregard the lives of others. Hemingway notes at the end of the story that the day is Easter Sunday—the day of Christ's resurrection, which evokes the possibility of eternal salvation for mankind. By contrast, while these two men both clearly desire to save lives (whether animal or human), the circumstances of war make them unable to succeed in even simple acts of salvation: caring for animals or making an old man cross a bridge. If Christ gave his life for mankind, while these men have begun to devalue life itself, then Hemingway suggests that the battlefield is a place without humanity or redemption. - Theme: Alienation. Description: The title character of "Old Man at the Bridge" has no family, no politics, and nowhere to go. The violence of the Spanish Civil War has forced the old man to flee his hometown and his beloved animals, which are seemingly the only sources of joy in his life. He sits by the side of the road while others flee, apparently resigned to dying there when the violence arrives. The story implies that it's the man's alienation that has drained him of the will to live—after all, he has no political stake in the conflict, nobody who can take him in, and he cannot return to his animals, which seem to be his only responsibility and connection to others. Furthermore, the narrator (who treats him with some detachment) fails to make a difference. In this way, Hemingway shows that war alienates people from the connections that are meaningful to them, and the man's presumed death suggests that alienated life is perhaps not worth living at all. Throughout the story, Hemingway illustrates how alienated the old man is from other people. This is apparent from the very beginning, as the old man is the only person left behind by the crowds of people crossing the river to safety, none of whom concern themselves with this exhausted and feeble man. Furthermore, when the soldier asks the old man about whether he has family, the man responds that he has "only the animals" that he left behind. Finally, when the narrator suggests that the old man catch a truck for Barcelona, the old man points out that he knows "no one in that direction," which suggests that human connection is important to him but lacking. In order to motivate himself to flee to safety, he has to be going towards someone familiar, but he seems to have nobody except the narrator himself, who is a distracted stranger with his own problems to attend. In addition to his alienation from other people, the old man has "no politics," which means that he has no allegiance to others in the war, and no stake in the violence that his displaced him. The rest of the civilian evacuees may not have strong political leanings, either (the story doesn't indicate that any of them support a particular side), but the manner in which the old man asserts that he has "no politics" suggests that he does not have any larger shared beliefs that would have joined him to others. Religion also unites people, but the old man does not appear to be religious. He never refers to God or prays aloud for the animals, despite his great concern for them. By rejecting politics and religion, the old man alienates himself further from the people around him and from the circumstances of his life. Without people or beliefs to live for, he has little incentive to push himself past his physical exhaustion. Despite his alienation, the old man is invested in forging connections with others, and it seems briefly as though connecting with the narrator might save his life. When the old man consults the narrator about the fate of his animals, he does so because he "ha[s] to share his worry with some one." The old man, then, is yearning to have his concerns acknowledged and understood, thereby making him less alone. However, the narrator does not compassionately address the man's grief. Throughout their interaction, the narrator refrains from getting overly involved with the old man. He responds to the old man inattentively, becoming distracted even when asking personal questions (such as whether the man has family) or when discussing emotional subjects (such as the fate of the man's beloved animals). Based on the man's yearning for companionship and his reluctance to go to Barcelona where he doesn't know anyone, a reader might guess that if someone really made an effort to make the old man feel understood and cared for, he might find the strength to continue on and spare his own life. However, the narrator does not connect with the man on that level, and he ultimately gives up on the man, leaving him by the side of the road. The narrator's paltry efforts at motivating the man and his distracted attention to the man's deepest fears seem like moral failings, an uncompassionate way to treat another person in need. This is perhaps starkest when the narrator decides to leave the man because "There was nothing to do about him," even though the narrator has tried hardly anything at all. Furthermore, the narrator notes that the old man will have no more "luck," which seems to absolve the narrator of responsibility by chalking the man's fate up to luck rather than to the narrator's own choice to abandon him. While this all makes the narrator seem like his emotional detachment is a moral failing, Hemingway also takes seriously the possibility that the narrator's alienation is the very characteristic that saves his life. When worrying about his animals, after all, the old man tells the narrator, "It's better not to think about [their fates]." Perhaps detaching from the animals might have helped the old man continue, but he is not capable of taking his own advice: he never stops thinking and talking about the creatures. This grief, coupled with his need for connection with others, seem to inhibit him from moving towards safety by making him feel that his life is not meaningful. By contrast, the soldier seems much better at not thinking about the harsh fates that others will experience. His ability to detach from the old man allows him to move to safety and continue on with his difficult job of preparing for combat. This outcome suggests that an excess of compassion for others is a liability in war, and that alienation can help one survive. However, as the man's choice to stay by the side of the road suggests, it's possible that an alienated life is empty and not worth living. - Theme: Religion and Morality. Description: "Old Man at the Bridge," a wartime story set on Easter Sunday, is full of both implicit and explicit references to Christianity. However, none of the story's characters seem to have faith in God or practice Christian morality, and all of the story's Christian references wind up corrupted: the doves that symbolize peace and hope have an uncertain fate, the old man evokes the Good Shepherd but he fails to care for his flock, and the narrator at first seems like he could be the Good Samaritan, but he does not put in the effort to save the old man's life. By showing the breakdown of religious meaning, both symbolically and in people's everyday lives, Hemingway highlights that war drives people to immorality and inhumanity. The old man in the story corresponds to a Biblical figure associated with love, mercy, and sacrifice: the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd (a representation of Christ) loves and protects all of God's creatures, even to the extent of sacrificing his own life for them. In compassionately caring for his animals, and even risking his life by postponing his evacuation from a war zone, the old man clearly resembles the Good Shepherd. However, when an army captain tells the old man that he must flee artillery fire, the old man evacuates, abandoning his animals instead of dying to protect them. This, coupled with the old man's presumed death at the end of the story, darkly hints that the compassion and sacrifice of the Good Shepherd have diminished—or even outright disappeared—in wartime. Furthermore, the relationship between the old man and the narrator evokes the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan. When the Good Samaritan finds an injured stranger who has been left to die at the side of the road, he stops to treat the man, saving his life. Similarly, in Hemingway's story, when the old man cannot walk any further to escape the advancing army, he sits on the side of the road and the narrator stops to urge him to flee to safety. However, these stories diverge in an important respect: the Good Samaritan goes to great pains to successfully save the injured man's life, while the narrator's attempts to move the man to safety are perfunctory and ultimately fail. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is meant to illustrate the Biblical teaching that one should "love thy neighbor as thyself," but everyone in "Old Man at the Bridge" fails to live up to this ethical imperative. This suggests that wartime has caused people to abandon their morals, leaving a selfish and chaotic world. Just as Hemingway darkly twists his references to the Good Shepherd and the Good Samaritan, he subverts Christian symbolism with his tragic invocation of doves. In the Bible, doves carried the olive branch to Noah as proof of God's miraculous redemption of humankind, making doves symbolic of hope and peace in Christian tradition. However, the meaning of doves in this story is not so clear. While the old man calls his birds "pigeons," the narrator wistfully refers to them by their more poetic name, "doves." This perhaps demonstrates the narrator's longing for peace and the promise of a world renewed amidst the horrifying reality of war. However, it's significant that the fate of these doves—symbols of hope and peace—is uncertain. The old man has left their cage open so that they might fly to safety, but both the narrator's and the old man's expressions of confidence in their safety ring hollow. By implying that the doves may die in artillery fire, Hemingway darkly hints that war not only destroys peace, but also hope for redemption. The story's most explicit reference to Christianity is the narrator's casual mention at the story's conclusion that these events take place on Easter Sunday, and this is perhaps Hemingway's most profound twisting of Christian imagery. Easter is the day on which Jesus rose from the dead following his crucifixion at the hands of his enemies, and the holiday embodies the miraculous possibility of salvation for mankind. However, Hemingway writes that "It was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were advancing toward the Ebro." Despite their Christian faith, the Fascists (the Spanish Civil War's most firmly Catholic group) have not paused their violent campaign. This associates them with the bloodlust of Christ's enemies and perhaps suggests that their faith is hollow. Furthermore, the narrator himself clearly has some connection to Christianity, as he does note the date. This casual mention of Easter, just after failing to save a life that should have been salvageable, suggests that the narrator is not overly troubled by the moral principles that this holiday evokes. Despite Hemingway's explicit and implicit references to Christianity throughout the story, religion is notably absent from the lives of the story's characters. Neither the old man nor the narrator ever suggest praying for the survival of the animals, and they both seem to have a fatalistic attitude about the future. After all, neither man seems to believe that God will intervene on anybody's behalf: the old man suggests that he shouldn't think about the bleak fates of his creatures, and the narrator notes at the end that the old man has run out of luck. Therefore, Hemingway depicts religion as impotent and hollow in the face of war. The characters seem to have no faith, and even Hemingway's mentions of Christianity gesture towards abdication of morality and hopelessness about the future. - Climax: The old man tries to walk forward but collapses - Summary: An old man sits alongside a bridge, exhausted and covered in dust. Many people are hurrying to cross the bridge with their families and belongings, but he is too tired to proceed. They are villagers who are fleeing from the fighting in the Spanish Civil War. The narrator, a soldier for the Republican (left-wing) side, spots the old man as he crosses the bridge to see if the enemy, the right-wing Nationalists or Fascists, are advancing behind them. When the narrator returns, most of the other evacuees are gone but the old man is still sitting on the ground. The narrator engages with him, trying to rouse him to keep moving toward safety. The old man says that he came from the town of San Carlos, where he was taking care of animals. The narrator wonders why the old man is telling him this until the man explains that he didn't want to desert his creatures, so he was the last person to leave his village. He worries about the goats, pigeons, and cat that he has left behind to die. Meanwhile, the narrator worries about the advancing forces who will surely try to kill them both. When the narrator urges the old man to try to walk until he can catch a truck that could carry him away, the old man can only fall back down, repeating, "I was taking care of animals." The narrator concludes that he cannot help the old man, and presumably leaves him to die there.

- Genre: Novel, Linked Short Stories - Title: Olive Kitteridge - Point of view: Third Person Omniscient - Setting: Crosby, Maine in the late 20th and early 21st centuries - Character: Olive. Description: Olive Kitteridge is a seventh-grade teacher (later retired) from Crosby, Maine, who is married to Henry and who is the mother of Christopher. Although she is the main character in several stories from the novel, in others she plays more of a supporting role. Physically, Olive is a large woman, and she often wears clothes that look old-fashioned, most notably the dress she wears to Christopher and Suzanne's wedding, which Suzanne insults behind Olive's back. Many characters find Olive grouchy or even scary, and it's true that she often speaks bluntly or sarcastically, even to her husband and son. But Olive is also a sympathetic character, particularly in the stories that take her perspective. These stories reveal that beneath Olive's intimidating exterior, she is in fact insecure, scared, or justifiably frustrated with the way her family ignores all the domestic work she does. Some characters get to see this caring side of Olive, like Kevin, who has a long talk with Olive in his car on a day he contemplates suicide. Suicide and depression loom over Olive's life—her father died by suicide, and the trauma she grapples with in the aftermath also helps explain why Olive can seem prickly on the outside. Olive's most difficult relationship is with her son, Christopher, who struggles to communicate with her and resists her efforts to make him a part of the local Crosby community. Olive's relationship with Henry can also be fraught, but she realizes how much she needs him after a stroke leaves him unresponsive. While Olive is frequently pessimistic, her story ends with her beginning to recover from Henry's and starting a new relationship with Jack, showing how people can be resilient even in the face of life's difficulties. - Character: Henry. Description: Henry is a pharmacist (later retired) who is the husband of Olive and the father of Christopher. The first story in the book treats Henry as the main character, showing how he spends time at the pharmacy with his new worker Denise in order to avoid having to deal with Olive's and Christopher's moodiness. Subsequent stories shift their focus to Olive and other characters, culminating in a shocking moment midway through when Henry has a stroke that leaves him unresponsive. Before his stroke, Henry was a well-liked resident of Crosby—unlike Olive—because of his easy-going nature and because he was more involved in community activities, regularly attending church services. But Henry's interactions with Olive show that beneath his likeable surface he could be more complicated. When Henry and Olive are taken hostage during a hospital robbery and fear they might die, Henry blames Olive for their poor relationship with their son Christopher. While his accusation has some truth to it, Henry also fails to take responsibility for his own shortcomings, which is a major source of strain in his and Olive's relationship. Henry moves to a nursing home following his stroke and later dies there. His character examines the difficulties of being a parent and a spouse, showing how even someone who seems agreeable on the surface can struggle to communicate with his family. - Character: Christopher. Description: Christopher is Henry and Olive's only son who grows up to become a podiatrist and eventually marry Suzanne, then later Ann. Because the story primarily follows the perspective of Christopher's parents, who often struggle to understand their son, Christopher, despite being an important character, remains a mystery throughout the novel. He seems to inherit depression from Olive (whose father was suicidal), acting sullen and withdrawn as a teenager. While Olive and Henry try to induct Christopher into local Crosby traditions by building a house for him and his first wife, Suzanne, Christopher quickly shows that he has little interest in continuing their lifestyle, moving to California and staying there even after he and Suzanne divorce. Even Henry's stroke does little to bring Christopher closer to Olive. Christopher's personality changes the most after he starts going to group therapy and meets his second wife, Ann. When Olive visits him at his new home in New York City, she is surprised at how talkative he is, but she still finds that the two of them struggle to communicate on important issues. Ultimately, Christopher and Olive's relationship shows how generational differences can make it difficult to communicate, causing parents and children to drift apart. Henry's character also shows how some people can find small-town traditions stifling instead of comforting. - Character: Kevin. Description: Kevin is a former Crosby resident who lives in New York City, training to become a doctor. He returns to Crosby with a rifle in the back of his car, seemingly planning to die by suicide. He had a difficult childhood due to his mother, who struggled with bipolar disorder and ultimately killed herself; Kevin discovered the body. One of Kevin's few friends in Crosby was Patty, who now works as a server in town. Olive was Kevin's teacher and always watched out for him, and she takes on this protector role again when she sees him in his car and senses something is wrong. Ultimately, Kevin's talk with Olive gives him hope again, and he gets a chance to prove himself when he sees Patty fall in the bay and risks his life to save her. Kevin's renewed embrace of life is a microcosm for the many ways that other characters in the novel find ways to keep living in spite of setbacks and depression. - Character: Jack. Description: Jack is a widower who went to Harvard and spent most of his life teaching as a professor in New Jersey before retiring with his wife to Crosby, Maine, where his wife dies. Olive only knows of Jack without knowing him personally until one day when she sees him collapsed on the ground and fears for his health. This leads to the start of a tentative relationship where Jack and Olive bond over their shared loneliness and commiserate over their strained relationships with their children (Jack doesn't accept his gay daughter who moved away). Olive is reluctant about the relationship every step of the way; initially she denies that she and Jack are dating, and she nearly breaks things off when she learns that Jack is a Republican who voted for George W. Bush, whom Olive hates. But ultimately, Olive decides to accept Jack's flaws and start a new relationship with him to make the most of her final years of life. - Character: Angie. Description: Angie is a middle-aged piano player at the Warehouse Bar and Grill who has serious stage fright and can't play unless she is drunk. She has a long affair with the town selectman Malcolm and gets along well with the people at the bar but otherwise lives a solitary life, in part because she still hasn't escaped the shadow of her overbearing and overprotective mother. One night, Angie briefly reconnects with fellow piano player Simon, but when he starts belittling her, she realizes that perhaps his life has also been a disappointment. Angie represents how beneath the seeming friendliness of small-town life, many people are still lonely. - Character: Denise. Description: Denise is the "mousy" 22-year-old woman who works in the pharmacy for Henry and who is newly married to Henry Thibodeau. Her diligent, modest behavior at the pharmacy contrasts with Henry's difficult son, Christopher, and Henry's outspoken wife, Olive. Denise provides an early example of how death haunts the town of Crosby, when her young husband Henry Thibodeau dies in a hunting accident, but she also demonstrates hope for the future, as she rebuilds her life with Jerry, who used to be a messenger at the pharmacy and who grows up and gains confidence through his relationship with Denise. - Character: Suzanne. Description: Suzanne is Christopher's first wife and Olive and Henry's daughter-in-law. She marries him just six weeks after meeting, and Olive and Henry initially support the marriage, since Christopher is 38 and they weren't sure if he'd ever marry. At the wedding, Olive overhears Suzanne insulting Olive's dress, so Olive secretly steals some of Suzanne's clothes. Shortly after Suzanne and Olive argue about whether tulips are annuals or perennials, Suzanne and Christopher move to California. Suzanne seems to become increasingly controlling, and ultimately, she asks to divorce Christopher. Suzanne represents the forces that motivate people like Christopher to leave small towns like Crosby, initially offering freedom but ultimately becoming stifling in her own way. - Character: Harmon. Description: Harmon is the owner of the Crosby hardware store who watches Tim and Nina with fascination. He cheats on his wife, Bonnie, with Daisy. Harmon is afraid of growing old, and this is part of the reason why it scares and disappoints him when Bonnie stops wanting to have sex. Harmon deals with his situation by getting invested in the lives of the young Tim and Nina, seeing their youth as an ideal antidote to the problems he faces now that he's older. But as Harmon learns more about Nina's eating disorder and watches her break up with Tim and die, he realizes that being young doesn't erase all life's problems. Still, Harmon's new relationship with Daisy suggests that people can have second chances later in life, even as it raises questions about the morality of his extramarital relationship. - Character: Nina. Description: Nina is a young woman who is in a relationship with Tim. She is dangerously thin due to an eating disorder. Nina's relationship with Tim falls apart after she finds out he cheated on her with her friend Victoria. Nina resists treatment for her disorder when she is in the hospital, and although many people in Crosby try to help her—including Daisy, Harmon, Olive, and her parents—ultimately Nina dies of her disorder. - Character: Marlene. Description: Marlene is the wife of Eddie, the local grocer, and the mother of three children, including Eddie Junior. The family is beloved in Crosby, and many people show up to the funeral when Eddie dies. Eddie's death leaves Marlene distraught since she and Eddie refused to accept the possibility that he could die, making plans about places to vacation if he recovered from his illness. Eddie's funeral is particularly devasting for her when her drunken cousin Kerry reveals she had an affair with Eddie. Despite all Marlene's problems, Olive still envies her because Marlene is able to mourn her husband properly—meanwhile, Henry is incapacitated and living in nursing home following a stroke, leaving Olive stuck in limbo. - Character: Daisy. Description: Daisy is a widow who had a much older husband and eventually has an affair with Harmon. She and Harmon briefly get to act like parents together as they attempt to help the young Nina overcome her serious eating disorder. When Nina dies, Daisy is devastated, but the event also adds urgency to her and Harmon's desire to be together and make the most of the time they have left. - Character: Winnie. Description: Winnie is Anita and Ted's young daughter and the half-sister of Julie. Winnie is loyal to both her mother and her sister, but their conflict over the status of Julie's relationship with Bruce puts Winnie in the middle of an argument. Ultimately, Winnie ends up lying to Anita to help Julie, and when Anita finds out, it seems to cause a permanent rift between Winnie and Anita. - Character: Anita. Description: Anita is a former beauty queen who is the mother of Julie (Julie's father left the family) and Winnie (whose father is Ted). Although Anita initially seems supportive of Julie after Bruce calls off the marriage on his and Julie's wedding day, it eventually becomes clear that Anita's Christian values and other traditional beliefs are driving a wedge between her and Julie. - Character: Julie. Description: Julie is a young woman whose fiancé Bruce backs out of marriage on the couple's wedding day, though he still wants to have a relationship with her. This causes conflict between Julie and her mother, Anita, who is so against Bruce that she's willing to pull out a shotgun to keep him away. - Character: Henry Thibodeau. Description: Henry Thibodeau is the husband of Denise who dies in hunting accident after his friend Tony mistakenly shoots him. He represents an ideal for Henry, who shares the same first name, since Henry Thibodeau is connected to the land (his parents are farmers) and he has a kind, meek wife (unlike the more abrasive Olive). - Character: Jane. Description: Jane is an old, retired woman who enjoys simple pleasures like seeing Christmas lights and going to concerts with her husband, Bob. But her simple life seems to fall apart when she realizes that Bob recently saw a former mistress in secret. The revelation upends Jane's contented life and makes her fear her own mortality. - Character: Eddie. Description: Eddie is the local grocer and husband of Marlene who dies young of an illness. He gives the story "Basket of Trips" its title because he and Marlene kept a basket in their house full of pamphlets of places they wanted to go if he ever recovered. When Eddie succumbs to his illness, the basket becomes a symbol of the regrets people leave behind when they die. - Character: Ann. Description: Ann is the second wife of Christopher and perhaps the only woman in the story who's even taller than Olive. She and Christopher meet at group therapy for divorced people, and therapy becomes a big part of both of their lives. Olive dislikes Ann because she thinks Ann is simple minded and because she watches Ann smoke and drink while pregnant with Olive's first biological grandchild. - Character: Bob. Description: Bob is an old, retired man who is married to Jane. He seems innocent and even boyish when he falls asleep at inappropriate times, but Jane learns that he's hiding a secret: he went to see an old mistress when he found out that the woman had been diagnosed with breast cancer. This revelation upends Jane and Bob's steady relationship, showing how even seemingly stable marriages can have secrets bubbling below the surface. - Character: Rebecca. Description: Rebecca is part of a family with many Congregational ministers whose father is dead and whose mother abandoned her to become a Scientologist. She talks a lot, which makes it difficult for her to get a job, but her boyfriend, David, always encourages her. As an adult, Rebecca starts getting the urge to shoplift and commit arson. - Character: Jerry. Description: Jerry is the delivery boy at Henry's pharmacy who often talks to Denise during his lunch break. He is heavy and sweats a lot. Denise convinces Jerry to start taking night classes at a local community college, which helps Jerry realize potential he never knew about. He ends up becoming Denise's second husband after the sudden death of her first husband, Henry Thibodeau. - Character: Louise. Description: Louise is the reclusive wife of Roger and the mother of the notorious murderer Doyle. At first, she seems to show sympathy for Olive after Henry has a stroke, leaving Olive a nice note. But when Olive comes over to visit, it soon becomes clear that Louise is mentally unwell and full of spite. - Character: Bruce. Description: Bruce is the fiancé of Julie. He calls off the marriage on their wedding day but still wants to stay in relationship. Julie's willingness to go along with this plan causes a major conflict between her and her mother, Anita, who is willing to use a gun to keep Bruce away. - Character: Mrs. Lydia. Description: "Mrs. Lydia" is the nickname Jane gives to the woman who is the mother of one of her daughter's friends (whose name is Lydia). Although Jane is usually polite with Lydia, eventually, she decides that she's had enough and that "Mrs. Lydia" deserves all the conflict she has with Lydia. - Character: Simon. Description: Simon is a man who used to date Angie, the main character of "The Piano Player," but broke up with her due to her neurotic personality and her close relationship with her mother. He returns to Crosby after living in Boston for many years and shows up at the cocktail lounge where Angie performs. After Angie turns down Simon's invitation to meet up after Angie's shift ends, Simon shares a hurtful story about Angie's mother visiting him in Boston and apparently trying to initiate sex with him. He claims he's felt sorry for Angie ever since. - Theme: Aging and Mortality. Description: Although it is a relatively short novel, Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge covers several decades of life in Crosby, Maine, and this allows the book to explore how the residents of that fictional town age and come to terms with their own mortality. Death is a constant presence for the characters—not just for the older ones, but even for the younger ones. Eddie Bonney, for example, is a young father who dies young of a disease, causing the whole town to come out for his funeral. Eddie leaves behind a "basket of trips"—a basket of pamphlets of places that he and his wife, Marlene, wanted to go if he lived. This basket of trips embodies what almost all of the characters in the novel fear: that as they age, they become closer to death and closer to leaving behind their own "basket" of things they wish they did in life. Just like Olive's tulips, which only bloom once, the characters in the novel act knowing that they have limited time to be alive. Sometimes this fear of death can have a positive effect, as it does at the end of the novel, when it motivates Olive to put aside her reservations about Jack and accept him for what he is so that she can make the most of the time she has left. More often, however, the fear of mortality makes the characters desperate. One of the major turning points in the novel is when Henry and Olive get caught up in a hospital robbery, and the fear of impending death causes them each to say insults about each other that they can't take back. Ultimately, Olive Kitteridge takes a dark view of aging and mortality, suggesting that, though aging can come with wisdom and a newfound appreciation of life, many people reach the end of their lives and feel full of regret for the things they didn't get to do. - Theme: Parenting and Communication. Description: The most prominent figures in Olive Kitteridge's wide cast of characters are Olive herself and her husband Henry, who struggle to raise their son Christopher and then struggle to figure out how to live their own lives after Christopher suddenly leaves town. At the center of such problems is a failure to communicate. When Christopher lives at home, Henry avoids his real family by taking refuge in his work at the pharmacy. He pays particular attention to his young worker Denise, who is diligent and interested in what Henry has to say, thus allowing Henry to live out his fantasy of being a good caretaker or provider. Olive, meanwhile, becomes increasingly resentful of all the thankless housework she has to do, but while she isn't afraid to complain, she usually takes out her frustration in other, more inscrutable ways, like when she secretly ruins some of the clothes of Christopher's new wife, Suzanne. Christopher himself isn't necessarily an innocent victim, as he refuses to communicate with his parents much at all, saying nothing at the dinner table when he's a moody teen and then refusing to call or visit his parents much when he's older. Communication problems between generations also run throughout the other families in the book. In the Harwood family, for example, there is a major communication gap between the mother, Anita, and the daughter, Julie. Julie isn't open with her mother about her feelings for Bruce, who rejected Julie at the altar but whom Julie still wants to be in a relationship with. The very religious Anita, however, doesn't approve of people living together unmarried. This forces the youngest daughter, Winnie, into a difficult position, as she has to decide whether to keep a secret about her sister's plan to run away. Winnie ultimately tries to be a good sister by keeping the secret but ends up disappointing her mother in the process. Olive Kitteridge dramatizes the gaps in communication between parents and children, arguing that the root of the conflicts between parents and children are not just about differing values but also about a failure to clearly communicate these values. - Theme: Mental Illness. Description: Mental illness—and especially depression—hangs over the small town of Crosby, Maine, as many of the characters seem to suffer from mental health issues, even though they sometimes go undiagnosed. Olive, for example, has a father who died by suicide, and it seems that some of his depression made its way into the genes of both Olive and her son, Christopher. Olive shows classic signs of depression, crying at unusual times, getting irritable over small things, and even occasionally contemplating suicide. While Olive lives with her symptoms without seeking professional help, looking for "little bursts" of pleasantness to get her through daily life, Christopher and his second wife, Ann, rely heavily on their therapist, even moving to New York City when their therapist moves there. Neither approach is a miracle cure, and so the question becomes how to live with depression. The novel suggests that, at its worst, mental illness can turn people into severe, even cruel versions of themselves, which is what happens to Louise, who barricades herself in her own home, defends the murder her son Doyle committed, and tries to convince Olive to try suicide. However, the novel also suggests that, more often, mental illness leaves characters feeling helpless, as Olive struggles to figure out what to do with her life after Christopher moves out and Henry has a stroke. Despite these destructive effects, however, sometimes a shared bond over depression or similar hardships is what brings characters together. Olive, for example, is seemingly able to talk Kevin out of suicide because she understands his depression in a way other people do, and Olive's depression about her relationship with her son later becomes the basis for her relationship with Jack, who is also depressed about his relationship with a child. In Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout depicts depression and mental illness as common aspects of the human condition, showing how such difficulties can ruin lives and keep people from achieving their goals while also occasionally bringing people together through a sense of shared experience. - Theme: Small-Town Life. Description: Almost all of Olive Kitteridge takes place in the fictional coastal town of Crosby, Maine, and the small-town setting defines many aspects of the story. Crosby is a place where just about everyone in town knows the name of the town's other residents. On the one hand, this can bring people together, as it does when most of the town gathers to help Marlene in the wake of the death of her husband, Eddie. But perhaps even more often, small-town life can also be alienating, as it is for Angie, who spends many years as a fixture playing piano at the Warehouse Bar and Grill and avoiding serious relationships, largely because her mother wouldn't let her leave town when she was young to go to a music school. People recognize Angie, but her life remains a mystery to them, suggesting how, in many cases, small-town familiarity is rather superficial. One of the central parts of life in Crosby is tradition. Olive and Henry build their own house, reflecting their own personal connection to the land where they live and where their ancestors have lived for a long time. But while this sense of tradition brings comfort to them (leaving Olive disoriented in strange environments like New York City), it can also be stifling for younger town residents who don't want the burden of keeping up tradition. Christopher, for example, rejects the house his parents make for him in order to live with Suzanne in California and escape his parents' constant influence. Similarly, Rebecca rebels against her family's Congregational traditions (as well as the general importance of Christianity in Crosby) by taking a sudden interest in forbidden activities like shoplifting and arson. Christopher wants to leave, and Rebecca wants to burn things down, and each of these actions represents an attempt to transcend small-town life and build a new type of life. Ultimately, Olive Kitteridge portrays how the good and bad of small-town life intermingle, including how a town built on tradition can foster community while at the same time leaving some residents feeling excluded or held back. - Theme: Marriage and Infidelity. Description: Much of Olive Kitteridge focuses on married characters, and in particular, these stories often explore the ways that past, present, or possible infidelity affects a marriage. Many characters have affairs, although most of these affairs are emotional and don't actually lead to sex or divorce. The novel explores both the consequences and the potential positive outcomes of characters desiring and acting on emotional intimacy outside of marriage. Olive, for example, is ready to leave her husband, Henry, for a man named Jim O'Casey, who dies in a car crash Olive even has the opportunity to have any sort of physical relationship with him. Nevertheless, despite her dissatisfaction with Henry over the years, when Henry's stroke and eventual death prompt Olive to look back on her marriage, she still feels grateful about her relationship with Henry, suggesting that even imperfect long-term companionship can have its own rewards. In fact, it's possible that the fleeting, unrealized nature of Olive's emotional affair with Jim O'Casey renewed her gratitude for the stable, enduring relationship she built with Henry. Similarly, after Harmon's adult children have moved out of the house and his wife, Bonnie, loses interest in sex, he seeks escape with Daisy, a local widow. Bonnie complains about how Harmon ignores her, but in some ways, his affair ends up being mutually beneficial, giving Harmon something to look forward to in his weekly schedule while relieving Bonnie of the unwanted task of trying to please her husband sexually. Ultimately, while the novel doesn't shy away from depicting the messy and difficult aspects of affairs, it also examines how marriage (or monogamy, in a broader sense) can cause those same issues. The novel's unflinching and honest portrayal of marriage and infidelity thus highlights the complicated, imperfect nature of interpersonal relationships. - Climax: Olive accepts a new relationship with Jack. - Summary: Olive Kitteridge has an overarching plot with recurring characters, but each chapter also functions as a self-contained short story. At the beginning, Olive and Henry Kitteridge are middle-aged parents in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine, and they have a moody teenaged son named Christopher. Henry tries to escape his home life by spending time at the pharmacy where he works with Denise, an agreeable and obedient young woman whose company is in stark contrast with his abrasive wife and unresponsive son. Olive, meanwhile, gets increasingly frustrated with Henry for evading his responsibilities, claiming that he doesn't appreciate all the domestic work she does and eventually deciding not to go to church so that she has more time for herself. Denise leaves the pharmacy after the sudden death of her husband, Henry Thibodeau, and Henry struggles to find comfort in the pharmacy as he once did. Olive is a teacher who has a family history of depression, and this helps her empathize with former Crosby resident Kevin, who returns to town with the intention of killing himself. After a long conversation with Olive, Kevin selflessly goes out in a storm to save his old childhood friend Patty from drowning in the bay. Elsewhere in Crosby, the middle-aged Angie continues to play piano several nights a week at the local cocktail lounge. She has severe stage fright drinks heavily before each performance, but one night, after seeing her former lover Simon in the crowd, she finally gathers the courage to break off her long-time relationship with the manipulative town selectman, Malcolm. Time moves quickly, and at 38 years old, Christopher unexpectedly gets married after meeting Suzanne just six weeks earlier. The wedding is difficult for Olive, who struggles to fit in with the crowd there and who overhears Suzanne complaining about Olive's dress. Olive takes anonymous revenge by stealing a loafer and a bra of Suzanne's, as well as leaving a black marker line on Suzanne's beige sweater. The local hardware store owner, Harmon, begins having an affair with Daisy, a widow who goes to the same church as Henry and whose much-older husband has died. Together, Harmon and Daisy try to help Nina, a young woman with an eating disorder, treat her condition, but even with help from them and Olive, Nina ultimately dies of her illness. Eventually, Christopher and Suzanne move to California, devastating Henry and Olive, who built a house for Christopher and Suzanne to live in. During a tense moment when Henry and Olive get caught as bystanders in a hospital robbery; fearing that they will die, each says awful things to the other about why Christopher left them. Henry and Olive survive the ordeal, but their marriage is never the same. At a winter concert, an elderly woman named Jane loses faith in her husband Bob after realizing that he saw an old mistress recently without telling her. Olive and Henry continue to have their own problems, as Christopher stays in California even after divorcing Suzanne. Then one day in the grocery store parking lot, shortly after Olive planted the tulips, Henry has a stroke and becomes unresponsive, unable to do much other than sit in a chair and smile. While Henry is in the nursing home, tragedy strikes again in Crosby as the local grocer Eddie dies young of a disease. Olive goes to attend the funeral and helps the new widow Marlene by clearing out her "basket of trips"—a basket in the closet where she and Eddie kept pamphlets of all the places they wanted to go if Eddie survived. Elsewhere in Crosby, a young woman named Julie gets rejected on her wedding day by her fiancé Bruce, who wants to live with her without marrying her. This causes conflict between Julie and her mother Anita, forcing Julie's young sister Winnie to lie on behalf of Julie, losing her mother's trust in the process. More time passes, and Henry remains at the nursing home. One day Christopher unexpectedly invites Olive to visit him in New York City, where he lives with his new wife Ann, whom Olive has never met. Olive doesn't like New York or Ann, but she's glad for a chance to be back in her son's life. She changes her mind, however, when they all go to get ice cream, and no one tells her about the big stain on her clothes—she thinks this is because they regard her as a helpless old woman. She leaves New York the next day, and her relationship with Christopher remains strained. Back in Crosby, a young woman named Rebecca struggles to get a job because she talks so much about unusual topics. Rebecca's father is dead, and her mother abandoned her to become a Scientologist. She develops a sudden habit for stealing things and starts making plans to burn down a building. Finally, after a long time in the nursing home, Henry dies. Olive feels lonely in her big house, until one day on a walk, she sees a local man named Jack who looks like he is in distress from a medical condition. Olive goes to help him, and it turns out he's OK after all. Olive and Jack form a bond and start going out to dinner together. Olive is reluctant to form any sort of relationship with Jack, particularly after she finds out he's a Republican, but ultimately, she learns to accept Jack as he is and starts to care about living again for the first time in a long time.

- Genre: - Title: Oliver Twist - Point of view: third-person omniscient - Setting: London, England, and the countryside surrounding, 1830s - Character: Oliver Twist. Description: The novel's hero, Oliver Twist is aged nine at the beginning of the novel, and several years older by the end (it is not clear exactly how much time elapses; he is probably about twelve). Born of an unwed mother, in a poorhouse, Oliver is raised in the same poorhouse, then apprenticed to a coffin-maker named Sowerberry. After getting in a fight with another apprentice regarding his mother's reputation, Oliver strikes out for London on foot, where he accidentally falls in with a group of thieves led by Fagin. Oliver is briefly saved by Brownlow, only to be retaken by Nancy, and involved, later, in a burglary of the Maylies' house that almost kills him. The Maylies, Rose and her aunt, take Oliver in, and the novel traces the discovery of Oliver's parentage, a secret kept close by Monks, Oliver's half-brother, who wishes to disinherit his brother and eliminate all traces of Oliver's high-born ancestry. Oliver ends the novel happily, having been adopted by Brownlow. Throughout the novel, Oliver remains a boy of good morals, despite his dire financial situation. - Character: Agnes Fleming. Description: Oliver's unwed mother, Agnes was engaged to Oliver's father, Edwin, but Edwin died before they could be married; Agnes was pregnant when Edwin died. Agnes gives birth to Oliver in a poorhouse, since her family has abandoned her in the wake of her pregnancy—at the novel's end, the narrator says that, though she was a fine woman, and beautiful, Agnes was "weak and erring," because of her dalliance with Edwin before their marriage. - Character: Edwin Leeford. Description: Married first to Monks' mother, and then engaged to Agnes Fleming, Oliver's father dies in Rome after having claimed his inheritance, which he intended to pass on to Oliver and Agnes. This money, instead, went to Monks' mother and to Monks, thus precipitating much of the drama in the novel—Agnes' giving birth to Oliver in a poorhouse, and Oliver's travails in finding out his true identity. - Character: Mr. Brownlow. Description: A man who becomes Oliver's adopted father at the end of the novel, Brownlow is robbed earlier in the novel by Bates and the Dodger, only to think that Oliver, who was with those two boys, was responsible. Brownlow recants his accusation and takes Oliver home, to nurture him, but when he sends Oliver out on a mission to return books (prompted by his friend Grimwig, to test Oliver's virtue), Oliver is re-taken by Fagin. Brownlow is distraught at what he believes to be Oliver's betrayal of him, but never entirely believes that Oliver is a bad at heart and spends the remainder of the novel solving the mystery of Oliver's birth and inheritance. - Character: Losborne. Description: A doctor and close associate of the Maylie family, Losborne cares for Oliver when Oliver is recovering from a gunshot wound in the Maylie home. Later, he cares for Rose when she falls ill with fever. Losborne, at the novel's end, moves close to Harry and Rose, as he has become almost a part of the family. - Character: Fagin. Description: One of the novel's trio of antagonists, Fagin is in charge of the "boys," his thieves, and their exploits pay for his life in London. Fagin attempts to make Oliver a thief, but fails; Fagin is later sentenced to death. Fagin is Jewish, and described in extremely anti-Semitic terms by the narrator. - Character: Monks. Description: The second of the novel's antagonists, Monks (whose real name is Edward Leeford) is Oliver's half-brother, and is hellbent on keeping his own fraudulent inheritance by eliminating all traces of Oliver's inheritance, and on making Oliver into a thief so that his name might be ruined. Monks fails in this attempt, after being caught by Brownlow, and admits to his misdeeds and acknowledges Oliver's true parentage. - Character: Charley Bates. Description: A young thief of Fagin's who is always joking and laughing, Bates undergoes a moral transformation in the novel: from ironic young criminal to defender of goodness after Bates realizes Sikes has killed Nancy. Bates ends the novel having given up crime and taken on a series of difficult jobs, working in the fields. - Character: Nancy. Description: Sikes' romantic partner, Nancy at first takes Oliver back to Fagin but later expresses regret for this, and attempts to protect Oliver as much as she can. After talking one night to Rose and Brownlow, and being overheard by Noah, Nancy is killed by Sikes in a rage, for Sikes believes Nancy has "peached," or ratted out the gang (despite the fact that she has staunchly refused to do so). - Character: Rose Maylie. Description: Mrs. Maylie's niece, Rose helps nurse Oliver back to health, only to catch sick later herself. Rose is in love with Harry, but social barriers (her low social standing) keep their marriage from occurring until the end of the novel. It is revealed, at the novel's end, that Rose is Oliver's biological aunt. Rose embodies pure goodness and generosity. - Character: Harry Maylie. Description: Rose's cousin, Harry is poised for a "brilliant" career in politics, but he renounces this, and takes on the life of a village parson, in order to marry Rose, who believes she is far too socially inferior to Harry to be an acceptable wife for him. The two live "happily ever after" at the novel's end. - Character: Mr. Bumble. Description: The village beadle of Oliver's home village, Mr. Bumble is another, more minor antagonist in the novel—he hates Oliver, and eventually marries Mrs. Bumble in order to take over the poorhouse's control, such that he can order paupers around. But Bumble is exposed as being complicit in a part of Monks' plot, and loses his social station—he and his wife later end up paupers in the very same poorhouse that they used to run. - Character: Blathers and Duff. Description: Two doltish investigators who attempt to see whether Oliver was one of the robbers of the Maylies' home, they are misled by Losborne and sent back to London with misleading information; Losborne makes it seem that Oliver was wounded in a coincident gunshot accident, and that Oliver therefore had nothing to do with the robbery. - Theme: Thievery and Crime. Description: Oliver Twist is, among other things, a meditation on the nature of criminality in 1830s England: an examination of who commits crimes; of the spectrum of crimes (from petty thievery to murder); and of the idea of criminality as a learned behavior or an innate quality. Oliver is born a poor orphan; he is raised in a workhouse and makes his way to London, where is "rescued" by a group of young thieves controlled by Fagin. Thus Oliver, according to Victorian ideas about the link between poverty and criminality, is seen as being "naturally" predisposed to crime, because he was brought up poor, and was not school educated. Oliver is also at risk of learning criminal behavior from Fagin, Charley Bates, the Artful Dodger, and Sikes.One of the novel's great questions, therefore, is: will Oliver succumb to this "natural" predisposition and learned criminal behavior, or will he retain his innate virtue? Dickens presents a full range of criminality as a means of describing English criminal society at the time of his writing. Sikes and Fagin are both shown to be "natural" criminals—meaning they are men for whom crime is an organic outgrowth of their innate badness or evil. But although Dickens is clear in his disapproval of Sikes and Fagin, he nevertheless reserves a certain amount of room for moral complication as regards the "criminality" of other characters in the novel. Dickens acknowledges that Nancy has been forced to commit crimes, but Dickens has a certain amount of sympathy for Nancy's condition, as she was forced to work for Fagin from a young age. The Artful Dodger and Bates are entertaining and funny characters, and there is a despair Dickens ascribes to their condition, as Fagin's servants and partners in crime (not out of choice, but out of necessity). The Dodger ends up going to a penal colony, and Charley decides he ought to find honest work, and begins a series of menial jobs after renouncing his life of crime. Monks is given part of his inheritance by Brownlow, in the hopes that he will change, but he, too, returns to crime.Oliver's purity and strength of spirit are never compromised throughout the novel; it is implied that his "gentlemanly" parentage makes it more likely that he will end up part of a stable family structure, and that he will become educated and find legal employment. Thus Dickens seems to indicate that criminality is, after all, a mixture of moral disposition and of circumstances. Bates transcends his circumstances to live a "legal" life, but his rewards are few, and his job training poor. Oliver is virtuous and strong, but also aided by the help of members of the middle class, and by the fact that he is of noble birth. - Theme: Poverty, Institutions, and Class. Description: Oliver Twist is a sustained attack on the British Poor Laws, a complex body of law that forced poor families to labor in prison-like "workhouses." One of the novel's effects is, simply, to describe what poverty was like at this time in England. Although many parts of English society had come in contact with the poor, few had read accounts of what it meant to be poor. Simply by telling of conditions in the workhouse, Dickens does a service to the English poor—he shows they are human beings, and that they are not treated as such.Dickens' description of the workhouses, and of Bumble and Mrs. Bumble especially, also serves to show that the Poor Laws are not simply dehumanizing—they are a part of the cycle of poverty rather than a remedy for it. The workhouse provides Oliver and others with no meaningful skills, and it feeds them so little that many simply become sick and die. Bumble is a "beadle," or an Anglican Church official in charge of managing the poor within each county. Dickens shows that Bumble behaves "un-Christianly" in hoping simply to shelve the poor in the workhouse, and to prevent them from leading meaningful lives. The novel's goal, then, is not just to describe English poverty—it is actively to change perceptions of both poverty and the general sense of Victorian society that poverty is being dealt with humanely and appropriately, in the hopes of changing society.Dickens' argument about poverty, social institutions, and class immobility is a complex imagining of the interrelation of the three. Dickens believes that workhouses play to the worst desires of people in power—people like Sowerberry and the Bumbles—to keep the poor poor. The workhouses then enable the middle and upper classes to argue for a self-fulfilling prophecy: that people who have no options in life, no ability to make a positive contribution to society, either die or become society's outcasts. Dickens does not excuse crime committed by those who are inherently evil (Fagin and Sikes), but he does tend to be more sympathetic to the lives of those that have been determined by terrible circumstances (Oliver, Nancy, Bates and the Dodger). Dickens champions Oliver above all, since Oliver struggles so mightily to maintain his goodness, and manages to do so. - Theme: Individualism and Social Bonds. Description: Oliver Twist presents, also, an inquiry into the nature of "individualism" in 1830s England, and in the social bonds that must be formed and sustained by individuals if they are to prosper. One of the novel's most notable scenes is Fagin's speech, to Noah, arguing that one must look out both for "Number One" (oneself) and "the other Number One," or Fagin. The thieves Fagin controls all look out for themselves, since they would probably not work for Fagin if they were able to earn their living elsewhere. But Fagin argues that, since he is in command of this band of thieves, he is truly their Number One, or the figure they must obey if they are to continue living.Fagin's organization of the group is based primarily on fear; if the thieves do not rat one another out, they will be saved from the courts and hanging. Dickens shows that this is not a strong enough social bond to keep the boys safe. Bates eventually leaves his life of crime; the Dodger is taken into court, and the boys are encouraged to believe that the Dodger will long be remembered for his defiance in the courtroom. Sikes hangs himself by mistake, and Fagin is tried and sentenced to death on the scaffold.Oliver, however, is an example both of the importance of a strong individual work ethic and of social bonds. Oliver leaves Sowerberry; braves the criminals of Fagin's gang in London; escapes to Brownlow; is recaptured by Fagin; survives a gunshot to his arm and dodges Sikes; and finally educates himself under Brownlow's tutelage. If it weren't for Oliver's goodness and his drive to better himself, he would have remained at Sowerberry's for the rest of his life. But Oliver also benefits greatly from the love he receives from Brownlow, Rose Maylie, Mrs. Bedwin, Mrs. and Harry Maylie, and Mr. Losberne. Dickens praises these social bonds above all—the bonds of love and of a family-like atmosphere. The Maylies and Mrs. Maylie move to a parsonage with Oliver, who is officially adopted by Brownlow, so that he can continue in his education with all the legal protections afforded to the child of a gentleman. - Theme: Social Forces, Fate, and Free Will. Description: In the novel, "fate" is revealed to be an interaction of social forces or pressures on one's life, and one's decisions as an agent possessing free will. Oliver is an orphan and a pauper, meaning his "fate" is more or less sealed from birth: social forces appear poised to keep him in a "low" position forever. But Oliver, as it turns out, is the illegitimate son of a gentleman, and his father has inherited enough money to be able to pass some on to Oliver. Thus Oliver has a competing fate: that of a son who realizes his fortune later in life. The grand question of the novel, then, is which fate will determine the course of Oliver's life: the fate of the pauper, or the fate of the gentleman?Other characters have their fates set up and determined in interesting ways. Monks, also the son of a gentleman (he and Oliver are half-brothers), seems not to be able to "realize" his fate as a gentleman himself—he become a criminal, and even after inheriting half of his father's money, he dissipates it away and returns to crime. Fagin and his crew—including the Dodger—are mostly fated to remain criminals. Although Fagin does everything he can to avoid detection, it is not a surprise when he is captured at the novel's end, and sentenced to death. Similarly, the Dodger, despite his skill in thievery, accepts that it is his fate to be sent to a penal colony. Sikes understands that, after he kills Nancy, he is a hunted man, and that he can never recover the "normalcy" of his life-in-crime before the murder. Rose and Harry, too, seem fated to be together. When Harry first proposes to Rose, Rose rejects his offer of marriage—not because she does not love him, but because Harry is poised for a brilliant career, and she comes from a disgraced family. But Harry implies that he is willing to alter the trajectory of his career, to take over the modest life of a country parson, in order to "level" his social relationship to Rose, and therefore to facilitate their marriage. Thus the novel shows that, although there are many strong social forces appearing immutably to "fate" characters to certain destinies, characters can, through exceptional strength of character, determine their own paths in life. - Theme: City and Country. Description: The novel takes place in two separate, morally distinct locations: the Country and the City. The Country is everything outside London and its outlying villages; London is the primary City. To Dickens, the country is a place of peace, quiet, hard work, and strong family structures that ensure people continue to work hard and avoid criminality. The city, however, is a place of difficult working conditions, where the poor are crowded together, ground down by all the difficulties of "modern" industrial life.Oliver, tellingly, comes from the "country," from a town environment relatively far from London. He makes his way to London to avoid Sowerberry, the coffin-maker, and a live of terrible poverty in the workhouses, but what he finds in the city is not a means of escape, but rather, a more difficult life: one of forced criminality. Only when Oliver stumbles, half-dead, upon the Maylies' house far outside the city, does he begin to recuperate, to think longingly for Brownlow, and to begin to find a stable family life. Oliver ends up near a country parsonage at the novel's end, with the Maylies and those who care about him; he is adopted as Brownlow's legal son, allowing him to be educated in peace and quiet.Dickens wrote during the English Industrial Revolution's most robust stage—when cities were becoming "the" location for all those hoping to make their fortunes, and to rise up out of poverty. But cities were also repositories for vice and poverty, and seemed to provide ammunition for those who sought to equate the "social diseases" of poverty and criminality. Thus Dickens has a complicated relationship to the city and the country as he describes them. He believes that Oliver's virtue is best suited to the country, but that country is rapidly disappearing as England becomes more connected by rail and roads, and more economically dependent on the factories of the city. Dickens does not advocate that the country should remain wholly separate from the city, or that the city should cease to exist. Rather, he seems to argue that the country provides a kind of serenity and family structure that should be brought back to the city. - Climax: Oliver is shot by a servant of the Maylies; he recovers under their care, and begins the process of learning his true parentage - Summary: Oliver Twist begins in a workhouse in 1830s England, in an unnamed village, where a young woman, revealed to be Oliver's mother, gives birth to her son and promptly dies. The boy, lucky to survive, is raised until the age of nine in a "farm" for young orphaned children, and then is sent to the local workhouse again, where he labors for a time, until his innocent request for more food so angers the house's board and beadle, Mr. Bumble, that the workhouse attempts to foist Oliver off as an apprentice to some worker in the villager. Oliver is eventually given over to a coffin-maker named Sowerberry. Oliver works as a "mute" mourner for Sowerberry, and must sleep at night among the coffins. After a fight with Noah, another of Sowerberry's apprentices, over Oliver's unwed mother (whom Noah insults), Oliver runs away to London, to make his fortune. Near London, Oliver meets a well-dressed young boy who introduces himself as the Artful Dodger, a thief under the employ of a local crime boss named Fagin. The Dodger takes Oliver to Fagin, who promises to help Oliver but really holds him hostage, and forces him to go on a thieving mission with the Dodger and Bates, another young criminal. Bates and Dodger try to steal the handkerchief of an old man, who notices Oliver (an innocent onlooker), and believes him to be the thief. Oliver is caught and hauled to jail, only to be released into the old man Brownlow's company after Brownlow sees that Oliver had nothing to do with the crime. Brownlow nurses Oliver for a time and vows to educate him properly. But after sending Oliver out to return some books and money to a bookseller, Brownlow is shocked to find that Oliver does not return—Oliver has been picked up by Nancy, an associate of Fagin's, and taken back to the criminal gang. The remainder of the novel comprises Brownlow's attempts to find Oliver, and Oliver's attempts to escape Fagin, his criminal associate Sikes, and the other boys. Fagin orders Oliver to accompany Sikes and another thief named Toby Crackit on a house-breaking, in a country village, that goes awry; Oliver is shot in the arm in the attempt, by a servant named Giles of the Maylie house (the house being broken into); Oliver nearly dies, but walks back to the house the next morning and is nursed back to health by Rose, Mrs. Maylie, and a local doctor named Lorsborne. Lorsborne later takes Oliver into London to find Brownlow, but they discover Brownlow has gone to visit the West Indies. Oliver is crestfallen, but is happy nonetheless with the Maylies, and is educated by an old man in the Maylies' village. Later, on a trip into London, Rose is visited by Nancy, who wishes to come clean about her involvement in Oliver's oppression, and Oliver finds that Brownlow is back in the city, having returned from the West Indies. Meanwhile, Mrs. Corney, mistress of the workhouse, receives a package from a dying woman named Old Sally, which Sally in turn received from Oliver's mother upon her death. The package contains material indicating Oliver's family history, which is of interest to a friend and shadowy associate of Fagin's named Monks. Nancy meets with Rose and Brownlow in secret in London, to discuss what she has overheard, from Fagin and Monks, regarding Oliver's parentage; Noah, sent to spy on Nancy, overhears this conversation, and reports it to Fagin. Fagin tells Sikes, misleadingly, that Nancy has "peached" on the whole gang (even though Nancy refused to incriminate Fagin or Sikes to Brownlow), and Sikes, in a fit of rage, kills Nancy, then goes on the lam with his dog. Brownlow realizes that he recognized Oliver as resembling the picture of a woman in his parlor, and also recognized a man he comes to realize is Monks. Brownlow pieces together the mystery of Oliver's parentage: Oliver's father is also Monks' father, and Monks' mother defrauded Oliver's mother, an unwed woman named Agnes, of the inheritance Oliver's father, Edwin, intended to leave to Oliver and Agnes. Monks wishes to destroy these facts of Oliver's parentage in order to keep all the inheritance for himself. But Brownlow confronts Monks with these facts, and Monks agrees, finally, to sign an affidavit admitting his part in the conspiracy to defraud Oliver. Meanwhile, the members of Fagin's gang are all caught: Noah; Charlotte, his partner; the Dodger; and Fagin himself. Sikes dies, by accident, attempting to escape a mob that has come to kill him following Nancy's death. Brownlow manages to secure half of Oliver's inheritance for Oliver, and gives the other half to Monks, who spends it in the New World on criminal activity. Rose Maylie, long in love with her cousin Harry, eventually marries him, after Harry purposefully lowers his social station to correspond with Rose's; Rose was said to be of a blighted family, and in the novel's final surprise, this "blight" is revealed: Rose's sister was Agnes, meaning that Rose is Oliver's aunt. At the novel's end, Oliver is restored to his rightful lineage and is adopted by Brownlow. The pair live in the country with Harry, who has become a parson, and Rose, along with Losborne and Mrs. Maylie. Oliver can, at last, be educated in the tranquility and manner he deserves, as the son of a gentleman.

- Genre: Campus Novel - Title: On Beauty - Point of view: Third Person Omniscient - Setting: Wellington College and North London - Character: Howard. Description: - Character: Kiki. Description: - Character: Monty. Description: - Character: Jerome. Description: - Character: Zora. Description: - Character: Levi. Description: - Character: Carlene. Description: - Character: Carl. Description: - Character: Victoria. Description: - Character: Erskine. Description: - Character: Chouchou. Description: - Character: Claire. Description: - Character: Dean French. Description: - Character: Chantelle. Description: - Character: Felix. Description: - Theme: The Nature of Beauty. Description: - Theme: Politics in Academia. Description: - Theme: Race and Identity. Description: - Theme: The Value of Family. Description: - Climax: Zora learns that Howard and Monty are each having affairs with students. - Summary: Jerome is a student at Brown doing an internship abroad in London, and while he's there, he stays with the family of Monty Kipps, a deeply conservative Rembrandt scholar who is the rival of Jerome's father, Howard Belsey. Jerome is infatuated with the Kippses' seeming closeness, which they credit to their Caribbean heritage. Jerome soon emails his father that he plans to get engaged to Victoria, Monty's teenage daughter. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Howard is a professor also specializing in Rembrandt at Wellington College, near Boston. He is white and originally from Northern London, while his wife, Kiki, is Black and originally a hospital administrator from Florida. Together, they have three children, with Jerome being the oldest, Zora the middle child, and Levi the youngest. Zora is a student at Wellington College who wants to be an academic like her father. Levi, meanwhile, distances himself from his family, adopting streetwear clothes and a distinct way of speaking inspired by hip-hop. When Howard hears about Jerome's engagement, he takes off for England a day earlier than he was planning to (for a work trip) in order to confront Jerome about the engagement. He misses Jerome's next email telling him that his engagement to Victoria is already off, and this leads to an awkward confrontation between Howard and Victoria's brother, Michael, who is surprised to learn that the engagement ever happened in the first place. Embarrassed, both Howard and Jerome leave England. Months later, back in Wellington, Jerome tries to help his family bond by suggesting they go to a Mozart concert. While they're leaving, Zora accidentally swaps CD players with Carl, a 16-year-old spoken word prodigy. Levi is immediately impressed by Carl's streetwise attitude. Later, Zora also takes a liking to Carl when she sees him at the pool and realizes how muscular he is. Eventually, Howard hears that his rival Monty has accepted a position at Wellington College. Howard is concerned about this but soon has even bigger problems when, during Howard and Kiki's 30th anniversary party, Kiki learns that Howard had a three-week affair with his old friend and colleague Claire (instead of a one-night stand with a stranger, as Howard claimed earlier when Kiki first confronted him about the affair). This revelation makes the already-distant Belsey family even more tense. While dealing with her husband's infidelity, Kiki befriends Carlene, the wife of Monty who now lives with her whole family in Kiki's neighborhood. Carlene and Kiki bond over a mutual appreciation of a Hyppolite painting. Still, Carlene's actions remain mysterious, and Kiki sometimes worries that Carlene is avoiding her. While on a vacation in London, Kiki and the other Belseys learn why Carlene's behavior was so mysterious: she was hiding the fact that she had an aggressive form of cancer, and even her immediate family didn't know. At Carlene's wake, Howard has sex with the much-younger Victoria. Carlene left behind a note to give the Hyppolite painting to Kiki, but Monty holds a family meeting where he decides that Carlene wasn't in her right mind and so the painting should instead stay in his office at Wellington. After the funeral, back in Wellington, a fight escalates between Monty and Howard over a series of lectures Monty plans to give. Monty casts the lectures as a free speech issue and uses a faculty meeting to rant against liberal concepts like affirmative action. Howard, however, accuses Monty of potential hate speech and points to homophobic positions Monty has endorsed in the past. Meanwhile, Carl gets drawn into a related campus controversy. While Zora is in Claire's poetry class, Claire takes them on a field trip to the Bus Stop, where everyone in the class sees Carl perform and is impressed with him. Claire invites Carl to take her class even though he's not an enrolled student at Wellington. Monty seizes on this issue, believing that it is a waste of university resources to teach a student who isn't enrolled. Zora sees an opportunity to make a name for herself on campus, and so she starts to campaign on behalf of Carl for his right to stay in Claire's class. While the rest of the family is busy with campus matters, Levi loses his job at a music megastore after he tries to organize a strike to protest working on Christmas. He meets some street hawkers who sell bootlegs and is initially impressed by how they seem to be the most "authentic" version of Black culture he has ever experienced before. But as Jerome gets to know a Haitian immigrant street hawker named Chouchou, Jerome learns that things aren't so simple. While Chouchou meets some of Levi's expectations about urban Black men, he confounds others, revealing that he taught French literature when he lived in Haiti. Finally, the scandals on campus reach a climax when Zora learns that not only did her father have sex with Victoria, but also that Monty was having sex with a student intern named Chantelle who is in Claire's poetry class. At the same time as this news comes out, the Hyppolite painting disappears from Monty's office, and Carl is falsely accused (when in fact it was stolen by Levi and Chouchou, who were attempting to reclaim a part of Haitian culture). Both Howard and Monty get to keep their jobs for the moment, but each is revealed as a hypocrite and takes a serious blow to his reputation. Several months after the news of the scandals comes out, Howard signs a form to split his bank account from Kiki's, revealing that they are in the early stages of separation. Nevertheless, Howard has a chance to at least redeem his career and potentially make tenure at Wellington by giving an important speech on Rembrandt. Howard arrives to the speech late and without his notes, and so instead of giving the speech, he just wordlessly flips through a PowerPoint presentation. Howard notices Kiki smiling at him in the crowd, and he smiles back. Although she eventually she looks away, her smile remains. The novel ends with Howard zooming in on a slide of Rembrandt's painting of his lover wading into water, Hendrickje Bathing.

- Genre: Short story - Title: On Her Knees - Point of view: First person through the narrator Victor - Setting: Suburban Australia - Character: Victor Lang. Description: Victor is a twenty-year-old law student. Victor is close with his mother Carol, who pays his tuition by cleaning houses, and occasionally helps her clean when he's not in class. Extremely protective of Carol, he hates the idea of her scrubbing the floors of strangers who mistreat, exploit, and underpay her. When one client accuses Carol of the theft of a pair of earrings and fires her, yet still asks Carol to return for a final week of work, Victor is outraged on her behalf and insistent that she not go. Victor is stubborn and drags out the argument for a full week. When he eventually goes with his mother to help clean the client's apartment, he is angered and confused as to what kind of person would treat his mother so poorly. Though he searches for incriminating evidence, he finds no answers in the house. He is both covetous of the wealth evident in the house and wary of it. When he discovers the missing earrings under the bed, he thinks he's cleared Carol's name. He is disheartened and sick when Carol explains that, in this case of the wealthy client's word against theirs, there is no real way to clear her name. Ultimately, though, he trusts and respects Carol more than he disdains the wealthy client. He takes heart in his mother's pride and optimism and decides to follow her example by leaving the earrings on the counter rather than throwing them in the cat litter box. - Character: Carol Lang. Description: Carol is Victor's mother and his sole provider after his father walked out on them when Victor was sixteen. To support them, Carol cleans houses in the wealthy suburb nearby. She takes great pride in her work and in her good reputation. Victor describes Carol as a stickler for order, with high standards and unimpeachable integrity. After she is accused by a client of stealing a pair of earrings and fired from a job (but also asked to clean for one more week), rather than taking petty revenge as Victor urges, she remains calm and dignified. Conscious of her delicate position, she takes care to not do anything that might look like an admission of guilt. She cleans the apartment meticulously one final time to show the client what she's losing and refuses to take anything from her—either money or cleaning supplies. Carol has a strong sense of self-worth, but, at the same time, is aware of her disadvantages as a working-class woman, unable to truly defend herself against the accusations of the rich. In her behavior, respectful and generous, she sets a good example for her son, prompting him to set aside his feelings of vengeful pettiness after he discovers the missing earrings so that he leaves them on the counter for the client to find. By the end of the story, Victor fully sees Carol's strength and integrity, and she appears to him as being haloed in light almost like an angel. - Character: The client. Description: After losing a pair of earrings, the client accuses Carol of stealing them without evidence and fires her despite years of faithful service. Not only that, but the client then presumptuously asks Carol to come clean her apartment for one further week while she finds a replacement cleaner. As Victor cleans the apartment with his mother, he snoops around to try and figure out what kind of person would fire his mother and then ask her to return, but he can't find anything to explain it. Nor can he find anything incriminating about her. She has academic materials and feminist books. In the photos above her desk, she looks happy and loved by her friends. At the same time, Victor finds her apartment a little sad. Victor and Carol find the missing earrings beneath the head of the bed, proving the earrings must not have been very important to her, as she never mounted an exhausting search for them, yet she fired Carol over their disappearance. The client's failure to search her house thoroughly before accusing Carol implies that even as she seems like a decent or even good person to her family and friends of the same class, she's careless, lazy, unforgiving, and unjust toward Carol and, more broadly, people of the lower class. - Theme: Class, Money, and Power. Description: In "On Her Knees" by Tim Winton, Victor Lang's mother Carol works as a cleaner in the homes of wealthy clients. By having the working-class Carol and her son Victor go into the homes of wealthier clients, the story sets up an exploration of the qualities of and relationship between these two different classes. Put simply, the story portrays the working-class Carol as dignified, trustworthy, decent, and industrious, while, in contrast, presenting the upper-class people whose homes Carol cleans as careless, lazy, and greedy in their actions with the working-class. By centering the story around an accusation of theft leveled by one wealthy client against Carol, the story captures how the upper-class is instinctively suspicious of the working-class people whom the wealthy assume to be their inferiors, and how the upper-class's money and social connections combine to give them the power to exploit and control working-class people such as Carol. The working class, represented in the story by Carol, is portrayed as honorable, honest, and possessing a "stiff-necked working-class pride." After the client's accusation of theft, Carol brings her own cleaning supplies (rather than using the client's) to the client's apartment, and leaves the money she's owed for her work, both as a statement of pride by refusing to take anything further from the client and as a statement of integrity by insisting that she wouldn't steal so much as a bottle of Windex. Victor characterizes the wealthy upper class as alien to working-class people like him. He can't imagine living as they do, arrogantly inviting strangers into their houses to clean up their mess. When Victor finds the earrings Carol was accused of stealing on the floor in the apartment, it reveals the client's carelessness and laziness. Rather than searching thoroughly for the earrings, she immediately assumed Carol stole them. In Victor's eyes, the wealthy are self-important, ignorant, and careless with both their possessions and the lives of the people they employ. Victor is suspicious of the wealthy in general and the client in particular, searching her house to find something incriminating about her. What he discovers, though, is that she's in many ways a perfectly normal person. Her pictures reveal that she's loved by her friends and family. This portrayal of the client as ultimately ordinary emphasizes the pervasiveness of wealthy people's disdain for the lives of the working class. As made clear in Carol's inability to fight back against the accusations of her client, the money and social connections of the wealthy give them power over the working class. Carol has no real recourse to the false accusations of her client because she must stay on the good side of her clients to maintain her reputation, which would be easily destroyed by careless slander. She can't "force the issue" by bringing in the police to prove she did not take the earrings to clear her name, because in order to keep getting work from other clients she must be discrete and not cause trouble for their wealthy peers. Her very livelihood depends on her ability to be what her clients want her to be: convenient, relatively cheap, and close to invisible. Though she is skilled at fulfilling those requirements and excellent at her job, she lives with the risk of being replaced at the first sign of inconvenience. Even when Victor and Carol find the missing earrings, Carol understands that there is no way to clear her name because the client has the social power to make any claim against Carol that she wants. It would be all too easy for her to argue that Carol stole the earrings and then later brought them back. Carol has no power to act—only to react to the accusations placed on her by responding with dignity and being accommodating towards her accuser. She is helpless to publicly respond against the power of her clients to exploit, control, and eventually discard her. Through Victor's perspective and the client's mistreatment of Carol, the story presents an almost entirely negative portrait of the wealthy. Carol is portrayed as a kind of working-class hero, a David valiantly and gracefully facing down the Goliath of wealth simply by continuing to do her job. In contrast, the story presents the wealthy as holding themselves up as superior to the working class while emphasizing how this self-regard is in fact the root of the everyday evil of the upper class's moral deficiency. - Theme: Integrity and Reputation. Description: In Tim Winton's "On Her Knees," Victor Lang's mother Carol, who works as a housecleaner for wealthy homeowners, is accused by one of her clients of the theft of a pair of earrings, fired, but requested to clean the apartment for one final week as the client finds a replacement. When Carol and Victor return for the final cleaning, they find the missing earrings beneath the client's bed. Through this situation, the story dramatizes the difference between reputation and integrity. While Victor believes the discovery of the earrings should clear Carol's reputation, Carol understands that it won't—the client might just argue that Carol returned the earrings and then claimed to have found them. This dynamic enrages Victor, who then seeks to take some sort of revenge on the client, whether by finding some incriminating evidence about the client or by leaving the found earrings in the kitty litter. But Carol takes an entirely different tack: she cleans the apartment thoroughly and perfectly, using her own tools rather than the client's, and refuses to take any money for doing the job. While Carol recognizes she can't make an outward show to manage her reputation—her wealthy client will always have more sway in public than Carol will—Carol insists instead on maintaining her own integrity, and as the story ends Victor sees her as a kind of hero for this insistence. Ultimately, the story portrays reputation as something external, subject to forces beyond a person's control, and part of a game that has to be played but isn't a measure of personal worth. In contrast, by showing Victor's growing understanding of the strength of his mother's integrity, the story presents integrity as inherent, entirely subject to one's own control, and the ultimate measure of personal worth regardless of class, wealth, reputation, or anything else. When Victor discovers the missing earrings on the floor beneath the client's bed, he wants to aggressively and proactively clear Carol's name by involving the police or confronting the client with the evidence that "she was too lazy to look for." Carol, however, knows that such attempts will only backfire, harming her reputation rather than salvaging it. The client has the social power to "say anything" about Carol; she could easily claim that Carol stole the earrings and later brought them back to save her reputation. Taking direct action against the client will only prompt the client to further slander her and would likely alienate her other clients as well. Carol is adamant that her reputation—her "good name"—is all she really has. Clients care about her reputation more than anything, but the story makes clear that Carol doesn't have control over it—it is subject to the whims of clients and the dangers of careless accusations. Any attempts to insist upon her innocence and salvage her reputation will only make her look guiltier because reputation is external, built by others and not truly hers to shape. Reputation is important—vital to her work—but it is not a true reflection of Carol or her worth. When Victor understands their helplessness in protecting Carol's reputation, he responds by initially wanting revenge. He snoops around the apartment, hoping to destroy the client's reputation by finding something incriminating, but ultimately finds nothing to satisfy him. He also finds ways to pettily make the client suffer. He tries to convince Carol to take the money and leave without completing the job and cleans the cat litter box only halfheartedly before dropping the earrings into it. Carol's behavior, however, is dignified and respectful. She completes the work perfectly, using her own tools, and refuses payment. In doing so, she insists on her own integrity in a way that not even the client could deny. She can't control her reputation, but she can control her integrity and her response to adversity. Integrity, the story implies, arises solely from Carol's own actions and attitude—no client or "talk" can take it from her or deny it. Witnessing his mother's example, Victor recognizes that his actions work counter to her belief in personal integrity. He sets aside his plans for revenge, rescuing the earrings from the cat litter box and setting them on the counter next to the money Carol refused to take. In this quiet act, Carol asserts her integrity to the client in a private way that the client can't refute or respond to. The final image of the story, Carol bathed in the light of the open doorway of the client's apartment, shows her through Victor's eyes as a kind of hero or even an angel. Her reputation remains beyond her control, and she doesn't force the client to publicly clear her name, but, more importantly, she passes every test of adversity in upholding her personal integrity. Though Victor acts through much of the story as the metaphorical devil on Carol's shoulder, urging her towards behavior that would prioritize her reputation at the cost of her integrity, he eventually recognizes that the measure of a person's true worth lies in integrity rather than reputation. There would be no satisfaction in an avenged reputation, but Victor finds contentment and pride in the knowledge that Carol's integrity shines through all the external debris. - Theme: Pride and Dignity. Description: Tim Winton's "On Her Knees" tells the story of Victor Lang and his mother Carol, who cleans houses for a living. Victor hates the idea of his mother scrubbing other people's floors, while Carol insists that there is more honor in cleaning someone else's house than in hiring someone to clean your own. Though Carol is beloved by her clients for her rigorous work ethic, the story focuses on the aftermath of a particular client's accusation that Carol stole a pair of earrings while cleaning her apartment. The client fires Carol yet asks her to return to clean her apartment for one final week until she can find a replacement. Victor considers the client's accusations to be both unjust and demeaning, and thinks that returning to clean the apartment would be shameful. He tries to convince his mother not to go, or, if she must go back, to do a poor job of cleaning the apartment in retribution. However, rather than finding the work demeaning, Carol insists on returning to the apartment and cleaning it thoroughly as proof of her dignity and personal pride. Through Carol and Victor's initially differing understandings of pride and the way that Victor comes to see Carol's view as the correct one, the story suggests that true pride and dignity come from within and are unaffected by circumstance, mistreatment, or insults. At the outset of the story, Victor understands pride as something that can be insulted, injured, and taken away by others. He doesn't see Carol's job as a house cleaner as something to find pride or honor in, but rather as a downgrade from her former profession as a receptionist. Since he already finds the profession undignified, he perceives the client's unjust accusation as a further attack against his mother's hard-won dignity and responds as if pride is a scarce resource or the product of a zero-sum game: to save his mother's pride he tries to find ways to injure the client's pride. Carol, too, perceives the situation through the concept of pride. But her understanding is opposite to Victor's. She sees pride as something that she naturally has, and so rather than respond to the client's slights by trying to tear the client down in turn, Carol instead simply asserts her own pride by not only returning to the apartment but also cleaning to the utmost of her ability. The morning of the cleaning, Carol stands in Victor's doorway to "lecture [him] on the subject of personal pride." Though the lecture ends before they leave, the teaching experience continues through the day as Carol models her understanding of pride to Victor. Victor is frustrated by Carol's decision to return to clean the apartment and her lack of desire for retribution on her client. Carol's idea of getting back at the client, rather than embarrassing the client by snooping for evidence or taking the money without doing the job, is living well, completing her job in a way that brings her pride, and leaving the position as gracefully as possible. Her pride is not dependent on the actions of others, but, rather, reflects her judgement of herself and her performance. She takes pride in a job well done and knows that she has worked to the best of her ability for the client. The accusation has no effect on her personal pride. As Victor realizes that no actions of his will affect the client or prove his mother's innocence, he comes also to better understand Carol's idea of pride as unassailable. He can't control the actions of others, only his own responses to them. He comes to see that there is no reason that the wrongs of the client should reflect poorly on Carol—it is unfair and unjust. In the same way, it is unfair of him to insist her pride has been injured by something out of her control. As the day progresses, Victor himself finds no dignity or pride in his initial instinct to act pettily and seek revenge on the client. Rather, he discovers dignity in his mother's behavior and in his own behavior modeled after hers. Through Victor's change of heart, the story suggests that Carol's idea of pride is the correct one. The actions of others might affect her reputation, but they can't touch her dignity or her pride in her work. With the realization that Carol's dignity—and his own dignity—is uninjured by the client, Victor is content to leave the client behind. - Climax: Victor and Carol find the missing pair of earrings - Summary: In "On Her Knees," Victor Lang's mother Carol Lang takes pride in her excellent reputation as a cleaner in the houses of a wealthy suburb. Victor, a law student, hates to think of his mother scrubbing the floors of strangers who patronize and underpay her, but still sometimes goes and helps her with jobs when he doesn't have class. One long-time client accuses Carol of stealing a pair of earrings and immediately fires her, but also asks Carol to return to clean the apartment for one final week while finding a replacement. Victor thinks it's unfair of the client to ask Carol to return and tries over a several-day-long argument to convince Carol not to go. Carol insists that she will return to clean the apartment because it's a matter of personal pride. Victor finally concedes and goes along to help her. They continue their argument in the car on the way to the apartment. Victor finds it demeaning to clean the apartment of a client who accused Carol of theft. When he wonders why the client hasn't reported the missing earrings to the police, Carol theorizes that it's because the client already found the earrings and just didn't tell her. Carol resolves to show the client the mistake she's making in firing her by cleaning the apartment flawlessly. In the apartment, Carol finds an envelope with money in it and a note from the client that upsets her. As Victor and Carol clean, Victor thinks about the carelessness of the clients who don't clean their own houses, and how arrogant they must be to not be bothered by the cleaners touching their belongings. Victor snoops around the client's possessions, hoping to discover something incriminating, but can't find anything. In the pictures above the client's desk, she looks decent and loved by her friends. Victor wonders again why the client didn't go to the police about the missing earrings. It occurs to him suddenly that the client might have suspected him of being the thief rather than Carol and decided not to go to the police as a kindness to Carol. He asks Carol whether the client suspects him of the theft, and she tells him not to be silly. He asks why they don't just clean the place lightly and leave with the money, but Carol tells him that it would look like an admission of guilt. She won't go to the police herself, either, as Victor suggests, because she knows it would look bad to her other clients. As Victor vacuums in the client's bedroom, something hard gets sucked into the vacuum. Victor has to open the vacuum to fish it out. Among all the hair and gunk, he finds one of the missing earrings. He searches the same area, and finds the other on the floor near the head of the bed. Carol realizes that the client must have accidentally brushed the earrings off the pillow and probably didn't look for them when they went missing. Victor thinks that they have at least cleared Carol's name, but Carol knows they haven't. She explains that there's no way to truly clear Carol's name if the client thinks she's guilty. For instance, the client might just claim Carol brought the earrings back to save her job. Carol has no way to fight back and Victor feels sick at the thought. Initially, Victor takes the earrings and throws them in the cat litter box for the client to find if she chooses to look for them. But after Carol finishes cleaning the apartment and declares that she won't take the money that the client left her because she's worth more than that, Victor retrieves the earrings, cleans them off, and leaves them on the counter beside the money. He sees Carol framed angelically in sunlight in the doorway and leaves the apartment feeling calmer.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Once Upon a Time - Point of view: First Person and Third Person - Setting: Unspecified but heavily implied to be South Africa during apartheid. - Character: The Narrator. Description: The unnamed narrator, a woman writer, is the protagonist and narrator of the frame story. It is implied that, like the man and the woman in the inner story, the narrator lives in apartheid-era South Africa. And, like the couple, the narrator lives in fear that, since she has more than others (namely the impoverished black people who are oppressed under apartheid rule), others might take what she has. However, the narrator appears far more conscious of the racism that plagues her society than the characters in the inner story. It's implied that she's politically on board with ending apartheid and seems keenly aware of the suffering of the underclasses. Unlike the man and the woman, the narrator doesn't protect her house from intruders, a decision that's presumably because of her politics—after all, people around her are experiencing violence in their homes and she herself is afraid, so it seems like not protecting herself is a conscious ethical choice. However, when she hears a noise in the middle of the night, she immediately jumps to the conclusion that she's about to be killed or robbed. Although she's wrong—the sound is just the foundation of her house shifting—her knee-jerk reaction highlights how the inequality of material conditions breeds fear, which is the thematic crux of both stories. Having the right politics and making minor ethical decisions—signifying her unity with poor black South Africans by not barricading her house, even though that does nothing to change their material conditions—does not put the narrator's conscience at ease or keep her safe from the consequences of an oppressive society. Violence, the story suggests, is a natural consequence of living in an oppressive society, and there's nothing the narrator can (or should) do to insulate herself from it. In this vein, Gordimer seems to implicitly praise the narrator for her ability to squarely face the truth of her nation's awful social reality by telling herself the story of the man and the woman instead of a comforting bedtime story. With this, Gordimer seems to imply that telling truthful stories is a necessary (but insufficient) step toward rectifying social wrongs. - Character: The Man / The Husband. Description: One of the protagonists of the second story, the man is the woman's husband and the little boy's father. Though both the man and his wife are preoccupied with their material possessions, the man takes this to a greater extreme. Much of the story centers around his efforts to protect the family's possessions from outsiders—who, significantly, are poor black people oppressed under apartheid—like building a higher wall in the garden, installing electronically controlled gates, putting up threatening signs, and, eventually, outfitting the exterior of the house with lethal razor coils. He frames these actions as him graciously appeasing and protecting his fearful wife (who worries that the riots taking place outside of the city will eventually infiltrate their city and suburb), but it's clear that the man fears for his own safety, too. While his wife nonetheless feels badly for the beggars outside the gates of their house and wants to feed them, the man is adamant that the beggars are criminals "looking for their chance" and that by giving them food, the woman would only be "encouraging them" to keep begging or somehow make them more likely to rob the family's house. The husband's mother echoes this sentiment throughout the story, fueling her son's deep distrust toward outsiders. In the end, though, the man's efforts to protect the family backfire in a moment of grim irony when his young son gets caught in the vicious razor-wire wall and dies. With this, the story makes the point that walling people off from one another—whether it's physically though things like security systems or figuratively though racial labels—leads not to greater security but to devastating damage on all sides. - Character: The Woman / The Wife. Description: One of the protagonists of the second story, the woman is the little boy's mother and the man's wife. The woman is far more sensitive and compassionate toward other people's suffering than her husband is. When she sees black people begging outside the gates of her home, the woman orders the housemaid to bring food out to them, unable to bear seeing anyone go hungry. The housemaid refuses on the grounds that doing so would threaten her own safety—she insists that the beggars are criminals who will tie her up and lock her in the cupboard like they did to a neighbor's maid—and the husband emphatically agrees. Even though the woman is disheartened, she always ends up siding with her husband when it comes to matters of security, often repeating the line "You are right." The woman only utters the words "You are wrong" once, right after her husband assures her that the razor wall will weather over time and look less stark; she reminds him that the wall is weather-proof, so it will always look as threatening and shocking as it does now. Given that the razor wall is a symbol for the ruinous logic of apartheid, it seems that the story is saying that the violent apartheid rule won't simply "weather" or soften over time if people—specifically white people—sit back and do nothing. The woman also ties into the story's examination of storytelling. While the narrator from the frame story speaks to the importance of telling truthful but unsavory stories, the woman highlights how spinning falsely comforting ones leads to further violence. When the woman tells her son a bedtime story one night about a Prince climbing through a thicket of thorns to rescue Sleeping Beauty and restore her with a kiss, she unintentionally encourages the little boy to play on the razor wall—where he meets his death. The story makes it clear that the couple never has a frank discussion with their son about what the wall is for and what it does; in fact, the woman specifically waits until her son is out of earshot before saying aloud that she hopes the cat will be wise enough to avoid the razor wall. - Character: The Little Boy / The Son. Description: The little boy is the only child of the man and the woman. Given his age, the little boy is largely oblivious to his parents' safety concerns throughout the story. They fear that the impoverished black people at the fringes of the community will riot in the suburbs and/or steal from the wealthy white people there, themselves included. For instance, while the husband and wife debate the merits of their neighbors' security systems (like broken glass embedded in concrete walls and lances affixed to metal grilles), the little boy races around the neighborhood with his pet dog, unaware of the violence creeping into the suburb. When the boy's parents install a metal wall of coiled razors along the walls of the house for extra protection against intruders, they worry that the little boy's cat will get stuck in it—the so-called "Dragon's Teeth" wall will shred any person that tries to climb over it or back out of it. Luckily, the little boy's cat wisely avoids the house's exterior from then on, but the little boy himself is not so fortunate, and his innocence causes him to tragically meet his death. The boy decides that climbing through the wire is the perfect way to roleplay the story his mother read him the previous night about a Prince who must face a dense thicket of sharp thorns to get to the Sleeping Beauty and kiss her back to life. The razor wall, though, is every bit as destructive as it promised: the little boy is instantly caught in the coils and dies a gruesome death. His body has to be hacked out of the metal coils, but his parents, the housemaid, and the gardener can't cut him out without hurting themselves and resorting to all kinds of heavy equipment. This highlights how the logic of separation and apartheid—symbolized by the razor wall—isn't easily dismantled and kills innocent people. It even bloodies the very people who thought they would benefit from it. - Character: The Housemaid. Description: The housemaid works for the man and the woman at their upscale house in the suburbs where only white people are allowed to live. It's implied that she's a black woman, as the story notes that the only black people allowed in the suburb are "trusted housemaids and gardeners." Indeed, the housemaid is often referred to as "the trusted housemaid" throughout the story, which, by extension, implies that the husband and wife view black people as untrustworthy by default—the housemaid is an exception. Like her employers, though, the housemaid is anxious and fearful of outsiders—she assumes that the unemployed black people hanging around the family's suburb are "loafers and tsotsis" (lazy people and criminals) who will tie her up when she's home alone and burglarize the place. In the story, wealth inequality breeds fear, and the housemaid is often made to shoulder that burden—even though her employers' wealth doesn't belong to her. - Character: The Husband's Mother. Description: The husband's mother is the little boy's grandmother and the woman's mother-in-law. Though little is directly revealed about her, she is often referred to as "that wise old witch" throughout the story, which is a reminder that this inner narrative is the bedtime story that the narrator is telling herself. In fairytales—including the story of Sleeping Beauty, which the little boy's mother tells him as a bedtime story—the witch is almost always the evil antagonist. It's interesting, then, that the narrator tacks on the word "wise," as it positions the husband's mother as a wise elder helping the hero succeed. Indeed, the husband's mother is brimming with advice: when she appears throughout the story, it's to remind the husband and wife to further insulate themselves from outsiders—namely, the impoverished black people who have been relegated to the fringes of the city under apartheid's strict racial segregation. (For example, she gifts her son and daughter-in-law bricks for Christmas so that they can make the wall surrounding their property higher and harder to climb.) In this way, the husband's mother largely functions as a mouthpiece for the dangerous spirit of fear, possessiveness, and distrust toward black people that abounds in the white suburbs. Far from helping the story's protagonists succeed, the husband's mother is a key part of the family's undoing. - Theme: Wealth Inequality and Fear. Description: Set in the 1980s in apartheid South Africa, Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time" shows how societies with tremendous wealth inequality are doomed to fail. The story begins with an unnamed first-person narrator who wakes up because of a noise in the night and believes that it's a home invasion. However, the noise is just the house creaking, and to keep herself company while she lays awake in fear, the narrator tells a "bedtime story" of an unnamed family living in a segregated suburb. The central adult characters of this story—"the man" and "the wife"—are constantly concerned about their personal property, as there are break-ins throughout the neighborhood. The couple takes escalating measures to protect their house and things: building physical walls, installing security systems, and even erecting a lethal razor-wire fence. Both the frame story and the bedtime story are parables of inequality, showing the (presumably white) narrator and suburban family living in wealth while constantly fearing the wrath of those who have less. By showing how wealth inequality ruins even the lives of those who have everything, since they spend their lives consumed by fear, Gordimer points to the profound injustice and absurdity of societies whose resources are so unevenly shared. Gordimer makes clear that both the first-person narrator and the suburban couple in the narrator's story are relatively wealthy. While Gordimer doesn't give much information about the narrator's life, it's clear that she is not poor. She has her own house, she makes a living as a writer (an elite profession that separates her from the laboring classes), and she lives in a relatively well-off neighborhood. The narrator's neighbors protect their homes from robberies, and their belongings (such as a collection of antique clocks) demonstrate their excess wealth. Likewise, the suburban family in the narrator's story are, at least theoretically, "living happily ever after" among their fancy things: they have a home, a caravan, a car, a swimming pool with a fence, and even a housekeeper (whom Gordimer pointedly includes among a list of their belongings). Furthermore, they live in a white-only neighborhood that is physically segregated from the poorer black neighborhoods nearby, and there are "police and soldiers and tear gas and guns" to keep the rioting poor away. It's clear, then, that the narrator and the family in her story are beneficiaries of a system of wealth inequality. They are relatively well-off, while those who have nothing suffer. Despite this, Gordimer emphasizes that neither the narrator nor the suburban family can truly enjoy the comforts that their wealth affords them; they believe that their wealth makes them a target, so they live in fear. The suburban wife explicitly articulates the fear at the story's center: she worries that the "people of another color" who live in the poorer parts of town "might come up […] and open the gates and stream in." All the wealthy characters in the story share her fear. The couple's suburban neighbors have lives that are "hidden behind an array of different varieties of security fences, walls, and devices," showing how consumed they are by fear of intruders. And while the story's narrator chooses not to take similar measures to barricade her home, she admits that she has the "same fear" as those who do. This explains why, when she hears a sound in the night, the narrator immediately assumes that she's being robbed. This pervasive fear has catastrophic consequences: for one, Gordimer suggests that the wealthy characters aren't able to enjoy their lives because of it. When the wealthy family takes walks around their neighborhood, for instance, they "no longer pause to admire this show of roses or that perfect lawn," since all the beautiful aspects of the neighborhood are fenced off. And even inside their home, this couple seems primarily to discuss what further security improvements they can make—they are consumed not by happiness or love, but with their quest to keep others out. Of course, the most catastrophic consequence of their fear is the death of their son, who becomes caught in the razor wire fence that the couple ironically installed to protect him. His death at the hands of the security fencing shows that the real menace in this neighborhood is not the intruders that the residents fear, but their fear itself, which is irreparably corroding their lives. Gordimer's primary concern, of course, is not that inequality (via the fear it inspires) ruins the lives of the wealthy; instead, she wants to show that widespread wealth inequality will inevitably ruin all of society. To illustrate this, the story's narrator explains that her house is creaking not because of intruders, but because it has been built on a mine; the ground underneath the house is literally gone, and the whole structure could presumably fall. In Gordimer's metaphor, the house is South African society and the mine is the system of exploitation and inequality that will inevitably lead to society's collapse. The social dynamics of South African mining clarify what Gordimer means: the laborers in the mines are black South Africans who work at great peril to themselves (the narrator references the likelihood that miners have died under her house), but the owners of African mines are typically white. This is a major arc of colonialism: wealthy white capitalists extract the labor and resources of a colony, becoming increasingly wealthy as the local population suffers and grows poor. In this light, the scenario that Gordimer describes—a terrified white woman living in a wealthy, segregated neighborhood built on an exploitative mine—is a perfect representation of what is wrong with South African society. Wealthy white people have so ruthlessly exploited black people that South African society—just like the narrator's house—faces inevitable collapse. And perversely, the white people who benefit from this deplorable system cannot even enjoy it while it lasts. - Theme: Apartheid, Racism, and Property. Description: "Once Upon a Time" is set during apartheid, a system of racial segregation and discrimination that was the law in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. The story shows how white South Africans benefit from and perpetuate white supremacy—even those like the (presumably white) narrator who are aware of the profound injustice of apartheid but nonetheless enjoy a better life than black South Africans. Gordimer focuses in particular on homeownership (the narrator, as well as the suburban husband and wife about whom she tells a story, own homes in segregated neighborhoods) to call attention to how property ownership—which was limited to white people starting in 1959—exacerbated inequality in apartheid South Africa. To Gordimer, segregated suburbs like the one the couple inhabit are an embodiment of colonialism, an attempt to consolidate white wealth through property ownership and to physically separate white South Africans from the black suffering on which their wealth is built. By showing how personal bigotry and structural segregation combine to perpetuate black suffering and white luxury, Gordimer condemns the racism at the heart of South African society. The story's most explicit racism comes from the white suburban family who are terrified of black South Africans and indifferent to their suffering. The couple worries frequently that the riots outside of the suburb—in an area where "people of another colour [are] quartered"—will bleed into their own neighborhood. The husband tries to make his wife feel better by assuring her that "these people" are not allowed into the suburb and that there are "police and soldiers and tear gas and guns to keep them away." In all of this discussion, the couple shows a callous disregard for the suffering of those they're keeping out, many of whom are jobless and surrounded by violence in their neighborhoods. Gordimer even notes that police are shooting schoolchildren in black parts of town. This contrast between the suffering of black neighborhoods and the luxurious lives of the white couple emphasizes the cruelty of the couple's efforts to keep others out. Furthermore, Gordimer lampoons the couple's inability to see that their fear of black South Africans is racist: on the gate outside the couple's house hangs a warning sign featuring the silhouette of a masked robber whose skin color isn't visible. This last detail, Gordimer writes ironically, "proved that the property owner was no racist"—but it's obvious that the sign and the gate are aimed at black people alone. This highlights the white couple's refusal to see the obvious truth that their actions and indifference towards black suffering are harmful and racist. In addition to showing the white couple's bigotry, Gordimer emphasizes the disastrous legacy of colonialism, demonstrating how structural racism is at the heart of apartheid. The story's clearest evocation of colonialism comes in the narrator's explanation of the mine under her house. Noting that indigenous black South Africans (she names the Chopi and Tsonga peoples) work the mines, the narrator says that these "migrant miners […] might [be] down there, under me in the earth […] or men might now be interred there in the most profound of tombs." By invoking the perilous labor of indigenous miners, the narrator is calling the reader's attention to the structural racism of South African society, in which black laborers do dangerous work for paltry wages to enrich white people, who own the country's profitable industries. In this way, the narrator is implying that the source of white wealth in South Africa is the exploitation of black labor. The story's focus on white homeownership (via the suburban couple and the narrator owning homes) further illuminates this structural racism. The narrator's house is literally built on top of a mine, which metaphorically shows how the luxurious lives of white homeowners in South Africa are built on a foundation of black suffering and exploitation. However, when poor black South Africans come to the white suburban neighborhood begging for work or food and sleeping on the streets, the couple chooses to build higher walls, thereby doubling down on their exploitative lives while ignoring the suffering of black people from which they have benefited. This perpetuates the cruelty and inequality of colonialism, effectively punishing black people for their poverty, which white people caused in the first place. To show just how far-reaching apartheid racism is, Gordimer depicts even the suburban couple's black housekeeper perpetuating racist stereotypes and fearing other black people. Housemaids are only allowed into the suburbs as employees of white families, and it's implied that these workers have higher status than the poorer black people who are rioting and unemployed. Thus, it is not surprising that over time, the couple's "trusted housemaid" mimics the colonial mindset of the white family and develops a fear of the people outside of the suburb. After hearing of another housemaid being tied up and put into a cupboard during a burglary, the family's housemaid insists that the couple install more security features like burglar bars and a new alarm. Then, when those "who [are] not trusted housemaids and gardeners [hang] about the suburb," the couple's housemaid dissuades the wife from bringing them food. This shows how racist, colonial laws placed people of color who live and work in between black and white spheres, encouraging them to sympathize with wealthy white citizens. However, it's also possible that the housekeeper hasn't so much internalized racism as she's just aware that living in an unjust society breeds violence, and that in toeing the line between the black and white South African communities, she is directly in the line of fire. - Theme: Separation and the Illusion of Security. Description: Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time" takes place during South African apartheid—a term that literally means "apartness" and that represented the legalization of white South Africans geographically separating themselves from those who were black or "coloured" (mixed-race). During apartheid, large areas of South Africa were designated as spaces for white-only cities, and the government would force any nonwhite citizens out into other areas. The bulk of Gordimer's short story takes place inside a white-designated city, and the white suburban characters appear obsessed with maintaining the separation-based logic of apartheid. Gordimer shows, though, that separating the nation on racial lines tore South Africa apart, and she symbolizes this devastation when the white couple loses their only son: he dies in the very barbed wire that the couple installed to keep away those of another race. Gordimer thus makes it clear that the sense of protection white people seem to enjoy under segregation is a fragile illusion, arguing that the desire for security and prosperity through separation is harmful for all groups. Gordimer takes care to show that this is a world of separation based on race, and that wealthy, white South Africans believe this separation will make their lives better. In the suburb in the bedtime story that the (presumably white) narrator tells, the wife is frightened when she hears of violence and looting happening against white South Africans. Her husband is quick to assure her that there are "police and soldiers and teargas and guns" working to keep any non-white South Africans (people "of another colour") away from the suburb. He says this to cheer his wife up, showing that the couple feels safer and more comfortable knowing that black South Africans are being kept "outside the city." Still, Gordimer emphasizes how the white couple in the suburb wants even more separation between races; all the white suburban families install some sort of security system—alarms, bars, gates—to keep others away. In order to live their most prosperous, happy lives, the white families clearly feel that they must be separated from other races. However, this separation is much less useful than white South Africans would like to believe, since security systems prove ineffective and geographical segregation doesn't end up keeping the different races apart. First, Gordimer shows that the physical security measures just don't work. When the unnamed couple buys an alarm, not robbers but "pet cats and nibbling mice" frequently trip the system. This happens so often—and to so many of the other white families in the neighborhood—that noise from all the alarms unnecessarily going off provides cover for thieves to saw through bars and steal things. Additionally, Gordimer shows how the geographical separation that the white couple craves is unsustainable. The suburb is clearly wealthier than the space where "people of another colour are quartered," and eventually black South Africans make their way into the suburb to seek money or a job. The white inhabitants feel the suburb is "spoilt" by the "presence" of black South Africans, who now line the streets and sleep leaning against the gates of the white families' homes. The suburban couple also hires black South Africans as housekeepers and gardeners, proving that white South Africans will negate their own logic of separation when it benefits them. With this, the story shows that white people don't actually want to be totally segregated—white people want to have black people come and go on their terms, which means serving white people in their homes but otherwise not being around. So not only does segregation not work, it's not really intended to work, in that the families want trusted gardeners and housekeepers to come do all of their housework. Of course, beyond just being ineffective, this forced separation is devastating. The white suburbanites suffer from their own preoccupation with separation since they imprison themselves in the fortresses they build to keep others out. Gordimer makes this clear when she has the unnamed couple admire the pure, "concentration-camp style" of the razor wire they choose to adorn their wall. More critically, the non-white South Africans clearly suffer on account of this separation because they have little or no access to wealth or prosperity. The black South Africans who populate the streets of the suburb in the bedtime story are jobless and likely homeless, contrasting sharply with the abundance of the suburb. Moreover, before the bedtime story even begins Gordimer includes the fact that "migrant miners" (indigenous Africans) are working in terrible conditions in the ground far below these wealthy neighborhoods. This underscores the spatial divisions between races in "Once Upon a Time" and how this separation is designed to put one race above all others. However, when the couple's son dies in the razor wire at the end of the story, Gordimer makes a conclusive statement that all these systems, measures, and precautions designed to separate races in South Africa are absolutely destructive and will ultimately ruin all parts of society. - Theme: Storytelling. Description: Before this story even begins, Gordimer makes an obvious association: she titles the piece "Once Upon a Time." In doing this, she evokes conventional fairy tale tropes—a hero, a damsel in distress, a happy ending—only to dismantle them and show how dangerous this kind of simplistic fairytale thinking can be. On the most zoomed-out level, it seems that Gordimer believes storytelling to be good, since she's telling a story to communicate a clear moral about apartheid South Africa. However, the stories told inside the story itself seem only to lead to violence and fear rather than genuine happily ever afters. The narrator is a writer who is gripped by fear (partly because of stories she's heard about violence around her) and who tells herself a horror story about injustice and fear to occupy herself while she's unable to sleep. Then, within that story about a suburban husband and wife, there are other instances of frightening stories inadvertently or deliberately leading to violence and fear. However, there is a key difference between the way storytelling plays out in the frame story and the bedtime story: Gordimer suggests that telling truthful stories like the narrator does is a necessary (but insufficient) step toward rectifying social wrongs, whereas telling falsely comforting ones—or drawing the wrong moral from scary ones—like the suburban family does leads to further violence. First, by positioning this story as a fairy tale, Gordimer implies that there will be a clear hero, a clear villain, and likely a happy ending. She wants to engage with the readers' preconceptions of stories that begin with "Once Upon a Time" so that the plot of her story is extra shocking. The omniscient narrator claims that the suburban family is "living happily ever after" over and over, a claim that the author goes on to wholly reject. The couple lives in fear of aggression by people who are just "looking for their chance" to invade. In this way, the couple sets themselves up as victims in distress, telling themselves a story that places others in the position of villains. By punishing the couple at the end with the death of their son, Gordimer clearly complicates the couple's good (us) versus evil (them) logic. Gordimer also evokes the trope of "wise old witch" through the character of the husband's mother. She helps pay for bricks in the wall around the couple's house and gives a book of fairy tales to the couple's son. But, unlike many fairy tales where there are wise elders guiding heroes down the right path, the "wise old witch" is a key part of the family's undoing. When the wife reads to her son from this book of stories, he associates thickets of thorns with the barbed wire on the family's fence, and by trying to mimic the action of the Prince, he dies. Gordimer thus suggests that the "story" of the generational advice passed down in apartheid society will be damaging as it is so tainted with racist ideas. Thus, Gordimer gives her white characters a choice: fall into the trap of imagining oneself as the victim, or understand the danger inherent in simplistic, fairy tale logic. In the beginning of the story, the narrator mentions that as soon as she hears a noise and is frightened, she is "a victim already." But this character goes on to destroy this thought in her own mind: she reminds herself that her house is built on "undermined ground," indicating that her status as victim should be reevaluated. This allows the author to refocus her priorities and tell herself a gruesome but pointed story. Additionally, this narrator's rejection of writing a children's book is likely a parallel for Gordimer herself not wanting to tell a tale that conventionally situates the white, wealthy people of South Africa as good and everyone else as bad; this was the message coming from the white South African government, just as the request in the story to write a children's book is coming from an authoritative "someone." Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time" and the unnamed author's decision to tell a gruesome story are both meant to combat conventional narratives. By contrast, the couple in the white suburb believe themselves to be soon-to-be victims and rather than face the reality of their social situation, and so they take the easy way out and heighten security. To make her point obvious, Gordimer even has the company that they use to install the wire be called "Dragon's Teeth". The couple does not understand the irony of using "dragon's teeth" as a defense, but a reader would. Seeing themselves as the victim is clearly wrong—if anything, they are on the side of the dragon. Gordimer lastly uses the little boy to demonstrate how even people without preconceived notions of good and evil will eventually be ensnared in this simplistic way of thinking. By imagining himself the hero of the story "Sleeping Beauty" and innocently believing in the simplistic fantasy of fairy tales, the little boy tragically ends up dying. The white parents, who less innocently believed in the fairy tale-like narrative they told themselves, caused the death of their child. In the story of Sleeping Beauty, an evil witch conjures thorns and a dragon around Sleeping Beauty to prevent her from being rescued—just like how the suburban couple puts up the thorny wire from the "Dragon's Teeth" company. So while the suburban couple thinks that they're heroes and that everyone else is a villain from whom they need to protect themselves, they are actually much like the bad witch in Sleeping Beauty—they are not being honest about their role in the story. The story the white narrator tells herself provides a sharp contrast, as in the frame story, she is somewhat villainous sitting in her house safely on top of a mine full of (presumably) dead indigenous miners. The only way to look at something as ugly as apartheid, Gordimer consequently suggests, is to upend conventional tropes of who is a hero, victim, or villain. Gordimer tries to attack apartheid from all angles in this story. As a writer, she suggests that stories can be an effective critique of the unjust social system; though the effectiveness of this kind of protest can be debated, Gordimer clearly believes in the power of writing. She is highly cautionary, though, of any story that is too simplistic in its dealing with morality, as fairy tales so often are. Thus, she evokes the fairy tale trope only to upend it and show that one-dimensional narratives in an unjust society (here, apartheid) should be greatly distrusted. - Climax: The little boy is killed when he tries to cross the razor wire that's meant to protect the family's house from intruders. - Summary: The narrator, a writer, receives a letter from a man asking her to contribute a story to an anthology for children. When she declines, explaining that she doesn't write for children, this man insists that all writers should write a children's story. The narrator doesn't feel like "ought to" write anything. She then recalls the events of the previous night. In the middle of the night, the narrator is awoken by the sound of footsteps on creaking floorboards. Her heart racing, the narrator strains to hear if the footsteps are approaching her bedroom. She already feels like the victim of a crime—she doesn't have a gun for self-defense or security bars on her windows, but she's just as fearful as the people who do. She recalls violent crimes that recently happened near her house. The narrator soon realizes that the creaking sound isn't from an intruder. Thousands of miles below her home's foundation is a series of mines, and occasionally the hollowed-out rock walls collapse and crash down to the earth below, causing the narrator's house to shift and groan in response. She imagines that the mines are either out of use or that they're now a gravesite for all the miners—probably migrant workers—down below. Unable to fall back asleep, the narrator resolves to tell herself a bedtime story. Her story begins with a man and a woman who are happily married. They have a little boy whom they love dearly, a trustworthy housemaid, a skilled gardener, a pool that's safely fenced in to prevent the little boy from falling in and drowning, a Neighborhood Watch sign to deter intruders, and all sorts of prudent insurance policies. Even though the family is insured against things like floods and fires, they aren't insured against riots, which are currently raging outside the city. To comfort his anxious wife—and because he knows how violent the riots are—the husband installs electronic gates at the front of the house. The little boy is mesmerized by the speaker system, which allows visitors to communicate with someone inside. He and his friends use it as a walkie-talkie. When burglaries begin happening in the family's suburb, the couple installs security bars on the doors and windows as well as an alarm system. The little boy's cat sometimes sets off the alarm, and the neighbors' alarms are often set off by rodents or pets, too. The shrill sirens become so commonplace that they begin to sound more like cicadas or frogs humming in the background. Intruders often time their robberies for when the alarms are going off so that their comings and goings won't be heard. Over time, unemployed black people begin looking for work in the suburbs. The woman wants to send food out to them, but her husband and the housemaid firmly caution her against it, insisting that the people outside are criminals. The family decides to make the wall in their garden even higher. However, the robberies continue throughout the neighborhood at all times of day and night. One day, watching the little boy's cat deftly scaling the wall of the house, the husband and wife decide to affix some sort of security system to the walls, too. A stroll around the neighborhood reveals all sorts of options: lances, spikes, and concrete walls studded with shards of broken glass. Meanwhile, the little boy happily runs along with his dog. The couple settles on the most threatening security system of them all: a series of metal coils notched with razor blades that ascend the house's exterior walls. Once an intruder begins to climb through the coils, there is no way out—the jagged metal will rip the intruder to shreds no matter which way they move. The security system, which looks fit for a concentration camp, comes from a security called Dragon Teeth. The next day, workmen install the coils on the couple's house, and the metal shines aggressively in the sun. The man assures his wife that it will weather over time, but his wife reminds him that the metal is weather-proof. They hope the cat is smart enough to not scale the wall. That night, the woman reads her son the story of Sleeping Beauty, wherein the brave Prince must fight his way through a dense thicket of thorns in order to save Sleeping Beauty. The next day, the little boy pretends to be the Prince and decides that the metal coils encasing the house will be the thorns he must climb. But the second he wiggles his way into a metal coil, the blades pierce his skin, and he writhes and screams in pain, ensnaring himself deeper and deeper into the wire. The housemaid and gardener come running, and the gardener tears up his hands trying to rescue the boy. The husband and wife run out in a panic as the house alarm—likely set off by the cat—begins to blare. Eventually, the little boy's bleeding body is removed with heavy equipment. The man, the woman, the housemaid, and the gardener are beside themselves as they carry the boy's remains into the house.

- Genre: Children's literature, historical fiction - Title: Once - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Nazi-occupied Poland, 1942 - Character: Felix Salinger. Description: Felix Salinger is a 10-year-old Jewish boy living in Nazi-occupied Poland. At the occupation's beginning, Felix's bookseller parents left him at an orphanage run by a customer, the nun Mother Minka. Mother Minka hides Felix from the Nazis by pretending he's Catholic. Because no one tells Felix the truth about the Nazis, he believes that he's staying at the orphanage because his parents need to travel around to save their business. When Once begins, Felix has been at the orphanage for almost four years. He enjoyed making up stories, especially about his parents' adventures. Imaginative yet naïve, Felix witnesses Nazis burning Mother Minka's books and concludes Nazis only hate Jewish books. He runs away to warn his parents that their bookstore is in danger. On the way, he finds a little girl, Zelda, unconscious next to her murdered parents. Felix rescues Zelda and takes her with him. Later, the children meet Barney, a Jewish dentist hiding orphaned Jewish children in a Jewish ghetto. From Barney and the other children, Felix learns that Nazis hate Jewish people—and that they may have already murdered his parents. This revelation turns Felix against stories, since he was writing happy stories about his parents while they were being persecuted. When Zelda comes down with a dangerous fever, Felix bravely ventures into the ghetto to find aspirin—and when, by a strange turn of events, he realizes that Zelda's father was a Nazi collaborator, he decides to save her anyway, because he considers her his family now. When the Nazis capture Felix and the others and put them on a train headed to a concentration camp, Felix discovers a rotting portion of the train wall through which prisoners can jump to freedom. Relying on the power of stories, he tries to persuade the other children to risk the machine-gunners on the roof and jump. Though most are too afraid, Zelda and Chaya jump with Felix. Chaya dies, but Felix and Zelda survive—suggesting that stories can be powerful tools for endurance and survival. - Character: Zelda. Description: Zelda is a young girl living in Nazi-occupied Poland. Zelda wears a locket containing a portrait of her parents with her father, a Nazi collaborator, wearing a Nazi uniform. After someone (likely the Polish resistance) knocks Zelda unconscious, shoots her parents, and burns their house down, Felix finds her in her yard and rescues her on the assumption that Nazis killed her family. Rather than telling Zelda that her parents are dead, Felix decides to wait until they've found his own parents, who will know how to break the news. As Felix and Zelda travel through Nazi-occupied Poland, Felix tells Zelda stories to distract her from the violence all around them; while bossy, opinionated Zelda critiques and adds to Felix's stories, she clearly also notices the violence and empathizes with the Nazis' victims. After the Jewish dentist Barney rescues Felix and Zelda from Nazis and hides them in the Jewish ghetto with other Jewish orphans, Zelda believes she sees her mother and frantically attempts to leave the hiding place. Felix—realizing that deceiving Zelda about her parents' deaths was a bad idea—tells her the truth. Even after Felix discovers the truth about Zelda's father, he resolves to continue caring for Zelda anyway, thinking of himself as her remaining family. After Nazis put Felix and Zelda on a train to a concentration camp, they jump to a freedom together through a hole in the semi-rotted train wall—suggesting that they will continue to act as each other's family for as long as they can survive. - Character: Barney. Description: Barney is a Jewish dentist living in a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland. He hides Jewish children in a cellar in the ghetto to keep the Nazis from taking them and feeds them by earning food from the Nazis in exchange for free dental services. It is implied, though never stated, that Nazis have already killed Barney's biological family and that he has refocused all his protective familial affection on the children he's hiding. After Nazis capture Felix and Zelda, Barney intervenes and saves them. Unlike the other adults in Felix's life, Barney reluctantly tells him the truth about Nazi atrocities, including concentration camps—but he doesn't tell the younger children in his care. In consequence, after the Nazis capture Felix, Zelda, Barney, and the other children and put them on a train to a concentration camp, only Felix and Barney truly understand that the train is taking them to almost certain death. When Felix and the other passengers create a hole in the train wall through which they can escape, Felix can only persuade Zelda and Chaya to jump with him. Barney insists on staying with the other children, even though it likely means his death. Felix hugs Barney before jumping and feels syringes in his jacket—from which he deduces that Barney is carrying fatal doses of anesthetic and will assist the other children in suicide before letting Nazis kill them. - Character: Mother Minka. Description: Mother Minka is a stern nun, fond of corporal punishment, who runs a remote Catholic orphanage in Nazi-occupied Poland. Prior to the Nazi invasion, she used to buy books from Felix Salinger's parents, a Jewish couple who owned a bookstore. When Felix's parents decide to hide Felix from the Nazis at the occupation's beginning, Mother Minka agrees to keep him at her orphanage, telling everyone he's a Catholic orphan. Mother Minka tries to preserve the orphans' innocence by concealing the truth about Nazi atrocities in Poland from them. Ironically, her protectiveness puts Felix in danger—initially, he's more afraid of her than he is of Nazis, and when she finally reveals some of the truth, he reacts with denial and misunderstanding. Thus, Mother Minka represents the danger of trying to shield children from ugly realities. Yet she also represents human dignity in the face of dehumanizing, antisemitic totalitarianism; though not Jewish herself, she takes a moral stand and risks her life to protect Felix (and, it is implied, at least one other Jewish child) from Nazis. - Character: Dodie. Description: Dodie (whose real name is "Dodek") is an orphan who befriends Felix Salinger at Mother Minka's Catholic orphanage and enjoys Felix's inventive stories. The novel suggests that Dodie may have problematic violent tendencies: he wants to be a "pig-slaughterer" when he grows up, and Felix once witnessed him removing the legs from an insect. Yet Dodie may be violent only because he doesn't understand the consequences of his actions: after he removed the insect's legs, he tried to put them back on again. Moreover, Dodie tries to be kind to other children. For example, when bullies at the orphanage target the new boy, Jankiel, Dodie defends Jankiel. Though there's a long history of violent antisemitism in Poland, Dodie doesn't really understand what being Jewish means when Felix reveals that he's Jewish and planning to escape the orphanage—he only tells Felix that he'll miss him. Dodie's innocent friendship with Felix implies that antisemitism is a dehumanizing prejudice that children have to be taught—it isn't something they naturally feel or believe. - Character: The Nazi Officer. Description: The Nazi officer first appears when Barney takes Felix with him to perform dental surgeries under cover of night. Barney wants Felix to tell his patients stories to distract them from the pain of dental surgery, because Barney doesn't have any anesthetic. Barney's second patient is the scowling, liquor-swilling Nazi officer, whose underling gives Barney food in payment for the surgery. Though Felix is terrified, the Nazi officer likes the story Felix tells so much that he asks Felix to write it down and give it to him later so he can send it to his children. After Nazis capture Barney, Felix, Zelda, and the other Jewish children and take them to a train station where they'll be sent to a concentration camp, Felix and Barney spot the Nazi officer, give him Felix's written story, and try to convince him to save Zelda by showing him her silver locket that contains a photograph of her father in Nazi uniform. The Nazi officer is willing to let Zelda and Barney go, but when Barney tries to negotiate for the other children's freedom, the officer refuses. The Nazi officer exemplifies how readers need to judge characters' individual actions in the larger context of their behavior and personality. While the Nazi officer performs a few things that, out of context, might seem kind, he's complicit in a genocide against Jewish people even if Felix never sees him commit violent acts personally. - Character: Chaya. Description: Chaya, whose name means "alive" in Hebrew, is one of the Jewish children that Barney is hiding from the Nazis in a cellar in the Jewish ghetto. One of her arms is bandaged. Later, she reveals to the other children—indirectly, through a fairy tale about a princess persecuted by goblins—that Nazis tortured her and killed her family because they falsely believed the family had information about the Polish resistance. After Nazis capture Chaya, Barney, and the other children and put them on a train headed to a concentration camp, Felix discovers a rotten part of the train wall through which the prisoners can jump and escape—if they are willing to risk exposure to the Nazi machine-gunners stationed on the train roof. When Felix tries to persuade the other children to jump with him, Chaya and Zelda are the only two who want to risk it. A Nazi machine-gunner shoots Chaya to death after she, Felix, and Zelda jump, which starkly illustrates that the children were in fact putting themselves in mortal danger to escape the train. - Character: Jankiel. Description: Jankiel is a dark-eyed orphan who has recently arrived at Mother Minka's remote Catholic orphanage. When he arrives, Mother Minka makes him promise not to tell the other children about the Nazi atrocities occurring in the world beyond the orphanage. When bullies target Jankiel, Felix and Dodie try to save him. Felix wonders whether Jankiel might be secretly Jewish too but never asks him, knowing Jankiel wouldn't want to admit it at the Catholic orphanage. Jankiel runs into Felix as Felix is escaping the orphanage and tries to convince him not to leave; he won't say why due to his promise to Mother Minka but insists Felix will "really regret" entering the outside world. Felix ignores him. Jankiel functions as foil for Felix: like Felix, he is probably a Jewish boy whom Mother Minka is intentionally concealing from the Nazis, but unlike Felix, he is knowledgeable and fearful whereas Felix (when the novel begins) is ignorant and brave. - Character: Henryk. Description: Henryk is one of the young Jewish children that Barney is hiding from the Nazis. When Felix first wakes up in Barney's secret cellar, he hears Henryk crying for his parents and Barney suggesting that Henryk may see his parents sometime in the future—a suggestion Felix scorns, thinking Henryk should be allowed to go find his parents right away. Felix's reaction to Henryk shows Felix's naivete about the situation in Nazi-occupied Poland. Later, Henryk reveals that Nazis killed and mutilated his dog, Sigi, exemplifying the horrible, pointless cruelty of antisemitic violence. - Character: Jacob. Description: Jacob is one of the Jewish children that Barney is hiding from the Nazis. Because he blinks so much, Felix sometimes calls him "the blinking boy." He figures out a method of piling mattresses so that the children hiding in the cellar can see through a high crack into the street. Zelda becomes convinced she's seen her mother through the crack, an incident that finally convinces Felix to admit to her that he saw her parents' corpses. Later, Jacob tells the other children that Nazis burnt his entire family to death. - Character: Father Ludwik. Description: Father Ludwik is a Polish Catholic priest who helps run Mother Minka's orphanage. He has told Felix that Adolf Hitler is protecting them, confusing Felix about who Hitler is and leading Felix to pray to Hitler at various points. Father Ludwik may know that Felix is Jewish and be actively deceiving him about Nazi atrocities to keep him ignorant and safe in case any Nazis visit the orphanage. On the other hand, Father Ludwik may be a Nazi sympathizer who doesn't know Felix is Jewish, in which case he represents gentile Polish antisemitism. - Theme: Storytelling. Description: In Once, storytelling blinds people to danger—but it also protects them, helps them endure pain, and gives them courage, which ultimately makes it a force for good. The novel's protagonist, Felix, is a young, story-loving Jewish boy living in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. His parents left him at a Catholic orphanage, telling him that they needed to fix problems with their bookselling business but would return. By blinding Felix to Nazi persecution of Jewish people, his parents' story puts him in danger: he sees Nazis burning books, assumes the Nazis are oppressing Jewish booksellers in particular, and leaves the orphanage—where the head nun Mother Minka is protecting him by pretending he's Catholic—to warn his parents. In the wider world, his misunderstandings lead him to unwittingly put himself in harm's way.  When Felix finally realizes that his parents told him a false story and may already be dead, he decides that he loathes stories because they don't do people any good. Yet Felix later realizes he was wrong to reject stories. Though his parents' story put him in danger, it also saved his life by hiding him from Nazis. While searching for his parents, Felix meets a Jewish dentist, Barney, who has been hiding and caring for orphaned Jewish children. One night, lacking anesthetic, Barney asks Felix to tell stories to the patients whose teeth he's drilling. The experience teaches Felix that stories can distract people from their pain and so help them endure it. Later, Nazis capture Felix, Barney, and the other children Barney has been protecting and put them on a train to a concentration camp. When the people on the train tear a hole in the train-car's rotten wood wall, Felix tells his companions a hopeful story to persuade them to risk the Nazi machine-gunners on the train's roof and jump to freedom. Though most of the children say no and Barney insists on staying with them, Felix does convince two children, Zelda and Chaya, to jump. Felix and Zelda survive, though Chaya dies. Thus, in the end, the novel implies that while stories can be deceitful and even harmful, they can also be powerful forces of self-preservation that help people to endure hardship and trauma. - Theme: Innocence and Ignorance. Description: In Once, adults try to preserve children's innocence by hiding terrible truths from them. Yet in doing so, they also make children ignorant, which exposes them to danger. The novel's protagonist, Felix, is a Jewish boy living in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. When his parents hide him from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage, they lie to him about why. Similarly, the nun who runs the orphanage, Mother Minka, keeps the truth about the Nazis from Felix and the other orphans so they won't panic. Felix, innocent and ignorant of what the Nazis are doing, runs away from the orphanage—and straight into danger. Later, Felix meets a Jewish dentist named Barney who has been hiding orphaned Jewish children inside an abandoned print shop. When Barney and Felix overhear a Nazi convincing Jewish people to travel to the "countryside," Felix asks Barney whether they can go too; Barney refuses without explaining why. Felix, irritated, plans to escape to the countryside—a plan that would lead to his death, since "countryside" is a Nazi euphemism for concentration camps. It's only when Barney discovers Felix's plan that he admits the truth to Felix—but he still doesn't tell the other children in his care about the concentration camps. Near the novel's end, Nazis have thrown Barney, Felix, and the other orphaned children onto a train headed for a concentration camp when the passengers manage to create a hole in the train-car wall large enough to jump through. Felix asks the other children to jump despite the Nazi machine-gunners on the train's roof, but most refuse—perhaps because neither Felix nor Barney has told them where the train is taking them. In their ignorance, thus, the children almost certainly perish. Thus, the novel suggests that rather than trying to preserve children's innocence by keeping them ignorant of terrible truths, adults should be honest with children to protect them. - Theme: Antisemitism vs. Human Dignity. Description: In Once, antisemitism is a dehumanizing force, against which people assert their human dignity by exercising moral choice. The novel's protagonist, Felix, is a nonreligious Jewish boy living in a Catholic orphanage. Having spent almost four years among nuns, Felix occasionally prays not only to God but also to Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Pope, and to his favorite children's book author, Richmal Crompton. Though Felix vaguely recognizes a Star of David and a menorah, he doesn't know what they're called. By emphasizing that Felix's Jewishness is almost purely nominal, not based on his religious convictions or even his actual cultural practices, the novel highlights that the Nazis want to kill Jewish people just for their ancestry, not for anything they believe or have done, thus highlighting that antisemitism dehumanizes people based purely on ethnicity. In the face of antisemitic dehumanization, the novel's protagonists assert their human dignity by exercising moral choice—or, in other words, by trying to do the right thing—even in positions of powerlessness. For example, Felix saves a little girl named Zelda after he finds her unconscious beside her burning house and murdered parents. As he travels to the city searching for his own parents, he repeatedly puts himself in danger to protect Zelda from Nazi violence. When she comes down with a dangerously high fever, he sneaks through a Nazi-patrolled ghetto after curfew to find her aspirin—and brings it back to her even after her discovers that her father was likely a Nazi collaborator killed by the Polish resistance. Even though Felix has very little power to influence the world, his insistence on trying to protect Zelda and his refusal to blame her for things her father did illustrate his goodness, his moral agency, and his human dignity—and thus the evil of antisemitism, which would deny he possesses those qualities. - Theme: Family. Description: Once illustrates how chosen family can be as important as birth family through the story of Felix, a Jewish boy living in Nazi-occupied Poland whose parents have sent him to live at a Catholic orphanage to avoid Nazi persecution. After living at the orphanage for almost four years, Felix develops great affection for the nuns who run the place and for Dodie, a friend he makes there. Nevertheless, he runs away, believing he needs to help his bookkeeper parents save their books from book-burning Nazis. This initial choice—to leave the nuns who have cared for him and the best friend whom he misses terribly—suggests that, at this point, Felix believes ties to one's birth family supersede bonds with non-family members. Traveling to find his parents, he stumbles upon a little girl named Zelda lying unconscious next to her murdered parents in their yard; he decides to hide Zelda's parents' murder from her until they find his parents, who will take care of her. For much of the novel, Felix and Zelda are motivated by a desire to reunite with their parents—until Felix reveals to Zelda that her parents and dead and realizes that, given the realities of Nazi occupation, his parents likely are too. Later, when Felix looks inside Zelda's locket and finds a picture of her father wearing a Nazi uniform, he discovers that Zelda's father was probably a Nazi collaborator killed by the Polish resistance. Nevertheless, Felix refuses to hold the crimes of Zelda's father against her. Instead, he decides that he is Zelda's family now, and he continues protecting her even when it puts him in danger and despite Zelda's biological relationship to a Nazi collaborator. Felix's choices show that he has realized that his own relationship with Zelda, forged as they protected and cared for one another under threat of Nazi violence, matters more than Zelda's biological relationship to her birth parents when it comes to understanding who Zelda is—in other words, her father's Nazi sympathies do not reflect Zelda's own support of the Nazi regime. Thus, Once recognizes the importance of biological family—Felix's parents continue to matter to him tremendously even as he extends his affection to others, and even as he confronts the grim reality that they're likely never coming back for him—while showing that non-biological family can be just as important, loving, and revealing of character. - Theme: Morality, Violence, and Complicity. Description: In Once, people who commit individual violent acts don't always intend harm, while people who avoid violence and commit seemingly kind acts are sometimes complicit in systematic evil. Because of this, the novel suggests, it's important to understand people's contexts and motivations before judging their actions. The novel's protagonist, a Jewish boy named Felix living in an orphanage in Nazi-occupied Poland, fears the nun who runs the orphanage, Mother Minka, because "nuns can have good hearts and still be violent." Yet while Felix's words imply that Mother Minka uses problematic corporal punishment on children, she is also risking her life by hiding Felix—and, it is implied, another boy named Jankiel—from Nazis. Meanwhile, Felix's best friend at the orphanage, Dodie, once pulled the legs off an insect and then tried to reattach them, suggesting that he didn't understand what he was doing or intend to maim the insect permanently. Despite Dodie's violence toward the insect, he also makes Felix help him rescue Jankiel from bullies. Mother Minka and Dodie illustrate that when people commit violent acts, it doesn't always mean that they intend harm or that they are fundamentally bad people. On the other hand, people can avoid committing violence personally and can even engage in seemingly kind individual actions while participating in systematic evils. For example, the Nazi officer overseeing the loading of Jewish passengers onto a train to a concentration camp commits no physical violence himself, happily receives a story from Felix to send to his children, and at one point offers to let Zelda and Barney go free—yet he refuses to free the other orphans Barney is caring for go with them. And, as a Nazi officer, he is complicit in the mass murder of Jewish people, even if he's not physically committing the murders himself. Thus, the book suggests that individual violent actions may or may not betray patterns of systematically evil behavior—it doesn't in the case of Mother Minka and Dodie, but it does in the case of Nazi soldiers—and that people can engage in systematic evil without committing individual acts of violence. Therefore, one must understand the contexts and motivations that inform people's individual actions before judging them morally. - Climax: Felix, Zelda, and Chaya jump from the train traveling to a concentration camp. - Summary: At a remote Catholic orphanage in Poland in 1942, young Felix discovers an entire carrot in his soup. Because the orphans get so few vegetables, he reasons that his parents must have sent the carrot as a message that they're coming back. They left him at the orphanage almost four years before, telling him they had to take care of their bookselling business. He worries they won't recognize him when they arrive, but he plans to show them his notebook, where he's written stories about their adventures. The next morning, a car arrives at the orphanage. Felix hopes it's his parents, but it turns out to be men in armbands. Felix, disappointed, decides to ask the orphanage's head nun Mother Minka when his parents will arrive. One of the men finds Felix in Mother Minka's office and speaks threateningly to him in a foreign language. Mother Minka bursts in and drags Felix out by the ear. She explains that the men in armbands are Nazis who discovered she was hiding Jewish books—but they haven't discovered that Felix is Jewish. Felix assumes that Nazis are a group with a vendetta against Jewish books, not Jewish people. Worried for his bookseller parents, Felix asks about the carrot they left and when they're coming. Mother Minka explains that one of the nuns, feeling sorry for Felix, snuck the carrot into his soup. Felix refuses to believe her. He resolves to find his parents and warn them about the Nazis. Felix escapes the orphanage and walks to his hometown. Hearing voices in the apartment attached to his parents' bookshop, Felix looks for them—only to find the family of Wiktor Radzyn, Felix's former classmate. When they try to catch Felix, he runs away. Later, another neighbor snatches Felix into an alley and explains that Nazis took Felix's parents and all the other Jewish people to the city. He advises Felix to hide. Felix, traveling to the city, comes upon a burning house. In the yard he finds a man and a woman shot to death. Assuming the couple were Jewish booksellers who resisted Nazi attempts to burn their books, Felix sits down and cries. Then he spots an unconscious little girl. When he hears a car coming, he picks up the girl and flees. Eventually, he stops to rest behind a hedge. He learns the girl's name is Zelda and that she doesn't know her parents have been shot. Rather than break the news to her, he tells her a story to calm her down while they rest. Having fallen asleep, Felix—who is starting to feel sick—wakes and hears voices coming from the direction of the road. When he peers through the hedge, he sees Nazis yelling at Jewish travelers wearing armbands marked by the Star of David. Then Zelda screams. Felix turns and sees a Nazi pointing a gun at her head. The Nazi gestures at them with the gun to join the crowd. As they walk toward the city, Felix tells Zelda stories and tries to prevent her from witnessing Nazi acts of violence. By the time the crowd reaches the city, Felix is sick and exhausted. He collapses in the street as Zelda screams and a Nazi points a gun at her. Suddenly, a man wearing a Jewish armband appears, speaking to the Nazi in a language Felix doesn't understand and brandishing a leather bag. The Nazi leaves Zelda alone but shoots another woman. Felix faints. Felix and Zelda's rescuer, Barney, takes them to a hidden cellar, where he introduces him to some other children. Later, the other children explain to Felix that they're hiding from the Nazis because the Nazis hate all Jewish people. Felix realizes his parents colluded with Mother Minka to pretend he was Catholic in order to save his life. After Felix recovers, Barney admits that he read one of the stories from Felix's notebook and says he needs Felix's help. Barney leads Felix out of the cellar into the deserted streets and explains they're in a Jewish ghetto with a curfew. Barney takes Felix to an apartment where a Nazi officer is waiting. Barney—a dentist, whose leather bag contains dentistry tools—instructs Felix to tell the Nazi officer a story to distract from the pain of unanesthetized tooth drilling. Though terrified, Felix tells a funny story while Barney translates it into German. The Nazi officer likes Felix's story so much that he asks Felix to write it down for him and bring it back to him so he can send it to his children. Barney receives a bag of food as payment. The next morning, Felix and Zelda look into the street through a crack near the cellar's ceiling. Zelda, convinced she sees her mother's shoes, becomes desperate to leave the cellar. Felix realizes he needs to admit her parents are dead. After he tells her, she sobs uncontrollably. The other children tell start telling stories about the Nazis murdering their families. Everyone starts crying. Felix feels fortunate because his parents aren't dead yet. Later, Barney asks Felix to help him scavenge necessities. On their way, they overhear Jewish travelers speaking to a Nazi soldier who tells them they're being taken to the countryside. When Felix asks Barney whether they can go to the countryside, Barney says no. Felix, annoyed, silently resolves to take Zelda and go find his parents in the countryside. Barney leads Felix to an apartment that contains an abandoned dentist's surgery, where he scavenges syringes and anesthetic. When he tells Felix to find food, Felix enters the kitchen and discovers a murdered toddler. Felix starts screaming and sobbing. When Barney runs to comfort him, Felix asks why the parents didn't do anything. Barney explains that sometimes parents can't save their children. He tells Felix that Felix's parents tried as hard as they could. Confused by the past tense, Felix says he's going to find his parents in the countryside. Barney explains that "countryside" is a euphemism for Nazi death camps. That night, Felix is lying miserable in bed when Zelda comes over and asks whether his parents are dead too. When he doesn't answer, she gives him her silver locket necklace and starts petting his hair. Felix notices her hand is very, very hot. A moment later, she faints. Barney determines that she has a dangerously high fever. Unwilling to leave her while she's so sick, he sends Felix to find aspirin in one of the ghetto's abandoned apartments. Felix realizes Zelda may die if her temperature doesn't come down; he resolves to find her not only aspirin but also a carrot. Felix eventually finds aspirin and a carrot in an apartment. Then Nazis begin searching the building. Felix runs, falls, and busts open Zelda's locket. A Nazi grabs him, examines the locket—and leaves him alone. Felix flees. Once he's reached a deserted street, he examines the locket. Inside is a photograph of Zelda's mother and Zelda's father—in a Nazi uniform. Felix resolves to bring Zelda the aspirin and carrot even if her father was a Nazi, reasoning that she's not to blame for what her father did and she's basically his family now. When Felix returns to the building where the others are hiding, it's surrounded by Nazis. He hears the other children screaming and runs to join them. The Nazis march Barney, Felix carrying Zelda, and the other children to a train station, where more Nazis are forcing Jewish people onto a train. Felix puts the silver locket back on Zelda and shows it to Barney. When Barney realizes that Zelda's father must have been a Nazi collaborator killed by the Polish resistance, Felix insists they tell someone. They spot the Nazi officer who wanted Felix's story and flag him down. Barney starts speaking to him in German. The Nazi officer agrees to let Barney and Zelda leave, but when Barney tries to convince him to let the other children go too, he shakes his head. Nazis drags the children toward the train. Barney gives Zelda to the Nazi officer and goes with them. Zelda, struggling, tries to follow the others. After Felix is thrown into a train car, Zelda is thrown on top of him. When he asks what happened, she explains she bit the Nazi officer. Felix hears Nazis nailing the train-car doors shut. There are no bathrooms on the train. Various passengers eventually go to the bathroom in the corner. When one embarrassed elderly woman starts pushing toward the bathroom corner, Felix decides to tear out all his notebook's pages so people can use them as toilet paper. He goes toward the corner and grabs a bolt in the wall, planning to impale the pages on it—and the bolt comes away in his hands. Realizing the wooden wall has rotted, passengers create a hole large enough to jump through. Machine-gunners on the train roof kill some jumpers, but others make it to the forest and escape. Felix tries to convince Barney and the other children to jump. Most of the other children are too scared, and Barney insists on staying with them. Zelda and one other girl, Chaya, agree to jump with Felix. Everyone hugs. Then Felix, Zelda, and Chaya jump. The machine gunners kill Chaya, but Zelda and Felix survive. Felix, having felt syringes in Barney's coat pocket when they hugged goodbye, realizes he won't let the other children suffer. He realizes he has no idea how long the rest of his and Zelda's lives will be, but some good things have happened to them.

- Genre: Realism, Historical Fiction, Russian Literature - Title: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Point of view: A blend of limited omniscient, first person (narrated by Shukhov), and second person - Setting: A Soviet work camp (Gulag) known as H.Q. in an unspecified location in Russia - Character: Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Description: The novel's protagonist, Shukhov is a prisoner in a Soviet Gulag in 1951. Shukhov's experience represents that of the typical Russian subjected to incarceration in the soviet Gulag system. He is an uneducated, but skilled, working-class man. Shukhov was wrongly accused of betraying the Soviet Union during WWII, and forced to testify against himself to save his own life. Shukhov is strictly principled, proud of his skills in the trades, and determined to maintain his dignity. - Character: Tyurin. Description: The foreman of Gang 104, the work gang to which Shukhov belongs in the Gulag. Tyurin is a strict, but noble leader. As the foreman of the gang, he is a sort of father figure within the group, holding the welfare of the men in the forefront of his mind. Because of his dedication to the gang, Shukhov and other members of the gang respect him and follow his commands. Even though Tyurin holds a leadership role within the gang, he is also unjustly imprisoned, like the other men, simply for being the son of Kulak—an affluent farmer class that Stalin had vowed to eliminate. This experience allows him to be both a leader and an individual who identifies with the men he oversees. - Character: Buynovsky. Description: Also known as "The Captain" because of his naval background, Buynovsky has not been in the Gulag as long as Shukhov and other characters. Despite his education and esteemed naval background, he struggles to adapt to life as a Zek, and his pride lands him in solitary by the end of the novel. Shukhov notes that Buynovsky has the potential to become a hardy Zek, but through the novel he barks orders at his fellow prisoners as he would have in the Navy and expends his energy too quickly during the day, depicting the way one's identity and values outside of the camp are not beneficial on the inside. Buynovsky's character shows the difficulty prisoners experience in shedding their identities and adapting to life in the camp. - Character: Tsezar. Description: A privileged member of Gang 104, Tsezar is an educated, worldly man, who receives parcels on a regular basis. The contents of his parcels make him the envy of the other gang members and he uses the items he gets in the parcels to attain privileged positions within the camp. Like Buynovsky, however, Tsezar struggles to adapt to camp life and feels superior to the other Zeks. Although he his intelligent, Tsezar's lack of "street smarts" make him unable to take care of himself in the Gulag. Shukhov recognizes Tsezar's vulnerability and looks out for him, which entitles Shukhov to a cut in Tsezar's goods. In the end, Tsezar's pride is leveled when he must depend on Shukhov, who he considers inferior, to protect his possessions. - Character: Alyoshka. Description: Also known as "Alyoshka The Baptist," he is a devoutly religious member of Gang 104. Alyoshka holds a vastly different view of the Gulag than the other characters, viewing his sentence not as unjust imprisonment but rather as a means for salvation. He sees the Gulag as providing him the ideal setting to develop spiritually, as he is denied material possessions and temptations, which would distract him on his spiritual journey. Alyoshka's perspective of the camp as a cross he bears for God allows him to find purpose and happiness in the Gulag, which Shukhov notices and is intrigued by. Shukhov recognizes that Alyoshka's humility leads to vulnerability in the hostile environment, but in the end, Shukov is inspired to give freely of himself after hearing Alyoshka's spiritual message. - Character: Fetyukov. Description: Known by Shukhov as "The Scrounger", he depicts the way the Gulag ravages an individual's dignity. As opposed to Shukhov, who takes pride in his resourcefulness, skills, and principals, Fetyukov is constantly begging and scrounging for food, cigarettes, and other supplies. What goods he does receive through scrounging and begging, which amounts to quite a bit considering the poverty of the camp, he hoards for himself. His lousy work ethic also contrasts the pride and effort Shukhov puts into his work, leading to a general sense of disrespect from his fellow Zeks. - Character: Pavlo Pavlo. Description: The deputy foreman of Gang 104. Although is a younger prisoner, he is not afraid to command the men working under him and does not flinch when standing up to authority figures. Although Pavlo is a natural leader, he is polite and kind, which Shukhov sees as a deficit in the cutthroat environment of the Gulag. Despite this perceived shortcoming, Pavlo's fairness, patience, and mercy toward his fellow gang members make him a respected leader. And, as Shukhov notes, a Zek will break his back for a foreman he admires. - Character: Kildigs. Description: A Latvian prisoner and skilled mason, Kildigs' skills in the trades and good sense of humor gain him Shukhov's respect and make him a popular member of Gang 104. Shukhov notes that Kildigs has a sense of humor because he receives parcels that help meet his needs, and his character represents the relationship between happiness and the meeting of one's basic needs. - Character: Gopchik. Description: A sixteen-year-old boy imprisoned for bringing milk to nationalist rebels hiding in the forest. Gopchik's adult sentence to serve in the Gulag despite his status as a child depicts the unyielding tyranny and lack of compassion of the Soviet regime. Gopchik is still innocent, and has not yet been hardened by life in the Gulag, but like Shukhov, he is resourceful and hard working. Shukhov is fond of Gopchik because of these traits, and knows Gopchik will make a good prisoner in time. Gopchik also reminds Shukhov of his own son, who died young, and can viewed as a representation of Shukhov as a younger man. - Character: Senka. Description: A deaf prisoner and member of gang 104. Because of his hearing impairment, Senka is largely isolated from the group and doesn't communicate much. What the gang does know of his story, his adventures in battle, escapes from the Nazi's and the brutality he has experienced at the hands of his captors inspires a sense of intrigue from the other gang members. Senka's hearing impairment and isolation within the group depicts the way in which Zeks struggle to know each other on a deep interpersonal level. Even though other prisoners would like to know more about him, they are unable to learn about him because of his impairment. - Character: The Two Estonians. Description: Described as being like brothers, the two Estonians are always considered as a single unit. These two men are not actually brothers, and in fact only met when they both were sent to the camp. They share everything, speak to one another in their native tongue, and even sleep beside one another. These men survive the brutal conditions of the camp by depending on one another, offering a contrast to the "Every man for himself" atmosphere of the Gulag, and showing an alternative means to survive. Likewise, their connection through their national background shows that although the camp is designed to strip one's identity, bonds still form based upon past identifications. - Character: Kolya. Description: A medical orderly in the Gulag, who in reality had no medical training at all before coming to the camp. The camp Doctor instructed him to lie about his literary background and claim to be a medical orderly so he could work in the sick bay and write poetry on the side. When Shukhov visits Kolya in the morning, Kolya is vaguely sympathetic, but he seems more concerned with his poetry than Shukhov's ailment. Kolya's concern for his art over Shukhov's real life problems alludes to Solzhenitsyn's critique of art and artists that do not deal with the real suffering of individual people. - Character: Lieutenant Volkovoy. Description: The disciplinary officer in the camp and the cruelest of all of the guards present in the novel. Volkovoy exercises his power and force simply because he can. In the past, he has carried a whip he used to lash prisoners just to watch them bleed. Volkovoy's character represents the way in which having power leads to cruelty, oppression, and violence. Volkovoy, however, is not immune to the dangers of camp life. The narrator suggested that he stopped carrying his whip because men were getting their throats slit in the camp while sleeping, and Volkovoy was fearful that he might be next. In this way, Volkovoy's cruelty can also be seen as an attempt to maintain his power through overt violence and oppressive acts. - Character: DerDer. Description: A building-foreman who is despised by the other Zeks, is egotistical because of his position of power within the camp. He wears a new, clean regulation coat, and a leather hat, but like the other men, his hat has a white number printed on it. Der is big headed, but unskilled when it comes to labor, which leads Shukhov to resent him. Der attempts to punish Tyurin for using the felt to cover the window, but Tyurin's men step up and protect him, revealing how an individual's sense of having power in the Gulag (as Der does) does not always align with reality. - Theme: Power and Authority. Description: The theme of power and authority exists on several levels in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In the most visible sense, power and authority rest in the hierarchical structure existing among the camp's inhabitants—the Zeks (prisoners) existing at the bottom, with the guards, wardens, officials, and commandants above them. On another level, however, the camp can be viewed as a microcosm of the Soviet Union under Stalin's regime, which is the force that creates the conditions for such a camp to exist in the first place. In this larger picture, the Soviet state stands as the ultimate power and authority over both the officials and prisoners of the camp. The fact that the camp is a "special camp", designed to punish political prisoners, suggests that the purpose of the camp is to align rebellious individuals with the Soviet Government's ideologies—the ideal being a non-hierarchical collective society where each man works for the good of the state. This ideal, however, is foiled by the conditions of the camp. The Zeks are unjustly incarcerated for crimes that one might consider ridiculous. Gopchik is imprisoned for taking milk to freedom fighters hiding in the woods, Shukhov was falsely accused of being a spy, and Tyurin is punished simply for being the son of a rich peasant father—a social class that Stalin vowed to eliminate. The very fact of their awful existence in the camp is rooted in the abuse of power and authority. The guards, wardens, officials, and commandants act as an oppressive power over the Zeks, but they too are oppressed by the power of the Soviet state, which dictates their lives. As is common with instances of oppression, the guards, who are oppressed by the state, become brutal oppressors over the prisoners, clinging to what power they do possess. Driven by their sense of power and authority, the camp officials create a laundry list of absurd rules that actually impede the prisoners' ability to survive and function within the Soviet ideal. These rules, which threaten the prisoners' survival, act to pit the prisoners against one another as they attempt meet their basic needs, including access to food, warmth, and clothing, limiting any hope of a collective society within the camp. In other words, a camp meant to forcibly train political prisoners to become good Soviets in fact is governed by rules that promote the opposite. The failure of the Soviet ideal within the camp can be viewed as a critique of the larger Soviet project, showing that abuse is inherent in the possession power and authority, and that as long as this power exists the goal of collectivization—of each man giving freely of himself to help the state and other men—will be futile. - Theme: Identity, Principles, and Dignity. Description: The prison camp is designed to strip the Zeks of their individual identities and dignity, reflecting the larger goal of the Stalinist regime—to create a collective society where the individual identity and desires are replaced by a national identity and dedication to the collective good. The prisoners' names are taken from them and replaced by numbers, their boots are tossed into a common heap, their social standing outside of the camp is rendered useless, and prisoners are strip searched for personal possessions several times each day. The stripping of identity and dignity destroys many prisoners, such as Fetyukov. Shukhov does not respect Fetyukov because he is always nagging and begging for food and cigarettes. At the end of the novel, the guards beat Fetyukov for licking bowls, showing how losing one's dignity has a destructive effect on the Zeks. Many of the Zeks, however, do retain individual identities. Shukhov tells that, "from the outside, everyone in the squad looked the same—their numbered black coats were identical—but within the squad there were great distinctions." Because the Zeks are stripped of all material possessions and markers of external identity, maintaining strong principals and one's dignity becomes a means by which some characters survive in the camp and maintain their identity. Shukhov, the novel's protagonist, is the primary example of how prisoners maintain identity and dignity. He is a rigorously principled man, refusing to stoop to the degradation of the other characters. Despite the cold, he takes his hat off before he eats. Despite his hunger, he does not eat the eyes of the fish in his soup. Despite his needs, he certainly does not beg for anything. Work provides an opportunity for Shukhov to gain a true sense of identity and dignity. Even though he does not receive a wage for his work and will not benefit from the labor he puts in, his work ethic and skills allow him to feel some ownership over it, which is immensely important for a man who owns nothing else. Although it appears that Shukhov is acting out the Soviet ideal—giving of oneself for the state—the pride he takes in his work is not rooted his service to the Soviet state, but in the fact that it allows him to feel useful as an individual. Interestingly, the very activities in which the Soviet ideal seems most present are the activities in which Shukhov finds the dignity to resist the stripping of his identity. In the end, his work on the wall and the satisfaction he gained from putting his skill to use stand as a major factor in what made his day "an almost happy one". This final moment shows that maintaining one's dignity through a principled life makes living in the camp slightly more bearable. - Theme: Competition vs. Camaraderie. Description: Although the stated goal of the camp is to rehabilitate its political prisoners into citizens of a collective Soviet society, the camp fails to instill and cultivate these values. As opposed to a collective atmosphere, the life of a Zek is defined by competition. On an individual level, the men compete to meet their basic needs—including access to food, warmth, and supplies—placing one's survival over the ideal of working toward a collective environment. The same competition occurs on the group level, as the work gangs compete for job assignments, tools, and supplies to complete their jobs. The very structure of the work camp is flawed, as Zeks pay off the guards in order to attain assignments and privileges, which aligns with a capitalist system, as opposed to the communist ideal. This environment of competition for survival makes the camp a particularly hostile place to live and a profound critique of the methods the Stalinist regime uses to try to impose a Soviet ideal. A sense of camaraderie does develop among the members of gang 104. As the group works, the hierarchy within the group is leveled to a certain extent. Pavlo and Tyurin, who are the leaders of the gang, work alongside the men, and although they are strict, they establish a sense of camaraderie. Shukhov suggests that prisoners will not work for a boss who is distant and acts superior to his gang, but will work hard for a foreman that they admire. This sense of camaraderie is heightened when Tyurin tells his story, which depicts the way he is connected to the men he oversees through their shared experience of injustice. Shukhov describes the gang as a family during this scene. This sense of camaraderie that occurs during work, however, unfolds on an individual, as opposed to an ideological level, based not so much on the desire to work for the good of the whole, but based on the merits of the individual. This too works against the Soviet ideal, where the state is valued over the individual. In the end, the Zeks work hard to have their own needs met and to meet the needs of the individuals they respect, as opposed to working for an ideological cause. The only moment of true camaraderie comes at the end of the novel after Alyoshka talks to Shukhov about turning away from the material world toward the spiritual. "Of all earthly and mortal things," Alyoshka says, "Our Lord commanded us only to pray for our daily bread." Unable to think in spiritual terms because of the struggle for physical sustenance, Shukhov asks Alyoshka if he is talking about their daily rations. Alyoshka, however, is talking about bread that feeds the spirit. Shukhov is touched in some way by their conversation, and offers Alyoshka a biscuit without expecting anything in return—a true act of camaraderie. Through this action, it becomes clear that true camaraderie can occur by moving away from the material world toward the spiritual. This change, however, remains particularly difficult in an environment where your life hinges on the attainment of resources. And it is further ironic that the Soviets were extremely hostile to religion in general—the religion that inspired Alyoshka and Shukov's camaraderie. The conditions of the camp prevent camaraderie, and in a larger sense, make collectivization impossible, as the individual's fight for survival through attainment of the material remains the primary and necessary focus. - Theme: Belief and Faith. Description: Belief and faith are another means through which characters survive the horrors of camp life, find meaning, and maintain a sense of identity. The Soviet regime promoted atheism, as organized religion was viewed as a threat to the soviet project. Belief and faith are elements of a Zek's life that are systematically stripped from them during their time in the camp. Early in the novel, Shukhov notices a new prisoner cross himself, but quickly notes that the habit will fade over time, showing the way that belief and faith diminish under the oppressive force of the camp. Some characters, however, retain a sense of belief and faith, including Tyurin and Alyoshka. And the characters that hold onto this aspect of their identity do much better in the harsh conditions of the camp. Holding to one's faith becomes a discrete way to resist the pressure of Soviet power, which seeks to strip the prisoners' identities. Alyoshka symbolizes the benefits and disadvantage of maintaining belief and faith in the camp. Alyoshka, a devout Baptist, reads from a hand written portion of the New Testament and prays before work. Shukhov notices him smiling when they arrive at the work site, which strikes him as strange considering the labor set out before them. Alyoshka's perception of his fate allows him to find happiness in the camp. He views his imprisonment as a cross he is bearing for God, and understands the camp as a good thing for his spirit, as the outside world would distract him with material wants, and distract him from the cultivation of his spirit. Although Alyoshka plays a positive role in gang 104 through his kindness and willingness to take orders, having this attitude in the camp can be dangerous. The meek prisoners at the camp receive harsh treatment from the guards and other prisoners. This fact, however, does not bother Alyoshka because he is more concerned with the development of the spirit, which is enhanced by the abuse he receives, and his views allow him to accept his situation.Belief in God allows Alyoshka to attain a sense of spiritual freedom in the camp. While the other characters are consumed by their need for material things, including food, clothing, warmth, Alyoshka is interested in cultivating his spirit. From this angle, the camp is the ideal place for him to be. This shift of perspective has a liberating effect, and his message at the end of the novel has such an effect on Shukhov. After hearing Alyoshka's spiritual message, Shukhov gives him a biscuit without expecting anything in return. Shukhov still thinks that Alyoshka's way of life is impractical, and gives him the biscuit out of pity because he believes Alyoshka does not know how to take care of himself. Yet Shukov still gives the biscuit in a spirit of pure generosity, asking for nothing in return, suggesting that Shukhov has grown spiritually through Alyoshka's message, and that Shukov's view of Alyoshka's way of life as being impractical may not be correct. After all, in the end, Alyoshka has his needs met without a self-seeking motive behind his kindness, suggesting that belief and faith may be a viable means to exist in the camp. - Theme: Time. Description: The theme of time reaches across many levels in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In the broadest sense, the novel is about "doing time", or being incarcerated. The narrative unfolds over the course of a single day, from the morning reveille to lights out, and the depiction of this single day over the length of the entire novel shows that even this short period remains an immense obstacle for the prisoners. In addition, the loss of time is one of the primary ways prisoners are punished, which is shown figuratively in the fact that prisoners are not allowed to have watches—the guards tell the time for the prisoners—and literally in the fact that the Soviet government has the power to add time to any prisoners sentence without justification. In another sense, a prisoner's free time is his most precious possession. The prisoners are held at the camp for extended periods, but they are afforded little time for themselves. Apart from sleep, a prisoner's only free time is during meals, for a brief time upon wake up, and a few minutes before work. This "time to oneself", however, is not actually something men can enjoy, as it is spent trying to survive by attaining basic needs, such as food, clothing, and supplies. Because time is necessary for a Zek's survival, taking away someone's free time is one of the greatest sins in the camp. When one prisoner falls asleep during work, causing the others to get held up during the count, he is verbally and physically assaulted, depicting the seriousness of his crime. Because each Zek's primary focus is his survival on a daily basis, he is essentially trapped in the present. By its very nature, the camp is designed to separate prisoners from their pasts by removing them from their families and communities, and allowing them to write only twice a year. For Shukhov, the past, or more specifically, the time period before Stalin took power in Russia, is reflected on fondly, but seems so distant it isn't worth much thought. Shukhov treats the future with the same indifference, since he knows either his sentence will be extended, or he will be exiled. The past, however, does make its way into the present through the characters' perceptions of themselves and others. Although the camp is designed to strip one of one's past, Shukhov continues to refer to people based on their standing before entering the camp, and he retains a sense of his own identity through his expertise as a tradesman and upholding the beliefs he developed before coming to the camp. Using these skills, which connect him to his past, are part of what make his day, "an almost good one". This positive note, however, is stifled by the novel's final lines, which remind the reader that this day is only one of the three thousand six hundred and fifty three more days Shukhov will be in prison. The last sentence, which states, "the three extra days were for leap years," leaves the reader with a new perspective on the life of a Zek: that there is no relief in a prisoner's sentence, and even the extra three days will be an immense struggle. - Climax: The building of the wall in the power station, followed by Shukhov's close call with being late for the head count - Summary: At five o'clock in the morning, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov awakes to the morning reveille in a Soviet labor camp. Shukhov always wakes up on time, but this morning he is feverish and his body aches. He decides to stay in bed for a few extra moments of rest, believing that a sympathetic guard is on duty that morning. Just as Shukhov decides to report sick, his blanket is torn off of him, and he realizes another guard, The Tartar, is on duty. The Tartar punishes Shukhov with three days in solitary confinement. As The Tartar walks Shukhov through the camp, Shukhov realizes that he will not be sent to solitary, but will clean the floor of the officers' headquarters instead. They pass a group of guards checking the temperature, which is negative seventeen and a half degrees. Shukhov removes his shoes and cleans the floor quickly. Then, he makes his way to the mess hall for breakfast. A fellow prisoner, Fetyukov, has saved Shukhov's meal for him, a soup made with black cabbage and putrid fish. Shukov takes out his spoon, which he calls "his baby", removes his hat, and eats. After eating, Shukhov heads to the sick bay to report sick for work that day. The medical orderly, Kolya, tells Shukhov that it's too late to report sick, and he should have come the night before. He takes Shukhov's temperature, but it is not high enough to exempt him from work. Shukhov returns to the barracks to join his work gang before the count. Shukhov is given his daily bread ration, which he breaks in half, sewing half into his mattress and putting the other half in his coat. The men are then called out into the cold and forced to take their jackets off in the frigid air for the search. One prisoner, Buynovsky, is sentenced to ten days in solitary for wearing extra layers. Shukhov, however, gladly accepts the search, knowing he has nothing to hide. The gang then begins the grueling march to work. Shukhov's back aches as he marches, so he begins to reflect on his separation from his family. He states that there is no sense in writing to them since he has nothing to write about. He has more to talk about with his fellow prisoners than his family. He remembers the last letter his wife wrote him in which she suggested he take up rug dying, a new way to earn quick money in the village where he is from. Shukhov finds this idea insulting, as he would rather use his skills in the trades to earn money. The prisoners arrive at the work site, and Shukhov notices that Alyoshka, a devout Baptist, is smiling and seemingly happy to be at work. The gang is assigned to work on a power station. Tyurin, the foreman of Shukhov's gang, gang 104, assigns Shukhov and Kildigs the task of covering the power station's windows to warm up the space. Shukhov retrieves a trowel he has hidden, and the men retrieve a hidden roll of tarred paper and cover the windows. Then Shukhov is tasked with fixing the stove. A teenaged prisoner, named Gopchik, helps Shukhov. Gopchik asks Shukhov to teach him to make a spoon out of a length of wire he has stolen. Meanwhile, Tyurin decides to wait until after lunch to begin laying bricks. Before lunch, the gang takes a quick break. Kildigs mentions that Shukhov is almost done with his sentence in the camp, and Shukhov reveals that he was imprisoned after being wrongly accused of being a spy during WWII. At lunch, Shukhov manages to swipe a second helping of food, which fills him up. On the way back to work, Shukhov finds a piece of scrap metal in the snow and hides it, hoping to make a knife out of it. The men gather around the stove to warm up before starting work again. Tyurin tells the story of his unjust incarceration for being the son of a wealthy peasant. He, like the other prisoners, is confined without due cause. Shukhov notes that the men of gang 104 respect Tyurin and work hard for him because he is a fair leader who cares about the welfare of his men. The men begin working on the wall of the power station. Pavlo, the deputy foreman, works with the rest of the men, although it is not required for him to help. Shukhov notes that the men respect him for working alongside them, and men will work hard for a foreman they respect. The time moves quickly as Shukhov works, and he takes great pride in his skills. When the work day ends, Shukhov hangs back to make sure his work is solid and hide his trowel, even though he is risking punishment for being late for the count. Shukhov is almost unable to get back to his gang for the count, but is saved when it is stalled because the guards discover a man is missing from one of the gangs. The man, who had fallen asleep during work, is found and the other prisoners berate and physically assault him for wasting their time. Upon returning to the camp, the prisoners are searched again. Shukhov submits to his search, but quickly remembers the piece of metal he has hidden in his mitten. He prays that the guard will not find the metal, and providentially, the guard does not discover the contraband. Once Shukhov has been cleared, he volunteers to save a place in line at the parcel room for Tsezar, a fellow prisoner who receives regular parcels, in hopes of receiving a cut for his service. When Tsezar arrives to claim his place in line, Shukhov heads to the mess hall. The men are being admitted in pairs instead of singly, creating a chaotic scene. Inside, Shukhov joins his gang, and is awarded with extra bread because of his work that day. When he is finished eating, he takes Tsezar's ration to the barracks. Having received a parcel, Tsezar allows Shukhov to keep his supper ration. Another count is conducted. Afterward, Shukhov gets into bed, even though a second count is imminent. When the second role call is conducted, Tsezar panics, as the contents of his parcel are out and will be stolen if he doesn't hide them. Shukhov offers to hide the parcel in his bunk. Afterward, Tsezar gives Shukhov a piece of sausage and a couple of biscuits. Before sleeping, Shukhov thanks God for allowing him to survive another day. Alyoshka the Baptist overhears his prayer and begins talking to Shukhov about God. He tells Shukhov that a man should only pray for his daily bread. Shukhov misunderstands, and asks Alyoshka if he means his daily ration. Alyoshka explains he is talking about bread that feeds the spirit. After hearing Alyoshka's message, Shukhov offers him one of the biscuits he received from Tsezar. After, he reflects that his day was an "almost good one". The narrator concludes by stating that this was only one day of 3,653 left in Shukhov's sentence.

- Genre: Counterculture/Protest Novel - Title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Point of view: Chief Bromden (Narrator) - Setting: Mental hospital in Oregon during the 1950s - Character: Chief Bromden. Description: Narrator; half Indian, 6'3 patient who has been on the ward the longest. Pretends to be deaf and dumb for the majority of his commitment. Hallucinates a thick fog that begins to wane with McMurphy's arrival. He also begins to think more about his past, in which his Native American family was forced to sell their land to make way for a hydroelectric dam. He escapes the ward at the novel's end after suffocating a lobotomized McMurphy. - Character: Randle P. McMurphy. Description: The protagonist of the novel. A gambling, thirty-five year old womanizer, McMurphy was transferred to the ward after potentially faking psychosis, because he believed the ward would be more comfortable than the work farm he had sentenced to work at. He is shocked by the emasculating control that Nurse Ratched has over the men, and becomes a radical, subversive force of change that inspires the men to challenge Ratched. - Character: Nurse Ratched. Description: Often referred to as "Big Nurse." She runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist, and functions as the novel's antagonist. She's a middle-aged, former Army nurse whose principal tactic of control is emasculating her male patients. She successfully controls the ward by carefully selecting staff that will be submissive to her. The novel pits her against Randle McMurphy. - Character: Dale Harding. Description: College-educated patient. Helps McMurphy learn the ropes of the ward. Harding is a homosexual, but the social pressure to be straight cripples him. He is married, but he prefers to commit himself to the hospital rather than face prejudice or the anger of his wife. After McMurphy is lobotomized, Harding checks himself out of the ward. - Character: Doctor Spivey. Description: The doctor assigned to the ward. Under Nurse Ratched's control because he's allegedly addicted to opiates, and she can use this as leverage to have him fired. He's also a pushover, making him easy to dominate. When McMurphy arrives, Doctor Spivey feels re-invigorated, just as his patients do, and frequently backs up McMurphy's suggestions, such as going on the fishing trip or starting a basketball team. - Character: Billy Bibbit. Description: A patient on the ward with a stutter. He appears young, but is actually thirty-one. He is completely dominated by his mother (a close friend of Nurse Ratched), and committed himself to the hospital voluntarily because he couldn't handle the outside world. After he loses his virginity to Candy Starr in the nighttime ward party, he is initially proud. But when Nurse Ratched threatens to tell his mother, Bibbit slits his own throat and dies. - Character: George Sorenson. Description: A patient on the ward and a former fisherman. McMurphy names Sorenson the captain of the fishing trip. The aides give Sorenson the nickname "Rub-a-Dub George" because he has a phobia of being dirty. After the aides taunt Sorenson in the post-fishing trip shower, McMurphy and Chief Bromden step in to fight the aides. McMurphy and Bromden are then sent to Disturbed for shock therapy. - Theme: Sanity v. Insanity. Description: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest explores the idea of what it means to be sane or insane, and, perhaps most importantly, who gets to define what qualifies as sane versus insane. One of the novel's most salient insinuations is that the psych ward, Nurse Ratched, and all the other tools of "sanity" in the book are, in fact, insane. This question becomes central with the arrival of Randle McMurphy to the ward, a likeable, crass gambler who may have faked psychosis to get relocated to the ward from a work camp. Regardless of Nurse Ratched's personal suspicions that McMurphy is not, in fact, insane, Ratched must treat him as insane because only then can she exercise control over him. In other words, a ward that is meant to help cure those who are insane is instead treating as insane a man who its chief nurse believes to be sane—a fact which is, arguably, itself insane behavior. Ken Kesey's portrayal of the characters within the psych ward further asks the reader to question the line between what is sane and insane. The characters in the ward are undeniably damaged or hurting, but are they insane or do they just not fit perfectly well in a rigid society? The narrator of the novel, Chief Bromden, has successfully pretended to be deaf and mute for years in the ward, though his recalling of events as a narrator are largely lucid and appear sane despite the hallucinatory fog—which seems to be something that the ward and the world has done to him, rather than some problematic aspect of his psyche—that plagues him for a large portion of the book. Dale Harding is an eloquent, well-educated man, but because of his homosexuality he is so uncomfortable in society that he voluntarily puts himself in a mental institution. Through these and other characters in the psych ward, Kesey makes a deliberate point of challenging the reader to ask themselves where the boundaries of sanity are, and who exactly determines them, and what is a world that allows the strong to label the weak or misfit as crazy just to shut them away. - Theme: Institutional Control vs. Human Dignity. Description: Nurse Ratched is notorious for her desire to exercise complete control over the men who are under her jurisdiction on the psych ward, both as patients and as employees. In doing so, Nurse Ratched becomes a metaphor for the entire mental institution, the government, society at large—or to put it simply: any and every powerful institution that exists to regulate, control, and categorize groups of people. In order to determine the difference between sanity and insanity, for instance, some agent of power (society, the psych ward, Nurse Ratched) must first define the boundaries of what each word means. After this definition is decided upon, it can be used to control and categorize people to make them easier to control. The institutions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest claim that they categorize the patients as insane in order to "treat" and "rehabilitate" them. But it quickly becomes clear in the novel that this rehabilitation is more punitive and controlling than it is helpful for any mental ailment: the shock treatment table, the red pills that cause memory loss, the daily meetings that pit men against each other, and the list on Nurse Ratched's desk to record and reward the men for betraying each other's secrets are all ways to force people to obey, not to make them well. The categorization of the men as Acutes and Chronics shows the inherent loss of human dignity that results from relying on such categories. As the novel opens, the men in the ward do not have names: they have broad labels: Acute or Chronic. That is the only marker of meaning regarding them: not who they are, not what they care about. Just Acute or Chronic. Further, the ward allows for little freedom of expression—though it is feigned with "democratic" group meetings. There is no recreation outdoors. There is little exposure to the outside world. All activities and therapy sessions are scheduled with precision, and to deviate from that schedule is to be a nuisance to Nurse Ratched. This is exactly as Nurse Ratched prefers it to be, because she can strip the humanity of her patients in order to be in complete control and run her ward like a well-oiled machine. It is when Randle McMurphy becomes a patient—and begins to treat other patients with dignity—that the cold categorization of the institution begins to be subverted: the fog lifts for Chief Bromden, the men joke and play, they go on outings. The climactic party scene illustrates how the men (sane or insane) still possess the same desires as a nominally "sane" person: to have fun, to be free, to be respected. McMurphy's introduction of human dignity to the patients transforms the ward—the men realize that they have sacrificed not just their rights but their very beings by electing to be committed to the institution, but as they rediscover their own human dignity with the aid of McMurphy they attempt to wrest back that control. - Theme: Social Pressure and Shame. Description: Randle McMurphy is shocked to learn that there are more men on the psych ward who are voluntarily committed than those, like him, who have been committed by the state. Dale Harding, for instance, is so ashamed of his homosexuality that he chooses to commit himself to a mental asylum to escape the shame he feels around his wife. Billy Bibbit is in his early thirties, but he has become so infantilized and reliant on his mother's acceptance and approval that he is paralyzed by the thought of being with another woman, or of his mother finding out anything about him that would lessen her esteem of him (e.g. when he sleeps with Candy and blames the events on McMurphy and the rest of the men). The novels makes it clear that many of these men are holding themselves back from living freely because they are terrified of how they will be received by the general population for their behaviors. Not fitting in because of sexual orientation, ethnic background, infantilization—no matter what it is, the men fear what makes them different and would rather hide from society than face its judgment of them. The judgments about what constitutes normal or abnormal behavior, about what is shameful and what is not, are decided by the few in positions of institutional power, but their influence and legitimacy gives their views—however wrong or right—the ability to become the definition of what is Normal in society. For most of these men, they simply cannot deal with the shame of not fitting into what is conventionally normal until McMurphy helps them to recognize their own internal dignity and self-worth, to reconnect with themselves in a way that is unaffected by society's perception of them. - Theme: The Combine: Machine, Nature, and Man. Description: The Combine is what Chief Bromden calls society at large, a giant force that exists to oppress the people within it. The hospital ward is a mere factory for remedying mistakes made within The Combine (within neighborhoods and churches), to re-set peoples' behavior into the "correct" behavior. The ward is a mechanized extension of The Combine, but more importantly The Combine represents the increasingly mechanized structure of all of nature and society. Bromden's ideas about The Combine arise in part from his own history as a Native American—his ancestral land, on which his people lived and fished, was taken from him and his family for the purposes of building a hydroelectric dam.Chief Bromden sees The Combine as a taming force against human nature: it devastated his homeland and, in doing so, stripped him of his human nature. He becomes what others believe to be deaf and dumb, much like an automaton—tasked with cleaning up the ward on schedule like a robot. His existence for years on the ward is without humanity; he exists only to complete tasks. Kesey suggests with the theme of The Combine that the taming of nature goes hand in hand with the taming of man. While Kesey focuses his attention in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to the psychiatric ward, and the way it runs like a factory, the novel also suggests that the ward functions as a metaphor for the world at large, which grounds down its people into mindless drones, disconnected from themselves and from nature. - Theme: Emasculation and Sexuality. Description: In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey draws a clear connection between the men's sexuality and their freedom—their very ability to be "men." Nurse Ratched uses emasculating tactics throughout the novel in order to strip the men on the ward of their freedom. She sometimes employs physical force (such as shock treatment), drugs (personality altering pills), but also uses simple intimidation and other tactics to ensure that the men are always under a strict, unchanging schedule and that they are acting in a submissive, despondent way that makes them easier to control. When McMurphy arrives at the ward, he immediately identifies emasculation is the core of Nurse Ratched's strategy of control, and notes after the first group session that she is a "ball-breaker." Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, then, operate in direct opposition of one another throughout the novel: Ratched the emasculating force, McMurphy the hyper-masculine force, bragging about his many sexual conquests and challenging the other men to show some balls. While Kesey draws a strong correlative between emasculation and lack of freedom on the ward; emasculation is also intertwined with social pressures—most of the men arrive at the ward already emasculated, and this is in fact the root cause for why many elect to be committed in the first place. Dan Harding feels emasculated because of his homosexuality and his wife's reaction to his sexual proclivities. Billy Bibbit feels emasculated because of his mother's hold on him and the fact that he had never been with a woman until he has sex with Candy, the prostitute. This act, though, once discovered by Nurse Ratched, forces him to suicide because he cannot bear to think of his mother's reaction. After Bibbit's suicide, McMurphy rips Nurse Ratched's uniform, revealing her breasts and womanly figure for the first time to the patients. In the logic of the novel, McMurphy's attack destroys the institutionalized mask that Ratched uses to make herself non-human and non-feminine and reasserts masculine dominance. It shows the men that Ratched is not some impersonal avenging force, she's a woman, and that the men, by extension, are men, who traditionally are the powerful ones. And that they can reassert that power if they wish. - Climax: At the end of Part II, McMurphy violently rebels against Nurse Ratched's decision to close off the game room. He punches through the glass window at the nurse's station. It signals that McMurphy is beyond trying to get a rise out of Nurse Ratched for selfish reasons, but now believes she is a corruptive, evil force. It is here that McMurphy commits himself to truly rehabilitating the other men. - Summary: Chief Bromden serves as the narrator for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He has been a patient at the unnamed Oregon psych ward for ten years, and suffers from debilitating hallucinations of fog. While Chief Bromden is aware of his surroundings, he has pretended to be both deaf and dumb for the duration of his commitment. On the ward, all of the patients are men divided into Acutes (curable) and Chronics (vegetables). Nurse Ratched rules over the ward with an iron fist. If anyone dares to go against her, they are punished with shock treatment, or in severe cases, a lobotomy. Randle McMurphy is the protagonist of the novel, and his arrival after a transfer from a Pendleton Work Farm marks the beginning of an unprecedented liberation in the ward. McMurphy introduces himself to both the Acutes and Chronics as a gambler and womanizer. After the first group therapy session, he claims that Ratched is a ball-breaker. McMurphy bets the other patients that he can cause Ratched to lose her temper in his first week, and wins. After a group therapy session where Ratched refuses to let the men watch the World Series, which comes on during Ratched's scheduling cleaning of the ward, McMurphy protests by refusing to do his chores and sitting in front of the blank television. The other men join. Ratched is incensed and demands that they get back to work, but the men refuse. McMurphy is thrilled with his victory. The patients on the ward expect for Ratched to retaliate by sending McMurphy to shock treatment, but she fears that sending McMurphy away will turn him into a martyr, and that after enough time has passed the other men will see that McMurphy is actually egotistical coward. McMurphy soon learns that being involuntarily committed (which he is) leaves you at the mercy of the hospital staff to determine your freedom. He had previously thought that he would get to leave when his term was up. He begins to abide by the strict rules, not wanting to jeopardize his chance at getting out. It is too late, though, because the other patients already see McMurphy as their leader against Ratched. As the patients begin to realize McMurphy has submitted to her authority, Charles Cheswick becomes upset and drowns in the pool, which the doctor rules a possible suicide. McMurphy is torn up by Cheswick's death, and realize how the other men see him. He playacts for a little longer at being obedient, then punches through the nurse station window as Ratched sits inside after she takes away game room privileges as a punitive measure for the men's World Series protest. McMurphy sets up a fishing trip for ten patients and himself. On the boat, he is largely absent below deck—allowing the men to take charge of steering and catching large fish, enabling them to feel free, in control, and masculine. McMurphy also devises a scheme for Billy Bibbit to lose his virginity to a prostitute named Candy Starr by sneaking her into the ward. The men return from the trip feeling empowered. McMurphy and Chief Bromden get in a fight with some of the aides after they taunt George Sorenson in the shower after their fishing expedition. Both McMurphy and Chief Bromden are sent to Disturbed for shock treatment. Ratched brings him back to the ward to dispel the myth that McMurphy is immune to the treatments. McMurphy is encouraged by the men to escape, but he uses Bibbit's scheduled date that evening as an excuse not to leave. After bribing the night aide, Mr. Turkle, the men sneak Candy into the ward and a large party takes place with drinking, smoking, and Bibbit losing his virginity. Dale Harding urges McMurphy to escape to Mexico. McMurphy promises to, but falls asleep instead.The aides discover all the men in the morning. Nurse Ratched finds Bibbit with Candy and threatens to tell his mother. He is so distraught that he slits his throat, killing himself. McMurphy, blaming Ratched for Bibbit's death, attacks her, ripping her uniform. She sends McMurphy to be lobotomized and he's returned to the ward as a Chronic. However, her power is broken. Most of the men check out of the hospital or transfer to different wards. Chief Bromden suffocates McMurphy with a pillow as an act of mercy, then throws the impossibly heavy control panel out of a window and escapes the hospital.

- Genre: Psychological realism - Title: Ordinary People - Point of view: Third-person subjective; alternates between an "omniscient" narrator and the (implied) ideas and voices of each character - Setting: Evanston, Illinois (a town just outside of Chicago; home to Northwestern University), especially Conrad's school, Lake Forest High; some scenes in Chicago and Dallas, Texas - Character: Conrad Jarrett. Description: Conrad is the protagonist of the novel. He is the youngest son of Calvin and Beth Jarrett; his older brother, Buck, dies in a sailing accident before the novel's plot begins. Ordinary People traces Conrad's recovery from a severe bout of depression and attempted suicide brought on by his brother's death, for which he feels responsible. With the help of his father, his psychiatrist Dr. Berger, and his friends Lazenby, Karen, and Jeannine, Conrad undergoes the painful but liberating process of escaping guilt and learning to love himself and others. - Character: Calvin (Cal) Jarrett. Description: Calvin, who is called Cal throughout the novel, is father to Conrad and Buck and husband to Beth Jarrett. A childhood spent in an orphanage fuels Cal's deep desire to care and provide for his family, and is a major factor in his eventual decision to become a lawyer. Despite his material comfort, Cal harbors a deep sense of responsibility for both of his sons' misfortunes. A sense of helplessness in the face of fate – combined with the looming memory of his one-time mentor Arnold Bacon – is Cal's main obstacle. - Character: Beth Jarrett. Description: Beth is mother to Conrad and Buck and wife to Cal Jarrett. She is the envy of many characters in the novel; she is physically attractive, driven, and a perfectionist. Her reaction to hardship is tightly controlled, and usually leads her to conceal her feelings. She is emotionally distant from Conrad (he describes her as a "deeply personal person"), and from the rest of her family as well. - Character: Dr. Berger. Description: Conrad's psychiatrist. He is wildly different from Dr. Crawford or any of the other staff members from the hospital in which Conrad was kept for three months. Though off-putting in his appearance and mannerisms, Berger's simultaneously relaxed and confrontational approach help Conrad recognize the difficulty and benefits of healthy relationships. - Character: (Joe) Lazenby. Description: Lazenby is one of Conrad's oldest friends; the two have known each other since early childhood, and both are members of their school's swim team. Besides Cal, he is the character who is most proactive in his attempts to help Conrad recover. Unfortunately Conrad spends much of his time distancing himself from Lazenby, which puts considerable strain on their friendship. - Theme: Mental Disorder. Description: Ordinary People explores, expands, and complicates the idea of what it means to suffer from mental disorder. At first glance, Conrad seems to represent a typical understanding of mental disorder. Having lost his brother in a sailing accident and blaming himself for the outcome, Conrad attempts suicide and is committed to a mental hospital. Even after his release he continues to consult Dr. Berger, a therapist. Conrad's main task (which is arguably the central activity of the novel) is to overcome the crushing sense of guilt that fuels his torment.But however distinctive his situation may be, Conrad isn't the only character struggling with the impact of his brother's death. While Conrad's parents might at first appear to be coping with the tragedy as well as might be expected, Guest uses the language of mental disease to describe them both. Beth, beneath her composed exterior, is plagued by "hysteria" and "madness." These emotions especially come to the fore when Beth feels "distinctly trapped" in her living situation—when cleanliness or quiet are compromised and she finds herself unable to change the circumstances. Cal, too, with his lack of direction and guilt-ridden approach to parenting, feels "trapped and hot" when a casual visit with Berger slowly leads him to confront the truth about his own misguided thirst for control. Even Berger's appearance and mannerisms initially strike Cal and Conrad as signs of the doctor's "madness."Ultimately, the novel suggests that mental disorder is more than a matter of medical diagnosis. Conrad's friend Karen recalls an observation she made while the two were in hospital: "People were, you know, turned on all the time. And you just can't live like that. You can't live with all that emotion floating around, looking for a place to land. It's too exhausting." In contrast, Berger advises Conrad that "The thing that hurts you is sitting on yourself....[D]epression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling." Mental health in the novel is a balance between these extremes of being too "turned on" and experiencing a "reduction of feeling." Because they can neither "hold it together" in the face of grief, nor remain emotionally honest, all of the Jarretts are ill at ease in ways that stifle their relationships both with others and with their inner selves. A lack of emotional balance has nothing to do with looking or feeling "sick". As many of the characters in Ordinary People discover, mental disorder can set in even when everything seems to be under control. - Theme: Fate vs. Responsibility. Description: The habits and behaviors of many of the characters in Ordinary People are largely motivated by the desire to control their world. From the moment he meets her, Cal recognizes Beth as a decisive go-getter: "I knew when you aced Ray on that first serve," she recalls, "I was going to marry you and that was all there was to it." Her obsessive cleanliness and general concern for keeping up appearances stem from the same decisiveness, the same need to control the situation. Beth similarly tries to control the information that she and her family share about their issues. For instance, she reproaches Cal for discussing Conrad's therapy sessions at a party, describing such openness as being "in the worst possible taste. ...Not to mention a violation of privacy." For Cal, meanwhile, his sensitivity to his environment and Conrad's emotions define his nervous approach to parenting. He calls this hyper-awareness responsibility—"You cannot afford to miss any signs...". He wants to make sure he never misses anything—he wants to be in control.The urge to take responsibility will not allow these characters to act without latching onto some "statement of purpose." As the book's opening states: "To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to possess a guiding principle. A belief of some kind. A bumper sticker, if you will." Cal, especially, feels pressed to put his mission into words; Who the hell are you? is a question he spends much of the novel trying to answer for himself. But his effort is undermined by the nagging sense that he's actually unable to take on as much responsibility as he feels he should. Regarding Conrad's mental illness, "[Cal] does not believe himself to be innocent. It has to be his fault, because fault equals responsibility equals control equals eventual understanding."Similarly, Conrad blames himself for his brother Buck's death. Berger works to free Conrad from this type of thinking. Conrad's recovery requires him to realize that, despite his own actions, many things in his life—the feelings of others, his emotions, even Buck's death—are out of his control. Conrad's crushing guilt and eventual suicide attempt are rooted in his need to assign blame and responsibility for an event that was purely accidental. "Guilt. Is not punishment, Berger said. Guilt is simply guilt." Not every character in Ordinary People is able to realize this, but those who do eventually learn to escape the stress that comes with an overwhelming need to assign (or take) blame for, to assume responsibility for and therefore control, everything that happens. - Theme: "Family" and Love. Description: The world of Ordinary People is filled with groups of people. Conrad is a member of his swimming team and choir. Cal spends much of his day immersed in business with co-workers. Beth is responsible for organizing activities at her country club. All of the Jarretts are related by blood, of course, and Beth's immediate and extended family members also enjoy a significant presence in the novel. But there are varying degrees of intimacy between all of these people, which also makes for different levels of emotional vulnerability. As a nuclear family, the Jarretts might be expected to love one another. Unfortunately, Buck's death and Conrad's suicide attempt put their familial bonds under intense stress. The word love might not even suffice to describe the relationship between the characters for much of the book. At one point Beth desperately notes, "Mothers don't hate their sons!", as if her relationship to Conrad consisted not of love, but obligation and blame. Further, Cal notices that Beth's seemingly mysterious, untamable nature is what keeps her from showing love to her son ("emotion is her enemy"). When Conrad discusses his mother with Berger, Berger suggests that "[m]aybe she's afraid, maybe it's hard for her to give love"—but Conrad also realizes that he has been unable to forgive his mom for her apparent coldness. Through their struggles, we learn that the Jarretts harbor many insecurities that prevent them from being honest about their needs, fears, and disappointments. They seem to think that just by having the labels associated with their roles—mother, father, son—that it should create the appropriate relationships. And in taking that for granted—or resenting it—they fail to make or maintain the necessary human connections between each other.Nearly all of the families in Ordinary People are marred by alienation or resentment. Despite being surrounded by a host of relatives, Beth is unwilling to open up even to her extended family. When Cal asks his friend Ray for advice about parenting, Ray admits to "barely knowing" his adult daughter. Jeannine Pratt nurses a grudge against her mother, who is dating a friend of her ex-husband. Cal's personal experiences with family drive the point home: Chapter 6 recounts Cal's rescue from the orphanage by Arnold Bacon, a lawyer who takes him on as a protégé. The emotions and language surrounding it are deeply familial—one line from Chapter 6, for example, reveals Bacon's motives for taking Cal under his wing: "He needed to know that he was leaving his baby protected." Cal, meanwhile, believes that "It was the closest thing to a father-son relationship—it was a father-son relationship, he thought." Yet when Cal decides to marry Beth, Bacon, feeling betrayed, cuts Cal loose. "It was, as Bacon pointed out to him, a financial obligation." Nothing holds these groups of people together except some imaginary contract; at root, they are just as disparate as any other group of people in the novel.In the end, love proves stronger than family ties. And love can only flourish when a relationship leaves space for vulnerability and discomfort. Conrad and Cal realize this, as do Conrad and Jeannine. Even Conrad and Lazenby's strained friendship begins to recover when Conrad overcomes his resentment and struggles through the awkwardness of making amends. As a passage near the end of the novel notes: "...Painful, the problem he has with [the words "I love you, man"]; they threaten to overpower him, cut off his breathing." Love is risky, sometimes as painful as it is pleasurable, but its demands are what separate it from any other way of relating to others. - Theme: Body/Mind Duality. Description: For Conrad (and many of the other characters in the novel), there is a struggle to reconcile physical sensations with mental convictions. When achieved, that reconciliation forms the basis of recovery and well-being. As Berger repeatedly warns Conrad, "The body never lies." Conrad and his family members are often tangled up in their own thoughts, blaming themselves for ideas they cling to, or worrying about what others may think of them. Yet in many cases, Conrad's biggest enemy is not his mind but his body. His reactions to stressful situations are often physical before they become mental, and Guest's narration repeatedly weaves sensory material into mental reactions. In those moments, Conrad's physical reactions play a big part in shaping his thoughts, emotions, and actions.At the opening of the novel, Conrad faintly realizes that putting mind and body in agreement will keep him healthy. He therefore tries to control and repress physical signs of anxiety by sticking to a plan he's made to get him through the day. Even if he doesn't quite believe it, he believes he must "Get the motions right. Motives will follow. That is Faith." But despite his good intentions, Conrad spends most of the novel splitting the mental and physical parts of himself – exploring his mental and emotional life with Berger, but experiencing lots of physical stress everywhere else. The same is true for Conrad's school activities. He finds no joy in swimming, where he cannot "[improve his] timing" or "[perfect] a stroke" without the right motivation; his schoolwork is a constant source of mental stress. But singing in his school choir demands equal amounts of concentration and control – which makes it one of Conrad's favorite activities. And his relationship with Jeannine begins to deepen in a moment of play-acting depicted in Chapter 20: the words and ideas of an imaginary couple are brought to life by Conrad and Jeannine's own bodies, which eventually leads to their first kiss, more dates, and, eventually, the first time they have sex—one of the novel's most vivid depiction of both physical and emotional healing.Conrad finally learns to forgive himself when, at the book's climax, his memories of the boating accident meld with the different physical sensations he experiences while showering. Before that point, his nightmares are often intensely physical. Mind and body often seem at odds with one another, but they don't have to be – nor should they be. When Conrad integrates them, he "is in touch for good, with hope, with himself, no matter what. Berger is right, the body never lies." - Climax: Conrad learns about his friend Karen's suicide. - Summary: The Jarretts are a well-to-do family who live near Chicago. Calvin (Cal) Jarrett, a tax attorney, and his wife Beth Jarrett have two sons, Jordan (better known as Buck) and Conrad. Tragedy strikes the family one summer when the oldest, Buck, dies in a sailing accident. Conrad feels personally responsible for his brother's death, and after a gradual spiral into depression he tries to commit suicide by slashing his wrists. Thankfully Cal and Beth find him in the bathroom before he dies; they eventually commit him to a mental hospital, where he stays for eight months. The novel begins one month after Conrad is released from the hospital. Cal has arranged for Conrad to start seeing a therapist named Dr. Tyrone Berger, yet he finds it difficult to get through each day. Spending time with his friends and swimming teammates Lazenby, Stillman, Truan, Genthe, and Van Buren wears on him constantly. In choir practice he meets a new student named Jeannine Pratt, whom he finds to be stunningly beautiful. He realizes that swimming no longer gives him the joy he once experienced. Most significantly, his relationship with Beth is strained; they hardly speak to one another, as Beth avoids him as much as possible. Conrad visits Berger for the first time. The psychiatrist's appearance, attitude, and approach all unsettle Conrad, but they agree to meet twice a week. The sessions come at an awkward time for the Jarretts, who find it difficult to navigate their family situation. Beth is annoyed when Cal mentions Conrad's therapy sessions at a party. Berger advises Conrad to loosen his grip on his emotions. Meanwhile, an old friend from the hospital, named Karen, contradicts Berger's advice. And with the exception of Lazenby, Conrad's friends offer little help at all. Some relief comes with quitting the swim team in order to make room for his meetings with Berger. As Christmas approaches, though, things begin to look up for Conrad. He makes progress with Berger, and his relationship with Jeannine begins to blossom. Unfortunately some news from Beth dampens the mood: to her surprise and embarrassment, a friend of hers reveals that Conrad quit the swim team. The revelation sparks a huge argument between Conrad, Cal, and Beth. Cal feels trapped between his wife and his son, both of whom feel wronged by the other. Cal is further disappointed when his attempt to surprise Conrad with a car for Christmas falls flat. The new year brings a turn for the better. Cal pays Berger a visit of his own, which makes him more aware of his own feelings. Conrad begins dating Jeannine in earnest. She gradually begins to open up about her own troubled past, which makes her one of the few people with whom Conrad feels a sense of trust. Once again, though, Conrad meets difficulty when he encounters his friends from the swim team in the school parking lot after a meet. A few bitter from words from Stillman spark a fistfight. After the fight subsides Lazenby expresses his disappointment about his waning friendship with Conrad. Cal and Beth take a trip to Dallas. While there, Cal plays in a golf tournament, and Beth catches up with her brother Ward and his wife Audrey. Conrad stays behind in Chicago with his grandparents. One day he reads in the newspaper that his friend Karen has committed suicide; the announcement sends Conrad into a deep bout of depression, during which he recalls the moments leading to his own brother's death. Meanwhile, still in Texas, Cal finally unleashes his growing resentment toward Beth. He finds her coolness toward Conrad disturbing. In a surge of emotion, Conrad calls Berger to talk through his overwhelming breakthrough. Eventually Conrad realizes that his fear and anxiety are rooted in guilt – blaming himself for Buck's death was his biggest source of torment. He makes the realization just as Beth and Cal return from their trip. Their eye-opening argument drives them apart, and Beth decides to move out. The novel ends on a positive note, however: Cal and Conrad take their first steps toward a more open relationship, Conrad makes strides with Jeannine and Lazenby, and he realizes that Beth loves him despite her emotional distance.

- Genre: Prose fiction, travel narrative, early English novel - Title: Oroonoko - Point of view: First-person - Setting: Coramantien and Suriname - Character: Prince Oroonoko. Description: The last descendant of the King of Coramantien, Oroonoko was raised away from the court to be a skillful warrior by Imoinda's father. The narrator stresses that he is extraordinarily handsome, intelligent, and honorable, despite being black. Oroonoko has strong notions of duty and perfectly follows the codes of his society, except when his love for Imoinda compels him to protect and honor their marriage by taking her life to protect her and their unborn child. He mistakenly assumes that his notion of honor means the same thing to the white Christians he comes into contact with—a mistake that several times ends up depriving him of his freedom. Trefry christens Oroonoko as "Caesar," and he is referred to as such from then on. Oroonoko/Caesar is also incredibly brave, and performs many skillful, daring feats while hunting game in Suriname. - Character: Imoinda (a.k.a Clemene). Description: Imoinda is described as a "black Venus," corresponding to Oroonoko as the "black Mars." To the narrator, Imoinda perfectly complements Oroonoko in beauty and virtue. Her beauty often brings her unwanted attentions from men, however, even in the New World. This is a particularly big problem in Coramantien, where Imoinda catches the eye of the king. He takes her as his concubine, even though he knows she has pledged her love to Oroonoko and married him. Imoinda remains true to her husband, however, but this brings about her downfall when the king sells her into slavery. Not long after being reunited with Oroonoko in Suriname, Imoinda becomes pregnant. She then fights alongside Oroonoko to gain liberty and a better life for their unborn child. She is handy with a bow and arrow, and wounds Governor Byam during a slave uprising. Imoinda is also incredibly obedient to Oroonoko, and accepts her own death and her unborn child's murder at his hands out of the abundance of her love for him. - Character: Narrator (Aphra Behn). Description: The narrator is a female Englishwoman, and possibly the direct voice of the author, Aphra Behn, who lived in Suriname for a while and may have had similar experiences to the narrator. Almost the whole of Oroonoko is told in the narrator's voice and from her perspective. For the most part, the narrator is open-minded (for her time) and not entirely bigoted in her opinions of the native peoples of the European colonies. She sees these "natives" as close descendants of Adam and Eve before the Fall of Man, but her opinions toward black Africans seems to be a bit murkier. While she highly esteems Oroonoko, there is a sense that he is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to African. While the narrator abhors how Oroonoko is treated, she never admits that she has a problem with the institution of slavery itself—the main injustice she decries is that a natural king like Oroonoko should be treated so disrespectfully. The narrator admires the foods and customs of the ethnic groups she comes into contact with, and in general she has a keen sense of adventure. She describes her health as poor, and is very sensitive to all kinds of odors. Her closest friends include Oroonoko and Imoinda, who often dine at her table. - Character: King of Coramantien. Description: Over 100 years old, the king is Oroonoko's grandfather. He has many wives, both old and young. As the culture of his society is highly patriarchal, the king's word is law, and his lust knows no limits. Even though he knows that Imoinda is married to Oroonoko, the king takes her as his concubine, safe in the knowledge that it would be taboo for Oroonoko to ever take her back, even if the king himself dies. The king is generally portrayed as wicked and depraved, and as lacking Oroonoko's sense of honor. He often forces himself on Imoinda, and though Imoinda returns to Oroonoko a virgin, the king's relationship with her is understood to be sexual in nature: he is willing but unable to perform. The king also lies to Oroonoko, telling him that he had Imoinda put to death, when in reality he sold her into slavery—a much more demeaning sentence. - Character: Aboan. Description: A young warrior and good friend of Oroonoko, Aboan is basically Oroonoko's "wingman." He pretends to be in love with the much older Onahal, one of the king's old wives, to help Oroonoko visit Imoinda while she is cloistered in the Otan. Aboan is extremely loyal to Oroonoko and a good liar, traits that help him seduce Onahal. Along with Oroonoko, he is captured and sent to Suriname as a slave. - Character: Onahal. Description: A former wife of the king, Onahal takes charge of Imoinda after she becomes a concubine. Onahal's beauty has long since faded, and she is now sort of a head housekeeper of the Otan, the king's private court and inner sanctum. Onahal's job is to make sure everything is in order for the king's entertainment, whether that involves arranging court dances or evening activities with young concubines in his bedroom. Onahal falls in love with Aboan. - Character: Jamoan. Description: Jamoan is the leader of the opposing army that besieges Oroonoko's troops. For most of the fight, the lovesick Oroonoko pines for the presumed death of Imoinda. When Oroonoko returns to his senses, however, he helps defeat Jamoan's army, seriously wounds Jamoan, and then retains him as an attendant. They become good friends, and Jamoan helps cure Oroonoko of his melancholy over losing Imoinda. - Character: The Captain. Description: A seemingly well-bred and genteel English sea captain, the Captain, as he is called, first pretends to be Oroonoko's friend. The Captain is welcomed at the Coramantien court and treated like a royal guest. One day, he sets a trap to capture Oroonoko and 100 of his men, so that he can sell them into slavery. After throwing a party on his ship and getting the men drunk, the Captain chains up Oroonoko and his attendants. When Oroonoko and his band then refuse to eat, the Captain lies to Oroonoko, telling him that if he will eat, the Captain he will set everyone free at the next port. Ultimately the Captain delivers his prisoners to Suriname and sells them as slaves. - Character: Trefry. Description: Trefry is a young Cornish gentleman in Suriname. He is skilled in math and linguistics, and manages Governor Byam's affairs. He also speaks French and Spanish. Trefry buys Oroonoko from the Captain and, after getting to know Oroonoko's story, feels great sympathy for his plight. He gives Oroonoko the name Caesar and promises to help him back to his homeland. They become great friends, and Trefry always tries to look out for Oroonoko, though Oroonoko often gets frustrated by the lack of progress toward achieving his liberty. Trefry introduces Oroonoko to a beautiful slave he knows as Clemene, but whom Oroonoko realizes is actually Imoinda. After Oroonoko is killed, Trefry begins to record his biography, but dies before he can finish it. - Character: Tuscan. Description: Tuscan is a slave in Suriname who stands out from his fellow slaves, not only because he is taller than the rest, but also because he has a "noble look" about him. He joins Oroonoko's uprising and stays with Oroonoko and Imoinda to fight against the colonists after the other slaves surrender. Tuscan is whipped alongside Oroonoko as punishment for leading the band of runaway slaves, but he later reconciles with Byam. Tuscan finds Oroonoko lying beside Imoinda's corpse, and he tries to save his starving friend from dying. Oroonoko stabs Tuscan in the arm for his disloyalty and for trying to intervene in his affairs. - Character: Governor Byam. Description: A deputy governor in Suriname, Byam is not afraid to use low and dishonorable tactics to keep things running smoothly on the sugar plantations. He is not well regarded amongst the colonists, who all love Caesar (Oroonoko) more and dislike the governor's manipulation of him. Byam initially pretends to be a great friend to Caesar, and promises him that he will one day be free, along with his wife and child, but in actuality Byam never intends to liberate them. He even lies to Caesar during the standoff in the forest, promising Caesar his freedom, but later breaks the contract they sign. Before this betrayal, however, Imoinda wounds Byam in the shoulder with a poisoned arrow. - Character: Colonel Martin. Description: A British colonel in Suriname, he is very well-respected amongst the colonists and is a dear friend of Oroonoko, who trusts his judgment like a child trusts a parent. Colonel Martin deplores the actions Byam takes against Oroonoko and tries to encourage Oroonoko to give up his vendetta against Byam. - Theme: Racism. Description: Like with Shakespeare and his play Othello (1603), Behn's racist perspectives on non-white cultures complicate her treatment of her subject—the tragic life of a royal slave trying to escape slavery. While it isn't clear that the narrator's tepid attitude toward slavery as a normal social practice matches Behn's own ideas of the institution, what is clear is that Oroonoko itself does little to challenge what would have been the widely accepted view of its 17th-century audience, namely that slavery was integral to maintaining the outposts of the British Empire. In the Suriname setting, racist attitudes are readily apparent and pervasive. All of Behn's white colonist characters, from the blatantly racist—like Banister and Byam, who torture their slaves into submission—to the more enlightened—like Trefry and the narrator, who befriend Oroonoko as their equal—participate in and uphold the enslavement of blacks imported from Africa by either owning slaves or by silent assent. The very hierarchy of the society reflects the attitudes of colonial Europe. White colonists place themselves at the top of the social ladder. In Suriname they are on friendly terms with the natives, but only because they outnumber the colonists. The English do not consider the natives their social equals, but rather a primitive and innocent people useful for sharing important survival skills and trading exotic goods. The black slaves then occupy the bottom rung of society. The colonists think the African people are somehow physically conditioned to better handle the grueling work of maintaining a plantation, and are "inferior" enough as a race to justify enslaving. Oroonoko's arrival then complicates this hierarchy and the racist attitudes that maintain it. Beautiful, passionate, intelligent, and noble, Oroonoko possesses every good trait that the common slave was thought not to have. However, even the colonists' esteem of the prince is tainted because they admire his atypical qualities, or his non-blackness (descriptions of Oroonoko heavily play up his Roman qualities). Importantly, Oroonoko and Imoinda represent the 17th-century English ideal of non-Western beauty—that is, an impossible amalgamation of outlying physical traits representative of both Eastern and Western culture. In effect, Behn actually whitewashes her black hero and heroine to make them more likeable to her Western audience. Though the topmost tier of white gentility instantly accepts Oroonoko as royalty, and he never does the work of a slave, he is still not in possession of his own liberty. He is treated like nobility, but is still very much a slave, even if, as the narrator rationalizes, he's a slave in "name only." The fact that he waits through almost the entirety of the piece for permission to return to his home only drives home the point that being a slave "in name only" is still enough to deprive someone of his natural rights. - Theme: Betrayal. Description: The plot of Oroonoko is almost entirely driven by betrayal, a theme with close ties to what Aphra Behn saw happening within the shifting political climate in 17th-century England. Around the time that Oroonoko was published, England's Queen Mary and her Dutch husband, William III, replaced Mary's father, King James II. Royalists like Behn were outraged at what they considered a betrayal of the rightful monarch, James, by the controlling force Parliament was becoming. Thus in Oroonoko, Behn's thoughts are very much focused on what happens when natural kingship is circumvented. Each of the three sections of Oroonoko revolve around some aspect of Oroonoko's betrayal by an oppositional power. The King's betrayal of Oroonoko, his only heir, by first stealing his wife, Imoinda, and then selling her into slavery, sets off a chain of lifelong betrayals that test Oroonoko's commitments to his honor, his freedom, and his love for Imoinda. This initial betrayal sows the first of several discontents in Oroonoko's life, as he learns that men, even those he loves and admires, are not always to be trusted, and are certainly not as ethical as he is. Besides experiencing the betrayal of a blood relation, Oroonoko is also betrayed by so-called friends, particularly by the Captain, who figures strongly in the middle section of the narrative, and by Byam, whose betrayal closes Oroonoko. Like the King, these men use Oroonoko's strong sense of honor against him, entrapping him in binding promises that make him complicit in his own enslavement. The Captain's betrayal takes place when he invites Oroonoko and his men to a party on his ship, and then kidnaps them to be sold into slavery. (It's important to note that Behn portrays this as a monstrous act not because slavery is inherently evil, but because Oroonoko considered the Captain a friend, and because it is wrong for a "natural" monarch—even an African one—to be robbed of his throne.) The Captain then engages in more insidious forms of betrayal during the trip to Suriname. By pretending to be a pious Christian who will release his slave cargo, the Captain tricks Oroonoko into making promises, which to Oroonoko are sacred and inviolable, that will help the Captain safely bring to port a healthy cargo.In Suriname, Oroonoko, now more suspicious of the colonists but still susceptible to their trickery, is again betrayed by powerful white men (like Byam(, whose lack of honor makes them essentially invincible against Oroonoko. Oroonoko is portrayed as more noble and powerful than those who enslave him, but because he binds himself to his word of honor, they are able to get the upper hand against him by lying. Even when Oroonoko tries to play by the colonists' rules and avoid more betrayal, he still ultimately loses out to the white villains—like Byam and the Captain—who get what they want through treachery and deceit. - Theme: Love and Obedience. Description: In Oroonoko, the question of how love relates to obedience is one with different answers for different characters, and a theme which allows love triangles to develop, fuels power conflicts, and even leads to death. Oroonoko himself struggles greatly throughout his life to find a balance between these two ideals. Conditioned to ethical and social obedience by being raised in a strict culture that expects him to become his country's next general and future king, Oroonoko then learns a different kind of obedience through his love for Imoinda, which teaches him to obey his heart. Not only does he learn the language of love and how to express his passion, but by continuing to love Imoinda even after the King has taken her as his concubine, Oroonoko disobeys his unjust grandfather and his society's traditions. He thus learns to prioritize and protect his love for Imoinda above his obedience to cultural norms and to his treacherous grandfather, the King. In the colony, then, Oroonoko's patience with being obedient wears thin, as the colonists urge him to continue waiting for his freedom, which will never come. It is again his love for Imoinda and their unborn child that guides his decision to try to break free of the yoke of slavery, no matter the cost. Eventually, it is that same love that compels him to accept the harsh reality that he will never be a free man again, and to take dire action to secure freedom through death. For Imoinda, obedience seems to be a natural requirement of love, especially given the social expectations in Coramantien society that women revere their husbands like gods. However, when the King brings her to court to be his concubine, Imoinda realizes that obedience is not always a form of love when free will is not present. As the King's consort and Oroonoko's wife, Imoinda has to obey the King and perform loving actions, while also disobeying her heart and her husband. By the tale's end, however, she is able to reconcile her understanding of the relationship between love and obedience. She willingly accepts her murder at Oroonoko's hand, happy to be able to prove her faithfulness and pleased that he has chosen a culturally honorable means to end their tragic love story. The King's understanding of love and obedience is much less familiar to Western audiences (especially as he is essentially an African caricature created by Behn). A polygamist who has unlimited power and assumes he will have his own way in everything, the King expects love to spring abundantly from his people, who must obey him without fail. Imoinda's resistance to his advances thus confuses and angers him, as does Oroonoko's disobedience, because it rocks his worldview that someone could dare to refuse him or deny him the love he expects to receive. - Theme: Freedom and Slavery. Description: Some important questions that Behn's work asks us to consider are: do some people deserve freedom? And do others, then, deserve to be enslaved? Though to our modern sensibility, the answer is obvious that freedom is an inalienable human right, this wasn't so clear to Behn's 17th-century British audience. British readers would already be accustomed to rigid social stratification, even amongst whites (the divine right of kings to rule others, for example), and would have generally assumed that slavery was an appropriate state for races they considered to be "inferior," like Africans. Indeed, at that time slavery was a common practice amongst whites and blacks alike, and Oroonoko's transition from a slave owner to a slave himself attests to this historical occurrence. When Behn presents the slave-holding traditions of Coramantien and Suriname, she offers little commentary as to whether she considered the institution itself morally right or wrong. In fact, her narrator explicitly says that she wants to let readers decide for themselves what they think about the Captain's betrayal of Oroonoko into slavery. To this end, the narrator doesn't sugarcoat the practices that the English and the Coramantien people engaged in to perpetuate slavery. She gives illuminating period detail of how families are separated, how rival African tribes sold their prisoners of war to Europeans, and even how slave traders made money selling human chattel. Despite this, the narrator also goes to great lengths to indicate that Oroonoko is too special and too good to be a slave. The colonists also think about Oroonoko's wife, Imoinda, in this way. Even before they find out she is royalty, they give her special treatment because they admire her beauty and poise.At first, Oroonoko rejects the notion that he deserves better treatment, and he resigns himself to be treated like the other slaves—but this never happens, of course. The narrator and Oroonoko's (relatively) kind slave owner, Trefry, both promise to help Oroonoko achieve his liberty after they get to know him and admire his nobility, his intelligence, and his physical beauty. Oroonoko then carves out an uncertain position for himself as a gentlemanly slave. He trades Trefry his fine, princely robes for simple slave garments, and demands that the other slaves treat him like a commoner (when they begin to bow at his feet), but he also spends most of his time with the upper-class colonists, hunting and dining with them.After Oroonoko grows tired of waiting for the Lord Governor's permission to return to Coramantien, he uses his position as a natural leader within the slave community to incite his fellow slaves to arm themselves and run away to freedom with him. Oroonoko thus seems to have replaced his uncertain status in the colony and developed a position against slavery. As the leader of the slaves, he argues that no man, woman, or child should ever be enslaved, and that the slaves should unite to become a free and supportive community. When the armed colonists come after them, however, Oroonoko is abandoned by his fearful followers. Oroonoko then seems to lose his faith in humanity, and returns to the English (and Coramantien) way of thinking about slavery—namely that some people deserve freedom (like whites and non-white royalty) and some people deserve to be slaves (like "common" blacks or prisoners of war). Oroonoko even apologizes to Byam for his rash belief that he could make free the men and women who are innately servile. - Theme: Honor. Description: Of all Oroonoko's traits, his sense of honor, of knowing what is right and just, makes him most similar to Classical Roman and Greek heroes and renders him most admirable and familiar to a Western audience. Honor is even the overarching theme of Oroonoko's life. It is drilled into him from the strict customs of Coramantien and he stays true to its principles even up to his gruesome death, which he bravely embraces. Through the plot, the narrator examines the sustainability of Oroonoko's all-or-nothing approach to honor (in Coramantien and Suriname) and how these notions of honor set him up for his disastrous end. Regardless of location, Oroonoko's particular understanding of honor is predicated on a refusal to compromise, which leads to varying outcomes, depending on whether those around him value honor as well. In Coramantien, honor is a relatively well-understood principle and is highly regarded amongst the men—even by those like the King, who has no honor left and abuse those that do. Indeed, what separates regular men, like Aboan, from exceptional men, like Oroonoko, is that the average Coramantien recognizes that at times he must do things half-heartedly—like Aboan sleeping with Onahal in exchange for political favors—but also is able rise to the occasion and demonstrate his heroism when he can, such as when Aboan leads the troops in a losing battle. Oroonoko, on the other hand, lives a much more unstable life because he is so totally committed to being honorable in every action that he is forced to make extremely tough decisions between bad alternatives: Let Imoinda live and be raped by white colonists or kill her to prevent her dishonor. Try to kill Byam and be murdered or live a slave until death. Oroonoko's preoccupation with following his strict code of honor and always keeping promises makes him vulnerable against those who harbor weak morals, mainly his grandfather, the Captain, and Byam—men who are able to lie to Oroonoko and cheat him. Oroonoko's strong sense of honor also makes him more depressed about being enslaved than others, even though the colonists treat him more like a gentleman than a slave. He does none of the work of a slave, but to be owned by another man seems to him the height of dishonor, and so he is especially concerned that his child should never be born into slavery—it would be better for the child to die instead. - Climax: Ooronoko kills Imoinda and their unborn child. - Summary: Oroonoko's tale is told from the perspective of a female narrator, possibly Aphra Behn herself. The narrator claims to have known Oroonoko during his captivity in Suriname, South America. Suriname is a British colony at the time the narrative takes place (the 1660s). As the novel's full title announces, Oroonoko is not just any old slave—he is the last descendant of a royal line, and the prince of an African country called Coramantien (probably modern-day Ghana). Coramantien is a brave and warlike nation that participates in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, selling prisoners of war to Western ships. Oroonoko has grown up away from the court, and has been trained to be a great military leader by Imoinda's father. One day, during an intense battle, Imoinda's father takes a fatal arrow in the eye and saves Oroonoko's life. The seventeen-year-old Oroonoko becomes the new general, and returns to court an elegant and intelligent young man. The narrator spends much time describing Oroonoko's noble characteristics, and is particularly interested in detailing his exceedingly fine physical beauty, which is a blend of Roman and African traits. While at court, Oroonoko visits the daughter of his foster father, the beautiful and pure Imoinda. They fall in love at first sight. They participate in a marriage ceremony but Oroonoko still has to ask his grandfather, the King, for his blessing, in keeping with the patriarchal customs of the society. However, the king, a lecherous old man, hears about Imoinda's beauty. After seeing her at court, he decides he wants her to become one of his concubines. While Oroonoko is off hunting, the king sends her the royal veil, a sign of invitation for attractive women to come to court. Imoinda is duty-bound to obey. Separated from her true love, Imoinda is kept cloistered at the Otan, the King's pleasure palace. She is still a virgin and refuses, as much as she can, the King's advances. Due to the strict laws of the Otan, Oroonoko is prevented from seeing Imoinda until the King invites him. Despite being persuaded otherwise by those around them, the lovers remain faithful to each other. Oroonoko confirms Imoinda's longing to return to him from Onahal, one of the King's old wives, and by exchanging secret glances with Imoinda when visiting the Otan. Before Oroonoko leaves for war, he is determined to consummate his marriage to Imoinda. With the help of his good friend and fellow warrior, Aboan, he concocts a plan to do so. Aboan seduces Onahal, who quickly agrees to help the lovers, and Oroonoko and Imoinda spend the night together. Unfortunately, the King, who had been suspicious that something might happen, sends his guard to confront Oroonoko, but Oroonoko flees to the battlefront. As punishment for her perfidy, the King sells Imoinda into slavery, an ignoble punishment, but he tells Oroonoko he has executed her. Upon hearing this, Oroonoko gives up his will to live and fight, and he abandons his troops, retiring to his tent. When they are about to lose, however, Oroonoko rouses himself from his lovesick stupor and leads his army to victory. An English sea captain comes to Coramantien, and Oroonoko receives him as a royal guest. The Captain double-crosses Oroonoko, however, inviting him onboard his ship and then kidnapping him, along with a hundred of Oroonoko's attendants. The Captain brings Oroonoko across the Atlantic to Suriname, where he sells him to an intelligent and kind-hearted slave-owner named Trefry. Trefry gives Oroonoko the name "Caesar," and promises to help free him one day. Trefry also unwittingly reunites Caesar with Imoinda, whom Trefry knows as "Clemene." Together at last, though in undesirable circumstances, "Caesar" and "Clemene" conceive a child and spend their days mingling with the white nobility, who immediately accept the couple because they are noble, virtuous, and beautiful. As Imoinda's pregnancy develops, Caesar becomes increasingly restless and wants to take his new family back home. Though he esteems some white people, like Trefry and the narrator, he is also rightly suspicious of the lengthy delay regarding his release. He feels that he will once again be tricked and his family will remain in slavery. Indeed, this is exactly the plan of Deputy Governor Byam, who is part of the colonial government in Suriname and intends to keep Caesar a slave. Because he is a man of action, Caesar determines to take matters into his own hands and convince the slaves to run away. Led by Caesar, they manage to escape, but their journey ends in disaster when the white colonists come after them. With the exception of Caesar's friend Tuscan, most of the slaves flee the group, leaving Caesar and a heavily pregnant Imoinda to confront the plantation owners. They all fight bravely and Imoinda wounds Byam in the shoulder with a poisoned arrow. With the help of Trefry, Byam convinces Caesar to surrender peacefully and promises to fulfill all his demands. They write a contract, but Byam almost immediately breaks it. He sequesters Imoinda and brutally whips Tuscan and Caesar. Now that he is fully awakened to Byam's treachery, Caesar vows revenge. He murders Imoinda and their child, with Imoinda's permission and blessing, to save them from prolonged suffering. Caesar then fails to enact his revenge against Byam, however, when he succumbs to a debilitating grief beside his wife's corpse. When the colonists come looking for Caesar, he is rescued against his will by his friends. Sick and dying, he tells them of his plan to kill Byam. They try to encourage him to abandon this idea and focus on recovery. One day, the ruthless Irishman Banister kidnaps Caesar at Byam's behest. Caesar is again tied to the stake, where he is slowly dismembered, dying without making a sound.

- Genre: Science fiction /speculative fiction - Title: Oryx and Crake - Point of view: 3rd person limited; Jimmy / Snowman's perspective. - Setting: North America, unspecified year (most likely late 21st century.) - Character: Jimmy (Snowman). Description: Jimmy is the novel's protagonist, who was the best friend of Crake and deeply in love with Oryx before they were both killed at the start of the plague. After they are dead and Jimmy is left in charge of the welfare of the Crakers, he opts to call himself Snowman, as a way of severing himself from the past. Jimmy is not a gifted scientist, but is talented with words (he thinks of himself as a "words person," not a "numbers person"). He is also, in Crake's opinion, a sex addict, and conducts affairs with numerous women throughout his youth. For all of his romantic engagements, Jimmy is a lonely character, whose parents are distant (his mother leaves when he is young and his father is uninterested in him). Crake is his only true friend, and Oryx his only true love. Jimmy is plagued by various addictions throughout his youth—he craves sex, cigarettes, and alcohol constantly. After the plague, Snowman is alone, and losing his mind. He hears voices from the past in his head, and is tormented by them. Nevertheless, he perseveres, and does his best to take care of the Crakers while keeping himself alive. He is a gifted survivalist, and a person of great interest to the Crakers. He also puts his love of words to good use: creating a kind of mythology for the Crakers, who revere him for his knowledge of their creator (Crake) and his memories of the time before they existed. Though he despises what Crake has done, he does care for the Crakers and worries diligently about their welfare. - Character: Crake. Description: Crake's given name is technically "Glenn," but Jimmy notes this just once, and only to confirm that he should in fact be called Crake. His name is borrowed from the game Extinctathon, which tests players on their knowledge of extinct animals (such as the red-necked crake). Crake is a prodigiously talented scientist with a mysterious demeanor who always wears dark, unmarked clothes and shows no interest in love or friendship except with respect to Jimmy and Oryx. Jimmy is his longtime childhood friend, and Crake is seemingly in love with Oryx, though she notes he is not good with either sexual expression or affection. Crake is obsessed with what he calls "elegant solutions" to human problems and believes things like hormones, sex, and emotional attachments, for example, are "inelegant" solutions to reproduction. Over the course of the novel he becomes increasingly interested in the idea of a biologically optimal human, which eventually leads him to create a new kind of human life (the Crakers), whom Crake has created in order to literally breed curiosity, humanism, love, and emotional turmoil out of the human condition. Crake's belief that humanity as we know it is irreversibly flawed becomes an obsessive, manic conviction that drives him to terrible actions. - Character: Oryx. Description: Both Jimmy and Crake are in love with Oryx. Jimmy believes he saw Oryx on a child pornography site when he was 14, again on the news when she was discovered as an enslaved sex-worker in a garage in San Francisco, and finally when she is working for Crake on the Paradise project. Oryx never confirms that these images were in fact of her, and it is possible that the character Jimmy thinks of as "Oryx" is in fact several people. We do know that the Oryx who works as a caretaker to the Crakers in Paradice participated in various kinds of sex work, and started at a very young age. She was taken from her home by a man named Uncle En, who asked her to sell flowers on the street before using her beauty to lure men into hotel rooms and extort them. After Uncle En is murdered, Oryx then then worked for an adult filmmaker man named Jack, who directs child pornography involving Oryx and several other children. Jack begins to teach Oryx English in exchange for sexual favors. She is then purchased from Jack by a San Francisco artist, who saw her on TV and wanted to give her a better life. She is kept in his garage where she continues to learn English until she is finally discovered and released. Crake meets her through a prostitution service sponsored by his school, Watson and Crick. After this first encounter, he arranges to meet with her again, and eventually hires her for project Paradice. Oryx is relentlessly optimistic, peaceful and positive, to the extent that it frustrates and angers Jimmy, who can't see how she doesn't bear any ill will towards the various people who have exploited her. Her patience and simplicity make her an ideal teacher for the Crakers, whom she loves and cares about deeply. Though she is not as fond of Crake as she is of Jimmy, she deeply admires Crake and his project because she believes Crake wants to end human suffering. Oryx is killed shortly after the plague begins, when Crake slits her throat (and is murdered by Jimmy as a result). - Character: The Crakers. Description: The Crakers are the result of Crake's project "Paradice." He pitches them as "floor models"—or examples of all of the various genetic modifications that could be sold separately to parents who were willing to pay for more genetically perfect children. But it eventually becomes clear that the Crakers are Crake's solution to what he sees as human imperfection, and that his plan had been to eradicate humanity as we know it and leave the Crakers in its place. They are strikingly beautiful, with perfect features and flawless skin that is immune to UV damage. They have a digestive system similar to that of a rabbit, so they can survive on a wide variety of simple vegetation, so food is not scarce. Romantic love has been bred out of them entirely: sex occurs as a purely reproductive act, once every three years per female. When a female Crake is ovulating, she gives off a pheromone scent and her backside turns blue (this trait is borrowed from baboons). Then males know they can pursue her sexually, but if a male is not chosen he does not feel any disappointment or anger. The rest of the time, the Crakes are basically sexless, and sexual or romantic frustration is completely absent in them. Crake also tried to breed religion, history, and art out of the Crakers, but it appears he has been unsuccessful. The Crakers ask many questions about where they came from, and with Snowman's guidance they build a kind of mythology for themselves, where Crake is (ironically, because he would hate any kind of mythology) their god. They also begin, towards the end of the novel, to make art—they build a likeness of Snowman in the hopes that it will help him to return safely from his trip. It is unclear whether or not we should consider the Crakers "human," but their interest in art and history is distinctly humanistic, and suggests they are more like us than they may seem at first. - Character: MaddAddam. Description: MaddAddam is the mysterious game master of the game "Extinctathon," where players are tested on their knowledge of extinct species. Maddaddam uses the game to recruit ideas for subversive or rebellious "initiatives" (like devising a virus that might kill off certain animal species invented by the corporations). He only seeks ideas from those (like Crake) who have achieved grandmaster status in the game. Crake ends up hiring his employees at Paradice from Maddaddam's pool of grandmasters, by convincing them they are safer working inside the compound system then from outside of it. - Character: Sharon. Description: Jimmy's mother was once a highly regarded scientist, but she became disillusioned with her work and quit, claiming that she simply wanted to spend more time with her son. She is depressed and her behavior is erratic and unpredictable. It is eventually suggested that Sharon knew that companies were introducing diseases into the population in order to profit from their cures, and that her and her husband's complicit role in this activity overwhelmed her with guilt and moral anguish. Eventually she can't take living with Jimmy's father anymore, and leaves suddenly, telling Jimmy in a note that she still loves him, and that she has taken Killer (Jimmy's pet racunk) with her so that the animal can be set free. While she is gone, Jimmy hears from her rarely, via secretive post cards sent from distant locations. The CorpSeCorps question Jimmy regularly about her whereabouts. Once Jimmy sees her on television protesting with a group of environmental activists. Eventually Jimmy's mother is found and executed by the CorpSeCorps for treason. - Character: Jimmy's father. Description: Jimmy's father is a very absent figure in Jimmy's life. He is professionally successful, and does not display any misgivings about the ethics of the work he or anyone else does at his company. Jimmy's father is initially very upset about Sharon's disappearance, but slowly begins to feel liberated by it. His colleague and girlfriend, Ramona, with whom he has likely been having a long-term emotional affair, moves in and helps out with Jimmy. Once Jimmy is out of the house, he only hears from his father once or twice a year. Usually it is a birthday e-card, sent to him after his birthday has already passed. Jimmy believes his father is killed by Crake's plague. - Character: Killer. Description: Killer is a "racunk" that Jimmy's father brought home from work. It is a creature created by splicing together a raccoon and a skunk, to achieve a desirable combination of docility and cleanliness. Jimmy quickly begins to think of Killer as his best friend and greatest comfort, and talks to Killer about his life when he feels he can talk to no one else. It is therefore especially upsetting to Jimmy that his mother takes Killer with her when she disappears. - Character: Ramona. Description: Ramona is Jimmy's father's girlfriend, who moves in after Sharon's disappearance. Ramona is a longtime assistant and colleague of Jimmy's father, and Jimmy suspects that they have been in love for quite some time. She is kind to Jimmy after she moves in, and though Jimmy finds his father's unabashed sexual relationship with Ramona off-putting, he likes Ramona and wishes her well. When Jimmy leaves home, he occasionally hears from Ramona, who tells him that she is trying to get pregnant, with no success yet. Jimmy assumes that Ramona is killed by Crake's plague. - Character: Crake's mother. Description: Crake's mother appears very infrequently. She is kind to Crake and Jimmy, and carefully fixes food for them when they are at Crake's house. She respects Crake's privacy, and makes a point of never going in his room. She dies after catching a "hot bioform"—Jimmy believes Crake infected her in order to test his plague. - Character: Crake's father. Description: Crake's father dies when Crake is very young. The story is that he fell off an overpass, but Crake believes his father knew about and objected to the common corporate practice of introducing disease into the population in order to profit off the cure, and was subsequently killed (or "eliminated"). - Character: Uncle Pete. Description: Crake's stepfather insists that Crake call him "Uncle Pete." He was Crake's father's boss before his death, and has since moved in with and married Crake's mother. Uncle Pete is good natured and supportive of Crake. He dies of a viral infection while Jimmy is working at AnooYoo—Jimmy eventually becomes convinced that Crake infected him with one of his experimental viruses. - Character: Bernice. Description: Bernice lives across the hall from Jimmy during his time at Martha Graham Academy. She is an avid animal rights activists, environmentalist, and vegan whom Jimmy finds deeply unattractive. After leaving Martha Graham Bernice becomes a supporter of the rebellious group "God's Gardeners." Jimmy sees her body among other executed protesters in pictures shown to him by CorpSeCorps men. - Character: Amanda Payne. Description: Amanda is Jimmy's girlfriend after he leaves Martha Graham. She is fiercely individualistic installation artist who grew up in the Pleeblands, and who does not have a favorable view of the Compounds or the corporations around which they are built. She and Jimmy only date for a few months, and break up when Jimmy takes a job at AnooYoo. - Theme: Scientific Progress & Its Costs. Description: Atwood has described Oryx and Crake as 'speculative fiction', meaning that it is a novel that takes current trends and extrapolates them to explore what the future might look like. The world of Oryx and Crake extrapolates upon the rapid advances around the turn of the 21st century in biological and genetic engineering and the questions raised about the moral and ethical responsibilities of science and scientists when they became capable of creating new kinds of life and manipulating natural processes. Many characters in the novel fail to exercise their power over nature responsibly. Crake is the most extreme example of this kind of transgression. His genetic experiments on the Crakers (they are made from stolen embryos which are then genetically altered) and his introduction of a terrible virus into the human population are the nightmarish product of the advanced biological science in Oryx and Crake. But the general experimentation on plants, animals, and humans performed by many different scientists throughout the novel is rife with immoral conduct. HealthWyzer spends a great deal of resources and manpower secretly devising new viruses and releasing them into the population, so that new cures can be sold. Sharon (Jimmy's mother) and Jimmy's father argue frequently about the work that Jimmy's father does in genetic manipulation of animals, and it is implied that Sharon knows about and objects to the abuse of knowledge and power happening at HealthWyzer (and at other corporations). Jimmy's mother ultimately decides to leave and join various rebellious efforts against the corporations in the Pleeblands, while Jimmy's father chooses to continue to work in spite of the obvious abuse of power occurring at his company and others. The world of Oryx and Crake is not just a comment on the responsibilities and costs of advanced biological science, it is also imagines the cultural ascension of science in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, accompanied by the decline in prestige and cultural impact of the humanities, to have continued unabated. The book imagines a world where humanistic questions (regarding ethics, morality, and responsible decision making) have been pushed aside in the name of scientific progress. The resulting suggestion is that scientific progress absent humanistic thinking leads to perverse uses of scientific power and knowledge, affects our moral decision-making, and has a dehumanizing effect on culture generally. - Theme: Corporate Power & Commodification. Description: Oryx and Crake also imagines a world in which the growing power of corporations in the late 20th and early 21st century also continues on its present path until corporate power literally reigns supreme, unchecked and unchallenged by any other kind of power. Though the novel occasionally mentions, for example, "Russia" and "Fiji" and other non-western countries, the western world seems effectively divided into pleeblands (which still contain cities like "New New York" and San Francisco) and Compounds that belong exclusively to corporations (Anooyoo, HealthWyzer, etc). There is no law and order outside of the compounds—and the corporations' security enforcement services (the CorpSeCorp men) protect corporate interests over individual interests. And the only interest of the corporations is profit. As a result, in a world controlled by profit-seeking corporations, everything has been commodified. Everything is for sale, and, absent any moral considerations or concerns, the corporations freely exploit people's insecurities and weaknesses to sell sex, beauty, health, and the promise of happiness. Even more grotesquely, in order to preserve their high profits, health companies have even taken to manufacturing and releasing diseases in order to profit off their cures. This is as much an abuse of corporate power as it is an abuse of advanced scientific knowledge. In addition, just as health beauty, and happiness have a sale value, depravity, evil, and violence have entertainment value, and are thus similarly commodified. Executions, suicide, child pornography, animal snuff videos—all have become televised, with their very own channels. This portrayal of corporate power and commodification in the novel comments on the current rising influence of corporations and their money in the early 21st century and values not only with respect to consumer culture but also with respect to influencing public policy and elections. The Compounds (and their associated organizations) serve as a critique of hyper-commodification and corporate supremacy in our own increasingly consumer- and entertainment-driven culture. - Theme: Humans & Animals. Description: The advanced science achieved in the world of the novel has challenged the distinction between human and animal. Pigoons, for example, are pigs that grow human organs and even human brain tissue (for the purpose of transplantation). Their partially human makeup makes it so that people are uncomfortable with the idea of eating them, because it seems vaguely cannibalistic. They are the book's first, but certainly not only, example of transgressing the divide between human and animal. The most distinctive blend of human and animal are Crake's genetically engineered creation, The Crakers. They have color-changing sex organs like a baboon, a digestive system like a rabbit, and the smell of a citrus plant. The Crakers are a particularly interesting example because they are humanoid, with certain human traits, and the book constantly asks the reader if they are human, and if they are, what makes them so. The characters of the novel also often think about the distinction between animals and humans, though in very different ways. Jimmy frequently compares himself to various animals. In Jimmy's case this kind of comparison grows out of his feeling inferior given that he is not scientifically gifted. His lack of scientific genius makes him feel lesser, like an animal. Crake, conversely, thinks that human ingenuity and scientific curiosity is actually an inferior, animal trait. He refers to the scientific human brain as a "monkey brain," and disdains scientific genius (though he himself possesses a great deal of it.) He also believes those things which are traditionally revered as "distinctly human" (love, art, language, self awareness, knowledge of mortality) are a kind of evolutionary mistake—he finds them to be "inelegant" solutions to the problem of life and survival. His solution to these problems, on the one hand, is the "invention" of the Crakers, whom he considers to be "superior" genetic combinations of humans, plants, and animals that share neither human intelligence or sexual desire. On the other hand, he solves what he sees as the problem of human beings by developing a plague that effectively wipes them off the face of the earth. Oryx and Crake therefore wonders about the difference between human and non-human life—is it a matter of intelligence? Of self-awareness? Of artistic creativity, religion, or philosophy? All of these answers are presented as possibilities, but Atwood does not indicate that any one answer is the "correct" one. The question itself is indicative of Atwood's environmentalism. While the characters in the novel seem fixated on the distinction between humans and animals, the novel challenges this distinction in the first place and suggests instead that humans do not exist somehow separately from or outside of nature, that humans are not obviously distinct from the other kinds of life in their environment and were mistaken to ever treat themselves as being so. - Theme: The State of Human Relationships. Description: The novel examines various kinds of human relationships (sexual, romantic, familial) and how they are affected by the scientific and cultural shifts taking place in Oryx and Crake's world. Are human relationships free and safe from corporate and scientific manipulation? Are individuals still even capable of human bonding in this culture? Jimmy spends a great deal of time in the novel seeking connection, and largely failing in achieving it. His mother has left his family for ethical reasons (taking his beloved pet with her), while his father is distant. Jimmy fills this void through his friendship with Crake, though that friendship is founded on video games and watching porn. Jimmy also seeks sex almost constantly– Crake thinks he is a sex addict – yet Jimmy rarely finds comfort in the sex he does have. His only true romantic love is Oryx, whom the novel implies may not even be a single person but rather a conglomeration of televised images of women that Jimmy has seen throughout his life, culminating in the woman that works for Crake in Paradice and with whom Jimmy has a secret sexual relationship. Jimmy's relationships are characterizes by emptiness on the one hand and betrayal on the other, until after the plague when he is the last human left he takes on the name "Snowman," which bears a marked resemblance to the words "no man," implying that without any other humans with whom to have relationships that Snowman can't be human himself.Where Jimmy spends the novel seeking out meaningful human relationships (often unsuccessfully), Crake grows increasingly disdainful of human bonding over the course of the novel. Crake never shows any familial love for his parents, and Jimmy ultimately suspects that Crake killed his own mother and stepfather (Uncle Pete) in order to test the deadly viruses he was developing. Further, Crake thinks little of sex, seeing it in purely scientific terms as an "inelegant" solution to reproduction, and believes that love is nothing more than the painful consequence of poorly regulated hormones in the human brain. Crake seems to view everything that contributes to human relationships as messy and unnecessary, and tries to eliminate that messiness. With the Crakers, Crake tries to breed out sex and romance entirely, turning copulation into an infrequent and purely reproductive activity, so that sexual frustration and betrayal is eliminated, as is overpopulation. The only exception to Crake's rejection of sex and romantic love is Oryx, the first woman Crake has ever had any affection for. Yet Oryx finds sex with Crake to be mechanical and impersonal, and conducts a secret affair with Jimmy. It is suggested that Crake knew about the affair, though it is unclear the extent to which Crake's actions in his final months of his life (releasing the plague, killing Oryx) are a result of her affair and his unrequited love for her. The novel thematically wonders how human relationships will fare if rapid scientific advancements and corporate greed continue to have an increasing effect on the life of the individual. Trust, love, and bonding are hard to come by in this world, where sex and love are so often paid for, where security organizations sponsored by corporate enterprises are always watching, and where culture is so saturated with consumption and entertainment it is not clear which relationships are real and honest. The effect on the novel's main characters is clear: Jimmy is alienated and alone and plagued by addictions, where Crake becomes maniacal in his attempt to control human relationships so completely through scientific manipulation that they cease to be relationships at all. - Theme: History, Language & the Humanities. Description: Oryx and Crake portrays a world in which the humanities – history, literature, even language itself – have become devalued in the face of the rise of science, consumerism, and entertainment culture. History has become little more than fodder in video games, such as the game "Blood and Roses" that Jimmy and Crake play, while one of the last colleges to focus on the humanities, the Martha Graham Academy, is run down and a subject of jokes by those in the sciences. Language and writing is primarily a tool for corporations to advertise and market their goods, and as a result language becomes superficial and flat, unable to evoke deeper human feelings or ideas. Even so, the novel emphasizes the importance of language and the humanities, and their vital role in making humans human. Jimmy knows that being a "word person" makes him inferior in his society, but he cannot give up his love of language, often repeating to himself lists of old words that, though no longer used, bring him at least some happiness and comfort. And the novel implies that Jimmy being a "word person" in fact humanizes him. While Jimmy is literally one of the last actual humans on Earth after the plague, the novel implies that in a sense that Jimmy is one of the last true humans even before most other humans die from the disease. His humanistic or "general thinking" as Crake calls it, is what saves him, figuratively and literally. The novel worries that a progress-obsessed culture which only looks forward, and fails to attribute meaning and significance to the past, might cause people to fail to see themselves as members of a unified human culture; might cause them to cease to be "human" in a way we would recognize. The book suggests that an unchecked pursuit of scientific progress has a dehumanizing effect—Jimmy's feeling of isolation and alienation and his desperation to hold on to obsolete and outdated words and images is indicative of this. Even more importantly, though Crake tried to breed such "cultural" and "humanistic" needs out of the Crakers, they continue to have an interest myth, religion, and even art. Crake developed the Crakers because he believed them to be the most "elegant" solution to the problem of survival. That he could not breed out their interest in history, language and art suggests that these things are not simply a source of happiness or ethical integrity but actually integral to human survival itself. - Theme: Extinction & Evolution. Description: The book's interest in human history and the humanities is accompanied by an interest in natural history and the history of life and death on earth. The work being done in the compounds—the modification of animals, gene splicing, building new viruses and immunities—is often described as an extension or acceleration of evolution. The game that gives Crake his nickname is Extinctathon, and involves memorizing and cataloguing the increasingly long list of species that have gone extinct. Snowman thinks a great deal about his own species' extinction, the extinction of Homo Sapiens Sapiens brought on by Crake's plague. In addition he notes the current flora and fauna on the earth, and which species are thriving and which are declining. He also compares his own poor adaptations to those of the Crakers. He suffers from sunburn, infection, starvation and more in this environment, where the Crakers are perfectly suited to survival. This emphasis on life, death, and change as they are occurring on a grand—in fact, planetary—scale, and the ultimate suggestion of the possibility of human extinction, is again an environmentalist gesture meant to address human arrogance. In this book, humans go from controlling evolution (deliberately creating new species and inadvertently causing the extinction of existing species) to becoming simply another casualty of the story of evolutionary history, replaced by the better-adapted Crakers. The suggestion is that, far from exempting or elevating us above evolutionary forces, far from making us super-men, our scientific progress could in fact make us cease to be men at all, culturally and actually. - Climax: Crake, after it is revealed that he has released a deadly plague, slits Oryx's throat and is shot by Jimmy as a result. - Summary: The novel is split into two storylines. The first follows Snowman's endeavors after the human population of Earth has been wiped out by a massive deadly plague, when all that apparently remains are the Crakers (a genetically manipulated group of beings who are similar to but not the same as humans and survive easily in this environment) and Snowman himself, who watches over the Crakers and struggles himself to survive. The second storyline follows Jimmy (this was Snowman's name before the plague hit) and describes how the Crakers, the plague, and Snowman's lonely existence came to be. The novel opens with Snowman going through his daily routine. He eats some of the food he's scavenged and stored, hears voices from the past in his head, and interacts with the Crakers, who ask him to tell stories from the past. Snowman invents for them a mythology in which someone called Crake is their creator and god, and Oryx, a mysterious woman who appears to Snowman's hallucinating mind in his loneliest moments, is their caregiver and creator of all animal life. Through flashbacks we learn of Jimmy's childhood. He grew up inside a "Compound"—a community built around a corporation where rich scientists and their families live. The compounds are cordoned off from an outer world called the "pleeblands," where everyone who is not employed by a corporation must live. Jimmy's father and mother (Sharon) fight incessantly. His mother used to work for the corporations like his father does, but she quits in disgust at corporate corruption and greed and experimentation on animals. Eventually she leaves, taking Jimmy's beloved pet Killer with her (Killer is a genetic combination of a skunk with a raccoon called a "rakunk"). She explains in a note that her conscience could bear it no longer. Jimmy's father continues to live with Jimmy in the compounds, and he invites a coworker, Ramona, with whom he has been having at least an emotional affair for many years, to move in. Jimmy's only childhood friend is Crake, who is a scientifically gifted young man with a mysterious air, who find Jimmy's aversion to science (Jimmy is a "words person" not a "numbers person") fascinating. The two spend many hours playing computer games and watching pornographic or violent video on Crake's stepfather's (called Uncle Pete) computer server. One game they play is called Extinctathon, and involves cataloguing the long list of extinct species. Crake takes his name from the extinct "Red-Necked Crake." One day when they are watching child pornography, Jimmy sees a young girl who catches his attention—he believes this girl grows up to be Oryx. Jimmy and Crake go to separate colleges—Crake to a prestigious school for the sciences, and Jimmy to a dilapidated humanities school, where he studies rhetoric and advertising strategies. When Jimmy graduates he obtains a job writing pamphlets for a corporation called AnooYoo—he is bored and depressed by this work and begins drinking heavily and develops a sex addiction. On the news one day he sees a story about a sex scandal in San Francisco, where several girls were being kept in the garages of wealthy men. He sees Oryx among the girls, giving an interview. During this time he is also informed of the death of his mother, who has been executed by compound security forces for treason. One day Crake appears and invites him to go bar crawling in the pleeblands. Before they go Crake gives Jimmy an injection to protect him from diseases that exist there. While they are out Crake tells Jimmy about a job at the prestigious RejoovenEsense compound, where Crake is a higher-up. Jimmy agrees to take the job. We learn that Snowman must now make his way back to this RejoovenEsense compound, because he knows there will be weapons, food, and other supplies there and he is starving to death and has no protection from predators. He tells the Crakers he must leave to go see Crake, and they express concern about his safety on this long journey. Snowman tells them he must go alone, and leaves with what supplies he has left. He is increasingly troubled by voices from his past and visions of Oryx, whom he loved dearly. His journey is difficult—he is hunted by pigoons (a genetically modified species of pig with human organs and brain tissue.) On one night of his three-day journey he cuts his foot on a shard of glass and must nurse a growing infection. He eventually makes it to the RejoovenEsense compound and goes to a dome at the center of it called Paradice. We lean via more flashbacks that Paradice is Crake's project, and the project to which Jimmy is assigned when he arrives at RejoovenEsense. Crake is working on a two-part initiative to eliminate human suffering. The first is a pill called BlyssPluss, which increases libido and energy to eliminate sexual frustration. It is being tested on poor sex workers with positive results. The pill also contains an undisclosed contraceptive—everyone who takes it becomes unknowingly sterilized—in order to reduce overpopulation, which Crake believes is the foremost cause of human suffering. The second part is a project involving the manipulation of human embryos. Crake shows Jimmy the results of this effort, a group of genetically modified humans called the Crakers. They are perfect, strikingly beautiful creatures with bright green eyes. They have plant and animal traits bred into them to make them sturdy and to ensure that they reproduce infrequently and experience no lust, attachment, or sexual frustration. Crake has also tried to breed religion, art, and philosophy out of them (though we know from Snowman's eventual interactions with the Crakers that this has more or less failed). One of Crake's employees is a beautiful woman named Oryx whom Jimmy recognizes from the earlier videos he has seen of her. She is a caretaker for the Crakers, and teaches them how to make fire and eat. She also distributes BlyssPluss pills to test subjects in whorehouses and sex clinics all over the world. Though Oryx and Crake have a sexual relationship, and Jimmy can see that Crake loves Oryx, Oryx feels no emotional attachment to Crake and begins having an affair with Jimmy. Jimmy learns all about her past (she has worked in various sex trades) and falls deeply in love with her. He worries often that Crake knows of the affair, but Oryx insists Crake doesn't believe in jealousy and has too elegant a mind for such things. She ominously mentions once or twice that Jimmy must promise to take care of the Crakers, should anything ever happen to her. One day Oryx goes out for pizza and doesn't come back. Jimmy hears that a terrible plague is raging across every continent. He receives a phone call from Oryx, who is crying and apologizing: the plague had been in the BlyssPluss pills that Oryx had been distributing, and she had no idea. Jimmy begins to realize what has happened. He is safe in the air-locked Paradice dome, but must kill the other employees because he believes they will panic and put him in danger. Crake appears outside the dome and demands Jimmy let that Jimmy let him in. Jimmy hesitatingly unlocks the door, and Crake explains that Jimmy has been immunized by the injection he received to go into the pleeblands. Crake has Oryx, unconscious, draped over his arm. He tells Jimmy he must take care of the Crakers, and slits Oryx's throat. In shock and horror, Jimmy shoots Crake. Jimmy waits in the dome for weeks, and watches the plague wipe out most of humanity. When the time comes, he leads the Crakers out of Paradice to the seashore where they now live. He hates Crake, and resents fulfilling his diabolical plan, but cannot stand to abandon the Crakers. Snowman steps over the remains of Oryx and Crake as he goes into the Paradice dome. He gathers the supplies he needs, and does his best to treat the growing infection in his foot. He journeys back to the Crakers, who are delighted to see him. They also tell him that they have seen other men who look like Snowman. Snowman is shocked and elated to hear this, and the next morning travels along the shore to find these people. He sees three—two men and one woman—sitting around a fire on the beach. He wonders what will happen if he goes to talk to them—will they be friendly, will they attack him? Will they kill him? Will he kill them? The book ends here, remaining ambiguous about what he decides to do.

- Genre: Coming-of-Age Novel - Title: Out of My Mind - Point of view: First person, Melody narrates - Setting: Present day Ohio - Character: Melody Brooks. Description: Melody is the narrator and protagonist. She is almost eleven years old and in the fifth grade at Spaulding Street Elementary School. She was born with cerebral palsy, which means that she cannot control her body very well and cannot speak at all. She is in a wheelchair and communicates with the world through a board with words on it, and later through a personal speaking computer. Melody is incredibly intelligent and loves language. One of her major frustrations is that she feels trapped in her body, unable to say all the things she is thinking. Although she begins the book in a special leaning community at her school, she's eventually integrated into the general-education classes where she begins to make friends and joins the academic Whiz Kids team, demonstrating that even though she needs a machine to speak, she has a lot to contribute. She is thoughtful and empathetic, and her closest relationships are with adults: her neighbor Mrs. V, her aide Catherine, her parents Diane and Chuck, who love her and believe in her, and her younger sister Penny. - Character: Diane Brooks. Description: Melody's mother. A nurse who knows deep down how special and intelligent Melody is, she will not give up her fight to get Melody the education and resources she deserves. Many opportunities Melody receives through her school are the result of her mother advocating for her. She sometimes worries that it is her fault that Melody has a disability. - Character: Mrs. Violet Valencia (Mrs. V). Description: Mrs. V is Melody's next-door neighbor, and a former nurse who worked with Melody's mother, Diane, at the hospital. She watches Melody after school and while her parents are at work. Mrs. V is one of the first people, aside from Melody's mother and father, to see her intelligence and potential. She pushes Melody in every aspect of her life, teaching her how to roll over if she falls out of her wheelchair, and how to read. Mrs. V is responsible for "giving [Melody] language," since she redesigns Melody's communication board to fit more words, and convinces Melody's parents to get her a Medi-Talker. Mrs. V also pushes Melody academically, and is the one to convince her that she can and should try out for the Whiz Kids team. - Character: Penny Brooks. Description: Melody's little sister who is eight years younger. Penny is a sweet and healthy child, and everyone in Melody's family loves her a lot. Watching Penny develop normally (she can talk, hold her own bottle, and feed herself) brings up complicated feelings for Melody. On the one hand, Melody is happy that her little sister is strong and healthy, but on the other it reminds Melody of all the things she cannot do. - Character: Rose Spencer. Description: Rose is a fifth-grade general education student at Melody's elementary school. She is a good student and very organized. Rose is one of the first students in Melody's integrated classes to accept Melody, and she volunteers to be Melody's partner in music. Rose is kind to Melody, talking to her as though she understands, saying "hi" to her during lunch, and sharing secrets. Even though Rose is nicer to Melody than many of the other children, she is not always a good friend. She seems embarrassed to be seen with Melody when they take a trip to the aquarium together, and is shocked when Melody makes it on the Whiz Kids team. Worst of all, when the Whiz Kids team takes an early flight to Washington DC for the national competition, Rose is supposed to call Melody and let her know, but she decides not to, leaving Melody behind. - Character: Mr. Dimming. Description: Also known as Mr. D, he teachers history and is the coach for the Whiz Kids team. He is an enthusiastic teacher and loves his job, but he doesn't initially believe that Melody can participate in class, much less score highly on his tests. He allows Melody onto the Whiz Kids team and makes accommodations for her, but in the end he allows the Whiz Kids team to leave for DC without her, demonstrating that he never truly accepted her as an important member of his team. - Character: Catherine. Description: A college student who is Melody's personal aide or "mobility assistant." She helps Melody move around the school, eat lunch, go to the bathroom, and participate in class. She has a quirky sense of style and good sense of humor, and cares deeply about Melody, sometimes defending her when other students don't believe in her abilities. - Character: Molly North. Description: A fifth-grader in many of Melody's general-education classes and a member of the Whiz Kids team. She is best friends with Claire Wilson, and together the two of them frequently make fun of Melody and the other students from her program. She doesn't believe Melody should be on the Whiz Kids team. - Character: Claire Wilson. Description: A fifth-grader in many of Melody's general-education classes and a member of the Whiz Kids team. She is best friends with Molly North, and together the two of them frequently make fun of Melody and the other students from her program. She doesn't believe Melody should be on the Whiz Kids team. - Theme: Disability and Ability. Description: Melody, the protagonist of Out of My Mind, is a bright, driven, hard-working young woman with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that affects her muscles and movement. Melody spends her life navigating a world largely inaccessible to her, both because her own body is hard to control, and because people in her life underestimate and bully her. Sharon Draper portrays Melody's anger and frustration that nobody can acknowledge her abilities, but she also makes clear that this prejudice doesn't only harm Melody. Melody's classmates' exclusion of her from the quiz bowl competition hurts the team—their prejudice causes them to dismiss a person who could have made important contributions. In the novel, physical disability often masks mental ability. Able-bodied adults and children assume that Melody and other students with disabilities have no thoughts, preferences, personality, or potential. For example, Melody's physician, Dr. Hugely, assumes Melody is not smart because she has difficulty answering his test questions. Although Melody knows the answers, she cannot physically perform the tasks he asks her to do. Dr. Hugely mistakenly believes that Melody is "severely brain-damaged," and suggests sending her away from home to a residential facility or a "special school for the developmentally disabled." Additionally, The students in Melody's program are often subjected to frustratingly simple lessons. One year, although Melody is in the third grade, the teacher begins each morning by playing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and going over the alphabet. This eventually leads the students to revolt, as they're bored by the repetitive lessons that are far below their ability level. The book emphasizes that people with disabilities have talents in addition to, and in spite of, their limitations. Melody has a photographic memory and a passion for language. She eventually uses this ability to join her school's Whiz Kid quiz team and win the regional competition. Melody observes the talents of the other students in her program for students with disabilities. She notices that unlike the "regular" kids at her school, not one of the other boys and girls in her program "knows how to be mean," and each has something special about him or her. Willy, for example is "the basketball expert," Gloria "the music lover," and Maria "has no enemies." Additionally, Out of My Mind is interested in the way that everyone is somehow disabled, whether physically or mentally. The book argues that deficits like a lack of empathy can be limiting in the same way as a medically-diagnosed disability. Melody's mother points out that, although Dr. Hugely has a medical degree, he's no better than she or her daughter, "You've got it easy—you have all your physical functions working properly. You never have to struggle just to be understood. You think you're smart because you have a medical degree?...You're not so intelligent, sir you're just lucky!" Melody programs her Medi-Talker (a personal computer that speaks for her), to answer questions about her condition. She has two default answers, one that is straightforward, and explains the ways in which she is and is not disabled: "I have spastic bilateral quadriplegia, also known as cerebral palsy. It limits my body but not my mind." The other, while more playful, is still true: "We all have disabilities. What's yours?" Melody's aide, Catherine, also defends Melody against fellow students who question her perfect score on a quiz. Catherine argues, "What your body looks like has nothing to do with how well your brain works! You ought to know that by looking in the mirror!" Throughout the novel, Draper argues that disability occurs on a spectrum, and can coexist with extraordinary ability. She cautions against writing off those with visible disabilities, as Melody has insights and talents to offer to her wider, able-bodied community. - Theme: Language, Communication, and Identity. Description: Out of My Mind is a book about the power of language, and it explores in depth the ability of language to forge mutual understanding and shape personal identity. Melody, although she cannot speak, has a rich inner life constructed through her own internal monologue. Who she sees herself to be is based on her language ability, but other people—who assume that her inability to speak means that she has no language ability—perceive her much differently than she perceives herself. Melody's journey from nonverbal to communicating through her personal computer radically changes the way she interacts with the world and how she is treated by others. As Melody's ability to communicate shifts throughout the text, her satisfaction with the wider world grows. Language represents freedom to Melody. Before she can communicate, her thoughts and imagination allow her to transcend the limitations of her body. Once she finally can communicate Melody is able to better participate in the world. She can have conversations, make jokes, ask questions, and speak up in class. Initially, Melody has a Plexiglas tray attached to her wheelchair, which allows her to "say" a few basic words. She describes being trapped by this limited vocabulary as living "in a cage with no door and no key. And I have no way to tell someone how to get me out." The book is framed by the same passage repeated twice, in which Melody praises the power of words. Although she cannot actually speak, words give her a sense of agency because of their potential for self-expression. Since she cannot speak, words become even more precious: she observes, "Everybody uses words to express themselves. Except me. And I bet most people don't realize the real power of words. But I do." Public perception of Melody is entirely based on her ability to communicate her thoughts and emotions. Her Medi-Talker, the personal computer that speaks for her, allows Melody to better connect with her parents and classmates, although it does not allow her to fit in completely. After receiving the Medi-Talker (named Elvira), Melody is the center of attention for the first time. She cracks jokes in class, answers questions, and even asks another student to be her friend. Although Melody's parents understand her to some extent and believe that she understands them, one of the novel's most moving moments is when Melody first speaks to her parents through Elvira and tells them that she loves them. Although communication is most often liberating in the novel, when it fails or breaks down, it leads to heartache and tragedy. Even with Elvira, Melody is sometimes unable to make herself understood. As a young child, Melody's goldfish jumps out of his bowl. Unable to call for her mother, Melody has to watch her fish die. She carries this guilt with her throughout the novel. Similarly, in the novel's climax, Melody sees her little sister Penny run out behind her mother's car. Although Melody tries her best to alert her mother, without words her mother doesn't understand her message, and backs the car into Penny. Melody blames herself for being unable to help her sister, but Mrs. V tries to explain to Melody that she did everything right. Out of My Mind shows that language is a tool whose absence can be an unbearable burden. When Melody is able to communicate she is given a new kind of freedom, and a new ability to socialize. However, when she is unable to communicate, either because Elvira is not available or she is not fast enough to relay her thoughts, Melody is left trapped and frustrated with a mind full of words and a body unable to express them. - Theme: Acceptance vs. Rejection. Description: One of the book's central conflicts revolves around Melody's desire to fit in and participate socially and academically with the able-bodied students at her school. Although she makes progress in certain friendships and is accepted to some extent by her Whiz Kids team, the book leaves open the question of whether Melody will ever truly "fit in." At times, Melody wants nothing more than to feel like a "normal" child who can easily integrate into the general population at her school. However, what keeps Melody from being "normal" also defines who she is as a person. Melody is often frustrated when her body acts in ways that are not "normal." For example, when Melody gets angry or excited she has what she calls "tornado explosions," physical fits where she cannot control her body. She resents these, and at one point she laments that she can't even express her frustration in a way that feels appropriate. She says, "I feel like stomping on something. Stomping and stomping and stomping! That makes me even crazier because I can't even do that! I can't even get mad like a normal kid." When Melody tells her neighbor and sometimes caretaker Mrs. V that she wishes she were "normal," Mrs. V explains "Normal sucks!...People love you because you're Melody, not because of what you can or cannot do. Give us a little credit." Rejection is a large part of Out of My Mind, and Melody evolves in her ability to deal with it. Instead of seeing rejection as a personal failure, she grows to understand that not everyone is willing or ready to accept her and her abilities, and there is nothing she can do but try her best, be herself, and educate those who do not understand her. Although students and teachers tend to accept Melody, they don't necessarily see her as an intellectual equal. Even once Melody is officially a part of the Whiz Kids team, for example, some of the other members are unwilling and unable to treat her with respect. Though Melody helps lead her team to victory at the Regional Competition, the team makes no effort to accommodate her at a restaurant that has no wheelchair access, and then they leave her behind when the rest of the team takes an early flight to the National competition in Washington D.C. Melody makes a friend at school, Rose, but even though Rose is kinder to Melody than some of the other students, she also makes the choice to go to Washington without Melody. Out of My Mind then depicts acceptance as a spectrum. In the end, Melody is never either completely rejected or unequivocally accepted by her classmates—instead, depending on the day or situation, Melody must settle for only partial acceptance academically, on the Whiz Kids team, and in her friendships. Although Melody wishes to be "normal," she grows to understand that she cannot force her classmates to accept her disability, and she instead must focus on what she can control, and learn to accept herself and her limitations and abilities instead. - Theme: Family. Description: Melody's family is important because it holds everyone accountable to caring for everyone else. While this brings about a sense of belonging and safety, it can also lead to guilt when characters believe they have caused family members pain, or have been unable to fulfill important obligations. Importantly, Out of My Mind does not define family as only biological relatives—the book also includes those who love and support Melody as part of her family. For example, Melody's next-door neighbor, Mrs. V, is as much a part of her family as her mother, father or sister. Mrs. V sees potential in Melody and challenges her in ways her parents do not, from preparing her for Whiz Kids to teaching her how to safely fall out of her wheelchair as a small child. Melody's aide, Catherine, is also family. Catherine respects Melody's intelligence and defends her against other students who try to bully her and undermine her academic accomplishments. Melody's (extended) family provides an important support network even as teachers, doctors, and other students dismiss Melody as incapable or speech or thought. Melody's mother advocates for her in medical settings and in school. Her father builds her a ramp that will allow her to move more easily. Mrs. V and Catherine together help Melody find a Medi-Talker to allow her to better communicate with the world. However family comes with a sense of responsibility for one another, which means that family members feel guilt when they believe they haven't done enough to help each other out. Melody's mother blames herself for Melody's illness. She tells Melody's father, "I'm the mother...It was my job to bring a child into the world safely, and I screwed it up!" When Melody's little sister Penny is hit by their mother's car, Melody blames herself. She feels as though she should have tried harder to make her mother understand that Penny was behind the car, and she simultaneously worries that her own frustration with Penny somehow led to the accident. Melody is even more concerned that Penny will become brain damaged or physically disabled by the accident and will therefore suffer the same hardships as Melody. The bonds of family are important and they help the characters in Out of My Mind deal with an inhospitable outside world, but family can also be a source of tension when family members worry they've inadvertently hurt one another. Melody often believes she can't support her family in the same way they've supported her, but they make sure to let her know that they appreciate her, and that she's doing all she can. Although her family can be a source a pain, Penny, Catherine, Mrs. V, and Melody's parents also make up her strongest safety net. Because they are bound together, biologically and by choice, Melody's family works to address any pain they've caused one another. - Climax: When Melody's Whiz Kids team leaves her behind, and when her sister, Penny, is hit by a car. - Summary: Melody Brooks is bright a ten-year old with a photographic memory who loves country music, books on tape, and her family. Melody also loves words and language, but she's unable to speak. She has cerebral palsy, which for her means that her body is very stiff, and she has difficulty controlling it. Most of the novel takes place during Melody's fifth grade school year, but she also gives a history of her life, and what it has been like to grow up with her disability. Out of My Mind begins when Melody is a baby, and her Mom and Dad notice she can't hold toys on her own, or sit up without falling over. But while Melody's body isn't developing the way it was supposed to, her mind is growing quickly. Even though she can't respond to her parents, she understands them and she is sometimes frustrated when they can't understand her. Still, Melody's family and her next-door neighbor, Mrs. V, believe she is bright, and when Melody is five her mother enrolls her at Spaulding Street Elementary School. Melody is placed in a "special learning community" with other children who have disabilities. The students have remained in the same classroom (room H-5) for the past five years, and every year a new teacher rotates in. Some of these teachers, like Mrs. Tracy who teaches second grade, care about the students in H-5 and make sure they are learning. Others, like Mrs. Billups, take the job because they think it will be easy, and don't seem to understand that the children in H-5 are students who want to learn. When she enters the fifth grade, Melody and some of her classmates from room H-5 are allowed to take classes with the rest of the fifth graders. Although a few students make fun of the students with disabilities, Melody does make one friend, a girl named Rose who, like Melody, is also smart and hardworking. During the fall, as she is integrating into her classes, Melody receives a personal Medi-Talker, a computer that can speak for her. This suddenly allows her to communicate with the world in a brand new way, giving her access to tens of thousands of words and phrases instead of a few dozen, and allowing her to participate in class for the first time. The Medi-Talker also allows Melody to take tests without assistance, and with it she gets a perfect score on the practice test for her school's Whiz Kids academic team. Unfortunately, even though Melody deserves her score, her fellow students and her teacher, Mr. Dimming, are suspicious of her results. Melody goes home upset at being laughed at and underestimated, but Mrs. V convinces her to try even harder in school to prove her intelligence. Melody studies for weeks and earns a spot on the Whiz Kids team, leading them to victory at the Southwest Ohio Regional Competition. However, in spite of proving herself a valuable member of the team, Melody never feels truly accepted. The day that the team and Melody are supposed to fly to Washington D.C. for the national competition, Mr. Dimming and all the other students get to the airport early and have breakfast without her. When a snowstorm cancels the team's flight, everyone who is already at the airport takes an earlier plane, and they collectively decide not to call Melody, leaving her behind. Melody is devastated by this betrayal, but insists on going to school the next day, even though she is upset. Sitting in the car, Melody sees her little sister, Penny run out behind the wheels of the van. Melody tries to warn her mother not to back up, but she doesn't have her Medi-Talker, and is unable to explain why she's so agitated. Melody's mother, unable to understand Melody, ignores her and accidentally hits Penny with the car. Penny is rushed to the hospital. She breaks her leg but she survives, and Melody returns to school where she confronts her teammates. They admit that they left her behind on purpose and they apologize, giving her their ninth-place trophy. Melody doesn't want it and she accidentally breaks it, then she leaves the classroom laughing. Melody gains a new respect for the other children in her learning community, and a better sense of what is most important to her — the wellbeing of her family, and the health of those who genuinely care about her. She ends the novel the same way she begins it, writing an autobiography for her language arts class about her love of language and words.

- Genre: Young Adult Novel, Verse Novel, Historical Fiction - Title: Out of the Dust - Point of view: First Person - Setting: The Oklahoma Panhandle from 1934–1935 - Character: Billie Jo. Description: - Character: Billie Jo's Father. Description: - Character: Billie Jo's Mother. Description: - Character: Louise. Description: - Character: Mad Dog Craddock. Description: - Character: Arley Wanderdale. Description: - Theme: Nature, Survival, and the Dust Bowl. Description: - Theme: Poverty, Charity, and Community. Description: - Theme: Coming of Age. Description: - Theme: Family and Forgiveness. Description: - Climax: Billie Jo runs away from home and makes it to Arizona. However, her trip makes her realize how much she misses her father, so she returns home and tries to repair their relationship. - Summary: Out of the Dust is the story of Billie Jo, a teenage girl living in the Oklahoma Panhandle during the Dust Bowl. Billie is an only child, though her mother gets pregnant in 1934 when Billie is 14 years old. Billie is excited to have a younger sibling, though she worries about the conditions the child will be born into. Dust storms regularly ravage the Panhandle, killing people and crops. Billie Jo's father is a wheat farmer, and each storm rips more of his crops away until there is almost none left. Additionally, Billie Jo's mother gives some of the few resources they have away to community members who need them more. Even when Billie Jo's mother is close to giving birth, she looks malnourished because food is so scarce. One day, Billie Jo's father leaves a pail of kerosene next to the stove. Billie Jo's mother mistakes it for water and starts a fire inside the house. While her mother runs outside and yells to her father, Billie Jo picks up the pail, which is now on fire, and throws it outside. Tragically, the pail's contents catch Billie Jo's mother as she runs back into the house and set her on fire. Horrified, Billie Jo jumps on her mother and tries to put the fire out. Eventually, the flames subside, but not before doing substantial damage. The accident leaves Billie Jo's mother close to death. Additionally, the fire mutilates Billie Jo's hands. A few days later, Billie Jo's mother gives birth, but she dies in the process, and the baby does not last a full day outside her womb. Billie Jo names the child Franklin, and she and her father bury her mother and Franklin together. After these horrifying events, Billie Jo and her father become emotionally distant from each other. Billie Jo feels alone, scared, and angry about what happened. Additionally, she does not like that people treat her differently because of her burned hands. Her injuries also mean that she cannot play the piano, which is unfortunate because it is her favorite thing to do, and she is musically gifted. On top of everything else, Billie Jo and her father gets caught in multiple severe dust storms that almost kill them. Although they make it out alive, Billie Jo desperately wants to get out of the Panhandle. Fed up with her father and the terrible climate, Billie Jo decides to set out on her own in search of a better life. She catches a train and gets all the way to Arizona before deciding to turn around. During her time in isolation on the train, she decides life on her own would be too lonely, and she would rather have her solemn father than no one. After returning to the Panhandle, Billie Jo's relationship with her father improves. Her father also secures a loan from the government to help get the farm back on its feet. Additionally, the weather begins to improve, and the crops look better than they have in a long time. While Billie Jo was away, her father began a relationship with a woman named Louise. Louise slowly works her way into Billie Jo's life, though she is careful never to act as a replacement for Billie Jo's mother. Billie Jo is wary at first, but she quickly takes a liking to Louise, and before long the two are behaving like mother and daughter. Billie Jo hopes Louise will eventually move in with her and her father. The novel ends as Billie Jo begins practicing the piano again with a promising harvest on the horizon.

- Genre: Science Fiction, Speculative Philosophy - Title: Out of the Silent Planet - Point of view: 3rd Person Omniscient, then 1st person limited - Setting: England, Earth; Malacandra (Mars) - Character: Dr. Elwin Ransom. Description: The protagonist of the novel, Ransom is a philologist don (linguistics professor) at Cambridge taking a gap year to walk through the English countryside. He is captured by Weston and Devine, then used as "ransom" for the entire human race so that Weston and Devine can continue their exploitative explorations of the planet Mars (called Malacandra by the sentient inhabitants). Ransom's sacrifice proves to be unnecessary to the kind ruler of Malacandra, in line with Lewis's ideas about rejecting older forms of pagan sacrifice in favor of the grace Lewis finds in the Christian faith. On Malacandra, Ransom at first reacts with fear towards the Malacandran species, but is eventually able to overcome this and becomes curious about the language and culture of the hrossa, the first species on Malacandra that he meets. While living with the hrossa, Ransom becomes friends with the hross Hyoi and learns about the religion of Malacandra and the similarities to Christian spirituality on Earth. Ransom eventually obeys the summons of Oyarsa, the guardian spirit of Malacandra, and learns of the "bent" (evil) nature of Earth, called the silent planet (Thulcandra) by the Malacandrans. Ransom dedicates himself to opposing Weston's damaging views about the superiority of human civilization and returns to Earth to share the view of utopia he found on Malacandra, becoming Lewis's spokesperson within the novel of what Lewis sees as correct moral living that respects all beings. - Character: Dr. Weston. Description: A renowned physicist and man of science who organizes the mission to Mars (Malacandra) and seeks to eliminate the "savage" beings he finds there so that humanity can colonize Mars and have another planet to live on should Earth ever become uninhabitable. Weston believes in the superiority of mankind above all, and swears loyalty to the human race – though he is shown to be as selfish about protecting his own life as any beast when he is put in danger. Weston is willing to use Ransom as a sacrifice when the sorns of Mars wish to talk with a human, assuming the worst of the sorns' intentions. Weston represents the misguided life of a man who assumes that humans control the universe, and that mankind is the pinnacle of life in the universe. Oyarsa describes Weston as "bent" and needing "curing" before he can properly take part in civilized life. Weston is shown to be far more primitive in true morality than the seemingly "barbaric" species on Malacandra. - Character: Dick Devine. Description: A businessman who works with Dr. Weston and an old schoolmate of Ransom's, Devine is motivated only by greed and hopes to settle Mars (Malacandra) so that humans can take advantage of the deposits of gold there. Oyarsa describes Devine as "broken," completely consumed by his materialistic desires such that there is no more humanity left in him. Devine represents a life of secular and hedonistic pleasure, which takes no account of morality or the greater good. - Character: Hyoi. Description: Ransom's first friend among the hrossa, an intelligent seal-like species on Malacandra. Like all hrossa, Hyoi deeply appreciates poetry and beauty, introducing Ransom to the hrossan ideal of death as the welcome completion of life, and that which brings meaning to all the pleasurable experiences of life. Hyoi is killed by Weston and Devine while Hyoi and Ransom are on a mission to hunt the hnakra (a shark-like creature). Hyoi dies content with his identity as a hnakrapunt (one who has killed the hnakra), rather than resenting the fact that his time was cut short by bent humans. - Character: Oyarsa. Description: The specific oyarsa (guardian spirit) of Malacandra and the greatest of the spiritual beings known as eldila, roughly analogous to angels on Earth. Oyarsa appears to Ransom as a being of pure light. Oyarsa is fundamentally good and wise, acting as a liaison between the intelligent inhabitants of Malacandra and the ultimate power in the universe, represented by the Old One and Maleldil. Oyarsa helps Ransom understand the bent nature of humanity and assists Ransom, Weston, and Devine's mission back to Earth once Oyarsa proclaims Weston and Devine unfit to live in the peaceful utopia of Malacandra. - Character: Kanakaberaka. Description: One of the pfifltriggi, a species on Malacandra that enjoys craftsmanship and stone work. Kanakaberaka carves Ransom's portrait before Ransom meets Oyarsa, showing the idealization of this story that will be told after Ransom leaves, and making Ransom and the human visitors into another legend in the larger mythology of Malacandra. - Character: The Old One. Description: The supreme ruler and creator of the universe in Malacandran theology. The Old One does not have a corporeal body but lives everywhere in the heavens and watches over every living thing through his deputies, the oyarsas (of which Oyarsa is the guardian of Malacandra). Roughly analogous to the Christian concept of God. - Character: Maleldil the Young. Description: The partner of the Old One, who helped create the world and lives with the Old One through the entire universe. Maleldil stands for all that is good, and his orders are in the best interest of all the beings of the universe. His will is distributed to the intelligent inhabitants of Malacandra through Oyarsa and the eldila. Roughly analogous to the Christian concept of Jesus. - Theme: Christian Imagery and Thought. Description: C.S. Lewis, a devout Christian for much of his adult life, includes his interpretation of the fundamentals of Christian belief in all his novels. In Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis uses the creative and exciting framework of a science fiction adventure to offer a new way for readers to think of Christianity through his protagonist Dr. Elwin Ransom's experiences on the new planet Malacandra (Lewis's name for Mars). Indeed, Lewis sees this fantastic setting as absolutely critical to his goal of influencing his readers to think about and engage with Christian ideas and beliefs, disrupting the "stuffy" lectures and moralistic plays that Lewis assumes most people associate with Christian teaching. Away from the reverence of "stained-glass and Sunday school" that Lewis perceives as obstructing the true potency of Christian thought, Lewis hopes that Out of the Silent Planet can open the imaginations of his readers so that they are better able to accept the amazing truths he himself has found in Christian life. Towards that goal, much of the religious discussion that Ransom, Lewis's main character, encounters on Malacandra loosely resembles the basics of the Christian faith. For example, Lewis describes the ruler of Malacandra as an angel-like figure called Oyarsa, and explains that this oyarsa serves more powerful figures who are rough analogues of the Christian figures God the Father and Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Lewis describes the Biblical account of the "fall" of Earth into sin by connecting it to a story in which Earth once had its own oyarsa, who then fought against the higher gods and plunged the humans of Earth into conflict and pain (paralleling the story of Satan's fall from Heaven and his subsequent temptation of Adam and Eve). While the Christian allusions are incredibly important to the story, Lewis purposefully leaves them vague rather than fully explaining how he sees the Christian universe relating to his imagined planet. These Christian elements are instead used to inform the fantastical elements of Lewis's science fiction universe, and in the process open the door for readers to look at Christian thought under a new guise that is not already affected by any negative associations they may have with Christianity. Lewis then gives his readers a path to follow on their journey to accepting Christian thought through the spiritual awakening of Dr. Ransom, an average English professor who comes to believe and advocate for the Malacandrian religion. Over the course of the novel, Ransom finds that he is better able to avoid experiencing pain himself or causing it for others when he follows the orders of Oyarsa, suggesting that all humans can also improve their circumstances by looking for the will of God in their own lives. Significantly, Ransom is not a bad person who must be brought to salvation to save his life. He is a normal man who tries to do the right thing and hopes to overcome the fundamental brokenness of human nature. Through Ransom, readers are shown how a human might seek forgiveness and grace rather than punishment and restriction in their faith. As Ransom learns about the blessings that can come from living according to the Malacandrian worldview, the reader is also given a chance to consider the possible benefits of finding out more about a Christian life. Using Ransom's path as a representation for all men, Lewis shapes this awakening to suggest that all humans need God without forcing readers to recognize God immediately as the explicitly Christian God. - Theme: Civilization and Utopia. Description: In Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis follows the tradition of the travelogue, a genre of literature that includes books such as Utopia or Gulliver's Travels in which a traveler goes to an exotic, often fantastic society and learns about their culture. These lessons frequently include both a vision of how a perfect community (known as a utopia, after the "perfect" society in Sir Thomas More's novel of the same name) would function and, in the process, reveal the shortcomings that the author sees in his own home community. Lewis's novel specifically takes this concept into the science fiction genre, sending Lewis's human characters Dr. Ransom, Dr. Weston, and Mr. Devine to Mars (called Malacandra by its sentient inhabitants) and using the alien species there to showcase what Lewis considers a utopia – a society that follows Lewis's Christian ideals. Throughout the novel, Lewis uses the society of Malacandra to examine the concepts of civilization and utopia, reframing these definitions in order to suggest a form of utopia that human societies could also attain. First, Lewis considers the notion of civilization as defined by the English characters of the novel, and opposes it with the idea of civilization portrayed on Malacandra. The human character Dr. Weston, a man of science and rational thought on Earth, believes that he knows everything about the ideals of a civilized nation and that English technology, academics, and societal rules are the ultimate example of what a civilization should look like. Yet Lewis shows that Weston's definition of civilization is simply an excuse for the many evils that Weston commits, hiding a desire to commit genocide against the Malacandrians in the supposedly noble desire to further the success of the human race. Furthermore, the protagonist Dr. Ransom finds out through his time living with the hrossa, one of the Malacandrian species, that Malacandrian society is actually more civilized than Earthly nations despite their lack of the superficial trappings of urban life. The hrossa have achieved complete peace between the three species of Malacandra and are able to live naturally joyful and monogamous lives, seemingly more in line with the supposed goal of civilization - that is, to pull humans away from their more primitive and barbaric instincts. Through these lessons about the hrossa culture, Lewis refocuses the definition of civilization not on the material things and grand competition among human cultures, but on the ability to coexist peacefully with those who are different and work together for the happiness and fulfillment of all. From this new definition of civilization, Lewis then revisits the idea of utopia. Lewis explains that a Christian utopia is not necessarily a place that is so perfect that nothing bad can ever happen. Instead, Malacandra represents a truly good society that runs smoothly and accepts the place of tragedy and pain in the lives of sentient beings. Lewis ties this vision of utopia back to his Christian faith through the character of Oyarsa and his connection to the Old One. From the information Oyarsa gives about life after death with the Old One in the heavens, the hrossa are able to accept death without dread or fear. More importantly, the element of danger that a shark-like creature called a hnakra introduces to this "perfect" world is another illustration of how a society must avoid the stagnation that comes from absolute, un-changing perfection. The threat of a hnakra reminds the hrossa not to take their idyllic lives for granted, precisely because there is a chance they can end. Lewis shows that humans can also internalize this better way of living, as Ransom sees the value of these lessons while living among the hrossa and works to spread this type of culture to others once he returns to Earth. Dr. Ransom actually contacts a version of C.S. Lewis himself (which Lewis inserts at the end of the novel) and asks the character Lewis to write down his Malacandrian adventures so that other people can read it and shape their lives according to the principles of peace and harmony that Ransom experienced among the hrossa. Thus, Out of the Silent Planet is itself the message to humankind that shares Ransom's thoughts about utopia in the hopes that human society will become more like the Malacandrian utopia that Ransom so admired. - Theme: Human Nature and Morality. Description: Lewis wrote Out of the Silent Planet as a response to what he saw as the "dehumanization" of science fiction, that is, the idea that science fiction had become too much about the strange and wonderful technology that authors could dream up and had moved away from exploring mankind's place in the universe (as had been the focus of science fiction novels such as the work of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells). Due to this, Lewis uses his tale of travel to Mars to specifically explain what he believes about humanity's nature and argue that humankind cannot forget their moral duty to each other and to other beings, no matter how scientifically "advanced" they might become. Lewis finds ways to represent the opposing views on the purpose of science fiction and what those views say about the place of humans in the hierarchy of the universe. Lewis starts by using his characters Dr. Weston and Mr. Devine, an English physicist and businessman respectively, to show his distaste for the view of the pursuit of scientific knowledge as the endless march of progress and the inevitable triumph of human kind. Lewis sees that perspective reflected in modern science fiction novels that praise such characters for their use of strength and intellect to dominate others. Both Weston and Devine focus on what they can gain from exploiting Mars (Malacandra, in the vernacular of this planet's inhabitants), either in terms of material wealth or in terms of a new colony for mankind to spread their version of civilization. In contrast, Lewis represents his own perspective on science fiction novels as a place to explore the fundamental nature of humankind through the human protagonist Dr. Ransom. Ransom comes to appreciate the Malacandrian species on their own terms and learns to accept his place in this society as a moral human who considers the well-being of others. He also comes to accept humankind's place as a rational being (hnau) no better or worse than the other hnau of Malacandra. Ransom learns that living by the rule of those beings which are above hnau – the eldila, and specifically the head eldil, called the oyarsa – leads to a more fulfilling life. Lewis then turns to what he considers proper morality, starting from the Christian idea that all humans fall short of their moral duties of caring for others and must be taught how to do what is right and reject what is wrong. Lewis defines right and wrong in terms of what is in line with the wishes of the ultimate ruler of the universe and what benefits the most people (and aliens). Oyarsa (the specific oyarsa of Malacandra, and the head of their moral system) proclaims Mr. Devine "broken" for forgetting the higher duty of hnau to consider things beyond the material world. In the same way, Dr. Weston is "bent" because he considers no one beyond humankind, staying too loyal to his idea of his own kind while ignoring moral injunctions to respect other types of beings (and indeed individual humans as well). Ransom learns that all humanity has a "bent" or sinful nature due to the failure of the oyarsa of Earth (The Bent One) to properly show humans their place in the universe and the need for obedience to the Old One, who rules the entire universe. Lewis thus sees humanity as fundamentally morally deficient, calling back to the Christian notion of original sin which proclaims all humans as sinful from birth. Yet Lewis sees a path back to the natural order of life, should humans accept that they are not the most superior beings in the universe and subsume their own desires to the greater good as Ransom does at the end of Out of the Silent Planet. - Theme: Acceptance and Curiosity vs. Fear of the Unknown. Description: As his human characters explore the alien world of Malacandra, Lewis explores the ways in which humankind can either accept things that are different, or lash out in fear of the unknown. While recognizing that discomfort at what is strange is a natural feature of mankind's animal biology – stemming from the instinct to be careful and keep oneself alive – Lewis argues that life is made more fulfilling and meaningful when humans are able to overcome their fear and react more positively to new situations. Though the human characters must face the unknown at every turn in Malacandra, Lewis also uses these situations to explore the larger implications of how humankind on Earth should react to new circumstances or people who are different from themselves. When Dr. Weston and Mr. Devine, the Englishmen who first start the expeditions to Mars (called Malacandra in the language of the planet), arrive on Malacandrian soil, they are so terrified of everything there that they cannot see all the beauty that Malacandra has to offer. Their fear then creates more problems for themselves and others, both keeping them from experiencing the wonders of Malacandrian life and embroiling their fellow human Dr. Ransom in a plot to offer a human sacrifice to appease the alien sorns—which Weston and Devine believe are hostile. Likewise, Lewis suggests that humans often become distracted by their own fears and do not appreciate the good things in a new situation. They can even make things worse for themselves and others by becoming intolerant of those who are different, as Lewis compares his characters' hatred of alien species to the human history of hating cultures that are foreign to their own. After condemning the trouble that fear brings, Lewis advocates for acceptance and honest communication with those who are different. Ransom lives this out through his gradual movement from distrust to affection for the new beings that he meets on Malacandra. To that end, Lewis shows how Ransom too wishes to stay in his comfort zone at first, but eventually his curiosity wins out and enables him to move past his fear. Ransom is at first terrified of all the species he sees on Malacandra, expecting the sorns to be cold in their super-human intelligence and another species, the hrossa, to be ferocious after seeing their animal-like features. Yet when Ransom is able to make friends with a hross named Hyoi and a sorn named Augray and open his mind to their place as fellow rational beings, he finds that they are kind, generous beings who only want to help him. Ransom even becomes empathetic to the species of Malacandra, despite their odd appearances, and feels more affinity for these good-hearted beings than for his fearful fellow humans by the end of his time on Malacandra. Lewis shows how Ransom appreciates the strengths of these new cultures, comparing him to people in the real world who are able to embrace those who might seem foreign or strange. At the end of the novel, Lewis upholds the Malacandrians as good for welcoming the humans to their planet and condemns the humans Dr. Weston and Mr. Devine as evil for repaying that kindness by killing hrossa and threatening the Malacandrians. In doing so, Lewis suggests that the unfamiliar is not always scary or bad, and that those who are able to accept new things rather than fear the unknown are better able to meet new circumstances well and avoid causing pain for everyone. Ransom uses this lesson to find his purpose in a world full of potentially frightening, yet also thrilling experiences. - Climax: Ransom goes to meet the Oyarsa and finds out about the "bent" history of Earth, then decides to spread that message on Earth rather than siding with Weston and Devine about the exploitation of Malacandra. - Summary: The novel starts with Dr. Elwin Ransom walking through the English countryside during a year off from his work as a professor of language at Cambridge University. Ransom looks for a place to stay for the night, eventually coming to a large estate. The gate is locked, but Ransom hears a commotion and sneaks in through a hedge. He sees two men, Dr. Weston and Mr. Devine, struggling to capture a young boy. Ransom convinces Weston and Devine to let the boy go home and goes into Weston's house for a drink. The drink turns out to be drugged, and Ransom has a strange dream of meeting aliens while under its influence. When he wakes, Ransom finds himself in a spaceship. He overhears Weston and Devine say that they have kidnapped him to be a sacrifice to a mysterious people called the sorns on a planet called Malacandra. Ransom tries to worry about his fate on Malacandra, but can't help but spend the journey in awe of the bright vitality of the heavens – he can't bring himself to call this expanse "space" now that he has seen how beautiful it is. After a month's flight, the ship begins its descent to the planet of Malacandra, and Ransom's fear returns despite the stunning landscape of Malacandra. They land at a settlement site on the shore of a gorgeous lake. As they unpack their supplies, Ransom sees three long, ghostly figures walk across the lake. He assumes these must be the sorns, and runs from Weston and Devine in terror. He flees through the alien forest behind the settlement. Ransom rests for the night, then continues to walk on the next morning. He stops at a pond to take a drink, and then sees a large, seal-like, black creature also drinking from the pond. Ransom is again overcome by fear until he hears the creature make noises that seem like speech. Ransom decides this creature must be intelligent and goes to meet it. The creature introduces itself as a "hross" named Hyoi and takes Ransom back to his village. Ransom lives among the hrossa for weeks, learning their language and finding out about their peaceful culture from Hyoi. The hrossa are experts with boats and love to create poetry and songs, making Ransom reassess his judgement of the hrossa as a primitive society. Ransom is especially struck by the lack of any conflict between the hrossa, the sorns, and another species called the pfifltriggi, as well as the hrossa's happy acceptance of death as the natural end of a life well lived. Hyoi also gives Ransom an introduction to hross religion, which includes spirits called "eldila" who do the bidding of the head eldil, Oyarsa. Oyarsa is the mouthpiece of the ultimate gods of the universe, known as the Old One and Maleldil the Young. Many weeks after Ransom's arrival, the hrossa become excited about news of a shark-like animal called a hnakra in the lake near their village. All the hrossa ready their boats to hunt the hrossa, and Ransom prepares to ride with another hross in Hyoi's boat. Their small party embarks with the rest of the hrossa to search for the hnakra, the only sign of evil in this otherwise idyllic place. An eldil then finds their boat and informs Ransom that Oyarsa would like to see him, but Ransom puts off this order so that he and Hyoi can continue to hunt. After a morning of sailing to the lake, Hyoi and Ransom sight the hnakra and manage to kill it, though wrecking their boat in the process. On the shore, Hyoi and Ransom celebrate their victory, but their triumph is cut short when Weston fires a gun from the nearby forest and hits Hyoi in the chest, killing him. Deeply grieved by Hyoi's death, Ransom decides to follow Oyarsa's orders and go to Oyarsa's home in Meldilorn. Ransom gets directions to Meldilorn from another hross and sets off on his journey. He must climb out of the forested area of Malacandra, the handramit, and scale the mountains onto the highlands of the planet, the harandra. Ransom travels for a day, but quickly finds that there is less atmosphere on the harandra and begins to suffocate. He makes it to the home of a sorn named Augray who gives Ransom an oxygen mask so he can survive. After spending the night at Augray's cavern and learning that the sorns are more scientifically minded but just as kind as the hross, Ransom continues on to Meldilorn. He reaches this sacred island, going down into another handramit even more beautiful than the last one. A hross meets Ransom on the island and shows him stones with scenes of the history of Malacandra. Through these scenes, Ransom learns that Malacandra is Mars, and that Earth also once had an oyarsa, but Earth's oyarsa is now evil. Oyarsa calls Ransom and Ransom appears before him, seeing Oyarsa as an indescribable figure of light. Oyarsa tells Ransom that Earth is known as Thulcandra (meaning the silent planet) because Earth's Oyarsa turned against the Old One and Maleldil and cut Earth off from the rest of the heavens. This ancient battle explains humanity's "bent" nature, as Earth's oyarsa, now known as the Bent One, convinces humans to care only for themselves. Ransom's meeting with Oyarsa is interrupted when a group of hrossa bring in Weston and Devine to stand trial for killing three hrossa (including Hyoi). Weston refuses to respect Oyarsa, believing that all Malacandrians are savages who believe in pagan nonsense, while seeing it as his duty to colonize Mars for the survival of the human race. Devine, for his part, only cares about the gold on Malacandra. Oyarsa sentences both Weston and Devine to leave Malacandra forever, but gives Ransom the choice to stay. Ransom decides to go with his fellow humans and bring news of the paradise of Malacandra and the will of Maleldil back to Earth. Ransom, Weston, and Devine are given oxygen and food for their spaceship, but the current orbital paths of Mars and Earth mean they must fly dangerously close to the sun to get home. Somehow, they make back to Earth, but Ransom is too afraid of Weston to share his story. It is only when Lewis, a former student of Ransom's, asks a question about a mention of "oyarsa" in an ancient Latin text that Ransom shares his experience. Ransom and Lewis decide to publish Ransom's adventure as a fictional story, so that the world will not reject them as lunatics, and so their readers can consider the value of the Malacandrian way of life and perhaps implement some of those ideals on Earth.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Pale Horse, Pale Rider - Point of view: Third person, first person - Setting: Denver, Colorado - Character: Miranda. Description: Miranda is the protagonist and narrator of the story (though the text switches between her first-person point of view and a third-person perspective). She is 24 years old and works as a drama critic at a newspaper in Denver. The job is arduous and she walks about in a perpetual state of exhaustion. Miranda often would like nothing more than to sleep, and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" delves into the dreams she has. Miranda is an enigmatic character—the reader never learns much of her past, only that her life hasn't been particularly happy. She is intelligent and sharp-witted, but she is also guarded and tends to overthink things. She is attracted to Adam, a soldier who moves into her building, but hesitates to fall fully in love with him because she is afraid he will be called to combat at any moment and die. Throughout the story, Miranda is plagued by feelings of perpetual alienation. She feels tragically unable to connect with other people—including Adam—and she thinks that communication is inadequate. Miranda's deepest desire is to know and be known by others completely. Miranda is critical of the war and the forcibly cheery acts of volunteerism she sees throughout Denver. She sees fundraisers, Liberty Bonds, and parades as the insincere and misplaced actions of those who only want to appear patriotic. Throughout the story, Miranda suffers from frequent premonitions that something horrible will happen to her, and these premonitions eventually come true when she falls ill with influenza and is quarantined in the hospital. While sick, she suffers from constant hallucinations in which she dreams of death, oblivion, and utopia—other anxieties that figure largely into Miranda's psychology. When Miranda recovers from her illness, she is disappointed to be returned to the land of the living. The utopia she saw in her fevered hallucinations makes the world seem dull, grim, and all the more imperfect. Also of note is that Miranda is Porter's autobiographical double—Porter, too, worked as a drama critic in Denver and nearly died during the influenza pandemic. - Character: Adam Barclay. Description: Adam is Miranda's love interest. He is a 24-year-old soldier during World War I. Miranda describes Adam as "all olive and tan and tawny, hay colored and sand colored from hair to boots." He is tall and muscular. He cares about his appearance—he admits to Miranda that he gets his soldier's uniform made by "the best tailor he could find." Miranda initially paints Adam as the tall, dark, and handsome idealized man, though he's far from perfect. He adores Miranda, but they don't quite connect with each other all the time. Adam makes dark jokes about the fate that will likely await him if he is called to fight in the war, revealing that he is uncomfortable at the prospect and thus making light of it in order to avoid confronting his mortality head on. While Miranda is staunchly critical of the feigned acts of patriotism she sees in Denver, Adam is more sympathetic towards the things people need to do to feel less afraid and helpless in the face of the horrific war. Adam cares for Miranda when she first becomes sick. He brings her coffee and ice cream and water, and they sing and pray together. He kisses her on the mouth despite the risk of infection. When Miranda is moved to the hospital he is no longer allowed to visit her. After Miranda slips into unconsciousness, Adam is summoned to fight. At a military camp, he falls ill with influenza and dies. Adam's death affects Miranda profoundly, and she grieves for him when she learns of his fate. - Character: Mary Townsend (Towney). Description: Miranda's friend from work. She is the newspaper's Society Editor and writes a column called "Ye Towne Gossyp." Towney and Miranda have a lot in common. Miranda reveals that she and Towney used to be "real reporters" but were demoted to more frivolous, "feminine" positions when they failed to exploit the female subject of a scandalous, failed elopement. It is implied that the "recaptured" bride-not-to-be had been beaten and was suffering, and Towney and Miranda chose sympathetically not to include "the worst" details in their story. A rival paper included these sordid details, and Towney and Miranda were "degraded publicly to routine female jobs." The (likely majority-male) staff at the paper considers them to be "nice girls, but fools." Like Miranda, Towney is critical of the showy patriotism so prevalent throughout Denver, though she doesn't let her distaste be known. - Character: Lusk Committeemen. Description: Two men who confront Miranda at work in the beginning of the story. Porter implies that they were hired temporarily by the government to further the war effort by pushing citizens to buy bonds. The men bully and ridicule her for not buying a Liberty Bond, insisting (untruthfully) that she is the only one in the newspaper office who hasn't bought one. Miranda observes the "borrowed importance" obvious in the way the men present themselves and their case, and looks down on them with both rage and pity. Though they don't appear after this initial scene, the two men introduce the performance of patriotism that is present throughout the story. - Character: Chuck Rouncivale. Description: Chuck is the sports reporter at the paper. Miranda and Towney like Chuck because he is frank and funny. Chuck was assigned to write for sports because he's a man, though he admits to Miranda that he could care less about sports and prefers to see "womanly" shows. Chuck was rejected to fight because of a medical condition, and he copes with this by adopting a nihilistic and blasé attitude towards the war—something Miranda observes that "all rejected men" have in common. - Character: Dr. Hildesheim. Description: A doctor who treats Miranda when she is ill. He is used to treating influenza patients and is unfazed by Miranda's condition. Miranda finds his demeanor to be "altogether too merry and flippant." While in the hospital Miranda hallucinates that Hildesheim is a German soldier with a skull where his face should be. He carries a bayonet with a speared infant on its end and a "huge stone pot marked Poison." Miranda's hallucination of Hildesheim conflates war with illness, reconfiguring Hildesheim as the villain standing in the way of Miranda's desire not to recover and return to a world of so much illness, suffering, and death. - Character: Miss Tanner. Description: A nurse who cares for Miranda when she is ill. Like Dr. Hildesheim, Tanner has cared for so many influenza patients that she's adopted an almost overly-objective, no-nonsense attitude towards the ill. Miranda hallucinates that Tanner's hands are "white tarantulas." At the end of the story, Tanner inserts a needle into Miranda's arm and returns her to consciousness once and for all. - Character: Disgruntled Actor. Description: An actor described as a "small man," about whom Miranda wrote a negative review in the morning paper. Though "he might have been a pretty fellow once," he's now dried up and faded and hasn't had a successful run in a decade. The has-been confronts Miranda as she and Chuck enter a theater to watch a show for work. Miranda doesn't care about the man but she feels bad for hurting him, and perhaps feels mournful at the idea of old stars fading with age. This, in turn, makes her think of war, death, and suffering. - Character: Bond Salesman. Description: Another man temporarily hired by the government to push bonds. He appears before the third act of the show that Miranda and Adam see together. Miranda describes him as "a local dollar-a-year man, now doing his bit as a Liberty Bond salesman." He would otherwise have been a painfully mediocre man, but his stint as a bondsman makes him feel important. His sales pitch is all dead metaphors and theatrics, and Adam says he "looks like a penguin." - Character: Graylie. Description: One of the three horses that appear in Miranda's dream in the beginning of the story. In her dream, Miranda must borrow one horse to take on a journey to "outrun Death and the Devil." Though one of the other horses can "jump ditches in the dark and knows how to get the bit between his teeth," Miranda selects Graylie "because he is not afraid of bridges." - Theme: The Performance of Patriotism. Description: World War I serves as the historical backdrop across for "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." The story takes place in Denver in 1918, over a year after the United States entered into the war. Though fought overseas, the war pervades every facet of life in Porter's Denver, and an overwhelming sense of uselessness, shame, and guilt weighs on those unable to contribute directly to wartime efforts. The war even affects the characters who are opposed to it, such as Miranda: Miranda doesn't put on patriotic airs, but she does feel shame at thinking (or avoiding thinking) about the very real possibility of the death of Adam, the soldier she is in love with. In "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," Porter argues that many Americans put on a show of patriotism in order to make themselves feel less helpless in the face of a horrific war. Porter's assessment is critical but not dismissive: she accepts the phoniness of patriotism, positioning it as a legitimate coping mechanism humanity adopts in order to deal with the death and destruction that war presents.  Liberty bonds (investments sold to citizens to aid in the war effort) feature prominently in "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" as help that any concerned citizen could (and should) offer, "to help beat the Boche." Porter depicts purchasing a Liberty Bond as a gesture that requires little physical effort while still carrying great symbolic weight. She introduces the significance of the bonds early on, establishing immediately the connection between patriotism and performance. In the beginning of the story, Miranda arrives at the newspaper office where she works as a dramatic critic and finds two men waiting before her desk. She notes their expensive-looking clothes and the "stale air of borrowed importance" the men have about them. That Miranda describes the men's importance as "borrowed" suggests that their importance is not genuine or innate, but put-on or performed. These falsely important men identify Miranda as "the only one in this whole newspaper office that hasn't come in" to purchase a bond. They inform Miranda that investing in a Liberty Bond is "just a pledge of good faith on her part […] that she [is] a loyal American doing her duty." In other words, it's not so much the $50 it would cost Miranda to buy a bond that matters ($50 won't win the war), but the symbolic gesture that Miranda's money represents. By lending $50 to the government, Miranda would prove to her cohort that she acts as a virtuous, loyal patriot ought to act. But Miranda adamantly refuses, as $50 is ludicrously outside the budget her $18-a-week salary affords her. What's more, when the men accuse her of not being supportive of "our American boys fighting and dying in Belleau Wood," she denounces (in her head) the phony principle of Liberty Bonds: "Suppose I asked that little thug," she muses, "What's the matter with you, why aren't you rotting in Belleau Wood?" Miranda reflects on the hypocrisy of these men: who are they to demand that she do more for her country when they, themselves, are only doing the bare minimum? Miranda's criticism solidifies that the men's patriotism is all show and no action—in other words, it is only a performance. Porter utilizes language that evokes theatrics and display when describing the war, which also makes patriotism seem performative. When Miranda walks into the hospital where she has volunteered to visit with a wounded soldier, she describes the row of wounded soldiers as "a selected presentable lot, sheets drawn up to their chins, not seriously ill." There is no immediacy or emotion in Miranda's description of the soldiers; on the contrary, she seems to view them as actors merely cast in the role of wounded hero. In turn, the women who volunteer to visit these "picturesquely bandaged soldiers" enter the hospital accompanied by "girlish laughter meant to be refreshingly gay." The women imbue their laughter with a cheerful, "girlish" tone in order to improve the soldiers' spirits, but their mood is not genuine; Miranda notes that "there was a grim determined clang in it calculated to freeze the blood." By describing the women's laughter in terms of its "determined clang" and "calculated" nature, Miranda reveals the truth about the women's seemingly cheerful demeanor: that it is insincere and put-on. Miranda shakes her head "at the idiocy of her errand" because she sees it as useless. The wounded men will not be consoled by her, nor she comforted by the fact that she is supposedly helping them. The "errand" of visiting the wounded is but a virtue-signaling display of patriotism. Throughout "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," Porter's treatment of Liberty Bonds and the theatrical language she evokes to describe Miranda's experience as a volunteer betrays the emptiness and futility of patriotism. Though she doesn't maliciously condemn acts of patriotism, Porter remains critical of their underlying symbolic currency. - Theme: Alienation. Description: Throughout "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," protagonist Miranda suffers with the feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and depression that result from a perpetual sense that she exists separately from the rest of the world. For Miranda, love and companionship are not enough to bridge this divide; she walks about in a daze of misery and isolation, and the only moments of comfort and understanding come when she is unconscious—either in the realm of dreams, or in the midst of the feverish hallucinations influenza forces upon her. Miranda's internal alienation persists even after her external sufferings—war and influenza—have been resolved. At the end of the story, her fever breaks just as the war ends. Her friends and the medical staff who cared for her are overjoyed at her recovery, but Miranda feels hollow and unable to relate to the others and their happiness. In Miranda's persisting alienation, Porter seems to suggest that an absence of explicit, external sufferings (war, hunger, sickness) does not guarantee a corresponding absence of internal discontent. In the war and illness-ridden setting that Porter portrays in "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," alienation is the default condition. "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" unfolds across a dreary landscape riddled with war, illness, and death. Such tangible problems have a significant impact on the characters in the short novel and result in real, lasting consequences. Miranda, falls ill with influenza and is institutionalized. Adam, a soldier and Miranda's love interest, also falls ill and dies before she regains consciousness. Every day the streets of Denver swarm with endless funeral processions for victims of both the war and the influenza pandemic. But at the core of "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" lies a misery harder to pin down or understand: the wretched plight of alienation. In her thematic treatment of alienation, Porter explores the invisible, internal miseries that fester in an environment of heightened external suffering. Characters interact with each other in "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," but they never quite seem to fully connect and understand one another. Miranda and Adam epitomize this struggle, as they pursue a romantic relationship with one another, but they both have trouble articulating their feelings. When Miranda and Adam are at a bar together one evening, she observes a young couple near them and notes that she "envie[s]" the girl." The couple sits at a "corner table," tucked away, "their eyes staring at the same thing, whatever it was, that hovered in the space before them." Miranda envies the fact that these two separate people could stare into the void "at the same thing" and connect with one another. The girl's face is "a blur with weeping," and her date wordlessly, yet knowingly, brings her hand to his mouth and kisses it. Miranda reflects on the significance of the boy's wordlessness: "At least [the girl] can weep if that helps, and he does not even have to ask, What is the matter? Tell me." Miranda's alienation would be absolved if she could make herself heard and understood with simple human gestures (crying, kissing). With Adam, in contrast, she must express herself using clunky words and rhetoric—methods of communication that Miranda finds faulty, inadequate, and ultimately alienating. Love—a force that is so often depicted as the coming-together of two separate souls—is imperfect and inadequate for Miranda, as it fails to rid her of the alienation she feels every day. In contrast, Miranda's frequent slips into the unconscious feature idyllic scenes where she is understood without having to speak. This represents the unattainable ideal of comfort and connection she knows she will never be able to achieve in the real, conscious world. While institutionalized for influenza, Miranda feverishly dreams of oblivion (death). The prospect of death is frightening to Miranda: she visualizes oblivion as "a narrow ledge over a pit," which she compares to "her childhood dream of danger." She moves away from the pit and towards the sea, where amidst the "burning blue" of the water and the "cool green of the meadow on either hand" she comes across "a great company of human beings." Without speaking to these humans, Miranda understands, instinctually, that she knows them: "They were pure identities and she knew them every one without calling their names or remembering what relation she bore to them. They surrounded her smoothly on silent feet, then turned their entranced faces again towards the sea, and she moved among them easily as a wave among waves." To "know" (that is, to connect or relate to) another human without having to speak to them is Miranda's dream. Miranda "move[s] among them easily" because she understands them effortlessly and completely. In her unconscious mind, Miranda rids herself of her alienation. Ultimately, Miranda must leave this land of comfort and connection behind, as her instinctual will to live surpasses her intellectual need for complete human connection. Yet she feels hollow and unhappy despite her miraculous recovery, lamenting at "the dull world to which she [is] condemned." Miranda recalls the light, beauty, and connection she experienced in her hallucination and knows she can never achieve it in her waking mind. Miranda's unhappiness at the end of the story—despite the end of both the war and her illness—reflects how heavily alienation weighs on her. In her final juxtaposition of joy (patriotic celebration, miraculous recovery) with sorrow (Miranda's depression) Porter seems to suggest that the alienated life is a life not worth living. - Theme: The Denial of Death. Description: Death surrounds Miranda. It confronts her in her dreams, in the funerals that fill the streets each day, in the ongoing war, and in the raging influenza pandemic that antagonizes her city and the rest of the world.  Yet she refuses to acknowledge death upfront, choosing instead to allude to death indirectly: consciously through humor, and unconsciously in her dreams. In "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," Porter explores the pervasive fear of death that plagues humankind. Through Miranda's staunch avoidance of death, Porter suggests that denying death is unproductive and even harmful, as it blocks the path towards a healthy acceptance of mortality.  Miranda and Adam refuse to acknowledge the real possibility of death Adam faces as a soldier. The uncertainty of Adam's future pains Miranda; to think that the man she's falling in love with could be dead in a week, a month, or a year causes her great suffering. The solution she and Adam settle on is to not acknowledge death as a possibility. In place of explicit acknowledgement, they allude to death with dark humor. One such example is the couple's jokes about the dangers of smoking. Although Adam smokes "continually," he never fails to "explain to [Miranda] exactly what smoking [does] to the lungs." Adam flaunts his contradictory behavior—smoking while being fully aware of its health risks—because he has bigger concerns to worry about. "Does it matter so much if you're going to war, anyway?" he asks Miranda. Adam knows it's highly likely that will die in combat, so the prospect of lung disease is hardly worrisome. Despite the darkness of their humor, though, an explicit nod to death is notably absent in the exchange. Miranda and Adam joke about a long-term concern (lung disease) in order to distract themselves from the horror of the short-term concern (the real possibility of Adam's imminent death) lurks ominously before them. What's more, pushing aside the possibility of Adam's death doesn't actually rid Miranda of her suffering; on the contrary, her avoidant behavior invites a new problem. Miranda's fear of death ultimately distances her from her love. She remains guarded and tepid in her emotions, unable to love Adam as fully as she would like. Reflecting on her feelings for Adam, she says that "She liked him, she liked him, and there was more than this but it was no good even imagining, because he was not for her nor for any woman." Adam is "not for her nor for any woman" because it's highly likely he won't be living for much longer. Miranda cannot bring herself to think of death in these real terms, though, so she ultimately closes herself off from thoughts of death and thoughts of love. Miranda generally uses indirect, metaphorical language to contemplate death. Adam and Miranda discuss "what war does to the mind and heart," and Miranda finds Adam's blindly optimistic and simplistic viewpoint (he reasons that if he returns wounded it's not the end of the world, only a case of bad "luck") to be willfully naïve and avoidant. Miranda might criticize Adam's statements about the harms of war, but she is also guilty of avoidant thinking, describing Adam as "Pure […] as the sacrificial lamb must be." She cannot allow herself to imagine the reality of Adam's death directly, so she evokes an archetypal construct (the sacrificial lamb) to contemplate his death in an indirect, less painful way.  The only way Miranda can accept the reality of death is in the unconscious realm of her dreams and fevered hallucinations. This illustrates the fear she feels—and her intense desire to repress it. The story opens with a dream of death. In her dream, Miranda wakes up in a house that seems to be out of her past—she recalls "hanging about the place" with various relatives, and recognizes the bed in which she awoke to be her own. These familiar details are important because they show the reader that this dream and any messages it might convey are personally significant to Miranda. As she wakes (still inside the dream), Miranda instantly realizes that she must embark on an imminent journey to "outrun Death and the Devil." Dream-Miranda's explicit acknowledgement of death is common in her dreams but a rarity in her consciousness. Throughout the story, when Miranda is conscious, she makes indirect references to death through humor or allusion (or in the case of the scene from which the story's title is derived, through song). In contrast, when Miranda is unconscious, she contemplates death directly and productively. In constructing this binary, Porter suggests that a strategic avoidance of death is just as pervasive as the inevitability of death itself. - Theme: The Pain of Living. Description: Although death appears to be Miranda's greatest trouble, she ultimately realizes that there is an equal and opposite horror to be found in the pain of living. In "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," Miranda undergoes a journey from healthy to dying and back again. From the beginning of the story, Miranda predicts that all is not well, and that something horrible will happen to her. Her premonition comes true when she falls gravely ill with influenza and is quarantined for a long time. Though her prognosis hasn't been favorable, she makes a miraculous recovery near the end of the story. Her friends expect Miranda to greet her restored health with gratitude and exuberance, yet she feels strangely hollow and disappointed at the return of her health. Miranda's disappointment stems from a fresh perspective on what it means to be granted life when so many others have been subjected to death. This is exemplified in the song Miranda sings with Adam while she is sick, "Death always leaves one singer to mourn"—that is, the gravity and tragedy of death is not felt by the dead but by those left behind to mourn them. Through Miranda's ultimate disappointment in her recovery, Porter shows that the grief and misery one experiences in life is just as destructive as the prospect of death. Life exhausts Miranda. Her job as a newspaper reporter requires her to keep arduous, inconvenient hours, and she often longs only to catch up on sleep. Miranda and Towney, a coworker, fret that they will be reprimanded (Towney even worries that they will be thrown in jail) for not buying Liberty Bonds. Miranda remarks that getting thrown in jail wouldn't be all bad because in jail they could "catch up on [their] sleep." Though ultimately made in jest, Miranda's remark gets at Miranda's incessant exhaustion. In another instance, Miranda takes a bath, relishing in this rare moment of peace and "wish[ing] she might fall asleep there, to wake up only when it [is] time to sleep again." This is impossible, of course. In reality, Miranda has a horrible headache and she must exit the bath and dress quickly to attend to her work. Miranda's perpetual exhaustion reveals how heavily the simple task of living weighs on her. Miranda frets about death throughout the story, but the pain and exhaustion of life take just as great a toll on her well-being. In addition to the exhaustion of simple day-to-day existence, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" explores the weight of death incurred by the living. Porter shows that death is only truly known by the living. Once the dead are dead, there is no more time for contemplation. One cannot realize or grieve their own death—one can only mourn and respond to the death of others. Miranda and Adam sing the song "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" together while she is sick in bed. The song laments the "pale horse, pale rider" that with each subsequent verse takes away another of the narrator's loved ones (the "mammy, pappy, brother, sister, the whole family"). "But not the singer, not yet," remarks Miranda, noting that "Death always leaves one singer to mourn." The song's theme and narrative technique demonstrate the different relationships to death that the living and the dead hold. Though everybody eventually meets death (the "mammy" and the "brother" alike), only those left behind (the lamenting narrator of the song) may feel death's full impact. Miranda's ultimate disappointment at recovering from her illness and returning to the exhaustion of life brings home the point that life is just as painful as death, if not more so. The last lines of the text are particularly important: "No more war, no more plague, only the dazed silence that follows the ceasing of heavy guns; noiseless houses with the shades drawn, empty streets, the dead cold light of tomorrow. Now there would be time for everything." The story ends as Miranda leaves the hospital; the war is over, and she is cured of her illness. By conventional standards, this ending should be a happy one. But such details as the "dazed silence," the "houses with the shades drawn," the "empty streets," and the "dead cold light" convey Miranda's depression and disappointment. She dreads life and the exhaustion, alienation, and sadness she knows it will bring. The final sentence, "Now there would be time for everything," seems to allude to Ecclesiastes 3 from the Old Testament. The original passage presents a series of opposites: "a time to be born and a time to die […] a time to weep and a time to laugh," and so on. It's meant to be hopeful: it's okay to feel joy as well as sorrow because God will be there in the end, there's hope, and all will be well. However, it seems that Porter's allusion to Ecclesiastes 3 is meant to be taken ironically. Miranda's observation that "there would be time for everything" is not joyous—it is cynical. There will be time for life, yes; but there will also be time for death, and death, and yet more death. Death is crucial to understanding "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," but the reader must also take into account the critical role that the living play in understanding death. Porter's treatment of Miranda's exhaustion, her remarks on the song "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," and the ultimate sadness she feels at her restored health all suggest that people's  anxieties about death are only a small piece in the larger tragedy of life. - Climax: Miranda falls ill with influenza. - Summary: Miranda dreams of a familiar bed, a familiar house, and a familiar "stranger." On a gray horse, she embarks on a journey to escape Death and the Devil and the stranger rides beside her on his own gray horse. Miranda wakes from her troubling dream to a reality equally as troubling: the world is in the midst of World War I and the influenza pandemic. Miranda goes to work at the newspaper office where she is employed as a drama critic. At the office, there are two Lusk Committeemen (temporary government employees who ensure loyalty during wartime) waiting for her at her desk. The men confront Miranda and harass her for not purchasing a Liberty Bond to support the war effort. Miranda refuses to buy one and is tempted to reject the war entirely. The narrative jumps forward as Miranda is back home, exhausted and relaxing in the bath. She has a horrible headache and thinks back at what might have caused it. She remembers what occurred yesterday after the committeemen left: Mary Townsend (Towney) and Miranda anguished over what could be done to them for not buying bonds, and Miranda left work to visit the wounded soldiers in the hospital—a task she dreads and finds phony and forced. The narrative shifts back to the present, where Miranda wraps up her bath and daydreams about Adam Barclay, her love interest. Adam, a young soldier, moved into Miranda's building the week before and the two have seen each other nonstop over the past 10 days. Adam surprises Miranda by waiting outside her door. The two walk to lunch, where they discuss the war and the flu. The outing is romantic, but Miranda is troubled by an increasing fear that she is growing ill and by her inability to fully connect and relate to Adam. Later, at work, Miranda discusses the war with her work friends Towney and Chuck Rouncivale. Everybody has a lot to say, but none of them manages to say how they really feel about the war and their roles in it. After work, Chuck and Miranda attend a show she must cover for the paper. An actor for whom Miranda gave a less than stellar review confronts the pair outside the theatre. Miranda feels badly about the encounter, and on top of this, the show is rotten. Echoing her strange dream and anxieties during her outing with Adam, Miranda continues to feel as though something bad is going to happen to her. Later on, Miranda waits for Adam so they can spend the evening together. While she waits, Miranda questions the significance of her relationship with Adam in light of the uncertain fate his role in the war presents for him. Adam and Miranda see a horrible show together. A man trying to push bonds on the audience interrupts the show before its third act. Miranda is disgusted by the man's theatrical sales pitch, though Adam is more sympathetic. They leave the show to go dancing. The next thing Miranda knows, she is delirious and sick in bed. Adam arrives and cares for her. The couple sings and prays together while Miranda slips in and out of deliriousness. They admit their love for one another before Adam leaves to bring back ice cream and hot coffee. Miranda falls asleep, and wakes up to find herself in a hospital, and Adam gone. In the hospital, Miranda slips in and out of consciousness, dreaming of death, oblivion, and utopia. At first Miranda is afraid of death and the eternity of darkness it presents, but her vision pulls her in different, more hopeful direction. The darkness changes to light, and Miranda sees the familiar faces of people close to her who had died. This utopic, beautiful dreamscape presents a world in which Miranda is able to fully connect with and be understood by others—something of which she has never before been capable. Miranda eventually regains consciousness. She learns that World War I has ended and that she is on the road to recovery. She discovers that Adam was called to duty and died of influenza in a military camp hospital. Towney and Chuck come to see her bringing with them letters from friends who are overjoyed to hear that Miranda is no longer ill. Everybody wants Miranda to be overjoyed at her miraculous recovery, and she knows she should be. Yet, Miranda cannot forget the ethereal images of eternity and connection that she glimpsed in her dream. The conscious, real world—and all of its death and misery—is dreary and grim in comparison to this impossible world of the sublime she hallucinated. Though Miranda knows she should be happy to be alive, she is overcome with grief and dejection.

- Genre: Epistolary Novel, Psychological Novel - Title: Pamela - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire, England - Character: Pamela. Description: Pamela Andrews is a 15-year-old servant girl from a relatively impoverished background who, after the death of her old master, Lady B, starts a new job working for Lady B's son, Mr. B. Pamela is a skilled and prolific writer, and she conveys her story through journal entries and through letters she writes to with her mother and father. Pamela's other important trait is her "virtue"—she has a strong faith in God and as a result, she feels that she must remain chaste until marriage. This puts her in constant conflict with Mr. B, who lusts for Pamela—but initially has no desire to marry her. When Pamela refuses Mr. B's advances, he kidnaps and imprisons her, straining the limits of Pamela's willpower. Pamela often lacks agency in her own story; she's repeatedly unable to escape Mr. B and depends on the aid of characters who try to help her, like Mrs. Jewkes and Mr. Williams. Nevertheless, she accomplishes something extraordinary: when the rakish Mr. B finally reads Pamela's journal entries about her imprisonment, he's so moved that he begins to treat her better. After a long period of virtuous suffering, Pamela finally gets rewarded when Mr. B agrees to marry her. Pamela takes her new role seriously, trying to be as charitable as she can with her husband's money. As the Editor states directly in the epilogue, Pamela is a role model: both for other characters in the story and for the audience. Pamela's life story suggests that people who endure suffering with grace will eventually reap the benefits of their good behavior. - Character: Mr. B. Description: Mr. B is a rich libertine who is the son of Lady B and the brother of Lady Davers. When the death of Lady B leaves him in charge of the servant girl Pamela, Mr. B wastes no time before taking "liberties" with her, repeatedly holding her and giving her unwanted kisses. As Pamela later learns, Mr. B has a scandalous past—in his younger days, he used to get into duels and even fathered a child (Miss Goodwin) with the unmarried Sally Godfrey. As Mr. B spends more time with Pamela, his actions become increasingly aggressive—at one point, he kidnaps her, imprisons her at his Lincolnshire country estate, then impersonates a maid (Nan) in order to get into bed with Pamela. But perhaps the most important characteristic of Mr. B is his ability to change. While Mr. B plans to trick Pamela into a sham-marriage, he ultimately changes his plans after reading several of Pamela's letters and journal entries, which make him more sympathetic to her situation. He reforms his old ways and marries her properly in his family chapel, and with Pamela's help, he starts to finally live up to his reputation as a gentleman. Mr. B represents the flaws and hypocrisies of the gentry in 18th-century Britain, but he also shows the potential of people to change, particularly after being exposed to a positive role model. - Character: Mrs. Jewkes. Description: Mrs. Jewkes is a servant at Mr. B's Lincolnshire estate who helps keep Pamela trapped there. At first, she seems like an evil version of the similarly-named Mrs. Jervis. Unlike Mrs. Jervis, Mrs. Jewkes doesn't care about Pamela's virtue and is willing to do whatever her master tells her to do, even if that involves locking Pamela in a room or holding Pamela down while her master assaults her. Pamela notes that Mrs. Jewkes isn't attractive and makes frequent comments about Mrs. Jewkes's weight, invoking the stereotype that "ugly" people are evil. But by the end of the novel, Mrs. Jewkes proves to have surprising depth. Almost as soon as Mr. B decides he wants to marry Pamela for real, Mrs. Jewkes begins treating Pamela with respect. When Pamela becomes mistress of the house, she not only decides not to fire Mrs. Jewkes, but she also rewards Mrs. Jewkes with more money. - Character: Mrs. Jervis. Description: Mrs. Jervis is Pamela's main ally in her new job as a servant for Mr. B. She is an older woman who provides advice to the young and naïve Pamela, acting like a surrogate parent figure. While Pamela and Pamela's mother and father all have the utmost faith in Mrs. Jervis, she sometimes gives bad advice. Particularly when Pamela is new, Mrs. Jervis underestimates how aggressively Mr. B is willing to act toward Pamela. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Jervis realizes how far Mr. B is willing to go to satisfy his lust, she does whatever she can to protect Pamela, eventually getting dismissed for her efforts. At the end, however, after Pamela marries Mr. B, Pamela rehires Mrs. Jervis and rewards her handsomely for her efforts. Mrs. Jervis's story echoes Pamela's, then, as it shows how virtuous behavior eventually pays off. - Character: Mr. Williams. Description: Mr. Williams is a preacher who lives near the Lincolnshire estate of Mr. B. Mr. Williams is in line to inherit a position from another elderly gentleman in the area, but to do so, he needs to keep Mr. B happy. This proves difficult when Mr. B involves Mr. Williams in his scheme to imprison Pamela. At first, Mr. B tells Pamela that Mr. B wants to marry her, but this was only an excuse to control her, and Mr. B gets angry when he suspects that Pamela might actually want to marry Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams feels sympathy for Pamela and wants to do whatever he can to help her without upsetting Mr. B, and so Mr. Williams and Pamela work out a system of exchanging secret messages with each other. When Mr. B finds out, he stages a robbery against Mr. Williams and then throws him in jail. After Pamela reforms Mr. B, however, he lets Mr. Williams go free, and he also lets him inherit the position he was originally going to get after all. Mr. Williams's story mirrors Pamela's, demonstrating how doing the right thing, even when it's difficult, will ultimately lead to rewards. - Character: Father. Description: Pamela's father is a simple man who comes from a family of respectable farmers but who more recently fell into debt. He and Pamela's mother are the intended audience for many of Pamela's writings, and they both worry about her safety as she starts to work for her new employer, Mr. B. They refuse to spend the four guineas Pamela sends them until they know she's safe. Their concerns about Mr. B prove to be correct, and eventually Pamela's father goes to see Pamela in person. By that time, however, Pamela and Mr. B have resolved their differences and decided to marry. While Pamela's father feels out of place among Mr. B's noble guests, he nevertheless earns their approval, particularly for his knowledge of religion. Pamela's father is the classic example of a poor but noble person, and his character demonstrates how people can rise above their economic circumstances. - Character: Lady Davers. Description: Lady Davers is the daughter of Lady B and the sister of Mr. B. Initially, she doesn't appear in the novel but represents an escape—a person to whom Pamela might be able to turn to escape her abusive boss, Mr. B. But by the end of the novel, things have reversed: Mr. B takes care of his new wife Pamela while Lady Davers refuses to accept the legitimacy of the marriage. Lady Davers's poor treatment of Pamela reflects the prejudices of the upper class against the lower class and how class concerns dominated life for people in 18th-century Britain. Nevertheless, Lady Davers eventually comes around to liking Pamela, providing further evidence of how Pamela's virtuous behavior has a positive effect on those around her. - Character: Mother. Description: Like Pamela's father, Pamela's mother is simple but virtuous. She seems to leave most of the correspondence with Pamela to Pamela's father, even on the letters that she signs with her name, suggesting she plays a more passive role in the marriage. Still, Pamela prefers to write to her mother about certain sensitive topics, and she also continues to write to her mother after her father comes to visit in person. Like Pamela's father, Pamela's mother demonstrates how supportive parents can help raise virtuous children. - Character: Sally Godfrey. Description: Sally Godfrey is the mother of Mr. B's first child, Miss Goodwin, although the two of them never married. As Mr. B tells it, Sally's family tried to trick Mr. B into marrying her with violence, and Mr. B left Sally when he found out she was in on the scheme. Sally eventually moved to Jamaica, leaving the care of Miss Goodwin to Lady Davers and eventually to a boarding school. Just the mention of Sally's name now upsets Mr. B. Sally demonstrates the trickery that marriage could involve, and her backstory provides more context for Mr. B's character and his libertine past. - Character: John. Description: John is a footman who carries most of Pamela's letters back to her mother and father in the first part of the book. Although Pamela feels a lot of gratitude toward John for helping her stay connected to her parents, John is actually helping Mr. B spy on her by reading and even failing to deliver some of her letters. John is an example of a good man who gets corrupted due to his master's influence, and so after Pamela helps reform Mr. B, John also gets redemption. - Character: Mr. Longman. Description: Mr. Longman is the steward at Mr. B's Bedfordshire house. He is an older man who takes an immediate liking to Pamela. While Pamela is trapped at Lincolnshire, Mr. Longman sends a message to her through a fortuneteller to warn her of Mr. B's plan to hold a sham-marriage with her. This angers Mr. B, who then fires Longman, although Pamela rehires him and rewards him at the end of the book. - Character: Miss Goodwin. Description: Miss Goodwin is Mr. B's daughter with Sally Godfrey who currently attends boarding school. Before boarding school, Lady Davers raised her, changing her last name from "Godfrey" to "Goodwin" to avoid scandal (since Mr. B and Sally weren't married when Miss Goodwin was born). Pamela takes an immediate liking to Miss Goodwin and wants to adopt her. While it's unclear if Pamela ever carries out the adoption, Pamela's acceptance of Miss Goodwin provides further evidence of her generous spirit. - Character: Lady B. Description: Lady B is a kind, wealthy woman, who on her deathbed recommends her trusted servant Pamela to her son Mr. B. Lady B's selfless, caring behavior provides a contrast for the initially selfish behavior of her son, Mr. B, showing how he fails to live up to his mother's example. - Character: Nan. Description: Nan is a maid and one of Pamela's only friends during her early days of imprisonment at Mr. B's Lincolnshire estate. At one point, Mr. B forces Nan to sleep in bed with Pamela and Mrs. Jewkes to make sure Pamela won't escape. Nan has a tendency to drink too much, and Mrs. Jewkes and Mr. B exploit this, tricking Nan into drinking herself into a stupor so that Mr. B can impersonate her and surprise Pamela in bed one night. - Character: Fortuneteller. Description: The fortuneteller wanders by Mr. B's Lincolnshire estate one day and offers to tell the fortune of Mrs. Jewkes, Pamela, and Nan. She predicts that Mrs. Jewkes will find a husband but that Pamela won't and will instead die in childbirth. Pamela is horrified, but it turns out the fortuneteller was just a ruse that Mr. Longman created to warn Pamela about Mr. B's plan to entrap her with a sham-marriage. - Character: The Editor. Description: Toward the end of the book, the fictional Editor of Pamela's letters tells the reader information about Mr. B that Pamela herself doesn't know, which creates dramatic irony. The Editor also provides what is essentially the book's epilogue and tells the reader the moral of the story: that God will reward virtuous people, regardless of the difficulties they face in life. - Theme: The Value of Virtue. Description: Samuel Richardson's Pamela has the subtitle "Virtue Rewarded," making it clear that virtue is important to the story. In the novel, "virtue" is most often synonymous with virginity, reflecting how most of the novel revolves around protagonist Pamela's efforts to remain a virgin despite the tricks, assaults, and threats of rape from her master, Mr. B. As the novel goes on, however, particularly after the wedding of Pamela and Mr. B, it soon becomes clear that chastity isn't Pamela's only virtue. The Editor himself states directly that he hopes audience will see Pamela as an all-around role model and strive to emulate her virtuous behavior. Among Pamela's many good qualities are her patience, open-mindedness, and ability to forgive—all of which are tenets of the Christian faith. Even after enduring all of Mr. B's abuse, for instance, Pamela never hates him, and she ultimately forgives him and all his accomplices, like John and Mrs. Jewkes. Pamela's behavior, the novel suggests, shows what virtue looks like in action. Although Pamela suffers during much of the novel—even while acting virtuously—she eventually reaps incredible rewards for her virtue. While Pamela acts virtuously for spiritual reasons, the rewards that she and others receive in the book for good behavior are often material and tangible. For example, as a servant, Pamela was excited to obtain four guineas, but after winning over Mr. B with her good behavior and becoming his wife, she obtains hundreds of guineas to spend on herself or give away as charity. Pamela's poor but dignified father and mother similarly receive a large income as a reward for their modest lifestyle (Mr. B gifts it to them following his marriage to Pamela), and many characters like Mr. Williams and Mrs. Jervis, who help Pamela, receive their own material rewards. Together, the fates of all these characters help make the case for a Christian God who actively intervenes in earthly life in order to help the virtuous who deserve it. Richardson's Pamela demonstrates that the value of virtue is both spiritual and material, with the concrete rewards of wealth and status representing the less tangible but even more important spiritual benefits of virtuousness. - Theme: Class and Morality. Description: Samuel Richardson's Pamela explores the difference between the wealthy upper class and the poor lower class in 18th-century Britain. While virtuous characters in the book often receive material rewards for their good behavior, this doesn't mean that the wealthiest characters are always the most moral. In fact, when they first appear, the wealthy Mr. B is a libertine, and his sister, Lady Davers, is full of old-fashioned prejudices against people from lower classes. Mr. B himself admits how his wealth has made him spoiled, and he isn't used to other people telling him "no." In contrast to these flawed upper-class characters, Pamela's poor father and mother are among the most honest characters in the book, and the reverend Mr. Williams is much kinder to Pamela than Mr. B, despite his lower social status. It might seem, then, that the novel is critical of the class divide, suggesting instead that class has little to do with a person's character and that the class divide is not so extreme after all—and that the marriage of the upper-class Mr. B to his servant Pamela proves it. Still, many characters—including Pamela herself—worry that marrying Pamela might hurt Mr. B's reputation, and ultimately the characters from the gentry only accept Pamela because she knows how to act like a member of the upper class, suggesting that the class divide is real after all—and that the novel upholds rather than criticizes it. It's noteworthy that many of the lower-class characters with the best manners (including Mr. Jervis and Pamela's parents) originally came from wealthier backgrounds but fell on hard times. By the end of the novel, Pamela marries Mr. B and so completes her transition to the upper class, and her charitable behavior toward all those around her suggests that she deserves the new authority she has gained. While Richardson's Pamela challenges some aspects of the British class system by highlighting both the moral shortcomings of the upper class and the good morals of the lower class, it ultimately upholds the status quo by suggesting that members of the upper class deserve their privilege and power as long as they use it responsibly like Pamela. - Theme: Religion and Marriage. Description: Religion plays a major role in Samuel Richardson's Pamela, with its titular protagonist frequently praying to God to endure her lowest moments and thanking God for her successes. One of Pamela's core beliefs is that a person should only have sex after marriage, and this throws her into conflict with her master, Mr. B, who initially just wants to have sex with Pamela as soon as possible. Much of the novel hinges on the lead-up to the marriage of Mr. B and Pamela, with marriage meaning something different to each of them. For Mr. B, marriage begins as just a formality to trick Pamela into a sexual relationship, and he's willing to resort to a sham-marriage if necessary, not caring about what role religion plays in marriage. For Pamela, however, marriage and religion are permanently linked. She considers the marriage ceremony an explicitly religion ritual, and her religious beliefs inform her ideas about how to act as a wife. The chapel that Mr. B's family owns represents the conflict between Pamela and Mr. B's different ideas about marriage and religion. For a long time, Mr. B and his family used the chapel as a lumber storage shed, showing how they put their earthly economic interests above spiritual ones. Pamela's influence over Mr. B makes him more religious, and so her insistence on getting married in the chapel shows how she has made him more spiritual. Nevertheless, while Pamela wins the argument over the chapel, Mr. B's secular ideas about marriage still hold true as well. As Mr. B's convoluted affair with Sally Godfrey demonstrates, marriage can be a complicated legal and economic agreement that involves whole families. Furthermore, as Mr. B matures, his secular ideas about marriage become more altruistic—for instance, he demonstrates his care for Pamela by making contingency inheritance plans in case of his own sudden death. Pamela explores how marriage can be both a religious and a legal ceremony, arguing that Christian morality theoretically can lead to a happy marriage, but also acknowledging how marriage involves more earthly, economic issues in practice. - Theme: Sexual Politics. Description: As Samuel Richardson's Pamela demonstrates, life in 18th-century England wasn't the same for men and women. The novel portrays a patriarchal society where men generally held more power and had more independence than women. Protagonist Pamela's situation hints at many of the problems that women in that era faced. Pamela notes in her letters and journal that women face a double standard. For instance, she suggests that it's worse for a woman to lose her virginity than a man. This is why Pamela experiences so much fear and shame around her master, Mr. B, who at times seems like he's even willing rape Pamela, which would mean the loss of her "virtue." Pamela's lower-class status makes her situation particularly bad, but even an upper-class woman like Lady Davers suffers from a double-standard—Mr. B specifically says that while his marriage to Pamela is noble, it would be shameful for Lady Davers to marry one of her stable grooms (because a man becomes the head of the household, and it wouldn't be appropriate for a high-born woman like her to be ruled by a common man). But while Richardson often attempts to portray a female perspective sympathetically, his novel undeniably upholds sexist ideas, particularly by modern standards. Pamela endures significant abuse from Mr. B, and even after reforming him, she must follow his rules—all 48 of them—to make him happy, suggesting that he will always be more important than her in the marriage. And while the novel clearly portrays Mr. B's earlier behavior as wicked, it still reinforces the idea that Pamela should act submissively toward him. Also, while Pamela's virtue plays an important role in winning admirers, her traditionally feminine beauty seems to be equally important, and the novel portrays women who aren't traditionally beautiful, like Mrs. Jewkes, in a less positive light. While Richardson's Pamela examines the difficulties women like Pamela faced in 18th-century England, it undercuts any potentially feminist themes by reinforcing the patriarchal idea that women should put men's needs above their own. - Climax: Pamela marries Mr. B and is accepted into upper-class society. - Summary: Fifteen-year-old Pamela Andrews is a virtuous but poor maid working for the wealthy Lady B at her Bedfordshire home. On her deathbed, Lady B recommends that Pamela should work for her son, Mr. B. Pamela excels in her new role, and so Mr. B gives her four guineas and some silver from his mother's pocket. Pamela sends the four guineas home to her father and mother to help with their many debts, describing her new situation in a letter, and she continues to write letters to her parents throughout the novel. At first Pamela is overjoyed to accept her new position with Mr. B. She takes a liking to the other servants in the house, particularly Mrs. Jervis, who watches over Pamela and gives her advice. But as Pamela spends more and more time at the house, Mr. B makes increasingly aggressive advances toward Pamela. He kisses her many times without her permission, and at one point, he hides in the closet of her room to spy on her. And although Mr. B keeps promising Pamela a new role working for his sister Lady Davers at her estate, Pamela's departure date never seems to come. Eventually, Pamela decides she must go back to see her parents to get away from the aggressive Mr. B and preserve her "virtue" (virginity). Mr. B claims to want to marry Pamela off to his chaplain, Mr. Williams, and so he finally allows Pamela to take a coach back to her parents so she can ask for their permission to marry Mr. Williams. But what Pamela doesn't know is that John, the man who carries her letters to her parents, has been following Mr. B's orders, secretly showing him some of Pamela's letters and leaving a few of them undelivered. Also, Mr. B has no intention of sending Pamela home. When Pamela gets in the coach to go home, it takes her instead to Mr. B's Lincolnshire estate in the country, trapping her there as Mr. B's prisoner. At Lincolnshire, Pamela must endure the cruel Mrs. Jewkes, who always watches Pamela, even forcing her to sleep in the same bed and locking the door at night. Pamela wants to escape and see her parents, but she can't even send letters to them, so she begins keeping a journal instead. While at Lincolnshire, Pamela meets the chaplain Mr. Williams, who, despite depending on Mr. B to make a living, is nevertheless willing to do what he can to help Pamela escape. They exchange letters in secret using a hiding place in the garden that Mrs. Jewkes doesn't know about. Eventually, Mr. B gets jealous about Mr. Williams's close relationship with Pamela, so he arranges to have Mr. Williams robbed on the road and later jailed. With the cooperation of Mrs. Jewkes, Mr. B secretly comes back to his Lincolnshire house and impersonates a maid named Nan who normally sleeps in bed with Pamela. He then assaults Pamela one night, causing her to faint. Mr. B leaves later that night, but he continues to spy on Pamela. At one point he discovers some of Pamela's writing and then demands to see all of it. To Pamela's surprise, Mr. B doesn't seem too angry about the journal pages, many of which are very critical of him—in fact, they may even move him. Eventually, he relents and allows Pamela to leave his Lincolnshire estate to go back to see her parents. Pamela takes a coach that begins taking her back to her parents. Along the way, she receives a letter from a seemingly repentant Mr. B who says that he's feeling physically sick with love for her. Surprisingly, Pamela realizes that she doesn't hate Mr. B and might even find him handsome, so she goes back to see him. When Pamela gets back, she finds that Mr. B is much kinder to her and even seems earnest about marrying her. Still, Pamela fears that Mr. B might only be trying to trick her into a sham-marriage. Mr. B does several things to try to prove himself to Pamela, including bailing Mr. Williams out of prison and hosting Pamela's father at the estate. Eventually, the two of them agree to marry, with Pamela suggesting that Mr. B clean out his family's cluttered chapel so that they can use it for the wedding. Pamela and Mr. B have a small wedding that they keep secret for a while. Mr. B treats Pamela better than he did before, but some of the other local gentry, particularly Lady Davers, have a hard time accepting that Mr. B has truly married the lower-class Pamela. Despite some initial reluctance, however, Pamela eventually uses her virtue and beauty to win over the gentry—even Lady Davers—and become a respected member of society. After marrying Mr. B, Pamela obtains a lot of money and uses most of it for charity, paying back the servants who helped her, giving some to the local poor, and arranging for her parents to get an annual income. Her happy marriage faces a challenge when she learns that Mr. B previously had a child (Miss Goodwin) with a woman named Sally Godfrey, but Pamela accepts this new development and even proposes adopting the child as their own (since Sally now lives a new married life in Jamaica). In an epilogue, the Editor summarizes some of the moral lessons of the book and says that Pamela is a role model for all to follow.

- Genre: Young Adult, Mystery - Title: Paper Towns - Point of view: First Person (Quentin) - Setting: Orlando, Florida - Character: Quentin Jacobsen. Description: The novel's narrator and protagonist, a senior in high school who endeavors to discover the fate of his next-door neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman, after her mysterious disappearance. Quentin begins the novel as a mild-mannered nerd with a chronic fear of breaking rules, who has harbored a massive crush on Margo since they were children. As he progresses in his search, Quentin begins to question the way he has conceptualized other people — both those he cares for and those he resents — and learns to recognize the complexity and humanity of every person. Quentin is invested in understanding the ways human beings build connections with one another, and thinks deeply throughout the novel about the limitations of communication and the difficulty of truly understanding another person's mind. - Character: Margo Roth Spiegelman. Description: Quentin's next-door neighbor since childhood, a free-spirited girl known throughout their high school for her extraordinary adventures and elaborate schemes. Margo has an unhappy relationship with her parents and feels ill at ease in her Orlando community, which she finds stifling and inauthentic. Consequently, she has a long history of running away from home and leaving clues for her family as to her whereabouts — though, until she disappears at the beginning of the novel, she has always returned home within a few days. Margo is largely incomprehensible to Quentin, who first idealizes her as a carefree wild-child living life to its fullest, but finds as he begins searching for her that she was much more troubled and lonesome than he might have guessed. - Character: Ben Starling. Description: Quentin's best friend. Ben is goofy, frank, and often insensitive, but he is sincerely loyal to his friends and supports Quentin in his search for Margo despite having little personal interest in the mission. Like his friends, Ben begins the novel as an outcast. He wants badly to fit in and be liked, but ends up being the butt of many of his classmates' jokes. When he begins dating Lacey, however, Ben finds himself included among many of the popular kids who tormented him in school. - Character: Radar. Description: Quentin's other best friend, whose real name is Marcus. More easygoing than either Quentin or Ben, Radar is exceptionally intelligent and has a particular gift for computer science. He is an obsessive user of a reference website called Omnictionary. Radar is compassionate and perceptive, and often mediates conflict between Quentin and Ben. He is extremely useful to and supportive of Quentin in the search for Margo, and tends to grasp the meaning of Margo's clues more easily than his friends. Radar falls in love with Angela over the course of the novel. His parents own the world's largest collection of black Santas. - Character: Lacey Pemberton. Description: Margo's best friend, who Margo wrongly believes hid Jase's cheating from her. Lacey begins dating Ben shortly after Margo's disappearance, and bonds with Quentin as she becomes more involved in his search for Margo. Lacey is kindhearted and sincere, though she struggles with body image issues and craves the acceptance of her peers. - Character: Detective Otis Warren. Description: The police detective assigned to search for Margo after her disappearance. Detective Warren is well-intentioned and inspires Quentin's trust, but is neither very effective in searching for her nor very helpful when Quentin asks him for guidance in his own search. He encourages Quentin to move on after Margo's disappearance and trust that Margo will make her own way in the world. - Character: Mr. and Mrs. Spiegelman. Description: Margo's narcissistic and superficial parents, who are more concerned with the embarrassment Margo causes them by running away than about her safety. The Spiegelmans call the police after Margo disappears, but elect not to look for her themselves. They believe Margo is a blight on their family, and see her as being selfish and undeserving of help. - Character: Gus. Description: A friend of Margo, who was a senior at Winter Park High School when Margo and Quentin were freshmen. Gus is now a nighttime security guard at the SunTrust Building, and lets Margo and Quentin in after hours. In her freshman year of high school, Gus allowed Margo to come with him and his friends on their urban exploring expeditions. - Theme: Perception vs. Reality. Description: Quentin claims, at the beginning of the novel, that he has been in love with Margo since they were children. Though their friendship has fizzled over the years, he is amazed by the rumors he hears about Margo's adventures: her solo road trip through Mississippi, her three days traveling with the circus, and similar, larger-than-life escapades. He thinks of her as the perfect girl, both beautiful and intriguing. As his investigation of her disappearance develops, however, Quentin comes to understand that Margo is actually a deeply sad and lonely person, who is surrounded by admirers but has no close, trusted friends. As his perception of Margo changes, Quentin stops thinking of her disappearance as an exciting mystery, and begins working to understand her pain. This project helps Quentin to become more compassionate in other aspects of his life, and he grows kinder and more generous toward the people around him as his story develops. Eventually, however, he must confront the possibility that he may never be able to fully understand another person, and that some emotions and motivations must always remain a mystery to him. His friends and classmates are guilty of similar oversimplifications, not only of Margo, but of one another. Quentin talks about the different versions of Margo that he and his friends have constructed for themselves. He learns to respect and appreciate Lacey, who he considered stupid and shallow before getting to know her. He watches the popular students like Jase Worthington and Chuck Parson, who tormented Quentin's friends throughout high school, accept those same friends into their social group, and his mother encourages him to consider the possibility that the "popular kids" have struggled in their own ways, though they seem to lead charmed lives.Though Quentin concludes that it is misguided and dangerous to reduce the people around him to two-dimensional ideas, it also becomes clear that it can be frightening and difficult for a person to allow themselves to be seen as a complex human being. Margo dedicates enormous thought and energy to cultivating her larger-than-life persona, and she admits to taking pleasure in the knowledge that others see her as a beautiful idea, rather than a human being. Being a "paper girl," as she calls it, frees her from the need to love and trust other people, and allows her to feel powerful and in control despite her unhappiness and shaky sense of self. Her decision to leave Orlando and make a home for herself in New York is Margo's attempt to push herself out of that comfortable "paper" life and toward a greater authenticity. The pain Quentin feels when he and Margo part ways is a reminder that authenticity, and the intimacy it creates, can be deeply painful, but are ultimately necessary to living a full, real life. - Theme: Authenticity and Artificiality. Description: Margo struggles to find meaning in the wealthy, suburban environment where she and Quentin have grown up. She disdains the interests and values of her family and friends, whom she believes to be superficial. Her favorite metaphor, which Quentin adopts after her disappearance, is that Orlando is a "paper town" full of "paper people," where nobody cares about the things in life that truly matter. Quentin finds the idea intriguing, and he uses Margo's language to justify his own bitter attitude toward his community and classmates. He finds his cynicism challenged on his last day of school, however, when he reflects on the way his adolescent experiences have shaped him and think "[t]he town was paper, but the memories were not." There is a sense that the world appears artificial because Margo — and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Quentin — chooses to see it that way, and that people are shallow and two-dimensional only when the person observing them does not make the effort to see their humanity. Both Margo and Quentin have a difficult time being honest and direct about their thoughts and feelings. Each of them deals with this in different ways. Margo plans grand gestures and allows other people to interpret her actions however they wish, which spares her the responsibility of explaining her feelings to anyone. Quentin accepts the status quo and works to fulfill others' expectations for him, making it easy for him to move through life without questioning himself or being questioned by others. Both rely on words written by other people to express themselves in conversation. Margo is constantly quoting poetry and novels, and Quentin learns to do the same as he immerses himself in the poetry she loved. However, in his final conversation with Margo, Quentin designs a metaphor of his own for talking about loneliness and connection—that people are born as perfect vessels that then develop cracks through their lives—and in doing so illustrates a new willingness to make himself vulnerable by speaking what he truly thinks.Quentin's conversation with Margo about the different metaphors for human experience and connection also illustrates the ways in which his pursuit of her has helped him think more deeply about his own values and desire. His final decision to return home and continue on his chosen path rather than following Margo to New York forces Quentin to recognize how difficult it can be to know one's true self. He believes that returning to Orlando and going to college is what he sincerely wants for himself, but Margo, who hoped that including Quentin in her adventures would liberate him from the confining values of their community, questions whether he is simply afraid to do something unconventional. Though her effect on Quentin is different than the one Margo planned, his ability to make choices for himself rather than following her prescription for him is strong evidence that he has abandoned his "paper" way of living and committed himself to a search for personal happiness. - Theme: Human Connection. Description: The events of the novel cause Quentin to consider multiple different philosophies about the ways in which human beings build connections with one another, and about the nature of those connections. Reading Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" he becomes interested in Whitman's idea that all human beings are tied together, like blades of grass that share the same root system, and have a limitless ability to understand and empathize with one another. He eventually concludes, however, that Whitman's philosophy is overly optimistic about the extent to which people can get into one another's heads. He decides it is more accurate to think about human beings as vessels that start out perfect, but become cracked and damaged as they experience pain and loss. He believes that people can see one another through the cracks in their vessels, meaning that experiencing pain makes it easier for a person to understand the pain of others, and also makes that person easier for others to understand.Though Paper Towns tells the story of Quentin's effort to understand and empathize with Margo, characters in the novel often question whether the kind of intimate understanding he desires is even possible. Quentin's parents, both of whom are psychologists, talk with him about the difficulties of understanding other people. His father believes human beings "lack good mirrors," meaning they struggle both to understand themselves and to help other people understand them. His mother adds that people have a hard time seeing one another as complex human beings, and instead idolize them as gods or reduce them to animals. The tendency toward fantasy and oversimplification appears over and over in the novel as a barrier to real human intimacy. - Theme: Leaving Home and Growing Up. Description: Quentin's obsession with Margo shapes his experience of finishing high school, and of the milestones associated with that transition. He misses both prom and graduation so that he can pursue Margo, and when he is forced to attend an after-prom party so he can drive Ben home, he is sullen and cynical, refusing to enjoy himself on principal. He becomes disinterested in the romantic and sexual lives of his friends, each of whom becomes seriously involved with a girl during the last weeks of school. When asked to think or talk about the landmark experiences that mean so much to Ben and Radar, Quentin often makes cynical comments about the triteness and inauthenticity of those experiences, similar to the ones Margo makes at the beginning of the novel. Quentin's refusal to participate in the rituals that come with finishing high school and transitioning to adulthood is partly a result of the unhappiness and isolation Quentin has felt during his adolescence, but it also illustrates how difficult it is for him to confront the necessity of growing up and leaving home. His handling of the situation contrasts with those of his friends, who continue to invest in the people and experiences around them even as the moment of separation approaches: Radar falls in love with Angela despite knowing that they will need to part ways in the fall, and Ben demonstrates a willingness to revise his opinions of others by pursuing a relationship with Lacey and relishes new friendships with his classmates. On his last day of high school, Quentin reflects on the pleasures of leaving a place where one has put down roots. Throwing away the contents of his locker and walking away from the school building are exhilarating experiences for him, and he is surprised to discover how easy it is to leave that period of his life behind. He also recognizes that leaving may only feel liberating when there is something significant to leave behind, and wonders whether the best thing to do would be to chase that feeling indefinitely, leaving one place after another for his whole life. He confronts that possibility more clearly after he is reunited with Margo. During their day together in Agloe, both must make choices about the kind of lives they want to lead as adults. Margo swears off conventional paths to success, which start with college and end with a career and family, and decides instead to strike out on her own and try to build a life in New York City. Quentin, however, insists that things like education and family can produce to happiness and lead to a meaningful life. He declines Margo's offer to start a new life in New York with her, but he remarks before they part ways that "not following her is the hardest thing I've ever done." Though Quentin does not condemn Margo for her choice, his decision to reject her restless way of life raises questions about the nature of adulthood, and whether it is possible to build a satisfying life if one is afraid of putting down roots. - Theme: Friendship. Description: Friendships are the central relationships in Paper Towns, and are often more intimate than either family relationships or romantic ones. However, both Quentin and Margo fail to appreciate their friends, and both are forced to consider the people they have taken for granted in a new light. Before leaving Orlando, Margo cuts ties with three of her closest friends. This includes Lacey, whom Margo dismisses as spiteful and disloyal. However, Lacey proves herself to be both a good-hearted person and genuinely invested in Margo, and when the two meet again at the end of the novel, Margo is forced to acknowledge her own self-centeredness in leaving her friend behind without a word. The relationship between Margo and Lacey has parallels with Quentin's relationship with Ben, who is eager to enjoy his final weeks of high school to the fullest and constantly urges Quentin to ease up on his investigation and devote more attention to his friends. Quentin finds the things that interest Ben to be both boring and unimportant, and he makes fun of Ben for devoting so much energy to prom and his girlfriend, but Ben proves his loyalty again and again by indulging Quentin's obsession even when he finds it absurd. Though he is one of the least serious characters in the novel, Ben exemplifies the constancy and sincerity that Quentin and Margo believe are missing in the "paper people" around them. Radar encourages Quentin to be more forgiving of Ben's shortcomings, and to remember the things he likes and appreciates about his friends before dismissing them for their flaws. Quentin put this advice into practice during the twenty-one hour road trip that he takes with Radar, Ben, and Lacey to find Margo, an experience that he realizes is richer because he shares it with people about whom he cares deeply. These developments are part of the novel's larger ethical code, which holds that all people are complex and deserving of compassion, but learning to recognize the value of his friends is also a critical part of Quentin's journey out of the narcissism of adolescence and into a more nuanced and adult relationship with the world around him. - Climax: Quentin and his friends arrive in Agloe after a frantic twenty-one hour road trip, and find Margo living in an abandoned barn. - Summary: Quentin Jacobsen begins his story by speculating that one miracle—one incredible, unlikely thing — will happen to every person during their lifetime. He tells his reader that his miracle was living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman in Jefferson Park, their subdivision of Orlando, Florida. He goes on to recount an experience he and Margo had when they were nine years old: riding their bicycle together one morning, they discover the body of a man named Robert Joyner, who has committed suicide, lying beneath a tree. Nine years later, as they prepare to finish their senior year at Winter Park High School, Margo and Quentin's friendship has long since fizzled out. Still, Quentin admires Margo from afar, convinced he is madly in love with her. Margo is glamorous and popular, famous amongst her peers for her incredible adventures and elaborate schemes. Quentin is a mild-mannered nerd, though he has excellent friends, Radar and Ben. Without warning, one night in the beginning of May, Margo appears outside Quentin's bedroom window telling him she needs his help. She has discovered that her boyfriend, Jase, has been cheating on her with one of her best friends, Becca, and has resolved to spend the night taking revenge. Quentin sneaks out of the house and spends the night with Margo, driving across Orlando and having adventures. They play elaborate pranks on the people who have done them wrong. Halfway through the night, Margo takes Quentin to the twenty-fifth floor of a downtown office building. Observing Orlando from above, Margo tells Quentin that it is a "paper town," full of superficial people. She seems deeply sad, but Quentin does not have the courage to talk with her honestly about what is wrong. When they leave the SunTrust Building, Margo and Quentin break into SeaWorld. They delight in one another's company, and by the time Margo drops him off at home in the early morning, Quentin is more infatuated with her than he has ever been. Margo is not at school the next day, but Quentin doesn't worry — she has disappeared before, and always returned. That weekend, however, Margo's parents arrive at the Jacobsen's house accompanied by Detective Otis Warren, a police officer who has been assigned to investigate Margo's disappearance. The Spiegelmans talk resentfully about Margo's habit of leaving vague clues as to her whereabouts whenever she has run away in the past. When Quentin returns to his room, he notices a poster hanging on the shade of Margo's bedroom window, which has never been there before. He decides the poster is one of Margo's clues, this time left for him rather than her parents. With Ben and Radar, Quentin goes into Margo's room and uncovers a string of clues, the last of which is Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a collection of poetry Ben discovers among Margo's things. On Monday, Margo's friend Lacey approaches Quentin and Ben asking what they know about Margo's disappearance. Ben and Lacey begin talking, and Ben convinces Lacey to go to prom with him. Quentin has been puzzling over two lines in Whitman's poem "Song of Myself," which urge the reader to remove doors from their hinges, and which he thinks must hold the key to Margo's next clue. In a moment of inspiration, he takes his own bedroom door off its hinges and finds a scrap of paper with an address printed on it in Margo's handwriting. He, Radar, and Ben drive to the address and discover a dilapidated strip mall that has been abandoned for decades. They discover painted-over graffiti that reads: "YOU WILL GO TO THE PAPER TOWNS AND YOU WILL NEVER COME BACK." Quentin begins to fear that Margo has taken her own life, and realizes that the larger-than-life version of Margo he fell in love with bears little resemblance to the real, troubled young woman he is now trying to find. An online search reveals that the phrase "paper towns" sometimes refers to unfinished subdivisions, which Quentin's mother calls pseudovisions. Quentin compiles a list of all the pseudovisions in central Florida, and begins traveling to them one by one. Each time he arrives at a new place, he fears he will find Margo dead, but there is never any trace of her presence. Meanwhile, Ben and Radar are progressing through the rituals that come with finishing high school. They go to prom, and each of them begins a serious relationship with a girl — Ben with Lacey, and Radar with his girlfriend Angela. Many people encourage Quentin to let his investigation rest and focus on his own life, but the thought that Margo may be dead makes it impossible for him to move on. Quentin returns often to the strip mall, and on one of his trips discovers a road map with pinholes in five different places. He begins to think Margo may have intended to travel. All the while, he is reading "Song of Myself" in increasingly greater depth, and thinking about its themes of human connection. He realizes that he has imagined Margo wrongly for many years, and is greatly humbled by that realization. On the morning of his high school graduation, a series of chance discoveries lead Quentin to realizes that Margo has gone to the town of Agloe, New York. He also realizes that she is planning to leave Agloe the next day. He, Radar, Lacey, and Ben skip graduation together and drive twenty-one hours in Quentin's minivan to upstate New York. In Agloe, they find Margo living in an abandoned barn. Their reunion is tense, as Margo is mortified at having been discovered. Lacey, Radar, and Ben storm out in anger. Quentin stays, and Margo calms down. They spend the rest of the day together, talking frankly about what they have both experienced in the three weeks since she disappeared. Quentin urges Margo to come back to Orlando with him. Margo urges Quentin to come with her to New York City, where she intends to go next. They realize that they need to follow different paths in life, though they feel bound together by incredible intimacy, understanding and love.

- Genre: Novel, Magical Realism - Title: Paradise - Point of view: Third-Person Omniscient - Setting: Ruby, Oklahoma, throughout the 20th century but primarily the 1970s - Character: Consolata (Connie) Sosa. Description: Connie is the leader of the Convent women. She has lived at the Convent since childhood, after the nun Mary Magna took her from the streets of Brazil and brought her to America. Connie remains devoted to Mary Magna throughout her life, and she is devastated when the older woman dies. Mary Magna's death sends Connie into a self-loathing depression, worsened by her growing dependence on alcohol. Having been raised by nuns, Connie is deeply religious, and she fears that her power to "step in" (an ability that lets her heal the dying) is unholy. She loves God, but she does not believe she can be united with him in death; she is certain that she will be buried "ungrieved in unholy ground." The only significant relationship Connie ever has with a man is her brief affair with the married Deek Morgan. She is in love with Deek, but he leaves her without warning, and Connie's shame revitalizes her devotion to Christ. Though Connie welcomes anyone in need into the Convent, she grows resentful of the women who establish permanent homes there, viewing them as unproductive and impractical. The other women, however, do not realize the extent of Connie's apathy and frustration toward them. She is uniquely gifted at listening and comforting the women who come to the Convent, despite her own inner turmoil. Finally, she pulls herself out of the depths of depression by asserting her leadership over the Convent and establishing routines and rituals to help the women bond and collectively recover from their trauma. Connie spends her life helping others, from the women at the Convent to Mary Magna to the two townspeople she heals by "stepping in." She believes herself to be sinful and unholy, but in reality, Connie is an empathetic and insightful woman with a natural instinct toward kindness. - Character: Mavis Albright. Description: Mavis is the first woman to come to the Convent. Her husband Frank abuses and degrades her, causing Mavis to become insecure and paranoid. She believes that her children have sided with Frank against her, and she becomes more distraught after killing her infant twins, Merle and Pearl, by leaving them in Frank's Cadillac. Eventually, Mavis steals the Cadillac and flees Frank, leaving her children behind. She finds her way to the Convent, where she becomes more independent and self-assured. When Gigi arrives, the two form an instant dislike of each other that generates tension in the Convent for years. At the end of the book, however, Connie's leadership brings all the women together, including Mavis and Gigi. Though Mavis gave up her role as a mother in order to find herself, she still thinks of the children she left behind, and she regularly hears Merle and Pearl's disembodied laughter in the halls of the Convent. - Character: Grace (Gigi). Description: Gigi is the second woman to come to the Convent. She is attractive and aware of it, and dresses in revealing clothing that scandalizes the townspeople of Ruby. Gigi has spent time as a Civil Rights protester, and she is haunted by the shooting of a young Black boy she witnessed at a protest. She carries guilt for giving up her activism. Gigi's lover, Mikey, tells her about a rock formation that resembles a couple eternally having sex, and after he goes to prison, she leaves in search of these rocks. She finds no evidence that they exist, but she still chooses to believe in them. When she finally gives up the search, another man tells her about two trees that grow into each other's arms in Ruby, prompting Gigi to travel there. She doesn't find the trees, but she decides to stay at the Convent anyway, despite her antagonistic relationship with Mavis. Gigi also carries out a sexual relationship with K.D., who is obsessed with her as a sexual object, but she eventually ends the relationship. Later, she grows close to Seneca, and it is hinted the two might be in a romantic relationship as Gigi hopes to convince Seneca to run away with her. - Character: Seneca. Description: Seneca is the third woman to come to the Convent. As a child, she was abandoned by her guardian Jean––a girl who Seneca believed to be her sister but who in fact was her mother. Jean left behind a letter written in lipstick, which Seneca keeps for the rest of her life. Jean's departure instills Seneca with low self-esteem and a fear of abandonment. She is desperate to please others, which leaves her trapped in a relationship with her abusive boyfriend Eddie Turtle. They remain a couple even after Eddie goes to prison; Seneca finally leaves him when Eddie's own mother advises her to do so. Seneca then falls into a controlling relationship with a wealthy married woman, who dismisses Seneca when her husband returns. Seneca hitchhikes around the country, ultimately winding up in Ruby, where she sees Sweetie Fleetwood and is drawn to her suffering. Seneca follows Sweetie to the Convent, where the other women welcome her. She has a habit of self-harm, which she tries to hide from the women at the Convent. - Character: Pallas Truelove. Description: Pallas is the fourth woman to come to the Convent. The teenage daughter of a wealthy lawyer, she runs away with her older boyfriend Carlos to live with Dee Dee, her estranged mother. When Pallas discovers Dee Dee and Carlos are having an affair, she runs away again. While traveling alone, Pallas is pursued by a group of boys. Her trauma and shame surrounding the event are too strong for her to relay exactly what happens, but she ends up hiding from the boys in a lake. Billie Delia meets Pallas in the hospital where she works and brings Pallas to the Convent. Pallas frequently arranges to leave, but she always returns to the Convent. She gives birth to a baby named Divine, which is her mother's name and Pallas's nickname in the Convent. - Character: Patricia (Pat) Best/Billie Delia's Mother. Description: Pat Best is a teacher in Ruby and a member of the Best family. Though the Bests were among the nine founding families of Ruby, the townspeople have shunned them since Roger Best married Delia, a light-skinned outsider. Pat resents and understands this exclusion more keenly than her father, but she perpetuates it herself in her treatment of her daughter Billie Delia. Pat's belief in Billie Delia's reputation as promiscuous has led to a strained relationship between them. Pat documents and archives the family histories of Ruby, which grants her comprehensive insight into the workings of the town. She becomes disillusioned with Ruby's obsession with bloodlines, and, at the end of her chapter, she burns her records. - Character: Lone DuPres. Description: Lone is the elderly midwife of Ruby. She was adopted by the DuPreses on the way to Ruby, and one of the DuPres women trained Lone as a midwife. She used to service the whole town, but mothers now prefer to give birth in the nearby hospital. This shift comes partly because the Fleetwoods and other townspeople blame Lone for the disabilities of the Fleetwood children. In addition to midwifery, Lone creates herbal remedies and practices spiritual magic. She teaches Connie the healing magic of "stepping in," and she insists that this power is a gift from God despite Connie's trepidation. When nine men in town decide to attack the Convent, Lone overhears their meeting and tries to warn the women. When they dismiss her, she rallies other townspeople against the men. - Character: Deacon (Deek) Morgan/Connie's Lover. Description: Deek Morgan is Steward's twin brother and one of the leaders of Ruby. He and Steward share a deep, unspoken bond, and together they lead the founding fathers of Ruby when they decide to leave Haven. Deek is also married to Soane. They have two sons, but both boys die in the Vietnam War, leaving Deek and Soane's marriage strained. Deek is the quieter of the twins, and he refuses to discuss his grief with his wife. Even before their sons' deaths, Deek cheats on Soane with Connie. His relationship with Connie grants Deek an understanding of the Convent that his brother lacks, though he still resents the women there and helps Steward instigate the attack on the Convent. During the massacre, Deek tries and fails to stop Steward from shooting Connie. When Steward kills her anyway, Deek distances himself from his brother. At the end of the story, he is adrift, and he looks to Reverend Misner for help building an identity not centered around his brother. - Character: Steward Morgan. Description: Steward Morgan is Deek's twin brother and one of the leaders of Ruby. He is the more outspoken of the brothers, known for "inflammatory speech" in contrast to his subtler brother. The twins work together in all things, maintaining their stronghold over Ruby without ever needing to discuss it with each other. Steward and his wife Dovey are unable to have children, so Steward takes K.D. under his wing to groom as the Morgan heir. Steward is also violently opposed to any deviation from his notions of acceptable femininity, and his fixation on what a woman should be drives his hatred for the Convent. This culminates in Steward leading the attack on the Convent, where his murder of Connie drives a rift between Steward and Deek. - Character: Reverend Richard Misner. Description: Misner is a young reverend who comes to preach in Ruby. A committed civil rights activist, he is eager to help Ruby's young people engage with the activist movements arising outside of Ruby, which they express interest in. This sets him at odds with the conservative and isolationist older generation, who regard Misner as an outsider and an interloper. Despite this exclusion, Misner works to understand and help the town. He frequently comes close to giving up, but at the end of the book, he resolves to stay in Ruby and help guide it into the future. He falls in love with Anna Flood, who shares his ideology, and they eventually become engaged. - Character: Mother/Mary Magna. Description: Mary Magna, who Connie calls "Mother," is a nun who takes a young Connie off the streets of Brazil and raises her as her own. Though the book describes Mary Magna's adoption of Connie as a kidnapping, Connie is so unused to attention and care that she becomes entirely devoted to Mary Magna. Connie considers Mary Magna the first and last great love of her life. When Mary Magna is assigned to work at a residential school for Native American girls, she brings Connie with her, and the two remain at this Convent together after the school shuts down. Connie repeatedly uses her healing power of "stepping in" to keep the elderly Mary Magna alive, which causes Mary Magna to glow with white light. - Character: Coffee (K.D.) Smith. Description: Coffee Smith, nicknamed "Kentucky Derby" (K.D.) for winning a horse race, is the nephew of Steward and Deek and the son of Ruby Morgan. He is the last surviving Morgan heir, which places pressure on him but also allows him tremendous privilege, as his uncles will smooth over any trouble K.D. gets himself into. As a teenager, he has a relationship with Arnette Fleetwood, impregnating her. He quickly loses interest in Arnette and instead pursues Gigi. He and Gigi have a brief relationship, but after she ultimately rejects him, K.D. marries Arnette. He joins his uncles on their attack of the Convent, partly prompted by his resentment of Gigi and his belief that the Convent women hurt Arnette. - Character: Billie Delia Cato. Description: Billie Delia Cato is the rebellious daughter of Pat Best and the friend of Arnette Fleetwood. As a toddler, she took off her underwear in public; ever since, she has had a reputation as wild and promiscuous, despite still being a virgin. Her own mother believes these rumors, and the two have a strained relationship that occasionally devolves into violence. To escape from her mother, Billie Delia briefly stays at the Convent. She later moves to a neighboring town and works at a hospital, where she meets Pallas and sends her to the Convent. She hates Ruby, and at the end of the story she believes the Convent women will one day return and destroy the "prison calling itself a town." - Character: Soane Morgan. Description: Soane Morgan is Deek Morgan's wife and Dovey Morgan's sister. She presents herself as a dutiful wife, but internally, she does not have faith in her husband's version of Ruby: she regards the Oven as unnecessary and thinks the economic stagnation Deek complains about could be solved if neighbors simply helped each other. After Soane discovers Deek is having an affair with Connie, Soane visits the Convent to ask for an abortion she does not want as a means to intimidate her husband's lover. She soon miscarries, and she blames the loss on her own sin. When one of Soane's sons is in a car accident, Connie saves his life, and the two women form an unlikely friendship. Both of Soane's sons eventually die in the Vietnam War, and Connie makes tonics for Soane to ease her grief. Deek becomes concerned that Soane is too close to the Convent women, especially after she invites them to Arnette and K.D.'s wedding. At the end of the book, Soane and Dovey try to stop the attack on the Convent, but the sisters' relationship fractures when they disagree over who shot Connie. - Character: Dovey Morgan. Description: Soane Morgan is Steward Morgan's wife and Soane Morgan's sister. Despite Steward's success as a town leader, she only thinks of her husband in terms of his losses, the greatest of which is his and Dovey's inability to have children. Dovey discusses the conflicts in Ruby with the other women in town, but she does not trust herself to form opinions on them. She only ever talks openly with a stranger who she knows only as her "Friend." Dovey is close to her sister Soane until the attack on the Convent; Soane maintains that Steward shot Connie, while Dovey insists that he is innocent since she did not witness Steward pull the trigger. - Character: Sweetie Fleetwood. Description: Sweetie Fleetwood is the wife of Jeff Fleetwood and the mother of their four ill and disabled children. Her entire life is devoted to caring for her children, which severely damages her mental health. One day, she decides that if she does not deviate from routine at least once, she will die. This leads her to leave the house and walk through a blizzard without a coat, only hazily aware of her surroundings. Seneca sees Sweetie and follows her to the Convent, where the women welcome both of them. When Jeff arrives to bring Sweetie home, she claims that the Convent women "snatched" her away from her children. - Character: Anna Flood. Description: Anna Flood is the owner of a general store in Ruby. She spent time living away from Ruby but returned to run her father's store after his death. Her time outside the town grants her a broader perspective than most other Ruby residents, and she bonds with Reverend Misner over their hope for change in Ruby. Over time, she and Misner fall in love and become engaged. - Character: Arnette Fleetwood. Description: Arnette Fleetwood is a member of the Fleetwood family, one of Ruby's nine founding families. She starts the story pregnant with K.D.'s baby after he has ended their relationship. Arnette, who is due to start college, does not know what to do about her pregnancy, so she goes to the Convent. The women there prepare to help her give birth, but Arnette secretly harms her own womb in an attempt to destroy the fetus, which results in a premature birth that kills the baby. Arnette does not comprehend this; later, after she and K.D. are married, Arnette returns to the Convent asking for her baby back. When the women turn her away, she attacks them and accuses them of killing her baby, which is one factor in the Ruby men's decision to kill the Convent women. - Character: Roger Best. Description: Roger Best is the father of Pat Best and the grandfather of Billie Delia Cato. Though he is a founding father of Ruby, he has no status in town because he married Delia, a light-skinned outsider, which rendered the entire Best family outsiders in their own town. Roger is Ruby's mortician and ambulance-driver, but he has little trade because no one ever dies in Ruby. - Character: Jefferson (Jeff) Fleetwood. Description: Jeff Fleetwood is the son of Arnold Fleetwood, the brother of Arnette Fleetwood, and one of the nine men who attack the Convent. He and his wife Sweetie have had several children, all of whom have severe disabilities and illnesses. Jeff wants someone to blame for this, and he directs his anger at the midwife Lone and the Convent women. - Character: Reverend Senior Pulliam. Description: Reverend Pulliam is a preacher in Ruby. He serves as the older, more conservative counterpart to Reverend Misner, and the two are frequently at odds. Their greatest conflict ensues at K.D. and Arnette's wedding, when Pulliam preaches that God does not care about individuals who do not earn his love. This so angers Misner that he disrupts the ceremony to hold up a cross in protest. - Character: Menus Jury. Description: Menus Jury is the son of Harper Jury and one of the nine men who attack the Convent. He is a Vietnam War veteran who struggles with alcoholism. Some characters suspect that his depression and anger issues stem not from the war, but from the fact that he broke up with the love of his life because the town did not approve of her light skin. The Convent women once helped him get sober, but he soon fell back into alcoholism. - Character: Wisdom Poole. Description: Wisdom Poole is the father of Apollo and Brood Poole and one of the nine men who attack the Convent. He blames the Convent women for his lack of control over his own family, but he loses that control completely when they shun him for his part in the massacre. - Character: Ruby Morgan. Description: Ruby Morgan, later Ruby Smith, is the sister of Steward and Deek Morgan and the mother of K.D. She dies in childbirth because segregated hospitals refuse to help her, and Deek and Steward's regret that they could not protect their sister from institutionalized racism embodies the theme of Black men seeking to protect Black women that runs throughout the novel. The town of Ruby is named after her. - Character: Zechariah Morgan. Description: Zechariah Morgan, also called Coffee and Big Papa, is the grandfather of Steward, Deek, and Ruby Morgan, and one of the founders of Haven. His experiences with colorism lead to his obsession with keeping the Haven families racially "pure" and dark-skinned, a legacy that the founders of Ruby carry on. - Character: Sally (Sal) Albright. Description: Sal Albright is Mavis's oldest child. When Sal is a young girl, Mavis is suspicious of her daughter, believing that she has allied with Frank against Mavis. When Mavis reunites with a grown-up Sal, Sal reveals that she was terrified of Frank, whose abuse of the children worsened after Mavis left. - Character: Jean. Description: Jean is Seneca's mother, though Seneca believes Jean to be her sister. Jean abandons Seneca as a little girl, leaving behind a note written in lipstick that Seneca keeps forever. Later in life, Jean tries to find her lost daughter, but when she crosses paths with Seneca in a parking lot, Seneca doesn't remember her. - Character: Nathan DuPres. Description: Nathan DuPres is considered the oldest man in Ruby. He used to let the town's children ride his horse, which led to a three-year-old Billie Delia taking off her underwear to mount the horse in an incident that forever ruined her reputation. He also delivers a speech before the annual Christmas play that serves as an allegory for the conflicts disrupting Ruby's community. - Theme: Gender, Race, and Power. Description: Paradise takes place in Ruby, an all-Black town controlled by domineering patriarchal systems, and the characters' experiences with race and gender are inextricably linked. The story moves through time to explore the background of the book's beginning: nine of the town's most influential men murder the residents of the Convent, where independent women have formed a small community. This violence is the culmination of the subtler, less physical forms of violence that Ruby's patriarchy constantly inflicts upon the women in the town. The townspeople sexualize and ostracize young Billie Delia following an innocent childhood incident, and they accuse the midwife Lone of witchcraft because of her herbal remedies and spirituality, for instance. Twin brothers Steward and Deek Morgan, the unofficial leaders of Ruby, share a childhood memory of 19 delicate and beautiful Black ladies giggling in pastel sundresses as they pose for pictures. The brothers hold this image as the ideal of Black femininity: fragile, soft, and existing only to be looked at. When women stray from this ideal, the brothers and other men feel the need to correct or eliminate them. The attack on the Convent is the women's punishment for straying from the men's perception of what a woman should be, but it is also preventative: the men believe that the women's deviant behavior is spreading through Ruby, and they believe that killing the women will protect the town. Ruby is an isolated and insular town, consisting almost entirely of descendants of the original founding families. When the nine men arrive at the Convent, one man reflects that without the threat of white people or outsiders, Ruby's women are "free and protected," which keeps them virtuous. This notion that Black women require protection carries throughout the novel, and the men's commitment to that protection comes from the fact that being able to defend oneself and one's loved ones is a privilege not afforded to Black men outside of all-Black towns. This notion of protecting Ruby's women highlights the connection Paradise draws between racism and sexism. As the men seek to protect the women from racist abuse and to overcome the emasculating humiliations of racism, they become controlling and narrow-minded about the roles that women should fill. - Theme: Community. Description: Paradise centers around two communities at odds with each other: the conservative and patriarchal township of Ruby, and the free-thinking sisterhood of women at the Convent. The development of these communities at once reflects and influences the characters' development. The community in the Convent is fractured for much of the story; Mavis and Gigi dislike each other upon their first meeting, and the other women are too preoccupied with their own troubles to ease that conflict. When Connie finally takes charge of the Convent, her leadership unites the women. The ritual of loud dreaming––which involves communally tracing their silhouettes in chalk and filling in the silhouettes with symbols of their pasts––requires the women to share their trauma with one another. By facing each woman's problems as a unit, all the women collectively grow more stable. Ruby's community, on the other hand, is led by the controlling Morgan twins, Steward and Deek, along with other conservative men. These community leaders do not take into account the needs of the individual members of their community. Instead, they impose the rules that have governed the community for generations. Refusing to allow the community to grow as a whole in turn prevents the community members from developing as people. While the Convent women grow and evolve, the citizens of Ruby remain trapped in the same conflicts that have plagued them for years. The differences between these two communities emphasize that a community acting as a force of solidarity allows its members to flourish both as individuals and as a group, while a community that acts as a force of repression and conformity eventually undermines itself. - Theme: Motherhood and Intergenerational Trauma. Description: Paradise is a story about women and their relationships, and many characters specifically struggle with motherhood. The mothers in the book are deeply flawed, grappling with a desperate love for their children that they do not know how to act upon—and in most cases, the mothers' inability to act upon their love for their children is due to unresolved trauma in their own lives. Mavis is a mother who chooses to leave her children. She is so afraid of her abusive husband Frank that she convinces herself her children have allied with him against her. The only children Mavis trusts are her infant twins, Merle and Pearl, who die before the story begins when Mavis accidentally leaves them in her car. Frank's abuse constructs a psychological division between Mavis and her children, and to become an independent person, she must abandon her children along with Frank. Seneca, on the other hand, was abandoned by her own mother, Jean, who is so young when she has Seneca that Seneca believes Jean to be her sister. This abandonment renders Seneca desperate to please everyone in her life so they will not leave her. Like Mavis, Jean loves her daughter, and she later tries to reunite with Seneca, but Seneca has moved on to Paradise (a mysterious afterlife) and has forgotten the woman who first traumatized her. The idea that mothers reinforce their own traumas onto their daughters also appears in the relationship between Pat Best and her daughter Billie Delia. Ruby has ostracized Pat because her mother was a light-skinned outsider, and it shuns Billie Delia because the townspeople deem her wild and sinful. Instead of extending empathy to her daughter and breaking the cycle of rejection and exclusion, Pat punishes Billie Delia for her perceived sins––even as Pat herself wonders "whether she had defended Billie Delia or sacrificed her." The mothers of Paradise are not lacking in maternal love, but their efforts to nurture their children are thwarted by systemic conditions of oppression, and Paradise shows how this chain of harm manifests as a form of intergenerational trauma that alienates mothers and daughters from each other. - Theme: Change vs. Tradition. Description: The town of Ruby is steeped in traditions, and burgeoning challenges to those traditions incite conflict. This conflict centers around The Oven. The Oven is the heart of Ruby, a remnant of the town's predecessor Haven that serves as a community space. The town's forefathers engraved a message on the Oven that has faded with time, so it simply reads "…the Furrow of His Brow." Tradition holds that the original engraving read "Beware the Furrow of His Brow," but Ruby's younger generation argue that the intended message is "Be the Furrow of His Brow." They believe that "Beware the Furrow" implies cowardice and inaction, which men who survived slavery would not praise as virtues. The young people's desire for change in Ruby echoes the changes occurring throughout America. The main action of Ruby takes place in the early 1970s, after the Civil Rights Movement empowered Black people across the United States to confront white supremacy directly. Ruby was founded to "outsmart" white people by avoiding them entirely, and the young people find this mission as cowardly as the message "Beware the Furrow of His Brow." But the older townspeople—and especially the men—feel that the younger generation's desire for change is an insult to their ancestors and a threat to the community leaders' power. Reverend Misner is a civil rights activist who has moved to Ruby, and his outsider's perspective allows him to see that Ruby stands on the precipice of change. At the end of the book, that change arrives: for the first time in over 20 years, someone dies within the town borders. This death disproves the townspeople's belief that God has blessed Ruby with immortality. Tradition has stayed alive for years because its enforcers, the town elders, have stayed alive, and they are living embodiments of the past. With the blessing of immortality broken, Ruby can no longer hide from the future. Misner witnesses this and comes to a fundamental realization on the nature of change:  there is some tragedy in the loss of traditions that united a community for generations, but communities must change and adapt, or else they will cease to survive. - Theme: God, Holiness, and Faith. Description: Most characters in Paradise are devout Christians, and the book's instances of magical realism frequently connect to the faith of the characters involved. The presence of magic in the story establishes that some version of God exists, but Paradise never clarifies what this God intends or what form holiness might take. The Convent is a safe place for women, and Connie, its leader, retains the Christian values of the nuns who once lived there. In its past, however, the Convent was a residential school for Native American girls. The novel does not discuss the treatment of these girls in detail, but residential schools were constructed to exterminate indigenous culture and force indigenous children to accept Christianity. And before the Convent was a holy place, it was an embezzler's private mansion. By establishing the Convent's complex past, Paradise refuses to accept a single, uncomplicated perception of holiness. Reverend Pulliam and Reverend Misner both uphold the structure of organized religion, but Pulliam's understanding of God adheres to his conservative worldview while Misner's suits his radically progressive politics. Pulliam preaches that God is not interested in his followers unless he earns their love, while Misner believes that "not only is God interested in you; He is you." These opposing interpretations of God inform Pulliam and Misner's opposing stances to the rising calls for change within Ruby, highlighting how organized religion can both support and obstruct activism. Lone, the midwife, is a deeply pious Christian woman, but the townspeople view her as sinful because her beliefs about God differ from those which organized religion espouses. Connie doubts Lone's connection to God even as the midwife helps Connie access the power of "stepping in," a supernatural method of healing. She wonders whether her gift to save lives is an act of God's will or an act against it, and the narrative never definitively answers her question. Even more unclear is the book's depiction of the afterlife, called "Paradise," to which the women go after their deaths. The story presents the women in Paradise from external perspectives, never allowing the reader to fully grasp what "the endless work" of Heaven entails. This uncertainty emphasizes the importance of faith rather than knowledge. Paradise presents God and godliness as multifaceted, and the story refuses to provide concrete answers about their true nature, forcing the readers to choose what they believe just as the characters must do. - Theme: Exclusion. Description: Ruby, the primary setting of Paradise, is a town dependent on isolation and the exclusion of perceived outsiders. The men who founded Ruby's predecessor, Haven, walked there with their families. Along the way, they stopped at another all-Black town for shelter, but the residents rejected the travelers for being too dark-skinned. The travelers refer to this event as "the Disallowing," and it fundamentally shapes the way that Haven––and later Ruby––functions. In response to the insult of the Disallowing, the founders of Haven uphold their dark skin as a source of pride and racial purity, and they become fixated on preserving this purity throughout the generations. Only two people in Ruby ever pursue romance with a light-skinned outsider: Roger Best and Menus Jury. Roger Best marries this outsider and has children with her, leading to the ostracization of his family, while Menus Jury yields to social pressure and breaks up with his light-skinned lover, which severely worsens his unraveling mental health. Reverend Misner, the only Ruby resident who was not born there, struggles against Ruby's distrust of outsiders as he tries to navigate the community. His outside perspective allows him a broad perspective on the town's social landscape, and he realizes that the "glacial wariness they once confined to strangers more and more was directed toward each other." This realization highlights the fatal flaw of Haven and Ruby and summarizes the book's central claim about the harmful and self-perpetuating nature of exclusion. Paradise suggests that a community built on distrust and exclusion will eventually self-destruct; when the community has successfully excluded all "outsiders," its dependence on exclusion requires that community to define a new class of outsiders—until all the community members have turned against each other. - Climax: The men attack the Convent and murder its inhabitants. - Summary: Paradise begins with nine unnamed men attacking a Convent, which houses a group of women the men believe to be sinful. As the men see the women escaping, they fire their guns. The story then moves back in time to chronicle how the women came to the Convent and why the men have come to kill them. The first woman to move to the Convent is Mavis, whose husband Frank has abused her to the point of constant self-doubt and paranoia. After she accidentally kills her infant children by leaving them in the car, she flees Frank and finds her way to the Convent, which stands outside the all-Black town of Ruby, Oklahoma. A middle-aged woman named Connie lives in the Convent with an old woman she calls Mother, and they welcome Mavis to stay. Connie herself came to the Convent as a child, when Mother (a nun named Mary Magna) took Connie from the streets of Brazil and raised her in the Convent, which formerly served as a residential school for Native American girls. Connie has since been utterly devoted to Mary Magna. Gigi arrives next. She's a confident and sensual woman who left home in search of a legendary rock formation. The rock formation, which her ex-lover described to her, allegedly resembles a couple having sex, but Gigi finds no evidence the rock formation exists. She comes to Ruby after hearing of a different legend, and though she does not find that either, she chooses to stay at the Convent, much to Mavis's dismay. Next to arrive is Seneca, who was abandoned by her teen mother as a child and has since tried to appease everyone in her life to keep them from leaving. Like Mavis, Seneca leaves an abusive partner, but she only finds the strength to leave after her boyfriend is sent to prison and his mother tells her to leave. Seneca then enters a degrading relationship with a wealthy older woman. After the woman dismisses her, Seneca hitchhikes around the country until she ends up at the Convent. The final woman to come to the Convent is Pallas, a wealthy high schooler who runs away from home with her older boyfriend Carlos. The couple goes to stay with Pallas's estranged mother Dee Dee, but Pallas runs away again when she discovers that Dee Dee and Carlos are having an affair. While on the run, Pallas is assaulted by a group of boys and hides in a body of water. She falls ill and is taken to a hospital, where an employee from Ruby named Billie Delia recognizes her and sends her to the Convent. For several years, the Convent's community is disjointed, which only worsens when Mary Magna dies and the Convent's leader Connie falls into a deep depression; Connie's hatred for her healing power of "stepping in," which pious Connie believes to be unholy, only worsens her mental health. Eventually, though, Connie decides the women need to come together in order to heal their individual traumas, and her leadership brings the Convent together as a tight-knit, supportive community. Interweaved with the women's arrivals is the story of Ruby's founding and the mounting conflict that arises between the town's older and younger generations. Ruby is founded by nine Black families who come from Haven, another all-Black town founded by Zechariah Morgan. Haven was founded after a group of Black travelers were rejected by other Black towns for being too dark-skinned, and that exclusion made Haven––and eventually Ruby––determined to preserve the town's isolation. After Haven started to crumble, Zechariah's twin grandsons Steward and Deek led nine families to found a new town, bringing with them the Oven that served as Haven's town center. The patriarchs of these founding families exert their control over Ruby for years, but as Black people around the country start uniting for civil rights in the 1960s, Ruby's young people begin to push against the isolationism of their elders. The older generation takes this as a disrespect to tradition, and conflicts break out on both town-wide and more personal scales. These conflicts come to a head at the Oven. Zechariah Morgan engraved a phrase on the Oven that has since faded, leaving only the words "…the Furrow of His Brow." Tradition maintains that the intended message is "Beware the Furrow of His Brow," but the young people find this cowardly and passive. They insist that the initial engraving was really "Be the Furrow of His Brow." Supporting the young people is Reverend Misner, a civil rights activist who is new to town, and his girlfriend Anna Flood. On the opposing side are the conservative Reverend Pulliam and the Morgan brothers. Many of the older women of Ruby are unsure which side to support, including Dovey and Soane Morgan, the wives of Steward and Deek. Pat Best, a schoolteacher and the mother of Billie Delia, has been shunned her entire life because her mother was a light-skinned outsider, yet she still rejects the young people's call for change and defends Ruby's traditions to Reverend Misner. The leaders of Ruby seek a scapegoat for the conflicts in town, and they decide to blame the Convent women. Lone DuPres, Ruby's elderly midwife, overhears nine men planning to attack the Convent. Among these men are the Morgan twins and their nephew K.D. Deek Morgan formerly had an affair with Connie, and his internalized shame about it largely fuels his hatred for the her. Steward, on the other hand, is simply outraged at the women's defiance of what he believes a woman should be and how a woman should act. Lone tries to rally the townspeople against the men, but they are unwilling to take immediate action, giving the nine men enough time to break into the Convent and murder its inhabitants. Deek tries to stop Steward from shooting Connie, and when Steward shoots her anyway, the bond between the brothers severs. After the massacre, Ruby sees the first death within the town limits since its founding: an infant named Save-Marie, one of four severely ill children of Jeff Fleetwood, who was one of the nine attackers. This death marks the future's arrival in Ruby, as the town can no longer remain stuck in the past. The bodies of the women disappear from the Convent, and when Misner and Anna Flood go to investigate, they sense some kind of doorway on the property. In a series of short scenes, the women appear to their family members. Connie sits somewhere called Paradise, watching a boat of new arrivals come to do the endless work they were all created for.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Passing - Point of view: Third person limited narrative from Irene's perspective - Setting: Chicago and Harlem, New York City - Character: Clare Kendry / Bellew. Description: Clare Kendry is Irene's childhood acquaintance and John Bellew's wife. She is a beautiful, charming, wealthy woman who, although born to a black father in a black community, lives in public as a white woman. Clare has light skin, blond hair, and dark eyes. Clare describes herself as someone who will do anything to get what she wants. After her father's death during her adolescence, Clare moved away from her mostly-black neighborhood in Chicago to live with her white aunts. Later, she eloped with John Bellew, a white man to whom she never revealed her black ancestry. Together they have one daughter, Margery, and travel frequently for John's work. Despite the fact that Clare's passing affords her many of the privileges afforded to white Americans, she is unhappy in her situation, and longs to return to the black community. To this end, Clare attempts to befriend Irene. This leads eventually to Irene's suspicion that Clare is having an affair with Brian. Ultimately, Clare dies after either falling or being pushed out of a sixth story window—the narrative leaves Clare's death ambiguous, and the reader unsure of whether Irene jealously pushed her, she jumped, or she simply lost her balance. - Character: Irene Redfield. Description: Irene Redfield is Clare's childhood acquaintance, Brian's wife, and the protagonist of Passing. The book's narrative is told in third person from Irene's perspective. Irene is an uptight, intelligent, well-to-do woman from Chicago who lives in Harlem with her husband Brian and sons Ted and Junior. Irene cares deeply about her family life and values security above all else. Irene's light skin allows her to pass as white when she is alone. Irene is committed to advancing black equality and takes part in activism to that end. Irene first meets Clare (as an adult) during a trip to Chicago, when she also meets Clare's violently racist husband John. Not wanting to deal with John, and angry with Clare for subjecting her to John's hate, Irene resolves to have nothing to do with Clare. She goes back on this resolution two years later, when Clare contacts her in New York and the two women strike up a friendship. Irene, however, harbors antipathy toward Clare for ambiguous and complex reasons. She eventually convinces herself that Clare and Brian are having an affair, but also may have repressed feelings for Clare herself. Irene, overcome by her jealousy and anxiety, is standing next to Clare when Clare falls through the window. The narrator is unclear whether Clare's death was an accident or Irene pushed her. - Character: Brian Redfield. Description: Brian is a doctor in New York City and Irene's husband. Brian is a reserved man who longs to move to Brazil from the United States to escape the country's dangerous racism. Brian does not enjoy his work as a doctor. His restlessness and desire to move away causes marital issues between him and Irene, who insists that they stay in New York. Unlike his wife, Brian's skin is dark and he cannot pass as white. Brian, though initially wary of Clare, grows to like her. When Brian invites Clare to a party out of the blue, Irene begins to suspect they are having an affair. The narrative is never clear about whether or not Irene's suspicions are correct. - Character: John/Jack Bellew. Description: John or Jack Bellew is Clare's husband. John, like Clare, is charming and sociable. He is also a white man and a virulent, violent racist. John does not know that Clare has black ancestry, and he frequently uses racial slurs around her and even to address her. When John meets Gertrude and Irene the first time at a tea party with Clare, he does not realize they are black. John travels often for business, and so does not realize that Clare is spending time in Harlem with Irene and other members of the black community. After John runs into Irene on the street with Felise and realizes that Irene is black, he becomes suspicious of Clare. In the final scene of the book, John bursts into the party at the Freeland's apartment to confront Clare about her deception, and she falls or is pushed out of the sixth-story window to her death not long after. - Character: Bob Kendry. Description: Bob Kendry is Clare's deceased father. Bob is referenced throughout the book, though he never appears in the flesh, having died before the plot takes place. Bob was an alcoholic and a janitor in Irene and Clare's neighborhood in Chicago. Bob went to college with many of the men in the area, but some unknown disgrace caused him to take a job below his education status. When Bob died, leaving Clare an orphan, she went to go live with Bob's white aunts. - Character: Hugh Wentworth. Description: Hugh Wentworth is Irene's friend and Bianca's husband. Hugh is a white man and a well-known author who takes part in Irene's social circle and attends the Negro Welfare League dance. Hugh is perceptive and enjoys talking with Irene about race relations. At one point, Irene thinks that Hugh believes Clare and Brian are having an affair, though Irene has not told him her suspicions. - Character: Gertrude Martin. Description: Gertrude Martin is a childhood acquaintance of Clare and Irene, the wife of Fred Martin, and the daughter of a butcher. Gertrude was beautiful when she was young, but has apparently not aged well. Irene encounters her when she goes to Clare's for tea. Gertrude can pass as white, and is married to a white man (a butcher like her father) who knows that she is black. During tea, Gertrude expresses her aversion to dark-skinned children to Clare and Irene, making Irene angry. - Character: Margery. Description: Margery is Clare and John Bellew's daughter. She is a light-skinned young girl who attends school in Switzerland. Larsen never introduces Margery to the reader, but the other characters discuss her frequently. Margery seems to not be a very big part of Clare's life, but she is referenced often as one of the reasons that Clare cannot leave John. - Character: Claude Jones. Description: Claude Jones is a man who grew up with Clare, Gertrude, and Irene on the South Side of Chicago. Though Claude Jones does not appear in person in the book, Clare, Gertrude, and Irene discuss him during their tea together in Chicago. Gertrude says laughingly that Claude, a black man, has converted to Judaism. Clare laughs as well, while Irene defends Claude's choice. - Character: Felise Freeland. Description: Felise Freeland is a friend of Irene's and the wife of Dave Freeland. Felise attends Irene's tea party, and it is at the Freelands' apartment that Clare falls or is pushed out the window in the book's dramatic final scene. Irene describes Felise as a perfect combination of beauty and brains. - Theme: Passing, Black Identity, and Race. Description: In Passing, Nella Larsen presents black characters who "pass" as white to varying degrees, moving back and forth between different outward identities as it suits them. Some of Larsen's characters pass only occasionally, when it is convenient and beneficial to them, but live in black communities and embrace their black identity, while others live their lives as white people, keeping their black heritage secret. Irene is an example of a character who passes as white only when it suits her. For example, she passes at the beginning of the book so she can drink an iced tea in the white hotel Drayton's. While at Drayton's, Irene notes that she only passes when she is alone, associating the concept of passing with isolation from the black community. In general, Irene embraces her black identity, and is proud of her black community in Harlem, where she lives with Brian, who cannot pass, and her children. To Irene, passing is a convenience that allows her to move through the white world without ridicule or exclusion, but not a lifestyle. Irene also takes care while passing at Drayton's to remind herself that she is passing for convenience, not because she rejects anything about her black identity. Irene's commitment to her black identity distinguishes her from other characters who pass not for occasional convenience, but because they prefer life in white communities. Take, for instance, Irene's childhood acquaintance Gertrude, who has married a white man, and who says she prefers to have light-skinned children. Gertrude seems to be willing to reject blackness, or at least dark-skinned children, in order to become a part of the white community. Other characters, such as Clare, have passed completely, totally rejecting and hiding their black identities. Clare has forgone her black identity to live among white people as a white person. Clare lies to her husband, John, who believes she is completely white, and who is openly racist around her. At the beginning of the book, Clare seems to think that her lifestyle, in which her black identity is totally erased, is better than Irene's. During a conversation with Irene, Clare professes not to understand why more light-skinned black women do not also cross over into white society and leave their black identities behind. In doing so, Clare clearly implies that she thinks her lifestyle is superior. Certainly, living as a white woman has afforded Clare many privileges, from her massive wealth to her safety from discrimination, exclusion, and racial violence. However, as the book goes on, Larsen shows how passing takes a massive toll on Clare psychologically and does not insulate her from everything she thought it would. During the painful scene of Irene's first meeting with Clare's husband, John expresses vitriolic racism and calls his wife the racial slur "nig." The slur is a "joke" about Clare's supposedly darkening skin color, as John does not realize that Clare (or Irene, or Gertrude) is black, or comes from a black community. Still, the moment reveals the unknowing abuse that Clare must suffer daily, and suggests Clare would likely suffer violence should she ever renounce her white identity and embrace (or even reveal) her black one. As the book progresses, Clare expresses a desire to leave John and rejoin the black community, and she recruits Irene to help her do so. Irene, however, feels massive resentment towards Clare for a myriad of reasons. Irene certainly is jealous of Clare, but her anger may also stem from the fact that Clare has said many negative things about blackness and has benefited from passing for so long. Irene's resentment calls into question her own passing, although she passes only occasionally. It forces the reader to ask: if Irene sees Clare as an outsider to the black community, at what point does passing make you one? Moreover, the way that Larsen portrays passing troubles the idea of race as inherent or genetic. The word "passing" has a kind of double meaning, as it could be read as "being taken for" or, more literally, as passing the threshold from one identity to another. The second meaning shows just how binary racial identities were in the imagination of 1920s America, since the idea implies that black identity and white identity are two distinct categories. But contrary to this way of thinking about race, the characters in Passing constantly transgress, muddle, and trouble the idea of race as binary as they move back and forth between different identities. In Drayton, Irene mockingly thinks how white people believe they can always "tell" a black person from a white person, but then they are constantly fooled, because black heritage does not always correspond to the stereotypical images they hold. Essentially, the racial ambiguity and fluidity of characters like Clare and Irene call into question ideas of race as inherent and distinct genetic categories, because they show how race, although it has very real implications for people's lives, is constructed and performed. This idea is important, because it constitutes a radical threat to racism, which depends on the idea of race as innate. At the same time, however, it also could threaten black identity, or at least visions of black identity that are based in genetics rather than shared experience. Ultimately, Larsen seems to feel ambiguously about the idea of passing, and what it means for black identity and race. The reader might take one of Irene's comments on passing as the book's thesis on the subject: "It's funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with a kind of revulsion, but we protect it." - Theme: Motherhood, Security, and Freedom. Description: Passing offers the reader two different models of motherhood in the characters of Irene and Clare, who each experience parenthood very differently. For Irene, parenting is a kind of security, and an important aspect of her identity. Parenthood offers her a purpose and a way to structure her life. Irene tells Clare that she takes "being a mother rather seriously," and that she is "wrapped up in [her] boys and the running of her house." In this respect, Irene shows the reader a more traditional model of motherhood, in which children are a mother's primary focus, and motherhood is an important aspect of female identity. Irene associates motherhood with the idea of security. Motherhood provides Irene with (a presumed) insurance that Brian will not leave her, and she frequently falls back on that sense of security when she and Brian fight. Moreover, Irene thinks it is her duty as a parent to provide security to her children, and to insulate them from the racism of the outside world. Brian, meanwhile, disagrees with Irene's impulse to protect their children from racism, thinking he should prepare his children for life in a country where they will undoubtedly suffer at the hands of racist individuals and systems. Irene's disagreement with Brian highlights that Irene thinks of her motherhood as security—both in that she feels she should provide security to her children, and that it gives her security as well. Irene seems to see the family as a space that racism should not be allowed to penetrate, even if it means keeping the harsh realities of the world from her children. Clare, on the other hand, offers a radically different model of motherhood than Irene's. For Clare, motherhood is not an important aspect of her identity, and rather than using it to structure her life, she tries to find ways to build her life in spite of it. During the same conversation where Irene says that she takes being a mother seriously, Clare asserts that "children aren't everything," suggesting that she does not see motherhood as her main purpose. Larsen emphasizes the fact that Clare sees motherhood as a minor part of her life by never actually introducing the reader to Clare's daughter Margery, keeping her on the sidelines of Clare's presence in the novel. The lack of importance that Clare places on motherhood shows how she departs from the traditional domestic, maternal female role. Moreover, Clare often resents her role as a mother, as Margery keeps her from leaving John and returning to her life in the black community. Rather than using motherhood to create a family space insulated from racism, Clare's motherhood keeps her in a marriage that forces her to suffer racism every day. After Irene reminds Clare that she cannot leave her husband because of what it would mean for her daughter, Clare declares that she thinks motherhood is "the cruelest thing in the world." What Irene sees as security and responsibility, Clare views as restraint and lack of freedom. Although Irene expresses disapproval for Clare's version of motherhood, and believes that it is selfish, she also begins to imitate certain aspects of Clare's version of motherhood. For example, Margery goes to boarding school in Switzerland, and Irene thinks about proposing to Brian that one of their children should go to school in Europe as well. As with the other aspects of the novel, Larsen does not condemn or valorize either Irene or Clare's way of being a mother, leaving out moralistic prescription. However, Larsen does seem to be critical of Irene's sense that her own form of motherhood is more selfless and altruistic than Clare's, since Irene uses her motherhood as a way to gain control over her life, including her relationship with Brian. This suggests that being a mother, even a devoted mother like Irene, does not necessarily mean being selfless. In fact, Irene's self-righteous sense of her motherhood as selfless is part of what blinds her to her own manipulations. - Theme: Beauty and Race. Description: Beauty is very important to the characters in Passing, whom Larsen portrays as constantly evaluating other people's physical appearances, attending to their own, and worrying about how they look comparatively. Larsen shows, for example, Irene's preoccupation with beauty early in the book during Irene's trip to Chicago. Irene, after seeing a man either faint or die of heatstroke, and after nearly fainting from heatstroke herself, tries to "repair" her appearance as soon as she is out of the heat. This shows, somewhat ironically, how high a priority looking good is for Irene—she worries about her looks, not the fate of the man she saw faint—and thinks of how when she is not at her peak appearance, she feels "broken." As characters in Passing comment on what they think makes someone physically beautiful, they often link their standards of beauty to racialized physical traits. Because characters connect beauty with race so often, evaluations of physical attractiveness are deeply socially and politically charged. Certain characters explicitly profess (at least at the beginning of the book) to favor traits that they see as "white": light skin, hair, and eyes. Take, for example, the conversation between Gertrude, Clare, and Irene over tea, when Gertrude and Clare state that they both are happy that their children have light skin. Gertrude even goes as far as to say that "nobody wants a dark child." Though this preference is certainly linked to the privilege that black people can access when they pass as white, it also clearly uses aesthetics to devalue blackness. Irene responds to Clare and Gertrude by saying that she prefers dark skin, and mentions that her husband and one of her own children are dark. Later, as Irene discusses Brian's handsomeness, she thinks that he would not be nearly as handsome if not for the beauty of his dark complexion. In doing so, Irene makes it clear that she sees dark skin as aesthetically beautiful. The reader might imagine that Irene, who cares deeply about justice for black Americans and racial loyalty, also sees this preference as political. Moreover, though Irene does not explicitly articulate it, she expresses thoughts that suggest a critique of the very idea of racialized physical traits. Irene says at the book's beginning that white people often think they can tell race based on physicality, but then mistake the same traits for other forms of "whiteness": Italian, Spanish, or Greek heritage. This suggests that racialized physical traits might be "fictional"—that "blackness" and "whiteness," two qualities that society views as based in legible physical difference, cannot be neatly separated out. However, despite Irene's professed preference for "black" traits, she glorifies Clare's "whiter" beauty. Irene returns again and again to Clare's beauty, admiring her light skin and blond hair. Larsen shows Irene's obsession with Clare's beauty not just through her active comments about her attractiveness, but also in how the narration describes her. Because the narration is told in a very close third person from Irene's perspective, the narrator's mentions of Clare's "ivory" skin and blond hair are part of Irene's inner monologue. Irene also focuses on Clare's dark eyes, which she thinks of as "negro eyes." Irene often remarks on the effect of Clare's dark eyes with her light skin, saying that the juxtaposition is the crux of Clare's beauty. For example, as Irene and Clare talk in the Drayton, she says of her eyes, paired with the rest of her light coloring, that, "there was about them something exotic." The idea of beauty as exoticism recurs later in the book, as Irene talks with Hugh Wentworth at the Negro Welfare League dance. Irene and Hugh have just been talking about Clare's beauty when Hugh changes the subject to dark-skinned black men, asking Irene whether she thinks they are especially attractive. The reader might suspect that Irene still has Clare on her mind when she says that she thinks what women feel around dark-skinned black men is "emotional excitement… in the presence of something strange…something so different it's really at the opposite end of the pole from all your accustomed beauty." This kind of exoticism is somewhat problematic, as it objectifies and tokenizes difference from normative standards. Still, the idea that standards of beauty, one of the many norms used to uphold systemic racism, might be totally inverted presents a challenge to that system. Like she does with most of the other themes that Passing takes up, Larsen leaves the reader without a conclusive moralistic message about how to think about beauty and race, instead exploring the complex dynamics of a system in which beauty has been racialized and politicized. - Theme: Sex, Sexuality, and Jealousy. Description: Sex and jealousy feature prominently in Passing— obviously, since one of the book's major plot threads is Irene's speculation that Clare and her husband Brian are having an affair. Although the themes of sex and jealousy crystallize around Irene's speculation about the unconfirmed affair, sex, sexuality, and jealousy are thematic undercurrents throughout the book. Irene seems to be someone who is uncomfortable with sexuality. For example, when Irene finds out that one of her children is learning sex jokes from his friends, she wants to send him abroad to school, and fights with Brian about it. Her over-the-top reaction seems to indicate that Irene harbors some sexual discomfort or anxiety. Moreover, Irene's marriage to Brian appears to be fairly chaste, as she notes that they sleep in separate beds. Clare, on the other hand—or at least the Clare that Larsen gives the reader through Irene's perspective—appears to have embraced her sexuality in a way that Irene finds transgressive. In the Drayton, Irene watches Clare part with a man that Irene assumes is her husband. Later, when Irene meets John Bellew, she assumes the man, who was not John, must have been a lover and that Clare is an adulteress. Additionally, before Irene even realizes who Clare is, she observes Clare talking with the waiter, and thinks she is being too "provocative." Irene constantly describes Clare as someone who plays up her sexuality, calling her "feline" (and so evoking the trope of cats used to represent feminine sexuality) and someone driven by desire. It is unclear whether Irene is projecting this sexuality onto Clare or whether she actually exhibits these traits, because the narrative is so closely tied to Irene's point of view. Likewise, Larsen never clarifies whether the affair that Irene obsesses over between Clare and Brian actually takes place, or whether it is a fantasy constructed from Irene's many other jealousies surrounding Clare. However, while Irene consciously attributes this jealousy to her protectiveness over Brian, plenty of evidence suggests that Irene may be jealous because of her desire for Clare rather than her love for Brian. Throughout the book, Larsen portrays Irene's thoughts about Clare's beauty and attractiveness as not just appreciative, but obsessive. Irene catalogues Clare's beauty compulsively, and her descriptions are often heavy with language that contains sexual connotations. Irene calls Clare's mouth "tempting," her face "caressing," etc. Irene's view of Clare as sexually transgressive, then, might not be the result of Clare's behavior, but rather Irene projecting her own repressed desires onto Clare. Irene's desire for Clare bubbles up at one point in the novel, when Clare walks into her room and kisses her head. Irene feels an "inexplicable onrush of affectionate feeling" in response, grasps Clare's hands, and cries out that Clare is lovely. The moment's excited nature and the intensity of Irene's reaction suggest that Irene harbors underlying feelings towards Clare that are more sexual than she can consciously admit. Irene's resulting anger at Clare, then, might be less due to her jealousy over Brian, and more due to her inability to process her own homoerotic desire, which, in 1920s America, would have been considered taboo. Irene's statement to Hugh that beauty is "emotional excitement… in the presence of something strange, and even, perhaps, a bit repugnant to you," could describe Irene's feelings of attraction to Clare, which are mixed with internalized homophobia that make her own desire "repugnant" to her. Perhaps it is this repugnance, mixed with the many other complex, conflicting feelings that Irene has for Clare, that drives her to fantasize about Clare's death (though whether Irene actually pushes Clare through the window is left ambiguous). The complexity of sex, sexuality, and jealousy in Passing overall highlights the unreliability of Irene's perspective, and charges the novel with an underlying tension that persists even to the final scene. - Theme: Humor. Description: Jokes and laughter pervade the pages of Passing, from Clare's first giggles to the moment when Irene registers that Clare has fallen out the window, and that she will never hear her laugh again. Through her use of laughter and jokes, Larsen opens up questions about how humor works and what it can do. For Irene, jokes, rather than being enjoyable, often have a hostile quality. Irene, or the narrator from Irene's perspective, often uses the word "mocking" to describe Clare's laughter. Despite this, very little other evidence suggests that Clare is making fun of Irene. In these instances, Irene shows that she has intense anxiety surrounding jokes and laughter, and constantly feels like she is on the outside of them. Missing each other's humor, moreover, goes both ways for Irene and Clare. In another instance, Irene laughs after Clare talks about her upbringing by her racist aunts. Clare, however, does not, telling her "it was more than a joke, I assure you," suggesting that she has a lot of pain associated with that part of her life. Rather than creating connection between people, or lightening the mood, the humor in Passing alienates characters from one another and exposes the gaps in understanding between them. The reader can see this in Brian and Irene's disagreement about whether their son should be making jokes about sex, which sparks a fight between them. Though jokes in Passing vary in degree and situation, they consistently miss their mark, and in doing so, they expose a lack of awareness between the characters. The reader can see this in a range a scenes, from Irene's quiet assumptions that Clare is mocking her to the brutally painful scene at Clare's tea party. In the tea scene, John Bellew tells Gertrude and Irene (who he does not know are black) about a racist joke he has with Clare (who he also does not know is black). As he does so, he calls Clare racist slurs and expresses vitriolic, belligerent racism, using the word "nigger" repeatedly. What John intends as a joke is deeply unfunny, uncomfortable, and downright scary because of the latent violence in his speech. It deeply upsets the women, especially Irene. Despite this, Gertrude, Clare, and Irene laugh, though for different reasons. While Gertrude and Clare laugh for fear of otherwise exposing their own blackness, Irene laughs because of the moment's dramatic irony. Everyone except John knows that he as he spews his hate, he is surrounded by black women— and, in fact, is married to one. There is a joke in the scene—it's just the one that Larsen is making, not John. After the incident, Irene describes the situation as a joke on all of them, not just John, suggesting how humor is a moving target, and who and what gets mocked is not always easy to control. In short, Larsen presents the uncontrollability of humor of a source of anxiety for the book's characters, especially Irene. Instead of being sources of pleasure, and laughter, jokes are volatile and highlight the characters' lack of control within their narratives. - Climax: Clare's death after falling or being pushed through a sixth-floor window. Larsen leaves it ambiguous whether the death was a murder or an accident. - Summary: Nella Larsen's Passing opens with the protagonist Irene reading the second letter she has ever received from her childhood acquaintance Clare, in which Clare asks Irene if they can see each other. The letter angers Irene, though the reason why is not yet clear. The narrative then flashes back to two years before, when Irene is shopping for souvenirs for her sons in the sweltering heat. Irene, who lives in Harlem, is visiting her father in Chicago, where Irene grew up. Irene is about to faint when a friendly driver helps her into his car and offers to drive her to the Drayton, a white hotel, so that she can buy an iced tea. Though Irene is black and lives in a black community, she is light-skinned enough that she can pass for white when she is alone. Irene accepts, and the man drops her off at the hotel. Irene is at the hotel drinking iced tea when a couple comes into the bar and sits down. Irene watches the pair, gazing at the beautiful and seemingly white woman. The man leaves, but the woman stays at her seat at a table near Irene's and Irene realizes that the woman is staring at her. Irene worries that the woman realizes that she is black. However, after a few moments, the woman comes over to Irene, and Irene realizes that she is Clare Kendry, a childhood acquaintance who left their Chicago neighborhood after her father's death. During Irene's adolescence, Clare was the subject of many rumors that she had passed into white society and was living as a white woman entirely. Irene and Clare chat, and Irene tells Clare about her life. Irene finds out that Clare is married to a white man, and that her husband does not know she is black. Irene gets up to leave and Clare insists that Irene visit her before Irene returns to New York. The next Tuesday, Irene, albeit hesitantly, goes to Clare's house for tea. At Clare's, Irene finds that she is not the only guest—Clare and Irene's childhood acquaintance Gertrude is also present. Like Clare, Gertrude married a white man, but unlike Clare's husband, Gertrude's husband is aware of her racial background. The women insensitively discuss race and skin-color, leaving Irene, who is married to a black man and lives in a black community, angry and hurt. Eventually, Clare's husband John returns home. John, who does not know any of the women are black, including his own wife, immediately begins spewing racial slurs and making racist statements. Irene is irate, but she laughs uncontrollably at the irony of the situation. As soon as Irene can politely leave, she does so. Afterward, Clare sends Irene a letter thanking her for her visit, and Irene, furious does not respond. The narrative flashes forward again to the moment in the opening scene when Irene is reading the second letter Clare has sent her, two years later. In the time since Irene last saw Clare, her own marriage with Brian, who is bitter that Irene will not move with him to South America, has become strained and distant. Irene resolves not to answer the letter, not wanting to see Clare after their last encounter. However, Clare shows up at Irene's house in New York and asks why Irene did not answer her letter. Irene tells Clare that she and Brian have decided that they cannot associate with Clare because if John were to find out it would put them all in danger. Clare cries and begs to be invited to the Negro Welfare League dance that Irene is helping to host. She talks about how hard it is facing John's daily racism. Finally, Irene concedes to let Clare come. Irene has mixed feelings of annoyance, jealousy, and admiration towards Clare, who she thinks is selfish but beautiful. At the dance, Irene talks with her friend Hugh Wentworth about passing, race, and beauty. Clare wins over Irene's social circle with her charm and good looks. Even Brian, who did not want Irene to associate with Clare, warms up to her. Following the dance, Clare becomes Irene's friend and a fixture in the Redfield household. Despite this newfound friendship, Irene continues to harbor muddled feelings of attraction, jealousy, and resentment towards Clare. Meanwhile, Irene's marriage with Brian becomes more and more tense. They fight over how to best raise their two boys, Ted and Junior, and Brian's feelings of restlessness. Irene becomes anxious and depressed. Clare, Irene, and Brian frequently attend social events together, and sometimes, when Irene is sick, Clare and Brian go alone. One day, Irene is hosting a tea party for Hugh. She is napping before the party when Brian comes to wake her up and tell her it is time to get ready. Brian informs Irene that Clare is already downstairs. Irene is confused, because she did not invite Clare. Brian finally sheepishly admits that he invited her. Irene suddenly feels suspicious that Brian and Clare are having an affair. Through the tea party and the next several weeks, Irene's suspicion mounts until finally Irene is convinced that Brian is cheating on her. Still, Irene is determined to preserve her marriage. Irene fantasizes about ways she could rid herself of Clare, imagining what might happen if Clare's daughter Margery died or John found out about her black ancestry. Irene decides that Clare and John cannot get divorced, because otherwise Clare will be free to pursue Brian. Whenever Clare expresses the desire to be free of John and return to the black community permanently, Irene tries to remind her of her obligations to her daughter. One day, during an afternoon out with her friend Felise, Irene runs into John on the street. John recognizes Irene from their meeting in Chicago and says hello, but when he sees Felise, John realizes that they are both black. Irene, realizing how dangerous this could be for Clare, pretends not to know John. Afterward, Irene understands that, because John now knows she is black, John might become suspicious of Clare. Irene thinks she should warn Clare or tell Brian about the encounter, but instead she says nothing. Irene, Clare, and Brian go to a party at Felise and Dave Freeland's sixth floor apartment. At the party, Irene is melancholy and sullen. She opens a window to let in fresh air. There is a knock on the door and when Felise opens it, John bursts into the room, demanding to know where Clare is. Clare backs away from him towards the window. John yells racial slurs, and the room is tense. Irene, in a panic, moves toward Clare and touches her on the arm. Irene is unclear what happens next, but the next thing she knows Clare has fallen out the open window. Everyone rushes downstairs to see what has happened, but Irene is dazed and stays upstairs for a few extra minutes. Finally she goes downstairs and learns that Clare is dead. She starts to cry and then faints. It is never made clear if Irene pushed Clare through the window, Clare committed suicide, or she fell by accident.

- Genre: Short story; Naturalism - Title: Paul’s Case - Point of view: Third person limited - Setting: - Character: Paul. Description: The protagonist of Cather's story is described in careful physical and behavioral detail. Tall and thin, with bright, glassy eyes, Paul sticks out from his fellow students both in his appearance—he wears dandyish accessories like an opal pin and a red carnation—and in his flamboyant demeanor. Although he is often playful, performative, and defiant, he is privately quite depressed. Paul feels deeply alienated from everyone around him in Pittsburgh High School and on Cordelia Street, where he lives with his father and sisters. The narrator doesn't identify the roots of this alienation and despair in explicit terms, but through the liberal use of innuendo makes it clear that Paul is a homosexual—an identity that, at the turn of the twentieth century in suburban Pittsburgh, was forbidden, and even dangerous to express. Caught between warring impulses to repress his sexuality and to express his difference defiantly and flamboyantly, Paul deals with his alienation in a number of ways, though most dramatically by inventing fairy-tale worlds of art and sensual pleasure, imagining that these might allow him to escape an environment that he finds both hostile and depressingly dull. The narrator describes Paul's wild mood swings, his defiant attitude toward the disapproving authority figures in his life, and his rash behavior and decisions, showing them to be understandable in light of his difficult situation, gently suggesting that what seems at first to be simply rude, selfish, and inexplicable behavior stems from a much deeper issue—with Paul and with his society. The story shows how an outcome as tragic as suicide might result from such a situation, as the story's overt symbolism shows: Paul's bright, young life is crushed by the cruel, cold world like a red carnation in the snow. - Character: Paul's father. Description: A Pittsburgh businessman who, having lost his wife, is raising Paul and his daughters alone. Paul's father is unable to connect with or understand his son. He seems to have embraced the plodding, bourgeois life of Cordelia Street, and his greatest hope for his son is that he get a good job, earn a living, marry, and settle down into a comfortable existence. The narrator doesn't condemn Paul's father or his practical sensibility, even as Paul loathes everything his father represents. Paul's father is depicted as loving his son, but exhibits a radical failure to perceive—and perhaps a willed blindness—regarding what his son is actually experiencing and suffering. However, it's implied that he may not be so unaware of his son's homosexuality when Paul is forbidden from seeing Charley Edwards. Toward the end of the story, Paul's father pays back the money Paul stole from work and comes looking for Paul in New York, which is the terror that prompts Paul to kill himself. - Character: Charley Edwards. Description: A young actor who works in the "stock company" of a theatre in Pittsburgh, Charley Edwards has developed a liking for Paul, who loiters around his dressing-room, watching him get ready for the shows. Edwards is one of the male figures in the story whom, it's implied, Paul may have stronger feelings for than mere friendship. It is also strongly implied that Edwards himself is gay. Charley helps usher Paul into the world of theatre and art by inviting him to performances and rehearsals. - Character: The English Teacher. Description: One of Paul's teachers at school, this teacher is particularly angry about what she sees as Paul's impertinence—she feels personally offended by Paul's seemingly physical aversion to her, and she leads the attack against him in the suspension hearing. Although Paul tries to forget about her after he leaves school, the fact that she shows up to Carnegie Hall, where he is ushering, underlines the difficulties Paul has in containing and separating his two lives and identities from one another. - Character: The Yale Freshman. Description: A boy from San Francisco whom Paul meets in New York, described as "wild." The two boys share a late night out on the town together. This is another male character who, it's implied, might have a more than friendly relationship with Paul; at the very least the shifting register in their relationship, from warm and friendly at the start to cool when they say goodbye, suggests a certain level of uncertainty or ambiguity in their brief relationship. - Theme: Art and Artificiality vs. Reality. Description: Paul, the adolescent protagonist of "Paul's Case," suffers from worse than usual teenage angst. The story begins in Pittsburgh, where Paul seeks an escape from his drab, dismal home and school life through the world of theatre and performances at Carnegie Hall. In the second half of the story, the plot shifts to New York City, when Paul flees Pittsburgh to live a lavish lifestyle out of the Waldorf Hotel. In escaping to the big city, Paul seeks to seize for himself the alluring and beautiful life he sees captured onstage and in his favorite music and art. It is through art that Paul finds a way of escaping his everyday life—even as art also redefines the very way he sees his reality. Early on in the story, Paul decides that artificiality is "necessary" to beauty. Cather sympathetically portrays Paul's embrace of artifice, showing it to be part of art's power as well as a source of solace against a hostile world. At the same time, however, the story also warns of the dangers in collapsing the boundaries between art and life—and of imagining that life can ever reach the mystical splendor of the stage. The story describes how Paul sees Pittsburgh's Carnegie Hall as an imagined universe—"Paul's fairy tale"—which Paul finds all the more alluring in contrast to the "Sabbath-school picnics" and "petty economies" of his Cordelia Street home. Though he feels depressed every time he leaves the symphony or the theater, Paul also tries his best to live according to the fanciful logic of this world of performance even after he leaves it—making everything into a flamboyantly performative spectacle and telling elaborate lies about the romantic, exotic places he travels. Although the story is told from Paul's perspective, at times the narrator steps outside his mind to suggest that his way of seeing things might not be altogether accurate: the made-up stories he tells his classmates about his life at the theater company are, it's implied, transparently false to everyone except himself. Paul is self-consciously theatrical in his everyday life, seeing himself as an actor who needs to perform at all times. In turn, he treats New York as another kind of stage, costuming himself decadently and describing Central Park as "a wonderful stage winter-piece." His eagerness to put flowers in his hotel bedroom, meanwhile, is further evidence of his belief that aesthetic beauty and symbols of wealth can make up for lack of control elsewhere in his life. And yet at the same time, it's in New York that Paul realizes that he doesn't need to be self-conscious about his quirks, his identity, or even his repressed homosexuality—feeling that suddenly his environment "explains" all this, so he doesn't have to. The story thus also suggests that Paul doesn't always want to perform—that he's forced to put on an act because his home environment wouldn't accept his true identity. He feels constantly scrutinized, as if he is being watched; the narrator notes that Paul worries that people are looking at him and "trying to detect something." This—along with many other hints in the text—suggests that Paul is gay, and that his theatrical behavior is a device he uses to create further distance between the outside world and his true self. His insistence on living as if on stage is thus an understandable defense mechanism against a world he sees as being hostile to him, and against the overwhelming dullness of middle-class Pittsburgh life, where "business men of moderate means" are all "exactly as alike as their houses, and of a piece with the monotony in which they lived." While the story is in many ways sympathetic to Paul's theatricality as a defense mechanism, it also suggests that his attempt to avoid the difficulties of his life by escaping into art is ultimately doomed. Readers are reminded, for instance, that the romantic actors whose lives Paul so admires are real people working by the hour, often to support unglamorous lives. There is something painfully naïve, the story suggests, about his notion that the realm of art is a separate reality peopled by exotic characters and sensuous pleasures. Meanwhile, once Paul learns that his father has come to New York to fetch him, his first response is to glance into his hotel room mirror, wink, and flash a winning smile—becoming performative once more in response to the threat of his discovery. Paul's suicide at the end of the story can be read as his final theatrical act, especially since the narrator repeats his sense that he is "being watched." However, the fact that he buries his red carnation in the snow just before he jumps in front of an approaching train suggests, chillingly, that in burying his flair for the theatrical, Paul has no more reason to live. "Paul's Case" thus paints a complex, subtle portrait of an alienated individual who escapes into art both because his reality is painfully dull and because the people around him fail to understand—or accept—his true identity. But the glamorous world of art of which Paul yearns to be a part, and with which he attempts to replace his Cordelia Street life, is ultimately, the story suggests, just a mirage—artificial, and bound to vanish in the end. Part of the tragedy of Paul's death is that, failing to have escaped from the painful realities of life through art, he remains unable to face those painful realities or deal with them directly, and feels he has no option but to take his own life. While art and artificiality can be beautiful, if temporary, escapes from reality, the story also warns of the dangers of becoming so entranced in the beauty of art's illusion that one forgets how to deal with the difficulties of real life. - Theme: Alienation and Homosexuality. Description: As the story describes the way Paul perceives his dull, drab life in Pittsburgh—a dullness that he attempts to mitigate by constructing fantasy worlds full of wealth and art—it is in many ways sympathetic to Paul's despair and alienation. The mundane, middle-class world of Cordelia Street and Pittsburgh High School does not know what to make of Paul—in large part, the story suggests, because he is gay. Through subtle and not-so-subtle allusions to Paul's sexual identity and frustrations, the story explores how the need to hide one's identity, as well as the difficulty of finding kindred or even sympathetic people, can lead to the deep feelings of alienation that lead Paul to act out, steal money, run away from home, and ultimately take his own life. The story describes in acute detail Paul's wild mood swings between elation and despondency, showing how what Paul calls the "grey monotony" of his life is a source of intense, even physical despair for him. At Carnegie Hall, he first dashes into the usher's room and can't calm down, then finally manages to listen to the show, enraptured, then immediately becomes "irritable and wretched" as he heads home. These intense mood swings stem from Paul's whirring mind and his creative imagination, but also from his inability to find people to confide in and express what he's truly thinking and feeling. At times it does seem that Paul might be able to find figures who can ease his feelings of alienation, especially Charley Edwards and the Yale freshman in New York. However, in describing Paul's relationships to these young men with subtle implications of erotic attraction, the story underlines Paul's inability to overtly address his sexuality. These relationships, though they initially suggest the possibility of finding comfort or refuge in connection, ultimately fizzle out or fade away. In general, Paul remains painfully trapped in a world that forces him to hide his homosexuality from others as well as himself. In response, the story suggests, Paul resorts to an attitude of scorn and flamboyant self-absorption. Paul looks on his father, his teachers, and his neighbors with poorly-concealed contempt, feeling he "must convey to them that he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a joke, anyway." The story calls into question the extent to which Paul is accurate in his descriptions of the monotony and tedium that characterize his life in Pittsburgh, suggesting at times that Paul's own alienation has made him unable to sympathetically imagine his way into the minds of other people around him, just as they have been unable to empathize with or understand him. In New York, Paul's loneliness turns into a feeling of independence: though he knows no one, "he had no especial desire to meet or know any of these people," and his solitude becomes less troubling than in the more restricted territory of his own community, where his views of his neighbors are at times dehumanizing. New York is a refuge for Paul and a relief from his feelings of alienation in part because of its comparatively more permissive attitudes toward all types of "deviants," homosexuals included. Thus, in this environment where he no longer feels he has to hide his identity, Paul begins to feel more at peace with himself. Ultimately, Paul's suicide is a testament to the tragic nature of his story—a story of a young man whose life was crushed prematurely by a world that would not accept him for who he was. Cather shows that the feelings of alienation that arise from being homosexual in an oppressively heteronormative society can make life seem unbearable. However, in the last moments of the story, as Cather shows Paul's suicide to have been a "folly" executed with "haste," she encourages her reader to believe that even for the most seemingly hopeless "case," there is always hope for self-acceptance, self-realization, love, and connection—and that these things that can alleviate the most crippling feelings of alienation. - Theme: Money and Wealth. Description: "Paul's Case" describes Paul's socioeconomic background as middle-class and his neighbors as "burghers" (a term originally describing people who had to work to make money rather than living off inherited wealth). That term is, in fact, a clue to how Cather wants to both explore and critique Paul's own disdain for hard work and the need to make a living. For Paul, the need to worry about money at all is depressing and embarrassing: for him wealth, when there's enough of it, becomes a near-magical elixir that will grant him the freedom he craves. But the story cautions against such a mystical view of money, suggesting that there's no shortcut to the hard work it takes to earn it—and even that the more humdrum, realistic view of money as espoused by the Cordelia Street burghers is not as horrifying as Paul finds it to be. Though Cordelia Street is not poor per se, its inhabitants, including Paul's father, do have to worry about money. His sisters exchange tips on mending dresses, and the family washes with "ill-smelling soap." Horrified by such dreariness, Paul keeps a small vial of violet water to use instead—one of the many ways he chooses the values of an aesthete over those of Cordelia Street. Paul's father, meanwhile, only allows him to work as an usher in Pittsburgh's Carnegie Hall (the space of Paul's "fairy-tale" imagination) because he thinks that it's good for a boy to have a job. Paul's father would love for his son to follow the path of the neighbor, a clerk—a formerly dissolute young man who now has a stable job, a wife, and four kids, and from whose life Paul recoils in horror. In some ways, the story's damning descriptions of the Cordelia Street neighbors with their potbellied husbands and children's love of arithmetic reflects Cather's sympathy with Paul's horror. In other ways, though, such as by briefly noting that Paul's mother has died, the story implies that there might be good reasons for Paul's father to embrace hard work and slow progress—reasons having do with his own desires for stability and comfort. At the same time, the story also shows Paul's attitude toward money to be deeply unrealistic. His inability to grasp that even actors are just people with families making a living underlines his own idealistic, fantastical way of seeing the world. More strikingly, his theft from Denny & Carson, which funds his trip to New York, underlines Paul's failure to understand money as tied to work, rather than as a kind of golden ticket to another kind of life. This money is ultimately paid back by Paul's father, though, notably, Paul hardly lingers over that sacrifice. Once he arrives in New York, Paul sees the city itself as the "glaring affirmation of the omnipotence of wealth," a wealth that seems scrubbed free from any of the labor that went into producing it. Paul can't imagine working in order to earn money. Before New York, he works as an usher only because it gives him access to a realm of musical and artistic splendor. By the end of "Paul's Case," the money he's stolen is running out, and it never seems to occur to Paul that he might have to work to support himself, failing yet again to see any connection between wealth and hard work. Depicting Paul as wanting only to "float on the wave" of such wealth, the story critiques such a naïve view, showing it to be both unsustainable and tragically limited in its understanding of reality. Paul's death is a product of many converging forces—having to do, first and foremost, with the alienation he feels due to his homosexuality—but it is perhaps just as much a product of his unrealistic views of money and wealth. In this way, Cather reminds readers that idealism must be tempered with a practical and realistic outlook on what it takes to achieve any form of adulthood and independence in this world—and that is money. - Climax: - Summary: "Paul's Case" begins with adolescent Paul going before a panel of teachers and his Principal at Pittsburgh High School, where he's been suspended for insolent behavior—the exact nature of which is never fully revealed. His teachers feel personally offended at Paul's evident disdain for them, particularly his English teacher, who leads the set of accusations against him (though afterwards, once they decide they'll allow him to return, they all feel somewhat abashed at how dramatic they have been). Paul, tall and thin with a red carnation in his button-hole, listens to it all with a typically defiantly smile, though his hands are slightly shaking. After he's permitted to go, he races down the hill from school whistling, and heads immediately to Carnegie Hall, where he works as an usher. Full of nervous energy, Paul races up and down the aisles, only temporarily stymied by the arrival of his English teacher to the show. As soon as it starts, he's enraptured by the German soloist, whom he finds romantic and alluring despite being advanced in her years. After the show he begins to feel depressed and irritable, and rather than returning home he follows the soloist to the Schenley (a hotel), and gazes longingly through the windows into the luxurious interior. Finally, he takes the streetcar home to the respectable, middle-class Cordelia Street. Loathing his drab, dull house, Paul can't bear to face his father and try to explain where he's been, so he sneaks in through a basement window and stays awake for hours, fearing the rats but also entertaining himself by making up fanciful stories. That Sunday, after Sabbath-school, Paul's father and sisters sit on the stoop with the other neighbors and talk about business and other everyday matters. Paul feels boredom verging on despair, except for brief moments like when a clerk tells of his boss's trip to the Mediterranean: Paul's imagination is once again fired up by picturing such exotic colors and sights. After dinner he anxiously asks his father if he can go to a friend's house for homework help, and his father reluctantly gives Paul a dime for the streetcar. Paul heads not to his friend's but to the Sunday-night rehearsals of a company at a downtown theatre, where one of the actors, Charley Edwards, allows Paul to hang around and help him dress. The theatre is described as Paul's fairy-tale realm that allows him to escape the prison of his home and school. It is strongly implied, here and repeatedly throughout the story, that Paul is gay. It is also strongly implied that Edwards is gay, and has taken Paul under his wing (though the nature of their relationship remains ambiguous). Paul feels even worse, however, when he returns to the schoolroom from such escapes. He deals with this by telling his classmates tales about his actor friends and by making up stories about his imminent travels to California or abroad. He can only manage the alienation he feels at school by either making a joke out of everything or by scoffing at his teachers and coursework. Eventually, he makes the mistake of suggesting in front of his teachers that his work at the theatre is interfering with schoolwork, and the Principal talks to Paul's father, who takes Paul out of school and puts him to work at a firm called Denny & Carlson's. The company actors laugh bitterly when they hear how Paul has glamorized their lives in his imagination; they, like Paul's father and teachers, think that his is a "bad case." The second part of the story opens on a train from Pittsburgh to New York. Paul is escaping his life in Pittsburgh with the help of several thousand dollars he's stolen from Denny & Carlson's. When he arrives in New York, he immediately goes on a spending spree, buying a new suit, linens, dress clothes, hat, silver scarf pin, shoes, and travel bags. He then heads to his hotel, the Waldorf. Everything there seems perfect after Paul has the bell-boy bring up some flowers. He bathes and puts on a luxurious red robe before napping—then springing up once he realizes he's wasting hours of his precious freedom. It's snowing outside, and Paul takes a carriage to Central Park and back. On the way he sees bright bouquets of flowers framed in windows that pop out against the white snow, and he reflects that they are being kept safe from the cruel world. When he returns to the hotel, he feels overwhelmed by the sensory pleasures and visual spectacle of the hotel dining room, as well as by the Opera that he attends later that night. He isn't lonely at all: it seems that Cordelia Street is no longer real, that all of New York has been created just for him, and that he can be however he wants without having to explain it. The next day, Sunday, Paul happens to meet a wild Yale freshman from San Francisco, with whom he spends a spectacular night on the town, though the freshman parts ways with Paul coolly in the morning—and the narrator does not say why. After eight nearly perfect days, Paul reads about himself in the Pittsburgh papers—his father has paid back the theft and is on his way to New York, where it is rumored Paul has fled. Paul suddenly feels that the show is over, and decides that he will "finish the thing splendidly." After drinking too much wine, he wakes up the next morning and stares at the revolver in his hotel room. He decides, however, that this is not the way to kill himself. Though he feels depressed once again, as if all the world is Cordelia Street and it is swallowing him up, he's no longer as afraid as he used to be. He seems to admit to himself that he is gay, and realizes that it is not as bad as his fear of it had been. He takes the train to Newark, then takes a cab out of town following the Pennsylvania train tracks. He leaves the cab and notices that the red carnation he has bought is drooping. He buries it in the snow, then dozes for a time. He awakens to hear an approaching train and leaps in front of it. His last thoughts are of colorful, exotic locales like Algeria and the Adriatic Sea, before all goes black.

- Genre: Western, bildungsroman, contemporary Christian literature - Title: Peace Like a River - Point of view: First person, narrated by Reuben - Setting: 1962-63 in Roofing, Minnesota and the Badlands of North Dakota - Character: Reuben Land. Description: The novel's narrator and protagonist, Reuben is the 11-year-old son of Jeremiah Land. Reuben idolizes his older brother, Davy, and he is best friends with his younger sister, Swede. As a newborn, Reuben didn't breathe for twelve minutes until his father, performing a miracle, ordered him to in the name fo God—from then on, Reuben believes he was put on the earth to witness his father's miracles, which makes Reuben a disciple of his Christlike father. The novel is Reuben's coming of age story, and his most significant development as a character is his struggle to grasp moral ambiguity. When Davy kills two teenagers who were threatening the Land family, Reuben's immaturity leads him to see Davy's act as an epic and heroic example of frontier justice. However, as the novel progresses, Reuben is confronted by moral complexity and he must reconcile his simplistic ideas with more mature perspectives on Davy's situation. While Reuben feels unwavering loyalty to Davy, he eventually comes to understand that Davy committed a crime, which shows that Reuben has come of age. At the end of the novel, Jeremiah performs a final miracle when he and Reuben are shot and go to heaven: Jeremiah, who is much less severely wounded than Reuben, dies so that Reuben can live. As such, Reuben narrates the story of his family in order to honor his father's sacrifice and spread the truth of his miracles. - Character: Jeremiah Land (Dad). Description: Jeremiah is a deeply religious man who seems to regularly work miracles and speak directly with God. For example, he walks on thin air, cures the sick, and feeds a large crowd with a small pot of soup. Jeremiah works as a janitor for the Roofing school district and he raises his three children, Reuben, Swede, and Davy, by himself. Jeremiah, whose miracles make him a Christ figure, is the moral center of the novel, and it's his example that ushers Reuben into a more complex and adult idea of morality. After Davy becomes an outlaw, Reuben cannot understand some of his father's choices and beliefs: for example, Jeremiah's belief that Davy should face consequences for his actions, and his eventual decision to cooperate with Andreeson to find Davy. While Reuben's simplistic, black-and-white morality at first can only interpret Jeremiah's actions as disloyal to the family, Reuben comes to understand that Jeremiah is operating out of empathy for everyone. Instead of understanding Davy's predicament purely in terms of family loyalty, Jeremiah takes into account the effects of the situation on everyone involved and he tries to do right by all. As Jeremiah is always willing to put his own self-interest second, it's not surprising that he makes the ultimate sacrifice for his son at the end of the book. When he and Reuben are badly wounded, they both end up in heaven, and Jeremiah chooses to die so that Reuben can live, which cements his status as a Christ figure. - Character: Swede Land. Description: Swede is a precocious and verbose nine-year old obsessed with the Wild West. As Reuben's younger sister and best friend, she habitually critiques Reuben's poorly thought out questions. She's an avid writer and throughout the novel she writes an epic poem about the cowboy hero Sunny Sundown, who is a thinly-veiled surrogate for Davy. As her family travels West in search of Davy, whom Swede idolizes above everyone else, Swede fictionalizes the journey, rendering all events as she wants them to happen, rather than as they actually happen. This shows Swede's immature inability to confront reality, even as she sometimes shoulders more of the family's day-to-day responsibility (such as cooking) than Reuben does. - Character: Davy Land. Description: Davy is Reuben and Swede's older brother and Dad's oldest son. At 16, Davy seems to be fully adult. Though he comes from a devoutly religious family, he finds the idea of a fatherly God annoying, as he'd rather go through life alone. When the teenagers Israel and Tommy threaten the Land family, Davy shoots them, goes to jail, and then escapes to become an outlaw. Ostensibly, Davy killed the Israll and Tommy to follow his own code of honor and to protect his family, but his motives are somewhat murky—it seems that Davy was looking for a reason to kill, making his act perhaps more vengeful and violent than heroic. Though convicted, Davy escapes prison and flees to North Dakota. The Land family chases after him, throwing their lives into chaos. When Reuben reunites with Davy later, it's obvious that Davy has not changed: he has no remorse for what he's done, and he plans to continue following his own honor code rather than respecting the law. That code of honor means that Davy is comfortable taking shelter with the villainous Mr. Waltzer, but also comes to the conclusion that he can't allow Waltzer to force Sara into marriage and therefore helps her escape from Waltzer. Ultimately, Davy and Reuben continue to have a relationship as adults, but Davy remains somewhat of an outsider. He's the only member of the family with uncertain faith, and he does not seem fully part of the nuclear family. - Character: Roxanna Crawley. Description: Roxanna lives in the middle of the Badlands and operates a gas pump on her property. While Reuben doesn't think she's beautiful when they first meet her, he later decides that she is stunning. She briefly dates and then marries Jeremiah, and quickly and easily steps into the role of mother to Swede and Reuben, showering them with attention and understanding. Roxanna is immediately loyal to Jeremiah and his family, and she shares Jeremiah's deep belief in God. She is shown to be, in a sense, a disciple of Jeremiah, just like Reuben is. - Character: Jape Waltzer. Description: Jape Waltzer is an outlaw who takes it upon himself to help Davy. He lives in a shack in the hills of North Dakota with his "daughter," Sara, whom he bought from her father and intends to marry when she's old enough. Mr. Waltzer is very engaging but extremely dangerous. He often seems insane and he is insistent that the world is going to end, though it's indicated that he doesn't believe in God. Reuben never learns why Mr. Waltzer is running from the law in the first place, and the novel implies that Waltzer kills Mr. Andreeson for trying to hunt Davy down. Mr. Waltzer remains a mystery, and he makes his final appearance in the novel when, after Davy helps Sara escape from the forced marriage he has planned for her, he shoots Reuben and Jeremiah, killing Jeremiah. In Swede's epic poem about the family's journey to find Davy, Mr. Waltzer becomes the villainous character Valdez. - Character: Sara. Description: Jape Waltzer acquired Sara from her father when Sara was a child, and he raises her to be his wife. She has wild red hair and is very pretty. While Sara doesn't appear outwardly afraid of Mr. Waltzer, she conducts herself very carefully around him and makes sure to do exactly as he asks. Sara ends up married to Reuben when they grow up. - Character: Tin Lurvy. Description: Lurvy is a sweaty, overweight traveling salesman who prefers to conduct his life drunk. He's a poor salesman, as he never tells his customers what he's selling unless asked, but he makes himself at home in every house he stops at. He's unashamed about eating the Land family's food and often arrives on holidays and special occasions. Upon his death, he wills Jeremiah his new Airstream trailer. - Character: Thomas DeCuellar. Description: As Davy's defense lawyer, Mr. DeCuellar spends much of his time in the lead-up to the trial at the Lands' home. He wears baggy suits and Swede comes quickly to adore him, as he loves history and can explain it in thrilling ways. Jeremiah says that Mr. DeCuellar speaks to children like a man who desperately wanted children but never had them. - Character: Martin Andreeson. Description: Swede refers to Andreeson, the federal agent tasked with locating Davy, as a "putrid fed." However, Andreeson seems to have genuine sympathy for Davy and wants to do the right thing. For much of the novel, the Lands (except for Jeremiah) see him as their enemy and treat him as such. It's implied that Andreeson is killed by Jape Waltzer. - Character: Superintendent Chester Holgren. Description: The superintendent of the Roofing school district and Dad's boss. Reuben says that Mr. Holgren was made to be a superintendent, as he inspires fear in children and seems constantly annoyed by them. Swede calls Mr. Holgren "Chester the Fester" on account of his angry, acne-ridden face. When Mr. Holgren publicly fires Jeremiah, Jeremiah shows his Christ-like characteristics by curing Mr. Holgren's acne, rather than being angry. - Theme: Youth vs. Adulthood. Description: At eleven years old, Reuben exists somewhere between childhood and adulthood. He still possesses a childish understanding of the world of adults, but he recognizes the vast differences in maturity between himself and his younger, sister, Swede, as well as between himself and his older brother, Davy. Reuben fixates on the differences between himself and Davy in particular, and these comparisons influence how Reuben conceptualizes what it means to be grown up. For Reuben and Swede, Davy represents the pinnacle of adulthood. Davy possesses a driver's license, drinks coffee with the adults, and doesn't participate in Reuben and Swede's imaginative games. He's smart, kind, and seems extremely knowledgeable about everything. Reuben begins his own coming of age process in the first pages of the book while goose hunting with his family, when Davy offers Reuben his shotgun to shoot the target goose, and surprisingly, Reuben hits it. Swede suggests later that night that Reuben is "almost like Davy" now that he's shot a goose. This shows that, according to Swede, adulthood is defined primarily by physical ability and an unwillingness to behave like a child. As the novel progresses, however, Reuben is confronted with the possibility that being an adult doesn't simply mean possessing a driver's license, shooting geese, and staying up late drinking coffee. Rather, growing up and becoming an adult is about developing a more nuanced perspective regarding abstract concepts like justice and loyalty and what they mean. Much of Reuben's emotional growth happens as he struggles with his father's relationship with Martin Andreeson, the federal agent tasked with finding Davy. Initially, Andreeson makes a convenient "bad guy" figure for the entire Land family, as his goal is certainly to unjustly put Davy behind bars. Reuben and Swede in particular cling to the idea of Andreeson as an evil villain, demonstrating a very black and white view of the situation. As time goes on, however, Jeremiah begins to cooperate with Andreeson. This shakes Reuben's understanding of what's right, what's wrong, and what side is even the "good" side. Reuben's final emotional growing up happens when Andreeson goes missing, and Reuben finds that his feelings towards "the fed" have evolved: while he still finds it hard to stomach that Andreeson wants to put Davy behind bars, he finds the idea that Jape Waltzer may have murdered Andreeson even more horrendous. While Reuben feels immense guilt ratting out Davy, he finds his conscience is clearer when he shifts to value Andreeson's life over Davy's freedom. This suggests that growing up involves allowing one's perception of right and wrong to change as more evidence presents itself for consideration. This, notably, is something that only Reuben does over the course of the novel. While it's indicated that Swede eventually makes some of these connections in adulthood, in the book she remains a "kid sister" physically and emotionally, while Reuben advances and begins to grow up. Because an adult version of Reuben narrates the novel, the reader is granted adult insight into events that were initially viewed by a child. This combination of perspectives allows the reader to understand what Reuben himself eventually learned: that while children think adulthood is simple and adults are all-knowing, actually being an adult means coming to terms with the fact that life isn't black and white. True adulthood entails being comfortable with shades of gray and, often, no single definition of what's right or wrong. - Theme: Religion. Description: The Lands are an extremely religious family, and the logic of the novel is rooted in Christian belief. The family's deep faith propels their behavior, beginning with Jeremiah's decision to drop out of college to become a plumber after being picked up by a tornado and surviving unharmed—a truly miraculous event. This event situates miracles and religion as the central concern of the novel and asks the reader to question miracles, faith, and how these supernatural happenings interact with events on earth. Reuben grows up knowing that his father's faith is the sole reason that Reuben survived his first 12 minutes of life with "spongy" asthmatic lungs. This initial miracle lays the groundwork for Jeremiah's role as a miracle worker throughout the rest of the novel, and situates Reuben as the primary recipient and witness of these miracles. By beginning the novel with the miracle of his birth and following soon after with the description of the tornado, Reuben makes it undeniably clear that miracles, and God by extension, are immensely powerful. For Reuben and Jeremiah in particular, these events become concrete proof that a higher being values their lives and looks out for them. Notably, for much of the novel Reuben is the only character who bears witness to his father's miracles. He's the only one to witness his father walk on thin air, and he's the only one to notice that Jeremiah's small batch of soup somehow manages to feed a party of five. These miracles create a ready comparison between Jeremiah and Jesus, while Reuben as the sole witness and narrator of the novel becomes his father's "disciple." This relationship is reinforced after Jape Waltzer shoots Reuben and Jeremiah. Following a march with his father through Heaven, Reuben returns to earth, his asthmatic lungs miraculously healed after what should have been a fatal gunshot wound. Jeremiah, on the other hand, dies despite suffering a gunshot wound that shouldn't have killed him. This final miracle suggests that Jeremiah dies to save his son, just as Jesus died to save humanity. By telling his story, Reuben turns into a disciple of both his father and of God, while the novel takes on some of the same qualities as the Bible itself. Though the novel's characters all believe in a Christian idea of God and religion, Davy is the only character who seems to question the degree of influence that God has on his life. Reuben attributes this to Davy's competency and confidence. He remarks that Davy finds the idea of a fatherly God annoying, as Davy wants life to be something that one undertakes alone. He'd prefer to be fully responsible for his triumphs and his failings, rather than be able to thank or blame a higher power for bringing them upon him. Reuben, on the other hand, describes himself as weak and therefore in need of a fatherly God to watch over him and treat him mercifully. Notably, even after Jeremiah sacrifices himself and Reuben finds himself cured of asthma, Reuben makes it very clear that he continues to worship and credit God for his successes. Reuben is unable to forget the fact that he's alive because of God. Jeremiah, Reuben, Swede, and eventually, Roxanna are able to find love and a sense of community with each other because of their belief in God, their respect for Jeremiah's relationship with God, and their shared knowledge that God guides and controls everything they do. While Reuben never goes so far as to say that Davy suffers the fate he does because of his unwillingness to fully accept the power of God and religion, he also presents overwhelming evidence that religion is immensely powerful and useful—it's twice the reason that Reuben is even alive. Reuben goes on, breathing with unhindered lungs, to marry Sara, build his own house, and be a parent because of his and his family's faith in God. Further, Reuben would certainly argue that Davy's freedom continues thanks to God, suggesting that whether one truly embraces religion or not, it's an inescapable force in all lives. - Theme: Fiction, Reality, and the American West. Description: The plot of the novel uses many tropes and motifs often found in traditional Westerns: murder as self-defense, particularly in defense of one's family; escaping the law on horseback; and a loveable, misunderstood hero on the run. Both Swede and Reuben, as lovers of the fictionalized American West, use these tropes to borrow meaning and assign it to the events they experience throughout the novel. This turns the novel into a critical study of how fiction influences reality, and what the consequences are of leaning heavily on fictionalized models of life. Throughout the novel and particularly after the Lands leave Roofing to head West, Swede records their journey in an idealized and embellished style reminiscent of her beloved Western novels. Reuben shares with the reader that while he'll wholeheartedly defend Swede's written account of events, Swede writes about her family's saga without any mention that everyone involved uses cars instead of horses—to take her account at face value would lead someone to believe that Jeremiah and his children are tracking Davy on horseback through the Wild West. This represents an inability or unwillingness on Swede's part to reconcile her idealized version of the West with what North Dakota actually holds for the Lands. In Swede's imaginative perception, Davy remains an innocent man wronged by outlaws, and she clings to the belief that Davy will emerge from this ordeal triumphant. Because of her obsession with the myth of the American West, Swede finds Davy's situation particularly satisfying. Davy's story seems straight out a novel, as he escapes on horseback from being unjustly jailed, heads West, and runs from the law. As Swede sees it, Davy is no different than the righteous cowboys in her novels or Sunny Sundown, the hero of her epic poem. Essentially, in order to deal with Davy's absence, Swede transforms her beloved real-life brother into an idealized fictional character. Reuben follows Swede in this logic until he reconnects with Davy and discovers that the idyllic life they thought Davy was leading in exile bears little similarity to Davy's reality. Seeing the truth of Davy's life on the run, Reuben must reconsider how useful Swede's thought process actually is. Reuben is haunted by the thought of Davy freezing to death in the harsh North Dakota winter after he sees the shack where Davy lives, and it's a powerful enough image to contribute to Reuben's decision to betray his brother. This suggests that fictionalizing something might make dealing with the unknown easier, as it doesn't require someone to challenge their beliefs, but engaging with the truth and evaluating the facts at hand can lead to greater understanding and decisions with actual weight in the real world. Reuben, as the narrator, asks the reader to engage with his story and the people within it by presenting his account as entirely truthful, while acknowledging that parts of the story seem far too fantastical to be real. Notably, Reuben doesn't insist that the reader accept the story as fact. Rather, he consistently instructs the reader to "make of it what you will," suggesting that even if a reader takes Reuben's story as entirely fictional, there's still something to gain from it. This presents the idea that while engaging with fiction to the point of forsaking reality can prove to be blinding, blending the two provides life with a richness and nuance that cannot be attained otherwise. - Theme: Loyalty and Family. Description: The members of the Land family are extremely loyal to one another. Reuben and the reader are led to believe that it's Davy's loyalty to his family and his girlfriend Dolly that leads him to heroically kill Tommy Basca and Israel Finch in the first place. However, as Davy and the rest of the family move westward, the very idea of loyalty—what exactly loyalty means, and who's deserving of it—is tested and questioned. Initially, loyalty is thought to be Davy's primary motive for killing Tommy and Israel, and he's celebrated in the newspapers for bravely protecting his family against intruders. However, it comes to light at the trial that Davy's intentions might not have been as pure as Reuben and Swede were allowed to believe. They learn that Davy smashed the windows of Israel's car earlier in the evening, essentially inviting the break-in later that night. This raises the question of whether Davy acted solely out of loyalty to his family, or if a part of him actually wanted an excuse to kill Tommy and Israel. The novel continues to explore the morality of loyalty when Reuben and Davy reconnect in North Dakota. Reuben feels morally bankrupt and describes himself as a "ratfink" when he threatens Davy with telling Jeremiah and Swede about him if Davy doesn't show Reuben where he lives. In this situation, Reuben places conditions on his own loyalty that he finds morally questionable. Reuben struggles to understand his own reasoning behind this, but he eventually attributes the shaky morality of this deal to his own desire to receive a display of loyalty from Davy. Notably, Reuben becomes physically ill and feels increasingly guilty as he endeavors to maintain his loyalty to Davy. This offers the possibility that while exchanges of loyalty like this might be effective, they can exert a high physical and emotional toll. When Davy reappears in Reuben's life and Reuben begins to understand that Davy isn't necessarily either the glowing hero or the remorseful wrongdoer, Reuben is caught between loyalty to the family's journey West, and loyalty to his brother. Reuben finds it especially difficult to understand his father's decision to cooperate with the federal agent Andreeson. He sees it as a betrayal of Davy, while Jeremiah sees it as the only way to find Davy and keep him as safe as possible. While Reuben initially chooses to place his loyalty in Davy by agreeing to keep Davy's whereabouts a secret, Reuben changes his mind when he begins to suspect that Davy himself has misplaced his loyalty by trusting Jape Waltzer. This turn of events suggests that while family members may pledge loyalty to other people outside the family, they largely do so in an attempt to remain loyal and protect their family members. Neither Jeremiah nor Reuben wants to harm Davy, even when they seemingly betray him; they simply want him and those participating in the search for him to be safe. - Theme: Justice and Consequences. Description: Peace Like a River focuses intently on the idea that all actions, thoughts, and beliefs (noble or otherwise) have consequences. Reuben and Swede watch this play out through Davy's trial and subsequent escape, and Reuben experiences the consequences of his own actions in North Dakota after he reconnects with Davy. Yet justice—the notion that such consequences will be fair—doesn't always mean the same thing to different people, and much of Reuben's growing up happens as he comes to this realization. While the novel borrows a number of tropes and motifs from Western literature and movies, the most important idea that the novel borrows from Westerns is pitting personal honor, or "frontier justice," against organized and rational systems of justice like courtrooms and sheriffs. These different schools of thought represent a conflict between valuing individuals versus valuing systems that may or may not value individuals in the same way. Davy's own personal honor leads him to murder Tommy Basca and Israel Finch, but the legal system he's then forced to contend with considers this act to have been wrong. Interestingly, though Davy physically escapes from jail, he never truly escapes the legal system, since he spends the rest of his life on the run. This suggests that while revenge and frontier justice might be romantic and righteous in theory, in reality there are harsh consequences for taking justice into one's own hands; namely, exile from the community that the law is supposed to protect in the first place. The novel is critical of Westerns and the ideals of justice and consequences they promote in a number of ways. Davy's fate shows that frontier justice is an ineffective tool in modern society if one wishes to remain a part of that society; Swede's insistence on engaging with the search for Davy as though it's a Western blinds her to the possibility that Davy might not be safe or righteous; and Reuben's very Western experience hunting for Davy on horseback with a posse of law enforcement officers is dramatic, but ultimately unsatisfying. As these experiences play out, Reuben suggests that it's not simply ineffective but wholly impossible to simplify justice to "white hat" versus "black hat." While Swede remains fixated on this trope, Reuben finds himself stuck in moral ambiguity. Reuben eventually comes to realize that, while he's still entirely on Davy's side, what Davy did wasn't right or just. In this way, Reuben's experience in the real West leads him to the understanding that what fictional Westerns present as just and correct doesn't always hold true in the real world, Western or otherwise. Further, it's left up to the reader to decide who, if anyone, has received justice, and exactly which brand of justice that might have been. - Climax: Jape Waltzer shoots Reuben and Jeremiah - Summary: Reuben, the narrator, spends his first twelve minutes of life not breathing, and he nearly dies. When his father (Jeremiah Land) picks up baby Reuben and commands him to breathe in the name of God, Reuben begins to breathe. Reuben says that this was his father's first miracle, and that he believes he was put on the earth to bear witness to his father's miracles. Reuben is 11 years old and hunting with his family in North Dakota. Dad and Davy, Reuben's older brother, aren't speaking to each other. Out in the field, they spot a lone goose flying, and Davy lets Reuben take the shot. As Reuben guts the goose later, he and his younger sister Swede discuss why Davy is angry. Swede says that two kids in high school with Davy, Tommy Basca and Israel Finch, beat up Davy's girlfriend, Dolly, in the locker room. Dad, who is the school janitor, got to Dolly "in time." When the Lands return home to Roofing, Minnesota, their front door is covered in tar. Reuben, who has asthma, is having trouble breathing. His Dad boils water and creates a steam tent for him. Meanwhile, Dad tries to explain in broad terms why the door is tarred, but Reuben still does not understand. Several days later, Reuben and Dad attend evening church service. When they return home, they learn that Swede has been kidnapped and then returned by Israel and Tommy. Dad calls the police, but they refuse to do anything. The next day Tin Lurvy, a traveling salesman, visits the Lands for dinner. Reuben is shocked to see that the small batch of soup Dad made feeds them all multiple helpings, and Reuben deems it a miracle. After midnight that night, Reuben hears the back door open. Footsteps reach Reuben's bedroom door, and he hears Davy tell the intruders to turn on the light. The light comes on and Davy shoots Israel Finch and Tommy Basca. Davy goes to jail, Reuben and Swede stay home from school, and Dad's boss, the school superintendent Mr. Holgren, makes Dad's job miserable. Mr. DeCuellar, Davy's defense lawyer, visits often to talk to Dad. Swede spends her time writing an epic poem starring a cowboy hero, Sunny Sundown, who is trying to kill the bandit king Valdez. One night, Swede comes into Reuben's room and says she can't kill Valdez. Reuben doesn't understand and fears that Sunny's story won't turn out "right." Once he returns to school, Reuben witnesses Mr. Holgren fire Dad in front of his entire class. Immediately after Mr. Holgren fires Dad, Dad gives Mr. Holgren a strange slap and Reuben notices that Mr. Holgren's face, usually angry with boiling acne, is suddenly healed. Reuben can barely stand the injustice that Mr. Holgren was healed while Reuben still struggles with asthma. Davy's trial begins. Reuben quickly realizes that Davy has no chance—the evidence suggests that Davy wanted to murder Tommy and Israel. When Reuben takes the stand to testify, Elvis, the prosecutor, extracts incriminating testimony from him. That night, Swede suggests that they break Davy out of jail, and Reuben agrees. However, since the DeCuellars and Dad are drinking coffee in the living room and blocking the door, Reuben and Swede are unable to sneak out. When Reuben wakes the next morning, though, he learns that Davy has escaped. The police assemble a posse to hunt for Davy, but they can't find him. Meanwhile, Dad contracts pneumonia after working outside in the bitter cold. One day, Martin Andreeson, a federal agent tasked with finding Davy, knocks on the door, but Dad indicates that the family won't help him. On Christmas Eve, the DeCuellars knock on the door and tell Dad that Tin Lurvy died and left Dad his brand new Airstream trailer. Dad tells Reuben he prayed for a way to get to Davy, and this is the answer. In January, the Lands receive a postcard from August Schultz, a friend from North Dakota, saying that Davy stopped by. Dad sells their possessions to buy food, stocks the Airstream, and he, Reuben, and Swede head for North Dakota. When they arrive, they visit August and his wife, Birdie, who tell the Lands everything they can about Davy. The next morning, the Land family leaves in the Airstream without a map or a destination, hoping to find Davy on faith alone. When they stop in a park for lunch, Swede notices that Andreeson is in the park, as well. At dinner, Mr. Andreeson knocks on the door and tries to reason with Dad, but Dad continues to refuse to help him. A day later, they stop for gas and the owner of the station, who introduces herself as Roxanna, also offers them beds for the night. It snows overnight. The next evening, Roxanna, looking exceptionally beautiful, takes them on a picnic. She brings them to a lignite field, which is warm in the dead of winter. During the picnic, Andreeson once again approaches and asks Dad for help finding Davy. Dad once again refuses. The next day, Reuben sees someone on a horse on a hillside, and knows immediately that it's Davy. Reuben runs to the hill, follows the tracks, and comes upon Davy. Davy pulls Reuben onto his horse and they ride and talk for a while. Reuben asks to see where Davy lives. After initially resisting, Davy agrees to show him later. When Reuben gets back to the house, he discovers that Dad has gone out with Mr. Andreeson. Reuben is angry; he doesn't understand why Dad would decide to cooperate with Andreeson. That night, Davy picks up Reuben behind the barn and they ride to a valley with a cabin. There Davy introduces Reuben to Mr. Waltzer, a man with apocalyptic ideas who is himself hiding from the law and has taken Davy in to protect him. Mr. Waltzer has his daughter, Sara, to prepare dinner; Sara is silent and doesn't join them for the meal. (Later Rueben learns from Davy that Sara is not actually Waltzer's daughter, and that Waltzer is in fact raising Sara to become his wife.) During dinner Reuben has trouble breathing and faints. Davy takes him home. The next day, Dad explains that he's going to court Roxanna. Reuben goes with Davy to the cabin several more times. These nighttime adventures make Reuben's asthma worse, and Dad calls a new doctor who gives Reuben adrenaline. One morning, Reuben goes downstairs to find Mr. Andreeson at the table with Dad. Andreeson believes he's close to Davy and says he'll call with news. Reuben feels he must warn Davy, but that night at the cabin, Mr. Waltzer doesn't seem worried at all. Two days pass without a call from Mr. Andreeson. Dad learns that Mr. Andreeson went out to meet a man who was supposed to lead him to Davy, but Mr. Andreeson never returned to his motel. Reuben, realizing that Waltzer was the man with whom Andreeson must be meeting, tells Dad that Andreeson is in trouble. The next morning, Reuben rides with a posse, intending to lead them to Mr. Waltzer's cabin. However, Reuben then thinks he shouldn't betray Davy, so he leads the posse the wrong way. When the posse descends a steep hill, one of the horses falls and seriously injures its rider. Reuben sits with the injured rider while the officers do eventually go and find the cabin. Inside, they find only Andreeson's hat. Reuben and his family return to Roofing with Roxanna at the end of February, and Dad and Roxanna marry a week later. They move to a farm. Reuben's asthma continues to worsen. One day in June, a car pulls up, and Davy and Sara get out—Davy had decided it was unacceptable for Waltzer to marry Sara, and so he helped her escape. Now he asks if Sara can stay. Davy, however, knows he himself can't stay because of his past. In the morning, the family goes outside to see Davy off. But Mr. Waltzer is sitting by the granary and shoots Dad and Reuben. Reuben wakes up in the "old country"—heaven. He's uninjured and can breathe. He walks through a meadow and an orchard, where he meets Dad. They run together to a cliff where they can see a great city. Dad tells Reuben to take care of Swede. Reuben then watches Dad head towards the city. Years later, the Lands doctor, Dr. Nokes tells Reuben that Dad shouldn't have died from his wound, while Reuben certainly should have died. Reuben understands that, when he met Dad in heaven, Dad sacrificed himself so that Reuben could live. Reuben continues: after Dad's death, Roxanna became their rock. Swede became a writer, Mr. Waltzer was never caught, and Mr. Andreeson never reappeared. Reuben goes yearly to a Canadian hunting town where, on some years, Davy joins him. Reuben tells Davy about what happened in Heaven, but Davy doesn't know what to make of it. Reuben says that he himself sometimes doubts what happened, but his family with Sara—whom Reuben has married—bolsters his faith. He tells the reader to "make of it what you will."

- Genre: Horror/Suspense, Magical Realism, Black Comedy - Title: Perfume - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: 18th Century France (Paris, Montpellier, Grasse, the volcano Plomb du Cantal) - Character: Jean-Baptise Grenouille. Description: The protagonist of the novel. Grenouille possesses an absurdly keen sense of smell, no smell of his own, and an intense hatred of humanity, which combined leads him on a journey to create the perfect scent that will allow him to control humanity. He's likened to a tick as he's small, inconspicuous, and sucks the lifeblood out of his victims. He realizes his purpose in life when he discovers the intoxicating scent of the girl from the rue de Marais, and vows to become a master perfumer. He sees nothing wrong or strange about committing murder; he only desires to possess the scent of his victims. He learns to create perfumes conventionally under Baldini, spends seven years wallowing in his hatred of humanity in a remote volcano and his inner palace, and finally sets about creating a perfume that will allow him complete power over people in the town of Grasse, created from the scents of 25 murdered virgins. Grenouille believes that having this power will make him happy, but when he deploys his perfume, he finds his hatred for humanity overshadows any pleasure he experiences from his success. He then uses his perfume to commit suicide in Paris, destroying both himself and his powerful perfume in the process. - Character: Giuseppe Baldini. Description: The perfumer who takes Grenouille on as an apprentice; Chénier's employer. Baldini is very concerned with upholding and maintaining order, both in the larger world and in the smaller world of creating perfumes in his workshop. He's described as kind, although often to his own detriment, but also treats Grenouille as little more than a fountain of brilliant ideas for perfumes. He uses Grenouille to save himself from the has-been perfumer he'd become and rises to European fame with Grenouille's formulas, though Grenouille isn't allowed to take credit for his work. When Baldini exhausts his uses for Grenouille, he grants Grenouille journeyman's papers and sends him on his way. Baldini dies that night when his business, which sits on a bridge crossing the Seine, collapses into the river. - Character: Marquis de la Taillade- Espinasse. Description: A marquis who retired from court life at Versailles to pursue scientific discovery. His pet project is the idea of fluidum vitale, or the idea that the earth contains poisonous gases that can do damage, while places and items that are "earth-removed" (places with high elevation, or birds) are healing. Grenouille provides the perfect example of his theory in action when he comes to the marquis' attention after spending seven years in a cave. The marquis uses Grenouille to support his theory, gives several lectures, and pays Grenouille for being a research subject. The marquis eventually decides to climb the highest mountain in the Pyrenees, from which he will return a man aged 20 thanks to the healing powers of the fluidum vitale at the high elevation, but he never returns. - Character: Laure Richis. Description: The young daughter of Antoine Richis and Grenouille's final target. She's very beautiful, with red hair and pale skin, and Grenouille finds her scent to be even more intoxicating than that of the girl from the rue de Marais. Though her father tries to save her by arranging her marriage, Grenouille murders her before the marriage can take place and creates his most intoxicating perfume with her scent. - Character: Monsieur Grimal. Description: The tanner whom Madame Gaillard sells Grenouille to as cheap labor. Grimal treats Grenouille little better than a domestic animal, valued only for how much work he's capable of completing. Grenouille remains in his service from age eight to fifteen, and after Grenouille is released from his service, Grimal drowns in the Seine. - Character: Madame Gaillard. Description: The woman who cares for Grenouille after he was rejected by Jeanne Bussie. She runs a home for orphan children. Madame Gaillard's father hit her in the face as a child, and as such she has no sense of smell and doesn't experience much range of emotion. As such, she isn't aware that Grenouille doesn't smell. Her primary concern is making sure she can afford to die at home, but she suffers the unfortunate fate of dying in a public hospital after losing her fortune during the French Revolution. - Character: Dominique Druot. Description: Madame Arnulfi's first journeyman and eventually second husband, Grenouille's supervisor. He thinks highly of himself and as such Grenouille allows him to think that he's a superior perfumer to Grenouille. He stinks often of sex and enjoys a great deal of wine, leaving most of the work to Grenouille. He's arrested and executed in place of Grenouille for the murders of the 24 village girls and Laure Richie. - Character: Father Terrier. Description: The monk who handles Grenouille's return to the local cloister by Jeanne Bussie. He despises technical details and difficulties and is in charge of administering the cloister's charities. He's of the belief that children cannot be possessed by the devil due to their undeveloped souls, but admits that there's something strange about the infant Grenouille. - Character: Antoine Richis. Description: The father of Laure Richis. He is a high-ranking official in Grasse and a learned, modern man. He catches on to the impetus behind Grenouille's serial murders of the girls in Grasse and realizes Laure must also be a target. Though he's heartbroken at her death, when he smells the perfume Grenouille creates with her scent, he is instrumental in saving Grenouille from execution and asks to adopt him as a son. - Theme: Growing Up and Becoming Human. Description: Perfume takes the form of a bildungsroman, or a coming of age novel. The reader follows Grenouille from birth to death through the four parts of the novel, and experiences with him how he learns about the world, begins to conceptualize his place in it, and struggles with his identity. Children are described throughout the book as sub-human for a variety of reasons. Religious teachings, according to the novel, state that infants are completely worthless before their baptism, and even after baptism don't understand sin. Baldini the perfumer also insists that children are simply sub-human despots, always demanding things. With these starting points, coming of age for all children entails the process of becoming not just adult but truly human. This is complicated in the case of Grenouille, however, for even though he was baptized, he never develops any sense of morality. Thus, Grenouille is never seen to be fully human in the eyes of church officials with whom he comes in contact later. While Grenouille is obviously less than human emotionally and morally, the individuals who care for him, especially as a child and a teenager, are similarly cruel to him and others. Essentially, by being treated like he's less than human, Grenouille learns to treat others the same way. This poor treatment, along with his eventual realization that he's actually repulsed by people, not the city of Paris itself, is an important turning point in Grenouille's development and results his intense misanthropy (hatred of other people). Once he realizes that he truly hates humanity, he can begin the process of self-discovery and plot his takeover of the people he hates so much (and in the process allow himself to grow ever more detached from his own "humanity"). Several characters, including Father Terrier and Grenouille himself, tie the passage from child to adult to the development of an adult scent. In Grenouille's case, then, he only passes the threshold from boy to man when he manufactures and then wears a faux human perfume. However, Grenouille finds himself attracted specifically to the scents from lovely girls undergoing puberty. While it's indicated that their intoxicating scents would continue to develop had the girls lived to adulthood, it's this "special time" of development that becomes the focus of the novel. Because Grenouille uses the scents of these girls to manufacture his most intoxicating and powerful perfume, Grenouille essentially comes of age and becomes the "god" he dreamt of being at the expense of, and thanks to, the 25 nearly-adult girls he murders. However, this acquisition of power comes at a price to Grenouille as well as the families of the girls, as Grenouille finds his misanthropy is still far too intense for him to enjoy his power. Rather than enslave the world, Grenouille opts to take himself out of it using his newly created and superhuman—adult—power. - Theme: Power and Control. Description: Perfume is, at its heart, a novel about power. It explores how people obtain power, and then how they keep it or fail at doing so. A combination of religion and bureaucracy is introduced as the first avenue through which an individual can enjoy power. It's this combination that made sure that the infant Grenouille stayed alive in the first place. Later in Grasse, this same combination attempts to exert its power and do away with Grenouille, the serial murderer of young girls. It should be noted that in the case of the excommunication of the murderer in Grasse, Grenouille uses the people's faith in religion to his advantage. By ceasing his experiments after the excommunication, he lulls the residents of Grasse into a false sense of security. While religion and government play powerful roles in the novel, the novel's logic and Grenouille himself asserts that the true ruler of a population is not the king or God, but scent, and more specifically the person who possesses the most intoxicating scent. Scent, as the "brother of breath," is inescapable as long as one keeps breathing. With this guiding logic, Grenouille presents the idea that while Laure is certainly a beautiful girl, the power over both men and women that she would enjoy later in life would come primarily from her intoxicating scent. This realization about how scent functions in relationship to power further supports Grenouille's belief that he's superior to those around him, as he believes he's the only one who is aware of this relationship, or indeed the only one who can even detect differences in individuals' odors. Thus, when this knowledge is paired with his ability to create sublime perfumes, it allows him to exert control over others without their conscious knowledge. The massive extent of Grenouille's power, which is still a mystery to those around him, comes to life at his execution. Using his sublime perfume, Grenouille is able to turn himself truly into a god, incite an orgy that leads to his release, and, incredibly, make Antoine Richis offer to adopt Grenouille as a son. However, Grenouille cannot experience pleasure or satisfaction when he achieves this goal and finds himself in possession of absolute power. Rather, he uses his power of scent to commit suicide in Paris. In death, and in this method of death in particular, Grenouille simultaneously creates an intense show of power and destroys both himself and his tool or method for obtaining this power. - Theme: Creative Genius vs. Convention and Assimilation. Description: Grenouille is described as a wunderkind (a young prodigy), a genius who knows instinctively how to mix fabulous scents. As such, he doesn't require instruction in how to make a good perfume; rather, he only needs to learn the rules and conventions of perfumers and of people in general in order to effectively function in the world and achieve his goals. Essentially, Grenouille's creative genius is what sets him apart from other people, but it's his willingness to adapt to rules and learn conventions that allows him to function effectively enough in the world to not be written off as a monster. Throughout Grenouille's childhood and adolescence, he struggles to integrate with society in part because others find him repulsive, but also because he's so caught up in his own olfactory world that he sees no point in being a real part of society. In this way, Grenouille begins life by differentiating himself from those around him, even before he's known by others to be a genius. He, as well as the other children in the orphanage where he's raised, knows he's different, and he simultaneously ostracizes himself and is ostracized by others because of his weirdness. This difference, born of his genius, is what leads Grenouille to an intense hatred of humanity. His disdain of the greater populace stems from what he perceives as a willingness or biological imperative to be led blindly by scent. The way in which Grenouille acquires language, both spoken and the language of perfume, and goes on to use it encompasses his struggle between genius and convention. Grenouille begins talking late and struggles to understand how spoken language even works, since he finds the spoken word inadequate to describe his world. However, as he grows, he begins to understand that by accepting language, social customs, and the practices of perfumers, he can pass as normal in society. This epiphany first grips Grenouille when the marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse dresses him in gentleman's clothes. Grenouille discovers that despite his lack of scent and his badly scarred body, he is capable of passing as normal by accepting the conventions of how polite gentlemen dress. He continues this facade with the faux human scent, and his total facade allows him to move through society without fear of his true evil genius being discovered. It should be noted that at the time the novel takes place, French society itself was undergoing a similar struggle between new ways of thinking and old institutions of power and structure. Both Father Terrier and Baldini discuss this change explicitly. In this way, many characters besides Grenouille are essentially grappling with the same issues that he is. While their struggles are very different from Grenouille's micro struggles of scent and misanthropy, every character in the novel is attempting to either keep up with the times and create progress, or preserve old ideas and structures in favor of convention. - Theme: Upward Mobility and Social Movement. Description: Over the course of the novel, Grenouille moves steadily up the social ladder from the lowest depths of society to a journeyman and finally, in his eyes, a god. Everyone else with whom Grenouille comes in contact is similarly dreaming or actively working on achieving similar types of upward movement, making this type of movement a central concern to the novel. Grenouille realizes early on the importance of attaining some degree of social status, as he was born the lowest of the low. By virtue of his birth and the rules and regulations of the time, even reaching the success of becoming an apprentice after being born an orphan was a great achievement. With the status afforded to Grenouille when he obtains his journeyman's papers, he's able to accomplish his goals without raising suspicion. However, it's important to note that Grenouille's appetite for advancement as made official by the government has a ceiling. Since his goals are purely personal, there's no need for him to climb the social ladder any higher, as his goals aren't monetary or fame-based. This ties into Grenouille's conception of himself as a god-like figure or a supreme ruler. Grenouille's state of being a god isn't achieved through titles or government but through scent, which transcends class and status. Many of the individuals who play roles in Grenouille's life are "climbers" like he is, but they seek financial success or social recognition rather than the purely selfish pleasure that Grenouille gains from creating his ideal perfumes. Notably, a number of these individuals suffer some form of a miserable or untimely death after they're rid of Grenouille. Most of these deaths are caused by the very things that motivated the characters to climb in the first place, as when Baldini's death occurs when his shop, the fanciest address in town, falls into the river. Similarly, while Grenouille's death is a suicide rather than an accident, it's his goal of creating the perfect perfume that brings about the situation in which he can commit suicide in the way that he does. Despite their different goals or motivations, almost all the characters see those around them as means to an end or means to advancement. In this way, the characters are reduced to mere tools rather than considered as full human beings. This becomes apparent when Grenouille is a child, as he survives by proving useful to Grimal and Baldini. Later, Grenouille uses this way of regarding people to work towards his own goals. He actively manipulates the marquis into allowing Grenouille to create his human perfume, and then goes on to use the girls of Grasse as tools and materials to create his final perfume. - Theme: Scent, Sight, and the Grotesque. Description: While the novel's focus is on scent more than anything else, it relies heavily on descriptions of scent that are highly visual in nature. This combination works to create a grotesque landscape, simultaneously repulsive and beautiful, that draws the reader in and pushes them away in turn. The entire premise of the novel is based on the idea that scent is more powerful than anything else, and most importantly, that this power isn't known or accessible to the average person. Grenouille then becomes a strange combination of a genius, as he's aware of and able to manipulate this power better than anyone, and a monster, as he possesses no scent himself. Further, even after the marquis introduces him to cosmetics, Grenouille doesn't have the looks to inspire anything but disgust or sympathy, if anyone even takes notice of him. Directly opposite Grenouille, then, are the 25 girls he murders, and specifically Laure. She not only has a powerful and alluring scent; she's extremely physically beautiful as well. In this way, the murders of the girls by Grenouille can be seen as more than just murders in the name of creating the perfect perfume; they're an attempt to obtain and control something that Grenouille himself is entirely incapable of being: irresistibly appealing, both physically and in an olfactory sense. Despite Grenouille's purposeful rejection of sight in favor of scent throughout his life, he finds that the two senses are connected, and experiences varying degrees of awe and horror at this discovery. Part of Grenouille's early fear and later hatred of people stems from the fact that, as a child, he passed through crowds entirely unnoticed. However, once Grenouille creates a personal perfume for himself, he finds that he attracts neutral attention while in public. Notably, Grenouille's personal perfume is made from a horrific combination of ingredients including moldy cheese and cat feces. The description of these ingredients serves to offend the reader on multiple fronts and heighten the sense of the grotesque. In particular, the combination throughout the novel of descriptions of scent and sight create an almost oppressively disgusting yet fascinating reading experience, which then works to suggest a sense of absurdity and black humor. Grenouille as a child and an adolescent almost inspires sympathy from the reader, as do figures such as Madame Gaillard, but their actions (such as Grenouille's murder of the girl from the Rue de Marais) also serve to repel and disgust the reader. One can almost laugh at Grenouille attempting to ascertain if he has a personal scent, but the consequence of Grenouille's discovery leads him down an unimaginably horrific path. - Climax: Grenouille's execution, when his perfume incites an orgy among the many spectators and causes the local government to drop the charges against him. - Summary: Grenouille is born in a market in Paris in July of 1738 to a young fishmonger. Due to the heat and the stench, Grenouille's mother passes out immediately after his birth, drawing a crowd. When she comes to she abandons her baby, but a crowd discovers the baby and his mother is arrested, tried, and beheaded. Grenouille goes through a series of wet nurses, all of whom accuse him of being especially greedy for milk. His final wet nurse is Jeanne Bussie. Several weeks after she takes custody of him, she returns him to Father Terrier at the cloister of Saint Merri, stating that Grenouille is possessed by the devil because he doesn't have a smell. Father Terrier attempts to pay Jeanne Bussie more money to keep the baby but eventually gives in. When the sleeping Grenouille wakes and sniffs the air in a menacing way, Father Terrier is terrified and takes Grenouille straight to Madame Gaillard, who runs a home for orphans. Madame Gaillard was hit across the face with a poker as a child and as such, has no sense of smell and doesn't experience emotions. She doesn't realize that Grenouille doesn't smell and doesn't expect him to express emotion, which suits Grenouille well. The other children attempt to murder him but eventually give up. As he grows, Grenouille catalogues every scent he comes across. He finds language inadequate to express his olfactory world, and never fully grasps concepts such as morality or goodness. At age eight, the cloister stops paying for Grenouille's keep, and Madame Gaillard sells him to a tanner named Grimal. Grimal treats Grenouille like an animal and locks him in a closet at night to sleep. Grenouille contracts anthrax and survives the ordeal, which turns him into a valuable worker as he cannot be reinfected, and he's given a bed and a blanket. At 12, Grimal begins to let Grenouille have an evening per week to himself. Grenouille takes the opportunity to traverse Paris and track scents, and feels free for the first time. One night, while the city of Paris is setting off fireworks in honor of the king, Grenouille catches a whiff of scent that he finds intoxicating. He tracks it to a young teenage girl in the rue de Marais, sitting in a courtyard pitting plums. He strangles her, rips her dress off, and lies with her until her scent is gone. Later that night as he lies in bed, he begins to catalogue his scents into good and bad. Giuseppe Baldini is an elderly perfumer whose business is going downhill. He's been tasked with impregnating skins for a count with the perfume Amor and Psyche by his rival, Pélissier, and rather than purchase the perfume, he wishes to copy it. After two hours of trying to ascertain the different ingredients, Baldini gives up and decides to sell his business and move to Messina. Then he hears the servant's bell ring, and when he answers the door, it's Grenouille delivering the skins from Grimal. This is the first time that Grenouille has been in a perfumer's shop, and he asks Baldini to take him on as an apprentice. When Baldini scoffs at the idea, Grenouille says that he can create Amor and Psyche. Baldini grants Grenouille the opportunity to mix the perfume. Grenouille's technique is offensive to Baldini, but when Baldini finally yells for Grenouille to stop, he smells Amor and Psyche. Baldini, awestruck, allows Grenouille to make the perfume better and as Grenouille leaves, Baldini says he'll think about taking on Grenouille. The next day Baldini purchases Grenouille's service from Grimal. Grimal gets very drunk as he celebrates what he thinks is the best deal of his life. While drunk, he slips and drowns in the Seine. Grenouille sets to work creating a number of fantastic perfumes for Baldini, and Baldini's business grows. Baldini teaches Grenouille how to use the alembic to distill herbs and spices, and once Grenouille has a grasp of the process, Baldini allows him to distill other items. When Grenouille fails to create the scent of doorknobs or water using the distilling process, he falls deathly ill and is diagnosed with syphilitic measles. Baldini is distraught, as he is planning to expand his business and needs Grenouille to do so. Finally, Grenouille asks Baldini about other methods of extracting scent. Baldini explains that there are several other methods, all superior to distillation, and the town of Grasse is the capital of these processes. Grenouille then miraculously recovers. Three years later, Baldini has risen to international fame with his perfumes and he grants Grenouille journeyman's papers and allows him to leave his service. He makes Grenouille promise to never recreate his perfumes and never to return to Paris, which Grenouille agrees to. That night, Baldini's shop, which sits on a bridge, falls into the river, drowning Baldini and his wife. As Grenouille travels towards Grasse, he finds the purer air outside the city very welcoming, and grows more and more sensitive to the scent of humans. He begins to seek solitude, traveling only at night, and eventually finds himself at a volcano in the most remote region of France. When Grenouille realizes he's completely alone, he decides to stay. He finds a cave big enough to sleep in and a small stream of water, and stays there for seven years. He spends his days daydreaming in his inner palace, sowing pleasant scents during the day and sipping the scent of the girl from the rue de Marais at night. One day, Grenouille suffers a terrible dream in which an oppressive fog of Grenouille's personal smell attempts to suffocate him, and he realizes he has no scent. Disturbed and terrified, Grenouille sets about attempting to ascertain if he indeed has no scent. He discovers that he is scentless and leaves the mountain. Grenouille encounters humanity in a small village, where his story that he was abducted by robbers and kept in a cave is brought to the attention of the marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse, who developed the theory of fluidium vitale/letale. The theory states that gases in the earth are poisonous, while gases from "earth removed" regions are healing. Grenouille proves a perfect subject for study, and the marquis makes Grenouille a subject of a lecture he gives and also has Grenouille eat purifying foods for a week and gives him new clothes. Grenouille finds that he looks extremely normal. One day, when the marquis attempts to dust him with violet perfume, Grenouille stages a fainting spell and tells the marquis that the perfume is from the earth and poisonous. The marquis contacts a local perfumer and Grenouille is allowed to use his shop to create a new perfume. The perfume Grenouille creates is a faux human scent. He decides to test it in the town and finds that the townsfolk regard him as a normal person now that he smells. Grenouille feels like a genius. The marquis' next lecture is a sensation, as Grenouille's perfume garners sympathy from the audience. A few weeks later, Grenouille departs the city and heads for Grasse. While wandering the city, he comes across a scent very much like the girl from the rue de Marais, and Grenouille decides he must possess this scent. He finds employment under Madame Arnulfi and her journeyman Druot, and in their shop he learns how to obtain scent from flowers using animal fat. Over the winter, Grenouille begins to experiment and creates several human-scented perfumes for himself. He's also able to successfully create a perfume of a brass doorknob. He moves on to animals, but finds that he must kill them before he can be successful. Finally he moves onto human subjects by placing small pieces of oily cloth in public places, which soak up human scent and creates the perfume of people. Dreaming one night about the scent of the girl in the garden, Grenouille suffers the unpleasant thought that even if he does possess her scent, it will eventually run out. He decides that to make it go further, he needs to create a mixed perfume rather than use her scent in its concentrated form. That spring and summer, 24 beautiful young girls in Grasse are systematically murdered by a blow to the head, and are then stripped of their clothes and have their hair shaved off. Terror erupts in the town, especially when it's discovered that the girls are virgins. The murders only stop after the bishop in the town excommunicates the unknown murderer. Antoine Richis, a widower and the second consul of Grasse, doesn't trust that this peace will last, and doesn't believe the rumors that the murderer has moved on to the nearby Grenoble. His daughter, Laure, has just turned 16 and is immensely beautiful. After a nightmare in which Laure is murdered by the serial murderer, Richis decides that she must be a target still for the murderer. He immediately makes plans to smuggle Laure out of the city and marry her off, as then she'd be protected by having lost her virginity. Richis and Laure leave early that morning. Grenouille, meanwhile, had been preparing to take Laure's scent that night. But when he steps outside, he finds he cannot smell her and panics. Druot in passing mentions that Richis and Laure left for Grenoble. Grenouille packs his supplies and tracks the runaways. When he reaches La Napoule, he comes to an inn where Richis and Laure are sleeping. He convinces the innkeeper to let him sleep in the barn. That night, Grenouille creeps in through Laure's window, clubs her, and wraps her in his oil-drenched cloth to steal her scent. He sits and watches her for hours. At daybreak, he unrolls her, packages up the cloth with her scented oil, and leaves. Antoine Richis discovers her body later that morning. Several days later, Grenouille is arrested. The police find the hair and dresses of the 25 victims in Grenouille's cabin and display this evidence in the church square. His trial proceeds quickly and he's sentenced to death. The parade grounds are prepared for the execution and citizens prepare as though for a holiday. On the day of the execution, the grounds fill with thousands of people, and Grenouille is brought in a carriage to protect him from a mob. As Grenouille exits the carriage, he is wearing the perfume he made from the 25 virgins he murdered, and the crowd is gripped with the thought that Grenouille cannot possibly be a murderer. The effect of Grenouille's perfume then incites an orgy. Grenouille feels like a god, but soon his glee descends into disgust for humans and he begins to faint. Antoine Richis runs to Grenouille. When Grenouille wakes later, he finds himself in Laure's bed and Richis asks Grenouille to be his son. The verdict has been overturned, and Druot is arrested and executed for the murders. Grenouille travels back to Paris, thinking that he wants to die. When he arrives after midnight, he walks to the Cimetière des Innocents, where vagabonds are gathered. He joins the group and then pours his last bottle of perfume over himself. The group converges on Grenouille and attacks him, tearing his body to bits and eating it. When Grenouille is gone, the group is embarrassed, but everyone feels like they have finally done something out of love.

- Genre: Novel of manners - Title: Persuasion - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: Kellynch Hall, Uppercross Manor, Lyme, and Bath (all in England). - Character: Anne Elliot. Description: The protagonist of the novel, Anne Elliot is the sensible, gentle, and capable middle daughter of the aristocratic Elliot family at Kellynch Hall. Unlike her vain and spendthrift father, she possesses a calm mind and kind heart resembling her deceased mother. She is often overlooked by her superficial father and sister, who prize beauty, wealth, and blood above subtler character graces. While Anne also possesses a sense of family pride, it is moderated by her recognition of the deeper dignity of integrity, honor, and charity. Though Anne harbors a steadfast and passionate love for Captain Wentworth, she yields to the persuasion of her mentor and friend, Lady Russell, prioritizing duty and prudence in breaking off the engagement with her beloved. She poses a mature, compassionate, and levelheaded contrast to the younger Musgrove daughters, as she balances the humble consideration of others' feelings and advice with her own dedication to principle, practicality, and duty. - Character: Captain Frederick Wentworth. Description: The love interest of Anne Elliot, Captain Wentworth is a passionate, confident, and good-hearted naval officer who makes his own fortune and rank through the Navy. Though he is initially indignant and angry with what he perceives to be Anne's "weak will" and "ill-usage" of him in breaking off their engagement, he comes to appreciate her careful consideration of duty and recognize the error of his stubborn pride in separating them. His view of what the most important virtues in a woman are change throughout the novel, as he first prizes firmness of character above all else and later realizes the virtue of flexibility and conscientiousness. - Character: Mr. William Elliot. Description: The cousin of Anne Elliot and Sir Walter's heir, Mr. Elliot is a duplicitous and charming gentleman. After making his fortune from his first marriage, he seeks the baronetcy that he previously scorned by marrying Anne. Although he makes himself agreeable to everyone and is admired by Anne herself, she rightly suspects his past—one that involves considerable greed, callousness, and even cruelty. - Character: Lady Russell. Description: Anne's friend and mentor, Lady Russell served as a maternal figure after her best friend Lady Elliot, Anne's real mother, passed away. Lady Russell is a good-hearted and sensible woman, though she possesses her own prejudices in favor of the aristocratic class that she herself comes from. She advises Anne to break off her engagement with Captain Wentworth, who she believes is below Anne. - Character: Elizabeth Elliot. Description: The eldest Elliot daughter, Elizabeth resembles her father in good looks and vanity. She is the baronet's favorite child, and she possesses a similar sense of self-importance and indifference to Anne. Despite her beauty and superficial charms, she remains unmarried at the end of the novel; there is some suggestion that her pride has prevented her from acknowledging anyone to be an eligible match, except her father's heir, Mr. Elliot, who has no desire to marry her. - Character: Mary Elliot Musgrove. Description: Mary is the youngest Elliot daughter and married to Charles Musgrove with two children. While she is not as vain and unjust to Anne's merits as Elizabeth, she does possess a strong dose of "Elliot pride." Petulant and self-absorbed, she often imagines herself sick or slighted, and she is a rather irresponsible mother. Her family often finds her complaints and arrogance wearisome. - Character: Charles Musgrove. Description: The husband of Mary, Charles is the eldest son of the respectable Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove, whose landed property and general importance are second only to Sir Walter's in the region. Although Anne was his first choice, he good-naturedly endures his wife's temperament and possesses a number of other amiable qualities, though he spends most of his time on sport. - Character: Louisa Musgrove. Description: Louisa is Charles's younger sister and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove. Just returned from boarding school, she is generally accomplished and carefree. She is exuberant and headstrong, but also very impressionable in matters of the heart, as she easily shifts her passions from Captain Wentworth to Captain Benwick. - Character: Mr. & Mrs. Musgrove. Description: The parents of Charles, Henrietta, and Louisa, Mr. and Mrs. Musgroves are a happy and homey couple. A landed family second in their parish only to the Elliots, they live in the Great House at Uppercross. Unlike the Elliots, however, their household is cheerful, bustling, and unpretentious: they value the happiness of their children of their ascension through social climbing. - Character: Captain Benwick. Description: The friend of Captain Wentworth from the navy, Captain Benwick is scholarly and reserved. He was engaged to Captain Harville's sister, Fanny, who passed away while he was at sea. Despite his melancholy manner, he gets over his mourning with some help from Anne and pretty soon afterwards falls in love with Louisa Musgrove. - Character: Admiral and Mrs. Croft. Description: Admiral and Mrs. Croft are a warm and well-matched couple, who move into Kellynch Hall after Sir Walter and Elizabeth depart for Bath due to debts. Mrs. Croft accompanies the Admiral on all of his journeys at sea, and it is clear that they have a loving and equitable marriage; they are one of the few models of real marital happiness in Austen's novel. - Character: Mrs. Clay. Description: Mr. Shepherd's daughter and Elizabeth's good friend. She is a widow of low birth and rather unattractive. However, she knows how to flatter those of higher rank and wheedles her way into Elizabeth and Sir Walter's intimate circle; Anne worries that she may even work her way into Sir Walter's affections through skillful social manipulation. - Character: Lady Elliot. Description: Sir Walter's wife and Anne's mother, Lady Elliot is already deceased at the start of the novel. She was a gentle, kind, and capable woman who anxiously cared for her children and softened her husband's flaws during her lifetime. She relied on her best friend, Lady Russell, for advice and support. - Theme: Status and Social Class. Description: Persuasion, like many of Austen's novels, is a study in 18th century English society, and its nuances of class rigidity and social mobility. Status and independence are composed of a combination of wealth, ancestry, and occupation: certain characters achieve independence through marrying into wealth, as is the case with Mr. William Elliot's first marriage, while others such as Captain Frederick Wentworth achieve status and wealth through climbing the Naval ranks. Sir Walter Elliot prides himself on his "ancient and respectable" lineage, baronetcy, and wealthy estate; he is greatly preoccupied that his manner of living and ensuring that the people with whom his family associates will befit his high status, although these concerns lead him into excessive debt and undiscerning connections. Considerations of class also affect characters of less vanity and more prudence, such as Lady Russell and the protagonist Anne Elliot. Lady Russell judiciously advises Anne about the importance of marrying a man who matches her station and can adequately provide for her, and, based on this counsel, Anne conscientiously refrains from marrying the man she loves. Austen's novel—for all of its romantic wisdom about matching temperaments and love in marriage—also highlights and supports the importance of "marrying well" as a concern that none of the characters can escape, and one that inevitably takes into considerations of class and wealth. Status and social class both motivate and restrict the actions that characters are able to take in fulfilling their desires. From the start of the novel, Sir Walter Elliot's vanity and luxurious spending in order to live according to his status leads him into financial debt and require him to rent his estate. Mr. William Elliot is motivated to marry Anne out of a lately developed appreciation for his inheritance and baronetcy. Captain Wentworth strikes out to sea in order to make his fortunes through the Navy.One of the most striking examples of how status and class influence agency is in the tragedy of Mrs. Smith, Anne's girlhood friend who is crippled by debt, widowhood, and illness. In the eyes of society, she has essentially nothing and relies on the more privileged Anne's kindness, friendship, and charity. - Theme: Marriage. Description: Written in the last years of Austen's life, Persuasion is arguably the author's most mature and sober marriage plot. The novel critiques the heady impulses of youth displayed by Louisa Musgrove in favor of the more quiet and prudent considerations of Anne Elliot in matters of marriage and romance. For women, who were often barred from owning property and faced significant limitations in employment, marriage was particularly critical as both the expected social norm and the often necessary means of attaining financial security and social status. Even the arrogant and beautiful Elizabeth Elliot, who is secure in her fortune and her father's love, finds herself unsettled and anxious over becoming a spinster at the age of twenty-nine; nonetheless, her pride rules out all potential suitors and she remains the only single Elliot daughter at the novel's conclusion.Unlike many of Austen's other novels of youthful first romance, the focal drama of the narrative revolves around Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, whose early romance was ended under the persuasion of prudence, yet which rekindles seven years later after deeper consideration and appreciation of their suitability for each other. The passing of these seven years also changes the reality of Anne's marital prospects (she's no longer young) and perspective, even as it renders this novel one of Austen's more mature narratives. At the same time, Anne's prudent concerns about social class and wealth in marriage by no means disappear during these years, yet the passage of time allows Wentworth to rise to Anne's fortune and status. Nonetheless, those concerns are put into perspective, as Anne and Wentworth's match is ultimately one of developed love and recognition of each other's merits—Captain Wentworth, in particular, learns to prize the very prudence and humility that he once resented in Anne.Austen's view of marriage is both romantic and realistic, prudent and nuanced, rather like her character Anne. Austen in the novel illustrates how marriage is an agent of social change for both men and women. Options are influenced by the characters' status and class (as when characters reject or pursue matches to consolidate their social standing), even as marriage also influences status and class. Sir Walter Elliot approves of his daughter Mary Elliot's marriage to Charles Musgrove, because he regards the latter as from the best family in the county second only to his own. Yet although Sir Walter Elliot believes Mary's lineage places the advantage of the match to be on Charles's side, we see that Charles's superior good nature and patience with his wife's pettiness render the real advantage to her: Austen affirms the greater importance of character qualities over status in marital happiness. - Theme: Gender Inequality. Description: Persuasion reveals the limited sphere of choice available to women in Austen's era. In the case of the female characters, marriage represents the most viable option for a woman to live a good life. Women's influence, in this sense, lies largely in their relation to men—to attract, reject, and accept their proposals of marriage. The comparatively sober tone of the novel results in part from the protagonist's reality that she is past her prime; even Lady Russell, who once advised her to refrain from marrying below her station, grows concerned for Anne Elliot as she remains single years later.There is an undeniable double standard around gender in the novel. Sir Walter Elliot and Lady Russell are both widowed, yet the narrator tells us that society would regard it as normal for Sir Walter to remarry, even as it discourages second marriages for women. Were it not for Lady Russell's great wealth and position, she would herself be socially vulnerable as a widow. The impoverished widow Mrs. Smith reveals the plight of women who are unsupported by men or fortune.The divergent paths of Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot after the dissolution of their early romance also illustrate gender limitations: Captain Wentworth is able to leave the country, make his fortune, and return with even more viable marriage prospects. Indeed, when he returns to England he becomes the object of admiration of not one but three women: Louisa Musgrove, Henrietta Musgrove, and Anne Elliot. Anne, in contrast, "loses her bloom" and has no resources of mobility or occupation to heal and grow but the slow passing of time—which also reduces her marital prospects. - Theme: Persuasion. Description: The novel begins and returns repeatedly to the question of whether it is wise to be influenced by the concerns and counsel of others, or to remain fixed in one's convictions and impulses. Anne Elliot reveals her disposition for the former when she dissolves her relationship with Captain Wentworth on the advice of her good friend and mentor Lady Russell. Seven years later, Anne experiences unrelenting regret over her decision and becomes convinced that she would have been happier marrying Captain Wentworth as his predictions for his fortunes come true—suggesting that she has learned to favor romance over her initial prudence at her friend's persuasion.However, the narrative ultimately complicates the virtues of a headstrong conviction in favor of the value of persuasion. When Captain Wentworth returns, he extols the virtue of a woman who will not listen to others but forges her own way—alluding with some bitterness to his experience with Anne's willingness to be persuaded from marrying him by Lady Russell. After observing Louisa Musgrove's disregard for the advice of others lead to great distress, though, he revises his opinion: such heedlessness reflects not only a foolish and arrogant inattention to the wisdom of others, but also fails to prove any true steadfastness in love. Ultimately, Anne's receptivity to others comes to seem as a complement to her persevering love for Captain Wentworth, who in turn becomes persuaded of Anne's merit. - Climax: Mrs. Smith's revelation of Mr. Elliot's past and scheme to marry Anne to become heir of the Kellynch baronetcy. - Summary: The novel opens with the vain Sir Walter, baronet of Kellynch Hall, poring over the Elliot family history. His wife passed away fourteen years ago, leaving behind three daughters: the youngest daughter, Mary, is married to the wealthy Charles Musgrove. Proud and beautiful Elizabeth is the eldest and her father's favorite; Anne is gentle and sweet, but often overlooked by her father and sister. Their mother's best friend, Lady Russell, helped Sir Walter raise his children. She remains a close and trusted family friend and maternal figure for Anne. The Elliots are an aristocratic, land-owning family. They have fallen into debt due to Sir Walter's extravagant spending, and under the counsel of Lady Russell and Mr. Shepherd the family lawyer they rent their estate to Admiral and Mrs. Croft and move to Bath. Admiral and Mrs. Croft are a respectable, well-off, and well-mannered Navy couple of good character. Despite Sir Walter's initial reservations about the Navy as a profession that socially elevates lowborn men, he is pleased to have tenants of respectable social standing. The arrival of Mrs. Croft stirs powerful memories for Anne, as she is the sister of Captain Wentworth. Eight years ago, Anne and Captain Wentworth fell in love and were engaged to be married; however, Lady Russell, who believed the match to be foolish and unsuitable, as Captain Wentworth had no fortune or rank, persuaded Anne to break off the engagement. Anne anticipates seeing him in the country again. While Sir Walter, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Clay (Elizabeth's close friend and a widow of lower rank) travel to Bath, Anne visits her sister Mary at Uppercross to help her out and keep her company. Mary is self-absorbed and complains frequently; her husband, Charles, is good-natured and patient. The rest of the Musgrove family live nearby at the Great House; Anne finds them refreshingly unpretentious, cheerful, and warm. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove have two grown daughters, Henrietta and Louisa. Captain Wentworth arrives to visit his sister, Mrs. Croft, and quickly becomes a favorite among the Musgroves. He treats Anne with cold indifference, leading her to the painful conclusion that he no longer loves her. He flirts instead with Louisa and Henrietta, who are quite smitten with him. The party meets Captain and Mrs. Harville, friends of Captain Wentworth, and Captain Benwick at Lyme. On one of their walks, they encounter a gentleman who openly admires Anne—he is later discovered to be Mr. Elliot, Sir Walter's estranged heir. When Louisa takes a bad fall because of her stubborn impulsiveness, Anne directs the others to care for her. The Harvilles kindly nurse Louisa over the next few months; Captain Wentworth feels responsible for the accident and stays for a time in Lyme. Anne and Lady Russell join Sir Walter and Elizabeth in Bath. They learn that Mr. Elliot is in Bath and made great efforts to reconcile with the family. He is universally charming and continues to express great admiration for Anne, who finds him sensible and well-mannered though neither open nor warm. Admiral and Mrs. Croft arrive in Bath with the surprising news that Louisa is engaged to Captain Benwick and Henrietta to Charles Hayter, her cousin. Captain Wentworth is completely unattached; he arrives in Bath soon after, and it becomes evident that he is jealous of Mr. Elliot's attentions to Anne. Lady Russell believes Mr. Elliot to be a perfect match for her beloved Anne, but Anne remains suspicious of Mr. Elliot's past. She continues to harbor a steadfast and unwavering love for Captain Wentworth. During her time at Bath, Anne reconnects with an old school friend, Mrs. Smith, who has fallen on hard times. The crippled, impoverished, and widowed Mrs. Smith informs her of Mr. Elliot's dark past: he betrayed Mrs. Smith's husband and wronged Mrs. Smith financially, and he now plans to marry Anne because he is fearful that he will lose the baronetcy if Mrs. Clay marries Sir Walter, and the marriage to Anne would ensure his inheritance. Anne is appalled that she was almost persuaded to marry Mr. Elliot by Lady Russell. Captain Wentworth writes a letter professing his continued devotion for Anne. Anne is shaken and ecstatic; they renew their vows and engagement to each other. Eight years in the navy have elevated Captain Wentworth in fortune and social rank; he is now an eligible match for the daughter of a foolish and spendthrift baronet. Sir Walter poses no objection to their marriage, and Lady Russell also comes to accept and befriend Captain Wentworth. Mr. Elliot is shocked and disappointed; he leaves Bath with Mrs. Clay, whose affections he has turned away from Sir Walter. Anne and Captain Wentworth finally enjoy a mature marriage with an appreciation and tenderness enhanced by their long years apart.

- Genre: Children's novel. - Title: Peter Pan - Point of view: First person omniscient. - Setting: London and Neverland. - Character: Peter Pan. Description: a magical, arrogant boy who will never grow up. Many parents look at their children and wish, along with Mrs. Darling: "Oh, why can't you remain like this forever!" And many children look at their parents with anxious appraisal and wish for the same thing. Peter Pan is the wish come true. Like all abstractions, he is in equal parts wonderful and terrifying. His immortality and wildness carry him to the dazzling limits of experience, but they take him away from its center, a safe, warm, and secluded place like the nursery. Peter has no fears, so he feels no desire for safety, and he has no memory, so he doesn't understand change or loss. And there is something else he does not have, though it is an emptiness that is more difficult to name. For convenience, J. M. Barrie calls it 'heartlessness', because without it there can't be anything like love. - Character: Wendy. Description: The eldest Darling child, a "tidy," practical girl with a soft spot in her heart for orphaned or abandoned creatures. From an early age, Wendy seems naturally disposed to care for others. When the lost boys tell her that they need "a nice motherly person," Wendy replies happily, "I feel that is exactly what I am": she is clearly delighted to complete this symmetry, to be no more and no less. But we also catch glimpses of a very different Wendy, hiding awkwardly behind the "motherly person." This other Wendy tries over and over for the 'kiss' in the corner of Mrs. Darling's mouth, the kiss she "could never get," though Peter takes it without trying. She wants to fly and play with mermaids and say "funny things to the stars." And when she has grown into the mother she was always becoming, the other Wendy wants desperately for the "woman" whom she now lives inside to "let go" of her. Perhaps that desire will one day turn into a hopeless, mysterious 'kiss' of her own, forbidden to her own daughter as her mother's was forbidden to her. - Character: Captain Jas. Hook. Description: The pirates' fearsome leader. When we first meet Hook, he is a classic storybook villain: evil, hairy, and merciless, cruel even to his own crew. He despises Peter and the other children, and dreams of killing them all. Yet from the very beginning we are made to understand that Hook is not quite an ordinary pirate. His greatest viciousness is expressed via politeness, his eyes are an intelligent, "melancholy" blue, and on close examination he looks like a distant member of the British royal family. Before Hook was a pirate, he belonged to a well-known family and attended a prestigious high school. His love for piracy and senseless violence is tempered by a nostalgia for simple ordinary propriety, for a sense of belonging in conventional society. Like the Darling children and the lost boys, he secretly longs to return to the real world, dreary as it may be. - Character: Mrs. Darling. Description: The children's mother, and the narrator's favorite, Mrs. Darling is a lovely, cheerful woman with a mysterious "kiss" in the corner of her mouth, like some leftover childhood magic. She adores her children and loves to care for them, and pines away when they leave her. To see them come home again is her greatest happiness. - Character: Mr. Darling. Description: A fussy, responsible family man. In the beginning of the story, Mr. Darling is always very practical, concerned primarily with money and keeping up appearances. Though he is sometimes childish and insecure, he demands respect from his wife and children, and usually they happily oblige him. But sometimes, when his feelings are hurt, he loses his temper and acts unfairly. He changes quite a lot after the children fly away: his guilt makes him re-examine his behavior and values, and he becomes more cheerful, easy-going, and sentimental, even "quixotic." Missing his children brings him back to his own childhood. - Character: John. Description: The middle Darling child. John tends to be cautious and conservative, a little ill-tempered, and sometimes cowardly. Wendy tells us that he "despises" girls, and he somewhat resents Peter for his kingly manner. In some ways, he greatly resembles Mr. Darling – he is precocious in the pettier aspects of manhood. - Character: Tinker Bell. Description: A tiny fairy companion to Peter Pan, a beautiful girl with a voice like a bell and a very sharp tongue. She fixes kitchenware and loves Peter jealously and intensely. She despises any girl that lays claim on Peter's affections, especially Wendy, and can be quite violent. She loves Peter so much that she almost dies to save his life. - Theme: Children and Heartlessness. Description: When Jane asks Wendy why she can longer fly, Wendy explains that only children can fly – "only the gay and innocent and heartless." Peter and Wendy is a love song to children, but it is also a sad reproof, and a bitter clarification about what childhood and children are really like. Boring fairy tales and fatuous mothers like to pretend that children are little angels, but really children are selfish, conceited, and callous. These "rubbishy children" are very loveable, but they don't deserve our love. The narrator tries hard to assume this severe stance, but he falters again and again. He is charmed by Michael's sleepy babble, by Slightly's transparent pretensions, even by John's bad temper; and he admires Wendy's precocious seriousness and Peter's wild bouts of courage. What exactly does the narrator mean when he calls children "heartless"? The Neverland children are full of enthusiasm and joy, they are full of sadness, fear, and certainly admiration: "I'm glad of you," Michael says touchingly to his mother. What is missing?Children can feel "glad of" many things, but they don't feel loyal to anything. They are always ready to abandon their loved ones. They haven't learned yet that a loved person may change or disappear if one turns away from them: they haven't learned to identify the gladness of love with fear of loss. Their heartlessness is in fact an aspect of their innocence. And their adult hearts will be the reward of experience: when Peter's cautionary tale about mothers makes the Darling children realize that the parents they are glad of may one day disappear from their lives, they feel a sad ache, an early sign of the adult heart. Peter has felt the ache many times in his long life and he has always forgotten it. His forgetfulness protects him from loss, and so allows him to stay a child forever. The cause of this forgetfulness is one of the book's most pressing mysteries: children are heartless from inexperience, but it may be that Peter is heartless by choice. - Theme: Motherhood. Description: Peter Pan is the novel's hero, a boy so charming and brave that even his enemies find it difficult not to love him. Yet it is Mrs. Darling whom the narrator loves best. And it seems as though everyone but Mrs. Darling is fixated on mothers: Wendy, who wants to become one, Peter, who wants not to need one, the lost boys, who want simply to know one, and even the pirates, who admit with a dash of longing that a mother is like a Never bird who would die to save her eggs. And all but Peter agree that a mother is a person miraculously gifted at measureless, selfless love. They know that motherhood's dullest chores are all tuned to some sort of white magic, and that magic inspires in them a confused awe.Mothers and children are bound by a painful symmetry, at once a likeness and a fierce deadlock. The sublime extreme of a mother's love is an inversion of the sublime extreme of children's indifference, children who are "ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones." The magic of motherly love is commensurate to children's "heartless" magic, a likeness that creates deep sympathy between them. But the mother's magic quietly transforms the child: a mother longs to change a creature incapable of love into a person who can return love, a person no longer "gay, innocent, and heartless," a person who can no longer fly. Motherly magic envelops children's magic and slowly, lovingly wears it away. Peter distrusts mothers because he believes that his own mother betrayed him, but he dislikes them because they turn children into adults. "Keep back, lady," he yells at Mrs. Darling: "no one is going to catch me and make me a man." This an odd remark: one would assume time to be the primary culprit, along with schools and workdays. But Peter is wiser than he may seem, and less innocent. Peter dislikes mothers because he knows that, in loving his magic, they would eventually take it away. Mothers know this too, and it is this awful knowledge that makes us love them. - Theme: The Fantastic and the Commonplace. Description: An aerial view of the novel would show two distinct worlds: the ordinary, rule-bound adult world and the wild, magical child world, separated by several days' flying. An aerial view of a person's life might show a similar partitioning. But a closer look at the novel shows a different geography, and a different economy of magic. The adult and child worlds, the ordinary and the magical, are always in close contact. Sometimes they even exchange roles, like the lost boys and the indians, who sometimes "in the middle of a fight … would suddenly change sides." In the adult world there is Mrs. Darling, who rearranges her children's minds at night; there are night-lights who "yawn" and sometimes fall asleep, and stars who shout things like: "Now, Peter!" There is a dog who behaves like a lady, and a man who sleeps in a kennel. Sometimes Neverland "comes too near" the adult world and strange boys break through. And in Neverland there are fairies who fix kitchenware, and pirates who worry about their outfits; there are times when the game of ordinary life is a more fantastic adventure than any of the wonders of imagination. The tragedy of growing up is qualified, minimized, by its partial but continual postponement. No one ever entirely grows up. - Theme: Fairness and Good Form. Description: Fairness and good form are two names for Peter's elusive quality of moral excellence, an excellence limited to various sorts of games. The narrator tends to prefer 'fairness,' and Hook, in his obsession with the British variant of aristocratic formality, names it 'good form'. These two terms bookend the whole spectrum of Peter's excellence: his insistence on "fighting fair," on maintaining equality between opponents, on the one hand, and his blissful unselfconsciousness on the other: "Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form." The two qualities fully come together in Peter's last fight with Hook, where he maintains both perfect fairness (when Hook drops his sword, Peter graciously hands it him) and a sort of gallant nonchalance. Peter is arrogant at times, but during public contests or games he is overcome by a blind devotion to the principle of fairness, accompanied by a flash of indifference to himself. It ceases to matter how "wonderful" and exceptional he may be; he is simply a contestant acting in accordance with a certain idea of justice. His self-regard is replaced by respect for a social organizing principle—the rules of the game and of fairness. It seems absurd for Hook to suspect Peter of 'good form' – compliance with social conventions – because Peter seems wild and unsocialized, like Mowgli from the Jungle Book. He runs away because he "wants always to have fun" – to do just what he feels like. He runs away to escape integrating into a society that would frequently force him to act against his will and his pleasure. How, then, does the prince of Neverland come to be so devoted to the notion of justice, a trait and consequence of civilization? Hook admires Peter because his fairness is not deliberate, but intuitive, internal and inevitable - "the very pinnacle of good form." Peter takes himself out of civilization only to create one inside himself. To run away from one form of adulthood is to run face-first into another. - Climax: Peter's defeat of Hook. - Summary: The story begins in the nursery of Darling home, where Mrs. Darling is "sorting through her children's minds" at bedtime. She is surprised to find that all the children have been thinking of someone named Peter Pan. When Mrs. Darling asks about this mysterious boy, Wendy explains that Peter sometimes visits them when they're asleep. One night, when she is resting in the nursery, Mrs. Darling wakes up to find that Peter Pan has indeed come to visit. When Peter notices an adult in the room, he jumps out the window, but the children's canine nanny, Nana, traps his shadow inside the room. A few nights later, when the Darlings are dressing for a party, Mr. Darling quarrels slightly with the children and ties Nana in the yard, to everyone's dismay. When the Darling parents leave for the party, the children are left unguarded, and Peter and Tinker Bell fly into the nursery. They are looking for Peter's shadow, which Mrs. Darling had hidden away in a drawer. When Tink gives Peter the shadow, Peter finds that he can't get it to stay on. His bitter crying wakes Wendy, who quickly sews the shadow on for him. Peter confesses that he has been listening in on the children's bedtime stories so that he could repeat them to the lost boys. He asks Wendy to come with him to Neverland, where she could go on adventures and be a mother to all the little boys. Wendy hesitates, but finally agrees. Peter teaches all three Darling children how to fly and they set off to Neverland. After flying for several days and nights, they finally spot the island on the horizon. The island seems dark and dangerous. Pirates who also inhabit the island fire a gun at the group and everyone flies in different directions. Tinker Bell, who is jealous of Peter and Wendy's new friendship, uses the opportunity to try and get rid of Wendy: she tells the lost boys to shoot Wendy, and Wendy almost dies. But soon everything is well: Peter returns, and Wendy agrees to be the boys' mother. She cooks and cleans and mends clothes, and she has a wonderful time with it. The boys all love to have regular mealtimes and bedtimes, like regular little boys. Peter takes them on many wonderful adventures. One night, Wendy is telling the boys their favorite bedtime story: it describes three children who flew away to Neverland, and who returned many years later to find their mother and father waiting for them with open arms. Peter doesn't like the story: he reluctantly explains that his own mother did not wait for him. Wendy becomes very upset and decides to take John and Michael home immediately. She invites all the boys to come, but Peter coldly declines. As it happens, the pirates are waiting just above the children's underground house. When Wendy and the rest come out, they are all captured and taken to the pirate ship. Meanwhile, Peter is lying in bed asleep. Captain Hook, the leader of the pirates, slips down into the lost boys' house and poisons Peter's medicine. When Peter wakes up, Tinker Bell tries to warn him about the poison, but he doesn't believe her; at the last moment, she drinks the medicine herself. She grows weaker and weaker, but she is saved by the sound of children clapping all around the world. When she is well again, Peter sets out to save the others. Hook and his crew have returned to the ship. They are about to make the children walk the plank, when suddenly they hear the ticking of the crocodile – the same crocodile that has been trying to eat Hook. The children see that it is Peter who is ticking, not the crocodile. Peter slips onto the ship, and in the ensuing confusion he and the children kill most of the pirates. When only Hook is left, Peter fences with him and finally throws him to the crocodile waiting in the water. Soon, the Darling children come home to London. Mr. and Mrs. Darling are overjoyed, and they adopt all the lost boys except Peter, who returns to Neverland. Peter promises to take Wendy back to Neverland every year to do his spring cleaning, but he comes for her only twice. Wendy and the other boys grow up. The boys get ordinary jobs, and Wendy marries and has a daughter named Jane. One day, Peter returns: he wants to take Wendy to do his spring cleaning, but she is too big to fly, so he takes Jane instead. When Jane grows up, he comes every so often for Jane's daughter, and so on forever.

- Genre: Crossover Young Adult/Literary Fiction - Title: Pigeon English - Point of view: Harri Opoku, with occasional interludes from the perspective of the pigeon - Setting: A fictional neighborhood in London, UK - Character: Harrison Opoku (Harri). Description: Harrison Opoku, nicknamed "Harri," is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. He is eleven years old, in Year 7 at school, and has recently moved to London from Accra, Ghana. He is curious, good-natured, and innocent, although at times finds it difficult to maintain this innocence in the face of pervasive peer pressure, crime, and violence. Harri is notable for overlooking prejudice; he loves pigeons even though other characters think they are dirty, and he befriends Altaf, who is shunned by the other kids for being Somali. Harri experiences prejudice as a recent immigrant from Ghana, along with the anti-black racism of characters like Vilis. To deflect and combat such bullying, Harri considers X-Fire's invitation to join the Dell Farm Crew. However, Harri knows that the DFC's actions fundamentally oppose the Christian values he was raised with. Harri has an antagonistic relationship with his older sister Lydia, although it is also clear that they also love each other very much. He adores his baby sister Agnes and looks up to Papa. He cannot wait until the family is reunited in London. Harri has a crush on Poppy Morgan, and eventually they become boyfriend and girlfriend—a relationship that is filled with innocence and joy. Alongside his friend Dean, Harri investigates the dead boy's murder. This eventually gets them into trouble with the Dell Farm Crew and (implicitly) leads Harri to being stabbed and killed at the end of the novel by an unknown attacker—likely Killa. - Character: The Dead Boy. Description: The dead boy, who is never named, was a boy a few years older than Harri who was stabbed to death outside Chicken Joe's. The reader learns fairly little about the dead boy other than that he loved Chelsea Football Club and possibly had a white girlfriend, who appears in the picture that Dean and Harri find of him. The motivations behind the dead boy's murder emerge over the course of the novel. At first, Harri thinks the dead boy was stabbed simply so someone could steal his Chicken Joe's, but it eventually becomes clear that Killa stabbed him because he was "fronting" and disrespecting the Dell Farm Crew. - Character: X-Fire. Description: X-Fire is a student at Harri's school and the leader of the Dell Farm Crew. He is the leader because he has the best at basketball, has stolen the most things, and has stabbed the most people. At first X-Fire is kinder to Harri than the other members of the Dell Farm Crew, nicknaming him "Ghana" and telling him he's "alright." However, after Harri repeatedly fails to complete the dangerous and illegal "jobs" X-Fire sets for him, X-Fire becomes increasingly irritated and cruel to Harri. X-Fire also has a dog named Harvey, who scares Harri. - Character: Killa. Description: Killa is a member of the Dell Farm Crew and student at Harri's school. He earned the nickname from having stabbed many people, and Harri spends much of the novel suspecting that Killa was the person who murdered the dead boy. Killa starts dating Miquita and treats her badly, burning her hands with a lighter. At the end of the novel, Killa freaks out when Harri and Dean collect his fingerprints and when he finds out that they have a picture of the dead boy. Although it is never specified in the text, it is reasonable to assume that Killa stabs Harri at the end of the novel as a form of revenge and to prevent Harri from telling the police that Killa is the murderer. - Character: Lydia. Description: Lydia is Harri's older sister. Like Harri, she faces pressures to assimilate into London culture, grow up quickly, and demonstrate loyalty to the Dell Farm Crew. These pressures are particularly exerted by her friend Miquita and by X-Fire, who assigns Lydia the task of bleaching blood-stained clothes in the laundromat (which presumably belong to Killa). - Character: Jordan. Description: Jordan is one of Harri's best friends. Like Harri, he lives in Copenhagen House. He is around Harri's age and has been expelled from school. Jordan's mom is white, and Jordan is mixed race. He boasts about his bad behavior, which includes calling an adult "the c— word," stabbing people, and drinking vodka. Mamma forbids Harri from hanging out with Jordan because she believes Jordan is a bad influence, but Harri does so anyway. - Character: Connor Green. Description: Connor Green is a boy in Harri's class who always tells lies, plays tricks, and makes vulgar jokes. At the end of the novel, he reveals that he witnessed Killa stabbing the dead boy. However, in a classic example of "the boy who cried wolf," almost no one believes him because of his usually dishonest nature. - Character: Miquita. Description: Miquita is Killa's girlfriend and a friend of Lydia and Chanelle. She is violent and fiercely loyal to the Dell Farm Crew, which leads her to burn Lydia with a hair straightener and fight Chanelle in the school cafeteria, almost killing her by pushing her through a window. Miquita claims that it was the dead boy's fault he was killed because he was "fronting." She behaves in a sexually aggressive manner with Harri, and after Harri agrees to let her teach him to kiss, she sexually assaults him by forcing his hand down her pants. - Character: Auntie Sonia. Description: Auntie Sonia is Harri's aunt (presumably on Mamma's side, although this is never explicitly specified). She is honest, kind, and generous, and gives Harri and Lydia gifts. She has travelled all over the world, including to America, and once made Will Smith's bed while working as a hotel maid. An undocumented immigrant, she burns off her fingerprints on the stove in order to avoid being detained by border police. She dates a rich, physically abusive man named Julius, who sells fake visas. Eventually she decides to leave the UK (and possibly return to Ghana) in order to escape from him. - Character: Dean. Description: Dean is Harri's best friend from school. Together, the two of them investigate the murder of the dead boy, inspired by Dean's love of the CSI television show. Dean is a redhead and is teased about this by the other kids at school. However, Harri concludes that he "doesn't even care if [Dean] has orange hair. That's what makes him so brainy (a detective's best skill)." - Character: Poppy Morgan. Description: Poppy Morgan is a white girl at Harri's school whom Harri has a crush on. Harri loves Poppy's blonde hair and, after they start dating, calls her "my yellow." Poppy is kind to Harri and kisses him for the first time on the last day of school, just before his death. - Character: Chanelle. Description: Chanelle is a friend of Lydia and Miquita. She and Miquita get into a violent fight in school, and it is implied that this is because Chanelle threatened to tell someone that Killa stabbed the dead boy. Miquita almost kills her by pushing her throw a window, but the teachers intervene. - Character: Fag Ash Lil. Description: Fag Ash Lil is a woman who lives in Harri's tower block, Copenhagen House. Harri believes that she is the oldest person he's ever seen and estimates that she is about "200" years old. She earned her nickname because she picks up used cigarettes from the floor, and there is a rumor that she killed her husband and baked him into a pie. - Character: Altaf. Description: Altaf is a Somali boy also in Year 7 at Harri's school. He is very quiet and doesn't have many friends, in part due to prejudice against Somalis, whom the other kids claim are "pirates." Altaf is also teased about his lips, which are perceived as feminine, earning him the nickname "Gay Lips." Like Mamma, Altaf's mother does not want Altaf to learn about other religions in religious education, and Harri and Altaf strike up a friendship while they sit in the library during RE lessons. Alta loves drawing superheroes, and Harri finds his knowledge about them impressive. Altaf reveals that his father died in a war. - Character: Mr. Frimpong. Description: Mr. Frimpong is an elderly member of Harri's church congregation, presumably also a Ghanaian immigrant. He is very religious and an enthusiastic singer of hymns. The Dell Farm Crew (and an unwilling Harri) rob him, which worries Harri because Mr. Frimpong is "only skinny" and frail. Not only do the boys take his wallet, they also stamp on his groceries and leave him lying helplessly on the ground. - Character: Julius. Description: Julius is the rich man who dates Auntie Sonia. He frequently totes a baseball bat, which he calls "the Persuader," and physically abuses Auntie Sonia, who eventually flees the country to escape from him. At one point, Lydia reveals to Harri that Julius sells fake visas, which is why he's so wealthy. Given that Mamma frequently gives Julius money, the implication is that Harri's family's visa is also fake. - Theme: Home and the Immigrant Experience. Description: When the novel begins, Harri, Mamma, and Lydia have just moved to London from Ghana. As a result, Harri is still in the process of adjusting to life in the UK. This is reflected in his idiosyncratic use of English and his observations about British customs, some of which he finds very strange. Harri tries to settle into his new home, but this task is difficult for several reasons—chief among them is the fact that Papa, Agnes, and Grandma Ama remain back in Ghana. Harri has been promised that the family will soon be reunited in London, at which point London will truly become "home." However, the tragedy of the story lies in the fact that Harri dies before this takes place, at which point the pigeon assures him that he is going "home." Therefore, home is presented as somewhere that is continually deferred. Many of the characters long for home, but the novel suggests that home is more of a myth than a physical place.   Harri makes many observations about the contrast between life in London and life in Ghana. Some of this contrast is based on cultural differences. For example, Harri is puzzled by a sign in the playground that says, "Say No to Strangers," and this bewilderment is echoed by Mr. Frimpong, who—after he is knocked to the ground by the Dell Farm Crew—is dismayed that in England, strangers do not look out for one another as they do in Ghana. The implication is that part of what makes somewhere "home" is how strangers relate to each other, so it is hard to feel at home in a place like London where strangers treat each other with suspicion and apathy. Other differences between Harri's lives in London and Ghana are rooted in socioeconomic issues. There is poorer infrastructure in Ghana, and Harri recalls having to deal with electricity blackouts. At the same time, Harri's family was, in relative terms, wealthier in Ghana than they are in the UK. Harri expresses his sadness at the fact that, in London, Mamma has to work at night as well as during the day. This is the reason that baby Agnes cannot live with them, and it therefore exacerbates the feeling that Harri and his family are not yet at home in England. The novel thus emphasizes the challenges that come with the immigrant experience. Not only are immigrants removed from home and familiarity, but they have to face additional social and economic challenges—including the pressure to assimilate—which can leave them feeling even more isolated and without a home.  The novel also explores the limitations placed on travel and migration by government authorities, further complicated the concept of home. At one point, Nish and his wife—who are from Pakistan—are arrested by police in order to be deported. Meanwhile, Auntie Sonia burns off her fingerprints so that she can keep travelling around the world and avoid being detained by border authorities. Harri explains, "If you have no fingerprints […] they don't know where you belong so they can't send you back." This explanation complicates ideas about home and migration by suggesting it is possible to not "belong" anywhere. Harri also notes that being black makes it especially difficult to travel and migrate, as "some of the countries won't let you in if you're black." These stories emphasize that racism and xenophobia mean that people have unequal access to home and the feeling of belonging. "Home" is not a neutral concept, but a politically-charged one.  Harri and his family are very religious, and this lends itself to a spiritual understanding of home. Throughout the novel, Harri is constantly thinking about heaven and wondering what it is like. Of course, for Christians like Harri and his family, heaven is the ultimate meaning of home—far more so than any place on Earth. Harri's preoccupation with heaven can arguably be explained by the fact that he has recently experienced so much change and instability surrounding his conception of "home" on Earth. For Harri, there is comfort in knowing that heaven is an unchangeable, safe home. When Harri is stabbed at the end of the novel, the pigeon tells him, "You'll be going home soon," adding, "You've been called home." Harri seems to assume that the pigeon is referring to heaven, which leads Harri to ask if the pigeon works for God. The pigeon refuses to answer, leaving it ambiguous as to whether Harri is going to heaven (home in the Christian sense) or whether "home" refers to something else. In either case, the novel ends on a bittersweet note. Harri may be "going home," but in death he is leaving behind his homes in the mortal world: London, Ghana, and his family. Ultimately, the novel suggests that because people on Earth are displaced from their homes and made to feel unwelcome in new homes, perhaps "home" is a concept that does not truly exist in the mortal realm. - Theme: Innocence vs. Guilt. Description: The novel begins with the death of an unnamed character known only as "the dead boy." Harri becomes obsessed with finding the boy's killer, and he teams up with Dean on a "personal mission" to solve the case. This leads Harri to reflect on the nature of innocence versus guilt as he surveys his community for signs of the killer. At the same time, the novel's exploration of innocence and guilt extends beyond issues of crime by exploring broader ideas about morality and maturity. Indeed, the novel is simultaneously a detective story and a coming-of-age story depicting the loss of childhood innocence. The dead boy is portrayed as a picture of innocence. Harri recalls the boy defending him from bullies, and the boy is buried with the Chelsea Football Club badge on his coffin, emphasizing both the dead boy's kind nature and his youth. Later in the novel, after Miquita suggests that it was the dead boy's fault that he was killed because he was "fronting," Harri insists that this is wrong, though his youth and naïveté mean he does not yet have a sophisticated understanding of innocence and guilt. While Miquita claims to understand the situation better because she is older, it is the young, innocent Harri who is able to instinctively know the truth of the matter. However, Harri's youth makes it difficult for him to be confident about his own instincts, and thus he remains in a state of confusion.  Harri's somewhat naïve view of innocence and guilt is further emphasized by the list of "Signs of Guilt" he develops with his friend Dean, which includes "talking too fast" and "sudden bouts of violence," as well as "ants in your pant," "spitting," and "uncontrolled gas (farting a lot)." This list illustrates that Harri's understanding of criminal guilt (and the world in general) is childish and limited. At the same time, by using this list along with his other "detective" skills, Harri is able to identify Killa as the murderer, which the novel strongly implies is the correct conclusion. This suggests that, although Harri may be naïve and somewhat misguided in his beliefs, his instincts lead him to draw correct conclusions about innocence and guilt. One of the reasons why Harri struggles to identify the killer is because he doesn't have a wealth of clear examples of innocence. Even though he is only eleven, Harri has seen the bodies and blood of two dead boys, is sexually assaulted by Miquita, and is encouraged to participate in criminal activity by the Dell Farm Crew. Throughout the novel, it is clear that Harri does not want to lose his innocence—particularly not at such an alarming rate. He runs away while helping the Dell Farm Crew rob Mr. Frimpong, showing that he still has a childlike innocence and aversion to harming others. Similarly, he would much rather hold hands with Poppy than engage in sexual activity with her or with Miquita. Throughout the novel, Harri tries in vain to hold onto his innocence while those around him coerce him into growing up too fast. In the end, Harri's refusal to participate in violence in an attempt to hold onto his own innocence is what catalyzes his death. This ending suggests that, while a powerful force, innocence cannot hold out against the forces of violence, cruelty, and corruption. Harri attempts to remain innocent in a difficult, cruel world, and—while this effort is admirable—his attempt ultimately fails. - Theme: Language, Culture, and Norms. Description: The title Pigeon English immediately emphasizes that the novel is concerned with questions of linguistic and cultural hybridity. The word "pidgin" refers to a hybrid language developed so people who speak different languages can communicate with one another—usually in a colonial context. Pidgin English, therefore, refers to languages that hybridize English with another language. The title of this book, Pigeon English, is a play on words, echoing Harri's idiosyncratic use of language, as he mixes British English with Ghanaian slang and Pidgin English (and, of course, the title also gestures to Harri's love of pigeons). Harri makes an effort to assimilate into London culture by studying and imitating the ways in which English is spoken in London. However, considering that London, its customs, and its slang are constituted by different multiethnic factions, Harri adds to the culture rather than assimilating into it.  Harri's narration is peppered with words and phrases like "Advise yourself," "Adjei," "Dey touch," "Bo styles," "Ease yourself," and "Hutious." If the reader doesn't understand these words at first, they likely will by the end of the novel due to seeing these words repeated and picking up on the context in which they are used. The reader's learning curve mirrors Harri's own adjustment to the language, signs, and norms of London culture. Although Harri partially learns about life in the UK through school—in classes such as English and citizenship—he mainly learns simply from observing and copying the world around him. This type of experiential learning inherently involves a process of trial and error, which can prove challenging and even dangerous, as Harri is sometimes punished for misunderstanding the customs and expectations that exist in London. For example, when the Dell Farm Crew say they have a "job" for Harri, he says that he doesn't need a job, not realizing that X-Fire is assigning him a task as a trial for whether Harri can join their group. Although X-Fire forgives Harri's ignorance in that instance, Harri is later punished for not showing enough respect and deference to the Dell Farm Crew. For young, vulnerable immigrants like Harri, assimilating into a given culture and understanding its language, customs, and social norms, is not just a courtesy, but can—under certain circumstances—be a matter of life and death.  Signs serve as a tool for "reading" the norms of a certain culture in a similar way to language. It is therefore unsurprising that Harri is intrigued by the signs that exist around London, such as the sign on the doors of the shopping center that reads, "NO ALCOHOL… NO BICYCLES… NO DOGS… NO SMOKING… NO SKATEBOARDS… NO BALL GAMES." Harri notes that underneath this, someone has written "NO FUGLIES." This shows that language is created both through "official" methods, such as the instruction of English in schools and the dictionary, as well as unofficial processes, such as the development of slang. Similarly, the defaced sign shows that rules, expectations, and norms are established by authority figures (governments and business owners), as well as ordinary people. It also highlights that even as signs proclaim to explicitly lay out the rules of a given culture, the reality is much more complex. It is not always possible to read signs in a straightforward way, and background context is often required to understand their meaning. By presenting the difficulties Harri faces in coming to grips with the language, culture, and norms in London, the novel challenges the assumption that immigrants can and should simply "assimilate" into a given culture. Instead, Pigeon English suggests that the immigrant experience involves contributing to the language, culture, and norms of one's new home, thereby creating a new, hybrid culture. However, Harri also highlights that failing to understand and assimilate into certain norms can have extremely serious consequences, including violence and death. - Theme: Pluralism vs. Prejudice. Description: Harri lives in the midst of a highly multicultural community. Alongside people with English heritage, Harri encounters other Ghanaian immigrants, Somalis, Pakistanis, Latvians, and others. In some ways, his community represents the ideal of multicultural pluralism, meaning a state in which multiple different groups of people with different backgrounds and belief systems live harmoniously alongside one another. Although Harri is occasionally made to feel different as a recent immigrant—for example, when X-Fire insists on nicknaming him "Ghana"—his community features a significant proportion of immigrants, and his recent arrival to England is mostly treated as unexceptional. On the other hand, the novel also suggests that just because a multicultural community appears to be coexisting harmoniously, in reality, this community might still be plagued by prejudice. Just because a community is multiethnic, doesn't mean that its residents are open-minded and tolerant. Indeed, the novel indicates that it is necessary to possess an open-minded, loving attitude like Harri's in order to avoid prejudice and live in harmony. Racial and cultural prejudice informs the social world at Harri's school. For example, Harri is bullied by a Latvian boy called Vilis, who tells him that in Latvia, "they burn black people into tar and make roads out of them." Elsewhere in the novel, Harri explains that "you're not supposed to talk to Somalis because they're pirates." These interactions show that prejudice is not unidirectional in the novel—it is not a simple case of people with racial privilege bullying those who are deemed inferior. Instead, it seems as if everyone in the novel holds prejudiced opinions about everyone else. The fact that Harri holds prejudiced opinions even though he is mainly a kind, loving, and open-minded person suggests that the power of prejudice often overcomes people's (and especially children's) innocent tolerance. At the same time, Harri stands out as being more willing than others to overlook prejudice and accept people despite their differences. For example, he ends up dismissing the stereotype about Somalis being pirates and befriends a Somali boy named Altaf. Ironically, Harri and Altaf meet because both their mothers reject religious pluralism and request that their sons skip their religious education class so they don't have to learn about other religions. Harri and Altaf's friendship is thus an example of children being able to overcome the prejudiced instilled by both society at large and their own parents. Likewise, Harri's friend Dean and girlfriend, Poppy, are both white, and Harri also remains friends with Jordan despite Mamma insisting that Jordan is a "waste of time." Harri's open-mindedness toward other people adds an element of optimism to the book, suggesting that it is possible for younger generations to refuse to inherit their parents' prejudice.    The novel paints Harri's multicultural community as being plagued by prejudice, and while there is hope in Harri's kindhearted, innocent willingness to accept those who are different from him, the cycle of prejudice is difficult to break. Experiencing prejudice can make people more likely to espouse similarly biased views as a defense mechanism—for example, when Harri attempts to deflect Vilis' bullying by calling him "potato house." However, in order for prejudice to truly give way to harmonious pluralism, it is necessary for all people to adopt Harri's childlike, loving attitude toward others. - Theme: Masculinity, Violence, and Death. Description: Pigeon English is a coming-of-age novel, but it also specifically deals with the challenges of being a boy—and particularly a young black boy living in a tough, violent community. Although Harri does not have a personal inclination toward violence, throughout the novel he faces pressure from the Dell Farm Crew to prove himself as a man by harming others. To X-Fire and his gang, inflicting violence is a cool, boast-worthy pursuit. This is made clear from the beginning of the novel when X-Fire brags about what it is like to "chook" (stab) someone. In the context of this community, being a man becomes synonymous with inflicting violence. Thus, even as Harri tries to avoid violence and death, his status as an adolescent boy traps him in a cycle of violence that ultimately leads to his own death. Throughout the novel, the Dell Farm Crew seems to commit violence for no reason. They violently rob other children, even when they know that these children don't have anything of value—when they rob Dean, for example, they only find sixty-three pence in his pockets. They smash the windows of Harri's family's church and smear a Snickers bar on the walls, trying to make it look like human feces. The Dell Farm Crew even robs the elderly Mr. Frimpong and stomp on his groceries as he struggles to get up. All of these acts demonstrate that the Dell Farm Crew embraces violence for its own sake. At the same time, the pressure that the Dell Farm Crew puts on Harri also shows that they participate in violence as a way of continually proving their own masculinity and avoiding seeming weak. In the tough world in which they live, appearing weak can mean—as it does in Harri's case—being killed. It is important to note that it is not just male characters who commit violence in the novel. At school, Miquita and Chanelle get into a fight, and before the teachers arrive to break it up, it seems as if Miquita intends to kill Chanelle by pushing her through a window. Later, Harri observes that, as Killa's girlfriend, Miquita was Killa's "accomplice" in the dead boy's murder. When Miquita burns Lydia's face with a hair straightener in order to make her keep quiet about the murder, it echoes Killa's habit of burning Miquita's hands with a lighter. While girls participate in violence, it is clear that the culture of violence that the characters live in is created and perpetuated by the demands of masculinity. All of the characters are forced to uphold the masculine traits of toughness and ruthlessness in order to protect themselves. This culture of violence means that life is treated as disposable and death is ever-present. It is significant that the novel begins and ends with the deaths of two young boys, as it evokes a cycle of violence and death. Although there is a degree of sadness surrounding the murder of the dead boy, several characters brush it off, like when Miquita suggests that the boy had it coming. Harri's mission to find the dead boy's killer indicates that he is refusing to view the boy's life as disposable. In vowing to bring the boy's killer to justice, Harri attempts to honor the boy's life. Tragically, it is this mission that leads Harri to be stabbed and killed—a turn of events that proves how difficult it is to escape the cycle of violence and death. - Climax: During the scuffle between Harri, Dean, and the Dell Farm Crew, when the picture of the dead boy falls onto the ground. - Summary: Harri sees the dead boy's blood outside Chicken Joe's, and Jordan bets him to touch it. A pigeon walks past indifferently. Harri was "half friends" with the dead boy, who was older and went to a different school. Harri lives on the ninth floor of Copenhagen House, one of three fourteen-story tower blocks. Harri talks to Papa on the phone and tells him that a pigeon flew into their house. His older sister Lydia was terrified, but Harri caught the pigeon and released it from the balcony. Harri's baby sister, Agnes, lives with Papa and Grandma Ama back in Ghana, while Harri and Lydia live with their Mamma in London. Harri explains that soon the family will be reunited again. He tells the reader that, back in Ghana, he once saw the body of a boy who had been killed. At school one day, a boy called X-Fire demonstrates what it's like to shank someone, using Harri as an example. There is a blonde girl in Harri's class called Poppy Morgan who makes his "belly turn over" when she smiles at him. Later, when Harri comes home from school, there are cops outside of his tower block. The cops question him and his friends about the dead boy. That night, while standing on his balcony, Harri sees a man below pulling a knife out from under the bin. Harri thinks that this man might be the murderer, but the helicopter circling overhead doesn't see the potential suspect. Lydia's friend Miquita comes over and claims that it was the dead boy's own fault for getting killed because he shouldn't have been "fronting." Harri tells her that she doesn't know what she's talking about. Later, Harri asks his friend Dean if he thinks Miquita is right. Harri attends the dead boy's funeral. After, he and Dean watch the crowd, checking for suspicious activity. Harri explains that X-Fire is the leader of the Dell Farm Crew. X-Fire pressures Harri into joining the crew, telling Harri that if he sets off the fire alarm at school he can join. Harri tries to set off the alarm but doesn't manage to break the glass. He runs and hides, fearing that the Dell Farm Crew are now his enemies. Harri and Dean now consider themselves "proper detectives" on a mission to find out who killed the dead boy. Harri also befriends a Somali boy named Altaf, even though he's "not supposed to talk to Somalis because they're pirates." Harri and Dean interview "suspects" at the pub. Later, Harri sees Lydia pour bleach all over something inside the washing machine at the laundromat. Harri realizes that inside the machine are boy's clothes that are red like blood. Dean and Harri use sellotape to check for fingerprints around the scene of the crime. Auntie Sonia later tells Harri that she burns off her fingerprints to avoid getting caught by the police and deported. She is a cleaner who has traveled all over the world, including to America. At school during afternoon registration, Poppy gives Harri a note asking if he likes her. He plans to give the note back to her after the Easter holiday, hoping his answer is the right one. In May, there is a carnival in Harri's neighborhood. On Sunday, church is cancelled because someone smashed the windows and wrote DFC all over the wall. Harri argues with Lydia about the clothes she bleached. Harri insists he saw blood on them, but Lydia tells him that it was Miquita's blood—"girl's blood." X-Fire, Dizzy, Killa plan to rob someone and force Harri to help. Harri is horrified to realize that the chosen target is Mr. Frimpong, the eldest member of his church congregation. While the other boys push Mr. Frimpong over and stamp on his groceries, X-Fire searches the old man's pockets for his wallet and threatens to stab him if he doesn't give it up. Horrified, Harri runs away. X-Fire later warns Harri not to tell anyone about what happened. In church on Sunday, Mr. Frimpong reveals his infected knee and laments that in England no one ever helps strangers on the street. Dean and Harri try to train Terry Takeaway's dog, Asbo, to recognize evil in order to help them find the killer. Asbo attacks Killa, which makes Harri think their training has worked. Jordan encourages Harri to get a knife, claiming that "everyone needs one." Poppy is now Harri's girlfriend. Harri collects the fingerprints of innocent people so he can compare them to those of the suspects. He then attempts to freeze off his own fingertips by holding them in the freezer. One day, while Miquita is straightening Lydia's hair, she burns Lydia's cheek on purpose, asking, "Are you with us or against us?" Lydia assures her she is with them. After school, X-Fire and Dizzy chase Harri and threaten to kill him, but they eventually walk away. Chanelle and Miquita get into a fight at school one day. Right as Miquita is about to push Chanelle through the window, teachers come over and break up the fight. Harri notices that Killa displays several "signs of guilt," and Harri begins to believe that Killa murdered the dead boy with Miquita. Harri and Dean grab Killa's hands and take his fingerprints with sellotape. Agnes has a fever, and Harri worries that she is going to die. When her fever goes away, Mamma and Lydia both cry with happiness. Auntie Sonia and her abusive boyfriend Julius buy presents for Lydia and Harri. As a birthday surprise for his sister, Harri takes Lydia to some wet cement, where they both leave footprints and write their names. While Dean and Harri are playing football, Dean finds a wallet, inside of which is a photo of the dead boy smiling with a white girl. The boys discover that the photo has blood on it. While at Lydia's house, Miquita tells Harri that she's going to teach him how to kiss. However, when Miquita forces Harri's hand inside her vagina, Harri pushes her away. Miquita and Lydia get into an argument, during which Lydia implies that Killa is a murderer. Someone has scratched the word DEAD onto Harri's family's front door. Later, the Dell Farm Crew approach Harri and Dean and try to rob them. Harri is carrying the wallet with the dead boy's picture inside, and when the Dell Farm Crew grabs the wallet, the picture drops to the floor. Killa is visibly upset, and X-Fire burns the picture with a lighter. Just as X-Fire reaches for his knife and is about to pounce on Dean and Harri, Lydia shouts, and the three of them escape to the library together. Lydia explains that she filmed the whole scene, including X-Fire burning the picture. Someone sets the local playground on fire, but firemen arrive and put the fire out. On the last day of school, Harri watches with delight as the Year 11 kids celebrate their newfound freedom. He and Poppy hold hands, and she kisses him. Harri runs home, shouting his love for Poppy, the pigeons, and the trees. When Harri is almost home, a boy jumps out and stabs him. As Harri lies on the ground clutching his stab wound, a pigeon comes toward him and says that Harri will be "going home soon." The pigeon tells him not to be afraid. Harri tries to picture Agnes' face but cannot, because "all babies look the same."

- Genre: Novel - Title: Play It As It Lays - Point of view: First Person, Third Person - Setting: Los Angeles, Southern California, Nevada - Character: Maria Wyeth. Description: Maria Wyeth is a 31-year-old actress who is at a psychiatric facility to recover from a nervous breakdown. The novel chronicles what led up to her hospitalization, namely the events surrounding her separation from her movie director husband, Carter Lang. Maria is nihilistic, in part because of her traumatic past: her parents, Francine and Harry, both died relatively young; the small desert hometown she loved has been demolished; and she had an abusive relationship with Ivan Costello as a young woman. As a result, she avoids confronting the past, insisting that it "leads nowhere." She's also the mother to a young daughter, Kate, who's seriously ill and can't reciprocate Maria's love in the way she wants. After Maria and Carter separate, her behavior grows increasingly erratic, as she takes aimless drives into the desert and self-medicates with drugs, alcohol, and casual sex. She passively lets things happen to her, believing that life as a "game" in which people unconsciously uphold constructed beliefs and social norms while remaining ignorant to the reality that their lives are meaningless. Although Carter claims he wants to reconcile during their separation period, he emotionally abuses her and continues to pursue other women, including Maria's friend Helene. He also coerces Maria into having an abortion when he learns she's pregnant (likely by her former lover Les Goodwin), an experience that utterly traumatizes Maria and gives her chronic nightmares. Around this time, Maria also grows increasingly disillusioned with Hollywood and its superficiality, a sentiment that her friend BZ shares. Maria's most egregious moment of passivity occurs when she fails to intervene in BZ's suicidal overdose. She also refuses to kill herself alongside him, and while her decision to live might seem like a new lease on life, it more likely illustrates her cynical realization that death is just as meaningless as life. By the time she is hospitalized, though, Maria seems to be ready to reclaim her past and accept the possibility that life could offer meaning. She wants to live with Kate in a house by the sea and "do some canning," which suggests a longing to return the simpler life she experienced growing up in Nevada. - Character: BZ. Description: BZ is a producer for Carter's films and Maria's only genuine friend. He is gay but trapped in a loveless marriage with Helene because his mother, Carlotta, pays the couple to stay together to keep up appearances. Despite being married, BZ has frequent affairs with men. At the core of BZ and Maria's friendship is their shared disillusionment with Hollywood and their friends, and with life more broadly. BZ and Maria ultimately arrive at the same conclusion that life is meaningless, and they lose the desire to pretend otherwise. BZ initially plays along with what he considers to be the "game" of life: he presents to the world a superficial appearance of success, maintains an active social life, and encourages others to do the same. BZ repeatedly scolds Maria—though not unselfconsciously—for not having a sense of humor about her problems. For example, when Maria wallows in self-pity over her failed marriage, BZ encourages her to go to parties and lose herself in meaningless social and romantic encounters. Still, there is a self-awareness to BZ's cynical embrace of superficiality. Though BZ initially participates in that "game," perhaps because he sees no alternative, he eventually grows tired of the vapidness of his relationships, the emptiness of wealth, and the pointlessness of success. His disillusionment overpowers him, and he chooses to exit the "game" altogether, ending his life by overdosing on pills while visiting Maria in her motel room. BZ's suicide is his way of taking a stand against superficiality and affirms his conviction in life's meaninglessness; his death is a statement that positions death as preferrable to living disingenuously and without meaning. Since Maria doesn't actively intervene to stop his suicide, Helene blames BZ's death on Maria's "carelessness" and "selfishness." - Character: Carter Lang. Description: Carter Lang is Maria's estranged film director husband. In the early days of their relationship, Maria starred in two of Carter's films, Angel Beach and Maria. Various infidelities and Maria's erratic behavior lead the couple separate the summer before the events of the novel occur. Although Carter claims that he wants to reconcile with Maria, he continues to pursue affairs with various women, including Susannah Wood, the lead actress on his latest film, and Maria's friend Helene. Carter and Maria maintain a dysfunctional, off-and-on relationship, even after they finalize their divorce, and they only sever ties after Maria is committed to a psychiatric facility and refuses to see him or Helene. Like most characters in the novel, Carter is self-absorbed, obsessed with superficial displays of success, and dismissive of Maria's attempts to communicate honestly. He resents her refusal to adhere to their social circle's norms, characterizing her as erratic and unhinged. Carter is physically and emotionally abusive toward Maria and the other women with whom he is romantically involved. When Maria tells Carter that she is pregnant and insinuates that the baby's father is her former lover, Les Goodwin, Carter responds by weaponizing Maria's unconditional love of their four-year-old daughter, Kate. He coerces her into having an abortion by threatening to take away Kate if Maria does not undergo the procedure—an experience that traumatizes Maria and contributes to her mental breakdown. - Character: Helene. Description: Helene is BZ's wife. She is part of Maria's social circle because BZ is a producer on Carter's films. Helene is attractive, vain, and twice divorced. Her marriage to BZ is a loveless relationship of convenience: it's revealed that BZ's wealthy mother, Carlotta, pays the couple to remain married, seemingly to keep up appearances and downplay BZ's homosexuality. Although Helene is Maria's friend, their relationship remains entirely superficial, as Helene is only concerned with gossip and resents Maria's efforts to broach serious or uncomfortable subjects. Helene doesn't show much regard for Maria's emotional well-being: in one instance, she tries to get a rise out of Maria by openly discussing Carter's flourishing career and frequent womanizing. Helene's careless treatment of Maria culminates in her having an affair with Carter. When Maria is institutionalized, she refuses to see Helene. This offends Helene, who believes that Maria owes her an apology for the role she played in BZ's suicide. Helene claims that Maria's "carelessness" and "selfishness" caused BZ's death, which is somewhat ironic, since Helene is one of the most self-absorbed, careless characters in the novel. In fact, when Helene condemns Maria for her supposed self-absorption, it's because she sees herself—rather than her dead husband—as a victim of Maria's selfishness. - Character: Kate Lang. Description: Kate is Maria and Carter's four-year-old daughter. She was born with an unspecified illness that predisposes her to emotional outbursts and other ailments, and this leads Carter to have her institutionalized. Carter uses Kate to coerce Maria into having an abortion, threatening to take Kate away if Maria refuses to undergo the procedure. Maria regards Kate as her only reason for living and has dreams about leaving the hospital and living alone with Kate in a house by the sea. - Character: Benny Austin. Description: Benny Austin is Harry Wyeth's former business partner and Maria's godfather. Maria associates Benny with "as it was," with her childhood years spent in the small desert town of Silver Wells, Nevada. She dislikes being around him for this reason. In the year preceding her institutionalization, Maria runs into Benny at a casino but abandons him once he starts ruminating on the past. Although Benny cares deeply for Maria, he is unreliable. For example, he gives Maria an address and phone number to call to retrieve her father's old legal and financial documents, but the information turns out to be false, and she isn't able to reach him to get these documents. - Character: Les Goodwin. Description: Les Goodwin is a screenwriter. He is Maria's former lover and likely the father of her aborted baby. In an attempt to distract herself from her aimless life and deteriorating mental health, Maria rekindles her romance with Les, though the affair is complicated by the fact that Les is married to Felicia Goodwin. Even though Les is a persistent presence in Maria's daydreams, she knows that Les won't leave Felicia and that they cannot have a future together. Maria chooses not to tell Les about the abortion, but he detects that something is wrong with her and might suspect the pregnancy. - Character: Ivan Costello. Description: Ivan Costello is one of Maria's former lovers. They had a relationship before she met Carter, when she was working as an actress and model in New York. Maria and Costello's relationship was essentially loveless, with Costello mostly interested in Maria for her body and her wealth. Even after Maria moves on from Costello, he continues to reinsert himself into her life, preying on her when she is at her most vulnerable. Costello is boorish, sadistic, and manipulative, and he taunts Maria for her emotional fragility and erratic behavior. - Character: Francine Wyeth. Description: Francine Wyeth was Maria's mother who died in a car accident when Maria was only 19 years old. Francine suffered from depression, though this wasn't obvious to Maria at the time. As an adult, Maria sometimes wonders whether her mother's death was an accident or whether she drove the car off the road off purpose. Francine's marriage to Harry Wyeth, Maria's father, wasn't particularly happy: the novel portrays Harry as dismissive of his wife. Maria realizes, in retrospect, that he was likely having an affair with Paulette, the cashier at their restaurant. Francine is the source of much regret for Maria, who wishes she had been a more attentive daughter when her mother was alive. After her abortion, Maria cries for her mother for the first time in years and longs for her comforting presence. Maria's unresolved grief for her mother contributes to her own nervous breakdown. As an adult, Maria wonders whether her parents, too, had recognized the meaninglessness of life and had only pretended not to understand. - Character: Harry Wyeth. Description: Harry Wyeth is Maria's father who died shortly after his wife, Francine Wyeth. Harry was entrepreneurial and optimistic, though none of his business ventures in Silver Wells, Nevada saw much success, because a highway failed to be built near the town. He was also a gambler: it's possible that the Wyeth family moved to Silver Wells in the first place because Harry gambled away their house in Reno. Throughout Maria's childhood, Harry taught her about cards, games, and probability, and he used these lessons to explain life, as well. For instance, after Maria's mother's death, Harry encouraged Maria not to let the "bad hand" life had dealt her make her forget that she was "holding all the aces." As Maria transitioned into adulthood, she found it harder to emulate her father's optimism. Harry was dismissive of his wife when she was alive and likely carried on an affair with Paulette, who worked at the family restaurant. As an adult, Maria wonders whether her parents, too, had discovered the truth about life's meaninglessness and had simply pretended not to understand. - Character: Freddy Chaikin. Description: Freddy Chaikin is Maria's agent. He is surprised when she inquires about work, since her last job ended abruptly when an argument caused her to walk off set. Freddy eventually promises Maria some television work and arranges for her to meet with a director about a secondary role in a motorcycle film. Although Freddy also works with Maria's estranged husband, Carter, he promises Maria that he's happy to represent both of them. Freddy seems to pity Maria for her declining mental health, failed marriage, and failing career, and he does what he can to help her; for example, he smooths things over with Johnny Waters after Maria is arrested for stealing Waters's Ferrari. - Character: The Man in White. Description: The man in white is the man with whom Maria corresponds over the phone to make arrangements for her illegal abortion. He meets Maria in a parking lot, and they drive together in Maria's car to the house where she will undergo the procedure. The man wears a white sport shirt, white duck pants, and has "a moon face." He makes trivial small talk with Maria as they drive to the doctor's house, and she is grateful for this, since it allows her to suppress the reality of her situation and the unwanted procedure she is about to undergo. The man's white clothing and casual demeanor seem to reflect his innocence and easy existence relative to Maria: unlike Maria, this man hasn't been beaten down by a sexist, objectifying world. The man's innocence also suggests a discrepancy between the minimal impact his complicity in arranging illegal abortions has on his emotions versus the life-altering effect the abortion has on Maria's life. The man's white clothing reflects his untarnished, unaffected psyche. He will later appear in the nightmares Maria has following her abortion. - Character: The Doctor. Description: The doctor is the man who performs Maria's illegal abortion. He is cold, impatient, and insensitive toward Maria, seemingly more concerned about the neighbors hearing her screams and catching wind of his illicit business than with Maria's physical or emotional well-being. The doctor later appears in Maria's nightmares about her abortion. - Character: Susannah Wood. Description: Susannah Wood is the lead actress in Carter's latest film. Carter has an affair with Susannah after he and Maria finalize their divorce, even though he and Maria maintain sporadic contact, and even though Carter claims he doesn't particularly enjoy his intimate relations with Susannah. When Maria stays with Carter while he is filming in the desert, Susannah claims that Maria's presence on set makes her uncomfortable. At the same time, she seems unconcerned with making Maria feel uncomfortable: one day, while a group of people are gathered in Susannah's motel room, Susannah taunts Maria about being arrested for stealing Johnny Waters's Ferrari. Susannah is assaulted by Harrison Porter, the film's lead actor, in a motel room in Las Vegas. - Character: Johnny Waters/The Actor. Description: Johnny Waters is a pompous actor Maria has sex with after a party. She refers to him only as "the actor" during their interactions, since she doesn't know his name. Waters, in turn, mishears Maria's name and refers to her as "Myra." Maria has sex with Waters to disassociate from her life, so she is grateful for the added anonymity that Waters not knowing her name adds to their tryst. The sex itself is aggressive and unsatisfying for Maria. She leaves without saying goodbye, steals Waters' Ferrari, and drives to Tonopah, Nevada, where she is pulled over for speeding and arrested for driving a stolen vehicle. - Character: Harrison Porter. Description: Harrison Porter is the lead actor in Carter's latest film. He assaults the film's lead actress, Susannah Wood, in a Las Vegas motel room. Maria initially thinks it was Carter who assaulted Susannah, but BZ informs her that this can't be true, since Carter was having sex with Helene when the assault occurred. It's in this offhand, insensitive manner that Maria learns of Helene and Carter's affair. - Character: The Masseur. Description: The masseur is a gay male friend of BZ's. He complains dramatically about the artificial lemon juice in BZ's refrigerator while Maria is sunbathing outside BZ's house one afternoon. Maria realizes that she first met the masseur at a party three years ago, though he appears not to recognize her. Maria is troubled by the fact that the masseur looks exactly the same as he did three years ago, while she, in contrast, has aged considerably. - Character: Ceci Delano. Description: Ceci Delano is a model Maria worked with on a shoot in Ocho Rios many years ago. Ceci had told Maria a humorous story about a New York District Attorney arranging for her to have an abortion, "quid pro quo," in exchange for her testimony in a trial against a party-girl operation. Maria recalls this exchange with Ceci to try to absolve herself of the grief and guilt she feels about her own abortion. But she ultimately can't compare the two, since her abortion is very real to her, whereas Ceci's abortion "was just a New York story." - Character: Larry Kulik. Description: Larry Kulik is a wealthy, well-connected lawyer "for gangsters," according to Maria. He's a womanizer who is superficially attracted to—but does not appear to respect—Maria. Larry repeatedly tries to pursue Maria, who eventually agrees to go out with him one evening to distract herself from her ongoing mental collapse. Maria is with Larry at the Flamingo when she runs into Benny Austin. - Character: Jeanelle. Description: Jeanelle is a young, vapid woman who ends up hanging around BZ and Helene's house one day. She babbles nonsensically, and everyone wishes they could get rid of her. People like Jeanelle, interested in a good time and the cache of hanging around Hollywood industry people like BZ, always seem to wander in and out of BZ and Helene's house. - Theme: Meaninglessness. Description: Play It as It Lays follows Maria Wyeth, a 31-year-old failed actress and model, as she reflects on the events that preceded her nervous breakdown and institutionalization at a psychiatric facility. While the doctors who treat Maria want her to reflect on her life to discover the cause of her insanity—to find out what it means—Maria's reflections on the past only reaffirm her conviction that life is meaningless. Maria's life has been plagued by hardship, like the death of her mother Francine, her volatile relationship with her husband Carter, and her daughter Kate's debilitating medical condition. Moreover, just before her institutionalization, Maria endures two crises that send her over the edge: first, Carter coerces her to have an unwanted abortion after she becomes pregnant, likely by her former lover, Les Goodwin. Second, BZ, a producer for Carter's films and Maria's only genuine friend, commits suicide. While Maria's doctors believe that processing these events to identify the "reason" for Maria's breakdown is essential to her recovery, Maria rejects the notion on the basis that there are no reasons: that the universe is indifferent to humanity's suffering, and that life is ultimately meaningless. Indeed, Maria's internal struggle isn't about whether or not life has meaning. Rather, it's about whether there is value in continuing to live despite life's fundamental meaninglessness, and whether a person's actions matter, even when the summation of their life does not. For much of the novel, Maria behaves passively and carelessly, believing that life's meaninglessness makes her actions unimportant. She stays with Carter despite his abuse, for instance, and she has sex with whomever will have her, regardless of her attraction to them. Maria's passivity proves most destructive when she knowingly fails to prevent BZ's suicide while they are in a motel room together and he ingests a fatal dose of Seconal. But when BZ offers to share his pills so that she can kill herself alongside him, Maria rejects the invitation. The final lines of the novel suggest that Maria's decision to reject BZ's pills doesn't signify an affirmation of life so much as a newfound awareness in the meaninglessness of life and death. The novel ends with Maria entertaining a hypothetical conversation between BZ and herself, in which BZ questions why a person should continue to live if nothing matters. To BZ's "why," Maria responds, "why not." Even Maria's rebuttal to BZ's "why" is a rather passive statement that conveys her unwillingness to assign meaning even to death. Unlike BZ, who believes so strongly in the meaninglessness of life that he thinks death will present him a preferable alternative, Maria seems to view death as just as meaningless as life. Her decision to "stay in the action" rather than kill herself thus reads not as an enthusiastic assent to life, but a recognition that death isn't a solution to nihilism. - Theme: Gender Inequality and Identity. Description: As an actress in 1960s Hollywood, Maria Wyeth struggles to navigate a world structured around sexist social norms, patriarchal oppression, and gender inequality. People repeatedly objectify, devalue, and dehumanize her to the point that she loses all sense of her identity and self-worth. For example, even though she and Carter are divorced, nurses who care for Maria when she's hospitalized at a psychiatric facility refer to her by her married name, Mrs. Lang. Similarly, when an actor she meets in the elevator ogles her, Maria knows that his sexual gaze is "meant not for Maria herself but for Carter Lang's wife," a calculated effort on the actor's part to exert dominance over another man in his industry by mentally defiling his property. Indeed, society denies Maria the right to her own identity and defines her exclusively in terms of who (or what) she is in relation to others: she is her parents' daughter, Kate's, mother, Carter's wife, and an object of desire to those who watch her films. Ultimately, none of these roles give Maria a stable, dependable identity or purpose in life: Maria's parents die, Kate's illness complicates her ability to reciprocate Maria's maternal love, and Maria's marriage to Carter dissolves. Moreover, Maria's status as an alluring sex symbol will last only so long as Maria remains young, fresh, and beautiful. With her identity and value so fully dependent on other people's ever-changing treatment of her, Maria succumbs to depression and existential dread. In this way, the novel frames Maria's mental collapse as the natural consequence of gender inequality and objectification of women. Maria doesn't break from reality—reality breaks her. - Theme: Loss and Recovery. Description: "I have trouble with as it was," Maria states in an internal monologue at the beginning of the novel. The phrase becomes a common refrain for Maria, who maintains that dwelling on the past "leads nowhere." Maria's desire to live in the present makes sense given the abundant pain, loss, and grief she incurs throughout her life. Having lost her mother in a tragic accident (or, as Maria believes, a suicide), her small desert hometown in Nevada, and her marriage to Carter, Maria tries to numb her pain through short-lived (and ultimately unsatisfying) sexual encounters. Maria's breaking point occurs when discovers she is pregnant, likely by her former lover, Les Goodwin, and Carter coerces her into having an abortion. When her grief over the loss of her unborn baby gives her nightmares, Maria uses drugs and alcohol to stop dreaming altogether. From here, Maria's life spirals out of control until she suffers a nervous breakdown that necessitates her stay in a psychiatric facility. The novel seems to suggest that Maria's nervous breakdown is the delayed but inevitable consequence of years of disassociating from the past: her "trouble with as it was" creates a stockpile of unexamined, unresolved traumas, the collective pain of which becomes too much to bear after her traumatic abortion sends her over the edge. Although Maria initially insists that ruminating on the past "leads nowhere," she comes to understand that the opposite might be true: that internalizing and making peace with the past is actually the only way to forge a path forward. As she recovers in the hospital, Maria states that her only "plans" for the future are to live alone with her daughter Kate and to "do some canning." Maria's unambitious, straightforward plans reflect a desire to return to the smaller, simpler life she experienced growing up in small-town Nevada, as well as the conviction that reconnecting with the past is what will restore some semblance of coherence and peace to her present life. - Theme: Superficiality. Description: In the Hollywood depicted in Play It as It Lays, style and appearance are everything, and nobody has any tolerance for sincerity, vulnerability, or meaningful communication. Shortly before she's institutionalized for having a mental breakdown, Hollywood actress Maria is in a motel room with her husband Carter; her friends Helene and  BZ; and Susannah Wood, the lead actress in Carter's latest film and Carter's mistress. When Susannah mocks Maria for asking to turn down the music, Maria states bluntly and honestly, "I don't like any of you. […] You are all making me sick." The room responds poorly to Maria's candid expression of disgust. "If it's not funny don't say it," Helene advises Maria. Helene's advice reflects the general attitude adopted by everyone in their social circle: keep things light and entertaining, and, above all, don't be too honest. As such, superficiality pervades every aspect of Maria's life: her friendships are phony and unfulfilling, and her conversations are inane and impersonal. When Maria asks Helene to be her witness in her divorce hearing, Helene's main concern is whether they'll eat lunch before or after the hearing—not Maria's feelings about the dissolution of her marriage. Similarly, while the two women are out to lunch, Helene chastises Maria for "looking like hell," insisting that a divorce "isn't any excuse for [her] to fall apart." Helene's remark illustrates what little patience she has for her friend's personal problems, as well as the value she places on outward appearances: to Helene, Maria's biggest sin is "looking like hell," regardless of how hellish Maria might feel on the inside. Superficiality presents itself in other ways, as well: for instance, BZ and Helene remain in a loveless marriage to conceal BZ's scandalous homosexuality. And when Maria finds out she's pregnant (most likely with another man's baby), Carter coerces her to have an illicit abortion to protect his reputation. Maria and BZ, the only two characters who explicitly acknowledge their disillusionment with their lives' phoniness, see themselves as players in a game. Right before BZ commits suicide, he warns Maria that "some day [she'll] wake up and [she] just won't feel like playing anymore." BZ's choice to commit suicide—to stop "playing" the game of life—suggests that superficiality isn't a Hollywood-specific problem, but an inherent part of the human experience. The novel isn't a scathing critique of the shallow meaninglessness that lurks beneath Hollywood's charmed exterior. Rather, it's a broader look into how society's accepted "rules" encourage superficiality and perpetuate the loneliness and alienation that socializing should, in theory, alleviate. People's inherent strangeness—the fact that all one can ever know of others is what they display (consciously or unconsciously) on the surface—makes superficiality the default state. - Climax: Maria chooses not to interfere in BZ's suicide, he dies, and Maria is committed to a psychiatric facility. - Summary: In 1960s Los Angeles, Maria Wyeth, a 31-year-old unemployed actress, recounts the events that led to her commitment to a psychiatric facility. In an internal monologue, Maria introduces herself as an uncurious woman determined not to dwell on the past. Still, because her doctors want to figure out why she had a nervous breakdown, she establishes some basic facts about herself, ruminating on her childhood growing up in the small desert town of Silver Wells, Nevada; her gambling and entrepreneurial father Harry Wyeth; her depressive mother, Francine; and Benny Austin, Harry's business partner and her godfather. Both of Maria's parents are now dead. Maria has a four-year-old daughter, Kate, who was born with serious disabilities. Kate lives in a medical facility and is the only reason Maria keeps on living. Next, Maria recalls leaving Nevada for New York to pursue an acting career, and her failed, tumultuous love affair with Ivan Costello. Maria eventually married Carter Lang, a director who gave her roles in two of his films, though the marriage ultimately fell apart. In two subsequent internal monologues, Helene and Carter offer their perspectives on Maria's current situation. Helene is angry with Maria, who has just refused to see her at the hospital, and whose "carelessness," she believes, caused Helene's husband, BZ's, death. Carter recalls memories of Maria that paint her as an unstable woman. From this point forward, the narrative covers the year that preceded Maria's institutionalization. It's the fall after Maria and Carter's separation, and Maria spends her days taking long drives along the highways of southern California to avoid having anxiety dreams about Les Goodwin, or about Carter, BZ, Helene, and her herself in the desert. One day, she visits her agent Freddy Chaikin's office to inquire about work, but she worries about appearing desperate and leaves without seeing him. When she returns home, she considers calling Les Goodwin but thinks better of it. One evening in October, Maria chats with BZ, who is careful not to mention Carter, though BZ is a producer on one of Carter's films. BZ asks Maria if she's going to Larry Kulik's party, but Maria says no and accuses Kulick of being "gangster," prompting BZ to tell Maria she has no sense of humor. Later on, Freddy Chaikin follows up with Maria to say that he's gotten her some television roles. He mentions Carter, which upsets Maria. On another night in October, Maria takes a long drive and realizes she's near Carter's filming location. She imagines him having a drink with BZ and Helene and considers stopping by, but she decides she doesn't want to see him. One afternoon, BZ calls Maria and convinces her to attend a party with him. Maria goes but feels alienated and doesn't have any fun. Larry Kulick sees her there and invites her over to use his sauna. BZ goes home with a French director, and Maria returns to her empty Beverly Hills home. When Les Goodwin calls Maria the next morning, she starts to weep. Sometime later, Carter drops by at Maria's home, and they decide to give their relationship another try, though Maria is reluctant to do so. Carter advises Maria that her unscheduled visits with Kate are starting to annoy hospital staff. Sometime later, Maria lies on the beach outside Helene and BZ's house with Helene, BZ, Carter, and some of Helene and BZ's friends when she suddenly feels nauseous and runs to the bathroom. She pulls off her bathing suit and sees that she's not bleeding. In the car heading home, Maria tells Carter that she's pregnant. Carter states that while he knows who the father is, Felicia Goodwin might not. Carter drops Maria off and doesn't come home that night. The next morning, he calls from his filming location in the desert to tell Maria that if she doesn't have an abortion, he'll take away Kate. Maria arranges to have the abortion but starts to unravel: she starts crying for her mother, which she hasn't done since her "bad season" in New York, in the immediate aftermath of her mother's death in a car wreck. In those days, she couldn't eat, since her food had begun to resemble coiled rattlesnakes. Maria ignores Les Goodwin's numerous attempts to reach her but agrees to meet him Monday night, the evening after she's scheduled to have the abortion, though she hides this detail from Les. On Monday, Maria has the abortion. A mysterious man dressed in white escorts her to the house of a nameless doctor, who performs the procedure in newspaper-lined bedroom, carelessly placing the fetus in a pail. At dinner with Les that night, Maria refuses to tell him what's wrong with her. A few weeks later, Maria starts to bleed heavily and wishes she could talk to her mother. She starts having bad dreams about the man dressed in white, the abortionist, and clogged plumbing. When the sink backs up in her Beverly Hills home, Maria moves into an apartment. In December, Maria brings Kate home for Christmas. They go to Les and Felicia Goodwins' house for dinner, though the visit ends early when Kate has an outburst. By January, Maria has become increasingly terrified of hearing about danger harming children—of new stories involving rattlesnakes being found in playpens, children stuck in refrigerators—so she no longer speaks to others, reads the paper, or leaves her apartment. When the shower drain becomes clogged in her apartment, she moves back into her home. Maria and Carter realize things aren't working out and finalize their divorce, and Maria continues to unravel and grieve her aborted child. She obsesses over Les Goodwin and imagines Les, Kate, and herself living peacefully together in a seaside home. That spring, Maria attends parties to distract herself from her unraveling psyche. She starts drinking and taking pills to ward off bad dreams. Helene reveals that Carter is dating Susannah Wood, the lead actress in a film he's shooting in the desert. Sometime later, Maria arranges to meet Les Goodwin at a motel after the screening of Les's film. They drive up the coast, rent a seaside room, and spend the evening together, though Les has to leave to return to Felicia the next day. Maria and Les lament the hopelessness of their situation. Sometime later, Carter travels to Paris to promote his latest film, which has been entered at Cannes. Helene calls Maria to gossip about Carter and Susannah, but Maria refuses to engage with Helene's attempts to rile her. Sometime later, Maria meets with an agent to discuss her role in an upcoming television show and is humiliated to discover that she hasn't been cast as the lead. Ivan Costello calls her from New York and ridicules her unraveling life and ruined career. Maria hangs up and arranges to go to a casino with Larry Kulick, where she runs into Benny Austin. Benny is overjoyed to see Maria for the first time in many years, but Maria abandons Benny without saying goodbye after he starts talking about their past in Nevada. Time passes. In May, Maria leaves a party with an actor named Johnny Waters. Waters takes her to his place and aggressively coerces her into sex. Afterward, Maria leaves without saying goodbye and steals Waters's car. She speeds into the desert but is pulled over and arrested when the police officer realizes the car has been reported as being stolen. Sometime later, Carter invites Maria to accompany him, BZ, and Helene to film in the desert. Maria accuses Carter of only inviting her because he thinks she can't take care of herself, and he admits that this is true. Maria initially resists. Later that night, she finds Ivan Costello sitting in her living room. They have sex, but Maria kicks him out the next morning. She calls Les Goodwin crying. Les tries to cheer up Maria but is annoyed when she refuses to laugh. Out of options, Maria drives to the desert to be with Carter. Things don't go well: Carter and Maria fight and end up sleeping in separate rooms. One night, Maria is hanging out with everyone in Susannah's motel room. When Maria asks Susannah to turn down the music, Susannah mocks Maria. Fed up, Maria tells everyone she hates them and that they make her sick. Helene tells Maria to stop saying things that aren't "funny." After their third week in the desert, Susannah is beat up in a Las Vegas hotel room. Maria fears that Carter is responsible, but BZ tells her this can't be true since Carter was with Helene when it happened. Maria is bothered by the implication of BZ's words, and he tells her to get out of the game if she can't deal with Carter's infidelities. With just over a week left in the desert shoot, Carter invites Maria to watch the shoot. Maria opts to borrow a gun from the stunt man and shoot road signs instead. Carter confronts Maria about her increasingly unhinged behavior, and Maria starts to withdraw from everyone even more. In an internal monologue that occurs in the aftermath of the novel's events, during Maria's institutionalization, she ruminates on her simple plans for the future: to be released, to live alone with Kate, and to "do some canning." Back in the present, a forlorn BZ enters Maria's motel room with some pills and a bottle of vodka. BZ admits that he's no longer interested in "playing" and warns Maria that one day, she'll tire of playing too, since the two of them know things the others do not. Maria drifts off to sleep but awakens in time to see BZ ingesting the bottle of pills. He offers some to Maria, but she refuses. Maria holds BZ in her arms and falls asleep. When she awakens, the lights are on, Carter is shaking her, and Helene is screaming. In an internal monologue, as Maria recovers at the psychiatric facility, she reveals that although she knows that life is meaningless, she "keep[s] on playing." She imagines BZ asking her "why," to which she responds, "why not."

- Genre: Novel of manners - Title: Pride and Prejudice - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: Hertfordshire, London, and Pemberley, all in England at some time during the Napoleonic Wars (1797–1815) - Character: Elizabeth (Eliza, Lizzy) Bennet. Description: The novel's heroine and the second oldest of the five Bennet sisters, Elizabeth is smart, lively, and attractive. She prides herself on her ability to analyze other people, but she is very often mistaken in her conclusions about their motivations. To her credit, though, she is eventually able to overcome her own prejudice. Elizabeth places little value on money and social position. Instead she prizes a person's independence of character and personal virtue. Although she is drawn to Darcy, she resists him based on her own mistaken preconceptions about him. - Character: Fitzwilliam Darcy. Description: Bingley's closest friend, the brother of Georgiana, and the nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Darcy is very wealthy and a person of great integrity, but his extreme class-consciousness makes him appear vain and proud. He finds Elizabeth attractive, even ideal, but is clumsy in expressing his feelings and disdains her sometimes crass family. Elizabeth's harsh appraisal of him compels him to reassess his behavior and attitudes. Her intelligence and her disregard for mere social rank teaches him to see people more for who they are, rather than the status in to which they were born. - Character: Jane Bennet. Description: The oldest of the Bennet sisters, Jane seems almost too good to be true: beautiful, sweet-tempered, and modest. Her sole fault is that she refuses to think badly of anyone. She always looks on the bright side and is quick to defend someone when Elizabeth suspects them of having shortcomings. - Character: George Wickham. Description: Wickham is an officer in the local military regiment and appears to be the very model of a gentleman. In reality, he is a liar, hypocrite, and an opportunist. He thinks nothing of ruining a young woman's reputation, and is instead much more concerned with paying off his massive gambling debts. - Character: Mrs. Bennet. Description: Mrs. Bennet is a giddy, frivolous woman whose only purpose in life seems to be gossiping and marrying off her five daughters. She lacks any awareness of her vulgar conduct and embarrasses Elizabeth and Jane to no end. Her behavior depicts what can happen to women when they lack an education and the ability to think for themselves. - Character: Mr. Bennet. Description: Though a discerning, well-educated man, Mr. Bennet has made a bad marriage and is resigned to endure it. He is a good-hearted person, but fails his family by remaining sarcastically detached: everything is a joke to him. This leads to poor judgment, as when he does not interfere between Lydia and Wickham. - Theme: Pride. Description: Pride is a constant presence in the characters' attitudes and treatment of each other, coloring their judgments and leading them to make rash mistakes. Pride blinds Elizabeth and Darcy to their true feelings about each other. Darcy's pride about his social rank makes him look down on anyone not in his immediate circle. Elizabeth, on the other hand, takes so much pride in her ability to judge others that she refuses to revise her opinion even in the face of clearly contradictory evidence. This is why she despises the good-hearted Darcy for so long, but initially admires the lying Wickham. Yet while Pride and Prejudice implies that no one is ever completely free of pride, it makes it clear that with the proper moral upbringing one may overcome it to lead a life of decency and kindness. In the end, the two lovers are able to overcome their pride by helping each other see their respective blind spots. Darcy sheds his snobbery, while Elizabeth learns not to place too much weight on her own judgments. - Theme: Prejudice. Description: Prejudice in Pride and Prejudice refers to the tendency of the characters to judge one another based on preconceptions, rather than on who they really are and what they actually do. As the book's title implies, prejudice goes hand in hand with pride, often leading its heroine and hero into making wrong assumptions about motives and behavior. Austen's gentle way of mocking Elizabeth's and Darcy's biases gives the impression that such mistakes could, and indeed do, happen to anyone; that faulting someone else for prejudice is easy while recognizing it in yourself is hard. Prejudice in the novel is presented as a stage in a person's moral development, something that can be overcome through reason and compassion. Austen only condemns those people who refuse to set aside their prejudices, like the class-obsessed Lady Catherine and the scheming social climber Caroline. Though Pride and Prejudice is a social comedy, it offers a powerful illustration of the damaging effects to people and to society that prejudice can inflict. - Theme: Family. Description: The family is the predominant unit of social life in Pride and Prejudice and forms the emotional center of the novel. Not only does it provide (or fail to provide, as in the case of Lydia) the Bennet daughters with their education and manners, but the social ranking of the family determines how successful they may reasonably expect to be in later life. Austen skillfully reveals how individual character is molded within the family by presenting Jane and Elizabeth as mature, intelligent adults, and Lydia as a hapless fool. The friction between Elizabeth and her mother on the one hand and the sympathy she shares with Mr. Bennet on the other illustrate the emotional spectrum that colors the family's overall character. The influence of Elizabeth's aunt and uncle shows how the family works in an extended sense, with the Gardiners acting as substitute parents, providing much needed emotional support at key moments of stress. - Theme: Marriage. Description: Pride and Prejudice is a love story, but its author is also concerned with pointing out the inequality that governs the relationships between men and women and how it affects women's choices and options regarding marriage. Austen portrays a world in which choices for individuals are very limited, based almost exclusively on a family's social rank and connections. To be born a woman into such a world means having even less choice about whom to marry or how to determine the shape of one's life. The way that society controls and weakens women helps to explain in part Mrs. Bennet's hysteria about marrying off her daughters, and why such marriages must always involve practical, financial considerations. As members of the upper class, the Bennet sisters are not expected to work or make a career for themselves. Yet as women they are not allowed to inherit anything. As a result, marriage is basically their only option for attaining wealth and social standing. Yet Austen is also critical of women who marry solely for security, like Charlotte. The ideal for her is represented by Elizabeth, who refuses to trade her independence for financial comfort and in the end marries for love. - Theme: Class. Description: Class is the target of much of the novel's criticism of society in general. Austen makes it clear that people like Lady Catherine, who are overly invested in their social position, are guilty of mistreating other people. Other characters, like the suck-up Mr. Collins and the scheming Caroline, are depicted as thoroughly empty, their opinions and motivations completely defined by the dictates of the class system. To contrast them, Austen offers more positive examples in Bingley and the Gardiners. Bingley is someone from the upper class who wears his position lightly and gallantly. The Gardiners represent the honest, generous, and industrious middle class and are examples of how to be wealthy without being pretentious. Austen does seem to respect the class system in a few ways, especially when it operates not as a dividing power in society, but as a force for virtue and decency. Darcy is the primary example of Austen's ideal high-class gentleman. Though originally he seems to be an arrogant and selfish snob, as the novel progresses it becomes clear that he is capable of change. Eventually, thanks to Elizabeth's influence and criticism, he combines his natural generosity with the integrity that he considers a crucial attribute of all upper-class people. He befriends the Gardiners and plays a key role in helping the ungrateful Lydia out of her crisis. The marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth shows that class restrictions, while rigid, do not determine one's character, and that love can overcome all obstacles, including class. - Climax: The search for Lydia and Wickham - Summary: The arrival of the wealthy Mr. Bingley to the estate of Netherfield Park causes a commotion in the nearby village of Longbourn. In the Bennet household, Mrs. Bennet is desperate to marry Bingley to one of her five daughters—Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, or Lydia. When Bingley meets Jane at a ball, he seems immediately smitten with her. Yet Bingley's snobby friend Darcy is rude to Elizabeth. Through the next few social gatherings, Jane and Bingley grow closer, while Darcy, despite himself, finds himself becoming attracted to Elizabeth's beauty and intelligence. When Jane is caught in the rain while traveling to visit Bingley, she falls ill and must stay at Netherfield. Elizabeth comes to Netherfield to care for Jane, and though Bingley's sisters are rude and condescending to her (Caroline Bingley wants Darcy for herself), Darcy's attraction to her deepens. Elizabeth, however, continues to consider him a snob. Meanwhile, Mr. Collins, a pompous clergyman and Mr. Bennet's cousin and heir, visits the Bennets in search of a marriageable daughter. At about the same time, the Bennet sisters also meet Wickham, an army officer Elizabeth finds charming, and who claims Darcy wronged him in the past. Elizabeth's prejudice against Darcy hardens. Soon after, at a ball at Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet, much to Darcy's annoyance, comments that a wedding between Jane and Bingley is likely to soon take place. Collins, in the meantime, proposes to Elizabeth, who declines, angering her mother, but pleasing her father. Collins then proposes to Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas, who accepts out of a desire for security rather than a need for love. Bingley suddenly departs for London on business, and Caroline informs Jane by letter that not only will they not be returning, but moreover her brother is planning to wed Georgiana, Darcy's sister. Jane is crushed. Elizabeth is sure Darcy and Caroline are deliberately separating Bingley and Jane. The sisters' aunt and uncle, Mr. Gardiner and Mrs. Gardiner, invite Jane to London hoping that she will get over her disappointment, but after she arrives Caroline snubs her and she regrets letting herself fall in love with Bingley. Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr. Collins, where she encounters Collins' patron and Darcy's relative, the wealthy and formidable Lady Catherine. Darcy arrives and surprises Elizabeth by joining her for long intimate walks. She grows angry, however, when she learns that Darcy advised Bingley against marrying Jane. Oblivious, Darcy announces his love for her and proposes marriage. Elizabeth refuses his proposal, accusing him of ruining Jane's marriage and mistreating Wickham. In a letter Darcy explains that he intervened because he felt Jane did not truly love Bingley. Wickham, he writes, is a liar and a scoundrel. Elizabeth begins to feel she has misjudged Darcy and may have been rash in turning him down. Returning home, Elizabeth finds that Lydia has become smitten with Wickham. She urges her father to intervene, but he chooses to do nothing. Elizabeth soon accompanies the Gardiners on a trip. During the trip, Elizabeth visits Pemberley, Darcy's magnificent estate. She fantasizes about being his wife there and is further impressed when he unexpectedly shows up and introduces her to his charming sister, Georgiana. Bingley also arrives and reveals that he is still in love with Jane. Elizabeth's trip is cut short by a letter from Jane announcing that Lydia has eloped with Wickham. Fearing a scandal that will ruin all the daughters' futures, the Bennets search for Lydia in London. When Mr. Gardiner tracks them down, Wickham demands his debts be paid off in return for marrying Lydia. The Bennets assume that Gardiner gives in to the demand, since Lydia and Wickham soon return, playing the happy newlyweds. (Mrs. Bennet is happy that at least one of her daughters is married.) Elizabeth soon discovers that Darcy, not Gardiner, paid off Wickham's debts, out of love for her. Bingley and Darcy return to Netherfield and Bingley finally proposes to an overjoyed Jane. While Darcy goes to London on business, Lady Catherine visits Elizabeth, warning her not to marry Darcy. Elizabeth refuses to promise. On his return, Darcy asks Elizabeth again to marry him. This time she accepts, telling him her prejudice against him had made her blind. Darcy acknowledges that his pride made him act rudely. Both couples are married and the Bennet family rejoices in their daughters' happiness.

- Genre: Children's Novel, High Fantasy, Allegory - Title: Prince Caspian - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: The fictional world of Narnia - Character: Caspian. Description: Prince Caspian is the rightful heir to the throne of Narnia. He is a human being, descended from Telmarines who invaded Narnia generations ago. He lives with his uncle and aunt, King Miraz and Queen Prunaprismia—who murdered Caspian's father and usurped the throne after Caspian's mother died. As soon as Prunaprismia gives birth to a son in the novel's present, Caspian must escape before they can murder him, too. In his childhood, Caspian loves nothing more than listening to tales of the Golden Age of Narnia from his Nurse and later from Doctor Cornelius. He has an instinctive faith and trust in Aslan. When he escapes Miraz's clutches, he finds friends in Trufflehunter, Trumpkin, and, to a lesser extent, Nikabrik. Living in the countryside and meeting the remaining Old Narnians helps Caspian grow up and prepares him to challenge Miraz for the throne. Caspian shows himself to be a much better leader than his despotic uncle, taking advice from trusted counselors and gaining the Old Narnians' trust by joining them in their fights. He asks them to risk their lives, but he risks his own, too. And he's willing to take lessons from Peter and Edmund when he magically summons them with Susan's magical horn. He has a natural sense of right and wrong which leads him to reject Nikabrik's attempt to summon dark forces. When Aslan reappears and helps the Old Narnians achieve victory, Caspian ascends to the throne with humility, protesting that he's not knowledgeable or mature enough yet to feel sure of himself. It's clear he will continue to rely on the counsel and support of others and that doing so will enable him to rule the country more justly and equitably than his predecessor. - Character: Peter. Description: Peter is the eldest of the four siblings, including Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, who once ruled as kings and queens of Narnia. When Prince Caspian blows the magic horn, they are pulled back to Narnia to join the Old Narnians' fight against the oppressive Telmarines. Because he was the oldest and because he is a natural leader, Peter was named High King. Nevertheless, both in the old days and in Prince Caspian's present, he wields power with care, telling Caspian that he has no designs to rule Narnia again himself, and consulting his siblings when making important decisions. He opts for consensus rather than command. He shows great personal bravery when he fights Miraz in single combat and demonstrates gallant and chivalrous attitude; he refuses to press an unfair advantage and strike after Miraz has tripped. This book showcases his growing maturity in the form of self-possession and self-confidence, and he accepts the news that he will never again return to Narnia with grace. He leads the procession of humans—both his siblings and many of the Telmarines—through Aslan's magic door and back to Earth in the end. - Character: Lucy. Description: Lucy is Peter, Edmund, and Susan's younger sister. When Prince Caspian blows the magic horn, they are pulled back into Narnia to join the Old Narnians' fight against the oppressive Telmarines. She is a kind, brave, and trusting girl who has a special connection with Aslan. At Cair Paravel, she shows herself to be braver than Susan, although like her sister, she tends to shy away from battle or excessively bloody scenes. But she's not squeamish, either, and her skills and magical potion save the grievously wounded Reepicheep from certain death. Although she often knows the right thing to do, her older siblings tend to disbelieve or ignore her because she is the youngest. Aslan teaches her that she must follow what she knows to be right, even if others contradict her. She has a special connection with the lion, which is why he shows himself to her first. In the end she returns to her own world with her siblings, trusting in the promise that she will one day return to Narnia. - Character: Edmund. Description: Edmund is Peter, Susan, and Lucy's brother. With them he once stumbled into Narnia and (after a while) joined them in ruling the country. Like his brother Peter, he's practical, rugged, and brave; he challenges Trumpkin to a contest to prove that he and his siblings are the ancient kings and queens and not mere children. And although he continues to tease Trumpkin after winning, he does so in a kind and good-natured way. Edmund tends to side with Lucy against Peter and Susan, especially when Lucy claims to see Aslan and the rest cannot. He trusts his youngest sister's ability to see and understand what to do far before everyone else. When they finally reach the Old Narnia encampment, Edmund joins Peter in doing whatever he can to support Caspian's cause and see the young prince claim the throne. In the end, he leaves Narnia with his siblings and returns to England. - Character: Susan. Description: Susan is Peter, Edmund, and Lucy's sister. With them she once stumbled into Narnia through a wardrobe and ruled for years as one of the country's queens. She is good at swimming and archery but has a timid and caring personality that makes her hesitate to hurt anyone or to look at anything bloody or dangerous. She has less faith in Aslan than Lucy, and she leans on her authority as the older sister when it suits her. In the end, she leaves Narnia with her siblings, never to return again. - Character: Aslan. Description: Aslan is a magical lion associated with divine power in Narnia. He is the one who confirms and counsels the human boys and girls who sit on the throne, first Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, and later Prince Caspian. Although Aslan lives far beyond the Eastern Sea, he reappears when Narnia needs his help. His magical roar reawakens the dryads and naiads, summons Bacchus and Silenus, directs their efforts to bless Narnia with fertility and abundance, and restores the natural splendors which the Telmarines ruined with their excessive and abusive attempts to constrain nature. In Prince Caspian, his main lesson to the children is about the importance of faith and belief, so he doesn't show himself to them directly as he once did. Only Lucy can see him at first, and he reveals himself to the others as their faith in him increases. Although he is strong and fierce (he is a lion, after all), he is also gentle, kind, and loving: he summons the Telmarines who join him with names like "sweetheart" and "my love." Lucy loves Aslan with a fierce and untouchable loyalty. His presence brings a feeling of overwhelming peace, security, and happiness to his followers. In the end, he confirms Prince Caspian's right to rule and sends the abusive Telmarines back to the world from which they came. - Character: Trumpkin/the Dwarf/D.L.F.. Description: Trumpkin is a redheaded Dwarf and is Trufflehunter and Nikabrik's friend Along with these friends, he rescues and shelters Prince Caspian. He subsequently becomes one of Caspian's trusted advisors during the war. Trumpkin has a characteristic tendency to invent alliterative interjections like "whistles and whirligigs!" Lacking the long, ancestral memory of a talking animal, Trumpkin has what would best be described as an agnostic approach toward Aslan at the beginning of the book, neither exactly believing in the great lion nor rejecting his existence entirely. Similarly, he must see proof with his own eyes that Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are who they claim to be before trusting them. Once receiving proof, however, he immediately extends his faith and loyalty first to the children and then to the great lion. He shows bravery and loyalty when he accepts the dangerous mission to Cair Paravel from Prince Caspian (even though he worries that there are ghosts in the woods) and when he goes with the others to follow the (still-invisible) Aslan through the night to Aslan's How. For his contributions to the Old Narnian cause, Caspian inducts him into the Knights of the Golden Lion. - Character: Nikabrik. Description: Nikabrik is a Dwarf and Trufflehunter and Trumpkin's friend He belongs to the Black Dwarves, identified as such because of their black hair and beards. Of the trio, he is the least friendly towards Prince Caspian; remembering all too well the grievances of his people under the Telmarines' cruel and corrupt domination, he distrusts all humans. And he feels a particularly keen dislike for what he calls "half-and-halfers," or those with mixed ancestry between Telmarines and Dwarves, like Doctor Cornelius. Hurt and haunted by the trauma of his people's past, Nikabrik wants power and will do anything to get it. Initially, this means joining his friends in supporting Caspian's cause. But when he begins to feel hope of their eventual victory fading, he focuses on his own personal grievances, valuing the losses and sacrifices made by the Dwarves more than anyone else's. His lust for power even leads him into dark paths, allying him with evil magical creatures like hags, ogres, and werewolves. Eventually, he proposes summoning the long-dead White Witch who once plunged Narnia into eternal winter to avenge the Old Narnians against their Telmarine oppressors. He dies when his evil friends attack Caspian, Trufflehunter, and Doctor Cornelius, leading to a free-for-all in the council chambers. - Character: Trufflehunter. Description: Trufflehunter is a talking badger and a friend to Nikabrik and Trumpkin. With them, he rescues Prince Caspian, tending to the boy's injuries after he falls from his horse in a storm. Trufflehunter represents the Narnian talking animals in general, and like them he exemplifies loyalty, a long memory, and patience in adversity. He frequently tempers Nikabrik's worst impulses and patiently tries to convince both him and Trumpkin to believe in the stories of the Golden Age and what he knows about Aslan. Trufflehunter becomes one of Prince Caspian's most trusted advisors during the war between Old Narnians and Telmarine forces, sitting in council in Aslan's How and weighing in on all important decisions. In the end, Caspian rewards him for his loyal friendship and support by knighting him in the Order of the Golden Lion. - Character: Doctor Cornelius. Description: Doctor Cornelius is the tutor King Miraz hires to replace Prince Caspian's beloved Nurse. Cornelius is mixed-race, with Telmarine (human) and Dwarf ancestors. This gives him a connection to and an interest in the Golden Age of Narnia, and he has already done a lot of research about the past when he becomes Caspian's tutor. He teaches these things to the boy in secret to escape Miraz's attention. Cornelius also explains to Caspian facts about his own history, including how Miraz murdered Caspian's father and stole his rightful throne. When Prunaprismia gives birth to a son, it's Cornelius who helps Caspian escape and gives him the magical horn he eventually uses to summon help. Eventually, he follows Caspian to the Old Narnian side where he becomes a wise and trusted counselor to all (except Nikabrik, who despises him for his mixed heritage). When Caspian prepares to ascend to the throne, he elevates Cornelius to Lord Chancellor. - Character: Miraz. Description: Miraz, the novel's antagonist, is the King of Narnia and the uncle to its rightful heir, Prince Caspian. He murdered his own brother (Caspian's father) and became regent during Caspian's infancy; after Caspian's mother died, Miraz purged the Telmarine nobility of men still loyal to the baby prince then declared himself king and his wife, Prunaprismia, queen. He shelters Caspian until he has a son and heir of his own. He's selfish, cruel, and prone to angry outbursts. He fears the magical creatures of the Old Days. When Peter challenges him to individual combat, Glozelle and Sopespian encourage him to accept (against better judgement) by insinuating that he's a coward if he doesn't. He dies when Glozelle stabs him in the back. - Character: Reepicheep. Description: Reepicheep is a talking mouse who's friends with Trufflehunter, Trumpkin, and Nikabrik. He's the leader of a band that joins the Old Narnian cause in support of Prince Caspian. Only a foot tall, he often initially escapes the notice of those around him. But what he lacks in size, he makes up for in gallantry and bravery. He has a long, sharp sword and an elegant moustache of whiskers, which he frequently twirls in his fingers when he's talking. He volunteers for all jobs—the more dangerous, the better, including walking through Aslan's magical door into an entirely alien world—and frequently plunges into battle with gusto. He's nearly killed in the final, climactic battle between the two sides, but Lucy revives him with her magic cordial. Aslan implies that Reepicheep may care too much about his honor, but Reepicheep feels that his unerring dignity keeps him from being dismissed by others. - Character: Glozelle. Description: Glozelle and his friend Sopespian are Telmarine lords. They supported Miraz when he murdered his brother, killed Telmarine nobles who weren't loyal to him, and claimed the Narnian throne. Sopespian and Glozelle betray Miraz in turn, first convincing him to face Peter in single combat and trying to use that moment to seize power for themselves. Glozelle fatally stabs Miraz in the back. It's unclear if he dies in the final battle, as he disappears from the narrative. - Character: Sopespian. Description: Sopespian and his friend Glozelle are Telmarine lords. They supported Miraz when he murdered his brother, killed Telmarine nobles who weren't loyal to him, and claimed the Narnian throne. Sopespian and Glozelle betray Miraz in turn, first convincing him to face Peter in single combat and trying to use that moment to seize power for themselves. It's unclear if he dies in the final battle, as he disappears from the narrative. - Character: Glenstorm. Description: Glenstorm the centaur is a friend of Trufflehunter, Trumpkin, and Nikabrik. A natural astronomer and prophet, he understands immediately that Prince Caspian is destined to overthrow his wicked uncle, King Miraz, and restore peace to Narnia. Glenstorm rouses the young prince up for the fight. He frequently fulfils important roles on the Old Narnian side, including accompanying Edmund to deliver Peter's challenge to Miraz and standing as one of the marshals during Peter's and Miraz's combat. - Character: Bacchus. Description: Bacchus is the Greek god of winemaking, orchards, fruit, and fertility, among other things. In Prince Caspian, he represents a wild, almost dangerous generative force which is safest when exercised under Aslan's watchful eye. He and his followers, the Maenads and Silenus, join the Old Narnia forces when Aslan reawakens the dryads (tree spirits), naiads (water spirits), and other minor ancient Greek divinities. - Character: Pattertwig. Description: Pattertwig is a talking squirrel and is friends with Trufflehunter, Trumpkin, and Nikabrik. He carries their message to the talking beasts and other magical creatures of Narnia to introduce the Old Narnians to Prince Caspian. Later, Caspian sends him to the Lantern Wastes to see if the help summoned by the magic horn will arrive there. - Character: Bulgy Bears. Description: The three Bulgy Bears are talking beasts and are friends with Trufflehunter, Trumpkin, and Nikabrik. They join Prince Caspian's cause. When Peter fights in single combat with Miraz, the eldest Bulgy Bear reminds the High King of the bears' hereditary and traditional right to supply a marshal for such contests. - Theme: Good vs. Evil. Description: In Prince Caspian, Prince Caspian calls Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy from their world into Narnia with the help of a magic horn. He needs their help to defeat his uncle, King Miraz, who has stolen Caspian's rightful throne. Evil forces are afoot in Narnia, especially among the Telmarines, a race descended from a group of bloodthirsty pirates who fell through a crack between the worlds centuries earlier. As an allegory of Lewis's Christian values and as a children's story, Prince Caspian presents a fairly straightforward  conflict between good and evil, arguing that the world can only be restored through self-sacrifice and concern for others. The forces of good win because they are concerned about working together and taking care of each other, and this gives them a strength and resilience that the Telmarines lack. For instance, the book pointedly reminds readers how Aslan willingly sacrificed his own life to deliver Narnia in the previous book in the series. And Caspian himself earns the trust of the Old Narnians by treating them with respect and not putting his own interests above theirs. When an injury prevents Caspian from challenging Miraz himself, Peter selflessly takes on the responsibility, risking his life for the good of Narnia. His action parallels Aslan's earlier sacrifice, and it allows good to prevail. When Peter's challenge hands a decisive victory to the Narnian forces, they celebrate together, then welcome any Telmarine humans who want to join them into their new kingdom. In this way, they show their commitment to the generosity and community that allow good to flourish. On the other hand, the Telmarines generally exemplify selfishness, from Miraz (who stole the throne) to lords Glozelle and Sopespian (who in turn murder Miraz) to the everyday Telmarines who build bridges and cut down trees to reshape nature to suit their whims. Their actions are framed as selfish and evil—they gain power by subjugating nature and other beings. However, the Narnian side isn't immune from such selfishness: Nikabrik's single-minded focus on the abuses suffered by the Dwarves, and his concern to restore their rights, even at the expense of others, ends up leading him down the path of evil, too. With this, Prince Caspian highlights that anyone is capable of either good or evil: just as Narnian-allied Nikabrik exemplifies evil, the Telmarines who choose to accept Aslan and remain in Narnia ultimately exemplify good. - Theme: Faith and Belief. Description: In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis uses allegorical elements to imbue books like Prince Caspian with the beliefs and values of his devout Christian faith. Aslan functions as a Christ figure, a link between the natural and spiritual worlds, both divine and vulnerable to suffering and death. Prince Caspian makes a fairly explicit claim that the world is better when people embrace Christian values. More specifically, Aslan's slow revelation of himself teaches the oppressed Old Narnians (and Peter, Susan, and Edmund) the true meaning of faith: believing and trusting in something even when a person cannot see it. When the story opens, it's been generations since Aslan left Narnia. In his absence, the Telmarines have taken over. They harbor a superstitious fear of Aslan and of the nature spirits, dryads and naiads, that used to flourish in Narnia. But their abuse of the land and its creatures suggests that they do not truly fear Aslan or ever expect his return. Talking beasts, with their long ancestral memories, and some mixed-race Telmarines (like Doctor Cornelius and Caspian's Nurse) maintain their faith in Aslan. But other magical creatures, like Trumpkin and Nikabrik, have lost theirs, due in part to their belief that he abandoned them. Before Aslan can restore order to Narnia, those who cannot or do not believe in him must learn to. Only when Edmund, then Peter, then finally Susan remember their faith can they once again see Aslan, whom Lucy has been able to see from the start. Trumpkin's doubt vanishes the instant he sees the lion in the flesh, and a delighted Aslan pounces on the Dwarf and declares that they will be great friends. The Telmarines who embrace him are welcome to stay, and those who don't are repatriated to the land from which they came. The instant a person believes, their prior disbelief counts for nothing. Aslan never forces himself on anyone, and he doesn't punish doubters. Instead, his actions argue that faith is a voluntary choice a person must make. Through the voluntary acts of faith of all the Narnians collectively, human, magical creature, and beast, Aslan restores Narnia to its former glory. - Theme: Power vs. Leadership. Description: In Narnia's Golden Age, King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy ruled together, guided by Aslan himself. They shared their power and respected the magical and woodland creatures who were their subjects, and everyone flourished. In contrast, Telmarine rule is characterized by abuses of power and the entire land suffers because of it. Again and again, the book shows how the Telmarines value power—over each other, over their enemies, and over nature itself. And with this, Prince Caspian draws a distinction between raw, unchecked power over one's subjects and true leadership, which expresses humility, seeks the good of the group, and allows everyone to have a voice. The book also argues that the seeds of destruction often lie in a person's lust for power. Miraz killed his own brother and stole the throne from Prince Caspian. To maintain his grip on power, he also murdered any noblemen who failed to show absolute loyalty to him. He rules like a cruel and petty tyrant, overtaxing the populace and enacting punishing laws. But his own alleged supporters, Glozelle and Sopespian, in turn murder him to seize more power themselves. In contrast to his criminal uncle, Caspian comes to power by learning how to be a good ruler through Doctor Cornelius's lessons, then by earning the friendship of Old Narnians like Trumpkin, Trufflehunter, and the rest. Even after the final, climactic battle, he still doesn't feel entitled to rule, as he tells Aslan. And this, Aslan replies, is the mark of a true leader: he understands his responsibilities to others and works collaboratively with them rather than using his power to enrich or empower himself at others' expense. Thus, the book claims the best use of worldly power sees a leader working collaboratively with others, admitting when he or she doesn't know a thing, and submitting them to the higher powers of nature and the divine (represented in the book by Aslan). And the leader who can do these things well will be loved by their subjects. - Theme: Fear and Courage. Description: Because it centers around a civil war between Telmarine humans and Old Narnians, what constitutes courage is a constant question in Prince Caspian. Certainly, there are many opportunities for characters to demonstrate courage, from night-time treks through unknown territory, to engaging in open war, to individual combat. Each example of courageous action adds to the book's argument that courage is one of the highest and best virtues a person can have. Caspian shows courage and keeps his head in dangerous circumstances when he leaves his home to escape being murdered by his uncle, King Miraz, and when he finds himself in the den of three Old Narnians, one of whom (Nickabrik) wants to murder him, too. Then, despite his youth and inexperience, he agrees to lead the Old Narnian forces, gaining their trust through his willingness to risk his own safety and life on the battlefield. Similarly, Reepicheep the talking mouse shows courage far beyond what one would expect for his small size and the Old Narnians universally love and respect him for it. Even Miraz values courage, albeit mixed with vanity, when he agrees to face Peter in individual combat after his advisors Glozelle and Sopespeian imply that not doing so would be cowardly. However, while the book places a high value on courage, it still takes a very forgiving and gentle view of those whose courage fails at one time or another. Although it perpetually portrays Susan as scared—from her fear of the dark in the ruins of Cair Paravel, to her refusal to trust Lucy's claims about Aslan unless she sees him with her own eyes—when Susan finally comes face to face with Aslan, he doesn't upbraid her for her poor choices. Instead, he has compassion for her, understanding that her actions arise from listening to her fears too much. He restores her confidence before he leads the children into the endgame of the Narnian war. Although the novel thus acknowledges that fear is a very human—and thus forgivable—offense, the book encourages its readers to value examples of courage and to strive to emulate them. - Climax: Peter faces Miraz in combat. - Summary: As Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy sit at a rural train station, waiting for the trains that will take them off to their boarding schools (one for the boys, one for the girls), they find themselves transported to another world. They arrive on a thickly wooded island in the center of which sits a ruined castle. They eventually realize it's Cair Paravel, where they themselves lived when they ruled Narnia. Although they only left a year ago in Earth time, that means thousands of years have passed in Narnia. They arm and armor themselves with items from the castle's treasure room. The next day, as they try to leave the island, they intercept two soldiers in a rowboat carrying out the execution of a Dwarf. Susan scares the soldiers off by shooting them from the trees (non-fatally) with her bow and arrows. She and Peter snag the boat and the children unbind the Dwarf (later identified as Trumpkin). After breakfast, Trumpkin tells them the story of King Caspian the Tenth, rightful ruler of Narnia. Prince Caspian grew up in the court of his uncle and aunt, King Miraz and Queen Prunaprismia, hearing stories of the Golden Age of Narnia from his beloved Nurse. When Miraz fires the nurse for telling these stories, he gets a tutor called Doctor Cornelius. Cornelius, who is half Dwarf, half Telmarine (human) continues to teach Caspian about the old days in secret. When the king and queen finally have a son of their own, Caspian becomes superfluous to Miraz's plans and Doctor Cornelius helps him escape the castle before Miraz can kill him. As Caspian rides south toward safety in a neighboring kingdom, his horse throws him off in a thunderstorm. Two Dwarves (Trumpkin and another called Nikabrik) and a talking badger named Trufflehunter rescue the boy. Once they know who he is, they introduce him to other Old Narnians—talking beasts like Pattertwig the squirrel and Reepicheep the mouse, and magical creatures like Glenstorm the Centaur. Glenstorm, a prophet, tells them it's time for the Old Narnians to revolt against Miraz under Caspian's command. They form an army and take the ancient and magical place called Aslan's How for their base. When the war goes badly, Caspian blows a magic horn which once belonged to Queen Susan. This is what calls the children back into Narnia. Trumpkin was on his way to see if anyone had arrived at Cair Paravel when Miraz's supporters captured him. Then the children rescued him, bringing his story back to the present. Trumpkin and the children decide they must travel to Aslan's How through the thick coastal woods. After a day rowing around the coast and another pushing through the forest, they reach the Rush River, which runs along the bottom of a nearly impassable gorge. Aslan shows Lucy the shortest path across, but her siblings doubt her and insist on going the longer way downstream. When an attack by Telmarine forces turns them back, they grudgingly follow Lucy, who follows Aslan. Aslan takes them directly to the How, restoring their faith. As Trumpkin, Peter, and Edmund arrive, Caspian puts down a challenge from Nikabrik, who wants to turn to black magic to win the war. In the process, Nikabrik is killed and Caspian is wounded. Thus, when Peter suggests that the Narnians challenge Miraz to single combat to decide the war, it's Peter who must fight. Goaded by his own lords Glozelle and Sopespian, Miraz accepts. After a long and evenly matched bout, Miraz trips and Glozelle jumps into the ring to stab him in the back. Telmarine and Old Narnian forces spring into open battle, which the Narnians win with the help of the reawakened dryads. Meanwhile, Aslan, Susan, and Lucy roam the countryside, accompanied by Bacchus. They destroy bridges and set river gods free. Most Telmarines flee them in terror, but some—the ones who will fit well in the new Narnia—follow them. They return just as the final battle for Narnia ends, with Caspian and the Narnians emerging victorious. The Old Narnian forces dance, feast, and celebrate late into the night. A few days later, Aslan summons the Telmarines who want to leave Narnia, which will once again belong first to the animals and magical creatures. He offers to send them through a magical door back to their ancestors' world—Earth, as it turns out. It's also time for the children to leave, and they lead the human exodus from Narnia, finding themselves back on the train platform just an instant after they left.

- Genre: Fiction - Title: Purple Hibiscus - Point of view: First person limited, from Kambili's perspective - Setting: Nigeria - Character: Kambili Achike. Description: The novel's narrator, a fifteen-year-old girl who is quiet and withdrawn, but an excellent student. She idolizes her father, Papa, even as she fears his violent punishments, and her worldview is based on his strict Catholic rules. After visiting Nsukka she slowly starts to talk and open up more, and falls in love with the young priest Father Amadi. She ultimately retains her Catholic faith, though a more liberal one based on that of Father Amadi and her Aunty Ifeoma. - Character: Jaja (Chukwuka Achike). Description: Kambili's older brother, a seventeen-year-old who is also quiet but an excellent student. Jaja feels guilty about being unable to protect Kambili and Mama from Papa. In Nsukka he discovers a passion for gardening, and he quickly feels more at home with Aunty Ifeoma than with Papa. Jaja then acts more openly rebellious than Kambili, challenging Papa and abandoning his Catholic faith. At the same time he grows more distant from Kambili. He later takes responsibility for Mama's crime and is imprisoned for three years. - Character: Papa (Eugene Achike). Description: Kambili's father, a wealthy factory owner and devout Catholic. Papa uses his vast wealth to support his friends and relatives, many charities, and his church, St. Agnes. He also publishes the newspaper the Standard, the only paper willing to criticize the corrupt government. At home, however, Papa is a strict authoritarian. He has rigid rules and impossibly high standards for his wife and children, and hurts them—for what he sees as their own benefit—whenever he perceives that they have sinned or failed. Papa breaks ties with his father, Papa-Nnukwu, when Papa-Nnukwu refuses to become a Catholic. Papa is a "colonial product" who believes that Western culture is superior to Nigerian culture, and as a result he affects a British accent and avoids speaking Igbo. - Character: Mama (Beatrice Achike). Description: Kambili's mother, a quiet, submissive woman who takes care of her children but does not speak out against Papa's violence. After Kambili's birth she suffers several miscarriages because of Papa's beatings. Mama is friends with Aunty Ifeoma, but does not act on Ifeoma's "university talk" of liberation and equality. She feels she cannot leave such a wealthy and socially important and even benevolent man. But as his abuse worsens and he causes yet another miscarriage for Mama, she does slowly poison Papa. After Papa's death and Jaja's arrest, Mama rarely speaks and seems constantly distracted. - Character: Aunty Ifeoma. Description: Papa's sister, a tall, outspoken woman who is a professor at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Ifeoma is not afraid to criticize her brother, the university, or the Nigerian government. She is a Catholic, but a liberal and open-minded one who accepts Papa-Nnukwu's traditionalist beliefs. She treats her children with respect, encouraging them to debate and speak their minds. Since her husband Ifediora's death she has struggled for money, but she refuses to succumb to the demands that come with Papa's money. Ifeoma ultimately helps both Jaja and Kambili find their voices and independence. She moves to America when the university fires her for speaking out against the "sole administrator." - Character: Papa-Nnukwu. Description: The father of Papa and Aunty Ifeoma. He still lives in Abba and remains a traditionalist, following the beliefs of his ancestors. Papa-Nnukwu is close with Ifeoma and her children, but Papa cuts ties with him when he refuses to convert to Christianity. At first Kambili fears him as a "heathen," but she comes to love him as she spends time with him and sees that his rituals are just as valid as Catholic ones. - Character: Father Amadi. Description: A young, handsome Nigerian priest who is friends with Aunty Ifeoma and her children. He is a Catholic who also respects his Nigerian roots, incorporating Igbo songs into his prayers and blending the old ways with the new. He plays soccer with local boys, jokes with Ifeoma's children, and acts decidedly "unpriestly." Kambili comes to fall in love with him. He leaves to do missionary work in Germany, but remains close with Kambili. - Theme: Colonialism and Nigerian Politics. Description: Though the plot of Purple Hibiscus unfolds mostly on a personal level, its characters' lives are also affected by a larger political background. Nigeria has a long history of English colonialism and oppression—it was a colony of the British for over a hundred and fifty years, and its disparate groups only brought together as a single nation because of British control—and it only became its own independent nation in 1960. Papa is described as a "colonial product": a man who has bought into the colonialist mindset. Though he is Nigerian, Papa believes that white people do everything better, and he wants everything in his life to be Western and modern. He speaks in an affected British accent when talking to white people, and avoids speaking the native language of Igbo whenever possible. His sister Aunty Ifeoma, on the other hand, rejects the idea that whiteness-equals-superiority. She is frustrated by the corruption in Nigeria, but she still believes that the country should embrace its own resources and independence. She asserts that Nigeria is still a young nation learning to govern itself, so it should not be judged alongside much older countries that have already gone through growing pains.While colonialism sets the background for the novel, Purple Hibiscus also takes place during a turbulent time for the Nigerian government. The plot probably coincides with the real, historical military coup and subsequent regime of Ibrahim Bangida, one of the country's most corrupt leaders—although in the novel he is only referred to as the Head of State, or "Big Oga." Few details about the government are given, but politics still affect the daily lives of Adichie's characters: workers' strikes cut off power and water, police require bribes at random checkpoints, and Ade Coker, who is based on the real-life journalist Dele Giwa, is assassinated with a letter bomb. We see everything through a young adult's point of view, but Adichie still manages to make her novel a political one by showing the tragic personal results of the legacy of colonialism, dictatorship, and corruption. - Theme: Religion and Belief. Description: Religion and belief are central to the novel, particularly in the contrasts between Papa, Papa-Nnukwu, and Aunty Ifeoma/Father Amadi. The plot begins with descriptions of Papa's religious belief, which were molded by Catholic missionaries and are incredibly strict. He prefers that Igbo not be spoken (or sung) in church, and believes that priests should be very traditional. He befriends and admires the white, conservative Father Benedict. Papa imposes his strict rules on his family, and when they commit what he perceives as a sin, he punishes them with violence, as he himself was as a boy and which he sees as being for their own benefit. Kambili and Mama aren't allowed to wear pants, prayers over meals are long-winded and formal, and non-Christians aren't even allowed onto Papa's land. These beliefs have led to a deep rift between Papa and his father, Papa-Nnukwu, who still follows traditional Igbo rituals. Papa-Nnukwu attends the festival of mmuo (spirits), offers food to the gods, and performs a morning declaration of innocence. This makes him a "Godless heathen" in Papa's eyes, yet Adichie portrays his rituals as equally valid to Catholic ones. Aunty Ifeoma practices a sort of blend between the two extremes, as she is a Catholic who includes Igbo songs in her prayers and doesn't judge her father for his traditional beliefs. Ifeoma's priest is the open-minded, lighthearted Nigerian Father Amadi.Adichie ultimately presents Ifeoma's and Papa-Nnukwu's religion in a much kinder light than Papa's, as Adichie too rejects Western domination over Nigerian culture, and the suppression of joy and acceptance that comes with too strict a dogma. We see this stance through the character of Father Amadi—a young Nigerian priest embracing both the old ways and the new—and also in the positive changes to Jaja and Kambili as they are exposed to beliefs other than Papa's. Jaja and Kambili have grown up seeing their father as a godlike figure, awe-inspiring but also terrifying, and changing their strict Catholic faith also means struggling with losing their faith in Papa. But once they are both freed of this blind belief (Jaja more so than Kambili), they have the freedom to choose their own faith. Kambili finds herself reaffirming her Catholicism with her visions of the Virgin Mary, while Jaja loses his faith altogether. Though they choose different paths, the important thing is that with Aunty Ifeoma and Father Amadi they find a place of religious acceptance, and so have the freedom to choose without risking punishment. - Theme: Family. Description: Purple Hibiscus takes place mostly on the familial level, dealing with the relations between Papa, Mama, Jaja, and Kambili, and then their relations with Papa-Nnukwu, Aunty Ifeoma, and her children. First we see the family dynamic of Kambili's family, where they all live in silence and fear, following Papa's strict rules and schedules. This quiet order is based around the terror of Papa's sporadic violence for anything he sees as sinful or disobedient. Kambili and Jaja are very close, though they rarely speak. They also have very little contact with their grandfather, aunt, or cousins, and live secluded in their immediate family. In contrast, Aunty Ifeoma and her children—Amaka, Obiora, and Chima—all speak their minds, laugh often, and are encouraged to debate and question. They are also close with Papa-Nnukwu, as they don't see him as a "heathen" like Papa does.These two families overlap when Kambili and Jaja go to stay with Aunty Ifeoma. They see how different they are from Ifeoma's family, and start to realize how unhealthy and rigid their own family dynamic is. Jaja and Kambili first discover freedom and joy there, and they don't want to leave. Through Aunty Ifeoma and her children, Adichie represents her idea of a healthy family—one that creates community and love, but also accepts differences and supports individuals as they grow and change. - Theme: Freedom vs. Tyranny. Description: Related to the strictness of Papa's beliefs and the corruption of the Nigerian government is an important theme of freedom, and its opposite, tyranny. Politically, Papa and Ade Coker represent a freedom of the press that protests against the censorship and corruption of the Head of State. Aunty Ifeoma, a university professor, also speaks her mind and criticizes those in power. The political tyranny in the Nigerian government responds to this assertion of freedom with brutal action. Ade Coker is assassinated, the Standard and Papa's factories are shut down, and Ifeoma is fired from the university. Hope for political freedom only comes in the novel's last section, when the Head of State dies and democracy is tentatively restored.Freedom and tyranny exists among Adichie's individual characters as well. Though Papa bravely stands up for political freedom, in the world of his own family—where he is the one in control—he acts like a tyrant. He allows no freedom or independence for Mama, Kambili, or Jaja. He schedules his children's every minute and even chooses the color of the drapes. When anyone acts out or tries to assert their freedom, he responds with violence. Kambili and Jaja thus get their first real taste of freedom at Aunty Ifeoma's house. After seeing this totally different family dynamic—one where all the children are encouraged to speak their minds and question everything—Kambili and Jaja start feeling more rebellious and independent. Kambili's assertion of freedom begins by keeping the painting of Papa-Nnukwu, while Jaja grows more openly rebellious, refusing to speak to his father and then refusing to go to church on Palm Sunday. Jaja's Palm Sunday actions signal a turning point for the family. The most surprising twist comes at the end, however, as Mama turns to her own kind of tyranny—murder—to assert her freedom from Papa. This leads to prison for Jaja, which ends up as just another version of the cycle of freedom and oppression. There is finally some hope with Jaja's impending release, which also coincides with the Head of State's death, as both Nigeria and Kambili's family hope to find true freedom at last. - Theme: Silence and Speech. Description: Silence and speech are important motifs throughout the novel, to the point that the contrast between the two becomes a recurring theme on both the personal and political level. The titles of two of the novel's sections deal with this theme as well: "Speaking with our Spirits" and "A Different Silence." Silence is associated with the fear of Papa that Mama, Kambili, and Jaja experience at all times. Kambili, especially, rarely speaks, because she is afraid to stutter and also never wants to anger her father. She and Jaja have a "language of the eyes," speaking only with glances, as they are rarely left alone together and never mention Papa's abuse out loud. Kambili's silence then becomes more conspicuous in the presence of Aunty Ifeoma's family—who are always laughing, singing, and speaking their mind—and Father Amadi, who breaks into song during his prayers. With Ifeoma and Father Amadi's encouragement, however, Kambili starts to speak more, and even to sing. Jaja also grows more comfortable speaking, and he then turns his silence (which is no longer a fearful one) into a weapon against Papa by refusing to speak to him.On the political level, Papa and Ade Coker most strongly represent the power of free speech, as their newspaper is the only one to speak out against the corrupt government. Aunty Ifeoma too criticizes the corruption she sees, unlike most of the other professors. Ade Coker is silenced by a package bomb, and Aunty Ifeoma is silenced by losing her job—yet they are both powerful examples of the importance of free speech. Ultimately Adichie always portrays the freedom of speech and music as a positive change over frightened silence and censorship. - Theme: Violence. Description: The forces of tyranny, oppression, and silence all use violence as their tool throughout Purple Hibiscus. As with many of Adichie's themes, the cycle of violence starts at the top and works its way down. The first violence was the oppression of British colonialism, which then led to corruption and violence in the Nigerian governments set up in its wake. The Head of State's military regime uses violence as a tool for censorship and oppression, killing Ade Coker and the pro-democracy activist Nwanketi Ogechi, and ransacking Aunty Ifeoma's apartment. Papa uses violence to enforce his own kind of oppression on his family, as he beats them, whips them, and pours boiling water on them. This violence then leads to more violence in the very attempt to escape it. Just as colonialism resulted in a corrupt independent government, so Papa's violence compels Mama to poison and murder him. Thus Adichie shows that violence almost always begets more violence, as a method of oppression but also as a struggle for freedom. - Climax: Papa's death - Summary: Kambili Achike, the narrator, is a fifteen-year-old girl living in Enugu, Nigeria with her father, Eugene (Papa), mother, Beatrice (Mama), and older brother, Chukwuku (Jaja). The novel begins on Palm Sunday. Jaja refuses to receive communion at church, and Papa throws his missal, breaking Mama's beloved figurines. Kambili then explains the events leading up to this scene. Papa, a wealthy factory owner, is an active philanthropist in public and an upstanding Catholic, but at home is a strict and violent authoritarian. He publishes a newspaper, the Standard, which is the only paper willing to criticize the new Nigerian Head of State. Mama gets pregnant. After Mass one day the family visits Father Benedict, their white priest. Mama feels sick and doesn't want to leave the car. When they return home Papa beats Mama until she has a miscarriage. Later Kambili takes her exams and comes second in her class, disappointing Papa. At Christmas the family goes to their home village of Abba. Papa's father, Papa-Nnukwu, lives there, but Papa doesn't speak to him because his father sticks to his traditional religion and won't become Catholic. Kambili and Jaja visit Papa-Nnukwu briefly. Aunty Ifeoma, Papa's widowed sister and a university professor, arrives in Abba as well. She seems fearless and willing to criticize both Papa and the government. Her children—Amaka, Obiora, and Chima—are precocious and outspoken. Ifeoma takes Jaja and Kambili to an Igbo festival. On Christmas Papa feeds the whole village. The next day Papa catches Kambili breaking the "Eucharist fast" as she eats some food along with a painkiller she needs to take for menstrual cramps, and he beats her, Jaja, and Mama. Ifeoma convinces Papa to let Jaja and Kambili visit her in Nsukka. Kambili and Jaja arrive and are surprised by Ifeoma's poverty, but also the constant laughter in her house. Jaja is fascinated by the purple hibiscuses in Ifeoma's garden. Father Amadi, a young, handsome Nigerian priest, comes to dinner. As the days progress Jaja opens up, though Kambili remains silent and confused. Ifeoma hears that Papa-Nnukwu is sick, and she fetches him from Abba. Amaka starts painting a picture of him. Father Amadi visits often, and Kambili finds herself attracted to him. One morning Kambili observes Papa-Nnukwu's morning ritual, which is similar to Catholic confession. Father Amadi takes Kambili to the local stadium. He makes her chase after him and tries to get her to talk. Kambili is confused by her feelings and his "unpriestly" demeanor. Papa finds out that Papa-Nnukwu is staying in the house. The next morning the family discover that Papa-Nnukwu has died in his sleep. Papa takes Jaja and Kambili back to Enugu, and Amaka gives Kambili her painting. Papa punishes Jaja and Kambili for not telling him they were staying in the same apartment as their grandfather, a pagan, by pouring boiling water on their feet. Papa and his editor, Ade Coker, decide to run a controversial story in the Standard. Soon after, Ade Coker is assassinated with a package bomb. One day Kambili and Jaja are looking at the painting of Papa-Nnukwu when Papa comes in. He beats Kambili severely, and she wakes up in the hospital. Papa agrees to let Jaja and Kambili return to Nsukka. Ifeoma worries about losing her job for speaking out against the "sole administrator" appointed by the government. The university closes after a student riot. Men ransack Ifeoma's flat, trying to intimidate her. Kambili falls more deeply in love with Father Amadi, who seems attracted to her. Mama arrives one day after being beaten into another miscarriage. Papa takes his family home, and the next day is the Palm Sunday on which the novel begins, when Jaja stands up to Papa. After Palm Sunday there is less fear and silence in the house. Ifeoma calls to say that she has been fired and is moving to America. Jaja and Kambili return to Nsukka. Ifeoma takes them on a pilgrimage to Aokpe, where Kambili sees visions of the Virgin Mary and reaffirms her faith. Father Amadi leaves to do missionary work, and Kambili weeps and confesses her love to him. Ifeoma gets a visa and prepares to leave Nigeria. Papa is found dead at his desk, and they all go to Enugu. When Papa's autopsy is complete, Mama says that she poisoned him. The police arrive and Jaja takes responsibility for the crime. Three years later, Kambili and Mama visit Jaja in prison to tell him he will be released soon. Mama has grown withdrawn and rarely speaks. After the visit, Kambili feels hopeful about the future.

- Genre: Novel, Historical Fiction - Title: Ransom - Point of view: Third-person omniscient - Setting: Troy (legendary and quasi-historical city on the coast of modern-day Turkey), the Bronze Age - Character: Priam. Description: Priam is the aging King of Troy and the father of Hector, who at the outset of the novel lies dead in the Greek camp after having been defeated in battle by Achilles. At the novel's outset, Priam is a broken man, mourning not only the loss of his son, but also the loss of his heir and the city's chief defender: Priam anticipates (correctly) that Troy will not survive long without Hector. In fact, Priam's malaise runs even deeper than this, because he sees the inevitable fall of his city as a mockery of all that he has tried to achieve in life since nearly being sold into slavery as a child when Heracles sacked Troy. An encounter with the goddess Iris, however, persuades him that there is another way of thinking about his misfortune, and that he might still be able to seize some control of his fate—that there is, in fact, room for chance and human agency even when fate ultimately holds sway. Priam therefore decides to go to Achilles and beg him for Hector's body in exchange for a ransom. The idea scandalizes Priam's wife and family, who view it as degrading and unworthy of a king. This, however, is precisely why it appeals to Priam, who relishes the idea of simply being a father after a lifetime spent obeying royal customs and conventions. Over the course of his journey (and thanks in part to his driver, Somax's, efforts), Priam becomes ever more enamored of the ordinary but personal world he has had so little chance to engage with as a king. His meeting with Achilles completes his transformation from king to man, and he is able to return to Troy at peace with himself and his life. - Character: Achilles. Description: Conventionally described as the greatest warrior to take part in the siege of Troy, Achilles is half-human and half-divine: his father Peleus is a human king, but his mother Thetis is a sea nymph. Ransom refers only indirectly to Achilles's status as a demigod, but it is clear from the start that Achilles—renowned as he is as a warrior—is not entirely at ease with the world of men. In particular, his affinity with water suggests a longing for the more spiritual and fluid domain of his mother. By the time the novel opens, Achilles's split identity has been further complicated by the death of his friend Patroclus at the Trojan prince Hector's hands. Enraged, Achilles in turn killed Hector and attempted to mutilate Hector's corpse as a way to display his wrath, but was thwarted by the gods, who intervened to protect Hector's body from injury or decay. With no outlet for his grief or rage, Achilles remains frozen in a state of helpless mourning until the arrival of King Priam in his hut. Priam, who has brought a ransom to exchange for Hector's body, appeals to Achilles as a fellow human, subject to injury and death. The conversation moves Achilles, releasing him from the burdens of his life as a warrior, and he agrees to Priam's request. As the novel ends, Achilles has regained his ability to straddle his dual identities and feels that he has become more fully himself, even though he knows that he himself will soon die in battle. - Character: Somax. Description: Somax—a middle-aged common man with a flair for storytelling and a special fondness for his mule Beauty—is the carter hired to convey Priam to the Greek encampment. As Ransom's only original (and only lower-class) character, Somax occupies a unique role in the novel. In fact, he in some sense embodies the changes that Malouf has made to the story found in the Iliad, since his down-to-earth demeanor and ordinary troubles stand in stark contrast to the quite literally epic world that Priam and Achilles inhabit. Over the course of the novel, however, both Priam and Achilles come to appreciate the pleasures of being simply human (rather than a king, god, symbol, etc.), and Somax plays a key role in this transformation. Somax's children have all died, and as he travels with Priam, the two men bond over their shared losses, even as Somax encourages Priam to experience both grief and life in general in a more personal and particular way. Tellingly, it is Somax who has the final word in the novel, which closes with the carter telling his grandchildren and great-grandchildren about the part he played in the Trojan War. His listeners do not believe him, but do enjoy talking about Somax's now legendary mule Beauty—a detail that hints at Malouf's defense of ordinary and unheroic life. - Character: Hecuba. Description: Hecuba is the wife of Priam, and thus the Queen of Troy and the mother of Hector. Although her relationship with her children is in many ways more intimate and personal than her husband's—she recalls, for instance, key milestones in one of her sons' childhood—she strongly objects to Priam's proposed plan to ransom Hector's body. In addition to worrying for Priam's safety, Hecuba believes that the assumptions underlying Priam's plan could disrupt the entire social order by calling into question the inevitability of fate (i.e. the power of the gods) and the distinctions between different social classes. Nevertheless, she is a loving and devoted wife, and supports Priam when it becomes clear that his mind is made up. - Character: Hermes. Description: Initially appearing in Ransom as a young and rather vain Greek soldier, Hermes is in fact the Greek messenger god. He is also the god of travelers, and the escort of souls to the afterlife, so it is symbolically fitting that he acts as a guide and protector to Priam and Somax as they make their way to Achilles's hut. The men encounter him shortly before crossing the River Scamander, and he introduces himself as an escort sent by Achilles to protect them. Although both Priam and Somax are initially mistrustful, they have no choice but to accept his presence, and after helping them ford the river, Hermes reveals his true identity. Priam takes heart from the knowledge that the gods approve of his plan, and Hermes accompanies them for the rest of their journey. - Character: Patroclus. Description: As Achilles's closest friend, Patroclus looms large in Ransom even though the novel opens after his death. Patroclus and Achilles met when they were boys and grew up as adoptive brothers, so Achilles's sense of himself is deeply intertwined with Patroclus. In fact, he views Patroclus as his "soulmate," implying a possible sexual or romantic relationship. Nevertheless, the two do not always see eye to eye, with Patroclus seemingly feeling a deeper debt of loyalty to the Greek army. This difference of opinion is also what ultimately leads to Patroclus's death, since after Achilles refuses to fight because of an insult he receives from the Greek general Agamemnon, Patroclus borrows Achilles's armor only to die in a duel with Hector. His death sends Achilles into a destructive spiral of grief and rage, leading him to kill Hector and drag Hector's body around the walls of Troy. - Character: Hector. Description: Hector is Priam's eldest son, and thus the Crown Prince of Troy. He is also the city's greatest warrior, so his death at Achilles's hands essentially seals Troy's downfall. By the time Ransom begins, Hector is already dead, and Achilles has dragged his body back to the Greek camp in revenge for Hector's killing of Patroclus. Hector's surviving relatives describe him as a proud and loyal defender of his father and country, but he himself appears only in a flashback to his duel with Achilles, during which he uses his final breath to predict Achilles's own impending death. Interestingly, however, Hector appears to say this out of a sense of camaraderie rather than anger, foreshadowing Achilles's own change of heart: after Priam's visit, Achilles comes to see Hector as a worthy opponent and (perhaps more importantly) fellow human being. - Character: Peleus. Description: Peleus, Achilles's aging father, appears throughout the novel in his son's thoughts. In fact, when Priam visits Achilles, Achilles at first mistakes Priam for his own father and falls at his feet in tears. Priam later invokes this parallel explicitly, asking if Peleus wouldn't do for Achilles what he himself is attempting to do for Hector. Priam's words, combined with Achilles's memories of his father's grief at their parting, help persuade Achilles to return Hector's body. - Character: Neoptolemus. Description: Neoptolemus is Achilles's son, whom he has not seen in nine years by the time Ransom begins. Although Achilles himself will die before he has the chance to see his son again, he has a vision of Neoptolemus in the future: he sees his son, now a teenager, killing Priam during the final sack of Troy to avenge Achilles's death. Malouf expands on this in the final pages of the novel, depicting the killing as an unsatisfying attempt on Neoptolemus's part to live up to his father's legacy, and an act that will haunt Neoptolemus with shame for the rest of his life. - Theme: Fate, Chance, and Change. Description: In much of Greek mythology and literature, fate appears as an ultimate and inescapable force. This is certainly true of the stories surrounding the Trojan War, including the Iliad: in Homer's version of events, the deaths of Hector and Achilles, and even the fall of Troy itself, are all preordained. As a retelling of a single episode from the Iliad, Ransom largely works within this same tradition, depicting the final destinies of its characters as fixed and unalterable, at least by the time the story opens. At the same time, however, the novel attempts to reconcile this concept of fate with more modern ideas about chance and free will in order to envision a world in which internal change is possible, even when external change is not.  Fate itself appears in various guises in Ransom, some more traditional than others. Priam, for instance, at one point associates destiny with the will of the gods. But other, more earthly forces exercise in the book a similarly binding power over human lives. Priam, for instance, describes the royal sphere he occupies as king as one in which speech, actions, and events are never "accidental" but are instead carefully plotted out ahead of time in order to adhere to set symbolic meanings. Regardless of the particular form it takes, however, fate often overrides individual desire and action in the novel. This is particularly clear in Malouf's treatment of death, which—because it is universal and inevitable—is perhaps the most basic kind of destiny at play in the novel. Far from being avoidable, for instance, Hector's death at Achilles's hands is presented as the only possible outcome of both men's lives: "a meeting that from the beginning had been the clear goal of their lives and the final achievement of what they were." What's more, Ransom structurally emphasizes this connection between fate and mortality by repeatedly flashing forward to deaths that take place beyond the timeframe of the novel, but which nevertheless seem settled—most notably, Neoptolemus's grisly murder of Priam during the fall of Troy. Of course, it's possible that the details of Hector's and Priam's deaths have not always been set in stone. The goddess Iris, for instance, describes the siege and fall of Troy as "the way things are" rather than "the way they must be," implying that things might at one point have gone differently. By the time the novel begins, however, there is very little sense that major changes to Troy's future are possible: events have taken on a momentum of their own. Interestingly, however, the climax of the novel—Priam's visit to Achilles with treasure in order to ransom his son's body—seems to exist outside the bounds of fate, however that fate is defined. Although the meeting is possibly preordained in a certain sense (Priam, after all, foresees it in a vision), the novel also describes it as an event that flies in the face of every major form of "destiny," including social convention, individual character, and even physical probability (no one, for instance, thinks it is even possible for Priam to reach the Greek camp alive). In fact, Priam's plan is a direct response to Iris's words: as he explains to Hecuba, the simple act of relabeling fate as "chance" might provide an "opening" where humans can exercise free will, presumably because it expands the range of actions they can imagine. This in turn can have a snowball effect. For instance, Priam's actual meeting with Achilles does not entirely conform to his vision of it, because Achilles kneels to Priam before Priam has the chance to do the same. In other words, by acting in such an unexpected way himself, Priam creates a moment in which others can behave in similarly surprising and unscripted ways. In the end, of course, Priam's actions do not alter the material facts of either his own destiny or Achilles's. Since both men are (still) fated to die in the war, it is tempting to conclude that Priam's newfound hope in the idea of chance is misplaced. In reality, however, something has changed over the course of the novel: Priam and Achilles themselves, who shed some of the norms and burdens associated with their usual roles as king and warrior, and become more fully human as a result. This is why Priam's insistence on "naming" fate as chance is so important. However fixed external events may be, Ransom suggests that humans can rise above their fates by creating moments where internal change is possible. - Theme: Identity, Humanity, and Mortality. Description: Ransom focuses tightly on the inner worlds of two characters: Priam and Achilles. As the novel opens, however, neither of these characters has a particularly stable or unified sense of identity. Each is instead pulled in different directions on account of factors like their social roles as a king and a warrior and their interpersonal relationships. This is a distressing experience for both men, who feel variously uncomfortable with or alienated from different aspects of themselves. In the end, Priam's visit to Achilles will provide the framework necessary for each man to rebuild his sense of self, but it does this—unexpectedly—by stripping away much of what makes the characters distinct to reveal a common underlying humanity. To a certain extent, Ransom suggests that human identity is naturally dual and composite. The carter Somax, for instance, very calmly notes that humans have both a physical nature and a spiritual one, saying, "We're children…of the earth, as well as of the gods." For both Priam and Achilles, however, this ordinary duality is exaggerated—literally, in the case of Achilles, who is the son of a sea goddess and therefore half divine. By and large, Achilles seems to accept the split in his identity as natural, though he misses the easy way in which, as a boy, he was able to slip between the spiritual world of his mother and the earthly world of his father. As the novel opens, however, Achilles has become more seriously estranged from his divine nature, existing in a state of living death the novel describes as "earth-heaviness." Priam, meanwhile, is trapped between physicality and spirituality in a different sense. Although he is an elderly man, subject to the same pains and losses that affect any other human, Priam is also a king and, in that respect, a symbol of a "fixed and permanent" social order. The burden of being this symbol weighs on Priam, however, to the point that he seems in danger of losing himself inside his role as king; he talks, for instance, about "rattl[ing] about like a pea in the golden husk of [his]…dazzling eminence." Further complicating all of this is the fact that identity in Ransom hinges on interpersonal relationships. Achilles, for instance, only becomes "fully himself" in relation to his friend and "soulmate" Patroclus, but his dependence on another for his sense of self means that he experiences Patroclus's death as a loss of his own identity. For both Priam and Achilles, then, the challenge is to resolve these feelings of inner turmoil and estrangement. In part, that simply means coming to terms with the complex and even conflicting nature of identity. While talking to Somax, for instance, Priam is surprised to discover that the carter is quite at ease with both sides of his nature—the physical and the spiritual. In order to make this kind of peace with themselves, however, both Achilles and Priam first have to rediscover a core humanity distinct from any of the specific identities they hold (as kings, warriors, demigods, etc.). Ransom repeatedly refers to Priam's visit to Achilles as a "merely" human action, or an action that "any" man might undertake—that is, it's not rooted in anything particular to Priam, but instead is an experience common to all fathers. Even more broadly, it's rooted in an awareness of mortality that all humans share: in making his case to Achilles, Priam points out that they both know, as only humans can, what it means to be mortal, and that they should therefore have compassion for one another. Priam's appeal resonates with Achilles, who (as Priam earlier predicted) is then similarly able to cast off the obligation of being a "hero" in favor of simply being a man. Counterintuitively, then, Ransom suggests that people need to shed (at least temporarily) what seems to make them most distinct in order to fully grow into their identities. People need to recognize their common humanity in order to find their own individual human selves. As the novel draws to a close, both Priam and Achilles are newly comfortable with all aspects of themselves; Achilles, for instance, rediscovers the "lightness" of his half-divine nature in the wake of Priam's visit. What's more, this treatment of identity reflects the novel's broader ideas about the link between mortality and humanity. Ultimately, Ransom suggests that it is the knowledge that life will end—that is, that every individual will lose his particular identity—that makes human nature distinct. - Theme: Language, Storytelling, and Empathy. Description: In the Afterword to Ransom, Malouf says that he considers the novel to be, at heart, about storytelling. Given that the novel is a reworking of a preexisting story—told most famously in The Iliad—this is not surprising. Still, it is striking just how often Malouf interrupts the main narrative to tell a story-within-a-story. These interludes serve different purposes over the course of the novel, from offering necessary backstory to providing entertainment. Most importantly, however, they provide a contrast to the rigid and formal language of the Trojan royal court. Whereas the stylized speech of the court tends to bind people more tightly to a set role in life, storytelling encourages them to look beyond the boundaries of self, space, and time. Broadly speaking, Ransom deals with two types of language: ceremonial and narrative. As King of Troy, Priam is used to the former—highly stylized arguments, speeches, and exchanges that follow rigid formulas. This kind of language typically serves a set purpose, which is one reason why Hecuba reacts with such alarm when Priam begins to question the limits of fate: she is used to thinking of words as "agents" that act in specific and powerful ways, so she fears that Priam will unleash chaos simply by talking about chance. In fact, the language used in the Trojan court is actually designed to limit chance by maintain a particular social order. Within this world of the court, words and even people have established symbolic meanings, so the act of speaking tends to reinforce a person's status, his formal relationship to others, etc. For Priam, even remaining silent is a way of shoring up his position as a king: "Silence…was expressive. Power lay in containment." When Priam ventures out beyond his palace, however, he begins to notice a different kind of language—one associated with narrative. The stories his carter Somax tells about his daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and sons are not "important" in the sense of serving a particular function or conveying a particular meaning (in fact, Priam associates Somax's speech with the meaningless "prattle" of water, wind, and animals). With that said, Priam quickly discovers that he enjoys Somax's stories, and draws a distinction between importance and "interest," implying that storytelling can be a pleasurable way of passing the time if nothing else.  Ultimately, however, Ransom suggests that storytelling does serve a purpose besides enjoyment. More specifically, narrative offers Ransom's characters what Priam calls a "crack in the door" through which they can access other people's worlds. Narrative language, whether in a spoken story or a novel, thrives on the specific, sensory details that symbolic language considers "unnecessary." As a result, listening to stories is a very physical experience in Ransom. When Priam eats the griddlecakes, for instance, he feels that he can taste the deft motions Somax has described his daughter-in-law using to flip them. Even more strikingly, Achilles seems to experience in real time events he never witnessed simply by hearing the story of how Patroclus came to be in exile: "Achilles too stands spellbound. Like a sleeper who has stumbled in on another's dream, he sees what is about to happen but can neither move nor cry out to prevent it…The blow is about to come." On a basic level, then, Ransom depicts storytelling as a way of fostering empathy. It does this, however, not simply by pointing out that stories provide insight into other people's thoughts and feelings, but by suggesting that stories literally allow people to transcend their own identities and lives, which are otherwise limited by everything from social position to mortality. When Priam presents his "story" to Achilles, for instance, Achilles imagines himself as an old man, and thus experiences a version of himself that will never exist in reality (as he his fated to die young, and knows that this is his fate). Achilles, the, can only ever know himself as an old man through the empathy and imaginative connection created by storytelling. In this way, storytelling also intersects with the theme of chance—through narrative, Malouf suggests, humans can experience what could be but isn't, including who they could be if they were not themselves. - Theme: The Epic and the Everyday. Description: Epic literature varies from culture to culture, but one core feature of the genre is its concern with people and situations that exist outside the bounds of normal human experience. The Iliad, for instance, deals with an epic event (the Trojan War) and is populated by characters who are either gods, demigods (e.g. Achilles), or royalty with abilities that verge on superhuman (e.g. Hector, Odysseus). Ransom, of course, takes its plot from the final book of the The Iliad and generally adheres closely to Homer's version of the story. In terms of tone, however, the two works are strikingly different, in part because Malouf introduces elements (e.g. the carter Somax) that belong to the realm of ordinary, unheroic life. In the end, these differences not only mark a shift in genre (from epic poetry to novel), but also constitute a claim about what makes human life worthwhile. As the novel opens, both Achilles and Priam clearly belong to the world of epic literature: Priam is a king, while Achilles is a demigod conventionally held to be the greatest warrior to take part in the Trojan War. Both men, moreover, possess the ability to communicate with the gods and see into the future. Interestingly, however, Ransom downplays the grandeur of its protagonists' capabilities. Priam, for instance, sees his visions as simply one more "aspect of daily being," and Achilles (as a boy) viewed his ability to straddle humanity and divinity as "natural." This normalization of unusual traits and experiences points to Ransom's skepticism of the lofty world of epic literature. The royal sphere that Priam inhabits, for example, is in many ways a stifling one, because it limits his ability to express or even experience ordinary emotions. In some ways, this process is even dehumanizing: Priam must always exist as a "ceremonial figurehead" rather than as a living and breathing person. Not surprisingly, then, part of what appeals to Priam about approaching Achilles with ransom is the opportunity to stop acting like a king and begin acting like an ordinary man and father. Over the course of his journey with Somax, however, Priam discovers that everyday life holds many pleasures over and apart from the pleasure of being "merely" human: the sensation of wading in cool water, the sounds of birds flying overhead, and all the other details of his surroundings that are "just themselves" rather than symbols of a grander world. In fact, the entire midsection of the novel functions as a defense of the ordinary, since it disrupts the main storyline involving Priam and Achilles to focus on the thoughts and feelings of a lower-class carter who is not particularly strong, brave, wise, etc. Perhaps the most telling indication of the novel's stance on the epic vs. the everyday comes in its final pages. Instead of ending with Priam or Achilles, Ransom closes with a lengthy description of Somax's life as an old man, by which point no one believes his stories about the role he played in the Trojan War. On the face of it, this might seem to undercut the seriousness of the novel's central episode: Priam's meeting with Achilles. In terms of personal development, however, the function of this meeting was to free both men from the constraints of being archetypical characters in an epic story, and to allow them to be ordinary humans who are complex and imperfect. By ending with Somax and Beauty—a common, albeit pretty, mule—Malouf prioritizes everyday life in all its confusion and pleasure. - Climax: Priam pleads with Achilles for Hector's body, and Achilles agrees to return it. - Summary: In the tenth year of the Trojan War, Achilles—a demigod and the greatest of all the Greek warriors—stands brooding on the shores of the sea. He thinks about his mother, a sea goddess, and his son Neoptolemus, whom he has not seen since leaving for war. Most of all, however, he thinks about his friend and adoptive brother Patroclus, who grew up with Achilles after being exiled for inadvertently killing a playmate. Patroclus has recently died, in part as a result of Achilles's own actions. Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, had taken a slave-girl from Achilles, and Achilles in turn refused to fight, angered by both the loss of the girl and the insult of Agamemnon taking her. Eventually, however, he agreed to let Patroclus wear his armor and lead his men in his place, resulting in Patroclus's death at the hands of the Trojan prince Hector. Enraged, Achilles sought out and killed Hector, who prophesied with his dying breath that Achilles would soon die as well. Achilles then tied Hector's body to his chariot and dragged it back to the Greek camp. His revenge, however, has not been satisfying, in part because the gods have protected Hector's corpse from Achilles's attempts at mutilation. As Part 1 draws to a close, Achilles returns from the beach and has his grooms prepare his horses. He lashes Hector's body—once again miraculously healed—to his chariot and drives around Patroclus's burial mound, hoping to finally satisfy his grief. His actions only leave him feeling empty, however, and he falls asleep wishing vaguely for an event that might rouse him from his current state of living death. Within the walls of Troy, King Priam is thinking much the same thing. Eleven days of mourning for his son Hector have done nothing to dampen his grief, in part because it encompasses so much: the loss of his son has brought home to Priam the terrible fate that all of Troy is facing. Even as Priam thinks about the futility of his life and reign, however, he senses a presence in the room. He turns and sees the goddess Iris, who tells him that the deaths of Priam's children and the likely fall of Troy itself are not the "mockery" of the gods or fate, but in part the result of "chance"" Iris then disappears, but Priam experiences a vision in her wake: himself and a driver seated on a mule-drawn cart that is carrying a covered load. Priam, excited, goes to find his wife Hecuba, who remains distraught over Hector's death. Priam consoles her and reveals his vision, along with his intention to make it a reality by taking a cartload of treasure to Achilles as ransom for Hector's body. Hecuba is appalled by her husband's suggestion and offers various objections: that Achilles won't accept the offer, that Priam will be killed, and—above all—that Priam's royal status prohibits him from lowering himself by appealing to his son's killer as an ordinary man might. Priam, however, feels that this is the main advantage of his plan, and argues that speaking to Achilles on a human level will allow both of them to sidestep the normal rules of fate and status. He further explains that he has never felt entirely at home in his role as king, in part because he was nearly sold into slavery as a child; when Heracles sacked Troy during the reign of Priam's father, Laomedon, Priam escaped only because his sister asked for him as her "gift." As Priam describes it, the brush with slavery was a brutal reminder that everything about his life as king is conditional rather than guaranteed. Hecuba, still worried, asks Priam to postpone making any decisions until after he has spoken to his children and advisors. Priam duly explains his plan to his sons and counselors, who echo Hecuba's concerns, arguing that Priam has an obligation to remain aloof and awe-inspiring as a king. Priam, however, again reiterates that he is a man as well as a king, and subject to pain and death like everyone else. That being the case, he wants to do something "new and unheard of" before meeting his fate. Seeing that it is useless to argue, Priam's sons begin to assemble the ransom and prepare a cart. Initially, however, they bring him his usual horse-pulled chariot, along with his herald Idaeus. Priam angrily scolds them for remaining enmeshed in ceremony and convention, and sends them to find an ordinary carter. They return with Somax, whose pretty mule (Beauty) has caught their eye. Despite feeling somewhat overwhelmed, Somax agrees to take Priam to the Greek camp, and later that afternoon, the citizens of Troy watch in confusion as the two men drive out of the city. As Part 3 opens, evening is falling and Somax and Priam have stopped to rest. Somax pities Priam and encourages him to join him on the banks of the River Scamander, where they dip their feet in the water and eat griddlecakes. As Somax chatters about the way his daughter-in-law makes the cakes, Priam finds himself intrigued and charmed by the "unnecessary" details of the world around him. He asks Somax to talk more about his family, and Somax explains that he only has one grandchild left—a daughter who currently has a fever. He once had two grown sons, but both died in accidents. Priam, once again, is struck by the personal nature of the man's stories. As the pair get underway again, they come across a young man who appears to be a Greek soldier, but who will in fact turn out to be the god Hermes. He tells Priam that Achilles has sent him as an escort, and though both Priam and Somax are somewhat wary of his claims and cocky demeanor, they accept his help. After the trio ford the river, Priam realizes who Hermes is, and the god confirms he has come to guide them to Achilles's hut. Priam takes courage from the idea that the gods have blessed his mission, and as Part 3 closes, the group reaches the Greek camp. Meanwhile, Achilles is sitting in his hut watching his men eat and feeling resentful of the new squire, Automedon, who has taken Patroclus's place. Sensing the presence of a god, Achilles turns in the hopes of seeing Patroclus's ghost. Instead, however, he sees an old man whom he initially mistakes for his father Peleus, and falls on his knees before the visitor. Priam is disconcerted by this but explains who he is and why he has come—a story Achilles confirms with Somax. After sending Somax away to have a meal, Achilles listens as Priam pleads with him as a father, appealing to Achilles's relationships with both Peleus and Neoptolemus. Achilles is touched—all the more so when he has a vision of Neoptolemus killing Priam some time after his own death—and agrees to Priam's request. As Priam rests, Achilles goes to retrieve Hector's body, which is again unblemished. Achilles, however, is no longer angry, and in fact feels a kind of solidarity with Hector. He watches as women wash and prepare the body, and he calmly anticipates his own impending death, before waking Priam. Over a meal, the two men agree to an eleven-day truce for Hector's funeral. Finally, Priam prepares to leave, and Achilles tells him to call on him for help when Troy falls. Priam wonders aloud whether Achilles will himself be alive by then, and the two share a kind of grim joke about their ultimate fates. As Priam and Somax return to Troy, they pass burial mounds and a burned village, stopping only once so that Priam can weep in private over his son's body. Despite his grief, however, Priam feels rejuvenated by the journey and what he has accomplished. Back in the Greek camp, Achilles likewise feels that a burden has been lifted from him. As Achilles trains, the narrative briefly flashes forward to the fall of Troy. Neoptolemus, highly conscious of his father's fame, seeks out Priam in order to avenge Achilles's death. He finds and kills him, but the moment does not go as he had planned it, and for the rest of his life, he is haunted by the "shame" of it. Back in the present moment, however, Priam and Somax continue to make their way toward the city. Somax thinks about returning to his family, anticipating the stories he will be able to tell. The narrative once more skips forward, this time long past the fall of Troy to an era when those still living in the region will find it hard to believe that such a wealthy civilization ever existed there. Somax, moreover, has a reputation as a teller of tall-tales, so his grandchildren and great-grandchildren do not lend much credence to his story about conveying Priam to Achilles's hut. Instead, they talk about how he once had an extraordinarily beautiful mule named Beauty.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Raymond’s Run - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Harlem, New York - Character: Squeaky. Description: Squeaky, whose real name is Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker, is the narrator and protagonist of "Raymond's Run." She's a skinny little girl with a squeaky voice (hence her nickname) whose greatest passion is running. Squeaky lives with her mother, father, and brothers Raymond and George in Harlem. It's Squeaky's responsibility to look after Raymond each day, a role that she doesn't mind but that wears on her given that Raymond is intellectually disabled and often causes a scene in public. A self-described "poor Black girl" who misses the countryside where her family used to live before moving to the city, Squeaky feels misunderstood and alienated. People (including her own parents) look down on Squeaky because she isn't particularly feminine and does unusual things, like performing breathing exercises in public. At her core, Squeaky just wants to be herself: to work hard and pursue her passions unabashedly without being judged by others. To protect herself and Raymond from being bullied for their differences, Squeaky adopts a tough, combative persona and intimidates people into respecting her. Her foremost rival is Gretchen, who, along with her sidekicks Mary Louise and Rosie, bullies Squeaky and Raymond. But Squeaky experiences a shift in perspective at the annual neighborhood May Day race after she sees Raymond running skillfully alongside her: she becomes inspired to coach him rather than dominating all of the neighborhood races herself. Squeaky does win the 50-yard dash, but the story ends with her exchanging genuine smiles with Gretchen (the second-place winner) rather than boasting about her own victory. Squeaky's change of heart embodies how being one's genuine self, and lifting others up in the process, is more meaningful than garnering respect through intimidation. - Character: Raymond. Description: Raymond is one of Squeaky's brothers. Though the exact nature of Raymond's disability is never specified, the story implies that it's primarily intellectual: he has an unusually large head and is described as "not quite right" mentally and "subject to fits of fantasy." It's Squeaky's job to take care of Raymond every day while their mother and father are busy, a responsibility that she doesn't mind but that sometimes overwhelms her given her young age and the way in which Raymond acts out in public. He often accompanies Squeaky as she trains for track races, keeping pace with her and even emulating her breathing exercises. Kids in the neighborhood tend to harass Raymond when they see him around, but Squeaky does her best to defend him from cruel bullies like Gretchen, Mary Louise, and Rosie. As much as people mock Raymond for his differences, they also underestimate him: toward the end of the story, Raymond surprises Squeaky at the May Day celebration when he effortlessly runs alongside her on the other side of the fence during the 50-yard dash. Though no one thinks of Raymond as particularly talented, Squeaky recognizes that he's an excellent runner and is in awe of his grace despite his physical limitations. He even inspires a sudden desire within Squeaky to quit running and coach Raymond instead. Raymond's free spirit serves as an inspiration for Squeaky to be her genuine self rather than put on a false persona that people will respect, and his untapped potential is a cautionary tale against underestimating those who are differently abled. - Character: Gretchen. Description: Gretchen is a new girl in Squeaky's neighborhood who, along with her friends Mary Louise and Rosie, bullies Squeaky and her brother Raymond. Squeaky describes her as having short legs and freckles. Despite Squeaky's anxieties about Gretchen and her sidekicks, Gretchen doesn't seem to be as tough as she lets on: readers never see her directly harassing Squeaky or Raymond (though she stands by complicity while Mary Louise and Rosie do so), and she walks away without responding when Squeaky stands up to her. Like Squeaky, Gretchen is a runner, and she's adamant that she's going to beat Squeaky in the 50-yard dash at their neighborhood's annual May Day celebration. Squeaky laughs her off, since no one ever beats Squeaky, but Gretchen holds her own in the race, keeping pace with Squeaky and coming in a close second place. After Squeaky is announced as the winner, she realizes that she actually admires Gretchen and gives her a genuine smile—and Gretchen smiles back. Squeaky even thinks that Gretchen could help her coach Raymond to become a great runner. Thus, Gretchen and Squeaky's tentative resolution at the end of the story shows the good that can come about when people mutually respect and uplift one another rather than constantly trying to best and dominate others. - Character: Squeaky's Mother. Description: Squeaky's mother takes care of most of the family's household chores. Along with Squeaky's father, she delegates the daily care of Raymond to George, and later to Squeaky. Squeaky's mother wishes that Squeaky would be more feminine and participate in the May Pole dance at the neighborhood's annual May Day celebration instead of running in the races. She's especially humiliated by Squeaky's tendency to practice breathing exercises for her running in public. Like Squeaky's father, Squeaky's mother is notably absent from the story, implicating them as somewhat neglectful parents. Squeaky's parents' disproval, as well as the undue responsibility they places on their young daughter, contribute to Squeaky's feelings of inadequacy. - Character: Squeaky's Father. Description: Like Squeaky's mother, her father is notably absent from the story. Squeaky alludes to the fact that he provides for the family in whatever ways they need, but he doesn't seem to be very supportive of or interested in his children. Squeaky's parents delegate the daily care of Raymond to George, and later to Squeaky. Like Squeaky, her father is a fast runner, effortlessly beating her when they race. But this is a secret—Squeaky thinks that her father finds it embarrassing to race against kids—so everyone thinks that Squeaky is the fastest person in the neighborhood. Squeaky's parents wish that she were more feminine, and their disproval—as well as the big responsibility they places on their young daughter—contribute to Squeaky's feelings of inadequacy. - Character: Mr. Pearson / Beanstalk. Description: Mr. Pearson is a teacher of Squeaky's who pins on runners' numbers at the neighborhood's annual May Day races. Squeaky and her classmates nickname him Jack and the Beanstalk because he walks around the park on stilts and tends to clumsily drop the many supplies he carries around. Squeaky refuses to let Mr. Pearson use her nickname since she isn't allowed to call him Beanstalk to his face, insisting that he call her by her full name—Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker—instead. Mr. Pearson further offends Squeaky when he suggests that she should intentionally lose the 50-yard dash so that other girls—particularly Gretchen, who's new to the neighborhood—can have a chance. Near the end of the story, Mr. Pearson is involved in the squabble among the race judges as they try to figure out whether Squeaky or Gretchen won the 50-yard dash. - Character: Cynthia Procter. Description: Cynthia is a classmate of Squeaky's whom Squeaky resents because she pretends to be naturally gifted at everything she does rather than admitting that she practices honing certain skills. For instance, Cynthia tells people that she's relaxing instead of studying for tests, and she wins the school spelling bee despite claiming to have forgotten about it. But Squeaky sees through this "phony" routine: despite Cynthia's act of pretending to be a piano prodigy, Squeaky hears Cynthia practicing scales whenever she walks by her house. Cynthia irritates Squeaky because Squeaky studies all night for tests and trains relentlessly for track races—she has no patience for people who think that they're above hard work. - Character: Mary Louise. Description: Along with Rosie, Mary Louise is one of Gretchen's sidekicks. Together, the three girls bully Squeaky and her brother Raymond. Mary Louise used to be Squeaky's friend: Squeaky stood up for Mary Louise when she first moved to Harlem from Baltimore, since Squeaky and Mary Louise's mothers used to sing in a choir together. But ever since Mary Louise began hanging out with Gretchen, she talks badly about Squeaky and mocks Raymond for his disability. - Character: George. Description: George is Squeaky and Raymond's brother. Supervising Raymond used to be his responsibly before Squeaky took on the role. In Squeaky's estimation, George wasn't as good of a caregiver as she is, since Raymond got picked on more often when George was responsible for him. Now, George spends his time doing errands and selling Christmas cards to earn pocket money. - Theme: Caretaking. Description: In "Raymond's Run," Squeaky is responsible for looking after her disabled older brother, Raymond, despite being a child herself. While her family's expectation that she will care for Raymond gives Squeaky a sense of pride and identity, it's also overwhelming: she is constantly fighting with and insulting Raymond's bullies (which puts her at odds with her peers), and whenever Raymond gets into trouble, Squeaky's family blames her. Meanwhile, nobody seems to be caring for Squeaky. Her parents and teachers are largely absent, and when they do appear, they often undermine her sense of security and self-worth. Neither Squeaky's intense care for Raymond nor her parents' failure to care for her is an ideal model for caretaking, but the story suggests definitively that it's better to relate to others with care than with hostility or neglect. In the end, Squeaky's relationship with Raymond becomes a model for her relationships with others, helping her to adopt a more positive and caring attitude. Despite being a child, Squeaky has a tremendous amount of responsibility, as she is her disabled brother's primary caretaker. Squeaky clearly loves Raymond, whom she is seemingly expected to look after each day while her parents are busy. She defends Raymond against neighborhood kids with "smart mouths" who often ridicule Raymond for his "big head" and his erratic behavior (he's "subject to fits of fantasy"). Squeaky adopts a tough persona in order to defend him, and she is proud of this toughness. Taking care of her brother in this way gives Squeaky a sense of purpose, even at a young age—she's quick to point out that Raymond is safer with her than he had been in the past, when their brother George was in charge of caring for him. But caring for Raymond, who is older and bigger than her, is undeniably hard on Squeaky: when Raymond has "fits" and aggravates their neighbors, Squeaky is the one who must subdue him and apologize on his behalf. And if Raymond acts out of line—sloshing around in the gutter and getting his clothes wet, for instance—Squeaky is the one who "get[s] hit when [she] gets home." It's clear that Squeaky is forced to take on far more responsibility as Raymond's caregiver than is fair for a girl her age. But while Squeaky displays responsibility and maturity beyond her years in caring for Raymond, none of the adults in Squeaky's life take good care of her. Squeaky's parents are notably absent from the story. They appear primarily in her recollections, typically in instances when they have failed to understand her or declined to show her support. Her mother, for example, "thinks it's a shame" that Squeaky doesn't participate in the May Pole dancing (ignoring Squeaky's vehemence about not wanting to dance), yet she does not show up at the track race—the activity at the center of Squeaky's identity—to cheer Squeaky on. Furthermore, while Squeaky's father occasionally runs with her (thereby affirming and participating in her passion), even this support is limited. They conduct this father-daughter ritual in secret, which Squeaky interprets as a sign that he's not proud of her skill but is instead embarrassed to be "a thirty-five-year-old man stuffing himself in PAL shorts to race little kids." Beyond her parents, other adults in her life fail Squeaky. For instance, her teacher Mr. Pearson—who organizes the May Day track meet—actively tries to undermine the pride Squeaky takes in running. Squeaky has won this event for the past several years, and she expects this year to be no different. But rather than celebrating her talent and hard work, Mr. Pearson cruelly insinuates that it would unfair for Squeaky to win again, and he seems also to blame the race's poor turnout on the fact that Squeaky is participating. Mr. Pearson, a runner himself, is presumably someone who might nurture Squeaky's passion. Instead, his comments leave her so "burnt" that she can only stomp away and prepare for the race on her own. The way in which adults in Squeaky's life treat her shows that she is continuously neglected, unsupported, and misunderstood—a stark contrast to the level of care that Squeaky provides for Raymond. Despite the repeated failure of parents, teachers, and other adults to nurture and care for Squeaky, the story ends with a moment of profound optimism, as Squeaky begins to understand caretaking as a model for good relationships. As Squeaky runs the race, she sees Raymond running on the sidelines, which makes her realize that Raymond could be "a great runner in the family tradition" if she were to coach him. This idea is so powerful that Squeaky loses interest in the competition itself, which was previously her central concern. She no longer cares if she won or lost the race, because she realizes that it might be more fulfilling to "retire as a runner and begin a whole new career as a coach with Raymond as my champion." This signals a major shift for Squeaky; she now understands that she would rather help someone else succeed than continue to worry about her own achievements. This realization of the value of caretaking carries over to Squeaky's relationship with a classmate named Gretchen, which has been hostile and competitive throughout the story. As Squeaky thinks about helping Raymond run, she finds herself smiling at Gretchen, and she realizes that their shared passion for running could be a point of common interest rather than fuel for competition. In a moment of epiphany, Squeaky fantasizes that she and Gretchen could actually unite and coach Raymond together, showing her shift to a more cooperative and compassionate attitude toward others. In this way, Squeaky's relationship with Raymond—a relationship of care, compassion, and cooperation—becomes a model for Squeaky's other relationships, even with her most bitter rival. By realizing how fulfilling it is to care for Raymond, Squeaky is able to stop emulating the competition and neglect that surround her and instead choose to be supportive and helpful moving forward. - Theme: Reputation, Respect, and Identity. Description: Squeaky is an independent, headstrong girl who's at odds with a society that values strict adherence to social norms. While her parents and teachers expect her to be docile and feminine, Squeaky insists on being herself: she won't wear dresses, she has rituals that seem odd to others (like constantly practicing running and performing breathing exercises in public), and she spends all her time with her disabled brother, Raymond, whose appearance and behavior expose both him and Squeaky to ridicule. To defend Raymond and to garner the respect of others, Squeaky adopts a mean and tough reputation, someone willing to trade insults or brawl when challenged. She presents herself as formidable and willing to fight, but for all her tough talk, readers never actually see her engage in violence in the story. From Squeaky's narration and actions toward others, it's clear that she's actually a thoughtful, sensitive young girl—far from the abrasive persona she projects to the world. Through Squeaky's inner thoughts and her change of heart at the end of the story, Bambara makes the case that often, seemingly tough individuals are putting on a false persona to protect themselves and win others' admiration—and that such people are better off being honest about their true selves if they want to earn people's sincere respect. Squeaky postures as tough in order to protect herself and Raymond. From the start, readers get the sense that Squeaky is compensating for the fact that she's a self-described "little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice." Others seem to view her the same way, given that these qualities are what led to her nickname.  Because of Squeaky's size and voice and Raymond's disability (he's "not quite right" mentally), the siblings are at risk of being ridiculed, and so Squeaky is quick to boast that she's "the quickest thing on two feet" and that she's not afraid to "knock you down right from the jump" if anyone tries to harass her or Raymond. Squeaky's eagerness to fight is, at least partially, a reaction to the neighborhood bullies who torment Raymond and the trio of girls—Gretchen, Mary Louise, and Rosie—who are rude to Squeaky. In this way, her tough persona seems to be a defense mechanism, a way of protecting herself and Raymond and of earning respect from others. But as the story progresses, it becomes evident that the reputation Squeaky tries to project stems out of a general feeling of being unaccepted. It's gradually revealed that people misunderstand and mistreat Squeaky because they disapprove of her behavior: her mother is embarrassed when Squeaky does her exercises in public, both her parents seemingly ignore her because they're disappointed that she's not feminine enough, and her classmates taunt her because they're jealous of her talent as a runner. Squeaky's teacher Mr. Pearson even suggests that Squeaky should purposely lose the annual May Day race in order to give the other girls a chance. The story also alludes to the fact that Squeaky used to live in "the country" surrounded by nature, and that she hates "the concrete jungle" of Harlem where she now lives. Readers can infer, then, that Squeaky's toughness is really a front for her fears and feelings of dissatisfaction and alienation. Her persona is defensive rather than offensive—she projects bravado and aggression because she feels the need to shield herself against other people's disapproval. Squeaky is adamant that she only wants to be herself: "a poor Black girl" who is wholeheartedly dedicated to running rather than more traditionally feminine activities like dancing. Thus, the expectations and pressure to conform that others place on Squeaky drive her to close herself off and adopt a façade of toughness to protect the identity and passions that she holds dear. Ultimately, though, Squeaky realizes that she doesn't have to be tough and antagonistic to protect Raymond or to have an identity of her own. The reader can infer that she's actually somewhat timid—after all, Squeaky never actually fights anyone in the story. She even considers ducking into a nearby store when she sees Gretchen and her sidekicks approaching rather than facing them directly, a reaction that contradicts Squeaky's fearless persona. And in the end, Squeaky, too, seems to realize that the false reputation she tries to convey isn't helpful to her or to Raymond. During the 50-yard dash at the May Day celebration, Squeaky is awestruck when she sees Raymond running on the other side of the fence, gracefully keeping pace with her. This inspires Squeaky's sudden desire to quit running altogether and to coach Raymond instead—she seems to understand that helping Raymond embrace his talent will be more productive for both of them than trying to intimidate bullies or garner bragging rights through winning races. After the race results are announced, Squeaky even smiles at Gretchen (who narrowly placed second)—and Gretchen briefly smiles back. The girls were bitter enemies up until this point, but both seem to genuinely respect and admire each other in this moment. Through this simple but significant gesture, it's clear that Squeaky has come to realize that living in fear of others' opinions of her and intimidating people into respecting her is a hollow pursuit. Rather, genuine respect and a true sense of identity are found when one shows others respect, celebrates other people's triumphs, and pursues one's own passions honestly and unabashedly—just like Raymond does. - Theme: Gender Roles and Female Solidarity. Description: The protagonist of "Raymond's Run"—a precocious young girl nicknamed Squeaky—hopes that she'll win the 50-yard dash at the local May Day races. Her main competition is a girl named Gretchen—a feud that reflects Squeaky's broader estrangement from women and femininity. Leading up to the race, she narrates her discomfort with the traditionally feminine role that her community expects her to play: instead of wearing a frilly dress and dancing around the May Pole, Squeaky is a serious runner who is unapologetically competitive. She also brawls with anyone who mocks her disabled brother, and she is hostile to other girls her age. As she runs the race, though, Squeaky has an epiphany: while she still insists on being herself (even if that means bucking social norms), she realizes that she actually likes and respects Gretchen. In the story's climactic moment—a shared smile between Squeaky and Gretchen—Squeaky realizes that part of being true to herself means extending kindness to other women. For Bambara, then, division between women is just another social norm that should be defied so that women can thrive. Squeaky's refusal to "act like a girl" is rooted in her strong sense of self; to her, playing a traditionally feminine role would be a betrayal of who she is. Squeaky learned this in nursery school when she dressed up as a strawberry for a pageant. While this pleased her parents, she says the pageant was "nonsense" and that she was a "perfect fool" for participating. "I am not a strawberry," she insists, "I do not dance on my toes. I run. That is what I am all about." Squeaky's memory of the strawberry costume connects to her refusal to wear a dress to the May Day celebration. Even though this is a norm in her community that her mother begs her to follow, Squeaky insists that wearing the dress and participating in the May Day dance would mean "trying to act like a fairy or a flower or whatever you're supposed to be when you should be trying to be yourself." To Squeaky, then, insisting that girls follow feminine norms is equivalent to training them not to be themselves, and she wants no part in this. Importantly, though, this does not mean rejecting all feminine norms; she never rejects the label "girl," for example, and she embraces being her disabled brother's caretaker, a role that is traditionally gendered female. Instead, Squeaky prefers to think critically about the expectations others place on her and decide for herself whether following a norm would be true to who she is. However, the story emphasizes one norm that Squeaky uncritically follows: that women should relate to one another through competition and animosity rather than learning to be friends or allies. When Squeaky reflects that "girls never really smile at each other because they don't know how to […] and there's probably no one to teach us how, cause grown-up girls don't know either," she acknowledges that unkindness between women is a social norm passed between generations. Squeaky emulates this norm: she constantly insults other girls, calling them out for their freckles or weight, and the girls around her are aggressive and insulting in return. Squeaky's former friend Mary Louise, for example, now talks about Squeaky "like a dog." Underlying this outright hostility is a pervasive sense of competition among girls. Many of the school activities that Squeaky mentions—such as the spelling bee, music class, or the May Day Races—are inherently competitive, and the there is an obvious struggle among Squeaky's female peers to be the best. Her classmate Cynthia Procter, for instance, is so competitive that she pretends that her skills come without effort, insinuating that she has aced tests without studying, or that she can play the piano without practice. Even though Squeaky's competitive posture is different (she prides herself on her hard work and practices running constantly in public), she shares Cynthia's competitive spirit, bragging about her "big rep as the baddest thing around" and her "roomful of ribbons and medals and awards." It's clear, then, that Squeaky and the other girls in the neighborhood feel the need to best rather than support one another. However, Squeaky's non-competitive and caring relationships with men—particularly with her intellectually disabled brother Raymond—become a model for rethinking her attitude toward women. Squeaky's only positive relationships in the story are with men: she enjoys racing her father (even though he always wins), and she shows a tenderness toward her intellectually disabled brother Raymond that she never shows other women, caring for and defending him despite the social difficulty it brings. It's Raymond who finally makes Squeaky begin to question the value of her competitive spirit. As Squeaky waits to find out whether she or Gretchen won the May Day race, she realizes that she would find more meaning in teaching Raymond to run than in winning races herself. This is a shift in her attitude: she no longer wants to prove herself superior to other women but instead wants to help Raymond (who has nothing "to call his own") find success. In this moment of epiphany, Squeaky looks from Raymond to Gretchen and realizes that her kindness toward Raymond could extend to Gretchen. For the first time, Squeaky sees Gretchen as an ally rather than a rival; maybe Gretchen would even help her coach Raymond, she thinks, showing that they could perhaps work together rather than trying to tear each other down. When Gretchen and Squeaky then share a "real" smile (even though girls "don't practice smiling every day" because they're "too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest"), Bambara implies that Squeaky has learned a new way of relating to women. In practicing kindness as Squeaky once practiced competing, she defies the silly norm that women should be hostile and competitive toward one another. - Climax: Squeaky and Gretchen smile at each other. - Summary: Squeaky isn't expected to do much around the house, but she is responsible for looking after her brother Raymond, who is intellectually disabled. People in their Harlem neighborhood often mock Raymond, but Squeaky doesn't hesitate to stand up for him. She's not afraid to retaliate physically, and she's an incredibly fast runner, so she can just run away if things get too heated. In fact, Squeaky wins every race she competes in.. A girl named Gretchen has been bragging that she's going to beat Squeaky in the May Day race this year, but Squeaky finds this is laughable. Squeaky often takes walks around the neighborhood, training for races and performing breathing exercises, and Raymond usually tags along. Raymond often causes scenes in public, drawing the ire of neighbors to whom Squeaky must apologize. But Squeaky doesn't mind him as long as he doesn't interfere with her training. Squeaky is unabashedly committed to practicing running, unlike her classmate Cynthia, who pretends that she's naturally gifted at academics, spelling, and piano rather than admitting that she practices. Presently, Squeaky does breathing exercises as she walks up Broadway with Raymond. Suddenly, she spots Gretchen and her sidekicks Mary Louise and Rosie approaching. Mary Louise used to be Squeaky's friend, but she became mean once she started hanging out with Gretchen. Rosie is especially cruel to Raymond, which Squeaky thinks is ridiculous since Rosie is fat and unintelligent. Mary Louise and Rosie begin to taunt Squeaky and Raymond as Gretchen smiles disingenuously, but the girls back off and walk away when Squeaky stands up to them. At the neighborhood's annual May Day celebration at the park, Squeaky and Raymond arrive late because the races are the last event of the day. The main attraction is the May Pole dance, which Squeaky's mother always wants her to participate in despite Squeaky's lack of interest in dressing up in fancy clothes and acting like a fairy. Squeaky remembers feeling foolish when she had to dress up as a strawberry and dance for a school play. Although this made her parents proud, Squeaky only wants to be herself—a "poor Black girl" with a passion for running. Once Squeaky gets Raymond settled in a swing, she goes to get her lucky race number, seven. A teacher named Mr. Pearson is the one who pins the runners' numbers on. He deeply offends Squeaky when he suggests that she should intentionally lose the race so that other girls (especially Gretchen) can have a chance. Stomping away from Mr. Pearson, Squeaky goes to lie in the grass by the track and wishes that she were back in the countryside where her family once lived. Once it's time for the 50-yard dash, Squeaky and Gretchen take their places at the starting line. Squeaky notices Raymond crouching on the other side of the fence, mimicking the runners, but she feels that yelling at him would be too exhausting. Instead, Squeaky begins to daydream like she does before every race, imagining that she's weightlessly flying above a beach and smelling the apples from the orchard near her old house. When the gun goes off, Squeaky snaps out of the dream and begins to run, blocking out her surroundings and encouraging herself to win. But Squeaky is surprised to see Gretchen keeping pace with her and even more surprised to see Raymond running with them on the other side of the fence. She almost stops to watch him on his first run. Squeaky ends up winning the race, but when she sees that Gretchen also overshot the finish line and hears the race announcer's loudspeaker cut out after "In first place," Squeaky wonders which of them actually won. Noticing Gretchen's controlled breathing technique as she cools down, Squeaky thinks that she actually likes her a little. While Mr. Pearson and the race judges argue over times on the stopwatches, Raymond rattles the fence to get Squeaky's attention before gracefully scaling it and running over to her. Squeaky realizes that Raymond is a great runner—after all, he always keeps up with her when she practices, and he even emulates her breathing exercises. Squeaky no longer cares about the race results; she thinks that she might quit running altogether and coach Raymond instead. She figures that she could win the spelling bee against Cynthia or become a great piano player if she put her mind to it. Squeaky realizes that she's earned a room full of medals and awards, while Raymond has nothing to call his own. Squeaky jumps up and down with excitement about her new plans as Raymond approaches, but the crowd assumes that she's reacting to the race results: she's been declared the winner, with Gretchen in close second. Squeaky looks over at Gretchen and smiles, thinking that Gretchen is a good runner—she could even help coach Raymond. Gretchen gives Squeaky a congratulatory nod and smiles back. Squeaky thinks that this is as genuine a smile as two girls could share, given that girls are usually preoccupied with pretending that they're fairies, strawberries, or other things besides people who are worthy of respect.

- Genre: - Title: Rebecca - Point of view: - Setting: - Character: Rebecca de Winter. Description: The titular character of du Maurier's novel never appears in the book, yet she exerts a powerful influence over all the other characters. As a young woman, Rebecca marries the charismatic aristocrat Maxim de Winter by fooling him into believing that she is a kind, virtuous woman. After marriage, however, Rebecca shows her true colors, having affairs, mocking the servants, and bringing dishonor to the de Winter family name. Knowing that Maxim values appearances too highly to divorce her, Rebecca tries to manipulate Maxim into obeying her. When she learns that she has terminal cancer, she tricks Maxim into believing that she's pregnant with another man's child, ensuring—in a final act of vengeance—that he'll be arrested for murder. Rebecca's duplicity is enormous—even after she dies, her reputation as a lovely, perfect woman survives her, intimidating the young, naïve narrator. Yet it's also telling that we only learn the "truth" about Rebecca from Maxim—her murderer—and there are critics who have argued that Rebecca is actually a tragic, misunderstood character, a victim of the misogyny of early 20th century England. - Character: The narrator. Description: The narrator of Rebecca is a young woman who marries a wealthy, middle-aged aristocrat, Maxim de Winter, and goes to live with him at his estate, Manderley. It's significant that we're never told the narrator's real name: to the extent that she has any name at all, it's Madame de Winter, or, to Maxim, "pet" or "lamb." Throughout the novel, the narrator struggles to "make a name" for herself—that is, to assert her own personality and identity in the stuffy, claustrophobic environment at Manderley, which is still dominated by the memory of Maxim's first wife, the charismatic Rebecca de Winter. The narrator is under a great deal of pressure to fit in at Manderley—in essence, to become Rebecca. And yet as the novel comes to a close, the narrator discovers new information about Rebecca and Maxim, convincing her that the notion of becoming Rebecca is flawed from the start. In the process, she overcomes her anxieties about life at Manderley, and seems to "grow up overnight." By telling us the story of Rebecca, she purges herself of her own doubt and insecurity, completing her coming of age. - Character: Maximilian de Winter. Description: The wealthy, charismatic, middle-aged owner of Manderley. On the surface, Maxim, or Max, is a calm, dapper man—the very image of the English gentleman. He's perfectly well aware of his power and charisma, and at times doesn't hesitate to use these assets to compel those around him to obey his wishes—even pressuring the narrator to marry him. Like any good gentleman, Maxim is obsessed with his public appearance. As a result, he doesn't divulge the truth about Rebecca, his first wife, to the narrator until towards the end of the novel—as far as she's concerned, Maxim loved Rebecca, and continues to love her even after her death. But as the novel goes on, Maxim's calm façade breaks down. He reveals that Rebecca was manipulating and blackmailing him, using the threat of a scandal to keep him in a loveless marriage. By the end of the novel, Maxim is a shadow of the confident gentleman we'd first met: no less than the narrator, he's weak and susceptible to manipulation. On the other hand, there are other critics who argue that Maxim, not Rebecca, is the real villain of the novel: he's a shallow, misogynistic man who treats women like children, and demonizes and murders them when they don't obey him. - Character: Mrs. Danvers. Description: Perhaps the most ambiguous character in the novel, Mrs. Danvers is the elderly caretaker and chief servant at Manderley. Danvers remains utterly devoted to Rebecca—it's never clear if this is because she doesn't understand that Rebecca is really a wicked woman, or because she knows and approves of Rebecca's wickedness (or Rebecca wasn't wicked at all, and it's only Maxim who says so). In either case, Danvers uses her influential position at Manderley to intimidate and manipulate the narrator, who, in spite of her superior rank, is terrified of Mrs. Danvers. Danvers is at her most diabolical during the summer costume party, during which she humiliates the narrator by convincing her to wear the same white dress that Rebecca wore years before. And yet Danvers is a sympathetic and even pathetic character, in addition to being a frightening one. She's utterly devoted to a woman who's dead, and who may never have cared about her in the first place. - Character: Jack Favell. Description: Jack Favell is Rebecca's cousin and, we later learn, her lover. Like his cousin, he seems friendly on the outside, but is secretly greedy, unethical, and manipulative—and yet he also reveals that he was truly in love with Rebecca, while she had no real feelings for him in return. Although he's not a major character in the novel until the final chapters, Favell shows his true colors when he attempts to blackmail Maxim de Winter for murdering Rebecca—an attempt that fails when it's revealed that Rebecca had been diagnosed with terminal cancer before her death. Because Rebecca herself isn't a speaking character, Jack Favell is an important addition to the novel—by studying his character, we get a better sense for what kind of woman Rebecca herself truly was. - Character: Frank Crawley. Description: Frank Crawley, the manager and businessman of the Manderley estate, is one of the most interesting characters in Rebecca. Although he's not directly involved in any of the main storylines of the novel, he's an important influence on the narrator, and even a potential lover. At more than one point, Crawley appears to be the narrator's only friend at Manderley—we could easily see the two of them having an affair right under the oblivious Maxim's nose. Eventually, however, we come to see that Frank is an honorable man, and fiercely loyal to Maxim. By the same logic, the narrator's refusal to pursue her interest in Frank any further is an important sign of her strength and independence. - Character: Beatrice Lacy. Description: Maxim de Winter's energetic, talkative sister, Beatrice Lacy is an important foil to the narrator. She's entirely comfortable among wealthy, aristocratic people, and she's never shy about expressing her opinion. Surprisingly, Beatrice is often a loyal friend to the narrator, ensuring that she's not completely humiliated at the summer costume party. In the end, Beatrice is perhaps the most enviable character in the novel. She has all the advantages of a wealthy lifestyle (money, power, luxury) without any of the emotional baggage and scandal that accompanies the other wealthy characters, like her brother. - Character: Mrs. Van Hopper. Description: The obnoxious woman who hires the narrator to work as her companion in Monte Carlo. Mrs. Van Hopper doesn't appear in Rebecca for very long, but if she hadn't introduced herself to Maxim de Winter, the narrator would never have met him. Furthermore, Van Hopper is the first character in the novel who sees Maxim's marriage to the narrator for the potential disaster it is. - Character: Ben. Description: A mentally challenged gardener who works at Manderley. Like Manderley itself, Ben is a mysterious force in the novel: although he's dim-witted, he has a good memory, and recalls serving Rebecca de Winter. The fact that Ben—who's far below the narrator on the social totem pole—has power over the narrator insofar as he knows about Rebecca, is a powerful reminder of Rebecca's massive influence on life at Manderley. - Theme: Memory. Description: From the first sentence, it's apparent that Rebecca is constructed as a memory. The narrator (never named) remembers her time at Manderley after marrying her husband, the handsome, mysterious Maxim de Winter. As the novel goes on, however, we realize that life at Manderley is dominated by the memory of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca. In essence, the novel Rebecca is about the memory of a memory. In light of memory's obvious importance to the novel, it's worth examining this theme a little more closely.Much of the eerie, uneasy tone of Rebecca derives from the clash between past and present—in other words, from the ambiguous dynamics of memory. By definition, a memory involves the past "replaying" in the present. At Manderley, Rebecca's past is constantly being replayed in its inhabitants' memories—the servants mention Rebecca whenever possible, for example. Even Manderley itself is the embodiment of Rebecca's past, since she designed the gardens, the bedrooms, etc. Simply to walk through Manderley is to relive Rebecca's life. As the book moves on, we realize that this is exactly what Rebecca intended: sadistically, she filled Manderley with personal mementos, ensuring that Maxim would be cursed to forever remember the wife he hated. As du Maurier sees it, a memory is like a zombie—a dead, vanished being that's been recalled to life, often with terrifying results.There's no doubt that memories can be painful and intimidating. And yet there's something undeniably comforting about remembering, no matter what the individual memory consists of. Although the narrator spends the majority of the book frightened of Rebecca—a woman she's never met—she recognizes that the people around her, including her husband, find meaning and even pleasure from memory. The people who worshipped Rebecca, such as Mrs. Danvers, base their entire life around the act of remembering her—at times spending long hours reconstructing her wardrobe and her bedroom. Even Maxim, who, we learn, despised Rebecca, gets an undeniable sense of comfort from his wife's memory. Though Maxim hated Rebecca's cruelty and manipulation, Rebecca stands for Manderley itself in his mind, so to forget Rebecca would be to forget who he is altogether. Through Maxim's behavior, du Maurier makes one of her most provocative points about memory: it's better to have flawed, even horrifying memories of one's past than to have no memories at all.But is there any way to escape memory without surrendering one's identity altogether? At the end of Rebecca, Mrs. Danvers, furious with Maxim for murdering Rebecca, has set Manderley on fire. Symbolically, this suggests that Rebecca's past no longer has a stranglehold on the characters' lives. Not coincidentally, this scene coincides closely with Maxim's decision to share the sordid details of Rebecca's past with the narrator. Perhaps the suggestion here is that the only way to move past a painful memory is to share it with someone else. Thus, Maxim escapes the haunting influence of his dead wife by sharing his memories with the narrator. By the same token, the narrator transcends her own haunting experiences at Manderley by passing them on to someone else entirely: the reader. - Theme: Feminism and Gender Roles. Description: Rebecca is a dated novel in many ways. When it was published, about 75 years ago, assumptions about how women, especially married women, should behave were markedly different than they are today. To "get into" the novel, readers would have to believe that the public would be shocked by the thought of a wealthy aristocrat divorcing his wife—something that seems fairly uncontroversial by modern standards. Additionally, Du Maurier blurs many of the sexual details of her novel: it's unclear, for example, if the narrator sleeps in the same bed as her husband, if she ever has sex with him, if she's attracted to other men, etc. (We should also keep in mind that many of these omissions reflect the publishing norms of the 1930s, rather than du Maurier's artistic decisions.) It's worth thinking a little more closely about the ways in which Rebecca's portrayal of gender roles has aged badly, and the ways in which it was ahead of its time.The biggest challenge to a pro-feminist interpretation of Rebecca is Rebecca herself. As we learn more about Rebecca, our impression of her becomes increasingly negative. We learn that Rebecca was a two-faced liar, that she was a skilled manipulator of everyone around her, that she had extramarital affairs, that she was "loose" in London, etc.—by the final chapters, Rebecca seems to be the book's primary antagonist, while Maxim de Winter, Rebecca's one-time husband, seems like her helpless victim. Any conclusion about Rebecca's merits as a work of feminism must stem from a conclusion about whether or not we agree with this interpretation of Rebecca's character. By modern standards, Rebecca doesn't seem so bad. As far as her duplicity and her reckless affairs are concerned, she could even be considered a victim of the sexism of her era (it's also telling that we only learn the "truth" about her from Maxim himself). If du Maurier agrees with Maxim that Rebecca is a villain, then Rebecca is a more simplistic novel overall, as well as badly dated in its treatment of gender roles: it judges Rebecca (and sentences her to death!) according to a set of rules for female behavior that simply don't carry much currency anymore.A more radical interpretation of Rebecca is that du Maurier herself disagrees with Maxim's take on his wife. Though du Maurier herself never weighed in on this possibility, critics have suggested that Maxim is the real villain of the novel: he's a controlling husband who expects his wife to behave like an obedient child, then lashes out at her when she refuses to play along. (Some critics have likened Rebecca de Winter to Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre—another character who could be either the hero or the villain of her own story.) Judging from the way he treats his second wife, the narrator (he calls her "lamb" and "child" countless times), Maxim is sexism incarnate, a domineering man whose obsession with appearances is so great that he remarries mere months after his first wife's death.Even if it will never be clear whether or not du Maurier agreed with feminist critics' interpretation of her novel, Rebecca is an important feminist work insofar as it studies the ways that men dominate women. The narrator feels that she's constantly being watched during her time at Manderley: her smallest action is measured against a social standard for how "proper ladies" should behave. Perhaps most tellingly, we never learn the narrator's real name: she's only ever known as Madame de Winter. The narrator's identity is subsumed into her husband's name and family history. Du Maurier suggests that (heterosexual) marriage is itself a sexist institution: the woman not only takes her husband's name, but she's also forced to structure her new life around the husband's existence.In some ways, Rebecca reflects the social mores of the early 20th century England. Yet in other ways, it critiques society's assumptions about how women, especially married women, should behave. It's telling that du Maurier complained that no one understood Rebecca when it was first published: critics, she claimed, didn't understand that it was a novel, first and foremost, about a weak woman under the influence of a strong man. By applying an uncommon level of psychological depth to this theme, du Maurier makes what could be a conventional mystery novel an important—and at times prophetic—feminist work. - Theme: Coming of Age. Description: In addition to being a taut mystery, a Gothic romance, and a prototypical feminist text, Rebecca is an insightful coming-of-age story. When we first meet the narrator, she's essentially a child: a young, innocent woman who has no idea what the future holds for her. By the end of the novel, she's become a mature adult—as her husband, Maxim de Winter, says, she seems to have grown from a girl to a woman overnight. In a novel that's so much about loneliness, paranoia, and uncertainty, what does it mean for a character to grow up?To begin with, du Maurier portrays her protagonist's initial immaturity as a kind of solipsism—an inability to understand that other people have thoughts and feelings of their own. Surrounded by obnoxious older women like Mrs. Van Hopper, her employer, the narrator struggles to assert her personality in public, and for the most part, she's too shy to say anything. (It's worth mentioning that Daphne du Maurier herself was notoriously shy in real life.) Frightened of speaking, the narrator is alone in her own head. By the same token, the people around her remain enigmas to her. Because she refuses to disclose any of her own personality, she's powerless to wrap her mind around the personalities of others. Even her husband, Maxim de Winter, is impenetrable. At many points in the first half of the book, the narrator thinks that Maxim is angry, frustrated, or amused with her, only to learn much later that she was utterly wrong in her interpretation of her husband's feelings. For du Maurier, immaturity and isolation are practically synonyms. Consistent with her psychological insight, du Maurier portrays coming-of-age as an act of exploration. The narrator begins to grow up as she navigates her way through Manderley, and—even more importantly—begins to explore the motivations and emotions of the people around her. At first, Mrs. Danvers, the cruel, intimidating head servant at Manderley, terrifies the narrator, and makes her feel like a small child. But as the narrator begins to learn more and more about Mrs. Danvers, she's surprised to find that Mrs. Danvers is a sad, sympathetic, and even pathetic character: though she's an elderly woman, she's still devoted, in an almost childish way, to her former mistress, Rebecca. After the narrator confronts Mrs. Danvers and witnesses her crying about Rebecca, the tables turn. The narrator learns an obvious yet valuable lesson—everyone has secret vulnerabilities—and when she realizes this, she begins to feel herself growing up. The most extreme example of such an insight comes when Maxim reveals to the narrator that, instead of still being in love with Rebecca, he's actually deeply afraid of Rebecca. Maxim, who is on the surface the calmest, most mature character in the novel, turns out to be the weakest.Some critics have also interpreted the novel from a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective, with the narrator's discovery of the truth about Rebecca as the final stage of resolving an "Electra Complex." The psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that most young boys are first naturally attracted to their mothers and thus want to overcome or kill their fathers—this is called an "Oedipal Complex," based on the Greek figure of Oedipus, and its corresponding name for girls (wanting to kill their mothers and marry their fathers) is an "Electra Complex," after the Greek figure of Electra. It's only when these complexes can be resolved in some way that a child can mature in a healthy manner. Throughout Rebecca, Maxim is portrayed as a father figure, as well as a lover, for the narrator. Toward the end of the book, however, Maxim and the narrator work together to "destroy" Rebecca, the narrator's rival for Maxim's affections. In Freudian terms, this signals the narrator's coming of age: by symbolically defeating Rebecca (the wife of the narrator's father-figure, and thus a kind of mother-figure), the narrator becomes an adult. But even if one rejects a psychoanalytic interpretation, it's clear that the narrator's symbolic defeat of Rebecca signals the most important aspect of her coming of age. As the narrator spends more time with her husband, she begins to realize that Maxim and Rebecca's carefully maintained image of respectability and sophistication is just an illusion. By embracing this truth, the narrator stops feeling intimidated, and grows up. - Theme: Place, Imprisonment, and the Gothic. Description: In Rebecca, du Maurier addresses the theme of imprisonment in many ways. From a feminist standpoint, for example, it's easy to see that the narrator is imprisoned by the gender roles of her time. But du Maurier also confronts the theme of imprisonment in an even more literal sense: by studying the role of a physical place, Manderley, in the narrator's life. In order to study Manderley, the de Winter family estate, Rebecca imitates the conventions of a familiar genre of English literature: the Gothic. In a Gothic novel (Samuel Richardson's Pamela is a good example), a young, naïve (usually female) protagonist comes to an old, mysterious place, usually a big English manor house, and tries to make a new life for herself there. Du Maurier both honors and subverts Gothic conventions in her novel, painting a unique picture of psychological—and literal—imprisonment.As in the Gothic novel, Manderley represents both imprisonment and liberation. At the beginning of Rebecca, the narrator has no home to speak of—almost all of her family is deceased, and she's inherited no property. The narrator has no "base"—no place she can point to and call her own. She's cast adrift in the world, and as a result, she's forced to take on various dull and humiliating jobs, such as working for the obnoxious Mrs. Van Hopper. The narrator's fortunes then improve—and decline—when she marries the wealthy, landed aristocrat, Maxim de Winter. As Maxim's new wife, the narrator finally has a place of her own—indeed, an enormous house, surrounded by sprawling grounds. The tradeoff of this arrangement is that the narrator can only claim Manderley as her own property by sacrificing her own personality. Surveyed by Maxim, and by servants, the narrator feels a constant pressure to become something she's not—an elegant lady.One of du Maurier's most important insights is that Manderley represents imprisonment and freedom, not only to the narrator, but to Maxim himself. Maxim is completely comfortable at Manderley—he's familiar with every inch of it, having lived there since childhood. Ownership of the estate gives him the freedom to build relationships with his wealthy and powerful neighbors, and allows him to earn an income without lifting a finger. And yet Maxim, even more so than the narrator, has no life outside of Manderley. We can see this especially clearly at the end of the novel, when he's accused of murdering Rebecca. While the local detective, Colonel Julyan, orders that Maxim should be put under house arrest until his innocence can be determined, we sense that these measures are redundant—Maxim doesn't haven't have anywhere to run off to.At the end of a typical Gothic novel, the protagonist becomes the owner of the big house where she used to be a stranger. The implication is that an estate, even if it's a prison, is the source of too much power to give up. At the end of Rebecca, however, du Maurier subverts the usual Gothic tropes: in the final sentence of the book, we learn that Manderley is burning to the ground. Instead of adjusting to their prison, Maxim and the narrator must build new lives for themselves. It's a powerful reminder of the influence, both positive and negative, that a place can wield over its owner, and (especially in light of the novel's early 20th century setting) of the declining power of the English aristocracy. - Theme: Power, Control, and Information. Description: Like many of Daphne du Maurier's works, Rebecca studies how people maintain power over others. Surprisingly, the characters in the novel almost never rely on physical force (the simplest form of power, one would think) to assert themselves—in fact, on the one significant occasion when a character does use violence, his actions are presented as a total failure. Instead of violence, the powerful characters in Rebecca control their weaker peers using intimidation, manipulation, and various other psychological weapons.Perhaps the most important such weapon in du Maurier's novel is information. As a mystery novel, Rebecca is full of hidden information that must be gradually discovered or revealed. Throughout the novel in general, then, power means knowing this information, weakness means not knowing information, and control consists of the powerful keeping information from the weak. Even in the early chapters of Rebecca it's clear that power and knowledge are closely related. The narrator's weakness, uncertainty, and immaturity are synonymous with her ignorance of Maxim de Winter's life and family. Although she's admired Manderley since childhood, she has almost no idea what it contains. This weakness allows Maxim to "buy" her into marriage—essentially by saying that he'll give her access to money, luxury, and, most importantly, some of the secrets of his life.As Maxim's example suggests, information must be managed carefully in order to control other people. Many of the characters in the novel try and fail to control their enemies, because they don't quite understand what to do with their own knowledge. The most obvious example of this problem is Jack Favell, who tries and fails to blackmail Maxim into giving him money. Favell thinks that his knowledge of Rebecca's unfaithfulness can send Maxim to jail, but when Maxim calls his bluff, Favell doesn't know how to wield his own weapon—he tells Colonel Julyan, the local detective, everything he knows, but Julyan takes an immediate dislike to Favell's aggressiveness, and so from the beginning he doesn't take the information seriously. By the same token, Mrs. Danvers wields great power over the narrator, in spite of her inferior social rank, because she knows more about Rebecca and the de Winter family history. It's only when Danvers begins to surrender this information voluntarily that she loses all power over the narrator—with no more secrets to keep, all the leverage is gone from Danvers' relationship with the narrator.In Rebecca, control always comes "from a distance." Only rarely do the characters pose literal, physical threats to one another. More often, they control their peers by dangling money, access, and above all, information, in front of them. The tense, claustrophobic mood of the novel stems from du Maurier's unorthodox understanding of power and control. The narrator isn't being physically coerced during her time at Manderley, and yet Maxim and Mrs. Danvers are controlling her, using her ignorance to frighten, intimidate, or manipulate her. - Climax: - Summary: The novel is narrated by an unnamed woman recalling past events in her life. Throughout the course of the book, the narrator remembers the time she spent at Manderley, a large, handsome English estate, while married to Maxim de Winter. As a young woman, the narrator worked for a rich, obnoxious old woman named Mrs. Van Hopper: she was Van Hopper's travel companion. One summer, the narrator and Van Hopper travel to Monte Carlo. There, Van Hopper makes a point of introducing herself to the charismatic Maxim de Winter, who, it is well-known, has just lost his beloved wife in a tragic boating accident. Although the narrator is shy, Maxim takes an immediate liking to her, and when Mrs. Van Hopper catches the flu, Maxim invites the narrator to drive through Monte Carlo with him. During the course of these drives, the narrator begins to develop feelings for Maxim. At the end of the summer, Maxim asks the narrator to marry him, and she accepts. The narrator senses that something isn't quite right with Maxim, however—he seems pensive, and refuses to discuss his first wife. Two months later, the narrator and Maxim return from their honeymoon, and travel back to Manderley, the narrator's new home. The narrator is initially uncomfortable and nervous at Manderley, since she wasn't raised in a wealthy household. From the beginning, the narrator clashes with the head servant of Manderley, the elderly, severe Mrs. Danvers. Mrs. Danvers, like many of the other servants, is openly devoted to Maxim's deceased first wife, Rebecca. The narrator also develops an uneasy relationship with Maxim's sister, Beatrice, who tells the narrator, "You are so different from Rebecca." Beatrice tells the narrator that Rebecca drowned in the sea near Manderley. It took two months to find her body, by which point it was difficult for Maxim to identify the body. Finally, the narrator befriends Frank Crawley, the estate manager of Manderley. During her first months at Manderley, the narrator awkwardly adjusts to her new life. Mrs. Danvers treats her with contempt, sensing that the narrator's not comfortable with an elite lifestyle, as Rebecca was. As the narrator explores the grounds of Manderley, she meets Ben, a mentally challenged gardener who's lived at Manderley for many years. Ben warns the narrator to stay out of the cottage on the Manderley grounds. The narrator clashes with Mrs. Danvers in increasingly serious ways. She accidentally breaks a small china cupid, and because she doesn't want to displease Mrs. Danvers, she sweeps the pieces into an envelope. A misunderstanding leads to a servant nearly being fired for breaking the cupid—the narrator is forced to confess breaking the object, displeasing both Maxim and Danvers. One day, while Maxim is away from Manderley, the narrator discovers a mysterious visitor walking through the house with Mrs. Danvers. Although he tries to sneak out without being detected, he crosses paths with the narrator, and is forced to introduce himself as Jack Favell. Favell asks the narrator not to mention his visit to Maxim. The narrator agrees, but later asks Beatrice who Favell is—Beatrice explains that Favell is Rebecca's cousin. In the summer, Maxim's friends propose that the narrator host an opulent costume party at Manderley. Although the narrator is at first reluctant to do so—she's never hosted anything so lavish in her life—Maxim, Beatrice, and Frank convince her. Mrs. Danvers suggests that the narrator base her costume on a portrait that hangs in the house. On the evening of the ball, the narrator puts on her costume—a beautiful white dress, based on the portrait Mrs. Danvers had suggested. When she joins Maxim downstairs, however, Maxim is horrified—tearfully, Beatrice explains that this was the costume Rebecca wore at the last party she organized at Manderley. The next day, the narrator furiously confronts Mrs. Danvers about her manipulations, and is surprised to find Mrs. Danvers crying. Danvers explains that she's still utterly devoted to Rebecca, and can feel her presence everywhere in Manderley. As if in a trance state, Danvers tells the narrator to try on Rebecca's clothes, then opens the second-story window of the house and feverishly orders the narrator to jump out of it. There is a sudden "boom," and the narrator sees Maxim running from the sea. The narrator rushes downstairs, where she learns from the servants that a large ship has run aground on the beaches near Manderley. Down at the beach, the narrator learns that the grounded ship's sailors have inadvertently discovered something in the water: Rebecca's boat, in which there's a body. The narrator can't understand what's going on: she'd been told that Maxim identified Rebecca's body months ago. She goes to ask Maxim what's going on. To her surprise, Maxim reveals the truth: Rebecca didn't die of drowning at all. When Maxim married Rebecca years ago, he explains, he was enamored with her. But he quickly discovered that she was a liar: although she pretended to be virtuous and perfect, in secret she despised the servants, had affairs with other men, and disobeyed Maxim at all times. Knowing that he could never divorce Rebecca without creating a scandal, Maxim reached a "bargain" with Rebecca: Rebecca would live her life on her own terms, but only during her time in London. As Manderley, she would have to be on good behavior. Over time, Maxim continues, Rebecca began breaking her own rules. She tried and failed to seduce Frank, and then began an affair with her own cousin, Jack Favell, while staying at Manderley. Knowing about the affair, Maxim armed himself with a gun and went to the cottage on the Manderley grounds, hoping to find Rebecca there with her lover. Instead, he found only Rebecca. After a long, tense conversation, Rebecca told Maxim that he'd be forced to raise any child she bore him, whether he was the father or not. Furious, Maxim shot Rebecca, and then disguised his crime by throwing his wife's body in a boat and sinking it off the beach. As the narrator listens to Maxim's story, she feels herself filing with relief. All along, she's thought that Maxim was still in love with Rebecca, but now she realizes that he never loved Rebecca at all. She kisses him, as if for the first time. An investigation begins to determine how Rebecca's body came to be in the boat the sailors discovered. Maxim goes to meet with the local coroner and the inspector, Colonel Julyan. Horridge discovers that the boat had three holes deliberately drilled in it. After much thought, he rules Rebecca's death a suicide, throwing Maxim's reputation as a loving husband into controversy. After the coroner's report, Maxim and the narrator receive a visit from Jack Favell. He produces a note from Rebecca, which he received shortly before Rebecca's death. The note, which tells Jack to come see her immediately, seems to disprove suicide. Jack tries to use the note to blackmail Maxim. When Maxim refuses to play along, Jack calls Colonel Julyan to Manderley. During the long meeting that follows, Jack accuses Maxim of killing Rebecca, and Colonel Julyan begins to believe Jack. Jack calls Ben, who denies having seen any evidence of Maxim killing Rebecca, and then Mrs. Danvers, who is similarly unhelpful. However, Mrs. Danvers produces Rebecca's diary, which contains the phone number for a Dr. Baker in London. The next day, Colonel Julyan travels with Maxim, the narrator, and Jack Favell to London to find Dr. Baker. Baker tells Julyan that shortly before Rebecca's death, a woman calling herself "Danvers" came to visit him, and learned that she had uterine cancer. Julyan deduces that this woman must have been Rebecca. The group leaves Dr. Baker. Jack Favell, still sure that Maxim killed Rebecca, vows to get revenge, but admits that he has no proof of the crime. Colonel Julyan bids Maxim and the narrator goodbye—after he leaves, the narrator and Maxim agree that Julyan suspected Maxim of the murder all along. Maxim points out that Rebecca was trying to send him to jail: knowing that she was dying of cancer, she succeeded in goading Maxim into shooting her, hoping that he'd be sentenced to death for his crime. Maxim and the narrator drive back to Manderley from London. It's early morning when they return. As they approach the house, they're shocked to see that it is engulfed in flames.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Recitatif - Point of view: First person, from Twyla's perspective - Setting: Newburgh, NY - Character: Twyla. Description: Twyla is the narrator of the story, and along with Roberta is its main character. She is eight years old when the story opens, and has been brought to live at St. Bonny's because her mother, Mary, "dances all night." Mary has neglected Twyla, and instilled prejudice in her daughter against people of Roberta's race (which, like Twyla's race, remains ambiguous throughout the story). Although these prejudices seem to diminish over the course of Twyla's friendship with Roberta, they occasionally resurface when the two women meet again as adults. Twyla is not a bright student, though she is marginally better than Roberta, who can't read. As a child, she is afraid of the gar girls, curious about Maggie, and affectionate toward Roberta, her only friend at St. Bonny's. However, when Mary comes to visit she experiences wild swings of emotion—she is simultaneously thrilled to see her mother, filled with shame over her behavior in chapel, and overcome with a furious desire to kill her. As a late teen, Twyla works at a Howard Johnson's and seems to quickly grow responsible and somewhat weary. Later, she marries James Benson, a man she calls "wonderful" to Roberta and privately describes as "comfortable as a house slipper," and with whom she has one son, Joseph. She is alarmed by the influx of wealth into Newburgh, and experiences stress over simple financial decisions such as buying Klondike bars and a Christmas tree. She is saddened by the "racial strife" that emerges in Newburgh over the issue of busing, although she does not personally have a strong opinion on the topic. However, when she sees Roberta picketing against busing, Twyla joins a counter-protest, making increasingly erratic signs that do not make sense out of the context of her and Roberta's relationship. At the end of the story, Twyla feels resentful of Roberta's accusation that the two of them kicked Maggie. However, she comes to understand that her desire to hurt Maggie was a result of her own feelings of helplessness and anger toward her mother. She ends up comforting Roberta, who is consumed by guilt over Maggie's fate. - Character: Roberta. Description: The other main character of the story. When Roberta arrives at St. Bonny's, she is assigned to be Twyla's roommate. The two girls are both eight years old, and one is white and one is black (though it is never made clear which is which). Roberta's mother can't look after Roberta because she is "sick"; toward the end of the story Roberta mentions that her mother was raised in an institution, which suggests that her illness is perhaps mental, rather than physical. Although Roberta seems to have been raised in a less neglectful way than Twyla (during a visit to St. Bonny's her mother brings her lots of food, where Mary brings nothing), at eight she is still unable to read. Roberta leaves St. Bonny's before Twyla, but later reveals that she returned twice after leaving—once when she was 10 and once when she was 14. When Twyla and Roberta first meet again, Roberta is dressed in a sexy, glamorous outfit, wearing lots of makeup, and smoking a cigarette. She is accompanied by two men, and the three of them are headed to an "appointment with Hendrix." In this section of the story, Roberta is clearly a part of the rebellious youth culture of the 1960s. She is disdainful of Twyla for not knowing who Hendrix is, and seems to have embraced the hedonistic mandate of "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll." Roberta has undergone another transformation in the final stage of the novel. When she and Twyla meet in the gourmet market, she has married a rich man, Kenneth Norton, and become the stepmother to his four children. Throughout this section of the novel she is associated with luxury; she wears elegant clothes, buys expensive items such as "asparagus and fancy water," and has a chauffeur. She also becomes a vehement opponent of forced integration, protesting the fact that her stepchildren are to be "bused" out of their neighborhood to another school. Overall, Roberta's personality is less stable than Twyla's, and she seems to have less of a secure sense of her own identity. It is also suggested that she is more flighty and self-centered than the serious, responsible Twyla, which is why it is surprising that in the very last passage, she seems so obsessed with Maggie's fate and cannot find solace in Twyla's reassurances. - Character: Maggie. Description: Introduced as a minor character, Maggie comes to take on a central—if mysterious—significance within the story. The children at St. Bonny's refer to her as the "kitchen woman," and Twyla's initial description of her emphasizes the fact that she is old, "sandy-colored," and bow-legged. Maggie cannot talk, and while some children claim her tongue was cut out, Twyla suspects that she has simply never been able to speak. She and Roberta test Maggie's ability to hear by calling her "Dummy!" and "Bow Legs!". While she doesn't react, Twyla is left feeling guiltily certain that she could hear them. Over the course of the story it becomes clear that the children feel angry toward Maggie on the basis of her helplessness and vulnerability. Twyla fixates on the fact that she wears "a really stupid little hat—a kid's hat with ear flaps." Later, she comes to understand the similarities between Maggie's unusual way of moving (caused by her physical disability) and Twyla's mother Mary's problem of "dancing all night." Like the other children, Twyla wants to hurt Maggie because Maggie represents both Mary's and Twyla's own vulnerability. Maggie becomes a point of contention between Twyla and Roberta when Roberta claims that the two of them kicked her in the orchard along with the gar girls. Roberta also claims that Maggie is black, a fact that Twyla disputes (along with the memory of her and Roberta kicking her). Roberta later rescinds her claim that the two children pushed Roberta, but at this point both women have been forced to confront their desire to hurt Maggie, even if they didn't actually kick her themselves. Meanwhile, Maggie's racial ambiguity reflects the women's own complicated relationship with race, including their resistance to being identified as racially oppressive or bigoted while simultaneously wanting to distance themselves from Maggie's helpless, pitiful existence. - Character: Big Bozo. Description: Although her official title is never revealed, Big Bozo—whose real name is Mrs. Itkin—is in charge of the shelter, and assigns Twyla and Roberta to be roommates. When Twyla mentions her mother would object to the assignment, Big Bozo replies "Good… maybe then she'll come and take you home." The children dislike Big Bozo, and Twyla notes that the only time she saw her smile was the morning that Twyla and Roberta's mothers came to visit (although this smile disappears when Twyla accidentally spills jelly beans on the floor). Years later, Roberta reveals that after the gar girls kicked Maggie in the orchard, Big Bozo was fired. During the protests over busing, Twyla exclaims that the mothers protesting integration are "Bozos," to which Roberta replies, "No, they're not. They're just mothers." Big Bozo represents the loveless authoritarianism that the children at St. Bonny's must endure as a result of not being raised by their own parents; however, the story suggests that sometimes real parents can be just as unpleasant. - Character: Mary (Twyla's Mother). Description: Mary is Twyla's mother, who is introduced in the first sentence of the story when Twyla explains she is in St. Bonny's because "my mother danced all night." Throughout the story, Twyla uses this same phrase—childlike in its vague simplicity—to describe the reason why Mary can't take care of her. Its true meaning remains unclear; it is possible that Mary simply does not want to be a mother, but it's also plausible that she is a sex worker. Mary's name is ironic, as she is the opposite of the pure, self-sacrificing, morally perfect figure based on the mother of Jesus. Instead, she neglects Twyla, who at one point mentions that "Mary's idea of supper was popcorn and a can of Yoo-Hoo," and fidgets throughout the church service when she comes to visit St. Bonny's. The fact that Twyla calls her mother "Mary" as opposed to something like "Mom" indicates the skewed nature of their relationship. Even at eight, Twyla is arguably more responsible than her mother, a fact revealed when Mary visits and "smiled and waved like she was the little girl looking for her mother, not me." Twyla's feelings about her mother are decidedly mixed; she is ashamed and resentful of Mary's inappropriate outfit and the fact that she didn't bring her any food, but experiences a moment of bliss when Mary embraces her. In the latter part of the story, Twyla repeats the refrain that Mary "never did stop dancing," even as Twyla became a decidedly serious and responsible wife and mother herself. - Character: Roberta's Mother. Description: Unlike Mary, Roberta's mother is never named, and the details of her character remains vague. She is described as "sick," though it is unclear what she suffers from and possible that it is a mental, rather than physical, illness. When she arrives to visit Roberta at St. Bonny's, Twyla describes her as "bigger than any man," wearing an enormous cross and carrying a Bible. In contrast to Mary, Roberta's mother is deeply religious and serious. Later in the story, Roberta reveals that her mother was raised in an "institution" and that Roberta expected to be, too. In the final scene, Roberta sadly admits that her mother never got better. - Character: The Gar Girls (The Older Girls). Description: Roberta and Twyla call the teenage girls at St. Bonny's the gar girls, based on Roberta's misunderstanding of the word "gargoyles." The gar girls wear makeup, dance to the radio, and smoke cigarettes in the orchard. Roberta and Twyla are afraid of them and see them as "tough" and "mean," but Twyla observes retrospectively that they were in fact "put-out girls, scared runaways most of them. Poor little girls who fought their uncles off." The gar girls are thus a paradox of toughness and vulnerability, and illustrate how children who have suffered neglect and abuse can be misperceived as threatening. At the same time, the gar girls are a genuine threat, kicking Maggie to the ground and tearing her clothes. The gar girls therefore represent a cycle of abuse that Roberta and Twyla are desperate to escape. - Character: Joseph Benson. Description: Joseph is the son of James and Twyla. We learn little about him, other than that he doesn't seem to mind being bused to another school, prefers to watch TV rather than study at home while the schools are closed, and hangs Twyla's sign reading "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?" in his room. - Character: Jimi Hendrix. Description: Although Jimi Hendrix does not make an active appearance in the story, Roberta and her two male friends are supposedly on their way to see him when they stop by at Howard Johnson's. Hendrix was an African-American rock musician who was hugely influential during his short career before his death at the age of 27. Associated with psychedelic rock, drugs, and 1960s counter-culture, Hendrix is a symbol of Roberta's youthful rebelliousness and glamour, which contrasts to Twyla's more sensible, ordinary life as a small-town waitress. - Theme: Friendship vs. Family. Description: "Recitatif" chronicles the friendship of two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who meet in a shelter, St. Bonny's. The parallels between the girls—including the fact that they are the same age and that both of their mothers are alive but unable to take care of them—create a sense that they are something like twins. This is emphasized in moments when they behave in a parallel, mirroring fashion—such as when they curl each other's hair in anticipation of their mothers' visit to St. Bonny's—and when Twyla says that, on meeting again 20 years after living in St. Bonny's together, "we were behaving like sisters." The notion that Twyla and Roberta are related is majorly disrupted, however, by the fact that they are of different races. Although Morrison makes it deliberately unclear which girl is black and which is white, it is indisputable that they are not of the same race. Indeed, Twyla mentions that the other kids at St. Bonny's call them "salt and pepper," a fact that illustrates both their oppositional difference and their conjunction as a single unit. Twyla and Roberta's familial relationship is thus perpetually out of reach, a representation the girls' desperate desire for the family that they have been denied. Their relationship is forged against the backdrop of St. Bonny's, a symbolic "family" made up of children without families of their own, as well as other socially excluded figures such as Maggie. Although the children at the institution develop familial attachments to one another, they are inescapably haunted by the absence of their birth families. Meanwhile, Roberta and Twyla are excluded on account of the fact that they are not "real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky," but instead have living mothers whose flaws cannot be hidden or romanticized away.Although both women have families of their own as adults, those families do not take up a particularly prominent place in the narrative. The story thus suggests that symbolic familial relations can be more meaningful than families in the traditional sense. Roberta and Twyla's ambivalent feelings about their own roles as mothers are conveyed by the confusion surrounding the protest over school integration. Roberta makes a sign reading "MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO," leading Twyla to make a corresponding sign reading "AND SO DO CHILDREN"; however, Twyla soon comes to realize that her sign doesn't make sense unless read in conjunction with Roberta's. Even as an adult wife and mother, Twyla is still dependent on Roberta for a sense of identity—strong evidence of the familial nature of their relationship.Aside from the familial overtones of their relationship, Twyla and Roberta's friendship itself is also intensely charged. They begin as enemies, predisposed to dislike each other because of racial prejudice. Although they become very close during their time at St. Bonny's, when they meet for the first time as adults their relationship is once again plagued by alienation, misunderstanding, and resentment. Many of these issues are now rooted in differences of social class. Roberta seems to lead an exciting and glamorous life, whereas Twyla at first works as a waitress at Howard Johnson's and then marries a fireman. Although at some points in the story the women are closer than others, overall they are never quite able to overcome the social effects of their economic and racial differences. - Theme: Outsiders, Outcasts, and the Unwanted. Description: The story's initial setting inside a shelter establishes the theme of social exclusion and alienation. The children in the shelter either no longer have parents or—like Twyla and Roberta—have parents who are unfit to take care of them. Twyla says that she and Roberta were "dumped" at St. Bonny's, and explains that the other children at the shelter refused to play with them because they were not "real orphans." Because of their mothers, Twyla and Roberta experience double exclusion; first from society, and second within an institution consisting of social outcasts. The older girls at St. Bonny's, who Twyla and Roberta call the gar girls, are described as "put-out girls, scared runaways… who fought their uncles off but looked tough to us." Here Morrison shows how the most excluded and forgotten members of society can be mistaken for "tough" and intimidating, when in fact they are extremely vulnerable. However, the children are not the only social outcasts in St. Bonny's. Maggie, the racially ambiguous disabled woman who works in the kitchen, is arguably even more socially ostracized than the children. Bullied by the older girls, Maggie is unable to respond because she is mute and possibly deaf. She becomes a central figure in the story when Roberta claims that she and Twyla pushed and kicked her in the orchard. Although Roberta later takes back this statement, she remains obsessed with Maggie's fate, and the story ends with her asking "What the hell happened to Maggie?". Even though Roberta was only a child during her time at St. Bonny's—and a child in a particularly vulnerable and difficult situation—she still feels guilty and complicit in Maggie's exclusion from society. Social exclusion is also an important element of the story's depiction of race and segregation. As adults, Roberta and Twyla find themselves on opposing sides of a protest over school integration. Roberta complains: "They want to take my kids and send them out of the neighborhood," a common objection to the "busing" method used to force school integration. Roberta wants her children to stay within her own community; however, this indirectly leads her to support segregation, which is socially exclusionary and prevents other children from receiving a high-quality education. - Theme: Sickness and Disability. Description: Many people read "Recitatif" as a story whose primary theme is disability. Although the main disabled figure in the story, Maggie, at first appears to be a background character, by the end of the story she takes on a central (if still passive) role. Maggie's disabilities—she is mute and possibly deaf, with "legs like parentheses"—make her even more vulnerable than the children at St. Bonny's. She is mysterious, and the characters in the story all have different ideas about her. The other children claim her tongue was cut out, but Twyla doesn't believe them. Roberta and Twyla are also unsure whether she can hear or not, and try to test her by calling her "Dummy!" and "Bow legs!"; however, her lack of reaction is inconclusive, and Twyla is left ashamed at the possibility that Maggie could hear this cruel taunting. Later in the story, it is revealed that Roberta thinks Maggie is black, whereas Twyla thinks she is white. Maggie is thus something of a mystical, surreal figure. Twyla even wonders if "there was somebody in there after all," with "in there" referring to Maggie's body. As an adult, she looks back on the incident when Maggie fell and concludes: "Nobody inside." Because of her disability, Maggie is not considered a person with interior emotions and subjectivity. Significantly, the children at St. Bonny's seem to blame Maggie for her disability and defenselessness. Twyla condemns her for wearing "this really stupid little hat"—a hat with earflaps that symbolize her rumored deafness and disconnection from those around her. As an adult, Roberta says that "Because she couldn't talk—well, you know, I thought she was crazy," and both Twyla and Roberta admit that even if they didn't kick Maggie, they wanted the gar girls to do so. Roberta even confesses, "I really wanted them to hurt her." For the children in the shelter, the sight of someone already suffering from a physical disability causes them to want to inflict even more pain on her. This can be read as a result of the children's own suffering and marginalization in society; they take out their own feelings of helplessness and rejection on someone who is even weaker and more vulnerable than they are. Maggie is not the only disabled character in the story, however. In the very first sentence, Twyla declares: "My mother danced all night and Roberta's was sick." Roberta's mother's sickness makes her unable to take care of her daughter; this is paralleled by Twyla's mother's mysterious problem with dancing, a connection that suggests that Twyla's mother's obsession with dancing all night is itself a kind of disability that prevents her from properly performing her role as a mother. This idea is emphatically confirmed when Twyla says: "Maggie was my dancing mother… Nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night… Rocking, dancing, swaying as she walked." Maggie and Twyla's mother are linked by the unusual way they move and from their detachment from the world around them. This in turn suggests that there is something about their ways of moving that is deemed socially inappropriate, which is also a racialized concept; throughout American history, black people have been demonized for dancing and other forms of movement associated with African culture. - Theme: Childhood vs. Adulthood. Description: The binary of childhood and adulthood is central to the story; this is first made obvious by the fact that half of the narrative is set during Twyla and Roberta's childhood, and the other half when they are adults. In the first half, Twyla and Roberta live in St. Bonny's, a world of children. Even Maggie, who is technically an adult, is presented as a child in her helplessness and her mode of dress (Twyla describes her as "dressing like a kid and never saying anything at all"). On the other hand, because of the absence of parents in their lives, the children at St. Bonny's are forced to grow up quickly, and frequently perceive themselves and each other as more adult than they really are. This is true of the gar girls, who wear makeup, dance, and intimidate the younger children, but who in retrospect Twyla recognizes were actually "scared runaways… poor little girls." Meanwhile, Twyla and Roberta are also forced to behave like adults because their mothers are unable to properly perform the role of parents. Twyla calls her mother by her first name, Mary; when Mary comes to visit St. Bonny's, Twyla notes that "she smiled and waved like she was the little girl looking for her mother—not me." The reason why Twyla does not live with Mary is because she "danced all night," a detail that associates Mary with youth culture and suggests she was unable to mature enough to be a proper parent to her daughter. This fact conveys the idea that childhood and adulthood are not concrete, absolute opposites, but rather fluid states of being that people inhabit in different ways and at different points in their lives. The binary between childhood and adulthood is also thrown into question when the story shifts to depict Twyla and Roberta as adults. The first time they meet again, Twyla is working at a diner and Roberta is hanging out with "two guys smothered in head and facial hair." Roberta smokes a cigarette and wears makeup that "made the big girls look like nuns." Both Twyla and Roberta have grown up, but in very different ways. Twyla is in a stable marriage and earning a living, whereas Roberta is sexy and glamorous, and on the way to meet Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was an icon of the newly emergent youth culture of the 1960s, a culture that took the form of a rebellious and hedonistic reaction to the conservative pressures on young people to get married, have children, and live "sensible" lives. It is telling, therefore, that Twyla doesn't even know who Jimi Hendrix is.When the story jumps further in time, Twyla remains in a similar position—albeit now with a son—whereas Roberta has moved to Annandale, "a neighborhood full of doctors and IBM executives," and has four stepchildren and two servants. Roberta's husband is rich, though she has little understanding of his career, describing it childishly as "computers and stuff." Twyla asks if Roberta ever learned to read, a fact that once again infantilizes Roberta—even though she did learn, she reveals this in a childlike manner, by reading a menu in a show-off manner. Furthermore, Twyla and Roberta's involvement in opposing sides of a protest over forced school integration may initially be interpreted as a demonstration of their maturity and dedication to their maternal roles. However, the reality is, again, childish; the two women bicker at each other, and Twyla makes signs that nobody at the protest can understand. The ending of the story also confirms the collapse of the distinction between childhood and adulthood. Although it is 20 years after her time at St. Bonny's, Roberta remains overcome with guilt over the bullying of Maggie, even though Maggie was an adult and the bullies were children. Memories of the past invade her present life, and it is clear that both women symbolically remain both adults and children at the same time. - Theme: Race and Prejudice. Description: Like all of Morrison's work, "Recitatif" centers questions of racial identity, community, and prejudice. Unusually, however, the races of the three main characters are deliberately kept mysterious. The reader is told that one of Twyla and Roberta is black and the other is white, however it is unclear which is which. Meanwhile, Maggie is describes as "sandy-colored"; Roberta insists that she is black, while Twyla is sure that she is not. The ambiguity of Maggie's racial identity is a key component of her mysterious significance within the story. It is also used to show the way in which race (particularly in America) is largely an arbitrary social construction, which exists in reality mostly because of racial concepts and prejudices that originate in people's minds. The disagreement over Maggie's race only emerges 20 years after Twyla and Roberta lived together at St. Bonny's, however even as children they both have a strong awareness of race and racism. When they first meet, Twyla is horrified at the idea of sharing a room with Roberta, "a girl from a whole other race." Later, Twyla recalls that "even the New York City Puerto Ricans and the upstate Indians ignored us. All kinds of kids were in there, black ones, white ones, even two Koreans." While St. Bonny's is a racially mixed environment, racial difference is clearly at the forefront of the children's minds, as is racial prejudice. Throughout the story, Morrison offers contradictory clues about Roberta and Twyla's race that serve the purpose of confusing the reader and, in doing so, illuminating the reader's own assumptions and prejudices about race. When Twyla first meets Roberta, she recalls Mary telling her that "they"––meaning people Roberta's race—"never washed their hair and smelled funny." Hair has a very racially charged history in the US. Negative opinions about Afro-textured hair have been a large element of anti-black racism from the slavery era into the present. Yet Mary's comment remains ambiguous. While black people do not wash their hair in the same way as white people, they also generally spend much more time caring for and styling it, so it's possible Mary's prejudice could work in either racial direction. Meanwhile, smelling "funny" is clearly a subjective notion, and betrays no concrete information beyond the fact that Mary is prejudiced against people who are not of her own race—whatever that race may be. Morrison also manages to obscure Roberta and Twyla's races during the clash over school integration, a fact that reveals her virtuosic skill as a writer. At this point in the story, there is a distinct socioeconomic gulf between the two women; Roberta lives in a neighborhood among doctors and executives, whereas Twyla is keenly aware that half of the population of her city, Newburgh, is on welfare. However, once again this does not indicate anything definitive about either woman's race. Twyla explains that "racial strife" had come to the district where she and Roberta live, and that her own son, Joseph, was on a list of students to be bused out of his school. However, even as Twyla and Roberta argue over the policy of busing, it is not obvious what either woman thinks of racial integration in general. Furthermore, support of or opposition to integration is not necessarily indicative of a person's race, particularly when it comes to the specific issue of one's children being bused to a different school. Morrison emphasizes the arbitrary nature of racial identity when, in the midst of their argument, Roberta and Twyla declare, in succession: "I wonder what made me think you were different." On the surface, this certainly sounds like the language of racial prejudice; both women have generally negative views of the other's race, but thought that the other woman was "different," only to supposedly be proven wrong. However, the overall sense of racial ambiguity—along with the fact that both women say the same sentence one after the other—suggests another, contradictory layer of meaning. Out of context, the sentence could be a gesture of racial conciliation: I don't know why I thought you were different. In reality, we are the same. While the differences between the women are significant, they are also a matter of arbitrary social and economic circumstance. Although race and racism are very real parts of the world we inhabit, beneath the assumption and stereotype, everyone should have the same opportunities and value as people. - Climax: Twyla and Roberta's second argument about Maggie, during which Roberta exclaims: "Maybe I am different now, Twyla. But you're not. You're the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground." - Summary: The story opens with Twyla's declaration that she and Roberta were brought to the orphanage of St. Bonny's because Twyla's mother (Mary) "danced all night" and Roberta's mother was ill. When they are initially introduced they do not get along. Mary has taught Twyla to hold prejudiced views about people of Roberta's race, but when Twyla tells this to Big Bozo (the woman in charge of the shelter), Bozo rudely dismisses her. Eventually, the girls begin to bond over the fact that they understand each other without asking questions. They are also brought closer by the fact that they both get Fs "all the time"; Twyla can't remember anything she learns, and Roberta has not yet learned to read. They are also forced together by the fact that they are excluded from the rest of the children at St. Bonny's because they are not "real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky." Sometimes, Twyla and Roberta are picked on by the older girls (or "gar girls"), who wear makeup and seem scary but are in fact mostly vulnerable runaways. The older girls hang out in the orchard, where they listen to the radio and dance. Twyla often dreams of the orchard, but isn't sure why because "nothing really happened there," except one incident in which Maggie fell down there. Maggie is a "sandy-colored" old woman who works in the kitchen and has multiple disabilities. She is mute and possibly deaf, and has bow legs that cause her to rock and sway as she walks. One Sunday, Mary and Roberta's mother come to attend a church service and lunch at St. Bonny's. Twyla and Roberta are excited about this prospect; they wear nice outfits and curl each other's hair. When Roberta introduces her mother to Twyla and Mary, however, Roberta's mother simply ignores them and walks away. Twyla is embarrassed further when Mary doesn't bring any food for them to eat, and wishes she could kill her. The story jumps eight years ahead in time. Twyla is working at a Howard Johnson's on the Thruway. One day, when a Greyhound Bus stops at the diner, Twyla notices that Roberta is among the passengers, accompanied by two young men. Roberta is wearing an outfit and makeup "that made the big girls look like nuns." The two women have a brief, casual conversation, but Roberta appears rude and disinterested, and scoffs when Twyla accidentally reveals that she doesn't know who Jimi Hendrix is. Roberta goes to leave without saying goodbye, but before she does Twyla asks how Roberta's mother is. Roberta replies that she is fine, asks after Mary, and leaves. The narrative jumps another twelve years forward. Twyla is now married to a man named James whose family have lived in Newburgh for generations; the couple have a son named Joseph. Despite high rates of poverty, Newburgh is simultaneously gentrifying, and a gourmet market has opened in the city. Twyla visits out of curiosity, but feels anxious at the prospect of buying anything. She eventually resolves to buy only Klondike bars, because both her son and father-in-law love them. At the checkout, Twyla runs into Roberta, who is dressed elegantly and reveals that she now lives in the wealthy suburb of Annandale along with her husband and four stepchildren. Roberta suggests the two women have coffee. In the coffee shop, the women hold onto each other tightly, giggling and "behaving like sisters separated for much too long." They recall stories about their time at St. Bonny's, and Roberta shows off that she has finally learned to read. Twyla brings up Maggie, and Roberta claims that Maggie did not fall in the orchard, but was pushed by the gar girls. Twyla doesn't believe her, but Roberta reveals that she knows because she went back to St. Bonny's twice and ran away the second time. Twyla mentions the time at Howard Johnson's when Roberta snubbed her, and Roberta blames her behavior on the racial tensions of the era. Twyla is confused, as she remembers many interracial groups of friends coming into the diner together, but brushes it off. The two women ask after each other's mothers, promise to keep in touch, and part ways. Twyla explains that that fall, Newburgh was overcome by "racial strife" over the issue of forced integration through busing. One day, Twyla accidentally drives past a protest against busing, where she sees Roberta holding a sign that reads "MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO!". This compels Twyla to drive back and approach Roberta. The two women have a conversation about the protest that quickly descends into fierce and petty bickering. Eventually, some of the protesting women begin to rock Twyla's car. She reaches her hand out for Roberta's help, but Roberta doesn't move. After the women clear away, Roberta notes that she is a different person to who she was as a child, but that Twyla is the same—"the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground." Twyla, surprised, responds that Maggie wasn't black. Roberta insists that she was, and that the two of them both kicked her. The women call each other liars, and eventually Twyla comes back to join a counter-protest, at which she waves a series of signs that directly address Roberta and don't make sense to anyone else. The final sign reads: "IS YOUR MOTHER WELL?", and this seems to cause Roberta to abandon the protest. With Roberta gone, Twyla chooses not to come back either. More time passes. It is Christmas time, and Joseph is now in college. On her way back from buying a Christmas tree, Twyla decides to stop and get a cup of coffee. Near the diner she sees a group of wealthy people in eveningwear and admits "it made me tired to look at them." Twyla goes into the diner, and here she finds Roberta, who has evidently come from the event at the hotel. Roberta asks to speak with her, and although she is resistant at first, Twyla eventually agrees. The women briefly exchange small talk, before Roberta admits that there is something she had promised herself she would tell Twyla if the two ever met again. Roberta admits that she truly thought Maggie was black, but that she knew all along that she and Twyla did not kick her—they just watched while the gar girls did it. However, Roberta adds that she really wanted the girls to hurt Maggie, which is just as bad. Roberta starts crying and Twyla comforts her, suspecting that Roberta is upset because she is drunk. Twyla soothes her friend by reminding her that they were only eight-year-old children who were lonely. Roberta seems to feel a little better, and Twyla asks after her mother. Roberta sadly admits that she never got better, and Twyla says Mary never stopped dancing. However, at that moment Roberta is suddenly overcome with despair again, and the story ends with her exclaiming: "Shit, shit, shit. What the hell happened to Maggie?"

- Genre: Science Fiction - Title: “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: A futuristic society in which timeliness is strictly enforced - Character: The Harlequin. Description: The Harlequin is the alias of Everett C. Mann, the protagonist of the story. Perpetually late, and therefore a misfit in his highly regimented society, the Harlequin engages in acts of minor domestic terror in order to disrupt the system and express his individuality. The Harlequin is dating Pretty Alice, who is frustrated with his idiosyncratic character and his inability to act normally or to be on time. As part of his assumed identity, the Harlequin dresses in a jester's motley, both in order to disguise his real identity and so that his acts of disruption are easily identifiable. While the Harlequin doesn't cause anyone any overt harm to anyone, he plunges the day-to-day operations of the world into chaos, encourages rebellion, and poses a threat to the established order. For the Harlequin, his acts of resistance are both absurd and deeply serious; he is at once a tongue-in-cheek joker and a determined rebel. Because of this, the Harlequin is the nemesis of the Ticktockman, who is in charge of regulating time and punishing the infractions of citizens. The Harlequin is in many ways the opposite of the Ticktockman, and serves as a challenge to his dominion over society. Even when the Harlequin is captured by the Ticktockman, he refuses to capitulate, choosing any punishment the Ticktockman can offer over renouncing his own acts of rebellion. Though he is ultimately brainwashed into repenting, the final moments of the story, in which the Ticktockman himself is late, suggest that the Harlequin has indeed sown the seeds of this society's destruction. - Character: The Ticktockman. Description: The Ticktockman is the highest authority in the world of the story, an imposing masked figure able to control the technology that regulates times and metes out life and death to citizens. If someone is tardy too many times, the Ticktockman has the power to turn off his "cardioplate," essentially stopping his heart and killing him. While this technology infuses every level of society, the Ticktockman is the only one who understands and controls it. As with the Harlequin, the Ticktockman's name is an alias. Subordinates whisper the nickname behind his back and call him Master Timekeeper to his face. That his real name is never revealed suggests that the man underneath the mask is irrelevant, and that the Ticktockman is larger than life and symbolic of this society's frighteningly oppressive and authoritarian nature; even his own coworkers fear him. The Ticktockman is thus directly threatened by the Harlequin's subversion and hunts him down in order to quash the challenge to the status quo that he represents. The Ticktockman does succeed in capturing and subduing the Harlequin, but by the conclusion of the story it's implied that the Ticktockman's world has been thrown slightly off-kilter, as the Ticktockman himself is shown to be several minutes late. - Character: Pretty Alice. Description: Pretty Alice is the Harlequin's girlfriend, and is in some ways representative of an average citizen in the Harlequin's world. While she appears to feel affection for the Harlequin, she is also frustrated by his idiosyncrasies, in particular his habitual tardiness and his inflected speech. Later in the story, the Ticktockman implies that Pretty Alice has turned the Harlequin in, indicating that she values herself and the orderliness of the system that she is a part of over her relationship with the Harlequin. - Theme: Individuality and Resistance. Description: In the world of "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," society's extreme emphasis on timekeeping and orderliness has resulted in an obedient, conformist population in which people rarely distinguish themselves from one another. One notable exception, however, is the Harlequin, so named for his jester-like costume. The Harlequin not only flouts the rigid schedules of the Ticktockman—an authority with the power to "turn off," i.e. kill, those who fail to be on time—but also actively engages in defiance and disruption of this system, despite the potentially fatal consequences. Through the character of the Harlequin, Ellison emphasizes the importance of individuality as an act of resistance in an intensely homogenous, totalitarian world. Time and tardiness represent the ultimate manifestation of conformity or lack thereof in the story. Ellison uses these examples to highlight the way in which any sign of individuality, however innocuous, is punished in a totalitarian society. In one example, Gerold Atterly is suspended from school not because of poor grades or bad behavior, but because he is habitually late. Here Ellison emphasizes the fact that any positive qualities a person might have don't necessarily outweigh the consequences of individualism; Gerold is an excellent student, but that doesn't matter to the Ticktockman. His parents receive a stern letter informing them that Gerold will be suspended unless "some more reliable method can be instituted guaranteeing he will arrive at his classes on time. […] his constant flouting of the schedules of this school makes it impractical to maintain him in a system where the other children seem capable of getting where they are supposed to be on time and so it goes." Individuality is thus presented as being distinctly harmful to others. That the Harlequin is a distinct personality, then, is not just an unusual quirk; it's actively disruptive and unacceptable to a society that relies upon the predictability of conformity in order to function. The Harlequin's nonconformity is reflected directly in his appearance: he wears full "motley" (a traditional medieval fool's costume), has a "thatch" of auburn hair, and his "elfin grin" has "a tooth missing back there on the left side." He makes exaggerated facial expressions as he effectively pranks his fellow citizens—"inserting thumbs into large ears," sticking out his tongue, and rolling his eyes as he drops a mass of colorful jelly beans on the unsuspecting commuters below (which he alternately refers to as ants or maggots). Most offensive in this world, of course, is the fact that the Harlequin is perpetually late—which at first seems not a deliberate intention but a natural inclination; that is, merely a mark of who he is as a person. He is unable to conform even in his personal relationships, made evident in his conversations with his partner Pretty Alice. The Harlequin is habitually tardy with Alice, marking himself as different even when he doesn't mean to. For instance, after she scolds him for telling her when he'll be home given that he knows he's always late, the Harlequin thinks to himself, "I'll be late. I'm always late. Why do I tell her these dumb things?" Alice further laments that the Harlequin (whose real name is Everett C. Marm) speaks "with a great deal of inflection"—another indicator of his individuality. Because he is never able to assimilate into the militantly timely society of the Ticktockman, the Harlequin is an outcast and de facto rebel almost by necessity. In such a conformist society, the story thus suggests, even the simple assertion of individuality is an act of resistance. Indeed, the narrator states early in the story that the Harlequin "had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades before," adding, "He was considered a Bolivar; a Napoleon; a Robin Hood; a Dick Bong (Ace of Aces); a Jesus; a Jomo Kenyatta." The narrator thus emphasizes the Harlequin's status as a singular shaper of history, and immensely influential man whose assertion of a belief—in this instance, merely the fact that people are not meant to live their lives by an inflexible schedule—can inspire the masses. Indeed, when the Ticktockman has caught Harlequin and is interrogating him, the Ticktockman says that "most people enjoy order," implying that it's normal to conform, not the other way around. Harlequin resists this argument, however, insisting that he and most people he knows would rather be individuals than adhere to an imposed and artificial regimen. And when the Ticktockman accuses him of being "a non-conformist," the Harlequin simply responds, "That didn't used to be a felony," going on to express his hatred for the "terrible world" that now surrounds him. By exploring the conflict between conformity and individuality, Ellison highlights the ways in which the Harlequin's defiance is disruptive to the society in which he lives, and the extent to which totalitarian states rely on conformity in order to maintain the status quo. The narration of the story itself displays many idiosyncratic or unusual elements, further emphasizing the value of refusing to conform to arbitrary norms. These include a lengthy exposition on jelly beans, which is mostly run-on sentences and flouts many common stylistic rules, and which mirrors the way that the jelly beans within the story itself disrupt the rigid schedule of the factory workers. The story is also told in a mix of styles and begins in the middle before jumping to the beginning and then the end, again illustrating a refusal to obey the so-called "rules" of storytelling. Finally, the narrator frequently breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly, encouraging them to think critically about the contents of the story and the medium itself—underscoring its status as a tale of warning about the perils of conformity. - Theme: The Power of Anonymity. Description: In "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," the Harlequin is unacceptable to society because he is an individual in a world that has effectively outlawed individuality. Even more dangerously, however, he is able to assume a specifically anonymous identity, which both gives him enormous symbolic power and puts him on a level with the only other anonymous actor, the Ticktockman. Here Ellison highlights the subversive nature of an anonymous identity in a technologized, informational world where everything else can be known, calculated, and controlled. Part of the threat that the Harlequin poses to the Ticktockman and to the orderliness of society itself is that he is anonymous and, therefore, easily becomes symbolic. The Harlequin's assumed name, mask and costume, and larger-than-life acts of defiance elevate him above the status of an individual to that of a dangerous idea and burgeoning movement. Because of this assumed character, Harlequin is seen as a hero by the common people in a way that he otherwise might not be. They are able to identify him with the ultimate symbol of resistance. Similarly, the upper classes of society, who benefit tremendously from the order imposed by the Ticktockman, fear and hate the Harlequin because of the disorder, social unrest, and potential for change he represents. The Ticktockman is agitated by the Harlequin's existence particularly because of his anonymous nature and resolves to find out who Harlequin really is: "This time-card I'm holding in my left hand has a name on it, but it is the name of what he is, not who he is," he says. "The cardioplate here in my right hand is also named, but not whom named, merely what named. Before I can exercise proper revocation, I have to know who this what is." On a literal level, the Ticktockman needs this knowledge to access the technology to "turn off" (kill) the Harlequin; figuratively, though, this represents his awareness that there exists a man apart from the powerful anonymous symbol that is the Harlequin. Yet as a masked figure with immense power himself, the Ticktockman's identity also readily becomes symbolic. He is not only the bureaucratic arbiter of time, but also the representation of time and regimentation itself. Even to those deeply enmeshed within the bureaucracy of this society, the Ticktockman still inspires fear due to his anonymous nature. The narrator notes, "You don't call a man a hated name, not when that man, behind his mask, is capable of revoking the minutes, the hours, the days and nights, the years of your life. He was called the Master Timekeeper to his mask. It was safer that way." Whether called the Ticktockman or Master Timekeeper, the character's various names give nothing away about the person behind them. The Ticktockman is larger than life, and comes to embody the power of this society as a whole rather than the power of one person. This is illustrated particularly at the end of the story, when, although the Ticktockman is now several minutes late, he refuses to believe this is the case. Because the Ticktockman essentially is the schedule itself, he cannot fall behind. While the disruption caused by the Harlequin has in fact altered the timeliness of the Ticktockman, to acknowledge this disruption would be to diminish the Ticktockman's enormous symbolic power. The Harlequin loses some of his own symbolic strength, meanwhile, when he is demoted to merely Everett C. Marm. In a society where everything is known and calculated, anonymity provides the opportunity to cultivate a deviant and unique identity while at the same time escaping consequence. When this anonymity is stripped away, however, an individual is reduced to a known quantity without significant power. That is why, once the Ticktockman has found and identified the Harlequin, the latter is no longer able to resist. The Ticktockman now has the power to kill Everett, but no longer needs to. Instead, he sends him to a reeducation camp. While the Harlequin's defiance is symbolic and grandiose, Everett's defiance is described as merely a flaw of character: "After all, his name was Everett C. Marm, and he wasn't much to begin with, except a man who had no sense of time." The narrator further highlights that individuals can die in a way in which symbolic characters cannot: "So Everett C. Marm was destroyed, which was a loss, because of what Thoreau said earlier, but you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and in every revolution a few die who shouldn't, but they have to, because that's the way it happens, and if you make only a little change, then it seems to be worthwhile." In destroying the symbol of the Harlequin, the Ticktockman is able to successfully reassert his power over society and to reestablish the order and synchronization that allows it to function properly. The Harlequin is diminished to a mere man, meanwhile, and is no longer representative of the kind of chaos that poses a real threat to the Ticktockman's world. However, the symbolic power of the assumed identity of the Harlequin has still had a real effect on that world—disrupting schedules, inspiring citizens, and even, ultimately, resulting in the tardiness of the Ticktockman himself. In exploring the anonymity of both Harlequin and the Ticktockman, Ellison emphasizes the way in which a larger-than-life identity can transform individuals into symbols and imbue them with power. - Theme: Order, Class, and Authority. Description: Throughout "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," rigid adherence to an imposed order is characterized as necessary for the continued maintenance of society. This order, in turn, is inextricable from the class structures of the dystopian world that Ellison has created. In the society of the Harlequin and the Ticktockman, order—and timekeeping in particular—is used both to control individual citizens and to uphold an established social hierarchy, suppressing the lower classes and keeping those in power at the top. Ellison's story, then, illustrates the way in which stringent order and authority are distinctly unnatural and often parasitic means to consolidate upper-class power while disenfranchising the masses. It's implied throughout the story that the common people are unhappy with the highly regimented nature of their world and would change it if they were able. The Harlequin is representative of this desire for change and freedom. The narrator describes the lower class of people as rooting for Harlequin and identifying him with a succession of influential, disruptive historical figures: "But down below, ah, down below, where the people always needed their saints and sinners, their bread and circuses, their heroes and villains, he was considered a Bolivar; a Napoleon; a Robin Hood; a Dick Bong (Ace of Aces); a Jesus; a Jomo Kenyatta." For the lower classes, the Harlequin is an inspirational revolutionary figure, and one who is symbolic of the possibility of real change. The Harlequin echoes the sentiments of the lower classes in his conversation with and defiance of the Ticktockman: "Scare someone else. I'd rather be dead than live in a dumb world with a bogeyman like you." Here, even when facing death, the Harlequin still recognizes that the rigid adherence to order that is a fundamental part of the Ticktockman's world will never benefit him or people like him. For the Harlequin, it is better to die trying to resist this order than to capitulate and live in a world that the Ticktockman controls absolutely. The regimented nature of society enforces a hierarchy built on adherence to rules, lack of deviation, and brutal punishment for those who refuse to conform. Those who profit from the system, however, are unlikely to change it, and consequences at the bottom strata of society seem much higher than those at the top. The narrator describes the upper-class reaction to the Harlequin as one of fear and distaste because of the threat he represents to their established, comfortable position: "And at the top—where, like socially-attuned Shipwreck Kellys, every tremor and vibration threatens to dislodge the wealthy, powerful, and titled from their flagpoles—he was considered a menace; a heretic; a rebel; a disgrace; a peril." The contrast in reaction between these different classes underscores the fact that this orderly world benefits those at the top while taking advantage of those at the bottom rungs of society. Throughout the story, timekeeping is specifically shown as a mechanism those in positions of authority use to keep people in line and maintain hierarchies. The narrator poignantly describes the ways in which an industrialized sense of time slowly enslaves the populace, "until it becomes more than a minor inconvenience to be late. It becomes a sin. Then a crime." It's clear that the state has slowly gained the power to punish citizens for even minor infractions, and ultimately has assumed total control of their lives. The narrator describes the devious method of social control through the allotment of time: "What they had done, was to devise a method of curtailing the amount of life a person could have. If he was ten minutes late, he lost ten minutes of his life. An hour was proportionately worth more revocation. If someone was consistently tardy, he might find himself, on a Sunday night, receiving a communique from the Master Timekeeper that his time had run out." Not only does the state have complete control over and knowledge of the actions and infractions of individuals, but they also have the power to mete out life and death. Yet when addressing the people, the Harlequin highlights the artificial and harmful nature of this imposed order, asking, "Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don't be slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees … down with the Ticktockman!" By highlighting the relationship between order and authority throughout the story, Ellison emphasizes the ways in which those in power use rules and regulations in order to control those below them and maintain their own influence. Conversely, he also shows the ways in which a defiance of order is, by necessity, a defiance of authority. - Theme: Technology, Productivity, and Totalitarianism. Description: In the world of "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," the technology employed by the Ticktockman and his minions serves to both characterize and maintain their power. In particular, this technology allows them to control the populace with lethal force, and to ensure the productivity of workers and the economy. Ellison highlights the ways in which technology—including industrial technology and timekeeping, along with their resultant emphasis on productivity and uniformity—can lead a society toward totalitarianism and a lack of regard for human life. Technology gives the Ticktockman the ultimate power over citizens of his world, nipping their ability to resist in any way in the bud. The technology of timecards and cardioplates lets the Ticktockman literally confer life and death upon his subjects. Citizens are only granted a finite allotment of time, and each instance of tardiness, noted from the timecard, can subtract from that allotted time. If a citizen is habitually tardy, they can even have their cardioplate shut off, stopping their heart and killing them. The Ticktockman has the ability to track even minute infractions, so that the state is able to effectively punish even minor transgressions and failures of the citizens to adhere to the established order. This technology is only available to the Ticktockman, however, and is shrouded in mystery to the extent that only he has full control over it, further increasing his totalitarian hold on society. The technology used by the Ticktockman is also impossible to escape, as illustrated by the example of the husband who flees to "deep in the Canadian forest two hundred miles away" after receiving his "turn-off notice"—yet who is instantly killed regardless because the Ticktockman still has access to his cardioplate. This again underscores the horror of totalitarian control made possible by certain dystopian technological advances. The order imposed by the Ticktockman not only results in a society that is controlled by technology but is also completely dependent upon the correct functioning of that technology. For instance, when the Harlequin dumps thousands of jelly beans from the sky and disrupts the conveyor belt-like moving sidewalks that propel workers to and from their factory shifts, he is able to significantly alter the schedule for the day and to cause a major disruption to the Ticktockman's order. The cascading effects of this minor disturbance emphasizes the ways in which any slight technological failure has the potential to create a big impact in the society as a whole. That this failure is due to something as ridiculous as jelly beans further suggests a certain precariousness to a society so reliant upon technology for even minor, mundane aspects of life; had citizens simply walked to work, the Harlequin's practical joke would not have had nearly such destructive power. Yet citizens have clearly become slaves to technology in nearly every facet of their lives. Here Ellison implicitly connects technology to lack of independent thought or self-reliance, which in turn makes the populace easier to control. In addition to disrupting the schedule, disturbances like that of the jelly beans also disrupt the chain of supply and demand of the industrialized economy, resulting in unforeseen shortages and surpluses that wreak havoc on profit in this world. The Harlequin is therefore a threat to society not just because of what he symbolizes, but because of the tangible negative effect he has on industry. Technology, order, and industry go hand in hand—and a threat to one of them is a threat to all of them. In fact, order, economy, and technology are all conflated in the totalitarian society of the Ticktockman to the point that disobedience in any one area is an affront to patriotism itself: "It was, after all, patriotic. The schedules had to be met. After all, there was a war on!" In the society of the Ticktockman, economic productivity is of the highest value because it makes the country stronger; technology that enables such productivity is thus vaulted while anything that gets in the way of that productivity must necessarily be eliminated—even if that means robbing life of spontaneity, creativity, and individuality. To depart from the established order in any way poses a severe threat to society precisely because the world of the Ticktockman is finely tuned to maximize production and minimize natural human difference. Throughout the story, Ellison emphasizes the ways in which those in power wield technology for totalitarian ends, in a way that ultimately serves as a warning against both technology and authority. Written in 1965 during an era that saw the increasing presence of technology in everyday life as well as the ongoing Cold War, Ellison's story reflects a heightened anxiety concerning the spread of totalitarianism, and the ways in which technology and authoritarian overreach can exacerbate each another. - Climax: The Harlequin is captured by the Ticktockman - Summary: In a futuristic world, time is highly regulated and tardiness results in a subtraction of minutes, days, or years from an individual's life. Habitual tardiness can even result in death, implemented via a form of technology called a cardioplate that can remotely stop the beating of the heart. The Harlequin is a man who struggles to fit into the mold of this society and is constantly late. Dressed in a jester's costume, he rebels against the order that he finds so constricting by engaging in acts of non-violent domestic terrorism—making people late, fooling authorities, and interrupting the highly regimented flow of things. The lower classes view him as a hero, while the wealthy and powerful see him as a dangerous nuisance. One day, the Harlequin drops thousands of jelly beans onto the automatic conveyor belts taking workers to and from their factory shifts. The colorful beans delight the workers but jam the belts, ultimately disrupting the day's schedule by seven minutes. This "disaster" brings the Harlequin to the attention of the Ticktockman, a solemn figure in charge of ensuring that order is maintained and responsible for utilizing the technology that metes out time. Because he does not know the Harlequin's real name, the Ticktockman cannot remotely turn off his cardioplate. The Harlequin evades capture for a time, though the Ticktockman eventually hunts him down. While interrogating the Harlequin, whose real name is Everett C. Marm, the Ticktockman insists that most people appreciate an ordered society. The Harlequin replies that he'd rather die than live in this unnatural, tyrannical world. The Ticktockman sends Marm to a reeducation camp, where he is brainwashed in a manner that the narrator indicates is similar to the methods used in 1984. When he returns, he is filmed repudiating his earlier actions and endorsing his support for the Ticktockman and for the order of society as a whole. Nevertheless, his rebellious actions are suggested to have had an effect on society, possibly the first small rumblings of an avalanche of change, as the Ticktockman himself has become late, throwing the schedule off irreparably by a few minutes.

- Genre: Short Story, Science Fiction - Title: Report on the Threatened City - Point of view: - Setting: San Francisco, California - Character: The Envoys. Description: The envoys are a group of six beings from another planet who have traveled to Earth in their spacecraft. They try to warn humans in the titular "threatened city" (implied to be San Francisco) that a disastrous earthquake that will strike the city within the next five years. Physically, the envoys seem to be roughly the same size as humans, but they are made of light rather than matter, so they are not normally visible to the naked human eye. The envoys refer to themselves as "we" throughout their report, which suggests that they might have a collective consciousness. There are no distinctions made between them based on age or gender, in contrast to how human society is divided. The envoys demonstrate their altruism by traveling so far to warn the city's residents about the disaster, planning to help mitigate the earthquake's damage, relocate people, and educate some human "specimens" so that they themselves can predict future calamities. These envoys are not just messengers to humanity; they observe the species with an anthropological interest, reporting back to their base what they discover about human characteristics, interactions, technologies, and rituals. Their ongoing struggle to understand human behavior draws attention to how human beings often act contrary to their true needs. The envoys, like the humans, are not free of bias and assumption, but their initial inability to understand human resistance to their message, rather than frustrating them, sparks their curiosity and concern. In contrast to the humans, who seek to avoid information that challenges their opinions, the envoys seek to fill in their own knowledge gaps to better fulfill their mission. Their attempted warning ultimately fails because they can't overcome this human desire to avoid uncomfortable information. No matter how clearly they are able to understand human motivation, their own attitudes and opinions are ultimately so alien that they cannot find a way to meaningfully communicate. - Character: The Four Youths. Description: On their third day on Earth, the alien envoys encounter a group of four youths who have come to the remote area of the landing site because it is a hang-out spot for young people. They come in a "metal conveyance," or a car, in which they will return to the city in the morning. While they're able to absorb the envoys' telepathic message about an impending earthquake more readily than the elders, they also react to the warning with resignation and hopelessness. Their behavior while driving the car indicates carelessness, too. The envoys ride along secretly, and they are horrified by the youths' reckless driving and laughter when they narrowly avoid accidents. This lack of fear leads the envoys to conclude that they are damaged specimens, so they abandon these four for another group of youths at a gas station. - Character: The Technicians. Description: The envoys visit the Institute for Prognosis and Prevention of Earth Disturbance, where they encounter a group of "highly skilled" geological technicians who study earthquakes. These technicians live and work close to the fault line in the city, the most dangerous place to be if there's an earthquake. Their equipment enables them to diagnose tremors and convulsions, and it is their duty to warn the public before earthquakes, which they do with great accuracy. Despite their advanced knowledge and awareness that the city will not survive a major earthquake, they seem content to live in this dangerous area, and they are more emotional about the city's economic concerns than about potential disasters. - Theme: Perception and Belief. Description: In "Report on the Threatened City," envoys from an alien species land in San Francisco to warn the city's inhabitants about an impending earthquake that will destroy the city. But the aliens learn that despite already knowing about the potential danger—San Francisco even has an institute that studies and predicts earthquakes—the city's residents don't seem to care about it. Thus, the envoys come to understand that for humans, perceiving doesn't necessarily equal believing. For example, the society's leaders are invested in maintaining the status quo: people who rightly perceive UFOs find themselves "repulsed, ridiculed, or even threatened" by authorities who cast them as "mentally inadequate or deluded." In this sense, the story suggests that opinions are more important to humans than perceivable facts, especially when the facts seem to contradict those opinions. Thus, the gap between perception and belief in San Francisco's inhabitants arises because the evidence of danger opposes "received" opinions—in the form of news broadcasts—that celebrate the city and emphasize the importance of its growth. Interestingly, the alien envoys initially exhibit this same gap between perception and acceptance. They can see but are unwilling to accept the overwhelming evidence of human indifference to suffering and death, believing that any creature who knows of impending danger would, like them, "have learned from the event and taken steps accordingly." Yet the envoys—unlike the humans—continually reevaluate their actions, plans, and assumptions. By the time they leave, although they have failed in their mission of warning the inhabitants of the "threatened city," they have begun to understand the mental frameworks that rendered their mission futile—knowledge that can be used in future missions. Through the aliens' reports, the story suggests that it's perhaps natural for humans (and, in the context of the story, aliens) to let biases and assumptions cloud their perception, but that aligning one's beliefs with reality is ultimately necessary for survival. - Theme: Indifference. Description: In "Report on the Threatened City," a group of alien envoys attempt to warn the citizens of San Francisco of an impending earthquake. Because the city's residents aren't evacuating, the extraterrestrials believe that they must not know about the looming danger. But as they spend a week in futile efforts to warn the population, they come to understand that almost everyone is aware of the danger, yet they refuse to act accordingly. As such, the story satirizes modern society's apathy and suggests that it's dangerous for people to avoid uncomfortable or unpleasant truths. Indeed, the envoys observe that humans think their species generally "must continuously lose numbers and strength and health" through catastrophe, yet they care very deeply about "individuals or small groups." In essence, humans are good at caring for individuals but can't extend this concern to bigger groups of people. In addition, the envoys observe that almost all human communication is an echo chamber, meaning that people only care about information from sources they already trust and agree with. The young and old humans in the story have different strategies for maintaining their indifference, but both age groups equally avoid confronting difficult truths or taking decisive action. The young numb themselves through humor, "mating rituals," drugs, and music. The elders, meanwhile, spread propaganda, diffuse responsibility through an "infinitely subdivided society," and expend their energy on debating rather than solving problems. The envoys' observations of humans—and their failure to convince people to care about or prepare for the earthquake—suggest that such indifference and passivity can have deadly consequences. - Theme: Paranoia and Conspiracy. Description: When the alien envoys in "Report on the Threatened City" come to San Francisco to warn of an impending earthquake, they find a world in the grip of Cold War-era paranoia and conspiracies. Almost everyone who sees their spacecraft identifies it as a weapon or spy craft of some sort, and the range of origin theories suggests the power of the "war-making functions" that control Earth: some think the craft is Russian, others Chinese, and still others American. The envoys note that humans frequently observe "a great many of the devices and machines used by the war departments […] under test," yet their reports to officials are "repulsed" and "ridiculed." The story draws a fine line between the conspiracies that the government weaves to silence talk of extraterrestrial visitors—for example, cutting off access to a UFO landing site by claiming a radiation leak—and the conspiracy that the city's population willingly engages in regarding the looming disaster. History clearly demonstrates that San Francisco is an unsafe place to live (the story references the city's deadly 1906 earthquake), and the residents in the story are aware that another earthquake will happen eventually. Yet city planners, builders, geologists, and other citizens willingly—even cheerfully—live and congregate in the most dangerous zones. "Verbal games" (debates), ritual reenactments of "unpalatable ideas" (television shows), and education in "received opinion" all serve to communicate "the current standard of ideas" in society and, by extension, to disregard ideas outside these norms. The story thus suggests that people's willingness to accept conspiracy theories and propaganda over facts is a potentially deadly impulse, and also that this tendency makes it easy for government and media to influence people. - Theme: Altruism vs. Capitalism. Description: "Report on the Threatened City" portrays capitalism as a system that encourages profit and self-interest over the common good. In the story, alien envoys visit Earth to warn San Francisco residents of an impending earthquake, and their mission requires them to push their planet's technology to its limit and "postpone[] certain cherished plans." They seem to consider these sacrifices worthwhile when balanced against the mass death and devastation that they believe the earthquake will cause. The humans, by contrast, aren't nearly as altruistic: the envoys observe that the larger the group, the less humans care about it. The local news broadcasts that occasionally interrupt the envoys' report do sometimes focus on individual acts of generosity: five "ordinary people" each donate a month's pay to cover a toddler's heart surgery, for instance, and a brave man sacrifices himself to rescue four others from a burning building. The envoys also note humans' "infinite care and devotion to individuals or small groups." Yet other reports suggests that San Franciscans are generally more concerned about economic expansion than the population's well-being. Instead of evacuating people before the earthquake or addressing the city's high poverty rate, the broadcasts largely focus on commercial interests and activities: an entertainment extravaganza, plans for new suburbs that will bring more residents to the city, or new infrastructure to draw in more tourists. Furthermore, individual acts of heroism contrast sharply with more tragic reports, such as when 60 people die in a stadium accident because the stadium owner prioritized profits over safety. The alien envoys thus conclude that under capitalism, people tend to make decisions not by considering people's needs, but by negotiating between "many conflicting bodies and individuals" who participate out of "self-interest." - Climax: The alien envoys lose their televised debate with humans, and an angry mob runs them out of town. - Summary: A group of six alien envoys sends a priority broadcast back to their base: all programs and plans must be cleared pending the information in their report. In the report, the envoys explain that they've traveled to Earth to warn the residents of a city (implied to be San Francisco) that their city will be destroyed by an earthquake within the next five years. The envoys found out about the impending earthquake by observing Earth with "Astroviewers" and unmanned spacecraft. They prepared for this trip by pushing their technology to its limits and postponing other important priorities. The envoys land in a sparsely populated area outside of San Francisco. Their species is made of light, so the envoys are usually invisible to the human naked eye. They spend their first four days on Earth attempting Phase I: telepathically communicating their warning directly into some local farmers' minds. They also try to communicate with a group of four youths from the city, but both of these attempts fail. The envoys notice that the elders are obsessed with war, and that young people can perceive and understand things more clearly. But the youths are also more apathetic and hopeless than the elders. The envoys report that humans can hold two contradictory ideas at once, and that this mental block is why the envoys can't communicate with either age group effectively. So, the enjoys proceed to Phase II, in which they enter several other youths' minds and attempt to directly warn the population. The youths, who are high on drugs, begin to sing songs about the impending disaster, which gets them thrown in jail. There, the envoys learn for the first time that a deadly earthquake struck the city decades ago. They realize that their warnings are going unheeded because everyone knows about the danger, even though no one is taking steps to avoid or soften it. The envoys report that humans aren't very open to new ideas, and that they'll only accept information from sources they already trust. Next, the envoys incarnate as two human men and attempt to engage the geological technicians at the Institute for Prognosis and Prevention of Earth Disturbance. Here, they learn that economic considerations trump human safety in the planning and management of the city. (At this point, various local news broadcasts about tragedies, acts of selflessness, and city-planning and tourism efforts start intermittently interrupting the envoys' report.) The envoys note that humans tend to use conversation to avoid taking meaningful action, and that individuals only care about the people they're closest to, not humanity as a whole. After the envoys realize that the technicians aren't receptive to what they have to say, they decide to appeal directly to a large group of young people during a nighttime beach party. But this ends with some of the youth expressing their indifference and others acting on their despair by committing mass suicide. Finally, the envoys, in their male human personas, appear on television to debate local professors about the importance of actions rather than words. At first, the audience laughs at the envoys rather than taking them seriously. But when the envoys shift their arguments to the specific need for action to avoid the impending earthquake, the viewers in the studio and at home react with violent anger. Realizing that their mission has failed, the extraterrestrials dematerialize, reconvene at their ship, and return to their planet. They conclude that anyone who conforms to human society's norms is doomed, because it's normal to deny reality and avoid preparing for disaster. Only society's outcasts have a chance at survival. After the envoys have left, sightings of alien spacecraft continue. This confounds Military Command, which identifies the ships as Chinese, and the Air Force, which speculates that the ships are either Russian or extraterrestrial. Concerned about hundreds of people apparently disappearing on these UFOs, the Air Force suggests that the government seal off the landing site from the public.

- Genre: Magical Realism, Native American Literature - Title: Reservation Blues - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: Wellpinit, Spokane Indian Reservation, WA - Character: Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Description: Thomas is a Spokane Indian, and the reservation's unofficial storyteller. Much of the story's narration follows his perspective to some degree, which is attentive to small details and the spiritual resonances of the reservation. Thomas is somewhat of an outcast on the reservation, and considered strange by many. He becomes the lead singer and songwriter of Coyote Springs, as well as their bassist. Most of their meager funding and motivation also come from him. Junior and Victor have regularly bullied him since they were young, with Victor leading the charge, but Thomas is patient with their abuse. He falls in love with Chess Warm Water, singing her a love song at a concert on the Flathead reservation in Montana. Neither one of them drinks, and both are naturally quiet, but full of stories. At the end of the novel, the pair decides to get married and leave the reservation for Spokane. What hope remains in the novel goes with them, as they remain determined to give their children a better life with two Native American parents. - Character: Junior Polatkin. Description: A Spokane Indian and the (somewhat inept) drummer in Coyote Springs. Victor Joseph is his best friend, and the two stick close to one another to find meaning in the face of their difficult pasts. Junior is a handsome man who tries hard to be good, but is often led astray by Victor and haunted by the death of his parents in a drunk-driving accident. Before joining the band, he drives the water truck on the reservation—a model, relative to Victor at least, of stability and dependability. He went to college, briefly, in Oregon, but returned to the reservation after his white girlfriend, Lynn, decided to abort their child. Haunted by this and other defeats in his life, Junior commits suicide in the final chapter of the novel. This final defeat is a clear result of the patterns of suffering that haunt the reservation, and a blow to the community; Junior is a character who (as others recognize) ought to be doing better than he is, but who is constantly pulled back into destructive patterns. - Character: Victor Joseph. Description: A Spokane Indian and the guitar player in Coyote Springs. Junior Polatkin is his best friend. Victor is a bully and a drunk, whose rude behavior is partially a result of his upbringing—his father left at a young age, and his white stepfather mistreated him. Both events are individually tragic, but also part of a large pattern of suffering. In a dream, we learn that Victor was also abused by a Catholic priest as a boy while at summer camp, which might have contributed to his deep mistrust of authority. Before joining the band, he depends upon Junior for money, riding beside him in the water truck. With the magic of Robert Johnson's guitar, he becomes by far the best musician in the band. At the same time, however, he begins to hallucinate, seeing white women where there are none, and, ominously, dreaming that the guitar is asking him for a sacrifice just before Junior's suicide. - Character: Chess (Eunice) Warm Water. Description: A Flathead Indian from Arlee, Montana, Chess becomes a back-up singer and keyboardist in Coyote Springs, and falls in love with Thomas Builds-the-Fire. She is very close with her sister, Checkers, of whom she is also fiercely protective. The two sisters earned their money fighting forest fires in Montana before joining the band. Chess is wise, and tells stories like Thomas. At the end of the novel, deeply frustrated by the death of Junior and the cycle of suffering that brought it about, she proposes to Thomas and the two decide to move to Spokane and have children together—children who will grow up with two "brown faces" looking down at them. - Character: Checkers (Gladys) Warm Water. Description: A Flathead Indian from Arlee, Montana, Checkers is described as perhaps the most beautiful Indian woman in all of America. She becomes a back-up singer in Coyote Springs, and falls in love with Father Arnold—she has a pattern of falling for older men, searching for stability within the precarious life of the reservation. Later she is haunted by dreams of Phil Sheridan, the time-traveling U.S. Army General, a figure of past suffering that haunts contemporary Native Americans. Checkers is very close with her sister, Chess, and the two sisters earned their money fighting forest fires in Montana before joining the band. - Character: Big Mom. Description: A heavily mythologized woman who lives on Wellpinit Mountain, watching over the Spokane tribe. According to tribal lore, she has the power to walk on water and read dreams, and can speak to animals. She is also an incredible musician, and, according to Alexie's telling of history, she has taught many of the greatest artists of the last century, including Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. Coyote Springs spends one week with Big Mom before they fly to New York to audition for Cavalry Records, learning chords that she has adapted from the screams of dying horses during the Indian Wars. She is the champion fry bread cook on the reservation and a symbol of traditional Indian mysticism, mixed at every step with pragmatism and humor. - Character: Robert Johnson. Description: A famous blues guitarist who lived from 1911-1938. He died under mysterious circumstances, and legend has it that he made a Faustian bargain with the devil to be the best guitar player of all time. Alexie imagines that Johnson has been wandering all this time, trying to escape the Gentleman (a figure of the devil) who took his freedom. He finds refuge in Big Mom's house and, at the end of the novel, decides to stay on the reservation. - Character: David WalksAlong. Description: The Spokane Tribal Council Chairman, and uncle of Michael White Hawk. He holds a grudge against Thomas because although David was once a talented basketball player, Thomas' father, Samuel Builds-the-Fire, was a far better player than he ever was. WalksAlong is one of Coyote Springs' most vocal opponents on the reservation, and he attempts to excommunicate them from the tribe. - Character: Father Arnold. Description: The devoted Catholic priest on the reservation. Father Arnold loves his job, and preaching reminds him of what it was like to sing in a rock band after college. He also plays basketball and is relatively moderate in terms of religious dogma. He falls for Checkers, and, frightened by his feelings, decides to leave the Church and the reservation. - Character: Betty. Description: Co-owner of a bookstore in Seattle and a fan of Coyote Springs. She sleeps with Junior, and is fascinated by Native American culture. It is no coincidence that Alexie gave her the same name as an iconic white character from the Archie comic books. She is a super-fan of the band, and briefly sings back-up for them. Later, she and Veronica, who accompanies her everywhere, form a band that is signed by Cavalry Records and marketed as "Indian." - Character: Veronica. Description: Co-owner of a bookstore in Seattle and a fan of Coyote Springs. She sleeps with Victor and is fascinated by Native American culture. It is no coincidence that Alexie gave her the same name as an iconic white character from the Archie comic books. She is a super-fan of the band, and briefly sings back-up for them. Later, she and Betty, who accompanies her everywhere, form a band that is signed by Cavalry Records and marketed as Indian. - Character: Phil Sheridan. Description: An executive at Cavalry Records, who works with George Wright and under Mr. Armstrong. Sheridan is a perfect caricature of the slimy record executive, driven by commercial concerns and willing to compromise whatever morals necessary on the way to a successful signing. Like the other two Cavalry Records executives, he is also a modern version of a famous historical U.S. Army Officer implicated in the slaughter of Native Americans. Philip Sheridan (1831-1888) was a general who pioneered scorch earth tactics during the Civil War, and then oversaw the Indian Wars on the Great Plains. He is rumored to have said that the "only good Indian is a dead Indian." The personality of this historical general breaks through into the present in one scene, where Sheridan threatens Checkers in an intense nightmare. - Character: George Wright. Description: An executive at Cavalry Records, who works with Phil Sheridan and under Mr. Armstrong. Wright is beginning to feel remorse for the tactics of his fellow executives. Like the other two Cavalry Records executives, he is also a modern version of a famous U.S. Army Officer implicated in the slaughter of Native Americans. George Wright (1803-1865), commanded troops during the Battle of Spokane Plains near modern day Wellpinit, and hanged Chief Owhi and his son Qualchan in bad faith after inviting them to negotiate. Wright winds up leaving Cavalry Records, consumed by guilt, and going to rest at the grave of his historical predecessor in California. - Character: Mr. Armstrong. Description: The powerful chief executive at Cavalry Records, who manages George Wright and Phil Sheridan. He has little patience for the mistakes of Coyote Springs when they play for him in New York, leaving the studio within minutes. Like the other two Cavalry Records executives, he too is a modern version of a famous U.S. Army Officer implicated in the slaughter of Native Americans. One of the better-known figures from that era, George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) fought in the Indian Wars until he was defeated at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Significantly for Alexie's novel, Armstrong once ordered his men to shoot 875 captured Indian ponies - Character: The-man-who-was-probably-Lakota. Description: An Indian man, not from the Spokane tribe, who spends all day standing outside the reservation's Trading Post, a much-frequented convenience store, announcing to whoever passes by that the end of the world is near. He is also the second best fry bread cook on the reservation, after Big Mom and before Bessie. - Theme: Race, Culture, and Identity. Description: At the core of Alexie's novel is an intense exploration of what it means to be a Native American living in America today. By writing a novel about Native Americans who form a blues and rock and roll band (naming themselves "Coyote Springs"), Alexie is able to portray the complicated relationship between Native Americans and the country that surrounds them. As Americans, they are connected to the unique culture that produced the Blues. At the same time, the band is also implicitly connected to the Black Americans who originally created the blues—Black Americans who were (and are) systematically oppressed just like Native Americans. As a band seeking its fortune, Coyote Springs is furthermore embracing the hope of fame and wealth that is a part of the "American Dream," but also exposing themselves to the capitalist forces (in the form of Cavalry Records) that will seek to callously exploit them and the authentic cultural history that they bring to their music.This complex situation then brings up the ideas of "cultural appropriation" and "cultural exchange." Cultural appropriation is when an oppressive culture borrows elements of an oppressed culture and uses them for its own benefit. This is often seen as something akin to theft or exploitation—using cultural elements and traditions while continuing to deny the value or humanity of the people who created that culture. A classic example of this is when white rock and roll artists (like Elvis Presley) appropriated black music (the blues, and early rock and roll) as their own, making it popular with white audiences and gaining enormous wealth and fame in the process. Cultural exchange, then, is a similar use of another culture's elements, but without the element of oppression or dehumanization. Alexie portrays Coyote Springs as a kind of cultural exchange—a Native-American blues band—that is a way for two historically oppressed groups (Native Americans and Black Americans) to draw strength and creativity from each other.Later in the novel, however, the evils of cultural appropriation appear through Cavalry Records—representatives of the power-wielding white majority. The record executives recruit the white women Betty and Veronica to sell Native American music, and this misuse of Native American identity feels like a mockery of the Spokane group and their culture, rather than a productive celebration of shared history. The oppression and abuse of Native Americans at the hands of the white majority, exemplified by Cavalry Records, is ever-present in the band's casually racist encounters with the outside world. These encounters give the reader a darkly humorous picture of the outside world's caricatured image of Native Americans. Alexie further investigates the ways that the Native American minority interacts with the white majority through interracial relationships. Checkers struggles to accept the pairing of Victor and Junior with the white outsiders, Betty and Veronica, arguing that an Indian man needs an Indian woman. Meanwhile, Junior and Victor's reasons for being drawn to Betty and Veronica are not based on simple personal attraction or love. Rather, the attraction is based in large part because of the girls' whiteness—sleeping with a white woman is like a badge of honor, and maybe, Junior reflects, even an attempt at revenge against the "White Man." Likewise, Betty and Veronica are drawn to Victor and Junior by their own problematic love for the exotic, and the spiritualism that they assume is present in any Native American. Junior's history with interracial relationships is even more complex, though, than it seems at first—we learn that, while at college in Oregon, he dated a white student named Lynn, who became pregnant and then aborted their child. Lynn told Junior that she couldn't marry him because he was Indian, and her parents refused to even talk to him. The haunting memory of this rejection, not of Junior per se but of his entire race, is what drives him to despair and suicide at the book's conclusion. This investigation of interracial relationships, and each character's interaction with them, is also a reflection on their conflicted feelings toward their own cultural identity. To live as a Native American in America, Alexie makes clear, is to inherit a massive amount of cultural baggage that must be grappled with in forming one's identity. - Theme: Hope, Despair, and the Blues. Description: Throughout Alexie's novel, hope battles with despair in the lives of each member of the band and the reservation as a whole—and the Blues become a way of converting despair into something that can build, rather than destroy, community. Hope survives, barely, in spite of sustained adversity. The story of this ragtag band of misfits is in many ways a classic underdog tale, but without the traditional happy ending. The community invests, against its better judgment, in the sort of desperate optimism that comes with forming a band—entering into a very competitive field with little hope for success, either in terms of fame or money. Thomas tirelessly drives the group forward with his optimistic belief in their potential. When, on the verge of success, they fail so completely, their failure feels expected—even inevitable. This underdog tale is mirrored in the memory of Samuel Builds-the-Fire's basketball match against the tribal police. Against all odds, and in line with the macho Native American drive toward heroism, Samuel nearly emerged victorious, but then he too was defeated. Now he lies on the table, drunk and defeated in a deeper sense: he totally succumbs to despair. This fatal drive toward heroism displayed by the young Samuel is typical of other male characters on the reservation, and bitterly mocked by others. The novel's main female characters, Chess and Checkers, ascribe this drive in male Native Americans to the macho need to fit the image of the fearless Indian warrior. They are bitter about its effects on the men of the reservation, seeing this need to feign invincibility as part of what leads many to alcohol when they, inevitably, can't live up to the impossible ideal, and then as a result face a persistent sense of unfulfilled potential. Hope against all odds is also a part of this reckless urge—so Alexie seems to argue that there should be a middle ground, somewhere between reckless hope and the other side of the equation: deep despair. Despair pervades the past of each of the band's members, and also threatens to invade their present. Junior ultimately gives in to despair, after the memory of his aborted child comes back to haunt him when the band is flying home from New York in defeat. Victor, in response to the death of his best friend, tries at first to rise up and respond with a heroic sort of hope, formulating a tragically inept resume to offer to David WalksAlong in the hope of taking over Junior's job. When this resume is laughingly rejected, though, he falls back into deep despair, returning to the life of an alcoholic he had hoped to escape. Any humor and hope in Alexie's novel is always dark. This deep awareness of despair is another link between the song lyrics written out at the beginning of each chapter of Reservation Blues and the Blues genre itself, which is famous for its themes of longing and sadness (rising as it does from a history of slavery and oppression). Music and storytelling become one way to grapple with the reality of a despair-filled life, injecting hope and personality into the equation—and perhaps discovering a path toward that "middle ground" between unrealistic hope and despair. - Theme: Alcoholism and Patterns of Suffering. Description: Alcohol is presented as a normal, ever-present, and inescapable part of life on the reservation—a symptom of the poverty and sense of despair that surround Native American life after years of oppression and broken promises from the American government. Alcoholism is a thread that weaves its way across life on the reservation, and directly affects the lives of each of Coyote Springs' members. At various points in the novel they are confronted, individually or collectively, with the painful memories of alcohol abuse that broke up each of their families, in a way that was simultaneously predictable and seemingly impossible to stop. Chess and Checkers' father, Luke Warm Water, became an alcoholic after his infant son died of a preventable illness when no medical help was available. Luke's drinking tore their family apart, leading to their mother's suicide, and both sisters are haunted by memories of their father's alcoholism. Thomas' father, Samuel Builds-the-Fire, was once a basketball-playing hero of the tribe, but after the death of his wife he became an alcoholic as well. The only special skill he has now is one that Thomas jokes belongs to all Native American fathers – the ability to show up drunk on their children's doorsteps, no matter where or how far they have gone away in an attempt to escape. Junior's parents were both killed in a drunk driving accident, and Junior himself has now fallen into the same pattern of drinking he had hoped to avoid, binging with Victor whenever the opportunity presents itself. Junior, too, is haunted by dreams of his parents. Victor's drinking is in turn a reaction to another pattern of suffering—his nightmares reveal that he was sexually abused by a priest while still a young boy. Now, he is persistently verbally and physically abusive to those around him, and the most recklessly alcoholic member of the band.The prevalence of alcohol's destructive influence in the past and present of each of these characters is a reflection of the general patterns of suffering that pervade life on the reservation. The origin of these patterns is, more often than, not, oppression handed down from the government. This pattern of government oppression is exemplified by the three white executives of Cavalry Records, who finally defeat the unlikely "underdog" hope of Coyote Springs after first rekindling that hope with a worthless string of promises and contracts. To drive his point home, Alexie names these executives Sheridan, Wright, and Armstrong, after famous U.S. Army Officers implicated in the slaughter of Native Americans. Philip Sheridan (1831-1888) was a general who pioneered scorch earth tactics during the Civil War, and then oversaw the Indian Wars on the Great Plains. George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) also fought in the Indian Wars and, significantly for Alexie's novel, once ordered his men to shoot 875 captured Indian horses. George Wright (1803-1865) commanded troops during the Battle of Spokane Plains near modern-day Wellpinit, and hanged Chief Owhi and his son Qualchan in bad faith after inviting them to negotiate. The reservation's patterns of suffering are held in the memory of Big Mom and the stories of Thomas Builds-the-Fire, and transformed into the music played by Coyote Springs. Big Mom's memory of the murder of Native horses and her transcription of their song of mourning and pain makes these ghostly horses a symbol of the suffering of Native Americans at the hands of the government. The novel in some ways chronicles the band members' desperate attempt to escape from the patterns of suffering that destroyed their respective parents—and it is this desire to escape that finally drives Thomas and Chess to move off the reservation. - Theme: Storytelling, History, and the Spiritual. Description: In Alexie's novel, overtones of magical realism create a heightened sense of myth and an awareness of history that seems native to life on the reservation—and especially to life as it is experienced by Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the protagonist. Although the novel is narrated from a third-person perspective, it most consistently follows Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who is infamous for his storytelling. His stories are said to creep relentlessly into the dreams of everyone who lives on the reservation, giving them a sort of spiritual power. This storyteller's lens leads the reader to accept moments of fantasy, or of reclaimed history in which major rock stars are imagined to have found their true talent under the instruction of Big Mom. History and the spiritual are linked in the life of the reservation, both within the Catholic Church and as a part of native beliefs and rituals. Big Mom is a magical figure, whose power comes in equal parts from the "powerful medicine" of the supernatural and from her role as a living archive of tribal history, the history of invasion, and even the history of music in America. The other home of spiritualism in the novel, the reservation's Catholic Church, is also tied—at least in Thomas's mind—to the bloody history of Catholicism's role in the early exploration and settlement of America, which came at the expense of Native American lives. Father Arnold—the face of Catholicism on the reservation—is a sympathetic and relatable character, however, whose influence on the community seems positive—he plays basketball, feels the temptation to love, and takes pride in the performance of his sermons in a way that is similar to the onstage thrill experienced by Coyote Springs in concert. This dissonance connects to the common theme of a past full of suffering that invades a present that contains hope, but is often pulled back by the patterns of the past. These patterns are represented using moments of fantasy, as when Sheridan, one of the white record label executives named after a historical U.S. general who participated in slaughters of Native Americans, invades Coyote Springs' hotel room in New York to "apologize" to Checkers, and ends up drifting back in history and remembering the rape of an Indian woman. Alexie's fantastical story-telling choices become a means of exploring the ways that history remains alive and vivid, and of showing how past oppression echoes into and explains present suffering. - Theme: Community, Friendship, and Love. Description: Community plays a huge role in life on the reservation, since each of the individuals living there is bound together by the shared sense of identity that comes from their race—its past and present, as outlined above. Community can be a force for good, as exemplified by the small acts of kindness and support displayed by many of those on the reservation, and the camaraderie that comes from being part of a shared struggle. Alexie demonstrates the way in which the community can also exert a harmful force, though. The reservation community tries to banish Coyote Springs after they don't live up to expectations, its structure helps to perpetuate the cycle of alcoholism and suffering that pains its members, and it often rewards corruption and hierarchy on the tribal council. When Chess and Thomas decide to leave the reservation, Big Mom convinces them to take up a collection at the tribal gathering, and this event yields a mix of these positive and negative elements. A sizeable sum is collected, but Alexie makes it clear that while some donate out of love and support, just as many do so out of spite and a desire to see the band leave for good. Within the often-heartbreaking life of the reservation, personal bonds also become an important way to find meaning and a reason for survival. As a model of male friendship on the reservation, Junior's (arguably toxic) friendship with Victor is a constant feature of the novel from the moment of their first introduction to the reader. This friendship seems to be what gives each of them the strength to overcome their difficult pasts, even as it also draws both of them toward alcoholism. When the friendship breaks, so does Victor's will to continue struggling. Broken friendships—and more generally, broken hearts—are also a consistent theme of the Blues tradition. Romantic love is another bond used by members of the band to survive the loneliness of reservation life. Checkers searches for meaning and stability in love, preferring older men for this reason. She falls in love with Father Arnold, and Chess's unsurprised reaction to this makes it clear that it's a pattern in her sister's life. There is hope in love, though—if any hope is left at the end of the book, it is all given to Chess and Thomas, who are leaving the reservation and planning to have a child. Love becomes a means of preserving identity and hoping for a better future, of fighting back against oppression and despair. - Climax: The climax of Coyote Springs' underdog tale comes when the band is called upon to play at Cavalry Records, hoping to make it big—but it becomes more of an anticlimax as Victor's guitar rebels and the band falls apart. - Summary: Reservation Blues is the story of a group of Native Americans in Washington who, led by the reservation outcast and storyteller Thomas Builds-the-Fire and spurred on by the demonic magic of Robert Johnson's mystical guitar, decide to form a blues band that they name "Coyote Springs." The novel charts the rise and fall of Coyote Springs, and the individual struggles of each member of the band as they face the systemic suffering of Native American life. In the novel's opening scene, Robert Johnson, an African-American stranger modeled after the real-life blues musician, appears on the Spokane reservation, waiting at the crossroads. Thomas Builds-the-Fire stops to talk with him, and ends up giving him a ride to the base of Wellpinit Mountain, sending Johnson to see Big Mom, who might be able to save him from the mysterious Gentleman who is chasing him. Johnson leaves Thomas his guitar, which seems to be imbued with magical powers. After a violent confrontation with longtime bully Victor Joseph and his best friend Junior Polatkin, the guitar—now broken, but not for long—tells Thomas that the three of them are destined to start a blues band, to give the reservation the music it needs. The new band forms, with Junior on drums, Thomas as the lead singer, bassist, and songwriter, and Victor playing the mystical guitar. They call themselves "Coyote Springs" and practice in an abandoned grocery store in the small town, drawing small crowds of tribe members who watch as they rehearse covers of famous songs. As their fame grows, at least among Native Americans, they are invited to play their first paid gig at a bar on the Flathead reservation in Arlee, Montana. The show goes disastrously, since both Victor and Junior get very drunk early on in the performance. At the show Thomas meets the Warm Water sisters, Chess and Checkers. He sings a love song to Chess, and then pulls her onstage for a duet. The band crashes at sisters' house, and Thomas convinces everyone that the sisters should join Coyote Springs as backup singers and keyboardists. They stay in Montana for a week, playing a triumphantly redemptive second show at the same bar, the Tipi Pole Tavern. The band returns to Washington and continues to improve, playing a successful show at the unlikely location of a cowboy bar in Ellensburg, Washington. Mistrust of the band begins to grow on their home reservation, however, as community members in the church speak out against the content of their music, and David WalksAlong, the Tribal Council Chairman who has an old grudge with Thomas' father, Samuel Builds-the-Fire, argues that they are disturbing the peace. Samuel, who is now a constant drunk following the death of his wife, then shows up passed out on Thomas' lawn. In the night, we see Junior's dreams of his own parents, who died in a drunk driving accident. Victor dreams of his mother and stepfather, who are both absent, and of a group of frightening men in black robes. We also see into the tragic past of Chess and Checkers' family, whose father, Luke Warm Water, became an alcoholic after the death of their younger brother, Bobby, causing their mother to commit suicide. Flashbacks from the life of Samuel Builds-the-Fire, who now lies unconscious on the kitchen table, reveal a dramatic, pride-fueled pick-up basketball match years ago that pitted Samuel and Lester FallsApart against the eight men of the Tribal Police, who were led by David WalksAlong. Samuel and Lester nearly prevailed against the odds, but ended up having their victory snatched away at the last minute in a nasty, dirty game. The next morning, on-edge after staying up all night and fed up with Victor's insensitivity, Checkers attacks Victor violently in response to a rude comment about Thomas's father, Samuel. Thomas intervenes, and gets into a wrestling match with Victor himself. Outside after the fight, Chess convinces Thomas that they should kick Junior and Victor out of the band. At this moment, a package arrives with an invitation to play in Seattle for one thousand dollars, a huge payday for the struggling band. Checkers refuses to go along, but Chess, Thomas, Victor, and Junior begin the long road trip in uncomfortable silence. When they arrive, they discover that in fact they have been invited to a "battle of the bands," a competition in which only the winner will receive the thousand dollar prize. With no other choice, they decide to sleep in the van before the competition. Back on the reservation, Checkers goes to the Catholic Church and meets Father Arnold, a white priest. Checkers talks to him about her deep desire as a child to be as "clean" as all the little white girls. She quickly falls in love with the understanding priest. Miraculously, Coyote Springs wins the battle of the bands. We learn that two white women, Betty and Veronica, who have been following the band since the very beginning of their journey and have a physical relationship with Victor and Junior, sang backup. They all return to the reservation, but once there their luck runs out, along with the prize money. As a compromise with Chess, Thomas goes to church, but is unconvinced by the experience. A drunken Victor and Joseph are confronted by an enraged Michael White Hawk, the nephew of David WalksAlong. Michael beats them badly until a local drifter, the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota, hits him over the head with a two-by-four. The two band members slowly recover, as the money dries up—and no new gigs or record deals are coming in. Betty and Veronica return to Seattle, to the bookstore that they co-own. One day, a Cadillac with two powerful executives from Cavalry Records, Phil Sheridan and George Wright, rolls onto the reservation. They offer Coyote Springs a possible record deal, inviting them to fly out to record a test in New York a week later. With this unexpected opportunity, the band feels pressure to perform the best they can. They make a pilgrimage to Big Mom's house on Wellpinit Mountain and live there for a week, as she teaches them to play the chords full of suffering and pain that belong to all Indians, in spite of resistance from the ever-difficult Victor. At this point, all of the band's music is original. As prepared as they can be, Coyote Springs takes the plane to New York—the first time that any of its members have flown. But when they reach the recording studio and begin to play for the chief executive, Mr. Armstrong, Victor's guitar suddenly rebels, burning him and bucking out of his hands. Armstrong leaves, and, enraged, Victor throws a tantrum in the studio, destroying some equipment. He and Junior leave to get drunk, while Chess, Checkers, and Thomas return to the hotel. Chess and Thomas decide to try and locate Victor and Junior, but it proves a nearly impossible task. Junior, meanwhile, stays sober and guides Victor home, haunted all the while by flashbacks of a white girl named Lynn, who he dated in college. She became pregnant, but chose to abort their baby, unwilling to marry an Indian. Alone in the hotel, Checkers is attacked by Phil Sheridan in a nightmare, and he reveals his true identity as a U.S. Army general from the Indian Wars. Leaving their instruments behind, the band flies back to the reservation, where many tribe members wish to excommunicate them. Checkers confronts Father Arnold about their relationship, and he reveals that he is planning to leave both the reservation and the Church—but not to be with her. Defeated by tragedy and the memories of Lynn, Junior steals a rifle, climbs to the top of the water tower, and commits suicide. At his funeral, Chess and Thomas decide to get married and have children, but also to leave the reservation and move to Spokane. Checkers will go with them, leaving Victor alone. The night before Junior committed suicide, the guitar had come to Victor in a dream, telling him that it could make him famous if Victor would sacrifice the thing—or the person—that he loved most in the world. Racked with guilt, Victor has been sober since Junior's suicide. Junior later appears to him, and the two of them throw flask after flask of whiskey into Turtle Lake. Determined to do better in life, Victor goes to David WalksAlong to ask for Junior's old job, but WalksAlong crumples up his résumé, laughing. Defeated and despairing, Victor steals five dollars from WalksAlong's secretary and buys a six-pack of cheap beer, cracking one open with a sound that echoes the shot from Junior's rifle. Chess, Checkers, and Thomas leave the reservation, stopping at a tribal feast along the way at the insistence of Big Mom. Big Mom takes a collection for them from the tribe, some of whom donate out of generosity, but many, like WalksAlong, out of a desire to see the three outcasts leave the reservation for good. They say their goodbyes and drive away to find new stories and new songs in Spokane. As they leave the reservation a herd of shadowy horses surrounds their van, running alongside them in the night.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Revolutionary Road - Point of view: The novel has a third-person limited point of view which shifts from character to character. The bulk of the novel is told from the perspectives of Frank, Shep, and Helen, while April's point of view is only given in a single chapter near the novel's end. - Setting: Western Connecticut, New York City - Character: Frank Wheeler. Description: A vain, smooth-talking man of thirty, Frank Wheeler is deeply concerned with seeming manly, likeable, interesting, and exceptional to others. He worries that he is weak and sentimental, and makes a show of being hard-headed and confident. The result of an accidental pregnancy, Frank feels that his older, worn-out parents never gave him the attention he needed to thrive. Frank is self-conscious as a boy, but in the army and at Columbia College he discovers that he can win people's respect by being articulate. He is insecure about the kind of women he attracts, until he manages to win over April. He sees her as exceptional, and thinks that this reflects well on him, so he is keen to keep her under his control. From the beginning of their marriage he worries she will leave him. Frank is not sure what profession to take, so he takes a job in the New York City office of Knox Business Machines, the company for which his father worked as a struggling traveling salesman. He initially sees his job as a joke, but over the years, and despite continuing to pretend to hate his work out of a fear that April will look down on him if he admits to liking it, Frank grows to find the routine at Knox comforting and later discovers that he has real aptitude for public relations. - Character: April Wheeler. Description: Independent-minded and passionate, but chronically unhappy, April Wheeler is miserable with her life as a suburban homemaker. Brought up in an affluent setting by aunts, because her hard-partying parents did not want her, April wants to feel that she fits in among people who live a glamorous life like the one she imagined her parents led. When she first meets Frank, April believes that he is an intellectual who can introduce her to that world. She gives up her hopes of becoming an actress to marry him. She does not want to have children until she is in her late-twenties, but is convinced by Frank not to abort an accidental pregnancy, going on to have two children. April can come across as withdrawn and snobbish, but she is also widely admired for her good taste, beauty, and elegance. Desperate to make a change to her life, April comes up with a plan for her and Frank to move their family to Europe. - Character: Shep Campbell. Description: Coddled by his wealthy divorced mother as a child, by adolescence Shep Campbell feels determined to grow up to be tough. He feels that his wealth will make people think he is soft, and so he rejects all signs of it. After rising through the ranks of the army during the war, Shep goes to a technical college to become a mechanical engineer. He meets Milly and they marry, settling in Arizona. Several years later, Shep begins to regret that he rejected the world he grew up in. After a period of confusion, he moves his family to New York City, and then eventually to Connecticut. Shep has become reconciled to the compromises in his life, feeling grateful for experiences from his "tough guy period" and equal to people like Frank Wheeler who went to college in the East. Shep appreciates Milly for sticking with him when he went through a crisis, but their marriage is not romantic, and he has a deep crush on April Wheeler, whom he sees as the embodiment of good taste and the East coast culture he turned his back on. - Character: Milly Campbell. Description: Unlike April, Milly is happy with her life as a wife to Shep and mother to four sons. Milly is agreeable, loyal, pragmatic and conventional. Raised in poverty, she proves able to change her tastes to suit Shep's ideas of what is highbrow. She and Shep are good friends of Frank and April, but Milly feels status anxiety around the Wheelers, especially when they start to become withdrawn in the friendship. - Character: Helen Givings. Description: A high-strung perfectionist, Helen Givings escapes from the unfulfilling aspects of her life by throwing herself into work as a realtor. She also expends her extra energy by renovating houses and then reselling them for greater value. Brought up in an affluent Philadelphia society, Helen looks down on many of the people she sells houses to. She has an air of trying too hard as she tries to make cheerful conversation even in the most uncomfortable situations. She is married to the old and frail Howard and is disappointed in her son John, who has been hospitalized for mental illness. - Character: John Givings. Description: An intelligent non-conformist and former mathematics teacher, John Givings has been put into a state mental institution and subjected to electrical shock therapy after holding his parents hostage for a period of several days. His insistence on speaking the truth as he sees it makes his mother Helen very uncomfortable. He is the only person who understands the Wheelers' desire to move to Europe. April especially feels that he understands her after he says that she is "female" instead of "feminine." - Character: Howard Givings. Description: A frail man who seems older than his sixty-eight years, Howard Givings leads a relaxed, unstimulating life. He is able to exert control over John when he becomes agitated and can calm Helen, but he often turns off his hearing aid to block them out when he feels like listening is unnecessary. - Character: Earl Wheeler. Description: A hardworking man who is good with his hands, Earl Wheeler doesn't understand or approve of his son Frank. He manages to keep a job as a regional manager for Knox Business Machines through many rounds of layoffs during The Depression, but his hopes for further career advancement are dashed. When Frank gets a job in Knox's New York City office, Earl is proud. - Theme: Marriage and Selfhood. Description: Revolutionary Road examines the way codependence can turn a disappointing marriage into a life-destroying one. For Frank and April Wheeler, the novel's protagonists, the way their spouse reflects on them and reflects them back to themselves defines how they understand themselves. For April, feeling that an exceptionally intelligent and promising man loves her is essential to her sense of self. She sees Frank less as an individual, and more as an archetype—the kind of person whose love makes her feel validated. Unfortunately, since she idealizes Frank, her image of him is easily compromised by the reality of who he is. April wants to have the love of a man with an independent identity, but Frank's self-esteem likewise depends on April's approval and his sense of control over her. To control April, Frank pretends to be the kind of man she admires. For instance, when his boring job, which April despises, begins to show signs of developing into an interesting career, his first impulse is to imagine how he will denigrate the job to maintain April's approval. As the novel tracks Frank's effort to maintain control over April's view of him, it's slowly revealed that April is actually the stronger, more independent of the two. The bulk of the novel is told from Frank's point of view, but his fears that he cannot control April's perception of him are largely borne out at the novel's end, when the narration shifts to April's point of view in the moments before she gives herself an abortion. At this moment, it becomes clear that April feels she made a mistake by marrying Frank and having his children. She sees through his attempts to pretend to be the kind of man she admires, and she looks down on him for his lack of independence. April reclaims her independence by attempting to abort Frank's child, although this leads to her death. Her abortion shows that she believes she cannot wrest control over her life from Frank except by endangering it—a damning portrayal of the confines of marriage. Although the novel centers on the Wheelers, it also gives access to the points of view of Helen Givings and Shep Campbell, exploring the dynamics of their marriages as well. Shep's and Helen's ability to cope with disappointment in their own marriages provides a counterexample to the Wheelers' toxic codependence. Helen Givings is unhappy with her older, disengaged husband Howard, and she considers herself to be "constantly veering towards the brink of divorce." While Howard can exert a stabilizing influence on Helen in her frenzied and compulsive moments, the differences in their temperaments leave them incapable of drawing enjoyment from one another's company. But Howard does not stop Helen from working. Frenzied eighteen-hour days fill her life and allow her to cope with her marital disappointment by maintaining her own, separate interests. The Campbells' marriage has also been through many ups-and-downs, particularly after Shep's mid-life decision to upend their life in Arizona and move to New York. Shep is not sexually attracted to Milly and has a deep crush on April Wheeler. He copes with his marriage, however, by focusing on his gratitude for all Milly has done to support him, and this trumps his desire for more romance and excitement than she provides. While Shep focuses on the good elements of his marriage so he can accept the bad, Helen finds fulfillment outside of her marriage so she can accept its drawbacks. Each of the marriages Yates examines provides a different critique of the institution, resulting in a cynical, pessimistic portrait of marriage as a whole. Even in marriages that do not lead to either individuals' destruction, the compromises that are demanded are painful and the disappointments acute. Although the Wheelers' marriage is held up as a particularly toxic one, the Givingses and Campbells seem to have accepted a life of mediocrity, constant annoyance, and imperfect pleasures. The novel suggests that all marriages, even those in which each partner maintains some independence, require compromise. It does not suggest, however, that this compromise is usually worth it. - Theme: Manhood and Womanhood. Description: Rigid 1950s gender expectations threaten the happiness of all the characters in Revolutionary Road, both male and female. The pressures and stereotypes of masculinity instill insecurities in men that lead to empty posturing, manipulation, and self-denial. These men live lives they don't want and are cruel to women to bolster their own self-esteem. And while Yates shows the tragedy of male gender roles, his portrait of gender expectations for women is much more dire. The range of acceptable roles for women in Revolutionary Road is narrow, and women deny themselves to fit into stereotypes meant to repress and control them. While some women may flourish in these roles, others have no way to live a fulfilling life while meeting society's demands, and it ruins their lives. Thus, Yates shows how rigid gender expectations write a tragic and mutually destructive script for men and women, undermining their abilities to be themselves and have fulfilling relationships. The novel explores the desire of boys to grow up to become "real men." Although this desire is motivated by a societal pressure to conform, Revolutionary Road's male characters find that there is some flexibility when it comes to enacting masculinity while holding on to what makes them individuals. Frank Wheeler wishes to be respected by other men and desired by women. As a boy, he is acutely aware that his father sees him as insufficiently handy with tools and his peers find him overly dramatic. When he grows up, he is surprised and pleased to find that he can earn the approval of others by showing off his intellect. Although Frank is reassured that his eloquence has earned him respect, he still struggles to feel that he is truly manly in the way he hoped to be as a boy. By projecting confidence through his manner, clothing and expressions, by taking on home improvement projects and, most importantly, by manipulating and controlling April and other women, Frank makes himself feel adequately masculine. Shep Campbell, meanwhile, feels that his upper-class upbringing might stifle his masculinity. He abandons the moneyed life his mother wants for him, choosing instead to go to a technical college, become a mechanical engineer, and marry a woman from a different class. He realizes at a certain point, however, that he has given up too much of himself in the pursuit of being what he considers a "real man." While the novel's male characters struggle internally to become "real men," the women in the novel are expected to be either cheerful, nurturing homemakers, attractive sex objects, or both. Both of these roles are strictly defined by society, leaving little room for individual expression. April Wheeler never wanted to settle down into a suburban life, seeing herself more as a bohemian living in New York City than a mother and housewife, but when she gets pregnant, Frank convinces her to keep the baby. For Frank, having April keep his house and bear his children testifies to his manliness more than anything else. And he further believes that she should be happy to be dominated by his wishes, because they are wishes sanctioned by society. Frank's mistress, Maureen Grube, tries to live up to a different female archetype: the ideal young, single woman living in New York City. Insecure that she can live up to the role of the sophisticated, sexy, fun woman, Maureen begins an affair with Frank in the hope that his admiration for her will affirm her femininity. Female gender roles are not only restrictive, they also give men like Frank Wheeler mechanisms for controlling the women around them. Frank suggests that April's desire to have a life outside of bearing and raising children is perverse, not because he wants to have more children, but because he recognizes that her pregnancies allow him to control her. By stopping April from aborting her pregnancies, Frank saddles her with responsibility for children, diminishing the possibility that she will be able to pursue a life outside of their home and outside of his control. When Maureen's roommate Norma tries to defend Maureen from being preyed on by Frank, Frank deploys gender roles to defeat her arguments. He accuses Norma of being a "latent lesbian," suggesting that a "real woman" would not step in to protect another woman from male domination. The novel's critique of traditional gender roles is best voiced by the mentally ill John Givings. John says approvingly that April is different from other women who seek to conform to traditional ideas of "femininity." He also puts his finger on Frank's reliance on gender roles as a tool of control, saying that Frank probably impregnated April on purpose to sabotage their plan to move to Paris, and so he can "hide behind her maternity dress." John is the only one who sees the way conformity to gender roles can destroy lives. The fact that he is considered crazy, though, tragically suggests how rigorously this society enforces a specific set of ideas about gender. - Theme: Parents and Children. Description: Revolutionary Road portrays parents and children as locked in an imbalanced and damaging relationship. Adult characters spend their lives alternately rebelling against and seeking to fulfill their parents' wishes for them. On the other hand, these same characters feel disappointment and disconnection when it comes to their own children. Parents, in Yates's portrayal, are not as deeply impacted by their children as their children are by them, and they generally either neglect or try to change their offspring. For all the characters, relationships with their parents are crucial, and the feelings of anger or love that motivate the desire to emulate or rebel against one's parents are portrayed as illogical, but visceral. The novel focuses on two adult characters whose youthful rebellions are slowly replaced with the desire to live lives similar to their parents'. Although Frank sees himself as a rebel and intellectual, when it comes time to get a job, he gets exactly the one his father always wanted: a desk job in Knox's home office in New York City. Initially, Frank tells himself that he has taken this job ironically, but eventually he finds that doing it well gives him satisfaction and pride. Shep Campbell rebels against his wealthy mother's coddling, deciding to renounce his upper-class roots and pursue the middle-class track of mechanical engineer. Only later, when he suddenly realizes he is unhappy with his life, does he regret his rebellion against his mother's lifestyle. He then moves back to New York and cultivates the life of a man of good taste. Neither Frank nor Shep feels sure that he has chosen the right path in life once he begins to emulate his parents, but both find that they are more at peace than they were while trying to shape their lives entirely in rebellion against their parents. Yet these characters have little ability to treat their children in the way that they wish their parents had treated them. Instead, they often feel aggrieved by the way their children inconvenience and fail to gratify them. The Wheeler children, Jennifer and Michael, fail to stir much interest in their parents, who hardly consider how their decisions impact their children. On the one occasion when Frank suggests to April that their planned move to Paris might be disruptive for the children, he is more interested in assuaging his own fear of moving to Paris than sparing Jennifer from the fears she has expressed. Shep Campbell likewise feels little connection to his four sons, looking down at them for seeming "middle-class." And while there is no detail given about John Givings's upbringing, when his mother ceases to visit him and instead adopts a puppy, she finds great satisfaction in training it. This suggests that in raising her son, she saw him as a project, like a house that needs redecoration, something she could control and perfect. Even as adults with children of their own, the characters in Revolutionary Road continue to react to the facts of their childhoods, remaining preoccupied with their upbringings rather than with bringing their own children up. As April Wheeler prepares to give herself a dangerous late-term abortion, she realizes that she may die in the process. Indeed, it is left somewhat unclear whether she intends to die in the course of this abortion. At this moment she does not reflect on the possibility that she will soon abandon her children, but instead considers her abandonment by her own parents when she was a child. She thinks back on a visit with her father, which the novel hints was the last time she saw him before his suicide. April now seems to be emulating her father, either in suicide, if that is what she intends, or by refusing to care for a child she does not want, as her parents did by giving up her care to her aunts. The children April already has hardly broach her thoughts. And for Frank, after April's death, his own fulfillment is far more important than his childrens'. When he visits the Campbells, he tells them about his work and about how he is exploring his feelings about his father in psychoanalysis, but he hardly mentions Michael and Jennifer. Further, although Frank abhorred April's parents' decision to allow her to be raised by aunts and resented his own middle-aged parents for having been so tired out by life by the time they had him, he takes Jennifer and Michael to be raised by his own much older brother after April's death. In this way, he provides his children with a life that combines the worst of both his and his deceased wife's upbringings. As in its portrayal of marriage, Revolutionary Road presents childhood and parenthood in a bitter, pessimistic light. The novel suggests that most childhoods are painful and most adults are haunted by their childhoods. Children generally sense that they disappoint or fail to interest their parents, and will likely go on to repeat the same cycles of rebellion driven by resentment of their parents, or emulation out of a desire to feel they have finally earned parental approval. The novel rejects the possibility that having children will be redemptive or fulfilling, suggesting that what we all want is our parents' love, not to provide a parents' love to our own children. - Theme: Conformity, Mental Illness, and Psychology. Description: Revolutionary Road is set during an era when an intense pressure to conform caused many people to feel depressed and inadequate. Instead of helping the mentally ill cope with a conformist society, however, the profession of psychology was often used to pressure people to stifle their individual desires and submit to social norms. The novel suggests that the fear of being stigmatized for being different often stops people – particularly women – from pursuing the lives they would like to lead. The novel portrays this as a tragic state of affairs, because it is personal freedom—not conformity to a socially approved ideal—that allows individuals to come as close as possible to a happy life. The lives of the novel's central characters suggest that it is a lack of personal freedom that makes them unhappy. Rather than childhood trauma or incurable mental illness, society's conformist strictures limit these individuals to unfulfilling lives. For April Wheeler, her husband is the primary obstacle to her pursuing a fulfilling life. She wants to live abroad and pursue new experiences, but Frank is determined to keep her under his thumb. When April wants to abort her child so that she might still achieve the life she wants, Frank suggests that this is a sign of mental illness. Abortion might be an emotionally healthy decision for April, who doesn't want to repeat her parents' mistake of having unwanted children and failing to care for them. However, Frank parrots society's view that all sane women want children, and suggests that April's childhood has left her emotionally scarred. Ironically, Frank doesn't want another child, either. He and April have the same desire, but only in April—a woman—does this desire seem "insane." Shep Campbell's story demonstrates that the ability to overcome depression in this conformist society is only open to those who can be happy with a life society approves of. Shep grows depressed when he comes to the realization that the life he has chosen is not the one he wants, but because he is a man, and because the life he wants is one that society embraces, he is able to overcome his unhappiness by making socially acceptable changes. He moves, switches jobs, and makes new friends, which doesn't make him ecstatically happy, but does eliminate his previous woes. Shep's ability to change his life for the better while still respecting social norms suggests that the ability to overcome dissatisfaction is more readily available to men who fit into traditional gender roles, because they are rewarded for showing initiative and ambition. By contrast, April's dissatisfaction cannot be resolved in a socially acceptable way, since her bohemian desires are seen as unbefitting of a woman. Thus, April is left mired in her dissatisfaction, her distress escalating until she dies in a desperate attempt to control her life. John Givings, the novel's sole certified "insane" person, is an intelligent, intuitive non-conformist. The degree to which he is actually "psychotic" is left unclear. What is clear is that he is determined to rebel against a society that seeks to enforce conformity, especially when it comes to the proper roles for men and women. He sees his mother as the embodiment of this spirit of conformity, mocking her efforts to remain bright and cheerful in the face of his brutal truth-telling and derisively calling her "feminine" instead of "female." When he holds his parents hostage in their home – an act that could be a true sign of insanity – society strikes back, sending him to a mental institution, keeping him from seeing a lawyer, and subjecting him to painful electrical shock treatments. But it is when he maliciously but accurately describes the Wheelers' marriage—specifically, Frank's desire to assert his masculinity by controlling April—that his fate is sealed. After this, his mother decides that he is too destructive to be around other people. The price for telling the truth about the conformity he sees and the unhappiness it causes is an indefinite stay in a mental institution. Overall, then, the novel presents a bleak picture of the possibilities for those who want something other than a home, a spouse, and children, as society says they are supposed to. In a rigidly conformist society that has commandeered psychology to back up its claims about the only good way to live, especially as these claims apply to gender roles, the pressure to conform is given scientific backing by the discipline of psychology. Those who fail to conform may be subjected to psychological treatment that is more a punishment for bad behavior than a treatment for illness. Meanwhile, the threat of this treatment regimen only adds to the pressure to conform, increasing the prevalence of mental illness and making the conundrum of the dissatisfied non-conformist all the more hopeless. - Theme: Class, Taste, and Status. Description: Revolutionary Road takes place during a period after World War II when the American economy was booming and millions of Americans who grew up in poverty during the Depression were joining the middle class. Yet even with money-making opportunities being so plentiful, the novel's characters are not content with run-of-the-mill success, and they seek other ways to prove their worth and cement their status. For many, this status became dependent on showing "good taste." Having a creative or intellectual profession could compensate for a moderate income, and a tastefully decorated home—even if modest—connoted more intellect and sophistication than an extravagantly decorated one. In a counterpoint to the characters' fear of being labelled psychologically abnormal, they also fear being exactly like everyone else. In order to prove to themselves that they are "exceptional," all the characters seek to demonstrate their good taste, but the significance of good taste varies depending on the characters' class background. The characters in Revolutionary Road were born into different backgrounds, but all inhabit the same economic station during the events of the novel. Still, the social class of each character's parents remains the primary influence on what they see as a desirable way to spend their lives. Frank and Milly, who grew up poor or lower-middle-class, pretend to shun conventional, materialist values to fit in with their partners. They do this to cement their status as "exceptional" people by proving that they have refined taste. In reality, however, both draw happiness from the comfort and security of their material success. Frank believes he wants a creative career unlike his father's out of a mistaken belief that his father was ordinary while he is exceptional. He sees himself as a rebel, giving long, impassioned speeches denouncing the sentimentality and conformity of his neighbors and coworkers. But Frank is a born salesman, and he eventually finds that his skills suit him to working, as his father did, explaining complicated products in simple terms. He also finds that he enjoys the very normal pleasures of relaxing at home in the suburbs, sipping brandy and reading comic books to his children. Similarly Milly, who was raised in poverty, adapts attitudes that convey wealth and unsentimental "good" taste because she sees that this is important to Shep. But deep down, Milly wants to be a homemaker and raise children. Their house has a "spare, stripped-down, intellectual" look that Milly cultivates to impress others. Only in their bedroom does Milly allow her décor to reveal her true feelings: she is happy to be a homemaker living in the suburbs. Those characters who came from wealthier backgrounds, like Shep and Helen Givings, see themselves as more refined and interesting than the other people living in their suburban community. Helen has found an occupation that expresses her belief in her own superior taste. When she renovates homes and then resells them at a higher price, she finds proof that her taste is superior to the taste of those around her. Shep is satisfied to have befriended the Wheelers, who make him feel like he is connecting to a world of monied, East-coast elites. But while Helen and Shep have made their peace with their surroundings (all the while still signaling that they look down on their community), for April taste is more than a hollow status symbol, but an aesthetic experience which makes her feel truly herself. Those around April can sense that she has real taste, not the kind of taste that they feign for status. Shep aspires to have April praise Milly's design of the Campbell house, while Frank sees her as a trophy wife because she is "first-rate." Yet Frank also finds her expressions of taste infuriating, because they are a sign of April's continued existence as an independent thinker. He gets angry at her for her snobbishness, and fears that she will escape his attempts to control her with her ability to continue to speak independently. While Frank's fluent speech wins most people over, he can never keep April from reserving judgment until she has truly considered what he is saying. Despite her environment, and despite Frank's attempts to control her, taste sets April apart. In a world in which taste differentiates the banal middle-class from those who are seen as "exceptional," April Wheeler stands above and apart from the other characters. Born into a wealthy background, she is not concerned with proving that she comes from the upper class. Further, she is not interested in defining herself by signaling that she has a higher status than those around her. She feels utterly sure that she is better than those around her because of her capacity to think independently, and she sees no need to prove it to others. For her, neither class nor status are as important as the freedom of thought that she is denied in her suburban world. - Climax: Frank discovers a rubber syringe in the linen closet and confronts April, who declares that he cannot stop her from inducing an abortion. - Summary: The novel begins in western Connectictut, with an unsuccessful first performance by an amateur theater company, The Laurel Players. The lead actress, April Wheeler, begins with a strong performance but eventually becomes embarrassed and stilted once it's clear that the show is a flop. At the play's end, her husband, Frank Wheeler, goes to console her, but instead they argue over whether to go out for cocktails with their friends Shep and Milly Campbell. After a screaming match on the side of the highway, Frank punches the roof of the car, injuring his hand. April sleeps on the couch and Frank sits up drinking. The next day, with a horrible hangover and with April refusing to speak to him, Frank sets himself to work on a stone path he is building in the yard. He struggles with the work as his children, Michael and Jennifer, watch. Frank remembers his own father Earl's disappointment in his seeming lack of aptitude for this kind of practical labor. Frank mistakes the root of a tree for Michael's foot carelessly stuck into the hole where he is digging, and Frank then spanks his son, shocking both children. The next evening, Shep and Milly Campbell come over to the Wheelers' house for cocktails. The two couples usually enjoy each other's company, but now there is awkwardness between them. Milly Campbell tells the group some gossip. Helen Givings, the local realtor, has a son John who has been placed in a mental institution. Frank holds forth, denouncing the complacency of their community, which ignores the tragedies in its midst. He expects the group to agree with him and chime in, but they all look embarrassed. The next day is Frank's thirtieth birthday. He feels depressed as he goes into work at Knox Business Machines, where he works in Sales Promotion, but feels better once he sets in motion a plan to seduce a secretary named Maureen Grube. When Frank arrives home, he is shocked to receive a warm reception from April. She has prepared a birthday dinner for him and says she has something important to tell him. April has conceived of a plan to move to Europe. There, she says, Frank can figure out his true calling, and she will work as a secretary. She says that she blocked him from finding himself when she got pregnant with Jennifer and wanted to give herself an abortion. According to April, to convince her not to have an abortion, Frank had had to assume total responsibility for their lives, sacrificing his own fulfillment. Now, she wants to make it up to him. Frank initially resists this logic, but eventually agrees that they should carry out April's plan. For the next few weeks, the Wheelers are in harmony with one another. The next day at work, Frank tells Maureen they shouldn't sleep together again. In a whirl of activity, he quickly solves a pressing problem by writing a brochure for a sales conference. Over the weeks that follow, the Wheelers spend long hours talking about their plans, excluding everyone else, even their children. Frank begins to realize that he is nervous to move to Europe, especially when he sees how quickly April is preparing. She has assumed that they will move to Paris, because Frank gave her the mistaken impression that he learned French during World War II. One weekend the Wheelers inform Helen Givings and the Campbells of their plan to move. Milly has been worried since the play that the Wheelers have become snobs, but Shep, who has a crush on April, brushes off her concerns. After hearing of the Wheelers' plans, however, he tells Milly he agrees with her about the Wheelers and thinks that their plan sounds very immature. Milly is relieved, but Shep is left deeply envious that Frank will get to live in Paris with April. The next night, Helen comes over to the Wheelers' and asks them if they would they be willing to meet her son John. She is mortified to see from their expressions that they have heard about John's hospitalization, but the Wheelers quickly agree to meet John. When they tell Helen of their plan to move to Paris, she is disappointed because she had hoped that they could become long-term friends for John. Frank tells his best friend at work, Jack Ordway, about his plan to move. Frank feels a sense of relief from no longer keeping the move entirely a secret. That afternoon, however, he is called over by his boss. Bart Pollock, a senior executive in the company was impressed by the brochure Frank wrote and wants him to do a series of similar brochures. That night, Frank is disappointed when April shows no interest in his meeting with Pollock. Soon after, the Wheelers get into a fight over how Jennifer is reacting to the upcoming move. When Frank expresses worry about their kids' ability to adjust, April asks if he is trying to back out of the move. Frank denies this. The next day is their first visit with John Givings, so April sends Michael and Jennifer to stay with the Campbells. John behaves oddly and makes hostile remarks to his mother, but approves of the Wheelers' plan to move to Paris to escape the "hopeless emptiness" of suburbia. Despite feeling that they handled the visit well, there is distance and constraint between Frank and April again. That week, Bart Pollock takes Frank out to a fancy, booze-soaked lunch at a hotel. Frank confides in Pollock, telling him about his father's history working for Knox. Pollock tells Frank that he would like to hire him to be a part of a new public relations venture he is putting together. Frank tells Pollock that he is leaving the company in the fall, and Pollock replies that if Frank he changes his mind, the offer stands. Later that week, in a state of despair, April tells Frank that she is pregnant. Frank feels full of relief, thinking that this means they will not have to move to France. Then he finds a rubber syringe in the closet—which he knows April plans to use to abort the pregnancy. He feels he must convince April to have the baby. For the next few weeks, the Wheelers debate what to do about April's pregnancy. Frank takes April out to fancy restaurants to demonstrate that their life can be more fulfilling in the suburbs with the extra money he will earn working for Bart Pollock. He also cultivates a new persona, acting the part of a decisive, responsible man. When April still wants to abort the baby, Frank suggests that this desire is the result of a psychological abnormality caused by April's unhappy, parentless childhood. April relents, agreeing not to have an abortion. The Wheelers tell their friends that they will not be moving to Paris. Frank is disturbed to admit to himself that, although he is glad not to be moving to Paris, he doesn't actually want another child. He resumes his affair with Maureen. One night the Wheelers and Campbells go dancing at a seedy bar called Vito's Log Cabin. Milly gets too drunk and they all plan to leave, but one of their cars is blocked in. April suggests that Frank drive Milly home while she stays out with Shep. To Shep's joyful amazement, they have sex in the back of his car. Several days later, Frank goes to Maureen's house to break up with her. He is caught off guard when Maureen emerges from her room naked and dancing. Apologizing over and over, Frank breaks things off. April has been sleeping on the couch since sleeping with Shep. That Sunday, immediately before a visit with the Givings, Frank tries to speak to her about how she is feeling. April declares that she doesn't love Frank. Frank speaks condescendingly to April, as if addressing a mentally ill person, then says he has also been acting neurotically and tells April he had a brief affair. April says she doesn't care. When the Givings arrive, they can tell that April and Frank have been fighting. John asks why they aren't moving to Paris, and Frank points to April's pregnant belly as an answer. John says that isn't the real reason. He guesses that Frank impregnated April because he was too scared to move. Helen apologizes, saying they shouldn't have come, and the Givingses leave. Afterwards, the Wheelers have an enormous fight and Frank drinks himself to sleep. In the morning, Frank is surprised when April makes him breakfast and listens to him talk about the conference with Bart Pollock that day and lets him kiss her goodbye. After Frank leaves, April writes a brief note for Frank and prepares to attempt to give herself an abortion. She dies in the hospital that day. Frank takes Michael and Jennifer to live with his older brother and moves to New York City. Shep dislikes listening to Milly's dramatic renditions of what happened to the Wheelers, but he appreciates her supportive presence. Helen Givings feels that John played a role in April's death; she tells his doctors he is too destructive to leave the institution again, and she adopts a puppy.

- Genre: Short Story, Fable, Historical Adventure - Title: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - Point of view: Third-person omniscient - Setting: Segowlee, a city in Northen India sometime in the late 19th Century - Character: Rikki-tikki-tavi. Description: The protagonist of the story, Rikki-tikki-tavi is a young, inquisitive mongoose who saves his adoptive English family—and the animals in their garden—from the dastardly cobras Nag and Nagaina. He's described as fearless, self-confident, and, above all, "eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity." That innate curiosity feeds his bravery, which, in turn, helps him stand up to bullies like cobras. His instincts make him a natural fighter and he expresses an innate loyalty to Teddy and his family that makes him a de facto protector of the garden. Still young at the start of the story, Rikki-tikki's lack of experience tempers his formidable combat skills and prevents him from achieving a swift and painless victory against the cobras, but his strength, perseverance, and willingness to take the battle to the enemy make him akin to an English knight. He often grows short-tempered at the foolishness of other creatures in the garden, such as when Darzee is singing a victory song while Nagaina is still alive. In addition, he's capable of duplicity in the name of pursuing justice, as when he bargains in bad faith with Nagaina and her egg, leveraging it to get the better of the cobra. Yet these flaws are overlooked not only because of the greater good he's doing, but because of his positive qualities (such as courage and intelligence) which he diligently deploys to the betterment of all. - Character: Nag. Description: Nag is a cobra, who along with his mate Nagaina, serves as the primary antagonist of the story. He's depicted as capricious, self-serving, and cruel—readily devouring helpless animals in the garden such as Darzee's baby and creating fear and panic among the entire community. Along with his wife, he plots to strike against the humans in the house as a way of removing Rikki-tikki and ruling over the garden absolutely. Kipling connects him quite clearly to Indian rather than British culture; Nag is proud of the mark on his hood, for instance, which he claims was given to his people by the Hindu God Brahm. He states this at the same time that he admonishes Rikki-tikki to be afraid of him, linking his connection to Hindu mythology with his ability to terrorize those around him. The association helps cement the story's colonialist tone and increases the story's problematic nature to modern audiences. Nag is further depicted as tenacious and cunning, able to use tactical thinking to achieve their goals. For instance, he hides in a water jar in order to ambush and slay Teddy's father. He also works in absolute tandem with his wife—the only creature (besides the couple's unhatched eggs) to whom he is loyal. - Character: Nagaina. Description: Nagaina, Nag's mate, readily joins her husband in terrorizing the garden. She conspires with Nag not only to ambush Rikki-Tikki—striking at him while Nag distracts him—but also to murder Teddy and his family in order to get rid of the mongoose and regain control of the garden. Nagaina shares many qualities with her husband: she, too, is capricious, cruel, underhanded, and happy to rule the garden through fear. Yet despite her irredeemable villainy, she's still given understandable motives in the form of her eggs: a family of her own which she and Nag wish to raise. That causes Nagaina to attempt a retreat with the egg into her cobra hole in the story's climax, which seals her fate; Rikki-tikki kills her, thus restoring justice and order to the garden. - Character: Teddy. Description: Teddy, the young English boy who first finds Rikki-tikki nearly drowned in a roadside ditch, is pivotal to the story, but less as a character in and of himself than as the focus of the mongoose's protective nature. The story attributes few specific character traits to Teddy, and what is known comes mostly from inference. For instance, Teddy's father states, "If Teddy doesn't pick [the mongoose] up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he'll run in and out of the house all day long." Because Rikki-tikki does, indeed, run in and out of the house, it's logical to assume that Teddy treats the animal kindly. He's an innocent, not unlike Darzee's baby, and as such is in danger from the cobras. Yet as a child, he's all but helpless and is rarely aware of the presence of any threats. He also represents the future—that is, the stability, continuity, and an extension of British rule. As such, both Rikki-tikki and Teddy's father focus on Teddy in their defense of the home and move to keep him safe first—most notably during the final confrontation with Nagaina. - Character: Teddy's Father. Description: Teddy's father never receives a formal name, though it's clear that he is British, and—since the story takes place in a British military compound—likely that he works with the military or government in some capacity. He's portrayed as wise but firm, kind but resolute, and with an awareness of the big picture that serves his family well. That is most readily apparent in his observations about Rikki-tikki, as he notes that "Teddy's safer with that little beast than if he had a bloodhound to watch him." His foresight provides both his family and animals of the garden with protection against the threat of the cobras. He's also shown as someone who acts quickly and never hesitates in the face of danger. He moves swiftly to protect Teddy during the final confrontation with Nagaina, for example. - Character: Teddy's Mother. Description: Teddy's mother, Alice, is portrayed as emotionally sensitive, soft-hearted, and often reluctant to face the harsh realities of the world around her. For example, when Teddy's father suggests that a snake might come into the nursery, she "wouldn't think of anything so awful." Her qualities are typical for depictions of women at the time, fitting with Kipling's colonialist, male-dominated view of the world. Her concern can blind her to the presences of allies—she worries Rikki-tikki may bite Teddy, for instance—but her compassion is also shown as contributing to the collective good. This is most evident early on, when she suggests that they take a half-drowned Rikki-tikki into the house to help him recuperate. She eventually embraces the mongoose's presence in the home and agrees with her husband that the little creature has saved all of them from the menace of the cobras Nag and Nagaina. - Character: Darzee. Description: Darzee and his wife are a pair of tailorbirds who live in the garden. Like many of the animal occupants, they are terrified of the snakes and lack the ability to stop their depredations. Their lost baby, and the grief it causes them, are the most direct sign of the evil the cobras perpetrate in the garden, as well as how helpless most of the other animals are to prevent it. Crying and singing are about all Darzee can do, and the story portrays him as being very foolish—most notably when he sings triumphantly at Nag's death, even though Nagaina is still on the loose. Darzee's flightiness and silliness stand in opposition to Rikki-tikki's practicality, further helping to separate the mongoose from the cobras' potential victims in the garden. Darzee also does not want to distract Nagaina at the end of the story to help Rikki-tikki attack her nest, believing it's not fair to kill eggs. His wife, however, takes up in his stead. - Character: Darzee's Wife. Description: The partner of the tailorbird Darzee, she proves less foolish than her husband. Kipling even calls her "a sensible bird," and she provides Rikki-tikki with valuable assistance in his final battle against Nagaina. When Rikki-tikki wishes aloud that Darzee would distract Nagaina so that he could destroy the eggs in her nest, Darzee's wife, who "knew that cobra's eggs meant young cobras later on," takes up the task that her husband won't, and provides the needed distraction by feigning an injury to her wing. - Character: Chuchundra. Description: Chuchundra is a very timid muskrat who lives in Teddy's family's house. Rikki-tikki encounters him during one of his nightly patrols, and quickly realizes the muskrat is typical of many of the animal residents of the garden in that he's terrified of the cobras Nag and Nagaina. Still, he gives Rikki-tikki invaluable information about deducing the cobras's movements around the home. His fearfulness is contrasted with Rikki-tikki's courage, helping it stand in even starker relief. His desire to hep marks him as a member of the larger community—worthy of protection even if Rikki-tikki finds his cowardice and whining irritating. - Theme: Man and the Natural World. Description: Animals are anthropomorphized—that is, given human qualities—throughout "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," Rudyard Kipling's story of a young mongoose's attempt to protect his adoptive British family from two lurking cobras. The titular mongoose, named for the sounds he makes, is at once a wild animal and in possession of a distinctly civilized sense of refinement and loyalty—traits that endear him to the reader and suggest a kinship between nature and human beings. On the one hand, Rikki-tikki possesses a mongoose's basic natural instincts: curiosity, fearlessness, and essential notions on how to fight predators like the two cobras. But he also possesses a loyalty to the British family with whom he lives and repays the kindness they show him by defending them from the cobras' attacks. The family he comes to guard, meanwhile, despite having a certain dominance over the land on which they reside, is ultimately at the mercy of the natural world—a world that steadily creeps into their bungalow in India, however much they try to keep at bay. Kipling's story thus suggests a certain tension between man and nature—and that the boundary between these worlds is not as distinct as the human beings would like to think. The natural world—represented by the grounds surrounding the family's home—is fueled by both by animal instinct and many of the traits that define humanity. For example, Rikki-tikki relies on millions of years of evolution to instruct him how to face an enemy he has never seen before and has no experience against. Though "Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before […] he knew that all a grown mongoose's business in life was to fight and eat snakes," Kipling writes, underscoring the mongoose's initial, instinctual drive to fight. Other animals, too, seem beholden to their biological history and impulses; "When a snake misses its stroke," Kipling writers, "it never says anything or gives any sign of what it means to do next." Yet Rikki-tikki is also described as being "too well-bred to bite or scratch" when he sleeps alongside Teddy, the child of the family who saves him. What's more, all the animals in the story speak to each other and possess distinct personalities. Such anthropomorphizing suggests a merging of the natural and civilized worlds that will prove to be the key to the family's survival in the comparatively wild landscape of India. The human family's separation from nature, meanwhile, is represented by both their inability to communicate with the animals as well as the physical distance between their home and the garden. Yet it quickly becomes clear that the border between the civilized and natural worlds is far more porous than humans believe. On the surface, the human world is depicted as a loving, orderly place, full of food and comfort absent from much of the garden. Teddy's family shows mercy and support to Rikki-tikki by rescuing him after he nearly drowns, for instance. They feed him, provide him with a warm place to sleep, and give him the freedom to run around the house. Yet Rikki-tikki is not the first animal to enter the "civilized" human world: the presence of the muskrat Chuchundra in the bungalow suggests that the border between the house and the garden has long been fuzzy. Nag and Nagaina blur that boundary even further. That the deadly cobras enter the home through a hole for bath water suggests how easily nature can infiltrate human markers of comfort and domesticity. Rikki-tikki's ultimate triumph against the cobras is only possible because of the arbitrary nature of this boundary. If he were "too civilized"—that is, too focused on the comforts he enjoys in the home—his reflexes would be blunted against an enemy he has never faced before. For example, after his first skirmish against the cobras, "he might have stuffed himself three times over with nice things. But he remembered Nag and Nagaina…" Yet if he were utterly feral, he would possess no loyalty to his human family and would likely move on rather than fighting the cobras on their behalf. Witness, for instance, Teddy's mother's surprise that "a wild creature" could be such a reliable protector for her son. The natural world aids the civilized world by providing Rikki-tikki with primal instincts that compensate for his lack of experience. This is most strongly seen in the form of his mother, who feeds him dead cobras as a baby and teaches him that cobras are nothing to fear. (Rikki-tikki's mother held a similar position in the home of a British general, so Rikki-tikki himself is essentially carrying on a family tradition.) The civilized world, in turn, aids the natural world by giving Rikki-tikki benefits he never would enjoy in the wild. That starts with Teddy's family saving Rikki-tikki and nursing him back to health. Upon first seeing the mongoose, Teddy's mother cries out, "that's a wild creature! I suppose he's so tame because we've been kind to him." Here, she seems to think that the way she treats him affects his nature. To be sure, Rikki-tikki later protects the family fiercely, and while some of that is based in his snake-killing instinct, Kipling notes that "very few mongooses, however wise and old they may be, care to follow a cobra into its hole." In the end (thanks to Rikki-tikki slaying the cobras), the civilized world ultimately triumphs over the natural world, allowing everyone to live in peace and harmony: the cobras had been a threat not only Teddy, but his parents and the rest of the garden animals as well. When they're slain, then, the whole garden celebrates: "That set all the birds in the garden singing, and the frogs croaking, for Nag and Nagaina used to eat frogs as well as little birds." The story presents a world where nature and civilization are in conflict, yet that conflict results in each side bleeding over into the other, and both sides benefitting from the result. Rikki-tikki is a wild animal, but he learns the benefits of protecting a benevolent order. Similarly, the order benefits from allowing a wild animal like him to be true to his nature. In this sense, nature and civilization aren't exactly enemies. They're more like the ends of a scale, and it takes parts of both worlds to ensure safety and security for everyone. - Theme: Colonialism as a Benevolent Force. Description: Kipling was an Englishman living in India during its period of British occupation. As a result, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and similar stories often portray colonialism as a benevolent force: bringing peace, order, and tranquility to a violent and chaotic world.  Such attitudes were common and uncontroversial at the time, but both Kipling and "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" have been criticized in recent decades for "whitewashing" the often-cruel realities of life in India under British rule. Regardless, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" depicts the British as benevolent rulers, as symbolized by Teddy and his parents. A mongoose is native to India, and the ecology he inhabits is that of the Indian subcontinent. Yet he lives in the home of an English family, who not only grant him his "civilized" demeanor, but represent comfort, intellectualism, and reason's triumph over the violent killed-or-be-killed world around them. In that sense, Rikki-tikki is a "good" Indian—submitting to the will of his white masters—while the cobras are "bad" Indians trying to undermine the white man's rule. Rikki-tikki begins life as a resident of the wild world and is almost killed by a flood. He's rescued by a white family that appears almost godlike to him, nursed back to health, and given a house full of wonders and comforts to inhabit. He thus quickly learns the benefits of being ruled by the British. Teddy's father in particular is depicted as being benevolent, wise, and almost all-seeing. He reassures Teddy's mother than the mongoose is not a threat and rewards Rikki-tikki with food and a run of the house. Perhaps most importantly, Teddy's father understands the danger of the cobras and the value of Rikki-tikki's protection. Under the tutelage of civilization, Rikki-tikki learns to fight for the common good and use his skills for the benefit of all, something he would not have done had Teddy's "civilizing" family not been kind to him. Similarly, Rikki-tikki's mother—who lived in the home of a British general—once told Rikki-tikki how to behave in order to be trusted by the British. Together these details suggest that, in time, India will not only accept and embrace Britain's rule, but will prosper more under it. Unlike Rikki-tikki, the cobras are unhappy with Teddy's family in the house, and fight against their rule. As "bad" Indians, they reject the benefits of colonialism and want to return the property to their own control. Kipling links the cobras directly to Indian (as opposed to British) culture when Nag explains how "the great god Brahm"—a Hindu deity—put his mark on the snake's hood. Unlike the stable and orderly rule of Teddy's family, the cobras rule by strength and fear, taking what they want and giving no consideration for the other animals sharing their space. They're shown as being particularly hostile to Teddy's family and speak about how wonderful it will be when the house is empty. While the transition from Indian to English is generally shown as being positive in the story, Rikki-tikki retains important character traits from his mongoose heritage. This suggests that the give-and-take between the British and the Indians is not as one-sided as it appears. Moreover, it suggests that Rikki-tikki's Indian characteristics—his instinctive behavior—can benefit the British if allowed to flourish. Most obviously, Rikki-tikki uses his wild nature to fight the cobras—moving silently, striking suddenly, and falling back on (Indian) instincts to make up for his lack of experience. As a mongoose, he can move freely and often undetected from the (British) house to the (Indian) garden and back without incident. Teddy's family, on the other hand, wouldn't be able to move so freely without attracting attention, underscoring their separation from both the natural world and the Indian society in which they live. Even though he appreciates all the things the family does for him, Rikki-tikki still considers them strange and foolish sometimes. Kipling presents this as very hard-headed and sensible, rather than arrogant or conceited. For instance, Rikki-tikki is baffled by Teddy's father's attempt to beat Karait, since the baby cobra is already clearly dead. Thus, even as "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is definitely pro-colonialism, it also shows a subtlety to the exchange between the occupying British and the native Indians. Both sides benefit from British rule, in the world of the story, but the British can also benefit from Indian culture—often in ways they do not expect. Of course, Kipling's attitude toward colonialism in the story was subjected to revision as Indians successfully obtained their independence. That granted them an autonomy that Kipling's stories implicitly denied and allowed them to state emphatically that they could stand on their own two feet instead of relying on the British to be ruled. In the process, it made the cultural reach of British colonialism clear—showing how its attitudes could be reflected even in a seemingly simple story about a brave little mongoose protecting a boy. - Theme: The Importance of Family. Description: Almost every character in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is defined by their family and places the safety and prosperity of their family above all else. That starts with Teddy and his parents, who allow Rikki-tikki into their home in part to look after their son. But it also extends to Darzee and his wife, the tailorbirds who are shattered when the cobras eat their child, and to Nag and Nagaina themselves, who dream of ruling the garden unmolested so that their eggs can grow into adult cobras too. Rikki-tikki, who is essentially orphaned, understands the value of family, first from the advice given to him by his mother, and then later under the protection of his "adopted" human family. Even Chuchundra, the cowardly muskrat living in the British family's bungalow, takes care to mention a cousin. Family in the story gives an underlying sense of urgency that further connects the characters to the larger natural world, in the sense that the survival of children can mean the survival of a species. That links family to Kipling's ongoing interest in the natural world and its harsh nature; family is the ultimate motivation, the story suggests, and characters will defend their own at all costs. Families are shown as loyal, loving, and stalwart in their willingness to defend each other. They offer comfort, safety, and companionship, and seek to ensure that their children will carry on their traditional ways of life. For example, Teddy's parents allow Rikki-tikki to sleep with the boy because the mongoose will protect him from snakes. Rikki-tikki, in turn, has no family initially but readily adopts Teddy and his parents as his own. He shows them the same loyalty they showed him and repeatedly risks his life to keep them safe; the very mention of the cobras harming the humans fills him with rage. Despite their villainy, even the cobras are very loyal to each other. Given the importance the story places on family, that the cobras plot together to kill Teddy's family reflects their evil nature—yet even this is somewhat tempered by the fact that they're also desperately trying to protect their own nest of eggs. Having established how important family is, the story then lets readers contemplate what might happen if families get torn apart. Specifically, the death of a child—and the end of a genetic line—is viewed as a terrible blow, to the point that parents will do anything to keep their children safe. from harm. The tailorbirds, having lost one of their babies, are first shown consumed with grief, and the cobras are portrayed as unrelentingly evil for eating their baby. Teddy's mother can't bring herself to think about the dangers a snake might present her child, and Teddy's father reacts suddenly and aggressively when Teddy is threatened—clear evidence of his intense desire to ensure the well-being of his son. The fact that Rikki-tikki is able to bargain with Nagaina—who doesn't normally negotiate—when he holds the fate of her last egg in his jaws reveals the power of familial bonds that bring the cruel, calculating snake to heel. The importance of family in "Rikki-Tikki Tavi" not only motivates the characters' actions, but also forms the cornerstone of the story's other themes. British colonial rule, for instance, is reflected within Teddy's family itself—with a benevolent authority figure setting rules and pronouncing judgment in the form of Teddy's father—while the harsh natural world is dangerous specifically because it often kills helpless babies who have not yet had a chance to grow. Kipling stresses the importance of family by highlighting the consequences of a family being broken apart, as well as the rewards for the entire community if the sanctity of the family is preserved. - Theme: Courage and Cowardice. Description: Kipling presents Rikki-tikki almost as a knight: brave, virtuous, and dedicated to the safety of others. Indeed, he doesn't seem capable of feeling fear, and treats incidents in which his life is genuinely in danger as actively enjoyable. The fact that he uses that courage to noble ends is part of what makes Rikki-tikki a hero in the eyes of the story. Though no other character in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" exhibits the same level of courage as the mongoose, the book draws quiet lines between those characters who respond to threats with action and those who are paralyzed by fear. Teddy's father and mother, for instance, are afraid for the safety of their son, but they don't allow that to stop them from acting if they need to. Darzee's wife also risks her life to stop the snakes by serving as a distraction. Chuchundra, on the other hand, is almost completely paralyzed by fear, as is Darzee himself. They are thus not able to act directly against the cobras, and their usefulness is limited to timely advice. Courage, then, is ultimately defined as an active commitment to others—a willingness to risk one's life for someone other than oneself—while cowardice is defined as passively placing one's own safety above anything else. As the protagonist of the story, Rikki-tikki's bravery is constantly emphasized, to the point where he doesn't seem to understand what fear is. This is seen not only in his stalwart defense of Teddy and his parents, but in his inherent curiosity about the world. His family motto is actually "run and find out" which allows him to fearlessly explore the corners of the strange new environment of the family home, and which allows him to confront the cobras without entirely understanding how dangerous they are. Rikki-tikki is also constantly referred to by his small size, which accentuates his bravery and makes his fearless nature loom all the larger. He fights the cobras even though they outnumber him, and despite the fact that he must often do so solely on his own. Rikki-tikki is also a stranger in his new environment, which puts him at a disadvantage against the cobras (who know the territory much better). Yet he takes on the cobras anyway—to the point of travelling into the dark of a snake hole to finish off Nagaina. Courage is demonstrated as an essentially selfless emotion. Those who act out of self-interest are ultimately shown as cowardly while braver characters are often fighting at the behest of others. The cobras notably always attack by stealth and guile—hiding in the bathroom to strike at Teddy's father, for example, or working in tandem to distract Rikki-tikki and attack him from behind. Rikki-tikki sometimes attacks from stealth too, but not as a matter of course—only when circumstances demand it or as a means of eliminating a disadvantage. (Such as when he attacks Nag in the bathroom by surprise, since, he notes, "if I fight him on the open floor, the odds are in his favor.") The cobras also prey on weak creatures unable to defend themselves, like Dazree's wife and baby child. Rikki-tikki, meanwhile, never fights helpless opponents—even the baby cobra Karait is dangerous. Like Rikki-tikki, Darzee's wife also places herself in danger for the greater good when she distracts Nagaina by pretending her wing is broken—both for the sake her children, and for all of the other creatures in the garden. Teddy's father, while in less direct danger, still confronts the cobras when he can. He always does so in the defense of his son, rather than acting out of his own concerns. Courage in the story further becomes a matter of boldness and decisiveness as much as a lack of fear. Rikki-tikki can't simply wait for the cobras to strike; he can't let Nag or Nagaina choose the time and the place to attack. Instead, he has to take the battle to them, as he does by ambushing Nag in the bathroom or arranging to distract Nagaina so he can destroy the cobras' nest. Rikki-tikki also never hesitates when he acts, most notably during his first showdown with the snakes: "Rikki-tikki knew better than to waste time in staring. He jumped up in the air as high as he could go." Teddy's father too, acts resolutely when he needs to, and doesn't stop to waffle over his choices when trouble arises. For example, the moment Rikki-tikki distracts Nagaina at the breakfast table, "Rikki-tikki saw Teddy's father shoot out a big hand, catch Teddy by the shoulder, and drag him across the little table with the tea-cups, safe…"  Darzee, on the other hand, can only sing out his emotions. He never takes any steps to act on his fears. The timid Chuchundra is similarly unable to act, nor even to scurry into the center of the room. Kipling takes care to give courage a noble quality in "Rikki-tikki Tavi," and to separate it from simple self-preservation. Rikki-tikki's courage is noble not just because it is an essential part of his nature, but because he uses it for the greater good of the community. The dangers he vanquishes threatened everyone, and the peace his courage brings is shared not only by the humans he has adopted, but all the animals of the garden. - Climax: Rikki-tikki-tavi slays Nagaina in the cobra's hole - Summary: The story recounts the "great war" fought between Rikki-tikki-tavi, a mongoose, and a pair of cobras in the garden of an English family living in the Indian province of "Segowlee." Rikki-tikki's name stems from his war cry, which he delivers as he runs through the tall grass. One day, Rikki-tikki finds himself in the English family's care after a flood washes him out of his burrow and onto the garden path of the family's home. A young English boy, Teddy, finds Rikki-tikki and thinks that he has died, but Teddy's mother suspects he is still alive. They take the mongoose into the house to dry him, and he soon recovers. Being without fear, like all his kind, Rikki-tikki begins to explore the house. He also climbs on Teddy's shoulder, worrying Teddy's mother, but Teddy's father assures her that he won't hurt Teddy; in fact, the mongoose provides protection from snakes. At night, Rikki-tikki sleeps in Teddy's bed, though he ventures out and investigates whenever he hears a noise. The next day, he sets out to explore the garden, which is still half-wild and overgrown. There, he meets a pair of tailorbirds—Darzee and his wife—who are crying over one of their babies who fell out of their tree. A cobra called Nag ate the chick, and no sooner do the birds mention the snake that he appears. Spreading his hood, Nag claims that the god Brahm gave him his black and white markings and tells Rikki-tikki to be afraid. At a sudden warning from Darzee, Rikki-tikki leaps into the air to avoid a sneak attack from Nagaina, Nag's mate. He comes down on his back and bites her, but since he has little experience fighting cobras, he fails to land a killing blow. She's left wounded and enraged, and the cobras vanish into the brush. On the way back to the house, Rikki-tikki notices a baby cobra in the dust, Karait, threatening to bite Teddy. The baby is much quicker than his parents, making him more dangerous, but Rikki-tikki doesn't know that and swiftly dispatches the baby before it can hurt the boy. Teddy's father comes out to beat the corpse, which Rikki-tikki finds amusing since the snake is already dead. Teddy's family is quite grateful and the mongoose enjoys the attention, but he knows that the cobras are still out there. When the family goes to bed, he patrols the house, where he meets the fearful muskrat Chuchundra. He's terribly afraid of Rikki-tikki, but he also carries a vital bit of knowledge that he reveals: the sound of snake's scales can be heard moving across the bathroom sluice. Rikki-tikki follows the sound to the source, where he hears the two cobras plotting outside of the house. They intend to murder the humans, causing the mongoose to leave the home and allowing them to rule the garden along with their young. Nag crawls into a water jug to wait for Teddy's father, unaware that the mongoose is nearby. Rikki-tikki waits until Nag falls asleep, and then strikes at the base of his neck. He hangs on for dear life as the cobra tries to shake him off—only to be interrupted by a blast from Teddy's father's gun. Rikki-tikki is momentarily stunned, but Teddy's father proclaims that the little mongoose has saved them all. Rikki-tikki drags himself back to Teddy's room to sleep, awakening the next morning stiff but ready to take on Nagaina. He returns to the garden, where word has spread about Nag's death. Rikki-tikki asks Darzee to tell him where Nagaina's egg nest is located, and then asks Darzee to feign injury to draw Nagaina away. Darzee doesn't think it's fair to attack the cobra's nest, but Darzee's wife sees the wisdom in Rikki-tikki's plan and draws the cobra away from her nest by pretending that her wing is broken. The mongoose takes advantage of the distraction and destroys the eggs in the nest. He's almost finished when Darzee's wife calls to him, claiming that Nagaina intends to kill Teddy and his family. Carrying the last egg as a bartering chip, Rikki-tikki runs back to the house, where Nagaina menaces the humans at their breakfast table. He distracts her with the final egg and avoids her strikes while Teddy's father goes for his gun. Nagaina seizes her last egg and flees into her cobra hole, but Rikki-tikki bravely follows her down. Darzee thinks that is the end for Rikki-tikki, but he eventually emerges, having slain the cobra and saved the garden. The animals in the garden sing the mongoose's praises while he sleeps after his great battle. When he wakes up, he goes back to the house and enjoys food from the table and the affection of the humans. He remains on guard, however, and keeps the household free of snakes from that point on.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Rip Van Winkle - Point of view: The story has layered narrators; the omniscient voice of the author presents us with the first person account of the fictional historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, who has personally investigated and recorded the events of Rip Van Winkle's story. - Setting: The Catskill Mountains, late 1700's - Character: Diedrich Knickerbocker. Description: Knickerbocker is the fictional historian who narrates the story of Rip Van Winkle. We learn that Knickerbocker has died shortly after composing this history. Formerly an "old gentleman of New York," Knickerbocker fostered a keen interest in the history of the Dutch settlers of New York, and preferred to do research by obtaining first person accounts as opposed to turning to books. He had the capability and intelligence to concern himself with "weightier labours" but nevertheless focused on enjoyed his hobby thoroughly until his death, and is generally well remembered by common people in his community, if not by critics. - Character: Rip Van Winkle. Description: The protagonist of the story, Rip Van Winkle is a genial, passive man living in a small Dutch province in the Catskills, who spends his time engaging in work that is not useful or profitable, such as hunting squirrels and doing odd jobs in houses and gardens that aren't his own. He is the "henpecked husband" of his constantly nagging wife, Dame Van Winkle, from whom he is often hiding, and who is the cause of most of Rip's unhappiness. Rip ventures up to the top of a mountain one day while squirrel hunting and encounters strange beings who bewitch him with liquor such that he sleeps for 20 years, missing the American Revolution and the dramatic transformation of both his town and the country around it. - Character: Dame Van Winkle. Description: Rip Van Winkle's wife is a sharp-tongued and nagging woman whose only role in the story is to antagonize and hound her lazy husband, who avoids all domestic duties. Though Dame Van Winkle's unceasing harassment of her husband is mentioned frequently, she has no dialogue in the story and remains a kind of comical background force. She dies while Rip is asleep on the mountain, from "breaking a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a New England Peddler." - Character: Rip Van Winkle, Jr.. Description: The son of protagonist Rip Van Winkle and Dame Van Winkle. Rip Jr. is determined to grow up to be just like his father. The reader sees at the end of the story that he has succeeded in this (which also means that he has avoided succeeding in much of anything else). - Character: Derrick Van Bummel. Description: Derrick Van Bummel is the schoolmaster. He is an educated and articulate man who eagerly participates in earnest discussions of the news contained in old, outdated newspapers with other townspeople at the inn. He becomes a great militia general in the war and, after the war, eventually becomes a member of Congress. - Character: Nicholas Vedder. Description: Nicholas Vedder is the landlord of the old inn, who sits all day in the shade of a large tree, who speaks very little, and whose opinions are indicated by the way he smokes his pipe: short puffs when he is displeased, and long tranquil puffs when he is pleased. He is dead by the time Rip wakes up from his long sleep. - Character: Hendrick Hudson / the crew of the Half Moon. Description: Hudson was a 17th century explorer of the New York metropolitan region, most famous for sailing up the Hudson river (which now takes his name). He was lost at sea after mutineers set him and several other members of his crew adrift. In the story, the spirit of he and his crew haunt the highest peaks of the Catskills. They lure Rip Van Winkle to the top of the mountain, where they play ninepins and provide Rip with a drink that keeps him asleep for 20 years. - Theme: Tyranny vs. Freedom. Description: "Rip Van Winkle" examines various kinds of tyrannical power: the tyranny of marriage, the tyranny of day-to-day responsibilities, and the more literal tyranny of King George III of Britain over his American subjects. The story poses various questions about how we can maintain our freedom in face of these tyrannies. By extension, the story also prompts us to wonder what "freedom" from tyranny means, what a "tyrant" really is, and how America and its citizens are especially in need of answers to these questions. Rip Van Winkle's long nap has the primary effect of freeing him from three major kinds of tyrannies: the tyranny of government, the tyranny of marriage, and the tyranny of societal expectations. Before his sleep, he is a subject of King George III, the henpecked husband of the ever-nagging Dame Van Winkle, and a man in the prime of his life—he is physically able and reasonably expected to work. But he sleeps through the American Revolutionary War. When he wakes from his nap, therefore, he is freed of the King's tyranny. Additionally, during Rip's nap his wife dies after bursting a blood vessel during a tirade she was delivering to a New England merchant. Rip is especially ecstatic about this particular liberation from a tyrannical marriage. Rip no longer has to obey (or, more frequently, hide from) the commands of Dame Van Winkle. And lastly, Rip's nap has aged him to the point when no one expects him to be productive or even busy. He can live unbothered by the King, his wife, or the expectations of his community. But the reader should note that after his nap, Rip goes on living much the same way he did before, suggesting that perhaps he was free even when tyranny abounded. Irving seems to be asking us if tyranny is really an insurmountable restriction upon living freely, or if it is merely an obstacle the free must overcome with persistence and creativity.It is even suggested that Diedrich Knickerbocker himself (the fictional historian who narrates Rip's tale) is exercising his own freedom by doing so. We are told his time would have been better spent pursuing "weightier matters," but nevertheless Knickerbocker sticks to his hobby even in the face of critical scorn, economic failure, and the societal expectation that he should be doing otherwise. He freely "rides his hobby in his own way." In this sense, "Rip Van Winkle" is not only a story about freedom, but also an example of freedom. Knickerbocker performs the very freedom about which he writes. "Rip Van Winkle" was written in 1817, and published in 1819. The United States was still new, and had only recently endured the War of 1812, during which it was reasonable to question the country's continued freedom from the British. Narratives about freedom would have addressed important questions the United States and its citizens had for their government and themselves. "Rip van Winkle", for instance, seems to suggest that personal freedom is available to the individual regardless of external circumstances. Rip and the author who writes about him can then be seen as free in spite of the various tyrannies that threaten that freedom. This story about the persevering freedom of the individual would have certainly been interesting (and perhaps comforting!) to American readers in a time when the freedom of the collective nation of the United States of America was still perceived as fragile. - Theme: Active vs. Passive Resistance. Description: Though Rip Van Winkle values his own freedom greatly, he cannot be said to actively fight for it. Rip is the perfect example of a passive resistor. He responds to his wife (and eventually to the mention of his late wife) by throwing up his hands, shaking his head, and looking up at the sky. This characteristically resigned gesture neither denies nor accepts. What's more, when Dame Van Winkle was alive, Rip freed himself from her simply by avoiding her. There is never a single moment of confrontation between Rip Van Winkle and Dame Van Winkle, despite the fact that she is Rip's primary antagonist. Rip's passivity in attaining freedom from King George III is even more pronounced: he becomes a free citizen of the United States by napping peacefully through the American Revolution. Rip's passivity is held up in contrast to various examples of active resistance. One of Rip's friends dies in the War. Another ends up working in the American Congress. Both of these men became integral to the birth of a new nation. The patriot in front of the Union Hotel, so focused on the upcoming election, is another figure who is actively maintaining the integrity of the new democratic America. Even the spirit of Hendrick Hudson, who bewitched Rip on the mountain, calls to mind active resistance and revolt: Hudson was a Dutch ship captain who was violently overthrown by mutineers on his boat and set adrift, never to be seen again. He and the other characters tied up in the activity of revolt, revolution, and nation building help to set Rip apart as distinctly not active. This division between passive and active resistance could be seen as a response to the country's violent recent past. Perhaps Irving's suggestion, by making an almost impossibly passive character the protagonist and hero of the story, is that passivity is (or can be) effective. Rip is free, generous, kind, and happy—without fighting, campaigning, or competing. Irving (in line with the American Romanticism his writing exemplified) might be wondering if America's incessant emphasis on industriousness and active patriotism is in fact necessary for the happiness and fulfillment of its citizens. - Theme: Truth, History and Storytelling. Description: "Rip Van Winkle" is a framed story, in which a fictional storyteller (historian Diedrich Knickerbocker) is said to have collected it and in so doing establishes the story's status as a credible historical account. But we have reason to doubt its status as such. Knickerbocker does not research using historical texts. He instead collects his stories straight from the mouths of Dutch families. His historical "research" consists of oral storytelling. What's more, the story includes obviously mythological and magical figures, the "strange beings" that "haunt" the Catskill Mountains (later revealed to be the spirit of mutinied ship Captain Hendrick Hudson and his remaining loyal crew). The story opens with a poem about truth; but in the first paragraph Knickerbocker notes the "magical" beauty of the Catskills. There is the immediate suggestion that "Truth" is not the same as "historical fact."We know that Knickerbocker has spoken with Rip Van Winkle, whose own story is (we're told) beyond doubt, but we are also frequently being clued in on details that make the account seem less reliable. For instance, Rip cannot keep his story straight the first few times he tells it, but we are led to believe his eventual consistency is reason enough to believe him. We are repeatedly prompted (paradoxically by Knickerbocker's constant reassurance) to wonder what is real and what isn't—and what "truth" itself consists in. Where does the line between history and fiction occur, and can "truth" still be present where facts are in dispute? Washington Irving was himself a historical writer and biographer as well as a fiction writer in the tradition of American Romanticism. So, his interest in the relationship between truth and fiction, history and the mystical or irrational, is unsurprising. At the time of "Rip Van Winkle's" publication, America was growing and beginning to construct its national identity. Perhaps the conflation of "history" and "fiction" demonstrated by Diedrich Knickerbocker is meant to suggest that storytelling, art, and culture develop a country's history and identity as much as so-called "factual" events do. Irving's interest is not only in compiling America's historical record, but also in developing (and calling for the further development of) an American mythology, American folk history, and a new and distinct American voice. - Theme: Labor vs. Productivity. Description: "Rip Van Winkle" distinguishes between labor on its own and productive labor, or that which is profitable. Rip is the most obvious example of someone who labors without profit. He is happy to help in gardens and farms that are not his own—while his own land becomes severely run-down. He will hunt squirrels or fish all day, even if he knows he will have very little to show for it. Though he is busy, he is not productive. Additionally, Derrick Van Bummel, the highly intelligent schoolmaster who has earnest discussions about long out-of-date newspapers with others at the old inn, is notably occupying himself with an ultimately irrelevant exercise. (Van Bummel's later work in the American congress suggests he eventually reforms himself into a productive laborer.) Knickerbocker himself, it is suggested, is also guilty of laboring without productivity. He slaves over his historical accounts though they are believed by most to be—however thorough and accurate—basically inconsequential. In the early 1800's America was an increasingly industrious, mercantile, and profit-driven culture. The cultural emphasis on productivity was ever-present. The idea that Americans—like Knickerbocker or Rip Van Winkle—might labor not out of a desire to advance and be productive, but rather out of generosity, interest, or the simple pursuit of joy was perhaps refreshing to Irving and his readers, who would have felt the increasing pressure of their growth-obsessed culture. This idea, of resisting industrialization and hyper-productivity, is something that would only intensify in certain strains of literature over the course of the century as the Industrial Revolution spread across Europe and the US. - Theme: Change vs. Stasis. Description: There is a dynamic tension in "Rip Van Winkle" between change and stasis (and by extension past and future). When Rip wakes up on the mountain he returns to discover that everything has changed. The town is bigger and more populous, his children are grown, his wife is gone, and he now has a grandson. Plus, the Unites States of America is now an independent free nation and Rip is no longer a subject of the King. All of this is true, yet Rip eventually resumes living just as he did before. Because Rip manages to live through the American Revolution without participating, his perspective is uncontaminated by the tumultuous change that brought the US from the past to the present. As a result, the town comes to regard Rip as a kind of keeper of the past. They gather around him and listen to his stories every day at the Union Hotel. Rip functions as the link between the past before the Revolutionary War and the future after it. Rip's stories are attractive in two ways: one as a connection to a nostalgic past now lost to history given that the world and the country had changed dramatically and profoundly, and yet in many ways Rip is a comforting example of the fact that life goes on as it did before. In addition, the fact that Rip Van Winkle Jr. has grown to be indistinguishable—in both appearance and behavior from his father—suggests even more thoroughly Rip's almost mystical continuity. And, of course, at end of the story we meet the infant Rip Van Winkle III. It is as though the story wants us to believe that some version of Rip Van Winkle will always live—lazily and happily—in the Catskills, regardless of the rapid change of his environment. This again is a very clearly romantic gesture on Irving's part, indicating a nostalgia for the past and a suspicion of political and technological advances that were rapidly changing the American experience and the American landscape during the time Irving was writing. And it is also an insistence that the past as represented by Rip Van Winkle will live on within that future. - Climax: Rip Van Winkle is bewitched by strange beings on the mountain and passes into a deep sleep. When he returns home, nothing is the same. - Summary: Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old New York gentleman with an interest in the histories and stories told by the descendants of Dutch settlers in New York in the early 19th century, narrates the story of a simple, good-natured man named Rip Van Winkle, who lives in a small village in the Catskills. Though Rip comes from a family full of chivalrous and militaristically successful men, he is unconcerned with such things and is chiefly occupied with shirking his duties to his home and family and avoiding his nagging wife, Dame Van Winkle. He spends most of his day out of the house with his dog Wolf, where his wife can't reach him as easily, either talking with townspeople at the inn, hunting squirrels, fishing, or helping on farms other than his own. One day Dame Van Winkle is so persistent in her haranguing pursuit of Rip that he flees to the woods with his gun and dog. He absently follows a squirrel high into the Catskill Mountains and ends up taking a nap. Just as the day's light is fading and Rip is preparing to go back down the mountain, he encounters a stranger. The stranger is holding a stout keg on his back, and Rip, drawn by some mysterious force, helps the stranger carry the keg to the top of the mountain, where he finds strange men wearing antiquated clothing playing ninepins (these men are the spirits of Hendrick Hudson and the crew of the Half Moon, though Rip doesn't know that). Rip is instructed to serve them a drink that is so enticing that Rip secretly tastes some himself, and then consumes it immoderately and falls into a deep sleep on the mountain. When Rip wakes up he assumes he has slept through the night, and worries about the backlash he will face from Dame Van Winkle. But soon it becomes apparent that something strange has happened. The gun by his side is an old and rusty one, and his beard is now a foot long. His joints are stiff, and he finds it difficult to climb the mountain. He tries to locate the peak on which he fell asleep but cannot find it. Wolf is also nowhere to be found, and after searching for him as long as he could, Rip apprehensively descends the mountain with the rusty gun, dreading his reunion with his wife. Though the path is nowhere to be found and the landscape is strange, Rip successfully makes his way back to the village. On the outskirts of the village a group of children—none of whom are familiar to Rip—chase after him and point at his beard. Rip notices that the village is now larger and more populated. New houses line the roads and unfamiliar faces peer out at him from windows. Perplexed, Rip finds his old house. He expects to hear his wife yelling at him shrilly, but never does. What's more, his house is dilapidated, as though no one has tended to it in a very long time. He sees a dog that resembles Wolf, but the dog is dirty and emaciated, and does not recognize Rip. He goes to the inn to look for his old friends and finds in its place the Union Hotel. Rip introduced himself to the strangers at the hotel as a "loyal subject of the king" but this is met with outrage. He discovers that 20 years have passed since he went up the mountain. The American Revolution has taken place. His friends and neighbors Nicholas Vedder and Brom Ducher are dead, and Derrick Van Bummel is working in the newly established American Congress. His son Rip Van Winkle Jr. has grown up to be just like his father, and his daughter Judith has married and has a child (Rip Van Winkle III). The townspeople come to believe Rip's story on the mountain after his tale is corroborated and explained by the oldest man in town, Peter Vanderdonk, and the townsfolk eventually turn their attention back to the upcoming presidential election. Rip moves in with his daughter and spends the rest of his days living as he did prior to his disappearance, only now he has no need to fear his wife's intrusion and lives freely and peacefully.

- Genre: Realism, Novella - Title: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Shawshank prison in rural Maine - Character: Red/The Narrator. Description: Red, who narrates Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, is a funny, self-deprecating man with "carroty red hair." He grew up poor, married a rich girl he impregnated, and became so frustrated with his family situation that he cut the brakes on his wife's car, killing her and her two passengers. In 1938, at age 20, he was convicted of triple homicide and sent to Maine's Shawshank prison. Red regrets the murders but doesn't think Shawshank "rehabilitated" him—a distinction emphasizing how little incarceration does to rehabilitate people who've committed crimes. In prison Red learns to obtain contraband items for other prisoners but refuses to deal in hard drugs, weapons, or contract killing, as he doesn't want to be complicit in more death. In 1948, Andy Dufresne enters Shawshank. After Red obtains several items for Andy, including a rock-hammer and a pin-up poster, they become friends. Red finds Andy's self-possession and desire for freedom admirable—yet Red believes that, unlike Andy, he has gotten too "institutionalized" by prison to live in the free world again. After Andy escapes Shawshank in 1975, Red receives a blank postcard from the U.S.-Mexico border, a message from Andy letting Red know that Andy is fulfilling his dream of running a hotel under a fake identity in Mexico. Red reveals he's been writing the story of Andy's incarceration and escape since he received the postcard and now, he believes, he's finally finished. Yet after being paroled in 1977, Red resumes writing. At first, freedom so overwhelmed Red that he considered committing another crime to return to prison; instead, inspired by Andy's story, Red visits the place where Andy once told him the key to his fake identity's safe-deposit box would be hidden. There Red finds an envelope containing $1000 and a letter from Andy, inviting Red to join him in Mexico. Rather than return to prison, Red decides to break parole and find Andy—demonstrating that prison did not destroy Red's instinct for freedom and that Andy's story has inspired Red to hope for a better life. - Character: Andy Dufresne. Description: Andy Dufresne, the hero of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, is a slight, good-looking man who wears glasses and keeps his fingernails "always clean." His calm, ironic demeanor makes some people believe he's cold or snobbish. Before his imprisonment, Andy worked as a banker. In 1948 he's wrongly convicted of murdering his wife Linda and her lover Glenn Quentin. The district attorney who prosecutes the case tells a plausible story about Andy as a calculating killer, while Andy tells the unconvincing truth: he bought a gun prior to the murders because he was contemplating suicide, and he can't remember exactly what happened the night of the murders because he was drunk. Andy's wrongful conviction demonstrates the power of storytelling to shape reality. In Shawshank prison, when rapists assault Andy, he fights every assault, demonstrating his persistence and his desire for agency. Andy, who collects rocks, buys a rock-hammer from Red, likely hoping his hobby will make prison more bearable. When he discovers weak concrete in his cell wall, he begins slowly digging a tunnel with his rock hammer. He uses pin-up posters—which no one questions, due to the fact that many prisoners have them—to hide the hole. After Andy helps a guard, Byron Hadley, avoid taxes on an inheritance, guards and even wardens seek Andy's financial help. He begins laundering money for prison staff in exchange for protection against rapists and a cell without a roommate, which allows him to tunnel through his wall undetected. In 1975, Andy escapes through a sewer pipe inside the wall he's been tunneling through for decades, illustrating his extreme persistence and desire for freedom. He flees to Mexico, where he plans to run a hotel under a fake identity. Andy's cleverness, self-possession, and escape make him an inspirational legend to other prisoners. After Red is paroled, Andy's example prevents Red from committing another crime to return to prison, though the outside world scares Red. Instead, on Andy's invitation, Red decides to travel to Mexico and join him. - Character: Samuel Norton. Description: Samuel Norton is one of Shawshank prison's wardens while Red and Andy Dufresne are incarcerated there. A devout Baptist who forces a New Testament on every man who enters Shawshank, Norton is also (according to Red) the "foulest hypocrite" among all the prison's corrupt administrators. After he founds an "Inside-Out" extramural prison-labor program at Shawshank, he uses it to embezzle money and extort business owners without access to free prison labor. Andy launders money for Norton in order to protect himself and avoid a cellmate, as he has laundered money for previous wardens. In 1963, a newer prisoner named Tommy Williams tells Andy that his cellmate at a previous prison, Elwood Blatch, claimed to have murdered Glenn Quentin and Linda Collins Dufresne, the crime for which Andy is incarcerated, during a burglary. When Andy brings this story to Norton, Norton refuses to believe it, puts Andy in solitary confinement, and ensures Tommy's silence by bribing him with a transfer to a lower-security prison. This malicious behavior seems motivated partly by fear that Andy, if free, could inform the police of Norton's financial crimes and partly by a desire to break Andy's proud, dignified spirit. Norton exemplifies both the corruption within the prison system and the failures of the U.S. criminal justice and correctional systems more generally to provide justice or rehabilitation. When Andy escapes Shawshank in 1975, Norton breaks down in anger. After Norton realizes that Andy won't be caught, he quits his job. - Character: Tommy Williams. Description: Tommy Williams, a career thief, enters Shawshank prison in 1962 at age 27. He has been incarcerated in multiple other prisons before. He has a young son and a wife, who convinces him to study for the high-school equivalency exams while at Shawshank. Andy Dufresne, who is by that point Shawshank's librarian, helps Tommy study. Tommy grows to like Andy a lot. Having discovered that Andy was incarcerated for murdering his wife Linda and her lover Glenn Quentin, Tommy reveals to Andy that his cellmate during a previous incarceration, Elwood Blatch, bragged about having murdered Linda and Glenn during a burglary. After Andy tells Warden Samuel Norton Tommy's story, Norton—who wants to keep Andy at Shawshank, laundering his money and under his control—transfers Tommy to another, lower-security prison in exchange for Tommy's silence. This outcome demonstrates that, in the novella's worldview, the U.S. justice system does not produce justice and that the correctional system does not rehabilitate prisoners but instead bends them to the whims of corrupt administrators. - Character: Elwood Blatch. Description: Elwood Blatch, a violent burglar, is a large man, "mostly bald," with "green eyes set way down deep in the sockets." He shared a prison cell with Tommy Williams in Rhode Island, four years before Tommy is incarcerated in Maine's Shawshank prison. After Tommy learns why Andy Dufresne is in Shawshank, he reveals to Andy that Blatch once bragged to him about murdering Glenn Quentin and Andy's wife, Linda Collins Dufresne during a burglary. Andy remembers a man matching Tommy's description of Elwood Blatch working at the Falmouth Hills Country Club, which he and Linda attended and where Glenn Quentin was a golf instructor. When he tells Tommy's story to Warden Samuel Norton, Norton—who wants to keep Andy in prison and laundering his money—claims not to believe it. Norton may even arrange Blatch's early parole so that any lawyer Andy might hire won't be able to find Blatch. That no one ever holds Blatch accountable for Linda and Glenn's murders—while Andy is wrongfully incarcerated for decades—demonstrates the failure of the U.S. criminal justice system to dispense justice. - Character: Bogs Diamond. Description: Bogs Diamond, a "hulking" man, is a member of "the sisters," a group of men in Shawshank prison who rape other inmates. Shortly after Andy Dufresne enters Shawshank, Bogs and some associates grope Andy in the showers; Andy hits Bog in the face and splits his lip. Later, Bogs and two friends gang-rape Andy. Then Bogs menaces Andy with a razor and demands oral sex. Andy successfully refuses, pointing out that if Bogs stabs Andy in the head, Andy will reflexively bite down on anything in his mouth. Though Bogs and his friends beat Andy up, Andy's gutsy refusal gains him some respect and notoriety in Shawshank. Later, Bogs is found "badly beaten" in his cell. Red suspects that Andy, who smuggled money into Shawshank inside his rectum, bribed some guards to perform the beating. After the beating, Bogs leaves Andy alone. - Character: Byron Hadley. Description: Byron Hadley, a guard at Shawshank prison, is tall with "thinning red hair," a loud voice, and a tendency to sunburn. He frequently clubs prisoners who displease him and takes a pessimistic view toward everything, unable to appreciate how much better his life is than those of men incarcerated in Shawshank. In 1950, he receives a $35,000 inheritance from his estranged, recently deceased brother. When Andy Dufresne, while tarring a roof with some other prisoners, overhears Byron complaining about having to pay taxes on the inheritance, Andy explains a legal loophole that Byron can exploit to avoid the taxes. Andy also offers to do the necessary paperwork if Byron will get beers for the prisoners tarring the roof. When Byron agrees, Andy's legend among Shawshank prisoners grows. This event also leads to Andy becoming an unofficial financial advisor and money-launderer for most of Shawshank's staff. In 1957, Byron suffers a nonfatal heart attack and retires from Shawshank. - Character: The District Attorney. Description: The district attorney (DA) serves as prosecutor in Andy Dufresne's trial after Andy is falsely accused of murdering his wife Linda and her lover Glenn Quentin. The DA has ambitions to become a congressman and thinks that successfully convicting Andy will boost his electoral chances. Though only circumstantial evidence connects Andy to the crime, the DA tells a convincing story about Andy as a calculating, emotionless killer, persuading the jury of Andy's guilt and condemning Andy to decades in Shawshank prison. By securing Andy's conviction through persuasive storytelling, the DA demonstrates the power of stories to influence reality. By sacrificing Andy to his political ambitions, meanwhile, the DA betrays the corruption and injustice of the U.S. justice system. - Character: Normaden. Description: Normaden is a Native American (Passamaquoddy) man incarcerated at Shawshank prison who has "a harelip and a cleft palate" that impede his speech. The other men in Shawshank give him the racist nickname they give to all Native American prisoners: "Chief." He shares a cell with Andy Dufresne for approximately eight months between 1959 and 1960, after a warden for whom Andy has been laundering money leaves but before Andy starts laundering money for the next warden, thus regaining the privilege of a cell without a cellmate. At one point, Normaden discusses Andy with Red; Normaden mentions that he likes Andy, who never mocks him, but that their cell was "cold" with a "bad draft." This conversation foreshadows the later revelation that Andy has been digging a hole through his cell wall, a hole he hides behind pin-up posters. - Character: Jim. Description: Jim is a "close friend" of Andy Dufresne; they served together in France and Germany during World War II. After Andy is accused of murder, Jim takes his side. He helps Andy sell his stocks and consolidate his wealth. After Andy's conviction, Jim creates a fake identity for Andy, Peter Stevens. He arranges the indefinite rental of a safe deposit box under Peter Stevens's name and hides Andy's wealth and Peter Steven's forged identity documents there. Then he places the safe deposit box key under an old paperweight of Andy's in a hayfield in Buxton, Maine, and lets Andy know how to find it. Jim dies around 1961. After Andy's escape from Shawshank in 1975, however, Andy is able to use Jim's diligent preparations to enter Mexico and start a new life there. - Character: Linda Collins Dufresne. Description: Linda Collins Dufresne is Andy Dufresne's wife. In 1947, she begins taking golf lessons at the Falmouth Hills Country Club from a golf pro named Glenn Quentin. Linda and Glenn begin an adulterous relationship. After Andy discovers the affair, Linda tells him she wants a divorce. When Andy refuses, Linda goes to Glenn's place for the night—where she and Glenn are murdered by burglar Elwood Blatch. Andy is wrongfully convicted of Linda and Glenn's murders. - Character: Glenn Quentin. Description: Glenn Quentin is a golf professional and an instructor at the Falmouth Hills Country Club, where he meets Linda Collins Dufresne, Andy Dufresne's wife. After Glenn starts teaching Linda to golf, they begin an affair. Glenn's wealth tempts Elwood Blatch, a burglar and employee at the Falmouth Hills Country Club, to break into Glenn's house—where Blatch ends up murdering Glenn and Linda. Andy is wrongfully convicted of the murders. - Theme: Institutionalization vs. Freedom. Description: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption shows how the prison environment can steal two kinds of freedom: it can steal prisoners' external freedom by controlling every aspect of their environment, and it can steal their internal freedom by teaching them to tolerate or even desire being controlled. Indeed, it suggests that only by protecting their internal freedom can prisoners keep their dignity and thrive after leaving prison. The novella's narrator, Red, is nominally telling the story of Andy Dufresne, a wrongly convicted man whose strong instinct toward freedom and self-determination Red admires. Andy displays this instinct from the beginning of his incarceration. Soon after he enters Shawshank prison, a group of rapists targets him. Andy cannot fight the group off by himself, so they violate his external freedom by repeatedly gang-raping him. Yet Andy demonstrates his internal freedom by resisting every assault—communicating that he does not consent and is not resigned to the situation. After decades in prison, Andy escapes through a hole in his cell wall he has been digging for years and hiding behind various pin-up posters. Andy's escape represents how his internal freedom—his desire for self-determination and refusal to submit to control—eventually secures his external freedom. Though Red admires Andy, he claims to be Andy's opposite, an "institutional man" acclimated to prison. For example, after decades of working a prison job where he's only allowed to use the restroom at 25 minutes past the hour, Red only feels the need to use the restroom at that exact time. Though at one point, before Andy's escape, Andy suggests to Red that they should go into business together after prison, Red says he could never survive in the outside world. Indeed, when Red is paroled after 38 years in Shawshank, he considers committing a petty crime so he can go back. Yet ultimately, Andy's example inspires Red to protect both his external and his internal freedom: rather than going back to prison, Red decides to break parole and go find Andy, who by then is living under a fake identity in Mexico. By ending with "institutional man" Red seizing his freedom, the novella suggests that institutionalization is a powerful force, but that the human instinct for freedom, even if it can be repressed, cannot be entirely destroyed. - Theme: Stories, Memory, and Hope. Description: In Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, stories produce reality. Memories are stories people tell about the past, hopes are stories people tell about the future, and people act based on their memories and hopes—so stories have great power. The novella itself is a story the narrator, Red, tells about a man he met in prison, Andy Dufresne. Andy was convicted for two murders he didn't commit because the prosecution was able to tell a more convincing story than Andy himself. Due to Andy's self-contained demeanor, the prosecution spins a compelling yarn that portrays Andy as a cold-blooded, premeditated murderer. Andy testifies he bought a gun prior to the murders because he was suicidal and can't account for all his actions the night of the murders because he was drinking; though Andy is likely telling the truth, the jurors don't believe him because he hasn't told a plausible story. Moreover, a clerk testifies that Andy bought dishtowels from him, which were later found at the crime scene. Andy believes that the clerk genuinely believes this recollection is the truth, given that memory is, per Andy, "such a goddam subjective thing" and the prosecution's story about Andy is so compelling. Once in prison, however, Andy becomes a "legend" that inspires hope in other prisoners due to his desire for self-determination and freedom. Prisoners tell and retell stories about Andy refusing to perform oral sex on a prison rapist, convincing a correctional officer to buy beers for a gang of prisoners tarring a roof, and—eventually—escaping through a hidden hole in his cell wall. Though Red fears he won't survive in the outside world after parole and considers committing another crime just to be re-incarcerated, the story he's told about Andy inspires him to seize his freedom and seek out Andy in Mexico. Thus, the novella illustrates that stories not only entertain people but shape their memories, hopes, and behavior—and, thus, their reality. - Theme: Gender Stereotypes, Sex, and Violence. Description: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption portrays a culture where people believe men are violent and sexual, while women are natural targets of men's violent and sexual impulses. One protagonist, Andy Dufresne, at first suffers due to these gender stereotypes but eventually manipulates them to escape from prison. Andy is convicted of murdering his wife Linda and her lover Glenn Quentin. The prosecution argues the murders "could be understood, if not condoned" supposing Andy had killed Linda and Glenn in a jealous rage; by claiming a husband murdering his unfaithful wife is understandable, the prosecution suggests men's violent impulses toward women, based in the desire for exclusive sexual access to women, are natural and widespread. Yet because the ironic, self-controlled Andy does not display stereotypical, violent masculine emotions on the witness stand—no rages, no outbursts—the prosecution convinces the jury that Andy is an unnatural, cold-blooded, premeditated killer. Once in Shawshank prison, Andy suffers from gender stereotypes again. Homosexual sex in Shawshank is heavily gendered: while stereotypically masculine, violent prisoners assault other men, actual gay men are expected to "play the female" and male rape victims bleeding through their underwear suffer jokes about their "menstrual flow." Prison rapists target Andy due to his slightness and "fair good looks"—implicitly feminine qualities that make Andy a target for masculine sexual violence. Though Andy suffers wrongful conviction and sexual assault for defying gender stereotypes, he eventually manipulates stereotypes to secure his freedom. When he starts hanging contraband pin-up posters in his cell, everyone—even his friend and fellow prisoner Red—assumes he wants them for stereotypically masculine, sexual reasons: as visual aids for his fantasies. Thus no one thinks to look behind the posters—behind which Andy successfully hides the hole he is digging in his cell wall. Andy's initial victimization and subsequent escape from prison show how gender stereotypes distort the truth—and how those who recognize the distortions can manipulate stereotypes to their own ends. - Theme: Corruption, Purity, and Accommodation. Description: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption represents the world as a corrupt place, where people can become entirely corrupt, protect their purity but remain ineffectual, or accommodate some corruption to achieve good ends without becoming entirely corrupt themselves. The novella's ending suggests the third path, accommodation, is best. In the novella, corruption is everywhere. One protagonist, a banker named Andy Dufresne, is wrongfully imprisoned for murder on circumstantial evidence—in part because the district attorney who prosecutes Andy's case wants to run for higher office and thinks a high-profile conviction will improve his election chances. In his trial, Andy testifies honestly—retaining his moral purity but condemning himself to prison, since the jury doesn't find his true story believable. Once in prison, Andy encounters corruption everywhere. Guards sell drugs and take bribes, while wardens run illicit businesses, embezzle money, and use the threat of prisoners' free labor to extort local businessmen who don't want to be underbid on contracts. Andy wants to secure protection from prison rapists and avoid getting a cellmate who might discover the hole he's digging in the prison wall—so he uses his banking expertise to help guards and wardens do their taxes and launder the money they've earned illicitly. When the novella's narrator, Andy's friend Red, expresses discomfort with Andy laundering the guards' drug-dealing money, Andy argues that "grown-ups" can make morally gray decisions for good reasons instead of descending into ineffectual moralizing or total corruption. He compares his money-laundering to Red's contraband business, where Red secures various prohibited items for other prisoners but refuses to deal in guns, drugs, or contract killings. Since Andy's decision to launder money puts an end to the rapes he's been suffering, and the contraband pin-up poster Red procures for Andy aids Andy in his escape from unjust imprisonment, the novella seems to suggest that the "grown-up" approach to accommodating corruption that Andy takes in prison may be a more effective approach than either the prison staff's total corruption or Andy's own moral purity during his trial. - Theme: Justice and Rehabilitation. Description: In Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, the U.S. criminal justice and correctional systems neither dispense justice nor provide rehabilitation—the novella shows how these high-minded ideals have nothing to do with how the systems work in practice. The novella's plot turns on an initial injustice: Andy Dufresne is wrongly convicted of double homicide on circumstantial evidence because the prosecuting district attorney wants to use the high-profile case to further his political career. Once inside prison, Andy suffers further injustices. For example, prison rapists repeatedly assault him, and when he resists, prison staff punish him with solitary confinement for fighting. Even prisoners who actually committed crimes should not be punished with repeated sexual assaults, yet the novella implies that this happens regularly in the Shawshank prison—the narrator, Red, casually admits he's speaking from experience when he describes how prisoners like Andy stanch their bleeding after they've been raped. Moreover, the novella suggests that prison doesn't rehabilitate anyone, for two reasons. First, prison culture actually pushes both Red and Andy to commit crimes: Red gets a reputation for smuggling contraband, while Andy starts laundering money for prison staff. It's implied in Red's case and explicit in Andy's that they undertake these crimes in part to secure protection from further sexual assaults. Second, because so many prisoners are paroled at such an advanced age, they are too institutionalized, sick, or senile upon release to prove that they can act as rehabilitated, contributing members of society. Thus, in the novella, both the criminal justice and correctional systems fail in their stated purposes. - Climax: Red decides to join Andy in Mexico - Summary: The narrator Red explains that he's central to Shawshank prison culture because he knows how to smuggle contraband. In 1938, at age 20, Red was incarcerated for cutting the brakes on his wife's car, killing her and two people hitching a ride. He claims to talk about himself only as background to his real story—the story of Andy Dufresne. In 1948, 30-year-old banker Andy Dufresne is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife Linda and her lover Glenn Quentin and is sent to Shawshank prison. Soon after entering prison, Andy is targeted by a gang of rapists. When Andy approaches Red in the exercise yard and asks Red to get him a rock-hammer, Red worries Andy may use it as a weapon. Andy explains he wants to use it for his hobby, collecting rocks. Though rapists repeatedly target Andy, and though he repeatedly enters solitary confinement as punishment for fighting back, he never uses the rock-hammer as a weapon, earning Red's goodwill. In 1949, Andy—acting secretive and embarrassed—asks Red for a Rita Hayworth pin-up poster. Red, amused, gets it for him. Andy continues to buy pin-up posters from Red throughout his incarceration. In 1950, Andy, Red, and some other prisoners are working outside, tarring a roof, when they overhear a guard named Byron Hadley complaining about having to pay taxes on an inheritance. Andy asks Hadley whether Hadley trusts his wife. When Hadley and another guard threaten to throw Andy off the roof for impertinence, Andy explains: an IRS loophole allows a person to make a one-time, tax-free gift to their spouse. Hadley can give the inheritance to his wife and avoid the taxes. Andy offers to do the gift paperwork for Hadley if Hadley gets beers for the prisoners tarring the roof. Hadley agrees, making Andy a legend among other prisoners. After this, Andy begins helping the prison staff to do their taxes and to launder money from their illicit activities (drug dealing, embezzlement, racketeering, etc.). In return, the guards keep him safe from rapists and the administration makes sure he never has to have a cellmate. In 1962, Tommy Williams enters Shawshank prison. In 1963, after learning why Andy is in prison, Tommy tells Andy that during a previous incarceration at another prison, Tommy had a cellmate named Elwood Blatch, in for burglary, who bragged about having gotten away with murder. Blatch killed a golf instructor named Glenn Quentin and Glenn's girlfriend during a burglary, but the girlfriend's husband was convicted for it. Tommy's description of Blatch matches Andy's memory of an employee at the country club where his wife met Glenn. Andy goes to the current warden, Samuel Norton, for whom he launders money, and tells him the story. Norton—perhaps afraid Andy will inform on him if Andy is freed—claims not to believe the story and transfers Tommy to a lower-security prison as a bribe to shut him up. From 1963 to 1967, Andy suffers depressed moods silently. Then, in 1967, his mood improves. One day, in the exercise yard, Andy tells Red that once he's left prison, he plans to open a hotel in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. When Red asks how Andy will buy a hotel, Andy explains that after he was accused of murder, his war buddy Jim helped him transfer his wealth to a fake identity, Peter Stevens. Jim has since died, so Andy can't access the money in prison—but Jim left the key to Peter Stevens's safe deposit box underneath a paperweight in a hayfield in a town near Shawshank. If Andy can access the key, he'll have a new identity and a small fortune. Then Andy says he could use a man like Red to help with the hotel business. Red demurs, claiming he's been in prison too long to survive in the free world. Andy insists Red should think about it. One morning in 1975, guards discover Andy's missing. Enraged, Norton searches Andy's cell, tears down his pin-up poster, and finds a hidden hole in Andy's cell wall. A guard, searching the hole, discovers that Andy tunneled to a sewer pipe and broke a hole in it using his rock-hammer, which he subsequently abandoned. Andy presumably then escaped the prison through the sewer system. Later in 1975, Red receives a blank postcard from a town on the U.S.-Mexico border, which he believes is a coded message from Andy communicating that Andy is free and chasing his dream. Red reveals he's been writing Andy's story since he received the postcard and now, in 1976, has finished. In 1977, Red is paroled and resumes his story. After his release, he finds the free world so disorienting that he considers committing another crime to return to prison; instead, to distract himself, he goes searching for the paperweight in the hayfield that Andy told him about. When he finds it, he discovers an envelope containing $1,000 and a letter from Andy suggesting that Red join him in Mexico. Red, scared but full of hope, decides to break parole and join Andy in Mexico.

- Genre: Novel, adventure story. - Title: Robinson Crusoe - Point of view: - Setting: England, Morocco, Brazil, an uninhabited island in the Caribbean, Portugal, Spain, and France, in the mid-to-late 17th century. - Character: Robinson Crusoe. Description: Robinson is the protagonist and the narrator of the novel. He is individualistic, self-reliant, and adventurous. He continually discounts the good advice and warnings of his parents and others, and boldly seeks to make his own life by going to sea. He is at times overly ambitious and is unable to remain content with a comfortable life (whether in England or Brazil). Trapped on his island, he learns to survive all alone and also ends up becoming a devout Christian, repenting for his past sins and gaining a newfound confidence in God and his divine plan of providence. Robinson's extreme individualism is at times heroic, but also leads him to disregard others. While he values the loyal friends he finds over the course of his journeys (repaying and rewarding the captain's widow and the Portuguese captain, for example), he sells Xury into a kind of slavery or indentured servitude and treats Friday as an inferior servant. His self-reliance can also shade into narcissism, reflected in his narration's focus on himself and disregard for others: most of the other characters in the novel don't even get a name. But in spite of any of these faults, Defoe presents Robinson as the novel's intrepid hero, who draws on reserves of ingenuity and bravery to survive incredibly against the whims of nature and fate. - Character: Xury. Description: A young boy who is sent with Robinson and Ismael on the Turkish pirate captain's fishing boat. He swears loyalty to Robinson after Ismael is pushed overboard and accompanies him along the coast of Africa and even to Brazil. Robinson sells Xury into the service of the Portuguese captain who rescues him. - Character: The Portuguese Captain. Description: A kind, generous captain who rescues Robinson and Xury off the coast of Africa. He takes Robinson to Brazil for free, gives him money for some of his cargo, and helps bring Robinson's English money back to Brazil. At the end of the novel, Robinson is able to visit the old captain in Lisbon and repay his kindness. - Character: Friday. Description: A Caribbean native, one of the "savages" that Robinson sees on his island. Friday is taken as a prisoner by some cannibals who prepare to eat him on Robinson's island, but he manages to escape. Robinson helps rescue him and he vows obedience to Robinson. He is a loyal friend and companion to Robinson (accompanying him back to Europe), but Robinson also treats him as an inferior servant. - Character: Friday's Father. Description: Robinson and Friday rescue two prisoners from some cannibals on the island: the Spanish prisoner and a man bound in a canoe. Friday is ecstatic when he realizes this man is actually his father. Friday's father lives on Robinson's island for a while and then is sent with the Spanish prisoner to bring back the rest of the surviving Spaniards from the shipwreck near Robinson's island. - Character: The Spanish Prisoner. Description: Robinson saves this man from being eaten by some cannibals on his island. He identifies himself to Robinson as "Christianus," which could be Latin for his name (Christian, or Christiano) or could simply identify him as a Christian. The prisoner tells Robinson that he was shipwrecked near his island and that he and some of his comrades made it safely to Friday's people. Robinson sends him with Friday's father to bring the rest of the Spaniards back to his island, so that they can escape together. However, Robinson ends up leaving before they return, so the Spaniards establish a colony on the island. - Character: The English Captain. Description: An English captain whose crew mutinies against him and plans to abandon him, his mate, and another loyal crewmember on Robinson's island. Robinson rescues the captain, who promises to take Robinson back to England in return. Robinson and the captain defeat the mutineers and take the ship back. Robinson sees the captain's arrival as an example of divine providence, as he allows Robinson to escape from the island. Similarly, the captain sees Robinson's existence on the island as divine providence for him, as Robinson saves him on an apparently deserted island. The two characters' intertwining fates show the unpredictable, ultimately good nature of God's providence in Defoe's novel. - Character: Will Atkins. Description: One of the sailors who mutinies against the English captain. The captain agrees to forgive most of the mutineers, but singles out Will as deserving to be killed for being the first to turn on him. But Robinson ends up leaving Will (and some of the other less trustworthy mutineers) on the island. - Character: Crusoe's Nephews. Description: When Robinson returns to England, the only remaining members of his family are his two sisters and two nephews. He takes care of the nephews and raises one as a gentleman, while the other becomes a sailor. The two young nephews represent the two paths of life Robinson himself had a choice between in his youth: a comfortable gentlemanly life in England or an adventurous life at sea. At the end of the novel, Robinson joins his sailor nephew on a trading voyage. - Character: Crusoe's Wife. Description: After returning to England from Lisbon, Robinson settles down, marries, and has children. His wife is a feature of the comfortable family life he has in England after his long, troublesome travels. However, once she dies, he goes to sea again. The brevity with which Robinson's wife and her death are described (she is not even named!) shows how narcissistic Robinson's narration can be—he is focused only on telling the reader about his own adventures. - Theme: Christianity and Divine Providence. Description: As much as Defoe's novel is about Robinson's literal, physical journey, it is also about his more metaphorical, spiritual journey toward Christianity. In the beginning of the novel, Robinson disregards Christianity and leads a life that he later looks back on as wicked. He discounts his father's warning that God will not bless him if he goes to sea, and does not thank God when he is rescued from the storm on the way to London, or by the Portuguese captain off the coast of Africa. However, after he dreams one night of a strange figure scolding him for not repenting, Robinson turns to Christianity on the island and eagerly studies the Bible. With his newfound Christianity, Robinson is never entirely alone on his island, because he can converse with God through prayer. Moreover, Christianity offers Robinson a way to make sense of his life and its various twists and turns. He sees his rebelling against his father as his original sin, for which he was then punished by being taken as a slave and then by being shipwrecked. However, he was blessed and saved by God by being saved from drowning and ending up on the island with enough provisions to survive. After repenting, Robinson sees himself as further blessed by various miracles, whether the accidental growing of his first crops or the arrival of Friday and the English captain. In addition, Robinson comes to see various unpredictable natural disasters like storms, hurricanes, and the earthquake that damages his island home as signs from God, instruments of his divine agency.As Christianity becomes more and more central to Robinson's life (and to Defoe's novel), one of the most important aspects of it is the idea of divine providence. Closely linked to ideas of fate, this is the idea that God has foresight of our fortunes and is looking out for us. Along this understanding, events that seem like coincidences or unexplainable surprises turn out to be part of God's wise plan. This is how Robinson ends up seeing his being shipwrecked. What seemed like a disaster at first turns out to be a blessing in disguise: Robinson grows to love the island, learns much from his experience there, and comes to Christianity as a result of his life there. When the English captain arrives on the island, Robinson sees this as further proof of divine providence, as someone has come to rescue him at last, while the captain sees Robinson as an instrument of God's providence for him: the captain thinks that Robinson was saved on the island precisely to help save him. These two characters have confidence in their belief in God's providence, that there is some overarching plan behind the unpredictable whims of fortune. And Defoe seems to share this conviction, as the fictional editor who introduces the novel claims that it is an illustration of "the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances." The novel thus urges the reader to have faith in God's divine plan. Interestingly, the reader must place a similar kind of trust in Defoe, as he or she must trust that there is some overarching plan or purpose behind the meandering, wandering plot of the novel, that Defoe will deliver his reader to some kind of satisfactory conclusion or ending. - Theme: Society, Individuality, and Isolation. Description: At the center of Robinson Crusoe is a tension between society and individuality. As the novel begins, Robinson breaks free of his family and the middle-class society in which they live in order to pursue his own life. If he were to stay at home, he would live a life already arranged for him by his father and by the constraints of English society. By setting out to sea, Robinson prioritizes his sense of individuality over his family and society at large. Robinson gets exactly what he asks for (and more than he bargained for) when he finds himself stranded alone on his island. There, he lives entirely as an individual apart from society and is forced to struggle against nature to survive. He becomes self-sufficient and learns how to make and do things himself, discovering ingenuity he didn't know he had. Thus, one could say that being separated from society leads to Robinson becoming a better person. Robinson himself seems to come to this conclusion, as he realizes that his experience brings him closer to God and that living alone on the island allows for a life largely without sin: he makes, harvests, and hunts only what he needs, so there is nothing for him to be covetous of or greedy for. And while he is alone, he does not suffer from lust or pride. Robinson comes around to liking his individual existence on the island so much that, at times in the novel, it is unclear whether he even wants to be rescued and returned to society. And when he finally does return to England, he notes how much worry and stress issues of money and property caused him. Nonetheless, there are some problems with Robinson's valuing of individuality over society. For one, while Robinson values his own personal liberty, he doesn't respect that of others. He hates being a slave, but is quick to sell Xury into the service of the Portuguese captain. Similarly, he treats Friday as his inferior servant. This maltreatment of others can be related as well to Robinson's narcissistic style of narration. His narrative is always about himself, to the degree that he hardly even gives the names of other characters. We never learn the name of his wife, for example, whose death Robinson describes quickly and unemotionally at the end of the novel before hastening to tell us more of his own adventures. And finally, Robinson's intense individualism is inseparable from his painful isolation. He feels lonely in Brazil, and then is literally isolated (the word comes from the Latin word for island, insula), when he is stranded on his island all alone. His only companions are his animals and, while he learns to enjoy life on the island, he still feels a deep desire for the human companionship that he lacks. Thus, the novel values individuality, but also shows the dangers of narcissism and isolation that may come with it.While Defoe presents individuality as important, Robinson does decide to leave his island in the end. And, as we learn when he returns, he turns his haven of individualism into a society—a thriving colony with a substantial population. Society may curb an individual's independence, but it also provides valuable companionship. While Robinson rejects the claims of society in favor of individuality in the beginning of the novel, he ultimately comes around to trying to balance the two. - Theme: Advice, Mistakes, and Hindsight. Description: Robinson Crusoe is constantly disregarding prudent advice. He begins the novel by discounting his parents' advice not to go to sea, disregards the shipmaster's advice to go home after the storm on the way to London, and goes against his own better judgment in trying to voyage from Brazil to Africa. Even at the end of the novel, he disregards the widow's advice in setting out on yet another sea voyage. Each time, Robinson later realizes that he should have listened to the advice he ignored—most especially that of his parents, who were right about the dangers of a seafaring life. Robinson's double-position as both protagonist and narrator of his story means that he is often in this position of looking back on his life. With this hindsight, Robinson's retrospective narration often foreshadows the misfortunes that will befall him. However, this hindsight is only gained by making mistakes and learning from them. As Robinson's experiences on his island exemplify, knowledge in the novel is gained through experience: Robinson learns how to tame goats, cure grapes, build walls, and do all sorts of other things by trying to do these things and learning along the way (rather than following someone else's instructions). Similarly, throughout the entire novel Robinson must learn from his own experiences rather than relying on other characters' warnings. Somewhat paradoxically, Robinson must discount good advice in order to learn from his experiences and realize his mistakes; only then is he in a position to see how good such advice was. With the benefit of hindsight, Robinson often draws lessons from his own experiences for the reader and gives the reader advice—about obeying God or trusting in providence, for example. This may be precisely what the anonymous editor who introduces the novel in the preface has in mind, when he says that Robinson's story is more than just entertaining; it's educational. But, it is unclear whether we readers should really follow Robinson's advice to the letter or whether, much like Robinson himself might do, we must make our own mistakes. - Theme: Contentment vs. Desire and Ambition. Description: Robinson leaves home at the beginning of the novel because he is not content with a comfortable, middle-class existence. In England, his father can provide for him and help him establish a life. He tells Robinson that their middle station in life is the most comfortable: it is free from the anxieties of power or privilege and from the suffering of poverty. But Robinson cannot stay content with mere comfort. He has ambition and desire for a greater, more interesting life, which leads him to the sea. In fact, this rejection of comfort is a repeated pattern. The entire plot of the novel can be seen as an alternation between Robinson's contentment with what he has and his desire for something more. Not content at home, he goes to sea. Then, while happy in Brazil, he becomes overly ambitious and voyages to get slaves from Africa. Just when he is finally learning to enjoy life on his island by himself, he rescues Friday. He leads a rather comfortable life with Friday on the island, but then desires to escape. And, finally, when Robinson is at last re-established in England, he is once more not content to stay still, and joins another voyage.While on the island, Robinson himself recognizes his inability to remain content with what he has and calls the inability to be pleased with one's station in life "the general plague of mankind." Looking past on his story as he tells it as narrator, Robinson often laments his overly ambitious desires and wishes that he would have simply stayed content and comfortable either at home in England or on his wealthy Brazil plantation. One can thus read Robinson Crusoe as showing the consequences of unrestrained ambition or desire. But, at the same time, Robinson's ambitions caused him to have a marvelous, adventure-filled life—one worth writing a novel about. Contentment might have led to a safer, quieter life in England, but would it have led to a better one? - Theme: Strangers, Savages, and the Unknown. Description: Throughout his wandering journeys, Robinson continually encounters the unknown in a variety of forms. He visits unknown lands, sees strange plants and animals, and encounters foreign peoples. His first response to such experiences with various "others" is usually fear. He is especially frightened by the strange beasts he sees in Africa and on his island, as well as by the African natives he sees and the Caribbean "savages," who come to his island. Stemming in part from this fear, Robinson continually shows a prejudice against non-European peoples, whom he automatically refers to as "savages." Over time, Robinson at least becomes fond of Friday, but his relationship with Friday is still unequal. Friday acts as his servant, and Robinson is constantly condescending toward him. Although at times Robinson respects the cultural difference between him and the Caribbean people he sees (as when he decides not to involve himself in their cannibal rituals), he does not hesitate to teach Friday Christianity, not considering what beliefs of his own Friday might have. Moreover, Robinson does not allow Friday to try to translate or share his own name but instead decides on his name. It is telling that one of the first words Robinson teaches Friday is "master": despite any friendship between Friday and Robinson, their relationship is, at its core, one between a master and his servant. Beyond Friday, Robinson also has no qualms participating in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, as he leaves Brazil to gather slaves from Africa. While he is not as cruel as the Spanish colonists whom he criticizes for murdering natives, Robinson repeatedly establishes an unequal hierarchy between Europeans and natives of other lands. Such an attitude can even be seen in how Robinson approaches foreign lands: he buys land for a plantation in Brazil, regardless of any indigenous peoples, and claims ownership over "his" island. Robinson sees wild nature as something to be owned or tamed, much as he sees indigenous or foreign people as inferiors to be used or employed.Nonetheless, while Robinson Crusoe cannot be taken out of its colonialist context (it is, after all, set in the 17th century), it is possible to find a reading of Defoe's text more amenable to the colonized, enslaved, and oppressed people it depicts. Most of the time, Robinson's fears about the unknown are later revealed to be unfounded. The natives he sees while sailing along the coast of Africa and fears turn out to be generous, kind, and helpful. The island whose wilderness he fears supplies him with goats, grapes, turtles, and other things he needs to survive. And Friday, supposedly a "savage," is a loyal friend and companion. Indeed, the English mutineers who land on Robinson's island are just as dangerous to him as any cannibal (if not more dangerous). Thus, while there are real differences between Robinson and those he encounters during his journeys, one can read the novel as showing that prejudices against an "other" are often the result of irrational, false fears. - Climax: Robinson rescues the English captain, helps him recapture his ship, and finally leaves his island. - Summary: An anonymous editor introduces the account of a man's incredible adventures, which he says is true, entertaining, and useful for the reader. The story begins with Robinson Crusoe describing his early life in York, England. Robinson eagerly wanted to venture out to sea, although both his parents urged him not to and tried to persuade him to stay home and lead a comfortable life. Despite his parents' warnings, Robinson left home and joined a ship to London without telling his parents. On the way to London, the ship encountered a horrible storm and sank. Fortunately, Robinson and the other crewmembers were rescued by another boat. Once on shore, the shipmaster told Robinson to go back home, but he felt compelled to continue his journey and so went to London by land. There, he joined a ship bound for the coast of Africa. Robinson says that this was his only successful voyage: he returned to London safely with a small fortune from trading. The captain of this vessel died, but Robinson joined the ship to go on the same voyage again with a new captain, leaving his money in the care of the old captain's widow. On this trip, Robinson's ship was taken by pirates and he was taken as a slave to the Moorish port of Sallee. After two years, he finally was able to escape when he went out in a fishing boat with a Moor named Ismael and a young boy named Xury. Out at sea, Robinson pushed Ismael overboard and sailed away with Xury. The two of them went south along the coast of Africa, hoping to encounter a European trading vessel. Along the way, they meet some African natives on the shore, who give them food and water. At last, Robinson and Xury are found by a Portuguese ship, whose captain offers to take Robinson to Brazil for free. The generous captain bought Robinson's small boat from him and brought him safely to Brazil, where he ended up buying some land and starting a sugar plantation. Robinson sold Xury into the service of the captain. As his plantation began to do well, Robinson became overly ambitious and joined some other plantation owners on a voyage to Africa to bring back slaves. The ship encountered a hurricane and the captain wanted to turn back, but Robinson encouraged him to continue the voyage. After this, the ship encountered another strong storm and was wrecked. Robinson tried to escape on a small boat, but was thrown into the sea and washed up onto the shore of an unknown island, the sole survivor of the shipwreck. The next day, Robinson saw that the wrecked ship was fortunately stranded not far from shore. He was able to swim over to it, climb aboard, and salvage food, drink, and supplies. He built a makeshift raft and brought these things back to shore. After a number of trips to the ship, a storm came and blew away the remains of the ship. Robinson set up a tent on a plateau near a rock cliff and built a fence around it. He continually expanded and improved this dwelling, and built a large wooden cross to mark days on in order to keep track of time. As he got better at making and using tools, Robinson continued to improve his dwelling, surrounding it with a huge turf wall. He began keeping a journal and listed all of the good and bad things about his life on the island. One day, Robinson dumped out some husks of grain and was surprised when, soon after, stalks of rice and barley started to grow from them. He believed this to be a miracle from God, though Robinson's cave dwelling was also severely damaged one day when an earthquake struck the island. Soon after this, Robinson became seriously ill. He had a fever-dream in which a man came down from the sky and told him, "Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die." Robinson suddenly realized how unreligious he had been. He prayed to God and started to read the Bible, some copies of which he had saved from his ship. Robinson recovered from his illness with a newfound sense of the importance of Christianity. Thinking that he was stuck on the island for good, he explored around the island more, discovering a forested area with various fruit trees, where he built a smaller dwelling in addition to his main one. On the one-year anniversary of his arrival on the island, Robinson fasted and prayed to God. He later sowed some barley and rice and gathered grapes in the forest, which he dried into raisins. One day, Robinson walked to the opposite side of the island and could see land far off in the distance, across the sea. After much hard work, Robinson figured out how to harvest his grains and make bread and also taught himself to make pottery. With these improvements, Robinson's life on the island became more comfortable. He began to appreciate that his life on the island was free from the wickedness of society, as he had no cause for lust, pride, greed, or covetousness in his new life. He even thought that this new life was better than life in society, and thanked God for how his life had turned out. Robinson built a canoe in order to sail around the perimeter of his island. However, he was almost pushed dangerously far out to sea by a strong current. After returning to shore, he decided not to venture out onto the water again. In order not to have to waste ammunition on hunting goats, Robinson captured some goats and tamed them, building a fenced-in pen for them. Robinson was shocked and terrified one day when he saw a man's footprint in the sand on his island's shore. He immediately ran and hid in his home, which he called his castle, thinking the footprint must have been from a savage. However, Robinson didn't see anyone else on the island, so he ventured outside his home again and resumed his usual life, expanding his home's fortifications. While searching for a place to build a new goat-pen, Robinson saw piles of human remains scattered on the shore around a fire pit, the remnants of a cannibalistic gathering. Disgusted, Robinson thought he should ambush the cannibals when they came to the island next and rescue their victims. But then he questioned whether he should let them live their own lives according to their own cultural norms, concluding that he had no right to kill savages who had done nothing to him. Hoping not to run into any savages, Robinson began to lead a much more cautious, careful life around the island. By his twenty-third year on the island, Robinson felt content to live out the rest of his life on his island. Not long after, there was a great storm and Robinson heard gunshots from a ship in distress. The next day, he saw a ship wrecked on some rocks not far offshore. He hoped one or two sailors had made it safely to his island, but none had. He took his boat out to the ship and went aboard, where he found some supplies, as well as two drowned sailors. This episode made Robinson think more and more about trying to escape from his island. One night, he dreamed that a captive of some cannibal savages escaped and took refuge with him, becoming his servant. Robinson was excited to have someone possibly able to guide him to land, only to wake up and realize he had only been dreaming. But about a year and a half later, Robinson saw a gathering of cannibals, one of whose prisoners escaped and ran toward Robinson's home. Robinson killed the cannibals chasing after the prisoner, thus rescuing him. The prisoner was so grateful that he vowed to serve Robinson for life. Robinson named him Friday and began to teach him English and explain Christianity to him. Robinson learned from Friday that Friday's native land was reachable from the island by boat and that beyond it was a land inhabited by Spaniards. Friday informed Robinson that a boat of Europeans had arrived in his native land and some of them now dwelled among his people. Robinson guessed that these were survivors from the ship that had been wrecked near his island. Robinson suggested that he and Friday make a boat so that Friday could go back to his land, but Friday refused to go without Robinson. Robinson at last agreed to go with Friday, but these plans were put on hold when a band of cannibals arrived on the island. Robinson saw that they had a European prisoner, and so he and Friday ambushed them, killing the savages and rescuing the prisoner. In one of the savages' boats, they discovered another prisoner, who turned out to be Friday's father. The other prisoner, who was Spanish, told Robinson about how his ship had been wrecked in a storm and he and some other sailors were stranded in Friday's native land. After some time expanding his crops, Robinson sent Friday's father and the Spanish prisoner on a boat back to get the rest of the Spanish sailors, so that they could escape with Robinson on a ship. But before they returned, an English ship came to the island, and some of its sailors came ashore with three prisoners. Robinson rescued the prisoners, one of whom was the captain of the English ship. The captain told Robinson that he had been the victim of a mutiny and the mutineers planned to leave him on this island to die. Robinson, the captain, and the other rescued prisoners killed two of the mutineers and forced the others to pledge allegiance to the captain again. Later, more of the mutineers came ashore and Robinson and his comrades captured them and demanded their surrender. The captain and his men then went back to the ship and recaptured it on behalf of Robinson. Leaving some mutineers behind on the island, Robinson at last left his island on the English ship. After a long voyage, he finally returned to England (with Friday) after having been away for 35 years. Robinson felt like a stranger back in society. Both his parents were deceased now and his only family members left were two sisters and two nephews. Robinson traveled to Lisbon to find news of his plantation in Brazil. In Lisbon, the old Portuguese captain who had rescued him told him that his plantation was doing well and helped him send word to Brazil to have his fortune sent back to England (although Robinson originally wanted to voyage to Brazil himself). Robinson received shipments of money, sugar, gold, and tobacco and now found himself immensely wealthy. Robinson was happy to have this fortune, but also felt that he now had more "care upon my head" than when he was on his island. He decided to journey back to England, but didn't want to go by sea and so joined a group of people on a land-journey to Paris (from where he would take a short boat trip to England). Before leaving, he arranged for a large amount of his money to be given to the loyal widow of the Portuguese captain who had looked after his money in England during his absence. Robinson's group of travelers found a guide to take them across the Pyrenees (the mountains between Spain and France), but the guide ended up taking them along a perilous route where there were many wolves. The group was surrounded by hundreds of wolves and barely escaped, fending the wild creatures off with their guns. Robinson safely got to France and had an uneventful journey from there to England. Once back in England, he settled down, taking care of his two nephews, one of who became a sailor. Robinson had a desire to go back to sea, but stayed in England and got married. After his wife died, though, he joined his nephew on a trading ship to the East Indies. On this voyage, Robinson revisited his island, where the Spaniards had established a colony and fended off various attacks from Caribbean natives, and then went to Brazil. He tells the reader that he will tell all the details of these adventures more fully in a future account.

- Genre: Historical Fiction - Title: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - Point of view: First person, Cassie's point of view - Setting: Rural Mississippi during the Depression (early 1930s) - Character: Cassie Logan. Description: Cassie, who attends fourth grade at a black school in the South, narrates the story in first person. Through her eyes, the reader sees the injustices of racism firsthand. Cassie has a short temper and has trouble keeping her thoughts to herself, which sometimes gets her and her family into trouble. - Character: Stacey Logan. Description: Stacey is Cassie's older brother. He attends seventh grade, which puts him in the same class his mother teaches. Because his father is often away for work, Stacey feels that he must be the man of the house, which makes him resent Mr. Morrison's presence at first. By the end of the book, Stacey grows to have a better understanding of many of the harsh realities that come from racism. - Character: Mama. Description: Mama, whose name is Mary Logan, is a schoolteacher who believes that the status quo of racism shouldn't be accepted, so she teaches her students radical material about slavery—material that isn't included in the textbooks. She also works to support the boycott of the Wallaces store, balancing supporting the black community against exploitation and oppression while also being careful to protect her family. - Character: Papa. Description: Papa, whose name is David Logan, is usually away, working on the railroad to support his family and their land so that they can maintain their independence. He has a quiet yet authoritative presence. He is a driving force behind the boycott of the Wallaces store, which forces him to face considerable danger. - Character: L.T. Morrison. Description: Papa brings Mr. Morrison to live with the Logans while he's working on the railroad. Mr. Morrison offers protection because of his huge stature—he's tall and strong, but quiet and shy with the family, though he comes to regard them as his surrogate household. Mr. Morrison's mother was killed by "night men" when they decided to burn down his house. - Character: Uncle Hammer. Description: Papa's brother, Hammer Logan, works in Chicago and earns a very decent living with his job. He's able to afford a luxury car and dresses well. He has a short temper and reacts angrily to the injustices he sees when he visits his family in Mississippi, though his recklessness almost puts the family in danger. - Character: T.J. Avery. Description: T.J. is Stacey's friend, though none of the other Logan children like him very much. His family sharecrops on Granger land. T.J. causes trouble throughout the book, causing Mama to get fired from her teaching job. At the end of the novel, T.J nearly gets lynched for a crime he did not commit, but Papa at least temporarily saves him by sacrificing his own land. - Character: The Wallaces. Description: There are three Wallace brothers: Kaleb, Thurston, and Dewberry. They are violent, racist white people who own a local general store. Early on in the book, Papa warns his children to avoid the store and even organizes an informal boycott in the community. While not the only antagonists in the novel, they are the most straightforward and active. They are responsible for getting Mama fired from her teaching job, and threaten to kill Mr. Morrison after his brothers are injured in a fight with Papa and Mr. Morrison. - Character: Charlie Simms. Description: Charlie Simms is the father of the Simms children, and he's described as "a mean-looking man." He pushes Cassie off the sidewalk because she accidentally bumps into his white daughter. Though his family has a similar economic situation as the Logans, he believes he and his family are superior because they are white. - Theme: Racism. Description: From the blatant racism throughout the novel, it's clear that the Logans are confronting the challenges of living in a society dominated by whites. At school, for example, the black children only have books that have been deemed unfit for use by white children. At home, the family is constantly defending their land from the former white owners' attempts to take it back form them. Although the Logans are victims of racial injustice, they also fight against it, setting up a boycott of the Wallace store. Mama and Papa's struggle to teach their children to resist injustice demonstrates that there is hope for change in the future. - Theme: Land as Independence. Description: In a culture where the memory of slavery is still strong, land is a symbol of independence and autonomy. Big Mama, Mama, and Papa repeat the same refrain throughout the book: "We won't lose the land." The land represents the Logans' independence from the power structure around them, since by working their own plot of land the Logans are free, in both the sense that they have no master, can earn based on their own work, and can shop where they like. However, the Logans must still exercise their freedom carefully, since the society at large is still grossly unequal and biased against them.For the Logans, the land is also intrinsically linked to family. Cassie says that it doesn't matter whose name the deed is in because it will always be "Logan land." Her despair at the novel's end comes from realizing that her family's ownership of the land is in danger—as is the independence and power it represents. - Theme: Family and Community. Description: The black community forms a group that allows black individuals to prop each other up in order to face the racism and injustice of the South. They form this community through storytelling and going to Church, and by organizing in specific instances to stand up for the community—like in the instance of Papa's boycott, for example.For Cassie, there is nothing more important than family. For example, Cassie is shocked when Jeremy says that he doesn't like his older brothers because she believes that family takes precedence over everything else. The characters who don't stick by their families—like T.J.—get into trouble and ultimately drag others down with them, while characters who think first of others—like Papa—strengthen the community around them. On the other hand, friendships are shown to be potentially dangerous things in the novel. The relationships between Stacey and Jeremy and Stacey and T.J., for example, work out badly (for different reasons), and Cassie doesn't have any close ties to anyone outside of her family. Only family is there every time, all the time. - Theme: Injustice and Dignity. Description: Because they live in a wildly unjust society that's biased against black people, the Logans must create their own forms of justice while maintaining their self-respect, dignity, and protecting their own safety. This can be an extremely difficult balancing act, even when the slights are smaller ones, like being ignored in the grocery store—which causes Cassie to yell at the store manager and get her family kicked out—or larger injustices, like being tossed around and forced to apologize for accidentally bumping into someone. Cassie has to learn to hold her tongue even when her pride tells her to speak up because it's the only way for her to maintain some dignity in situations where she has no real power. - Theme: Storytelling and Language. Description: In the author's note to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred Taylor writes that her father was a master storyteller. She says that from his storytelling, she "learned to respect the past, to respect my own heritage and myself." Storytelling plays a similar role for Cassie in the book. During Christmas, for example, several of the adults in the black community tell stories about their families. The stories are a way for Cassie to learn about her past and what she can be proud of—but some of them also reveal societal injustices that get Cassie thinking about all the ways that life isn't fair, especially for black people.Storytelling is especially important for the black community because it isn't their history that's taught in schools. Instead, teachers are forced to teach extremely biased versions of the past. When there aren't written words to back up their past, they have to resort to oral history. Language is often used as a weapon in the book. Characters use name-calling and derogatory language to put others down. Cassie also learns to hold her tongue during the course of the book, since her outbursts at the beginning only get the family into trouble. She learns that dignified silence, too, can be powerful. - Climax: R.W. and Melvin Simms trick T.J. into robbing Barnett Mercantile with them. - Summary: It is 1933 in a town in Mississippi. When the Logan children return to school after the summer, they hear from their oldest brother Stacey's friend, T.J., that some white men burned three black men for allegedly flirting with a white woman. This sets the tone for the book, as the children continue to deal with racial violence and injustice throughout the year. After Papa hears about the burning, he returns unexpectedly from the railroad with a very large black man named Mr. Morrison, who stays with the Logans as an extra security measure while Papa's away working. Papa also warns the children to stay away from the Wallace store, since the Wallaces are the ones responsible for the burning. Meanwhile, Papa and Mama organize a boycott of the Wallace store among the black community. The problem is that many of the sharecropping families don't have cash and can only buy groceries from the Wallace store because their landowners have credit there. Thankfully, a kind white lawyer, Mr. Jamison, agrees to provide credit for the families who have decided to have Papa shop for them in Vicksburg rather than patronize the Wallaces' store. Mr. Granger, a local landowner who keeps a number of black families working his land as sharecroppers and who wants to get back 400 acres of land his ancestors sold to the Logans, threatens to make the Logans lose their land if they don't stop the boycott. Papa ignores the threat. Stacey stops being friends with T.J. after T.J. gets Mama fired from her teaching job by telling the Wallaces that she teaches material that isn't in the textbook. T.J. starts spending time with R.W. and Melvin Simms, older white boys, instead. Several black families are forced to stop shopping in Vicksburg when Mr. Granger threatens to have the boycotters placed into chain gangs. On the way back from a trip to Vicksburg, the Wallaces attack Papa, Mr. Morrison, and Stacey. Papa's leg is badly injured. Mr. Morrison fights off the Wallaces, hurting two of them badly. With his new injury, Papa can't go back to work on the railroad, and then the bank demands that they pay the mortgage on their land immediately. Uncle Hammer, Papa's brother who now lives in the north, manages to come up with the money to pay for it by selling his fancy car. He brings the money on the first day of the revival, an annual gathering of the black community. T.J. shows up at the revival as well, with R.W. and Melvin, who claim that they will help T.J. get the pearl-handled pistol he admires at the Barnett store in Strawberry. Stacey and the others continue to ignore T.J. and head into the church for service. That night, Cassie hears T.J. tapping on the porch door in the middle of the night, and when she lets him in, he tells her and her brothers that he broke into the Barnett Mercantile with R.W. and Melvin to steal the gun. When Mr. Barnett came down to investigate the noises, R.W hit him with the flat side of an axe. Mr. Barnett's wife thought all three of the boys were black. Afterwards, T.J. threatened to tell the police, so the Simms boys beat him up and left him in the back of their truck. T.J. asks Stacey to help him get home, and all four Logan children help him return to the Avery house. As soon as T.J. gets in, however, several white men appear and drag the Avery household outside, beating T.J. some more. They want to hang him immediately, and one of the Wallaces suggests that they hang Mr. Morrison and Papa too. Mr. Jamison tries to stop them, but he's unable to. Cassie and her younger brothers run home to tell Papa, while Stacey stays to see where the white men take T.J. Papa listens to the story, and Mama begs him not to use his gun, since she's afraid he'll get killed too. Papa sees lightning flash and gets the idea to set the land on fire. The fire stops the hanging, as all of the men join together to stop the flames from spreading. T.J., however, remains in jail, and possibly awaits a death sentence for killing Mr. Barnett. Cassie lies in bed and cries for T.J. and for the land.

- Genre: Short Story, Realistic Fiction - Title: Roman Fever - Point of view: Third person limited, restricted mostly to Mrs. Slade's perspective. - Setting: A terrace in Rome, Italy - Character: Alida Slade. Description: A confident and charming middle-aged socialite. While visiting Rome in the company of her daughter, Jenny, she encounters her old friend, Grace Ansley, who is traveling with her daughter, Barbara. Mrs. Slade's charming personality and social intelligence made her a good match for Delphin, her now-deceased celebrity husband, but her confidence in social situations proves to be out of proportion with her actual power to captivate and control others. Mrs. Ansley captures this tension when she aptly describes Mrs. Slade as being "awfully brilliant; but not as brilliant as she thinks." Mrs. Slade relishes drama and excitement, and wishes that her prudent daughter, Jenny, would "fall in love—with the wrong man, even" just so that she might have a scandal to occupy her time. Although she thinks of her husband only fleetingly, there is a sense that her craving for excitement and stimulation is a way of distracting herself from the pain of widowhood, and from the devastating loss of her son, who "died suddenly in boyhood." In her interactions with Mrs. Ansley, Mrs. Slade displays tangled and often contradictory feelings of jealousy, superiority, and affection. She clings to a limited view of her old friend as being dull and emotionally shallow, incapable of feeling or thinking as intensely as Mrs. Slade does herself. However, during the course of their conversation, Mrs. Ansley destabilizes Mrs. Slade's sense of superiority, first with subtle insinuations that Mrs. Slade's charmed life may not be all that it seems, and then with a string of revelations about events that have defined her life in ways she hadn't realized. - Character: Grace Ansley. Description: A middle-aged socialite, Mrs. Ansley is the widow of Horace Ansley and lifelong friend of Alida Slade. Mrs. Ansley appears at first to be Mrs. Slade's opposite: reserved and self-effacing where Mrs. Slade is confident and entitled, mild where Mrs. Slade is bold, and rational where Mrs. Slade is sentimental. However, during the course of the afternoon, Mrs. Ansley reveals herself to be a more complex and morally ambiguous character than Mrs. Slade has been willing to believe during the course of their friendship. When Mrs. Slade reveals that she—not her husband, Delphin—had been the true author of a love letter Mrs. Ansley received during a trip to Rome decades earlier, Mrs. Ansley's unexpectedly emotional reaction reveals her deep and authentic attachment to Delphin. When Mrs. Ansley finally discloses that her affair with Delphin had produced a child—her daughter, Barbara—it becomes clear that Mrs. Slade has dramatically underestimated Mrs. Ansley throughout their friendship. Throughout much of their conversation on the restaurant terrace, Mrs. Ansley works on her knitting. This activity, which Mrs. Slade initially interprets as evidence of Mrs. Ansley's lack of emotional and intellectual depth, becomes symbolic of the ways in which her placid and innocent demeanor masks her passionate, secretive, and complex inner life. - Character: Delphin Slade. Description: Mrs. Slade's late husband and Jenny Slade's father, who during his life was a corporation lawyer and, according to Mrs. Slade, a celebrity in New York society. During their marriage, Mrs. Slade acted as a powerful complement to her husband, playing host to his colleagues and accompanying him to social events that were intertwined with his professional success. This fast-paced, high-stakes social life was a source of pride and pleasure for Mrs. Slade, who feels that widowhood is dull in comparison to her married life. Mrs. Slade had been engaged to Delphin when she and Mrs. Ansley visited Rome as young women, and had felt extremely protective of her relationship with him. At the end of her conversation with Mrs. Slade, Mrs. Ansley reveals that she and Delphin had an illicit encounter at the Colosseum during their long-ago visit to Rome, which produced her daughter, Barbara. - Character: Barbara Ansley. Description: The daughter of Mrs. Ansley, also called "Babs." Her effervescent personality and slightly irreverent behavior inspire envy in Mrs. Slade, who sees herself as being similarly socially gifted and wishes that her own daughter, Jenny, would display some of Barbara's more interesting qualities. Mrs. Slade expresses at multiple points in the story that she does not understand how two such uninteresting people as Mrs. Ansley and her husband, Horace, could have produced such a dynamic child. At the end of the story, Mrs. Ansley reveals that Barbara is really the daughter of Delphin Slade. - Character: Jenny Slade. Description: Mrs. Slade's daughter and only surviving child. She is prudent, respectful of her mother, and beautiful. However, she lacks the "brilliant" qualities—the sparkling personality—that Mrs. Slade had hoped for in a daughter. Mrs. Slade sees Jenny as being "perfect" and an "angel," but often wishes she were more like the less beautiful but more vivacious Barbara Ansley. - Character: Horace Ansley. Description: Mrs. Ansley's late husband, whom she married just two months after her encounter with Delphin Slade at the Colosseum. After Mrs. Ansley reveals that Delphin is the true father of Barbara, her daughter, it becomes clear why she had married Horace in such a rush: she had been pregnant with another man's child. Though they belonged to the same social circles, Mrs. Slade thinks of Horace Ansley as a "nullity," a person of little importance or worth. - Character: Great-Aunt Harriet. Description: The "wicked" great-aunt of Mrs. Ansley who, according to family lore, sent her sister out on a nighttime errand during an outbreak of Roman Fever. Harriet had hoped her sister would sicken and die, and in fact she did. By arranging her sister's death, she eliminated competition for the affections of the man they both loved. Decades later, the story of Harriet's scheme to get rid of her sister serves as the inspiration for Mrs. Slade's scheme to get Mrs. Ansley "out of the way" of her engagement to Delphin by luring her to the Colosseum late at night. - Theme: Competition in Female Relationships. Description: Though Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley are lifelong friends, their relationship is constrained by mutual feelings of intense jealousy. They see one another as opponents, competing for power and stature—both within their friendship and in society more broadly. Mrs. Slade wishes her daughter, Jenny, were as vivacious as Mrs. Ansley's daughter, Barbara, and she reveals her insecurity through snide comments that disparage both Barbara and her parents. Reflecting on her past, she remembers jokes she made to other society women at Mrs. Ansley's expense. The conversation between the two women, which makes up most of the story, itself feels like a competition rather than an exchange between friends, as when Mrs. Slade describes Jenny as an "angel" and Mrs. Ansley responds curtly that Barbara is an "angel" as well. As in many relationships between women, the devastating effects of competition on these two women's relationship can be seen most clearly in their interactions they have about the men in their lives. As a young woman, Mrs. Slade perceives Mrs. Ansley's exceptional beauty as a threat to her relationship with her then-fiancé, Delphin, so she plans a cruel trick: she uses a forged letter to lure Mrs. Ansley to the Colosseum at night, with the hope that Mrs. Ansley will fall ill as a result. The friendship between Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade is not the only intimate relationship in "Roman Fever" that is damaged by jealousy over the attention of a man. The story of Mrs. Ansley's Great-Aunt Harriet—a woman so determined to win the man she loves that she orchestrates her own sister's death by sending her on a nighttime errand during an outbreak of Roman Fever—directly inspires Mrs. Slade's plot against Mrs. Ansley. In yet another instance of competition between women, while Mrs. Slade is sitting on the terrace she imagines that Barbara must be using the favorable contrast between herself and Jenny to charm an eligible Italian bachelor. Although there is no sense that Barbara will endanger Jenny as Mrs. Slade endangered Mrs. Ansley, the notion of young women manipulating one another to secure the love of a man recalls the more dramatic crimes of older generations. Each generation of women learns vicious and vindictive behavior from their mothers and grandmothers, who teach their daughters that winning and keeping the love of a man is more important than honoring moral principles. It is worth noting that, although Mrs. Slade's behavior was more obviously immoral than Mrs. Ansley's, both women are guilty of moral wrongdoing. Mrs. Ansley acted selfishly and dishonestly when she decided to meet Delphin at the Colosseum, betraying the trust of her friend. After discovering her pregnancy, Mrs. Ansley rushes into a marriage with Horace, and goes on to convince him that Barbara is his daughter. This lie becomes the foundation for the rest of her life. The real depth of Mrs. Ansley's cruelty emerges in the final moments of the story, when she reveals Barbara's true paternity to Mrs. Slade. Readers can imagine the pain and guilt that Mrs. Ansley might have felt at having to raise her lover's child with another man, and at having to keep such an important truth hidden for decades. However, the final lines of the story do not speak to any of the real sadness of the situation. Instead, she uses the truth as a weapon to wound her friend, to undermine Mrs. Slade's marriage to Delphin, and to gain the upper hand in their conversation. Though she seems to be the victim of Mrs. Slade's vindictive behavior, Mrs. Ansley is also guilty. - Theme: Knowledge and Denial. Description: On the surface, it seems as though Mrs. Ansley's revelation at the end of the afternoon—that she had an affair with Delphin and became pregnant with Barbara as a result—upends everything Mrs. Slade believes about her marriage, her friendship with Mrs. Ansley, and herself. However, closer investigation suggests that hearing Mrs. Ansley's version of events does not change Mrs. Slade's fundamental understanding of her friend as a threat; rather, it strips away a fiction to which Mrs. Slade has clung for years, and confirms the troubling truths she has suspected—and suppressed—since her youth. Although she disparages Mrs. Ansley in her thoughts throughout the afternoon, Mrs. Slade admits that she has always been aware of and threatened by her friend's subtle power. In a sudden moment of truthfulness, she tells Mrs. Ansley: "I was afraid; afraid of you, your quiet ways, your sweetness … your … well, I wanted you out of the way, that's all." Despite this understanding, Mrs. Slade's powers of self-deception are powerful. She does not recognize—at least, not until Mrs. Ansley tells her explicitly—the depth and authenticity of Mrs. Ansley's feelings for Delphin, or the ways in which their attraction to one another shaped her life. The tension between knowledge and denial extends beyond Mrs. Slade's understanding of her marriage and her friendship with Mrs. Ansley. Mrs. Slade admits she has a taste for drama. She misses the fast-paced life she shared with Delphin and seems unduly frustrated at the absence of scandal and adventure in the life of her daughter, Jenny, as if desiring a distraction from the sorrows and struggles of her life as a widow. Her desire for Jenny to "fall in love—with the wrong man, even" seems inextricably intertwined with the sadness and uneventfulness of her widowhood. She longs to live vicariously through her daughter so that she can avoid confronting her own loneliness and sorrow after having lost a partner. In addition to the difficult but expected death of her husband, however, is a profound tragedy that Mrs. Slade acknowledges only briefly: she refers, in her thoughts, to the "agony" of losing her son, who "died suddenly in boyhood" a number of years before the beginning of the story. Mrs. Slade observes how the grief she feels at losing her husband amplifies the grief she feels when she returns to the memory of her son: "after the father's death, the thought of the boy had become unbearable." In large and small ways, Mrs. Slade's thoughts and behavior suggest that she is desperate to avoid confronting the painful realities of her life. - Theme: Nostalgia. Description: Even before their conversation turns to the romantic dramas of their youth, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade are each concerned with the past. The symbols of ancient Rome that provide the backdrop for their afternoon—the Forum, the Colosseum, and the Palatine Hill—evoke an atmosphere of faded splendor, and Mrs. Slade's rapturous comments about the view reveal her longing to exchange her difficult present for a simpler and more satisfying past. Mrs. Slade's longing for the past is, at least in part, a reflection of the anxieties that accompany the major life transition in which she has found herself. Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade are both recent widows. Mrs. Slade notes how the deaths of their husbands during the same short period of time cause the two women to resume their friendship after a long stagnation. Although she does not talk about the loss of her husband, and limits even her private thoughts to glib remarks about the "dullish business" of widowhood, it is clear that widowhood is difficult for Mrs. Slade. The fact that her grown daughter, Jenny, is approaching a point where she will marry and begin a family of her own adds to her feelings of loneliness and frustration. Mrs. Ansley, by contrast—who speaks relatively little and whose inner thoughts are mostly inaccessible to the reader—seems content on the surface. However, she reveals her frustration and sadness in subtle ways. She makes a remark that it is the "collective modern idea of Mothers," rather than anything specific about herself and Mrs. Slade, that leads Barbara to joke about the two older women knitting while she and Jenny escape on a romantic adventure. Mrs. Ansley's remark reveals her own sense that she is becoming obsolete. Despite her rueful comments about her own irrelevance, Mrs. Ansley's attitude toward the past presents a marked contrast to that of Mrs. Slade. Unlike her friend, Mrs. Ansley seems comfortable with her memories, and is not attached to an overly romantic view of the past. She does not appear sentimental about her memories of Rome—as Mrs. Slade observes, she is able to knit calmly even while gazing at the beautiful view of the city—but she still acknowledges the power of those memories when she agrees that it is "the most beautiful view in the world" and "always will be." Her more measured response seems to suggest that she is at peace, content with her decisions and not burdened by the same feelings of hatred and jealousy that Mrs. Slade has harbored for decades. This may be because Mrs. Ansley never had the luxury of denying her past: her daughter, Barbara, presented a daily reminder of her affair with Delphin and its impact on her life. Therefore, she arguably has a fuller and more mature understanding of her life than Mrs. Slade, and so is not attached to a nostalgic ideal. - Theme: The Artifice of High Society Life. Description: Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade belong to the upper echelons of society. Both women are beneficiaries of exceptional wealth and privilege, with Mrs. Slade even describing her husband as a "celebrity." Although jealousy and betrayal are hardly exclusive to the upper class, the petty and indirect ways in which the two women manifest their barely-repressed resentment of one another reveal a culture that not only permits but encourages artificiality and duplicity. Mrs. Slade, for instance, recalls making gossipy jokes about the police raiding the Ansleys' home, and the obligatory "exchange of wreaths and condolences" that followed the deaths of their husbands. She also recalls being "blind with rage" when she forged the letter from Delphin, and concedes that Mrs. Ansley may be right when she points out that Mrs. Slade has "always gone on hating [her]" since they were young women. However, the two women have maintained polite social connections for decades despite these roiling tensions; their conversation on the roof seems to be the only direct confrontation they have ever had. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley pass the afternoon on the terrace of an upscale restaurant, where Mrs. Ansley's knitting offers her a veneer of civility and innocence as Mrs. Slade repeatedly makes thinly-veiled attacks. The beautiful sights that surround them mirror the careful facades of respectability that these two members of the upper class must maintain in their dealings with one another. As the afternoon fades into evening, a team of waiters begins preparing the tables for dinner: exchanging faded flowers for fresh ones, straightening chairs, and rushing to deal with a disheveled tourist who becomes a momentary blight on the elegant scene when she arrives in search of a lost elastic band. The scene on the terrace becomes a figure for the lives of upper-class people more generally, who strain tremendously to avoid conflict and maintain an appearance of easy elegance. As Wharton illustrates, this system is both toxic and unsustainable. As the two women reveal the dark truths that they have hidden and repressed throughout their relationship—about Mrs. Ansley's affair, Mrs. Slade's deceit, and also the jealousy, pity, and hatred they feel for each other—it becomes clear that their lives are built on unstable foundations. Lies are the heart of their most essential, identity-forming relationships—with their children, spouses, and friends. When Mrs. Slade allows a small amount of honesty into the relationship, she unwittingly forces all of the other painful truths to the surface, and in doing so undermines her entire sense of herself and her life. - Climax: Alida Slade reveals that she was the author of a love letter Grace Ansley received many years before the story begins. - Summary: Two middle-aged women, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, stand together on the terrace of an upscale restaurant in Rome, admiring a view of the city. From below, they overhear the voices of two younger women—their daughters, Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade—joking that they should "leave the young things to their knitting." The women laugh at their daughter's perception of them, but a moment later Mrs. Ansley sheepishly takes out her knitting,confirming the accuracy of her daughter's joke. Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade decide to spend the rest of the afternoon on the restaurant terrace, and they settle into two basket-chairs near the parapet. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley discuss the beauty of the view and speculate about their daughter's plans; they believe Barbara and Jenny have been invited to fly to Tarquinia for the evening, in the company of two young Italian aviators. Privately, Mrs. Slade reflects on the differences between Barbara, who has a dynamic and compelling personality, and Jenny, who is more prudent and reserved. She is surprised by the fact that Mrs. Ansley and her late husband, Horace—both of whom she considers dull—could produce such a "brilliant" daughter. Mrs. Slade thinks about her own late husband, Delphin, and the full, often glamorous life they shared before his death. She thinks of her son, who died in childhood, and wishes that her own "perfect" daughter were more charming and vivacious, like Barbara Ansley. All the while, Mrs. Ansley continues knitting beside Mrs. Slade, thinking that Mrs. Slade's life had been full of failures and mistakes. The two women sit in silence, thinking about their long friendship and their perceptions of one another. The afternoon wears on, and Mrs. Ansley suggests going to play cards at the Embassy. Mrs. Slade, lost in thought, determines that she will stay on the terrace, and Mrs. Ansley stays as well. Mrs. Slade talks, somewhat absentmindedly, about the many different meanings Rome has held for different generations of American women. For their grandmothers, the threat of Roman Fever made the city frightening after dark. By contrast, she and Mrs. Ansley, when they visited Rome together as young women, had no fear and even enjoyed the sense of danger that came with being out at night. Mrs. Ansley, apparently absorbed in her knitting, does not offer a satisfying response to these comments, and Mrs. Slade becomes frustrated. Mrs. Slade recalls a story Mrs. Ansley had told her during that previous visit to Rome, decades earlier: how her Great-Aunt Harrie, possessive of the man she loved and afraid that her sister would compete for his affection, had sent her sister on a nighttime errand during an outbreak of Roman Fever. Harriet's sister had caught the fever and died as a result. Prompted by this story, Mrs. Slade recalls how Mrs. Ansley herself had become very ill after going out late one night during their long-ago visit to Rome, supposedly to see the sights. Mrs. Ansley deflects Mrs. Slade's questions about her illness, but Mrs. Slade persists. Soon, Mrs. Slade reveals that she knows the real reason Mrs. Ansley went out late on the night she fell ill: she had received a love letter from Delphin, who at the time was engaged to Mrs. Slade, confessing his love for her and requesting that she meet him at the Colosseum. Mrs. Ansley is shocked when Mrs. Slade begins quoting the letter, and even more so when Mrs. Slade admits that it was she, not Delphin, who had written the letter. Mrs. Slade explains that she had felt threatened by Mrs. Ansley's beauty and sweetness, and was concerned when she realized that Mrs. Ansley was in love with Delphin. Mrs. Slade says she had wanted Mrs. Ansley to fall ill so that she would be "out of the way," and that she had hoped the disappointment of arriving at the Colosseum and not finding Delphin there would eliminate her feelings for him. Mrs. Slade, seeing how devastated Mrs. Ansley is made by the revelation that Delphin's letter was not authentic, cruelly goes on to tell her that she had laughed at the idea of Mrs. Ansley waiting outside the Colosseum for someone who would never come. However, Mrs. Ansley corrects Mrs. Slade after this comment. She tells her that she did not have to wait for Delphin because he had come to the Colosseum on the night proposed in the letter. Mrs. Ansley had written a response to the letter Mrs. Slade had sent, confirming that she would meet him. Mrs. Slade is stunned, and admits that she had never considered the possibility that Mrs. Ansley would answer the letter. By this time, darkness has fallen. Mrs. Ansley announces that the terrace is too cold for her, and stands to leave. As she gathers her things, she tells Mrs. Slade that she is sorry for her. Mrs. Slade protests, saying that she does not know why Mrs. Ansley should feel sorry for her. Although she had been "beaten" in her long ago plot to thwart competition from Mrs. Ansley, she had enjoyed twenty-five years of marriage with Delphin, while Mrs. Ansley had gotten nothing from Delphin except "that one letter that he didn't write." Mrs. Ansley, now walking toward the stairs to leave the terrace, turns back to Mrs. Slade and tells her: "I had Barbara."

- Genre: Short Story, Fiction, Southern Ontario Gothic - Title: Runaway - Point of view: Third Person Omniscient - Setting: Rural Canada - Character: Carla. Description: Carla is a young woman living with her husband Clark in their mobile home in Canada. She met Clark when she was 18, a few years before the beginning of the story, and decided to leave behind her family and their expectations (that Carla go to college and get a high-paying job) to live with Clark and work with horses. Though she did initially fall in love with Clark, he has a bad temper and is emotionally neglectful. Carla is unhappy with him but doesn't see a way out of the relationship—she is dependent on him financially and emotionally and does not have many ties to friends or family. Carla's saving grace is her pet goat Flora, so she finds Flora's disappearance highly distressing. She often goes to her neighbor Sylvia's house to help out with chores, which Carla hates, though she eventually develops an affinity for Sylvia after she helps Carla plan an escape from Clark. Carla is ultimately unable to follow through with leaving Clark and resigns herself to staying with him even after discovering that he may have killed Flora, though Carla harbors a deep resentment. - Character: Clark. Description: Clark is Carla's husband. The story leaves his background relatively murky, but it is clear that he is not well educated and has moved around a lot, doing various odd jobs for work. He lives with Carla in the mobile home and manages the business boarding horses and giving riding lessons, which is how he makes a living for himself and Carla. Clark strongly resents his family for reasons that are not revealed. He is brooding, moody, and has a hot temper, which causes problems for his and Carla's social lives. He is controlling of Carla and does not allow her much agency, and he neglects her emotionally. Clark seems perpetually annoyed by Carla, which drives her away, but he is also afraid that she will leave him. Clark is controlling and combative not just to Carla, but to everyone around him. When he realizes that Sylvia tried to help Carla escape, he shows up at Sylvia's house in the middle of the night and tries to intimidate and scare her, demanding that she stay out of his life. When Carla's goat Flora returns, Clark secretly does away with her (either killing her or taking her somewhere—it's left unclear), and the story implies that he may become violent with Carla if she tries to leave him. - Character: Sylvia Jamieson. Description: Sylvia is Clark and Carla's neighbor. Her husband Leon died recently, and Sylvia has just returned from a vacation to Greece with her friends. Leon was significantly older than Sylvia, but Sylvia is older than Clark and Carla. She is a professor of botany at a nearby university. Sylvia develops a fondness for Carla and enjoys having her over to help with housework. Sylvia appreciates Carla's youthful and positive energy, especially in contrast to Sylvia's similarly aged university students, who she finds annoying. Sylvia tries to help Carla when she learns of Clark's mistreatment, but Sylvia doesn't understand the depth or severity of Carla's entrapment in the abusive relationship. Sylvia's own marriage was healthy, and she thinks of her husband fondly in the aftermath of his death. Sylvia fears Clark when he shows up to her house in the middle of the night but softens toward him after Flora appears. At the end of the story, Sylvia writes a letter to Carla which unintentionally breaks the news that Flora returned. Sylvia is sympathetic to both Carla and Clark in the end, as she is oblivious to Clark's true nature and motives. - Character: Leon Jamieson. Description: Leon was Sylvia's husband and a poet. He is already dead at the beginning of the story. Carla and Clark learn from his obituary that Leon had won a big cash prize for his poetry, prompting Clark to scheme a way to get money from Sylvia. Sylvia wonders if Flora's seemingly magical reappearance is related to Leon's death. - Theme: Attachment, Maturity, and Stability. Description: The attachments that various characters have to each other in "Runaway" are correlated to their respective levels of maturity and stability. Most significant is Carla's attachment to her husband, Clark—an attachment she feels even though they don't have a particularly loving relationship. Carla is young, around 21 years old, and the story portrays her as immature even for her age. She is unstable: easily affected by others and quick to change her mind about important matters. Her unhealthy attachment to Clark becomes apparent when she is unable to leave him, feeling that without him she wouldn't know how to live. This attachment is paralleled by the couple's pet goat Flora and its attachment to Clark. Flora follows Clark around when she is young, until she becomes a bit older and more mature, at which point she gains independence. The story eventually reveals that Clark tries to get rid of Flora after she gains a sense of autonomy, implying that he is aware of how his relationship with her mirrors his relationship with Carla. He can't stand the idea of not having control and dominance over Carla, and getting rid of Flora foreshadows what he might do to Carla if she ever becomes mature and independent. He says repeatedly that Flora might have run away to find a billy goat, illustrating his anxiety that Carla will leave him and find another man if she becomes independent. This shows how Clark himself has an unhealthy attachment to Carla, which manifests in emotional volatility and a need for control—a sign of his own instability. In contrast, Sylvia is older than Clark and Carla and is more stable and mature. Her attachments are much healthier than those of the young couple. Her marriage with her late husband, Leon, seems to have been balanced and loving. Each of them had their own successful careers, independent of one another. And though she is upset by his death, she does not seem unhealthily disturbed. She has a parental attachment to Carla, but even this attachment is healthy and unselfish: she enjoys Carla's company but ultimately values Carla's wellbeing over her own gratification. Through the contrast of Sylvia to Carla and Clark, Munro thus shows that maturity often corresponds with stable attachment—in other words, part of being mature means learning how to foster healthy, balanced relationships. - Theme: Relationships and Control. Description: "Runaway" depicts Clark as an abusive partner to Carla and illustrates the challenges she faces as she feels stuck in the relationship. Clark has complete authority over their relationship and Carla's life, and he does not care for her emotional needs. He forces her to go to the Jamieson's house when she doesn't want to, and he doesn't seem at all concerned when he thinks Carla is being sexually abused. Carla generally feels powerless, and her actions seem to lack a sense of control. Her lies to Clark about being sexually abused by Leon, Sylvia's late husband, spiral out of control to the point that she feels trapped. When Sylvia proposes that Carla move to Toronto—a new start that would be a massive undertaking—Carla agrees immediately, showing how desperate she is to escape her relationship with Clark. It's not until she's formulated a plan and is on the bus to Toronto that she becomes frightened by the idea of starting anew and decides to return home to Clark, feeling that his presence gives her life meaning, as he has conditioned her to believe. By highlighting this thought process, the story suggests that breaking out of abusive relationships isn't as simple as it might seem in the abstract. From the outside, Sylvia thinks that leaving Clark is an obvious and simple solution to Carla's relational problems—but Sylvia's own marriage was healthy, so she doesn't necessarily understand the deep-rooted interdependence involved in toxic relationships. Clark's power as a male abuser is far-reaching, and it would be more challenging than Sylvia thinks for Carla to leave. Even Sylvia herself eventually submits to Clark's domineering nature and ends up apologizing to him for "interfering" in Carla's life, showing how effective Clark's manipulation is. In fact, his need for power is itself out of control—he causes problems with people in town and ruins many of his relationships. In the end, the story implies that Clark may have killed Flora, which is the ultimate display of his pathological need to dominate. Thus, the story demonstrates the gravity of the obstacles women trapped in relationships with controlling men face, as well as how these difficulties are underestimated by people on the outside. - Theme: Escape. Description: The word "runaway" in its most literal sense refers to escape. Each main character in the story makes an attempt to escape their respective pasts and problems, but to limited avail. Carla is a runaway in that she leaves her parents, hometown, and future plans of college in the hopes of attaining a more "authentic" life. This doesn't pan out for her, as she ends up unhappy in her new life. She's a runaway again when she tries to leave her life with Clark. Flora is a runaway too, in that she leaves her original home when she's young, then leaves Clark and Carla, too. And, just like Carla, Flora ends up coming back home. Similarly, Sylvia tries to escape the gloomy aftermath of her husband's death by going on a trip to Greece, but when she returns home, of course, the situation remains. Sylvia is uncomfortable in the house she used to share with Leon and stops sleeping in their bedroom. Eventually, she moves to a new apartment but doesn't sell the old house, implying that she's not fully letting go of her former life there and perhaps is keeping the option open to return. Clark, too, seems to be constantly trying to escape from some sort of mental pain. The story doesn't reveal extensive details about Clark's past, but it's clear that he is emotionally troubled and has lost touch with his family. He is a "drifter," always moving and changing jobs, and he uses the computer as an escape from his unhappy life. But Clark doesn't find happiness, just as none of the other characters' escapes are truly successful. In this way, the story depicts running away, or attempting escape, as an ineffective solution to dealing with life's problems. - Theme: Independence and Freedom. Description: When Carla initially runs away from her family, she seeks a life away from their expectations so that she can live as she pleases. Her affluent mother and stepfather want her to go to college, but all Carla wants is to live and work among nature and animals. Though she initially agrees to go to college to be a veterinarian, her parents' expectations repel her. When they express their dislike of Clark due to his lower social status, "they were practically guaranteeing [that she run away with him]." But although she has abandoned her original plan in the hopes of establishing an "authentic" life, Carla doesn't end up finding what she's looking for—or what she thought she was looking for. Carla seems to specifically want to escape what she sees as the confines of upper-class life: "She despised […] their vacations, their Cuisinart, their powder room, their walk-in closets […]." Carla feels that if she does what her parents want, she will be restricted to live the same kind of life that they do. She doesn't share the values of education and money that they impose on her. She does of course succeed in moving to the countryside to work with horses as she originally wanted, but this doesn't grant her the fulfillment she hoped it would. In the end, Clark imposes his own expectations and limitations on her, such that she has no independence. It turns out, perhaps, that Carla had misidentified her desire. What she thought was a longing for "authenticity" was really a longing for independence and freedom. But when she left her family, she did it with Clark "as the architect of the life ahead of them, herself as captive." She goes from living within her parents' limitations to living within Clark's. In order to fulfill her desire for independence, Carla would have to take charge of her own path. The story thus suggests that true independence comes from self-reliability—that is, people must be the architects of their own lives and avoid trying to find fulfilment within the confines of what other people want or expect from them. - Climax: Flora appears at Sylvia's house when Clark is there in the middle of the night. - Summary: Carla is at her mobile home in rural Canada when she sees a car pass outside and realizes that it's Sylvia Jamieson, an older neighbor who is returning from a vacation in Greece. Sylvia's husband Leon recently passed away, so Carla has been going to Sylvia's house to help her with chores. Carla hopes her husband Clark doesn't know that Sylvia is back, because he will force Carla to continue going over to help even though Carla doesn't want to. Sylvia is paying Carla for the work, and Clark and Carla need the money. They make a living by boarding horses and giving riding lessons, but business is slow this summer because the weather is bad. After seeing Sylvia, Carla heads outside to tend to the horses as she thinks about her situation with Sylvia and Clark. Carla previously told Clark that Leon sexually harassed Carla before he died. This is a lie, but now Clark wants Carla to tell Sylvia about it so that she will pay them off to stay silent. Despite this mess, Carla's biggest concern is that her beloved pet goat Flora is missing. When Carla goes back inside, she and Clark argue about going to Sylvia's house the next day. Carla ends up crying and Clark shows little sympathy. The next day at Sylvia's house, Carla and Sylvia are chatting when Carla suddenly starts sobbing. Carla divulges that she's unhappy being with Clark because he is angry all the time. Sylvia proposes that Carla leave and start a new life in Toronto, which immediately enthuses Carla. Sylvia offers to help with the travel, and Carla thinks she can easily find a new job in the city. Later, Carla gets on the bus to Toronto. As she imagines a new life without Clark, she gets upset, changes her mind, and gets off the bus to go back home—unbeknownst to Sylvia. That night, Sylvia wakes up to a knock at her door and is terrified to see that it's Clark. He tells Sylvia that Carla is back home, and he's angry that Sylvia interfered with his marriage. They're having a hostile conversation about it when, suddenly, Flora runs up to them, seemingly out of nowhere. Clark says he's going to take Flora home, but he doesn't. When he gets home, he doesn't mention anything about Flora to Carla. Over the next few days, Carla and Clark get along well. Clark still doesn't mention Flora's reappearance and Carla thinks she's still missing. One day Carla gets a letter from Sylvia describing how Flora appeared at her house that night. Carla suddenly realizes that Clark must have either killed Flora or taken her somewhere far away. Carla is upset, but she never mentions it to Clark.

- Genre: Young Adult Novel, Historical Fiction - Title: Runner - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Richmond, Melbourne, in 1919 - Character: Charlie Feehan. Description: Charlie Feehan is the teenage protagonist of Runner. After the death of his father, Charlie becomes responsible for supporting his mother and his baby brother Jack. He struggles to balance this responsibility with his mother's expectations that he remain a child, and he ends up lying to her that he is still in school when in fact he has dropped out to find work. Charlie grieves his father throughout the story, keeping his father's memory close to him by wearing Mr. Feehan's old boots. Charlie lives with his family in the slums of Richmond, and he resents the poor living conditions and longs for a life of luxury and excitement. He takes up running as a means to escape the stress and monotony of his life, and this skill earns him a job with local gangster Squizzy Taylor. Charlie initially loves his job––it earns enough money to keep his family comfortable, and his connection to Squizzy gives Charlie power over people who would otherwise have authority over him. Charlie, whose poverty and youth often make him feel powerless, relishes this privilege until Squizzy sends him to collect debts. When Charlie is confronted with the desperate people who owe Squizzy money, he realizes that his newfound power comes at the expense of people struggling just like the Feehans. This realization shifts Charlie's ambition: he no longer wants to simply improve his own life, he wants to help his community. He achieves this after winning the Ballarat Mile race, which earns him enough money to buy the local timber yard. Despite reaching his goal, Charlie never loses his longing for something more. - Character: Mrs. Feehan. Description: Mrs. Feehan is Charlie's mother. She is kind and supportive, and she and Charlie share a loving relationship. Their relationship is challenged, though, by Mrs. Feehan's issues with mental health. She mourns deeply the loss of her husband, though she tries to present strength for Charlie's sake. She does her best to support him, but because she must stay home to care for her infant son Jack, she has to rely on Charlie to take on more responsibility than most boys his age. Despite the family's dependence on Charlie's work, Mrs. Feehan expects Charlie to stay in school and forbids him from working for Squizzy Taylor. He ends up lying to her and taking the job against her wishes, only for Mrs. Feehan to reveal at the end of the novel that she knew all along that Charlie was disobeying her. Mrs. Feehan ultimately proves her dedication to protecting her children when she gives in to Mr. Peacock, a timber worker who sexually extorts Mrs. Feehan in exchange for firewood. Mr. Peacock is violently abusive, and even after he is out of her life, Mrs. Feehan remains traumatized by his abuse. Charlie tries to help his mother recover, and he finally succeeds by inviting her to dance the way Mr. Feehan used to. After they dance, both Charlie and Mrs. Feehan confess to each other that they miss Mr. Feehan. This moment of vulnerability allows both characters to be open about their grief and work on healing together. - Character: Nostrils Heath. Description: Norman "Nostrils" Heath is Charlie's best friend, whose nickname comes from his large nose. He meets Charlie at the race Squizzy Taylor holds to determine who will become his runner. Though Charlie beats him in the race, Nostrils bears him no resentment, and the two become fast friends. Nostrils is loyal, funny, and a good listener. He is also an exceptional athlete, and the local football team picks him to play for them. In the early days of their friendship, Charlie and Nostrils play football in the park together and are interrupted by an angry Jimmy Barlow, who they need to run from. Rather than taking advantage of his head start, Nostrils waits for Charlie to catch up to him, and the boys run away together. Later, after Nostrils has been promoted to an exciting new position on the football team, Jimmy Barlow comes after Nostrils and Charlie again. Nostrils trips and tells Charlie to leave him behind, and Charlie does, leaving Nostrils to be beaten so badly by Barlow and his friends that Nostrils spends the next several days in the hospital. Charlie blames himself for ruining Nostril's chances at becoming a professional athlete, but Nostrils assures Charlie that he shouldn't feel guilty. When Charlie runs the Ballarat Mile, Nostrils is one of the people he imagines cheering for him at the finish line. To honor their friendship, Charlie makes Nostrils a co-owner of the timber yard he buys at the end of the book. - Character: Cecil Redmond. Description: Mr. Redmond is Charlie's neighbor. After the death of Mr. Feehan, Mr. Redmond and his wife begin helping the Feehans in small ways, giving them food and assisting Mrs. Feehan with baby Jack. When Charlie beats the abusive Mr. Peacock with a cricket bat, he calls Mr. Redmond to the house to help, and afterwards Mr. Redmond offers to teach Charlie boxing so he can defend himself. Over the course of Mr. Redmond's training regimen, he and Charlie grow closer, and Mr. Redmond takes on a fatherly role for Charlie. He is concerned about Charlie's connection to Squizzy Taylor, and he suggests Charlie pursue professional racing as a way to earn money from running without interacting with criminals. When Charlie gives up boxing, Mr. Redmond offers to train him as a racer instead. He enters Charlie into the Ballarat Mile race and accompanies Charlie to Ballarat. Before the race, he gifts Charlie a new pair of running shoes to replace the old boots Charlie inherited from his father. Charlie keeps his father's boots but wears the new running shoes for the race, mirroring how he still loves his late father but accepts Mr. Redmond's guidance as a paternal figure. - Character: Squizzy Taylor. Description: Based on a real Australian gangster by the same name, Squizzy Taylor is a powerful criminal who employs Charlie as a runner. He initially presents himself as charming and sly, and Charlie's perception of Squizzy follows his perception of organized crime: at first, he is enchanted by it, but he gradually comes to realize that Richmond's underworld is much less glamorous than it appears. In addition to his charm, Squizzy also seems to genuinely care about the people under his protection. When a panicked Charlie tells Squizzy about how Mr. Peacock has abused Mrs. Feehan, Squizzy ensures that Mr. Peacock will stay out of the Feehans' life. He even arranges for Mr. Peacock to give the Feehans firewood for free. This generosity makes Charlie feel indebted to Squizzy, so he remains loyal even as Squizzy becomes more aggressive and less charming. The jobs Squizzy assigns Charlie become increasingly dangerous as Squizzy seeks to expand his influence, and Charlie frequently overhears conversations planning attacks on rival gangs. Once Squizzy reveals that his charm is just a facade to hide his ruthlessness, Charlie quits his job and escapes from the world of organized crime. - Character: Alice Cornwall. Description: Alice Cornwall is a girl who Charlie has feelings for. He first sees her at a football game, cheering for his team's rivals, and he meets her again when Squizzy Taylor sends him to collect debts from her father, Kenneth Cornwall. Alice is furious at Charlie for trying to take her father's money, but she is grateful when Charlie pays the Cornwalls' debts with his own earnings. The pair strike up a friendship, and before Charlie leaves for the Ballarat Mile race, Alice kisses him on the cheek. - Character: Mr. Peacock. Description: Mr. Peacock is a timber yard worker who gives the Feehans scraps of firewood in exchange for Charlie raking the timber yard. He was a friend of Mr. Feehan, but after Mr. Feehan's death, Mr. Peacock is able to act on his attraction to Mrs. Feehan. He refuses to give the Feehans the firewood they desperately need unless Mrs. Feehan agrees to do him sexual favors. She reluctantly accepts. Mr. Peacock also physically abuses Mrs. Feehan, and when Charlie witnesses this, he beats Mr. Peacock unconscious with a cricket bat. Mr. Peacock wants to press charges, but Squizzy Taylor intimidates him into letting the matter drop and leaving the Feehans alone. - Character: Jimmy Barlow. Description: Jimmy Barlow is a bully who threatens Charlie throughout the story. After Charlie beats him in the race to become Squizzy Taylor's runner, Barlow holds a grudge and tries to physically attack Charlie any time the two cross paths. Near the end of the book, Charlie and Nostrils are in a garden together when Barlow and his friends appear and brutally assault Nostrils while Charlie gets away. When a police officer questions Charlie about the incident, he refuses to identify Barlow as the attacker. - Character: Mrs. Redmond. Description: Mrs. Redmond is Mr. Redmond's wife, and she lives with him in the house neighboring the Feehans. She often helps Mrs. Feehan by preparing food for Jack when he is at risk of starving. Because the Redmonds cannot afford dental care, Mrs. Redmond's teeth are rotting, making her embarrassed to smile. Charlie insists the Redmonds use some of his winnings from the Ballarat Mile race to fix her teeth, as payment for all the Redmonds have done for his family. - Theme: Money, Class, and Community. Description: Runner takes place in the impoverished slums of Richmond, Australia, and Charlie Feehan, the protagonist, is keenly aware of how poverty disadvantages him and his neighbors. The Feehans are too poor to afford necessities like firewood and too focused on scraping by to dedicate time to grieve Charlie's father, the late Mr. Feehan. Their neighbors, Mr. Redmond and Mrs. Redmond, are slightly better off, but they still cannot afford dental care for Mrs. Redmond's rotting teeth. Poverty degrades the characters' quality of living and exposes them to further dangers; for instance, Mrs. Feehan is vulnerable to Mr. Peacock's sexual coercion and abuse because the Feehans are dependent on his offerings from the timber yard. At the beginning of the story, Charlie's main goal is to escape poverty and let his family live comfortably. That desire is why he takes up running, a skill that allows him to work for local criminal Squizzy Taylor. Over the course of the novel, however, he learns that people can fight poverty's harshest effects by supporting one another as a community. Charlie ultimately earns the money that he dreamed of, but he does not do it alone. Mr. Redmond's training and the support of his loved ones enable Charlie to compete in the Ballarat Mile race in the first place. The Redmonds bring food to the Feehans when they are starving, Nostrils helps Charlie on jobs and protects him from local bully Jimmy Barlow, and Mrs. Feehan perseveres through her own struggles to care for Charlie and allow him time and energy to pursue his passion for running. Though Charlie's training helps him win the Ballarat Mile, it's imagining his loved ones cheering for him that gets him to the finish line. And when he comes in first place and wins his prize, he invests his wealth in his community, giving back to the people who helped him to succeed in the first place, buying the local timber yard to help support Richmond residents who are struggling. The love and solidarity among Charlie's friends and family show how community efforts can empower poor and disenfranchised people to improve their lives in the face of obstacles that would be insurmountable alone. - Theme: Growing Up. Description: Runner follows the adolescent Charlie as he is thrust into the role of "man of the house" after his father's death. Charlie remarks in his narration that when the undertakers took his father's body away, they took Charlie's childhood with them. Charlie's many responsibilities force him to grow up quickly, but although Charlie learns how to act like an adult, he is ultimately still a child in the process of maturing. Charlie discusses his conflict between childhood and maturity early in the book. Though he might dress in knickerbockers like other boys his age, as soon as he leaves school, he must step into "the long pants of adulthood." This notion of the schoolyard experience as a symbol for childhood continues as Charlie drops out of school to provide for his family, willfully leaving childhood behind to join his mother Mrs. Feehan as an adult responsible for their household. His work for Squizzy Taylor also forces him to grow up quickly, as it exposes him to liquor, gambling, and the dangerous criminal underbelly of Melbourne. Though Charlie quits his job with Squizzy, he does not return to school at the end of the story. He has grown used to the expectations of adulthood, and he is in the process of growing up to be comfortable with those expectations. That process isn't a strictly linear one, though: when Charlie returns from the Ballarat Mile, he "fell into his mother's arms," which signifies that Charlie accepts he has not grown up too much to stop depending on his mother. His circumstances have demanded maturity, but when the pressure of supporting his family is lifted, Charlie is able to embrace aspects of childhood again, like his mother's care, and resume maturing at his own pace. - Theme: Grief. Description: Throughout Runner, the death of Charlie's father, Mr. Feehan, weighs heavily on Charlie and his mother. Charlie feels his father's absence throughout the story; he repeatedly encounters situations that remind him of memories with his father and faces challenges that he wishes Mr. Feehan could guide him through. Mr. Feehan's constant presence in Charlie's thoughts is painful for Charlie, but it also helps him come to terms with his father's death, as he realizes that Mr. Feehan shaped his life too much to ever really be gone. Some of Mr. Feehan's lingering influence is tangible: his death left the family in poverty, but he was such a popular man that the Feehans still use his connections to get occasional favors from people around town. Charlie initially runs in his father's boots, which helps Charlie feel closer to his father. When he starts working for Squizzy Taylor, Dolly gives Charlie a new pair of boots, but Charlie still holds on to his father's. He puts his father's boots back on when he quits his job with Squizzy, symbolizing his return to the life his father would have wanted for him. At the Ballarat Mile, when Charlie takes off his father's boots to put on his new running shoes, he imagines that his father gave him the boots as a way to be with Charlie "when [Charlie] needed him most." Charlie's memory of Mr. Feehan also helps him comfort his mother in her grief. Mr. and Mrs. Feehan used to dance together all the time, but after Mr. Feehan died, Mrs. Feehan stopped dancing. Since Mr. Feehan imparted the importance of dancing to Charlie, he decides to lift his mother's spirits by dancing with her. He succeeds, and Mrs. Feehan smiles for the first time in a long time. After the song is over, she hugs Charlie and confesses she misses his father. This scene highlights another lesson Charlie learns about grief: Mr. Feehan's death does not erase all opportunities for joy because joy and grief can coexist. Charlie's relationship to his father's boots mirrors his relationship to his grief. At the end of the story, he takes the boots off, which marks his acceptance of his father's loss. At the same time, though, Charlie taking off the boots signifies his revelation that he does not need to cling to Mr. Feehan's memory, because Charlie can keep that memory alive by living the life his father would have wanted for him. - Theme: Ambition. Description: Charlie Feehan grows up poor in the slums of Richmond, Australia, and his background inspires an ambition and a drive to accomplish "something more" than his life has given him. When Squizzy Taylor's criminal lifestyle reveals how dangerous and self-serving ambition can be, Charlie doesn't lose his ambition, but he does redirect it, transforming his desire for "something more" into a desire to do "something good." Charlie wants more than a stable, comfortable life—he wants to provide for his family, but he also wants action, excitement, and power for himself. He temporarily achieves this goal when he starts working for Squizzy Taylor. In the early days of his employment, Charlie realizes that what he really loves about working for Squizzy is the power it grants him. Charlie flaunts his criminal activity in front of police officers, daring them to cross Squizzy by arresting him, and he smugly criticizes a shopkeeper's wares when he collects on the man's debt for Squizzy. But when Squizzy tasks Charlie with collecting money from the desperate Alice Cornwall and her father, Charlie realizes that his power comes from mistreating people in similar circumstances to his own family. Immediately after he realizes this, Charlie crosses paths with the wise and friendly sex worker Daisy Maloney, who advises him to do "something good" with the money he earns. After this encounter, Charlie stops obsessing over power and starts dreaming of a way to do "something good." He eventually fulfills that desire, using his winnings from the Ballarat Mile to purchase the local timber yard to support the people in his community who are struggling. However, this does not quell his yearning for action, since the story ends with him running into the streets in search of something new and unknown. The change in Charlie's ambition suggests that ambition itself is not fundamentally bad, since it drives Charlie to reach for his goals; while single-minded ambition can lead to selfishness and cruelty, the selfless, exploratory ambition that Charlie grows into allows him to pursue a dynamic and continually improving life for himself and his community. - Theme: Crime. Description: Runner follows Charlie Feehan's entrance into Richmond's world of organized crime, which is gradually taking over Melbourne. At first, Charlie romanticizes both crime and the more illicit aspects of urban life, and since he has few alternatives for helping support his family, he readily joins in. But once he starts working for Squizzy Taylor's gang, he realizes that organized crime is far from his romantic notion of it. Charlie decides to apply to be Squizzy's runner instead of seeking a "respectable" job because the "sleazy streets" of Richmond have "seduced" him. The excitement of brothels, gambling dens, and speakeasies seem like an escape from the struggles of his everyday life. Since organized crime is new to Richmond, gangs are still establishing themselves, and Charlie faces few risks from other criminals for allying with Squizzy. As tensions rise between rival gangs, however, these gangs grow more methodical and more violent. By the end of the story, Charlie observes, "gangsterism ha[s] arrived," and Squizzy's gang is at war with their enemies. This increasing violence makes Charlie understand that crime is more than just an exciting pastime––it can have life-altering consequences. Charlie's growing understanding of Squizzy Taylor himself follows his disillusionment with Richmond's underworld. At first, he is charmed by and grateful to Squizzy, but he gradually loses respect for the gangster as Squizzy proves that his charisma conceals a violent streak and a disregard for people's lives. Charlie's slow realization about the true nature of crime highlights that the flashy excitement of organized crime can "seduce" young people, especially those like Charlie who have few other opportunities, but under that excitement lurks violence, cruelty, and danger. - Climax: Charlie competes in the Ballarat Mile race. - Summary: In the year 1919, teenage Charlie Feehan dreams of a better life than the one his family lives in the Richmond slums of Melbourne. His father recently passed away, forcing Charlie to take on financial responsibilities while his mother, Mrs. Feehan, stays home to care for Charlie's infant brother Jack. To escape from the hardship of life in the slums, Charlie takes up running. One day, he skips school to compete in a race for the chance to win employment for local gangster Squizzy Taylor. Charlie wins the race, narrowly beating an aggressive boy named Jimmy Barlow. He also meets and befriends another racer, Norman "Nostrils" Heath. As Charlie's prize, Squizzy Taylor employs him as a "runner"––a boy who runs errands for his organized crime ring. Mrs. Feehan forbids Charlie from working for Squizzy, but Charlie still intends to take the job because he is committed to improving life for his family. Later, Nostrils and Charlie play football together. Nostrils is a far better player than Charlie, but Charlie enjoys Nostrils's company so much that he doesn't mind. Their game is interrupted by Jimmy Barlow and his friends, who steal Charlie's football and try to attack him. Charlie runs away, and though Nostrils has a head start, he waits for Charlie to catch up so they can run away together. When Charlie starts working for Squizzy, Squizzy's girlfriend Dolly gives Charlie a new pair of boots to replace his old ones. However, since his old boots are hand-me-downs from Mr. Feehan, Charlie is reluctant to give them up. Charlie enjoys working for Squizzy, since the job grants him power and status, but he still struggles at home. Mr. Peacock, a timber worker who gives the Feehans free scrap wood, refuses to continue helping the family unless Mrs. Feehan does him sexual favors. She reluctantly gives in, leaving Charlie feeling betrayed on his father's behalf. Despite his anger, he still leaps in to protect his mother a few days later, when a drunk Mr. Peacock is beating her in the kitchen. Charlie hits Mr. Peacock with a cricket bat, knocking the man unconscious, and runs to Squizzy for help. Squizzy ensures that Mr. Peacock will leave the Feehans alone and continue giving them firewood. When Charlie returns home, he and Mrs. Feehan reconcile. Nostrils earns a spot on a local football team, and when Charlie goes to watch his friend play, he sees a pretty red-headed girl in the stands and learns her name is Alice. That week, Squizzy sends Charlie to collect debts, and one of the addresses on Squizzy's list leads Charlie to Alice's home. Mr. Cornwall cannot afford to pay back his debt, and his desperation makes Charlie realize that the power he enjoys from his job comes from victimizing desperate people like his own family. He talks to Daisy Maloney, a kind and friendly sex worker, who suggests that he use the money he earns unethically to do something good. Meanwhile, Squizzy Taylor is growing more aggressive as he attempts to spread his influence by taking territory from rival gangs. Charlie recruits Nostrils to help him on a particularly dangerous liquor run, and afterwards the boys are jumped by Jimmy Barlow and his friends. Charlie runs away, leaving Nostrils to take the brunt of the assault, and when Charlie returns, Nostrils is beaten so badly Charlie has to bring him to the hospital. Charlie tells Squizzy Taylor about the attack, and when Squizzy makes clear he does not care, Charlie quits his job. He starts training with his neighbor, Mr. Redmond, to run in a professional footrace. Mr. Redmond accompanies Charlie to Ballarat, where the race is held. Charlie deliberately presents himself as a poor athlete to the spectators to stack the odds against him and increase the payout of betting on him. With Mr. Redmond's help, Charlie bets all the money he made working for Squizzy on himself. Charlie wins the race and uses his winnings to buy the local timber yard for his community.

- Genre: Fiction; children's literature - Title: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes - Point of view: Third-person - Setting: Hiroshima, Japan - Character: Sadako. Description: The novel's protagonist, Sadako Sasaki is a spirited and ambitious eleven-year-old girl with a passion for running free. Sadako was only a year old when the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima nine years previously (at the end of World War II), but swears she remembers the heat and light of the blast as clearly as if it were yesterday. Sadako's enthusiasm for celebrating life is sometimes mistaken by her mother and father as disrespect for the past. She longs to join the racing team at her junior high school next year, though as she begins running small races against her friends at school, she finds herself growing dizzy and faint rather quickly. Sadako is soon brought to the hospital where she is diagnosed with leukemia, an effect of the radiation from the nuclear bomb that still lingers throughout Hiroshima. As Sadako struggles in the hospital, her friend Chizuko instructs her in the art of folding paper cranes, and Chizuko gives Sadako hope with by telling her the legend that anyone who folds one thousand cranes is granted their wish—Sadako's, of course, is to be healthy again and return home to her family. As Sadako's illness worsens, she is comforted by her family, her friends, and others in the hospital—a boy named Kenji, whose passing shows her the freedom death can offer for those who are truly ill, and her kind caretaker Nurse Yasunaga. Though Sadako eventually perishes, she comes to accept the freedom death represents, and her illness—the casualty of a tremendous act of violence—becomes a rallying call for her community as they finish folding one thousand paper cranes in the name of peace, unity, and kindness on Sadako's behalf. - Character: Chizuko. Description: Sadako's best friend from school. When Chizuko first visits Sadako in the hospital, she brings Sadako several pieces of colorful papers and a pair of scissors, and instructs Sadako in the art of making origami paper cranes. She tells Sadako that, according to legend, if a sick person folds one thousand paper cranes, he or she will become healthy again. The cranes Chizuko introduces into Sadako's life give her a goal and a purpose during her long stay in the hospital, and allow her to feel hope even in her darkest moments. - Character: Kenji. Description: A young boy who is staying at the Red Cross Hospital at the same time as Sadako. Kenji is also sick with leukemia though he was not even born when the atom bomb went off—he took the "poison" of the disease in from his mother as a baby. Kenji's death forces Sadako to think more and more about her own imminent death, but she also understands when Kenji dies that death can also mean freedom from pain and sickness. - Theme: Peace and Pacifism. Description: The story of Sadako Sasaki is many things—an ode to optimism, an exploration of what constitutes freedom, a meditation on family—but above all, perhaps, it is a plea for peace. Sadako contracts her illness as a result of radiation poisoning from the nuclear bomb dropped on her city, Hiroshima, when she was just a baby. Eleanor Coerr tells the story of Sadako's senseless death in order to underscore the importance of peace and nonviolence. The general atmosphere in Hiroshima at the start of the novel is one of mourning and apprehension. Though Sadako herself is sunny, optimistic, full of hope for her dreams as a runner, a good friend, and a good student, her parents and the families who live around the Sasakis are haunted by their memories of the nuclear bomb and are still grieving the losses they suffered as a result of it. By describing such an environment, Coerr sets the stage for a narrative which encourages its readers to learn about pacifism. Moreover, she creates an opportunity to explain pacifism to readers by using a main character like Sadako—a member of the younger generation who is aware of the effects of the atom bomb but doesn't understand what truly happened to her town, her family, and her people. As Sadako falls ill, it becomes evident that she is a vehicle for the novel's argument about the importance of pacifism and nonviolence. Sadako's illness and her eventual death are senseless tragedies—as the residual effect of a nuclear attack, an innocent girl with dreams and hopes for her future is struck down before her life has even really begun. Sadako's life, then, becomes a metaphor for the lingering physical and psychological scars that can rend a community—and the larger world around it—asunder in the wake of such violence and devastation. Coerr uses the tragedy of Sadako's death to demonstrate the horrors of war, and the ways in which violence only begets more violence—physical, psychological, and emotional—as memories and physical traces of war echo through the years. In the book's epilogue, Eleanor Coerr writes that the statue dedicated to Sadako in the Hiroshima Peace Park bears the inscription "This is our cry, this is our prayer: peace in the world." Sadako's story is a tragic one, but a hopeful one as well, as Sadako, in death, became a martyr—a cautionary symbol of the horrors of nuclear war and a rallying cause for peace, unity, and hope. - Theme: History, Family, and Tradition. Description: At eleven years old, Sadako Sasaki is the eldest girl in her family and the most outspoken of all her siblings. She struggles to balance her sunny and outgoing disposition with the historical burden her family carries from the losses it suffered in the nuclear bombing of 1945. Though Sadako does not mourn her parents' losses in the exact same way they do, she feels just as overwhelmed when she attempts to reckon with the violence and horror that have forever impacted their family and their country. As Sadako's illness slowly ravages her, she begins to understand the full weight of the history and the traditions that have made her family what it is—just as it is all about to slip away from her forever. In positioning Sadako's valuable lessons about family, history, and tradition at the end of her short life, Coerr argues that understanding and honoring one's personal, familial, and cultural history is a necessary part of fulfilling one's destiny. At the start of the novel, as the Sasaki family prepares to attend the Peace Day memorial and festival on the ninth anniversary of the bombing of their city, Sadako is more concerned with running in the street, eating cotton candy, and spending time with her friends than she is with honoring the pain and suffering that have forever transformed the history and trajectory of her family, her city, and thus her own life. Though Sadako insists that she prays each day for her departed family members and her ancestors, she is still learning much about where she comes from. As Sadako grows ill, however, and begins to understand that her disease is a direct result of the nuclear bomb, her relationship to herself, her family, and her city's violent history begins to shift. While in the hospital, Sadako's friend Chizuko brings her origami paper and scissors, and tells her the legend of the thousand-year-old crane who is said to grant the wish of anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes in its image. As Sadako devotes herself entirely to the task of folding one thousand cranes, she engages directly with a piece of Japanese cultural history which opens her eyes to the importance of learning about and honoring her culture's traditions, myths, and history. Sadako informs others of the legend, and her friends, family, nurses, and doctors all begin saving paper and helping Sadako to string her cranes from the ceiling of her hospital room. Thus, Sadako brings the people around her together, simultaneously reviving an older tradition. In this way, she demonstrates that she has become a full-fledged member of her community in the months just before her untimely death—after which she, too, will become a part of her city and her country's legends, history, and traditions. In the last days of her life, Sadako's family presents her with a traditional kimono. Sadako knows that her death is near, and asks why her family would present her with such a lavish but ultimately useless gift—as she knows she will never have an occasion to wear it. Nevertheless, she allows her family to dress her in the traditional robe, thereby signaling that she has finally come to understand that it is the traditions and history shared between friends, families, and countrymen which make life so rich. As Sadako approaches her death, she does so as a conscious and even enthusiastic participant not only in her family's traditions, but in her people's history. - Theme: Hope, Strength, and Perseverance. Description: Sadako is just eleven when she is admitted to the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital with leukemia. Frightened and alone for the first time in her life, Sadako begins her long stay in the hospital. As Sadako's condition worsens, her hope is challenged again and again. Though her physical strength wanes, her desire to meet her goal of folding one thousand paper cranes keeps her going and provides her friends and family with a tangible means of showing Sadako all the support they can as she wrestles with a very serious illness. Although Sadako's leukemia proves fatal, she inspires those around her to hope more radically, persevere in the face of adversity, and find strength in unexpected places. Through Sadako, Coerr suggests that while such demonstrations of hope, strength, and perseverance may not guarantee survival, they can have a profound impact on the lives of anyone who witnesses them. Sadako's family members are her greatest supporters. When Sadako is healthy, they encourage her to chase her dreams of being a runner and urge her to push through the fear and nervousness she feels during her big races at school. When Sadako becomes ill, her mother sits by her bedside almost daily to offer her comfort, share stories, and bring her her favorite foods, while her brother Masahiro takes it upon himself to hang from the ceiling each and every paper crane Sadako folds. He does this until he has helped her to create a flock of beautiful birds which then become their own symbol of support, solidarity, and the rewards of perseverance. Sadako's goal of folding cranes in hopes of securing her own health ultimately brings light, hope, and comfort into the lives of her parents and her siblings, who are themselves struggling to persevere and keep faith in the face of their beloved Sadako's debilitating illness. Nurse Yasunaga is a constant support to Sadako as she struggles with the physical difficulties of her illness—including pain, disorientation, and countless tests, transfusions, and treatments meant to combat or slow the spread of Sadako's leukemia. Nurse Yasunaga remains positive in the face of pain and employs unconventional methods of support. She supports Sadako practically as well as emotionally, bringing her medicine packages to use as paper for more cranes and encouraging her to fight against her illness but not to let herself become embittered or paralyzed by her fear of death. Nurse Yasunaga, a woman with a difficult job, is herself reminded of the strength of the human spirit as she watches Sadako, day in and day out, fold cranes in the face of an often fatal disease. Sadako's story, in real life, has inspired countless children and adults to invest in their hopes and to persevere in the face of insurmountable odds and unspeakable tragedy. Sadako's commitment to folding paper cranes is symbolic of the eternal human struggle to press on in the face of doubt, fear, illness, and the threat of pain or death, even when there is no guarantee of a reward. Sadako's perseverance speaks to the resilience of the human spirit and the triumph of hope and love over fear and isolation. - Theme: Death as Freedom. Description: When Sadako is first diagnosed with leukemia, illness is new to her. Though she knows that many people come down with the "atom bomb sickness," no one in her family has been touched by it, and although she was a baby during the bombing, the atomic explosion "hadn't even scratched her." Death is a frightening prospect for Sadako, as it is for anyone, but as her stay in the hospital goes on and her condition worsens, Sadako begins to see that freedom can take many forms. The schoolyard, the racing track, and the streets of her neighborhood always represented freedom to Sadako, but these wide open physical spaces no longer offer her the freedom she once knew. As Sadako prepares to die, she turns to her flock of paper cranes, and considers how free they seem. Sadako longs for a new kind of freedom—freedom from pain, from illness, and from the grief her sickness has brought into the lives of her friends and family. Eleanor Coerr, taking up a relatively solemn theme for a children's story, nonetheless argues through Sadako's story that death can offer freedom to those who truly suffer. Kenji, another boy stricken with leukemia who is in the hospital at the same time as Sadako, is the character most representative of this theme. When Sadako meets Kenji, they share stories from their lives, and Sadako learns that Kenji is an orphan whose parents presumably (though it is never confirmed) perished due to the "atom bomb sickness" as well. Kenji, who is only nine, had not been born at the time the bomb was dropped, but was poisoned when his mother's radiation poisoning was passed on to him during her pregnancy. Kenji knows that he will soon die, and has no hope to live. Sadako attempts to get Kenji on board with her paper crane project, insisting that, if he completes a thousand, he too will be able to wish for his health back, but Kenji doesn't believe that the cranes will save him. After Kenji's death, Sadako is devastated, but Nurse Yasunaga comforts her by assuring her—and perhaps illuminating for her for the first time ever—that Kenji has gone on to a better place and is now free from all the pain he endured. Sadako's only frame of reference for death are those people who died in the bombing or had their lives cut short by atom bomb sickness. Thus, death has only ever been presented as a great tragedy to her. Nurse Yasunaga helps her to understand for the first time that death can be a welcome reprieve at the end of a life full of pain, illness, and suffering. As this is a book of children's literature, it may seem somewhat unusual that Coerr offers a vision of death as freedom, but introducing children to such an idea at a young age has the benefit of relieving them of some of the fear they might feel about the subject of death. Others' preoccupation with death—whether the deaths of the past or the impending deaths of characters like Sadako and Kenji—has consumed Sadako's childhood, arguably preventing her from ever experiencing true freedom. In her honest depiction of the tragic truth of Sadako's life, Coerr argues that, in light of Sadako's incurable disease, death offers her a type of freedom inaccessible to everyone in life: freedom from suffering. - Climax: Having folded over six hundred origami paper cranes in an attempt to reach one thousand as a means of making a wish to restore her health, eleven-year old Sadako—a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing—succumbs to leukemia in her hospital bed, looking up at her cranes hanging from the ceiling as her family stands all around her. - Summary: Eleven-year-old Sadako Sasaki lives with her mother, father, and siblings in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako is a born runner who dreams of joining her junior high school's racing team next year. She approaches everything in life with excitement and positivity, and is constantly on the lookout for "good luck signs" and other small auspicious details in the world around her. On Peace Day—an annual festival in remembrance of the victims of the atom bomb that was dropped on the city nine years before at the end of World War II—Sadako joins her family and her best friend Chizuko at the Peace Park to mourn the dead and celebrate the life that still goes on in Hiroshima. As Sadako moves through the festival, she eats and drinks and laughs with her friends, but also sees many people who bear horrible scars and disfigurations. At the end of the evening, Sadako and her family lower paper lanterns into the river to commemorate those they have lost, and Sadako heads home feeling that good luck is indeed all around her. One fall day Sadako comes home with wonderful news—she has been picked to race on her class's relay race team, which will up her chances at making the junior high racing team the following year. As she trains for the race her friends and family support and encourage her, and on the big day, Sadako runs hard and wins big. As soon as the race is over, though, Sadako is struck by a dizzy spell, and can hardly even enjoy her great success. After the race, as winter approaches, Sadako trains hard every day, even though the dizzy spells still come on after a long run. In February of the new year, after several weeks of good health, Sadako faints at school while running during recess. Her father takes her to the Red Cross Hospital, and after the doctor, Dr. Numata, performs a series of tests, it is determined that Sadako has leukemia—an effect of lingering radiation in the air after the bombing nine years ago. Sadako is admitted to the hospital, and though a kind woman named Nurse Yasunaga assures her everything will be okay, Sadako is overcome by fear and sadness. Sadako's friend Chizuko comes to visit her in the hospital, and gives Sadako several pieces of colorful paper and a pair of scissors. She tells Sadako that, according to legend, if someone folds one thousand origami paper cranes, their wish will come true—if Sadako make the cranes, Chizuko says, she can be healthy once again. Chizuko folds a beautiful golden crane as an example, and soon Sadako starts making cranes of her own. That evening, when Sadako's older brother Masahiro comes to visit, he offers to hang the many cranes she has already folded from the ceiling for her. Sadako's family, Chizuko, and even the doctors and nurses at the hospital begin saving paper for Sadako to use for her project. Masahiro hangs every single one, just as he promised he would, and over the next few months Sadako has good days and bad days as she receives treatment for her illness. Her flock grows to over three hundred. Sadako meets another patient—a boy named Kenji who also has leukemia. Though Kenji wasn't born when the atom bomb was dropped, his mother suffered from radiation poisoning and passed it onto him. Both of Kenji's parents are dead, and Kenji knows that he too will soon die. When Kenji at last passes, Sadako is very sad, but Nurse Yasunaga comforts her, explaining that Kenji is at last free from all his pain. As the rainy season settles in, Sadako grows pale and listless and is unable to eat. Though her mother brings her some of her favorite foods in a special care package, Sadako's swollen gums prevent her from enjoying them. Sadako's mother hopes that when the sun comes back out, Sadako will be feeling better. Her family continues providing her with spare paper and even candy wrappers to make cranes out of, but as Sadako's weakness increases she has trouble making even a couple of cranes at a time, and is stalled at just over five hundred paper cranes. By the end of July, however, Sadako begins feeling better, and Dr. Numata agrees to let her go home for a visit. During her week at home Sadako makes another hundred cranes, but the constant visits from friends and family drain her and leave her weak, and when Sadako at last returns to the hospital she is actually relieved to be back in her quiet, private room. Sadako receives more shots and transfusions than ever in her first days back, and begins to really fear the prospect of her own death. As the fall leaves turn to gold, Sadako's family comes to visit her. They bring her the gift of a beautiful hand-stitched traditional kimono robe, and though Sadako doesn't understand why her family would spend time and money making something she'll never get to wear, she accepts the gift graciously. In the middle of October Sadako begins to lose track of the days. She can no longer fold even one paper crane, and she drifts in and out of consciousness. Her family comes to visit one last time, and she smiles warmly up at them—and her ceiling full of beautiful and free paper cranes—as she succumbs to her illness and passes away.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Sandpiper - Point of view: First Person - Setting: A beach house outside of Alexandria, Egypt - Character: The Narrator. Description: - Character: The Husband. Description: - Character: Lucy. Description: - Character: Um Sabir. Description: - Theme: Nostalgia and Regret. Description: - Theme: Displacement and Belonging. Description: - Theme: Fading Love and Marital Success. Description: - Climax: There is no traditional rising and falling action in this story, but the emotional tension heightens when the narrator flashes back to the thoughts she had following a near-death experience on a flight to Cairo. - Summary: At a beach house just outside of Alexandria, in Egypt, the narrator is looking out of a window at a white stone path that leads to the beach. She recalls how she used to sit along the seashore while the waves swirled around her, causing her hands and feet to sink deeper and deeper into the wet sand. This is her husband's family's beach house. She and her husband met 12 years ago. They have been married for eight years, and they have a six-year-old child. This is her eighth summer here. During her first summer, the narrator recalls having had to learn to love her husband in a new way in his home country—a place that was new to her. She remembers their second summer, when she was pregnant, as the last summer of their happiness. With her hand resting on her stomach, she would sit on the shore and think about their life in her home country, in Europe, before they were married. Looking out at the vastness of the sea and the land, she remembers feeling unable to truly grasp the world that existed beyond her senses. The narrator first realized that her husband was withdrawing from her when their child was a baby, and she believes now that she should have left him then. Standing in her room, she turns away from the window and thinks about Um Sabir, her husband's old nanny, and how she takes care of everything around the house. Whenever the narrator would try to help, her husband would tell Um Sabir that, soon, his wife would get used to how things were done around here. Looking at her bed, the narrator then thinks about how Lucy, their daughter, crawls in to sleep with her every night. She cherishes this period, when she can still kiss the dimples on Lucy's ankle. When she made the bed this morning, the narrator tied the mosquito net into a large knot that is dangling above her mattress. She first slept under a mosquito net nine years ago, during her first trip to Africa. She and her husband had been in love for three years, and their separation triggered an intense longing for one another. At the time, she wanted to write a story about the trip but never did. Still, she kept her notes, and in rereading them, she can see how each comment—each description—was really a thought addressed to her husband. Now, the narrator is waiting for her daughter. She is at the beach house with Um Sabir, her father, and the rest of his family. Everyone believes the narrator is sleeping, but she is watching and waiting for Lucy. The air is hot, and she goes to the bathroom to cool off. Then, she walks to the kitchen for a snack. Looking at the bowls of fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator, she remarks on how Um Sabir has washed them in red permanganate. This is for her own sake, as her daughter Lucy, who was born here, is able to eat the produce directly from the market. Back in her room, the narrator turns on the fan, which blows her notes all around. She reads a few of the overturned pages and recalls happy, carefree times. The narrator is not only homesick; she is also sick for a lost time—for the love that she once had and that is no more. She will soon hear Lucy's voice as she walks up the path from the beach, trailed by Um Sabir. At that point, she and her husband will exchange a few ritualistic niceties, and she will take Lucy into her bathroom to clean up before dinner. The day before, after Lucy's shower, the narrator noticed Lucy staring at herself in the mirror. When she saw Lucy's serious face, she flashed back to her own near-death experience, which occurred during her first trip to Africa—there was a problem with the plane's undercarriage, and the pilot had to attempt a crash landing. Once she realized she did not die, her first thought was of her husband's name, and she believed more than ever that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together. She then fixed Lucy's hair, applied lotion to her face, and kissed her neck before letting her run off. The narrator feels like her own daughter is simultaneously the thing she cherishes most and the thing that keeps her trapped in her life. Now, when the narrator looks out at the sea, she notices different things than she did six years go. As the waves pass, the beach loses part of itself to the sea before regaining it shortly thereafter. Along this stretch, the sand knows nothing more than the white foamy waves that crash into it, while the white water knows nothing better than this bit of sand. And yet, the narrator wonders, what do the waves know of the desert located a few yards beyond the beach? And what does the wet sand know of the ocean's deeper currents, where the water appears a different shade of blue?

- Genre: Novel - Title: Second Class Citizen - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Lagos, Nigeria; London, England - Character: Adah. Description: - Character: Francis. Description: - Character: Titi. Description: - Character: Vicky. Description: - Character: Bubu. Description: - Character: Dada. Description: - Character: Trudy. Description: - Character: Adah's Ma. Description: - Character: Adah's Pa. Description: - Character: Boy. Description: - Character: Janet. Description: - Character: The Sleek Woman. Description: - Character: Bill. Description: - Character: Okpara. Description: - Character: Mr. Noble. Description: - Theme: Class, Gender, and Race. Description: - Theme: Culture vs. Individual Freedom. Description: - Theme: Motherhood and Art. Description: - Theme: Family and Love. Description: - Theme: Economics vs. Aspiration in Education. Description: - Climax: After Francis tells a judge he won't support his and Adah's children, Adah swears to support them herself. - Summary: Adah, an Ibo girl, is born in Nigeria during World War II. Her extended family is so disappointed that she is not a boy that no one records her exact birthday. Jealous that her younger brother Boy gets to attend a prep school while she doesn't get to attend school at all, eight-year-old Adah sneaks off to a nearby Methodist school, where a teacher lets her sit in on classes. Back at home—though Adah's Pa canes her for misbehaving—her parents decide to start sending her to school with Boy. Later, Ma, Pa, and their friends celebrate the return of the first man from their hometown to get a degree in England. This event inspires Adah, and she decides she'd like to someday travel to the UK. Adah's Pa dies suddenly, so Adah is sent to live as a domestic servant in her mother's brother's house. One day, when Adah is about 11, her uncle's family gives Adah two shillings and sends her to buy meat. The fee to take entrance exams for secondary school is exactly two shillings, so Adah returns home without meat and refuses to say what happened to the money even when her cousin canes her. Adah does so well on the exams that she wins a full scholarship to a boarding school. After boarding school, Adah decides to attend university in Lagos—but minors aren't allowed to live alone in Lagos, so she marries a poor teenaged student named Francis so she can continue her education. After the marriage, Adah is quite depressed until she gives birth to a daughter, Titi. After Adah gets a job with good pay, she convinces Francis that they should go to England. Francis's father disapproves of women traveling to England and tells Francis to go alone to study accounting while Adah supports him financially from Nigeria. Though furious, Adah pretends to support this plan. By the time Francis leaves for England, Adah is pregnant again. Shortly after he leaves, she gives birth to a son, Vicky. Adah then convinces her in-laws to let her follow Francis by promising that she'll be able to make more money if she goes to England. When Adah, Titi, and Vicky join Francis in England, Adah is horrified to see the tiny room Francis rents and to learn that their neighbors are working-class. Francis angrily tells her that all Black people in England are "second class citizens." He tries to convince her to take a factory job, but Adah insists on applying only to white-collar jobs. Eventually she gets a job offer to be a library assistant—only to realize that she's pregnant again. The job requires a medical exam, so Adah is very friendly with the elderly male doctor to keep him from noticing that she's pregnant. Her ruse works, much to her relief—she now believes that Francis is bound to her because he's economically dependent on her, and she still wants their marriage to work. Francis and Adah agree that while Adah works, Francis will study and watch the children until a nursery spot opens up for them. Yet after a while, Francis resents caring for the children and says he won't do it anymore. Through neighbors, Adah finds a certified "daily-minder" named Trudy to watch the children. When Titi stops speaking after a few weeks at Trudy's, Adah becomes suspicious and drops in on Trudy's house. She finds Trudy flirting with a man inside while Titi and Vicky are left unsupervised in Trudy's filthy yard. Adah goes straight to the local "children's officer," Miss Stirling, but Trudy follows Adah and lies to Miss Stirling about what happened. Adah is shocked to discover that some white people lie just like some Black people do and wonders why, in that case, white people make claims to racial superiority. Since Trudy promises to improve her childcare and Adah can't find another babysitter, however, Adah keeps taking the children to Trudy. Not long after, Adah realizes that Titi stopped talking because Francis demanded that she only speak English, which Titi doesn't know well. One day, when Adah returns to the library from her lunch break, an alarmed coworker meets her with a message: Vicky is very sick. Adah rushes to Trudy's, where an ambulance is already waiting. Vicky is diagnosed with viral meningitis, which Adah learns is contracted when a person ingests the virus. Recalling Trudy's filthy yard, which is likely where Vicky contracted his illness, Adah tells Francis that she's going to confront Trudy. When Francis questions Adah's tone, Adah retorts that she knows Francis has been having sex with Trudy and that if something bad happens to Vicky, she'll kill Francis and Trudy. When Adah confronts Trudy at her house, Trudy tries to claim that Vicky must have contracted meningitis in Nigeria. Then Titi walks inside, dirty, from the filthy yard. Adah moves to hit Trudy, but a passing neighbor holds her back and someone calls Miss Stirling. After Miss Stirling observes Trudy's grimy house, she tells Adah that they've found a nursery for Titi and Vicky. After Vicky returns from the hospital, Francis and Adah get a letter from their landlord's lawyer evicting them. Adah is unsurprised: she knows her childless landlord is jealous of her for having children and that her neighbors hate her for having a white-collar job. For two weeks, all the ads she finds for rooms say "Sorry, no coloureds." Then she discovers an ad that doesn't explicitly discriminate against Black people. She and Francis go to see the rooms, which are located in a dilapidated part of town—but when the white landlady sees that they're Black, she tells them that the rooms are already rented. Adah becomes desperate enough to rent from Mr. Noble, a Nigerian man who immigrated to England in the 1940s; he has trouble getting tenants because of a rumor he started that his dead mother, a witch, killed the rent-controlled tenants he inherited when he first bought his house. A week before her due date, Adah feels painful movements in her womb. Francis accuses her of making up the pain to get out of work. Over Francis's protests, Adah walks to the nearest surgery, where the doctor tells her to go to the hospital immediately. Adah refuses: she plans to have a home birth to save money. The doctor calls the midwives. When the midwives arrive to examine Adah, they tell her that she's bleeding terribly. They call an ambulance, and Adah ends up having her son, Bubu, via an emergency Cesarian section. While recovering in a maternity ward, Adah contrasts her unhappy marriage to Francis with the loving relationship she sees between the sleek woman in the bed beside hers and the woman's husband. Adah doesn't want to get pregnant again—but when she tells Francis she wants contraception, he tells her he'll just pull out. Adah sneaks to a family planning clinic and gets fitted for a cervical cap. Later that night, Francis starts a fight with her, and she ends up confessing about the cap—after which he beats her so badly that Mr. Noble intervenes. The next week, she discovers she's pregnant again. Adah goes to her family doctor and asks him to terminate the pregnancy, so he gives her abortifacient pills. Meanwhile, Adah has started working at a new library, where she makes friends with her coworkers. One coworker, Bill, introduces her to novels by Black writers. Yet Adah doesn't tell any of her nice coworkers about her problems. After three months, Adah realizes that the abortifacient pills haven't worked. She goes to a park to think. An Ibo immigrant approaches her, introduces himself as Okpara, and asks whether she's had a fight with her husband. He offers to help Adah ask her husband's forgiveness. Though irritated, Adah walks him back to her apartment. Okpara warns Francis that Adah is so unhappy she could have a mental breakdown, like many lonely Nigerian immigrants do, and tells Francis that his sons will never respect him unless he gets a job and starts supporting the family. Okpara insists that Francis and Adah socialize with him and his wife, but Okpara is unable to convince Francis to get a job: he's too used to taking Adah's money. Eventually, Adah tells Francis that she's pregnant and that she's not going to support him anymore. Though Francis protests, Adah stands firm. After she gives birth to their fourth child, a daughter named Dada, Francis gets a job. Meanwhile, Adah stays at home and cares for the children. When she realizes that she has a few hours free each afternoon, she remembers her aspiration to become a writer and starts writing a novel she calls The Bride Price in some notebooks. When Adah finishes The Bride Price, she shows it to her former coworkers, including Bill, who tells her it's her "brainchild" and suggests she try to get it published. Adah, excited, asks Francis to read it, but he tells her that it's trash and that no one wants to read a Black woman's writing. The next time Adah goes grocery shopping, she comes back to find Francis burning the manuscript. Feeling as if Francis has murdered one of her children, she resolves once and for all to leave him. Adah gets a new job and moves out with the children, though Francis beats her as she's leaving. Later, Francis follows Titi and Vicky home from school to Adah's new address and tells her that married Nigerians don't separate. When Adah points out that he violated Nigerian norms first by not supporting his family, he attacks her, beating and choking her until her upstairs neighbor intervenes. Adah decides to take Francis to court. In court, Francis claims that Adah got all her injuries from a fall and refuses to pay child support. Adah resolves to support the children by herself and leaves the courtroom. Walking aimlessly, she encounters an old high school friend who sees her wedding ring and pays for her taxi home, as he assumes that she and Francis are still together.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Secrets - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: The protagonist's childhood home in Ireland - Character: The Protagonist. Description: The protagonist of "Secrets" is an unnamed young man who lives with his mother and his Great Aunt Mary. At the beginning of the story, Great Aunt Mary is on her deathbed, surrounded by family. As the protagonist waits for her death, the story flashes back to his childhood, when the protagonist is a curious boy in a household that values privacy. He has a caring relationship with Aunt Mary, but whenever he asks her about her past, she reprimands him for being too inquisitive. He is especially curious about Aunt Mary's friend, Brother Benignus, who he knows has written her many postcards over the years. Craving a deeper connection with his aunt, and wanting to satisfy his curiosity about Brother Benignus, the protagonist finally oversteps his aunt's boundaries and breaks the trust they share: he sneaks into her room and reads her letters from her former lover, John, even though she has expressly forbidden him from touching the letters. He learns that, after enduring horrific trauma in World War I, John broke off his relationship with Mary and became a Catholic monk named Brother Benignus. As the protagonist realizes that John and Brother Benignus are the same person, Aunt Mary returns to her room to discover him invading her privacy. Deeply hurt, she slaps the protagonist and tells him that she will remember his betrayal until she dies. The story then returns to the present. Aunt Mary is now dead, and the protagonist is watching as his mother burns Aunt Mary's papers, including John's letters. By letting the letters burn despite his ongoing curiosity about Brother Benignus, the protagonist shows that he has learned how to respect Aunt Mary's desires for privacy. Later on, when he is alone in Aunt Mary's old room, the protagonist breaks down in tears. Because he grieves alone, his tears represent the pattern of emotional isolation he learned from Aunt Mary. However, the protagonist's tears also carry a sense of release and healing, as he is able to acknowledge his grief and guilt over the incident, and to hope for his aunt's forgiveness. - Character: Great Aunt Mary. Description: The protagonist's Great Aunt Mary dies at the beginning of the story, but from then on, most of the story consists of the protagonist's memories of her from his childhood. Mary is a loving but secretive character, and her living situation reflects these characteristics: in the protagonist's flashback to his childhood, she lives with him and his mother, but in private rooms secluded at the back of the house, away from the family's shared spaces. Mary is a loving presence: she lets the protagonist enter her space and reads books to him, and she allows him to remove stamps from her postcards for his collection. But Mary's character also revolves around organization, routine, and control. Along with her impeccably neat appearance, she carefully organizes her life, maintaining a vase of fresh irises in her sitting room and regularly attending Catholic services. She is also careful to control the level of information her family knows about her: as the protagonist's mother reflects after Mary's death, "your aunt kept herself very much to herself." For this reason, she answers the protagonist's questions about her past evasively, and she symbolically locks away her important papers in an organized bureau. When the protagonist finds a picture of Mary as a beautiful girl with "dark and knowing" eyes, the reader sees that Mary has always been somewhat austere and mysterious, even as a child. However, the letters from Mary's former lover, John, reveal a much more vulnerable and open side to Mary: in one letter, John describes Mary as a skilled teacher. In another, he describes the day of their first kiss, when her usually neat hair was undone, representing her vulnerability. Through these letters, the reader realizes that Mary's inability to be vulnerable with her family members is partly a response to the trauma of heartbreak: having trusted John only for him to leave her to become a Catholic monk named Brother Benignus, Mary has not been able to trust again. Thus, when the protagonist betrays Mary by reading her most personal letters against her will, he triggers this trauma, causing her to lash out angrily at him. In her inability to trust, Mary demonstrates how grief and trauma can numb people to their emotions, preventing them from healing. - Character: John/Brother Benignus. Description: John's letters to Great Aunt Mary, written when he was a soldier fighting in World War I, reveal that he and Mary were in a romantic relationship in their youth, before and during the war. From the letters, it's clear that he cares deeply about Mary, describing how proud he is that she is a teacher and reminiscing about their first kiss. Like Mary, he loves the written word: he writes eloquently and finds other soldiers' illiteracy "heartrending." Throughout the four letters the protagonist reads, John becomes increasingly depressed by the war, until, by the third letter, he tells Mary that if he survives, he "will be a different person." This letter demonstrates the war's traumatic effect on John: he describes witnessing dead bodies frozen on the ground and staying with a fellow soldier as the man "chok[ed] and then drown[ed] in his own blood." Throughout the letter, John references the frozen winter weather, which parallels his own frozen emotions, as he tells Mary that he "has lost all sense of feeling" besides anger. The fourth letter, written from John's hospital bed, depicts him making sense of this trauma through his religion: he tells Mary, "In some strange way, Christ has spoken to me through the carnage." As a result, he decides to "sacrifice" their relationship in order to become a Catholic monk named Brother Benignus. John's experience in World War I therefore demonstrates the trauma that World War I's "Lost Generation" carried with them for the rest of their lives. His ability to process his trauma through his religion additionally demonstrates how facing grief can help "thaw" emotions and facilitate new growth. After reading this fourth letter, the protagonist realizes that John, whom he saw pictured in Mary's photo collection, is the same person as Brother Benignus, whose name appeared on many of Mary's postcards. By telling the protagonist that John was "perhaps" killed in the war, Mary insinuates that the war so changed John's personality, and their relationship, that John may as well have died. Nevertheless, the two kept a steady correspondence until Brother Benignus's death, including sharing their love of books, revealing their continued care even after their romance ended. - Character: The Protagonist's Mother. Description: A minor character, the protagonist's mother is nevertheless a force of change throughout the story. As Great Aunt Mary lies dying in the opening scene, the protagonist's mother removes the old woman's dentures, causing the lower half of Mary's face to seemingly "collapse" and thus moving her closer toward the undignified appearance of death. In the protagonist's flashback to his childhood, his mother is often tidying the house, sorting "useful items that had to be kept" from "paper scraps torn in quarters and bits of rubbish." In doing so, the protagonist's mother contributes to the household's attitude of secrecy about the past: rather than holding on to physical remembrances and sharing them with the family, the protagonist's mother throws away anything that does not have immediate utilitarian value in the present, even tearing paper scraps in quarters to conceal any secrets they may reveal. After Aunt Mary has died, this same attitude drives the protagonist's mother to burn all of Aunt Mary's papers to make room for the protagonist, thus erasing much of Mary's physical legacy. In this way, although the protagonist's mother cared about Mary, she moves on relatively quickly after Mary's death, representing the constancy of change in life as well as the family's dismissive attitude toward the past. - Character: The Protagonist's Girlfriend. Description: When the protagonist visits Great Aunt Mary in her final hours of life, he comes directly from studying for A-level exams at his girlfriend's house. Trying to avoid looking at his aunt's distorted figure, he covers his face with his hands, only to smell his girlfriend's hand cream. This detail contrasts Aunt Mary's old age with the protagonist's youth: as Mary arrives at the end of her solitary life, the protagonist is on the edge of adulthood, with a new relationship and an array of possible life paths ahead of him. The smell of his girlfriend's hand cream seems to make the scene of Mary's death even more intolerable to him, perhaps because he knows Mary's own youthful romance ended in heartbreak and feels guilty about invading her privacy to learn that secret. In this way, the protagonist's girlfriend, although a very minor character, demonstrates the protagonist's youth relative to Mary's old age and reveals his ongoing guilt about betraying Mary's trust as a child. - Theme: Secrets and Curiosity. Description: Throughout the protagonist's childhood, his Great Aunt Mary admonishes him, "don't be so inquisitive." "Secrets" asks readers to consider this warning: is it good to question everything? Or are there some instances when unbridled curiosity does more harm than good? By demonstrating how the protagonist's youthful curiosity leads him to lose Aunt Mary's trust forever, "Secrets" suggests that curiosity can be harmful if it is not paired with respect for others' privacy, and that learning one another's secrets can actually drive people further apart rather than bringing them closer together. While the protagonist and Aunt Mary have a loving bond, as a child, the protagonist does not have much compassion for his aunt, who's a very guarded and reserved person. Instead, like many curious children rebelling against authority figures, the protagonist disrespects Aunt Mary's boundaries in order to find out more about her past. He sneaks into her room to read her letters from her old lover, John—the only items in the room she has explicitly forbidden him from touching. Through reading these letters, the protagonist learns that John ended their romantic relationship when he became a Catholic monk (and changed his name to Brother Benignus) after fighting in World War I. But learning this secret from his aunt's past doesn't bring the protagonist and Great Aunt Mary any closer—instead, his invasion of privacy ruins their relationship and deepens the mystery of Aunt Mary's life rather than resolving it. Her anger at the protagonist's betrayal makes sense: after suffering heartbreak, Aunt Mary has spent most of her life not trusting others, mirroring Brother Benignus's monastic isolation. Because the young protagonist was one of the few people she let enter this private life, his betrayal hurts her deeply. As a young child, the protagonist is unable to see that his actions could have hurt Aunt Mary, whom he perceives as an unemotional authority figure. In this way, his curiosity isn't tempered with compassion and thus results in harm. However, when Aunt Mary dies years later, the protagonist (who is now a young adult) has learned from his past mistakes, and he checks his curiosity with compassion. Despite his ongoing interest in Brother Benignus, he lets his mother burn the letters in the fireplace rather than reading them, out of respect for Aunt Mary's privacy. The story thus suggests that although curiosity can be a good quality, it must be moderated with a genuine care for other people's emotions. - Theme: Death, Love, and Legacy. Description: "Secrets" suggests that love is the only lasting legacy of a person's life after their death. In the first scene, as the protagonist sees his Great Aunt Mary on her death bed, he observes how much of her personality has already been lost in her declining health. Though devoutly Catholic, Mary cannot grip the crucifix her family has placed in her hands. And though devoted to keeping her appearance impeccably neat, in death, Mary has "lost all the dignity [the protagonist] knew her to have." Furthermore, the events of the story revolve around the material remnants of Aunt Mary's long life: her correspondence and photos, including a picture of her in her youth and a collection of letters from her former lover, John (who later became a monk named Brother Benignus). In life, these objects were important to Aunt Mary, as she guarded them vigilantly in a locked bureau and became very angry when the protagonist invaded her privacy to read John's letters. But after her death, her belongings lose much of the significance they held while she was alive. While clearing out Aunt Mary's room, the protagonist's mother burns all of Aunt Mary's papers, reducing the traces of her life to ash. And despite her pledge to remember the protagonist's hurtful invasion of her privacy "until the day she dies," Aunt Mary is "too far gone to speak" when she dies, rendering her unable to forgive or condemn the protagonist for his disrespectful action. Her disputes, like her personality and her possessions, are lost to death. The only remaining trace of Aunt Mary's life is in the protagonist's loving memory of her. After John's letters burn, the legacy of Mary and John's relationship still remains in the protagonist's mind, alongside his fond memories of his "maiden aunt, his teller of tales." Therefore, the story suggests, love is the only legacy that truly survives death. - Theme: World War I and the Lost Generation. Description: "Secrets" explores the far-reaching devastation of World War I, detailing the war's repercussions not only for the generation that fought in it, but also for generations to follow. When the protagonist reads Aunt Mary's letters, he realizes that she was in love with a soldier named John during the war, who later became a Catholic monk and changed his name to Brother Benignus. Having reached young adulthood during World War I, both Brother Benignus and Mary are members of what historians call the "Lost Generation," and both are psychologically scarred by their experiences. The four letters the protagonist reads from John reveal that, like many other members of his generation, the horrors John experienced on the battlefield deeply transformed him. Although John seems hopeful about the future in the first letter the protagonist reads, by the third letter, he describes the horror and anguish of watching his fellow soldiers die, writing, "if I live through this experience, I will be a different person." Thus, while he physically survived the war, he was so mentally altered by it that Mary implies that he was, in a sense, killed in the war. His name change to Brother Benignus once he was ordained further implies that the pre-war John symbolically died. Mary also suffered a huge loss, as she had to give up the future she had hoped for with John when he became a monk. Scarred by the trauma of this heartbreak, Aunt Mary seems to have spent the rest of her life trusting no one and "keep[ing] mostly to herself." Mary and John's failed romantic relationship therefore demonstrates the deep pain and isolation that many members of the Lost Generation carried with them for the rest of their lives. The protagonist grows up amid the reverberations of this pain, demonstrating how, even two generations after the World War I, the devastation of the Lost Generation still echoes. Coming of age around Aunt Mary's unspoken trauma, the young protagonist learns not to talk about his emotions. As a child, he clearly craves connection with his aunt, but she answers his questions with evasive statements or silence. He finally goes behind her back to read her letters, an invasion of privacy that angers her and only drives her further away. Having learned to repress his emotions, the protagonist carries his guilt about this incident silently, never talking to Aunt Mary or his mother about it. Unable to process his feelings with others, his shame over a childhood mistake continues to haunt him into young adulthood. The story's last scene, in which the protagonist weeps alone, symbolizes his emotional isolation. Through both Aunt Mary and the protagonist's silent pain, the story captures the intergenerational trauma of World War I. - Theme: Grief and Healing. Description: The main characters in "Secrets" process their grief by compartmentalizing their emotions. While this response perhaps helps them survive in the short term, the story suggests that in order to properly heal from their trauma, the characters must allow themselves to truly feel their grief. All three of the story's major characters deal with grief by compartmentalizing and "freezing" their emotions. The story opens with the protagonist grieving the imminent death of his Great Aunt Mary, "trembling with anger or sorrow [...] waiting for something to happen." This passage describes the protagonist's distance from his emotions—he can't tell whether he feels sorrow or anger—as well as his suspension in time, as he "waits," "trembling" as if frozen, removed from the scene of Mary's death. When the story flashes back to the protagonist's childhood, a similar response to grief is evident in Aunt Mary's character. The reader learns that Aunt Mary has spent much of her life grieving the loss of her former lover, John, who was so traumatized by fighting in World War I that he became a Catholic monk named Brother Benignus. Like the protagonist, Aunt Mary also distances herself from her emotions by compartmentalizing them, refusing to let herself be vulnerable with anyone, including the protagonist. And by locking John's letters in her highly organized bureau-bookcase, Aunt Mary very literally compartmentalizes the source of her grief. Finally, in his wartime letters to Aunt Mary, John describes his grief from the trauma of war, saying, "I have lost all sense of feeling" and worrying about what will happen to the dead bodies around him "when the thaw comes." Like Mary and the protagonist, John's immense grief freezes him, making him unable to feel anything but anger. Because they are emotionally closed-off and numb, all three characters are able to endure their trauma in the short term. But Mary's emotional outburst when the protagonist betrays her trust demonstrates the long-term cost of not processing grief. Because she has only locked her emotions away, Aunt Mary transfers her unprocessed anger from John's betrayal to the protagonist, whose childish actions are hurtful but arguably do not merit such an intense response. Thus, the rigidity of being emotionally frozen causes her to hurt the people she loves, and she never moves on from her grief. By contrast, in becoming Brother Benignus, John is able to feel his grief and make meaning from it. As he writes to Aunt Mary, "Christ has spoken to me through the carnage," demonstrating that although the horrors of war still haunt him, by facing his grief and processing it through his religion, he has begun to heal. The protagonist's tears at the end of the story similarly demonstrate his ability to process his grief over Mary's death. Although he never gets the closure of Mary's forgiveness, by crying "for the first time since she had died," the protagonist finds a sense of release, taking the first step toward healing. The story therefore suggests that in order to truly heal from trauma, we must first "thaw" our emotions and face our grief. - Climax: Great Aunt Mary lashes out at the protagonist when she finds him reading John's letters. - Summary: The protagonist returns home from studying at his girlfriend's house to visit his Great Aunt Mary on her deathbed in her final hours. Kneeling on the threshold of the crowded room, observing Mary's shrunken, pained figure, he reflects on how much dignity she has lost. He can't bear witnessing her like this and retreats to her sitting room. The story flashes back as the protagonist remembers what Mary was like when he was a child. She lived with his family in an apartment at the back of the house, and she was always small and dignified, with no jewelry except for a ring and locket. He used to ask her about the ring when she read stories to him. She would tell him that her grandmother had given it to her, but she tired quickly of his questions and went back to reading. One day, the protagonist entered Mary's study to ask for stamps for his stamp collection. She unlocked her bureau, revealing an organized array of papers, and told him he could steam the stamps off her postcards. While removing the stamps, he noticed that many of the postcards were from someone named Brother Benignus. She said only that he was a friend who had died. The protagonist then reached over to read her collection of letters, but she firmly told him that he was never to touch them. Instead, he looked through some old photographs and found a picture of a young man standing in front of the ocean, with the inscription, "John, Aug '15 Ballintoye" on the back. He asked if this man was Brother Benignus, but Aunt Mary didn't respond. One summer evening, after Aunt Mary left the house to go to Devotions, the protagonist snuck up to her room, unlocked the bureau, and opened the bundle of letters. He found that they were all written to Mary from John during World War I. In the first letter, John told Mary that the war had begun and he missed her deeply. In the next letter, he wrote that his memories of her were keeping him sane as he endured the war, and passionately recalled their first kiss. But in the next letter, written in the deep cold of winter, John told Mary about the horrors of war, describing how the dead lay frozen on the ground. He wrote that he felt numb and full of "anger which ha[d] no direction." In the final letter, John wrote Mary from a hospital bed, telling her regretfully that in order to make sense of the war, he needed to break off their relationship and become a Catholic monk. As the protagonist finished reading this final letter, Aunt Mary entered the room. Betrayed by the protagonist's invasion of her privacy, she slapped him on the face and said, "you are dirt, and always will be dirt. I shall remember this till the day I die." Back in the present, the protagonist builds a fire in his Aunt Mary's fireplace. She has passed away, and the protagonist's mother wants to clear out her things so that the protagonist can use the room as his study. He asks his mother who Brother Benignus was, but she doesn't know, since Aunt Mary was a very private person. She starts to burn the papers from the bureau in the fire. As the protagonist watches the letters burn, he asks his mother if Aunt Mary said anything about him before she died. His mother responds that Aunt Mary "was too far gone to speak" and continues to burn the letters. Afterwards, studying alone in his room, the protagonist cries silently for the "woman who had been his maiden aunt, his teller of tales, that she might forgive him."

- Genre: Novel of manners - Title: Sense and Sensibility - Point of view: - Setting: Late 18th century England, at various country estates and in London - Character: Mrs. Dashwood. Description: The mother of Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret. Mrs. Dashwood is a kind, caring mother, who looks out for her daughters and tries to see them into happy, comfortable lives with good husbands, but is not as scheming as Mrs. Ferrars and is generally more interested in her daughters' happiness than in their financial fortunes. - Character: John Dashwood. Description: The half-brother of the Dashwood sisters. John likes to think of himself as kind and generous, but his behavior proves him to be actually rather greedy. He doesn't help his sisters, financially or otherwise, even after promising his dying father to help them. He is easily persuaded and even bossed around by his wife Fanny, and is greatly concerned with social status and prestige. - Character: Fanny Dashwood. Description: The wife of John Dashwood. Fanny is a greedy character. She doesn't want John to give any money to his sisters, so that her son can inherit it all, and she cleverly persuades him out of giving his sisters any money. A bit of a social climber, Fanny is more concerned with wealth and status than love or character. She tries to discourage the possible marriage between Edward and Elinor early in the novel and when she finds out about Edward's engagement to Lucy she becomes hysterical and throws Lucy out of her home. - Character: Elinor Dashwood. Description: The oldest of the three Dashwood sisters. Elinor exemplifies sense, from the novel's title. She is a rational thinker, who restrains her emotions, even when she suffers great hardship. Elinor is polite and always tries to say the right thing when around company. She often has to correct or apologize to people for Marianne, who is less concerned with manners and propriety. Elinor is a caring sister and tries to comfort Marianne when she is abandoned by Willoughby. She is in love with Edward, but tries to ignore or put aside these feelings for much of the novel, as she believes him to be taken by Lucy. At the end of the novel, Elinor finally lets some of her emotions out: when Edward tells her that he has not married Lucy, she bursts out into tears. After marrying Edward, Elinor settles down into a comfortable, happy life. - Character: Marianne Dashwood. Description: While Elinor exemplifies sense, Marianne epitomizes sensibility. The middle Dashwood sister, she is romantic, emotional, and sentimental. She often lacks the restraint, prudence, and politeness of her older sister Elinor. She falls in love easily and quickly with Willoughby and, when he abandons her, she does not even try to restrain or moderate her sadness. She bursts into tears numerous times, whether in the privacy of her room or in public. In the end, Marianne has to temper her sensibility with some good sense. She abandons her childish, idealistic notions of love at first sight and allows herself to gradually develop affections for Colonel Brandon, who she ends up loving dearly and marries happily. - Character: Edward Ferrars. Description: Edward is a kind, honorable gentleman and the brother of Fanny. Early in the novel, he grows close to Elinor, even though he is secretly engaged to Lucy. In Marianne's opinion, he lacks taste and artistic sensibility, but Elinor admires and loves him. He prioritizes duty and responsibility over money, as is shown when he refuses to break off his engagement with Lucy even when it means losing out on his inheritance. His relationship with Lucy is finally revealed at the end of the novel to be a mostly loveless one, and when their engagement fails, he is finally able to propose to Elinor, the woman he actually loves. Edward is content with a modest, comfortable life as a priest with a wife he loves; he has no lofty ambitions of wealth or social status (much to the chagrin of his mother Mrs. Ferrars). - Character: Lady Middleton. Description: Sir John's elegant but (in Elinor and Marianne's opinion) rather dull wife. She and her husband host many social events which Elinor and Marianne attend, but Lady Middleton does not particularly like the Dashwood sisters, since they don't flatter her or her children. By contrast, she is very fond of the Steeles, who do flatter her. - Character: Mrs. Jennings. Description: Lady Middleton's mother, with whom Elinor and Marianne stay in London. Mrs. Jennings is friendly and well-intentioned, but a bit overly fond of gossip. She is obsessed with predicting marriages and matching young couples. She often irritates Marianne by joking about her supposed engagement to Willoughby, but when she learns of how Willoughby used her, she is sympathetic and compassionate toward Marianne. For all her attempts to know all the romantic gossip, Mrs. Jennings is often mistaken and misinformed. For most of the novel, she thinks that Colonel Brandon is in love with Elinor, when he actually loves Marianne. - Character: Colonel Brandon. Description: A friend of Sir John, whom the Dashwood sisters meet at Barton Park. Brandon is a 35 year-old bachelor who has been in love once before, with a woman named Eliza who was married against her will to Brandon's brother. When he meets Marianne, he instantly falls in love with her, but she thinks he is far too old to marry and neglects his affections. For most of the novel, Brandon's love for Marianne is quite hopeless. Nonetheless, he is a persistent, good friend to Elinor and is compassionate when Marianne is hurt by Willoughby. In an extraordinary act of generosity, Brandon gives Edward a living on his property after Edward is disinherited by his mother. At the end of the novel, Marianne finally allows herself to grow fond of Brandon, and they end up marrying and settling down together happily. - Character: John Willoughby. Description: Willoughby is a charming gentleman who literally sweeps Marianne off her feet when he picks her up after she has fallen in a rainstorm. He shares Marianne's sensibility and artistic tastes, and the two quickly become very close. They appear to be falling in love together, but he suddenly abandons her and goes to London. When Marianne sees him there, he ignores her and claims that he was never romantically attached to her. As Elinor learns from Colonel Brandon, Willoughby has a history of seducing and abandoning women. Marianne is thus forced to reevaluate the character of the man she thought she knew and loved. When his aunt Mrs. Smith disinherits him, he is desperate for wealth so he marries Miss Grey for her money. Late in the novel, he finally offers Elinor an explanation of his behavior, saying that he hurt Marianne unintentionally, regrets his foolish behavior, and really does love Marianne. Marianne and Elinor (and the reader) must then reevaluate Willoughby yet again, and his ultimate character is still somewhat ambiguous at the end of the novel. - Character: Lucy Steele. Description: Lucy is a clever, socially scheming, self-interested young woman. For much of the novel she is secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars and tells Elinor that she is truly in love with him. However, after he loses his inheritance and his brother Robert gains it, she is not exactly slow to ingratiate herself with Robert, whom she ends up marrying. In the end, Lucy gets what she wants—a wealthy husband who allows her to move up the social ladder through marriage. As the narrator says of her at the conclusion of the novel, she is a prime example of what someone can achieve when he or she is persistent, self-interested, and determined. - Character: Mrs. Ferrars. Description: The mother of Fanny, Edward, and Robert Ferrars. Mrs. Ferrars' primary concern is to make sure her sons marry wealthy women. She is more concerned with gaining wealth and social status through their marriages than with the happiness of her own children. Mrs. Ferrars is particularly rude to Elinor, but is fond of Lucy when she first meets her. However, she becomes furious when she learns of Lucy and Edward's engagement. She disinherits and practically disowns Edward for this engagement. Somewhat hypocritically, though, she easily forgives Robert for marrying Lucy at the end of the novel, mainly because Robert is her favorite son. While not a particularly admirable character, Mrs. Ferrars is a rare example of how women can exercise some power in 18th century society. As her family's matriarch, she determines the inheritance of her children, and thus has an enormous amount of power (though both her sons end up thwarting her wishes). - Character: Eliza (Older). Description: A woman who was in love with Colonel Brandon, but was married against her will to Brandon's brother. She and Brandon tried to elope but were caught. Unhappy in her marriage, her life took a downward turn while Brandon served in the army abroad. She was seduced by numerous men, divorced Brandon's brother, and ended up confined to a house because of debt. Brandon finds her there dying of consumption and promises to take care of her illegitimate daughter, also named Eliza. - Character: Robert Ferrars. Description: Arrogant and conceited, he is the son of Mrs. Ferrars is the younger brother of Edward and Fanny. His mother favors him over his older brother, and she seems pleased to disinherit Edward and give that inheritance to Robert. Ironically, Robert ends up getting engaged to Lucy Steele, the same woman who's engagement to Edward caused him to be disinherited in the first place. Robert has none of his brothers sense or sensibility, and likes only to hear himself speak and be agreed with. - Theme: Love and Marriage. Description: The plot of Sense and Sensibility revolves around marriage. The novel begins with Elinor and Marianne as unmarried but eligible young women and only concludes when both of them settle into marriages. Engagements, possible matches, and marriages are the main concern of most the novel's characters and the subject of much of their conversation. Thus, love is also of central importance to the novel, as Marianne and Elinor fall in love and seek to marry the men they love. However, marriage isn't all about love in the world of Sense and Sensibility. In fact, it's often more about wealth, uniting families, and gaining social standing. Moreover, it's often families and parents who attempt to decide engagements as much as any individual husband or wife. Mrs. Ferrars, for example, cares only about her sons marrying wealthy, upper-class women. She does not care whether Edward loves Lucy and cuts all ties with him when she learns of their engagement. For her, the decision of whom her sons will marry is as much hers as theirs, because their marriages are more about their whole family than about their own individual desires. Marriage is an important part of the functioning of the high society in which Austen's characters live. It determines who will inherit family fortunes and properties, and is of particular importance to women, whose futures depend almost entirely on the prospects of the men they marry. Nonetheless, while people in the novel often marry for reasons other than love (Willoughby, for example, marries Miss Grey just for money), Elinor and Marianne ultimately do marry for love. For Marianne, though, this means redefining her notion of love and allowing herself to develop affections for Colonel Brandon, even though she did not love him at first sight. The novel also shows the importance of love through a consideration of family. The bonds between Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, and their mother stand strong through all the difficulties they endure and at the end of the novel they maintain a happily close relationship. Thus, while marriage may often be more a matter of economics than of love, the examples of Marianne and Elinor show that it doesn't necessarily have to be this way. And, insofar as marriage brings families together and creates new family units, it can create strong and lasting bonds of familial love. - Theme: Character, Sense, and Sensibility. Description: Both Austen's characters and her narrator spend a great deal of time thinking about people's character, trying to ascertain and distinguish someone's particular nature. Austen's omniscient narrator is generally able to pinpoint exactly what kind of person someone is with exact, often sharply ironic description. It is important for the novel to spend time introducing and describing characters before relating their actions, because—in the world of the novel—people's inner character is essential for understanding their motives, actions, and desires. Austen's title offers one important way of understanding someone's character, based on where they fall on a kind of spectrum between sense and sensibility. Elinor is on the side of sense, while Marianne can be classified as someone more given to sensibility. This means that Elinor is a rational thinker, who values reason and restraint. She doesn't allow herself to be carried away by emotions, even when she learns of Lucy and Edward's engagement. Marianne, by contrast, is a character of extreme emotions. As the narrator says, "Marianne could never love by halves." She gives herself entirely to her feelings of love, happiness, or despair. Much of the novel demonstrates the follies of excessive sensibility like that of Marianne. It brings her to dangerous extremes of emotion and hysteria. Elinor, meanwhile, is generally admired for her good sense. However, in the end, it takes a bit of both sense and sensibility for each sister to achieve happiness. Elinor ends up giving into her powerful feelings of love for Edward, while Marianne abandons her overly idealistic conception of love and allows herself to gradually learn to love Colonel Brandon. For both sisters, sense and sensibility become not so much opposites as complementary parts of their characters.The narrator—and by extension, often the reader—is generally able to know exactly what a person's character is, where precisely they fall on the spectrum of sense and sensibility. But, the novel's characters themselves often have a difficult time discerning someone's true character. Willoughby is the prime example of this. Marianne builds up one idea of his noble character, only to be forced to revise her understanding of him when he abandons her for Miss Grey. But then she must reverse her understanding of his character once again after he explains himself to Elinor. Through Willoughby's shocking, surprising behavior, the novel implicitly asks how well we know Willoughby, and even how well anyone can know another person. Nonetheless, surprises like Willoughby's sudden abandoning of Marianne arise not because people are ultimately mysterious or have no particular character, but simply because their character has been insufficiently known. We are gradually able to understand Willoughby's actions better after learning more about his character from Colonel Brandon and from Willoughby himself. In Austen's world, a radical change of character alters our understanding of a particular person, but does not call into question our ability to understand that person. Character is ultimately knowable, even if not entirely known, and for the narrator of Sense and Sensibility, one's actions and behavior are always explainable by someone's inner character, their own mix of sense and sensibility, among other traits. - Theme: Women in Society. Description: Set in the late 1700s, Austen's novel takes place in a world where there are limited roles and opportunities for women in society. Austen's female characters do not inherit property and cannot have careers. Their futures and fortunes depend almost exclusively on the men they marry and they are expected to be dutiful, upstanding ladies of society. But, Austen depicts her female characters as thoughtful, clever, ambitious, and sometimes scheming women. Even while living within a male-dominated world, characters like Lucy, Fanny, and Mrs. Ferrars are able to exert some power and agency. Lucy persistently and tenaciously chases after what she wants, even speaking of "conquests" of men, and eventually does find herself with a suitably wealthy husband in Robert Ferrars. Fanny, meanwhile, practically controls her husband, persuading him not to give any money to his half-sisters at the beginning of the novel and not to invite them to stay with them in London. And Mrs. Ferrars holds power insofar as she determines whether her sons inherit their family fortune and tries (mostly unsuccessfully) to determine their courses of action. Admittedly, these are not the novel's most admirable characters, but they do illustrate how women can find some power and agency even within a sexist society that boxes women into limited gender roles. Other female characters, like Mrs. Jennings, also find ways of attaining some power, through orchestrating important social interactions like dances, dinners, and parties.But despite these examples, women of the novel are often at the mercy of the male-dominated society in which they live. Eliza and her daughter (also named Eliza), who is abandoned by Willoughby, exemplify this. Without husbands, they are left in desperate situations. Elinor and Marianne are constantly confronting the threat of this kind of fate, should they be unable to find a husband. As Elinor tells Marianne, she should be thankful that her time with Willoughby did not leave her like Eliza. Only by marrying eligible men can both sisters get a guarantee of a stable, comfortable life. Austen's novel thus presents the dangers and limited possibilities for women in a rigidly patriarchal society, while also showing how some women in such a society can still find ways of exercising certain forms of power and influence. - Theme: Society and Strategy. Description: Jane Austen is often described as a novelist of manners. Her works illustrate in great detail the workings, habits, customs, and manners of high English society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This is a society that is dictated by a rigid social and economic hierarchy. People are not simply rich or poor: rather, there are very specific gradations of wealth and status. Most of the characters in Sense and Sensibility (especially including but not limited to Lucy, Fanny, and Mrs. Ferrars) are obsessed with maintaining their family's place on the social ladder and potentially moving up the ladder through either marriage or simply associating with wealthier, higher class friends. These kinds of social dynamics are at play at the many events like dances, parties, dinners, and more casual gatherings where people can make acquaintances, develop friendships, and maybe even meet a future spouse. These events are governed by codes of behavior, manners, and proper speaking. Elinor, for example, always takes care to say the right thing, restrain her emotions, and not always say exactly what she is thinking while in the company of people like the Steeles, or even Mrs. Jennings. (Marianne, by contrast, is often unable to restrain herself, as shown by her angry outburst when Mrs. Ferrars insults Elinor's painting.)The high society Austen depicts is a complex, dangerous landscape through which characters have to navigate strategically. Indeed, the novel is at times like a complicated game, with all the characters like players competing with each other in an attempt to maximize their happiness and end up with the best husband, the largest fortune, or the nicest mansion. Lucy certainly approaches her social life like a game she is determined to win. The clever strategy of the novel's characters is reflected in their witty conversations, artfully written letters, skillful persuasion, and meddling in others' affairs. Elinor and Marianne are to some degree exceptions to this pattern. While they also participate in the same societal circles as other characters, they are less ruthless than someone like Lucy. They look out for each other and their own interests, but are less concerned with rising in society and besting others in competition for "Beaux" than they are with finding their own happiness. In the end, this strategy of mostly minding their own business and staying (to some degree) out of the games everyone else plays works out well for the Dashwood sisters, as they are at last successful in finding happy, comfortable marriages. - Theme: Wealth, Class, and Greed. Description: Austen's novel is a thorough portrait of English society, but only of a narrow slice of it—the privileged, wealthy upper class. All of the main characters in Sense and Sensibility are very well-off, but having plenty of money doesn't seem to stop them from worrying about finances. They are generally very concerned with money, to the point of greed. The novel opens with the issue of the inheritance of Norland and questions of money, as Fanny persuades her husband John not to give any money to the Dashwood sisters, even though he can easily afford to. John wants to think of himself as generous to his family, but is easily persuaded by Fanny to keep his fortune to himself. The novel's wealthy characters have warped standards for what qualifies as a comfortable life. They worry over how many maids or servants one needs to live comfortably, for example, not considering whether their maids or servants themselves can live "comfortably". For most of the novel's characters, concerns of wealth, money, and socio-economic class trump love when it comes to the institution of marriage. Mrs. Ferrars does not care whether Edward (or, for that matter, Robert) loves Lucy. She only cares about her sons entering into marriages that will advance their family's position in society. And Willoughby, despite his affections for Marianne, marries Miss Grey solely for money. Marianne and Elinor resist this greed and materialism to some extent, but not entirely. They are still concerned with the financial prospects of their respective husbands. At the end of the novel, when Elinor ends up with Edward, the man she loves, their story is not completely concluded until they secure financial security through Mrs. Ferrars' forgiveness of Edward. Even for this couple, money seems to be in some respects their ultimate, final concern. Perhaps the only character who really steps outside of the novel's society of greed is Colonel Brandon. In the novel's biggest gesture of generosity, he gives Edward the property of Delaford to live at. However, even this grand gesture is an act of generosity directed simply to an already privileged, wealthy individual. While Austen negatively depicts the extremes of greed that can be found in upper-class society, her characters never really get outside of their own limited social class and she does not go so far as to critique the wealthy society as a whole that almost exclusively populates her novel. - Climax: Edward unexpectedly shows up to Barton Cottage, tells Elinor that his engagement with Lucy has fallen through, and proposes to her. - Summary: Henry Dashwood lived at Norland Park in Sussex, England, a property owned by his wealthy uncle. Henry had three daughters by his current wife and one son from a prior marriage. When his uncle died, Norland was left to Henry's son John and John's own son. This left Henry's three daughters without much of a fortune, and when he died, he asked John to look after his half-sisters. John, in response, plans to give his sisters 3000 pounds each, but his wife Fanny quickly persuades him not to do this, so that their own son will have that money. Henry's widow, Mrs. Dashwood, and her three daughters (the rational and self-controlled Elinor, the sensitive Marianne, and the young Margaret) stay at Norland for several months after Henry's death. Mrs. Dashwood despises Fanny, but Elinor becomes close with Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars. Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne think he and Elinor will marry. A relative of Mrs. Dashwood, Sir John Middleton, writes to her and offers her a place to live on his property, Barton Park. Mrs. Dashwood accepts the offer, and moves to a cottage on Sir John's property with her daughters. The Dashwoods meet Sir John and his wife, Lady Middleton, often attending dinners and balls at their home. They also meet Lady Middleton's mother, a kind but gossipy old woman named Mrs. Jennings, who enjoys predicting and encouraging budding romances. Another frequent guest at the Middletons' home is Colonel Brandon, a friend of Sir John and a 35 year-old bachelor. It quickly becomes apparent that Brandon loves Marianne, but Marianne thinks the idea of marrying a man so old and as lacking in taste as she thinks Brandon to be is ridiculous. One day, The Dashwood sisters go out for a walk in the country. When it begins to rain suddenly, they run back toward their cottage, but Marianne trips and falls. A gentleman who happens to be passing by picked her up and gallantly carries her home. He introduces himself as Willoughby. Soon after, the Dashwoods see Willoughby again at dinner at Barton Park. Sir John tells Marianne that Willoughby is "very well worth catching," and she begins to grow fond of him. Willoughby often visits the Dashwood cottage and spends much time with Marianne. They share many of the same opinions and tastes in art, music, and literature. Mrs. Dashwood guesses that they might become engaged. Marianne and Willoughby grow closer and closer, as the Dashwoods continue to attend numerous social events at Barton Park. Margaret sees Marianne give Willoughby a lock of her hair, and assumes that they are engaged. One evening at Barton Park, Mrs. Jennings asks Elinor if she had any man whom she was fond of, and Margaret lets slip that Elinor is taken by someone whose name began with an F. The next day, a large group assembles at Barton Park to make an expedition to Colonel Brandon's brother-in-law's property. However, Brandon receives a letter and suddenly has to leave for London, cancelling the planned trip. Everyone decides to pass the day by driving around the country, and Willoughby and Marianne go off in one carriage to his aunt's property, Allenham, which he is likely to inherit, and they survey it together. Over the next few days, Willoughby continues to behave as though he is in love with Marianne. However, one day Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor, and Margaret return from Barton Park to find Willoughby's carriage outside their cottage. When they go inside, Marianne is in tears and greatly upset. Willoughby informs them that he has to leave for London indefinitely on business. Elinor is slightly suspicious of Willoughby, as no one knows for sure whether he and Marianne are actually engaged. After Willoughby's departure, Marianne falls into extreme sadness. One day, she and Elinor go for a walk outside. They see a gentleman approaching and Marianne is sure it's Willoughby. When the man gets closer, though, they see that it's Edward Ferrars. Oddly, though, Edward seems ill at ease and unhappy, rather than overjoyed to see Elinor. Marianne notices a ring on his hand with a lock of hair in it. Edward says it is Fanny's hair, though Elinor and Marianne both think it looks like Elinor's. Elinor imagines that he had secretly gotten it from her somehow. After about a week, Edward leaves, without proposing. Soon after, the Middletons host Lady Middleton's sister, Charlotte Palmer at Barton Park and introduce her and her husband to the Dashwoods. The Palmers know Willoughby and seem to think that Marianne and he are engaged, though Elinor is not so sure. After the Palmers depart, the Middletons have more guests: Anne and Lucy Steele, two young sisters and relatives of Mrs. Jennings. Elinor and Marianne do not particularly like the Steele sisters, who talk of nothing but their prospective boyfriends and romantic conquests. At one point, Sir John mentions that Elinor is in love with Edward Ferrars, and Anne responds that they know Edward well, though Lucy corrects her and says that they don't know him that well. As Lucy and Elinor are walking outside one day, Lucy asks if Elinor knows Edward's mother, Mrs. Ferrars. She explains that she is secretly engaged to Edward, and has been for four years. Because Lucy has no real fortune, they feared that Mrs. Ferrars, Edward's mother, would disapprove of the marriage. Lucy shows Elinor a letter from Edward and mentions that she had given him a lock of hair, which he keeps in a ring. Elinor is shocked, but can't doubt the truth of Lucy's story. She wonders whether Edward had intentionally deceived her in encouraging her affections for him. Soon after this, Elinor takes the opportunity to ask Lucy more about her engagement after a party at Barton Park. Lucy says that she and Edward are in love, but likely will have to wait until Mrs. Ferrars died to marry. As January comes around, Mrs. Jennings invites Elinor and Marianne to stay with her in London. Elinor doesn't want to go, as she knows that Edward is going to be in London in February, but Marianne desperately wants to go so that she can perhaps see Willoughby. The two sisters leave Margaret and their mother behind at Barton to go stay in London for some time. As soon as they get to London, Marianne writes to Willoughby, but doesn't hear back from him. Instead, Colonel Brandon often pays visits to the Dashwood sisters. Marianne is anxious about not hearing from Willoughby, and unable to enjoy the social events they attend in the city. Elinor writes to her mother, begging her to ask Marianne clearly whether she is engaged to Willoughby or not. Finally, when Elinor and Marianne go to a party with Lady Middleton, they see Willoughby there. Willoughby is cold to Marianne and mostly ignores her. Marianne has to leave the party immediately, in despair. The next morning, a letter arrives from Willoughby, and after reading it Marianne is "almost choked by grief." In the letter Willoughby disavows any romantic attachment to her and tells her that he is engaged to someone else. Elinor and Marianne are both deeply shocked at Willoughby's sudden change of behavior, and Elinor tries to comfort her sister. She urges Marianne to restrain her emotions, but Marianne responds that she can't pretend to be all right when she's miserable. News of Willoughby's engagement to a wealthy Miss Grey spreads. Elinor learns that Marianne and Willoughby were never formally engaged, and that Willoughby only ever implied his love for her. Mrs. Jennings tries to cheer Marianne up, predicting that she will now marry Colonel Brandon. Having heard about the unfortunate news with Willoughby, Colonel Brandon pays a visit to Elinor one day, and passes along some news that he thinks might help Marianne. In order to explain, he has to tell Marianne about a woman named Eliza, whom he had been in love with a long time ago. Eliza and Brandon were deeply in love, but she was married against her will to Brandon's brother. Brandon and Eliza tried to elope, but were caught. Brandon then left the country to serve in the military, and during that time Eliza was seduced by numerous men and ended up divorcing Brandon's brother. When Colonel Brandon returned to the country, he found her confined to a house because of debt, dying of consumption. She had an illegitimate daughter, also named Eliza, whom he promised to take care of. Colonel Brandon had looked after this daughter as she grew up, but this past year she had disappeared after a trip with friends to Bath. While Brandon was at Barton Park, he received a letter that informed him that Eliza had been seduced by Willoughby, who had gotten her pregnant and then abandoned her. This was why Brandon had left Barton so suddenly. Elinor is shocked to learn this about Willoughby, but is grateful for Brandon's honesty. She tells Marianne the news, but it doesn't make her feel any better. Having formerly believed Willoughby to be an upstanding gentleman, she now mourns "the loss of Willoughby's character." Meanwhile, Colonel Brandon and Elinor talk often, and Elinor begins to value him as a friend. Mrs. Jennings concludes that Colonel Brandon will soon propose to Elinor. Elinor finally persuades Marianne to leave the house, and they go with Mrs. Jennings to a jeweler, where they meet an obnoxious gentleman ordering a toothpick case. While at the store, Elinor also runs into her brother John, who has just arrived in town. The next day, he visits Elinor and Marianne, meeting Mrs. Jennings, Colonel Brandon, and the Middletons. He tells Elinor that he is sure Brandon is interested in her, and congratulates her. He also mentions that Mrs. Ferrars has arranged for Edward to marry a wealthy woman named Miss Morton. After John and Fanny get to know the Middletons, the Steeles, and Mrs. Jennings, they invite all them (as well as the Dashwood sisters) to a dinner, along with Mrs. Ferrars. Elinor is interested to finally meet Mrs. Ferrars, and Lucy is particularly anxious to see her possible future mother-in-law. At the dinner, Mrs. Ferrars is rude to Elinor, whom she evidently disliked, but—much to Lucy's delight—seems very fond of Lucy. Soon after this, Marianne and Elinor go to a party with Fanny and John. There, Elinor sees the gentleman from the jewelry store, and learns that he was Edward's brother, Robert Ferrars. About two weeks later, Mrs. Jennings tells Elinor that Lucy and Edward's secret engagement has become known. Fanny became hysterical when she learned of it, and kicked Lucy out of her home, where both the Steele sisters had been staying. The next day, John visits and reveals that when Mrs. Ferrars found out about Edward's secret engagement she disinherited and essentially disowned Edward. Nonetheless, Edward refused to break off the engagement. A few days later, Elinor encounters Lucy's sister Anne in Kensington Gardens. Anne says that Edward offered Lucy the chance to leave him, since he no longer has a substantial fortune, but she refused, so they were going ahead with the engagement. The next morning, Elinor receives a letter from Lucy saying that she and Edward are happy together in spite of everything and that he is going to become a priest and that, once they had an established living somewhere, they would marry. After spending over two months in London, Marianne and Elinor finally make plans to go back to Barton Cottage, first stopping for a visit with the Palmers at their home, Cleveland. Before they leave, Colonel Brandon pays a visit and Mrs. Jennings overheard part of the conversation and thinks that Brandon is proposing to Elinor. In reality, he is telling her that he is going to offer Edward a living on his estate, Delaford. As this would allow Edward and Lucy to marry, Elinor is greatly distressed (which she hid from Brandon). Soon after Brandon leaves, Edward arrives, and Elinor tells him the news. He is immensely grateful, and leaves to thank Brandon. Mrs. Jennings returns and finally realizes that Brandon had not proposed to Elinor. Before leaving London, Elinor meets with John and Fanny, and learns that Robert Ferrars is now going to marry Miss Morton instead of Edward. Robert has received all the inheritance that was formerly going to go to Edward. At the Palmer's home at Cleveland, Marianne comes down with a terrible cold. She is so sick that Mrs. Jennings thinks she was going to die, and Elinor sends Colonel Brandon to Barton to get Mrs. Dashwood. Marianne finally begins to recover. As Elinor sits by her sleeping sister, she hears a carriage outside. But it turns out to be Willoughby, not Barton. Elinor tells him to leave, but he insists on speaking to her. He begs to be allowed to explain his behavior. He says that when he first met the Dashwoods, he had no intentions of finding a wife, but simply enjoyed spending time with Marianne. He was "careless of her happiness," and didn't have any intention of "returning her affection." Yet he did fall in love with her. He had been expecting to inherit some wealth from his aunt Mrs. Smith, but after she learned about his affair with Eliza, she disinherited him. Now Willoughby was desperate for wealth, and a marriage with Marianne was entirely out of the question. So, he married Miss Grey for her money, even though he didn't really love her. It pained him to ignore Marianne in London, and when he received letters from her, Miss Grey became suspicious and read them. She was upset and dictated a letter for Willoughby to send back. (So, the hurtful letter from Willoughby to Marianne was actually composed by Miss Grey.) Willoughby calls himself a fool and a scoundrel and apologizes profusely. Elinor largely forgives Willoughby and pities his situation. He leaves, and soon after Mrs. Dashwood and Colonel Brandon arrive. Mrs. Dashwood delightedly tells Elinor that Brandon had told her on the journey to Cleveland that he is in love with Marianne, and that she approves of their marriage. Marianne recovers fully, and the Dashwoods return to Barton Cottage. On a long walk outside, Marianne tells Elinor that her illness has made her think back on her life, and she regrets her improper behavior with Willoughby, as well as her rude contempt for Mrs. Jennings, Fanny, John, the Steeles, and the Middletons. She resolves to dedicate her life from now on to her family and to keep her emotions in check. She says that she has gotten over Willoughby, and only wishes that she could know that he hadn't always been lying to her. Elinor takes this chance to tell her what Willoughby had recently revealed. Marianne receives this news relatively calmly, and tells Elinor to tell their mother. Soon after this, Elinor learns from a servant that Lucy and "Mr. Ferrars" have married. Elinor and Marianne are both greatly upset by this news. Colonel Brandon is due to soon visit soon, and Elinor looks forward to his arrival. Just when she is expecting him, though, someone else arrives: Edward. He tells her that he hasn't married Lucy; his brother Robert has! Elinor cries tears of joy. Edward explains that he had foolishly become engaged to Lucy when he was too young and idle. They didn't really love each other, and she had left him for his wealthier brother. He now proposes to Elinor, who accepts, to the delight of her sisters and mother. Mrs. Ferrars eventually forgives Edward, returns some of his inheritance to him, and reluctantly approves of his marriage to Elinor. Elinor and Edward settle at Delaford, where Elinor's sisters and mother often visit. Elinor, Edward, and Mrs. Dashwood all wish that Marianne would marry Colonel Brandon and indeed she gradually grows more and more fond of him. She changes her stubborn opinions about love and allows herself to learn to love Brandon. After they marry, Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters maintain close ties and a "strong family affection." Elinor and Marianne enjoy happy marriages as well as a close relationship with each other.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Seventy-Two Derwents - Point of view: First person - Setting: Australia - Character: Tyler. Description: A young Australian girl in Grade 6, Tyler is the protagonist and narrator of the story, which is framed as a series of entries in her journal. She has a conflicted relationship with her mother, whom she doesn't trust to care for her, and fears her mother's abusive boyfriend, Shane. She is particularly close with her older sister, Ellie, as well as her teacher, Mrs Carlyle, who gives her the journal as part of a class assignment. Tyler takes to journal-writing enthusiastically, recording intimate details of her home life, which is dysfunctional at best and unsafe at worst. Eventually, she elects to show her journal to Mrs Carlyle, thereby revealing the abusive and illegal aspects of Shane's behavior, igniting a chain of events which eventually culminates in her mother kicking Shane out of the house and stabbing him in the stomach with sewing scissors for hurting her girls. Afterwards, Tyler continues writing in the journal, revealing that her life and her personal relationships change for the better after Shane's expulsion from the house. She is normally a quiet, reserved girl, reluctant to express her needs and wants to others. She is a gifted artist, and spends much of the story dreaming of a set of high-quality artists' pencils (the Derwents for which the story is named), which she receives as a Christmas gift from her sister at the end of the story. - Character: Ellie. Description: Ellie is Tyler's older sister, and one of the few sources of security and stability in her life. She is several years older than Tyler, and works part-time at Subway after school in order to earn money for herself and the family. She is extremely protective of Tyler, checking in on her regularly, bringing home food for her, and offering to let her sleep in her bed. She is openly resentful of both her mother, who she sees as an irresponsible caregiver, and her mother's boyfriend Shane, whom she fears will try to abuse Tyler. She has a boyfriend named Luke, but is careful to keep him away from her family. She feels little attachment to her mother and aspires to escape her home life, but implies that she intends to stay connected to the house as long as Tyler still lives there in order to ensure that she's safe. Because she is older than Tyler, she is more directly perceptive to the threats in her life—whereas Tyler never directly expresses why she finds Shane so threatening, Ellie's warnings to Tyler imply that she is acutely aware of the possibility of sexual abuse. In this sense, she plays an important role as a caretaker in Tyler's life. At the end of the story, she buys Tyler a set of the Derwent pencils she desperately wants. - Character: Tyler and Ellie's Mother. Description: An ambiguous and complicated figure, Tyler and Ellie's mother dominates a great deal of her daughters' lives. Ellie and Tyler are the youngest of her five children; earlier, she had two boys, Zac and Dylan, and a daughter, Tegan. Zac and Dylan both had juvenile criminal records, ran away from home, and ultimately grew up with other families; Tegan was taken away because of abuse by Tyler's mother's previous boyfriend. With her remaining two children, she is both warm and domineering, affirming her affection for them but constantly demanding their affirmation and support. She relies heavily on her children: both Ellie and Tyler commit a great deal of time to helping her make handmade dolls to sell in a local shop, and she receives an unspecified part of Ellie's wages from Subway. She resents her sister (Aunty Jacinta) and mother (Tyler's grandmother), convinced that they look down on her. She goes to great lengths to overlook Shane's threatening and entitled behavior, seeking to keep the relationship intact at all costs. However, after he throws Ellie against a wall and tries to attack Tyler, she stabs him in the stomach with sewing scissors and kicks him out of the house, overcoming her insecurities for the sake of her daughters' safety. - Character: Shane. Description: The antagonist of the story and Tyler's mother's boyfriend. He has a criminal record, which Tyler's mother does not explain, and is currently on parole. He begins exhibiting predatory behavior towards Tyler immediately after meeting her, asking prying questions about her dating life and watching her while she sleeps. He attempts to cultivate a confidential relationship with her, bringing her candy but insisting that she keep it a secret, thereby attempting to isolate her from her mother and older sister. Eventually, he attempts to use this relationship to take advantage of Tyler by asking her to give him her urine, which, the story implies, he plans to submit as a substitute for a parole-required drug test. She complies, but records their exchange in her journal and turns it into her schoolteacher, Mrs Carlyle, who reports the incident to the authorities, causing Shane to lose his parole. He comes back to the house and immediately attempts to attack Tyler, beating Ellie and threatening her mother in the process. Tyler's mother eventually stabs him in the stomach with scissors. - Character: Mrs Carlyle. Description: Tyler's Grade 6 school teacher, who is gentle and kind. Tyler feels particularly close to her, treating her as both a source of stable authority and a role model. She gives Tyler the journal in which Tyler supposedly writes the story's narrative, probably intended as an exercise in creative self-expression. Because of her deep trust in Mrs Carlyle, Tyler eventually lets her read the contents of her journal, despite the fact that she was not required to turn it in. After reading about Shane's abusive behavior, Mrs Carlyle swiftly contacts the authorities. She owns an aviary with pet budgies, which are an object of fascination for Tyler. She promises Tyler one of the eggs, indicating her affection for her, and takes Tyler to visit it after notifying her that she'd reported the contents of her journal to the police. After Shane is out of the picture, Tyler concludes her journal by addressing Mrs Carlyle directly and promising to keep writing in her journal, indicating that their relationship becomes even stronger. - Character: Zac. Description: Tyler and Ellie's older brother. Ellie tells Tyler that he ran away from their mother with his brother Dylan after both had accumulated a criminal record. They then attempted to find their father, who was apparently a poor caretaker, before going on to live with other families. He briefly visits his mother, Tyler, and Ellie at Christmas two years before the story's start, coldly rebuffing all his mother's attempts to cultivate a closer relationship. After he leaves, his mother expresses her resentment towards him for preferring his father to her. - Character: Aunty Jacinta. Description: Jacinta is Tyler's aunt on her mother's side. She appears only briefly in the story, and Tyler does not have much contact with her outside of the holidays; however, Tyler seems to imagine her as a more stable alternative to her mother. She gives Tyler a handmade doll as a Christmas gift. Tyler's mother mocks the doll, but Tyler appreciates it deeply. She also sent Tyler a holiday card expressing her affection for her niece, which Tyler continues to treasure. She also included her phone number in the card, despite the fact that Tyler's mother already knows how to contact her, implying that she worries about Tyler's well-being. Tyler's mother resents Jacinta, and suspects her and Tyler's grandmother of having called Child Services, leading them to take away her older daughter Tegan. - Character: Tyler's Grandmother. Description: Tyler's grandmother on her mother's side. Tyler's mother resents her for favoring Jacinta throughout their childhood, and suspects her or Jacinta of having reported her to Child Services. Tyler's grandmother takes Tyler shopping for her birthday, and Tyler asks her for a set of Derwent pencils; however, she buys Tyler another brand of colored pencils instead, disappointing her granddaughter and indicating that she does not pay close attention to her wishes. - Theme: Relationships and Intimacy. Description: Cate Kennedy's "Seventy-Two Derwents" stresses the difficulties that the narrator and main character, a young girl named Tyler, encounters in maintaining intimate relationships with the people in her life. In different ways, nearly every character in the story tries to become close to her. However, while some try to build these relationships out of genuine care and concern for Tyler, others attempt to take advantage of her. In this sense, the story shows explores both healthy and dangerous forms of intimacy, and highlights the difficulty of telling them apart from one another. The story consistently characterizes healthy intimacy as based in selfless concern for each other's well-being; unhealthy intimacy, on the other hand, is based on one person's desire to exploit the other to selfish ends. Throughout the story, Tyler's older sister, Ellie, tries to be close to her in order to protect her from their mother's predatory boyfriend, Shane. Because Ellie's interventions are rooted in selflessness, it's clear that the girls' relationship is one of Tyler's few healthy attachments. Ellie repeatedly goes out of her way to encourage Tyler to feel close to her in order to protect her from Shane, as it's implied that Ellie suspects him of being sexually abusive. At one point, she wakes Tyler up, offers her part of her sandwich, and offers her the chance to sleep in her bed. When Tyler turns her down, Ellie asks to sleep Tyler's bed instead. As Tyler has previously caught Shane sneaking into her bedroom at night, it seems that Ellie's persistence reveals a desire to protect her sister through safety in numbers. Plus, because so many people with mixed intentions try to control Tyler, Ellie recognizes that she has to make Tyler feel close to her rather than taking their relationship for granted, and commits to doing this work on Tyler's terms––like sleeping in Tyler's bed––rather than her own. When the two girls are tucked into Tyler's bed, Ellie asks, "hey, did Shane do or say anything weird today? [...] does he get you to sit in his lap? If he does anything like that you come and tell me straight away." Through this conversation, Ellie attempts to remind Tyler that she can come to her confidentially if she needs help. Furthermore, it's clear that Ellie has little to gain from her relationship with Tyler. For that reason, the effort she puts into becoming close to Tyler can only be attributed to genuine concern for her well-being. This demonstrates how healthy intimacy, in the story, is characterized by the willingness to sacrifice for others from whom one has nothing to gain in return. On the other hand, Shane also commits significant effort to making Tyler feel close to him. However, his intentions, unlike Ellie's, are clearly predatory: he wants to trick Tyler into considering him her friend in order to hurt her, thereby exploiting her to his own advantage. In this sense, he exemplifies a dangerous kind of intimacy, showing how the appearance of closeness can disguise an unhealthy dynamic of control. Like Ellie, Shane tries to create a sense of confidentiality between himself and Tyler, promising to leave her "surprises," like chocolate in her bed, as long as she promises never to tell anyone. And even though Tyler doesn't seem to trust Shane, she "can't help" but smile when he speaks to her in a voice that "is all soft and like you're best friends." That Tyler is on some level swayed by Shane's charm speaks to how difficult it can be to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy intimacy. Ultimately, Shane tries to exploit this confidentiality by asking Tyler to give him her urine so that he can submit it to his parole officer for a drug test. He frames the request as an innocent prank: "[i]t's just a surprise trick I'm playing. […] it's just for a surprise. You can't tell anyone." When Tyler attempts to object, Shane says, "I thought you were my friend, I thought you would be a good person to ask, because you can keep a secret." In trying to woo Tyler with "secret[s]," Shane attempts to isolate Tyler from others in her family––and thus make her vulnerable, rather than keep her safe. Furthermore, when Tyler reports that Shane asked her for her urine, he attacks her, confirming that his previous friendliness was merely an attempt at self-serving manipulation. Finally, Tyler's relationship with her mother is a particularly confusing attachment which shows the difficulty of cleanly separating healthy intimacy from its unhealthy, dangerous counterpart. Tyler's mother displays genuine care for her, but also exploits her, fails to listen to her, and forces Tyler to support her in her insecurities. For example, early in the story, Tyler recalls asking her mother for money to get a hamburger from McDonalds (called "Macca's" in Australia). Tyler's mother responds by insisting that Tyler wait for her to prepare a burger from scratch, later demanding that Tyler agree that her cooking is better than fast food. In her journal, Tyler notes that she simply wanted something to eat quickly. This moment, though seemingly minor, shows the ambivalence of her relationship with her mother: on the one hand, cooking Tyler a burger was a way for her mother to take care of her; on the other, it also meant turning the simple fact of Tyler's hunger into a selfish referendum on her ability as a mother, demanding that Tyler affirm her self-image rather than listening to her and attending to her immediate needs. Because of this ambivalence, Tyler is unsure that she can rely on her mother. When Shane turns violent, Tyler is immediately convinced that her mother won't help her, and she even confides in her journal that she hated her mother at that moment. Although her mother eventually gathers the courage to defend her, Tyler's lack of faith in her shows the strained, unpredictable quality of her relationship with her primary caretaker. Ultimately, the entangled presence of these three types of relationship in Tyler's life––one caring, one exploitative, one somewhere in between––shows the difficulty of determining who is safe to be close to. - Theme: Power and Powerlessness. Description: One of the story's major preoccupations is the question of power in a girl's life: who holds it, how it works, and what its effects are. Tyler, who is about ten or eleven years old, struggles to cope with the way power is split between different authority figures who pressure her in different ways. These conflicts raise a question that Tyler wrestles with throughout the story: how to define herself when authority figures are pushing for her to act in ways which support their own definitions of her. In this way, the story shows how the feeling of powerlessness can have a splintering effect on a young woman's psychology. By using her power as a mother to pressure her children into affirming her own ego, Tyler's mother robs her daughter of autonomy, teaching her that she is powerless over her own circumstances. For example, when Tyler's older brother, Zac, visits their family over Christmas, he repeatedly rebuffs their mother's attempts to be close to him, leaving as soon as possible. Tyler's mother copes by badgering Ellie to confirm that her brother was always an "ungrateful little shit." This shows how children's mother copes with her personal insecurities by attempting to force those over whom she has power––her daughters––to support her, ignoring their own perspectives in the process. She acts this way with Tyler as well: at one point, she makes Tyler stay home from school in order to help her sew dolls she plans to sell at a local store. She frames this demand as a generous day off, but Tyler writes that she would have actually preferred to go to school. She agrees to stay home only because she knows that refusing her mother's authority would be disastrous. By projecting her own desires onto Tyler rather than trying to ascertain what Tyler wants for herself, the girl's mother robs her of the freedom to develop her own opinions and desires. She thereby teaches Tyler not to express herself, weakening the young girl's ability to speak out and defend herself when Shane attempts to exploit her. In this sense, her mother uses her power over Tyler to render her helpless. Shane uses his authority to different ends than Tyler's mother, expressly seeking to control Tyler through fear and manipulation. However, he is protected by Tyler's mother, which leaves Tyler at the mercy of both adults in her household. Shane sexualizes Tyler from the beginning, asking inappropriate and prying questions about her relationship status and watching her as she sleeps. These behaviors establish his domineering, threatening personality, and cause Tyler to fear him. The amount of time he spends in the house causes Tyler to feel terror in her own home. Moreover, the fact that her mother continually defers to Shane adds to his power over the household, leaving Tyler unsure that anyone would stop him if he tried to attack her. Ultimately, the type of unchecked predatory power that Shane wields leaves Tyler feeling helpless and alone. The necessity of appeasing both Shane and her mother creates a deep conflict in Tyler's life. On the one hand, Shane makes her fear for her safety; on the other hand, Tyler feels unable to act on this fear by articulating it, since her mother discourages her from expressing any needs that contradict her own desires. The compounded effects of the power these two figures hold over her leaves her torn. Flanked on all sides by heavy-handed authority figures, Tyler is forced to constantly be on guard, unsafe even inside her own thoughts. At one point in the story, Tyler admits to Ellie that she often dreams she is being hunted by a wolf: "He's coming for me and his eyes are on fire and he's looking everywhere for me but he can't find me." This dream suggests that she feels hunted by predatory forces she cannot fight––particularly Shane, given that she describes the wolf with male pronouns. She becomes afraid of returning home after school: when her teacher, Mrs Carlyle, offers to personally drive her home one day, Tyler says that home is the last place she wants to go. This consuming terror has a suffocating effect. She finds it impossible to tell even trusted confidantes, like Ellie, about Shane asking for her urine: "just thinking about it makes the stone come up into my chest and neck and it jams my throat shut so I can't talk, she writes." This shows that fear and uncertainty have become the dominant emotions of Tyler's life. These emotions derive from the power others hold over her, severely limiting her autonomy. In this sense, Kennedy, through Tyler, demonstrates how pernicious unchecked power can be in a child's life––especially when wielded by caregivers. Authority figures who exploit their power can effectively stamp out the vitality of the people they are supposed to guide and nurture, leaving their charges scared, helpless, and floundering. - Theme: Repression. Description: Throughout the story, Tyler struggles to identify and express her feelings. She sometimes feels intense waves of negative emotion––which she often describes as a feeling of "rocks" in her stomach––but she is unable to articulate or process this feeling, and she does her best to conceal it. She does this partially out of concern for her own safety: she knows that some of her emotions, if she expressed them, would provoke negative reactions from the unstable adults in her life, so she's learned to bottle up her feelings. Tyler struggles intensely with the gap between the intensity of her feelings and the limits of what she's able to express, which speaks to the psychologically destructive impact of unnamed, buried pain. Tyler constantly has to choose her words carefully in order to take care of the emotional needs of the people around her––especially her mother—and pays little attention to her own emotional needs in the process. Reflecting on the time her mother repeatedly insisted that she confirm that her cooking is better than McDonalds, Tyler implies that she felt like a trained animal: "you need to say the same thing over and over until the dog gets it." This experience teaches Tyler that her own thoughts matter less than her ability to successfully respond to cues in ways that please others. The McDonalds incident forms a pattern with other moments in the story, such as the time Tyler's mother asked her to stay home from school to help her finish a sewing project, despite the fact that Tyler wanted to go to school. Here, too, Tyler ignores her own desires for the sake of paying attention to her mother's—she has learned repression as a habit. Life with her mother has therefore taught her the unimportance of her own feelings, leading her to disregard them whenever they come into conflict with the feelings of others. Tyler's inability to express her thoughts and opinions in smaller ways––like with the McDonalds incident––leads her to struggle to identify and express her more serious feelings. For instance, when Ellie mentions that she has bad dreams, Tyler considers confessing the same, as she often has a bad dream about a male wolf––a thinly veiled symbol for the predatory Shane––hunting her down. However, instead of saying this, she makes a vague statement about sometimes feeling like she has a "stone" in her stomach. Tyler's search for metaphorical language shows how difficult she finds it to express her feelings straightforwardly and in her own terms. She is unable to account for why certain experiences trigger certain feelings, but can only disjointedly describe how terrible certain things in her life make her feel. This struggle is, the story implies, is a result of her learned habit of repressing her feelings. By necessity, she has learned to avoid her emotions rather than confront them. For Tyler, the difference between her feelings and her capacity for expression translates into conflict between the intensity of her emotions and the need to remain externally calm. While watching the Simpsons with Shane, Tyler observes that "things happen [in cartoons] that aren't true. Like a cat will be running along and will go through the wall and there will be an exactly cat-shaped hole left behind in the wall. Mum's old boyfriend Gary threw a bottle at the wall once and it didn't leave a shape like that it just smashed." Tyler's preoccupation with cartoons indicates an alignment between the impossible way they represent the world and the impossible things Tyler feels inside of herself––for instance, the feeling of having "stones" in her stomach. She has been taught to avoid expressing these intense, frightening feelings in order to keep the peace. This creates an intense gap between what she feels and what she's able to say aloud. That gap shows the damaging psychological effects of repression. Tyler has been forced to ignore her own feelings for a long time, building them up inside without an expressive outlet. That repression produces a jarring distance between her intense emotional life and the calm surface of her everyday reality, a distance that feels as great as the distance between the world of cartoons and objective reality. - Theme: Trust. Description: Because of the difficulty of distinguishing people who care for her from people who want to take advantage of her, Tyler has a hard time knowing who she should trust. She feels the need to express her thoughts, but she's unable to find an appropriate outlet aside from a private journal, which she fills with details about Shane's shady behavior, her mother's questionable parenting, and her own feelings of crushing anxiety. Finally, she takes a leap of faith by submitting her journal to her sixth-grade teacher, Mrs Carlyle, despite the risks entailed by that submission. This moment, and the events leading up to it, shows the vulnerability involved in trust and stresses the amount of blind faith required to put one's well-being in the hands of another. Tyler's inability to confide in anyone other than a journal shows how difficult she finds it to trust other people and how badly she needs an emotional outlet. She begins writing a journal without conscious reflection about her reasons for doing so, noting that it was merely a class assignment. However, it quickly becomes clear that other students are not writing as much as she is. Moreover, she writes about extremely private feelings––things she won't admit to other people in her life—indicating that Tyler finds the journal significantly more useful than the other students. The eagerness with which she takes part in the assignment shows that she needs an outlet for her intense, accumulated emotional energy. However, her inability to confide to any outlet other than a private journal shows how difficult she finds it to trust other people. Tyler submits her anonymous journal to Mrs Carlyle without consciously thinking through the potential consequences of that submission, describing it as a decision made on impulse. She claims that she turned in her journal simply because it occurred to her to do so while alone in the classroom; moreover, she reacts with shock when Mrs Carlyle informs her that she's reported its contents to the authorities. This shows that she hadn't considered––or, perhaps, hadn't allowed herself to consider––the practical consequences of her actions. However, Tyler's knowledge of how dangerous it can be to express oneself make it unlikely that she did not understand these consequences. She already knows that child protection took her sister Tegan away from her mother. Moreover, Tyler's life at home, tiptoeing around her mother and Shane, has made her far more sensitive than most children to the risks of speaking one's mind. For these reasons, it seems implausible that Tyler would overlook the consequences of giving her teacher access to something as personal as her journal. It makes more sense to conclude that she stuffed down her rational fear of the consequences of her actions for the sake of an irrational act of blind trust. Given that Mrs Carlyle is one of the only adult authority figures with whom Tyler feels safe, it also makes sense that Tyler would choose to be vulnerable around her above all others. Generally, Tyler distrusts teachers: she mentions that she never wants to tell teachers whens he likes something, because they use that knowledge "to make you do something they want." However, she specifically excepts Mrs Carlyle from that rule, showing the special place she holds in Tyler's life. This affection was likely a major influence on Tyler's decision to submit her journal, an act of personal bravery which shows the depth of her faith in Mrs Carlyle. In submitting her journal, Tyler forces herself to overlook the potential consequences of her actions in order to ask for the help she so desperately needs, showing the depth of her faith in her teacher. In this sense, the story portrays trust as an expression of blind faith in the goodness of another person rather than the result of careful planning and calculation. - Theme: Escape. Description: In the story, Tyler's older sister, Ellie, expresses how much she wants to escape their family life, admitting that she's only stayed as long as she has in order to protect Tyler. While Tyler is less direct, she implies that she, too, longs for a similar sort of escape. This longing is implied by her fixation on two objects. First, Tyler lovingly describes a handmade doll given to her by her aunt Jacinta, whom she seems to see as an idealized alternative to her mother. Tyler's love for the doll shows her discontent with her mother as caregiver, allowing her to imagine another version of her current life. Second, Tyler fixates on a seventy-two pack of Derwents, a kind of high-quality artist's pencil, which lend the story its name. She wants these pencils for two reasons: first, as a way to develop her artistic talents; second, because their reliable, durable craftsmanship distinguishes them from the instability of her other material possessions and personal relationships. If Tyler's love for her aunt's doll reflects her desire for another version of the present, then her longing for the pencils reflects her desire for a different kind of future, one in which she escapes her current life in order to explore and develop her desires on her own terms. Ellie repeatedly asserts how desperately she wishes she and Tyler could escape life with their family. When her mother admonishes her to set a good example for Tyler, Ellie responds by saying "I'm setting her the best example I can, which is how to get the fuck out of here." This outburst shows both the intensity of Ellie's discontent with life in the house and the depth of her concern for her sister's well-being. Although Tyler never responds directly to this sentiment, she carefully records it in her journal, which suggests that it might resonate with her. Although Tyler herself is less outspoken than Ellie about longing for an escape, Tyler's affection for the doll Aunty Jacinta made for her indicates that Tyler shares Ellie's desire to escape their home life. Thinking about her aunt allows Tyler to imagine another, better version of their home, and a safer version of her own childhood. Though her mother laughed at the present when Tyler received it for Christmas two years ago, Tyler recounts in her journal how beautiful the doll was, and how nice her aunt smelled when she hugged her afterwards. Although she focuses on her gratitude for the doll rather than directly expressing her love for her aunt, Tyler's deep gratitude for the gift seems to indirectly imply her desire to be close to Jacinta. Moreover, when Shane becomes violent at the end of the story after he learns that Tyler reported him to the authorities, Tyler's first thought is of the possibility of calling Jacinta. This indicates that she sees her aunt as a kind of refuge, a safer version of her life at home. Tyler's mother, in contrast, resents Jacinta: she scornfully accuses her of arrogance and pretension, and suspects her of having reported her to child protective services. The fact that Tyler fixates so positively on her aunt despite her mother stressing the immense differences between Jacinta and herself indicates that she thinks of her aunt as an escape from life with her mother. The intensity of Tyler's wish for a set of Derwent pencils reflects her desire for a different life in the future, one which grants her autonomy over her own circumstances and freedom of self-expression. As the pencils Tyler currently uses are "student quality," the Derwent pencils, which "are for real artists," would take Tyler's talent to the next level. In this sense, possessing the pencils would help Tyler develop unique skills and express herself creatively in her own terms. In the midst of her musings about the Derwent pencils, Tyler writes, "I think sometimes about what you would have to do to be an artist, for example how would you make money." Already it seems that Tyler's vision for her future––potentially becoming an artist and supporting herself financially through her creative talents––is bound up in the tin of seventy-two Derwents. However, the significance of this wish goes deeper. Tyler dwells at length on the permanence and durability of the pencils, observing that "even when you sharpen them they feel special, the wood is so soft and it peels back to leave the pencil good as new." These qualities contrast sharply with the instability of Tyler's life at home, and the satisfaction Tyler finds in watching the sharpened pencil become "good as new" hints at a desire for a new beginning in her own life. In this sense, the pencils help Tyler imagine what a better future might feel like. Later, Tyler imagines what it would feel like to use the pencils, comparing them to a holiday card she received from Jacinta: "I would feel special and proud to have them, like when Aunty Jacinta wrote in her letter, we think you're wonderful." This shows that Tyler thinks of the pencils in connection with the same sort of escape she associates with Aunt Jacinta, imagining them as a tool to help her feel like a different, happier sort of person. Where Aunt Jacinta offers Tyler an idealized escape from her current life, the Derwent pencils help her imagine the unbounded potential of the future. - Climax: When Shane attacks Tyler and her family, Tyler's mother stabs him. - Summary: The narrative is taken from the journal of a young Australian girl named Tyler who is in Grade 6. She explains that she received the journal from her schoolteacher, Mrs Carlyle, who gave them out to the class to encourage the students to practice writing about themselves. She briefly describes Mrs Carlyle's pet budgies and mentions that her teacher promised to give her a bird of her own should one of the birds lay some eggs. Tyler lives with her mother and her older sister Ellie, but her mother's boyfriend, Shane, is around a lot and even showers at their house. When Tyler's mother asks her what she thinks of Shane, Tyler flashes back into the past, recalling a time when she asked her mother for money to get a McDonald's hamburger, but her mother insisted that she sit in the kitchen and wait for her to prepare a burger from scratch. Once the burger was done, Tyler's mother demanded that Tyler confirm that her burger tasted far better than a McDonald's burger. Tyler writes in her journal that she's learned to always say whatever her mother wants to hear. Tyler then returns to the present. Shane has come over for dinner, and watches TV with Tyler. He repeatedly prods her about her romantic life, but she distracts herself by fantasizing about the set of seventy-two Derwents, a kind of high quality artist's pencil, that she's been pining for. She recalls showing them to her grandmother in the art store and asking for them as a birthday present. Shane then attempts to repair Tyler's mother's car, but seems to do more harm than good. Tyler flashes back to Christmas two years prior, recalling how much she loved a handmade doll she received from her Aunty Jacinta, despite her mother's scorn for it. Her estranged older brother, Zac, joined them for part of Christmas day, but treated their mother coldly and left as soon as possible. Tyler fondly recalls a holiday card she received from Jacinta, which included Jacinta's phone number. Back in the present, Tyler finds Shane watching TV, where he insists on showing her his foot tattoo. Tyler describes how uncomfortable she feels around Shane. On Tyler's birthday, her grandmother gives her a set of colored pencils, but they are not the Derwents she wanted. Tyler has a small birthday celebration with family. Ellie promises they'll have a better one next year. Tyler's mother works on a set of handmade dolls to sell in a local store. She had to borrow money from Ellie to buy the necessary supplies, including a special pair of sewing scissors. Tyler explains to her journal that Ellie works hard in school and saves money in order to be able to escape life with their family. When Shane comes over, Ellie sleeps in Tyler's bed and promises to buy her a set of Derwents someday. The next day, Shane offers Tyler a candy bar, promising to regularly bring her "surprises" as long as she can keep them a secret. Ellie and Tyler help their mother finish her dolls. She decides to keep Tyler home from school the next day so that she can continue to help; Tyler agrees, despite the fact that she would rather go to school. That night, Tyler catches Shane watching her sleep; he goes away after she asks him what he's doing. When Ellie comes home from work, she makes Tyler promise to tell her, not their mother, if Shane does anything that makes Tyler feel uncomfortable (a feeling Tyler describes as having stones in her stomach). Later, when Shane asks Tyler to give him her urine (which the story implies is for a drug test that he's unprepared to take), Tyler feels the same feeling of stones in her stomach come back. She is frightened by the request but agrees. The next day, Mrs Carlyle asks if any students would like to volunteer to submit their journals. Tyler writes that she has impulsively decided to submit hers, since no other students did. The narrative resumes two days later, after Mrs Carlyle has returned Tyler's journal. Mrs Carlyle holds her after school and explains that she's reported the contents of Tyler's journal to the authorities. She offers to drive her home, but Tyler wants to visit Mrs Carlyle's house and see her budgies. Mrs Carlyle agrees, taking her to visit her house before driving her to the mall to meet Ellie. The next day, Shane comes into the house screaming for Tyler, accusing her of causing him to violate the terms of his parole. As Shane threatens to kill Tyler, her mother looks on helplessly as Ellie puts herself between Tyler and Shane. He throws Ellie into the wall. Tyler is certain that her mother won't defend her, but her mother finally gathers her resolve and demands that Shane leave the house, drawing her sewing scissors from her bag. Shane grabs a knife and threatens to stab her. She stabs him in the stomach with the scissors before he has the chance to make a move. Shane collapses in shock and begins to cry, and Ellie embraces her mother. The narrative flashes forward, and Tyler begins writing to Mrs Carlyle, informing her that her mother gave her permission to spend Christmas with her Aunt Jacinta and that Ellie bought her the Derwent pencils. She explains that she is going to put the journal in Mrs Carlyle's mailbox, and asks her to keep one of her budgies for her.

- Genre: Short Story, Contemporary Realism - Title: Sexy - Point of view: Third-Person Limited - Setting: Boston - Character: Miranda. Description: Miranda is the protagonist of "Sexy." She works in the fundraising department of a public radio station, but she doesn't have a social life outside of work. Her only friend is a co-worker, Laxmi, who is preoccupied throughout the story with supporting a distraught cousin whose husband is having an affair. Miranda herself is having an affair with a married man of Indian descent named Dev. Because Dev is married, Miranda and Dev spend most of their time at Miranda's apartment, where she lives alone. Miranda becomes intrigued by Dev's cultural identity as an Indian and makes efforts to understand Indian culture and geography and even makes a game attempt at learning how to write her name in Bengali. At the same time, Miranda comes from a non-descript background; the most readers know about her is that she moved from Michigan to Boston to live in a place where she doesn't know anyone. The solitary life she leads appears intentional; she seems to enjoy doing things on her own and has little interest in developing a social life outside of work, apart from her affair with Dev and her limited relationship with Laxmi. If Miranda's interest in Dev and his cultural background compensates for her own lack of a distinct identity, then the end of the affair largely leaves Miranda where she began—alone and without a clear identity of her own. - Character: Dev. Description: Dev is Miranda's lover. Although his age and occupation aren't stated in the story, he is older than Miranda and outwardly appears successful. He initiates an affair with Miranda after approaching her at a department store where both are buying cosmetics, he for an unspecified female. Unlike past lovers Miranda has had, Dev impresses her with his attentiveness and his cultural background as a man of Indian descent (he is Bengali). At the same time, it becomes increasingly clear that he is primarily interested in Miranda as a sexual partner; he compliments her on her body, calls her "sexy," makes little effort to get to know her at a deeper level, and spends most of his time at her apartment after an initial phase of going out in public together. When Dev's wife returns from a visit to India, he regularly visits Miranda on Sundays, deceiving his wife into thinking that he is going for a jog. The relationship eventually fizzles without Dev or Miranda explicitly ending it, although the precipitating incident is when Miranda spends an afternoon with a child who has been affected by his own father's affair and its messy aftermath. - Character: Laxmi. Description: Laxmi is Miranda's coworker at the public radio station where she and Miranda solicit donations. Laxmi, who is of Indian descent, is preoccupied throughout the story with comforting her cousin, whose husband is having an affair with a much younger woman. She talks about nothing else with Miranda and becomes increasingly vigilant about her own marriage. Laxmi, at the same time, is an additional source through which Miranda learns about Indian culture. Laxmi is Miranda's only social contact outside of Miranda's relationship with Dev. The friendship continues throughout Miranda's relationship with Dev and even after it ends, suggesting that Laxmi, who has been bruised by her cousin's affair, never learns of Miranda's affair with a married man. - Character: Rohin. Description: Rohin is the child of Laxmi's cousin whose husband is having an affair. When Laxmi first tells Miranda about the affair, she comments that the boy is "something of a genius" and speaks four languages. In a lengthy scene near the end of the story, Miranda looks after Rohin at her apartment one Saturday while Laxmi spends the day with her distraught cousin. Rohin indeed proves to be a precocious child. He has Miranda quiz him on the capitals of countries and persuades her to serve him coffee. It also becomes clear that Rohin has suffered from the conflict between his parents. A sign of how he has been affected is when he pillages through Miranda's bedroom and, upon finding a cocktail dress that she purchased with the intent of wearing for Dev, urges her to put it on. When she does so, he tells her, "You're sexy," mimicking language he has likely overheard; it is also the language used by Dev in his efforts to flatter Miranda. When Miranda presses Rohin to tell her what he thinks the word "sexy" means, he says, "It means loving someone you don't know." The incident compels Miranda to reconsider the nature of her relationship with Dev, which ends soon after. - Theme: Cultural Difference and Attraction. Description: The affair that Miranda has with Dev in "Sexy" is shaped by her fascination with his cultural difference as an Indian man living in America. The story suggests that Miranda's attempts to first understand and then appropriate Dev's cultural identity follow from her perception that he has a rich sense of identity that she personally lacks. This lack is reflected, in part, by the absence of detail concerning her own identity and background. In one revealing passage, Miranda tells Dev that she moved to Boston from Michigan, the place where she grew up and went to college, in order to live in a place where she isn't known. She appears at the same time to relish being alone, spending her evenings going to movies and bookstores by herself. Nor is there any indication in the story of how she has been shaped by the past, what her interests are in the present, or what her hopes are for the future. If one were to pinpoint the moment when Miranda falls for Dev, it is when he playfully ascribes to her a specific identity: "Part of your name is Indian," he tells her upon first meeting her. From this moment onward, the focus of her relationship with Dev is weighted heavily on the side of her fascination with his cultural identity. However, this fascination seems unreciprocated by Dev, apart from his interest in her as a sexual partner. Arguably the most personal thing Dev ever says to Miranda, in fact, is that she is "sexy," suggesting that he values her primarily as a lover and not as an interesting individual in her own right. Miranda, on the other hand, imagines Dev as possessing an exotic, vivid identity. His exoticism is in part a function of her ignorance; she at first imagines that Bengali is a religion, not an ethnicity, and has little understanding of India's politics or geography. She is inspired to understand Dev and his cultural identity as their relationship deepens, even to the point where she attempts to learn the Bengali language and to write her name in Bengali. By the end of the story, however, Miranda's fascination with Dev's cultural identity and Dev's interest in her as a sexual partner aren't enough to sustain the relationship, suggesting that relationships based upon shallow perceptions of difference or sexual appeal are finally doomed to failure. - Theme: Marital Infidelity and Male Power. Description: The two affairs that form the crux of "Sexy" dramatize the dynamics of male power in extramarital relationships. Although Miranda's affair with Dev is foregrounded in the story, in the background is another affair that concerns Laxmi, her co-worker. This second affair involves Laxmi's cousin, whose husband is having an affair with a much younger woman. Laxmi's cousin is so distraught by the affair that she has taken to her bed and is unable to care for her school-aged son. The affair seems almost to have happened on a whim: he met the woman on an international flight, "had a conversation that had changed his life," and chose not to return home. Later in the story Laxmi tells Miranda that her cousin's husband has had several affairs and that her cousin is willing to accept him back, not for her own sake, but for their son's. By the end of the story, the husband has decided to pursue a divorce after a failed attempt at reconciliation, once again leaving his wife powerless and bereft. In the second, more prominent affair, Miranda accepts her status as Dev's lover without demanding more from him, even as her life increasingly comes to center around him and their relationship. Despite Miranda's efforts to understand Dev's culture and to please him, she is powerless to request more of the relationship and has no choice but to accept whatever he is willing to give. That he controls the relationship from the beginning is reflected in how their time together is based upon his schedule, which is in large part determined by his home life and his relationship with his wife. It is also apparent in her gradual disappearance into the role of the occasional lover, to the point where even her efforts to imagine a life beyond the bedroom are defeated, symbolized by the dress she purchases for an evening out but never wears for him. The end of the relationship is much more due to his negligence than a lack of interest on her part; she is finally heartbroken at the awareness that the relationship can never be more than an affair. Her desires are finally secondary to his, leaving her at the end of the story where she began—mostly alone. By presenting marital infidelity from the dual perspectives of a betrayed wife and the lover of a husband betraying his wife—neither of whom has much power—the story suggests that women's desires are often secondary to male power in such relationships. - Theme: Self-Deception and Honesty. Description: Throughout "Sexy," Miranda is flattered by Dev's interest in her as a sexual partner. On one occasion Dev comments on her naked body, telling her that "[You are] the first woman I've known with legs this long." Miranda considers that Dev was the "the first to tell her that." On another occasion while visiting the Mapparium, a three-story globe in the Christian Science center, Dev takes advantage of the wonderful acoustics to whisper to her from a distance away, "You're sexy." Overall, Dev expresses little interest in Miranda beyond her sexual attractiveness to him. Yet Miranda, despite her deeper interest in Dev, actively plays into this interest, suggesting that she's allowed herself to be deceived by his flattery. For example, she buys attractive clothing and intimates to wear for him and suppresses her disappointment when it becomes clear that he has no interest in exploring a deeper relationship. If Miranda willfully allows herself to be deceived into thinking that her relationship with Dev has the potential for greater meaning, her illusions are shattered when she spends an afternoon looking after Rohin, the son of Laxmi's cousin. Rohin's precocious awareness of Miranda as an object of sexual desire reflects how his understanding of relationships and of women has been impacted by his father's affair and, in turn, prompts Miranda to consider how she herself has been objectified by Dev. This is made clear when Rohin discovers the never-used cocktail dress lying in a heap on the floor of Miranda's closet and insists that she put it on. When she does so, he tells her, "You're sexy." When Miranda, unsettled by the comment, prods him to explain what he thinks the word "sexy" means, he tells her that "It means loving someone you don't know." Miranda realizes that the boy's re-definition of the term "sexy" aptly reflects the reality of her relationship with Dev and, when Rohin falls asleep on her bed, weeps upon facing this reality squarely. Ironically, it takes a boy who is suffering from the effects of marital infidelity to force Miranda to consider how she has contributed to her own objectification in her affair with Dev. Miranda's changing perceptions of her relationship suggest that while it's easy to believe what one wants to hear, an outsider's stark honesty can shatter such self-deception. - Theme: Social Isolation, Passivity, and Loneliness. Description: A key aspect of Miranda's character and situation in "Sexy" is her social isolation. Even her two major relationships, with her friend Laxmi and lover Dev, appear to have started without any great initiative on Miranda's part. Even though she occasionally spends time with Laxmi (whom she apparently befriended because they work in neighboring cubicles), she spends the majority of her time outside of work alone, shopping, going to movies, and visiting bookstores. Even after she begins an affair with Dev (mainly because he lingered by the cosmetics counter while she made purchases), an affair that dominates her life for a time, the affair is insulated from any real contact with the outside world. They spend much of their time at Miranda's house and, on the few occasions when they do go out in public together, are preoccupied with each other. There is, at the same time, no sense that Miranda feels lonely or is willing to go out of her way to change her life. She tells Dev on one occasion that she moved to Boston in order to be in a place where she knows no one, and there is no indication that she any real interest in meeting anyone. She never speaks up to tell Laxmi the truth about her affair and generally goes along with what her friend wants (like when she agrees to babysit Rohin). And when Miranda changes her mind about dating Dev, she initially resolves to tell him the truth, but ultimately lets the relationship fizzle out, returning to her isolated existence. Nevertheless, the story ends on an ambiguous note, with Miranda sitting outside the Mapparium alone; while it's implied that she is grieving her failed relationship with Dev, the ending could also be read as hinting that Miranda is cautiously opening up to a wider world. This hint largely confirms just how passive and isolated Miranda has been, however, and how likely she is to remain isolated without a concerted effort to lead a more connected and meaningful life. - Climax: Rohin finds Miranda's dress and calls her sexy. - Summary: Laxmi tells her coworker Miranda about an affair that her cousin's husband is having with a much younger woman. Miranda distractedly thinks of an affair that she herself is having with a man from Bengal, the same state in India that the husband of Laxmi's cousin is from. Miranda recalls how she first met Dev at a department store where both were purchasing cosmetics, he from a list. Dev approaches Miranda after they leave, telling her that part of her name is Indian ("Mira"). Prior to meeting Dev, Miranda knew little of India and assumed Bengali was a religion. During the two first two weeks of their affair, they are with each other every night while Dev's wife is on a visit to India. When Miranda and Dev are not at her apartment they visit places around town including, on one memorable occasion, the Mapparium, a three-story globe at the Christian Science Center in Boston. Dev wows Miranda by whispering to Miranda from a distance inside the globe, "You're sexy." Miranda thinks about how he is the first lover who has ever said this to her. Miranda goes shopping for clothing she imagines a mistress might wear and buys a cocktail dress and a silk robe. Dev now visits Miranda on Sunday afternoons. When Miranda greets Dev wearing the silk robe, Dev tells her that he prefers to see her long legs; she never does wear the cocktail dress. Miranda listens to Dev tell stories about his youth while they are in bed together. Dev, on the other hand, only seems interested in wanting to know about Miranda's past lovers. Miranda considers that Dev and Laxmi are the only two Indians she has known apart from an Indian family she knew in her youth, the Dixits. The Dixits were looked upon by their neighbors as odd, and Miranda recalls an unsettling experience she had while attending a birthday party at their house for one of their children. Miranda thinks of Dev's Indian background in a much more flattering way. Miranda begins to learn as much as she can about Indian culture and attempts to learn the Bengali language. When Dev tells her that his wife looks like an Indian actress, she seeks out videotapes featuring the actress. Laxmi, in the meantime, updates Miranda on her cousin's marriage; after a brief attempt at reunion, the cousin's husband files for divorce. Laxmi asks Miranda if Miranda can look after her cousin's child on a Saturday while Laxmi and the cousin go on an outing together. When the boy is dropped off, Miranda notices that he has dark circles under his eyes. The boy has Miranda quiz him on the capitals of countries and asks her to serve him coffee. Later in the visit, he rummages through the items on her bathroom shelf and then through her bedroom closet. When he discovers the never worn cocktail dress, he urges her to put it on. When she does so he tells her, "You're sexy." Miranda, disturbed by the comment, asks him what he thinks the word means and he tells her, "It means loving someone you don't know." While the boy naps on her bed Miranda weeps, thinking of her own affair and of the affair that the boy's father is having. When Dev calls the next day, Miranda makes up an excuse not to see him and the affair fizzles out. One day Miranda goes for a walk and finds herself sitting on a bench across from the Mapparium thinking about Dev and their time together.

- Genre: Fantasy - Title: Shadow and Bone - Point of view: First Person, Third Person - Setting: The fictional country Ravka - Character: Alina Starkov. Description: The protagonist of the novel, Alina is a teenage mapmaker in the First Army who's hopelessly in love with her childhood best friend, Mal. Alina feels she's never going to fit in anywhere, as she's not pretty or good at anything. However, during an attempted crossing of the Shadow Fold, it's discovered that Alina is a powerful Sun Summoner Grisha. This doesn't help Alina's fears about fitting in, as she doesn't fit in with the Grisha for many of the same reasons she never fit in in the army. Eventually, Alina realizes that these negative qualities are actually a result of actively subsuming her power for years, all so she could stay with Mal. Once she realizes this, Alina blossoms. Things become confusing as the Darkling expresses romantic and sexual interest in her—Alina is afraid of him, but she also finds him intoxicating. However, on the night of the winter fete, Alina learns that the Darkling doesn't want her to help him destroy the Shadow Fold: he wants to enslave her so he can control the Fold, Ravka, and neighboring countries. Alina runs away, reconnects with Mal, and ultimately discovers the power of choosing to be merciful—it allows her to break free from the Darkling, save Mal, and escape across the True Sea with him. - Character: Malyen "Mal" Oretsov. Description: Mal is Alina's childhood best friend and current love interest. He's a tracker in the First Army, and Alina believes he's totally out of reach: he's handsome, popular, and good at what he does, while she is none of those things. Though Alina believes Mal doesn't love her, when they're alone—or in danger—Mal speaks fondly of their childhoods spent together and mentions going to "their meadow," a place they felt connected and safe as children. Mal and Alina are separated when Alina's Grisha powers are discovered, and they lose contact for several months. Alina believes Mal doesn't love her, as he never responds to any of her letters. However, when Alina reconnects with Mal, she learns that he never got them—and that he's jealous of the Darkling and the Darkling's relationship with Alina. Mal helps Alina when she escapes from the Little Palace by deserting his unit, which was initially hunting Morozova's stag and was then tasked with finding Alina. Traveling together, Mal and Alina repair their relationship and ultimately admit their love for each other. Though Mal promises to kill Alina to prevent the Darkling from enslaving her, he ultimately refuses to do so. Nevertheless, Alina manages to rescue Mal, and the two escape together across the True Sea. - Character: The Darkling. Description: The antagonist of the novel, the Darkling is a Summoner who can manipulate darkness and shadows. He leads the Grisha and the Second Army. Though Alina is frightened of and intimidated by the Darkling from the beginning, he initially seems like a force for good. When he identifies Alina's power, he tells her that together they can destroy the Shadow Fold and reunite Ravka. Though Alina believes him and what he says, she also feels consistently afraid and uncomfortable around him—even as it seems as though the Darkling becomes sexually attracted to Alina and perhaps is falling in love with her. However, Alina learns that the Darkling is hundreds of years old and even created the Shadow Fold on purpose. He's skilled at manipulating young, naïve women like her, and he plans to use her power to expand the Shadow Fold and take control of Ravka and neighboring countries. The Darkling knows nothing of mercy and kindness, only greed. So, it's a shock to him when, in the Fold, Alina manages to take back control of her body and her power by realizing how powerful mercy is. Alina leaves the Darkling to die in the Fold, though it's left ambiguous whether he dies or not. - Character: Baghra. Description: Baghra is a mysterious, crotchety old woman who lives in a hut on the grounds of the Royal Palace—and eventually, Alina discovers that she's the Darkling's mother. She's hundreds of years old, if not older, and nobody but the Darkling (and eventually Alina) knows who she really is and what her power is (she can, like the Darkling, summon darkness). Initially, Alina hates Baghra. Baghra is tasked with teaching Alina to use her power, and when Alina can't summon her power without help, Baghra grows frustrated and even hits Alina. Things improve when Alina learns to accept and harness her power, but Baghra remains a difficult, cold, and unsupportive teacher. She's also derisive when the Darkling suggests getting Alina the antlers of Morozova's stag as an amplifier—though later, Alina learns that this is because Baghra knows exactly what her son plans to do with it. When Baghra helps Alina escape the Little Palace, she explains that the amplifier will subjugate Alina and make her the Darkling's prisoner. She also explains that she's helping Alina thwart the Darkling now because she should've stepped in years ago, when the Darkling created the Shadow Fold. - Character: Genya. Description: Genya comes to be one of Alina's closest friends at the Little Palace. Though Genya is technically a Corporalnik Grisha, when the Darkling discovered her "special talent"—she's a Tailor, a Grisha who can essentially do magical makeup—he gave her to the Queen as a "gift." Therefore, Genya is technically a servant, so the Grisha look down on her (in part because, like most female servants, Genya was forced to sleep with the King) while the other servants never fully accept her. Grisha also hate her because Genya is shockingly beautiful, with red hair and perfect, porcelain skin. But she and Alina bond over their outsider status, and Genya is instrumental in making Alina feel at home and showing her around the Little Palace. While Genya cryptically warns Alina about the Darkling by warning her to beware "powerful men," it's implied that Genya nevertheless supports the Darkling and, on some level, supports what he plans to do. The implication is that Genya caused the King to fall ill on the Darkling's orders to earn her place among the Corporalki. Despite Genya's companionship and support during her months at the Little Palace, Alina ends the novel still unsure if Genya was ever genuinely her friend. - Character: Ivan. Description: Ivan is a Heartrender who serves as the Darkling's right-hand man. He's hulking and powerful, and he knows it—he likes to lord his power over others, especially over Fedyor. One of the reasons he feels he can do this is because he possesses an amplifier, something not many Grisha have. Alina resents Ivan for much of the novel because he's so derisive toward her and clearly doesn't like or respect her. However, Ivan begins to look a bit more human when Alina begs him not to support the Darkling's power grab—and Ivan reveals that he supports the Darkling because he's lost countless family members to the border wars. The Darkling, he believes, is the only person willing to do something about the wars and stop the carnage—therefore, any evil acts the Darkling might commit seem worth it to Ivan. - Character: Botkin Yul-Erdene. Description: Botkin is the combat instructor at the Little Palace. He's not a Grisha, but is a former Shu Han mercenary who's fought for a variety of countries and is very good at killing people. Initially, Alina detests him, as he works her hard and she can't keep up. But once Alina learns to use her power and can finally accomplish the movements he drills her on, they develop mutual respect for each other. Botkin even gives Alina a knife of Grisha steel, something he insists Alina earned (rather than it being a gift). - Character: Zoya. Description: Zoya is an extremely beautiful—and mean—Squaller. Even Marie and Nadia, whom Alina finds catty and mean themselves, don't have anything nice to say about Zoya. Zoya first appears in the novel's opening pages, when she catches sight of Mal and seems to take an interest in him. Later, once Alina is settled at the Little Palace and Zoya returns from her military post, Zoya is particularly cruel to Alina: she taunts Alina for being poor and uses her powers to hurt Alina during combat practice. - Character: The King. Description: The King of Ravka is in his mid-40s. Rather than being an imposing figure, the King is unattractive, with watery eyes and a weak chin. However, the King is still quite powerful, and he uses his power to sexually abuse and manipulate his servants: Genya reveals that the King forces many of his female servants, including her, to sleep with him. Female Grisha are also warned to lock their doors at night, presumably against the King. The King, Alina realizes, is far more caught up in living a comfortable life than he is in ruling. Grisha often speak of him as incompetent and uncaring, especially about his poorer subjects—many blame his unwillingness to take action and use his station to help people for the century-long wars ravaging Ravka. This leads many Grisha to support the Darkling when the Darkling seizes power for himself; the Darkling, unlike the King, is willing to do something. It's implied that the Darkling does away with the King by having Genya cause the King to fall seriously ill. - Character: The Queen. Description: The Queen of Ravka is a blond woman in her mid-40s. She's beautiful, but she's been made beautiful to the point of it being uncanny, thanks to Genya's gift. The Darkling "gifted" Genya to the Queen several years ago, and while the Queen openly resents Genya, she also makes regular use of Genya's ability to brighten her eye and hair color and smooth her skin. Genya describes the Queen as vain, selfish, and attention-seeking. - Character: The Apparat. Description: The Apparat is a priest who serves the King and the Darkling. Alina initially hates and fears him: he smells like a musty graveyard and seems like an unhinged fanatic who's far too interested in Alina. At several points, the Apparat seems to try to warn Alina against cooperating with the Darkling, though due to how strange the Apparat's behavior is, Alina never confirms whether she's reading these warnings correctly. In the end, the Darkling elevates the Apparat to rule in the King's stead; he once told Alina that the Apparat "has his uses," and this, Alina believes, is what he meant. - Character: Ana Kuya. Description: Ana Kuya was the strict, elderly housekeeper who ran Duke Keramsov's estate and was in charge of managing the many orphans who lived on the estate. While it's implied that she wasn't the nicest to any of the children, she particularly disliked Alina. Mal and Alina reminisce about Ana Kuya often, and in their memories she's a fierce adversary—but as adults, they also recognize that she was probably doing her best in a difficult situation. Alina also comes to realize that Ana Kuya was very snobby and went out of her way to make sure that the orphans in her care learned upper-class manners and conduct. - Character: Duke Keramsov. Description: Duke Keramsov is the elderly noble who cared for Alina, Mal, and countless other children who were orphaned by the border wars. He educated the orphans in his care and, in Alina's memory, was a kind and generous benefactor. So, it's a painful shock for Alina when she encounters Duke Keramsov at the winter fete—and he doesn't recognize her. - Character: Mikhael. Description: Mikhael is one of Mal's best friends and a fellow tracker in the First Army. Alina doesn't like him, as he's cocky, dismissive, and not very nice to her. But she's still shocked and sad when Mal tells her that Mikhael and their other best friend Dubrov died senselessly in Fjerda while tracking Morozova's stag. - Character: Dubrov. Description: Dubrov is one of Mal's best friends and a fellow tracker in the First Army. Alina doesn't like him, as he's cocky and not very nice to her. But she's still shocked and sad when Mal tells her that Dubrov and their other best friend Mikhael died senselessly in Fjerda while tracking Morozova's stag. - Character: Marie. Description: Marie is a Summoner who's Alina's age. Her best friend is Nadia. The two of them take Alina under their wings, though Alina can never tell if they genuinely like her or just want to get close to her for political reasons. Though Marie speaks ill of Corporalki, she eventually begins dating Sergei, a Heartrender. - Character: David. Description: David is a young Fabrikator at the Little Palace. He's Genya's crush, but he's uninterested in anything that isn't metal or glass—including girls. David crafts the mirrors that Alina uses to fight, as well as Morozova's collar. However, David regrets helping the Darkling make the collar: he believes he helped bring about the end of the world. - Theme: Identity and Self-Knowledge. Description: Shadow and Bone tells the story of Alina, a teenage military mapmaker in the fictional land of Ravka. Alina has never felt like she fits in: she believes she's not a Grisha (a person who can perform a sort of magic), but she's also not very good at anything. So, it's a shock to everyone when it's revealed that Alina is actually a Grisha with a rare and powerful talent: she's a Sun Summoner, someone who can manipulate light. Through Alina's process of self-discovery, the novel proposes that accepting one's identity is essential to a person's happiness. Initially, Alina struggles to believe she's even a Grisha: Alina struggles to call her power without help, is weak and uncoordinated, and compared to the other Grisha (who are all naturally attractive), she's mousy and plain. But it's revealed that Alina has been trying for years to keep her power locked away so that she could stay with her childhood best friend and love interest, Mal. Working so hard to subsume this part of her identity has made Alina's life miserable and taken a major toll on her body—and once Alina accepts the part of herself that can summon light, she feels confident and competent for the first time in her life. Indeed, as Alina learns to have a relationship with this part of herself, she apologizes to it for keeping it locked away for so long and hurting herself in the process. This suggests that she sees her previous actions almost as a form of violence against herself. Ultimately, as Alina discovers the full extent of her powers, forms an even better relationship with herself, and uses her power to help people she loves, the novel implies that this kind of self-knowledge doesn't just help the person in question. Rather, being comfortable with oneself is also the first step to being able to help other people. - Theme: Desperation, Leadership, and Corruption. Description: While Alina's process of self-discovery takes center stage in Shadow and Bone, the novel also explores the consequences of ineffective, uncaring political leaders—and how such a government can breed apathy, desperation, and political radicalism. Ravka is a country that, hundreds of years before the novel's present, was divided in two by the Shadow Fold, a desolate area of complete darkness inhabited by nightmarish monsters. This division threatens to permanently divide the country and leave the landlocked half to die. At the same time, Ravka has been engaged in bloody wars with neighboring countries for about a century. These wars have decimated armies and civilian populations; Alina and Mal are two of many orphans of the so-called border wars. The result of these wars and the fear and division caused by the Fold, the novel shows, is a combination of fear, increased poverty, and a growing sense that Ravka's leaders aren't actually capable of fixing anything. So when the Darkling discovers Alina's power—she's a Sun Summoner, who can manipulate light—she represents hope for Ravka: with her, the Darkling believes he can do away with the Shadow Fold altogether, reuniting and bringing prosperity to every corner of Ravka. However, Alina discovers that the Darkling has no interest in reuniting the country—rather, he wants to use her power, combined with his own, to threaten Ravka's adversaries with expanding the Fold into their territories and essentially rule the country himself using brute force. Alina is shocked when she discovers that the Darkling isn't good. But she's even more shocked to discover that while many Grisha harbor some reservations, they still see following the Darkling and enabling his bloody crusade as the only way to save a country plagued by corruption, war, and an ineffective and uncaring King. As the first in a trilogy, Shadow and Bone offers no neat fixes for the situation in Ravka, but it serves as a chilling warning about how ineffective, bloated governments can lose the people's trust—creating situations ripe for bad actors like the Darkling to step in and take control. - Theme: Class and Privilege. Description: The fictional country of Ravka is one with major differences between its lower-class and upper-class residents. Teenaged Alina, the novel's protagonist, is an orphan who grew up in near poverty. In her experience, peasant life isn't easy or straightforward: it's plagued by hunger, cold, and insecurity. It's a shock for her, then, once she's identified as Grisha, to be swept away to the Little Palace in Ravka's capital city, Os Alta. There, in a towering building ornately decorated with mother of pearl and jewels, Alina and her fellow Grisha enjoy luxuries like sugar, year-round fresh fruit, and warm clothing made of the finest materials. Surrounded by all this luxury, Alina begins to suspect that Ravka's wars aren't what's hurting peasants and making them poorer. Rather, it's the way that royalty and Grisha live so well at the expense of Ravka's poor people. Put another way, the lower classes are so desperately poor because Ravka's upper classes have made the choice to take everything they might possibly want, rather than helping everyone in the country. Alina is also confused and disturbed by what she sees as the wealthy Grisha essentially fetishizing the peasant lifestyle, a lifestyle she's lived firsthand and knows isn't something to aspire to. The Darkling insists that Grisha uniforms be modeled after the kinds of clothes peasants wear—but their clothes aren't peasant clothes at all, and are in fact made of the finest materials. And while Grisha ostensibly eat like peasants (daily breakfast consists of classic peasant fare like pickled fish and bread), Alina observes that there's way more food on offer than any real peasant would see in their lifetime—and that's before she takes the sugar (which is rationed for poor people) and fresh fruit into account. The clothing and culinary habits are intended to make the Grisha seem trustworthy and relatable to Ravka's non-Grisha population, but having grown up poor, Alina knows that trying to emulate the lower classes doesn't impress people who are actually poor. Rather, it simply makes the Grisha seem even more alien and out of touch with the people they're ostensibly supposed to serve—and this, in turn, makes class divisions even worse, and increases the animosity the lower classes feel for wealthy Ravkans on the whole and Grisha specifically. - Theme: Gender, Sex, and Power. Description: As Alina becomes increasingly attracted to the Darkling during her time at the Little Palace, her friend Genya dispenses a chilling warning: to beware of powerful men. Shadow and Bone plays close attention to how men in positions of power, such as the King and the Darkling, abuse their stations to manipulate women by using either the threat or the promise of love, attention, prestige, or sex. The King, Alina learns within hours of arriving at the Little Palace, is someone to avoid: female Grisha are warned to lock their rooms at night, as he's known for entering rooms and assaulting women. Genya, however, isn't able to protect herself. She explains that most female servants such as herself have had to submit to the King's sexual advances. Agreeing to sleep with the King is, in this context, something Genya must put up with in order to keep her job, though she sarcastically acknowledges that she got some pretty jewelry out of the deal. Genya still maintains that she has no choice but to submit to the King—and, potentially, a lot to lose by refusing him. Rather than raping or assaulting women, the Darkling tricks Alina into falling in love with him, his goal being to take Alina's power for himself and effectively enslave her. It's only after Alina escapes the Little Palace that she realizes that every kiss or touch from the Darkling was carefully planned to keep her focused on the possibility of (at the time, wanted) romance and sex, thereby distracting her from asking practical questions that might have helped her see the Darkling's manipulation for what it was. Ultimately, Shadow and Bone acknowledges that there may be benefits for women who do give in to powerful men's advances. But those benefits aren't always as clear-cut as they might seem at first—and indeed, perhaps aren't benefits at all. - Theme: Greed vs. Mercy. Description: In many ways, Shadow and Bone is a classic good versus evil story: protagonist Alina must save her country from the Darkling, an evil villain who, she later discovers, plans to threaten everyone in Ravka with total darkness if they don't give in to him. As it becomes clear that the Darkling is an antagonist rather than a savior, Shadow and Bone proposes that it's his greed, ruthlessness, and inability to show respect and mercy that makes him evil. Indeed, Alina's first indicator that perhaps the Darkling isn't as good as she initially thinks he is comes when she discovers that the Darkling knowingly "gifted" Genya, a Grisha with powers to change people's appearances, to the Queen as a maid. This makes Genya unable to refuse the King's sexual advances—something the Darkling knew about when he sent Genya to work for the Queen. Later, it's the Darkling's willingness to murder an entire village and Alina's love interest, Mal, to prove a point that shows Alina the extent of his evil. People's lives mean nothing to him, and he sees no point in showing mercy to anyone unless it benefits him. Alina, however, discovers that the only way to fight the Darkling's greed is with mercy. The Darkling's plan revolves around killing the mythical Morozova's stag and making its antlers into a collar for Alina, which will amplify and allow him to wield her power—if he kills the stag. Alina knows this, and yet when she has the opportunity to kill the stag and take its power for herself, she chooses not to. Ultimately, Alina realizes her act of mercy wasn't her death sentence. Rather, refusing to kill the stag allows her to take control of her power and her body back from the Darkling, as showing the stag mercy was, in and of itself, a powerful choice. Showing others mercy, the novel suggests, can be a dangerous proposition in the novel's magical world—but its power is, perhaps, far stronger than what one earns by being ruthless and greedy. - Theme: Conformity vs. Individuality. Description: Shadow and Bone explores how people handle both the immense pressure to fit in and the desire to stand out and be special. Alina, the novel's protagonist, has never felt like she fits in anywhere. She's an orphan, is a weak and uncoordinated soldier, and a poor mapmaker, so she doesn't feel like she fits in in the army. And when it's discovered that she's actually a powerful Grisha (a person who performs a sort of magic), Alina feels even more out of place: she's not beautiful like Grisha are, and she struggles to call her power to summon light without assistance. Eventually, it's revealed that Alina has been subsuming her power for years in order to be able to stay with her childhood friend and love interest, Mal. Alina has been trying so hard to conform that she's actively hurt herself. For Alina, accepting her power helps her feel secure, important, and as though she fits in for the first time in her life. However, Alina quickly learns that being the sole Sun Summoner has its downsides. When she discovers that the Grisha's leader, the Darkling, plans to use her powers for evil, Alina realizes she's been tricked. She realizes her desire to not just fit in with the Grisha, but to be special to the Darkling, has blinded her to any possible costs of conforming. Though Alina chooses to run from the Darkling and assert her individuality, others, like Genya, show how overwhelming the pressure to fit in is. For years, Genya has lived like a servant and been scorned by other Grisha, using her talent to do the Queen's makeup and hair. It's implied that Genya ultimately uses her power to make the King sick, in exchange for becoming a real Grisha and not a servant. Both Genya and Alina's trajectories make it clear that there are steep costs to both fitting in and asserting one's individuality—and each person must decide for themselves what cost they're willing to accept. - Climax: Alina discovers how to take control of Morozova's collar from the Darkling, saving herself and Mal and abandoning the Darkling and his entourage in the Shadow Fold. - Summary: Having grown up an orphan, Alina has never felt like she fits in anywhere—and that includes with her childhood best friend Mal, on whom she nurses a secret crush. The two are both in the army and are scheduled to cross the Shadow Fold, a desolate strip of sand and total darkness inhabited by monsters called volcra that divides their country, Ravka, in two. But their sandskiff is attacked part of the way through the journey. As Alina tries to protect Mal, a flash of light blazes bright and Alina passes out. Back at the army camp, Alina is brought before the Darkling, the most powerful of the Grisha (people who can harness the elements). From others' testimony, Alina learns that the light came from her—she's a rare Sun Summoner Grisha. With her, the Darkling can destroy the Shadow Fold and reunite Ravka's two halves. The Darkling immediately sends Alina to the capital, Os Alta, and escorts her part of the way himself. Alina insists on wearing blue kefta, like the other Summoners, rather than black, which only the Darkling wears. She believes a blue kefta will help her fit in. Though it's nice to have food, a private room, and a friend—a gorgeous Grisha girl named Genya—Alina is miserable. She can't call her power without help from her ancient and crotchety tutor, Baghra; she's as weak and mousy as ever; and she still doesn't feel like she fits in with the Grisha. To make things worse, though Alina has written Mal weekly since arriving at the Little Palace, she hasn't heard from him. The King's advisor and a sort of priest, the Apparat, also appears regularly and seems frightening and predatory. One day, the Darkling suggests getting Alina a powerful amplifier, which will help her access her power and make her even stronger. He explains that the fabled Morozova's stag isn't just a fairytale; the herd is real, and the creatures are ancient and powerful. The stag's antlers would make Alina unstoppable. Alina is thrilled, but Baghra, for no discernible reason, isn't. Weeks later, Alina is feeling particularly abandoned by Mal. She attends her lesson with Baghra angry—and with Baghra's coaxing, Alina realizes that she's been using all her energy to subsume her power for years, all so she could stay with Mal. But now that Mal has abandoned her, Alina doesn't have to do this anymore. Alina apologizes to herself for what she's done and with Baghra's help, she learns to manipulate light. Suddenly, Alina has an appetite and is strong. She fills out, her skin clears up, and she begins taking an interest in the world and people around her. However, when the Darkling visits during one of her lessons with Baghra, he insists she's "not enough." They still need Morozova's stag, and the Darkling's trackers are close. On the way back to the palace, the Darkling kisses Alina—and it's exciting, but confusing. As spring approaches, all the Grisha can talk about is the upcoming fete, where the Grisha will demonstrate their powers for the King, Queen, and various nobles—as well as drink and dance all night. Even Alina is excited. It's a bit of a shock when Alina receives her kefta for the fete and sees that it's black silk: the Darkling's color. Still, Alina mostly enjoys the party and, during the demonstration, wows the nobles and royal family with her ability to banish the Darkling's conjured darkness with light. Afterwards, the Darkling drags Alina to a secluded room, where he tells her his trackers are even closer to Morozova's stag. They kiss and are on the verge of going further when people bang on the door. The Darkling asks to visit Alina's room later. When Alina is on her way back to her room, she notices soldiers—and one of them is Mal. She's thrilled to see him, but he's angry. He saw her demonstration with the Darkling and is sure they're sexually involved, and he hates that the Darkling "owns" her. He also reveals that he hasn't gotten any of her letters. Alina snaps that she doesn't want to see Mal again and hurries to her room to sob. But after a while, she hears a knock on the door. It's Baghra. Baghra drags Alina to a servant's room, where she explains that she's the Darkling's mother—and the Darkling has no intention of getting rid of the Fold. Rather, he plans to enslave Alina by putting Morozova's stag's antlers on her, which will allow him to use her power to expand the Fold. He wants control of Ravka and its neighboring countries, and he'll depose the King and rule through terror. Baghra gives Alina clothes and supplies and helps her slip out of the palace grounds. Alina will head for West Ravka, where she'll take a ship across the True Sea. Alina travels on foot for days, certain the Darkling will be after her. Things are fine until she reaches a bigger town and one of the Darkling's guards spots her. As she tries to evade soldiers tracking her through the woods, Mal appears, sends the soldiers the wrong way, and begins to lead Alina into the woods. He explains that they must head north, to where Morozova's herd is. They decide they must get the antlers for Alina; that's the only way to defeat the Darkling. The journey is difficult, physically and emotionally. But by the time Alina and Mal finally find the herd, they've admitted their love for each other. As Alina approaches and even touches Morozova's stag, she realizes she can't kill the creature. But the Darkling and his minions appear to kill the stag and fasten the antlers around Alina's neck. The Darkling imprisons Mal and the party returns to a town on the edge of the Fold, where the Darkling is preparing to lead a group of diplomats from various countries into the Fold to demonstrate Alina's power. From Genya and Ivan, one of the Darkling's closest allies, Alina discovers that many Grisha see the Darkling's power grab as the only way to save Ravka from years of deadly war, even if they find his methods somewhat disturbing. Finally, Alina, the Darkling, Mal, and the group of diplomats enter the Fold, and the Darkling demonstrates how Alina's power can repel the volcra. But when they reach the far side of the Fold, the Darkling uses his and Alina's combined powers to extend the Fold, decimating a Ravkan village. When the Darkling then throws Mal over the edge of the sandskiff to leave him for the volcra, Alina feels helpless—she should've killed the stag so she'd have control of its antlers. But then, Alina realizes that choosing to show the stag mercy was a powerful choice in and of itself. With this, Alina regains control over her power. She rescues Mal and leaves the Darkling and the diplomats in the dark to deal with the volcra. In West Ravka, Alina and Mal burn Alina's kefta and book passage on a ship going over the True Sea. Alina is haunted by nightmares, but she feels better with Mal beside her.

- Genre: Short Story, Social Satire - Title: Sharmaji - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: An office in Delhi, India - Character: Sharma. Description: Sharma, the protagonist of "Sharmaji," is an office worker, husband, and father of three—soon to be four—daughters. Sharma is a slacker with a poor track record in the office (and especially in his particular department, the purchase department). The day the story takes place is the 14th time he has come in late that month. While his supervisor, Borwankar, and other works like Mahesh see Sharma's behavior as pure laziness, it's later revealed that Sharma has given 25 years of his life to the company and even received an award for excellent work at the beginning of his career. In spite of this, Sharma has been continuously passed over for promotions, which he attributes to his disdain for maska and his refusal to abet corruption. Sharma is deeply insecure about the lack of respect for his age and seniority, and he's quick to get angry with younger colleagues and supervisors. At the same time, he is open and accepting of Miss Das's modern lifestyle, and he loves his family unconditionally, despite their lack of a son and the financial burden that his daughters' dowries will pose. Sharma also used to write poetry, indicating a creativity that his resentment-filled years at the company have suffocated. At the end of the story, however, when he finally has someone who will listen to him, in the form of Miss Das, he begins to write poems again. - Character: Gupta. Description: Gupta is a clerk in the accounts department and one of Sharma's few friends in the office. Gupta is also a shirker, frequently leaving his desk to drink tea or smoke cigarettes with Sharma, but he is much less willing to challenge the authorities, returning to work when fear compels him. Gupta is searching for a wife, but his family's difficult financial situation limits his options. Despite being younger than Sharma, Gupta displays a more traditional social outlook on certain issues, particularly that of gender, as is revealed by his conversation with Sharma about dowries and by the shock Gupta expresses at the rumors that Miss Das smokes. - Character: Miss Das. Description: A personnel officer in the company, Miss Das is a relatively young woman occupying a position of power and living a thoroughly modern, nontraditional lifestyle. Not only does Miss Das work, but she chose not to take her husband's last name and did not publicly celebrate her wedding. She may even smoke, provoking gossip throughout the office. Miss Das is a methodical, results-oriented leader in the workplace, castigating Sharma for his absenteeism and urging him to recommit his energies to work. At the same time, Miss Das is the only manager willing to listen to Sharma, taking a more sympathetic position than Borwankar, his direct supervisor. Miss Das has noticed that Sharma is not merely lazy, but suffering from a deep depression, and she asks him to tell her how he feels and why. Her sympathy does not prevent her from pressing Sharma to be a better worker, however, as she refuses to read his poems when he offers to bring them the following morning, insisting that he should show her during the lunch break instead of working hours. Additionally, Miss Das's presence has significantly changed company culture without her knowing it, at least according to Sharma; he claims that before she arrived there was a persistent culture of abuse of women by managers, but having a powerful woman in the personnel department has deterred the offenders. - Character: Borwankar. Description: Borwankar is Sharma's manager and direct supervisor. The reader learns little about Borwankar's personality, which is largely established in contrast with Sharma and Miss Das. Borwankar is unsympathetic to and impatient with Sharma, seemingly having little regard for his 25 years of service in the company. He issues Sharma a charge-sheet for his consistent tardiness and is dismissive of Sharma's attempts to defend himself. It takes the mutual mediation of Adesh Singh and Miss Das for Borwankar to agree to give Sharma a warning in exchange for a written apology. - Character: Adesh Singh. Description: Adesh Singh is the general secretary of the workers' union and a worker on the production floor. A powerful figure in the office because of his position, Adesh frequently clashes with the managers, who are unable to discipline him like other workers despite technically being his supervisors. This is made clear when Sharma seeks out Adesh's help regarding his charge-sheet; at first, Adesh's supervisor does not want to let him leave, as union activities are forbidden during working hours, but Adesh changes tactics and asks to get a glass of water. When his request is denied, Adesh demonstrates his gift for rousing speeches, charging his supervisor with inhuman cruelty—a display that halts all work on the floor as people watch Adesh speak. While Adesh's complaints against management are full of genuine feeling, he is also unscrupulous about lying to protect Sharma, claiming he saw him at his desk all morning. Though Adesh helps Sharma without a second thought, he is frustrated by Sharma's lack of consideration, telling him that he must "mend [his] ways" and refusing to show Sharma any deference as his elder. - Character: Adesh's Supervisor. Description: Adesh's supervisor is an unnamed manager on the production floor who attempts to prevent Adesh from leaving his work to help Sharma. When Adesh asks to leave for water instead, the supervisor once again denies his request but quickly realizes she has overplayed her hand, as Adesh gives a fiery speech and derails the entire floor's work. This brief encounter suggests the tempestuous relationship between the supervisor and Adesh, illustrating the broader conflict between management and the union. - Character: Mahesh. Description: Mahesh is a clerk in the personnel department and a personal enemy of Sharma's in the office. When Sharma reacts negatively to Mahesh pointing out his lateness and begins to shout, Mahesh begs Sharma to stop causing such a scene in the personnel department, as other employees join Sharma in scolding and mocking Mahesh. In Sharma's eyes, Mahesh frequently attempts to undercut him and exercise power over him. Furthermore, Sharma accuses Mahesh of providing Miss Das with selective information, only reporting on the tardiness of colleagues he dislikes, though this remains unproven. - Character: Harish. Description: Harish is a peon from the purchase department who is sent by Borwankar to call Sharma to his office immediately. Harish warns Sharma that Borwankar is already in quite a temper and that he should go see him quickly, but Sharma angrily dismisses Harish's suggestions, refusing to take advice from someone younger and lower in rank than him. - Theme: Tradition, Modernity, and Gender Roles. Description: "Sharmaji" presents the tension between tradition and modernity as a powerful force in contemporary Indian society. This tension is especially evident in the case of gender roles, as modernization rapidly but incompletely transforms traditional norms. While men and women work side by side in the world of the story, women are still largely treated as property, as Sharma and Gupta's conversation regarding dowries displays. The modern woman, in contrast, is exemplified by Miss Das, who not only holds a position of authority but has also chosen to keep her maiden name and not to publicly celebrate her wedding. Rumor has it that she even smokes, an activity considered by the other characters to be unfeminine. She also brings her modernizing attitude to the workplace, refusing to defer to social norms and longtime employees, instead making an egalitarian demand for efficiency, hard work, and fair rewards. Sharma is a foil to this vision, at least in part. His entitlement and resentment are directly connected to the length of time he has spent at the company—25 years—and a perceived lack of recognition for his seniority. This hints at his belief in a more traditional social structure defined by deference to elders, as displayed by his angry outbursts when he is criticized by younger colleagues like Mahesh and Mohan. At the same time, Sharma is hardly a classically patriarchal figure. His reaction to Miss Das's modern way of life is accepting, if somewhat perplexed, and he has only withering criticism to offer regarding the abuse of female employees that took place in the company before Miss Das joined. Of course, it is possible that Sharma is simply hiding his criticisms of Miss Das, as he has proven his willingness to lie to protect himself. However, Sharma's conversation with Gupta shows that he has no misgivings about his lack of a son and that he loves his wife and daughters unconditionally, despite the financial burden that they pose. The ambiguity of where Sharma—and society at large—stands on issues of gender equality and other shifting expectations illustrates that societal change is never quite straightforward in communities undergoing a transition. The story hints at how radically change can affect people and communities, even as tradition continues to influence them in subtle but long-lasting ways. - Theme: Labor and Creativity. Description: "Sharmaji" is structured around Sharma's efforts to avoid his work as much as possible and his increasingly elaborate efforts to escape the consequences of his negligence. He goes to such great lengths to hide this negligence that it might have been easier for him to simply do his job. This centers the theme not only of labor, but also creativity, as Sharma crafts exceptionally imaginative excuses to avoid the dull and repetitive but not especially strenuous work of his desk job. Indeed, Sharma is acutely aware of his job's inability to express his creative side; as he tells Miss Das, it has been years since he has written poetry, implying that his time at the company has blocked his creative outlets. In explaining himself this way, Sharma seems to suggest that the lack of meaning—of creative joy—in his work (where he feels unappreciated) is what has turned him away from it. Sharma is hardly the only worker to express these opinions, though he certainly takes them to their furthest extremes. Gupta also clearly takes no pleasure in his work. He is only compelled to stop smoking and drinking tea with Sharma out of fear of his supervisor. Other workers, like Mahesh and Rahul, respond to their conditions by spreading rumors and holding what little authority they have over Sharma and others. When Sharma does finally sit down at his desk, he does not begin to work but instead writes a new poem, as the care and respect shown to him by Miss Das has reignited his creativity. Likewise, Adesh's impassioned speech to his supervisor when she attempts to stop him from getting water—and speaking to Sharma about his situation—has a poetic power to it, as he emphasizes that the workers' "hearts are more vulnerable than [the managers' hearts]." In exploring the relationship between labor and creativity, Appachana shows how the lack of creative outlets in a person's work life can close them off to the world. In turn, the story offers an explanation for Sharma and the other workers' negligence that goes beyond the idea that they're simply lazy, though the story doesn't necessarily condone their behavior, either. - Theme: Loyalty and Disillusion. Description: The characters in "Sharmaji" are heavily influenced by either loyalty to or disillusionment with their company. Providing another prism through which readers can understand Sharma's resentment, the story shows that a sense of unrewarded loyalty can lead to deep disillusionment. At the same time, though,  expecting rewards for such loyalty can also be selfish and unreasonable. Having worked at the company for 25 years, Sharma feels that he has been unfairly maligned and passed over for promotions, which have been given to less deserving, even unworthy candidates. As he tells it to Miss Das, his unrequited loyalty to the company is the primary source of his poor performance and his avoidance of his duties. Whether this is true or not remains unclear, but the fact that Sharma received a reward for excellence in his work 25 years ago suggests that he was not always the lazy employee readers come to know, and this lends credibility to his story. Sharma adds that his jaded attitude is not only the result of his treatment by the company but also a consequence of the dishonest and inappropriate behavior he has seen others get away with or even be rewarded for—behavior he sees as far worse than his own shirking of labor. According to Sharma, Mahesh and others withhold information from Miss Das to protect their friends and punish their enemies. What's more, other managers have advanced their careers through personal favors, and, until Miss Das's arrival, there was a widespread culture of sexual abuse in the company. The fact that these iniquities are left unaddressed while Sharma is punished gives credence to his feeling that he has been unfairly persecuted—perhaps he really would work harder if he felt he would be rewarded for it. Sharma's sense of unrewarded loyalty can also be interpreted as a result of societal change. As modernization privileges efficiency and results, loyalty and consistency become less and less valued. And the story implies that the less valued people feel, the less likely they are to devote themselves to their jobs. - Climax: Sharma is issued a charge-sheet for being late to work and must defend himself against Borwankar and Miss Das. - Summary: "Sharmaji" is set in and around an office in urban India where the protagonist, Sharma, works. Sharma arrives 45 minutes late for work; it is the 14th time he has been late this month. An argument breaks out when he is reprimanded, as Sharma is quick to be offended by criticism, especially from those younger than him. Afterwards, Sharma and his friend Gupta shirk their duties to drink tea and smoke cigarettes in the canteen. Gupta is searching for a wife, whereas Sharma is about to have a fourth daughter. Future dowry payments pose a significant financial burden to Sharma's family. Sharma and Gupta complain about the company and discuss rumors about their highly modern, nontraditional manager, Miss Das. While Sharma does his utmost to avoid his work, Gupta is afraid of the consequences he will face and eventually returns to his desk. Sharma is told that his supervisor, Borwankar, wants to see him immediately, but Sharma refuses to go until after his lunch. He and Gupta eat a heavy meal, smoke, and chew paan. When they return to the office, the power has gone out. Borwankar finds Sharma and takes him to his office, where he starts to question him about where he has been all day. Sharma finds increasingly elaborate ways to either lie or avoid answering directly and begins to accuse Borwankar and the company of treating him poorly. Miss Das joins them, and Sharma is given an official charge-sheet, which he refuses to sign, storming out to speak with the general secretary of the workers' union, Adesh Singh. After an explosive argument with his own supervisor, who does not want to let him leave his work to help Sharma, Adesh joins Sharma, Borwankar, and Miss Das, and he successfully negotiates an agreement: Sharma will accept the charges and be let off with a warning on the condition that he provides a written apology. Miss Das then asks to speak with Sharma in her office. Drinking glass after glass of her cold water, Sharma tells Miss Das about his depression and his mistreatment, revealing that he once won an award for excellent work but has been passed over for promotions because he refuses to participate in petty office politics and maska. Finally having a genuine listener, Sharma agrees to commit to coming to work on time, and he reveals he used to write poetry, which he will show Miss Das the next day. Feeling reinvigorated, Sharma finally sits down at his desk half an hour before the end of the workday and begins to write a new poem.

- Genre: Short fiction, literary fiction - Title: Shiloh - Point of view: Close third person - Setting: Western Kentucky - Character: Leroy Moffitt. Description: Leroy Moffitt, the story's protagonist, is a former long-haul trucker who is married to Norma Jean. At the beginning of the story, Leroy has just suffered a bad trucking accident, leaving him housebound. The dynamic at home is strained; he was on the road for over a decade, but Norma Jean doesn't seem excited to have him back—even while he desperately wants to reconnect with her. As the story progresses, the source of the distance in their marriage becomes clear: 15 years ago, their infant son Randy died, and they grieved separately, with Leroy out on the road and Norma Jean home alone. They've become different people in that time, and they barely know one another now. Compounding Leroy's anxiety over his failing marriage is his new sense of emasculation. He's no longer the family's breadwinner and he's physically disabled, so he throws himself into crafting projects like needlepoint and smokes a lot of weed while spending his days home alone. But instead of speaking honestly with Norma Jean about what they're feeling or what they've been through, Leroy never mentions the loss of their son. He instead becomes naively fixated on the notion that building a log cabin for them to live in will allow them to start fresh—despite Norma Jean's insistence that she doesn't want the log cabin and the obvious fact that building a house isn't a substitute for grappling with their past. In the end, on a trip to Shiloh that Leroy hopes will rekindle their marriage, Norma Jean announces that she is leaving Leroy then walks away from their picnic lunch. The baffled Leroy finds himself emotionally and physically left behind. - Character: Norma Jean Moffitt. Description: Norma Jean Moffitt is Leroy's wife. After she and Leroy lost their infant son 15 years ago, Norma Jean mostly stayed home alone while her husband was on the road trucking. But when the story begins, Norma Jean—who is in her early thirties—is on the verge of a personal revolution. Leroy becoming housebound after a trucking accident has made Norma Jean realize two crucial things: that their marriage isn't working and that she can build the life she wants alone. She stops spending time at home and starts focusing more on herself, working full-time, taking night classes, and throwing herself into new hobbies, such as bodybuilding and cooking new foods. Meanwhile, Leroy wants to reconnect with Norma Jean and rescue their marriage, but he finds himself unable to address the core problem: that they lost their son and grieved separately, becoming different people in the process. Instead, Leroy fixates on building Norma Jean a log cabin to live in, which she doesn't want—she recognizes that the cabin, like their marriage, would be a relic of the past with no place in the present. While Norma Jean struggles with her unfulfilling marriage, she must also fend off her mother Mabel's constant intrusions (critiques of her housekeeping, unannounced visits, and even the cruel insinuation that Norma Jean and Leroy were responsible for their son's death). Having Mabel and Leroy around makes Norma Jean feel like a teenager again, which she hates, causing her to leave her marriage in the end to try to start her life anew. While Leroy remains naively fixated on returning to the love they shared in the past, Norma Jean is a dynamic and headstrong character who spends most of the story looking unapologetically and intensely toward her own future. - Character: Mabel Beasley. Description: Mabel Beasley is Norma Jean's mother and Leroy's mother-in-law. An older woman with a "worn face […] the texture of crinkled cotton," Mabel is tough and has seemingly lived a hard life. She grew up in a log cabin in western Kentucky and seems to have lived in the same town all her life. Her husband (Norma Jean's father) died when Norma Jean was only 10. Mabel clings to memories of the early days of her marriage, focusing with particular intensity on the honeymoon she and her husband took to the Civil War memorial park in Shiloh, Tennessee. Mabel often drops in on Norma Jean in her home, a habit she picked up during the 15 years when Leroy spent most of his time on the road. Because of this, Mabel and Norma Jean have a relationship that is too close for comfort. Mabel is nosy by nature and often inserts herself into Norma Jean and Leroy's private matters: she criticizes Norma Jean's smoking, Leroy's newfound love of needlepoint, Norma Jean's housekeeping, and she even cruelly implies that Norma Jean and Leroy may have neglected their son who died. Mabel's obsession with the idea that Leroy and Norma Jean should visit the battleground at Shiloh to rekindle their marriage reveals that she, like Leroy, ignores the future in favor of remembering past happiness. And while Mabel's suggestion is misguided (Norma Jean ends their marriage at Shiloh), she does—despite her cruelty and nosiness—seem to love Leroy and Norma Jean and want them to be happy. - Character: Randy. Description: Randy was Norma Jean and Leroy's infant son. 15 years before the start of the story, he died of sudden infant death syndrome at just four months old. Leroy pinpoints the moment of Randy's death as the moment when he and Norma Jean became estranged, as they failed to grieve their son together and they conspicuously avoid mentioning him throughout the story. Nonetheless, Randy's presence is deeply felt; Leroy repeatedly wonders whether he should bring Randy up to Norma Jean so that they can at last discuss his death—or whether doing so would open up old wounds neither of them want to face. - Character: Virgil Mathis. Description: Virgil Mathis is a "boastful policeman" with whom Leroy used to shoot pool years ago. Virgil recently led a drug bust that uncovered over $10,000 worth of marijuana in the back room of a local bowling alley. Throughout the story, Leroy—who regularly smokes marijuana, ostensibly to manage some of the pain from his trucking accident—experiences recurring mental images of Virgil proudly seizing the drugs. Leroy's fantasies of Virgil's drug bust may be related to his own insecurities about the stability of his marriage or his reliance on marijuana to dull his pain. - Theme: Grief, Love, and Estrangement. Description: For 15 years, Norma Jean's husband Leroy, a trucker, has mostly lived on the road. After a bad accident, however, he moves home to recuperate. Leroy and Norma Jean, living together full-time for the first time in over a decade, discover that they're strangers—distant and awkward, unsure of who the other person has become. This is partially due to Leroy's long absences while trucking, but that's not the root cause: back when they were 18-year-old newlyweds, their baby died, and they never grieved together. Instead, Leroy started trucking, and they haven't been close since. While Leroy hopes that his return home will be a fresh start for their marriage, Norma Jean experiences it differently; his presence in the house reminds her of being 18, a time that is too painful for her to revisit. She leaves him in the end, but the story implies that their marriage has actually been over since their child died. This illustrates the tremendous strain that grief puts on a marriage, particularly when both partners suffer alone rather than processing their feelings together. When Leroy starts living at home full-time, he marvels at how little he and Norma Jean know each other. Norma Jean is suddenly enthusiastic about bodybuilding, for instance, and she's enrolled in a writing class. She has new gestures and habits, like saving bread heels for the birds, and she's cooking "unusual foods" like tacos and "Bombay Chicken." Leroy finds all of this alienating, a sign that she's moving on from him. In fact, even when Norma Jean picks up a familiar hobby (playing piano, which she loved to do in high school), it doesn't comfort Leroy. Her taste has completely changed; she used to hate sixties songs, but now she plays them wistfully, feeling that she "missed something" about them back then. Norma Jean and Leroy fell in love in the sixties, so her feeling that she missed out shows that something between them is wrong. Leroy has changed too; he's no longer trucking, and he's found new hobbies like needlepoint and building models. But Norma Jean seems to have no interest in getting to know who Leroy has become. She's away all the time, and even when she's home, she barely asks Leroy about himself. Worse, she refuses to entertain his most fervent interest: building them a log cabin to live in. While Norma Jean seems to have no desire to reconcile, Leroy does want them to get "reacquainted." He feels "unusually tender" about his wife and, at one point, he has a fleeting impulse to "tell [her]about himself, as if he had just met her," hoping to bridge their divide. But he's stoned and he forgets all about it a moment later, suggesting that their estrangement is here to stay. The story doesn't spell out the root cause of the couple's estrangement, but the implication is that it began when they lost their baby. The night the baby died, as they stood together in the hospital, Norma Jean began to seem like a stranger to Leroy: he remembers thinking "Who is this strange girl?" and feeling that he had "forgotten who she was." In this moment, Norma Jean and Leroy are processing their initial shock and grief, and it's significant that they turn away from each other in such an extreme way. They do not simply grieve separately—grief seems to transform them into different people altogether, making them unrecognizable to one another. Exacerbating this problem, Leroy and Norma Jean each process this tragedy without leaning on the other. Leroy deals with his grief through being on the road all the time and telling his tragic story to hitchhikers—even though he never talks about the baby to Norma Jean. He also seems to use his job as a distraction, reflecting that "in all the years he was on the road he never took time to examine anything." While he's explicitly saying that he never noticed the details of the landscape as he drove, he's also admitting that his demanding job distracted him from examining his emotions. Meanwhile, it's not totally clear what Norma Jean has done to grieve; the story narrates from Leroy's perspective, and he doesn't seem to know much about what she did or felt during all those years he was away. But once he comes home, he understands intuitively why she doesn't want him around: he "reminds her too much of the early days of their marriage," the era when their baby died. Since Leroy's presence brings back memories of her grief, she avoids him. Early on in the story, Leroy naively reflects on how lucky he is that losing a child didn't wreck his marriage—but he's obviously wrong. The baby's death irrevocably changed both Leroy and Norma Jean, and their failure to grieve together sealed their estrangement. Now, living in the same house, they think about the baby constantly, but they can't figure out how to talk about him: Leroy awkwardly avoids bringing up the child, and when Norma Jean references him (obliquely, after a fight with her mother), Leroy pretends not to know what she's talking about. In this light, their marriage doesn't stand a chance—if they can't even name their grief, they have no hope of coming back together. When Norma Jean finally ends their marriage, she tells him, "I feel eighteen again. I can't face that all over again." She grieved without Leroy for so long that grieving with him is no longer an option. - Theme: Gender, Independence, and Power. Description: After Leroy's trucking accident, his wife Norma Jean becomes their family's breadwinner, and their gender roles begin to shift. While Leroy is homebound, making crafts and dreaming about homemaking, Norma Jean is out working, lifting weights, taking night classes, and developing an independent life. This shift in gender roles benefits Norma Jean, who becomes empowered to leave an unfulfilling marriage and seek a better life. But it creates tremendous anxiety in Leroy, who feels emasculated and unable to picture a future for himself, preferring to dwell in a mythical past. Set in the early 1980s, the story suggests that the era of women's liberation often affected men and women differently, making men feel insecure or anxious about their roles while allowing women to chase new, independent lives. Right off the bat, the story establishes several ways in which Norma Jean and Leroy's gender roles have reversed. In the past, whenever Leroy was home from his trucking job, Norma Jean performed the role of a traditional wife: she would stay at home with him, cooking all his favorite foods. But now that he's home for good, she's no longer acting like a housewife: she's constantly away at work, earning money while Leroy recovers. And whenever she is home, she makes her own favorite foods and she spends time on her hobbies while neglecting the housework. Norma Jean's new hobbies emphasize her shifting role. Her passion for bodybuilding (a pastime that is traditionally gendered male) signals her commitment to strength and independence. And her writing class shows that she's trying to finally find her own voice rather than saying or doing what she feels is expected of her. Leroy, meanwhile, is having an opposite experience. His trucking job required strength and independence, and he has spent much of his life alone on the road while handling a dangerous rig. But his injury has confined him to the home—he can no longer earn a living, he's physically weak, and he spends his days pining for his absent spouse, placing him in a position that would be traditionally considered feminine. Underscoring this sense of emasculation are Leroy's new hobbies: to pass the time, he gets into needlepoint, string art, and macramé—craft projects that are traditionally gendered female. Furthermore, he often daydreams about the log cabin he wants to build for Norma Jean, showing how his thoughts have turned to homemaking. It's Norma Jean, not Leroy, who seems to have independent ambitions outside of marriage. These shifting gender roles make Norma Jean feel powerful, freeing her to chase the things she's always wanted out of life. For example, Norma Jean begins talking to Leroy more excitedly about her job at the cosmetics counter of the local pharmacy. While this is a traditionally feminine job, it gives her the confidence and independence of a breadwinner. This is apparent when she boasts to Leroy about her ability to stand behind the counter all day on her "strong feet," framing the job as physical and demanding and drawing attention to her strength and endurance. In another scene that shows Norma Jean coming into her own power, she tells Leroy that his name means "the king." When Leroy sheepishly asks if he's still the king of the house, Norma Jean deflects his question and brags that her own name is derived from the Normans, powerful 11th-century conquerors. It's clear from this interaction that Leroy is not the king of the house; Norma Jean is in charge now. And she finally uses her power at the end of the story when she walks away from Leroy as he's pleading with her not to end their marriage. This shows that she feels free to simply walk away from a conversation—and a marriage—that doesn't suit her anymore. While their shifted roles allow Norma Jean to claim her independence and create a new life, this role reversal emasculates Leroy. In one incident, his mother-in-law Mabel mocks him for doing needlepoint, and he insists that "all the big football players on TV" also needlepoint. This is an improbable claim, but by invoking an icon of masculinity—a professional football player—he shows that he's defensive and insecure about his own masculinity. In another moment, Norma Jean suggests that he apply for a bunch of jobs that he physically can't do anymore, such as working at the lumberyard. This makes him feel useless—especially when Norma Jean points out her own ability to stand up all day at work. To make himself seem capable, Leroy insists that he's going to build Norma Jean a cabin, which is both physically implausible and a backhanded admission that he's actually focused on their home now, not on finding a job. Since Leroy is uncomfortable and emasculated in his new role, he has trouble imagining his future. He envisions only implausible scenarios, including building them a log cabin—a style of house that Norma Jean finds repellent. Leroy's fixation on building an antiquated log cabin shows his desire to return to a past in which Norma Jean still loved him and he was still the man of the house. But the story makes clear that this log cabin will not get built, suggesting that their new roles are here to stay. - Theme: History and the Past. Description: Norma Jean and Leroy have not had an easy marriage. They wed when Norma Jean was 18 and pregnant, and their son Randy died months after he was born. Rather than grieving together, they retreated into themselves; Leroy went out on the road as a trucker while Norma Jean stayed home alone. But now Leroy realizes that he and Norma Jean have grown apart and he's determined to revive their marriage. Instead of working through their years of estrangement, though, he wants to start fresh, returning to how things were before everything went wrong. Of course, Leroy can never erase the history between them—and as the story progresses, "Shiloh" suggests that one cannot move towards the future by trying to recreate an idyllic past. To fix his struggling marriage, Leroy tries to return to the past. He wants to "start afresh" and "become reacquainted" with Norma Jean, which implies his desire to re-create their idyllic courtship period before their son was born. He even suggests that they "start all over again […] right back at the beginning," as though they could simply ignore everything that has happened since they were eighteen and pick back up before they lost their son. To encourage this return to their teenaged years, Leroy buys Norma Jean an electric organ, since she loved to play the piano in high school. In addition, he treats all her new interests with skepticism. Clearly, he wants her to remain who she was when they met and doesn't want to acknowledge how much she has changed. The biggest indication of Leroy's desire to return to the past is his obsession with building Norma Jean a log cabin. This is an attempt to fulfill a promise he's been making since they got married: to build her a home. But the fact that he wants to build a log cabin—an antiquated building that would be out-of-place in their town—emphasizes how silly he's being. 15 years have passed since he promised Norma Jean a home, and fulfilling his promise now is meaningless; he can't rewind the clock to when they were newlyweds. Just as a log cabin is a relic of the past with no place in the present, the early period of their marriage is just a memory—Norma Jean doesn't want the cabin now, she wants to move on to something new. Norma Jean rejects Leroy's attempt to return to the past, presumably because his vision of the past is false: there's too much history that he refuses to acknowledge. The most obvious example of this is Leroy's silence about losing their child. He and Norma Jean "never speak about their memories of Randy," and Leroy never brings him up—even when he thinks it might ease the awkwardness between them. In fact, the one time that Norma Jean references losing Randy, Leroy initially pretends not to know what she is talking about. This moment estranges Norma Jean, plunging her into silence and making her feel like they have nothing in common—not even the past. In addition, Leroy tries to ignore the fact that he was out on the road for the past 15 years. Instead of trying to heal the distance this created, he tries to push aside his feeling that something is wrong in their marriage. It's revealing when he jokes that their new dust ruffle from Mabel will allow them to "hide things under the bed." This calls attention to his method of coping with difficulty: pushing aside anything uncomfortable and pretending that it doesn't exist. Leroy's false vision of the past comes crashing down around him on his and Norma Jean's trip to Shiloh, a trip that embodies Leroy's doomed attempt to save his marriage by returning to the past. By going on a date to a historic site, they're traveling figuratively to the past—and, on top of that, Leroy is thinking of this trip as a "second honeymoon," emphasizing his desire to pretend that he and Norma Jean are newlyweds again. Shiloh, however, is a place that glorifies a false vision of the past. The site of a bloody battle, Shiloh has since been beautified and turned into a tourist attraction, obscuring the tragedy that occurred there. Furthermore, the tourists are remembering the wrong narrative; people go there to celebrate the Confederacy (even Norma Jean and Leroy buy a Confederate flag as a souvenir in the gift shop), but Shiloh was the site of a devastating Confederate defeat. Just as Leroy wants to imagine a version of his past without the loss of his son and the grief and estrangement that followed, the historic site promotes a sanitized version of the past that bears no resemblance to the reality of what happened. At a picnic on the grounds of Shiloh, Norma Jean tells Leroy that she's leaving him. She explains that she's been feeling "eighteen again" ever since he returned home, and that she refuses to "face that all over again." She means that being 18 was traumatic for her the first time around and it's not something she wants to revisit. This shows how misguided Leroy has been in trying to save his marriage by re-creating their past; he remembers their early years as idyllic because he's repressed the loss of their son, but Norma Jean is more honest with herself about what happened between them. For her, returning to the past would rekindle a grief that she cannot continue to face. - Climax: Norma Jean tells her husband Leroy that she is leaving him - Summary: After long-haul trucker Leroy Moffitt has an accident on the road, he finds himself living at home full-time for the first time in 15 years. It's not what he expects: his wife Norma Jean seems distant, as she's always working, taking night classes, or doing new hobbies like bodybuilding. The two of them are emotionally disconnected, and while Leroy wants to reconnect, Norma Jean seems to have no interest in him. He suspects that this estrangement is rooted in the fact that neither of them have ever really discussed the sudden death of their infant son, Randy, over 15 years ago. After Randy died, Leroy went out on the road and he and Norma Jean haven't been close since. While he considers bringing up Randy's death to ease the tension between them, he isn't sure how to broach the topic, so he doesn't say anything at all. To pass the time, Leroy begins to dabble in crafts such as macramé and needlepoint. He also smokes a lot of weed and builds models out of Lincoln Logs, which gives him the idea to build himself and Norma Jean a log cabin so that they don't have to rent anymore. Early in their marriage, Leroy promised to build Norma Jean a house, but when Leroy tells her about the log cabin idea, she is skeptical. A log cabin would be out of place in the new subdivisions that have sprung up around their small Kentucky town. Nonetheless, Leroy keeps studying blueprints and daydreaming about the cabin. Meanwhile, Norma Jean is taking a writing class, she's exercising regularly, and she's reading novels and books about history. Leroy believes that Norma Jean is slipping away from him. Norma Jean's nosy mother Mabel often drops by their house. She brings over a handmade dust ruffle, mocks Leroy for doing needlepoint, and criticizes Norma Jean's smoking and housekeeping. Once, she describes a baby who died of neglect—a story that Norma Jean interprets as subtly casting blame on her and Leroy for the death of their son. A particular fixation of Mabel's is the Civil War battleground memorial in Shiloh, Tennessee. Mabel visited Shiloh on her own honeymoon, and she thinks that Leroy and Norma Jean should rekindle their marriage by taking a trip there. When Leroy asks Norma Jean about visiting Shiloh, she agrees to go. A few days later, they pack a Sunday picnic and take a long, silent drive there. At the park, Leroy sees a log cabin riddled with bullet holes—a relic from the bloody Civil War battle that took place there many years ago. When Leroy and Norma Jean sit down for their picnic, Norma Jean abruptly ends their marriage. While Leroy tries to convince her that she doesn't really mean it, Norma Jean says that since Leroy's return home, she's been feeling like she's 18 again—and she does not want to "face that all over again." As Leroy frantically thinks about what he can do to make Norma Jean stay with him, she stands up and walks away. Leroy tries to follow her, but his injury makes it hard for him to keep up. When he at last catches up to Norma Jean at a nearby river, he sees her waving her arms—but he cannot tell if she is beckoning him or simply doing one of her bodybuilding exercises.

- Genre: Short story; semi-autobiographical fiction - Title: Should Wizard Hit Mommy? - Point of view: Third person limited; Updike writes in third person through Jack's eyes - Setting: Jack and Clare's family home - Character: Jack. Description: The protagonist of the story, Jack is a married man living with his pregnant wife Clare, their four-year-old daughter Jo, and their two-year-old son, Bobby. Uninspired by and disillusioned with the responsibilities of family life, Jack uses the stale ritual of telling his daughter a bedtime story to avoid helping his wife re-paint their living room to prepare for the arrival of their third child. A talented storyteller, Jack takes pride in creating engrossing stories for Jo even though he is quickly running out of fresh ideas. Each story concerns an animal named Roger who has a problem that is solved by the story's end. Much like Jack's life, the stories follow a strict and unchallenging pattern and contain hallmarks of domesticity: each story begins with Roger at home with his mother and end with his father's return from work on the train each night for supper. In telling the stories, Jack is able to indulge his gift for creating suspense and his love of language, even when the references go over Jo's head. Jack crafts Roger Skunk in his own image: a skunk who is isolated from other animals much like Jack was as a young boy. Roger is lonely because of his smell, which he is ultimately unable to change out of a sense of duty to his mother. Though Jo is unaware, Jack is channeling his frustration in his marriage into the story, and becomes increasingly upset when Jo contradicts him, as it reminds him of Clare. Ultimately, Jack is unable to tell a story that engrosses Jo, who is furious that Roger Skunk must keep his original foul smell. Jo insists that Jack tell her a story in which Roger's mother is physically punished for contributing to Roger's isolation and unhappiness. Jack is shocked to see Jo's animosity towards the mother figure in the story because it reflects his own animosity towards Clare and their life together: a life in which Jack feels increasingly trapped and has come to resent Clare not as his partner in the struggle, but as his principle tormenter. - Character: Jo. Description: Jack and Clare's four-year-old daughter, Jo is a growing girl. She is growing taller by the day, has begun to contradict things her parents tell her, and (to Jack's great frustration) no longer falls asleep at nap time. All of these traits worry and upset Jack because he realizes he will soon have another woman in his life contradicting him the way his wife Clare does. Indeed, Jo is intent on exercising her opinions and having her ideas heard, even at a young age. With respect to the story of Roger Skunk, Jo does not agree with the ending that her father proposes. As a young child, Jo relates to Roger's desire to be accepted by his peers, and she does not understand why Roger's mother would force him to return to his original scent when it made the other little animals run away. While Jack perceives Roger's sacrifice of his new sweet smell to be a positive lesson about duty and obligation to one's family, Jo is too young to understand the concept of sacrifice, and therefore believes Roger's mother to be the villain of the story who deserves punishment. In addition, Jo's suggestion that the wizard should hit Roger's mother for her transgression suggests that Jo has picked up on the unhappy (and potentially violent) nature of her parents' marriage. Unbeknownst to her, her parents' dissatisfaction is coloring all aspects of her life—even something as seemingly innocuous as a bedtime story. - Character: Roger Skunk. Description: The protagonist of the story Jack tells Jo, Roger Skunk is in many ways a stand-in for Jack. Bullied for his foul skunk smell much like Jack was bullied as a child, Roger wants nothing more than to fit in and play with the other animals. However, he ultimately acquiesces to his mother's wishes and accepts that his smell cannot be changed because it is part of who he is. Roger's journey proves challenging and polarizing to Jack and Jo because both people project a different part of themselves onto him. At four-years-old, Jo wants nothing more than to fit in among her peers, and is therefore horrified when Jack says that Roger's mother makes Roger return to his former smell (which had made the other animals dislike him). For Jack on the other hand, Roger's willingness to return to his original smell represents his sense of duty toward his family and mirrors Jack's responsibilities to his own family, which he accepts even when resents or feels constrained by them. While Jack perhaps intends Roger's story to teach Jo about this kind of familial duty, she is still too young to grasp the unpleasant concept of compromise and sacrifice, and is heartbroken that Roger is not able to smell the way he wants, showing her innocent desire for happiness without compromise. - Character: Clare. Description: Unseen until the final moments of the story, Clare's presence is felt by Jack throughout the story, as he can hear her moving furniture in the living room under Jo's bedroom. Clare is six-months pregnant, and is repainting and re-arranging the living room, a task that Jack should be helping with but which he is delaying as long as possible. Jack and Clare's marriage is not a happy one, and although he does not express his feelings to her directly, Jack has grown increasingly resentful toward his wife, whom he feels continually contradicts and undermines him. Even when Clare is not physically present, Jack feels her derision and disdain reflected in their young daughter, Jo, who is growing to look increasingly like Clare and does things that remind Jack of Clare's behavior. Ultimately, Jack is not only unwilling to help Clare move their furniture despite her pregnancy, but he is so angry at her that he refuses to even look at her or speak to her. He sees her as the symbol of his own unhappiness and unfulfilled desire. - Character: The Wizard. Description: The Wizard is the character in Jack's stories who usually presents the solution to whatever problem Roger is facing. He does this by performing a magic spell that reverses Roger's predicament, making Roger very happy. In the story of Roger Skunk, however, the wizard is the antagonist, changing Roger's scent against the wishes of Roger's mother, and therefore altering one of Roger's innate biological traits. The wizard also proves a divisive character for Jack and Jo. Jo believes that the wizard's actions were justified, and therefore he has every right to hit Roger's mother and refuse to reverse his spell. Jack, on the other hand, sides with Roger's mother and believes that the wizard should reverse the spell to make Roger's mother happy. In this way, the Wizard represents a sense of freedom from obligation, as he enables Roger to do the things he wants to do without regard for the consequences or his family's feelings. Too young to have her own sense of personal duty, Jo is unable to understand how the Wizard could be wrong, but Jack, who sees himself as having compromised many of his goals and much of his freedom out of a sense of duty, knows that the wizard cannot win. - Character: Roger's Mother. Description: Roger Skunk's mother is the wizard's antagonist, and a representation for Jack of familial duty. Roger's mother refuses to allow Roger to change his skunk scent—even though smelling like roses makes him more popular—offering the explanation that he no longer smells like he is supposed to. Her ultimate victory over the wizard, who eventually restores Roger's original skunk smell, suggests a victory of familial obligation over the freedom to follow one's own desires without regard for others. For Jo, who, at four-years-old, cannot think of anything more important than fitting in, Roger Skunk's mother is therefore the villain of the story. - Theme: Marriage, Family, and Misogyny. Description: One of the hallmarks of John Updike's writing is his strong masculine protagonists and commitment to the male perspective. Throughout his career, Updike chose to write through the eyes of working class American men as a way of illuminating how they saw the world. However, because he prioritizes masculinity and maleness as a desired trait, many of Updike's male protagonists are also latent—or sometimes overt—misogynists, who take their frustrations out on the women in their lives. In "Should Wizard Hit Mommy?", Jack's resentment of his wife, Clare, is just one expression of a greater animosity he feels toward his family and home for the ways in which he has sacrificed for them, while they have only further boxed him in. He also projects this animosity onto his young daughter, Jo, whom he views as another woman who seeks to contradict and abuse him. Throughout the story, Jack is preoccupied with outlining the ways in which he fulfils his roles as "man of the house": completing his duties to his family even when it is difficult and unpleasant for him to do so. For example, Jack makes it clear immediately that he has grown to find Saturday story time tiresome, even though it is a duty he must continue to perform. He says that telling the same story "was especially fatiguing on Saturday, because Jo never fell asleep in naps anymore." He continues however, because he views it as a commitment and one of his duties as her father. In a similar vein, Jack notes that he should be helping Claire move furniture downstairs. "She shouldn't be moving heavy things," he explains "she was six-months pregnant." Here, Jack again calls attention to the tedious drudgery of his duties as a husband and father. At the story's end, Jack watches Claire move furniture, too fatigued—and resentful—to help her. Jack channels this same resentment towards Jo, viewing her dislike of the Roger Skunk story as another attempt by a woman to confine and undermine him. He reacts to Clare and Jo's behavior in the same way even though one is an adult woman and one is a child. Both his wife and daughter make him feel negatively toward women in general. For example, when Jo begins to fuss when she doesn't like the trajectory of Jack's story, he gets incredibly frustrated. "Jack didn't like women when they took anything for granted," Updike writes; "he liked them apprehensive, hanging on his words." This may seem a disproportionately harsh reaction to have to a four-year-old's loss of interest during story time, but Jack repeatedly goes out of his way while telling Jo the story to make her feel trepidation or discomfort, and becomes instantly angry when she does not seem thrilled by the story she is hearing. For example, when Jo makes a sad face "without a touch of sincerity," Jack is irked, seeing it as an attempt on his daughter's part to undermine his storytelling. Jo's disinterest also indicates that she has learned the structure of Jack's story, and she repeatedly indicates that she feels she could take control of the narrative herself. Jack sees this loss of narrative control as another attempt by a woman to undermine him. In addition, Jo's extreme anger at Roger Skunk's mother for making Roger return to his former smell suggests that Jack's ire at women (and specifically Clare) is something that he probably does not keep well-hidden, and has informed the way Jo thinks about her parents' roles in her own life as well as in the story. Indeed, both Jo's fierce exclamations that the skunk's mother is "a stupid mommy," and her conviction that Roger's mother deserves to be physically punished for her transgression, suggest that she has potentially been exposed to both verbal and physical violence directed against her own mother. This assumption is supported by the way that Jack overreacts when Jo's behavior reminds him of Clare. For example, Jack continually points to evidence of Jo's physical growth, referring to Jo's "tall body" (an odd descriptor for a four-year-old) "fat face," and "pudgy little arms," which indicate a level of animosity and disgust that are out of place for a father to feel towards his own young daughter. However, Jack also often comments on Jo's features or expression in situations where Jo reminds him of Clare. He explains that Jo's eyes are "her mother's blue," and that Jo's "wide, noiseless grin" reminds him of "his wife feigning pleasure at cocktail parties." This complicates Jack's animosity towards Jo and her body because it indicates that Jack grows to resent Jo more as she ages simply because she is turning into a miniature version of his wife. Coupled with her newfound desire to contradict his stories, Jack is increasingly unable to distinguish between the two women in his life, and takes out his feelings of animosity towards Clare on Jo. Many literary critics, especially throughout the feminist movement, critiqued John Updike for misogynistic depictions of women and overtly sexist perspectives in his central male characters. Updike refuted what he called his "feminist detractors," but there is no doubt that his highly-personal, masculine narratives concern men who see themselves as having been sapped of by their virility by domestic life. Jack is no exception; by lumping Clare and Jo together as women (despite their many obvious differences as people) and fixating on the ways in which he believes they seek to undermine his authority and power, Jack reveals his own overt misogyny toward his female family members, as well as his distrust of and dislike for women in general. Importantly, his misplaced frustration towards—and seeming disgust for—Jo stems from his fear that she will soon grow into a woman like Clare, and therefore continue to malign and abuse him. - Theme: Duty, Conformity, and Fitting In. Description: "Should Wizard Hit Mommy?" deals with the question of what it means to fit in, and the price one pays for fulfilling one's duties and conforming to others' expectations. While Jo (and Roger Skunk) want desperately to fit in, Jack hates conforming to the expectations of domestic life, and wants desperately to escape them. However, while Jo believes Roger will be able to simply change his life with a wave of a wizard's wand, Jack knows that certain things cannot be changed and that, much like Roger Skunk cannot escape his own smell, Jack cannot escape his own home life. Jack becomes engrossed in the tale of Roger Skunk because it reminds him of his own childhood being bullied and ostracized. However, he ultimately wants to teach Jo a lesson that every person has innate characteristics and responsibilities that they have to accept and cannot change. Jo is unable to grasp this concept as a four-year-old, and, as a result, believes Roger Skunk's mother is cruel for not allowing him to have the thing he wants most: the acceptance of his peers.  Jack is "remembering certain humiliations of his own childhood" as he enthusiastically describes the way Roger Skunk's fellow animals would taunt him. These details make Jack feel vindicated, but they only make Jo more upset. In fact, Jo is beside herself when she hears that that Roger Skunk's mother will not allow him to smell like roses.  "But Daddy," she cries, "then he said about all the other little animals run away." For Jo, the concept of not being liked by her peers is truly terrible and she cannot understand why the skunk's mother doesn't feel the same way. Confused by Jo's anger, Jack attempts to teach her that a skunk's smell is part of who he is, and that his love for his mother is greater than his desire to fit in by changing his smell. Jack explains that Roger "loved his mommy more than he loved aaaaalll the other animals. And she knew what was right." Much like Roger Skunk's scent, Jack views his domestic and familial duties to be something that he cannot change or give up, however negatively they make him feel.  For example, family plays a key role in the stories that Jack tells Jo. Roger always starts the day at home with his mother and comes back home "just in time to hear the train whistle that brought his daddy home from Boston." This detail suggests that Jack is telling a story that mimics Jo's daily routine (in which, presumably, Jo also stays at home with her mother and Jack returns in time for dinner each evening). Much like the routine of story time, Jack is becoming more and more fatigued with the burdens and responsibilities of family life. Indeed, whenever he is confronted with a familial duty within the story, Jack reports becoming tired or unhappy. He explains that "his head felt empty" of more stories to tell Jo, but the prospect of putting her to sleep and helping Clare repaint their living room makes him equally unhappy. Like his trusty story form, Jack views his life as a routine that is a "cage," slowly choking out his joy in life. However, just as he explains to Jo that Roger Skunk accepts his scent out of love for and trust in his mother, Jack understands that he cannot leave his life out of obligation to Clare and his (growing) family. Jack's deep unhappiness with his life comes to a head at the end of the story when he finally goes downstairs to help Clare. Without Roger Skunk's narrative to mask his resentment towards his wife, it becomes clear that he feels trapped in a life that he is unable to make magically disappear. Despite knowing that he should be helping his immensely pregnant wife move furniture, Jack sits down "with utter weariness, watching his wife labor." This suggests that Jack considers telling his daughter a story to be a greater burden than his wife's very real physical exertion. This sense of weariness stems from the fact that Jack feels trapped within his life. Describing the interior of Jack's family home, Updike writes: "The woodwork, a cage of moldings and rails and baseboards all around them, was half old tan and half new ivory and he felt caught in an ugly middle position, and though he as well felt his wife's presence in the cage with him, he did not want to speak with her, work with her, touch her, anything." Faced with the arrival of a new child and the expansion of a family that he already feels to be constraining, Jack feels himself caught in limbo. Much like his half-painted living room, he has one foot in his old life and one foot in the possibility of a future with a bigger family and even more responsibilities weighing him down. This state of unhappiness influences the story that Jack tells his young daughter, who only wants her protagonist to fit in and be happy and comfortable. However, because Jack feels trapped by his own duties as a husband and father, he is unable to provide a happy ending that he feels he will never experience himself. In this way, Updike suggests that by conforming to the expectations of family life, men must prioritize their duties above their individual desires. Just like Roger Skunk gives up his chance at fitting in because his mother does not like his new scent, Updike suggests that Jack compromised his individuality and happiness when he became a husband and father. - Theme: Growing Up and Loss of Innocence. Description: Updike's story addresses the ways in which children lose their innocence as they grow up, trading an unquestioning sense of wonder for a desire to understand the world around them more fully—often by challenging what they have been told, or by breaking the rules. In "Should Wizard Hit Mommy," Jack's fundamental problem with Jo is that he is no longer able to control her and command her attention in the way he used to. As Jo grows up, she has started questioning Jack's narratives instead of blindly accepting them. This process of growth and rebellion scares Jack not only because it points to a failure in his ability as a storyteller, but because he views growing up as a journey away from the escape of fiction and magic towards the constraints of duties and family life. By trying to maintain control of the story, therefore, Jack also tries to prolong his daughter's innocence and reconnect with his own. For Jack, the main sign that Jo has begun to grow up is her desire to question everything he tells her. This habit upsets Jack because it indicates that she is beginning to craft her own ideas and beliefs, which he will no longer be able to control. The fact that Jo suggests that Roger be a skunk makes Jack think that "they must be talking about skunks at nursery school." This shows that Jack is aware that his daughter is bringing outside knowledge into his storytelling space—and it does not seem to be the first time she has done this. When Jo asks Jack if magic is "real," he explains that "this was a new phase, just this last month, a reality phase. When he told her that spiders eat bugs, she turned to her mother and asked, 'do they really?'" For Jack, Jo's focus on reality is at odds with his desire to craft a reality for her through storytelling, a job that requires complete confidence from his audience. However, Jo continues to have more questions as the story goes along. When Jack brings up the Wizard, for example, Jo immediately wants to know if the Wizard is going to die and is not calmed when Jack tells her that "wizards don't die." Jo's preoccupation with truthful storytelling means that she is also consistently challenging Jack's attempts to craft a story that exists beyond the confines of reality, and to reconnect with his own sense of childlike innocence as well as hers. For example, Jack sticks to the same basic structure every time he tells his daughter a story because it is unchallenging and promises a happy ending, even though this is decidedly unrealistic. Although Jack finds the story form "fatiguing," it is also completely free from conflict: every problem is presented with the solution in hand. For instance, the formula dictates that the wizard always demands, as payment, a greater number of pennies than Roger has, while "in the same breath directing the animal to the place where the extra pennies could be found." For her part, Jo has reached the point where she will not accept such an easy resolution. When she sees that Roger Skunk and his Mother fundamentally disagree on his smell, she is unhappy with her father's simple resolution. In Jo's version of the story, "the wizard hit [the mother] on the head and did not change the little skunk back." Jack is unsettled by Jo's suggestion because it removes the innocence of the story that he is trying to tell, and replaces it with a tale of conflict that mirrors the kind that Jack experiences in his life. While Jack views his storytelling as an opportunity to escape the stresses of his reality, Jo's perception of her parents' flawed relationship is making her unable to countenance a happy ending. Jack's displeasure with Jo's reaction to the Roger Skunk story is primarily about control. For him, Jo growing up means that she will no longer blindly accept the things he says as true, but will instead reach her own conclusions and fight for her own beliefs, even when they directly contradict her father's. By challenging and appearing uninterested by his story, Jack believes Jo is acting just like her mother—a reality he neither likes nor accepts. When Jo gets bored with his narrative, for example, Jack explains that he "didn't like when women took anything for granted." This observation indicates that Jack views his daughter's disinterest as an adult quality, replacing a sense of wonder with boredom and cynicism. Ultimately, however, Jack cannot get around Jo's cynicism. Jo flatly refuses to accept Jack's story because it does not end in the way she wants, and the characters are not behaving in a way that she thinks is truthful or correct. She even goes so far as to tell Jack how she wants the story to go the following night: "Tomorrow I want you to tell me a story that the wizard took that magic wand and hit that mommy." This exchange represents a turning point for Jack in his relationship with his daughter. Not only is she no longer engrossed by his stories, but she is now writing her own stories, and Jack lacks the willpower to reassert his own desires or challenge his daughter's desires about how the story should end. Jo's strongly-worded declaration at the end of the story shows that the nature of her relationship to her father has fundamentally changed. Whereas story time used to function as a space where both she and her father could embrace their imaginations and sense of innocence, it is now an arena where a perpetual power struggle plays out—in which both seem to be processing very real aspects of their family dynamic. By the end of the story, Jack views his relationship with his wife and daughter to be roughly the same. In both he views himself as being beleaguered, fatigued, taken for granted, and—most importantly—out of control of the plot. Jack's preoccupation with the signs of Jo's growth (both physical and emotional) highlight the ways in which he is fixated on her personal growth, as she becomes more wayward and less innocent. As far as Jack is concerned, innocence means a willingness to accept everything that is told to you without issue. Therefore, Jo's loss of innocence is equivalent not only to Jack's loss of control over her, but to his realization that one day, she may exert control over him in the same way that Clare does. - Theme: Storytelling and Control. Description: In "Should Wizard Hit Mommy?" the process of crafting a story is as important as the story itself. Indeed, Jack uses the Roger Skunk story to exercise control and decisiveness that he feels like he no longer possesses in his own life, and also to delay helping his pregnant wife, Clare, repaint the living room (and, in the process, delay confronting the fact that his family is about to get bigger). Far from merely a mechanism to get his daughter to sleep, the story becomes a way for Jack to re-contextualize his personal unhappiness, exercising total control over his simple narrative to compensate for a lack of control he feels in life. As a result, Jack is incredibly protective over his story and its hero, Roger Skunk, and views Jo's attempts to change the structure of his story as more sinister attempts to control him as well. "Should Wizard Hit Mommy" was written in 1959 when John Updike was married to his first wife Mary Pennington. The couple lived in Oxford, England, and had four children before they ultimately divorced. Their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, was herself four-years-old when the story was written. Therefore, it is easy to see the story as at least partly autobiographical, with "Jack" standing in for his author, John. Like Updike himself, Jack is concerned with crafting a compelling and dynamic story, and takes joy in his narrative ability. Jack is especially proud of certain literary and dramatic flairs within Roger's story even though they are lost on Jo. For example, Jo's suggestion that Roger should be a skunk "momentarily stir[s] Jack to creative enthusiasm." He seems to take genuine joy in the task of crafting a narrative. He also uses words that Jo does not know, like "crick" and "eventually," to showcase his own gift for language, and is annoyed when Jo interrupts and makes him "miss a beat in his narrative." He is proud of his ability as a dynamic storyteller. "The wizard's voice was one of Jack's own favorite effects," Updike explains; "he did it by scrunching up his face and somehow whining through his eyes."  This joy shows that, for all his complaining, Jack is enriched by the story he's telling, embracing the ability to exist in an expansive world of his own creation instead of the cramped and unhappy world of his real life. Jack takes pride in how he tells the Roger Skunk story because he is able to exert a control over Jo that he feels he no longer has over Clare or their life together. As such, he becomes disproportionately upset when Jo seems to not be engrossed in the tale he is spinning.  For example, Jack snaps at Jo every time she attempts to take over telling any part of the story herself. "Now Jo daddy's telling the story," he chides her, "do you want to tell daddy the story?" Jack is also immensely pleased when his story causes Jo discomfort or trepidation, seeing it as his job as an author to tell her the truth, even though a father would traditionally seek to comfort his child. As such he stretches the story out, prolonging her suspense. Updike writes, "Jack felt the covers tug as her legs twitched tensely – he was telling her something true, something she must know – and had no wish to hurry on." Because of his level of personal investment in the story, Jack is also immensely frustrated whenever Jo is not enthralled by his tale, seeing it as a failure both as a storyteller and as a father. "Jo made the crying face again, but this time without a hint of sincerity," he observes; "this annoyed Jack." He is also protective of the story because he is personally invested in Roger Skunk. He explains that Roger's bullying from the other animals reminded him of "certain humiliations of his own childhood." Finally, despite griping about how stale the process of the naptime story has become for him, Jack still views this ritual as a chance to escape from his other obligations to Clare and to create a world in which he has complete control of the rules. Despite noting several times that he should be downstairs helping Clare, and Jo's obvious desire to not fall asleep for her nap, Jack continues to tell Jo the story, even taking opportunities to stretch out the moments of suspense or tension to extend his own creative enjoyment. When Jack finally does finish the story, Clare immediately chides him by telling him "that was a long story." This observation highlights that the story has been keeping Jack from something he needed to be doing, and that perhaps he has stretched out one of Jo's stories in a similar way before. When he finally does finish his story, he appears to be too exhausted by the sheer act of telling the story to help Clare with the task she has been waiting for him to complete. In this way, Jack indicates that his story was both as important and as emotionally draining as Clare's chores have been for her—because it allowed him an escape from his obligations toward his wife, which he must now face. As Jack becomes further engrossed in his own telling of Roger Skunk's story, the story morphs into a microcosm of his own life. Roger becomes a stand-in for Jack, who trades ultimate happiness and self-fulfillment for the love and comfort of his family. However, despite Jack's personal investment in and control over Roger Skunk's story, the story is unable to capture the attention of its intended audience. Indeed, not only is Jo not calmed by the story, but she rejects its ending and demands a new one. This presents a layered crisis for Jack: not only does it remind him that he is bound by his obligations to his daughter, but it also calls into question his skill and control as a storyteller. However, Jo's reaction to the story ultimately serves to confront Jack with the very thing he had been hoping to avoid in telling his story—that is, the unhappiness of his family life and the violent animosity he feels toward his wife. - Climax: Jo insists that the wizard should refuse to restore Roger Skunk's terrible smell and should hit Roger's mother instead - Summary: On Saturday afternoon, Jack is about to put his daughter Jo down for a nap. Every evening and before Saturday naptimes, Jack tells his daughter a bedtime story. The father-daughter tradition began when Jo (now four-years-old) was two and it continues despite the fact that Jo rarely falls asleep in naps anymore and Jack is quickly running out of ideas for stories. To help his task, Jack always tells his daughter a story that follows the same basic format: an animal (always named Roger, but always a different type of animal) has a problem that he needs help solving. He goes to wise owl, who suggests that Roger should see the wizard about his issue. The wizard provides a cure and asks Roger for payment that he cannot provide but also tells him where to find the extra money. Roger then pays the wizard and happily goes to play with the other animals until it is time for his father to come home from work, and that is the end of the story. Once Jo is settled in, Jack begins the Saturday story. Jo explains that Roger should be a skunk this time, which makes Jack think that she has been studying skunks in school. Freshly inspired by Jo's suggestion, and by memories of being bullied as a child, Jack spins a tale about Roger Skunk, who smelled so bad that none of the other animals wanted to play with him. As the story continues, however, Jo (who has memorized her father's story form) becomes more and more intent on controlling the direction of the narrative. Jack is intent on finishing the story so that he can help his wife Clare, who is downstairs re-painting the living room. Clare is six months pregnant with their third child and should not be doing manual work or heavy lifting. Jack tells Jo to stop trying to control the plot, and to try to fall asleep instead. Jack explains to Jo that Roger goes to the Owl who in turn sends him to the wizard who performs a magic spell. Jo (who has recently begun questioning the truth of the things people tell her) asks Jack if magic spells are real. This question irks Jack, and he doubles down on making his storytelling more captivating. Jack tells Jo that the wizard performs a spell to make Roger Skunk smell like roses. Jo seems to be enthralled by Jack's impression of the wizard casting his spell, but Jack suspects she might be feigning interest, since her face looks the way his wife Clare's does when she is pretending to be interested in cocktail party conversation. Indeed, as the story reaches its climax, Jo grows all the more fussy and distracted. Jack, who hates when women are not interested in what he is saying, changes the structure of his story in hopes of re-capturing his daughter's interest. He tells her that when Roger came home from the wizard's house, his mother was furious. Instead of being happy that he had changed his smell, she is angry. She demands that they return to the wizard so he can change Roger back and his mother can hit the wizard over the head. Jo, who does not expect this twist, is beside herself, unable to grasp why the skunk's mother would not allow her son to change something about himself that made the other animals run away from him. She demands that Jack change the story: she wants the wizard to refuse to change Roger back, and to hit Roger's "stupid mommy" over the head with his wand. Unprepared for his daughter's intensity and violent wish, Jack attempts to explain that Roger was better off with his old smell because it was what his mother wanted and he loved his mother more than he cared what the other animals thought about him. Thoroughly tired, Jack brings story time to an end and urges Jo to go to sleep. Jo, in turn, demands that, in tomorrow's story, the wizard must hit Roger Skunk's mother over the head instead. Jack does not answer her, and instead goes downstairs to finally help his wife. When he gets downstairs however, Jack is too weary to help, and instead sits in a chair and watches his wife repaint their living room. He sees the molding in their house as a cage surrounding him and his wife. He has no desire to work with her or even talk to her or touch her.

- Genre: Bildungsroman, Queer Literature - Title: Shuggie Bain - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Glasgow, Scotland in the 1980s - Character: Shuggie Bain. Description: The novel's protagonist, Shuggie is the son of Agnes and Shug, born after the two leave their previous marriages to be together. Shuggie is the youngest of three children; his older siblings, Leek and Catherine, are products of his mother's first marriage. He spends his early life living with his parents, siblings, and Agnes' parents, Wullie and Lizzie. His childhood is tumultuous, both because of his mother's largely unchecked alcoholism and his father's numerous affairs and ultimate abandonment of the family. Shuggie's siblings eventually leave as well, pushed away by Agnes's disease, after which Shuggie becomes her main caretaker. Instead of focusing on school or making friends, Shuggie devotes his efforts to preventing Agnes from injuring herself, spending all their money on alcohol, or embarrassing herself to the best of his ability. Though she constantly disappoints him, he cannot give up on her. Alongside his troubled home life, Shuggie is also considered to be "strange" by both his family and their friends from an early age because of his interest in things that are viewed as atypical for boys, like hair, clothing, makeup, and dolls. As he gets older, these interests persist, and Shuggie is bullied for his mannerisms and speech as well, which are considered feminine. As a teenager, his attraction to other boys grows, isolating him further. He tries desperately to change himself to fit in, but he can't. Shuggie's eventual acceptance of himself and realization that his mother will die before she quits drinking are slow to come, but his friendship with Leanne and his brother's acceptance help him come to terms with both realities. Though he struggles to provide for himself after Agnes's alcoholism kills her, Shuggie finally begins to feel hopeful about the future at the end of the novel. - Character: Agnes Bain. Description: Agnes is Shuggie's mother. She has two other children (from her first marriage), Catherine and Leek. She was raised Catholic by her parents, Wullie and Lizzie, but she abandoned her religious background to marry Shug, who's Protestant. Their marriage ends when Shug leaves her for another woman, Joanie Micklewhite. Agnes copes with Shug's abandonment as she has coped with every disappointment in her life—by drinking heavily. Throughout the course of the novel, her alcoholism worsens, with the exception of a yearlong stint of sobriety. Despite her addiction, Agnes maintains a level of respectability due to her devotion to her image, including her personal appearance, her well-appointed home, and her refined manners. Agnes has always been driven by a desire to have more, to be loved, and to be envied, though that drive ends up leaving her more impoverished, more alone, and more judged by her community. Her drinking causes her to lash out at others and slowly pushes everyone away, but she is unable or unwilling to stop. Shuggie is the only one who stays by her side and is deeply committed to supporting her, though this only seems to hurt him. Despite her constant failure to care for him or keep her promises, he remains with her until she dies from her alcoholism. - Character: Shug Bain. Description: Shug is Agnes's second husband and Shuggie's father. Shug is a cab driver whose regular night shift enables him to carry on a multitude of affairs. While his love for—or at least desire for—Agnes is genuine, her constant need for more and her inability to keep drinking slowly push him away. His temper and vanity make him abusive toward Agnes as well, though he refuses to acknowledge or apologize for his violence. Like Agnes, Shug also demonstrates exceptional selfishness. He abandons his first wife and young children to be with Agnes, but then he abandons her and their children to be with Joanie Micklewhite. Even after leaving, Shug can't bring himself to fully let Agnes go, continuing to drop by her house to sleep with her when the mood suits him. At times, he tries to maintain a relationship with Shuggie, but his motivations seem to revolve around his desire to hurt Agnes. He is also unable to accept his son as he is, taking any opportunity to encourage him to behave more masculinely. When Agnes dies, Shug neither shows up for her funeral nor offers any assistance to Shuggie, who is left to navigate the world without either parent. - Character: Leek Bain. Description: Leek is Agnes's middle child with her first husband, though he is primarily raised by his stepfather, Shug. The quietest of the Bain children, he prefers to hide away and draw instead of dealing with Agnes's alcoholism or her conflict-laden relationship with Shug. Because he's so soft-spoken, his absence often goes unnoticed, which works to his advantage. After the family moves to Pithead and Catherine and Shug both leave, Leek is left with the primary responsibility of caring for Agnes and Shuggie. While he is offered a scholarship to art school, he declines in order to support his mother and brother. He continues to run away to Wullie and Lizzie's when Agnes's drinking gets to be too much, but he feels guilty for not being able to take Shuggie with him. He is thrilled when Agnes gets sober, throwing her a party to celebrate her one-year anniversary. When that sobriety is broken at Eugene's urging, Leek beats Eugene in anger. Leek is also the one who finds Agnes after she slits her wrists. After this, Agnes's alcoholism worsens and her paranoia about abandonment escalates, leading her to preemptively kick Leek out of the house despite his pleas to stay. He relents and goes, but before he leaves, he firmly explains to Shuggie that Agnes will never change. Leek remains supportive of Shuggie even after he leaves their shared home, sometimes feeding him when Agnes has spent all their money on alcohol and at other times giving Shuggie as place to stay when Agnes temporarily kicks him out. When Agnes dies, Leek helps Shuggie make arrangements for her burial. The brothers stay in contact after Leek leaves Glasgow for work, where he meets a woman and has a baby. - Character: Lizzie Campbell. Description: Lizzie is Agnes's mother and Wullie's wife. She is harsh with Agnes in the hopes that her daughter will begin making healthier choices for her and her children, leading to ongoing tension between the women. Lizzie vocalizes her desire for Agnes to have married a steadfast man like her father, Wullie, rather than philandering Shug. Even before Shug's affairs, Lizzie strongly disliked him due to his Protestant faith, as Lizzie is Catholic and doesn't believe in interfaith marriages. Still, Lizzie shows empathy for her daughter when she tells Agnes that she understands a mother's need to do whatever she thinks is best for her children, even if it hurts her. While Wullie lies on her deathbed, Lizzie explains that she had an affair with the grocer, Kilfeather, while Wullie was away at war, in exchange for which she got plenty of groceries to feed Agnes. When Wullie returned to find the baby born of Lizzie and Kilfeather's affair, Lizzie let him take the unnamed boy away without a fight. Despite the pain this caused her, Lizzie continued to love Wullie until his death. She dies in a traffic accident only a month after her late husband, and it is suspected that she may have thrown herself in front of a bus on purpose. - Character: Wullie Campbell. Description: Wullie is Agnes's father and Lizzie's husband. Wullie has a particular soft spot for his grandson, Shuggie, who he takes special care of when Agnes is incapacitated by alcohol. He is easier on Agnes than Lizzie, whom he convinced to accept Shug when Agnes married him, despite Lizzie's misgivings. Throughout the novel, Wullie feels guilty for spoiling Agnes, his only child, throughout her youth. He often wonders if his doting led to her alcoholism, so he tries to encourage her to quit drinking. He decides to take a firmer approach by spanking her as an adult after she lights the curtains on fire and almost kills Shuggie. When Agnes agrees to move away to Pithead with Shug and the children, Wullie is heartbroken. Later in the novel, when Wullie is dying, Lizzie tells Agnes about the affair she had with the grocer when Wullie was away at war. When he came home to find a new child in the house, he took the boy away and pretended he never existed. - Character: Catherine Bain. Description: Catherine is Agnes's eldest child from her first marriage to a Catholic man, whom Agnes left for Shug when the children were young. Catherine struggles to navigate her turbulent family life, but she begins working in the city in the hopes of making a better future for herself. She plans to marry Shug's nephew, Donald Jnr, who has the same confidence and charisma as her stepfather. Being closest in age, Catherine and Leek have a particularly close bond, leaning on each other for support in order to deal with their mother's alcoholism. Catherine also tries to her best to care for Shuggie, serving as a second mother at times and trying to mediate a relationship between her stepfather and Shuggie after Shug leaves Agnes. When Catherine marries Donald Jnr and moves to South Africa, both her brothers and Agnes are left feeling abandoned. She keeps in contact with Leek but refuses to speak to her mother. When Agnes dies, she does not come to the funeral. - Character: Eugene. Description: Eugene is Agnes' boyfriend in Pithead and Colleen McAvennie's brother. Like Shug, Eugene is a cab driver, and Agnes meets him when he stops by the gas station where she works the night shift. The two meet while Agnes is sober, but Eugene struggles with her inability to drink. He believes she should be able drink again now that she is sober, and he encourages her to consume alcohol so they can be "normal" together. Agnes eventually agrees, breaking her sobriety and falling back into her alcoholism. Leek beats Eugene when he brings her home drunk. Agnes and Eugene formally split after this incident, but Eugene continues to come by most mornings after Leek leaves for work, helping to take care of Agnes, make improvements to her home, and bring food for her and her sons. Eugene also tries to support Shuggie, giving him a small book of famous football statistics, which Shuggie studies in an attempt to be more masculine. Eugene shows up for Agnes after her suicide attempt, and he is one of the few people at her funeral when she dies. - Character: Colleen McAvennie. Description: Colleen is a neighbor who lives directly across the street from the Bains. Colleen has many children who run around unkempt, stirring up judgement from appearance-obsessed Agnes. The two women have cheating husbands and difficult lives in common, and Agnes takes pity on Colleen when the younger woman discovers her husband's affairs and has a public meltdown in the street. Still, Colleen judges Agnes's drinking and haughty demeanor, and she believes Agnes is promiscuous—all of which she tells her brother, Eugene, when he begins dating Agnes. When Agnes and Shuggie move from Pithead, Agnes takes revenge on Colleen by telling her that Agnes once slept with Jamesy. Colleen's children are also Shuggie's biggest bullies, which is behavior that Colleen often encourages. - Character: Jamesy McAvennie. Description: Jamesy is Colleen's husband. He worked in the now-closed coal pits and was injured when they collapsed, leaving him visibly scarred. Agnes sleeps with him in exchange for his agreement to take Shuggie fishing and serve as a male figure in his life. Jamesy never follows through on his promise. - Character: Jinty McClinchy. Description: Jinty is another neighbor of the Bains in Pithead. Like Agnes, she is an alcoholic. She uses the pretense of being a supportive friend to take advantage of Agnes's disease and mooch alcohol from her. She also uses information Agnes tells her in confidence to manipulate her into drinking more and maintaining relationships with men like Lamby, who can supply them with alcohol when they run out. - Character: Joanie Micklewhite. Description: Joanie Micklewhite is a radio operator for the cab service, which means she's one of Shug's coworkers. Shug and Joanie carry on an affair, and Shug eventually leaves Agnes for her. Joanie is plain in comparison to Agnes, but her predictability and devotion win out over her competitor's beauty. Joanie has several children, whom Shug helps raise. Joanie attempts to befriend Shuggie early on by giving him roller-skates when he is young. Joanie is subject to constant harassing calls from Agnes, whom Shuggie routinely finds yelling at Joanie over the phone for years. Later, when Shuggie comes to stay with her and Shug after Agnes's suicide attempt, Joanie is colder to him. Agnes breaks Joanie's front window and hits her in the head with her high-heeled shoe when she eventually comes to collect Shuggie after she recovers. - Character: Leanne Kelly. Description: Leanne is friend Shuggie makes when living in the East Side. The two meet when Keir asks Shuggie to keep Leanne company while he has sex with her friend. Leanne and Shuggie sit awkwardly while the other couple make out, and they soon learn they have a lot in common. Neither is interested in members of the opposite sex, and both have grown up with alcoholic mothers. The two form a close friendship in which they are fully accepted. After Agnes passes, Shuggie helps Leanne care for her mother, Moira, whose alcoholism has led to homelessness. - Character: Annie. Description: Annie is a girl in the grade above Shuggie when he lives in Pithead. She stands up for Shuggie one day when he is being bullied. Annie brings Shuggie home, where she tells him that she knows he is "odd" and allows him to play with her toy ponies. The two discuss their parents' alcoholism and the sexual contact they've had with some of the boys in the neighborhood. Shuggie dislikes Annie's candor and steals two of her ponies, which he later buries in a field. - Character: Lamby. Description: Lamby lives in Pithead and is introduced to Agnes by Jinty. He is lonely and has money to spend, so he often drinks with the two women. Jinty encourages Agnes to reward Lamby's generosity with special attention, but Agnes is put off by how close in age Lamby is to Leek. - Theme: Identity and Societal Expectations. Description: Shuggie Bain is about a boy grappling with his identity in a society that antagonizes him for being himself. The expectations for men and women are quite different in the novel's community, and there's a distinct dichotomy between what's considered feminine and what's considered masculine. From a very young age, it's clear to everyone that Shuggie doesn't adhere to stereotypical ideas of masculinity. He is intrigued with Agnes's hair and clothing, and he gravitates toward the women painted on her beer cans. Both Lizzie and Shug tell Agnes she needs to watch Shuggie because there's something amiss about him. But Agnes ignores their concerns; she lets him play with jewelry and buys him a doll to replace the beer cans—in other words, she supports him and lets him (for the most part) be the person he is. But even with a supportive mother, the older Shuggie gets, the more he is mocked for his speech, dancing, and conventionally feminine mannerisms. After years of hearing from family, friends, and neighbors that Shuggie's queerness is a problem she must control, Agnes crumbles under the pressure of their intolerance. She begins to equate her alcoholism with Shuggie's sexuality, as if both are flaws that can be helped if she and Shuggie make a concerted effort to start anew. Tragically enough, Shuggie believes his mother and everyone else's assertion that he must change, and he tries desperately to weed whatever is different out of himself. He memorizes football scores and practices walking in the manly way his brother shows him. When he goes through puberty and becomes attracted to other boys, his shame is immense. He wants so badly to become a new, normal person by the standards of the society that refuses to accept him as he is, but he can't seem to change. However, Shuggie's otherness ultimately allows him to show compassion to the people around him. Although being different makes him a target for close-minded people, it bonds him with others who are viewed as outsiders. In part, this accounts for Shuggie's closeness with Agnes, though Shuggie's otherness is a result of the intolerant community in which he lives, while Agnes's is the result of her alcoholism. Still, their bond deepens the more her condition—and her connection with the rest of the world—deteriorates. After Agnes's death, Shuggie finds a healthier relational model in his friendship with Leanne, who—like him—has had experiences that have long isolated her from others. Together, they're able to finally be themselves. In turn, the novel highlights just how meaningful it can be for people facing prejudice and mistreatment to find stable and supportive relationships. - Theme: Coming of Age and Trauma. Description: Central to the novel is the way that trauma accelerates Shuggie's coming of age. Throughout the story, adult figures fall like dominoes around Shuggie and Agnes. First, his family moves away from his grandparents, who are his most responsible caretakers. Immediately upon arriving in Pithead, Shug leaves Agnes and the children to move in with Joanie Micklewhite. Catherine follows shortly after when she marries Shug's nephew, Donald Jnr., and finally, Leek leaves—or, more accurately, is kicked out by Agnes. Shuggie is therefore forced to step into an adult role to deal with Agnes's alcoholism at a very young age, making sure they have enough money for food and that Agnes doesn't hurt herself. The fewer people remain in his life, the more his responsibility for holding his mother together increases. Even Agnes, when sober, notices the constant worry etched on her son's face. And yet, while Shuggie is forced to function as an adult in his home, he is still extremely vulnerable. To take care of Agnes, he often has to navigate the world alone, from riding in cabs with strange men to cashing the family's benefits, and these very adult pursuits ultimately leave him exposed to danger and abuse—a good illustration of the harmful situations that children forced to assume adult responsibilities often encounter. Despite Shuggie's advanced responsibility for his age, he still takes on this mantle with a very childlike dependence and devotion to Agnes. Like most children, his identity is intrinsically linked to his parent, and the trauma Agnes's addiction inflicts on him binds him even tighter to her. For years, then, protecting her and mitigating the damage she inflicts is Shuggie's guiding purpose. He tries to keep her from hurting herself, spending all their money, and slinging abuses at her enemies over the phone. The true climax of Shuggie's coming of age arc is when he finally accepts that Agnes will not change. In realizing this, he also realizes that he wants better for himself, and though it's extremely painful, it's only through disentwining his fate from hers that he manages to move toward a healthier, more stable life. - Theme: Addiction and Abandonment. Description: Shuggie Bain depicts communities that are debilitated by desperation and colored by addiction. Many characters throughout the novel use alcohol, pills, and gambling to cope with an unending cycle of poverty, debt, and longing. Agnes is the key example of this struggle. Her dependency on alcohol predates the events of the novel, but the story reveals how feelings of abandonment fuel her overall deterioration. For instance, her first suicide attempt comes when Shug openly cheats on her, prompting her to drink so much that she decides to set the bedroom on fire with her and Shuggie in it. Things only get worse when Shug leaves her permanently for Joanie Micklewhite. After Shug leaves and Agnes's problem becomes more pronounced, she loses Catherine, then later on, her new boyfriend, Eugene. Neither can handle her drinking. Agnes becomes increasingly paranoid about her sons leaving her too, which prompts her to preemptively kick Leek out of the house. Only Shuggie remains by her side until the end, and she even tries to push him away at one point. Agnes is thus stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy; she gets drunk as a way of quashing her loneliness and fear, but her drunkenness pushes everyone she loves away. For all the anger and blame that Agnes hurls at Shug for his selfishness throughout the novel, she can claim no moral high ground, since—using alcohol to cope—she selfishly pursues a remedy for her pain that causes her to systematically abandon everyone she loves. - Theme: Pride and Appearances. Description: In Shuggie Bain, Agnes uses her pride in her appearance as both armor and salve as she navigates heartbreak, poverty, and addiction. While her drinking alienates her from others and damages her most intimate relationships, even those she's wronged still credit her for her ability to maintain an immaculate home and appearance. Whenever she prepares to do something difficult, like crossing the street to confront her hateful neighbor Colleen McAvennie, she dons her best clothing and high heels. She is also obsessed with presentation on the mornings following particularly embarrassing benders, such as the day after she sets her bedroom on fire. On that morning, she feels compelled to fix herself up and go downstairs to tan with the other women, proving—or trying to prove—that nothing is wrong. Agnes does not stop at her own appearance, either. When she abandons her first husband to marry Shug, she dresses not only herself in her finest clothes, but her children as well. At the viewing of her mother's body, she is more concerned with ensuring Lizzie has fresh lipstick and matching earrings for the attendees than she is with handling her own grief.  In this way, Agnes uses beauty and appearances to signal that everything is okay, as if she can right internal conflict with external perfection. Ultimately, Agnes's pride is just another form of denial. In presenting a pleasing mask to the world, she attempts to erase the ugliness of her addiction and the pain that drives it. Like makeup on a corpse, however, the façade she cultivates hides but never addresses what's rotting at the center. - Theme: Sectarianism. Description: Though sectarianism is not the primary concern of Shuggie Bain, the impacts of the historical division between Catholic and Protestant Scots are felt throughout the novel. On the surface, the tension between these two groups is attributed to religious differences, but social, economic, and political discord are also at the core of sectarian conflict. For both Catholics and Protestants in the novel, there are very rigid expectations around behavior and values, and the pressure to uphold these norms (or else risk ostracization) is immense. In the novel, there are several instances in which a character is confronted with a direct question about their religious affiliation. Catherine, for example, has to identify herself as Catholic or Protestant at knifepoint without knowing which side her attackers are on. What she does know, though, is that neither answer is safe—one might get her killed, but the other might still get her assaulted. The deep-seated conflict between Protestants and Catholics is important on the larger scale of the novel's setting and social context, but it is also a vital element of the conflict within the Bain household. Agnes is Catholic and Shug is Protestant, which causes a schism in the foundation of their marriage. In fact, their clashing backgrounds account for a large portion of their attraction to one another, since they both originally want something different from what they already have. But once they get together, those differences are a constant source of tension. The cultural stranglehold that sectarianism has on their respective communities trumps their passion for each other. This is true not only between Agnes and Shug, but also within the extended family. Lizzie's dislike of Shug, for example, is cemented long before his infidelity and physical abuse; she initially objected to their marriage because of her distaste for interfaith unions. Shuggie in particular suffers the consequences of his parents' split religious backgrounds and constant fighting, making him unable or unwilling to identify with either faction and leaving him as an outsider to both. By highlighting these sectarian struggles, then, the novel examines the unfortunate ways in which external cultural tensions can make their way into personal relationships. - Climax: After Shug, Leek, and Catherine leave, Agnes dies from the alcoholism from which has been suffering from for decades, leaving Shuggie to navigate life on his own. - Summary: Shuggie Bain recounts the early years of the titular protagonist, Shuggie. The novel contains five parts; the first and last sections depict Shuggie in the present, while the middle three sections chart his earlier years living in three Glaswegian neighborhoods. The reader first meets Shuggie in the South Side of Glasgow in 1992, where he has taken up work at a grocery store, Kilfeathers. His days pass routinely and without much thought or joy. At night, he returns to a boarding house, where his landlord doesn't care that he's only fifteen. The apartment is dreary and ill-appointed. Shuggie knows his mother would be ashamed of the state of his living quarters, but he intends to improve his space as soon as he saves enough money. One of his neighbors, Mr. Darling, has taken an inappropriate interest in him, and though this makes Shuggie uncomfortable, he knows he can get some money out of the lonely man and tries to play this to his advantage. The narrative the jumps back to 1981 in Glasgow's Sighthill neighborhood, where Shuggie lives with his parents, Agnes and Shug, his grandparents, Wullie and Lizzie, and his two older siblings, Catherine and Leek. Agnes mourns her youth one night as she plays cards with her middle-aged friends and neighbors, disappointed with the way her life has turned out. She is ashamed to being living with her parents, and she resents her husband for failing to make her happy as he promised to do when she left her first husband for him. The tension between them is first seen when he comes home from driving his cab during the ladies' card night, clearing out the other women. He leaves almost immediately, telling Agnes not to wait up. She copes as she typically does, going to her room to drink from a secret stash of liquor. Agnes has a flash back of a vacation she and Shug took to the seaside years ago, where the shiny boardwalk lights and escape from the day to day gave them hope. Or it did, until Agnes drank too much, causing a scene at their hotel. Shug retaliated, physically and sexually abusing Agnes. Back in 1981, Shug continues to carouse while driving his cab on the night shift, meeting up with Agnes' friends and his coworker Joanie Micklewhite after finishing an evening of driving. On one of these nights, Shuggie sits with a drunk Agnes. During their time in Sighthill, everyone recognizes that Agnes has developed a drinking problem and tries to encourage her to manage her addiction, but Shug's philandering exacerbates her condition. Catherine has taken a fancy job in the city, hoping to make money for her cash-strapped family and save for her own future. Leek, on the other hand, copes by making himself scarce, running away to his hideout in a nearby warehouse. Shuggie tries to help his mother by keeping her company and dancing to keep her entertained, but even his affection can't combat her disease. Even at this young age, Shuggie is perceived as different because of his feminine mannerisms. On this night, Agnes has a violent drinking episode when Shug returns home and ignores her. She sets fire to the curtains in her room, nearly killing herself and Shuggie. Shug is able to put out the fire, but the incident is enough to convince him a change is needed. He persuades Agnes to move out of her parents' apartment and into subsidized housing in Pithead, on the edge of the city, promising her that their life will improve. Once they arrive and find that the house is a dump, Shug announces to Agnes that he's leaving her for Joanie Micklewhite. After Shug leaves in 1982, Agnes and her children begin their new life in the Pithead house. The family, especially Agnes and Shuggie, are treated as outsiders by their new community. The neighbor women—Bridie Donnelly, Jinty McClinchy, and Colleen McAvennie—peg Agnes as an alcoholic, while Shuggie is mocked and bullied for his effeminate behavior. Agnes's alcoholism only grows worse. Catherine spends more time away from home, planning to marry Shug's nephew, Donald Jnr. Leek tries to avoid the house and can tell from its exterior whenever Agnes is drunk. Shuggie, in turn, is left alone with his mother, who he tries to prevent from hurting herself or embarrassing herself with her drunken phone calls to Joanie. Agnes does whatever it takes to fuel her drinking, using the family's benefit money or pawning her expensive belongs or items stolen from her kids. Leek and Catherine attempt to help their little brother in small ways; Catherine takes Shuggie to visit Shug before she leaves with her new husband for their new life in South Africa, and Leek tries to teach Shuggie how to walk more masculinely. Eventually, both Wullie and Lizzie die. With Leek increasingly absent, Shuggie is usually alone to handle his mother's drinking. As Shuggie gets older, he begins to pick up on his mother's drinking patterns, noticing which of her friends—women like Jinty McClinchy and sleazy men in town like Lamby—encourage her alcoholism. His anxiety around Agnes' drinking has physical ramifications, too, from nervous bowels to bedwetting. One day, Shuggie comes home to find the house in order and his mother sober. Agnes attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and eventually gets a job working the night shift at a gas station, which keeps her out of trouble. During one of her shifts, she meets a cab driver named Eugene. On their first date, she learns he is her enemy, Colleen McAvennie's, brother, but he convinces her to give him a chance. During this period, Agnes is the happiest she has ever been, and Shuggie begins to open up to his mother again. At one point, Shug comes to visit, hoping to sleep with Agnes, but she turns him away. Despite Agnes's progress, Eugene remains curious about Agnes sobriety and wonders why she can't drink now that she's better. He pressures her to have one glass of wine, telling her he wants to be normal, and eventually she relents. She immediately spirals out of control, coming home heavily intoxicated, which infuriates Leek and scares Shuggie so much that he pees his pants. After the incident with Eugene, Agnes's alcoholism becomes worse than ever. In Shuggie's attempts to help his mother, he is often left alone and vulnerable, put in situations where he is bulled and even sexually assaulted. Agnes uses all their money to buy alcohol, and the family goes hungry. One day, Shuggie comes home to find Leek pressed on top of his mother, trying to stop the bleeding coming from her slit wrists. Shuggie is sent off to Shug and Joanie's house while his mother recovers, though Agnes eventually comes to collect him. Even after this incident, her alcoholism escalates. Shuggie often skips school to care for her. He continues to be bullied for his queerness. One day, Agnes drunkenly kicks Leek out, and he leaves permanently. Before Leek leaves, he tries to tell Shuggie that Agnes won't ever get better, but Shuggie is not ready to believe it. Agnes arranges a house swap, promising Shuggie that they will both start fresh in this new place. She dumps all her alcohol down the drain. He wants desperately to believe her. In the fourth section, which takes place in 1989, Agnes and Shuggie move to a new apartment in the East End. The same day they move, Agnes begins drinking again. Shuggie tries his best to fit in at his new school, but he is labeled "strange" and bullied almost immediately. He feels certain that nothing has changed or ever will. Still, he goes along when his new neighbor Keir, who Shuggie has a crush on, asks him to keep his girlfriend's friend company. This is how Shuggie meets Leanne Kelly, who also has an alcoholic mother and is questioning her sexuality. The two bond, exchanging horror stories about their mothers. One day soon after, Shuggie comes home to find Agnes drunk and agitated. She kicks him out the same way she kicked out Leek, calling Shuggie a cab and telling him not to come back. Shuggie goes to Leek's apartment, begging his brother for money to pay for the cab. While at Leek's, Agnes sends over two more cabs, making her sons pay the fee. In the first, she sends a bag of canned custards, and in the second, she sends her telephone. Leek and Shuggie understand she is trying to say goodbye, and Shuggie hurries home. While Agnes doesn't follow through on this veiled threat to kill herself, her drinking does not stop. On another day a few months later, Shuggie comes home to find Agnes passed out. He cleans her up and removes her clothes for her. As he ministers to her unconscious body, he comes to terms with the fact that, like Leek has tried to tell him, she is not going to get better. Standing there, Shuggie notices that Agnes has thrown up in her sleep. Her head is tilted back, and she begins to choke on her bile. Before Shuggie can bring himself to do anything, she dies. In the final section, the narrative returns to Shuggie in the present, where he lives in his South Side room. A year has passed since Agnes's death, and Shuggie is remembering her funeral. Leek came for her cremation, but neither Shug nor Catherine showed. Shuggie reflects on his mother, whose birthday it would be, as he goes about his day. He stops by a bakery for strawberry tarts on his way to meet Leanne. Together, they find Moira Kelly, Leanne's mother, whose alcoholism has left her homeless. Shuggie watches, infuriated, as Leanne cares for her mother. Moira barely tolerates her daughter's attention and openly mocks them both. Leanne changes Moira's dirty clothes and feeds her, telling her about the exciting social life her brother has been leading. Moira soon runs off, eager to meet her drinking buddies. As the two teenagers leave, Shuggie tells Leanne that he wishes they could go dancing like Leanne's older brother. Leanne laughs, not believing Shuggie can dance. As they continue along the river, Shuggie runs ahead. He begins to dance wildly, making Leanne laugh with joy.

- Genre: Mystery Novel, Thriller - Title: Shutter Island - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Off the coast of Massachusetts in 1954 - Character: Andrew Laeddis. Description: - Character: Dr. Cawley. Description: - Character: Dr. Sheehan. Description: - Character: Dolores Chanal. Description: - Theme: Mental Illness and Delusion. Description: - Theme: Conspiracy and Paranoia. Description: - Theme: Guilt and Grief. Description: - Theme: Violence and War. Description: - Theme: Isolation. Description: - Climax: Teddy swims to the lighthouse and finds Dr. Cawley waiting for him. Dr. Cawley reveals that Teddy's real name is Andrew Laeddis and that he became a patient at Ashecliffe Hospital after murdering his wife. - Summary: In 1954, U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, arrive on Shutter Island, off the Massachusetts coast, to investigate the case of Rachel Solando, a woman who mysteriously disappeared from Ashecliffe Hospital. Ashecliffe Hospital is an institution for violent people who suffer from severe mental illness. It is the only landmark on the entire island, which is why Rachel's disappearance is so puzzling. Shortly after arriving on the island, Teddy and Chuck meet Dr. Cawley, the head of Ashecliffe Hospital. Dr. Cawley treats Teddy and Chuck kindly, but they quickly get the feeling he is not being straightforward with them. He will not grant them access to important files that would help solve the case and many of his answers are evasive. Furthermore, when Teddy and Chuck examine Rachel's ward, which looks more like a prison cell, they determine it is almost impossible she could have escaped on her own. They wonder whether Dr. Sheehan, Dr. Cawley's colleague who recently left the island, could have taken her with him back to the mainland. Hoping to find clues, Teddy and Chuck interview several other patients at the hospital who were in group therapy the night Rachel disappeared. None of them prove useful, though Teddy suspects someone has coached them to answer in a specific way. Teddy gets fed up with the way Dr. Cawley and his staff are treating him and threatens to leave the island. However, he does not follow through on his threat and instead spends time walking with Chuck around the island. Chuck is suspicious that Teddy knows more than he is saying. Teddy admits that he came to the island for reasons beyond Rachel Solando. He believes that somewhere on Shutter Island, perhaps in the closely guarded Ward C, there is a prisoner named Andrew Laeddis. According to Teddy, Andrew Laeddis was a pyromaniac who murdered Teddy's wife, Dolores. He wants to find Laeddis, though he is not sure what will happen when he does. Additionally, Teddy reveals that he wants to investigate the island because he thinks Dr. Cawley and his team are performing inhumane experiments on their patients. After wandering around the island in a storm, Teddy and Chuck return to Ashecliffe Hospital and discover that Dr. Cawley and his men found Rachel. Teddy briefly speaks with Rachel and notices that she looks different from the picture in her file. After talking with Rachel, Teddy goes to Dr. Cawley's office for a meeting. While there, he experiences an extreme migraine. Dr. Cawley gives him some pills to help, which put him to sleep for a couple hours. While asleep, Teddy has terrible dreams about Rachel and Dolores. Rachel originally came to Ashecliffe Hospital because she murdered her children and, in his dream, Teddy helps her kill them. Teddy wakes up from his dream and sees Dr. Cawley watching over him. Dr. Cawley tries to ask Teddy about his past, but Teddy clamps up and refuses to say anything. The next day, the storm intensifies, so Teddy and Chuck take some time to explore parts of the island they know they are not supposed to see while Dr. Cawley and his staff are busy training to secure their facilities. In particular, they journey to Ward C and go looking for Andrew Laeddis. Although they do not find Laeddis, Teddy comes across George Noyce, a patient who warns Teddy he will never get off the island. Teddy knows about Noyce because he read his case file before coming to the island. He thinks Noyce is one of the patients Dr. Cawley and his team have been experimenting on. After having little luck at Ward C, Teddy and Chuck decide to make their way to the island's lighthouse. They know Dr. Cawley is keeping something important inside because he keeps armed guards outside, but they do not know what. However, on their way there, they get sidetracked because Teddy notices a rock formation, which he believes contains a hidden message from Rachel. He goes to check it out and leaves Chuck behind. Then, when he returns to his former spot, he discovers Chuck is missing. He worries that foul play is afoot, and his fear intensifies after he sees what he thinks is Chuck's body at the bottom of a cliff. However, when he goes to look for Chuck, he finds he was mistaken; the body he thought he saw was merely an illusion. Since he still has not found his friend, Teddy walks along the beach. Eventually, he spots a cave with light coming out of it. Assuming it must be Chuck, he climbs into the cave. There, he finds a woman who says she is the real Rachel Solando. She tells Teddy that she was once a doctor at Ashecliffe Hospital. However, her colleagues had her institutionalized after she refused to go along with their morally questionable experiments. She also warns Teddy that Dr. Cawley and his team will never let Teddy leave the island. Additionally, she tells him not to trust Chuck. Teddy returns to Ashecliffe and tells Dr. Cawley he plans to leave the island the following day. He also asks him if he has seen Chuck. In response, Dr. Cawley says he does not know anyone named Chuck and claims Teddy came to the island alone. After the conversation, Teddy returns to his room and asks an orderly to tell him what is going on. Although the orderly will not give a definitive answer, he warns Teddy that he must get off the island before it is too late. He also tells Teddy when and where the next ferry will arrive so he can sneak on. Teddy almost manages to escape but decides to turn back when he learns that Dr. Cawley might be holding Chuck in the lighthouse. Not wanting to leave his partner behind, he swims to the lighthouse and sneaks inside. There, he finds Dr. Cawley by himself. Dr. Cawley tells Teddy that the man he has been searching for—Andrew Laeddis—is Teddy himself. Meanwhile, "Teddy" is merely an alter ego he made up to hide his guilt and shame about his past criminal actions. Teddy does not believe Dr. Cawley, but Dr. Cawley points out that the name Teddy Daniels is an anagram for Andrew Laeddis. Similarly, Rachel Solando is an anagram for Dolores Chanal, Teddy's wife's full name. All of the crimes Teddy ascribed to Rachel were actually committed by his wife, Dolores. She was mentally ill and drowned their children. After discovering their dead bodies, Teddy/Andrew shot and killed her, which is why he came to Shutter Island. Additionally, Dr. Cawley informs him that everything he has experienced on the island is essentially a giant performance. Over the past several years, Andrew has told Dr. Cawley the story of everything that has happened in the novel up to this point. As such, Dr. Cawley decided to stage Andrew's delusions in hopes it would shatter them. As proof, he brings out Chuck, who is actually his partner Dr. Sheehan. Dr. Sheehan apologizes for fooling Andrew and promises they were only trying to help him. Although Andrew denies everything at first, he eventually admits that everything Dr. Cawley is saying is true. Dr. Cawley appreciates Andrew's revelation but warns him that if he cannot continue to live in reality rather than a world of delusion, he will receive a transorbital lobotomy. Andrew promises he has changed for good this time, though Dr. Cawley is doubtful. The next day, Andrew wakes up thinking he is Teddy Daniels again. He talks to Dr. Sheehan, who he calls Chuck, and asks if he should be worried about Dr. Cawley. Chuck tells him there is no need to worry, though as he does so, Dr. Cawley and several orderlies make their way over to Teddy, presumably to bring him in for his lobotomy.

- Genre: Spiritual, Bildungsroman - Title: Siddhartha - Point of view: Third person narrator, omniscient, but usually following Siddhartha's thoughts - Setting: India, in the time of the Buddha - Character: Siddhartha. Description: is the protagonist, searching for enlightenment. He starts out as the most talented Brahmin's son, and loved by all, but he is discontented and doesn't trust in the teaching. He wishes to join a group of wandering, homeless samanas, in an ascetic life of fasting and thinking, and this begins his journey as a pilgrim, searching for his own brand of enlightenment and spiritual wisdom. With each stage of his journey, he goes through trials and doubts himself. He learns to dismiss physical needs with the samanas and then to indulge in them in the material life of the merchants, and through these two extremes, he comes back to the river and the spiritual home of the ferryman, where he gains the most important piece of knowledge of his life – the world is a river, always beginning, always ending, always whole. This wholeness tells Siddhartha of his own story, and teaches him to love even his hardest trials and his own ego. As Siddhartha reaches his ultimate wisdom, his son enters his life and provides him with a legacy and a knowledge of blind love. Siddhartha, finally understanding his life's journey and the nature of the world, reaches the serene smile of enlightenment. He shows that contentment will only be found by taking one's own path through life. - Character: Govinda. Description: is Siddhartha's childhood friend, who grows up admiring Siddhartha's high calling and wants to follow him on his journey, which he believes will lead to sainthood. Govinda's own path seems to always follow in the footsteps of others. When he leaves Siddhartha's shadow, it is to start following Gautama instead. He always wears an expression of seeking, and even when he is an old man, he seeks knowledge from Siddhartha the ferryman. - Character: Siddhartha's father. Description: is a wise Brahmin and tries to teach his talented son, but Siddhartha soon outgrows the Brahmin teaching and needs to follow his own path. His father is reluctant to let him go, but when he sees how stubborn Siddhartha is, he sends him away, in the knowledge that Siddhartha can return if he does not find the truth he seeks. When Siddhartha reaches the final stages of his wisdom, it is through realizing the cycle he is part of, and how his love and sacrifice for young Siddhartha is the same love and sacrifice that his father showed him in his youth. - Character: Gautama. Description: is the venerable Buddha, who has achieved enlightenment. While Siddhartha is a samana, Gautama arrives in the forest and is followed by many pilgrims seeking teaching. His voice and calm, smiling manner deeply affect Siddhartha and Govinda. But while Govinda decides to seek refuge in the Buddha's teaching, Siddhartha tells Gautama that he seeks something that can't be taught. Gautama is gracious to Siddhartha but warns him of the dangers of knowledge-seeking. We see by the end that Gautama also followed his own path, that is how he achieved the height of wisdom. - Character: Kamala. Description: is a courtesan, who is treated as a queen by the town and spotted by Siddhartha as she travels by sedan into a pleasure grove. Her smile shows him that she has the potential to love him and show him great things. She represents a new goal for Siddhartha that persuades him to give up his ascetic life and learn the art of love, which he does very well, and the pair share a deep kinship despite their different backgrounds. Kamala is also very spiritual and after Siddhartha leaves the town, Kamala converts to the teaching of the Buddha and gives her pleasure grove to the monks. She dies in the hut of the ferryman. Before Siddhartha departs, though, he and Kamala conceive a son. The gifts she has given to Siddhartha become clear and symbolized by this son, young Siddhartha, who provides Siddhartha with a legacy and a vision of his life's cycle. - Character: Kamaswami. Description: is the rich merchant whom Siddhartha works for when he comes into town. He teaches Siddhartha how to trade and gamble, but he is frustrated when Siddhartha's wisdom and lack of interest in profits detract from the deals he wants to make. He is an anxious man, prone to anger, and is a symbol of the greed and tiredness of the unspiritual town. - Character: Vasudeva. Description: is a ferryman who teaches Siddhartha the importance of listening. The first night that he hosts Siddhartha, he listens perfectly to his story and shows him how to listen to the voice of the river. This provokes Siddhartha's understanding of natural things and the word of oneness 'om'. Vasudeva never seems to lose faith or suffer the same griefs as Siddhartha, but he also lives alone and we sense that his wisdom has come from having loved his wife, and been through the trials that Siddhartha is now facing. We learn how close Vasudeva is to enlightenment, even though he is not a thinker or a preacher, when he leaves Siddhartha at the end, to join 'the oneness'. - Character: Young Siddhartha. Description: is the son of Siddhartha and Kamala, conceived in the pleasure grove of the town where Siddhartha has learned the art of love. Young Siddhartha, when he first meets his father, has been nurtured by the rich ways of the town and so, when his mother dies, feels imprisoned by his new guardian in the simple life of the riverside hut. Young Siddhartha provokes the final transformation of Siddhartha—by refusing to stay with his father, he teachers Siddhartha to understand the blind love that the child people feel and to see how he is a part of the cycle, and how his departure from his father mirrors that of Young Siddhartha from him. - Character: Young woman. Description: A young woman whom Siddhartha encounters as he walks to the town. As he asks her directions, Siddhartha finds himself lusting after her. His inner voice calls out to him to stop, though not before he strokes her face, which is the first time he has touched a woman. His interest in the young woman can be seen as a sign of (or even cause of) Siddhartha's interest in love, and soon after departing from the young woman Siddhartha sees Kamala in the town. - Theme: The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment. Description: In the town where Siddhartha was born, Brahmins and sages and young practitioners of the Brahma way of life are all trying to find the path to enlightenment. Siddhartha is raised listening to the guidance of the Brahmin teachers, but he concludes, based on the fact that none of Brahmin's have themselves achieved enlightenment, that this path does not seem to lead to the celestial heights that he aims for. In search of enlightenment, Siddhartha embraces numerous different lifestyles. First, the ascetic philosophy of the samanas, who denounce physical needs. Then he meets the Buddha, who it seems should offer him the knowledge that he seeks, since he is himself enlightened.But as with the Brahmin's and samanas, Siddhartha finds the seeking of enlightenment through the teachings of others to be impossible. He believes he needs experience, rather than teaching. He goes to the town and follows the path of the child people, who are governed by money, lust, love, and other worldly desires. The anxiety he finds in the town leads him to the river, where he meets a ferryman, a humble servant of the river. When he finds such enlightenment in the ferryman, he too starts to listen to the river, and begins to understand the flows and unity of life. Siddhartha's path to enlightenment combines learning from others and from the natural world, with a dose of stubborn disobedience and experiencing the world for himself. In contrast, Govinda follows a path that leaves him always in the shadow of another, first Siddhartha then the Buddha. Govinda seeks teaching, and huddles in the teachings of others like it was a refuge from the world. Govinda's path of constant dependence on others highlights the independence of Siddhartha's journey, and Govinda's failure to achieve enlightenment in comparison to Siddhartha's success shows that it is the untraveled path, the personal path, that leads to deliverance. Perhaps what had really set Siddhartha apart was not his unusual skill for contemplation, but for his ability to choose his own path. Through his son, Siddhartha comes to understand the human attachments of the child people he had mocked in his town life. He also comes to understand the suffering and devotion of his own father. So, in making his own sacrifice and sending his son away, Siddhartha becomes connected to the earth—to love and connection, which he had earlier tried to eliminate from himself—in a way he hadn't before. This poses an interesting possibility for the path to enlightenment – that it is only when Siddhartha continues a familial legacy, and the cycle returns to the paternal bond, that he gains that Buddhistic smile, making spiritual enlightenment much more of a human, earthly image rather than a lofty divine ideal. - Theme: Nature and the Spirit. Description: Siddhartha's environment, from his birth to his enlightenment, plays an important role in guiding and inspiring his spiritual journey. Nature provides the physical and spiritual sustenance while he is a samana. And when he is suicidal from his excursion into the world of wealth and anxiety, it is the river that saves him, and which becomes not just a metaphor for the idea of enlightenment but the source of Siddhartha's revelation. Being all places at once, the river shows that time is an illusion and that all things are natural and never-ending. This recognition of nature is a big step towards Siddhartha's spirit being raised towards enlightenment. Just as the river brings together the possibility of Siddhartha 'snuffing himself out' with his own reflection and the holy word 'om', nature brings together birth and death and spiritual enlightenment, and in so doing shows the oneness of the world. When Siddhartha is describing his sadness, he likens it to the death of a bird, his inner voice. Nature is both within and without Siddhartha, and when he realizes this, death seems not to be the end that he thought it was. Nature also brings together the unity of Siddhartha's experiences. His eventual philosophy relates to all the trials he has put himself through, from a samana to a merchant. On one hand, ascetism showed him the denial of physical needs, which is an attempt to overcome the natural world. On the other is the materialism of business and sex, which Siddhartha found in the town, centers on the other extreme: what you can get from and enjoy from the natural world. Finally, Siddhartha's ultimate philosophy, like the vision of the stone's many incarnations, involves learning from the natural world and realizing its fundamental unity. - Theme: Direction and Indirection. Description: Part of the teaching of the Buddha is that deliverance comes from rising above the cycles and circles of a worldly life. Throughout the novel, cyclic experiences are viewed negatively. The cycles are connected with the spiritless, sinful lives of the people in the town, whereas the samanas and the Buddha intend to live their lives towards enlightenment and Nirvana, aiming for higher places with every action.Though Siddhartha appreciates Buddha's teaching, he doesn't understand how to leave the unending cycles behind. So rather than choose a direct path that would have him follow the lead of one who has attained enlightenment, such as the Buddha, Siddhartha chooses a path that might be described as moving along ground level, seeking through the natural paths and waters, through the streets of the town, to achieve his own progression. In this way, the novel is full of contradicting directions of flow and influence. The path upward is elusive and the path along is repetitive and cyclical. Perhaps it is direction itself that is hindering Siddhartha from finding his way?When he allows himself to live by the river, without following or seeking a particular path, his lack of direction makes sense, and mimics the river itself. The river seems to be flowing one way, another, falling over a cliff as a waterfall, halted and meandering, unchanged by time, never beginning or ending. It is the vision of this wholeness that brings light to Siddhartha's thinking and purpose to his life's wandering. Enlightenment had been associated with height and a journey upwards, but Siddhartha's searching shows that enlightenment is not ascending above the rest of the world but rather recognizing one's equality with it. And, fittingly, the novel ends with Siddhartha face to face with his childhood friend, not above but together with the world. - Theme: Truth and Illusion. Description: Enlightenment, sought by all the spiritual characters in the book, is not just a feeling of peace with the world, but a kind of wisdom, an absolute knowledge and acceptance of the way things are. But this truth eludes most of those who seek for it. Some search within the teachings of other wiser people, like Govinda. But such devotees are always in the shadow of someone else's enlightenment, and never seem to reach their own. Real truth turns out to be found at moments of connection and realization with the natural world. At each critical moment of his journey, Siddhartha finds some piece of truth. The nature of the self, comprised of his ancestors, his father, the many faces of human kind, appears like a vision before him. The connectedness of all things also occurs to him as pure and true, like the image of the stone being at once soil, animal, and all its incarnations. This finding of truth also means avoiding illusion. Many things are labeled as illusion and tricks in Siddhartha's world: love, wealth, and desire, and especially thoughts and opinions. Siddhartha tells Govinda at the end of the book not to take the explanations of his philosophy literally but to try to understand them with his own experience, because explanations are made of words, and there is always some foolishness and embarrassment that comes of trying to explain something through words. The real truth comes not from seeking knowledge or avoiding illusion but accepting both things. When looking at natural forms, and realizing the unity of the world, Siddhartha knows that there can be no trickery about anything he sees. - Theme: Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction. Description: The novel begins with a description of all Siddhartha's good fortune, but despite all that sets him apart, he is dissatisfied, believing that he has learned all that his elders have within them to teach him. It is this hunger to use his potential completely and know absolute truth that drives each stage of his pilgrimage, and the dissatisfaction he finds at every turn that encourages him to move on. The book seems to be saying that dissatisfaction can be a good thing, a guiding light towards the next step in our journey. And yet, dissatisfaction in and of itself does not produce enlightenment. Certainly the Buddha and Vasudeva are not characterized by their dissatisfaction with the world. And Siddhartha himself, when he finally gains enlightenment, experiences the opposite of dissatisfaction—he experiences a profound acceptance of and satisfaction with everything. Dissatisfaction, then, might be described not as a negative feeling with the world but rather a sense that there is greater potential ahead and a desire to reach that greater potential. - Climax: Siddhartha reaches enlightenment by listening to the river and understanding the oneness of the world - Summary: Siddhartha is born and raised in ancient India by Brahmins, learning spiritual practices of meditation and thought. He excels at everything. He is accompanied through childhood by his friend Govinda, who loves Siddhartha dearly, as does everyone else. But Siddhartha is ill at ease. He does not think he can learn anything more from the Brahmin teaching and so decides to begin a pilgrimage with the samanas, a group of wandering ascetics. His father very reluctantly lets him go but Govinda follows.Siddhartha and Govinda learn the life of the samanas, fasting and suffering. Siddhartha sometimes doubts whether they are really approaching any higher knowledge. Then, one day, a rumor reaches them that the Sublime Buddha, Gautama, is among them. Siddhartha is dubious of teaching, but agrees to hear the Buddha's sermon, so the pair journey with many others to Gautama's grove. Here, they spot the man himself, impeccably calm and with a perfect smile. They know he has reached enlightenment. Govinda decides to take refuge in the teaching. This is the first decision he has made for his own path. But Siddhartha tells Gautama that he does not think accepting teaching from another is the way to find one's own deliverance. Siddhartha goes into the forest and has an awakening, seeing all the river's colors as if for the first time. He wants to learn from the world of 'things'. He stays with a kind ferryman, then he goes to town and notices a beautiful courtesan, Kamala, and requests that she teach him in the art of love. She will only teach him if he brings her rich gifts, so she refers him to a merchant, Kamaswami, who takes him into service. Here he becomes a rich man, gambling and trading. Years pass and Siddhartha's spirit sickens. He feels detached from the material world but also caught in its cycle. He has a dream in which Kamala's songbird dies and with it, all Siddhartha's hope. He leaves the town, and goes back to the river. Later we find out that Kamala is pregnant with his child.Siddhartha, wishing to die, edges close to the river. But instead, the word 'om' comes to him from the river, and he falls into a deep sleep. When he wakes, there is a samana waiting with him, whom he recognizes as Govinda, his childhood friend. He tries to explain to Govinda that he has become many different people, but he is still searching. Siddhartha muses on his life, where his sadness has come from, and how the 'om' saved him. He seeks out the ferryman, who had attained peace by the river. The ferryman agrees to let Siddhartha stay and work with him. He advises that Siddhartha listens to the river as he does. Siddhartha begins to find enlightening visions and voices in the water.One day, it is rumored that Gautama is dying. Kamala, now a pilgrim too, comes towards the river with her son, young Siddhartha. The boy is sulky and wishes to rest, and it is then that a black snake bites the resting Kamala. Vasudeva hears the cries and brings her to the hut and she sees Siddhartha. Kamala dies, and now Siddhartha must be guardian to his son. But young Siddhartha doesn't know his father and is used to very rich things in town, not the simple life of a ferryman. He makes life very hard for Siddhartha. Vasudeva, seeing how painfully Siddhartha loves his son, advises that he should let the boy go to the town, because he does not belong here. Siddhartha can't face letting him go, but soon he has little choice, the boy runs away and it is obvious that he doesn't want the ferrymen to follow him. Siddhartha learns the secrets of the river with Vasudeva by his side and eventually his wounds at the loss of his son start to heal. He understands the unity that Gautama taught, through the river. He sees that the river is the same at its source as in the waterfall and in the rain, that time doesn't really exist. The world is like this river, eternal and whole. Now that Siddhartha can really listen to the river too, Vasudeva is ready to go 'into the oneness', and he leaves the river with Siddhartha and disappears into the forest. In the town, the monks of Gautama live in Kamala's old grove, and Govinda hears about a wise ferryman. He still seeks enlightenment and goes to the river. He doesn't recognize Siddhartha when he sees him, and asks for a taste of the ferryman's wisdom. Siddhartha says he has changed many times, that he was once that sleeper by the river that Govinda protected, but that despite change, everything is part of a whole, always in the present moment. Each sinner is also a Buddha. One must agree with it all, and love everything easily. This is what Siddhartha has learned. Govinda sees that his old friend has become one of the enlightened ones and that his smile radiates like a saint's.

- Genre: Novel / Realistic fiction - Title: Silas Marner - Point of view: Third-person omniscient - Setting: The villages of Lantern Yard and Raveloe in England, early 1800s - Character: Silas Marner. Description: A weaver by occupation, Silas Marner's move from Lantern Yard to Raveloe creates the back-story for the novel. In Lantern Yard, Marner was a devoted participant in the local church. He is near sighted and prone to strange fits in which he becomes still for a portion of time, after which he can never remember what has occurred. He was seen as a young man of great promise, but after being framed for a crime of thievery actually committed by his friend William Dane, Marner moves to Raveloe. Marner's betrayal causes him to become withdrawn and socially awkward, focused solely on the gold he earns. He does not seek out others' company, but commits himself fully to his weaving work. The villagers perceive him as strange due to his isolation, his fits, and his pale and quiet appearance. Marner is transformed from a miserly recluse into a loving and thoughtful father after he adopts Eppie, a young girl who appears on his hearth one night. He finds friends in Dolly Winthrop and her son Aaron, and regains interest in life and community through his love for Eppie. - Character: Godfrey Cass. Description: The eldest son of Squire Cass, the most prominent man in Raveloe. Despite Godfrey's good family, he makes poor choices and marries a lowly woman named Molly Farren. Together they have a daughter, Eppie. While Godfrey keeps his wife and child a secret from his father and the village, Godfrey's younger brother Dunstan uses his knowledge of the secret marriage to manipulate Godfrey. Molly also threatens to reveal the marriage in order to convince Godfrey to support her, and her opium addiction. Godfrey battles within himself about whether or not to reveal his secret. Naturally a good man, he is irresolute and indecisive. His fearful circumstances cause him to maintain silence and to keep appeasing Dunstan and Molly. After Molly's death, Godfrey is free to marry his true love, the respectable Nancy Lammeter. He tries to provide for his daughter, Eppie, by supporting Silas Marner who has adopted her. Years later, after Dunstan's drowned body is found alongside the gold Dunstan stole from Silas, Godfrey confesses all to Nancy and the two attempt to adopt Eppie. Nancy and Godfrey are unable to have children of their own, but Eppie prefers to stay with Silas Marner. Godfrey views this unhappy outcome as part of his punishment for past wrongs. - Character: Eppie. Description: The young daughter of Godfrey Cass and Molly Farren, Eppie wanders into Silas Marner's cottage during a snowstorm in which her mother perishes. Eppie is a beautiful, golden-haired child and her hair color is linked to the gold, which had been recently stolen from Silas Marner. She is mischievous as a young girl, primarily because Marner refuses to discipline her in any way. Eppie grows into a sweet tempered, lovely young woman who is devoted to her father. The love between Silas Marner and Eppie reestablishes Marner's interest in the village of Raveloe, in faith, and in community. Upon discovering that Godfrey is her true father, Eppie is unimpressed by his willful desire to take her away from the company and father she has always known. She stands up to Godfrey and refuses his offer. Eppie and the son of the Winthrops, Aaron, fall in love and are married at the end of the novel. - Character: Nancy Lammeter. Description: An elegant young woman who lives in Raveloe, Nancy inspires Godfrey's love and affection despite his unfortunate secret marriage. Nancy is a strong-minded woman who is committed to her ideals. For example, she refuses to adopt a child, although she cannot have children, because she believes such an act willfully disregards the fate given by God. She is precise, tidy, and hardworking. Her elegant appearance does not extend to her hands, which show the marks of her labor. Once married to Godfrey, she becomes a good mistress of the Red House, although she reflects frequently on her and Godfrey's lack of children and Godfrey's unhappiness. - Character: Dunstan Cass. Description: Squire Cass's lewd younger son, Dunstan prioritizes drinking and gambling. He is unconcerned for others' interests. He manipulates his brother, Godfrey, into giving him money to pursue his various pastimes. He sells Wildfire, Godfrey's horse, only to later kill the horse while riding it through a difficult jumping course. He is unconcerned with the horse's death, and Godfrey's fate, and walks home, only to pass by Silas Marner's cottage. He is struck by a memory of talk of the weaver's wealth and decides to rob him. Years later, Dunstan's body, along with the stolen gold, is found at the bottom of the stone pit by Silas Marner's cottage. - Character: Dolly Winthrop. Description: A village woman who befriends Silas Marner, Dolly is a persistent friend to Marner, and the person to whom he turns for help and advice after he adopts Eppie. Dolly is overflowing with kindness and local wisdom. She frequently admits to how little she knows, and how little any human can known, of divine plans for all people. Dolly is selfless with her time and energy in helping others. She is also a formidable mother to little Aaron and attempts to teach Marner how best to discipline Eppie. - Character: Squire Cass. Description: The head of the most prominent family in Raveloe, Squire Cass gives himself airs in claiming the title of "Squire" in the small village. His home and management of the estate is extravagant at times, lacking the presence and guidance of his wife who passed away. He enjoys throwing dances and parties for the neighbors. He is slovenly, yet authoritative. He lords over his sons and is a brusque man who does not like to be disagreed with. Godfrey believes his father would disown him for his choice to marry Molly Farren. Unaware of the real situation, Squire Cass tries to force Godfrey into becoming engaged to Nancy Lammeter. - Character: Molly Farren. Description: Godfrey's first, secret wife and the mother of Eppie, Molly is from a lower class family background than Godfrey. Molly is addicted to opium, and while she tries to blame her problems on her husband's neglect, she recognizes her responsibility for the control opium has over her life. She dies of an overdose during a snowstorm while traveling through the snowstorm to the Red House, where a New Years party is occurring, in order to spitefully reveal herself as Godfrey's wife in front of his family and many villagers. - Character: William Dane. Description: A friend of Silas Marner's in Lantern Yard, William Dane is more confident and self-assured than Marner. The two appear to be inseparable friends, but William Dane is harsher on those who are less devoted than himself. Dane also expresses assurance of his salvation, whereas Marner only feels fearful and hopeful when the friends discuss the afterlife. William Dane frames Marner for the theft of the church's gold. His reasons for this betrayal are unclear other than the fact that very soon after Marner's disgrace, William Dane becomes engaged to Sarah, who had once been engaged to Marner. - Character: Sarah. Description: Silas Marner's fiancé in Lantern Yard, Sarah begins to turn away from Marner after he has one of his fits during a church service. Marner asks if she wants to break off their engagement, but they are officially engaged in the eyes of the church, and Sarah refuses. After Marner is framed as a thief, Sarah will not see him and later marries Marner's once-friend and betrayer, William Dane. - Character: The Osgoods. Description: A prominent family in the town of Raveloe, the Osgoods are often compared to Squire Cass's family. Like the Squire, the Osgoods host parties during the winter months. Mrs. Osgood is the aunt of Nancy and Priscilla Lammeter, and Mrs. Osgood and Nancy are of similar temperaments. Mrs. Osgood hosts two young ladies, the Miss Gunns, at Squire Cass's New Years party. - Character: Priscilla Lammeter. Description: Nancy Lammeter's less attractive sister, Priscilla is likeable for her good sense and strong character. She seems happily resigned to a life of caring for Mr. Lammeter, their father, and she encourages Nancy's marriage and happiness. Nancy wishes that Priscilla's clothes and her own always match because they are sisters, and Priscilla unselfishly has them dress in the colors that will favor Nancy, rather than herself. - Character: Aaron. Description: Dolly Winthrop's earnest son, Aaron meets Silas Marner when he is very young. Dolly hopes to help Marner by visiting him after the loss of his gold, and she brings her son to help raise the weaver's spirits. The little boy sings and accepts cake offered by the weaver, who is unsure how else to interact with the child. Once he has grown into a young adult, Aaron falls in love with Eppie and the two plan to marry and to live with Marner, so that Eppie doesn't have to leave him. - Character: Sally Oates. Description: A woman in Raveloe whom Silas Marner helps when he sees that she is suffering from heart disease and dropsy. His mother had suffered from the same diseases, and he offers Sally Oates relief with a foxglove mixture. This act of kindness occurs during Marner's troubled early years in Raveloe, but it does not reconnect him to the people around him. The villagers pester him for more natural remedies, but he turns them away from his cottage door because he does not always have a remedy and does not want to be pestered. - Theme: Faith. Description: Silas Marner describes nearly thirty years of Silas Marner's life, in which the protagonist loses his faith in God and in human society, and then slowly regains his faith years later when he adopts a loving orphan girl named Eppie. Silas Marner's early faith is distinctly different from the faith he regains in later years. As a young man, Marner lives in Lantern Yard and his faith depends on the community and worship there. Marner believes in an unseen, benevolent God and in following only those practices that reflect faith in this God. Marner has acquired some knowledge of herbal remedies from his mother, but he refrains from using these, believing that prayer, without medicine, is a sufficient remedy. Marner loses his faith in a benevolent God when his friend William Dane falsely accuses him of stealing church funds. Upon being accused, Marner believes God will reveal his innocence, but when the church draws lots to make a decision, the lots declare his guilt. Marner lashes out at William Dane, accusing him of framing him, and accusing God of being a God of lies. After this blasphemy, Marner moves to the simple village of Raveloe where he withdraws from his neighbors, hoarding and coveting his money, disenchanted with all human relationships. When Marner discovers Eppie, an orphan who wanders into his home, he cares for her and raises her. Through his love for her, Marner rediscovers an interest in human connection. As he seeks what is the best for Eppie, he again attends church and he makes friends in Raveloe. Marner again gathers medicinal herbs as he once enjoyed doing, and he feels light return to his life through the love Eppie has for him. - Theme: Morality. Description: In Silas Marner, the author George Eliot presents a universe in which characters' personalities and actions determine their fates. This authorial morality secures justice for Silas Marner and for Godfrey Cass, as well as for several secondary characters. While Marner is initially wrongly accused of a crime in Lantern Yard, his later generosity toward Eppie determines his ultimate happiness. At the ending of the novel, the neighbors at Eppie and Aaron's wedding discuss Marner's choice to adopt a small orphan girl. The general consensus is that such an act of kindness will secure his future blessings. The novel ends with Eppie's declaration of her and Marner's happiness after she refuses to live with her biological father Godfrey Cass. Cass is a morally ambiguous character. He is kind and considerate, but also makes selfish and wrong decisions when he abandons his daughter, Eppie, to another's care. Godfrey's fate is an appropriate combination of punishment and reward for his choices. While Godfrey marries the love of his life, Nancy, his happiness is incomplete, as he and Nancy can't have any children. Despite Godfrey's later repentance, Eppie chooses to ignore Godfrey's attempts to adopt her because he has neglected her for sixteen years. For her part, Nancy believes that divine providence determines one's fate. She strongly resists Godfrey's interest in adopting a child because adoption is an attempt to circumvent the life given by God. In this way, moral outcomes in the novel are linked to the power of divine influence. Other secondary characters receive similar moral treatment. Godfrey's first wife, Molly, dies in a snowstorm after consuming opium. The drug had been ruining her life and her relationship with her husband for some time. Godfrey's brother, Dunstan, dies in the stone pit directly after he robs Silas Marner. His body and Marner's gold are discovered years later. - Theme: The Individual and Society. Description: Two societies are at the heart of Silas Marner: Lantern Yard and Raveloe. These societies are drastically opposed to each other. By the end of the novel, Lantern Yard is a large town filled with factories, busy men, strangers, and travelers. It has experienced the transformative force of the Industrial Revolution. Raveloe is rural and intimate and changes very little from generation to generation. The inhabitants of Raveloe all know each other and are resistant to new or dramatic events in their small village. The theme of society encompasses both the nature of life in these very different places and Silas Marner's own changing relationship to his neighbors in Raveloe. Marner's exclusion from Lantern Yard's society, his initial willful distance from Raveloe's society, and his eventual inclusion in this society cause his losing and regaining of faith. The loss of Marner's money and his finding of Eppie are both presented in terms of his connection with those around him. After he is robbed, Marner is more open to help from others because he feels alone and directionless. Marner is changed from a miserly, isolated weaver into a caring father as he seeks what is needed for his adopted daughter, Eppie. By caring for Eppie, Marner adjusts to Raveloe society, acquiring the customs and beliefs of his new home. The social conventions of Raveloe dictate what the town's inhabitants perceive to be right and wrong. Social events, such as the New Years' Eve dance at Squire Cass's home, occur according to tradition. Such traditions define Raveloe's unique identity and society over generations. At the end of the novel, Marner and Eppie travel to Lantern Yard. The village has transformed into a great manufacturing town, made more unsettling by the strong contrast it presents to the intimate village of Raveloe. Men on the streets of Lantern Yard are too busy to stop and assist Marner and Eppie, and both characters long to return to the familiar comforts of Raveloe. Similarly, Eppie is uninterested in Godfrey and Nancy's offer to adopt her, as this would separate her from the society of those "lowly" folks who she knows and cares for. Eppie and Marner are both happy at the end of the novel because of the connections they have formed with each other and with Raveloe society. - Theme: Fear of the Unknown. Description: An irrational fear of the unknown characterizes the attitudes of the people of Raveloe. This fear of the unknown is a key factor in Silas Marner's initial separation from the society of the village. On the first page of the book, the wary perspective of these people is described. The basis of their xenophobia is their narrow circle of acquaintances and the limited travel that would occur in any individual's lifetime. The villagers of Raveloe are used to interacting with the same circle of people because the same families have lived in the village for multiple generations. After Silas Marner is robbed, the local men discuss a peddler who carried a tinderbox like the one found by Marner near his house after the robbery. The highest element of suspicion in the peddler's appearance and character was his "foreignness," which is described by the villagers as evidence of his dishonesty. Marner also exhibits fear of the unknown. His return to Lantern Yard is marked by fear and distrust of the transition that has occurred in his old home. An anxiety with "the new" pervades the book, which ends with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, an increase in manufacturing, which was soon to rapidly change lives throughout England. - Theme: The Limits of Human Knowledge. Description: While characters in Silas Marner may influence their own future through their choices and actions, certain key events depend upon inexplicable good or bad fortune appearing in characters' lives. Such events may be attributed to chance or to the will of a divine being. Regardless of chosen explanations, these events are beyond the control and rational understanding of George Eliot's characters. While the reader is presented with the full account of Dunstan's theft and Eppie's appearance in Silas Marner's cottage, to Marner both the loss and gain are of a magical, mysterious nature. Upon Eppie's appearance on his heath, Marner assumes that her presence must be the result of a divine act because he cannot imagine an ordinary way by which this child might have appeared. Later, Marner can only explain this mysterious event in terms of an exchange from an unknown source: the money is gone to an unknown place and Eppie has arrived from an unknown place. Similarly, Marner is never able to resolve the false accusations leveled against him in Lantern Yard because the town is completely replaced by new buildings and new townsfolk when he returns there thirty years later. When Marner recounts this story to Dolly Winthrop, she describes the reasons behind events as "dark" to human perception. Dolly Winthrop's character presents the viewpoint that human knowledge is limited and omniscience belongs to higher powers. Mrs. Winthrop's acceptance of the restricted scope of human knowledge is expressed as she discusses why Silas Marner was falsely accused in his youth at Lantern Yard. She believes that the true good behind all events is known only to some divine being. The country wisdom of the men at the Rainbow, the local pub, follows a similar pattern. While the local folks are strongly influenced by superstition, cringing from fears of ghosts or other unexplained phenomena, they don't seek answers to their questions, but instead admit that there are explanations beyond human knowledge. - Climax: Eppie decides to stay with her adoptive father, Silas Marner, despite her biological father, Godfrey Cass, finally revealing his past secret marriage - Summary: In the early 1800s, when spinning wheels were still popular in every household, solitary men traveled from village to village in the rural English countryside seeking work as weavers. Rural villagers, fearful of any change in their lives, often made negative assumptions about anything unusual, or even infrequent, such as the visit of a farrier or a weaver. Any special skill or intelligence was particularly frowned upon as evidence of one's communion with evil forces, for how else was any unique ability to be gained? One such rural weaver facing the suspicion and distrust of his neighbors is Silas Marner, a lonely figure who lives on the outskirts of Raveloe, in a cottage near the Stone Pits. The Raveloe villagers perceive Marner as strange, because of both his lonely occupation and his strange condition in which he periodically falls into a trance-like state, or fit. Marner's isolation is due to his unfortunate youth in the distant town of Lantern Yard. In Lantern Yard, Marner was believed to be a young man of great promise among the local congregation who had once witnessed one of his fits during a service and believed it to be the mark of God's intervention. However, Marner's happiness is interrupted when his friend William Dane frames him as a thief. The congregation decides to draw lots to determine Marner's fate. Marner is convinced that God will demonstrate his innocence only to find that the lots declare his guilt. Having lost his faith, Marner flees Lantern Yard. For fifteen years, Marner lives in Raveloe, withdrawn from the community, but making a fair sum of money from his constant weaving work. He is fascinated by the gold he earns and begins to hoard it. He works for the gold itself and treasures a store of it under his floorboards. Every night, he takes out his gold to admire it, and the gold takes the place in his heart of any human affection. Meanwhile, in Raveloe, the older son of Squire Cass, the community's most prominent man, is dealing with a dark secret. The older son, Godfrey, has married a woman named Molly Farren of lowly birth and they have a young daughter. Their marriage is a secret from everyone, including the Squire, and only the younger son, Dunstan, knows the truth. Godfrey regrets his foolish marriage and has long loved a respectable young woman named Nancy Lammeter. Dunstan uses his knowledge to bribe Godfrey into doing whatever he wants, including giving Dunstan a sum of money Godfrey collected from one of the Squire's tenants. In order to repay this money, and to keep his secret, Godfrey allows Dunstan to take his horse, Wildfire, and sell him at the hunt. After securing a price for the horse, Dunstan rides the hunting course only to have the horse fall and die. Embarrassed by his predicament, but unconcerned for his brother's fate, Dunstan decides to walk home through the misty evening. On this walk, he passes by the Stone Pits and Silas Marner's cottage. Remembering talk of the weaver's wealth, Dunstan decides to speak with him and considers forcing him into making a loan. However, he finds the door of the cottage unlocked and the place deserted. He quickly deduces where the gold is hidden, and, taking both bags, stumbles off into the darkness. Silas Marner returns home to find his gold gone and is thrown into panic and despair. He goes to the Rainbow, the local pub, for assistance. The men gathered there help Marner, but half of them believe that the robbery must have been committed by a supernatural force, and the other half are unable to discover anything about the thief. The villagers begin to reach out to Marner in his misfortune, and one woman in particular, Dolly Winthrop, is very generous. Godfrey Cass learns of Dunstan's disappearance and Wildfire's death and decides that he must at once confess the full story to his father. However, despite his deliberations and anxiety, he backs out of this course of action and tells his father only the problem of the loaned money. Dunstan Cass does not return home. No one connects his disappearance with Marner's robbed gold. On New Years Eve, a large party is hosted at Squire Cass's home, the Red House. Nancy Lammeter and her sister, Priscilla, wear matching outfits, and while Nancy's beauty outshines her sister's, Priscilla is admired for her cooking, good sense, and generally pleasant acceptance of her own appearance and her lot in life. Nancy has determined to never marry Godfrey as he has behaved unusually to her, by ignoring her or by paying her close attention in a whimsical matter. Godfrey and Nancy dance together and Godfrey decides to get as much joy from the brief evening as possible. Unknown to Godfrey, his wife, Molly, is walking through the snowy evening to the Red House, carrying their child and bitterly intending to expose her connection to Godfrey. Molly is addicted to opium and she cannot resist taking a dose as she travels. From the cold, weariness, and the drug, Molly collapses near Silas Marner's cottage. Molly's daughter totters away from her mother and follows the light to the open door of Silas Marner's cabin. The weaver is frozen in one of his fits at the open door, and the child moves past him and falls asleep on the warm hearth. Marner returns to his senses only to see what he thinks is his gold returned to him. The gold is revealed to be the hair of the sleeping child and Marner is baffled as to how she appeared there, until he finds her dead mother in the snow. Marner rushes to Squire Cass's party seeking Dr. Kimble, and Godfrey, in great agitation, returns with the doctor and Mrs. Winthrop to see the woman, realizing that her life or death will greatly impact his future. Molly is dead, and Marner fixes upon keeping the child himself. Godfrey returns to the party realizing that the way has been cleared for him to find happiness with Nancy. Silas Marner's care for the child, who he names Eppie, reconnects him with the people and community around him. He learns much about childcare from Dolly Winthrop. He begins attending church and has Eppie baptized. He takes her on journeys and deliveries and receives kind smiles and attention from everyone. Through seeking what is best for his daughter, Marner regains trust and faith in other humans and connections throughout Raveloe. Sixteen years pass and Eppie grows into a lovely young woman. Aaron Winthrop proposes to her and the two plan to marry and to live with Silas Marner, so that Eppie need not leave her father. Godfrey and Nancy are married, though they are faced with the difficulty of having no children of their own. Godfrey has proposed adopting a child, namely Eppie, but Nancy firmly believes that to adopt a child is to disobey the fate given to one by Providence. One Sunday afternoon, a draining project in the fields causes the Stone Pits to empty of water, and, at the bottom, Dunstan Cass's body is discovered, accompanied by Marner's stolen gold. Godfrey's horror at his brother's crime causes him to finally confess all to Nancy. Nancy's reaction is one of regret that she didn't know earlier the true reason behind his interest in adopting Eppie. The pair resolves to adopt Eppie at that point and to give her more comfort and security, as well as the life of a lady. Godfrey and Nancy visit Marner and Eppie at the cottage and make their offer of adoption. Eppie refuses, saying she could never leave her father, and Godfrey, frustrated, reveals the truth of her parentage. Eppie is unimpressed by Godfrey's insistence and his treatment of Silas Marner, as well as what she supposes about his connection with her biological mother. Again, she turns away the offer of adoption, reaffirming her commitment to the father who has raised her. Godfrey feels that it must be part of his punishment for past wrongs for his daughter to dislike him. Eppie and Aaron are married and the villagers celebrate, happy to see someone like Silas Marner be so blessed after the good deed he did for a young orphaned girl. Godfrey Cass has helped expand the cottage for Marner's growing family, and Eppie has a beautiful garden as she desired. Eppie exclaims that she and her father must be the happiest people in the world.

- Genre: Naturalism - Title: Sister Carrie - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Chicago and New York City - Character: Caroline "Carrie" Meeber. Description: Carrie is the titular protagonist of the novel. She is the sister of Minnie Hanson and mistress of Drouet and, later, Hurstwood. Throughout the novel, Carrie is always chasing after happiness, be it through wealth, fame, or distinction. At the beginning of the novel, Carrie is a young woman from provincial Wisconsin who imagines that leading a cosmopolitan life will bring her happiness. After moving in with her penny-pinching sister and her husband, Sven Hanson, in Chicago, Carrie realizes that life in the city is quite dull without material wealth. After a short-lived attempt at earning her keep, she chooses to become the mistress of a wealthy man named Drouet, whom she met on the train to Chicago. While living with Drouet, Carrie encounters his friend Hurstwood, an even wealthier man, and later moves to New York with Hurstwood to be his mistress instead. In each of these cases, Carrie experiences certain qualms of conscience; nevertheless, her desire for wealth is always too great to overcome. Carrie eventually meets Ames, a well-educated and idealistic young man, and encounters for the first time the idea that wealth isn't everything and that it's better to pursue art. Soon after, she leaves Hurstwood to pursue acting, mainly for financial reasons—Hurstwood has run out of money and has no motivation to get a job—but also out of a desire to pursue distinction and self-sufficiency. As Carrie grows rich and famous, her esteem for material wealth deteriorates. By the end of the novel, she is disillusioned and will likely never achieve happiness: Carrie never finds happiness in what she has, but always yearns for something that is just beyond her reach. - Character: George W. Hurstwood. Description: Hurstwood is Carrie's lover, husband of Julia Hurstwood, and father to George Jr. and Jessica. At the beginning of the novel, Hurstwood's life is the very picture of the American dream: through hard work, he has acquired a picture-perfect family, a distinguished managerial position in a popular saloon, and a modest fortune. Nevertheless, through Hurstwood, readers learn just how hollow the American dream can be: although he has all the trappings of a successful life, Hurstwood's marriage is loveless and his family life is dreary. Initially, Hurstwood finds genuine happiness in Carrie's company, delighted by her innocence and beauty. Thus, he chooses to abandon his modest empire in Chicago—and his family—for a new life with Carrie in New York, stealing money from the saloon (though eventually returning most of it) to support them. Unfortunately, his wealth and passion for Carrie steadily decline, and his life disintegrates as he loses both his job and motivation. After Carrie leaves him, Hurstwood goes from bad to worse. The once rich, well-connected manager ultimately commits suicide as a vagrant in a 15-cent-a-day boarding house. The declining years of Hurstwood's life show just how fast the American dream can crumble. Towards the end of his life, Hurstwood mostly daydreams about his life and family back in Chicago rather that his time with Carrie in New York; although Hurstwood thought being with Carrie would bring him happiness, it seems that he was actually happier with his supposedly unbearable family. - Character: Charles H. Drouet. Description: Drouet is a traveling salesman with a cheerful personality and simple mind. He is Carrie's first lover and financial provider, and a frequent visitor of Hurstwood's saloon. When Carrie first meets Drouet, she is attracted to his modest wealth and joviality, as she was new to the city and living in Minnie and Hanson's poor, austere apartment at the time. After some hesitation, she accepts his offer to become his mistress, and she lets him shower her with material things. However, after meeting Hurstwood, Drouet's friend, Carrie notices that Drouet seems financially lacking and insensitive next to the wealthier, suave manager. Even though Carrie chooses Hurstwood, Drouet, nevertheless, holds one redeeming feature: his good nature. He never desires revenge on Carrie for her infidelity. Indeed, upon meeting Carrie again, he is eager to patch up their relationship. Unfortunately for him, Carrie has no interest in picking up where they left off. - Character: Robert Ames. Description: Ames is a well-educated, thoughtful young man that Carrie meets in New York. Although Ames is Mrs. Vance's cousin, he does not share her views on wealth and materiality: Ames deems luxury superficial and instead chooses to pursue the pleasures of art. Carrie looks up to Ames, viewing him as someone with better taste, and is eager to gain his approval. Indeed, Ames's respect for theater inspires Carrie to pursue a career as an actress. Ames is the only notable character who appears to be unaffected by the standards and glamour of the city. - Character: Minnie Hanson. Description: Carrie's sister who lives in Chicago with her husband, Sven Hanson. Minnie is a diligent housewife who subscribes to her husband's ideas of simplicity and economy. She spends her days at home doing housework, caring for her baby, and finding more ways to scrimp and save the family's meager funds. Carrie finds Minnie's life distasteful, and her unhappiness in Minnie and Hanson's household is a large reason why Carrie agrees to be Drouet's mistress. - Character: Jessica Hurstwood. Description: Hurstwood's daughter by Julia Hurstwood. Hurstwood had a tender spot for Jessica during her younger years but loses this affection as she grows vain and spoiled, turning into a woman not unlike her mother. Jessica spends most of her time scheming with her mother to marry into a wealthy family. - Character: Mrs. Vance. Description: Mr. Vance's wife. She lives across the hall from Carrie and Hurstwood in New York. She and Carrie become fast friends. Mrs. Vance is young, beautiful, and decked from head to toe in the latest fads. Carrie is jealous of Mrs. Vance's superior financial situation and, as a result, grows increasingly dissatisfied with Hurstwood's lack of ability to provide her with a life of luxury. - Character: Mr. Vance. Description: Mrs. Vance's husband. He and his wife live across the hall from Carrie and Hurstwood in New York. He is, presumably, a wealthy businessman and enjoys spending money on luxury experiences, as seen when he takes his wife, Carrie, and Ames to dine at Sherry's, an extravagant and overpriced restaurant. - Character: Lola Osborne. Description: A chorus girl in New York. Carrie becomes friends with her after joining the same theater company as a fellow chorus girl. After Carrie leaves Hurstwood, she lives with Lola for the remainder of the novel. Lola is optimistic, self-sufficient, and enjoys flirting with various young men in her social circles. - Character: The Railroad Treasurer's Daughter. Description: A girl who lives across the hall from Carrie and Drouet in Chicago. Although Carrie never directly interacts with her, the daughter's piano playing affects Carrie deeply, awakening in Carrie a desire for something more than material wealth. This vague desire later develops a more specific form under Ames's guidance. - Theme: Urban Life and Decay. Description: At its core, Sister Carrie details a young girl's transition from provincial to city life. Caroline "Carrie" Meeber moves from rural Columbia City, Wisconsin, to Chicago and then to New York. Each move shows Carrie the complexities of living in a larger, more urban sphere. With each of these transitions, Carrie is eager to adapt and conform to her new environment, and, consequently, grows increasingly sophisticated as she moves from one cosmopolitan city to another. At the same time, Carrie's growth in sophistication parallels her fall from innocence, as she goes from an enthusiastic girl from the country to, ultimately, a jaded city woman. In this way, Dreiser suggests that while urbanization may be conflated with progress, it also leads to decay—of innocence, morals, and spirit. As Carrie learns in the story, the trappings of urban life don't lead to a genuine increase in happiness. Towards the beginning of the novel, Dreiser briefly theorizes as to what dangers may befall a young woman when she moves from the countryside to the city, painting the city as a dangerous place brimming with temptation and corruption. According to Dreiser, only two things can possibly happen when a young woman leaves her home: "Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility." The idea of having a "cosmopolitan standard of virtue" seems positive; such an idea connotes diversity, sophistication, and experience. However, Dreiser frames it as something that causes people to "[become] worse." This hints that Dreiser views the city as a place that causes degeneration despite the semblance of growth. Dreiser relates that "the city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter." The language in this sentence recalls the language typically used to describe the devil. The city's devilish nature is reinforced by an idea from the previous quotation, namely, that a young girl who travels to the city will necessarily "[become] worse" unless "she falls into saving hands and become better." In this way, Dreiser portrays the city as an alluring but destructive force. It is not the civilized place that many, including Carrie, believe it to be. Upon moving from the countryside to Chicago, Carrie notices the cosmopolitan mannerisms of the people surrounding her and feels an urge to conform to city culture. However, even though she succeeds, she feels a sense of moral deficiency. Upon seeing department stores and the well-dressed women frequenting them, Carrie feels an instant desire to blend in: "A flame of envy lighted in her heart. She realised in a dim way how much the city held—wealth, fashion, ease—every adornment for women, and she longed for dress and beauty with a whole heart." Carrie's longings are reasonable and hardly morally reprehensible, considering the scanty and difficult life she leads in her sister Minnie's household. When Drouet, a financially stable salesman, asks Carrie to be his mistress, Carrie agrees, seeing it as a natural step towards gaining the "dress and beauty [she longed for] with a whole heart." Under Drouet's care, Carrie becomes "comfortably established—in the eyes of the starveling, beaten by every wind and gusty sheet of rain, she [is] safe in a halcyon harbour." In this way, Carrie becomes comparatively well off compared to people of lesser means, including Minnie and Hanson. But despite this, Carrie does not believe her life has progressed and feels "mournful misgivings" about her transformation from being an honest worker to a kept woman. Carrie has advanced in socioeconomic status yet still feels a sense of decline: "She looked into her glass and saw a prettier Carrie than she had seen before; she looked into her mind, a mirror prepared of her own and the world's opinions, and saw a worse." Becoming more cosmopolitan, Dreiser suggests, has led Carrie to moral decay. Then, after moving from Chicago to New York, Carrie sets her sights on fame—another marker of cosmopolitan success—in addition to wealth. However, even though she becomes an actress and achieves stardom, her newfound celebrity strips her of her vitality and zest for life. When Carrie and her second lover, Hurstwood, run out of money in New York, Carrie looks to the stage for a job, "consider[ing] the stage as a door through which she might enter that gilded state which she had so much craved." Carrie quickly rises from chorus girl to lead actress, "getting in the metropolitan whirl of pleasure." As a burgeoning star, she receives letters from many suitors and admirers but this "incite[s] her only to coolness and indifference." Having had her fill of cosmopolitan men, Carrie simply dismisses them with weariness: "I don't want to go [out] with these people who write to me. I know what kind they are," she says in exhaustion. Even though being famous and surrounded by adoring suitors may seem exhilarating, it leaves Carrie empty and unsatisfied. By the end of the novel, Carrie leads a thoroughly cosmopolitan life. Rich, beautiful, and famous, Carrie is the envy of all—except for herself. She has begun to see that nothing the city offers can make her happy: "Even had Hurstwood returned in his original beauty and glory, he could not now have allured her. She had learned that his world, as in her own present state, was not happiness." With this, readers realize that when Dreiser states that a "cosmopolitan standard of virtue" causes young women to "[become] worse," he does not necessarily refer to just moral degeneration; rather, it is a sort of decay of the spirit, whereby the young woman falls into a sort of despondency upon realizing the city will never bring genuine improvement to her life. Despite the glowing promises that a cosmopolitan life seems to offer, this lifestyle ultimately rings hollow. - Theme: Morality and Instinct. Description: In Sister Carrie, Dreiser objectively relates the narrative without pronouncing judgment on his characters. Carrie often internally wars over whether to follow conventional moral standards or her instinctual desires, and she almost always succumbs to the latter. Where a typical Victorian novel might render Carrie's narrative as that of a woman falling from grace and being shunned by society, Dreiser portrays Carrie as a woman who rises to the upper echelons of society as a result of instinctual decisions that might be considered morally questionable. For Dreiser, instinct is neither morally good nor bad—it simply exists and wields considerable influence over human life. And because Carrie manages to climb the ranks by following her own instincts and desires rather that adhering to society's rigid moral code, Dreiser also subverts the Victorian idea that life rewards people for morally upstanding behavior. According to the society that she lives in, Carrie's behavior is thoroughly immoral. Although she starts out with pure intentions, traveling to the city in hopes of finding honest work, she quickly feels unsatisfied with the low pay and slow grind of hard labor and instead chooses to become a kept woman. By the standards of turn-of-the-century America, such a decision stamps Carrie as a moral failure. Minnie's reaction to Carrie's departure reveals as much: suspecting that Carrie has become dependent on a man for financial support, Minnie remarks to her husband Hanson that Carrie "doesn't know what she has done […] poor Sister Carrie!" Minnie then has a nightmare in which Carrie is drifting out of her reach and feels "more inexpressibly sad than she had ever been in life." From Minnie's reaction, readers can gather that Carrie's becoming a kept woman morally reprehensible by society's standards. Later, Drouet, out of a sense of propriety, introduces Carrie to Hurstwood as his wife, further suggesting that having a mistress is not kindly looked upon by proper society. And when Carrie decides to leave Drouet for Hurstwood, she insists that Hurstwood marry her, demonstrating her understanding that being a mistress is an undesirable and shameful thing, and that respectable society does not consider extramarital relations morally acceptable. However, Dreiser does not frame Carrie's actions as either morally acceptable or morally inacceptable; rather, he frames them as the consequence of Carrie following her own instincts and desires. According to Dreiser, people are always torn between reason and instinct: "[Humans are] becoming too wise to hearken always to instincts and desires; he is still too weak to always prevail against them." Carrie is generally a follower of instinct: "In Carrie—as in how many of our worldlings do they not?—instinct and reason, desire and understanding, were at war for the mastery. She followed whither her craving led. She was as yet more drawn than she drew." Though initially torn by Drouet's offer, Carrie finds the promise of financial stability and modest material wealth is too compelling to abandon. Similarly, though unwilling to be ungrateful to Drouet, Carrie finds Hurstwood's passion and suave demeanor irresistible, and her instinct prevails. Dreiser is careful to sidestep the dichotomy of good and evil that Victorian authors often subscribe to. He never declares Carrie's actions to be evil: though society may find her behavior morally reprehensible, Dreiser never claims that this judgment is warranted. In fact, Dreiser appears understanding of the urge to follow one's instincts. At one point, he likens humans to "a wisp in the wind, moved by every breath of passion, acting now by his will and now by his instincts," suggesting that though reason is present in humans' lives, instinct renders people defenseless "wisp[s]." Considering this lack of defense, it is difficult to attribute genuine evildoing to Carrie. It is not that good and evil do not exist, but that it is irrelevant to Carrie if she can only succumb to her instinct. Even though Carrie's behavior is morally reprehensible by societal standards, Dreiser allows her to go unpunished. Indeed, in a certain sense, she is even rewarded for her moral missteps. Where the typical Victorian author might throw Carrie on the streets and leave her to die in the gutter, Dreiser allows her to climb to the height of high society, accruing wealth, fame, and hordes of adoring suitors. Carrie lives in utter luxury: "[…] she enjoyed the luxuries which money could buy. For her the doors of fine places seemed to open quite without asking […] Men sent flowers, love notes, offers of fortune. And still her dreams ran riot." In the socioeconomic sense, Carrie is rewarded. Through Carrie's socioeconomic success, Dreiser demonstrates that there is no correlation between moral failure and socioeconomic failure. Following instinct may lead people to moral failure; however, moral failure does not always lead to reward or punishment, save for perhaps the fleeting experience of a guilty conscience. To Dreiser, life is much more indiscriminate than Victorian moralists would like to admit. Through Sister Carrie, he seems to suggest that authors should write narratives that neither reward nor punish characters based on moral rectitude. Instead, writers should depict life as it is: a struggle between reason and instinct that generates an unpredictable array of outcomes. - Theme: Wealth and Class. Description: Over the course of Sister Carrie, Carrie comes to learn the complexities of wealth and class. Towards the beginning of the novel, Carrie only perceives that she, a jobless young woman, is poor, while Drouet, a businessman, is rich. After meeting an assortment of characters from different social backgrounds—including Hurstwood, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Vance—Carrie learns that the spectrum of wealth is exceedingly wide. At the same time, Ames shows Carrie that contrary to what she had thought, wealth does not necessarily define one's class—displays of wealth can, ironically, create the perception that one is of a lower class. Carrie becomes aware of wealth and class as soon as she boards the train to Chicago. However, she only perceives an oversimplified binary: rich and poor. The first relatively wealthy person Carrie meets is Drouet, on the train to the city. Carrie immediately noticed Drouet's rich dress: "His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at the time […] He was […] attractive, and whatever he had to recommend him, you may be sure was not lost upon Carrie." As a result, Carrie also becomes "conscious of an inequality" between the way she and Drouet dress: "Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton trimmings, now seemed to her shabby. She felt the worn state of her shoes." In this first encounter, Carrie distinguishes only between rich and poor: Drouet is rich while she is poor. Readers can see that Carrie's rudimentary discernment of wealth continues throughout her first days in Chicago, through her experiences while job searching. While walking in the wholesale district, Carrie notices, "with a touch at the heart, the fine ladies who elbowed and ignored her, brushing past in utter disregard of her presence, themselves eagerly enlisted in the materials which the store contained." Here, Carrie only perceives that she notices these ladies while they hold her "in utter disregard," as her plain dress makes her seem poor and obscure, undeserving of notice; she has nothing while these ladies wear the glamorous merchandise of the department stores. In this way, Carrie again sees only in terms of rich and poor. Carrie begins to notice that there are gradations in wealth when she meets Hurstwood, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Vance. Upon meeting Hurstwood, Carrie immediately notices that he is well dressed and notices the difference between Hurstwood's dress and Drouet's: "Hurstwood's shoes were of soft, black calf, polished only to a dull shine. Drouet wore patent leather, but Carrie could not help feeling that there was a distinction in favour of the soft leather, where all else was so rich." For the first time, Carrie notices a difference among the wealthy. While Drouet is rich compared to, say, Carrie's sister Minnie, Hurstwood, in his more distinguished-looking shoes, appears wealthier than Drouet. Initially, Carrie is relatively satisfied with the living quarters Drouet rents for her. Indeed, compared to her sister's apartment, the place is quite nice. However, after going on a drive to an especially rich neighborhood with Mrs. Hale, Carrie perceives the "comparative insignificance" of her rooms next to magnificent houses she saw earlier, with their "richly carved entrance-ways, where the globed and crystalled lamps shone upon panelled doors set with stained and designed panes of glass." After all, her apartment is "but three small rooms in a moderately well-furnished boarding house." Carrie begins to notice that next to the poor, there is the wealthy, but there is also the wealthier. She no longer thinks in terms of the simple distinction between rich and poor: "She was not contrasting [her rooms] now with what she had had, but what she had so recently seen," understanding that there are distinct levels of wealth among the rich. When Carrie and Hurstwood first move to New York, the two live in a building for relatively wealthy people. Here, Carrie meets Mrs. Vance, a wealthy young woman who lives in the adjacent apartment. With Mrs. Vance, Carrie experiences for herself the wealth disparity among the rich. Carrie, Mrs. Vance, Mr. Vance, and Ames dine at a glamorous restaurant called Sherry's. Previously, only the newspapers "had given [Carrie] a distinct idea of the gorgeousness and luxury of this wonderful temple of gastronomy." Experiencing Sherry's firsthand leads Carrie to remember the time "she sat with Drouet in a good restaurant in Chicago." The difference between her scant meals at her sister's home and her meal with Drouet is big, but as is the difference between her nice meal with Drouet and her extravagant meal with Mrs. Vance. This marks Carrie's full realization of the vastness of the spectrum of wealth. Carrie's socioeconomic education continues when she learns from Ames that shows of wealth and class do not share a purely positive correlation. Indeed, excessive shows of wealth can seem garish and, thus, of a lower class. Rather, what seems to elevate a person's class, at least according to Ames, is a keen appreciation for art. At one point during the dinner at Sherry's, Ames makes a remark to Carrie that takes her "by the faintest touch of surprise": "I sometimes think it is a shame for people to spend so much money this way […] they pay so much more than these things are worth. They put on so much show." Carrie, feeling that Ames's mind is "better" than hers, takes these words into consideration. She begins to learn that brute wealth is not all that makes a person distinguished, and that spending excessive money is too ostentatious and borders on vulgarity. While attending the theater along with the Vances, Ames "mentioned things in the play which [Carrie] most approved of—things which swayed her deeply." After Ames mentions that he thinks art and "the theatre a great thing," Carrie develops a desire to be on stage, not out a desire to be wealthier, but out of a desire to be an artist that "such men as he would approve of her." While Carrie's understanding of wealth and class changes as she flits from city to city and one social circle to the next, she ultimately desires not simply to be wealthier, but also of a higher class, so that she can walk in the same circles as intellectuals like Ames. - Climax: Hurstwood deceives Carrie into leaving Drouet. - Summary: Sister Carrie chronicles the ascent and downfall of Caroline "Carrie" Meeber, a young woman who moves from provincial Wisconsin to the big city. At the beginning of the novel, Carrie is penniless. She takes a train from her hometown of Columbia City, Wisconsin, to Chicago in the hopes of finding work in the city. She is to live with her sister, Minnie, and brother-in-law, Hanson. On the train, Carrie meets a friendly, flirtatious, and well-dressed traveling salesman named Drouet. The two make tentative plans to meet. However, after arriving in Chicago and seeing her sister's shabby apartment, Carrie feels ashamed that Drouet should see her in such a place and writes to him, telling him not to visit. Shortly after moving in, Hanson makes it apparent that he expects Carrie to pay rent. Consequently, Carrie spends her first few days in Chicago looking for work in the wholesale district. As she wanders around, she becomes fascinated with the merchandise in the department stores and the well-dressed women bustling about, scarcely deigning to look at her. Carrie struggles to find a business that would hire her, as she has no experience, but eventually lands a position as a manual laborer in a wholesale shoe house. Although she is initially elated at having a position, the tiresome nature of her work and low pay ultimately leave Carrie disillusioned. Minnie and Hanson's frugal way of life further exacerbates Carrie's unhappiness. During the winter, Carrie falls sick and her prolonged absence causes her to lose her job. After recovering, Carrie begins another job search, but her spirits are dampened and thoughts of not being able to pay rent and being forced to return to Wisconsin leave her in desperation. After several days of fruitless searching, Carrie encounters Drouet. Friendly as ever, the salesman treats her to a lavish meal and offers her 20 dollars to buy new clothes. Carrie initially attempts to return the money, but Drouet only proceeds to buy her an array of fashionable clothes and accessories. Drouet, moved by Carrie's prettiness and poor state, offers to financially support her. After some mental tribulation, Carrie decides to become Drouet's mistress. She leaves Minnie a simple note and moves into the living quarters that Drouet has rented for her. Drouet continues to show Carrie the various pleasures of the city. However, over time, Carrie begins to notice his faults: though he remains friendly, Drouet is noncommittal to the idea of marriage, always pushing it off to some later date, and lacks sensitivity. Around this time, Carrie makes the acquaintance of Mrs. Hale, a neighbor, who takes Carrie out driving in richer districts and speaks highly to her of the upper echelons of society, leading Carrie to desire more material wealth than Drouet can provide. Around this time, Drouet introduces Carrie to Hurstwood, his friend and the manager of a popular, high-end saloon. Carrie finds the suave and sensitive Hurstwood a much more agreeable companion than Drouet. Unbeknownst to Carrie, Hurstwood is in the midst of experiencing some private family tensions: his wife and children are vain and uncaring, and he no longer feels like the true head of his household. Thus Hurstwood feels immediately drawn to Carrie's youthful innocence and beauty. After some persuading from Hurstwood, Carrie and the manager begin an affair behind Drouet's back. Shortly after the affair begins, Drouet finds Carrie a part in a play put on by the club that he and Hurstwood attend. On the evening of the show, Carrie puts on a spectacular, if uneven, performance that moves both of her lovers: Drouet resolves to marry Carrie and Hurstwood resolves to steal her away from Drouet. The following day, Drouet learns from the chambermaid that Hurstwood has been visiting Carrie often—and that the pair are having an affair—so Drouet informs a horrified Carrie that Hurstwood is a married man. Carrie writes to Hurstwood in attempt to cut ties with him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Hurstwood learns from acquaintances that her husband has been driving around with another woman and threatens him with a divorce lawsuit. An agitated Hurstwood takes to drinking at his saloon. While closing up that night, Hurstwood discovers that the safe, which is loaded with cash, is unlocked. In his drunkenness, Hurstwood decides to steal the money in the safe and then tricks Carrie to leave town with him on a train by lying that Drouet has been injured at a faraway place. After finding out Hurstwood's deception, Carrie is indignant but eventually acquiesces under the influence of her lover's passionate pleas and promise of marriage. Hurstwood, hunted by police and his own guilt, returns the majority of what he stole, though he still keeps a small fortune for himself. The couple settle in New York City as George and Carrie Wheeler. At first, Carrie enjoys her new life—Hurstwood finds a job at a common saloon and supports her on a modest yet sufficient salary. However, Carrie soon becomes friends with a neighbor, Mrs. Vance, and realizes that her situation pales in comparison to the lavish lifestyle that her new friend leads. After a while, Hurstwood's business fails and he loses his job. He asks Carrie to live more cheaply, inflaming the seeds of dissatisfaction planted before, and the two grow distant. One night, Mr. Vance and his wife treat Carrie to a particularly lavish dinner at a luxurious restaurant. There, Carrie meets, Ames, Mrs. Vance's cousin, who suggest to her that wealth is not everything—rather, it is better to pursue art. Carrie finds Ames wiser and more admirable than Drouet and Hurstwood and is eager to gain his approval. To Carrie's dismay, Mrs. Vance soon moves away, and Carrie is left to endure a dull, lonely life with Hurstwood. Although initially eager to find another job, the aged Hurstwood soon loses motivation and simply sits at home reading the newspaper. The money he stole from the saloon in Chicago runs out, and Hurstwood asks Carrie to find a job, placating her by saying that it would only be temporary, and he would soon have another business venture. Remembering Ames's admiration for art, Carrie turns to theater and finds a job as a chorus girl, though the work is far less glamorous than she expected. Luckily, her talent allows her to quickly move up the ranks, and she soon secures a decent position within the company. Carrie meets and becomes friends with a fellow chorus girl, Lola, who asks if Carrie would be willing to move into an apartment with her as roommates. Feeling dissatisfied with Hurstwood's idleness and bound by household duties, Carrie decides to leave him and accept Lola's offer. She leaves Hurstwood a brief note, enclosing 20 dollars. Now devoting herself wholly to work, Carrie soon gains recognition and before long becomes one of the company's stars. She soon gets paid more than she can spend, and her picture appears in the papers. Carrie eventually moves into a luxurious hotel as a patron, bringing Lola with her, and receives many notes from various admirers, though she's uninterested in all of them. Meanwhile, dejected and deeply impoverished, Hurstwood takes to the streets, wandering and begging, and, unbeknownst to Carrie, eventually commits suicide in a 15-cent boarding house. Mrs. Vance, Ames, and Drouet come to visit Carrie, and though Drouet tries to win Carrie over again, she rejects his advances. The novel closes with a wildly rich and famous Carrie contemplating life, disillusioned and unhappy.

- Genre: Young Adult Novel, Magical Realism - Title: Skellig - Point of view: First Person - Setting: United Kingdom - Character: Michael. Description: Michael is the 10-year-old protagonist of Skellig. When the story opens, everything is going wrong in his life: his family has moved to a dilapidated old house, his baby sister has a life-threatening heart condition, and Mum and Dad are often too busy to give Michael much attention. On top of it all, Michael has discovered a strange and sickly creature—Skellig—in the garage of the new house. Not only does Michael feel helpless to solve what is going wrong in his life, but he also doesn't believe in himself. Michael's worries overwhelm him, and he eventually loses interest in things he used to enjoy, like playing football. And his friends Leaky and Coot only make him feel worse, not understanding why Michael is suddenly not so good at football anymore. Michael's life starts to improve when he befriends Mina, who exposes him to art, nature and magic. Mina teaches Michael to listen for the blackbird chicks in their nest, and Michael starts to notice the strength present even in the weakest creatures. In time, Michael's new friendship with Mina helps him to believe in the power of things to heal and transform. Moreover, he comes to believe in miracles: while dancing with Mina and Skellig, for instance, he experiences himself rise off the ground, and he sees wings sprout from his and Mina's back. Where Michael had felt helpless before, his belief in miracles now makes him more capable: he protects his baby sister's heart by listening to it within his own, and he believes that Skellig really did save the baby, as per Mum's vision. Michael's coming of age throughout Skellig revolves around his belief in the power of transformation and magic. - Character: Skellig ("The Creature"). Description: Skellig is the strange, sickly creature that Michael discovers in the garage of his family's new house. At first, Skellig is aloof with Michael, responding sarcastically whenever Michael asks him how he ended up in the garage or who he is. Skellig is also mysteriously il: he's in too much pain to move, and his voice is hoarse. Michael tries to convince Skellig to accept help, but initially Skellig is pessimistic and hopeless. Michael later discovers that Skellig likes Chinese Food, and so he starts to bring the creature certain dishes, along with aspirin and beer. After meeting charming and empathetic Mina, Skellig finally accepts help, letting Michael and Mina move him to an abandoned house—a safer location than the garage. Here, Skellig steadily recovers, gaining strength as he eats the dead animals that owls leave on the windowsill—behavior that leads Michael and Mina to wonder what Skellig has in common with birds. Later, Mina and Michael start to have magical experiences with Skellig, in one instance dancing with him until they elevate from the ground and sprout translucent wings from their shoulders. Eventually, Skellig makes a full recovery and is able to fly again; he thanks Michael and Mina for saving his life and flies away for good. Although Michael is sad to see Skellig go, he knows he will never forget how Skellig changed his life. Mum later relates a vision she had of Skellig visiting the hospital during Michael's baby sister's heart surgery, and Michael believes that Skellig is responsible for keeping the baby safe. - Character: Mina. Description: Mina is a girl Michael's age who lives in the house next door to Michael. She has intense black eyes that Michael feels can see straight into him. Mina's mother, Mrs. McKee, homeschools Mina because Mina's father—who has passed away—believed that school stifles a child's natural curiosity. Mina's bold nature cuts through Michael's shyness, and the two become friends. Over the course of the story, Mina teaches Michael many new things, like how to listen closely to hear the blackbirds in their nest, how to draw, how to sing, and about evolution. Mina's pride and opinions about homeschooling sometimes hurt Michael's feelings, as he values his friends at school. However, Mina mostly accepts Michael for who he is. After Mina shows Michael her secret place (a house her grandfather left to her that's full of nesting owls), Michael shares with her a secret of his own: Skellig. Together, Michael and Mina care for Skellig and nurse him back to strength. Not only does Mina's empathy and friendship help Michael cope with his fears for Skellig and the baby, but her belief in nature and magic helps Michael to see that change and healing are possible, even in something that appears weak. At the end of the story, after everything in Michael's life is finally looking up, Michael thinks he can see wings sprouting from Mina's shoulders. - Character: Mum. Description: Mum is Michael and the baby's mother and Dad's wife. She's often away at the hospital with the baby, who has a life-threatening heart condition. Her concern for the baby takes up most of her time; as a result, she can sometimes be impatient with Michael, and she often fails to meet his needs. Still, she consistently assures Michael that everything will be okay. When Michael becomes curious about the purpose of shoulder blades, it is Mum who tells Michael that shoulders are where wings used to be when people were angels—an idea that sticks with Michael. Later, Mum tells Michael that, while staying overnight at the hospital, she had a vision of Skellig entering the room and holding the baby in his arms; this story convinces Michael that Skellig and the baby's stories are interconnected. - Character: Dad. Description: Dad is Michael and the baby's father and Mum's husband. While Mum is frequently at the hospital with the baby, Dad is home making repairs to the dilapidated house that the family has just bought. Although his stress over the baby and the new house sometimes cause him to lose his temper with Michael, he is usually good-humored. When Dad catches Michael outside in the middle of the night, he assumes that Michael is sleepwalking, and he becomes worries about Michael's mental and emotional health. Dad encourages Michael to play with Mina and his friends from school. - Character: The Baby. Description: The baby—who does not receive a name until the end of Skellig—is Michael's younger sister. When the story begins, the baby has recently been diagnosed with a heart condition and has to spend a lot of time at the hospital. The baby's poor health causes Michael, Mum, and Dad much distress and helplessness; on top of this, it leaves Mum and Dad with little time or energy to look after Michael. The story reaches a climax when the baby's condition worsens to the point that she needs surgery. After the baby comes home safe and sound, Mum relates a vision she had of Skellig visiting the hospital during the baby's surgery, leading Michael to believe that Skellig kept the baby safe. In the end, the family decides to name the baby Joy. - Character: Doctor Death. Description: Doctor Death is the doctor who comes to the house to examine the baby. The doctor has a real name, but Michael calls him Doctor Death because he is pale and smokes cigarettes. Furthermore, Michael finds Doctor Death to be a bad omen rather than a comforting presence. When Dad catches Michael outside in the middle of the night and thinks he is sleepwalking, Doctor Death examines Michael and prescribes playing football with friends. - Character: Leaky. Description: Leaky is one of Michael's best friends from school. He often appears alongside Coot. Leaky and Coot like to play football and roughhouse, and they don't know how to address all the difficulties Michael is going through at home. After Michael meets Mina and starts to become interested in art and imagination, Leaky and Coot tease and diminish him. Toward the end of the story, Leaky admits to missing Michael, and he invites him to open up about all the things he's been going through. - Character: Ernie Myers. Description: Ernie Myers is the old man who lived and died in the house Michael's family moves into at the beginning of the story, and his lingering presence in the house haunts Michael. Skellig picked up many of his tastes—such as his liking for brown ale and certain Chinese dishes—from Ernie. - Theme: Weakness, Strength, and Hardship. Description: The characters in Skellig often find unexpected strength in moments of infirmity and frailty. When Michael finds Skellig (an ailing creature hidden in his new garage), the creature's resignation to his own weakness and decrepitude plays into Michael's own feelings of hopelessness and weakness. As the novel progresses, however, Michael begins to find surprising forms of strength when he least expects it, as he comes to see that standing strong in the face of hardship is a form of strength in and of itself. After his sister undergoes heart surgery, for instance, the nurse comments that the baby has a heart of fire. Similarly, Skellig grows to be strong and self-sufficient after Michael persists in caring for him. Notably, such strengths are found at the core of infirmity: the very thing that caused the baby's weakness—her frail heart—is ultimately the cause of her strength (at least according to the nurse). To that end, Michael finds his own strength at the heart of helplessness, too. In despairing over his inability to prevent hardship, Michael devotes himself to caring for Skellig, and this persistence saves Skellig's life. In turn, Michael sees that he's not as helpless as he might have thought. By persisting in the face of frailty, sickness, and hopelessness, then, Michael discovers that great strength often emerges from the very setbacks and challenges that initially lead to feelings of helplessness. - Theme: Curiosity, Nature, and Transformation. Description: Throughout Skellig, nature increasingly becomes an outlet for Michael. When Michael meets Mina—the homeschooled girl who lives next door—she teaches him to look more closely at the things around him: to listen for the blackbird chicks in their nest and to notice the colors in the blackbird's feathers. In short, Mina teaches Michael that nature is not always as it appears. At first, curiosity into nature provides Michael a distraction from his hardships, diverting his attention from his sister's dire health condition, the near-death state of the creature Michael finds in his garage, and the instability of his family's recent move. Soon, however, nature's possibilities become suggestive of the possibility for change in Michael's own life. At school and through Mina, Michael learns about evolution. Learning that the bones of animals once evolved to allow for flight, Michael starts to wonder if evolution is still underway, and he ponders what humans might evolve to be capable of in the future. Meanwhile, Michael's observation of Skellig's strange bumpy shoulders, like folded up wings, leads him to contemplate an evolutionary connection between human shoulder blades and wings. In this way, through the abundance of possibility evidenced by nature, Michael comes to believe in the human capacity for profound transformation. This gives him reason to hope that his sister and Skellig might one day become healthy and strong. Therefore, Michael's curiosity and his keen attention to how the natural world works helps him see the potential for transformation all around him. And this, in turn, gives him a way to move through the world a bit more optimistically, as he acknowledges the inherent possibility that things can always change for the better. - Theme: Love, Empathy, and Caregiving. Description: Throughout Skellig, Michael learns that love and empathy are essential to care. When Michael discovers a mysterious, sickly creature named Skellig lurking in his garage, he feels a strong desire to nurse the creature back to health. However, Michael has no idea how to cure Skellig, and his attempts to help only alleviate Skellig's pain temporarily. It is not until Michael meets Mina that he learns how to heal Skellig. Mina has a uniquely empathetic nature and a fierce love of creatures, protecting the chicks and owl chicks from harm at all costs. Mina demonstrates her empathy for all creatures in the safe haven she has established for the owls that nest in her attic. Not only does Mina protect the owls' nests from being disturbed, but she anticipates and respects the owls' needs in a way that Michael had struggled to with Skellig. Moreover, Mina wholeheartedly believes in Skellig's existence; this validates Michael, who before meeting Mina worried that Skellig was a figment of his imagination. Mina's knowledge and empathy instantly make Michael feel both supported and capable in his effort to help Skellig. Together, Mina and Michael move Skellig to a safer location and tend to him regularly. Skellig's rehabilitation under their joint care changes Michael's opinion about what qualifies as care. Before showing Skellig to Mina, Michael sought recommendations of medicines from Dr. MacNabola at his baby sister's hospital. Afterward, however, Michael asserts to Dr. MacNabola that love is also a cure for sickness. In turn, caring for Skellig with Mina teaches Michael to help his baby sister. When the baby is in the hospital undergoing heart surgery, Michael, in a sense, protects her heart by imagining that he's listening to it within his own. Through Mina's empathy, Michael discovers his own capacity for love and empathy, and the inimitable power of love and empathy to restore a being to health. - Theme: Imagination, Magic, and Faith. Description: Reality and dreams intermingle throughout David Almond's Skellig. When Michael first discovers Skellig—the sickly creature lurking in his family's garage—he cannot believe what he has found and thinks he must be dreaming. Michael is thrilled when his new friend Mina can also see Skellig, because this assures him that he is not dreaming; however, dreams and reality continue to blend as Michael and Mina interact with Skellig. Often, it is unclear whether they are dreaming when they sneak out at night to see Skellig. Even if they are imagined excursions, Michael's actual dreams are suggestive of something true in reality. For instance, he once dreams that his baby sister is being tended by the blackbird in a nest, a dream that suggests there is a similarity between the baby and the blackbird chicks whom Michael and Mina watch struggling to fly. Then, one night when Mina and Michael take their dreamlike visit to Skellig, they have a transformative experience: when they hold hands and dance with Skellig, they elevate off the ground and translucent wings sprout from their shoulders. After this experience, Michael can't help but often see wings on both his sister's and Mina's backs. The relationship between dream and reality is really questioned when Michael's two worlds—the real world of his sick baby sister and the dreamlike world of Skellig—are brought together: Michael's Mum has a vision of Skellig entering the hospital and holding the baby in his arms and thereby healing her. Whether imagination or reality, these experiences have a real effect on Michael's faith that the world is full of magic. The close blending of imagination and reality throughout Skellig suggests that there is no such thing as a distinction between them: rather, imagination operates so strongly upon reality that the world becomes magical. - Climax: Michael and Mina dance with Skellig and wings appear on their shoulders. - Summary: Ten-year-old Michael and his family move to a dilapidated house. On top of feeling uprooted and haunted by thoughts of the house's previous owner, Ernie Myers, Michael's baby sister has a life-threatening heart condition, and so a scary doctor whom Michael calls Doctor Death visits her often. While his mum and dad are preoccupied fixing the house and taking the baby to the hospital, Michael is left to entertain and comfort himself. One day, Michael discovers a strange, sickly creature in the collapsing garage. The creature does not explain who he is or what ails him, but he allows Michael to feed him Chinese Food and aspirin. The creature's poor health adds to Michael's worries, but Michael doesn't tell anyone, as he's afraid the creature is a figment of his imagination. Michael goes to school, but he's too worried to play football during recess with his friends. Meanwhile, he meets and befriends Mina, a girl his age who lives next door and whose mother, Mrs. McKee, homeschools her. Mina introduces Michael to art, poetry, evolution, and the remarkable nature of birds. Through Mina, Michael becomes more curious and imaginative; he wonders about the similarity he has noticed between the sickly creature's shoulder blades and wings. The baby's health worsens, and Mum takes her to stay at the hospital. Michael has a fit of nervous trembling and can't attend school. One day while Dad and Michael visit the baby in the hospital, Michael asks Doctor MacNabola how to care for a person with arthritis (which he speculates the creature has). Later, Mina shows Michael a secret place: an old house her grandfather left to her where owls are nesting in the attic. Emboldened by Mina's trust in him, Michael decides to show Mina the creature in the garage. Michael and Mina decide to move the creature to the owl house where he will be safer. After they make him comfortable there, the creature says his name is Skellig. Michael and Mina sneak out the next few nights to visit Skellig, who has since crawled from the first to the third floor of the house. A few days later, Michael's friends Leaky and Coot come over to play. They tease Michael for hanging out with Mina. Hurt by this, Mina fights with Michael. That night, however, Michael and Mina meet as usual, signaling each other with their owl call. After making up, they go to see Skellig, who is in the attic eating dead animals the owls left on the windowsill. Skellig, Michael, and Mina dance. Then shadowy wings sprout from their shoulders, and they rise off the ground. Dad catches Michael out one night and fears that he is sleepwalking. At Doctor Death's suggestion, Michael goes back to school. A few days later, the baby goes in for heart surgery. While Dad and Mum attend the surgery, Michael goes to Mina's; he focuses on listening to the baby's heartbeat within his own heartbeat, hoping to protect the baby from afar. Michael and Mina go to see Skellig, but they can't find him, and then Michael passes out. When he comes to, he fears that he can't feel the baby's heartbeat any longer and laments that Skellig is gone. Miraculously, the baby's surgery goes well, and Michael joins Mum and Dad at the hospital. Mum tells Michael the story of a vision she had the night before the surgery: a strange, dirty creature came to the room and picked up the baby; at first, Mum was scared, but then she knew everything would be alright. Later that night, Michael and Mina go back to the owl house. Skellig flies through the window. He thanks Michael and Mina for saving his life and then flies away again, this time for good. The baby continues to recover from surgery, and Michael's football skills improve at school. Dad has builders come to knock down the garage, and he and Michael make plans for the new spacious yard. Mum comes home with the baby. Mina comes over and meets the baby. She gifts the family a painting she made of Skellig. After Mina leaves (Michael swearing he can see the shadowy wings on her shoulders) the family decide to name the baby Joy.

- Genre: Postmodern novel, comic novel, science fiction - Title: Slaughterhouse-Five - Point of view: Third-person omniscient, with frequent intrusions by the author/narrator, Kurt Vonnegut - Setting: Germany during World War II; Ilium, New York, in the 1950s and 1960s - Character: Billy Pilgrim. Description: The novel's protagonist, Billy Pilgrim is an optometrist and former chaplain's assistant in the US Army who has "come unstuck in time," meaning he can travel between moments in his life. Billy was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge and shipped from a POW camp to Dresden, where he survived the Allied firebombing by hiding in Slaughterhouse-Five. After the war Billy married Valencia, a well-off daughter of an optometrist, went into business, became successful, and had two children, Barbara and Robert. After a plane crash that nearly kills him and results indirectly in the death of his wife as she travels to see him in the hospital, Pilgrim announces he was once captured by aliens, the Tralfamadorians, and taught their philosophy of life, death, and time. A vision of a barbershop quartet at an anniversary party prompts further reminiscences about Dresden. - Character: Kurt Vonnegut. Description: The author of the novel, Kurt Vonnegut was also taken as a POW during the Battle of the Bulge and survived the firebombing of Dresden in Slaughterhouse-Five. In the opening and closing chapters of the novel Vonnegut details his struggle in writing the novel, and his hope that he might make sense of the bombing's carnage—and produce a "big hit." At several points in the story Vonnegut inserts himself into the narrative, claiming that he was there, a witness to the events of the novel. - Character: Bernard O'Hare. Description: Vonnegut's friend from World War II, who also hid in the slaughterhouse during the bombing, O'Hare finds it difficult to recall memories of Dresden. He travels back to Germany with Vonnegut in the late 1960s in order to retrace his steps, and the two enjoy themselves as they tour a partially-reconstructed Dresden. - Character: Roland Weary. Description: An antisocial, bullying young soldier from Pittsburgh, Roland Weary survives a German attack on his unit and stumbles on two scouts, with whom he imagines he has teamed to form "The Three Musketeers." Weary also finds Billy and drags him along behind enemy lines, but the scouts are killed by Germans and Weary and Billy are captured. Weary is given ill-fitting shoes by the Germans and later dies of gangrene in his feet. He vows revenge against Billy, whom he blames for his death. - Character: Tralfamadorians. Description: Small aliens with one hand and an eye in the palm, the Tralfamadorians, from the planet Tralfamadore, abduct Billy after the war and hold him captive many millions of miles from earth. They keep Billy in a zoo and observe his daily activities and interactions with Montana Wildhack, a movie star who is also abducted. The Tralfamadorians see the world in four dimensions, and to them all moments in time—past, present, and future—exist simultaneously. This informs the Tralfamadorian philosophy of life, death, war, and fate. - Character: Edgar Derby. Description: A middle-aged English teacher from Indianapolis, Edgar Derby is a passionate, upright, and courageous soldier who cares for Billy when he falls ill in the German POW camp. Derby later defends American ideals to Howard W. Campbell, Jr., and is executed for stealing a teapot amid the rubble of Dresden. - Character: Kilgore Trout. Description: An obscure science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout writes novels full of good ideas and bad writing, and is in some sense a caricature of Kurt Vonnegut, whose early writings were exercises in science fiction. Trout's novels, with their reference to aliens, Jesus and the cross, and alternate futures, make an impression on Eliot Rosewater and Billy Pilgrim, and many of their details become details of Billy's life and Vonnegut's narrative. - Character: Bertram C. Rumfoord. Description: A 70-year-old Harvard professor and the official Air Force Historian, Bertram C. Rumfoord recuperates from a skiing injury in the bed next to Billy, who has recently been in his plane crash. Rumfoord at first does not believe that Billy was present at the firebombing of Dresden, and only grudgingly acknowledges the horrors Billy must have seen. - Character: Wild Bob. Description: A colonel in the Army who is taken prisoner and placed in a railcar, Wild Bob has double pneumonia and eventually dies of his illness. He tells all to ask for him in Cody, Wyoming, where they might meet again; this becomes a refrain repeated in the novel, by Vonnegut and others. - Theme: War and Death. Description: Slaughterhouse-Five is an attempt by the author, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., to come to terms with the firebombing of Dresden, which killed over 100,000 Germans, mostly civilians, and destroyed one of Europe's most beautiful cities. He does this through description of his own war experience, and through the narrative of Billy Pilgrim, a fictional character whose path occasionally intersects Vonnegut's. Different characters experience war and death in different ways. Vonnegut, in Chapter One, reconnects with an old war friend (Bernard O'Hare) whose wife Mary is angry with Vonnegut. She fears he will portray war as a contest between heroes and not what it truly is, the slaughter of young men. Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, is a chaplain's assistant sent to the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 and eventually taken prisoner by the Germans. The slaughterhouse where animals are killed in Dresden ends up protecting Billy and others, but it is revealed that many other shelters have collapsed and killed those inside. Later Billy's wife, Valencia, is killed by carbon monoxide inhalation while driving to see her husband, who has nearly died in a plane crash in Vermont. Edgar Derby, a middle-aged schoolteacher who takes care of Billy in the POW camp, is executed for stealing a teapot at the close of the war. Paul Lazzaro, claiming to avenge Weary's death (which Weary blames on Pilgrim), vows to kill Pilgrim in the future. But the novel is not nihilistic in its representations of war and violence. In fact it presents two philosophies of death that eventually intertwine. The first, represented by the phrase "So it goes," indicates that death is a part of life—something that cannot be helped. The second is the Tralfamadorian view of life "in four dimensions," the fourth being time. Because Tralfamadorians see all moments of life (and of literature) as existing at the same time, one is capable of moving between moments of life and death—capable of becoming "unstuck in time." This motivates the novel's acceptance of death as part of life. - Theme: Time, Time-travel, and Free Will. Description: The first sentence of Chapter Two illustrates the importance of time in the novel: "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." Vonnegut attempts one form of time-travel, memory, in his conversations with O'Hare about the war. But they find their memories are incomplete. The novel's second option, then, is actual travel through time. Billy Pilgrim can do this because he has learned of Tralfamadorian time, where the past, present, and future exist at once.Time in the novel is subjective, or determined by those experiencing it. For example, the British POWs in Germany, captured at the beginning of the war, have established a "timeless" prison camp. For them, the monotony of daily life has insulated them from history and the war "outside." On the other hand, Valencia and Barbara, Billy's daughter, serve to mark "normal," lived time. Barbara perceives life as linear and is angered by Billy's claims of a four-dimensional universe.Billy's life of hospitalizations and violence present a kind of eternal recurrence: the same events occur again and again. Thus Tralfamadorian time becomes the novel's time. Events are not presented as a direct, linear narrative but are instead jumbled, recounted partially and filled in later. Tralfamadorian novels, of which Vonnegut's might be an imitation, are to be read "all at once," with "no beginning, no middle, no end." Because all time can be seen simultaneously, all events have already happened. Thus "free will" in the novel does not exist. As the Tralfamadorians say, "There is no why." Events that will take place in the future are the same as events taking place now, and as Billy learns, it is up to human beings to enjoy life's most pleasurable moments. - Theme: Science Fiction and Aliens. Description: Vonnegut uses science fiction and aliens as means of knitting together events in Billy Pilgrim's life, and of enabling philosophical discussions about the nature of time and death. Vonnegut was a science fiction writer early in his career, and Kilgore Trout, a character in the novel who is an obscure and crude writer of wildly imaginative science fiction, might be seen as a caricature of Vonnegut. The author comments that Rosewater and Pilgrim, ravaged by war, need the "fresh start" of science fiction in order to build a new world amidst the rubble of the old. Similarly, the Tralfamadorian aliens become a part of Pilgrim's life and enable him to see his own mortality in a new and, ultimately, optimistic way.Science fiction is also contrasted with the other "fictions" that characters in the novel use to live in the face of extreme violence. The Englishmen embrace Cinderella, play-acting, and fantasy in their POW camp, insulated from the horrors of war. Valencia's ideas of domestic bliss are punctured by Billy's plane crash and her own death by asphyxiation. The crucifixion of Jesus is reinterpreted by Kilgore Trout in order to rebuild the Christian faith on a more "persuasive" story. And the larger topic of Vietnam is described, by Vonnegut, as an exercise in political fantasy: an unjust war justified by those in power. In this sense, science fiction enables important truths about death, life, and time to be revealed, while the "real life" presented to Billy Pilgrim often involves fantasy, delusion, and fiction. - Theme: Money and Success. Description: The novel contains a meditation on the nature of success. Vonnegut and O'Hare are both wealthy in the late 1960s, during the novel's composition. Vonnegut never expected to have any money, yet he hopes his "Dresden novel" will be a big hit. Kilgore Trout, then, is Vonnegut's foil, since his books are barely read by the public. But Trout's ideas, which begin as fictions, are central to the philosophical investigations of the novel. Pilgrim is not a good soldier. No one wants to lie near him on the railcar; he appears even to be a bad sleeper. But in later life he becomes a successful optometrist and marries Valencia, daughter of another successful optometrist. After his experiences with the Tralfamadorians it is shown, briefly, that Billy has become a famous speaker on the nature of time and death. Billy's son Robert is a "success," a soldier in the Green Berets in Vietnam, though he has become, in essence, a well-trained killer. Neither Vonnegut nor Pilgrim valorizes this kind of success.These investigations of money and success lead to the larger issues of the war, and intertwine with the other themes. Was the firebombing of Dresden a "success"? In a small sense it was, since of course the unarmed citizens could mount no defense. But in a larger sense, the Allies have succeeded only in proving the futility and barbarity of war. Similarly, despite Pilgrim's successes after the war, he appears to find purpose in life only after meeting with the Tralfamadorians. They show him the true nature of time, the inconsequence of his activities on earth, and the importance of enjoying the pleasant moments in the life he has led. - Theme: Witness and Truth. Description: The novel returns, again and again, to a theme of witness and truth. Vonnegut announces in Chapter One that he is trying to write an account of the Dresden firebombing. Vonnegut evokes the disruption and strangeness of war by disturbing the linear narrative of the novel itself, and by increasing the "unreal" nature of the story. The author later follows Billy's associations of the barbershop quartet to track his memories about the war. Thus the tools of fiction, paradoxically, become the tools of presenting truth. Many characters question Pilgrim's alien abduction, but the truths revealed by the Tralfamadorians bear on the rest of the novel. Billy's experience on Tralfamadore, in a prison where is displayed as a zoo animal, similarly mixes truth and fiction. He is "mated" to a movie star and placed in a terrarium. They have a real child on Tralfamadore, and though he has been kidnapped only for a short while, time on Tralfamadore contains a whole experience of living with, and growing to love, Montana Wildhack.The novel also makes small references to the Holocaust. What we know about the Holocaust is the result of immense, decades-long acts of witness. Vonnegut's discussion of the Dresden firebombing similarly wishes to dramatize their horrors in order that future violence might be prevented. The end of the novel starkly captures this spirit. The final scene, presented partially as Billy's memory, is also a memory of Vonnegut's: burying the bodies of Dresden in mass graves, and when those graves are full, burning the bodies with flamethrowers. It is an image Vonnegut has taken the whole novel to give us—a report of what events "really were" on the ground in Dresden. And though it is a shocking scene, it is a successful act of reporting and bearing witness. Vonnegut has finally given us access to his experience in Dresden. - Climax: Billy Pilgrim and his fellow POWs gather underneath Slaughterhouse-Five during the Allied attack on Dresden and survive the firebombing - Summary: Kurt Vonnegut wishes to write a novel about the firebombing of Dresden, which he witnessed as an American POW and survived by hiding in a slaughterhouse. Vonnegut contacts his friend Bernard O'Hare, but they cannot remember much about the bombing. They later visit Dresden and walk through the reconstructed city together.Vonnegut begins the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who has "come unstuck in time" and who was also captured in the Battle of the Bulge, taken prisoner by the Germans, and kept in a slaughterhouse during the Dresden bombings. Two narratives emerge: the first details Billy's meeting of Roland Weary, an unruly fellow soldier, their farcical capture by the Germans, transfer via railcar to a POW camp, and later transfer to Dresden, a city that appears safe from Allied bombing because it has no war industry. Along the way, Weary, who has sustained foot injuries from poor shoes given him by the Germans, dies and blames Billy. Paul Lazzaro, another soldier, overhears Weary calling for vengeance against Billy and vows to kill Billy. Billy also meets Edgar Derby, a kind, middle-aged soldier who cares for him in the POW camp and is later executed for stealing a teapot from the rubble of Dresden.In the second narrative, Billy travels through time, from his war experience to his youth to his post-war life and alien abduction. He has trained as an optometrist, married the daughter of another wealthy optometrist, and become successful in business. He and Valencia, his wife, have two children, Robert and Barbara. But in the 1960s Billy nearly dies in a plane crash in Vermont, and Valencia, coming to his aid, dies of carbon monoxide poisoning from a car wreck. After his plane crash, Billy announces he was abducted by Tralfamadorians, small, one-eyed, one-handed aliens with a peculiar philosophy of time. Tralfamadorians claim to see all events, past, present, and future, at the same time. This "four-dimensional" view of the universe informs their feelings on life, death, and fate, and Billy begins espousing these ideas publically. He later becomes a famed orator in the 1970s, and is killed by a henchman dispatched by Lazzaro, just as Lazzaro vowed in the war.While convalescing during a mental breakdown in his last year of optometry school just after the war, Billy meets Eliot Rosewater, a fellow patient, who introduces him to the science fiction of Kilgore Trout. These books present many radical ideas about the future, time, Jesus, and history, some of which are repeated by the Tralfamadorians and by Vonnegut himself. During another hospital stay, this time after his plane crash, Billy meets Rumfoord, an historian and professor who is putting together a book on World War II but has trouble believing that Billy was really present during the firebombing of Dresden.A barbershop quartet at Billy's 18th wedding anniversary party reminds him of the four German soldiers who stayed with the Americans in Slaughterhouse-Five. Shortly after the war ends Billy is shipped back to America. But before he goes Billy and other POWs take turns digging out and later incinerating bodies in the rubble, including the body of Edgar Derby. Vonnegut and O'Hare were also present, and in relating this story Vonnegut has managed to recall details from the war and satisfy the novel's initial aim: to describe the horrors of Dresden's bombings and of war generally.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Sleepers - Point of view: First Person - Setting: An unnamed small town in Australia - Character: Ray. Description: Ray, the protagonist of the story, is a 35-year-old single man with no children who works part-time at a warehouse. He was previously in a romantic relationship with Sharon and seems to still have feelings for her even though she broke up with him. Like many of the town's other residents, he complains about the lack of jobs provided by the construction project but makes little effort to find work. Similarly, he considers both his current job at the warehouse and a previous one as a road flagger to be meaningless work, in which there is no point in doing more than the bare minimum that the job requires. This lack of ambition is a defining characteristic of his personality and was a major point of tension between him and Sharon during their relationship. Although they lived together, she was the breadwinner in the relationship and paid the rent. She badgered him with requests such as landscaping their lawn, which he rebuffed, not believing it to be worth the effort. After Sharon broke up with him for his lack of motivation and forced him to move out, Ray moved into a shed on a friend's property. This arrangement was intended to be temporary, but he never took further initiative to find independent housing and has lived there since. To cope with his pitiful situation, he drinks heavily, and his health has deteriorated as a result. In the capitalistic environment of the story, Ray's lack of drive causes him to be rejected and outcompeted, both as a romantic partner and as a worker. After dreaming of Sharon with her new partner, Ray finally resolves to make an effort to steal the sleepers, initially hoping to surprise Sharon with a landscaped yard but eventually deciding to keep them for building his own garden. However, his actions ultimately come too late, both for improving his life and for repairing his relationship with Sharon. He is caught in the act by the police and is presumably arrested. - Character: Sharon. Description: Ray's ex-girlfriend. Unlike Ray, Sharon has moved on to a new relationship. She still lives at the same house that she and Ray once shared, implying she has a stable job that allows her to pay the rent. In contrast to Ray, Sharon displays ambition that borders on disdain for those who cannot meet her expectations—a position Ray frequently found himself in. During their relationship, she nagged him to landscape their lawn and dismissed a road flagger's job as easy, knowing that Ray had previously worked as one. Ray's apathy and lack of motivation is what spurred Sharon to break up with Ray, but he clearly still harbors feelings for her. - Character: Steve. Description: One of Ray's friends and Sean's father. Although Steve is presumably a similar age as Ray, he has a family and owns a home. And though his job is not mentioned, readers can reasonably assume that he is financially stable enough to raise a child and afford a house. Meanwhile, Ray is single and living in a shed on a friend's property, with a part-time job that could not support either a family or a home. The story largely defines people's identities based on their job titles, possessions, and relationships, so Steve—having a house, a son, a wife, friends to invite to a barbeque, and a yard lined with sleepers—serves as a point of contrast to Ray, who has none of these things. Without a meaningful home, job, or relationship, Ray feels that he is "just Ray" and doesn't have a more meaningful identity. - Character: Sean. Description: Steve's teenage son. Ray encounters him at Steve's barbecue but cannot recall his name until Steve uses it, even though they've met before and have even gone on a fishing trip together. Ray attempts to make up for this blunder by helping Sean spot Mars through his telescope like a father figure, but Steve correctly points out that the sky is not dark enough yet—once again, Ray can't seem to do anything right. And when he fails to find Mars in the telescope, Ray realizes that he is too old to become a father now at 35. Steve's house and sleeper-lined yard, Sean is a reminder for Ray that Steve has achieved much more than him in life. - Character: Vince. Description: One of Ray's friends. Vince serves as the primary voice of complaints about the outsourcing of the construction jobs. Vince and Ray discuss the project at the pub and on the ride home, where Vince convinces Ray that the sleepers would be easy to steal and perfect for landscaping—but Vince is all talk and no action. Like Ray, Vince turns to substance abuse to handle the boredom of unemployment, although he smokes marijuana instead of drinking. Vince and Frank are both representative of the unemployed, resentful portion of the town's residents. - Character: Frank. Description: One of Ray's friends who frequents the pub. Having been unemployed for 14 months, Frank angrily complains about how the contractors behind the construction intend to sell the sleepers for profit instead of leaving them for locals. He expresses frustration at the capitalistic way of doing business, bidding on contracts and squeezing every last cent of profit out of the project. - Character: Bernie. Description: One of Ray's coworkers at the warehouse. Although they work in the same position, Bernie is enthusiastic about acquiring sleepers to complete a pool area in his backyard, suggesting he puts more effort into his life than Ray despite having similarly scant financial resources. He provides Ray with advice on how to successfully steal sleepers, but Ray reacts with characteristic indifference. - Character: The Road Worker. Description: The road worker is the flagger Ray encounters at the beginning of the story, who is only described by his construction uniform of sunglasses, fluorescent vest, and hard hat. His face is expressionless, and his eyes are hidden behind the sunglasses as he waves Ray past, emphasizing that he is an anonymous, generic figure that symbolizes the expendable nature of labor in a capitalist economy where workers are interchangeable and identified only by their jobs. Having worked in the same position before, Ray understands how meaningless and generic the work is. He knows that it makes no difference whether a local like him is doing the job or this unknown laborer from elsewhere. - Theme: Capitalism and Competition. Description: The rise of capitalism in contemporary times has brought about rapid changes to the lives of many as it spreads to previously untouched economies. At the beginning of Cate Kennedy's "Sleepers," the story's protagonist, Ray, is stuck in traffic because of a construction project that has thrown his otherwise slow and quiet town into turmoil. Many of the town's residents are struggling with unemployment, so they are furious that the project was planned and executed by outside organizations that did not hire any local labor. To make matters worse, the construction company is upgrading the railroad tracks, but instead of letting the local residents have the discarded railroad sleepers (wooden beams that support the rails on the tracks), the construction company plans to sell the discard wood for profit. This further infuriates the town's residents, and they begin to steal them for landscaping and firewood. The rush to obtain the sleepers is a reaction to the disruption caused by capitalist forces, as the locals are desperate to get something—if not work, then resources—out of the project. In her depiction of Ray's community, Kennedy criticizes the effects of capitalism on small towns but suggests that it is inevitable that people will fall into this system—it is ultimately too powerful to fight. Inequality of wealth and opportunity in the town is created and magnified by capitalism's effects. At the pub, Frank, one of the town's unemployed residents, calls the contractors of the construction project "bastards" out of frustration over being unemployed for the past 14 months despite the number of jobs the project necessitates. Frank angrily explains that "[the company] will be selling [the sleepers] on to some other subcontractor, any money. That's why they've got that barrier round them. They tender for these jobs and they screw the last cent out of 'em. That's the way they do business." The contractors are concerned with maximizing the project's profit, which includes selling the old sleepers even though they are only a byproduct of the actual work. Additionally, the construction begins at 6 a.m. each morning, prioritizing the work over the needs of the locals, whose morning commutes are disrupted and delayed. This causes people in town to feel justified in stealing the sleepers for themselves. Ray's coworker Bernie, for instance, is proud of "grabbing a ute-load late at night to finish off his pool area." The story also suggests that capitalism can trap people in meaningless work and apathetic mindsets. The road worker in the beginning of story, with his "mirrored and shadowed gaze" borne by an "expressionless face," is representative of all the other bored, miserable laborers under the construction project, and more broadly suggests that capitalist ventures inevitably breed this sort of dull, unfulfilling work. As Ray drives past, the two of them acknowledge their apathy towards "pretending to be doing a job" while actually feeling "bored shitless" by the work. Again, the road worker's lack of identity and individuality makes him a generic, interchangeable figure representing not only all of the workers on the construction project, but also all of the labor in a capitalist economy. Ray considers his own part-time warehouse position a dead-end job where his manager never supervises the employees and won't care if everyone is late to work. Like the road worker, Ray displays apathy toward his job, under a supervisor who does the same. Ray's dissatisfaction in his job, which essentially situates him as a cog in a capitalist machine, bleeds over into all aspects of his life. He is unfulfilled personally, professionally, and relationally. This despair culminates in Ray following the lead of the others in town and stealing sleepers for himself, with the hopes of creating a vegetable garden outside of his shed. The night of the theft, he considers asking his friend Vince for help with the sleepers but realizes his friend is likely "three bongs down" and asleep in front of the TV, engaging in substance abuse and cheap entertainment to numb his own boredom. As Ray loads the sleepers into his truck under cover of night, he finally feels good "to be working up a sweat" and clear his "fogged head" through this physical task, engaging in meaningful work. Though done in the spirit of self-interest, stealing the sleepers is not capitalistic work since the locals do so as an act of resistance against the system, take only what they will use, and are not selling them for profit. Despite the undesirable consequences capitalism brings about, Kennedy suggests that the town's resistance to the project is ultimately an empty gesture and that the lure of the capitalist system is ultimately too powerful for the town's residents to resist. Locals are stealing the sleepers out of "a sudden professed desire to landscape," implying that they are only taking the wood for the sake of taking it—not out of any genuine want or need. As well, the way in which locals repurpose these sleepers for purely aesthetic landscaping projects arguably only reaffirms capitalistic values of wealth accumulation rather than subverting them. At the construction site, the sleepers are left relatively unprotected by a "token" perimeter of flags, implying they are not too valuable to the contractors. Stealing them—the residents' big act of protest—is only "harmless, face-saving looting" that makes them feel empowered but does not impact the project. Furthermore, the project was "dropped onto the town from above" and involves "thousands of dollars being spent every minute," suggesting that the political and financial support behind it is too strong for the town to oppose on a practical level. Ray's situation and his sense that his life has gone to waste are representative of the negative effects of capitalism. Workers can be outcompeted and become alienated from their labor, and experience downstream impact to their social and romantic lives. The competition for the sleepers, in which already successful characters succeeded, also shows capitalism's tendency to amplify inequality. Kennedy ends the story ironically, suggesting that meaningful labor is forbidden in a capitalist economy. - Theme: Hopelessness and Apathy. Description: Throughout "Sleepers," Ray is portrayed as lethargic and apathetic, watching lazily from the sidelines as he observes other characters take initiative to improve their lives. Although he is only employed part-time, Ray does not look for other work. He also acknowledges his poor health, recognizing that he should see a doctor and cut back on drinking, yet drinks to excess, anyway, to the point that he falls asleep in his truck. When he goes to Steve's party and considers socializing, he decides it is too difficult and chooses to just sit by himself and eat. Throughout the story, Ray's resignation and acceptance of his circumstances and personal weaknesses traps him, further discouraging him from trying to make any positive changes. Through Ray's actions and inner monologue, Kennedy suggests that hopelessness and apathy are self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling. Ray is apathetic when other characters propose activities and encourage him to improve his life. When they were still together, Ray's now-ex-girlfriend, Sharon, would badger Ray to landscape their garden, presumably to make their rented house feel more like home. However, he would always reject the idea because he saw no point in putting any effort in while they were "just renting." Sharon walked away in frustration during one particular argument about landscaping, but Ray was only capable of "standing there, stranded," emphasizing that he is paralyzed by his apathy. Not only does Ray have no interest in putting effort into the garden, he also puts no effort into their relationship. Sharon eventually breaks up with him, tired of being the only one who has "tried" to make things work while Ray would only wait to see "what she was going to want next." In the present, Ray reacts with indifference when Bernie encourages him to join the many locals who have begun to steal discarded sleepers, wooden beams from the construction site at the railroad tracks in town. Although he learns of successful thefts, receives advice from Bernie, and knows the wood will be useful for landscaping or firewood, Ray expresses no desire to take a few sleepers for himself. With this characteristic indifference, Ray watches on as other people spruce up their gardens with stolen sleepers. Much of Ray's apathy manifests as deferral and procrastination, as he always waits for better circumstances to occur instead of taking action to make his circumstances better. Toward the beginning of the story, Ray experiences a flashback to sitting in traffic with Sharon in the passenger seat. Her "mouth [was in] a sour twist," and she was "Having a dig at him" with her condescension towards construction workers. Even though Ray's flashback suggests that he was unhappy in the relationship, he did nothing about it at the time. Instead, as he looked at Sharon, "Something creep[ed] over him like a slow anaesthetic," suggesting that the relationship was becoming toxic and he was simply letting it happen. Ray's reluctance to landscape the garden despite Sharon's repeated requests also indicates his tendency to defer tasks and find excuses. By not wanting to put any effort into a home they are "just renting," Ray implies he will only do so once they own a home, but this aspiration unlikely to come to fruition while he is only working a part-time job. In the present, Ray chooses to keep eating and drinking at Steve's barbecue despite experiencing worrying physical symptoms that warn him to improve his lifestyle, such as a squeezing feeling in his chest that could potentially indicate a heart problem or unhealthy levels of stress and anxiety. He resolves to make a doctor's appointment yet decides he can "ring tomorrow" while indulging in the meantime. However, Ray seems unlikely to follow through on his resolution and very well might say the same thing to himself over and over, perpetually postponing the doctor's appointment. Having let his situation deteriorate this far, Ray feels hopeless and uses his depressing circumstances to further justify not taking action, ending up trapped. Even though he is still not over Sharon and wants to "let word get back to [her] that he was out there, available," Ray hovers around the fringes at Steve's barbecue and does not strike up conversation with any of the women there. He remarks to himself that they "knew all about him anyway"—that he is not a desirable romantic partner because of his employment and housing status—so he does not even try to make connections with any of them. He also thinks to himself that it is "probably all for the best" that is not on the path to raising children, since he feels too old and unhealthy to do so. He attempts to act as a parental figure for Sean, Steve's son, suggesting that he still wants to be a father, but in the end accepts his inability to be one. Ray's apathy paralyzes him in any situation where he finds himself faced with a challenge, leading him to wait for things to go from "shit to good" when they are unlikely to do so without effort on his part. Once his poor situation solidifies, he resigns himself to remaining there and makes no acts of protest or rebellion until he decides to steal some sleepers in order to make a garden of his own. When he is caught in the act, he does not run and views it as a confirmation of his inability to rise above his circumstances. Like Ray, the town itself seems incapable of resisting a bad situation happening to it, in the form of the construction project "they all had [forgotten about]" that disrupts traffic without providing jobs. Even the residents' collective effort to steal sleepers has virtually no impact on the project's momentum, and it seems improbable that things will ultimately improve for the town. - Theme: Identity. Description: The characters in "Sleepers" are primarily defined in relation to their family, housing, and employment status. Kennedy introduces locals like Bernie, Ray's coworker at the warehouse, and Frank, who has been unemployed for 14 months, both of whom are defined narrowly by their work. In their small, insular town, there is no need for longer descriptions to differentiate people—even last names are not necessary and do not appear in the story. Ray is a single man who works part-time at a warehouse and lives in a shed, but beyond that the reader learns very little about him. Ultimately, Ray can only conceive of himself as "just Ray," an outcast with no ties to a family, no house, and no meaningful job in the community. With this bleak portrayal of her protagonist, Kennedy highlights the dangers in reducing identities to material attributes. When commenting on his romantic ineligibility, Ray summarizes himself as "a 35-year-old man who lived in a Colorbond shed at a mate's place, not exactly unemployed but a part-time storeman"—in other words, he pins his identity down to just his relationships, housing, and employment, all of which are lacking from his life. He has no family or partner, although he still clings to the idea of resurrecting his relationship with Sharon, his ex-girlfriend. The closest relations he has seem to be his drinking buddies Frank and Vince, who are similarly unemployed, and the unnamed "mate" whose property Ray lives on. His job is a part-time, dead-end position at a warehouse, and his house is a prefabricated steel shed, with little in the way of insulation to maintain warmth in the winter. Although he has kept his job, Ray relied entirely on Sharon for family and housing. Their breakup left him single and homeless, with only a pitiful substitute for housing and no romantic prospects. As a result, he can only anchor his sense of self to memories and what he lost. Ray seeks to reestablish the relationship to gain those back, but even that would not free him from depending on Sharon for his sense of self. In contrast, Steve seems "full of focus and purpose" with a house he owns and a teenage son to raise. Without these material attributes, Ray can only view himself as "just Ray." In his dream of driving up to Sharon's house, his unconscious mind imagines her dismissing him as "just Ray" to her new partner. At the end of the story, when he is caught stealing sleepers, Ray also imagines the police identifying him as "just Ray," someone who is an easy arrest and the perfect choice for a scapegoat to deter others from stealing in the future. Because he does not have connections to a family, home, or meaningful job, there are no consequences to the town for sacrificing him to appease the contractors and set an example for everyone else. In the world of the story, Ray is miserable without an identity he can take pride in. However, even the characters who are presented as successful and happy, such as Sharon and Steve, do not escape being defined in relation to material attributes. With these depictions of both haves and have-nots, Kennedy suggests that it might be inevitable to base a sense of self on external factors such as a job or a family, and that pursuing these goals is just a fact of life, not an approach guaranteed to bring either happiness or unhappiness. - Climax: Ray attempts to steal some of the railroad sleepers but is caught by the police. - Summary: Ray, a 35-year-old single man, is stuck in traffic while driving to his part-time warehouse job in a small Australian town. The delays are caused by a large construction project run by outsourced contractors to dig up railroad tracks, but Ray notes that nobody local was hired. He encounters a road flagger directing traffic and remembers being mocked for doing the same job by his ex-girlfriend Sharon, who later broke up with him and forced him to move out of their shared apartment. After work, Ray goes to the pub, where locals are discussing piles of discarded railroad sleepers generated by the construction. Among others, Vince expresses anger at the roped-off sleepers, which the residents believe should be shared with the community for landscaping or firewood instead of being sold for further profit. In another memory of Sharon, Ray refused to landscape the garden at their apartment, much to her frustration. Stealing sleepers is a common activity in the town over the next two weeks. One of Ray's warehouse coworkers boasts of taking a truckload home at night to finish his pool, and a trio of residents become infamous for impersonating construction workers to do the same in broad daylight. Steve holds a barbecue that Ray attends, where the backyard is also lined with freshly stolen sleepers. Ray describes a tightness in his chest while realizing he is the only single man at the gathering. He retreats to eat and drink alone while thinking about seeing a second car in Sharon's driveway, indicating that she has moved on to another partner. Ray decides not to strike up conversation with any of the women at the barbecue, revealing that he lives in a prefabricated steel shed on a friend's property, where he has been since moving out of Sharon's apartment. At the barbeque, Steve's teenage son, Sean, calls out for Ray to look through his telescope, but Ray is unable to remember Sean's name or see anything clearly in the lens. Blaming his poor health, Ray thinks that it's probably a good thing that he doesn't have children of his own. He attempts to drive home but has drunkenly fallen asleep in his car, dreaming of driving past Sharon's home again only to see her with a new partner through the window. Ray drives to the construction site instead of his home, planning to steal some sleepers. At first, he justifies this as an attempt to win back Sharon, but after arriving at the site, he changes his mind and decides to take the sleepers for himself. As Ray dons gloves and starts loading sleepers into the back of his truck, he feels healthy and energetic. He begins to think of landscaping a garden and stoking a fire in the winter with the sleepers. However, a police car pulls up unnoticed by him and shines its headlights at him, catching him in the act. Ray feels his chest grow tight once more as he turns around, knowing that the police are going to arrest him to make an example of him in the hopes of deterring other residents from stealing the sleepers. He waits for the police to arrive and resigns himself to being a scapegoat for the town.