Datasets:

emozilla

/

story-summary-training-mistral-9k-1_4_24

like 2

- Genre: Middle-Grade Novel - Title: Boy Overboard - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Afghanistan and a boat en route to Australia - Character: Jamal. Description: - Character: Bibi. Description: - Character: Mom. Description: - Character: Dad. Description: - Character: Omar/The Boy. Description: - Character: Rashida/The Girl. Description: - Character: Andrew. Description: - Character: Yusuf. Description: - Character: Yusuf's Grandfather. Description: - Character: The Sailor in Yellow Overalls. Description: - Theme: Immigration, Family, and Home. Description: - Theme: Identity and Ancestry. Description: - Theme: Hope. Description: - Theme: Gender and Discrimination. Description: - Climax: Jamal discovers that his parents aren't actually dead. - Summary: A young Afghan boy named Jamal is playing football (soccer) with local boys in his village. Trouble arises, however, when his sister Bibi tries to join them. Her hair is uncovered, and she is not accompanied by an adult, both of which are illegal in Afghanistan. She starts playing anyway and kicks the ball into the mine-laden desert. Jamal follows her, rescuing her and a ball from an active tank—and later, with his friend Yusuf's help, an inactive landmine. When Jamal and Bibi get home, their dad reveals that their illegal school for girls has been discovered and that they need to flee the country. Jamal and Bibi spend the night in Yusuf's grandfather's house, where Jamal dedicates himself to becoming a professional football player. He believes this will make it so his family doesn't have to leave Afghanistan. He sneaks out to practice football on the street and Bibi follows him. Suddenly, their house explodes. Their dad finds them, and Jamal realizes the government was responsible for the attack. They say goodbye to Yusuf and his grandfather and Yusuf gifts Jamal his football. Jamal's dad drives his taxi to an empty building outside the city and their leaves to pick up their mom from the football stadium. Jamal misunderstands the situation and decides to follow him. At the stadium, Jamal and Bibi see soldiers dragging women onto the field, and they realize one of them is their mom. The soldiers aim their guns at the women, but a taxi pulls into the stadium, throwing burning oil at the soldiers. Their mom gets in the taxi, and Jamal and Bibi realize their dad is the driver. The family reunites at the empty building and Jamal helps his dad paint the taxi to disguise it. Jamal's dad sells the taxi, buying them illegal passage out of the country—the family plans to ultimately move to Australia. A smuggler carries the family out of Afghanistan and to a refugee camp, where Jamal meets a boy (later revealed to be Omar) and hears from a Red Cross worker how great Australia is. Jamal and his family board a plane and Jamal realizes that not only are the men flying the plane smugglers, but that his mother sold her ancestor's candlestick to buy their tickets. No one in his family seems happy, and Jamal feels their connection to the past has been broken. Jamal and his family wait at the docks to board a boat to Australia. Boarding the boats is chaotic—after fighting with Omar and trying to rescue the football from the water, Jamal, Bibi, and Omar end up on a different ship than Jamal's parents. Life on the boat is difficult, with little food and rampant seasickness. However, Jamal and Bibi befriend a girl named Rashida after saving her from a fire. She shares her food with them, including flour, which Jamal uses to bake bread. This lifts everyone's spirits, but not for long. Midway through the trip, the smugglers stop the boat and demand more money. Thankfully, Rashida gives the smugglers an expensive watch that's worth enough to pay for all of them—including Omar. Bibi falls ill on her birthday and Jamal, Rashida, and Omar cheer her up with stories of Australia. Rashida reveals that she is originally from Australia, but her family moved to Afghanistan to take care of her grandparents. When the country stopped the family from returning home, her parents only had enough money to buy her way back. A group of pirates board the boat, and Jamal disguises Bibi and Rashida as boys to protect them from being kidnapped. This ploy is successful, but when the pirates leave, the smugglers join them, abandoning everyone on the boat. The next day, a giant wave crashes onto the boat and it begins to sink. Jamal and Bibi help bail water, but they don't make much progress. Thankfully, an Australian warship arrives and saves everyone on the boat. Andrew, an Australian serviceman, reassures Jamal and Bibi and gives them food. However, when the warship docks, Jamal and Bibi are upset to find that their parents are not there. Andrew explains that they haven't found the other boat but promises they will, and Jamal trusts him. The soldiers give the refugees tents to sleep in, and Jamal and Bibi play football against the servicemen while they wait for their parents to arrive. Soon, however, news reaches them that the other boat sank. Jamal tries to get a rescue boat launched, but none of the soldiers speak his language. Jamal also learns that the island they're on is not actually Australia. Jamal and Bibi are devastated by their parents' death. Rashida brings them food and sits with them, but they don't want to talk or eat. Jamal realizes just how alone he and Bibi are, and when Bibi falls asleep, he goes outside to plan for their future. Omar joins him, sharing details of his own painful past. Jamal realizes that people are more complicated than they might originally seem. Bibi wakes Jamal excitedly the next morning, telling him the three survivors from the boat have arrived. Jamal follows her to the dock and is shocked to see his parents. Their family embraces, and their parents explain that the warship didn't see them at first. They hug for a long time, and then Jamal and Bibi introduce Rashida and Omar to their parents. Jamal talks with Andrew in his office, who apologizes for not telling him earlier about the island not being Australia. He explains sadly that Australia's government no longer wants people from Afghanistan moving there, and Jamal consoles him. He tells Andrew that the secret of football is not giving up. Looking out the window at his family walking on the beach, Jamal feels happy and loved. Even though they're not in Australia, to Jamal, it feels like they are.

- Genre: Dystopian fiction - Title: Brave New World - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: London and New Mexico, under the fictional World State government - Character: Bernard Marx. Description: Bernard is an Alpha citizen who, by some mischance, is physically much smaller than Alphas are supposed to be. Bernard's small stature has given him an inferiority complex. As a result, he feels like an outsider to World State society. This outsider status and individuality allows Bernard both to recognize and criticize the flaws of the World State—and, as a result, other citizens suspect him for his avoidance of universally-accepted things like promiscuous sex and the soma drug that the rest of the population uses to numb themselves. But Bernard's inferiority complex also makes him defensive, resentful, jealous, cowardly, and boastful. Bernard dates Lenina Crowne at the beginning of the novel, taking her to the Savage Reservation in New Mexico. Bernard enjoys feeling like a rebellious outsider until it costs him something—the Director threatens to send him to Iceland for being too unorthodox. In response, he gets revenge by bringing John (the Savage) back to London and exposing the Director as John's father, which causes the Director to resign from his position in shame. Bernard also enjoys the popularity he gains by association with John, but when he learns that people are just humoring him, he soon grows resentful. He envies John's friendship with his closest friend, Helmholtz; when John stages a brief rebellion in the hospital, Bernard can't decide whether to support the two, and when arrested, he makes an embarrassing plea for clemency. By the time Bernard and Helmholtz are sent to an island together by Mustapha Mond, though, Bernard appears to have been humbled. - Character: John (the Savage). Description: John is born to a woman from the World State, Linda, who gets stranded in a Savage Reservation in New Mexico. His father is the Director. He spends the first 20 years of his life on the Reservation, and though the Reservation natives treat him as an outsider, he still picks up their religious and moral values (like the importance of self-denial and a belief in monogamous marriage), and develops a love of Shakespeare, whom he quotes frequently. John is eager to see the World State, since his mother describes it as a paradise, but once there, he thinks that World State culture is immoral, infantilizing, and degrading to humanity. He is attracted to Lenina, but he is repulsed by the promiscuous sexuality she's been conditioned to practice, and he turns on her when she tries to seduce him, repeatedly hurling the Shakespearean insult "strumpet." After Linda dies from soma abuse, John stages a brief rebellion in the hospital vestibule. When he's arrested, he debates Mustapha Mond at length about the importance of truth versus happiness and stability, arguing that he'd rather be unhappy and free than living under World State slavery. Accordingly, he soon moves into a remote lighthouse, where he can be alone and self-sufficient, practicing austerities like whipping himself if he becomes too cheerful or daydreams of Lenina. When the World State media and curious spectators start flocking to the lighthouse, including Lenina, he ends up sparking a massive orgy. The next day, he hangs himself in shame. - Character: Helmholtz Watson. Description: Helmholtz is the opposite of his close friend, Bernard: he is the perfect embodiment of an Alpha citizen. But whereas Bernard's imperfections make him an individual, Helmholtz's perfection makes him individual. Everything in life comes so easily to Helmholtz—from women, to physical prowess, to professional achievement—that he comes to believe there is more to life. In looking for ways to challenge himself, he realizes the limitations that the World State imposes on its citizens. In this sense, he is an intellectual nonconformist in spite of his physical conformity with State ideals. Unlike Bernard, who often seems to be compensating for his insecurities, Helmholtz is generous, kind, and fun-loving. An Emotional Engineer, he also begins composing his own verses and gets in trouble with the State as a result. He enthusiastically supports John's short-lived rebellion and welcomes exile to an island, where he can focus on writing. - Character: Lenina Crowne. Description: Lenina is a beautiful Beta woman who works as a nurse in the Hatchery. Her closest friend there is Fanny. Lenina is slightly unconventional in that she has a tendency to date only one man at a time, but otherwise she never challenges her conditioning. In fact, she's disturbed by unorthodox behaviors like avoidance of sex, crowds, or soma, all of which she vastly enjoys. Over the course of the novel, she dates Henry Foster and Bernard Marx, but she ultimately becomes obsessed with John because he refuses to sleep with her. She finds him at the lighthouse at the end of the story, but he attacks her with cries of "strumpet!" before she can speak to him. - Character: Mustapha Mond. Description: Mond is one of the 10 World Controllers of the World State. Mond was once a physicist who loved truth and science so much that he carried out secret experiments. He was then given the choice of becoming either a World Controller or going to an island where he could continue his scientific pursuits, and Mond chose to become a World Controller. Though he has read Shakespeare and values truth, while debating John he holds up happiness and stability as more important than, and finally mutually exclusive of, love or truth. - Character: Linda. Description: Linda is a Beta-minus woman who accompanied the Director on a date to the Savage Reservation, accidentally got separated from him, and later gave birth to a child, John. She was so embarrassed at becoming pregnant and giving birth that she didn't try to leave the Reservation and spent 20 years there. Her World State belief in promiscuous sex and drug-taking make her and John outcasts in the Reservation. Once she returns to the World State with Bernard's help, she drugs herself into a permanent soma-stupor until she dies. - Character: The Director (Thomas). Description: The Director is a pedantic, charmless, pretentious, and thoroughly conventional Alpha male who runs the Central London Hatchery. He takes exception to Bernard's unconventional behavior and prepares to punish Bernard. However, Bernard discovers and reveals that the Director abandoned Linda in the Reservation and unknowingly fathered a child: John. This revelation ruins the director, and protects Bernard. - Theme: Dystopia and Totalitarianism. Description: Brave New World envisions a future totalitarian society in which individual liberty has been usurped by an all-powerful state. But while other dystopian novels envision totalitarian measures being carried out through tactics like surveillance and torture, Brave New World, in contrast, argues that the most powerful totalitarian state would be one that doesn't suppress and frighten its citizens, but instead manages to convince its citizens to love their slavery. As the Director of London's Central Hatchery explains to a student tour group, "That is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny." In keeping with its name, then, the Hatchery produces and both chemically and psychologically conditions humans to enjoy the roles predestined for them. But even as the Director touts "happiness," it's clear that such a condition is enforced; people's destinies are "inescapable," and the State's chief concern is to make people believe their destinies are what they really want. Totalitarianism is exemplified by the hive-like atmosphere of the London hatchery: "Buzz, buzz! the hive was humming, busily, joyfully. Blithe was the singing of the young girls over their test-tubes, the Predestinators whistled as they worked, and in the Decanting Room what glorious jokes were cracked above the empty bottles!" This description both dehumanizes the Hatchery workers (they're more like insects, behaving instinctively, than like variable human beings) and demonstrates the chilling effectiveness of conditioning; the workers aren't robotic cogs, but joyful, singing, joking people, with at least the outward appearance of personality. This veneer of personality, if anything, makes the World State more unsettling than the environment of a more outwardly coercive dystopia. In order to maintain a brainwashed, compliant society, the authority figures of the World State ruthlessly punish people who display any sign of nonconformity. Into this environment steps the grim-faced Director, preparing to publicly reprimand Bernard for his unorthodox behaviors: "Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual—and, after all, what is an individual? […] We can make a new one with the greatest ease—as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself." The cost of conditioning citizens stands out sharply against the guise of utopia that the leaders of the State try to uphold. When a personality emerges that threatens "orthodoxy," it must be eliminated. Still, the Director knows that by publicly reprimanding and exiling Bernard, he won't frighten the Hatchery workers—he will actually reinforce their happy complacency by expelling the disconcerting anomaly. This method of enforcing conformity is so effective that those who do not fall in line are pushed to the edge of society or, in some cases, eliminated entirely. This ostracization of those who are different is how the Savage becomes a societal curiosity—and casualty—in the end. Society cannot make room for a figure like the Savage or comprehend him, because he refuses to be happy on Society's terms. In fact, he chooses solitude, emotion, self-denial, and suffering instead of shallow happiness, conformity, and mindless indulgence. So when fleets of helicopters descend on his remote hermitage, their reaction to the Savage is predictable, a logical extension of the World State mindset. They see his self-flagellation as a mere entertainment "stunt," and when they witness the pain he inflicts on Lenina and himself, they respond as they've been conditioned to do, with an "orgy-porgy" Solidarity dance. In other words, the Savage's suffering must be neutralized by being absorbed into the pleasure-obsessed, conformist mindset the State has so painstakingly created. In the novel, totalitarianism wins, and the only hope offered is that, somewhere, perhaps there are more "anomalies" like Bernard, Helmholtz, or the Savage who might survive. - Theme: Technology and Control. Description: Brave New World raises the terrifying prospect that advances in the sciences of biology and psychology could be transformed by a totalitarian government into technologies that will change the way that human beings think and act. Once this happens, the novel suggests, the totalitarian government will cease to allow the pursuit of actual science, and the truth that science reveals will be restricted and controlled. Huxley argues that the more human beings harness technology to guarantee human happiness, the more they will end up enslaved by technology, to the neglect of higher human aspirations. World State technology is undoubtedly effective in creating complacent citizens. During a student tour, the Director of the London Hatchery explains the process of hypnopaedia, when recordings asserting World State morality are played for sleeping children to subconsciously absorb: "'Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too—all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!' The Director almost shouted in his triumph." Such a process is chilling, because the whispered suggestions actually give shape to a developing child's thought processes and his or her perception of the world. Yet, at the same time, such technological control is inherently reductive. That is, the use of conditioning like hypnopaedia falsely suggests that a human being can be reduced to the ethical maxims he or she is force-fed. While such conditioning is undeniably effective for keeping the World State running, the presence of figures like Bernard and Helmholtz—both of whom resist aspects of their conditioning and long for something more than what the World State says is permissible—shows that it's not foolproof. There is more to humanity that the mind's ability to "judge and desire and decide," and World State technology is unable to control that "something more" as effectively as it forms children's likes and dislikes. Because technology is limited in this way, the World State must control its advancement. When Mustapha Mond explains to the Savage that even technological and scientific advances are suppressed for social reasons, he says, "Every change is a menace to stability. That's another reason why we're so chary of applying new inventions. Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy." In other words, technological changes risk undoing the World State's carefully conditioned stability and making people recognize and resist their enslavement. He goes on to explain that, "We can't allow science to undo its own good work. That's why we so carefully limit the scope of its researches—that's why I almost got to an island. We don't allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment." Mond doesn't question the value of science; he used to be an avid researcher himself. Because he knows science's potential, though, he makes sure its ambitions remain limited, so that the World State's achievement of stability can stand unchallenged. In "Our Ford's" time, Mond muses, "they seemed to have imagined that [science] could be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. […] Mass production demanded the shift [from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness]. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't." Mond's reminiscence on 20th-century technological progress is one of the most prophetic notes in the novel. Huxley suggests that his readers should not assume that such progress can last forever, especially when it is allowed to usurp concerns about aspects of the human experience besides shallow happiness, like truth and beauty. The more human beings use technology to secure convenient happiness, the further enslaved they will become by it. - Theme: The Cost of Happiness. Description: If someone were given the choice between getting what they wanted and not getting what they wanted, they'd probably choose the first option every time. This satisfaction of desire, the person would believe, would make them happy. In order to maintain its stability, the World State in Brave New World ensures that all its citizens get exactly what they want all the time. This universal "happiness" is achieved in three ways. First, psychological conditioning is used to ensure that each citizen is not only suited to their job and role, but actually prefers that role to anything else. Second, through the promotion of promiscuous sex as virtuous and the elimination of families or any long-term relationship, the government ensures that no one will ever face intense and unreciprocated emotional or sexual desire. And third, whatever sadness slips through the cracks can be brushed away by using soma, a drug with no side-effects that gives the user a pleasant high and makes all worries dissolve away. All three methods are successful: in the World State, almost everybody really does seem to be happy all the time. But through Bernard, Helmholtz, the Savage, and even Mustapha Mond, Brave New World poses the question: at what cost does this happiness come? What gets lost when every one of an individual's desires is immediately met? The novel's answer is that the satisfaction of every desire creates a superficial and infantile happiness that creates stability by eliminating deep thought, new ideas, and strong passions. Without these things, humanity loses the possibility of the more significant fulfillments provided by the pursuit of truth in art and science, or the pursuit of love and understanding with another person. Brave New World thus argues that guaranteed happiness and stability are fool's gold, making adults into infants who do not care about truth or progress. When Mustapha Mond gives students a facility tour, he portrays the distant past as a repugnant place where people were entangled in stifling relationships and constant suffering. The pre-modern world "didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the temptations and the lonely remorse, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with all the uncertainties and the poverty—they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly […] how could they be stable?" This sums up the way citizens have been conditioned to think about the meaning of life: the feelings brought about by close human bonds and struggles have no redeeming value. When stability is equated with happiness, anything that undermines stability—many of the very things that had once been seen as enriching and character-forming—must be rejected as harmful. This idealization of comfort and stability as society's highest virtues effectively trickles down to the rest of the population, leaving them completely unequipped to think critically or even conceive of taking risks for the sake of their own freedom. On their date, Bernard tries talking about happiness with Lenina: "[W]hat would it be like if […] I were free—not enslaved by my conditioning […] Yes, 'Everybody's happy nowadays.' We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else's way." But perfectly conditioned Lenina is distressed by Bernard's words and his strange fondness for activities like viewing the sea in solitude, and she lacks the capacity to make sense of his ponderings. This conversation illustrates the disconnect between someone who questions the World State definition of happiness and someone who's never considered anything else. To someone like Lenina, who clings to an infantile happiness, the freedom to "be happy in some other way" is merely frightening nonsense. When unhappiness is excluded from life, things like deep connection, grief, and remorse are absent, too. When his mother, Linda, dies, the Savage's outcry at her bedside scandalizes the nurse: "Should she […] try to bring him back to a sense of decency? Remind him of where he was? Of what fatal mischief he might do to these poor innocents? Undoing all their wholesome death-conditioning with this disgusting outcry—as though death were something terrible, as though any one mattered as much as all that!" The idea that death is terrible, and that individual human lives have value, would unsettle the children's conditioning by opening the possibility of deep relationships, which are inevitably complicated and unstable. Not having been conditioned, the Savage threatens the World State view of human life with his uninhibited grief. One of the ironies of Brave New World is that the Savage, the figure that Society objectifies as uncivilized because of his lack of conditioning, is actually more advanced than they are. The Savage's frequent tears, his Shakespearean outbursts, and finally his self-imposed exile from Society show him to be completely different from everyone else. These differences are rooted in his strong emotions about the world around him and his personal desire for goodness—things that inevitably entail a willingness to bear unhappiness if it means being free. The World State conception of stability and happiness are totally at odds with these characteristics, and the Savage's tragic death suggests that there is no place for a free-thinking individual in such a world. - Theme: Industrialism and Consumption. Description: Brave New World criticizes the industrial economic systems of the era in which it was written by imagining those systems pushed to their logical extremes. The industrial revolution that began in the second half of the 19th century and sped up through the 20th allowed for the production of massive quantities of new goods. But there's no value in producing new goods that no one wants, so the willingness of the masses to consume these new goods was crucial to economic growth and prosperity. It became an economic imperative, then, that people always want new things, because if people were satisfied with what they had, they wouldn't consume enough to keep the wheels of industrial society turning. Consequently, the World State in Brave New World has made consumption one of its centerpieces. All World State citizens are conditioned to consume. Hypnopaedic teachings condition them to throw out worn clothes instead of mending them, to prefer complicated sports with lots of mechanical parts to simple games, and to refrain from any activity, like reading, that doesn't involve the payment of money for goods. By portraying the World State economy in this way, Huxley argues that, according to the logic of industrialism, people end up serving their economy, rather than the other way around. Industrialism and consumption are built into the very structure of the World State—in fact, it is literally how people are made. The novel opens with an elaborate narrative of how human beings are mass-produced: By the time Bokanovsky's Process is applied, a single fertilized egg "was in a fair way to becoming anything from eight to ninety-six embryos—a prodigious improvement, you will agree, on nature." The Director goes on to exult, "'Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!' […] The principle of mass production at last applied to biology." Quite literally, citizens are produced in order to keep the machinery of the World State economy humming. Once lots of human beings have been produced, the problem becomes how to make them serve the economy in their everyday lives. "The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection for primroses and landscapes. […] 'We condition the masses to hate the country,' concluded the Director. 'But simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport.'" Elaborate steps are taken to circumvent what's "natural," to such a degree that those who prefer simpler pastimes are looked upon with suspicion. "Mere affection" and enjoyment of natural things do nothing to stimulate the economy. So it's necessary to go to great lengths to make people like and pursue things that will sustain the economy instead. Under this system, human beings become pawns of consumerism and industry—people exist to serve the economy, rather than vice versa. The Director, watching a group of children play Centrifugal Bumble-puppy, says "strange to think that even in Our Ford's day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two […] Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption." The Director's bafflement shows that, under State conditioning, people are far removed from simple pleasures; enjoyment is no longer seen as an end in itself, but something that must be manipulated to serve "higher," economic ends in order to be justified. Later, the Savage, an outsider to this industrialized society, talks with Mustapha Mond about consumerism. Mond readily admits that "Mass production demanded the shift [from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness]. Universal happiness keeps the wheels [of industry] steadily turning; truth and beauty can't." By conditioning people to seek happiness in the consumption of goods, the State ensures its own economic survival. It's relatively easy to get citizens to buy in to such a life. Mond explains that after the Nine Years' War, "People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. […] One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for." World State citizens have accepted the price that their "happiness" must be enjoyed on World State terms. While they're conditioned not to be aware of it, their happiness serves the industrialized State—it doesn't truly serve them. - Theme: Individuality. Description: All of World State society can be described as an effort to eliminate the individual from society. That doesn't mean the elimination of all people—it means the conditioning of those people so that they don't really think of themselves as individuals. Individualism, which encompasses an awareness of one's own opinions and abilities, the joys of personal relationship, and the accompanying sorrows of loneliness and isolation, is suppressed as aggressively as possible by the World State in order to maintain stability. But these safeguards aren't enough for all the citizens of the World State, and they become aware of their individuality, which suggests that human individuality is irrepressible. But through the various triumphs and downfalls of his characters, Huxley argues that even when individuality resists external pressures, it won't thrive in a society that views individuals as dispensable and dangerous. Both the Director and Mustapha Mond admit that human individuality is dispensable within their system. The difference is that Mond sees the reality and even the value of individuality, but willingly sacrifices it for the sake of an orderly State. When the Director reprimands Bernard for unorthodoxy, he does so on the grounds that individuality undermines State stability: "We can make a new [individual] with the greatest ease […] Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself." Yet perhaps more sinister is Mond's admission that, while he had the option of being sent to an island where he could pursue "unorthodox" science to his heart's content, he ultimately preferred to be made a World Controller, in charge of determining the happiness of society at large. He recognizes that individuality is a real, valuable thing, yet he prefers suppressing people's individuality (while having the privilege to privately indulge his own by reading Shakespeare) in order to keep people comfortable, happy, and complacent. While both men see individuality as a threat to be controlled, neither denies the existence of the individual as such. Both Bernard and his friend Helmholtz are examples of citizens wrestling with their awareness of their individuality. The difference between the two is that, for Bernard, individuality is something rather forced upon him by his un-Alpha-like physical traits, and he responds to these by resisting aspects of the World State's consumerist and hedonistic culture. Helmholtz, meanwhile, is truly superior in his abilities and realizes that the constraints of Society won't let him fully exercise those abilities: "A mental excess had produced in Helmholtz Watson effects very similar to those which, in Bernard Marx, were the result of a physical defect […] That which had made Helmholtz so uncomfortably aware of being himself and all alone was too much ability. What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals." Despite his prowess at Escalator Squash, his hundreds of lovers, and his social standing, Helmholtz "was interested in something else. But in what?" Helmholtz makes a useful contrast with Bernard, because Helmholtz is such a standout example of "excellence" by World State standards. By those standards, Helmholtz should be a model of happiness, but instead, he's restless with the realization that his success might actually be a form of mediocrity. Exploring his potential for more involves acknowledging his individuality, and the inability of the State to facilitate that individuality. Bernard, on the other hand, accepts his individuality uneasily; he experiences it as something that sets him uncomfortably at odds with his society, and when he has the chance to toss it aside for the sake of acceptance, he does so. After his association with John wins him popularity, "Success went fizzily to Bernard's head, and in the process completely reconciled him […] to a world which, up till then, he had found very unsatisfactory. In so far as it recognized him as important, the order of things was good." He continues to "parade a carping unorthodoxy" as long as people pay at least superficial attention to him, but it's mostly a show. In other words, Bernard is happy to be an individual as long as it doesn't cost him anything. When Mustapha Mond threatens to send him to Iceland for his unorthodoxy, he quickly dissolves into cowardly groveling, showing that, despite his criticisms,  he really does want to remain within the outward safety Society provides. The Savage (John) is the ultimate outsider in the novel. Even in his accidental upbringing on the Savage Reservation, he never truly belonged—excluded from native rituals and secretly studying Shakespeare. When he visits the "brave new world," he belongs even less, because his deep yearnings, his knowledge, and his sense of morality find no sympathy among those who outwardly look more like him. In the end, though, even his outsider status doesn't survive—when he tries to live in solitude, people are drawn to the spectacle of his individuality, and he finally succumbs to a mob mentality himself. Huxley thus suggests that individuality can't flourish in a world that targets it as a threat to its own existence. - Climax: The debate between Mustapha Mond and John - Summary: The Director of the Central London Hatcheries leads a group of students on a tour of the facilities, where babies are produced and grown in bottles (birth is non-existent in the World State). The Director shows how the five castes of World State society are created, from Alphas and Betas, who lead the society, down to the physically and intellectually inferior Deltas, Gammas, and Epsilons, who do menial labor. The Director also shows how each individual is conditioned both before and after "birth" to conform to the moral rules of the World State and to enjoy his or her predetermined job. Each caste is conditioned differently, but all castes are conditioned to seek instant gratification, to be sexually promiscuous, to engage in economic consumption, and to use the drug soma to escape from all unpleasant experiences. The Director calls such conditioning "the secret to all happiness and virtue." The students and the Director get a special treat when Mustapha Mond, one of the 10 World Controllers, joins the tour. He lectures the students on the World State's creation and its success in creating happiness and stability by eliminating from society all intense emotions, desires, and relationships. In the Hatchery changing rooms, Lenina Crowne, a nurse, is criticized by her friend Fanny for only dating one man, Henry Foster. Acknowledging the need to become more promiscuous, Lenina decides to also date Bernard Marx, even though he is a bit small and strange for an alpha. Bernard, meanwhile, is outraged as he listens to Henry Foster and another man have a perfectly "normal" discussion about "having" Lenina. Later, in the elevator, Lenina accepts Bernard's invitation to accompany him to the Savage Reservation in New Mexico. Bernard then visits his friend Helmholtz Watson. The two criticize the World State. Bernard is dissatisfied because he is self-conscious about being small, while Helmholtz is so exceptional at everything he does that he's begun to feel stifled. While Lenina goes on her date with Henry, Bernard attends his biweekly Solidarity Service. After taking soma, the 12 attendees engage in solidarity chants, working themselves into an ecstatic frenzy as they call out to "our Ford" and then collapse in an orgy. Bernard is miserably aware that he is the only person who didn't find the Service fulfilling. The Director signs a permit to allow Bernard to visit the Savage Reservation with Lenina, and as he does so, he reminisces about his own trip to the Reservation 20 years earlier: there was a storm, and his female companion disappeared. Embarrassed to have let slip such information, the Director threatens to reassign Bernard to Iceland. Bernard thinks the Director is bluffing, but just before entering the Reservation, he finds out from Helmholtz that the Director is serious. In the Reservation, after watching some unnerving Indian rituals, Bernard and Lenina meet a young, Shakespeare-quoting "savage" named John, and his mother, Linda. Bernard realizes that Linda is the woman who got separated from the Director, and that John is their son. John is overwhelmed by Lenina's beauty and, when Bernard offers to take him and Linda back to London, exultant at the prospect of seeing the "brave new world" for himself. Bernard, though, plots to publicly humiliate the Director in revenge for his threat of exile. Indeed, the public scandal of having fathered a child forces the Director to resign. John, "the Savage," is a hit in London society. But he is troubled by the World State, especially because Linda has drugged herself into a happy stupor with soma. As John's friend and guide, Bernard becomes popular—but when John refuses to appear at one of Bernard's parties, the guests turn on Bernard, whom they were indulging only in order to meet the Savage. John befriends Helmholtz, reading him Shakespeare while Helmholtz reads him verses that he's composed himself. Bernard is jealous of their bond. Lenina, meanwhile, is increasingly preoccupied with thoughts of John, but she can't figure out if John likes her or not. When John finally tells her he loves her, she offers herself to him. He finds the promiscuity of World State society disgusting, however, and curses at her. While she hides in the bathroom, John gets a phone call that his mother is dying. At the hospital, a drugged Linda thinks her son is her former Indian lover, Popé. This makes John angry, as does the presence of a bunch of Gamma children being conditioned not to fear death. Soon, Linda dies. John, devastated, blames soma for Linda's death, and he interferes with the distribution of soma rations to some Deltas in the hospital lobby. The Deltas start rioting. Helmholtz and Bernard arrive, having been warned what John was doing. Helmholtz joyfully joins the fray in John's defense, while Bernard remains frozen in indecision. After the riot is quelled, John, Helmholtz, and Bernard are taken to see Mustapha Mond. In Mond's office, Mond and John debate World State society. John says it makes life worthless by destroying truth. Mond says that stability and happiness are more important than truth, which is dangerous. Furthermore, happiness sustains mass production, which truth and beauty cannot. The World State has also eliminated the need for God, by smoothing over suffering and abolishing the need for moral effort or virtues. John retorts that he wants the opportunity to suffer, and even to be unhappy. Mond tells Helmholtz and Bernard that they'll be sent to an island—islands are where all the interesting people who don't like conforming to World State society live—but refuses to let John accompany them. John then establishes a hermitage in a rural, abandoned lighthouse, where he purifies himself through sleeplessness, self-flagellation, and other ascetic behaviors. One of his sessions is captured by a photographer, and a sensational film about him released. Soon, hundreds of sightseers show up to see the spectacle for themselves. The crowds beg him to do the "whipping stunt" again. Lenina gets out of one of the helicopters, trying to speak to him, and John rushes at her, calling her "strumpet!" and whipping both her and himself. The intensity of emotion inspires the crowd, including John, to have an orgy, in keeping with World State conditioning. The next day, horrified at what he's done, John hangs himself.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Brokeback Mountain - Point of view: Third person, mostly limited to Ennis - Setting: Wyoming, middle-to-late twentieth century - Character: Ennis del Mar. Description: Ennis was born in Wyoming, near the Utah border, around the time of World War II. Raised on a small ranch, his parents died when he was young, and his brother and sister raised him. He is described as being tall with a narrow face, and muscular with quick reflexes. When his truck breaks down and he doesn't have enough money to fix it, he can't get to school any longer, so he drops out of high school and goes in search of work. He meets Jack Twist during the summer of 1963 on Brokeback Mountain, when neither of them is yet 20 years old. He marries Alma Beers and has two daughters with her, Alma Jr. and Francine. They eventually divorce. For most of his life, he works a series of ranch jobs around the state of Wyoming. He carries on a secret affair with Jack for the better part of 20 years, and is left in deep mourning when Jack dies in 1983. Ennis, though often gruff on the outside, is revealed to have a tender side through his relationship with Jack. When Ennis and Jack part ways after their summer on Brokeback Mountain, Ennis feels so upset over losing Jack that he feels physically sick. This physical manifestation of his love for Jack resurfaces 20 years later, when the men are again faced with the prospect of a lasting separation—showing that Ennis's steely shell guards a vulnerable and emotional person. Ennis lives in a state of near constant fear that he and Jack could be physically harmed for their romance—a fear that originates in the fact that, when he was a child, his father showed him the mutilated body of a gay rancher. Much like Ennis's love for Jack, this fear follows Ennis for years. When the story ends, it seems that Ennis is doomed to live alone with the painful truth that he was unable to achieve a sense of safety and belonging with the man he loved in a world where being openly gay is simply not an option. - Character: Jack Twist. Description: Jack was born in Lightning Flat, Wyoming, around the time of World War II. His parents are ranchers, and he worked on Brokeback Mountain one summer prior to meeting Ennis. Like Ennis, he had to drop out of high school to work. He is described as having curly hair and a buck-toothed grin. He eventually marries Lureen, the daughter of a wealthy farm-machinery businessman based in Texas, and they have one son. He dies in 1983, likely at the hands of a homophobic mob. Like Ennis, Jack carries a deep desire and longing for something he never quite achieves prior to his untimely death. However, he differs from Ennis in that he is more impulsive and promiscuous. He boasts of sleeping with many other women, and though he never discloses this to Ennis, he also sleeps with other men. Even so, Ennis remains Jack's true love, and he desperately wants to find a way to see Ennis more often, preferably on a daily basis. Jack becomes a wealthy man thanks to Lureen's inherited business, while Ennis continues to work low-paying ranch jobs. However, Ennis enjoys and takes pride in his work, while Jack is relegated to a "vague managerial title" and feels subordinate to his wife. Stealing time away from his home life in Texas to be with Ennis (and also, perhaps, other men) is one way Jack feels in control of his life. Ultimately, Ennis's worst fears come true when Jack is murdered by a homophobic mob, likely due to his more frequent (and less careful) engagement in same-sex relationships. - Character: Joe Aguirre. Description: Joe Aguirre employs Jack and Ennis to work on Brokeback Mountain during the summer of 1963. He is a surly man, who looks down upon the young men who come and work for him. He watches Ennis and Jack have sex through binoculars, and though he doesn't say anything to them directly, he treats them coldly after that. Later, when Jack tries to get a job from Joe in the summer of 1964, Joe turns Jack away and implies he knows the nature of Jack and Ennis's relationship. - Character: Alma Beers. Description: Alma marries Ennis del Mar during the fall of 1963. She gives birth to their first daughter, Alma Jr., and a few years later, to Francine. She dislikes Ennis's predilection for low-paying ranch work with long hours, and wants to settle down somewhere to raise her family. She eventually gets a job at a grocery store in Riverton. Jack's reunion with Ennis is the beginning of a gradual distancing between Alma and Ennis that eventually culminates in divorce. After Ennis's weekend in a hotel room with Jack, he shows little interest in being intimate with Alma, and often takes time away from work and his family to go on "fishing trips" with Jack, which Alma knows are much more than just time spent by a lake. Alma eventually realizes her life with Ennis is going nowhere, which leads her to get a divorce. She then marries the Riverton grocer, taking her two daughters with her, and is soon pregnant with a third child. - Theme: Desire, Repression, and Regret. Description: In "Brokeback Mountain," Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist fall in love while working as ranch hands on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. At the end of the summer, they part ways and attempt to start separate, conventional (i.e., heterosexual) lives, marrying women and having children. Four years later, when the two men meet again and still want each other more than anything, Jack raises the possibility that they could live together and start a business. Ennis, however, firmly rejects the idea—it's the 1960s in Wyoming, and homosexuality is forbidden and dangerous. Besides, they have obligations to their wives and children, and Ennis doesn't want to be a social outcast. Choosing a more conventional life over the life they both truly want could be seen as a rational decision, but it doesn't lead them to happiness. Being unable to build a life together casts a long and dark shadow on their relationship, but their frustrated desire also prevents them from living and enjoying the lives they have chosen instead. Therefore, Proulx shows how rejecting the opportunity to fulfill a deep desire in favor of bending to social expectations leads to tragic results. From the beginning of their love affair, Ennis and Jack try and fail to repress their desire for one another. For example, the first time the men part ways to return to their more conventional lives, Ennis feels a physical pain that he mistakes for food poisoning. His desire for Jack is so strong that it affects his mind and his body. Furthermore, when they finally see each other for the first time after four years, they embrace and, without thinking, kiss passionately, even though Ennis's wife Alma is nearby. This flagrant display of affection catches them both by surprise, which shows that their desire is automatic and cannot be rationally controlled. Despite their uncontrollable desire, Ennis's decision to live separately from Jack is a deliberate and even rational choice in the sense that it prioritizes safety, family, and community. When Ennis was a child, his father took him to see the mutilated corpse of a local gay man (one living in a thinly-veiled domestic partnership akin to the one Jack proposes), which made Ennis acutely aware that expressing homosexual desire could get him killed. Thus, Ennis's refusal to live with Jack can be seen as a fervent wish for their mutual safety. Furthermore, Ennis feels strongly about his obligation towards his wife and children. He has made a commitment to them and feels responsible for supporting them, so leaving his job and family to elope with Jack strikes Ennis as irresponsible and even immoral. While Ennis's decision not to live with Jack can clearly be seen as both moral and rational, he comes to regret repressing his desire. This is, in part, due to the fact that the life he believed he was choosing—a life of family, community, and safety—proves unattainable as a direct consequence of his repressed desire, which destroys his marriage. Ennis and his wife divorce because she can tell that Ennis wants Jack more than her (he takes many trips with Jack, for example, but never takes his wife and children on holidays). Furthermore, Ennis and Jack are never really able to fit into society and find a community, even though they try to present themselves as "normal" and heterosexual. Ennis remains single and drifts from job to job, while Jack has extramarital affairs, a vague managerial role in his wife's company, and his father-in-law never accepts him. Thus, even though Ennis thinks he is sparing both of their lives by choosing not to live together as gay men, Jack is still murdered by homophobes and Ennis is left lonely and full of regret. Ennis's reasons for choosing not to fulfill his deep desire to live with Jack are understandable and even sensible. And yet, after Jack's death, once the life they both wanted is no longer available to them, Ennis is filled with regret. He wishes he had taken risks to be with Jack, knowing that the life he chose instead has not been happy enough to outweigh the lost potential for a happy partnership with Jack. Ennis refuses to let his love for Jack die with his body, and continues to dream about him. He resigns himself to living with his pain and his memories of Jack—a better fate than never having met Jack at all, or banishing him from his thoughts forever. - Theme: Intolerance and Violence. Description: Intolerance, and the violence to which it can lead, are constant threats to Jack and Ennis's relationship. Proulx presents intolerance toward homosexuality as a pervasive characteristic in Jack and Ennis's society—not something specific to certain people or places. Earl and Jack's violent deaths, for instance, are attributed not to any one person, but rather to a generalized "them." Jack and Ennis's fear of this pervasive violence and intolerance keeps them from being together, and for good reason: homophobic violence is ultimately what kills Jack and leaves Ennis alone with his regret. While violence is the most clearly horrible outcome of widespread intolerance, Proulx also uses Ennis' thoughts and experiences to show that intolerance can lead to internal psychological effects that are nearly as devastating as outright violence. Ultimately, homophobia robs both men of their lives: Jack is murdered for his sexuality, while Ennis is stuck in limbo, unable to fulfill his desires or fit into a society that can't accept him the way he is. Intolerance and hatred, both internalized and external, are present even in the remote hills of Brokeback Mountain. Throughout their first summer together, Jack and Ennis never discuss the nature of their relationship or their feelings for one another, which shows how ingrained homophobic norms are. Only once does Ennis voice that he "ain't no queer," a sentiment Jack immediately agrees with. Though the two men are sexually intimate, they are afraid to label themselves as gay, since they have both internalized the notion that gay men are unnatural and they know that being outed can be a death sentence. While the two men do not experience outright violence that summer, they do face social consequences for their relationship. Their boss, Joe Aguirre, watches them have sex through binoculars. While he doesn't address their relationship explicitly, he treats both men coldly afterwards. He doesn't dismount his horse to deliver Jack the news that his uncle is dying, and he declines to offer them jobs again for next summer. While Joe Aguirre's homophobia is expressed without outright violence, the threat of violence, and even death, is a very real possibility for Jack and Ennis should their relationship become public knowledge. This shapes both their choices and fates. The fear of violence drives Ennis, in particular, because his father took him as a child to see the mutilated corpse of a gay man (Earl) who was murdered as a punishment for his sexuality. As a result of this experience, Ennis will not entertain the possibility of living with Jack, even if that is what he wants most; when the two men kissed in front of Ennis's wife, Ennis tells Jack that if they do that again they will "be dead." Jack does not have the same fear that Ennis does, and while it allows him to be more open to expressing and exploring his desires, his freer attitude towards his sexuality eventually leads him to be murdered by homophobes. The violence that has cast a pall over their relationship from the beginning is ultimately what brings it to a premature end. While Ennis's internalization of the intolerance around him may save his life (as it leads him to be more careful with his behavior than Jack), this internalization of homophobia also leads Ennis to psychological distress. It's clear, for example, that Ennis is uncomfortable with his own sexuality because the only times in the story in which he is violent occur in response to others directly acknowledging his sexual desire. The first instance is at the end of their summer at Brokeback Mountain, when Ennis punches Jack hard for no apparent reason, although it seems that this unexpected violence is due to his own shame and distress over having to leave the man he loves. This interpretation of Ennis's violence towards Jack gains credence when, years after Alma witnesses Jack and Ennis in a passionate embrace, she reveals to Ennis that she knew about Jack and Ennis's relationship and calls Jack "nasty." Ennis hurts Alma in a fit of violent rage and, as a result, he doesn't see her or his children for several years afterwards. This is seemingly the first time Ennis has been accused of being gay, and he uses violence to try and show Alma that she is wrong, as well as to intimidate her into not sharing what she knows with others. Ennis's shame over his sexuality, which leads him to violence, shapes all of his choices and actions throughout the story. While Jack is open to the idea of being a social outcast in order to live with Ennis, Ennis does not entertain this possibility and, as a result, he loses his chance at the life he most wants. Although Ennis has not been physically touched by homophobic violence—he does not lose his life, as Jack does—he must live with the regret of not having fulfilled his deepest desires, which is a bitter and heartbreaking experience. Therefore, Ennis must live with the pain  of losing the person he loved most, living a life on the fringe of society, and knowing that to live as his true self would be to die a violent death. - Theme: Masculinity and Sexuality. Description: Jack and Ennis's homosexuality defies the masculine norms under which they have been raised, leaving them unable to reconcile their understanding of the lives they are supposed to lead as men with the relationships they want to pursue. Proulx explores the intersection of masculinity and homosexuality by illustrating the ways in which society sees any deviation from the very narrow traditional notions of masculinity as unnatural and deserving of punishment. Ultimately, this reveals the inherent flaws of narrowly defining how an entire gender must act and advocates for a more expansive definition of masculinity—one that includes non-heterosexual forms of sexual expression. Jack and Ennis have both internalized homophobic concepts of masculinity that they learned from their fathers. When he was a young boy, for instance, Ennis's father took him to see the mutilated corpse of a gay man (Earl), and Ennis even surmises that his father may have been one of the men who killed Earl. This experience was clearly meant to impress upon Ennis that being gay was not acceptable. Likewise, Ennis recalls a story Jack told him about how his father once beat and urinated on him for not making it to the toilet in time, even though he was only three or four years old. Like Ennis's father "punishing" Earl for his homosexuality, Jack's father's punishment of Jack for soiling himself shows that masculine norms are often reinforced through violence and humiliation, no matter how minor or accidental the "transgression." Traditional notions of masculinity prize heterosexual virility and dominance, and for a time, it seems that both Jack and Ennis are able to fit into this narrow ideal. At first, both men appear to have picture-perfect families. Ennis and Alma marry and have two girls, whom Ennis adores. Ennis asserts dominance over Alma, dictating where they live, how much money they earn, and how they have sex. Likewise, Jack marries Lureen and moves to Texas, where he has a son. However, when Ennis and Jack reignite their affair, both men's façades of traditional masculinity begin to fall apart. Ennis loses interest in Alma, both emotionally and sexually, and she divorces him, taking the girls with her. Meanwhile, Jack has extramarital affairs with both men and women and is relegated to a vague managerial role when Lureen inherits her father's business, leaving him with less power than his wife. When Jack dies, Lureen tells Ennis it was due to an accident (which it most likely wasn't), revealing that she is ashamed of her late husband's sexuality. Even though it was something of an open secret that Jack was gay, his family members attempt to masculinize him even after his death. When Ennis goes to visit Jack's family to get permission to scatter Jack's ashes over Brokeback Mountain as Jack had wanted, Jack's father refuses and insinuates that he knows Ennis and Jack were more than old ranching buddies. This implies that Jack's father's homophobia causes him to defy his son's own wishes for what would happen with his remains. Ultimately, Jack's family buries the rest of his ashes in an ancestral burial ground. This connects Jack to his family (and thus to his homophobic father) forevermore, rather than connecting him to Brokeback Mountain, a symbol of freedom and personal choice. Even in death, then, Jack is subjected to strict societal expectations about who he should be. Every aspect of Ennis and Jack's life and identity is influenced by societal expectations of who they will be as men, and it's ironic that the masculine traits they wish to present to the world are also the traits that, in others, bring them the most misery. Ennis, for example, refuses to leave his life and move to a ranch with Jack due to his fear of masculine violence, but Ennis himself becomes violent in instances in which he feels that his sexual orientation is eclipsing his masculinity (such as when Alma insinuates that she knows he is sexually intimate with Jack). By punishing men who stray from tradition with violence and even death, men scare people like Ennis into denying themselves the lives they want to lead and encourage them to prove their masculinity through violence, thereby ensuring a self-perpetuating cycle of masculine violence. Therefore, traditional masculinity is shown to be anything but "natural"—rather, it is a violently-reinforced set of socially-constructed norms. - Theme: Home and Belonging. Description: Jack and Ennis's difficult childhoods have shaped their adult lives. Because of this, they think often about what home means to them and they search for a new concept of home that is more welcoming than the ones with which they grew up. Ennis seeks a sense of home by denying his desire for Jack and sticking to traditional notions of family and masculinity, while Jack searches for home in Ennis. He frequently asks to see Ennis more often, and repeatedly proposes that they run away together to start a ranch or go somewhere with less restrictive social norms. Ennis always refuses on the grounds of familial responsibility and physical safety, a choice that ultimately denies both of them their ideal concept of home. Home is a word that is traditionally associated with a sense of belonging, warmth, comfort, and happiness. In reality, however, home for both men proves to be more closely associated with restrictive social norms, expectations, and responsibilities than with belonging or happiness. Jack and Ennis's childhood homes inform who they become and how they make decisions, which impacts their lives and relationships. While their childhoods had significant differences (Ennis's parents died when he was young, while Jack's parents outlive him), their early lives had significant parallels. Both grew up in Wyoming, and neither man finished high school or had lofty career ambitions. Both Jack and Ennis have also experienced abuse at the hands of their fathers. Ennis's father was a violent man who may have murdered a gay man (Earl), and Jack's father, who is similarly homophobic, once beat and urinated on Jack as a toddler. The abuse both men endured at the hands of their fathers impacts how they approach their taboo relationship. Ennis's homophobic father scares him into not wanting to live as a couple with Jack, for he fears for their physical safety, while Jack longs to fulfill his desires in spite of his upbringing and wants to live with Ennis on their own ranch. Ennis's concept of home is one of physical safety, whereas Jack's is one of emotional fulfillment. For both men, the summer of 1963 on Brokeback Mountain is as close as they get to their concepts of home: they are secluded in the mountain, surrounded only by nature and one another, so they feel simultaneously physically safe and emotionally fulfilled. The beauty and solitude of the mountain is a memory that chases Jack and Ennis for the rest of their lives. They recall it as a time before the pressures of children and wives dominated their lives, and before they realized just how special it was that they had a place where they could be together, unafraid that they would be punished by society. The two men strive repeatedly to recreate this environment by retreating into the wilderness for their affairs over the next twenty years, but they never come close to the purity and ease they achieved on the mountain. Ennis is never able to forget his responsibilities towards his work and his children. He's also never fully at ease, and worries that if they make a wrong move, or act suspiciously in the wrong place, they will be in danger of being beaten, or even being murdered. Jack longs to erase these responsibilities and fears, and to run away to Mexico with Ennis. When they meet, they frequently argue about when and how they will see each other next, a concern that never came up on the mountain, where time and desire seemed endless and without limit.  When Jack dies, Ennis creates a shrine to his memory with a postcard of Brokeback Mountain and some of their old shirts. Brokeback Mountain is intimately tied to his memories of his lover, no matter how many years have passed since that first summer together. Despite Jack's violent murder, Ennis chooses to remember him the way he was on the mountain, before life and society kept them apart. Yet the two-dimensional postcard will never come close to their lost experience of feeling at home on the mountain, which underscores that feeling at home is a rarefied experience that must be cultivated and treasured. - Climax: Jack's death - Summary: Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist are two poor boys born on small ranches in Wyoming around the time of the Second World War. Ennis' parents died when he was young, so his older brother and sister raised him. Both boys dropped of out of school in order to work, and meet for the first time in the summer of 1963 as ranch hands on Brokeback Mountain, before either of them is 20. Their boss is Joe Aguirre, a cold man who doesn't think much of the two boys when he meets them. Ennis is assigned the job of tender, and Jack is given the role of herder, for which Joe commands him to sleep far out in the wilderness to watch the sheep at night. Jack has worked at the mountain before, and he gives Ennis advice about working there. The two boys get to work, occasionally noticing each other across the natural beauty of the mountain. As the summer wears on, they get to know each other well, exchanging stories about their families and backgrounds. Jack complains that he hates being so far away from the main camp, and Ennis offers to switch roles with him. One night, after Ennis and Jack have been up late drinking and talking, Jack declares that it's too late for Ennis to go back out to the sheep, and that Ennis should stay with him. Soon they begin to have sex, an encounter that neither of them speak about but implicitly know will repeat itself through the rest of the summer. In the wilderness and solitude of the mountain, Ennis and Jack feel free and alone in their intimacy. However, Joe Aguirre watches them have sex through binoculars, and treats Jack coldly when he delivers the news that his uncle is dying. There is a hailstorm, and the sheep from the Brokeback herd get mixed up with another. Ennis is unable to accurately pick them apart. The summer finishes, and Jack and Ennis go their separate ways: Ennis to marry Alma Beers, and Jack back home to Lightning Flat. When they say goodbye, Ennis feels sick to his stomach. Ennis marries Alma, and she quickly becomes pregnant, giving birth to a daughter they name Alma Jr. Ennis works a series of low-paying ranch jobs. He enjoys their itinerant lifestyle, but Alma hates it. Four years after the summer of 1963, Ennis receives a postcard from Jack, saying he'll be in town. When the men reunite, they kiss passionately, which Alma sees. They spend a few days together in a motel room, where they admit how much they had missed each other, and resolve to see each other more often. Jack wants them to get a ranch together, but Ennis thinks it would be too conspicuous. He tells Jack about Earl and Rich, two ranchers who lived together near Ennis when he was young. Earl was beaten to death with a tire iron and mutilated. Ennis' father made sure Ennis saw the corpse, and Ennis surmised that his father had something to do with the death. As the years wear on, Jack and Ennis continue to steal time to see one another under the guise of "fishing trips." Alma and Ennis have another child that they name Francine, but their marriage eventually falls apart and Alma gets remarried to the local grocer. Ennis attends Thanksgiving at her new home with the grocer, where Alma accuses him of having a relationship with Jack. Ennis responds violently and doesn't see his children for many years after that. Ennis continues to work low-paying, itinerant ranch jobs. Jack marries Lureen, a wealthy woman whose father runs a farm-machinery business. They continue to see each other over the years, and their desire does not wane, even as their bodies age. In 1983, they spend several days together at a lake. Jack expresses his frustration that they don't see each other more often. Ennis replies that he has work responsibilities, and needs to pay child support. He is also still scared about their physical safety when they are together. They leave things unresolved. Several months later, Ennis sends a postcard to Jack about arranging their next meeting. It is returned with the notice DECEASED. Jack calls Lureen, who tells Ennis that Jack died when a tire exploded while he was changing it. Ennis assumes that there is more to the story than this, and that Jack likely died in a manner similar to Earl. Ennis visits Jack's family, and asks to scatter Jack's ashes on Brokeback Mountain, like Lureen mentioned he had wanted. Jack's father is cruel to him, and refuses, insinuating that he knows Jack and Ennis were lovers. In Jack's room, Ennis finds a shirt that Jack wore on the Mountain, and nested inside it, one of his own shirts that had gone missing. He takes these home with him and hangs them on the wall of his trailer alongside a postcard of Brokeback Mountain. He resigns himself to dreaming about what could have been between the two of them, and continues to live his life on the fringes of society.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Bullet in the Brain - Point of view: Third person limited - Setting: The story takes place in an unnamed bank, just before closing time. A key scene from the story also takes place at a summertime baseball game. - Character: Anders. Description: Anders is a jaded, cynical book critic, and the protagonist of "Bullet in the Brain." When he visits a bank that is then robbed by criminals, the robbers' clichéd speech causes Anders to laugh, leading one robber to shoot Anders in retaliation. As Anders is shot, scenes from his past play out, demonstrating that he was not always embittered and unhappy. He used to be passionate, emotional, invested in poetry and language, and capable of deep respect for other people. In particular, one scene from Anders's childhood involving Coyle's cousin illustrates how Anders used to be open to other people's differences. In fact, in his youth, Anders was extremely moved by the way Coyle's cousin mispronounced a common phrase. In his adulthood, however, Anders has lost his love for language, and has also begun to resent his job, leading him to become the sour and miserable man in Wolff's story. He is sarcastic to strangers, and unable to see beyond his cynicism even when he is put in mortal danger. His more redeemable qualities only come to light when he is shot, providing a stark contrast to his death. - Character: Robber. Description: Anders is visiting a bank just before closing time, when two masked men wearing blue business suits enter the premises. They begin to threaten both the bank staff and the customers with guns, using clichéd phrases from gangster movies to intimidate their victims. One robber, who carries a pistol, singles out Anders for rough treatment when Anders' sarcastic commentary begins to sound disrespectful. As one of the story's antagonists, the robber clashes with Anders in multiple ways: he physically threatens him with a gun, but he also introduces psychological tension into the story. At the beginning of "Bullet in the Brain," Anders personality is overwhelmingly cynical, which prevents him from sensing the danger he is in. When Anders looks into the robber's reddened eyes, however, Anders begins to realize his cynicism has put him in harm's way. Unfortunately, this insight cannot change Anders' behavior entirely, and Anders laughs at the robber's clichéd speech, leading the robber to shoot him. While the robber's actions force Anders to come to a gradual realization about the cost of cynicism, this realization does not happen soon enough to save Anders' life. - Character: Coyle's Cousin. Description: Although unnamed, this character is vital to understanding Anders's personality. When Anders was young, Coyle's cousin came from Mississippi to visit his neighborhood, and participated in a baseball game. He chose to play shortstop, believing it to be the best position on the field. When discussing his choice with the other players, Coyle's cousin mispronounces a few words, and Anders is struck by the way these mispronunciations sound. To Anders, the mispronunciation sounds almost musical, and he runs on to the field while repeating the words. In Anders's adult life, he would likely criticize the boy for the mistake, but in his youth, he considered such errors novel and interesting. Coyle's cousin helps illustrate how dramatically Anders's personality has altered, as he changes from a fascinated, passionate young man into a cynical, isolated adult. - Theme: Cynicism and Respect. Description: An armed bank robbery at the climax of "Bullet in the Brain" results in the death of Anders, a deeply cynical book critic. Anders is partly responsible for his own grisly end, in that his contempt for the world leads him to treat everything and everyone with mockery—even the criminal pointing a gun to his head. When one of the armed robbers threatens him using clichéd speech, Anders laughs in response, leading the robber to shoot him. Before he dies, however, Anders remembers a childhood moment when he respected others in spite of—and even because of—their simple way of talking. Wolff contrasts Anders's current cynicism with a memory of childlike admiration as a cautionary tale, warning readers that cynicism can breed isolation and further contempt, while cultivating respect for other people—and the world itself—can be redemptive. Anders's self-centered and self-defeating cynicism both starts and frames the entire story. Anders arrives at a bank just before closing time, and gets stuck in a line. Two women in front of him are having a "loud, stupid conversation" that puts Anders "in a murderous temper." This is a normal reaction for him, as he is "never in the best of tempers anyway," and is even known, in his career, "for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything." Anders views every situation, even if it is minor, in a way that conforms to his cynical outlook, meaning he largely bears responsibility for his own frustration and unhappiness. This pervasive cynicism prevents Anders from interacting civilly with others. When a bank teller leaves her station despite the long line, the women in front of Anders comment on the teller's thoughtlessness and expect Anders to complain with them. Although "Anders had conceived his own towering hatred of the teller," his contempt for the women leads him to make fun of them instead. These contemptuous responses continue even as the situation turns dangerous. When robbers enter the bank and command the thoughtless bank teller to fill the robbers' bag with money, Anders is not sympathetic. He turns to the women he mocked before and says, "Justice is done," taking the time to crack a sarcastic joke. Anders's cynicism continues to manifest as the story progresses, and often leads him to show off his intellectual superiority. When one robber calls Anders a "bright boy," for instance, Anders points out a textual allusion, highlighting that it is "right out of The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway. When one of the armed robbers tells everyone to stop moving or they'll be "dead meat," Anders continues to respond cynically, saying, "Great script, eh? The stern, brass-knuckled poetry of the dangerous classes." Similarly, upon glancing at the bank's painted ceiling, Anders distances himself from the situation at hand by scoffing at the apparent ineptitude of the artist—an objectively ridiculous concern in the moment, with a gun pointed at his head. It's clear that he considers himself above the grotesqueries of the world, but such thinking only isolates him further; his cynicism blinds him to the fact that he is in mortal danger. Anders's contempt eventually grabs the attention of one of the criminals, who uses another cliché to threaten him—asking, like the stereotypical Italian gangsters of the silver screen, "Capiche?" Anders laughs at him, and the robber promptly shoots him in the head. As the bullet travels through Anders's brain, Wolff lists events from Anders's life that further reveal how his cynicism has long been eroding his relationships, even with those he once "madly loved." In his past, Anders had grown irritated by his first lover's "unembarrassed carnality," and "exhausted" by his wife's "predictability." Both instances position contempt as a destructive, alienating, and ultimately useless emotion. Contempt and cynicism were not, however, the dominant emotions of Anders's youth; in fact, other scenes from Anders's past demonstrate a deep sympathy and respect for others, in sharp contrast to his current behavior. Wolff rapidly summarizes various scenes that prove Anders used to be a more sensitive man. Anders once saw "a woman leap to her death from the building opposite his own," and shouted in response, "'Lord have mercy!'" Anders also once felt "surprise" at "seeing a college classmate's name on the dust jacket of a novel" and felt a deep sense of "respect" after finishing the book. As he grew older and more cynical, however, Anders began to forget "the pleasure of giving respect." The last memory Wolff highlights is one Anders himself recalls before his death, a baseball game he played as a child with the neighborhood's boys. One of the boys, Coyle, brings his cousin along, and Coyle's cousin claims the position of shortstop, arguing that it is "the best position they is." Anders, surprisingly, does not mock him for the mispronunciation. Instead, Anders finds himself "elated" by the words and their "unexpectedness and their music." In his youth, it seems, Anders was once excited and surprised by others' perspectives, and did not make fun of, but rather celebrated, common mistakes. Though Anders is, in his adulthood, a meanspirited character defined by his contempt for everything, Wolff lists these various scenes from his past to demonstrate how Anders used to be understanding and respectful of others and their differences. Wolff seems to contrast Anders's ill-fated death with his childhood wonder as a warning, showing how it is easyand dangerousto lose sight of other people's humanity. - Theme: Nostalgia and Innocence. Description: When Anders is shot, various scenes from his life—both remembered and not—begin to play out in his mind. These scenes illustrate Anders's past emotional innocence, showing how he used to be the type of man to attend antiwar rallies, memorize poetry, and wake up laughing. In contrast, Anders's death is the final, unhappy culmination of his now joyless life. Wolff illustrates how Anders gradually lost his innocence and his passion, suggesting that time's passage can erode even the most energetic and dynamic of people. In the story's final memory from Anders's youth, however, Wolff demonstrates how nostalgia allows Anders to "still make time" to return to these lost days of innocence, even if his life is almost over. When Anders is first shot, Wolff describes a list of characters from Anders's life that he does not remember. These selected characters illustrate Anders's past emotional engagement with the world, and sometimes serve as parallel examples of people who have, like Anders, lost their innocence. For example, Anders used to "madly" love his first girlfriend, Sherry, for her "unembarrassed carnality." He also used to love his wife, though over time, she began to bore him. A clear pattern in Anders's life begins to emerge: as time passes, his passion for others repeatedly cools to indifference and weariness. In addition to Sherry and his wife, Anders does not remember his daughter in his final moments. Still, Wolff makes a point of mentioning how she is "now a sullen professor of economics." In emphasizing what his daughter is like "now," it is implied that Anders's daughter, like her father, has lost her sense of passion. Wolff then strengthens this comparison between father and daughter: Anders once stood "just outside his daughter's door" while she lectured her stuffed animals about their "naughtiness," listing the "appalling punishments" they "would receive." Like her father, the unnamed daughter once had a sense of innocence that helped her imaginatively engage with the world, in contrast to her current "sullen" behavior. More scenes from Anders's past emerge, demonstrating his innocent enjoyment of and engagement with the world. When Anders was younger, he memorized "hundreds of poems," though Wolff emphasizes that in the moment of his death, Anders does "not remember a single line" of them. Anders had committed these poems to memory to be able to "give himself the shivers at will," but they are now irrelevant and forgotten. Anders's past dedication and emotional connection to poetry is in clear and sharp contrast to his current lack of passion. Similarly, Anders used to be equally engaged by other people's poetic devotion. One of Anders's professors once taught a lesson on "how Athenian prisoners" could be freed "if they could recite Aeschylus." The professor then recited "Aeschylus himself." Hearing the poem, "Anders eyes had burned," as if he was moved to tears by his professor's poetic appreciation. In addition to his once-fervent love for poetry, Anders used to be so energized and passionate that he acted with recklessness. When he was younger, he "deliberately" crashed his "father's car into a tree," and got into trouble at an "antiwar rally," where he had "his ribs kicked in by three policemen." It seems that in Anders's youth, his emotions were so overwhelming that he needed to seek outlets for their expression, like fighting for a different world, or acting dangerously. After this list of unrecalled past experiences ends, Wolff finishes the story with the one scene Anders does remember, which gives Anders the ability to return, indefinitely, to the innocence of his childhood. When Anders is first shot, the bullet starts "a crackling chain" of "neurotransmissions," which prompts him to remember a specific "summer afternoon" that has long been "lost to memory." This nostalgic memory of a childhood baseball game occurs "under the mediation of brain time," allowing Anders plenty of time to "contemplate the scene" and get absorbed in his past. Before the baseball game begins, a neighborhood boy, Coyle, brings his cousin to the field. Coyle's cousin asks to play shortstop because it is "the best position they is." Anders, struck by the words, wants to hear the phrase again. Although he does not ask the boy to repeat the words, Anders repeatedly recites "them to himself," a harbinger of the innocent appreciation he will have for poetry later in life. Still, as this innocent memory continues to play out, the bullet is still traveling in Anders's brain, and it "won't be outrun forever." But before then, "Anders can still make time." His recollection of this childhood scene gives Anders time "to smack his sweat-blackened mitt and softly chant," like poetry, "they is, they is, they is." By listing a series of memories and characters from Anders's past, Wolff provides readers with the trajectory of Anders's personality, illustrating how he turns from an emotional, passionate young man into a discontented adult. Anders's final memory, a scene from a childhood baseball game, delays his death and returns him to his innocent days of wonder. Wolff seems to indicate that through nostalgic memory, innocence can still be regained, even if it is too late to completely save one's life. - Theme: The Power of Language. Description: Anders is a jaded and unforgiving book critic, known for his distaste for everything he reviews as well as his bad temper. Yet Anders was not always so judgmental: Anders's past is filled with scenes that illustrate his past appreciation for language in particular. Language, in Anders's youth, had the power to deeply affect him, and was a means of connecting him to the world and other people. Anders slowly lost the ability to appreciate language, however, and that loss seems to coincide with his turn towards bitterness and isolation. Anders's youthful respect for language, in contrast with his current lack of enjoyment, demonstrates how language has the power to shape one's engagement with the world. In Anders's adult life, his relationship to language is dominated by dissatisfaction, particularly with the books he reviews. Still, even in everyday situations, Anders's relationship with language is mainly defined by negativity. For example, when he gets stuck behind two women in a line, their "stupid conversation" puts him in "a murderous temper." The women's perceived misuse of language, more so than the tedium of being stuck in a line, provokes Anders's anger. This isolated incident of dissatisfaction is compounded by the fact that Anders now resents having to critique writers' language, and, in general, views "the heap of books on his desk with boredom and dread." In fact, his career dissatisfaction is so thorough that he has become resentful and "angry at writers for writing" the books he is meant to review. This deep-seated anger illustrates a larger, psychological problem: Anders's inability to register novelty or to feel excitement. Anders has not recently experienced anything exciting and new; he does not "remember" how long it has been since "everything began to remind him of something else." To Anders, books and language have become repetitive and uninteresting, and his life reflects this monotony. In describing scenes from Anders's past, Wolff makes clear that Anders's current lack of engagement with language is uncharacteristic. He used to be deeply affected by language, and found language to be a catalyst for his passion. When Anders was young, he committed "hundreds of poems" to memory, so he could "give himself the shivers at will." In fact, one of the lines Wolff highlights is from On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, a poetic tribute to the power of language. Anders once treasured poetry so deeply that he dedicated time to memorizing it, in order to keep it on hand. In addition, one of Anders's unremembered memories is from a poetry class. His professor lectured on how ancient prisoners would be "released if they could recite Aeschylus," and the professor then recited a poem himself. Anders's "eyes had burned at those sounds," as if he were about to cry. Watching someone else recite poetry once had the potential to move Anders deeply, without thought of criticism or judgment. Anders also once saw "a college classmate's name on the dust jacket of a novel," and respected the classmate more "after reading the book." In his adult life, however, Anders does not "remember the pleasure of giving respect." In his adulthood, then, Anders's disconnection from language prevents him from feeling sympathy or respecting others. In his youth, however, language had the power to provoke admiration for a stranger. Near the end of the story, the one memory Anders recalls before he dies involves appreciation and wonder for the uniqueness of language, and highlights the joy Anders feels when the conventions of language are subverted or made new. Anders starts to remember a baseball game from "forty years past." In this memory, a newcomer to the neighborhood, Coyle's cousin, asks to play shortstop because it is the "best position they is." This type of lexical mistake would be an easy target for Anders as an adult, as he is deeply critical of language mistakes, but Anders's response as a child is appreciative, not dismissive. In fact, he wants the boy to "repeat what he's just said," though he stops himself, worrying that others will think he's "ragging" Coyle's cousin for his words. This illustrates Anders's thorough sensitivity to language; he not only appreciates the mispronunciation, but also realizes that the others could misread his fascination in a mean-spirited way. Although he does not get the boy to repeat the phrase, Anders is so struck by the "unexpectedness" of the mispronunciation that he "takes the field in a trance." Even though the mispronunciation breaks the rules of grammar, Anders seems enthralled by the newness of the words. In Anders's past, then, language was a source of joy and mystery; in contrast, as an adult, language has lost its emotional power, and is rote and monotonous toh im. This final memory, which emphasizes language's power to evoke wonder, shows how language helped Anders engage with the world. Anders's past demonstrates that he used to be a man who was moved by language, and drawn to its novelty. In his current career, however, he is uninspired by language, only able to criticize its improper or dull use. Wolff seems to caution that once someone loses the ability to be awe-struck by language, their worldview can turn bitter, dominated by anger or unhappiness. - Climax: The bank robber shoots Anders in the head. - Summary: Anders, a book critic known for his temper and his scorn, arrives at a bank gets stuck in line behind two women who are having a "stupid conversation." The bank teller closes her station, prompting the two women to make sarcastic comments about her. They turn to Anders, expecting him to join in with their mockery. While Anders hates the teller too, he refuses to play along with the women, and makes fun of them instead. After this sarcastic exchange, two masked men enter the bank, and one of them holds a pistol to the bank guard's neck. The man tells everyone in the bank to keep quiet, or they'll be "dead meat." Anders, unable to stop himself from being sarcastic, comments on the criminal's cliched words. The other robber handcuffs the bank guard and knocks him to the floor, and then hands out plastic bags to each of the bank tellers. When the robber comes to the empty window, he asks who usually works there, and the bank teller who closed her position claims it is hers. The robber threatens her personally, and Anders comments to the women he mocked earlier that "Justice is done." Anders's comment gets the attention of one of the robbers, who threatens Anders by pressing his pistol against Anders' gut. The robber asks if Anders thinks he is "playing games." Anders says no, but has to stop himself from laughing out of ticklishness. Anders looks into the masked robber's eyes and finally begins to "develop a sense of unease." As a result of this intense eye contact, the robber calls him a "bright boy," asking if Anders is being flirtatious. When Anders responds in the negative, the robber tells him to look up at the painted ceiling, which Anders begins to mentally criticize. Anders silently makes fun of the ceiling's mural, and the robber asks him what he finds "so funny." Anders claims it is nothing, prompting the criminal to promise that if Anders keeps messing around, he will be "history." To make sure Anders understands, he asks, "Capiche?" Anders, struck by the clichéd, gangster-movie phrase, cannot stop himself from laughing, and the robber shoots him "right in the head." As the bullet travels through Anders's brain, various moments that he doesn't remember from his past play out. One scene involves a college professor reciting Aeschylus in Greek, a moment in Anders's academic career that moved him deeply. Another involves Anders witnessing a woman's suicide and shouting "Lord have mercy!" The last scene, which is the one memory Anders actually recalls as he is shot, is from a childhood baseball game. A boy from out of town, Coyle's cousin, joins the game and asks to play shortstop, claiming it is the best position "they is." The mispronunciation excites Anders, as he appreciates its "unexpectedness." The bullet continues to travel through Anders's brain while this memory unfolds, and the story ends with Anders suspended between memory and death, thinking of the "music" of those mispronounced words.

- Genre: Short story, Speculative fiction, Post-apocalyptic fiction - Title: By the Waters of Babylon - Point of view: First person limited - Setting: Upstate New York and New York City (referred to as the "Place of the Gods" or "newyork") in a post-apocalyptic, post-technological world. - Character: John. Description: John is the narrator, protagonist, and archetypal, "everyman" hero of the story. A young man about to come of age within his tribe (known as the Hill People), John is the son of a priest and is preparing to become a priest himself. John is fascinated by the myths of the Time of the Gods, and throughout the story, he is motivated by his desire to acquire knew knowledge about the gods and the history of human civilization. As an aspiring priest, John attempts to face the challenges he encounters without fear, and he often remarks on how his fears diminish as he acquires more and more knowledge. - Character: John's father. Description: John's father, also named John, is the head priest of the Hill People. Within the archetype of the "hero's journey," John's father could be considered the guardian figure, offering John guidance at the beginning and end of his quest. John's father encourages John to follow his visions and his instincts, but he is more cautious than his son, believing that certain kinds of knowledge can be dangerous. - Character: The Dead God. Description: John finds the well-preserved body of the "dead god" seated at a window in one of the towers in the Land of the Gods. John soon realizes that the dead god is not a god at all, but a dead man, and that the "gods" were in fact humans. John tells us that the dead god's face looks both wise and sad, and theorizes that though he lost his life, he chose to stay in the city so as not to lose his spirit too. - Theme: The Pursuit of Knowledge. Description: Benét builds the central narrative of "By the Waters of Babylon" around John's coming-of-age and his quest for new knowledge, which takes him east to The Place of the Gods, a mysterious, long-abandoned city that members of his tribe are forbidden from visiting. Benét presents the desire for knowledge as a key aspect of human nature and the driving force behind the development of human society. Further, Benét presents knowledge as something that feeds on itself, and drives those who seek it ever onward. John's pursuit of knowledge leads him to learn about the Dead Places, travel east to the Ou-dis-san river, enter the Place of the Gods, and discover the dead god in an abandoned apartment building. As John reaches new "levels" of knowledge with each step of his journey, he learns enough to recognize that there is even more to know, which pushes him ever further in his quest.Benét also shows how knowledge can diminish fear and the power of superstition. John tells us that when he first went with his father (who is a priest) to search for metal in the Dead Places, he was afraid. Yet later, when John knows and understands the Dead Places, he no longer fears them. On his journey, John boasts of his certainty and lack of fear, but when he reaches the Place of the Gods, he feels afraid. The knowledge that he has already acquired no longer diminishes his fear because he is now facing a place he knows almost nothing about.However, Benét's story also makes clear that knowledge is no simple thing. Knowledge offers progress but also, because of the progress it offers, it can lead to both personal and societal dangers. On the personal level, John's father encourages him to heed his visions and make the journey to the Place of the Gods, but also warns John that the dream could "eat him up." The warning implies that the pursuit of knowledge could become an obsession that overwhelms John, or that the knowledge itself could be something that John is unprepared for or unable to face. On the societal level, the story reveals that the Place of the Gods is actually New York, indicating that the society of the "gods" is our own modern society. John realizes that, ultimately, this modern society was destroyed by its own vast knowledge and power. When John returns from his quest and wants to tell all of his tribe that the "gods" in newyork were in fact humans, his father convinces him not to, telling him, "If you eat too much truth at once, you may die of the truth." John's father theorizes that newyork was destroyed because the gods "ate knowledge too fast"—perhaps a reference to the famous Biblical story of Adam and Eve, who were punished for seeking forbidden knowledge and literally "eating" it in the form of a fruit. Here, then, John's father expands on his earlier warning that "knowledge" could consume John, and argues that knowledge gained too quickly can "eat up" an entire society. Though John believes that he has returned safely to his tribe (that is, without being consumed) and plans to use his knowledge to "rebuild" human civilization, the story leaves it unclear if he, or his society, will have the wisdom to use their growing knowledge in ways that avoid the mistakes of their ancestors. Benét presents knowledge as a double-edged sword, and by refusing to resolve tension between its simultaneous benefits and dangers, his story warns readers, and society, to use their knowledge well. - Theme: The Coming of Age Quest. Description: The story's narrative centers on the journey that John takes to the Place of the Gods as part of his initiation into manhood and the tribe's priesthood. John's journey is a good example of the "hero's quest," an archetypal story arc that is common in both ancient myths and modern stories. The "coming-of-age" journey of the hero's quest often contains certain archetypal elements, and John's journey has many of these. These elements include time spent in the ordinary, pre-quest world, a call to adventure, a meeting with a mentor, crossing the threshold from ordinary life to the quest, a series of challenges leading to an ultimate ordeal, a reward, and the return home with that reward.John introduces the readers to his ordinary world in the first paragraphs of the story, explaining his identity as the son of a priest and introducing us to the traditions and laws of his tribe. John's call to adventure appears as a series of signs which he and the other priests interpret. In John's quest, his father plays the role of "mentor," guiding him through the ritual purification that priests undergo before their initiation. When John chooses to travel east, he breaks the laws of his tribe and crosses the threshold from ordinary life and truly begins his quest. During the quest he faces many trials – avoiding the Forest People, successfully hunting food alone, and crossing the river and entering the place of the gods, where he believes he will die. In crossing the river, John demonstrates that he is willing to risk his life in the pursuit of knowledge, and in the city he must escape from feral dogs, and is forced to spend the night in a Dead Place for the first time. There, he has a vision of "newyork" in the time of the "gods" and finds the body of the dead god, who he realizes is a human. By undergoing the ordeal, John gains his reward—knowledge that the Place of the Gods is, in fact, a ruined human civilization, and the understanding that humans are capable of acquiring vast knowledge and power. John's journey has transformed him, made him a man, both in the sense that he has cast off his former innocence/ignorance and in the sense that when he returns to his tribe he is seen as ready to enter the priesthood, and is likely to ascend to head priest. The concept of coming-of-age then extends beyond John to the way that Benét represents the development of human society as a whole. The story presents three societies and cultures at different stages of technological development: the Forest People, who John describes as "ignorant" and less-advanced than his own Hill People; John's tribe, the Hill People, who keep written records of the past and seem to have some rudimentary technology; and the glorious past society of the "gods," who John eventually learns were humans of a technologically-advanced society. Put another way, like John with his thirst for knowledge, the Hill People exist in a middle place; they are more aware of and interested in science and history and technology than the "innocent" Forest People, but the ancient "wise" humans were so advanced that to the Hill People they seem like gods. Yet also like John, the Hill People seem ready to leave behind their superstitions and to seek the sort of advanced civilization of "newyork."Upon his return to the village, John reveals his new knowledge to his father and his hope that this knowledge will allow his people to rebuild the civilization that was lost. Though his father warns him against telling the people of the tribe the whole truth too quickly, he does not disapprove of John's choice to break the laws of the tribe, telling him that the laws change over time. In saying so, John's father implies that John has ushered in a new era in which previously transgressive acts are acceptable and even necessary. John's father's reaction shows that John's "hero's journey" and the knowledge he acquires from it has already begun to fundamentally change the way the Hill People live. And yet, his father's warning that sharing too much truth at once can be dangerous, along with the fact that the "advanced" civilization of the "gods" managed to destroy itself, also suggests that coming-of-age from innocence to knowledge, whether for an individual or a society, is not a simple good. Rather, it is an emergence from a primitive yet relatively safe existence into a world filled with new possibilities for both progress and terrible destruction. - Theme: Superstition, Magic, and Technology. Description: Benét portrays the Hill People as superstitious by showing John's firm belief in the power of visions and his willingness to follow unexplained traditions, laws and taboos. John's tribe has many traditions and taboos, which John often also calls "laws." Though John implies that there are valid reasons and histories behind these laws, he does not explain them, and it is not clear if he himself knows them. In the opening paragraph of "By the Waters of Babylon," John tells us, "It is forbidden to travel east. It is forbidden to cross the river. It is forbidden to go to the Place of the Gods. All these things are forbidden." John's quest leads him to break all three of these rules, in spite of the fact that he believes in the laws of the tribe. Through John's transgression – which both leads him to revelations about the past and for which his father refuses to punish him after he returns home, on the grounds that laws can change over time – the story suggests that, in order to acquire new knowledge that pushes a society forward, an individual must often break with that society's traditional practices and values.Yet the story also involves a broader examination of superstitions and magic and connects that to a critique of our own technological society. John uses the word "magic" to describe objects and practices that we might think of as scientific or technological, as well as to describe rituals and beliefs that would be more commonly thought of as magical practices. This mixture of "magic" and technology is further woven into the role of the priests, who collect metal from the Dead Places as part of their sacred duties. Further, John tells us that the hunters believe that the priests "do all things by chants and spells," but implies that the priests use other methods to do their work as well. The priests' role is not solely mystical; they are the keepers of technological/scientific and historical knowledge as well. By using "magic" to describe both mystical and scientific objects, Benét does two things: First, and most obviously, he emphasizes the lack of sophistication of the Hill People as compared to the modern technological society of the "gods." Yet, at the same time, this conflation of magic and technology also subtly questions just how sophisticated that modern society is. Describing the apartment of the dead god, he says, "In the washing-place, a thing said 'Hot' but it was not hot to the touch—another thing said 'Cold' but it was not cold. This must have been a strong magic but the magic was gone." From this description, a modern reader immediately understands that John is looking at a sink where the water has been disconnected. John's misunderstanding of what the hot and cold faucets are or are supposed to do is funny, and yet how many people actually know how hot and cold faucets actually, scientifically function to bring water? John explains things that he does not understand as "magic," but modern people often feel comfortable talking about "technology" even when they don't understand its underlying workings (or dangers). In this way, Benét subtly emphasizes how modern society venerates "technology" in much the same way that "primitive" cultures venerated magic. Further, the story suggests that the technology that we think we control could prove more powerful than we can imagine. Just as magic was conceived as a force that people are not always able to control, the "gods" inadvertently used the technology they had invented to destroy themselves. - Theme: Rivalry, War, and Destruction. Description: The rivalry depicted in the story between the Hill People and the Forest People is based on differences that may, at first glance, strike readers as insignificant. Early in the essay, John says, "our women spin wool on the wheel, our priests wear a white robe. We do not eat grubs from the tree, we have not forgotten the old writings." The apparent triviality of these differences has two important, and related, impacts. First, it emphasizes how "tribes"—different groups of people—will always find differences on which to build rivalries, regardless of the trivialities of those differences. Secondly, it becomes clear that the tribes' reasons for rivalry are not very different from reasons – technological differences, religious differences, cultural differences, and educational differences – used to fuel rivalry among different groups today. The rivalry between the Hill People and the Forest People in the post-technological world of the story, then, can be seen as both a criticism of the essentially silly and superficial reasons for rivalry between groups of people and, at the same time, a recognition that rivalry between different groups are fundamental and inescapable aspects of human society.Benét further raises the stakes around rivalry by making it clear that rivalries lead to deadly conflict and war. Throughout the story, John expects that if the Forest People stumble across him during his quest, they will try to kill him. John sees such conflict as natural, matter-of-factly stating that he has seen men die in the skirmishes between the Forest People and the Hill People. Furthermore, as John continues his quest to the Place of the Gods, he discovers that the "gods" were in fact humans who destroyed themselves through war. As John says: "When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and a mist that poisoned." The "fire falling out of the sky" seems to describe aerial bombings of civilians, and poisoned mist is likely a reference to mustard gas, a deadly chemical weapon first developed during World War I (1914-1918): the war that erupted in part as nationalist feelings overwhelmed the larger international empires that had held sway in Europe for centuries before. World War I ended just twenty years before "By the Waters of Babylon" was written, and the war itself might be described as an explosion of tribal rivalries. It is worth noting, too, that the story was written just a few years before the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), which was driven in part by the Nazis' belief in their own racial/tribal superiority. Benét had joined the US military as a civil servant during World War I, and in the 1930s he was deeply worried by rise of fascist political parties in Germany, Italy, and Spain.Benét feared the impact of the increasingly deadly weapons that had been developed during WWI, and "By the Waters of Babylon" was published a few months after Spain's fascist National faction targeted civilians in the 1939 Bombing of Guernica, sparking international outrage and humanitarian concern. The knowledge that John brings home from his quest carries hope for the future – hope of recapturing a lost technological civilization – but the story is clear that such technology won't necessarily cure people of their tendencies toward rivalry and war, and will only make the impact of any future wars all the more terrible. - Climax: John finds the remains of the "dead god" and realizes that the gods were, in fact, an earlier, technologically advanced human society. - Summary: "By the Waters of Babylon" is set in a post-apocalyptic, post-technological world where people hunt for their food with bows and arrows and their priests scavenge the "Dead Places" for metal. John, the protagonist and first-person narrator, belongs to the tribe of the Hill People and is the son of a priest. The Hill People consider themselves culturally superior to the rival tribe of the Forest People, and live by dogmatic laws that, among other things, forbid them from traveling east, crossing the Ou-dis-son river, visiting the Place of the Gods (which was destroyed in "The Great Burning"), and saying the true name of the Place of the Gods. John's father and the other priests teach John reading, writing, healing, and "magic," and John is fascinated by the stories about the gods. The story follows John on his initiation quest, a journey he undertakes in order to be recognized by his tribe as a man and a priest. John chooses the path of his journey based on visions and his reading of signs in the natural world. John's desire for new knowledge leads him to break many of the laws of his tribe. He travels to the Place of the Gods, even though he is afraid that he will die there. Instead, he discovers that many of the stories about the Place of the Gods are inaccurate. The island is not filled with magical mists, the ground is not burning with eternal flames, nor is it populated by spirits and demons. Instead, John finds a vast Dead Place, a city of ruined towers. As he explores the city and learns more and more, John's sense of fear diminishes. John explores an abandoned apartment full of items that he believes are "magic" but which are recognizable to the reader as defunct modern appliances—a sink, a stove, and electric lights. John spends the night there and has a vision of the city as it was in the time of the gods. The city was once full of gods, lights, and "magic," and John understands that the gods possessed incredible knowledge and power that they did not always use well. John sees that the city was destroyed by poisoned mist and "fire falling out of the sky" in a terrible war between gods, and understands that this war created the other Dead Places. The next morning John searches the apartment, hoping to find an explanation for the destruction of the city, and he finds the body of the dead god—who he soon realizes is not a god, but a man. John realizes that the gods were in fact humans from an earlier society, and he returns home, fearless and determined to share his new knowledge with his tribe. Upon John's return, his father recognizes him as a priest and a man. John tells his father that the gods were not gods, and asks him to kill him as punishment for breaking the laws of the tribe. John's father refuses, explaining that the laws change from generation to generation, but advises John not to share his discovery with the people of the tribe, cautioning that it can be dangerous for a society to acquire knowledge too quickly, and theorizing that the society of the "gods" was destroyed because they did so. John agrees, but he and the other priests begin visiting the Dead Places to gather books (and thereby knowledge) as well as metal. In the story's closing lines, John vows that when he becomes the head priest of the tribe, he will lead his people to the Place of the Gods—which he now refers to as "newyork"—and begin to rebuild the city.

- Genre: Realistic Fiction, Short Story - Title: Cake - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: An Australian suburb and office - Character: Liz. Description: The protagonist of the story, Liz is a new mother who returns to work at her office 18 months after giving birth to her son, Daniel. She feels extremely anxious and guilty about leaving him at daycare and feels out of place when she goes back to work. Liz does not find her job particularly meaningful and is stressed by the meaningless tasks and awkward social interactions it entails. She cannot relate to the other women in her office, who wanted nothing more than to return to work after having children, and the men view her emotions with a combination of confusion and disdain. She is so anxious that she calls the daycare center, Kidz Rezort, to check up on her son, and has to sternly remind herself not to call a second time. Throughout her workday, Liz is aggravated by the constant presence of cake. The dessert reminds her that everyone expects her to celebrate her return to "the world of the living," which only makes her feel guiltier. Liz does not have a particularly close relationship with her husband, Andrew, who is unsympathetic when she tells him how much she hated going back to work—he is far more focused on the fact that they need two incomes in order to pay off the mortgage. Liz only experiences a sense of peace at the end of the story, when she reunites with her son and breastfeeds him. - Character: Daniel. Description: Liz's son. Daniel is 18 months old when Liz drops him off at childcare for the first time. He is a calm baby and doesn't appear to be fussy or unhappy, despite his mother's worries. He was weaned before she returned to work but still wants to breastfeed, which makes her feel intensely guilty—society tells Liz that she needs to wean Daniel so that she can live a more independent life, but both Daniel and Liz want to keep breastfeeding. Liz's desire for physical contact with Daniel and her desire to stay home with him rather than return to work makes her feel "too needy" and contributes to most of her unhappiness throughout the story. - Character: Julie, Stella, and Caroline. Description: Liz's female coworkers. They attempt to be supportive when she returns to the office after her maternity leave but ultimately project their own experiences onto her instead of listening. They each reminisce about the boredom of being a stay-at-home mother and think Liz must have been "counting the days" until she could come back to the office. Liz senses "some alliance wavers and falls" when she admits that she actually enjoyed staying at home and they can't relate to her experiences. They also take Liz out to lunch and ask her questions about Daniel, but appear uninterested in her imitation of him and then move on to discussing the importance of weaning. One of the women makes a comment about how children "can't be dictating everything," which angers Liz. Their attitudes make Liz feel alienated and out of place, lacking a support network. - Character: Frank. Description: Liz's boss. In the morning, he reminds her of a meeting they have to attend and says, "See, got to crack the whip now. Got to get you back into gear again." Frank is not a bad person, but his words highlight Liz's discomfort with being back in the office. Knowing the adjusting to coming back to work must be difficult for Liz, he attempts to be supportive and makes a sympathetic comment about the difficulty of going into a meeting. However, Liz mistakes it for a comment about the difficulties of leaving a child at childcare. She becomes very emotional thinking about abandoning Daniel and is embarrassed when Frank clarifies he was talking about work, not her son. Frank means well but is clueless about how Liz is actually feeling, and their exchange emphasizes her profound sense of alienation. - Character: Tim and Dave. Description: Liz's male coworkers. They exchange looks of disdain when she returns and talks incessantly about Daniel with her female coworkers, Julie, Stella, and Caroline. Tim has a jar of gourmet herbal teas in the office kitchen, and watching him drink reminds Liz how little has changed since she left on maternity leave, making her workplace seem dull and stagnant. The two men make Liz painfully aware of her isolation at work and the monotony of her job. - Character: Andrew. Description: Liz's husband and Daniel's father. He has a "soft, slumped," look from all the hours he spends commuting and working, and his appearance reminds readers of the physical toll of modern capitalism on workers. Liz marvels at how little emotion he displays when greeting Daniel in the evening—unlike Liz, Andrew is used to leaving Daniel every day to go to work. He is also not very supportive or sympathetic towards his wife. When Liz complains about how miserable she felt at work, he reminds her that she "chose" to return and that they are "locked into" their mortgage. "You think I love every minute of my job?" he asks bitterly. He also mentions that he picked up cake to celebrate Liz's first day back, a celebration that Liz feels she has been pressured into having, making her feel even more trapped and exhausted in her role as a working mother. - Theme: Guilt. Description: In Cate Kennedy's short story "Cake," Liz is a new mother struggling to adjust to leaving her 18-month-old son, Daniel, at daycare and going back to work. She experiences intense, all-consuming guilt when she drops Daniel off at daycare and her feelings of inadequacy shape the entire day, from her interactions with coworkers to a conversation with her husband about finances when she finally returns home. No matter what Liz does, she is plagued by uncertainty about her decisions as a mother. Her desperation for more time with her son constantly conflicts with the messages she receives from her husband, her coworkers, and an informational pamphlet for new mothers, all emphasizing how much she should want to go back to work. Her guilt illustrates how financial and societal pressures force mothers to make decisions that may conflict with their true desires and needs, which inevitably results in a sense of failure. Liz's feelings of guilt are most pronounced at the beginning of the story, when she drops Daniel off at the daycare center, Kidz Rezort. Her strong urge to run back inside and take him home lays the foundation for the clash between her decision to go back to work and her need to spend more time with her child. Her sense of uncertainty is highlighted by her frequent self-questioning. "Nobody looks guilty, do they?" she thinks about the other parents outside the daycare center, wondering if anyone else is "eating themselves alive," like she is. Later, contemplating the eight hours that Daniel will spend at the facility, she worries, "That's a long time for a baby. Isn't it?" She becomes even more miserable as she imagines the charges of Kidz Rezort to be "bereft" without their parents and her own son to be "miserable and bewildered" when she leaves. She believes she has "abandoned him to a room of rampaging strangers," and that she is a neglectful mother. Later, when she caves to her anxiety and calls the daycare center to check on Daniel, she alternates between feeling embarrassed for calling in the first place and wanting to call a second time. She tries to convince herself that she is being unreasonable by repeatedly pressing the delete key on her computer as she works, as if this can somehow erase her fretful actions and thoughts. In addition to feeling guilty about leaving Daniel, she feels guilty about feeling guilt in the first place. Liz also feels as though she is failing to socialize appropriately when she returns to the office, adding another layer to her guilt. When her female coworkers Julie, Stella, and Caroline share their memories of relief at returning to the workplace after the monotony of staying at home during maternity leave, Liz says that she actually enjoyed the experience—and then instantly feels she has let her coworkers down when she senses "that this is not the answer they wanted." Later, when her coworkers take her out for lunch to celebrate her return, Liz reenacts Daniel's response to the song "If You're Happy And You Know It." She sings for too long and notices her coworkers' awkward expressions "get a little stiff." She realizes that she has disappointed them and likens her performance to that of a lackluster comedian whom "they expected to be entertained by, who doesn't actually have any new material at all." Her embarrassment at the thought of being a social disappointment when she doesn't want to be back at work in the first place compounds her guilt about Daniel, exacerbating her feeling of failure as a mother. Kennedy also uses the fraught act of breastfeeding to highlight the conflict between Liz's desires to maintain this connection with her son and the external pressures she faces to wean him so that she can go back to work. When her colleagues discuss how early they weaned their children in order to return to work, Liz can't help but feel a fresh wave of guilt when she thinks about how Daniel has been "looking at her and the bottle in her hand with a baffled uncertainty that stabs at her heart." When she returns home at the end of the day and Daniel grasps for her shirt, she feels as though something is "tearing inside her, slowly and deliberately, like a perforated seam." This tearing refers to the incompatibility of her desire to connect with her child and the necessity of weaning him so that she can return to work; she can either bottle feed him and feel like an inadequate mother, or she can breastfeed him and feel like she has failed to commit to her work. She can't escape the knowledge that "giving in will only make things worse tomorrow," when she gives in and breastfeeds him. The conflict between Liz's return to work and her overwhelming urge to stay home fuels her sense that she's "too needy." While her husband, Andrew, refers to her "decision" to return to work, Liz's compounding sense of guilt and inner conflict reveals that she has acted out of obligation, not desire. Just as Liz's coworkers don't want to be forced to stay at home, Liz does not want to be forced to go back to work. With this, Kennedy makes the reader question the validity of holding mothers to a single standard of living that involves both work and childcare. - Theme: Capitalism. Description: Most of Liz's difficulties in "Cake" stem from the mechanisms of capitalism. She and her husband, Andrew, are "locked into" a mortgage that requires two incomes to pay off, and even though Liz's work is necessary in this respect, she finds the actual content of her work menial and pointless. Her dependence on the salary provided by her dull 9-to-5 office job forces her to endure tedious, repetitive work and separate from her child before she feels ready. Kennedy uses Liz's despair surrounding work and finances to showcase the toll modern capitalism takes on families, especially working mothers. After struggling with the sadness of dropping off her son, Daniel, at daycare, Liz drives to her workplace, where her first impression is of stagnation. The office appears unchanged from when she took maternity leave, and "only the calendar has been changed." She finds the note she left her replacement, rife with underlined reminders about copies and spreadsheets, and is struck by the meaninglessness of it. "As if it meant something, as if things would all fly apart without her, as if anyone would give a flying toss," she thinks bitterly. As Liz goes through her day, she experiences "the endless clock-watching dreariness of it." When she feels overwhelmed by boredom and longing for her son, she reminds herself "The salary. Eyes on the salary." Kennedy draws the reader's attention to the monotony of office work by juxtaposing Liz's boredom and stress with the cheerful informational pamphlet's assurance that a return to work, "where your expertise and skills are valued," is a relief after staying home. For Liz, however, the financial obligation to return to meaningless tasks when she would rather be at home raising her son is the opposite of relief—it is a source of immense unhappiness. Even though Liz returns to work for the sake of earning money, her return ends up costing her in more ways than one. "Can you put in three dollars? For the morning tea," Liz's coworker asks her. In addition to contributing her labor and time to her office, Liz is also expected to contribute actual money to social activities she feels no enthusiasm for. When she reaches to remove a five-dollar note from her wallet, she notices a picture of Daniel and is reminded of the time she is spending away from him. Kennedy uses the juxtaposition of the picture of Liz's son and the money she is paying for a work-related event to illustrate that capitalism has both an emotional and financial cost. The difficulties of capitalism, the necessity of work and the implications of home ownership also impact Liz's relationship with her husband. When Liz returns home from her stressful day and tells her husband of her struggles, he doesn't sympathize. Instead, he reminds her of the necessity of her income by emphasizing that they're stuck in this situation because of their finances. Kennedy reveals that prior to Liz's return to work, she and her husband spent a great deal of time conducting a "grim assessment of their down-to-the-wire mortgage." Liz experiences a strong sense of hopelessness as she reminds herself, "She's going to have to do this every day, so she'd better pull herself together right now." She also notices that her unsympathetic husband's job seems to have had a physical effect on him. He is someone "on a peak-hour commuter train, unfit and round-shouldered." This observation characterizes the capitalist cycle of consumerism and work as a kind of trap, one that warps both physical bodies and personal relationships. Liz's unhappiness with the eight-hour workday and the financial pressures of homeownership put the challenges of working motherhood on display. As Liz struggles to find sympathy for her plight, Kennedy invites readers to speculate on solutions that might offset the personal and financial costs of a capitalist society. - Theme: Motherhood. Description: "Cake" depicts Liz, a new mother, in a difficult transitional stage: leaving her 18-month-old son, Daniel, to re-enter the workforce. Kennedy centers Liz's maternal emotions and her coworkers' experiences as mothers throughout the story. As Liz goes throughout her day, she cycles through intense guilt, anxiety, anger, and joy as a result of her role as a mother. Through Liz's less-than-joyous return to work, Kennedy suggests that while motherhood should perhaps be about solidarity and community, in reality it is usually a lonely, isolating experience. Liz's fellow working mothers Julie, Stella, and Caroline are eager to hear about her experiences on maternity leave and see pictures of the baby. But while Liz's female coworkers initially seem to offer her a source of solidarity and community, this quickly dissolves. When these women arrive at the subject of returning to work, they do their best to be supportive initially, but they only want to hear stories that validate their own experiences. "When I had Toby, I couldn't wait to get my brain working again after all those months home bored out of my skull," one comments. Another reminds the younger women that when she had kids, "there wasn't any of this going back to work. You were just stuck there, getting driven up the wall." When Liz does not indulge in maternal horror stories of "midnight feeds and daytime television and projectile vomit," and says meekly that she actually enjoyed staying home, she notices that there is an "alliance that wavers and falls at her words." Rather than allowing her to bond with her coworkers, her attitude towards motherhood sets her apart from them. Returning to work, far from providing her with a sense of community, only makes Liz feel alienated from other women in her position. The men at Liz's office don't even offer the pretense of solidarity, making her feel even more isolated. While the women crowd around her asking for stories, Liz notices "something pass between Tim and Dave—an eyeroll, a resigned grin. Then the faintest headshake, unmistakable to her. Disdain." Desperate for comfort after lunch, she mistakes her boss's questions about her feelings regarding a business meeting for questions about coping with being a working parent, and feels embarrassed after she responds emotionally about how hard it was to leave Daniel at childcare. Even her husband, Andrew, offers little sympathy, chastising her for complaining about her difficulty adjusting because they agreed she had to work to pay off their mortgage. Liz notices how casually he reacts to seeing Daniel come home from daycare, thinking begrudgingly, "For him, this is normal." Since he is used to leaving the house and returning to Daniel in the evening, he can't relate to her experience of having to leave her child for the first time. The men she interacts with throughout the story react to her experiences of motherhood with disdain, apathy, and judgement, increasing her sense of isolation and incompetence. Rather than questioning the source of her frustrations, Liz directs her anger and sadness inward. She blames her "baby brain," and surging hormones for the intense emotions. When Julie makes a remark about the importance of weaning and preventing babies from "dictating" one's "own life," Liz's anger quickly morphs into self-loathing. She reminds herself, "No point aiming this seething fury at anybody but yourself." Liz believes a cocktail of maternal hormones and personal weaknesses are to blame for her maladjustment, but in reality she is faced with peers who invalidate her feelings and judge her approach to motherhood. Liz's approach to motherhood brings her both joy and sorrow, creating a close bond with Daniel but driving a wedge between her and other adults, especially other mothers. Her coworkers and husband react to her motherly emotions as if they are a sign of weakness, but it is only when she is able to spend time with her son at the end of the story that she feels a sense of strength. With this, Kennedy suggests that while motherhood can involve a deep, loving connection with one's child, it can also be a painfully lonely and alienating experience. - Theme: Expectations vs. Reality. Description: Upon her return to work, Liz's coworkers congratulate her on re-entering the "world of the living," welcoming her with cake and their own stories about how they were "counting down the days" to go back to work. But while they see Liz's return as a cause for celebration, Liz is clearly in mourning, devastated about leaving her son at daycare and unexcited about returning to her menial desk job. This tension between expectations and grim reality persists throughout the story, as Liz remembers other experiences that didn't quite go as planned, like a lackluster comedy show she attended once. The constant dissonance in the story between attempted celebration and ultimate disappointment emphasizes the gap between the expectations Liz feels she must live up to and the stark reality she encounters. The recurring symbol of cake, which gives the story its title, represents failed attempts at celebration and happiness in Liz's work life. When she returns to the office, her coworker notifies her that everyone has decided "to have birthday and welcome-back cakes on the first Wednesday of each month." Liz remembers these cakes from before she left as overly sweet and unappetizing, "cakes that you need to empty the remains of into the desk bin when nobody's watching." At the mediocre Italian restaurant she goes to for lunch, her coworkers' mentioning cake on the dessert menu makes Liz think, "If anyone mentions fucking cake again today I'm going to burst a blood vessel." Finally, Liz's husband, Andrew, gives her cake when she comes home as a surprise "to celebrate [her] first day back," after reminding her that she has no choice but to go to work. The presence of cake is linked to the false nature of these celebrations, which don't actually bring Liz any joy. Another failed attempt at celebration occurs when Liz's coworkers take her out to lunch at an Italian restaurant. Liz takes a bite of lasagna and immediately recognizes that it is store-bought rather than homemade due to the amount of times she has eaten it at home on a tight budget, thinking, "those cheats." Liz is uncomfortable throughout the meal and feels as though she must entertain the other women with stories about Daniel. Ultimately, she feels like a comedian who she bought tickets to see live with her friends even though "his stage act was almost identical to what they'd already seen him do on TV." For Liz, lunch is riddled with awkwardness and disappointment, which is exacerbated by the fact that it is supposed to be celebratory and fun. Everyone Liz interacts with throughout the story expects her to be happy to be back at work, when in reality she is miserable and wants to be with her child. The informational pamphlet that she reads in order to prepare herself to return to work does not speak to her experiences at all. The pamphlet states that staying at home with children is difficult for women "who have experienced the challenges of a satisfying job and the stimulation of daily adult conversation." Liz, however, does not have a satisfying job—she finds her work meaningless and repetitive—and truly enjoyed staying at home during maternity leave. She also feels alienated from her unsympathetic coworkers. "How could she have forgotten this need for constant, ridiculous, social smiling?" she thinks after a particularly awkward interaction. Liz also notes that the model on the cover of the pamphlet has "no bra-strap showing through her shirt, no midriff bulge. Shiny hair," sending the message that returning to work after maternity leave is easy and effortless, as if a woman could simply pick back up all of the pieces of her life—including her pre-pregnancy body—that got pushed aside for the baby. Liz, by contrast, struggles to fit into her pre-baby clothes and to find motivation in her job again. Liz feels so frustrated and angry about her experiences by the end of the day that she fumes "she's been taken in by a stupid pamphlet." This feeling of being fooled by the unrealistic expectations from the pamphlet mirrors her experience of feeling "cheated" at the restaurant. Even though Liz receives the message from all sides that she should celebrate the end of her maternity leave and her reintroduction into the work world, everything about her return—from coworkers' smiles to her lasagna noodles—seems fake and dishonest. Ultimately, Liz would rather be at home with her son than eating the sickly sweet cake her peers keep pressing on her. This gap between the expectations and reality of returning to work as a mother makes Liz feel anxious and frustrated, and she longs to approach motherhood in a way that feels more authentic to her, even if it goes against the grain of what society says she should want. With this, Kennedy suggests that motherhood often resists expectations and looks different in practice than one might expect. - Climax: Liz returns home from work and sits down to feed Daniel from a bottle. When his hands move to her shirt, she experiences intense internal conflict, and all of her emotions and exhaustion from her first day back at work seem to descend on her at once. Although she knows it will only make returning to work more difficult, she gives in and breastfeeds. - Summary: Liz is a new mother starting her first day back at work after maternity leave. She drops her son, Daniel, off at the daycare center Kidz Rezort and experiences intense anxiety and guilt for "abandoning" him there. When she gets to her desk at work, she is struck by how little the office has changed in her absence, and the only hint of passing time is the different date on the calendar. Her coworkers Caroline, Stella, and Julie welcome her back by asking questions about the baby and sharing their own maternity leave experiences, which Tim and Dave react to with disdain. The women experienced intense boredom while staying home and expect Liz to share similar horror stories of monotony and midnight feeding. Liz, on the other hand, points out that she actually enjoyed staying home and feels unable to relate to them. Liz reads an informational pamphlet for new mothers about returning to work that emphasizes the relief most women feel when they leave home and return to work again, but Liz feels anxious and miserable. She calls Kidz Rezort to check on Daniel, only to be informed by the attendant that her 18-month-old son is riding a tricycle, and it becomes obvious that the attendant is not even watching him. Julie then asks Liz if she can contribute three dollars to a morning tea celebration, where there will be cake to celebrate a birthday and Liz's return to work. Liz takes a five dollar note out of her bag and glimpses a photo of Daniel in the process. She also finds a note that she left to her replacement emphasizing the importance of copies and invoices, which makes her realize how meaningless she finds her work. Later that day, Caroline, Stella, and Julie take Liz out for lunch and cake at an Italian restaurant, where Liz notices the lasagna is store-bought. The women ask Liz if Daniel is doing anything cute these days, and when she Liz tries to imitate him she sees that she is not entertaining her peers. She becomes angry when the women start discussing the importance of early weaning. Later, Liz becomes emotional when her boss, Frank, asks her how she feels about an upcoming meeting, and she mistakes his question for one about leaving Daniel at childcare. Embarrassed, Liz counts the moments until she can leave work and pick up her son. That night, when Liz arrives home and tells her husband, Andrew, how difficult her day was, he responds unsympathetically and reminds her that she wanted to go back to work so that they could pay off their mortgage. He also presents her with cake he bought to celebrate her first day back. Liz takes Daniel into the bedroom and takes off her work clothes to begin feeding him with a bottle. He motions towards her chest and she is overcome with guilt and exhaustion. She finally begins to feel better about her day when she gives in and breastfeeds him. When he is asleep, she takes off her watch and decides to look at the mortgage again to see if there is any way she can continue to stay home.

- Genre: Satirical Novel / Philosophical Novel / Coming-of-Age Novel / Picaresque - Title: Candide - Point of view: Third-person omniscient - Setting: Germany, Portugal, Spain, Buenos Aires, Paraguay, France, Venice, and Constantinople. - Character: Candide. Description: The protagonist of Candide. He is a simple man with good judgment and a pure heart, who spends the novel in search of his beloved Cunégonde. During his journey, he goes back and forth between the optimism taught to him by Pangloss, and the pessimism which his experiences—and Martin—teach him. His name means "white," or "shining," and indicates his innocence and purity of heart. - Character: Cunégonde. Description: A beautiful young woman, daughter of the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh. She is pursued by Candide throughout the novel, during which time she passes into the possession of a long sequence of men: the Bulgarian Captain, Don Issachar, the Grand Inquisitor, Don Fernando, and others. Cunégonde is a symbol for the futility of human desires: she is always out of Candide's reach, and once she is no longer, her beauty is gone. Her name is considered, by some scholars, to be a pun on the words for female genitals in French and Latin. - Character: Pangloss. Description: Candide's teacher, a philosopher who follows the teachings of the philosopher Leibniz. Pangloss argues that this world is "the best of all possible worlds," and none of his many misfortunes—including enslavement, hanging, and losing an eye and an ear to syphilis—can convince him otherwise. His name means "all-tongue," reflecting his tendency to speak at length about philosophy no matter what is going on. - Character: The Young Baron. Description: Cunégonde's brother, and the heir to the Barony of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Almost killed by the Bulgarians, he revives and becomes the Jesuit Reverend-Commander in Paraguay. Though Candide rescues him and his sister several times, he fanatically opposes Candide's marriage to Cunégonde, because Candide is not noble. The Young Baron represents the aristocracy and its stubborn privileges. - Character: Farmer. Description: An old farmer who offers a meal to Candide, Martin, and Pangloss at the end of the novel. They discover that he has little knowledge of what is going on in the world, and instead is focused on maintaining his farm, which he claims saves his family from "weariness, vice, and want." He inspires Candide and the others to focus on hard work. - Theme: Optimism and Disillusion. Description: Candide pits the optimistic doctrine of Pangloss—that we live in the "best of all possible worlds"—against the long and senseless series of misfortunes endured by Candide and the other characters. Candide begins the novel as a faithful student of Pangloss, but painful experience prompts him to reconsider his views. Candide's disillusionment is gradual. As he sees more of life and the world, he becomes less and less convinced that suffering and evil exist as part of a larger divine harmony. By the end, Candide comes to know that good is not always rewarded with good, that the New World is as filled with war and religious confusion as the Old, and that the best of intentions are no protection against the worst of outcomes. Even so, Candide suggests that the struggle of human life—an endless cycle of optimism and disillusionment—might in fact be preferable to a static faith in the "best of all possible worlds. As Pangloss concludes at the novel's conclusion, "man is not born to be idle."The disillusionment of Candide mirrors that of many Europeans in Voltaire's era. Scientific discoveries and natural disasters—especially the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755—made many people begin to doubt the existence of an all-powerful and infinitely good God: if there were such a God, why would he let such awful things happen? The branch of philosophy which tried to respond to this question was called theodicy, and its most famous proponent was Gottfried Leibniz, the historically real philosopher and mathematician on whose teachings those of Pangloss are modeled. Leibniz argued that evil existed because it was necessary to bring about an ultimate good, as part of a "pre-established harmony," created by God. - Theme: The Enlightenment and Social Criticism. Description: Candide is a central text of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in Europe which flourished during the 17th and 18th centuries. It questioned, and often harshly criticized, traditional views of science, religion, and the state. Enlightenment thinkers believed in using reason and scientific experiment, rather than doctrine and custom, as a guide in the remaking and improvement of life and society. They also advocated for greater legal and social equality between men.As a novel of the Enlightenment, Candide satirizes and critiques almost every powerful institution of its era. Churches, the aristocracy, and the military are viciously lampooned. Characters like the Grand Inquisitor, the Bulgarian Captain, and the haughty Young Baron showcase the prejudice and irrationality of 18th century institutions. This direct, irreverent criticism of subjects considered sacred for centuries prior is central both to the Enlightenment, and to Voltaire's work. So, too, is the faith in the power of human reason and equality between men, best represented by the garden at the end of the novel. - Theme: Religion and Philosophy vs. The World. Description: Candide satirizes the huge gap between the world and the way it is philosophically and religiously explained. The doctrines of religious groups and philosophers active during Voltaire's life are made to look ridiculous and out of touch with reality when juxtaposed with the events of the novel. Pangloss' philosophy of optimism appears foolish—even insincere—when set beside the misfortunes of his life: exile, enslavement, execution, vivisection, syphilis, and academic obscurity. His explanations also become more circuitous and outlandish as the narrative proceeds. By the very end, Pangloss is suggesting that all of the miseries the characters endured were necessary to bring them to the present moment: enjoying candied pistachios in the garden.Candide also criticizes religion as a means of making judgments about the world. Despite his good character and judgment, Candide is unfairly mistreated by religious zealots of all kinds, who take him to be an enemy because of his ignorance of their beliefs and doctrines. In the end, Candide rejects the dogma and sophistication of religion and philosophy. Refusing to enter any further into the debates of Martin and Pangloss, he comes to the pragmatic conclusion that "we must cultivate our garden"—in other words, that practical reason and hard work are more useful than theology and philosophy in making sense of the world. Like many of the conclusions reached by Candide, this reflects a trend in the Europe of Voltaire's era: science and more politically focused philosophy were taking the place of theology, which since medieval times had been known as "the Queen of the Sciences." - Theme: Love and Women. Description: Candide's search for Cunégonde is what threads together the novel's otherwise senseless sequence of adventures. The pursuit of Cunégonde, and of other women, is also the reason for the most of the characters' misfortunes: from the Candide's expulsion from Westphalia, to Pangloss' syphilis, contracted from Paquette. Candide uses women as a symbol of insatiable human desire (or perhaps, more specifically, male desire), a force which causes pain and conflict in the world. Women in the novel are almost always a cause for conflict and violence: there is violence between men over women, as well as violence committed upon women by men. Women are also used by the novel to illustrate the futility of human desire: by the time Candide reaches Cunégonde, she has lost her youth and beauty, and he no longer desires her (though he still marries her).The use of women as symbols and plot devices in Candide should not distract from the novel's serious consideration of the suffering and oppression of women. In a novel filled with characters who suffer great misfortunes, it is worth noting that female characters are arguably the worst off: not even Pangloss endures as much misery as the old woman in the captivity of the Moroccan pirates. - Theme: Wealth. Description: Candide is a subtle critique of wealth and its pursuit. When Candide leaves El Dorado, laden with riches, it seems plausible that this newfound wealth will help him to find Cunégonde. Instead, it attracts no end of tricksters and hangers-on, from the Dutch merchant Vanderdendur who robs and abandons Candide in Suriname, to the imposter Cunégonde in Paris. Candide's vast riches (and their gradual disappearance) are one of the great ironies of the novel. Not only do his riches not help him—they hold him back, slowing down his journey as thieves and flatterers—like the Abbé of Perigord and the Marchioness of Parolignac—gather around him. In the world of this novel, the pursuit of wealth is not just immoral, but useless. The rich Venetian Pococuranté has everything he could ever need, but remains unhappy. Tellingly, in El Dorado, the one place in the novel which comes close to resembling "the best of all possible worlds," wealth and valuables are treated as useless trifles. Candide himself takes the same attitude, never haggling with the characters who offer him outrageous prices. - Climax: Candide, Cunégonde, and the other characters are reunited in Turkey, where they plan to live out the rest of their lives cultivating their garden. - Summary: Candide is a young man who lives in the Barony of Thunder-ten-tronckh. There, he is instructed by the philosopher Pangloss, whose doctrine is that we live in "the best of all possible worlds." One day, the Baron's daughter Cunégonde comes across Pangloss having sex with Paquette, her mother's chambermaid. Inspired, she approaches Candide, intending to do the same. Unfortunately, the two are caught kissing. Furious, the Baron kicks Candide out of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Candide wanders from place to place, and is eventually tricked by two Bulgarian soldiers into joining their army. He performs well in military exercises, but flees like a coward in the first battle.Candide makes his way to Holland, because he has heard it is a rich country. There, he begs for money, generally without success. The wife of a Protestant orator dumps a chamber pot over his head after he refuses to say that the Pope is the Antichrist. Eventually, he is taken in by the altruistic Anabaptist Jacques. Shortly thereafter, he comes across Pangloss, who is ill with syphilis. Jacques takes Pangloss in, and also pays for his cure. Pangloss loses an eye and an ear to the disease, but survives. The three travel to Lisbon, debating philosophically on the voyage there.As soon as they reach the Bay of Lisbon, there is a terrible storm. The ship sinks, and Jacques the Anabaptist dies. Pangloss and Candide float to shore, but as soon as they land, the terrible Lisbon Earthquake takes place, killing thousands. Candide and Pangloss survive, but are soon after arrested by the Inquisition, which is holding an auto-da-fé (a public festival for the punishment of heretics) in an attempt to prevent future earthquakes. Candide is publicly whipped, and Pangloss is hung. Candide despairs, beginning to doubt Pangloss's optimistic philosophy.An old woman approaches Candide and leads him to a house in the country. There, he is reunited with Cunégonde, who is being sexually shared by the Grand Inquisitor and a Jewish merchant named Don Issachar. Don Issachar and the Grand Inquisitor both enter the house shortly thereafter, and Candide kills each one as he enters. Candide, Cunégonde, and the old woman flee all the way to Buenos Aires in South America, where Candide is put in charge of a military company mustered for the war against the rebelling Jesuits in Paraguay. The Governor, Don Fernando, wants to keep Cunégonde as his mistress. News arrives that the minions of the murdered Inquisitor are about to land in Buenos Aires, and Candide flees with his valet Cacambo. Cacambo takes Candide to the Kingdom of the Jesuits, where he discovers that the Reverend Commandant is none other than the young Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Their tearful reunion takes an unexpected turn when Candide announces his intention to marry Cunégonde, the Baron's sister. Outraged, the Baron attacks Candide, who stabs him through the stomach in self-defense. Candide weeps, overcome with remorse for having now killed three men.Candide and Cacambo flee the Jesuit Kingdom and head for the wilderness. There, a mishap results in their capture by the savage Oreillons, who take them for Jesuits and prepare to eat them. Thanks to Cacambo's charisma, the Oreillons release them.Candide and Cacambo wander through the wilderness for a long period of time. Totally by accident, they reach El Dorado, a utopian society filled with precious metals and happy people. Candide concludes that this must be the "best of all possible worlds," which Pangloss described. Though they are happy in El Dorado, a desire for fame and glory causes Candide and Cacambo to leave. The King of El Dorado helps them depart from the isolated place, giving them many riches and a flock of red sheep as a parting gift. A few days after leaving El Dorado, Candide and Cacambo come across an African slave who is missing his hand and left leg.Knowing that he will be arrested if he returns to Buenos Aires, Candide sends Cacambo to search for Cunégonde, promising to meet him in Venice. Candide himself heads to Suriname, where he tries to arrange passage back to Europe. He is tricked by the ship owner Mynheer Vanderdendur, who steals his flock of sheep and abandons him. At this point, Candide is almost ready to abandon his optimism completely.Nevertheless, Candide manages to arrange a journey to Bordeaux with Martin, an impoverished scholar and pessimist whom he chooses as his traveling companion. On the way there, a battle takes place between two ships, and one of Candide's red sheep floats up from the wreckage, alive—he takes this as a good omen.Candide and Martin arrive in Bordeaux, and then head to Paris. In Paris, Candide is tricked and robbed by the devious and superficial Abbé of Perigord and Marchioness of Parolignac, along with many other minor characters.Candide and Martin briefly go to England, and then move on to Venice. There, Candide finds Paquette in the arms of Friar Giroflée—she has become a prostitute. Candide and Martin visit the home of Pococuranté, a wealthy Venetian Senator who is dissatisfied with everything he has. Soon after, they have dinner with six kings who have been deposed. At the dinner, Candide finds Cacambo, who informs him that Cunégonde is working as a servant in Turkey.Candide, Cacambo and Martin travel to Turkey. On the ship which takes them there, they find Pangloss and the Young Baron, both of whom have been enslaved. Candide pays to have them both freed. When he arrives in Turkey, he does the same for Cunégonde and the old woman. By now, after lengthy journeys and countless misfortunes, all of the major characters have been reunited.Cunégonde has become ugly, but Candide still wishes to marry her. When the Baron, her brother, opposes it, they send him back to Rome—by force. The two marry, and all of the remaining characters move to a small farm. There, they complain about their misfortunes and discuss philosophy endlessly.One day, Candide comes across an old Turkish farmer, with a garden he takes care of with his children. The man seems to be happier with his lot than Candide and the other characters. Because of him, Candide is inspired to abandon the endless questions of philosophy for the solace of practical work. He concludes that while we are alive, "we must cultivate our garden."

- Genre: Young Adult Novel, Fictionalized Biography, Historical Fiction, Bildungsroman - Title: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Salem, Massachusetts; various late 18th- and early 19th-century trade routes - Character: Nat Bowditch. Description: Nathaniel Bowditch is the fourth child of Mother and Father. He's the brother of Mary Bowditch, Hab Bowditch, Lizza Bowditch, William Bowditch, Samuel Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. From an early age, Nat demonstrates mathematical genius. He thrives during his brief period at Master Watson's school, drawing the attention of some of the best-educated men in town, including the Reverend Dr. Prince and Dr. Bentley. From an early age, he cultivates a deep-rooted dream of attending Harvard University one day. But after Mother and Granny die, Father cannot afford to support his entire family, so he withdraws Nat from school and indentures him with Mr. Ropes and Mr. Hodges, where Nat becomes a bookkeeper and apprentice chandler. In the chandlery, Nat provides himself an excellent, well-rounded education through conversations with men like Captain Samuel Smith and by reading as many books as he can get his hands on. After his indenture ends, he leverages this knowledge to escape the chandlery business and launch a career at sea. He first sails as clerk and second mate under Captain Henry Prince on the Henry. At sea, Nat begins to teach the sailors, including clear troublemakers like Dan Keeler, Lem Harvey, and Lupe Sanchez, the rudiments of navigation, conferring dignity on men whose lot in life is otherwise hard and limited. Eventually, he decides to write his own (scrupulously accurate) book on navigation. In his personal life, Nat has an especially close relationship with his sister Lizza, who introduces him to his first wife, Elizabeth Boardman. After her tragic early death from consumption (tuberculosis), Nat eventually finds love again with Polly Ingersoll, who becomes his second wife. Eventually, his academic efforts are rewarded with an honorary degree from Harvard University and a membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. - Character: Lem Harvey. Description: Lem Harvey is a common sailor who ships on the Astrea under Captain Henry Prince when she sails to Manila. Lem Harvey replaces Dan Keeler in the crew after Keeler's leaves Prince's employ to sign as second mate on another ship. Harvey's history of sailing on privateers has also given him the necessary knowledge of ship's weapons to take charge of training the men on the Astrea's cannons. Unfortunately, Harvey is a bitter, confrontational man whose bad attitude sours the crew. His abusive language during cannon drills makes the other sailors cranky and leads to tensions between them and the officers, especially the captain. He twice tries to jump ship in port. These escape attempts land him twice in the brig, after which Captain Prince punishes him by relieving him of his cannon-drill duties. This sours Harvey's attitude further. But eventually, he swallows his pride and asks Nat Bowditch if the young man thinks that even someone as "dumb" as Harvey himself can learn navigation. With patience—both from Nat and toward himself—Harvey soon excels at the art of navigation, and by the end of the Astrea's record-breaking voyage, he's become a friendly, supportive, and positive member of the crew. In this way, Lem Harvey exemplifies Nat's teaching techniques and Nat's belief that anyone can learn and improve themselves and their life if only they're treated—and treat themselves—with dignity rather than abuse and belittling. After the Astrea returns from Manila, Harvey uses his new knowledge to secure a spot as the second mate on another ship. When this ship sinks—Harvey makes a mistake in his reckoning thanks to an error in Moore's charts—his family, including his brother-in-law Zack Selby, believe him to be lost at sea. But another ship rescues Harvey and takes him with them on the conclusion of their journey to the West Indies; his return to Salem many months later silences those who deny the benefits and safety of "book sailing." He offers his knowledge and experience of the marine topography and political situation in and around the Malay peninsula to Nat when Nat assumes command of the Putnam, but a broken leg prevents him from making the voyage. - Character: Captain Henry Prince. Description: Captain Henry Prince is a Salem seaman who works for Mr. Elias Derby. He commands several of Derby's ships, including the Henry and the Astrea, taking Mr. Collins as his first mate each time. When he assumes command of the Henry, he brings Nat Bowditch along as second mate and ship's clerk. On shore, Prince is a friendly, jolly man. He first becomes acquainted with the young Nat when he visits the chandlery to outfit his ships. At sea, however, Nat is shocked to watch him turn into a stern, humorless man. Only when he receives his own first command does Nat come to understand the weight of responsibility Prince feels for his ship, its cargo, and every one of the sailors aboard. Even though he is a strict disciplinarian, throwing troublemakers like Lem Harvey into the brig without hesitation, Prince also allows Nat to experiment with teaching the men navigation, and quickly comes to appreciate how Nat's respectful treatment of the sailors improves their attitudes and makes for a smooth voyage. He's also the person responsible for helping Nat turn his theoretical knowledge about ships and sailing into practical, experiential knowledge. He respects the young man's intelligence and mathematical skills, especially after Nat proves his uncommon knack for taking difficult lunar readings and accurately using them to calculate the ship's position. Even after he and Nat cease sailing together, they maintain their friendship and together finance a sealing expedition that unfortunately fails. - Character: Lizza Bowditch. Description: Lizza Bowditch is the third of Mother and Father's seven children. She is sister to Mary Bowditch, Hab Bowditch, Nat Bowditch, William Bowditch, Samuel Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. In childhood, she and Nat are particularly close; her proper name is "Elizabeth," but the family calls her "Lizza" after the infant Nat's mispronunciation of her name. She's the best secret keeper in the family, and she is the only one to know about Nat's purchase of Tom Perry's expectation. Lizza grieves quietly when Nat becomes indentured, but she continues to visit him at the chandlery, keeping him connected to his family. Importantly, she introduces Nat to the girl who will become his first wife, Elizabeth Boardman. Tragically, Lizza dies from her injuries after a bad fall down the stairs during Nat's indenture. - Character: Elizabeth Boardman. Description: Elizabeth Boardman is the daughter of a Salem merchant ship captain. After her father's death, she and her mother, the widowed Mrs. Mary Boardman, continue to live and participate in Salem society. Elizabeth and her cousin Polly Ingersoll first meet Nat Bowditch through Elizabeth's friendship with Nat's sister Lizza. Nat and Elizabeth forge a quirky friendship during her childhood. Only later, when she's older, do they fall in love and marry. Elizabeth is a kind, perceptive person, who has an ability to see straight to the core of a person's character. Although she tries to be supportive of Nat, the early loss of her father marked her deeply and she expresses a great deal of anxiety about his voyages. She dies of consumption (tuberculosis) while Nat is on a voyage to Spain. - Character: Polly Ingersoll. Description: Polly Ingersoll is the daughter of Captain Ingersoll and the niece of Mrs. Mary Boardman; she's the cousin and dear friend of Elizabeth Boardman. Through her relationship with Elizabeth, she first meets Nat Bowditch when she's a child, and their friendship continues through Nat's marriage to Elizabeth. After Elizabeth's death, Nat falls in love with Polly, at which point she tells him that she's loved him for many years in secret. The two marry. Polly has a keen, perceptive mind. She understands Nat's obsession with perfecting the art of celestial navigation and teaching it to others, and she encourages him with an ironic sense of humor that matches his own. - Character: Father. Description: Father, whose full name and title is Captain Habakkuk Bowditch, is married to Mother, with whom he has seven children: Mary Bowditch, Hab Bowditch, Lizza Bowditch, Nat Bowditch, William Bowditch, Samuel Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. Granny is his mother. When his ship, the Polly, runs aground and sinks, he quits sea life and takes up work as a cooper (a person who makes barrels). But he struggles to support his family and he clearly misses his life at sea, and these stresses incline him to drink. After Mother and then Granny die, he contracts an indenture for Nat so that he will have one less person in the family to be responsible for feeding. The book doesn't specify his fate after Nat leaves the family home. - Character: Mother. Description: Mother is married to Father with whom she has seven children: Mary Bowditch, Hab Bowditch, Lizza Bowditch, Nat Bowditch, William Bowditch, Samuel Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. She is a loving, caring mother who is immensely proud of her son Nat's accomplishments. Importantly, it's she who teaches her son to look up at the stars for guidance. She dies of an unspecified illness when Nat is 10 years old. - Character: Mary Bowditch. Description: Mary is Mother and Father's eldest child; she is sister to Hab Bowditch, Lizza Bowditch, Nat Bowditch, William Bowditch, Samuel Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. She marries David Martin, who dies at sea within a few years of her marriage. Although she hates the toll the seafaring life takes on people, she loves and supports her sailor brothers. - Character: Hab Bowditch. Description: Hab Bowditch is Mother and Father's second child and eldest son; he is brother to Mary Bowditch, Lizza Bowditch, Nat Bowditch, William Bowditch, Samuel Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. Hab is a loving and protective older brother who stands up for Nat when he runs into trouble at school with Master Watson. Father pulls Hab from school at the age of 12 to help with his cooperage business. When he's 16, Hab signs on the crew of the Freedom and begins a life at sea. He dies many years later in a shipwreck. - Character: William Bowditch. Description: William Bowditch Mother and Father's fourth child; he is brother to Mary Bowditch, Hab Bowditch, Lizza Bowditch, Nat Bowditch, Samuel Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. Like his elder brother Nat, William does well in school and has a knack for navigation. He goes to sea when he's a teenager and dies many years later in a shipwreck. - Character: Samuel Bowditch. Description: Is the second youngest of Mother and Father's children; he is brother to Mary Bowditch, Hab Bowditch, Lizza Bowditch, Nat Bowditch, William Bowditch, and Lois Bowditch. Samuel doesn't like or do as well in school as his elder brothers William and Nat, but he joins the crew of a Salem merchant vessel when he's a teenager. Samuel dies of fever in the West Indies before Nat's first voyage. - Character: Tom Perry. Description: Tom Perry is a sailor on the Pilgrim, a privateer vessel during the Revolutionary War. He knows Father by reputation, and it's because of his respect for the elder Bowditch that he sells his last expectation to Nat Bowditch for the ridiculously low sum of one shilling. Perry dies at sea attempting to board a seized British vessel. - Character: Reverend Dr. Prince. Description: The Reverend Dr. Prince is a well-educated and well-respected citizen of Salem and pastor of one of its churches. He encourages Nat Bowditch's self-directed education and closely follows the boy's progress through the writings of Newton. Along with Dr. Holyoke, he helps found the Salem Philosophical Library with a purchase of scientific books from Dr. Stearns, and he's the person who formally invites Nat to join their ranks. - Character: Dr. Holyoke. Description: Dr. Holyoke is a well-established and well-respected Salem physician who, along with the Reverend Dr. Prince, becomes a founding member of the Salem Philosophical Library when he contributes to the purchase of a treasure trove of scientific books from Dr. Stearns. He visits Nat and Polly regularly and remains an active member of the community into his older years. - Character: Dr. Bentley. Description: Dr. Bentley is a well-educated priest who arrives in Salem not long after the Bowditch family returns. After hearing about Nat Bowditch's aptitude for his studies from Master Watson, Dr. Bentley takes an interest in the boy's progress, and he is the one who encourages Nat to learn Latin and lends him a copy of Newton's work on astronomy. When Nat's indenture ends, Dr. Bentley invites the young man to join himself and Captain Gibaut as they conduct a survey of the town of Salem. Dr. Bentley has his own lookout tower and is frequently the first citizen in town to spot returning ships, so he frequently bears good—and bad—news to his neighbors. - Character: Mr. Elias Derby. Description: Mr. Elias Derby is the Salem merchant and trader who owns one of the most renowned fleets in town. Captain John Derby sails Mr. Derby's ships on his famous cross-Atlantic missions. Mr. Derby is an intelligent, perceptive man with a reputation for being able to predict political and economic shifts; thus, Nat greatly respects his opinions. He hires Captain Henry Prince to replace Captain Gibaut in command of the Henry, then he asks Prince and Nat to continue guiding his ships on historic voyages to the West Indies. Before his death of age and ill health, Derby begins fundraising efforts so that Salem can build a frigate to contribute to the United States' newly formed navy. - Character: Captain John Derby. Description: Captain John Derby is the famous Salem captain who carried out two important missions related to American independence. First, he carried the news of the Battle of Lexington across the Atlantic from the colonies to England. Later, he carries news back to America when the warring sides finally sign their peace treaty. He's universally celebrated as a hero in Salem. - Character: Mr. Ropes. Description: Mr. Ropes, along with Mr. Jonathan Hodges, owns the chandlery where Nat Bowditch serves his indentured apprenticeship as bookkeeper. Like Hodges, Ropes is a kind and fair man who treats Nat well and allows the boy free access to the books in his own personal library. He and Hodges eventually sell the business to Mr. Samuel Ward. - Character: Mr. Jonathan Hodges. Description: Mr. Jonathan Hodges, along with Mr. Ropes, owns the chandlery where Nat serves out his indentured apprenticeship as bookkeeper. Nat lives in Hodges's house, and the kindly, generous man asks Nat to keep his room even after his indenture ends. He and Ropes eventually sell the business to Mr. Samuel Ward. - Character: Ben Meeker. Description: Ben Meeker is an older man who works for Mr. Ropes and Mr. Hodges at the chandlery. In his youth, he was widely acknowledged to be a bright and intelligent boy, but his family withdrew him from school and indentured him with an unnamed chandlery, and he remains in the chandlery business for the rest of his life. By the time Nat meets him, Meeker has become a bitter and idle middle-aged man. - Character: Captain Sam Smith. Description: Captain Sam Smith is a talkative old sailor who served under Father several times before becoming the master of his own ship. When Nat Bowditch begins his apprenticeship at Mr. Ropes's and Mr. Hodges's chandlery, Smith takes it upon himself to educate the boy about the nautical implements he sells and how they are used at sea. He teaches Nat the basics of piloting, navigation, and surveying. - Character: Nathan Read. Description: Nathan Read is a Harvard-educated apothecary and polymath (a person with education or expertise in a wide range of fields) who invites Nat Bowditch to visit his shop for conversations about science with himself and his apprentice, Frederic Jordy. Together, Read and Jordy teach Nat to read and speak French. - Character: Captain Gibaut. Description: Captain Gibaut is the irritable man with whom Dr. Bentley conducts a survey of the town of Salem. Gibaut meets Nat Bowditch during this work and subsequently asks Nat to join his crew on the Henry as ship's clerk. When he has a falling-out with Mr. Elias Derby, he gives up his command. - Character: Dan Keeler. Description: Dan Keeler is a sailor with a reputation for troublemaking who serves under Captain Henry Prince on the Henry. Nat Bowditch selects Keeler to join his watch. Despite his tough exterior, Keeler proves to be an eager student of Nat's navigation lessons—so eager, in fact, that he becomes able to sign on with a different crew as an officer. - Character: Johnny. Description: Johnny is the cabin boy on the Henry. His curiosity and intelligence help Nat Bowditch refine his navigational explanations and lessons for the sailors. Later, when he's older, Johnny becomes a full sailor, and he serves again under Captain Prince on the Astrea when the ship sails to ports in the Mediterranean. - Character: Lupe Sanchez. Description: Lupe Sanchez is one of the sailors Captain Henry Prince and Nat Bowditch hire in Boston after the crew the Astrea's new owners hires desert. Nat fears the stealthy, wily man, at least until he learns that Sanchez just wants to trade his knowledge of fighting skills for Nat's lessons in navigation. When Nat receives his own command, he brings Lupe aboard the Putnam as his second mate. - Character: Zack Selby. Description: Zack Selby is Lem Harvey's brother-in-law. An old-fashioned sailor who distrusts "by the book" sailing (in other words, modern navigational techniques such as the ones Nat Bowditch uses), he also seems to suffer from jealousy after Lem uses his education to rise from common sailor to officer. Selby takes every opportunity he can to mock and disdain Nat Bowditch and his modern methods. - Theme: Hard Work, Perseverance, and Success. Description: When his father pulls him out of school and apprentices him to a local business, Nat Bowditch seems doomed to a life that will never live up to his full potential. Nevertheless, he decides from an early age to "sail by ash breeze," or make his way in the world by his own, often strenuous efforts. Through these he ultimately becomes the master of his own ship, a respected scholar and authority on many scientific subjects, and the author of a widely used navigational textbook. Nat's life exemplifies the American ideal that all people, no matter how humble their beginnings, can achieve success as long as they're willing to work hard at it. Those who aren't willing end up like bitter and disaffected Ben Meeker, stuck in a dead-end, disappointing career in the chandlery business after his own apprenticeship pulled him out of school decades before he met Nat. By giving up striving for a better future, he became a man without prospects beyond the warehouse walls. This isn't to say that luck and circumstance don't contribute to Nat's success. His apprenticeship in the chandlery exposes him to men like Captain Samuel Smith, who are willing to teach him the basics of life at sea and methods of navigation; similarly, his efforts to educate himself would have been far less successful if he hadn't had the support (and access to the libraries) of so many educated men, including the Reverend Dr. Prince, Dr. Bentley, Dr. Holyoke, and others. But it's Nat's basic hard work and positive attitude that keep him ready to take advantage of these opportunities when they arise. And, the book argues, almost anyone can access similar success if, like Nat, they work hard and persevere. At sea, Nat teaches dozens of seamen how to navigate using even their limited arithmetical skills; those who want better pay and a better station in society (like Dan Keeler, Lem Harvey, and Lupe Sanchez) use this knowledge to move up from the ranks of humble sailors to become first and second officers. Ultimately, the publication of Nat's book, The American Practical Navigator, in 1802, suggests that almost anyone—at least anyone who can read and add on his fingers—can make a good and successful life in the American fashion, if only they throw themselves into the effort. - Theme: Safety and Responsibility. Description: From a young age, Nat Bowditch worries about the safety and wellbeing of those around him. At first, he focuses on the members of his family, whose luck he tries desperately to improve. From the lessons of his father and older brother Hab, he feels particularly worried about sparing the feelings of the women around him, like his sisters Lizza and Mary. When Father apprentices him to the chandlery, he puts a brave face on his bitter disappointment out of his sense of responsibility for his family's wellbeing; after all, his departure means one less mouth to feed. Later, when he goes to sea, he learns how important it is for every sailor to participate in the care and handling of the ship; when something goes wrong, like the Astrea springing a leak on a return voyage, all the men must work together to keep everyone's lives safe. Nat takes the lesson that safety is a communal responsibility seriously. Eventually, Nat's concern for the safety and wellbeing of his communities—his family, his shipboard crewmates, and the entire community of seafaring men and women around the world—culminates in his increasing desire to make navigation safer and more universally understandable. The best charts and tables for calculating a ship's position at the time of Nat's early voyages are crucially flawed; he finds more than 8,000 errors in them, and one of these errors eventually causes his friend Lem Harvey to experience a near-fatal accident at sea. And while Nat willingly takes on the individual tasks for which he's uniquely suited—his mathematical genius allows him to double check and create calculation tables in a way that no one else can, for instance—he also places this responsibility in the hands of an ever-widening group of sailors whom he teaches to navigate by the newer, more precise and scientific methods. Soon, Nat's pupils are spreading themselves throughout the Salem fleets and around the world, bringing Nat's message that careful attention and precision to matters of navigation and sailing make everyone safer, and that it's everyone's responsibility—down to the littlest cabin boy—to ensure the safety and wellbeing of his or her community. - Theme: Risk and Reward. Description: Nat Bowditch grows up in impoverished circumstances because his father experienced an unlucky break when Nat was just a toddler: the ship Father captained sank, along with its valuable cargo. Thus, as a young child, Nat obsesses about "luck" and wants desperately to turn his family's bad luck around. But, as he grows up, he learns that most good luck simply involves seizing the opportunities that present themselves. Instances of pure luck—like Lem Harvey's fortunate rescue after a devastating shipwreck—are few and far between in Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. Instead, the book suggests the truism, "nothing ventured, nothing gained," and claims that taking sensible risks is often worth the potential rewards. Thus, Father's decision to take the "safe" route of finding a new career on shore keeps him from further shipwrecks, but also fails to allow him to recoup his earlier losses. In contrast, although the expectation that Nat buys from Tom Perry fails to bear financial fruit, thanks to Perry's unlucky death at sea, it does, in a long, circuitous way, contribute to Nat's ultimate success. Slowly and over the course of many years, Nat makes a series of investments that begin small but grow exponentially. The shilling he spends on Tom Perry's expectation turns into an invaluable scientific library that he gains access to in his teens. The $135 he spends on the boots that make up his "venture cargo" on his first voyage to the Isle of Bourbon turns into around $400 of profit when he sells them. Ultimately, he accumulates enough wealth to have one-third of an interest in a sealing vessel. That ship sinks—all ventures carry some risk—but for Nat, and for the other wealthy merchant fleet owners of Salem, like Mr. Elias Derby, the occasional setbacks are more than worth it, because they are outweighed by successes. The book thus celebrates the high-risk, high-reward nature of the early American shipping industry and suggests why long shots at success are so popular in this culture—because when one's investments pay off, they usually pay off big. - Theme: The Growth and Development of America. Description: Set against the backdrop of the American Revolutionary War and its aftermath, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch explores the growth and development of America—and American democracy—at a crucial point in the country's history. The book argues for the continuing importance of American ideals like making one's own path in the world, the importance of democracy, the value of capitalism and investment, and the role of freedom of speech in a flourishing democracy by showing these ideals in their infancy. Nat and Hab nearly burst with pride when they have a chance to see President George Washington parade through Salem; Captain Henry Prince puts Monsieur Bonnefoy back in his place with a reminder that America was the first country to throw off the chains of a despotic monarchy. Nat models respect for the capitalists, including Mr. Elias Derby, whose business acumen made Salem rich, and by extension helped to fill the young nation's coffers, too. Perhaps most centrally, the book argues for the inherent dignity of all citizens, and their equal opportunity to create lives of success and happiness for themselves. Nat treats all of the sailors on his voyages, even those who cannot do simple math, who speak broken English, or who have reputations as known fighters and troublemakers, with dignity and respect, as his equals rather than his inferiors. Then, he gives them the tools they need to improve their fortunes, if they wish to, by teaching them how to move up the ranks of a ship's crew and become officers. The book also portrays the vibrancy of American ideals throughout history when it imagines Nat, Ben Meeker, and Dr. Bentley deep in an argument about whether or not the President's and Congress's decisions are sound and about the role of a free press in keeping the government accountable. Because these questions still animate political discussions in America (and in other democracies around the world), the book uses historical examples to allow modern-day readers to reflect on the enduring importance of these ideas, and to show how they have withstood the test of time. - Theme: Courage and Grief. Description: Early in his life, Nat Bowditch learns two important lessons. The first comes from his older brother, Hab, who teaches him that "boys don't blubber." Hab leaned on this mantra throughout a long cold winter when he had outgrown his coat and the family couldn't afford to replace it. The cold hurt, Hab explains, but he chose not to complain, facing his suffering with fortitude and courage. Later, Nat's mother tells him to look up at the stars when he feels sad, lonely, or lost, because this can help a person shrink their troubles back down to earthly size. These lessons both suggest the importance of courage—facing and accepting the loss, suffering, and uncertainty of life with equanimity—in living a meaningful, happy life in the face of sometimes unimaginable loss and grief. As he grows up, Nat exemplifies courage and finds himself surrounded by other brave souls. Nat—and those around him—certainly need courage in an era and a place where death lurks seemingly everywhere. Numerous characters die at sea of illness and accident on a regular basis. On shore, Nat loses his favorite sister, Lizza, to a bad fall and his first wife, Elizabeth, to tuberculosis. Yet, when David, Nat's sister Mary's husband, dies, Mary tells Nat that, although their time together was too short, David made her unimaginably happy when he was alive. Likewise, while Nat mourns Elizabeth's death, he doesn't regret his marriage. In contrast, the book shows how cowardice and hopelessness magnify rather than prevent suffering. Like Nat, Ben Meeker was pulled from school unwillingly and indentured; unlike Nat, however, Ben allowed this circumstance to "becalm" him and keep him stuck in an unhappy life full of complaint and frustration. Likewise, after the loss of his ship, Father runs away from the sea, only to discover that difficulty—the deaths of Mother and Granny, his ongoing financial instability—can find him, there too. With examples of both courage and hopelessness, the novel thus argues that courage is a valuable trait, and not just among boys. In a world where the worst can happen at any moment, everyone will face pain and suffering, but only those who can face their suffering with strength and bravery will truly thrive. - Climax: - Summary: On the night before his family moves from Danvers back to Salem, six-year-old Nat Bowditch tries to stay awake so he can work a magic spell by the power of the new moon. He desperately wants to change his family's luck, which turned sour four years earlier, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, when Father's ship sank. Although Father's luck seems to have improved when he buys an expectation on privateer Tom Perry's next voyage, Perry's death at sea quashes that hope. Despite the mathematical genius Nat demonstrates at Master Watson's school (drawing the attention of some of Salem's best-educated citizens). Father withdraws him at the age of 12 and contracts him to an indenture in the chandlery (ship-outfitting business) of Mr. Ropes and Mr. Hodges. Unwilling to become "becalmed" like older employee Ben Meeker, Nat continues his education on his own, learning everything he can from conversations with men like the Revered Dr. Prince, Dr. Bentley, and Captain Samuel Smith, and from reading books he borrows from Mr. Ropes and the Salem Philosophical Library. It's during his apprenticeship that he first befriends Elizabeth Boardman, and his favorite sister, Lizza, dies in an accident. When his nine years of service in the chandlery have ended, Nat finds work with Dr. Bentley and Captain Gibaut on a survey of Salem; this leads him to an invitation to serve on the Henry under Captain Henry Prince. As second mate and ship's clerk, Nat demonstrates his own navigational brilliance and begins to teach the common sailors how to navigate "by book," or by using astronomical readings to calculate a ship's position at sea. He also uses the French he learned during his apprenticeship to act as Prince's translator in port. On the voyage home, Nat finds the first of many mistakes that mar the current navigational tables, and he figures out a newer, simpler, and more accurate way of taking lunar readings, thus improving the accuracy and safety of navigation overall. Nat returns home to news of family tragedy; his sister Mary's husband David and David's entire crew died at sea. But this doesn't stop Nat from sailing again with Captain Prince, this time on a record-breaking voyage halfway around the world to Manila. On this voyage, Nat proves his navigational skill when he guides the Astrea through the treacherous Sunda Strait with "book sailing." And he meets, begins to teach, and ultimately befriends sailor Lem Harvey, whose tempestuous, aggressive nature calms when Nat's navigation lessons give him a new outlet for his energies. Soon after returning to Salem, Nat proposes to his childhood friend, Elizabeth Boardman. He learns that Lem Harvey has used his navigational education to sign on as an officer—second mate—on a smaller ship. And soon, Nat sails once more under Captain Prince, this time to the Mediterranean. Tragically, news reaches Nat on this voyage that Elizabeth has died of consumption (tuberculosis). When he returns to Salem, Nat throws himself into the writing of the world's most comprehensive and accurate textbook of navigation to escape his grief. Eventually, he falls in love with and marries Polly Ingersoll. A lifetime of losses to the ocean—his brothers Hab, William, and Samuel; his brother-in-law David; his wife Elizabeth's father; and apparently even Lem Harvey—make Nat cautious about returning to the sea. He becomes a capitalist instead, investing money in a sealing ship, which unfortunately sinks. Then, Harvey miraculously returns. Feeling that his book will gain a wider reach if he can call himself a ship's master, Nat takes the opportunity to command his own ship, the Putnam, as captain on a voyage to Sumatra for pepper. On the way home, Nat finds himself beset by almost continual storms that delay his progress. When the storms finally clear and the ship should be practically in sight of Salem Harbor, it becomes lost in a thick fog. But, using a combination of "book sailing"—the last good sighting he got, 72 hours before landfall—and dead reckoning (tracking the ship's position by monitoring its speed and tracking that against time), Nat successfully brings the Putnam in through a fog in which no other captain would have attempted to sail. Triumphant, he returns home to the welcoming arms of his friend Lem Harvey and wife Polly.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Cat in the Rain - Point of view: Third person narrator - Setting: Italy - Character: The American Wife. Description: The story's protagonist is a nameless young American woman on holiday in Italy with her husband, George. She is attractive, with short boyish hair. She is clearly unhappy, bored, and lonely, spending much time gazing out of the window of the hotel room she shares with George, from whom she seems to be disconnected. However, when she sees a cat in the rain across the street, she perks up, telling George that she's going to go find it and bring it to their hotel. Her deep sense of dissatisfaction and alienation is not only embodied in her disappointment in failing to find the cat, but also in the litany of complaints and desires that she shares with George. She seems to feel ambivalent about her own femininity. On the one hand she takes an independent stance in rejecting her husband's offer to find the cat on her behalf. On the other hand, the desires that she expresses to George—such as her desire for long hair, silver, and a creature to nurture—reflect an attraction to conventional femininity. As an American, she seems to be oblivious to the destruction that has recently been wrought in Europe by the First World War (1914-1918), destruction which is embodied not only in the desolate, rainy weather, but also in the war monument that the hotel room overlooks. - Character: George. Description: The American wife's husband, George spends most of the story reading on a bed in a hotel room in Italy. He is in the country on holiday with his wife. Though George at times seems to be attentive to his partner—offering to go down to get the cat that she spots from their hotel window, and also telling her that she looks nice—he ultimately seems unable to connect and respond to his wife's loneliness and unhappiness. When she returns to their room after having failed to find the cat and shares a long list of wants and desires with him, he responds by telling her to shut up and get something to read. - Character: The Hotel-keeper. Description: A tall, old, dignified Italian man who looks after guests of the hotel in Italy where the American wife and her husband George are staying while on vacation in Italy. The American wife passes his office on the ground floor of the hotel twice when she goes in search of the cat that she had spotted from her hotel window in the bad weather. On both occasions, the hotel-keeper rises and bows to her. The hotel-keeper contrasts with the American wife's husband, in that he seems to be much more sensitive to her wishes and desires than George. He acts out his part as consummate and attentive host by anticipating her needs, first by sending out the hotel maid with an umbrella for the wife when she goes outside in search of the cat, and at the end of the story, when he sends up the maid to the couple's room with a cat for the wife. - Character: The Maid. Description: An Italian woman who works in a hotel in Italy under the hotel-keeper. Her responsibilities include cleaning the room occupied by the American wife and her husband, George. Within the hierarchy of characters in the story, the maid is the most powerless (all of her actions, such as following the American wife outside with an umbrella, as well as bringing up a cat to her room, are directed by her boss, the hotel-keeper). However, she also seems to be quite bold and unafraid, laughing in the face of the American wife when she learns that she has gone out in the bad weather to look for a cat. - Theme: Longing and Disappointment. Description: In Ernest Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain," a woman's yearning to bring a cat indoors becomes an embodiment of all her longing and desire. On a rainy day in Italy, the unnamed protagonist of the story, an American wife, spots a cat from the window of the hotel room she shares with her husband, George. Her sudden impulse to save the cat from the rain, however, is frustrated when she descends to the street only to discover that the cat has disappeared. Through this simple incident, the story delves into the discontent and disillusion that often haunt people's ordinary lives. The world is indifferent to people's whims, the story suggests, and thus even as longing and desire are fundamental human impulses, they inevitably end in frustration and disappointment. At first, the woman's desire seems simple and easy enough to fulfill. Upon seeing a cat taking shelter from the rain beneath a café table, the woman informs her husband that she will go downstairs to bring it indoors from the bad weather. In noting to her husband how "the poor kitty" is "out trying to keep dry under a table," the protagonist seems to recognize the cat's own frustrated desire to find shelter. It is significant that the cat's predicament triggers the wife's empathy, as this suggests that there is something about the animal's plight with which she identifies. When she goes out in the rain only to find that the cat has disappeared, however, the woman is "disappointed." Instead of being glad that the cat has perhaps found a better shelter elsewhere, she is frustrated, telling the hotel maid who has followed her out with an umbrella that "she wanted [the cat] so much." This moment reveals that, despite her feeling of kinship, the animal—perhaps representative of the larger world itself—is indifferent to her desire. In expecting to find the cat easily, the woman is left longing for something she can't have. The woman's desire for the cat is, of course, about much more than the cat. Indeed, her disappointment over the disappeared animal awakens a whole host of other frustrated longings. After returning upstairs to the hotel room where her husband continues to read the paper, she examines herself in the mirror, and tells him that she wants to grow out her short hair. Her desire to transform her appearance is implicitly linked to a latent desire to transform her life; she not only wants a cat, she wants to change the way she looks, and she also adds that she wants her own silver. She even wishes it were spring—something decidedly out of her control. On the surface, the desires that the woman expresses are mundane, but they point to a deeper striving for radical and transformative change, which seems to be beyond reach. At the end of the story, the woman does indeed get a cat. The attentive hotel-keeper, who had found out about her search earlier, sends up the hotel maid with a cat to give to her. This ending, however, is ambiguous. On the one hand, the woman's longing for a cat seems to be on the brink of fulfillment: standing in front of her is the maid with an animal in her hands. On the other hand, it is not clear whether the cat that the maid presents is the same one that the woman had sought earlier. The reader is never given a description of the cat that the woman sees from the hotel window, while the cat that is brought up by the maid at the end of the story is described as a "big tortoise-shell cat." At the end of the story, the narrator doesn't describe the woman as recognizing the cat—in fact, the story ends before the reader is given the woman's reaction to the animal at all. Thus, there is the strong possibility that the hotel owner has simply found another cat to give to the woman. In this way, the story leaves the reader in the dark about whether the woman's desire is in fact fulfilled or not. The woman gets a cat, but is it the cat she wants? By leaving open the possibility that it is not, the story reinforces the idea that, even in their fulfillment, people's wishes may be frustrated. Whether the woman chooses to settle for this replacement animal—in a way, to accept her reality—remains left unsaid. The story also leaves open-ended the question of whether it is wiser to anticipate disillusionment, or to forever seek a (perhaps foolish) sense of personal fulfillment in an indifferent world. Either way, the woman's frustrated desire for the cat in this story reflects the longing that all people experience at one point or another—a longing for more, and for better. - Theme: Loneliness and Isolation. Description: Set on a rainy day in Italy, "Cat in the Rain" has an atmosphere of isolation and loneliness. The unnamed American wife is unable to find the companionship and emotional closeness she seeks from those around her—including from her husband George, despite that they are living in the same hotel room. To assuage her feelings of loneliness, she becomes fixated on getting a cat. Hemingway's brief tale implicitly argues for the importance of connection through its exploration of the pain and desperation of isolation—which, it further suggests, can develop regardless of one's physical proximity to another person.   The setting of the story itself mirrors the isolation of its characters. The wife and her husband are stuck inside their hotel room because of the rain. The room faces out onto the sea and a public garden, yet even looking out the window offers no comforting glimpse of other people; there are no artists out painting in the garden, as there would be in better weather, and the square on which the room faces is empty—no cars can be seen anywhere. The image of water standing "in pools on the gravel path" further imbues the landscape with a sense of stillness and desertion. Even if there were others around, however, the story suggests that the husband and wife would remain isolated. They are notably the only two Americans staying at the hotel and do not know any of the other guests. This implicitly suggests their sense of alienation from those around them in this foreign country—they are strangers in a strange land. What's more, as the husband contentedly retreats into a book, he leaves his wife alone to look out the window upon this wet, abandoned world, thereby deepening her feelings of solitude. Indeed, the couple is not only isolated from those around them, but also from each other. The first image of the wife presented to the reader depicts her facing away from her spouse, who reclines on the bed reading. As she looks out the window, her physical position in relation to her husband echoes the emotional distance between them. The wife's alienation from her husband is again emphasized when she returns to their room after failing to find the cat. Again, the wife does not look at George, but instead goes to the mirror to look at herself before proceeding to look out the window—effectively choosing to turn away from her lonely life and toward the world beyond, which perhaps offers the possibility of connection. George is not sympathetic to her subsequent string of complaints and desires about wanting the cat, wanting new silver, and wanting it to be spring. He responds by saying, "Oh, shut up and get something to read." This response affirms that George is unable to understand or connect to his wife's emotional needs. It is no wonder that she feels estranged from him and never bothers to look at him directly. Nevertheless, the wife still clearly longs for connection with someone—a desire that manifests in the narrator's statements about the hotel-keeper whom she meets when she descends to find the wet cat. The narrator states that the "wife liked him," and "[s]he liked the way he wanted to serve her." The narrator never communicates any such feelings of fondness on the part of the wife for her husband. Yet her relationship to the hotel-keeper is also ultimately characterized by distance. When the wife goes downstairs, for example, he stands "behind his desk in the far end of the dim room." He is physically separated from her—just as her husband had been upstairs. This distance between the woman and the hotel-keeper alludes to the fact that, regardless of her fondness for him, their relationship remains formal and remote; she can only interact with him in his professional capacity as the hotel-keeper. These markedly cold relationships establish the wife's desperate loneliness; she has no means by which to feel valued, needed, and close to another living creature. The woman, in turn, projects her own feelings onto the cat that she seeks to save from the rain. Looking out of the hotel window at the beginning of the story, the woman sees the cat alone, crouching under a dripping café table. That the cat's trouble provokes her immediate sympathy suggests that she identifies with the animal's isolation. Significantly, the woman's disappointment at not finding the cat when she goes to rescue it further highlights her need for some sort of intimate emotional contact and connection. She tells George that she "wanted [the cat] so much." That she sought to overcome her own loneliness through her contact with the cat is implied in her statement to George that "I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her." This image of close, warm, physical touch again underscores the woman's immense sense of isolation—a feeling she had hoped her contact with the animal would alleviate. Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain" thus repeatedly highlights alienation as central to the American wife's experience. In portraying her distance from her husband, the story further underscores the ways in which people can feel emotionally disconnected even from those with whom they are supposedly most intimate. Nevertheless, the need for close emotional contact and connection remains irrepressible. People will look for such connection anywhere—even if that means turning to a helpless cat caught in the rain. - Theme: Gender Roles and Femininity. Description: Published in 1925, a time of liberation and new-found freedoms for many women, "Cat in the Rain" projects a clear ambivalence regarding certain changes in women's position in society. The female protagonist herself—a short-haired, ostensibly childless wife living out of a hotel room—seems to bristle at being distanced from more stereotypical femininity, as is evidenced by her ultimate longing to embrace a more traditional woman's role (that is, to be a caretaker, a homemaker, to be beautiful). Yet the fact that she also seems to be dismissed or infantilized by the men around her (and even by the author himself) implicitly suggests the reductive nature of restrictive notions of both masculinity and femininity. The story's ultimate ambiguity regarding gender roles can be read both as a general reaction to era's promises of "progressiveness" that dictated new (but ultimately equally restrictive) rules for women's behavior, and as a likely consequence of Hemingway's own positioning as a "macho" author writing at a time of radical transformation in the relations between the sexes. George's attitude towards his wife is marked by condescension, which seems to stem from a stereotypical understanding of gender. When the wife first informs her husband that she will go outside to rescue the cat from the rain, George tells her, "I'll do it." In offering to take on this very simple task, one which his wife is easily capable of doing herself, the husband seems to position her as weak and dependent, and he himself as able and powerful by contrast. In this way, he reinforces a traditional gender hierarchy. Furthermore, when the wife returns upstairs after having failed to locate the cat and begins examining herself in the mirror and wondering whether she should grow her hair out, George seems concerned that she keep her appearance according to his liking. Considering her short hair, he says, "I like it the way it is," and affirms again, "You look pretty darn nice." While perhaps a half-hearted attempt to assuage his wife's anxieties about her looks, these comments implicitly reveal George to be more fixated on his own appreciation of his wife's appearance, rather than on hers; his comments—however complimentary—suggest that his wife's appearance exists primarily for his consumption. George's condescension towards his wife is further reflected in his irritation over the list of desires she communicates to him. Rather than affirming her desires—for a cat, for long hair, for silver, and for spring—he tells her, "Oh, shut up and get something to read," before turning back to his newspaper—effectively ending the discussion with a complete dismissal of his wife's attempt to communicate her needs. While it's arguable that the wife's desires are in many ways mundane and petty, George's refusal and/or inability to respond to them—particularly to her need for genuine connection, expressed through her longing for the cat—alludes to a certain masculine insensitivity and callousness. While the hotel-keeper behaves more kindly towards the wife than her husband does, his attitude, too, is ultimately marked by a distinct sense of condescension. The wife seems to like the hotel-keeper more than her husband. When she sees him downstairs, the narrator notes how she "liked" him and "liked the way he wanted to serve her." In responding to the way that he "wanted to serve her," the woman seems to be adopting a more traditionally feminine posture in relation to the hotel-keeper than towards her husband, whose offers of service she had refused. And indeed, the hotel-keeper does serve the woman. At the end of the story, he sends up the hotel maid with a cat (one, however, that is likely not the same one that the woman had sought earlier). It remains unclear if the hotel-keeper's action is a reflection of his genuine respect for her wishes, or simply a sloppy attempt to "serve" an eccentric female guest. The fact that the cat the hotel-keeper offers may very well not be the same cat that the woman had wanted suggests that the hotel-keeper, like the husband, treats the woman in a condescending way—he thinks that any cat will do, and thus, in a way, fails to understand that her hankering for a cat has really been an expression of her longing for emotional intimacy. In fact, he arguably treats her like a child, seeking to distract her from the loss of one "toy" by offering another instead. This action suggests that he, like George, infantilizes her and her wishes.  The wife's own attitude towards gender is complex, in that she seems to revolt against the feminine passivity ascribed to her by her husband, yet also seems to embrace a more traditionally feminine identity. By insisting on going down to get the cat herself, for instance, she acts against her husband's presumption of her weakness and incapacity. In this way, she steps out of the role of passivity ascribed to her by George. However, the longings that the wife expresses after failing to find the cat also suggest her desire for the stereotypically "feminine." She wants to grow her hair out because she is tired of "looking like a boy." She wants silver, presumably to entertain with, thus affirming her traditionally feminine identity a homemaker. She wants to nurture the cat—again expressing an impulse for caretaking often associated with femininity. The wife's contradictory actions and expressions suggest an ambivalence at the heart of her identity. Again, given that this story was published in 1925, this can be read as a response to specific changes in women's position in society. The wife acts independently of her husband and wears a short hairstyle that, at the time, was reflective of the more progressive, rebellious identity that women were adopting. As such, her desire for things that are more traditionally "feminine" may suggest that she is not yet entirely comfortable with these changes, or that she ultimately finds them to be unfulfilling demands on her behavior. The fact that the wife remains unnamed further complicates the story's ambiguous gender dynamics. While the narrative begins by referring to the two Americans as "husband" and "wife," this changes over the course of the story. The husband is given a name—George—while the wife never is. This is especially striking given that she is the tale's protagonist. Her lack of naming can be taken to allude to her anonymity and invisibility as a woman; indeed, George ignore her desires and needs. Furthermore, the tag that the narrator uses to identify the woman also changes over the course of the story. While the narrator refers to her as "wife" to begin with, as she grows increasingly insecure and unhappy after failing to find the cat the narrator begins to refer to her as "girl." Both labels identify the woman condescendingly: either in relation to her husband or in terms of her emotional immaturity. This, in turn, raises questions about the narrative voice telling the story: the voice seems to reflect (ironically or not) a masculine bias whose attitude towards the woman is characterized either by feminine dependency or feminine emotional immaturity.  Ultimately, the treatment of gender in Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain" is anything but simple. Ambiguity and ambivalence are reflected even in the wife's attitude towards her own femininity. The men that surround her take on stereotypically masculine postures in relation to her, either by dismissing her desires, or by infantilizing her even in their attempts to appease her. "Cat in the Rain's" complicated depiction of gender is, of course, a reflection of the time in which the story is set—when gender roles were being fiercely contested both by women and men, and when attitudes towards gender were very much in flux. Furthermore, Hemingway's well-known tendency to idealize masculinity may well be a reason why the story, while striving to engage meaningfully with the predicament of its female protagonist, raises more questions than it answers. - Theme: Tourism and War. Description: "Cat in the Rain" depicts an American couple on holiday in Italy shortly after the First World War. In doing so, the story inherently foregrounds issues around tourism, difference, and foreign identity. The American wife's longings—which include having the cat as a pet—become mundane when played out against the backdrop of the conflict that had recently traumatized Europe. Implicitly contrasting the wife's dissatisfactions with the tragedy of war of which she hardly seems aware, "Cat in the Rain" highlights the innocence, and privilege, of the American experience. Through his landscape and setting description, Hemingway highlights the First World War as a backdrop to the story. In the opening paragraph, the narrator tells the reader that the room occupied by the American woman and her husband, George, faces out onto a "public garden and the war monument." The narrator goes on to further state that the monument "was made of bronze and glistened in the rain." In highlighting the monument, these details immediately call the reader's attention to the fact of the recent war, which broke out in Europe in 1914; American troops did not join until 1917, two-and-a-half years after the conflict's start. At the time of the story's publication in 1925, the First World War was the largest and most violent conflict ever witnessed in history.  The description of a desolate, wet landscape also implicitly calls attention to the destruction wreaked by the war. The public garden is deserted; there are no cars on the square by the war monument. The vast expanse of the sea—which the American woman can see from her hotel window—also gives the impression of desolation; there is no one on the beach, only the sea breaking "in a long line in the rain." This image of a deserted, bleak landscape echoes the fact that the war had only recently wreaked havoc on this environment in which the couple now comfortably visits. The emptiness also recalls the great death toll of the war, which literally led to a significant depletion of the European population. While the woman looks out on this landscape marked by war, she seems completely unaware, or uninterested, in the conflict itself. The narrator tells the reader that "Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument." This suggests the importance that the war holds for the Italians, who after all experienced it firsthand and lived through it. The woman's attention, on the other hand, seems not to be caught by the monument, but rather by a wet cat sheltering under a café table. By setting up a contrast between the Italians' interest in the war monument and the woman's interest in the cat, Hemingway implicitly reflects the main character's obliviousness to the toll of the war on this community. This obliviousness is significant, because it alludes more broadly to the lack of consciousness among many Americans about the destruction caused by the war, having not lived through or experienced the conflict themselves. Furthermore, the positioning of the woman and her husband as tourists in this war-riven landscape further reinforces the sense that they are "foreign" in Italy, not only as Americans, but also as a result of the innocence of their experience. The narrator states that the couple are the "only two Americans stopping at the hotel," and that they "did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room." By highlighting their estrangement from those around them, the narrator points to a gulf between the couple and the Europeans who surround them. This gap is further reinforced in the differences in language that the story highlights. The American woman speaks some Italian, but clearly her grasp of the language is weak—she lapses into English when speaking to the maid who accompanies her outside. By including Italian dialogue in the story, Hemingway calls the English reader's attention to difference: the reader is forced to read words that he or she most likely does not comprehend. In this way, the story creates a gap—or a gulf—on the page. This gulf can be taken to allude to the gap in experience between the Americans who can enjoy the landscape as "tourists," and the Europeans who have experienced its destruction. Within this context, the American wife's mundane desires and longings seem petty to those around her. When the hotel maid who accompanies her outside discovers that she is looking for a cat, she laughs. While the rescue of the cat seems very important to the American woman, to the Italian maid it is so trivial as to be funny. Given the backdrop of the war, all of the American woman's longings and desires—not only for the cat, but to grow her hair out, for new silver, and for spring—seem trivial. They allude to her privileged obliviousness as a person who has not suffered the true deprivations of war. Hemingway's story thus highlights aspects of tourism and the foreign in such a way as to draw a contrast between the Americans at the center of the story and the landscape and people that surround them. By framing the story's action in the context of the First World War, "Cat in the Rain" underscores the naïve—and privileged—innocence of the American tourists visiting Italy, whose mundane desires and longings seem to take no account of the experience of cataclysmic destruction and desolation that marks the foreign environment through which they move. - Climax: The hotel staff brings the wife a cat - Summary: Two Americans—an American wife and her husband, George—are staying in a hotel in Italy. The room they occupy overlooks what would, on a nice day, be a beautiful scene: a beach, a public garden, and a war monument. However, on this day, the weather is terrible. Rain drips from the trees in the garden, on the beach, and on the war monument. The landscape is deserted. Standing at her hotel window, the American wife looks out on this scene and spots a lone wet cat sheltering under a café table. She tells her husband, who reclines on the bed reading a newspaper, that she will go downstairs to save the "poor kitty" from the rain. Her husband offers to go instead, but she declines. Downstairs, she passes the office of the hotel-keeper, an old, tall, dignified Italian who rises from his seat at the far end of the room and bows when he sees her. The American wife likes the hotel-keeper very much. She likes his dignity, his readiness to serve her, as well as his face and his big hands. She exchanges a few words with him in Italian about the bad weather, and continues on her way. She opens the door to step outside only to find that it is raining harder. She needs to make her way to the right, and considers going under the eaves to protect herself from the rain. Just then, the hotel maid appears. She opens an umbrella over the wife's head, telling her in Italian that she mustn't get wet. The American wife guesses that the hotel-keeper has sent her. With the maid following her with the umbrella, the American wife makes her way to the table, but finds that the cat has disappeared from under it. She is terribly disappointed. The hotel maid asks her if she has lost something, and the American wife tells her that there was a cat. Even though the maid laughs at this, the American wife tells her that she had really wanted the cat. The two women return inside, and the American wife passes the office of the hotel-keeper, who bows once more. When she returns to her room upstairs, her husband asks if she has found the cat, and she tells him that it is gone. She confesses that she really wanted the cat, though she doesn't know why, and dwells on the poor cat's plight in the rain. She goes to a dressing table and looks at herself with a hand glass, studying her face and the back of her head and neck in detail. She asks George whether it wouldn't be a good idea to let her hair grow out. George considers her short hair and tells her that he likes it the way it is. She responds that she's tired of looking like a boy, and George reassures her that she looks pretty good. The wife goes over to the window, and notices that it's getting dark. As she looks out, she expresses a long list of desires. She wants hair that she can pull back into a knot at the back of her neck. She wants to have a kitty to sit on her lap and to purr when she strokes it. She wants to eat at a table with her own silver, and she wants candles. She wants it to be spring. She wants new clothes. George, who had begun by paying attention to his wife's statements, loses interest and tells her to shut up and get something to read. The wife continues looking out of the window. It's dark, but still raining. She repeats several times that she wants a cat—especially since she can't have long hair or any fun. George, who is immersed in his reading, is no longer listening. Just then someone knocks at the door and George invites them to enter. The hotel maid stands in the doorway with a large tortoise-shell cat in her hands. She informs them that the "padrone"—the hotel-keeper—has sent her with the cat for the American wife.

- Genre: postmodernism; World War II novel; tragicomic novel - Title: Catch-22 - Point of view: third-person omniscient - Setting: Pianosa, off the Italian coast, near the end of World War II - Character: John "Yo-Yo" Yossarian. Description: The novel's protagonist, Yossarian is a captain in the US Army Air Force who becomes tired of flying dangerous missions. At first he tries to get medically grounded on the basis of insanity, but Doc Daneeka, the group's medic, argues that Yossarian cannot be insane if he wants to avoid death by getting out of having to fly. This is termed a Catch-22. Yossarian spends the remainder of the novel trying to combat the Catch-22 and convince the military brass, including Colonel Cathcart, the he should be sent home. Yossarian eventually refuses to fly missions and escapes the Army all together, fleeing to Sweden. - Character: Chaplain Tappman. Description: The group's chaplain, Tappman is a shy man who loves his wife and family, loves God, and wonders what exactly he is to do in the military. Although he is initially bullied by men like Cathcart, Korn, and Captain Black, Tappman decides that they cannot shake his faith or his commitment to helping his fellow officers to fly their missions safely and return home. The chaplain ends the novel encouraging Yossarian to flee. - Character: Doc Daneeka. Description: The group's medic, Daneeka is not permitted to ground soldiers on account of insanity, according to orders issued by Cathcart. Daneeka has his name placed on the flight rolls of McWatt's plane, despite not actually flying, in order to collect his combat pay. When McWatt's plane goes down, Daneeka is treated by the army as if he has died, even though he continues to live and work on Pianosa. - Character: Chief White Halfoat and Flume. Description: A Native American soldier and assistant to Captain Black, Halfoat enjoys tormenting "the white man," including his tent-mate, Flume, whom he vows to murder in his sleep. At the same time, Halfoat promises that he himself will die of pneumonia come winter. Halfoat does indeed end up dying this way. - Character: Aarfy. Description: A former fraternity man in college, Aarfy proclaims he is too dumb to understand the danger of his combat missions. He is a navigator with a poor sense of direction, and Yossarian is always telling him, while on the plane, to get out of Yossarian's way; Aarfy pretends not to understand. Aarfy ends up raping and murdering a woman in Rome, much to Yossarian's horror, but is confident he will not be prosecuted for his crimes, and is correct in that belief. - Character: Nately's Whore and her kid sister. Description: Nately's prostitute, initially resistant to becoming Nately's girlfriend, becomes extremely distraught on finding out that Nately has died. Both Nately's prostitute and her twelve-year-old kid sister assume Yossarian, who breaks the news to them, is responsible for Nately's death. They follow him for the rest of the novel, and Nately's prostitute nearly kills Yossarian on multiple occasions. - Character: Milo Minderbinder. Description: The group's mess officer, Milo ends up starting a business—M & M Enterprises—that delivers black-market goods throughout the Mediterranean. It is not clear how this business works, since Milo appears to be selling goods at a loss, but he claims "everyone" in the group "gets a share." Milo eventually begins dealing with the Germans to expand his business, and it is revealed he has been named mayor or leader of various countries throughout the Mediterranean region. - Character: Colonel Cathcart. Description: Yossarian's chief antagonist, Colonel Cathcart continually raises the number of missions required for the men in his group to return home. Cathcart does not care about his men, nor about military victory—he is only interested in advancing his own standing in the military hierarchy. Cathcart is a selfish, vain man, who relies on his assistant, Korn, for most important decisions. - Character: Colonel Korn. Description: Cathcart's assistant, Korn makes most of the strategic decisions that Cathcart then claims are his own. At the end of the novel, when Cathcart and Korn offer Yossarian a deal to be sent home, it is revealed that Korn has been more or less controlling his boss since the beginning of the war. - Character: Generals Dreedle and Peckem. Description: Generals Dreedle and Peckem are commanders of distinct units of the Italian campaign in the US Army Air Force. Each spends most of the novel trying to get the upper hand on the other, but to the surprise of each, Scheisskopf, brought over from the United States, is made commanding officer of all their units. - Character: Major Major. Description: Born with the name Major Major, Major Major is promoted to Major through a series of accidents that no one in the military seems willing to undo. Major Major is uncomfortable around his fellow men and spends much of his time hiding from them. He will only see visitors when he is not in his office—another Catch-22. - Character: Dunbar. Description: A comrade of Yossarian's, Dunbar initially tries to prolong his life by seeking boredom (since time seems to go more slowly when you are bored). Dunbar eventually becomes disillusioned with the group's bombing runs, especially after Cathcart demands they bomb an undefended village of civilians. Dunbar is later "disappeared" by military officials for his insubordination. - Character: The Soldier in White. Description: A man wrapped entirely in gauze, with only a hole for his mouth, the Soldier in White is believed to be dead by many, including Yossarian, and is later proved dead by doctors. The other patients find the presence of the Soldier in White in the hospital to be disturbing. - Character: Snowden. Description: A man dying of a severe wound in the back of Yossarian's plane, Snowden becomes a recurring memory of Yossarian's. Yossarian is horrified and moved by the soldier's death, which he only recollects in full at the end of the novel. Snowden's death reminds Yossarian of just how frail the human body can be, especially in wartime. - Character: Orr. Description: Yossarian's tent-mate, Orr becomes skilled at crash landing his damaged plane. During one such crash landing Orr disappears. Yossarian comes to realize that Orr was purposely getting his plane damaged in order to practice crash landing, and that Orr survived his last crash and has fled to Sweden. This encourages Yossarian to do the same. - Character: Major Danby. Description: A military official who mostly appears to give briefings to Yossarian and the other men, Danby at first tells Yossarian, at the end of the novel, that it would be immoral for Yossarian to run away. But Danby later comes around to Yossarian's reasoning, and even gives him money for his journey to Sweden. - Theme: Paradox and Impossibility. Description: Catch-22 is founded upon a specific "catch," or logical paradox, introduced in a conversation between Doc Daneeka and Yossarian. This formulation is the novel's most memorable: because war is dangerous, it is sane behavior to avoid war. So if Yossarian wants to stop flying missions, he is sane and fit to fly, and must therefore fly more missions. Only if Yossarian did want to fly these dangerous missions would he be insane, and subsequently disqualified from flying.Yossarian is frustrated by Catch-22s, which occur in different forms throughout the novel. Whenever Yossarian has flown sufficient missions, Cathcart raises the required mission total, meaning Yossarian never can fulfill his duty, even when he is fulfilling it. Doc Daneeka lies and places his name on McWatt's flight roll while avoiding flying—but when McWatt dies in a plane crash, the military refuses to recognize that Daneeka wasn't actually killed, even though Daneeka is standing right there on the ground. Orr's logical paradoxes infuriate Yossarian, but Yossarian does not recognize how much he values Orr until Orr disappears. Major Major so fears his subordinates that he will allow them into his office to meet with him only when he is away. And Yossarian only realizes how much he loved Luciana, his primary love interest, after he rips up her address, making it impossible to find her.Heller employs paradox and impossibility for two reasons. First, much of the humor in the book derives from these contortions of logic. It often appears that only Yossarian has a rational view of the events going on around him, and the gap between his view and others' irrationality generates humor and surprise. Second, the book investigates these paradoxes on a serious, philosophical level. Many characters wonder whether war and killing, love and loyalty, are really as straightforward as they seem. The novel maintains a balance between these serious considerations and numerous funny stories and set-pieces. - Theme: War and Bureaucracy. Description: The novel also offers a commentary on the absurdity of war, and of the bureaucracies wars create. For example: Major Major appears to have been promoted to his position simply because of his name, not his aptitude, and he remains in this position while doing nothing. The chaplain's assistant, Whitcomb, is an atheist who will carry out none of his superior's directives out of a desire to ascend to the role of chaplain himself. Scheisskopf, whose only military skill is a love of organizing parades, is promoted to general, and eventually outranks even Dreedle and Peckem. The CID men dispatched to investigate mail-tampering and forgery eventually settle on the chaplain as the culprit—even when the chaplain's handwriting doesn't match the letters', he is still suspected. Major Sanderson, the staff psychiatrist, uses his sessions with Yossarian to expound on his own neuroses and paranoia. And Milo uses military men and material to serve his own economic interests, even going so far as to aid the Germans to broaden his market.These are examples of the comic dimension of military bureaucracy: Heller does an exquisite job of sending up the Army's absurdity. But there is also a tragic dimension. Cathcart's insistence on continued missions leads to dangerous flights over unnecessary targets, and encourages the slaughter of innocent civilians. These missions result in the death of many characters, including Nately, Clevinger, and Havermeyer. The military makes Dunbar "disappear" for his insubordination. And many officers insist on continued air strikes even after the outcome of the war tilts decidedly in the Allies' favor. These officers, including Peckem, Dreedle, Korn, and Cathcart, are more concerned about their own promotions and recognition than about the lives of their men or of civilians on the ground. Thus the initially comic nature of military bureaucracy obscures the selfishness, narrow-mindedness, and cruelty of many officials that seems to be the product of that bureaucracy. - Theme: Communication and Miscommunication. Description: The novel opens with Yossarian censoring letters—blocking out important military information—while lying in the hospital. He begins signing his name as Washington Irving or Irving Washington. This introduces a theme of communication, and garbled communication, that runs throughout the text. Appleby, a soldier and superlative Ping-Pong player, is told by Orr that he has flies in his eyes, but hears that he has "sties in his eyes." Aarfy claims not to be able to hear Yossarian when they're flying, even though Yossarian makes plain, via body language, what he desires (usually, to get out of the plane's crawl-space). Orr consistently leads Yossarian in linguistic circles when the two are tent-mates. The chaplain is never able to communicate with his fellow officers, many of whom, like Whitcomb and Cathcart, believe he is strange and militarily unnecessary. Whitcomb desires that form-letters be sent by the chaplain to families of bereaved soldiers, but when these letters are sent, they are so general as to seem mocking and absurd—they indicate no personal knowledge of the soldier at all. And a good deal of the novel takes place during the soldiers' "rest leave" in Rome, where they must communicate with Italians in a hodge-podge of English and other languages, often with comedic effect.While funny, the outcomes of these miscommunications are occasionally quite serious. Because Yossarian has signed one of his censored letters with the chaplain's name, the chaplain is nearly tortured and imprisoned by military police. Yossarian seems never to escape from this web of miscommunication, but his decision to flee to Sweden at the end of the novel indicates a willingness to sever all communicative ties with the Army and with his native country. - Theme: Gallows Humor. Description: Much of the humor in Catch-22 is gallows humor (or black humor)—the kind that takes on serious subjects without sacrificing its funiness. Some of the novel's characters use gallows humor good-naturedly; others, less so. McWatt, for example, is always "buzzing" the camp, flying low over it, but one day he flies too low and accidentally kills Kid Sampson. Captain Black and Corporal Whitcomb make fun of the chaplain constantly, because they find his religious beliefs and non-combat assignment to be inherently funny. This bullying nearly drives the chaplain to abandon his beliefs altogether. Many of the novel's subordinates make fun of their commanders, including Korn, who spends much of the novel reacting to Catchart's stupidity and vanity. Major de Coverley's strange abilities—horseshoe-playing and the renting of apartments in recently-liberated cities—are celebrated among the soldiers. De Coverley finds these apartments for the men despite the many dangers associated with flying to these far-flung locales. The Soldier in White and the Soldier Who Saw Everything Twice, two wounded men who eventually die, supply comic relief for Yossarian and others—until the presence of these injured soldiers make Yossarian and his friends fear that they, too, will succumb to injuries and not survive the war.Indeed, a turning point occurs when Yossarian encounters Aarfy on their last visit to Rome. Aarfy, who has long joked about his behavior with women during his college fraternity days, tells Yossarian he has just raped and killed a woman. Yossarian is aghast, and is doubly horrified that Aarfy passes this behavior off as a joke. This traumatic event, coupled with the other horrors Yossarian has seen in destroyed and ransacked Rome, and with the death of many of his fellow soldiers, causes Yossarian to rethink his moral obligations, and his willingness to continue to fight in the war. - Theme: Self-interest, Altruism, and Morality. Description: Many characters in Catch-22 undergo moral crises, wherein they must decide between self-interest (a concern for their own safety and wellbeing) or altruism (a concern for the wellbeing of others). The chaplain, initially a morally-upright and religious man, flirts with immorality by pretending to have a fake disease and asking to spend time in the hospital. He realizes, however, that he ought instead to follow his orders and resist military authority without actively revolting against his superiors. Many commanding officers, however, decide to serve their own interests. Korn wants Cathcart's job, Cathcart wants to become a general, and Dreedle and Peckem constantly fight for control of the other's office. But it is Yossarian's personal development, his progression from self-interest to altruism that defines the moral arc of Catch-22. In the beginning, Yossarian is content to forge the chaplain's signature, resist his bombing runs, and otherwise either devise stratagems to avoid responsibility or "go with the flow" in his time with the Army. But as his friends—including Clevinger, Orr, Nately, and Dunbar—either die or disappear, Yossarian's attitude changes. He loses Luciana and Nurse Duckett; he learns that Aarfy has committed rape and murder; he sees scenes of total destruction in Rome, and of great human suffering. He realizes, like Dunbar, that he can no longer bomb innocent civilians for no reason, just to please his superiors.Yossarian's personal development reaches a climax in his full recollection of Snowden's death. In a bomb-run over Avignon, a man name Snowden is hit by flak in the back of the plane, and Yossarian, caring for a smaller leg wound, misses Snowden's large chest wound. When Snowden finally shows this second wound to Yossarian, his insides spill into the cabin of the plane, horrifying Yossarian and causing him to see, firsthand, the frailty of human life. Later, Yossarian is called on to make a moral choice. He can either accept Cathcart and Korn's deal, leaving the Army and abandoning his fellow soldiers, or continue flying missions. Yossarian accepts neither alternative. He does not choose total altruism—he does not continue to work with his fellow soldiers—and he does not take a deal that would send him home immediately. Instead, Yossarian flees Pianosa, thus recognizing the horrors and immoralities of warfare while maintaining his independence, and refusing to compromise on his decision to stop flying bombing missions. Yossarian, ultimately, takes a moral stand against war, and what it does to the individuals who are forced to fight in it. In the end, Yossarian is en route to Sweden, fittingly a neutral country, where he will wait out the war's remainder. - Climax: Yossarian finally recalls, in full, the memory of Snowden's death aboard his aircraft - Summary: Catch-22 is a tragicomic novel detailing the efforts of a man named Yossarian, a captain in the US Army Air Force, to avoid flying any more combat missions. The novel takes place on Pianosa, a small Italian island not far from Rome, at the end of the Second World War. Catch-22 is narrated in a fragmentary manner, meaning events are often sketched out in non-chronological order, to be filled in as other stories progress. At the start of the novel, Yossarian, in the hospital with a fake liver ailment, is visited by a chaplain named Tappman. The chaplain feels uncomfortable talking to most officers, but Yossarian is kind to him, and invites him to return in the future. The narrator goes on to introduce a wide-ranging cast of characters, including Orr, Yossarian's bizarre handyman of a tent-mate; Clevinger, a Harvard-educated man whose plane later disappears into thin air; Havermeyer, who loves flying dangerous missions; McWatt, a daredevil who constantly "buzzes" the camp with his plane; Nately, son of a wealthy businessman, who is in love with a Roman prostitute; and Chief White Halfoat, a Native American intending to die of pneumonia. Yossarian asks Doc Daneeka, the group's medic, if he can be grounded from flying on account of insanity. Daneeka introduces one of the novel's themes by answering "no"—because Yossarian is sane enough to ask to be grounded, he is sane enough to fly. Only those crazy enough to want to fly are crazy enough to be grounded. This is called a Catch-22. Cathcart, the Colonel in charge of the group, keeps raising the number of missions required for soldiers to be sent home. Yossarian believes this is unjust, but Cathcart and his assistant Korn do not care. Korn merely wants a promotion to Cathcart's job, and Cathcart wants to be made general, replacing Dreedle and Peckem, the two warring commanders in charge of the Italian campaign. Dreedle is mostly concerned with his mistress, and Peckem does not care what gets bombed so long as bombs fall in an appealing "bomb pattern" for documentary photographs. Cathcart signs the men up for a dangerous mission over Bologna. In this mission Yossarian has a close brush with death, as his plane is nearly downed by enemy fire, and he runs off to Rome where he meets a woman named Luciana, with whom he spends a single night. At this point the novel takes a more serious turn. Soldiers begin dying or disappearing on a more regular basis. Dunbar, another friend of Yossarian's, is "disappeared" by the military brass, for his complaints about unnecessary bombing runs. Orr has to crash land his damaged plane in the Mediterranean Sea and floats away on a raft. McWatt, buzzing the camp once more, kills Kid Sampson by accident and, in recognition of this, flies his plane into a mountain. Nately, Havermeyer, and Dobbs (another comrade) are killed on the same mission. Meanwhile, the chaplain has been crusading on behalf of Yossarian, now his friend, to send the pilots who have flown enough missions home. Cathcart, Korn, and other higher-ups rebuff the chaplain. Government officials investigating the group for supposed forgeries of letters settle on the chaplain as their prime suspect; he is tortured and threatened with imprisonment, but later set free. Although the chaplain's faith is tested throughout, he eventually decides that he does believe in God, and that only by standing up to Cathcart, Korn, and other superiors will he aid the soldiers with whom he serves. Yossarian, too, undergoes a slow change of heart over the course of the novel. In the beginning, he is satisfied merely avoiding his own duties whenever possible. But as his friends die, Yossarian begins to feel it is genuinely unjust for Cathcart to raise the number of required missions, especially since the war is almost over, and many missions are no longer militarily necessary. After a final visit to Rome, which is now devastated by war, Yossarian says he will no longer fly. Cathcart and Korn offer him two options: court-martial, which would place him in prison, or a deal sending him home. The deal's only catch is simple: Yossarian must pretend to like his commanding officers. Although Yossarian is tempted by this deal, the chaplain subtly convinces him that it would be unfair to his fellow men. Yossarian thus finds a way to escape his Catch-22 altogether: he will no longer fly, nor will he be a lackey to his commanding officers. He resolves to flee to Sweden, where he believes Orr now lives, to wait out the end of the conflict. The novel ends with Yossarian running out the door on his way to neutral territory.

- Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult - Title: Catching Fire - Point of view: - Setting: - Character: Katniss Everdeen. Description: The protagonist of Catching Fire, Katniss is an enormously brave and resourceful young woman who struggles with great challenges despite her age. She is the victor of the Hunger Games shortly before the beginning of Catching Fire, and is caught in an "in-between" stage in this novel (the middle of the Hunger Games trilogy). While she's still enormously protective of the people she loves—her mother, her sister Prim, her friend Gale, and her co-champion Peeta—she's unsure how to go about protecting them. Katniss wants to defy the tyrannical authority of the government, headed by President Coriolanus Snow, but must also participate in events designed by the government to boost morale and loyalty. Katniss faces considerably more adversity in Catching Fire than she does in the previous book, The Hunger Games, as now she's forced to participate in a second Hunger Games, while also facing the weight of her memories of the previous Games. - Character: Peeta Mellark. Description: The handsome, politically savvy, and immensely compassionate co-champion (along with Katniss Everdeen) of the Hunger Games, Peeta struggles with conflicted feelings for Katniss throughout the book. He's very attracted to Katniss, and professes his love for her many times. In many ways, this love grows stronger during the course of the book, as Peeta and Katniss bond over their shared experiences in the previous Hunger Games. At the same time, Peeta recognizes that Katniss doesn't return his feelings, and only marries him to please President Coriolanus Snow. He's also jealous of Katniss's feelings for her friend Gale Hawthorne. In the end, Peeta's fate is highly poignant: he reconfirms his loyalty to Katniss by protecting her at all costs, but also knows that she's unable to make up her mind whether she loves him or Gale. - Character: Gale Hawthorne. Description: A friend of Katniss Everdeen and a fellow resident of District 12, Gale is a resourceful, rugged young man, for whom Katniss has had romantic feelings at many points. He and Katniss have been friends since childhood, and they still enjoy hunting together. Gale is jealous of Katniss for spending time with Peeta and ultimately marrying him. Like Peeta, Gale despises the Capitol, and tries to challenge its authority at all times. Sometimes, his challenges can be as simple as breaking the rules of poaching and hunting (a crime for which he's ultimately punished with a brutal flogging), or as significant as leading a district-wide uprising against the government's authority. Where Peeta seeks to dismantle the government "from the inside," Gale tries to fight the government using more direct, head-to-head methods. By the end of the book, he's firmly established himself as a member of a huge rebel alliance against the government. - Character: President Coriolanus Snow. Description: The tyrannical leader of the government of Panem, President Coriolanus Snow appears in only a few chapters of Catching Fire, but his presence suffuses the entirety of the book—as Katniss puts it, he could have her killed at any time with a wave of his hand. In addition to being a brutal, even sociopathic leader, Snow is a cunning politician who recognizes the importance of spectacle and appearances. It is for this reason that he threatens to kill Katniss's family if she "misbehaves" during her Victory Tour—the threat that sets off the plot of the novel. - Character: Haymitch Abernathy. Description: District 12's middle-aged, alcoholic, lazy former champion in the Hunger Games, Haymitch is an enigmatic presence in Catching Fire. While he struggles with alcoholism and acts childishly to Katniss at many points, Katniss is forced to acknowledge his prowess as an athlete and a tactician—the qualities that led him to win the Hunger Games years ago. Furthermore, she gains respect for him for maintaining an ascetic, lonely lifestyle, thereby saving any loved ones from government intimidation and surveillance. Ultimately, Katniss learns that Haymitch is a rebel leader, maintaining a studied veneer of indifference and sloth to hide his true investment in defeating President Coriolanus Snow. - Character: Plutarch Heavensbee. Description: The current Head Gamemaker, Plutarch initially strikes Katniss as a vain, superficial, and heavily sadistic man—in other words, the perfect Head Gamemaker. Only in the novel's final pages is it revealed that Plutarch is secretly a rebel, using his influential government position to tamper with the Hunger Games and free Katniss and Peeta. Ultimately, Plutarch remains a mystery: it's not clear how much of his personality is "for show" to disguise his rebel allegiances, and how much of it is, in fact, his true self. - Character: Effie Trinket. Description: An employee of the Capitol, Effie Trinket is Katniss Everdeen's personal escort during both the Hunger Games and the subsequent Victory Tour. She's punctual and precise, and plans Katniss's complicated visits throughout Panem. It's left unclear how we should think of Effie—on one hand, she's always been loyal to Katniss, but on the other, she seems shockingly indifferent to the murder and violence that take place at the Hunger Games every year. - Character: Finnick Odair. Description: A young, beautiful, and intelligent champion of the Hunger Games, he competes in the 75th Hunger Games alongside Katniss. Finnick is known to be seductive and manipulative, and he is enormously popular in the Capitol for his suave demeanor. During the Games, Katniss is initially reluctant to trust Finnick, but she ultimately comes to respect him after he saves Peeta's life and shows compassion for Annie Cresta. In the end, it's revealed that Finnick is a rebel, and working with Plutarch and Haymitch to free Katniss and Peeta from the Hunger Games. - Character: Johanna Mason. Description: A young, wily Hunger Games victor who returns to the Games to compete against Katniss. Johanna is aggressive and bold, and almost immediately Katniss dislikes her. Gradually, Katniss comes to respect her more after she openly criticizes the government in the middle of the Hunger Games, knowing full well that her words are being recorded. Ultimately, it's revealed that Johanna is a rebel, working with Finnick and Haymitch, among others, to free Peeta and Katniss from the Hunger Games arena. - Character: Beetee. Description: A brilliant and eccentric Hunger Games competitor who previously won the Game using his vast intelligence and resourcefulness. Though Katniss suspects Beetee of treachery at several points during the Games, she eventually realizes that he is a rebel, working with Haymitch to break through the force field surrounding the Hunger Games arena and free her. - Character: Katniss's mother. Description: Katniss has a conflicted relationship with her mother. Following her father's death, her mother fell into deep depression and now rarely speaks. As a result, Katniss has a difficult time feeling love and affection for her mother, even as she recognizes that her mother is a kind and intelligent woman. During the course of the novel, Katniss comes to recognize the extent of her mother's compassion—her mother is a skilled nurse and healer, without whom the people of District 12 would suffer greatly. - Theme: Symbols and Interpretations. Description: At the "twist ending" of Catching Fire, it becomes clear that Suzanne Collins has been deliberately misleading us for most of the book. Haymitch Abernathy, who had seemed to be little more than a lazy alcoholic, turns out to be a shrewd, resourceful man, one who has been planning a rebellion President Snow's government. This surprise ending encourages us to go back and rethink our initial assumptions about Catching Fire.On closer inspection, Catching Fire is largely about how to interpret ambiguous signs and symbols. The most overt symbol in the novel, the mockingjay, is subject to interpretations from many different characters. To Twill and Bonnie, for instance, the mockingjay is a symbol of Katniss's defiance of the government's orders. It represents actions like her refusal to allow Peeta to die during her first Hunger Games, or her noble speech about Rue, a young girl who died in the Games. On the other hand, to many of the people who live in the Capitol, the mockingjay is merely a symbol of the Hunger Games themselves, and thus a symbol of the government's power (or its tyranny). Through the symbol of the mockingjay, Collins outlines the basic problem with symbols and non-literal messages: they're so open to interpretation that they can mean essentially opposite things to different people.Throughout Catching Fire, Katniss is herself faced with ambiguous signs, like President Snow's expression, Plutarch Heavensbee's watch, and Haymitch's advice that she should remember the "real enemy." Katniss is forced to interpret these signs, and often she interprets them incorrectly. It's appropriate that Catching Fire is the middle book in Collins's Hunger Games trilogy, as here Katniss is caught in an awkward "in-between" stage, and this is reflected in her confusion regarding signs and symbols. Just as Katniss is often unable to interpret the symbols she encounters, she is also unable stop herself from being interpreted and treated as a symbol by other people. When she makes a speech about Rue, for instance, her words are immediately interpreted as a sign of rebellion against President Snow, and given a meaning that Katniss herself never considered.Partly because Catching Fire isn't the conclusion of her trilogy, Collins doesn't fully resolve the ambiguity in the mockingjay. Katniss isn't entirely sure where she stands politically, and thus she can't stand behind any one interpretation. Similarly, Collins doesn't detail any foolproof way of interpreting symbols—sometimes Katniss interprets correctly and sometimes she doesn't. In the simplest terms, however, Collins suggests that one should interpret ambiguous signs by paying close attention, collecting as much information as possible, and never rushing to conclusions. Thus, at the end of the novel, Katniss finally reaches the "correct" interpretation of Haymitch's advice by patiently thinking it over again and again. At the same time, Katniss declines to be a pawn for the government, and instead takes decisive action. At the same time that she reaches a stable interpretation of the world, she seems to be arriving at a stable interpretation of herself and what she stands for.The problem of how to interpret signs and symbols is crucial to Catching Fire—so much so that Collins can't entirely solve it. She will return to this theme in the third volume of her trilogy—titled, appropriately enough, Mockingjay. - Theme: Hidden Resistance vs. Direct Rebellion. Description: As she embarks on her "Victory Tour" of Panem at the start of the novel, Katniss faces a challenge—the government warns her to "behave," or else they threaten to kill her loved ones. By going "off-script" in any way, President Snow explains, Katniss would send a subversive message to the twelve districts of Panem: that it's okay to be disobedient to the government. Thus, she must stick to the script at all costs, smile and wave for the cameras, make bland speeches about the importance of the Hunger Games, and generally honor the formalities of the Victory Tour.As a result of the government's conniving, Katniss finds herself in a strange position. She despises the government for impoverishing her home, District 12, and forcing her to risk her life in the Hunger Games, yet as a result of having won the Hunger Games, the same government has given her a national platform from which to speak. In a sense, Katniss plays the part of a "Trojan Horse"—she's fighting the government from the inside, using the government's own weapons—a ubiquitous media, quick transportation, etc.—against it.There are many disadvantages to Katniss's "Trojan Horse" approach, however. To begin with, Katniss herself isn't sure where her allegiances lie. For much of Catching Fire, she's careful never to deviate from the script for any reason, since she's concerned that she's putting her mother and sister's lives in jeopardy. This points to a general, obvious weakness in fighting the government from the inside: Katniss depends upon the government's power to broadcast her message of rebellion, and thus she is at the government's mercy in more ways than one. Another problem with fighting the government from within is that Katniss's message sometimes gets misinterpreted (See Symbols and Interpretations theme as well). While her mockingjay pin becomes a symbol of resistance to government tyranny in some districts, in the Capitol it's seen as a symbol of the Hunger Games themselves—in other words, a symbol of the government's power. As a consequence of her strategy to fight from within, Katniss is not only partnering with the government, she's sometimes building support for it.In general, fighting the government from the inside is a slow, fitful process, and it's often difficult to tell if any progress is being made at all. Yet the "Trojan Horse" approach to rebellion has some advantages over its more obvious alternatives. Katniss's friend Gale wants to use force and espionage to bring down the government in District 12, but he is no more successful than Katniss—in most ways, in fact, he is significantly less so. For disobeying the government's rules, he's savagely whipped, and as a result spends the next few weeks recovering. Though he wants to organize the miners of District 12 against President Snow, it quickly becomes clear that Gale will never defeat the government's powerful, well-organized troops, no matter how many miners join him. Attacking President Snow's government from the outside isn't any more efficient or productive than attacking it from the inside.At the end of Catching Fire, the government is still very much in power—in other words, the theme of attacking from within hasn't been fully resolved. Yet Collins concludes with a single, powerful illustration of the advantages of the Trojan Horse strategy. Katniss, imprisoned in the Hunger Games arena, recognizes that her real enemies are not the people she's fighting in the Games, but actually the government officials who created and run the Games. Thus, she fires an arrow at the force field surrounding the arena, freeing herself from her prison and, quite literally, attacking the government's power from the inside. Katniss sends a clear message of rebellion to audiences watching her throughout Panem. Attacking the government from the inside is difficult and sometimes seems hopeless, but ultimately it's an intelligent, productive way to battle tyranny and injustice. - Theme: Surveillance and Manipulation. Description: A tyrannical government, headed by President Snow, controls the nation of Panem. While this government has a huge amount of physical power over Panem, one of the most important aspects of its power is its ability to run surveillance on its citizens, or—just as powerful—imply that its citizens are under constant surveillance, and thus manipulate their behavior.At the beginning of Catching Fire, President Snow tells Katniss that he'll be watching her to make sure that she "behaves" during her tour of the twelve districts of Panem, rather than trying to start a rebellion against the government. The fact that Katniss believes him so readily indicates just how extensive the government's surveillance of its citizens is: it taps their phones, installs secret cameras in their houses, and sometimes makes them compete in the Hunger Games, filmed by a TV crew at all times. In short, Katniss's society is one in which the people are under near-constant surveillance, especially if they've been judged by the government to be "dangerous." (In this sense, Panem it must be said, bears an uncanny resemblance to many real-world countries, including the United States.) This leads us to ask a number of questions. What does it mean to be watched at all times? How does it influence one's sense of safety, or one's interactions with others?To begin with, the threat of constant surveillance makes people censor their own behavior and act more cautiously. At many points, Katniss makes her speech milder and less politically charged because she guesses that the government is tapping her phone. This is, of course, what President Snow wants. Nevertheless, there are several times in the book when Katniss seems to forget that she's being watched. During her Victory Tour, she describes herself forgetting that her relationship with Peeta, the Hunger Games' co-champion, is all for show—she thinks that she feels genuine love and affection for him. This suggests that the government's surveillance and spying is so pervasive that it becomes a part of people's lives—their cautious, self-censored behavior becomes, simply, their behavior. A third effect of government surveillance is that it encourages people to place greater value on privacy and intimacy. When she's sure that they're alone, Katniss savors her interactions with Gale, because she knows how rare these moments are. Thus, even the most banal of conversations with Gale becomes special.Surveillance is a recurring theme in all three volumes of the Hunger Games, and because Catching Fire is only the middle book in the trilogy, Collins doesn't resolve this theme altogether. The book ends with Katniss, knowing full well that all of Panem is watching her, openly defying the government's authority by shooting at the force field that imprisons her in the Hunger Games. Collins suggests that one cannot merely accept or adapt to constant surveillance, as some of the characters (including Katniss) appear to do. Instead, the best course of action would seem to be, "Be yourself." And yet immediately after this, Collins reveals her "twist ending"—all along, Katniss has been manipulated by a group of rebels, including her mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, into defying the government. Is it really possible to "be yourself," Collins seems to ask, if you don't know who your friends are? On this uncertain note, Collins moves on to Mockingjay. - Theme: Pain, Pleasure, and Self-Control. Description: In the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss Everdeen endures an extraordinary amount of pain. She faces death many times during her competition in the Hunger Games, and at several points has to kill other competitors. In Catching Fire, it's clear from the beginning that these changes have had a major impact on Katniss's character. She struggles with the trauma of her time in the Hunger Games, often having nightmares about Rue, her friend and fellow competitor, who was killed during the competition. In addition to the more obvious conflicts with President Snow and the government, one of the most important narratives in Catching Fire concerns how Katniss deals—or fails to deal—with her own pain and trauma.While Catching Fire doesn't resolve Katniss's problems with pain and trauma (there's a whole other book in the series, after all), it contains important examples of how not to deal with pain. When her friend Gale is injured, Katniss begs her mother to use a powerful painkiller, morphling, to relieve her friend's suffering. Katniss's mother refuses, on the grounds that morphling will weaken Gale in the long term. By forcing him to confront his own pain in the short term, Katniss's mother allows Gale's wounds to heal.Later, Collins reveals that many other Hunger Games victors have turned to drugs—such as morphling—to hide their pain. When these victors are required to compete in the Games a second time, Katniss sees, terrified, that many of them are addicted to painkillers, and can barely tell where they are. The message is clear: Katniss can't "drown out" her pain (or, for that matter, the pain of her loved ones) with instant gratification or distraction. While this method may be rewarding in the short term, it does nothing to fight the source of the pain itself, and thus makes the victim weaker. There is, in fact, no easy solution to Katniss's pain. Nevertheless, it's clear that she needs to exercise self-control and discipline to avoid making the mistakes of her fellow Hunger Games champions.Peeta, Katniss's co-champion in the Hunger Games, represents another important facet of her quest to resolve her pain and trauma. Because Peeta was also a competitor, he understands Katniss's feelings, and on several occasions they sleep next to each other to avoid getting nightmares. Friendship, understanding, and even love help Katniss to fight pain by passing it on to others.By the end of Catching Fire, Katniss is caught in an "in-between" stage. She's experienced a great deal of pain, learned how not to deal with it, and also found some methods for coping with her pain in a healthy, productive way. The last line of the book, in which she learns that her home, District 12, has been destroyed by the government, then poses an implicit challenge: will she learn from her pain, or will this new tragedy prove too much for her? - Theme: Women, Femininity, and Sexism. Description: Since being published, the Hunger Games books have been celebrated as important illustrations of feminism for young adult readers. The protagonist of the books, Katniss Everdeen, is a strong young woman who doesn't shy away from defending herself or asserting her opinions. As such, she's noticeably different from the female protagonists of many other young adult novels.Even as Catching Fire begins, we find Katniss engaged in a stereotypically masculine enterprise: hunting for food in the woods. We later learn that Katniss is hunting because her friend, Gale, has been unable to do so himself, since he's taking care of his family—a stereotypically feminine undertaking. The message is clear: strong women are more than capable of doing men's work, and men shouldn't shy away from performing roles most commonly associated with women.Though her resourcefulness as a hunter and a Hunger Games victor proves that she's as strong and capable as any man, Katniss struggles with implicit sexism and chauvinism at many points in Catching Fire. One sees this during the Victory Tour, which Katniss must embark upon after winning the Hunger Games. Katniss has to put up with hours of makeup, dresses, etc., before she makes public appearances on the tour. The sexism of this is aptly symbolized by a nightmare Katniss has during her Victory Tour, in which she runs through a forest wearing an enormous dress, and finds that the dress slows her movements. Evidently Haymitch, the government, and, for that matter, most of Panem, expect Katniss to be "pretty" and demure—in other words, the stereotypical woman. That Katniss struggles with these expectations suggests, firstly, that she's a strong woman, and secondly, that Panem's feminine stereotypes are nonsensical.This isn't to say that some remnants of sexism don't persist in Catching Fire. Most notably, it seems clear that Katniss will "end up" with a handsome, compassionate young man, whether it's Peeta or Gale, by the time the Hunger Games trilogy is over. This reflects the longstanding assumption in literature (and, unfortunately, life) that the young, beautiful female character is somehow "incomplete" until she settles down with a husband. Nevertheless, it's important to recognize that Collins tells the story of the "love triangle" between Gale, Peeta, and Katniss from Katniss's point of view, rather than from either of the two men's point of view. Katniss isn't being pushed or pulled into romance—here, as in the rest of her life, she asserts her independence. - Climax: - Summary: Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games, an annual festival sponsored by the government of her nation, Panem. The government requires that each of the twelve districts of Panem send two competitors, one male and one female, to fight each other and compete in a sadistic series of challenges, until there is only one champion. The entire population of Panem watches the Hunger Games on television. Katniss and her co-representative from District 12, Peeta, won the games together, defying the government's rules. The "Head Gamemaker," Seneca Crane, allowed Katniss and Peeta to be co-champions because he thought it would make for a good story: indeed, Katniss pretended that she was in love with Peeta to please the media. Shortly after winning the Games, Katniss is back in District 12. She now lives in a luxurious house, along with a former victor, Haymitch, her mother, her sister Prim, and Peeta. One day, Katniss returns to her home to find Coriolanus Snow, the president of Panem, waiting for her. Snow informs Katniss that she is about to embark on her "Victory Tour," during which she'll visit all twelve districts. He tells Katniss that her defiance of the rules of the Hunger Games caused rebellion in the twelve districts, and he warns her that if she disobeys the government's rules again, her family will be killed. As Snow leaves, he gives Katniss one more piece of information: he knows that Katniss kissed Gale. Gale, Katniss's lifelong friend, has been referred to as her "cousin" in the news, because the media doesn't want to distract from Katniss's supposed romance with Peeta Concerned for her family's safety, Katniss begins her Victory Tour, accompanied by Haymitch, Peeta, and her entourage, including stylists, makeup artists, and escorts. Before she leaves, Katniss's mother gives her a small pin shaped like a mockingjay, a rare bird of Panem. During her visit to District 11, Katniss and Peeta appear in the Justice Building before the district's entire population. Katniss, who's wearing her pin, remembers Rue, a young competitor from District 11 who died in last year's Hunger Games. Katniss goes "off-script," telling the crowd that she'll always remember Rue, and inspiring many to clap and cheer. As Katniss and Peeta leave the building, they're horrified to see "Peacekeepers"—government soldiers—shooting those who applauded. Afterwards, Katniss tells Haymitch and Peeta everything President Snow told her. Peeta is upset that Katniss and Gale kissed, though he knows that he's being selfish. Peeta sincerely loves Katniss, but recognizes that Katniss doesn't return his feelings. As Peeta and Katniss proceed with the rest of their tour, they "stick to the script" during all public appearances. Katniss begins to have nightmares about Rue and the Games, and sometimes sleeps in Peeta's bed for comfort. The last stage of the tour takes place in the Capitol, where the government is based, and where the richest and most powerful citizens of Panem live. In the Capitol, during their final public appearance, Peeta proposes marriage to Katniss, having confirmed with Katniss and Haymitch that the marriage will keep their families safe. Katniss accepts Peeta's offer of marriage, though she does so out of concern for her loved ones, not love for Peeta. Immediately afterwards, Katniss makes eye contact with President Snow, who is presiding over the event. Snow gives a barely perceptible shake of the head that, in Katniss's mind, means that Katniss has not done enough to comply with his requests. After the event, Peeta and Katniss attend a huge ball where Katniss meets Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Gamemaker. She notices that Plutarch is wearing a watch with a mockingjay on it. Katniss, Haymitch, and Peeta return to District 12, where they learn that there are uprisings in other parts of Panem. In response to these uprisings, the government has sent more Peacekeepers to District 12: rules are being more strictly enforced, and many citizens are jailed or killed for breaking the law. Convinced that President Snow wants her dead, Katniss prepares to leave District 12, along with Haymitch, Peeta, Gale, and her family. Katniss first tells Gale of her plan to leave—Gale is eager to join her, until he realizes that Peeta will be coming, too. Shortly thereafter, Gale is savagely whipped for illegally hunting in the woods. Katniss's mother takes care of Gale, using medicines that seem harsh and brutal to Katniss, but ultimately cause him to heal more quickly. In the following weeks, Katniss's mother tends to dozens of victims of the government's brutality, and Katniss herself tends to Gale, even kissing him and falling asleep beside him. Peeta is displeased when he sees that Katniss has been sleeping with Gale. Katniss, furious with the government, sneaks out to hunt in defiance of the rules. When she sneaks past the fence around District 1, she encounters a woman, Twill, and a girl, Bonnie, who claim to be from District 8. They explain that Katniss's defiance of the Capitol, via her speech about Rue and her performance in the Hunger Games, has triggered a wave of rebellion against President Snow, and, in response, the spread of Peacekeepers throughout Panem. Twill explains that they are headed to District 13—an area that the government claims to be radioactive, but which Twill believes to be home to a huge group of rebels. Bonnie shows Katniss a small cracker, decorated with Katniss's mockingjay; this encourages Katniss to trust Bonnie and Twill. Nevertheless, her concern for her family forces her to return to District 12, rather than joining her new friends on their journey. Shortly after meeting Bonnie and Twill, Katniss returns to the Capitol with Peeta for a lavish photo-shoot preceding their wedding. During her time there, the government announces an unexpected change in the Hunger Games for that year. Because it is the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games, the Capitol will require the 12 Districts to send former victors, rather than new competitors, as is the usual procedure. Katniss realizes that she is the only woman from District 12 ever to win the Games—this means that she will be forced to compete in the Games for a second time. Shortly thereafter, Peeta insists that he'll volunteer to compete in the Games, protecting Katniss for as long as possible. Katniss is distraught at having to compete in the Games again—she realizes that she won't be able to co-win the Games with Peeta this time, and thus, one of them will have to die. Nevertheless, she resolves to try her hardest to protect Peeta from the other competitors, and to ultimately sacrifice her own life to do so. Haymitch, who has always favored Peeta over Katniss, agree with Katniss's plan, and spends the following months rigorously training both Peeta and Katniss. Katniss gains new respect for Haymitch—in the past, she'd thought of him as a lazy alcoholic, but now she realizes that he's an intelligent, athletic man whose talents haven't left him in the years since he won the Hunger Games himself. After months of training, Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss prepare for the Games. As expected, Katniss's name is selected, along with Haymitch's, but Peeta immediately volunteers to take Haymitch's place. The three of them go to the Capitol, where Haymitch will continue to coach Katniss and Peeta. At the Capitol, Peeta and Katniss meet the other competitors in the 75th Hunger Games. Notable contestants include a young woman named Johanna, who previously won the Games by pretending to be weak; a handsome young man and "fan favorite" named Finnick Odair, who won largely by seducing his opponents into trusting him; a middle-aged couple named Wiress and Beetee, who won by using their vast intelligence; and a group of "Careers" (people who train for the Games and then volunteer to participate) famed for their brutality. Following Haymitch's instructions, Katniss forms an alliance with Wiress and Beetee. Katniss learns from her allies that the Gamemakers are using invisible force fields to protect themselves from the competitors, and prevent the competitors from escaping the Games. Katniss also learns how to identify these force fields—they leave a telltale "shimmering square." During these days, Katniss begins to develop feelings for Peeta, and tells him, knowing full well that she's likely to die in the upcoming Games, that she wants to spend the remainder of her life with him. Katniss notices Plutarch Heavensbee presiding over the Games, and feels intense hatred for him. Hours before the Games begin, Haymitch tells Katniss to remember who the "real enemy" is. Katniss prepares to enter the enormous arena where the Games occur, accompanied by her stylist and friend, Cinna. A tracking device is forcibly injected into her arm, allowing the Gamemakers to follow her every move. Seconds before Katniss is raised into the arena, Peacekeepers attack Cinna, sending a clear message to Katniss: she must "behave" or her loved ones will be hurt. The Hunger Games take place in a huge, circular arena full of water, with twelve spokes connecting the circumference to a small island in the center. Katniss manages to swim to the island, followed by Finnick, who is from a coastal district. On the island, there is a massive pile of weapons, from which Katniss takes a bow and arrow. Finnick insists that he and Katniss form an alliance—though Katniss is initially reluctant, she agrees after Finnick helps both her and Peeta. They also align with Mags, an old woman from Finnick's district. The group of four makes its way to the far side of the island, where Katniss notices a force field too late to prevent Peeta from electrocuting himself. After Finnick performs CPR on Peeta, saving his life, Katniss realizes that she'll never be able to kill Finnick. At the end of the first day, a cannon fires, indicating that almost half of the contestants have already been killed. The group of four encounters a series of challenges: first, a cloud of mist that paralyzes anyone who walks through it. Katniss, Finnick, and Peeta run away from the cloud, with Finnick carrying Peeta. Because Katniss is too weak to carry Mags, the group is forced to leave her to die. This devastates Finnick, since Mags was one of his only true friends. Shortly afterwards, the remaining group encounters a swarm of monkeys, a massive tsunami wave, and lightning. Their most traumatizing challenge occurs when Katniss and Finnick are confronted by a swarm of birds who speak with the voices of their loved ones: Katniss, for instance, hears the sound of Prim screaming. The group meets Wiress and Beetee, who have banded together with Johanna. Wiress, who's been mentally disturbed by the Games, continues to mutter, "tick tock," irritating Johanna. Katniss correctly deduces that Wiress is saying that the arena is built like a clock: each twelfth of the circle contains a different challenge, each of which occurs exactly once every twelve hours, for one hour at a time. Before Katniss has time to process this information further, a group of Careers attacks her and her allies, killing Wiress in the process. Beetee, who has previously chosen a long, thin wire from the pile of weapons, proposes that the group lure the remaining competitors to the beach, connect the beach to the lightning area with the wire, and wait for the lightning to electrocute them. The group agrees, largely because no one is clever enough to think of a better plan. The group splits in two: Katniss and Johanna unravel the wire along the beach, while Finnick, Beetee, and Peeta go to the lightning area of the arena. While Katniss is unraveling the wire, a heavy object hits her on the head. Half-knocked out, she feels Johanna cutting her on the arm with a knife and then running away. Katniss concludes that Johanna and Finnick must have had a plan all along to betray Katniss and Peeta. Still desperate to save Peeta's life, Katniss staggers toward the edge of the island, where Beetee and Peeta have gone. Lightning is about to strike, electrocuting most of the beach. In the lightning area, she sees Beetee lying on the ground, a deep wound in his back. Suddenly, she sees Finnick running toward her, followed by a Career named Enobaria. Katniss is about to shoot Enobaria, thinking that Finnick will stagger toward the lightning, eliminating himself, when she remembers Haymitch's warning to remember the real enemy. Realizing that Haymitch was talking about the Gamemakers, Katniss turns from Finnick to the force field that keeps the competitors trapped inside the arena. She shoots her arrow at the "shimmering square" at the exact instant when the lightning strikes. There is a large explosion, and Katniss loses consciousness. When Katniss wakes up, she is lying in a large hospital room. She notices Beetee next to her, and concludes that the Gamemakers are keeping them alive for some other sadistic game. She staggers up and walks toward the sound of voices. In a nearby room, she is surprised to see Haymitch talking with Finnick and Plutarch Heavensbee. Plutarch tells Katniss that he has been part of a plan to overthrow the government, and was working with Finnick, Johanna, and Haymitch. Along with Haymitch, Plutarch planned to free Katniss and Peeta from the Hunger Games by blowing up the force field, and then take them to District 13. Haymitch didn't tell Katniss or Peeta because he knew they had to have plausible deniability if the plan failed. Meanwhile, he enlisted the help of Finnick, Beetee, and Johanna, who were instructed to protect Katniss and Peeta at all costs. With Beetee's help, the group has escaped from the Hunger Games. But Katniss is horrified to learn that the government has captured Peeta, Johanna, and Enobaria before they could be freed from the arena. In the depths of her misery, Katniss finds that Gale is also a part of the rebel alliance. Gale tells Katniss that they will free Peeta from the government. He also gives her shocking news: District 12 has been destroyed.

- Genre: Fiction (Short Story) - Title: Cathedral - Point of view: First-person - Setting: A couple's home in Connecticut - Character: Narrator. Description: The protagonist and narrator of Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" is a middle-aged unnamed man. Through interior monologue, the narrator shows himself to be cynical and insensitive, especially to the poetry written by his wife. He is jealous of her ex-husband from her previous marriage, though that marriage was a miserable experience for her, and he is especially envious of her friendship with a blind man named Robert. At the beginning of the story, the narrator finds his life banal and somewhat meaningless. He admits to Robert that he takes no pleasure in his work, saying that he has been at his job for three years, does not like it, but does not see any other opportunities to earn income. He seems to be fairly dependent on substances like alcohol and marijuana, which he smokes most nights before going to sleep. His strained relationship with his wife, his meaningless job, and his substance abuse seem related to his inability to find joy or meaning in the world, which becomes clearest when he admits to Robert that he isn't religious (although it seems like he was raised religious) and notes that he has a hard time in believing in anything. However, after drawing a grand European cathedral for Robert, the narrator undergoes a spiritual reawakening, becoming able to find beauty and meaning in the world by seeing things through Robert's perspective. - Character: Robert. Description: Robert is a friend of the narrator's wife who comes to stay at their home after visiting his recently deceased wife's family. Since the long-ago summer when the narrator's wife worked for Robert (who is a social worker), the narrator's wife and Robert have exchanged audio recordings in which they recount their thoughts and experiences. Robert's unfailing kindness and empathy, as well as his patience and his ability to listen conscientiously to others, allow him to form a close friendship with the narrator's wife, who seems emotionally closer to Robert than to the narrator, with whom she does not always share her thoughts. For the narrator's wife, her friendship with Robert seems unique, but it seems like Robert has a great many friends he values. He says, for instance, that as an amateur radio operator, he made friends who come from everywhere from Alaska to Tahiti. The narrator of the story does not seem like he wants to be Robert's friend, at least at first. But despite the narrator's mocking and exclusion of Robert, Robert remains kind to the narrator and ultimately wins him over, facilitating the narrator's spiritual transformation by encouraging him to draw a cathedral. - Character: The Narrator's Wife. Description: Most of what is known about the narrator's wife comes from the narrator's interior monologue, so it reflects his somewhat warped notions of her and her life. She was married previously to a military man and became so lonely in that relationship that she attempted to commit suicide. The attempt was unsuccessful and she soon divorced her first husband. She later met and married the narrator, whom she seems to love, although she is often frustrated by his entrenched cynicism and insensitivity. Through all of this, she has maintained a friendship with Robert, the blind social worker for whom she worked one summer in Seattle. Exchanging audio tapes with Robert and writing poetry are, according to the narrator, her two major hobbies. There is a notable difference between the tenor of her relationship with Robert and her relationship with her husband. With Robert, she does her utmost to be accommodating and seems to genuinely enjoy his presence. With her husband, however, the narrator's wife is standoffish and sometimes even prickly. It seems that the narrator's inability to understand his wife's values and emotions leads to strain in their relationship, whereas the narrator's wife feels understood by Robert, who is a good friend and a careful listener. - Theme: Vision. Description: In "Cathedral," the lives of a married couple are disrupted when the wife's blind friend, Robert, comes to visit. While the husband, who is the story's narrator, initially believes that having Robert in the house will be inconvenient and unsettling, he comes to realize that blindness is not simply a deficit—Robert's fine-tuned perception adds to the narrator's own appreciation of the world. Initially, the narrator imagines that Robert will be strange and pathetic. He passive-aggressively points out all kinds of things Robert can't do: the narrator asks his wife if Robert likes bowling and then asks Robert which side of the train he sat on during his trip (inquiring implicitly whether he sat on the side with a good view). The narrator gives curt replies to Robert's genuine attempts at conversation and he even turns on the television, which the sightless Robert cannot appreciate fully, in an attempt to both stop the conversation and exert his dominance over Robert, since the narrator is deeply jealous of Robert's friendship with his wife. The narrator's crude attacks on Robert's disability are even more pathetic in light of the fact that Robert's mode of perceiving—his ability to understand and empathize with the interior struggles of others—is a type of perception that the narrator lacks. Fixated on physical sight as the only mode of appreciating others, the narrator ruminates on how sad it would be to the wife of a blind man, since the narrator believes that women should be appreciated for their appearance. This, of course, is ironic since the narrator's own wife knows that perceiving the world as Robert does is rich and rewarding because she herself feels seen and appreciated by Robert in a way that she doesn't with her husband. Her friendship with Robert—conducted through the exchange of audio tapes in which they discuss their thoughts and experiences—seems to be more emotionally intimate than her marriage. However, the narrator ultimately comes to expand his own perception by inhabiting Robert's perspective. When the narrator first turns on the television, he intends it as way to exclude Robert or put him in his place. But Robert surprises the narrator with his deep appreciation for television and his nuanced perception of it—he can tell, for example, that their TV is in color just by listening. As they continue to watch TV, the narrator's own perception of the TV begins to shift. For example, the narrator says of Robert, "he and I listened to the weather report and then to the sports roundup"—note that the narrator suddenly sees himself as listening, rather than watching. He then further moves towards Robert's way of perceiving when he begins describing the cathedrals on the television so that Robert can know what's happening. The narrator's transformation is complete when his verbal descriptions of the cathedrals fail. With Robert's hand resting on top of his, the narrator draws a cathedral on a paper bag so that Robert can "see" what they look like. Halfway through, Robert asks the narrator to draw with his eyes closed, and the narrator submits fully to perceiving the world as Robert does. It's clear that this experience with Robert changes the narrator; when Robert tells the narrator to open his eyes, the narrator prefers to leave them closed. Though the narrator had claimed not to care about cathedrals at all, he is deeply moved by the experience of perceiving one as Robert does. "It's really something," the narrator says of the cathedral, suggesting that Robert's blindness has given the narrator access to beauty and meaning that he never knew before. - Theme: Empathy and Listening. Description: While the narrator is able to see the physical world, he struggles in his relationship with his wife. Robert, on the other hand, is blind, but he seems to be quite attuned to the emotional lives of others because he is an empathetic listener. Carver, therefore, configures empathy via listening as a mode of perception that is perhaps more intimate than sight. The narrator seems to have a difficult relationship with his wife. They sleep in different rooms and go to bed at different times, which is just one sign of their grave disconnection. Before Robert arrives at their house, the narrator and his wife quarrel—he says that he does not want a blind man in their house, and his wife asks him to be nice to her friend if he loves her. It is apparent that the narrator does not listen to or truly understand his wife, because upon Robert's arrival at the house, the narrator poses rude questions to Robert, trying to emphasize his disability. After dinner, when the narrator turns on the television to avoid further discussion with Robert, the narrator's wife is frustrated and the narrator can tell: "My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading toward a boil." The marital problems between the narrator and his wife seem to stem from the narrator's inability to empathize with her, which leaves him with only a superficial understanding of who she is. He narrates his wife's suicide attempt in a cold, matter-of-fact manner, which seems a callous and even cruel way of relating to the distress of a loved one. Furthermore, the narrator belittles his wife's poem about an important moment in her life, when Robert touched her face at the end of her time working for him. "I can remember I didn't think much of the poem," the narrator says. He therefore seems unable to appreciate the poem, despite the emotional importance it holds in his wife's life. And an even more straightforward example of the narrator's unwillingness to listen is his reluctance to hear one of the audiotapes shared between Robert and the narrator's wife. When the narrator does agree to listen to a tape on which he is mentioned, the narrator allows an interruption (someone at the door) to sidetrack the listening. They do not return to the tape, and he says he prefers it that way—it seems that the narrator envies his wife's friendship with Robert because it is founded on the empathetic listening and understanding that the narrator does not provide her. By contrast, Robert's conversational dynamic with both the narrator and the narrator's wife demonstrates that he is a very good listener. He is warm and interested in a way that suggests he is deeply empathetic. Furthermore, the fact that his friendship with the narrator's wife relies on sending audiotapes across the country shows his gift for listening, because this mode of communication gives little opportunity for discussion and clarification. Robert's empathy is perhaps most apparent in his willingness to put up with the narrator's deflection and rudeness, continuing to ask the narrator questions and show him kindness until he has won the narrator over. The power of being listened to and empathized with is apparent in the narrator's reaction to Robert's kindness: he undergoes a spiritual transformation after which it seems that he might become a kinder, more empathetic man himself. - Theme: Intimacy and Isolation. Description: At the story's start, the narrator is alienated from other people. He and his wife have a tense relationship and they quarrel before her friend Robert, who is blind, is scheduled to arrive at their house. In this fight, the narrator's wife remarks that the narrator has no friends, and this seems true—he never mentions any, and when Robert arrives at the house, the narrator has trouble holding a conversation. He even struggles to respond to Robert's small niceties, such as "I feel like we've already met." However, over the course of the story, Robert's kindness wins the narrator over, suggesting that friendship—and the emotional vulnerability it can encourage—has the power to transform even the most staunchly isolated people. Even before the narrator's transformation, the possibility of Robert's friendship changing him is foreshadowed by the details of Robert's friendship with the narrator's wife. Prior to Robert's arrival at the narrator's home, the narrator recalls how his wife began trading audiotapes with Robert after she made an unsuccessful attempt at suicide. At the time, the narrator's wife was married to a military man and the isolation of her existence, compounded by the military protocol of moving from base to base, made her deeply miserable. However, her friendship with Robert seems to have mitigated her isolation in a desperate time and allowed her to heal. The narrator notes how much his wife cherishes her audiotape friendship even now, saying that it seems to be one of her only hobbies. Though the narrator is initially guarded with (and even rude to) Robert, as Robert persistently engages the narrator in conversation, the narrator begins to come out of his shell. When the narrator indecisively changes channel on the television, he experiences his first moment of vulnerability in front of Robert. The narrator apologizes for his indecision, and Robert gently consoles him, saying that he's happy with any program the narrator chooses. This small kindness from Robert seems to deeply affect the narrator, because afterward he shows much more consideration for Robert. While watching a program on the cathedrals of Europe, the narrator realizes Robert cannot see the grand architectural feats displayed on the television and the narrator begins explaining what the cathedrals look like, describing features such as gargoyles. After a failed attempt at verbally describing cathedrals, the narrator agrees to draw a picture of a cathedral with Robert. It is an intimate act, in which Robert and the narrator hold a pen together with their hands touching. This intimacy seems, importantly, to be a fulfillment of the narrator's wife's hope that Robert and her husband could be friends. The story's ending, in which the narrator lingers on the picture of the cathedral with his eyes closed, attempting to experience the drawing as Robert does, shows both his newfound deep connection to a man he initially disliked and his new ability to empathize with and relate to his wife, as he now understands her most important friendship. - Theme: The Secular and the Sacred. Description: The tension between the secular and the sacred is an animating force of Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the very premise of which—a blind man healing a man who can see—inverts a popular Bible story in which Jesus heals a blind man. Carver's story often explicitly and implicitly references religion, which is how many people find meaning in their lives, but Carver argues that a person does not need religion to find meaning—spirituality can be secular, and religion is perhaps most meaningful for the community it provides. Though religion can provide meaning, it has not given the narrator meaning, despite that the narrator seems to have tried religion in the past. For example, he watches television program on Roman Catholic cathedrals and says that the program is about "the church and the Middle Ages." It is unlikely he would call the Catholic church "the church" if he had not been a member of it at one point in his life. Nonetheless, the narrator seems like he may be a lapsed Catholic, having been unable to find meaning from that theological tradition. His cynicism does not extend only to the Catholic church—when asked by Robert if he is religious, the narrator says that he is not and that he doesn't believe in anything: "I guess I don't believe in it. In anything. Sometimes it's hard. You know what I'm saying?" However, "Cathedral" presents an alternative source of meaning, suggesting that close human connection can provide a secular fulfillment not unlike that provided by religion. At the beginning of the story, the narrator proves himself to be a bitter and argumentative person. He fights with his wife and asks Robert, his house guest, rude questions. Eventually, though, Robert and the narrator connect during a television program on cathedrals. The narrator attempts to describe the grand European churches to Robert—a first signal of the narrator's regard for Robert—and when words fail, the narrator draws a cathedral with Robert's hand placed on top of his as he holds a pen. With Robert's encouragement, the narrator draws in a frenzy. He even closes his eyes to see as Robert does and he describes drawing the cathedral with his eyes closed as an experience "like nothing else in my life up to now. This is undeniably a spiritual experience, and the narrator lingers in his moment of transcendence, keeping his eyes closed despite Robert's request to open them to witness their work. Despite that the narrator's spiritual experience is a secular one, it is not completely divorced from religion, as it revolves around cathedrals, which are religious symbols. In a sense, Robert and the narrator build a cathedral together through their drawing, which echoes the television program's assertion that these grand cathedrals were built over many years with the help of many men. Perhaps, then, the communal aspect of religion was a main source of its meaningfulness all along. If a "cathedral" can be seen as a space built cooperatively and intended for people to join together in meaningful ways, then it's reasonable to see the narrator's spiritual experience as a secular version of simultaneously building a cathedral and worshiping inside one, since the narrator and Robert share a moment of finding meaning with one another. - Climax: After watching a television program on the cathedrals of Europe, the narrator undertakes the transformative activity of drawing a cathedral so that he can show Robert the blind man what cathedrals are like. - Summary: Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" opens with an internal monologue in which the narrator expresses his hesitation about hosting Robert, a blind man who is a friend of the narrator's wife. The narrator remembers the circumstances that precipitated the friendship between his wife and Robert. His wife, in need of money and engaged to her first husband, took a summer job assisting Robert, a social worker. At the end of the summer, Robert asked the narrator's wife if he could see her by touching her face, and the experience was a deeply memorable one for the narrator's wife. The narrator also recounts how his wife reached out to Robert for support after an unsuccessful suicide attempt fueled by her miserable relationship with her husband, whose military career caused them to have a nomadic existence. Snapping out of his internal monologue, the narrator makes cynical jokes about Robert's blindness, asking his wife if he should take Robert bowling. She protests and implores him to be kind to Robert, who is spending the night at their house after a visit with his recently deceased wife's family. The narrator asks rude questions about Robert's wife, and the narrator's frustrated wife explains Robert's marriage to his late wife Beulah. The woman had worked for Robert the summer after the narrator's wife did. They married soon after. The narrator then contemplates this marriage, thinking how sad it must have been for Robert's wife to not have been visually appreciated by her husband. The narrator's wife then retrieves Robert from the train station and brings him back to their house. While the narrator's wife is very accommodating to Robert, the narrator is insensitive. He asks Robert what side of the train he sat on, since the right side of the train is the one with the good view. The narrator avoids Robert's questions about his life and bristles when Robert refers to him as "bub." They have a drink and then eat a large dinner. After a hearty meal and cherry pie, the trio sit back down in the living room and Robert continues his efforts to get to know the narrator. The narrator answers Robert's questions curtly and then turns on the television to prevent Robert from asking any more questions. The narrator's wife goes upstairs to change, and while she's away, the narrator and Robert smoke marijuana. When the narrator's wife returns she joins them, and soon all three characters are drowsy. The narrator's wife falls asleep on the couch, and the narrator begins looking for a program to watch on television. After flipping around indecisively the narrator settles on one about the cathedrals of Europe. The narrator realizes that Robert cannot fully appreciate this program since he can't see the visuals of cathedrals being shown. He attempts to describe the cathedral's ornate architecture. This is a struggle for him, so Robert suggests that they draw a cathedral together. The narrator fetches a pen and brown paper, and the narrator draws a cathedral while Robert's hand rests on his. The narrator's wife wakes up and is confused by the activity, but the two keep drawing. Robert tells the narrator to close his eyes and keep drawing, and doing so precipitates a transformational spiritual experience in the narrator. When they are done drawing, Robert asks the narrator to open his eyes and admire their work, but the narrator chooses to keep them closed.

- Genre: Fiction, Poetry, Native American Literature - Title: Ceremony - Point of view: 3rd person omniscient. - Setting: American Southwest, New Mexico - Character: Tayo. Description: A Laguna Pueblo man with a white father, Tayo returns to the Laguna reservation after World War II sick in mind and body after the trauma of war. Tayo grew up homeless with his mother, Little Sister, who eventually left him with her sister, Auntie. Auntie then raised Tayo out of a sense of duty, but resents Tayo for his mixed blood and green eyes. As a child, Tayo believed wholeheartedly in the traditional Native American stories and ceremonies, unlike his cousin Rocky (Auntie's son). After Rocky's death during the war, Tayo is wracked with guilt and doubt, and no longer believes so strongly in the sanctity of the old ways. Tayo's pessimism has merit, as even the Laguna medicine man Ku'oosh admits that in the modern world the old ceremonies no longer work as they once did. Yet Tayo continues to search for healing, and after he meets the Navajo medicine man Betonie he works to create a new ceremony that will work – this ceremony involves Tayo reconnecting with his past and accepting his "hybrid" ancestry by reclaiming his dead uncle Josiah's lost cattle, as well as reconnecting with the native spirit world by falling in love with Ts'eh, who seems likely to be the human form of the Laguna goddess Reed Woman. Tayo comes to understand the necessity of cultural cross-over in order to build a stronger, more sustainable future, as well as the need to protect the land from human greed. The novel suggests that Tayo's mixed blood is an asset to the future, allowing Tayo to better adapt to the changing, modern world and a future of increased cultural diversity. And in refusing a final deadly face-off with the murderous Emo, Tayo asserts his connection to the balance and respect of native philosophy, as opposed to what the novel portrays as the egotism and dominance-based ethic of white culture. In this way, Tayo himself stands as a kind of symbol of the choice that all humans have between adding to the destruction of the world and contributing to the salvation of the world. - Character: Harley. Description: Tayo's friend and a fellow war veteran. Harley is an alcoholic who tries to find the joke in every situation, which the novel portrays as an attempt to hide from the emptiness of his life. Harley loved being in the military because when in uniform he was respected by white Americans, and has trouble adjusting to the "normal" discrimination against Native Americans that he once again faces after the war is over. Harley continues to drink because the alcohol gives him a brief respite from the pain and anger of his life after the trauma of war, even though the drink itself is a self-destructive practice. Harley is murdered by Emo after Harley fails to betray Tayo to Emo. - Character: Rocky. Description: Tayo's cousin. Rocky is an A student and a star player on the high school football team. He believes that he must reject all the traditional native ways in order to be successful in the white world. Rocky convinces Tayo to enlist in the military during World War II, but dies at war in the Philippines. The novel implies through his death that, for Native Americans, abandoning the old traditional ways entirely is a dead end that will lead ultimately to obliteration. - Character: Emo. Description: Another Laguna war veteran who believes in the necessity of racial purity among Native people in order to escape oppression by white people. Emo hates all white people for the things they have stolen from Native Americans, planning to seek vengeance on white people by "stealing" white women. Though the novel affirms that white culture has negatively affected Native Americans, it does not condone Emo's ruthless need for revenge. In fact, the novel portrays Emo's bloodthirsty desires as the result of manipulation by the "witchery" that wants to destroy the entire world, which the novel uses as a metaphor for what it sees as the greed, selfishness, and disrespect of life and nature endemic to white culture. Emo drinks constantly, hates Tayo for his mixed blood, and ends up murdering three other veterans. Emo is eventually banished from the Laguna tribe for his actions, but never faces physical consequences – a fact that the novel holds up as a testament to Tayo's commitment to refrain from the dominance-based ethos of white culture. - Character: Josiah. Description: Tayo's uncle and Auntie's older brother. He teaches Tayo about the traditional native ways, with lessons that help Tayo see how to respect the land and the spiritual elements that help humanity survive. While Josiah certainly respects the Native tradition, though, he does not insist on cultural purity. Josiah starts a relationship with the Mexican woman Night Swan and, with Night Swan's help, buys a herd of hybrid cattle, further strengthening Josiah's association with cultural boundary crossing. Josiah's death while Tayo is away at war accounts for some of Tayo's postwar guilt, as does the fact that Josiah's cattle have gone missing (they are stolen by a white rancher, Floyd Lee). Tayo's quest to find and reclaim the cattle is also a quest to reconnect to the history and legacy of hybrid strength that Josiah left behind. - Character: Auntie (Thelma). Description: Tayo's aunt, and Rocky's mother. Thelma is a Christian Laguna woman, who stubbornly resents Tayo for his mixed blood and the gossip he invites about their family. Despite her bitterness towards these "sins," Auntie also takes care of Tayo out of a sense of duty to the traditional values of the tribe. Even so, her insistence on the importance of Native American "purity" is portrayed in the novel as contributing needlessly to a loveless family life for Tayo, and her strict Christianity is depicted as actually alienating her from the Pueblo community and as motivating her to act cruelly toward Tayo and Little Sister as opposed to trying to bring them back into balance with the tribe. Auntie's strictness, her stinginess with love, her way of thinking like an individual as opposed to seeking a balance with a tribe, are all portrayed in the novel as being both destructive and influenced by white culture. - Character: Little Sister (Laura). Description: Tayo's mother and Auntie's younger sister. After internalizing the discrimination towards Native Americans, Laura becomes an alcoholic and shames the Laguna community by sleeping with men of many different ethnicities. She gets pregnant with a white man, resulting in Tayo. She raises Tayo for four miserable, homeless years, then runs off, leaving Tayo with Auntie. - Character: Grandmother. Description: Tayo's grandmother. She believes firmly in the value of following old traditional ways, and teaches Tayo the old stories and rituals as a child. Unlike Auntie, Grandmother fully accepts Tayo as a member of the Laguna Pueblo community. The novel portrays Grandmother's loving care of Tayo as a far better response to an otherwise scandalous situation. Grandmother also is the one who first sets Tayo on his quest for healing by connecting him to Ku'oosh. - Character: Ku'oosh. Description: A Pueblo Laguna medicine man. He performs a healing ritual on Tayo, but admits to Tayo that the old rituals no longer work in the modern world as they used to. Indeed, the ceremony provides Tayo with only partial healing. But Ku'oosh also seems to recognize that there is the possibility of creating new ceremonies, even if he himself is not the one who can create them. He connects Tayo with Betonie for just this reason. - Character: Betonie. Description: A Navajo medicine man who is able to heal Tayo by combining traditional rituals with modern, multicultural elements. Betonie's green eyes and Mexican grandmother show his own connection to hybridity, which the novel makes clear gives him the strength and knowledge to help guide Tayo toward a future for Native peoples that builds on the old ways but adapts to the new conditions of "white culture" in America. Betonie is feared by the other Navajo of Gallup, but he cares far more for the ultimate well-being of the earth than for making other people comfortable. Betonie recognizes that Tayo also is hesitant when they first meet, but Tayo is eventually able to see Betonie's good heart through the old man's eccentricities. In the novel, Betonie acts as a patient agent for change that will benefit the southwest region rather than add to its destruction. - Character: Night Swan. Description: A Mexican woman who Uncle Josiah loves. Night Swan was a cantina dancer all over the southwest, and was even run out of town for her "improper" relationships with men of other races. Night Swan represents another figure of cultural hybridity in the novel, moving easily between towns and settling where she feels most comfortable rather than where she is most accepted. Night Swan teaches Tayo about the power of his green eyes, explaining that she too has been the object of scorn for her place in the changing cultural face of the region. Night Swan remains confident in her own power, and makes choices for herself rather than for social acceptance. - Theme: The Interconnected World. Description: A major theme in Ceremony tracks the ways that each aspect of the Earth interacts with and affects everything else. For their own well-being, Tayo, and the other human characters have to learn how to be in harmony with the people around them, the environment, and the spiritual beings of the Earth. Tayo's well-being is shattered by his experiences and loss while fighting in World War II, where Tayo was unable to properly honor the spirits of his fellow warriors, is traumatized by the death of his cousin, Rocky, and loses touch with his connection to Laguna history and stories. Tayo's time at war also affects his life back home, as his prayer that the incessant rain in the Philippine jungle stop is portrayed by the novel as one of the reasons that the American Southwest is suffering a massive drought. When Tayo returns to the Laguna reservation, his problems are exacerbated by the conditions of poverty and discrimination, as well as the news that his uncle Josiah died because he had no help on the ranch with all the young men at war. Faced with these interrelated traumas and their resulting despair, Tayo and his fellow soldiers turn to alcohol. But while alcohol offers a form of comfort, it is a deadening comfort that cuts off the drinker from the world and offers numbness and self-destruction rather than healing. Tayo's predicament at the beginning of Ceremony mirrors what the novel sees as a problem facing the entire world. Put bluntly, the novel portrays the world as out of balance, full of people who have lost connection with and respect for it. The lack of balance shows through in the extreme weather conditions, which are made even worse by farmers who do not care about the world or other people enough to use sustainable methods to preserve the resources that are left. Even more powerfully, the lack of balance in the world is symbolized by the creation of the atomic bomb, which threatens not only human existence, but all life. The novel never resolves this profound imbalance and loss of connection that it sees in the world. The atomic bomb does not magically disappear. However, Tayo does manage to reconnect with his family, the environment, and the spiritual world in the journey that culminates in saving his uncles' stolen cattle by honoring a mountain lion and meeting the possibly divine Laguna goddess of Ts'eh who helps end the drought. The healing culminates in Tayo's decision to maintain a spirit of life by refusing to kill Emo. In Tayo's successful quest for his own healing, in his reconnection to the physical and spiritual worlds and his own past, the novel offers a path forward and a kind of hope: that the rest of humanity, too, can shift its path and reconnect to the world, and in doing so heal themselves and the Earth. - Theme: Native Americans in the Modern World. Description: Set after World War II in and around a Laguna Pueblo reservation in the American Southwest, Ceremony portrays the lives and situations of Native Americans in the modern world. This portrayal is largely bleak, and shows the ways that the modern world, and America in particular, destroy Native American lives and dishonor Native American spiritual practices. Silko focuses on a group of Pueblo men who have returned from fighting for America in WWII, only to come home to the same rampant racism, objectification, and commodification that Native Americans have suffered in North American since the arrival of Europeans. In response to that abuse, the veterans – and indeed many other Native American characters in the novel – turn to alcohol as a source of comfort in an otherwise empty future, though drinking alcohol is itself self-destructive. While drinking, the veterans show how they have internalized the idea that they are inferior by telling stories of their sexual conquests during the war, when in fact those conquests hinged on hiding their Native American identities so that white women will agree to sleep with them. Meanwhile, after the war, even other Native American women, like Helen Jean, refuse to sleep with Native American men because of the stereotype that they are all poor and lazy. By centering the men's feelings of inferiority on sex, the novel hints at a possible lack of future for native populations. If Native American people cannot procreate without hiding or giving up their heritage, it seems likely that future generations of Americans will not include Native Americans. The sense in the novel that Native Americans are fundamentally displaced in the modern world is also emphasized by the supposed failure of their spiritual beliefs founded on respect for life, the natural world, and balance. The medicine man Ku'oosh attempts to heal Tayo's war trauma, but his traditional ceremonies only partially work, and he and Tayo both recognize that such ceremonies can no longer counterbalance the new machine warfare that focus on mass death and domination above all else – a type of war symbolized most potently by the atomic bomb that threatens all life on the planet. Had the novel ended there, Ceremony would be a profoundly depressing book. However, the second half of Ceremony involves Tayo's efforts – guided by a different medicine man, Betonie, who has more knowledge of the white world – to create a new ceremony that will work. Tayo is ultimately successful in this quest, and the journey to his success can be read as a kind of recipe for what is necessary more generally for Native Americans to adapt to the modern world. To complete his quest, Tayo comes to terms with his broken family history in the context of the white world by finding his Uncle Josiah's long lost cattle that have been stolen by a white rancher. In the process, Tayo reconnects with nature and with his tribe's spiritual life in his encounter with Ts'eh, who seems likely to be the goddess Reed Woman. Beyond rekindling the roots of Tayo's Native American identity, Tayo's quest builds to a final confrontation with the murderous Emo in an abandoned uranium mine, where Tayo must choose between the good of his traditional values and the evils of modern culture. In an action movie, Tayo would of course kill Emo. But in Ceremony, he chooses not to. As the novel sees it, had Tayo killed Emo he would have given in to the forces of "witchery" and acted according to the white culture's principles of domination. This choice would have been proof that "it takes a white man to survive in this world and … these Indians couldn't seem to make it." By not killing Emo, Tayo shows that the response to evil and death does not have to be more evil and more death. Instead, Tayo chooses to stand firm in his belief in the sanctity of life, creating a new space for Native traditions and spirituality in the modern world. And by setting this scene in an abandoned uranium mine – uranium being the element that powers the atomic bomb, and the atomic bomb itself symbolizing what Silko sees as the endless destruction that is at the heart of white-dominated modernity – Silko asserts that Native American culture and wisdom will not only endure, but that it is crucial for the survival of the world. - Theme: Storytelling. Description: The practice of storytelling is an intensely important spiritual element in many Native American cultures, encompassing both entertainment, moral guidance on the proper way to live, and connection to a shared past. In Ceremony, Silko honors the power that storytelling carries in these communities, weaving elements of the traditional Native American art of oral storytelling into a modern narrative story that seeks to educate and instruct readers about ways to heal the world. Interspersed through the episodes of Tayo's return from war and quest to build a new ceremony are poem-stories that reveal lessons that apply to Tayo's search for healing, as well as giving the reader a small look into the stories that govern spiritual life, education, and daily actions in Native American communities. Silko marks out the ancient stories in broken lines that look more like poetry than the prose that makes up the majority of the novel. In the poem-stories, Silko does not limit herself to chronological storytelling, instead weaving the many stories together to highlight how each influences or comments on another. A story contains the ability to speak something in to being, whether literally as when the story of a Native American witch speaks white people into existence, or metaphorically, as when a community chooses to act according to the ideals set forth in a particular story. Because of the intense power of stories, each word in a story must be carefully chosen so that it brings healing to the world instead of harm. By deliberately and respectfully using the stories of many different Native American tribes, Silko commemorates the strength of these stories throughout native history and grounds Ceremony itself in that storytelling tradition. Tayo, as the main character in his own story, gains both comfort and inspiration from the native stories of his past. Betonie, a Navajo medicine man, tells stories that show Tayo a path to reconnect with his past as well as the possibility of building a new future for himself. Another story about Fly and Hummingbird's attempts to end the drought mirrors Tayo's journey to heal his own spiritual drought, and words from the ancient poem-stories are spoken by some of the characters in prose in moments when Tayo needs strength most. Yet Silko also marks out some of Tayo's memories and experiences in Ceremony in the same poem stanza form she uses for the ancient poem-stories she includes. By doing this, she makes Tayo a part of the grand storytelling cosmology from which he draws strength. In Ceremony, then, Tayo functions as a kind of living story, carrying forward the traditional storytelling practice with the addition of modern situations and problems. Just as Tayo listened to the stories and learned how to live in a way that respects the Earth, respects other cultures, and strives for balance in all things, Tayo's story as written in Ceremony can now act as a guide for others who want to accomplish the same goals. - Theme: Ceremony, Tradition and Adaptation. Description: The title of Ceremony refers to the ceremonies and rituals that, according to the novel, all humans must perform in order to keep themselves and the world happy and healthy. These ceremonies can be formal or informal, but all, the novel asserts, are intensely important for both the well-being of individual people and the larger world that they live in. Ceremonies are performed through physical actions, such as a hunter giving salt to a deer he has killed. But these physical actions connect to a deeper metaphysical understanding, viewpoint, or way of being in the world. For instance, in giving salt to the fallen deer, the hunter enacts his respect for the deer's spirit, and more broadly acknowledges the earth and the taking of life. The ceremony physically connects the hunter to both the deer he hunts and the world in which he hunts. A ceremony doesn't just represent the connectedness of things; performing the ceremony maintains and strengthens that connection. The novel, however, depicts a world in which these ceremonies are in crisis, whether from abandonment or loss of power. Some Native Americans, such as Rocky, believe they need to forget the old ceremonies in order to succeed in the white world. Rocky dismisses ceremonies like the deer ritual as superstition in the face of modern science, but in so doing loses connection to the earth and his own history. That Rocky dies in World War II while Tayo does not, the novel implies that without the ceremonies and the connection they provide, Rocky could not survive. But the crisis also results from the fact that the ceremonies have lost their power: the traditional ceremony for warriors who have killed in battle that the medicine man Ku'oosh performs in order to try to heal Tayo doesn't work. The solution to this crisis arises through the character of Betonie, a different medicine man who lives in the city of Gallup and is therefore more knowledgeable of the modern world. While some Native Americans in the novel believe that the ceremonies must stay exactly the same in order to retain their power, Betonie believes that ceremonies must change along with the world in order to be able to connect to that new world. And so Betonie sets Tayo out to find and build a new ceremony, one with the power to heal both Tayo and the world. The novel affirms Betonie's beliefs through Tayo's success. Only through the adaptation and evolution of the specific content and form of ceremonies can those ceremonies continue to offer connection to the deeper metaphysical truths and needs. Respect for the old traditions coupled with an awareness of the new world brings true healing and keeps humanity in harmony with the world. Finally, it is worthwhile to consider how the idea of ceremonies functions in a novel that connects its main character Tayo's imbalance and need for healing with the world's own imbalance and need for healing. While Tayo's story is brought to conclusion by the novel and he finds the healing he seeks, the post-WWII world receives no such clear resolution. Tayo's healing, after all, doesn't mean that the atomic bomb has ceased to exist in the real world, or that world war has been forever put behind us. But the novel's insistence that ceremonies can both heal the individual and the world creates a vague feeling that Tayo's healing should correspond to a healing of the world. What resolves this tension is the recognition that Silko means for Ceremony novel itself to be a new kind of ceremony – that reading the novel can offer the healing and connection to address the destructive imbalance that Silko sees in the world. - Theme: Cultural Dominance, Purity, and Hybridity. Description: Ceremony's setting in the American Southwest naturally includes the broad mix of cultures that call this region home. Silko explores the Anglo-American, Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, Navajo, Japanese, and other cultural influences on this region. The novel also suggests a very clear argument for the ways that those of different cultures can and should interact. The novel asserts that cultures that are intolerant of cultural diversity, that seek either purity or domination, are destructive. The novel depicts "white culture" in these terms, portraying it as focused solely on wealth and dominance, and as a result showing no respect for other cultures or the earth itself. The novel shows how white Americans use, discard, and discriminate against every other group and explicitly connects white culture to a mindset that will lead to destruction, whether through thoughtless and greedy farming practices that worsen the drought or through the dominance-based logic that could result in the creation and use of a weapon like the atomic bomb. Yet while the novel's attack on what it sees as "white culture" is unrelenting, it also depicts many Native Americans who believe in the need for a kind of Native American racial purity, to just as devastating effect. Auntie, for instance, hates Tayo for his "half-breed" blood from a Pueblo mother and a white father, and scorns her brother Josiah's involvement with a Mexican woman. Emo, for his part, hates Tayo for being half-white, and seeks to kill him. In both cases, the insistence on racial purity in the novel leads only to the breakup and destruction of families and Native American communities more generally. As opposed to one culture dominating another or the total separation of cultures, the novel sees hope in hybridity – the crossing of cultural boundaries while respecting what makes each culture unique. Again and again the novel portrays cultural mixing as a sign of strength. Tayo's green eyes, a sign of his mixed blood, are singled out by the medicine man Betonie as a sign of the power that Tayo has to "speak to both sides" and form a bridge across cultures. Similarly, after Uncle Josiah falls in love with a Mexican woman named Night Swan, he buys a herd of hybrid cows that mix Mexican breeds with the northern Hereford breed. These cattle are smarter and tougher than pure-bred cattle, and are better able to survive in the drought conditions. Further, Betonie's ceremonies that eventually heal the Southwest of the drought take power from many different cultures. Betonie's native Navajo heritage combines with the power of his Mexican grandmother, who in turn takes power "even from the white man," to create a ceremony that Tayo, a Pueblo Indian, completes using the Pueblo story of Reed Woman, Hummingbird, Fly, and the Corn Woman. Through these multiple examples, the novel builds up the argument that those who are able to take the best from different cultures will have the strength and adaptability to survive while those who remain stuck in one cultural mindset won't. To this end, the novel itself combines many different cultural influences, both in terms of form and content. Silko includes the Western prose style as well as Native American poetry/oral telling techniques, and she references stories from the Pueblo tradition, eastern philosophy, Christianity, and the beliefs of the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian nations of Ketchikan Alaska. Within Ceremony, Silko has made clear that only through adaptation and hybridization can new ceremonies be found that properly address the needs of the modern world. And so the novel, which Silko intends to function as just such a ceremony, itself must be a product of adaptation, itself must be a hybrid. - Climax: Tayo chooses not to kill Emo, though Emo is sadistically killing Harley. Tayo therefore avoids adding more evil to the world and can leave to restore the ecosystem and return his uncle's cows to their rightful lands. - Summary: The novel opens by describing Ts'its'tsi'nako, the Thought-Woman, who is telling this entire story. Stories are the only way to fight off illness and death and stand up to evil. The story begins with sunrise. Tayo, a Pueblo man, wakes up in his spare ranch house, dreaming deliriously of different scenes from his life. One memory in particular bothers Tayo – he was unable to execute a Japanese soldier in the Philippines during World War II because he saw his Uncle Josiah in the Japanese uniform. The ranch where Tayo lives in New Mexico, unlike the wet Philippines, is suffering from a drought that came because, Tayo believes, he prayed for the rain to stop while he was in the jungle during the war. Tayo tells a story about Corn Woman scolding her sister, Reed Woman, who then takes the rain away in her anger. Tayo thinks back to his return from the Veteran's Hospital in Los Angeles where he felt like a white spirit and couldn't keep any food down. Tayo's friend Harley, a fellow war vet, comes riding on a burro and convinces Tayo to ride with him to the nearest bar, even though Tayo doesn't like to drink. As they ride the burro, Tayo thinks about his cousin Rocky, who joined the army with Tayo but died overseas. Thinking of Rocky makes Tayo fall off the donkey and throw up. The story moves back to the time just after Tayo return home from the Veteran's Hospital. Auntie takes care of Tayo instead of sending him back to the Veteran's Hospital, but Tayo knows that Auntie resents him as much as ever for his mixed blood. Grandmother wants to call a medicine man to cure Tayo's illness, but Auntie thinks that a medicine man won't be able to help Tayo because Tayo is not full-blood Pueblo. Grandmother stops Auntie complaining about Little Sister (Tayo's mother) sleeping with white men, and calls the medicine man Ku'oosh anyway. Ku'oosh comes to Tayo's sickbed, speaking only the native Laguna language, and tells Tayo that the world is fragile. Tayo realizes that he must do something to restore the damage the war has done to the world. When Ku'oosh leaves, Tayo is finally able to keep a meal in his stomach. Tayo gradually gets better and starts to help Auntie's husband, Robert, with the ranch work. Tayo goes out drinking one night with some other war veterans to numb his pain. The other veterans, Emo, Harley, and Leroy, tell stories about the white women that they had sex with while on leave during war time. Tayo, agitated by these stories, begins to rant about the loss of respect that Native Americans face once more but the other men only want to relive their glory days. Tayo flashes back to his capture by Japanese soldiers. He carried Rocky, even though Rocky was already dead, but the Japanese soldiers forced him to leave Rocky's body behind and took Tayo to a prison camp. The novel returns to Tayo's present, as Harley picks him up from the ditch where Tayo ended up after the night drinking. Tayo notices how dusty the land is due to the drought, and remembers Uncle Josiah telling him how droughts happen when people forget their duty to the land they come from. The novel switches to a story about a town that became so obsessed with doing magic that they stopped caring for their mother corn altar. The Corn Mother, angered by their neglect, takes all rainclouds away from the town. Returning to Tayo and Harley, the two men finally make it to the bar. While Tayo drinks a beer, he remembers a time when he went deer hunting with Rocky. Tayo paid respect to the deer for its death, but Rocky pays no attention to these old rituals. Rocky was a star student and football player at their boarding school in Albuquerque, and believed that he had to give up the old ways to be a success. Harley breaks into Tayo's thoughts, reminding Tayo of the last time they went to a bar and Tayo almost killed Emo. Tayo remembers that night night. Emo begins raving about how they all deserve to take white women as payment for everything that white people have stolen from Native Americans. Then Emo insults Tayo for being half white. Emo takes out a bag of teeth that he says came from Japanese prisoners of war. Tayo, drunk and enraged, breaks a beer bottle on the table and stabs Emo in the stomach. The novel flashes back to Tayo and Rocky enlisting in the army. As they sign up together, Rocky calls Tayo brother for the first time. As children, Auntie made sure that Tayo and Rocky were not close friends, constantly reminding Tayo that his white blood keeps him from being part of the family. Tayo thinks that Auntie gave up on helping Little Sister, Tayo's mother, because Auntie's Christian morals separate her from the native community. In the Corn Woman story, Hummingbird tells the people about a ceremony that will help them bring the rain back. The ceremony creates a fly. This fly goes with Hummingbird to the fourth world to talk to the Corn Mother. Auntie is angry that Tayo wants to join the army with Rocky instead of staying to help Josiah care for the ranch. Josiah has recently bought new cattle, a special hybrid breed that he says will be able to survive a drought. Josiah goes to Cubero to visit the woman who helped him buy the cows, a Mexican dancer named Night Swan. Josiah fell in love with Night Swan and visited her often before the cattle took over his free time. Auntie believes a drought will come as punishment for Josiah sleeping with a Mexican. Tayo tries to do all the old rituals meant to bring back rain, still believing in the old stories. The next day, storm clouds gather and Josiah sends Tayo to Night Swan to tell her that Josiah won't be able to visit because of the rain. Night Swan invites Tayo in, sleeps with him, and tells Tayo that she has been watching him because of his green eyes. In Corn Woman's story, Corn Mother tells Hummingbird and Fly to get Old Buzzard to purify the town so that she can send rain again. Buzzard tells Fly and Hummingbird to get tobacco to give him as an offering. Tayo thinks back to when he visited Gallup with Robert, where homeless people from every ethnicity live under the bridges. Tayo himself lived under a bridge with his mother for the first four years of his life, watching the other hopeless children and avoiding his mother when she brought men back to their hut. When Rocky and Tayo enlisted, they threw coins off the bridge in Gallup. Rocky wished for a safe return, but Tayo didn't wish at all. Standing on the bridge with Robert after coming back from the war, Tayo finally wishes for a safe return. Seeing that Ku'oosh's rituals only partially helped Tayo, Grandmother and Auntie send Tayo to Betonie, a medicine man in Gallup. Betonie lives in a hogan near the poorest part of the city, and has green eyes like Tayo. Betonie tells Tayo that his illness will only be healed when he does his part to help heal the world, a new ceremony that will help put right the wrongs that white men do to the land. Betonie tells a story about a boy who lived with bears and had to be carefully called back to his life with humans. Betonie leads Tayo through a ceremony that will bring him back to life, a ceremony that includes Mexican and white power as well as Native traditions. In the Corn Mother story, Fly and Hummingbird go back to Corn Mother to ask where to get tobacco. She sends them to caterpillar. In Tayo's present, Betonie sends Tayo on a journey to find his uncle's cattle and heal the drought. Tayo heads off on foot, but Harley and Leroy soon see him and pick him up. A Native American woman named Helen Jean is with them and they all go to a bar. Helen Jean leaves the Native American men in favor of some Mexican men. Harley, Leroy, and Tayo get kicked out of the bar when Harley starts a fight. Tayo leaves Harley and Leroy behind to continue Betonie's quest on horseback. As he searches for the cattle, Tayo meets a woman who invites him in to her house to rest on his journey. In the Corn Mother story, the caterpillar gives Hummingbird and Fly tobacco. Tayo sleeps with the woman that night, then has a dream about his uncle's cattle. The next morning, Tayo follows a barbed wire fence until he sees his uncle's cattle in the distance, then cuts a hole in the fence to herd the cows through later. He stops for the night and sees a mountain lion pass by, then puts yellow pollen in the mountain lion tracks. The next morning, Tayo sets off at a fast gallop, but some white men catch up to him. Tayo falls off his horse and hits his head. The men hold him at gunpoint until they are distracted by mountain lion prints and leave Tayo in favor of hunting the mountain lion for its pelt. Tayo falls unconscious. When he wakes again, it is snowing. Tayo hears someone chanting a traditional Laguna hunting song – it is a hunter. The Hunter takes Tayo back to his house, which turns out to also be the house of the woman he slept with earlier. The man is her brother. And the woman has Uncle Josiah's cattle with her near the house. That spring, Robert and Tayo go get the cattle from the woman's house. Tayo takes care of the cattle all spring on his uncle's ranch, noticing how much healthier and peaceful he feels. One day, the woman returns to visit Tayo and finally tells him her name: Ts'eh. Ts'eh asks Tayo to gather a specific plant for her if she isn't there to do it herself. That fall, Ts'eh has to leave and Tayo returns to town to finish his healing ceremony with the other veterans. Harley and Leroy see him on the road and pick him up again. They have been drinking heavily and convince Tayo to drink too. Tayo blacks out in the truck, then wakes to find Harley gone. Tayo grabs a screwdriver and follows Harley and Leroy's footprints. Tayo goes into an abandoned uranium mine, thinking of the atomic bomb that caused so much destruction. While he is inside the mine, he sees Emo and some other veterans drag Harley into the mine and start to torture him for letting Tayo get away from the truck. Tayo is sick at Emo's evil actions, and wants to use the screwdriver to murder Emo. Yet Tayo is able to get control of the witchery's influence on him and choose not to add more evil to the world. Tayo leaves the mine and gathers the last plant for Ts'eh, then begins to travel back to his Aunt's house. The Corn Mother story ends as Hummingbird and Fly give Old Buzzard tobacco to purify the town. The storm clouds return and Corn Mother warns the people not to get distracted with magic anymore. Tayo tells Ku'oosh and the other men his whole story and Ku'oosh says that Ts'eh is the Reed Woman who will bring back the rain. Harley and Leroy are found dead and Emo later escapes to California. Grandmother wonders at the end of this story, thinking that she has heard the story before with different names. The novel ends with a sunrise.

- Genre: Young adult fiction; coming-of-age tale - Title: Charlotte’s Web - Point of view: Third person - Setting: Rural America - Character: Wilbur. Description: Wilbur the pig is the novel's central protagonist. The runt of his spring litter, Wilbur is rescued from slaughter when Fern Arable insists that her father let him live. Fern raises Wilbur as if he's a human baby, feeding him from bottles and taking him for carriage rides alongside her dolls and toys. Wilbur is saved from a grisly fate and given a plush life full of love and plenty—but when he begins to grow too large for life in the Arable home, he is moved to the Arables' relatives' farm, and must adjust to life among other animals rather than humans. Wilbur is sensitive, emotional, and dramatic, and as he struggles to make friends with the other barnyard animals, he is often given to loneliness and self-pity. When Wilbur makes friends with Charlotte the spider, an unlikely ally, he finds himself learning profound lessons about life and death, friendship and sacrifice, and the debt individuals (whether human or animal) owe to one another. Like Fern, Charlotte saves Wilbur from certain death by making a plea for his worth to his human owners, this time by broadcasting complimentary adjectives like "terrific" and "humble" to the Zuckermans using intricately woven webs. Through his friendship with Charlotte, Wilbur comes to see that true friendship is rooted in unconditional love and self-sacrifice, and also learns about the inevitability of death. Though his own life is spared (and even celebrated with a special prize at the county fair), Charlotte's short life span ends just as summer does, and Wilbur must return to the farm from the county fair by himself—and carry on Charlotte's legacy of fearlessness, kindness, and bravery even in the face of loneliness and despair. - Character: Charlotte. Description: Charlotte A. Cavatica, one of the novel's protagonists, is a common barn spider with a number of extraordinary gifts. Sensitive, practical, maternal, and wise, Charlotte introduces herself to Wilbur the pig shortly after he arrives at the Zuckermans' farm and becomes his guide and ally as he adjusts to his new life there. She teaches Wilbur many lessons about patience, keeping calm, and learning to be himself. When Charlotte and the others get word that the Zuckermans are planning to slaughter Wilbur at Christmastime, Charlotte begins devising a plan to save Wilbur's life. Eventually, Charlotte comes up with the idea to play a trick on the "gullible" humans by using her webs to communicate with them—she threads the words "some pig" into her web, shocking the Zuckermans and prompting them to announce that a "miracle" has occurred on their farm. As Charlotte creates more and more webs (which announce Wilbur as a "terrific" and "humble" pig,) she works quickly, knowing deep down that she doesn't "have much time" left—a spider's life span is short, and even as Charlotte dedicates her energies to saving Wilbur, she knows that it will soon be time for her to lay some eggs in a sac and then die. The tragic but touching friendship between Charlotte and Wilbur is one in which Charlotte sacrifices her time and energy to save Wilbur, despite knowing that the effort may be the defining one of her life. Through Charlotte and Wilbur's journeys, E.B. White points out the dignity and importance of all life, both human and animal, and shows what a transformative and vital force true friendship can be. - Character: Fern Arable. Description: The human protagonist of the novel, Fern Arable is an eight-year-old girl with an intense love of nature and animals. She saves Wilbur the pig from being slaughtered shortly after his birth and raises him herself for the first couple months of his life. Even after Wilbur is moved to the Zuckerman farm to live with Fern's Aunt Edith and Uncle Homer, she continues to visit him each day, and remains invested in the adventures he has there as he adjusts to life on the farm—and confronts the idea that he may once again be in danger of being slaughtered for meat. Fern's obsession with Wilbur and the other barnyard animals concerns her parents, but by the end of the novel, Fern has begun to show signs of more investment in the human world—including a burgeoning crush on a local boy, Henry Fussy. White uses Fern as a proxy for his audience in many ways, highlighting the allure of the innocent, lush natural world while also pointing out how the human world inevitably draws people in as they grow older, causing them, in many cases, to forget their attachment to the simple joys of the quiet, parallel world of animals and nature. - Character: Homer Zuckerman. Description: Fern's uncle and Wilbur's second owner, Homer Zuckerman is a kind and practical man who runs a thriving farm and barnyard. Though Homer plans on fattening Wilbur up for meat, he is shocked, moved, and amazed at the sight of Charlotte's web, and believes that a "miracle" has touched his farm. As a result, he begins treating Wilbur with reverence and love and, after Wilbur is presented with a special prize at the county fair, decides to keep him around for life. - Character: Dr. Dorian. Description: The local doctor. He advises Mrs. Arable when she comes to him out of concern for Fern, who has been spending all of her time at the Zuckerman farm "talking" with the animals. Dr. Dorian assures Mrs. Arable that Fern will grow up when she's ready, and shouldn't be rushed. - Theme: Friendship and Sacrifice. Description: E.B. White's Charlotte's Web centers around the tender, life-changing friendship between a pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte. Fittingly, the book's central theme is friendship—specifically the ways in which true friendship often involves self-sacrifice. Throughout his classic children's novel about the sacredness of kindness, love, and solidarity, White uses the many different kinds of friendships at the heart of the story to suggest that the rarest and truest of friends are those who are willing to put their hopes, dreams, and even their lives on the line for the ones they love. There are many different kinds of friendships to be found within the pages of Charlotte's Web, and through the two central friendships Wilbur the pig experiences—with Fern Arable and with Charlotte the spider—White demonstrates the ways in which friendship and self-sacrifice can often go hand-in-hand. Wilbur and Fern's friendship begins when Fern, an eight-year-old girl, stops her father from unfairly killing the runt of their sow's newest litter. Fern feeds the newborn Wilbur from a bottle, gives him carriage rides alongside her favorite dolls, and makes sure his every need is met. Their friendship is a true one, but because Fern is Wilbur's first and only friend, he doesn't know yet how very lucky he is to have her—or how her friendship literally saved him. Fern has to adjust her own routines and responsibilities to make room for Wilbur in her life—a sacrifice she willingly undertakes as she bottle-feeds him three or four times each day and spends the heady first days of spring caring for Wilbur rather than frolicking with her brother Avery and their friends. Though Wilbur's friendship with Fern will grow and change as the novel progresses, the fact that she loved him, stuck up for him, and used her voice to help him when he had none—sacrificing her time, her care, and her other friendships for his well-being—is a dynamic that will be repeated in Wilbur's friendship with Charlotte. When Wilbur gets too big to be kept in the house, Mr. and Mrs. Arable force Fern to sell Wilbur for six dollars to their neighbors and family, the Zuckermans. As Wilbur moves to the Zuckerman farm, he goes through a major adjustment period. Fern visits most days, but can't be with Wilbur all the time, and he feels her absence profoundly even as he begins to enjoy his new routines. Surrounded everywhere by new animals but unable to make true friends with the gossipy geese, the standoffish sheep, or the conniving barn rat Templeton, Wilbur despairs that he'll never have a true friend again—until a friendly spider's voice in the dark whispers to him and tells him not to be afraid. When Wilbur meets the astute, practical, and inventive Charlotte, he feels rescued from loneliness. Wilbur loves Charlotte so much that he tries to emulate her by tying a string to his tail in hopes of spinning a web just like hers, and he hangs on her every word as she shares stories of her adventurous cousins and their spidery hijinks. Wilbur is devoted to Charlotte entirely, and when news arrives that Homer Zuckerman plans to slaughter Wilbur for meat at Christmastime, Charlotte knows she has to defend her friend. Though the conception and execution of her master plan—to spin into her webs impressive words which glorify Wilbur in the hopes of signaling to the farmers how special and deserving of life Wilbur is—wears Charlotte out both physically and emotionally, she sacrifices her own well-being for Wilbur. Her final act is to help him secure a special prize at the county fair by spinning one of her special webs from scratch there—too weak to return to the barn, having sacrificed the last bits of strength in her short life for Wilbur's security, Charlotte sends Wilbur home with the eggs she's laid, and dies alone on the fairgrounds. In the novel's final pages, White shows Wilbur adjusting to life on the farm without Charlotte. When the egg sac hatches one day and Charlotte's children are born, Wilbur is happy—but when most of them balloon away on the wind, he is disheartened. Three of Charlotte's daughters, though, stay behind, and as Wilbur introduces himself to them he makes this pledge: "I was devoted to your mother. I owe my very life to her. She was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. I shall always treasure her memory. To you, her daughters, I pledge my friendship, forever and ever." Wilbur's devotion to Charlotte's daughters shows that he is willing to repay his debt to her by offering her daughters the same attention, respect, and devotion that she always showed to him. Through Charlotte's Web, E.B. White shows that is a rare and beautiful thing to find someone who is willing to use their own talent, time, and effort to help or defend a friend in need. For the rest of his life, Wilbur remembers his special friendship with Charlotte fondly and humbly—and his gratitude to her for the sacrifices she made on his behalf during her short life enhances "the glory of everything" around him. - Theme: Mortality and Rebirth. Description: Despite being a children's book, Charlotte's Web also has many important lessons to teach on the subject of mortality. E.B. White infuses the novel with happy moments of friendship, play, and the beauty of the natural world, while also communicating frightening lessons about sacrifice, growing up, and, most acutely, the idea of death as a necessary, normal part of life. Through the lives of his animal characters, E.B. White shows his young readers that though life is fleeting, its finite nature is actually a beautiful thing, ultimately arguing that without death and loss, there can be no rebirth or new growth. Though a novel for children, Charlotte's Web announces itself from its very first lines as a book very much concerned with the practicalities of death and dying. White, writing about life on two neighboring farms in the American countryside, starkly portrays death as a natural and necessary part of life several times throughout the novel. The novel opens with the young Fern Arable watching her father head out to the shed with an ax in hand. When she asks what he plans to do with it, her mother tells her that he's going to slaughter the runt of their sow's newborn litter, as it's too small to thrive or even survive. Outraged, Fern chases after her father and begs him not to kill the animal—she is emotional at the thought of death and violence and tells her father she'll sacrifice her own time and energy to care for the pig rather than let him die. That the novel's narrative roots lie in its main character's close brush with death at birth sets up the idea that Wilbur will encounter the fact of death several more times as the novel progresses. Indeed, that is what comes to pass as White continues to demonstrate that death is a natural part of life; although death can be sad and frightening, the rebirth it makes room for is beautiful and sustaining. The novel's next brush with mortality and the circle of life comes shortly after Wilbur meets his new friend Charlotte the spider at the Zuckerman farm. One of the first things Charlotte does after meeting Wilbur is show him how she kills her prey: she rather blithely demonstrates how she wraps up a fly in her web, injects him with an anesthetic, and them consumes him. Though Wilbur is horrified by Charlotte's "love [of] blood," she insists her way of life is necessary: if she didn't catch and eat bugs, they'd "increase and multiply" and eventually destroy the earth. Upon hearing this, Wilbur decides that perhaps Charlotte's web "is a good thing after all." Wilbur, having narrowly escaped an early, unfair death himself, is sensitive to the topic. He becomes faint when he hears Charlotte talking about the practicalities of her own survival—but is heartened when he realizes that her contribution to the circle of life helps make room for lovely things to grow and thrive, and for the world to flourish. The novel's heartbreaking climax arrives when Charlotte—her short life span coming to a close as summer ends and fall descends—chooses to spend her final days helping her friend Wilbur to secure his own safety by proving his worth as a prize pig. Charlotte knows that her days are coming to an end, but repeatedly shows through her words and her actions that she accepts her impending death with grace and determination to make the most of the time she has left. Though Wilbur is devastated to lose Charlotte, she has prepared him—as, perhaps White hoped, she would prepare his young readers—to face the devastation of death with clear eyes, acceptance, and gratitude rather than anger, misery, and pain. Wilbur himself has been saved from an early death, but is perhaps better prepared to bear witness to the circle of life in his remaining years because of the lessons that Charlotte has taught him. Moreover, Charlotte gives Wilbur something to take back to the farm as she lies dying at the fair—an egg sac filled with the eggs that will soon hatch into her children. Charlotte's death means the end of her physical life—but her legacy will live on both through Wilbur's memories of her and through the many children she is sending out into the world. Most of Charlotte's children leave the barn soon after hatching, but three—Nellie, Joy, and Aranea—stay behind to live with Wilbur. The circle of life goes on, as the barn—and the wider world—remains a place of continual renewal and rebirth. Though Charlotte's Web focuses on mature themes, such the frightening fact that death comes for all living things, White softens the heavy topic by pointing out that the other side of death is rebirth. Just as the seasons change from winter to spring, enlivening the world with new buds, new lambs, new goslings, and new birds, so too does Wilbur's view of life flourish when he sees the natural order in earnest, unafraid and accepting of whatever is to come. - Theme: The Natural World. Description: Throughout Charlotte's Web, E.B. White swings back and forth between the human world and the animal world with supreme ease. The narrative relays the joys and concerns of its human characters' lives just as easily as it inhabits and enlivens the inner lives and thoughts of pigs, spiders, and rats. Through the book, White argues that the mysterious workings of the natural world and the lives of animals are just as complex, profound, and worthy of justice, dignity, and respect as human lives. Though the novel opens in the realm of the human world, the action quickly transitions to the animal world when Wilbur the pig goes to stay on the Zuckerman farm. There, his interactions with the other barnyard animals are at turns tender and tenuous. As Wilbur learns how to get along on the farm, his every emotion and observation is given just as much weight as the feelings of the human characters in the novel—if not even more. The animals on the Zuckerman farm are, in White's careful hands, tenderly anthropomorphized. They have memories, feelings, and concerns that expand beyond the bounds of instinct and survival. For instance, Wilbur "faints" whenever anyone around him talks about matters too painful for him to conceive of, such as his own possible slaughter. Though White uses the novel to normalize death in the natural world, he also shows that animals value their lives and long to protect them just as intensely as humans do—Wilbur's exaggerated, funny fainting spells show his sensitivity, and demonstrate that even though he's a dirty pig who loves eating slop and rooting in manure, he has a delicate disposition. In another humorous instance, when Charlotte points out a nervous gander's tendency to repeat his words several times, the gander replies, "It's my idio-idio-idiosyncrasy." Instances like this show that the animals have distinct personalities complete with points of pride and insecurities alike. While this kind of thinking is exaggerated in the animals for comedic effect, and to make them feel more familiar to White's young readers, his effort in giving the animals deep inner worlds shows his reverence for the lives of animals and the ways in which they experience the world that they share with their human counterparts. When Charlotte plots to show the humans how important and special Wilbur is in order to convince them to keep him alive rather than slaughter him for meat, White is consciously engaging in a kind of wish-fulfillment: if only animals could make their case for their own lives, and express to their human owners how "terrific," "humble," or otherwise spectacular, strange, and wonderful they are. His own reverence for the natural world is reflected in his animal characters' desire to broadcast their innate worth to the humans around them. Charlotte's loving descriptions of Wilbur, embroidered in the gossamer threads of her webs, are designed to shake the humans from their complacency and force them to think about what animals truly are capable of. Though the humans debate back and forth whether a spider really could spell, or whether a pig really could be "humble," by the end of the novel their worldview is indeed altered: they understand that animals, and nature more widely, are often overlooked and decided for. The humans appreciate the animals around them more deeply because of Charlotte's messages—this is evidenced in the Zuckermans' choice to keep Wilbur alive, and in the county fair judges' decision to award Wilbur a special prize and point out how his special story has enriched all their lives by giving them a touching tale to hold on to (not to mention a boost to the local economy through the droves of people who have come to the fair for a look at the "terrific" pig.) White's reverence for the natural world is clear not just in his descriptions of the anthropomorphized animal characters which populate his novel, but even in his writing about the birds in the background, with their distinct and beautiful cries, his images of swaying summer grasses and ripe berries full of bugs, and his musings on the ways in which the natural world must unfortunately often exist at the mercy of humans. In imbuing noisy pigs, creepy spiders, and fearsome rats with fears, hopes, and dreams, White demonstrates the dignity in all life—not just human life—and attempts to impart to his young readers the inherent worth of all nature's creations. - Theme: Growing Up. Description: Style E.B. White's Charlotte's Web is a unique coming-of-age tale in that it explores what it means to grow up from two very different points of view: Fern Arable, an eight-year-old girl, and Wilbur, a young spring pig. Fern and Wilbur grow up side-by-side but separated by the divide between the human world and the animal world. Nevertheless, they face many of the same challenges and fears as they come into their own: loneliness, fear of death, fear of change, and the struggle for connection with those around them. Through Fern and Wilbur's twinned stories, White argues that though growing up can be painful and uncertain, there is beauty and hope in the process of learning, growing older, and moving on from one's childhood. From the moment Fern rescues Wilbur, the runt of his litter, from being slaughtered, the two are fast friends. As a year in their very different—but in many ways similar—lives go by, Fern and Wilbur's parallel experiences show how each of them are starting to grow up and come into their own. The things they see, do, and feel change them a little bit every day, and by the end of the novel, both characters are wiser in the ways of the world. At the start of the novel, Fern Arable is eight years old. Very much still a child, she experiences intense emotions and a vivid fantasy life. As the novel progresses, Fern's ability to hear the animals speak—and her willingness to share the "conversations" she overhears with her family—signal that she is young at heart, and even serve to worry her mother Mrs. Arable that Fern isn't progressing or growing up at the right pace. Mrs. Arable visits with the town doctor, Dr. Dorian, and the man tells her that everything will be fine; Fern will grow up in her own time. "I don't think you have anything to worry about," the man says: "Let Fern associate with her friends in the barn if she wants to […] It's amazing how children change from year to year." By the novel's end, the excitement of the county fair has drawn Fern out of herself a bit, and allowed her to interact with other children her own age—notably her classmate Henry Fussy, on whom she seems to develop a bit of a crush. As Fern has spent the better part of her year alongside Wilbur at the Zuckermans' barnyard, learning the same lessons about friendship, community, and mortality as he learns, she has indeed grown up significantly—she is ready to begin to take her place in the world, and to relinquish some of the crutches of her childhood. The Fern who was so overemotional that she couldn't bear the thought of a piglet going to slaughter has now gained an education in the ways of the natural world and the human one as well, and is ready to take them all in stride. Wilbur is a newborn at the start of the novel, and over the course of the story—which follows roughly a year in his life—he matures from defenseless, pampered piglet into a "terrific" and "humble" pig whose kindness, empathy, and zeal for life are apparent to all who meet him. When Wilbur first arrives on the Zuckerman farm, he still has a lot to learn—he is skittish, overemotional, judgmental, and often impolite without meaning to be. He has trouble making friends and suffers a good deal of loneliness and insecurity. In other words, Wilbur is a child. As his friendship with the wise, thoughtful Charlotte deepens—and he learns from her lessons of life, death, friendship, and sacrifice, as well as the importance of self-awareness and self-assurance—he does indeed experience a kind of coming-of-age. Wilbur becomes more confident after winning a special prize at the county fair, and learns that there are things more important than his own enjoyment of life: when he realizes that Charlotte is dying, he does everything in his power to ensure that her egg sac will make it back from the fairgrounds to the barn intact, though the maneuver requires teamwork, self-sacrifice, and patience. By the novel's end, Wilbur is still the same sensitive and dramatic pig he was in his "youth." Even though he has suffered fear, loss, pain, rejection, and worry, he has come to see that on the other side of his tumultuous first year, there is peace, wisdom, and joy. As he looks around the farmyard, he sees the "glory" of the world around him and feels content, though his "childhood" and innocence are behind him forever. As Fern and Wilbur "grow up" over the course of the novel, White celebrates the simple joys of childhood both practical and emotional: for both Fern and Wilbur, frolicking in the fields, eating wild fruits and berries, and engaging in physical play are as emblematic of childhood as are tears, self-pity, and squeamishness at any mention of death or suffering. By the end of the novel, both Fern and Wilbur have grown up quite a great deal—though they're still young, they are ready to move on from the comforts of their respective childhoods and use the wisdom they've gleaned to see the world through fresh, mature eyes. - Climax: Wilbur wins a special prize at the county fair due to Charlotte's help in signaling, through her intricately-woven webs, how special he is to the humans around him. - Summary: When the Arable family's hog welcomes a litter of spring piglets, Mr. Arable plans on killing the runt—a weakling who will only "make trouble" for the others. His eight-year-old daughter Fern, however, becomes emotional and distraught at the idea of death and demands Mr. Arable spare the pig. Mr. Arable agrees—on the condition that Fern accept responsibility for the pig, and make sure that he is fed and taken care of. Fern falls in love with her new "baby" Wilbur, feeding him from a bottle and taking him on carriage rides with her dolls in cool spring afternoons. As spring turns to summer, though, Wilbur grows too big to live in the Arables' yard, and Fern's parents suggest she sell the pig to their neighbors and relatives, the Zuckermans. Homer Zuckerman offers Fern six dollars for Wilbur, and she takes the pig to live over on their farm, promising to visit as often as she can. As Wilbur adjusts to his new life on the farm, he finds himself experiencing a series of highs and lows. He likes his dark, fragrant corner of the barn and enjoys Fern's frequent visits—but is often bored and lonely, and has trouble making friends with the other barnyard animals. The sheep are snobby, the cows are indifferent, and the goose and gander are busy hatching a nest full of eggs. Wilbur is given to fits of crying and despair, and in the midst of one of these fits one night, he hears a small voice call out to him, promising to be his friend. In the morning, Wilbur is excited to meet his potential new friends, and runs throughout the barn looking for the source of the voice. He is surprised when he realizes it has come from a common gray barn spider who lives over the barn door. The spider introduces herself as Charlotte, and begins telling Wilbur about herself—and her peculiar eating habits, which include sucking the blood from flies and other small insects. Wilbur is nervous to have such a "bloodthirsty" friend, but grateful to have someone to talk to. As summer arrives in earnest, Fern and her brother Avery spend more and more time at the Zuckermans' farm, playing in the barn and the fields beyond. One day, the goose eggs hatch, and seven goslings are born. One egg is a dud, and the goose and gander give it to the cunning hoarder rat Templeton who makes his nest beneath Wilbur's trough as a kind of peace offering—they warn him never to prey upon their goslings, and he reluctantly agrees to the truce. As Wilbur grows bigger with each passing day, he draws the concern of a kind old sheep who warns him that if he keeps getting fatter, Homer, his wife Edith, and their hired man Lurvy will surely kill him for meat come Christmastime. Charlotte comforts the hysterical Wilbur, assuring him that she will find a way to save his life. Charlotte schemes day in and day out, and eventually settles on a plan that will save Wilbur—she worries, though, that she doesn't "have much time" to execute it. As soon as the plan is firm and her mind she sets to work. One morning, when Lurvy comes out to the barn with Wilbur's breakfast, he spies a "miracle": the words "SOME PIG!" have been threaded into Charlotte's web. Lurvy alerts Homer and Edith, who are forced to really consider Wilbur for the first time as they try to discern the meaning of the message—and its source. They agree that he is "some pig." As word of the "miracle" spreads throughout town and many visitors descend upon the farm to glimpse it, only Fern knows what's happening: Charlotte is fooling the "gullible" humans into letting Wilbur live. Charlotte enlists the other animals' help in coming up with more words to describe Wilbur, so that she can weave more miraculous webs. She chooses as her next word "terrific," and tires herself out weaving the long and complicated web—but the plan continues to be a success as Homer orders Lurvy to start feeding Wilbur more often and putting fresh, sweet hay into his pen. Homer has decided to take Wilbur to the county fair in September to show him off. Fern tells her parents the stories and conversations she overhears between the animals over at the barnyard, concerning her mother, Mrs. Arable. Mrs. Arable pays a visit to the town doctor, Dr. Dorian, who assures her that there's nothing to worry about—Fern will grow up and start playing with the other children in her own time. As summer winds down, Wilbur is the center of attention on the farm: he has grown big and beautiful, and entertains large audiences of people who come to see him and Charlotte's ever-changing webs. Wilbur is getting excited about the fair, but Charlotte won't commit to going—she is feeling tired lately, and knows that soon she must build her egg sac. The night before the fair, everyone is excited and restless—humans and animals alike. Lurvy and Homer dream of the prizes Wilbur will win, while Fern and Avery dream of rides and games. Even Templeton the rat gets excited at the idea of going to a "paradise" full of food scraps and discarded junk. Charlotte has agreed to come, and on the morning of the festivities, she and Templeton scurry into Wilbur's crate. When the Arables arrive to drive with the Zuckermans out to the fairgrounds, Mr. Arable remarks on how large Wilbur has become, and what great ham and bacon the Zuckermans will get out of him come Christmas. The startled Wilbur faints as he overhears this. Wilbur recovers, and after the Zuckermans and Arables pack him into his crate, they all head off for the fair. Fern and Avery immediately ask for money so that they can run off and play games, while the adults help Wilbur settle into his temporary pen. Charlotte takes up residence in the eave of a nearby shed, where she spots something upsetting: in the next pen over, there is an incredibly large pig named Uncle. Charlotte is determined, though, to ensure Wilbur takes home first prize anyway, and plans on spinning a web—even though she is "swollen" and "listless," she remains devoted to saving Wilbur's life. That evening, as Fern rides the Ferris wheel with her friend Henry Fussy and Templeton raids the emptying fairgrounds for food and scraps, Charlotte gets to work on her new web: she is going to weave the word "humble," which she feels describes Wilbur perfectly. As night falls, the exhausted Charlotte starts a new project: she is making something for herself "for a change," and it is going to be her "masterpiece." The next day, Charlotte has finished spinning an egg sac and filling it with over five hundred eggs. As the Arables and Zuckermans arrive at the fair and see the newest web, they are overcome with emotion—but devastated when they see that a blue ribbon has been pinned to Uncle's pen. Everyone is surprised when a voice over the loudspeaker calls them all to the judges' stand for a special announcement. As the group hurries Wilbur into his crate and hustles him over to the stand, Fern finds herself wishing she were up on the Ferris wheel again with Henry Fussy. At the judges' table, Wilbur is awarded a special prize for his contribution to the success of the county fair and the local economy. Homer is awarded twenty-five dollars, and Wilbur gets a special bronze medal. After the ceremony, Wilbur returns to his pen and asks Charlotte if she's excited to return to the barn. Charlotte, though, replies that she won't be going home: she is dying, and has hardly enough strength to move her arms. Wilbur throws himself on the ground, hysterical, but Charlotte urges him to calm down. Wilbur decides that in light of all Charlotte has done for him, there must be one last thing he can do for her: he can bring her egg sac home. He enlists Templeton's reluctant help in fetching the egg sac down from the eave, and promises in exchange that Templeton can help himself to each of Wilbur's meals before Wilbur even touches them. Templeton scurries down with the egg sac and drops it at Wilbur's feet just as the Arables and Zuckermans return to the pen to load Wilbur up. He places the egg sac in his mouth for the journey home, and winks at Charlotte as he leaves. The next morning, she dies alone but in peace. Back at the barn, life resumes as normal. Wilbur keeps watch over the egg sac and continues to grow larger. Even when winter descends, Wilbur remains happy and calm—he knows that because of Charlotte's help, his worth has been proved and his life is now safe. Fern and Avery come to the Zuckermans' to play at Christmastime, but Fern is no longer interested in the barnyard, or Wilbur himself. Winter turns to spring, and, one morning, hundreds of tiny spiders begin to emerge from Charlotte's egg sac. Wilbur greets them all excitedly, but they soon launch threads of silk and float away on the warm spring wind. Only three of them stay behind—Wilbur helps them select the names Joy, Aranea, and Nellie, and he tells them all about how wonderful their mother was. Wilbur pledges his friendship to the spiders, and they pledge theirs in return. As the months and years go by, Wilbur lives a long and happy life and meets many of Charlotte's descendants—but none of them "ever quite [take] her place in his heart."

- Genre: Short story, war fiction, horror fiction - Title: Chickamauga - Point of view: Third person - Setting: A forest and a plantation in northwestern Georgia during the American Civil War. - Character: The Child. Description: The story's protagonist is a six-year old, deaf-mute, white child growing up on a slaveholding plantation in northwestern Georgia during the Civil War. Although the child's age is revealed at the beginning of the story, the fact that he is deaf and mute is not revealed until the very end. The child is not given a name. Throughout the majority of the story, the child carries around a toy sword and pretends to be a soldier. He seems to be an adventurous child, wandering into the forest by himself and becoming lost, but there are also limits to his bravery, as he is terrified when he sees a harmless rabbit. The child is playful and innocent to the point of being naive, making a game out of the wounded soldiers he encounters rather than either fleeing from them or trying to help them. The child's romantic ideas about war being adventurous, glorious, and good are constantly juxtaposed in the story with the brutal reality of the aftermath of the Civil War battle that the child slept through and fails to understand. Ultimately, the story shows those fantasies of war to be both destructive and self-destructive, as the child ultimately discovers that the wounded soldiers he has been pretending to lead were part of a battle that has decimated his home and killed his family. - Character: The Soldiers. Description: The only living, human characters with whom the child interacts during the course of the story are the group of wounded soldiers he encounters in the forest. The soldiers are a mystery to the child, and at first he cannot even identify them as human, thinking instead that they are dogs, pigs, or even bears. When he realizes they are men, he is not afraid. He fails to register their wounds, and tries to play with them. The narrator, of the story, however, reveals that the soldiers are retreating from a battle, and that many of these men are already dead or are currently dying. The child, however, pretends to be the soldier's leader, even going so far as to try to ride one like a horse. No words are spoken between the soldiers and the boy. At the end of the story, it becomes clear that the reason for the lack of communication—and for the boy's total inability to see the truth of the soldier's situation—is is because the child is deaf and mute. But while the child is still with the soldiers, the narrator has not yet revealed the child's situation, leaving it a mystery as to why to the child cannot or will not communicate with the soldiers, which drenches the entire interaction in a kind of ghostly horror, and forces the reader to register the brutality of war in a way that the child does not. - Character: The Mother. Description: The child's mother is mentioned three times in the story. First, when the child encounters the "formidable enemy" of the rabbit, he yells out inarticulate cries for his mother. Second, while he sleeps in the forest, the narrator reveals that back at the plantation, a mother's heart was breaking for her missing child. Although these details do not reveal much about the mother's character, they do establish a bond that one would expect to find between a mother and her six-year old son. The mother is not mentioned again until the end of the story, when the child discovers the dead body of a woman while inspecting the burned remains of his home. It is not explicitly stated that this woman is his mother, but it is implied because no other women are mentioned in the story, and also, the child screams in grief when he finds her. - Character: The Father. Description: The child's father is mentioned at the beginning of the story, when the child is first wandering into the forest to play at war with his toy sword. The child's father is now a slaveholding planter, but he used to be a soldier. The story makes clear that the child has learned his cavalier, playful attitude about war from his father, who holds similar ideas himself and loves to look at old books with pictures of battles and soldiers. That the child's disastrously romantic ideas about war come from his father broadens the story's critique of such fantasies of those who hold them—through the character of the father it's clear that, while the deaf-mute child is uniquely unable to grasp the reality of war, such views are widespread and destructive. The father's casual participation in the domination of others is further made clear by the fact that he owns slaves. It is not revealed whether the child's father survives at the end of the story. The narrator describes the child finding a dead woman's body, but not a dead man's. However, since the child's entire home has burned, it is reasonable to assume that his father may have also died, along with everyone else who lived at the plantation. - Character: The Slaves. Description: The slaves owned by the child's family are mentioned twice in the story. First, when the child is asleep in the woods, the narrator mentions that black and white men at the plantation home are searching the fields for the child. Second, when the child tries to ride the wounded soldiers like horses, the narrator comments that the child has done the same in the past with his father's slaves for his own entertainment. The fact that the Civil War is being fought over slavery is not explicitly mentioned in the story, but this is background information that a reader in Bierce's time would have probably been aware of. The fact that the boy tries to ride the slaves like horses but they still help search for him highlights the severity of the racial inequality at the time of the American Civil War, and further highlights the way that human society seems to be founded on the domination of one set of people by another, with most people giving little thought about the reality of that fact. - Character: The Narrator. Description: The narrator of the story is not quite a character—the narrator has no name, no history, and can't really be considered a person. Yet the narrator is a key part of the story, and subtly uses tone (the over-the-top language used to mock those who hold a romantic view of war) and the careful dissemination of information (such as the fact that the child is a deaf-mute) to convey the story's profound condemnation of the brutality of war, and of those people who recklessly fail to understand that brutality and instead view war as romantic and glorious. - Theme: Fantasy of War vs. Reality of War. Description: In "Chickamauga," a six-year old, deaf-mute child wanders into the forest to play at war. He gets lost, falls asleep, and then wakes up to find himself in the awful aftermath of a Civil War battle. However, through most of the story, the boy doesn't understand the horrors he is witnessing. Instead, he delights in the spectacle, even pretending to be the maimed soldiers' leader. The juxtaposition between the way the uncomprehending boy perceives war and how the story's narrator and reader perceive the battle, coupled with the boy's final awful realization that this battle has destroyed his home and killed his family, has two affects. First, it amplifies the pure horror of war; the boy's inability to perceive that horror makes it all the more obvious to the reader. Second, it condemns the boy's idea—and all those who share that idea—of war as being heroic and exciting as not just naïve but complicit in promoting war and all its brutal destruction. The story quickly establishes that the boy believes war to be exciting and glorious. Just as importantly, though, the story also makes clear that the boy's view is not unique to him, or to little boys. Rather, the story shows how such simplistic views of war are widespread among adults as well. The child begins the story by wandering into the forest with a toy sword, suggesting that he thinks of weapons as toys and battles as games. He pretends to be a soldier, fighting "invisible foes." When the boy gets lost in the woods, he cries himself to sleep, while comforting himself with his toy sword which he sees as his "companion." The capacity to commit violence gives the boy comfort. When the boy wakes up and finds himself surrounded by wounded soldiers (he slept through the Civil War battle of Chickamauga because of his deafness), he regards them as "a merry spectacle," moving among them freely and riding them like horses. He "placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march..." The child views the wounded soldiers as fun playmates, not as casualties in a devastating battle. Crucially, the story explains the origin of the boy's ideas about war. The boy's father was once a soldier, and "in the peaceful life of a planter the warrior-fire survived," such that the father loved "military books and pictures." The boy learned his ideas about war from his father. The story, then, makes it impossible to simply dismiss the boy's views as a result of being six years old, deaf, or mute. By connecting the boy's ideas to his father's ideas, the story indicates that such ideas are inherited from family and society—and makes clear that these ideas of war as being simple, heroic, and glorious are widespread. The story then uses a variety of methods to poke increasingly larger holes in the boy's—and society's—simplistic ideas about war. One way the story does this is through style. The story describes the child's war-play in the forest in language that is flowery and intense: at one point it describes the boy's toy sword as "the weapon he bore bravely, as became the son of an heroic race." This language is so flowery and intense, in fact, that it is best described as mock-heroic: its intensity is meant to hint that it, and the ideas of the boy it describes, should not be taken seriously. The narrator also makes the juxtaposition between the boy's understanding and an adult understanding more explicit. The narrator describes soldiers who are "maimed and bleeding," and mentions that some are so wounded that they drown when they try to drink water. The narrator then states that  "not all of this did the child note; it is what would have been noted by an elder observer." Through tone and detail the story and its narrator build an ironic rift between what the child perceives and what the narrator and the reader both perceive, heightening the tension between the child's fantasy of war—a fantasy that the story has made clear is held by many who are not children at all—and its actual brutal reality. In addition to using its style, the story also shows the dangerous and tragic foolishness of the boy's views through the events of the story. After "leading" the army of wounded soldiers, the boy sees a fire: "the spectacle pleased, and he danced with glee in imitation of the wavering flames." The reaction to violent destruction here is typical for the child: he's excited by it, just as the story makes clear his father was excited by fighting and defeating "savages" many years earlier.  Soon after, however, the boy discovers that the fire has destroyed his home and that his family has been killed. The implication is that the devastation of battle spun out beyond just the battle, and resulted in destruction of civilians as well. In this moment the story also makes clear that the destruction of war isn't ever contained by war—it isn't limited to the soldiers or armies involved. Instead, it spins out of control, resulting in destruction to those like the boy's family not even taking active part. The destruction that excited the boy now devastates him and the boy's naïve fantasies of war are punctured. The mock-heroic language describing those original fantasies gives way to the boy's "inarticulate and indescribable cries" as he looks down at the body of his dead mother. The boy's journey—from playing at the fantasy of war, to reveling in destruction, to despair at the actual, brutal, uncontrollable outcomes of war—demonstrates just how ridiculous and tragic those original fantasies were. By tying the boy's simplistic fantasies about war to those of the broader culture, and showing how the boy's journey led to the loss of everything he had, the story takes aim at society and humanity more generally, and implies that the simplistic glorification of war will only ever lead to tragedy and self-destruction. - Theme: Humanity vs. Nature. Description: "Chickamauga" is set during the Civil War, and shows the aftermath of the battle of Chickamauga through the eyes of a deaf, mute, six-year old Southern white child (who doesn't really understand what he is seeing). The story, to put it shortly, is about war. But while the most obvious war it portrays is that between men, the story also subtly describes a different war—a battle between man and nature. The story portrays humanity—the boy himself but also the entire cultural tradition that the boy has inherited—as viewing nature as a rival, something to be overcome and conquered, just as we view other groups of humans as something to be conquered. But the story implies that humans are in fact a part of nature, and so humanity's struggle against nature is doomed to fail. "Chickamauga" describes mankind as seeking to conquer nature, and connects this war against nature with fantasies of war as noble and bringing civilization to what was once "savage." When the boy in the story goes to play war, he doesn't stay around his house. He goes to the forest, connecting war with a desire to tame "wild" places. He then imagines himself battling the obstacles of the forest, forging a "shallow brook, whose rapid waters barred his direct advance." The boy sees nature as an enemy, to humorous effect when he encounters a rabbit and thinks it as a monstrous foe. After getting lost, he is terrified by the forest he had just imagined himself conquering. The boy always sees himself in conflict with nature, whether winning or losing. The story connects the boy's ideas about overcoming nature to his society's: "this child's spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest." Those ancestors had "conquered [their] way through two continents," a phrase that describes overcoming both other people within that land and the land itself. The boy's love of war stems most directly from his father, who fought people he thinks of as "naked savages." In this way, the story indicates that the fantasies of glorious war treasured by the boy, his father, and his ancestors is driven by an idea that they are fighting on the side of civilization against savagery, of humanity against nature, with an implication that humans often justify wars against other humans by imagining those other humans as "savages," as being more a part of nature than of humanity. This idea is amplified by the fact that the boy's Southern family owns slaves that the boy sometimes "rides" for fun—his own family justifies its domination of other humans by treating them like animals. Human war also harms nature directly in the story: soldiers battle in the forest, littering it with dead bodies and broken guns, staining its stream and stones with blood, and lighting it on fire. This suggests that humans defile nature by using it as a backdrop for our own battle, making nature into a casualty of our battles. Even as "Chickamauga" shows how humans see themselves as being in conflict with nature, the story constantly blurs the boundaries between humans and nature, and suggests that humans are a part of nature. When the boy wakes after becoming lost in the forest and sees the wounded soldiers all around him, he first thinks they are animals—dogs, pigs, or maybe bears. A bit later, the narrator describes these soldiers as seeking to escape their "hunters," using language to make clear a connection between war (men hunting men) with man's war against nature (men hunting animals). When the boy falls asleep in the forest, the story treats him as just another part of the forest, with birds and squirrels chittering around his human form. At the same time, the story suggests that nature will not bear human attacks against it without response, as it connects the sounds of the battle that the boy is sleeping through to partridges squawking "in celebration of nature's victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers." (This reference to humanity's "enslavement" of nature can also be seen as a reminder that the Civil War is being fought over humanity's enslavement of its own species.) By making clear that humanity is not distinct from nature, the story suggests that humanity's attempts to conquer nature will naturally end in disaster. Near the end of the story, the boy comes upon a fire. He's delighted by its destructive power—"he danced with glee in imitation of the wavering flames." The boy wants to contribute to the fire, to aid its destruction. He throws in his toy wooden sword, which the narrator describes as "a surrender to the superior forces of nature." Immediately after, the boy discovers that the fire has destroyed his family's home, and that his parents have been killed. The death of the boy's mother and the fire's destruction of his home are literal manifestations of nature's triumph over humanity. These events are a direct result of humanity's Civil War battle, certainly, but they also result from the unavoidable facts of nature: fire spreads, and some wounds to the body are mortal. In this way the story suggests that in seeking to conquer other humans and nature (which the story has made clear is in fact the same instinct), humans step outside the normal order of nature and in so doing create outsize reactions: more war, more killing, and nature itself burning out of control. When the boy discovers his dead mother, he utters "a series of inarticulate cries—something between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey." The boy in his grief is like the animals he earlier thought himself to be above, implying that despite human's self-conception as civilized conquerors of the "savage" (whether other people or nature itself), humans are in fact a part of nature. Mankind's efforts to conquer nature will therefore inevitably end in disaster, because any such war against nature is in fact a war against itself. - Theme: Reality vs. Imagination. Description: The six-year old, deaf-mute protagonist of "Chickamauga" is often unaware of what is truly happening around him, creating an ironic distance between how the protagonist perceives the events of the story and how the narrator and the reader perceive those same events. This ironic distance works to amplify the story's themes; the protagonists' obvious misunderstanding about the reality of what's going make the reader's understanding of that reality even stronger. At the same time, while the child's imaginative fantasies are extreme—in large part because the boy is not only six years old but also deaf and mute, thus locking him into his own world in a unique way—the story works to make clear that the boy is in many ways different in degree but not kind from other people. That is, the story makes clear that the boy is joined by the rest of humanity in seeing the world through fantasy and imagination rather than seeing the true reality, and that such ways of seeing the world in the end lead to disaster. Throughout the story, the narrator knows more than the child, and chooses to disclose certain details to the reader that the protagonist is not aware of. Some of those details are about the battle of Chickamuaga itself, which took place while the child was asleep, and others are details about the horrific wounds the soldiers are left with as they attempt to crawl to a stream to drink water. The narrator notes that thousands of soldiers participated in the battle, that the forest is littered with broken weapons and supplies, and that many of the soldiers are already dead. However, "not all of this did the child note; it is what would have been noted by an elder observer." Presumably almost anyone reading the story would be an "elder" of this six-year-old child, and so the narrator in this way calls out for the reader to notice these horrific details. While the narrator calls out details of the battle to the reader, the narrator also deliberately conceals details about the child from the reader. Most importantly, the narrator does not reveal that the child is deaf and mute until the very end, when the child utters "inarticulate cries" upon discovering his mother's dead body. The lack of clarity regarding the child's behavior leads the reader, throughout the majority of the story, to find the child's inability to understand the reality around him as astonishing or shocking. The revelation that the child is deaf and mute at the end of the story explains why he was able to sleep through a battle between thousands of men, why he never speaks to the soldiers, and why his cries for his mother when he saw the terrifying rabbit were "inarticulate" just like his cries at the end of the story. But the feeling that the story creates—of the horrific disconnect between the child's understanding of war versus its reality—lingers on even after the story "explains" the child's unique situation.  Ultimately, the story uses the child's naivete and inability to recognize the horror of war as a way to implicate everyone else who also do the same thing. The child, after all, has an excuse: he's six, deaf, and mute. But the child's father, who valorizes war and passed on these ideas to his child, is no such thing. Further, the narrator explains how the "child's spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest…born to war and dominion as a heritage." All of this suggests that the child's glorified view of war as glorious and adventurous is an idea he inherited from his family and his society. Further, the narrator's comment that "elder observers" would notice the details that the child missed can be read as ironic. After all, adult commanders sent those soldiers to fight and die. People not at the battle might remark on the casualties but will never truly understand the horror of them. The story, then, provides a vision of the horror of war that most of its readers will not have noticed, at least until reading the story. And any shock at the naivete of the child, therefore, must be accompanied by shock at the way that everyone's imagination and fantasies work to block them from seeing reality. And in the story of the child—who ends up participating in a battle he doesn't understand only to discover that the battle has destroyed his home and killed his family—the story makes clear that reality can be misunderstood, but it can't in the end be denied. - Climax: The child protagonist discovers that his home has been destroyed and his mother is dead. - Summary: In "Chickamauga," set during the American Civil War, a six-year old child in northwestern Georgia wanders into the forest carrying a wooden toy sword to play at being a soldier. As the child wanders deeper into the forest, the narrator provides information about the boy's father: he is a poor planter, and in his younger manhood he had been a soldier. Even now, the father still loves soldiering and often looks at books about war. As the child enjoys his adventure he commits the "common enough military error of pushing the pursuit to a dangerous extreme"—he's lost, but doesn't know it yet. After the boy successfully crosses a stream, he briefly celebrates this "victory" before encountering a rabbit. The child is so afraid of this rabbit that he turns and flees, calls out inarticulate cries for his mother, weeps, stumbles, and then wanders around for an hour before relizing he is lost and sobbing himself to sleep, clutching his toy sword. As he sleeps, birds sing and squirrels run around, and somewhere far off there is a strange, muffled thunder, "as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature's victory over her immemorial enslavers." Hours pass before the child gets up, and by then the chill of evening has arrived. The boy is frightened by a ghostly mist rising off of the stream, then he notices a strange moving object which at first he cannot identify. He fears it might be another wild animal like a dog, pig, or bear. He then realizes this is not one creature, but many creatures, one followed by another. The child finally realizes these are men, creeping on their hands and knees instead of walking. They come by the dozens and the hundreds, surrounded by the "deepening gloom" of the woods around them. Occasionally, a man stops crawling and does not go on again, because he is dead. In reality, the men are soldiers. However, the narrator tells us that the child does not note all of the details; they are "what would have been noted by an elder observer." The child seems to be comforted by the fact that they are men as opposed to wild animals, and does not seem to worry about or even notice the extent of their wounds. The men remind the child of a circus clown he saw the previous summer, and he laughs as he watches them, viewing them as "a merry spectacle." He remembers riding his father's slaves like horses for his own amusement, and attempts to do the same thing with the soldiers. The man that he climbs on flings the boy off, though, and shakes his fist at the child. The boy, "terrified at last," runs to a nearby tree, and the soldiers drag themselves on. The boy continues to move down the slope towards the stream along with these crawling, staggering men, He places himself in the lead and directs the march, still playing soldier. The forest is littered with objects that are remnants of battle, such as knapsacks and broken rifles, and the ground has been trodden into mud by the tracks of men and horses going in both directions. But again, the narrator tells us that the child does not notice all of this. It is still implied at this point that the child's age is the sole reason why he does not notice everything that is going on around him. A fire is burning on the belt of woods on the other side of the stream, and is "now suffusing the whole landscape." The stream and stones surrounding it are red with blood. The narrator reveals more gruesome details about the soldiers, such as that some of them are so wounded that they drown when they try to drink water. The child waves his cap in encouragement of the soldiers and points his toy sword in the direction of the fire as a "guiding light." When the child reaches the fire, there is a blazing ruin of a building, and not a living thing is visible, but he is focused on the fire, which excites him, and dances in imitation of the flames. He runs around trying to collect fuel for the fire, but everything he finds is too heavy for him to throw into it, so he throws in his toy sword, which the narrator says is "a surrender to the superior forces of nature." The narrator also tells us the child's military career is over. The child notices some outbuildings in the distance that look strangely familiar, but he cannot place them at first. Suddenly he realizes he is looking at his own plantation home and the surrounding forest, and that all of it is on fire. He runs around the ruin, and discovers the dead body of a white women who appears to have been shot in the head. It is his mother. The child makes wild and uncertain gestures and, for the second time in the story, he utters a series of inarticulate animal-like cries, but this time the narrator reveals that the child is deaf and mute. The child stands still, looking down at the body of his dead mother.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Chike’s School Days - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: A small Igbo village in in early 20th-century colonial Nigeria - Character: Chike. Description: The main character of the story, Chike is a young boy who is just at the age to start school. He is the firstborn son to his parents, Amos and Sarah, after five girls, and because of his gender, his birth is a huge occasion to celebrate. His parents' Christian beliefs isolate him from his community, most of whom abide by traditional Igbo values and religion. This causes Chike not to accept food from his neighbors, for instance, because his mother believes that it's heathen since it's offered to traditional Igbo deities. Chike is eager to begin school in spite of his sisters' warnings that the schoolteacher "beats students to death." At school, Chike adores the songs he sings with his classmates—especially the ones in English, even though he can't understand or pronounce many of the words. As Chike gets older, he becomes even more fascinated with the English language. His teacher uses long words with his students that impress Chike very much: his favorite words is periwinkle, for example. When Chike gets home from school, he likes to read the stories from his New Method Reader schoolbook. Again, many of these don't make sense to him, either, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying reading. What's more, Chike makes up nonsensical songs with the words he's learned that engage his imagination and imbue him with visions of "a strange, magical new world." - Character: Amos. Description: Chike's father. Amos, originally, was a member of the powerful "free-born" social group in the village, but because he chose to marry Sarah, a woman of the lowest-ranking Osu class, he is no longer respected by the community or even his family. He chose his wife because he converted to Christianity, and Mr. Brown, an English missionary in the village, convinced him that Christian values didn't align with traditional class structures. Amos's marriage to Sarah caused a rupture between him and his mother, Elizabeth, who vehemently opposed the union even though she herself had already converted to Christianity. In marrying an Osu woman, Amos accepts the fact that his children will be Osu as well. At the beginning of the story, he is especially happy that his wife has given birth to a son, Chike, after five daughters. - Character: Sarah. Description: Chike's mother. Sarah belongs to the Osu, the lowest social class in the village. However, she has converted to Christianity and no longer believes in the traditional Igbo system. Her newfound beliefs allowed her to marry Amos, even though, traditionally, Osu are forbidden from even lifting their heads in front of members of higher castes, or "free-borns." Sarah's Christianity also leads her to raise her children in ways that isolate them from the rest of the villagers, who still engage in traditional Igbo cultural practices and spiritual beliefs. This effect of her parenting becomes most obvious when she tells her children not to accept food at their neighbors' houses, because they offer foods to the traditional Igbo gods, whom Sarah refers to as "idols." - Character: Elizabeth. Description: Amos's mother. Like her son, Elizabeth converted to Christianity, presumably thanks to Mr. Brown's influence. However, it is clear that she still invests in traditional religion and social structures when she reacts negatively to Amos's decision to marry Sarah, an Osu. When she learned this, Elizabeth went to village diviner to perform a ritual that would make her son come to his senses. Even though the ritual does not work, Elizabeth leaves Christianity to return to her traditional Igbo faith. - Character: The Diviner. Description: A practitioner of the traditional Igbo religion, the diviner is seen as a wise and powerful man by the people of the village—at least, by those that haven' t converted to Christianity yet. When Elizabeth comes to him, distraught that her son, Amos, will marry Sarah, a member of the lowest social class in Igbo society, the diviner performs a ritual to prevent the marriage from occurring. Even though the ritual doesn't work, Elizabeth still returns to her original faith after her encounter with the diviner. The diviner is seen as a source of power and authority in the village. However, his only appearance in the story is an instance in which he fails to successfully perform a magical ritual, inviting readers to consider the possibility that his authority might not be totally warranted. - Character: Mr. Brown. Description: An English Christian missionary who works in the village, Mr. Brown isn't as appealing to the people for his religious teachings. Rather, they are interested in him due to the clinical dispensary he runs. Like the diviner, then, Mr. Brown exemplifies a figure of power and leadership whose authority may be unearned. At the very least, Mr. Brown's authority isn't fully respected—it seems that at the time the story takes place, most of the villagers have resisted converting to Christianity and still practice their traditional Igbo religion. Amos and Sarah, are exceptions to this, however. Using Christian teachings, Mr. Brown convinces Amos to marry Sarah in spite of her low social standing, and the couple goes on to raise Chike and their five other children as Christians. - Character: The Schoolteacher. Description: Notorious among the village schoolchildren for beating students with his cane, the schoolteacher provides Chike and his peers with their first introduction to the English language. For younger students, the schoolteacher instructs songs about the catechism and Western history—one that is particularly memorable to Chike is about Julius Caesar being the ruler of the world. The schoolteacher is stricter with the older students, using English words to tease and scold them for being late or lazy. He also begins to introduce longer, more complicated English words. Chike notes "periwinkle," "procrastination," and, in the context of a lesson about seed dispersal, the phrase "explosive mechanism." - Theme: Colonialism as a Form of Violence. Description: In "Chike's School Days," Chinua Achebe paints a portrait of an Igbo Nigerian village through the lens of one young boy's family. Chike starts school at a time when the influence of British colonizers has begun to have a serious impact on the lives of people in his village. Families are ruptured along the lines of members who subscribe to the white man's tradition—the conversion to Christianity, in particular, is presented as a dividing force in the story. The language Achebe uses to describe the impact that English cultural influence has on Chike's village creates images of violence and emphasizes the point that colonialism is, inherently, a destructive force.  Chike is the son of his mother, Sarah, an Osu—a member of the lowest social class—and his father, Amos, a "freeborn". The union of two such people represents a rupture in the hierarchy that maintains the social order of Chike's village. When Amos, tells his mother, Elizabeth, that he intends to marry Sarah, "the shock nearly kill[s] her." The language here is obviously suggestive of violence. Amos's mother's surprise and disappointment at his having made a choice that prioritizes white Western values over traditional Nigerian values almost causes her to metaphorically die. The new generation's embracing of English practices does away with everything the older generation had passed on to them, causing a form of cultural death. Elizabeth's reaction is particularly complex, however, because she herself had already converted to Christianity—the religion whose values allowed Amos to consider marrying an Osu woman. However, the extent to which her son has adopted these new beliefs affects her strongly, and even causes her to return to "the faith of her people." In this way, Amos's full integration of Christian values creates a rupture between him and his mother. Initially, Elizabeth tries to talk her son out of marrying Sarah, but doesn't get through to him because "his ears had been nailed up." The use of passive voice here makes readers guess at who did this to Amos, the only obvious answer being Mr. Brown, the village's English missionary. The metaphoric use of "nails" is strange, and also references Christianity—Jesus having been nailed to the cross. Thus, the influence of Christianity on Amos is portrayed as violent. When Chike is preparing to go to school, he is anxious about the stories he's heard about "teachers and their canes," implying that school is a place where violence is inflicted upon the children. Chike's older sisters sang a song in Igbo about the teacher that implied that he "flogged the children to death." The schoolteacher in Chike's village is English like the missionary, and instills fear in the children by using his cane. The implication that an educational system could cause a child to die invites readers to consider that this is, in fact, a metaphorical death. At Chike's school, children are educated by colonizers who intend to disconnect them from their traditional culture. Indeed, Chike's experiences at the school support the suggestion that what happens to the young students there is a metaphorical, cultural death. Immediately following the passage about the song Chike's sisters sang, Achebe describes Chike's experience in "religious class" where he sang the catechism. The parallels here between the song Chike's sisters sang about being flogged to death and Chike's singing Christian songs at school clearly compares Christianity to a form of violence being inflicted on the village people, and especially young children, who are more impressionable than the adults and are responsible for the future of the village. Finally, toward the end of the story, Achebe creates a metaphor that addresses not just Christianity, but the spread of English culture as a form of violence. One of the lessons Chike learns in school and will "never forget" is about seed dispersal. The teacher lists five methods by which this can take place, the last of which, shockingly, is "by explosive mechanism." The first four items on the list—"by man, by animals, by water, by wind"—are peaceful and mundane, which makes the violence of "explosive mechanism" shocking by contrast. "Seed dispersal" is a clear analogy for colonialism, especially within the school context. Chike and his schoolmates are the seeds of a new generation that embodies English values and cooperates with the colonizers. They are being "dispersed" with violence, as their dispersal is only made possible by the "explosive" destruction of the culture of their ancestors.  Immediately following the passage about seed dispersal, readers observe that "Chike was impressed by the teacher's explosive vocabulary." Here, the English language also becomes equated to a weapon. Indeed, the teacher's words and the things he teaches function as tools to separate the children from the society that raised them. Through sharp metaphors of violence, "Chike's School Days" seeks to paint a portrait of traditional Igbo society slowly being destroyed through colonial influence. Through the destruction of tradition and the British education of children, Achebe illustrates the ways in which the powers of colonialism conquered nations by isolating new generations from their ancestors and the culture from which they came. While the destruction of traditional Igbo culture due to colonizing force is an important theme in Achebe's body of work as a whole, what makes "Chike's School Days" unique is the fact that the story is told through the lens of the child, inviting readers to consider what will grow in the place of a culture that is being destroyed. - Theme: Leadership and Authority. Description: The main point of tension in "Chike's School Days" is between English colonial culture and traditional Igbo culture. Achebe tells the story of a young boy, Chike, raised in a village that is just beginning to feel the full force of British colonizer's culture, especially in the realms of religion and education. Over the course of the story, various characters seek guidance from different community leaders. However, these leaders—both Igbo and British alike—are characterized as unreliable. This demonstrates the tension present in a society divided between two groups seeking to dominate local culture, and suggests that neither will fully succeed in this task. Chike and his generation are raised in a cultural context without clear authority figures or structures, which sets the precedent for their forging a new set of cultural practices and values in the wake of colonialism. The first authority figure readers are introduced to in the story is Mr. Brown, an English missionary who lives in Chike's village and successfully converted Chike's father, Amos, to Christianity. Mr. Brown is "highly respected by the people" of the village, "not because of his sermons, but because of a dispensary he ran in one of his rooms." Here, the moral authority of anything Mr. Brown would have to say is severely undermined by his manipulative use of medicine to lure local people into engaging with him. The end goal of his supplying medicine to the people is not simply to help them, but rather to convert them to Christianity. However, the inability of the Christian doctrine to convince people in and of itself suggests that it is not—or, at the very least, suggests that Mr. Brown himself is not—suitable to be a source of moral or religious authority within the context of the village. Mr. Brown is directly contrasted with the village "diviner," whom Amos' mother, Elizabeth, goes to see after his son announces that he intends to marry Sarah, a woman of a lower social class. Unlike Mr. Brown, the diviner is introduced as "a man of great power and wisdom." While readers from the can see from the very beginning that Mr. Brown is not a credible source of wisdom or authority, initially, the diviner is portrayed as someone who has real potential to be a leader in the community. This represents the narrator's slight privileging of local wisdom traditions and wisdom over Christianity by suggesting that up until now, the local diviner had to effectively lead the people. However, the diviner is ultimately unsuccessful in doing what Elizabeth wants him to do, which is to convince her son not to marry Sarah. The diviner tells Elizabeth to sacrifice a goat, which she does, "but her son remained insane and married an Osu girl." Here, any authority the diviner initially seemed to have is totally undermined. He claimed to have a solution for Elizabeth's problem that was simply ineffective. In the story, then, Christianity and local religion are cast as two competing but equally ineffective sources of leadership and moral authority. Interestingly, even though the diviner's prescription really does not work, Elizabeth returns to practice the traditional faith of her people. This choice on her behalf demonstrates that she does not choose her leadership based on its merit, but as a form of reacting against a rebellious son. Because she has seen that both Christianity and local spirituality have led her and members of her family astray, she cannot fully belief in the merit of either one. The third and final figure of potential authority in the story is Chike's schoolteacher, who himself does not seem particularly concerned with passing on relevant information to his students. The activities the teacher gives to his students are presented as meaningless, and even absurd. At one point, Chike and his schoolmates must sing a song in Igbo about Julius Caesar. The narrator ironically comments that "it did not matter […] that in the twentieth century Caesar was no longer ruler of the whole world." In this instance, the schoolteacher is presenting his students with yet another false source of authority. Julius Caesar has nothing to do with the world in which Chike and his peers live, and so presenting him as a source of authority or even a role model is meaningless within this cultural context. In doing this, the teacher also undermines his own authority and potential to be a source of leadership and wisdom for the students. He is not capable of teaching them lessons relevant to their context, and therefore cannot be a helpful guide to them as they grow. The plethora of unreliable authority figures in the story comes as a result of the attempt on the part of colonial forces to dominate and destroy local cultures. Because of the impact of colonialism, the traditions of wisdom and spirituality that Chike's village community previously had are no longer relevant to the current context. However, because some elements of tradition and local culture are still strong among the villagers, colonial forces are also unable to effectively provide the sort of authority and moral guidance that the children—and the whole community—need in order to grow. This sets the precedent for Chike's generation to create new traditions, sources of wisdom, and means of knowledge production that represent the synthesis of the violent confrontation between the two worlds. - Theme: Language and the Struggle to Create Meaning. Description: In "Chike's School Days," readers glimpse a Nigeran Igbo village that is struggling to integrate British colonial culture into their way of life. In many ways, the introduction of Christianity and British culture seems to destroy traditional practice and beliefs. Alongside that destruction, however, Achebe hints at the necessity of forming new practices and traditions at the intersection of the two cultures. One of the most prevalent ways in which readers observe the destruction of traditional culture, the formation of the new culture is through Achebe's treatment of language, especially in the context of Chike, the protagonist, learning English. The protagonist's name is the first instance in which readers observe a confused form of language use.  Chike's birth is an important occasion, as he is the first boy in the family. His parents give him "three names at his baptism—John, Chike, and Obiajulu. The last name means 'The mind at last is at rest.'" This is significant, because readers understand all of Chike's names except the one which he uses throughout the story. John, readers understand to be a generic, biblical English name, which Chike's parents obviously chose in an effort to integrate Christianity into their family culture. Ojiabulu is an Igbo name, which his parents chose because he was their firstborn son. However, Chike, which is the most prevalent of all three names, remains a mystery to readers. It is seemingly empty of meaning. It is also second in line between Chike's English name and his Igbo name—it exists at the intersection of the two cultures. Chike being placed physically in between the other two names, linking English and Igbo, suggests that the link between the two cultures, the practices that will be created through this intersection, are still unknown. This sets the precedent for a story in which language will be used to name the unknown that exists at the intersection between two cultures.  The fact that Ojiabulu means "the mind at last is at rest," is also ironic, as over the course of the story Chike and other characters become more and more confused at the mixture of English and Igbo culture in their town. In other words, the minds of the villagers have never been less at rest. The unsettled quality of the mind becomes most evident in Chike, as he himself struggles with learning the English language. When Chike begins to learn English, he enjoys the language, even though he is initially unable to form words or sentences that actually have meaning. At school, Chike and his classmates sing "Ten Green Bottles," but the lyrics, pronounced in the children's accent, are "Ten grin botr angin on dar war," followed by a middle that is "hummed and hie-ed." Here, it is clear that Chike has no notion of the meaning of the words, nor is he able to produce the sounds such that they would have meaning to others. When a child from one culture is in the initial stages of learning the tongue of another, there is a period of time when it is impossible to communicate meaning. Chike, in his learning process, doesn't prioritize meaning: his favorite word is "periwinkle," implying that what speaking English means to him is still superficial, about the sound of the words rather than their meaning. Chike's linguistic period of emptiness, meaninglessness, and inability to communicate parallels a similar moment for his village culturally, as the colonial and local cultures collide. They run into each other, each negating the other's significance, creating a cultural void in which meaning needs to be recreated. Chike's eagerness to learn English eventually develops into what Achebe implies as an eagerness to forge that new culture at the intersection of the preceding two. At the end of the story, Chike makes up a "meaningless song," with English words that is "like a strange window through which he saw in the distance a strange, magical new world." In this moment, language is the lens through which the "new world," forged through the mixing of Igbo and Western traditions, is first glimpsed. The implication is that the language used to create Chike's song, while meaningless now, will become a tool with which to make meaning. The particular language created at the intersection of Igbo and English will, eventually, be used to build a "new world." While the story ends on a hopeful note from a child's perspective, it is not clear whether the narrator shares that same perspective. The cold and startling reflection that a child's song is "meaningless," suggests that the narrator may be more skeptical of the future that is to come. In either case, though, the mixture of two languages epitomizes the crash of the two cultures—both the meaninglessness that comes from this merging and the necessity to create new cultural significations. - Theme: Family and Community. Description: "Chike's School Days" is a portrait of a Nigerian Igbo community as they navigate the influence of the British in the early stages of colonialism. Building on his examination of the ways in which this Western dominance affects religion, education, and language in Chike's village, Achebe also looks specifically at how these changes affect people on an intimate, relational level. The introduction of Western and Christian values severely alters the ways in which Chike's community is structured, starting at the family level and spreading to disrupt the network of the entire village. Because Amos, Chike's father, converted to Christianity, his new values allowed him to marry Chike's mother, Sarah, who was born an Osu, meaning she is from a lower, marginalized class. This, in turn, isolates Amos from his own mother. When Amos resolves to marry Sarah, an Osu, the narrator observes that "the new religion had gone to his head […] like palm wine." Although Amos's mother, Elizabeth, had already converted to Christianity when Amos announced his engagement, she was so disappointed by this news that she "went to the diviner." This moment is interesting, because it raises the stakes for what it means to convert to Christianity: Elizabeth was okay with the new faith as long as she was also able to maintain the views of class structure traditional to the village. However, when her son's Christian values come into direct conflict with her own traditional ones, she initially tries to stop him by returning to "the faith of her people," or the diviner. The diviner's spells don't work on Amos, but nonetheless Elizabeth resolves to continue to practice traditional Igbo spirituality. In this way, the introduction of Christianity into village life challenges ancestral understandings of class and the structure of society, and therefore is capable of turning family members against one another. In part due to his parents' nontraditional marriage, Chike is raised in ways that break with the village traditions of raising children. Because Sarah and Amos are Christians, Sarah tells her children "not to eat in their neighbors' houses because 'they [offer] their food to idols.'" In this way, Sarah "set[s] herself against the age-old custom which regarded children as the common responsibility of all." In doing this, Sarah, perhaps unwittingly, participates in restricting the way in which the Igbo village will conceptualize the family unit. Previously, all families seem to have been united by a collective raising of the children—irrespective of social class, as evidenced by the fact that the neighbors were even willing to offer food to Chike, an Osu child. Now, however, Sarah's newfound religious beliefs have caused her to isolate her children from this community, thereby falling into the traditional Western standard of a nuclear family unit. When Chike is offered food from a neighbor in the story and refuses, the neighbor is offended, muttering that "even an Osu [is] full of pride nowadays, thanks to the white man." Here, the anger Chike's neighbor feels toward him demonstrates that she, too, wishes to distance herself from Chike and his family—it's not just a one-way aversion. Like Elizabeth, the neighbor dislikes the subversion of traditional social hierarchy, and feels upset about Chike's family because they espouse just that. Achebe portrays colonialism's breaking up of family and community structures with great complexity. Because he shows both the violent enforcing of British beliefs and the exclusionary nature of the traditional class system, he doesn't specifically endorse one way of living over another. However, he does effectively show the ways in which breaking apart communities is a tool of British colonialism. Considering the themes present in both Achebe's work and postcolonial literature in general, it is important to recognize that this strategy—separating communities and even families, specifically by granting lower classes power they have never had before—is a signature strategy employed by social groups that seek to dominate and or colonize others. - Climax: The schoolteacher describes the "explosive mechanism" of seed dispersal to Chike's class. - Summary: "Chike's School Days" takes place in a Nigerian Igbo village as the inhabitants navigate the early stages of 20th-century British colonialism. The protagonist, Chike, is the firstborn son to his parents, Sarah and Amos, making his birth a cause for celebration. In fact, his parents are so excited to welcome the first boy into the family that they give him three names at his baptism: John, in recognition of the family's recent conversion to Christianity; Chike; and Obiajulu, which means "the mind is at last at rest." His family isn't like the others in the village: they are Christians now, and have different values. In fact, Sarah even tells her children not to accept food from the neighbors, because they offered it to "idols." Around age four or five, then, a precocious Chike rejects some yams his neighbor offers him, saying he didn't eat "heathen food." The neighbor is offended, especially since in the traditional caste system, Chike is an Osu—a member of the lowest social class. Chike inherited his class status from his mother, Sarah, who is an Osu woman. This means that due to Amos's higher social status, Amos broke the social code of the village to marry her. He was encouraged to do so by Mr. Brown, an English missionary living in the village who converted Amos to Christianity and, in doing so, convinced him to disregard his culture's traditional understandings of class division. Amos's engagement to Sarah was so shocking that his mother, Elizabeth, tried desperately to dissuade him from this decision. Although she, too, had converted to Christianity, she was so distraught over her son's choice of wife that she went to the diviner, a respected practitioner of the local religion, to perform a ritual that would bring Amos back to his senses. The ritual didn't work—Amos ended up marrying Sarah—but nonetheless Elizabeth switched back to practicing traditional Igbo spirituality. By marrying Sarah, Amos is now an Osu by default, as are Chike and his five sisters. In the story's present, Chike is eager to start school, and the time finally comes when he is about six or seven years old. His sisters warn him with an Igbo song about the schoolteacher "beating them to death" with his notorious cane. But in spite of these threats, Chike is fascinated with school and adores learning. The education he receives is an eclectic mixture of religion and Western history, all communicated by way of songs. Chike especially enjoys the English songs he sings—even though he and his schoolmates don't understand (and can't even pronounce) most of the words. When Chike gets a little older, the schoolteacher begins to use long English words in class, which impresses and intimidates the students. In fact, Chike is so smitten with the English language that he goes home and invents songs with words he's picked out of his New Method Reader. As he sings, although the words themselves are often nonsensical, he feels happy and imagines a mysterious but exciting new world.

- Genre: Detective/Crime Novel, Magical Realism - Title: Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Point of view: First person - Setting: The Caribbean coast of Colombia - Character: Santiago Nasar. Description: Santiago Nasar is the protagonist of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the hapless victim of a brutal murder. He is the child of a "marriage of convenience" between Plácida Linero, a local woman, and Ibrahim Nasar, an Arab immigrant turned rancher. He is wealthy by the town's standards, and seems to be a fairly respected member of the community, though his ethnicity draws some suspicion from conservative townsfolk. He raises livestock, rides horses, owns many firearms, and enjoys falconry. While not overtly religious, he enjoys the pomp of Catholic ritual. He is an unrepentant womanizer—he frequents María Alejendrina Cervantes's brothel and attempts to seduce the young Divina Flor—and is engaged to Flora Miguel, whom he is devoted to but does not seem to love. Despite this, his good friend the Narrator is convinced that Santiago had nothing to do with Angela Vicario, and indeed all the available evidence supports this claim. By the end of the novel Santiago remains something of a mystery—the Narrator never discloses much about his inner life, saying only that he was "merry and peaceful, and openhearted." - Character: The Narrator. Description: The Narrator is a good friend of Santiago Nasar, and also a local. Though he didn't directly witness Santiago's murder at the hands of Pedro and Pablo Vicario, he remains haunted by the crime for many years. Chronicle of a Death Foretold finds the Narrator returning to the town decades after the fateful morning of the murder, trying to make sense of all that transpired—in particular, how the townspeople, almost all of whom knew about the Vicario twins' intentions, failed to prevent the crime. At the time of the murder the narrator is in love with María Alejendrina Cervantes, but eventually ends up marrying Mercedes Barcha. Beyond this the narrator reveals almost nothing about his own life. - Character: Angela Vicario. Description: Angela Vicario, who happens to be the Narrator's distant cousin, is the youngest daughter of Poncio Vicario, a poor man's goldsmith, and Purísima del Carmen, a retired schoolteacher. Her family is of modest means and extremely conservative. Angela's twin brothers, Pedro and Pablo, are taught "to be men," while Angela and her sisters are brought up "to be married"—they are trained only in household crafts, such as embroidery and making paper flowers. As a young girl she displays a certain "poverty of spirit" and seems somewhat helpless. Accordingly, her parents are excited and relieved by the arrival of the dashing, enormously wealthy Bayardo San Román, who becomes obsessed with Angela and quickly asks for her hand in marriage. Angela dreads the marriage, in part because she fears what Bayardo will do when he discovers that she isn't a virgin, but mostly because she does not love him in the first place. However, following the murder, she finds herself strangely fixated on Bayardo. Over the course of decades she writes thousands of letters to him, and eventually they are reconciled to each other. Despite the Narrator's suspicions, she remains adamant that Santiago Nasar took her virginity. - Character: Bayardo San Román. Description: Bayardo San Román is a wealthy outsider to the town, and his reasons for coming to the town remain mysterious to the last. He is the son of General Petronio San Román, a hero of "civil wars" that occurred in the past and are never explained in depth. He is also a member of the ruling conservative regime. Bayardo is dashing, and something of a dandy—he wears only the finest clothes. Though he is well-mannered, he can be impulsive and ostentatious with his money. The Narrator believes him to be a fundamentally sad individual. Bayardo falls in love with Angela Vicario, but after discovering her lack of virginity on their wedding night he returns her to her family and falls into a deep depression. He disappears from the town, only to return decades later to Angela's doorstep. - Character: Pedro Vicario. Description: Pedro Vicario is the younger of the Vicario twins by six minutes. By the Narrator's reckoning, he is more sentimental than his brother, Pablo, but also more authoritarian. He served in the military for a few years, where he picked up a bossy nature and a wicked case of gonorrhea. When the twins learn of their sister Angela's lack of virginity, Pedro is the first to suggest that they kill Santiago Nasar. - Character: Pablo Vicario. Description: Though technically older, Pablo behaves much like a younger brother to Pedro, following his commands and displaying overall a more "imaginative" character. When Pedro served in the military, Pablo remained at home, caring for the family and working as a butcher. But despite his submissive tendencies, it is Pablo, not Pedro, who suggests the brothers persist in their murderous intentions after Colonel Lázaro Aponte takes away their knives. - Character: The Visiting Magistrate. Description: Lázaro Aponte, feeling overwhelmed, invites this unnamed magistrate—recently graduated from law school—to investigate the murder. The magistrate is struck by the number of fateful coincidences that led to the killing of Santiago Nasar, and has a penchant for describing everything in terms of literature. In writing his chronicle, the Narrator relies heavily on the Magistrate's report. - Theme: Fate vs. Free Will. Description: The concept of fate is embedded in the very title of the novel, and introduced again in its first sentence: "On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on." Santiago Nasar's death is "foretold" in two senses. First, Pablo and Pedro Vicario announce their intentions —literally "foretelling" the death— to anyone who will listen, and soon nearly everyone in the village knows that Santiago is doomed. Second, in another, more cosmic sense, Santiago's death seems predestined from the start, the result of a tragic alignment of chance occurrences. Looked at one way, Santiago's murder is a clearly intentional act, committed (and enabled) by people in the world. Certainly the Vicario twins choose to kill him, one can argue. Further, many characters—such as Victoria Guzmán, Santiago's cook, and her daughter, Divina Flor—have the chance to warn Santiago but choose not to, either not understanding the seriousness of the threat or actively wanting Santiago dead. To put it simply: the Vicario twins and their enablers act with free will. Indeed, some of the Narrator's language supports this interpretation of the tragedy, notably his insistence on calling the murder a "crime." At other points he even suggests that the entire community, not just the Vicario twins, is culpable.However, looked at another way, Santiago's death can be explained only if it is understood as predestined. As the narrator collects the testimonies of the townspeople, he perpetually is mystified by the incredible number of chance occurrences that, in total, created the perfect conditions for Santiago's murder. The examples are nearly countless, but some of the most prominent include the anonymous note of warning that Santiago fails to notice, Cristo Bedoya's difficulty finding Santiago, and Plácida Linero's locking the front door of her house in fright. Further, it becomes clear that the Vicario twins, while acting of their own free will, were also not entirely enthusiastic about killing Santiago, and in some ways tried to be stopped. Then there's the ultimate mystery: why Angela Vicario offered up Santiago's name, when all of the available evidence suggests she had nothing to do with him. Some of the narration supports this interpretation of the tragedy as predestined, such as the narrator's interest in establishing possible portents of the crime—the weather, or Santiago's dream the night of the wedding. (Perhaps tellingly, these attempts fail.) More explicitly, the narrator throws around words like "destiny," "fate," and "sentence," just about as much as he does "crime." Finally, the structure of the novel, which announces the death of the main character in its very first sentence, does not allow the reader to imagine any outcome other than the one described at the start.This coexistence of divine fate and earthly free will is an ancient paradox, central both to Greek tragedy and, more recently and relevantly, the Catholic faith. Is free will just an illusion? If one's fate is sealed from birth, how is it that a person can act with free will? How can one be held morally accountable for her actions if her future is always already determined? Márquez—operating very much within Catholic modes of thought—seems to answer that fate and free will are somehow, mysteriously, not mutually exclusive. So long as we feel that we have free will, we must bring ourselves to act morally. - Theme: Fact, Fiction, and Memory. Description: If the primary drama of Chronicle of a Death Foretold is the murder of Santiago Nasar, the secondary drama is the Narrator's work of researching, recollecting, and representing the murder. His narrative style is journalistic: after many years, the narrator is attempting to put together a comprehensive account of Santiago Nasar's murder. Structurally the novel resembles a documentary film: a dramatization or reconstruction of the murder is framed and informed by a huge number of witness testimonials, which are presented to the reader as direct quotes, or "talking heads."Though the narrator casts a wide net of discovery, he struggles at times to pin down the facts of the case—no two witnesses can agree on every single detail. A haze hovers over the events of the murder, partly because so many years have passed, and partly because everyone in town was exceedingly drunk on the night of the wedding. Instead of representing only those facts that strike him as true, the Narrator presents as many accounts of the fateful morning as he can, and refuses to polish over the contradictions they pose. Through these many contradicting accounts—one notable example being the widespread uncertainty about the weather on the day of the murder—the narrative demonstrates that memory is fallible, and that sometimes remembering is more like fiction-making than fact-finding. Most facts are lost to the past, and memory is just a story we tell ourselves.Furthermore, while memory can make fiction out of facts, sometimes the facts themselves can seem stranger than fiction. The uncertain border between fact and fiction is explicitly remarked upon by the Narrator and a number of the characters, most notably in the final third of the novel, when the Magistrate investigating the case becomes increasingly perplexed by the idea that "life should make use of so many coincidences forbidden literature." This observation that life sometimes reads as bad fiction takes on a new complexity when one considers that a) the murder of Santiago Nasar is of course fictional—this is a novel!—and b) the novel is based loosely on true events.Overall, Márquez seems to suggest throughout his novel that the border between fact and fiction cannot so easily be drawn—experience, especially traumatic experience, and especially traumatic experience seen through the lens of memory, is as much experienced as it is constructed. - Theme: The Sacred and the Profane. Description: Chronicle of a Death Foretold is impressive for the way it depicts a world in which religious seriousness commingles with out-and-out debauchery. Nearly every character in the novel moves freely between these two opposite poles of experience, poles that might be labeled as the "sacred" and the "profane."God seems to have left the village in which the novel takes place. The Bishop, whom everyone is eager to see on the morning of the murder, won't set foot in the town, choosing instead to pass by on his boat and deliver his blessing from afar. Everyone takes part in the wedding festivities; even the Narrator's sister, a nun, gets drunk. The Narrator has been frequenting a local brothel for his entire adult life. Santiago Nasar, though described as "peaceful" by the Narrator, gropes the teenaged Divina Flor whenever he gets the chance. Pedro Vicario returns from the military sporting a nasty case of gonorrhea.And yet, most members of the community are deeply Catholic—as demonstrated by their enthusiasm over the Bishop's visit—and cling dearly to traditional ideals of purity and honor. As soon as Angela Vicario accuses Santiago Nasar of deflowering her, her brothers Pablo and Pedro Vicario set out to murder him as a matter of course: by their logic, he has stolen the honor of their sister, of their whole family, and so must repay them in blood. By that same token, a fair number of the townspeople accept Santiago's doom as a foregone conclusion: nothing can or should be done to save him. Angela Vicario's purity is seen by nearly everyone—including Angela herself—as a matter of life and death. The community's draconian values find fullest expression in the verdict delivered three years after the murder. Despite the gruesome and public nature of their crime, and despite the apparent innocence of their victim, the Vicario brothers are found innocent "by the thesis of homicide in legitimate defense of honor."It would seem, then, that the town is filled with hypocrites. Not one character in Chronicle of a Death Foretold is pure or particularly honorable—blood, sex, and excrement abound—and yet so many of the characters see purity and honor as akin to godliness. Of course, Márquez is up to something a bit more complicated than simply exposing the hypocrisy of his characters. More nearly he seems to suggest that the townspeople's devotion to sacred ideals is full of impossible hope, and is all the more tragic for that reason. Pedro and Pablo Vicario, hoping to abide by some abstract code of honor, end up committing murder—which is, at last, the most profane act of all. - Theme: Gender, Class, and Social Restrictions. Description: Throughout Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Márquez subtly scrutinizes the underlying rules of social relations, questioning how the circumstances of one's birth structures and determines the course of one's life. Márquez is especially interested in the ways in which widely held notions of gender might govern one's position in society. In the Narrator's hometown, one's gender sharply delineates the borders of his or her experience. To put it bluntly, the community is inherently sexist. If you are born with male features, you are educated and grow up to work. The question of your virginity has no moral bearing on your character—in fact, you are more or less expected to be having sex from a young age. On the other hand, if you're born with female features, your virginity is of the utmost importance. You grow up cloistered and are taught only to be a good wife. Angela Vicario and her sisters are raised this way, as is Flora Miguel. Most of the female characters—Plácida Linero, Victoria Guzmán, and the Narrator's Mother—while powerful in their own, private ways, exert very little control over their station in life. Of course, gender is not the only social determinant in this community. Not unrelatedly, wealth and social class are additional factors that structure and determine the lives of the characters. This is most apparent in Angela's engagement to Bayardo San Román. Bayardo, an outsider who is "swimming in gold," is betrothed to Angela against her will. The marriage is arranged by Angela's parents, who come from a more modest background than Bayardo. Such an arrangement is seen as normal in the town, where social class is extremely important and "marrying up" is common practice. Further, ethnicity plays a less prominent but still important social role: the minority group of Arabs—to which Santiago Nasar belongs—are relegated to a kind of community within the community, one that is looked on with some suspicion by the non-Arab majority. For Márquez, character is not necessarily destiny. However, the accidents of one's character—one's gender, one's social class, one's race—can have a tremendous, often oppressive effect on one's life. One could even argue that, more than destiny or the perverse will of a few criminals and their enablers, it is the overarching structure of society that kills Santiago Nasar. After all, Pablo and Pedro Vicario are in some ways moved to murder by social forces beyond their control. They understand their crime as duty, one foisted upon them by their religion and the culture in which they live, and they in some ways do their best to escape it, but to no avail. - Theme: Violence, Trauma, and Community. Description: Violence, of course, is a persistent theme throughout this crime story. The violence that Santiago Nasar suffers is—for Márquez and his characters—both familiar and entirely alien. The Narrator, and through him Márquez, asks dogged questions pertaining to violence: What does violence do to its victim? What does violence do to its perpetrator? More pressingly, what is the place of violence within a community? How can a community knowingly allow violence to occur, and, further, treat it as a public spectacle?The apparent incompetence and, worse, the complacency of his community in the face of impending violence haunts the Narrator throughout his investigation of the crime. By the time Santiago Nasar is pinned to his own front door and stabbed before a crowd of spectators, nearly the entire town knows what's coming. Pablo and Pedro Vicario have announced their plans to all who will listen. Some people, like Cristo Bedoya and Clotilde Armante, try but fail to warn Santiago. Others, like Divina Flor and Indalecio Pardo, have the opportunity but are too frightened to do so. Others still, like Victoria Guzmán, refuse to warn him out of spite. However, the vast majority of the townsfolk—including Colonel Lázaro Aponte, who of all people wields the authority to prevent the murder—simply don't take seriously the Vicario twins' threat, chalking it up to hyperbole, or just the ravings of a couple of drunks. Márquez thus demonstrates that violence, even while it is considered by most to be beyond the pale, is never very far off. The barrier between everyday life and the most unimaginable bloodshed is delicate, and in fact easily overcome. Chronicle of a Death Foretold thus demonstrates how the possibility of violence can become—suddenly, shockingly—permissible. And despite the ease with which violence is committed, violence is also utterly transformative, for all parties involved. Márquez lingers gruesomely on the transformation of Santiago Nasar from a walking, talking, smiling citizen to a confused, helpless animal, and finally to a piece of dead meat indistinguishable from the rabbits that Victoria Guzmán spends the morning disemboweling. The violence is also transformative for its perpetrators, Pablo and Pedro Vicario, who are in some ways left traumatized by their own crime. This trauma manifests itself physically: in jail they both become entirely sleepless, Pedro's venereal disease worsens, and Pablo falls deathly ill. After Santiago's death, Angela Vicario finds herself mysteriously falling in love with Bayardo San Román, whom she had all but hated before. Santiago's death is transformative, at last, for the community at large, which is left frozen and traumatized after witnessing their collective crime. Chronicle of Death Foretold demonstrates that the conditions within a community that allow violence to occur are not so difficult to meet—they arise almost spontaneously—and yet the fallout following a public murder is immense. Violence is easily committed and its effects are irreversible. Only vigilance and moral courage can prevent it. - Theme: Ritual. Description: So much of daily life in the Narrator's community is governed by ritual and routine. In a simple sense, the population consists mostly of tradespeople, whose lives consist of repetitious tasks: Clotilde Armante sells milk to the same people every morning; Pablo and Pedro Vicario raise and slaughter their pigs. Time has a cyclical, repetitive quality in the town: every day, the same steamboats pass on their way upriver. Perhaps more importantly, though, the townsfolk depend on ritualized behavior to express their hopes and despairs, to make their private lives visible to the wider community: feelings of love, spiritual devotion, and anger are all mediated through public ritual. In many cases, it is not the sincerity of the ritual that matters to the townspeople, it is the ritual itself—its mere gesture. In the years before Angela Vicario's engagement to Bayardo San Román, the Vicario women dress only in black, "observing a mourning that was relaxed inside the house but rigorous on the street" (the middle daughter has died). Santiago Nasar wakes up early for the Bishop not out of any spiritual conviction but because he enjoys the "pomp" of Catholic ritual. Indeed, there is something clearly detached about the Bishop's visit—he never sets foot in the town. Angela Vicario's friends reassure her that the expectation that she'll still be a virgin on her wedding night is mostly empty talk, and that the common ritual of publically displaying the newlyweds' bloodied sheets is often faked. The murder of Santiago Nasar is an extension—and a perversion—of this culture of ritual. Pedro and Pablo Vicario's vow to kill Santiago is an empty gesture that suddenly becomes all too real. It seems that no one, not even the brothers themselves, believe they will actually follow through their plan—until, of course, it is too late. The Vicario brothers' pronouncements and showy knife-sharpening have the quality of performance. They are, in a sense, "faking it"—but somehow, in faking it, they find it within themselves to kill, or, to put it another way, they find themselves forced to follow through with the role they've taken on. At last, there is something ritualistic about the Narrator's engagement with his story. His efforts to ascertain the facts of the murder so many years after it transpired have a mournful and obsessive character: it seems his determination to tell the story is above all an act of remembrance, of devotion. His nonlinear account of the murder make it so events play and replay before the reader, as if in an endless loop. Ritual, then, serves as both a protection and a trap, as something comfortable that structures daily life, bit also as something that has more power than those acting it out perhaps realize, until they find themselves within a ritual they can't escape. - Climax: The Vicario twins murder Santiago Nasar at the door of his mother's house. - Summary: In a small town on the northern coast of Colombia, on the morning after the biggest wedding the town has ever seen, Santiago Nasar, a local man and mostly upstanding citizen, is brutally murdered outside his own front door. The culprits are Pablo and Pedro Vicario, twins and older brothers to the bride, Angela Vicario. Just hours before the murder, Angela was returned to her parents by her husband, the dashing Bayardo San Román, when he discovered she wasn't a virgin as he had anticipated. Pablo and Pedro intimidate Angela into giving them the name of the man who deflowered her. She—perhaps on an impulse, or perhaps sincerely—tells them it was Santiago Nasar. To defend their sister's honor and the honor of the family, the twins resolve to kill him. They go about town announcing their intentions to all who will listen, such that Santiago is one of the last people to learn that his life is in danger. Some of the townspeople try to prevent the murder but fail, others are too frightened to do so, and still others want Santiago dead. Most people simply don't take the threat seriously—until it is too late. The murder is now decades into the past. The Narrator, an old friend of Santiago's and a distant relative of the Vicario family, has returned to the town to make sense of it all. He collects the testimonials of eyewitnesses and other townsfolk, in the hope of recreating a clear picture of the events that led up to the mysterious and apparently senseless murder. The chronicle he presents does not, in fact, unfold in chronological order. Instead, the Narrator leaps between the events of the murder, the events that led up to it, and the years that followed. The Narrator begins by describing Santiago's last few hours alive. He awakes early on the morning of his murder because the Bishop is visiting the town, and Santiago, along with many of the townspeople, want to receive him. He is apparently oblivious to the eminent danger he is in. Though he encounters a number of people—including his cook and her daughter—who have heard the Vicario twins are out to kill him, none of them warns him. The Bishop passes by on the river without stopping. As Santiago makes his way home, the Vicario twins pursue him and stab him to death at his front door. However, before he explains the murder in detail, the Narrator recounts how Angela and Bayardo met and came to be married. Bayardo is an outsider to the community; he appears out of nowhere one day, delivered on a boat travelling upriver. He is dashing, charming, and extremely ostentatious with his money, of which he clearly has a lot. One day he spies Angela Vicario, a young woman from a poor, extremely conservative family, and immediately announces his intentions to marry her. After some trepidation the Vicario family accepts his proposal. They accept more or less on behalf of Angela, who has no say in the matter and does not love Bayardo. Little does her family know that, despite her strict, Catholic upbringing, Angela is not a virgin. The wedding day comes, and Bayardo, who funds the whole thing, pulls out all the stops. The entire town descends into the most raucous, debauched party anyone has ever seen. Santiago and the Narrator both attend. As the party blazes on into the night, Bayardo takes Angela off to their new house, where he discovers she is not a virgin. Enraged, he returns her to her parents in the early hours of the morning. Angela's mother, Purísima del Carmen, beats her savagely, and calls her brothers, who are still out partying, back to the house. They interrogate her, and she tells them that Santiago Nasar took her virginity. Pedro and Pablo Vicario resolve to kill Santiago in order to defend the honor of their family. They take the two best knives from their pigsty and bring them to the local meat market, where they proceed to sharpen them in full view of all the butchers setting up shop. They announce to everyone that they are going to kill Santiago. However, the butchers mostly ignore them, thinking them drunk. From the meat market the twins go to Clotilde Armenta's milkshop to keep watch over Santiago's house, which is across the street. They announce their intentions to everyone in the shop, including Clotilde. Almost no one takes them seriously, but when Colonel Lázaro Aponte hears of their plan he confiscates their knives. The twins simply retrieve new knives and return to Clotilde's store. They wait for a light to come on in Santiago's room, but this never happens. The Narrator explains that Santiago returned home and fell asleep without turning on the light. The Narrator leaps ahead to the days following Santiago's murder. He explains in gruesome detail the autopsy haphazardly performed on Santiago's body. He recounts how the Vicario twins were arrested and awaited trial for three years, unable to afford bail, before finally being found innocent based on the "thesis of homicide in legitimate defense of honor." The Vicario family left town, while Bayardo was dragged off by his family in a drunken, half-dead stupor. The Narrator lingers longest on Angela Vicario. He explains that, after Bayardo rejected her, she found herself falling deeply and mysteriously in love with him. For years, living her life as a seamstress, she wrote to him nearly every day. Her letters went unanswered until, finally, Bayardo, old and fat, showed up at her doorstep. The Narrator completes his story with a full description of the murder. He explains his belief that Santiago had nothing to do with Angela, despite her insistence that he took her virginity, and so never understood his own death. After watching the Bishop pass, Santiago runs into his friend Cristo Bedoya, with whom he chats for a while. The two part ways and a friend informs Cristo Bedoya of the threats being made against Santiago's life. Cristo runs off in search of Santiago but cannot find him. The Narrator explains that Santiago has ducked into his fiancée Flora Miguel's house. There, Flora's father Nahir explains to Santiago the danger he is in. Santiago runs into the main square, where a crowd has gathered. Confused, Santiago runs in circles until finding his way to the front door, pursued by the Vicario twins. Santiago's mother, PlácidaLinero, thinks her son is already inside the house, so she locks the door. The Vicario twins trap Santiago at the locked door and stab him multiple times before running off. Santiago stumbles through the neighbor's house to get to his back door, walks into his kitchen, and falls dead on the floor.

- Genre: Coming of Age/Bildungsroman; Historical Fiction; Black Comedy - Title: City of Thieves - Point of view: Primarily third person, though David and Lev occasionally address the reader in second person - Setting: Leningrad (modern-day St. Petersburg) Russia and surrounding areas, January 1942; Sarasota, FL, mid-2000s - Character: Lev Beniov. Description: The protagonist of the novel; a 17-year-old Jewish boy who has grown up in Leningrad. He is the son of Mother and Abraham Beniov, a famous poet who was arrested by the Soviet government years earlier and never returned. His older sister is Taisya, and the narrator of the prologue, David, is his grandson. Lev is an excellent chess player but is also a weak, acne-ridden, fearful teenager who doesn't think that any women will find him attractive. Even so, he dreams of being a war hero. When he's arrested for looting he gets arrested by the Russian police and ends up meeting the more mature and confident Kolya. The two are then sent on an absurd journey to find eggs for a Russian colonel's daughter's wedding cake. Throughout his journey Lev carries a stolen German knife, and makes the transition from boy to man when he uses it to stab Abendroth. But this transition to manhood is as much one of disillusionment as it is about gaining maturity. He has to confront his greatest fear, death, when Kolya is shot and dies, and finally learns that he isn't even the hero of his own absurd quest when he discovers that Colonel Grechko already had eggs. Despite his disillusionment at his dreams of being a hero, he does fall in love with Vika and the two marry sometime after the end of the novel. Lev becomes a man, in that he gains wisdom about the world and himself, but that wisdom also involves a loss of innocence. - Character: Kolya Vlasov. Description: An extremely handsome young soldier imprisoned after being accused of deserting his battalion after he snuck off in search of sex and failed to return before being noticed. He and Lev are sent by Colonel Grechko on an absurd journey to find eggs for Grechko's daughter's upcoming wedding. Kolya approaches the world and the war as though he's living in someone else's absurd story and is afraid of nothing but embarrassment. Throughout the novel he's in the process of writing his own novel, titled The Courtyard Hound, although he invents an author for it and discusses it as though it's already an acclaimed, published novel so that he doesn't have to admit he's writing it. Kolya adores women and sex and takes it upon himself to educate Lev on how to woo a woman. Kolya dies, shot accidentally by Russians, and never gets to truly grow up as Lev does. - Character: Vika. Description: A sniper working with Korsakov's partisans, Lev's love interest and David's grandmother during the prologue. Vika is described as predatory and athletic and is later revealed to be NKVD. She believes that killing Abendroth is of the utmost importance and is willing to sacrifice herself and others to complete this task. - Character: Abendroth. Description: A high-ranking Einsatzgruppen (death squad) officer in the Nazi army. He's a very large and strong man and keeps teenage Russian girls as sex slaves, and enjoys playing chess. When one of his captives, Zoya, tries to run away, he saws her feet off in front of the other girls as an example. He agrees to play chess against Lev and bets Vika's freedom and a dozen eggs if he loses. Lev both defeats Abendroth at chess and then stabs and kills him. - Character: Colonel Grechko. Description: Father to the colonel's daughter. An NKVD officer who Lev understands has been "disappeared" in the past by the same organization he now works for. When Lev and Kolya are brought to him, Grechko takes their ration cards and instructs them to bring him eggs to make a cake for his daughter's wedding before the end of the week. This ridiculous quest imperils Lev and Kolya's lives in food-starved Leningrad, and even after Lev succeeds in it he discovers that Grechko already had the means of finding eggs, hinting at the corruption inherent in the army that Lev originally hoped to serve in as a hero. - Character: Zoya. Description: One of the girls kept as a sex slave for Nazi soldiers outside of Berezovka. Zoya was very young and scared of the Nazis, making her a favorite for their sexual abuse. After a week she attempted to run away, but Abendroth captured her and cut off her feet to make an example of her for Nina, Olesya, Galina, and Lara. She died hours later. - Theme: Growing Up. Description: City of Thieves follows the classic storyline of a coming of age novel, or bildungsroman. While many coming-of-age novels cover a longer time period as they portray the physical as well as psychological development of their protagonist, Lev's coming of age takes place over the course of one week and is primarily psychological. The events of the novel transpire because Lev naïvely wanted to be a war hero, leading him to fight with his mother to stay in Leningrad rather than evacuate. However, Lev's great heroic dreams are quickly shattered, some even before the beginning of the novel, as he's faced with the simple difficulties of surviving the intense cold and hunger. Especially after Lev is arrested, he learns that he'll never be a "great Russian" in the way he once hoped. He finds the experience of being imprisoned too terrifying and comes to believe he's simply not cut out to do anything more than survive day-to-day challenges. Throughout the rest of the novel, Lev struggles to reconcile his desire to be a hyper-masculine hero with his existence as a fearful and weak-bodied teenager. The reader is always kept very aware of Lev's youth through the contrast offered by Lev's narration of the story as an old man, commenting on his youthful self with an old man's wisdom and maturity. While the youth of both Lev and Kolya is played for humor at times, it also serves as a constant reminder of their naiveté and stupidity in a brutal adult world that allows for neither. Further, Kolya himself exists in a space of not quite adult but definitely not a boy. While Lev has the privilege of growing up and coming of age, Kolya remains youthful forever in the stories and memories of Lev. At the climax of the novel, Lev has to face all his fears in quick succession, and in doing so crosses the threshold from boy to man. Lev has to use his both his chess skills and meager physical fighting skills to kill the Nazi Abendroth, which fills him with thrilled pride after his success, especially as it seems to win the admiration of the girl sniper Vika. This glee, though, is soon shot down with Kolya's death. Lev is upfront about the fact that he fears nothing more than death, and facing the death of his best friend brings him back to earth after his earlier triumph and starts to build a sense of disillusionment with the war and his heroics. This disillusionment is confirmed when Lev delivers the eggs to Colonel Grechko, only to find that he's not even the hero of his own absurd journey, as Colonel Grechko had food airlifted into the city the night before. In response to Lev's astonishment, Grechko counsels Lev to not speak, saying that staying quiet is the secret to living a long life. In other words, Grechko makes Lev understand that the Russian army, too, is corrupt in its way even as it fights the Nazis, and that Lev's earlier dreams of heroism are impossible in such a world. In a more overarching way, Lev's experiences that lead to his coming of age serve to support the idea that war does turn boys into men, but in doing so robs them of their innocence and idealistic dreams. Lev has to live his entire adult life with what he saw during the war, while Kolya pays the ultimate price for not having to grow up. - Theme: Literature and Storytelling. Description: From the opening framing device of the novel, in which David narrates how he came to interview Lev for the story that makes up most of the novel, storytelling, and by extension literature, are introduced as central ideas and concerns of the book. Storytelling is considered as it applies to local myth, family lore, and fairytales, while formal, published literature is explored in terms of power and censorship. The novel begins with the fact that the author David's grandfather, Lev, is famous in the family for having killed two Nazis in a knife fight. The power of this knowledge as family lore leads into questions about truth, fiction, and the power of storytelling. When the elderly Lev grows tired of answering his grandson's clarifying questions about the siege, he instructs David to simply make things up. This allows the reader to wonder which elements of the story that follows are true or not, highlighting the strangeness of truth and the importance of fiction. These ideas work throughout the rest of the novel to heighten the absurdity and dreamlike quality of the events and the narration. In a similar vein, viewing the world through a lens of fiction and fairytale is one way that the teenage Lev attempts to make sense of the horrors taking place around him. As things that seemed once to be relegated to the world of fiction become reality, like cannibals and an absurd quest for impossible-to-find eggs, the narration shifts more and more to an engagement with events as though the characters are simply existing in a very strange story. Lev describes both himself and Kolya as living in this way. Kolya simply treats the war as though it's a ridiculous story from which he will certainly emerge triumphant. Lev, on the other hand, is fascinated by the absurdity of the situation, makes connections to fairytales, and hears events being narrated in his head. In this way, fiction becomes a vehicle through which the characters, in different ways, can both protect themselves and attempt to make sense of the events they experience. Lev and Kolya are both shaped by the dangers and difficulties of writing, telling, and publishing stories. During this time in Russian history, intense censorship by the Soviet government of all sorts of art and information played a huge part in keeping the population under control and boosting Soviet citizens' morale for the war. Lev's family paid the price for writing material that didn't unwaveringly support the Soviet regime when his father, a semi-famous Jewish poet, was taken by the NKVD in 1937 and never returned. For Lev, this created a sense of danger around the written word, as he's witnessed firsthand the price of speaking one's mind. Kolya is also a writer, but he's afraid of embarrassment rather than persecution for his work. As such, he invents an author, Ushakovo, and discusses his novel The Courtyard Hound as though it's already a published work to avoid embarrassing himself. However, though Lev falls for Kolya's ploy, he's still quick to point out when elements or passages of The Courtyard Hound seem too similar to other famous works. Through Kolya's referencing of these other authors, the reader is reminded that Kolya is young and inexperienced and is in the process of not just writing his novel, but of writing the story of his life as well. In the end, this idea extends to all the characters. The narration that Lev hears in his head becomes actual narration in a published novel, and his and Kolya's story, no matter how fictionalized, is recorded, edited, and shared with the world. - Theme: Sexuality, Masculinity, and Power. Description: As a coming of age story, a good portion of Lev's development occurs as his naiveté about sex is challenged and he's confronted with the realities of what sex can be. Throughout the novel, sex and masculinity are developed as a way for male characters to obtain and exert power over others. Sex is a major motivator for many of the characters, and the novel presents a broad range of desires and experiences. Lev is relegated to mere fantasizing about sex as a result of his youth, fear of women, and fear of sex itself. Kolya, on the other hand, is impossibly charming and upfront about his need for regular sex, a need which landed him in jail, accused of desertion, when he snuck out in search of sex and didn't manage to get back before his absence was discovered. The difference in sexual experience between Lev and Kolya serve to further develop their difference in age and upbringing. While they're both fairly on par intellectually, their difference in sexual experience serves to illustrate just how much more grown-up Kolya is. Sex is also depicted as a way for male characters to assert their power over others, both in subtle ways and in more overt displays of power and masculinity. While the reader is never given any indication that Kolya's sexual pursuits are non-consensual, the language he uses to describe his method of wooing women is rooted in ideas of power and manipulation. His concept of "calculated neglect" translates to a way for Kolya to manipulate women into going to bed with him, rather than acknowledge that consent and desire may have been mutual. Further, by referring to his former partners as "conquests," Kolya shifts the locus of control to himself exclusively, situating himself as overtly masculine and powerful to those around him, particularly Lev. Abendroth makes this idea of sexual "conquest" more horrifyingly literal. He uses sexual domination of women as a way to demonstrate his rank and shows off his military victories by keeping beautiful teenage girls as sex slaves. The chilling account of what happened to Zoya, in which Abendroth mutilates and kills a young girl for trying to escape him, indicates that for Abendroth, the pleasure he experiences from sex stems from the control he has over the lives and bodies of his captives. The particulars of Zoya's torture indicate further that Abendroth also takes pleasure in performing this power for others. It wasn't enough for him to simply punish Zoya for running way; it was of the utmost importance that both his Nazi peers and the other girls witnessed and were complicit in Zoya's fate. Lev's relationship to Vika then stands in contrast to all of the various forms of sex as a form of masculine domination. Vika is herself an accomplished warrior, the best sniper among her band of partisans, as well as an NKVD agent. Her attraction and connection to Lev comes about as Lev demonstrates his own intelligence and bravery in defeating Abendroth at chess and then killing him. Lev never "tricks" or "woos" Vika into loving him—she comes to love him on her own. And when she appears at his door at the end of the novel, after the siege has ended, it is of her own choice. Lev and Vika's relationship, then, is held forth as an example of what mutual love and sex can be – something both moral and fulfilling. - Theme: Survival. Description: The novel begins four months into the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days and spanned four brutal Russian winters during World War II. City of Thieves portrays a brutal physical and emotional landscape in which extreme measures must be taken in order to survive the intense rationing, cold, and the violence of the war. When the Germans began the siege in September 1941, Leningrad began rationing food immediately. As Lev notes, residents began to have to eat house pets, rats, and pigeons as the situation quickly became dire. As flour grew rare, bread was made from anything that could approximate flour and was often made from cottonseed, cellulose, and sawdust. By the winter of late 1941 and early 1942, when the novel begins, the death toll in the city was around 1,600 people per day, and it's estimated that Leningrad's residents were only consuming 10% of the calories needed to survive the cold, which was regularly as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit. The Russian characters dance a very delicate dance with the cold dark winters. They remark many times that it's the winter that will defeat the Nazis, but given the situation, the difficulties that winter poses stand a good chance of killing the Russians themselves too. To this end, Benioff pays a great deal of attention to the physical items necessary for staying alive, namely boots and warm clothing. Boots are a chilling indicator of the fortunate and the unfortunate have-nots. Red Army soldiers as well as Nazis have state-issued boots to keep them warm in the snow, while others suffer in a variety of inadequate footwear or none at all. The boots also serve as a reminder of who didn't survive, as the living are quick to remove and steal boots from the dead, either for themselves or for resale on the black market. Lev also takes note of the blood on some of the boots for sale in the Haymarket, which further reinforces the fact that the individuals who are alive are at least in some way alive at the expense of the dead. The novel also explores many different but intersecting definitions for survival, asking the reader to consider what is truly necessary to survive. Lev and the other residents of Leningrad need the true basics to survive: food, shelter, and something to burn to keep warm. But Lev and Kolya are shocked when they realize that Colonel Grechko's idea of basic necessities far exceed their own. Grechko places a great deal of importance on providing a "proper wedding" for his daughter as a way to remain human and Russian. As Lev and Kolya are roped into the quest for eggs, they're forced to comply with the questionable wisdom and morality of supplying luxury items in exchange for getting back their own ration cards, which are the only surefire way they have to obtain food. However, as they encounter cannibals and some of the shocking brutality of the war, they realize that staying alive can come at the expense of one's humanity. Put another way, the lengths a person needs to go to survive can result in that person losing what made them human in the first place. To this end, everyone involved in the war must protect themselves mentally and emotionally in order to continue functioning after witnessing the violence, horror, and brutality of the war and the siege. This fact primarily ties back to how the novel deals with storytelling as a method of self-preservation. By either choosing to believe a happier version of events, or refusing to engage with a story altogether, characters can preserve some sense of wellbeing in the face of intense violence and life's absurdity, and what it forces them to do and encounter in order to survive. - Theme: Russia and World War II. Description: City of Thieves takes place during World War II, four months after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 that began the war on the Eastern Front. Historical accounts state that Stalin ignored or brushed off intelligence from multiple sources that indicated the German forces were planning an attack on the Soviet Union. As a result, Soviet forces were woefully underprepared to defend against the German advances. By September, the Germans had successfully surrounded Leningrad, beginning the siege of the city, and were stationed about 30 kilometers outside Moscow, the Soviet Union's capital city. By the end of 1941, when the novel begins, Soviet military casualties totaled around 4.3 million. The brutal siege was lifted almost three years later, in January 1944. The Germans surrendered to the Allies (USA, Britain, and Soviet Union) in April of that year, the day after Hitler committed suicide. The novel shows many faces of the war, ranging from Leningrad's citizens, Red Army soldiers, Soviet NKVD (secret police), to Nazis. Lev, an ordinary citizen, remains in the city rather than evacuate. He insists on staying less because of Russian pride, but more due to the pride he feels towards Piter (Leningrad) specifically as his hometown. This pride in the city is woven throughout the novel, as the conflict is spoken of more in terms of the Nazis versus Leningrad than in terms of the Nazis versus the Soviet Union as a whole. Alongside the development of the different "types" of people in their different roles, Lev is confronted with the difficulty that arises when the conflict isn't simply a matter of good versus evil, or Russia versus Nazis. While Lev falls madly in love with Vika nearly immediately, he struggles with the fact that she's a member of the NKVD, which arrested his father years before and never returned him. Lev essentially has to grapple with the fact that while the NKVD is undeniably on the side of Russia and Leningrad, it is also responsible for destroying his family, making it difficult to consider them as entirely good or evil. Lev also recognizes this dissonance in Colonel Grechko, when he understands that he too was at one point taken by the NKVD, but was returned and now exists in a place of power, working for the same organization that once imprisoned him. The situation in Leningrad is dire enough to turn citizens and neighbors against each other, alluding to the idea that even though the Nazis are the true "bad guys," there are also Russian people in Leningrad who very much want their fellow countrymen dead. As Lev and Kolya encounter individuals like the cannibals and Vadim's grandfather, who died protecting chickens, Lev begins to understand that there perhaps isn't a side of true good, as even his fellow Russians are willing to kill him for little more than a ration card or a pair of boots, and his government is willing to send him into danger to try to find a dozen eggs to make a wedding cake. In this way, much of Lev's growing up stems from the realizations he makes about his own place within the conflict of World War II, and what he learns about good and evil as he's confronted with both existing on the same side of the conflict. - Climax: When Lev wins the chess match against Abendroth and kills him - Summary: The novel begins with David as the narrator. He is an American who describes himself as growing up knowing that his grandfather killed two Germans in a knife fight before he was 18, even though he was never actually told the story. As a child David lived two blocks away from his grandparents, who owned an insurance company. In the late 1990s, an insurance conglomerate offered to purchase the company, and David's grandmother asked them to double their offer. Eventually the conglomerate agreed and David's grandparents retired to Florida. David lives in Los Angeles writing screenplays, but when he was asked to write an autobiographical essay, he decided he wanted to write instead about Leningrad, where his grandfather grew up. He flies to Florida to speak with his grandfather, and for a week David records his grandfather's stories. The narrator changes to Lev (David's grandfather) and it's New Year's Eve in 1942 in Leningrad, Russia during World War II. Everyone's been hungry since the German siege of the city began in September, although many, including Lev's mother and sister Taisya, have evacuated. Lev, at 17, is a firefighter for the city, and sits on the roof of his apartment building with his friends Vera, Grisha, and Oleg. Vera spots a German soldier falling from the sky in a parachute and the four run down into the street to investigate. When the German lands in the street, Lev takes the man's knife while Grisha opens the man's hip flask and passes it around, toasting the cold that killed this soldier. Suddenly they hear a car coming and run, because what they're doing is illegal. As they race back to the apartment building, Vera falls. Lev goes back to help her and boosts her over the gate, but the Russian soldiers out on patrol grab Lev before he can climb over himself. The soldiers take him to the Crosses, the prison in Leningrad. After hours in his pitch dark prison cell, Lev has come to the grim conclusion that he'll never be a great Russian, since he feels half-broken after just his short time in prison. He hears guards coming, the cell door opens, and a young soldier is ushered into the cell. When they are alone, the young man introduces himself as Kolya. Kolya was accused of desertion, but tells Lev that in fact he was defending his thesis on Ushakovo's The Courtyard Hound, a book and author that Lev has never heard of. The next morning, Lev and Kolya are taken to a mansion where the NKVD – the Russian secret police – are stationed. There, Colonel Grechko tasks them with finding a dozen eggs to make a cake for the Colonel's daughter's wedding the following Friday. He confiscates Lev and Kolya's ration cards and sends them off with a letter saying they shouldn't be stopped or harassed. Lev and Kolya decide that the Haymarket, which is entirely black market, is the place to start. As they walk there, Kolya teases Lev about being a virgin and begins to explain his theory of "calculated neglect" to him, which he learned from The Courtyard Hound. They don't find eggs in the Haymarket, but a very large man approaches them and says that he has eggs at his apartment. The giant leads them to an apartment building and refuses to bring the eggs down to the street. Kolya cheerfully agrees to do business in the giant's apartment even after the man admits to being a murderer, but when Lev and Kolya enter the giant's apartment, they discover that the giant and the giant's wife are cannibals. Lev and Kolya manage to escape unscathed. Kolya and Lev decide to stay at Lev's apartment that night, but when they turn onto the street, they find the apartment building has been reduced to a pile of rubble. Kolya then leads Lev to the apartment of a friend, Sonya, where she welcomes them warmly and introduces them to the doctors also staying with her. Lev sleeps that night in the living room and listens to Kolya and Sonya have sex in the next room, thinking that it's the loneliest sound in the world. The following morning, Lev and Kolya decide to investigate a rumor they heard in the Haymarket that there's an old man keeping chickens on a roof. They get into the old man's building by offering to carry buckets of ice for two girls who live there. When Lev and Kolya get to the roof and find the coop, they open the door to discover that the old man has been dead for days, and the chickens are gone. His grandson, Vadim, is still guarding the absent chickens and is very weak. Vadim refuses Lev and Kolya's offers of help and finally offers them the last chicken he'd been keeping warm under his coat. They take the chicken back to Sonya's apartment and debate how long it'll take for her to lay a dozen eggs. During this time, Lev reveals that his father was Abraham Beniov, a famous poet who was arrested by the NKVD and never returned. Timofei, one of the doctors, returns to Sonya's apartment and incredulously explains to the others that the chicken is actually a rooster and will never lay eggs. So, that night, they cobble together a fabulous chicken soup. Kolya wakes Lev the next morning and informs him they're going to walk to Mga, where there's a poultry collective that's surely being kept functional by the Germans. As they walk, Kolya shares more about The Courtyard Hound and they discuss Lev's father. They hear a howl and follow the sound, eventually coming across a clearing littered with dead dogs. One is still alive. Kolya slits the dog's throat and explains that the dogs were strapped to bombs and intended to blow up German tanks, but were shot by the Germans instead. Lev and Kolya continue their march to Mga, although as night falls, Kolya admits they're going the wrong way. Lev notices a farmhouse with lit windows and decides that he's going to try to stay there for the night. He and Kolya creep up to the house and peer in a window. They see four teenage girls dancing inside, and Kolya looks angry. Kolya knocks on the door and has a short standoff with one of the girls, and Lev finally realizes that the girls are being kept by the Germans as sex slaves. Lev and Kolya make peace with them, however, and the girls offer them food and share that the soldiers who visit them are Einsatzgruppen (Nazi death squads). Kolya asks the girls why they don't walk away, and Lara tells them about Zoya, who was a young girl who was captured with this group of girls. She tried to run away one day and to punish her, Abendroth, the Einsatzgruppen officer in charge, made the others watch as he sawed Zoya's feet off. Lev and Kolya decide to try to kill the Nazis when they come later that night. Lev is terrified, and Kolya offers him a pack of playing cards with naked women on them to distract from his fear. The Nazis arrive earlier than expected, but are ambushed by Russian partisan fighters outside. The partisans almost shoot Lev and Kolya as well, but finally agree not to. Lev, meanwhile, is surprised and intrigued to find that their best sniper, Vika, is female. Korsakov, the partisans' leader, gives everyone an hour to warm up and then they all departs the farmhouse. The girls head south and Lev and Kolya follow the partisans to try to hunt Abendroth. As they walk, Kolya tells Lev more about The Courtyard Hound and Lev asks Kolya if he's writing it. Kolya doesn't deny this theory. They soon come across villages that the Einsatzgruppen are burning, and head for a nearby safe house to sleep. While everyone is sleeping, Kolya explains to Lev that he was actually accused of desertion because he spent New Year's Eve trying to find a woman in Leningrad to have sex with, but grossly miscalculated how much time he had to get back to his squad. The next morning, the partisan on guard duty wakes everyone, yelling that the Germans are coming. They all try to run but it's too late. Korsakov is killed. Lev tries to hide. Vika, Kolya, and a partisan named Markov find him, but the Germans are still approaching. Vika decides they should try to infiltrate the group of prisoners who are with the Germans, and they successfully do so—but then one of the prisoners starts yelling that Markov is a partisan, and the Germans shoot Markov. When the company reaches a schoolhouse, an Einsatz officer tests the prisoners' literacy. Lev, Kolya, and Vika all pretend to be illiterate. All the literate prisoners are shot and the rest are squeezed into a toolshed for the night. The following morning when the Nazis move the prisoners out of the shed, they discover that the prisoner who betrayed Markov had been murdered in the night. As they march that day, Kolya suggests that Vika certainly killed the man, and is likely NKVD. A convoy of German vehicles passes the prisoners but one of the artillery vehicles breaks down, and all the German soldiers take the excuse to stop and urinate. Vika points out Abendroth's car at the end of the convoy and Kolya, who speaks German, approaches a group of soldiers and begins to banter with them. When he returns to Lev and Vika, he said that he bet their lives and a dozen eggs on Lev winning a chess match against Abendroth. That night, Abendroth calls for Lev, Vika, and Kolya. He's a hulking man but very smart and sees through their ruse, stating that Lev is a Jew, Vika is female, and they're all certainly literate. He finally agrees to the match and adds a dozen eggs to the pot per Kolya's request. The three are searched but the young soldier who searches them misses their hidden knives. Lev wins the chess game against Abendroth, and realizes it's going to be up to him to stab Abendroth. He makes his move and a fight ensues. He kills Abendroth and the soldier fighting Kolya, losing his left index finger in the process. Vika grabs the Germans' guns, Kolya grabs the box of eggs, and the three jump out the window and run for the woods. When Leningrad is in sight, Vika asks Lev for his full name so she can find him later, kisses him, and leaves to find another group of partisans. When Lev and Kolya reach the defenses of Leningrad the next morning, the soldiers on duty shoot at them and hit Kolya in one of his buttocks. When the lieutenant realizes that Kolya and Lev are working for Colonel Grechko, he loads Kolya and Lev into a truck and heads quickly for the hospital, afraid of making a powerful enemy. Kolya is incensed at having been shot by his own people but tries to tell Lev that everything's going to be fine. As Kolya's lips turn blue, it becomes obvious that Kolya is going to die. He smiles at Lev and Lev wishes he could make a joke. Lev delivers the eggs to Colonel Grechko later that morning and discovers that Grechko has already procured three dozen other eggs. Colonel Grechko grants Lev two ration cards and tells him he'll live a long life by keeping his mouth shut. The German siege is lifted in January of 1944. In 1945, Lev is in his apartment reading when he hears a knock at the door. He answers it and Vika is standing in the hallway with her suitcase and a dozen eggs. Lev suggests they make an omelet, and Vika states that she doesn't cook.

- Genre: Postcolonialism, Historical Fiction - Title: Civil Peace - Point of view: Third-person omniscient - Setting: Primarily Enugu, a large city in southern Nigeria that was part of the Biafran secessionist state, around 1970-1971 after the end of the Nigerian Civil War. - Character: Jonathan Iwegbu. Description: The protagonist of the story, Jonathan is a man living in southern Nigeria just after the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970). He is the husband of Maria and father to four children, the youngest of whom died in the war. Before the war, Jonathan was a miner. Jonathan is a relentless optimist and believes deeply in the will of God, as indicated by his favorite proverb: "Nothing puzzles God." Although he lost a son in the war and was forced to flee his home, he is always grateful for the blessings that he still has—such as his wife, his three remaining children, and his bicycle. He is also a hard worker, entrepreneurial, and savvy. Throughout the story, he is constantly searching for new ways to earn money, whether by using his bike to operate a taxi, opening a bar, waiting at the mining office for work, or receiving his egg-rasher. Even as he seeks to earn money, though, he always does so with the understanding that money is a means to supporting his family, and not an end in itself. Through this hard work and optimism, Jonathan is able to support his family and survive the destruction of the war and its aftermath. When a group of thieves robs him and his family one night, he is terrified, but once he is able to get through it without any harm coming to himself or his family, he is unbothered. His faith and optimism remain intact despite the traumatic events of the story. - Character: Maria Iwegbu. Description: Maria is the wife of Jonathan, and the mother of their children. Little is revealed about her personality, but she is shown to be hardworking like her husband, and she builds a business making and selling breakfast to their neighbors. She and her children are provided for and protected by Jonathan over the course of the story. Like Jonathan, she gets back to work and seems unperturbed by the attack from the group of thieves. - Character: The Thieves. Description: The thieves are the main human antagonists of the story, as they harass and rob Jonathan and his family. They are shown to be less educated than Jonathan, as they speak in a pidgin rather than standard English. This could also be meant to indicate that they are northerners rather than Igbo, as Igbos were generally more educated than other Nigerians. They also claim to be very poor, which is why they have resorted to stealing. The thieves are cruel to Jonathan and his family, mocking them for attempting to call for help, although they claim that they are "good" thieves because they don't want to hurt anybody (though of course they will if they don't get the money they want). The presence of the thieves makes clear the general lack of authority in post-war Nigeria, as well as the awful economic conditions that make thievery attractive to some people. But the thieves also demonstrate an opposed—and morally inferior—perspective on money to Jonathan's. While Jonathan demonstrates that his ethics and faith are more important to him than money, the thieves are willing to give up their moral boundaries in order to steal from innocent people. - Theme: War and Peace. Description: Chinua Achebe's "Civil Peace" begins with the main character, Jonathan, expressing his joy about the end of the Nigerian civil war, which raged from 1967 to 1970 between Nigeria and a failed secessionist state called Biafra. The cost of the war was terrible, illustrated by the fact that Jonathan feels lucky to have lost only his youngest son out of his six-person family, and by his astonishment when he discovers that his little house survived the destruction of the war. After the war, Jonathan is optimistic and excited to rebuild, but over the course of the story, it becomes clear that peacetime has its own dangers. One night, Jonathan and his family are robbed by thieves, who declare during the robbery that now that the civil war is over, they are in a "civil peace." The phrase "civil peace"—which is also the title of the story—is a kind of oxymoron that captures the new dynamic of Nigeria after the war, in which the official war is over but there is still a battle between citizens for survival. Throughout the story, Achebe makes clear the horror and danger of war and its lasting devastation on the country. The clearest example is that Jonathan considers himself lucky to have only lost one child to its violence, which clearly implies that many other families lost more. The danger of the war is also shown in a flashback in which Jonathan nearly loses his bicycle when it is requisitioned by a possibly corrupt soldier. This is the only scene of the actual war that appears in the story, and it is tinged with the threat of violence, as Jonathan is almost forced to give up one of the few resources he has left. It is never made clear which side the soldier is on, and by leaving that detail out, the story suggests that this environment of threat and plunder is simply the nature of the war. Even after the war, war's devastation defines the land. When Jonathan returns to his native city of Enugu, a massive concrete building nearby has been destroyed, and Jonathan counts himself lucky that his own small house has merely been badly damaged. The remnants of death from the war are also repeatedly present in the story. Jonathan buries his bicycle just next to the cemetery where his dead son is buried, and later his children pick mangoes from nearby a military cemetery. The fruit is then sold to soldiers' wives, some or all of whom are presumably widows. The dangers of war linger everywhere in the setting of the story. However, the end of the war does not mean the end of difficulty for Jonathan and his family and neighbors, as it soon becomes clear that peace presents its own struggles. When Jonathan attempts to return to his pre-war job as a miner, there is no work to be had. Other former miners are less lucky than Jonathan and don't even have a home to return to. The peace that Jonathan and others find themselves in is not one of easy rebuilding, but rather of lack of money and other resources. This lack of money leads to conflict that is smaller than the destruction wrought by the war, but nevertheless is ever-present and life-threatening. For instance, after Jonathan gets his $20 egg-rasher for turning in his Biafran money, he understands that he must quickly put the money out of sight and avoid interacting with any other people to make sure he doesn't get robbed. Another man, who is less careful, does get robbed before he can even get out of the crowd around the egg-rasher line. The climax of the story, in which a group of thieves surround Jonathan's home and attempt to rob him, shows that danger and violence are not unique to the war. Much like the soldier during the war, the thieves threaten violence (in this case, by firing guns into the air) to get what they want from Jonathan. The thieves themselves make clear that the current "peace" shares attributes with the war when they call it a "civil peace"—the "civil" suggests that just as the war was a battle between the people of Nigeria, the peace also may end up being a battle of citizen against citizen. - Theme: Optimism and Faith. Description: Jonathan, the main character of "Civil Peace," repeats the same phrase numerous times throughout the story: "Nothing puzzles God." As the phrase implies, God acts as a guiding force for Jonathan. Jonathan's mantra and his faith provide him with the emotional strength to accept both the good and the bad in his life without being weighed down by the violence and devastation which surrounds him in post civil-war Nigeria. Indeed, Jonathan's most remarkable trait may be his optimism in the face of general destruction and bad experiences. The story suggests that his optimism is founded in his faith, and that his optimism and faith are what give him the ability to rebuild after each setback. Jonathan's optimism throughout the story is striking, and the story consistently makes clear that his optimism arises from his faith. In the story, Jonathan faces the devastation of the war not with despair but astonishment about his luck. Though one of his children died, he can't believe the rest of his immediate family survived. Though his house was damaged, he's amazed it's still standing at all. He's even delighted that his bike still works after he had to bury it to make sure it wouldn't get stolen. This optimism drives his work ethic. It gives him hope that he can provide for his family, rebuild his home, and build a better life, and so he works to do just those things. For instance, when Jonathan is unable to find a job working as a miner as he had before the civil war, he simply shifts gears to a different entrepreneurial effort to make a living. In nearly every instance in which Jonathan displays optimism rather than despair, he utters his favorite proverb: "Nothing puzzles God." In this way, the story makes clear that Jonathan's optimism is founded in his faith in a supportive God whose help and blessings will help him find a way through every difficulty. Jonathan's faith and optimism combine to make him morally upright, in contrast to many around him. His faith keeps him humble. For instance, when he finds that the bicycle that he had buried during the war is still working, he praises God for it. Although keeping the bicycle safe and then repairing it after the war was clearly a smart thing to do, his faith causes him not to praise himself but to praise God. Meanwhile, his optimism makes him a productive member of society. Jonathan's efforts to make money are all entrepreneurial. His optimism makes him believe he can rebuild through effort, and so he does: he works as a taxi driver with his bike; he starts a bar; his wife cooks and sells food. In contrast, others respond to their poverty with either violence, like the thieves, or despair, like the man who collapses after his egg-rasher gets stolen. As a whole, "Civil Peace" presents a vision of faith as a powerful force for stability, morality, and guidance in difficult times. It's also interesting to note that religious difference was at the core of the conflict between Biafra and Nigeria, as Biafrans were mostly Christian in contrast to the majority-Muslim northern Nigerians. Yet the story is notable in never explicitly stating what Jonathan's religion is. In this way, the story suggests that a positive, optimistic relationship with faith, regardless of religious affiliation, could foster a more successful, peaceful society. - Theme: Authority, Corruption, and Self-reliance. Description: In "Civil Peace," Nigerian authority figures both during and after the war are repeatedly shown to be unreliable and corrupt. From the soldier who tries to steal Jonathan's bicycle, to the coal company that once employed him but seems to no longer be operational, to the night watchmen and police who fail to come to Jonathan's aid during the robbery of his home, every authority figure in the story fails him. As a result of this absence of reliable authority, Jonathan must rely on himself to support his family and keep them safe. In depicting a self-reliant character like Jonathan in the midst of the horrors of government corruption and incompetence, the story makes clear that when traditional institutions and structures fail, individuals are still able to—and must—survive and thrive through their own action. Throughout the story, authority figures repeatedly either fail at their job or actively harm Jonathan. During the war, Jonathan nearly has his bike stolen by a soldier who claims, shadily, that it's needed for military purposes. That Jonathan manages to keep the bicycle by bribing the soldier is a stroke of luck, but it also further suggests that the soldier was corrupt and only sought the bike in the first place for personal profit. After the war, Jonathan must consistently contend with the failures of both the government and private industry. The coal company where Jonathan used to work as a miner not only isn't operating or offering work, it also doesn't even communicate with any of its former employees. Meanwhile, the government bureaucracy which gives out the egg-rasher to Jonathan and other former Biafrans is also incompetent, leading to massive crowds waiting to get their 20 pounds for turning in Biafran money. These crowds lead to fear and violence, which the authorities do nothing to prevent. Finally, when thieves surround Jonathan's home, Jonathan and his family call out for the help of the police but receive neither answer nor assistance. The thieves go so far as to mock the family by themselves calling out for the police to help. The clear implication is that the thieves are either working with these figures of authority, or that they have enough power of their own that they know that the authorities won't stop them. In either case, it is clear that citizens can't rely on the authorities to provide safety, order, or support. Since authority fails to fulfill any of its obligations, the story makes clear that the only way forward is through self-reliance and individual work. When the soldier attempts to steal his bicycle, Jonathan uses his intuition about the soldier's demeanor to determine that he can offer a bribe instead. Doing so ensures his survival when a simple submittal to authority could have doomed him. When Jonathan is unable to return to work as a miner, he instead comes up with new ways to earn money, first through using his bicycle as a taxi service, and then by biking around to nearby towns to buy palm wine to sell at a bar for soldiers. While other former miners sleep in poverty in the coal company building, Jonathan's entrepreneurial drive allows him to support himself and his family. When the police fail to come to Jonathan's aid when he is being robbed, he negotiates with the thieves on his own and protects his family by giving the thieves the egg-rasher money. Afterward, Jonathan's neighbors are concerned for him because of the lost money, but Jonathan assures them that he was never reliant on it. His self-reliance means that he knows he will be able to survive and support his family on his own without the money that was given to him by the government. Time and time again, the story portrays Jonathan confronted by a world in which traditional authority is either absent or corrupted, and in each case, it is Jonathan's own drive and self-reliance that offers him a path to both survive and thrive. Through this pattern, the story suggests that such self-reliance is the only thing that an individual can, in the end, truly bank on. - Theme: Money and Survival. Description: Discussion of money is constant throughout "Civil Peace." In particular, much of the story describes the various entrepreneurial ventures through which Jonathan, who is almost destitute at the end of the Nigerian civil war, supports himself and his family during the newfound peace. Through its constant focus on Jonathan's efforts to make money, along with scenes that show other characters' desperation to get money, the story suggests that money is not just nice to have—it is essential, a key to both survival and future hope. Yet the story is also careful to show that Jonathan has a proper perspective on the importance of money relative to other things. He's often grateful for his material possessions, but he's even more grateful for the safety of his wife and children. Additionally, money isn't only a positive thing in the story; having it makes Jonathan a target for dangerous thieves. In the story, then, money plays a complex role. It acts as both a tool for survival and a threat to it. And efforts to get money can inspire virtuous behavior that helps build community, or destructive behavior that tears it down. Jonathan experiences both of these sides of money, but his own behavior charts the virtuous mindset, using money for both the personal and societal good. The story depicts money as a constant need in post-civil war Nigeria, and Jonathan works tirelessly to earn it. As soon as the war comes to an end, Jonathan digs his bicycle up from where he had hidden it and gets to work earning money by working as a bike-taxi driver. The bicycle is his most valuable possession, and this is because of its ability to earn him the money he needs to survive. Later, Jonathan's bicycle again becomes useful when Jonathan rides it to get palm wine from neighboring villages and then waters the wine down and sells it to soldiers. Even Jonathan's wife and children work: his children pick and sell mangoes, and his wife cooks breakfast for their neighbors. The entire family devotes their time to generating the money they need to survive and rebuild. While Jonathan and his family's efforts show the importance of money, so too do the failures of those who lack such entrepreneurial instincts. Other former miners who can't find work end up sleeping on the floor of the seemingly abandoned mining company office. One man who has his egg-rasher stolen simply collapses in grief. And the thieves respond to their lack of money by turning to crime. Money—whether the effort to gain it or the lack of it—defines the actions of all of the characters in the story. While the story makes clear that money is the means to survival, it also indicates that, precisely because of its importance, money can also lead to conflict and danger. Jonathan notices that, upon returning to his home city, his humble family home has been left mostly intact while a huge concrete home owned by a wealthier neighbor has been reduced to rubble, presumably because the neighbor's wealth and status made his property a bigger target for opposition forces. After Jonathan receives his egg-rasher—a payment for turning in his Biafran dollars to the Nigerian Treasury—he is extraordinarily careful in how he handles it because he knows having such an amount of money out in the open makes him a target for thieves. That night, thieves with guns do surround Jonathan's home and threaten him and his family unless they get paid. Simply by having a house to live in, he and his family become a target for the thieves. The meagre wealth that Jonathan has almost gets him and his family killed. Yet while the vital importance of money makes other characters put it first, such that they sacrifice their morals to get it, Jonathan never does the same. At the beginning of "Civil Peace," Jonathan repeatedly emphasizes that the blessing of finding his bicycle in working order is nothing compared to the importance of the survival of his family during the war. Similarly, when the group of thieves demand Jonathan's money, he doesn't hesitate to give up the egg-rasher in order to ensure his and his family's safety. While Jonathan understands the value of money and its importance in ensuring his and his family's survival, he never treats money as the most important thing. Rather, Jonathan treats money as a vital means to an end: that his family survive and thrive. His commitment to those ends allows him to avoid the moral pitfalls of money—he devotes himself to earning it, but he won't sacrifice himself or his family in that effort. Ultimately, the story portrays Jonathan's attitude toward money as the correct and healthy one and implies that Jonathan's behavior toward money should be a model for others. - Climax: A group of thieves surround Jonathan's home and demand money. - Summary: "Civil Peace" takes place in southern Nigeria, shortly after the end of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), in which the state of Biafra failed in its attempt to secede and which has devastated the country. A man named Jonathan Iwegbu has survived the war along with his wife, Maria and three of his four children. He counts himself extremely lucky for this, as well as the fact that he was able to save his bicycle. Jonathan recalls a soldier attempting to requisition the bicycle during the war, but Jonathan was able to bribe the man instead and then hide the bicycle for the duration of the war. He now uses the bicycle to ferry passengers and earn some money in the refugee camp in which he and his family are living. Eventually, Jonathan returns to the city of Enugu, where he and his family had lived before the war and is surprised and delighted to find that their small house is still intact, despite the destruction throughout the city. They move back in, and Jonathan soon opens a bar for soldiers using palm wine that he gets by biking to neighboring villages. Meanwhile, he tries to return to his job as a miner, but the mining company offers neither work nor any information about when there might be work, and he focuses instead on his own entrepreneurial efforts. Later, Jonathan receives twenty Nigerian pounds in ex-gratia (or as he and others pronounce it "egg-rasher"), for turning in any Biafran money they hold to the Nigerian Treasury. The atmosphere is dangerous around the Treasury, and Jonathan must be very careful in order to keep his money safe from thieves. He goes home as quickly as possible, careful to interact with no one. That night, a group of thieves surround Jonathan's house. Jonathan and his family cry out and attempt to get the attention of their neighbors or the police, but nobody comes. The thieves mock Jonathan's family, imitating their calls for help to make clear that none is coming. The leader of the thieves tells Jonathan that no one needs to get hurt, as the war is over and this is now the "civil peace." Jonathan says that he doesn't have much money, but the leader responds that he and the other thieves don't have any money at all. Jonathan offers to give the thieves his egg-rasher, and the leader accepts. The next morning, Jonathan's neighbors come to offer their condolences about the robbery, but Jonathan and his family seem unaffected. They are all back to work, and Jonathan tells his neighbors that he wasn't reliant on the money the thieves stole. He repeats his favorite proverb: "Nothing puzzles God."

- Genre: Young Adult Verse Novel - Title: Clap When You Land - Point of view: First person, told alternately from Camino and Yahaira's perspectives - Setting: New York City and the Dominican Republic - Character: Camino Rios. Description: One of the novel's protagonists, Camino is a Dominican teenager who lives in a poor seaside neighborhood in the Dominican Republic with her aunt, Tía. Camino's mother, Mamá, died about nine years ago, and normally Camino looks forward to Papi's yearly summer visits. Her world falls apart when she learns that Papi has died in a plane crash: without him and his financial support, Camino and Tía can't afford to live, let alone continue Camino's education at a private school. Camino also fears that she'll have to set aside her dreams of immigrating to the U.S., attending Columbia University, and becoming an obstetrician. Adding to Camino's fears about the future, when Papi dies, a pimp named El Cero begins stalking her—and Tía believes that Camino is asking for the attention. Camino isn't entirely surprised when she learns that Papi had another wife in New York, but she's shocked to learn she has a sister, Yahaira. She helps Yahaira sneak into the Dominican Republic for Papi's funeral—but when it becomes clear that Mami isn't going to help Camino, Camino steals Yahaira's passport, planning to fly to the U.S. herself. After Mami, Tía, and Yahaira rescue Camino from El Cero (who attempts to rape her), Mami agrees to sponsor Camino's visa and bring her to the U.S. - Character: Yahaira Rios. Description: One of the novel's protagonists, Yahaira is a Dominican American teenager who lives in New York with her parents, Mami and Papi, until Papi dies unexpectedly in a plane crash. Yahaira is quiet and follows the rules, and until a year before the novel begins, she played chess competitively. She quit playing chess due to the trauma she experienced when a strange man assaulted her on the subway—and then when she contacted Papi for help, she discovered that he was married to another woman in addition to Mami. This secret caused Yahaira to withdraw and, for the year before Papi's death, she barely spoke to him. Yahaira is mostly unaware of the privilege her middle-class upbringing affords her, which causes some issues when she and Camino finally connect. In a break from her usual character, Yahaira purchases a plane ticket so she can attend Papi's funeral in the Dominican Republic. There, when she discovers that Camino stole her passport and planned to immigrate to the U.S. with it, she insists to Mami that they bring Camino back with them legally. She ultimately decides that while Papi made mistakes in his life, it's up to her, Camino, and Mami to make the best of what he left them. - Character: Papi. Description: Papi is Camino and Yahaira's father; he's deceased in the novel's present, as he dies when his plane crashes en route to the Dominican Republic. Both girls love their father, though neither knew the other existed: Papi kept it a secret from his daughters (and for a while, from his wives) that he was married to two different women, Zoila (to whom his marriage was legal) and Mamá. In life, Papi was larger than life. He doted on his daughters, was loud and gregarious, and ran a pool hall in New York. He spent his summers in the Dominican Republic with Camino and the rest of his time in New York with Zoila and Yahaira. Each daughter took up something Papi loved and taught them; Yahaira played competitive chess, while Camino loves to swim. Both girls idealized their father, so it shocks both of them to discover that he kept such a massive secret from them. Much of their development hinges on learning to come to terms with the complicated legacy Papi left behind. Ultimately, they generally agree that Papi did the best he knew how for his daughters, though he was certainly an imperfect husband and father. - Character: Mami/Zoila Rios. Description: Yahaira's mother and Papi's legal wife, Mami is a beautiful, demanding, and tightly-wound woman. She manages an upscale spa and believes that her appearance is good advertising, so she's always impeccably dressed, with styled hair and makeup. This changes, however, when Mami learns of Papi's death—for weeks, she barely showers and wears only sweats and flip-flops. For much of the novel, Yahaira keeps it a secret from Mami that she knows about Papi's other wife in the Dominican Republic, as she believes Mami doesn't know. However, Mami ultimately reveals that she did know about Papi's other wife, and that Papi's infidelity is the reason she was unhappy in her marriage. When Camino learns of Mami's existence, Tía describes Mami as hard and unforgiving—and unlikely to help Papi's other daughter (Camino). This devastates Camino, as she also learns that Mami's employment and visa were essential to her own visa application. Though Mami initially wants nothing to do with Camino, Yahaira convinces Mami that they must help Camino and bring her to the U.S. By the end of the novel, Camino and Mami are working on their relationship, and Mami has apologized for ignoring Camino. - Character: Tía Solana. Description: Tía Solana is Camino's aunt (though she's not technically related) and caregiver; she's always lived with Camino and Mamá, but she took over caring for Camino after Mamá died. A healer and practitioner of an unspecified polytheistic religion, Tía is both beloved and feared in her community. Though some people—namely Catholics—fear witchcraft, those same people still call Tía to heal their loved ones or deliver their babies, as they know that Tía's relationship with the Saints means that she can sometimes work miracles. She's been training Camino as her apprentice for years. Though the two have a close and trusting relationship, a rift forms between them when Tía hears rumors that people have seen El Cero near Camino—and she believes that Camino is soliciting El Cero's attention. This makes Camino unwilling to tell the truth (that El Cero is stalking her), but the night of Papi's funeral, Tía nevertheless figures out what's going on and, with Mami and Yahaira's help, rescues Camino from El Cero. Tía encourages Camino to go to the U.S. with Mami and Yahaira, where she'll be safe, but she refuses to leave the Dominican Republic herself. The novel implies that Tía takes Carline on as an apprentice after Camino leaves. - Character: Mamá. Description: Mamá is Camino's mother. She died of dengue fever about nine years before the novel begins. Like Zoila, who was her childhood friend, Mamá was married to Papi—but unlike Zoila, Mamá found out much later that her marriage, which was Papi's second, wasn't actually valid. Despite this, Papi supported Mamá, Tía, and Camino financially and visited them every summer. Though Camino has fond memories of her mother, she doesn't miss Mamá all that much. This is mostly due to Camino's strong relationship with Tía, who was Mamá's good friend. - Character: El Cero/Alejandro. Description: The antagonist of the novel, El Cero is a young man who makes his money as a pimp. He regularly targets young, vulnerable girls—some who are only nine or 10 years old—and as soon as they begin puberty, he dresses them in skimpy clothing and forces them to become sex workers, seeing foreign men at the local resort. Since Camino was 13, Papi has been paying El Cero to leave Camino alone. But Papi's sudden death leaves Camino vulnerable, and El Cero begins stalking and threatening her. Camino manages to deflect El Cero's advances until the night of Papi's funeral, when El Cero catches her alone on the beach with thousands of dollars in cash and Yahaira's passport. He attempts to rape her, but Yahaira, Mami, and Tía scare him away. Camino knows that on some level, El Cero became the monster he is today due to his grief for his sister, Emily, who died of dengue fever about nine years ago. - Character: Andrea "Dre" Johnson. Description: Dre is Yahaira's next-door neighbor, as well as her girlfriend. They've been dating since seventh grade. Dre is a Black girl from the South, though she's lived in New York since she was about seven. She loves nothing more than gardening and growing things; she keeps a container garden on her and the Rios's fire escape and also has a plot in the community garden. Yahaira loves and appreciates Dre and Dre's family for their love and unwavering support, but she also resents Dre because Dre always seems to know what the right thing is—and she always does what she believes is the right thing. An environmentalist, Dre wants Yahaira to feel the same way she does about, for instance, the evils of plastic straws, and she doesn't always understand that Yahaira sees the world in shades of gray more than she does. Dre's loving and generous nature comes to the forefront at the end of the novel, when she reveals a pot of herbs she planted to help Camino feel more at home when she comes to New York. - Character: Carline. Description: Carline is Camino's best friend. She's heavily pregnant at the beginning of the novel. A few weeks after Papi's death, she gives birth prematurely to her son, Luciano. Like Camino, Carline is only 16 or 17, and so she struggles to cope with the pressures and responsibilities of becoming a parent at such a young age. Though Papi was able to get her a job at the local resort when she first found out she was pregnant, Carline hates the job (her boss sexually harasses her), and she's fired when she refuses to return to work only a week after Luciano is born. Carline's boyfriend, Nelson, also struggles to earn enough money to be able to support his young family. Camino goes out of way to protect her friend, emotionally and physically, in every way she can. At the end of the story, the novel suggests that Carline, Luciano, and Nelson will move in with Tía and Carline will become Tía's new apprentice. - Character: Luciano. Description: Luciano is Carline and Nelson's infant son. He's born several weeks after Papi dies. Luciano comes several weeks early, so he's a tiny baby who struggles to breathe from the moment he's born. Despite being warned that the baby likely won't survive, Carline names her son anyway. By the end of the novel, when he's about five weeks old, Luciano seems likely to survive. His good outcome is attributed to Tía's ability to work miracles and call on the Saints for help. - Character: Nelson. Description: Nelson is Carline's 19-year-old boyfriend and Luciano's father. He's been in love with Carline since they were children. Nelson is extremely driven: prior to Luciano's birth, he attends night classes while also working two jobs, trying to earn enough money to be able to afford a place for himself and Carline. The novel implies that once Camino leaves the Dominican Republic, Nelson, Carline, and Luciano will move in with Tía, where Nelson's presence will help protect the women. - Character: Vira Lata. Description: Vira Lata is the neighborhood stray dog who attached himself long ago to Camino. He sticks pretty close to Camino's house, though when it floods, he lives in an elevated doghouse that Don Mateo made him. Though Vira Lata isn't a particularly aggressive dog, he does growl at El Cero and seems to understand that El Cero means to hurt Camino—Vira Lata is the one to alert Mami, Tía, and Yahaira to the fact that Camino is in trouble and needs help. At the end of the novel, Vira Lata attaches himself to Tía, suggesting that he'll have someone to continue caring for him once Camino leaves the country. - Character: Don Mateo. Description: Don Mateo is Camino and Tía's friend and neighbor. His gruff demeanor hides a caring, protective, and loving personality—he drives Camino to the airport to meet Papi and later to meet Yahaira, and he also spends a lot of time sitting with Tía and comforting her after his death is confirmed. Additionally, he set up a doghouse on stilts in his backyard for Vira Lata to use when their neighborhood floods. - Character: Dr. Johnson. Description: Dr. Johnson is Dre's mother. The book never reveals what kind of a doctor she is, but she teaches classes at a local university. An intelligent and level-headed woman, Dr. Johnson regularly explains to Dre and Yahaira why things they find on the internet aren't actually funny. After Papi's death, Dr. Johnson welcomes Yahaira into her home whenever Yahaira needs someplace to go—even if Yahaira is skipping school. She encourages Yahaira to talk about her grief and return to the neighborhood association's grief counseling sessions. - Character: Tío Jorge. Description: Tío Jorge is Papi's brother; he's both Yahaira and Camino's uncle. However, while Camino has only heard of Tío Jorge, he and Yahaira have a close, loving, and supportive relationship; part of this is due to the fact that Tío Jorge lives in the same neighborhood and is physically around often. Before immigrating to the U.S., Tío Jorge practiced law in the Dominican Republic. He remained Papi's legal advisor as Papi opened his pool hall, and he also seems to have advised Papi about how to protect Camino in his will. Once Papi dies, though, Mami rejects Tío Jorge's counsel. - Character: Wilson. Description: Wilson is Tía Lidia's son and Yahaira's cousin. The novel doesn't state his age outright, but he's likely in his mid-20s. A bank teller who makes a decent wage, Wilson often wears designer clothes and expensive cologne. However, when he learns about the half-million dollar advance that the airline is giving to Mami and Yahaira, he approaches Mami and asks for money to buy a four-figure engagement ring to propose to his girlfriend. Yahaira initially finds this crass and offensive, but she ultimately decides that Papi would've been generous and happy to help if he was still alive. - Character: Coach Lublin. Description: Coach Lublin was Yahaira's chess coach until she quit the chess team. A kind and supportive man, he never pressured Yahaira to rejoin the team—Yahaira even suspects that he knew she didn't truly love chess. However, he continues to treat her kindly and even calls to offer his condolences after Papi dies. - Character: Emily. Description: Emily was El Cero's sister and Camino's best friend until her death of dengue fever about nine years before the events of the novel begins. Camino believes that Emily's death brought about El Cero's brother's transformation from goofy, loving Alejandro to the dangerous, predatory pimp who stalks and threatens Camino in the novel's present. - Theme: Family. Description: Clap When You Land tells the stories of two 16-year-old girls, New Yorker Yahaira and Camino, who lives in the Dominican Republic. Both girls' lives fall apart when, one June day, they receive word that their father, Papi, has died in a plane crash. In the weeks after the crash, the girls discover that their father kept huge secrets while he was alive—most notably, that he had two wives in two separate countries, and a daughter with each (Yahaira and Camino, respectively). As Yahaira and Camino learn of each other's existence and begin to form a relationship, they discover that family is less about blood ties or even legal ties, like marriage. Instead, they find that being a good family member is about showing up for the people one considers family. Upon first finding out about each other, Yahaira and Camino respond similarly. They feel as though Papi betrayed them, and while they're both curious about each other, they also resent each other for various reasons. Papi split his time between the Dominican Republic and New York, which caused one daughter to feel abandoned while he was visiting the other. Camino in particular resents Yahaira for having grown up in New York as an American citizen with a passport and access to the best colleges in the world—privileges that are beyond reach for Camino, as she believes that without Papi, she'll never be able to immigrate to the U.S. to attend medical school.  Yahaira is the first to decide that showing up for one's family members is not just important but is absolutely necessary. Though Mami (Zoila), Yahaira's mother, forbids her from going to the Dominican Republic for Papi's funeral, Yahaira buys a plane ticket with a credit card Zoila never checks and sneaks out of the country. Zoila ultimately follows her daughter to the Dominican Republic when she finds out what Yahaira has done, and the funeral is a cathartic event for all of Papi's surviving family members. Then, when Camino steals Yahaira's passport so she can illegally immigrate to the United States and ends up unwittingly putting herself in grave danger, Yahaira and Zoila both come to the same conclusion: that Papi may have made mistakes as a husband and father, but it's their responsibility as Camino's family members  to support Camino and bring her to the U.S. With this, Papi's living family members ultimately decide that Papi's mistakes may have caused them all immense pain—but the best way to heal and move forward is to nurture and strengthen the relationships that his mistakes left them, relationships they ultimately all choose to see as gifts. - Theme: Secrets. Description: Though the conflict of Clap When You Land centers around one massive secret—that Papi was living a double life, splitting his time between his family in New York City and his family in the Dominican Republic—nearly every character in the novel keeps a secret of some sort. In almost all cases, however, the novel proposes that regardless of what a person's secret is or how noble or helpful they think they're being in keeping it, secrets harm people more often than they help them. Indeed, Clap When You Land demonstrates the many ways that keeping secrets can create strife, resentment, and uncertainty. For instance, Yahaira details how, about a year before Papi's death, she discovered that he spent every summer in the Dominican Republic with his other wife—not traveling for work, as he'd led her to believe. This revelation upends Yahaira's image of her father as an upstanding, righteous, and supportive dad, and it causes her to disengage from him, from the chess club, and even from her schoolwork. Additionally, Yahaira feels immense pressure to keep this revelation secret from Mami, as she doesn't want to be the one to break the news of Papi's double life to her mother. Things come to a head when Yahaira, unwilling to skip Papi's funeral in the Dominican Republic, secretly buys a plane ticket and sneaks out of the country. Mami follows Yahaira to the Dominican Republic as soon as she discovers what happened, and once there, numerous other secrets come to light. Yahaira, Mami, and Tía discover that Camino stole Yahaira's passport and plans to leave the country, while Mami is finally willing to speak openly about how Papi hurt and betrayed her with his yearslong infidelity. Ultimately, Mami insists that when they all (even Camino, whom Mami helps get a visa) return to New York, they resume grief counseling so the family has a place to air their grievances and secrets. With this, and more broadly, the happy ending for the whole family, the novel highlights all the good that can come from not keeping secrets. If people are willing to open up to each other, the novel suggests, they can overcome the hurt, shame, and confusion that otherwise would drive them apart. - Theme: Grief. Description: As Yahaira, Camino, and their respective families move forward in the aftermath of Papi's sudden death in a plane crash, they struggle with immense and crushing grief. Clap When You Land insists that grief, while uncomfortable, is a normal and unavoidable part of losing a loved one—and that the healthiest way to move through one's grief is to connect with others who either feel the same way or can offer support, rather than hiding or repressing one's emotions. Though Yahaira and Camino live in different countries and spend most of the novel unaware of the other's existence, they end up grieving Papi in extremely similar ways—ways that the novel suggests are ultimately unhelpful. Both girls refuse to cry or acknowledge their difficult emotions, and Yahaira brushes off a close family friend, Dr. Johnson, when she warns that keeping everything inside will mean that Yahaira will never be able to move on and recover. Yahaira and her mother, Mami, attempt to go to grief counseling sessions, but they ultimately stop going when they find them too painful. Camino also refuses to cry or talk about what she's feeling, though she finds some solace in her aunt Tía's religious ceremonies. As Papi's funeral in the Dominican Republic approaches—and as Yahaira and then Mami fly in from New York to attend—the novel suggests that while it may be uncomfortable to grieve with others, coming together to remember a deceased loved one is cathartic, restorative, and necessary. This, Yahaira begins to realize, is the whole point of funerals and other grief rituals, such as the novena (nine days of prayer): these rituals bring people together in their grief and offer a safe space to feel one's emotions and connect with others who feel the same way. In addition, the spiritual or religious elements of such rituals offers extra comfort to those who practice. Indeed, at the end of the novel, even Mami—who initially refused to attend the funeral in the Dominican Republic—seems to have learned the importance of talking to others about grief, as she insists that she, Yahaira, and Camino return to the grief counseling sessions once they get back to New York. Grief, the novel shows, can be painful—but talking about grief and engaging in rituals that help people work through their emotions can help diminish that pain and encourage recovery. - Theme: Money, Security, and Immigration. Description: By showing how differently Papi's daughters live, Clap When You Land highlights how class, nationality, and money aren't just things that make life more comfortable—rather, money and a passport, the novel shows, can mean the difference between thriving and barely surviving. Yahaira, who grew up in New York City in an apartment that Papi and Mami own, is mostly blind to the privileges that being a middle-class American citizen offer her. She has access to colleges and financial aid, a safe place to live, and enough food to eat. Camino and her aunt Tía, in contrast, live close to poverty. Papi's money affords them luxuries like a house with a lock, an air conditioner, and a generator, but Camino and Tía still struggle to keep enough food in the house, even before Papi's death (he'd sometimes send money late). And Camino, as a Dominican citizen with no passport and no easy path to becoming an American citizen, sees clearly how her nationality and her poverty will keep her from achieving her dream to study medicine in the U.S. and become an obstetrician. As Camino and Yahaira connect—and as Camino learns that the airline is giving Papi's relatives a half-million dollar advance payout—Camino grows increasingly resentful of Yahaira and afraid for her own prospects. As Papi's daughter from his legal marriage, Yahaira doesn't have to fight for the airline's money, while Camino (whose deceased mother's marriage to Papi wasn't valid) believes she'll have to fight for every penny. And with Papi gone, Camino also learns that her American visa application likely won't go through, as Mami's citizenship and income were essential to Camino's eligibility, and Mami isn't interested in helping Papi's other daughter. All of this makes Camino feel like her dream is truly just a dream, and that she'll have to abandon it to focus on the simple act of survival. While the novel ends with Camino getting a visa and moving to New York with Yahaira and Mami, it's clear that this outcome is as much a matter of luck as anything else—Camino is lucky that Mami ultimately comes around and is willing to help, but Mami just as easily could have chosen not to help Camino. Still, Clap When You Land ends with the implication that while Camino may be able to overcome the circumstances of her birth and achieve her dreams, for those she leaves behind in the Dominican Republic, poverty, insecurity, and fear will continue to rule their lives. - Theme: Growing Up and Sexual Violence. Description: Both Yahaira and Camino are 16, almost 17, and for both girls, their burgeoning maturity—particularly when it comes to their bodies—represents a threat to their safety and their senses of security. Since Camino was 13, Papi has been paying men in the neighborhood to leave her alone. But without Papi's money to deter him, El Cero, a known pimp, begins stalking and threatening Camino, trying to convince her that she should work for him. Yahaira, too, experiences sexual violence: a year before the novel's events begin, Yahaira was assaulted by a strange man on the subway. Though the girls' experiences with unwanted sexual advances differ greatly, their experiences are extremely similar in that neither girl feels able to ask for help. Tía makes Camino feel like she can't ask for help, as she insinuates that Camino is actively soliciting El Cero's attention. And though Yahaira reaches out to Papi, who's in the Dominican Republic, immediately after her assault, he never returns her phone calls, texts, or emails—and when he does finally contact her days later, it's to berate her for something else. Physically growing up, for Yahaira and Camino, isn't necessarily something that brings with it joy or excitement. Rather, as young women who relied on Papi to protect them (until his betrayal and ultimately, his death), Clap When You Land bleakly presents growing up as a process that leaves both its protagonists alone, afraid, and vulnerable to sexual harassment and violence. - Climax: Yahaira, Tía Solana, and Mami save Camino from El Cero. - Summary: Clap When You Land is told from 16-year-olds Yahaira and Camino's alternating perspectives. Though they share the same father, Papi, neither knows the other exists. Camino, who lives in the Dominican Republic with her aunt and caregiver, Tía Solana, discovers that Papi died in a plane crash when she skips school to meet him at the airport for his annual summer visit. Now, she feels like she's truly an orphan, as Mamá died of dengue fever almost a decade ago. Meanwhile, in New York, Yahaira's mother comes to Yahaira's school to tell Yahaira about Papi's death. They walk home together and Yahaira, knowing that someone needs to be strong, answers phone calls and heats up dinner while Mami sobs in her room. Over the next few days, both Yahaira and Camino struggle with their grief. Camino tries grieve Papi by swimming at the beach, where Papi taught her to swim. But a pimp named El Cero, whom Papi has paid for years to leave Camino alone, appears on the beach. Though he wants Camino to work for him, he leaves her alone when she ignores him—at least for now. Yahaira, meanwhile, refuses to acknowledge Papi's death. She thinks about other aspects of her life instead, like her history as a competitive chess player and her relationship with Dre, her girlfriend and next-door neighbor. Both Camino and Yahaira hope that ignoring news of the crash will help their pain, but it still hurts when, a few days after the crash, the news officially announces that there were no survivors. Papi's death hits Camino especially hard, as Papi financially supported Camino and Tía. He paid Camino's tuition at a fancy private school, but without his money—or his ability to help her get a visa—Camino fears she'll have to drop out and abandon her dream of attending Columbia University and becoming an obstetrician. She shares none of these fears with Tía or her best friend Carline, who's heavily pregnant. Still, Carline tries to get Camino out of the house. Meanwhile, in New York, Yahaira skips school and spends her days walking or with Dre's mom, Dr. Johnson. Once officials identify Papi's remains, Yahaira's family in New York flies into action, making funeral arrangements. Tío Jorge, Papi's brother, informs Mami that according to Papi's will, he wants to be buried in the Dominican Republic. This enrages Mami, and she insists that she and Yahaira won't attend the funeral. Mami's anger makes Yahaira wonder if Mami—or indeed, the entire rest of the extended family—knows the secret Yahaira learned last year: that Papi has another wife in the Dominican Republic, and that she is the person he visits every summer. Yahaira discovered Papi's secret last summer. After a man assaulted her on the subway, she tried to contact Papi, who was in the Dominican Republic at the time. She went looking for a phone number for Papi and found the marriage license. After the assault and this revelation about Papi, she quit chess and stopped talking to Papi altogether. When Camino learns about the discovery of Papi's remains, she's on the beach, and El Cero is harassing her again. When she gets home, Tía insinuates that she believes Camino is soliciting El Cero's attention, which makes Camino believe she can't tell her aunt the truth or ask for help. That night, Carline goes into labor several weeks early. Tía and Camino attend the birth, and thanks to Tía's relationship with the Saints, the baby boy finally breathes. An airline representative visits Mami, Yahaira, and Tío Jorge to share that the airline is offering a half-million dollar payout to avoid lawsuits. They're all shocked. Once Tío Jorge calls Tía to share the news, Tía finally tells Camino that Papi has a wife in New York, Zoila (Mami), and another daughter with her. She says Camino can apply for some of the money since she's one of Papi's dependents, but Zoila will probably fight the claim. Camino is shocked to learn that she has a sister, but she also feels like her dreams might come true now that she has money coming her way. In New York, once news gets out about the advance, relatives start stopping by to ask Mami for money. Yahaira hates this, but Mami writes checks to everyone who asks. Meanwhile, curious about her sister, Camino looks Yahaira up on social media and finds Yahaira's profile. She sends her sister a message, but for weeks, Yahaira doesn't check social media and doesn't see Camino's message. Finally, Yahaira logs on and finds a friend request from Camino. Camino's profile picture is of her with Papi. When Yahaira screams for Mami and asks her what's going on, Mami tells the truth: that Papi married a woman in the Dominican Republic (Mamá) after he married her, and they had a daughter, Camino. Their marriage wasn't legally valid, and Mamá died about nine years ago. Mami explains that Papi was complicated and a bad husband, but he tried to do right by his daughters. Yahaira messages Camino back, suggesting they video chat. In the days between when the girls agree to talk and when they actually talk, Mami remains firm that she and Yahaira aren't going to the funeral in the Dominican Republic—so Yahaira secretly buys herself a ticket with Mami's credit card. When Camino learns this, she admires Yahaira's nerve, but she resents how privileged Yahaira is—Camino and Tía will be struggling to eat soon. Camino has been avoiding the beach for several weeks now to avoid El Cero, but Tía finally sends Camino to go swim. When Camino gets out of the water, El Cero and a strange, smelly man try to catch her, but Camino escapes and races home. That evening, she and Yahaira video chat for the first time. Days later, a few days before Yahaira is set to arrive in the Dominican Republic, Camino calls and says she won't help Yahaira unless Yahaira wires $10,000. Yahaira wires the money and a few days later, she attends the New York wake for Papi. Afterward, Yahaira tells Dre her plan to sneak out of the country. She asks to spend the night at Dre's so she doesn't arouse Mami's suspicions when she leaves in the morning. On the day of Yahaira's arrival, Camino makes sancocho, an involved dish traditionally made to welcome visitors. Don Mateo drives Camino to the airport and, though Camino can barely bring herself to enter the building, she goes inside and finally meets Yahaira. Tía welcomes Yahaira and later, Mami calls, worried and angry at what Yahaira did. Mami decides to come as soon as she can and shows up the next day in a little Prius. Papi's funeral is a grand affair that everyone in the neighborhood attends. Camino keeps it quiet until almost midnight, but it's also her birthday—and once Yahaira goes to sleep, Camino begins to carry out her plan. She locates Yahaira's passport, takes some money, and leaves a note for Tía—she's going to immigrate to the U.S. herself, since Mami clearly doesn't want to help her. Camino goes to the beach to say goodbye to her favorite place first. As a storm picks up, El Cero appears, takes Camino's money and the passport, and attempts to assault her. Back at the house, Yahaira, Mami, and Tía realize that Camino has run away and head for the beach to find her. They frighten El Cero away after bullying him into giving back the money and the passport. Yahaira sleeps close to Camino that night, while Mami sleeps in the corner of Camino's bedroom. When she gets up in the morning, Yahaira tells Mami that they need to bring Camino back home with them. That day, Mami—who has family connections at the consulate—pulls some strings and gets an appointment for Camino in three days. Camino and Mami travel all over the island together, completing the paperwork and appointments necessary to get Camino the visa. Finally, Camino is ready to go to New York with Mami and Yahaira. She says goodbye to Tía, and though she's sad to leave her home, she looks forward to her future.

- Genre: Short story; modernism; realism; symbolism - Title: Clay - Point of view: Third person limited, with use of free indirect discourse (i.e., Joyce narrates from Maria's perspective) - Setting: Dublin, Ireland - Character: Maria. Description: Maria, the protagonist of "Clay," is an unmarried middle-aged woman working at a laundry in Dublin. While she is well-liked at work and known as a "peace-maker," her interactions with others are superficial and even painful, as she is often mocked for being unmarried. Her only close friend is Joe Donnelly, whom she nursed when he was a child, and who is now married with a family. While he invites Maria to live with his family, she refuses, insisting that she is used to her life at the laundry. Throughout the story, Maria often says or thinks one thing while feeling something entirely different. When other people make her uncomfortable, for instance, she tends to force herself to laugh, thereby hiding her feelings from others. What's more is that she hides her own feelings from herself, insisting that her independence is actually better than being married (even though she badly wants to be married), or that she loves her life at the laundry (when there are actually aspects she finds uncomfortable). Maria's inability to acknowledge her own feelings is most striking when, at Joe Donnelly's Hallow Eve party, she plays a game in which, blindfolded, she selects a lump of clay, a symbol of impending death that seems to affirm her destiny to remain alone. Maria is so unable to cope with this that she doesn't even acknowledge to herself that the object she touched is clay, which shows her profound denial and loneliness. Ultimately, Maria finds herself paralyzed: alone, unable to admit her own isolation, and without any hope of real human connection, even with her closest friend. - Character: Joe Donnelly. Description: Joe Donnelly, Maria's closest friend, is the host of the Hallow Eve party at the center of the story. He is the wife of Mrs. Donnelly and the father of several children. Maria has known Joe his whole life, as she cared for him and his brother Alphy when they were young. Joe sees Maria as his "proper mother," and he tries to help her: he got her the job at the laundry, he invites her to spend time with his family, and he has even repeatedly asked Maria to come live with him, which she refuses to do. While Joe and Maria are certainly close, Joyce does hint at tension in their relationship. Maria implies that Joe has a drinking problem, and she laments that he no longer speaks with his brother. Furthermore, although Joe tries to include Maria in the festivities, his efforts often make her uncomfortable. When he talks to her, for example, she sometimes doesn't understand the point of his stories, and he pressures her to participate in games and sing an aria for the group, which she would rather not do. Joe seems aware that Maria's life has not been all that she hoped, and the story's final moment—when Joe tears up watching Maria sing—shows that, while he cares deeply for Maria and sees that she is suffering, he is ultimately unable to provide the healing she needs. - Character: Mrs. Donnelly. Description: Mrs. Donnelly is Joe's wife, who is unfailingly kind to Maria. On Hallow Eve, Mrs. Donnelly defends Maria's assertion that Joe and Alphy should reconnect, and she scolds the next-door girls for bringing the clay that humiliates Maria during the game. Despite Mrs. Donnelly's genuine kindness, she doesn't always understand Maria. She offers Maria port wine, for instance, even though Maria hates drinking, and when she encourages Maria to sing for the family, it makes Maria uncomfortable (although Maria does what Mrs. Donnelly asks anyway). - Character: Alphy Donnelly. Description: Alphy Donnelly is Joe Donnelly's brother, with whom Joe—for unspecified reasons—no longer speaks. Maria cared for both Alphy and Joe when they were children, and it's implied that she still speaks with Alphy, since she tries to "put in a good word for him" with Joe at the Hallow Eve party. Joe is enraged when Maria suggests that he and Alphy reconcile, so Maria drops the matter, but she does say that the brothers were close as children, and it's implied that Joe's oldest son, Alphy, is named for him. - Character: Next-Door Girls. Description: These two girls live next door to Joe and Mrs. Donnelly, and they (along with the four Donnelly children) are present during the Hallow Eve festivities. The girls organize holiday games for the group, including the final game in which blindfolded players must select an object that will determine their fate. During the game, one of the girls selects a ring, which symbolizes upcoming marriage, prompting a playful reaction from Mrs. Donnelly. This moment represents the promise and expectation of marriage for a young woman, as well as the mutual understanding that exists between young women who are eligible for marriage and older married women. Maria, however, finds herself on the outside of this, unable to connect with other women in the way they connect with each other. When Maria selects the lump of clay (symbolizing death), Mrs. Donnelly scolds the girls for bringing the clay, implying that this wasn't appropriate. - Character: Elderly Man. Description: While Maria takes the tram to the Donnellys' house, an elderly man gives up his seat to her and talks to her throughout the ride. Maria initially describes this interaction in positive terms: he is kind in giving up his seat, and she remarks on how easy it is to connect with him. However, when she realizes that she left her slice of plum cake on the tram because their conversation made her "confused," she reveals that this interaction was actually incredibly uncomfortable for her. Maria implies that the man was drunk (which she hates), and remembering their conversation makes her feel "shame and vexation and disappointment," leaving her on the verge of tears. It's clear that, actually, Maria had an uncomfortable conversation with a drunk stranger on the bus and—despite it being so disorienting to her that she left her cake on the bus—she forced herself to continue their polite conversation until she got off. That Maria not only wouldn't show her true feelings to the man (whom she humored with polite conversation), but also wouldn't even admit to herself how uncomfortable she was, shows the extent of her instinct to repress anything unpleasant and pretend that everything is okay. - Character: Woman Behind the Shop Counter. Description: The young woman behind the shop counter is the person who rings up the plum cake that Maria buys for Joe and Mrs. Donnelly. When Maria takes a long time to pick out what she wants, it annoys the woman, who cruelly suggests that Maria might be buying a wedding cake. Maria likely finds this comment a harsh reminder that she is unmarried, but she doesn't acknowledge this; instead, she simply "blush[es] and smile[s]" and moves on. The woman's "stylish" appearance suggests that she is attractive to men and eligible for marriage, which draws further attention to Maria's misfortune. - Theme: Loneliness and Estrangement. Description: In "Clay," an unmarried middle-aged woman named Maria struggles to connect with others. Maria is surrounded by people at work, and she speaks with strangers when she is out in the city, but these interactions are mostly superficial. Furthermore, Maria feels distance even with her closest friend, Joe Donnelly, a man whom she took care of when he was young, who still treats her like part of his family. Throughout the story, Maria faces teasing about being single, she struggles to support herself with low wages, and she often seems bewildered in the presence of others, making her an easy target for manipulation and cruelty. By depicting a day in Maria's life, Joyce shows the difficulty of aging as a single woman, suggesting that no matter how kind Maria is, she (and other women like her) will struggle to fit in. While Maria never says outright how lonely she is, the story is riddled with signs of her unhappiness. This is perhaps clearest when she is teased for being single. Near the beginning of the story, a woman named Lizzie Fleming jokes that Maria will "get the ring" (a reference to an Irish game in which a blindfolded person selects an object that represents their future). Maria pretends to be lighthearted, saying she wants neither a ring nor a husband, but her laughter is forced and her eyes reflect "disappointed shyness." It is clear that this has hurt Maria, and that she does wish that she were married. Maria's loneliness stems from more than being single; her relationships with friends and acquaintances seem shallow. In her job at a laundry that serves at-risk women, for example, Maria is known as the "peace-maker," skilled at diffusing arguments and putting the women at ease. While this indicates that Maria is socially adept, her pleasantness seems to only earn superficial praise. The others toast to her health and compliment her work ethic, but Joyce never shows her having a deeper interaction at work—in fact, she mostly seems uncomfortable and eager for the time to pass. Maria's best chance at genuine connection is with Joe Donnelly, a man who regards her as something of a second mother and invites her to celebrate Hallow Eve with his family. Even with him, though, Maria struggles to connect. His drinking makes her uncomfortable, he will not take her advice to reconcile with his brother, and, Maria reveals early in the story, she once refused his offer to live with him because she felt she would be "in the way." As much as she wants to feel part of his family, then, it seems that she knows she is not. Despite Maria's desire—and efforts—to connect with others, Joyce implies that Maria will be alone forever. One indication that Maria will remain lonely is the failure of her attempts to connect with the Donnelly family. She buys them an expensive slice of plum cake, for example, as a way to repay their kindness in inviting her to their party, but then she accidentally leaves the cake on the bus. This "failure of her little surprise" leads optimistic Maria to become, for the only time in the story, outwardly distressed: she feels "shame and vexation and disappointment" that almost make her cry. To bring a piece of cake to a party is an uncomplicated gesture; that even this simple attempt to connect with others fails suggests that Maria's future, like this moment, will continue to be lonely and painful. Joyce's clearest indication that Maria will be lonely forever comes during a Hallow Eve game in which she is blindfolded and chooses an object to represent her future. Maria first selects a lump of clay, which symbolizes impending death. The Donnellys encourage her to try again, and she chooses a bible, which signifies entering a convent (notably, a life in which women never marry). Ironically, Maria only decided to play this game to feel closer to the Donnellys, but this attempt at connection backfires, since the symbolism of the game only reaffirms that she will remain alone. Joyce cements the impression that Maria's loneliness will be lasting at the story's end when she agrees to sing an aria. As she sings, Maria accidentally repeats the first verse—about dreaming of wealth—rather than moving onto the second verse, which is explicitly about dreaming of love. That Maria omits the verse about love suggests her inability to imagine a future in which she is not alone. Furthermore, the fact that nobody at the party points out her mistake suggests that they, too, understand that she will never marry and that her loneliness will never get better. Maria's superficial interactions, coupled with her inability to connect with others even when she tries, suggest that her loneliness is irresolvable. Ultimately, Joyce uses Maria's loneliness to depict the plight of middle-aged unmarried women; not only is Maria's loneliness hopeless, but everyone around Maria (including the women at the laundry and the Donnellys) understands this hopelessness and finds it too sad to explain it to her. In "Clay," then, Joyce offers a glimpse of the isolation and sadness of growing older as a single woman. - Theme: Sadness and Repression. Description: In narrating Maria's thoughts, Joyce shows a woman striving to see the positive: she likes the community at the laundry where she works, she has a greenhouse full of lovely plants, and she is delighted to visit Joe Donnelly and his family for Hallow Eve. But despite Maria's attempts to be cheerful, it is clear that her life is difficult, particularly as an unmarried woman in a society that sees marriage as a woman's ultimate fulfillment. Throughout the story, Maria's narration is unreliable: she often says one thing but means another, which reflects her attempts to deny and repress her own sadness. Maria's struggle to remain optimistic about her lonely life leaves a tragic implication: that in the absence of real opportunity for happiness, all Maria can do is deny reality and try to convince herself that she is already okay. Maria is constantly hiding her true feelings from herself and others. At the beginning of the story, for example, one of the women at the laundry wishes aloud that she had a drink, which Maria finds inappropriate. Instead of criticizing her, though, Maria forces herself to laugh in order to convince others that she is not offended. Furthermore, she thinks to herself that the woman meant well, rather than admitting to herself that she is uncomfortable. This self-delusion is more extreme when an elderly man gives Maria his seat on the bus. Maria implies in passing that he is drunk ("he has a drop taken"), and she later admits that he made her so "confused" that she accidentally left a bag of plum cake on the bus. Clearly, this was an uncomfortable interaction with a drunk stranger, but it is noteworthy that she initially describes it in positive terms: he is "nice" and "polite" and "smil[ing]," and she talks with him throughout the bus ride, suggesting that he was "easy […] to know." This means that, not only was she unwilling to reveal to him how she felt, but even in her private thoughts, she has trouble acknowledging that this interaction was unpleasant. Maria even does this with Joe Donnelly, the person in the story to whom she feels closest. When she visits his home, he pulls her aside and tells her a story about his office that she does not understand. She tries awkwardly to respond, and reflects that Joe was "very nice" to her, seemingly just for making the effort to talk to her. Maria seems so desperate to connect with someone that she cannot admit even to herself that they are not understanding one another in this moment. While these incidents are all minor, the story's climax shows the most jarring and extreme instance of Maria's denial. At the Donnellys', Maria plays a Hallow Eve game in which, blindfolded, she selects an object that represents her fate: a lump of clay, which signifies impending death. Any reasonable person who is familiar with the game would immediately know they had touched clay, but Maria—despite her familiarity with the game—refuses to acknowledge what has happened. She never names what she touches (calling it simply a "soft wet substance"), which allows her to avoid acknowledging the clay's symbolism. Furthermore, even though the others in the room fall silent after she selects the clay and then whisper furiously to one another, Maria does not acknowledge or interpret their odd behavior—she merely registers that her choice was "wrong" and selects another object. By refusing to name the clay or acknowledge the reaction of others, Maria remains—against all odds—in denial about a clear and simple reality. This moment shows the startling power of Maria's repression. When faced with a sign that she will be alone forever (even from an innocuous children's game), Maria chooses to deny its existence, presumably because processing its meaning would be too painful. In this moment, it seems clear that Maria's powerful ability to repress unpleasantness comes from her inability to admit that she is probably fated to remain alone. At the end of her evening at the Donnellys', Maria sings an aria for the group—but she repeats the first verse (about dreaming of wealth) instead of singing the second (about dreaming of love and suitors). Maria clearly does dream of love, but she has buried this emotion so deep that she cannot even sing an aria about someone else feeling it. It is an obvious sign—to the reader and to everyone at the Donnellys'—that her repression remains entrenched. It is noteworthy, though, that because Maria cannot speak of her pain and shame, others around her are forced into a similar silence, one that echoes her own repression. After the aria, Joyce notes that nobody in the room points out Maria's mistake, implying that they understand the emotional significance of the moment but cannot speak about it. Joe Donnelly is moved to tears, seemingly because he is so sad for Maria, but instead of saying so, he pours himself a drink. This has been true of other characters, too: earlier, one of the women at the laundry made a joke about Maria's being single (perhaps because she could not straightforwardly express her concern), and Joyce himself goes silent out of respect for Maria. He never once uses the word "clay" in the story, naming only in the title what Maria refuses to acknowledge. - Theme: Paralysis and Stagnation. Description: Throughout "Clay," Maria's life remains remarkably stagnant. Her job at the laundry is monotonous, and Joyce suggests that she will never leave it—after all, she refuses to go live with her close friend Joe Donnelly, since she is "accustomed" to her life as it is. In addition to not making big changes in her life, Maria seems unable to make small ones. Although the people around her constantly make her uncomfortable, for instance, she never stands up for herself—instead, she simply allows these incidents to recur. Joyce implies that, even though Maria's life is repetitive and dismal, she has become so paralyzed that she can do nothing to change her fate. Throughout the story, Maria accepts the mockery and scrutiny that she faces as an unmarried middle-aged woman, rather than trying to improve her life by standing up for herself. For instance, when a woman at the laundry ridicules Maria by suggesting that she will find a ring (signifying an upcoming marriage) in her slice of cake, Maria laughs "with disappointed shyness." This shows that, while she feels hurt, she cannot bring herself to tell the other women that they are upsetting her—even if that would make her life better. Similarly, while Maria is buying a slice of plum cake for the Donnellys, the woman behind the shop counter mockingly suggests that Maria might be buying a wedding cake. Instead of defending herself or pointing out the woman's rudeness, Maria simply "blush[es] and smile[s]" and brushes it off. This shows an unchanging pattern of Maria's simply accepting unpleasantness, rather than finding the courage to change the way others treat her. While it is difficult to stand up to mockery or hostility, Maria's paralysis is also apparent in the company of people who love and support her. This shows how entrenched her passivity and stagnation are. For example, at the beginning of the story, Maria notes that Joe Donnelly—her closest friend in the world, whom she cared for when he was a child—has "often" asked her to move in with him and his family. It is not totally clear why she refuses. While she suggests that she would be "in the way" at his house, she undermines her own reasoning by noting how nice Mrs. Donnelly, Joe's wife, is to her. It is likely, actually, that Maria might be of help—she cared for Joe and his brother, after all, so she might be able to care for Joe's children, too. Maria's real reason for refusing, it seems, is that she is "too accustomed" to her present life to change it, even for the better. Maria's paralysis with the Donnellys is not only apparent in big life changes; she is also unable to ask for what she wants in minor, everyday situations. For instance, the Donnellys "insist" that she participate in the Hallow Eve game, which implies that Maria does not want to play. Her reaction is to laugh—a sign of her discomfort—and participate just as they wish. Similarly, at the very end of the story, the Donnellys ask Maria to sing in a way that makes her feel that she "had to." Instead of expressing her discomfort or suggesting something else, she stands and sings "in a tiny quavering voice," emphasizing her anxiety and discomfort. By the end of the story, then, Maria is so paralyzed that she cannot even laugh her discomfort away. Instead, she meekly does whatever everyone else wants her to do. While Maria is playing the Hallow Eve party game (in spite of her desire not to), she selects a lump of clay, which symbolizes impending death. In the context of Maria's life of passivity and stagnation, however, this might represent not literal death—it might simply suggest that her life will stay exactly the same until she dies (the ultimate stagnation). From her general inability to change her life in ways both small and large, it seems that this will inevitably be true, which is a tragedy, since Maria clearly wants change: she wants love, connection to others, more money, and an easier life. But by the end of the story, it is clear that Maria cannot even admit these desires to herself, let alone do anything to make them happen. - Climax: Maria places her hand on a lump of clay in a Hallow Eve game - Summary: Maria, a middle-aged unmarried woman working at a charitable laundry in Dublin, finishes her workday while thinking about her excitement to go out that evening. She prepares for the women's tea, which is her last task of the day before going to celebrate Hallow Eve with her friend Joe Donnelly's family. Maria cared for Joe when he was a boy, and he considers her a second mother. While he has repeatedly asked her to come live with him, Maria is used to her life at the laundry and she always declines. At the laundry, Maria is generally well-liked for her kindness and her ability to diffuse conflicts; the matron of the laundry describes her as a "peace-maker." As the women file in for tea, Maria serves them tea and slices of barmbrack, a traditional Hallow Eve cake. Amidst much "laughing and joking," two of the women make jokes about Maria's age and lack of a husband. Maria joins in on the laughter, despite her "disappointed shyness" and discomfort. Finally finished with her evening's work and able to escape the women's banter, Maria goes into her bedroom to change her clothes in preparation for the Donnellys' Hallow Eve event. Seeing her body in the mirror, she thinks fondly of how it used to look and admires its current appearance, too. Maria takes a Dublin tram to a cake shop, in which she buys a bag of many small cakes for the Donnelly children. She then goes to a second shop, hoping to find a special treat for Joe and Mrs. Donnelly. The woman behind the counter in the second shop is annoyed that Maria is slow in choosing a cake, so she cruelly asks if Maria is buying a wedding cake. Maria is embarrassed, but she shrugs it off and leaves with a slice of plum cake. On her crowded tram ride from the second cake shop to the Donnellys' home, an elderly man offers Maria a seat. He makes pleasant conversation with her about the cakes she is carrying and how nice it is to spoil children with treats, and Maria seems to enjoy his company. Having finally reached her destination, Maria receives a warm welcome from the Donnellys and presents the Donnelly children, as well as two girls who live next door and have come for the holiday festivities, with their cakes. Unable to find the plum cake she bought for Joe and his wife, Maria concludes that the elderly man left her so "confused" that she must have lost the cake on the tram. This revelation makes her feel "shame and vexation and disappointment." Joe assures Maria that her losing the cake is not a problem. Casual conversation and holiday festivities begin. Joe tells Maria a story about his boss that Maria does not understand; she does not ask for clarification, but she tries to express sympathy and understanding anyway. Soon after, Maria raises the topic of Joe's falling out with his brother Alphy and suggests that they try to reconnect. Mrs. Donnelly agrees with Maria, but Joe refuses to discuss the topic and ends the conversation. The two next-door girls organize Hallow Eve games for the group. In one game, each person is blindfolded and has to place their hand on an object that will represent their fate. One of the girls plays and finds a ring, which represents upcoming marriage. The group then coaxes Maria into playing, and she picks a lump of clay, which symbolizes impending death. The group whispers uncomfortably as Maria, confused and blindfolded, stands with her hand still on the clay. Without acknowledging what has just happened, she intuits that she should choose a different object, so she places her hand on a Bible, which signifies entrance into a convent. At the end of the evening, Mrs. Donnelly encourages Maria to sing for the group before the children go to bed. While Maria is hesitant, she sings an aria. After singing the first verse, about dreaming of wealth and luxury, Maria fails to move on to the second verse, about dreaming of suitors and love, repeating the first verse instead. No one says anything about her repetition, but Joe's eyes tear up, as he seems to recognize her suffering.

- Genre: Drama, Magical Realism - Title: Cloudstreet - Point of view: Third Person (later revealed to be First Person, narrated by Fish) - Setting: Western Australia, 1940s–1960s - Character: Oriel Lamb. Description: Oriel is the matriarch of the massive Lamb family. She's Lester Lamb's wife and Quick, Fish, Lon, Hattie, Red, and Elaine's mother. Throughout the novel, Oriel is the tireless engine that keeps the household afloat, throwing herself into her work and compelling her family to follow her lead. She's the driving force behind Cloudstreet's shop, and while several characters call her bossy, it doesn't upset her to agree with them. Oriel takes pride in her work ethic as well as her strong sense of morality and duty, whether to God, her country, her family, or even herself. However, beneath her stern exterior, Oriel is a secretly lonely and uncertain person, wracked with feelings of inadequacy and survivor's guilt from her traumatic childhood. When Oriel was a girl, a fire destroyed her home and killed everyone in her family except her father, whom she had to care for herself after the incident. This gave her a strong sense of self-reliance, but when her son Fish nearly drowns and comes back with brain damage, now unable to perceive her, she loses much of her confidence, and even her faith in God is shaken. Oriel re-examines her faith and her place in the world during her 20 years at Cloudstreet. However, her development is mostly internal, as she rarely shows vulnerability in front of her family. She views all of life as a war to be waged, and she constantly fights back against the idea that people can't change what fate has given them. Oriel is determined to do things properly and this makes the people around her insecure in themselves, but her bustling pace and harsh attitude are tempered by her deep love for her family, the one thing she feels powerless to change. - Character: Lester Lamb. Description: Lester is Oriel's husband and the father of Quick, Fish, Lon, Hattie, Red, and Elaine. At various times in his life before the events of the novel, Lester was a constable, a military man, a musician, and a vaudeville performer. Like his wife, Lester was a deeply religious Christian until his son Fish drowned and came back to life with his mind permanently impaired. This disappointing "miracle" causes Lester and his wife to lose their faith in God, as both of them dearly miss the clever and lovable boy Fish used to be. Regardless, Lester strives more than anyone else to continue loving Fish despite the boy's condition, reprimanding the other Lamb children when they don't treat Fish with respect. Inwardly, Lester still finds Fish's childlike behavior painful to watch at times, but Lester's development as a character is driven by his desire to find something to believe in, whether it's God or just common decency. Lester gains a new sense of religious faith by the end of the novel, but he admits to Quick that his ongoing perseverance is fueled entirely by love for his family, and their love for him in return. These bonds are eventually expanded to include the Pickles family as well, and he's glad for the extra company. Although he feels outshone by his wife, Lester is a constant source of love, humor, and dependable friendship for the denizens of Cloudstreet. - Character: Fish Lamb. Description: Samson Lamb (nicknamed Samsonfish or just Fish, "for his wit and alertness") is the second oldest son of Oriel and Lester Lamb, and Quick, Lon, Hattie, Red, and Elaine's brother. Fish was a clever and lovable prankster before he drowned on a fishing trip with his family, only to come back to life with his mind impaired and his original personality wiped out. Due to this accident, he has a slow and childlike mind even into adulthood, and his erratic behavior constantly reminds the Lambs of their guilt for not saving him. Despite (or maybe because of) his mental condition, Fish is more aware of supernatural occurrences than any other character. He can see the hateful ghosts in the library, he seems to understand the talking pig in the backyard, and he has a spiritual connection with his beloved brother Quick. All of this supports the implication that Fish has gained a deeper understanding of reality, even though he's unable to communicate it in a way his family understands. True to his name, he's constantly drawn to the water that made him lose himself in the first place, though he often equates the water with the stars. Fish remains a central figure in the Lambs' lives throughout the novel, tethering them to the trauma of their past and reminding them of what they've lost. When he drowns again at the end of the novel, he gives the Lambs a chance to finally move on, as he transcends and gains a full understanding of life. At this point, the novel also reveals that Fish is the narrator. - Character: Quick Lamb. Description: Mason Lamb (nicknamed Quick because he's "as unquick as his father") is the eldest son of Oriel and Lester Lamb, and Fish, Lon, Hattie, Red, and Elaine's brother. Quick is a gloomy and serious boy for much of the novel, especially after his brother Fish drowns during a fishing trip and comes back to life mentally impaired. Like his father, Quick blames himself for the accident, and he often feels guilt and self-loathing for letting Fish take the fall instead of himself. Quick finds photos of miserable people in the newspaper and pins them to his wall as a constant reminder that he's one of the lucky ones, and eventually his guilt and sadness drive him to run away from home. Quick is defined by his relationship with Fish more than anything, but he has plenty of pursuits and developments of his own, such as his eventual, unexpected marriage to Rose Pickles. Their happy relationship is only made possible after Quick returns home, realizing that he can't run from his family issues and must face them instead. Quick is straightforward and honest, and he believes in fighting evil, which inspires him to become a constable. During his young adult life, he develops a new perspective of the world that's more realistic and harsher in some ways, but it ultimately lets him make peace with himself, his past, and his family. - Character: Rose Pickles. Description: Rose is Sam and Dolly Pickles's eldest child and their only daughter. Ted and Chub are her brothers, though she doesn't share much of a bond with them and she usually prefers reading or schoolwork to their company. Rose's opinion of Sam is constantly shifting from love to hatred to something in between, as she has mixed feelings about his gambling habits and his attitude towards life. She has a much more negative relationship with Dolly, who complicated Rose's childhood with her constant drinking and adultery. Because of this often-adversarial family situation, Rose is determined to become independent and move far away from Cloudstreet. Similar to Oriel, Rose believes that it's each person's responsibility to improve themselves and make their life better, a philosophy which puts her at odds with Sam's reliance on luck and instinct. But despite her efforts to cut family ties and become independent, Rose falls in love with Quick Lamb and finds herself drawn back to Cloudstreet and its two united families. Her marriage to Quick is largely built on the fact that he needs her, emphasizing the strength of her character even as she decides to stay with her family. Her childhood experiences have made her feel like she's grown up too quickly, and her maturity is put to the test throughout the novel, as she often feels she has to fend for herself. Rose's journey is one of self-discovery, as she learns to see her mother in a new light and realizes that complete independence isn't what she really wanted. - Character: Sam Pickles. Description: Sam is Dolly's husband and the father of Rose, Ted, and Chub. After losing his right hand and his brother Joel in quick succession, Sam has no choice but to move the Pickles family into the large old house on Cloud Street that Joel had left him in the event of his death. After gambling away the money Joel left him, he rents out half of the house to the Lamb family as a source of income. Sam has a firm belief in the power of luck, despite his frequent and financially disastrous losing streaks when it comes to his gambling. He often senses a strange feeling in the air and a tingling in the stump of his right hand, detecting the presence of what he calls the "Shifty Shadow." This sensation always indicates a major shift in the fortunes of Sam and the people around him, for good or ill. But Sam can only detect luck, not control it, and he insists that he's always at the mercy of fate, while still believing that his luck will change for the better. This attitude creates tension with his wife and daughter, who are often disappointed and angered by how much money he wastes by gambling at the racetrack. Many characters reflect on the power of random chance in their lives, but Sam is the most deeply connected to luck, and the most accepting of its ever-shifting nature. Sam often feels deeply ashamed of himself despite his belief in luck, but over the course of the novel, he learns to appreciate how lucky he is already, even without winning a fortune at the races. - Character: Dolly Pickles. Description: Dolly is Sam's wife and the mother of Rose, Ted, and Chub. She's an alcoholic who constantly struggles with the pain of her past and her longing to travel and experience a more exciting lifestyle. As the years go by, she feels more and more strongly that her best days are behind her, and the onset of her old age drives her to drink more than ever. Her relationship with Sam becomes more strained after he loses his hand, and she often dates other men despite still loving him. Her daughter Rose despises her for drinking and robbing her of her childhood, as a young Rose would often have to carry her drunken mother back home from bars and pubs. Dolly grows to resent Rose as well, but the two of them eventually come to an understanding after Dolly reveals that she comes from an incestuous relationship that brought about her distrust of other women (her sister is also her mother). Dolly's behavior becomes much less extreme after making peace with Rose, though she still drinks often and keeps her coarse and bitter sense of humor, which she mostly uses to entertain herself. Although Dolly resents Oriel for making her feel like an inadequate mother in comparison for most of the novel, she gradually comes to embrace Oriel and the rest of the Lamb family, confirming Rose's belief that people can change. Dolly is a tragic figure, but she is often comical as well. - Character: Hattie Lamb. Description: Hattie is Oriel and Lester Lamb's eldest daughter. She seems to grow up much more quickly than her sisters, and she becomes the marbles champion of the neighborhood. She's overjoyed to marry a dull but pleasant young man named Geoffrey Birch, and their wedding coincidentally occurs on the same day that Quick returns home after years of living on his own. Hattie is the only Lamb to permanently move away from Cloudstreet during the novel, as she goes to live with her new husband after their wedding. - Character: Elaine Lamb. Description: Elaine is one of Oriel and Lester Lamb's three daughters. Throughout the novel, Elaine is consistently glum and lonely, always pining for a husband of her own. She becomes jealous when Hattie is the first Lamb daughter to marry, and Elaine always seems to be engaged to someone, but never married herself. This situation doesn't change over the course of the novel, and Elaine's yearnings are portrayed as a bit melodramatic,. - Character: Red Lamb. Description: Red is one of Oriel and Lester Lamb's three daughters. She's the self-proclaimed tomboy of the family, enjoying her reputation as rougher and more "boyish" than her sisters. As a young adult, she becomes a nurse, and she enjoys teasing her squeamish sister Elaine with graphic descriptions of what she sees at her job. - Character: Lon Lamb. Description: Lon is Oriel and Lester Lamb's youngest son He's an infant at the beginning of the novel, but as he reaches childhood, he considers his mentally impaired brother Fish to be the baby of the family, despite Lon being the younger of the two. Over the years, Lon grows to become a rude and lazy young man who's annoyed by Fish's childlike behavior. Lon marries a girl named Pansy shortly after getting her pregnant, and the two of them and their baby live rather unhappily at Cloudstreet. - Character: Ted Pickles. Description: Ted is one of Sam and Dolly's two sons. He grows up without interacting with his sister Rose very much, and he eventually moves away from Cloudstreet to live with a young woman after getting her pregnant. Dolly can't help but feel jealous of Ted's youth as he develops a very active romantic life. One morning, when Sam feels a sense of extreme bad luck approaching, Ted dies of heart failure in a sauna after pushing himself too hard to become a jockey. Dolly bitterly mourns his passing, and she later admits to Rose that Ted was her favorite child. - Character: Chub Pickles. Description: Chub is one of Sam and Dolly Pickles's sons. During childhood, he behaves much like his brother Ted, getting into trouble and failing to get along very well with his sister Rose. Even into adulthood, Chub mostly keeps to himself, and tends to react somewhat apathetically to even the most surprising news. - Character: Beryl Lee. Description: Beryl is a lonely widow who lost her husband in World War II. She confides in Oriel at the Anzac club, saying that she sensed Oriel was a Christian woman. Moved by Beryl's story and wanting to feel useful, Oriel opens her home to Beryl, who lives there and works in Oriel's shop for several years. Despite her grief, Beryl is kind, reserved, and principled, though she eventually finds herself too tortured by her romantic attraction to Lester Lamb to remain at Cloudstreet. She decides to become a nun, as she considers it a new "marriage" to the church. The Lamb family has one last dinner with Beryl before she leaves, letting her know that she was appreciated and that she'll be missed. - Character: Toby Raven. Description: Rose Pickles meets Toby Raven over the phone at work, and she finds him instantly charming and exciting. Toby appears to be an interesting and cultured gentleman, intimidating Rose but appealing to her desire for a bigger and grander lifestyle. However, it soon becomes clear that Toby and Rose aren't meant for each other. Toby writes gossip columns for a living, but poetry is his passion—though Rose dislikes his poems and she doubts anyone would pay for them. When it seems that Toby has finally had his poetry recognized by the literary establishment, he mocks Rose's family in a desperate attempt to seem like he's the man everyone thinks he is. Toby serves as Rose's first major sign that a dazzling, cultured life away from her family isn't everything she imagines it to be. - Character: Lucy Wentworth. Description: Lucy Wentworth is the daughter of one of Quick Lamb's employers, during the period when Quick lives on his own as a kangaroo hunter. Lucy immediately flirts with Quick and gropes him as he recovers from his injuries in the Wentworth farmhouse. Through her seduction, she marks Quick's entry into a more adult world, and she gives him his first romantic and sexual experiences. However, their relationship (which is mostly physical) is short-lived, as they ultimately don't have much in common. Years later, when Quick encounters Lucy again at her new florist shop in Perth, he's grateful that she doesn't recognize him. - Character: Earl Blunt. Description: Earl is Lester Lamb's cousin. He lives on a farm in Margaret River with his wife, and the two of them are stern and humorless, hardened by the intense difficulties of the Great Depression. Quick lives with Earl for about a year after running away from Cloudstreet and ending his kangaroo hunting days. Earl's dry, strict, and overly serious attitude makes Quick wonder if his own family could have ended up like Earl, had they stayed on their own farm in Margaret River instead of moving to Cloudstreet. Earl and his wife eventually take Quick back to Cloudstreet after Quick inexplicably starts glowing. - Character: Joel Pickles. Description: Joel is Sam Pickles's brother, who seems much luckier than Sam until his sudden, fatal heart attack while fishing on the beach. Joel owns the pub that the Pickles family inhabits at the beginning of the novel; he bought the pub and the house on Cloud Street with the money he won from betting on a horse named Eurythmic. After Joel's death, the Pickles family discovers that Joel left the house on Cloud Street to Sam, along with a solid sum of money. In addition to his generosity, Joel also seems to have an understanding of his brother's behavior, as he ensures Cloudstreet can't be sold for 20 years after his death, knowing that Sam would sell it and gamble away the money if he could. Sam often says that Joel is an example of a truly lucky person, in contrast to himself. - Character: G. M. Clay. Description: G. M. Clay is a World War II veteran and the owner of a shop near Cloudstreet. He becomes Oriel's competition for a brief period, and Oriel is determined to make her own shop more popular, as she disapproves of Clay's use of his military service as an advertisement for his shop. She eventually runs him out of business by perfecting a vanilla ice cream recipe and selling the treat during the summer. But Oriel becomes racked with guilt when she realizes that she's caused Clay to leave town and abandon his wife alone with the children. Before he leaves, Clay also takes out his anger on Dolly, who had been secretly dating him for some time. - Theme: Chance, Choice, and Personal Responsibility. Description: Cloudstreet follows two families, the Lambs and the Pickleses, as they move into number one, Cloudstreet and live the next 20 years there. Throughout the novel, there's a constant tension between what happens by chance and what happens as a result of a conscious choice. Both of these forces affect the characters' lives, and it's difficult to say which is stronger. But more importantly, the tension between luck and choice highlights the characters' differing beliefs about personal responsibility. For example, Sam Pickles believes strongly in the power of luck and fate, taking after his water-diviner father by listening to his intuition and heeding the "Shifty Shadow" that seems to warn him of dramatic shifts in his fortune. Because of his belief in luck, Sam holds the view that people's lives are largely steered by the whims of fate, and that no one is ultimately in perfect control of who they are or what path their life takes. His daughter Rose, on the other hand, doesn't share this belief; indeed, she sees Sam's way of thinking as a convenient excuse for both of her parents to dodge their responsibilities and explain their failures. Rose argues that anyone can change if they choose to, a sentiment echoed by Oriel Lamb's proactive views on life. This tension is largely what distinguishes the more judgmental and high-strung characters like Rose and Oriel from the rest; they believe that everyone is responsible for making their own luck. But even Oriel has her doubts, as she watches the spinning knife and wonders if everyone really is powerless against the whims of random chance. However, both chance and choice often serve as sources of hope for the characters. Sam remains confident that his bad luck will change, while Rose and Oriel find courage by believing in their own competence instead. - Theme: Family vs. Independence. Description: As the Lamb and Pickles children come of age, many of them try to strike out on their own and leave their families behind them, though with limited success. For instance, while Hattie ends up living happily with Geoffrey Birch away from Cloudstreet, she's the only exception to the repeating pattern of an independent life coming to a swift end—Ted Pickles dies suddenly a few years after leaving his family. And while Quick and Rose are both desperate to leave Cloudstreet behind at various points in their lives, they both end up returning to live there, as if it was always inevitable. Notably, they both return willingly, illustrating that their family ties no longer feel like chains holding them back. Through various characters' failed attempts to leave, Cloudstreet portrays family ties as strong and important—important enough to override a person's desire for independence, and strong enough to help people overcome seemingly insurmountable differences with other family members. Cloudstreet portrays family ties as things that are supernaturally strong and powerful. Years after Quick runs away from home at 16, his old life begins calling to him through visions and signs, eventually culminating in him physically glowing like a light bulb until he's reunited with the other Lambs. Rose also can't ignore the pull back to Cloudstreet, as she begins to lose too much weight again and becomes miserable in her independent life away from her family. These extreme reactions and supernatural events aren't portrayed as coercive or malicious events that steer the characters back into a house that they hate. Instead, these moments are manifestations of their true desires: the novel suggests that Quick and Rose feel the call to return to Cloudstreet because independence wasn't what they really wanted. Indeed, family, togetherness, and unity win out in the end when the Lamb and Pickles families decide that they should no longer be independent from each other and merge into one united clan. - Theme: Trauma and Guilt. Description: Both the Lambs and the Pickleses are haunted by their traumas and persistent feelings of guilt and remorse. By showing the characters reckoning with their pasts over the years, Cloudstreet illustrates not only how trauma and guilt can affect people their entire lives, but also that healing can occur when people connect with others and make an effort to move forward. All of the Lambs have been traumatized by Fish almost drowning, and most of them share the guilt for letting his once-clever mind fade away beneath the water. Fish becomes a constant, living reminder of the trauma of that night, and the crushing guilt the other Lambs feel for losing him. And yet, it's framed as a positive thing when, more than 20 years later, Quick isn't able to protect Fish from falling into the river again—the river "swallows" Fish, and this is framed as a positive, healing event, rather than another tragedy that compounds the Lamb family's pain. In letting him go, the novel implies, they're able to move on. Ultimately, both families begin to heal from their traumas and move past their guilt when they recognize similar flaws in one another and join together, creating something new as when Quick and Rose marry, creating their own new nuclear family unit. The most literal manifestation of lingering trauma in the novel is the pair of ghosts that the library, but even these miserable spirits are released and unbound from the house when Rose gives birth to her and Quick's baby in the same room. Likewise, the ghosts of the families' painful pasts are banished as new life and fresh hope for the future enters their lives. - Theme: Religion and the Supernatural. Description: Whether it's fate, a higher power, or something unexplainable, both families in Cloudstreet can sense that their lives are touched by something greater than themselves. But far from being a foreign or alien influence, the supernatural elements in the novel only add more depth and color to the everyday, human experiences the characters encounter. The Lamb family's religious faith is shaken and all but destroyed by the disappointing "miracle" of Fish's resurrection, which leaves him mentally impaired for the rest of his life. The Lambs struggle with their fading Christian faith throughout the novel, as the seemingly supernatural events that occasionally happen around them never seem any more useful than the pig in their backyard that inexplicably speaks in tongues. But eventually, Lester and Oriel come around to a new version of their faith that's been shaped by their experiences at Cloudstreet and informed by love and respect for their fellow human beings. In this way, their religious belief becomes less about expecting God to intervene on their behalf and more about living a life that they consider godly on principle. The novel's other supernatural events reflect this idea. The ghosts, visions, and strange occurrences that the families experience are mostly there to guide the characters towards what they already know to be true; magic never solves their problems, even if luck plays a role. The supernatural elements provide surreal, metaphorical imagery, but they're also portrayed as real, tangible events, such as Quick's glowing or the house's haunted library. These bizarre events are as real as every other part of the characters' lives, seamlessly woven into the ordinary events to steer the Lambs and the Pickleses toward better, more fulfilling lives. - Theme: Shared Humanity. Description: Countless arguments and disagreements divide the residents of number one, Cloudstreet over the years, and the members of each family constantly struggle to relate to one other. But gradually, they come to accept the common humanity that they share, even across families that initially seemed wildly different in terms of their morals and priorities. Cloudstreet doesn't deny the existence of good and evil, or absolve any character of their responsibilities just because being human is difficult. Instead, the novel portrays a realistic but sympathetic view of humanity, where anyone and everyone has the potential to grow cold and malicious—or become good and loving. One example of a shared human connection comes towards the end of the novel, when Dolly and her daughter Rose make amends after Dolly explains her traumatic upbringing. Importantly, this doesn't completely excuse Dolly's careless behavior over the years, and her relationship with her daughter remains complicated. But after sharing this moment of vulnerability, both Dolly and Rose find the space to reconcile, with the shared understanding that they've both endured hardships that have shaped them for better or worse. After this, Rose can no longer treat her mother as an evil, alien entity to be scorned and dismissed; she must accept that Dolly is just as human as she is. Quick has a similar but much more intense revelation when he fails to save a boy from drowning, only to discover that the boy was the son of the depraved serial killer Quick and the local police department had been tracking down. One reason Quick became a police officer was to fight evil, but it shocks him to discover that the serial killer, the evilest person he knows, is a human being and hadn't always been a monster. In fact, after realizing this, Quick can imagine himself having become just as depraved and evil as the killer if things had gone differently in his own life. He still knows that evil exists, but it startles him to learn that evil comes from the choices people make and the circumstances that shape them, rather than being innate. - Climax: Rose gives birth to her baby in Cloudstreet's library. - Summary: Sam Pickles awakens one morning on the small island where he works, and he feels the "Shifty Shadow" lurking. This is how he refers to strange sensations that he'll occasionally feel when some sort of major shift in luck is about to occur; usually, it's bad luck. Before he even starts his work day, his glove gets caught in the cogs of a machine, causing him to lose all of the fingers on his right hand. His wife Dolly eventually shows up at the hospital to visit him, and their children also show up: Rose, Ted, and Chub. After recovering, Sam returns home to the Eurythmic, a pub where the Pickles family has been living ever since Sam gambled away everything he owned. The pub is owned by Sam's brother Joel, whose luck seems much more reliable than Sam's. In the following weeks and months, Dolly can barely stand to look at her husband. Joel eventually gets Sam to go out and try living one-handed, encouraging him not to give up. The two of them go fishing on a beach one night, only for Joel to die of a heart attack. Meanwhile, in another town, the Lamb family heads to the riverside to go prawn fishing. Staunch Christians Oriel and Lester Lamb have all six of their children in tow: three boys (Quick, Fish, and Lon) and three girls (Hattie, Elaine, and Red). As Oriel, the girls, and baby Lon stay on the beach and stoke the campfire, Lester, Quick, and Fish walk out into the river with a large net. It isn't long before Fish is somehow pulled under the water so quickly that it takes a few moments for his father and brother to notice he's submerged. Fish begins to drown, as he's stuck under the net, and they can't get it off him. After they drag him to shore and remove the net, Oriel tries to pummel the water out of her son's body, praying aloud and demanding that God bring Fish back. To everyone's delighted shock, Fish awakens. The Lambs drive him back into town to announce that a miracle has occurred, but Quick can tell that Fish isn't the same as before. Fish is alive, but now he's mentally impaired, with none of his original wit, cleverness, or personality. In his last will and testament, Joel left Sam 2,000 pounds, as well as a large old house in Perth, where Joel had planned to retire. A proviso in Joel's will prevents the house from being sold for the next 20 years, so the Pickles family moves to the house at Number One, Cloud Street. It's very old and enormous, so it takes the Pickles family a while to adjust. Much to his family's furious annoyance, Sam gambles his 2,000 pounds away almost immediately. To secure an income, Sam decides to rent out half of the house to another family. Rose hates the idea, but it's already too late. Sam splits the backyard in half with a shoddy tin fence before welcoming the Lamb family into their home. The Lambs decided to move after realizing that Fish's resurrection hadn't been much of a miracle after all. They felt compelled to leave town because they no longer felt welcome, and they needed a fresh start. The two families keep their distance from each other as the weeks and months wear on. Sam continues gambling at the racetrack with limited success, and Rose can't decide whether to love him or hate him. Rose does hate Dolly, however, who's been going out to pubs and getting drunk even more than usual. Fish's brain damage has affected the Lamb family deeply; Lester and Quick blame themselves for the accident, and Fish doesn't even seem able to perceive Oriel or acknowledge her existence at all. Fish behaves in a slow and childlike way, and it's often painful for his family to watch. Nonetheless, they carry on. Oriel opens a general goods shop in the front of the house, which eventually comes to be known simply as Cloudstreet, along with the rest of the house. But her bustling attitude hides her self-doubt and uncertainty, and Lester shares these feelings. Ever since Fish's accident, the Lambs have all but lost their faith in God, figuring that everything might be determined by random chance instead of a higher power with a plan. Over the years, life goes on at Cloudstreet. Rose begins to develop an eating disorder. Quick still feels guilty over what happened to Fish, and he pins newspaper photos of miserable and suffering people on his wall, to remind himself of how lucky he is to be a survivor. One day, after Lester and Sam win a good deal of money at the horse races, the Lamb family visits the riverside to relax. Quick and Fish attempt to row home by themselves in a boat that Lester bought on impulse. This proves more difficult than expected, but in the dead of night the river and the world around them seem to turn into a sea of stars, as if they're rowing through outer space. Fish is delighted, while Quick assumes he must be dreaming. At dawn, Lester is relieved to find the two of them sleeping in the boat, which ran aground near Cloudstreet. Soon afterwards, Oriel sets up a tent in the backyard and starts sleeping there every night, feeling unwelcome in the house and strangely alienated from her family. Quick has trouble in school as his guilt and sadness threaten to overwhelm him. One night, he visits his mother at her second job at the Anzac club and tells her that he's running away from home. The Lambs are saddened at his departure, but they carry on with their lives. Hattie Lamb starts seeing a young man named Geoffrey Birch, whom she plans to marry. Oriel successfully defeats her shop's only competition in the neighborhood, Mr. G. M. Clay, only to guiltily discover that he's also left town and left his wife and children behind. Desperate to feel that she's doing the right thing, she opens her home to a lonely widow named Beryl Lee. Meanwhile, Rose Pickles finds a job at Bairds department store, where she works at a switchboard. She begins to eat again and becomes healthier, imagining a more independent life far away from her family and the strange old house. Fish continues his childlike behavior well into his teenage years, though he's more subdued without Quick around. Several years after he ran away from home, Quick now lives on his own as a young adult, working as a kangaroo hunter. As he hunts one night in a wheat field, a kick from a dying kangaroo knocks him out and sees a vision of Fish calling out to him and inviting Quick to follow. The man who hired Quick finds him lying in the field the next morning, and the man's daughter Lucy tends to Quick's wounds that night and seduces him. The two of them have a brief and unsuccessful relationship before Quick leaves town. He senses more and more signs and omens that seem to be calling him back home to Cloudstreet, but he runs from them. Eventually, while he's working for his relative Earl, he starts glowing brightly, and Earl's wife strongly suggests that they take him to Cloudstreet. By coincidence, they bring Quick home on the day of Hattie's wedding to Geoffrey. Quick gradually stops glowing a week or two after returning to Cloudstreet. A few more years go by. Beryl Lee decides to become a nun and leaves Cloudstreet to live at a convent, after admitting to Lester Lamb that she has feelings for him. Ted Pickles goes to live with a girl he got pregnant. Quick tries to adjust to life at Cloudstreet, but still feels uneasy and aimless. Rose meets a man named Toby Raven, who seems charming and cultured, and the two of them start dating. But after a few months, their relationship falls apart, and Rose finds herself crying by the river. Quick and Fish happen to pass by her in their fishing boat, and Quick offers to give her a ride. After Fish falls asleep in the boat, Quick and Rose start talking and quickly realize that they're in love. They announce their intentions to marry each other the very next day, shocking both their families. The wedding takes place a few weeks later. After their honeymoon, Quick and Rose decide to start having a new house built for them, as Rose doesn't like old places like Cloudstreet. They decide to live in a small flat until their house is finished. Quick becomes a constable and Rose soon becomes pregnant. Quick and Rose soon run into serious complications. Sam senses the Shifty Shadow again one morning, and his intuition proves correct: in one day, Dolly falls down the stairs and breaks her leg, Ted has a fatal heart attack in a sauna, and Rose has a miscarriage. Rose becomes cold and withdrawn in the months following the miscarriage, falling back into her old undereating habits. Sam and Lester eventually convince her to visit Dolly, who's been dangerously drunk and emotional ever since Ted's death. During their conversation Dolly reveals that she was born of incest, and that her hatred of her own sisters has made her distrust other women. Rose and Dolly's relationship improves after this conversation. A sadistic killer begins murdering innocent people all throughout Perth at night, seemingly at random. Quick is rattled by his and the police force's inability to stop the killer, and he and Rose move back into Cloudstreet to feel safer. They move into the old library room, which seems to be haunted. Rose becomes pregnant again. After several more gruesome murders, the killer is finally captured on the same day that Rose gives birth to her child, Harry. Quick is forced to realize that the killer is a man, just like him, when he finds the body of killer's drowned son in the river. He tells Rose about his realization, and she comforts him and suggests that they go on a vacation. They soon make plans to drive to nowhere in particular for their vacation, and it's assumed that they'll finally move into their new house when they return. Oriel arranges a massive dinner for both the Lambs and the Pickleses, wanting to hold onto Quick for one more night before he leaves her again. But during their short vacation (on which Rose and Quick reluctantly bring Fish), the couple discuss their future. Rose admits that, to her own surprise, she wants to keep living at Cloudstreet, as it truly feels like home to her now. Quick agrees, and they rush home the next morning to announce the news to the entire enormous household. Sam was considering selling the house, as 20 years have almost passed at this point, but he decides not to; as it turns out, everyone feels at home at Cloudstreet. To celebrate Quick and Rose staying, the Lambs and the Pickleses enjoy a large and loud picnic by the river, united as if they're one huge family now. But suddenly, a delighted Fish plunges into the river before Quick can stop him. Fish seems to become more than a person as he drowns, seeing the whole history of the two families playing out in his mind in the moment before he dies. For that one moment, he's become a man and reconnected with his former self, and he's one with the river he always longed for. With Fish gone, Oriel feels that she can finally move on. She and Dolly dismantle Oriel's tent, indicating that she'll be sleeping in the big old house at Number One, Cloudstreet from now on.

- Genre: Historical fiction, young adult fiction - Title: Code Talker - Point of view: First-person - Setting: Navajo nation (New Mexico), the South Pacific - Character: Ned Begay. Description: Ned is a young Navajo man who is roughly 15 years old when World War II starts. Ned's birth name is Kii Yázhí. His family lives on the Navajo reservation near Grants, New Mexico. At six years old, Ned is sent to a mission school in Gallup, New Mexico, where he is taught to reject all things Navajo, especially his native language. Despite the cruelty of the school's staff, Ned loves learning and does well academically, even as he continues to speak Navajo among his friends. From a young age, Ned has a sensitive, resilient, and courageous spirit. When Ned is in high school, America enters World War II, and Ned longs to enlist in the Marines. His parents make him wait until he is 16, and then Ned joins one of the first all-Navajo platoons in the Marines. These platoons are trained for a secret mission: becoming code talkers, using a Navajo-based code to transmit messages on the battlefield. Ned loves his duties and forms close friendships with both Navajo and white marines, including Georgia Boy and Smitty. He fights in the South Pacific, on Bougainville, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. On Guam, Ned sustains a bullet wound in the shoulder, and both during and after the war, he must deal with the consequences of battle fatigue. Even in the midst of the war, Ned finds joy and pride in the code talkers' vital role in the war effort. He is especially sensitive to the sufferings of native islanders whose lands have been occupied by the Japanese. Throughout the war, he holds on to Navajo spiritual traditions to keep him grounded and balanced. Upon coming home, he works to preserve and teach the Navajo language and culture, in part by sharing this entire story with his grandchildren. - Character: Mother. Description: Ned's mother is tall and beautiful. Her brother, Ned's uncle, persuades her to send Ned to the mission school. When Ned wants to enlist in the Marines, she and Ned's father make him wait until he is at least 16, but they finally give him their blessing to join up. - Character: Uncle. Description: Ned's uncle is his mother's brother. He is sharp-featured with kind eyes and a little mustache. He convinces Ned's parents to send Ned to the mission school, which he also attended as a boy. He takes Ned to school for the first time and encourages him to remember his family and his people's history even when school is difficult. - Character: Hosteen Mitchell. Description: Also known as Big Schoolboy or Frank Mitchell, this Navajo singer is addressed by Ned as "Hosteen," a term of respect. He is an old friend and classmate of Ned's uncle. Hosteen Mitchell is a respected man, and Ned likes his modesty and humor. He conducts the Blessingway ceremony before Ned's enlistment and the Enemyway ceremony after Ned's return. - Character: Jacob Benally. Description: Jacob Benally is a kind Navajo man who works in the mission school's stables. On Ned's first day at Rehoboth Mission, Mr. Benally translates for the new students, explaining that they must never speak Navajo, only English. Ned has never seen a Navajo man in a white man's clothing or hairstyle before meeting Mr. Benally. - Character: Corporal Johnny Manuelito. Description: A graduate of Navajo High School, Johnny is among the first all-Navajo platoon of Marines. He is sent back to Fort Defiance to train the next group of Navajo recruits. After hearing Johnny speak, Ned decides to enlist, too. Johnny also teaches Ned and the rest of his platoon in code school. - Character: Georgia Boy. Description: Georgia Boy is a blond-haired, blue-eyed marine with a thick Southern drawl. He and Ned become friends in boot camp after Georgia Boy asks for Ned's help in reading a letter from home. Ned then offers to teach Georgia Boy how to read. They remain close throughout the war. Georgia Boy is seriously wounded on Iwo Jima but survives. - Character: Smitty. Description: Smitty is a fellow marine and close friend of Ned's. He is originally from Boston, and his real name is John Smith. Though Ned doesn't know it at the time, Smitty has been assigned to keep a close watch on Ned to make sure he isn't mistaken for an enemy soldier by other marines. - Character: Ira Hayes. Description: Ira Hayes, a historical figure, was a Pima Indian who served as a marine. He is especially remembered for his appearance in Joe Rosenthal's prize-winning photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima. Ira struggled with alcoholism after the war and died in 1955. Ned mentions having met Ira when they were both young men. - Theme: Memory, Language, and Identity. Description: Joseph Bruchac's Code Talker is a fictionalized account of a group of Navajo marines who fought in World War II with a top-secret mission: using the Navajo language to transmit crucial information during battle in the South Pacific. Through a character named Ned Begay, a Navajo man who is telling his grandchildren his experiences, Bruchac conveys both the shame and triumph such marines encountered throughout their lives because of their Navajo identity. By contrasting Ned's repressed childhood with his wartime heroism, Bruchac argues that although one's cultural roots might be devalued in certain contexts, a person should never give up their identity (and their language in particular) because even the most denigrated and marginalized members of society are worthwhile and highly valuable. Throughout his childhood and youth, Ned is forced by the majority culture to try to devalue and forget his Navajo identity. When Ned first arrives at the mission school (a boarding school where Navajo children are taught to assimilate into white culture), he and the other young Navajo children formally greet one another as they've been taught to do at home, identifying the clans from which they're descended and figuring out how they are all related. "[D]espite the fact that some of those other children spoke our sacred language differently, what we were doing made me feel happier and more peaceful. We were doing things as our elders had taught us. We were putting ourselves in balance." In the unfamiliar (and, it turns out, hostile) environment of the mission school, the greeting ritual reorients Ned's world, however briefly, to the way it should be—it helps him and the other children remember who they are. However, it isn't long before the Navajo children lose "balance" again. The school's white staff tries to eliminate everything about the children that's specific to Navajo culture: "'Navajo is no good, of no use at all!' Principal O'Sullivan shouted at us every day. 'Only English will help you get ahead in this world!' […] It was no good to speak Navajo or be Navajo. Everything about us that was Indian had to be forgotten." Ned is taught that his very identity must be forgotten because it is allegedly useless to the larger world. Over his years in the mission school, Ned excels because of his thirst for learning and his compliant demeanor. However, the repressive atmosphere and unjust punishments take their toll on him, too. After being singled out for speaking just a word of Navajo, he remembers "how that dunce cap felt and how foolish I must have looked to everyone […] I was both sad and angry. Would the bilagáanaas [white people] never respect me because I was a Navajo? Did I really have to give up everything Navajo to succeed in the modern world?" Even though Ned has earned a tiny bit of respect through his academic gifts, he, too, has absorbed his white teachers' message that everything distinctly Navajo about him must be forgotten if he is to be considered valuable by the larger world. However, when the Pearl Harbor attack occurs, things begin to change for Ned. During World War II, Ned and other Navajos gain respect—both self-respect and outsiders' respect—for remembering rather than rejecting their Navajo identity. After America enters the war in the South Pacific, a call is put out for Navajos specifically. When Ned is accepted into the Marines, he learns that the Navajo language has been chosen for use in a top-secret mission: "Our job was to learn a new top-secret code based on the Navajo language. […] Using our code, we could send battlefield messages that no one but another Navajo code talker could understand." Because the Navajo language is so complex, non-native speakers have proven unable to gain proficiency in it, which makes it a perfect code language for use in war. What's more, the "code talkers" are totally reliant on their memories of their native language. Ironically, then, what white educators tried to stamp out of the Navajo people as children is now valued as a precious resource by the U.S. military. Where they had previously been forced to forget their sacred language as worthless, now Navajo speakers are not just encouraged, but depended upon, to remember it. Ned explains how code talking was a transformative experience for him: "I had grown up hearing only criticism and hard words from the bilagáanaas about our people. […] To hear what was now being said truly made the sun shine in my heart. The Navajos have proved to be excellent Marines, intelligent, industrious, easily taught to send and receive [coded messages] and excellent in the field. That is what the commanding general of the Sixth Marine Division put in his official report." In stark contrast to their childhood humiliations, Navajo marines are now praised and valued for doing precisely what they were once shamed for doing—remembering their language. Not only that, their language makes them uniquely suited for their wartime role, making Navajo marines sought-after not only for this skill, but for the other battlefield skills they've now had the chance to demonstrate. Ned concludes his story to his grandchildren by putting it into a larger perspective: "It is not just my story but a story of our people and of the strength that we gain from holding on to our language, from being Dine'. […] I also pray that you will fight to keep our language, to hold on to it with the same warrior spirit that our Indian people showed in that war. Let our language keep you strong and you will never forget what it is to be Navajo." In other words, he urges the children to remember their language by fighting for it as courageously as the "code talkers" used the language during combat. In doing this, future generations will remember not just the words of the language itself, but also the "story" and "strength" embedded therein—and in that way, they'll remember who they are. - Theme: The Navajo Way and the Life of the Warrior. Description: Throughout Code Talker, Ned Begay's story is interwoven with many aspects of what he simply calls "the Navajo Way"—basic survival skills, personal empathy, religious beliefs, and coping strategies that prepare him for Marine service, sustain him during World War II, and help him heal afterward. In fact, because of the physical strength, wisdom, and spiritual resilience Ned gains from the Navajo way of life, he is portrayed as an ideal American warrior. By portraying the Navajo Way as an integral part of Ned's warrior identity, Bruchac argues that Native American marines like Ned weren't excellent soldiers despite their cultural background, but precisely because of it. The skills, knowledge, and empathy that many Navajos possess make them natural marines. When Ned hears that not one of the first group of Navajo recruits washed out of basic training, he is "not surprised. Those things that […] a Marine recruit needed to learn were part of our everyday Navajo life back then. We were used to walking great distances over hard terrain while carrying things," sleeping in the open, and surviving on little food. In other words, unlike many other recruits, the Navajo recruits' previous way of life has prepared them for the military: they already possess some of the rigorous abilities needed in order to be successful marines. Knowledge gained from growing up in the desert helps the Navajo marines in unexpected and sometimes amusing ways, like during a training exercise on similar terrain: "Pretty soon the other Marines, including [Stormy] the lieutenant, were drinking from their canteens. But not us Navajos. […] We knew there was a lot of water inside a prickly pear [cactus]," which they secretly drink when nobody's looking. They jokingly convince the other marines that Navajos just don't need to drink water as often, privately delighted by the ways their upbringing has suited them for their role. However, other advantages are more solemn. Ned's Navajo history gives him a deep empathy and a sense of kinship with some of the oppressed indigenous people he meets in the South Pacific: "It was a familiar story to me [...] It made me feel I had much in common with [the Solomon islanders]. So I spoke more often to the islanders than most white Marines did." Through a wordless exchange with a chief named Gene-gene, Ned discovers that they cherish their sacred lands in a similar way: "He understood that the land of my own heart was there, far across the wide ocean. He placed his left hand on my chest and I did the same. We stood there like that for a while [...] It was one of the best conversations I ever had." Ned's empathy, grounded in his culture, gives him a deep sense of connection with some of the peoples on whose behalf he's fighting—implicitly one that white Marines don't necessarily share, and one that makes Ned a better warrior. Additionally, Navajo spiritual blessings equip Ned to be a strong marine for the duration of the war. Before shipping out to war, Ned undergoes a special blessing led by a revered Navajo singer: "Hosteen Mitchell took pollen from his pouch and used it to bless my body. […] I took five steps toward the dawn and stood there, feeling the warmth of the sun touching me. I reached into the pollen bag and took some out to scatter from north to south. […] With […] my spirit and my emotions in good balance, I was ready to begin my journey as a warrior for America." The blessing ceremony specifically restores "good balance" to Ned by connecting him to his home and people—and it's that very balance that equips him to be a successful American warrior. Not only that, the balance Ned receives during the blessing ceremony stays with him all throughout the war: "Each morning […] I took corn pollen from the pouch I always carried at my waist […] then lifted it up to the four sacred directions as I greeted the dawn. […] The blessing of that corn pollen helped keep me calm and balanced and safe." The daily corn pollen ritual keeps Ned connected to his home and family no matter where the war takes him, meaning that the balance of the Navajo Way is what continuously sustains him as he fights. Even after the war, the Navajo Way grants Ned resilience to cope with the traumatic fallout from his experiences in battle. When talking about how many soldiers turn to drinking in order to wipe out memories of combat, Ned reflects on an alternative way of coping: "What helped me through those times of uncertainty were thoughts of my home and family. […] Being a Navajo and keeping to our Navajo Way helped me survive not just the war, but all those times of quiet and anxious waiting that were not yet peace." Ned is just as affected by combat fatigue as his fellow marines, yet the corn pollen ritual, thoughts of the Navajo belief in the ancient, protective Holy People, and being grounded in his family give him resilience to deal with both combat and the traumatic memories it brings. As upsetting as combat memories can be, Ned also has good memories from the war: "I also hear clear voices when I remember that time. […] Navajo voices speaking strongly in our sacred language. Speaking over the concussions of the exploding shells […] above the deadly whirr of shrapnel[.] […] As the battle for Iwo Jima raged all around us, our voices held it together." Even amid the unforgettable horrors of battle, the enduring, resilient strength of the Navajo language—which was used to communicate critical coded messages during battle—resisted the chaos all around, helping the United States to prevail on Iwo Jima and eventually in the war overall. Back home after the war, Ned continues to cope with terrible memories, and once again his rootedness in the Navajo Way restores him: "I began to have awful nightmares. I woke up from seeing men die and hearing the sounds of their cries. […] But […] I had my family and our traditional ceremonies. I had the Holy People to help me. Finally, when it seemed I was about to go crazy, my family insisted that I have an Enemyway. […] [After this ceremony,] my balance [was] restored. I could go forward on a path of beauty." Thus, Ned's war experience is bookended by blessing ceremonies that keep him grounded in the Navajo Way, enabling him to move on from traumatic memories so that he can continue serving his family, his people, and his larger society in the future. - Theme: Culture and Patriotism. Description: As a Navajo person, Ned Begay's story is filled with an understated dignity and pride, both in his people's heritage and in their role within the United States. Because the Navajo people have suffered so much, often at the hands of the U.S. government, Ned feels a particular obligation to do what he can to improve the circumstances of his family and people. Yet that very devotion to his people, and his gratitude for what he's received from them, also compel him to fight for the U.S. in World War II. By embedding Ned's patriotism within a lifetime of grateful service to his own people, Bruchac suggests that Navajo soldiers' American patriotism emerged from their history and culture, rather than being at odds with it. Ned's childhood prepares him for a life of serving others. When Ned's uncle takes him to boarding school for the first time, his uncle explains that schooling isn't just for Ned, but for all his people: "You are not going to school for yourself. You are doing this for your family. To learn the ways of the bilagáanaa, the white people, is a good thing. […] We must be able to speak to them, tell them who we really are, reassure them that we will always be friends of the United States. That is why you must go to school not for yourself, but for your family, for our people, for our sacred land." From a young age, Ned learns that he must do difficult things for the sake of his people as a whole—even when doing those things takes him away from his loved ones and the environment that's most familiar to him. Even while excelling in school, Ned remains sensitive to the struggles of his peers and the ways in which he might serve his people's needs in the future. A lover of learning, Ned "read and studied and wrote, and my teachers noticed. I still didn't speak up much in class—that would have been calling attention to myself or embarrassing to the other students who did not do so well in their studies. […] Someday, I said to myself, I will become a teacher, one who does not just teach, but also shows respect to all his Indian students and expects the best of everyone." In other words, although Ned distinguishes himself academically, he does not allow himself to become cut off from his classmates' struggles and he seeks ways that his learning can someday serve others, not primarily himself. Ned's strong patriotism is linked to his love of his land and desire to serve his people. "Nihimá, 'Our Mother.' That is the Navajo word we chose to mean our country, this United States. It was a good name to use. When we Indians fought on those far-off islands, we always kept the thought in our minds that we were defending Our Mother, the sacred land that sustains us." Ned's and other Navajos' love for the United States is expressed in terms of their devotion to the land that's belonged to them since long before white settlers colonized the region. All his life, Ned carries in his wallet the words of a special resolution passed by the Navajo Tribal Council in 1940, before the United States had even declared war: "Whereas […] there exists no purer concentration of Americanism than among the First Americans […] we resolve that the Navajo Indians stand ready as they did in 1918, to aid and defend our government, and its institutions against all subversion and armed conflict and pledge our loyalty to the system which recognizes minority rights and a way of life that has placed us among the greatest people of our race." This statement is at once a strong assertion of his people's pride, an expression of national loyalty, and a recognition that America belongs to the Navajo people in a unique way, which makes them specially obligated to protect it. Ned's lifelong admiration for these words also shows that his sense of duty to his people, and thus to his nation, remains unwavering. Ned observes that the Navajo marines' eagerness to fight isn't diminished by the fact of the United States's cruelty to their ancestors; rather, those memories spur them to fight so that their people's land and way of life can continue in peace: "We Navajo Marines were tough and determined, perhaps even more so than most of the non-Indian Marines who later served by our sides. Why was this so? It may have been because we remembered the suffering and courage of our grandfathers who fought as warriors to protect our land and our people. We were not just fighting for the United States. We were going into battle for our Navajo people, our families, and our sacred land." Far from seeing their history as setting them at odds with their duties as U.S. citizens, Ned and his fellow Navajo marines draw on their people's warrior heritage to defend the United States—including hopes that their people will remain free and protected. The connection between culture and patriotism is summed up by Ned's happy memories of code talker training, when his Navajo language is employed to communicate important battlefield messages and is thus valued and celebrated by outsiders for the first time: "It was so good. It was good to have our language respected in this way. […] It was good that we could do something no one but another Navajo could do. Knowing our own language and culture could save the lives of Americans we had never met and help defeat enemies who wanted to destroy us." Ned's experiences as a code talker are good because, finally, he is free to use his language and culture on behalf of his country, rather than protecting them from it. - Theme: War, Healing, and Peace. Description: Though Ned Begay is unwaveringly committed to the U.S. effort in World War II from beginning to end, he never glorifies war. He describes the terrors of the battlefield, the loss of friends, and most of all, the traumatic aftereffects of war in soldiers' minds, which he believes can only be healed through an intentional effort to restore spiritual balance. As one example of the imbalance wrought by war, Ned describes his struggles to come to terms with the humanity of the Japanese enemy, who remain all but invisible to him except through their victims. By portraying Ned as a committed yet compassionate and spiritually sensitive warrior, Bruchac argues that war is never a good thing in itself, and that everyone—soldiers, victims, and civilians—must strive to heal from the wounds of war and ultimately to achieve peace. War itself, though necessary, throws the world—and the individual soldier—out of balance. Ned explains that during reprieves from combat, some Marines, including some Navajos, begin to drink heavily in order to forget what they experienced during combat. Sometimes this drinking continues long after the war, as dark memories persist in the veterans' minds: "Never think that war is a good thing, grandchildren. Though it may be necessary at times to defend our people, war is a sickness that must be cured. War is a time out of balance. When it is truly over, we must work to restore peace and sacred harmony once again." Ned means that war must not be glorified—just because it is sometimes necessary doesn't mean it is good. When war is over, people must actively seek balance again in order to heal. Periodically recalled to Hawaii for additional training, Ned gets a preview of the trauma that will linger after the war: "At times […] I felt as if the things around me were not real. It was too quiet and beautiful. There were no guns being fired, no shells exploding around me, no muddy foxholes […] I should have been happy, but instead it made me feel ill at ease." At such times, he says, he relives violent memories and worries about future battles. In other words, Ned sees that even outwardly beautiful, peaceful things are thrown out of balance by the trauma of war. War steals happiness and invades quiet times with painful memories and fearful anticipations. Ned's cultural memories also give him insight into the cruel aftermath of war: Some soldiers "had kept going forward until not just their bodies were worn out but their spirits. They hadn't been physically wounded, but now were unable to do anything. Some just stayed in bed and cried. […] Others just stared off into space. […] Navajos understood it well. Our ancestors saw what war does to human beings. When we must fight other humans, injure and kill them, we also injure a part of ourselves." Again, while sometimes unavoidable, war has consequences even for those who fight honorably. From his people's history of battle with oppressors, Ned recognizes that war causes emotional ailments as well as physical ones, which can only be healed after an intentional process of restoring the spirit. Such spiritual "injury" manifests itself in imbalanced relationships with other human beings, making it difficult to remember enemies' humanity. From the beginning, Ned struggles to humanize his enemies. Because so much of the Japanese defense is waged from hidden foxholes and caves, Ned experiences the eeriness of seldom laying eyes on a physical enemy: "As I drifted off to a fitful, exhausted sleep […] I thought about what was the strangest thing of all that first day of combat. All that fighting had happened without seeing even one Japanese soldier." In this sense, the Japanese people remain a mystery to Ned and his fellow soldiers for much of the war. However, Ned quickly learns to distinguish between the Japanese military and civilians, who have often been placed in a cruel position. He is grieved when a friend describes the situation on Saipan: "The Japanese women and children ran from the Marines in terror. They'd been told that Americans were devils who would kill and torture them. […] They climbed to the tops of cliffs and threw their children off before hurling themselves onto the rocks below. Hundreds jumped from the cliffs […] before our shocked Marines could reach them. There were tears in Wilfred's eyes as he remembered it." Ned shares his friend's compassion, recognizing that the Japanese people themselves cannot all be viewed as the enemy. After describing how the Japanese mistreated the Chamorros (natives of Guam who were U.S. citizens and refused to cooperate with the occupiers), Ned reflects that "for a long time even after the war, it was hard for me to have any good thoughts about the Japanese. What troubled me the most was the way they treated the native people of the islands they conquered. […] Never forget, grandchildren, that we must always see all other people as human beings, worthy of respect. We must never forget, as the Japanese forgot, that all life is holy." As happens elsewhere in the story, Ned's own experiences of being treated in dehumanizing ways by a majority culture make him especially compassionate to other mistreated minorities. He recognizes that such mistreatment stems from a failure to recognize others' humanity. At the same time, he acknowledges that his anger at such mistreatment inclines him to forget the humanity of the Japanese, too—even their lives must be regarded as "holy." Ned himself finds healing by immersing himself in his community after the war. He fulfills his dream of becoming a teacher and he works for educational reform on the Navajo reservation. Finally, telling this story of being a code talker (a marine who used a top-secret Navajo code to send messages during battle) is itself an expression of restoring balance to the world—the code talkers' mission had remained classified for decades, but now Ned can speak freely of the realities of war, thereby encouraging others to pursue peace. - Climax: The announcement of the Japanese surrender and the end of the war - Summary: Ned Begay tells his grandchildren about a special medal he owns. The medal commemorates Navajo Marines' special service in World War II. For many years, Ned was not allowed to speak about his role in the war. He was a code talker—a big story that will take a while to explain. He starts at the beginning. When Ned is six years old, he says goodbye to his family and journeys to the mission school in Gallup, New Mexico with his uncle. Ned's uncle explains that Ned has to attend "the white man's" school for his family's sake. Historically, the Navajo people have been persecuted by the American government. Ned's uncle explains that, by attending boarding school, Ned and other Navajo children will have the opportunity to communicate better with white American society. Upon arriving at boarding school, Ned and his classmates are forced to speak only English, their long hair is cut off, their traditional clothing and jewelry are confiscated, and they are given new names. Ned gets his mouth washed out with soap when he accidentally speaks Navajo, and other children receive even harsher punishments. However, rather than becoming depressed, Ned is resilient, helped by his natural love of learning. He does well in his classes, and he continues speaking Navajo and learning about his culture when the teachers aren't around. He even earns the chance to attend a better high school. However, Ned's culture is denigrated there, too, and he doubts that Navajos will ever be respected by white people. Then, in 1941, the Japanese military attacks Pearl Harbor. Not long after the United States declares war, a call for Navajo recruits circulates on the reservation. Bilingual Navajos are wanted for a mysterious special duty. Ned is eager to join up, but his parents ask him to wait for one year, since he is only 15 at the time. Meanwhile, 29 men are recruited to form the first all-Navajo Marine platoon. After a few months, one of those men, Johnny Manuelito, returns to the reservation to recruit and train a new group of men. After hearing Johnny speak, Ned can wait no longer. His parents grant him permission to enlist, on the condition that he undergo a Blessingway, a protection ceremony, which is conducted by Hosteen Mitchell, a well-respected Navajo singer. Like the other Navajo recruits, Ned thrives in boot camp because many of the physical demands are familiar to him from his family's rural, agricultural life. After Ned's platoon graduates from boot camp with highest honors, they finally learn their secret mission—to become code talkers. They will learn a top-secret Navajo-based code language in order to transmit crucial messages on the battlefield. Code school is a happy experience for Ned and his fellow Navajo recruits; besides getting to help the U.S.'s war effort, for most of the men, it's the first time their language and culture have been respected and celebrated by outsiders. After further training and field maneuvers on Hawaii and Guadalcanal, Ned and his fellow marines make their first landing on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, giving Ned his first taste of combat and code transmissions in the field. The code talkers prove themselves so effectively on Bougainville that the Marine commanders unanimously call for more Navajo code talkers, to Ned's joy. After Bougainville, Ned participates in the landing on Guam, in the Marianas Islands, including fierce hand-to-hand fighting. He is devastated by the suffering endured by Guam's native people under the Japanese occupation. Ned receives a bullet wound in the shoulder while fighting on Guam and spends some weeks recovering on a hospital ship. While there, he sees many men suffering from battle fatigue, something that his Navajo history helps him understand. Ned participates in the invasion and brutal battle of Iwo Jima in the early part of 1945. Though most of the images of this battle are too terrible to recall, Ned remembers the strong voices of the Navajos, unfailingly transmitting messages through the chaos and helping secure the Allied victory. He also tells his grandchildren the story of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi, which was immortalized in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo and involved Ned's Pima Indian acquaintance Ira Hayes. Ned also fights through the devastating battle on Okinawa, and then he must pass along the news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death. After the atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ending the war, Ned returns to San Francisco for debriefing with other code talkers. On his way home, in contrast to his warm reception in San Francisco, he is rudely kicked out of a whites-only bar on the edge of the Navajo reservation. This hardens Ned's resolve to fight for his people after the war, too, by promoting Navajo history, culture, and education. And he proceeds to do just that, although he must first heal from the spiritual wounds of battle, with the help of his family and Hosteen Mitchell's Enemyway ceremony. In 1969, the code talkers' story is declassified, and Ned is finally allowed to speak of it to his family. Sharing his story is more precious to him than the accolades he and his fellow code talkers receive from the White House. He hopes that by passing his story down to his grandchildren, they, too, will be encouraged to treasure their Navajo heritage and fight for it with a "warrior spirit."

- Genre: Historical novel, romance, "two-plot" novel - Title: Cold Mountain - Point of view: Point of View:Mostly third-person limited. The novel alternates between the points of view of Ada and Inman, the two protagonists - Setting: Setting:The American South, 1860s - Character: Inman. Description: One of the two protagonists of Cold Mountain, Inman is a young Southern soldier who's hospitalized after sustaining heavy injuries in the Civil War. Inman, a lifelong resident of the town of Black Cove, decides to walk all the way back home in order to reunite with his love, Ada Monroe, and his journey home takes up the bulk of the novel. Throughout the book, Inman is tempted to give up on his quest—tempted with offers of sex, companionship, food, and money. But on each occasion, Inman proves his resolve by continuing on the road home, even when he's shot and nearly killed. Inman suffers from the trauma of war, and throughout the book has vivid nightmares and flashbacks to his time at Petersburg and Fredericksburg. In a way, his greatest challenge is moving past this trauma, rather than moving back to Black Cove. In the end, it seems that Inman is ready to put aside his past and start a new life with Ada—a life that's tragically cut short when Inman is murdered by disgruntled Southern soldiers. - Character: Ada Monroe. Description: The other main character of Cold Mountain, Ada is a wealthy, somewhat spoiled young woman who must learn how to take care of herself following the devastation of the Civil War. When Ada's father, Monroe, moves from Charleston to Black Cove, Ada catches the eye of the young, handsome Inman, and the two develop a warm, if repressed, romance—one that's cut short by the beginning of the war. After her father dies, Ada is on the verge of giving up all hope and starving to death. But with the help of Ruby Thewes, Ada learns how to farm, plow, sew, etc. Throughout the book, Ada—like Inman—has flashbacks to her time before the war, and seems to have a deep attraction to Inman. In the absence of "high culture," Ada learns how to live simply, practically, and peacefully. Upon Inman's return, Ada tries to bring him into the new life she's built for herself in Black Cove, and she's heartbroken when he's killed. Even so, she continues with her duties as a farmer, moving from day to day instead of dwelling on the tragedies of the past. - Character: Monroe. Description: The father of Ada Monroe, a talented, charismatic preacher. Monroe seems to be a kindly, if overbearing father, and for many years he is the only man in Ada's life. While our knowledge of Monroe is strangely limited—he's available to us only in flashbacks—we learn that he tried to court Ada's mother, Claire Dechutes, for many years before he finally succeeded in marrying her. Monroe's death marks the true beginning of Ada's story in the novel—in the absence of Monroe, Ada must take care of herself. - Character: Ruby Thewes. Description: Ruby Thewes is Ada Monroe's opposite in almost every way: she has a poor relationship with her father, Stobrod Thewes; she's been taking care of herself since she was a little girl; she's fiercely independent, etc. After the destruction of the Civil War, it is Ruby's way of living, not Ada's, that perseveres in Black Cove. As a result, Ada depends on Ruby to learn how to farm and plow—without Ruby, Ada would starve to death. In part, Ruby agrees to help Ada because she's getting a great deal: she gets half a farm for herself. But as time goes on, it becomes clear that Ruby is Ada's friend and loyal ally. In the novel's Epilogue, we learn that Ruby is still living with Ada ten years later, and has three children with Reid. - Character: The Georgia boy / Reid. Description: A young man who joins forces with Pangle and Stobrod Thewes after deserting the Confederate army. Reid is mercifully absent when the Home Guard attacks Stobrod and Pangle, so that he's able to alert Ada Monroe and Ruby Thewes to the danger. In the end, we learn that Reid marries Ruby and has three children with her. - Character: Stobrod Thewes. Description: The bumbling, ne'er-do-well father of Ruby Thewes, Stobrod is one of the novel's most complex characters—he's both comic and deeply serious, likable and despicable. As a younger man, Stobrod was a poor father—he never hit Ruby, but neither did he take care of her. After the beginning of the Civil War, Stobrod went off to fight, leaving Ruby to fend for herself. Halfway through the war, Stobrod deserted and returned to Black Cove, where he finds Ruby living with Ada Monroe. In spite of Stobrod's poor parenting, it's suggested that he's beginning to redeem himself by playing the fiddle—something he does with jaw-dropping artistry and craft. As Ada acknowledges, Stobrod's example proves that any man can change, provided they have the will to do so. - Character: Solomon Veasey. Description: A dimwitted, immoral priest whom Inman meets while Veasey is literally dragging a young woman (Laura) through the road. Solomon has authority in his community because he's a "man of God," but he squanders this authority by betraying his priestly vows of chastity and having sex with Laura. As a result, he's chased out of town. Alone in the world, Solomon joins with Inman, much to Inman's annoyance. While Solomon (much like Stobrod Thewes) is a despicable character in many ways, his desire to start a new life is rather poignant—and so his death at the hands of the Home Guard is still tragic in its own way. - Character: Sara. Description: An 18-year-old woman who shelters and feeds Inman during his quest back to Black Cove. Sara is lonely—her husband, Jonathan, is dead, and she has no one to help her take care of her infant child. As a result, Sara is eager to rely on Inman for warmth and companionship—late at night, she convinces Inman to lie in bed beside her, without touching her or saying anything. - Character: The Old Woman. Description: The old woman takes care of Inman after he's wounded by the Home Guard. She's calm, knowledgeable, and seemingly completely comfortable living in solitude. Yet she engages Inman in conversation when he stays with her, suggesting that she still craves some human contact, despite her protestations to the contrary. The old woman gives Inman powerful medicines that help him recover quickly and return to his quest to return to Black Cove with new enthusiasm. As such, Inman's return would be impossible without the old woman's help. - Character: Teague. Description: The informal leader of the Home Guard, Teague is arguably the primary antagonist of the novel. While the supposed purpose of the Home Guard is to discourage military deserters and strengthen the Confederate forces, it becomes clear over time that (in the novel at least) the Home Guard is made up of cowards too frightened of the war to serve in battle themselves—and Teague is no exception. We also come to see that Teague—far from being an honorable Confederate soldier—is an unabashed sadist who enjoys toying with his victims before arresting or killing them. It's interesting to note that there are almost no good, loyal Confederate soldiers in Cold Mountain: the soldiers tend to be either deserters like Inman or bullies like Teague. - Character: Claire Dechutes. Description: The mother of Ada Monroe and the wife of Monroe. Claire Dechutes is a beautiful young woman, and Monroe tries and fails to woo her for many years. All the information about Claire is presented to us as a memory layered within a flashback, but in this roundabout way we're told that Claire eventually marries Monroe after a short, unhappy marriage to another man. Claire dies giving birth to Ada. - Character: Junior. Description: Junior is arguably the most unambiguously evil character in the novel—a two-faced hypocrite and possible cannibal who sells out Inman and Solomon Veasey to the Home Guard, breaking the unwritten rules of hospitality in the process. While our knowledge of Junior is limited, we know that he married a white woman, Lila, who bore him half-black children, suggesting that she took another lover. In addition to Junior's evident racism and domestic abuse, it's suggested that he eats human beings whom he murders. There's no hint of a redeeming quality in Junior, and it's hard to muster much sympathy when Inman takes his revenge on him. - Character: Odell. Description: An old peddler who claims to have once been a wealthy man in Georgia. Odell tells Inman that he fell in love with Lucinda, a slave, and then went off to fight in the Civil War. Odell has no idea what became of Lucinda, or whether his fortune in Georgia is intact. - Theme: War, Memory, and Trauma. Description: It's both correct and incorrect to describe Cold Mountain as a "Civil War novel." The book is set in the United States during the mid-1860s, when the Civil War between the Northern and the Southern states was still underway. (See Background Info for more on this topic.) And yet the Civil War itself—the bloodshed, the political battle to secede from the Union, the military strategies—is almost entirely absent from this book (when there's a battle, for instance, it's always presented in flashback). So even though this is a novel about the Civil War, Frazier prefers to write about the war by studying its impact on individual people; i.e., the literal and emotional wounds it causes.By presenting the actual events of the Civil War mostly in flashback, Cold Mountain makes an important point: the destruction of the war was psychological as well as literal. Inman, the protagonist of the book, is a former soldier on the Southern side. At the beginning of the novel, Inman is in the hospital with a nasty neck wound, the product of his service in battle. But although Inman's neck wound eventually heals, the trauma he's sustained in battle only gets more vivid with time. He has vivid nightmares about the deaths of his friends and peers during the war, and feels a tremendous amount of guilt at having killed enemy soldiers. Even Ada Monroe, the novel's other protagonist, feels the trauma of the Civil War, despite the fact that she's never set foot on a battlefield. The war drags Inman, Ada's lover, away from her, leaving Ada to a lonely, uncertain future. Furthermore, the things that people usually turn to in times of crisis, such as family or religion, are nowhere to be found: the only priests or parents in the book are corrupt, absent, or dead.If the devastation of the Civil War is largely psychological, the overarching question posed by Cold Mountain is, "How do the survivors of a war move on with their lives?" While there's definitely not an easy answer to this question, the book suggests that the only way to conquer one's traumatic memories of the past is to look ahead to the future. At first, Ada is living a stagnant life; alone on her father's farm, she has no future. It's only after Ada begins to set herself definitive goals—maintaining her property, most of all—that she begins to recover from some of her psychological scars. By the same token, Inman's journey to return to Ada could be interpreted as a kind of "therapy" for his experiences in the Civil War: he can either look ahead to a new future with Ada, or settle for a lifetime of nightmares. The harsh truth, which Ada realizes toward the end of Cold Mountain, is that there's nothing inevitable about the healing process—it takes tremendous willpower to get over one's trauma. Inman and Ada begin to move on with their lives because they want to move on, and work hard at it every day. As we can imagine, other veterans of war aren't so lucky. The ultimate tragedy of Cold Mountain is that willpower and the desire to look ahead to the future aren't always enough. The war's impact may be largely psychological, but it's not only psychological: in the final chapters of the novel, Inman is murdered by members of the Home Guard (a vestige of the Southern army), who want to punish Inman for desertion. We arrive at the depressing conclusion that tragedy is unpredictable and basically uncontrollable. Even so, we see in the novel's Epilogue that Ada hasn't let Inman's death weigh her down with further traumas; instead, she continues to work on her farm and care for the child she had with Inman, looking ahead to each new day of work. Optimism and willpower aren't always powerful enough to restore peace and order to one's life, but they're still important. - Theme: Isolation, Survival, and Community. Description: One of the greatest tragedies of the Civil War was that it tore entire communities apart. The men who were old enough to serve in battle left their families behind, while the women were faced with the unenviable task of surviving by themselves in lonely, empty households. The two protagonists of Cold Mountain, Ada Monroe and Inman, face many different kinds of isolation. In general, it's fair to say that the novel is interested in two different kinds of challenges posed by isolation: first, the literal, practical challenges of surviving on one's own; and second, the more abstract, psychological challenges of loneliness.As far as the first challenge goes, Cold Mountain keeps coming back to the same point: it's difficult, if not impossible, to survive on one's own. On the contrary, survival—eating, keeping warm, caring for one's wounds—requires people to cooperate with one another. As the novel begins, Ada Monroe is slowly dying of starvation. She's been trained her entire life to study books and music, meaning that she has almost no knowledge of how to maintain a thriving farm. It's not until Ruby Thewes, a capable, well-trained farmer, offers Ada help that Ada begins to survive: she has to learn how to pull a plow, plant seeds, and so on. In much the same way, Inman only succeeds in returning to Cold Mountain because people offer him help (above all, food and lodgings—see Hospitality theme) along the way home. Even when Inman makes it back to Cold Mountain, he's on the verge of starvation: if not for the help of people like the Old Woman, who cares for his wounds, or Sara, who feeds him and hides him from the Home Guard, Inman would never have made it home alive.One interesting question we might ask is why Ruby offers Ada her help, assuming that Ruby is so capable of taking care of herself. While it's certainly true that Ruby is getting a great deal by teaming up with Ada (she gets half a farm to herself), Frazier also suggests that Ruby befriends Ada because she needs human companionship as well as nourishment and shelter. This leads us to the second main challenge of isolation: the psychological toll of loneliness. During Inman's journey back to his home, many people offer him food and shelter—and one reason they do so is that they're lonely, and angling for some human contact. Even the Old Woman, who boasts that she doesn't get lonely at all, peppers Inman with questions about his experience in battle, his love for Ada, etc.—no matter what she claims, it's clear enough that she needs company, the same as everyone else in the novel.In the end, Cold Mountain shows us that community is the cornerstone of the human experience. In two different senses, it's fair to say that no man is an island: no one can truly provide for themselves and survive without some kind of assistance, and no one can live a fulfilling life without craving some kind of interpersonal contact. Because this is the case, human beings need a community, based on cooperation between people. As the novel draws to a close, we see the fledgling community that Ruby, Ada, Stobrod Thewes (Ruby's father), and Reid (a friend of Stobrod's) have built for themselves on Ada's farm, a powerful reminder that in the midst of a dangerous and divisive war like the Civil War, community becomes more important than ever. - Theme: The Quest to Return Home. Description: In interviews, Charles Frazier has acknowledged Cold Mountain's debt to Homer's Odyssey, one of the foundational works of Western literature (see Background Info for more on this work). Unsurprisingly, Frazier's novel touches on one of the oldest themes in the Western canon (and the key theme of the Odyssey): the quest to return home. Inman, the novel's main character, spends most of the book trying to walk back to his hometown of Black Cove, where the love of his life, Ada Monroe, still lives. It's worth thinking about why and how Inman goes about his quest.The first question we need to think about is why Inman wants to return to his home so badly—why walk hundreds of miles, risking his life? This is an especially tough question to answer, since Inman himself never explicitly states his reason for wanting to go home. It's easy to surmise that Inman is afraid of being sent back into battle as soon as he recovers from his wounds. And yet Inman's reason for wanting to return to Black Cove, specifically, is a little different. Black Cove is Inman's home—he's lived there all his life. One reason that Inman loves Black Cove is that, as far as he can tell, it never changes: Cold Mountain (the mountain near Black Cove) will always be Cold Mountain. In the midst of a terrifying, traumatic war, Inman wants to return to Black Cove to remind himself of who he was before. He wants to forget about the Civil War and carry on with his life, uninterrupted. But there's also another reason why Inman wants to return: he wants to move forward with his relationship with Ada Monroe, whom he'd been in love with before he was shipped off to battle. The key point here is that Inman's quest to return to Black Cove is intimately personal. With every step he takes toward his home, Inman reminds us, and reminds himself, of his identity: his lifelong connection to the town, and his passionate love for Ada. Even if we can't exactly understand Inman's connection to Black Cove itself, we can all understand his desire to go home, and in this way, Inman's quest for home makes him a sympathetic and believable character.One interesting feature of quest narratives, beginning with the Odyssey (and extending through Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness, and even Apocalypse Now) is their episodic structure. In Cold Mountain, Inman's encounters along the road to Black Cove have an episodic, self-contained quality. The characters he meets along the way often disappear from the novel after one or two chapters; i.e., after Inman moves on with his quest (notable exceptions include Teague, the leader of the Home Guard, and Solomon Veasey, the priest). The "thread" connecting these brief, chapter-long encounters together is Inman himself. This quality of the novel suggests all kinds of interesting questions, most notably, "How do the 'episodes' challenge or change Inman?" As the novel goes on, it becomes clear that Inman's encounters with strangers along the road back to Black Cove test his commitment to his quest. With every life-threatening encounter, Inman's devotion to Ada becomes more impressive—it's easy to imagine a weaker man giving up on the quest entirely. By the time we get to the end of the book, then, Inman's "episodes" have had an undeniable impact on his character: they've made him strong, mature, and even heroic. - Theme: Romance, Sexuality, and Repression. Description: In addition to being a novel about war, trauma, and survival, Cold Mountain is also about the romance between its two main characters, Inman and Ada Monroe. Inman and Ada live in a time when it's difficult, if not impossible, to speak openly about sex and sexuality. As a result, they're both extremely sexually inexperienced, and more or less completely ignorant of the anatomy of the opposite sex. Keeping this in mind, it's worth thinking about the nature of Ada and Inman's mutual attraction in more detail, especially since Inman walks hundreds of miles to be with Ada. And how does Frazier, a writer from a far more sexually liberated time, depict love and sexuality in the 19th century?As the novel begins, sex is a mystery—sometimes enticing, sometimes frightening. The society of the 19th century forbids frank discussions of sexual desire and tries to repress free and open sexuality at all times. In particular, women are encouraged to hide their beauty from men: they wear heavy dresses, dark blouses, and tight corsets that render the female body strange and unknowable. By the same token, the sexual acts that we learn about at the beginning of Cold Mountain seem bizarre, forbidden, and frequently disgusting: the priest Solomon Veasey impregnates a girl, and a father, Junior, sleeps with dozens of married women. These misdeeds reveal individual characters' neuroses, but also reflect (and are in some ways caused by) the era's limited, repressed understanding of sexuality. When society presents all sexual desire as dangerous and scary, it's more likely that one's sexuality will emerge in unhealthy ways.As the novel moves on, sex and sexuality gradually become less frightening and abusive: instead of a man assaulting a woman for his own pleasure, we see men and women making love and falling in love out of mutual desire. On his way home, Inman strikes up a brief romance with Sara, a woman who desires him as much as he desires her. Sara, whose husband, Jonathan, has died, wants Inman's emotional companionship, and his physical presence in her life—even if it consists of nothing more than his lying in bed next to Sara—is a vital part of that. With these episodic encounters, Cold Mountain paves the way for what is by far the most passionate (and mutual) relationship in the novel, the romance between Ada and Inman. It's not until Ada and Inman have sex that they feel truly comfortable with each other. Only after their lovemaking do they open up about their traumatic pasts, their secrets, and their dreams of the future. In this way, the novel puts forward a very un-19th century message: sex is an important, natural aspect of the love between two adults, as well as an important part of maturity.On one level, Cold Mountain is a novel about the destruction of American antebellum culture following the Civil War, one important part of which was the repression of women and of sexuality. The characters find themselves in a strange new world in which sexuality is no longer so guarded and forbidden. While some of these characters treat the collapse of society as an invitation to engage in sexual perversions—rape, incest—the two protagonists, Ada and Inman, find a way to love one another without the sexual repression they've experienced their entire lives. - Theme: Hospitality and Quid Pro Quo. Description: Because Cold Mountain is a quest story like the Odyssey, its "episodes" keep coming back to the same scenario: a host offering hospitality to a weary traveler. Most of the time, the weary traveler is Inman, stopping for the night along the road back to Black Cove. But at other times, the traveler is passing by Ada Monroe and Ruby Thewes's farm in Black Cove, and the situation is more or less the same: Ada and Ruby provide him with food and shelter for a few nights. The theme of hospitality is important to Cold Mountain because it links together the two halves of the novel. Whether we're reading about Inman traveling along the road or Ada and Ruby on their farm in Black Cove, there's an unwritten code of hospitality in the characters' world.The main rule of hospitality in Cold Mountain is that there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's always a quid pro quo (an exchange, literally "something for something") when a host offers to take care of a traveler for the night. The host will give the traveler food and shelter, but the traveler needs to provide something in return. Sometimes, the "something" is a literal object—for instance, Inman offers the mysterious Junior an expensive saw in return for food and a bed for the night. But most of the time, the traveler's payment is less literal. Stobrod Thewes "pays" for his housing in Black Cove by playing beautiful fiddle music for Ruby Thewes, his daughter, and Ada Monroe. A lot of the time, the payment is information, or emotional companionship—when Inman shacks up with Sara, for instance, he simultaneously accepts Sara's generosity and repays his debt by offering her some desperately needed male companionship. Even the Old Woman who cares for Inman's wounds wants something from Inman—news of the outside world.In times of war, the quid pro quo of hospitality is an important, almost sacred rule of many societies. This means that to break the rules of hospitality is almost a sin. Sure enough, the most repellant characters in the novel, such as Junior, are the same characters who violate their end of the code of hospitality—Junior gives Inman food and shelter, but then betrays Inman to the soldiers of the Home Guard, who nearly kill Inman. Not coincidentally, Junior is also one of the few characters in Cold Mountain who's portrayed as unambiguously evil—he's an adulterer, and also possibly a cannibal.At several points in Cold Mountain, the characters discuss the unreliability of money during the Civil War. But while money changes its value over time, the basic rules of hospitality stay intact and universally acknowledged (so that the few characters who break the rules are portrayed as evil). In a way, hospitality is the "currency" of the novel—the one thing that stays the same, in an era when everything else is in flux. - Climax: Climax:Inman's reunion with Ada - Summary: In the final months of the Civil War, we're introduced to two characters: Inman, a Confederate soldier who's been hospitalized after fighting in Petersburg and Fredericksburg, and Ada Monroe, a beautiful young woman who's living alone on a huge farm following the death of her father, Monroe. Ada and Inman both live in the town of Black Cove, which is overlooked by Cold Mountain. The novel cuts back and forth between the two protagonists, as Inman tries to return to Black Cove and Ada tries to survive there. Inman slowly regains strength and then proceeds to leave the hospital, albeit with a large neck wound. He's haunted by nightmares about his time in battle, and he's so powerfully attracted to Ada that he wants to see her again as soon as possible. As he slowly walks home, he remembers seeing Ada for the first time in her father's church. On the road, Inman gets in a fight with three men who demand to know where he's headed. Inman fends off the men, but they chase him to a river and shoot holes in the boat he's taking to the opposite side. Inman also fears that he'll be attacked by the Home Guard, a group of Confederate soldiers who have the right to arrest and kill deserters—which Inman technically is. Ada and her beloved father lived in Charleston for most of Ada's life, but when Ada was a teenager, they moved to Black Cove so that Monroe could be a preacher. Ada was trained for a docile life of reading and music, so now that Monroe is dead (and she's still unmarried), she's slowly starving to death. Her fortunes change when her neighbors, Sally Swanger and Esco Swanger, send a young woman named Ruby Thewes to live with Ada. Ruby is a talented farmer and a diligent worker, and she and Ada agree to live like equals, taking care of the land. Ada is amazed by how hard she's forced to work to survive. Inman crosses paths with a strange priest named Solomon Veasey, who's carrying a young woman whom he's impregnated. Inman forces Veasey to return the young woman, whose name is Laura, to her home. Afterwards, Inman spends a night with a group of roaming gypsies, and steals food from a group of beautiful women who are bathing in the river. Soon after, Inman crosses paths with Veasey yet again. Veasey continues walking in the same direction as Inman, reasoning that he'll be killed if he sticks around any longer. During this time, Inman remembers his early experiences with Ada, such as resting his head in her lap at a Christmas party four years earlier. Inman and Veasey come to a brothel, where Veasey tries and fails to have sex with a black prostitute named Tildy. Veasey and Inman also meet an old peddler named Odell, who claims to own a vast fortune in Georgia—one that he'll probably never be able to claim for himself. As time goes on, Ada and Ruby become close friends. Ada learns that Ruby is the daughter of a ne'er-do-well named Stobrod Thewes. Stobrod abandoned Ruby when she was still a child, so she's been taking care of herself for almost as long as she can remember. Ada tells Ruby about her own childhood: her mother, Claire Dechutes, turned Monroe down the first time he proposed to her, but changed her mind several years later. Later, she died giving birth to Ada. In town, Ruby and Ada meet a captive who tells them that he was arrested and tortured by the Home Guard, which is headed by a man named Teague. Although the captive served in the war, he tried to desert halfway through, and was punished for his "crime." Inman and Veasey meet a man named Junior, who's trying to move a dead bull out of a riverbed. After helping Junior with his task, they join Junior for dinner. In Junior's home, Inman realizes that Junior is an abusive husband and father, and he may be serving his guests human flesh to eat. Inman meets one of Junior's children, a half-black girl named Lula, and Junior's (white) wife Lila. Lila gets Inman drunk and Inman is tempted to have sex with her. Suddenly, Junior bursts in and points a gun at Inman: he's lured Inman and Veasey into his home so that he could arrest them and turn them over to the Home Guard. Drunkenly, Junior forces Veasey to marry Inman to Lila; afterwards, the Home Guard shows up and marches Inman and Veasey into the forest. The horsemen of the Home Guard shoot both Inman and Veasey. Veasey dies of his wounds, but Inman miraculously survives. He crawls back to the road and eventually gains the strength to walk. Inman sneaks back to Junior's house for revenge. There, he reclaims the possessions he left there, including a rifle and money. He uses the butt of the rifle to beat Junior over the head, and then walks back to the road. Back in Black Cove, Ada remembers one of her final meetings with Inman, just before he went off to fight. Inman, who was quiet and introspective, told Ada a long story about the lost city of Kanuga, which used to be a Native American community. One day, long ago, a stranger came to Kanuga and told the people that he came from the land of Shining Rocks. The stranger advised the people of Kanuga to journey to the Shining Rocks—but he also suggested that very soon, they'd be conquered by a dangerous enemy. The people decided to take the stranger's cryptic advice, and they traveled to the Shining Rocks, where they found a bright cave. Confused, the people returned home, where they were quickly conquered. Ada had no idea what this story meant. She said something flippant and then said goodbye to Inman, but soon regretted her words. She saw Inman one more time before he left, and gave him a passionate kiss. Inman comes to an Old Woman, who takes Inman into her home and treats his wounds. The woman gives Inman food and lets him rest until he's feeling much healthier. Afterwards, Inman stays with a young woman named Sara, who's lost her husband, Jonathan. Late at night, Sara is ambushed by Union soldiers, who threaten to kill her baby. Inman hunts down the soldiers and kills them, returning what they stole from Sara. In Black Cove, Stobrod Thewes, now a military deserter, returns to Ruby and asks Ada and Ruby to take him in. He plays the fiddle for them, very beautifully, and Ada, feeling sympathetic, allows him to stay with them. Later, Stobrod brings a deserter friend, nicknamed Pangle, and another, Reid, to stay with Ruby and Ada. Ruby is resentful of Stobrod's presence, but agrees to let the guests stay. Shortly afterwards, Stobrod and Pangle are attacked by the Home Guard in the mountains. The Guardsmen kill Pangle and wound Stobrod. Reid, who was just out of sight when the Home Guardsmen attacked, tells Ada and Ruby what's happened. The trio goes into the mountains, where they find Stobrod, still barely alive. Ada and Ruby take care of Stobrod, trying to nurse him back to health so that they can carry him down to Black Cove. Inman draws closer and closer to Cold Mountain, and imagines what his reunion with Ada will be like. When he's back on Cold Mountain, he's amazed to meet Ada there, as she's caring for Stobrod. At first, Ada doesn't recognize Inman, but when she does she embraces him and takes him back to Stobrod and Ruby. Inman and Ada make passionate love and share stories of their time apart. Ada and Inman agree that to keep Inman safe, he should journey north, surrender to the Federals, and wait for the war to end. Inman and Stobrod—who's been nursed back to health—head north while Ruby and Ada return to Black Cove. But while they're still in the woods, the Home Guardsmen attack Inman and Stobrod. While Stobrod succeeds in running off, Inman attacks the Guardsmen, succeeding in killing three of them. The remaining Guardsman runs away from Inman, and Inman chases after him. Inman corners his enemy in the forest, where he realizes that the horseman is just a teenaged boy. The boy shoots Inman and runs off. By the time Ruby and Ada hear the gunshots and run to find Inman, Inman is dead. In an Epilogue, set in 1874, we see that Ruby and Ada's fledgling community is still thriving: Ruby and Ada do the farming, and Stobrod makes the music. Ruby has married Reid, and has three children. Ada has lost Inman, but she has a nine-year-old child, presumably the product of her encounter with Inman just before Inman's death. Ada spends her days caring for her child and calmly attending to the tasks of life on a farm.

- Genre: Realism - Title: Counterparts - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Dublin, Ireland - Character: Farrington. Description: Farrington is the protagonist of the story and Mr. Alleyne's employee. He works in a legal office as a copy clerk, meaning he copies legal contracts by hand (in Ireland in the early 1900s, typewritten documents weren't considered official or legally binding, so contracts had to be handwritten by a clerk). Even though he clearly has his faults—like spending all of his money on alcohol or taking out his pent-up anger on his son Tom—Farrington is constantly emasculated and insulted throughout the story, especially at the hands of his boss, making him a somewhat sympathetic, even comic, character. However, as the story unfolds, Farrington shifts from a hapless office drone who simply detests the monotony of his job to a man who is deeply troubled in many other aspects of life. He is progressively exposed as a fantasist, imagining himself attractive to women in the street while Joyce continually draws the reader's attention to Farrington's drink-sodden ugliness (his moustache is flecked with saliva and beer, his face is "wine-dark," and he moves around "heavily"). He also clearly has a problem with alcohol, as he plans his days around drinking and even pawns his watch so that he has money to spend at the pub. By the time he arm-wrestles with an English man named Weathers, it is clear that Farrington is a man who is drunken, frustrated, and angry—not just a bored man working a tedious job. Besides underscoring Farrington's deep discontent in life, the arm-wrestling scene also paints Farrington as the embodiment of Ireland who is being repeatedly squashed—and downright humiliated—by Great Britain (Ireland didn't declare independence until 1919, 14 years after Joyce originally penned "Counterparts"). The final part of the story, when Farrington beats his son Tom for seemingly no reason, drives home the intense frustration, anger, and despair boiling up inside of Farrington. Unable to adequately take his anger out on his oppressors, Farrington lets his discontent fester and infect every inch of his life. - Character: Mr. Alleyne. Description: Mr. Alleyne is Farrington's boss at the legal office and the story's antagonist. He is from Northern Ireland, which means that he has a highly distinctive accent, something that Farrington has mocked in the past. At this time in Irish history, the ruling class came mostly from the North, a detail that suggests the power imbalance between Farrington and his employer is not coincidental, but is arguably symbolic of the power imbalance between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Because of his explicit origins in the North, it is possible to argue that Alleyne is a symbol of colonial authority. Throughout the first half of the story, Mr. Alleyne continually berates Farrington for not completing his work, which the latter resents. If Alleyne is symbolic of the authority of the Northern Irish, Farrington's resentment and indignity might be seen as the resentment and indignity of the colonially oppressed. The fact that Farrington endangers his job when he openly defies Mr. Alleyne by mocking him with a slight quip shows how difficult it is to act against such authority, because even after he has been insubordinate, he still needs Mr. Alleyne's money to pay for his drinks later in the evening. Farrington therefore thinks that by answering back he has defied authority and been victorious (this is how he tells the story later to his friends), but in reality he is still reliant on Mr. Alleyne, a situation which highlights the difference between harsh reality and Farrington's fantasy. - Character: Weathers. Description: Weathers is the English "artiste" performing at a local theater. Although he is a showman, which was not thought of as a masculine or noble profession at the time, he beats Farrington—twice—in an arm-wrestling match, deepening Farrington's already prodound sense of indignity. Like Mr. Alleyne, Weathers can be interpreted through the lens of Ireland's disgrace and indignity in the face of colonial oppression. Weathers, an Englishman, defeats the Irishman Farrington in a contest that one character explicitly describes as one of "national pride." Thus, Farrington's defeat in test of sheer strength is therefore symbolically linked to Ireland's subjugation by an unworthy colonial master, Great Britain. Furthermore, Weathers is portrayed as a man who likes having drinks bought for him without buying any in return, and he laughs at this "Irish hospitality"—a moment that perhaps gestures to the British colonizers taking advantage of the Irish. - Character: Tom. Description: Tom is one of Farrington's children, and he is portrayed as a scared and innocent young child. Joyce portrays him as an abandoned boy, with his mother away at church and his father out drinking. The savage treatment of the young and innocent Tom at the end of the story—when Farrington beats him for seemingly no reason—is essential to story's sudden and awful shift in tone, and the darkening of the story's portrayal of Farrington. - Theme: Resentment, Anger, and Indignity. Description: James Joyce's "Counterparts" follows a hapless legal clerk names Farrington, who comes to resent the (perceived or real) injustices inflicted upon him. He is, at least in his mind, bullied and hounded by his boss, Mr. Alleyne, into copying a monotonous contract. He is ignored by a woman in a pub on whom he has his eye. He is beaten in an arm-wrestling match by an English "artiste" named Weathers, whom he considers beneath him in both strength and appearance. To top it all, he spends all of his money on alcohol and has a night of dreadful humiliation and disappointment. While Farrington is in some ways the cause of his own troubles—choosing, for instance, to spend all of his money on alcohol—Joyce highlights that there is a deeper force driving Farrington's anger, and that's indignity. Farrington feels emasculated and insulted by everyone around him, which Joyce uses to highlight how Ireland has been emasculated and insulted at the hands of the British. Joyce suggests that the root cause of Farrington's resentment is the indignity he suffers in just about every area of his life, but this indignity is especially pronounced in his workplace. The story begins with an almost comic set-up: an unhappy employee berated by an irate boss. Anger is everywhere from the first line, as a bell rings "furiously" and the "furious" voice of Mr. Alleyne calls out for Farrington. After receiving a severe scolding the first time, a "spasm of rage gripped [Farrington's] throat for a few moments and then pass[es], leaving after it a sharp sensation of thirst," and after his final argument with Mr. Alleyne, Farrington "long[s] to execrate aloud, to bring his fist down on something violently. His body ached to do something […] The barometer of his emotional nature was set for a spell of riot." By the end of the story, this emphasis on violence and drink as an escape from indignity will come to have chilling significance, as Farrington resorts to beating his own son, allowing the indignity he experiences at work to seep into his private family life. Things aren't much better for Farrington outside of the office, either, as he is repeatedly feels emasculated by people around him—whether or not they're an authority figure. On one such occasion, after he is ignored by a woman in the pub, Farrington's heart is "full of smoldering anger and revengefulness. He felt humiliated and discontented and when he thought of the woman in the big hat who had brushed his side and said Pardon! his fury nearly choked him." To many readers, Farrington's indignity may seem wholly misplaced, as his entitlement comes across as crude and arrogant. However, given Farrington's time and place—steeped in sexism and rigid gender roles—this interaction would have read as an inferior (the woman) snubbing a superior (the man). It's also significant that Farrington is snubbed in a pub, which in early 20th-century Dublin was a distinctively male space. So not only does Farrington experience indignity at the hands of his boss, a clear authority figure, he's also humiliated by someone whom society dictates is below him, and in a space where he's supposed to have power and influence. At times, Farrington's resentment and anger show him as an embittered and cruel man. However, Joyce also uses Farrington—and the indignity he experiences—to illustrate the shame that Ireland experiences at the hands of Great Britain. Even the characters' names hint at this: it's fitting that Farrington is a Saxon-Celtic name native to the British Isles, while Alleyne is derived from French-Norman, since in much of British literature people who are powerful or upper class often have French-Norman names, while lower-class characters tend to have more Saxon-like names. Joyce is here echoing that tradition, highlighting that there is a hidden but steep power imbalance between the native Farrington and foreign Alleyne. The fact that Alleyne speaks with a "North of Ireland" accent is significant, too, because during the British control of Ireland, they allowed mainly Northern Irish people—who were mostly Protestants whose families were originally from Britain—in positions of power. Once again, Joyce is suggesting that in some ways Farrington's resentment towards his boss is mirrored in the resentment of the Irish more broadly towards Britain. Joyce's overarching point about Ireland's emasculation at the hands of the British is reinforced by the way the two explicitly English characters—Weathers and the lady in the pub—humiliate Farrington. Farrington participates in an arm-wrestling match with the Englishman Weathers to "defend the national honor." It is as though the match is a symbolic tussle between Great Britain and Ireland, and in losing the match and being so disgraced, Farrington's shame embodies Ireland's shame. Likewise, the woman whom Farrington feels has ignored and humiliated him speaks with an emphatically "London" English accent. Given these details, it's reasonable to view her as a stand-in for the haughty British who disrespect and subjugate the Irish. These subtle references to Great Britain peppered throughout the story thus link Farrington's specific anger with a broader sense of national disgrace and honor. Though Farrington's anger and resentment often bleed out in ugly ways—such as when he horrifically beats his son Tom at the end of the story—Joyce paints a more nuanced picture of the man, suggesting that he is weary and beaten down, just like Ireland itself. - Theme: Fantasy, Reality, and Escapism. Description: In "Counterparts," Joyce depicts Farrington, the story's protagonist, as an escapist and a fantasist. From the story's start, Farrington longs to go the pub instead of working in his office. His mind keeps wandering away from his desk (at one point he even physically leaves the office to have a quick pint), and he fantasizes about how happy alcohol, the pub, and gossiping with his friends will make him. And when he makes a witty but professionally ruinous retort to his boss, Mr. Alleyne, he imagines himself much braver and funnier than he actually is, escaping reality through his daydreams. The rest of the story consists of a series of disappointments from losing an arm-wrestling match, to being ignored by a well-dressed lady, to wasting his money on drink after drink, all of which highlight how bleak and depressing Farrington's existence is and how desperately he longs to escape it. Through Farrington, Joyce emphasizes how escapism—be it through drinking, storytelling, or fantasizing—is only a temporary balm for pain and is ultimately unproductive or even outright harmful. And it's not just Farrington who has this penchant for escapism—Joyce also subtly hints that Farrington is the embodiment of stereotypical Irish traits, such as "blarney" (flattery), fantasizing, and gossip, all of which are ways Irishmen avoid the reality of their colonial situation. At the beginning of the story, Farrington spins his argument with Alleyne into a fantasy wherein Farrington appears far more clever and bold than he actually is. And while this fantasy certainly bolsters Farrington's self-esteem in the moment, it does nothing to alleviate the tensions between the two men or make Farrington better at his job, thus highlighting how escapism doesn't actually get at the root problem. Right off the bat, there is an obvious irony between what actually happens to Farrington and how he describes it to his friends. Joyce describes how, as "[Farrington] walked along he preconsidered the terms in which he would narrate the incident to his friends: 'so I just looked at him—coolly, yer know—and looked at her.'" The fact that Farrington rehearses the story and changes the facts demonstrates that his conception of himself is much higher than it actually is, and that he wants other people to think highly of him too. Farrington's actual retort and the way he narrates how he retorted to Alleyne are very similar, but the difference lies in their tone, emphasis, and embellishment. To his friends, Farrington relates how he responded "very coolly," with a marked theatricality ("taking my time, as you know"), which contrasts with how Joyce relates the scene: before Farrington could even think, he had uttered the witticism, which duly "astounded" him because it unconsciously came out. It seems clear that Farrington wants to think that he has gotten the upper hand in the situation, but actually all that's happened is that he's uttered an unpremeditated quip which likely costs him his livelihood. In other words, Farrington's embellished retelling does nothing to smooth things over with his boss, making it ultimately unproductive. Joyce shows how alcohol can be used a way to escape reality, too, and how drinking can impart an inflated sense of achievement and self-confidence. This is especially important in the context of the story, since heavy drinking is stereotypically associated with the Irish. One method Joyce uses to emphasize the distance between Farrington's rather expansive conception of himself (a sense inflated by alcohol) and the sad reality is to dwell on how physically repulsive he is. Just after receiving a roar of laughter from his friends, who applaud his supposed wit in the face of Alleyne's accusations, Farrington "look[s] at the crowd with heavy dirty eyes, smiling and at times drawing forth stray drops of liquor from his moustache with the aid of his lower lip." By drawing out attention immediately to such physical detail Joyce is drawing readers away from what Farrington is saying about himself towards how he looks—those looks being reminders of just how distant his proud self-conception is from the reality. Joyce combines three quintessential Irish stereotypes in Farrington: the fantasist, the storyteller, and the drinker. By depicting Farrington as stereotypically Irish in his love of gossip, fantasy, and drinking, Joyce is critiquing his nation's inability to face up to its reality as a belittled colony of the British Empire. "Counterparts" is filled with subtle references to colonial subjugation, revealing Joyce's deeper purpose in penning the story. Farrington's long, slow humiliation by Alleyne began when he was overheard mocking Alleyne's "North of Ireland" accent—which is significant, because the Irish ruling class all come from the North and are largely British by descent. It is thus Farrington's theatricality that sets Alleyne initially against him. The ability to tell a story, relate a joke, and to mimic and gossip are all proverbial Irish traits, and Farrington's gift of "blarney" would have been quite recognizably Irish, especially to the first readers of Dubliners. Indeed, "blarney," the "gift of the gab" as it is sometimes called, was something that many Irish people took great pride in and thought it gave them intellectual superiority over their dull-witted English masters. Joyce is here exposing that as an illusion. Perhaps Farrington's most amiable features are his love of comradeship and his delight in storytelling. Likewise, his love of drinking might not necessarily be regarded as the most appalling of vices, and there are certainly comic elements of the story which complicate its status as a warning against the dangers of escapism, drink, and self-delusion. However, the shocking and sudden shift in tone during the latter part of the story—when Farrington's misery and fury come to the fore and he beats his son Tom—suggests that reality is not something that can be avoided or escaped from, no matter how innocent the intention of doing so. In the context of Joyce's critique of Ireland and "Irishness" throughout Dubliners, Farrington's plight suggests that Ireland must look at itself as it really is and stop escaping into the romance of fantasy. - Theme: Masculinity. Description: Throughout the story, Farrington engages in activities typically associated with a pronounced, stereotypical masculinity: drinking and getting drunk, fighting (in this case, arm-wrestling), showing off, and flirting. However, all of Farrington's efforts are exposed to eventual ridicule. Throughout "Counterparts," Joyce criticizes traditional masculinity by showing how it imposes an ethic of humiliation or victory and of mastery or defeat, making it a primary source of Farrington's anger and resentment. In the end, subscribing to this particular form of masculinity fails to make Farrington a better father, employee, suitor, or friend, raising the question of what Farrington—or anyone else, for that matter—has to gain from aligning himself with this kind of macho and performative masculinity. As the story comes to a close with a heartbreaking scene in which Farrington beats his own son, Joyce seems to imply that all that comes from this kind of stereotypical masculinity is pain. So many of the masculine relationships in the story are defined by mastery and defeat or humiliation and victory, from Farrington's relationship to his boss, Mr. Alleyne, to his arm-wrestling match with Weathers, and even to the relationship he has with his son Tom. Farrington's relationship with Mr. Alleyne has, before the story, been poisoned by Alleyne overhearing Farrington make fun of his accent. At this perceived humiliation, Farrington suspects that Mr. Alleyne has launched a campaign of persecution against him. Joyce indeed suggests that Mr. Alleyne wants to humiliate Farrington, since he deliberately tells him off in front of Miss Delacour—his attractive female client—and the entire office. Farrington's feeling of triumph over Mr. Alleyne is also telling, since it shows that the primary way their relationship, so skewed by power, can give him satisfaction is by the thrill of humiliation, despite him having to offer an "abject apology" in order to keep his job. Farrington feels humiliated in his job, because he is so powerless, and it is only by humiliating others that he feels powerful—and he is quite certain that this story of humiliation will greatly amuse his friends at the pub. Likewise, when Farrington arm-wrestles with Weathers later in the story, he is ostensibly engaging in a bit of harmless play, but the game is indeed underpinned by the traditional masculine dynamic of humiliation and victory. The pressure of maintaining "honor" and the genuine humiliation of two defeats are too much for Farrington, and when he explodes with rage, readers can see that even behind these seemingly playful masculine games there lies the necessity of humiliation. It's clear, then, that Joyce is not critiquing men themselves, but rather the toxic codes of behavior which define relations between men as based on dominance and humiliation. By aligning himself with this toxic brand of performative masculinity, Farrington only causes more pain and suffering both in his life and in others'. After being humiliated, Farrington wants to commit violence—"he long[s] […] to bring his fist down on something violently"—which reads as a stereotypical male response to enduring humiliation. In other words, after being humiliated and defeated, he longs to humiliate and defeat someone else to make himself feel victorious rather than beaten down. Perversely, the object of this pent-up violent rage at the end of the story is his innocent son Tom. Through the story's painful end—with Tom crying out to his father to stop hurting him—Joyce underscores how damaging this yo-yo of violent masculinity and humiliation can be. - Climax: Farrington beats his son for not leaving the stove on. - Summary: The story opens at the end of a workday in Dublin. Farrington, a clerk, longs to leave work and go drinking with his friends, but he must copy out a long and tedious contract before he can go. To make matters worse, his boss has a vendetta against him because he overheard Farrington mimic his "North of Ireland" accent. The boss, Alleyne, calls Farrington into his office and berates him for being so slow to complete the copying; he threatens to report his ineffectiveness if he fails to complete it by the end of the day. Angry and impatient, Farrington decides to sneak out of the office and have a quick drink before attempting to finish the project. He slinks off to a local pub, quickly drinks a small beer and whiskey, and returns to the office. On returning, the chief clerk asks Farrington to take the material to Alleyne's office immediately, which he does, even though Farrington knows it to be incomplete—he hopes Alleyne won't notice and he'll be able to leave and enjoy his night. Farrington returns to his desk and falls into a reverie of hot pubs and plentiful drink, unable to concentrate on his work, increasingly frustrated by how slowly the time is going by. He hopes against hope that he might be able to convince Alleyne to give him his paycheck early. Meanwhile, Alleyne himself has noticed that Farrington's work is incomplete; he marches to the clerk's desk with the glamorous Miss Delacour and berates Farrington furiously for his laziness. Farrington replies to this barrage with a withering witticism, much to Miss Delacour's amusement and Alleyne's fury. Farrington is forced to apologize to Alleyne for his comment, though he dreads the inevitable consequences in the coming days. He is now more determined than ever to get drunk, even though he hasn't managed to get his paycheck and is completely without money. He resorts to pawning his watch and heads to the pub. There, he meets his friends Nosey Flynn, O'Halloran, and Paddy Leonard and regales them of his tale of answering back to Alleyne, embellishing the details to emphasize his wit and sense of triumph. Another friend joins, and he repeats the story, all the while drinking beer and whiskey. They move on the next pub, where Farrington is introduced to Weathers, a performer at a local theater. Farrington buys him several drinks, becoming increasingly angry that he Weathers doesn't return the offer. The party then moves on to a third pub, where Farrington catches the eye of a well-dressed woman at another table. He tries to flirt with her with his gaze from across the room, but she eventually gets up and walks past him. Incensed and spurned, Farrington is then goaded to compete in an arm-wrestling match with Weathers. He loses not once, but twice. The party disperse and Farrington heads home to Shelbourne Street, a lower-middle-class area in southern Dublin. When he gets home, the house quiet and dark. There is no wife to greet him, and his dinner is unmade. He calls for his wife, but is answered by his son Tom, who tells him that she's at church. Farrington orders his son to prepare the dinner on the stove, but when he realizes that the stove-fire has been left to go out, his anger boils over and he grabs the boy to beat him. Tom pleads pitifully with his father not to hurt him, and promises to say Hail Marys for him.

- Genre: Novel, Social Satire - Title: Crazy Rich Asians - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Primarily Singapore, though characters also visit Malaysia, Indonesia, Paris, and several American cities - Character: Rachel Chu. Description: - Character: Nicholas Young. Description: - Character: Eleanor Young. Description: - Character: Kerry Chu. Description: - Character: Ah Ma/Su Yi. Description: - Character: Astrid Leong. Description: - Character: Michael Teo. Description: - Character: Amanda "Mandy" Ling. Description: - Character: Francesca Shaw. Description: - Character: Kitty Pong. Description: - Character: Annabel Lee. Description: - Character: Colin Khoo. Description: - Character: Goh Peik Lin. Description: - Character: Harry Leong. Description: - Character: Alexandra Cheng. Description: - Character: Dr. Malcolm Cheng. Description: - Character: Eddie Cheng. Description: - Character: Alistair Cheng. Description: - Character: Fiona Tung. Description: - Character: Philip Young. Description: - Character: Rosemary T'sien. Description: - Character: Oliver T'sien. Description: - Character: Dr. James Young. Description: - Character: Charlie Wu. Description: - Character: Bernard Tai. Description: - Character: Carol Tai. Description: - Character: Zhou Fang Min. Description: - Character: Kao Wei. Description: - Character: Fang Min's Mother. Description: - Character: Stephen Chia. Description: - Character: Goh Wye Mun. Description: - Character: Dr. Gu. Description: - Character: Mehmet. Description: - Theme: Wealth and Absurdity. Description: - Theme: Marriage and Money. Description: - Theme: Family vs. Individuality. Description: - Theme: Chinese vs. Western Culture. Description: - Climax: Eleanor and Ah Ma ruin Nick's plan to propose to Rachel and reveal that Rachel's father, whom she believes is dead, is alive and in prison. - Summary: Rachel and Nick are in their favorite New York tea house when Nick invites Rachel to join him in Singapore this summer for his best friend's wedding. Rachel is excited to meet Nick's family, and she also wonders if this means he's thinking about marriage. Unbeknownst to Nick and Rachel, a girl in the cafe recognizes Nick and overhears this conversation. She texts her sister and before long, nearly all of upper-class Singapore knows that Nicholas Young, Singapore's most eligible bachelor, is bringing a girl home. Though Nick's cousin, Astrid, encourages Nick to prepare Rachel for the trip, Nick believes Rachel will fit in perfectly and that his family will love her. However, when Nick's mother Eleanor finds out Nick is bringing his longtime girlfriend whom she didn't know existed to the wedding, she's angry and concerned. It's comforting when Nick's second cousin Cassandra, a gossip who's aptly nicknamed Radio One Asia, informs Eleanor that Rachel is part of the new-money Taipei Plastics Chu family. But the private investigator Eleanor hires reveals this is false: Rachel is from Mainland China and her mom, Kerry, is divorced, so Rachel is a "peasant." So, with the help of her girlfriends Nadine, Daisy, Carol, and Lorena, Eleanor decides to go to Shenzhen for the first few days Rachel is in Singapore. Lorena has a contact there with more info on Rachel, and this way the women can shop and snub Rachel. Rachel is surprised and delighted when she and Nick fly first class to Singapore. Nick's best friend, Colin, and his fiancée Araminta meet them at the airport and take them out for dinner at a hawker center. The next day, Rachel visits her college friend Peik Lin Goh at Peik Lin's parents' mansion, and Rachel reveals that she's going to Colin Khoo and Araminta Lee's wedding. Peik Lin's family is shocked: theirs is the wedding of the season. This raises questions about who Nick is, questions that become even more pressing when Nick asks Peik Lin to drop Rachel off at Ah Ma's house for Friday night family dinner later. The house, Tyersall Park, isn't a house: it's a mansion nestled on dozens of acres, and it must be worth a fortune. Peik Lin observes that Nick's family are "richer than God." The dinner is fun, if overwhelming. Rachel meets Ah Ma (who invites Nick to come stay at Tyersall Park with Rachel instead of the hotel where they're currently staying) and spends time with another cousin, Oliver. Oliver warns Rachel that there are forces conspiring against her—namely, Eleanor and every young, single woman in Asia who'd like to marry Nick themselves. Though Rachel is concerned, after this, that she'll never fit into Nick's ultrawealthy circle, he insists she's doing great and that everyone loves her. The next day, in Shenzhen, Eleanor learns damning information about Rachel and begins to conspire with two of Nick's former love interests, Nadine's daughter Francesca and Mandy Ling, to run Rachel off. Rachel, meanwhile, attends Araminta's bachelorette weekend at an island resort that Araminta's mom, Annabel Lee, owns. There, almost all the girls treat her terribly, and someone puts a mutilated fish in her bag and writes a threatening message in fish blood on her mirror. At the same time, Colin and his groomsmen are at a bachelor weekend that Bernard Tai planned—and Colin, Nick, and their closest friends aren't enjoying the sex workers, gambling, and dog fights. Nick finally whisks Colin away to Australia for a relaxing weekend. Not wanting to worry Nick, Rachel doesn't mention the abuse she suffered at the bachelorette weekend. She accompanies Nick to his parents' apartment, expecting an intimate family dinner—but Eleanor has invited all her friends, Francesca, and Astrid. Over dinner, Francesca implies that she put the fish in Rachel's bag. The following night, Rachel and Nick attend a party that Harry Leong, Astrid's father, is throwing for Colin. Eleanor expects her family to be horrendous to Rachel—but when Nick's cousin Alistair shows up with his girlfriend Kitty Pong, a soap opera star with fake breasts and a dress that exposes her nipples, and announces they're engaged, Nick's aunts hastily engage Rachel in conversation. The next day, Peik Lin takes Rachel shopping for appropriate clothes to wear to the wedding tomorrow. Rachel sits with Oliver and the rest of the Young clan at the wedding—and to many onlookers' surprise, the family allows Kitty to sit with them, too. Astrid and Ah Ma shock people when they arrive together, as Ah Ma doesn't go to people's events. Astrid convinced her grandmother to come to try to deflect attention away from herself: her husband, Michael, is having an affair and wants a divorce, so he's not here. Ashamed, Astrid doesn't want to answer any questions. During the wedding, Nick realizes he wants to marry Rachel. He whisks Rachel away during the reception to show her one of his favorite childhood haunts, but Mandy and her boyfriend show up to join them. There, Mandy reveals that she and Nick shared their first kiss here. That night, Fiona, who's married to Nick's tyrannical cousin Eddie, insists that Rachel borrow a sapphire necklace to spite Eddie. Eleanor is enraged when she sees Rachel wearing the necklace at the wedding dinner, as she knows the necklace came from Ah Ma—and Aunt Victoria lies to Eleanor that Ah Ma gave Rachel the necklace directly. Near the end of the evening, Francesca reveals to Rachel that she, Mandy, and Nick had a threesome as teenagers. Once the party is over and Nick and Rachel return to Tyersall Park, Rachel breaks down and tells Nick about the abuse she's been suffering. Nick feels terrible and suggests they go away tomorrow. Early the next morning, Nick goes to his parents' flat and tells Eleanor he's going to ask Rachel to marry him. She's upset and insists Rachel is too poor, but Nick doesn't listen. He and Rachel spend the day driving and enjoying tourist attractions along the way to Ah Ma's summer lodge in Malaysia, where Nick plans to propose at sunset. But when they get there, Eleanor and Ah Ma are there—and Eleanor presents Rachel with the information her private investigator turned up. Rachel's father, Zhou Fang Min, is alive, not dead like Rachel thought; and he's in prison for causing a deadly construction accident. Kerry kidnapped Rachel and took her to the U.S. as a baby. Thus, Eleanor and Ah Ma conclude, Nick can't marry Rachel. Rachel faints. After breaking up with Nick and refusing to see him, Rachel spends the next week languishing in the Gohs' guest room. She calls Kerry and screams at her mom for lying to her about her father, and she and Peik Lin make plans to visit him in a Chinese prison. But just as Rachel and Peik Lin are preparing to leave, Nick drives up with Kerry. Kerry insists she and Rachel must talk; Rachel cannot go to China. In the library, Kerry tells Rachel how she and Fang Min married when Kerry was still a teenager living in rural China. Kerry thought she was escaping her provincial village life, but Fang Min's mother was cruel to her, and Fang Min soon began to abuse her. However, Kerry fell in love with a young man, Kao Wei, who protected her from Fang Min's drunken rages—and Kao Wei is Rachel's real father. When Rachel was born, Fang Min's mother planned to blind her so that Kerry could legally have another child (hopefully a son), and Kao Wei helped Kerry and Rachel escape the Zhous so they could in turn leave China for the U.S. Now that Kerry and Rachel have made up, they decide to go out for drinks with Peik Lin and Nick. At one of Singapore's most touristy rooftop bars, Rachel thanks Nick for bringing her mom here, and they share a kiss.

- Genre: Psychological realism - Title: Crime and Punishment - Point of view: Third-person omniscient - Setting: St. Petersburg, Russia; 1860s - Character: Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. Description: The novel's protagonist, Raskolnikov murders Lizaveta and the old woman and spends the rest of the book coming to terms with his crime and with the touches of madness that follow. It is never clear exactly why Raskolnikov has committed this crime—he does not even keep the things he has stolen from the old woman—but he has earlier developed a theory of criminality that distinguishes between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" individuals. Specifically, the latter are permitted to "overstep" some of society's rules in order to create new laws. Raskolnikov is also the character at the center of the novel's many relationships: his friend Razumikhin, sister Dunya, and mother Pulcheria, all try to support him; and Porfiry the investigator and Svidrigailov the libertine oppose him. - Character: Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov. Description: Raskolnikov's mother, Pulcheria writes to him early in the novel to inform him of Dunya's engagement to Luzhin. Pulcheria loves Raskolnikov dearly and fears for his health when she meets with him in Petersburg. She dies at the end of the novel without fully knowing what her son has done, though she guesses it is something horrible. - Character: Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov. Description: A drunk and former government official, Marmeladov is later killed when run over by a wagon. His widow Katerina attempts to support their family on a very small amount of money. Marmeladov represents the endpoint of a total desire for intoxication—an inability to manage in life without the influence of alcohol. - Character: Sonya Semyonovna Marmeladov. Description: Marmeladov's child from his first marriage, Sonya becomes a prostitute after Katerina complains that she does nothing to help the family financially. She also reads the story of Lazarus to Raskolnikov on his request. Sonya later becomes Raskolnikov's confidante—the first person to whom he confesses his crime—and travels with him to Siberia, where she pledges to be with him forever. - Character: Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov. Description: One of Raskolnikov's two antagonists, Svidrigailov is a womanizer and libertine who was once married to Marfa, and who has been linked to crimes in the past. He courts Dunya, who refuses him, and when he later tries to elope with her she refuses once more, with finality. Svidrigailov is so broken by this that he shoots himself in the head. - Character: Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin. Description: Raskolnikov's closest and perhaps only friend, Razumikhin becomes an adoptive son to Pulcheria and a husband to Dunya. As Raskolnikov pulls away from the family, Razumikhin grows ever closer. He is a foil to Raskolnikov: a student who is similarly impoverished but who manages to live without committing a crime and without tipping into insanity. - Character: Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin. Description: Dunya's suitor, Luzhin is a petty government official who believes that women make for better wives when they are monetarily indebted to their husbands. Luzhin is later chased away by Dunya, who is insulted by his desire for power. Luzhin then attempts to blame Sonya for stealing; it is revealed, however, that Luzhin has in fact planted the money on Sonya in order to appear generous in forgiving her publically. - Character: Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov. Description: Luzhin's roommate in Petersburg, Lebezyatnikov is a representative of the "new liberal ideas," which include broader, less formal definitions of marriage and equality for women. Lebezyatnikov sees that Luzhin has placed a 100-rouble note on Sonya without her knowledge, and tells the assembled group that Luzhin has lied in order to make himself look good. - Character: Nikolai and Mitka (the painters). Description: The two painters get in a fight in the second-floor apartment during the murder, allowing Raskolnikov to hide and later escape. Nikolai is suspected of murdering the old woman and Lizaveta, for a time, because he attempted to pawn an item dropped by Raskolnikov during his escape. Nikolai confesses falsely to the murder, under apparent coercion, but his lie is discovered by Porfiry. - Character: "The Man from Under the Ground" ("the tradesman"). Description: A man who sees Raskolnikov after Raskolnikov has inquired about the blood in the old woman's apartment, this man follows Raskolnikov and calls him a murderer. He reports this information, too, to Porfiry, but later apologizes to Raskolnikov when Nikolai confesses—the tradesman believes, incorrectly, that he has falsely accused Raskolnikov. - Theme: Criminality, Morality, and Guilt. Description: Criminality, morality, and guilt are central preoccupations of Dostoevsky's. Raskolnikov commits the great crime of the novel: he robs and murders the pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta, an innocent bystander. Raskolnikov must come to terms with his feeling, or lack of feeling, of remorse for the act, and his motive is never fully resolved. He argues that the pawnbroker did no good for society and therefore her death is of no consequence; he also admits, later, to not understanding why he has killed. The remainder of the novel charts Raskolnikov's interactions with friends, family, and police representatives. His friend Razumikhin, sister Dunya, and mother Pulcheria suspect Raskolnikov's guilt only after many days; others, like Porfiry Petrovich, the investigator, and Zamyotov, a law clerk, take early note of Raskolnikov's strange behavior and obsession with the murders. It is revealed that, as a law student, Raskolnikov has written a magazine article claiming that "extraordinary" individuals might "overstep" the law—commit crimes—in order to create new laws and a new social order. He cites Napoleon and Muhammad as great "oversteppers." Raskolnikov comes to recognize that, although he has acted believing himself to be an extraordinary individual, his remorse and subsequent mental instability prove he is ordinary after all. This, more than anything, convinces him to confess his guilt to the authorities. He is sentenced to eight years' hard labor in Siberia, where Sonya joins him.Other characters, too, have brushes with criminality and immorality. Sonya lives as a prostitute, and her father Marmeladov is a terrible drunk who cannot maintain a job. His wife Katerina beats her children, and Svidrigailov, who attempted to seduce Dunya in the provinces, continues with his womanizing in Petersburg, and is rumored to have poisoned his wife Marfa after an argument. Svidrigailov later commits suicide. Thus, even as Raskolnikov attempts his moral rehabilitation in Siberia, Petersburg remains a city of crime and temptation. - Theme: Madness and Intoxication. Description: What does it mean "to be in one's right mind"? Raskolnikov is presented, from the beginning, as a character on the brink of mental collapse. He talks to himself in public, lies in bed all day in his small apartment, and barely eats. He walks aimlessly around Petersburg, and he often does not remember where he goes or what he does. Razumikhin, Pulcheria, and Dunya fear for Raskolnikov's mental state, eroded not only by his poverty but, later, by his guilt and paranoia over the murder. Many other characters are also touched by mental illness or drunkenness. Marmeladov's alcoholism prevents him from holding down a job and supporting his family. He is eventually crushed under a wagon. Katerina, his wife, succumbs to madness prompted by her grief over her husband's death and the weight of their family's poverty. Razumikhin is a notable drinker who first arranges for Pulcheria's and Dunya's comfort in Petersburg while deeply intoxicated. Svidrigailov is so broken by Dunya's unwillingness to elope with him that he decides to kill himself. Pulcheria's grief over Raskolnikov's condition and exile drives her illness and death. Her grief, like Katerina's, is essentially indistinguishable from madness. Although questions of madness and sanity dominate the novel, Raskolnikov never admits that his crime was caused by temporary insanity—although this, more or less, is the verdict rendered after his confession. Raskolnikov cannot find any one reason for killing the two women. Indeed, it becomes clear that his madness derives more from the crime than it does prompt the crime. - Theme: Coincidence and Free Will. Description: The novel is rife with coincidence. Do events happen "just because," "by accident"? Or are people beginning to suspect Raskolnikov of the murders? The occurrence and recurrence of events in the text develops a complex argument on the nature of free will, or the extent to which humans determine the course of their lives. Raskolnikov asks himself repeatedly whether he ever consciously chose to kill the two women. And Dostoevsky's language, with its insistence on "automatic" or "mechanical" action, makes it appear that Raskolnikov and other characters do not determine their own fates. Nearly every character in the novel has a brush with coincidence or free will. The murder itself is defined by a coincidence. If there were no painters working on the second floor, Raskolnikov would not have been able to escape via their diversion (the painters get into an unrelated argument just after the murder). Raskolnikov runs into Marmeladov in a tavern, although Raskolnikov rarely drinks or visits bars. Marmeladov is later killed by a wagon while Raskolnikov is out walking. Sonya, Marmeladov's daughter, later becomes Raskolnikov's friend and confidante. Svidrigailov, husband to the wealthy Marfa, is Dunya's employer; Svidrigailov nearly seduces Dunya, blames her for "seducing" him, and has her fired. Svidrigailov later turns up in Petersburg and, sitting behind a wall in his apartment, adjacent to Sonya's, he overhears Raskolnikov's admission of guilt. Coincidence has two purposes in the text. First, paranoiacs tend to spot "coincidence" in chance events and derive causation from them: to Raskolnikov all events seem to point to others noticing his guilt. By placing coincidences throughout the text, Dostoevsky increase the novel's dramatic pressure and mimics the constriction of Raskolnikov's mental state. Second, novels themselves are exercises in coincidence and free will. Dostoevsky never provides a single, clear motive for Raskolnikov's murders, which both makes the murders seem more real—more plausible as mistake-riddled human activities—and resists an easy "moral" at the novel's end. For Dostoevsky, novels must represent all the messiness of life: its coincidences, false starts, and blind alleys. - Theme: Money and Poverty. Description: Raskolnikov's financial situation at the start of the novel is dire. He has been forced to suspend his law studies because he cannot afford tuition. He barely eats and lives in a miniscule apartment; his clothes are rags. Yet he cares little for money. When he does receive it he often gives it away: to help a young drunk woman, or, later, to pay Katerina for Marmeladov's funeral. Other characters either have significant troubles with money or come into large amounts. Pulcheria and Dunya live in strained circumstances in the provinces; Pulcheria gets by on the dregs of a small pension, bequeathed by Raskolnikov's father. Marmeladov has almost no money, leaving his wife Katerina and children to manage with next to nothing. Svidrigailov inherits a good deal from his wife after her (suspicious) death. He offers Dunya an enormous amount if she will marry him, but ends up giving away much of his money before killing himself. Luzhin, who wishes to marry Dunya, is a self-made clerk who feels that an impoverished woman makes a more dependable, more devoted wife.Yet Raskolnikov's poverty, though it aggravates his mental condition, is not the true cause of the murders, nor does it seem strictly to motivate any of the plots' marriages or other intrigues. Much of the money in the novel is either given away or inherited—very few male characters (Razumikhin is a notable exception) work for their money, and female characters tend to be forced into degrading circumstances in order to get by. Raskolnikov learns, after his conviction, that the pawnbroker had a good deal less money than he had hoped initially. But he never actively worked to claim this money, and the prosecutors take this as evidence of Raskolnikov's mental instability. It turns out that the labor camp, for Raskolnikov, actually represents a general betterment of his material circumstances. His rehabilitation will come through a spiritual and ethical rebirth, and not through a monetary windfall. He did not kill for money, and he cannot be reformed by money. - Theme: Family. Description: Relationships between family members, and the formation of families through marriage, are central to the novel. Raskolnikov has a fraught relationship with his mother and sister, whom he recognizes as having made great sacrifices for his own happiness. He feels repulsed by their charity and tries to break off relations with them. But Raskolnikov nevertheless feels protective of his sister, in whom he confides, and of his mother. Apart from an engagement to his landlord's daughter—a sickly girl who dies before they can be married—Raskolnikov expresses little interest in starting a family of his own. This is in contrast to others in the novel. Razumikhin, from the first, is taken by Dunya and offers to protect her and her mother. In fact, as Raskolnikov withdraws from his family, Razumikhin appears to take over his duties and, later, marries Dunya, with Raskolnikov's approval. Raskolnikov's impieties toward his family are mirrored and opposed by Sonya, who gives everything—her reputation and happiness—in order to provide for Marmeladov, Katerina, and the children. Sonya and Raskolnikov later form a family unit while in exile in Siberia. Luzhin wishes to marry Dunya for practical reasons, and he believes he is doing Dunya an enormous favor. For him, family is a means of beginning a "brilliant" career as a public servant. Svidrigailov, the inveterate womanizer, tries to seduce Dunya; he is the novel's libertine, satisfied only by new sexual conquests. Although Raskolnikov's rehabilitation is only hinted at in the epilogue, it seems clear that Sonya will play a role in his transformation from confused, nihilistic criminal to penitent. In Sonya's total obedience and generosity Raskolnikov sees an example of Christian love (emphasized by a final reference to the story of Lazarus), which, incidentally, he has had a much harder time recognizing in his own mother and sister. If family is an eternal source of conflict in Dostoevsky's novels, it is also the only means of escaping one's loneliness and maintaining one's sanity. - Climax: Raskolnikov confesses to Sonya his murder of the pawnbroker and Lizaveta - Summary: Crime and Punishment opens in 1860s St. Petersburg, where Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished former student, has come psychologically unhinged. He wanders about the city, barely eats, and hatches a vague plan he wishes to "test" one afternoon. He goes to the apartment of an old pawnbroker, who lives with her sister Lizaveta, and pawns his father's watch. Upon leaving, he repeats to himself his intentions: he will murder the old crone and rob her. Raskolnikov meets a drunk named Marmeladov, who tells of his troubles and his daughter Sonya, a prostitute. Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother Pulcheria, who reports that his sister Dunya, once a governess working for the Svidrigailov family, has been courted by Mr. Svidrigailov, fired by Mrs. Marfa Svidrigailov, exonerated publically by the same woman, and then proposed to by a government official named Luzhin. Pulcheria notes that Raskolnikov will soon have a chance to meet Luzhin in Petersburg. After walking through the Haymarket, he overhears Lizaveta in conversation, and it is revealed she will leave the apartment for a brief time the following day. He decides that fate has intervened: he must go through with his plan. He kills the pawnbroker, attempts to rob her, and kills Lizaveta when she walks unexpectedly into the room. Two men come upstairs hoping to do business with the old woman; they see the door is locked from the inside and go to fetch the caretaker. Raskolnikov runs out and ducks into an apartment being painted by two workers, Mikolai (or Nikolai) and Mitka, who have just had a fight and run outside themselves. The rest of the novel charts Raskolnikov's reaction to his crime, and his relationship with friends, family, and a police investigator named Porfiry, who is put on the case. Raskolnikov hurries to conceal evidence, buries some of the old woman's items under a rock in an abandoned yard, and finds he has been summoned to the police headquarters because of an unrelated dispute with his landlord. He faints in the station when the police begin discussing the murders. His friend Razumikhin appears later, vowing to help Raskolnikov, whom he fears is sick. Later, when Luzhin visits Raskolnikov, Raskolnikov says that he will not permit Luzhin to marry his sister. Raskolnikov has a strange conversation with Zamyotov, the police-station clerk, describing how he would have murdered the two women. He later finds Marmeladov crushed under the wheels of a wagon, and gives a significant amount of money to Katerina, his widow, for the funeral and a feast. Pulcheria and Dunya arrive in Petersburg and are terrified at Raskolnikov's appearance—they fear he might be going insane. Raskolnikov meets with Porfiry, who tricks him into confessing that he visited the pawnbroker's apartment on the day of the murders. Svidrigailov arrives and speaks with Raskolnikov, claiming that his love for Dunya was genuine, and that he now lives in the same apartment building as Sonya. Luzhin meets with Raskolnikov, Pulcheria, and Dunya, attempting to settle his marriage to Dunya, but in doing so Luzhin so insults Dunya that the engagement is broken off. Raskolnikov meets with Sonya and asks her to read him the story of Lazarus, a man Jesus raised from the dead. Raskolnikov goes to Porfiry's office alone, and the investigator uses a series of circuitous techniques to enrage Raskolnikov, who begs either to be charged with a crime or set free. Porfiry says he has a surprise for Raskolnikov—a witness who claims to know the true murderer. Porfiry opens the door and Mikolai the painter stumbles in, confessing to the crimes and confusing Porfiry and Raskolnikov. The latter is permitted to leave, with Porfiry's promise that the two will speak again soon. Luzhin attends Marmeladov's funeral banquet and announces that Sonya has stolen 100 roubles from him; his roommate Lebezyatnikov reveals that Luzhin has planted the money on Sonya in order to appear gracious when he "forgives" her. Luzhin is run out of the house. The uproar causes Amalia, Katerina's landlady, to kick her out of the apartment, and Katerina goes outside with the children, begs in the street, falls ill with delirium, and later dies. Meanwhile Raskolnikov visits Sonya again and confesses to her that he has murdered Lizaveta and the old crone. Sonya is shocked but vows to protect him. Raskolnikov runs into Svidrigailov, who lets on that he has heard Raskolnikov's confession through the wall adjoining his and Sonya's apartment. He intends to use this information to blackmail Raskolnikov into enabling his marriage to Dunya. Raskolnikov passes several days in a fog and is visited by Porfiry, who says he knows that Raskolnikov is the killer. Porfiry gives Raskolnikov two days to mull over his options, but he encourages Raskolnikov to confess in order to receive a lighter sentence. Raskolnikov meets with Svidrigailov, who announces his intentions with Dunya; Raskolnikov wishes to protect his sister, but she meets secretly with Svidrigailov, who attempts to rape her. Dunya has brought a gun and shoots Svidrigailov, narrowly missing. She says she will never run away with him, and he lets her go. Svidrigailov later kills himself out of despair. Raskolnikov confesses his guilt to this sister but not to his mother, to whom he bids an ambiguous farewell. Dunya encourages Raskolnikov to repent for his crime. Raskolnikov goes to the police station and confesses to Gunpowder, the assistant to Nikodim the police chief. In the Epilogue, it is revealed that Raskolnikov has been sentenced to eight years' hard labor. Sonya goes to Siberia with him and writes to Petersburg of his activities. Razumikhin marries Dunya and Pulcheria dies in a fit of delirium. In the prison camp Raskolnikov slowly comes to terms with his guilt and recognizes that Sonya's love for him is absolute. After opening Sonya's copy of the Gospels, he vows to rehabilitate himself. The narrator implies that Raskolnikov eventually succeeds in this, though the process is a difficult one and saved for another story.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Cross-Country - Point of view: Point of View:  First and Second Person - Setting: Australia - Character: Rebecca. Description: Rebecca is the protagonist and narrator of "Cross-Country." She spends most of the story experiencing various stages of grief about the recent end of her relationship. Feeling despondent after her breakup, Rebecca takes time off from work to heal. Desperate for answers and for distraction from her pain, she shuts her friends out and instead resorts to obsessively Googling her ex-partner's name online to find out what he's been up to since he moved out. After sifting through pages of irrelevant search results, Rebecca finds something intriguing: her ex has joined a cross-country running club. Instead of filling her doctor's prescription for antidepressants, Rebecca spends her time off work stalking her ex's running club results online and listening to the music her ex hated to soothe her wounds. Like a dog with a bone, Rebecca takes a tiny scrap of information (her ex's name on a cross-country running club roster) and squeezes every possible imagined scenario out of it. She luxuriates in all the possibilities it provides—maybe he has finally given up on his graduate thesis and stepped away from academia, or maybe he's finding new satisfaction in physically exerting himself. But it's not just a new version of her ex that Rebecca fantasizes about. Soon after these fantasies begin, Rebecca includes herself in them, easily outrunning her ex and impressing him with her athleticism and poise. These fictional scenarios become the stage where Rebecca plays out explanations for why their relationship ended. Ultimately, she finds out that her ex is not part of the cross-country club after all—he merely shares a name with a local 14-year-old runner. Rebecca is thus forced to recognize the futility of her fantasies, remarking at the human capacity "to invent what we need." Kennedy uses Rebecca's character to explore grief as it is experienced through a breakup (rather than a death), illuminating the unhealthy coping mechanisms that can go hand-in-hand with isolation after a major life change such as this. - Character: Rebecca's ex-partner. Description: The man who has recently broken up with Rebecca. The reader's understanding of Rebecca's ex-partner comes solely from Rebecca. Because the story is narrated from a first- and second-person perspective, it is difficult to determine if any of the information presented about Rebecca's ex can be interpreted as anything but biased. He isn't given a name even though most of the story's plot revolves around her grief over their breakup. Her ex-partner's namelessness allows the reader to extrapolate his or her own details about an ex into the shell of this character, almost ensuring the reader's empathy for Rebecca throughout her narration. The actions of this character mostly occur inside Rebecca's fantasies about beating him in a race after searching for information about him online and discovering his name on the roster of a cross-country running club, rather than in actual interactions between him and Rebecca. Interspersed with running fantasies, Rebecca's memories about her ex start to surface, reminding her it's perhaps a good thing that their relationship is past saving. For Rebecca, healing comes with time and distance from her ex. Rebecca's healing occurs partially by grieving and accepting the loss of him, and partially by filling that void with endless made-up scenarios. By the end of the story, the reader learns that Rebecca's ex never joined a cross-country running club after all—he merely shares a name with a local 14-year-old runner. - Character: Julie. Description: Julie is Rebecca's friend from work. Interrupting Rebecca's nosedive into a sea of relevant search results for her ex-partner's name, Julie calls. Julie is Rebecca's first reminder that a real world exists outside her self-delusion and compulsive internet usage. Instead of using this phone call to tether herself back to reality, though, Rebecca tells Julie about her new plan to get fit: cross-country running. Julie is skeptical, but Rebecca insists upon her commitment to this lifestyle change by telling Julie, "I'm going out today to buy the shoes." - Character: Rebecca's boss. Description: While Rebecca is lost in her rich fantasy life in the wake of her breakup, her boss calls to inform her that she's exhausted her sick leave. Lost in a philosophical reverie over the pointlessness of running, Rebecca receives a call from her boss telling her that she has to come back to work on Monday. Up until now, she'd been screening all his calls. Amidst her boss's empty platitudes, Rebecca slips back into a reconciliation fantasy about her ex-partner. Using Rebecca's name for the first time in the story, her boss asks if she's still on the line. However, not even a call from her boss shakes Rebecca from her indulgent fantasies. Although it doesn't seem that Rebecca has jeopardized her job by taking time off work to grieve this breakup, it is clear that her boss isn't giving her any more time to wallow in her sweatpants. - Theme: The Internet, Cyber-Stalking, and Privacy. Description: Cate Kennedy's short story "Cross-Country" explores a particular way the internet can affect relationships after they end: cyber-stalking an ex-partner. Through the use of first- and second-person narration, the narrator and protagonist, Rebecca, makes the reader complicit in her online stalking. She makes it seem inarguable: anybody would Google their ex after a bad break-up. By positing cyber-stalking as just the uglier side of human nature, Rebecca makes her actions seem innocuous rather than invasive. Beyond her ex-partner's right to privacy, she is seemingly indifferent about how seeing his name or his pictures will make her feel, not caring if they make her sad or jealous. The internet offers Rebecca a temporary relief after a breakup—but while viewing snippets of her ex's life online may help ease the immediate pain of him moving out, it doesn't change the fact that the relationship is over, nor does it help her move forward with her life. In "Cross-Country," Cate Kennedy considers the internet's potentially detrimental role in healing after a bad breakup, suggesting that the ease and relative anonymity of the internet has blurred the line between what's harmless and what's invasive when it comes to searching other people online. Kennedy's protagonist attempts to justify her questionable Google searches, asserting that seeking out information about her ex online isn't just acceptable, it's her right to do so—even though her ex-partner appears to disagree. She rationalizes her cyber-stalking by claiming, "It's just a few shreds of information I want. I supported him for a year, after all; surely I have a right to know whether he's finally submitted that thesis and where, incidentally, the graduation ceremony is going to be held." Rebecca struggles with the harsh transition from being her ex's life partner (and financial supporter) to being a veritable stranger, and thus decides that since she was at one point privy to the happenings of her ex-boyfriend's life, she should still be allowed to know what he's up to. However, the story suggests that Rebecca's ex-partner has no intention of letting her back into his life. She notes, "It takes a special kind of thoroughness […] for him to redirect even his superannuation statement and subscriptions to his new address […] suggesting that he'd do anything rather than leave a single excuse for re-contact." Rebecca seems to be aware that her ex-partner does not want her to contact him, which makes it clear that her search efforts are indeed invasive and undesired. As Rebecca continues her search, the story raises the question of whether the ease and anonymity of typing someone's name into a search engine really means that it's a harmless thing to do—or if that ease and anonymity means that it's dangerously easy to invade someone's privacy. Continuing to rationalize her behavior, Rebecca suggests that what she is doing is nowhere near as bad as in-person stalking. She claims, "It's not as if I'm going to go over there, drive past his house, lie on his lawn drunk and make a scene, harass him." Instead of invading her ex-boyfriend's physical space, Rebecca is able to hide behind the anonymity of a computer screen. Because she's just lying around in her pajamas in the middle of the night and typing things into the computer, it seems like her searches aren't all that bad—after all, she's not harming anyone. However, the story emphasizes that the person whose "desk drawer Google has no qualms about throwing open" typically has no idea it ever happened, making internet searches seem eerie and violating in their one-sidedness. So, while Rebecca feels a comforting sense of anonymity as she sifts through search results to find where her ex is now living and what groups he belongs to, the story suggests that it's not a good thing that she's able—and willing—to unearth this kind of information about someone who clearly no longer wants her in his life. When Rebecca finally stumbles upon a piece of information about her ex, she fantasizes about how she might use that information to weasel her way back into his life—yet another indication that her online searching is intrusive and arguably creepy. She notes, "He's on some kind of roster. […] A roster for a sporting club. […] Just on the other side of the city, probably. One of those beachside suburbs he always said he'd like to live in." Upon finding her ex's name on a roster for a local cross-country running club, Rebecca quickly uses that small shred of information to discern where he is now living, which leaves readers to wonder if she actually does intend to stalk him in-person. Rebecca immediately begins to daydream about joining the very same running club. The daydream, of which there are several versions, is a "short film looping in [her] head" of her running effortlessly during one of the club's events and dazzling her ex with her independence and poise, presumably to either win him back or make him regret ending the relationship. At the end of the story, Rebecca's hopes of impressing her ex are dashed when she finally realizes that the roster is headed with the words "Under-fourteens." After all her planning and daydreaming, Rebecca has only found information about a local kid with the same name as ex. After grappling with the shock of this, Rebecca clicks out of the window and turns off her computer with a sense of finality. The distraction she felt while cyber-stalking her ex was a digital bandage for grief, but pixelated names and photos of an ex aren't the same as actually processing the loss of that person. Though she doesn't seem repentant for her invasive searches, she does grasp that they were fruitless. Scouring the internet for any sign of her ex didn't change the fact that the relationship is over and that she now must move on. - Theme: Fantasy and Self-Delusion. Description: In Cate Kennedy's "Cross-Country," Rebecca's daydreams about her ex-partner offer a form of escapism from her grief. In the wake of the breakup, she is deep in a depressive episode, swaddled in her "spare-room quilt" and eating noodles from a Styrofoam cup while scouring the internet for information about her ex and his new life. After sifting through pages and pages of search results, she finally finds a lead: her ex's name is now on the roster for a cross-country running club across town. As the story unfolds, the narrator fantasizes about casually joining the same running club as him and impressing him with her extraordinary speed and impeccable poise. By the end of the story, a disappointing discovery shatters the narrator's happy delusions: she realizes the roster is for kids 14 and younger, and that her ex has not, in fact, joined a running club, making all of her fantasies a waste of time. With this, Kennedy suggests that while Rebecca's elaborate fantasies about her ex offer temporary relief from her pain, they are ultimately harmful because she is putting her healing on pause in favor of escaping reality. Part of the elaborate fantasy Rebecca creates includes how she will turn herself into a cross-country runner to win her ex back, or at least impress him. This scenario, which ends in the possibility of the couple getting back together and presents her in a flattering light, dulls the pain of the breakup—but only temporarily. Rebecca imagines, "I'm pounding easily along the hilltop in an interclub event. I'm not even puffing as I overtake him, despite the spurt he puts on. […] I flash him a surprised-yet-calm smile of recognition, a flutter of the fingers, and pull away." This fantasy allows the narrator to feel self-assured and light as air as she breezily waves hello to her ex and effortlessly glides down the road. When the narrator momentarily snaps out of her fantasy, though, she feels "heavy as a stone." Her fantasy may have allowed her to feel breezy and light for a minute, but the feeling quickly dissipates. Later, Rebecca resolves to get up, shower, get dressed, and go to the mall to buy running shoes—the first step to having a "torso tight as a rubber band, my number tied and flapping across my chest, my shapely arms working like pistons as I make him eat my dust." Here, her simple to-do list quickly dissolves into full-out fantasy. She envisions herself, tanned and taut with muscle, easily overtaking her ex in a race, allowing her to momentarily forget that she's actually lying around with "greasy hair and unwashed pajamas" and doesn't know the first thing about running. Even though these daydreams make Rebecca feel better while she's indulging in them, the story suggests that this kind of escapism prevents her from accepting the breakup and adjusting to life without her ex-partner. At one point in the story, Rebecca's boss calls to inform her that she's used up all her sick leave and is expected to be at work on Monday. However, mid-call, Rebecca slips into yet another daydream about her ex. With this, the story suggests that Rebecca has spent so many days Google searching and fantasizing about her ex that it's taken over her life. This kind of behavior has chained Rebecca to her computer and to her house, preventing her from picking up her life—and her work—and moving forward. Rebecca's fantasizing also seems unproductive because it completely contradicts what her ex-partner wanted for their breakup. She remembers him saying, "I think it's pointless considering mediation at this stage. I think it would be best to make a clean break." In fixating on fantasies of her ex wanting to work things out—when he clearly has no interest in doing so—she is preventing herself from also making the "clean break" that will allow her to move on. Toward the end of the story, when Rebecca suddenly realizes that the running-club roster she's been looking at is for children, not adults, this new information "go[es] off in a blinding flash like a grenade," snapping her out of her daydreams and waking her up to real life. As she sits in shock, "dully open-mouthed," it's clear that all her fantasizing has been for nothing. Her ex is not part of some cross-country running club across town, the narrator can't show up at an event and outrun him, and they're not getting back together. Throughout the story, Rebecca's fantasies about her ex are interspersed with unpleasant memories of him: he never could manage to finish his thesis, she had to support him financially, and he could never relax and have fun. Although her fantasies often dredge up these kinds of memories throughout the course of the story, it's not until the end that these bad memories pile up and she begins to realize that maybe he's not worth pining over. And while all of her fantasizing did keep her from moving on, it perhaps also helped remind her that the relationship ended for a reason, and that she's better off on her own: "ready or not, it's time to roll the credits." - Theme: Breakups and Grief. Description: In "Cross Country," Cate Kennedy explores how grief can play out after the end of a relationship. Denoting feelings of deep sadness, grief is most commonly associated with the sorrow one experiences after a loved one passes away. However, Kennedy expands that typical association to include the pain of losing a loved one through a breakup. After Rebecca's partner leaves her, she feels further isolated by her friends who offer her cheap platitudes for her pain ("What doesn't kill you makes you stronger") during this difficult period in her life. As Rebecca moves through various stages of grief due to her breakup—like isolating herself from others or denying that her ex is really gone for good—Kennedy suggests that grieving the loss of a partner at the end of a relationship can be as pointed and complex a process as losing someone through death. While losing a partner through a breakup might not be as permanent as losing them through death, Rebecca's ex-partner made it very clear that he doesn't want her in his life. Because of this, there is a sense of finality to their breakup—her ex might not be dead, but it's unlikely she'll ever see him or speak to him again. Rebecca remembers her ex telling her in a "clipped and guarded" tone, "I think it's pointless considering mediation at this stage. I think it would be best to make a clean break." Regardless of how Rebecca thought the relationship was going, her ex-partner shut down the possibility of talking it through: "I think it's clear to both of us it's not working." With this, Rebecca's ex swiftly pulled the plug on their relationship, stamping out any hope of mending things between them. Once he's moved out, Rebecca's ex-partner does everything in his power to make sure Rebecca can't contact him again, essentially erasing all traces of himself from her life. She notes, "It takes a special kind of thoroughness, a particular grim determination to sever all ties, for him to redirect even his superannuation statements and subscriptions to his new address." The language in this passage—particularly "thoroughness," "grim," and "sever all ties"—paints the breakup like a death, tragic and final. Rebecca continues, adding, "Even the mail he would have thrown away immediately never arrives now, suggesting he'd do anything rather than leave a single excuse for re-contact." Rebecca's ex-partner effectively makes himself dead to her, ensuring that she can never reach him again. Grappling with the shock of her loss, Rebecca desperately searches for answers that would explain why they broke up—one of many iterations of her grief. At the beginning of the story, Rebecca explains, "I don't know about you, but I don't need to talk. I need someone else to talk. I need answers." Given that Rebecca's partner was not interested in talking through the breakup—instead simply announcing that "it's not working"—it seems that Rebecca doesn't really understand why he left her (or found his reasons unsatisfactory) and is now looking for "an explanation that makes sense" to gain some closure. Overwhelmed by her loss, Rebecca feels like nobody understands her pain, and she becomes increasingly isolated. Rebecca is critical of "people who tell you to get out and move on" after a breakup, depicting their advice as thoroughly unhelpful. Rather than offering her empathy, people feed her "easy clichés like something off a desk calendar," like "Living well is the best revenge" which do nothing to help her grief. She notes that there is a "queue" of these kinds of text messages on her phone, including lots of offers to call if she needs to talk—but Rebecca is adamant that this is the last thing she needs and thus lets these messages pile up. Rebecca feels like her grief over her breakup is taken less seriously than actual bereavement, but that this shouldn't be the case. She explains, "Your partner dies, and everyone comes over with casseroles; they clean your house and hang out your washing. Your partner leaves though, and you don't need nurturing apparently; you need avoiding." Of course, Rebecca is at this point wearing "unwashed pyjamas" and eating a cup of microwavable noodles, suggesting that she does need things like casseroles and someone to help her with laundry. With this, Rebecca again suggests that dealing with the aftermath of a breakup is a lot like grieving a death, even if other people don't see it that way. Rebecca's grief also manifests as denial. Unable to come to terms with the fact that the relationship is over, she tries to convince herself that there's a chance they will reconcile. Feeling helpless, Rebecca tries to regain control of the situation by fantasizing about various "what-if" scenarios about her ex-partner. In these fantasies, she wants to overtake him in a cross-country running race, winning him over with her running abilities and confidence. She comes up with several iterations of these fantasies, culminating in one particular fantasy in which her ex-partner calls her up and asks her to dinner so they can talk, implying that they'll get back together. Throughout the story, Rebecca's grief manifests itself in all sorts of ways, from isolation to denial, but she ultimately comes to a begrudging acceptance that the relationship is over, and that, "ready or not, it's time to roll the credits." As Rebecca makes her way through the grieving process, Kennedy suggests that grieving a breakup is not all that different than grieving the death of a loved one: both cases involve a significant, heart-wrenching loss, a multi-layered grieving process, and an uncomfortable period of adjusting to one's "new normal" after acceptance has set in. - Climax: Rebecca realizes that she hasn't been following her ex-partner's running club results online; instead, the results belong to a child who shares her ex's name. - Summary: The narrator, Rebecca has just experienced a painful breakup, but her friends' empty clichés and platitudes encouraging her to get over it and move on only make her feel worse and more isolated. Instead, she turns to the internet for solace and information. Rebecca decides to type her ex-partner's name into the search bar. Searching for information about an ex online surely isn't as deplorable as showing up at their house unannounced to harass them, she thinks. She also rationalizes that since she financially supported him through graduate school, she has a right to know what he's up to and if he's finished his thesis. Unable to resist peeping into his online life, Rebecca tumbles through pages upon pages of search results, quickly filtering out those that have nothing to do with him. Eating instant noodles from a Styrofoam cup, Rebecca ruminates over grief. To her, people willingly console others when they've lost a loved one through death. But when someone has lost a loved one through a breakup, they are avoided instead. Rebecca isolates herself from her friends and coworkers, finding comfort in the internet and the answers she hopes it might provide. After sifting through the search results, she finds her ex's name listed on a cross-country running club's roster. She takes this small piece of information and uses it to create elaborate fantasies about what her ex has been doing since he moved out of their shared apartment. Certain that he's taken a step back from academia, Rebecca imagines her ex engaging in post-run barbeques and physically exerting himself past the point of exhaustion. Julie from work calls, interrupting Rebecca's daydreams. Rebecca divulges her new plan to Julie: she's going to start jogging then join a running club. But before she can go for her first jog, she has to go to the mall to buy the shoes. Maybe later, she thinks. Falling back into her fantasies about her ex, Rebecca pictures herself overtaking him in a race. He watches her, impressed by her poise and speed. In another version of her fantasies, Rebecca delivers a low blow by asking about the status of his thesis, having found out through more internet digging that he did not present it at the last conference he attended. Looking through the stack of CDs her ex left behind, Rebecca stumbles across the CD of a country girl group she and her ex had seen together. She remembers enjoying their lip-gloss, big hair, and twang while her ex spent the entire evening complaining. Afterward, he even took to calling them the "Tammy Wynette Hormone Band" whenever Rebecca would play the CD at home. Listening to the "high and lonesome sound" of their music now, Rebecca muses over memories of her ex that make her realize that perhaps she deserves better than "a guy who checks his watch every three minutes" while they're out together. She wonders what the girls in the band are t doing now. Rebecca figures they're probably doing better than her current state, dressed in stretched-out sweatpants and eating a spinster's serving of dehydrated space food. Drifting in and out of her cross-country running daydreams, Rebecca realizes something: she doesn't have any idea what someone actually does during a cross-country race. Running through various scenarios in her mind, she's interrupted by a phone call from her boss. He reminds her that she's exhausted her sick leave and is required to be back at work on Monday. While still on this call, Rebecca slips back into her reverie, checking her ex's running results online yet again. She sees that he is now ranked 42nd on the roster, and imagines him wallowing in defeat and calling her to reconcile. Deep inside an elaborate reconciliation fantasy, her boss briefly pulls her away from her imagination and back to real life. After the phone call with her boss, Rebecca resolves to call the running club to ask about joining. On some level, she knows it's illogical to pursue this—her ex-partner made it quite clear he did not want to salvage the relationship and has no intention of allowing her back in his life. Yet she's still convinced that the next phone call she receives will be from her ex, certain that his cross-country failures have "beaten [him] into remorse and resignation" even though she knows he never played sports. She knows he actually hates sport altogether, and refuses to do "anything he wasn't an expert at." Returning to the search portal, Rebecca refreshes the page with the running results from last week. She notices something that she hadn't before: a title heading on the results page. Two words shatter her fantasies: "Under-fourteens." Shocked, Rebecca stares at those two words, which tell her that she's been mistakenly following the running career of a child with the same name as her ex-partner. Rebecca clicks out of the screen, illuminated by the blue light of her computer shutting down. The machine's little melody plays, indicating that the computer has turned off and that it's finally time for her to move on.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Cry, the Beloved Country - Point of view: Some sections are from the third-person POV of Stephen Kumalo, some from the third-person POV of James Jarvis, and still others from a nameless narrator. - Setting: Johannesburg & Ndotsheni, South Africa - Character: Stephen Kumalo. Description: A black parson, and one of the novel's protagonists. Stephen is a religious man who has spent his entire life in his rural community, for which he cares very deeply. He is humble, devout, and on a journey of understanding. His visit to Johannesburg – the first in his life – is overwhelming, but with the help of those around his, he makes his way through every step. Stephen suffers when he faces questions to which he cannot learn the answer, and finds his faith tested after his son's crime, trial, and death sentence. In the end, Stephen comes to peace with his son's fate and his own disquiet as he prays on the mountainside during his son's execution. - Character: James Jarvis. Description: – A white farmer, and the novel's other protagonist. James is the father of Arthur, murdered by Stephen Kumalo's son Absalom. He struggles with the fact that, like Stephen, he does not understand his son. Jarvis's politics are centrist, but his understanding of and sympathy with the plight of South Africa's blacks grows as he reads Arthur's writings. Jarvis is a good man who grants forgiveness to Stephen, and uses his wealth to provide help to Stephen's community as they suffer from drought, poverty, and hunger. After his wife's death, he decides to move to Johannesburg. - Character: Absalom Kumalo. Description: – Stephen Kumalo's son. Absalom is led astray by Johannesburg and the people with whom he associated, leading to his accidental murder of Arthur Jarvis during a botched robbery. Absalom is found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. He is afraid, but eventually comes to a kind of peace before his death. He also faces up to his responsibilities as a father by marrying his pregnant girlfriend, and providing all he can for his unborn child before his execution. - Character: Arthur Jarvis. Description: – The man murdered by Absalom Kumalo. The novel never shows Arthur while he is alive, but portrays his character through his many papers and correspondences read by Arthur's father, James. He was an activist who believed that white men had done the black population a great disservice by tearing apart their communities and giving them an unfairly paltry amount of land, leading to the epidemic of violence and fear that now plague South Africa. - Theme: The Land and the Tribe. Description: In Cry, The Beloved Country, the land of South Africa and the original Zulu inhabitants of that land, often called "the tribe," depend upon each other, in a cycle of support and care. Without one, the other is broken, weakened, and dying. Many characters, including Gertrude and Absalom Kumalo, suffer greatly when they leave their village in the country for Johannesburg. The city brings death and corruption: its inhabitants, at worst, are run over by buses, shot during crimes, or die slowly of disease and poverty. At best, like Stephen's brother John, they seek power and money for its own sake, become liquor-runners and pimps and crooked politicians, and bring harm to others. Either way, they turn away from their families, the land, the place they were born, and their faith. In losing their connection to the land they lose themselves. In turn, the land itself is a victim. In the past, the Zulus tended the land and the land provided crops, game, and good water in return. But now the people exploit the land, they overuse it, the whites claim parts of it just for themselves, and people literally rip up the land in search of gold and profit. And as the people lose their connection to the land, the land dies. Without the cycle of supporting the land and being supported by the land, the people and the earth both come to harm. It's no accident the torn-up earth is described as "bleeding" throughout the book. Conversely, the novel suggests that a return to the land—and leaving behind the city—can bring about healing. The suffering brought about by Absalom's crime and Arthur's death is only healed when James Jarvis and Stephen return to their homes in the land, bringing what they can of their families with them, and in so doing re-establish their connection and commitment to their faith and their families. - Theme: Racism and Apartheid. Description: Cry, The Beloved Country takes place during the historical period of growing racial tension and strife that led to the political policy of apartheid in South Africa, a policy in which the ruling whites enforced a system of strict racial segregation. In the time when the book is set, this policy has not yet been officially enacted, but the novel shows how economic inequality along racial lines sows the seeds of resentment, mistrust, and fear that leads to an idea like apartheid coming to seem like the only possible corrective (even though in reality it only continues the cycle of violence, crime, incarceration, and death).The novel shows the rise of shantytowns. Nonwhites are pushed to the fringes of their own city, where housing is almost impossible to come by, and so they are forced to erect temporary camps that quickly become permanent. The shantytowns are full of crime and sickness, only worsening the poverty of their inhabitants. Children die, desperate people commit crimes to try to escape poverty, men are thrown in jail, men are killed, increasing the resentment, fear, and poverty—the vicious cycle continues. The novel captures this vicious cycle through the story of Arthur and Absalom: Arthur is a white man dedicated to trying to solve the problems of South Africa, to try to break the cycle. But his work is cut short—quite literally, he is killed while working on his manuscript, in the middle of a sentence—by a young man, Absalom, caught up in the very system that Arthur was seeking to dismantle. There appears to be no way out of this cycle that corrupts everyone and everything it touches, except to leave the city and reconnect the broken tribe. - Theme: The City vs. Nature. Description: The city of Johannesburg is portrayed as a place to which people are inevitably drawn, and from which they never return, regardless of race. What keeps them there varies from person to person – sometimes they are killed, or put in prison, or descend into poverty or crime – but the constant is that they never return to their homes or families. Arthur Jarvis leaves his father and goes into Johannesburg, but dies before he can return home. Absalom Kumalo leaves home and becomes tangled up with bad people, accidentally kills a man in a robbery that goes wrong, and is sentenced to die. Gertrude Kumalo loses her husband and then gets drawn into the liquor trade. John Kumalo goes to the city, becomes a corrupt and powerful man, and is lost to Stephen.All of these people are taken from the land – from nature – and turned into something terrible inside the borders of Johannesburg. The city consistently breaks apart families, corrupting the social unit that stabilizes communities, and brings about death. Children die of illness in the shantytowns. People are run over by buses. Death comes to Arthur and Absalom. The city ensnares those who come to it with the promise of money, then buries them in poverty. Absalom is caught in just such a trap, and in trying to escape it becomes unrecognizable to his father. Throughout the novel, nature and the city are at odds with one another. When Johannesburg becomes too full, her population spills out into shantytowns in which disease and poverty run rampant. Its citizens are constantly wondering what will happen when it rains, or when the winter comes. Nature becomes something to fear rather than something that sustains. And, meanwhile, the thirst for wealth that the city imbues in all its residents drives a mining industry that rips up the earth, further destroying the contract between the land and her people. - Theme: Christian Faith. Description: Despite the fact that it was the white British and Dutch colonizers who introduced the Christian faith to South Africa through colonization, this faith is the bedrock for most of the protagonists' lives, black or white. Many of the characters are either men of the church (Stephen Kumalo, Father Vincent, Theophilus Msimangu), or are people of faith. Gertrude Kumalo even turns to the nunhood at the end of the book in order to escape the darkness that the city has visited upon her. The way that Christianity plays into these characters' lives is illustrated most clearly when Stephen, at his darkest moment—having just discovered that his son has killed a white man and will likely be put to death—is commanded by Father Vincent to pray. The book concludes with Stephen's vigil – standing and praying on the mountainside at the hour he knows his son is being executed – and it is only this (nature and faith) that gives him peace. Throughout the novel, Christianity brings stability and tranquility to the lives of its followers, while secularism and atheism are connected to power and corruption. This dichotomy is most clearly illustrated between the two brothers: Stephen is good, and a man of faith. Despite his troubles, he ultimately finds peace. John Kumalo, on the other hand, rejects Christianity. Msimangu tells Stephen that his brother "has no use for the Church any more. He says that what God has not done for South Africa, man must do." And John selfishly ensures that Absalom will die so that his own son can be saved. The novel ties secularism to the corruption of Johannesburg, a city where the "peace of god escapes" its residents. Faith, in contrast, is portrayed as a force, like the land, that stabilizes the tribe. In fact, the novel implies that the salvation for all of South Africa lies in the eventual uniting force of Christianity. There is a repeated mantra of Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, or "God Save Africa." And the ground itself, the novel states multiple times, comes directly from The Creator. - Theme: Fathers, Sons, and Families. Description: When the land and tribe are corrupted, and the city and the country are pitted against one another, it follows that families will break apart. Throughout the novel, families are torn to pieces, particularly fathers and sons. In particular, the novel explores two significant father/son relationships: that of Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom Kumalo, and that of James Jarvis, and his son Arthur Jarvis. Both sons vanish to Johannesburg, and their fathers come to find them only after something terrible has happened – Arthur is shot dead in a house invasion, and Absalom is his killer. Both fathers, then, seek to understand something about their sons and their sons' circumstances. Stephen struggles to come to terms with his child killing another person, and, by extension, what has happened to his country and the brutal cycle in which they are all trapped. James attempts to get to know his son through his son's papers and library, things he did not know about him before his death. Both fathers grieve, and their losses are only truly reconciled when James helps Stephen rebuild his church, and Stephen befriends the late Arthur's young son. The city of Johannesburg tore both of their families apart, but outside of the city's borders, broken families can heal. - Theme: Understanding/Knowledge vs. Ignorance/Naiveté. Description: The city of Johannesburg can turn the most learned men into metaphorical children. Its nuances require a new and different kind of understanding. Without that understanding, Stephen—the most knowledgeable man in his community—is robbed within minutes of arriving in the city. But knowledge has a special kind of power: you can pass it on to others. Stephen feels revived when he plays with Gertrude's son. Stephen tells him stories about where he came from, and feels satisfied giving this understanding and history to his nephew. And when Stephen returns home from the city, he is also able to pass what he knows to James Jarvis' grandson, the late Arthur's son, and also will be able to do the same to his unborn grandchild, in the future. The establishment or re-establishment of these lines of knowledge are important because they reinforce the tribe, and families. One of the reasons that Johannesburg is so toxic is that it disrupts families and disrupts these lines of understanding, history, and knowledge. In one of his manuscripts, Arthur writes that if you know nothing of South Africa, you cannot truly love it, because without understanding, there is no love.Ultimately, the future of the country of South Africa is unknown to both the characters of the novel, and to Alan Paton its author. The novel was written at the very beginning of apartheid. Paton did not know what his country would look like decades later. The final line of the novel explicitly addresses this lack of knowledge: "But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret." And so the characters of the novel have to be satisfied with a limited knowledge, and the ability to pass that knowledge one from the other, and to build the families and communities strong enough to reach that unknown day. - Climax: When Absalom is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. - Summary: In Ndotsheni, South Africa, Stephen Kumalo, a church parson, receives a letter from a minister in Johannesburg, Theophilus Msimangu, telling him that Stephen's sister Gertrude is ill. Stephen decides to take his money, once saved to send his son Absalom to attend school, and go to Johannesburg to retrieve her. Additionally, he decides to seek out Absalom, who also left for Johannesburg and has not returned or written. Stephen journeys to Johannesburg for the first time, and he is overwhelmed by the experience. He eventually connects with Msimangu and other men of the cloth, where they assure him they will take him to his sister. The next morning, they seek out Gertrude and find her. She agrees to come back with Stephen.Stephen locates his brother John, who has become something of a corrupt bigwig, in order to find out where his son has gone. His brother gives Stephen information about the location of Absalom. From there, they trace his path across Johannesburg. Stephen finds Absalom's girlfriend, who is pregnant with his child, and learns he's been missing for days.There is a headline in the newspaper: a local white man, Arthur Jarvis, has been shot and killed in a home invasion. As Stephen continues to look for his son, he is panicked to learn the police are also searching for Absalom, and are tracing the same steps Stephen had taken to try to locate him. Soon, Stephen learns the police have arrested Absalom for the murder of Arthur Jarvis. He goes and visits his son in jail, and is frustrated by the lack of answers. Father Vincent instructs Stephen to pray and rest.The next day, Stephen seeks out the young girl who is pregnant with Absalom's child. Stephen offers to take her back with him when he leaves Johannesburg. He then visits Absalom in prison, looking for answers still, but gets none. Father Vincent brings a lawyer, Mr. Carmichael, to meet with Stephen. Mr. Carmichael agrees to take on the case pro deo (for God).Meanwhile, back in Ndotsheni, James Jarvis and his wife receive news of their son's murder. The distraught couple flies to Johannesburg. Like Stephen with Absalom, James struggles with the fact that he never really knew his son, and his son's life and work was a mystery to him. When he goes through his son's office, James is struck by his son's activism and beliefs, and his deep sympathies with the native population. Arthur believed that the native people's way of life had been destroyed by white men, leading to the current epidemic of violence and fear.Soon thereafter, Absalom's trial begins. The two men arrested with Absalom, including John's son, claim they were not at the scene of the murder. Absalom admits to his presence, but denies he planned to kill Arthur. During the trial, Stephen comes to the doorstep of where James is staying quite by accident, seeking out another missing woman from his hometown. Stephen recognizes James, but James does not know Stephen, and is concerned when the man appears ill and distressed. Finally, Stephen reveals it was his son who killed James's son Arthur. James assures Stephen he feels no anger toward him. The trial concludes. Absalom is found guilty of murder and is sentenced to death. His accomplices are found innocent and set free.The girl and Absalom are married after the trial. Stephen tells Absalom he has to return home. He, the Jarvis family, Gertrude and her child, and his son's now-wife all return home. Meanwhile, the late Arthur's son is visiting his grandfather James, and happens upon Stephen. They speak, and the boy discovers the people are poor and have no milk. Later, a man comes by from Jarvis' farm with milk for the children. Then a storm destroys the small church. Jarvis sends a man to help the people of Stephen's community build a dam and improve their way of life. Soon after, Jarvis' wife dies. Stephen sends a note of condolence to James. James writes back, thanking him, and tells him they are going to build a new church. The day before his son's execution, Stephen visits James, and then goes into the mountains. There, he waits and prays until dawn, when he knows his son has been killed.

- Genre: Novella - Title: Daisy Miller - Point of view: The novella, written in the third person, distinguishes the narrator from Winterbourne, although it cleaves closely to Winterbourne's perspective. The narrator also often adopts a character's point of view and speaking style without directly quoting him or her, leading to a greater collapse between narrator and characters. - Setting: Vevay, Switzerland and Rome, Italy - Character: Daisy Miller. Description: Although the novella takes Winterbourne's point of view throughout, the book can in large part be considered a character study of Daisy Miller, a young, very pretty, independent-minded American from Schenectady, New York, who has come to Europe with her mother and brother Randolph. Daisy is enchanted by the European sights, and is eager to see and experience whatever she can. She is cheerful and talkative, and isn't afraid to speak her mind—even with people she doesn't know very well. She also treats the courier, Eugenio, with much more familiarity than many people in Europe treat their servants. Daisy shocks the other Europeans and American expatriates around her with her refusal to obey unspoken social commandments, and with her insistence on doing things her way, whether that means wandering through Rome alone, staying out late, or arriving late to a party because she's distracted. Given that the view we have of Daisy is largely mediated through Winterbourne's eyes—and Winterbourne is not exactly an impartial observer—it is difficult to distinguish his own opinion of her from an "objective" perspective on Daisy. Is she respectable or disreputable? An overly coquettish flirt or just an excitable American abroad? By filtering the main character through another, Henry James complicates the very notion of character, which can be strung between a person's innate qualities and the social self that is largely constructed by other people. Daisy's death at the end of the novel suggests that her clash with those around her is ultimately unsustainable, and between the two ways of life at stake, it is Daisy's that fails. - Character: Mr. Winterbourne. Description: Another American abroad, Winterbourne has nonetheless assimilated into European society and become more a resident than a tourist. We do not learn much about Winterbourne's past life, other than that he lives most permanently in Geneva, where conflicting accounts say either that he is "studying" or that he is pursuing a mysterious older foreign lady. In any case, Winterbourne does not seem to have many passions or interests, other than an appreciation of female beauty—he remarks on how pretty Daisy is nearly every time he sees her. Winterbourne is both charmed by Daisy and suspicious of her, strung between admiration for her free spirit, frustration that she won't be more proper, and sympathy when others turn a cold shoulder to her. The inability of Winterbourne to decide what kind of a person Daisy is reflects his own inability to truly act or decide who he wants to be himself—indeed, it is his attempt to "figure out" Daisy that prevents (or frees) him from his own character development. - Character: Mrs. Miller. Description: Daisy's mother, a small and thin woman with frizzed hair and a delicate constitution—she suffers from dyspepsia, or indigestion. She is not very friendly with Winterbourne initially, but opens up when she has the opportunity to talk about her ailments and about her Dr. Davis, whom she holds in great respect. Mrs. Miller is clearly quite wealthy, and dresses lavishly, though it is intimated that she and her husband are "new money" Americans, unlike the respectable European families that have similar wealth. Her character escapes total parody thanks to her ambivalent relationship to her daughter; sometimes Mrs. Miller seems embarrassed by her behavior, as when Daisy asks Winterbourne to take her out on a boat late at night, but other times she remains oblivious to the subtle social judgments on her daughter. Either way, Mrs. Miller believes that Daisy's actions are out of her hands, a laissez-faire attitude to mothering that astounds and confuses Winterbourne, among others. - Character: Randolph Miller. Description: Daisy's younger brother, a boy of nine. He possesses some of Daisy's same characteristics: he speaks his mind, is rather forward with strangers, and doesn't like to be told what to do—especially when this concerns his bedtime. Lacking Daisy's beauty and charm, however, Randolph is more clearly just a spoiled child. He adores everything American and feels the difference between America and Europe keenly. - Character: Mrs. Costello. Description: Winterbourne's aunt, who leads a typical life of a society lady between seasons in Vevay and in Rome. She appreciates her nephew's attentiveness, though she does not refrain from expressing her disapproval of his friendship with Daisy, whom she finds—together with Daisy's family—vulgar and "common." Mrs. Costello, indeed, possesses an acute and carefully shaded sense of social standing, and manages to situate the Millers on a low rung of her ladder, despite having to acknowledge their beautiful taste and Daisy's charming manner. - Character: Mrs. Walker. Description: Another of Winterbourne's American expatriate friends, Mrs. Walker lives in Geneva but also has a residence in Rome. Mrs. Walker initially welcomes the Millers into her circle as fellow Americans in Rome, but she soon turns against Daisy, shocked by her embrace of free association with Italians, especially men, and by Daisy's refusal to let Mrs. Walker show her the correct way to behave. Mrs. Walker becomes the ringleader of the group condemning Daisy's behavior and abandoning her socially. In some ways, Mrs. Walker seems to consider Daisy's behavior a betrayal of the unspoken pact among upper-class women, who cling to the small amount of freedom possible within gender-based limits. That Daisy refuses to align herself with these expectations threatens, according to Mrs. Walker's point of view, to upend the very foundation of their society. - Character: Mr. Giovanelli. Description: Daisy's Italian "friend," and considered by many to be her lover—though the exact extent of their relationship is unclear. Giovanelli is a lawyer, and Winterbourne manages to find out that he is considered somewhat respectable, though not of the highest society. Given Daisy's wealth and his comparatively bourgeois, middle-class status, Giovanelli—as everyone realizes—cannot hope to marry Daisy, but he seems to be fascinated by her in much the same way that Winterbourne is. Though Winterbourne does feel a certain kinship with the Italian, he is also annoyed by Giovanelli's social extravagance, and the way he conforms to the expected behavior of a gentleman almost too perfectly. - Character: Eugenio. Description: The courier of the Millers, that is, a kind of combination tourist guide and butler who accompanies the family throughout their trip. Daisy and Mrs. Miller treat Eugenio quite familiarly, which is something else that counts against them to the Europeanized society they encounter. At the same time, Eugenio himself seems not to respect the Millers very much. He often seems to be holding back a smirk or criticism of Daisy's behavior. - Theme: European and American Character. Description: Many of the novels of Henry James—an American expatriate himself—are fascinated with the Old World and the New World, not necessarily as places themselves but rather in terms of how these places affect the development of character. The European and American continents come to represent an American youth, innocence, and spontaneity versus a European subtlety, age, and complexity—a difference that can be revealed in, or conversely challenged by, individual characters themselves. Both Winterbourne and Daisy Miller are Americans by birth, and both find themselves taking the opposite journey of the European explorers who undertook the voyage to the Americas centuries before. But rather than discovering a "new," unspoiled paradise, Winterbourne and Daisy encounter a society with strict rules for social behavior, propriety, and attitudes.Randolph, Daisy's little brother, is the only character permitted (because of his youth) to sing the praises of his native land and to constantly compare the countries to each other—though he tends to be portrayed as a wild, spoiled, and peculiarly American child as well. Older visitors are instead supposed to implicitly understand the European rules of behavior. Daisy seems to epitomize an American mentality, as she is always eager to grasp new opportunities and experience new things without regard for what others might think. Winterbourne remarks several times that she is the chattiest girl he's met in years; Europeans, in his view, tend to be more reserved. Still, many other characters are quick to distance themselves from Daisy, fearing that she will make the Europeans around them look down on the vulgar American tourists flocking to their cities. Winterbourne is American as well, though he is largely assimilated to life and culture in Geneva, but he does take a liking to Daisy: he is the character who feels most strung between the two cultures and ways of life, even as he aligns his own lifestyle with the European worldview. Daisy's death ultimately serves as a warning about the danger of a total frankness and naiveté in the American mode, but European judgmental attitudes and unwillingness to see the charm in American "innocence" do not escape the author's critique either. - Theme: Observing vs. Living. Description: Although the beginning of the novella suggests that a romance between Winterbourne and Daisy might supply the rest of the novel, that expectation is thwarted once Winterbourne arrives in Rome and Daisy has taken up with an Italian gentleman, Mr. Giovanelli. Yet even before this, Winterbourne's relationship with Daisy is one of observation far more than interaction, and this mode of constant observation is tied to Winterbourne's own inability to embrace his own circumstances and fully live.Although the narrator seems to be an objective observer, most of the time the narration cleaves to the perspective of Winterbourne, so that what we see of Daisy is through his eyes. Indeed, a number of times in the novella the narrator notes that Winterbourne is watching or looking at Daisy as she interacts with others. Winterbourne's gaze is that of a regular male admirer, but there is also a certain morbid fascination as he watches her make social mistakes without ever really intervening in more than a half-hearted way. Instead, Winterbourne seems to want to wait to see what Daisy will do next, as if she were a theatrical spectacle unfolding before his eyes. Nowhere is this truer than in the scene at the Coliseum, when Winterbourne catches sight of Daisy with Giovanelli late at night. Even though this is devastating for Daisy's character (at least in the eyes of others), and even though she will contract the Roman fever here that will ultimately cause her death, Winterbourne feels more than anything a great relief to finally know how to categorize Daisy, exactly what kind of spectacle he is to watch.Winterbourne's constant observations of Daisy are purportedly meant to understand her, and even to permit him to win her over—as she seems, to him, to be giving mixed signals regarding her interest. But this search for greater knowledge of Daisy comes at a cost for Winterbourne himself, who seems to lose any kind of motivation on his own other than that of observing Daisy and watching her life unfold. Tied to the woman whose relationship to him remains ambiguous, Winterbourne moves through the novella in a kind of paused state. As the end of the novella strikes much the same note as the beginning—with Winterbourne back to the pursuit of an "older foreign lady"—we come to see the novella as, from his point of view, one long parenthesis that could well have little effect on his later actions and behavior. Unlike Daisy, Winterbourne fails to make choices, even the wrong ones, such that life ends up passing him by. - Theme: Judgment, Knowledge, and Knowability. Description: The heroine that lends her name to the title of Daisy Miller is an enigma both to Winterbourne and to the novella's readers. Despite all the time he spends watching her—and despite the national categories that should help in terms of identifying and explaining Daisy's actions—Winterbourne can never quite figure her out. Daisy's very character is deeply ambiguous throughout the novel, and this ambiguity serves to make Daisy such a fascinating character, even as it also suggests Henry James's own ambivalence regarding whether or not to parcel out judgment on Daisy's character.Winterbourne has difficulty determining both why Daisy acts the way she does and what he should think about it. Daisy's constant meetings with Mr. Giovanelli suggest, for instance, that she is leading an unseemly affair with him; but she also seems to welcome Winterbourne's intrusion on her dates with the Italian, making him unsure of what is truly at stake in their relationship. Meanwhile, Daisy herself seems ambivalent regarding the judgments of others—at times claiming not to care, but at others blushing or growing anxious about other people's responses to her actions.Other characters in the novel, including Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Costello, have a clearer idea of how to consider Daisy, as they condemn her for her free spirit and lack of social propriety. They believe they know what kind of person Daisy is, or at least refuse to believe that there might be more to her than her social improprieties. Winterbourne, however, never manages to embrace such certainty or such final judgment. The one thing he's sure about is that Daisy is "really quite pretty," a judgment repeated several times throughout the novella—yet even this physical judgment makes him unsure as to whether she is an innocent youth or a very American flirt. Winterbourne alternately rebels (if quietly) against society's condemnation of Daisy, and agrees with this condemnation himself. His encounters with Daisy cause him to question the social customs and traditions that he had long taken for granted—though not quite enough for him to overthrow them entirely, like Daisy does.Daisy's character is never ultimately resolved in the novella. There is a part of her beyond her national character that remains inscrutable, to Winterbourne in particular but also in the novella more broadly. Through his portrayal of Daisy and other characters' attempts to know and to judge her, James seems to gesture towards an uncertainty regarding the extent to which we can know another person at all. - Theme: Innocence. Description: Part of the difference between American and European culture, at least in the eyes of Henry James, is a greater naïveté and innocence on the side of the Americans—although this innocence is never considered wholly positive. Indeed, the word "innocence" is used in several different ways in the novel. In some ways it is related to a lack of knowledge about the way the world works, an ignorance of the unspoken rules and commandments that rule people's behavior in polite society. In this sense, Daisy certainly seems to align with the idea of an innocent newcomer to European society. But innocence can also, particularly for women, be related to the concept of being "not guilty," especially with respect to sexual purity. This is the question on which many in Roman society seem divided with respect to Daisy. Indeed, in different ways, Daisy is both innocent and savvy. She has a coterie of acquaintances on her own in Rome, and has little trouble meeting "locals." She seems entirely at ease in social interactions, with men as well as with women. This sense of savvy tends to be tied in the novella to her "American" character, and in particular to her family upbringing. Although her family members don't necessarily encourage her to speak her mind and to pursue all the opportunities that present themselves to her, they also don't prevent Daisy from doing so or reprimand her for her choices. At the same time, Daisy's fascination with European culture often reveals a certain guilelessness, a total openness to seeing and experiencing new things without an accompanying self-awareness about how to act amidst such novelties. Daisy accepts Mr. Giovanelli's offers to tour Rome unaccompanied by a "chaperone," she spends all evening with the same men at parties, and she doesn't act meek and polite around potential suitors. Does she act this way because she just doesn't know how things are done in Roman expatriate society? Or does she not care—and if not, how much is she courting scandal by seeing just how far she can go with eligible young men? By the end of the novel, both Winterbourne and Giovanelli seem convinced that Daisy is, in their estimation, "innocent"—Giovanelli pronounces this judgment at Daisy's grave—and yet it is no clearer than it was at the story's beginning what precisely innocence entails. - Theme: Female Independence. Description: The vast difference between the behaviors of Daisy and Winterbourne, two young, single Americans abroad, has one obvious explanation apart from their divergent personalities: as a man, Winterbourne is free to act as he wishes and to embrace an independent lifestyle without condemnation, while Daisy is not. The novella implicitly if not explicitly develops this unjust difference based only on gender norms. Daisy is part of a generation of young American women to whom more options than ever were open—women's rights movements were beginning in earnest, and the Grand Tour to Europe, which had earlier been open only to men, could now be enjoyed by women as well. However, this did not mean that women were entirely independent. That Mrs. Costello, Mrs. Walker, and others grow so shocked at Daisy's desire to walk alone—"alone" usually meaning with one man, unaccompanied by a chaperone—underlines these limitations. In many ways, the novella shows just how frustrating these limitations and lack of independence can be for intelligent, curious young women. Still, James is seemingly very ambivalent about the position of young American women at this historical moment. The book hardly embraces Daisy's behavior as a model for young women, as her death at the end of the novella brings her experiments in independence to a tragic close, and is also shown as stemming from her own mistakes and rash choices. As the place of the woman in American and European culture was rapidly shifting, Henry James portrayed some of society's own ambivalent views on what paths the New Woman could take, and what dangers she still faced, especially in the older, more established European culture. - Climax: Winterbourne discovers Daisy with her Italian admirer, Mr. Giovanelli, wandering the Coliseum late at night, risking illness in addition to her reputation. - Summary: Daisy Miller begins in the resort town of Vevay, in Switzerland, where a young expatriate American, Mr. Winterbourne, has arrived from Geneva (where, according to various rumors, he either studies or pursues an older foreign lady) to spend some time with his aunt, Mrs. Costello. Winterbourne encounters a young boy, also American, who is talkative and immediately engages Winterbourne in conversation. The boy's sister arrives, and Winterbourne learns their names: Daisy and Randolph Miller. Winterbourne finds Daisy quite pretty, and though she initially pays him little attention, she soon warms to him and starts chatting away, astounding him with her talkativeness and her lack of the shy feminine attitude he has grown used to in Geneva. Daisy asks if he might take her to the Château de Chillon, a castle across the lake, which she's wanted to see, and he agrees. Winterbourne asks his aunt about the Millers, and she tells them that they are vulgar people. This disappoints him, as he is fascinated by Daisy and wanted to introduce her to his aunt. Mrs. Costello is particularly offended that Daisy plans to go with Winterbourne, unaccompanied by anyone else, to the chateau. That evening, Winterbourne meets Daisy again and, later, her mother, Mrs. Miller, who seems alternately bemused and unaffected by Daisy's up-front attitude towards Winterbourne. Daisy asks Winterbourne to take her out on a boat alone, even though it is late at night, but the courier, Eugenio, arrives to announce that he's finally gotten Randolph to go to bed, and they all retire. A few days later Winterbourne takes Daisy to the chateau. He enjoys watching her and listening to her chatter on, but he's a little disappointed that, although she is quite frank with him, she doesn't seem nervous as he imagines a young lady would in such a situation if she were actually attracted to him. But when Winterbourne reveals that he has to return to Geneva shortly, Daisy is indignant, and she imagines he has a lover there. She continues to complain until Winterbourne agrees to meet her in Rome the following winter, where his aunt has an apartment, and where the Millers are going next. Winterbourne arrives in Rome to learn, from his aunt, that Daisy is causing a great deal of talk in society—she is wandering around alone and always seems to be surrounded by admiring Italian gentlemen. Somewhat put off by the idea of such competition, Winterbourne goes to see a friend from Geneva, Mrs. Walker. There, however, he encounters the Millers, who are also paying Mrs. Walker a visit. Winterbourne talks to Mrs. Miller for a while, before greeting Daisy, who is quick to vocalize her dissatisfaction with the way he left her at Vevay. Mrs. Walker, however, finds it quite strange that she would act in such a way, since Daisy and Winterbourne had only known each other for a few days. Daisy announces that she is planning on going for a walk, to meet her Italian friend, Mr. Giovanelli. Mrs. Walker begs her not to go alone, and Daisy cheerily suggests that Winterbourne accompany her. They meet Giovanelli, a dashing Italian man, in the Pincian gardens, to walk. Before long, however, Mrs. Walker pursues them in a carriage, and she begs Daisy to get inside, since everyone is talking about her. Daisy holds her ground and refuses. Mrs. Walker, angry and frustrated, then insists that Winterbourne accompany her, and he leaves Daisy and Giovanelli. It begins to become difficult for Winterbourne to call on Daisy, as she is always out or with Giovanelli. At Mrs. Walker's party, Mrs. Miller comes alone, saying that Daisy has gotten wrapped up in playing piano with Giovanelli, and will come later. Mrs. Walker is shocked and indignant, and decides to refuse to talk to Daisy. Daisy comes with Giovanelli and is bright and cheerful as usual. When Winterbourne tries to warn her about what people are saying, Daisy says he's being disagreeable, and she spends the rest of the night with her Italian friend. When she goes to leave, Mrs. Walker turns her back to Daisy, and Winterbourne watches, feeling sorry for her, as Daisy seems confused and uncertain. Mrs. Walker and her friends, after that, stop inviting Daisy to their parties. One day Winterbourne encounters Daisy with Giovanelli at a tourist site. Again he tries to tell her what people are saying, and she says that he should prevent people from being unkind. Winterbourne asks if she's engaged to Giovanelli, and Daisy first says she is, then—when Winterbourne says he believes her—that she's not. A week later, Winterbourne eats out and decides to stroll home through the moonlight. He peeks into the Coliseum, which is beautifully lit up, but then remembers that this is how one contracts the Roman fever. He is about to leave when he sees Daisy and Giovanelli there. Winterbourne feels both bitter and relieved, now that he thinks he finally understands that Daisy is simply a low, disreputable woman. Still, it's dangerous for her to be there at this hour, and when he asks why the Italian has brought her, Giovanelli says he can't prevent Daisy from acting as she wishes. Finally Winterbourne convinces them to leave. But soon after, Daisy falls seriously ill. When Winterbourne calls at their hotel, Mrs. Miller tells him that Daisy wanted him to know that she wasn't engaged to Giovanelli—she was very insistent about it. Daisy dies of the Roman fever soon after, and is buried in Rome. Not long after that Winterbourne returns to Geneva, but he comes back to Vevay to visit his aunt the next year, where he reflects that he misunderstood Daisy, and that she would have appreciated his esteem. The book ends with Winterbourne back in Geneva, either studying or, as others say, pursuing a foreign lady.

- Genre: Short Story, Realism, Southern Ontario Gothic - Title: Dance of the Happy Shades - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Southern Ontario, Canada, around the middle of the 20th century - Character: The Narrator. Description: - Character: Miss Marsalles. Description: - Character: The Narrator's Mother. Description: - Character: Mrs. Clegg. Description: - Character: Dolores Boyle. Description: - Character: Miss Marsalles's Sister. Description: - Theme: Social Etiquette and Politeness. Description: - Theme: Prejudice, Otherness, and Ostracization. Description: - Theme: Societal Expectations vs. Self-Fulfillment. Description: - Theme: Death, Life, and Joy. Description: - Climax: Dolores Boyle plays a piano piece called "The Dance of the Happy Shades" - Summary: "Dance of the Happy Shades" takes place in southern Ontario, Canada, in the mid-20th century. The narrator is a middle-class teenage girl who takes piano lessons from Miss Marsalles, an elderly music teacher. Miss Marsalles is having another party, or music recital, in June. The narrator's mother—one of Miss Marsalles's former students—doesn't want to attend, so she tries making various excuses. She suggests that Miss Marsalles shouldn't have the party at all because she's too old and because the older Marsalles sister has recently had a stroke. However, Miss Marsalles is too enthusiastic to cancel the party. The narrator's mother regards Miss Marsalles with condescending pity but politely agrees to attend the party. Then the narrator's mother calls her friend on the phone to commiserate about Miss Marsalles's awkward parties. Overhearing her mother's conversations, the narrator considers her own memories of Miss Marsalles's annual festivities. The parties have become uncomfortable lately because fewer people are attending them, which worries the narrator's mother. All Miss Marsalles cares about, though, is teaching music to children. The narrator remembers that, in the past, Miss Marsalles's parties weren't bad. The food was good, the students' performances were lackluster but usually not disastrous, and the whole event was reliably consistent. Miss Marsalles always looked the same, "kindly and grotesque," dressed in an old-fashioned style. Year after year, Miss Marsalles's lifestyle has persisted without change. She maintains old traditions—such as giving gifts to her pupils at recitals—even when she likely can no longer afford them. On the day of Miss Marsalles's party, the narrator and her mother reluctantly arrive at the small half-house on Bala Street, where Miss Marsalles merrily waits to greet them. Curiously, Miss Marsalles seems to be expecting more arrivals. Inside the house, there are only a few other party guests. The narrator's mother is upset that her friend hasn't come but tries to act pleasant. She speaks to Mrs. Clegg, Miss Marsalles's neighbor, about the older Marsalles sister, who is bedridden upstairs and not doing well. The narrator's mother suddenly notices that flies are crawling all over the food Miss Marsalles prepared. The narrator's mother grows dismayed but stops Mrs. Clegg from impolitely gossiping about their hostess. Finally, the younger children start to perform. Miss Marsalles and Mrs. Clegg encourage them with enthusiastic applause, while the uneasy mothers are relieved that the recital is nearing its end. While the narrator performs, a new group of children arrive, startling everyone except for Miss Marsalles. Miss Marsalles welcomes them, but the other women now appear to feel trapped and offended. The newly arrived children are Miss Marsalles's pupils from Greenhill School, and they have Down syndrome. The women's distress increases as each of these children also performs. Then a girl named Dolores Boyle skillfully plays a beautiful, cheerful piece of music. The mothers are caught in a "profound anxiety," but Miss Marsalles is as happy with Dolores as with any of her other students. She doesn't view Dolores's musicality as an extraordinary miracle or an affront to propriety; instead, she celebrates Dolores's talent as an ordinary joy. When Dolores's performance is over, the narrator observes that the women are troubled. They view Dolores's ability as "useless" and "out-of-place" because she has Down syndrome. Desperately trying to remain polite, however, they ask what the piece she played is called. Miss Marsalles answers that it is called The Dance of the Happy Shades. On her way home from Miss Marsalles's house, where she will never attend another party, the narrator realizes she can't pity Miss Marsalles as she expected to. "The Dance of the Happy Shades"—as a "communiqué from the other country" in which Miss Marsalles seems to exist—has taught her that Miss Marsalles isn't to be pitied.

- Genre: Bildungsroman - Title: Darius the Great Is Not Okay - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Portland, Oregon and Yazd, Iran - Character: Darius Kellner. Description: The novel's protagonist, Darius is a high school sophomore and a self-described "Fractional Persian"; that is, his mom is Iranian and his dad is white. Darius lives in Portland, Oregon and doesn't feel like he fits in at all. Bullies Trent and Chip tease him incessantly at school and work, and Dad regularly suggests that if Darius was a little more "normal" and stood up for himself, he wouldn't get picked on. This causes major strife between Dad and Darius; indeed, the only time they get along is when they watch an episode of Star Trek every night. Darius is forced to reevaluate his identity when his family visits Yazd, Iran to see his grandfather Babou before he dies of a brain tumor. There, Darius makes his first real friend, Sohrab, and learns the value of having trusting, honest friendships with people (including with family members, like Mamou). Still, he never feels entirely like he fits in, as he doesn't speak Farsi and dislikes some classic Persian foods. Darius also struggles with depression, which his Persian relatives don't understand. Eventually, though, Darius and Dad are able to connect more honestly—and Darius internalizes the idea that it's not his fault when people bully or are mean to him. He returns to Portland with way more confidence, and after several weeks spent playing soccer with Sohrab in Iran, he even agrees to consider trying out for the school soccer team in the fall. - Character: Sohrab Rezaei. Description: Sohrab is Mamou and Babou's neighbor, and when he and Darius meet, he quickly becomes Darius's best friend. He's lean, muscular, loves soccer, and dreams of being an architect or a civil engineer when he grows up—though because he's Bahá'í, he worries he won't be able to follow either career path (the Iranian government systematically denies Bahá'ís education). He and Darius connect in part because Sohrab knows what it's like to be bullied for being different, as he's one of only a few Bahá'í boys at school. Darius appreciates Sohrab because Sohrab is comfortable showing physical affection, is a good listener, and is the sort of person who can make others feel heard and cared for easily. However, Sohrab struggles some to understand Darius's fraught relationship with Dad, as Sohrab's dad has been imprisoned for years and Sohrab fears he'll never see his dad again. This fear ultimately comes to pass; Sohrab's dad is murdered in prison. In his grief, Sohrab lashes out at Darius—but he also then makes a point to apologize and take ownership of his misplaced anger. Darius and Sohrab remain friends after Darius leaves Iran, and they email each other daily. - Character: Dad. Description: Darius's dad is a partner at an architecture firm in Portland. Darius refers to him as a Teutonic Übermensch, as Dad is white, tall, conventionally attractive, seems to have never struggled with bullying or his weight, and is highly functioning despite having diagnosed depression. He and Darius don't get along, as he regularly suggests that if Darius only acted a bit more "normal" and stood up for himself, bullies would stop picking on him. The times Dad and Darius can happily coexist is when they watch an episode of Star Trek together every night. It's perplexing when, in Iran, Darius observes that Dad seems to fit in with the Persian relatives even better than Darius does—he plays Rook well and has the best technique for making chelo kabob. Darius and Dad don't come to an understanding until Dad admits that just before Laleh was born, his medication stopped working and he began considering self-harm. He spent months on tranquilizers, which kept him safe but damaged his relationship with Darius (he stopped telling Darius stories during this time). This admission makes Dad seem more relatable and human, and after this conversation, Dad also seems to try harder to love and support the son he has. - Character: Mom. Description: Darius's mom is a UX designer. She's also Iranian; she immigrated to the U.S. and married Dad 17 years ago, though her initial plan wasn't to stay in the U.S. Though Darius knows his mom is flawed, he loves her dearly. She regularly stands up for Darius when Dad is unwittingly cruel or callous towards his son; she encourages Dad to let go of his expectations and love the son he has, not the one Dad wishes Darius could be. Still, Mom becomes even more relatable when the family visits Iran to visit her parents; her dad, Babou, has a brain tumor and isn't going to get better. Surrounded by relatives, Mom apologizes to Darius for not teaching him Farsi and tells him happy stories about Babou and her childhood in Yazd. The visit is emotionally difficult for her, as everyone knows that it's going to be the last time she sees Babou. - Character: Laleh Kellner. Description: Laleh is Darius's eight-year-old sister. Unlike him, she manages to be wildly popular at school—though Darius doesn't hold this against her, as he adores his little sister and she idolizes him in return. She's bright and opinionated, and she isn't above throwing tantrums if she's hungry or extremely bored. Because Mom taught her Farsi and she's nearly fluent, she has an easier time than Darius does integrating into the extended Bahrami family in Yazd. Secretly, Darius believes that his parents decided to have Laleh so they had a second chance to raise a child who wasn't such a disappointment as he believes he is (though he goes out of his way to not punish Laleh for this). And though he tries not to blame Laleh for it, Darius is distraught when Dad allows Laleh to watch Star Trek with them and says he likes watching it with her—Darius sees this as proof that she's the preferred child in the family. - Character: Mamou. Description: Mamou is Mom's mother and Darius's grandmother. She lives with her husband, Babou, in Yazd, Iran. Darius adores his grandmother and always has—she's loving and open—but he struggles to know what to say to her, especially over video calls. When Darius and his family finally visit her in Iran for the first time, Darius is struck by how openly affectionate she is. She takes every opportunity to hug or kiss Darius, or to tell him she loves him, and she keeps him constantly fed with his favorite food and desserts (she's known locally for her cooking and baking). Still, Darius isn't able to truly open up to Mamou and get to know her until he notices she's listening to ABBA on the radio—and she says ABBA is her favorite group. He recognizes that Mamou is struggling, as Babou's brain tumor means that he's sometimes cruel, angry, or forgetful, and he often takes out his emotions on her. - Character: Babou. Description: Babou is Mom's dad and Darius's grandfather. He and his wife, Mamou, live in Yazd, Iran and have for their entire lives. Although Babou speaks English, he's more comfortable speaking Farsi, which Darius doesn't speak. Babou has a brain tumor, and when it becomes clear that he's not going to improve, Darius's family decides to visit Iran—so Darius meets his grandfather for the first time at this point. He finds Babou confusing and somewhat difficult to love. Sometimes, Babou seems to adore Darius and be very proud of him. Other times, he nitpicks at Darius, Dad, and at Mom's choice to marry an American and live abroad, which makes Darius feel inadequate and ashamed. Darius's feelings toward his grandfather are complicated further by the fact that the tumor causes Babou to occasionally lash out and get angry for no reason—though Mom and Sohrab both tell Darius stories that suggest Babou's true personality isn't cruel or violent. - Character: Trent "Fatty" Bolger. Description: The antagonist of the novel, Trent Bolger is one of the most popular kids at Darius's school. Though he's a known bully, because kids at school tolerate his behavior, he's technically not in violation of the school's Zero Tolerance Policy against bullying. Darius refers to him as a Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy; that is, he dresses and acts like a stereotypical cool kid and bullies others because he actually has no soul. Trent targets Darius more than other kids, as Darius's name starts with D and therefore cruel nicknames like "D-Bag" are an easy choice. - Character: Chip Cusumano. Description: Chip is one of Trent's cronies and a Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy, though he's not as cruel as Trent and might actually be a nice person. He regularly accompanies Trent when Trent bullies Darius, though he apologizes to Darius later and even expresses regret that he was involved at all. - Character: Sohrab's Dad. Description: Sohrab's dad doesn't appear in person in the novel, as he's been imprisoned by the Iranian government for several years. He was arrested during protests—but he wasn't a protester. Sohrab explains that his dad was arrested because he is Bahá'í, and the Iranian government cruelly targets Bahá'ís. Sohrab's dad was in the Yazd prison for several years but is in solitary confinement in Tehran by the time Darius gets to Iran. A few days before Darius leaves, Sohrab and his family get the news that his dad was stabbed and died. - Character: Sohrab's Uncle/Agha Rezaei. Description: Agha Rezaei, Sohrab's uncle, owns a grocery store in Yazd. Darius is struck both by how stereotypically Persian Agha Rezaei looks (he has a lush beard and lots of chest hair) and how unusually tall he is. A kind man, Agha Rezaei has helped support Sohrab and Khanum Rezaei since Sohrab's dad, his business partner, was imprisoned. Darius also notices that Sohrab seems more relaxed around his uncle, as if his uncle makes Sohrab feel like it's okay to be a kid. - Character: Ali-Reza. Description: Ali-Reza is a boy whom Hossein and Sohrab regularly play soccer with. At first, Darius thinks Ali-Reza is a friend of Sohrab's—but he soon realizes that the two are more like enemies. This, Sohrab explains later, is because Ali-Reza is very prejudiced against Bahá'ís. Darius ultimately concludes that Ali-Reza is just an Iranian Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy. - Character: Dayi Jamsheed. Description: Dayi Jamsheed is Mom's brother, one of Darius's uncles. He's the only Bahrami, aside from Mamou and Babou, who still lives in Yazd, so he's the one to drive Darius's family to and from the airport. Though he's kind, he also unwittingly makes Darius feel bad by suggesting that Darius isn't very Persian because Darius doesn't like cucumbers. - Character: Coach Fortes. Description: Coach Fortes is the soccer coach and physical education teacher at Darius's school. He's generally cool and supportive of his students—he doesn't punish Darius when Darius is late due to his backpack breaking, and he encourages Darius to try out for the school soccer team when he sees how good of a player Darius is. - Character: Customs Officer II. Description: Customs Officer II is a hulking customs officer who pulls Darius away from his family for questioning at the Tehran airport. With his turban and beard, he looks extremely Persian and makes Darius feel less so—especially when he gives Darius a hard time for taking medication for depression. However, as soon as Customs Officer II learns that Dad is an architect, his demeanor totally changes, and he enthusiastically welcomes Darius to Iran. - Theme: Friendship. Description: Darius the Great is Not Okay follows its titular teenage protagonist as he visits Iran, where Darius's mom is from, for the first time. Darius is alone and mostly friendless in Portland, but in Iran, he meets his first real friend, Sohrab. The novel presents friendship as something of an antidote to bullying: while Darius is bullied incessantly in Portland, in Iran, he and Sohrab are able to bond over their shared experiences with bullying (Sohrab is bullied for being Bahá'í) and dull some of its worst effects. For instance, Darius used to play soccer, but he quit when he began taking medication for depression and could no longer concentrate on the game. So though Darius believes he's not good at soccer, Sohrab invites Darius to play with some of his friends—and with Sohrab's encouragement, Darius discovers that he's actually pretty good. Additionally, Sohrab shows how supportive friends can make what could be an awful bullying experience mostly positive. Sohrab's friends, Ali-Reza and Hossein, tease Darius after their first game for being uncircumcised, and they begin calling him "Ayatollah" after Iran's Supreme Leader (they snicker that Darius's penis resembles the Ayatollah's turban). Though this initially devastates Darius, Sohrab manages to turn the nickname into a positive when they play again with younger kids: he tells the younger boys that the nickname is because Darius is in charge. Thanks to Sohrab's quick thinking, by the end of his trip, Darius thinks he likes the nickname. The Ayatollah incident in particular highlights for Darius what the novel suggests is one of the most important ingredients to a fulfilling, healthy friendship: trust. Darius trusts Sohrab to stick up for him, so he's ultimately willing to play soccer again with Ali-Reza and Hossein. And Darius finds that Sohrab is the first person who doesn't want to change him into someone different. He accepts Darius as he is: American, overweight, depressed, and anxious, and through his words and actions, he shows Darius that it's okay not to be okay. His friendship with Sohrab helps Darius feel okay for the first time with who he is, suggesting that trusting friendships can, as in this circumstance, help a person feel more secure in their community—and in their own identity. - Theme: Family. Description: Darius the Great is Not Okay is, in many ways, the story of how its titular teenage character learns to be part of his family. Family, Darius learns, isn't just about being related to someone by blood. Rather, it's about the support that family members show each other that makes a family. Darius begins the novel feeling cut off from most of his family members. He and Dad have a fraught relationship, while Darius's only interactions with his Iranian maternal grandparents, Mamou and Babou, have been over Skype. As such, Darius doesn't feel particularly connected to Dad, Mamou, or Babou. When it comes to his relationship with Dad, Darius also feels like he'll never be able to please his seemingly perfect, exacting father for various reasons. This leads Darius to feel generally alone and unsupported. Darius's trip to Iran forces him to rethink his ideas about family. Over the course of his trip, he develops a close and loving relationship with Mamou, and he marvels that she sees every chance to kiss him or say "I love you" as an opportunity, rather than a burden. His joyful relationship with Mamou, however, contrasts with the anxiety Darius continues to feel around Babou and Dad. Babou, Darius feels, is disappointed in many family members: almost all have moved away from Yazd, Mom married an American and is raising non-Zoroastrian children, and Darius, in addition to not being Zoroastrian, has depression (which Babou erroneously blames Darius for) and speaks little Farsi. However, Darius is able to take Mamou's example and essentially come to the conclusion that while he's not sure he likes his grandfather much, he still loves Babou and tries to show it as best he can—for instance, he hugs and kisses Babou goodbye when he leaves. It's also transformative for Darius when he and Dad finally speak openly to each other. During this conversation, Dad explains that what Darius perceives as constant disapproval is actually Dad trying to protect Darius. When Dad changes his behavior and tries to be more supportive of who his son is, it opens the door for them to connect more deeply and honestly—and to feel more like "a real father and son" more often. Familial relationships, Darius acknowledges, aren't always perfect or comfortable, but he ultimately decides that being willing to try to support one's family members in the way they need and want to be supported is more important than anything else. - Theme: Persian Identity and Culture. Description: Darius is what he calls a "Fractional Persian:" Mom is from Iran, and Dad is a white American, so Darius and his sister, Laleh, have grown up immersed in both Persian and white American mainstream culture. As Darius and his family visit Iran and celebrate Nowruz (the Persian new year) there, much of Darius's narration involves describing various foods, drinks, and customs for readers, all of which are things that Darius believes make his life richer (and tastier). In this way, Darius the Great is Not Okay presents being multicultural, as Darius and his family are, as a wholly positive thing: in many ways, Darius gets the best of both worlds as he gets to enjoy Persian holidays and celebrations in addition to American holidays. However, Darius also finds his Persian identity somewhat anxiety-inducing, as he often fears that he's not "Persian enough." It's a source of shame for him that he doesn't speak much Farsi, especially when Laleh is nearly fluent. At Nowruz, Darius's uncles also give him a hard time for not liking cucumbers (and Darius feels self-conscious about disliking figs), and Darius is also humorously bad at Rook, a traditional Persian card game. Rather than seeing any of these qualities as either quirks or things that are beyond Darius's control (it's not, for instance, Darius's fault that Mom didn't speak to him in Farsi, as she did with Laleh), Darius sees them as moral failings that prove that he's not truly Persian or a real member of his family. But at home in Portland, Oregon, Darius also finds that his Persian identity sometimes causes problems: bullies claim that he's a terrorist and that he rides camels, and Darius goes out of his way to make sure his biggest bully, Trent Bolger, doesn't learn the Persian version of his name (Darioush) for fear that Trent's bullying would escalate further. Thus, Darius the Great is Not Okay suggests that culture isn't just about knowing language, food, and certain customs. A person's relationship to their culture is also something highly personal, and it's possible for it to shift and change over time as a person encounters new ideas and experiences. - Theme: Mental Health, Depression, and Connection. Description: Both Darius and Dad struggle with diagnosed depression. Throughout the novel—depending on context—depression is framed as something that is either neutral and nothing to be ashamed of—or a huge source of shame and isolation. For instance, on the plane to Iran, Mom warns Darius that Iranian culture doesn't see depression the same way that American culture does. Upon learning that Darius takes medication for depression, various Iranian friends and family members insist that Darius needs to try harder, eat better, and simply think happier thoughts. This is profoundly alienating for Darius, and it makes him feel like he'll never measure up to his relatives' high standards. Similarly, though Dad encourages Darius to see his depression as just a thing he has to manage (and Darius's medication simply as something Darius requires to live a good, fulfilling life) Darius believes that his depression is something that Dad is ashamed of. Darius's perception contributes to his fraught relationship with Dad, as it seems to Darius that Dad, who has been successfully managing his depression for decades, has forgotten how hard it can be for Darius, who is young and still figuring out how to manage his mental illness. However, when Dad and Darius finally speak honestly with each other at the novel's climax, Darius discovers that medication hasn't always made Dad the high-functioning, emotionally stable, ideal man that Darius sees him as. Rather, Dad shares that when Darius was little, his medication stopped working; in order to keep him from hurting himself, Dad's doctors temporarily put on heavy tranquilizers. This is revelatory for Darius—for once, Dad seems like a relatable person with flaws and struggles of his own. But this conversation also reminds Darius and readers alike that managing depression isn't always easy and straightforward, even if it seems that way from the outside. Depression is, as Dad maintains, nothing to be ashamed of—but that doesn't mean it's not also sometimes painful and frightening. Dad and Darius also find, though, that speaking openly and honestly with each other about Dad's struggles helps them connect and develop empathy for each other. Darius the Great is Not Okay thus suggests that, in certain contexts and with trusted people, opening up about one's mental illness can be a source of connection and support. - Theme: Bullying. Description: At home in Portland, Darius is Trent Bolger's favorite bullying target. Darius is nerdy, overweight, half Persian, and has a name that starts with D, which lends itself to all manner of cruel nicknames (like "D-Bag"). Initially, Dad and, to some degree, Darius himself blame Darius for the bullying he experiences: Dad insists that if Darius could just act a little more "normal" and stand up for himself, bullies wouldn't pick on him, while Darius maintains that he's destined to be a target thanks to his half-Persian identity and his name. This outlook makes Darius feel powerless and even worse about himself, as no matter what Dad says, Darius knows he can't singlehandedly stop Trent from bullying him. But as the novel progresses, Darius and his friends and family—even Dad—come to a new understanding about bullying: that it's never about the person being targeted, and it has everything to do with the bully himself. Darius first begins to understand this when he meets Sohrab in Yazd and they play soccer for the first time. While Sohrab seems nice at first, he joins his friends in teasing Darius for being uncircumcised. Later, though, when he apologizes, Sohrab reveals that he only joined in on the bullying because it was nice, for once, to not be the target himself. In other words, Sohrab chose to bully Darius because of his own insecurities, not because there's anything wrong with Darius. Darius eventually discovers that Dad's misguided attempts to blame Darius for Trent's bullying is also about Dad's fears and insecurities, not proof that Darius is actually disappointing: Dad is trying in the only way he knows how to protect Darius, though his methods are harmful rather than helpful. And while readers never get any insight into Trent's psyche or motivations for bullying, Darius does recognize that Trent has no idea what he's talking about when he calls Darius a "terrorist" or teases Darius about encountering camels and cacti in Iran—his ignorance, selfishness, and need to make himself feel better by putting others down leads to his cruelty. While the novel acknowledges that knowing this about bullies doesn't always make bullying less painful, it nevertheless helps Darius feel more secure in who he is—to believe, for the first time in his life, that he's fine just the way he is and doesn't need to change himself to please people who are impossible to please. - Climax: After Sohrab lashes out at Darius, Darius and Dad speak honestly with each other for the first time. - Summary: Life is hard enough for teenage Darius, but things get even worse on the day that bully Trent Bolger and his fellow Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy, Chip Cusumano, steal Darius's bike's wheels and seat while he's at work. Trent and Chip replace the bike seat with rubber testicles that people sometimes hang from trailer hitches. Darius has to call Dad to come pick him up from work at The Tea Haven. As usual, Dad suggests that Trent would stop bullying Darius if Darius only stood up for himself. Clearly, Dad has never been bullied—he's a Teutonic Übermensch, a highly successful, Audi driving, perfect architect. After dinner, Darius and Dad go to the living room for their evening ritual: watching one episode of Star Trek, which is the only time they can be a "real father and son." Midway through the episode, Mom accepts a video call from her parents in Iran, Mamou and Babou. Darius and Dad briefly say hello, finish their episode, and then go to the kitchen to take their medications—they both take medication for depression. Dad shares with Darius that Babou, who has a brain tumor, isn't going to get better. The family is going to visit Iran and they'll be there over Nowruz, the Persian new year. A few weeks later, Darius carries his sleepy younger sister, Laleh, through the airports and tries to ignore Dad when Dad polices what Darius eats (Darius is overweight because of his medication, not because he lacks self-control). Darius is also resentful because Chip broke Darius's backpack yesterday, so he has to use a messenger bag of Dad's as his carry-on bag (he hates messenger bags). The family lands in Tehran just before sunrise. After a frightening interrogation with a customs officer, Darius and his family are greeted by Mamou and Dayi Jamsheed, one of Darius's uncles. They drive the few hours to Yazd, and—after a shower—Darius promptly falls asleep. Darius wakes to a human-shaped shadow crossing outside his window. When he goes outside, Babou has just climbed onto the roof to water his fig trees while a boy about Darius's age, Sohrab, passes him the hose from the courtyard. Babou certainly doesn't look sick, and he tells Darius and Sohrab to be friends. As Sohrab takes Darius to his uncle Agha Rezaei's store to buy something for Mamou, he explains that he and his family are Bahá'í. He also invites Darius to play soccer tomorrow with some of his friends, and Darius accepts. The next day, Darius braves a public locker room with no stalls to change into borrowed soccer gear and shower after—and Sohrab and his friends, Ali-Reza and Hossein, tease Darius for being uncircumcised, calling him "Ayatollah Darioush." Later that afternoon, Sohrab comes to Mamou's house to apologize. He admits he only bullied Darius because it was nice to not be Ali-Reza's target for once; Ali-Reza is very prejudiced against Bahá'ís. Darius accepts his apology, and somehow he knows he and Sohrab will be friends forever. The next day, Sohrab joins Darius's family on their trip to the ruins of Persepolis. There, Darius sees carvings of his namesake, Darioush the Great—but he doesn't feel great and brave like Darioush. Babou drives, but on the way home, he gets angry and pulls over. Dad finishes the drive and Sohrab whispers to Darius what happened: Babou got lost. He won't be able to drive again after this. It's Nowruz a few days later. Darius starts the day feeling secure in his identity and in his place in his family. He feels even better when Sohrab gifts him a soccer jersey for the Iranian national team. But his uncle Dayi Soheil calls Darius fat, and Dayi Jamsheed suggests Darius isn't very Persian since he doesn't like cucumbers. Even Dad seems to fit in better than Darius, since he plays Rook with Babou and Darius's uncles. Darius and Sohrab sit in the garden, talking about Darius's fraught relationship with Dad and how Darius doesn't feel like he fits in. Sohrab also reveals that he's here with only his mom, Khanum Rezaei, because Sohrab's dad was wrongfully arrested and imprisoned years ago, just for being Bahá'í. He's now in solitary confinement in a Tehran prison, and Sohrab worries he won't see his dad again. On the day after Nowruz, it's traditional to visit friends. So, Darius goes to visit Sohrab. Sohrab introduces Darius to his favorite food: romaine lettuce leaves dipped in mint syrup, which Babou used to make until his brain tumor made that difficult. They then go to a park to sit on top of a squat public restroom and stare out at the city. That night, though Dad brought Star Trek on his iPad so he and Darius can continue their tradition, Dad insists on letting Laleh watch with them. It's obvious to Darius that Dad loves Laleh better. Early the next morning, Darius and his family visit the Towers of Silence, where Zoroastrians used to bury their dead until sky burials were outlawed. When they get back, Darius and Sohrab take Laleh to get ice cream at Agha Rezaei's store. Laleh is fluent in Farsi, and she chatters at Sohrab in Farsi, which Darius doesn't speak. Sohrab asks her to speak English so Darius can understand. Over the next week, Sohrab joins Darius's family to visit Dowlatabad, a palace and gardens, and invites Darius to play soccer again with Ali-Reza and Hossein. Though the boys continue to call Darius "Ayatollah," Sohrab tells the younger boys they're playing with that this is because Darius is in charge—and Sohrab and Darius shower after the other boys are finished and have already left. They play daily for the rest of the week, and then Sohrab and his mom join Darius and his family for chelo kabob, a huge treat, at the end of the week. After the meal is over, Sohrab and two of Darius's older cousins, Parviz and Navid, teach Darius to play Rook. Darius is terrible at it, but he has fun. Babou insists on taking everyone to the Atashkadeh, the Zoroastrian fire temple, the next day. But when the family arrives, Babou isn't feeling well, so he and Mamou stay in the car. It's a sobering experience for Darius, as he thinks about Babou's mortality while staring at the ceremonial flames that have been burning for about 1,500 years. When the family gets home, Darius finds Mom looking at photo albums. She shows him a photo of Dad holding baby Darius, which makes them both sad: if only Dad and Darius could act like father and son, and if only it was easy like it seems in the photo. The next morning, Darius wraps a pair of cleats he bought as a going-away present for Sohrab to replace Sohrab's two pairs, which are falling apart. But when Darius gets to the Rezaeis' house, Sohrab and his family members are distraught—Sohrab's dad was killed in prison. Wild with grief and anger, Sohrab tells Darius to go away and that nobody wants him. Darius believes Sohrab and runs to the public restroom roof, where he sits for hours and cries. Dad finally finds Darius and joins him on the roof. He tells Darius not to cry, which makes Darius cry more—Dad, he snaps, just wants Darius to never feel emotions and to be perfect. Soberly, Dad shares that he's just trying to protect Darius from depression's dangerous effects. He reveals that just before Laleh was born, Dad's meds stopped working and he spent a few months taking heavy tranquilizers so he wouldn't hurt himself. Dad admits he fears the same thing happening to Darius, and he feels awful for passing depression on to his son. It's Darius's birthday the next day. While everyone else visits the Rezaeis, Dad and Darius wander around Yazd together and then rejoin the family for Darius's birthday dinner. Darius packs his suitcase, including the soccer jersey from Sohrab, his "Persian camouflage"—which Darius loves, but which maybe turns him into someone he isn't. Late that night, Sohrab stops by to apologize and to thank Darius for the shoes. The boys go to the bathroom to stare out at the city and sit in companionable silence. They return to Mamou's house and say goodbye, and Darius knows he and Sohrab will stay friends. In the morning, Darius bids Mamou and Babou goodbye and gets into Dayi Jamsheed's SUV for the ride to the airport. Darius spends two days recovering before he finally returns to school. He uses Dad's messenger bag rather than get a new backpack; it feels better these days. His gym class is playing soccer and the teacher, Coach Fortes, is impressed with Darius's skills, which have improved since he spent so much time playing soccer in Iran. Coach Fortes suggests Darius try out for the school team in the fall, and Darius agrees to think about it—it'd be fun to tell Sohrab about playing on a team in one of their almost-daily emails. It also surprises Darius when Chip apologizes for helping Trent destroy Darius's bike, and when Chip reveals he knows that Darius's namesake is Darius the Great. That evening, Dad and Darius watch Star Trek and then sit down for tea in the kitchen, which is their new tradition. Darius finally feels okay.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Dark Roots - Point of view: Second Person - Setting: Australia - Character: Protagonist. Description: - Character: Paul. Description: - Character: The Doctor. Description: - Character: Helen. Description: - Theme: Ageism and Misogyny. Description: - Theme: Beauty Standards and Self-Image. Description: - Theme: The Role of Honesty in Relationships. Description: - Climax: The protagonist leaves her leg wax appointment halfway through. - Summary: The story opens in the protagonist's home, where she flushes with excitement at the sound of her answering machine—the caller is her 13-years-younger lover, Paul. In a quick jump to the next scene, the protagonist acquires contraceptive pills from the doctor's office. She learns that increased appetite is a possible side-effect of the pills and reminisces on being 22 years old and not worrying about her weight. The doctor makes a comment about her age, hitting a nerve and indicating that age is an insecurity of the protagonist's. The protagonist tells her friends Helen and Sandy about Paul, revealing that he is 26 years old to her 39. After a pause, Helen and Sandy assuage her insecurities with their encouraging comments. The protagonist also exaggerates his career, saying that he is an academic while, in reality, he is still finishing his PhD. The protagonist starts to put more time and effort into her appearance, wearing more makeup and dyeing her hair red. She attributes this drastic behavior to the madness brought on by love. She again remembers being 22 and reminds herself to stay on her guard to maintain her figure. The protagonist tells her friends about her and Paul's first meeting: a happenstance encounter at a film screening, after which they went for drinks. Her friends gently tease her but listen with interest. As her relationship with Paul progresses, so does the protagonist's obsession with hiding her body. She avoids the bathroom mirror after a shower and insists on going to bed with Paul with the light off. She hopes that she will become more confident, and that this insecurity is just a phase, but it continues to spiral. A week into taking her contraceptives, the increased appetite side-effect rears its head. This causes her to become even more vigilant about policing her own body and habits, as she and Paul have a trip to the beach planned. The protagonist worries that she has missed her chance to have children as she continues to take her contraceptives. She notices that her roots have gone dark and re-dyes her hair, and, in that process, notices her darker facial hair, another side-effect of the contraceptives. She tweezes the hair, resigning herself to more vigilance. On her beach holiday with Paul, the protagonist envies his carelessness at sitting in the sun and eating fatty foods. Her insecurity grows and she reminds herself to keep her true age (nearly 40) and her desire for babies to herself. After their trip, a glimpse at the mirror in the department store prompts the protagonist to schedule her first leg wax. She chats with the receptionist, learning that men also have their bodies waxed. She is shocked at the pain of the wax, and even more shocked to learn that some women get full-body Brazilian waxes in order to please their boyfriends. Her disgust at this reality, combined with her immense physical pain, causes her to leave the appointment halfway through. Later, in bed with Paul with her half-waxed legs, she confesses to him that she will be 40 in two weeks. With the lights off, she cannot see Paul's reaction to this fact.

- Genre: Short story, science fiction, speculative fiction - Title: Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed - Point of view: Third person limited - Setting: Mars - Character: Harry Bittering. Description: Harry Bittering is the protagonist of "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed." Harry is made uneasy by the Martian landscape from the start, expressing a desire to return to Earth upon first stepping foot on Martian soil. Harry is particularly attuned to the uncanny ambiance of the Martian environment, and frequently finds himself thinking that the new world he inhabits is suspicious and may even mean him and his family harm. In keeping with this, Harry is also very attached to Earth and relies on the ability to communicate with and travel to Earth to keep his fears about the Martian world in check. When the ties between Earth and Mars are severed by nuclear war, Harry is more deeply affected than both his family and the other settlers, going so far as to attempt to construct a rocket single-handedly in order to escape from Mars. However, as time goes by and all the settlers become more acclimated to the Martian environment—and begin to succumb to the physical and psychological changes it inflicts upon them—Harry, too, is changed. He gradually loses his anxiety over returning to Earth and abandons his project with the rocket. Although Harry is the most resistant to the subtle changes wrought by Mars, he eventually gives into them like everyone else and ultimately moves with his family to the Martian villa. There, he forgets his attachment to Earth and Earthly things altogether, deeming Earth settlements "odd" and "ridiculous." - Character: Cora Bittering. Description: Cora Bittering is the wife of Harry Bittering and the mother of Dan, Laura, and David Bittering. Like Harry, she is at first very attached to objects and routines from Earth. However, she succumbs to the changes wrought by the Martian environment, both physical and mental, more quickly than her husband. She even helps persuade Harry to give up his obsession with Earthly things, encouraging him to eat food that has been grown on Mars and to forgo building his rocket. Cora helps Harry to accept the changes that he and his family have undergone, and to give up his futile desire to return to earth. By the end of the story, she, like Harry, has forgotten all her ties to Earth, effectively becoming a Martian. - Character: Dan, Laura, and David Bittering. Description: Dan, Laura, and David Bittering are the children of Harry Bittering and Cora Bittering. Out of all of Harry's family members, they are the most in tune with the Martian environment and accept its changes most quickly. Perhaps because they are so young, they have the fewest ties to Earth. They adopt Martian language and names first, and are also the first to encourage their parents to move away from the Earth settlement and into the Martian villas. Like Cora, they encourage Harry to accept the changes that are occurring to them rather than resist them. - Character: The Captain. Description: The unnamed captain and Lieutenant arrive at the end of the story, announcing that they have won the war and are there to rescue the settlers. Finding the settlement abandoned, however, they assume a plague wiped out the population and mistake the Earth people living in the villas for native Martians. In the story's final moments, the captain eagerly discusses resettling the Martian colony again and lists potential place names like the "Lincoln Mountains" and "Washington Canal," evidencing the American instinct towards colonialism. - Character: The Lieutenant. Description: The Lieutenant arrives on Mars via rocket at the end of the story with the captain, with the goal of rescuing the current settlers and expanding upon the American-built settlement. Like the captain, he is surprised to find the settlement deserted. As the captain rambles on about potential new place names, the Lieutenant appears to be lost in thought and gazes at the misty mountains in the distance—suggesting that he, too, will succumb to the pull of the Martian environment. - Theme: Familiarity and Perception. Description: In "Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed," the new settlers on Mars, including Harry Bittering and his family, are deeply unnerved by the Martian landscape, viewing it as alien and unnatural. In contrast, the familiar crops, architecture, and accessories they have imported from Earth are considered natural and therefore comforting. However, as their connection with Earth wanes, Martian influence gradually pervades every aspect of the Bitterings' lives. What is Martian begins to seem natural to them, while their Earthly imports seem strange and out of place. By the conclusion of the story, the Bitterings have completely embraced a "Martian" lifestyle and the tension between the natural and the unnatural has been flipped on its head. Bradbury's story thus suggests that conceptions of what is "natural" are not objective, but rather based squarely in place and perception. The landscape and atmosphere of a particular location will compel newcomers to assimilate, making what initially seems strange familiar. One of the first things that Harry and his family notice changing on Mars are the crops and livestock. Even before these changes occur, however, Harry is ill at ease: "Mr. Bittering felt very alone in his garden under the Martian sun, anachronism bent here, planting Earth flowers in a wild soil." Harry can already sense the inherent disconnection between plants brought from Earth and the Martian environment. Although the family has brought seeds and animals from Earth, the influence of the Martian environment gradually transforms them and makes them much different than their earthly counterparts. The crops are "Onions but not onions, carrots but not carrots. Taste: the same but different. Smell: not like it used to be." The roses turn green and the grass turns purple, an even more obvious demonstration of the effect of the Martian environment upon imports from Earth. Harry initially perceives these changes as disturbing and alien because of their lack of similarity to Earthly vegetables and plants. Faced with all of these examples of the strange and unexpected effects of the Martian environment, Harry is gripped with panic that he, too, will change. "If we stay here, we'll all change," he says. "The air. Don't you smell it? Something in the air. A Martian virus, maybe; some seed, or a pollen." And, indeed, he does change, as he begins to perceive his new environment with a sense of familiarity previously reserved for life on Earth. This again underscores how "natural" is a matter of subjective perception. Physical objects and possessions also change in significance to the family throughout the story, with Earthly possessions slowly becoming both less important and less familiar. When the settlers first arrive on Mars, they bring with them many things from Earth, both personal and practical. At first, they are very attached to these possessions, and cling to them as reminders of the planet that they left behind. Moreover, they feel that the Martian landscape poses an indeterminate threat to them. Harry, for example, worries that the Martian wind is wearing away at the house. As they become more acclimated to the Martian environment, however, they lose their attachment to their earthly possessions. When they decide to relocate to the Martian villa, they leave behind most of their possessions, including furniture, fancy clothes, encyclopedias, and other once-treasured possessions. After summering in the mountains in the Martian villa, they decide not to return to the settlement, and instead to stay in their new home, with new furniture and possessions that better suit their new lifestyle. The more exposed they become to the Martian environment, the more they realize that the possessions and attitudes they brought from Earth are no longer relevant. The tension between the natural and the unnatural is further exacerbated by the physical changes that the settlers themselves undergo. As the title indicates, their eyes change color, at first just subtly flecked with gold before gradually becoming entirely golden. Initially, Harry is disturbed by these changes, breaking the mirror that reflects his own gold-flecked eyes back at him. He is even more frustrated that those around him do not seem perturbed by the changes. When he asks his wife, "Cora, how long have your eyes been yellow?" she is puzzled and asserts that they always have been gold. However, as Harry himself becomes more acclimated to the Martian environment, he gradually loses the sense that the changes he, his family, and his surroundings are undergoing are in some way against the natural order of things. As his memories of Earth lapse, the golden eyes begin to seem natural, along with all the other subtle changes wrought by the Martian wind. The settlers' whole bodies are changed, as well—their skin darkening and limbs lengthening until they would no longer immediately be recognizable as "human" to someone on Earth. Instead, they are Martian, dark, tall, and golden-eyed, perfectly adapted to their new environment. As Harry comes to accept these changes, he no longer fights so hard against them: "A few tremblings shook him, but were carried off in waves of pleasant heat as he lay in the sun." By the time the new settlers arrive on Mars, they can no longer identify the former inhabitants of the settlement, and instead conclude that they are native Martians. One settler notes, "we found native life in the hills, sir. Dark people. Yellow eyes. Martians. Very friendly." The settlers have become so changed by their environment that they are mistaken for native Martians. In the context of the story, this is not entirely inaccurate, as one way to be "native" is to fully embody the place in which one dwells. In Bradbury's story, this takes on a literal significance, with the Martian atmosphere physically and mentally altering those who attempt to inhabit it. Having finally embraced (or succumbed to) the influence of Mars, the Bittering family and the rest of the settlers have truly become Martian—and left the familiarity of Earth behind. - Theme: Memory, Identity, and Language. Description: Throughout "Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed," the new settlers gradually lose touch with their memories of Earth as they assimilate to life on Mars. From the naming and renaming of Martian geography to the settlers' slow adoption of Martian language and physical characteristics, the story probes the extent to which change is potentially destructive toward identity. This is mirrored by the ubiquitous presence of the ruins of previous Martian civilizations, which are mysterious and seemingly without historical context. Bradbury casts this gradual loss of memory in an ambivalent light: while on the one hand Harry Bittering struggles to hold on to his memories of Earth, on the other hand many settlers embrace their new lives and willingly forget what it was like to live anywhere other than Mars. Ultimately memory is shown to be fragile and unreliable. At the same time, however, Bradbury suggests that both memory and language are essential to one's self-conception, and thus that their absence—cultural or personal—leads to the erasure of identity. The more time they spend on Mars, the more the settlers forget their ties to Earth. As the characters physically change in the Martian environment, they begin to assume that this is simply how they have always been. Cora, for instance, insists that her eyes have "always" been gold. The characters also see no use for the physical items they've brought from Earth and wonder why they were once so attached to them. Having forgotten the purpose of their settlement and their ties to Earth, the settlers gradually abandon their identity as "Earth people" altogether. For all the inhabitants, the desire to return to Earth fades away along with their memories of Earth itself and their lives there. By the end of the story, Harry's family cannot remember their time on Earth at all and have in fact almost entirely forgotten who they once were. They look at the "odd" settlements of the "ugly Earth people" with detached disdain, highlighting the fragile and ephemeral nature of memory and how that loss of memory has led to a complete shift in the way they see themselves. Identity, then, is as fragile and malleable as memory itself. Bradbury also notably links identity—and, it follows, memory—with language through his emphasis on names. For one thing, names are largely all that's left of the old Martian settlements.  There is no surviving history of the previous Martians, just mysterious ruins and old names. Harry reflects, "Once Martians had built cities, named cities; climbed mountains, named mountains; sailed seas, named seas. Mountains melted, seas drained, cities tumbled." Everything that the Martians achieved has been forgotten to time, leaving behind only the mysterious remains of their past civilizations. Harry reflects on the "silent guilt" Earthmen felt "at putting new names to these ancient hills and valleys" despite the fact that nearly all traces of the old inhabitants were gone. Harry continues, "Nevertheless, man lives by symbol and label. The names were given." The old Martian civilization forgotten, settlers felt emboldened to assert their own identity onto the empty Martian landscape. Yet as they forget their ties to Earth, the settlers begin to embrace the former Martian names for geographical features instead of those imposed by the American settlers. This suggests a distinct rejection of American identity, and that only through remembrance of Martian identity—here signified through language—can they truly be Martian themselves. The settlers even begin to speak Martian instead of English, although the Martian language is supposed to be dead along with Mars' former inhabitants. Nevertheless, the settlers naturally begin picking up Martian words and eventually even adopting Martian names. Harry's son Dan, for instance, tells his father, "That's not my name. I've a new name I want to use." A name is a marker of identity—the "label" by which "man lives"—and thus by rejecting Earth names in favor of Martian names, the settlers are effectively asserting their new identities as Martians. Of course, though the settlers eventually become new Martians, there is a lack of continuity between their existence and the existence of previous Martians. There is no shared history, and any shared culture seems to be a product of the environment rather than any kind of preservation of memory. The new Martians seem to exist in an ahistorical state, one in which forgetting is recognized as a fundamental principle of existence. Forgetting, in this instance, has been a prerequisite for establishing a new identity. The inevitable, inexorable forgetting that takes place throughout the story has a melancholy tinge to it, but the story ends on a hopeful note. While the initial impulse of the settlers and those who follow after them is to look for old records and to keep and preserve their own history, the story recognizes the bittersweet futility of this approach. Instead, it offers up another option: to let things be washed away by the Martian winds and forgotten, which is not necessarily a loss but rather a different way of living and inhabiting the world. - Theme: Change and Resistance. Description: Throughout the story, the identity of the settlers of Mars, as well as the landscape itself, is constantly changing. At first, the settlers are resistant to these changes and cling to the remnants of their old lives and ties to Earth. However, the more time they spend on Mars and the further removed they become from their circumstances on Earth, the less resistance they show against the encroaching landscape and accompanying changes—eventually going so far as to enjoy their new life and largely forget their origins on Earth. While change can have a destructive capacity, it is ultimately characterized as an inevitable and natural process, one that the settlers cannot resist even if they try. In fact, resistance to change tends to make the characters unhappier, as seen in Harry's frantic attempts to build a rocket back to Earth, and in his frustration and anger with the calm acceptance of the other settlers. One of the first things that begins to bother Harry about the Martian environment is the changes undergone by the plants and animals. The changing characteristics of the crops and livestock they brought from Earth at first provokes fear and anger among the settlers before they grow accustomed to these changes. Although the crops originate from Earth, their changing characteristics ultimately make it difficult to associate them with their former identities. The roses may still be identifiable, but is a green rose still a rose? Is a violet lawn still grown from grass? These questions at first deeply disturb Harry, but they begin to seem less pressing the more he becomes acclimated to the Martian environment. While the living things brought from earth have undergone changes, to the extent that they are sometimes no longer recognizable, they have not been violently severed from their former identities. Instead, they have undergone a process of change which, eventually, seems inevitable and natural. Harry at first refuses to accept these changes, even when they are entirely out of control, refusing to eat food unless it has been grown on Earth and stored in a deep-freeze. The physical and mental changes to the settlers are in some ways the most disturbing, but they, too, are gradually accepted and even celebrated as resistance to a new, Martian identity fades with time. From the time he first steps foot on Mars, Harry feels as if his identity is being slowly leeched away: "The wind blew as if to flake away their identities. At any moment, the Martian air might draw his soul from him, as marrow comes from a white bone. He felt submerged in a chemical that could dissolve his intellect and burn away his past." In this instance, Harry sees this dissolution of identity as complete and destructive, and so he is afraid of the influence that the Martian environment has upon him and his family, worrying that "If we stay here, we'll all change." The settler's gradual forgetting of their life on Earth, and their darkened skin and golden eyes, all make it seem to Harry as if they are becoming truly alien. Harry's attitude toward change slowly shifts, however, the more acclimated he becomes to the Martian environment. When he goes swimming with his wife and children, he sinks to the bottom of the canal momentarily, reflecting, "If I lie here long enough […] the water will work and eat away my flesh until the bones show like coral. Just my skeleton left. And then the water can build on that skeleton—green things, deep water things, red things, yellow things. Change. Change. Slow, deep, silent change. And isn't that what it is up there?" For Harry, change may still be frightening, but it is now a more organic and necessary experience. It's no longer something that can be fought off forever, and he even recognizes it as something that can be potentially generative and produce new life. As much as Harry Bittering tries to resist the changes that happen to him and his family, in the end he succumbs to the influence of the Martian landscape, and finds some measure of peace and happiness in his altered identity. Although he may not remember much of what has come before, he is no longer troubled by the shifts he has undergone, and is still able to retain aspects of his identity such as his relationships with family and friends. Similarly, while the Martian landscape may be named and renamed, settled and resettled, it retains a certain amount of its own fundamental character. While change may be constant and sometimes destructive, it is also generative, constantly moving towards the future without completely severing its ties to the past. - Theme: Colonization, Industry, and Leisure. Description: In "Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed," the settlers are initially industrious farmers, working the land and extracting resources from it. After their ties to Earth are severed, Harry Bittering works determinedly at constructing a rocket from scratch, despite the seeming futility of his plan. And when new settlers arrive years after the initial settlers have been altered by the Martian environment, they, too, begin setting up industrious plans to resettle and reclaim the area. This is all in stark contrast to the activities that the settlers adopt once they have been infected by Martian attitudes: activities that emphasize leisure, nature, and harmony with one's environment. Throughout the story, Bradbury links an unnecessary (and perhaps even harmful) sense of industry and natural exploitation with the colonizers, while associating those who have become acclimated to Mars with leisure and affinity with the natural world. While colonizers can perhaps only ever have an exploitative relationship with the land they settle, those who are indigenous or who become acclimated are able to foster a more authentic and less destructive relationship with the place they inhabit. Initially, the settlers are industrious, constructing houses, farming, gathering resources, and building up a new civilization. Harry touts the accomplishments of the settlers, boasting, "Colonial days all over again […] Why, in ten years there'll be a million Earthmen on Mars. Big cities, everything!" For Harry and the other settlers, this conquest of Mars is an accomplishment. Although they do not view Mars as home, they take pride in having subdued it. Even when their connection from Earth is severed, Harry still insists on industry as the key to their continued relationship with themselves and their world. When his son asks him, ""Father, what will we do?" he replies, "Go about our business, of course. Raise crops and children. Wait." Harry still sees the raising of Earthly crops and children on Martian soil as the only thing to do until contact with Earth resumes, emphasizing the way in which he relates to the Martian world as a space to control and colonize rather than as one to fully inhabit. When travel to and from Earth is disrupted by nuclear war, Harry still insists on a fevered kind of industry as he builds his rocket. When he sees the men in town idling around after news of the nuclear war, he is frustrated by their lack of industry, wondering, "What are you doing, you fools!...Sitting here! You've heard the news—we're stranded on this planet. Well, move!" Rather than relax and enjoy his days, as the other men seem to be doing, he obsessively focuses on the construction of a rocket that will tie him back to his planet of origin. The longer Harry spends on Mars, however, the less urgent his plans for the rocket become and the more he adapts to a more natural Martian lifestyle. At the conclusion of the story, the rocket is entirely forgotten, a "flimsy rocket frame rusting in an empty shop." Earthly industry has been replaced by Martian leisure, in part because the tie between Earth and Mars has been so violently severed by the war. Since they are stranded on Mars, they are no longer merely colonizers or settlers, but come to accept themselves as actual inhabitants. The settlers who have acclimated to Mars have different priorities than they did when they still believed themselves to be colonizers. Eventually, they abandon their colonial settlement entirely, preferring instead to inhabit the scattered Martian villas that loosely populate the mountainous countryside. They now live in and around Mars itself, rather than in an artificially constructed, Earth-like settlement. They enjoy swimming in the canals and other leisure activities, such as playing music and weaving tapestries, and they no longer see the need to return to their settlement and resume working on rockets or tilling their fields. When new colonizers arrive on Mars, they, too, begin to set up grand, industrious plans: "New settlements. Mining sites, minerals to be looked for. Bacteriological specimens taken. The work, all the work." However, it is implied that they, too, will abandon these plans if given the opportunity to become acclimated to the Martian environment, and to inhabit it as natives rather than colonizers. The "blue color and the quiet mist of the hills far beyond the town" already captivate their attention and imply a different way of interacting with the Martian world. While colonizers from Earth initially emphasize industry over leisure and productivity over enjoyment, as the Martian environment infects them they slowly begin to shift their priorities. Although Bradbury does not explicitly condemn the relationship that the colonizers initially have to their environment, it is one that ultimately has a violent and unpleasant history. From the brutal conquest of the Americas that is obliquely referenced in the Native American and Presidential names of the Martian geography, to the more immediate references to nuclear weapons and constant warfare, the relationship of the colonizer to the colonized seems problematic as long as it is constantly underpinned by industry and exploitation. Bradbury transforms the original settlers into a "native" people, playing into both positive and negative racial stereotypes that characterize native peoples as darker skinned, more leisurely and less industrious, and more in tune with their natural environment. In contrast to their previous attitudes as colonizers, the new Martians adopt a different way of relating to the land and inhabiting the world, implying that a decolonized perspective might serve as a valuable correction to current attitudes. - Climax: Harry and his family leave their settlement for the Martian villas - Summary: Harry Bittering and his family move from Earth to Mars to take part in a new colony. When they arrive via rocketship, however, Harry quickly feels that something is wrong with the Martian environment, and that it is already working gradual and insidious changes upon his family. Although they continue into town and set up a comfortable lifestyle in the new settlement, Harry cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. His children, too, have a sense of unease concerning the old, long-abandoned Martian settlements and the planet as a whole. After a few weeks have passed, the news comes that Earth has become embroiled in nuclear war and that no more rockets will arrive from the planet, effectively stranding the new settlers on Mars. While Harry is upset at this news, the others quickly accept the reality of their situation and settle more deeply into their lives on Mars. A few days later, Harry notices changes in the plants and animals that they have brought from Earth, which have shifted in color, scent, and taste. Even more upsetting, the physical characteristics of the settlers are changing: they are becoming taller, with dark skin and golden eyes more suited to the Martian environment. While Harry is horrified by this, the other settlers are, again, less bothered. Harry insists on beginning work on a rocket to return to Earth, but no one else volunteers to help him in his futile endeavor. Eventually, Cora persuades him to go for a picnic and a swim, and he gradually begins viewing the changes he and his family have undergone with more ambivalence than fear. They explore Martian villas in the mountains and reflect upon how pleasant and well suited the structures are to the environment. When he and his family eventually return to town, Harry loses steam on his rocket project, viewing it with less enthusiasm than before. Harry sees other settlers packing up and learns that they are moving up to the Martian villas for the summer. His family persuades him that they should move as well, and they leave most of their possessions behind them as they do so. Harry's family, like the rest of the settlers, have gradually forgotten everything about their origins to the point that they no longer remember that they are from Earth at all. Instead, they happily inhabit the mountain villas and do not return to the abandoned settlement. Harry and Cora reflect on the "ridiculous" houses of the "ugly" Earth people, whom they're "glad" have gone. Five years later, men from Earth arrive announcing that they've won the war. They're startled to realize that the settlement has been abandoned, and mistake the old settlers, who have completely forgotten their origins, for native Martians. As one of the men, a captain, begin plans to reconstruct and expand the settlement with new people from Earth, his Lieutenant seems not to listen, instead gazing into the misty Martian hills.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Darkness at Noon - Point of view: Most of the novel is told from a third-person limited omniscient perspective, restricted to the thoughts and viewpoint of Rubashov. This is interspersed, however, with excerpts from Rubashov's diary, which are in the first person. - Setting: While the Fatherland of the Revolution, as it's called, is never named explicitly, it is an obvious stand-in for the Soviet Union (USSR) in the 1930s during the time of the Moscow show trials. The Moscow show trials were a series of public trials in which members of the "old guard" of the Bolsheviks, the ruling Communist Party, confessed to be traitors to the Party in dramatic public trials, before being executed. Rubashov's flashbacks also take us to another unnamed country where a fascist dictatorship has gained power—a clear representation of Nazi Germany—as well as Belgium, which is named. - Character: Nicholas Salmanovitch Rubashov. Description: Rubashov was, before the time at which Darkness at Noon begins, a key player in the socialist revolution of the unnamed fatherland, and an important member of the "old guard" that became the leaders of the new regime. His official title was "Commissar of the People," the name of a bureaucratic leader (used in the Soviet Union before 1946). His specific role as a diplomat involved traveling to foreign countries in order to support the development of revolutionary activities there. By the time the book begins, Rubashov's position of fomenting revolution abroad has fallen out of favor, leading to his imprisonment. Already, it appears, Rubashov has had doubts about the effectiveness and correctness of certain Party policies, and he hasn't been entirely discreet about vocalizing them to friends. But it is only over the course of the book that he comes to fundamentally question the entire philosophy upon which Party policy is based. Rubashov thinks of himself as an intellectual, part of the old guard that had managed to wed philosophy to political, social, and economic action in service of the people. He thinks of the French Revolution, and particularly of Danton, one of the early revolutionaries who was ultimately executed by the next wave of revolutionaries advocating for terror. He looks at the new generation with scorn, considering it to be made up of bureaucrats who are crude, unsubtle, and uninterested in the nuances of socialist philosophy. He comes to think of himself as a kind of Danton, sacrificed by a new, historically immature leadership. But, as Rubashov gradually realizes, he too has more or less unthinkingly followed official policy for years, with little concern for the individual lives that may get in the way. His love of and eagerness for intellectual musing and philosophizing ultimately leads him to radically alter his understanding of his own past as well as that of his country. - Character: Ivanov. Description: Rubashov's friend from university and former battalion commander, Ivanov is also Rubashov's first interrogator after his imprisonment. Ivanov is another member of the old guard, one who remembers the Civil War: during the fighting Ivanov was wounded and his leg had to be amputated. At that time he'd tried to convince Rubashov of his right to suicide, which Rubashov had told him was a romantic, bourgeois action. Ivanov is perfectly content with keeping Rubashov imprisoned on Party orders, but as an old-time Party member, he doesn't think he needs to play by all the rules. He doesn't really think that Rubashov is guilty of what he's accused of, but Ivanov knows that they both need to act the part, so he pressures Rubashov into confessing in public so that he stands a better chance of survival. For the first part of the novel, Ivanov seems cool-headed and in control. Only later does it become clear that Ivanov, too, doesn't fit into the new assumptions and standards of the Party. His frank cynicism costs him his position and, ultimately, his life. - Character: Gletkin. Description: In many ways Gletkin, who is first Ivanov's subordinate and then replaces him as Rubashov's interrogator, serves a foil to Ivanov. Where Ivanov is pragmatic and ironic, Gletkin is earnest and grave. For Gletkin, it's not enough to perform a confession: each party must fully believe it. There's also no difference to Gletkin between one's actions and one's thoughts, both of which make someone equally guilty. Gletkin is of peasant origin, and he didn't learn to read, write, or tell time until he was almost an adult. He bears the marks of this heritage in the difficulty he has reading, but he also possesses a unique glimpse into the psychology of the masses and how the Party can ensure their loyalty. Gletkin is the epitome of the new guard: around 37 years old, he is too young to remember the Revolution or to have fought in the Civil War, so he has little sense of the dramatic changes that have taken place, or of the irony that those now being tried and executed for treason were some of the nation's heroes. - Character: Arlova. Description: Rubashov's former secretary and lover, Arlova appears in the novel in flashback form, as Rubashov recalls his affair with her. She is large, womanly, and passive: she doesn't ask anything of Rubashov and she tells him he can do what he likes with her. Arlova was appointed librarian in the bureaucratic unit where they both worked, but soon suspicions arose about her loyalty. While Rubashov initially delayed participating in the accusations against her, once the Party gave him an ultimatum, he betrayed her, which led to her execution. During Rubashov's own trial, ironically, this fact is brought up as proof of Rubashov's moral bankruptcy, since he gave her up to save himself. Arlova is the first in a list of people whom Rubashov, without much compunction, sacrificed on behalf of the Party. Throughout his own imprisonment, he comes to equate her with his newly awakened sense of the sacredness of the individual. - Character: Richard. Description: Richard is the leader of the Communist Party in a region of the unnamed country (with all the characteristics of Germany) where Rubashov is fomenting revolutionary activity, and where he is later arrested. Richard is a loyal Party member, but after the dictatorship takes power in his country and begins to stamp out Communist activity, he tries to support the cause in his own way rather than through relying on Party pamphlets and directions. Richard thinks that the official Party line, emphasizing its strength even when everyone in Germany knows that the Party has been almost entirely quashed, will inevitably be unsuccessful. For Rubashov at the time, though, such a decision is little more than treason, and he denounces Richard. Richard, too, will become an example for Rubashov of a life that Rubashov sacrificed on behalf of the guiding Party logic, and thinking of Richard makes Rubashov begin to question whether it was worth it. - Character: Little Loewy. Description: The local leader of the dockworkers' section of the Party at a port in Belgium, Little Loewy is yet another former Party member that Rubashov sacrifices to the cause, though this time in a more indirect fashion. Little Loewy was born in Germany but he faced imprisonment or execution as a result of his involvement with the Party. While the Party promised to help him escape, he was ultimately left on his own, arrested and imprisoned various times, and handed back and forth between the authorities of Belgium and France. Little Loewy is a fervent believer in Communism, and yet he is also principled: he cannot bring himself to accept the Party's betrayal of its own boycott of enemy countries, which he and the other dockworkers learn of as a result of their job unloading cargo. After expressing his opinions about the wrong-headedness of this new policy, Little Loewy hangs himself, another member of the old guard who is unable to adapt to the new expectations and compromises made by the Party. - Character: Wassilij. Description: Rubashov's porter and fellow soldier during the Civil War, Wassilij is an old man by the time Darkness at Noon opens. He is deeply loyal to Rubashov, and also is one of the few characters in the story to retain an older set of beliefs that the Party tried to stamp out. He still thinks of himself as a Christian and he takes solace in recalling verses from the Gospels, which to him form a resonant parallel with Rubashov's own betrayal and sacrifice. By the end, the scheming of Wassilij's daughter seems to suggest that his belief system and way of life will soon be stamped out. - Character: Vera Wassiljovna. Description: Wassilij's daughter, Vera works at the town factory, where she's become engaged to a young mechanic. She is a fervent believer in the Party and believes everything that she is told by the authorities. Vera represents the transition from the old to the new guard, not in the Party leadership but among ordinary people. By the end, she seems to be scheming for a way to get her father out of the home they share so that she can start a new life with her fiancé there—the epitome of the kind of instrumental logic promoted by the Party. - Character: No. 402. Description: 402 is the prisoner occupying the cell next to Rubashov, whose name we never learn. 402 is, from what he says, a reactionary—that is, a supporter of the monarchy that the Revolution dismantled. He has been sentenced to 18 years in prison because of it. He has a crude sense of humor, often fantasizing about women and recruiting Rubashov to join in, but he is also idealistic and believes in honor and a commitment to one's own beliefs. Despite their wildly divergent politics, 402 and Rubashov become friends in prison, although Rubashov's decision to capitulate almost destroys their relationship. - Character: Hare-lip (Young Kieffer). Description: Another fellow prisoner, who seems to be especially interested in Rubashov from the start, though Rubashov isn't certain why. Eventually, it becomes clear that Hare-lip is the son of Professor Kieffer, an old friend of Rubashov's, and Hare-lip is attempting to lighten his own sentence by accusing Rubashov of plotting to kill No. 1. Hare-lip is described as young, cowardly, and desperate to the extent that he is willing to do whatever he can to save is own life. In the end, his accusation ends up being insufficient to save him. - Character: Professor Kieffer. Description: A famous historian of the Revolution, and once No. 1's closest friend, Kieffer was also quite close to Rubashov. He works on No. 1's biography for ten years, but when certain changes are required and he's asked to change some of the facts, he refuses. Kieffer is an intellectual and, while he believes in the Party and the Revolution, he thinks that the cause is best served by truth—a belief that turns out to be woefully old-fashioned, as Kieffer too is imprisoned and executed. - Character: No. 1. Description: The Party leader and a clear stand-in for Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union. While No. 1 never appears in person in the novel, his portrait hangs over almost every room, implying his ubiquitous knowledge and power. No. 1 is simultaneously part of the old and new guards: during the Revolution, he was part of the intellectual group planning for a new society (together with Rubashov, Kieffer, and others). Now, though, No. 1 has created an entirely new set of policies, which require the liquidation of all who are unwilling to align themselves with these new expectations. For the younger generations, No. 1 is not just an intellectual model, but a kind of secular saint whose words are infallible rather than historical and contingent. - Character: Michael Bogrov. Description: A former army commander, Bogrov was Rubashov's roommate when they were in exile after 1905 (the year of the failed Russian Revolution against the monarchy). Bogrov served as Rubashov's intellectual mentor. Bogrov is imprisoned at the same place as Rubashov, and he is executed. As he is walking down the corridor to be killed, he calls out Rubashov's name. This call is perhaps the first major event that forces Rubashov to begin to reckon with his past choices and think through the consequences of his adherence to Party policy above all. - Character: No. 406 (Rip Van Winkle). Description: A former sociology teacher in a country somewhere in southeastern Europe, this character was imprisoned there after participating in its own communist revolution and spent 20 years in prison. After being released, he came to Russia (or the unnamed country where the novel is set) but soon enough was arrested—No. 402 conjectures that things simply might have changed too much in so much time. No. 406 occupies the cell next to Rubashov and often seems distracted, even mad: he's also referred to as "Rip Van Winkle," referring to a Washington Irving short story about a man who falls asleep and wakes up decades later to discover an entirely new world. - Theme: Ideology and Contradiction. Description: In Darkness at Noon, the Soviet Union's Communist ideology is shown through the pervading assumption that, in the Fatherland of the Revolution, there is a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (that is, rule by the industrial workers that form the vast majority of the population). In theory, this means that the masses possess all state and national power, and any existing government apparatus is in place solely to promote its own gradual dissolution until there is no need for any state power (any Central Committee or national leader) at all. In some ways, this ideology was instilled in citizens of the Soviet Union through specific policies, such as collectivization of farms and businesses, as well as the complete state ownership of such institutions, but it's important to note that Communism was a general worldview that transcended any one policy. At the time of his arrest, Rubashov may harbor doubts about particular methods used by the Communist Party leadership, but he still believes fervently in the underlying ideology of Communism. Only over the course of the novel do the contradictions of this ideology become clear to Rubashov. For the Party, the insistence that they are making everyone's life better by serving the ultimate goal of rule by and for the people justifies almost any action against citizens, no matter how brutal. This paradox is obscured by the Party's insistence that the idea of a unique, special individual is an utter illusion, thus actions against individuals for the good of the collective cannot be seen as violence or injustice at all. The novel argues that the major power of the Central Committee and the cult of personality around No. 1 are not just vestiges of an older system that will eventually wane away: these groups are, instead, insistent on retaining their own power. The very idea that they would work to undermine themselves and their own power is itself contradictory. Not all of the characters in Koestler's book see these contradictions. Indeed, one of the defining characteristics of an ideology is that the ideas and assumptions on which it is based are so powerful, pervasive, and invisible that they become almost impossible for people to notice or understand on their own. Those in the novel who do recognize the ideological contradictions (and who are, therefore, not aligned perfectly with Communist ideology, like Rubashov, his friend Kieffer, No. 402, or the many other prisoners held with Rubashov) are hidden away so as to feign absolute harmony. Because of this, ideology does ultimately win out in the book—the Party is able to quash any dissident voices. Indeed, Rubashov's confession at the end stems from his pure exhaustion with the intellectual contradictions and paradoxes with which he has grappled throughout. But while there is no hope left for Rubashov, the novel does imply that, despite the inefficacy of dissidence, exposing the internal contradictions of an ideology might be the first step towards hastening its collapse. This gradual movement towards understanding is cut off within the novel itself by Rubashov's death, and by the suggestion that the alternative views held by Wassilij, for instance, are in the process of being quashed as well. But while the characters within the novel are overwhelmed by ideology, the reader of the novel remains to grapple with such contradictions, which—in a totalitarian society like the one depicted in Darkness at Noon—might help eventually bring about the end of such a regime. - Theme: The Individual, or the "Grammatical Fiction, vs. the Collective. Description: While Communist thought proposes that society's masses are not subject to any one person's power, the truth of this idea is challenged by, among other things, the cult around the leader "No. 1." His photograph adorns every room, even though those in charge insist that they and No. 1 are only working in the interests of the collective. Only gradually, over the course of the novel, does Rubashov come to question the validity of these assertions. At the beginning of the novel, Rubashov, steeped in Communist ideology, considers the collective to be inherently superior to the individual: in fact, the individual is no more than what he calls a "grammatical fiction," a reference to his idea that the grammatical "first-person singular" represents a notion of individuality that does not (and should not) exist in the world. Rubashov's conviction that the individual is irrelevant allows him to pursue Party goals with little thought of the destruction or suffering that the Party might cause along the way. However, as Rubashov ruminates on his own past while locked inside his cell, he begins to wonder how much of a fiction the "grammatical fiction" truly is. He thinks back on the personal relationships he's had with unique, idiosyncratic individuals, including an affair with his secretary Arlova. His thoughts about Arlova, including his memories about his willingness (despite her innocence) to have her executed "for the cause," begin to make Rubashov wonder if the promotion of an abstract ideal is worth the suffering of real people. The Party member named Richard (presumably part of the German Communist Party) whom Rubashov refused to protect while abroad is another example of Rubashov's initially unwavering commitment to the collective over the individual. This man may be a loyal member of the party, but his insistence on printing his own flyers rather than using those put out by the central committee was enough to make Rubashov consider him to be a traitor. As Rubashov returns to these memories, the tension between the individual and the collective becomes increasingly clear to him. Ivanov is well aware of this tension himself: he deals with it ironically while interrogating Rubashov, suggesting that it doesn't matter what really goes on at the level of the individual, as long as the wishes of the Party are fulfilled on a superficial level. But Ivanov's ironic distance proves fatal, as he's executed and replaced with Gletkin, who seems to believe far more earnestly that the individual is nothing in the face of the collective. But even as Rubashov himself loses faith in the philosophy of collectivism, he never replaces his ideology with staunch individualism or any other guiding attitude. Ultimately, the novel indicates that the individual and the collective cannot in fact be reconciled in Party ideology, in Rubashov's own mind, or in the narrative he puts forward about his own life. - Theme: Logical Reasoning and Bureaucracy. Description: The interrogation tactics that Ivanov and Gletkin use on Rubashov and other inmates might seem senseless and cruel, but these two members of the Party bureaucracy—like all its members—pride themselves on their impeccable logic and rational thinking. To them, acknowledging one's individual opinion or moral intuition by questioning Party tactics or their role within the Party would be anathema to the values of the collective. An ideological commitment to logical reasoning, then, allows these characters to sidestep the question of moral values altogether: rather than decide what is right and wrong for themselves, what is right is defined only by what is most efficient and "reasonable" within the goals set out by No. 1. Ivanov and Gletkin represent two distinct outlooks regarding the relationship between Party business and logic, outlooks that can be traced back to their experiences of history. Ivanov, the equivalent of an "Old Bolshevik," or a Party member who was present before and during the Revolution, is willing to simply separate his beliefs—for instance, his belief that Rubashov is innocent—from his commitment to party logic (his recognition of what must be done at Rubashov's hearing). This act of distinguishing between beliefs and reality is what Ivanov considers to be the epitome of logic. Gletkin though, has grown up solely within a post-Revolution logic, and he lacks even the ability to separate his personal beliefs from collective necessity. When he replaces Ivanov as interrogator, it signals a shift in the way that the bureaucracy is run: there is no longer room for broader complexity or private belief systems at all. Instead, Gletkin acts robotically, paring down the interrogation process to a series of discrete, straightforward steps, each of which can be applied to an inmate in turn. Other citizens of this society also learn how to apply this utilitarian logic to their own lives. Wassilij's daughter, at the end of the novel, is on the verge of betraying her father to the Party so that she can move into his home with her fiancé, and she seems to feel no guilt or sense of responsibility for doing so. Within the book, then, a moral set of values has been replaced by a technocratic one: this is what the philosopher Hannah Arendt would, in the context of Nazi Germany, call the "banality of evil." What counts as right and good is simply the extent to which reasoning has been followed to its logical conclusion. Rubashov, though, embodies the complexity and pitfalls of Soviet logic. At the beginning of the book, Rubashov, like a good Old Bolshevik, thinks he can simply reason his way out of his predicament. The novel uses flashbacks to illuminate Rubashov's attempts to determine, step by step and according to the rules of logic, what he has done to make things go awry. This process allows him to uncover contradictions within Party ideology and it foments his doubt about the predominance of the collective over the individual. His memories also lead him to recognize that he himself has always acted according to Party logic, so it's ironic that he now finds himself trapped within it. Ivanov knows that Rubashov possesses an exquisitely logical mind, and, as a result, he assumes from the start that Rubashov will ultimately confess even without being tortured: the compulsion toward Party logic is that powerful. Rubashov's tragic fate is to be condemned by an unjust system that he himself has espoused, one whose problems become apparent to him only after it is too late for him to resist them. - Theme: Change and the Laws of History. Description: Darkness at Noon is concerned with the laws by which history functions: it asks fundamental questions about whether historical laws should be considered scientific or social, whether historical laws can be used to predict or enforce change, and whether it's wise, in the first place, to reduce to a "law" the complex interplay of forces that shape a society over time. Each major character's actions and choices about his relationship to the Party and his use of power are shown to be predicated on his own ideas about the workings of historical laws. Indeed, the major distinction between the "old" and the "new" guard of Party committee members may turn on the interest, or lack thereof, in history. The new guard is content to let the central committee emit its decrees and its specific points of policy without questioning them. Gletkin and others like him are bureaucrats, rather than intellectuals: they have little concern for overarching laws or philosophies that may justify their actions. But the old guard, represented by Rubashov and Ivanov, was involved in shaping this very system and, as such, is still deeply invested in these laws. They have shepherded the country through the socialist revolution, one that was supposed to lead to greater happiness. In fact, for Karl Marx, the author of the Communist Manifesto, there was even more at stake: he thought it was inevitable for this revolution to eventually occur, at which point all the strife and conflict of history would end—meaning that, in some ways, the revolution would spell out the end of history itself. Indeed, the form of Bolshevik communism that this old guard espouses is directly tied up with a theory of history: it characterizes capitalist production as necessarily leading to failure, and the growing class consciousness that results from capitalism's failure as inevitably leading to a revolution that will do away with all material want and scarcity. What Rubashov calls the "laws of motion" are, therefore, not just political goals to strive after. To him, they are inevitable to the course of history, like the laws of physics are inevitable to motion. What distinguishes the Party, he argues at one point, is that it simply learned enough about human beings and history to understand these laws. Nonetheless, as time goes on, Rubashov increasingly questions the confidence of those who presume to know how historical laws work. He begins to look at the arc of history on a longer scale, past the current-day political situation, and he realizes that he can't know what will happen in the future, and thus he can't know if the laws he believes to be true will actually be proved true in time. This realization troubles Rubashov; he has been acting all along on the assumption that he is right, which justified his own willingness to betray people to the Party. The climactic choice of the novel—Rubashov's decision about whether or not to confess—hinges on his understanding of historical laws. In his decision-making process, he asks himself whether he might be wrong about the inevitability of history, as well as what it might mean if history were to prove No. 1 and all of his violent tactics right. This uncertainty is part of what makes the book both a vivid novel of suspense and also a philosophical novel of ideas: these two genres are closely associated in Darkness at Noon, precisely because, in this society, ideas have taken on a deadly, world-historical force. - Theme: Truth, Confession, and Performance. Description: The histories of nations can be understood as stories that members of a society tell themselves about where they came from and where they are going. The defining characteristic of the history of a totalitarian state (like the one in Darkness at Noon) is the political necessity of unquestioned adherence to a singular narrative that benefits the Party. In other words, the Party gets to define the only story that citizens are permitted to tell about their society. When citizens stray from this narrative, they become political dissidents, as the Party's version of history is tantamount to law. It's not enough for the state, then, to merely to punish or torture dissidents: dissidents must openly and publicly proclaim their wrongs and, by doing so, confirm the only narrative about the Party that is permitted. In that sense, the forcibly extracted confessions of guilt—from Rubashov, Ivanov (though offstage), and others—are ways to reenact the historical arc of the society, smoothing out any wrinkles and conflicts so that a happy ending might be reached. It's important to understand that, for the image of the Party, confessions must be enacted in the form of a public performance. Truth in this society is a function of what is best for the Party, rather than fundamental facts to be uncovered. As such, truth cannot simply emerge or exist: it must be told, retold, and performed on the stage of the court. This performance is then reenacted by everyone who reads the official Party account of public trials, including Vera Wassiljovna, who reads it aloud to her father. Darkness at Noon moves between metaphors of a story and metaphors of a stage. Though the stage metaphor is more apparently theatrical (meant to underline the inauthentic, constructed nature of truth in this society), both metaphors imply that confessions are less about revealing guilt than they are about enacting and preserving the very laws, narratives, and fictions by which this society is held together. - Climax: - Summary: When Darkness at Noon begins, the protagonist, Nicholas Salmanovitch Rubashov, finds himself having been recently enclosed inside a prison cell, where it seems he knows what will happen to him next. The narration flashes back to a few hours earlier, when Rubashov was awakened from a dream—a recurring dream that he was being arrested—to find himself being arrested in real life by two officials. They arrive to the door of the porter Wassilij, who, having fought with Rubashov in the war, is fiercely loyal to him. Rubashov is to be arrested on the orders of No. 1, the leader of the unnamed (but recognizably Soviet Communist) Party. Rubashov accompanies the officials to the prison but, as a former Party bureaucrat himself, he is rather dismissive towards this younger generation, which seems to lack the subtlety and intellectual prowess of his own. When he arrives in prison, Rubashov claims to have a toothache (a pain that will recur every time he thinks about individuality), so he's left alone. He "talks to" one of the prisoners in a neighboring cell, whom he refers to only as No. 402, through a kind of Morse Code language conveyed by tapping against the wall. 402 is a counter-revolutionary who still supports the monarchy that was in power when the revolutionaries took over, but he's mostly interested in spreading prison gossip and talking about women. Rubashov thinks back to a memory from years before, when he'd been a diplomat in Germany spreading the Party message abroad, and he'd had to meet with a regional leader of the Party named Richard. They'd met at a picture gallery, and while keeping himself focused on a Pietà painting of the Virgin Mary, Rubashov had told Richard that it was a mistake for Richard to have printed his own pamphlets for the cause rather than using the official Party message. Richard had felt like he could modify the Party message to best recruit new people, but Rubashov told him that the Party, since it represented the revolutionary idea in history, could never be mistaken and therefore its message shouldn't be modified. Richard grew increasingly desperate as he realized that Rubashov might be reporting him to the Central Committee, but Rubashov remained cold and featureless in response. Back in the prison cell, Rubashov, who's feeling increasingly anxious without cigarettes, learns through No. 402 that there's a new political prisoner, who seems to keep looking up at Rubashov's cell from the prison courtyard: Rubashov doesn't recognize him and just thinks of him as Hare-lip. Rubashov muses about how he's gotten to this point and about why he's been arrested: it seems like somewhere, somehow, the Party has gone awry, though Rubashov struggles to understand how, given that the Party represents history itself. Rubashov thinks back to another case, when he had to go to Belgium and explain to a group of people—including Little Loewy, a fervent supporter of the Party who had risked his life multiple times for the cause—that the Party was going to renege on its pledge to boycott fascist countries. Little Loewy refused to accept this because he considered it to be a betrayal of the ideals of the revolution. When Little Loewy realized that the Party would accept no deviation from its official policy, he hanged himself. Rubashov starts thinking about specific details from his time with Little Loewy and Richard, and he is troubled by them. Eventually Rubashov is taken to be interrogated by his old friend and fellow soldier, Ivanov. Ivanov seems to recognize that Rubashov isn't guilty of treason and plotting to kill No. 1, but Ivanov says that it's best for them to accept what's necessary for the Party, and for Rubashov to sign a statement saying he was a member of the opposition. This way the Party will get its public confession, and Rubashov won't have to be executed. Rubashov, though, suddenly wants to rebel against such pristine logic. He continues to think through his own understanding of the laws of history, and about whether his choices (or No. 1's choices) will be absolved over time or will have to be paid for. At the next interrogation, Ivanov is accompanied by Gletkin, who's a member of the new generation and is far more humorless than Ivanov. Gletkin seems to genuinely believe that whatever the Party says is "truth," rather than simply understanding the Party logic as expedient. Gletkin thinks Rubashov will buckle under torture, though Ivanov is confident Rubashov just needs time to think through the logic of his predicament. Rubashov has another flashback to an affair he had with Arlova, his secretary. Arlova was eventually appointed librarian at the office where he worked, but she was then accused of not replacing the books on the shelves with more adequate, "truer" versions of Party history. Rubashov stalled but ultimately did betray her, and she was executed. He thinks back now to the details of her body, and he grows increasingly troubled by them. Meanwhile, a new prisoner arrives, No. 406 or Rip Van Winkle, who had spent 20 years in solitary confinement in another country and is now in an entirely new world with entirely different ideological standards and claims to truth. That afternoon, Rubashov is taken to the barber, who shoves a note into his collar telling him to "die in silence." Rubashov thinks it might be possible that he will actually capitulate to Ivanov's offer. Rubashov is taken outside to exercise that afternoon—Ivanov has been improving Rubashov's standard of living while he deliberates—and he talks a little to Rip Van Winkle. Almost two weeks after Ivanov's offer, the mood seems different in the prison, and 402 tells Rubashov that a political prisoner is being executed. The prisoner is Michael Bogrov, Rubashov's old friend and mentor. As he's led down the hall, Bogrov cries out Rubashov's name. Rubashov is stricken: suddenly the cold logic that has ruled his dealings with the Party his whole life is thrown into question. Rubashov returns to be interrogated by Ivanov and tries to explain this to him, but Ivanov dismisses him, saying that his moral scruples are relics from bourgeois, nineteenth-century ethics, which have no place in this revolutionary society. Rubashov does think that this society is exceptional, but now he argues that the exceptionalism lies in the death and destruction enacted by the Party. After a long intellectual conversation, Ivanov visits Gletkin and says that his own method works better than Gletkin's—Gletkin's the idiot who should be shot. Rubashov continues to think through an intellectual theory of history that would account for his situation. After meeting another prisoner, a reactionary peasant, in the prison courtyard, Rubashov decides to capitulate. No. 402 thinks Rubashov is disgracing himself, but Rubashov seems unfazed. After waiting to be taken to Ivanov, Rubashov is eventually led into another office: this time it's Gletkin who's interrogating him, as Ivanov has been arrested for treason. Gletkin isn't interested in the kind of intellectual banter and argumentation that Ivanov was: he seriously, gravely lists the charges against Rubashov, who's incredulous that Gletkin actually seems to believe the charges rather than just act as though they are true. Gletkin brings in Hare-lip, who, it turns out, is the son of Rubashov's old friend Professor Kieffer. Kieffer was executed for refusing to rewrite the history books to align with the new Party narrative of history. Hare-lip describes a conversation between Rubashov and Kieffer in which Rubashov belittled No. 1's techniques and argued for pragmatism rather than earnest belief in the Party decisions. Hare-lip ends by claiming that Rubashov then wanted to hire Hare-lip to murder No. 1 with poison. Using the skills of logical reasoning, Rubashov proves that this charge is impossible, but he feels suddenly apathetic when he knows it won't make a difference. Gletkin, throughout the interrogations, keeps a harsh light on Rubashov and deprives him of sleep so that it seems like the world of dreams and that of reality melt into one. Rubashov could deny everything or admit to everything, but he feels a strange sense of individual honor that forces him to go through each charge one by one and take a brief sense of triumph in his small successes. Eventually Gletkin does go off the script a little, telling Rubashov about his childhood as a peasant and how he's convinced that the masses need straightforward doctrines and well-performed confessions in order to further the Party cause. Finally, Rubashov does sign a document agreeing to the charges, and Gletkin tells his stenographer that his approach was right: physical deprivation is always the way to get people to buckle. The narration shifts to the porter Wassilij and his daughter, Vera, who is reading him the transcript of Rubashov's trial and remarking about how Rubashov must be guilty. Wassilij, though, thinks of Rubashov as a kind of Christ figure, sacrificed for others. Wassilij has to be careful to hide some of his Christian rituals (like praying) from his daughter, who he knows would love nothing more than to have him pushed out of the apartment they share so that she can move in with her fiancé. When the narration returns to Rubashov's point of view, he's still obsessed with thinking through his theories of history. He's certain now that there's no way of resolving the ideological contradictions in the Party between the individual and the collective, but he imagines that there might be a way of doing so in the future, in another society. Before he dies, he thinks of his dream of being arrested, and he wonders for one final time what his death might mean, if anything. A silence reigns after his death.

- Genre: Historical Fiction - Title: Dawn - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Mandatory (British) Palestine in the late 1940s - Character: Elisha. Description: Elisha is an 18-year-old survivor of the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps who joins the Movement for an independent Jewish nation in Palestine. Elisha grew up in a devout Hassidic home, studying Cabala (Jewish mysticism) with the grizzled master alongside his close friend, Yerachmiel, and praying fervently for the Messiah to come. However, his sufferings in the Holocaust make him doubt the goodness of both God and humanity. After World War II, Elisha's goal was to study philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, but Gad persuaded him to join the Movement instead. Elisha quickly became passionately convinced by the Movement's terrorist ideology, believing that Jews must act in God's place by taking their future into their own hands. However, being a sensitive soul, he soon finds that killing makes him feel sick and causes him to look repugnant in his own eyes. When the Old Man orders him to carry out the execution of John Dawson, Elisha spends the night before feeling tormented by the prospect. Over the course of the night, he is even visited by the ghosts of many people whose lives have touched his, including his father, mother, former lover Catherine, a little boy representing his younger self, and a mysterious beggar, among others. Elisha longs for these figures to speak to him and pass judgment on his actions, but they silently refuse. Before dawn, Elisha decides, out of a mixture of courage and curiosity, to meet and talk with John Dawson before killing him. Though he's determined to feel hatred for Dawson (in order to help him feel justified in his actions), he finds he cannot, and he even feels a reluctant liking for his victim. Nevertheless, he goes through with shooting Dawson. At the end of the story, Elisha feels like he, too, has undergone a kind of death. - Character: Gad. Description: Gad is the compelling young terrorist who recruits Elisha to join the Movement in Palestine and oversees his training there. Gad tracks down Elisha in Paris and claims to know everything about him. Elisha entrusts his future to Gad because to him, Gad's fiery gaze and prophetic voice make him resemble a messenger from God; the desire to please Gad is a strong motivation for Elisha. Gad is fully committed to the Movement's ideology and believes that Jewish people have put up with persecution for too long and must learn to fight back violently. David ben Moshe is a lifelong friend of Gad's and was captured during an operation Gad commanded, so he's especially bitter and vengeful about David's impending execution. - Character: John Dawson. Description: John Dawson is a British captain who is kidnapped and sentenced to execution by the Movement in reprisal for the death sentence of David ben Moshe. Dawson is a handsome man in his 40s and a professional soldier. Dawson has a son Elisha's age who's studying at Cambridge, and he immediately feels sorry for Elisha; in the last hour of Dawson's life, he even shows a fatherly tenderness and quiet humor toward Elisha. In fact, the last word on Dawson's lips before he is shot is "Elisha," though it's not clear what he meant to say. After Dawson dies, the ghosts of Elisha's past, including the little boy, accompany Dawson's spirit from the prison cell, suggesting that they side with Dawson and not Elisha. - Character: David ben Moshe. Description: A childhood friend of Gad's, David ben Moshe is a Jewish freedom fighter who is taken captive and sentenced to death by the British. In retaliation, the Movement kidnaps British captain John Dawson and sentences him to execution. Though David doesn't appear directly in the story, Elisha imagines the last moments before David's hanging while he's preparing to shoot Dawson. - Character: The Beggar. Description: The beggar is a mysterious figure whom Elisha first met when he was 12 years old. The shabbily dressed, gaunt beggar had an otherworldly look in his eyes. The mysterious beggar taught young Elisha how to distinguish between night and day by peering into a window and looking for the reflection of a face. The ghost of the beggar also appears in the room the night before Elisha executes Dawson, but he declines to pass judgment on Elisha's actions. From studying Hassidic literature, Elisha knows that a beggar could be either the prophet Elijah or the Angel of Death in disguise. Throughout the story, Elisha thinks the beggar represents both of these figures at different points. - Character: The Old Man. Description: The Old Man is the anonymous leader of the Movement. Though Elisha doesn't know the Old Man's identity, he believes he met him during training camp, as Elisha worked with a masked instructor who had a surprisingly gentle voice. The Old Man's ideology centers on the belief that the Jewish people must take their future into their own hands by learning to hate their enemies. The Old Man orders Elisha to execute John Dawson. He refuses to back down from Dawson's death sentence, despite worldwide protest, because he believes that Jewish people have passively endured persecution for too long and must fight back. - Character: The Grizzled Master. Description: The grizzled master is Elisha's childhood Cabala (Jewish mysticism) teacher. Elisha looked up to the master as a mentor and guide; he was especially influenced by the Master's teaching on the sixth commandment—that it's wrong to take God's prerogative into one's own hands by killing another. He also told Elisha that Death is "all eyes" and taught him other Jewish legends, like the story of a little boy who was turned into a prayer in the night sky. The ghost of the grizzled master appears the night before Dawson's execution, though he remains silent. - Character: Ilana. Description: Ilana is Gad's girlfriend and also the "Voice of Freedom" who broadcasts on the Movement's behalf each night in Palestine. Except for Gad, Elisha, and a few others, nobody else knows the identity of the mysterious, beautiful radio voice. The night before Dawson's execution, Ilana comforts Elisha, reminding him of his former love, Catherine. - Character: Catherine. Description: Catherine was a delicate blonde woman in her late 20s whom Elisha met in France after World War II. She was the first woman Elisha got to know up close, outside of his family. She asked Elisha about his past and spoke to him about love; they eventually began a romantic affair, but when Elisha told her that he loved her, she became distressed, and Elisha fled before they could consummate their relationship sexually. After this, Elisha realized that Catherine saw him as a pitiable little boy. Catherine's ghost is the first one Elisha sees around midnight on the night before Dawson's execution. - Character: The Little Boy. Description: The little boy is the ghost of Elisha's younger self as he was before the war began. He appears the night before Dawson's execution and is the only one of the ghosts who directly answers Elisha's questions. He explains to Elisha that the ghosts must witness the execution because they are part of everything he does, though they will not judge him. - Character: Yerachmiel. Description: Yerachmiel is a childhood friend of Elisha's. They studied Cabala (Jewish mysticism together under the grizzled master and prayed and fasted fervently in hopes of bringing the Messiah. The two were separated at the beginning of World War II. Then Yerachmiel's ghost appears to Elisha the night before Dawson's execution, confirming that he must have been killed in a concentration camp. - Theme: Revenge, Terrorism, and War. Description: Dawn takes place in British-ruled Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel, when a group of young Holocaust survivors are attempting to overthrow British rule in order to establish a safe Jewish homeland. These freedom fighters are referred to simply as "the Movement." In the story, the Movement has begun exacting revenge for the British government's execution of Jewish soldiers. In retaliation for the execution of a fighter named David ben Moshe, the Jewish soldiers plan to execute an English captain named John Dawson. Elisha, an 18-year-old, is the soldier ordered to carry out the execution at dawn. Haunted by memories of the concentration camps, Elisha accepts the justifications that more seasoned fighters give him for committing this act of murder, yet he also searches in vain for assurance that the Movement's actions have an enduring purpose: can death and killing really be the means to a just end? By exploring Elisha's personal struggle to find meaning in terroristic actions like Dawson's execution, Wiesel suggests that even "justified" violence only perpetuates suffering and revenge and therefore can't secure peace and justice. The terrorists justify their actions on the basis of having been terrorized in the past. In their efforts to secure a new Jewish homeland, the Movement accepts the label of terrorist—their "goal was simply to get the English out; the method, intimidation, terror, and sudden death." In the Movement fighters' minds, this method is justifiable because of what they've suffered in the past. The Jewish Holocaust survivors, who are used to being terrorized, are now the terrorizers. Gad, the soldier who recruits Elisha to the Movement, tells him that the Jewish freedom fighters strike fear into the hearts of the British occupiers of Palestine: "The Holy Land has become, for [the British], a land of fear. They don't dare walk out on the streets at night […] or stroke the head of a child for fear that he may throw a hand grenade in their face. They dare neither to speak nor to be silent. They are afraid." The Movement inflicts fear—fear of doing ordinary things like walking down the street or even speaking—equivalent to the fear that's been inflicted on them in the recent past, even though the British weren't responsible for that. Despite the lack of direct British culpability, the fighters believe that the ends justify the means. Gad tells Elisha, "If we must become more unjust and inhuman than those who have been unjust and inhuman to us, then we shall do so. We don't like to be bearers of death; heretofore we've chosen to be victims rather than executioners. The commandment Thou shalt not kill was given from the summit of one of the mountains here in Palestine, and we were the only ones to obey it. But that's all over […] We shall kill in order that once more we may be men…" Gad believes that although Jews do not wish to cause death and are even commanded not to, they will now break the commandment as everyone else has done, in order to secure the freedom to live a peaceful human life. At the time, Elisha accepts Gad's reasoning. But when Elisha is forced to execute a British soldier in simple retaliation, Elisha is no longer satisfied with the justifications he previously accepted, and he questions whether terror can really achieve a peaceful goal. The night before the execution, Ilana, the Movement's radio broadcaster, is the only comrade who will talk openly with Elisha about whether terroristic actions are truly justifiable. She tells Elisha, "We say that ours is a holy war […] that we're struggling against something and for something, against the English and for an independent Palestine. […] But these are words; as such they serve only to give meaning to our actions. And our actions, seen in their true and primitive light, have the odor and color of blood." Ilana confirms what Elisha has begun to suspect: that no matter what justifications the fighters use to describe their actions, that doesn't change the cold-blooded nature of their actions. Later, when trying to offer Dawson a justification for killing him, Elisha finds that his words fall flat. Elisha initially claims that the Jewish people's "tragedy, throughout the centuries, has stemmed from their inability to hate those who have humiliated and from time to time exterminated them. Now our only chance lies in hating you, in learning the necessity and the art of hate. Otherwise, John Dawson, our future will only be an extension of the past[.]" In other words, hatred is merely a tool that's necessary to secure a new future for his people. But, moments later, when Dawson presses Elisha as to why he hates him, Elisha admits that he tries to hate "in order to give my action a meaning which may somehow transcend it." In the end, Ilana's warning unsettles Elisha's certainty, forcing him to admit that, underneath his words, his actions might not be justifiable and might not achieve the meaning which the freedom fighters have attributed to them. Elisha's struggle with executing Dawson suggests that, both in his individual case and in the Movement more generally, fighters seek justifications for actions that cannot ultimately be justified. No matter what words are used or how just their reasoning might appear, Wiesel argues, the fighters cannot redeem their own suffering or secure peace by committing further violence. - Theme: Past, Present, and Future. Description: In Dawn, Wiesel portrays the dead as the witnesses and judges of the present. He does this by having Elisha's dead acquaintances appear as ghosts at key moments in the story. (Although only Elisha can see these figures, the ghosts' visibility, and the hot, stuffy sensation they bring with them, suggest that they're really ghosts, not just Elisha's memories.) The presence of the dead in the story indicates the heavy shadow of the past that guides Elisha's choice to go to Palestine after surviving the Holocaust; he assumes he is acting on behalf of the dead and for the sake of a better future for his fellow Jews. The ghosts are oppressively prominent the night before Elisha is slated to execute a British soldier, adding to Elisha's fear and doubt about his orders to kill Dawson. Though Elisha insistently asks, he can't get a direct judgment from any of these witnesses—not from the ghost of his father, his old rabbi, or even his younger self—about what he's about to do. Yet at the end of the book, the ghosts wordlessly depart with Dawson's spirit, suggesting that they aren't on Elisha's side after all. Elisha's interactions with the ghosts suggest that, not only does he make his predecessors somehow complicit in his violent actions, but he cannot assume that the dead would approve of his committing violence on their behalf. Through Elisha, the book emphasizes that one cannot act for the future's sake without carrying the burden of the past at the same time. The night before the execution, Elisha is surrounded by the ghosts of his parents, his old rabbi, and English soldiers he's ambushed: "As I let my eyes wander about the room I realized that all of those who had contributed to my formation, to the formation of my permanent identity, were there." At first, none of the ghosts will respond to Elisha's questions, until the ghost of Elisha himself as a small child tells him, "We want to see you carry [the execution] out. We want to see you turn into a murderer." Elisha realizes that in some sense, everyone who's part of him will witness the execution. Not only that, the ghosts will become complicit in the execution: "'You are the sum total of all that we have been,' said the youngster who looked like my former self. 'In a way we are the ones to execute John Dawson. Because you can't do it without us. Now, do you see?'" Elisha comes to understand that "An act so absolute as that of killing involves not only the killer but, as well, those who have formed him. In murdering a man I was making them murderers." Elisha is not only answerable to those who've contributed to making him who he is; he inevitably implicates them—and, by implication, all Jewish people—in his actions. The execution makes Elisha wonder if his action for the future's sake really achieves any good on the Jewish people's behalf. As Elisha prepares to carry out his orders, he tries to convince himself that John Dawson is interchangeable with those who've made him and his loved ones suffer in the past: "As I went down the stairs I was sure that I would meet the man who had condemned David ben Moshe to death, the man who had killed my parents, the man who had come between me and the man I had wanted to become, and who was now ready to kill the man in me." Yet, instead, Elisha finds that Dawson is a likeable man with his own connections to the past back in England, who doesn't even know why he's being executed. This causes Elisha's logic—that, through this execution, he's striking a blow on his people's behalf—to begin to unravel. After the ghosts watch Elisha shoot Dawson, they offer no comment, but they accompany Dawson's spirit out of the cell: "the little boy walked at his side as if to guide him. I seemed to hear my mother say: 'Poor boy! Poor boy!'" It's ambiguous whether his mother's words here refer to Elisha or to Dawson. In either case, the ghosts' actions suggest that, contrary to Elisha's self-justifications, they side with the unjust sufferer, Dawson, and not with Elisha. This destroys Elisha's previous understanding of his actions. Though he carries the burden of his past wherever he goes, he realizes he cannot assume that there is an unbroken line of logic between his past, his present actions, and his people's future. In turn, this forces him to question whether the ghosts of his past—the people whose sufferings motivate him—approve of his methods to secure a future for the Jewish people. - Theme: God and Religion. Description: Though Elisha grew up religiously observant, the Holocaust destroys his youthfully naïve beliefs about God. Yet when Gad recruits Elisha into an organization called the Movement, Elisha's religious beliefs are rekindled in a different form—one that urges survivors to take the future into their own hands instead of continuing to be victimized. These beliefs undercut some of the very tenets of Elisha's upbringing, like the belief that killing is wrong, by calling upon people to take on the role of God in creating their future—even if that means causing the deaths of others. Though Elisha remains committed to these beliefs in the abstract, taking Dawson's life forces him to rethink them. In the aftermath, he doubts that he has been right to try to occupy God's place, and he questions whether God has been with him at all. Through Elisha's struggle to force his religious beliefs to align with his actions, Wiesel suggests that attributing one's actions to God is arrogant at best and, at worst, will lead to the destruction of the world one is trying to create. Elisha's sufferings during the Holocaust alter his belief in God, making him believe that human beings must take the initiative to act where, in their view, God has failed to act. The experience of living in the concentration camps has altered Elisha's once-fervent belief in God. "In the concentration camp I had cried out in sorrow and anger against God and also against man, who seemed to have inherited only the cruelty of his creator." In other words, Elisha's suffering makes him doubt that either God or man is as good as he had once believed. After he survives the camps, Elisha is left with pressing questions about God: "Where is God to be found? In suffering or in rebellion?" Though he intends to pursue these questions through the study of philosophy, he ends up seeking it through what the freedom fighters call simply "the Movement": a terroristic group that is fighting the British for control of Palestine, where the fighters hope to create a Jewish homeland. By attributing religious meaning to the Movement's efforts, Elisha assumes an answer to his question—that God is to be found in rebellion, not in the sufferings he's just survived. Not only does Elisha assume where God can be found, he also assumes that human beings must effectively take God's work into their own hands. As a child, Elisha had been taught that murder was wrong because, in committing it, a person assumes one of God's prerogatives. Now, Elisha reasons that it's necessary for the Jewish people to "become God" in order to change the course of their history. Ironically, Elisha comes closer to answering his questions when he's called upon to become an executioner. In Palestine, Elisha's belief in the need to "become God" is soon put to the test: "I wanted to understand the pure, unadulterated essence of human nature […] I had sought after the truth, and here I was about to become a killer, a participant in the work of […] God." Elisha's abstract questions about God and humanity become extremely real when he's ordered to kill, and he acts in the belief that, because God is found in rebellion, his participation in "God's work" of killing is necessary. Before the execution, when Elisha sees the ghost of his father, he argues that his actions should be blamed upon God: "Father […] don't judge me. Judge God. He created the universe and made justice stem from injustices. He brought it about that a people should attain happiness through tears, that the freedom of a nation, like that of a man, should be a monument built upon a pile, a foundation of dead bodies[.]" Because Elisha has been persuaded of the holiness of his cause, he justifies his actions in religious terms, claiming that it is God's fault that the war for Palestine is happening in this way. But his anxiety suggests that, underneath it all, he's beginning to doubt this himself. In the end, Elisha questions whether God is really with him. Though God is present at Dawson's execution, it isn't clear where: "We were the first—or the last—men of creation […] And God? He was present, somewhere. Perhaps He was incarnate in the liking with which John Dawson inspired me. The lack of hate between executioner and victim, perhaps this is God." Where once Elisha had identified himself with God in the act of killing, his unexpected liking for his victim unsettles this belief. Elisha is left doubting that he's acted in God's stead, or even that God is with him at all. In a sort of vision or imagination, Elisha sees that when David ben Moshe is executed by the British, the rabbi who accompanies him to the scaffold assures him moments before his death that "God is with you." But after he pulls the trigger on John Dawson, Elisha receives no such assurance. There is nothing besides himself and Dawson's crumpled body. In the end, Wiesel suggests that God is found with those who suffer and not primarily with rebels who take matters into their own hands. Elisha remembers his childhood fervency in trying to summon the Messiah: "No one can force God's hand with impunity. Men older, wiser, and more mature than ourselves had tried in vain to wrest the Messiah from the chains of the future; failing in their purpose they had lost their faith[.]" Wiesel hints that the actions of the rebels, too, are a misguided attempt to "force God's hand" and bring about the Messiah's arrival on tragically false grounds. - Theme: Hatred, Killing, and Humanity. Description: Early in the book, Elisha observes that becoming a terrorist has damaged his humanity by making him just like the S.S. officers he hated in the concentration camp during the Holocaust. He rightly concludes that, once a person becomes a killer, that aspect of their identity can never be erased. Yet this isn't the end of Elisha's story. When Elisha is ordered to execute John Dawson, he feels inexorably drawn to talk to Dawson in the hours before his death. Their conversation fails to fuel Elisha's hatred for his enemy (a hatred he'd hoped to feel in order to justify the killing), and in fact forces Elisha to face his own hatred and culpability. Though Elisha then follows through in executing Dawson, the possibility remains open that those humanizing moments might yet lead to a kind of moral rebirth for Elisha. As Elisha confronts his identity as a killer and undergoes a moral "death" of his own, Wiesel argues that the cycle of hatred can only be broken when killers affirm both their own and their enemies' humanity. When Elisha becomes a terrorist, he starts to become what he hates. The first time Elisha participates in a terrorist operation, he pictures himself in the uniform of an S.S. officer. He remembers that S.S. officers once murdered Jews by the same methods he is now using to kill the British: "A few Jews tried to break through the circle of fire, but they only rammed their heads against its insurmountable wall. They too ran like rabbits […] sotted with wine and sorrow and death mowed them down." As a terrorist, Elisha ends up recreating the same horrors he has fled from. Dawn suggests that once a person becomes a killer, a person can never shed that identity. Elisha reflects, "[A killer] can't say I'll kill only ten or only twenty-six men; I'll kill for only five minutes or a single day. He who has killed one man alone is a killer for life. […] War had made me an executioner, and an executioner I would remain even after the backdrop had changed, when I was acting in another play upon a different stage." In other words, the identity of "killer" cannot be rejected just because the war will someday end; killing even once stamps that identity on a person forever. Though Elisha tries to hate John Dawson in order to justify killing him, he finds he cannot; in fact, facing Dawson personally reconnects Elisha to his own humanity. The relationship between Elisha and Dawson creates an undeniable bond between them. "The seated victim, the standing executioner—smiling, and understanding each other better than if they were childhood friends. […] There was harmony between us […] No human being would ever understand me as he understood me at this hour." Ironically, the anticipation of killing elicits an unexpected feeling of deep humanity in Elisha, and even "harmony" between himself and his soon-to-be victim. Though Elisha tries to hate Dawson, the effort instead forces him to face his own humanity. "I certainly wanted to hate him. That was partly why I had come to engage him in conversation before I killed him. […] A man hates his enemy because he hates his own hate. He says to himself: This fellow, my enemy, has made me capable of hate." Though Elisha is a killer capable of doing terrible things, there's still humanity in him, indicated by his effort to get to know Dawson. Though he'd set out to hate Dawson, Elisha finds the conversation backfires, forcing him to examine himself—especially his capacity for hate—instead. After killing Dawson, Elisha feels that he has killed himself in some way. He explains, "[Dawson's] body remained in a sitting position […] I stayed for a few moments beside him. […] The shot had left me deaf and dumb. That's it, I said to myself. It's done. I've killed. I've killed Elisha." Though Elisha is a killer, the unexpected moments of shared humanity with Dawson lead him to identify with his victim to some extent. At the same time, the killing makes him feel as though a part of himself is irrevocably destroyed. Over the years, whenever Elisha looks into a window at the transition between night and day, he has typically seen the face of someone dead. But this morning, after the execution, the face looking back at him is his own: "The tattered fragment of darkness had a face. Looking at it, I understood the reason for my fear. The face was my own." Elisha's frightening vision—especially when he might have expected to see Dawson's face instead—confirms that he is now "dead" in some sense. Yet Wiesel leaves the meaning of Elisha's "death" ambiguous. As a killer, is Elisha destroyed forever, or did his encounter with Dawson "kill" the cold-blooded murderer in Elisha? Having faced his identity as a killer without ultimately trying to justify his hatred for Dawson, will he end up preserving his humanity? The conclusion of the book—the coming of dawn—leaves room for hope that, by humanizing his victim, Elisha might yet regain his own humanity, even if he can never undo what he's done. - Climax: Elisha shoots John Dawson. - Summary: The novel opens on a hot evening in British-ruled Palestine with a young man named Elisha, a member of the Movement (a group of Jewish insurrectionists). Elisha has just been ordered to execute an English captain named John Dawson in retaliation for the scheduled death sentence of a Jewish fighter, David ben Moshe, at dawn tomorrow. Gazing out a window, Elisha also thinks about a mysterious beggar he met as a child, back in his village in Europe, before World War II began. The beggar taught him to distinguish between day and night by looking at a window: if he sees a face in the window, he'll know that night has followed day. Ever since Elisha met the beggar, he always looks outside at nightfall and sees the face of someone dead. Tonight, he sees his own face. Elisha met Gad, a compelling young terrorist, not long after Elisha was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp. At the time, Elisha's goal was to study philosophy in Paris—after the sufferings he witnessed in the camp, he wanted to understand where to find God. But Gad showed up unexpectedly and persuaded Elisha to sacrifice his future to the Movement to create an independent Jewish homeland. In Palestine, Elisha was trained in terrorist tactics and Movement ideology, such as the "eleventh commandment" to hate one's enemy. The night before the executions, Elisha, Gad, and other Movement fighters, including Joab, Gideon, and Ilana, sit around somberly swapping memories related to death. Around midnight, ghosts from Elisha's past begin appearing to him in the room—including the ghosts of his parents, the beggar from his childhood memories, his old rabbi, and people killed in the concentration camps or in terrorist operations. The only ghost who directly answers Elisha's questions is a little boy who resembles Elisha himself before the war began. The little boy explains that the crowd of ghosts is here in order to watch Elisha become a murderer—because they are all part of him, the boy explains, Elisha can't kill without them. Elisha walks among the ghosts, trying to defend his actions, but once again he gets no response from them. By the time John Dawson has had his last meal in the prison cell downstairs, it's four o'clock in the morning—dawn is only an hour away. Elisha decides to get to know Dawson before killing him; it seems cowardly to do otherwise. When he gets downstairs, he finds that Dawson is a handsome man in his 40s with a distinguished bearing. More strikingly, Elisha immediately feels an unexpected liking for Dawson. Dawson asks Elisha's name and age and tells Elisha he feels sorry for him; he has a son Elisha's age. He tells Elisha stories about his son and jots a farewell letter, which Elisha promises to mail that day. Elisha tries to hate Dawson by blaming him for Elisha's own violence and by imagining that Dawson was responsible for David ben Moshe's death. However, none of this works, and Elisha can summon no hatred. He wonders if God is present in this lack of hatred. Just before dawn, the ghosts troop silently into the cell to witness the killing. Moments before the execution, Dawson suddenly smiles, saying he just realized that he doesn't know why he's dying. He wants to tell Elisha another story. However, Elisha tells him not to smile, raises his revolver, and fires. As Dawson dies, the name "Elisha" is on his lips. Elisha watches as the ghosts accompany Dawson's spirit from the room, the little boy at Dawson's side and Elisha's mother sadly repeating, "Poor boy!" Elisha rejoins the others upstairs and looks out the window. Dawn is breaking. Just beyond the window, he sees a face—it's his own.

- Genre: Historical Fiction - Title: Deacon King Kong - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Brooklyn, New York in 1969 - Character: Sportcoat. Description: The novel's protagonist, Cuffy Lambkin (whom everyone calls "Sportcoat,") is an old deacon who attends the Five Ends Church and acts as the Cause's community baseball coach. He is also a notorious alcoholic who often forgets his actions because he is so intoxicated. At the start of the novel, while in one of his drunken stupors, Sportcoat shoots and injures a local drug dealer, Deems Clemens. Deems used to be on Sportcoat's baseball team and was his finest player before he started dealing drugs. Nonetheless, the two of were on good terms and no one—not even Sportcoat himself—can figure out why Sportcoat shot Deem. While intoxicated, Sportcoat often has conversations with his deceased wife, Hettie. They frequently discuss the missing Five Ends Christmas fund, which the church uses to buy presents for the community's children. Hettie, who was in charge of the fund, is the only person who knows where it is; Sportcoat wants to find the fund because he knows how much it means to the community. Although Sportcoat is not always a model citizen, he loves his community and wants its residents to thrive. In fact, Sportcoat makes a living by performing odd jobs around the community, such as planting flowers and unloading crates. In particular, he spends a lot of time gardening for Mrs. Elefante, the mother of Tommy Elefante. At the end of the novel, Sportcoat undergoes several important transformations. Most notably, he quits drinking and finally comes to terms with Hettie's death. He also figures out why he shot Deems: to prevent the young man from going down the same bad path that he went down when he was a young man. When Sportcoat tells this to Deems, it causes Deems to reform his life. The novel closes with Sportcoat's funeral. Hot Sausage, Sportcoat's best friend, was the last person to see Sportcoat alive; he tells Sister Gee that Sportcoat died after wading into the water with a bottle of King Kong in his hand. Sportcoat wanted to take a sip of the liquor, but he didn't—meaning he kept his promise to remain sober for the rest of his life. - Character: Deems Clemens. Description: Deems Clemens is a former baseball player who has since become a vicious drug dealer who sells heroin in the Causeway Projects. Deems is capable and intelligent, and he believes selling drugs will allow him to elevate his social and economic status in a way baseball never could. After Deems is dismissive toward Sportcoat's suggestion that he return to baseball, Sportcoat shoots him in the ear, wounding him and taking him off the streets. While recovering, Deems takes stock of the men around him and tries to figure out the best way to move up the drug-dealing ladder. Notably, Deems's perceptions and predictions about those around him prove true throughout the novel. He thinks Lightbulb will betray him, and he does. Similarly, he believes that Bunch and Earl are useless to him, and they are. However, Deems is caught by surprise when, Haroldeen a woman who seduces him, turns out to be an assassin Bunch hired to shoot him. Deems survives this second shooting, though he's injured and must return to the hospital. Eventually, Deems has a change of heart about dealing drugs after Sportcoat visits him at the hospital and almost smothers him to death out of anger at Deems for throwing his life away. In this moment, Deems realizes the pain and hurt he's caused Sportcoat, the Cause residents, and himself. At the end of the novel, he returns to baseball, reclaiming the promise he showed early on in his life. - Character: Tommy Elefante. Description: Tommy Elefante is an Italian man who runs a smuggling ring out of the docks at the Cause. Tommy inherited his business from his father, whom people call Mr. Elefante. Although Tommy can be a formidable man, he runs his business based on a strict set of morals and only imports items that would be legal under normal circumstances, like TVs and cigarettes. He also refuses to get involved with the drug trade, no matter how much money he is offered. Although he takes pride in how he runs his business, Elefante's dream is to retire and settle down with a woman. At the start of the novel, he is a lonely middle-aged man who lives with his elderly mother, Mrs. Elefante. However, Elefante's luck changes after the Governor tells him about the Venus of Willendorf. Elefante quickly realizes that the Venus, a priceless statue, could allow him to retire and live the life of his dreams. With the help of Sportcoat, Elefante eventually finds the Venus. In the meantime, he also strikes up a relationship with (and eventually marries) Melissa, the Governor's daughter, who turns him into a kinder, gentler person. To show his thanks to Sportcoat and the people of the Five Ends Church, Elefante pays for a variety of upgrades and renovations for the church. - Character: Hettie. Description: Hettie is Sportcoat's deceased wife. She died after getting up in the middle of the night and walking into the harbor. Although Sportcoat says she was simply "following God's light," it becomes clear that she purposely committed suicide, in part because of her unsatisfactory marriage to Sportcoat. Throughout the novel, Sportcoat talks to an imaginary version of Hettie that he sees while he's drunk. This version of Hettie is angrier and more bitter than she was in life. Over the course of the novel, Sportcoat realizes that this version of Hettie is the unhappy person Hettie became as a result of Sportcoat's alcoholism. In order to make amends with this version of Hettie and to give himself closure in the aftermath of her death, Sportcoat gives up drinking. - Character: Hot Sausage. Description: Hot Sausage is Sportcoat's best friend. He is incredibly loyal and is always worried about Sportcoat's safety. After Sportcoat shoots Deems, Hot Sausage tries to give Sportcoat money to flee town, though Sportcoat refuses. Later in the novel, Hot Sausage goes to Deems to try to secure a meeting for Sportcoat, despite knowing that he could be putting his life in danger. Although Deems doesn't hurt Hot Sausage, the situation ends with Hot Sausage taking a bullet to the chest when a hired assassin Additionally, Hot Sausage is the only resident of the Cause with whom Sportcoat communicates in the final years of his life. - Character: The Governor. Description: The Governor is an old friend of Mr. Elefante. He comes to Elefante and tells him about the Venus of Willendorf, a rare object that could make the two of them rich. The Governor is a spirited old man who likes to sing and spend time with his family. He desires the Venus because he believes it will provide him and his family with safety and financial security. Additionally, the Governor is pleased by the budding relationship between his daughter, Melissa, and Elefante. - Character: Sister Gee. Description: Sister Gee is one of the nuns at the Five Ends Church. She is an intelligent and compassionate woman who looks out for her community and dedicates much of her time to the church. When Potts comes looking for information about who shot Deems, Sister Gee refuses to give him a clear answer. However, she enjoys Potts's company and repeatedly invites him back to the church, even though she doesn't plan on telling him anything. At the end of the novel, Sister Gee takes the Staten Island Ferry to see Potts, as the two of them plan to start a relationship. Sister Gee is nervous but hopeful about her future. - Character: Potts Mullen. Description: Potts is a middle-aged police officer who works in the Cause. Although he's white, he's more sensitive to the concerns of the Cause's predominantly Black residents, and he is assigned to investigate Deems's shooting. Potts repeatedly travels to the Cause to question Sister Gee about what's happened. Although their conversations are official business, Potts is also attracted to Sister Gee, and by the end of the novel, the two of them strike up a romance. Unlike other police officers in the novel, Potts understands why Sister Gee would be skeptical of law enforcement, even if he thinks she is not doing the right thing by withholding information. - Character: Melissa. Description: Melissa is the daughter of the Governor. She is a plump woman who is reserved, yet caring and trustworthy when it counts. She is the boss of the bagel shop the Governor owns, and everyone who works there likes and respects her. Over the course of the novel, Melissa falls in love with Elefante, and the two of them eventually marry. - Character: Joe Peck. Description: Joe Peck is an Italian mob boss who is responsible for introducing heroin to the Cause. He is highly successful, even though (or perhaps because) he lacks a moral compass. Elefante dislikes him because of his cocksure attitude and bad temper. Peck is the boss of every character in the novel involved in the drug trade, including Deems and Bunch Moon. - Character: Bunch Moon. Description: Bunch Moon is a man who works for Joe Peck and takes care of any problems that would prevent the flow of drugs through the Cause. Bunch is ambitious, crude, and cruel, although Deems thinks he is useless. At the end of the novel, a group of Joe Peck's men kill Bunch after Haroldeen lets them into Bunch's apartment. - Character: Sister Paul. Description: Sister Paul is one of the founding members of the Five Ends Church, as well as the oldest. She is the only living person who knows the location of the Venus of Willendorf, which she eventually shares with Elefante. Despite her age, Sister Paul is still mentally sharp and demands respect from those who come to see her. - Character: Macy. Description: Macy is the Governor's brother. He has a love of fine art. While fighting in World War II, he finds a lot of valuable artifacts in Italy, which he ships home to himself. At the end of his life, Macy sends most of the artifacts back to Italy, where they belong. The one exception is the Venus of Willendorf, which the Governor and Elefante conspire to find, hoping to strike it rich. - Character: Haroldeen/Phyllis. Description: Haroldeen, also known by her alias, Phyllis, is a young assassin Bunch Moon hires to kill Deems. Her assassination attempt fails, but she returns to Bunch anyway under the guise of collecting her payment. In reality, she is setting a trap for Bunch; when she leaves, she lets in Joe Peck's men, who kill Bunch. Haroldeen hates the illegal drug trade because she was sexually abused as a child in order to feed her mother's drug habit. - Theme: Substance Abuse. Description: The novel's title, Deacon King Kong, refers to the novel's protagonist, an old deacon nicknamed Sportcoat. Like many residents of the Causeway Projects in South Brooklyn, Sportcoat is addicted to alcohol; his favorite beverage is a potent blend of moonshine known as "King Kong." Sportcoat drinks so much that he often forgets significant moments in his life, including shooting a local drug dealer named Deems Clemens, an act which puts the rest of the story's events in motion. In addition to alcohol, thanks in part to Deems and his fellow drug dealers, heroin has recently become popular in the Causeway Projects (the novel is set in the late 1960s and depicts the rise in heroin that New York City experienced during that time). In a climactic moment toward the end of the novel, Sportcoat confronts Deems and tells him that he knows now why he shot him: he would rather Deems die young and healthy than old and broken by drug use and the drug trade. It is here that the novel's stance toward drugs and alcohol comes into focus. The story is sympathetic to addicts of all kinds because it understands that drugs and alcohol are often coping mechanisms for people in desperate circumstances. For instance, Sportcoat uses alcohol to cope with the death of his wife, Hettie. The novel is even sympathetic to low-level drug dealers like Deems. Although the novel doesn't excuse Deems's actions, it does illuminate the social circumstances that gave rise to them. Deems is a young Black man who is raised in abject poverty; he does not have many options to raise his social standing. However, the introduction of drugs into his community gives him a chance to make real money. Deems convinces himself that selling drugs will lift himself and others out of poverty, which he thinks is a net win for the community. Of course, this is nothing but a pipe dream. It is only at the end of the novel, when Deems returns to his baseball career, that he's truly able to give back to his community. In addition, the novel also shows how people in positions of power, like the mob boss Joe Peck, intentionally place drugs and alcohol in impoverished, vulnerable communities, thereby taking advantage of and perpetuating poverty and suffering. In its critical examination of the ways that drugs enter impoverished communities, as well as its sympathetic portrayal of addiction, the novel frames substance abuse as a symptom rather than a cause of suffering and hardship. Deacon King Kong shows that while drugs and alcohol may provide temporarily relief for those experiencing hardship, they in fact  act as barriers to real social and moral progress. - Theme: Race and Power. Description: Race is omnipresent in Deacon King Kong. Set in the Causeway Projects of 1960s Brooklyn, the novel features a diverse cast of characters including African Americans, Latino people, Italian people, and Irish people. Although all of these people live in close proximity to one another, and although the story depicts plenty of friendships between people of different racial backgrounds, there is still great animosity between the various racial groups.. The primary tension in the novel exists between African American characters and the white communities that surround and police the Causeway Projects. The residents of the Causeway Projects feel that their white neighbors do not understand them and attempt to disenfranchise them at every turn. This is apparent is the scenes where Sister Gee, an African American woman, speaks with Potts, a white police officer, about Deems's shooting. Potts means well and seems to genuinely want to help Sportcoat by keeping him out of harm's way; after all, because he shot Deems, there are high level drug dealers that want to see Sportcoat injured or dead. However, Sister Gee thinks that police involvement will only make matters worse for Sportcoat, whom she is trying to protect. Sister Gee is painfully aware of how law enforcement and the justice system treat black men, and she doesn't want Sportcoat subjected to it. After all, the novel frequently depicts instances of police brutality and corruption. For instance, Elefante, a local Italian smuggler, has the police on his payroll; any time something happens in the Cause, a police officer comes and tells him about it. Additionally, Sister Gee herself is treated harshly by a young officer who comes to the Five Ends Church to question her about Sportcoat, even though she gives him no reason to. In addition, white people control all of the major systems of power the novel depicts: in addition to the legal system and the police force, the major mobsters running the city, like Elefante and Joe Peck, are also white. Ultimately, then, the novel shows how the power dynamic of 1960s Brooklyn largely broke down along racial lines. In particular, it examines who those who wielded their power and influence did so at the expense of minority communities they regularly exploited. - Theme: Community and Religion. Description: The Five Ends Church, which is a central feature of the Causeway Projects, is characters' primary source of social unity and cohesion. Although the church is, of course, a religious institution, the explicitly religious aspects of its teachings rarely enter into the minds of those who live in the Causeway Projects. However, the sense of community that the church creates, along with its general teachings about acting as a force for good in the world, deeply informs the way the members of the Cause interact with one another. For instance, when Potts, the detective assigned to investigate Deems's shooting, suggests that Sportcoat may have stolen the missing Christmas fund, Sister Gee immediately rebukes him. She knows that Sportcoat is aware of how much the Christmas fund means to community and is resolute that he would never steal it. Even Deems, a sometimes-vicious drug dealer, keeps the teachings of the church in mind. Although the church isn't a strong enough force to keep Deems out of the drug business altogether, it does alter his selling habits. He refuses to sell to children or members of his congregation, and he does his best to keep his fellow churchgoers safe. In other words, the church teachings strongly rebuke any notion of rugged individualism; in the Cause, no one can make it on their own—not even someone like Deems. Instead, a person must put the wants and needs of their community before their own needs and wants. Such teachings create a social ecosystem where people look out for one another because they have a shared interest in their community's collective success. For instance, Sportcoat knows that he will be happy if he finds Christmas Fund because of the immense joy it will bring to his community. This value system proves to be effective in the Cause because it mitigates selfish behavior while encouraging actions that promote the wellbeing of the community. In the novel, this system leads not only to a more stable and satisfied community, but also to the stability and satisfaction of the individual people within the community. - Theme: Parental Figures and Masculinity. Description: Parental relationships are a core feature of Deacon King Kong, and the novel highlights two such relationships in particular. The first is between Sportcoat and Deems. Sportcoat and Deems have a somewhat unconventional relationship because Deems is not Sportcoat's son. Deems grew up without a father figure in his life, and so Sportcoat stepped in to fill that role. Sportcoat was Deems's Sunday school teacher in church, and he taught Deems everything he knows about baseball. However, their relationship becomes strained once Deems gives up baseball to start selling drugs. Not wanting Deems to continue down this destructive path, Sportcoat shoots Deems, though Deems ultimately survives the attack. At the end of the novel, Sportcoat explains to Deems that he shot him because he didn't want Deems to end up like him—old, alone, and destroyed by drugs. Although Sportcoat's extreme, Sportcoat's actions are motivated by his desire for Deems to have a better life. This is why he repeatedly comes to Deems and asks him to return to baseball, no matter how many times Deems rejects him and treats him poorly.  Meanwhile, the relationship between Elefante and his deceased father (Mr. Elefante) more closely resembles a typical father-son relationship . Although Elefante's father was rather stoic and quiet, he always tried his best to show Elefante that he cares for him, and he always acted in the best interest of his family. Through his father, Elefante learns a moral code, not unlike the one the Five Ends Church preaches, that he uses to navigate the troubled world that is late-1960s Brooklyn. Like Sportcoat, Elefante's father makes sure his son is taken care of. Before he dies, he leaves the Venus statue—a valuable artifact that will ensure his family is financially stable for life—hidden in the Five Ends Church, knowing his son will find it one day, which will in turn allow Elefante to have a better life than he did. Ultimately, although these relationships are far from perfect, they point to a model of masculinity and male relationships that seeks moral improvement and stability in a chaotic and immoral world. - Theme: Love, Hope, and Redemption. Description: Deacon King Kong is a fundamentally optimistic novel; it repeatedly depicts positive forces of love, hope, and redemption, even in the face of oppressive forces such as racism, drug addiction, and violence. The redemptive arc of Deems Clemens is the most obvious example of the book's optimism. Deems began his life as a promising young baseball player. Sportcoat, his coach, believed the young man could play professionally if he put his mind to it. However, instead, Deems gets involved in the drug trade and temporarily loses his way. Nonetheless, Sportcoat never stops loving Deems, nor does he lose faith in him. Sportcoat constantly visits Deems, even when he thinks the young drug dealer might want him dead, because he is convinced that Deems can turn his life around and return to baseball. Eventually, Sportcoat gets through to Deems, and Deems does indeed become a semi-pro player with a chance to make it to the major leagues. This transformation redeems Deems in the eyes of the community and leads him to a better life. Sportcoat's conversations with his deceased wife Hettie present a similar message of love and hope. Of course, Hettie is a figment of Sportcoat's imagination, but she comes from a part of his mind that still remembers the young man he used to be before he became addicted to alcohol. Eventually, Sportcoat's conversations with Hettie lead him to become sober after he realizes his drinking ruined their marriage. Because he loves Hettie and wants to honor her memory, he never touches another drop of alcohol, even though he wants to until his dying day. This transformation redeems Sportcoat in the eyes of the community and in his own mind, which was clearly tortured by his difficult past and the trauma of Hettie's death. Deacon King Kong takes place in an unforgiving setting where characters often must compromise their personal morals in order to survive. However, the book suggests that even in the most trying circumstances, and even for its most morally comprised characters, redemption is always a possibility if they  love, hope, and the support of their community. - Climax: Sportcoat visits Deems in the hospital and almost smothers him to death after Deems treats him cruelly. - Summary: In the Causeway Projects, an impoverished section of late-1960s Brooklyn, Sportcoat, an elderly deacon, shoots Deems Clemens, a young man and vicious drug dealer. Seemingly, the act is unprovoked, and everyone in the Causeway (or "the Cause)" thinks Sportcoat—who is also an alcoholic—may have gone crazy. They know Deems's reputation and think it likely that Deems's associates will likely kill Sportcoat for his actions. A young, African American detective named Jet Hardman witnesses the shooting while working undercover, disguised as a janitor. Hartman's job is to spy on Deems in order to gather information on Joe Peck, an Italian mobster who is responsible for introducing heroin to the Cause. As such, Jet spends much of his time by a flagpole that is part of the Cause's central plaza where Deems does the majority of his selling. One day, while watching Deems, Jet sees Sportcoat walk up to him with a gun in his pocket. Jet is concerned but doesn't want to blow his cover. Sportcoat begins talking to Deems about getting back into baseball. Sportcoat was Deems's former coach and doesn't understand why Deems quit the game when he was so talented. At first, Sportcoat amuses Deems, but he quickly gets on Deems's nerves. When Deems tries to dismiss Sportcoat, Sportcoat pulls out his gun and aims at Deems's head. As he does so, Jet yells a warning to Deems, who is able to move just enough so that the shot isn't fatal—Sportcoat hits Deems in the ear. Everyone in the plaza flees the scene, fearing danger and the police. However, when Sportcoat looks down at Deems, he has a sudden change of heart and decides to spare his life. Shortly after the shooting, the police arrive, though by the time they get there, the only people that remain are Jet and Deems. Deems is then rushed to the hospital. In the aftermath of the shooting, the police send officers to the Cause to find the shooter. Potts, senior member of the force, leads the investigation. Despite being white, he is more sensitive than most to the concerns of the predominately African American residents of the Cause. Potts questions a woman named Sister Gee about the identity of the shooter. Sister Gee is the leader of the Five Ends Church, the most important social institution in the Cause. Sister Gee likes Potts, but she cares too much about her community to tell him the truth. She thinks handing Sportcoat over to the police will only make matters worse. Meanwhile, Sportcoat himself seems to have forgotten the shooting took place. When his best friend, Hot Sausage tells Sportcoat what he's done, he doesn't believe him. He cannot imagine why he'd shoot Deems. Instead of worrying about the police or violent retaliation, Sportcoat spends his time doing two things: drinking and talking to his late wife, Hettie. Sportcoat drinks a special brand of moonshine known as "King Kong," which his friend Rufus Harley makes. While drunk, Sportcoat often sees an imaginary version of Hettie who died a few years before the start of the story. Although the initial cause of her death is unclear, it eventually becomes apparent that Hettie drowned herself at the nearby docks. After Hettie's death, Sportcoat was left to raise their son, Pudgy Fingers, who is thought to be intellectually disabled, by himself. Usually when Sportcoat sees Hettie, the two of them argue about a missing Christmas Fund. Hettie, as a member of the Five Ends Church, was in charge of the Christmas Fund the church uses to buy gifts for the children of the community. After her death, Sportcoat was unable to find out where she stored the funds, leading to some anger in the community. This upsets Sportcoat, who doesn't want the other residents of the Cause to think poorly of him. He cares about his community and makes a living by performing odd jobs for its residents. One such resident is Mrs. Elefante, an elderly Italian woman who lives near the Cause. Mrs. Elefante is the son of Tommy Elefante, who runs a smuggling ring out of the docks near the Cause. Although Tommy Elefante is no pushover, his criminal activities are relatively benign. The goods he smuggles into the Cause and its neighboring communities are all items that would normally be legal, such as TVs and cigarettes. He does not smuggle drugs and despises what they've done to the community. In fact, he repeatedly turns down an offer from Joe Peck to smuggle heroin, even though it would allow him to make a lot of money and retire. However, early in the novel, Elefante happens upon a different money-making opportunity. A man known as "the Governor" tells Elefante about a small statue named the Venus of Willendorf that was in the possession of Elefante's father before he died. The Governor knows this because he was an old friend of Elefante's father—and he gave Elefante's father the statue. Apparently, the Venus is worth millions of dollars and could make both men rich if they find it. Elefante desperately wants to find the statue because he dreams of retiring and getting away from a life of crime. He hopes to one day find a wife and settle down, but feels he is running out of time. Unfortunately, Elefante has no idea where the Venus could be. Then, one day not long after the shooting, Elefante runs into Sportcoat. Sportcoat says to Elefante, "I hope God holds you in the palm of His hand," the motto of the Five Ends Church. This catches Elefante's attention, because the Governor previously recited a poem to him that used the same phrase in relation to the Venus. Elefante wonders if the Five Ends Church has something to do with the Venus. While Elefante searches for the Venus, Sportcoat goes about his normal routine, while narrowly avoiding death. A man named Bunch Moon, who works for Joe Peck, has sent a man named Earl to hurt Sportcoat for shooting Deems. However, every time Earl gets close to Sportcoat, something thwarts his efforts. Meanwhile, Sportcoat remains safe and oblivious. After Earl fails for a third time, Bunch recruits a different hitman to carry out the job. Around the time the new hitman is supposed to arrive, Sportcoat, having realized he did shoot Deems, decides to make amends with Deems. In order to secure a safe meeting with Deems, Sportcoat sends Hot Sausage to talk to him. Hot Sausage finds Deems at the Causeway docks with a girl named Phyllis who is apparently new in town. Deems gets mad when Hot Sausage interrupts his date to ask him to meet with Sportcoat. However, before their conversation can get far, Phyllis pulls out a gun and shoots Deems, one of Deems's men, and Hot Sausage. Evidently, Phyllis is the new hitman. Hot Sausage goes down immediately, but Deems, who is hit in the arm, manages to get into the water. Sportcoat, who's been hiding underneath the dock, drags him to safety. Meanwhile, Potts continues his investigation. He speaks with Sister Gee, who continues to be unhelpful, though she and Potts become increasingly infatuated with each other. In the meantime, Sportcoat hides out at Rufus's place, and Hot Sausage and Deems recover in the hospital. Sportcoat spends his time drinking and arguing with Hettie about the Christmas fund, which he still hasn't found. Hettie also berates him for his constant drinking. In hopes that he'll find the Christmas fund, Sportcoat decides to visit a woman named Sister Paul. Although she now lives in an old folks home, Sister Paul is one of the founding members of the Five Ends Church. Before he departs from Rufus's place, Sportcoat also swears off drinking. Although Sister Paul doesn't know the location of the Christmas Fund, she does give Sportcoat other valuable information. Apparently, the Five Ends Church was built by Elefante's father after Sister Paul helped get him out of a difficult situation. His only stipulation in paying for the church was that he wanted to hide a small object in one of its walls. Although Sportcoat doesn't know it, that object is the Venus. Sportcoat also goes to visit Hot Sausage and Deems in the hospital. However, Deems is still angry with Sportcoat and treats him cruelly. At first, Sportcoat is his normal self; he acts jovially and tries to get Deems to return to baseball. Eventually, though, Deems upsets Sportcoat, and Sportcoat responds by suffocating him. Sportcoat tells Deems that he knows now why he shot him: it would be better for Deems to die young and healthy than old and miserable after a life of crime. Ultimately, Sportcoat lets up before Deems dies, but he tells Deems never to come near him again. Not long after the events in the hospital, Sportcoat tells Elefante that he should go see Sister Paul. Elefante, who is now dating Melissa, the Governor's daughter, does as Sportcoat suggests. Sister Paul tells Elefante and Melissa about her relationship with Elefante's father and the location of the Venus. Elefante, Melissa, and Sportcoat go to the Five Ends Church and find the statue. Elefante thanks Sportcoat for his help and calls him "Mr. Sportcoat," which fills the old deacon with great joy. Roughly two years after finding the statue, Sportcoat's funeral is held at the Five Ends Church. Many people attend the funeral, and the church has received some much-needed upgrades, all of which Elefante has funded. Most members of the Cause never saw Sportcoat after the shooting at the docks—only Hot Sausage has some insight into the last years of his life. Hot Sausage tells Sister Gee that Sportcoat managed to maintain his sobriety for the rest of his life. The last time Hot Sausage saw Sportcoat, he was walking into the water with a bottle of King Kong. Sportcoat wanted to drink it, but he didn't. As he made his way into the water, Sportcoat told Hot Sausage to take care of some flowers that he planted for Hettie near the Five Ends Church. Meanwhile, Deems returns to baseball. He manages to make a minor league team, and people expect that he will move up to the major league. Also, Elefante and Melissa get married, and Elefante finally begins to live a new, crime-free life. Additionally, Sister Gee and Potts start a romantic relationship with each other. The novel ends as Sister Gee takes the Staten Island Ferry to go see Potts while thinking about Sportcoat and his impact on the community.

- Genre: Fiction, short story - Title: Dead Men’s Path - Point of view: Third person - Setting: A British African colony (most likely Nigeria) in 1949 - Character: Michael Obi. Description: Twenty-six-year-old Michael Obi is protagonist of the story and Nancy Obi's husband. As the new headmaster of the Ndume Central School, most of his time is spent antagonizing the village community for their use of a prohibited path that runs through the school grounds, worrying about the school's appearance, and wondering whether or not the Missionary Authority, the colonial organization that appointed him headmaster, will be pleased with the way he has modernized the school. Obi often discredits or ignores the advice of fellow teachers and respected members of the surrounding village—particularly the village priest—in favor of his own ideas about modernity. Despite the fact that these ideas oftentimes come into stark opposition with the cultural history and traditions of the community at large, Obi is often too prideful and stubborn to change course even as tensions rise between him and the villagers. Obi's decision to prohibit the use of the village's sacred ancestral path to make the school a respected institution in the eyes of the colonial authority backfires and ultimately leads to his downfall, as well as the destruction of his beloved school. His unwillingness to merge the "pagan" traditions of the community with his "modern" ideas eventually lead the colonial authorities to give him and the school a bad status report due to the discord he sowed in the community in trying to alienate them from their culture. - Character: Village Priest. Description: An elderly religious authority in the village and one of Michael Obi's major critics. He makes the most ardent case against Obi's prohibitions on the village community's ancestral traditions, noting that access to the path that runs through the school grounds is crucial to the community. His intervention comes at a time when tensions are on the rise between Obi, the school, and the villagers. As one of the older people in the village, he reminds Michael Obi that his prohibitions on the villagers' customs go against the teachings and practices of the community as well as their fathers and forefathers. He is the voice of reason and the consciousness of the community all at once as he tries to safeguard their practices from Obi and his dangerous modern ways, steeped in colonialism, before it is too late. - Character: Nancy Obi. Description: Michael Obi's wife. Like her husband, Nancy Obi is excited by his promotion and by the opportunity to make the Ndume Central School a place of modernity with beautiful gardens that speak to its sophistication. She is incredibly infatuated with rank and takes her husband's promotion as an opportunity to elevate herself in the eyes of her peers. She gives herself the title of "queen of the school" and sees it as a sign of her and her husband's refinement. Like Michael, Nancy dreams of making the school into a place of new ideas modeled after the colonial institutions she seeks to emulate. - Character: Government Education Officer / White Supervisor. Description: The white government official, presumably employed by the Mission authorities, who visits Ndume Central School for a routine inspection. He happens to arrive the day after the grounds get destroyed—likely by the angry villagers—and thus writes a "nasty" review about the sorry state of the school. He also sharply criticizes Obi's "misguided zeal," which the Supervisor believes was the catalyst for the "tribal-war situation" that has come about between the school and the village. - Theme: Modernity and Progress. Description: Chinua Achebe's "Dead Men's Path" tells the story of Michael Obi, a "young and energetic" educator who accepts the position of headmaster of the Ndume Central School. Ndume is an "unprogressive" institution (presumably in British-ruled colonial Nigeria), and Obi is appointed specifically because of his outspoken rejection of "the narrow views" of older teachers. His wife, Nancy, shares his passion for the "modern methods" and decides almost immediately that everything in the new school "will be just modern and delightful." Obi's enthusiastic push towards modernization backfires, however, after he insists upon barring locals' access to a sacred ancestral footpath that cuts through the school's campus. Through the resultant conflict between Obi and the villagers, the story suggests the perils of disrespecting meaningful markers of tradition in the name of a subjective Western ideal of modernity. Though it is never stated explicitly, the setting is implied to be Achebe's native Nigeria at a time when the nation's independence from British rule is still more than a decade away. This is the complicated colonial terrain that Obi encounters by accepting the position of headmaster and by seeking to impose his ideas about progress and modernity. When the story begins in 1949, the British govern Nigeria as a protectorate. It is important to note that while the British, during this time, left the day-to-day activities of the colony to the Native elites, they nonetheless played a huge role in policing conduct, ways of dress, social norms, religion, and education in the name of bringing the colonial subjects out of the past and into a modernity based on European ideals. Indeed, the fact that Obi has been appointed by the Mission authorities, the religious colonial body that spearheaded the creation of the school, reveals that progress is primarily signified by a rejection of traditional paganism and an embrace of Christianity. Thus, modernity is not an objective marker of progress but rather a measurement of how well a community adheres to Western sensibilities. This, expectedly, creates conflict with indigenous traditions and a clear rift between Obi and the community he has been sent to serve. Obi is set in his ways to the point that, though he is relatively young, he haughtily thinks of himself as the best person for the job because it will "be a grand opportunity […] to show these people how a school should be run." Obi cannot help but laud himself for how the position separates him from the other teachers at the school, whom Achebe hints are also from the "backwards" community by describing them as "older" and "less educated." This suggests that Obi finds his colleagues' modern sensibilities lacking: in short, they have not internalized the modern teachings of British colonial rule adequately enough for Obi. This again presents visions of "progress" as mere means to erase cultural history rather than actually improve peoples' lives. Upon finding evidence of a pagan ritual near school grounds, Obi promptly prohibits the use of an ancestral footpath that connects the community's village shrine to their place of burial because of its violation of the "modern" values of the school. When questioned about this act of disrespect, Obi cites the irrationality of the villagers' beliefs as a reason for his actions: "Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic." This implicitly presents the villagers' belief as juvenile. Seeking to tie modern values with the future progress of the community, Obi uses the closing of the footpath as a way to ensure that the school will serve as bastion of a narrowly defined "modernity," based on British values, for the children of future generations to come. Nevertheless, the villagers ultimately reject Obi's plans for modernity. In protest, they tear down the hedges near and around the footpath, trample the gardens, and destroy a school building so that Obi wakes up "among the ruins of his work." While this may at first seem like a victory for the villagers, the story doesn't end here. Rather, it ends with the image of the white supervisor taking stock of Obi's failure, particularly why it may have happened, and reporting back to the Mission authorities. This gives the impression that the work of modernity will continue with or without Obi, because it is a project that is deeply embedded within the colonial authorities who make the true decisions behind the scenes. In light of this, the villagers' victory over Obi feels less like an overwhelming mandate for preserving indigenous customs in the face of modernity and more like a brief hiatus in the inevitable colonial project. - Theme: Education as a Colonial Weapon. Description: Education is a recurring point of contention in Achebe's "Dead Men's Path," a story that centers around the Ndume Central school and its zealous new headmaster, Michael Obi. Readers' first introduction to the Ndume school prefaces what is to come later in the short story. Achebe presents the school as markedly "unprogressive," and later as a school that is "backward in every sense of the word." For this reason, the school is of particular importance to the Mission authorities, the religious colonial body that spearheaded the school's creation and which appoints the "young" and "energetic" Michael Obi as its new headmaster. Obi assumes his responsibility with the pride and zeal of someone who is intent on re-making the school into a "place of beauty" with "high standard teaching," modeled after his own "sound secondary school education." Together with the Mission authorities and his wife, Nancy, Obi dreams of the school not as a place of objective academic instruction, but as an extension of their colonial education. In other words, the school is meant "to instruct," rather than "to educate," the next generation of colonial subjects; the story implies that it will teach them what to think rather than how to think for themselves. The story thus reveals how, when controlled by a colonial power, educational institutions can be used as a weapon—namely, as a means to remake colonial subjects in the image of the colonizer. By setting the story in a school and centering a teacher as its protagonist (or, perhaps, as its villain), Achebe establishes educational institutions as foundational to the spread of colonialism, foregrounding the major and controversial role colonialism will play in village. Eager to please his superiors, Obi thus comes to the village with a rigid sense of how things will be done. He and Nancy attempt to remake the school from the ground up in order to make it a more respected institution, one that adheres strictly to colonial ideas despite villagers' protests. As a result, Obi and Nancy's views about how the school should be run are arrogantly limited. Indeed, he and his wife are scornful of the teachers who do not share Obi's ideas about how to instruct the children. Obi is especially eager to become a respected educator in a field he feels is oversaturated with "old and superannuated people […] who would be better employed as traders in the Onitsha market." This suggests that he believes that those unwilling to embrace the dictates of colonialism shouldn't be teachers at all. Ironically, Obi—the man tasked with managing the school—is distinctly uninterested in learning from or adapting to his circumstances and fails to ever question or meaningfully interrogate his own orders. This strongly suggests that the school Obi runs will not be a site of active learning, but rather one in which students are spoon fed unchallenged colonial ideology. At the same time, the fact that Obi and Nancy themselves are presented as such prideful, misguided characters serves as an implicit critique of the colonial educational system at large, which is clearly utterly disconnected from its students. Because the school is meant to be a place to further colonial ideology at the expense of indigenous practices, Obi and the villagers' diverging views become glaringly obvious once Obi prohibits the villager's use of an ancestral footpath. That he scorns this path as being an inappropriate use of the school grounds emphasizes his narrow and limited view of education; he has come to tell villagers how things will be rather than to participate in an active exchange of ideas. This is further reflected by the fat that, instead of listening to the protests of other teachers who advise against the path's closing, Obi worries only about what the Government Education Officer would think if he were to find the footpath open during his visit. Additionally, Obi is scandalized by the thought of what would happen if the villagers, invigorated by their illicit use of a prohibited footpath, "decide to use the schoolroom for a pagan ritual during the inspection." Both thoughts show that Obi centers the thoughts of the Education Officer and the Mission authorities more than the villagers in his decision to close the footpath because they are the colonial agents that his curriculum aims to emulate. Despite the fact that the school is supposed to serve the village as an educational institution, it is in fact a weapon of the colonial authorities who rule it through Obi from the shadows. Furthermore, when the village priest appears later to make an appeal for the footpath, Obi dismisses him in much the same way he dismissed the previous teachers. This time, however, he says that he will not reopen the footpath because "the whole purpose of our school is to eradicate just such beliefs as that […] our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas." Obi's commitment to giving his students a "sound" colonial education is especially evident here. He envisions education as a mechanism through which the children learn to scorn anything that does not adhere to British colonial values and teachings. Obi's conflict with the members of the village community plainly reveals the tensions that stem from his singular and often miscalculated way of educating the students. His educational goals for the community take their cues from colonial figures like the Education Officer and the Mission authorities, who have a vested interest in seeing Obi's students educated in ways that will make them more acceptable in the eyes of other colonial institutions. Obi's prohibition of the path makes sense in light of this; he sees it as a threat to the success of the Mission's goal of instructing the community to respect and laud colonial practices alone. - Theme: Cultural History and Identity. Description: For much of Chinua Achebe's "Dead Men's Path," the cultural practices of the villagers are under attack by Michael Obi, the new headmaster of Ndume Central School, and his wife, Nancy. While Nancy does not directly involve herself with the running of the school, she models herself and her actions after the British while scorning the customs of the villagers. Likewise, Obi, zealous in his endeavor to make the school into a place where students can forge a new identity outside of their communal and ancestral history, decides to close a sacred footpath he views as a hindrance. Despite reports of "the big row some time ago" when other educators had previously attempted to close the footpath, Obi continues with his plans to do so, alarmed by the idea of the school denigrating itself by being used as a "thoroughfare" for a pagan ritual. When a woman dies in childbirth shortly after, Obi must come to terms with the repercussions of attempting to forcefully erase a community's way of life. The death of the woman reveals the stakes of Obi and his wife's project. For the villagers, their way of life—their very essence—is tied irrevocably to the upholding of their ancestral practices. To be stripped from their past is to be stripped from a vital connection to who they are as people.  Both Nancy and Obi are buoyed by the opportunity to make their vision for the school a reality, though their unwillingness to accommodate the villagers' input and traditions almost immediately begins to alienate the village community from its way of life. Obi and Nancy design the school as a place of newness, where anyone can break from the old and the "rank" and boldly imagine themselves as someone different. This subtle message of embracing the "new" is meant to hasten the process of alienating the younger generation of villagers from their community and their connection to their past. To do this, Nancy and Obi go as far as to separate the school from the rest of the village by planting a garden that "came to life […] and blossomed" until it "marked out the carefully tended school compound from the rank neighborhood bushes." This further creates a physical rift between the cultural practices of the past and the possibility for new traditions and new identities that the future promises. Nancy herself is not immune to this concept of re-creating oneself at the expense of one's past, community, and cultural identity. In fact, she boldly embraces it and begins "to see herself as the admired wife of the young headmaster, the queen of the school," an image that draws parallels with the British monarch (whose rule readers can assume the village community is under, given Achebe's background and the Igbo names of the characters and the setting). Nancy's investment in idolizing a colonial figure reveals that she seeks to participate in a cultural tradition different from that of the village, underscoring her own flimsy understanding of the importance the community places on their indigenous ancestral culture. Together, these details underscore how the embrace of this new way of life represented by the school requires a forceful break with one's history. The village priest's intervention into the closing of the footpath, however, suggests that the community fears that Obi and Nancy's choices will create discord within their community and alienate them from traditional practices they have relied on for generations. The priest explains the historical significance of the footpath by arguing that it is what has connected the community to their forefathers, and that without it, they would not be the same people. He punctuates his pleas to Obi by reminding him that the "the whole life of the village depends on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the footpath of children coming in to be born…" This suggests that the footpath is the bridge between generations, a tether to bind the past with the present and the future, even in the face of change, so that the community can remain true to their identity. Obi, however, haughtily refuses to reopen the footpath and instead suggests that they construct another, "skirting" the school's premises this time because he is sure the ancestors won't "find the little detour too burdensome." Obi ignores the significance of the priest's pleas, choosing instead to undermine the spiritual and cultural role the path plays in the community in favor of embracing the "newness" that his school promises. Unfortunately, what Obi does not realize is that this newness is premised on undoing the strong cultural bonds that connect the village to their past and their ancestors—the things that make them who they are. Obi fails to realize that embracing the new promises of the school comes with the risk of socializing a new generation to view their parents' past traditions contemptuously. This possible rift between the past and the future would carry the risk of creating holes in their community.  After a woman dies in childbirth, however, the villagers reject Obi's plan and forcefully reopen the footpath as a way to recover their ancestral tradition and sense of identity. The woman's death spurs the village diviner to call for "heavy sacrifices to propriate ancestors insulted by the fence" and mitigate the risk of further irreconcilable damage to the community and its way of life. In retaliation, the villagers get to work destroying the prohibitions on the footpath so that Obi wakes up to find most of his work ruined, with the "beautiful hedges torn up not just near the footpath but right round the school [and] the flowers trampled to death and one of the school buildings pulled down." The appeasement of the ancestors seems to rest not only on the footpath being reopened, but also on the physical destruction of Obi and Nancy's project—the school—as a symbol of the dangers of attempting to cut a community from their sense of history, culture, and identity. Furthermore, the reopened path symbolizes the endurance and continuity of the community's traditions and sense of self, while the destroyed school grounds and garden reveal the vulnerabilities and fault lines of new practices that seek to sever ties to traditional customs that keep a community linked to their culture and their past. - Climax: A woman dies in childbirth after Michael Obi, the zealous headmaster refuses to reopen an ancestral path. - Summary: Michael Obi is appointed the headmaster of the Ndume Central School by the Mission authorities, a religious colonial and gubernatorial organization. The Ndume Central School is still considered unprogressive and has yet to modernize, prompting the Mission Authorities to see Obi's youth and energy as an advantage to the struggling school. Obi carries the weight of this responsibility with arrogance and sees his own secondary education as a point of pride that will ensure his success as the headmaster of the school. Obi's wife, Nancy, celebrates his promotion and together they make plans to modernize the school by planting gardens and beautifying the school grounds. Nancy and Obi also deride the older educators who do not share their progressive mindset while preparing to lead the school towards a new modern direction; they view these old educators as unsophisticated and unfit for teacher positions. Meanwhile Nancy daydreams of being the revered "queen" of the school and prepares to lead it by example. Obi and his wife eventually lead the school by emphasizing high-quality teaching and planting beautiful gardens on the school grounds. However, one evening Obi sees an old woman from the village walk through the school compound and through the school gardens. Upon following her footsteps, he finds a little-used path that leads from the school to the village. Obi confronts another teacher about the path, who tells Obi about its importance to the villagers and notes that there was a huge outrage last time the school tried to close down the path. Nevertheless, Obi decides to construct a fence to prohibit the path from further use in fear that the Government Education Officer will see signs of its use during a coming inspection. A few days later, the village priest visits Obi to try to get him to change his mind about the path, citing the path's importance to the culture and history and explaining that it is because of the path that their ancestors can visit them and new children can be born. Obi refuses to reopen the path, emphasizing that it is his job to "eradicate" beliefs and actions that are pagan in nature and go against the modern goals of the school—in fact, he wants his students "to laugh at" pagan beliefs. Two days later, a woman dies during childbirth, which the villagers see as their punishment for the closing of the path. A diviner reveals that "heavy sacrifice" will be necessary to satisfy the ancestors angered by the path's closing. Obi wakes up the next morning to see that his gardens and much of his school grounds have been utterly destroyed. That day, a white Supervisor visits the school for the inspection. He writes a scathing report about the school grounds and the "tribal-war situation" that has sprung up between the school and the villagers, largely due to Obi's "misguided zeal."

- Genre: Coming-of-age novel, period piece, boarding school novel - Title: Dead Poets Society - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: Welton Academy, Vermont, 1959 - Character: John Keating. Description: John Keating is the charismatic, energetic English teacher who inspires the students of Welton Academy to rebel against their families and other teachers. His name echoes that of John Keats, the famous English Romantic poet whose celebration of life and originality may have inspired Keating's own. A former student of Welton, as well as a brilliant Rhodes scholar, Keating begins teaching at Welton in 1959 and immediately makes an impression on his students, who aren't used to such exciting, fascinating lessons. Keating urges his students to "seize the day"—that is, do extraordinary, original things instead of merely imitating their teachers and parents. His example inspires the students to revive a secret society of which Keating was once a member—the Dead Poets Society. Keating's emphasis on freedom and originality raise many eyebrows at Welton, a school that celebrates tradition above everything else. When his students begin to fight back against the Welton administration more and more overtly, Keating tries to convince his students to be more reserved and cautious in their behavior—significantly, he urges Neil Perry to talk to his father about his love for acting. After Neil's tragic suicide—brought about in part because Neil did not talk to his father—Keating is blamed for "corrupting" his students, and fired from Welton. - Character: Todd Anderson. Description: Todd is a new student at Welton, having transferred from another, less prestigious school. He doesn't get along with his parents, who, he feels, favor his older, more academically successful brother, Jeffrey Anderson. At Welton, Todd is at first quiet and shy, but with the encouragement of John Keating and the friendship of Neil Perry, his roommate, he learns to open up, express his feelings, and compose impressive poetry. Todd is arguably the most "dynamic" character in the novel: his transformation from a shy conformist to a bold iconoclast epitomizes the novel's rebellious spirit and coming-of-age themes. - Character: Neil Perry. Description: Neil Perry is a popular, idealistic student at Welton, and one of Keating's most loyal disciples. As Todd Anderson's roommate, Neil is instrumental in inspiring Todd to be bolder and more confident. For his own part, Neil is highly intimidated by his father, Mr. Perry, and yearns to find a way to rebel against his family. In John Keating, Neil thinks he's found a model for rebellion. Neil decides he's going to become an actor, and gets a part in a school Shakespeare production, lying to his father in the process. When Mr. Perry finds out the truth, he's so furious with Neil that Neil shoots himself with his father's revolver, sure that his family will never support his dreams. Neil's death sets in motion the final chapters of the novel, in which Welton Academy tries to find a suitable scapegoat for his death. In all, Neil Perry is a tragic example of how Keating's love of freedom and art can go terribly wrong—Neil is arguably more rebellious than Keating himself, to the point where he's willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of his beliefs. - Character: Charlie Dalton. Description: Charlie is a student at Welton, and comes from a rich, successful family. He's more openly disobedient than his Welton peers, although for most of the book, he's shown to be just as frightened of his parents as his classmates are of theirs. Under the guidance of John Keating, Charlie experiments with drinking, dancing, wooing women, and generally rebelling against the stiff, overly repressive atmosphere at Welton Academy. Charlie is one of Keating's most loyal followers, to the point where he's arguably more interested in rebellion and nonconformity than Keating himself is. As the novel ends, Charlie is expelled from Welton for punching Cameron and refusing to compromise in his loyalty to Keating. - Character: Knox Overstreet. Description: Knox is a thoughtful, romantic student at Welton. Over the course of the novel, he falls in love with Chris Noel, the girlfriend of a family friend's son. Knox's first attempts to woo Chris are disrespectful at best and assaultive at worst; he even gropes Chris at a party. Later on, Knox tries to use the poetry and eloquence he's learned form John Keating to woo Chris, and his efforts largely pay off. As the novel ends, Knox and Chris seem to be dating and very much in love. - Character: Richard Cameron. Description: Richard Cameron (who just goes by "Cameron") is a stiff, overly obedient student at Welton, and one of the novel's most overtly villainous characters. Unlike his classmates, Cameron is skeptical of John Keating from the very beginning, and he echoes Headmaster Nolan's criticisms of Keating. While Cameron attends meetings of the Dead Poets Society, he does so very reluctantly, since he's terrified of being caught and expelled from Welton. After Neil Perry's suicide, Cameron distances himself from the Dead Poets and informs on his classmates, ensuring that Keating is fired. - Character: Headmaster Gale Nolan. Description: The headmaster of the prestigious Welton Academy, Nolan is a severe, strict man, who governs Welton with an iron fist and has boundless respect for the school's tradition. Nolan hires John Keating following the retirement of another teacher. While he thinks highly of Keating at first, Nolan begins to doubt Keating's unconventional methods, and after the suicide of Neil Perry, Nolan seemingly has no qualms about firing Keating to avoid a scandal at Welton. - Character: Mr. George McAllister. Description: A Latin professor at Welton, and a colleague of John Keating, McAllister is shown to be highly skeptical of Keating's unconventional teaching methods, despite finding them enjoyable and entertaining. While McAllister seems to be one of Keating's few friends among the Welton teachers, he distances himself from Keating after the death of Neil Perry. - Character: Mr. Perry. Description: Neil Perry's severe, demanding father, Mr. Perry, is an intensely practical man, whose highest priority is Neil's success in school. Mr. Perry is skeptical of Neil's extracurricular interests, since he thinks that Neil's goal in life should be to become a doctor. When Neil begins to show interest in acting, Mr. Perry forbids his son from performing on any stage again—a prohibition that leads directly to Neil's suicide. In spite of his intimidating behavior, Mr. Perry is shown to be a devoted father, who sincerely believes that he's doing his son a favor by forcing him to concentrate on academics. - Theme: Life, Death, and "Carpe Diem". Description: The most famous quote in Dead Poets Society is "carpe diem," which means "seize the day" in Latin. Professor John Keating delivers these words to his students on the first day of school at Welton Academy, symbolizing his unorthodox approach to education and his desire to inspire his students to "make their lives extraordinary." It's important to understand what Keating means by "seize the day," what kinds of lives Keating wants his students to live, and how Keating's philosophy of life is different from that celebrated at Welton Academy.Right away, Keating's words ring true to his students because they represent an alternative to the ideas they're used to hearing from their teachers and parents. At the prestigious Welton Academy, the students are indoctrinated to believe in a simple, straightforward model of how to live their lives. Students are expected to work hard, follow the rules, go to good colleges, find lucrative jobs, marry and have children, and eventually raise these children in the same manner that they were raised themselves. Essentially, all Welton boys are supposed to obey the same rules and live more or less the same life, just as their fathers did before them, and their fathers' fathers before them.In stark contrast to the cyclical, "one size fits all" philosophy of life that Welton offers its students, Keating's philosophy of life is grounded in one simple fact: we are all going to die. On the first day of class, Keating tells his students that one day, no matter what kinds of people they become as adults, they're going to be "food for worms." In other words, where Welton Academy sees sameness as the basic condition for a good life (that is, obeying the same rules and desiring the same things as everyone else), Keating sees sameness as the basic condition of death—i.e., something to fight against. Therefore, he argues, a good life should resist sameness and blind conformity. Because life is all-too short, students should make the most of their time on the earth. The best way to make the most of life is to be creative and original—to seize the day—and not simply to repeat one's parents' and grandparents' lives. In short, Keating's goal as an educator is to teach his students to think for themselves (see Education theme): to explore their passions and live accordingly.The tragedy of Dead Poets Society is that some of Keating's students misinterpret his celebration of life, originality, and the "carpe diem" mindset to mean that a life without creativity and originality is worthless and not worth living. Neil Perry, one of Keating's most eager disciples, begins a career as an actor, inspired by his teacher's encouragement to "seize the day." But when his father, Mr. Perry, finds out that Neil has been neglecting his studies for theater, he forbids Neil from performing, and Neil is so distraught that he kills himself. Neil's tragic mistake is to twist Keating's idea, "because we're going to die, let's live life to the fullest," into a far grimmer idea: "because we can't live life to the fullest, we should die."Keating's "carpe diem" philosophy is, above all, a celebration of life over death. While Neil's misinterpretation of "carpe diem" leads to his death, Keating inspires many of his other students to lead lives structured around their own unique passions, ignoring the dictums of their parents and other Welton teachers. - Theme: Education. Description: As its boarding school setting would suggest, Dead Poets Society is in large part a novel about education. The book articulates two competing theories about how young people should be educated: first, the process of rote memorization and blind obedience practiced by most teachers at Welton Academy (the "Welton way"); second, the process of training students to think for themselves (the "Keating way").At Welton, students are trained to obey authorities and internalize whatever knowledge their teachers deem fit to pass on to them. According to the "Welton way," education consists of an older, more experienced teacher passing on specific information to a classroom of younger, relatively inexperienced students. Therefore, the ideal Welton student will obey authority without question, memorizing Latin, trigonometry, history, etc. But although the Welton way defines education as the internalization of specific pieces of information, education itself is just a means to an end: i.e., a way for Welton students to go to a good college and later get a good job. The Welton way isn't designed to foster any real passion for knowledge whatsoever; rather, it's designed to produce graduates who will go on to make lots of money.The "Keating way" of educating students, by contrast, is designed to get young people to think for themselves. Content-wise, Keating's classes stress the idea that a "good life" must be structured around one's unique passions, not society's rules. Similarly, Keating's theatrical, sometimes over-the-top methods push students to think originally and independently. He lets his students stand on desks, walk around the schoolyard, yell in class, and generally break out of their old, familiar habits at school. The goal of these seemingly frivolous exercises is to train students to "un-learn" their blind obedience to Welton, and to authority in general. Keating believes that students have innate passions and talents—his job, then, isn't to pass on information to his students, but rather to help them cultivate the abilities they already have.As many critics have pointed out, however, it's not clear that Keating really trains his students to think for themselves at all. He tries to use humor, performance, and wit to train his students to think freely, but it seems likely that he's just training his students to worship him. It's telling that the novel shows Keating analyzing specific poems only once—he claims that he wants his students to love poetry, but in fact, he seems to want his students to love him. In short, one could argue, Keating's students become blindly loyal to Keating where before they were blindly loyal to Welton. While such an interpretation of Dead Poets Society may be beyond Kleinbaum's authorial intent, it's important to keep in mind. There is a potential contradiction in the notion of teaching students to think originally (how can you teach originality?), and at times, Keating seems to fall prey to such a contradiction, his theatricality as much of a barrier to free thought as the other Welton teachers' dullness. - Theme: Conformity and Success. Description: The first scene of the novel conveys the preeminence of conformity at Welton Academy: Welton's students dutifully file into the chapel, dressed in the same school blazers and reciting the same "four pillars" of success at Welton (tradition, honor, discipline, excellence). In a way, conformity—the blind emphasis on sameness and repetition—is the real villain of Dead Poets Society. It's important to understand where conformity comes from and why it has the potential to be so dangerous.The four pillars of Welton—tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence—are different aspects of the same conformist model of success, a model that by definition can't work for everyone. Both in school and in life, Welton students are ordered to follow the same rules. Ultimately, the point of following the rules is to achieve "success," but only in the narrow, material sense of getting good grades, going to a good school, and finding a high-paying job. In this way, the four pillars of Welton are designed to force students to aspire for the same kinds of success—and, essentially, to become the same people.At times, the novel is sympathetic to the idea of conformity—there are, after all, times when it's good to follow the rules and pursue the same kinds of success that other people have achieved. Mr. Perry, the father of Neil Perry, a Welton Academy student, seems to genuinely care about his son, even if he expresses his love through the language of conformity and discipline. Mr. Perry, it's implied, comes from a poor family, and so wants his son to have the best life possible—and as he sees it, this means forcing Neil to do well in school, go to Harvard, and become a prosperous doctor. So one clear advantage of "success" as Welton defines it is that it produces students who can support themselves financially, find challenging, fulfilling work, and raise a family.Nevertheless, the novel is mostly skeptical of Welton's model of success, because it forces young people to conform to rules that don't work for everyone, a state that often produces more misery than happiness. The ultimate goal of studying hard and following the rules, one would think, is that it produces lasting happiness. But, as the novel emphasizes again and again, many of the students of Welton, as well as their parents, are conspicuously unhappy. Students hate their parents for micromanaging their lives and forcing them to study hard. By the same token, the parents of Welton students have become so obsessed with the idea of making their children "successful" that it's overshadowed their natural affection for their children. (In the novel, not a single parent of a Welton student is portrayed positively.) Ultimately, conformity has no psychological or spiritual "payoff"—it just produces more conformity. The same could be said of Welton's understanding of success—students are trained to achieve "success for the sake of success," not for their own happiness.At the end of the novel, we see the moral bankruptcy of Welton's celebration of success and conformity. After Neil Perry's suicide, the Welton headmaster, Gale Nolan, scrambles to find a teacher to blame for the tragedy. In the end, he holds John Keating responsible for Neil's suicide, and fires him from the school. As the students of Welton recognize right away, Nolan doesn't really blame Keating for Neil's death at all—he just wants to avoid a scandal that would jeopardize Welton's alumni relations, and therefore its status as an elite, "successful" school. This suggests that Welton's emphasis on "conformity for the sake of conformity" is even more sinister than it appears: Nolan is more concerned with his own professional success than with right and wrong or the welfare of his students. Ultimately, the novel shows that Welton's overemphasis on conformity produces shallow, morally blind, deeply unhappy people. - Theme: Rebellion and Passion. Description: Faced with the crushing conformity of boarding school life, John Keating inspires many of his students to rebel against the repressive, sometimes tyrannical culture at Welton Academy. The students' rebellion takes many different forms, some internal ("freeing their minds" from conformity) and some external (drinking, sneaking off campus, playing pranks, etc.). At the end of the novel, we see an extreme form of rebellion against conformity and repressiveness: Neil Perry's tragic suicide. In general, the novel draws an important distinction between rebellion for the sake of rebellion and rebellion grounded in sincerity and passion.In his earliest lessons at Welton, Keating underlines a concept that lies at the core of any fruitful rebellion against conformity: passion. A good life, he argues, is a passionate life, lived according to the individual's unique talents and interests. Discovering one's own unique talents, he implies, can take a lifetime—but doing so is inherently worthwhile because it yields true, fulfilling happiness. By the same token, Keating suggests that the lives of many adults are unsatisfying because they lack any true passion: people go through life without feeling love, whether for art, work, or other people. Keating's lessons suggest that true rebellion must be personal before it becomes external: for example, an adult who gives up an unsatisfying job to pursue his passion is "rebelling" against society, without using violence or interfering with other people's lives. Put another way, rebellion against the status quo has to be the result of passion, not the other way around.As Keating's students learn more and more from him, they're inspired to rebel against their parents and against the Welton administration. But many of the students also misinterpret Keating's ideas, celebrating rebellion for its own sake. Keating's students seem more interested in rebelling against their parents and teachers than in standing up for what they're truly passionate about. For instance, Charlie Dalton pulls an elaborate prank on Headmaster Nolan, seemingly for no other reason than that he wants to embarrass Nolan in front of the entire student body (Charlie claims to be standing up for women, but his claim is not very convincing—see "Men, Women, and Love" theme.) Keating later reprimands Charlie for his actions, suggesting that pranks and similar kinds of rebellion can be harmful when motivated by childish destructiveness, rather than sincere conviction. In general, many of Keating's students mistake the thrill of disobedience for genuine passion.Keating's lessons in non-conformity and "seizing the day" could be interpreted as inciting rebellion, but ultimately, Keating is really a moderate figure. He wants his students to stand up for what is right, but also get along with their parents and teachers by communicating openly and honestly. Most of all, Keating wants his students to "rebel" against society in a personal, individual way: by altering their thinking, pursuing their sincere passions, and sharing these passions with other people. Keating encourages his students to get along with their teachers and parents: he encourages Charlie to exercise caution at Welton, and urges Neil Perry to talk to his father about his love for acting instead of going behind his father's back. Though the novel ends in a tragedy of passion (Neil's suicide, which is based in his love of acting and rebellion against his father), it seems that many of the other students ultimately take Keating's real lessons to heart, rebelling against Nolan by standing on their desks, but only as a sincere show of solidarity with Keating himself. - Theme: Men, Women, and Love. Description: Dead Poets Society is set at Welton Academy, an all-boys school. Furthermore, it takes place from 1959 to 1960—an era when the feminist movement was causing big changes in American society. So it's no surprise that the novel has a lot to say about the relationships between men and women—in particular, between young men and young women.Almost without exception, the relationships between men and women that Dead Poets Society depicts are romantic in nature. The male students of Welton Academy, especially Knox Overstreet, talk frequently about their desire for women. Because Welton is an all-boys school, women take on a near-mythic status in the students' eyes: Welton students (at least the ones we're introduced to in the novel) have so little experience interacting with young women that they think of women as mysterious, sublime, foreign creatures. John Keating's lessons then appeal to his students' conceptions of women, without challenging these conceptions in any way. He claims that one of the key uses of poetry is to "woo women," and even suggests that in college, the women his students will meet will be "delectable" (not intelligent, independent, articulate, etc.). Unsurprisingly, the novel shows Keating's disciples, especially Charlie Dalton and Knox Overstreet, using poetry to seduce the women to whom they're most attracted.The problem with such a view of women and poetry—and, one could argue, a major problem with the novel itself—is that it depicts women as objects whose only purpose is to be "won" by any means necessary: a viewpoint that is arguably quite sexist. Inspired by Keating's talk of "wooing women," the Welton students give in to their immature, clumsy desires, disrespecting women in the process. Most offensively, the novel shows Knox Overstreet using Keating's "carpe diem" ideas to justify groping his crush, Chris, at a party—a scene that's played for laughs of the "boys will be boys" variety (as Knox gropes Chris, he tells himself, "carpe diem" and "carpe breastum," a clear example of how Keating's lessons shape his thinking). Indeed, Knox later succeeds in "wooing" Chris with poetry and literature, and his molestation is hardly condemned. Knox's fault, the novel strongly implies, isn't that he takes advantage of a young woman's body—it's that he romances the young woman sloppily. In general, the novel seems to agree with the basic premise of Knox, Charlie, and the other Welton students' view of women: women are passive muses, with limited subjectivity or independence, meant to be seduced (or at times, conned) into love. As another example, Charlie Dalton pens an op-ed about how women should be admitted to Welton—seemingly an assertion based in a desire for gender equality—but instead he simply argues that women are necessary for male students' sexual gratification.The overt sexism of the Welton students is more than just a moral problem for the book—it arguably represents a problem with Keating's teaching methods, as the novel glorifies them. Keating wants his students to "seize the day," and thinks his job is to teach them how to think for themselves and trust their own innate genius. But of course, the problem with telling a group of sexually frustrated teenage boys (all of whom, it's assumed, are heterosexual and just trying to act like "real men") to "trust in themselves" is that they might treat women disrespectfully. - Climax: Neil's death - Summary: The novel is set in 1959 at the prestigious Welton Academy, a Vermont boarding school. As the school year begins, we meet Todd Anderson, a shy new student who's transferred from another school, as well as Neil Perry, Richard Cameron, and Charlie Dalton—all junior-year students. Neil Perry is a likable, kind student, and is Todd's roommate; Neil is terrified of his own father, Mr. Perry, who insists that Neil must study chemistry, go to Harvard, and become a doctor. Richard Cameron is an uptight, conforming student who hates breaking rules; Charlie Dalton, on the other hand, is an easygoing, rebellious student who loves breaking rules. Another Welton student and friend of Neil's, Knox Overstreet, goes to have dinner with some family friends, the Danburrys. During dinner, he meets Chris Noel, the beautiful girlfriend of Chet Danburry, the Danburrys' son. Knox is instantly smitten, but doesn't know what to do about his love. Classes begin at Welton. Most of the teachers are extremely rigorous and controlling. However, there's a new English teacher at school, John Keating, who is different. Keating immediately impresses his students with his charismatic, energetic lectures—in the first of which he stands on his desk. While other teachers force students to do homework and obey them at all times, Keating begins the year by talking about "Carpe Diem," the idea that humans should "seize the day"—i.e., make the most of life while they're alive. This year, Keating promises, he wants to teach his students how to be extraordinary instead of simply following the rules. Keating's unusual teaching methods draw some attention from his colleagues, but because he's an intelligent, likable man, he stays in the good graces of the Welton headmaster, Gale Nolan. Neil tries to engage with Todd and become his friend, but Todd is too shy and reserved. Things begin to change when Neil comes across an old yearbook in which he learns that John Keating was once a student at Welton; during that time, Keating was a member of a club called the Dead Poets Society. When Neil and his friends ask Keating about the Dead Poets, Keating explains that the Dead Poets met in a cave near Welton, read poetry, and celebrated life. Later, Neil finds that someone, presumably Keating, has put an old poetry anthology marked "Dead Poets" in his room. Neil convinces his friends, including Knox, Cameron, Charlie, and Todd, to go to the cave, and together they read from the poetry anthology, gradually becoming transfixed by the poems' beauty. In class, Keating asks his students to compose poems. Todd is at first unable to write anything that he feels comfortable reading in from of the other students, but with Keating's encouragement, he improvises a brilliant poem about Keating's hero, Walt Whitman. Afterwards, Todd begins to open up, both with his classmates and with Keating. He admits to Neil that he feels that his parents don't love him—they're incredibly hard on him, and clearly prefer his older sibling. Neil is sympathetic to Todd's problems, since they echo his own. Keating's lessons also inspire Neil to try out for a local production of A Midsummer Night's Dream–to his delight, he gets the lead part of Puck. The students' attempts to "seize the day," inspired by Keating, become increasingly reckless and foolish. Charlie Dalton pens an article in the school paper in which he claims that women should be admitted to Welton, and signs it "The Dead Poets." To protect his classmates, Charlie comes forward and admits he wrote the article—he's given corporal punishment by Nolan, but doesn't tell Nolan anything about the Dead Poets Society. Meanwhile, Knox is invited to a party with Chris and Chet—at the party, he gets very drunk and, telling himself that he's just "seizing the day," he touches Chris's breasts, infuriating Chet. In response to his students' wild actions, and the suspicion he's been getting from Nolan, Keating tries to teach his students how to be realistic, "survive" college, and bluff their ways through essays about horrible books that aren't worth reading. Mr. Perry finds out that Neil is going to be in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and furiously forbids him from performing in the play. Neil, unsure what to do, goes to Keating for advice. Keating advises Neil to talk to his father and show him how passionate he is about acting. Neil can't bring himself to talk to his father, but tells Keating that Mr. Perry gave him permission to perform after all. Knox goes to Chris's school and reads her a poem he wrote for her, in which he professes his love. Later, Chris visits Knox at Welton and warns him that Chet is going to kill him for what he's done. Knox begs Chris to go see A Midsummer Night's Dream with him—if she doesn't have a good time, he'll never try to see her again. Reluctantly, Chris agrees. Chris, Knox, Keating, and the other Dead Poets go to see Neil in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Neil is spectacular as Puck, to everyone's delight, especially Todd. Chris begins to develop feelings for Knox during the performance—and later that night, she kisses Knox. After the show, however, Mr. Perry appears to confront Neil. He brings Neil home and tells him that he'll be going to a rigorous military academy from now on—clearly, Welton is distracting him from his "goals" of being a doctor. Neil is so upset by this news that, late at night, he shoots himself with his father's revolver. In the aftermath of Neil's suicide, there's an investigation, at Mr. Perry's request, into the matter. Cameron betrays the Dead Poets by going to Nolan and telling him about the Dead Poets Society. Nolan uses Cameron's information to cast Keating as a scapegoat—by blaming Keating for "corrupting" Neil with talk of freedom and individuality, Nolan hopes to avoid a full-scale scandal with Welton's wealthy alumni donors. One by one, the students are brought into Nolan's office and forced to sign a document stating that Keating corrupted them with his free-thinking lessons, and thereby compelled Neil to commit suicide. While most of the Dead Poets sign the document, Todd refuses to do so—and Nolan places him under strict probation for refusing to go along. In spite of Todd's loyalty, Keating is fired from Welton and essentially barred from ever teaching again. In the final chapter, the students file into English class, now being taught by the dull Headmaster Nolan himself. In the middle of the lesson, Keating walks in to pick up his personal items. While Keating gathers his things, Todd runs up to him, explaining that Nolan forced the students to sign the document that's gotten Keating fired. Keating smiles and nods, showing that he understands. Todd stands on his desk, just as Keating did during his first lesson at Welton. Slowly, and despite Nolan's cries to stop, the other students join Todd in an inspiring show of solidarity with Keating.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Death Comes for the Archbishop - Point of view: Third-Person Omniscient - Setting: Santa Fe, New Mexico and the surrounding territory; Rome, Italy - Character: Jean-Marie Latour. Description: - Character: Joseph Vaillant. Description: - Character: Jacinto. Description: - Character: Eusabio. Description: - Character: Manuelito. Description: - Character: Antonio Jose Martínez. Description: - Character: Marino Lucero. Description: - Character: Trinidad. Description: - Character: Antonio Olivares. Description: - Character: Isabella Olivares. Description: - Character: Inez Olivares. Description: - Character: Kit Carson. Description: - Character: Señora Carson. Description: - Character: Magdalena. Description: - Character: Buck Scales. Description: - Character: Manuel Lujon. Description: - Character: Bernard Ducrot. Description: - Character: Baltazar Montoya. Description: - Character: Father Gallegos. Description: - Character: Father Jesus. Description: - Character: Garcia Maria de Allande. Description: - Character: Father Ferrand. Description: - Character: Philomène. Description: - Character: Boyd O'Reilly. Description: - Character: Manuel Chavez. Description: - Character: Zeb Orchard. Description: - Character: Ramon Armonjillo. Description: - Character: Father Junipero. Description: - Character: Sada. Description: - Character: Benito. Description: - Character: Molny. Description: - Theme: Spirituality vs. the Material World. Description: - Theme: Friendship and Compromise. Description: - Theme: Humanity's Relationship with Nature. Description: - Theme: Colonialism, Industry, and Loss. Description: - Theme: Memory, Death, and Afterlives. Description: - Climax: Bishop Jean-Marie Latour must decide whether to let his vicar (and oldest friend) Joseph Vaillant leave their shared home to work in Colorado - Summary: In 1848, shortly after the conclusion of the war that made present-day New Mexico a United States territory, a group of high-ranking Catholic officials discuss the new vicariate they hope to found in this region. During this meeting in Rome, Ohio-based Bishop Ferrand pleads with Cardinal Garcia Maria de Allande to make Frenchman Jean-Marie Latour, a vicar in Ferrand's diocese, the new Bishop for this southwestern diocese. Allande is hesitant, but he agrees that Latour's youth and persistence make him the right man for the job. Now, it is 1851, and Latour is lost in the desert. After heading on a long journey to prove his legitimacy to the people of New Mexico, Latour has gotten stranded; he worries that he and his horses will die of thirst. Fortunately, after praying to a cruciform tree, Latour stumbles upon a small settlement. The people there take him in, and the village's commitment to Catholic rites even without a priest renews Latour's faith. Latour returns home to Santa Fé, where his old friend Vicar Joseph Vaillant has endeared himself to the locals. Still, Vaillant misses France. A few months later, Vaillant makes his way back to Santa Fé from the neighboring city of Albuquerque. During his journey, Vaillant stops to stay with Manuel Lujon, a wealthy Mexican man who hopes the vicar can sanctify his servants' marriages and baptize their children. When Vaillant insists that priests should have no material concerns, Lujon warns him that many priests in the region feel differently. Before he leaves, Vaillant asks Lujon to give him his beloved mules Angelica and Contento, which Lujon reluctantly does. Now it's almost summer, and Latour and Vaillant are caught in a storm on their way to the town of Mora. When they see a house on the side of the road, they stop to take refuge, and an American named Buck Scales lets them in. But no sooner have they entered the house than Magdalena, Buck's wife, warns them that Buck will murder them. The priests escape, and they later meet Magdalena in Mora. Fortunately, Magdalena spots an old friend there—Kit Carson, the famed explorer. Carson takes Magdalena home to recuperate with his wife; once she feels better, she will go work with Latour in Santa Fé. In the meantime, however, Latour needs to make the long trip to Baltimore for the Provincial Council. When Latour returns to the Southwest after the Council, he and Vaillant make their first journey around the vicarate. First, they go to Albuquerque, where they find that the priest there—Father Gallegos—is living a lavish lifestyle, filled with parties and gambling and other unpriestly activities. The two friends continue onto the village of Isleta, where they meet a kindly old churchman named Father Jesus. Jesus keeps a number of parrots, and Latour is gratified to see that all of Jesus' indigenous parishioners trust him. Latour then sets off to Ácoma, led by his guide Jacinto, of the Pecos tribe. When they reach Ácoma, Latour is amazed that the entire town exists atop a flat stone mesa. Jacinto explains that this was the only way the Ácoma could survive attacks from rival tribes. Though there is a giant church on the rock, Latour cannot help feeling that there is something overwhelming about the whole place. Latour also learns the story of Baltazar Montoya, a tyrannical priest who governed Ácoma in the 1700s; eventually, his greed and cruelty led the Ácoma people to revolt. At the end of his trip, Latour formally suspends Father Gallegos from his role in Albuquerque. A month later, Latour learns that Vaillant, who is always sick, has fallen ill on a trip to Las Vegas. Latour rushes to see Vaillant, but the trip is perilous—he gets stuck in a snowstorm and is saved only by Jacinto's knowledge of a nearby cave where they can shelter. Because the cave is a religious site for the Pecos tribe, Jacinto implores Latour to forget his time there, though Latour remains deeply affected by the ordeal. As the two men travel together, Latour reflects on the many harms white settlers have brought to indigenous tribes. Vaillant survives his illness, and he and Latour at last make their way to Taos, where the infamous priest Antonio Jose Martínez lives. Martínez distrusts the new American government, he refuses to abide by the priestly vow of celibacy, and he frequently blames his own bad actions on indigenous men in his community. With his miserly friend Father Marino Lucero and Lucero's nephew Trinidad, Martínez also embezzles a great deal of money. Within a year, Martínez, chafing under Latour's new rules, breaks off and forms his own church. But in short order, first Martinez and then Lucero fall ill and die. When Vaillant visits Lucero, hoping to administer the final sacrament to the old priest, he sees the dying man imagining Martinez being tortured in hell. Now that Latour is growing older, he wants to leave something behind—a church in the old French style. His partner in this venture is Don Antonio Olivares, a wealthy and well-respected ranchero; Latour is also close with Isabella, Olivares's wife, and with Ines, his daughter. But when Olivares suddenly dies of a heart attack, his brothers contest his will, arguing that they should get the money instead of Isabella on the grounds that Isabella is not old enough to actually be Ines's mother. At first, Isabella is too proud of her youthful looks to reveal her true age in court—but after some nudging from Vaillant, she comes clean about her age and preserves her inheritance (which includes funds for Latour's new cathedral). More time passes, and the Gadsden Purchase enlarges Latour's territory once again. Vaillant is eager to do missionary work in the towns near Tucson, so Latour approves the request, although he is sad to be apart from his trusted vicar. However, after a visit to his old friend Eusabio, a prominent Navajo rancher, Latour decides to call Vaillant back home again. Latour reflects that Vaillant is much more social than he will ever be. Just a few weeks after Vaillant returns, Latour gets a letter informing him that gold has been discovered in Colorado—and that miners, rushing to get rich, are drinking and gambling like mad. Latour knows he needs to dispatch a priest to Denver, and that Vaillant is the man for the job, even if it means he will never return to Santa Fé. But though Latour never openly voices his grief at letting his best friend go, he insists that Vaillant take both Angelica and Contento: "they have worked long together." By 1888, Vaillant has died, after being made the first bishop of Colorado; Latour, having been named an archbishop, is in retirement. In his final days, Latour recalls his friendship with Vaillant and tends to his garden of fruit trees. At Eusabio's urging, he also meets with Manuelito, a Navajo leader who delineates just how destructive American settlement has been for his tribe. In particular, Manuelito names Kit Carson, now dead, as the cruelest combatant. Latour hopes that indigenous tribes will survive beyond his lifetime, and that the U.S. will "restore" the land that indigenous peoples have occupied for centuries. Soon after, Latour dies, murmuring his final words to Vaillant. The next day, he is buried in the cathedral he built.

- Genre: Short story, magical realism - Title: Death Constant Beyond Love - Point of view: Omniscient narrator - Setting: Rosal del Virrey (a fictional city likely in northern South America, near Paramaribo and French Guiana) - Character: Senator Onésimo Sánchez. Description: Senator Onésimo Sánchez is the protagonist of "Death Constant Beyond Love." At 42, he is a politician recently diagnosed with an unspecified terminal illness who reads Latin and once studied to be a metallurgical engineer in Germany. He is a standard politician in that he overpromises and underdelivers to his constituents. He has a "radiant" German wife and five children, and prior to his fatal diagnosis, he was quite happy with his life. However, he feels deep isolation because of his prognosis and has compounded that solitude by telling no one that he's sick. This loneliness impacts his disposition: he becomes more irritable, direct, and somber than before. While campaigning for reelection in the city of Rosal del Virrey, he feels contempt towards his constituents when they try to shake his hand, and he gives a speech with an unusual inflection of rage. By the end of his campaign visit, he will ruin his political reputation on account of an affair with a nineteen-year-old woman named Laura Farina, described as "the woman of his life." Laura Farina is sent to him as a bribe by her father Nelson Farina, a criminal who wanted the senator to trade sex with his daughter for a false identity card. Though Laura Farina offers to have sex with him once the senator has agreed to the favor, he instead asks only that she stay and sleep next to him. When he does indeed die at the end of the story, six months later, Senator Onésimo Sánchez is sobbing and despondent that Laura Farina is not with him. - Character: Laura Farina. Description: Laura Farina, a resident of Rosal del Virrey, is nineteen years old and the daughter of Nelson Farina. She is likely mixed-race, as the story describes her mother as Black while not addressing her father's race. Her beauty is a focus of the narrative, as both her father and Senator Onésimo Sanchez believe she might be the most beautiful woman in the world. Her father takes advantage of the fact that the senator finds her attractive by sending her to the senator's office as part of an exchange: sex with his daughter for a false ID card, since he murdered his first wife and wants falsified identification to evade prosecution. The senator treats Laura delicately, but ultimately also takes advantage of his power over her by having her spend the night with him while she holds him. In addition to being called beautiful, she is often described as having animalistic or naturalistic qualities. Laura Farina is a character who appears to have very little autonomy or authority over her own life. - Character: Nelson Farina. Description: Nelson Farina, the father of Laura Farina, is a criminal who fled from Devil's Island to Rosal del Virrey after he murdered his first wife and desecrated her body. Stashing himself away on a ship with "innocent macaws," he was able to reach the Rosal del Virrey with the woman from Paramaribo who would give birth to Laura Farina and later die of natural causes (and whom Nelson Farina buries respectfully). Nelson Farina and his daughter speak French, likely as a result of colonialization in French Guiana. For twelve years, he has been attending Senator Onésimo Sánchez's election speeches in the hopes of convincing the senator to give him a false identification card so he might be "beyond the reach of the law" and avoid being arrested for murder. This year, however, he appears to have given up and stays home during the speech. But, when Nelson Farina notices that the senator finds his daughter attractive, he dresses her up in their best clothes and sends her to the senator wearing an iron padlock over herself that he will only unlock if the senator promises to finally grant him his false ID card. Nelson Farina's ultimate fate is unknown by the end of the story; the senator says he'll agree to the terms of the bribe, but that is before his political career ends in scandal. - Theme: Politics, Deception, and Absurdity. Description: "Death Constant Beyond Love" centers on Senator Onésimo Sánchez, a politician who's campaigning for reelection in Rosal del Virrey, a small island town. Rosal del Virrey is dried up, impoverished, and crime-ridden, but the senator's campaign focuses on masking reality and making outlandish promises rather than proposing practical solutions to the town's problems. For instance, his political aides create a "world of fiction" by paying people to inflate the size of the crowd at his speech and putting up prop trees and cardboard buildings to cover the townspeople's "miserable shacks." And during his speech, the senator assures the people that he'll give them "rainmaking machines" to make their crops grow, among other impossible solutions. Yet despite all of this dishonesty, the townspeople still trust and revere the senator, swarming him after the speech to confide in him and ask him for help. In a later meeting with town officials, it's revealed that he doesn't even believe in his own campaign—the officials are pressuring him to fool the townspeople because his reelection will benefit them. In other words, he's betraying not only his constituents but also his own moral compass. The story thus critiques the fanfare and false posturing that's common in politics, and it pessimistically suggests that it's easy for even the most deceitful and manipulative politicians to gain loyal followings. Furthermore, the story continuously blurs the line between artifice and reality to highlight the absurdity of life in Rosal del Virrey. The story uses magical realism—as when the senator's aides release paper birds that seem to actually come alive and fly into the sea—to emphasize that one can never fully distinguish reality from artifice in a place where corrupt politicians and criminals run amok. Even the reference to roses in the island's name is an ironic joke that obscures the truth, since it's actually an arid, desolate, economically depressed place where no roses grow. Finally, when the criminal Nelson Farina sends his daughter Laura Farina to have sex with the Senator Onésimo Sánchez, seemingly as a kind of peace offering, even the senator is duped: he discovers that the young woman is actually wearing a chastity belt that he can only unlock if he gives in to Farina's extortion. Through its use of magical realism and dark absurdist humor, "Death Constant Beyond Love" suggests that in a place where deceptive people hold power, the truth is never certain. - Theme: Isolation and Powerlessness. Description: The characters in "Death Constant Beyond Love" who do not have any sense of power or control over their lives feel a deep solitude and isolation. Senator Onésimo Sánchez—who's come to the impoverished town Rosal del Virrey as part of a reelection campaign—has a great deal of power politically (he has been in office for at least twelve years), financially (his campaign is well-funded, and he has a rotating array of linen and silk clothes), and socially (his constituents appear to cherish him, and he has a wife and five children and a "happy home"). Yet, all of this is offset by the fact that he has been given a fatal prognosis and has only six months left to live. Rather than share his diagnosis, the senator tells no one, and thus is plagued throughout the story by an unavoidable feeling of isolation. Other characters, too, appear to retreat from society when in a place of powerlessness. Nelson Farina, a criminal who's taken refuge in Rosal del Virrey, doesn't attend the senator's speech this year because he seems to have accepted his powerlessness to make the senator do his bidding. Nelson is bitter and alone, swinging in his hammock, as the rest of the town flocks to the senator's speech. And Laura Farina, Nelson Farina's nineteen-year-old daughter, has perhaps the least amount of power; she is young, poor, and female, and she must listen to her father when he sends her to the senator's office as a bribe. When Senator Onésimo Sánchez and Laura Farina are together, the senator comments that "no one loves [them]," because Laura has no mother and her only parent has used her as a bargaining chip. The senator connects with the young girl because he believes she is as alone as he is, despite their radically different positions in life. By showcasing characters who have a spectrum of social and interpersonal power but who, nevertheless, are lonely and isolated, García Márquez makes the case that solitude often comes from feeling a total lack of control over one's life. - Theme: Death, Nature, and Inevitability. Description: Death and nature loom large in "Death Constant Beyond Love," both as things that cannot be avoided or defeated. García Márquez emphasizes death's presence by acknowledging in the first sentence that the protagonist, Senator Onésimo Sánchez, has "six months and eleven days to go before his death." The senator chooses to tell no one of his illness, either out of fear, stubbornness, or both, and he goes about his political business as though he is not dying. In addition to keeping his diagnosis a secret, the senator takes his prescribed medication ahead of schedule, hoping to stave off the pain associated with his illness. However, despite these efforts to ignore his prognosis, the senator feels himself changed: he is more irritable than before, finding himself annoyed with the citizens of Rosal del Virrey, forceful when he speaks, and, ultimately, reckless when he agrees to an affair with Laura Farina, a young woman sent to the senator as a bribe by her father who needed a favor from the senator. Through the senator's behavior, García Márquez suggests the impossibility of avoiding the effects of mortality. Moreover, this attempt to avoid death is mirrored in the senator's (hollow) suggestion to his constituents that they can "defeat nature" and change the dismal conditions of the city's climate. The senator knows this is impossible, that Rosal del Virrey will never be fertile land. The climate is always hot, arid, and even when the senator sits in an air-conditioned car (avoiding nature by being "weatherless") he eventually has to leave it, and it is getting hit with a gust of hot air that reminds him of his own mortality. Additionally, by having his aides construct wooden houses and place them in front of the real shacks the villagers live in, he is suggesting an alternate reality, one apart from nature. However, he cannot avoid nature's inevitable destructive hand, as the senator realizes that even the cardboard houses meant to symbolize a better life for the townspeople are run down on account of the real climate. Ultimately, through both Senator Onésimo Sánchez's reaction to a fatal diagnosis and his broader attempts to avoid natural realities, García Márquez suggests the importance of recognizing that death and natural decay are inevitable parts of existence. - Climax: When Laura Farina is revealed to be wearing an iron padlock and Senator Onésimo Sánchez must decide whether or not to give in to Nelson Farina's demands - Summary: In the fictional city of Rosal del Virrey, Senator Onésimo Sánchez is a married, 42-year-old politician who has six months and eleven days left to live. He's making a campaign stop for his reelection effort, and it's ironic—since he's so near death—that Senator Onésimo Sánchez will meet the "woman of his life" during this trip. (He already has a family at home.) The senator and his procession of political aides arrive in Rosal del Virrey—a poor port city known as a haven for smugglers and criminals—on a hot summer's day. The senator's reelection convoy comes with all the trappings of political spectacle: music, rockets, even wagons full of people (indigenous Indians) that the campaign has rented to make the senator's crowd at his speech appear bigger. The city is dry and arid, and its name is a misnomer: there are no roses in town, save for the one that the senator carries on his suit. Before his scheduled speech, the senator takes an hour to himself. Alone in the house that his campaign has rented for his stay, he sets the rose he's carrying down in a glass of water. He takes his pain medication prior to the time it's prescribed because he wants to head off the pain rather than wait for it. He undresses and lays down in a hammock for a quick nap, trying hard not to think about the fact that he is dying. As he is the only person besides his doctors who knows of his fatal diagnosis, he feels an overwhelming sense of isolation. When it is time for his speech, the senator is clean and rested. However, he notices that his emotions are sharper than usual. He begins his speech with a tone that is near fury. Rather than looking to tell the truth in his speech, he intentionally sets an overly grand tone, speaking about "defeating nature." While the senator is giving his speech, his aides throw paper birds in the air, which take on the appearance of real birds flying out to sea. The aides then take out cardboard trees and houses; behind the backs of the citizens, who are turned to face the senator, they set up a fictional city over the real one, covering the run-down homes of the village. While the senator is speaking, a man named Nelson Farina watches from the hammock of his home. Nelson Farina previously lived on Devil's Island where he murdered his first wife. He smuggled himself to Rosal del Virrey along with a beautiful woman from Paramaribo with whom he had a daughter. The woman has since died, but she was buried peacefully in Rosal del Virrey, unlike Nelson Farina's first wife whose body he used as fertilizer. Nelson Farina sees the senator's farce from the opposite side as the townspeople, and he sneers at the dishonesty of the politician. Typically, Nelson Farina goes to all of the senator's speeches; for twelve years, he's been asking the senator to issue him a false identity card so that his criminal past can't catch up with him. The senator always refuses, and this year Nelson Farina appears to have given up. After his speech, Senator Onésimo Sanchez walks through town, shaking people's hands and promising his constituents favors—but no favors that would be too burdensome for him to fulfill. The senator reaches Nelson Farina's house; Farina sits in his hammock, looking unhappy, but the senator still walks over to say hello. The two exchange stiff pleasantries; then, Nelson Farina's daughter, Laura Farina, comes outside. Though she is dressed in a worn robe and with sunscreen on her face and bows in her hair, the senator thinks she is possibly the most beautiful woman in the world. He mutters in awe to himself. A little while later, the senator meets in his office with the politically important people of Rosal del Virrey. Here, behind closed doors, he is much more forthcoming than he was with the citizens. He criticizes the others for not wanting to change the conditions of the city, for making a living off of the inhospitable weather and climate. However, he also crudely insults the village and the conditions of the city. Meanwhile, Laura Farina waits outside the senator's office; Nelson Farina has dressed her in their best clothes and sent her to the senator. When his meeting is over, Senator Onésimo Sánchez sees Laura Farina in the hall and asks her why she's there. She responds that it is on behalf of her father. The senator believes he understands what this means—that she's been sent as a bribe in exchange for a false identification card. The senator hesitates, but then lets her into his office. Once inside, the two don't quite know what to do. The senator shows her the rose that he's had since he arrived, which has wilted in the heat. They talk, awkwardly; she tells him her age—nineteen—and birthday, and he notes that they are both Aires, which he says is the sign of solitude. Then, the senator has them lay down next to each other. He attempts to touch Laura Farina, but realizes she is wearing an iron chastity belt. She tells him that her father has the key and will only give it to him if he gets him a false identity card. The senator sighs, then considers the fact that he will be dead soon. This reality, coupled with her beauty, makes the senator agree to Laura that he will help her father. She offers to go get the key, but the senator instead asks that she stay with him; he holds her close to him and lays his head beneath her arm, while she stares ahead at the rose. Six months later, as predicted by his doctors, the senator dies. He died marred in scandal because of this affair with Laura Farina, but at the end he was weeping only because she didn't follow him in death.

- Genre: Novella - Title: Death in Venice - Point of view: - Setting: Munich, Germany and Venice, Italy. - Character: Gustav von Aschenbach. Description: The main character of the novella, Aschenbach is a successful, celebrated German writer who lives in Munich. An old man, he has lived an austere, disciplined life dedicated to his writing. He rarely indulges in any leisure or pleasure, and is a highly repressed individual, denying most desires in order to dedicate himself fully to his work. The sight of the red-haired man, however, awakens a latent desire in him to travel, and he ends up taking a vacation in Venice. There, he undergoes a rapid transformation, as he confronts the repressed side of his personality and his inner desires. He becomes obsessed with the young boy Tadzio, first as a kind of work of art—a perfect example of youthful beauty—and then as an object of his erotic affections. Aschenbach becomes increasingly intoxicated with the licentious atmosphere of Venice and dies a very different man from who he was in Munich, ignoring his work in order to pursue his desire for Tadzio, whose youth and beauty he idolizes at the expense of everything else. - Character: The Red-Haired Man. Description: While out for a walk in Munich, Aschenbach sees a mysterious red-haired, foreign-looking man. The man looks directly at Aschenbach, and inexplicably awakens in him a desire to travel to faraway, exotic places. It is unclear whether the man really exists, or is a delirious vision of Aschenbach's. In either case, he can be seen as standing in for some of the repressed part of Aschenbach's personality, an embodiment of Aschenbach's inner desires for travel, foreignness, and exoticness. - Character: The Old Man. Description: While traveling by boat to Venice, Aschenbach sees a pathetic-looking old man who is wearing makeup, a wig, and dentures in a desperate attempt to appear young. The old man is drunk and offends Aschenbach's sensibilities. However, by the end of the novella, Aschenbach declines to the point where he comes to resemble the old man, as he alters his own appearance in his pursuit of youth and beauty. - Character: The Gondolier. Description: A mysterious character who transports Aschenbach to his hotel but refuses any monetary payment, saying simply, "You will pay." He is reminiscent of the Greek mythological character Charon, who ferried souls across the river Styx into the underworld. The strange gondolier heightens the sense of Venice as an otherworldly, partly dreamlike place. - Character: Tadzio. Description: Aschenbach actually knows little about Tadzio, a fourteen year-old Polish boy vacationing with his family in Venice, but idealizes and fantasizes about him endlessly. Aschenbach is taken by Tadzio's youthful, "godlike" beauty and continually compares the young boy to Greek statues and mythological figures. Aschenbach thinks that Tadzio looks sickly, and guesses that he will die young. He thinks that Tadzio recognizes his interest in him (and perhaps doesn't mind), but it is unclear whether this is only Aschenbach's fantasy or reality. At the end of the novella, Aschenbach sees Tadzio as a "psychagogue," a role of the Greek god Hermes, who transported souls to the underworld. - Character: The Hotel Barber. Description: The barber encourages Aschenbach to dye his hair, wear makeup, and alter his appearance late in the novella, as Aschenbach becomes more and more obsessed with youth and begins to despise his aged appearance. By going through with the barber's cosmetic recommendations, Aschenbach comes to resemble the old man he found so grotesque on the boat to Venice. - Character: The Guitarist. Description: The guitarist performs at Aschenbach's hotel one night. He seems to have no self-restraint and entertains the audience by behaving ridiculously and vulgarly. In one performance, he and his fellow performers laugh hysterically until the audience also begins to laugh. He thus exemplifies the contagiousness of extreme emotions and a lack of self-restraint, something Aschenbach despises early in the novella, but later approaches himself. Aschenbach also asks the guitarist about the disease in Venice, but the guitarist tells him nothing. - Character: The Englishman. Description: Aschenbach speaks to this Englishman at a British travel agency in Venice. The Englishman is the only person who tells him the truth about the mysterious disease spreading throughout Venice, and explains that city officials are trying to cover up the fact that a dangerous outbreak of Indian cholera has reached the city. He advises Aschenbach to leave Venice for his own safety, but Aschenbach neglects the advice. - Theme: Art and the Artist. Description: One often thinks of a writer's life and work as two very different, separate things. Death in Venice, however, shows that there is a close connection between an artist's lived experience and work. As the narrator explains, for example, the heroism of many of Aschenbach's characters has a close connection to his own disciplined self-restraint. His writing takes a real toll on his own body, as his wearied face shows. Aschenbach's readers only see his finished products, and don't realize the links between his writing and his life, as with Aschenbach's well-received essay that he writes while in Venice. The beauty of its writing is owed to his fascination with Tadzio's physical beauty and form. The public's ignorance of the circumstances of Aschenbach's writing, the narrator suggests, is a good thing: the inspiration of Aschenbach's writing in his desire for Tadzio would mar the final product. Unlike his readers, though, Aschenbach cannot separate his writing from his life. He often blurs the distinctions between life and art, as when he imagines himself into the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus as Socrates, or when he sees Tadzio as a work of art. Mann's novella thus explores how the categories of life and art, truth and fiction, cannot be kept separate for the artist. The autobiographical resonances of the story (Mann actually vacationed in Venice with his wife once, where he became fascinated by a young Polish boy) further blur these distinctions between art and the artist.In addition, Mann examines more generally the artistic temperament through his representation of Aschenbach. In this, he was heavily influenced by the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche about the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Inspired by the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus, Nietzsche saw these categories as the two essential tendencies of art. The Apollonian is associated with rationality, order, and harmony, whereas the Dionysian is associated with intoxication, ecstasy, and revelry. Aschenbach begins the story as an extremely Apollonian character, who practices writing with discipline and self-restraint, and never indulges much in pleasure. By the end of the story, however, he becomes excessively Dionysian and is consumed by passion, emphasized in his intense dream of a wild, orgiastic crowd (which is reminiscent of scenes of ancient worshippers of Dionysus). Rather than attaining a healthy balance between the Apollonian and Dionysian, Aschenbach tries too hard to suppress his Dionysian side, with the result that it eventually overcomes him entirely, leading to his death. In exploring these contradictory sides of Aschenbach's personality, Mann presents Nietzsche's duality as governing not only art, but the artist, as well. - Theme: Repression, the Mind, and the Self. Description: At the time Thomas Mann was writing Death in Venice, Sigmund Freud had recently published some of his seminal writings on the unconscious. Mann was a reader of Freud, and was highly influenced by some of his ideas. While his story is not simply a disguised demonstration of Freud's theories, Freudian ideas play a significant role in the novella: in particular, the idea of the unconscious, and the concept of repression. Aschenbach is a highly repressed individual, ignoring and denying many of his inner desires. These desires do not simply go away, however. They linger in his unconscious, the part of his mind or psyche of which he is unaware. According to Freud, repressed desires "return" at later times, causing psychological problems for repressive individuals. This seems to happen for Aschenbach. He represses his emotions and desire for pleasure for so long, that when they come back to haunt him, he is utterly overwhelmed by them. And his vision of the strange red-haired foreigner in Munich, for example, awakens a latent, long-repressed desire to travel, which he is absolutely powerless to resist.Aschenbach's trip to Venice can even be seen as a kind of psychological journey to his unconscious. The city is often described as dream-like (and it is in dreams that the unconscious comes to the surface), and Aschenbach exists in a delirious, only half-awake state there. Moreover, the sea—in its immensity and incomprehensibility, its unknown depths—is often an image for the psyche, with the unknown depths of the unconscious. Half-submerged in the sea, Venice is, symbolically, a city bathed in the unconscious. There, Aschenbach must confront the intense desires that he has repressed for so long, mostly through the figure of the beautiful Tadzio.Mann's novella shows the danger of extreme repression. However, it is also interested more generally in issues of the self. Aschenbach thinks that he knows himself at the beginning of the story, but quickly changes and finds new (terrifying) dimensions of himself in Venice. The story demonstrates through Aschenbach that the self is often inconsistent and contradictory. We may think we are one kind of person, only to find that we have other sides to ourselves, or only behave a certain way because we are ignorant of or repress the bundle of contradictory impulses, desires, and instincts at war deep within our psyche. Considering Aschenbach's austere, disciplined behavior for most of his life, one could say that Aschenbach is not himself while in Venice. However, Mann encourages the reader to understand this deviation from his normal behavior more as the revelation of other sides of Aschenbach's personality. Beyond its illustration of particular Freudian ideas about repression, then, the largest psychoanalytical lesson to be learned from Death in Venice might simply be that we do not always know ourselves as well as we would like to think—and perhaps we never can. - Theme: Beauty. Description: Mann's novella is entitled Death in Venice for obvious reasons, but it is as much about love and desire as about death. Aschenbach wastes away while becoming increasingly obsessed with his desire for Tadzio, whom he sees as the very personification of beauty itself, and most of the work follows Aschenbach's obsession with his beauty. The importance of beauty in the novella is often shown through its focus on Aschenbach's voyeuristic gaze. It is of course through sight that Aschenbach apprehends Tadzio's beauty, and he spends much of the novel staring surreptitiously at the boy. At first, Aschenbach tries to appreciate Tadzio's beauty in a detached, aesthetic way, appreciating him like a work of art. However, he is unable to maintain this distance for long, and soon his artistic infatuation with Tadzio's physical appearance turns into an intense erotic desire for the boy. As Aschenbach is completely overcome by Tadzio's beauty, the novella asks whether beauty (and, by extension, desire) is a good or bad thing. This question is primarily raised through allusions to the Phaedrus, a work by the Greek philosopher Plato in which Socrates and Phaedrus debate whether love is good or bad. In this work, Socrates argues that beauty inspires the lover because it reminds his soul of heaven. Beauty is, for Socrates, a path to virtue. This may all work very well in theory, but in practice this does not seem to be the case for Aschenbach. When Aschenbach has a vision of the Phaedrus, he re-imagines Socrates as using his elaborate theory simply to try to woo the young, attractive Phaedrus. Far from bettering Aschenbach, his experience of beauty in Tadzio seems to harm him. It makes him into a ridiculous, pathetic character—an old man wearing makeup who stalks a young boy—and even contributes to his own death. Aschenbach's obsession with Tadzio's beauty even leads him to wish for harm to Tadzio: he is happy when he thinks that Tadzio might die young, because this means his beauty will not fade with age.Mann's novella illustrates the crucial difference between writing about beauty and desire, and experiencing it. For much of his life, Aschenbach wrote beautifully and thought about beauty and form in an abstract way. Similarly, Plato is able to justify desire for beauty philosophically in the Phaedrus. However, when Aschenbach actually experiences beauty in the flesh, he is overwhelmed and consumed by passion. Mann does not completely condemn beauty, though. It is possible that Aschenbach is simply too obsessed with Tadzio's beauty, and that it is still possible to appreciate beauty and submit to desire in a more moderated, healthy way. When Aschenbach deliriously speaks near the end of the novella as if he were Socrates, he tells Phaedrus that he leaves it up to him to decide whether beauty leads to wisdom or whether it is "truly a path of error and sin." Similarly, Mann leaves this question open-ended for his readers: does beauty always lead to one's downfall, or can we fall in love with beautiful people or things without succumbing to Aschenbach's fate? - Theme: Youth, Age, and Time. Description: Aschenbach is an old man, and part of why he decides to go to Venice when he does is because he feels his time is running out. He misses his youth, and this is part of why he becomes so obsessed with Tadzio. Youth is associated with beauty in Mann's novella, and as an artist, Aschenbach adores the beauty of youth, which inevitability fades with age. As this may suggest, Aschenbach's obsession with youth becomes a bit perverse and extreme. He originally views the old man with dentures and makeup on the boat to Venice as a pathetic, grotesque character. However, he himself essentially becomes this man by the end of the novel, as he tries to appear younger, disgusted with his aged appearance.Time is also important on a larger scale in Death in Venice. When Aschenbach boards the boat to Venice, he feels that he loses track of time. Several times in Venice, Aschenbach becomes temporally disoriented and envisions himself in ancient times. He imagines that he is Socrates, talking to Phaedrus outside of classical Athens, and also has an intense dream of an ancient Dionysian orgy. Classical antiquity is an important site of fantasy for Aschenbach. He often compares Tadzio to mythological characters or classical sculptures, idealizing the ancient past as a world full of beauty. And indeed, much ancient Greek writing puts great importance on beauty and love (for example, Plato's Phaedrus). In 5th-century Athens, there was also a widespread practice of pederasty, sexual relationships between younger and older men. So, Aschenbach's visions of the ancient past can also be seen as a desire for the supposedly more licentious sexual practices of antiquity. The degree to which Aschenbach's desire for Tadzio is explicitly sexual is slightly ambiguous. He longs both for his own youth and for the "younger" historical period of ancient times, and projects both of these ideals onto Tadzio. Through the character of Tadzio, then, Aschenbach lusts after the idea of youth itself. However, this cannot be completely disassociated from Aschenbach's love for the particular young character of Tadzio.Through Aschenbach, Mann shows the destructive, often perverse consequences of an excessive idealization of youth. Aschenbach not only becomes a grotesque figure and perishes from his intense passion, but even wishes harm for Tadzio (hoping that he will die young). Youth is always fleeting, and time is always flying. Perhaps then we cannot help but have some nostalgia for earlier times. Aschenbach demonstrates, though, what can happen when someone indulges in extreme versions of this desire for youth and for the past. - Theme: Travel, Geography, and Climate. Description: In terms of plot, Death in Venice is primarily a story of travel. Aschenbach's journey to Venice can be seen as operating on multiple levels. Not only does he physically, literally travel to Italy, but he also travels symbolically to the realm of his unconscious and temporally to ancient Greece through his visions and dreams. Venice is continually described as a hazy, dreamlike city, part fantasy and part reality, heightening the sense of Aschenbach's travel as highly symbolic. It is particularly important that Aschenbach travels south. Mann's novella takes advantage of some stereotypical associations of particular regions of Europe. Aschenbach is from Germany, in northern Europe, which is associated with a cold, austere, disciplined lifestyle. His trip to Italy is a journey to a more relaxed, warm, indulgent place. The climate of Venice often symbolically reflects Aschenbach's inner state, with its oppressive heat and haze mirroring the heat of Aschenbach's desire and his intoxication with Tadzio's beauty.The idea of travel is thus full of symbolic weight in Mann's story. By leaving his home, Aschenbach seeks not only a foreign locale, but also a change of lifestyle. Importantly, Aschenbach hopes to travel only temporarily. He only wants a vacation in Venice, a temporary respite from his normal life, his normal climate, and his normal self. However, the novella shows that taking a short trip to one's unconscious, the realm of one's fantasies and inner desires, can be dangerous. Aschenbach is overwhelmed by the climate of his destination and the inner state it seems to encourage in him. As his downfall shows, the journey to one's inner desires and unconscious fantasies can be dangerous, and is often a one-way trip. - Climax: - Summary: Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous, well-respected German author, went for a walk one afternoon in Munich, tired from writing all morning. He noticed a strange-looking man standing on the portico of a church with red hair and an "unusual appearance." Aschenbach stared at him, and the foreign-seeming man looked back at him. Embarrassed, Aschenbach walked away, but he found he had a sudden urge to travel faraway. He had always been extremely disciplined and worked hard at his writing, but now craved an escape from his work with some vacation. He decided he needed "an exotic atmosphere," and planned to go somewhere in the south of Europe. Aschenbach had achieved notoriety as a novelist, short story writer, and critic. His father's side of the family had all lived "disciplined, respectable, frugal lives," but his mother was the daughter of an orchestra conductor, so his personality was a "marriage of sober official conscientiousness with darker, more ardent impulses." He lived an austere, hardworking life, and dedicated himself to his writing. The narrator writes that Aschenbach's writing became so popular because his own life experience contributed to his portrayal of a certain kind of "elegant self-control that conceals the sapping of strength and biological decay," and this kind of "heroism of weakness," struck a chord with people of the time. In his old age, Aschenbach had attained a "dignity and severity" in his work and his life. About two weeks after his afternoon walk in Munich, Aschenbach traveled to an island in the Adriatic. It was too crowded with Austrian tourists, though, so he decided to go to Venice, somewhere "different as a fairy tale." On the boat bound for Venice, Aschenbach saw what looked like a young man in stylish clothing. He saw however that it was actually a pathetic old man wearing makeup, a wig, and dentures. At sea, Aschenbach began to feel dreamlike and lost track of time. He arrived in Venice and got on a black gondola that reminded him of a coffin. The gondolier would not tell him how much the ride would cost, and simply told him, "You will pay." When he got to the hotel, the gondolier left before Aschenbach could try to pay him any money. While waiting for dinner at the hotel that night, Aschenbach saw a Polish family with a young boy, about fourteen years old, who was "perfectly beautiful." He couldn't help but stare at the boy, who briefly returned his gaze. Over dinner, Aschenbach thought about the nature of beauty, art, and form. The weather was poor in Venice, and Aschenbach worried it might affect his health. He continued to watch the Polish boy around the hotel, and thought he had "godlike beauty." The narrator says that Aschenbach looked at the boy as an artist looks at a masterpiece. Aschenbach tried to read and do work on the beach, but could not concentrate and kept looking at the boy, who was playing with friends near the water. He overhead some of the boy's friends call him something that sounded like Tadzio. Aschenbach happened to find himself in an elevator with Tadzio, and saw him up close. He thought the boy looked sickly and concluded (with some delight) that the boy would probably die before he grew old. Aschenbach walked around Venice, and noticed that the air was thick and unpleasant. He began to feel ill and decided to leave Venice. He made arrangements to leave the next day, but then regretted his decision the next morning. He stayed at breakfast as long as he could, trying to get a glimpse of Tadzio, and just before his train left, he learned that his luggage had been sent ahead to the wrong destination. So, to his relief, he had to stay in Venice. He saw Tadzio back at the hotel and realized that the boy was the reason he hadn't wanted to leave Venice. He sat in his room with "a gesture that bespoke an open welcome, a calm acceptance." Aschenbach began to notice that the number of guests at the hotel seemed to be dwindling. The barber at the hotel mentioned something about a disease, but refused to elaborate. In town, Aschenbach noticed the smell of a kind of medicinal germicide in the air. He looked in newspapers and found some rumors about a possible disease spreading, and worried that Tadzio's family might leave. One Sunday, he followed Tadzio to church and then pursued Tadzio and his family in a gondola through Venice, feeling that his "head and heart were drunk." Aschenbach wondered what his austere ancestors might think of him now. He had long lived a disciplined life, but now felt completely in thrall to his desire for Tadzio. He tried to find out more about the possible disease in Venice, but no one at the hotel would tell him anything. One night, a group of street performers came to the hotel. Aschenbach watched them, but was mostly focused on Tadzio, who was also in the audience. One performer, a clownish guitarist, performed in a salacious, vulgar way. During a pause between performances, Aschenbach asked him why Venice was being disinfected, and the performer said it was simply a preventative measure, because the bad weather could be bad for people's health. The guitarist gave one more performance in which the whole troupe of entertainers laughed hysterically, and the audience began to laugh uncontrollably too, as if the emotion was contagious. The next day, Aschenbach went to a British travel agency in Venice, and an Englishman told him that there was a dangerous outbreak of Indian cholera spreading through the city. He advised Aschenbach to leave Venice because of the disease, but Aschenbach's only concern was that Tadzio might leave. That night, Aschenbach had an extremely intense dream, where he was part of a wild, raucous, orgiastic crowd reveling in a mountain landscape, including men with horns and women holding snakes. Aschenbach's "soul tasted the lewdness and frenzy," and he awoke completely devoted to his desire for Tadzio, with no restraint. Aschenbach began stalking Tadzio more openly. Looking at Tadzio's young body, he began to despise his own aged appearance. He went to the hotel barber and dyed his grey hair. He put on makeup and new clothes in an attempt to appear younger. He followed Tadzio through the city one day, but lost sight of him and sat down in a city square. Feeling "hot gusts of wind" around him, he became delirious and imagined that he was Socrates from Plato's Phaedrus. He asked Phaedrus whether he thought beauty was the path to wisdom, or led to "error and sin," and didn't provide an answer. A few days later, Aschenbach was feeling very ill. He learned that Tadzio's family was planning to leave Venice, and he went to the beach to see Tadzio one more time. Tadzio was playing with his friends, and his rowdy friend Jaschu tackled him and pinned him to the ground. Tadzio was upset and walked off by himself into the sea. Delirious, Aschenbach watched Tadzio wade into the water and thought he looked like a "pale, charming psychagogue." Aschenbach thought Tadzio was beckoning to him, so he followed the boy into the ocean. However, the narrator explains that Aschenbach had actually simply slumped over in his chair. He was brought to his hotel room, where he died within the day.

- Genre: Realistic fiction - Title: Désirée’s Baby - Point of view: third-person omniscient - Setting: Louisiana, mid-nineteenth century - Character: Madame Valmondé. Description: A childless woman who adopts a baby abandoned at the gate of her husband's plantation in Louisiana. The Valmondés raise the baby, who they name Désirée, as their own child, and Madame Valmondé considers the child's arrival to be an act of Providence. The short story begins with Madame Valmondé's visit to a grown and married Désirée who has recently had her first child. Madame Valmondé's love for her daughter is boundless (in stark contrast to Armand, even after it appears that Désirée may have a mixed racial heritage. - Character: Désirée. Description: A child found abandoned at the Valmondés' gate in the shadow of a stone pillar. She is raised in the relative luxury of the Valmondés' home, and marries Armand Aubigny, a wealth plantation older from one of the oldest and most established families in Louisiana. Désirée gives birth to a baby boy and eventually realizes that the child's physical features reveal its black heritage. Armand assumes that Désirée is the one who passed that heritage on to her child, and abandons his love for her. In despair at her husband's subsequent abandonment, Désirée walks off into the Bayou wilderness with her baby to their deaths. - Character: Armand. Description: The rich heir to the Aubigny plantation and fortune. Armand is a strict and cruel master and manager of his plantation. He falls desperately in love with Désirée at first sight and woos her with extravagant gifts, including fine clothes. When he realizes that their baby appears black, he abandons his love for Désirée, as well as his kindness toward her, assuming that she also has black heritage. The end of the story reveals that Armand's mother, Madame Aubigny, was black, and so the appearance of his child is due to his heritage and not to Désirée's mysterious background. - Character: Baby. Description: The child of Désirée and Armand. The child's appearance, which reveals his black heritage, is the catalyst for the conflict in this story. Armand, ashamed to have such a child, blames Désirée for the child's appearance and Désirée, losing hope, takes the baby with her as she leaves L'Abri and heads into the bayou. - Character: La Blanche. Description: One of Armand's slaves. La Blanche is mentioned several times in the short story in ways that imply a sexual relationship between her and Armand. Armand visits her cabin, and her child's resemblance to the baby is what causes Désirée to realize his black heritage. It is suggested that La Blanche's skin is as white as Armand's or Désirée's, which of course makes the idea of racial hierarchy and separation that motivates Armand's actions and Désirée's suicide seem even more ridiculous and artificial. - Character: Madame Aubigny. Description: Monsieur Aubigny's wife and Armand's mother. This French woman is revealed to be black through a letter written to her husband, which is uncovered by Armand at the end of the story. The couple resided in France where an inter-racial relationship was more socially acceptable. Her heritage is what impacts the baby's appearance. She kept Armand ignorant of his heritage out of her love for him, though of course with disastrous consequences. - Theme: Slavery and Racism. Description: Set in Louisiana in the mid-nineteenth century on two white-owned plantations some time before the Civil War, the story explores the psychological impacts of slavery and racial inequality. The violence and physical abuse that was so much a part of slavery exist only on the fringes of the story, implied in Armand's "strict" treatment of his slaves and his ambiguous but likely sexual relationship with La Blanche, which makes sense given that all of the major characters of the story are the owners of the plantations. Put another way, the story explores the way that racism shapes and distorts the psychology and lives of the white slave owners who control and benefit from it. The story shows several examples of how white perceptions of black inferiority, and in fact even how internalized black perceptions of black inferiority, lead to race being a taboo subject that causes characters to act in morally corrupt ways and to feel guilt, shame, and fear about their actions and identities. Without racial prejudice and the shame it generates, the story's tragedy would never have unfolded. Madame Aubigny would not have felt the need to hide the truth of her own background. Armand would not have turned against Désirée and their baby when their son's appearance identified him as a mixed-race child. Madame Valmondé would not have kept the reality of the child's background from Désirée despite recognizing the truth herself. And Désirée, once she realized the significance of her child's features and was accused by Armand of being part-black herself, would not have responded with such overwhelming shame that she walked into the bayou with her baby, killing herself and the child. But the story pushes further in its condemnation of racism, by showing how the racism of its white characters causes them to see a person's race as more important than that person's self. Because, fundamentally, other than the fact that the child of Désirée and Armand reveals that it has a racial heritage that is both black and white, nothing else has changed. Désirée is still the same woman with whom Armand fell in love and who brightened his life, her baby is the same baby she adored, and she is still the daughter of her loving parents. And yet the mere fact of her racial history causes Armand to reject her and the baby, to cease to see her as the woman he loves and instead to see her as simply black and therefore beneath him. And for Désirée, essentially, to reject herself and her baby out of shame. The twist ending of the story makes obvious the idiocy and tragedy of this way of seeing the world, with racial background as its most important feature, since it becomes evident that one's racial background isn't obvious at all, and thus nothing to base assessments of oneself or of others. - Theme: Intersection of Classism, Sexism, and Racism. Description: "Désirée's Baby" depicts the ways in which the gender and economic inequalities present in mid-nineteenth century Southern society reinforced and intermingled with the inequalities of racist slave culture. Often these three issues are interconnected, as in the role of La Blanche, a slave of Armand's, who also seems to have a sexual relationship with him. Armand's position as a wealthy, white male allowed him to exercise complete control over his possession: a poor, black woman. Chopin demonstrates that inequalities between the genders and vast disparities of wealth help enforce racism. Désirée, although white, is treated as a possession. Armand believes, correctly, that he can claim her by buying fine clothes and gifts for her. These marks of wealth reinforce Armand's status, as well as categorize Désirée as a controllable object. Meanwhile, the division of her maternal care duties to others demonstrates Désirée's wealth and position. The black nurse Zandrine cares for her baby. Her leisurely lifestyle reflects her wealth and position, which, although she is still subject to Armand's will as a woman, is reinforced by her white skin. The vivid resolution of the short story, in which Armand has Desiree's possessions destroyed in a bonfire, shows how class, gender, and race interact culturally. Armand burns Désirée's possessions to rid himself of memories and marks of her. Because these memories are physical objects (gifts purchased by Armand), his actions are again reducing Désirée to a possession – he believes she can be destroyed in his memory and removed from his life by destroying things. Furthermore, only a wealthy person could afford the luxury of burning possessions, and the things themselves – silk gowns, lace, bonnets and gloves – are marks of stereotypical feminine beauty. Finally, Armand does not burn the possessions himself, but sits and watches leisurely while the manual labor is completed by a dozen of his slaves. The erasure of Désirée—a woman and a possession—also showcases Armand's wealth and his command of others on the sole difference of the color of his skin. - Theme: Love and Blindness. Description: Love, both romantic and familial, is a powerful transformative force in "Désirée's Baby." Love primarily works to soften characters, allowing them to care for other individuals and for their fellow human beings more broadly. Madame and Monsieur Valmondé are transformed when they discover an abandoned child and welcome her as their own despite her mysterious and, likely, impoverished background. Armand is also softened by his love for Désirée. Not only does he wish to marry a girl of mysterious origins, but he lavishes kindness and extravagant gifts on her. He is also changed (to a degree) in his treatment of other people, particularly his black slaves. Before his marriage he was considered a strict master, but after his marriage to Désirée, Armand ceases to punish his slaves. He even laughs when one man pretends to be injured to avoid work, as Désirée reports to her mother. Even Armand's physical features change under the influence of his love for Désirée: his countenance is lightened and he smiles instead of frowning.Love also has another, more subversive, transformative power in this text, which is particularly revealed through Désirée's character—that of blindness to the truth. Désirée's love for Armand causes her to overlook his faults and his cruelty. Even when Armand's mood is sour, Désirée "trembled, but loved him." Désirée's blindness takes a more extreme form with respect to her baby. Even though other characters, including Armand and Madame Valmondé, observe the child's features that indicate his black heritage, Désirée is initially blind to them. While blindness is generally considered a negative thing, in "Désirée's Baby" one might actually consider it a positive. Because it is when love isn't enough to cause blindness that tragedy unfolds. Armand's mother and father enforce blindness of his own heritage on her son, to protect him out of love, but in doing so allow Armand to believe in the stereotypes and hierarchies that cause him to abandon his wife. And it is when Armand "sees" the racial heritage of his son in its features the he abandons his love; and when Désirée sees the same that she abandons her life. In contrast, Madame Valmondé stands as a model of love, telling her daughter to come home to her mother who loves her even after it seems that Désirée might have a black racial heritage. But in the racist Southern world of the story, even such powerful maternal love is not enough. - Theme: Irony, Misjudgments, and Fate. Description: The story ends with a twist of situational irony: Armand discovers too late that it is he (and not his wife) who has black heritage. Armand acted upon the misjudgment that Désirée, and her unknown past, were to blame for the appearance of their baby. Armand's misjudgment reveals the prejudice that would cause him to blame his wife rather than himself. As a man, Armand sees himself as above women and is therefore inclined to blame his wife. As a wealthy man who owns and controls other people (both his slaves and Désirée), Armand sees himself as a source of mastery and truth, and so it never occurs to him to question his own past rather than that of his wife because she was presumably born into poor circumstances before she was abandoned as a baby. Further, Armand considers himself above his black slaves and servants and yet, ironically, the story reveals his similarities to them and his own mother's identity as one of them. The wording of the mother's letter reinforces this irony, as Madame Aubigny refers to herself as black indirectly by saying she "belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery." Armand, himself a strict master to his slaves, therefore perpetuates exactly the "curse" upon the race to which he partly belongs.Fate and providence appear throughout this story. For example, Armand considers his dismissal of Désirée a strike against the cruel fate that has made him father of a black child. Madame Valmondé, meanwhile, considers Désirée's appearance at their gate as a baby as the act of Providence. Madame Valmondé could easily have seen what seemed to be a poor baby at her gate and brought it to an orphanage or made it a servant. But she saw the moment as an act of fate and responded with love. Armand, in contrast, responded to what he saw as fate with prejudice, and so destroyed his life, finding out the truth "too late." In a way, then, Armand's actions are similar to those of the "misjudgments" that occur in Greek drama – for instance when Oedipus accidentally kills his father and marries his mother, only to find out too late. But while Oedipus was truly driven by fate, with the outcome of his life prophesied at his birth, Armand is driven to his misjudgments by his own prejudice regarding race, gender, and economic inequality. Put another way, Armand's misjudgments are, in a sense, fated by his acceptance of the culture of racial, gender, and economic inequality of the mid-nineteenth century South, and so the story condemns not just Armand but that culture as well. - Climax: Désirée and her baby set off into the Bayou never to return. Too late, Armand discovers a letter from his mother to his father that reveals his, rather than Désirée's, black heritage. - Summary: Madame Valmondé travels from her home on a Louisiana plantation to the neighboring plantation to visit her recently married daughter, Désirée. Désirée has given birth to her first child, and Madame Valmondé reflects that it seems not so long ago that she first held Désirée herself as a baby. Désirée was found by Monsieur Valmondé as an infant abandoned in the shadow of the stone pillar at the gate of their plantation. The Valmondés accepted the girl as their own, and Madame Valmondé believed the child had been sent to her by Providence because she couldn't bear children of her own. Eighteen years later, Désirée was standing near the same stone pillar where her adoptive father found her when Armand Aubigny, the young heir of the neighboring plantation L'Abri, rode past and fell in love with her at first sight. Armand fell in love suddenly and deeply, and nothing could persuade him to give up Désirée, despite Monsieur Valmondé's cautions about her mysterious past. Armand ordered Désirée fine clothes and gifts from Paris, and the wedding took place. Madame Valmondé arrives at L'Abri for her visit. She shudders at the foreboding appearance of the plantation house, which is cast into shadows by large oak trees and a low roof. The plantation has grown bleaker under Armand Aubigny's strict rule, compared to the ownership of his father. She greets her daughter and her daughter's baby where they are reclining inside on a couch in soft muslin and lace. Upon seeing the child, Madame Valmondé says, "This is not the baby!" Désirée exclaims over how much the child has grown and changed in a few short weeks. She says that he cries so loudly that Armand can hear him as far away as La Blanche's cabin. Madame Valmondé examines the child closely, and then, slowly, asks her daughter what her husband says about the child. Désirée reports that Armand is immensely proud and in great spirits. She shares with her mother that Armand has not punished any of his slaves, as he used to do, since their baby was born. He even laughed about a slave who feigned injury to avoid work. Marriage and fatherhood has softened Armand's character. Désirée loves him regardless of his moods and his temper. Weeks later, Désirée wakes up one morning with a sense of fear and foreboding, as if her happiness and peace will come to an end. Strange things begin to occur: neighbors visit with little explanation, the slaves seem aware of a secret, and Armand grows distant and angry. He does not meet Désirée's eyes and stays away from home as much as he can. He returns to his brutal treatment of his slaves. One afternoon, Désirée sits in her room watching as her baby is fanned by one of La Blanche's boys, who is holding a peacock feather. Suddenly, Désirée looks from the boy to her child, and cries, "ah!" Her blood seems to freeze and she breaks into a cold sweat. Désirée dismisses La Blanche's boy from the room and gazes on her baby with fear. Armand enters the room and Désirée asks him to look at their child. "What does it mean?" She questions. Armand responds coldly, "it means that the child is not white; it means that you are not white." Désirée cries out that this is a lie and compares the skin of her hand to Armand's, pointing out that it is even whiter than his. Armand retorts, "as white as La Blanche's." In despair, Désirée writes to her mother explaining what has happened. Her mother tells her to come home to her because she loves her daughter, and to bring her child. Désirée brings her mother's letter to Armand's study and presents it to him. He does not speak. She asks him if she should return to her home, and he tells her, yes, he wants her to go. Armand believes that God has unjustly punished him by giving him this child and he strikes out at his wife as if against God. He no longer loves his wife because she has brought shame into his house and to his name. Désirée leaves, hoping that Armand will ask her to stay. She says, "good-bye, Armand," but he does not respond. Désirée finds her baby with the nurse Zandrine. She walks outside holding her child. It is October, and the slaves are harvesting cotton. Désirée walks in the thin clothes and slippers she has on across an empty field. She disappears into the bayou and is not seen again. A few weeks later, Armand builds a bonfire to burn Désirée's possessions at L'Abri. He commands a dozen of his slaves who do the work of moving Désirée's belongings into the fire. Armand orders burned the fine clothes, the bonnets and gloves, the various gifts he had purchased for Désirée. He is about to add Désirée's love letters to him into the bonfire when he notes a letter from his mother to his father that was in the back of the same drawer. The letter thanks God for her husband's love and for her son's ignorance: he will never know that she, his mother, is one of the members of the race "cursed with the brand of slavery."

- Genre: Young Adult fiction - Title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Point of view: First-person - Setting: An American middle school - Character: Greg Heffley. Description: Greg Heffley, the author of the diary, has just started middle school. He is best friends with Rowley Jefferson, who is extremely unpopular and cares little about the middle school social hierarchy. Greg, however, is much more conscious of his social status and how others perceive him now that he's in middle school. For example, although he writes in a notebook throughout his first year of middle school, he is adamant that it is not a "diary" because he is afraid his classmates would make fun of him for writing about his feelings. Despite his reluctance to admit that he has a diary, he is highly creative and sensitive, which his observations and comics about his family, friends, and teachers reflect. Greg constantly gets in trouble with his mom and dad, is wary of his bully of an older brother, Rodrick, and is jealous of his little brother Manny's ability to get away with anything. Greg is often selfish and prioritizes his own self-interest, like when he allows Rowley to take the blame for bullying local kindergartens. At other times, however, he shows loyalty to his friends and family, like when he protects Rowley from social isolation or feels bad for his grandmother when teenagers cover her house in toilet paper. - Character: Rowley Jefferson. Description: Rowley has been Greg's best friend ever since Rowley's family moved to the neighborhood a couple years ago. Greg thinks that Rowley has always been a bit uncool—when they met, for instance, Rowley had a book called "How to Make Friends in New Places," which Rowley's mom gave him. Despite Greg's obsession with gaining popularity, Rowley is completely unconcerned about what people think of him. Greg has tried to explain "this whole popularity thing" to Rowley, but it just "goes in one ear and out another" with him. For example, he still asks Greg to come over and "play," even though Greg reminds him to say "hang out." Indeed, Rowley has protective parents and is in some ways quite childish, since his parents safety-proof his Halloween costume and put a parental lock on his television to restrict violent content. In other ways, however, Rowley is far more emotionally mature than Greg. He writes a successful comic called "Zoo-Wee-Ma" for the school newspaper, which earns him lavish praise from classmates and teachers alike. In general, he also tends to be better-liked by teachers (he wins an award) and students (girls express sympathy when he breaks his hand) than Greg is. Perhaps this is precisely because of his lack of interest in social status; unlike Greg, he isn't self-conscious or easily embarrassed and is thus able to be true to himself. This also means that Rowley is a much more loyal friend to Greg than Greg is to him. - Character: Greg's Mom. Description: Greg's mom (who is also Roderick and Manny's mom) is a supportive parent who encourages Greg to try a range of activities. However, Greg doesn't always see the value in his mother's attempts to make him a more well-rounded person, and he resents that she makes him to try out for the school play. Greg's mom has strong morals, which she attempts to impress upon her boys. For instance, she makes her eldest son, Roderick, apologize for owning a magazine that is "degrading" to women. Likewise, when Greg comes to her to ask for advice, she encourages him to "do the right thing," even if it might entail sacrifices on his part. Greg's mom is known for taking a long time to devise punishments for her boys. Her levelheaded, fair parenting style differs from that of her husband, Greg's dad, who punishes his children impulsively. - Character: Greg's Dad. Description: While Greg's mom tends to want Greg to explore different interests, Greg's dad has more specific ideas about how he'd like Greg to spend his time. He encourages athletics, frequently telling Greg to go outside and exercise and buying him a weightlifting machine for Christmas. He is uncomfortable with Greg playing with a Barbie Dream House, and tells him instead to choose toys "more appropriate" for boys. In this sense, he is more concerned with a cultivating a particularly masculine identity in Greg than Greg's mom is. However, he is also a supportive and engaged parent, as he encourages Greg to run for student government and plays pranks like spraying passing teenagers with water. Greg's dad is also Roderick and Manny's father. - Character: Rodrick Heffley. Description: Rodrick is Manny and Greg's older brother. Like many teenagers, he doesn't want to have much to do with his mom and dad. For instance, when his mom tries to dance along to his music (to support his interests and connect with him), Rodrick turns it off in frustration. Rodrick loves music and plays in a heavy metal band, which Greg finds very annoying. Rodrick's other hobby is picking on Greg and playing pranks on him. During the summer, for example, he woke Greg up and 3:00 A.M. and convinced him that it was time for school and he had slept through the entire summer. - Character: Manny Heffley. Description: Manny is Greg and Rodrick's younger brother and is only about three years old. Greg resents the attention and indulgence that their mom and dad give Manny, and Greg thinks that Manny can get away with anything. For example, when Manny draws on the wall with permanent marker, the boys' parents think it's cute. Greg is also annoyed at having to be responsible for getting Manny ready for daycare in the morning, since Manny throws his cereal down the toilet. Manny, on the other hand, seems to adore Greg, calling him "bubba" (a nickname that Greg finds excruciatingly embarrassing). - Character: Rowley's Dad. Description: Rowley's dad is somewhat protective, since he puts a parental lock on the family entertainment system and forbids Rowley from playing violent video games. He also punishes Rowley and Greg for turning the basement into a haunted house and terrifying neighborhood kids. Rowley's mom is similarly strict and protective, though she's more concerned with Rowley's safety. - Character: Fregley. Description: Fregley is a "weird kid" who lives near Greg's house. Greg thinks Fregley is weird because he makes strange comments, seems oddly interested in gross things, and uses a "secret language," like shouting "Juice!" when he wants to go to the bathroom. He is the only student light enough to be in Greg's weight class during the wrestling unit in physical education class, so Greg has to wrestle him every day—which he finds excruciatingly embarrassing. When Greg is fighting with Rowley, Greg tries to become best friends with Fregley to make Rowley jealous. Greg immediately regrets his decision when, during a sleepover, Fregley goes on a sugar high and begins chasing him around with a booger on his finger. - Character: Marty Porter. Description: Marty runs for the position of treasurer in the student government, competing against Greg. Worried that Marty will win because of his talent at math, Greg puts up posters around the school reminding people of Marty's lice problem in elementary school. However, this backfires when the vice principal makes Greg take down the posters and Marty gives out lollipops, winning the election. - Character: Shane Snella. Description: Shane is a younger and easily frightened kid in the neighborhood who pays two dollars to visit Greg and Rowley's makeshift haunted house, which is actually the basement in Rowley's house. Shane is terrified by the "Hall of Screams"—which involves Greg and Rowley screaming over and over again—and so hides under the bed and refuses to come out. Rowley's dad then grounds Rowley, since he thinks the boys have been bullying Shane. - Character: Patty Farrell. Description: Patty is a girl in Greg's grade. She is something of a teacher's pet, and Greg develops a vendetta against her when she stops him from cheating on a geography test. She has dreams of becoming an actress and is cast as the lead role of Dorothy in the school's production of The Wizard of Oz. However, her chance at stardom is ruined when Greg pelts her with apples on stage, breaking her glasses and cutting the entire play short. - Character: Mrs. Norton. Description: Mrs. Norton is the drama teacher at Greg's school. She is very enthusiastic but somewhat clueless about middle school social dynamics, as when she tells Greg he has a "soprano" voice, embarrassing him in front of the girls. Because of her passion for drama, Mrs. Norton thinks everyone should have the chance to perform—even going so far as to write new roles and songs for the school's production of The Wizard of Oz. Her efforts are unrewarded, however, when Greg and his friends refuse to sing on stage and instead pelt the lead actress with apples and sabotage the play. - Character: Mr. Ira. Description: Mr. Ira is the teacher who runs the school newspaper. He publishes Greg's comic strip, but with some "minor edits." Unfortunately for Greg, these edits involve entirely changing the comic strip beyond recognition. In the original, Creighton the Cretin ate a math test, whereas in Mr. Ira's version, Creighton explains fractions. - Character: Uncle Charlie. Description: Greg likes Uncle Charlie because he usually gives good Christmas and birthday gifts. Greg is frequently disappointed by his gifts from his parents, so he tends to ask his indulgent uncle for the things he wants. However, Uncle Charlie is also a bit out-of-touch. For instance, this year he gives Greg a framed picture of himself, which perplexes Greg, - Theme: Social Status and Friendship. Description: Greg Heffley is obsessed with fitting in and rising to the top of the social hierarchy of his middle school. However much his efforts to be "cool" tend to backfire, popularity is the goal that most shapes his behavior and decisions. While Greg thinks that popularity will earn him the respect and admiration of his peers (especially girls), Greg's preoccupation with his social position undermines his relationships with his friends, parents, and wider peer group. This is particularly painful in its effects on his friendship with his best friend Rowley Jefferson, who constantly embarrasses Greg with his lack of concern about popularity, but who Greg comes to realize is essential to his life. Ultimately, Greg learns that measures of social status or popularity can't substitute for true friendship. As a result of his preoccupation with popularity and what others think of him, Greg is very easily embarrassed—by his family, his friends, and by himself. He has to constantly guard against doing anything that could be regarded as uncool because he is afraid that small transgressions could lead to a further dive in his already precarious social status. Greg is constantly embarrassed by Rowley's behavior, comments, and even clothing, all of which suggest a lack of interest in popularity. For example, Rowley asks him to come over and "play," although Greg informs him that the cool term is "hang out." Rowley also wears a Superman costume to a high school haunted house, which Greg considers gauche. Greg's younger brother Manny calls him "bubby," and Greg is terrified that his classmates will find out about this embarrassing nickname. When Manny shouts "bubby" at the school play, he even goes so far as to quickly transfer the nickname to another boy, Archie Kelly, who is then bullied for it. Greg spends most of the school year trying to raise his social status through various means: weightlifting, running for student government, drawing comics. He is enraged, then, when his supposedly uncool friend Rowley in fact becomes more popular than him. Rowley's comic strip "Zoo-Wee-Ma," which Greg thinks is dumb, instead becomes wildly popular with students and teachers—whereas Greg's comic strip fails. When Rowley breaks his arm, girls sign his cast and offer to help him eat lunch; when Greg tries to garner sympathy by covering himself in bandages, girls don't seem as enthused. Greg sets his heart on earning a superlative in the school yearbook, which he thinks will solidify his social status. But to add insult to injury, it is Rowley, not Greg, who is elected "Class Clown." Greg constantly discusses and evaluates the social status of other students at school in relation to himself, even to the extent of coming up with an elaborate ranking system to measure the popularity of every one of his 150 classmates. In his evaluation, he's "somewhere around 52nd or 53rd most popular this year," but he hopes to move up a spot because another student is getting braces. Such precision in social ranking is of course absurd, but demonstrates just how seriously Greg takes the small gradations in status between himself and his classmates. He also remarks that Rowley is conspicuously uncool and would probably be ranked at the bottom of the class, at 150. But despite his callous and mercenary assessment here, Greg shows that he in fact clearly cares deeply for Rowley when he takes a social risk to spare Rowley from embarrassment: Rowley eats "the Cheese" (a moldy bit of cheese left out on the basketball court that dooms anyone who eats it to contagion from "the Cheese Touch," meaning that they will be socially ostracized), but Greg steps forward and claims that he touched the Cheese instead. To save Rowley, he for once puts friendship before his own obsession with social status. At the end of the school year, Greg still hasn't achieved his goal of rising to the top of the middle school social hierarchy. However, his conflict with Rowley comes to an end when Rowley eats "the Cheese" and Greg chooses to protect him, even at a cost to his own popularity. This would have doomed Rowley to social isolation had Greg told others, but Greg's decision to keep this a secret, protecting his friend, offers some hope that Greg might ultimately come to prioritize enduring friendship over popularity. - Theme: Ideals of Masculinity. Description: As he enters middle school, Greg is formally leaving childhood and entering the world of adolescence—a world, as he learns, with a whole range of new and perplexing rules about masculinity and relationships with girls. As a so-called "wimpy kid" who hasn't had a growth spurt yet, Greg struggles to find his place in a social order that values particular expressions of masculinity and punishes those who deviate from that ideal. Greg likes girls and desires their attention, but also feels threatened by them and finds little success in his efforts to make them like him. He tries to sit next to "hot girls" in homeroom, but he admits that they pass notes about him and make fun of him. He assumes that all girls like the most popular boy in high school, Bryce Anderson, thus linking attention from girls to social status. Greg longs for the days in elementary school when the boy who "got all the girls" was simply the boy who ran the fastest—whereas now there are more complicating factors, like clothes, looks, or wealth. When Greg and his classmates are tasked with building a robot in Independent Study, he is disdainful of the girls' plan for a robot that dispenses lip gloss, and he refers to the group of boys as "the serious workers." His sense of an "us versus them" dynamic between boys and girls suggests that he has internalized stereotypical ideas about femininity and masculinity. Greg feels insecure about his body image and complains that the problem with middle school is that it mixes people like him—who haven't yet gone through puberty—with boys who already need to shave, and thus are perceived as more masculine and physically dominant. He feels the sense of inadequacy even more keenly in physical education class, where the boys are taught how to wrestle while the girls learn gymnastics. The fact that the wrestling class is only for boys emphasizes the sport's association with male identity and ideals of masculinity. Later, Greg asks his parents for a weight set for Christmas, hoping to improve his physique in order to move up a weight class and make the football team in the spring. He thinks that both developments would raise his social status, since many of the most popular boys in his grade are athletes. Greg also faces pressure to conform to a certain ideal of masculinity from his father, who buys him gifts and encourages activities that are associated with stereotypically masculine spheres like sports. Greg's dad is very keen for him to stop playing video games and go outside for physical exercise. Greg is passionate about video games and hates sports, but his dad is so set on the idea that Greg even runs through sprinklers to make it appear as if he has been sweating from exertion. Greg remembers that he once asked for a Barbie Dream House as a Christmas gift. His mom was supportive, thinking it was healthy for him to "experiment" playing with different kinds of toys, but his dad told him to start his wish list over and choose toys that were more "appropriate for boys." Greg's mom, by contrast, suggests that he should try a range of activities, such as singing in the school play, which Greg considers more suitable for girls. Greg admits that he likes some "girly" activities—for example, he enjoys sewing in Home Economics, although he stopped taking the class because he thought kids would make fun of him. Greg faces many pressures to conform to a restrictive ideal of masculinity that emphasizes athletic prowess, physical strength, and confidence with girls. His dad often reinforces such ideals with his ideas regarding what kind of activities he thinks Greg should engage in. His mom, by contrast, encourages Greg to try more stereotypically "girly" activities, offering a more flexible model of how Greg might grow up and explore his masculinity. Greg's interest in Barbie dolls and sewing suggests that Greg's mom is right to try to encourage him to explore activities based on what he wants to do, rather than what he thinks boys should do. At the same time, however, his reluctance to pursue those interests—as when he stops taking Home Economics because he is afraid of the social consequences—suggests that ideals of masculinity exert a significant hold on his life and decisions. - Theme: Bullying. Description: In Greg's middle school, deviation from social norms is often punished with bullying. One of Greg's central aims is to avoid any behavior that could make him a target for school bullies—like wearing the wrong clothes, being bad at sports, or having an embarrassing nickname. Ultimately, however, he chooses to protect his "uncool" best friend Rowley from school bullies when he takes responsibility for touching "the Cheese," a moldy bit of cheese left out on the school basketball court, exposing himself to the risk of social censure to protect his friend. Greg witnesses almost daily instances of bullying at his middle school and even perpetuates it himself. There is intense peer pressure to behave in certain ways to be perceived as cool, which even causes Greg to become the bully instead of the bullied. Greg runs a student government campaign for treasurer against Marty Porter, hoping that becoming treasurer will give him more power in the school. His campaign posters consist entirely of personal insults of Marty, such as reminding people of his lice problem in elementary school. The vice principal perceives this behavior as bullying and makes him take down the posters. Greg develops a vendetta against another student, Patty Farrell, after she stops him from cheating on a geography test. In the school production of The Wizard of Oz, Patty plays Dorothy, and Greg and his friends pelt her with apples. As a result, her glasses break and the director has to stop the play, ruining Patty's dream of performing on stage. Greg is frequently bullied by older and physically intimidating teenagers who use their superior strength to exert power over others. Even Greg's older brother, Rodrick, sometimes engages in bullying behavior. For example, in the summer, he wakes Greg up at 3:00 A.M. and tricks him into thinking that it's the first day of school. This causes Greg to panic, get dressed, and make himself breakfast, getting him in trouble with their dad. Similarly, teenagers in a passing pickup truck spray Greg and Rowley with water while they are trick-or-treating. The teenagers then chase Greg and Rowley to Greg's grandmother's house. Although Greg and Rowley escape, the teenagers cover the house in toilet paper—in an act of intimidation that extends to Greg's family. One bullying tactic adopted by the entire school centers on "the Cheese," a moldy piece of cheese left on the school basketball court. Legend holds that any person who touches it gets the "Cheese Touch," which they can then pass on to other students by touching them. The result is that students with the Cheese Touch are bullied and socially ostracized. One student, Abe Hall, was thought to have the Cheese Touch, meaning that "no one would go near him." This bullying had such a negative impact on Abe that he moved to California at the end of the school year. The acts of bullying that Greg witnesses, experiences, and perpetrates are often framed as jokes, but their effect is often to intimidate. The fact that bullying is frequently carried out by older students models such behavior to their younger peers, perpetuating a cycle of bullying that continues over the years. Greg's protection of Rowley, however, provides one example of a moment when Greg chooses not to continue the cycle. Greg and Rowley are bullied by the same teenagers from Halloween night, who force Rowley to eat the Cheese. Greg knows that this would lead to permanent social outcast status for Rowley if people knew about it, but Greg chooses to keep the secret and take responsibility himself by claiming that he was the one who touched the Cheese. In this sense, he refuses to engage in the bullying behavior that is so common at his middle school and instead chooses other values: friendship over social status, kindness over intimidation, and self-sacrifice over self-protection. - Theme: Independence and Growing Up. Description: Greg experiences the transition to middle school as a step away from childhood and into adulthood. However, he still finds that his parents and teachers have a great deal of control over his life and choices, which is a source of tension as he develops his own ideas about how he wants to spend his time. Greg loves video games and wants to spend as much time as possible playing them. However, his parents disagree that this is a productive way for him to spend his time, which leads to frequent conflicts. Greg's dad often makes him stop playing video games and go outside to play sports instead. When this happens, Greg simply goes to his friend Rowley's house to play more video games. But Rowley's parents use a parental lock on their entertainment system that prohibits violent video games—another example of parental control over their children's entertainment. When Greg listens to one of Rodrick's CDs that has a "parental warning" for inappropriate content, his dad punishes him by banning him from playing video games for two weeks. Such a long period of time away from his beloved video games is difficult for Greg, and his parents' power to forbid him from playing video games or listening to particular music demonstrates that he is still subject to their authority. Now that he's in middle school, Greg longs for independence from his parents. However, he also feels jealous of the attention given to his younger brother, Manny, who seemingly can do no wrong in their eyes. Greg feels that his parents are too indulgent with Manny and too easily forgive his misbehaviors, like drawing in permanent marker on the walls. At Christmas, Manny is given nearly every toy he asked for, while Greg resents his more "grown-up" gifts like socks and a sweater. In this sense, Greg is still fairly childlike in his desire for toys. Greg admits that his own gifts to his parents are the same every year, usually a generic "#1 Dad" or "#1 Mom" coffee mug. In his drawing, his parents look somewhat dismayed, suggesting that Greg is less than thoughtful in his gift-giving. He seems to see Christmas as an occasion that should benefit him, rather than a more adult reciprocal transaction. Although Greg professes to be very grown up, he still finds that he needs his parents sometimes—more often than he wants to admit. When Greg wants to run for student government, his dad supports him and tells him that he had done the same at his age. He digs out some of his old campaign posters and helps Greg pick up supplies to make his own posters. Greg's mom takes Greg and Rowley to a haunted house at Crossland High School, which features various frightening scenes, including a teenager wielding a chainsaw. Despite their attempts to be cool, Greg and Rowley are terrified. Seeing this, Greg's mom tells off the teenager and makes him show that the chainsaw is fake, which embarrasses Greg even as he admits that he was grateful for her intervention. Greg sees middle school as the beginning of adolescence and claims that he is grown up now—that, for example, he now "hangs out" at his friend's house rather than going over to "play." However, his propensity for getting grounded or having his choices curtailed by his parents suggests that he is far from independent. Indeed, his jealousy of his younger brother suggests that he may, ultimately, be reluctant to leave childhood behind. Certainly his transition into adulthood has many bumps along the road, as he comes into conflict not only with the frustrating authority of his parents in his life but with his own continuing desire for their affection and approval. - Climax: Greg tells his classmates that he was the one who touched "the Cheese," protecting his best friend Rowley. - Summary: Greg Heffley begins the Diary of a Wimpy Kid by stipulating that it is definitely not a "diary," because he is afraid that other kids would make fun of him if they knew he was writing about his feelings. At the beginning of the new school year, Greg laments that "this whole popularity" thing has become so much more complicated, now that he's in middle school. Greg knows that he is only "around 52nd or 53rd" most popular in his school, but he wants to move up in the school hierarchy. At the moment, however, Greg's best (and only) friend is Rowley, who doesn't care what people think of him. In the first few months of school, Greg engages in various schemes to try to become more popular and raise his social status. He runs for treasurer in student government, but loses, as his campaign centered exclusively on making fun of his opponent. He tries to open a haunted house in Rowley's basement, but gets in trouble with Rowley's dad. He is horrified to be partnered with the "weird kid" Fregley in physical education class—the only boy lightweight enough to wrestle with Greg—but his attempts to build muscle by weightlifting don't go as planned because he hates exercise. There are other problems in Greg's life too. He lives in terror of "the Cheese," a moldy bit of cheese left out on the basketball court that will condemn anyone who touches it to the "Cheese Touch" and a life of social ostracization. He is frequently bullied by older and more physically intimidating kids, like the teenagers who spray him and Rowley with water on Halloween. Greg loves playing video games, but his dad is always telling him to go outside and enjoy the sunshine or punishing him by taking away his video gaming time. And perhaps worst of all, Greg's mom makes him audition for the school play. Greg is cast as a tree in The Wizard of Oz, but he manages to sabotage and shut down the entire performance after he pelts the lead actress with apples, breaking her glasses. At Christmas, Greg is dissatisfied with his gifts and jealous of his younger brother, Manny, who he thinks gets an unfair amount of attention from their parents. In his ongoing quest to gain a position of authority in the middle school social hierarchy, Greg and Rowley volunteer for the Safety Patrol, a group of students who walk the kindergarteners home from school. Greg also makes a bid for the role of the school newspaper cartoonist and gets the job—but this backfires when the math teacher in charge of the newspaper, Mr. Ira, re-writes Greg's comic strip so that it contains a message about how to properly add fractions. Meanwhile, Rowley gets in trouble for reportedly "terrorizing" the kindergarteners during Safety Patrol, although it was actually Greg who terrified the children with a worm—he was misrecognized by a neighbor because he was wearing Rowley's hat. Greg lets Rowley take the blame, so Rowley stops speaking to him and instead begins having sleepovers and hanging out with another friend, Collin Lee. Greg tries to get back at Rowley by hanging out with Fregley, but admits that he misses Rowley. To make matters worse, Rowley suddenly becomes popular. He breaks his hand and has to wear a cast, which garners sympathy from girls. He also writes a comic strip called "Zoo-Wee-Mama," that all the students and teachers seem to find hilarious. This makes Greg jealous, since he had hoped to be elected "Class Clown" in the school yearbook, and "Zoo-Wee-Mama" was originally his idea. The conflict between Greg and Rowley comes to an end, however, when both are bullied by the same teenagers who chased them on Halloween. To get back at Greg and Rowley for running away that night, one of the teenagers drags Rowley over to the Cheese and makes him eat it. The next day, all the students wonder where the Cheese went, and Greg knows it's only a matter of time before someone figures out that he and Rowley were involved. If people found out that Rowley ate the Cheese, Greg knows that they would bully and ostracize him. To protect Rowley, Greg tells everyone that he was the one who threw away the Cheese—meaning that it is Greg, not Rowley, who now supposedly has the "Cheese Touch." Greg and Rowley become friends again, and Rowley is voted "Class Clown" in the yearbook. Greg decides that he'll only tell people about what really happened to The Cheese if Rowley gets a big head about being the class clown.

- Genre: - Title: Divergent - Point of view: - Setting: - Character: Beatrice Prior / Tris. Description: Beatrice, or Tris, is the protagonist and heroine of Divergent: a brave, curious young woman who struggles to find an identity for herself and also feels a strong desire to protect other people. At the beginning of the novel, Tris lives in Abnegation; i.e., she lives a monastic, ascetic life. Although she lives in a society where all people must choose between one of five factions—essentially, five personality types—Tris refuses (and indeed is unable) to be bound by any one of these. This makes her "Divergent," a quality that has both its positives and its negatives—the most obvious drawback being that the government wants to kill off anyone who doesn't conform to a faction. She chooses to train and live among the Dauntless—those who prize courage and bravery—and yet even among the Dauntless, she feels a profound sense of dissatisfaction. Over the course of the book, Tris develops a "moral code" of her own—influenced, but not defined by the laws and rules of Dauntless or Abnegation. As a part of this moral code, Tris learns to protect other people, even when doing so endangers her own life. And yet Tris also learns how to respect herself and take care of herself—in short, she learns how to be selfish and selfless. Even at the end of the novel, Tris isn't sure what kind of person she is, or what community she belongs to. We can expect that she'll confront these questions in the next two books in the Divergent trilogy. - Character: Tobias / Four. Description: Tobias is one of the most mysterious characters in the book. Although Tobias used to be a highly promising warrior and strategist for the Dauntless, he chose to devote his life to training new Dauntless recruits instead of settling into a powerful government position, as most people of his abilities would do. This points to something that sets Tobias apart from most of his Dauntless peers: he's genuinely concerned with helping other people. Unlike his rival, Eric, Tobias believes that being strong and brave—in other words, being Dauntless—means being selfless, sacrificing one's own safety to protect that of other people. Tobias imparts this lesson to Tris, with whom he has a romance that's still going on by the end of the book. Like Tris, Tobias is secretly Divergent, and also has an unusually small number of fears, meaning that he's an especially bold and courageous soldier. In spite of his bravery, Tobias suffers from deep psychological trauma: his father, Marcus, beat him with a belt when he was a child. As the novel ends, Tris helps Tobias overcome some of his fears and anxieties, and in return, Tobias declares his love for Tris. - Character: Peter. Description: A tough, ruthless Dauntless recruit. Peter is jealous and spiteful, and has a nasty habit of targeting anyone who outperforms him in the rankings: first Edward, whom he stabs in the eye, and later Beatrice Prior, whom he tries to throw into a chasm. Peter is exactly the kind of soldier Eric wants to create: insensitive and sadistic. As a result, he isn't given the mind-control serum when Eric and Max stage their coup: he's "perfect" as he is. - Character: Natalie Prior. Description: Beatrice Prior's mother. Natalie is a strong, nurturing woman, although the rules of Abnegation society make it difficult for her to show her love for Beatrice or Caleb Prior. Some ways into the novel, Beatrice discovers that Natalie is Divergent, and grew up among the Dauntless. Natalie proves herself to be a powerful warrior, more than capable of protecting her family. In the end, she sacrifices her life to keep Beatrice safe. - Character: Eric. Description: A young government official in Dauntless, and the rival of Tobias. Eric is a cruel, sadistic man, who believes that the ideal Dauntless soldier is selfish, ruthless, and indifferent to other people's suffering. Although Eric was ranked below Tobias during their training months, Eric was offered a top government job because Tobias turned it down first. Eric continues to resent Tobias for outperforming him in the rankings years before, and after he and Max stage a coup of the city, he reveals that he still considers Tobias his hated rival. - Character: Al. Description: A Dauntless recruit who struggles with many of the physical and psychological challenges of the training process. Although Al is at first grateful to Beatrice Prior for encouraging him and protecting him, he begins to resent Beatrice for making him look weaker and more incompetent. Al turns on Beatrice, even assisting Peter in trying to kill her. Ultimately, Al is unable to forgive himself for trying to hurt Beatrice—he kills himself from throwing himself into a chasm. - Character: Andrew Prior. Description: Beatrice Prior's father, a power leader in the Abnegation community. After Beatrice leaves Abnegation for Dauntless, Andrew is widely criticized for his poor parenting—much to Beatrice's distress. At the end of the novel, Andrew risks his safety to protect his city from the military coup, and bravely sacrifices his life to protect his daughter. - Theme: Identity, Choice, and Divergence. Description: In a way, Divergent is a book about choosing who you are. Because most of the characters in the novel are young adults, they're trying to find identities for themselves and choose what kind of personality to have, or, in another sense, which "club" to belong to. Roth raises many important questions about identity: How do we choose an identity? What are some of the advantages of choosing the same identity as someone else? What happens if we want to change identities?In the fictional futuristic society of Divergent, people choose their identities once and only once: a process that readers will recognize as absurd. When the city's residents turn 16, there's an elaborate ritual that culminates in the 16-year-olds choosing one of five "factions" to live with for the rest of their lives: Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless, Erudite, and Amity. Each faction corresponds to a specific personality type—for example, the Dauntless are bold, aggressive, and brave. In short, then, the city's teenagers are forced to make a permanent choice about what kind of people they want to be, at the exact age when they should be experimenting with many different identities. As anyone who's been a teenager will know, it's impossible to decide who you are at the age of 16: inevitably, whatever decision you make at that age will come to seem like the wrong one.Part of what makes Tris Prior such a sympathetic and relatable protagonist in Divergent is her refusal to stick to one faction: just like the average reader, she can't make up her mind what kind of person she wants to be. At times, she thinks she "truly" belongs among the Dauntless; at others, she's convinced that she's most comfortable among the people of Abnegation, who are selfless and Puritanical.Although only a tiny fraction of people in the city are Divergent (according to the novel), Tris comes to realize that nobody around her has a "truly" fixed identity: in other words, everyone is at least a little Divergent. The characters who seem the most quintessentially Dauntless or Abnegation, such as Tobias or Natalie, Tris's mother, are revealed to have other identities, hidden beneath the ones they display to the public. The novel's point isn't that Natalie is really a Dauntless pretending to be Abnegation, or Abnegation pretending to be Dauntless. Rather, the suggestion is that nobody is Dauntless or Abnegation 100 percent of the time. People's identities change constantly, and forcing people to choose one identity for themselves—particularly at such an early age—only leads to frustration. In the end, we see Tris embracing this truth. Throughout the book, she's bounced back and forth between two or three different factions—in the novel's final paragraph, however, she recognizes that she'll have to "go beyond" any one of these factions. Identity, she comes to see, isn't an outcome, to be decided on at the age of 16—instead, it's an ongoing process. - Theme: Strength, Selfishness, and Selflessness. Description: Early in the novel, Tris Prior joins the faction of the Dauntless: a community of strong, war-like people who are taught to worship strength and courage above all else. The Dauntless are constantly being ordered to "prove themselves"—by fighting, jumping onto moving trains, dangling over a chasm, etc. And yet there's seldom any real discussion of what strength and courage mean: everyone seems to take the words for granted. Especially in the second half of her novel, Roth explores what it truly means to be strong.For the leaders of the Dauntless faction, such as Eric—one of the book's main antagonists—strength is the ultimate sign of power and self-sufficiency. By this definition, being strong is all about taking care of oneself and proving oneself the strongest—in short, extreme selfishness. We see this idea in the kinds of warriors the Dauntless celebrate, such as Peter—an aggressive young Dauntless recruit in Tris's training group. Peter is one of the most promising Dauntless warriors: he's merciless in a fight, and seems to have no qualms about eliminating his closest competitors (he even stabs one of his rivals in the eye with a knife). When Eric and his allies stage a coup of the city, they reward Peter with a good position: evidently, Peter's brand of merciless, guiltless strength is the one they admire most.There's also another definition of strength circulating among the Dauntless, however—one that the novel's heroes, such as Tris and Tobias, celebrate. According to the Dauntless manifesto (the summing up of its principles), being Dauntless means embracing selflessness: overcoming one's own weaknesses and using one's power in order to help other people. Tobias is the embodiment of this definition of power: although he was ranked at the top of the Dauntless recruits, he's chosen to devote his adult life to helping new recruits (a selfless position), rather than exerting his power in the Dauntless government (a selfish position). In short, Eric and Peter define strength as being able to overcome one's weaknesses and take care of one's self; Tobias and Tris define it as being able to overcome one's fears and take care of others.From early on, it's clear that the latter definition of strength (selflessness) isn't remotely as popular among the Dauntless at the former (selfishness). On the occasions when Tris demonstrates selflessness, even her close friends misinterpret her actions, focusing on the most selfish, self-sufficient aspects of what she's done—for instance, when Tris takes Al's place in front of a target for knives, her peers compliment her for displaying her toughness, not for protecting Al. And yet the most impressive displays of strength in the novel are selfless—in other words, intended to help other people. In the novel's climax, while the selfish Erudite and Dauntless governments hide far away, controlling their soldiers remotely, Tris endangers her own life by surrendering her weapon to Tobias, who's being controlled by Erudite drugs. Due to her selfless sacrifice, Tris succeeds in "defeating" Tobias, breaking through his mind-control drugs—a display of strength, courage, and willpower far beyond anything Eric or Peter would dare attempt.As Divergent makes clear, there's a fine line between strength and selfishness; i.e., between power and the abuse of power. Left to its own devices, the cult of strength and courage has a tendency to devolve into the celebration of power for power's sake—ideally, though, strength should be tempered by selflessness. When this broader view of power is accepted, it becomes clear that selflessness is actually a crucial part of true strength. - Theme: Competition, Groups, and Rivalries. Description: One of the first things we notice about the futuristic society in Divergent is that it's rigorously classified: almost all people belong to one of five factions, and within each of these factions, members are constantly ranked and assessed for their abilities. One byproduct of all this ranking and classifying is that a spirit of competitiveness hangs over the characters' lives. Each one of the factions competes with the others for glory and power, and within the Dauntless faction, Tris Prior and her peers compete for a high spot in the all-important "rankings." It's worth exploring the theme of competition a little more closely, since the entire book is structured around different kinds of competitions, ranging from boxing matches to citywide wars.Divergent suggests that competition builds group loyalty. In the early chapters, it's established that the Abnegation community despises the Erudite for their pretentiousness and arrogance. More importantly, however, the Abnegation community defines itself in relation to the Erudites: when Tris's father, Andrew, explains why he's proud to live in Abnegation, he explains in the same breath why he's proud not to live among the Erudite. The competitiveness between the factions in Divergent leads to a strong sense of solidarity within the faction—indeed, a common saying in the city is "faction before family." (Although it's never explicitly stated in this first novel, it seems likely that this is why the factions were founded in the first place: in a time of crisis, the city's leaders created factions to promote loyalty and a strong herd mentality.)Competitiveness inspires group loyalty, but ironically, it also encourages strong rivalries and resentments between members of the same group. This is apparent from day one of Tris's life in the Dauntless community. Even as Tris makes new friends among the Dauntless, and begins to think that she "belongs" among them, she can't help but form equally powerful rivalries with other Dauntless recruits, such as Peter and Molly. At one point, the new Dauntless recruits play a city-wide game of capture the flag—a good illustration of the paradoxes of competition. Tris and the other recruits are divided into two competing teams. In other words, the competitiveness of the game encourages loyalty and disloyalty: loyalty to fellow teammates and disloyalty to opponents. Competitiveness is both attractive and repellent: it brings people together in solidarity at the same time that it pushes people apart.Tris Prior's complicated relationship with the Dauntless reflects some of the paradoxes of competition. She's intelligent enough to recognize that the purpose of the rankings and sparring exercises is to breed a sense of aggression, competitiveness, and group loyalty. And yet Tris can't quite "stand outside" the competition: she enjoys competing, even when she knows she's being manipulated. Competitiveness is a crucial part of Tris's character: throughout the novel, she's motivated to do well in the rankings, not only because she wants a bright future for herself but also just for the sake of the rankings themselves. As the novel closes, Tris is still trying to work out her feelings about competition: she knows it leads to rivalry and violence, but she still can't help but enjoy it. - Theme: Fear, Bravery, and Maturity. Description: During the time she spends training with the Dauntless, Tris Prior learns how to confront her deepest fears, and indeed, this is one of the most basic lessons she learns from her Dauntless mentors. The entire culture of the Dauntless community is centered on fear, as the Dauntless believe that fear—or rather, cowardice—is the most basic problem with the human race. Thus, the path to success and peace necessarily involves mastering one's fears and becoming brave. In general, Divergent shows how Tris "comes of age" by understanding and dealing with her fears.One of the novel's most important points about fear is that everybody, without exception, feels it. Tris and her peers go through rigorous training, during which they're made to vividly experience their fears. Every one of the new recruits is shaken by this challenge: fear is their common denominator, bringing them closer together. One could even say that fear is the most fundamental thing "about" the characters, some of whom (Four, for example) are actually named after their fears.If fear is a basic part of being human, then growing up requires us to make sense of our fears. Interestingly, Divergent suggests that being brave doesn't mean eliminating fear altogether; rather, bravery requires us to come to terms with fear and deal with it even if we can't actually defeat it. During Tris's Dauntless training, she's injected with hallucinogenic serum that makes her experience her worst fears, but over time, Tris learns how to cope with her fears. She accepts that she'll always be frightened of the same things: drowning, losing her family, etc. Instead of trying to "hide" from these fears, Tris forces herself to accept them as realities. Because she's Divergent (and thus has access to a unique mental state that's never fully explained in the book), Tris has an easier time than most staying sane during her training: she's able to tell herself, "This is just a hallucination." Tris's courage and composure in the face of fear make her seem mature and adult-like to her peers among the Dauntless—and to readers.Tris's struggle to come to terms with her fears is more than an important part of her training, though. It also represents one of her greatest strengths as a heroine. While many of Tris's peers and friends are easily manipulated by the propaganda released by the Erudites, Tris "sticks to her guns," recognizing that the Erudite are trying to scare the other factions into obedience. In general, Tris isn't as susceptible to manipulation and scare tactics as her friends. In no small part, this is because she's courageous; her Dauntless training has taught her to accept fear instead of trying to bury it altogether. Everyone feels fear, Tris included. But Tris is special: she learns how to deal with her fear in a productive way. In general, she's the heroine of the novel not so much because of her intelligence or her combat skills, but because she's Divergent: because of her Divergence, she's able to use fear in a productive way, becoming a brave, full-grown adult in the process. - Theme: Women and Sexuality. Description: Divergent has been praised by some for its strong female protagonist. Tris Prior is a powerful, even heroic character, and during the course of the novel she protects the weak and saves countless lives. More importantly, Tris's heroism seems directly tied to the fact that she is a young woman: her gender gives her a powerful tool for fighting evil. It's worth considering the novel's take on women a little more closely.The majority of Divergent is set in a society that's openly, even blatantly, masculine in its structure. The Dauntless—who are government by men and men only, it would appear—celebrate combat, aggression, violence, and other qualities that are more commonly associated with men than women. When Tris arrives at Dauntless, few people take her seriously, because she's a woman, and a small, unintimidating woman at that. On a basic level, the structure of Dauntless society sends a strong message to Tris, telling her to be frightened, submissive, and meek. Throughout the novel, Tris responds to this "challenge" from masculine Dauntless society, sometimes by imitating masculine behavior, and sometimes by using her gender to her advantage.At times, Tris tries to succeed by imitating the masculine norms at Dauntless, but often, she's most successful when she doesn't pretend to be anything other than a woman. She masters the basics of personal combat, but never really excels at fighting: frankly put, biology is against her—she's not big enough to defeat an opponent like Peter. Tris's most impressive feats at Dauntless occur outside the domain of combat and aggression. During the capture the flag game, for example, she uses quick thinking to find her opponents before they find her. While it's certainly true that Tris lives in a masculine community, she's able to gain respect herself through intelligence, wit, and strategy—avenues that, while not necessarily feminine, are certainly less stereotypically masculine.One major sign that Tris's gender is essential, not incidental, to her strength is the role of sexuality in the novel. Tris isn't a 12-year-old "tomboy"—during the course of the book, she discovers and explores her sexual desires via her relationship with Tobias (and at one point, it's strongly implied that Tris loses her virginity to Tobias). At the novel's climax, Tris's romantic desires become a weapon as well as a source of pleasure: when Tobias is brainwashed into wanting to kill Tris, Tris is able to "break through" to her lover by communicating her feelings, causing Tobias to regain control of his mind. Quite literally, Tris's (heterosexual) feminine romantic feelings save her life. Because Roth foregrounds Tris's passion for Tobias throughout the novel's climactic chapters, we never lose sight of the fact that she's a strong woman, not just a strong, genderless character.From a feminist viewpoint, there are two major ways for young adult novels about women to go wrong. First, the book can make the mistake of depicting women as passive "damsels in distress"—waiting for heroic men to save them. Divergent certainly doesn't make this mistake, as Tris isn't just the protagonist of the book; she's arguably the strongest and most competent character. Second, young adult novels sometimes depict women as almost androgynous characters: while they are, in fact, female, nothing they say or do can identify them as women. Divergent doesn't shy away from gender or sexuality: Tris is a woman, with strong sexual desires for men. Although she learns to spar with the men surrounding her, she doesn't try to imitate these men. Instead, Tris pioneers her own brand of bravery, becoming a true heroine in the process. - Climax: - Summary: The novel takes places in a futuristic version of Chicago, Illinois, in which the population has been split into five factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. Each faction has a different "persona" and a different role in the city. Abnegation people are plain and modest, and go into governance; Amity people are kind and nurturing, and go into welfare; Candor people are honest, and make good lawyers; the Dauntless are brave, and work as soldiers and guards; the Erudite are intelligent, and study science and technology. As the novel begins, Beatrice Prior—a 16-year-old girl living in Abnegation—is preparing for her Choosing Ceremony. At the age of 16, everyone in the city is made to take an aptitude test that determines what kind of person they are; i.e., which faction they belong to. Afterwards, the 16-year-olds attend a Choosing Ceremony, where they choose the faction to which they'll belong for the rest of their lives. Beatrice worries that she'll find out that she's better suited for a faction other than Abnegation, thus disappointing her brother, Caleb Prior, and her parents, Andrew Prior and Natalie Prior. Beatrice is especially scared of disappointing her father, Andrew, an important government official, and Andrew's friend Marcus, another influential government leader. During her aptitude test, Beatrice is given a hallucinogenic serum. She sees a series of visions: a dog attacking a child, a man who interrogates her about her knowledge of a "brutal murderer," etc. At the end of the test, Beatrice's examiner, a woman named Tori, tells Beatrice that she's Divergent: a forbidden mental state that allows Beatrice to move between different factions. Tori makes Beatrice promise never to tell anyone about her Divergence—she warns that the government wants to kill off all Divergent people. At the Choosing Ceremony, Beatrice sees her brother Caleb choose Erudite, instead of the usual Abnegation. Afterwards, Beatrice chooses Dauntless. Although she's excited and curious about Dauntless, she's also worried that her parents will be devastated by the loss of their two children: after 16-year-olds choose their faction, they're almost never allowed to visit other factions. Beatrice is taken to her new community in Dauntless. There, she meets the Dauntless leader, Max, as well as Eric, a young, frightening government official, and Four, a charismatic young man who trains new recruits. Beatrice renames herself "Tris," and quickly makes friends with Dauntless recruits from other factions, such as Christina, Will, and Al. The new recruits begin their training, competing for a small number of spots reserved for the most highly-ranked trainees. Four coaches Tris and her peers through combat exercises. Tris is a poor fighter—she's no match for opponents like Peter, a huge, sadistic recruit. In her first fight with Peter, Peter sends her to the hospital. Afterwards, Tris resolves to train even harder. She distinguishes herself in a citywide game of capture-the-flag that's designed to measure recruits' abilities. Tris climbs to the top of the Chicago Ferris Wheel, allowing her team to surprise-attack its opponents. Tris's bravery and quick thinking impress Four, as well as her fellow recruits. Four begins flirting with Tris—exciting Tris, but also making her a little uncomfortable. Tris stands up for a weak-willed trainee named Al, offering to take his place in a sadistic punishment that Eric devises for him. At the same time, Tris begins to enjoy her combat training more and more—she doesn't feel the same sense of mercy or caution that she was taught in Abnegation for so many years. Tris gets a visit from her mother, Natalie Prior, and Natalie tells Tris that she knows about Tris's Divergence. Natalie also tells Tris to ask Caleb to research serum when Tris next sees Caleb—Tris has no idea why Natalie makes this request. Slowly, Tris realizes that Natalie was Dauntless before she chose to live in Abnegation. Eric releases a ranking of the new recruits: Tris is ranked low, while Peter is ranked second. That night, Peter stabs the top-ranked recruit, a boy named Edward, in the eye. Afterwards, Edward drops out of Dauntless. Then the recruits enter the second part of their training: psychological training. They're injected with hallucinogenic serum and forced to experience the things that frighten them most. Privately, Four conducts a "fear simulation" with Tris, and discovers that Tris is good at resisting the effects of the serum. Four recognizes that Tris is Divergent, since Divergents can resist mental manipulation. Tris asks Four how he knows so much about Divergence, but Four doesn't reply. Reports begin to circulate about how Abnegation leaders—Andrew Prior, and his friend Marcus, in particular—have become corrupt. Although she's infuriated by these reports, which she regards as propaganda, Tris concentrates on her training. She bonds with other recruits, such as Uriah and Marlene, who were born in Dauntless, rather than transferring from another faction. When the second round of rankings are released, Tris is at the top of her class. That night, Peter and a gang of followers try to kill Tris by throwing her into a chasm, but Four saves her life. Tris is shocked to discover that one of the people who tried to kill her was Al. Al, Tris realizes, has come to hate Tris for making him look weak. Tris angrily tells Al that she'll kill him if he ever tries to talk to her again. Shortly afterwards, Al commits suicide by throwing himself into the chasm. Tris proceeds with her psychological training. Four allows her to witness his own "fear landscape." Tris notices that Four has only four fears—hence his nickname. One of Four's fears is his father, Marcus, who abused him with a belt when he was a child. Four's real name, Tris realizes, is Tobias—he used to live in Abnegation. Following the fear simulation, Tobias kisses Tris, and Tris kisses back. Tobias reveals that he knows Tris is Divergent, cementing their bond. Tris fails badly at her own fear landscape, despite the early promise she'd shown. Frustrated with herself, she goes to visit Caleb, who's now living in Erudite. Caleb tells Tris that he's tempted to believe the things that Jeanine, his leader, had been writing about their father and about Abnegation. Tris and her peers prepare for their final challenge: a fear simulation. In her fear simulation, Tris performs very well, mastering her own fears—including fear of having sex with Tobias. As a result of her good performance, Tris graduates at the top of the rankings. She and her peers are injected with a chemical, supposedly to allow Eric and Max to track their movements. Afterwards, Tris and Tobias have sex. The next morning, Tris wakes up to find that her friends have been transformed into mindless Dauntless soldiers, thanks to the tracking chemical. Tris is immune to this mind control, however, due to her Divergence. She's able to pretend to be a "zombie" as Eric and Max send their new soldiers into Abnegation. In Abnegation, Tris joins with Tobias—who's also revealed to be Divergent, and therefore immune to the effects of the chemical. Soldiers capture Tris and Tobias and bring them to Jeanine, the mastermind behind the mind control scheme. Jeanine reveals her villainous plan—to use her new soldiers to conquer all of the city—then orders her soldiers to kill Tris and Tobias. Tris is taken to a tank, where she's to be drowned. Before this can happen, however, her mother saves her. Natalie sneaks Tris out of the building, and sends her to a secret compound where Andrew, Caleb, and Marcus are hiding out. Before she can leave with Tris, however, Natalie is shot and killed. Tris joins up with Andrew, Caleb, and Marcus: they plan to break into the Dauntless headquarters and shut down the computers that control the soldiers. Together, they manage to infiltrate the compound and make their way to the computer room, but not before Andrew dies protecting Tris. In the control room, Tris finds herself facing Tobias, now controlled by a new, stronger mind control drug. Tobias raises a gun to Tris's head, but Tris is able to convince Tobias to put the gun down by saying, "It's me." Freed from his mind control, Tobias switches off the computers, foiling Jeanine's plot. The novel ends with Tobias declaring his love for Tris.

- Genre: Drama; Youth theater - Title: DNA - Point of view: - Setting: London, England - Character: Leah. Description: At first glance, the verbose Leah is ditzy, easily distracted, and self-obsessed. During her many afternoons sitting in a field with her silent boyfriend Phil, Leah muses aloud about big questions (such as the nature of life on earth and the foundation of reality) and small ones (such as whether Phil thinks she's pretty, annoying, repulsive, or some combination of the three). As the play unfolds, however, Leah emerges as its moral center. When Mark and Jan bring Phil and Leah to meet with their group of friends in the woods, Phil and Leah soon learn that their schoolmate Adam is believed to be dead after a heartless prank gone terribly wrong. While Phil immediately begins unspooling a complicated plan to cover up the supposed murder, Leah protests, begging the others to do the right thing and tell the authorities about what's happened. When Leah realizes that her voice—so often unheard by Phil—is also just noise to her friends, a change begins within her. Over the course of the play, as she watches her friends' morals disintegrate and sees their psyches crumble under pressure, she begins to change. Witnessing Phil order the increasingly unstable Brian to murder Adam for real after Brian and Cathy find him living in the woods is the final straw for Leah—she leaves Phil, quits school, and moves elsewhere. In this way, Leah's actions serve as a cautionary tale against the destabilizing and destructive effects of groupthink and peer pressure. So long as nothing affected her too directly, Leah was willing to put up with terrible treatment not just from her friends, but also from her boyfriend. The pressure to fit in, stay quiet, and maintain the status quo defined her life even as she searched desperately within herself for the answers to big, serious questions about life, love, and happiness. At the end of the play, Leah's exit from the group has a profound effect on Phil in spite of his blatant mistreatment of her, and signals how just one individual choosing to stand up against bullying, brainwashing, and cruelty can portend change in that individual's larger community. - Character: Phil. Description: Phil is, in many ways, the play's main antagonist. An intensely quiet and inscrutable presence for the first part of the play, Phil soon emerges as a kind of mastermind once the group of teens at the center of the action finds themselves in trouble—and, because Phil's intricate plan to cover up the murder of their schoolmate Adam saves them, the group begins looking to Phil as their leader and following his orders without question. Phil, however, doesn't let the new power he has over his so-called friends go to his head—he remains as aloof and indifferent as ever, speaking up only when he absolutely needs to. When Phil does speak, the orders he gives and the things he says are cold, calculated, and completely devoid of empathy. Phil knows what must be done to maintain the illusion of innocence and has no problem giving his friends orders to lie to the police, frame innocent individuals, and even commit cold-blooded murder—even though he himself never takes any action on behalf of the group's well-being. Phil seems to be in a relationship with Leah, though the word "relationship" is generous. Phil sits with Leah often and serves as a sounding board for her endless musings—but he often ignores her, focusing instead on preparing snacks for himself to eat while she talks. Phil's history, thoughts, and motivations are unknown to the audience—and, likely, to the group of classmates who are ostensibly his friends. Phil's enigmatic personality serves to underscore the random cruelty of bullying, the willingness of young and impressionable individuals to go along with peer pressure and groupthink, and the heartless callousness of social climbing. - Character: A Boy/Adam. Description: A teenage boy who dresses like a tramp and lives in a hedge in the woods, this character is listed as "A Boy" in the characters section at the beginning of the play, yet all his dialogue is ascribed to "Adam." Kelly, perhaps, is trying to replicate the confusion and uncertainty the group of teens at the center of the play feel when they come across their classmate alive after having spent weeks focused on nothing but covering up his supposed death. Adam, after all, is taken for dead at the start of the play after some members of the central group of characters admit to possibly killing him while taunting him and pelting him with stones as he balanced on a grille over an abandoned mineshaft. Adam fell in, his peers assumed he was dead, and so began the cover-up. Adam is disliked and unpopular, frequently the butt of his classmates' jokes and the victim of their pranks, jeers, and abuse, the effects of which range from the harmless to the humiliating to the downright deadly. When the audience meets Adam, he is disoriented, disheveled, and suffering from a prominent head wound. Dirty and amnesiac, he has no recollection of who he is or how he lived before waking up at the bottom of the mine shaft several weeks ago. Taking advantage of his confused, suggestible state, Phil orders Brian to strangle the boy with a plastic bag, ignoring Leah's pleas to bring Adam back into society where he might receive the care he needs to live a normal life once again. Phil coldly tells Leah that if everyone in the outside world assumes Adam is already dead, it won't make a difference to kill him for real this time. Adam thus represents the subjective nature of reality and serves as a painful example of the devastating effects of bullying, peer pressure, and groupthink. - Character: Brian. Description: Brian is a sensitive, emotional teenage boy who crumbles under the pressure of lying to the police in the wake of Adam's "death." Brian wants to come clean to the authorities as soon as he learns what has happened to Adam, but his voice is drowned out as the others search wildly for a way to obscure their involvement in the crime. Perhaps as a result of the trauma of his schoolmate's death compounded with the indignity of being ignored and underestimated, Brian soon finds himself strung out on several psychiatric medications which make him giddy, loopy, and childlike. Several weeks into the cover-up, Brian and Cathy find Adam living in the woods near their school—but this time, Brian doesn't suggest they do the right thing, and instead complies with Phil's orders to murder Adam for real. Brian represents the destabilizing, disorienting, and destructive effects of peer pressure, bullying, and groupthink. After such acute trauma and sustained cruelty, Brian is simply unable to stand up to his peers any longer, instead retreating into a world inside his head. - Character: John Tate. Description: John Tate is a powerful and intimidating teenager who initially tries to control his group of friends after Adam's apparent death. Though John Tate is, at the start of the play, ostensibly the leader of the group of teens at its center, it's clear that his leadership is already on shaky ground. He tries to impose insane rules on the group, such as banning the use of the words "death" or "dead," but even as he grapples for control, the others resist his rules and schemes and instead put their trust in Phil. John Tate, unable to control his peers any longer, soon leaves school and becomes a kind of evangelist, preaching at local shopping malls about the word of God. John Tate's arc demonstrates what happens in the vacuum created by loss of control—rather than accepting that he may have been wrong, John Tate simply moves on to trying to control the beliefs of others who didn't witness his embarrassing fall from grace. - Character: Cathy. Description: Cathy is a self-centered girl who is nonetheless desperate to please the other members of the group and prove her worth, going so far as to secure incriminating DNA from an innocent man which ties him to Adam's disappearance. Cathy finds everything that begins unfolding in the wake of Adam's supposed death exciting and seems to feel no guilt or remorse about any of it. She enjoys the attention from the police and the media she and her friends receive and wonders aloud to her friends how she can exploit this attention for cash. Cathy seems to want to keep the attention going even after it dies down. By the end of the play she has taken control not just of the group but of other students at their school, transforming herself into an intimidating and cruel leader who hurts and bullies others in order to maintain the rewards—or perhaps merely the illusion—of power. - Character: Jan. Description: Jan is Mark's close friend and constant companion. Mark and Jan's vague, gossipy conversations act as preludes during each part of the play, opening the action in a disorienting and intriguing way. Jan and Mark are morally neutral for much of the play, though Jan tries to excuse their group's abuse of Adam by insisting he always enjoyed doing anything the others told him to. Jan's words and beliefs suggest that she either truly thinks Adam enjoyed being bullied, showing how desensitized she is to violence, groupthink, and peer pressure—or that she is so desperate to absolve herself of any guilt or remorse that she wants to convince herself that Adam enjoyed the bullying. Either way, Jan's attitude toward the very serious crimes and brutalities she and her friends have committed against Adam is cruelly cavalier. - Character: Danny. Description: Danny is a strait-laced worrywart who fears that his involvement in his friends' actions will derail his future. Danny plans on becoming a dentist and has a very clear plan for his schooling, work experience, and higher education. Though he constantly fears that his future will be knocked off its axis, by the end of the play, he has distanced himself from the group and remained on track to accomplish his goals and fulfill his admittedly average dreams. - Character: Richard. Description: Richard is a member of the group of teens at the center of the play who, in spite of appearing intimidating and even potentially violent at the beginning of the play, becomes calmer and more introspective as its events unfold. Richard clearly has a good measure of clout and social status, but by the end of the play, he's become less interested in controlling his group of friends than in understanding the world and his place within it. Richard seems genuinely changed by the events of the play, even as he privately tells Phil that he longs for a return to the way things were before the whole mess with Adam took place. - Character: Lou. Description: Lou is a pessimistic girl who constantly believes that she and her friends are right on the precipice of being caught and exposed for their role in Adam's supposed death. Lou's main function seems to be to up the tension and anxiety within the group, and she's often the catalyst for escalation in the group's fears and schemes. - Theme: Right vs. Wrong. Description: At the start of Dennis Kelly's DNA, a group of teenagers at a school in London have already committed a heinous—albeit accidental—crime against one of their own. As the play unfolds, Kelly puts his characters in a pressure cooker, placing them at crossroads which force them, time and time again, to choose between right and wrong. The core group of teens overwhelmingly makes immoral and selfish decisions, and Kelly ultimately uses the play to argue that when faced with doing what's right but difficult versus what's wrong but easy, human beings will often choose to do the latter. There are several moments throughout the play where Kelly's characters are forced to choose between right and wrong. With few exceptions, the teen characters seek to save their own skins, advance their own interests, and preserve themselves over their peers—even though they have ample opportunity to right the courses of all their lives and face up to what they've done. When a group of London schoolmates—Mark, Jan, Cathy, Richard, Brian, Lou, John Tate, Leah, Phil, and Danny—begin to believe they are responsible for the death of Adam, one of their unpopular peers, they struggle with what to do. Though it's not clear which members of the group, exactly, were present at the time of Adam's death, what is clear is that after being pelted with stones while he balanced on a grille above a local mineshaft, Adam fell into the shaft and did not emerge. While John Tate—the group's undisputed leader—wants them all to keep calm, stay quiet, and figure out a plan amongst themselves, the sensitive Brian believes they should tell someone about Adam's supposed death. It was, after all, an accident, and Brian is deeply upset and remorseful. While Brian wants to do what's right and seek help, penance, and perhaps absolution, John Tate only wants to avoid punishment. Brian's solution would be the more difficult (and dangerous) thing, and ultimately his peers declare loyalty to John Tate instead. They put their fate in his and Phil's hands, going along with the usually quiet Phil's intricate and detailed plan to obtain clothes from Adam's house and taint them with a stranger's DNA in order to suggest that Adam has been kidnapped. Though the path the group chooses is hard in its own way, it's easier than facing up to the emotional and legal ramifications of what they've done. The teens' predicament worsens when a postman matching the description they gave the police during a false statement is apprehended and questioned in connection to the crime. Leah and Lou are devastated at the idea that an innocent man could go to prison based on fake evidence the group themselves cooked up, but Phil threatens to kill Brian if he doesn't go down to the station and positively identify the suspect. Again, the group decides to act in their own self-interest instead of doing what's morally right—they take the easy way out, refusing again to own up to what they've done even as their plot involves more and more innocent lives. The group's second major chance for redemption arrives in the play's third part, when Cathy and Brian find a boy with a terrible head wound living in the woods. The boy is dirty and incoherent and doesn't remember his own name until the others call him Adam—it turns out that he is alive, after all. Brian—whose mental state has deteriorated markedly in the weeks since what the group believed was Adam's death—is too strung out on psychiatric medications to make a moral argument for coming clean at last. Leah, on the other hand, begs Phil to end the charade and confess to the authorities—Adam is alive, and it's only right to help him reclaim his place in society. Phil, however, ignores Leah's pleas and sends Brian into the woods with a plastic bag to strangle Adam to death. In this scene, the group is presented with a second—and final—chance to redeem themselves. Even though Adam is clearly alive, alone, and in pain, the leaders of the group decide it would be too hard to extricate themselves from the situation. Many of their lives have become easier in the wake of Adam's disappearance—there is more social cohesion at school, for example—and they are reluctant to do something difficult and potentially incriminating, even though it would be the morally right thing to do. Dennis Kelly's DNA is a short, cutting, and ultimately bleak work that paints a pessimistic, uninspiring picture of human morality. Kelly uses a group of scared, self-centered teens as a microcosm of humanity in order to suggest that even though one might like to believe that in a difficult situation they'd step up and do what's right, it's more likely that one would choose to take the easy way out—even if it results in one or several innocent individuals being harmed or wronged. - Theme: Bullying, Peer Pressure, and Groupthink. Description: Bullying, peer pressure, and the destabilizing effects of groupthink are at the core of Dennis Kelly's DNA. Over the course of the play, Kelly examines a group of particularly cruel, emotionally detached teens—save for a few kind, empathetic members—and puts on full display the ways in which they cajole, coerce, and threaten one another. Ultimately, Kelly shows that bullying is an epidemic—and argues that the effects of peer pressure and conformist groupthink lead to terrible instances of emotional and physical abuse amongst young people. Dennis Kelly's play is a topical one: DNA wrestles with big issues and takes very seriously the effects that bullying has not just on individuals but on communities more broadly. As Kelly shows how groupthink and peer pressure fuel and perpetuate bullying—and how the more bullying happens, the more socially acceptable it becomes—he paints a portrait of a vicious cycle of abuse. Early on in the play, before the group's cruelty is even revealed in full, Kelly shows how peer pressure and groupthink in the form of coercion affect this ostensibly tight-knit group of friends. As the nervous Lou and Danny and the overconfident John Tate discuss their schoolmate Adam's supposed death in vague terms, Lou begins to get scared and declares that they're all doomed. John Tate—desperate to stop his friend from spiraling into anxiety, worried she'll turn against him—reminds her that he is one of the most frightening, influential people at school. He urges her and Danny—by vaguely threatening violence—to hush up and follow his plan. Before the audience even knows the truth of what's going on, Kelly is already at work demonstrating that the environment these teens live in is one that revolves around fear, coercion, and conformity. The individual members of the group are silenced by other members who use cruel tactics to stay in power. Kelly implies that this climate of constant fear, combined with the repeated suggestion that as long as the group sticks together they'll be all right, is what perpetuates the teens' constant bullying of and cruelty toward one another. As the play continues to unfold, he uses a tragedy that occurs at the heart of the group to show the devastating effects of this vicious cycle. As Kelly reveals the horrific truth of the bullying Adam endured at the hands of his so-called "friends," he delves even deeper into the ways in which groupthink and conformity proliferate and even escalate bullying. As the nervous gossipmongers Mark and Jan unspool the story of Adam's supposed death, they describe the escalation of their group's collective cruelty towards Adam over the course of an undetermined amount of time. The abuse they describe could have unfolded over weeks or months—or it could have ramped up from lighthearted dares to physical abuse over the course of one night. Mark and Jan describe fairly benign (but still humiliating) dares such as encouraging Adam to eat leaves and convincing Adam to steal liquor for the group—but their recollection of events soon intensifies as they describe putting out cigarettes on various parts of Adam's body and eventually stoning him with small rocks as he balanced precariously on a grille over a mine shaft, a torturous ordeal which ultimately led to him falling into the deep shaft. This harrowing passage represents the ways in which groupthink leads to senseless violence. Jan and Mark try to excuse their behavior by stating that Adam was laughing and joking along even as such terrible things were being done to him—and Kelly bleakly suggests that even Adam's complicity in furthering his own abuse is the product of bullying and groupthink's endless, repetitious cycle of violence. Perhaps the most potent example of groupthink in the play is the way in which the members of the group respond to Phil's plan to distance themselves from being associated with Adam's "murder" and instead frame someone else. The teens at the heart of the play are so desperate to avoid being held accountable for Adam's death that they unthinkingly go along with Phil's elaborate—and eerily thorough—plan for framing someone else for Adam's death. Some of the kids even take Phil's suggestions further than he intended them to go, such as when Cathy actually goes to a post office and collects DNA from a man resembling the description of Adam's "murderer," which Phil came up with on a whim. The teens' willingness to submit so wholly and unthinkingly to groupthink reveals their fear of facing the kind of bullying and violence that Adam faced—but it also shows how going along with that very bullying and violence has made them more susceptible to other kinds of conformity that are just as harmful.  Kelly's play is dramatic, over-the-top, and often quite funny—but the message at its heart is deadly serious. In DNA, Kelly warns of the vicious cycle of cruelty and abuse that can occur when peer pressure and groupthink engender violent bullying and deception. - Theme: Guilt. Description: At the start of DNA, a group of teens takes a cruel prank too far—their actions result in what they believe is the death of their classmate Adam. In the weeks following Adam's "death," as the group struggles to maintain their composure in the face of their shame and a widespread public investigation, their guilt nonetheless begins to eat away at them. As Dennis Kelly charts the deterioration of his core group of characters, he ultimately suggests that guilt is a force capable of eroding—and even destroying—the human psyche. There are several characters throughout the play who, oddly, experience no remorse, guilt, or shame—but the ones who do find their mental states rapidly deteriorating, leaving them just as destroyed as those whose lives they've been complicit in ruining. The first major character whose guilt over hiding the truth about Adam's death results in mental deterioration is the kind, sensitive Brian. At the start of the play, Brian stands out within the group as one of its kinder, gentler members. When the news of Adam's supposed death comes to him—along with the mechanics of how it happened—he becomes deeply upset and begins crying. John Tate calls him a "crying little piece of filth," and when Brian responds that he believes they should "tell someone" about what has happened, no one else agrees with him. Over the course of the play, Brian's guilt over keeping quiet worsens. His already fragile mental state worsens, and soon, Brian is doped up on psychiatric medication to cope with his emotions. Reduced to a childlike, disconnected state, Brian giggles maniacally, eats dirt, and suffers an inability to read social cues or understand the basic outline of what's happening to him at any given moment. Towards the end of the play, after discovering that Adam has been alive and clinging to life in the woods, Phil orders Brian to kill Adam by strangling him with a plastic bag. In the wake of actually committing murder, Brian goes truly mad with guilt and grief—and by the very end of the play, Brian's meds are upped once again and he is reduced to a drooling, catatonic mess. The second character whose guilt eats away at her is Leah. At the beginning of the play, Leah is a shallow and self-absorbed girl concerned only with how others perceive her. She is in a very one-sided relationship with her boyfriend Phil, whom she talks to at length despite getting no response from him. She interrogates him endlessly about what he thinks of her: her voice, her appearance, and her social standing. After learning of what has happened to Adam, Leah is terrified more than she is sad. In accordance with her selfish nature, she is determined not to get caught up in the mess and goes along with what's asked of her when it comes to covering up the crime. Later on in the play, however, as Phil shuts Leah out more and more and then eventually orders Brian to murder Adam for real, Leah becomes unable to deal with the guilt she feels over having been complicit in Adam's death. Leah rejects Phil, leaves the school, and cuts off contact with the group—her guilt has eroded the person she once was and forced her out of her old life. The third character who finds his life torn apart by guilt is the swaggering, confident John Tate. Though John Tate seems to be the de facto leader of the group—and an intimidating social presence—at the start of the play, the business with Adam's murder fundamentally changes him. After the man the teens frame for Adam's murder is arrested, John Tate—perhaps realizing the coverup has gone too far—stops associating with the group and even avoids attending school. By the end of the play, the others have heard rumors that he's "found God" and "joined the Jesus Army." John Tate now evangelizes on street corners and in shopping malls—his religious conversion is, ostensibly, the result of his desire to ameliorate his guilt over his involvement in Adam's death while feeling barred from atoning for it or claiming responsibility in any real way. The fourth character who is slowly consumed by guilt—albeit in a strange and barely-perceptible way—is the cold, calculating, aloof Phil. Phil is the play's central and most enigmatic character. Phil is distant, cold, and mostly silent—he is obsessed with food, he rarely speaks (even when spoken to or shouted at), and he opens his mouth only to direct the other members of the group as to what actions they should take in moments of crisis. Phil's intricate plans seem to arrive fully formed, and he apparently has no guilt, qualms, or hesitations as he concocts plans to frame an innocent man for Adam's "death" and, later, to murder Adam for real when he's discovered alive. Phil often eats or drinks through others' pleas for him to answer their questions or respond to him, stopping his snacking only to coolly deliver his robotic instructions at the most crucial of moments. By the end of the play, however, Kelly implies that not even Phil is free from guilt. After Adam's murder and Leah's departure, Phil is seen—for the first time in the play—sitting alone without any food around him. This implies that his guilt, which he is likely unable to acknowledge, has made even his one joy—eating—completely unappealing and perhaps even revolting. Guilt has eroded Phil and changed the person he used to be, even if he remains outwardly much the same. As Dennis Kelly shows how four major characters wrestle with feelings of guilt—feelings they often aren't even able to admit to themselves—he demonstrates how the emotion slowly festers within a person's heart and mind, changing them and sometimes even destroying them from the inside out. Guilt, to Kelly, is a force of nature—and over the course of the play, he suggests that it's better to come clean than to let such a powerful weight slowly crush one's soul. - Theme: Reality and Truth. Description: Though Dennis Kelly's DNA is a fairly straightforward narrative about a group of students who accidentally commit an unspeakable crime, there is also a deeper layer to the play: one which questions the nature of reality and investigates the difference between subjective and objective truth. Throughout the play, Kelly suggests that one's experience of reality is something individualized and totally subjective based on one's perceptions of the truth—and that reality can be manipulated to one's advantage under the right circumstances. There are several instances throughout the play in which the teenage characters at the center of the action ruminate on the nature of their shared reality—and wonder if what they perceive of the world is actually the truth of the world. Their meditations on the nature of reality and truth become ways for them to excuse horrible, heinous acts, and in this way, Kelly demonstrates how the characters are essentially able to bend the reality around them to their will. The most major instance of a character questioning the nature of reality—and thus changing the nature of their own reality—comes shortly after the group realizes that their classmate Adam isn't dead. He's alive but seriously injured, and due to a horrible head wound, he can't remember who he is. He's been living in a hedge in the woods for weeks, eating grass, raw rabbits, and bird carcasses to survive. As Phil—the one who came up with the plan to cover up the group's involvement in Adam's "death"—realizes that the boy is still alive, he decides that in order to preserve the appearance of the group's innocence, they must murder Adam for real. Phil's girlfriend Leah begs Phil not to order the mentally-unstable Brian to kill Adam—or what's become of him—but Phil responds by asking Leah "what difference […] it make[s]" to kill Adam if everyone in town already believes he's dead. Phil's observation in this scene is cruel and evil—but it also reveals a painful and uncomfortable question about the nature of reality. If everyone thinks Adam is dead—if a memorial service has already been held and his "captor" has already been arrested—does killing Adam for real have an impact on anyone other than those involved in the killing? Much like the old riddle of whether a tree falling in an abandoned forest makes any sound at all if that sound cannot be observed or overheard, this scene calls into question the mechanics of how perception creates reality. Phil and the others have constructed a reality in which Adam is dead—and killing him for real makes concrete their careful illusion. When, as the narrative implies, Brian does actually kill Adam, the act will only serve to confirm and cement the reality that the group of teens at the center of the play have already willfully created. There are other moments throughout the play in which characters question the nature of their realities. Leah, a particularly introspective character, frequently wonders about whether human life is a blight upon the earth and ponders the nature of happiness in her one-sided conversations with her boyfriend Phil. In one scene, she experiences an intense moment of déjà vu which unmoors her briefly from reality and causes her to ask Phil whether he thinks life is a repetition of an earlier state of being, and whether human beings are trapped in a set of patterns and behaviors they cannot see or escape. As Leah questions reality more and more often, she begins to detach herself from the cruel Phil and stand up for herself more frequently. Ultimately, she leaves school and abandons the group. Leah has changed her own reality by altering her perception of it and refusing to doom herself to the idea of being stuck with no agency in an endless loop of repetition.  Ultimately, the characters in Dennis Kelly's DNA are forced to live with the crushing burden of the knowledge that the reality they live in is a reality they've created—the line between objective and subjective truths has, for their group, become forever blurred, and as such the edges of their sanity begin to blur as well. Hardly any of the characters are, at the end of the play, living in the reality in which they existed just a few weeks prior: they have manufactured for themselves new, false versions of their lives. - Climax: After painstakingly covering up their accidental murder of their schoolmate Adam, a group of London youths discover a boy who very well may be Adam living in a hedge near the spot where they left him for dead. - Summary: In Part One of the play, several London teens—school friends whose smaller pairings and cliques often come together in one large group—learn a mysterious piece of bad news. Mark and Jan, two nervous worrywarts, warn Leah and Phil, a couple, that their group needs to get together and talk. The verbose, anxious, existential Leah and the silent, constantly snacking Phil follow Mark and Jan to a small woodland area where they all meet up with Lou, John Tate, and Danny. John Tate is clearly the leader of the group—confident and self-assured, he regards himself as a formidable presence at school, and the others seem terrified by his influence. Danny is a strait-laced student who worries that whatever has happened will impact his plans for his future. Lou is a pessimistic girl who's certain they're all doomed. Soon Richard, Cathy, and Brian join the group, and Richard announces that one of their schoolmates—Adam—is dead. As the story of what happened to Adam unfurls, it becomes clear that Mark, Jan, and several others tormented and tortured Adam as a kind of hazing ritual after the boy expressed interest in being their friend. The group's pranks escalated in intensity and danger until Adam fell into a mine shaft at the edge of town. The others now assume he is dead and begin devising ways to cover up their inadvertent murder of their schoolmate. Phil speaks up and rolls out an elaborate plan to make it look as if Adam has been kidnapped. The others are shocked by the specificity of Phil's plan, but he seems confident it will work. As the scene ends, however, Leah worries that their group is in big trouble. In Part Two, Leah's existential thoughts intensify, and she wonders what the purpose of human life on Earth is. She reveals to Phil that she killed her pet rodent Jerry for reasons she can't determine, even as she admits that in the four days since Adam's disappearance, things at school have been better socially. Elsewhere, back in the woods, Danny reports that the man their group described in their false police report as Adam's kidnapper has been detained and brought into custody. Cathy reveals that she has secured DNA evidence against the man by going to a local post office and looking for a man matching the description Phil urged them to provide. Lou and Leah are outraged, and Danny insists they can't let an innocent man go to jail. Brian, who made the original police report, is terrified of having to go back to the station to identify the "suspect," but Phil warns Brian that there will be serious consequences if he doesn't do as he's told and go confirm the man's identity. In Part Three, Mark and Jan come upon Leah and Phil picnicking in a field. Leah is reminiscing about Adam's memorial service, which was held recently, and Phil is eating a waffle. Leah expresses her worry for Brian, who has been so upset that he's been heavily medicated, and for John Tate, who hasn't been seen in weeks. Mark and Jan bring Leah and Phil to the woods—there has been more news. In the woods, Cathy, Brian, Phil, Leah, Mark, Lou, and Jan stand around a boy with a horrible head wound who is dressed like a tramp. Phil instantly recognizes the boy as Adam and greets him. Brian explains that he and Cathy found Adam living in the woods with no memory of what has happened to him. Adam explains that he's been living on leaves and raw rabbit for several weeks. He is clearly in physical and mental distress and has no idea who he is or where he comes from. Phil asks Adam if he wants to come back to society, but the boy doesn't answer. Phil orders Brian to take Adam back to the place he's been living, then orders everyone else to go home and keep quiet about what they've seen. Leah begs Phil to get Adam some help, but Phil warns her that their lives will be ruined if they expose what they've done. When Brian (who is still heavily medicated) returns, Phil instructs him to take a plastic bag and go play a "game" with Adam—he shows Brian how to effectively strangle Adam and kill him for real this time. Leah begs Phil to stop, pointing out that Adam is alive. Phil retorts that if everyone already thinks Adam is dead, it doesn't make a difference if they kill him "again." In Part Four, Mark and Jan discuss Leah's disappearance—they haven't seen her in a long time and have heard rumors she's switched schools. Richard and Phil, meanwhile, sit together in a field and discuss how their school's social environment has changed. John Tate has apparently found God and become an evangelist while Brian has gotten so doped up on his medications that he's nearly catatonic. Their conversation seems to suggest that Phil has left school. Richard begs Phil to come back, but Phil doesn't answer his friend. Richard describes a "big wind of [dandelion] fluff" he saw earlier that day and says it made him think about life on other planets and the purpose of existence. Phil sits silently, unable to respond.

- Genre: Science fiction, detective story, noir - Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Point of view: - Setting: - Character: Rick Deckard. Description: The protagonist of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Rick Deckard is an experienced police officer and bounty hunter, who, during the course of the novel, is sent to hunt down and kill ("retire") six androids that have escaped from Mars. Rick is an introspective thinker given to questioning what his friends and family take for granted. As Rick pursues the androids, he begins to question the morality of what he's doing—in other words, he begins to wonder if androids aren't "people," after all. Furthermore, Rick begins to suspect that he may be an android himself. And yet in spite of his doubts and objections, Rick is a "man of his time"—someone who thoughtlessly subscribes to the main dogmas of his own society. Like all of his peers, he spends all his money buying expensive animals, seemingly for no other reason than a desire to impress his neighbors. In the end, Rick seems to cast aside most of his doubts about the morality of retiring androids: thus, he murders Roy Baty, Irmgard Baty, and Pris Stratton. Yet he seems to have acquired some minimal respect for the value of machines' "lives," and in the final chapter, he describes them as paltry but real. Rick is a classic noir "antihero"—a conflicted, not entirely sympathetic character, who is nevertheless our guide through Dick's bizarre futuristic world. - Character: John Isidore. Description: John Isidore is a slow-thinking young man whose genes have been damaged by radiation, described both as a "special" man and as a "chickenhead." He lives in an abandoned apartment building in San Francisco. John is an active participant in the rituals of Mercerism, a religion that puts him in touch with Wilbur Mercer and supposedly boosts his empathy. Because of his low IQ and poor health, John is unable to leave the Earth for another, better planet. Alone in his apartment, Mercerism is the only thing that gives his life meaning, and the only thing that gives him even a simulacrum of human contact. At times, it's suggested that John is the only moral character in the novel—the only one who sincerely believes that all life (even that of androids) has value, and that other people deserve his respect. In the end, John remains a proud practitioner of Mercerism, despite all the evidence that Mercerism is only a hoax. - Character: Al Jarry / Wilbur Mercer. Description: Wilbur Mercer is a media personality and religious leader who commands millions of followers around the world. His religion, Mercerism, is based around the idea that empathy is mankind's quintessential quality. For this reason, his followers are supposed to join together, feeling each other's emotions and experiencing each other's sensations. Mercer's religion, as Rick Deckard realizes, is morally bankrupt because it has no true "rules" at all—everything is permissible, because Mercer accepts that it's impossible to live a moral life anymore. Toward the end of the novel, it's revealed that Wilbur Mercer isn't a real person at all. Although he appears before his followers as an old, bearded man in a robe, Mercer is just a character, played by a small-time actor named Al Jarry, pretending to bring dead animals back to life. It's left up to the characters to decide whether Mercer's fictitiousness discredits Mercerism altogether—it's possible to argue, as John Isidore does, that the emotional tone of Mercerism has some "truth" to it, even if Mercer himself is a lie. - Character: Rachael Rosen. Description: An android who struggles with problems of empathy, reality, and humanity throughout the novel. Rachael Rosen is introduced to us as the niece of Eldon Rosen, a powerful executive in the Rosen organization. After a few chapters, however, we come to realize that she's an android, implanted with false memories of her "childhood" in order to make her believe that she's human. Rachael is a thoughtful, observant android, and seems to have her own agenda, independent of either Eldon's or Rick's. She seduces Rick and ends up having sex with him, but afterwards, she reveals that she's had sex with many other bounty hunters, with the goal of rendering them incapable of murdering another android. In this way, it's suggested that Rachael has been aware of her android identity for some time now—far longer than either Rick or Eldon believed. As the novel concludes, it appears that Rachael is finally becoming human—ironically, this means that she's cruel, destructive, and petty, pushing Rick's new pet goat off a tall building. - Character: Phil Resch. Description: A police officer at the police station where Garland and Officer Crams work, Phil Resch is one of the most confusing characters in the novel—it's impossible to be sure whether he's an android or a human being (and this is, of course, Dick's point). Phil shows signs of being an android—he's cold, emotionless, and seems to kill without any compunction at all. And yet Phil is also a human being, at least according to the results of Rick Deckard's Voigt-Kampff test. As Rick understands it, Phil is a very cruel, unfeeling kind of human being: he relishes the chance to shoot Garland and later, Luba Luft. In all, Phil's character reminds us of the ambiguity of identity in do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—when people like Phil behave like robots, it's not so easy to tell the difference between a robot and a person. - Character: Iran Deckard. Description: Iran is Rick Deckard's melancholy, taciturn wife. She spends all of her time in their house, and seems to be interested in few things other than buying expensive animals and watching television. In a way, Iran is identical to her husband, minus his doubts about the society they live in—so she uses the mood organ, which is designed to calibrate (i.e., control) her emotions at all times of the day. In spite of her vacuity and empty-headed interest in conspicuous consumption, Iran shows moments of surprising tenderness—at the end of the novel, for example, she seems to care for her husband, even if her love is limited by futuristic consumer culture. - Character: Miss Luba Luft. Description: A female android and talented opera singer living in San Francisco, Luba Luft has no idea that she's an android—as far as she knows, she's a human being who's lived in San Francisco her whole life. In spite of Luba's harmlessness, Rick Deckard is tasked with retiring her immediately—a task he finds very difficult (in the end, it's Phil Resch, Rick's sadistic coworker, who shoots her). In spite of her ignorance of her own nature, Luba Luft could be considered one of the wisest characters in the novel. Her question to Rick, "Have you taken your own test?" prompts Rick to reconsider his own humanity, and provides a powerful reminder of the relativism of humanity and reality. - Character: Eldon Rosen. Description: A powerful executive at the Rosen organization, a large business that manufactures androids. Eldon Rosen only appears in one scene of the novel, but his presence casts a shadow over the entire book. Rosen seems utterly indifferent when Rachael Rosen (who is supposedly his niece) discovers that she's really an android—he has absolutely no sympathy for his company's products. In this way, his behavior sets the tone for a dark, bleak novel in which, contrary to Wilbur Mercer's wishes, nobody seems to have much empathy at all. - Character: Roy Baty. Description: An android, and the leader of a group of androids that escapes from Mars in order to come to San Francisco. Roy Baty is a frightening, intimidating figure, who clearly feels no guilt about murdering human beings. And yet there's also something sympathetic about Roy. He tries, again and again, to "become" human by ingesting drugs designed to make him feel emotional responses, but seemingly none of these drugs work. - Theme: Humanity, Androids, and Empathy. Description: In 2007, the journalist Adam Gopnik wrote a long essay on Philip K. Dick in which he proposed that all of Dick's novels are structured around the same question: "What is human?" Sure enough, this question hangs over every chapter of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In a way, the other four themes of the novel represent four different ways of answering this question (for example, humans are human because they're capable of making memories; because they alter their environments; because they can buy and sell things, etc.).Even though there are many ways to answer the question, "What makes us human?", Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is most interested in one potential answer—humans are human because they're capable of feeling empathy. (The word "empathy" appears nearly 100 times in the book.) In the future, police officers distinguish between humans and androids by administering the Voigt-Kampff test, which is designed to measure one's empathetic reaction to a series of emotional situations. Humans are supposed to respond by displaying empathy—i.e., they're supposed to feel a sense of connection to the people or animals in the hypothetical situations—while androids are supposed to respond with a sense of coldness that borders on psychopathy.The disturbing "joke" of Do Androids Dream is that, for all the talk about the importance of empathy, there doesn't seem to be very much of it going around. The human characters in the novel are cold and short with one another, even when they're friends or spouses. Rick Deckard, the novel's protagonist, is distant with his wife, Iran, and on the one occasion that he shows romantic interest in another woman, Rachel Rosen, his interest is quickly replaced by disgust. Then there are other characters, such as Philip Resch, who are technically human, but are also cruel and totally lacking in empathy. On the flip side, the androids in the novel, such as Pris Stratton, show occasional signs of an emotional connection to other androids. After Pris learns that one of her friends has been "retired"—i.e., murdered by Rick Deckard—she's devastated.One of Dick's most provocative points about empathy and human nature is that empathy isn't an emotional reaction at all—rather, it's a way of uniting humans together against some kind of "other." In Dick's vision of the future, millions of people subscribe to a mysterious religion called Mercerism, which requires its members to grip an "empathy box" that enables them to experience the sensations and feelings of their fellow human beings. As the android Irmgard Baty perceptively points out, the purpose of the empathy box isn't to make human beings kinder or more sensitive—if it is, then the empathy box has clearly failed. Rather, the purpose of the box is to remind human beings that they have a common identity (even if this identity is an illusion) and that they are different from—and superior to—androids. This is a disturbing idea, because it suggests that humans can only respond to Dick's question, "What is human?", with a vague and incomplete answer: "Not an android." It's as if in the future—a world in which there's scarcely any empathy left—humans have begun hunting and killing androids in a desperate attempt to remind themselves of their own humanity. The irony, in short, is that humans confirm their humanity—their empathy—by shooting androids, which is just about the most un-empathetic act imaginable.This doesn't necessarily prove that humans are incapable of empathy—only that there's nothing automatically empathetic about being a human being. In the end, then, Dick simply doesn't have a good answer to his own question. By the same token, the characters in his novel are all trying, in one way or another, to understand what it means to be human, and coming up short. But in Dick's futuristic world—where humans are on the verge of extinction, and where an android can, for all intents and purposes, be human—it becomes increasingly important to try to understand what it means to be human. - Theme: Perception, Reality, and Power. Description: According to Gopnik, the other overarching question of Philip K. Dick's fiction is, "What is real?" In the futuristic version of the U.S. in which Do Androids Dream is set, that question is almost impossible to answer. Powerful corporations manufacture electric animals and people who seem to be "alive," but aren't. To make matters worse, nearly everyone in the future uses drugs that blur the line between reality and hallucination—even Rick Deckard, a police officer, uses a kind of "snuff" while he's on the job. For this reason, as the novel nears its end, it becomes almost impossible to tell which parts of the novel are "really" happening, and which parts are merely imagined. For all intents and purposes, it could be argued that a hallucination is "real," at least as far as the person who hallucinates it is concerned. This prompts a whole series of questions about the relationship between perception and reality. In effect, Do Androids Dream poses a futuristic version of the old Zen mantra, "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around, does it make a sound?"—if a character is an android, but nobody knows it, is he human? In other words—is perception reality?As far as the characters in Do Androids Dream are concerned, the answer to this question is a resounding "No." Even if something in the novel seems to be real in every way—even if it's almost indistinguishable from reality—it can be dismissed as a "fake," a simulacrum of the truth. For this reason, bounty hunters like Rick Deckard hunt down androids posing as real humans—even though, in the end, the only way to truly confirm that they're androids is to test their bone marrow. By the same token, residents of the United States spend large sums of money on "real" pets, even though it's much cheaper to buy a fake pet that looks, sounds, and even smells like the real thing. In the future, precisely because it's become so easy to mimic the real, reality is a priceless commodity, and a source of power.This leads us to one of Dick's most important points about the nature of reality: things are only real if enough people—or enough powerful people—say that they're real. The futuristic law enforcers of San Francisco, to name only one example, assert their power by testing humans to determine whether they're real or fake. Their only real source of control over their suspects is a test designed to distinguish reality from the mere perception of reality. Maybe the best example of this idea is the mood organ that Rick's wife, Iran, uses. The mood organ can control human's emotions: there's a setting on the organ for the emotion of optimism, for the desire to watch TV, etc. Even though these so-called emotions seem less "real" than emotions as we think of them (i.e., the emotions that we feel without the aid of a mood organ), they're real by virtue of the fact that a powerful corporation develops them, names them, and sells them to customers. In fact, the mood organ's emotions may be more real than natural emotions (as far as society is concerned), because they've been validated by a big, powerful business and millions of consumers. My sense of optimism is fragile and indefinable, but the mood organ's sense of optimism is the "real deal"—something everyone can (supposedly) agree upon. In this way, Do Androids Dream suggests that reality might be perception, after all. This helps to explain the book's ambiguous ending, in which Deckard stumbles upon a toad (an incredibly rare animal) in the middle of the desert and has a semi-religious experience. The fact that the toad turns out to be a machine makes no difference: Rick's experience in the desert is the same. If power is the ability to classify what's real and what's not, then reality is just a fable that's been agreed upon. - Theme: Memory. Description: By forming new memories, humans build relationships with each other, mature emotionally, and gain knowledge and wisdom. Without memories, ideas of selfhood and humanity become more difficult to define. But in Do Androids Dream, memory isn't a reliable tool for humans looking to understand their environments. On the contrary, characters' memories seem hazy, and on the rare occasions when characters do remember the past clearly, their memories often turn out to be artificially implanted. Then there are "collective" memories of an entire civilization; these kinds of memories, too, are hazy and unreliable. It's worth understanding the novel's interpretation of memory, and the ramifications for the characters, a little more closely.To begin with, Do Androids Dream makes it clear that memory is extremely unreliable, and this gives the novel a disturbed, paranoid tone. In the future, scientists have learned how to implant characters in people's brains. In this way, scientists can fool androids into believing that they're human beings by giving them artificial memories of a childhood they never had. On multiple occasions, characters who believe that they're human learn that they're actually androids—their memories are just clever illusions. Even the characters in the novel who seem not to be androids, such as Rick Deckard, seem to have few, if any, memories of the past worth sharing. For this reason, it's often unclear to readers how well Rick knows other characters in the book: we don't necessarily know if he's meeting someone for the second time or the 500th. Because he's so familiar with the concept of artificial memory, Rick seems to live in a "perpetual present"—the only information he can trust is what he's experiencing right now.All of this points to the fact that memory is a (and maybe the) critical part of being human—androids realize that they're not human in the same instant that they learn that their memories were implanted, and by the same token, Rick doubts his own humanity because he finds it hard to trust his memories of the past. Much the same could be said of humanity as a whole: people know that there was a great war in the recent past, World War Terminus, but they have no idea what exactly prompted this war, or how it ended. Because humanity's memory of its collective past is cloudy and unreliable, life in the present becomes paranoid, unpredictable, and—it must be said—inhuman. Without a common heritage—a common memory, in other words—humans are alienated from one another, and find it impossible to move forward with their lives.In the end, Dick isn't telling us anything we didn't already know about remembering. Memory, we can all agree, is inherently unreliable: the more time passes, the more our memories of the past distort. In this way Do Androids Dream takes the imperfection of memory to its logical extreme: a world in which almost all memory has disappeared, and the memories that remain are unreliable. - Theme: Animals and the Environment. Description: In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, humans have an uneasy relationship with the natural world. After decades of nuclear war, the natural world is in ruins: lush forests have become inhabitable deserts. Because the state of nature is so dire, pets are extremely valuable, and it's a mark of social status to own a sheep, a goat, or a horse. The relationship between humans, animals, and the environment is even revealed as an important theme in the title of the book itself.In no small part, the characters' obsession with pets is indicative of their deep love and nostalgia for the natural world. It's the basic law of supply and demand: because less of the natural world is available to the human race, animals—i.e., specimens of the natural world—become considerably more valuable. Pets are humans' last point of contact with the environment. Contact with the environment is very important for the characters because civilization has become ubiquitous and nauseating. Life in San Francisco, for instance, is loud and stressful. It's no coincidence that Rick Deckard has a semi-religious experience—arguably the only part in the novel that could be called a moment of enlightenment—while he's far from civilization, wandering through the deserts of Oregon (areas that used to be covered with trees). In short, animals represent a tiny "window" to the natural world—a place for which the inhabitants of the dirty, corporate United States seem rightly nostalgic.And yet humans' relationship with the environment is less symbiotic than Deckard's experience in the desert would suggest. Humans don't just want to enjoy the natural world; they want to dominate it, asserting their own power and ingenuity in the process. By the same logic, humans don't just want to have contact with animals; they want to own them, thereby proving that they have time and the money to spend on the natural world. In the end, Dick steers us toward the cynical conclusion that it's human nature not only to love the environment but also to control it and thus ultimately destroy it. One of the few times in the novel when the android Rachel Rosen demonstrates a recognizably human emotion (spitefulness and cruelty) is when she pushes Rick Deckard's goat off the roof, killing it. There's something disturbingly human about Rachel's act of vengeance: humans feel a tragic instinct to assert their power by conquering and destroying the natural world. In the book, the deserts surrounding San Francisco are concrete proof of mankind's need to control the environment. Moreover, the fact that characters want to colonize other planets—asserting their control over new, unfamiliar environments—suggests that humans haven't learned from their mistakes. - Theme: Commodification and Consumerism. Description: Although Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a work of science fiction, it can also be interpreted as a satire of contemporary American society—a society where everything is for sale and where the mass media ensure that everybody craves the same things.In his novel, Dick depicts a futuristic society in which the art of "keeping up with the Joneses" has gone out of control. In the future, we learn, families still compete with one another to assert their wealth and taste. The difference is that in present-day America (and 1960s America, when Dick was writing), people assert their wealth by buying cars and big houses, but in the future, it's all about buying exotic pets. In a short but revealing conversation with his neighbor, Bill Barbour, Rick Deckard feels a strong sense of envy when Barbour brags that he has enough money to buy a horse: a particularly expensive, desirable pet. Rick's desire to keep up with Barbour and his other neighbors then inspires much of his behavior. After he "retires" three androids and receives a big bonus for doing so, Rick goes to the pet store and buys a goat without so much as a second thought. Even though pets are just the latest form of conspicuous consumption—i.e., not a necessity by any stretch of the imagination—Rick has been trained to believe that he "needs" a pet animal to feel happy, a pretty plausible caricature of the beloved American tradition of outshining one's neighbors.Where does Rick get the idea that he needs to buy an animal? In part, his desire reflects his nostalgia for the natural world (see "Animals and the Environment" theme). And yet Rick's behavior also suggests his imprisonment in a society in which the mass media train everyone to want the same things. From the first page of the book, Dick shows us how, in the future, corporations and shadowy government institutions control the thoughts and desires of ordinary people. Rick's wife, Iran, depends upon a mood organ—i.e., a product she's purchased—to feel emotions of any kind. Her desires are, quite literally, identical to those of other people who have purchased the organ. Later on, we also learn that people in the future subscribe to a religion that emphasizes the importance of empathy—i.e., feeling exactly the same things as others—and also involves using a purchased product (the empathy box). While there's nothing wrong with empathy, it's telling that futuristic societies deify conformity of thought. As Irmgard Baty notes, the idealization of empathy makes it easier to control the masses: when people are encouraged to think the same things, it's more convenient to control what they buy and do. This is the heart of Dick's critique of American culture: the omnipresence of television and radio has pushed people to conform to a consumerist dogma. At its best, social conformity makes humans want to buy certain products; at its worst, it turns them into slaves.Arguably the biggest irony of Do Androids Dream is that the characters are frightened of robots becoming people, when they should be worrying about people turning into robots. Television and mass communication have convinced characters like Rick and Iran Deckard that the only way to be happy is to buy what everyone else is buying, even if these commodities have no practical purpose whatsoever. Dick's satire of contemporary American culture is dead-on and—like most of what's frightening about the novel—not too far removed from reality. - Climax: - Summary: The novel is set in the year 1992 in San Francisco, following an enormous war, World War Terminus, that's destroyed most of the natural world and left Earth's surface dangerously irradiated. People with talent and intelligence are sent to colonize other planets, such as Mars, while those who can't pass the proper tests are left on Earth to eventually die. Because the war destroyed almost all animals, having a pet is the ultimate sign of luxury. Furthermore, science has succeeded in building androids so realistic that it's become virtually impossible to distinguish them from human beings. These androids are used as workers or assistants on other planets, but some escape and live on Earth, disguised as people. The law enforcement officers on Earth try to hunt down these androids and "retire" them—i.e., kill them. Police officers run elaborate psychological tests on suspects. One such test, the Voigt-Kampff, is designed to measure humans' natural empathy—androids, who supposedly have no empathy, can't pass the test. As the novel begins, Rick Deckard, a seasoned police officer, is contemplating buying a real animal to impress his neighbors—he and his wife Iran Deckard own an electric sheep. Meanwhile, we're introduced to a mentally challenged man named John Isidore, a "special," who lives alone in an abandoned apartment building in San Francisco. Isidore is a follower of a strange religion called Mercerism. Followers of Mercerism celebrate empathy by gripping the handles of an "empathy box," allowing them to feel the emotions and sensations of other people. Mercerism was founded by a man named Wilbur Mercer, who appears before his followers as an old, robed man climbing up a steep hill. Rick is summoned to his police station. His colleague, Dave Holden, has just been shot and hospitalized by an android, Polokov, whom Dave was trying to track down. Polokov and five other androids have escaped from Mars, where they were sent to perform basic labor, and come to San Francisco. The androids' model is Nexus-Six, a particularly realistic and unpredictable kind of android. The Rosen organization, the business that manufactures the androids, wants Rick to "retire" them quickly and quietly. Rick flies to the Rosen Association Building in Seattle, where he meets with Eldon Rosen, a company executive, and his niece, Rachael Rosen. Rachael asks Rick to run the Voigt-Kampff test on her, and Rick does so. Slowly, he realizes that Rachael is really an android. When he accuses Rachael, she and Eldon deny this, and suggest that the Voigt-Kampff test is a poor one. But Rick stands his ground, and it becomes clear that Rachael really is an android after all. Eldon calmly explains that Rachael had no idea she was anything but human—she'd had artificial memories implanted in her brain. Meanwhile, John Isidore, who works for an electric animal repair company, meets a mysterious woman named Pris Stratton. Pris seems unfamiliar with culture on Earth—in particular, she doesn't know who Buster Friendly, a famous TV personality, is. Back in San Francisco, Rick crosses paths with a Soviet police officer who claims to be trying to hunt down androids, too. Rick realizes that the police officer is really Polokov, and Rick shoots him. Next, Rick tracks an android named Luba Luft to the opera house. Rick meets Luba and learns that she, like Rachael, believes that she's a human being. Suddenly, Luba points a laser gun at Rick and calls the police. A police officer named Crams takes Rick to a police station Rick has never seen before. At the station, Crams and his colleagues, Garland and Phil Resch, interrogate him. When Rick is alone in the police station with Garland, Garland whispers that Resch is really an android, but doesn't know it—when Resch finds out the truth, he'll probably kill himself. Then Resch walks back into the room and kills Garland, telling Rick that Garland is an android. Resch seems to have no idea that he's anything but a human being. Together, Resch and Rick sneak out of the police station—which, according to Resch, is built and inhabited entirely by rogue androids. Rick is disturbed and confused by what he's seen—he can't help but wonder whether he is really a human. Back at the opera house, Resch and Rick track Luba to a museum, where Resch kills Luba in an especially brutal, sudden manner. Rick and Resch decide to administer human-android tests on one another. Rick determines that Resch is human—he's just a particularly cold, psychopathic kind of human. Resch determines that Rick really is human. Meanwhile John Isidore gets to know Pris. She explains that she and her android friends have come from Mars, a barren, sad place. She invites her two remaining android friends, Roy Baty and Irmgard Baty, to live with her and John. Rick has made 3,000 dollars by killing three androids. He immediately spends his money on a real pet goat. Afterwards, he and Iran grip their empathy box together and hear Mercer telling them that it's impossible to live morally in modern times. Rick gets a call from Rachael Rosen, and they agree to meet in a hotel room. In the hotel, Rachael and Rick get drunk. Rachael tries to convince Rick not to retire the three remaining androids. Rick and Rachael have sex, and afterwards, Rachael reveals the truth to Rick: she's known that she's an android for a long time, and has been secretly having sex with every android bounty-hunter in the city to ensure that they develop empathy for their prey. No bounty hunter has ever continued killing robots after having sex with her—except for Resch. Furious, Rick threatens to kill Rachael, but then realizes he can't. Rick tracks down the androids to John Isidore's apartment. In the apartment, Pris, Roy, and Irmgard watch a TV program in which Buster Friendly exposes Mercerism as a hoax—Wilbur Mercer is just a movie extra posing behind film sets. John finds this news upsetting, but claims that Mercerism will live on. Rick arrives at the apartment and kills Roy, Irmgard, and Pris. His final words to John Isidore are "Don't take it so hard." Rick has killed six androids in 24 hours—a record. He'll have plenty of money to buy pets now. Instead of returning to Iran, he flies out to the deserts of Oregon (areas that used to be beautiful forests). In the desert, Rick takes futuristic drugs and has a vision in which he fuses with Mercer and climbs a steep hill, but can't quite make it to the top. In the desert, Rick is amazed to find a toad—a rare, exotic animal. He takes the toad back to Iran, but Iran quickly recognizes that it's just an electric fake. Confused and exhausted, Rick goes to sleep. While he sleeps, Iran calls the pet store and orders electric flies for the toad to eat. She explains, "My husband is devoted to it."

- Genre: Novel - Title: Don Quixote - Point of view: Third person omniscient, first person. - Setting: Spain, at the beginning of the 17th century. - Character: Don Quixote de la Mancha. Description: A poor hidalgo of nearly fifty named Alonso Quixano, he is a lonely, bookish man with nearly no family and no discernible past, who turns himself through the power of fantasy (or insanity) into a noble knight errant, sometimes also known as the Knight of the Sorry Face or the Knight of the Lions. Quixote is the product of his ideals straining against reality, a righter of wrongs and a comical fumbler. For the first half-century of his life Quixote stays home and reads fiction, from which he derives all his knowledge of the world. When he leaves home, he must face the irreparable differences between the world of chivalry books and the overwhelming, sensuous, contradictory reality of 17th century Spain. Not only that - he must face the disdain and mockery of everyone who wants to disabuse him of his ideals. The difficulties of the world, and the psychological and physical humiliations that Quixote must endure at the hand of his friends, finally extinguish his fantasies. - Character: Sancho Panza. Description: Sancho is a peasant who lives in Quixote's village, and he is Quixote's faithful squire. Sancho's transformation over the course of the two parts of the history is an astonishing one. In the beginning, he is a coarse, greedy, gluttonous, big-bellied peasant – or, at least, that is his part to play. He is illiterate and ignorant, and he finds Quixote's ideas mystifying and irrelevant. But as he observes Quixote's marvelous, hopeless, inexplicable courage, his distrust turns to affection and admiration. He begins to listen closely to Quixote's wild-eyed speeches, and he finds them to be beautiful and true. He admires Quixote's intelligence and kind spirit. By the beginning of the second part, he has begun to take Quixote's ideas about self-making to heart; he, too, can be intelligent, big-hearted, and idealistic, if he chooses. Slowly, blunderingly, he does become intelligent and big-hearted. By the end of the novel, he has turned into a wise arbiter, a fine judge of human nature. - Character: Dulcinea del Toboso. Description: Quixote's beloved. On the one hand, she is a hearty peasant girl named Aldonza de Lorenzo from a neighboring village. On the other hand, she is a beautiful, ethereal princess, endowed with every possible feminine virtue and beauty. She is the height of Quixote's fantasies, the center of his chivalrous worldview, his strength and justification. Her mystery, her perfection, and her absence make her a god-like figure. - Character: Sansón Carrasco. Description: A nosy student who joins the priest and the barber in their quest to put an end to Quixote's knight-errantry. His desire to improve Quixote's mental health becomes mixed with a desire for revenge. He sometimes masquerades as the Knight of the Spangles as well as the Knight of the White Moon. - Theme: Truth and Lies. Description: At the heart of Quixote's disagreement with the world around him is the question of truth in chivalry books. His niece and housekeeper, his friends the barber and the priest, and most other people he encounters in his travels tell Quixote that chivalry romances are full of lies. Over and over again, Quixote struggles to defend the truthfulness of the stories he loves. In that struggle, he begins to redefine conventional notions of truth in ways that align closely with the philosophical trends of the Enlightenment. An observation can be called 'true' in at least two ways. Its truthfulness can lie either in its correspondence to objective external reality, or in its correspondence to subjective inner experience. Most characters in the novel refer to the former version of truth, while Quixote and Sancho usually refer to the latter. The first kind of truth is a collective truth, validated by shared experience. If we all see and experience an object in the same way, then it is true that the object exists, and that it possesses the qualities we've all observed. The second kind of truth is more private, and it is validated only by its resonance with the observer's imagination and worldview. Cervantes satirizes the objective, collective kind of truth in the episode with barber 2, who comes to believe that his saddle and basin are something other than what he sees simply because the people around him have defined them otherwise. The episode shows that the supposedly objective collective reality is actually subject to strange, willful transformations. Cervantes also satirizes that sort of truth in his portrayals of narrow-minded characters with stubborn, myopic ideas. The alternative, imaginative kind of truth, which varies from person to person, finds its main spokesperson in Quixote. For Quixote, chivalry stories are true because people believe in them, not the reverse. He describes truth as something palpable and sustaining, a kind of imaginative warmth and brightness. And he believes that truth is something to aspire to, a vision of the world as it should be. But the book doesn't simply describe the victory of private truth over collective truth – it is much more ambivalent and complicated. The two kinds of truth create increasing tension in Quixote's imagination, because he finds that living only by private truth is painful, inconvenient, and occasionally unethical. The breaking point, for Quixote, comes just after his encounter with the troupe of actors, when he admits to Sancho that one must look past appearance to find truth – this time, he means collective, objective truth. Quixote tries and fails to reconcile the two kinds of truth, and his failure leads to the novel's tragic end. - Theme: Literature, Realism, and Idealism. Description: In the first half of the novel, Quixote and Sancho seem like caricatures of idealism and realism. Philosophical idealism holds that reality is primarily a set of ideas, private mental constructs; political idealism holds that ideas can meaningfully transform the human world. Philosophical realism holds that reality is primarily material, and that its qualities exist independently of human perception and interpretation. Quixote sees the world around him as a set of beliefs about honor, goodness, gallantry, and courage, and as an opportunity for social change on a large scale; Sancho sees a world filled with detail, with sounds, smells, and textures, and as an opportunity to eat well and sleep deeply. Quixote is tall and skinny, a stereotypical dreamer, while Sancho is squat and round, a bit of a glutton, a lover of earthly things. Quixote tries to fit the world into a set of pre-determined rules, while Sancho faces each event on its own terms. In parallel with this philosophical scenario, the novel engages with notions of literary realism. The novel as a whole mocks the absurdities, omissions, and general failures of realism in chivalry novels, because its premise is a character who tries to live in the world as though chivalry novels were perfectly realistic. Quixote's endless difficulties and humiliations can be traced to the failures of realism in chivalry tales. But though the narrator acknowledges that chivalry tales are unrealistic, he also makes fun of characters who believe that literature should be realistic exclusively. The priest, especially, is the target of this mockery. The priest's conversations with the canon and with the innkeeper show that any one person's attempt to define realism in literature will necessarily fail to be objective, and will instead reflect that person's private vision of the world. The narrator's disdain for the priest's ideas of literary realism is also a rejection of philosophical realism. These realisms don't take into account the one consistent truth of the novel – the idea that the world is a collection of different perspectives. Yet the narrator does not come out squarely on one side or the other; the world he creates is tangled, and gives no easy answers. Like public and private truth, realism and idealism must ultimately be integrated, until the difference between them almost disappears. Quixote and Sancho do not remain stereotypes, with distinct sets of qualities: they grow out of their stereotypes into more complete human beings. - Theme: Madness and Sanity. Description: Quixote is considered insane because he "see[s] in his imagination what he didn't see and what didn't exist." He has a set of chivalry-themed hallucinations. But then, they are not quite hallucinations, which by definition occur without any external stimulus. They are distorted perceptions of real objects and events. To see giants instead of windmills is, in a way, just a very peculiar interpretation of large, vaguely threatening objects in motion. And many other instances of Quixote's madness – his rigid principles, his obsession with knighthood – are also peculiarities. The priest and the barber, who persecute Quixote in the guise of well-wishers trying to restore his sanity, are simply trying to stamp out his unsettling peculiarity. They are conducting a witch-hunt in the timeless manner of narrow-minded people threatened by strangeness. Quixote's madness is ambiguous and paradoxical, because he both and does not see; he sees the giants in his imagination, but he does not hallucinate giants in the world outside. His madness consists in his trusting his imagination over his perception, and his imagination is captivated by the values of chivalry books. His madness is a state of thrall to a coherent imagined world. But in the course of his adventures, that world loses its coherence: it is shaken by internal inconsistencies and by the world's complications and contradictions. When Quixote declares on his deathbed that he is finally sane, he means that the imagined world has lost its grip on him, and he is left with a chilling blankness that cannot sustain him. - Theme: Intention and Consequence. Description: For Quixote, gaps between intention and consequence mark the failures of the chivalric way of life. Quixote tries to help others by following the elaborate conventions outlined in chivalry novels, but his efforts often backfire – most obviously in the episode with the shepherd boy, who is beaten even more severely after Quixote intervenes. The first few times Quixote's efforts backfire, he defends his actions by claiming, in effect, that intention is more important than consequence – that a knight's duty is to react courageously, not to judge precisely. But as negative consequences pile up, Quixote begins to alter his reasoning. When he observes that appearances can be deceitful, he acknowledges that a person has a responsibility to look past the traps and illusions of appearance to a more solid foundation of truth. If appearances can be deceitful, then a knight should not act impulsively because someone or something looks sinister – he must dig deeper to identify the most ethical course of action. This is a difficult task, and by the end of the novel it seems to overwhelm Quixote. He despairs to see that each event is a tangled ball of motives and desires, to realize that his chivalry rulebook is not an adequate guide to the world, after all. - Theme: Self-Invention, Class Identity, and Social Change. Description: One of the first scenes of the novel is Quixote's self-naming. The scene is a little comical, like a child renaming herself after her favorite cartoon character, yet it's also extraordinary. An aging, poor, frail man claims for himself the power to remake himself entirely, merely on the strength of his belief. He is blissfully indifferent to his own past, his capacities, or the constraints of his situation; he becomes what he wishes to be instantaneously, almost like a god. Quixote believes that identities and societies are always in flux, always about to be changed by the force of ideals. He believes that each person should be valued on the strength of her character, not on the circumstances of her birth; he thinks that every person, rich or poor, nobleman or peasant, can become good, brave, and courteous, despite the social boundaries that fence us into various stereotypes and stations. But Quixote's ambitions as a knight are not restricted solely to his own achievements and personal transformations. He wants to bring chivalry and all its kindnesses and virtues to a world that has grown cynical, selfish, and unimaginative. So, just as he changes himself into what he wishes to be, he changes the world into what he wishes it to be. Since the new world he imagines differs a great deal from the real world that surrounds him, other people consider him insane. But it is a deeply honorable insanity – the sort of insanity that attends every major social change, every fight for justice. Though Quixote doesn't survive his battle with reality, he achieves many small, unexpected victories, and his biggest victory by far is the popularity of the first half of the history. When people all over the world read The Ingenious Hidalgo, the idea of "quixotry" is born into the public imagination, and the world is changed just a little in Quixote's image. - Climax: Part I has an early climax: Quixote's battle with the windmills. In Part II, the climax takes place either during Quixote's real defeat at the hands of the Knight of the White Moon, or during his imaginative defeat, when he fails to see a castle in place of an inn. - Summary: A middle-aged man named Alonso Quixano, a skinny bachelor and a lover of chivalry romances, loses his mind and decides to become a valiant knight. He names himself Don Quixote de la Mancha, names his bony horse Rocinante, and gives his beloved the sweet name Dulcinea. In a few days' time, Don Quixote puts on a rusty suit of armor and sets out on his first sally. He is knighted at an inn, which he takes to be a castle, defends a young shepherd from his angry master, and receives a beating from some merchants, who are ignorant of the rules of knight-errantry. He returns to his village to recover. While Quixote is sleeping off his injuries, his friends the priest and the barber decide to burn most of his chivalry books, which they blame for his madness and recent injuries. Quixote takes this to be the work of evil enchanters, who generally plague knights errant. He enlists a peasant named Sancho Panza to be his squire, and they set off for the second sally. In their travels, Sancho and Quixote encounter many imaginary enemies – giants that turn out to be windmills, enchanters that turn out to be angry muleteers, abductors who are peaceful friars. Wherever they go, people mock them and give them beatings, because their ideas are so strange and ridiculous. They free a group of prisoners, who thank them by pelting them with stones. They meet all sorts of interesting strangers, many of whom are involved in unhappy love affairs. They attend the funeral of a man who died of love for a beautiful shepherdess, and they inadvertently help to reunite several estranged couples. A large, motley cast of characters assembles at a small inn, where misunderstandings and reconciliations follow one another at lighting speed. The barber and the priest disguise themselves and drag Quixote back to the village in a wooden cage, hoping to cure his madness. At the end of part one, he is bedridden and down at heart. Part two finds Quixote a month older, and eager to set out on his third sally. He learns from the student Carrasco that his adventures thus far have been recorded in a very popular chivalry romance, which has made him and Sancho very famous. Within a few days, Quixote and Sancho set out for El Toboso to obtain Dulcinea's blessing. But neither of them knows where Dulcinea lives, because there is no such person in real life – only a peasant girl named Aldonza, very unlike the ethereal princess of Quixote's imagination. To mend this inconsistency, Sancho tells Quixote that a coarse-looking peasant girl they meet on the road is, in fact, the enchanted Dulcinea. Quixote is miserable to see his beloved take such an incongruous shape. When they get back on the road, Quixote battles with the Knight of the Forest; this stranger is actually Carrasco in disguise, trying to trick Quixote into returning to the village. Quixote wins the battle, and Carrasco slinks away in shame. Quixote and Sancho Panza have several adventures: they stay with a gentleman, attend a lavish wedding, and investigate the Cave of Montesinos, where Quixote claims to have seen magical, implausible sights. They become friends with a Duke and Duchess, who are fans of the first part of the history. The Duke and Duchess give them an extravagant welcome, but they play many cruel tricks on them. In one elaborate scenario, an "enchanter" tells the friends that Sancho must lash himself thousands of times if Dulcinea is to be disenchanted. When the Duke finds out that Quixote has promised Sancho an island as a reward for his service, he makes Sancho the governor of a small town. He expects to humiliate the illiterate, ignorant peasant, but Sancho turns out to be a wise and gifted ruler. After a week, though, Sancho tires of his difficult responsibilities and begins to miss life as Quixote's squire. He resigns, and he and Quixote resume their adventures. The two friends continue to meet many interesting strangers. They become friends with a gallant captain of thieves and a wealthy gentleman in Barcelona. Quixote battles with a mysterious Knight of the White Moon. It is Carrasco; this time he wins the battle, and as his prize demands that Quixote and Sancho return to the village. Quixote grows sadder and sadder, and begins to lose hope of Dulcinea's disenchantment. When they return to the village, Quixote becomes very sick. After a long sleep one day, he announces that he has regained his sanity. He now scorns knighthood and detests chivalry romances. There is no more Don Quixote; he is Alonso Quixano the Good. Soon afterward, he dies.

- Genre: Short story, Dark Romanticism, Gothic fiction - Title: Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment - Point of view: Third person - Setting: Dr. Heidegger's study - Character: Dr. Heidegger. Description: Dr. Heidegger is an enigmatic old medical doctor who performs an experiment on his four elderly friends to test the hypothesis that youth is inseparable from folly. Though Dr. Heidegger is a scientist, his study is filled with magical objects and his experiment involves magical water from the Fountain of Youth. Therefore, Dr. Heidegger's outlook is not wholly rational, despite him being a doctor. Furthermore, though Dr. Heidegger is trying to prove a moral hypothesis—that morality is associated with age—the morality of Dr. Heidegger's own behavior is left open-ended. On the one hand, Dr. Heidegger seems moral because he does not drink the magical water, so he does not succumb to foolish behavior. On the other hand, though, he baits his elderly friends into indulging their worst impulses. At the end of the story, Dr. Heidegger announces that he will never drink from the Fountain of Youth, suggesting that he had considered doing so, but wanted to witness its effects for himself before deciding. Whether this is wise or cruel, Hawthorne never explicitly says. Dr. Heidegger was once in love with Sylvia Ward and was engaged to marry her before she died. - Character: Widow Wycherly. Description: Widow Wycherly (whose first name is actually Clara) was a beautiful woman in her youth, but has lived in "deep seclusion" for many years because a scandal ruined her reputation and turned the townspeople against her. When she drinks from the Fountain of Youth, she becomes beautiful again, and the other three subjects of the experiment vie for her attention and for the right to dance with her. Her vanity is her primary character trait; she spends half of the story preening in front of a mirror, and when she grows old again, says she would rather die than be old and ugly. - Character: Colonel Killigrew. Description: Colonel Killigrew "wasted his best years … in pursuit of sinful pleasures," meaning that, at the very least, he was probably an alcoholic—and now he suffers the negative effects of his behavior, both physically and spiritually. When he drinks from the Fountain of Youth, he becomes intoxicated and sings drinking songs. He is the most aggressive of the men in the experiment in his pursuit of Widow Wycherly. - Character: Sylvia Ward. Description: Sylvia Ward was once the fiancée of Dr. Heidegger, but she died on the eve of their wedding after taking some of Dr. Heidegger's medicine by mistake. Her portrait hangs in his study, and is thought to be enchanted. She gave Dr. Heidegger the rose that he revives at the beginning of the story using water from the Fountain of Youth. - Theme: Youth, Old Age, and Death. Description: "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" is a moralistic story that cautions readers about the folly of youth. In the experiment of the story's title, Dr. Heidegger offers his four elderly subjects—all of whom made ruinous mistakes when they were young—the opportunity to make their bodies young again by drinking water from the Fountain of Youth. By seeing how elderly people react to feeling young, Dr. Heidegger hopes to determine whether a young person—even one who has already learned the lessons of old age—is capable of acting maturely. The results of the experiment, of course, confirm Dr. Heidegger's hypothesis: youth is inseparable from vanity, immaturity, and folly. To prove his hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt, Dr. Heidegger tries to coach his subjects into proving him wrong. As they eagerly await the water, he cautions them to use "the experience of a lifetime to direct you…through the perils of youth," reminding them to maintain their virtue and wisdom as they transform. His subjects, however, brush off his warning as ridiculous, thinking that they could never repeat their mistakes, since they have learned in their old age "how closely repentance treads behind the steps of error." Of course, as soon as the subjects' bodies become more youthful, they revert to their most foolish and immoral behaviors: political scheming, vanity, greed, and sinful indulgence. They mock the elderly and the men fight one another for the attentions of the only woman, knocking over the precious water in the process (symbolizing the precarious and fleeting nature of youth). Not even this foolishness dampens their enthusiasm for youth, though, as once the subjects return to their true ages, they all agree to go to Florida so that they might drink constantly from the Fountain of Youth. Overall, youth proves to be intoxicating and unhealthy for the subjects. In contrast to his subjects, Dr. Heidegger values the wisdom of old age more than the beauty and recklessness of youth. He hints at this twice before his subjects drink the water, first, by saying that he won't participate in the experiment because "having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young again," and second in his initial instruction to his subjects not to forget the virtue and wisdom of age. The wilted rose Dr. Heidegger revives also shows his appreciation for his own maturity. The rose, given to him by his fiancée who died on the eve of their wedding fifty-five years ago, blooms in the water and then wilts again. Instead of mourning his old losses anew, however, Dr. Heidegger simply remarks that he loves the rose as much in its wilted state as in its "dewy freshness." The rose, then, is a symbol of Dr. Heidegger's acceptance—and even appreciation—of the passage of time and its effects. Heidegger, as a learned man, seems to see youth as a series of experiments that, through trial and error, have made him a much better version of himself. The correctness of this belief is confirmed for him at the end of the experiment when he resolves that he would never drink the water himself, for he wants to avoid the folly of his subjects. Hawthorne, then, forcefully argues for the moral superiority of old age over youth, since the elderly are more restrained in their choices and behaviors. Notably, this restraint seems to be physical more than mental—transforming the subjects' bodies without transforming their minds and memories still makes them behave as foolishly as they once did. Thus, the wisdom of age is something to be cherished and protected, rather than taken for granted. Furthermore, the folly of youth seems to have enduring consequences, since the mistakes of the subjects' youths have made them bitter and miserable in old age, and their return to old age after drinking the water does not restore them to a mature resignation to their fate—it leaves them almost hungover, desperately and foolishly planning a trip to Florida to find the Fountain of Youth. For Hawthorne, then, youth is a dangerous and fleeting stage of life to be learned from, not one to revisit or admire. - Theme: Science and the Supernatural. Description: In "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," Hawthorne blurs the distinction between science and magic. The objects in Dr. Heidegger's study that are traditionally "scientific" (the human skeleton in the closet, the bust of Hippocrates, the volumes of books) possess magical qualities, and Dr. Heidegger's science experiment—which one might expect to be fully governed by reason—involves the magical properties of the water from the Fountain of Youth. This comingling of science and the supernatural suffuses the entire story, upending the traditionally stark distinction between science and magic—a distinction, it's worth noting, that many of Hawthorne's readers would have considered to be morally significant. Generally speaking, Puritan-influenced New England was not a friendly place to practitioners of magic (think, for instance, of the Salem witch trials). However, far from disparaging Heidegger's use of magic, Hawthorne portrays Heidegger as the only character in the story with any real moral standing, associating him with wisdom, virtue, and reason. Given the era's moral prejudice against magic and the scant but illuminating details about Dr. Heidegger's medical practice, however, it's impossible not to wonder whether Hawthorne's characterization of Heidegger as moral is meant to be taken at face value. For instance, it's ethically questionable to subject four elderly people to an experiment in which they will almost certainly become intoxicated and act like fools. The presence of Dr. Heidegger's bust of Hippocrates (the father of medicine and medical ethics) underscores the strained ethics of the experiment, particularly since doctors who take the Hippocratic oath are sworn to do no harm to patients, and Dr. Heidegger's experiment seems to cause psychological damage. There is also the slight implication that the death of Heidegger's fiancée may have occurred under similar circumstances. The narrator writes that, "being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions, and died on the bridal evening." Therefore, despite Hawthorne's portrayal of Dr. Heidegger as moral, nineteenth century readers would be unlikely to wholly accept this characterization. Dr. Heidegger—a practitioner of a supernatural and morally dubious form of science—would have likely alarmed readers, since any suggestion that science and magic could coexist for a moral good would seem menacing and even blasphemous. Further undermining Dr. Heidegger's credentials as a morally upright, rational scientist is the fact that his science experiment is notably unscientific. While Dr. Heidegger aims to scientifically test his hypothesis that youth necessarily leads to folly, his methodology is haphazard. For instance, he tries to coach his subjects before the experiment, reminding them that they should rely on their wisdom to avoid the perils of youth. Though they disregard this advice, Dr. Heidegger's interference undermines the integrity of the experiment's result. Furthermore, the premise of the experiment is that the wisdom of old age evaporates in the face of youth, but the experiment's subjects are never portrayed as wise to begin with, even in their old age. Thus, their immature behavior after drinking the water hardly proves Dr. Heidegger's hypothesis. Finally, the conclusion that Dr. Heidegger draws from his experiment is a moral one, rather than a rational inference. "If the fountain gushed at my very doorstep," he proclaims to his guests, "I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it…. Such is the lesson have taught me." In short, Dr. Heidegger's conclusion is not that endowing his subjects with youth did what he expected, but rather that he's pleased with himself for his moral commitment to avoiding the delirium of his subjects. However, it would be a mistake to assume that Hawthorne himself was unaware of the sloppiness of Dr. Heidegger's "scientific" methodology. On the contrary, it is possible that Hawthorne's intention was to subtly cast doubt on Dr. Heidegger's morality by showing him engaged in an ethically and scientifically dubious experiment. If that's true, then the moral that Hawthorne might at first seem to be espousing (that the wisdom of age should be valued and the folly of youth should be feared) is not, in fact, the deepest moral of the story. Hawthorne was deeply impacted by the witch trials of the 17th century, which were characterized by judges and religious figures performing pseudo-scientific experiments on women to determine whether they were, in fact, witches (such as throwing them into water to see if they would drown). Perhaps, then, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" is not an allegory about old age and youth, but rather a comment on the dangers of unexamined moral superiority and the ways people rationalize their own arrogance, cruelty, and superstition. - Theme: Reality and Illusion. Description: In "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," Hawthorne allows for ambiguity about whether the story's supernatural events are literally occurring, or whether they are all an illusion. On the one hand, the story's many supernatural details—the rose un-wilting, the butterfly coming off the floor, the skeleton rattling, or the wrinkles fading away—are described so vividly that Hawthorne seems to be asking readers to believe that they are literally occurring. On the other hand, everything "supernatural" that occurs could be interpreted to have been a mere illusion—either the product of drunkenness, deceit, or an unreliable narrator. The deft ambiguity of the story suggests that Hawthorne deliberately lays the groundwork for a double interpretation, thereby unsettling a reader's assumptions about the reliability of their own perceptions. Hawthorne gives multiple indications throughout the story that the elderly characters' reversion to youth may not be literally true. One possibility is that the narrator is unreliable. Hawthorne explicitly raises this at the beginning of the story when he writes (in the narrator's voice) that "if any passages of the present tale should startle the reader's faith, I must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction-monger." The narrator also twice interjects to ask directly whether what the characters are experiencing is real or illusory. This opens the door to interpreting not just the fantastical details of the story, but the entire story itself, as an elaborate rumor. Another possible explanation for the story's events is that the water from the Fountain of Youth is actually alcohol. The characters drink the bubbly water out of champagne glasses, and the narrator states that its effects were, at first, indistinguishable from the intoxicating flush of wine. After three glasses of the water, one of the characters has taken to singing a drinking song, and a general state of madness has taken hold of the room. All told, this leaves open the possibility that the physical transformation experienced by Dr. Heidegger's subjects didn't actually occur at all, but was merely a drunken whimsy. It's also possible that Dr. Heidegger is manipulating the subjects of his experiment using stagecraft and illusion. When the four friends see him bring a rose back to life, they're not impressed, remarking that they've seen more convincing staged magic tricks before. At one point during the three friends' jealous brawl over Widow Wycherly, the narrator remarks that the enchanted mirror on the wall had reflected their true forms: "three old, gray, withered grandsires" fighting over "the skinny ugliness of a shriveled grandam." The detail again raises the question of whether the four friends had really undergone a magical transformation, or merely been under the delusion that they had. Lastly, the narrator explicitly calls into question the sanity of all the characters when he remarks at the outset that "Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves." It is therefore unclear whether the story that follows is an objective treatment of what took place, or whether it is meant to capture the experience of the characters, who are known to have an unstable relationship with reality. The fact that Hawthorne was so deliberately ambiguous about whether the events described literally occurred presents yet another complication to the moralistic aspects of the story. If the whole thing was brought about by alcoholic intoxication, for instance, does the story contain a hidden message about temperance? (The story did emerge, it should be noted, at the same time that the temperance movement was gaining broad support in America). Or, if the entire thing was an illusion, how can the reader take seriously Dr. Heidegger's moralizing about the virtues of old age? Ultimately, whether the moralism of the story has any teeth depends entirely upon how the reader interprets what actually occurred—but coming to a clear interpretation is a task that Hawthorne makes nearly impossible. - Theme: Mistakes and Morality. Description: "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" can be—and often is—read as an allegory: a tale meant to deliver a clear moral message. On the surface, it's easy to support an argument that this story is an allegory about the virtues of learning from one's youthful mistakes. Dr. Heidegger's four friends are all characters whose reputations were tarnished in some way by mistakes they made in their youth. He chooses them as subjects because he wishes to see whether they will learn from their mistakes when given a second chance to be young. The three men in Dr. Heidegger's experiment were once romantic rivals, competing for the affection of Widow Wycherly (the fourth friend in the experiment). For this reason, they make good test subjects: they have a history together, and they can either learn from it, or be doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Dr. Heidegger, before commencing the experiment, offers the four friends an opportunity to reflect on their mistakes and give some advice to their younger selves—an opportunity which the friends decline, thinking they would never repeat the same mistakes. This leads Dr. Heidegger to remark that he has chosen his subjects well, implying that he had anticipated the chaos that is about to unfold. As soon as the four friends have become young again, each reverts to their own foolish, youthful ways: preening in front of the mirror, hatching half-baked business schemes, fighting violently over their beautiful mutual friend. Ultimately, not one of the four friends' behavior suggests they have reflected on the mistakes of their youth enough to avoid making the same mistakes again. Their immaturity is confirmed by their joint decision to travel to the Fountain of Youth and drink its waters forever: they don't wish to learn, they wish only to live comfortably in the grasp of illusion. This reveals the story's clearest moral message: that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Though this message is superficially clear, a deeper examination of the structural flaws of the experiment complicates the story's moral message. Dr. Heidegger and his subjects seem to be fundamentally different types of older people. While Dr. Heidegger learned from his minor youthful mistakes and is living a passionate and successful—if eccentric—elderly life, his subjects seem to have made mistakes so severe that they have been ruined by their pasts. Hawthorne describes them as bitter and miserable with such difficult lives that they no longer even want to be alive. There's little reason to believe, then, that these are the kinds of older people who would keep their wits about them when made young again. Though Dr. Heidegger seems to seek confirmation through the experiment that he should never drink from the Fountain of Youth, he also seems to have lived a reasonably upright youth, so it's not clear that he would actually have become foolish upon drinking the water. After all, he—unlike his subjects—did not ruin his happiness and reputation through youthful recklessness, so it's not logical that he would be in danger of repeating mistakes he never made. Furthermore, there's evidence that Dr. Heidegger's subjects—even in old age—never had much wisdom or self-knowledge to lose, since they brushed aside Dr. Heidegger's pre-experiment caution so carelessly, insisting that they would never revert to the bad behavior of their youth. Meanwhile, Dr. Heidegger—who is wise enough to not only predict the actions of others, but to refuse the intoxicating water lest it erase his hard-won wisdom—seems to have always been reasonably measured in his choices. Thus, Hawthorne's opposition between youth and old age seems to actually be better described as an opposition between those who are capable of learning from youth and those who can only be ruined by it. Seen this way, the experiment is perhaps less an attempt to test a hypothesis than a cruel demonstration of the innate immorality of Dr. Heidegger's wretched subjects. "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" is a story that rewards its readers for probing deeper into the contradictions, presumptions, and inconsistencies of which the story and its characters are full. Peeling back the many layers of the story reveals a work that, quite contrary to what the reader might think based on a first read, resists an easy or uncomplicated moral message. - Climax: The vase of water gets knocked over - Summary: Dr. Heidegger, an elderly medical doctor who is the subject of many fantastical rumors, invites four friends into his study to conduct an experiment on them. The friends, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, Mr. Gascoigne, and Widow Wycherly, are all elderly people whose reputations have been tarnished in one way or another. The three men, moreover, were once bitter rivals, competing for the affection of Widow Wycherly, who was very beautiful as a young woman (but is now, like all her friends, quite decrepit). All (including Dr. Heidegger) are regarded by others to have gone a bit out of their minds, having suffered greatly in their lives. Dr. Heidegger's study, where the friends are gathered, is a dusty place full of countless curiosities, among which are a human skeleton, a portrait of Dr. Heidegger's long-dead fiancée, a bust of Hippocrates, an enchanted mirror that is rumored to contain the souls of all Dr. Heidegger's dead patients, and a mysterious magic book. Dr. Heidegger removes the book, and takes a pressed rose from its pages, explaining that his fiancée, Sylvia Ward, gave it to him fifty years before, and he had intended to wear it at their wedding, but Sylvia had died on the eve of their wedding. Dr. Heidegger places the rose in a vase at the center of the table around which they're gathered, and slowly it comes back to life, until it looks as though it has just bloomed. His friends think it is a deception, but Dr. Heidegger explains that the water in the vase is from the fabled Fountain of Youth which was sought after by Ponce de Leon for so long. He then invites his skeptical friends to drink as much of the liquid as they please, and pours a champagne glass for each of them. Dr. Heidegger explains that he won't be drinking any of the liquid—only observing. Before the four friends drink their glasses, Dr. Heidegger advises them that perhaps they should draw up a few general rules for themselves, since they are about to journey for a second time through "the perils of youth," and perhaps they could benefit from the wisdom of old age. But the friends laugh at Dr. Heidegger's warning and gulp down the water. Almost immediately, they begin to feel somehow revitalized, their spirits lifted. The water restores life and color to their aged bodies, and seems to smooth away some of their wrinkles. Skepticism quickly vanishing, they ask for more, and Dr. Heidegger obliges, filling their glasses. With the second glass, the group has reached middle age again, and they seem somewhat drunk. Colonel Killigrew remarks that Widow Wycherly is an attractive woman again; she runs to the mirror to check. Mr. Gascoigne begins talking politics, though it's unclear exactly what he's saying or what year he thinks it is. Colonel Killigrew busies himself by singing a drinking song and ogling Widow Wycherly. Mr. Medbourne sets about hatching a half-baked, far-fetched business scheme. Intoxicated by the water's effect, the group asks for another glass to be poured. Now, they are in the prime of their youth, and they mock Dr. Heidegger's sickly and decrepit appearance, as well as their own old-fashioned clothes, as if they have forgotten that they themselves were, moments prior, also old and infirm. The Widow invites Dr. Heidegger to dance with her, but he explains he's too old. The other three men argue over who will be her dance partner, each of them placing a hand on her and struggling amongst themselves. The narrator remarks that it is said that the mirror on the wall reflected three sickly old men fighting over the body of a withered old woman, rather than the four of them in their youthful prime. In their fighting, they knock over the table, spilling the vase full of water. The water touches a butterfly on the verge of death, which springs back to life and lands on the white-haired head of Dr. Heidegger. Dr. Heidegger calls for an end to the chaotic fighting, and it is as if Father Time himself were "calling them back from their sunny youth;" the four friends retake their places around the table. Dr. Heidegger exclaims that his rose has wilted again, but reflects that he loves it just as much as when it was freshly-blossomed. In the next instant, the four friends notice that they, too, seem to be aging again with every moment that passes. Soon, they are back to normal, and the Widow remarks that if she can't be beautiful, she'd rather be dead. Dr. Heidegger remarks that watching his friends' behavior has confirmed for him that he would never drink from the Fountain of Youth, even if it gushed at his at doorstep and its effects lasted for years. His friends, however, feel otherwise: they decide to travel to Florida, where the Fountain of Youth is, and drink from it morning, day, and night.

- Genre: Horror, Drama, Victorian Gothic - Title: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Point of view: A third person narrator tells the story with an omniscient view of characters but stays mostly with Mr. Utterson, which allows Stevenson to reveal things to the reader with suspense. - Setting: The streets of London - Character: Dr. Jekyll. Description: is the old friend of Mr. Utterson and Dr. Lanyon, whose changing behavior causes suspicion all round as to his mental state. He is introduced as a kind, professorial gentleman, but comes under criticism from Lanyon for his "unscientific" ideas. As he seems to become more under the influence of Mr. Hyde, Jekyll's secrecy and seclusion causes his old friends to become detectives. Jekyll communicates through documents, written wills and sealed letters that instruct the reader as they do his friends. In his final confession, he admits to having always had both positive and very dark urges, a duality that he believes is a natural human phenomenon. He is a determined scientist and has secretly dedicated his life to finding out the truth about his own duality and that of the human race, and in so doing discovers a potion that allows him to transform into his "evil" side, Mr. Hyde. - Character: Mr. Hyde. Description: is the other identity of Dr Jekyll, but is first known to us as a separate character. He appears in the gruesome anecdotes of Enfield and the maid, as a horrifically violent gentleman, with little remorse and, most noticeably, a strangely powerful appearance of evil and deformity. As the evil self of Dr. Jekyll, Hyde delights in causing harm to others, with no remorse or conscience. Though Jekyll claims that to be double in this way is a natural part of the human condition, Hyde himself, as only half of that double identity, is an unnatural being. - Character: Mr. Gabriel Utterson. Description: is a lawyer whose perspective the novel follows for most of the story as he tries to uncover the mystery of Dr. Jekyll connection to Mr. Hyde. He is introduced as a kind and reserved man, full of a sense of responsibility for his friends, but his faith is tested throughout Jekyll's changing state. Utterson's part in the whole affair is as a kind of fly on the wall, and very little of his own life seems to matter for the story. - Character: Dr. Hastie Lanyon. Description: is one of Dr. Jekyll's professional contemporaries and an old friend of both he and Utterson, though at the outset of the story, he is revealed to have qualms with Jekyll's scientific methods, calling them "devilish". Later, we realize that Lanyon's disapproval comes from fear of the new world that Jekyll's ideas threaten to create. Lanyon's shock, at witnessing the "unnatural" transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde is so extreme, that he dies and passes on the burden of his secret to Utterson. - Character: Mr. Enfield. Description: is a friend of Utterson's, with whom he takes Sunday walks. He is the one who first tells Utterson the story of Mr. Hyde's violence. He is a good example of the secrecy and repression that haunts this society of bachelors – he shies away from telling Utterson his true suspicions. - Character: Poole. Description: is the loyal servant of Dr. Jekyll, who greets visitors at the house and eventually is instrumental in the discovery and confession of his master. His near constant presence and yet his fear and ignorance of what is actually going on show the extent to which Jekyll has concealed his true self and lived a life of secrecy, even in his own home. - Theme: Science, Reason and the Supernatural. Description: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde creates a tension between the world of reason and science and the world of the supernatural, and seems to suggest the limits of reason in its inability to understand or cope with the supernatural phenomena that take place. Jekyll confesses at the end of the novel that he has been fascinated by the duality of man and has taken to both chemical and mystical methods to try to get to the truth. This inclusion of a spiritual side to Jekyll's philosophy shows his to be a mind unlike those of the lawyers and doctors of his society, who restrict themselves to traditional reason. The result of Jekyll's explorations—Mr. Hyde—is something beyond reason, which shocks and overwhelms the sensitive intellectual dispositions of the other characters and leaves Dr. Jekyll permanently removed from his educated, medical self. The laboratory is the main setting of the mysterious events in the story, but far from being a place of science and medicine, the lab is deserted and strange, more Gothic than a place of science. In this setting the novel seems to hint at the insufficiency or even obsolescence of science. Jekyll, once a man of science, is leaving all that behind, leaving it unused, as he seeks new, unknown knowledge and truth. Jekyll's goals frighten and disgust the men of science, such as Lanyon, with whom he used to friends. Lanyon, in fact, is so shocked, overwhelmed, and unable to process what Jekyll has done that he dies soon after learning of it. He can't bear the destruction of his stable, rational worldview. Utterson, meanwhile, is also unable to comprehend what is going on between Jekyll and Hyde—he thinks the relationship something criminal but comprehensible, such as blackmail—until the truth is revealed to him. Hyde is described, quite literally, as being beyond rational description—his most noticeable trait is an unexplainable air of evil or deformity, which can neither be described concretely nor ascribed to any medical cause. This idea of deformity, both of the body and of the mind, fuels the power of the supernatural over the natural. And behind all the action of Jekyll and Hyde in the novel, a fear lurks for all the characters –the threat of madness and the threat of a new world, of new science, new traditions, new disorders that traditional science and reason can't comprehend or deal with. - Theme: The Duality of Human Nature. Description: Dr. Jekyll confesses to Utterson that he has for a long time been fascinated by the duality of his own nature and he believes that this is a condition that affects all men. His obsession with his own darker side gives the novel its plot but also its profound, psychological implications. Even before the climax of the story in which it is revealed that Hyde and Jekyll are the same person, the duality of their personalities creates a tension between the good, social Jekyll and Hyde who seems to revel in causing harm and mayhem, and it looks like it is Jekyll who will be overtaken somehow by Hyde. One of the most interesting things about Jekyll's transformation is its psychological aspect. Hyde is portrayed as an evil-looking dwarfed man with a violent temper, while Jekyll is a respected man of science, good-natured and leader of his circle of friends. Not only are these men two halves of the same person, but Jekyll describes them as polar opposites, one good and the other evil. What does it mean, then, that once Hyde exists that he slowly seems to take over, to destroy Jekyll. Is Jekyll's theory of good and evil too neat and clean? Hyde's takeover of Jekyll seems to suggest a less clear-cut explanation, in which the human condition is not in fact double but rather one of repression and dark urges, and that once the repression of those dark urges eases or breaks it becomes impossible to put back into place, allowing the "true", dark nature of man to emerge.Jekyll's disorder also reflects on the other characters, and raises the question of just how upright, moral, and governed by reason they truly are. Utterson for example is introduced as a lawyerly, kind man, and seldom seems to stray from that description. But his character is so rigid and unmoving, and even impersonal, that one could imagine he too is strenuously repressing a world of darker urges. - Theme: Reputation, Secrecy and Repression. Description: Much of the suspense associated with the mysteries of the novel are suspenseful solely because they are deliberately kept secret or repressed by the characters. The novel's secrets come out in spits and spurts. Enfield shares his story with Utterson, but he is only persuaded to share Hyde's name at the end. Utterson, upon hearing Hyde's name, does not reveal that he has heard it before, in Jekyll's will. From that point on, most of the story's revelations are made not through conversation between characters but rather through a sequence of letters and documents, addressed, sealed and enclosed in safes, so that they need to be put together like a puzzle at the end. The dependence on these sheets of paper for the unraveling of the mystery creates a sense of silence and isolation about each character, and leaves the reader not really sure how much we have been allowed in to the intimacies of their minds. Each man seems to be isolated from every other, and there is a sense that this masculine world has been hushed by the need to maintain social reputation. The men avoid gossip, seem almost to avoid speaking completely about anything of substance, and while many of the men describe themselves as friends, their relationships are most defined by the things they keep secret from each other. There are many occasions in which one man will start to talk and then silence himself and keep the remainder, often the most important or personal detail, to himself. The weight of unsaid information is heavy.Jekyll's actions suggest the possible outcome of such self-repression. He ultimately feels compelled to find a secret outlet for the urges he cannot share—Mr. Hyde. Through Mr. Hyde, Jekyll believes he can maintain his reputation while enjoying his darker urges, but Hyde's takeover of Jekyll suggests that repression only strengthens that which is repressed, puts it under higher pressure so that it explodes. - Theme: Innocence and Violence. Description: Utterson and Enfield's Sunday walk is a comforting, habitual practice of theirs, but as they pass the fateful street with the strange facade jutting out before them, their quiet is ended. This begins the pattern in the novel of innocence being rudely interrupted by violence. First, the little girl is trampled by Hyde. Then the maid witnesses and is shocked into a faint by Hyde's murder of Carew. The maid also effusively describes the goodness of Hyde's victim, the old man, whose hair glows like a halo. The innocence of all of the characters, as they learn more about the awful truth of Jekyll's condition, is tarnished. They see Hyde and feel a deep personal hatred for him, suggesting their own dark inner urges. Further, as the secret of Jekyll's split personality is revealed, the theme of innocence and violence becomes more complex, and the characters must face the prospect that the violence and evil that attacks innocence comes not from some outside source, but from within. And it is only tenuously held back. - Theme: Bachelorhood and Friendship. Description: Like many stories of Robert Louis Stevenson's era, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde shows a world dominated by men and most of the featured characters are male. The streets of London, where all this violence takes place, are painted by the writer as a masculine society, particularly full of academic, well-educated men who keep in each other's confidence and entertain a certain level of professional respect. Utterson and Jekyll are old friends, for example, and see each other often socially, but Jekyll also entrusts Utterson with his financial affairs, and so the relationship is both personal and professional. Lanyon and Jekyll are also old friends and dine together, but are first and foremost important to each other as professional rivals. But though the male oriented society is perhaps not surprising for the time period, all of the main male characters are single bachelors. Traditional family life is unexplored in the book. This gives the personal lives of Utterson, Jekyll and others a lonely, isolated feeling. They live alone. They visit each other and then depart, but even their social calls have something that feels official about them. It is implied that the social constructs for these men, who have to deal with money, law, and science, may be taking them away from the communal traditions of family and friendship, and perhaps even religion, so that these men must relate to each other in a different, distanced way rather than talking face to face. - Climax: Utterson reads the narrative written by Lanyon before his death, which describes the horrific bodily transformation of Mr. Hyde into Dr. Jekyll, explaining everything that has happened so far in an absolutely incredible way. - Summary: Mr. Utterson is a lawyer. He is reserved but kind and is known for loyally sticking by his friends even when they do wrong. One of his unlikely friends is Mr. Enfield. One Sunday, as the pair is taking a walk, they come across a somber looking door belonging to a house that Enfield knows well. Enfield tells the story of a horrible incident, in which a man trampled a young girl and, when apprehended, seemed remorseless but agreed to pay a large check when threatened by the police. He disappeared into this very house and revealed a check signed by a well-known and respected name. Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield agree that it is best not to talk any further about the matter but Utterson is deeply affected, because he knows the person that Enfield describes who trampled the girl. One of his clients, Dr. Jekyll, has recently made a will and has left everything to a Mr. Hyde, rather than his own family. He visits Dr. Lanyon, an old friend of Jekyll's who has had a falling out with Jekyll over what he considers to be his old friend's unscientific methods. Lanyon has never heard of Mr. Hyde, causing Utterson to worry even more about Jekyll's safety. He has nightmares of Jekyll being woken in his bed by this blackmailing fiend. So, Utterson decides to spy on the strange house, the scene of the crime. Finally one night, he sees Hyde approach and confronts him and senses the same air of evil about the man that Enfield described. He goes to Jekyll's house and, finding Jekyll absent, asks Poole, a servant, about Mr. Hyde. Poole has been instructed to treat Mr. Hyde almost like a master, continuing Utterson's anxiety. Soon after, at one of Jekyll's customary dinner parties, Utterson stays behind and asks his friend what the matter is, but Jekyll will not confess, he only cryptically says that he can choose to be free of Hyde whenever he likes. A year passes, and again Hyde is involved in a horrific crime, this time the murder of a respected old man named Sir Danvers Carew. Because Sir Carew was a client of Utterson's, the police come to him, and Utterson takes them to Hyde's address, but they find nothing amiss in his rooms, only a burnt-out end of a checkbook. Utterson visits Jekyll, who claims that he is finally finished with Mr. Hyde; he even shows Utterson a letter from Hyde to the same effect. But when Utterson goes home, and sits with his trusted clerk, a handwriting expert, the letter turns out to be written in Jekyll's own hand instead. This brings back Utterson's suspicions of blackmail. After the horrific murder of Carew has become public news, Jekyll is back to his old self and regularly entertains his friends. But after two months, Utterson is turned away from Jekyll's door and once again the doctor becomes a recluse. When Utterson goes to ask Dr. Lanyon about it, Lanyon is a changed man – he says he has had a shock that will soon kill him. Though he will not say the nature of what happened between him and Jekyll, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter to read when Jekyll is dead. Utterson, after a while, pays Jekyll fewer and fewer visits, but one day, when out walking with Enfield, they pass his old lab (which the "somber" door leads into) and decide to go through the yard and say hello at the window. Jekyll greets them but is overtaken by a strange mood and disappears from the window. A few weeks later, Poole visits Utterson in a panic and persuades him to come to the house, where Utterson finds all the servants cowering in fear of their changed master. Jekyll has locked himself away and the voice that comes from his cabinet (the upper room of his laboratory) is not his but Mr. Hyde's. Utterson and Poole, thinking Jekyll has been murdered, break in to the cabinet. They find Hyde's dead body on the floor and some documents, including a letter from Jekyll, saying that it is time for him to reveal the truth. Utterson takes these documents home to read. First, he reads the narrative given to him by Dr. Lanyon. He explains the shock that has taken his life. He was asked by Jekyll to fetch him a drawer of ingredients from Jekyll's lab for an experiment and to await a visit from a man. This, Lanyon did, very curious now about Jekyll's secret. When the visitor arrived—who from Lanyon's description is clearly Mr. Hyde—he makes a potion and drinks it. His body begins to warp. When this horrific display is done, Dr. Jekyll is standing before Lanyon. Next, Utterson reads Dr. Jekyll's own confession. Jekyll describes his theory that all human beings have two natural selves, one good and one evil. He has felt this way all his life and has now succeeded in finding a way to separate the two. He describes from his own point of view all the events that his friends have witnessed. At first, the ability to become Mr. Hyde gives Jekyll a freeing new life in which he can indulge his basest instincts, but soon Mr. Hyde begins to do unspeakable things, such as murder Carew. Jekyll decides to cease transforming into Hyde, but one day, in a park, Jekyll turns into Hyde involuntarily—without taking the potion. That is when he must confess to Lanyon to procure the chemicals he needs to transform back. Jekyll returns home but again Hyde takes over, now actively resentful of Jekyll, and Jekyll is forced to lock himself in his lab and send Poole out for more chemicals. But the potion has lost its effectiveness and as he writes the last of his confession, he is using the last of the original powders and anticipates turning finally into Mr. Hyde forever. No longer inspired by his belief in a double nature, he believes that this moment will be a complete end to him, and that Hyde will go on as a separate being, left to deal with his new undivided condition.

- Genre: horror; horror-romance; Gothic novel; novel-in-letters - Title: Dracula - Point of view: first-person (as relayed through letters and journal entries by various characters) - Setting: Transylvania and in and around London, England; the very end of the 1800s - Character: Count Dracula. Description: A Count living in a castle in the Carpathian mountains, near present-day Romania (or Transylvania), Dracula is a member of an ancient family of warriors, some of whom fought against the Huns, the Turks, and other invaders in Central Europe in the Middle Ages. Dracula is also a vampire, or an Un-Dead being that sleeps at night, turns into a bat at will, and must feed on the blood of the living to survive. At the beginning of the novel, Dracula is doing business with Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor's assistant, in order to buy property in London; as the novel progresses, Dracula comes to London, bringing with him 50 wooden boxes filled with sacred earth, in which he sleeps to restore and preserve his powers. Eventually, Dracula is tracked down by Harker, Van Helsing, Seward, and others, as he feeds on the blood of the women Lucy and Mina; the group then destroys Dracula's boxes and, eventually, Dracula himself, by stabbing him in the heart and a stake, and cutting off his head, freeing his soul. - Character: Mina Harker. Description: Harker's fiancée, and then wife, Mina tends to Lucy, her friend and Arthur's fiancée, during Lucy's illness; it then turns out that Lucy was preyed upon by Dracula. Mina, in turn, has her blood sucked by Dracula, and through a "blood link" formed between her and Dracula, Mina is able to channel his thoughts when hypnotized by Van Helsing. - Character: Abraham Van Helsing. Description: An eminent professor from Amsterdam, and a learned "man of science," Van Helsing was Seward's former teacher; Seward calls him to England to help with the case of Lucy. Van Helsing later leads the group, including Seward, on the hunt to "truly kill" Lucy and track down and truly kill Dracula. Van Helsing speaks a kind of non-idiomatic, "choppy" English. - Character: Dr. Seward. Description: The head of an insane asylum in London, which happens to sit next to Dracula's first English estate at Carfax, Seward was a former suitor of, and current friend to, Lucy, before her death. With Van Helsing and the others, Seward then tracks down Dracula in England, and follows him to Romania, where Dracula is "truly killed." - Character: Arthur Holmwood. Description: Lucy's fiancé, Arthur is an English nobleman (Lord Godalming) of a somewhat nervous and emotional temperament. Van Helsing convinces Arthur that Arthur must stab Lucy in the heart to "free her" from her vampirism, and to achieve closure—to realize that Lucy can only be "safe" when she is no longer forced to exist as an Un-Dead. - Character: Lucy Westenra. Description: Arthur's fiancée, Lucy is stricken by sleepwalking and then an unknown illness. As it turns out she is being stalked and her blood drunk by Dracula. Lucy is best friends with Mina, who wonders what is happening as Lucy begins to waste away and lose a great deal of blood. Lucy is treated by Seward and Van Helsing, though she later turns into a vampire, and must be killed "again" in her tomb by Arthur, Van Helsing, and the rest of the group. - Character: Swales. Description: An old man living in Whitby, the vacation spot where Lucy and Mina stay together, Swales jokes to the two young women about the unnecessary nature of cemeteries. He later recants his jokes when he feels that a kind of "evil" has arrived in England, when the boat on which Dracula traveled to England winds up at the Whitby port. Swales then dies at night under mysterious circumstances. - Character: Renfield. Description: An insane man kept in Seward's institution, Renfield has a desire to gain the "life-force" of flies, spiders, birds, and cats, and later has a desire for blood—he promises to be Dracula's student, and is eventually killed by Dracula, once Renfield invites the Count into the asylum. The Count goes on to attack Mina there. - Theme: Writing, Journaling, and Messaging. Description: Dracula isn't really a "novel" at all; it does not present itself as the work of a single author or narrator. Instead, Dracula consists of series of diary entries, letters, telegrams, memoranda, and occasional newspaper clippings, assembled and typed up by Mina Harker, with help from Seward, Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, Quincey Morris, and Arthur, Lord Godalming. In a sense, then, Mina is the "author" of the book: she knits together these various accounts. This creates an intriguing "meta-narrative" effect: the characters in the novel are reading "the novel" as we, the reader, are making our way through it. The novel is, essentially, a detective story, as the group finds out the nature of Dracula's violent activities and attempts to track him down and destroy him. The accounts knit together by Mina show how the group goes about catching the Count. Jonathan Harker's journal tells of his arrival to Transylvania, location of Castle Dracula; his eventual imprisonment there; his attempts to ward off Dracula and the Three Sisters; and his eventual escape to Budapest. Letters between Lucy and Mina track, primarily, the slow "illness" overtaking Lucy, which results in her becoming a vampire. Seward's diary contains information about the patient Renfield, an accomplice and acolyte of Dracula's, who refers to him as "lord and master." Mina's journal details Mina's own illness and refers to her hypnotic visions, which serve as a "conscious link" between the Count and Mina. Van Helsing notes down several events toward the end of the novel, including the final pursuit of Dracula; newspaper reports of supernatural events fill out the uncanniness of the narrative, from perspectives beyond those of Mina and the rest of the group. These accounts serve a central purpose in Dracula. Journals, diaries, and other first-person accounts lend credence to events that, if they were narrated by a third-person omniscient narrator, might seem too fantastical for the reader to accept. When the novel's characters make sense of the events they have seen, and relay these events to others, via their own writing and messaging, though, it puts the characters and the readers in the same position. Van Helsing therefore comments, in a quotation referenced by Harker in the novel's Closing Note, that because these are all "accounts" and not "objectively validated" by other persons, one still must, at the end of Dracula, take the characters' word for what has happened. Despite this almost obsessive reliance on the truthfulness of the information being reported, what we have, here, is nevertheless subject to embellishment and fantasy. It is up to the reader to judge if and when such fantasy has been inserted into the narrative. - Theme: Illness, Madness, and Confinement. Description: Dracula contains a study of the meaning of "sanity" and "insanity," of "wellness" and "illness." The treatment for both "insanity" and "illness" in the novel is confinement, which recurs throughout. Practically every character in the group questions his or her wellness or sanity at some point. Jonathan Harker, on his trip to Dracula's castle, is confined within the castle as a prisoner of Dracula's. Harker believes he is going insane there, and he has visions of Dracula turning into a bat, and of the ghastly Three Sisters. When Harker escapes, he is treated for a "nervous illness," before Van Helsing verifies his account, and tells him that, indeed, vampires are real. Lucy is afflicted with bouts of sleepwalking, one of which takes her out in the moors of England, where she is first attacked by Dracula. Lucy is then confined to her room by Dr. Seward, who eventually calls in Van Helsing to help with her case. After her "first death," Lucy is confined to a tomb, and her soul is only "set free" when Arthur drives a stake through her heart. Mina's blood connection to Dracula causes her to have hypnotic visions of Dracula's whereabouts. Van Helsing desires, first, that Mina also be confined during her "illness," but Mina is later brought along on the group's mission to Transylvania, as Mina can provide important information for the tracking of the Count.Other characters have smaller bouts of illness of madness. Van Helsing and Seward both worry that they, too, are mad, though they believe they are men of "science," tracking Dracula according to the laws for hunting vampires. Renfield, an insane man confined under Seward's care, attempts to be Dracula's apprentice, and at times appears quite lucid in his desire to consume the blood of living organisms. Arthur, an emotional man, becomes so horrified after his fiancée Lucy's death that he collapses in Mina's arms, in a fit of hysterics approaching madness.The function of this theme in the novel is manifold. First, the theme draws out late-Victorian cultural attitudes toward illness and madness—that is, any socially-aberrant behavior is "mad," and women are more prone to this behavior than men; both illness and madness require that the patient be removed from society. Dracula is compared, often, to a poison, or to vermin—he is an illness, a social virus that must be isolated and destroyed. His boxes of earth are systematically "sanitized" by means of communion wafers, meaning the Count cannot sleep in them, and, finally, Dracula himself, the viral host, is destroyed in Transylvania, by Morris and the others. - Theme: Christianity, Science, and the Occult. Description: The novel also considers the interactions of Christian belief, superstitious or "occult" practices, and rational science. The tracking of Dracula requires methodical investigations in each of these fields, and the fields themselves, by the end of the novel, appear very much interrelated, even entirely entangled. Most of the characters in the group profess a serious and proper Christian belief. The Harkers are observant Protestants, and God-fearing people; their love is made permanent in the eyes of God through their speedy marriage. Arthur has special Christian scruples about the discretion of Lucy's body, in order to save her from her undead status; he eventually acquiesces and aids in her "true killing," thus releasing her soul. Dr. Seward professes a similarly orthodox understanding of God's goodness, and all characters typically end their conversations by saying that their group's success is in God's hands.But superstition and occult practices become interwoven with these Christian beliefs. Harker sees, in Transylvania, that many of the peasant-folk have special charms to ward off the evil eye. All the preparations designed to ward off vampires—garlic, the wooden stake, decapitation—come from Transylvanian superstition dating back to the Middle Ages. The group's efforts to fight Dracula draw on these superstitions, which prove "real," inasmuch as they work, eventually, to kill the Count. The novel draws out a tension, therefore, between rational, scientific thought and irrational belief that was very much a part of Victorian society in England. These religious attitudes, Christian and occult, are married to a procedural, rational, scientific frame of mind, most unified in Van Helsing, the universal "man of learning." Van Helsing is an ardent, believing Christian, but also a man who collects, with great rigor, superstitious practices from central Europe. Van Helsing and Seward also have an intimate knowledge of medicine and biology. All this knowledge, centered on Van Helsing, is brought to bear in the capture of Dracula. Van Helsing—as a man of science, religion, and collector and believer in superstition—is therefore the "cure" for a problem Stoker identifies in Victorian society: a belief, among many Victorians, that rational, scientific knowledge might not be sufficient to overcome the dangers of superstition, those areas of human life not immediately explained by science.Dracula is not only a devil walking the earth; he is not only a mythical monster, foretold in Romanian legends. And he is not explained fully by testable scientific hypotheses. Dracula is, instead, a human embodiment of the very human beastliness that Victorians feared and hoped to destroy. And only a combination of religious, ritualistic, and scientific modes allows the group to track and kill Dracula. - Theme: Romantic Love, Seduction, and Sexual Purity. Description: Dracula contains a long meditation on "proper," socially-sanctioned love, and "improper" relations of lust and seduction. Much has been made of this aspect of the novel, particularly in 20th-century criticism, and with good reason: it is impossible to separate the act of Dracula's forcible blood-sucking, directed at unsuspecting women, from the process of violent seduction and sexual assault.Jonathan and Mina Harker, and Arthur (Lord Godalming) and Lucy, are the novel's two primary romantic pairs. Their loves follows remarkably similar tacks, but the former survives, and the latter, sadly, does not. An early romantic intrigue in the novel is Lucy's entertaining of three suitors: Dr. Seward, Arthur, and Quincey. But this "romantic intrigue" so typical of Victorian novels is only a prologue, in this novel, to the actual drama of Lucy's life—the fact that she is bitten by a vampire, and becomes a vampire herself. Thus, not only is Arthur robbed of his future wife—he must participate in her "true killing" (that is, the freeing of her soul from the cycle of undeadness). Van Helsing believes that Arthur will be able to let go of his love for Lucy by helping to drive a stake through her heart and cut off her head. It is a gruesome, if necessary, end to their love.On the other hand, Mina and Jonathan have a love characterized by mutual help during times of illness. First, Mina cares for Jonathan after his nervous collapse, prompted by his stay at, and escape from, the Castle Dracula. Later, Jonathan fights bravely to kill Dracula—to release him from his own undeadness—in order, also, to free Mina from Dracula's spell. Opposed, then, to these "natural" processes of romantic love are the processes of demonic possession and seduction. Harker is "seduced" by the Three Sisters at Dracula's castle, though he manages to avoid falling into their clutches. Dracula "seduces" both Lucy and Mina. In the former case, he suggestively "penetrates" Lucy's neck while Lucy, who had been sleepwalking, is sprawled over a mossy embankment, outside. With Mina, Dracula is found forcing Mina to suck Dracula's own blood from a cut in his abdomen. This, also highly sexually-suggestive, creates a bond between the two that can only be broken by Dracula's true death.Thus, at the end of the novel, the killing of Dracula allows Jonathan and Mina to live together as husband and wife, and to start a family—this is considered the "natural" outcome of a Christian marriage. Meanwhile, the others of the group, those whose hearts were broken by Lucy, find their own separate loves in time and marry as well. - Theme: Life, Death, and the Un-Dead. Description: All the above lead into the final, and perhaps most important, theme of the novel: that of the relationship between life, death, and the state in between these two, known by Van Helsing as "undeadness." Dracula is a creature of the undead. He sleeps during the day and lives at night; he is of incredible strength when awake, but must be invited into one's room in order to begin his "seduction." But the touchstone of Dracula's undeadness is his inability actually to die—his soul is trapped in a kind of prison, and must be released by the cutting off of Dracula's head, or the driving of a wooden stake through his heart. In this sense, to kill Dracula is to allow him to live—to free his soul from the prison of his body.Other characters in the novel hover between these categories of living and dying. Harker's swoon, upon leaving Dracula's castle, nearly kills him, and he spends many months regaining his full health, only to find that Mina has been afflicted by Dracula's bite. Mina, then, is hypnotized by Van Helsing, later on, to provide information on Dracula's whereabouts. This "in-between" hypnotic state is a kind of undeadness. Lucy's sleepwalking, too, is an "in-between state," not waking and not sleeping, which allows Dracula to find her, bite her, and eventually make her a vampire. Both Harker and Van Helsing appear to go gray and age as the book progresses—they near death, physically, as they endanger their lives, and only once Dracula is fully killed do they regain their total health. Renfield is obsessed with the life-giving energies of the animals he eats—flies, spider, birds, cats—and these animals must die to give him life. Renfield wishes to gain the special knowledge of undeadness from Dracula, but is eventually killed by his would-be master.Interestingly, undeadness seems to diametrically oppose the Christian notions of resurrection, or life after death. In the former, the soul is given immortal life in heaven, in nearness to God, once it has been released from the earthly body, which passes from living to dying. But in the case of undeadness, the living body seems almost to die, but maintains a kind of purgatorial state in which it feasts on the blood of the living, and the soul, trapped inside, cannot abide with God in heaven. The body becomes a parasite, eking out an existence stolen from the vital energy of others. The novel seems to argue that, in order to continue the normal biotic processes of living and dying, and the normal, moral, "Christian" processes of death and resurrection, undeadness must be eliminated. Souls must be allowed to rise to heaven. Thus Mina rejoices even when Dracula, the villain of the novel, has his soul released from his terrible body. In this way, even Dracula, the evil one, is saved. - Climax: The group locates Dracula in Transylvania, and stabs him in the heart and beheads him, thus freeing his soul to heaven and freeing Mina from his spiritual grasp - Summary: Dracula opens with a young solicitor's assistant, Jonathan Harker, en route from Budapest into Transylvania, to visit the Castle Dracula and to meet with Count Dracula, a nobleman who has recently purchased an estate in London called Carfax. Harker worries, as he approaches the castle, about the superstitious locals, who seem to fear Dracula. Harker is picked up by a strange driver and taken to the castle, where he meets the Count and begins to discuss business. Harker finds the Count odd—he is active only at night, and seems never to eat. And the Count appears to be the only person living in the Castle. Harker realizes, slowly, that Dracula was, in fact, the "strange driver" who brought Harker there, and that Dracula is holding Harker prisoner. Harker observes Dracula crawling out his window, along the castle walls, "like a lizard," and even believes he has seen Dracula turn himself into a bat. Harker, in the meantime, stumbles upon a room of the castle in which he meets the demonic forms of three women, who appear to want to drink his blood. But Dracula intervenes, saying Harker is "his," and carries Harker back to his own bedroom. Eventually, Harker decides to escape and finds a deep basement chapel in the castle, where Dracula sleeps in a wooden box filled with earth. Harker attempts to kill Dracula by gashing him in the face with a shovel, but Dracula seems only superficially harmed. Harker escapes from the castle through his window and brings his journal with him, to show his experiences to his fiancée Mina. Meanwhile, Mina and Lucy, two young, upper-middle-class friends in England, are on vacation at Whitby, an English port. Lucy begins sleepwalking, and Mina finds Lucy one night bent over a rock in a cemetery above Whitby, with a ghastly shade above her. Mina brings Lucy back to her house, and notices, over the ensuing days, that Lucy's condition appears to be worsening. Mina calls in Arthur, a nobleman and Lucy's fiancé, Seward, a doctor and chief of a London insane asylum, and Morris, a Texas man, to help Lucy—Seward and Morris were former suitors of Lucy's, and are now her friends. Seward, realizing he doesn't understand the nature of Lucy's illness, calls in his former Professor Abraham Van Helsing, from Amsterdam, to help Lucy. Van Helsing believes he knows the cause of Lucy's illness, but does not immediately explain it to Seward and the rest of the group. Lucy appears to be losing blood at night, and in turn Arthur, Morris, Van Helsing, and Seward all give Lucy transfusions to keep her alive. After a while, however, these transfusions prove insufficient. One night, when the men of the group are away, and when Lucy's elderly mother is in her bedroom, a wolf leaps in through Lucy's window, then rushes out—Lucy documents the events in her journal, and her mother dies from the shock of the wolf's attack. Afterward, Lucy cannot be saved by any future blood transfusions, and she dies surrounded by the men of the group. Meanwhile, Mina has been in Budapest caring for Harker, who has suffered a "nervous breakdown" after his time with the Count, and believes the strange things he saw at Castle Dracula were hallucinations. When Mina and Harker return to England, however, Van Helsing tells Harker that his interactions with the Count were not hallucinations, but real. Van Helsing gathers the men of the group and tells them that Lucy is not truly dead, but is an Un-Dead vampire; the men of the group travel to Lucy's cemetery, observe her haunting the grounds and attempting to suck the blood of children, and later "truly kill" her by stabbing her in the heart with a stake and cutting off her head. Although these events shock Arthur, Morris, Seward, and Harker, the men agree to track down Dracula, whom they believe to have bitten Lucy in England, and "truly kill" him as well. As the group prepares to do this, however, Harker notices that Mina appears to be getting sick as well, and one night, as the group is all assembled in Seward's office of the insane asylum, a loud crash is heard, and Dracula is seen having bitten Mina and forcing Mina to suck his own blood, while Harker is in a deep trance beside them. This causes the group great alarm, and Mina feels she has been "poisoned" by Dracula in this blood-ritual. In the asylum, Seward has also had conversations with an insane man named Renfield, who speaks of wanting to gain the "life force" of animals he eats, and who is discovered, also, to be communing with Dracula—Renfield allowed Dracula to enter the asylum by inviting him in, and this enabled Dracula to attack Mina and form a "blood link" with her. The men of the group find out that Dracula has shipped 50 wooden boxes, filled with sacred earth from Transylvania, to England—Dracula needs these boxes to sleep in, to maintain his powers. The group realizes they must sterilize these boxes with holy communion wafers in order to remove their special restorative properties and destroy Dracula. The group finds 49 of the 50 boxes in London, at the Carfax estate and other of Dracula's properties, and sterilizes them; but the last box, they realize, Dracula has taken back to Transylvania. The group tracks Dracula and this final box to Dracula's castle. The group makes the trip with Mina, who can tell Dracula's location when hypnotized by Van Helsing because of her blood link with the Count. They believe Dracula will land at the port Varna, near Romania, but he actually lands at Galatz—the group intercepts him, however, as he sleeps in his final box en route to the castle, and Harker and Morris stab him in the heart and cut off his head, thus truly killing him—freeing his soul from his Un-Dead body. But Morris is fatally wounded by a gypsy during this attack, and later dies. In a closing note, written seven years later, Harker says that he and Mina now have a child, named after Morris, and that Seward and Arthur both ended up finding love and getting married. They write that they and Van Helsing worry no one will believe their fantastical story of Dracula, even though they have painstakingly assembled their accounts of his activities in order to "prove" his existence.

- Genre: Short Story, Autobiographical Fiction - Title: Drown - Point of view: First person - Setting: An urban neighborhood in New Jersey. - Character: Yunior. Description: The protagonist and narrator of Drown, Yunior is several years out of high school and still living with his mother in the small apartment in Edison, New Jersey in which he grew up. Yunior is on the cusp of adulthood, but he hasn't taken on many adult responsibilities: he sells pot to pay the utility bill, parties with his friends, and his mother still cooks for him, does his laundry, and pays the rent. Yunior feels trapped in this life, but he notes that he never had much academic potential, so college didn't seem like an option. While he would consider joining the army to escape his hometown, he hasn't seen the army recruiter around in quite a while. Into his meditations on his stagnant life, Yunior weaves recollections of his adolescence, telling the story of the dissolution of his friendship with his best friend Beto, an academically-gifted, charismatic, and ambitious boy from the same apartment complex. Yunior used to look up to Beto's suave confidence, but after Beto sexually assaulted Yunior twice during the summer before Beto left for college, their friendship fell apart. Through telling the story of this friendship, Yunior reveals that even though his life seems stagnant, he is grappling with crucial adult issues: his sense of betrayal, his confusion over what it means to be masculine, and his inability to imagine a life that is both possible and desirable, especially when what he knows is safe and comfortable. - Character: Yunior's Mother. Description: Yunior and his mother live together in a small apartment in Edison, New Jersey. Since Yunior's father has been absent for much of his life, Yunior's mother is the center of his world. Although the two live in close quarters and take care of one another, they are somewhat distant: Yunior keeps his work selling drugs and his personal life private from his mother, while she mostly moves quietly through her own routines, spending much of her time alone in her own room, cooking, or searching for bargains on home goods. For Yunior, she is an emblem of the "old world," a relic of the Dominican Republic that both comforts and annoys him. In addition, Yunior's mother requires Yunior to perform many of the tasks that his father used to (from driving her to the mall to making sure all the windows are locked at night). In doing so, she inadvertently stifles Yunior's ability to become his own person by forcing him to define himself in relation to her and his father instead of figuring out who he actually wants to be. - Character: Beto. Description: Yunior's childhood best friend and early partner in crime. Beto is a natural leader whose swagger, strength, and risk-taking made him one of Yunior's earliest male role models. He and Yunior spent lots of time together swimming, shoplifting, or watching TV, but Beto always had a life beyond Yunior: Beto was an adept and ambitious student who always planned to escape their hometown and attend college, and he had many friends Yunior didn't know, particularly in the New York club scene. Despite this, both Yunior and Yunior's Mother once considered Beto to be a member of their family, and Beto always tried to push Yunior to want more from his life and to set himself up to leave their town. Beto is now a college graduate on his way to business school, and he and Yunior no longer speak, an estrangement that stems from two unwanted sexual encounters that Beto forced on Yunior the summer before Beto left for college. While Yunior's trauma, sense of betrayal, and ingrained homophobia led him to cut off their friendship, by the end of the story it seems that Yunior is curious about the possibility of reconciling with his old friend. - Character: Yunior's Father. Description: After leaving Yunior and his mother, Yunior's father now lives in Florida with one of his many girlfriends. He is a complex source of resentment for Yunior, who spent much of his childhood terrified of his father's physical abuse, but also convinced that this behavior was normal and shared by all Dominican fathers. Although Yunior's father was his only male role model growing up other than Beto, Yunior resented his father's temper, infidelity, and unreliability, and it seems that the two of them have a strained relationship now that his father is gone. Yunior's father often calls Yunior's mother and tells her that he will leave his girlfriend if she moves to Florida to be with him, but Yunior knows this is an empty promise and urges his mother not to take the calls. - Character: The Teacher. Description: One of Yunior's teachers in high school who made the class watch space shuttle launches. The teacher would explain to the students that their own success as children was much like that of the shuttle: only some would have the momentum necessary to reach their goal, while the majority would simply burn out. Yunior explains that this early lack of confidence in him made him imagine that his momentum was already lost. - Theme: Intimacy and Estrangement. Description: In "Drown," Junot Díaz suggests that intimacy can be both protective and limiting. While Yunior's close and often codependent relationships with his mother and Beto at first provide him with stability and structure for his life, they sour as he grows. His relationship to his mother limits his growth by keeping him in his childhood role, and the intimacy of his friendship with Beto betrays him when Beto sexually violates Yunior. Furthermore, his close relationships with Beto and with his mother allow him to continuously think of himself as his mother's son or Beto's friend, instead of realizing that he is in control of his own life. Despite the fact that Yunior is an adult, his life is still just as intertwined with his mother's as it was when he was a child: they live together, she cooks for him and does his laundry, and they watch TV together and chat, showing their emotional intimacy. However, Yunior is not simply a child in their home—he also takes care of his mother, in many ways filling his absent father's role. For example, Yunior takes his mother to the mall and gives her money to hunt through the bargain bins in the same way that his father used to do before he left. Despite the hassle of a long bus ride to the mall, Yunior explains that "as a son, I owe her that much." Yunior's intimacy with his mother, then, makes him simultaneously a child and an adult. However, their relationship seems to prevent Yunior from becoming an adult on his own terms instead of as a substitute for his father. For example, Yunior and his mother's close relationship and the routines of their domestic life mean that Yunior must continuously conceal the way he spends his free time (in particular, he must hide the fact that he pays their shared bills through dealing drugs). As a result, Yunior is often silent or secretive with his mother so that he can maintain the illusion that his life is innocent and simple, preferring to appear childlike rather than admitting to (and grappling with) his complex adult reality. Furthermore, the comfort of living at home in a familiar apartment with a woman who loves him and takes care of him seems to stunt Yunior's ability to imagine a different future for himself. He has a nice life at his mother's house, even if that life resembles his childhood, which leaves him stuck. Much like Yunior's relationship to his mother, his friendship with Beto is by turns intimate, supportive, and damaging. For much of their childhood, Beto and Yunior are so close that Beto is practically a member of Yunior's family. At first, it seems that Yunior's intimacy with Beto is a positive influence since, unlike Yunior's mother, Beto pushes Yunior to leave New Jersey and ask more of his own future. However, this seems somewhat disingenuous. Beto pushes Yunior to challenge himself academically and socially, but since Beto prides himself on being the better-educated one of the two of them, he can't accept it when Yunior knows something Beto doesn't, such as the meaning of the word "expectorate." This demonstrates that Beto pushes for Yunior's success only to the extent that Beto still remains the more knowledgeable and successful one, which complicates the value of their friendship. Furthermore, the fact that Yunior's reverence for and trust in Beto is so absolute makes Beto's unwanted sexual advance all the more confusing and destructive. Yunior explains that he allowed the sexual encounter with Beto to continue and recur solely because Beto was "his best friend, and that mattered more than anything to me at one point." Once the second encounter concludes, however, the two boys are immediately estranged from one another, and Yunior can't bear to share space with Beto or even hear his voice. Beto's betrayal of the terms of their intimacy creates feelings of confusion and trauma that last well into Yunior's adult life, which is perhaps one reason that Yunior, at the end of the story, is still so embedded in the comforting, stable, trustworthy home his mother has created. In this way, Beto's betrayal of his intimacy with Yunior perhaps stunts Yunior's growth more than living in his mother's house does. Through Beto's betrayal and Yunior's mother's failure to push her son, Díaz seems to imply that intimacy has the potential to damage or limit someone, as intimacy makes Yunior think of himself in relation to others instead of focusing on his own future. However, both of Yunior's intimate relationships also provide essential foundations to his life—his mother's stability, kindness, and trustworthiness ground him, comfort him, and help him recover from Beto's betrayal. And while Beto's betrayal leaves Yunior feeling, in the short-term, that perhaps straying from the life he knows might make him unsafe, Beto's years-long influence on Yunior's life seems to still have a hold on him, since by the end of the story, Yunior appears to be contemplating seeing his friend again and leaving their New Jersey town to seek a new life. - Theme: Sexuality and Masculinity. Description: As a young man, Yunior learns by example. He often compares himself to both his father and Beto, highlighting the masculine traits of theirs that he most admires and even fears. The lessons he learns from his everyday interactions with these two men show that Yunior has a somewhat inflexible, performative, and often destructive concept of what it means to be a man. For example, Yunior avidly describes his and Beto's early shoplifting days as "raging" and crazy," saying they would often go out of their way to start fights and anger people just because they could. Yunior particularly admires Beto's suave confidence when they're shoplifting, seeing it as evidence that Beto is naturally masculine. However, While Yunior longs to be more like Beto, he sees his father's masculine traits as less positive. Yunior describes his father as "a charmer" and "a real asshole" because of his violent tendencies and infidelity, although Yunior seems to believe that these traits are shared by all men. For example, Yunior is anxious about shoplifting in part because he knows that if he gets caught the cops will "hand you over to your old man," which would mean his getting beaten. When Beto says his father does not hit him in the same way that Yunior's father does, Yunior is surprised, because he assumes that violence is a trait shared among all Dominican fathers. While the fact that Beto's dad isn't violent perhaps explains Beto's easy confidence about shoplifting (the consequences for him wouldn't be physical), Yunior seems unable to make this connection, which suggests that he's unable to truly internalize that Beto's dad is a man who isn't violent. Despite that Yunior admires or accepts as inevitable the masculine traits that Beto and his father embody, Yunior still sometimes resents them for displaying these traits. This suggests that Yunior is conflicted about the kind of man he will become—he hates certain aspects of masculinity, even as he strives to embody those aspects himself. For example, Yunior chides his mother for continuing to speak to his father, even though his father is continuously unfaithful and unfair to her. However, by telling her what to do and by mistreating other women (spending his weekends drunkenly preying on local college girls with his friends), he is falling into the same patterns as his father. Similarly, Yunior is angry when Beto punishes Yunior for knowing a word he doesn't know by holding Yunior's head under the water until he can't breathe, but Yunior finds it funny when Alex threatens to shoot local gay men with a plastic pistol even though it is a similarly disproportionate and violent response to Alex's discomfort. Indeed, Yunior's own conflicted understanding of masculinity comes to a head when he learns—through an experience of sexual violation—that Beto is gay. Yunior has always obsessively focused on the appearance of masculinity and strength, and he has seen Beto as a masculine role model. However, Yunior considers Beto's homosexuality as a betrayal of one of the central tenets of manliness: heterosexuality. Learning of Beto's sexuality therefore threatens not only Yunior's sense of his own masculinity (because it involved him in a gay act), but also Yunior's general sense of what men are supposed to be. Yunior says Beto is "a pato now but we used to be friends," which suggests that Beto's sexuality—and not his violation of Yunior—ended their friendship. This could mean that Beto's transgression of a masculine norm carries more weight with Yunior than his interpersonal betrayal. However, this statement could also be a ruse—it's possible that Yunior is too ashamed about the pall that he believes their sexual encounter casts on his own masculinity (he's terrified that he will end up "abnormal" as a result) to be fully honest about why they're no longer friends.  Beyond making Yunior feel that his own masculinity is threatened, learning that a man whom he saw as a role model is gay upends Yunior's masculine ideals. Learning of Beto's sexuality leaves Yunior with two choices: he can change his definition of masculinity so that it includes his otherwise masculine friend, or he can decide that his idolization of Beto was false and double down on the standards of masculinity with which he grew up. Yunior appears to choose the latter—he shuns Beto and becomes outwardly homophobic, as he and his friends often park near the neighborhood gay bar and shout violent slurs at the bar patrons. Yunior's inability to reevaluate his rigid and homophobic definitions of traditional masculinity speaks to the profound power of these ideas. Instead of entertaining more complex ideas about men and learning to accept his friend's sexuality, Yunior emphatically embraces traditional masculinity, even though it means taking on characteristics—violence and cruelty—that he hates in other men. - Theme: Escape and Belonging. Description: In "Drown," home is both a place to belong to and to escape from. Yunior and Beto both live in New Jersey and are the sons of working-class Dominican immigrants. Their bonds with their families and communities are indelible, and yet both boys struggle with a desire to escape and excel beyond the circumstances of their upbringing. Ultimately, however, Beto's sexuality forces him to think beyond his community and gives him the momentum to leave it, while Yunior has both the burden and privilege of fitting into his community and therefore getting trapped within it. Although Yunior and Beto come from much the same circumstances, their comfort levels within their community are vastly different. While Yunior does not particularly like remaining in his childhood routines, they suit him well and offer him a sense of stability. Indeed, Yunior is deeply woven into the fabric of his community. Everyone knows him and he knows multiple generations of the same families, even if it is because he "sells them their shitty weed." Furthermore, Yunior tells Beto that, unlike Beto, he has no "promises" beyond those offered to him by the neighborhood. He hasn't set himself up for more than a high school diploma—and besides, his mother needs him. In contrast, Beto's homosexuality means that he cannot fully belong to his community and so he has no choice but to build a life outside of it by excelling in school and seeking out opportunities and social situations in which he might be accepted. Yunior explains that Beto "knew a lot of kids I didn't" and he points out that some of Beto's more "worldly" friends were other gay men in the club scene in New York, examples of early attempts to stretch his social horizons beyond his community. Beto is also "delirious" at the thought of leaving for college because it means "nobody can touch [him]." This suggests that (though Yunior may be unaware of it) Beto has suffered violence and confinement as a result of his sexuality. While Beto urged Yunior to "learn how to walk the world" as a method of expanding his horizons, Yunior clearly never felt the need to expand his horizons, since he was comfortable enough where he was. While Beto's sexuality is clearly a factor in his ability to escape his community, his natural ambition and the fact that others recognized talent in him at a young age are also important. Beto was always encouraged and praised in school, which led him to be confident in his ability to direct his own life, while Yunior believes that he lacks the ability to control his fate. Yunior describes a formative experience of a teacher comparing him and his classmates to the space shuttle. The teacher explained that "a few of you are going to make it, but the majority of you are just going to burn out." In that moment, Yunior "already saw himself losing altitude," as if his fate were already sealed at a young age. By contrast, Beto always excelled in school, so he expected to escape no matter what. He explains to Yunior that, regardless of whether or not he was about to leave for college, he would just "choose a job anywhere and go" if it meant finally being free of his neighborhood. Yunior could also find a job somewhere else, but he prefers to stay home dealing drugs. He notes that while many of the younger kids he deals to have part-time jobs in addition to their schoolwork, he never had one himself, and he spends most of his free time drinking and fighting with his friends. Therefore, he seems to have fallen into exactly the life that he believed others expected of him, undercutting his sense of personal agency. Due to their differing abilities to belong to their community and their contrasting ideas about fate and agency, the concept of escape comes to mean fundamentally different things for Yunior and Beto. Beto escapes by permanently leaving a community that does not accept him and making a life in which he can be himself. To Yunior, escape means only temporary reprieve from a life that suits him but which he doesn't want. For example, he submerges himself in the pool just to surround himself with silence and stillness. "While everything above is loud and bright," he says, "everything below is silence." This might bring temporary emotional relief, but it doesn't fundamentally change the circumstances of his life—it just enables him to bear his hardships. Even when Yunior does contemplate more permanent escape in the form of joining the army, he doesn't take the concrete steps that Beto took to get out. Instead, Yunior seems to see himself as being at the mercy of others, going running in spots where he thinks he might encounter an army recruiter and saying, "These days my gut feels loose and cold and I want to be away from here. [The recruiter] just needs to name the place and I'll listen." This demonstrates that, even in contemplating a major life change, Yunior does not see himself as being in charge of his own fate. Throughout the story, both Yunior and Beto learn from their surroundings. They inherit their bad language, standoffishness, and aggressive behavior from their friends and family members, but they also inherit a sense where they fit into the world and expectations about how and if they will succeed. Although Yunior fulfills the low expectations of his teachers, he also fits within his community. In contrast, Beto is driven to succeed and leave his neighborhood precisely because his sexuality prevents him from fully fitting into his community. Without the belonging that Yunior feels, Beto's only option is to carve space for himself elsewhere and to have enough ambition to fuel his escape. - Theme: Past vs. Present. Description: "Drown" travels frequently (and often jarringly) between past and present narration. Disillusioned with his adult friends, job, and living situation, Yunior uses his memories to gain strength from his younger self, whom he views as stronger, funnier, and less bothered by his lack of ambition or direction. However, despite his best efforts, Yunior cannot draw a clean line between his past and present selves, largely because Beto's friendship and painful betrayal were critical parts of his past that therefore define his present and future. Beto's friendship was one of the central parts of Yunior's life from a young age. Beto is the person from whom Yunior learned how to be a man and how to carry himself in the world. Throughout the story, therefore, Yunior longs to reconnect with his positive memories of Beto, but finds himself unable to do so without also bringing up residual trauma from Beto's betrayal and assault. For example, Yunior lovingly recalls the "raging" and "crazy" summer that he spent with Beto before he left for college because it was a time that he felt free and uninhibited. However, even in the midst of positive memories of that summer, Yunior cannot help but include distinctly negative aspects of Beto's personality. In describing their youthful days of mischief at the pool, for example, he points out that Beto began to drown Yunior when Yunior knew something Beto didn't. Beto's influence also extends to how Yunior both views and remembers his neighborhood. At first, Yunior paints a tender portrait of summer nights in his neighborhood. He describes the "Abuelas with their night hair swirled around spikey rollers" punishing boys who were caught in the pool after hours, the "families arranged on their porches" illuminated by their glowing televisions, and the heavy smell of pear trees in the hot air, which all contribute to a fundamentally sweet and positive memory of his home and community. However, as the story progresses, Yunior's observations about his neighborhood become linked to negative memories—either memories of Beto's own disdain for the neighborhood, or memories of the trauma that Yunior experienced in his neighborhood at Beto's hands. It's clear that Yunior has been profoundly influenced by the fact that Beto "hated everything about the neighborhood, the break-apart buildings, the little strips of grass, the piles of garbage around the cans, and the dump, especially the dump." For Beto, the neighborhood represented failure, decrepitude, and decay. In the present, Yunior notes the same "sickly fuzz" on top of the dump that Beto hated so much, which shows the extent to which Yunior is still seeing the neighborhood he once loved through his estranged friend's eyes (this is also apparent in Yunior's increasing urgency to escape from the neighborhood like Beto did himself and also encouraged Yunior to do). Indeed, as Yunior divulges more of Beto's negative attributes to his readers, his memories of his neighborhood are each clearly linked with a memory of Beto that continues to haunt him. This is particularly true because the neighborhood is the site of Beto's assault, and all the places that used to give Yunior joy become painful reminders of how their friendship ended. For example, because Beto's assaults took place after the two boys swam together, Yunior no longer views the pool as a site of youthful freedom, but instead uses the water to escape his problems. All in all, despite Yunior's attempt to use positive memories to distract from the ways that Beto altered the course of Yunior's life, it becomes clear throughout the story that Yunior is fundamentally unable to remember a positive past without linking it to a negative memory of Beto. As a result, far from being strengthened by memories of his younger self, Yunior appears at the end of the story to be trapped within destructive patterns that are largely influenced by Beto. - Theme: Physical Ability. Description: Within the machismo culture in which Yunior grew up, there is an immense amount of importance placed on physical prowess. Yunior's strength and physical fitness are how he measures up to and distinguishes himself from men like Beto and his father. In addition, in the absence of strong intellectual ability, ambition, or a college education, physical ability is the single attribute that Yunior could use to leave New Jersey, since it could enable him to join the army. Therefore, Yunior's physique is the personal characteristic in which he takes the most pride and finds the most hope. And yet, throughout the story, both Yunior and the men he looks up to lose their perceived strength in various ways. Yunior begins to lose his physical prowess to age, while Yunior's father's violent temperament and Beto's homosexuality cause Yunior to see them as weak. This loss of strength—both in himself and in his perception of his role models—is devastating, as it signals to Yunior that he has not only lost the people that matter to him, but also the ability to escape his circumstances. Because Yunior learned how to be a man from watching and spending time with Beto, he came to recognize physical strength as the primary way to both impress Beto and see himself as equal to Beto. As such, Yunior is preoccupied with making clear how strong he and Beto were when they were younger. For example, Yunior explains that he and Beto used to eagerly await summer nights so that they could jump the fence into the pool and mess around with the other neighborhood teenagers. Jumping the fence is, by definition, an act that requires a large amount of upper body strength, but the two boys manage it without issue. Similarly, although Yunior's relationship with his father is complicated by his father's cruelty and violence, he still sees his father as an example of a physically strong man and a role model. Indeed, Yunior's father's strength and violent temper are the reasons that Yunior continues to respect him, joking to Beto that his father's beatings are equivalent to serving jail time. Indeed, far from questioning the severity of his father's punishments, Yunior sees them as an integral part of masculinity. Yunior also views physical strength as one of the few youthful attributes that could have allowed him to leave New Jersey. Since he is not a good student and has very little ambition to get him away from home, Yunior views his physical prowess as his only possible route out of his neighborhood. For example, Yunior explains that when he was younger, an Army recruiter used to watch him run and often tried to get him to enlist. As a young man, Yunior didn't feel the need to accept the recruiter's proposition, but the fact that the recruiter tried many times to get Yunior to join up demonstrated that he had options. In addition, Yunior continually draws attention to how strong he still is. He notes that he "runs three miles easy, could have pushed a fourth if I were in the mood." He also explains while swimming that he "can still swim far without coming up." These callbacks to his youthful strength prove that, as he gets older and his life gets more unfulfilling, Yunior is all the more keen to remind himself that his strength still belongs to him.  Ultimately however, Yunior is surrounded by lost strength, both in himself and in the men that he used to view as the paragons of physical and emotional strength in his life. For example, when Yunior goes to the pool to look for Beto, he finds that the fence that he used to climb easily is now uncomfortably hard to scale and he is mocked by neighborhood children when he falls on his face after climbing over. In addition, as a young man, Yunior explains that he didn't need the "discipline" and "loyalty" that the Army recruiter tried to sell him, but as he ages, and his "gut feels loose and cold," he becomes more frantic to spot the recruiter again, sensing that he might have a waning chance of ever making it out of New Jersey if his strength fades completely. Critically, Yunior's concept of strength doesn't just affect the way he sees himself—it also alters the way he thinks about Beto. While Yunior goes out of his way throughout the story to praise Beto's charisma, stature, and physical prowess, he immediately contradicts these impressions after Beto sexually assaults him. For example, when he goes to find Beto the night after the assault, he notes that Beto's body looked "pale and flabby under the water." Because Yunior is disgusted both by Beto's sexuality and his betrayal, he is also disgusted by any signs of his friend's physical weakness. In addition, Yunior explains that, as he aged, his tacit respect for his father's strength was replaced with full repulsion and resentment for his violent temper and the way he used it to terrorize Yunior and his mother. For example, Yunior bitterly recalls that his father gave him a brutal beating when he talked back to his mother in the aftermath of Beto's assault. Already reeling from Beto's betrayal, this second bastardization of physical strength made Yunior feel even more angry and alone. All in all, Yunior's attachment to physical strength as a marker of both successful manhood and lifelong fulfilment ultimately betrays him. Although he strives to be physically fit to measure up to Beto and stand up to his father, he eventually calls both men's physical strength into question, and with it, everything that strength had come to mean to him: masculinity, virility, and purpose. Therefore, Yunior is left only with the idea of his own past strength, which he holds on to like a promise, reasserting his physical ability to excel beyond his circumstances even as his emotional and mental ability to do so is almost extinguished. - Climax: Yunior's revelation that Beto sexually assaulted him when they were teenagers. - Summary: When Yunior's mother tells Yunior that his childhood best friend Beto is home from college for a visit, Yunior keeps watching television and pretends not to hear her. While he and Beto used to be like brothers, they have not spoken in over two years, ever since Beto went away to college and came out as gay. Beto always saw their neighborhood as a kind of prison, and he went to college farther down the Raritan River in New Jersey. Yunior on the other hand, stayed behind to finish high school, now living at home with his mother and selling drugs to the younger siblings of his former high school classmates. Yunior recalls the summer before Beto left for college in which the two boys spent most of their time playing stickball, shoplifting, and terrorizing their older neighbors. At night, to beat the heat, they would hop the fence at the local pool and swim until the neighbors chased them all home. In spite of himself, Yunior walks past Beto's house to see if he is home. When he doesn't find Beto, Yunior once again hops the pool fence (though it is harder since he has aged) in hopes of finding his former friend. Beto is not there, but Yunior still dives into the water, spending several minutes submerged under the surface, cherishing the silence and clarity that the water offers him. Yunior notices that he is the oldest person at the pool by several years, but he still recognizes the same types of youthful mischief that he and Beto used to get up to. He notices an old sign, "No Running, No Defecating, No Urinating, No Expectorating" and remembers that Beto was very angry with him because he knew the definition of the world "expectorating" while Beto did not. Despite encouraging Yunior to leave New Jersey and think more of himself, Beto hated when Yunior knew things that he didn't. Yunior explains that he and his mother still live alone in the same small apartment in which he grew up. Despite their close quarters, Yunior's mother spends most of her days in silence, except when Yunior watches her soap operas with her in the evenings. Yunior's father now lives in Florida with one of his many girlfriends, calling his mother whenever he needs more money. Yunior resents his father for his infidelity and violence during Yunior's childhood, and he is unhappy that his mother still takes his father's phone calls. Yunior's mother, on the other hand, thinks that her relationship with Yunior's father is healthy, and she doesn't understand why Yunior and Beto aren't able to have a similarly civil relationship. Yunior deflects her questions about Beto and continues to watch TV. On Saturday, Yunior's mother asks him to take her to the mall. Though Saturday is the best day to deal drugs, Yunior agrees, believing it to be part of his duty as a son. While his mother shops for bargains, Yunior remembers his youthful history of shoplifting with Beto, gleefully stealing bags full of merchandise from the same mall. Although Yunior's mother never suspected that he was stealing, Beto's recklessness eventually got the two boys caught and chased from the mall by a security guard. Yunior recalls that Beto was always much more suave and nonchalant when it came to stealing than Yunior could ever be. Without Beto's friendship, Yunior's social and daily routines have become stagnant and unfulfilling. At night, he drinks in college bars with his friends Alex and Danny, starting fights and harassing young women to pass the time. In the mornings, he goes for runs behind his apartment, keeping an eye out for an army recruiter who once asked Yunior to enlist when he was younger. Yunior secretly hopes that the recruiter will return and give him a reason to leave New Jersey, since, unlike Beto, he never had much ambition to succeed in school, so college wasn't an option. He often decided to skip classes even as he stood in line for the bus in the morning, and spent the day watching videos at the library or reading old magazines. Beto on the other hand, was always expanding his horizons, spending his evenings outside of New Jersey, and making friends who moved in different circles than Yunior, including gay men in Manhattan who were involved in the Club Kid scene of the eighties. Now, Yunior often spends his evenings with Alex and Danny harassing men at the gay bar that they pass on their way home from the college bars. Angered by the bar patrons, Alex often pulls his car over to shout homophobic slurs at the patrons or to point fake guns at them just to terrify them. For Yunior, homosexuality is contrary to the ideals of strength and masculinity that are deeply important to him, revealing a weakness and effeminacy that he cannot abide. Spurred by the memories of Alex's violent taunts, Yunior reveals that Beto sexually assaulted Yunior the summer before he left for college, but that Yunior did not fight back (and indeed allowed the event to recur) because of his bond with and allegiance to Beto. In addition to ending their friendship, Beto's unwanted sexual advances made Yunior worry that Beto had made Yunior himself gay, or turned him unnatural in some way. Instead of sharing his sense of betrayal with Beto, Yunior allowed him to leave for college, never opened the book Beto bought him as a going away present, and broke off all contact with him. Back from his run, Yunior cleans his sneakers in his bathroom and remembers a time when his high school class watched the space shuttle launch. One of his teachers compared the students in his class to the shuttle, in that only a few would have the personal momentum necessary to make it to space, and the rest would simply fall back to earth. Yunior explains that in that moment, he could already feel his momentum lag. When he finishes washing up, Yunior spends the evening watching a dramatic Spanish movie with his mother. They hold hands and Yunior's mother falls asleep halfway through. Yunior lets her sleep until the film is over and then goes to check the windows before going to sleep.

- Genre: Modernism and Southern Renaissance literature - Title: Dry September - Point of view: Third person - Setting: Jefferson, Mississippi - Character: Henry Hawkshaw. Description: Henry Hawkshaw, also known as Hawk, is one of the barbers of Jefferson, a mild-mannered white man. The barber shop is one of the central gathering places for men in the town, and "Dry September" opens with Hawkshaw discussing the rumors about Minnie Cooper and Will Mayes with his fellow barbers and their customers. Hawkshaw vehemently defends Mayes, showing himself to be principled and rational in contrast to the blind racial hatred of the other men in the shop. He argues that he knows Mayes and believes that he would not attack a white woman, and that Minnie is a middle-aged unmarried woman who might be prone to exaggeration. This discussion leads to a confrontation between Hawk and John McLendon, in which McLendon questions Hawk's virtue as a white man. Eventually, the other men leave with McLendon in an angry mob, intent on finding Mayes and killing him. Hawkshaw reluctantly joins the men in an attempt to keep them from hurting Mayes, but he ends up jumping from a moving vehicle and walking back to town in defeat. Hawkshaw's trajectory illustrates the near-impossibility of combating racial hate with reason, as well as the loneliness of dissent in small-town America. - Character: Will Mayes. Description: Will Mayes is a black man who lives in Jefferson, works at the ice factory, and has been accused of sexually assaulting a white woman, Minnie Cooper. It is unclear whether the rumor is true, and Mayes seems genuinely confused when confronted with an angry mob of white men who are out to kill him. Henry Hawkshaw knows Will, vouches for his character, and believes he is innocent; there will be no way to find out the truth, however, because the men in the barber shop have already decided on his guilt. As a black man in Jefferson, Mayes's word is worth next to nothing, and not a single person bothers to ask him about the incident. This character evokes a good deal of sympathy: he is diligently working at the ice factory on a Saturday night, and when the mob of men drags him out to the car, he maintains a deferential manner right up until he is handcuffed and beaten. Even the one man who believes him to be innocent is unable to help him; as Mayes calls to Hawkshaw for help, the barber jumps from the car to escape the imminent violence. Mayes's implied death is emblematic of the powerlessness of black men in this society, and in fact the rumor of his murder sends such a strong message to the black men of Jefferson that they are completely absent from public areas of town that evening. - Character: Minnie Cooper. Description: Minnie Cooper is an unmarried white woman in her late thirties who may or may not have been sexually assaulted by a black man, Will Mayes. There is no proof that anything happened between the two, and some people in Jefferson doubt her story, as this is not the first time she has had a "man-scare." Minnie has been virtually abandoned by this society, due to her low class and lack of a husband. Though she was attractive as a young girl, she but was passed over by the boys in town in favor of women with a higher social status. She briefly dated the clerk at the local bank, but that did not end well, as he moved to Memphis without Minnie. After that, she settled in with her aging mother and aunt, and had little to do to occupy her time. According to others in Jefferson, Minnie drank whiskey on a regular basis and had accused a man of watching her undress, both of which are seen as desperate attempts to attract attention. The rumor involving Will Mayes makes Minnie the center of attention, whether or not that was her intent in the first place. - Character: John McLendon. Description: John McLendon is described as having commanded troops in France and is considered a war hero and man of action around Jefferson. There is no mention of his current occupation, and it appears that it does not matter much, as he is entirely defined by his wartime heroism. He lives in Jefferson with his wife, and while he is publicly viewed as a man of valor, within the walls of his home, McLendon is verbally and physically abusive with his wife, embodying the hypocrisy at the center of "Dry September." McLendon bursts into the barber shop at the beginning of the story in order to recruit men to help him retaliate against Will Mayes for what he may or may not have done to Minnie Cooper. While some of the other men, including Henry Hawkshaw, suggest that they should gather facts and go to the authorities, McLendon questions their reputations as white men tasked with upholding the status quo. He gathers a mob of angry men and, with the gun he has tucked in his waistband, abducts Mayes and brings him to a secluded area to kill him. - Theme: Vigilante Justice. Description: "Dry September" is set in the South during the 1920s, when black men were often subjected to violence in retaliation for any perceived offense, often without proof or due process. The story begins with a group of white men discussing the rumored sexual attack or insult of Minnie Cooper, a white woman, by a black man, Will Mayes. The mob of men ignore the protestations of local barber Henry Hawkshaw, who is convinced that Mayes is innocent, and instead decide to abduct and assault Mayes that very evening. This form of vigilante justice, very common during this period in American history, is based on prejudice and racialized anger rather than evidence—and, it follows, is not really justice at all. Faulkner's story specifically exemplifies the ways in which whites used violence not to impose actual justice on society, but to maintain their own social dominance over blacks in the South. None of the men in the barber shop know what happened to Minnie Cooper, nor do they care about the details. In fact, when one man suggests that the group figure out if Mayes is actually guilty, the mob's self-appointed leader McLendon responds, "What the hell difference does it make?" Their intention is not to indict and then punish Mayes for his actions, but to send a message to the black men of Jefferson and to reinforce the social structure of the South in the pre-Civil Rights era. To that end, though the assault on Mayes is not described directly in the story, men in the main square spread the news that Mayes "went on a little trip." This vague rumor serves as a cautionary tale to the other black men of the town, that the white men are not "going to let the black sons get away with it until one really does it." Their threat is successful: as Minnie Cooper walks to the movie theater that evening, there was "not a Negro on the square. Not one." Beyond highlighting the prejudiced nature of vigilante "justice," the story also reveals how such vigilantism can rob people of individual, rational thought. While McLendon is ultimately able to rally two cars of men to attack Mayes, there is initially some degree of doubt among those assembled in the barbershop regarding Mayes's guilt. A few call for facts and evidence, with one attempting to calm the others down by noting that "We'll get the facts in plenty of time to act." Another questions the allegations themselves, asking, "Did it really happen?" Even as McLendon is able to persuade nearly all of the men in the barber shop to join him, many of them continue to express shame or discomfort about the decision. As some men get up to leave the shop, the others "sat uncomfortable, not looking at one another, then one by one they rose and joined." The fact that the men go through with things despite doubts about the justice of their actions further points to the dangers of the mob mentality inculcated by vigilantism. Henry Hawkshaw, the barber, stands out as a man of reason and integrity. He alone explicitly defends Mayes and argues against taking action, yet his words have little effect on the angry mob. Hawkshaw is certain from the beginning that Mayes is innocent, and is steadfast in his defense, noting, "I know Will Mayes… I know Miss Minnie Cooper, too." This puts him in direct conflict with the prejudiced, vengeful McLendon, highlighting the contrast between the men to the point that they're described as looking "like men of different races." Hawkshaw decides to find the men after they leave the barber shop, presumably to convince them not to hurt Mayes, but he, too, is quickly swept up in the action. His repeated protests of "Listen, boys" become little more than background noise, as the men continue on their mission. He even inadvertently becomes involved in the abduction itself, when Mayes lashes out at the crowd of men "and the barber struck him also." Hawkshaw eventually realizes the futility of his actions and gives up his role as Mayes's defender. His final action in the story is to escape, jumping from the moving vehicle and leaving the angry mob behind. The image of Hawkshaw as he "climbed back onto the road and limped on toward town" is one of a man who has tried, and failed, to impose reason. By presenting Hawkshaw's efforts to curb the violence through appeals to thoughtful discourse futile, Faulkner ultimately argues that prejudiced vigilantism is inherently irrational. The town of Jefferson is clearly ruled by a group of white men who feel empowered to take justice into their own hands. Their version of justice, however, is rooted in longstanding racism and the desire to maintain the traditional social structure of the pre-Civil War South. There is little room for differences of opinion, reason, or heroism in this highly-structured society, and men like Henry Hawkshaw are doomed to fail in their quest for true justice. Vigilantism in Faulker's story, then, is not a means for justice at all, but rather the preservation of a specific (and deeply prejudiced) societal order. - Theme: Rumor, Reputation, and Hypocrisy. Description: Rumor and reputation are powerful elements of life in "Dry September," as characters are defined by their social status and the stories that others tell about them. As an unmarried middle-aged woman and a black man, respectively, Minnie Cooper and Will Mayes have little control over their public images in the 1920s American South. Accordingly, both are passive bystanders to the action of the story and have little to say for themselves. The white McLendon, meanwhile, is seemingly automatically afforded a sense of respect and dignity that belies his cruel, abusive nature. This distinction highlights the hypocritical nature of the Jefferson community and condemns respectability based on shallow societal judgments. At the center of the story's controversy is Minnie Cooper's honor, though Faulkner makes clear that she, herself, has little say in the matter; Minnie has no lines in "Dry September," and her reputation is entirely defined by those around her even before the rumors of her alleged insult or assault by Mayes. In her youth, Minnie "had been a little brighter and louder flame than any other," which may have made her the object of rumor and jealousy and excluded her from the traditional path of marriage and motherhood. Now, she is described as "good people enough," but, as an unmarried woman of nearly forty, she is no longer considered a suitable prospect for any respectable man. In either case, outward markers have been used to define Minnie's social value. Minnie's sexual history also separates her from many other women in town. At some point in the past, "the town began to see her driving on Sunday afternoons with the cashier in the bank," a man who eventually left her for a job in Memphis. Even the mob of men in the barber shop take a moment to question her truthfulness based on her past, noting, "This ain't the first man scare she ever had," and commenting vaguely that "them ladies that get old without getting married don't have notions that a man can't…" Through these details, Faulkner establishes a world that places a premium on social reputation, even as it suggests the arbitrary, malleable nature of such judgments. This backdrop points to the shallowness of the Jefferson community, which is all too eager to latch onto and extrapolate from potentially baseless rumors in order to cast judgment. For instance, although the men in the barber shop do not know the details of what happened to Minnie, they assume the worst, asking themselves if they will "let a black son rape a white woman on the streets of Jefferson." A white woman's reputation is fragile enough to be damaged by such a rumor, however false or truthful, and the simple possibility of sexual contact with a black man is a significant enough to warrant violence against him. Rumor and reputation, then, are more than social conveniences; they have distinct repercussions and consequences, especially for those afforded little personal agency beyond what others say about them—that is, women and black people. Somewhat ironically, it is because of this that the veracity of Minnie's accusation remains in question throughout the story. The recent rumor of her insult or assault has brought her a lot of attention from both men and women in town, essentially allowing her to reclaim visibility from those who had dismissed her. While she had long ceased to be an object of interest to men, after the Mayes rumors, "even the young men lounging in the doorway tipped their hats and followed with their eyes the motion of her hips and legs when she passed." Her female friends, meanwhile, cannot suppress their desire to live vicariously through the details, looking at her with "secret and passionate" eyes, telling her "you must tell us what happened. What he said and did; everything." Like the picture show, which offers a glimpse into life "in its terrible and beautiful mutations," Minnie's story provides the townspeople with a salacious escape from their daily lives. Minnie's strange actions on the evening of the attack on Will Mayes only add to the mystery. Her laughing fit in the movie theater could be a delayed reaction to her purported assault; on the other hand, it could be another bid for attention. Faulkner leaves it up to the reader to decide on Minnie's intentions and evaluate her actions. If she is lying or even mistaken in her accusation, then identifying Mayes as her attacker was likely an attempt to boost her own reputation at his expense. It is the white McLendon, however, who perhaps offers the greatest example of the dangers of privileging reputation above all else. Despite being the epitome of respectability because he "had commanded troops at the front in France and had been decorated for valor," McLendon is the instigator of the vigilante mob, entering the barber shop for the sole purpose of recruiting men. He establishes himself as a man of action, claiming "no talking necessary at all. I've done my talking. Who's with me?" While the other customers are seated at the shop, McLendon remains standing the whole time, demonstrating his readiness to act. He also repeatedly calls into question the reputation of those unwilling to join him. When Hawkshaw joins the men in the car, for instance, McLendon taunts him, "when this town hears how you talked tonight." McLendon is clearly a man who knows the power of what other people say, and ostensibly well aware that the respect afforded him as a white war hero will insulate him from any repercussions for violence against Mayes. The unfairness of this—especially viewed in light of to the lack of respect afforded Minnie, and, especially, Mayes—is made all the more jarring in the final moments of the story. McLendon returns to his house, described as "trim and fresh as a birdcage and almost as small, with its clean, green-and-white paint." Like McLendon himself, the house denotes respectability, but is a deceiving façade; inside, McLendon is both emotionally and physically abusive with his wife. He berates her for waiting up for him and then attacks her. First grabbing her shoulder, he "released her and half struck, half flung her across the chair" before leaving the room. The contrast between the public and private is clear here, as McLendon has gone from defending a woman's honor out in town, to cruelly abusing a woman in his own home. The fact that such a man has led the crusade against Mayes again points to the utter hypocrisy of the Jefferson community's conception of honor, as a—very likely innocent—man has been deemed a criminal and led to his implied death at the hands of a respected but deeply cruel "hero." "Dry September," then, offers a scathing condemnation of those who would privilege reputation above actual character, as well as those who fail to look beyond flimsy rumors and social appearances to discern the truth. - Theme: Racism. Description: Racial hatred is the major motivating factor for the violence depicted in "Dry September." Through Will Mayes's unjust abduction and likely murder at the hands of a vicious white mob, Faulkner presents a highly critical view of racial relations in the South in the 1920s—where black men's behavior is criminalized while white men are free to commit violent acts without fear of reprisal. At its core, "Dry September" is thus a story of the consequences of irrational fear of and anger towards black men; Faulkner's depiction of Mayes as submissive and likely innocent illustrates the degree to which racial hatred can turn deadly despite its utter irrationality. The white men in the story clearly do not see Mayes as their equal, nor even as a full human being. With the exception of Hawkshaw, who defends Mayes's character, the men do not call their suspect by name. He is instead a "black son" or a "nigger," an epithet that denotes their feelings of hatred and racial superiority. Even Hawkshaw, who stands out as the most rational character in the story, is not immune to the profound, systemic racism of this society. His defense of Mayes is rooted in his belief that the man is a "good nigger," reinforcing the idea that black men are inherently different from—and more criminal than—white men, and that the former should be defined first and foremost by their skin color.  This thinking effectively denies Mayes his humanity, and instead allows the vigilante mob to cast Mayes as a predator solely because he is a black man. His story is never heard, and it is never clear whether or not Mayes is guilty of anything at all—on the contrary, it is heavily implied that he is, in fact, innocent. The scene in which the men abduct Mayes further creates a sharp contrast to this widespread image of black men as violent and aggressive. Mayes attempts to remain as submissive as possible during his abduction, politely asking what is happening and calling his captors "Captains," "Mr. John," and "Mr. Henry." He struggles briefly before getting into the car, even "drawing his limbs in so as not to touch" the white men surrounding him. Mayes uses the few lines he has in the story to defend himself despite seeming unaware of what crime he has committed. He argues, "I ain't done nothing. White folks, captains, I ain't done nothing: I swear 'fore God." Yet his words are meaningless to the mob of men—at this point, Mayes is seen to be guilty regardless of whether or not the rumor is true. In contrast, the mob of men cannot contain their anger and violence, rushing towards Mayes and attacking him both verbally and physically despite his submissive demeanor. Some of the men wanted to kill Mayes at the ice factory where they abducted him, murmuring "Kill him! Kill the black son!" As they put Mayes into the car, the men also strike "with random blows," further suggesting they aim not to subdue their prisoner, but rather to satisfy their own desire to inflict violence. The men also use handcuffs on Mayes when they transport him to the location of his death, a detail that directly references the treatment of black slaves only some decades earlier. The handcuffs do not come from a member of law enforcement or any official authority in town, but rather by a group of angry white men subduing a black man. Faulkner refers to Mayes's "manacled hands," recalling images of black slaves in shackles as they were brought work or to be murdered by their white slave owners. The use of this image reminds readers that despite ostensibly being out of bondage, black men will never be free within a deeply racist society. - Theme: Gender and Class. Description: The characters in "Dry September" act within strictly proscribed gender and class boundaries, which Faulkner refers to vaguely as "snobbery male and retaliation female." These categories dictate the actions of both men and women in Jefferson, robbing individuals of broader opportunity and in, some senses, free will. Such rigid boundaries, the story suggests, ignore the possibility of female agency and force men to perform an authoritative masculinity that, in this story, quickly escalates into violence.   Minnie Cooper's status in society is marred by a number of factors, starting with the fact that she is not part of the upper class. Her social routine is similar to that of richer women: she dresses in the afternoon, meets up with friends, and spends time socializing in the shops. Yet Minnie only has "three or four new voile dresses" to choose from each day, and she and her friends "haggle over the prices" without actually making any purchases. This class distinction is of the utmost importance in Jefferson, and is the reason that Minnie finds herself unmarried and alone in her late thirties. Her beauty allowed her to enter into the upper echelon of society for a time, but only while her friends were "still children enough to be unclass-conscious." She was unable to compete with her upper-class friends for the available men to marry and has since found herself living with her ageing mother and aunt. While the men in the barber shop consider it necessary to defend the honor of a white woman, they still pause to consider Minnie's specific social status. When one man asks who Minnie is, Hawkshaw notes, "She's about forty, I reckon. She ain't married." As a woman, Minnie is defined by her age and marital status—evidence further in support of Mayes's innocence, because the implication is that even a black man would not rape an older, unmarried woman. Another man jokes that the weather can make men do strange things, "Even to her." Thus even as the men prepare to violently avenge this wrongdoing, they question Minnie's social value amongst themselves. As a relative outsider in her own society, Minnie is a passive observer with little to offer beyond this minor scandal. Like her visits to the moving pictures, Minnie's trips downtown give her a glimpse into a lifestyle she will never know. She watches the younger women, "their delicate, silken heads and thin, awkward arms and conscious hips, clinging to one another or shrieking and giggling with paired boys in the soda fountain when she passed." This is a sort of reenactment of the same courting rituals she herself nearly got to participate in as a young woman, yet which are closed to her now. Even in her relationship with the bank teller, Minnie is powerless and devoid of agency. She is a passenger, both literally and figuratively, driven around without the opportunity to make her own decisions. The boyfriend leaves her to take a better job in Memphis, opting for the path of upward mobility that is not available to Minnie. This sense of exclusion is reinforced every Christmas, as the man returns for an "annual bachelors' party at a hunting club on the river," an event that excludes Minnie on the basis of both her gender and class. In contrast with Minnie's "idle, empty days" and complete passivity, the men of the barber shop feel compelled to act without consulting Minnie or any other woman. In fact, once Minnie has made her way to the moving pictures that evening, the news of Mayes's abduction is common knowledge, yet no one speaks directly to her about it. This strongly suggests that the abduction of Mayes has little to do with Minnie's safety, and much more to do with fulfilling the obligations of pre-established gender roles. Indeed, the men of Jefferson feel obligated to perpetuate a damaging, performative masculinity that is reinforced through violence, both implicit and explicit. The scene in the barber shop is almost theatrical, in that many of the characters use symbols, gestures, and physical space to establish dominance. The scene opens with the barber standing as his customers sit and talk; as the conversation about Minnie and Mayes gets more heated, however, customers sit upright or jump out of their seats. One man must even be forced back into his chair: "he arrested himself reclining, his head lifted, the barber still pressing him down." Hawkshaw holds "the razor poised above the half-risen client," keeping the man in check; another barber "held the drummer's face down, the razor poised." The act of standing over another is a physical gesture of dominance and is repeated throughout the story. In the final scene, for example, McLendon notably stands over his wife, "poised on the balls of his feet," until she looks down submissively. The clearest, and most dangerous symbol, of toxic masculinity in the story McLendon's gun. As he leaves the barber shop with the angry mob of men, "the butt of a heavy automatic pistol" peeks out from his pants pocket. As the weapon that will be used to abduct and presumably kill Mayes, the pistol is a badge of pride for McLendon. Known for his military service, McLendon has already established his masculinity and social status through previous acts of state-sanctioned violence. The pistol makes a final appearance at the end of the story, as McLendon strips down before bed, leaving his weapon on the bedside table. Even in the privacy and safety of his own home, McLendon keeps this symbol of masculinity close by and ready for use.  When viewed through the lens of the restrictive gender and class boundaries, the characters in "Dry September" have very little freedom to establish individual opinions. Women like Minnie Cooper, who do not belong to the upper class in Jefferson, are forced to wait for a suitable partner to choose them and run the risk of a lifetime of spinsterhood. While men move more freely in this society, they are obligated to reiterate their masculinity, mainly through threats or acts of violence. In either case, attempts to move within narrowly-defined social constructs shape characters' behavior and specifically push them to cast aside a man with the least agency of all—that is, Will Mayes, a black man—in a performative attempt to prove their own social value. - Climax: The angry mob takes Will Mayes to the kilns to murder him - Summary: On a hot and dry evening in September, a group of men is gathered in a barbershop in Jefferson, Mississippi, discussing the rumor that a black man, Will Mayes, has attacked Minnie Cooper, an unmarried white woman. The barber, Henry Hawkshaw, attempts to convince the other men that Mayes is innocent, but the others angrily argue that a white woman must be telling the truth. The war hero John McLendon enters the shop, a gun protruding from his pocket, to round up a group of men to find Mayes. As the men leave with McLendon, Hawkshaw decides to follow them and try to stop them from hurting Mayes. Minnie Cooper, who lives with her aging mother and aunt, is nearly forty. She spends her days sitting on her porch in the mornings, window shopping with her friends in the afternoons, and at the moving pictures in the evenings. Though she was an attractive young woman, she never married. She dated a widowed bank clerk for a time, but he left her when he got a job in Memphis. According to local gossip, Minnie regularly drank whiskey she bought from the clerk at the soda fountain, and had in the past accused another man of watching her undress. Hawkshaw finds the men on their way to find Will Mayes and joins them, still intending to keep the others from causing harm. The men arrive at the ice factory where Mayes works, drag him out, handcuff and beat him, and then put him in the back seat of the car next to Hawkshaw. Mayes attempts to talk to the men, maintaining his innocence, but the men ignore him as they drive out to an abandoned area of town. Feeling sick, Hawkshaw begs McLendon to stop the car and let him out, to no avail. He finally decides to open the door while the car is moving and jump out. Hawkshaw then walks along the road, hiding in a ditch when the car passes him on its way back to town. In the meantime, Minnie is preparing to go to the movies for the evening. She is suddenly the center of attention: her friends come to help her dress and press her for more information about the crime, and the men downtown watch her and whisper about her and Mayes. The news has spread that McLendon and his gang have retaliated against Mayes for his presumed crime, and it is then that everyone notices that there are no black men in the square that evening. When Minnie goes in to watch the film, she has a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and is escorted out of the theater. Her friends take her home, undress her, put her into bed with an ice pack, and call for the doctor. McLendon returns home at midnight. His wife has stayed awake, which angers McLendon and leads to a confrontation between the couple. McLendon abuses his wife verbally, then grabs her shoulder and throws her onto the chair. He walks to the bed, undresses, puts his gun on the bedside table, and attempts to wipe the sweat from his body.

- Genre: Science Fiction - Title: Dune Messiah - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Arrakis, or Dune—a fictional planet in a fictional universe - Character: Paul Atreides (Muad'Dib). Description: Paul Atreides is the Emperor, or Muad'Dib, of Arrakis and most of the Dune universe. In Dune Messiah's prequel, Dune, Paul spearheaded a jihad against an oppressive army. After defeating this army, Paul's followers—mostly comprised of Fremen—continued the Jihad, viewing Paul as a godhead and threatening other groups in the universe to follow his lead. As a result, in Dune Messiah, Paul is riddled with guilt and regret. He feels that working so many into a religious frenzy and causing the deaths of his many dissenters has caused his power and influence over the universe to turn sour. Furthermore, he struggles against a feeling of acute powerlessness. His sees the future with his prescience, a power which seems to carry with it absolute command over the universe but instead only shows Paul how time subjects Paul himself to fate—Paul struggles to live in the present when he knows what his future holds. He tries to be excited about Chani's pregnancy and the prospect of their retirement to Sietch Tabr, but all he can see is the incontrovertible truth that Chani will die in the near future. All in all, Paul wishes that he could relinquish his position of power and be a normal person. When Hayt—the ghola of Paul's former sword master—arrives on Dune, Paul knows that he was sent by the Tleilaxu to destroy Paul, but he allows Hayt to stay because Hayt reminds Paul of a past he longs for. Ultimately, Paul is cornered by the Guild's conspiracy against him. However, the unforeseen birth of Paul and Chani's son Leto and Paul's resistance against Scytale's tempting offer to revive Chani as a ghola protect Paul's legacy. At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul walks into the desert, fulfilling a Fremen rule that the blind (Paul was blinded by a stone burner laid by his enemies) must submit themselves to death in the desert. In this way, he solidifies the Fremen's eternal reverence for him. - Character: Hayt (Duncan Idaho). Description: Hayt is the revived flesh—or ghola—of Paul Atreides's former sword master, Duncan Idaho. Hayt is sent to Paul by the Tleilaxu who, in conspiracy with the Guild, revived the ghola in order to destroy Paul. In every respect, Hayt looks just like Duncan Idaho, except for his mechanical eyes. His resemblance to Idaho tempts Paul with memories of his past, and so he accepts the ghola even though he suspects the ghola is a pawn conditioned by his enemies. As Paul struggles to decide whether the ghola is Hayt or Duncan Idaho, Hayt himself struggles with his identity, at times being flooded with memories of the past, and at times acting under Tleilaxu orders programmed into his brain. For instance, Bijaz imbeds Hayt with the order to kill Paul as soon as Chani dies. However, when this moment comes, Paul jolts Hayt's memories of his former self, and Hayt transforms fully into Duncan Idaho, protecting Paul and obeying his every command. After Paul runs into the desert to die, Duncan Idaho and Alia begin a relationship with the implication that they will continue the empire. - Character: Chani. Description: Chani is Paul Atreides's long-term Fremen lover. She experiences many failed attempts to become pregnant due to the contraceptives that Princess Irulan is feeding her on the Guild's orders. Desperate for Paul to have an heir, Chani even tries to persuade him to father a child with Irulan. When Chani discovers and stops the cause of her infertility, she becomes pregnant. However, lasting damage from the contraceptives complicate her pregnancy and cause the fetus to grow alarmingly fast. Eventually, Chani dies giving birth to Paul's twins. Throughout Dune Messiah, Paul feels guilt in Chani's presence because he foresees her death but can't do anything to prevent it. - Character: Alia Atreides. Description: Alia Atreides is Paul's Atreides's teenage sister. She is feisty, precocious, and highly sexually awakened for her age. Lady Jessica had been pregnant with Alia when she became a Reverend Mother. As a result, Alia was born with the power to understand her mother's psychological state and wisdom. However, she is not equipped with the power to see the future, as Paul is. Throughout Dune Messiah, Dune's pilgrims worship Alia, considering her to be a goddess. She resents their reverence for her, though, and often longs for a normal life. While the Guild conspiracy considers arranging for Paul and Alia to mate so that they can create the Bene Gesserit heir that they want, Alia finds herself attracted to the conspiracy's ghola, Hayt. At the end of Dune Messiah, after Hayt becomes Duncan Idaho and Paul has run into the desert to die, the novel implies that Alia and Duncan Idaho begin a relationship. - Character: Scytale. Description: Scytale is a Tleilaxu Face Dancer and a member of the Guild conspiracy. To trick Paul Atreides into going to Sietch Tabr to retrieve Bijaz, Scytale disguises himself as Lichna. After Chani dies leaving Paul a daughter and son, Scytale tries to bargain with Paul, offering to revive Chani as a ghola in exchange for control of Paul's empire. During this negotiation, Paul kills Scytale after acquiring sudden access to his newborn son's vision. - Character: Princess Irulan. Description: Princess Irulan is the daughter of a Bene Gesserit emperor whom Paul Atreides killed in the Jihad. Paul marries Irulan to graft political peace but refuses to father an heir with her. In conspiracy with the Guild, Irulan feeds Chani contraceptives and tries to beguile Paul into having a baby with her. When the members of the conspiracy are executed, Alia Atreides spares Irulan. - Character: Edric. Description: Edric is the leader of the Guild conspiracy. His prescient powers make him essential to the conspiracy because they prevent Paul Atreides's prescient powers from accessing their activities. He is often described as repulsive, having the body of a reptile and living in a tank of orange fluid that keeps him constantly drugged with melange. - Character: Bijaz. Description: Bijaz is a Tleilaxu dwarf who speaks in cryptic riddles. Otheym gives Bijaz to Paul Atreides so that Paul can extract from Bijaz the names of his enemies. However, Bijaz ends up implanting Hayt with the order to kill Paul when Paul is in the throes of grief.Ultimately, Hayt kills Bijaz on Paul's orders. - Character: Gaius Helen Mohiam. Description: Gaius Helen Mohiam is a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and one of the leaders of the Guild conspiracy. Having once approved Paul Atreides as the kwisatz haderach, Gaius Helen Mohiam disapproves of the Fremen Jihad unleashed in Paul's name. She strives to prevent Paul from fathering an heir with Chani and seeks to force him to impregnate Princess Irulan instead, thereby putting a Bene Gesserit on the throne. In Dune Messiah, Gaius Helen Mohiam is executed along with the other Guild conspirators. - Theme: Power. Description: While Dune tells the story of one man's rise to power, Dune Messiah portrays the nature of his power once he has attained it. Author Frank Herbert intended Dune Messiah to be an inversion of the science fiction novel's typical subject matter: the hero's rise to power. Instead, Dune Messiah deals with a hero's downfall and the failures of power. Dune's hero, Paul Atreides, enters the scene as Dune Messiah's protagonist—the ruler, or Muad'Dib, of most of the universe and the godhead of a powerful religious jihad. Despite his supreme position of power, Paul struggles with a deep feeling of powerlessness. He feels that no matter how much power he gains, the universe still exceeds and contains him. Paul is also endowed with the power of prescience (the ability to see the future), a power which also comes with its own powerlessness. Although he can see what the future holds and therefore prepare for it, he is still "caught in time's web." In other words, although Paul has the power to see the future, he cannot control it, nor can he alter the course of fate. It is the paradoxical nature of Paul's power of prescience that reveals the paradox of absolute power: although Paul has powerful forces under his control, he is still subject to the universe and the future. Dune Messiah explores Paul's powerlessness in relation to his position as the most powerful man in the universe to suggest that it is impossible for a person to hold total power. - Theme: Religion. Description: Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah explores the dangers of religion, especially when mixed with forces of government. In Dune Messiah's prequel, Dune, the Fremen people of Arrakis choose Emperor Paul Atreides as their messiah, and Paul starts a religious jihad. When Dune Messiah picks up 12 years later, the powerful jihad continues to reign supreme. Paul struggles to steer humanity toward safety while also maintaining his role as messiah for the Fremen people. Not only does this dual responsibility weigh on Paul, but the religious Jihad has become corrupt: it has conquered most of the universe, killing billions of people and leading thousands of religious pilgrims to flock to the streets of Dune. These pilgrims are fanatical to an extreme degree, supplicating themselves before Paul and his sister Alia as gods, much to the siblings' irritation. Paul often wishes that he could escape the jihad through retreating to the desert or even death, but he knows that his name will outlive him and continue to fuel the corrupt jihad. Eventually, Paul discovers that the head of Arrakis' religious group, the Qizarate, has been conspiring to overthrow him. This discovery reveals the disingenuousness and corruption of the group's fanatical religiosity and brings Paul's mounting frustration with the jihad to a climax. Ultimately, Paul ends his life and his rule by walking into the desert, fulfilling a Fremen requirement of all blind citizens. Consequently, Paul act allows him to evade deification by the jihadists while also ensuring their lasting respect and induction of his children as heirs to his empire. Thus, the novel ends with the message that religion, when practiced to a fanatic degree, is a threat to government. As such, Dune Messiah makes the claim that governments operate most smoothly when humans trust humanity above religious authority. - Theme: Guilt and Longing. Description: Guilt and longing are prevalent emotions throughout Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah. The novel's protagonist, Paul Atreides, has held a position of power in the universe for 12 years, and he's begun to feel power's effect on his personal life. He and his lover, Chani, often talk about leaving the city of Arrakis for the desert where Chani grew up and spending the rest of their lives in peace and simplicity. However, not only does Paul feel that he can't escape the position of messiah into which the Fremen have placed him, but he can see with his oracular vision that his and Chani's life together will not end happily, for Chani is fated to die in childbirth. Because he can see the future, Paul does not prevent Princess Irulan, his wife, from feeding Chani contraceptives on the orders of the Bene Gesserit (a group that conspires against Paul to thwart his and Chani's legacy). Paul feels guilty about enabling Chani's infertility, and later, when she does become pregnant, he feels guilty about subjecting her to a death that he can see coming. Connected to his longing for a different fate, Paul also feels a longing for the past. He can't resist accepting the Bene Gesserit's gift of Hayt—the revived ghola of his former master and friend, Duncan Idaho. Although Paul knows that his enemies created Hayt to destroy him, he is drawn to Hayt as a reminder of his past. The preponderance of guilt and longing in Paul's existence suggests that these sentiments are essential to the human experience, even to the experience of those who are highly successful and influential. Ultimately, however, the novel also shows that guilt and longing are destructive to human life, as they can lead a person to feel anguish over events that they cannot control. In this way, Dune Messiah illustrates the human tendency to plague oneself with futile sentiments. - Theme: Fate and Choice. Description: Dune Messiah explores the nature of fate and the power to see the future. Not only is the world of Dune Messiah subject to fate, but its protagonist—the Emperor of the fictional planet Dune, Paul Atreides—is gifted with the power of prescience, or the power to see the future. From the outset, this power is not a positive thing. In fact, as an omniscient narrator claims at the outset of the novel, "completely accurate and total prediction is lethal." This foreshadows that, while prescience allows Paul to see and prepare for his future, this power will ultimately lead to his downfall. Indeed, power to see the fated future causes Paul anguish because it prevents his free choice. Paul confronts the prospect of a future that he is powerless to prevent, having glimpsed early on that his lover Chani is going to die in childbirth and that he will fall from power. He runs from his visions and often wishes that he could live without knowledge of the future. When an exploding stone burner physically blinds Paul's eyes, his prescience is the only thing that allows him to see. He is able to live and act with a different kind of sight, fulfilling each moment as it appears to him in his oracular visions. From then on, Paul feels like a prisoner of fate, living out his doomed future with no capacity for choice. However, this new blindness also causes Paul to accept the fact that he has no choice other than to willingly submit to his fate. When he relinquishes control over his future, Paul actually experiences unforeseen events; he had not foreseen that Chani was pregnant with twins—only that she would give birth to a daughter—so the birth of his son and heir to his throne comes as a pleasant surprise. Dune Messiah, in illustrating Paul's relationship to fate, shows how a person can experience a kind of choice and peace only once they choose to embrace their fate. - Climax: - Summary: Dune Messiah opens on planet Wallach IX where the Guild—comprised of Edric, Scytale, Princess Irulan and the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam—discusses their plans to dethrone Paul and put the Bene Gesserit in power. As the Bene Gesserit's former kwisatz haderach, Paul deeply offended the Bene Gesserit by refusing to bear an heir with Princess Irulan, his political wife, and instead attempting to have children with his Fremen lover, Chani. The Guild establishes that Princess Irulan slips Chani birth control. They make a plan to send a Tleilaxu ghola of Paul's former sword master, Duncan Idaho—to poison Paul's psyche and make Paul's sister Alia attracted to him. The Guild conceals these plans from Paul's prescience through Edric's prescience. The story moves to Paul and Chani's room on the planet Dune. Paul struggles with a feeling of regret for subjecting Chani to a fate that only he can see coming with his prescience. Meanwhile, Scytale goes to the desert on Dune, kills a man named Farok, assumes his appearance, and kidnaps Otheym's daughter, a girl who'd been in Farok's care. Back in Paul's city, Paul leads a meeting in which Princess Irulan begs to be allowed to mother the Muad'Dib's heir. Chani sides with Irulan, pointing out the civil strife that would result from Paul leaving behind no heir. Paul refuses on the grounds that Irulan is too connected to his Bene Gesserit enemies. He wishes that he and Chani could escape to Sietch Tabr, but he knows his name would be left behind to rule in his place. A few days later, Alia watches through a keyhole as the Guild arrives on Dune, bringing Hayt, the ghola of Duncan Idaho, as a gift. When Paul asks Hayt what his purpose is, Hayt responds that he was sent to destroy Paul. Despite this information, Paul welcomes the Guild to Dune and accepts the ghola, unable to resist its resemblance to Duncan Idaho. Alia feels attracted to Hayt. Meanwhile, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam is imprisoned (Reverend Mothers are banned from Dune). Princess Irulan visits her jail cell, and the Reverend Mother urges Princess Irulan to kill Chani. A few days later, Alia takes a bath and then practices sword-fighting naked. She is interrupted by Paul and Stilgar, who are upset at what she's doing. They all have the uncomfortable thought that the Guild may be trying to occasion Paul and Alia to mate. Later, Paul and Edric have a conversation in which Edric accuses the Qizarate of insincerity. After Edric leaves, Paul disagrees with Stilgar and says that his jihad has not brought believers into the light, but rather has resulted in the deaths of 61 billion people. Alia and Hayt go to the desert to examine a dead body. Alia questions Hayt about his identity. They flirt, and when they get back to the city, Hayt kisses Alia. Alia suspects there is no missing woman and that the body has something to do with a Face Dancer. Later, Paul takes an extra dose of melange and watches the image of the moon falling inside his mind. Despite his power, Paul feels powerless and sees a future without Chani. Hayt appears, and Paul wonders if he is Hayt or Duncan Idaho. Later, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam sits for trial. Paul, suspecting that the Guild has designs against Chani, offers the Bene Gesserit his sperm if they will spare Chani's life. Appalled at the idea of artificial breeding, the Reverend Mother refuses. Meanwhile, Scytale tells Edric (whom he despises) to make Hayt destroy Paul faster. Chani is furious when she finds out that Princess Irulan was slipping her birth control, but Paul urges her to forgive Irulan. Chani is upset that Paul duels with Hayt, whom Chani doesn't trust. When Paul questions Hayt about his identity, Chani realizes that Hayt is more man than ghola. Chani soon becomes pregnant, and the fetus grows alarmingly fast. Otheym's daughter Lichna (Scytale in disguise) visits Paul to tell him that Otheym demands Paul visit him on Sietch. Paul can't find an excuse to not to go. He puts on his stillsuit and goes to Alia's temple. There, he watches Alia preside over a throng of reverent pilgrims and gets swept up in the mystery and ardor himself. He meets up secretly with his guide, and they depart for sietch. In Otheym's house, Otheym says that his neighbors are plotting against Paul. He gives Paul Bijaz, a Tleilaxu dwarf who knows the names of Paul's enemies. As Paul is leaving with Bijaz, a stone burner explodes, burning Otheym's house and blinding Paul's eyes. Despite having lost his eyes, Paul can still see with his prescience. However, many Fremen think that Paul should abandon himself in the desert, as per their rule for blind people. Back in the city, Paul extracts the names of his enemies from Bijaz and puts Korba on trial. Paul charges Korba with aiding enemies in smuggling melange to another planet and in detonating the stone burner. During the trial, Alia makes note of the people in the crowd who were clearly Korba's accomplices. Meanwhile, Hayt visits Bijaz. Speaking in riddles, Bijaz says that when Chani dies, Hayt will become Duncan Idaho. Bijaz implants Hayt with the order to kill Paul when Paul comes to Hayt in grief. Afterward, Hayt goes to Alia and tells her of the Guild's plot to mate her and Paul. Hayt then calls medics because Alia has overdosed on melange. Chani and Paul go to Sietch Tabr. While she is looking out at the desert, Chani goes into labor and is escorted inside. Meanwhile, Paul stands looking out at the desert thinking about how no man can ever rule the universe. Hayt comes up to Paul, and soon after, Paul hears someone scream his name. Paul announces that Chani is dead. Hayt turns to Paul, gripping his knife, but Paul addresses him as Duncan Idaho, and Hayt's Tleilaxu nature fades away. Suddenly physically and presciently blind, Paul goes to Chani's body and learns that she gave birth to twins—a boy and a girl—something which Paul had not foreseen. Scytale enters, disguised as Lichna, and offers to revive Chani as a ghola in exchange for control of Paul's empire. Suddenly able to see through his son Leto's eyes, Paul kills Scytale. Hayt leads Paul back to his room, where Bijaz again propositions Paul with Chani's revival. Knowing that the Tleilaxu will condition Chani's ghola to kill the twins, Paul refuses the tempting offer and orders Hayt to kill Bijaz. Hayt looks out into the desert and grieves Paul, who has just run into the desert to die. Alia joins Hayt, having just executed all of Paul's traitors, except Princess Irulan. Hayt comforts Alia over Paul's suicide, saying that Paul's act allowed him to escape rule while also obtaining the eternal trust and reverence of the Fremen. Alia and Hat confess their love for each other and go back inside.

- Genre: Autobiographical fiction; Postwar fiction; Biblical allegory - Title: East of Eden - Point of view: John Steinbeck narrates in 1st person; but parts of the novel are told in 3rd person omniscient. - Setting: Salinas, California - Character: Adam Trask. Description: Adam is the son of Cyrus Trask and the brother of Charles Trask. Adam was forced into the army by his father, whom he respected but did not love. After getting out of the army, he meets and marries Catherine and with her conceives twin sons (Cal and Aron) after he moves to the Salinas Valley in California. He is a peaceful man who hates violence, and when he meets Catherine, he falls for her and cannot see that she is evil. He makes her into an ideal, and is thrown into a deep depression when she leaves him (and shoots him in the shoulder) just after she gives birth to the twins. His character's redemption is one of the central story arcs in the novel. He learns to take refuge in the love of his sons, and absorbs the wisdom of men like Sam Hamilton and Lee. At the end of the novel, his act of forgiveness (he forgives his son Cal for driving his other son Aron into the army, where he dies) evidences the redemption and resilience of his spirit. - Character: Catherine Trask (Kate). Description: Catherine is born without kindness, empathy, or any goodness at all. She learns to manipulate people at an early age, taking pleasure in the destruction and degradation of other people's lives. She eventually runs away and becomes the lover of Edwards, a man who runs a whorehouse. She makes him fall in love with her and then drains him of his wealth and dignity and he finally lashes out and tries to kill her. She survives, and crawls to the doorstep of the Trask brothers, Charles and Adam. Adam helps her recuperate, marries her, and moves her to California with him. There, she bears him two sons, and then almost immediately leaves him. She then works her way up in a whorehouse in Salinas, blackmailing, abusing, and manipulating her way into ownership of the establishment. Eventually her lies and crimes catch up with her, as she grows old and feeble. She finally kills herself with morphine, leaving her fortune to her son Aron. - Character: Caleb "Cal" Trask. Description: Cal Trask is the most obvious figure for the Biblical Cain in the novel: his father Adam loves his twin brother Aron best. Though his father hides Catherine's identity from the boys, Cal eventually figures it out, and worries that her evil is reproduced in him. Over the course of the novel Cal struggles to learn that his fate—his decisions, his virtue, his goodness—is in his own hands. He succumbs to his more base impulses and reveals his mother's identity to his brother. Aron (as Cal knew he would be) is distraught. Aron subsequently joins the army and is killed. At the same time, Cal falls in love with Abra, the girl Aron planned to marry, and she falls in love with Cal, believing her relationship with the "purely good" Aron is not at real as the one she shares with Cal. Cal is thus responsible for his brother's death—but at the end of the novel, it is suggested that he is not beyond redemption. His father forgives him and blesses his marriage to Abra, and Cal knows he can choose to be good going forward. - Character: Aron Trask. Description: Aron is the beautiful blonde son of Adam and Catherine Trask. He grows up longing for the love of a mother, and his mind is not as complicated as that of his twin brother Cal. His view of the world is innocent and on the verge of naïve. He becomes engaged at a young age to a girl in his class named Abra—he often asks Abra to pretend to be his mother, and he develops an idealized image of her that she recognizes is not true love. When Aron learns the truth about his mother, he is devastated and joins the army. He is killed in the war. - Character: Charles Trask. Description: Charles is Adam's brother. Charles is a violent young boy who does not consider the effects of his actions; though he loves his brother, he beats him up badly and once tries to kill him. Charles is a devoted son to his father, Cyrus, and grows into a capable yet lonely farmer. When he dies he leaves his small fortune to Adam and Catherine, though he always hated Catherine, because he could see the evil in her (likely because he felt that same kind of evil in himself). - Character: Lee. Description: Lee is the son of two Chinese railroad workers and Adam's servant. Though he was born in California and speaks perfect English, he chooses to speak pidgin-English for most of his young life, because he knows that people would be confused by a Chinese man who sounds American. Lee feels a deep kinship with Sam Hamilton, and the two often spend hours talking about the meaning of the Bible and the nature of the human soul. - Character: Sam Hamilton. Description: Sam Hamilton is the larger-than-life patriarch of the massive Hamilton family. His land in California is dry, and though Sam is better than anyone at finding water in the ground, he has never been able to find any on his own land. He has made a living as a well-driller and a blacksmith, and enjoys making and inventing things for the fun of it. He is a humorous, deep, curious, and highly intelligent man who is admired by almost everyone in Salinas, and whose wisdom proves especially valuable to Adam. His eventual aging and death saddens many, though his memory lives on in the hearts and minds of most of the other characters. - Character: Tom Hamilton. Description: Tom is the youngest son of Sam and Liza Hamilton. He is thoughtful and introverted, and deeply dependent on his father's guidance and wisdom. When Sam dies, Tom is left in charge of the ranch, and loneliness disturbs his mind and nearly drives him crazy. Tom eventually kills himself after he accidentally poisons his sister Dessie with incorrect medicine for a stomachache. - Character: Dessie Hamilton. Description: Dessie is the unmarried daughter of Sam and Liza, who runs a successful dressmaking business in town. She is deeply funny and entertaining, and her dress shop is a haven for women. Around Dessie, women can act human, and do not have to be feminine, ladylike, or dainty. Dessie has her heart broken by a mysterious man, and is never the same afterwards. She is accidentally killed by Tom when he gives her the wrong medication for her stomachache. - Character: John Steinbeck. Description: John Steinbeck is the son of Olive Hamilton and Ernest Steinbeck, and the grandson of Sam Hamilton. This character shares a name and much of a family history with the actual author of the novel. He occasionally narrates the story, but the novel also refers to John in third person. - Character: Mary Steinbeck. Description: Mary is John's sister. She is an athletic child, in fact the best athlete in the county, and wishes desperately to be a boy. She grows out of this desire eventually, but one of John's clearest memories of his childhood is helping his sister figure out how to be a boy. - Character: Abra Bacon. Description: Abra is the love interest of Aron Trask from a very young age. They court for a long time, but Abra begins to recognize that Aron loves an idealized version of her, and doesn't love her for who she really is. She develops a close relationship with Lee, whom she adopts as a father figure, for she has always felt rejected by her own father. Eventually she falls for Cal, because he is both bad and good, and can understand that she is both bad and good too. - Character: Faye. Description: Faye is the owner of the whorehouse that Catherine eventually takes over. Faye is a lonely woman, and Catherine manipulates Faye into thinking of her as a daughter. Faye trusts Catherine, and writes her into her will. When Catherine discovers this, she slowly poisons Faye, successfully killing her and inheriting the business. - Theme: Good, Evil, and the Human Soul. Description: At the heart of East of Eden is the conflict between good and evil; evil people struggle against good people, kindness struggles against cruelty, a man's good intentions are constantly at odds with his foul and depraved impulses. Steinbeck suggests that this struggle between good and evil is what makes us human—that, in fact, the triumph and redemption of the human soul consists of this struggle.Catherine Trask is evil incarnate—she was born without any good in her (the narrator calls her a "monster") and her very humanity is repeatedly put in question. Her husband Adam, meanwhile, is thought by his Chinese servant Lee to be almost too much good in the way that Catherine is too evil—and because of this he is incapable of seeing Catherine for what she is, and goes dead inside when she leaves him. Adam must then struggle to become whole again with the help of Lee and Sam Hamilton, both of whom possess a remarkable optimism when it comes to the resilience and virtue of the human spirit. In this sense, the entire Trask marriage is a metaphor for the struggle between good and evil.The novel often depicts characters who recognize evil in themselves and wonder if they can overcome it. Charles Trask loves his brother Adam but cannot help but wish evil things on him, out of jealousy. And Adam's son, Cal Trask, once he discovers who is mother is, believes that her evil is reproduced in him. He sees his twin brother Aron as perfectly good, and doubts if he has any of the same goodness in him. His inner turmoil is the central conflict in the latter half of the book. Abra (Aron's fiancé who eventually falls for Cal) knows her father has stolen from good men who trusted him, and knows a thief's blood runs in her veins. She says she loves Cal because he is not "all good." When she tells Lee about this, he remarks that Cal is "full" of everything—goodness, badness, joy, sorrow, meanness and kindness.East of Eden repeatedly refers back to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, and to the moment where God tells Cain, "thou mayest [overcome sin]." Lee says that the word "mayest" is one of the most important words in the Bible. Having the choice—between sin and virtue, anger and acceptance, good and evil—is what makes mankind truly great. In this way, Steinbeck suggests that to be fully human, a person must (like Cal Trask) contain everything. Every human soul is a kind of contradiction; there is a monster like Catherine Trask in everyone, and there is naïve purity in everyone as well. Our very humanity depends upon being able to choose whether we are good or evil. - Theme: Time. Description: East of Eden covers an immense stretch of time—from the American Civil War to World War I. Accordingly, the novel displays a profound interest in the passage of time, the progression of history, and the relentlessness of change. The book opens with, and repeatedly returns to, an almost laborious cataloguing of the differences between seasons. This preoccupation with seasonal transitions, year after year, is a facet of the novel's investigation of the relentless and yet cyclical nature of time and change. In the same way that Steinbeck carefully records the physical change of the earth, air and sky over time, he records the changes of the body over time. We learn a great deal about how Sam Hamilton's body ages—his wrinkled face and silver beard are dwelled upon by the narration at length. Notably Sam and his family can hardly believe that he is even capable of growing old. Time's effect comes as a kind of shock to them. Adam's mental sickness following the departure of his wife gets better over time—Sam notes that time is the perfect "tonic" for him. Catherine's arthritis, in contrast, is a gruesome physical manifestation of time's passage. She resents the aging and twisting of her face and body so much it inspires a manic kind of anger in her. Thus illnesses (which sometimes worsen and sometimes improve over time), aging, and death play a huge role in this multigenerational epic. They remind the reader of times inevitable passage and of the inescapability of change. The novel also takes stock of the rapid technological progression and change that took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Steinbeck goes to great lengths to include myriad new technologies. Railroads, cars, planes, refrigeration, drills, windmills, conveyor belts, color photography, and advances in military technologies are all included, all given a kind of history in this book. Technological progress—and the excitement and anxiety surrounding it—also evinces the (often fearsomely rapid) advancing of time. Steinbeck wrote this novel in the early 1950s. This was a deeply transitional era. Coming out of the Second World War, Americans demonstrated an enthusiasm and optimism for the future, but it was also a time of great nostalgia for a "simpler" past. New technologies were exciting testaments to American ingenuity, but (as in the case of the atom bomb) they could also gesture towards an even more violent future. This sense of instability, this constant question about what the future might hold, pervades this novel. What's more, Steinbeck's health was beginning to suffer around the time he wrote East of Eden. He was a lifelong smoker, and would die of heart disease in 1968, just over 15 years after East of Eden was published. The anxiety of the nation with respect to time and change is coded into this novel but so too is the anxiety of the individual; in many ways the book's discussion of time reflects universal worries and questions about aging, illness, and mortality. - Theme: Family, Love, and Loneliness. Description: East of Eden is a novel about families—marriage, parenthood, succession, inheritance, and sibling rivalry make up the bulk of the book's conflict. Underlying all of these conflicts is the repeated suggestion that there is no love without pain, rejection, and loneliness. Numerous subplots in the novel involve parental love—children seek love from their parents and parents seek it from their children. Charles is furious that his father loves his brother Adam more than him. Charles loves his father, while Adam only admires him, but Adam is nevertheless the favorite. This pattern persists into the next generation. Cal also suffers feelings of rejection and loss because his twin brother Aron is clearly the favorite of his father Adam. When Adam tells Cal he trusts him, Cal is so happy that Lee thinks he's found himself a girlfriend—in this sense his love for his father replaces romantic love. Aron, on the other hand, longs deeply for his absent mother; he doesn't know she is the depraved and abusive madam of a whorehouse.Tom Hamilton never marries, and his dependence on his father's love and guidance is greater than that of any of his siblings. When Sam dies, Tom never fully recovers. He finds momentary relief in the company of his sister, but he accidentally kills her by giving her the wrong medicine for her stomach pains, and kills himself out of grief. The Chinese-American Lee, meanwhile, says one of his main regrets is never having kids. Though he raises Aron and Cal, he cannot act as a father to them. Adam forbids him to teach the boys Cantonese, and this puts distance between he and them. However, when he leaves the family to start his bookstore, he only stays away six days—the loneliness he feels without them is unbearable. Eventually he tells Abra he wishes she were his daughter, and she tells him she feels the same, as her father never cared for her because he wanted a boy. Romantic love also plays a prominent role. Sam Hamilton had a lost love in Ireland—the details never emerge, but it is clear he lost his great love somehow, and has never been the same since. Adam's love for Catherine is, though terribly misguided, all consuming. He becomes truly alive when he meets her, and feels dead when she leaves him. Aron's love for Abra is an idealized love. He has made her into a pure and perfect kind of idol, and he loves this imaginary person dearly, but Abra believes he does not know or love her for who she is. Catherine, meanwhile, runs a particularly seedy whorehouse after leaving Adam (and changing her own name to Kate)—in running such an establishment she offers a kind of perverse replacement for romantic love, exploiting the loneliness of men for her own satisfaction and gain. In his discussion of love and family, Steinbeck tends to locate human strength in love, and human weakness in loneliness. Adam is weak when Catherine leaves him, but strong again when he knows and loves his sons. Men who fall in love with imaginary women (as Aron and Adam do when they begin to think of the women they love so idealistically as to make themselves blind to their faults)—and in so doing basically fall in love with themselves—are destroyed by a particular kind of loneliness. But family in the novel is a recurring source of strength and virtue. In a novel that is so much about human nature, love and loneliness take a place alongside good and evil as primary elements of human existence itself. - Theme: Religion, Myth, and the Power of Stories. Description: East of Eden takes its name and its general storyline from the Biblical story of Adam's sons, Cain and Abel: Cain believes God loves his brother Abel better than him, because God accepts a sacrifice from Abel but not from Cain. Cain then kills Abel out of anger and jealousy, and God banishes Cain "east of Eden" as a result. The book repeatedly thinks about religion and myth as a kind of storytelling, and affirms the value of stories when it comes to understanding difficult truths about life and human nature. Re-enactments of the story of Cain and Abel are everywhere in the book. Their initials even appear in the names of Steinbeck's characters: Charles almost kills Adam because his father loves Adam's gift more than his. Catherine shoots Adam (nonfatally) because she cannot stand how good and loving he is. Cal knows his twin brother Aron is better loved, and fights the urge to destroy him. Eventually, Cal tells Aron the truth about their mother, and Aron runs away to war and dies: Cal kills Aron as Cain killed Abel. These resonances don't just exist between the novel and the Biblical story. Rather, the story of Cain and Abel is important to the characters within East of Eden as well. Lee interprets the story of Cain and Abel with a great deal of clarity, saying that one needn't be Christian to understand the importance of stories that tell important truths—he believes the story of Cain and Abel is a story about a man's ability to choose between sin and virtue. These kinds of discussions about religion and myth in the novel thus open up into discussions about the importance of storytelling (and story-interpreting) itself. The book alternates between first and third person, and after hundreds of pages the reader finally learns the name of the character narrating in the first person: John Steinbeck. This kind of self-reference (or "metafiction") draws the reader's attention to the fact that they, too, are reading a story—a story meant to teach them important truths if they are willing to investigate it thoroughly enough. Though East of Eden is deeply invested in a discussion of Christianity, it does not necessarily endorse the Christian faith. Rather, it construes the Bible as an important kind of mythology through which people can know themselves and their souls better if they are curious and diligent enough. What's more, it conceives of fiction, too, as a kind of mythology—laden with the same kind of truth and meaning that can be found in religious texts. - Theme: Identity. Description: East of Eden features many crises of identity through which Steinbeck examines the meaning of various identities over the course of the book. Lee is one of the most interesting examples of complex identity in the book. He is Chinese, and though he was born in California and speaks perfect English, he chooses to speak pidgin English (a simplified version of English) with a thick Chinese accent for most of his life. He believes people have trouble reconciling his Chinese appearance with his American way of speaking and finds it easier to conform to expectations. Sam Hamilton does something similar: everyone expects an Irishman to be riotous and funny—though Sam often feels somber and serious, he hides it, because he knows what is expected of him and finds it easier to meet expectations. Steinbeck also interrogates sex and gender, and what kinds of effects they have on a person's identity. Catherine, because she is pretty and feminine, is not taken seriously by many people she meets (especially men) and she uses this to her advantage. Because people underestimate her, she is able to manipulate them without being detected. Mary Steinbeck, the first-person narrator's sister, is the best athlete in the county as a child, and wishes desperately to be a boy. Dessie Hamilton's dress shop is so popular among women because it is a place they can go and be themselves: they swear and belch and laugh riotously. The narration explains that in the shop they are under no pressure to be "women" – they are simply human. Lee's mother pretends to be a man so that she can come with Lee's father to work on the railroads in America. She works just as hard and just as effectively as a man would, and is only discovered to be a woman when she goes into labor—and is killed. Steinbeck wrote East of Eden in a time when America was beginning to re-evaluate racial and sexual identity. The civil rights movement would reach its peak within a decade and countercultural feminism was gaining traction. Much of Steinbeck's work in East of Eden is geared towards exposing simplifications of identity as just such simplifications, and replacing these simplifications with a more complicated and nuanced picture. - Theme: Money, Wealth, and the Value of Work. Description: One of the central differences between the two families in the novel (the Trasks and the Hamiltons) concerns wealth: The Trasks are rich and have good land, the Hamiltons are poor and their land is barren. This basic opposition is a gateway into a complicated and enduring discussion of the meaning of money, what constitutes "wealth," and the role that work plays in a meaningful life. Inheritance—the willing of money to someone who hasn't necessarily earned it—repeatedly comes into play in this novel. Adam inherits a great deal of money from his father, and accepts it, though he knows it was probably stolen. He also inherits his brother Charles' fortune, but half of this must go to Catherine even though she has left him, for they are still married. Catherine inherits the whorehouse and a small fortune from the previous madam Faye, whom she secretly poisoned for precisely that purpose. And Catherine finally wills her fortune to Aron, who dies in the war before he can accept it. It is repeatedly said that Adam would be called lazy if he weren't rich—but since he is rich he is above criticism. Still, working class characters in the novel—like Lee and Sam Hamilton—suspect that Adam was corrupted by his fortune. They perceive the rich to be fundamentally less happy than the poor, because they have no work they must do. There is also a distinction drawn between work for money and work for love: Sam loves to invent, but he loses money on his patents and greedy lawyers take all the profits. Tom also likes to invent without thinking about money, and so does Adam (his experiment with transporting refrigerated lettuce across the country is a spectacular failure, and loses him his fortune, but he doesn't mind). Will Hamilton, who is intelligent in business but nowhere else, is scornful of such ventures. He believes money is the only thing worthy of pursuit. When Cal partners up with Will to make his father's money back, he thinks the gift of money will be well received by his father—but Adam is disgusted with the gift because of how Cal's success negatively affected others, and Cal ends up burning the money. The novel repeatedly suggests that money holds only superficial value. It cannot buy love or happiness. The book's discussion of money, wealth, and work amounts to a deeply anti-materialist warning about the danger of working and living only for money. Steinbeck asserts the inherent value of things like honest work, curiosity, and ingenuity—his happiest, wisest, and most fulfilled characters are those who place little stake in pure material wealth. - Climax: Cal gives his father a gift of 15 thousand dollars and his father rejects it, inspiring a dangerous kind of anger in his son. - Summary: East of Eden is the story of two families, the Hamilton family and the Trask family, both of whom migrate to the Salinas Valley in California. The Hamiltons are a poor family living on dry, barren land, but Adam Trask and his wife Cathy Trask are rich from inheritance and live on a fertile and rich piece of land with a large quantity of water available. But the Trasks material wealth is undermined by their moral poverty. Cathy Trask was born without a conscience, and though Adam loves her, he is blind to her evil. She only marries him because it is convenient for her at the time, but after she bears him two sons she shoots him in the shoulder and leaves. Catherine changes her name to Kate and works her way up in a whorehouse in the city of Salinas. She manipulates the owner of the whorehouse, Faye, so effectively that Faye wills the house and all of her belongings to Catherine. Catherine then slowly poisons Faye and, when she dies, takes over the business. She becomes the owner of the most depraved and degenerate whorehouse in all of Salinas. After Catherine leaves him, Adam goes dead inside, going a year without giving his newly born sons names. Sam Hamilton and Adam's Chinese-American servant Lee are responsible for Adam's rehabilitation. Sam literally beats sense into Adam, who, as if awakened from a long sleep, begs Lee and Sam for help getting to know his children. They consider naming the twins "Cain and Abel" but after discussing the story of the Biblical Adam's sons at length they opt not to, instead calling the boys Caleb and Aaron. As they grow older Caleb asks to be called Cal and Aron drops the extra "a" from his name. Aron is a good boy, beautiful and blonde like his mother, and beloved by everyone. Cal is darker, and at a young age realizes he has cruel impulses, and prays to God not to make him mean. He finds out his mother is alive when he is only about ten years old while eavesdropping, but keeps this secret from Adam, who believes his mother is dead and buried on the east coast. One day Sam, who has grown old and more bold in his old age, tells Adam that Cathy is in a whorehouse in Salinas. Shortly after Sam's death, Adam goes to see Cathy, and when he does he realizes she has no hold over him anymore. His joy makes her furious and he tells her she is not fully human, and hates the good in people because she cannot understand it. Adam and his sons move to Salinas, where the boys attend a larger public school. Aron begins courting Abra Bacon, a girl he plans to marry. They are still only children however, and Aron asks Abra to pretend to be his mother, and cries in her lap when she agrees. Cal grows into a lonely and somewhat troubled boy. One night he ventures out with a drunk and sees what goes on in his mother's whorehouse. He knows that if Aron ever found out about Catherine, it would destroy him. In the meantime, Adam becomes interested in refrigeration, and devises a plan to ship fresh lettuce across the country in a train. Due largely to bad luck, the project fails, and Adam has wasted almost his whole fortune on the enterprise. Cal decides he will earn his father's money back, and partners with Will Hamilton to profit from the need for imperishable foodstuffs during the war by contracting for beans. Cal saves up the money while Aron graduates from high school early and goes off to Stanford. Adam is immensely proud of Aron and Cal hopes his father will be proud of him, too. When Aron is home for Thanksgiving, Cal gives his father the money he has earned from his venture, but his father is disgusted by the gift, saying he doesn't want money earned from the cheating of farmers and a bloody war. That night, consumed by anger, Cal shows Aron the whorehouse belonging to Catherine. The next day, Aron lies about his age to enlist in the army. While he is gone, Abra and Cal fall in love—Abra thinks her relationship with Aron was a sham, for he had fallen in love with an idealized version of her, not the real her. She loves Cal because Cal is both good and bad, and Abra knows she is both good and bad, too. Adam's health begins to fail, and when news of Aron's death arrives, Adam has a stroke. Despite this tragedy, the novel ends on a redeeming note—with Lee's help, Cal obtains his father's blessing and rids himself of the guilt of causing his brother's death.

- Genre: Minimalism - Title: Elephant - Point of view: First person - Setting: A working-class American town - Character: The Narrator. Description: The story's unnamed narrator is a working-class man with an unspecified factory job. He works very hard, lives alone, and he's always sending checks to his mother, ex-wife, daughter, son, and brother, who can't afford to pay their bills without his help. At first, it's not clear why the narrator feels obligated to support them, but the narrator used to be a volent alcoholic, and it's likely that his drinking alienated his family, causing his wife to divorce him and his children to move in with her. Therefore, the narrator seems to see financially supporting his family as a way to make amends. Nonetheless, he still sends the money begrudgingly, resenting his burdensome family and lamenting the things he can't afford to do for himself, like see a movie or fix his shoes. But the narrator has a change of heart after he has two dreams based on memories from his past: one in which he's on his father's shoulders, and another in which he drunkenly threatens his son. The dream of his father makes him realize how good it feels to be supported (and therefore the good he's doing for his family by giving them money), and the dream of his son reminds him that he, too, has had low points. After waking from these dreams, the narrator's attitude shifts: suddenly he's full of love for his family and his burdens don't seem so heavy. - Character: Billy. Description: Billy is the narrator's brother, who is in rough financial shape. At the beginning of the story, he asks the narrator for money because he recently got laid off from his job at a fiberglass insulation plant, his unemployment benefits are running out and he's selling his belongings to keep the bank from repossessing his house. While he claims that he'll repay the narrator and that he has plans to get back on his feet financially, those plans never pan out—his situation goes from bad to worse. Billy's character highlights the difficulty that blue-collar Americans face when trying to recover from financial hardship. Merely getting laid off from his job destroyed his stable middle-class existence, leaving him with no recourse besides asking his brother for money. - Character: The Narrator's Mother. Description: The narrator's mother is another recipient of the narrator's monthly checks. Now in her 70s, she's retired and she suffers from an unspecified illness, so she relies on the narrator's financial support. While she sometimes asks about the well-being of her family, these considerations always seem secondary to questions about money. The narrator initially derides her as "poor and greedy," but in the end he reflects on how lucky he is to still have her. - Character: The Narrator's Daughter. Description: The narrator's daughter is another person whom the narrator financially supports. She lives with her two kids and deadbeat husband in a trailer, and she keeps telling the narrator that she just needs a little more money to get back on her feet. Eventually, the narrator's daughter takes a job working long shifts at a salmon cannery, but she need money to pay a babysitter who can watch her kids all day. During her first day at the cannery, someone breaks into her trailer and steals all the furniture. Her husband is nowhere to be found, so she asks the narrator for more money to replace what was stolen. - Character: The Narrator's Son. Description: The narrator's son is also on the narrator's "payroll." He goes to college in New Hampshire, for which he's accrued a large amount of debt. He believes that America is a materialist society where people can't hold a conversation unless money is somehow involved. Instead, he wants to live in Germany, where he spent a semester studying abroad, so he asks the narrator to pay for the plane ticket. Like the narrator's daughter, the narrator's son attempts to achieve upward economic mobility: he's the first person in his family to go to college. But things don't work out for him. His education results in so much debt that he becomes disillusioned with America, and the narrator resents his son for going to school at all. - Theme: Dependency. Description: The unnamed narrator of "Elephant" has a lot of responsibility. He's always writing checks to various family members in need: his brother Billy is going to lose his house, his retired mother is too old to work, his ex-wife is entitled to alimony, his daughter has two kids and a layabout husband, and his son is in debt from school. Practically all of the narrator's money goes to his family—he can't afford to eat out or see a movie, let alone fix a hole in his shoe or go to the dentist. And throughout most of the story, the narrator's thoughts of his family are consumed by his resentment of their dependence on him (which he sees as neediness and irresponsibility) and his bitterness that their needs mean de-prioritizing his own. But the narrator's attitude begins to change after two dreams in the same night make him reconsider his notion of dependency. In the first, he's a child being carried on his father's shoulders—his father is physically supporting him, just as the narrator now financially supports his family—and it's an experience of pure joy. The dream reminds the narrator that he was once dependent on his father, as many others in their family were, and it helps the narrator recognize the comfort and security that his support gives to those he loves. In the narrator's second dream, he relives a memory from the days when he was a violent alcoholic, one in which he drunkenly threatened his son. The narrator's dependency in this context is on alcohol, and it led to the dissolution of his family. Seeing how his own dependency wrecked his life gives him more empathy for various members of his family—he was at rock bottom then, and they're at rock bottom now. They need him, and he's in a position to help. After these two dreams, the narrator's attitude transforms. As he thinks of his family while walking to work, he's no longer consumed by calculating his debts or judging their choices. Instead, he focuses on the love that he has for his family and his good wishes for their lives. When he thinks of them this way, his own problems don't seem so bad—he can go without milk for his coffee, and he can walk to work in the sunshine to save on gas. This ending reconfigures dependency as a type of relationship that can be loving and meaningful, not simply a symptom of a person's recklessness or bad morals. - Theme: Money and Hardship. Description: The narrator and his family are working-class people, and it's a difficult life. Though the narrator never mentions where he works, he works hard all day, returns home, and doesn't even have the energy to watch television or take off his shoes. Similarly, the narrator's daughter gets a job at a salmon cannery. She insists that she's "young and strong" and plans to work twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. This could be an exaggeration designed to manipulate the narrator into writing more checks, but this family unmistakably represents blue-collar America: people who earn money through hard manual labor. When the narrator and his family fall on hard times, it becomes clear that there isn't a good path out of financial instability for people of their economic class. Each time one of his family members tries to get back on their feet, they fail and end up relying on the narrator for another check. While the narrator's daughter is working at the cannery, burglars break into her house and steal all her furniture. His son goes to college, and though education is an oft-touted method of breaking into the middle class, he accrues a mountain of debt before graduation. Every step forward results in two steps backward—and more debt. In a way, the family's dependence on the narrator is an indictment of the American system—his mother should be able to live in retirement without depending on her son, his brother shouldn't have his life ruined because his company downsized leaving him unable to pay his mortgage, his son should be able to go to college without being crushed by debt, and his daughter should have childcare so she can work. But American capitalism doesn't provide those resources, so the narrator himself is forced to keep his family from destitution, which he himself can't even afford. - Theme: Drudgery vs. Escape. Description: Throughout "Elephant," the narrator is caught in black-and-white thinking about his life. He believes that he has two choices: either he can submit to his family's relentless dependence on him and therefore live a life of drudgery, or he can make a spectacular escape by fleeing the country and not telling anyone where he is. For most of the story, it doesn't seem to occur to the narrator that there might be other options—that his only choices are not to either submit to misery or run away to Australia, and that he might find happiness simply by thinking differently about his situation. To the narrator, Australia is a symbol of freedom, but mostly because it's so geographically far from his home in the United States. He admits that he doesn't know the first thing about Australia, and he has no specific fantasies about what he would do there. He doesn't want to go to Australia to seek a particular life—he sees Australia only as an escape, a way to put the most possible distance between himself and his problems. This kind of escape clearly won't bring him what he's looking for—and in fact, the narrator doesn't "beg[i]n to feel better" until he has realized that he doesn't actually want to go to Australia at all. But when the narrator realizes that he doesn't want to go to Australia, he's not accepting that he'll be miserable forever—he's actually escaping the false binary between drudgery and fleeing, thereby reframing the way he thinks about his life. At the end of the story, he begins to see himself not as a victim of his family's incompetence and irresponsibility, but rather as a lucky man with a stable life and people who love him. So he escapes from drudgery not by fleeing the country, but by realizing that he is capable and willing to help. - Theme: Guilt and Responsibility. Description: Despite his vague fantasies of fleeing to Australia, the narrator seems to see it as inevitable that he will support his family for as long as they ask. But for much of the story, it's not clear why he feels compelled to support them. Why does he seem unable to tell his son that he can't go to Europe or to tell his brother that he needs to get a job? The narrator frames himself as being powerless in the face of his obligations ("I had to help her," he says, or "What else could I do?"), but midway through the story it becomes clear that the narrator's feeling of powerlessness is actually covering up his guilt. In a dream, the narrator relives a real memory of drunkenly kicking through the window of his son's car and threatening to kill him. From this, it's shown that the narrator used to be a violent alcoholic, and the implication is that his family dissolved as a result—his wife divorced him and his children went to stay with her. It also seems possible that the narrator's drunken violence contributed to his son's mental health issues. This helps readers understand why the narrator feels so responsible for financially supporting his family: he hurt them profoundly in the past. He can't fix what he's done, but he seems to see the financial support as a form of atonement, a way to assuage his guilt and take belated responsibility for his actions. - Climax: The narrator has two dreams that reframe his idea of dependency - Summary: The unnamed narrator of "Elephant" is supporting his whole family. His brother got laid off, and now he needs money or he's going to lose his house. The narrator's mother needs a check every month because she's too old to work. His children aren't doing well either: his daughter has a deadbeat husband who refuses to work, and his son accrued a huge amount of debt while in college. Finally, the narrator must pay alimony to his ex-wife every month. That's five people. The narrator works tirelessly to make enough money to support his family. He's exhausted when he gets home from work, and he has to give up things he enjoys doing in order to save money; he no longer goes out to eat or to the theater to see a movie. He begins to resent his family for the financial strain they place on him, and he fantasizes about moving to Australia to escape. One night, the narrator has a dream about his father, whom he hasn't thought about in a long time. In the dream, the narrator is a child again, and he's riding on top of his father's shoulders. His father has a firm grip around his ankles and makes him feel supported; the narrator imagines that he's riding an elephant and holds his arms up on either side. The narrator wakes up, then falls back asleep and has a second dream. He relives a time when he drunkenly kicked in the window of his son's car, and then threatened to kill him. He wakes up in a cold sweat and reflects that drinking alcohol is the thing that scares him most—it was rock bottom. The narrator decides to walk to work that morning. As he walks, he no longer thinks of his family only in terms of the money that they owe him; rather, he rediscovers the love that he has for each of them and wishes them well. He realizes that his place is here, supporting his family—moving to Australia was a ridiculous idea. One of his coworkers sees the narrator on the road and stops to pick him up. The coworker has just borrowed money from the bank to overhaul his car. The narrator tells the coworker to drive faster—he wants to see what this car can do. They speed off together, toward the mountains, in that big unpaid-for car.

- Genre: Comedy of manners - Title: Emma - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: Highbury (fictional village) and at Box Hill, North Surrey, all in England. - Character: Emma Woodhouse. Description: The protagonist of the novel, Emma Woodhouse is the rich, beautiful, and privileged mistress of Hartfield. She lives a comfortable life with her elderly father, running the house and organizing social invitations within the high society of Highbury. Her mother died when she was young, and she was since spoilt by her governess, the newly married Mrs. Weston. At the start of the novel, her major flaw is a combination of vanity and pride: she thinks a little too highly of herself and believes herself possessed of great discernment in matchmaking. Despite these flaws, Emma's understanding and good nature allow her to learn from her mistakes and cultivate kindness and humility. Her resolution to remain single also demonstrates an unusual prioritization of her independence and pleasure as a woman, though it is one that she later gives up in marrying Mr. Knightley. - Character: Mr. George Knightley. Description: The long-time friend and trusted confidante of the Woodhouses, Emma's brother-in-law. Mr. Knightley is a true gentleman in lineage, estate, and virtue. He lives at Donwell Abbey, the spacious estate that he manages. He displays integrity and charity, as he constantly uses his resources—whether it is his position, his carriage, or his apples—to assist others. He is the only character who openly critiques Emma, demonstrating his dedication to her moral development. His judgment is well respected and, though not entirely biased by his self-interest, he nonetheless proves to be more discerning than many of the other characters in the novel. - Character: Frank Churchill. Description: Mr. Weston's son and Mrs. Weston's stepson. Raised by his aunt and uncle in Enscombe, Frank is anticipated as a suitor for Emma, though his real love is Jane. His lively spirit and charms render him immediately likeable, but he also reveals himself to be rather thoughtless, deceitful, and selfish. He carelessly interprets Emma's behavior in a manner convenient to himself, and he petulantly disregards Jane's feelings. However, like Emma, Frank possesses an improvable disposition and good understanding and ultimately desires to do what is right for those he loves. - Character: Jane Fairfax. Description: Miss Bates's niece and Mrs. Bates's granddaughter. As another accomplished and beautiful young woman of similar age, Jane incites Emma's jealousy and admiration. Her reserved temperament frustrates Emma, even as Emma admires Jane's elegance of look and manner. Jane's lack of fortune and good family leave her dependent on the good will of others and force her to seek employment, but her marriage to Frank saves her from the latter fate. - Character: Mr. Woodhouse. Description: Emma's father and the Woodhouse patriarch. Mr. Woodhouse is a rather silly, excessively nervous, and frail old man who dotes on his daughter. He hates change and possesses a narrow-minded and even selfish outlook on changes like his oldest daughter's marriage, which he views as a tragedy depriving him of familiar and beloved company. However, Emma and his close friends not only humor, but also comfort him in all of his foibles. - Theme: Social Class. Description: Emma, like most of Austen's novels, is a study in 18th Century English society and the significance of propriety. The rich and "well-bred" control the social situations, issuing and initiating invitations and friendships. Those of low social standing depend upon the charity and initiative of those in the higher class. When violations of this order occur, they are often met with great indignation by those of genteel-breeding, as when Emma takes offense at Mrs. Elton presuming to nickname Mr. Knightley.Social class also dictates the social obligations between the characters, and the way in which their actions respond to these obligations reveals their character. The novel, for instance, teases out the nuances of charity regarding class: Emma is charitable towards the poor, but shows little initiative in befriending the orphaned and talented Jane.The characters' use or abuse of their social standing reveals much about their kindness or cruelty. For instance, Emma's exercise of wit at the expense of the silly, but low-standing Miss Bates is condemned as cruel by Mr. Knightley because it is an abuse of her social clout. Humiliating the hapless Miss Bates sets a bad example for those in society who would follow her example. On the other hand, Mr. Knightley's asking Harriet to dance after she has been snubbed by Mr. Elton is an act of charity, graciousness, and chivalry because he is of a high social standing in comparison to both her and Mr. Elton. His act socially "saves" Harriet and reprimands the Eltons for their rudeness.Social class also restricts the actions that characters are able to take in fulfilling their desires, as is most evidently seen in the novel's drama regarding marriage matches. Frank must conceal his engagement with Jane because she is an orphan and regarded as an unsuitable social match by his family. Harriet rejects Robert Martin because Emma advises her that he is "beneath" her. Mr. Elton rejects Harriet by the same calculations, and so on. - Theme: Marriage. Description: Emma deals with many visions of what marriage entails. Social acceptability, financial practicality, similar social standing, shared virtues, matching talents, comparable charm and beauty, and similar dispositions are all components that present themselves with different degrees of importance in the marriage calculations of different characters. For women, who were often barred from owning property and faced significant limitations in employment, marriage became particularly critical as both the expected social norm and the often necessary means of financial security. Harriet's bewilderment as Emma's decision to remain single and her own horror of the fate of spinsters illustrates the social stigma attached to those who were unable to marry, like the unfortunate and foolish Miss Bates.Emma believes herself to be a skilled matchmaker, and her pride in her discernment of good matches and her ultimate humbling in this regard highlights that she has much to learn in judging others characters, her own, and what makes a good marriage. While Austen in certain ways affirms the social conventions of marriage in pairing most of her characters with partners of equal social standing, she also complicates and critiques these conventions. Though Emma believes Mr. Martin to be below Harriet, Mr. Knightley argues that Harriet would be lucky to be with Mr. Martin on account of the latter's virtue. Similarly, both Mr. Knightley and Emma come to agree that Frank is lucky to be accepted by Jane, even though she is considered of inferior social standing, because she surpasses him in virtue.Marriage is also an agent of social change. Though certainly dictated by the characters' social standing (as when characters reject or pursue matches to consolidate their social standing), it also makes characters' social standing, as in the case with Mr. Weston's first marriage to a wealthy and well-connected woman, which elevated his social standing in society. - Theme: Gender Limitations. Description: Despite the strong-willed and confident female protagonist who is the novel's namesake, Emma reveals the limited options of women in Austen's era. Early in the novel, Emma decides to stay single: she views her situation as a financially self-sufficient single woman at the top of the social hierarchy to suit her preferences more than being a wife would. Yet Emma's influence in society is for the most part limited to her attempts to arrange her friends' marriage, and even this influence is revealed to be questionable. Mr. Knightley counters Emma's belief that she arranged Mr. Weston and Mrs. Weston's marriage with the assertion that they would have found each other on their own terms and time without Emma's "help." Furthermore, Emma's meddling more often than not proves mistaken and disastrous, as when she becomes responsible for Harriet's heartbreak at the hands of Mr. Elton. Emma's hobbies of charity, social calls, and the nice "female accomplishments" of music and art reflect a privileged but relatively limited sphere of activity.Jane represents a case in which the limitations of her gender, combined with her relative lack of social status and financial stability, threaten her freedom to live the life she desires. This becomes particularly clear when she no longer views marriage to Frank as a viable option, and finds herself forced to accept an undesirable position as a governess. In the case of other female characters and even finally Emma, marriage represents the most viable option for a woman to live a comfortable life. Women's influence, in this sense, lies largely in their relation to men—to attract, reject, and accept their proposals of marriage. - Theme: Misperception. Description: Emma's initial perceptions of people and her own confidence in her abilities as matchmaker turn out to be very mistaken. Throughout the course of the novel, Emma repeatedly misreads signs of attention and attraction: she believes Mr. Elton to be wooing Harriet, when he is in fact interested only in her; she believes Harriet to be in love with Frank, when she is in fact in love with Mr. Knightley, and so on. At the heart of Emma's misperception is her vanity and pride. She sees what she wants to believe, and it is not until the disastrous consequences of her interference that she gradually comes to realize how misplaced her confidence in her abilities is. - Theme: Pride and Vanity. Description: Emma is described in the first chapter as an extremely well endowed young woman, who possesses "some of the best blessings of existence": she is beautiful, intelligent, wealthy, and well bred with a father who loves her dearly. But she also possesses a critical flaw that threatens the success of her intentions to positively interfere with her friends' lives—her somewhat spoiled nature, and vanity and pride about her abilities and perceptiveness. Because she believes herself to have great talent in discerning people's natures and suitable love matches, she is slow to recognize that she is wrong. It takes many humiliating and hurtful mistakes before Emma is finally humbled into the realization that her interference is often misguided, and that she has much to learn both about the desires of others and her own heart. As Mr. Knightley points out, Emma's initial dislike of Jane stems in part from her jealousy of the latter, who threatens her sense of security in her own accomplishment, beauty, and character. Though she believes that her distaste for Jane stems from their different styles of temperament (vivacity vs. reserve) and beauty (robust vs. slender), she comes to realize that it is in fact their similarity that results in her discomfort—they occupy similar positions as accomplished females in their social circles, and they are also both greatly admired. It is not until Emma progresses beyond her initial pride that she comes to appreciate Jane's quality and admire the very differences she once critiqued. Even more significantly, it is not until Emma is humbled by the revelation of her mistakes that she is able to know her own heart and recognize Mr. Knightley as her beloved. - Climax: Emma's revelation that she loves Mr. Knightley - Summary: Rich, beautiful, and privileged Emma Woodhouse fancies herself to be an excellent matchmaker. When her governess marries the well-to-do widower Mr. Weston, a match that Emma views herself to have made, Emma befriends the lower class Harriet Smith and sets out to similarly assist her. She is convinced that her friend deserves a gentleman, though Harriet's own parentage is unknown. She coaxes Harriet into rejecting Mr. Martin, a farmer whom Emma believes below Harriet, and she instead encourages her friend to admire Mr. Elton, the neighborhood vicar.Mr. Knightley, a long-time friend and Emma's brother-in-law, discourages Emma's matchmaking efforts. It turns out that all the signs that Emma has been interpreting as evidence of Mr. Elton's interest in Harriet were in fact intended for Emma herself. Harriet is heartbroken, and Emma mortified. Humiliated by Emma's rejection of him and her attempt to pair him with Harriet, Mr. Elton retires to Bath. Emma realizes that personal pride in her judgment and her desires for Harriet blinded her to the real situation. She resolves to never play matchmaker in the future.Meanwhile, Jane Fairfax, another accomplished and beautiful young woman, returns to Highbury to visit her aunt and grandmother, Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates. Orphaned at an early age, Jane has been educated by her father's friends, the Campbells. She is expected to become a governess, as she has no independent fortune. Emma greets her arrival with mixed admiration and jealousy, as another favorite within their social circle. Emma also suspects Jane's romantic involvement with her friend's husband, Mr. Dixon.Mr. Weston's son, Frank Churchill is also expected to visit after many delays. He lives with his snobbish aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, in London. Emma anticipates his arrival with pleasure and finds him charming. Mr. Knightley, on the other hand, immediately dislikes him as superficial and silly. Frank's flattering attentions soon single Emma out as the object of his choice. Mr. Elton returns from Bath with his new bride, the self-important Mrs. Elton, who takes a liking to Jane and distaste for Emma.Misperception abounds, as various characters speculate over developing romances. Word games, riddles, and letters provide fodder for mixed interpretations of who loves whom. Emma enjoys Frank's attention, but ultimately decides he is not for her. Mrs. Weston suspects a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane, which Emma vehemently dismisses. Mr. Knightley saves Harriet from social humiliation, asking her to dance when Mr. Elton snubs her. Emma encourages what she believes to be Harriet's developing interest in Frank, who long ago saved Harriet from the gypsies.Everyone regards Frank and Emma as a match, but Mr. Knightley suspects Frank's interest in Jane and warns Emma. Emma laughingly dismisses his warning, believing she knows the secrets of each character's heart. When Mr. Knightley reprimands her for mocking the harmless Miss Bates, however, she feels great remorse and resolves to improve her behavior to the Bateses.Mrs. Churchill dies, setting in motion the shocking revelation that Frank and Jane have been secretly engaged. Frank's courtship of Emma was a cover to hide his true attachment, which his aunt opposed. Through a series of painful misunderstandings, Jane broke off their engagement and was about to take up a governess position. Frank frantically obtained his uncle's approval to marry her, and the two reconciled.Emma also misperceived Harriet's interest in Frank, as Harriet reveals herself to be in love with Mr. Knightley. In turn, Emma's distress over this revelation triggers her own realization that she, too, is in love with Mr. Knightley. Emma feels considerable anguish over her various misperceptions about Frank, Jane, Harriet, and herself. She reproves herself for being blinded by her own desires and self-interest.Emma fears that Mr. Knightley will confess his love for Harriet, but to her surprise and delight, he declares his love for Emma. Emma happily accepts Mr. Knightley's proposal, and she later has the opportunity of reflecting with Frank that, despite their many blunders, they have both been luckier than they deserve in their beloveds. Emma is further cheered upon learning that Harriet has accepted a second proposal from Mr. Martin. The novel concludes with three marriages: Harriet and Mr. Martin, Jane and Frank, and Emma and Mr. Knightley—the final match which is celebrated as a happy union of equals.

- Genre: Literary Fiction - Title: Enduring Love - Point of view: The point of view is primarily Joe Rose's, with occasional sections narrated by Clarissa Mellon and Jed Parry - Setting: London, England - Character: Joe Rose. Description: Joe Rose is the protagonist of Enduring Love and the novel's chief narrator. He's married to Clarissa Mellon, and he is a science writer and a committed rationalist. After witnessing a man die in a ballooning accident, Joe reacts with his typical commitment to reason over emotion, focusing on the logistics of what went wrong rather than the meaning of witnessing a violent death. Nonetheless, he feels a formless malaise in reaction to the event. The ballooning accident has another profound effect: Jed Parry—another witness to the accident—begins stalking Joe, which upends Joe's life. He finds himself questioning both his career and his relationship with Clarissa. Dissatisfied with his professional life, he undertakes a fruitless quest to realize his old ambition of being a scientist, and he comes to resent Clarissa for not believing him that Jed Parry is stalking him, which fractures their marriage. The central tension between him and Clarissa is whether Joe's rationalism or Clarissa's intuition is the better lens with which to view the events of their lives, and, by the end of the novel, it's clear that both parties are correct on some counts. However, as Joe was right about Jed Parry, and his reliance on reason allows him to thwart his stalker and restore equilibrium to his life, McEwan seems to suggest that Joe's rationalism is—when used in moderation—preferable to Clarissa's intuition. The book concludes with Joe's consideration of whether a future with Clarissa might yet be possible. - Character: Clarissa Mellon. Description: Clarissa Mellon is a secondary protagonist of Enduring Love and the wife of Joe Rose. A literary historian, Clarissa is especially interested in the Romantic British poet John Keats, a piece of whose correspondence she is attempting to locate as the novel begins. In the early days of Clarissa's relationship with Joe, she writes him long, passionate letters, an act that helps to reveal her highly emotional and loving character. Though Clarissa adores children and has set aside a special room in the couple's apartment in which nieces and nephews may play, she is herself unable to have a child due to a medical error in her early adulthood, and she is haunted by "the absence of babies" in her life. In part because she is guided by intuition and emotion rather than Joe's rationalism, Clarissa spends much of the novel unconvinced that Jed Parry is a true threat to Joe, believing instead that Joe has exaggerated the danger as a result of the emotional trauma of the ballooning accident. It is only when Parry breaks into her apartment and takes her hostage that Clarissa concedes that Joe was right about the man, and even then she insists that Joe unnecessarily isolated himself throughout his interaction with Parry rather than allowing Clarissa access to his most personal thoughts and feelings. As the novel ends, Clarissa, like Joe, seems interested in reconciliation but unsure of its likelihood. - Character: Jed Parry. Description: Jed Parry is the antagonist of Enduring Love. An isolated and lonely recipient of a significant inheritance, he's a deeply religious man who suffers from de Clerambault's syndrome, which gives a person delusions of love. Due to his condition, Parry spends the bulk of the novel stalking Joe Rose, whom he met during the ballooning accident. Parry believes that a glance he and Joe exchanged in the tragedy's aftermath indicated a spontaneous blooming of love between the two men and that he alone can bring Joe to religious faith by means of their relationship. Like Clarissa, Parry holds a view of the world that stands in marked contrast to Joe's rationalism. Yet, in Parry's case, that worldview is not, like Clarissa's intuitiveness, a legitimate alternative but, rather, a psychotic anti-rationalism that Joe must unequivocally resist. Because Parry's feelings for Joe are a product of both faith (which, by definition, stands apart from reason) and mental illness, they cannot be argued away. Indeed, as the novel progresses, Parry becomes increasingly unstable, attempting to murder Joe and ultimately taking Clarissa prisoner before threatening suicide. As the book ends, Parry has been arrested and taken into psychiatric care - Character: John Logan. Description: John Logan is a family doctor who lives with his wife, Jean, and their children, Rachael and Leo, in Oxford. A former mountain-rescue worker, Logan rushes unhesitatingly toward the scene of the ballooning accident and loses his life in part because his courage exceeds that of the rest of the group. When the other men attempting to hold down the runaway hot air balloon release their ropes, Logan, who is still holding on, is carried into the air and falls to his death, a turn of events that emphasizes Logan's commitment to the cause of aiding a child in danger. Though his wife briefly suspects that Logan was having an affair in the months before the accident, she later learns that this was not, in fact, the case. Instead, Logan was practicing his habitual kindness yet again: offering a ride to a friend whose car had broken down (and whose affair with a younger woman is the relationship Jean mistakenly attributes to her husband). Throughout the novel, John Logan is consistently spoken of as "brave" by the other characters, and, indeed, much of Clarissa's sorrow after the accident is due to the fact that a "good man" has perished. - Character: Jean Logan. Description: The wife and, later, widow of John Logan, Jean Logan lives in the couple's Oxford house with their children, Rachael and Leo. Jean is in mourning throughout the novel, an emotional experience that is heightened by her suspicion that her husband was unfaithful to her before his death. When Jean realizes that her fears about her husband's fidelity have been misplaced, she wonders aloud who can forgive her now that he is no longer alive to do so. - Character: Rachael Logan. Description: Rachael Logan is the ten-year-old daughter of John Logan and Jean Logan who lives with her widowed mother and her brother, Leo, in the family's Oxford home. A precocious child, Rachael argues with Joe about whether it is wrong to eat horses, among other things. By the novel's closing pages, she has developed a friendship of sorts with both Clarissa and Joe. - Character: Leo Logan. Description: Leo Logan is the eight-year-old brother of Rachael Logan and the son of John Logan and Jean Logan. Leo clings to his mother in the aftermath of his father's death but is still, like Rachael, able to laugh and play. Also like Rachael, he develops a relationship with Clarissa and Joe as the novel progresses. - Character: James Gadd. Description: James Gadd is a fifty-five-year-old executive in an advertising agency. The pilot of the balloon featured in the novel's opening chapter, Gadd attempts to save the life of his grandson, Harry Gadd, who is trapped in the balloon's basket. He is later found to have violated a number of safety procedures. - Character: Harry Gadd. Description: Harry Gadd is the ten-year-old grandson of James Gadd and the child whose imperilment begins the novel. Trapped in the basket of a wind-tossed hot-air balloon, Harry must be rescued before the balloon can be blown into nearby power lines. Once John Logan falls to his death and Harry realizes that he is on his own, he slowly lets air out of the balloon and returns to the ground safely. - Character: Joseph Lacey. Description: Joseph Lacey is a sixty-three-year-old farm laborer and the best friend of fellow-laborer Toby Greene. During the ballooning accident, Lacey attempts to hold down the balloon, and then he assists Toby when he falls from his rope and breaks his ankle. A former paratrooper, Lacey is unhurt by his own fall. - Character: Toby Greene. Description: Toby Greene is a fifty-eight-year-old farm laborer who is unmarried and lives with his mother. Like his friend Joseph Lacey, Greene tries to secure the runaway hot-air balloon. Unlike Lacey, however, Greene injures himself during the attempt, breaking his ankle in a fall from one of the balloon's dangling ropes. - Theme: The Importance of Loyalty. Description: The catastrophic balloon accident at the start of Enduring Love precipitates several crises of loyalty. One crisis involves a group of strangers, another strains the dynamic of a relationship, and a third involves a widow grappling with her doubts about her late husband. Each of these scenarios shows that catastrophe can dramatically reshape situations that once seemed clear and stable. Once characters come to doubt the reliability and benevolence of the world around them, they can easily fall into disloyalty, even to those they love. Through his characters' post-catastrophe struggles with their loyalty to others, McEwan demonstrates the value of loyalty—its comfort, goodwill, and stability—while warning that loyalty, once squandered, is difficult to rebuild. The fatal ballooning accident with which the novel opens occurs because a group of men are unable to cooperate successfully—because they are, in effect, disloyal to one another and to their shared mission. When the balloonists' distress first becomes clear to the strangers in and around the "hundred-acre field," several men run to help, thinking little for his own safety. The men are working together to rescue Harry Gadd, who is stuck in the balloon's basket and could be carried away by the wind at any moment, yet, despite a "vague commonality of purpose," they are "never a team." Hampered by a "fatal lack of cooperation," they work against one another instead of working together, which reveals how easily circumstances can disrupt a group's loyalty to a widely held goal. This failure to cooperate becomes deadly after a stunning act of disloyalty. Though the collective weight of the men holding the ropes could save the child, one by one the men let go until only John Logan—who is carried away and eventually falls to his death—remains. For McEwan, this collective betrayal of Logan is the result of the fact that "selfishness is . . . written on our hearts": people think of themselves before thinking of others. Though none of the survivors will admit to himself that he let go first, it is beyond dispute that the men have "broken ranks" with catastrophic results. The disloyalty of the men during the ballooning accident echoes a more intimate disloyalty that wreaks havoc on the novel's central relationship. During the long period in which Joe Rose, the novel's protagonist, is harassed and stalked by Jed Parry, Joe believes that his wife, Clarissa, is disloyal to him, and Clarissa believes Joe is crazy. Clarissa thinks that Joe is "making too much of" Parry and comes close to suggesting that Parry is a figment of Joe's imagination, while Joe invades Clarissa's privacy by going through her letters and notes in search of an explanation for her failure to support him. McEwan seems to be illustrating here how difficult it is to be loyal. Despite their best intentions, Joe and Clarissa allow their own suspicions and agendas to corrupt the mutual loyalty they know they ought to have in a moment of crisis. As a consequence of this mutual suspicion, Joe and Clarissa soon drift apart. As Joe puts it, "When our eyes met, it was as if our ghostly, meaner selves held up hands before our faces to block the possibility of understanding." Here, disloyalty seems not only to set the couple against each other but to obscure their very identities. While a reconciliation seems possible by the end of the novel, Joe acknowledges that Clarissa's failure to support him wholeheartedly might ultimately prevent them from remaining together. Though they may eventually reach "mutual forgiveness, or at least tolerance," they have not yet done so as the book ends. In a third instance of catastrophe producing distrust and disloyalty, John Logan's wife, Jean, begins to believe, after his death, that he was having an affair in the weeks leading up to the accident. When this belief turns out to be incorrect, Jean realizes that she has been disloyal by mistrusting him. Once the truth is revealed, in fact, Jean is arguably more distraught than she was before. "Who's going to forgive me?" she asks, angry at herself for doubting her husband's fidelity. "The only person who can is dead." Jean's distress in this moment illustrates a highly significant characteristic of loyalty as McEwan understands it. Though characters can express regret when they fail to be loyal to one another, they cannot undo that failure. Just as her husband's death is irrevocable, the fact of Jean's initial suspicion cannot be altered. Clearly, her grief is at least in part an awareness of her inability to reclaim the total loyalty that she briefly set aside. Throughout the novel, true loyalty is revealed to be as valuable as it is rare. Loyalty's uncommonness is, in fact, a sign of its worth, as is the difficultly of forgiveness once loyalty is violated. Violating loyalty, in McEwan's worldview, is easy, but the consequences of disloyalty include deep suffering. The message McEwan intends to communicate is clear: loyalty to groups, to shared goals, and to loved ones is a prized and irreplaceable human value. Once it is lost, it is almost impossible to reclaim. - Theme: Rationalism vs. Intuition. Description: Enduring Love features a protagonist whose commitment to rationalism—the notion that actions should be based on knowledge and reason—collides with characters who live by intuition or emotion. McEwan clearly validates Joe's commitment to reason: despite Clarissa's resistance, Joe immediately diagnoses Parry as an insane and dangerous individual, which allows him to later save Clarissa's life. Yet McEwan also takes Clarissa's emphasis on intuition and emotion seriously, as she deftly points out the flaws in Joe's single-minded rationality. Thus, McEwan is sympathetic to both reason and emotion, and he seems to believe that a combination of the two—with reason taking the lead—is an effective worldview. Joe's rationalism is a defining aspect of his character. In the sunken field where John Logan's body has fallen, Joe is surprised by his own emotional reaction to seeing the corpse, stating that "however scientifically informed we count ourselves to be, fear and awe still surprise us in the presence of the dead." When Parry joins him and asks him to pray, however, Joe immediately dismisses the possibility. Joe's eagerness to reclaim his rationalism—despite his acknowledgement that rationality might not be able to account for his extreme experience—is an illustration of the importance of reason to him as a source of comfort. Clarissa seems to associate Joe wholly with rationality. In the evening after the ballooning accident, when Joe states, simply, "We tried to help and we failed," Clarissa's response is telling: "You're so rational sometimes you're like a child." From Clarissa's perspective, Joe's reaction lacks the emotional depth required to fully account for the tragedy, and her dialogue reveals that Joe tends to think in straightforward, black-and-white terms rather than in her more intuitive or emotional language. Indeed, Clarissa finds the moments in which Joe's rationalism "cracks" to be highly compelling. Remarking on Joe's "euphoric calm" in the presence of John Logan's corpse, Clarissa claims that she loves Joe "more" now that she has seen him "go completely mad." Though Clarissa believes that reacting so calmly to a person's violent death is irrational by its very nature, she simultaneously understands that some situations are so extreme that they call for irrationality. Later still, Joe reveals that Clarissa believes evolutionary psychology and genetics to be "rationalism gone berserk." Human behavior, from Clarissa's perspective, can't be explained merely by science, which suggests that, from her perspective, Joe's purely scientific worldview is a limited one. This tension between Joe's rationalism and Clarissa's intuitive and emotional thinking remains central to the conflict between the pair. In her letter to Joe near the end of the novel, for example, Clarissa states that although Joe was right to say that Parry was dangerous, Joe's "being right is not a simple matter." For Clarissa, the more important matter is Joe's "feelings after the accident" and the extent to which Joe has been "running from [his] anxieties with [his] hands over [his] ears." This statement brings together Clarissa's critique of Joe's worldview, which privileges reason over emotion: Clarissa believes that Joe uses reason not as a way to grapple with the full complexity of himself and the world but, rather, to run from truths that are too uncomfortable to confront. Though Clarissa's point is well taken, her worldview does lead her to underestimate the danger posed by Jed Parry. She never ceases to argue that Joe "overreact[ed] all along the way" to Parry and that Parry might have changed his behavior had they "ask[ed] him in and talk[ed] to him," but the novel provides no evidence whatsoever that this is the case. Instead, McEwan may be making a final argument here in favor of Joe's rationalism. Because Clarissa's intuitive thinking will not allow her to blame Parry alone for all that has occurred, even when Parry has held her hostage and threatened her life, her way of looking at the world cannot ultimately be a correct one. Though McEwan shows the flaws in Joe's rationalism and Clarissa's intuition, Jed Parry is shown to have the most irrational worldview. He is beholden to a religious faith that proceeds from a psychiatric condition, a combination that reveals McEwan's association of religion with irrationality. McEwan's rendering of Parry's religious faith as a component of a psychotic breakdown prevents the reader from considering his worldview as a legitimate alternative. Where Clarissa's ideology is concerned, however, the reader has more room. Joe ultimately rejects Clarissa's reasoning, but the reader can see her point: Joe "did the research" and "made the logical inferences" about Parry, but perhaps he did forget "how to confide" and how to "take [Clarissa] along with [him]." The reader is left with the sense that the couple will be better off if they learn to listen to one another and combine the strengths of their individual worldviews, though whether this is possible remains unknown. - Theme: Obsession. Description: Enduring Love is a novel of obsession: not only sexual or romantic obsession, but also religious obsession and obsession with the past. The book's characters continually fixate on one another, on their own feelings, on their pasts, and on the lives they might have had if they had made different choices. This tendency, the novel suggests, is both harmful and a natural consequence of being human. The most obviously destructive example of obsession in the novel is, of course, Jed Parry's obsession with Joe, which reveals the dangers of giving in to one's fixations. In one of his many letters, Parry warns Joe that Joe's attempts to ignore him might "end in sorrow and more tears than we ever dreamed," a threat he attempts to fulfill by having Joe killed at a restaurant. That an innocent and uninvolved stranger is mistakenly shot in Joe's place merely heightens the tragedy that Parry's obsession has brought about. Interestingly, Joe is not above behaving obsessively himself, despite his rationalism and his clear understanding of the danger of obsession. A former scientist (and now a science journalist), Joe frequently harbors the notion that he is "a parasite" because he writes about others' research rather than conducting his own. He refers to this feeling as "an older dissatisfaction"—it is a regular and recurring part of his emotional landscape—and he "broods" on it whenever he's "unhappy about something else." For her part, Clarissa "hate[s] to see [Joe] back with that old obsession about getting back into science," a way of describing Joe's feelings that makes clear that, at least to those closest to him, his emotions are not mere disappointment but something far less understandable. Importantly, Joe's feelings arise despite the fact that he already has an established reputation as a writer. Nevertheless, Joe can't help thinking obsessively about what might have been had his choice been different, and he wonders, even in the midst of his ordeal with Parry, how he can "find [his] way back to original research and achieve something new." That this stated goal is unreasonable is illustrated by the negative response of Joe's old teacher to his proposals. (He advises Joe, gently, "to continue with the very successful career you already have.") What the reader sees here is that Joe is not merely considering an alternate career path but rehashing previous life choices in a way that is ultimately futile. Yet the career in research that Joe gave up is not the only thing that he obsesses about. According to Clarissa, Joe obsesses about Parry, even as Parry obsesses about him. "You became more and more agitated and obsessed," Clarissa writes in a letter to Joe. "You didn't want to talk to me about anything else." Clearly, the intensity of Joe's reaction to Parry—and his inability to modify or cease thinking about that reaction—contributes to the diminishment of his relationship with Clarissa. Finally, Clarissa herself grapples with an obsession—not with another character, but with her inability to have children due to a medical mistake in her early adulthood. Just as Joe occasionally feels the loss of his intended career, Clarissa is, from time to time, the victim of "the old sense of loss" about the child she can never have, further proof that obsession can strike even psychologically healthy characters. According to Joe, when a friend of Clarissa's lost her baby five years before the ballooning accident, Clarissa "experienced as her own" her friend's grief. "What was revealed," Joe tells the reader, "was Clarissa's own mourning for a phantom child, willed into half-being by frustrated love." Once more, the reader sees the irresistibility of obsession: its ability to thwart the emotional stability of characters who are otherwise healthy. This obsession of Clarissa's colors her response to the ballooning accident and, by extension, her emotional life throughout the events of the novel. "In John Logan," Joe states, Clarissa sees "a man prepared to die to prevent the kind of loss she felt herself to have sustained." As a consequence of this thinking, McEwan seems to be revealing, Clarissa is unable from the start to approach the ballooning accident and subsequent events from an emotionally neutral perspective. This shows again the danger of obsessive thinking. In each of these cases, from Parry's dangerous fixation to Clarissa's deeply human sense of longing, McEwan portrays obsession as a force that overwhelms reason and that must be tamed if happiness is to be achieved. Because the characters are subject to feelings beyond their control, they cannot be fully truthful with themselves or with each other. As human beings, they are inevitably susceptible to obsession, which can be dangerous and destructive. - Theme: The Nature of Love. Description: At the heart of Enduring Love is the question of whether love is something that endures or that must be endured, and the double meaning of the novel's title suggests that both answers are correct. This is consistent with McEwan's larger project: asking the reader to consider love in all its complexity. Love is not merely a force for good, McEwan seems to be arguing, but a biological and neurological fact that manifests in ways both good and evil. For Joe and Clarissa, love is a potentially healing force and a prize to be reclaimed if at all possible. For Joe and Parry, however, love is a destructive delusion. Yet, in both cases, love seems to exist beyond the realm of total human control. The novel's characters experience it but cannot quite harness it, which suggests that love's power—good and bad—is beyond the reach of reason. The most important love in the novel is the love shared by Joe and Clarissa. Though their love is challenged over the course of the book and appears not to escape entirely unharmed, it is nevertheless a crucial example of marital harmony: an illustration of what love can be in a best-case scenario. Early in the book, Joe recalls that Clarissa's letters to him, in the first days of their relationship, were "passionately abstract in their exploration of the ways [their] love was different from and superior to any that had ever existed." Joe, meanwhile, finds it miraculous that a "beautiful woman loved and wanted to be loved by a large, clumsy, balding fellow who could hardly believe his luck." In these passages, love is portrayed as a life-altering stroke of luck. That Joe and Clarissa have stumbled upon it, and each other, is a thrilling accident that only they can fully appreciate. Similarly, when Clarissa insists, after the ballooning accident, that she and Joe "have to help each other" by behaving in a loving way, Joe realizes that, in his rationalist insistence on talking through every moment of the tragedy, he has "been trying to deny [himself] even the touch of her hand." Clarissa, on the other hand, has "effected a shift to the essential" by leading Joe to bed: she is helping him remember what really matters. The reader sees here that McEwan has love in mind as a potential antidote for sorrow. This is love at its most beneficial: it makes tragedy bearable by providing an alternative emotional realm into which to escape. This, for McEwan, is the kind of love that might have a chance at enduring, and whose endurance would be a purely positive phenomenon. The novel's other primary example of love, on the other hand, is far more sinister: the one-sided love that joins Joe and Parry. Like the love between Joe and Clarissa, however, the love that Parry feels for Joe has simply happened, without planning or resolve. Parry is as much a victim of it, arguably, as Joe is, and luck is at work in this negative love as much as in Joe and Clarissa's positive love. When Joe recalls the scene, in the novel's first pages, in which he and Parry both run toward the hot-air balloon, he imagines them "rushing toward each other like lovers," a deeply ironic statement that illustrates the novel's ideas about love. Neither Joe nor Parry knows what he is "rushing toward"—neither can anticipate or control the force of what is about to bind them—and, as a consequence, both are subject to love as an uncontrollable force. Furthermore, after attempting to murder Joe and while holding a knife to Clarissa's throat, Parry tells Joe, "I love you" and "it's wrecked my life." Clearly, this is a kind of love that inflicts hardship. Both Parry (who is destructively beholden to his emotions) and Joe (who cannot dissuade Parry from his obsession) are forced to endure this terrible love. McEwan also stresses on several occasions the idea that love is, in a sense, biologically programmed, not only in the case of Parry's disorder-driven affection, but in healthy human beings, as well. McEwan first establishes this idea in the novel's early pages. As Joe is witnessing various happy reunions at London's Heathrow Airport, he notices that "the same joy, the same uncontrollable smile" can be seen "in the faces of a Nigerian earth mama, a thin-lipped Scottish granny, and a pale, correct Japanese businessman." For Joe, this proves "Darwin's contention that the many expressions of emotion in humans are universal, genetically inscribed." In other words, love is biological, rather than rational. Ironically, Joe encounters the results of this same evolutionary programming when it is his turn to greet Clarissa, despite his ability to recognize and diagnose that programming in others. "Immediately my detachment vanished," Joe tells the reader, "and I called out her name, in tune with all the rest." In this moment, Joe's behavior is beyond his immediate control. Finally, near the end of the novel, when Parry has been disarmed and led away, Joe confesses that he and Clarissa would have immediately embraced and reconciled with one another had they lived "in a world in which logic was the engine of feeling." Reconciliation makes sense given what they have suffered together and the fact that the central point of contention between them—Is Jed Parry dangerous?—has been definitively answered. Yet the two do not immediately reconcile; "such logic would have been inhuman," McEwan writes. Instead, their emotions and behavior are, as always, just beyond their ability to master. Even here, love cannot be commanded. Taken together, these relationships and feelings reflect the novel's ultimate statement about love: it has the power both to heal and to destroy, and, in either case, it is often beyond human reason or control. No other force in the book has anything like love's impact on the characters' motives, attitudes, and behaviors. It is, simply put, the reason Enduring Love exists. - Climax: Jed Parry enters Joe Rose's apartment and threatens to kill his wife, Clarissa Mellon - Summary: Joe Rose and his wife, Clarissa Mellon, are picnicking in the English countryside when they hear the shouts of a child in distress. The child, Harry Gadd, is in the basket of a hot-air balloon, which the wind is threatening to carry away. His grandfather, James Gadd, is working feverishly to secure the basket to the ground. As Joe is racing toward the balloon in an attempt to help, he is joined by several other men, among them John Logan, a local doctor and former mountain-rescue worker, and Jed Parry, a young man who lives alone on the income from a large inheritance. Though the men do their best to provide assistance, taking hold of the ropes dangling from the balloon's basket, their intervention ends in disaster. John Logan holds on to his rope when a burst of wind carries the balloon high into the air and, to the horror of everyone present, he falls a great distance to his death. In the moments after Logan's fall, Joe and Parry share a few minutes together as they wait for the police to arrive. Parry encourages Joe to pray, and when Joe responds that he holds no religious beliefs, Parry is increasingly insistent. Later that evening, after Joe and Clarissa have talked through the events of the day again and again, Joe is awakened by a phone call. On the other end of the line is Parry, who insists that he understands what he believes Joe to be feeling and that he loves Joe, too. Confused and flustered, Joe hangs up the phone and tells Clarissa that the call was a wrong number. In the days that follow, Parry's behavior grows increasingly perplexing. He suffers from de Clerambault's syndrome, which has given him the delusion that he and Joe are in love, and, as a consequence, he begins to write Joe long letters, follow him in the streets around Joe's apartment, and leave pleading telephone messages on Joe's answering machine. Though Joe attempts to explain to Clarissa what is happening, she is hesitant to believe that Joe is in any danger, preferring instead to think that Parry is harmless and ought to be gently and carefully reasoned with. In part to escape from Parry for a few hours, Joe travels to Oxford to visit John Logan's widow, Jean Logan. Distraught and inconsolable, Jean reveals her belief that her husband was having an affair in the weeks before his death. She questions Joe about the afternoon of the accident and threatens to kill her husband's supposed lover if she ever meets her. Back in London, Joe finds his relationship with Clarissa to be increasingly troubled. Parry's obsession has caused a rift between the two of them, and an atmosphere of mutual distrust has arisen in their household. Things continue in this manner until the afternoon of a birthday luncheon in Clarissa's honor. Joining her and Joe is Clarissa's godfather, an elderly scientist and professor. As their meal progresses, Joe notices a similarly composed group—a woman and two men—dining at a nearby table. Suddenly, a pair of gunmen enter the restaurant, move toward the nearby table, and shoot the younger of the two men sitting there. Before they can shoot him a second time, however, a man whom Joe recognizes as Jed Parry intervenes. Parry has sent the men into the restaurant to kill Joe, but they have mistakenly shot a man Joe's age. Unsatisfied with the response of the police, who cannot be convinced that Joe is in danger despite what has happened, Joe purchases a gun from a former friend. On his way home, he receives a call from Jed Parry, who tells Joe that he is sitting in Joe's apartment with Clarissa and that Joe must join them right away. Racing back to London, Joe finds that Parry and Clarissa are indeed together. A distraught Parry confesses that his love for Joe has ruined his life, and when he pulls a knife from his pocket, Joe shoots him in the arm to prevent him from killing himself. In the novel's closing pages, Joe and Clarissa travel to Oxford once more to visit Jean Logan. They picnic with Jean and her children beside a river and are joined by two of John Logan's friends: a university lecturer and the young woman with whom he is romantically involved. John Logan's supposed affair, the university lecturer reveals, did not occur. Rather, John was giving the lecturer and the young woman a ride in his car when he stopped to assist the balloonists, a fact that led to the circumstances and details that aroused Jean's suspicions. Simultaneously relieved and guilty, Jean Logan wonders who can forgive her for doubting her husband's faithfulness. Her question makes Joe and Clarissa ponder their own relationship, and while Joe concedes that he might one day forgive Clarissa for discounting the threat posed by Parry, he isn't yet able to do so.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Ethan Brand - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: A lime kiln burning late at night on Mount Graylock in Massachusetts - Character: Ethan Brand. Description: Ethan Brand was once a humble lime-burner at a kiln on Mount Greylock. Many years ago, he began to ponder the nature of sin while he tended his kiln through the night. Gradually, he became obsessed with the idea and embarked on a quest to discover the Unpardonable Sin. In part, he conducted his research by tempting and manipulating other people into various degrees of crime. (One such person was Esther, a woman who once lived in the nearby village and who Brand subjected to a "psychological experiment" that may have "annihilated her soul.") Before Brand left, the Village Doctor treated him for madness, and upon his return, Bartram and others continue to question his sanity. By his own account, he was once a simple but thoughtful man, but in the isolation of the kiln, his serious thoughts turned into a mad obsession. Once he believes he has discovered—and committed—the Unpardonable Sin, he returns to the scene of his early development to boast of his accomplishment to the locals. His gloomy, alarming laugh precedes him to the kiln and betrays his sadness and isolation. Brand's words and actions betray the intellectual pride that destroyed his reverence for God and severed his connections with other people: he believes that he alone has committed the Unpardonable Sin, that he is vastly superior not only to the town drunks but also to the most knowledgeable philosophers, and that—by his own efforts—he has completed his life's task. Moreover, although he believes he deserves punishment for his sins, he would happily commit them again, and he sees his commission of the Unpardonable Sin as the "delicious fruit" of his life's work. His solitary temperament provided fertile ground for his obsession to take root, and his experiments on others turned him from a fellow human being into a cold observer of human nature. Brand continues to isolate himself even as the crowd gathers around the kiln. He speaks enigmatically to Bartram and Joe, frustrating their ability to communicate with him; as others arrive, he either drives them away with insults or withdraws to sit alone. The strength of his conviction—his belief that he found and committed the Unpardonable Sin, that his life's work is done, and that he is beyond redemption—ultimately drives him into suicide. - Character: Bartram. Description: Bartram is the lime-burner who now tends Ethan Brand's old kiln. Bartram arrived after Brand embarked on his quest, and he lives at the kiln with his son Joe. In many important ways, Bartram is the opposite of Brand: he is not very imaginative, prone to getting lost in thought, or emotionally sensitive. For example, local legends claim that Brand conjured the Devil from the kiln. Although in a moment of fear Bartram imagines that Brand will do so again in his presence, when Brand simply tends the fire, Bartram quickly calms down. He rejects most of the supernatural elements of Brand's story, judging him to be crazy rather than dangerous. Bartram's approach to lime-burning is practical and physical, and the only thoughts that occupy his mind relate to his work, also in contrast to Brand. When his son displays fear, Bartram gruffly scolds him, betraying a lack of sensitivity to his son's feelings. Similarly, at the end of the story, he reacts to Brand's death without sorrow or pity. - Character: Joe. Description: Joe is a young boy who lives with his father, Bartram, the current lime burner at Ethan Brand's old kiln. Joe is easily alarmed and often turns to his father for comfort. He is emotionally sensitive, especially to Brand's extreme sadness, loneliness, and isolation, all of which upset him. His emotions are changeable: when the German Jew puts his magnifying box over Joe's head, for instance, he happily joins in the joke until he sees Brand and again becomes afraid. While everyone else treats Brand as a curiosity or a bother, Joe is the only one who seems to pity him. - Character: The German Jew. Description: The "German Jew" is a traveling entertainer who is drawn to the kiln by the size of the crowd that has gathered to gawk at Ethan Brand. The German Jew, also called the Jew of Nuremberg, travels through the mountains with his diorama—a box that allows him to magnify and display pictures. He has met Brand in the past, as the two recognize each other, and the German Jew knows of Ethan Brand's Unpardonable Sin. His physical appearance includes a dark or brown complexion, a "strong outline" (or notable profile, likely referring to the stereotype of a hooked nose), and stooping posture. These features, combined with his deference to the audience—he calls everyone "captain"—portray the German Jew as a stock, antisemitic caricature of a Jewish person. His mysterious origins, evidently random travels, past knowledge of Brand, and suggestion that he knows something about the nature of the Unpardonable Sin recall the figure of the "Wandering Jew," who, according to legend, mocked Christ on his way to the cross and was cursed to live and travel the world until Christ's Second Coming. - Character: Lawyer Giles. Description: The Lawyer Giles is a tavern patron who comes to the kiln with the Stage Agent, the Village Doctor, and Humphrey. A resident of the village since the time Ethan Brand tended the kiln, Lawyer Giles has—like the Village Doctor—succumbed to alcoholism in the intervening years. Once, he was a well-respected lawyer, but his habit of abusing alcohol eventually ruined his legal career. His body bears the marks of his lowered status: as he turned to various forms of manual labor, working accidents cost him a hand and part of a foot. Now, he makes soap. However, his alcoholism hasn't ruined his temperament, and although he wears worn and dirty clothes, his irrepressible spirit and courage in the face of his decline have endeared him to his neighbors. - Character: The Village Doctor. Description: Another tavern patron, the Doctor comes with his fellow drinkers the Stage Agent and Lawyer Giles to visit Ethan Brand at the kiln. In contrast to Lawyer Giles, the ravages of alcohol have a more pronounced effect on the Doctor, now a brutal and savage man who gestures and speaks wildly. He also smokes and swears constantly. The Village Doctor's education and title still earn him respect in the mountain towns, where many sick people still seek his counsel, despite the degradation of his character. - Character: Humphrey. Description: Humphrey is a wild and shabby old man, whose daughter Esther disappeared from his home years ago. He now wanders the hills asking travelers if they have seen her or have any news of her. He comes to the kiln with the Stage Agent, the Village Doctor, and Lawyer Giles to ask if Ethan Brand has any word of Esther. He is desperate for news of his daughter, because few reports of her whereabouts come back to him, and he wants her to return. - Character: Esther. Description: Humphrey's daughter, Esther, left the village many years ago to join the circus. She performs on the highwire and on horseback, and news of her beautiful performances occasionally comes back to the village. Esther was one of Ethan Brand's early experimental subjects as he tried to discover the Unpardonable Sin; it seems that her departure may have been the result of Brand destroying her soul in the process. - Character: The Stage Agent. Description: The state agent is a patron of the local tavern who comes with Lawyer Giles, the Village Doctor, and Humphrey to see Ethan Brand's return. Although he is old and wrinkled, he still dresses well. He spends his time in the bar dispensing his dry humor rather than selling tickets for the stagecoach. - Theme: The Search for Knowledge. Description: Ethan Brand, once an uneducated laborer, left his lime kiln many years ago to search for the knowledge that would reveal to him the nature of the Unpardonable Sin. (Even before he left, he was rumored to have conjured a demon out of his kiln to debate with him about the Unpardonable Sin.) In the story's present, Brand has returned to the kiln, and he has more knowledge than the wisest philosophers, but he has lost his ability to feel empathy for and connect with other people. Brand, who has become legendary among the townspeople in the story, mirrors the German legend of Faust, who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and pleasure but loses his humanity as a result. The way Brand's pursuit of knowledge ruins him also invokes the story of Original Sin in the Bible, in which Adam and Eve disobey God to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thereby causing humanity to fall from virtue into sin. Indeed, through its portrayals of Brand, the Village Doctor, and Lawyer Giles, the story suggests that knowledge is meaningless and even potentially sinful on its own. Lawyer Giles and the Village Doctor are nearly as well-educated as Brand, but their training loses meaning when it isn't being used. Giles's drunkenness ended his legal career, and while the Doctor still practices, his own alcohol abuse means that he has little intentional impact on his patients' survival or death. Nevertheless, because their education didn't cost them their humanity, the men are still welcomed members of the community—the doctor because he still visits the sick and the lawyer for his courageous spirit. Brand's intellectual development, on the other hand, divorced him from a sense of empathy or shared human connection, has left him empty and defunct rather than elevating him. Ultimately, his knowledge is worth no more than the minerals that his bones add to the batch of lime when Brand throws himself into the kiln and dies. - Theme: Sin, Guilt, and Judgment. Description: Ethan Brand, once a humble lime-burner, left his kiln years ago in search of the Unpardonable Sin. He returns because he believes that he found—and committed—it. Both Brand and the locals who come to gawk at him are heavily focused on what he might be guilty of. Brand claims that he is guilty of the Unpardonable Sin, which he believes is his blind pursuit of knowledge and his subsequent loss of sympathy for other humans and reverence for God. As he learned about evil by manipulating others into sinning, he came to stand outside of human relationships as an observer of people rather than a friend to them. Despite owning up to this, however, his words and actions suggest that he's blind to his own pride, which is rooted in the Unpardonable Sin of prioritizing intellectualism over humanity. Indeed, Brand swells with pride when Bartram (who took over the kiln after Brand left) asks him to describe the Unpardonable Sin. He believes that this sin grows in his heart alone, takes perverse satisfaction in feeling more sinful than the local drunkards, and even ends his life because he feels that he has achieved his life's work and done it well. Moreover, although Brand openly admits that he's guilty of committing the Unpardonable Sin and believes he should be punished, he also admits that he would do it again if given the chance. His inability to acknowledge all his faults—namely, his pride—thus suggests that despite his immense knowledge and intelligence, he's still unable to judge himself thoroughly and objectively. The villagers are similarly flawed in their assessment of Brand's (and, it seems, one another's) guilt. The young people find Brand plain and unimpressive compared to the legendary figure they expect, writing him off as crazy rather than being open to the idea that he's guilty of the Unpardonable Sin. Both Bartram and his son Joe find Brand unnerving, but Bartram's fear ultimately stems from a sense of affinity, because he sees his own sins reflected in Brand's. Moreover, the villagers ignore the Doctor's sins—less seriously, swearing, but more seriously, heavy drinking—and still seek his aid in times of illness. Similarly, they still consider Lawyer Giles an honorable man even though he lost his law practice because of his own alcoholism. In contrasting Brand's sense of his own sinfulness with the villagers' opinions and his own actions, and in pointing out the limits of the villagers' ability to judge one another's character, the story suggests that while it's natural for people to make judgments about guilt and sin, human knowledge is finite and fallible. - Theme: Isolation. Description: Many years ago, while tending his lime kiln, Ethan Brand began to ruminate on the nature of sin, and his meditations ultimately drove him out into the world on a solitary search for the Unpardonable Sin. After many years, when he believes he has both found and committed it, he returns. Brand believes that his sin is hard-heartedness demonstrated by separation from human connection and a loss of reverence for God. In contrast, Bartram (who took over the kiln in Brand's absence) and villagers from the surrounding area are so imbued with a sense of community that they can't even imagine Brand in isolation, so their legends depict him conjuring a demon from the lime kiln's flames for companionship. In the years since Brand left, both the Village Doctor and Lawyer Giles have fallen into alcoholism. As a result, the Doctor kills as many patients as he saves, and Giles now supports himself with manual labor. Yet these men remain valued members of the community, despite their drunken and diminished states. Moreover, when Bartram's son, Joe, senses Brand's "terrible loneliness," he draws closer to his father for comfort. Bartram and Joe are relieved and comforted when others join them with Brand at the kiln, and in this way, community insulates them and reduces their fear of the uncanny stranger. Conversely, Brand isolates himself from the crowd, and when his old acquaintances try to connect with him, he insults them and drives them away. His zealous belief in his superiority and unique sinfulness is harder to maintain in the presence of other people, in part because no one seems to accept that he is any more sinful than the average person. By shunning meaningful connections, both now and in the past while he gained his knowledge, Brand removed himself from the community's magnetic pull. He can only see himself and his own special sinfulness, whether he's remembering his past, looking into the kiln, or peering into the German Jew's picture box. Brand's suicide at the end of the story (when he throws himself into the fiery kiln) illustrates the logical end of his isolation: his death removes him from the community permanently. The villagers' eagerness to visit Brand at the kiln suggests that, perhaps, he could have reintegrated within the community. But, by clinging to his belief in his own superior knowledge and sinfulness, Brand reinforces his isolation, to deadly effect. - Theme: Transformation. Description: Day slowly turns to night as Ethan Brand returns to his lime kiln after years spent searching for the Unpardonable Sin. Over the course of the night, villagers come to gawk at the strange man who claims to have committed the Unpardonable Sin himself, and whom they believe to be in league with the Devil. The lime kiln uses fire to turn marble into quicklime, in a reliable, manmade shortcut of natural processes. And Ethan Brand's quest—because it emphasized intellectual knowledge over human connection—has turned the simple, loving man into a gloomy, aloof figure without concern for other people's lives or souls. Even up to the last moment of the burn, Bartram (who took over the kiln after Brand left) worries that his entire batch of lime might be ruined by improper handling. The labor-intensive process of burning lime requires immense heat to turn marble into lime, which is a valuable substance that (among other uses) creates the mortar that secures bricks together in building. But instead of finding in the kiln's flames—and his ruminations on sin while it burned—a way to join himself with others, the solitary Brand instead came to desire a godlike knowledge of sin. In his relentless quest for this knowledge, Brand manipulated other people into committing the sinful acts he thought his research demanded. In coming to see himself as superior to everyone else and in losing his empathy for others, Brand lost his connection with humanity and hardened his heart. Just as the kiln transforms marble into lime, Brand's willingness to lead others into sin transformed him from a man into the Devil in human form. Having destroyed his humanity and his soul, Brand finally destroys his body by throwing himself into the kiln, and his earthly remains become a few pounds of minerals that enrich Bartram's lime batch. By situating Brand's conversion alongside the process of lime burning, the story acknowledges the benefits of human transformation—through manufacture or through education—but also warns about its inherent risk of destruction. - Climax: Ethan Brand commits suicide by throwing himself into the lime kiln. - Summary: While tending their lime kiln one evening, Bartram and his son Joe hear an eerie laugh and footsteps approaching their clearing. A gloomy stranger greets them and identifies himself as Ethan Brand, the same man who tended their kiln many years ago, before he left to discover the Unpardonable Sin. Bartram sends Joe to the village tavern to spread the news of Brand's return. While he is gone, Bartram recalls the stories about Brand, which claim that he summoned the Devil himself from the flames of the kiln to discuss the Unpardonable Sin. Bartram's fear of being alone with someone who's committed an unforgivable sin is somewhat soothed when Brand helps him tend the fire, but Brand can't resist asking about the Unpardonable Sin. Brand believes that he himself committed the Unpardonable Sin when he chose intellectual pride over human connection and reverence for God. However, he admits that he would commit the same sin again, if given the chance. Joe soon returns, bringing the Stage-Agent, Lawyer Giles, and the Village Doctor—men who have succumbed to alcoholism in the years since Brand left. He also brings Humphrey, a wild old man who spends his time searching for his lost daughter, Esther. Brand rejects the tavern-goers' friendly gestures of welcome and denies any knowledge of Esther's whereabouts, although he subjected her to one of his experiments in human sinfulness long ago and likely ruined her soul in the process. The men take offense to Brand's prideful attitude and don't believe his claims that he's uniquely sinful, instead writing him off as mad. While the older men talk, young people from the village and a passing "German Jew" join them at the kiln. After the German entertains the crowd with his traveling picture show, a dog in the crowd makes a scene by wildly chasing its own tail. Everyone begins to laugh and applaud, until Ethan Brand joins them. His awful, uncanny laugh alarms everybody, and the crowd disperses. When the others have left, Brand tells Bartram and Joe to go to bed, offering to watch the fire himself during the night. Once he is alone, Brand thinks back to his early days watching the kiln before his quest for knowledge hardened his heart and separated him from other people. Realizing that his life's work is done, he runs to the top of the kiln and throws himself in. At this very moment, both Bartram and Joe hear his frightening laughter in their dreams. In the morning, they find Brand gone, and Bartram hurries to check the kiln in case Brand's negligence has ruined the lime. The lime is fine, and on top of the heap lies Brand's skeleton, with a heart of stone nestled between the ribs. Although he wonders briefly about the miraculous nature of Brand's transformation in the fire, Bartram quickly concludes that Brand's remains will add to the value of his lime, and he crumbles them into the batch.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Ethan Frome - Point of view: First-person observer (frame story); third-person omniscient (main narrative) - Setting: The fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts - Character: Ethan Frome. Description: The protagonist of the novel and its tragic hero, Ethan is 28 years old in the main narrative and 52 years old in the frame story. According to the Narrator, he is a tall striking figure, despite being "a ruin of a man," an allusion both to the crippling injury and the disappointments he has suffered. Circumstances are partly responsible for Ethan's troubles, but his failure to act decisively in his own interest contributes to the unhappy condition of all three of the major characters by the end of the novel. Sensitive to natural beauty and intellectually curious, Ethan finds in Mattie a companion who appreciates his learning and respects his authority. - Character: Zenobia (Zeena) Frome. Description: Ethan's wife, who is 35 at the time of the main narrative, is described as "already an old woman," with false teeth, wrinkles, a skeletal physique, and a sallow complexion. Ethan was dazzled by her efficiency when she came to nurse his mother, and marries her in order to avoid being left alone after his mother died. He realizes his mistake When Zeena is afflicted by illness and pain that thwart his hopes of moving to a bigger town. Though Ethan suspects that Zeena's illnesses are faked, his sense of duty forces him to take care of Zeena, and she uses her illness to manipulate and control Ethan. The behavior of Zeena's cat implies that Zeena has certain witch-like powers, though this is probably the Narrator's attempt to convey the power she has gained over Ethan and Mattie. - Character: Mattie Silver. Description: Zeena's vivacious 21-year-old cousin, who comes to live with the Fromes when her parents die and leave her penniless. With no education or job skills, Mattie is forced to rely on the charity of her relatives, performing menial work in return for room and board. Her only hope of escape lies in attracting a suitor who will marry her and remove her from the Frome household, so her infatuation with Ethan is reckless, endangering her employment and her future. Mattie's red scarf and red ribbon symbolize her passionate nature. - Character: The Narrator. Description: An engineer who is temporarily residing in Starkfield while assigned to work at a nearby power plant, and who is sympathetic to Ethan's troubles. Wharton's use of a narrator who is an outsider in the community contributes to the suspense of the tale, as the narrator tries to reconstruct the tragedy from a few direct observations and details provided by Mrs. Ned Hale and Harmon Gow. Wharton also intended the narrator to serve as a bridge between her "simple" characters and the sophisticated readers who were the audience for her novels. - Theme: Determinism and Free Will. Description: In Ethan Frome, Wharton explores the concept of determinism—the idea that human lives are determined by outside forces, including social customs, heredity, environment, history, and laws of nature. For instance, Ethan's life is "determined" in a variety of ways: his desire to become an engineer is thwarted by the moral necessity of returning to Starkfield to care for his dying parents; his plans to leave Starkfield after his marriage are thwarted by the infertility of his farm, which no one wants to buy, and his wife Zeena's "sickliness;" and Ethan's desire to abandon Zeena in favor of Mattie is blocked by the feeling, imbued in him by his New England culture with its Puritan roots, that such an action would be immoral. As a result, Ethan has the sense that he is helpless to affect his own life and, rather than acting, he indulges in his naïve wish that Mattie will always live at the farm without him having to do anything decisive at all. Despite all these factors, Ethan could act decisively. Other characters in the novel do: Ruth Varnum and Ned Hale kiss secretly even though they aren't yet married; Mr. Hale turns down Ethan's request for an advance because he can't afford it at the time; and Zeena summarily acts to replace Mattie with a new girl. Yet every time Ethan seems on the verge of action, he finds himself facing some obstacle and instead of facing it gives in, all the while blaming the external forces that are thwarting him without ever recognizing his own lack of courage. - Theme: Duty and Morality vs. Desire. Description: Ethan struggles against the customs and rules of society, fighting an inner battle between what he feels he needs in order to be happy and what he feels he must do to appease his family and society. Most prominently, this theme plays out in Ethan's struggle between his desire for Mattie and his sense of duty toward Zeena, his wife. Wharton portrays Zeena as horribly shrewish, devoid of any redeeming attributes, while Mattie is kind, gentle, radiant, and a perfect match for Ethan. Ethan's desire to leave Zeena for Mattie is therefore completely understandable. Yet, because Ethan knows that society would severely judge a man who abandoned his wife, and because he knows that without him Zeena would suffer in poverty, he can't bring himself to leave her. Similarly, Ethan avoids entering into an affair with Mattie because he knows that an affair would ruin Mattie's reputation. He therefore continually thinks of their relationship in terms of marriage, takes great pleasure in their domesticity, and displays an intense physical shyness, avoiding even touching Mattie when they are alone together in the house. Ethan's sense of duty and morality conflict with his desires in a variety of other ways. His desire to leave Starkfield to pursue a career in engineering conflicts with his obligation to provide for his wife and continue running the family farm. His strict code of ethics won't allow him to lie to the Hales to get the money to run away with Mattie. Even in his great act of defiance, when Ethan and Mattie decide to commit suicide to try to escape the constraints placed on them by the world, Ethan can't stop thinking about his duties. As the sled speeds downhill, he remembers that he must feed his horse and thinks of Zeena—these distractions make him lose control of the sled and botch the suicide attempt, crippling instead of killing himself and Mattie, and condemning them both to a kind of living death. - Theme: Gender Roles and Marriage. Description: As in many of Wharton's novels, Ethan Frome makes the case that traditional gender roles limit the potential of men and women, and destroy male-female relationships. Through Mattie, the novel critiques gender expectations that resulted in young women being raised to become nothing more than domestic servants and companions for men. Mattie is an example of a middle-class girl who was educated only to trim a hat, make molasses candy, recite poetry, and play the piano, accomplishments that would have helped her to attract a husband but were of little practical use when it came to earning a living. The novel also shows how the traditional division of labor in marriage resulted in women staying at home much of the time, occupied with dull household chores, while men were out working. In the novel, the isolation women suffer is literally maddening: Ethan's mother goes insane from loneliness. Through the passive aggressive "sickliness" that Zeena uses to control Ethan, and Ethan's own feelings of inferiority and revulsion for Zeena that result from his lack of control, the novel shows how traditional marriage sets up a destructive power struggle between man and wife. In fact, Ethan's attraction to Mattie depends in part on her submissiveness to him. Though the novel never explicitly mentions divorce, the obviously flawed match of Ethan and Zeena, and the toll the marriage takes on both of them, makes it clear that Wharton felt that the social taboo against divorce and, in particular divorced women, were harsh and destructive. - Theme: Work, Industry and Progress. Description: Technology, symbolized in Ethan Frome by the railroad, was developing rapidly at the turn of the century. Cities were growing, their populations swelled by the arrival of immigrants and people from the countryside, lured by jobs in factories and mills. Young women in particular often suffered serious health problems owing to the harsh working conditions that existed before protective labor laws were passed. In rural communities, technology provided new connections to the outside world, but also caused upset and change, as shown by the arrival of the railroad, which eliminates traffic on the road to the Frome farm. - Theme: Hostile or Indifferent Nature. Description: In the rural Berkshires where Ethan Frome is set, the characters are at the mercy of nature. The short New England growing season and thin mountain soils discouraged large-scale agriculture, ensuring that most farms, like the Frome farm, allowed for only "subsistence" farming that prevented farm owners from overcoming poverty. In addition, as Harmon Gow's comment that Ethan has "been in Starkfield too many winters" suggests, the prolonged and brutal winters of the region had a profound effect on the personalities of the inhabitants of rural villages, resulting in reserved social behavior, a tendency toward pathological illness (especially in women), and a sense of disconnectedness from the larger world. - Climax: The sledding accident - Summary: The Narrator, an engineer assigned to a job at a power plant near the town of Starkfield, MA, is intrigued by a tall crippled man he sees at the local post office. He learns that the man, Ethan Frome, was injured in a sledding accident 24 years earlier, but can get little more from the secretive locals. Circumstances lead the narrator to hire Ethan to drive him to and from his work. One night a violent winter storm forces Ethan to invite the Narrator to stay overnight at the Frome farm, where what he sees inspires him to reconstruct the tragedy. The Narrator's vision begins with 28-year-old Ethan Frome peering through a church window at 21-year-old Mattie Silver, Ethan's wife's cousin. Mattie works at the Frome farm, where she provides domestic help to Zeena, Ethan's ailing wife, in return for room and board. As Ethan watches, Mattie dances with the arrogant Denis Eady, son of the town's wealthy grocer. Jealous, Ethan eavesdrops as Mattie refuses Denis's offer of a ride home and begins the two-mile walk back to the farm alone. Ethan hurries after her and they continue past a dangerous sledding hill, where Mattie's friend Ruth Varnum and Ruth's fiancé Ned Hale have recently avoided a serious accident. The attraction between Mattie and Ethan is palpable, but unspoken. When they reach the farm, they are surprised to find the door locked. Zeena greets them at the door, complaining that she is feeling "too mean to sleep." Ethan goes to bed with an uneasy feeling that Zeena guesses his feelings for Mattie, though she gives no outward sign. The next day, Ethan postpones hauling a delivery of lumber to Andrew Hale, a local builder. Stopping at the farmhouse, Zeena, dressed in traveling clothes, informs him that she is making an overnight trip to Bettsbridge to consult a promising new doctor about her "shooting pains." Ethan quickly agrees to the plan, realizing that it will allow him to be alone at the farm with Mattie. He lies to Zeena that he can't take her to the station because he must collect payment from Andrew Hale. Although he knows Hale never pays in advance, Ethan goes to him for the money in order to avoid being exposed as a liar. But Hale politely declines his request, and Ethan does not press him. Returning empty-handed to the farm, he finds Mattie presiding over a carefully-laid supper table. The blissful scene is shattered, however, when Zeena's red pickle-dish, a favorite wedding present, is knocked to the floor by the cat. Anticipating Zeena's anger, Mattie is terrified, but Ethan assures her that he will glue the fragments together before Zeena returns. The two go upstairs to bed without declaring their passion for one another or so much as touching. The next day, farm work and bad weather conditions delay his errand to buy glue to mend the pickle-dish. When he returns home, he learns from Mattie that Zeena has already arrived and gone straight up to their room. Collecting himself, Ethan goes up to greet her, only to learn that the doctor has told her she will die unless she hires more efficient domestic help. She tells him a new hired girl will arrive the following day, and that Mattie must go immediately. Mattie, waiting at the supper table, learns of her dismissal from Ethan, who kisses her passionately, no longer able to hide his feelings. Zeena approaches and interrupts them. She joins them at the dinner table, although previously she had claimed to be too ill to eat. Complaining of heartburn, Zeena leaves the table in search of stomach powders, but returns carrying the broken pickle-dish. Mattie confesses, which only fuels Zeena's determination to replace Mattie. That night, Ethan starts to write a letter informing Zeena he has decided to elope with Mattie and go out West. Considering the plan further, though, Ethan realizes that he has no way of getting even the bit of money needed to travel West. He's also afraid of what will become of Zeena if she can't sell the farm. He falls asleep, leaving the letter unfinished. Ethan decides to approach Hale and lie in order to get the money he needs. But at Hale's house he meets Hale's wife, who praises his dedication to Zeena. Her compassion makes Ethan ashamed of his plan to lie, and he gives it up. He returns to the farm to find Mattie's departure already underway. He tells Zeena that he, not the farmhand Jotham Powell, will drive Mattie to the train. Instead of driving directly to the train station, Ethan and Mattie first go to Shadow Pond, the site where they had first fallen in love. Afterwards, they stop at the sledding hill and Ethan proposes that they go for the ride they've often considered taking. The first ride is accomplished without incident, but then Mattie suggests that they go down again, but steer into a big elm tree at the bottom of the hill rather than face parting from one another. Ethan complies—but just before they strike the tree Ethan sees a vision of Zeena's face, and momentarily swerves. Neither of the two are killed by the collision, but both are crippled for life. The frame story resumes 24 years later, as the Narrator follows Ethan into the farmhouse kitchen. There he encounters two gray-haired women, one tall and thin, the other huddled in a chair. The tall one is Zeena, and the paralyzed woman, whose voice whines just like Zeena's, is Mattie Silver. The following day, the Narrator tells his landlady, Mrs. Ned Hale, about his night at the Frome farm. The Narrator and Mrs. Hale talk sympathetically about Ethan. They describe him as imprisoned on the poverty-stricken farm with two discontented hags, doomed to contemplate the ruin of his hopes and to blame himself for his role in their destruction.

- Genre: Short story, detective fiction - Title: Evans Tries an O-Level - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: HM Prison Oxford in the Oxford Castle in Oxford, UK - Character: The Governor. Description: The Governor of HM Prison, Oxford is a proud, no-nonsense man and the protagonist of the story. When James Evans breaks out of three prisons and is eventually sent to Oxford Prison, the Governor is determined to outwit Evans and keep the prisoner securely locked up. Even though the Governor thinks he will "see to it personally" that Evans doesn't break out of prison, he has very little personal contact with Evans, instead delegating duties to Jackson and Stephens. This opens up space for miscommunication (and for the other officers to take their own liberties in how to handle Evans), ultimately leading to crucial mistakes that work in Evans's favor. The Governor does, however, listen in on Evans's German exam through a receiver, though this method of supervising the prisoner proves ineffectual—since Evans and McLeery's plan was premeditated (presumably due to the German teacher's help), the two men don't have to talk as Evans wiggles into his disguise. The Governor constantly feels torn between wanting to do everything in his power to ensure Evans is secure and wanting to look unruffled and in control. Although he frequently worries about being paranoid, all of his hunches prove correct, suggesting that his pride repeatedly stood in the way of his ability to effectively carry out his duties as Governor. The Governor redeems himself when he tracks Evans down at the Golden Lion Hotel—seemingly without help from high-level detectives Carter and Bell—though he is outsmarted once again when he sends Evans back to prison in a van driven by the criminal's two accomplices, the silent prison officer and "McLeery." - Character: James Evans. Description: Known to prison officers as "Evans the Break," antagonist James Evans is a "congenital kleptomaniac" who's escaped three times from various prisons. He's now a prisoner at HM Prison Oxford, which is overseen by the Governor. Not the typical criminal, Evans is known for his friendly, joking attitude and maintains an playful, teasing relationship with the prison officers, especially Jackson. While at Oxford Prison, Evans begins taking night classes in O-level German and is the only student in the class; after six months of this, he asks to take the final exam. Seeing this as strange but harmless, the Governor bends to his request and arranges the details with the Secretary of the Examinations Board. They decide to have Reverend S. McLeery, a parson at St Mary Mags, act as the proctor to oversee Evans's exam. Despite being closely watched by the Governor and many others, Evans manages to escape in the moments following his exam by posing as the proctor—a complicated plan made easier by the fact that Reverend McLeery is not, in fact, the real McLeery but one of Evans's old friends. Eventually, the Governor catches up with Evans and manages to send him back to prison, interacting with him light-heartedly like it's one big game of cat-and-mouse. Ultimately, Evans's friendships with people outside of the prisons' walls, along with his penchant for deception, allow him to escape once more—perhaps this time for good. - Character: Reverend Stuart McLeery. Description: Reverend Stuart McLeery, a parson at St. Mary Mags, is sent to Oxford Prison to act as a proctor for Evans's O-level German exam. He has a short, choppy haircut and wears a clerical shirt and collar, glasses, and a long coat. He initially appears to be a patient, respectable man who only briefly loses his patience when one of the prison officers, Jackson, searches his briefcase and interrogates him about a strange blow-up tube he's carrying—which, he tersely replies, is a special cushion he has to sit on due to chronic hemorrhoids. Near the end of the story, the so-called Reverend McLeery turns out to be an imposter—one of Evans's many "friends" who helps him escape from prison. Readers only get a brief glimpse of the real McLeery—at the end of the story, he's found tied up with ropes in his office, but the narrative quickly departs from him. - Character: Jackson. Description: Jackson is the senior prison officer at Oxford Prison, which is overseen by the Governor. A World War II veteran, Jackson stands "ramrod straight" and displays his war medals on his jacket pocket. He and Evans are "warm enemies," frequently exchanging gruff but good-natured insults. Jackson refers to Evans as "Einstein," poking fun at his bizarre (and possibly suspect) interest in O-level German, but also wishes him well on the exam, saying, "Good luck, old son." He does feel a slight twinge of empathy for Evans, seen especially when he bends to Evans's heartfelt (and theatrical) story about needing to wear his grubby hat for good luck—Jackson had told Evans to take it off for the exam, but Evans secretly needs the hat to disguise his new haircut, and, more importantly, his plans to impersonate the proctor to break out of prison. - Character: Stephens. Description: Stephens is new to his post as an officer at Oxford Prison, where he reports to the senior prison officer, Jackson. Stephens is a "burly, surly-looking man," who is supposed to sit in Evans's cell during his exam. Evans balks at this, however, claiming he can't concentrate. Afraid of looking too concerned about the threat of Evans escaping, the Governor allows Stephens to leave the cell and just check on Evans through the peephole every minute. Everything appears normal each time Stephens peeks through the peephole, and he takes the liberty to change his interval from one minute to two—until he notices that Evans has donned a blanket around his shoulders. Although Stephens has been ordered to report anything that seems even vaguely "fishy," he reasons that Evans is just cold due to this wing of the prison not getting any sunlight and not having any heating during this time of year. Like the Governor, Stephens is adept at talking himself out of his suspicions for the sake of looking in-control and unbothered. Stephens is also in charge of escorting McLeery out of the prison after the exam. Although Stephens feels proud that he's the one chosen for such an important job, his confidence and pride quickly deflate upon returning to Evans's cell—there lies McLeery (who is actually Evans), covered in blood. - Character: The Assistant Secretary. Description: The supposed Assistant Secretary of the Examinations Board has "a special responsibility for modern languages." He calls the Governor midway through Evans's German exam to explain that the exam sheet has a few typographical errors, but that "some fool" in the Examinations Board office forgot to include the correction slip in the sealed exam envelope that McLeery received. In actuality, the Assistant Secretary is one of Evans's cronies who is helping with his intricate escape plan. The purpose of his call to the Governor is twofold: most obviously, the so-called corrections he provides for the exam are actually a veiled way of telling Evans which hotel to flee to after breaking out of prison (the Golden Lion). However, he also crucially—and casually—finds out from the Governor exactly what time Evans's two-hour exam started. This information allows him to know when to make the fake phone call to Jackson and Stephens three minutes before the end of Evans's exam so that the criminal can douse himself with blood without being supervised. - Character: The Silent Prison Officer. Description: The silent prison officer who escorts McLeery inside the prison initially seems inconsequential, but is later revealed to be one of Evans's many accomplices. The officer is either posing as another prison officer or actually works at the prison—the story never makes this distinction—but is particularly instrumental in Evans's second escape from the Governor's clutches. Right in front of the Governor's eyes, the silent prison officer handcuffs Evans and loads him into a prison van, presumably about to take him back to Oxford Prison. Once the van pulls away from the Governor, however, the silent prison officer snaps at the driver—whose thick Scottish accent betrays that he's the fake McLeery—to drive faster so that they don't get caught. - Character: The German Teacher. Description: Evans's O-level German teacher claims to hail from the Technical College, but the Governor never conducts a background check on him. In actuality, the German teacher is one of Evans's many "friends," or accomplices, who help him break out of Oxford Prison. The story implies that the German teacher may be the same person as the Assistant Secretary with "a special responsibility for modern languages" at the Examination Board, but McLeery's flawless German accent hints that he might be the German teacher instead. Evans was the only student in the German teacher's six-month course, suggesting that the two had plenty of time to construct Evans's intricate escape plan. - Character: Carter. Description: Detective Superintendent Carter is the first to arrive on the scene after Stephens finds McLeery (who is really Evans in disguise) covered with blood in Evans's prison cell. The Governor realizes that McLeery is the only one who understands the situation at hand, so he instructs Carter to take McLeery with him to track down Evans. Along the way, McLeery's health begins to decline rapidly, so Carter calls him an ambulance but leaves to continue the search for Evans. In leaving McLeery alone to wait for the ambulance, Carter unknowingly leaves Evans unsupervised, allowing him to escape before the ambulance arrives to pick him up. Later, Carter calls the Governor and confidently says that McLeery is at Radcliffe Hospital and that he thinks Evans doubled back into the city. The Governor disagrees with this theory—and explains his reasons for believing otherwise—but knows that his words might not hold any weight, since this is "a police job now" and the Governor is "just another good-for-a-giggle, gullible governor." The Governor's critical thoughts illustrate his own pride, along with Carter's, and also suggest a power struggle between prison officers and police officers. - Character: Bell. Description: Bell is the Detective Chief Inspector at St Aldates Police Station. In the wake of Evans's escape, the Governor sends Jackson and Stephens to Bell, presumably for questioning. While the two officers are en route, the Governor calls Bell on the phone to bring him up to speed on the situation. All Bell says in response is, "We'll get him, sir […] We'll get him, with a bit o'luck." Like Carter, Bell doesn't appear to be especially helpful in tracking down Evans, as it's the Governor who pieces together Evans's plan and tracks him down at the Golden Lion Hotel in the nearby town of Chipping Norton. - Character: The Secretary. Description: The Secretary of the Examinations Board arranges for McLeery to oversee Evans's exam. Although he's initially surprised by the Governor's request to have a prisoner sit for an O-level German exam, the Secretary is happy to oblige. The Secretary is warm and friendly; despite the peculiarity of the request, he thinks they should give Evans "a chance," and he laughs "politely" and "good-naturedly" throughout his conversation with the Governor. Since the Governor is the one to contact the Examinations Board in the first place, it seems that the Secretary is a real employee of the Examinations Board and not one of Evans's accomplices, though one of Evans's "friends" later poses as the Assistant Secretary. - Theme: Intelligence and Deception. Description: Colin Dexter's "Evans Tries an O-level" follows kleptomaniac James Evans's creative and highly complicated attempts to break out of prison. After three escapes at various maximum-security prisons, Evans is transferred to Oxford Prison, overseen by the prideful, no-nonsense Governor. Despite the Governor's best efforts, Evans escapes yet again—he studies O-level German for six months, sits for the final exam, and escapes disguised as the proctor in the final moments. Although Evans's deception is not necessarily lauded as something the reader should replicate, Dexter takes a permissive, almost admiring attitude toward Evans's trickery. As the story unfolds, Dexter suggests that Evans's deception is successful—and somewhat commendable—because it requires intelligence, careful preparation, and flexibility. Throughout the story, Evans displays various kinds of intelligence, all of which work together to ensure his successful escape from prison. In preparing for his escape, Evans uses his emotional intelligence to cleverly appeal to the senior prison officer's empathy and make sure his plan goes according to plan. On the day of Evans's exam, the officer, Jackson, gruffly tells Evans to clean himself up and take off his filthy hat. Readers immediately get the sense that the hat is somehow critical to Evans's escape plan; the prisoner instantly tries to make himself seem as pitiful and humble as possible so that Jackson will allow him to keep it on. With one hand resting "lovingly on top of the filthy woollen," Evans "smile[s] sadly" and tells Jackson that his old cap is "the only thing that's ever brought me any sort o' luck in life. Kind o' lucky charm […] And today I thought—well, with me exam and all that…" As Evans trails off, he thinks to himself that there must be "a tiny core of compassion" that is "buried somewhere in Jackson." Evans is permitted to keep his hat—but "Just this once, then, Shirley Temple"—showing that he used his emotional intelligence to skillfully manipulate the otherwise gruff officer's emotions. Evans demonstrates his intelligence in other ways, too. During the actual exam, Evans picks up on the extremely subtle clues that his proctor (one of Evans's accomplices disguised as a parson named Reverend Stuart McLeery) leaves for him. For example, when McLeery tells Evans to write his "index number" and "centre number" in the corner of his exam (313 and 271, respectively), Evans discerns that this is actually a six-figure reference on a map: 313/271 on the Ordnance Survey Map for Oxfordshire points to the nearby city of Chipping Norton. He also knows that he's specifically supposed to go to the Golden Lion Hotel in that town because of a different clue McLeery (and another accomplice, posing as the Assistant Secretary at the Examinations Board) dropped during the exam, pointing out that a certain phrase on Evans's exam sheet contains a typo and should actually read "zum goldenen Löwen," or "golden lion." When the Governor catches up to Evans after his escape from prison, Evans shows off a surprisingly academic brand of intelligence. Despite his struggles with German (he openly admits that he barely understood any German over the six months he "studied" it), he demonstrates his inexplicable knowledge of chemistry. He explains to the Governor that the blood he doused himself in when pretending to be the freshly attacked McLeery was actually pig's blood. Obtaining the blood wasn't too difficult, but clotting was the real issue: "to stop it clotting you've got to mix yer actual blood (…) with one tenth of its own volume of 3.8 per cent trisodium citrate! Didn't know that, did you sir?" All the Governor can do is slowly shake his head in "reluctant admiration" for the surprisingly astute Renaissance Man that Evans is shaping up to be. Evans's meticulous preparation and flexibility when things go astray also play a key role in his deception and success. When Jackson tells Evans that it's no use trying to escape today—his cell his bugged, and both Jackson and the Governor will be "watching [him] like a hawk" during his exam—Evans is unruffled. The extra eyes don't concern him, because "He'd already thought of that, and Number Two Handkerchief was lying ready on the bunk—a neatly folded square of white linen." Although readers aren't yet given insight into how the handkerchief will aid his plot (or the meaning behind its name), it seems to be somehow part of Evans's well-thought-out plan. (Later, the handkerchief appears as part of Evans's careful disguise as McLeery.) Near the end of the story, it's clear that the man whom the Secretary of the Examinations Board arranges as the proctor, Reverend Stuart McLeery, is not the real McLeery but is one of Evans's cronies from the outside. Evans's careful planning extends even to the fake McLeery, somehow instructing him ahead of time to bring a "smallish semi-inflated rubber ring" in his briefcase and to pass it off as a special cushion to sit on that alleviates his chronic hemorrhoid problem. This ring, which is covertly filled with pig's blood, is essential in Evans's plan to disguise himself as the proctor who has been brutally attacked by Evans. When the prison officers search McLeery's briefcase and question him about the rubber ring, he tersely explains its use, and the officers blush and allow McLeery to carry on (though they do confiscate the proctor's metal paper knife). It seems that Evans' ingenuity led him to choose bizarre "tools" that would not be at risk of being confiscated. When things diverge from the plan, like when Evans successfully escapes but is then found at his hotel room, he manages to think quickly and adjust his plan accordingly. As the Governor leads Evans into a prison van, readers rooting for the loveable antagonist may believe all hope is lost. However, as the Governor watches the van drive away toward the prison, the scene suddenly shifts to inside the van, where someone is quickly unlocking Evans's handcuffs and discussing where they should run off to now. - Theme: Instinct, Paranoia, and Pride. Description: "Evans Tries an O-Level" follows the Governor of Oxford Prison as he deals with a new and particularly unruly prisoner named James Evans, a cheerful kleptomaniac known for his uncanny ability to break out of prison. The prison officers find Evans's sudden interest in German particularly suspicious—he takes night classes in O-level German for six months (as the only student in the class) and eagerly asks to take the final exam, claiming he's "dead keen to get some sort of academic qualification." In the story, the prison officers' suspicions about Evans are right. However, all of the prison guards repeatedly ignore their own nagging suspicions, telling themselves that they're just being paranoid. This careful, logical self-talk is almost always a way to avoid looking stupid. As the story unfolds, Dexter emphasizes the power and accuracy of human instinct while also revealing the extremes people will go for the sake of protecting their pride. Dexter gives his readers insight into the prison officers' minds to show humans' unproductive (and sometimes dangerous) impulse to protect their sense of dignity and avoid looking silly. From the outset, the Governor is particularly preoccupied with preserving his pride. Evans has already escaped three times from various prisons, making him a bit of a national celebrity, and the Governor is determined to not let Evans "disgrace them." As the head of the prison, all mishaps and scandals directly reflect on the Governor. Since Evans is so well known at other prisons, his escape from Oxford Prison could seriously threaten the Governor's reputation. Even months before the exam date, the Governor instinctively feels that Evans will try to make a break for it during his test. That day, the Governor puts several extra security measures in place. However, the Governor's pride slowly begins creeping in, and he questions if he's being overzealous: "But wasn't it all a bit theatrical? Schoolboyish, almost? How on earth was Evans going to try anything on today?" The Governor's repeated internal questions reveal a conflict between his persistent instincts, which are fighting to be noticed, and his desire to look and feel like he's in control. If the Governor looks too concerned about Evans, he may also appear weak and impotent to the other officers at the prison. Despite the "little nagging doubt" that crops up throughout the two-hour exam, the Governor continues to go back on his careful security measures, like having Stephens simply look through the peephole to Evans's cell every minute instead of sitting inside the cell and watching the exam. When the Governor receives a call from the Assistant Secretary at the Examinations Board claiming that "some fool" at their office forgot to include a corrections slip in Evans's testing materials, the Governor's suspicions are aroused again. After transferring the call to Jackson to take care of the situation, the Governor wonders if the call is a fake, and if it's a "signal" or "secret message" of some sort. He quickly dials the number for the Examinations Board to confirm that the call did just come from them and not an imposter, but the line is in use. He assures himself that this is to be expected, since Jackson is presumably still speaking with the Assistant Secretary: "But then the line was engaged, wasn't it? Yes. Not very intelligent, that…" As he does throughout the story, the Governor ignores his reasonable (and accurate) hunch and instead carefully convinces himself that he's just being paranoid and might appear "silly." Stephens, too, ignores his intuition out of pride. New to Oxford Prison and to the profession in general, Stephens is concerned about looking stupid or incapable as a prison officer. At the beginning of Evans's exam, he "dutifully" follows orders and looks through the peephole at one-minute intervals to ensure Evans isn't misbehaving. The job seems pointless to him, though, so he takes the liberty to change the interval time to two minutes. However, one of the next times he peers through the peephole, he's surprised to see that Evans has donned a blanket around his shoulders. Stephens grapples internally with whether or not to "report the slight irregularity." He tells himself to not be "daft," and swiftly convinces himself that Evans is just cold: Deep down, however, it seems that Stephens knows his instincts are correct, and that the blanket is suspect: immediately after constructing a logical explanation for Evans's behavior, "Stephens decided to revert to his early every minute observation" through the peephole rather than looking every two minutes. Prior to the exam, Jackson had firmly instructed Stephens to report "Anything at all fishy." The fact that this order came from Jackson, Stephens's immediate superior, seems to play a role in Stephens's subsequent decision to disregard the blanket situation. Later, when Stephens receives (fake) orders from the Governor, ordering him to be the one to escort McLeery, Evans's proctor, out of the prison, Stephens swells with pride, "pleased that the Governor had asked him, and not Jackson, to see McLeery off." Stephens's desire to look confident and capable at his new post—and apparently to have the Governor like him more than Jackson—causes him to overlook his instincts out of pride, ultimately opening up room for error to let Evans escape. By the end of the story, the prison officers' suspicions prove well-founded—Evans does escape, and the exam was the epicenter of his scheme. Evans has outmaneuvered the prison officers, effortlessly sidestepping their efforts to keep him secure at the prison. "Evans Tries an O-Level" ultimately stresses the necessity of listening to one's gut feelings and not only following one's sense of pride and decorum. The critical mistake the prison officers make in the story is talking themselves out of their genuine, persistent feelings in order to seem like they're still in control of the situation at hand. - Theme: Appearances vs. Reality. Description: In Colin Dexter's "Evans Tries an O-Level," a notorious kleptomaniac named James Evans makes his fourth escape from prison, this time from Oxford Prison, overseen by the no-nonsense Governor and a senior prison officer named Jackson. A tension between appearances and reality runs throughout the story, as many characters—especially Evans—subvert the expectations and judgments other people make of them based on their appearance. This impulse to judge based on appearance is particularly dangerous in the world of this mystery story, which is filled with deception and disguises. Dexter ultimately highlights how making judgments based on appearances is an unproductive habit, and that people and situations are not always what they seem. It's the grubby James Evans—who is terrible at German, dresses in ridiculous clothes, and cracks jokes so frequently that no one sees him as a "real burden"—who outwits everyone, showing that appearances can be deeply deceiving. Evans's silly "red-and-white bobble hat" symbolizes the way Evans intentionally fulfills and subverts people's expectations of him based on his appearance. The hat, a grimy knit beanie with a massive pom-pom fastened to the top, plays into people's perceptions of him as a cheerful, ridiculous trickster. The Governor himself articulates the common stereotype of Evans at the beginning of the story: "Quite a pleasant sort of chap […] Bit of a card, really. One of the stars at the Christmas concert. Imitations, you know the sort of thing: Mike Yarwood stuff." Evans's penchant for impressions sums up the story's warning of mistaking appearances for reality. Like Mike Yarwood—the 1960s impressionist, actor, and comedian—Evans has the capacity to convincingly pretend to be other people. However, this isn't always for comedic effect; his well-honed acting skills allow him to believably impersonate his test proctor, McLeery, taking on the man's clerical dress, Scottish accent, choppy haircut, and general demeanor in order to break out of prison. The extent to which appearances are misleading run even deeper in the story, however, when it's revealed that Evans is actually doing an impersonation of an impersonation—the so-called Reverend McLeery who comes to conduct Evans's German exam is an imposter himself (one of Evans's many accomplices), as the real McLeery is bound and gagged back at his apartment. The aftermath of Evans's clever escape also reveals the futility of trusting in appearances. The two detectives, Detective Superintendent Carter and Chief Inspector Bell, are supposed to be the ones to solve the crime—once a prisoner has escaped the prison's walls, it's "a police job." However, the confident detectives prove incompetent and fade from the story soon after being introduced. Despite being a "good-for-a-giggle, gullible governor" (as he assumes the police see him), the Governor is the one who cracks the case of Evans's escape from Oxford Prison, piecing together Evans's convoluted clues and ultimately tracking him down in the nearby city of Chipping Norton. The story closes with yet another startling reminder that not everything is what it seems. After tracking down Evans, the Governor gloats quietly as he watches a silent prison officer handcuff Evans outside the Golden Lion Hotel and load him up in the prison van to be transported back to Oxford Prison. The Governor tells Evans that he'll see him soon, and the two men say goodbye like "old friend[s] after a cocktail party," leading the reader to believe that this a story that ends neatly with the "good guy" winning and the "bad guy" being successfully captured and sent back to prison. However, as the Governor watches the van drive away, the narrative suddenly jumps to the conversation unfolding inside the van, where the silent prison officer is unlocking Evans's handcuffs and bickering with the driver about where they should run off to next. Once again, Evans (with help from his friends) has outsmarted everyone, a bittersweet ending that leaves readers with the unsettling reminder that appearances aren't always trustworthy. - Theme: Friendship. Description: In "Evans Tries an O-Level," "congenital kleptomaniac" James Evans comes up with a creative and ultimately successful plan to break out of Oxford Prison: he takes night classes in German for six months, asks to take the final exam, and then disguises himself as the proctor, Reverend McLeery (who is actually one of Evans's accomplices disguised as the real proctor) when the day finally comes. Having escaped three times from other prisons in the past, "Evans the Break" has quite the reputation among prison guards. However, as the story unfolds, it's clear that Evans doesn't work alone, nor does he proudly assume credit for himself—he's grateful to have a lot of "friends," and also has the skillful ability to endear people to him (whether they realize it or not). The value Evans places on friendship, coupled with his ability to make friends (or at least "warm enemies," as his relationship with the senior prison officer, Jackson, is described) is critical to his eventual escape from prison—and his ability to escape again in the process of being sent back. Evans forms a playfully irreverent relationship with the prison officers, warmly exchanging insults and cracking crude jokes with them. This behavior endears Evans to the officers, even if they won't admit it. Although this doesn't necessarily make his initial escape from prison easier, it does make the aftermath of his escape less severe, ultimately allowing him to escape again. When the Governor carefully pieces together how Evans managed to escape from Oxford Prison, he intercepts Evans at the Golden Lion Hotel in the nearby town of Chipping Norton. After Evans's initial (apparent) shock upon finding the Governor waiting for him in his hotel room, the two men act like old friends playing a game of chess—not a domineering prison warden tracking down a notoriously slippery criminal. In his typical open, cheerful way, Evans excitedly tells the Governor all about how he managed to escape. After Evans is done recounting his exploits, all the Governor can do is shake his head in "reluctant admiration." He then says, "Come on, m'lad," implying that it's time for them both to head back to the prison. In using the term of endearment "m'lad" to refer to Evans, the Governor betrays just how much Evans has ingratiated himself to the prison officers. The Governor doesn't yank Evans outside in handcuffs and throw him into a prison van; instead, the two men walk "side by side" as they continue to chat and casually make their way down the hotel stairs. Even when Evans does get handcuffed and loaded into a van, it's the silent prison officer (later revealed to be one of Evans's accomplices), and not the Governor, who does it. The Governor just stands back and continues chatting with Evans. Despite being recaptured, Evans happily calls "Cheerio," and the Governor tells Evans that he'll see him soon, "as if the Governor were saying farewell to an old friend after a cocktail party." The complex, high-stakes chase to recapture Evans is conflated with a cocktail party, emphasizing how the aftermath of his escape from prison is much less severe—and far more fun—than it would have been for other criminals. Evans' many "friends" from the outside world are also critical to his successful escape from prison (and his escape from the Governor that same day). When the Governor asks Evans how he managed to pull off such a complicated plan, given that the prisoner hasn't had any visitors or letters, Evans simply replies, "I've got lots of friends though […] Me German teacher, for a start." Dexter breezes past this moment quickly, leaving readers to sort through the implications of this statement. Given that Evans took night classes in German for six months and was the only student in the class all that time, it seems that Evans's plan to break out of prison was formed over the course of six months of unsupervised "class" time with his supposed German teacher. Evans's other crucial accomplices include the silent prison officer, the fake McLeery, and the Assistant Secretary—a small handful of what's implied to be a large pool of loyal friends willing to help Evans however they can. In explaining his ingenious and complicated escape plan to the Governor, Evans frequently uses the collective pronoun "we," pointing to the value he places in friendship and teamwork. He doesn't take all the credit for himself, stating that "we" planned a phone call as a diversion at the end of the exam, "we" planted a fake clue, "we" used pig's blood, and so on. In this way, both Dexter and Evans himself stress that this prison break was not a one-man job. The "congenital kleptomaniac" (which sounds fittingly reminiscent of "congenial kleptomaniac") is charismatic to his core, earning varying degrees of respect (or "reluctant admiration"), loyalty, and camaraderie from criminals and prison officers alike. - Climax: Stephens returns to Evans's prison cell to find McLeery (who is actually Evans in disguise) covered with blood. - Summary: In March, the Secretary of the Examinations Board receives a call from the Governor at Oxford Prison, asking if one of his prisoners can take the final exam in O-level German. James Roderick Evans is a jovial, "congenital kleptomaniac" who's escaped from various prisons three times, though the Governor is determined to not let that happen at Oxford Prison. The Governor and the Secretary decide that Evans will take the test in his own cell, and that they'll get a parson to be the proctor. At 8:45 A.M. one morning in June, Reverend Stuart McLeery makes his way to Oxford Prison, where he's scheduled to proctor a two-hour exam at 9:15 A.M. When McLeery arrives, the senior prison officer, Jackson, searches his briefcase. The officer is baffled by a strange, partially inflated rubber ring that looks like a child's pool toy; McLeery irritably explains that it's a special cushion he sits on because of his hemorrhoid problem. Embarrassed, Jackson apologizes and sends the proctor back to Evans's cell. After a few more hiccups, the exam finally begins at 9:25 A.M. The Examinations Board calls the Governor; the Assistant Secretary with a "special responsibility for modern languages" explains that "some fool" forgot to include a correction slip in the envelope with the other exam materials. The Governor wonders if the call is a fake but tells himself he's being silly. Since Evans's cell has been bugged, the Governor listens in as McLeery reads out the corrections to Evans. Meanwhile, Stephens peers into the peephole of Evans's cell every few minutes. At one point, he's surprised to see a blanket draped over Evans's shoulders. Stephens wonders if this is the kind of "slight irregularity" he should report, but reasons that it is cold in the prison. At 11:20 A.M., McLeery informs Evans that there are only five minutes remaining. Two minutes later, Jackson receives a call from the Governor asking for Stephens: Stephens is to escort McLeery out of the prison when the exam is over. When Stephens escorts the man out, he observes that the minister's Scottish accent seems "broader than ever," and that he seems thinner than before. Once McLeery is gone, Stephens returns to Evans's cell—there is McLeery, sprawled out and covered in blood. Chaos ensues, and the Governor arrives on the scene. McLeery feebly thrusts the German exam into his hand; there, on the last page of the exam, is a "cleverly superimposed" photocopied sheet instructing Evans about how to escape. After having Detective Superintendent Carter take McLeery to the hospital, the Governor berates Stephens for ignorantly letting the criminal go free, but he stutters that he was only following the Governor's orders. The Governor screams that he never gave Stephen those orders—the call was a fake. The Governor calls the hospital to check up on McLeery, but the hospital says they don't have any patients named McLeery. Suddenly, the Governor realizes his mistake: "It had not been Evans, impersonating McLeery, who had walked out; it had been Evans, impersonating McLeery, who had stayed in." Fifteen minutes later, they find the real McLeery gagged and bound at his flat. After a pleasant dinner, Evans returns to the Golden Lion Hotel. He thinks about how the fake McLeery had worn two of everything (two clerical shirts, two clerical collars, two coats), and Evans had managed to wiggle into his disguise underneath the grey blanket. Evans enters his room and instantly freezes: there, sitting on the bed, is the Governor. Realizing he can't escape, Evans begins telling the Governor about his scheme. He explains that the most pivotal part was the fake call to Stephens in the last three minutes of the exam, which gave Evans and McLeery time to use the pig's blood, which was concealed in McLeery's inflatable rubber ring. A silent prison officer handcuffs Evans and loads him into a prison van. Evans asks if the Governor knows any other modern languages—he noticed that the prison was offering O-level Italian in September. The Governor says that Evans might not be at Oxford Prison come September; Evans agrees that the Governor might be right. The Governor watches the van pull away. When the van reaches the main road, the silent prison officer hurriedly unlocks Evans' handcuffs and snaps at the driver to drive faster, as "It won't take 'em long to find out." In a thick Scottish accent, the driver asks where they should "make for," and Evans suggests Newbury.

- Genre: Short Fiction - Title: Eveline - Point of view: Told in third-person limited (the narrator is separate from the protagonist but knows her thoughts), and Joyce employs the technique of "free indirect discourse" - Setting: 20th Century Dublin - Character: Eveline Hill. Description: The protagonist of the story, Eveline is a hard-working Irish woman around age nineteen living with her father in her childhood home in Dublin. She lives a hard life caring for her abusive father and two children who have been left in her care, while also working in the Stores, the popular name for a local shop. She gives all of her earnings to her father, who still scolds her and accuses her of spending her money irresponsibly. He also has increasingly begun to threaten her, since she is no longer a child and neither of her brothers, Harry and Ernest, nor her mother, are around to protect her anymore. As a result of this stress, Eveline has begun to suffer from heart palpitations. Despite this, she still appreciates the familiarity and comfort of home, so it is particularly hard for her to make a decision when she finds herself contemplating whether or not to run away to Buenos Ayres with her lover, Frank. Much like in "Araby," the conflict of the story happens entirely in the protagonist's mind. Eveline feels obligated to stay in Dublin and fulfill her responsibilities and keep her promise to keep the house together, but she also feels that she should have the right to pursue her own happiness, rather than always attending to the needs of others. Eveline is deeply religious and continually prays to God, asking for guidance with her difficult decision. She feels perpetually powerless over her situation, and looks to either God or Frank to save her. Afraid of ending up like her mother, who continually sacrificed herself for her family and eventually went insane, Eveline decides to go meet Frank at the station and continue with her plan to run away. However, at the last minute she can only stare at the sea, overcome by anxiety and emotion, and watch Frank board the ship alone. Eveline is driven by fear, but also by her sense of helplessness. She knows that she does not love Frank, and could easily end up in another abusive situation, just like her mother. - Character: Frank. Description: Originally from Dublin, but currently a sailor with a home in Buenos Ayres, Frank meets Eveline on a visit to Dublin. Eveline describes him as "kind, manly, open-hearted" and likes hearing his stories about his travels. Frank begins walking Eveline home after she is finished working at the Stores and eventually starts courting her. He likes music and singing. Eveline's father disapproves of Frank and one day after they quarrel, he and Eveline have to start seeing each other in secret. Frank invites Eveline to become his wife in Buenos Ayres. Joyce implies that Frank may be of a higher social or financial status than Eveline since he takes her to the theater and they sit in a section that Eveline is "unaccustomed" to. Aside from that, not much is known about Frank's thoughts or intentions. Eveline is not in love with Frank, or at least not yet, but it is unknown whether or not Frank loves her. They have only been seeing each other for what seems to Eveline like a few weeks. - Character: Eveline's Father. Description: Eveline's father was abusive to her siblings and mother, but spared Eveline when she was young since she was a girl. He used to go searching in the field for her and her siblings with a blackthorn stick to call them inside, and appears to be a figure feared by all of the neighborhood kids. He also seems to take pride in showing off the photo of his old friend, a priest who moved to Melbourne. He has recently begun to threaten Eveline, now that she is older and there is no one else around to protect her. He squabbles about money with Eveline on Saturdays, worried that she will waste it. He also forbids Eveline from seeing Frank, assuming that he is unfaithful because he is a sailor. - Character: Eveline's Mother. Description: Eveline's mother made a lot of sacrifices for her husband and family, and according to Eveline, didn't receive respect from her peers and perhaps had a reputation for having a violent husband. She died of an unspecified illness, and was driven mad by her "life of commonplace sacrifices," although it is unclear if her mental state is related to her death. - Character: The Children. Description: The relationship between Eveline and the children she cares for is never stated, but she is their caretaker and she is in charge of feeding them and making sure they go to school. They seem to have been part of the family since before her mother died and went along on the family picnic, although it is difficult to differentiate if and when the narrator is talking about the children she cares for, and when she is talking about her siblings when they were young. - Character: The Waters, the Dunns, and the Devines. Description: Three families that used to live on Eveline's street. She mentions playing with children from these families during her childhood, but now the Waters have gone back to England and Tizzie Dunn has died. Though Eveline does not specify, it is implied that the other families have also either moved away or died. - Character: Little Keogh the Cripple. Description: Another one of Eveline's neighbors who used to play in the field. He used to keep watch for Eveline's father in the field and warn the other children when he was coming. The fact that he is crippled is quite possibly a conscious decision on Joyce's part to foreshadow Eveline's later paralysis, and also perhaps reflects the fact that many Dubliners remain "crippled" or paralyzed – immobile and trapped in monotonous Dublin life, unable to find an escape. - Theme: Paralysis and Inaction. Description: Joyce's use of perspective and his characteristic stream-of-consciousness style allow the reader to see Eveline's thought progression clearly as she contemplates running away to Argentina with her lover, Frank. Eveline's inability to make a decision, a sort of mental paralysis, results in actual physical paralysis at the end of the story as she stands outside watching Frank board the ship but cannot bring herself to join him. Through her inability to make a decision, she inadvertently decides to stay behind in Dublin. Eveline has a logical thought process as she considers her options. She observed her father's violence toward her mother and brothers growing up, and resolves to leave so she will not end up in the same situation. At the same time she knows that both her father and the children she takes care of are relying on her, but also reasons that she deserves to pursue her own happiness. Despite this logic, her emotions kick in and she begins to feel guilty for leaving them. She is also influenced by her fear of the unknown. She admits that her current life is "a hard life," but now that she is making plans to leave, Eveline starts to think about all of the good things and the certainty that her current life provides, finding it not "a wholly undesirable life." Nostalgia plays a large role in Eveline's decision to stay as well. She is attached to the past, and even though the people from her past are long gone, she cannot bring herself to leave the city that she associates with them. Rather than focusing on her present relationship with her father, she uses their past experiences together to justify her bond with him, remembering when he read her ghost stories and made her toast while she was sick and another time when the family went for a picnic while her mother was still alive. Joyce is perhaps using "Eveline" as an opportunity to critique this type of glorification of the past, since here it prevents Eveline from escaping an abusive relationship and pursuing her own happiness. Her nostalgia causes her to sacrifice her future, and despite her logical thought process, her final decision is ultimately caused by a gut feeling. Eveline's paralysis is also caused by her sense of powerlessness. She continually looks to two things to save her from her situation: Frank, or men in general, and religion/God. She is constantly either praying to God or thinking about how Frank will help her become more respectable or change her situation: "He would save her." Because Eveline is a woman in 20th Century Dublin, it is logical that she looks to Frank to save her. Marriage was the primary way for women to gain social or economic status during the time period, and part of the reason Eveline is looking for someone or something to save her is because in 20th Century Dublin she is mostly powerless. Eveline also looks to God, or her religion, to save her. She prays to God for the power to make a decision, and even at the station as she watches Frank board the boat she is "moving her lips in silent fervent prayer." Eveline's religion also further perpetuates the idea that someone else, another male figure, can save her, and that she perhaps does not need to make an active decision. But this feeling of helplessness, however rooted in women's roles and society, is also part of the reason Eveline is unable to take control of her fate and make a decision. She has grown up in a society where she is powerless and needs someone to save her, and so she is unable to claim ownership of her own fate. Her sense of powerless, along with her emotions and nostalgia, prevent her from making a decision based on logic and perspective. - Theme: Escapism and the Exotic. Description: As in many of the other stories in Dubliners, the protagonist of "Eveline" has a desire to escape from the drab, brown Dublin life. But unlike the narrator in "Araby," for example, Eveline has an actual plan to escape to Argentina. She also has an opportunity to gain respect through marriage and also by distancing herself from the bad reputation her family seems to have, escaping the limitations of her current social status. Eveline fantasizes about her escape and seems to think it will solve all of her problems: her financial disputes with her father, the lack of respect her coworkers show her, and her general discontentment with Dublin life. However, when it comes time for Eveline to actually board the boat with Frank, she decides against her escape. This implies that perhaps the idea of an escape was satisfying in itself, but the actual act of escaping is too scary. Eveline liked having the opportunity for an escape, and it temporarily soothed her anxiety about the lack of respect she receives from her boss and her fear of being treated like her mother. It is possible that all she really desired was some kind of reassurance in the form of another potential path. Eveline takes interest in Frank not only because he is offering her an escape, but also because she finds him exotic. He tells her stories about faraway places and people and exposes her to music and culture that she has never before experienced. Frank takes her to see the play "The Bohemian Girl," which although the music is written by an Irish composer, deals with "gypsies" in Austria and other Eastern European countries. For Eveline, anything outside of Dublin most likely seems exotic, since she seems to have lived on the same quiet street, surrounded by the same people, her whole life. Even the fact that Frank is a sailor is a bit exotic, at least to the extent that because of this Eveline's father forbids her from seeing him. She is also thrilled to sit in an "unaccustomed" part of the theater, which suggests that Frank is of a higher status than Eveline and was able to buy more expensive seats. At one point Eveline reflects on the lack of respect she receives in Dublin and imagines that in Argentina, "a distant unknown country," it will not "be like that." Eveline reveals her ignorance with this somewhat contradictory thought. She is assuming it will not "be like that" but she also admits that she is going to make a new home in an unknown country, and does not seem to have any basis for the assertion that she will have more respect in Argentina. Similar to Joyce's other protagonists in Dubliners, Eveline is searching for an escape. However, at the end of the story it becomes clear that Eveline was not as serious about finding a physical escape as she initially appeared. Additionally, she seems to realize that an escape does not necessarily promise a happy ending and she could easily end up with a violent husband, just like her mother did. Joyce seems to see all Dubliners as trapped by society. The opportunities for escape are scarce, so instead many of his characters choose to fantasize about the exotic and satisfy themselves with more of a mental escape. - Theme: Women and Society. Description: Eveline is the first female protagonist that Joyce introduces in Dubliners, and many of her thoughts and desires are influenced by her role as a woman in 20th Century Dublin. Whether or not she is aware of it, her decisions are greatly affected by outside social forces. Eveline's indecisiveness and resulting inaction is largely a result of women's roles in society at the time. Society has told her she is powerless, and so she feels powerless. This sense of powerlessness is partially why Eveline is unable to make a decision and she feels she needs a male figure, either God or Frank, to "save" her from her present situation. Eveline sees marrying Frank as a way to gain respect, so she is aware that she is somewhat helpless without a husband. As a woman, she does not have a lot of mobility when it comes to her status. As she is trying to decide whether or not to leave, she reasons through her rights, saying "Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness." This need to justify her own desire to be happy is also a result of social oppression. Eveline is the caretaker of her father and two children, and she feels guilty leaving for the sake of her own happiness, knowing that they are relying on her. This is because society has told her that she is a caretaker and should be driven by others' needs, not by her own desires or pursuit of happiness. Eveline's role as a woman also affects her views and experiences with violence. As Eveline's father begins to threaten her more, he also justifies it by threatening her "for her dead mother's sake." Eveline feels like she is becoming her mother and thus the new outlet for her father's violence. However, since she grew up in this environment, she has been exposed to violence and is somewhat used to it. There seems to be a great deal of blame placed on Eveline's mother. Eveline herself even says "She would not be treated as her mother had been," implying that this is some sort of conscious decision her mother made that Eveline can choose not to make. When Eveline does in fact end up staying, it becomes clear that the decision to stay in an abusive relationship is complicated and much less of a decision than it seems, or perhaps not even a decision at all. Eveline has seen her mother sacrifice her well-being, and eventually sanity, and it is only natural that she does not question that she should do the same. When Eveline begins to have heart palpitations because of her father's threats, this does not prevent her from staying behind. She has seen her mother put her health at risk for a man and it doesn't seem unnatural for her to do the same. Eveline is motivated by what marrying Frank could give her – respect, more freedom, an escape – but at the final moment she comes to the realization that she does not really love Frank, and regardless of what changes would result from marriage, she will always be trapped in her role as a caretaker and rendered powerless by society. - Theme: The Many Forms of Death. Description: "Eveline" addresses the subject of death both literally, as when Eveline lists off the people in her life who have died, and figuratively, in several other life events that become metaphors for death. She seems to be very aware of death, and the fact that she has been left behind, either by people dying or leaving. While Eveline experiences many emotions related to her decision to leave Dublin, she never expresses any strong feelings about death. She refers to her mother's death, saying life was better before she died, but never really expresses any grief or heartbreak in the text. This lack of emotion takes the drama out of the literal death. Eveline's deceased neighbors and family members are essentially equal to those who moved away. This parallel between leaving Dublin and death implies that leaving Dublin is a metaphorical death. If Eveline leaves, she knows she will essentially become "dead" to everyone she leaves behind. Marriage is also a metaphor for death since it signifies the end of an individual life and the beginning of a shared life. This is especially true for women in 20th-century Dublin, who essentially adopt their husband's status and identity. It is a beginning but it is also an end, and this scares Eveline. The association of death and marriage is most obvious at the end of the story, when Eveline realizes that Frank will "drown her." Frank is dragging her into the unknown "seas" and thus, in a way, ending her life, even if it's only her life in Dublin. Joyce communicates this idea of being dead while alive in the description of Eveline's everyday life. She is thinking, yes, but not making active decisions. She is trapped in the monotony of caring for the children and her father, and as she admits, it is a hard life. There is a separation between those who stay in Dublin and those who leave, such as her father's friend, the priest who moved to Melbourne, and whose photo is hanging on their wall. Her father takes great pride in casually announcing that he is in Melbourne now, because it signifies his success and implies that not many escape from Dublin. When Eveline makes her decision not to leave Dublin, she essentially gives up all possibility of change. She will not likely find another way to leave, and will be confined to her monotonous life, which Joyce equates with death. Joyce's biggest critique of Dublin life seems to be this idea that Dubliners are trapped, forced to repeat their monotonous day-to-day tasks without ever really actively "living." Life in Dublin, according to Joyce, is death. - Theme: Catholic Values and Confinement. Description: Joyce clearly illustrates Eveline's desire for freedom, but in the end she stays behind—partly because of her Catholic background and its religious teachings involving guilt, sacrifice, and promises. Eveline's appreciation of the Catholic value of sacrifice becomes clear in her duties caring for her family. She seems to sacrifice a great deal of time and effort tending to their needs, and she is living "a hard life." Eveline sees the sacrifices her mother made for her family, as well as the toll it took on her as her mother eventually became insane and died: "that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness." It is this memory that causes Eveline to frantically call for an escape, and vow never to be in the same position as her mother. Yet eventually Eveline sacrifices her wish to leave Dublin for the sake of her family. As she acknowledges, this decision is only going to lead to further sacrifices, as in her mother's case. Eveline also feels strongly obligated to fulfill her promises, both those she made to her mother on her deathbed and her religious promises to God. She hears the street organ playing as she is contemplating her options, and immediately sees it as a sign—perhaps from God or just a coincidence—because it reminds her of the eve of her mother's death, when there was also street organ music outside, and when she promised her mother that she would "keep the home together as long as she could." Eveline also begins to question her decision to leave when she remembers the promises to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun and saint who introduced the idea of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. These written promises are hanging on the wall, and as she notices them she starts to question whether or not leaving is the right thing to do. Catholicism plays an important role in Eveline's life, and generally speaking was the dominant religion in 20th-century Ireland. Eveline's Catholic values play a large role in her inability to leave, and she ends up sacrificing herself for these values emphasized by her religion. Joyce is critiquing Catholicism and its emphasis on guilt, since ultimately Eveline's guilt causes her to stay in Dublin with her abusive father. - Climax: Eveline contemplates running away to Argentina with her lover, Frank, but at the last minute she is paralyzed by fear and watches Frank board the ship without her - Summary: Eveline, a young Dublin woman, is sitting at the window watching dusk fall. She notices that few people are out, except the man who lives in the last house on her street. She listens to his footsteps as he approaches the part of her street filled with newer, red houses. Her mind flashes back to her childhood, when the area with the red houses used to be a field where the neighborhood children played. At the time her favorite brother, Ernest, was too old to play with them, but the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns and little Keogh the cripple were all there. Eveline's father used to go looking for them with a blackthorn stick. Her father is abusive, but Eveline remembers him being less violent during her childhood. She was happier then. Now her mother is dead and all of her siblings and the neighborhood families have either moved away, or died. Eveline is also planning to move away. Eveline is overcome with nostalgia as she looks around the room at the familiar objects covered in dust. She notices the photograph of her father's friend, the priest, who is now in Melbourne, and the print of the promises made to Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun and saint. Now Eveline begins to question whether or not it is "wise" to leave her home, where she has food, shelter, and familiarity. She imagines the gossip about her at the Stores when they find out she has run away from Dublin with a man. She decides she will not miss the Stores, since her boss, Miss Gavan, is often particularly critical of her. Eveline imagines her new life in a foreign country, and imagines her marriage will help her earn the respect she is denied in Dublin. Lately her father has been threatening her more and more. When she was a child he used to spare her since she was a girl, but now that she's almost nineteen and Ernest is dead and her brother Harry is often away for work, she has become a target. Money is also an issue of conflict for her and her father, who accuses her of being wasteful. Eveline works hard to feed her father and take care of two children who have been left in her care. Life is hard, but now that she is planning to leave, she realizes it's not "a wholly undesirable life." Eveline is planning to take the night-boat to Buenos Ayres with Frank, an Irish sailor who lives in Buenos Ayres but was visiting Dublin when they met. She reflects on their relationship as she considers this decision. At first Eveline just liked the attention from Frank, but eventually she grew fond of him for his stories about foreign travels. Eveline's father forbids her from seeing him, but she continues to see him in secret and eventually makes secret plans to move to Buenos Ayres with him. She looks down at the letters she has been holding in her lap: one for Harry, and one for her father. She starts to think about all of the good memories she has had with her father, of him caring for her when she was sick, and going on family picnics together. Eveline is running out of time before her departure. She hears an organ playing and is reminded of her mother's last night before she died, when there was also organ music out on the street. She remembers her promise to her mother that she would keep the home together, but she also remembers the sacrifices her mother made and how they ended in her loss of sanity. Eveline begins to panic, desperately seeking an escape from a fate that looks very similar to her mother's. She hopes Frank can "save" her, and reasons that she deserves to be happy. Eveline resolves to go to the station to meet Frank. She is terribly distressed and she keeps praying to God for direction. At the last minute as Frank seizes her hand to lead her onto the boat, Eveline freezes. As she clutches the railing, and cries out in the direction of the sea, she realizes that she is too afraid of the unknown and that Frank will "drown her." She watches Frank board the boat without her, feeling empty inside as he calls for her to join him.

- Genre: Short story - Title: Everyday Use - Point of view: First person narrative from Mama's perspective - Setting: the Deep South - Character: Mama. Description: The narrator of the story, Mama is an African-American woman living in the Deep South. She is a hard-working, practical person with simple tastes, and she lives with her younger daughter, Maggie, in their small house. Mama's relationship with her older daughter, Dee, is strained. The story begins with Mama preparing for Dee's impending visit. When Dee arrives, Mama submits to many of Dee's demands, calling her by a different name and giving her family possessions. At the story's conclusion, however, Mama stands up for herself and Maggie against Dee, refusing to give her the family quilts, and by extension asserting the validity and worth of their lifestyle. - Character: Dee. Description: Dee, a young, well-educated, and self-confident African-American woman, is Mama's daughter and Maggie's sister. The story centers around Dee's visit with her family at her childhood home in the Deep South. As a child, Dee was angry, bitter, and resentful towards her family and their poverty. When Dee returns to the family's house, however, her attitude towards the family's lifestyle has completely flipped. She covets the family's heirlooms, but fails to appreciate them as part of her family's daily life. Ultimately, Mama refuses to give Dee her grandmother's quilts, opting instead to give them to Maggie. - Character: Maggie. Description: Maggie, Mama's younger daughter and Dee's sister, is a timid, nervous, kind-hearted young woman. Compared to Dee, she is less intelligent and less beautiful, and has not received the education her sister has. Maggie suffers from a burn scar on her face, the result of a traumatic house fire several years before. Unlike her sister, Maggie has a close relationship with her mother. At the beginning of the story, Maggie seems anxious about Dee's visit, asking Mama how her clothes suit her. When Dee insists on taking the family quilts, Mama decides to give them to Maggie instead, because she thinks Maggie will appreciate them better. - Character: Hakim-a-barber. Description: Hakim-a-barber is Dee's partner, whom Dee brings to Mama and Maggie's house with her. When they arrive at the house, he greets the family by saying "Asalamalakim," and so Mama mockingly uses this to refer to him as "Asalamakim" throughout the rest of the story. Walker portrays Hakim-a-barber as uptight and over-intellectualizing, unable to connect to Dee's family. - Theme: Heritage and the Everyday. Description: Heritage, and its relationship to daily life, is the central question that Walker explores in "Everyday Use." Through the eyes of Mama, and through the contrasting characters of Dee and Maggie, Walker offers two varying views of what family history, the past, and "heritage" really mean. In Dee's view, heritage is a kind of dead past, distanced from the present through nostalgia and aestheticization (which means reducing something to a symbol or piece of art, and so removing other meanings and uses from it). Dee rejects the parts of her heritage that belong to the immediate past or, even, are still present in the family's everyday life. Because of this, she disdains her sister and mother's life on the farm, their continued use of family heirlooms, and their ancestral house. Dee shows her anger towards this immediate past in her happiness when their house burned, her readiness to leave her home behind when she went to college, and her lack of interest in learning family skills like sewing. Instead of this immediate heritage, Dee idealizes an African culture that she only shallowly understands, one that predates her family's history in the United States and the history of slavery. She chooses that culture as the basis for her "heritage," calling herself by the African name "Wangero" and altering her style of dress. When Dee returns to her home as an adult, she attempts to make her immediate past as distant and imaginary as this African one. Dee photographs her family and their house, turning them into art-objects, and insists on taking home the family's heirlooms—a hand-carved and well used butter churn, her grandmother's quilts—to display as decorations and artifacts in her house. She doesn't want to actually live in the house with her family or use the objects, only idealize them as memorabilia—hollow signs of heritage that have no connection with her real life. Overall, Walker seems to criticize this imagined, distant view of heritage. She depicts Dee's quaint, aestheticized vision of her family and their still-living customs as cold, elitist, and hurtful. Mama resents Dee for her attempts to put their lifestyle firmly in the past, and Dee's meanness in this respect can be seen in the way she laughs at and looks down on Maggie for her appreciation of the family history. Moreover, Walker suggests that Dee's view of heritage is utterly misguided and uninformed. For instance, Dee believes that she is named after white "oppressors," when in fact she is named after her beloved Aunt Dicie. Mama and Maggie, on the other hand, exemplify the alternative view of heritage that Walker proposes— one in which heritage is a part of everyday life, fluid and constantly being added to and changed. Mama and Maggie have no higher education or knowledge of Africa, but they do appreciate their more immediate roots: their house, their family heirlooms, their traditions. The quilts, which Dee wants to display as art, Maggie would put to "everyday use," using them as blankets, putting them on beds—the way they were intended to be used. Maggie, unlike Dee, also learned to sew from her grandmother, and so can add to the family collection, pass on her skills, and keep the tradition alive. In refusing to give the quilts to Dee and instead giving them to Maggie, Mama rejects Dee's idealized view of heritage and instead embraces a relationship to heritage that is dynamic and continually developing. Though perhaps Mama and Maggie's view of heritage could also be enriched by education and knowledge of their African roots, the fact that they don't distance themselves from their family history makes their understanding of heritage more real and significant than Dee's. As a result, Dee's accusation that Mama does not "understand" their heritage rings as bitterly ironic, since Walker has made it clear that Dee is the one out of touch with her family's way of life. - Theme: Education. Description: Through Dee, "Everyday Use" explores how education affects the lives of people who come from uneducated communities, considering the benefits of an education as well as the tradeoffs. Alice Walker clearly believes that education can be, in certain ways, helpful to individuals. For one, education can empower people financially and therefore materially. Dee's education rewards her with the "nice things" she has desired since she was a child: gold earrings, a camera, sunglasses. The benefits of education also extend beyond just material ones: education helps Dee transform socially and spiritually. For example, Dee's education helps her overcome her resentment towards her past and family. Mama credits Dee's education with the change in her attitude toward Maggie, whom she previously hated. Not only does Dee's education heal some of her personal relationships, but it also gives her the ability to challenge social norms. In particular, Mama credits Dee's education with her questioning of and resistance to racism. An example of this is Dee's newfound identity as "Wangero," which she sees as a way of subverting racist history, and is forged through her knowledge and study of African culture.But despite these clear benefits, Walker's attitude towards education is not uniformly positive. On the contrary, Walker suggests many ways in which Dee's education, and education in general, might be harmful or ineffective in helping other people. While Dee believes that her embrace of her African roots and the African name "Wangero" is a form of resistance to racism, her new-found identity comes across as a self-indulgent, intellectual exercise when contrasted with her family's daily experience of violent, oppressive racism. Dee's personal liberation does little to help elevate her community—her new style of African dress, for example, cannot stop white men from poisoning the neighbor's cows, as Mama notes happened just recently. So while Dee has perhaps empowered herself, her actions have done little to change racist conditions for other African-Americans. (Of course, this is also a commentary on Dee herself as much as education as a whole.)But not only does Walker suggest that Dee's education might be ineffective in enacting meaningful change, she also implies that Dee's education, in some ways, actively harms her family. Mama describes Dee's attitude towards her family after she becomes educated as a form of violence and oppression in itself. According to Mama, Dee was "forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon [herself and Maggie], sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice…burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know." Through her education, Dee has developed the tools to hurt her family and make them feel inferior to her. Walker even connects Dee's education to the fire that burned down their house. When she uses the word "burn," Walker seems to hint that Dee and her education traumatize her mother and sister just like the fire did. The fact that Dee's education does not help her family, but rather harms them, contradicts the expected cliché that talented individuals inevitably escape poverty and then their success bolsters their community and family. Walker, by inverting this expectation, seems to be writing against it, implying that educating only select individuals is rarely effective in elevating entire communities. In contrast to her cynicism towards formal education, Walker presents an alternative system of knowledge: understanding. She clearly evokes the distinction between the two systems during the argument over the quilts, when Dee repeatedly states that her family does not "understand" the value of the quilts, the best way to use them, and their heritage. This assertion is highly ironic, of course, because Dee is clearly the one who cannot grasp what real heritage means. By repeating the word "understand," Walker draws attention to the difference between understanding and formal education. She implies that, while formal education may be more valued in society, it cannot make up for an inability to connect and empathize with others. To Walker, understanding is a system of knowledge that people like Mama can possess, regardless of their level of formal education. She seems to believe that without understanding, even highly educated people will suffer from massive blind spots in their ability to form meaningful, healthy relationships. - Theme: Objects, Symbolism, and Writing. Description: As Mama narrates "Everyday Use," she uses a multitude of objects and material goods to tell her story. Through Mama and her attention to objects, Walker investigates the meaning of materiality in fiction and explores the various ways they can be used for storytelling. In the first place, material goods work in "Everyday Use" to stand in for and help describe characters' identities. For example, Mama marks Dee's difference from the rest of her family in part through her desire for "nice things." Mama remarks that Dee has always had her own style, and when Dee returns to the family home, her "loud" clothes reflect her success and assertiveness. When Dee arrives at the house, Mama takes in Dee's dress that is "so loud it [hurts] her eyes," her earrings, and her bracelets "making noises." Like her clothing, Dee is charismatic and expressive, sometimes to the point of being abrasive. Mama, on the other hand, represents her humbleness, simplicity, and hardworking disposition through her practical clothing: a flannel nightgown and overalls. Not only do these material objects allow Walker to describe character, but they also enable her to track how it changes. For example, Dee's changing relationship toward the objects of her childhood marks her changing attitude toward the past. As a child, Dee wanted new things and disdained her family's possessions, but adult Dee admires the objects of her childhood, showing that Dee's orientation towards her home and her heritage has changed.Indeed, using objects to reflect character is something many authors do. But what sets "Everyday Use" apart is the way that Walker represents characters not only through their possessions, but also through their interaction with and exchange of them. In "Everyday Use," Walker shows two distinct ways that characters orient themselves toward the material world.The first way, exemplified by Dee, is rigidly symbolic. Dee collects objects for their symbolic meaning and visual beauty, rather than for their utility. For instance, Dee asks her mother to give her the top of a butter churn to use "as a centerpiece for the alcove table" and plans to do "something artistic" with the dasher. For Dee, these objects are valuable as visual symbols of an aestheticized past, not as part of an everyday routine.In contrast, the other characters interact with objects in a way that is more organic and concerned with practicality and use. Mama, unlike Dee, values the objects in her home for the work they do and how they can be used, and notes how that use affects and enriches their meaning. The churn top is valuable to her not as an art object or a visual representation of the past, but because it is worn from making butter—for its important position in people's everyday lives, and her family members' lives in particular. To Mama, the butter churn and other objects like it have whole systems of intermingling memories and sensations attached to them through their continued use. When Mama interacts with the objects that connect her to her heritage, she is adding to that heritage, rather than simply memorializing it as Dee does. These two differing views of how objects should best be appreciated clash in the story's primary conflict, a disagreement about the family's heirloom quilts. Dee wants to take them away and hang them on the walls of her house as memorabilia, while Mama wants Maggie to keep them because she will use them. When Mama "wins" this debate, Walker seems to be indicating her sympathies with Mama's orientation to objects rather than Dee's. By juxtaposing the use of objects as exclusively as symbols and the use of objects in a more fluid way, ranging from practical to sensational to memorial, Walker, who has herself been using objects to tell her story, draws attention to the role of objects not only within the plot, but also in writing itself. By taking up objects in writing only as direct symbols, the story seems to ask a question: does a reader, like Dee, miss something essential about the way an object operates in the story? Walker seems to be warning her readers against reducing objects in her stories to simple, direct symbols. Instead, she implies that readers should consider the whole constellation of meanings that objects collect as they are used over and over again throughout the story. - Theme: Racism, Resistance, and Sacrifice. Description: Race structures the social and economic conditions of characters' daily lives in "Everyday Use." From the first few paragraphs, Walker makes it clear that the oppression of African-Americans is built into the society of the Deep South, where Mama and Maggie live. This injustice manifests itself in a multitude of ways, ranging from Mama's inability to look "a strange white man in the eye" to her mentions of racialized violence, like the time when "the white folks" poisoned her neighbor's herd of cattle. While Mama has a keen way of taking note of the racism she experiences, she also seems unable to combat it, and simply accepts its effects as inevitable. For example, after Mama mentions that she did not go to school after the second grade, she states that "in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now." Mama implies that she, unlike Dee, was not taught to criticize or struggle against her community's racial conditions. Moreover, when Mama mentions encountering racism, she talks about it as a precondition of her story, a part of the structure of her life rather than a changeable content of it. When Mama talks about her neighbor's cows being poisoned, the racist violence of this anecdote is not the point of the story— it is part of the background information. To Mama, racism is an unfortunate reality, a part of the unchangeable structure of her life.Dee acts as a foil (a character whose qualities contrast with and therefore highlight another character's qualities) to Mama in this respect. Dee, unlike Mama, actively challenges the racial status quo, refusing to accept it as inevitable. Unlike Mama, who cannot even imagine herself "looking a strange white man in the eye," Dee "would always look anyone in the eye." Dee's gaze undermines the expectation in her community that African-Americans should behave with deference towards white people. Moreover, Dee attempts to forge a new, African identity for herself as "Wangero," stating that the name "Dee" attaches her to a history of oppression she would rather reject.But despite Dee's attempts to transcend the racial expectations of her community and time period, racism, and the family's differing ways of reacting to it, still manages to sour the family's bonds, especially Mama and Dee's. Even in Mama's fantasy of reconciliation with Dee at the story's opening, differing attitudes towards race dispel the possibility of reunion. When Mama daydreams about going on the Johnny Carson TV show with Dee, she imagines them hugging and pictures herself "the way [her] daughter would want [her] to be," with a "quick and witty tongue" that Johnny Carson can barely keep up with. This image, however, devolves when Mama thinks "who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye?" Mama's internalized racism and life of hardship makes her unable to be someone Dee would presumably be proud of, and so unable to truly reconcile with Dee. Through this broken fantasy, Walker articulates how racism destroys relationships not only between white people and African-Americans, but also between African-Americans themselves.The legacy of racism also drives Dee away from not just Mama, but her whole family history. Dee believes that in order to liberate herself from racial injustice, she must also distance herself from the history of slavery and African-American oppression—a history closely tied to her family's story. For example, when Dee rejects her given name for an African one, she says it is because, "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me." Dee believes that she must reject her given name in order reject its history of oppression. Unfortunately, as Mama points out, Dee is actually named after her beloved aunt Dicie. Dee's attempt to reject the past means also rejecting her ancestors who lived in it. Essentially, Dee is forced to choose between rejecting the history of racial oppression and keeping her personal identity and familial connections. Walker uses Dee to exemplify a difficulty that not just she, but African-Americans in general might face: untangling contemporary identity from a history of slavery and racism. "Everyday Use" understands the legacy of racism as difficult to disrupt, in part because this legacy troublingly links African-American identity and history with oppression. - Climax: The argument over family quilts - Summary: In "Everyday Use," Mama, the story's first person narrator, describes her relationship to her daughter Dee as Dee, an educated young African-American woman, returns to visit her childhood house in the Deep South. The story begins as Mama and Maggie, Dee's sister and Mama's younger daughter, prepare for the visit. Maggie changes her clothes as Mama fantasizes about reconciling with her daughter on a television show hosted by someone like Johnny Carson. Mama then dismisses her fantasy as unrealistic, because she believes she is not the kind of person who would appear on such a show. As she waits for Dee, Mama looks around the yard and at Maggie, triggering memories of Dee's troubled childhood in their house—her anger towards her family and their poverty, her hunger for higher quality clothes and an education, her charisma, assertiveness, and her beauty. Mama thinks about how Dee's attitude towards them changed as she became educated thanks to money from Mama and the Church, turning her from hateful to hurtfully condescending. As she remembers Dee as a child, Mama contrasts her with Maggie—a diffident, kind, homely young woman with a scar on her face from the house fire. Mama recounts the traumatizing fire, which burnt down their home, and forced them to build a new one, exactly like it, where they now live. At last Dee and her partner, Hakim-a-Barber, arrive at the house. Dee is dressed in a beautiful, colorful, floor-length dress in African style. She introduces herself as "Wangero," not as Dee, stating that she changed her name so she would not be named after her "oppressors." Mama is originally skeptical of both these choices, but decides that she likes the dress. Mama reminds Dee that she is, in fact, named after her aunt Dicie, but agrees to call Dee by her chosen name. Dee takes pictures of her family with their house. She and Hakim-a-Barber eat with Mama and Maggie, and while Hakim-a-Barber is unenthusiastic about the family's fare, Dee enjoys the collard greens and pork with relish. Dee, who, as Mama mentioned, once disdained the family's possessions, now unexpectedly covets them. She admires the worn stools, coos over her grandmother's butter dish, and demands to be given the top of the family's butter churn to use as decoration in her house. Mama acquiesces, and gives Dee the churn. After dinner, Dee insists on taking home her grandmother's quilts as well, to hang on her walls. Mama, however, had planned on giving the quilts to Maggie. When Mama refuses, saying that she promised them to Maggie, Dee becomes angry. She insists that Maggie cannot appreciate the quilts, and will wear them out with "everyday use." When Mama brushes Dee's anger off, saying that Maggie can simply make new quilts since she knows how to sew, Dee insists that the quilts are "priceless" and that Mama does not "understand" her heritage. Still, Mama refuses to give Dee the quilts, and dumps them on Maggie's lap. The story ends with Dee's departure, leaving Mama and Maggie alone together in the house.

- Genre: Thriller - Title: Everything I Never Told You - Point of view: Third-person narrator - Setting: Middlewood, a fictional town in Ohio - Character: Lydia Lee. Description: Lydia is the middle daughter of James and Marilyn. At the beginning of the book, she has just died at the age of 16; after a few days, her body is discovered at the bottom of a nearby lake, and the rest of the narrative describes her family's unfolding understanding of the cause of her death. To her parents, Lydia is docile and easy to please. Marilyn believes she wants to be a doctor and James thinks she has a close group of girlfriends—in reality, Lydia is a loner who struggles in her classes. She is the only non-white girl in her school, although she has inherited her mother's blue eyes. Her only real friend is Jack Wolff, with whom she skips school and smokes cigarettes and who she (unsuccessfully) tries to persuade to have sex with her. Lydia has a close (if tormented) relationship with her older brother, Nath; once, Nath almost drowned her by pushing her into the lake, and when Nath gets into Harvard Lydia hides his acceptance letter. Officer Fiske ultimately rules Lydia's death a suicide, though it is difficult to determine whether Lydia intended to die. Rowing out into the lake, she tells herself that she intends to return to the shore, yet she jumps in knowing that she can't swim. - Character: Marilyn Lee. Description: Marilyn is the daughter of Doris Walker and was born and raised in Virginia. Growing up, Marilyn is disdainful of her mother's perfect housewife performance and her vocation as a home economics teacher. She dreams of becoming a doctor and she excels in her studies at Radcliffe (the women's college within Harvard University), where she meets James. On discovering that she is pregnant with Nath, Marilyn and James quickly marry, and the family moves to Middlewood, Ohio, where James has been given a professorial position. After giving birth to Nath and Lydia, Marilyn becomes increasingly restless and dissatisfied with her life. When Marilyn learns that her neighbor Janet Wolff is a doctor, Marilyn abandons her family to finish her undergraduate degree in Toledo, with the intention of finally realizing her dream of attending medical school. However, in Toledo Marilyn discovers she is pregnant with Hannah, and she decides to return home. Marilyn ultimately projects her obsession with becoming a doctor onto Lydia, aggressively encouraging her daughter to enroll in advanced science courses. After Lydia's death, Marilyn is forced to reckon with the fact that she did not understand her daughter as well as she thought. - Character: James Lee. Description: James is the son of Chinese immigrants. Before their deaths, both of his parents worked in the cafeteria of Lloyd Academy, a prestigious prep school which James attended for free after passing the entrance exam. Although James was born in the United States, he never feels like he fits into American society. As an undergraduate and then graduate student in the history department at Harvard, he doesn't have any friends. The subject of his research, cowboys, is rather ironic, considering that he feels racially marginalized and excluded from American culture. At the time James meets Marilyn, he is hoping to be hired as an assistant professor in the Harvard history department; despite being the best graduate student, James is rejected from the position, likely because of his race and social unpopularity. James' consistent experience of racism and isolation affects his career, family, and personal happiness. While Marilyn relentlessly pressures Lydia to become a doctor, James projects his own deepest insecurities onto Lydia in the form of pressuring her to be popular at school. - Character: Nath Lee. Description: Nath (whose full name is Nathan) is the eldest son of James and Marilyn. Academically gifted, he enjoys studying and dreams of a career that involves outer space. Shortly before Lydia's death, he is admitted to Harvard and is excited about the prospect of escaping his hometown and family. Nath is convinced that his neighbor Jack Wolff is responsible for Lydia's death; he questions Jack aggressively and punches him at the end of the novel before being pushed by Hannah into the lake. He remains unaware that Jack had no romantic interest in Lydia and is secretly in love with Nath himself. - Character: Hannah Lee. Description: Hannah is James and Marilyn's youngest daughter. She is extremely quiet, so much so that sometimes her family forgets that she exists. She has a habit of stealing "treasures" that belong to members of her family and hiding them around the house. Although she doesn't fully understand the events that take place around her, she is highly perceptive and is arguably the moral center of the novel. - Character: Doris Walker. Description: Doris Walker is Marilyn's mother. Doris' unnamed husband leaves her when Marilyn is three, yet she continues to perform the role of a perfect housewife, wearing makeup at all times and cooking elaborate meals and desserts. She is a home economics teacher at Marilyn's high school and is obsessed with the Betty Crocker cookbook. When she meets James at his and Marilyn's wedding, she tells Marilyn not to marry him because he is Chinese; after this point, she and her daughter never see each other again. After Doris dies, Marilyn notes that Doris' house bears no trace of Doris' existence. - Character: Jack Wolff. Description: Jack Wolff is a boy who lives on the same street as the Lee family. He has a reputation for taking the virginity of teenage girls, and Nath worries about the fact that he and Lydia spend time together. After Lydia's death, Nath is convinced that Jack is somehow to blame; in reality, though, Jack is Lydia's only real friend and he is secretly in love with Nath. - Character: Officer Fiske. Description: Officer Fiske is the police officer charged with investigating Lydia's death. He is fair and patient with the Lee family, though he ultimately ignores the beliefs of both Marilyn and Nath and rules Lydia's death a suicide. When Nath drinks so much whisky that he throws up, Fiske is kind to him and brings him safely home. - Theme: Appearances vs. Disappearances. Description: Following a convention of the thriller genre, the book opens with a disappearance: Lydia's failure to come downstairs for breakfast, at which point her family discovers that she is missing from the house altogether. When Marilyn looks in Lydia's bedroom, she notices that her daughter's bed is "unslept in," although everything else looks normal. The contrast between this normality and Lydia's mysterious absence introduces a tension between appearances and reality: while everything might seem fine, this surface-level normality masks the loss and absence that often exist at the heart of ordinary life. Reality and disappearance, then, are shown to be related. The fact that Lydia ends up being found drowned in the lake confirms the sense that she has not only died, but disappeared, swallowed up by the mysterious vastness of the water. Lydia's death is foreshadowed earlier in the book when, during a trip to the lake with Nath, he pushes her in the water and she almost drowns. When Nath notices that his sister is underwater, he experiences "a flash of complete separateness as Lydia disappeared beneath the surface." The lake symbolizes the possibility that even the closest of familial ties can suddenly be broken when people "disappear." Lydia is not the only character to be submerged in the lake; in the final scene of the book, Hannah pushes Nath into the lake after he punches Jack. While he is in the water, he thinks of Lydia while keeping his gaze fixed on Hannah, not wanting to "lose sight of her face." Nath is determined not to disappear like his sister did. Other characters in the novel also disappear. When Marilyn's mother Doris dies, Marilyn cannot find any trace of her in her mother's house, and she notes that it is as if her mother was never there. Similarly, when Marilyn runs away from her family to finish her bachelor's degree, she ensures that they have no way of contacting her or knowing where she is. When Marilyn learns about James' affair with Louisa and exiles him from the house, James ends up driving to Toledo, where Marilyn also fled. Yet despite all these acts of disappearance, the narrative also shows that—short of actually dying—it is difficult to ever truly disappear from your family. For example, after Marilyn leaves she discovers that she is pregnant, a fact that compels her to reunite with James and her other children. Similarly, when Nath looks forward to the prospect of escaping his family when he leaves to attend Harvard, it is with "the confidence of someone who had never yet tried to free himself of family." This description of Nath's "confidence" suggests that freeing oneself from family is much harder than he imagines. The theme of disappearance is closely related to the importance of appearances in the book. Doris is the character most immediately concerned with appearances; even though Marilyn's father has left her, she still insists on looking perfect at all times (even wearing lipstick to breakfast), thus denying the reality of her husband's absence. Although Marilyn wants to disassociate herself from her mother's obsession with image, in reality she simply inherits a different version of it. Rather than fixating on beauty, Marilyn is so desperate for Lydia to fulfil her dream of becoming a doctor that she isn't able to see that Lydia is only pretending to enjoy and succeed at her academic work. Similarly, James is fixated on ensuring that Lydia is popular at school, and he only realizes after her death that Lydia's stories about her (supposed) friends were entirely made up. Overall, the book suggests that when people become too fixated on appearances, the truth disappears beneath a superficial version of reality. - Theme: Secrets, Lies, and Silence. Description: After Lydia's disappearance, her family realizes that they know much less about her life than they thought they did, and that Lydia had been lying to them and not expressing her true thoughts and desires for many years. This realization raises the question of how possible it is to truly know other people. Not only does the Lee family not realize that Lydia was being dishonest until after her death, but each of them projected their own ideas about her life onto her. Marilyn thought her daughter was an enthusiastic budding scientist, James thought she had a close group of girlfriends, and Nath thought she had a sexual relationship with Jack—all of which turn out to be untrue. Yet was Lydia's secrecy and dishonesty the root cause of these misunderstandings, or was the problem actually the strength with which her family members believed in their own convictions? Lydia's secrecy, dishonesty, and silence are hardly unique in the book. Each character withholds and distorts the truth in different ways, and, to some extent, this is presented as being an inevitable part of family life. However, Lydia's death (along with other events, such as Marilyn's disappearance and James' affair) show that lack of honesty can have a devastating impact on family life. The title of the book evokes the feeling of regret that arises when the desire to be honest comes too late. The "I" and "you" in the phrase "everything I never told you" could describe several different combinations of characters; Doris and Marilyn, Jack and Nath, Lydia and her family. In each case, characters chose to withhold or misrepresent their true feelings in a way that ultimately drove them apart. Each of the Lee children is particularly inclined to conceal the truth; this seems to be due to the combination of the intense expectations their parents place upon them and the general sense of alienation they have from the town in which they live. Marilyn gives Lydia a series of diaries in which to write her secrets. However, after Lydia's death Marilyn opens the diaries and finds them blank, a fact that suggests that Lydia might have anticipated this violation of her privacy. The blank pages of Lydia's diary mirror the silence of her younger sister, Hannah. Hannah is an exceptionally quiet child who mostly watches others rather than participating in conversation. (Indeed, she is so silent that sometimes her family forgets that she exists.) Meanwhile, even Nath, who—at least in comparison to his sisters—is fairly confident and vocal, has difficulty expressing his feelings. He and Lydia never discuss the time when Lydia almost drowned in the lake because it is "too big to talk about." When telling his guidance counsellor that he wants to study outer space, Nath "whispered, as if telling her a dirty secret." Overall, the children are suffocated by their inability to honestly communicate with others. After James and Marilyn discuss his affair and James drives away, the narrator notes that "silence settles over the house like ash." Silence is thus associated with destruction, ruin, and death. - Theme: Innocence vs. Guilt. Description: The concept of innocence plays an important role within the book, most importantly in the context of the question of whether Lydia is an "innocent" victim. There are several ways in which Lydia is associated with childish innocence; for example, she covers her body in baby oil at the lake and her perfume is called "Baby Soft." However, there is a contradiction within this imagery: while the word "baby" denotes youth and purity, Lydia uses the baby oil and perfume to make herself more attractive, an indication of her approaching adulthood and developing sexuality. When Lydia first starts hanging out with Jack, he teases her about her innocence, calling her "Miss Lee," pointing out that she doesn't smoke, and asking if she has ever seen condoms before. Lydia attempts unsuccessfully to deny her innocence, suggesting that she sees it as a liability. At the same time, Jack's reputation as someone who takes girls' virginity—thereby ending their innocence—crumbles when he is around Lydia. He refuses to have sex with her and he admits that his sexual reputation is designed to obscure the fact that he is in love with Nath. In the wake of Lydia's death, Marilyn and Nath in particular cling to the idea that she is an innocent victim. While Nath obsesses over his conviction that Jack is somehow responsible for her death, Marilyn simply invents a phantom person or force who is guilty. Marilyn compares Lydia's death to the case of a girl called Ginny Barron who was kidnapped, raped, and strangled, her body left on the side of the road. Marilyn's discovery of the cigarettes and condoms in Lydia's bag forces her to consider that her belief in her daughter's innocence might be delusional. However, she ultimately dismisses this uncertainty: "'Someone must have taken her out there. Lured her.' Marilyn hesitates, the cigarettes and condoms surfacing in her mind, but anger muscles them aside and turns her voice shrill." The irony of Marilyn's discovery of the cigarettes and condoms is that they also create a misleading picture of Lydia's life. While Lydia does smoke with Jack, he treats her like a "gentleman" and refuses to have sex with her. Rather than a sinister predator, Jack is Lydia's only real friend (and is himself a victim of homophobia and Nath's misguided anger). This confusion of ideas about innocence points to larger issues in society's understanding of the connection between innocence, victimhood, and blame. As the book shows, there is an immense pressure placed on teenage girls to be innocent and pure, as well as a paranoia about this purity being ruined by predatory men. In reality, however, there is no straightforward correlation between sexual purity and other forms of innocence. Lydia is a virgin, but she is responsible for her own death; the idea that she has fallen victim to a sinister predator is entirely fictional. Meanwhile, Jack's sexual experiences belie his own victimhood as someone who is forced to keep his true romantic feelings secret and who is violently attacked by the boy he loves at the end of the book. - Theme: Loneliness, Exclusion, and Prejudice. Description: Every major character in the book is excluded from the world around them and suffers from feelings of loneliness. The narrator describes the Lee family as "a family with no friends, a family of misfits." To some extent, this family-wide social isolation is initially created by the personal isolation of both James and Marilyn. When the two meet at Harvard, both are socially marginalized as a result of prejudice—James because of his race and Marilyn because of her gender. They are attracted to each other in part due to a feeling of understanding created through their shared experience of isolation. As they get older, they fail to make any friends or truly participate in the Middlewood community. Both James and Marilyn partly blame their lack of professional success on this exclusion; James believes he was not hired as a professor at Harvard because he did not fit the social and racial profile required of Harvard professors, and Marilyn feels that she was denied the chance to have a career as a doctor due to the gendered pressure to become a housewife. James and Marilyn pass on this experience of social exclusion to their children. Nath and Lydia are the only non-white students at school, and are socially marginalized on this account. Indeed, the experiences of the Lee family fit into the literary tradition of depicting mixed-race people as inevitably alienated from society at large. This is sometimes understood through the idea of the "tragic mulatto," a half-white, half-African American figure who is excluded from both communities because they are seen as not truly fitting into either. Although the Lee children are half-Chinese instead of half-black, their experiences nonetheless evoke this literary trope. At the same time, James and the children's marginalization is also rooted in racist stereotypes particular to Asians and Asian Americans. Even though James was born in the United States, "he had never felt he belonged here." The ban on Chinese immigrants meant that James' father had to lie about his parentage in order to immigrate; meanwhile, James and his family adopt false, English names in an attempt to assimilate into American society. Ultimately, this attempt to integrate fails, and both James and his children suffer from racist exclusion and hostility throughout their lives. After their children are born, James struggles with loneliness more intensely than Marilyn. Where Marilyn projects her own (failed) dreams of becoming a doctor onto Lydia, James obsesses over Lydia's social life. He constantly asks after Lydia's friends, encourages her to pursue the same activities as her peers, and at Christmas buys her three books with instructions on how to "win friends" and "be popular." Ironically, the only real effect of this act is further estranging Lydia from her father. More than anything, Lydia wants her father to accept her for who she is, but instead James exacerbates her feelings of loneliness and isolation by implying that she is a social failure. Jack, the one real friend that Lydia does have, suffers from fear of homophobic prejudice. When Lydia discovers that Jack is in love with Nath (and thus doesn't want to sleep with her), she threatens to tell everyone in school about Jack's feelings, a fact that suggests that experiencing prejudice herself does not necessarily deter Lydia from wanting to inflict it on others. James' ongoing struggle with notions of social acceptance and popularity contrasts with Marilyn's acceptance of the inherent isolation and loneliness of life. Haunted by her own frustrated ambitions, Marilyn values professional success more than popularity. Yet despite having (reluctantly) dedicated her life to being a housewife, Marilyn is also isolated from her family. After discovering James' affair and ordering him to leave the house, Marilyn thinks to herself: "You loved so hard and hoped so much and then you ended up with nothing. Children who no longer needed you. A husband who no longer wanted you. Nothing left but you, alone, and empty space." Although James and Marilyn eventually reconcile upon his return, Marilyn's despair over ending up alone still resonates in the context of her inability to truly connect with Lydia before her death. While the book optimistically hints that the Lee family learn to accept one another and grow closer after Lydia's death, this is inevitably tainted by the fact that Lydia herself is lost to them forever. - Theme: Expectations, Ambition, and Disappointment. Description: When Marilyn and James meet, they are both at a promising stage of their careers. James is an accomplished graduate student who may be on the brink of being hired as an assistant professor at Harvard; Marilyn is excelling as a Radcliffe undergraduate destined for medical school. However, in the 16 years following their initial meeting, both of their ambitions unravel. James is not hired by Harvard, and, although he secures another teaching position at the less prestigious Middlewood College, he is haunted by this earlier failure and by his persistent inability to achieve social acceptance. As a result of this disappointment, he pressures his children (particularly Lydia) to be likeable and popular. Marilyn, whose dreams of being a doctor are thwarted by marriage and motherhood, also projects her own ambitions and expectations onto her middle daughter. However, where James' pressure for Lydia to be popular is somewhat gentle, Marilyn's is all-consuming. Her insistence that Lydia fulfill her dreams of becoming a doctor is so intense that she loses her daughter emotionally even before Lydia's eventual disappearance. Marilyn does not see Lydia as a person in her own right, but rather as a vehicle for correcting the disappointment that Marilyn feels has ruined her own life irrevocably. Perhaps the most peculiar thing about James and Marilyn's expectations of Lydia is their fatal rigidity. It is never made clear why James and Marilyn place the burden of their ambitions almost entirely on Lydia's shoulders and not those of her brother or sister. This is especially strange in light of the fact that Nath does excel in science, and—like his mother and father—is admitted to Harvard. Yet despite his success, James and Marilyn seem only to be vaguely proud of their son, and remain single-mindedly fixated on Lydia. The inflexibility of James and Marilyn's ambitions is precisely what makes them so dangerous. They cannot accept their children for who they are, just as they cannot accept how their own lives have turned out. It is only after their marriage and family are thrown into chaos as a result of Lydia's death and James' affair that James and Marilyn are able to return to a feeling of satisfaction in their romance, even if they remain disappointed by other aspects of their lives. Frequently, the book depicts ambition and disappointment as existing in pairs. Where one person fails, another succeeds, and what one person sees as success, another sees as failure. This happens inter-generationally; for example, Doris wants Marilyn to become a perfect housewife like she was herself, and thus perceives Marilyn's dedication to science as a failure. Similarly, James cannot feel proud of Nath's academic success because Nath reminds James of himself and his own social failures. Lydia, meanwhile, hides Nath's acceptance letter from Harvard as a result of her conviction that Nath's success will further accentuate her own failure. Her discovery that Jack is secretly in love with Nath emphasizes this point, and seems to be the final straw that leads to her decision to jump into the lake. Overall, the book suggests that expectations and ambitions will inevitably lead to disappointment. This is less due to the fact that the Lees' lives are especially filled with failure—they arguably experience an average (if not greater than average) level of success in life—but rather because the events of life are impossible to anticipate. The unpredictability of life is particularly shown through the novel's use of the thriller genre; each surprising twist is a reminder of how impossible it is to control one's own life and fate. In this sense, disappointment is inevitable. When Marilyn and James discuss his affair, they both speak in terms of disappointment. James speaks of Doris' disappointment at the fact that he is Chinese, and Marilyn thinks that she is disappointed because she hoped James would be "different" from other men and not have an affair. However, after James returns from his drive to Toledo, he and Marilyn reconcile and feel a renewed sense of commitment to one another. This suggests that, rather than clinging to one's original expectations and resisting disappointment, it is better to simply accept disappointment as an inevitable part of life. - Climax: When Lydia rows out and jumps into the lake - Summary: The book opens in 1977. Lydia Lee is dead, but all her family knows is that she hasn't come down to breakfast. Lydia's mother Marilyn goes up to her room to look for her, and finds everything in its place but no sign of Lydia. Lydia's siblings Nath and Hannah leave for school, while Marilyn begins to fear that something terrible may have happened. Meanwhile, Marilyn's husband James is at his office in Middlewood College, unaware that anything is wrong. James is a tenured professor of American History; one of his graduate student teaching assistants, Louisa Chen, knocks on his door and the two discuss their students' work. Their conversation is interrupted by Stanley Hewitt, who James finds irritating. Then Marilyn calls and asks James to come home. Back at the house, police officers tell Lydia's family that teenagers often run away because they are angry with their parents, and that most come home within 24 hours. Officer Fiske asks about an incident in which Marilyn went missing 11 years before, but James quickly dismisses this as a "miscommunication." After the police leave, James and Marilyn write down a list of Lydia's friends. Nath says nothing, but knows that the girls on the list are not actually close to Lydia; she doesn't have any friends except the Lee's neighbor, Jack Wolff, whom Nath strongly dislikes. However, even as James and Marilyn call all the girls they believe to be Lydia's friends, Nath doesn't mention Jack. Meanwhile, Hannah keeps quiet about the fact that at 2am the previous night, she'd seen Lydia walk across the front lawn away from the house. The next day, a passerby notices that there is a rowboat floating in the middle of the lake at the end of the Lee's street. The police ask James if Lydia can swim and he tells them she can't; a day later, Lydia's body is found in the water. The narrative jumps back to 1955, during Marilyn's first year at Radcliffe, the women's college within Harvard University. Marilyn is an excellent student who dreams of becoming a doctor, but faces sexist opposition from both her male peers and professors. Marilyn's mother Doris Walker is a highly traditional woman, a home economics teacher who has never left her hometown in Virginia. In Marilyn's sophomore year, she enrolls in a new course called "The Cowboy in American Culture." She is entranced by the instructor, James, a graduate student in the history department and the first "Oriental" (Asian-American) person Marilyn has ever seen. After the first lecture, Marilyn goes to James' office hours and kisses him. The two quickly form a relationship. James was born in California to Chinese immigrants who worked in the cafeteria of Lloyd Academy, a small boarding school that James attended after passing the entrance exam at six years old. James goes on to attend Harvard for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees, yet he never feels like he fits into American society. During the spring after meeting James, Marilyn discovers that she is pregnant, and the two marry quickly. At the wedding, Doris tells Marilyn that "it's not right" for her to marry James, and Marilyn never speaks to her mother again. Back in 1977, the Lees attend Lydia's funeral. After the service, Nath aggressively questions Jack and is scolded by James for behaving inappropriately. The narrator mentions that Jack's mother, Janet, leaves Jack unsupervised during her shifts working as a doctor at the hospital, and that Jack has a reputation for taking the virginity of girls at his school. Later that day, Nath notices that the police are questioning Jack and Janet and he spies on the conversation. Jack tells the police that Lydia was always sad, and that this was due to her poor grades, her parents, and the fact that Nath is about to leave home to attend Harvard. Meanwhile, James has gone to his office to read Lydia's autopsy report. While there, Louisa knocks on his office door. Seeing that James is visibly shaken, she offers to cook him lunch at her apartment. They go back and immediately sleep together, after which James sleep soundly for the first time since Lydia's death. The narrative rewinds 11 years in time, when Lydia is five years old and Hannah is not yet born. At the Middlewood Christmas party, Marilyn asks a professor of chemistry, Tom Lawson, if he would consider hiring her as a research assistant. He tells her he'd be happy to consider it as long as James doesn't mind. That spring, Marilyn learns that Doris has died. She drives to Virginia to pack up her mother's belongings, and finds no trace of Doris in her house other than her beloved Betty Crocker cookbook, which Marilyn takes home with her. The cookbook contains recipes and instructions on "keeping" a happy, harmonious household; its advice includes that wives should make eggs in their husband's preferred style. Meanwhile, James takes Nath to swim at the Y, but Nath is humiliated by the other kids ganging up and shouting racist insults at him. Shaken by her confrontation with the reality of Doris' life, Marilyn concocts a plan to leave her family, finish her undergraduate degree at a community college in Toledo, and finally pursue her dream of attending medical school. She writes a note explaining her decision to leave to James, but she tears it up and departs without leaving a note. Her family is stunned by her sudden disappearance. As time passes after Lydia's death, the police and news coverage both emphasize that she was lonely; most articles claim that her death was likely a suicide. Marilyn insists that this is not true, that Lydia was "very happy" and "loved school." She and James fight, with Marilyn accusing James of being overly deferential to the police. Meanwhile, Nath and Hannah walk to the lake. Nath sees Jack and is overcome by a desire to punch him, but Hannah stops him. Nath explains that he is convinced that Jack was involved with Lydia's death, and he adds that Lydia fell in the lake years before, when Hannah was not yet born. The narrative returns to the summer in which Marilyn disappeared. James enlists the help of the police in finding her, but he had secretly already discovered the torn-up pieces of her note and thus he knows she left voluntarily. Life in the Lee household has quickly fallen apart; James fails to make adequate meals for the children, the family rarely leaves the house, and all three of them spend most of their time aimlessly waiting for Marilyn to return. Nath manages to distract himself with a newfound interest in outer space, and he watches the news coverage of the launch of the Gemini 9 space flight with glee. When he tries to tell James about it, however, James slaps him. In Toledo, Marilyn devotes herself to her studies, quickly regaining her previous prowess at scientific work. However, she desperately misses her family, and calls them every day without saying anything. One day, after a series of dizzy spells, Marilyn faints and goes to the hospital, where she discovers she is pregnant. A nurse calls James, and Marilyn decides that she must return home and give up on her medical ambitions forever. Back in Middlewood, Lydia tells Marilyn that she "lost" the Betty Crocker cookbook, when in fact she hid it because she knew it made her mother sad. Marilyn takes this as a sign that Lydia is rejecting traditional gender roles and she vows to encourage her daughter to study science and become a doctor herself. Meanwhile, Lydia vows to do everything her mother asks in order to prevent her from leaving again. A few days later, Nath and Lydia go to the lake, and Nath is overcome by a sudden sense of frustration with his parents' favoritism of Lydia. He pushes her into the lake, where she nearly drowns before Nath helps her back to shore. They do not tell their parents about what happened. Ten years pass, during which time the world is shaken by dramatic political events and shifting social norms, including the gains of the women's liberation movement. James and Marilyn are still fixated on Lydia, with James encouraging her to attend social events and have lots of friends, and Marilyn enrolling her in college-level science classes. Marilyn boasts that Lydia is a "genius," unaware that she is failing physics and only barely passing biology. Meanwhile, when Lydia discovers a letter from Harvard informing Nath that he has been admitted to the class of 1981, she hides it in a desperate attempt to force Nath to stay in Middlewood. Eventually, however, another letter arrives and Nath finally discovers that he got in. The family's celebration is interrupted by Lydia suddenly exclaiming that she is failing physics, which infuriates Nath. At Christmas, James gives Lydia three self-help books with advice on how to make friends; while Lydia pretends to be happy, in reality she is crushed by this gift. At school, Lydia decides to befriend Jack, who is dubious of her sudden desire to smoke and her claim that she doesn't care about physics. Jack asks Lydia what it's like to be the only non-white girl in school, and Lydia explains that it means everyone assumes they know something about her before they've met her. The narrative jumps forward to show the Lees continuing to struggle in the wake of Lydia's death. James and Marilyn barely speak, and when Nath notices that James smells of Louisa's perfume, James yells at his son. Officer Fiske calls to let the family know that the police are ceasing their investigation and ruling Lydia's death a suicide, which provokes an enormous argument between Marilyn and James. James leaves the house and doesn't come back, and Nath informs Marilyn that James is probably at Louisa's apartment. Marilyn confronts Louisa, who lies about not knowing where James is (when he is in fact there in her apartment). Knowing that Louisa is lying, Marilyn tells her that "if" she sees James, she should tell him that Marilyn will see him at home. Three months before Lydia's death, Nath is increasingly suspicious that Lydia and Jack's friendship is manipulative and sexual. When the two hang out, though, they simply smoke and talk, and Jack begins teaching Lydia to drive. Lydia has now resigned herself to the fact that Nath is leaving for college, but she dreams that as soon as she gets her driver's license she will be able to drive away and escape her family too. James gives Lydia a silver locket as an early 16th birthday present; at first Lydia is thrilled, until she sees a photo of herself inside which was taken before the 9th grade dance that James forced her to attend. On her birthday, James takes Lydia for her DMV test, which she fails. Lydia is furious, but pretends to be happy during dinner with her family. Hannah observes that Lydia is at a breaking point. In the weeks following Lydia's death, Marilyn confronts James about Louisa, claiming that she seems "docile" and would make a "nice little wife." They argue and James suggests that Marilyn must regret marrying him because of how it makes her "different." Marilyn responds that her real disappointment lies in the fact that she was forced to give up her dreams of becoming a doctor. Eventually, James leaves the house. Marilyn discovers the Betty Crocker cookbook in Lydia's room and begins to realize that Lydia was only pretending to be interested in science in order to be close to her. Meanwhile, Nath buys whisky and drinks alone to the point of vomiting. Officer Fiske finds him and takes him home, and Fiske's kindness is such a contrast to the treatment Nath is used to from his parents that Nath cries. The penultimate chapter opens just days before Lydia's death. Nath leaves for his campus visit to Harvard and, although he promises Lydia that he will call, he never does. The next night, Lydia calls Nath to ask how the visit is going and he responds to her rudely before hanging up. On the following day, Lydia wears her prettiest dress and lipstick, and after school she attempts to seduce Jack. Jack resists her advances and reveals that he is secretly in love with Nath. Although Jack explains this kindly, Lydia is furious and threatens to tell the whole school. That night, she sneaks out of her bedroom at 2am and goes to the lake. She decides that all of the problems in her life began the summer when Nath pushed her into the water, and she promises herself that she can fix everything as long as she rows out, jumps in, and swims back to shore. The last thing Lydia thinks to herself before jumping is "it will be alright." The final chapter returns to the period after Lydia's death. Following his fight with Marilyn, James drives away before turning around and coming back to Middlewood. At home, he plays with Hannah, feeling overwhelmed by grief yet comforted by Hannah's love. That night, Marilyn and James lie in bed together, feeling closer than they have for years. The next morning, Nath confronts Jack about Lydia; although Jack knows he is innocent, he lets Nath punch him. Hannah eventually pushes Nath into the lake to avoid him hurting Jack any further. In the water, Nath thinks about his permanent separation from Lydia, and all the things that will happen in the future that he will never be able to tell her. He swims toward the surface, his eyes fixed on Hannah's face.

- Genre: Southern Gothic/Christian Realism/Anti-Romanticism - Title: Everything That Rises Must Converge - Point of view: Close/Limited Third Person - Setting: American South - Character: Julian. Description: A recent college graduate who has returned home to live with his Mother while trying to launch a career as a writer. He is an idealistic, self-professed intellectual whose liberal values are at odds with his mother's bigotry and the racist culture of his hometown. Julian's moral compass is admirable, especially compared to the bald-faced racism surrounding him, but his interactions with black people suggest that he, too, has a fundamental discomfort with them. Julian's struggle to balance his gratitude for his mother with his visceral resentment for her prejudiced ways and his desire to teach her a lesson animates the unfolding of the story. - Character: Julian's Mother. Description: A descendant of formerly slave-owning family that fell on hard times, she raised her son Julian by herself. Julian's Mother laments integration and the cultural change sweeping the South as the death of a regal tradition, both in her family and in her region. Her deeply bigoted attitudes annoy Julian to no end and cause him to fight with her often. The narrator describes her as childlike, almost feeble-minded. Julian's Mother values manners and appearances and loves cute children of all races so much that she has a habit of gifting them coins. But her gentility cannot hide her repugnant attitudes towards black people. Ultimately, her inability to internalize the surging cause of equality leads her to be struck by Carver's Mother and suffer a stroke. - Character: Carver's Mother. Description: A black woman who boards the bus Julian and Julian's Mother are riding. She wears a gaudy hat identical to Julian's Mother's and has a similarly antagonistic relationship with her son, commonalities striking enough to lead Julian to conclude that Carver's Mother is Julian's Mother's "black double." Like Julian's Mother, Carver's Mother is also immensely proud, so much so that when she perceives Julian's Mother's gift of a penny to Carver as condescending, she strikes Julian's Mother with her purse. - Character: Carver. Description: A rambunctious little boy who rides the bus with his mother. Carver is forced to sit with next to Julian's Mother while Julian sits next to Carver's Mother. Carver is playful and interacts with Julian's Mother, even against Carver's Mother's warnings. Despite the fact that he is black, Julian's Mother finds him, like all children, so cute that she wants to give him a penny. - Character: The Well-Dressed Black Man. Description: A fashionable black passenger on the bus with whom Julian sits to make a point to Julian's Mother. The Well Dressed Black Man represents to Julian his naïve ideal of the sort of bourgeois black person with whom he could interact. Julian bothers the Well-Dressed Black Man when he tries to make a show of their interaction to Julian's Mother—the Well-Dressed Black Man, it turns out, would rather read than talk superficially to Julian. - Theme: Racism, Similarity, and Difference. Description: "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is set in the American South soon after racial integration has become the law of the land. As such, the story portrays a moment in which people of different races are encountering each other in new ways, even as racism and prejudice continue to impact every character's perceptions. More specifically, the story shows how characters of different races share fundamental similarities, but often cannot see those similarities because of racism's focus on difference. This makes it even more difficult to actually build connections. O'Connor makes it very clear that Julian's Mother is racist. She refuses to take the bus alone after the busses are racially integrated, and when she is on the bus and no black people are present she comments aloud about how she prefers it that way. Further, she is a firm believer that black and white people are fundamentally different and that integration is unnatural. The story, however, suggests that black and white people are not fundamentally different, and that they can, in fact, be uncannily similar. This is most apparent in the similarities between Julian's Mother and Carver's Mother, a black woman on the bus who, like Julian's Mother, is an unnamed character known only through her son, is immensely proud, and wears the same "hideous" and eccentric hat as Julian's Mother. Julian certainly recognizes the similarly between the two women—at one point he describes the woman as his mother's "black double"—and he hopes his mother will recognize it also and take it as a lesson that her racism is ridiculous. However, Julian's Mother never recognizes any such similarity, and the story implies that her racist views make her incapable of recognizing it. It's not just Julian's Mother, however, who cannot comprehend similarities and differences between themselves and others. Julian, for instance, spends most of the story disgusted with his mom's provincial attitudes, especially about race, seeing himself as being morally superior to her. However, in action, Julian is almost as patronizing to the black characters in the story as his mother is. The two of them share a tendency to treat black people as something other than human beings, since Julian treats black people as symbols or tools that further his moral argument. In other words, he interacts with black people only in order to prove to himself and others his moral superiority. The emptiness of Julian's beliefs about race is evident in his failure to actually create any connections with black people. Despite his ideals, Julian admits to himself that he's never actually been successful at making "Negro friends." His following thoughts on the subject betray him even more deeply: he's also only ever tried to befriend "some of the better types… ones that looked like professors or ministers or lawyers." The story pushes even further though, showing how the pervasive racism that black people must constantly face creates a mistrust and anger that makes it impossible to have faith in the motives of white people. While Julian's Mother is racist, the story makes clear that her giving the penny to Carver is not, in fact, motivated by race—she is not giving a "hand out" to the boy to patronizingly "help" him, but rather because she gives coins to all cute children regardless of their race. However, Julian recognizes that Carver's Mother will certainly not understand this gesture in such friendly terms. She explodes in anger, hits Julian's Mother with her purse, and angrily refuses what she thinks is a hand out. The racist structure of society—a racist structure of which Julian's Mother is certainly a part—makes Julian's Mother's genuine act of connection impossible for other characters to straightforwardly accept. The story's title comes from the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit philosopher who developed the idea of the "Omega Point," the theological idea that everything in the universe trends toward a final point of spiritual unification. O'Connor's take on it, however, is darkly ironic, as her characters' forced "union" on the bus ends awfully. Julian's Mother's dialogue obliquely references the line by saying, "They should rise yes, but on their own side of the fence," framing de Chardin's idea in the separate-but-equal rhetoric of the segregated South. The story does end with one moment of true convergence: after Julian's Mother seems to suffer a stroke a few moments after getting hit by Carver's Mother, Julian feels suddenly sympathetic and connected to his mother, whom he has derided for so long. But even this is a soiled unity in which a "tide of darkness seemed to sweep him back to her," suggesting with its language of "darkness" that this moment will pull Julian's own ideas about race and difference more into alignment with his mother's. The story suggests that, in a society marred by racism, perhaps the belief that people recognize similarity and come together is unrealistic. - Theme: Reality vs. Perception. Description: Throughout "Everything That Rises Must Converge," the story contrasts the reality of the world with the characters' perception of that reality. This contrast makes clear how biases, by warping a person's understanding of reality, create fraught social conditions like those in the mid-twentieth century American South. The story's fundamental contrast between reality and perception comes in its very narration. The story is told by a "close" third person narrator that only has access to Julian's internal world, and whose tone of narration mirrors Julian's own way of thinking and speaking. When the narrator discusses Julian, then, it seems reasonable that the narrator is expressing Julian's own sense of himself. For instance, when the narrator says that Julian spends most of his time in the "inner compartment of his mind," which distances him from the "general idiocy of his fellows" and allows him to judge in a way that's "safe from any kind of penetration from without," this seems to express Julian's own view of himself. Yet, even as this description seems to show how Julian thinks of himself, it reveals more, as well. While Julian sees being in the "inner compartment of his mind" as something that makes him superior, it's also evident that this means that Julian—and the story the narrator is telling—are somewhat insulated from reality. In other words, the complexity of the world depicted by the story is deeper than the literal words of the story, or the perceptions of the characters. For instance, the narrator also claims that Julian's remove has allowed him to "cut himself emotionally free of [his mother] and [he] could see her with complete objectivity." Yet the story ends with Julian completely not understanding that Julian's Mother is suffering a breakdown. His sense of his mother and his sense of himself are revealed as being actually highly subjective. As a result, the story suggests that claims to objectivity are arrogant and delusional. In fact, over and over again the story shows the conflict between the perceptions that different characters view to be objective, proving those perceptions to be subjective. This is notable in the realm of conflicting moral frameworks that differently define generosity or kindness. Julian's attempt to accept and interact with the black passengers on the bus is, in some sense, morally noble, but at the same time its presumptuousness, self-righteousness, and shallow execution increases tension and helps escalate to the fight between his mother and Carver's Mother. Meanwhile, Julian's Mother considers giving a penny to Carver to be a kind and generous action towards a cute child, but Carver's Mother finds it to be intensely condescending. This divergence in the two women's perceptions of reality leads to a physical confrontation. Even as both Julian and his mother seem to believe that their own view of the world is objective, they are also constantly worried about how other people see them. They see their own view of themselves as being objective, and want to make sure that other people see that same objective view. Of course, their own views of themselves are subjective—even warped—but that's something neither Julian nor his mother can admit to themselves. Consequently, both Julian and his mother are obsessed with appearances. If they can project the proper appearance, they seem to believe, then others will see them as they want to be seen. Therefore, Julian's Mother, who is haunted by her family's fall from wealth and power in previous generations, wants to project that she raised a boy with the right appearances. She takes pride in the fact that Julian went to college, is good looking, and has straight teeth. Julian, meanwhile, believes that appearing to have relationships with black people will make clear his moral values. He fantasizes about getting married to a black woman and takes a seat next to a black man on the bus, all in order to make a point to his mother—and the world—about his open mindedness and moral superiority. By creating this dynamic in two characters who are connected to the past and current history of the South, the story also more generally presents a vision of white Southern society in the midst of an identity crisis. The white South imagines for itself a coherent and objective history that, on closer examination, is in fact subjective and confusing. Further, the story suggests the white South is heavily invested in surface image as a way to insist (to itself and to the world) that the history it wants to be objective is, in fact, objective, even as the underlying reality of the situation suggests otherwise. - Theme: Social Order and Disorder. Description: "Everything That Rises Must Converge" is, in large part, a story about the breaking of traditional social hierarchies and the tensions that such changes create. The aristocratic honor culture of the old, white South—built first on slavery, then on segregation—is giving way to a more pluralistic, integrated society, but this transition isn't harmonious. In the old Southern culture, as embodied by Julian's Mother, there's an emphasis on knowing "who you are," which is to say understanding your place in the social order. There's a traditional belief that someone's place in the social order is a natural, innate quality they're born with and never lose. Julian's Mother argues that an individual's culture is made up of what's in their heart and how they "do things," both of which are natural results of "who you are." She also claims that knowing who she is is what allows her to be gracious and that Julian's inability to understand who he is—which she seems to believe is connected to his anger and refusal to agree with her racist worldview— makes her ashamed of him. However, even as Julian's mother makes these sorts of claims, the story makes clear that they are ludicrous. Julian's Mother's sense of the proper order is based on her desire to cling to her family's bygone history: that they were once powerful and wealthy with a grand estate. But Julian's thoughts make it evident that the estate is now in ruins, no longer owned by the family. And the gothic world in which they do live in stands in total contrast to that old "orderly" estate: Julian and his mother's neighborhood has a sky the color of "dying violet," with houses that are "liver-colored monstrosities of a uniform ugliness." The eerie and death-tinged depiction of this neighborhood, especially in comparison to the romantic remembrance of the family's plantation mansion, suggests the death of an old order. After the fight between Julian's Mother and Carver's Mother, the peak moment of social disorder, the gothic grotesqueness of the neighborhood extends also to Julian's mother's face, which becomes distorted and gruesome as she suffers what seems to be a stroke. In this moment, Julian's mother's very body becomes "disordered," implying that her belief in the continuing power of the old order has been destroyed, and with it her ability to continue on. Julian's Mother's past order, of course, was built on the brutal reality of slavery, and so any belief that such an "order" could connote innate merit or graciousness is, at best, absurd. In light of this, O'Connor never suggests that a newer or more beautiful order has risen to replace the old one—instead, she subverts the idea of order altogether by showing that there isn't much consistency or moral logic to the world. The Woman with The Protruding Teeth and Julian's Mother wring their hands over a story about wealthy white boys stealing tires and, as a result, betraying their social grooming. Furthermore, Julian, the proclaimed progressive and intellectual white man, actually holds some regressive beliefs. He, for instance, takes joy in seeing injustice to black people because it confirms his suspicions about the moral decay of white Southern society. Though highlighting the ludicrous behavior of Southern whites sets an expectation that O'Connor will portray sympathetic black characters or paint an optimistic vision of integration,  O'Connor resists that simplistic moral order. When Carver's Mother lashes out at Julian's mother, the story descends further into disharmony and confusion, seeming to suggest that the possibility of shared order and morality is gone. - Theme: Family Conflict and Generational Struggle. Description: While the physical confrontation between Carver's Mother and Julian's Mother is explosive, it is not the central conflict of Everything That Rises Must Converge. Instead, the conflict between Julian and Julian's Mother animates the action of the story, giving readers a lens through which to understand the complexity of generational differences between white Southerners. The conflict between Julian and Julian's Mother can be seen as a microcosm of white Southern history. The trajectory of Julian's family – from state governors and prosperous slave owners to Julian's relatively difficult childhood in a crummy neighborhood – encapsulates the destruction of Southern aristocratic white society. After Julian's Mother lectures him about his noble family roots, he swings his arm around their neighborhood and implores her to "see where you are now." In this action, Julian is telling his mother that the past in which she still believes is no more—she is living a lie because her situation, and the South more broadly, has changed. Julian defines their interpersonal conflict, then, as one between his mother's inability to see the value of social change and his own progressive ideas, as well as between his mother's inability to recognize the sins of slavery and his own clear-eyed view of that history. The fights between Julian and his mother suggest that the changes among Southern whites might be the inevitable result of generational difference, as Julian argues that, "knowing who you are is good for one generation only." Julian repeats this view after the confrontation with Carver's Mother, stating that "the old manners are obsolete and your graciousness is not worth a damn." This comment suggests that Julian sees generational change less as the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice, and more as an inevitable shifting of customs. Though Julian posits his generational theory of change, O'Connor undermines the neatness of his explanation, suggesting that the changes happening in the white South cannot be reduced to moral young people and immoral old people, since the generations aren't as distinct as Julian would like to believe. For example, Julian's viciousness towards his mother seems at odds with his generational theory, as it indicates his insecurity at having inherited the mantle of white racism from his mother's generation, undermining the notion that racism could generationally disappear. If he truly believed that the beliefs of the older generation would naturally disappear, then he might merely dismiss her beliefs rather than actively despising her and trying to change her mind. Even as he recognizes how much his mother sacrificed for him to be able to go to college, Julian is cruel to her, all the while wishing that instead of sacrificing for him, his mother had been cruel to him so he would be more justified in his hatred of her. Julian doesn't just hate his mother, he wants to hate her. And in wanting to hate her, the story indicates how Julian feels the need to separate himself from the past—the racist past founded on slaveholding—that he and all white Southerners of his generation have inherited from their parents and ancestors. And yet, at the same time, the family's old regal plantation house, which Julian only saw as a child, "appear[s] in his dreams regularly." One might argue that this piece of the family history is lodged into his subconscious.  In light of his politics, it's surprising that when Julian thinks of that past, his bitterness is not only about the slaveholding legacy of his family—it's also about his own meager present situation. He seems to resent both the immoral foundations of his family's former wealth and the fact that his family lost that wealth—in fact, he concludes that it's he, not his mother, who could have actually appreciated the elegance of the old estate. The story, then, presents family legacy as something that Julian both wants to escape and, at the same time, can't ever escape. He simultaneously hates it and yearns for it, and his cruelty toward his mother seems to be the product of the dissonance between his hatred for his legacy and his inescapable connection to it. The siren song of the past becomes most visible at the very end of the story, after he browbeats his mother for her behavior toward Carver and Carver's Mother and she suffers what seems to be a stroke. At first Julian feels himself separated from her, but then he finds himself almost paralyzed as a "tide of darkness seemed to sweep him back to her." The past and family history, O'Conner seems to suggest, infect even those who earnestly try to start anew, casting doubt on the notion that the passage of generations alone can combat racism. - Climax: Carver's Mother strikes Julian's Mother - Summary: Julian, a recent college graduate, has returned home to the South live with his mother while he attempts to launch a career as a writer. At the behest of her doctor, Julian's Mother attends a weekly exercise class to manage her blood pressure. Julian reluctantly agrees to accompany his mother to her classes, as she has been afraid to ride the bus alone at night since they were racially integrated. As the pair begins to embark on one such trip, Julian's Mother, after a round of debating, decides to wear an expensive purple hat she recently bought. While they walk to the bus stop, they discuss the social changes taking place in the South and their family's history. Julian and Julian's mother are descendants of an aristocratic family – Julian's great-grandfather was the governor of the state and owned a plantation with two hundred slaves. Julian's regal and sordid family history stands in sharp relief to his own life—he was raised by a single mother in a tough neighborhood. Julian and his mother finally board the bus and she begins to strike up conversation with The Woman with the Protruding Teeth and The Woman with the Red and White Sandals, fellow white passengers, all lamenting integration and the death of their beloved Southern tradition. Julian's anger at his mother's racism begins to boil and he desires, with a degree of vindictiveness, to teach her a lesson. At the next stop, The Well-Dressed Black Man enters the bus. Julian leaves his mother to sit with him, hoping to show her that black and white people can enjoy each other's company. To Julian's dismay, The Well-Dressed Black Man, wanting to read his newspaper in peace, is annoyed by the overture. Nevertheless, Julian's Mother becomes visibly angry. At the following stop, a dapper black boy and his mother, Carver and Carver's Mother, board the bus, taking seats next to Julian's Mother and Julian, respectively. Julian notices that Carver's Mother is wearing a hat identical to Julian's Mother's. Julian's Mother is delighted to sit with Carver, believing all children to be unbearably cute, regardless of race. As Carver begins to play with Julian's Mother, Carver's Mother scolds him, she too becoming increasing angered. As the bus stops and all four prepare to disembark, Julian has a fearful premonition. He knows that his mother is fond of giving coins to cute children and he worries how the gift will be perceived. After exiting the bus, Julian's Mother reaches into her purse to find a nickel, but can only find a penny. When she gives Carver the penny, Carver's Mother strikes Julian's Mother with her purse and walks away. Julian approaches his fallen mother and begins to browbeat her for not understanding the new spirit of racial equality and how her gesture might be understood as condescending. Following Julian's rant, Julian's Mother starts to suffer an apparent stroke. Seeing this grotesque image of his mother, Julian cries for help, overcome with guilt.

- Genre: Literary Realism - Title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Point of view: Oskar, Grandpa, Grandma - Setting: New York, New York - Character: Oskar Schell. Description: Oskar is the nine-year-old protagonist of the novel: he's extremely precocious and incredibly imaginative, but he has a lot of fears, worries, anxieties, and guilt. As he walks around New York, Oskar carries a tambourine, which he shakes to try and calm himself. Oskar is also insatiably curious, and—as his business card, which has about twenty different occupations listed shows—he has a huge range of interests, from making jewelry to physics to archaeology to the Beatles. Oskar keeps a binder of Stuff That Happened to Me that's filled with plenty of stuff that didn't happen to him—images of tennis players and astronauts, for example—but provides him with a fossil record of his imagination. Unlike Grandpa's meticulous photographs of the apartment, Oskar's book is a sort of photo album of his mind. Oskar uses external cues to help him process his emotions. Oskar describes his grief not as being sad but as "having heavy boots," which allows him to have a way of expressing an indescribable emotion. The plot of the novel centers around Oskar's expedition to figure out the purpose of the key that he finds in Dad's closet, but this journey is really about Oskar finding closure after his Dad's death on 9/11 and to help him deal with his own survivor's guilt. Oskar has an enormous set of rituals and rules by which he organizes his life—he only wears white, won't go on public transportation, is vegan, hates heights, avoids bridges—and the expedition also allows and forces Oskar to face his rational fears by tackling his irrational ones. - Character: Grandpa. Description: Thomas Schell, Sr. is Oskar's grandfather, who also is one of the narrators of the novel: several of the chapters present a series of letters that Grandpa has written to his son but never sent. (Many of these letters could either be to Anna's unborn child or to Oskar's Dad, who is also named Thomas Schell.) Grandpa is a sculptor, and he's sensitive and artistic. He survived the firebombing of Dresden, but as a result, has a tremendous amount of post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt: Grandpa's lover, Anna, and their unborn child died in the firebombing, along with Grandpa's parents and hundreds of others. Due to the aftereffects of this trauma, Grandpa loses the ability to speak. He has YES and NO tattooed on his hands and relies on gestures and notes in blank books, which he refers to as his "daybooks," to communicate. Grandpa comes to New York and runs into Grandma, Anna's sister; they marry, though Grandpa is still in love with Anna and mourning her loss, and they set up an elaborate system of rules for themselves, designating areas of the apartment as "Something" and "Nothing." When Grandma gets pregnant, breaking one of their rules, Grandpa leaves her and goes back to Germany. Forty years later, he returns to New York, and eventually, Grandma lets him stay in her apartment. Oskar only knows Grandpa as "the renter." Oskar and "the renter" dig up Dad's grave, and Grandpa buries his unsent letters inside Dad's coffin. At the end of the novel, Grandpa goes to the airport, presumably to run away again, but Grandma follows him and convinces him to live in the airport with her. - Character: Grandma. Description: Grandma raised Dad as a single mother, since Grandpa left her before Dad was born. Grandma has a special bond and very loving relationship with Oskar. She is always available on the walkie-talkie whenever he wants to speak with her, even when it's the middle of the night. Oskar trusts that his Grandma will always be there for him, and vice versa: when he was little, Oskar hid from Grandma, which freaked her out, and ever since, they have developed a ritual of responding "I'm OK" when the other person says his or her name—it's like their own private game of Marco-Polo. But even though Oskar is very close with Grandma, he actually doesn't know many details about her personal life; for example, when the renter comes to live with her, Oskar isn't allowed to meet him or learn that he's his Grandpa. Grandma is also a narrator of the novel. All of her chapters are entitled "My Feelings," and they're all segments of a letter that she's writing to Oskar from the airport. The chapters don't reveal why Grandma's at the airport until the end of the novel, when the reader learns that she's followed Grandpa there and has convinced him to live with her there, in a place where everyone else is either coming or going, but they are the only ones staying. In the letter, Grandma reveals many more details her life than she'd ever told Oskar in person. Grandma often describes the same events that Grandpa narrates, but she provides a different version. For example, Grandpa thinks that Grandma never realized that the whole biography she typed of her life on the typewriter is entirely blank: he thinks that the typewriter ribbon hadn't been replaced, but her eyes are so bad that she'd never noticed. Grandma, however, says that she's perfectly aware that the pages are blank, since she only typed spaces. Grandma tells Oskar that it's always necessary to tell people that you love them, since you never know what will be your last chance to do so. - Character: Dad. Description: Thomas Schell, Jr., Oskar's father, never appears in the novel, since it takes place after he died, but he provides its emotional center, and his death precipitates the novel's main storylines. Dad didn't work in the World Trade Center—he was a jeweler, and he was visiting the towers for a meeting, which just happened to be on the morning of September 11. For Oskar, the public grief of the city becomes enmeshed with the painful, private grief of Dad's death. Oskar feels like he has to choose between loyalty to his father's memory or being able to be there for his Mom in the present. Other characters in the novel are also rocked by Dad's death: Mom and Grandma, of course, are also in grief, but his death has larger ripple effects, too. When Grandpa sees the name "Thomas Schell" in the obituaries, he immediately boards a plane to Manhattan from Dresden, though he hasn't been back for forty years. Even though Dad is dead, we do get to hear his voice. Oskar preserves the phone messages that Dad left on September 11, playing them to himself and, eventually, to Grandpa. Dad's voice is also embedded in the structure of the novel like a voicemail. In the eleventh chapter of the novel (which may or not be coincidental, given the significance of "11" in this novel focused around 9/11), in a flashback, Dad tells Oskar the story of the "Sixth Borough," which turns out to be a fable to help Oskar deal with loss and grief. Oskar is overwhelmed with guilt and grief, not only because he didn't tell anyone about the phone messages, but, more importantly, because he heard his Dad make his final phone call but he didn't pick up the phone. When Oskar finds the mysterious key in Dad's closet, he takes the key as a sign and starts an elaborate expedition, just like the kind of expeditions his Dad used to send him on around the city. Finding out what the key unlocks becomes Oskar's way of both holding onto his Dad's memory and trying to help assuage his guilt at the loss. The expedition also allows Oskar to connect with others who are in pain when he learns about the difficulties they have faced in their lives and how they experience love and loss. - Character: Mom. Description: Oskar's Mom, a lawyer, has a different type of relationship with Oskar than he had had with his Dad: Oskar's Dad sent him around the city on expeditions, and they had lots of special rituals with each other, but, in contrast, Oskar and his Mom don't really have their own secret codes and inside jokes. Mom tries to fill some of the void that Dad left—she offers to check the New York Times for typos with Oskar, just like he and Dad used to do—but it's not the same. Oskar is also mad at Mom because she has started seeing a new boyfriend, Ron; Oskar thinks that she's not properly grieving. For most of the novel, Mom seems as though she's an absentee parent: she never asks Oskar where he's going, and never acts concerned when he's out for hours and hours at a time by himself. Even Oskar wonders at her apparent lack of concern about his whereabouts—and though it's helpful in terms of his quest, he seems a little disappointed that she doesn't seem to care where he is. Unbeknownst to Oskar, his Mom knows about his whole journey to find the key from nearly the very beginning of his quest, and she's been one step ahead of him the entire time. She called all the Blacks ahead of time to let them know that Oskar was coming, which is why so many of them seemed so suspiciously prepared to see him. Mom also makes sure that Oskar goes to therapy and convinces Dr. Fein not to hospitalize him, but rather to allow him to work through his grief in his own way. Even though Mom seems like she's removed and out of touch for most of the novel, it turns out that Mom does indeed loves Oskar deeply and that she has been very present in his life the entire time—she's just been behind the scenes, watching out for him. Mom loves Oskar so much that she can let him figure out life his own way, without her interference. - Character: Mr. Black. Description: Mr. A. Black's first name is never given, even though he's the Black that Oskar becomes the closest with on his quest. Mr. Black lives a few floors above Oskar, and even though he hasn't left his apartment for twenty-four years, he decides he's going to accompany Oskar on the rest of Oskar's expedition. Mr. Black says that he was born on January 1, 1900, which makes him over a century old; everything he says ends in an exclamation point, because he shouts everything. Mr. Black used to be a war correspondent, and his apartment is stuffed with fascinating memorabilia. The bed in the apartment is made out of a tree—his wife kept tripping over the tree root, so Mr. Black cut it down and made it into a bed—and Mr. Black has put a nail into it every day since his wife died. There are so many nails in the tree now that the keys on Oskar's neck float gently towards the bed, magnetically compelled. Mr. Black keeps a biographical index of "significant people"; every name has one word after it in description, and that word is usually "war" or "money." Mr. Black becomes smitten with Ruth Black, whom he and Oskar meet on top of the Empire State Building, but after they visit her, Mr. Black quits their expedition. When Oskar returns to Mr. Black's apartment, Mr. Black is gone, and his possessions are about to be cleared out. Oskar finds his own name in Mr. Black's biographical index with "son" as his description. - Character: Abby Black. Description: Abby Black lives in Brooklyn, in the narrowest townhouse in the city. Abby is one of the first Blacks that Oskar visits, but, as it turns out, she holds the key to the mystery of the key: her husband, William Black (much farther down the alphabet) knows about the key and has been searching for it. She left a phone message for Oskar after he came to visit her, but he doesn't hear it until eight months later. The message cuts off in the middle because Oskar's Mom picked up the phone, which is how Mom figured out about the expedition. - Character: William Black. Description: William Black, Abby's husband, is the "Black" of the envelope that the key was inside; or, to be more precise, William's father was the "Black" of the envelope, because the key opens his father's safety deposit box. When William's father was dying, he wrote letters to all of his friends and acquaintances. The letter he wrote to William says that there's a key to the father's safety deposit box inside a blue vase, but before William had read the letter, he sold that blue vase in an estate sale to Oskar's Dad. William had searched for Oskar's Dad, but since it was right after September 11, the search went nowhere. William had a complicated relationship with his father and never got to say goodbye, so finding the key helps provide some closure for him. - Character: Ruth Black. Description: Ruth lives on top of the Empire State Building: she's a tour guide for the observation deck, but she never leaves, preferring instead to sleep in the storage room. Mr. Black is smitten with Ruth, and wants to date her, but Ruth tells him that she will never leave the Empire State Building. Ruth's husband used to beam up signals that Ruth could see from the observation deck. Ruth is the final Black on the expedition that Mr. Black meets—after this encounter, Mr. Black tells Oskar that he's finished. Ruth's choice to live on top of the Empire State Building is similar to Grandpa's and Grandma's decision to remain in the airport at the end of the novel. - Character: Jimmy Snyder. Description: Jimmy Snyder is the annoying boy in Oskar's class who teases him. Jimmy plays Hamlet in their class play, and he makes fun of Grandma, who he says laughs at the wrong parts. Oskar imagines himself standing up to Jimmy and humiliating him, but instead, he keeps quiet. Jimmy also torments Oskar when Oskar gives a presentation about the bombing of Japan in World War II. Jimmy is Oskar's antithesis in every way: Oskar is curious, hyper-verbal, and very sensitive, but Jimmy spends all his energy making raunchy jokes and being a bully. - Character: Dr. Fein. Description: Dr. Fein is Oskar's therapist. Dr. Fein tries to play some mind games with Oskar to draw forth his subconscious, but Oskar in turn tries to out-clever Dr. Fein, which creates a sort of spy-versus-spy atmosphere. Dr. Fein thinks that Oskar should be hospitalized, probably because he is inflicting bruises on himself, but Mom—who has arranged for this therapy in the first place––convinces Dr. Fein to trust Oskar. - Character: Ron. Description: Ron is Mom's boyfriend, whom she met in a grief support therapy group. Oskar initially dislikes the idea of Mom being with Ron, since it seems like she's not grieving properly after Dad's death. However, when Oskar finally learns a bit more about Ron—that Ron has lost his wife and daughter in a car accident—he softens towards him. - Character: Georgia Black. Description: Georgia lives on Staten Island, which means that Oskar has to face his fear of boats and take the ferry to her house. Georgia's whole house is devoted to her husband, even though he's still alive. Georgia is the first of the Blacks whom Grandpa meets while Grandpa is following Oskar; that's how he starts to learn about Oskar's journey, and how he learns that Oskar's Mom is also tracking her son's whereabouts. - Character: Simon Goldberg. Description: Simon Goldberg was the Jewish friend of Anna and Grandma's father. During World War II, their father hid Simon Goldberg in the family's shed-turned-library in an effort to protect his friend from the Nazis. Goldberg does eventually get caught and sent to a concentration camp, but it's unclear whether or not he dies. Grandpa sees a man whom he thinks is Simon Goldberg in a bookstore in Manhattan; the man gives Grandpa a hug. - Character: Gerald. Description: Gerald, the limousine driver, takes Oskar, Mom, and Grandma to Dad's funeral. He gives Oskar his card, which is presumably how Oskar knows how to call him to drive himself and Grandpa to dig up Dad's coffin. On the drive to Dad's funeral, Gerald seems taciturn and gruff, not responding to Oskar's jokes and conversation. However, on the drive to the cemetery, Gerald is much friendlier and sympathetic. He even helps dig up the dirt above Dad's coffin when Oskar and Grandpa can't do it. - Theme: Mortality and the Purpose of Life. Description: The intersection of national tragedy and individual grief is at the center of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Oskar Schell's Dad, Thomas Schell, died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Dad's death sets the main plot in motion, but concerns about mortality appear on many layers throughout the novel. Oskar's Grandpa was in Dresden in 1945 during the firebombing that killed hundreds of thousands of people, including his pregnant wife, Anna, and their unborn child. Oskar is also aware of mortality in a different way through his relationship with his Grandma. Grandma is old and somewhat infirm, and her death is always on the horizon, even if it's not directly a part of Oskar's life yet. Mortality and how to deal with the fact of death is a major part of the novel. We're all going to die, but we don't know when or where. Death is a natural fact of life, but sometimes, death comes through unnatural, unexpected, and brutal forces. Concerns with mortality occur figuratively and literally throughout the novel. Oskar takes part in his school's production of Hamlet, a play that is deeply concerned with mortality. And Oskar is one of the few, if not the only, kid in the show to pay attention to the existential crisis at the heart of the play. Just like the melancholy Prince of Denmark, Oskar is preoccupied with existential concerns. If we are all going to die, what are we supposed to do while we're here? What's the purpose of life? But Jonathan Safran Foer deals with the potentially overwhelming despair of mortality by describing the quirks and fascinating aspects of everyone's lives in sharp, vivid detail throughout the novel. Even though mortality and tragedy lies at the heart of the novel, the structure of the book celebrates the strangeness and richness of daily life. Oskar's quest to find the owner of the mysterious key he finds in Dads possessions opens him to the vast array of different people all living widely varied and completely different types of lives around the city: we all are going to die, and tragedy shapes the plot of the novel, but life can take an infinite variety of wonderful forms. - Theme: Puzzles and Cleverness. Description: Puzzles offer a comforting alternative to disasters that don't make sense: puzzles suggest that life has answers, and that even the scariest situations will have a solution in the end. Puzzles might seem like a light-hearted pastime, but Oskar takes puzzles extremely seriously. When Oskar discovers the key in his Dad's room, he turns it from a random object into a quest. The key is in a little envelope labeled "Black," and Oskar decides that the he's going to discover who Black is by tracking down everyone in New York with that last name. Oskar's self-assigned mission to unlock the mystery of the key becomes an elaborate journey that takes him around every corner of every borough of New York. Oskar's clearly a very precocious kid: he has an enormous vocabulary, and he proofreads the New York Times to relax. Puzzles have always been the way Oskar deals with sensory overload, or things that might be too complicated for him to grasp fully on his own. Oskar's Dad used to send Oskar on elaborate "Reconnaissance Missions" throughout the city, turning the potentially overwhelming landscape of New York into a treasure hunt. The puzzle also becomes a tribute to Oskar's Dad, or, in a type of irrational thinking, a way of keeping his Dad alive: if Oskar can believe that his Dad set him up on this quest, then his Dad still remains a part of his life.The form of the plot is a lot like a puzzle. Even though the main narrator is nine-year-old Oskar, Foer includes several letters and notebook entries written by other characters. Oskar's Grandpa writes letters to his son, who is either Oskar's Dad or the unborn baby who died at Dresden. Figuring out what's going on with the story of these other characters creates mini-quests within the main quest of the book (that is, to find out the mystery of the key). And there are puzzles within these other sub-plots. One of the letters from Oskar's grandfather to Oskar's dad is covered with red ink: Grammatical and spelling mistakes get circled, but lots of random and not-so-random words (like "love" and "father") are also circled. The editing marks make the letter into a puzzle: the circles and underlines make it seem like there's a hidden message that the reader has to decipher, even if the code is difficult to crack.The style of the book is also puzzle-like. Jonathan Safran Foer sticks photographs and images directly into the book, like a rebus puzzle. For example, there are photos of things like doorknobs, keys, paper airplanes, Hamlet, and Stephen Hawking that crop up in the middle of the story. Many of the images seem like they're meant to be from Oskar's binder, which he calls "Stuff That Happened to Me," even though most of the things in it only "happened" to Oskar in his mind, or by association. - Theme: Trauma and Guilt. Description: Trauma and guilt are very closely connected throughout Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Throughout the novel, several characters demonstrate what psychologists call survivor's guilt, which is when people who survive a traumatic event think they've done something wrong and feel guilty simply because they are still alive. National trauma is deeply connected to individual trauma throughout the novel. The major national trauma of September 11 becomes intertwined with the major personal trauma of Dad's death. Oskar and his family have to deal with both the huge, public tragedy of 9/1l and their own individual disaster that shakes them to the core. Oskar feels incredibly guilty about the phone messages that Dad left on the morning of September 11, 2001. Oskar hides the answering machine tape with his Dad's voice because he is too ashamed to admit to his Mom that heard his Dad but didn't pick up. Oskar continues to obsess over his Dad, and his quest to find out who "Black" is becomes his way of trying to cope with the guilt that going through such a traumatic experience has produced.Oskar's Grandpa is also tremendously affected by trauma and guilt. After the Dresden firebombing, Grandpa eventually stops talking: his pregnant wife, Anna, had died in the bombing, and he has such tremendous survivor's guilt that he becomes unable to speak. Grandpa married Anna's sister, who is Oskar's Grandma, after the war, but when Grandma became pregnant with Oskar's Dad, Grandpa left her, adding yet another layer to his feelings of guilt. But even though Grandpa doesn't speak out loud, he still communicates. He has the words YES and NO tattooed on his hands, and he writes notes when he needs to say something more complicated. Grandpa also writes long letters to his son (either his unborn son who died in the Dresden firebombing that he himself survived, or Oskar's Dad who he abandoned), even though he never mails them. Many of the feelings of guilt that trauma produces become resolved indirectly through the novel, rather than directly. Oskar does not ever get to say a proper goodbye to his Dad, but the key provides closure for William Black, who has been attempting to process his own father's death. Grandpa does not get to reconnect with his son, but he connects with family when he moves in with Grandma. Guilt connects everyone in the novel, and though characters might not be able to help themselves directly, they can each help each other. Tragedies might not have a direct solution, but by many indirect routes, the guilt can become bearable. Building community is presented as a way to deal with trauma and guilt: things that are crippling to bear alone can become manageable if there are others around to help spread the load around, if not lessen it. - Theme: Superstition and Ritual. Description: Oskar maintains a long catalog of rituals that regulate his behavior. Oskar's time, in some ways, is remarkably unstructured throughout the novel—he spend his days alone, wandering around the city—he constructs very specific rules for himself that he abides by rigidly, even when they don't seem to make much sense. For example, Oskar refuses to get onto public transportation, preferring to walk everywhere, even if it takes hours. Every time he meets one of the Blacks, he has a cup of coffee. Oskar's a vegan, and very particular about what he will and will not consume.Oskar also meets several other people with strange rituals. Mr. Black hasn't left his apartment for twenty-four years before accompanying Oskar on his journey. Ruth Black lives at the top of the Empire State Building and never comes down to ground level. Oskar and his Grandma have several private rituals with each other. For example, whenever one says the other's name, the other one says "I'm OK," as though they're playing a version of the game "Marco Polo."But a lot of Oskar's personal growth comes when he can break out of his rituals and realize that his world will still function. Oskar clings to superstitions because he feels afraid to enter the overly vast world without their support, but when he has to step outside his routine, or when he sees others break their well-established rituals, he becomes more able to push his own limits.Rituals in the novel are both crippling and liberating. Oskar's rituals sometimes help him move forward with his life: without creating elaborate rules for himself, and building an expedition out of a single word, he might never have been able to begin to process his grief. But if rituals become so deeply set in stone, they can stop someone from ever doing anything different, or from moving past the event that precipitated these ritual behaviors. Routines can be coping mechanisms that provide stability in a chaotic world, but the real strength of a ritual comes when someone can let it go. - Theme: Love and Family. Description: Even though guilt and fear often seem like the main emotions in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, all the characters who revolve in and out of Oskar's life have very strong connections to people they love: love, more than anything else, drives people to do what they do. Death also plays a powerful role in love, since one of the most powerful types of love in the novel is for people who have died. Oskar's love for his Dad propels him on his quest around New York City. Grandpa loves Anna, his first wife, so deeply that he can no longer speak after she dies. Oskar's Dad and Oskar's Grandma are both very close with Oskar, and Oskar feels as though he can be completely himself around them, rather than having to hide his intelligence or his quirks. Oskar is extremely verbally precocious and asks sharp, often bizarre existential questions, but rather than ignoring these queries or trying to quash Oskar's quirky curiosity, Dad and Grandma both understand how Oskar functions and speak to him in his language. Dad plays games with Oskar and pushes him intellectually (of course, we only really see their relationship through Oskar's memory). Grandma takes all of Oskar's strange habits and mannerisms very seriously, rather than calling him ridiculous, and they develop routines together. Mom, on the other hand, doesn't quite have the same rapport with Oskar as Dad and Grandma do. While Mom loves Oskar, she can't enter into his world in the same way. Mom doesn't seem to play a very active role throughout most of the book, since she doesn't accompany Oskar on his quest throughout the city, and she doesn't seem to be someone in whom Oskar can confide or with whom Oskar has long conversations. However, at the end of the novel, Oskar finds out that his Mom has been behind the scenes of his entire quest. She found out that he was visiting every person named Black in New York, and she called them ahead of time to alert them to her son's movements. Love binds people together, but family is an even deeper tie. Grandpa and Grandma also have a relationship that develops, eventually, into a very different kind of love than passion or desire. Although Grandpa left Grandma angrily when she became pregnant, because that broke the terms of their initial relationship, they eventually begin to forgive each other when he returns to her house as a renter. William Black, the Black who owned the key, had a very complicated relationship with his father, but when Oskar presents him with the key, which turns out to be to Black's father's safe deposit box, the key unlocks a wellspring of emotion. (Even though the key doesn't do much literal unlocking, it does a lot of symbolic and emotional unlocking throughout the novel.) - Theme: Language and Communication. Description: Oskar is an extremely verbally precocious nine-year-old––he and Dad used to comb the New York Times for typos as a relaxing evening activity. Oskar is a hyper-verbal narrator who tells us everything that's on his mind, and he has an enormous vocabulary. Oskar thinks about words all the time; in the first chapter, for example, he squints at a map, connects dots to see "FRAGILE," and discusses every single association he has with the word "fragile," as though he were writing his own private dictionary definition. Oskar also has his own private codes for things: "wearing heavy boots," for example, is his way of describing fear and sadness. Oskar clings to the belief that everything can be solved through puzzles and expeditions: that if he just interprets something correctly, or if he just finds one more clue, one more word, that will provide some sort of answers or closure to the gaping hole that the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers left both on New York City and in his own life. If Oskar uses an overabundance of words and digressions, then Oskar's Grandpa has the opposite problem: he doesn't speak out loud at all. Oskar's Grandpa loses his ability to speak after the trauma of seeing his loved ones die in the Dresden firebombing during World War II. He has "YES" and "NO" tattooed on his hands, and he write brief notes in a daybook to communicate anything more complicated. Even though Grandpa can't speak out loud, however, he does write several long letters about his past. It's never clear exactly to whom these letters are written—either Oskar's Dad or Grandpa's unborn child who died in Dresden—but they were never sent, and never read by their intended audience. The most meaningful communication in the novel, even though the novel is so loaded with verbal fireworks, is wordless. Oskar's Mom is silently following his journey: unbeknownst to either Oskar or the reader, she knows exactly what he's doing and alerts each person that he is on his way. Grandpa cares tremendously about his family, but never speaks out loud. Even Oskar, for all of his verbal precocity, learns that love is deeper than language. The novel ends with images, not words. Jonathan Safran Foer presents the reader with a backwards flipbook of a man falling out of the World Trade Center: instead of going down, the man appears to be falling up. This wordless, upside-down, tragic, yet expectant image provides more closure than words could convey: even though the flipbook is traumatic and terrifying, there's also a tremendous amount of hope that the reader can't help but feel when we see the man flying upwards. - Climax: The solution to the mystery of the key - Summary: Oskar Schell is a nine-year-old boy grieving the loss of his Dad, Thomas Schell, who died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Oskar is a very precocious boy: he's extremely intelligent and curious, making up all sorts of esoteric inventions, but he also is scared and traumatized. Oskar feels incredibly guilty because his Dad left five phone messages on the morning of September 11, but he hasn't told anyone about them; more importantly, he hasn't told anyone that he was actually in the apartment for the final time that Dad called, but he was too afraid to pick up the phone. Oskar, who was never as close with his Mom as with his Dad, is growing even farther away from her. He has a loving and loyal relationship with his Grandma, but he's still lonely and sad. Oskar finds a key in his Dad's closet; the key is in an envelope marked "Black." Oskar decides to track down every person with the last name "Black" in New York City to try and figure out what the key unlocks. One of the people Oskar contacts happens to live in Oskar's apartment building. Even though this Mr. Black hasn't left his apartment for twenty-four years, he accompanies Oskar on his expedition. Oskar's expedition takes him to every corner of New York City. He must conquer many of his fears: he rides the subway, eats non-vegan food, crosses bridges, and entrusts himself to the mercy of strangers. When Oskar and Mr. Black travel to the top of the Empire State Building to meet Ruth Black, whose husband had been dead for many years, and who hasn't left the top of the Empire State Building ever since. Mr. Black quits the expedition after that, which makes Oskar feel just as lonely and abandoned as when he'd begun. The novel also has a parallel storyline about Oskar's grandparents. Grandpa, who is also named Thomas Schell, was in Dresden, Germany, during World War II, when the city was firebombed. Practically all the people most important to Grandpa––Grandpa's lover, Anna, his unborn son, and his parents––were killed in the explosion. The trauma and aftermath caused Grandpa to lose his ability to speak. He has "YES" and "NO" tattooed on his hands, and he carries around a daybook, on which he writes notes to communicate. Several of the chapters are in the form of letters written by Grandpa to his "unborn son": this "son" could either be Oskar's Dad or the child that Anna, his lover, was pregnant with when she died in Dresden. After the firebombing of Dresden, Grandpa moves to New York, where he meets Grandma. He recognizes her from Germany: Grandma is Anna's sister. Grandpa can't speak at this point, but they communicate through gestures and the daybook. Grandma poses nude for Grandpa, who is a sculptor, but the sculpture just ends up looking like Anna. Despite the fact that Grandpa's still in love with Anna, he and Grandma marry. They designate certain areas of the apartment as "Nothing" and "Something" and concoct elaborate rules that limit their contact with each other. Nevertheless, Grandma gets pregnant, breaking their rules. Before Dad is born, Grandpa leaves Grandma and flies back to Dresden. On September 11, Grandpa sees the bombing on television, and he reads Dad's name in the obituaries. Grandpa immediately gets on a plane to Manhattan, even though he hasn't been to the United States in forty years. He phones Grandma, even though he can't talk, then leaves her notes; eventually, she lets him move back into the apartment, though only into the guest room. In addition to the letters from Grandpa, Jonathan Safran Foer includes a long letter from Grandma to Oskar, spread across several chapters. Grandma is writing to Oskar about her past. Throughout the novel, it's not quite clear why Grandma is sending Oskar such a long letter, since she lives in the next building over, and they see each other every day. But at the end of the novel, the letter finally reveals that Grandma and Grandpa are now living in the airport: she has convinced him to stay with her in this limbo land instead of flying away following the events of Oskar's quest. The two stories—the expedition and the grandparents' history––converge when Oskar meets "the renter"—that is, Grandpa—and Oskar tells him the entire story about Dad and the search for the lock that the key opens. Oskar also checks the phone messages for the first time in eight months and discovers a message from Abby Black, the second Black he'd visited. She says that her husband, William, knows what the key is for. The message cuts off halfway. When Oskar visits Abby, he learns why the message cuts off in the middle—that's when Mom picked up the phone, and Abby told her everything. Mom has been monitoring the expedition the entire time, it appears. (So has Grandpa, actually.) Oskar goes to William's office and gives him the key, which William says is for his dad's safety deposit box. William offers to let Oskar come with him when he opens the box, but Oskar refuses. On the second anniversary of Dad's death, Oskar and Grandpa go to the cemetery to dig up Dad's empty coffin. Grandpa buries the unsent letters addressed to his son into the grave. Jonathan Safran Foer's style of storytelling is visual as well as narrative. When characters take photographs or describe images, these often appear in the body of the chapter. In the letters from Grandpa often appear excerpts from Grandpa's daybook. The novel ends with Oskar's flipbook of a man falling from the building, but in reverse order, so the man appears to be falling up.

- Genre: Dystopian novel - Title: Fahrenheit 451 - Point of view: Third person - Setting: An unnamed city in America in the future - Character: Guy Montag. Description: A fireman and the book's protagonist. As the novel opens, Montag takes pride in burning books and the homes of people who illegally own books. After meeting Clarisse McClellan, however, he begins to face his growing dissatisfaction with his life, his job, his marriage, and the pleasure-seeking, unthinking culture in which he lives. In fact, he has been secretly hoarding books, without actually reading them. After Clarisse's death, he eventually begins to read the books. From that point on, there's no turning back, and Montag begins to take action against his oppressive society. - Character: Captain Beatty. Description: Montag's boss at the fire station. Beatty is a complex character. He has committed to memory many passages of classic literature, and can quote them at will, yet as a fire captain he is devoted to the destruction of intellectual pursuits, artistic efforts, and individual thought. Bradbury uses Beatty to explain how mid-20th-century America becomes the joy-seeking, irresponsible, unemotional, and intellectually repressive future world depicted in Fahrenheit 451. Beatty claims he, like Montag, once became interested in books, but he now endorses instant gratification. Yet Beatty uses his extensive learning to push Montag past the breaking point and goad Montag into killing him. After Montag kills Beatty, Montag becomes convinced that Beatty actually wanted to die (though it's never clear if this is true). Beatty is an intellectual wearing the uniform of the intellectual's worst enemy. Perhaps the contradiction is too much for him in the end. - Character: Mildred Montag. Description: Montag's wife. She drowns her unhappiness with pills and a constant barrage of media, fast driving, and other mindless distractions. The day after attempting suicide she has no memory of the event. She and Montag have lost whatever connection they once had. Mildred is a hollow person—she doesn't seem to have a real connection to anyone. Instead, she's devoted to her interactive TV shows. After Montag brings books home and reads poetry to her friends, she betrays him to the authorities, wanting to preserve her life of instant gratification and comfort. - Character: Faber. Description: A former English professor who describes himself as a coward because he did not act to try to change the direction in which society was headed. He uses a two-way radio to direct Montag through situations in which he is too frightened to place himself. He provides a counterpoint to Beatty's arguments against literature and thought. Faber is named after a famous publisher (Faber & Faber) and a brand of pencils. - Character: Clarisse McClellan. Description: Montag's teenaged neighbor. She is unlike anyone Montag has met before. She has no interest in the violent, thrill-seeking pastimes of her peers. She prefers to walk, engage in conversation, observe the natural world, and observe people. Her questioning, free spirit starts Montag thinking about his own life and his place in society. - Character: Granger. Description: One of the scholar-outcasts Montag meets on the railroad tracks in the countryside. Unlike Faber, Granger has had the courage to act on his convictions and leave civilization. He and his comrades memorize works of literature, waiting for the day when books will no longer be banned and humanity is ready to learn from its past. - Theme: Mass Media. Description: Much of Fahrenheit 451 is devoted to depicting a future United States society bombarded with messages and imagery by an omnipresent mass media. Instead of the small black-and-white TV screens common in American households in 1953 (the year of the book's publication), the characters in the novel live their lives in rooms with entire walls that act as televisions. These TVs show serial dramas in which the viewer's name is woven into the program and the viewer is able to interact with fictional characters called "the relatives" or "the family." Scenes change rapidly, images flash quickly in bright colors, all of it designed to produce distraction and fascination. When not in their interactive TV rooms, many characters, including Guy Montag's wife Mildred, spend much of their time with "Seashell ear thimbles" in their ears—miniature radio receivers that play constant broadcasts of news, advertisements, and music, drowning out the real sounds of the world. Throughout the novel, Bradbury portrays mass media as a veil that obscures real experience and interferes with the characters' ability to think deeply about their lives and societal issues. Bradbury isn't suggesting that media other than books couldn't be enriching and fulfilling. As Faber tells Montag, "It isn't books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books.... The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not." In an interview marking the fiftieth anniversary of the novel's publication, Bradbury indicated that some of his fears about mass media had been realized. "We bombard people with sensation," he said, "That substitutes for thinking." - Theme: Censorship. Description: Books are banned in the society depicted in Fahrenheit 451. When they're found, they're burned, along with the homes of the books' owners. But it's important to remember that in the world of this novel, the suppression of books began as self-censorship. As Beatty explains to Montag, people didn't stop reading books because a tyrannical government forced them to stop. They stopped reading books gradually over time as the culture around them grew faster, shallower, intellectually blander, and centered around minor thrills and instant gratification. In such a culture, books became shorter, magazine and newspaper articles became simpler, cartoon pictures and television became more prevalent, and entertainment replaced reflection and debate. Another factor that contributes to the growth of censorship in Fahrenheit 451 are minorities and what we might call "special interest groups." In order not to offend every imaginable group and sub-group—whether organized around ethnicity, religion, profession, geography, or affinity—every trace of controversy slowly vanished from public discourse, and magazines became "a nice blend of vanilla tapioca." In time, the word "intellectual" became a swear word, and books came to be seen as a dangerous means for one person to lord his or her knowledge and learning over someone else. Books, and the critical thinking they encouraged, became seen as a direct threat to equality. By making widespread censorship a phenomenon that emerges from the culture itself—and not one that is simply imposed from above by the government—Bradbury is expressing a concern that the power of mass media can ultimately suppress free speech as thoroughly as any totalitarian regime. - Theme: Conformity vs. Individuality. Description: Pleasure-seeking and distraction are the hallmarks of the culture in which Montag lives. Although these may sound like a very self-serving set of values, the culture is not one that celebrates or even tolerates a broad range of self-expression. Hedonism and mindless entertainment are the norm, and so long as the people in the society of Fahrenheit 451 stick to movies and sports and racing their cars, pursuits that require little individual thought, they're left alone by society. However, whenever individuals start to question the purpose of such a life, and begin to look for answers in books or the natural world and express misgivings, they become threats. Their questions and actions might cause others to face the difficult questions that their culture is designed to distract them from. For that reason, in the society of Fahrenheit 451 people who express their individuality find themselves social outcasts at best, and at worst in real danger. Clarisse McClellan represents free thought and individuality. She's unlike anyone else Montag knows. She has little interest in the thrill-seeking of her peers. She'd rather talk, observe the natural world firsthand, and ask questions. She soon disappears (and is probably killed). Fahrenheit 451's society is set up to snuff out individuality—characters who go against the general social conformity (Clarisse, Faber, Granger, and Montag) do so at great risk. - Theme: Distraction vs. Happiness. Description: Why has the society of Fahrenheit 451 become so shallow, indifferent, and conforming? Why do people drive so fast, keep Seashell ear thimbles in their ears, and spend all day in front of room-sized, four-walled TV programs? According to Beatty, the constant motion and titillation is designed to help people suppress their sadness and avoid any kind of intense emotion or difficult thoughts and experiences. The people of Fahrenheit 451 have to come to equate this motion, fun, and distraction with happiness. However, Fahrenheit 451 makes the case that engaging with difficult and uncomfortable thoughts and experiences is the only routes to true happiness. Only by being uncomfortable, or experiencing things that are new or awkward, can people achieve a real and meaningful engagement with the world and each other. The people in the novel who lack such engagement, such as Mildred, feel a profound despair, which in turn makes them more determined to distract themselves by watching more TV, overdosing on sleeping pills, or letting technicians use a specialized machine to suck away their sadness. The result is a vicious cycle, in which people are terrified to expose themselves to any kind of emotion or difficulty because doing so will force them to face their pent-up despair, though in reality it's their avoidance of those thoughts and feelings that creates their despair. Only after he acknowledges his own unhappiness can Montag make the life-changing decision to find Faber and resist his society's oppressive "happiness" and thought-suppression that he, as a fireman, once enforced. - Theme: Action vs. Inaction. Description: In the years up to and before World War II, many societies, including Germany, become dangerous and intolerant. Even so, their citizens were afraid to speak out against these changes. Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953, just a few years after WWII ended, and is very concerned with the idea of taking action versus standing by while society falters. In particular, the novel shows how Montag learns to take action, in contrast to Faber who is too cowardly to act. At the same time, Faber does help teach Montag the difference between reckless and intelligent action, so that by the end of the novel Montag is ready to act in a constructive rather than destructive way. - Climax: Montag's escape from the Mechanical Hound; the bombing of the city - Summary: Guy Montag is a fireman who believes he is content in his job, which, in the oppressive future American society depicted in Fahrenheit 451, consists of burning books and the possessions of book owners. However, his discontent, secret even from himself, becomes clear after he meets Clarisse McClellan, a teenage girl and his new neighbor, who engages in such outlandish behavior as walking instead of driving and having conversations. She asks him if he's happy. When he returns home to find that his wife, Mildred, has taken a bottle full of sleeping pills, he realizes that he is not happy. Mildred is saved, but the next day she has no memory of her suicide attempt. She sits in the parlor, engrossed in its three full walls of interactive TV. Back at the fire station, Montag is threatened by the Mechanical Hound, a robotic hunter that can be programmed to track any scent. Captain Beatty tells him not to worry—unless, Beatty adds jokingly, Montag has a guilty conscience. For the next week, Montag continues to talk with Clarisse and to examine his own life. One day, while the radio in the fire station mentions that war is imminent, Montag asks Beatty if there was a time when firemen prevented fires, instead of started them. The alarm rings, and the firemen all head to the house of an elderly woman whose neighbor has turned her in. The woman refuses to leave her house as they douse it in kerosene. She lights a match herself and burns along with the house. In bed that night, Montag asks Mildred—who, as usual, is zoning out listening to her earbud radio—where they met. Neither of them can remember. Mildred tells Montag that Clarisse has been killed. Haunted by the vision of the old woman's death, and by the news of Clarisse's death, Montag doesn't go to work the next day. Beatty visits him at home and delivers a long lecture on the history of censorship, the development of mass media, the dumbing down of culture, the rise of instant gratification, and the role of firemen as society's "official censors, judges, and executors." Beatty says it's okay for a fireman to keep a book for 24 hours out of natural curiosity, so long as he turns it in the next day. When Beatty leaves, Montag shows Mildred twenty books, including a Bible, that he's been hiding in the house. He feels that their lives are falling apart and that the world doesn't make sense, and hopes some answers might be found in the books. Montag and Mildred try to read the books. But reading is not easy when you have so little practice. Mildred soon gives up and insists that Montag get rid of the books so they can resume their lives. Montag, however, remembers a retired English professor named Faber whom he met a year ago and who might be able to help. On the subway trip to the man's house, Montag tries to read and memorize passages of the Bible he's brought with him. Faber is frightened of Montag at first, but eventually agrees to help Montag in a scheme to undermine the firemen. They agree to communicate through a tiny two-way radio placed in Montag's ear. When Montag returns home, his wife's friends are over watching TV. Montag loses his cool. He forces the women to listen to him read a poem by Matthew Arnold from one of his secret books. They leave, greatly upset. When Montag goes to work, Beatty mocks him with contradictory quotations drawn from famous books, which point out that books are useless, elitist, and confusing. Montag hands over a book to Beatty and is apparently forgiven. Suddenly, an alarm comes in. The firemen rush to their truck and head out to the address given. It's Montag's house. As they arrive, Mildred leaves the house and ducks into a taxi. She is the one who called in the alarm. Beatty forces Montag to burn his house with a flamethrower, and then tells him he's under arrest. Beatty also discovers the two-way radio and says he'll trace it to its source, then taunts Montag until Montag kills him with the flamethrower. Now a fugitive and the object of a massive, televised manhunt, Montag visits Faber, then makes it to the river a few steps ahead of the Mechanical Hound. He floats downstream to safety. Along some abandoned railroad tracks in the countryside, Montag finds a group of old men whom Faber told him about—outcasts from society who were formerly academics and theologians. They and others like them have memorized thousands of books and are surviving on the margins of society, waiting for a time when the world becomes interested in reading again. Montag is able to remember parts of the Book of Ecclesiastes, so he has something to contribute. Early the next morning, enemy bombers fly overhead toward the city. The war begins and ends almost in an instant. The city is reduced to powder. Montag mourns for Mildred and their empty life together. He is at last able to remember where they met—Chicago. With Montag leading, the group of men head upriver toward the city to help the survivors rebuild amid the ashes.

- Genre: War Novel, Bildungsroman, Young Adult Novel - Title: Fallen Angels - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Vietnam during the height of the Vietnam War - Character: Richie Perry. Description: - Character: Peewee (Harold Gates). Description: - Character: Johnson. Description: - Character: Lieutenant Carroll. Description: - Character: Monaco. Description: - Character: Lobel. Description: - Character: Simpson. Description: - Character: Brunner. Description: - Character: Jenkins. Description: - Character: Dongan. Description: - Character: Judy Duncan. Description: - Character: Mama. Description: - Character: Brewster (Brew). Description: - Character: Jamal. Description: - Character: Darren Lewis. Description: - Theme: War, Trauma, and Dehumanization. Description: - Theme: Perseverance and Heroism. Description: - Theme: Race, Identity, and Belonging. Description: - Theme: Reality and Fiction. Description: - Theme: Faith and Hope. Description: - Climax: Perry and Peewee get separated from their squad on patrol and must survive the night in enemy territory. - Summary: In Anchorage, Alaska, Richie Perry watches a soldier named Harold Gates (later, Perry will learn the soldier goes by "Peewee") brag about how many "Congs" he plans to kill when he arrives in Vietnam. It's September 1967. At only 17, Perry joined the army as soon as he graduated from high school. He's a poor Black kid from Harlem and his family—Mama and his little brother, Kenny—relies on him for support. He can't afford to go to college, despite his intellectual talent and good grades. In Vietnam, Perry is assigned to a combat unit. Although a knee injury should keep him off the front lines, his medical profile hasn't arrived yet. Not wanting to complain, he decides to tough it out until the paperwork arrives. Along with Peewee and two other soldiers, Johnson and Jenkins, he finds himself assigned to a squad deep in the Vietnamese countryside. Under the command of Sergeant Simpson, in includes Corporals Brunner and Lobel and Privates Brewster, Monaco, and Walowick. Coming back from their very first patrol, Jenkins steps on a landmine and dies. Over the following weeks, Perry gets to know his squad mates better and his friendship with Peewee deepens. The squad goes on pacification missions and jungle patrols. Filling in on a different squad, Perry witnesses a tragic episode when a nervous officer mistakes American soldiers for Vietcong fighters and calls in an artillery attack on them. When the platoon's deeply loved and respected Lieutenant Carroll dies of injuries sustained on a mission, Alpha Company's captain, Stewart, asks Perry to write a letter to Mrs. Carroll explaining the circumstances. Lieutenant Gearhart replaces Lieutenant Carroll just before the beginning of 1968. Early in the year, Vietcong fighters launch a coordinated attack on targets across the south, bringing the war to a new and more intense phase. Perry kills his first man while occupying a Vietcong-controlled village. As the fighting increases, Alpha Company receives orders to move further into the countryside. The squad learns that Captain Stewart has been volunteering them for extra and dangerous missions to curry favor and earn his promotion faster. On one of these missions, Brewster dies, and Perry receives serious injuries. He's briefly sent to the hospital at Chu Lai to recover, but quickly rejoins the squad on the front lines. He arrives to find that Sergeant Simpson's tour has ended. An openly racist man, Sergeant Dongan, replaces him. The squad participates in a disastrous joint mission with ARVN forces; so many soldiers die—including Sergeant Dongan—that the survivors can't evacuate their bodies. Instead, the survivors burn the bodies in a hasty battlefield burial. As the rescue helicopters arrive, the ARVN and American forces turn on each other in their desperation to escape first. A few days later, Peewee and Perry become separated from the rest of the squad on a reconnaissance mission. Believing their friends to be dead, they shelter for the night in a Vietcong "spider hole," then narrowly escape—rescuing Monaco in the process—the next morning. Their injuries send them all to the hospital at Chu Lai, where Peewee and Perry both receive medical discharges. Monaco must return to the fighting once more. As Perry and Peewee board a plane bound for California, Perry feels the war recede in the distance, but he knows that Vietnam, the squad, and the dead will never fade from his memory.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Far From the Madding Crowd - Point of view: Hardy uses an omniscient third-person narrator, who moves throughout the various settings of the novel and even among points of view. The first part of the book hews closely to Gabriel's perspective, for instance, but after he reaches Bathsheba's farm, the text mostly stays close to Bathsheba's own point of view to reveal her thoughts and emotions. The narrator, however, also moves between Bathsheba, Boldwood, Troy, and the "Greek chorus" of the farm hands at Warren's Malt-house. The narrator also at times makes general pronouncements on the characters, women, and rural life as a whole. - Setting: - Character: Bathsheba Everdene. Description: Bathsheba, the orphaned daughter of townspeople, is raised by her aunt in the countryside. From a young age, she is used to managing things on her own: for example, her aunt has her take charge of milking cows and fetching supplies for the house. She is handsome and can be vain about her appearance. In many ways, even though Bathsheba is already independent and determined at the beginning of the novel, she matures over the course of the book. At first, she insists on her independence to the detriment of others' feelings, as when she pursues Gabriel Oak without the intention of marrying him. Through the careless game that she later plays with Mr. Boldwood, she comes to recognize that independence is not necessarily the greatest good, and that it can be important to rely on others, just as it is crucial to understand the implications of one's own actions on others. In some ways Bathsheba conforms to Victorian stereotypes about women; for example, she can be thoughtless and emotional. But she also defies such stereotypes by running the farm herself and learning to manage her emotions and face an often hostile, gossipy world outside. - Character: Gabriel Oak. Description: Gabriel, like Bathsheba, changes over the course of the novel as a result of tragedy. For him the tragedy happens rather early on when his dog runs his sheep—which represent his life's savings and investment—over a cliff, and he is left penniless. At the beginning of the book, he is a more or less average person. He is no longer a young man but not yet fully adult, and he has a generally good reputation. He can be quick to judge, as when he labels Bathsheba vain, and he can be thoughtless, as when he says out loud to her that he really should marry someone wealthier than she is. But as a result of Bathsheba's refusal to marry him, as well as his misfortune, he becomes stoic, brave, and loyal. Over and over again, he proves what a decent human being he is: he puts out the fire, saves the lambs, and protects the ricks while Troy plies the other workers with brandy. He sees his love for Bathsheba as a burden he must bear, and he simultaneously tries to do all he can for her while feeling the need to rebuke her when he thinks she's not living up to his high standards. Gabriel also recognizes the carefully delineated social distinctions of the Weatherbury community, and knows enough not to try to claim a higher place in it than is his due—a strategy that ultimately proves successful. - Character: Mr. Boldwood. Description: The second of Bathsheba's suitors, Mr. Boldwood is a respectable, handsome, but serious forty-ish farmer, who is in charge of Lower Farm, not far from Bathsheba's farm in Waterbury. He has never married and, despite the gossip of the villagers, has never really been in love. He was, though, responsible for Fanny Robbin for a time, undertaking responsibility for her schooling and then her place at Bathsheba's uncle's farm. Boldwood's crucial turning point in the novel is the valentine that Bathsheba sends off to him, provoking a years-long adoration and obsession—one that slowly disintegrates into madness. The valentine opens Boldwood's eyes to the world of women, and disrupts his decades-long habit of stability and solemnity. As the book goes on, Boldwood's love for Bathsheba takes on disturbing features, as he tries to extract promises from Bathsheba even when it causes her distress. Boldwood's increasingly serious mental disturbance, though, is paired with a sincere love for Bathsheba, one that finally gives her freedom even at the expense of his own. - Character: Sergeant Francis Troy. Description: Bathsheba's third suitor is the son of a doctor who was ruined by debt after moving from town to country. Troy is impulsive—he leaves his clerk job to enlist in the army—and is often described as a child who follows his instincts and can't think of other people's thoughts or desires over his own. He is handsome and charming, able to use his looks and language to his advantage in order to get what he wants (especially with women, though also when money is involved, as when he tricks Boldwood into paying him off for the marriage to Bathsheba that has already happened). But Troy is portrayed as truly capable of love. He may have seduced and then abandoned Fanny, but it becomes clear over the course of the novel (both to readers and, perhaps, to Troy himself) that he did love her—though such love is inextricable from his cruelty to Bathsheba. Ultimately, however, Troy's desire for material comfort conquers his aversion to Bathsheba and prompts him to return to her, though he can't imagine just how much of an effect his actions will have on others. In this way, he is not dissimilar from the Bathsheba of the beginning of the novel. - Character: Fanny Robbin. Description: The youngest servant at Bathsheba's farm, Fanny has no friends or family to her name, though she was taken under Boldwood's wing in order to be established at the farm. Fanny is in love with Troy, who has courted her and promised to marry her, though he waffles on that promise. Fanny runs away to marry Troy – a marriage that never happens – and slowly sinks into greater and greater desperation, especially once she becomes pregnant with Troy's child. Fanny is in many ways a foil to Bathsheba, who can't manage to decide whether to pity or hate her rival. Her death condemns Bathsheba's marriage with Troy to failure, since it underlines to Troy how much he actually did love Fanny. - Character: Jan Coggan. Description: A farm hand who is friendly and cheerful, often serving as best man or godfather in marriages and baptisms around Weatherbury. Coggan is one of the regulars at Warren's Malt-house and often is wont to veer off into tangents during a conversation. He represents general public opinion around the town. - Character: Joseph Poorgrass. Description: Another of Bathsheba's farm-hands, Poorgrass is shy and timid, though he feels at home among the other workers, especially at Warren's Malt-house. Poorgrass is wont to make humorous, often irrelevant biblical and historical allusions, but he's also superstitious—he mixes these influences without any rhyme or reason. He is earnest and a good worker, although also sometimes drinks too much when he's tempted. - Character: Henry (Henery) Fray. Description: Another farm-hand, slightly over middle age, who insists on spelling his name "Henery." He is another one of the regulars at Warren's Malt-house, and is more critical than the others: he rages about Bailiff Pennyways, for instance, and is among the more skeptical about Bathsheba's capacity as a woman farmer. - Theme: Epic Allusion, Tragedy, and Illusions of Grandeur. Description: In Far From the Madding Crowd, Hardy began to construct a fictional region of England, "Wessex," which he calls in the preface a "partly real, partly dream-country" and which he went on to further develop in a number of other novels. In some ways, Hardy describes this world and its inhabitants with all the world-historical importance of places found in famous epics, such as Homer's Ithaca or Troy. And yet, at the same time, Hardy deploys an ironic touch that works to deflate his mythical or Biblical allusions. Thus, even as he treats his fictional English locale as a place of eminent significance, Hardy also reminds his readers of the much more pedestrian concerns of modern rural life. The book is full of allusions to the Bible, as well as to ancient Greek and Roman stories. For instance, Hardy describes his character Bathsheba, after she kisses Troy, as experiencing a kind of shock similar to Moses' amazement after God gives him a command. Hardy describes Gabriel Oak, meanwhile, as comparable to Minerva, referring to the Roman goddess of wisdom. These allusions rely on the Victorian reader's familiarity with the Bible and epic literature, and they work to insist on the significance of the actions within the book by making the actions of rural England seem comparable to the consequential actions of myths. Even if Far From the Madding Crowd takes place in a "partly dream-country," one that's far from the metropolitan center of society, we are asked to take its concerns and those of its characters seriously. Nonetheless, even as Hardy insists that the tragic events in the book should be taken seriously, his ironic touches constantly threaten to undercut the grandiosity of his Biblical and classical allusions. One example is the mother of Cainy Ball, who mixed up the Genesis story about Cain and Abel and named her son for the murderer rather than the victim. Again, readers would have been expected to laugh knowingly while the characters of Weatherbury are subject to ironic teasing. Similarly, in some ways the group of villagers, like Joseph Poorgrass and Jan Coggan, who gather periodically for a pint at Warren's Malt-house, function like an ancient Greek chorus by reflecting on the affairs of others and providing a running commentary on the events of the village. Their country patois and joking demeanor, however, make such a characterization humorously inapt. Irony, then, serves as an extra layer of complexity in Far From the Madding Crowd, prodding the reader to both recognize the grand allusions to canonical texts and to smile at their deflation in a modern rural world where illusions of grandeur can be woefully misplaced. - Theme: Conflict and the Laws of Nature. Description: The title of Far From the Madding Crowd is taken from an 18th-century poem by Thomas Gray, "Elegy on a Country Churchyard," but it cuts off the rest of the line, which in its entirety reads, "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." While the idea of the bucolic countryside as being free of the "strife" of the crowd is one way to characterize country life, Hardy's title is ironic: rather than depicting stereotypes of pastoral calm, his novel uses those images as a jumping-off point to portray a landscape that's actually riddled with conflict. Its characters must battle against the dangerous and often overpowering laws of nature and its creatures, even while the characters themselves become subject to conflicts among each other that mirror the difficulties of the natural world. Indeed, nature seems often to fly in the face of people's desires and plans. The disaster of Gabriel Oak's sheep is the novel's first dramatic instance of this. While Gabriel has spent years and all his resources developing the flock, one unlucky event kills them all and immediately transforms his circumstances. Later, though, Gabriel seems better equipped to handle the vicissitudes of natural disaster. He meets Bathsheba again after putting out a fire in Weatherbury, and he saves a group of lambs from being poisoned by clover—two instances of Gabriel's newfound ability to navigate the danger of the natural world. Troy is the opposite case: he is used to managing his own affairs adeptly, but after Fanny's death—and after a storm washes away the flowers he's planted at her grave—he rages against cold natural laws and uncontrollable circumstances rather than learning to work within them. Bathsheba, meanwhile, also learns to navigate as best she can in a hostile natural environment: for her, Troy eventually becomes yet another conflict-ridden aspect of this environment. After their wedding, for instance, he plies Bathsheba's workers with alcohol. As a result, no one except Gabriel is around to keep the hay safe from an incoming storm, and Gabriel and Bathsheba have to race against time and nature to ensure that all is not lost. Humans, then, can work to mitigate conflicts within nature, can rebel—unsuccessfully—against it, or can become hostile forces of their own. Whichever the case, the novel makes clear that country life is not exempt from such conflicts. And while humans manage natural forces as best they can, there is little they can do to halt forces outside their control. Fate, chance, and circumstance, then, rule Hardy's rural world. - Theme: Women in a Man's World. Description: Just as Bathsheba has to struggle against unfriendly natural forces, she also has to navigate a world that is made largely by and for men. This is particularly true once she takes over her uncle's farm as its mistress and owner. The attitudes of the novel's characters towards their new female supervisor range from admiring to condescending, and even the novel itself can indulge in stereotyped analysis of specifically "womanly" attributes. What is unmistakable, however, is that it is quite rare in the novel's world for a woman to be a farmer—or to be in a position of authority at all. From the beginning of Far From The Madding Crowd, nonetheless, we are given to expect that Bathsheba is not like other women. She is headstrong and confident; while many women would happily accept a marriage proposal from someone like Gabriel Oak, she refuses almost unthinkingly. Oak and Boldwood, perhaps because they fall in love with Bathsheba, don't seem to mind her position of female authority (although Oak does think that Bathsheba wouldn't be able to run the farm without him). Others, though, feel differently. At the markets, for instance, people look askance at Bathsheba weighing seed and chatting with clients just "like a man" with mingled respect, suspicion, and scorn. Meanwhile, the "Greek chorus" of farm hands continually discusses her every move. As a woman Bathsheba is subject to increased scrutiny and judgment and is held to a far higher standard than men—a scrutiny that holds for the other women in the novel, like Fanny Robbin, while the actions of someone like Troy are simply laughed off. Bathsheba recognizes and fears this level of judgment: it's one of the reasons that she relies so much on her servant Liddy, whom she thinks of as a fellow woman she can trust. Despite Hardy's radical attempt to portray Bathsheba as a confident and capable woman, the novel often slips into characterizations of her stereotypically female weaknesses. Such judgments might strike a contemporary reader as frustratingly old-fashioned. Ultimately, though, Bathsheba does prove herself able to manage a farm on her own. This portrayal of a successful female business owner is a challenge to Victorian assumptions about the role of women in public life. - Theme: Pride and Penance. Description: One of Bathsheba's principal weaknesses is her sense of pride, which (at least initially) is linked to vanity. When Gabriel Oak catches her looking at herself in the mirror, Bathsheba is simultaneously embarrassed and comforted by knowing that he's seen her at her worst. Bathsheba's pride suffers a number of other setbacks over the course of the novel, setbacks which she ultimately recognizes and accepts as proper ways of atoning for her earlier mistakes. Bathsheba's pride can also be linked to her thoughtlessness regarding other people: confident and impetuous, she dashes off a valentine to Boldwood without pausing to think of the possible ramifications of her actions. In another way, Bathsheba's pride leads her down a difficult path and into dire consequences for herself. Carried away by Troy's charm and flattery, she seems to decide to marry him for the sole purpose of rehabilitating her pride after he compares her to another, more beautiful woman. Pride is not, of course, limited to Bathsheba. Gabriel Oak, too, is proud and stubborn. After being refused marriage by Bathsheba, he only reluctantly begins to work for her, and keeps his feelings about her to himself for almost the entire rest of the novel. But for men, pride is usually an admirable quality, a sign of maturity, dignity, and self-discipline; for a woman, meanwhile, pride is more often portrayed as a vice. After Troy's apparent death, Bathsheba does decide that she must pay for her headstrong decisions of the past. Part of her penance involves her relationship to Boldwood, even as she struggles to determine whether agreeing to marry him would, in fact, be a properly moral show of penance. In general, the tragedies and deaths in the novel suggest that weakness and mistakes do ultimately lead to some kind of retribution—even if the novel shies away from implying that there's a divine accounting that balances out good and evil in the end. The book also implies that penance may not have to be eternal. There is not exactly a fairy-tale ending to the novel—the final chapter includes a tiny, quiet wedding that takes place amid eerie fog—but Oak and Bathsheba are finally permitted to be together, implying that mistakes can be corrected and pride accounted for. - Theme: Class Status and Mobility. Description: Part of Bathsheba's struggle in deciding whom to marry and how to establish herself stems from her uncertain socioeconomic status throughout the novel. At the beginning, Bathsheba and her aunt don't have much money, and yet Bathsheba is clearly not a peasant—she is well-educated and seems to occupy a position much above her actual income. Oak, meanwhile, seems to be on his way to reaching the rural middle class before the disaster of his sheep flock sends him back to fragility and insecurity and forces him to become a farmer's hand rather than a small landowner. His language, nonetheless, distinguishes him from the other farm hands, whose country slang places them onto a low social and economic rung from which they presumably may never ascend. Thus, the characters of Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak suggest that, while class defines opportunity and perception in rural England, it is not impossible for people—particularly smart, ambitious, and educated ones—to transcend it. Part of Bathsheba's attraction to Troy, meanwhile, is the glamor of his position as soldier: while he doesn't make a high income, he seems in many ways to be outside the closely-watched and finely-differentiated layers of rural economic positioning. Troy's situation suggests the desirability of being liberated from the petty and consuming class posturing that vexes the characters (like Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak) who are more enmeshed in the social fabric. Troy's literal mobility, however, also allows him to hide his sins, including impregnating Fanny Robbins. Thus, the social fabric can be both oppressive and protective—had Troy been more firmly rooted in society, Fanny and Bathsheba might have known, through his reputation, to stay away from him. Fanny, in turn, is perhaps the most vulnerable character in the novel: her lack of class power ultimately condemns her to death. In some ways, Bathsheba's own class privilege makes her exempt from such a fate as Fanny's, but the pairing of these two women underlines how powerful the intersection of class and gender can be in the novel. While Fanny is doubly condemned as a lower-class woman, Bathsheba too suffers from being taken advantage of—by Troy, for instance—as a result of her own wealth, coupled with sexual manipulation. Class, then, is shown to be a complex and powerful social category that is unevenly restrictive and has the potential to condemn people in some circumstances and save them in others. Class, in other words, is a social force, with all the complexities and contradictions that characterize human society. The negotiation of power and privilege is at the center of Far From the Madding Crowd, and the trajectories of the characters suggest a social landscape marked by class divisions that are deep and defining but, nevertheless, malleable. However, Hardy's characterization of the central characters complicates the novel's apparent optimism about class transcendence. When it was published, Far From the Madding Crowd was criticized for its portrayal of rural people as being "above" their actual class, and this rings somewhat true in light of the fact that Gabriel and Bathsheba seem to have resources (like education) and characteristics (like middle class speech patterns and a sense of agency and confidence) that would not typically be available to the rural poor. There's a sense, then, that Hardy believes in class transcendence for those characters who seem to naturally fit more with the middle class than the poor class in to which they were born. Conversely, class mobility seems unavailable to those characters, like the farmhands, whose characteristics seem to make them stereotypically poor. Likely unintentionally, then, Hardy gives readers the sense that class distinctions are not arbitrary cultural categories that shape and limit those who are born into them, but rather categories that reflect natural distinctions between people's individual natures. The way Hardy writes about them, it seems that Gabriel and Bathsheba are able to enjoy social mobility not because they are defying an arbitrary category, but because they are shown to naturally belong to a category other than the one into which they were born. This essentialism about class (or the idea that our class identification comes from nature rather than nurture) may seem backwards to a modern reader, and, since Far From the Madding Crowd is, in many ways, a novel defiant about class, this idea may have seemed backwards to Hardy, too. The stubborn persistence of class essentialism in a novel that attempts to be optimistic about class mobility is therefore a fault line in the novel, and one that shows just how powerful the idea of class was in Victorian England. In a sense, then, class distinctions are shown to be vexed not simply in the world of the novel, but also in the author's own mind. - Climax: Troy bursts in on Boldwood's Christmas party to reclaim his wife for his own, and Boldwood shoots him. - Summary: Far From the Madding Crowd opens with a description of farmer Gabriel Oak, a man just out of youth who has established himself as a sheep-farmer in the past year, putting all of his savings into the livestock. One day he catches sight of a woman in a carriage and, while she thinks she's alone, he watches her admire herself in her mirror. Later he sees her ride sidesaddle, not exactly ladylike, and when he finally meets the lady—Bathsheba Everdene—in person, he lets slip that he saw her. She's embarrassed and would rather have nothing to do with him, but soon after that he falls asleep in his cottage without leaving a window open to let out smoke from his fire, and Bathsheba saves him just in time. Gabriel begins to fall in love with her, and finally musters up the courage to go to her aunt's house and ask for her hand in marriage. Bathsheba isn't home, and the aunt, Mrs. Hurst, tells Gabriel that her niece has already had a host of suitors. Dejected, Gabriel leaves. But Bathsheba soon arrives and races after Gabriel, who is immediately cheered—but Bathsheba only wanted to say that she can't bear him imagining she has many suitors when she's independent and doesn't want to marry anyone. Not long after, Gabriel hears that Bathsheba has left for Weatherbury: her uncle has died and she is going to take over as mistress of his farm. Soon after that, Gabriel wakes in the middle of the night to find that one of his over-eager dogs has chased his entire flock of sheep across the fields, and they've fallen over a cliff to their deaths, destroying his entire life's savings. Gabriel settles his debts and is left penniless. He goes off in search of employment as a bailiff or even shepherd, and hears that there's work to be had near Weatherbury. On his way to the job fair, he comes across a fire, and takes charge of the disorganized farmhands trying to put it out: he manages to save it. Impressed, the mistress of the farm rides over and unveils herself: it's Bathsheba. Cool and unflustered, she says she needs a shepherd, and hires Gabriel. He goes to Warren's Malt-house, where a number of the farm hands, including Jan Coggan, Matthew Moon, Henery Fray, Joseph Poorgrass, and Laban Tall often gather to gossip and discuss town affairs. Tonight there's two pieces of news: first, the Bailiff Pennyways has been caught stealing, and second, Fanny Robbin, Bathsheba's youngest servant, is missing. It's soon discovered that Fanny Robbin ran off with her lover, a soldier in another town. Gabriel had run into the girl on his way into town, and she had looked scared and desperate. He gave her a little money then, and she now sends him the money back with a letter telling him that she's going to be married to Sergeant Francis Troy, but asks him to keep this news quiet. Meanwhile, Fanny goes to see Troy, calling up to his barracks window from the outside and reminding him that he's promised to marry her. He waffles for a little while, but then admits that if he did promise, then they will indeed get married. Meanwhile, Bathsheba is growing accustomed to her role as female farmer, even though not everyone accepts that, as a woman, she can do it. Nonetheless, she impresses everyone as she participates adeptly at the corn market. Almost all the men's eyes are on her—only one man, the serious middle-aged farmer Mr. Boldwood, fails to pay any attention to her. Bathsheba's pride is slightly bruised at this, even though she doesn't want to be the utter center of attention. Not long afterwards, she's sitting with her servant and companion, Liddy Smallbury, and preparing to send a valentine to one of the little boys in the village, Teddy Coggan. Liddy suggests that it would be hilarious to send the valentine to Boldwood instead. On a whim, Bathsheba decides to do so, and seals the anonymous letter with a joke seal that says, "Marry me." Boldwood is thunderstruck upon receiving the letter. After spending some time in a daze, he decides to go to Warren's Malt-house, where a number of the other workers are drinking and chatting. He leaves with Gabriel, and asks him if he can identify the handwriting. Both upset and shocked at the cavalier thoughtlessness of it, Gabriel says that it's Bathsheba's hand. At the next market, Boldwood does really study Bathsheba for the first time, and is amazed at her beauty. Bathsheba is satisfied that she's finally gotten his attention, though she has a pang of regret at how she's done so. He resolves to speak with her and asks her to marry him. Now deeply uncomfortable, Bathsheba refuses, but Boldwood insists, saying that he wouldn't dare to ask if he hadn't been led to believe that she had feelings for him. Bathsheba is unable to convince him that it was all a game—finally, she agrees to think about his proposal for a time. Still, she doesn't love him, but she admits to herself that she should accept the moral consequences for her actions. She goes to Gabriel to talk about it, but instead of sympathy she finds that he is disappointed in her actions. Bathsheba grows angry and dismisses him. Soon enough, though, Gabriel's services are needed when the sheep get into clover and risk being poisoned. He manages to save almost all of them, and Bathsheba turns on her charm once again in order to convince him to stay. During the sheep-shearing time, Boldwood asks for Bathsheba's hand once again. Knowing she should make amends for her actions, Bathsheba says she will try to love him, but would like him to wait a few more weeks before she promises. Thrilled, he agrees. That night, though, Bathsheba is pacing the grounds when she literally runs into a man on a path—a piece of fabric on her dress gets stuck to one of his soldier's buttons. The man begins to tease her about her beauty and charm, and Bathsheba isn't sure whether she should be pleased or angry. Upon arriving home, she asks Liddy who the soldier might be. She thinks it's Sergeant Troy, who's known to be a trickster with women, but whom she also finds charming and handsome. A week later he introduces himself to her formally, continuing to tease and jest with her. He eventually convinces Bathsheba to meet him in a clearing later that night; she does so, and he kisses her. Bathsheba falls in love with Troy, something that Gabriel notices, though it pains him. He decides to speak with Bathsheba about it, reminding her that she owes something to Boldwood (who has been traveling). Bathsheba grows angry with Gabriel and orders him to leave again, which he refuses. With Liddy, meanwhile, Bathsheba moves wildly from one temper to the next, worrying about Troy's character but unable to stamp out her feelings for him. She sends a letter to Boldwood telling him she can't marry him, but she happens to meet him in person the day after and he goes into a rage against Troy, who has just left town for a few days. Worried that they'll quarrel or hurt each other, Bathsheba decides she can either try to prevent Troy from coming back for a while or else break things off with him. Late at night, she takes her horse, Dainty, and rides off. But Gabriel and Jan Coggan think that the horse has been stolen, so they follow its tracks until they meet Bathsheba at the tollbooth. They resolve not to say anything of it. Bathsheba is gone for a few weeks, and Gabriel's helper, Cainy Ball, brings news to the farm hands that he saw her arm in arm with Sergeant Troy in Bath. Gabriel is upset and troubled, but that night he hears Bathsheba's voice, and thinks that since she's come home all must be well. Boldwood, though, catches sight of Troy outside an inn in town, and decides to follow him. At first, he says he'll pay Troy to marry Fanny, as is his duty, and Troy agrees; but Bathsheba soon comes to see him, and Boldwood, hiding in the bushes, recognizes just how much she loves him. Deeply upset, he tells Troy to marry Bathsheba so as to save her honor—he'll pay him for that instead. They go to Bathsheba's farm together, and Troy slips him a newspaper announcing that he and Bathsheba already got married. Troy laughs in Boldwood's face. Bathsheba soon grows upset with Troy's laziness, penchant for drinking, and love of gambling and horse racing. On the night of the harvest dinner, he ignores Gabriel's warnings that a storm is coming and the ricks should be battened down to protect the produce. Instead, he plies the workers with brandy until they're in a drunken stupor: only Gabriel, and later Bathsheba, work all night to protect the farm. Soon afterward, Troy and Bathsheba are leaving the Casterbridge market when they see a poor, ragged woman walking along the road. Troy tells Bathsheba to go ahead: he's recognized Fanny, and they agree to meet a few days afterward so that Troy can help her and find her a place to stay. At home, Bathsheba discovers a lock of blond hair in Troy's watch-case: he admits it belonged to the girl he loved before her. Only a few days later, the news reaches town that Fanny is dead—she had walked all the way to the Casterbridge Union-house and had died soon after arriving. Bathsheba is troubled by this news, wondering if there's any connection to Troy. She has Fanny's casket brought to her own house, since Fanny was her uncle's servant. Mary-ann tells Bathsheba of a rumor that there are two people in the casket, not one—indeed, Gabriel had seen "Fanny and child" written on the coffin and had rubbed out "and child." That night, Bathsheba dares to open the coffin and she sees the two, as well as Fanny's golden hair. Later Troy arrives and sees Fanny's body: he kisses it, and tells Bathsheba that he only ever loved Fanny, and that Bathsheba is nothing to him. He storms off. First he spends all his money getting a gravestone engraved and plants flowers around it, though the rain wipes them away. He then decides he cannot return home. He leaves and, near Budmouth, decides to go for a swim. Troy is drawn out by the current and finally is picked up by a boat. His clothes are not where he left them, so he accepts the sailors' proposal to join them on a voyage to America for six months. Back at Weatherbury, Bathsheba has reached a dull apathy: at first she refuses to believe that Troy is dead, as is reported, but as time passes her doubts cease. Boldwood proposes that she agree to marry him seven years from Troy's disappearance, since she will not legally be a widow until then. Bathsheba again puts him off, torn about what to do since she knows she owes him a great deal. At the late-summer fair, Troy returns as an employee of the circus. He catches sight of Bathsheba in the audience, but manages to avoid her. He gets Bailiff Pennyways to join his side, and together they scheme on how best for Troy to reclaim his "property," in his wife and her farm. That Christmas, Boldwood prepares a grand party—quite out of keeping with his personality. As it approaches, Bathsheba grows increasingly anxious. Finally, at the party, Boldwood once again proposes to her, and finally she agrees to marry him at the aforementioned date. Even though she's clearly distraught, Boldwood seems satisfied that he's gotten an answer from her, and forces her to wear a ring he's bought for her. As they emerge, though, the doorman calls that a stranger is outside, and Troy walks in. He orders Bathsheba to leave with him. Bathsheba freezes, but then Boldwood tells her to go with her husband. As Troy seizes her arm, though, she screams, and suddenly Boldwood shoots Troy dead. He calmly walks outside and turns himself in to the Casterbridge jail. Gabriel goes to fetch the doctor, and when they return Bathsheba is sitting regally, her full composure regained, with Troy's head in her lap. But when they return to her home, she begins to wail about her guilt for everything that has happened. Boldwood is initially sentenced to death, but thanks to a petition, is given a life sentence. Gabriel tells Bathsheba that he's planning to leave the farm and perhaps even the country. She grows increasingly upset at what seems to be a greater coolness from him and disregard for her. Finally she goes to see him at his cottage, where he tells her that he's agreed to take on Boldwood's farm. Bathsheba admits that she's been waiting for him to ask her to marry him once more: Gabriel is surprised but thrilled. Although he'd like a larger affair, Bathsheba insists on a small, simple wedding. They get married with only a few witnesses, but that evening many of the farmhands come to wish them well, bringing instruments and singing songs at their porch.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Fasting, Feasting - Point of view: Close third person. Uma (first section), Arun (second section) - Setting: First section: A small town in India; Second section: Western Massachusetts (1970's-1999) - Character: Uma. Description: Uma is the novel's spirited, oppressed heroine, the never-married daughter of a middle-class family in rural India. At an early age, Uma disappoints her parents by enthusiastically pursuing school, despite her failing grades, and showing no interest in domestic duties. Against Uma's will, Mama and Papa remove her from the convent school early, forcing her to stay at home and take care of her baby brother, Arun. Uma's parents struggle to find a husband interested in marrying Uma, who isn't pretty, accomplished or flirtatious like her sister Aruna. After several failed marriage attempts, Uma's parents resign their daughter to a life at home taking care of them. Uma's parents neglect her physical and emotional needs, demanding all of her energies and allowing her few freedoms. Yet, she loves people, poetry, and wandering, and is fearless and curious about new people and situations. She has seizures throughout the novel, a characteristic that represents her differentness from her family and society. - Character: Arun. Description: Arun is the quiet, introverted baby brother of Uma, and the youngest child of Mama and Papa. From Arun's birth, Mama and Papa proudly invest all of their hopes and dreams into Arun, smothering him with attention and forcing him to study until he has no energy left. To the disappointment of his parents, who value meat-eating and physical strength in males as signs of wealth and progress, Arun is a vegetarian who shows no athletic prowess. Prodded along by his father, Arun lethargically flies off to the University in Massachusetts. At college in America, Arun tries to free himself of his family and any other associations that threaten to entangle him. Arun fears being drawn into the judgment and expectations of others, and seeks personal freedom by withdrawing from social interactions and both Indian and American society. - Character: Aruna. Description: Aruna is the pretty, confident, and socially ambitious younger sister of Uma and second daughter of Mama and Papa. As a child, school comes easily to Aruna, though she takes no interest in it. While she is kind and helpful to Uma during their childhoods, she becomes snappy and superior when they approach adolescence, laughing at Uma's rejection by prospective husbands. Aruna, on the other hand, is so sexual and graceful that marriage proposals pour in for her. She marries Arvind, a wealthy, handsome man from Bombay. She moves to the city and lives the life of a perfectionist, wealthy westernized socialite—visiting her family only on occasion. While her treatment to Uma is unkind, her struggle to free herself from her roots and her family's limitations reflects in her tendency to criticize them and her ultimate decision to live a life apart from them. - Character: Mama. Description: Mama is the wife of Papa and the mother of Uma, Aruna, and Arun. Throughout the novel, her first name is never revealed—rather, she is just called Mama, defined by her roles as wife and mother. Mama is the picture of a proud, submissive wife, seldom expressing an opinion different than her husband's. She pursues her own interests only on the sly, making it her mission in life to cater to her husband's needs and to work with him in controlling the destinies of their three children. Uma can recall few instances of Mama's separateness from Papa. The most noteworthy example is her failed plea to her husband that he let her terminate her late-in-life pregnancy with Arun, which is both painful and dangerous to her health. Later, when Uma is older and complains of pain in her eyes, Mama pleads with Papa to allow Uma to visit a specialist for her eyes. On occasion, Mama shows some comradery with Uma, such as when her niece Anamika dies and Mama draws close to her daughter, realizing perhaps for the first time how lucky she is to have Uma. - Character: Papa. Description: Papa is a proud, yet insecure middle-class legal magistrate, the husband of Mama and the father of Uma, Aruna and Arun. Papa grew up in great poverty, and delights in reminding his children that he worked very hard in school to climb the social ladder and make a better life for himself and his family. Threatened by modern ideas of women's liberation, Papa is content to allow Mama to wait on him and obey his requests. Yet, he supports Mama's authority before his children, and the two have a complicit, cooperative marriage. Papa ignores people and ideas who challenge his authority, such as Dr. Dutt and, on occasion, Mama. After his retirement, he dedicates his energies to acting as an academic drill sergeant for Arun, forcing him through school and college. He habitually criticizes and neglects Uma, particularly her physical needs. - Character: Mrs. Patton. Description: Mrs. Patton is the sister of Mrs. O'Henry, wife to Mr. Patton and mother of Rod and Melanie, and the host who invites Arun to stay with her and her family in Massachusetts. A suburban American stay-at-home mother, Mrs. Patton is obsessed with shopping, particularly for groceries. Lonely and fascinated by Arun's culture and vegetarianism, Mrs. Patton tries to befriend him. Mrs. Patton routinely denies her own inclinations and feelings, not even following her instinct for most of her life to go vegetarian for fear that her husband will disapprove. Cheerfully trying to preserve her image of a perfect family, Mrs. Patton doesn't try to get to know herself or her children—especially Melanie, whose emotional and physical problems beg Mrs. Patton's attention. Toward the end of the novel, she begins to explore eastern spirituality in an attempt to find peace. - Character: Mr. Patton. Description: Mr. Patton is the husband of Mrs. Patton, and the father of Melanie and Rod. Working full-time in an office, Mr. Patton leaves housekeeping and cooking to his wife, with the exception of the barbecue. Athletic, macho and nationalistic, Mr. Patton doesn't understand why his wife and Arun don't want to eat meat. Mr. Patton places great value on work, and gets frequently frustrated by his family for not being more in-line and productive. Showing little interest in his wife and daughter, Mr. Patton only interacts with his son Rod. - Character: Melanie. Description: Melanie is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Patton, and the sister of Rod. Struggling with bulimia and anorexia that go unnoticed by her parents, Melanie is frequently bitter, angry, and difficult to talk to. Arun becomes preoccupied with Melanie's bad nutrition and defensive attitude, seeing a similarity between her bitterness and that of his own neglected sister, Uma. Melanie's eating disorder isn't treated until her mother and Arun catch her nearly unconscious, writhing in the forest. - Character: Rod. Description: Rod is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Patton and the brother of Melanie. Even-tempered and unemotional, Rod betrays little reaction to the conflicts and tension within his home. He knows about Melanie's eating disorder, and while he disapproves, he accepts it as an unfortunate reality. Athletic and accomplished, Rod is usually found working out or watching sports and eating with his dad. For Rod, sports are an escape from the difficult reality of his family life. Rod makes some effort at befriending Arun, but for the most part keeps to himself. In the end, he like Arun escapes his family by going away to college. - Character: Anamika. Description: Anamika is the beautiful, graceful, intelligent daughter of Lily Aunty and Bakul Uncle, niece to MamaPapa and cousin to Uma. Kind and sweet, Anamika is everyone in the family's favorite girl, and as children, Uma and Aruna fight for her affections. An excellent student, Anamika wins a scholarship to Oxford, but her parents don't even consider allowing her to go. When the girls reach adolescence, marriage proposals abound for Anamika. Looking for a man who matches Anamika's accomplishments, Lily Aunt and Bakul Uncle marry her off to a rich, educated man from another town. The marriage proves tragic for Anamika, whose husband and mother-in-law treat her like a household servant, beating her on a regular basis. She becomes infertile from beatings, and after twenty-five years of marriage is found burned to death on her porch. The novel never reveals whether Anamika's death was suicide or murder. - Character: Lily Aunty and Bakul Uncle. Description: Bakul Uncle is the brother of Papa, and Lily Aunty is his wife. Almost always mentioned together, Bakul Uncle and Lily Aunty have a marriage much like Mama and Papa's—neither one expresses a different will or opinion than the other. The parents of Anamika and Ramu, Bakul Uncle and Lily Aunty live in the city and are wealthier than Mama and Papa, due to Bakul Uncle's successful career as a popular attorney. To the traditionally minded Lily Aunty and Bakul Uncle, success and social approval are very important, which is why they don't allow Anamika to go to college, instead pursuing the wealthiest husband for Anamika — with no consideration for the man's character. It is also their fear of social disgrace that prevents them from rescuing Anamika from what they know is an unsafe marriage. When she dies a violent death, they refuse to acknowledge what really happened, saying it was destiny. - Character: Mira-Masi. Description: Mira-masi is the widowed, religious wife of an elder cousin of Papa's family. She has dedicated her life to her worship of the Hindu god Shiva, and spends her days traveling the country, making pilgrimages to sacred rivers and temples. Untethered by the authority of either husband or any other male relative, Mira-masi has more freedom and independence than any other female in Uma's family. Fanatical in her devotion, Mira-masi lives a simple life focused almost wholly on her religious rituals. Uma admires Mira-masi, who is kind and attentive to her, and sees her as especially chosen by the Lord Shiva. MamaPapa disapprove of Mira-masi, seeing her religion as too traditional and disapproving of her independent lifestyle. Mira-masi tries to free Uma from MamaPapa by bringing her with her to an ashram, and even fights Ramu when he comes to bring her back. - Character: Ramu. Description: Ramu is the son of Lily Aunty and Bakul Uncle, brother of Anamika, and cousin to Uma. Rebellious and adventurous, Ramu is the "black sheep" of the family. Spending his youth traveling on the seas and throughout the country, Ramu disappears for long periods of time. Uma loves Ramu, ignoring her parents' disapproval of his attitude and ways. When he visits Uma's family, he behaves irreverently and with entitlement, bringing Uma along to dine at the Carlton Hotel in the city. Sweet and doting with Uma, he flirts and laughs with her, and encourages her to be herself. Yet, his character and allegiance are not consistent, as in his youth, he followed MamaPapa's bidding in bringing Uma back from the ashram against her will. - Character: Mrs. O'Henry. Description: Mrs. O'Henry is the American Baptist missionary who lives in Uma's village, and the sister to Mrs. Patton. Intent on proselytizing, Mrs. O'Henry uses social events to spread her Christian message to the Indian women in her village. Yet, she is kind and helpful, always making an effort to invite Uma to social events, to correspond with her, and to involve her in the community. Mrs. O'Henry is one of the few friends Uma keeps as an adult. - Character: Mother Agnes. Description: Mother Agnes is the Mother Superior at the Convent School where Uma attends as a child. Uma loves Mother Agnes, who returns Uma's affection. Yet, she feels helpless against MamaPapa's will to keep Uma at home, so she tries to encourage Uma to accept her domestic responsibilities happily. Mother Agnes reaches out to Uma as an adult, in an effort to involve her in church activities. - Character: Mrs. Joshi. Description: Mrs. Joshi is the neighbor and friend of MamaPapa and their family. Kind to Uma, Mrs. Joshi has a more modern parenting style and outlook on the world than Mama, and Uma often wishes Mrs. Joshi were her mother. The only example in the novel of a woman who is in a "love marriage", Mrs. Joshi is one of the only genuinely happy characters. She feels free within her marriage to express herself and allow her children to feel free and take their own paths in life. - Character: Dr. Dutt. Description: Dr. Dutt is the confident, smart village doctor. An unmarried, independent woman, she is the daughter of an important politician. Dr. Dutt saves Uma when she has a seizure at Aruna's wedding, and later comes to MamaPapa's house to offer Uma a job at the nursing school she is supervising. Dr. Dutt, like Mira-Masi, represents female independence—only, Dr. Dutt represents the modern female, who is establishing herself within the male-dominated professional world. - Character: Ayah. Description: Ayah is the nanny to Uma, Aruna, and Arun when they are young. Later in life, she stays on as the household servant. Ayah babies Uma even as an adult, and she often uses emotional appeal to get Uma to take pity on her in her old age and give her things she needs. Uma takes Ayah for granted, not recognizing her own privilege relative to Ayah. - Character: Lakshmi. Description: Lakshmi is the rebellious daughter of Ayah. After Ayah works to find a good marriage for her daughter, Lakshmi decides she would rather be independent, so she escapes the marriage and goes to look for work as a servant. Ayah, feeling she worked hard for Lakshmi to have a better life, beats her daughter, much to Uma's disapproval. - Theme: Gender and Social Roles. Description: The pressures and expectations placed on the different characters in the novel show the contrast in the social roles men and women are expected to fulfill, both in India and in the United States. While men are expected to be hard working, academic, and successful, the social value of women is dependent on their submissiveness, domestic abilities, beauty and child bearing. Aruna and Uma are raised, educated, and groomed only with marriage in mind. When the multiple attempts of MamaPapa to arrange a marriage for Uma fail, it becomes Uma's job to take care of her baby brother, Arun, and later her aging parents. Mama's identity is tied in with her role as the wife of an important man, and she seldom disagrees with him. Anamika meets the social expectations of female submission—yet, abused to death, Anamika experiences the ultimate loss of freedom that threatens all women who are forced to fulfill the feminine ideal. Dr. Dutt and Mira-masi both represent women who, independent of family and men, defy female social roles. Men also lose their free will and individual expression to the social roles they must fill. As a child, Arun is showered with care and attention, unlike his neglected sister, Uma. Yet MamaPapa place high demands on Arun for him to work hard in school and achieve constantly, giving Arun no alternative path. While Papa has the most authority in Uma's household, his ego and pride are bound to his social role as a male head of the household. He cannot appear vulnerable, and so never forms genuine human connections. American society as portrayed in the novel also places gendered expectations onto its members, particularly in regards to male and female beauty. Mrs. Patton, like her daughter Melanie, is burdened by American ideals of female perfection and beauty, which are obsessed with dangerous degrees of thinness and over-tanning. Mr. Patton and Rod similarly fulfill the traditional Macho American stereotype of athleticism and hard work. Like Papa, Mr. Patton assumes passive control over the members of his household. Mrs. Patton, like Mama, appears to have no other identity beyond wife and mother. - Theme: Family Life and Individual Freedom. Description: At the heart of many of the character's stories lies a common search for freedom to be oneself and to carve out one's own life path. The needs and desires of the individual are in constant tension with the demands of the family, which is the central social institution throughout the novel. Uma's desire for freedom is the central example: Constrained by her family's needs and expectations, Uma yearns to be free, pushing against her family wherever possible. Uma's desires are in constant check by her parents, yet she develops a freedom of spirit in her own world. Mira-masi, Ramu, and Dr. Dutt all represent freedom from family expectations and social roles. Leading very independent lives, they have defected from their traditional family roles and defied societal expectations. Not surprisingly, all of these characters are unmarried. Marriage, with the exception of Mrs. Joshi and Aruna's example, almost consistently threatens individual freedom by melting two people into one—as symbolized by Uma's reference to her parents as one entity: MamaPapa. Further, this melding through marriage usually comes to the detriment of the woman, who ends up being subservient to the man. While gender expectations inhibit both Uma and Anamika's freedoms, it is the confines of marriage in particular which prove so brutal for Anamika's freedom and her life. Arun, having never had the choice of his surroundings or his life paths, tries to live as independently as possible in the United States. While in America, Arun tries to avoid situations that involve integrating himself into families and other tight-knit groups, feeling he can be himself only when he is by himself. For the Pattons, the family structure deteriorates, becoming oppressive in its inability to serve the needs and desires of its members. In their American individualism, they neglect each other. Mrs. Patton's determination to present a harmonious family image prevents her from seeing the real problems of her children. Mr. Patton tries to control his family by ensuring that everyone is productive. Neither parent nor child try to form genuine relationships, making family a false haven for its members. - Theme: Plenty/"Feasting" vs. Want/"Fasting". Description: Access to resources play a large factor in determining the quality of life and opportunity available to individual characters in the novel. Plenty and want are not what they appear to be, and characters who seem to have much are often found wanting; likewise, those who seem to have little are rich in spiritual ways. India is contrasted with America, and Uma's lower middle class parents are contrasted with wealthier families in India. Seeking economic plenty is very important to characters in the novel. For example, MamaPapa are deeply interested in increasing their wealth and status by affording good marriages for their daughters, and a good education for their son. Even within the same family, male characters have greater resources and opportunities, particularly in the Indian context. While MamaPapa put a great deal of money, time, and attention into their son Arun's education and physical care, Uma is not even allowed to finish her basic primary education or receive needed medial care for her painful eyesight. For women, personal traits like charm, domestic capability and physical attractiveness allow them access to higher-status marriage partners, and therefore greater social status. Aruna, being prettier and more outwardly charming, is assigned a higher social value by her parents and by the community than her sister Uma. Yet, Uma has a different kind of plenty: she has a vast inner world. Her kindness, curiosity, and her desire for freedom and autonomy allow her to engage her mind and her heart. These make her richer, in many ways, than the other characters.When Arun goes to the United States, he discovers a land of economic 'plenty', even excess, which he compares to the modest means of his own family in India. However, lacking the warmth and togetherness of Arun's family in India, the American family seems hollow to him, having a deeper kind of poverty. This is obvious to Arun than when he witnesses Melanie suffering from hunger and malnourishment due to her eating disorder, while there is a fridge full of food. - Theme: Tradition/India vs. Modernity/West. Description: Throughout the novel, we see conflict between old ways, or 'tradition' running against new ways, or 'modernity'. Most frequently, tradition is associated with India/Rural/Home/Extended Family/ Poverty/Fasting and modernity is associated with Western/Urban/Individuality/Commercialism/Feasting. MamaPapa, from rural, humble roots, hold fast to traditional values, placing less value on daughters' educations and more value on daughters' obedience and preparation for marriage. The nuns at the convent and the Christian missionaries represent a western perspective in India that challenges MamaPapa's traditionalism. Uma's parents see no need for Uma to go into the city with Ramu or to visit Aruna in Bombay, as they also see the urban settings as threatening. Yet, the 'Old/India' and the 'New/Western' paradigms are constantly shifting. Mira-masi dedicates her life to traditional Hindu Gods and Goddesses, yet to MamaPapa there is something very dangerous and progressive about Mira-Masi's free-roaming, unmarried life. Arun's desire to be a vegetarian appears so old-fashioned to MamaPapa that it is almost defiant. While western ideas may seem more liberating, its people more liberated, western society and the urban setting do not offer freedom from gender roles or social expectations. Aruna feels so pressured by the ideals of the wealthy urban India that she becomes anxious and obsessed with perfection. Through commercialism, wealth and image have become the new constraint. American society places high expectations on women: while Melanie is not being pressured by her parents to marry as Uma and Aruna were, she is pressured by American ideals of beauty to achieve unhealthy thinness—at whatever cost. Mrs. Patton, trying to be the picture of motherhood, feels she cannot pursue vegetarianism because her husband won't approve. For the old-fashioned Mr. Patton, vegetarianism represents a threat to the American way. - Theme: Loneliness and Togetherness. Description: The difference between loneliness and being alone is a tension that affects many characters throughout the novel. Loneliness affects many characters—yet, togetherness, especially within families, doesn't always solve the loneliness of the individual. Balancing the needs for both community and solitude is a constant struggle, especially for Uma and Arun. Within Indian society, individuals experience mental isolation within tight-knit families. The obligation to maintain a pretense of family harmony is isolating because individuals have no recourse for expressing their true desires without rebelling against the family. Uma is constantly in the company of her parents or other family members - yet she is lonely and isolated within those relationships, because true friendship is lacking: Uma, social and curious in nature, hungrily seeks any opportunity to make new friends and interact with people outside of her nuclear family home. Arun is similarly isolated within his family, as he too has no friends, and his obligation to study takes up all of his time and energy. Yet, unlike Uma, Arun develops a preference for being alone, resisting groups and people who try to include him. Within American society, the breakup of the family manifests itself more obviously on a daily basis. The barbecue dinner featured in the Patton's house within the novel is a total flop- neither of the Patton children are present, the father is angry, the mother must cover her unhappiness about being forced to eat steak, and the feeling that members of the household are disunited appears stark. Rather than spending time together, the family spends their meals as well as their leisure time apart. Melanie is isolated in her feelings and her struggle in the same way as Uma, except that in the American context, Melanie is openly defiant and individualistic as a way of covering her loneliness, while Uma appears obedient in comparison. Uma's loneliness goes unnoticed by her parents, just as Melanie's. The warmth of the Indian family, however, can be a safe haven during sad times. When Anamika dies, Uma and Mama hold hands in mourning. There is no such mutual consolation to be found among the Pattons. - Climax: The death of Anamika - Summary: In a small town in India in the late 1970's, Uma and her younger sister Aruna are growing up in a traditional Indian household. Their parents, called only Mama and Papa, try to control the destinies of their daughters by teaching them domestic, traditionally feminine skills. Uma takes little interest in marriage or household chores—rather, she loves attending her convent school, despite her failing grades. Mama and Papa (or MamaPapa, as Uma thinks of them) show little patience for Uma. Papa, a middle-government magistrate with a fragile ego, dominates his family life by dictating the family's daily activities and everyone's futures. Priding herself as the wife of an important man, Mama cooperates with Papa on almost every issue. After Arun is born, Mama and Papa demand that Uma leave school to care for her baby brother. Uma runs away to the convent school and fruitlessly begs Mother Agnes to talk MamaPapa into letting her back into school. Uma has her first seizure on the convent floor after Mother Agnes says she is powerless to help her. Uma's beautiful cousin Anamika has the opportunity to go to Oxford University, but her parents Lily Aunty and Bakul Uncle don't allow her to go. Instead, they marry her off to the wealthiest, most educated man they can find. Soon, Uma and her parents hear that Anamika's husband and mother-in-law beat her and treat her like a servant. As Uma grows up, men show little interest in her, preferring her younger sister. After three failed marriage attempts, including two dowry scams and one old man who marries Uma and then abandons her, Mama and Papa give up on trying to marry Uma off. Aruna, meanwhile, receives many marriage proposals, and she chooses Arvind, a wealthy man from Bombay. After her expensive ceremony, Aruna leaves for a new life in Bombay and visits only occasionally. When she does visit, she acts superior to her family, especially Uma. Given great care and attention, Arun studies to the point of exhaustion every night under the supervision of a forceful Papa. Quiet and expressionless, Arun has been vegetarian since childhood, to the dismay of his parents, who see it as weak and old-fashioned. Neglected and confined, Uma tries whenever possible to get away from home. On one occasion, her relative Mira-masi, a religious widow who travels the country freely, tricks MamaPapa into letting her bring Uma with her to an ashram, or pilgrimage house. There, Uma wanders around freely and happily for a month, until MamaPapa send her cousin Ramu to bring her back. Women in the community try to bring Uma out of her entrapped family life, inviting her to socialize and work with them. On another occasion, Dr. Dutt comes to MamaPapa's house to invite Uma to come work for her, but Mama and Papa refuse. Uma's eyes become painful, but Papa refuses to allow her to seek medical care. One night, the family hears that Anamika has been found dead, burned to death on her porch. Whether it is suicide or murder is unclear. Lily Aunty and Bakul Uncle visit to distribute Anamika's ashes in the sacred river. The novel now switches its focus onto Arun. After much hard work, Arun wins a scholarship to study in America. When he arrives to Massachusetts, he tiredly withdraws, spending his first year in school by himself. The following summer, Arun reluctantly stays with an American family, Mr. Patton and Mrs. Patton and their children Rod and Melanie. Mrs. Patton warmly welcomes Arun, but he soon sees how she struggles against the strong will of her unappreciative husband. Mr. Patton and the athletic, self-oriented Rod ignore Mrs. Patton and Melanie, focusing on work, working out, and playing sports. Mrs. Patton takes Arun shopping with her, insisting that he teach her how to go vegetarian. Meanwhile, Arun becomes disgusted with American excess. He soon finds that Melanie, the daughter, is bulimic, and anxiously tries to find a way to tell the oblivious Mrs. Patton what is wrong. Meanwhile, one day in the grocery store, a cashier tells Mrs. Patton that she looks pregnant. Mrs. Patton becomes obsessed with sun tanning, further neglecting her daughter. Toward the end of the summer, Arun and Melanie go with Mrs. Patton to a pond. Arun delightedly enjoys the feeling of escaping himself when swimming. Later, while Mrs. Patton is sun bathing, Arun goes to look for Melanie, who has disappeared. He finds her half-conscious in a pile of her own vomit. Mrs. Patton soon arrives, shocked at what she sees. Melanie enters into a rehabilitative institution, and Rod leaves for college. Mr. Patton takes on a second job, and Mrs. Patton becomes interested in eastern spirituality. Arun receives a package carefully packed by Uma, but he gives the contents away to Mrs. Patton, and he leaves, returning to school at the University.

- Genre: Science fiction, dystopian fiction - Title: Feed - Point of view: First person (Titus) - Setting: United States, sometime in the not-too distant future - Character: Titus. Description: Titus, who is referred to by name only a handful of times throughout the book, is the protagonist and narrator of Feed. He acts as the reader's guide through the terrifying, dystopian world where the book takes place. Titus, who comes from an extremely wealthy family, enjoys taking luxurious vacations to the moon, getting mal (or high) with his friends, and buying whatever he wants using his feed. For most of the novel, Titus accepts his world without question: he doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't have fun all the time, or why he should try to learn more about the world. As he develops feelings for Violet Durn, however, Titus begins to express doubts about his lifestyle and his society. Violet makes him feel guilty for having fun all day while millions of people starve or work hard to survive, but she also inspires him to pursue a mature, emotionally-rewarding relationship with her—which provides them both with an escape from the culture of instant gratification that most people are used to. However, while Titus may be unusually thoughtful and free-thinking by his society's standards, he can still be apathetic, cruel, and emotionally hollow. When Violet gets sick and faces death, Titus can barely muster the interest to keep talking to her, let alone show real sympathy and compassion. Anderson leaves the ending of the novel open: perhaps Titus has learned to overcome his own indifference, or perhaps his efforts to do so are too little, too late. - Character: Violet Durn. Description: Violet Durn is, along with Titus, one of the novel's two main characters. An unusually thoughtful young woman, she was homeschooled her entire life, and only got her feed implanted at the age of seven (which is unusually late in life). Largely for these reasons, Violet is depicted as being more imaginative, compassionate, and emotionally mature than Titus and his friends. However, Violet is also depicted as being desperate to fit in with the "normal" kids like Titus. In some ways, she despises these people, but she nevertheless wants to be accepted by them, and it's for this reason that Violet falls for Titus: he's a charming, spoiled, upper-class kid, but he's also unusually thoughtful and even poetic, qualities which Violet admires and nurtures in him. In the second half of the novel, Violet's health takes a turn for the worse when her feed begins malfunctioning, threatening to end her life altogether. As her health declines, Violet turns to Titus for help and emotional support, only to realize that Titus is reluctant or unable to give her the kind of care and love she desires. Throughout the book, Violet acts as the voice of reason in a sea of brainwashed consumers, pointing out when Titus and his friends are being obscenely rude, immature, or spoiled. One could even say that Violet is the character with the most in common with M.T. Anderson himself, since she knows that the consumerist culture is a plague, but she's also fascinated by this culture. - Character: Link Arwaker. Description: Link Arwaker is one of Titus's friends. A rich, spoiled kid from an absurdly wealthy family, Link is unattractive, but he's used to being treated like royalty nevertheless—since, in the materialist, consumerist society of Feed, being wealthy is more important than being attractive. Over the course of the novel, Link is shown to be a callow, simple-minded, self-absorbed young person—and in this way, he's the exact kind of human being a consumerist society produces. In an amusing twist, it's revealed that Link is the biological clone of none other than President Abraham Lincoln (explaining both his name and why Link is so tall). Link and Lincoln—the spoiled brat and the noble politician—have exactly the same genetic makeup. The difference, of course, is that Lincoln worked hard to become a great leader, whereas Link has never worked a day in his life. - Character: Marty. Description: Marty is another one of Titus's friends. An athletic young man who's good at "any game," Marty is similar to Link and Titus insofar as he comes from a rich family, doesn't have to work hard at anything, and spends all his time horsing around, having fun with girls, and getting "mal" (the Feed equivalent of getting high). While Marty doesn't figure prominently in the second half of the book, it's implied that he's generally "second in command" to Link, the informal leader of Titus's friend group. - Character: Calista. Description: Calista is a pretty young woman and a friend of Titus. During her spring break, she travels to the moon, and later she appears at a party with Titus, Marty, and Link (with whom she's involved at various points in the novel). Calista is described as being rich, beautiful, and popular. Just as Link is the informal leader of Marty and Titus's group, Calista seems to be the informal "squad leader" of her friend group (which includes Quendy and Loga). Calista can be rude and even quite cruel—for example, when she mocks Quendy for copying her latest "look." Calista looks down on the strange, lower-middle-class Violet Durn. - Character: Loga. Description: Loga is a minor character in the novel, a friend of Calista and Quendy. She and Titus dated shortly before the novel begins, and like many of Titus's friends, she often seen at Link's parties. Loga is a typically vacuous member of upper class society: when she visits her friends in the hospital, for example, she can't even muster the compassion or attention to show them sympathy, since she's too busy chatting with her friends via her feed. - Character: Quendy. Description: Quendy is the final member of Calista's group of friends. She's somewhat shyer than Calista, and she's perceived as being less attractive, too. Partly as a result, Quendy can be very competitive with Calista, imitating Calista's attitudes and styles, and even getting artificial, full-body lesions after Calista gets them first. By the end of the novel, Titus has begun dating Quendy—full-body lesions and all. - Character: President Trumbull. Description: President Trumbull, the leader of the United States of America, is mentioned a handful of times, always on feed news. A shockingly inarticulate public speaker, Trumbull seems to be more of a figurehead than an actual leader. His only purpose is to defend corporate interests, even as corporations endanger the entire world's safety. - Character: Dad / Steve. Description: Titus's dad is depicted as an emotionally distant, vacuous man—in a way, the kind of adult Titus is in grave danger of becoming. He works in banking, and is usually so immersed in talking via his feed that he can't be bothered to say anything to his son. Dad takes a condescending view of anyone who dares to criticize corporations, including Violet Durn. As the novel nears its end, it's revealed that Dad may have been having an affair with a coworker, though nothing comes of this revelation. - Character: DelGlacey Murdoch. Description: DelGlacey Murdoch is a B-movie actor whose face served as the model for Titus's own (in the society of Feed, wealthy parents can pay to have their children designed to look like famous people). Mom and Dad chose Murdoch because they thought he'd turn out to be a famous actor—but in fact, his career languished. - Character: Violet's father. Description: Violet's father is one of the novel's most poignant characters. A highly intelligent, often argumentative man, he teaches "dead languages" (mostly computer languages) at a university. He's extremely critical of his own society, especially the overpowering culture of conspicuous consumption. However, Violet's father also recognizes that having a feed is a necessity in America: he gets his own feed, which he carries around on his back (giving himself a permanent hunch) and arranges for a feed to be implanted in Violet's brain. Toward the end of the novel, when complications with Violet's feed threaten to kill her, Violet's father personal blames himself for his daughter's suffering. While Titus initially thinks of Violet's father as a "weird" old man, it slowly becomes clear that he's one of the only characters in the book who understands how horrifying the society of Feed really is. - Theme: Corporations and Consumerism. Description: Anderson's novel takes place in a futuristic version of America in which corporations have replaced the government as the most powerful societal institution. In the novel's dystopian vision of the future, corporations exert control over American citizens by convincing them to spend all their money on products they don't need, and all their time thinking about what to buy next. Almost all Americans have tiny devices implanted in their brains, called "feeds," which corporations use to manipulate their customers through the use of advertisements. Each feed bombards its user with an endless stream of personalized ads, nudging them into a lifestyle of constant consumption. As powerful as these corporations are, Feed shows their position to be inherently unstable—and, as the book ends, on the verge of collapse. Corporations seem to enjoy limitless power over the characters in Feed. The book's narrator, Titus, explains that corporations are responsible for implanting feeds in babies' brains when they're born. Because children grow up with the feed, they become almost completely dependent on the feed for information and entertainment. But corporate control doesn't end with the feed. Titus goes on to explain that corporations have also taken control over the school system—now called School™—and use it as an opportunity to train young people to be eager, loyal consumers for the rest for their lives (Titus explains, evidently blind to the irony, that corporations see education as an "investment in tomorrow"). Finally, corporations enjoy unlimited power because they use their influence to buy politicians who will protect corporations' rights to "free trade." The result of corporate control is that Titus and his peers spend all their money buying the products that corporations want them to buy. This, in turn, allows the corporations to continue exercising control, by producing more products to sell, creating more education propaganda, and buying more politicians. In short, the consumption of goods fuels an endless, cyclical process of corporate expansion. Although the widespread culture of consumerism strengthens corporations, Feed shows that it also runs the risk of destroying them, meaning that corporations are, in a sense, victims of their own success. The book explores this contradiction in two main ways. First, constant corporate expansion has dire consequences for the natural world. There are hints throughout the novel that unchecked pollution and development are endangering not just other species, but the human race itself, as temperatures never fall below 100 degrees, people's skin peels off, and natural disasters caused by corporate activity routinely kill thousands at a time. The implication is that the culture of consumerism is self-destructive, to the point where it kills the very consumers it's supposed to be serving. But in addition to showing that consumerism is dangerous to human life, Feed shows that it is a threat to human happiness, simply because in order to keep people consuming, corporations need to keep their customers unhappy. For example, if Titus were to buy a car that made him truly, lastingly happy, then he'd stop shopping for cars altogether, and he'd also stop giving money to corporations. From the perspective of corporations, this possibility is unacceptable. Corporations depend on people like Titus being perpetually slightly dissatisfied. Consumers need to be just unhappy enough that they keep buying things—not so unhappy that they give up on consumerism altogether—but happy enough to believe that the next car or shirt or sweater vest they purchase could solve all their problems. The result is that some consumers, including Titus by the end of the novel, do come to question the practice of consumerism itself: after years of being unsatisfied by their purchases, they become disillusioned with the corporations who've promised, and failed, to make them happy. The dystopian corporate society Anderson writes about is powerful, yet unstable. It depends upon wreaking environmental havoc on the world, and it only works when it keeps its supposed beneficiaries (the consumers) unsatisfied. This corporation-run world is always teetering on the verge of collapse and, paradoxically, the more powerful it gets, the more precarious its position becomes. Indeed, by the end of the novel, the entire world is gearing up for war with the United States in response to its renegade corporatism, as the concrete, environmental effects of this ideology have become too serious to ignore. Anderson further implies that consumers themselves—not just the victims of consumerism around the world—might start to opt out of the consumer culture. However, he suggests that a lifetime of brainwashing may have left Titus and others like him unable to imagine life without their feeds and the mindless cycle of consumption the feeds reinforce. - Theme: Apathy, Happiness, and Satisfaction. Description: Apathy is the emotion that corporations aim to produce in their consumers, and as a result it has become the default emotional state of the characters in Feed. Titus and his friends coast through life, spending all their money on obscenely expensive products and exotic vacations. And yet, instead of being excited by all these new trips and purchases, Titus and his friends seem to be almost constantly bored. The reason for Titus's apathy—and the crux of Anderson's insight on the subject—is that real happiness and fulfillment take time and effort to achieve. Titus's feed has conditioned him to expect nothing but constant, instant gratification—which ultimately proves not to be all that gratifying. The reason everyone in Feed is so apathetic is that they're completely dependent on their feeds for pleasure. In the society described in Anderson's book, almost nobody knows how to make themselves happy. Since the feed can provide entertainment twenty-four hours a day (people even use their feeds to dream), people have largely abandoned some of the most basic sources of happiness—for example, family. Titus seems utterly apathetic toward his mom, dad, and brother (to whom he always refers as Smell Factor), just as they show apathy toward him. Many families bond by spending time together, arguing, and "growing together." But for Titus's family, there's no such thing as "together"—since even when they're in the same room, they're all lost in their own little worlds, watching feedcasts and chatting via feed with their friends. To them, the idea of family time seems dull by comparison. Even though Titus and his peers rely on their feeds for happiness, the pleasure their feeds provide them isn't actually satisfying. This is true for three closely related reasons. First, the feeds are unsatisfying because of the constant and inescapable barrage of ads, which means there's no time to savor the pleasures the feed offers. After Titus buys a flying car, for example, he seems to get little, if any, pleasure from his purchase, because he's too busy thinking about his next purchases. Even when he's driving his new car, he's shopping for jerseys and sweater vests. Buying a car doesn't satisfy him, it just staves off dissatisfaction until he buys something else. Second, because of the sheer quantity of pleasure the feed offers, Titus and his peers become numb to this pleasure. They have access to almost unlimited cash, so they can indulge in luxury vacations and shopping sprees whenever they want. The result is that even a trip to the moon—an incredibly exciting activity, one would think—isn't enough to jolt Titus out of his apathy. Third, the feeds are designed to leave its users unsatisfied, because it keeps them coming back for more. In the future, ads and entertainment have become virtually indistinguishable. As Violet Durn explains, songs have become jingles, and feedcasts (i.e., television and movies) have become feature-length commercials. This has enormous consequences for the consumer: instead of providing satisfaction and closure, feed entertainment is only designed to generate more desire for products. In all, Titus and his friends don't have the imagination to have fun on their own, and their feeds are calibrated to be not quite fun enough. Titus is trapped in an endless cycle of feeling apathetic, using his feed to stave off apathy, feeling unsatisfied, and feeling apathetic once again. Through writing about his characters' apathy and discontentment, however, Anderson implicitly suggests what real happiness might look like. First and foremost, real happiness takes time and effort—two things that are utterly foreign to Titus and his friends. The book shows that people tend to enjoy things most when they have to expend some amount of energy to achieve them. Throughout the book, Titus is never happier than when he is pursuing different forms of pleasure, and never more restless than when he uses his feed to achieve instant pleasure. Even when they're trapped in the hospital without access to the feed, Titus and Violet find ways of entertaining themselves, first by inventing games and later by going for walks, talking about their families, and kissing. He savors his time with Violet instead of thinking ahead to what his next source of pleasure will be. By foregoing instant gratification in this way, Titus ends up having what he describes as one of the most fulfilling days of his life. Anderson leaves the ending of Feed ambiguous, but he suggests that Titus may be ready to abandon his apathy and his addiction to instant gratification for good. In either case, the novel paints a disturbing picture of a society in which people's attention spans have gotten so short that they're unwilling to lift a finger to entertain themselves, and as a result have become almost completely incapable of feeling true happiness or satisfaction. - Theme: Resistance. Description: Like much science fiction, Feed is a thinly veiled critique of the present. Americans in the 21st century may not have chips implanted in their brains, but they're arguably the victims of corporate brainwashing, and they are certainly rampant consumers. Their government ignores evidence of environmental degradation and corporate malfeasance while sanctimoniously claiming to support "free trade." Anderson even dedicated his novel to "all those who fight the feed." This might suggest that Anderson wants to encourage his readers to fight society's problems before they get out of hand. To this end, his book studies different ways of resisting consumerism and corporate power, suggesting that, in the long run, love and respect may be the most effective means of resisting the culture of consumerism. Feed is full of characters who passively accept society's rules. But there are many other characters in the book who actively resist corporate expansion and environmental devastation. First, and most obviously, Titus notes that there are various activist groups—all computer hackers—whose mission is to destroy the feed. Toward the end of the novel, readers learn that the governments of the world (collectively, the Global Alliance) are uniting to declare war against the United States, reasoning that "the biological integrity of the earth relies at this point upon the dismantling of American-based corporate entities." These coalitions are willing to resort to breaking the law, sometimes with acts of violence, in order to fight corporate expansion. They believe that they're justified in breaking the law because the situation is so dire, and that to sit back and do nothing would guarantee total environmental collapse. However, Anderson hints that this form of resistance, whether or not it's morally justified, is unlikely to save the world. As the novel ends, the Global Alliance's chances of winning their battle against the United States are slim. Instead, it seems more likely that, in trying to save the world from environmental destruction, the Alliance will only succeed in sowing further destruction. While Anderson alludes to various groups who resist the feed through violence and crime, he spends more time writing about the people who resist corporate expansion "from the inside"—in other words, people who participate in consumerist activities but use their influence to weaken corporate power. For example, Violet Durn, one of the few characters in the novel who expresses strong dissatisfaction with the feed, believes that, by shopping for a mismatched array of products, she can create an unintelligible "consumer taste profile" that will confound her feed—so that it won't know how to advertise to her. However, Violet's act of resistance achieves only the most minimal success. It backfires when her feed breaks down, and the corporation that installed it refuses to pay for upkeep, since Violet is an "unpredictable" customer. In this way, Anderson suggests that a culture of consumerism can't be sabotaged through more consumption. Anderson writes about many different forms of resistance to the feed, and to corporate control in general, but none of the forms of resistance he discusses are shown to achieve their goal—with the result that, at the end of the novel, mankind still seems headed straight for destruction. However, the novel ends with a scene that could be interpreted to point to a more effective form of resistance. In the final chapter, Titus seems to opt out of consumer culture by destroying his clothing and going to visit Violet Durn, who is nearly dead. For one of the first times in the book, Titus seems sincerely devoted to Violet. He's not thinking about shopping or planning a trip to the moon—he's fully present with Violet. He refuses to participate in a culture of apathy and casual cruelty, treating people like products. The passage presents Titus's behavior as a heroic and exemplary form of resistance to consumerism because (unlike crime, violence, and sabotage) it creates a true alternative to consumerism: love and respect. If everyone were to follow Titus's lead, corporations would lose their business, and with it their power. Anderson's point isn't that Violet and Titus are going to save the world singlehandedly—it's too late for that. Rather, he suggests that the best way to resist the culture of consumerism may be to take after Violet and Titus by focusing on human relationships—rather than products—as the greatest source of fulfillment. - Theme: Class and Segregation. Description: Feed is about a society in which people are so carefully classified and sorted according to their consumption habits that they only spend time with people who are more or less exactly like them. The characters in the book aren't sorted by intelligence, race, gender, or health. Instead, they're sorted by their taste profiles—which is just another way of saying they're sorted by their economic class. By depicting a society of this kind, Feed argues that environmental and societal decay are both a cause and an effect of economic inequality. Because they're surrounded by wealth and entitlement, Titus and his friends are shockingly oblivious to the way non-wealthy people live. Titus is the son of successful parents (his mom and dad work in "design" and "banking," respectively) who can afford to send their child on spring break vacations to the moon and buy him flying cars. Titus's friends are similarly used to a life of indulgence. Titus's friend Link Arwaker comes from an extraordinarily rich family—Link himself is a clone of Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that his family has both money and influence. Because shopping is such an important part of life in the society of Feed, Titus almost never has occasion to associate with people who aren't as wealthy as he is, since they couldn't keep up with his spending habits. In this way, the structure and cultural norms of his society virtually preclude him from meeting people outside his class "bubble." It's for this reason that, on the rare occasion when Titus does meet someone from outside the upper class, he can barely understand their way of life. Although Titus meets Violet Durn (the only important character in the book who comes from a background that isn't recognizably upper-class) in the first few chapters of the book, it takes him a long time to understand that Violet can't afford some of the things he takes for granted—for example, Violet's father had to spend a month's pay just so that Violet could go to the moon. By the same token, because Titus and his friends live in a class "bubble," they're blissfully unaware that working-class people are starving or dying as a direct result of corporate expansion—expansion which their own consumerist habits enable. For example, they seem only dimly aware that pollution from American companies is causing hundreds and thousands of deaths around the globe. But because they are geographically and culturally isolated from the victims of corporate expansion, Titus and his friends have no discernible reason to change their behavior, even though their behavior is directly responsible for other people's suffering. This is the crux of Anderson's most important point about economic inequality: it's a vicious cycle, where the more isolated wealthy people are from the working-class, the more oblivious they become to the consequences of their own actions, which in turn enables them to continue to act with impunity. By the same logic, Titus and his friends' wild shopping binges cause further environmental degradation and further damage to the working class, further increasing economic inequality. In short, it's important to understand the role of economic inequality in Feed, because it's both a primary cause and a major outcome of the global crises to which Anderson alludes throughout the book. - Theme: The Environment. Description: Throughout Feed, M.T. Anderson shows how the unchecked growth of technology and corporate power has ravaged the environment. Some of the effects of environmental degradation are purely physical. For instance, because of unchecked corporate expansion—in the form of factories, industrial farms, hotels, infrastructure, and so forth—there's an unprecedented amount of pollution. Constant corporate activity has sucked much of the oxygen out of the air and also raised the temperature of the planet to the point where the elderly are nostalgic for the days when the temperature never got above one hundred degrees. The consequences of these environmental changes on humans are horrifying. The escalating temperature has caused almost all animals to die off, and it is quickly becoming clear that human beings are endangered, too. In America, people's skin starts peeling off, while in other parts of the world, people die because of the toxicity of their environment. One of the consequences of environmental degradation is that it leads to the further degradation and cheapening of mankind's spiritual relationship with the natural world. In the world of Feed, the wilderness no longer exists. As Violet Durn points out to Titus, every place she wants to explore has already been explored countless times—meaning that the human race's "fingerprints" are all over it. When the two of them go to the mountains for a few days, they find a town packed with tourists. In the future, there's nothing special about nature anymore—it's just another tourist destination. Every spot that hasn't been outright destroyed has been colonized and commodified, meaning that the feeling of peace, exhilaration, and the unknown that people have always associated with the natural world has all but vanished. In a sense, the natural world has become the human race's final "product"—something to be enjoyed and callously discarded, but not respected. Anderson is pessimistic about the possibility of any solutions to the decay caused by corporate expansion.  As he suggests, attempts to use technology to curb pollution and environmental decay are almost by definition ineffectual and contradictory. Anderson writes, for instance, that a large corporation has torn down a nearby forest in order to build an oxygen factory—a darkly ironic way of suggesting that even "green technology" is anything but green. Corporations may engage in small, token efforts to curb pollution, but this is not enough to outweigh the massive amounts of pollution they produce. Anderson's broader point is that corporations can use technology and clever PR strategies to mitigate or cover up the damage they do, but they can't repair the lasting and irreversible damage they inflict on the environment. A particularly disturbing example of this principle is the way that the feed glamorizes the lesions that have begun to appear on people's skin because of environmental degradation. Rather than trying to undo or slow their destruction of the environment, corporations instead find ways of making people think that the lesions are attractive. Corporations also try to obscure the damage they've done by making the news more "positive" (for example, Titus mentions that feednews is downplaying the seriousness of recent air pollution levels, even though the reports are miserable). All in all, Feed shows that corporations are locked in a "zero-sum game" with the environment, wherein the healthier one becomes, the unhealthier the other becomes. While one could argue that Anderson's thesis about the environment is unnecessarily grim (since there might be some forms of technology that don't cause rampant pollution), his grim outlook has a useful purpose: he hopes to galvanize readers in the 21st century into changing their own practices of consumption, thereby improving the odds that their own world doesn't turn into the one described in Anderson's novel. - Climax: Violet's outburst at Link's party - Summary: Feed takes place in a dystopian version of the United States of America in which the majority of the population uses a "feed"—a surgically-implanted device that enables the user to communicate electronically with others, look up any information, access limitless hours of free entertainment, and exposes them to endless advertisements for products. Titus of the novel, Titus, is a teenager from an upper-class family who spends his time horsing around with his friends Link Arwaker and Marty, going to School™ (corporations control the educational system, and use it to train kids to buy their products), and going on expensive vacations. The novel begins when Titus and his friends take a trip to the moon over spring break, which turns out to "suck." While they're partying on the moon, however, they meet Violet Durn, a pretty, strange young woman who has travelled to the moon all by herself. Link invites Violet to have fun with them, and they go to a club. There, a mysterious old hacker attacks Titus and his friends' feeds, rendering them frozen for a few hours. Titus wakes up in the hospital, where his feed is being repaired. There, he and his friends—including Violet—have a surprisingly fun time, even though their feeds have been turned off. Titus is attracted to Violet, and she seems to like him for his thoughtfulness and occasional flights of poetry. After a week of this, Titus and his friends are released from the hospital with their feeds restored to working order. They're so excited to have their feeds again that they laugh and cry. Back on Earth, Titus resumes his old lifestyle of going to School™, spending time with his friends, and partying. He invites Violet to a party, and they end up kissing. Violet confesses that her feed is malfunctioning again, and sometimes she loses control of her body. In the following weeks, Titus and Violet spend lots of time together. They go to the mall, where Violet tells Titus that she's trying to construct a consumer taste profile for herself that's so bizarre that no corporation will be able to advertise to her. Violet also confesses that she finds the feed lifestyle to be dull and narcissistic—because Titus and his friends are so used to having feeds, they've grown accustomed to getting whatever they want, whenever they want it. Titus is impressed and somewhat intimidated by Violet's intelligence and articulacy. He also meets Violet's father, a strange professor who speaks with a complicated vocabulary. Meanwhile, there are feed reports that the President of the United States is taking a hard line with the rest of the world, refusing to exercise any control over American corporations. These corporations are ruining the environment, causing devastation to the rest of the world. Titus's parents buy him an upcar (i.e., flying car). His mom works in design, and his dad works in banking (and doesn't seem to have any strong feelings for Titus). Titus drives Violet around in his new upcar, and they go to various places, such as a farm and the beach, both of which are putrid and toxic. Meanwhile, there are reports of riots across the world, protesting the United States. Environmental devastation is causing people's skin to peel off, but there's a new fashion trend—lesions—that everyone seems to want. At a party at Link's house, Violet becomes horrified when she realizes that Link's friend Quendy has full-body lesions now. She screams that Link and his friends are "feed"—they're slowly falling apart while people in other parts of the world are starving. Then, she seems to have a seizure. Titus takes her to the hospital. There, Violet learns that her feed is malfunctioning, and could threaten her life. Titus begins to feel uncomfortable around Violet, and isn't sure what to say. However, Violet begins to turn to Titus for emotional support at all times of the day and night, and tells him that he's the most important person in her life. Violet begins to "chat" Titus via her feed, making lists of everything she wants to do with the rest of her life. Titus doesn't respond, or only responds after days of waiting. He gets "mal" (the Feed equivalent of getting high on drugs) with his friends, and then shows up at Violet's house, enraging her. Violet scolds him for being self-indulgent while the world is gearing up for a full-scale war with the United States. Violet sends Titus hours of memories from her early life. Titus deletes these memories from his feed without a second thought. Violet invites him to travel through the mountains with her, and he agrees reluctantly. During their trip to a hotel in the mountains, they attempt to have sex, but Titus finds that he's no longer attracted to Violet, even after she claims she loves him. After their trip to the mountains, Violet's health deteriorates quickly, and Titus begins to ignore her altogether. He starts dating Quendy, and he goes on trips to other planets with his friends. Then, one day, Violet's father contacts Titus to say that Violet is almost gone. Titus goes to visit Violet, and Violet's father yells at him for being so self-absorbed and emotionally shallow. Meanwhile, the environment becomes almost uninhabitable, and the countries of the world prepare to go to war with the United States. Titus stays up all night, thinking about Violet. He decides to visit her one more time. He holds her hand and tells her, "You're still here, as long as I can remember you." Then, he whispers an "ad" for the movie version of their life together—a story in which a "normal guy" and a "dissident with a heart of gold" learn how to "resist the feed."

- Genre: Young adult historical fiction - Title: Fever 1793 - Point of view: First person - Setting: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Character: Matilda "Mattie" Cook. Description: Mattie lives with her mother, Lucille Cook, who runs a Philadelphia coffeehouse. She also lives with her grandfather, Captain William Farnsworth Cook, a Revolutionary War veteran. Mattie feels trapped there and longs for freedom. At the beginning of the book, she enjoys sleeping in and tries to shirk strenuous chores. Mattie dislikes her mother's frequent scolding and believes that Lucille sees her as lazy and disobedient. She often daydreams of opening an entire city block's worth of businesses, including a dry goods store, a restaurant, and an apothecary. After Lucille gets yellow fever, Mattie and Grandfather flee to the countryside, but Mattie is forced to fend for them both when Grandfather develops heart trouble. Then, she nearly dies from yellow fever herself. Later, back in Philadelphia, Mattie is left alone when Grandfather dies and Mother has not yet returned from Mrs. Ludington's. She grows more independent as she survives on her own, taking in an orphan, Nell, and assisting Eliza with relief work. After the epidemic, Mattie reopens the coffeehouse, taking on Eliza as her partner. She also has "an understanding" (an unofficial engagement) with her longtime crush, Nathaniel Benson, that they will spend their lives together. By the time Mother returns, weak and needing Mattie's support, Mattie has become a strong, hard-working businesswoman with high hopes for her future. - Character: Lucille Cook ("Mother"). Description: Lucille runs the Cook Coffeehouse in Philadelphia with the assistance of Mattie and Eliza. Lucille grew up in a wealthy family during the Revolutionary War and eloped with Mattie's father, a carpenter; she was disowned as a result. Lucille was widowed after her husband fell off a ladder when Mattie was four. She invited Grandfather, her late husband's father, to live with them at that time. She is demanding of Mattie and often talks about how much more obedient and hardworking she was during her own childhood, which annoys Mattie. Desperate to provide for Mattie by arranging a marriage, she takes Mattie to a disastrous tea at Pernilla Ogilvie's house. Not long after, Lucille becomes desperately ill with yellow fever. After she recovers, she goes to Mrs. Ludington's farm in the country, then nearly dies again during a desperate search for Mattie. When Lucille returns to Philadelphia at the end of the novel, she is severely weakened by her suffering and must lean on Mattie for survival. - Character: Captain William Farnsworth Cook ("Grandfather"). Description: Captain Cook is Lucille's father-in-law and Mattie's grandfather. He joined the household after his son, Mattie's father, died ten years ago. William Cook was a lifelong army officer who served in the Pennsylvania Fifth Regiment under General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. He is stout and loves tall tales and gossip; he is a fixture in the coffeehouse each day. He dotes on Mattie. From the time Mattie is a little girl, he teaches her "old soldiers' tricks" and even how to handle a sword. He has a pet parrot named King George. Grandfather is skeptical about the yellow fever epidemic and develops heart trouble when he and Mattie finally flee Philadelphia for the countryside. Mattie defends him with his battle sword when thieves break into the coffeehouse, and he dies soon after; his last words express pride in Mattie's strength and cleverness. - Character: Eliza. Description: Eliza is the coffeehouse cook. She was born a slave in Virginia and moved to Philadelphia after her husband purchased her freedom. Before she could purchase her husband's freedom in turn, he was killed by a runaway horse. Eliza is Mattie's closest confidant. She indulges Mattie with good food and affection, but also pushes her to work hard when it's necessary. She is steadfast in a crisis and works long hours as a volunteer for the Free African Society during the epidemic. Eliza lives with her widowed brother, Joseph, and her nephews, Robert and William. After Mattie invites Eliza to become her business partner at the coffeehouse, Eliza and her nephews move in with Mattie. - Character: Nathaniel Benson. Description: Nathaniel is Mattie's longtime crush. Though Mattie's family dismisses him as a good-for-nothing scamp, he shows promise as an apprentice to the Peales, a family of talented painters. He and Mattie watched the balloon sail together, and he sends her a painting of flowers when they're separated during the epidemic. Mattie and Nathaniel have "an understanding" (an unofficial engagement) by the end of the novel. - Character: Father. Description: Mattie's father, Lucille's husband, and William Farnsworth Cook's son isn't named in the book. Lucille eloped with him at 17, although her family disapproved of her marrying a carpenter. He built the coffeehouse but died of a broken neck weeks after it opened, when Mattie was only four. Mattie remembers her mother being gentler and happier when Father was alive. - Character: Nell. Description: Nell is an abandoned orphan girl, no more than a toddler, whom Mattie finds and keeps during the epidemic. Nell quickly bonds with Mattie. Though Mother Smith urges Mattie to take Nell to the orphan house, Mattie decides to keep her. Nell comes to live at the reopened coffeehouse with Mattie, Mother, and Eliza's family. - Character: Mother Smith. Description: Mother Smith is a very old African American woman who volunteers with the Free African Society. She watches Joseph's twins while Eliza is nursing fever victims. Though she criticizes Mattie's housekeeping skills and urges her to surrender Nell to the orphanage, she comes to respect Mattie and encourages Eliza to accept Mattie's partnership offer. - Character: Mrs. Pernilla Ogilvie. Description: Mrs. Ogilvie is a well-to-do neighbor who invites Lucille and Mattie to tea. She and Lucille seem to know one another from Lucille's wealthier upbringing. She speaks disdainfully of the city's poor and refugees whose illness has caused her gala ball to be canceled. She also looks down on "tradespeople" like the Cooks. - Character: Dr. Benjamin Rush. Description: Dr. Rush was a revered doctor and also a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Though Dr. Rush advocated for many cutting-edge practices, his fever remedies—consisting of blood-letting and purgative medicines—were behind the times and may have been harmful. Dr. Rush invites the Free African Society to nurse fever victims throughout Philadelphia. - Theme: Freedom and Independence. Description: In Fever 1793, 14-year-old Matilda ("Mattie") Cook faces the devastation of Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic. Mattie has dreamed of the day she can escape her work in the family coffeehouse, and especially her demanding mother, Lucille Cook. When the epidemic forces her to fend for herself, however, Mattie learns that "freedom" isn't quite what she had pictured, and she ultimately achieves independence by saving the family business and providing for her mother. Through Mattie's fight for survival and renewed appreciation for her family, Anderson shows that independence requires hard work and transformation, not mere escape, and that independence is often built on familial bonds, not by severing them. At first, Mattie longs to grow up and escape her family's demands and expectations. The novel opens with Mattie's mother lecturing her about laziness and responsibility while Mattie daydreams about a different life: "A few blocks south […] Blanchard had flown that remarkable balloon […] a yellow silk bubble escaping the earth. I vowed to do that one day, slip free of the ropes that held me." Mattie imagines freedom as something like the famous hot-air balloon that had sailed from Philadelphia earlier that year—when she "slips free," she will be disconnected from the unwanted ties of family and obligation. Mattie also resents being regarded as a child and having to do what the rest of the household, including her mother's employee, Eliza, tells her: "Little Mattie, indeed. I was big enough to be ordered around like an unpaid servant […] Big enough to plan for the day when I would no longer live here […] [Someday] [n]o one would call me little Mattie. They would call me 'Ma'am.'" Mattie feels the tension between being young enough to be subject to her family, yet old enough to have her own opinions about her future; as a result, she imagines that freedom entails being able to do exactly as she wishes. The yellow fever epidemic forces Mattie to take charge in ways she never expected in her daydreams, thus forcing her to reframe her notions of independence as the ability to freely step up and help others, rather than to run from responsibility. When Mattie and her grandfather (a Revolutionary War veteran) find themselves lost on the outskirts of the fever-stricken city, Mattie's sick grandfather defers to her for the first time: "'We must form our battle plans, both for this skirmish and the rest of the war.' I waited for his advice. It did not come. That scared me more than anything. He was waiting for me to decide what to do." Used to being directed, Mattie must draw on her skills and intelligence in order to find food and shelter for them both. Her first independent steps, it turns out, are about ensuring the wellbeing of others, not about fulfilling her own wishes. After Mattie and her grandfather survive and return home, robbers break in and threaten their lives. Without waiting for her grandfather to come to their defense, Mattie takes the initiative to drive the intruders off: "I picked up [Grandfather's] sword, holding it with two hands. […] I swung the sword and gashed the thief's shoulder. He howled and rolled to the side, grasping at the bloody wound." As fighting for survival has forced Mattie to learn more about her own strength, her view of independence has correspondingly shifted. She no longer frets about others' expectations of her or yearns for an unfettered freedom, but instinctively uses her strength to protect those she loves. After her grandfather dies, Mattie realizes how lonely independence can be: "There could be no running from this. Hiding from death was not like hiding from Mother when she wanted me to scrub kettles, or ignoring [the cat] when he begged for food. I was the only one left." Technically, Mattie is now free to do as she wishes, but this "freedom" is much different from her idealized daydream. Fending for herself is a burden, not a joy. The experience of taking charge prepares Mattie to stay in Philadelphia, take over the family business, and provide for her remaining family—a form of independence she never envisioned. When Mattie considers what will become of her if she's orphaned, she figures she can always get a job as a maid. Catching her reflection in a window, however, she's reminded of her mother and quickly reconsiders: "A scullery maid? Ridiculous. […] I could read, write, and figure numbers faster than most. I was not afraid of hard work. I would set my own course." Mattie still wants to determine her own path, but in contrast to the restless, untested girl at the beginning of the story, she is now confident in her abilities. However, she has come to see her strengths as tied to her family identity, not as a means of breaking free from it. When adults speculate that Mattie should sell the family coffeehouse, Mattie stands up for herself: "Everyone thought they knew what was right for me. It was just like listening to Mother and Grandfather making the decisions while I stood to the side […] This would not do. It was time to bring out the plan that had hatched days earlier when I saw my face in the window. 'I'm not selling,' I said loudly." Again, Mattie's assertion of independence is now an embrace of her family inheritance and a desire to sustain it—which wouldn't have been the case if she hadn't gained independence through fighting for her family's survival. When Mattie is reunited with her mother, she finds Lucille Cook much different after having barely survived yellow fever: "Her hands lay in her lap, withered and limp. I had never seen her hands stay still before […] I had a sudden sense of what was to come and I blinked away the tears." In a stark reversal from the beginning of the book, Mattie must now care for her weakened mother and run the coffeehouse herself. While Mattie's realization of independence looks much different from freely sailing away like a balloon, as she'd once imagined, Anderson shows that it's more genuine, because Mattie has learned to use her abilities to care for those she loves. - Theme: Mothers, Daughters, and Familial Love. Description: Fever 1793 is a mother-daughter story. Mattie, 14, resents her mother, Lucille, as a scolding and meddlesome taskmaster. She fails to appreciate her mother's struggles to support her family and secure Mattie's future. When yellow fever hits, Lucille is stricken with the disease and disappears to an unknown location in the countryside; the central mystery of the novel is whether Lucille has survived and will reunite with Mattie. Though absent from the central part of the book, memories of Lucille's strength inspire Mattie as she struggles to survive and gathers an improvised "family" of fellow survivors. By framing the novel with Mattie's relatively childish view of Lucille and, later, her more mature perceptions, Anderson demonstrates that mother-daughter relationships in any setting involve conflict, and she suggests that daughters come to empathize with their mothers through maturing and fighting their own battles. At the beginning of the story, Mattie's relationship with her mother is conflicted. Mattie sees her mother as the person who runs her life—and not in the way that Mattie would prefer: "When Mother allowed herself a still moment by the fire on winter nights, I could sometimes see the face she wore when Father was alive. […] But no longer. Life was a battle, and Mother a tired and bitter captain. The captain I had to obey." Though Mattie understands that her mother has faced "battles," Mattie has never been "embattled" herself, so she can't fully sympathize with her mother. Mattie is furious when her mother drags her to tea at the upper-class Ogilvie home, hoping for a possible match for Mattie with one of the wealthy sons: "We did not belong here. I did not belong here. Mother may have grown up with carriages and gowns, but I had not." Rather than appreciating her mother's burden to provide for Mattie, Mattie just sees this unwanted courtship ritual in terms of conflict between herself and her mother—she and her mother are different in an unbridgeable way, she believes. Mattie also sees herself through the lens of her conflict with her mother. She imagines that her mother sees her as an unwanted failure: "I disgusted Mother. She knew I was weak. I bet she wanted sons. Instead she got a backward, lazy girl child." While there's no evidence in the story that this perception is true, it shows how Mattie interprets her mother's sometimes heavy-handed efforts to guide and protect her as a struggling single parent. Mattie becomes the head of her household, in effect, after she and her mother are separated during the epidemic. The separation forces her to better appreciate her mother and, as she forms family bonds with other survivors, to realize some of the strains and sacrifices of holding a family together. As Lucille nears death (so Mattie thinks) from yellow fever, Mattie grieves her failures to fully appreciate and learn from her mother: "Tears threatened again. I sniffed and tried to control my face. No one could ever tell what Mother thought or felt by looking at her. […] There were so many things she had tried to teach me, but I didn't listen." Faced with the prospect of losing Lucille, Mattie is painfully aware of all she has failed to learn from her mother, and will now never have the opportunity to learn. Mattie finds a lethal diagnosis to be incompatible with her perception of Lucille: "Mother […] had given birth to me in the morning and cooked supper for ten that night. She survived the British occupation while my father fought with Washington's troops. Mother would beat back illness with a broom." Mattie newly appreciates Lucille's strengths when she sees her languishing with yellow fever. When her mother disappears to the countryside, this reminder of Lucille's formidable presence sustains Mattie and lets her maintain hope that she's still alive, even though they don't know each other's whereabouts for the duration of the epidemic. Mattie fights for Nell, an abandoned orphan, and Robert and William, nephews of coffeehouse employee Eliza, even though it's unclear how they'll survive together in the aftermath of the fever. After Mattie successfully nurses them all back to health, collapsing in exhaustion before all is over, she offers Eliza a partnership in the coffeehouse and effectively starts a new household, folding Eliza's whole family into her life there. Mattie's battles on behalf of the children echo the strengths she's internalized from her mother, though she doesn't entirely recognize this in herself. When Mattie and her mother are reunited, their roles are reversed in a way that's sorrowful but ultimately reconciling for them. Though she's recovered from the fever, Lucille is permanently weakened and newly reliant on Mattie for support, both physically and emotionally. Mattie tells her, "'Please don't cry. Everything is better now. I'm home, you're home. You don't have to worry anymore.' I drew up a chair next to her, and she leaned against my shoulder. I cradled her head in my arms until her sobs quieted." Mattie's support of her mother is unprecedented, but she accepts the role unhesitatingly, made stronger and more empathetic from her own trials during their separation. Mattie also takes over the coffeehouse and supports her mother financially. The end of the book finds Mattie waking early and letting her mother sleep late, in contrast to a combative scene between the two of them at the beginning, when Mattie complained about being scolded out of bed by Lucille. Though Mattie is upset by the change in her mother's wellbeing, their long separation has both deepened Mattie's love for her and strengthened her to care for Lucille as, she now realizes, Lucille has unfailingly done for her. Mattie and Lucille have a great deal in common. A war survivor who was widowed when Mattie was only four, Lucille has worked hard to run a business and provide for Mattie; she is independent, determined, and brave. As Mattie struggles to survive the epidemic, her similarities to her mother are evident, and they are highlighted all the more strongly when Lucille comes to occupy a more daughter-like role in Mattie's revitalized coffeehouse. Though it's hinted that Lucille won't survive for many more years, Anderson allows their relationship to come full circle in a deft and sensitive way, highlighting the notion that although mother-daughter relationships are inevitably conflicted, it is possible to find common ground through maturation and appreciation of each other's efforts. - Theme: Disaster and Human Nature. Description: In Fever 1793, Mattie Cook observes, "Yellow fever was wrestling the life out of Philadelphia, infecting the cobblestones, the trees, the nature of the people." Throughout the book, Anderson highlights the varied reactions and decisions of many ordinary Philadelphians in order to show how crisis reveals the hidden potential of human hearts. Sometimes that potential is shockingly selfish and even destructive, while other times, the love displayed is remarkably noble and even creative in its efforts to unite people. Through this exploration of human motives, Anderson argues that when catastrophic events occur, all people have a choice to either indulge their worst tendencies or rise above them. The yellow fever epidemic brings out the worst in some people, highlighting the ability of stressful crises to bring about prejudice and self-serving behavior. Some white Philadelphians blame Santo Domingan refugees and Philadelphia's poor for the yellow fever outbreak. As an aristocratic neighbor complains, "Those filthy refugees and creatures who live in the crowded hovels by the river, they're always sick with something. But it is a gross injustice that my gala should suffer because the lower class falls ill." This quote is an example of a selfish, prejudiced mindset that scapegoats groups deemed undesirable by society. Thus the epidemic lays bare dehumanizing attitudes that have already been present under people's polite exterior. When Mattie and her grandfather hitch a ride to the countryside with another fleeing family, the group is questioned about their fever exposure, and the other family abandons them out of fear: "'They aren't my family,' the farmer said […] 'They was walking and we picked them up.' 'He's lying!' I shouted. 'I don't have no fever,' the farmer continued. 'My wife and baby are healthy. Let me just drive through so I can get to Bethlehem by nightfall.'" Though the farmer understandably wants to protect his family, his fear prompts him to leave Mattie and her grandfather on the roadside without provisions—an example of how disaster can bring out self-serving panic in otherwise decent people. After she's recovered from a bout of fever and is returning home, Mattie is warned, "The streets of Philadelphia are more dangerous than your darkest nightmare. Fever victims lay in the gutters, thieves and wild men lurk on every corner […] If you are determined to return home with your grandfather, then you must stay there until the fever abates." The fever has altered the temperament of the city itself, as Mattie further discovers when her house is broken into—some take advantage of the devastation in order to prey on the vulnerable. The epidemic brings out the very best in others, however, even encouraging people to cross the boundaries of prejudice and selfishness. One of the novel's shining examples of human kindness is the Free African Society, a benevolent organization run by and for freed slaves. The Society goes out of its way to provide food and nursing to any fever-stricken household in the city, as Mattie's friend Eliza explains: "Rev. Allen said this was a chance for black people to show we are every bit as good and important and useful as white people. The Society organized folks to visit the sick, to care for them and bury them if they died […] The Africans of Philadelphia have cared for thousands of people without taking notice of color." In light of the emergency, the Free African volunteers don't limit themselves to their usual beneficiaries, but implicitly serve even those who might reject them in everyday life—an example of how a crisis can summon people to exemplary acts. Similarly, when Mattie cares for an orphaned little girl, Nell, a volunteer nurse named Mother Smith warns her, "Don't love her […] She's not yours. You can't keep her. You had any sense, you'd take her right down to the orphan house tomorrow and hand her over." Though Mattie goes as far as to carry Nell to the orphanage, convincing herself that it's the reasonable choice, her love for Nell changes her mind at the last moment. She then forms an unconventional family including Nell, Eliza, and Eliza's nephews, showing that it's not only possible to make loving choices in the midst of disaster, but that disaster sometimes creates the opportunity to break down conventional boundaries, in a way that ordinary life doesn't do so readily. When the epidemic has passed, Mattie observes both positive and negative developments in the aftermath. On one hand, the return of the city's wealthier residents, who fled to the country and avoided the worst, makes her feel as though some people are "dancing on a grave with no thought to the suffering they had escaped." On the other hand, the establishment of better hospitals and the heroic efforts of benevolent societies have a lasting impact on the city's disadvantaged. Like any historic event, the epidemic reveals persistent human blind spots, as well as the potential for communities to be better than they were before. - Theme: Ingenuity, Ambition, and Survival. Description: At the beginning of Fever 1793, Mattie Cook daydreams about her business ambitions: "I wanted to own an entire city block—a proper restaurant, an apothecary, maybe a school, or a hatter's shop. Grandfather said I was a Daughter of Liberty, a real American girl." The yellow fever epidemic disrupts all such dreams, making even ordinary survival seem an unlikely achievement. However, Mattie still puts her ambition and ingenuity to work, proving herself adaptable and thereby surviving the fever, even helping others survive. A similar adaptability saves the day on a broader scale, helping Philadelphia doctors conquer the outbreak. By showcasing Mattie and the doctors' "American" traits of ingenuity and ambition in this way, Anderson suggests that characteristics like these, especially when directed toward the good of others and society at large, can help struggling people come together, survive, and thrive. When the epidemic turns ordinary life upside down, adaptability proves to be a potentially lifesaving trait, both for Mattie and for the Philadelphia medical establishment. From childhood, Mattie has been taught "old soldier's tricks" and basic survival skills by her veteran grandfather. She uses some of these to enable her weakened grandfather to survive when they're abandoned in the Pennsylvania countryside—"Find a willow tree and you'll soon find water nearby […] Raspberry bushes mean rabbits are about"—but she also has to improvise off of these basic skills using the objects she has at hand. For example, she uses her petticoat as a fishing net. Rather than relying on a strict application of what she's been taught, Mattie creatively builds off her grandfather's lessons in order to serve the pressing needs of the moment. The medical establishment in the city of Philadelphia also has to adapt to the ravages of the fever. When Mattie emerges from her fever and hears she's at Bush Hill—known as one of Philadelphia's worst hospitals—she learns from a nurse that "Bush Hill is now a respectable place […] Mr. Stephen Girard, Lord bless his name, has taken over and turned this into a right proper hospital. All them thieving scoundrels have been driven off." The emergency transformation of Bush Hill is an example of forward-thinking ingenuity that saves countless lives. Similarly, Philadelphia doctors were divided between those who practiced more traditional methods of bleeding in order to cure fevers, like American Dr. Benjamin Rush, and those French doctors who, acquainted with yellow fever from the jungles of the West Indies, pushed to treat the suffering through fluids, fresh air, and rest. "You'll hear folks say that Dr. Rush is a hero for saving folks with his purges and blood letting. But I've seen different. It's these French doctors here that know how to cure the fever. I don't care if Dr. Rush did sign the Declaration of Independence," Nurse Flagg explains to Mattie (who later uses this information to spare Eliza's nephews from potentially fatal bleeding). Ingenuity and adaptability are vital in a crisis, on personal, institutional, and societal levels. Mattie summons untried physical and emotional strength to undertake unprecedented tasks, putting others' needs before her own. For example, Mattie assists in her own grandfather's burial and funeral because there is no one else available for the tasks. When the weight of her grandfather's remains is too much, the man pushing the cart of corpses "looked me up and down once, then moved to the side. […] Together we pushed the cart to the burial ground." When there's a shortage of ministers at the makeshift graveyard, Mattie takes charge of the situation by leading the assembled workers in prayer. Though she is just a 14-year-old girl, Mattie's courageous initiative, spurred by love, seems to cut through whatever doubts others have about her. Later, although Mattie is still recovering from yellow fever and literally dreams of bountiful food, she puts her comfort and wellbeing second to the children for whom she's helping to care, as when she makes sure that most of the limited food supply goes to them: "The stew in the kettle was made for four, not six […] I poured half of [my portion] back. 'I don't need all of this, Eliza. The boys should eat so they don't take sick.'" Though she'd shirked work and happily indulged herself at the beginning of the story, Mattie adapts to her changed circumstances by putting others first. Although Mattie has always had a creative, ambitious outlook, she adapts her dreams to immediate needs created by the epidemic. Even as a young girl, Mattie has notable business acumen and longs to someday expand on her mother's plans for the coffeehouse: "'First we should buy another coffee urn, to serve customers with more haste," I said […] And we could have an upstairs meeting room for the gentlemen […] And we could reserve space to sell paintings, and combs, and fripperies from France.'" She especially longs to prove herself by achieving even more than her mother did, but she has not yet been forced to develop the motivation and adaptability necessary to achieve those dreams. After the epidemic has passed, Mattie doesn't give up on her more fanciful dreams or her desire to impress her mother, but she is most concerned about her loved ones' wellbeing. She combines her love for Eliza with her good business sense in order to find a mutually beneficial solution for the coffeehouse, telling Eliza: "My partner has to be someone I can trust. Someone who knows how to run a coffeehouse and isn't afraid to give me a kick in the backside every now and then […] I'm sharing it with you. It's the right thing to do, and it's good business." Mattie's kindhearted adaptability, combined with her natural ambition, allows her to provide greater security for Eliza and her family while realizing some of her dreams for the coffeehouse. Anderson also shows examples of people who "adapt" in unhealthy and injurious ways; for example, some merchants, even pharmacists, charge outrageous prices during the epidemic, taking advantage of people's desperation. However, she portrays Mattie as the inverse of this—a kind of archetypal early American girl who is brave, forward-looking, and balancing her own desires with neighborly concern. By showcasing this type of courage and intelligence in the protagonist of the novel, as well as the other heroic characters, Anderson shows that ingenuity and adaptability are crucial to surviving difficult obstacles and even large-scale crises. - Climax: Mattie's mother returns home - Summary: In August, 1793, 14-year-old Matilda "Mattie" Cook is awakened by her mother, Lucille Cook, scolding her for sleeping late. Mattie is needed immediately to help in their coffeehouse, since their serving girl, Polly, is late for work. Mattie would rather daydream about escaping Philadelphia, much like Blanchard's hot-air balloon which flew earlier that year, but she reluctantly complies. Eliza, the coffeehouse cook and Mattie's closest confidant, serves her a generous breakfast but quickly shoos her outside to tend the garden. Mattie continues to daydream about her crush, Nathaniel Benson, and about running her own businesses someday, but she's interrupted by Mother again—this time with the news that Polly has died suddenly of a fever. Mattie takes over Polly's duties in the coffeehouse, hearing her beloved Grandfather debate with customers about rumors of a yellow fever outbreak in the city. A couple of weeks later, many have died from the fever, but Grandfather argues that it's nothing to be concerned about. One day, a neighborhood aristocrat, Pernilla Ogilvie, invites Mattie and Lucille to tea. Mattie hates Pernilla's snobby daughters, Colette and Jeannine, and doesn't share Lucille's desire that she marry a rich Ogilvie son, but she reluctantly goes along. Just as Jeannine is picking a fight with Mattie by insulting the Cook Coffeehouse, Colette abruptly collapses from yellow fever. Soon, Philadelphia comes to a standstill because of the fever, with many wealthier families fleeing to the countryside. Even President Washington and other prominent statesmen are vacating the city. Grandfather continues to argue that the fever rumors are alarmist, but one day, as he and Mattie return from running errands, they see Lucille being dropped off in front of the coffeehouse—she's gravely ill. Mattie spends a horrifying night tending to her feverish mother, who begs her to leave so that she won't get sick. Mattie fears losing Lucille and regrets their past arguments; she believes she's failed to learn from Lucille's stoic strength. The next day a doctor diagnoses Lucille with yellow fever and bleeds her as a remedy. Grandfather agrees that he and Mattie should flee to the country while Eliza stays to care for Lucille. They hitch a ride with a farmer and his family. When they're just 10 miles outside of Philadelphia, however, their wagon is stopped by guards and a doctor, and Grandfather is barred from passing through the outlying towns because of his suspicious cough. He and Mattie find themselves abandoned in the countryside without provisions. When Mattie realizes that her sickly grandfather expects her to take charge, she's frightened, but she soon remembers how to locate water and forage for berries to keep them alive. She even fashions a makeshift net and almost succeeds in catching fish. When she ventures to nearby farms in search of better food, however, she soon grows disoriented and succumbs to fever herself. Later, she wakes up and discovers that she's recovering in the hospital; a nurse named Mrs. Flagg informs her that Grandfather has carried her there. The revitalized hospital, called Bush Hill, is staffed by French doctors who are more familiar with yellow fever and reject the American doctors' blood-letting remedies. After Mattie recovers, she and Grandfather get a wagon ride home. They find Philadelphia nearly deserted, with corpses in the streets, businesses abandoned, and thieves preying on the vulnerable. Even the coffeehouse has been broken into, and there's no sign of Lucille, whom they hope has recovered and fled. Grandfather looks weak and unwell, so Mattie urges him to rest while she cobbles together meager meals from the neglected garden. It's too dangerous to venture into the city in search of food. On their second night in the house, Mattie is awakened by thieves coming in through the open windows. When they find and restrain Mattie, the commotion wakes Grandfather, who confronts the men with his rifle. When one of the thieves brutally attacks Grandfather, Mattie seizes Grandfather's sword and wounds the man, chasing him from the house. When she returns, she finds Grandfather fading rapidly. He praises her bravery before he dies. Mattie is devastated to find herself truly alone. The next morning, a man passes the house with a cart of dead bodies, and Mattie helps him push Grandfather's corpse to the city's burial ground. Mattie refuses to see Grandfather's body tossed into a common grave without ceremony, and she leads the assembled gravediggers in reciting a Psalm. Then Mattie aimlessly wanders the streets of Philadelphia until she comes upon an abandoned orphan girl, Nell. Before she knows what she's doing, she's embracing Nell and carrying her around the city in search of help. Someone tells her to seek out the Free African Society volunteers, and before long, Mattie is tearfully reunited with Eliza, who's been nursing fever victims all over the city. Eliza assures Mattie that Lucille survived the fever and went to the country in search of her. Eliza takes Mattie and Nell home to her brother Joseph's house, where Mattie tends to Nell and Joseph's twin sons, Robert and William. Mattie soon talks herself into taking Nell to the orphan house, but when she gets there, the staff is overwhelmed with children whose parents have died from the fever. She happily takes Nell back home. She continues staying in Joseph's house and assisting Eliza in caring for Philadelphia's fever victims. One night, Mattie and Eliza come home to find Joseph weeping over the twins and Nell, who have all fallen ill with the fever. Mattie takes charge and decides to move the children to the coffeehouse, where there's cooler, fresher air. She and Eliza exhaust themselves in caring for the stricken children. Just as Mattie collapses in the garden in near despair, the season's first frost hits, signaling an end to the epidemic. Soon the children's fevers break, and farmers begin to return to the market with food. Joseph joyfully reunites with his sons. As life transitions back to normal, Mattie begins spending more time with Nathaniel Benson and reaches an "understanding" with him (an informal engagement), despite her family's earlier disapproval. She also invites Eliza to share the coffeehouse business with her, and the twins and Nell move in for good. The reopened coffeehouse quickly thrives, and Mattie is filled with good ideas for future expansion. However, she feels empty, missing Mother. When President Washington returns to Philadelphia, his entourage is trailed by the wagons and carriages of those who'd fled the city. Among these, at last, is Mother, brought home by her friend Mrs. Ludington. Lucille and Mattie embrace tearfully, and Mattie is shocked by her mother's frailty. Mrs. Ludington explains that when Lucille arrived in the countryside and discovered that Mattie was not there, she frantically went in search of Mattie and fell deathly ill. She miraculously recovered and is under strict orders to "live a life of leisure" from now on. Grieving the drastic change in her mother, Mattie realizes she is truly in charge now. Weeks later, on a chilly December morning, Mattie wakes before anyone else in the coffeehouse has stirred. In contrast to the beginning of the novel, she lets her mother sleep and quietly prepares the coffeehouse for another workday. Thinking of the epidemic and remembering those she's lost, Mattie nevertheless looks forward to a hopeful future.

- Genre: Novel, Historical Fiction - Title: Fiela’s Child - Point of view: Third Person Omniscient - Setting: Western Cape of South Africa, 1800s - Character: Benjamin. Description: Benjamin Komoetie is a white foundling. The "Coloured" (multiracial) farmer Fiela Komoetie and her husband Selling rescue Benjamin when he's three years old. His life changes forever when two census-takers arrive and notice the white Benjamin, suggesting that he must in fact be Lukas, the lost child of Elias and Barta van Rooyen, Afrikaners who live over the mountain. Although it's highly unlikely that a young child could have survived the trek over the mountain to the Komoetie property, this doesn't stop the magistrate and others in his office from biasing the process to make sure Benjamin ends up with the white van Rooyens. Although Benjamin is reluctant to leave Fiela and her family, he is powerless to resist the decree of the magistrate. Much of the novel centers on questions of Benjamin's identity, including to what extent he can shape it himself and to what extent people around him control it. Despite the harshness of his new father Elias, who wants to use Benjamin as a way to make money, Benjamin makes the best of his new life, forming a bond with his supposed sister, Nina. When Benjamin is about 20, Elias sends him to track down Nina, who has run away from a job in the village. Benjamin's trip takes him out to the hills near where the sea meets the Knysna river, and he meets the pilot Mr. Benn and the sailor Kaliel September. Seeing the wider world outside the Forest, particularly the boats (which remind Benjamin of his childhood with Fiela) inspires Benjamin to leave the van Rooyens. Around this time, Benjamin begins to develop romantic feelings for Nina, and he takes this as evidence that Nina isn't his blood relative. And so, on his journey to discover his identity, Benjamin goes back to where he started, proudly rejecting the name Lukas and embracing Fiela as his mother. - Character: Fiela. Description: Fiela Komoetie is a "Coloured" (multiracial) farmer from Long Kloof on the West Cape of South Africa. She and her husband Selling have several children together: Dawid, Tollie, Emma, and Kittie. Perhaps Fiela's strongest relationship, however, is with her white adopted son Benjamin, a foundling she rescued when Benjamin was just three years old. Fiela hides Benjamin from the world, not taking him to church despite her own deep religious faith and also keeping him out of school. She fears that some people might not accept the fact that she has a white child. Fiela's fears come true when some government census-takers notice Benjamin and initiate a legal process that ends with a local magistrate taking Benjamin away from Fiela and placing him in the care of the white van Rooyen family, alleging that Benjamin is the van Rooyens' lost son Lukas. Aside from her relationship with Benjamin, Fiela also has a strong relationship with the land of Wolwekraal, where she and her children harvest aloe and where she raises ostriches. Fiela demonstrates ingenuity, managing to survive and raise a family in a hot, dry climate where little can grow. - Character: Elias. Description: Elias van Rooyen is a wood-beam maker who lives in the Forest on Barnard's Island with his wife, Barta, and his children, Willem, Kristoffel, and Nina. Elias and Barta had another child named Lukas, but Lukas disappeared during a fog and was presumed dead. Many years later, the magistrate alerts the van Rooyens that the authorities have found Lukas alive and well, and Benjamin comes to live with them as "Lukas" (despite the fact that they're probably not the same person). While Barta seems to experience lasting guilt over her near certainty that Benjamin isn't really Lukas, Elias barely seems to consider the question. Right away, Elias tries to indoctrinate Benjamin into his new identity, forcing him to go by the name Lukas and stopping him from speaking the way "Coloured" (multiracial) people do. Perhaps Elias's defining characteristic is his greed—he's always thinking of dubious ways make himself more money, and he readily exploits Benjamin's labor, putting him to work producing wood beams. Elias's other big scheme involves trying to kill an elephant so that he can sell the tusks for money. Too poor to afford an elephant gun, Elias instead uses elaborate traps to try to outsmart the elephants. To his surprise, the elephants instead outsmart him, chasing him, injuring him, and leaving him afraid to travel around the Forest. While some of Elias's schemes do make him money, they eventually drive away his family and cause him to have a hostile relationship with nature. - Character: Barta. Description: Barta van Rooyen is the wife of the wood-beam maker Elias. She and Elias live with their children in the Forest. She grieves when their child Lukas disappears and seemingly perishes, but then one day, the magistrate calls her to court to see if Benjamin, a white foundling who's been living with Fiela, a "Coloured" (multiracial) farmer, is in fact Lukas. Benjamin ends up living with the van Rooyens, and although Barta initially seems like a more sympathetic parent than the stern Elias, near the end of the novel she reveals a secret: she strongly suspected all along that Benjamin was never Lukas. She was supposed to pick "Lukas" out of a lineup of similar-looking boys, but one of the census-takers interfered in the process by telling her which boy was Benjamin. Barta's willingness to go along with this process and unjustly take Benjamin away from Fiela could reflect Barta's racism, but it also suggests her willingness to submit to authority. In the end, Barta partly redeems herself by telling the truth and helping Benjamin to shed his false identity as Lukas. - Character: Nina. Description: Nina is the daughter of Elias and Barta. She temporarily becomes a "sister" to Benjamin after he comes to live with them as "Lukas." After realizing that Benjamin likely isn't her biological brother after all, she becomes his love interest. Nina's greedy father Elias never wanted a daughter, and so he tries to treat her like a son, first trying to bring her into his wood-beam business, then, when she resists that, forcing her to work as a servant in the village, ultimately hoping to claim her wages. Again and again, Nina runs away to the Forest to try to avoid her responsibilities at home and at work. Perhaps because she feels like an outsider among her family, she bonds with Benjamin after the magistrate sends him to live with her family as her lost brother "Lukas." Later, Benjamin is embarrassed to realize that he has romantic feelings for Nina, and this helps him realize that perhaps he isn't Lukas after all. Eventually, Nina's relationship with Benjamin and the support she receives from her sympathetic employer, Miss Weatherbury, help her escape her family for good and start a new life in the village. Nina represents the opposite of her greedy father Elias, showing how it is possible to live in harmony with the Forest and nature in general. - Character: The Census-Takers. Description: The census-takers are a pair of men in black hats and suits who forever change the lives of two families when they decide that the white Benjamin is not the rightfully adopted son of the "Coloured" (multiracial) farmers Fiela and Selling but in fact the long-lost son Lukas of Elias and Barta van Rooyen , an Afrikaner family. The census-takers appear polite on the surface, assuring Fiela that they will make promptly return Benjamin if it turns out he isn't Barta's son. This all ends up being a lie, however, when one of the census-takers specifically intervenes in the magistrate's trial to ensure that Benjamin ends up going to live with the white van Rooyens. The census-takers represent institutional racism, showing how people can use the justice system to carry out acts of discrimination and injustice. - Character: The Magistrate. Description: The magistrate in Knysna (whose name is Mr. Goldsbury, though the book more often refers to him by his title) is an upper-class man who is the most powerful legal figure in the region where the Komoetie family and the van Rooyen family live. With his swift, authoritative judgment, the magistrate decides that Benjamin is not the rightful adopted son of Fiela and Selling. Instead, he claims that Benjamin is Lukas, the long-lost son of Elias and Barta. Despite the magistrate's supposed commitment to justice, he rigs the trial in several ways, making it so that Fiela can't attend the trial to plead her case, then afterward refusing to see Fiela in person and even threatening to throw her in jail if she keeps bothering him to get her son back. The magistrate represents how racism infiltrated the legal system of 19th-century South Africa. - Character: Selling. Description: Selling Komoetie is the husband of Fiela and the biological father of her children. Selling used to be a strong and relatively wealthy "Coloured" (multiracial) man. Many young women in his community wanted to marry him, but he was always most interested in Fiela. He admired the white man Petrus, who in turn helped Selling get started in his new married life with Fiela. But after a dispute over a sheep leads Selling to kill Kies Laghaan, Selling ends up in prison, narrowly avoiding execution but getting a life sentence. Selling spends many years doing back-breaking forced labor, possibly only surviving due to the food that Fiela risks her own welfare to bring him. Eventually, with some help from Petrus, Selling manages to obtain a pardon, but he is never the same and remains sickly for the remainder of the book. - Character: Petrus. Description: Petrus is one of the most influential white residents of the town near where Fiela, Selling, and their children live. Petrus is one of the more sympathetic white authority figures in the novel, providing money to Fiela and Selling to help them get married and start their own life. Nevertheless, even from the start Petrus has conflicted motives: part of the reason why Petrus helps Selling get married is because he doesn't want Selling to move on to another town and take a new job. Similarly, Petrus seems to genuinely want to help Fiela attempt to reclaim her adopted white son Benjamin, but after meeting with the (white) magistrate, he accepts the magistrate's judgment that Benjamin is not Fiela's and fails to see the flaws in the magistrate's process. Petrus represents how in a racist society, even seemingly well-intentioned members of the dominant class can cause harm to marginalized people, either through naivety or through an unwillingness to question the injustice around them. - Character: Dawid. Description: Dawid is the eldest son of Fiela and Selling. After Fiela adopts Benjamin, Dawid becomes one of his closest companions growing up. When the census-takers come to take Benjamin away, Benjamin regrets not listening to Dawid's advice to run away. Dawid grows up to be a well-loved member of the local community. Later, Dawid inadvertently plays a key role in bringing Benjamin back to Fiela—when news of Dawid's early death reaches Benjamin, it motivates him to return to Wolwekraal, finally abandoning his identity as Lukas. - Character: Mr. Benn. Description: Mr. Benn is a pilot who supervises ships as they traverse the rocky waters where the sea meets the head of the Knysna river, a job he takes seriously. He can be a gruff man, rejecting Benjamin during his early attempts to find a job. He demonstrates his protective nature by trying to warn Nina not to spend time on the hills where lecherous sailors often gather. Ultimately, Mr. Benn hires Benjamin to work on his pilot-boat, marking Benjamin's entrance into adulthood. - Character: Kaliel September. Description: Kaliel September is an oarsman who works for Mr. Benn and who takes Benjamin under his wing after Mr. Benn initially rejects Benjamin for a job. Kaliel is full of ingenuity, building a home out of pieces of boats from around the world and finding many other sources of income to supplement his meager pay from Mr. Benn. He helps Benjamin learn how to make his own way in the world. - Character: Lukas. Description: Lukas van Rooyen is the young child of Elias and Barta who disappears one day in the fog when he's still a toddler. Although the census-takers claim that Benjamin is in fact Lukas and that he survived that day in the fog, later events reveal that Lukas did most likely die shortly after wandering off. - Character: Emma. Description: Emma is the youngest biological child of Fiela and Selling. Fiela is pregnant with her while Selling goes to jail for committing murder, and she takes the infant Emma with her while she secretly visits Selling at his forced labor camp. Later in life, Emma grows apart from her family, spending time with a preacher who has children with her but keeps putting off marriage. - Character: Willem. Description: Willem is the eldest son of Elias and Barta and eventually a "brother" to Benjamin. Elias teaches Willem how to cut wood beams. Later, Elias often sends Willem to try to find Nina, who frequently runs away from the jobs in the village that her father arranges for her. Despite his initial obedience, Willem becomes increasingly distant from his domineering father over the course of the story. - Character: Kristoffel. Description: Kristoffel is the second-oldest son of Elias and Barta and eventually a "brother" to Benjamin. Like Willem, he is initially loyal to his father, but he grows increasingly estranged from him over the course of the novel, particularly after he finds out that his parents lied about Benjamin being "Lukas." - Character: Miss Weatherbury. Description: Miss Weatherbury is a relatively upper-class English woman who takes in Nina as a servant even after Nina's habit of running away and shirking her duties at her previous gives her a bad reputation. Although most other employers run out of patience for Nina, Mis Weatherbury keeps accepting her back and treats her with respect. - Character: Aunt Malie. Description: Aunt Malie lives in the small Forest community of Barnard's Island where Elias, Barta, and their family also live. She suspects from the very beginning that Benjamin is not in fact Elias and Barta's lost son Lukas, providing yet another example of a character who causes suffering by going along with authority and refusing to challenge the status quo. - Theme: Race and Identity. Description: Fiela's Child centers around one young man's struggle to figure out his identity. He wonders whether he's truly Benjamin Komoetie, the adopted son of the "Coloured" (multiracial) farmer Fiela, or whether he is Lukas van Rooyen, the lost son of Elias and Barta who wandered off as a young child and was originally presumed dead. The novel takes place on the Western Cape of South Africa in the 1800s. Institutional racism and white supremacy are prevalent, with Afrikaners (the white descendants of Dutch settlers) having much more political, social, and economic power than the mixed race Coloured people of the area. Benjamin's situation is unique—after spending his formative years with Coloured Komoetie family, a magistrate's decision suddenly makes him part of the white van Rooyen family. Being white himself, Benjamin looks like the van Rooyens on the outside, yet the formative years he spent with Fiela as his mother continue to shape who he is on the inside. When some census-takers stop by the Komoetie farm and happen to notice the white Benjamin there, they set in motion the series of events that will end with Benjamin being forced to live with his new family. Benjamin's behavior disturbs many of the white people he meets along the way, particular his tendency to refer to them as "master" (a common form of address that Coloured people use when speaking to white people). Perhaps Benjamin's behavior is so alarming to people like the census-takers and the magistrate because it challenges the very premise of a society based on racial segregation. If a white boy like Benjamin can learn to act "Coloured," it suggests that racial differences may not be so rigid after all. The people at the magistrate's office as well as Elias and Barta try to teach Benjamin to act as a white person ought to act, telling him to stop saying "master" and "missus" and to cut ties with his old adopted family for good. Rather than allowing Benjamin's unique upbringing to challenge their preconceived ideas about white and Coloured, they instead try to force Benjamin to conform to their rigid ideas about race. And so, while Fiela's Child shows the profound impact that a person's race can have on their identity and ultimately on the course of their life, it also shows how race is partly a social construction—something that is taught and enforced rather than inherent. - Theme: Parenting. Description: Fiela's Child is about the relationship between parents and children. The two main families are the Komoeties (a mostly "Coloured" (multiracial) family of farmers who live in a hot, dry region called Long Kloof) and the van Rooyens (a white family descended from Dutch settlers who live in the Forest). Benjamin, whose parents are unknown, unites the two families: over the course of the story, the Komoeties and the van Rooyens both claim Benjamin as their own, but they have opposite approaches to parenting. Fiela Komoetie is a supportive parent who teaches her children to be  independent rather than controlling them. She teaches her children everything they need to survive in the harsh climate of Long Kloof, like how to herd and raise ostriches and how to tap aloe. Fiela understands that she can't control her children—despite her guidance and nurturing, for instance, her son Tollie struggles with alcohol addiction and ends up in jail. Still, she strives to guide them in a direction that'll hopefully lead them to become good, independent adults. On the other hand, the van Rooyens, and particularly Elias, represent a harsher and more controlling method of parenting. On the surface, Elias might seem to resemble Fiela, teaching his children how to cut wood beams just as Fiela teaches her children how to tap aloe. But while Fiela wants her children to become independent and eventually take over her land, Elias cares much more about how he can exploit his own children to make money. Furthermore, he thinks he can force his children to become whatever he wants them to be—and he always fails. For example, though Elias tries to force Benjamin to become "Lukas," beating Benjamin when he resists, Benjamin ultimately returns to Fiela and reclaims his identity as her son. While Fiela's parenting doesn't yield perfect results, she nevertheless achieves more for herself and her children than Elias, whose wife and children fear him more than they respect him, leaving him increasingly lonely as he ages. In this way, Fiela's Child examines the degree to which a parent can influence their child's character and determine their future. Through the opposite parenting styles of Fiela and Elias, the book suggests that while parents can guide their children in a direction that will hopefully lead them to become good, independent adults, ultimately parents cannot control the people their children will become. - Theme: Justice. Description: Fiela's Child examines the meaning of justice by presenting a situation where the supposedly just official legal system delivers an unjust result. At the center of the novel is a magistrate's decision to take the white foundling Benjamin away from his adopted "Coloured" (multiracial) mother, Fiela, "returning" him to the white van Rooyens to replace their lost son Lukas. While the magistrate and his colleagues use bureaucratic language to justify their decision and technically follow the law, they ultimately hold a trial that is anything but just. As Fiela herself angrily says at one point, the magistrate is no just judge like King Solomon: rather than having both mothers present at the trial to determine Benjamin's parentage (as King Solomon famously did), the magistrate specifically invites only Barta van Rooyen, deliberately excluding Fiela from the proceedings. Furthermore, one of the census-takers biases the process further by giving Barta a hint to ensure that she identifies Benjamin as her son "Lukas" out of a lineup of similar-looking children, thereby guaranteeing that Benjamin will end up with the white van Rooyens. The justice system thus guarantees that Fiela has the odds stacked against her from the very start. The whole trial about Benjamin's parentage illustrates how in 19th-century South Africa, the legal system could become a way to justify injustice, specifically racism against Black and Coloured South Africans. As the novel shows, this system was effective in hiding some of the horrors of that racism. Petrus, for example, is a white man who considers himself sympathetic to his Coloured neighbors, even providing money for the marriage of Selling and Fiela. But when Petrus tries to return Benjamin to Fiela, he ultimately believes the magistrate's explanation that Benjamin is Lukas, trusting his country's legal institutions and unable to see the racial biases at play. Even Fiela herself grudgingly accepts Benjamin's loss, partly because she reluctantly accepts the magistrate's authority, partly because she fears punishment if she presses the issue too far. Fiela's Child argues convincingly that legality and morality are two different things, demonstrating how an unjust and racist society can use its legal institutions to promote injustice rather than justice and to perpetuate systemic inequality. - Theme: Humanity vs. Nature. Description: Throughout Fiela's Child, many of the characters struggle against their natural environment, with some characters trying to live in harmony with nature and others trying to dominate it. The most hostile character toward nature is Elias, for whom nature is little more than a way for him to get rich, and he shows no regard for the natural environment as he dreams up schemes to make himself wealthier. While his wood-beam making work hints at an aggressive relationship with the Forest, what really defines Elias's relationship to nature is his unceasing quest to try to obtain the tusks of an elephant. While Elias sees proof that elephants act as families and are capable of outsmarting him, he nevertheless schemes  to set a trap to kill one, all so that he can buy a gun to kill more elephants and make even more money. Elias's hostile attitude toward nature leads nature to strike back, with aggressive elephants chasing after Elias and even seriously wounding him on one occasion, ultimately limiting his ability to wander around freely in the Forest. By contrast, his daughter Nina appreciates the trees and creeks of the Forest, spending her free time exploring them; in return, the Forest provides her with solace, sparing her of elephant attacks and giving her a place to temporarily escape the demands of her family and her work. Most characters have a relationship with nature that falls somewhere between the two extremes of the nature-hating Elias and the nature-loving Nina. Fiela, for example, tries to be a good steward of her land at Wolwekraal, keeping her animals well cared for, but she also frequently experiences frustration, like when her ostriches Kicker and Pollie refuse to mate with each other at first. Similarly, as a pilot, Mr. Benn watches over the ships that enter the rocky waters near the head of the Knysna river, a tricky job that requires patience and a keen knowledge of weather conditions. Both Fiela and Mr. Benn try to make the best of harsh conditions, exerting some force over nature, but also being flexible and respecting nature's unpredictability. As Fiela's Child attests, humanity and nature will often be in conflict, but with patience and humility, humans can learn to overcome nature's challenges and perhaps even reach a state of harmony with the natural world. - Climax: Benjamin gets Barta to admit that he's not Lukas. - Summary: In 19th-century South Africa, outside the Western Cape town of Knysna, a wood-beam maker named Elias van Rooyen lives in the Forest with his wife, Barta. One foggy day, they lose their child Lukas, and despite several days of searching, the community reaches the conclusion that the child must be dead. Around the same time, a "Coloured" (multiracial) woman named Fiela Komoetie, who lives over the mountain in a hot, dry region called Long Kloof, comes across a white Afrikaner foundling. She names him Benjamin and raises him as one of her own children. She teaches Benjamin her way of life on her property in Wolwekraal, teaching him how to harvest aloe and how to use a thorny branch to guide ostriches. Benjamin's favorite activity when he's younger is to play with carved wooden boats in the river. Despite Fiela's love for Benjamin, she hides him from the rest of the community, fearing what would happen if people knew that a Coloured woman was raising a white son. Fiela's fears come true one day when a pair of government census-takers come to Wolwekraal and notice the white Benjamin among Fiela's other children. They believe Benjamin might be the lost child Lukas. Fiela argues persuasively that this isn't possible, since no child Benjamin's age could have survived the treacherous journey from the Forest to West Kloof. The census-takers assure Fiela that the magistrate will justly and correctly determine who is truly Benjamin's mother, and so, reluctantly, Fiela allows the men to take Benjamin away for a trial. In fact, however, the magistrate doesn't give a fair trial. Fiela isn't allowed to attend herself, and one of the census-takers gives Barta a hint to ensure that she "recognizes" Benjamin as her son Lukas in a lineup. When Benjamin doesn't return, Fiela goes twice to Knysna herself to try to speak with the magistrate, but she fails to convince the authorities, and they warn her that she herself will go to jail if she keeps pushing the issue. Fiela backs down, in part because she's been afraid of the legal system ever since her husband Selling went to jail and only narrowly escaped execution or life in prison. Forced to live with the van Rooyens in the Forest, Benjamin struggles to adapt to his new life as Lukas before grudgingly accepting his new identity. His new father Elias is cruel to him, forcing Benjamin to work hard at making wood beams and scolding him anytime he acts "Coloured" or talks about his life before he was "Lukas." One of the few bright spots of Benjamin's new life in the Forest is his "sister" Nina, who is rebellious and who often escapes work by taking refuge in the Forest. Although Benjamin lives with the van Rooyens for many years and seems to fully accept his identity as Lukas, a part of him can't let go of his past as Benjamin Komoetie, Fiela's child. One day, when Elias asks Benjamin to track down the runaway Nina, Benjamin walks around the hills near the sea where boats come in. Seeing the wider world outside the Forest reignites Benjamin's desire to reject his identity as Lukas and leave the Forest behind. He becomes fascinated by Mr. Benn, a pilot who guides ships through the shallow, rocky waters between the sea and the head of the Knysna River. Although Mr. Benn initially declines to give Benjamin a job as a sailor, Benjamin begins to learn the ropes by doing work for a lower-ranked sailor named Kaliel September. While Benjamin is staying with the sailors, he sees Nina again and thinks she looks different. He realizes with embarrassment that he has romantic feelings for her, but later, instead of feeling shame, he takes this as proof that Nina must not be his blood relative—and hence he isn't Lukas after all. Eventually, Benjamin learns from a messenger that his brother Dawid (Fiela's biological son) has died. Benjamin doesn't attend the funeral, but he nevertheless decides that it's finally time to return to Wolwekraal. There, he joyfully reunites with Fiela and Selling, choosing them as his real parents. Fiela has managed to run a successful farm despite Selling's ailing health, turning her initial pair of ostriches into a full dozen. Despite the happiness of this family reunion, however, Fiela can tell that a sadness still exists within Benjamin. Benjamin realizes that he has to go back to confront his former "parents" Elias and Barta. Elias has had a tough few years, getting injured by elephants in his greedy quest to kill one of them and sell its tusks. Benjamin confronts Barta and gets her to admit the truth: she knew all along that Benjamin wasn't Lukas, but she was afraid to bring it up. She agrees to go to the magistrate and set things straight. Finally free of his false identity as Lukas, Benjamin goes back to Mr. Benn to learn how to become a sailor. Before starting work, however, he asks Mr. Benn for one more day so that he can visit Nina.

- Genre: Conceptual / speculative fiction, historical fiction, postwar literature. - Title: Fifth Business - Point of view: First person (Dunstan Ramsay) - Setting: Deptford Canada, Europe, South America. - Character: Dunstan Ramsay. Description: Dunstan (Dunstable) Ramsay is the narrator of the story, which takes the form of a letter to the headmaster of Colborne College, where Dunstan works as a history teacher. Dunstan's life has been defined, it seems, by a single moment from his childhood. Percy Staunton threw a snowball at him, but he ducked so that the snowball hit the pregnant Mrs. Dempster, and the trauma caused her to go into early labor. Dunstan, a serious, lonely, and contemplative person, cannot forgive himself for his role in this accident. He eventually comes to believe Mary Dempster is a saint, capable of performing miracles. He devotes much of his life to the study of sainthood, getting a degree in history, and working as a teacher so that he can take advantage of the long summer breaks to travel Europe and study little-known saints. Dunstan is brilliant and good at his work, but struggles with forming human connections, and spends much of the novel learning how to love and how to give his life meaning. - Character: Mrs. Mary Dempster. Description: Mary Dempster is hit with a snowball at the beginning of the novel and her life is forever changed. Her son Paul is born prematurely, and it is suspected that the blow to the head had lasting mental effects—people in the town repeatedly say that she has become "slow" or "simple." Mary's husband (Amasa) is a devout Baptist minister who does his best to take care of his wife and son, but Mary ultimately betrays him by wandering out one night and having consensual sex with a tramp (this act is considered a miracle by Dunstan, for the tramp was forever reformed after that night). After this, Amasa keeps her tied up in her house, and when her husband dies and her son Paul runs away, she goes insane. She eventually dies in a mental hospital under the guardianship of Dunstan, whom she is incapable of recognizing. - Character: Paul Dempster. Description: Paul was born prematurely as a result of the snowball hitting his mother Mary's head. He is a frail child, who at an early age, and under Dunstan's tutelage, displays a talent for magic tricks. Mr. Dempster believes magic is sacrilegious and will not allow it in the house. Paul eventually runs away from home after being lured into a circus by Le Solitaire, who is an implied pedophile. He becomes a famous magician and illusionist, going by the name of Magnus Eisengrim. He eventually reconnects with Dunstan, whom he hires to write his magic persona's falsified autobiography. Through Dunstan he meets Boy Staunton again, whom he kills after learning that Boy threw the snowball that hit his mother and doesn't remember the incident at all, leaving the stone hidden in the snowball that struck his mother in Boy's mouth. - Character: Mr. Amasa Dempster. Description: Mr. Dempster is a devout Baptist preacher, husband to Mary and father to Paul. He is considered by many to be religiously devoted to a fault, possessing no judgment of his own and deferring always to God. In many ways his religious convictions and arguably good intentions nevertheless lead him to treat his family poorly, preventing Paul from practicing magic and restraining Mary in the house with a rope and harness after she betrays him by sleeping with the tramp. He eventually dies during the influenza epidemic of 1918. - Character: Boy (Percy Boyd) Staunton. Description: Boy grows from being a petulant and irresponsible young boy to an ambitious and egotistic man. He is a genius with finance and manages to avoid failure during the Great Depression. He receives honors in WWI, marries his childhood sweetheart, Leola, with whom he has two children, and is all but a celebrity. But despite all of this good fortune he is unhappy. He carries on multiple affairs, and is completely unfazed when Leola discovers this. After Leola dies, he marries another woman named Denyse, who helps him to a rocky but ultimately successful career in politics. Even this is not enough to make Boy happy, and he remains unfulfilled. Though he threw the snowball that injured Mrs. Dempster, he has no memory of their family at all. Boy dies in an apparent car wreck with the stone from the snowball in his mouth—he is most likely killed by Paul. - Character: Willie Ramsay. Description: Willie is Dunstan's older brother. As a child he suffered a back injury that led to kidney complications. He grows weaker and weaker, until one day when Dunstan is looking after him he dies—his heart stops and he grows very pale and cold. Dunstan runs to Mary's house and asks her to help. She touches Willie and repeats his name and he begins to breathe again. He gets healthy enough to fight in the war, where he is killed. Dunstan believes Mary performed a miracle and resurrected Willie. - Character: Leola Cruikshank. Description: Leola is the prettiest girl in Deptford, and early on develops a romantic relationship with Percy. When he goes away to boarding school after being caught having sex with their classmate Mabel, Leola promises to wait for him, but for a short time dates Dunstan before Dunstan goes off to war. Leola eventually chooses Boy and marries him, but as he grows more and more successful she realizes she is not a good match for him, and becomes depressed. She attempts suicide after finding out about Boy's affairs, but survives. She becomes ill some years later, and dies. Dunstan suspects she left the window in her bedroom open to accelerate her own death. - Character: Liesl. Description: Liesl is a hideously ugly but highly intelligent woman who manages Paul's magic show. She has read Dunstan's work on saints and chooses him to write the autobiography of Magnus Eisengrim. Dunstan is physically repulsed by her, yet he admires her intellect. One night she tries to seduce him, but Dunstan fights her off. She comes back to apologize, and tells Dunstan his greatest error in life is learning how to love his work and Mrs. Dempster, and nothing and no one else. Dunstan sleeps with her after this conversation. Later, he will tell Padre Blazon that he met the devil in the form of Liesl, and that she taught him how to live with and enjoy the devil without compromising his own morality (or making a "faustian" bargain). - Character: Faustina. Description: The beautiful assistant to Magnus Eisengrim. Faustina is portrayed as a purely physical being. Dunstan admires and loves her from afar, knowing she has a kind of relationship with Paul. One night, however, he sees Faustina and Liesl engaging in various sexual acts with one another. Liesl eventually explains that Faustina's purpose in life is to enjoy physical love in every form. - Character: Padre Blazon. Description: Padre Blazon is an old and eccentric member of the Jesuit group of scholars with whom Dunstan studies for a time. Dunstan has a particularly close relationship with Padre Blazon, whose understanding of Christianity, faith, and God is unusual and thoughtful. Padre wishes Jesus had lived to be an old man—for he is an old man himself, and realizes there is nothing in the teachings of Christ that tells us how to be old. He advises Dunstan on how to handle and think about Mrs. Dempster's sainthood. He dies an elderly but still energetic man, and tells Dunstan on his deathbed that he has finally figured out how to be old. - Character: The Headmaster. Description: The headmaster is the recipient of the letter the novel comprises. He was selected over Dunstan because he was perceived to be more "normal" and socially palatable. Dunstan writes to him after seeing an article about himself in the school paper that he believes does not do his life justice. He wants the Headmaster to know his story and therefore carry on his life's meaning. - Theme: Religion, Faith, and Morality. Description: Dunstan Ramsey's account of his life involves at almost every stage questions about religion, faith, and morality. Can one have faith without religion (or religion without faith)? Does being faithful or religious make us morally upright? Families in Dunstan's small hometown of Deptford, Ontario are divided by religion: one's social life and community is determined by whether one is Presbyterian, Baptist, Anglican, etc. Though Dunstan's family is Presbyterian, they provide help to the Baptist Mrs. Dempster when a snowball (meant for Dunstan) hits her in the head and causes her to prematurely give birth to her son Paul. Dunstan's exposure to Mr. Dempster, a Baptist preacher, teaches him that "deeply religious" men are not always faithful or moral men. Dunstan believes Mrs. Dempster—though she is aloof and far too trivial for this hardened protestant town's taste, and ultimately is discovered having consensual sex with a tramp—is more godly than her devout husband. In fact, Dunstan becomes convinced that Mrs. Dempster is a saint, and perceives her to perform three miracles: bringing Dunstan's brother Willy back from the dead, reforming the tramp with whom she has sex that night, and appearing to Dunstan in a kind of vision when he is an injured soldier during WWI. Dunstan's interest in saints (which is regarded by others as an illegitimate interest, since he is a protestant) drives the course of his whole life—he becomes a scholar of sainthood, and travels the world to better learn the stories of saints, allowing these stories to inform his faith and his moral decision-making.The religion, faith, and morality of other main characters in the novel are also investigated at length. Paul grows up to be a magician—and his belief in the power of illusion is described as a kind of faith by Dunstan, who in many ways shares this belief. Boy Staunton (who threw the snowball that hit Mrs. Dempster, but doesn't remember doing so) is in many ways an investigation of moral and religious failure. He is indecisive about religion, ultimately declaring himself an atheist. Dunstan maintains that Boy only became an atheist because he worshipped himself as God, and was disappointed. The book concludes decisively that there is nothing inherently moral about religion, though it does stress the importance of faith to a person's moral fiber as well as his self-knowledge, self-love, and self-discovery. In other words, the book posits that in coming to find and know our own personal faiths, we come to find and know ourselves. In many ways the novel (structured as a letter from an old man, desperate to reveal that his life has significance) is an investigation of how our lives come to have meaning; Davies' conclusion is that faith (whether it be in saints, God, magic, or anything else) is crucial to this sense of meaning. - Theme: Guilt and Sacrifice. Description: The internal conflict driving the story is one based in guilt: Dunstan feels responsible for Mrs. Dempster's premature labor (since the snowball that hit her was meant for him). This guilt compounds over the course of the story: subsequent misfortunes also seem linked to Dunstan's behavior. He is banished from the Dempster's house for teaching Paul magic (something to which Mr. Dempster is religiously opposed). He is the one that discovers Mrs. Dempster with the tramp, leading to her imprisonment by her husband. In fact, everything he does seems to have some kind of tangential effect on the life of Mrs. Dempster, who eventually goes insane and dies after spending most of her life in a mental hospital. Conversely, Dunstan begins to think of his own hardships as sacrifices he's made to atone for his guilt. He believes in some ways that his leg—lost during the war—is a kind of cosmic punishment for his role in the unlucky accident involving Mrs. Dempster. Another major tension in the novel concerns the fact that Boy Staunton, who actually threw the snowball that hit Mrs. Dempster, feels no guilt at all. In fact, it is revealed at the end of the story that Boy has completely forgotten about the Dempsters' entire existence. Boy still is forced to make a sacrifice in atonement, however—Paul Dempster eventually kills Boy Staunton after Dunstan confronts Boy about his role in Paul's life. This death is rendered directly symbolic by the fact that Paul places the stone that was in the snowball (which Dunstan has kept) in Boy's mouth the night of his death. Much of the fortune and misfortune in the novel is framed by Dunstan's letter as a kind of cosmic back-and-forth between guilt and sacrifice, wrongdoing and atonement. The book therefore offers a way for the reader to understand how we sometimes cope with or comprehend tragedy. The novel spans two world wars and the Great Depression, events that were characterized by irrational—in fact incomprehensible—loss and degradation. Accordingly, the book's discussion of guilt can be read as an explanation of how its narrator learned to rationalize the irrational. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that Dunstan is so quick to attribute a kind of significance to every loss and hardship, when so much of his life and others' seems to be defined by such hardship. Guilt is not simply a psychological phenomenon in this book—it is historically meaningful. (This theme is closely tied to the themes of "History and Mythology" and "Love, Family, and Psychology.) - Theme: The Meaning of Success. Description: Dunstan, Boy, Mrs. Dempster, and Paul—as well as several other less central characters—could all be described as "successful," though their lives do not resemble one another's in any way. The novel thus wonders what "success" is, and what it means to the individual. Boy Staunton chases "success" his whole life—he succeeds in finding fortune, prestige, and popularity. He is a "genius" (to use Dunstan's word) at making his own luck, and fortune always seems to be on his side. But, he is nevertheless morbidly unfulfilled. He cheats on his first wife repeatedly because she can never be enough for him. And when he eventually earns a seat in government he is even unhappier, though this is arguably one of the greatest successes of his life. Dunstan repeatedly refers in his letter to the Headmaster to his own success, which he notes is too often overlooked by his students and his colleagues at Colborne College. He has won the VC for bravery in war (though he considers this a dubious kind of "success"), published several books, has learned many languages, has traveled the world, and has attained a great deal of knowledge which has allowed him to lead a rich spiritual life. Unlike Boy's success, this kind of success often goes unnoticed—but Dunstan, we can assume, is far happier and more fulfilled than Boy. Mrs. Dempster is reviled by her town for being insane and morally bankrupt. Her sexual act with the tramp is regarded as a failure not only for her, but also for her husband, son, and entire community. Yet this act, we learn, reforms the life of the tramp, whose name is Joel Surgeoner. Both Joel and Dunstan consider this act—far from depraved and condemnable—a miracle. In some ways we are led to believe that Mrs. Dempster's spiritual success surpasses the success of anyone else in the novel. Her son Paul, who runs away to the circus (an act typically attributed to vagrants and "failures") goes on to become a famous magician, beloved and adored on an international scale. But it is unclear whether this success means much to Paul, who is the first to acknowledge that he has not led a charmed life by any means. The novel asks us to examine how we understand success as individuals, how we understand it as a culture, and how a single person can be simultaneously a success and a failure. Davies paints a complicated picture of the meaning of success, and forces his reader to engage difficult questions about how best to define success. - Theme: History and Mythology. Description: Dunstan eventually becomes a history teacher, a historian of sainthood, a biographer of Paul's falsified history, and (in the form of the letter that the book consists of) an autobiographer, a historian of his own life. Accordingly, the novel is deeply invested in a discussion of how history is made and recorded, how history and myth are intertwined, and how we determine what is "real" (factual) and what is imagined, fabricated, and reinterpreted—in other words "mythological"—about our past. Dunstan clearly believes that history should not consist simply (perhaps "merely") of "fact." He resents his students who wish to take a more "scientific" approach to history, and values historical accounts that include marvelous or unexplainable happenings. This is shown foremost by his own history—He maintains that Mrs. Dempster brought his brother back from death, and that her face appeared to him on the battlefield. He cannot verify these rather mystical events as factual, but, in his estimation, this should not prevent them from appearing in his history. He also believes in fate, and in the idea of destiny—in other words, that history is driven by a mythological power that essentially directs us to a certain fate. He borrows much of this thinking from the mythology of the Greeks. His interest in the history of sainthood is also indicative of his belief that history and mythology should not be kept utterly separate. He investigates the deeds and lives of saints as one might investigate the deeds and lives of more traditionally historical figures. This earns him skepticism from his friends and contemporaries, but he carries on nevertheless. The novel thus suggests how we might best understand history—whether it is our own personal history, or world history—as something more than the progression of verified factual events. We cannot fully understand history without grasping the non-factual elements of experience: impressions, interpretations, and misunderstandings also make history. Given that the book is a fictional account of a mythological history of its protagonist, we could say that in many ways this discussion of history and mythology could emphasize the importance of fiction and literature itself. Perhaps Davies is warning us against a view of history that excludes artistic, literary, imaginative or fictional accounts (such as Fifth Business itself.) - Theme: Love, Family, and Psychology. Description: The novel demonstrates a persistent interest in psychology—the works of Freud and Jung are often cited by several of its characters. Like these psychologists themselves, Davies is interested especially in the psychology of love and family. Dunstan often tries to understand the psychology of his family dysfunction growing up—his relationship with his mother was not strong, yet he always felt guilty about lying to her as a child, and wonders if his attraction to certain women is a function of the Freudian oedipal complex (where the subject feels a sexual attraction for his mother.) And Boy's sexual promiscuity is also often described in psychological terms. Dunstan is less sexual than Boy, and has trouble comprehending Boy's relentless pursuit of adventurous sex. There are many examples of split identities in this book—it is especially significant that Dunstan, Paul, and Boy all rename themselves. Dunstan often reflects on this as a kind of psychological phenomenon wherein the three of them all leave past versions of themselves behind and grow into new identities. This resembles discussions in both Freud and Jung about repression of childhood memories and the divided self—a concept (appearing in both Freud and Jung) that describes how the human psyche is divided into the conscious and unconscious, which together make up the self.Mrs. Dempster's insanity is in many ways at the heart of the novel's conflict—and Dunstan's (perhaps neurotic) attachment to Mrs. Dempster is also a focus of the novel's psychological discussion. Dunstan's love life, though perhaps seemingly uneventful, is deeply psychologically complicated. In many ways the novel serves to describe Dunstan coming to understand himself and his psychological capacity to love not only his work but also other people—to love his family, his friends, the women in his life. Published in 1970, Fifth Business was written at a time when the western interest in Freudian (and post-Freudian) psychiatry was still quite avid. Davies incorporates contemporary questions about the meaning and merit of psychological science—for psychology is yet another way we can understand ourselves and our humanity, and this book is in many ways an effort to do just that. - Climax: Dunstan finally confronts Boy about his role in the Dempster's tragic lives. Boy astonishes him by revealing he doesn't even remember the Dempster's existence. - Summary: The novel takes the form of a letter written by Dunstan Ramsay to the Headmaster of Colborne College, where Dunstan is a teacher. A recent article in the school newspaper has portrayed Dunstan as dull and boring, and he wishes to correct this perception by telling his strange, marvelous, and complicated life story to the headmaster. He begins with the night in the small town of Deptford Ontario that Percy Boyd Staunton threw a snowball at him, but instead hit the head of Mary Dempster, who is pregnant. Mary then prematurely gives birth to her son Paul as a result of the accident. Her husband, Amasa Dempster, a devout Baptist minister is burdened by his wife after the accident, for the blow to the head makes her "simple." Mrs. Ramsay, Dunstan's mother, takes care of Mrs. Dempster, pitying her because she has become ill equipped for sensible domestic life and because her husband's religion prevents him from thinking clearly and helping her. Dunstan also takes care of Mary and looks after Paul after school. He comes to love Mrs. Dempster, partially because he feels responsible for her misfortune. Dunstan works in the library as a child, and develops a love of learning, fantastical stories, mythology, and magic. He teaches Paul magic tricks, but this backfires—Amasa is furious that Dunstan has corrupted his son with "gambling tricks" and bans Dunstan from his home. One night Mary Dempster goes missing, and Dunstan is part of the search party. He discovers her having sex with a tramp, and when questioned, she serenely confirms the sex was consensual. Amasa takes her home, resigns from the church, and moves her to a small cottage where he keeps her tied up. Mrs. Ramsay's sympathy for her is gone, and she forbids Dunstan to see her. Dunstan goes anyway, and the closer he grows to Mrs. Dempster the more he believes there is something saint-like and holy about her. Willie, Dunstan's brother, grows ill as a result of an old back injury, and one afternoon while Dunstan is looking after him, Willie stops breathing. He has no heartbeat, and Dunstan believes he is dead. He gets Mary Dempster, and she touches Willie and calls his name, and Willie wakes up. Dunstan tells the doctor and his parents what happened, but they call him foolish and wonder why he didn't seek out a doctor instead of Mrs. Dempster. His mother is especially furious, and demands that Dunstan choose between her and Mrs. Dempster. He chooses to enlist in the army. WWI has begun, and shortly before he is shipped out Dunstan develops a timid romantic relationship with Leola, who is Percy's girlfriend, but Percy has been sent away to school because he was caught having sex with another young girl in town. Leola still loves Percy, but says she loves Dunstan, too. Dunstan fares well in the war, remaining uninjured until one day he suffers a blow to his leg after taking out three German machine gun operators. As he lies on the battlefield, sure he will die, he sees a statue of the Madonna, but her face is the face of Mary Dempster. Dunstan wakes up six months later from a coma, and finds he has lost his leg but has been awarded the Victorian Cross (the highest military honor awarded in Canada) and that both his parents have died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. He has a romantic relationship with his nurse, Diana Marfleet, but realizes she is too much like his mother and ends it on good terms. He goes back to Canada to find that Boy (Percy's new name) and Leola are engaged. Dunstan gets a degree in history, becomes a teacher, and has a kind of adult friendship with Boy, who often complains to him about Leola's inadequacies. Meanwhile, Dunstan becomes interested in renaissance art and sainthood and travels around Europe seeking out new knowledge, leaning new languages, and writing books. He comes across a traveling circus and meets Paul Dempster, who has no interest in forming a relationship with his mother, who has gone insane since he left and Amasa died from the flu, and who is living with her Aunt Bertha. Back at his school in Canada, Dunstan encounters the tramp who slept with Mary—his name is Joel Surgeoner, he is a charity worker, and he believes Mary's act miraculously reformed him. Thus Dunstan comes to believe that Mary has performed three miracles: she has reformed the tramp, brought Willie back from the dead, and appeared to Dunstan on the battlefield. When Aunt Bertha dies, Dunstan, who has visited her and Mary consistently since he heard of their whereabouts, is named Mary's guardian. He has to put Mary up in a public hospital, and feels horrible about it, but continues to travel. During this time, Leola finds out Boy has been cheating on her, and she attempts suicide. She withers away for years until, during World War II, she dies of pneumonia. Dunstan continues to travel and have success, earning the respect and friendship of the Bollandists, a group of Jesuits who study Saints. His closest friend is Padre Blazon, who encourages him to keep investigating Mary Dempster's sainthood. Dunstan takes a six-month leave to go to Mexico, where he meets Paul again, who is now a successful and famous magician. Dunstan is asked to write the autobiography of Eisengrim (Paul's stage name). During this time Dunstan has a sexual encounter with a hideous, devilish woman named Liesl, who tells him he is not living life and has yet to accept himself as a human being. This encounter is later remember by Dunstan as his encounter with the Devil, and he believes it was a crucial and formative event in his life—Padre Blazon will tell him that a friendship with the Devil is indeed a good thing. Dunstan finishes the book about Eisengrim after this encounter, and it is a huge success. Dunstan borrows money from Paul to move Mary to a private hospital. He stupidly tells her that her son is still alive, and this drives her mad. She thinks Dunstan is keeping Paul away from her, and Dunstan can no longer see her without upsetting her. When Mary dies, Dunstan feels it is his fault and weeps for the first time since childhood. She is cremated, and Dunstan keeps the ashes in his room. Eventually, Eisengrim brings his show to Canada, and performs at Colborne College. Dunstan introduces Boy to Eisengrim. The three go back to Dunstan's for a drink, and it is revealed that Boy doesn't remember the Dempsters ever living in Deptford. Dunstan reveals to story of the snowball to Paul, and Boy says Dunstan has made a big deal out of nothing. Dunstan shows Boy the stone that was enclosed in the snowball—he has kept it as a paperweight all these years. Paul and Boy leave together, and Boy is found dead in his car the next day, with the stone placed carefully in his mouth. At the next performance of Eisengrim's show, an audience member asks the "brazen head"—the center of a fortune telling illusion put on by Eisengrim—who killed Boy Staunton. Liesl, the voice of the head, gives a cryptic answer, which Dunstan understands as implicating Boy, Paul, Mary Dempster, and him (Dunstan), in Boy's death. Dunstan has a heart attack. When he awakens in the hospital, there is a note from Liesl, apologizing for causing him trouble and inviting him to live out the rest of his days with Eisengrim's crew on tour. The letter to the headmaster concludes with this note.

- Genre: Transgressive fiction, Contemporary novel - Title: Fight Club - Point of view: First person (The Narrator) - Setting: Contemporary America - Character: The Narrator. Description: The narrator of the novel is never referred to by name. At the beginning of the novel, the Narrator is a frustrated corporate slave, living out a dull, emasculated life. The Narrator soon begins to hallucinate Tyler Durden, his powerful, charismatic alter ego, and host weekly fight clubs designed to help members embrace the physical and the visceral (the Narrator doesn't realize that he and Tyler are the same person until the end of the book). The Narrator struggles to embrace pain and death as eagerly as Tyler, but he's more cautious about the morality of the fight club, especially after members begin planning terrorist strikes and assassinations. In the end, the Narrator seems to "hit rock bottom" and embrace death by attempting to kill himself: whether he remains the Narrator afterwards, or whether he merges with his alter ego is left for the reader to decide. - Character: Tyler Durden. Description: Tyler Durden is the Narrator's imaginary alter ego, the embodiment of his "death drive" and repressed masculinity. In many ways, though, Tyler is more "real" than the Narrator himself, as suggested by the fact that he has a name and the Narrator does not. Tyler is charismatic, cunning, and ambitious, and when "the Narrator" (speaking as Tyler Durden) speaks to the members of fight club, they respect him enormously; indeed, they refer to the Narrator as "Mr. Durden" (since, from their perspective, the Narrator and Tyler are one and the same). Tyler's lack of inhibition and his desire to be "real" leads him to embrace pain and danger at all times. Eventually, Tyler becomes more powerful than the Narrator, to the point where he takes control of the Narrator's body for most of the time (when the Narrator is supposedly sleeping), and sends members of fight club and Project Mayhem on increasingly dangerous and destructive missions. In the end, the Narrator seems to "defeat" Tyler by shooting himself in the head—suggesting that the Narrator has embraced his "death drive" and perhaps become one with Tyler. - Character: Marla Singer. Description: Marla Singer is the only major female character in Fight Club, and a vague "love interest" for both Tyler and the Narrator. Like the Narrator at the beginning of the book, Marla is fascinated with death and the "real." First she seeks out death-like experiences by attending cancer support groups, and later by attempting to overdose on Xanax. While Marla shares with the Narrator/Tyler a desire for danger, she objects to many of the ways that Tyler and the Narrator pursue danger; she's furious when she learns that the Narrator/Tyler has been converting her mother's fat into soap, and she calls the police when she finds out that the Narrator/Tyler has been planning murders. Marla, in short, is obsessed with death, but also seems to believe in right and wrong—in the end, she and the Narrator share a similar worldview, and finally admit that they "like" each other. - Character: Walter. Description: A young, handsome executive who sometimes works alongside the Narrator—and also the young, handsome host of a dinner party. (It's not clear if the two characters are meant to be the same or not; Palahniuk could also be making a joke about the name "Walter" as referring to a kind of generic, bland, submissive man.) - Theme: Consumerism, Perfection, and Modernity. Description: In order to understand what motivates the characters of Fight Club, we have to understand what they're fighting against. Overall, much of the novel's project involves satirizing modern American life, particularly what the novel sees as the American obsession with consumerism and the mindless purchasing of products. At first, the protagonist and Narrator of the book is portrayed as a kind of slave to his society's values; he describes himself as being addicted to buying sofas and other pieces of furniture. The Narrator is trapped in a society of rampant consumerism, in which people are pushed (both by advertisements and by a general culture of materialism) to spend their money on things they don't need, until buying such things is their only source of pleasure. The richest characters in the novel are so obsessed with buying things that they lavish fortunes on incredibly trivial items like perfume and mustard, while the poorest starve. As with any addiction, the characters' consumerism is endless—no matter how many products they buy, they always feel an unquenchable thirst for more.Another important aspect of modern American life, as the novel portrays it, is the emphasis on beauty and perfection, whether in a human body or in something like an apartment. "These days," the Narrator's alter ego, Tyler Durden, says, everybody looks fit and healthy, because everybody goes to the gym. In contemporary American society, the "perfect man" is supposed to be well-off, well-dressed, fit, own lots of nice furniture, and have a pleasant attitude at all times, ensuring that he impresses everyone around him. The novel suggests that America's obsession with beauty and exercise and its obsession with consumer goods are one and the same: they're both rooted in a desire to appear "perfect"—essentially to "sell themselves." The result is that human beings themselves become "products," just like a sofa or a jar of mustard.In contrast to consumerism, the novel depicts traditional sources of fulfillment and pleasure, such as family and religion, as either nonexistent or fragmented. The Narrator barely knows or speaks to his father, and none of the characters in the novel are presented as believing in God—the implication being that consumerism has become America's new "religion" (but, of course, a religion that doesn't offer any profound meaning about life, or even real happiness). In structuring their lives around transient, superficial pleasures like the purchasing of products, consumers deny themselves any deeper emotional or spiritual satisfaction—a vacuum that Tyler's fight club (and then Project Mayhem) attempts to fill. - Theme: Masculinity in Modern Society. Description: Nearly all the characters in Fight Club are men (the one notable exception is Marla Singer), and the novel examines the state of masculinity in modern times.The novel suggests that modern society emasculates men by forcing them to live consumerist lives centered around shopping, clothing, and physical beauty. The novel further suggests that such traits are necessarily effeminate, and therefore that because American society prizes these things it represses the aspects of men that make men, men. In short, the novel depicts the men it portrays as being so emasculated they've forgotten what being a "real man" means.Fight club emerges as a reaction to this state of affairs, with the purpose of allowing men to rediscover their raw masculinity. But what, according to Fight Club, is masculinity? Based on the philosophy of the fight clubs themselves, being a masculine, "real" man means being willing to feel pain, and dole pain out to other people. For Tyler Durden (and perhaps Palahniuk as well) masculinity is, above all, a physical state: an awareness of one's body, and a willingness to use one's body to satisfy deep, aggressive needs. As such, the fight clubs offer the men a thrilling sense of life that the rest of their existence sorely lacks.But as the novel pushes toward its conclusion, its portrayal of masculinity becomes more complicated. Ultimately, the novel comes to suggest that raw, unchecked masculinity can be just as if not more harmful than an emasculated, consumerist society. Tyler Durden and his followers in "Project Mayhem" engineer a series of dangerous terrorist attacks, and the Narrator begins to see that Project Mayhem, with its overly eager embrace of the more "primal" aspects of masculinity—notably, aggression and violence—is too destructive, and must be stopped.To state an obvious and troubling fact, fight club is a men's club. The men who join believe that traditionally effeminate values and behaviors are destroying them—or, worse, that women themselves are the enemy (as the Narrator says, "Maybe another woman isn't what I need right now"). Many critics have argued convincingly that the novel (and Palahniuk) ultimately shares the characters' implicitly and sometimes explicitly misogynistic attitudes, pointing to the lack of any strongly articulated alternative to the characters' views, and to the absence of any major female characters other than Marla Singer. Other critics have argued that the Narrator's feelings for Marla (and her reciprocal feelings for the Narrator) suggest an alternative to pure, unfiltered masculinity, and therefore a critique of the characters' misogyny.While the members of fight club and Project Mayhem dismiss women and femininity altogether, toward the end of the book the Narrator goes to Marla for help while fighting Tyler and Project Mayhem. Perhaps, through the Narrator's alliance with Marla, Palahniuk is trying to suggest that the answer to society's problems (perceived effeminateness) isn't to "swing back" in the opposite direction and be hyper-masculine, but to embrace some values that are stereotypically masculine (such as strength) and some that are more stereotypically feminine (such as compassion)—values that in fact aren't masculine or feminine, but simply human. - Theme: Death, Pain, and the "Real". Description: Most of the characters in Fight Club, including the Narrator and Tyler, are attracted to pain and fighting—on the most immediate level, they go to fight club in order to hurt themselves, as well as each other, and most of the characters are obsessed with death. In large part, the novel's characters behave masochistically because they consider death and pain to be more "real" than the lives they lead outside the fight club. But how does the novel define the "real?"As the novel portrays it, the Narrator and millions of other people like him live meaningless, superficial lives, dominated by purchasing goods. By starting the fight club (and visiting cancer support groups before that), the Narrator and Tyler are trying to exist "in the moment"—they want to feel pain in order to move closer to a visceral, physical world that they cannot access in the course of their ordinary lives. The relationship between death, pain, and reality is summed up by Marla Singer, who tells the Narrator that she wants to get as close as possible to death without actually dying. The goal of the fight club, then, is to bring its members closer and closer to death in order to get them to truly embrace life—that's why Tyler pours lye on his recruits' hands, urges his recruits to get in fights and lose, and sends them on dangerous missions—to feel pain, to experience fear and danger, and in so doing to feel the thrill of life.It's not clear to what extent Palahniuk means to satirize the fight club and to what extent he agrees with its principles, however. A major contradiction in the fight club is that to be truly "successful" in experiencing death and embracing life, you would actually have to die—in which case you'd never get to embrace "real" life at all. Furthermore, the very nature of the fight club is such that the means of experiencing pain and danger necessarily involves inflicting pain on another as well—and this "other" might not be such a voluntary participant in the endeavor (as in the fights people start outside of the fight club, or the victims of Project Mayhem). Overall, the novel leaves it unclear if Tyler and the Narrator's experiments with pain and death actually provide real meaning and fulfillment or just a kind of selfish, thrill-seeking illusion of meaning that ultimately leads to destruction.At the end of the book, the Narrator tries to kill himself with a gun, but botches the attempt: he wants to die, but survives. It would seem that the Narrator has lived up to the principles of Tyler's "death-worship"—he's truly willing to lay down his own life. But what kind of life the Narrator is now "free" to live is left to our imagination—Palahniuk doesn't, or can't, represent it in the novel. If being "real" is about visceral, physical experience in the face of death, then by definition such a feeling can't be conveyed with words on a page—any attempt to convey it would ring false. But by the same token, the ending leaves it unclear whether there is such a thing as "the real" that's worth aspiring to, or whether the fight club's realness is just glamorized, meaningless pain. - Theme: Rebellion and Sacrifice. Description: Fight Club is a story of rebellion: frustrated, emasculated men rebelling against what they perceive as an unjust, effeminized society that forces them to live dull and meaningless lives.At first, Tyler, the Narrator, and their followers at fight club "rebel" in an individual, relatively self-contained way: they fight with each other in order to inject masculinity into own lives. By beating each other up, the members of fight club give up their own complacency and safety for the sake of pain and "realness," proving to themselves that they're not slaves to consumerist society and a culture of shallow comfort. In this case, the members of fight club are "rebelling" against their society by escaping from it. They're not trying to fight that society directly. But over the course of the novel, Tyler decides that personal rebellion isn't enough: one must change the world, not just the self. Much as the fight club was based on the idea of achieving freedom through pain, Project Mayhem, Tyler's attempt to rebel against the world, is centered around the concept of sacrificing oneself for a larger cause. (He even nicknames his followers "space monkeys," after the test animals that died in outer space so that, later on, humans could survive there.) At first Tyler insists that the followers of Project Mayhem be willing to sacrifice their property and their identities as individuals in order to destroy a civilization he sees as tyrannical and oppressive. Tyler's rebellions against society soon become more violent and more centered on achieving complicated, external goals, however. Furthermore, Tyler's own "society," Project Mayhem, becomes just as repressive and evil as the society he's trying to destroy.In the end, the novel seems to suggest, any rebellion against the established order eventually devolves into its own kind of tyrannical establishment—perhaps necessitating a brand-new rebellion, and so on. When the Narrator begins to work against Project Mayhem, Palahniuk leaves it unclear if the Narrator is rebelling against Tyler's tyranny or if he just doesn't have enough faith in Tyler's plans. As with the novel's take on the "real," Palahniuk arguably cannot commit to depicting what a "perfect rebellion" would look like, because in doing so, he would be imposing his own "tyrannical" view on the reader (not to mention that giving such a nihilistic, misanthropic novel an explicit moral would contradict the basic mood of the story). Instead, he leaves it up to the reader to decide. - Theme: Repression and the Unconscious Mind. Description: One of the most famous elements of Fight Club is the "twist" ending: the Narrator and Tyler Durden, seemingly two different characters, are actually just two sides of the same person. The narrator, dissatisfied with his dull, consumerist life, gradually and unknowingly imagines Tyler, his alter ego, in order to escape reality: Tyler is the person the Narratorwould be if he could get over his own inhibitions (Tyler isconfident, daring, aggressive, charming, etc.).The narrator's involuntary creation of Tyler echoes some of the ideas of Sigmund Freud, the psychologist who first proposed the idea of an unconscious mind. Freud argued that all human beings have an unconscious mind, with its own unique, instinctual desires and emotions. Normally, humans can't directly interact with their unconscious minds, except during sleep. Similarly, the Narrator has an "unconscious" alter ego, Tyler, who takes over the Narrator's body when the Narrator is asleep. (There are also many moments when both Tyler and the Narrator seem to be awake and active—but the novel doesn't fully explain how this works.) But Palahniuk pushes this idea a bit further. While Tyler is the projection of the Narrator's unconscious mind, his creation is also a result of the surrounding culture of consumerism and materialism that forces the Narrator to live a sheltered, repressed existence. His unconscious "masculine" thoughts therefore have no outlet—they build up, develop a personality of their own, and eventually come "alive." In a way, the repression implicit in modern society creates Tyler. In this way, Palahniuk suggests that the Narrator's desire for escape, and therefore the creation of his alter ego, are necessary reactions to the conditions of contemporary American life. Put another away, there is a suggestion that the narrator is a stand-in for all men in modern American society; that the narrator's neuroses is one that all American men share. - Climax: The Narrator shoots himself - Summary: The novel begins with an unnamed Narrator sitting on the top floor of a skyscraper that's about to explode, with a man named Tyler Durden pointing a gun into his mouth. The novel is told almost entirely in flashbacks. Some time before, the Narrator develops insomnia. Bored with his corporate, consumerist lifestyle, he starts attending cancer support groups, despite the fact that he doesn't have cancer. The support groups allow the Narrator to express strong emotions and sleep well. But soon, another "faker" begins attending the groups: a woman named Marla Singer. Marla explains that she goes to the support groups because she wants to feel "close to death." The Narrator takes a vacation and, on a beach, he meets a strange man named Tyler Durden, who gives the Narrator his phone number. When the Narrator returns home, he finds that his condominium has exploded. With nowhere else to go, he calls Tyler, who allows the Narrator to crash at his house for a while. One day, Tyler convinces the Narrator to hit him as hard as he can; reluctantly, the Narrator does so. Tyler and the Narrator then realize that they love fighting, because it makes them feel alive and "real." While the Narrator sleeps at Tyler's house, he continues working at his corporate job, which requires him to travel around the country calculating the cost of recalling dangerous cars his company has built. Tyler, meanwhile, works odd jobs as a waiter at a hotel and a projectionist in a movie theater. Tyler uses his jobs to sabotage society: he urinates in fancy dishes at the hotel, and splices single frames of pornography into family movies. Tyler and the Narrator found a secret society called "fight club," in which members fight one another in order to get in touch with visceral reality and their own masculinity. Tyler receives a call at his house from Marla, and goes to Marla's hotel. Following this incident, Tyler and Marla begin having loud, frequent sex in the house, irritating the Narrator. Tyler tells the Narrator not to mention him in front of Marla, or the Narrator will never see Tyler again. Tyler also shows the Narrator his other source of income: making soap and selling it to fancy department stores. During one soap-making session, Tyler kisses the Narrator's hand and pours lye it, giving him a scar that looks like "Tyler's kiss." Tyler insists that he's trying to get the Narrator to embrace death and pain so that he can find enlightenment. Marla regularly stops by Tyler's house to drop off shipments of collagen, removed from her mother's aging body by liposuction. Secretly Tyler converts the collagen into beautiful, creamy bars of soap, which he sells for a big profit—when Marla finds out, she's furious. The Narrator notices that he, Tyler, and Marla are never in the same room together. Marla calls the Narrator and asks him to examine her for breast cancer; they learn that she does have breast cancer, and afterwards, Marla begins attending cancer support groups for real. Meanwhile, the police call the Narrator and tell him that they suspect that someone—possibly the Narrator himself—blew up his condominium. Meanwhile, fight club becomes bigger and bigger, to the point where other chapters spring up across the country. Tyler forms a new secret society within the secret society, called Project Mayhem. Tyler subjects his Project Mayhem recruits to a brutal initiation process, and afterwards urges them to sacrifice their own happiness and identity for the good of the movement. Tyler hosts hundreds of Project Mayhem members in his house, all of whom are slavishly loyal to him. He also sends out his followers on missions to "destroy society," often through bombings or vandalism. The Narrator continues to keep Marla company and support her through her struggle with cancer. One evening, The Narrator gets a call at work from Tyler, telling him to get into a Project Mayhem car waiting for him. The Narrator does so, and the driver, a mechanic, swerves the car on and off the road while asking The Narrator, "What did you want to do before you died?" The Narrator answers, "Quit my job." As they drive, the Narrator becomes so depressed with the meaningless of his own life that he tries to drive the car into oncoming traffic—the Mechanic prevents him from doing so. While Project Mayhem goes on as usual, Tyler disappears altogether. The Narrator, confused, tries to track down Tyler by going to different bars and clubs. Each time, the bartenders address him as "Sir." Eventually, the Narrator realizes the truth: everyone thinks that he is Tyler Durden. The Narrator calls Marla and she, too, addresses him as Tyler. Suddenly, Tyler appears before the Narrator and explains that he's the Narrator's alter ego. He and the Narrator share the same body, but Tyler is braver and more charismatic than the Narrator—he's The Narrator's unconscious, the wish fulfillment of his repressed desires. The Narrator has been the one having sex with Marla, organizing Project Mayhem missions, and converting human fat into soap and explosives. The Narrator, frightened of what he's becoming, tells Marla the truth. The Narrator tries to shut down Project Mayhem and the fight club, only to realize that "Tyler" has prepared his loyal followers for such a possibility: the members throw the Narrator out and begin keeping tabs on him. The Narrator discovers that his boss has died in a freak explosion, and he realizes that Tyler and Project Mayhem are responsible. Project Mayhem tracks down the Narrator, addressing him as "Mr. Durden," and prepares to castrate him for his disloyalty. The Narrator loses consciousness. The Narrator wakes up in the ruins of his old condominium, (he hasn't been castrated). He considers committing suicide, but realizes that he cares about Marla and has to protect her. He finds Marla, who tells him that "he" (as Tyler) has murdered more people. The Narrator loses consciousness again, and finds himself at the top floor of a skyscraper (right where he was at the beginning of the novel). Tyler explains that "they" will now die in a blaze of glory. Suddenly, Marla and the members of her cancer support group walk into the skyscraper, where they find the Narrator pointing a gun at himself. The timer for the bomb goes off, but nothing happens—the Narrator realizes that Tyler and Project Mayhem must have used faulty explosives. Nevertheless, he shoots himself in the face. In the final chapter of the book, the Narrator reveals that his suicide attempt didn't work: he shot through his neck and ear, leaving him injured but alive. Tyler hasn't disturbed him since his suicide attempt. Marla writes him letters while he recovers in the hospital. Occasionally, members of Project Mayhem stop by and, addressing him as "Mr. Durden," say that they're eager for him to get back to work.

- Genre: Literary short story - Title: First Confession - Point of view: First person - Setting: A city in Ireland - Character: Jackie. Description: Jackie is a seven-year-old boy from an Irish Catholic family. He lives with his mother, father, sister Nora, and grandmother, whom he loathes. Jackie can be judgmental and hypocritical, as when he judges his grandmother's country manners (even though he himself doesn't know the proper etiquette for confession), and judges Nora for "sucking up" to Gran for money, which he believes himself to be too honest to do (even though he makes up a toothache to get out of confession). Jackie can also be cruel. Once, when Gran made dinner and Jackie was too disgusted to eat it, he hid under the table with a bread-knife and attacked Nora when she tried to make him sit at the table—an event that caused much conflict within the family, although Jackie blames it solely on Gran. Jackie begins to prepare for his first confession through lessons with Mrs. Ryan, who speaks often of hell. This leaves Jackie unmoved until she tells a story about a man who gave an incomplete confession and then returned from hell to try to confess the rest of his sins. The story remains with Jackie as he heads to the church for his first confession, believing that, since he cannot admit to the magnitude of his sins, he is destined for hell. However, the priest's disarming manner leads Jackie to confess everything, including plotting to kill Gran and attacking Nora with the knife, and the Priest is jocular about it—even suggesting that he himself would like to stab someone. He gives Jackie the lenient penance of three Hail Marys, which scandalizes Nora. Throughout the story, Jackie never has to take responsibility for his actions. While he understands his own behavior to be bad, he blames his behavior on others. The one person who might have been able to make him see things in a different light—his priest—seems to reinforce his own immature worldview, whereby he can misbehave, blame others, and be forgiven without cost. - Character: Nora. Description: Nora is Jackie's older sister. She is obedient to her parents, polite to Gran, and takes responsibility for Jackie's behavior while caring for him. Because she is close with Gran, Gran gives her a penny every week. Jackie sees Nora's kindness to Gran as insincere, but his perspective is unreliable and often full of gendered stereotypes about her bad motives—it's possible that Nora does genuinely love her grandmother, despite Jackie's opinion. Once, when Nora tries to get Jackie to eat the dinner Gran has prepared for them, Jackie attacks her with a knife. Nora tells her parents about Jackie's bad behavior, which leads to Jackie getting beaten by their father, and Nora herself getting implicitly blamed by their mother. This shows Nora's allegiance with her father and grandmother, and her mother's unfair treatment of her. On the way to Jackie's first Confession, Nora scolds him for attacking her with the knife, and warns him that his punishment will be terrible. In this moment, she seems eager for her little brother to be punished. When she sees Jackie falling out of the confessional, she punishes Jackie herself as though he is willfully embarrassing her, slapping his ear. The priest scolds her for being violent and threatens her with more prayers if she won't go away. While she tries to be good, she often falls short—but she is deeply disturbed when the priest treats her much more harshly than he treats Jackie, who is a much more sinful child. When she sees that the priest has given Jackie candy after his Confession, she is astonished that the priest could have been so lenient when Jackie had attacked her with a knife. She muses that there is no point in trying to be good. - Character: The Priest. Description: The priest is a gentle and humorous Catholic priest who hears Jackie's first confession. When Jackie first meets him after falling out of the confessional, the priest appears to offer mercy, as the church is supposed to teach. He puts aside his own anger at Jackie's mistake and offers him kindness instead, scolding Nora for slapping Jackie, which seems like a disapproval of violence. However, when he hears Jackie confess to attacking his sister with a knife, he says "someone will go for her with a bread-knife one day, and he won't miss her"—implying that Nora deserves to be stabbed and that Jackie's attack was not as sinful as Nora's slap on his ear. He also tells Jackie in a joking tone that it's normal to want to murder his grandmother, and the only reason Jackie shouldn't kill Gran is that he would be hanged. The priest's kindness and generosity toward Jackie therefore tip over into endorsing violence and indulging sin. Whether he intends to or not, he teaches Jackie to embrace his own violent urges and hypocritical double standards judging others. In addition, by judging responsible Nora's errors more harshly than Jackie's, he makes her believe that there is "no advantage to anybody trying to be good." - Character: Gran. Description: Gran is Jackie's father's mother. She is "a real old-country woman" with manners that disgust Jackie and displease Jackie's mother: she eats potatoes with her hands, drinks beer at dinner, and walks around the house with bare feet. Jackie is mortified by her lapses of etiquette, but she seems to have done nothing to deserve Jackie's violent wrath towards her. In fact, she seems potentially generous: she cooks dinner when the children's mother isn't home and shares part of her pension with Nora, who is kind to her. - Character: Mrs. Ryan. Description: Mrs. Ryan, also called Ryan in the story, is a neighbor of Jackie's who goes to the children's school to prepare them for their First Confession and First Communion. She is the same age as Gran, but she is wealthy, wearing a black cloak and bonnet and living in a large house. Instead of telling them about Catholic doctrine or even the logistics of the rituals, she talks at length about the torments of hell, daring the children to hold a finger in a candle flame for five minutes. She tells the children a ghost story about a man who goes to hell because he didn't confess all his sins, and this is the only lesson that seems to stick with Jackie, frightening him without giving him useful information. In fact, her lessons are so useless that, when Jackie goes to confess, he doesn't even know how to kneel in the confessional and he makes an embarrassing mistake that almost leads him to hurt himself and anger his priest. - Character: Father. Description: The father of Jackie and Nora, husband of Mother, and son of Gran. Father beats Jackie for refusing to sit with Gran and for going after Nora with a bread-knife. After their mother intervenes in the beating, Father won't speak to her for several days. He seems absent, frightening, and punitive, although he seems to favor Nora and Gran over his wife and Jackie. - Character: Mother. Description: The mother of Jackie and Nora and husband of Father, Mother's main role in the story is despising Gran's manners and stopping her husband from beating Jackie. When their father won't speak to her for days afterward, she won't speak to Nora, appearing to blame her daughter for Father's violence. This displacement of blame might be what's influencing Jackie to blame his own misbehavior on others, especially since he and Mother appear to be allies throughout the story. Mother also sends Nora to care for Jackie when he goes for his first Confession. - Theme: Catholicism, Judgment and Hypocrisy. Description: In "First Confession," Jackie—a young boy from a devout Catholic family—judges others for qualities he himself embodies. He is ashamed of the uncouth manners of his grandmother, Gran, and he believes that his sister Nora is inherently "evil" and hypocritical. Yet Jackie is a flawed individual himself, having lashed out violently at Nora and even plotted to killed Gran, and he is terrified of being judged by the Catholic priest at his first Confession in the same manner in which he casts judgment at others. The priest, however, refuses to judge Jackie, and instead merely reinforces Jackie's critical attitude. By demonstrating how the priest—and by extension the church—reinforce Jackie's hypocritical, self-centered mindset, O'Connor suggests that, when religion is centered on judgment, it can cause believers to act more sinfully, rather than less. Jackie's moral judgments about others are flawed and biased, in part because he embodies many of the dishonest and violent behaviors he critiques in others—a far cry from the Christlike acceptance and love that is typically encouraged in the Christian faith. For example, Jackie judges his grandmother as sinful because she walks barefoot in the house, eats potatoes with her fingers, and drinks port at dinner. At worst, these are innocent mistakes of etiquette, yet they disgust and embarrass Jackie to the point that he plots to kill her. While it's clear from his judgments of Gran that Jackie values knowing proper etiquette, he himself falls short on this front sometimes—most notably when he doesn't know how the Confessional booth works, and he climbs onto the elbow-rest, tumbling out in front of other congregants. Ironically, when Nora punishes him for embarrassing her (which he himself would do to Gran), Jackie believes that Nora is being evil. This whole situation shows how hypocritical Jackie is and it suggests that his strict Catholic upbringing has encouraged him to be relentless and unforgiving in his judgment. Jackie is hypocritical and judgmental in other situations, too, demonstrating that he is not morally superior to those he criticizes. He engages in the same violence that his father inflicts on him, for instance. While his father beats him for transgressions, Jackie attacks Nora with a bread-knife during a fight. Jackie also judges Nora harshly, even though she genuinely tries to be good. He views her as a "raging malicious devil" and, even though she takes church seriously and appears pious after her own Confession, Jackie assumes without evidence that her faith is false, thinking "God, the hypocrisy of women!" Yet, Jackie does not reflect this same judgment back onto himself. He only cares about being seen as good, and as long as he thinks his sinful behavior is hidden, he fails to feel any remorse for how he affects others. This is obviously false piety of the kind he accuses Nora, but he never thinks to question himself. Even though Jackie doesn't critique or change his own bad behavior, his fear of his first Confession indicates that he knows, on some level, that his behavior has been sinful. The first Confession, then, is an opportunity for Jackie to be reprimanded by a priest and possibly change his ways. However, when the priest hears Jackie's Confession about his immoral behavior, he himself proves to be a sinful hypocrite. The priest makes light of Jackie's sins, affirms Jackie's harsh judgments of others, and even admits that he himself would like to commit egregious sins, such as stabbing someone. That the priest seems to share all of Jackie's sins implies that the Catholic faith is at the root of Jackie's hypocritical attitude, and that the religion merely reinforces the very behavior it claims to abhor. Furthermore, the church seems to treat its parishioners differently based on their gender. When Nora slaps Jackie's ear in the church, the priest reprimands her, exclaiming, "how dare you hit the child like that, you little vixen?" However, when Jackie confesses to attacking Nora with a breadknife, that same priest says "'Someone will go for her with a bread-knife one day, and he won't miss her.'" For Jackie's sins, he receives a lenient penance of only three Hail Marys, while Nora's penance—for much lesser sins—is far graver. This affirms Jackie's opinion that Nora is evil, and hypocritically suggests that it is morally acceptable for Jackie to be dangerously violent towards Nora, while even Nora's petty violence is worth a strong reprimand. In addition, when Jackie confesses to plotting to murder Gran, the priest takes an indulgent and humorous tone and advises him that he shouldn't kill his grandmother, but only because Jackie would be hanged for it. This attitude underscores the sense Jackie gets that the lives of women and girls are less valuable than his own, while their sins are more grave. While Jackie's experience of Confession could have made him come to terms with his own sin and hypocrisy, making him kinder and more generous to others, the ritual has the opposite effect: afterwards, Jackie feels justified in continuing to sin, reflecting that his behavior—even attacking Nora with a knife and plotting to kill his grandmother—no longer "seems so bad." To cement this impression, the priest gives Jackie a piece of candy and walks out of the church with him, demonstrating to Jackie and Nora that Jackie is the favored child, even though Nora tries harder to be good. This preferential treatment ultimately teaches both Jackie and Nora that moral judgment is subjective and arbitrary rather than objectively fair, and that—in light of this—there is "no advantage to anybody trying to be good." This conclusion reflects the story's cynical outlook on Jackie's experience of Catholicism as an institution that encourages hypocrisy, cruelty, and self-interest. - Theme: Fear and Violence. Description: "First Confession" focuses on a young boy, Jackie, who struggles to make sense of morality and guilt as he is initiated into the rituals of the Catholic Church. Throughout the story, characters like Jackie's father, his teacher Mrs. Ryan, and the priest instill fear in Jackie using violence, intimidation, and threatening imagery (such as the man bursting into flames when he gives a "bad Confession"). Yet none of this encourages Jackie to behave morally; it only makes him guilty and terrified, rather than encouraging him to feel genuine remorse or learn a lesson from his bad behavior. By showing that violence and the threat of violence only teach children to be fearful, dishonest, and violent themselves, O'Connor suggests that violence is counterproductive when trying to encourage moral behavior. Jackie is afraid of the violent consequences with which adults threaten him, such as being beaten by his father or burnt in hellfire—yet these threats do not teach him the lessons that the adults mean to impart. When Jackie is disgusted with Gran's manners, for example, he hides under the table with a breadknife to threaten anyone who tries to make him eat with her—a violent reaction to his grandmother's kindness in making him dinner. Later, when his father beats him to teach him to be polite to Gran, Jackie concludes that the beating was "all because of that old woman!" Not only has his father's violent punishment failed to make him examine his own behavior and learn to be kinder, but his father's violence has reinforced Jackie's own violence, making him think that beatings and threats are the way to get what you want. Jackie also faces the threat of violent punishment at school. To teach the children to make a full Confession to the priest, Jackie's teacher Mrs. Ryan tells a story of a man who fails to confess all his sins, dies and goes to hell, and then comes back to try to rectify his Confession. However, before he can confess, he burns up in front of the priest, leaving singe marks on the priest's furniture. This story terrifies Jackie, making him "scared to death of Confession." But the violent threat implied by the story does not achieve its desired end of making sure Jackie will confess all his sins. Even as he fears dying and leaving burn marks on his mother's furniture, he still doesn't think he can confess all his sins to the priest because he feels that his sins are too severe. The violent threats and imagery he associates with the church don't teach him that being honest during Confession will give him relief and closeness with God. Rather, it terrifies him and makes him feel like he'll face something unpleasant whether or not he makes a full Confession, undermining his ability to connect with his faith. Ultimately, during Jackie's first Confession, he makes a full Confession to the priest only because the priest is kind to him. When Jackie falls out of the Confessional and Nora slaps him, the priest takes pity on this child who is clearly confused and humiliated. Because of this, and because of the priest's disarming suggestion that it's normal for Jackie to have sinned quite a lot, Jackie surprises himself by feeling comfortable confessing to all of his sins. This first instance of kindness in the story shows its power to gently and positively shape a child's mind, as opposed to scaring them into submission with threats of violence. After all, both the priest and Mrs. Ryan want Jackie to make a full Confession, but while Mrs. Ryan's scary stories failed to produce a full Confession, the priest's kindness succeeded. However, while the priest's kindness influences Jackie to make a full Confession, he ultimately does not use that influence to teach Jackie right and wrong. When Jackie confesses to plotting to kill his grandmother, the priest does not explain to Jackie that Gran's mistakes—like his when he fell out of the Confessional—were innocent and deserving of the same kindness and forgiveness that the priest has shown him. Instead, the priest discourages Jackie from killing his grandmother not because it's wrong and she deserves better, but because Jackie would be hanged if he kills his grandmother. Once again, this is a threat of violence meant to coerce Jackie into moral behavior, and like the earlier threats of violence from Jackie's father and Mrs. Ryan, it does not teach Jackie to be good; it teaches him that he is right to hate his grandmother. From his first Confession, Jackie does not learn the Christian principle of divine forgiveness and mercy for everyone who atones for their sins. Instead, he learns another backward lesson—that he alone deserves the priest's kindness, and others (like Nora) deserve to be violently punished. The priest's kindness is a powerful force in Jackie's life that could have taught him to be kinder to others and to take responsibility for his own actions. However, the priest follows his gentle words with more discussions of violence and implicit threats, and Jackie ultimately only learns to be more confident in his hateful and violent attitudes toward others. The story shows how a little kindness can have a powerful effect in a child's life, but threats of violence can twist even that positive effect into something ugly. - Theme: Faith and Ritual. Description: In "First Confession," Jackie struggles to acclimate to the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church. In part, this is because there's a lot to learn: the Bible is a huge book, and the Catholic Church is filled with detailed formal rituals that Catholics must learn. While participating in these rituals is supposed to bring Catholics closer to God, however, "First Confession" portrays religious rituals and the people in charge of conducting them as being alienated from the morality and spirituality at the core of Catholicism. The woman who prepares Jackie for his first Confession essentially just tells him ghost stories to stoke fear about the fires of hell, and Jackie's priest endorses immoral behavior during a ritual that is supposed to make Catholics take stock of their shortcomings. By portraying Catholic rituals and religious authorities as being somewhat nonsensical and even damaging to moral behavior, O'Connor suggests that the formal trappings of religion often distance people from their faith and moral sense. Jackie's family, as well as the other adults he interacts with, have warped ideas about the church's teachings. Despite being devout Catholics, they often fail to effectively explain even the most basic rituals of the church to the children. Mrs. Ryan, for example, who is supposed to prepare Jackie and his classmates for their first Confession teaches them nothing practical; instead, she focuses on dramatic, fear-mongering descriptions of Hell. One result of this is that Jackie doesn't even know how to make his Confession: he ends up falling out of the Confessional because he thinks he needs to sit on the elbow-rest. But even worse than leaving him ill-prepared for Confession, Mrs. Ryan's lectures terrify Jackie and alienate him from the spiritual purpose of the ritual. Jackie is, on some level, quite worried about his bad behavior, so he's somebody who could really benefit from a ritual of admitting to and atoning for his sins—this might, in a different context, make him feel relieved of his guilt and resolved to behave better. However, Mrs. Ryan's exclusive focus on instilling fear of hell makes Jackie unaware of any positive aspects to Confession, and unable to use this ritual to make his faith stronger or to make him a better person. Even worse, the priest himself reinforces Jackie's misguided view of right and wrong, using the ritual of Confession to encourage behavior that is in direct opposition to the Church's teachings. At first, the priest shows the compassionate spirit of Christian teaching when he puts aside his anger at Jackie, who has fallen from the Confessional. When he sees that the boy needs sympathy rather than scolding, the priest is empathetic and kind. Yet once Jackie actually begins confessing, the priest shows that he has no more divine perspective than Jackie's family or teachers. He encourages Jackie to think only of his own benefit, and essentially rewards Jackie for his violent feelings toward Gran and Nora by giving him candy after his Confession, while chastising Nora for much lesser sins. Instead of learning about moral behavior, both children learn that the ritual of Confession is based on arbitrary, subjective judgment, and that it is therefore pointless to be good. Ultimately, then, the ritual of Confession only leaves Jackie more alienated from the true spiritual meaning of Catholicism, rather than connecting him to God and the teachings of his faith. In this story, none of the characters seem to know why, exactly, they are participating in the rituals of Catholicism, or what these rituals are supposed to mean. Jackie, and everyone else around him, believe that they'll be punished if they don't engage in these practices, and the priest uses his authority in the church to favor some people over others. By demonstrating how characters use religion and ritual in ways that deviate from their purported divine purpose, O'Connor is shows how these rituals can ultimately push people further away from God and convolute their understanding of moral behavior. - Climax: Jackie confesses to attacking his sister and plotting his grandmother's death - Summary: Jackie, a seven-year-old boy from an Irish Catholic family, is embarrassed and disgusted by his grandmother, Gran, when she moves into his family's house. He dislikes her country manners so much that he refuses to eat at the table with her. When his sister Nora tries to force him to eat at the table, he attacks her with a bread knife. His father beats him for his behavior, and his mother intervenes on Jackie's behalf. The anger within the family after this incident lasts a week. Jackie blames his grandmother for it all, believing that the only solution to his problem is for her to no longer live in their house. Jackie is preparing for his first confession, a Catholic ritual of atonement for sins. His teacher Mrs. Ryan is obsessed with hell, and she has frightened Jackie with a story about a man who fails to confess all his sins and then goes to hell. Even so, Jackie doesn't know if he should tell the priest about attacking his sister and plotting to kill his grandmother, because those sins seem so enormous. When he goes to Confession, Jackie doesn't know where to sit in the confessional and he climbs up onto a shelf made for adults' elbows. He falls off the shelf and out of the confessional. At first the priest is angry, but Nora scolds Jackie and hits his ear. The priest scolds Nora for hitting Jackie and sends her away. The priest shows Jackie the right way to sit in the confessional. His kindness makes Jackie feel safe, so he tells the priest about attacking Nora and plotting to kill Gran. The priest tells him both of these violent urges are normal and reasonable, even while he scolded Nora for a much smaller act of violence against Jackie. The priest assigns Jackie only three short prayers of atonement, and then gives him candy. Both Jackie and Nora walk away from the church understanding that there is no need to be good—both children can see that Jackie is favored over Nora.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Five-Dollar Family - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: A hospital and supermarket in Australia - Character: Michelle. Description: The story's protagonist Michelle is Des's girlfriend and Jason's mother. The story charts her evolution from a bewildered new mother to an assertive, competent one. Alongside this shift, the story also reflects Michelle's transformation from overly permissive girlfriend who centers her world around her boyfriend to independent single mother who is wholly devoted to her child. Prior to giving birth to Jason, Michelle clings to the irrational hope that Des—who has several misdemeanors and cheats on her—will be a steady partner and capable father once they have a baby. But once Michelle gives birth, and Des doesn't suddenly step into a fatherly role—in fact, he even steps out of the room when she gives birth—Michelle is forced to see Des's shortcomings with stark clarity. Throughout the story, Des continuously disappoints Michelle, most notably when he uses her baby budget to buy an expensive leather motorcycle jacket for Jason. And as Des continually shows himself to be a "let down," Michelle begins to dismantle her hopes of having a perfect family. For Michelle, having a perfectly posed family portrait would at least make it look like she, at one point, had this perfect family. But even the portrait goes awry near the end of the story when her breastmilk comes in right as the photographer's flash goes off. As the story comes to a close, Michelle comes to the realization that she doesn't need Des anymore, nor does she need this so-called perfect family unit. Jason is all she needs. - Character: Des. Description: The story's antagonist, Des, is Michelle's boyfriend and Jason's father. He has a lengthy criminal record—including several charges for aggravated assault. When the story begins, he's days away from being sent to prison, as parole is no longer available to him. While Michelle gradually learns how to be a competent mother to her newborn baby (e.g., learning how to hold and nurse him), Des has no such character arc. From the beginning of the story until the end, he's depicted as careless, immature, and either unwilling or unable to change his behavior. Both Des's mother and father gloss over their son's criminal behavior, flippantly suggesting that he's just a "naughty boy" whom Michelle needs to keep an eye on to keep him in line. But as the story unfolds, Michelle comes to reject this perspective—seeing it as overly permissive—and accept that Des will never become the partner and father she needs him to be. For instance, when Michelle gives Des the one job of buying the baby a nice outfit to wear in the upcoming family portrait, Des botches the task by buying Jason an expensive leather motorcycle jacket. Michelle's narration makes it clear that this was a foolish, inappropriate purchase for several reasons—among them, that Michelle doesn't have other baby necessities (like a changing table) yet, and this jacket likely made a deep gouge in her baby budget. Throughout much of the story, Michelle is waiting for the "let-down reflex"—that is, waiting for her milk to come in so she can nurse Jason—and she begins to realize that Des is the real let down, and that she no longer has the patience for his behavior. - Character: Des's Father. Description: Des's father is a lighthearted man who glosses over Des's criminality, affectionately deeming him "a bit of a naughty boy" and suggesting that it's Michelle's job to look out for him. The story briefly suggests that Des's mother and father have a similar dynamic where the woman is expected to take care of the man: Michelle thinks back to a barbeque where Des, his brother Kyle, and their father lazily sat around in lawn chairs while Des's mother scurried around bringing the men food and beer. - Character: Des's Mother. Description: Like Des's father, Des's mother appears unconcerned with her son's criminal behavior. Just as Des's father depicts Des as a "naughty boy" rather than a criminal, Des's mother frames her son's community service order (painting lines on basketball courts) as a real job rather than a punishment. In the story, she's constantly fussing over Des or waiting on the men in the family by bringing them food and beer. - Character: Jason (Michelle's Baby). Description: Jason is Michelle and Des's newborn baby. When it becomes clear to Michelle that Des won't be able to step into a fatherly role (he's helplessly immature and headed for prison) Michelle comes to terms with the fact that she doesn't actually need Des anymore—Jason is all she needs now. - Theme: Expectations vs. Reality. Description: Throughout "Five-Dollar Family," Michelle's expectations—of herself, her baby, and her boyfriend, Des—repeatedly go unmet. These expectations largely center around what she believes motherhood and parenthood "should" feel like or look like, at least according to the various forms of media she was exposed to throughout her pregnancy (e.g., informational brochures, greeting cards, etc.). Through Michelle's unmet expectations and her ultimate acceptance of reality, the story shows that media and advertising set lofty expectations surrounding relationships, parenthood, and womanhood that real life and real people often don't live up to. The various forms of media and advertising that Michelle sees throughout her pregnancy inform her expectations of new motherhood and her baby, though her reality is far more unglamorous than she anticipated. For instance, before Michelle gives birth to Jason, she assumes that he'll look like the baby on the front of the baby-oil bottle: the angelic-looking baby, who is clapping its hands in delight, has chubby, pink cheeks and a perfect, curled tuft of hair at the top of its head. But instead of looking like this familiar, archetypal baby, Jason's face is "startling in its strangeness," emphasizing that his appearance completely subverts Michelle's expectations. His skin is bright red rather than a charming rosy pink color, and instead of being round and chubby, his face is scrunched and wrinkly. He looks more like "a tiny old man exhausted after a long and arduous journey"—or, when he's swaddled, like "a big parcel of hot chips"—than the bouncy, happy baby she expected. The informational brochure about breastfeeding that Michelle reads also leads her to have unrealistic expectations about motherhood. The brochure explains the let-down reflex: when the baby attempts to breastfeed, the mother's brain releases the chemical oxytocin into the bloodstream, which consequently makes breastmilk flow. The brochure describes the let-down reflex as a gentle "tingling sensation" or "tightening" feeling. But when Michelle's breastmilk finally comes in at the very end of the story, the experience is sudden, intense, and emotional. Rather than a subtle tingling or tightening, Michelle's let-down reflex feels like an incontrollable shiver surging through her body. She likens the experience to "the way tears will start when something makes you forget, for a minute, what you're supposed to be holding them back for." In other words, just like when the floodgates open and someone begins to sob after holding back tears, Michelle's milk suddenly pours out in a "shocking flood." As Jason's eyes peer up at her, Michelle imagines that he's saying "it's you," and that her eyes silently tell him "yeah, it's me." The analogy of tears, following the tender moment between Jason and Michelle, also implies that Michelle might be crying here—and this is especially likely given that, earlier in the story, she was holding back tears out of frustration over not being able to feed Jason. So not only is the let-down reflex more physically powerful and shocking than Michelle had expected based on the brochure, but it's also implied to have an entire emotional layer to it that the brochure didn't prepare Michelle for. Different forms of media and advertising also inflate Michelle's expectations of her boyfriend, Des, in regards to his capacity as a partner and father. And just like her expectations of motherhood, these expectations prove unrealistic. While she was pregnant, Michelle would sift through greeting cards at the newsstand depicting "guys with their shirts off holding little vulnerable babies, expressions of adoration on their faces; guys who looked like models, but still." Though the pictures on the cards are implied to be staged, Michelle nevertheless begins to believe "that adoration would kick in once Des saw the baby and she saw Des with the baby." With the phrase "kick in," Michelle implies that Des isn't the adoring type, and that she is counting on this changing suddenly when the baby arrives. Michelle's hope is twofold, as she also implies that she doesn't feel very loving towards Des and expects this to change, too. But when he first sees his son, Des looks "perplexed" and wears a "faintly incredulous look" of "startled distaste"—a sharp contrast from the way the men on the greeting cards gazed affectionately at their babies. And though while she was pregnant, Michelle "had some vague idea that she'd be able to rest and Des would take over and look after them both, hold his son unashamedly in the crook of his arm like the men on the cards," her reality is much different. For much of the story, Des declines to hold their baby, and when he finally does, Michelle has to stuff down her impulse to "bat his hands away," and she "banishes the thought of Jason ever lying naked in the crook of Des's arm." So while the greeting cards led Michelle to believe that Des would immediately become tender and loving towards Jason—and that seeing this would make Michelle feel tender and loving towards Des—neither of her expectations are met. The video that Michelle watches in her prenatal class—which depicts a woman going into labor while her partner rubs her back soothingly—also shapes her expectations of how Des will act during and after the birth. But rather than comforting Michelle as her labor pains intensify like the person in the video, Des distracts himself by pacing or flipping through TV channels. And rather than staying by Michelle's side, Des leaves the room entirely to go get himself a drink and doesn't return until after Jason is born. Near the end of the story, Michelle grapples with the fact that Des will never be like the doting fathers on the greeting cards or the supportive significant other in the prenatal video. Looking at the tiny leather jacket Des bought for Jason—itself symbolic of Des's immaturity and incompetence as a father and partner—Michelle finally accepts that "Jason might grow out of it […] but Des never will." - Theme: Motherhood. Description: "Five-Dollar Family" follows its protagonist, Michelle, as she gives birth to her first baby and adjusts to being a new mother. Though the story depicts several tender moments between Michelle and her newborn baby, Jason, the story largely frames Michelle's transition into motherhood as both physically and emotionally taxing. Over the course of the story, she struggles to breastfeed, suffers a painful tear in labor, worries about the financial responsibility of having a baby, navigates her complicated relationship with the baby's father (Des), and more. Through Michelle, "Five-Dollar Family" presents a complex picture of motherhood—it's tender, grueling, and transformative all at once. The story often alternates between describing moments that are physically or emotionally tender and ones that are painful, suggesting that motherhood is a mix of both extremes. For instance, the story describes Michelle's "big loose body, slack and sore" after giving birth—a physically painful mark of her newfound role as a mother—and describes how her baby looks "startling in its strangeness." But the story then quickly transitions to Michelle sharing a quiet, sentimental moment with her newborn in the middle of the night, as she sings her baby made-up songs and listens to his breathing. This kind of back-and-forth between painful and joyful moments happens all the way until the end of the story, reflecting the idea that motherhood—and particularly new motherhood—encompasses both ends of the emotional spectrum. "The light in the hospital is cold, and everything hums," and Michelle hates how her noisy, plastic-lined hospital bed keeps her awake when she knows she should be sleeping, but she's nevertheless "burning with bright energy, like someone's flicked a light switch on." Here, the contrast between the dark, cold, sterile hospital and Michelle's warm, bright energy mirrors the story's insistence that motherhood can't be distilled down to just the uncomfortable moments or just the warm, playful, and joyful ones. Instead, these two experiences of motherhood happen one after another or unfold at the same time, as they do in this passage. And when Michelle looks at her baby, she always feels a "rush of disbelief, terror and happiness," again underscoring the emotional complexity of motherhood. The story also suggests that becoming a mother is a deeply transformative experience, both physically and emotionally. Michelle notes throughout the story that, after giving birth, her body no longer feels like it belongs to her—the skin around her belly is "slack," while the skin around her stitches (the result of a tear she suffered during labor) is so swollen and inflamed that it feels foreign to Michelle when she touches it. Her body changes in other ways, too, as she experiences the let-down reflex; when Jason learns to latch to Michelle's breast, this eventually signals Michelle's brain to release the chemical oxytocin into her bloodstream, which consequently makes her breast milk begin to flow. Motherhood, then, is physically transformative for Michelle as it completely changes the body she once knew so well. Becoming a mother also transforms Michelle's behavior in various ways. For instance, Michelle now allows the nurses to "poke and prod" her (like when they teach her how to breastfeed) whenever they need to, even though she notes that this would have been wildly embarrassing for her just a matter of days ago. Michelle also finds herself becoming increasingly assertive now that she's a mother. The story implies that Michelle is usually a passive, permissive person, but now she feels emboldened to break the midwives' rules when it comes to how and when Michelle interacts with her own baby. Even though she's not supposed to take Jason out of his crib at night in the hospital, Michelle does so anyway and settles him in bed with her for a while, deciding that the midwives would certainly back down if she told them to "mind their own business." And throughout the second half of the story, Michelle hears a new sense of power and "steel" in her voice when she talks to people—suggesting that becoming a mother has turned her into a more assertive version of herself. Through Michelle, "Five-Dollar Family" shows that having a baby and transitioning into being a mother is a complicated, transformative experience. - Theme: Family. Description: After Michelle gives birth to her first child, Jason, she gradually releases her hope of having the "perfect" nuclear family—or even a dysfunctional one that looks perfect on the outside. What stands in the way of Michelle's vision of the perfect family is Des: Michelle's boyfriend and Jason's father. With four criminal charges to his name and no more paroles, Des is headed to prison in a matter of days, effectively forcing Michelle to become a single mother. But by the end of the story, Michelle isn't begrudgingly resolved to this fate; instead, she actively welcomes it, realizing that neither she nor Jason really need Des, so losing him isn't a loss at all. Charting Michelle's shifting understanding of what makes a good family, "Five-Dollar Family" ultimately suggests that a family doesn't have to align with the image of the stereotypical nuclear family to be fulfilling, strong, and meaningful. Throughout her pregnancy, Michelle clings to the idea that she can (and should) have a stereotypical nuclear family, and specifically that Des will step into the role of loving father and steady partner. During her pregnancy, Michelle would "browse mistily" through the greeting cards at the store, lingering over the ones "that showed guys with their shirts off holding little vulnerable babies, expressions of adoration on their faces." The word "mistily" suggests that Michelle was teary-eyed while looking at these cards, emphasizing her deep longing for Des to be the kind of tender father depicted on the cards. In addition, the fact that these men are on greeting cards suggests that they represent an ideal image of fatherhood: handsome and masculine, but gentle and loving. And indeed, Michelle's narration goes on to note how she hoped "that that adoration would kick in once Des saw the baby and she saw Des with the baby." With this, Michelle implies that she doesn't adore Des—or at least not in recent times—but that rather than part ways with Des, she wants their relationship to be reinvigorated so that they can preserve their family unit. Even as it becomes clear to Michelle that Des doesn't have the capacity to be the kind of father or partner she longs for, she remains hung up on preserving the image of the perfect family, as seen through her preoccupation with their family portrait. Michelle's assumption that her baby will look like the cute, cherub-like one on the front of the baby-oil bottle—and her "startl[ed]" reaction when her baby doesn't look like this—is an early indication in the story that Michelle is preoccupied with looking like she has the perfect family. Later in the story, when Michelle notices a poster advertising family portraits, she becomes obsessed with having the perfect family photo of her, Des, and Jason. For instance, she instructs Des to go out and buy something for Jason to wear, stressing that she wants Jason to "look really good." She also methodically plans out exactly how she wants each family member to be posed—Des with his arm around her, giving off the appearance that they're a happy, loving couple—and she fantasizes about framing the picture and sending it out to friends and family. By this point in the story, Michelle disdains Des, seeing him as immature and incapable of changing his ways. But she nevertheless wants this picture that makes them look like a tightknit, happy family to have "The feeling sealed, at least, like evidence." In other words, she wants this perfect family photo as proof that she once had something like a nuclear family unit, even if it didn't last. But by the end of the story, Michelle realizes that she and Jason already are the ideal family, and that they don't need Des at all. Neither of the two family portraits turn out the way Michelle had planned: in one, Jason is wearing the tiny leather jacket that Des bought him, which Michelle hates. And in the other, Jason is kicking and screaming, startled by the camera flash right as the picture is being taken. But the story implies that the botched photos free Michelle from her preoccupation with making her family look perfect. This is in large part because Jason's cry in the second photo is what triggers Michelle's let-down reflex, which finally allows her breastmilk to flow (something she's been waiting for days to happen). As Michelle scrambles to feed Jason, she faintly hears Des protesting that she shouldn't breastfeed in such a public place. But to her, Des's voice sounds "like someone you're hanging up on, going small and high-pitched and distant as you put the phone down." With this description, the story's focus literally zooms out from Des and Michelle's dynamic (which has been the topic of much of the narrative) and instead foregrounds Michelle and Jason, suggesting that Des is no longer a necessary part of the story or the family. Now that she can feed her baby, Michelle realizes that "She's got everything this baby needs, now. And he's twisting his head, searching for her. He knows it too." Michelle and Jason lock eyes, and she imagines his eyes are saying to her, "it's you," and that her eyes are saying back, "yeah, it's me." By zooming in on this silent exchange between Michelle and Jason, the story suggests that the pair have solidified their connection as a family unit. "Five-Dollar Family" shows that it's Michelle and Jason's close, loving relationship—and her commitment to taking care of him—is enough to make them a family, even without Des. - Climax: After struggling to nurse her newborn, Michelle's breastmilk finally comes in. - Summary: Michelle is dazed and in pain after giving birth to her first child, Jason. The nurses and midwives fuss over her since her breastmilk hasn't come in yet, and they teach her how often to wake up her baby, how to get him interested in feeding, and how to hold him. By now, Michelle is a little less afraid of holding him, but Des—who is Michelle's boyfriend and Des's father—is still visibly nervous and uncomfortable. That night in the hospital, Michelle sneaks Jason out of his crib and gently lays him in bed with her, even though she's not supposed to. She makes up songs for him and listens to him breathe for a while before sneaking him back into his crib. She decides that if any of the midwives scold her, she'll scold them right back. The next morning, the hospital staff continues to pester Michelle about whether or not her breastmilk has come in—they call it the "let-down reflex." It hasn't, nor has Jason developed his sucking reflex yet. The woman in the next room laments that she has the opposite problem: her baby feeds so aggressively that her skin is painfully cracked and raw. When the midwives are out of earshot, the woman confesses to Michelle that she plans to put her baby on formula the second she's discharged from the hospital. On Monday, Michelle is allowed to take a short, slow walk around the hospital courtyard. There, she spots a poster advertising $5 family portraits on Tuesdays at the supermarket complex across the street. Even though the doctor has ordered Michelle to stay in bed a few more days, she resolves to get her family portrait taken the following day. Though she's still in severe pain, she lies to the nurses that she feels fine. Throughout the day, Michelle tries to feed Jason, but she's frustrated and close to tears that her milk hasn't come in. The nurses wonder if she has the baby blues—one symptom is crying constantly, often for no reason—but Michelle says no. She actually hasn't been crying recently—though she used to cry all the time before the birth. Back then, she'd thought that having a baby would spur Des to be a better person and partner, and that he'd become an adoring and committed father once he had a child of his own. But when Michelle went into labor, Des paced around, looked at her with "startled distaste," and then excused himself from the room. He wasn't even in the room when Jason was delivered. But the second that the nurses handed Jason to Michelle, she stopped worrying about Des and suddenly realized she didn't need him anymore. Des has always been secretive with Michelle—she only knows about his current criminal charge for aggravated assault because she found the court summons in his wallet. Michelle knows that Des is going to jail, since he's already had three similar offenses and thus has no more probations. His court date is this Thursday, and she knows he'll try to sidestep his sentence by explaining that he has a girlfriend and a newborn baby. But no more probations means that Des will be immediately shuttled from the court to jail. And though Des knows this too, he hasn't said a word about it to Michelle. She thinks back to other instances of his secrecy, like when she borrowed his shirt and found a receipt in the pocket for an eight-pack of condoms—proof that he was cheating on her, even though she was pregnant with his baby. Back in the present, Michelle tells Des that she might be allowed to go home on Thursday. He mumbles that he has "this court thing" then, so she tells him to arrange for his mother to be Michelle's driver instead. Michelle remembers the first time she met Des's parents: his mother indulgently fussed over Des and her other son, Kyle, while Des's father laughed about Des's misdemeanors and called him a "naughty boy." Michelle smiled at the time, but now, looking at Des, she refuses to. Before Des leaves, Michelle tells him to buy something for the baby to wear in the portrait. On Tuesday morning, Des proudly brandishes what he got for the baby: a tiny leather motorcycle jacket. Michelle is horrified. Once Michelle takes her pain medication, she gingerly makes her way to the supermarket complex with Des and Jason for the photo. There, she firmly tells the photographer that they want the $5 family special, and she poses herself, Des, and Jason just as she's been planning. After the photographer snaps the picture, Michelle asks for another, this time without Jason's motorcycle jacket on. Michelle is certain that this will be the shot she'll choose. But when the camera flash goes off, Jason lets out a piercing wail, and milk suddenly begins seeping through Michelle's shirt. She fumbles with the buttons on her shirt so that she can feed Jason, but Des is disgusted that she'd breastfeed in a public place. Michelle hardly hears him—she's focused purely on Jason and knows that she has everything Jason needs.

- Genre: Novel, Magical Realism - Title: Flames - Point of view: - Setting: Tasmania in the late 2010s - Character: Charlotte McAllister. Description: Charlotte McAllister is Levi's younger sister and the daughter of Edith and Jack. The story picks up just after Edith's death, reincarnation, and second death, and Charlotte is visibly devastated. Levi, disturbed by Charlotte's visible grief, makes plans to build Charlotte a coffin to protect her from the prospect of cremation and its related threat of reincarnation. But when she finds these plans, Charlotte runs away from home. She escapes not only because she feels misunderstood by Levi, whose cool, reserved demeanor directly contrasts her obvious emotionality, but because she feels overwhelmed by the memories of her mother that linger in their home. While away, Charlotte discovers that she's able to conjure fire with her body and spread it to objects around her—an ability she struggles to control. Eventually, Charlotte returns to the family's farm. That decision, and her subsequent desperation to find and help Levi—who has become completely absorbed in his coffin-building task—demonstrates the strength of her bond with him and the importance of family in her life. Charlotte's tendency to distance herself from those for whom she cares most deeply, usually to protect them from herself and her dangerous ability, is also evident in her relationship with Nicola, a farmhand with whom she develops a romance. Though Charlotte attempts to push both Nicola and Levi away, she finally realizes that they are just as committed to helping and caring for her as she is to protecting them. - Character: Levi McAllister. Description: Levi McAllister is Charlotte's older brother and the daughter of Edith and Jack. When Levi and Charlotte's mother dies, Levi seems to get over his grief quickly, and he considers Charlotte's outpourings of emotion a problem he needs to solve. As such, he resolves to construct a coffin for Charlotte, which is his way of persuading Charlotte she needn't worry about experiencing reincarnation after cremation, a supernatural fate that many women in their family experience. When his plans to make a coffin drive Charlotte away, he contracts a detective to find her. Levi's later correspondence with Thurston Hough (who has authored a book about building coffins) highlights his naïve optimism: even when Thurston repeatedly insults him and wards him off, Levi continues to contact him, begging him to build Charlotte a coffin. His stubborn nature pays off when it comes to convincing Thurston to help him with the coffin, but it soon becomes a dangerous quality, especially when Levi comes into possession of the Esk God's pelt. Emboldened by the uncanny warmth of the pelt, Levi's single-minded drive to finish the perfect coffin for Charlotte nearly destroys him, as his intense focus leaves him emaciated, unaware of his surroundings, and subject to the dangers of the natural world. Ultimately, Levi's growth as a character comes not by building the coffin (and so exercising symbolic control over Charlotte and his unrealized grief) but by losing his power over her when Charlotte's fire and the massive flood that follows it destroy Levi's coffin. In the aftermath of this destruction, Levi finally understands that he's incapable of totally controlling his emotions and circumstances, and he realizes that he must seek comfort in others to overcome his grief and begin to heal. - Character: Fire Spirit/Jack (Levi and Charlotte's Father). Description: Levi and Charlotte's father (a fire spirit who most people know as Jack) left the family several years before Edith's death, creating a rupture in his relationship with his children aren't willing to repair. His existence as a fire spirit—a being who was first brought to life by an indigenous woman who lit a fire for warmth, and who can now appear in any fire on the island—is only known to himself and the late Edith. To everyone else, including his children, his identity is profoundly mysterious. When Graham Malik attempts to investigate him, there seems to be no sign of his existence apart from a driver's license, and those who see him are unable to confirm anything about his physical appearance. Because he's foremostly a supernatural fire spirit, Jack can rarely maintain emotional connections with human beings, even his children, and the pain of Edith's death only magnifies this detachment. Though he makes halfhearted efforts to help and protect his children, he's never truly able to repair his relationships with them—relationships that first ended because Edith learned that he'd used his powers as a fire spirit to force her to him. Jack has a long-running habit of lighting "sparks" in humans' brains to make them more receptive to people and ideas they consider foreign. While this suggests that the fire spirit genuinely desires to use his powers for good, his broken connections to his wife and children emphasize that relationships built on exploitation and dishonesty—or even partial honesty—are harmful and unsustainable. - Character: Edith McAllister (Levi and Charlotte's Mother). Description: Levi and Charlotte's mother dies shortly before the events of Flames take place. It's clear from Levi and Charlotte's displays of grief that their mother was a central part of their life—much more so than their father, Jack, is or ever was. During her life, Edith was not only devoted to the natural world, particularly the surroundings of Notley Fern Gorge, but she was also inextricably bound to it through both her relationship with Jack, a fire spirit, and her family's history of its women being reincarnated with features that echo the landscapes in which their ashes were scattered. However, though Edith and Charlotte share a deep connection to nature, that connection is also the source of the key difference between them. While Edith loved the dark, earthy surroundings of the Gorge, Charlotte feels trapped unless she's near the ocean, and this contrast suggests that Edith's more nurturing, protective, and gentle characteristics—echoed by the enclosed gorge—conflict with Charlotte's affinity with the drama and chaos that the crashing waves represent. Another common quality in both Edith and Charlotte, however, is their desire for freedom and autonomy, which is evident in Edith's angry response to learning that Jack used his supernatural powers to convince her to love him. - Character: Thurston Hough. Description: Thurston Hough is the coffin expert Levi asks for help building Charlotte's coffin. Thurston is antisocial, violent, and suspicious, all qualities which make him a particularly unpopular addition to Avoca, the small town he relocates to to evade the government's tax agents. His violence and misanthropy come through in his letters to Levi, but his desperation for money proves more powerful than his desire to be left alone, as is evident when he accepts the task of building Charlotte's coffin upon Levi's promise of a large amount of cash. Thurston demonstrates how greed and self-obsession can harm the natural environment when he traps, kills, and skins the Esk God (who takes the form of a water rat). Though the killing invites the wrath of the river creatures who were loyal to the Esk God, Thurston remains oblivious to the fact that his actions interfered with the river's delicate ecology. He dies with the pelt in his hand, which reinforces the futility of attempting to claim a piece of nature as one's own. - Character: The Esk God. Description: The Esk God, in Flames's world of magical realism, is one of the many divine beings upon which Tasmania's ecology relies. He takes the physical form of a water rat and holds authority over the creatures of the two Esk Rivers. As the Esk God swims along his rivers, he bears sees how humans hurt the natural environment, and his perspective highlights the pollution and destruction that come hand in hand with colonialism and human greed. The Esk God's death—in a metal cage at the hands of Thurston Hough—is a stark contrast to his divine status, and this highlights the ignorance and disrespect humans hold for the intricate workings of the natural world. At the same time, the river creatures' furious vengeance for the Esk God emphasizes the dangers of interfering with a complex and precious ecology. - Character: The Detective. Description: Levi hires the detective to find Charlotte when the police department gives up their search. With her short hair and dark lipstick, the detective is well aware of how strange she must appear to the average resident of rural Tasmania—but she doesn't mind the isolation this provides her. The failure of her long-term relationship several years ago led to her switching from a safe, corporate job in the city to the turbulent life of a private detective. Though the detective is strategic and cunning, she's also motivated by a sense of righteousness, and she demonstrates these dual qualities when she finds the miners, lures them out for a walk, and then, when they touch her, uses physical force against them. Though she only agreed to find Charlotte for the money, the detective is vital to Charlotte and Levi's reunion, and due to the fact that she travels home without pestering Levi for payment, it's clear that—unlike Thurston—she's able to put her own interests aside, at least temporarily, for the sake of others' feelings and needs. - Character: Nicola. Description: Nicola is Karl and Louise's daughter and one of Allen's farmhands. She's a reliable, diligent worker who cares deeply for the wombats on the farm. She delights in providing for other people. This quality strengthens her relationship with Charlotte; she's eager to find the perfect place for Charlotte to control her flames, and she's willing to sacrifice her own safety to extinguish Charlotte's flames. Nicola's self-sacrificial love balances Charlotte's desire to protect her loved ones from herself—a balance that makes their relationship a viable one and seems to convince Charlotte not to break it off. - Character: Allen Gibson. Description: Allen Gibson is the manager of the wombat farm in Melaleuca. He takes his job seriously and holds himself to a high standard, which means that when the first wombats die, he holds off on telling Mrs Quorn about them until he knows how to solve the problem. Allen rapidly transforms from a pleasant, diligent farmer who enjoys the company of Nicola and Charlotte and the quiet life he leads on Melaleuca to a haggard, violently unhinged man possessed by a cormorant spirit. By the time he realizes he's responsible for the wombat deaths, he's no longer capable of remorse or empathy. His dramatic transformation highlights the treacherous power of nature and the helplessness of humans in the face of it. - Character: Karl (Nicola's Father). Description: Karl is Nicola's father and Louise's wife. When he meets and bonds with a seal pup, he begins a precious, decades-long partnership which involves the two of them hunting enormous Oneblood tuna together. This relationship—and its traumatic end, which comes when a pod of orca whales kills the seal—emphasizes the power of nature to equally delight and terrify humans who witness it. Though Karl's relationship with Nicola is somewhat detached, her fond memories of him smiling at her suggest that he represents a kind of stable, sturdy love for her—one that she seems to attempt to replicate in her relationship with Charlotte. - Character: The Ranger. Description: The ranger has always been overwhelmed by the beauty of nature and often finds that his awe at the world around him distracts him from his daily tasks. When he delays calling for a plane to take Nicola and Charlotte away, preferring to scope out the situation himself before believing the claims of young women, he demonstrates the ways even unintentional sexism can lead to danger (perhaps, if he'd believed the farmhands and called the plane earlier, they could all have avoided the devastating fire). - Character: The Miners. Description: The miners are a pair of friends who attempt to force sex on Charlotte when she spends the night in Tunbridge. Though they initially appear harmless, Charlotte eventually realizes that their double act, which allows them to overpower women, is something that they attempt often. Their misogyny is clear not only through this strategy but in their reaction to Charlotte; they quickly switch from desiring her sexually to considering her a "whore". Their attitudes highlight the sexist double standards prevalent in western society—standards that demand women to desire the sexual advances of men while also punishing them for that desire. - Character: The Cloud God. Description: The Cloud God is the divine being with responsibility for Tasmania's rain. She feeds the Esk Rivers and is the Esk God's lover, a relationship that highlights the interdependent, complex cycles of nature. When she realizes the Esk God has died, the Cloud God unleashes a historical downpour which puts out the raging fire Charlotte has inadvertently begun, demonstrating the power of nature to overwhelm, disrupt, and sometimes even heal human lives. - Theme: Grief and Human Connection. Description: Flames depicts grief as an immense force that can become destructive when characters attempt to suppress it, ignore it, or manage it alone. When Levi and Charlotte lose Levi and Charlotte's mother, their reactions to her death contrast dramatically. Charlotte expresses her emotions visibly and audibly, often screaming or sobbing uncontrollably. Meanwhile, Levi thinks he's gotten over his mother's death and that Charlotte's behavior is inappropriate and unhealthy. Levi arranges to have a coffin built for Charlotte to reassure her that she won't have to come back to life and die a second death like their mother did (following a pattern that's seen a third of their female ancestors briefly reincarnated after being cremated). When Charlotte discovers Levi's plans, she runs away to grieve without her brother's judgment. To manage their grief, the siblings choose self-sufficiency and isolation, seeking to cope with their situations practically and alone. Ultimately, though, neither sibling can manage their grief alone. Levi persuades himself that his course of action is logical and appropriate. In reality, however, his actions are merely a side effect of his suppressed grief, and it's clear to those around him, including Levi and Charlotte's father, that the effort of suppressing it is making him unwell. When Charlotte finally returns home, Levi has disappeared. She finds him in Notley Fern Gorge, a place beloved to their mother and the site where they scattered her ashes. Fixated on the coffin-building process, Levi seems to have lost his grip on reality. Similarly, though Charlotte thinks she's expressing her emotions in a healthier way, the flames that leak out of her body and create chaos and destruction around her—a supernatural power she inherited from her father—show that her grief is too overwhelming for her to manage alone, and in attempting to suppress it, she's only allowed it to billow into a more destructive force. Eventually an immense flood extinguishes the fire that erupts from Charlotte in the gorge, threatening her own life and others', while Levi must venture out into the ocean to find support in the form of a seal companion. It's clear that the grief of these siblings is too vast and unwieldy for them to manage alone. Both of them, ultimately, depend on the support of forces outside of themselves to heal from their loss. Flames, then, emphasizes the necessity of human connection to heal from grief and other hardships. - Theme: Nature vs. Human Effort. Description: A battle between human effort and the power of nature lies at the heart of Flames. The novel's human characters find themselves overwhelmed by the natural world, often in ways that completely disrupt their lives. For instance, when Thurston Hough, a self-obsessed coffin builder, kills the Esk God, a deity in the form of a water rat who rules over Tasmania's Esk Rivers, he treasures its golden pelt without realizing he's upset the rivers' ecology. As vengeance, the river creatures take over Thurston's home and eventually feast on his dead body. By ignoring the possible scope of his single-minded action and by attempting to assert control over nature, Thurston invites the wrath of creatures he misjudged as unimportant. Even characters like the ranger and Karl, who seek to commune with nature rather than to exploit it, are shocked by nature's beauty and violence. The ranger finds that the magnificent beauty of his surroundings distracts him from his menial tasks, and Karl is distraught when orcas rip his seal companion to shreds. While the strength of nature often renders these characters' efforts and desires powerless, through the perspectives of the fire spirit and the Esk God, the novel also emphasizes the destruction humans can cause to their natural environment when compelled by greed—particularly the kind of greed characteristic of colonialism. While the indigenous people of Tasmania lived in relative harmony with nature, only building fires and killing wildlife to sustain themselves, the white colonialists brought with them an appetite for large-scale industry whose pollution and destruction of natural environments led to the deaths of many of the Esk God's fellow gods. And though the fire spirit delights in the different forms he could take thanks to the settlers' new technology of gunpowder, candles, and gas lamps, he's bitterly aware that these developments directly endanger the indigenous people's lives and ways of existing. Through these points of view, the novel suggests that human beings have a responsibility not only to acknowledge and respect nature's magnificence, but to carefully consider how their desire for progress—which often involves disrupting natural processes and ecologies—does more harm than good. - Theme: Sexism. Description: Many of Flames's female characters find themselves underestimated, threatened, or controlled by men. Though these men's sexist behavior is often unconscious, it nevertheless affects their decision-making abilities, which in turn puts the women around them in danger. For instance, when Charlotte and Nicola ask the ranger for help leaving the farm they work at, an environment they feel has become unsafe due to their manager Allen's increasingly erratic behavior, he doesn't call for a plane to take them away until he visits the farm to confirm their report. Though the sexism in the ranger's decision is subtle, it shows that he trusts Allen's more senior, male presence on the farm more than the word of two young women. Ultimately, not only does his ingrained prejudice put the two women in harm's way, it also plays a key part in kindling the feelings of frustration, fear, and rage that set off Charlotte's fire, which causes Allen severe burns—a sign that sexism is harmful not just for women but for everyone. The novel explores sexism in a more blatant and violent way when depicting the miners' behavior when they encounter both Charlotte and the detective. In both instances, the miners' assumption that they can control these women drive their actions. They have no interest in being on equal terms with the women they're interested in, preferring to overpower them physically. Yet, when these women use their own physical power to defend themselves, the miners resort to anger and misogynistic language, which demonstrates that women are only desirable to them if they do what they want without resistance. In both its subtle and blatant portrayals of sexism, the novel criticizes the careless assumptions men make about women and demonstrates that these assumptions can cloud the reality of a situation, creating danger for all involved. - Theme: Love and Respect. Description: Flames repeatedly shows that miscommunication can weaken relationships. As siblings, Levi and Charlotte have a deep bond, but they seem to have very little in common besides their parents. Though they attempt to demonstrate their love for each other—Levi by building Charlotte a coffin because he's misinterpreted her grief over their mother Edith's death as a fear of being reincarnated after death, and Charlotte by running away so she can deal with her emotions before she hurts Levi's feelings—these demonstrations only cause pain and estrange the siblings from each other. The relationship between Charlotte and Nicola is similar in many ways. Though Charlotte enjoys the intimacy that develops between herself and Nicola, a relentless undercurrent of fear that she'll hurt Nicola with her uncontrollable flames forces her to distance herself from her romantic partner. As Charlotte works up the courage to end the relationship, she finds herself increasingly frustrated by Nicola's intimate gestures. While both these relationships are fraught with conflict and confusion, in the end, the bonds between Levi and Charlotte—and Charlotte and Nicola—ultimately survive because each of them changes to be on equal footing with the other. Nicola responds to Charlotte's attempts to push her away by remaining stubbornly close, helping Charlotte extinguish her uncontrollable flames even though they burn her. This wordless communication demonstrates that Nicola's desire to protect Charlotte is just as strong as Charlotte's desire to protect Nicola, and that therefore strengthens their relationship by ensuring they play equal parts in it. Meanwhile, Charlotte's desire to help Levi is fierce enough that she puts her own comfort aside to venture into the gorge, a potent and unpleasant reminder of Levi and Charlotte's mother's death. In the aftermath of the fire and the flood, Levi and Charlotte finally understand the misplaced efforts each of them has exerted to demonstrate their devotion to the other, and this understanding allows them to forgive each other. By contrast, the relationship between Jack and Edith, Charlotte and Levi's parents, fails because of their inability to respect each other as equals. When Edith discovers that Jack used his supernatural abilities to force her to love him, she concludes that their partnership—one that was built on her unknowing powerlessness—can no longer continue. In this way, the novel suggests that relationships cannot subsist on love alone: a strong relationship depends on equality and mutual respect. - Climax: When Charlotte can't convince Levi to stop building her a coffin, flames burst from her body and set Notley Fern Gorge on fire. - Summary: Two days after Levi and Charlotte spread her ashes in Notley Fern Gorge in northern Tasmania, Levi and Charlotte's mother, Edith, returns from the dead, sprouting ferns and moss from her body. Her second life lasts four days: she spends the first two on the family's farmland before walking to Levi and Charlotte's father's house and finally bursting into flames in his front yard. This kind of reincarnation happens to some women in the family after cremation. In the following weeks, Charlotte's episodes of emotional distress disturb Levi. He resolves to build her a coffin to reassure her that she can avoid the trauma of reincarnation by being buried whole. Meanwhile, Karl walks up the beach toward his house after a day of angling. He misses the kind of fishing he used to do on the open ocean, hunting enormous Oneblood tuna with his seal companion. He and his seal hunted together for decades—during which time Karl met his wife and had two daughters with her—before his seal was killed by a pod of orcas. As Karl walks home, he sees Levi gathering driftwood, and he later discovers Levi is building a coffin for Charlotte. When Charlotte discovers Levi's plans for a coffin, she packs a few necessities and runs away. She hitchhikes to a nearby town where she sleeps by the river under an upturned boat. When she wakes, she finds a water rat has curled up against her stomach for warmth. She boards a bus heading south. The bus malfunctions, so Charlotte and the rest of the passengers stay in Tunbridge overnight. At a Tunbridge bar, Charlotte hears two miners discussing a southern mining town, Melaleuca. When the miners attempt to overpower her in order to have sex, she fights them off, leaving one of them with burn marks. The next day, Charlotte gets back on the bus and heads south to Franklin, a small town where she finds a sailor who agrees to take her to Melaleuca. The water rat Charlotte found sleeping beside her was in fact the Esk God, a deity presiding over Tasmania's Esk Rivers. After Charlotte leaves him, he slips into the river and swims upstream to visit his lover, the Cloud God. As he swims, he observes that the clutter and pollution of humans is overwhelming the natural environment. The Esk God climbs out of the river to rest and eat, but a human traps and kills him. Meanwhile, Levi begins to correspond with Thurston Hough, the author of a book about coffins that Levi has been reading, to ask him for help building Charlotte's coffin. Though Thurston insults Levi and demands that Levi leave him alone in his replies, his precarious financial position pushes him to help Levi, who promises him a large sum of money. As the correspondence continues, Thurston reports that he trapped and killed a water rat—the Esk God, though he doesn't know that the rat was a god. Its pelt is a source of great comfort to Thurston now that the river creatures have started to attack him. Thurston later tells Levi that, thanks to the violent animals, he won't be able to finish Charlotte's coffin. Levi hires a detective to find Charlotte after the police give up their search. The lead investigator on Charlotte's case, Graham Malik, is someone the detective knows well; he tells the detective that it seems like Charlotte can fend for herself and probably chose to disappear. The detective learns from the Tunbridge miners that Charlotte was going to Melaleuca, so she asks a pilot in the capital to fly her there. As they land in Melaleuca, they see a huge stretch of land burning. A strange man walks toward the detective and tells her to leave his daughter alone; the detective realizes he's Charlotte's father. Excerpts from the diary of Allen Gibson, the manager of a wombat farm in Melaleuca where Charlotte has recently begun working as a farmhand, recount the violent, mysterious deaths of several wombats over the course of a few weeks. Allen has vivid dreams about feathers and cormorants and decides that a cormorant must be responsible for the killings. He starts to resent Melaleuca, the wombats, and the farmhands, all of whom he once respected. Finally, he wakes up from one of these vivid dreams while in the process of stabbing a wombat and realizes that he's been possessed by a cormorant spirit and has been killing the wombats all along. When Charlotte tries to stop him, he threatens her with a knife. Flames flow from Charlotte's body, lighting a huge fire that chases Allen into an abandoned mine shaft where he begins to transform into a birdlike creature. When Allen's behavior begins to worry them, Charlotte and Nicola, the other farmhand, ask the ranger to arrange transport out of Melaleuca. When the ranger visits the farm, the dead wombats and Allen's threatening behavior confirm the farmhands' worries, and he arranges a plane to take them away. The plane lands in high winds, which prevent it from leaving until the next day. That night, the ranger wakes up to discover a huge fire raging over the fields near the farm. He helps Nicola and Charlotte board the plane and flies with them to the capital. Before he can report the incident to the police, Nicola and Charlotte escape. Nicola and Charlotte drive north together. Over the past few weeks, the two of them have become close friends; eventually, a romance develops between them. Nicola decides to take Charlotte to the stone cabin at Cradle Mountain that belongs to a friend of Nicola's father. There, surrounded by the safety of stone, lakes, and wet vegetation, Charlotte attempts to control the flames that have begun to leak out of her body. Nicola's touch is the only thing that can put the flames out, a discovery that leads to Nicola and Charlotte having sex for the first time. But when Charlotte's flames burn Nicola, Charlotte decides she needs to end their relationship in order to keep Nicola safe. Before she can do so, the detective finds them at the cabin and urges them to return north with her. Levi, having collected the half-finished coffin along with the water rat's pelt from Thurston's house, returns home to find his father in the kitchen. Unbeknownst to everyone except the late Edith, Levi and Charlotte's father is an ancient fire spirit who has the ability to move into and out of any fire on the island and to "spark" ideas in human minds. He left the family several years ago when Edith found out he had used his ability to convince her to love him; since then, his relationships with his children have only deteriorated. When Levi's father expresses that he's worried about him, Levi—emboldened by the confidence he feels when he holds the pelt—refuses to listen and instead drives away to Notley Fern Gorge, where he starts making a new coffin for Charlotte out of tree ferns. Charlotte and Nicola follow the detective back to Charlotte and Levi's home. It's empty. Charlotte suspects that Levi has gone to the gorge. When they find him there, he's emaciated and seems not to remember ever hiring the detective. Charlotte tries to convince him to stop building the coffin. When he insists that the coffin will be good for Charlotte, she's unable to stop flames from erupting from her body and setting the valley on fire. Nicola desperately smothers Charlotte to put the fire out, but by this point the flames have spread, and it seems there's no way to escape. Charlotte sees her father emerging from the flames. He mouths something to her before disappearing in the first drops of a huge downpour, a manifestation of the Cloud God's grief for the Esk God. Levi wakes up the next day. Charlotte tells him the detective has gone home, Nicola is in hospital for her burns, and the biggest flood in centuries extinguished the fire. Levi and Charlotte apologize to each other. They visit Nicola at the hospital, where Levi tries to apologize to her and her family but instead starts sobbing. Nicola suggests Levi go out to sea with her father, Karl; Levi agrees. Following Karl's instructions, Levi plunges into the water and swims away from the boat. Just as he feels completely exhausted from staying afloat, a seal pup swims up to him. Levi and the seal form a long-lasting bond.

- Genre: Satirical novella, mathematical fiction - Title: Flatland - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Flatland - Character: A Square. Description: The narrator and protagonist of the story, which he writes in prison—he has been arrested for attempting to educate others about the third dimension. A Square can be seen as the voice of Abbot himself (Edwin's last name consists of two "Abbotts," so A Square could be a pseudonym derived from "A-squared"). Given that he is a mathematician, A Square is rational, curious, and passionate, particularly in the quest for knowledge and desire to enlighten his fellow countrymen. He is a square and, additionally, belongs in Flatland's social class of professionals and gentlemen, as a lawyer. Although he often exhibits the tendency to be overcome by his emotions, A Square is humble enough to accept the teachings of the Sphere and enthusiastic enough to spread the Gospel of Three Dimensions. - Character: The Sphere / The Stranger. Description: An inhabitant of Spaceland who visits Flatland at the start of every millennium in search of a new apostle who can enlighten others regarding the third dimension. A Square first refers to the Sphere as the Stranger since he cannot grasp the concept of a three-dimensional sphere. Although A Square praises and worships the visiting solid for his knowledge of higher Truths, the Sphere still exhibits flaws of his own. Although he himself roams across other worlds to enlighten those who do not know of Spaceland and the third dimension, he initially does not consider the possibility of extradimensional worlds beyond his own. Instead, it is his pupil, A Square, who expresses a greater thirst for knowledge and infers the existence of the fourth, fifth, and even sixth dimensions. The Sphere responds to such questions not with openness, but with irritability, abandoning A Square as his disciple. - Character: The Monarch of Lineland. Description: The king of the one-dimensional world of Lineland. Rude and ignorant, the Monarch fails to see or even consider anything that is not natural to his world. Despite A Square's efforts to explain the second dimension, the king is unwilling to hear his ideas, and resorts to violence and attacks his teacher. - Character: The Monarch of Pointland. Description: The king of Pointland, the Abyss of No dimension. He believes himself to be his entire world and universe. Although A Square tries to help the Point out of his complacency, the Point interprets A Square's words to be nothing more than his own thoughts, since he is incapable of conceiving of anything that isn't himself. - Character: A Square's Grandson. Description: The younger of A Square's two hexagonal grandchildren. He exhibits unusual insight and, thus, perfect angularity. After A Square teaches his grandson the concept of squaring through the geometrical creation of one large square with sides three units long, made from nine individual squares, his grandson inquires about the significance of three-to-the-third—a question that could lead to an understanding of three-dimensional space—and baffles his grandfather. Despite this early spirit of curiosity and insight, A Square's grandson is later frightened by the authorities of Flatland and retracts his questions about three-to-the-third. - Theme: Social Hierarchy and Oppression. Description: Edwin Abbott wrote Flatland as a social satire of Victorian England, and the central target of Abbott's ire was the class rigidity that characterized English society in the nineteenth century. Because of this, fully half of his book is devoted to an exhaustive cataloguing—to the point of absurdity—of the horrifying and intricate ways in which the social hierarchy of the fictional world of Flatland is established and maintained. Abbott shows that this hierarchy is harmful, not only because it oppresses Flatlanders by limiting their freedom and justifying violence against the powerless, but also because the consuming nature of the hierarchy dominates every Flatlanders' ability to imagine any life or values other than their own. Perhaps the most striking example of the oppressive nature of Flatland's social hierarchy is the difference between men and women. In Flatland, women are line segments, while men are full polygons. On an allegorical level, this gestures toward the "flattening" of women by oppressive Victorian social norms—norms that required women to rigidly adhere to an ideal of femininity that did not allow them to exhibit the more "multi-dimensional" personality allowed (and even expected) of men. Abbott also describes the hierarchical oppression that occurs among men. All men in Flatland are polygons, and the social class of each is determined by the number of sides he has. Circles belong to the highest class—the priest class—and the polygons with the most sides (that is, those that most closely resemble circles) have the highest social standing. Conversely, isosceles triangles—with only three sides—are the lowliest. Yet despite Flatland's rigid and hierarchical method of determining social class, there is social mobility in Flatland (at least, among men). By natural law, polygons are supposedly born with more sides than their fathers, thereby promoting families, generationally, up the class ladder. However, the possibility of social mobility obscures what is actually the strict rigidity between social classes. A Square argues that it instead further promotes the social arrangement because the occasional emergence of an Equilateral from isosceles parents offers them a hope that ultimately prevents them from seeking rebellion. Moreover, social mobility is not equally available to everyone in Flatland; it is more pronounced among the upper classes, and less so for the lower classes. The sons of polygons with several hundred sides, for example, might gain fifty more sides than their fathers, while the sons of isosceles triangles can gain only a half a degree in their angles, rather than a full side, each generation. This should be seen as a direct allegory of the increased opportunities available to upper class Victorians, and the wretched inability of the lower classes to create a better life. Interestingly, the rigidity of this social hierarchy is rooted in the upper-class, male fear of violence and social upheaval. Abbott shows that the oppression of women is inextricable from the males' fear of women. As women are pointy line segments, they can easily stab male polygons to death (either by accidentally bumping into them, or by stabbing them on purpose)—a power that male Flatlanders lack. Thus, the men place a series of draconian restrictions on women, including making them use separate entrances to buildings and requiring that they constantly emit a "peace-cry" when walking in public. As evidence of how seriously men take the danger of women, the breaking of any of these rules punishable by death. Clearly, Abbott is suggesting a latent and dangerous power inherent to Victorian women, a power of which men should take note. Likewise, lower-class polygons are dangerous because their more-developed voices allow them to imitate the sounds of upper-class polygons (and even circles), a deception that threatens the integrity of the social order. It's also important to note that most of the methods of social control in Flatland involve ensuring that all class differentiations are clearly visible to every inhabitant of Flatland. Women are required to wiggle their backsides while they walk so that it's clear to everyone that they are a line segment, rather than a point. Thus, one way to control women is to require them to be visibly female (notably, through an action that any human woman would recognize as sexualization). Similarly, Flatland's fog helps the class status of male polygons be more visually clear. Polygons with many angles recede more gradually into the fog than polygons with fewer angles. Thus, the most visible polygons are the most respected (and women, of course, who are the least visible of all, are the least respected). Finally, irregular polygons are considered to be dangerous because, unlike regular polygons, their full shape cannot be immediately discerned by seeing only one of their angles. This means that an irregular polygon could potentially present a favorable angle to the world in order to appear to be of a higher class. Because of their mysteriousness and subversive potential, irregular polygons are social pariahs who put under heavy surveillance and are stigmatized, and are even sometimes subject to euthanasia. In a similar vein, Flatland has banned the use of all colors, because lower-class polygons were using trompe l'oeil paint (a technique of painting the illusion of depth or distance) to create the appearance of having more angles. The crux of Abbott's satire is that trompe l'oeil paint is a serious enough threat to the social order of Flatland to require prohibiting color. Social hierarchy, then, is only skin-deep—it's aesthetic, rather than essential, just like the superficial yet powerful class distinctions of Victorian England. Abbott's use of absurd allegory satirizes the rigidity of social class, but perhaps the most disturbing allegorical element of Flatland is how much space Abbott devotes to explaining the intricacies of class distinctions. When Abbott (through the voice of his fictional narrator, A Square) notes that there are a "hundred other details of our physical existence I must pass over" in order to detail the social arrangement of Flatland, he stresses how the nature of social hierarchy completely consumes the lives of Flatland's inhabitants. Not only does the rigid social hierarchy oppress Flatlanders by limiting their freedom, but it also makes them unable to focus on any part of life that is unrelated to class. As A Square's narration shows, this restricts self-knowledge and bars Flatlanders from enjoying their lives and the full complexity of the world they inhabit. - Theme: Religion, Divinity, and the Unknown. Description: The disconnect between faith, knowledge, and religious orthodoxy is another aspect of Victorian England that Abbott uses Flatland to satirize. Abbott was a devout Christian himself, as well as a prolific writer on Christian theology, and his books occasionally caused a stir in the powerful Anglican Church. Thus, Flatland's portrayal of a society's attempt to suppress the "dangerous" knowledge of other dimensions can be seen as an indictment of hierarchical religious institutions (like the Anglican Church) that attempt to suppress curiosity and difference of opinion in favor of maintaining their own power. Furthermore, Abbott's depiction of other dimensions can be seen as an allegory for the divine; Abbott believes that God exists, and that the human search for the divine is similar to grappling with the mathematical notion of extra dimensions. While humans can approach God through curiosity and intellectual exploration, the divine (like other dimensions) exists in an unknowable space that can never be fully understood. Throughout the book, several characters are visited by beings from other dimensions who attempt to give them knowledge of a world beyond their own. This parallels the idea of religious revelation. The Sphere periodically visits Flatland to initiate new apostles into the truth of a third dimension (A Square is one of those apostles). The metaphor of the Sphere's program of enlightenment as a training of apostles to spread the Gospel of Three Dimensions speaks to the way in which religious knowledge is disseminated. A Square also visits Lineland, where he tries to tell the Monarch of Lineland about two-dimensional existence. However, this "divine" knowledge is almost always received as threatening and dangerous, and is therefore suppressed. The Monarch of Lineland tries to kill A Square to make him stop talking about two dimensions. A Square uses his experiences with other dimensions to extrapolate that there might be worlds of four or more dimensions, but even the Sphere—who is presented as a figure of divinity (his shape associated with the circular priests of Flatland)—is unable to concede this possibility, and he rejects A Square for it. A Square's whole mission in writing Flatland is to bring the truth of other dimensions to all Flatlanders, since he has been persecuted and imprisoned for his beliefs. This imprisonment is, in turn, part of a larger campaign by the priests of Flatland to consolidate their power by suppressing knowledge of other dimensions and criminalizing "dangerous" speech, curiosity, and exploration. Thus, Abbott seems to be suggesting that the power-hungry priests are so threatened by the possibility of something "greater" than they are (something with more dimensions, something with knowledge beyond theirs, something incomprehensible) that they react by violently suppressing knowledge of the possibility of such beings. This ultimately portrays their power as being ill-gotten, petty, and harmful—particularly for beings called "priests," who are supposed to be conduits to the divine. This is quite an unflattering allegorical portrait of priests in general, and the priests of the Anglican Church in particular. In contrast to Abbott's allegory of the repressive and narrow-minded Anglican Church, Abbott presents individual spirituality and faith (as shown in A Square's quest to discern and disseminate the truth of other dimensions) as a noble and possibly liberating activity. Some of A Square's knowledge is explicitly presented as coming from the divine (the Sphere, for instance, visits him from another dimension, gives him knowledge, and deems him an "apostle"). A Square's subsequent interpretation of this knowledge—that it implies the possibility of more dimensions—is parallel to the practice of hermeneutics, which is the close-reading and interpretation of scripture (a favorite activity of Abbott's). The mysterious and unknowable aspects of A Square's theorizing of additional dimensions are then analogous to a human grappling with the presence of God. Extra dimensions can be understood only hypothetically and by analogy—the reality of living in another dimension can never be directly understood by humans because it is beyond human language and faculties to fully conceive of such a world. Similarly, in Christian theology, God is presented as a being unknowable to humans because of their limitations. Instead, humans gain a partial knowledge of the divine through scripture, and are expected to respect the mystery and power of the divine, even without concrete evidence or understanding of what that means. A Square's divine knowledge has the potential to liberate Flatlanders by literally allowing them to conceive of a new perspective—a three-dimensional one, say—from which the aesthetic distinctions that dictate their two-dimensional social rules seem irrelevant and absurd. Thus, A Square's knowledge has the potential to free Flatlanders from their oppression, much like Biblical knowledge is said to liberate people from the petty human laws that govern the Earth. Abbott, then, uses Flatland to argue against a religious system that is centered on the Church, and to argue for an individual spirituality based in curiosity and respect for the divine unknown. Abbott suggests that powerful institutions (like the Anglican Church or the Flatland priest class) lose sight of the divine because their power leads them simply to seek more power. This desire to maintain power, in turn, leads to a systematic suppression of knowledge and the oppression of people. The only response to such oppression, for Abbott, is to live like A Square: to inquire into difficult questions, be skeptical of authority, and spread the truth at all costs. - Theme: Reason vs. Emotion. Description: In his treatise on Flatland and other worlds, A Square frequently ponders and hashes out the differences between reason and emotion. In Flatland, Reason is seen as superior. It is the exclusive right of the male figures, who believe themselves to be unique in having the ability to think rationally and gain knowledge of their world. Emotion, on the other hand, is limited to the realm of the women and believed to represent the exact opposite of knowledge and rationality. The book calls these assumptions into question in a variety of ways. First, it mocks the idea that women are incapable of reason. The book does this through A Square's appeal that women receive an education. There is a scathing satirical humor in the way that A Square makes this appeal. He does so by saying that educating women will be in the best interests of the Male Sex, which, he worries, may be enfeebled by having to act emotionally around women while acting rationally when surrounded by men. In arguing for educating women as something that will benefit men, the book satirizes how the argument that women are incapable of reason is itself irrational: that it is in fact just another way for men to maintain their power. The book then further skewers the idea that men–or anyone–can be purely rational at all. For instance, when the Sphere first explains the third dimension to him, A Square reacts not with reason but emotionally by expressing frustration. Unable to understand the third dimension, A Square describes the strong urge to violently shove the unwelcome visitor out into Space, and in fact he actually does physically attack the Sphere with his right angle. But A Square is not the only male in the book to be driven by emotion rather than reason. The Sphere himself also allows his frustration to dominate reason, and in response to A Square's ideas of dimensions even higher than the third dimension, he "moodily" pushes the two-dimensional figure back into Flatland. By showing that even the Sphere is subject to emotion, Abbott reveals that the idea that men are motivated purely by reason is nothing more than a pretty lie they tell themselves and use to maintain social power. After illustrating that men have no monopoly on reason or any special skill at avoiding emotion, Abbott then pushes further and makes the case that reason isn't any more valuable than emotion, or what he calls "affection," in the first place. In fact, the book implies that the definition of being human is not limited to man's ability to reason, but equally on the compassionate quality of humans to express emotion for and towards others. When A Square finally realizes the scope of the Sphere's teachings, he begins to express awe at how he himself has "become like a God" with the "omnividence" that will make him invulnerable to emotion. But the Sphere disapproves of A Square's self-aggrandizement because he (the Sphere) does not specifically prefer reason over emotion. Instead, the Sphere believes that affections specifically relate to the attributes of God. The Sphere associates being merciful, selfless, and loving as human faculties that emulate divinity. A Square, who sides wholeheartedly with reason, is baffled by his teacher's defense of human qualities that he and Flatlanders usually associate with women. Not only does Abbott make a case against esteeming reason over emotion, but he also reveals how cold rationality can be potentially monstrous, particularly through the instance when A Square argues for the oppression or euthanasia of Irregulars on the grounds that it would be impossible to accommodate them because it would require extra resources. In contrast to A Square's cold-hearted and fundamentally cruel musings, the Sphere speaks of mercy and selflessness—both intricately connected to emotion—which introduces a kind of a moral dimension that should be an essence of the human condition. The Sphere says, further, that these faculties of compassion and mercy originate from God himself. Although Flatland is a work fully-immersed in the logical theories of mathematics, Abbott warns against the dangers of steadfastly valuing reason over emotion, and shows how such a viewpoint condones discrimination and social oppression, and results in the inhumane treatment of the weak and the poor. On the one hand, he argues for a healthy balance between rational thinking and emotion and compassion. At the same time, he implies that reason and emotion are not distinct at all, and are, in fact, linked. The book's fixation on math—which is often considered to be the most rational and logically-based discipline—and its exploration of unimaginably higher dimensions speaks to Abbott's attempt to explore abstract theories that are mathematically conceivable but beyond human reason. Thus, in a way, Abbot uses reason to transcend reason. By writing Flatland, he uses reason in order to create a metaphor for the divine, which is generally considered to exist outside the bounds of rational thinking. With his work, Abbott attempts to tether rationality and religion, and in doing so makes the case for the connection between rationality and the love and compassion that the Sphere argues exists at the core of religion. - Theme: Knowledge and Truth vs. Dogma. Description: The second half of Flatland is particularly invested in the search for knowledge and truth. After A Square learns of a higher three-dimensional world, he gains a thirst to discover and understand worlds of four, five, and even six dimensions. Part 1 of the book intricately describes what is taken to be truth in Flatland. However, the exploration of other dimensional worlds in Part 2 immediately exposes how limited that knowledge really is, and, in particular, how oppressive those "truths" are. Therefore, Abbott makes explicit distinctions between knowledge and truth and dogma. The book presents society's prescribed truths (its dogma) as oppressive and irrational, and as existing only to preserve hierarchies of power. In Flatland, the "laws of nature" are defined by those in power as a means of sustaining the status quo. The idea of "Nature" is particularly restricting because it does not allow doubt, and basically proclaims that "it is what it is." For example, A Square describes one law of nature that dictates that every male child will have one more side than his father had. Apparently, however, this rule does not apply to everyone. In fact, this law excludes the isosceles triangles altogether. The arbitrariness of how and who this rule applies to exemplifies the power of those in the higher classes to control knowledge and keep the weak eternally on the bottom rungs of the social ladder. The circles, who are the leaders of Flatland, do not tolerate any person who makes public mention of other worlds and newer knowledge. Thus, at the beginning of every millennium, the Grand Council meets to imprison or execute any "ill-intentioned persons pretending to have received revelation from another World." In the novella, A Square's Brother is arrested for simply having witnessed the Sphere's act of revelation, and A Square himself has been imprisoned for 7 years when he writes Flatland. The book presents knowledge as having the potential to fight dogma. At the same time, it shows true knowledge as, by definition, never being more than partial. Put another way, it is not necessarily knowledge itself that can combat dogma, but rather the curiosity and open-mindedness that makes A Square such a devoted seeker of knowledge that truly threatens dogma. Knowledge, unlike dogma, is about seeking—A Square seeks knowledge by being curious, open-minded, and smart. Plus, he is willing to defy the oppressive laws that the circles have put in place. In contrast to the inhabitants of Pointland, Lineland, and Spaceland, A Square is open to accepting the unfamiliar concept of the third dimension because he is humble enough to consider a world beyond his own. Also consider how A Square's Grandson insightfully devises the concept of "three-to-the-third," but then ends up denying it in the face of dogma. His precocious vision first stems largely from his innocence and humility, since he is not fully aware of his hexagonal social status. However, A Square's grandson's potential to gain knowledge is squashed when the Council begins proclaiming their resolution to punish any "revelators". The grandson is smart enough to understand that he must not make such dangerous claims about mathematical theories that deviate from the prescribed truths in Flatland. Therefore, despite A Square's efforts to educate his grandson, his grandson has accepted the position of remaining complacent and ignorant to higher truths. The pursuit of knowledge is ultimately presented in the book as an effort to piece together Truth. This effort is shown as never entirely achievable—A Square can never fully understand the "truth" of multiple dimensions—but the book shows that the pursuit itself is valuable. A Square's humility and open-mindedness are presented in the book as superior to the priest's desire to hold and maintain power at all costs, and the book makes clear that A Square's values are a direct result of his devotion to pursuit of a truth that he can never fully understand or articulate. The broader implication here is clear: that just as A Square's humble pursuit of an impossible-to-comprehend truth offers him a kind of salvation, so will humans' pursuit to understand and connect with a God who is beyond their ability to comprehend bring them closer to the divine. Flatland pulls no punches in its depiction of the effort that those in power will go to in order to enforce dogma and maintain their own power, nor does it suggest that such efforts will be unsuccessful (they are clearly successful with A Square's grandson, after all). But nonetheless, through A Square's devotion to the truth, Flatland asserts that the quest for truth and the divine is a vital necessity for both personal fulfillment and morality. - Theme: Analogy as Satire. Description: Throughout Flatland, analogy is used as the primary method for explaining new and unfamiliar concepts by using what's already familiar to the one being taught. When the Sphere attempts to describe the third dimension, for example, he uses geometrical and arithmetic progression to help A Square make sense of the concept. However, it is soon obvious that analogy, or more specifically, words, fail to fully convey an unfamiliar concept because of the lack of a useful lexicon, or vocabulary. For instance, the Sphere gets stuck because he is unable to define "upward" and "figure" to the confused and frustrated A Square. Similarly, the word "side" also has a different meaning to the Flatlander than it does to the three-dimensional Sphere. Therefore, the teachers, such as the Sphere to A Square, or A Square to the Monarch of Lineland, resort to using deeds and actions (instead of words and analogies) in order to educate their respective pupils. Abbott, thus, suggests the limitation of words to bring about change. In order to enlighten those who have not yet grasped new knowledge, he shows that the teacher must actively seek change through visual demonstration or physical motion. Since he could not describe "left" and "right" solely with words, A Square actually moves in and out of Lineland to actively demonstrate the directional motions. The Sphere touches the stomach of A Square to prove that he indeed can see into two-dimensional figures. When this fails, he physically takes A Square into Spaceland to prove the existence of the third dimension once and for all. In a way, Abbott's writing of Flatland is an educational action in and of itself. Just as the Sphere takes A Square into Spaceland to make A Square see the world in a new way, Abbott takes the reader into the fictional world of Flatland to demonstrate analogically the absurdities of Victorian society. To make this "deed" work, Abbott must fully create the world of Flatland—it must be something that his readers can see and feel. Abbott has A Square call the two-dimensional shapes of Flatland "humans", "men", and "people" because he needs them to feel real to readers. Only by creating a bizarre world that feels both real and like a very direct analogy to the way in which British society was organized during the Victorian Age, can Abbott satirize the dangers inherent in a society so strictly organized and run by those with and in power. - Climax: A Square fully comprehends the teachings of the Sphere, of the third dimensional world, and seeks the knowledge of higher dimensions. - Summary: Flatland is a world that exists on the two-dimensional plane, where its inhabitants—literal geometrical shapes—live in a highly-structured society organized into classes based on the number of sides of a figure. The narrator and protagonist of Flatland, A Square, writes from prison, intricately detailing the social organization of his country and recounting the revelations he has received from the sacred "Sphere." In the first half of his treatise, A Square painstakingly describes the social landscape of Flatland, which is strictly regulated by natural laws as dictated by the Circles, the priests that make up the highest class. While women are simple straight lines, the males are full polygons. Flatland society is organized from the isosceles triangles at the bottom, then the equilateral triangles, square, pentagons, hexagons, higher polygons, and finally, the priestly circles at the top. By indoctrinating the Flatlandians to "Attend to your Configuration," the Circles maintain power, limiting the freedom of lower polygons and women through oppressive policies and institutions, and immediately suppressing any rebellion through frequent executions. In the second part of Flatland, A Square recalls a dream, in which he envisions Lineland, where he meets a line, who he initially mistakes as a woman, but finds out is the Monarch of Lineland. He learns that the world of Lineland is literally limited to an infinitely long line, where only two motions are possible and social interactions depend solely on the faculty of hearing. Although A Square attempts to explain the nature of the second dimension to the Monarch, he fails to find appropriate words, since "left" and "right" are meaningless in Lineland, and he cannot overcome the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of the Monarch. Aggravated, the Monarch attacks A Square, and he wakes up from his dream. It is the last day of the 1999th year and A Square is sitting at home with his Wife, thinking about what his Grandson had said earlier that day. As a reward for excelling at his practice in Sight Recognition, A Square gives his Grandson a quick lesson in squaring: he demonstrates that three-to-the-second is nine, with nine squares that make one large square with sides of three units long. After meditating over his grandfather's words, A Square's Grandson asks about the significance of three-to-the-third in Geometry, but this question is shot down by A Square, and he is sent to bed. As A Square considers the absurdity of his Grandson's question, A Square and his Wife are visited by a mysterious stranger, the Sphere. As occurs at the beginning of every millennium, the Sphere comes from Spaceland in search of a new apostle who will accept and spread the Gospel of the Third Dimension. Initially, A Square struggles to understand the Sphere's teachings and reacts violently against his unwanted visitor. Therefore, the Sphere physically takes A Square to Spaceland where he can sense and feel the solidity of three-dimensional figures. In Spaceland, the Sphere and A Square are able to look down upon the whole of Flatland, where A Square can see the entirety of his household from above. The Sphere then points his attention to the General Assembly Hall where the Grand Council, including A Square's brother, is meeting on the first day of the 2000th year to organize their millennial search for people professing revelations of other worlds and to scourge them from society. Newly enlightened and motivated to spread the concept of the third dimension, A Square expresses his desire to descend into the council meeting and enlighten the others. However, the Sphere stops him and enters Flatland himself, proclaiming the presence of a land of Three Dimensions. The Sphere escapes the building before the members of the council attempt to arrest him, but the poor guardsmen and A Square's brother are condemned to eternal imprisonment for being witnesses of the Sphere's dangerous revelations. When the two return to Spaceland, the Sphere resumes his lessons on the three-dimensional inhabitants of his land. Meanwhile, A Square's thirst for knowledge grows, and he asks the Sphere about even higher dimensions. The Sphere claims that there are no extradimensional worlds beyond Spaceland, and begins to feel irritated by A Square's incessant questioning. Frustrated, the Sphere pushes A Square back into Flatland. Back in Flatland again, A Square has another dream. In this vision, the Sphere accompanies him to the land of Pointland, the Abyss of No Dimensions. They meet the Monarch of Pointland, whose entire universe is himself. In fact, no matter what A Square says to wake the Monarch out of his complacency, the Point takes every word and thought to have originated from himself. When A Square and the Sphere return to Flatland, the Sphere teaches him the moral of the vision of Pointland and tells A Square to enlighten other Flatlandians of higher knowledge. He admits his error in ignoring the extra dimensions and initiates A Square into the deeper mysteries beyond the third dimension. When he wakes up from his dream, A Square decides to go back to his grandson to teach him of the third dimension, since he had insightfully imagined the meaning of three-to-the-third before. Unfortunately, as A Square begins to introduce the theory of the third dimension to his grandson, the Grand Council publicly broadcasts their proclamation to punish anyone who claims to have received revelations of other worlds. A Square's grandson, afraid of being imprisoned for considering dangerous ideas, refuses to acknowledge that he meant anything by inquiring about three-to-the-third. Discouraged by his failure to convert his grandson, A Square begins writing a treatise on the mysteries of the Third Dimensions. Eventually, the overzealous A Square is arrested after he professes his experiences in Spaceland and the ideas of the third dimension at a local town meeting. He expresses that he has been in prison for seven years as he writes Flatland, and the book ends with the hopeless image of the dejected apostle and his failure to spread the Gospel of Three Dimensions.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Flexion - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Rural Australia - Character: Frank's Wife / Mrs. Slovak. Description: Mrs. Slovak, the 45-year-old wife of sheep farmer Frank Slovak, is the one who finds Frank pinned under his overturned tractor at the beginning of the story. For the duration of the Slovak's 18-year marriage, the timid and submissive Mrs. Slovak has been ignored, belittled, and outright abused by Frank, who's alternately hot-tempered and stoic. Still traumatized by the miscarriage she experienced years before the events of "Flexion," Mrs. Slovak is embittered by Frank's denial of her trauma and the community's perception of her as "invisible." As such, when Frank has his accident and is partially paralyzed in the hospital, Mrs. Slovak's long-held resentment of Frank deepens, and she begins to fantasize about how much happier and freer she'd be if he died. But much to her disappointment, Frank survives—though he's permanently handicapped, and this means that Mrs. Slovak becomes the dominant one in the household for the first time. While Mrs. Slovak is repulsed and even frightened by Frank's weakened, frail body and is tempted to treat him with the same cruelty he's shown her over the years, she's taken aback when she realizes that Frank is actually grateful for her help. After taking a stand and forcing the withdrawn, prideful Frank to call and thank everyone who helped them during his hospitalization, Mrs. Slovak ultimately softens and empathizes with Frank when she sees him crying in bed next to her in the dark. Realizing that their marriage requires effort to sustain, much like Frank's muscles require "flexion" exercises to prevent atrophy, Mrs. Slovak takes Frank's hand and holds it over his heart. Mrs. Slovak's progression from helpless victimization to deep-seated bitterness to this subtle gesture of compassion and togetherness encapsulates the story's message that equality and solid communication are the makings of true empowerment and healthy relationships. - Character: Frank Slovak. Description: Frank is a middle-aged shepherd who lives with his wife of 18 years, Mrs. Slovak, on a small farm in rural Australia. At the beginning of the story, Frank's tractor overturns on him and injures his spine—an accident that leaves him partially paralyzed in the hospital and that drives the rest of the story's plot. Prior to this, Frank is a hardworking man who takes pride in himself and refuses to be beholden to anyone. But his self-sufficiency and stoic disposition also have a dark side: Frank is withdrawn from people in town to the point of hostility, and he's verbally and physically abusive toward Mrs. Slovak. When he's not lashing out, he's cold and uncommunicative—he barely speaks to Mrs. Slovak and even forced her to keep her miscarriage a secret years before "Flexion" takes place. As such, there's a great deal of tension and unspoken resentment between the couple. After Frank's accident, he defies odds by learning to walk again, all the while berating his wife and resisting her help. And unbeknownst to him, Mrs. Slovak despises him and actively wishes he'd die. But when Frank returns home from the hospital, the couple experiences a shift in their dynamic, as the newly disabled Frank is now dependent upon Mrs. Slovak for help. As such, they begin taking subtle but meaningful steps to communicate more, understand each other's roles in the marriage, and empathize with each other's suffering. At the end of the story, Frank cries in front of Mrs. Slovak—a rare display of vulnerability—and humbly confesses his desire to protect Mrs. Slovak from pain. "Flexion" thus leaves readers with the hope that even a character as unlikeable as the emotionally stunted and abusive Frank can make progress toward expressing himself and fostering healthier relationships. - Theme: Abuse and Power Dynamics. Description: "Flexion" focuses on Frank and Mrs. Slovak, a married couple whose relationship is riddled with abuse, neglect, and alienation. This is largely due to the couple's imbalanced power dynamic: Frank is dominant to the point of cruelty, while Mrs. Slovak is submissive to a fault. However, when Frank is seriously injured in a farming accident and becomes disabled, this dynamic is switched: suddenly, Mrs. Slovak has power over Frank, as Frank is entirely dependent upon her to even do small tasks like showering. Through the couple's role reversal, the story shows that an imbalance of power inevitably leads to abusive relationships, and it ultimately argues that trading places in an unequal dynamic doesn't result in genuine empowerment for the formerly submissive person. Rather, making an effort to equalize the dynamic—that is, choosing compassion for rather than control over the other person—is what makes a relationship healthy for both parties. Early on in the story, it's clear that there is a severe imbalance of power between Frank and Mrs. Slovak that manifests in both verbal and physical abuse. Frank is overbearingly dominant, whereas Mrs. Slovak is submissive. Frank is known around town as having a "a temper like a rabid dog," while his wife is known as "the quiet one" who "wouldn't say boo" to anyone. Right away, readers can intuit that this mismatched combination of Frank's controlling, hotheaded nature and Mrs. Slovak's timidity doesn't bode well for their relationship. Indeed, when Frank's tractor overturns and pins him underneath, Mrs. Slovak knows that Frank's injuries are serious when she "sees him swallow and close his eyes instead of shouting at her." Later, when Frank is partially paralyzed in the hospital, he forcefully slaps Mrs. Slovak's hand away when she tries to wipe his face for him. "That's Frank all over. Can't hold a fork, but can still find a way to smack her out of the way," Mrs. Slovak thinks. Together, these instances imply that the couple's unequal dynamic has led to abuse, both verbal ("shouting at her") and physical ("smack her out of the way")—and that this is something Mrs. Slovak has come to expect and silently tolerate in their marriage. However, when Frank comes home from the hospital after his accident, the couple's roles reverse: Frank is no longer physically capable of abusing Mrs. Slovak, and Mrs. Slovak has newfound power over him. As a disabled person trying to adapt to his new life, Frank is dependent upon Mrs. Slovak to help bathe, feed, and generally care for him. As such, he's now the submissive one in the relationship by default. This causes Frank to feel a great deal of shame, as he's adamant that he doesn't want to be a burden on anyone. Mrs. Slovak senses this weakness and makes a decision to use it to her advantage, a vengeful attitude that shows how deeply Frank's abuse affected her over the years. Mrs. Slovak actively wished that her cruel husband would die in the hospital—and now that he's survived, she's eager to treat him with the same cruelty he's showed her over the years. Repulsed by Frank's withered, frail body, she tells him to "take a good look" at himself in the mirror and forces him to call the people who did them favors while Frank was in the hospital—knowing that both of these things will degrade and humiliate the headstrong, prideful Frank. Mrs. Slovak has become the dominant one in the household, and her behavior confirms that such an unequal dynamic will inevitably lead to an abuse of power. Ultimately, Mrs. Slovak doesn't give in to replicating Frank's abuse now that she has the upper hand—she realizes that domineering over another person and truly being empowered are two different things. On Frank's first night home, as the couple lies in bed, Mrs. Slovak notices Frank silently crying next to her. Seeing this, Mrs. Slovak thinks she "has a sense of how it is, suddenly," and she relates Frank's physical paralysis in the hospital to her own figurative paralysis that she's experienced for years in their abusive marriage. Essentially, Mrs. Slovak empathizes with Frank: she knows "how it is" to feel weak, helpless, and afraid. Further, Mrs. Slovak reflects that she "understands better than anyone" what it's like to be hurt, likening Frank's pain and humiliation to her own trauma within their relationship. As a kind of symbolic peace offering, she reaches across the bed, takes Frank's hand in hers, and holds it over Frank's heart. This empathy with Frank's suffering and subsequent gesture of togetherness imply a realization on Mrs. Slovak's part: that controlling and abusing Frank like he controlled and abused her won't give her lasting empowerment or fulfillment. Instead, she opts to extend compassion and make a subtle but meaningful attempt to reach out and equalize their dynamic—something that will benefit them both in the long run. The story ends ambiguously with Mrs. Slovak holding Frank's hand in this way, tentatively opening the door for a new chapter of their marriage wherein Mrs. Slovak and Frank are a teammates rather than adversaries. And significantly, Frank doesn't resist or slap Mrs. Slovak's hand away like he did in the hospital. This mutual gesture of solidarity, then, suggests that compassion is the way forward—only by regarding each other as equals can two people come together and make progress toward a healthier relationship. - Theme: Communication. Description: In addition to the outright abuse that plagues married couple Frank and Mrs. Slovak's relationship, a lack of communication also has a devastating effect on them. The Slovaks are notably closed off and lack any vulnerability or emotional intimacy, a dynamic that leaves them miserable and estranged from each other. However, this status quo is threatened when Frank has a farming accident that leaves him disabled, and communication becomes necessary for the couple to navigate their new situation. In tracing the Slovaks' progression from a detrimental a lack of communication to this tentative fresh start, the story ultimately suggests that openness, vulnerability, and mutual effort are essential for any relationship to function properly. Prior to Frank's accident, he and Mrs. Slovak barely communicate, and this lack of openness leads to a great deal of resentment and marital strain. Years before Frank's accident—in which his tractor overturns and injures his spine—Mrs. Slovak lost a pregnancy. Frank refused to let anyone else know about the miscarriage and still won't talk about it, which has resulted in Mrs. Slovak feeling like they're dragging the loss "like a black deadweight at their backs." Mrs. Slovak is already haunted by the trauma of the loss, and Frank's enforced silence only exacerbates it. Her pain is further compounded by Frank's general stoicism. After Frank is left disabled by the accident, Mrs. Slovak thinks, "Limited mobility is actually going to suit Frank […] he's been minimising all his movements for years, barely turning his head to her when she speaks, sitting there stonily in the kitchen, immoveable as a mountain. Unbending." Lack of communication has damaged the couple's relationship to the point that Mrs. Slovak has come to expect being ignored and having no one to confide in—the Slovaks are totally alienated from each other. In fact, there is so much unspoken resentment in their relationship that Mrs. Slovak actually hopes Frank will die in the hospital. She "[tries] to show brightness and gratitude" as the doctors deliver the good news that Frank will recover, "while inside her, choking rage burns like a grassfire, like gasoline." In lieu of being able to voice her concerns to her husband, Mrs. Slovak despises him and wishes ill will on him. Clearly, their uncommunicative marriage has all but destroyed itself. But when Frank comes home from the hospital, the Slovaks find that their new life necessitates increased communication. The situation is unfamiliar and awkward for both of them: Frank is embarrassed that he needs help to care for himself and perform basic tasks, and Mrs. Slovak is disturbed by how weak and helpless Frank has become. She thinks about the possibility of Frank losing his balance and "toppling, curled there on the ground." She's only ever seen Frank poised, stoic, and in control—but both Frank and Mrs. Slovak realize that given Frank's limited functioning and dependency on Mrs. Slovak, some level of vulnerability is now unavoidable. Indeed, when Mrs. Slovak is helping Frank shower, she senses that he wants to thank her. But "even without the thanks […] she thinks it's probably the longest conversation they've had for months." Their new, uncomfortable reality clearly necessitates more communication than they're used to, and even this simple conversation goes a long way in showing Mrs. Slovak that she's appreciated. Thus, the story shows how openness and vulnerability are necessary for a relationship—especially one challenged by a tragedy—to function, and particularly for both parties to feel understood and appreciated. This idea also extends to the people who helped the Slovaks while Frank was hospitalized. After Frank's shower, Mrs. Slovak insists that he call up everyone who did them a favor and thank them. Having just experienced the positive effects of even a small effort to communicate openly, Mrs. Slovak is now adamant that Frank should extend that courtesy to others. It seems there's no going back to the way things were—just as the Slovaks' daily lives were changed by the accident, so too must their communication (with each other and with everyone else in their lives) adapt and improve to ensure that they can weather those changes. Near the end of the story, Mrs. Slovak reflects on the "flexion" exercises a physical therapist performed on Frank in the hospital to prevent his muscles from atrophying. At home, as the couple lies in bed, Mrs. Slovak raises Frank's arm and flexes their elbows together, mimicking one of these therapeutic movements. This gesture is highly symbolic: it suggests that Mrs. Slovak realizes that she and Frank must perform a kind of "flexion" in their marriage as well, putting in habitual effort and maintenance to keep lines of communication open and prevent their relationship from atrophying just like Frank's muscles. And with a path to better communication tentatively opened, the story's conclusion provides hope that with consistent, mutual effort, even two estranged people can achieve a relationship that's open, supportive, and intimate. - Theme: Trauma and Support. Description: Neither Frank Slovak nor his wife, Mrs. Slovak, are strangers to trauma: Mrs. Slovak suffers a miscarriage prior to the events of "Flexion," and Frank has a farming accident at the beginning of the story that leaves him permanently disabled. Though the couple has a troubled marriage and they've been alienated from each other for years, they have similar experiences as they suffer from their personal traumas: both are devastated and ashamed, and neither receives the individualized kinds of support that they desperately need from each other or from the community. As such, "Flexion" shows how trauma can be both physically and mentally destructive on an individual and how improper support can worsen the problem. The story makes the case that the best course of action in response to trauma is simply recognizing the sufferer's pain, empathizing, and being openminded about how to offer effective support. After Mrs. Slovak loses a pregnancy, a lack of emotional support means that she suffers much more than she needs to. After the miscarriage, Mrs. Slovak longs to be comforted by others and to talk openly about her trauma. But Frank's attitude makes her feel anything but consoled or supported: he takes her to a hospital out of town so the local nurses won't find out about the miscarriage, and he refuses to let any of the townspeople know about it either. Afterward, he's adamant that "We're putting this behind us," forbidding either of them to discuss what happened. Unsurprisingly, this makes Mrs. Slovak feel ashamed and unable to move on, showing how a lack of support can worsen an already traumatizing situation. Indeed, Mrs. Slovak feels that she and Frank have become "beasts of burden" to the miscarriage, dragging the trauma around yet refusing to acknowledge it. As a result, after Frank is pinned under his overturned tractor and left partially paralyzed, Mrs. Slovak is resentful of how people look at her sympathetically and bring food and gifts to the Slovaks' door. "And all for Frank, she thinks with bitterness. Frank, who'd rather cut off his own hand than be beholden to anyone […] who liked his privacy to the point of glowering, hostile secrecy." Mrs. Slovak wishes she'd received people's condolences when she'd had the miscarriage, since she—unlike Frank—would have appreciated it. In this case, brushing trauma under the rug makes Mrs. Slovak feel unsupported by her husband and also unable to receive support from others, compounding her pain to the extent that she's still haunted and embittered by the loss many years after it occurred. In the aftermath of his accident, Frank also experiences what it's like to receive the wrong kind of support. Described as a lifelong "glutton for work," Frank is someone who needs to feel like a provider: useful, capable, and respectable. But as a newly disabled person, Frank is unable to work on the farm or even to care for himself on a basic level. This is a traumatizing experience for Frank: even beyond his physical injuries, he's devastated by his loss of agency, livelihood, and purpose. During this time, both Mrs. Slovak and their small, rural community step up to help Frank. Mrs. Slovak becomes his caretaker, while men in town repair Frank's tractor, take the Slovaks' lambs to market, bale up their hay, and even install a handicap-accessible shower and sink for the couple. While these gestures are ostensibly kind and helpful, they don't have the intended effect on Frank. He's adamant that "I'm not going to be a burden on anyone," and the favors he receives make him feel like just that: infantilized and useless, like a charity case. As such, it's clear that even well-intended gestures can worsen people's trauma if it's not the specific kind of support they need. It's not until the Slovaks finally open up to each other and offer a mutual recognition of each other's suffering that they begin to feel adequately supported. Near the end of the story, Frank admits to Mrs. Slovak that he'd wanted to die under his tractor while Mrs. Slovak went to call the ambulance. "That's what I could give you," he says. Frank hoped to save Mrs. Slovak the pain of watching him suffer and then having to care for him if he survived, and thus, Frank's reasoning for denying the miscarriage is also brought to light: he likely just wanted to make Mrs. Slovak's trauma go away. With this small yet powerful revelation, Frank implicitly acknowledges how much Mrs. Slovak has suffered since losing her pregnancy and how afraid he is of adding to her pain. Just after this, Mrs. Slovak reflects on Frank's accident and thinks that she "understands better than anyone […] the painful stretch of sinew, the crack of dislocation." In other words, having experienced loss herself, she empathizes with Frank's feelings of physical and emotional pain. Then, noticing that Frank is crying in bed next to her, she quietly reaches out and holds his hand rather than making any grand gesture to help him. In this moment, both of them seem comforted and at peace for the first time in many years. Thus, together, Frank's candid admission and Mrs. Slovak's simple yet significant show of solidarity demonstrate how often, the proper way to comfort someone isn't ignoring their problems or making assumptions about what will help someone. Rather, effective support simply entails legitimizing the other person's pain, offering a shoulder to lean on, and being open to what they need. The story doesn't offer tidy resolutions for Frank or Mrs. Slovak: when "Flexion" ends, both of them still have plenty of trauma to work through, and neither has definitively established how best to support the other. But given the newfound sense of clarity and cohesion that the Slovaks experience after acknowledging each other's suffering for the first time, the story suggests that for traumatized people, simply being authentically seen—rather than fixed on other people's terms—is what's important. - Climax: As the Slovaks are lying in bed together, Mrs. Slovak takes Frank's hand in hers and places it over Frank's heart. - Summary: Frank Slovak, a sheep farmer, is severely injured when his tractor flips and pins him underneath. People in town gossip about the accident: they say that Frank's shy wife, Mrs. Slovak, was the one to find him, and they imagine how terrified they would feel in her shoes. On the day of the accident, Mrs. Slovak pulls up to the house after grocery shopping and sees the tractor overturned out on the farm. Running across the paddocks to the field, she finds Frank crushed beneath the huge machine. After turning the tractor off, Mrs. Slovak tells Frank that she's going to run and call for help—and she knows Frank is badly hurt when he closes his eyes instead of shouting at her. Frank's face is pained, and Mrs. Slovak thinks that all the emotions he's repressed and hidden away from her throughout their 18-year marriage are showing now. It takes Mrs. Slovak 15 minutes to run to the house, call an ambulance, and run back. Once Frank has been in the hospital for over a week, the townspeople continue to talk. The consensus is that Frank's life is effectively over—he's always been a hot-headed, solitary man with a deep desire to work hard. Now, Frank is partially paralyzed and will likely never regain the function he once had, though no one in town is sure of his exact injures. When people begin staring at Mrs. Slovak sympathetically in public and leaving meals and gifts on the Slovaks' doorstep, Mrs. Slovak becomes bitter. When she had a miscarriage years ago, Frank forced her to keep it a secret, and so she never got this kind of community support. Though Frank was adamant that they should put the loss behind them, Mrs. Slovak now feels haunted and weighed down by her grief. Soon, Frank comes down with a serious case of pneumonia while he's recovering from the accident in the hospital. Listening to Frank struggle to breathe, Mrs. Slovak imagines that the illness is similar to drowning; it must be a relief to finally die from it. She's surprised at how easily she's able to think of Frank in the past tense—given the prognosis of his injuries, death seems like the best-case scenario to Mrs. Slovak. She begins fantasizing about Frank passing away: telling the doctor to take him off life support, delivering the news to others, the small funeral she'd hold. But much to Mrs. Slovak's chagrin, Frank recovers from his pneumonia, and the doctors are even optimistic that he'll regain some movement. Mrs. Slovak pretends to be relieved, but inside she's seething with rage as she watches Frank stubbornly relearn to feed himself. When the doctor leaves the room, Frank slaps Mrs. Slovak's hand out of the way when she goes to wipe his mouth—this is just like Frank, Mrs. Slovak thinks. As Frank continues to progress throughout the following weeks, Mrs. Slovak holds out hope that Frank will be unable to maintain the farm so they'll have to move to a bungalow in town. With the insurance payout, money from selling the farm, and the caretaker pension Mrs. Slovak hopes to get, she thinks she may even get a new car. Meanwhile, men from around town come to repair Frank's tractor and take the Slovaks' lambs to market for them. One day, Frank exceeds the doctors' expectations in physical therapy and manages to stand and take a step. Mrs. Slovak continues feigning gratitude for Frank's improvements, all the while secretly loathing him. That afternoon, when Mrs. Slovak returns home, she finds a local plumber at the house: he's installed a handicap-accessible shower and sink for the Slovaks, free of charge. He also informs Mrs. Slovak that another farmer is going to come bale up Frank's hay for him. Again, Mrs. Slovak pretends to be appreciative but seethes with resentment. She knows that this will be her new normal: acting thankful for Frank's recovery all the while being bossed around and berated by him. Having limited movement will be fine for Frank, Mrs. Slovak thinks, since he's already unemotional and unmoving toward her. When Frank comes home from the hospital, he complains about the cost of the remodeled bathroom and handicap ramp, but Mrs. Slovak assures him that the improvements were done free of charge. Frank brushes her off, goes outside, and stares at all the baled hay stacked neatly in the shed. Mrs. Slovak imagines him falling to the ground and lying there, curled up and pathetic, so unlike the in-control Frank she's used to. When Frank comes inside, Mrs. Slovak helps him take a shower, noticing how decrepit and weak his body looks. Frank is rude and combative as Mrs. Slovak gives him instructions, but when she helps him adjust the water temperature, she can tell he wants to thank her. She thinks that this is the longest conversation they've had in months. After the shower, Mrs. Slovak gives Frank a shave and a haircut. Then, she hands him the telephone and a list of numbers of everyone who helped them while Frank was hospitalized. She tells him to call each of these people and thank them. When Frank refuses, Mrs. Slovak reminds Frank that they're going to need favors now if they want to keep the farm from going under. She again notices how pathetic Frank looks. Angling the mirror she used for the haircut toward him, Mrs. Slovak orders him to look at himself and then to make the calls. That night, as Mrs. Slovak and Frank lie next to each other in bed, Mrs. Slovak thinks about the "flexion" exercises a physical therapist performed on Frank in the hospital. The movements, which consisted of repeatedly flexing and unflexing different joints, were meant to encourage muscle memory and prevent atrophy. Suddenly, Mrs. Slovak notices that Frank is silently crying next to her. She's never seen Frank like this before; to save him the humiliation, she decides to turn away rather than try to help him. Then, Frank confesses to Mrs. Slovak that he'd wanted to die while she ran to call the ambulance—that's what he could have given her, he says. Mrs. Slovak reflects on the day of the accident and thinks she knows how Frank feels: she knows what it's like to feel paralyzed, helpless, and wounded. Mrs. Slovak reaches over and gently takes Frank's hand in hers. She raises their arms and flexes their elbows together, places Frank's hand over his own heart, and holds it there.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Flight - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: The fictional Torres farm in California and the wild country beyond it - Character: Pepé. Description: Pepé is a sweet and good-natured young man of 19, living on the Torres farm with his mother Mama Torres and his younger siblings Emilio and Rosy. As the protagonist, Pepé undergoes the most significant changes throughout the story, beginning as an innocent farm boy but quickly becoming a murderer and a man on the run. In the early scenes, Pepé has a laid-back and carefree attitude on the farm, entertaining his siblings by throwing his father's knife into a post and showing boyish excitement at the prospect of going into the town of Monterey to run an errand on his own. While he cheerfully insists that he's reached manhood as he rides into town, a sharp change in his demeanor is apparent when he returns in the middle of the night after having killed a man for insulting him. His attitude is much more somber and serious as his family helps him prepare to flee into the mountains, and he accepts his newfound manhood as a grave responsibility, rather than the exciting development he had hoped it would be. Pepé's development as a character is shaped by what he did in Monterey, but also by his conceptions of masculinity and manhood fostered by his mother, his siblings, and the memory of his late father. He flees into the wilderness not just because it's necessary for his survival, but also because it's considered a man's thing to do—something that's unavoidable because, now that he's killed someone, he's become a man. Pepé's arc is a tragic one that feels largely out of his control; the knife seemed to fly out of his hand and kill the man by itself, and Pepé's ideals about manhood are slowly stripped away during his brutal trek through the mountains. His ultimate surrender and death at the end of the story is painted as a tragic and unnecessary waste of a life that was otherwise full of potential. - Character: Mama Torres. Description: Mama Torres has been in charge of the Torres farm ever since her husband was killed by a rattlesnake. She continues to raise her three children—Pepé and his younger siblings, Emilio and Rosy—on her own. Mama Torres has a stern, snarky, and no-nonsense personality, shaped by the struggles and losses of many long and difficult years. But while she has a harsh and cold exterior, she harbors genuine love and pride for her children, especially Pepé, even as she scolds him for his laziness and is skeptical of his maturity at the beginning of the story. Her love for Pepé is heartbreakingly evident when she sends him into the mountains quickly and without showing much emotion but then breaks down into tears shortly after he leaves, mourning her son and calling him the family's "protector." The intensity of her feelings combined with her reluctance to show her true emotions to her son gives depth and humanity to Mama Torres's character, illustrating that she's a person who forces herself to be tough and stoic when the situation demands it. Her stern way of showing love and her mourning highlight the unnecessary tragedy of the story. She fears Pepé meeting the same fate as her husband, and this makes her reluctant to show affection directly or become too attached. And, just as she expected, her son's sudden rise to manhood is what ultimately takes him away from her forever. Mama Torres's grief demonstrates that men aren't the only people who are hurt by the traditional masculine obsession with violence and heroism. - Character: Emilio and Rosy. Description: Emilio and Rosy are Pepé's younger siblings on the Torres farm; Emilio is a 12-year-old boy, and Rosy is a 14-year-old girl. Their main role in the story is to passively watch events unfold and comment on what's happening as their older brother abruptly reaches manhood, but Emilio and Rosy also begin to show some development of their own. Emilio shows interest in someday becoming a man himself. He imagines his future self riding into Monterey as Pepé does, and he asks Rosy and Mama Torres constant questions about whether or not Pepé is a man yet, as well as what that entails. In this way, Emilio is framed as a possible continuation of the line of "real men" on the Torres farm, starting with his father and followed by Pepé. Emilio's boyish attitude and curiosity about becoming a man continues even as Pepé comes home with a grimmer personality. Emilio's innocence hasn't yet been fully extinguished by his brother's transformation, even though it's been shaken somewhat. Rosy, meanwhile, seems to mature significantly when Pepé departs for the mountains. She stoically accepts that her brother is most likely never coming back, and she seems to think that this situation is an unavoidable part of his becoming a man. Her sudden sense of wisdom mirrors Mama Torres's resigned and mature attitude concerning Pepé's fate, implying that Rosy might someday become just like her mother. By floating the possibility that Emilio and Rosy might be destined to grow into the same roles their parents played, the story illustrates how the tragic cycle of the Torres family could continue indefinitely. - Theme: Manhood. Description: The question of Pepé's manhood defines the story from beginning to end, informing his actions and the way people treat him at every turn. He begins as a lazy and easygoing boy, telling his skeptical mother that he's become a man now as he ventures out to complete the errands he's been given. But when he returns home, having killed a man, he begins to understand his mother's harsh conception of manhood in a more meaningful and immediate sense. The events of the story associate masculinity not only with violence, but with death and killing. Almost every "real" man in the story—including Pepé, his father, and the man who insulted Pepé—either kills or is killed. Although Pepé's father's death was an accident, it establishes the story's correlation between masculinity and an early demise. Courage, the willingness to kill, and dying an honorable death are traditionally hallmarks of masculinity, and Steinbeck uses them to full effect while still painting Pepé's grueling journey as tragic and perhaps even unnecessary. Mama Torres mourns her son as he flees toward the mountains, knowing he has little chance of ever returning, but she seems to bravely accept that her son has become a man, and that this is what men must do. These details add up to a complex portrayal of masculinity. The story suggests that masculine violence is senselessly tragic, but at the same time, it portrays Pepé as quietly brave in his final moments, even when his "manhood" boils down to little more than valiant surrender. Although he loses all the masculine trappings and symbolic objects his father left him, he ultimately becomes a man without them, in his own way. - Theme: Predators and Prey. Description: While the story opens in a peaceful domestic setting, there are indications from the beginning that "Flight" takes place in wild country. As Pepé travels farther and farther from home, the landscape around him becomes increasingly desolate and deadly, practically making him into a hunted animal himself. Every detail of the situation and the environment suggests that when people venture into the mountains, they're no longer fully human; they become predators and prey. As Pepé flees and hides from the people hunting him down, he encounters literal predators such as mountain lions and wildcats, narrowly escaping their attention just as he tries to evade his human pursuers. Out in this wild place, there's little meaningful difference between the kinds of creatures hunting him. As he crawls around in the brush and scrounges for food and water, Pepé becomes prey—a part of the natural landscape around him. This stripping away of his human identity is made even more literal as he slowly loses the clothing and objects that belonged to his father, until there's hardly anything left but Pepé himself. This is the wild, savage world that he's stepped into, in his accidental rush to become a man. Steinbeck's detailed, brutal depiction of Pepé's journey through the wilderness highlights the harsh realities of any young man's coming of age and venturing into the outside world alone. There are few opportunities for nobility or heroism in the wasteland; for the most part, there are only the hunters and the hunted. - Theme: Loss of Innocence. Description: The personality changes that Pepé and his siblings experience during the story are striking because they mark Pepé's jarring transition from a carefree farm boy to a grown man with blood on his hands—a change that underscores the way hardship and tragedy can force people to quickly come of age. While the shift in Pepé's demeanor upon returning home is surprising and distressing, it's explained by the fact that he just killed someone to defend his honor, and possibly the honor of his family. The act of killing a man with his father's knife is what suddenly pushes Pepé from childhood into adulthood. Less than a day earlier, he was tossing the same knife into a post to entertain his siblings; what was a mere toy has become an instrument of Pepé's loss of innocence. The sudden nature of this change prompts the reader to wonder if Pepé grew up too quickly—maybe he wouldn't have lost so much of his initial personality if he had developed more gradually, without the catalyst of the man insulting him. Pepé's startling coming of age also affects Emilio and Rosy, pushing them further towards growing up and losing some of their own innocence. Their discussion of their older brother's newfound manhood at sunrise is somber and surprisingly mature, especially for Rosy, who seems to accept Pepé's likely death as a tragic inevitability, much like Mama Torres does—a sign that the disaster with Pepé has jettisoned Rosy into a new territory of maturity. This, in turn, suggests that part of becoming an adult is coming face to face with the harsh realities of the world and, as a result, having to give up the untroubled innocence of childhood. As Rosy and Emilio discuss Pepé's situation, the scene mirrors the family's more relaxed conversation while eating on the front steps at sunset the previous evening, emphasizing how quickly the situation has changed. Through these moments, Steinbeck explores how one person's loss of innocence can affect everyone around them, for good or ill. Pepé's actions lead to tragedy for both him and his family, and while this appears to mature him and his siblings, the story doesn't frame this change as entirely positive. His fall from innocence not only changes him; it also forces his loved ones to harden their hearts as they prepare for a much more difficult life without him. - Climax: After fleeing from his pursuers across the wasteland for days on end, an exhausted Pepé finally accepts his fate and surrenders himself to the men hunting him. He climbs onto a large rock before he's quickly shot and killed. - Summary: Mama Torres lives on the Torres farm on the coast of California, raising her three children: Pepé (a 19-year-old boy) and his younger siblings Emilio and Rosy. Mama Torres has run the farm ever since her husband died from a rattlesnake bite. Pepé is a sweet and carefree young man, often scolded by his mother for being lazy and immature. But Mama Torres is privately very proud of Pepé and loves him dearly. One morning, upon finding Pepé throwing his father's old knife into a wooden post to entertain his siblings, Mama Torres sends Pepé into town to run an errand. The farm is out of salt and medicine, and Pepé is tasked with traveling to the nearby town of Monterey by himself to purchase these supplies. Pepé is excited about going into town on his own, telling Mama Torres that he's a man now. Mama Torres disagrees, with her usual wry sense of humor. She tells her son to spend the night at the house of a friend of hers named Mrs. Rodriguez, who'll provide him with dinner and a place to sleep. As Pepé cheerfully rides off on a horse, Emilio imagines himself someday riding into town to fetch the medicine like Pepé, and he asks Mama Torres if Pepé has become a man today. She replies that Pepé will become a man when a man is needed. Seeing him dressed up on the horse makes her admit to herself that Pepé has almost reached manhood, and she's pleased at the possibility of having a man on the farm again. Mama Torres, Emilio, and Rosy make supper together and eat on the front steps at sunset before going to bed. That same night, Pepé rides back to the Torres farm, and Mama Torres wakes up at the noise of him entering the house, wondering why he's back so soon. Pepé somberly tells his mother to light a candle, telling her that he must flee into the nearby mountains immediately. He explains that there were other men at Mrs. Rodriguez's house, and everyone had been drinking wine. A man insulted Pepé, saying names that he "could not allow." During a scuffle, Pepé killed the man with the same knife he had been playing with that morning—his father's knife. Now that there are men hunting him down, Pepé seems to have no choice but to run away into the wilderness. Mama Torres is briefly shaken by this news, but she quickly resolves to hold back her emotions and prepare Pepé for his long and dangerous journey into the mountains. She wakes Emilio and Rosy up to help with the preparations, as Pepé stands silently and grimly reflects on the fact that he really is a man now—and a murderer. He's given his father's old black coat to wear, as well as a sack of dry jerky, a bag of water, and a rifle to defend himself. He mounts a different horse and takes one look back before riding off into the sunrise. Mama Torres's stoic attitude crumbles shortly after he leaves, and she weeps and mourns for her son. Emilio and Rosy watch the sunrise and reflect on what's happened. Like her mother, Rosy seems to accept that Pepé is never coming back. As Pepé progresses on his long trek through the wilderness, the landscape around him grows gradually more and more lifeless and dry. He has a somewhat relaxed attitude at first, as he rides through a lush green area by a rushing stream, but the environment sharply becomes less hospitable as soon as the path diverges from the running water. Exhausted and becoming less sure of himself, Pepé makes his way through the main mountain pass and into a wide stretch of badlands, full of large rocks, dry hills, spiky shrubbery, and very little water. He sleeps in a grove of oak trees in a rare patch of green, encountering a wildcat and keeping a constant eye out for the men hunting him down. He awakens near dawn to the sound of his horse whinnying, and he hears the sound of another horse approaching. He starts to ride away, but his horse is shot by an unseen figure behind him. Pepé is forced to continue his retreat on foot, crawling and hiding from his pursuers while he nurses a wound he sustained from an unsuccessful shootout with the assailant. Over the next few days, his journey is brutal and miserable, as he runs out of water and gradually leaves his hat, coat, and rifle behind, usually by accident. Exhausted, dehydrated, and defeated, he hears hunting dogs approaching and decides that his time has come. He climbs up onto a large rock at the crest of a hill, where he knows he'll be clearly visible, and he's shot and killed almost instantly. He tumbles forward, and a small rock avalanche falls and covers his head.

- Genre: Short story, American literature, revolutionary literature - Title: Flowering Judas - Point of view: Third person - Setting: Mexico City, c. 1920s - Character: Laura. Description: Laura, the protagonist of the story, is a twenty-two year-old American woman of deep "political faith," who has come to Mexico to aid the Socialist cause. She teaches largely indigenous students in nearby Xochimilco and visits political prisoners, for whom she smuggles cigarettes, letters, and narcotics. A lapsed Catholic, Laura hides her occasional visits to a crumbling Mexican church while attending regular Union meetings. "Flowering Judas" is largely the story of Laura's disillusionment, as she nurses the feeling that "she has been betrayed irreparably by the disunion between her way of living and her feeling of what life should be." A virgin, she wards off the affection of many would-be suitors, particularly the loutish ex-revolutionary Braggioni, to whom she is all but indentured. Braggioni pays her room and board and serenades her nightly while bragging of his power and taste. Said to be "not at home in the world," Laura suspects herself of being too idealistic for such a corrupt world. She even suspects herself of becoming corrupt in her own way after a prisoner named Eugenio overdoses on pills that she has brought him in jail. This event prompts Laura's dream of the Judas flower, which shows her that she has betrayed both her religious faith and her political convictions. - Character: Braggioni. Description: A self-styled "leader of men," Braggioni is the story's antagonist and Mrs. Braggioni's husband. Hypocritical, vulgar, and corpulent, Braggioni is extremely influential in local politics and has become addicted to power, wearing elegant clothing in stark contrast to the largely impoverished workers he aids. Physically described as possessing "true tawny cat's eyes," Braggioni positions himself as "a good revolutionist and professional lover of humanity," but in fact has long-abandoned his political convictions and views the locals with contempt. He has drained his wife with his infidelities and long absences and attempts to court Laura, for whom he represents the ultimate betrayal of idealistic thinking. He promises Laura that she will become as disappointed and "wounded by life" as he is and flirts with her shamelessly, hoping to wear down her defenses. Porter allows a glimpse of the man that Braggioni was at one time, the scrawny and serious young man who dreamed of revolution and whom the women called "Delgadito." But he is now little more than a power broker who manipulates the local political agitators and wears a silver ammunition belt. Much of the story consists of his taunting of Laura, who runs mysterious errands for him that increase his stranglehold over the neighborhood. Singing off-key as he plays his guitar, Braggioni is a grotesque harbinger of what happens when revolution turns to bitter complacency. - Character: Eugenio. Description: A prisoner who dies in prison of an overdose, Eugenio barely appears in the story as himself. Rather, his main importance is his appearance in Laura's dream, where he bids her eat the Judas Flower, telling her that it is his "body and blood," which invokes the Eucharist. Unwilling to wait for Braggioni's machinations to free him, Eugenio takes the entirety of the pills that Laura has provided with him and dies before the guards can find him. Braggioni calls him a fool and is glad to be rid of him, but for Laura, who nurses extreme guilt for her part in his death, Eugenio becomes something of a martyr, a figure of purity and deliverance. - Character: Mrs. Braggioni. Description: Braggioni's long-suffering wife, Mrs. Braggioni is still active in the Socialist cause, organizing the girls who work in the cigarette factories and marching in picket lines. However, Laura's sense of freedom is foreign to Mrs. Braggioni, who accepts her second-class citizen status without question. Her "sense of reality is beyond criticism," meaning that she is free of the idealistic illusions that plague Laura. She is also devoted to her unfaithful husband and spends nights crying alone, until Braggioni comes home and placates her. Her main function in the story is to represent for Laura what she could become if robbed of her independence by yielding to Braggioni. - Character: The Roumanian and Polish Agitators. Description: The Roumanian (as spelled in the story) and Polish agitators are two largely interchangeable protest organizers who scheme against each other but are firmly in Braggioni's power. Both flirt with Laura, with the Pole "hoping to exploit what he believes is her secret sentimental preference for him" and the Roumanian lying to her "with an air of ingenuous candor, as if he were her good friend and confidant." Both serve to illustrate the decline of revolutionary politics into divisive and petty squabbles. - Character: The Minstrel. Description: "A brown, shock-haired youth" who stands outside Laura's house and sings "like a lost soul" for hours on end. He introduces the concept of Judas flower, which, as Lupe tells Laura, she must throw at him to make him leave. Instead, he begins to follow Laura around town and leaves her poems. He is also one of the organizers of the local Typographers Union and therefore straddles progressive politics and local tradition. - Theme: Idealism vs. Reality. Description: Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas" is the claustrophobic account of Laura, a 22-year-old American teacher of deep "political faith," who finds her idealism tested by a series of painful realities in the largely poor Xochimilco borough of Mexico City. Laura has come to Mexico to aid the revolutionary cause by working with local unions, educating the underserved native population, and embodying a sense of "what life should be." But when Laura is introduced, these convictions have already been shattered, leaving her feeling both betrayed and foolish. In this story, the author addresses the question of whether idealism can survive harsh political realities, concluding bleakly that one will inevitably betray their internal idealism when faced with the external and imperfect world. Porter strongly implies that giving up one's ideals can be just as bad as naively holding on to them. Laura's clash with reality is embodied by the grotesque and hypocritical figure of her would-be suitor Braggioni, a one-time radical who has become addicted to money, power, and sexual conquest. Braggioni "has become a symbol of [Laura's] many dissolutions, for a revolutionist should be lean, animated by heroic faith, a vessel of abstract virtues." Braggioni, however, is anything but. Instead, he is presented as a lecherous and bloated oaf who spends the bulk of the story serenading Laura off-key and bragging of his wealth. Just as Braggioni's attentions strain the hapless Laura, so too does he take up most of the story's length. His large frame and wanton manners are significant for their impact on Laura, and he is described as sporting a silver ammunition belt and tells Laura that he is "rich, not in money […] but in power. Thus, Braggioni confronts Laura with the gulf between her expectations and crude reality. Laura has come to Mexico out of principle and an association with the Leftist struggle, hoping to find comrades and a sense of purpose; instead she finds intractable poverty and exploitation by the likes of Braggioni, who images himself "a leader of men," but is described as being clad in "elegant refinements" and is vain as well as boorish. Braggioni confronts Laura with the possibility that she will surrender her ideals and become likewise disillusioned and bitter. As the story progresses, Braggioni emerges as more than an insufferable caricature. Like Laura, he seems to have once been possessed of genuine ideals, and he tells her "I am disappointed in everything as it comes […] You, poor thing, you will be disappointed too." Reality has caught up with Braggioni, leaving him corrupted by the very forces he once took up arms against. His "specialized insolence" threatens Laura not only because of his sexualization of her but because he represents the natural culmination of her ongoing process of disillusionment with her ideals. Laura "wears the uniform of an idea and has renounced vanities," which, on the surface, couldn't be further from Braggioni's ostentatious style of dress and pride. But taxed by her students and frustrated by the futility of her political sympathies, she is coming to see her ideals as "full of romantic error" and the cynicism of her colleagues as "a developed sense of reality." That reality is one of compromised ideals. Laura struggles to hold on to her principles, but suspects herself of naiveté. The clash between idealistic thought and the gradual creep of painful reality is further explored via the tertiary character of Mrs. Braggioni. She retains a romantic view of her husband and continues to tolerate his obnoxious behavior out of misplaced loyalty. Laura spurns Braggioni partly out of fear that she too will wind up "bogged in a nightmare" like Mrs. Braggioni, who refuses to come to terms with her difficult reality. Laura is "not at home in the world," and her dreams reflect the better world she imagines. The world can change a person for the worst, like Braggioni, and sap out the will to oppose injustice. Despite this bleak reality, the story also suggests that ideals are still worth hanging onto. At the story's conclusion, Laura dreams of Eugenio, a revolutionary who dies in prison, quite possibly from pills that Laura provided him with. As both a suicide and an act of martyrdom to the cause, he is a figure of almost unattainable purity for Laura, and the foil of the prideful Braggioni. As a figure encountered mainly in dreams, he represents Laura's insistence on hanging on to ideals, if only in her imagination, the one place where she is free from the cynicism of her day-to-day life. Laura also dreams of the blossoms of the Judas tree, which symbolizes not just her guilt over Eugenio's death, but the betrayal of her ideals just as Christ was betrayed by Juda Iscariot, who hung himself from one of these trees, giving it its name. Laura's dreams regarding the martyred Eugenio and the Judas tree present a stark contrast between the purity Laura aspires to and the cruel reality she encounters. However, Porter does not depict belief in ideals as entirely useless: if one can imagine a better life, and a better world, they can still retain their virtues and avoid being seduced by materialism like Braggioni. Laura is not entirely broken but remains primarily a dreamer, and capable of goodness and sympathy, smuggling letters in and out of prisons and houses where the rebels hide in secret, and teaching children of "opportunistic savagery," more interested in their exotic teacher than their lessons. Ultimately, Laura's idealism extends beyond mere politics and into a dream-place where her "higher principles" are intact and she consumes the flower of the Judas tree, an act that hints at her guilt for allowing her ideals to run aground in reality. Yet overcoming naiveté is not the same as surrender, and so there is hope for Laura, who has learned by the story's end that forgetting one's ideals, like Braggioni, can be just as costly as high as holding onto them. - Theme: Religion vs. Politics. Description: Raised Catholic, Laura has exchanged religion for politics—yet she finds herself in a church contemplating the image of a saint. Moreover, her dream of the Judas tree and the deceased Eugenio illustrates the manner in which she still thinks religiously about Leftist politics. The question of how political faith coexists with religion is addressed throughout the story, even beyond Laura's internal struggles, as in the case of the May Day parade where the Catholics are marching in honor of the Virgin Mary from one side of town, while the socialists march from the other side in honor of their fallen heroes. Ultimately, Porter suggests that politics and religion can coexist, if tenuously, and that politics is largely a disguised form of religion despite the seeming animosity between the two groups. Braggioni and the rest of the left-wing revolutionaries that Laura associates with see religion and politics as inherently conflicted and incompatible. At one point in the story, Braggioni tells Laura of the May Day parades and pats his ammunition belt, as he anticipates what will happen when the two parades collide: violence. Clearly, Braggioni has no understanding of how both convictions, religious and political, can coexist, and thus assumes one must oust the other. Laura's other comrades appear to feel the same way. When exiting a church, Laura is "fear[ful] that she might be seen by someone who might make a scandal of it," emphasizing that her politically charged community won't take kindly to Laura entertaining any thought of religion. While Braggioni bristles at Catholicism, Laura comes to see her religious upbringing and adult political activities as proof that the one may be motivating the other. She has "encased herself in a set of principles derived from her early training, leaving no detail of gesture and personal taste untouched"—that is, strict Marxist beliefs. However, the way she "encase[s] herself" physically, through clothing, has both political religious undertones. Her "private heresy" is not wearing lace made by machines, instead opting for the handmade material. To her mind, the machine is "sacred and will be the salvation of the workers," which reveals her fierce political convictions. However, as lace is traditionally the fabric that facsimiles of saints are dressed in, Laura's penchant for handmade lace perhaps points back to her Catholic roots, forming yet another instance of how the two creeds co-exist in Laura despite the local socialists' presumed disdain for religious thought. Laura's dream is a crescendo of religious and political allegory that illustrates her uneasy loyalty to both belief systems. Central to the dream is the figure of Eugenio, a prisoner to whom Laura brought a bottle of pills, which he impatiently devoured, dying soon afterward. Braggioni writes Eugenio off as a fool, but Laura regards him as a saint or martyr. In the dream, he is taking Laura to death, which in her guilt, she accepts. There is also a Judas blossom in the dream, which Laura devours because she feels she has betrayed Eugenio, along with her convictions, just as Braggioni predicted she would. Eugenio calls her a murderer and tells her the flowers are his body and blood in a reference to the Catholic Eucharist. In Laura's dream, her Catholic beliefs and political convictions—and her fear of betraying both—finally become merged. Another way to read the story's religious implications is with Braggioni as a classic betrayer type, akin to Satan or Judas Iscariot, who hung himself from the Judas tree. That a political figure like Braggioni can be read through a religious lens suggests that politics is a kind of religion, and that the two have more in common than one might think. Though Laura spurns Braggioni's sexual advances throughout the story, she feels herself succumbing to his cynicism and depends on him financially, causing her to feel as though she is entirely in the clutches of an evil power. She fights those who would lead her into temptation, including Braggioni, by saying, "No," and it is only "from this one holy talismanic word which does not suffer her to be led into evil." The story thus aligns Braggioni with temptation and corruption, suggesting that he is like the biblical serpent who tempted and corrupted Eve—only this time, Eve is equipped with the word "No." Braggioni also bears resemblance to Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus and set in motion the events leading up to Jesus's Crucifixion. In the story, Braggioni expresses nothing but contempt for the peasants he gives gold coins to in order to ensure that he continues to be seen as a lover and benefactor of the people, which is perhaps a gesture to the way that Jesus was betrayed with thirty pieces of silver. A supposed man of the world, Braggioni "has the malice, the cleverness, the wickedness, […] stipulated for loving the world profitably. He will never die of it." Like Judas, who was paid off by Jewish authorities to reveal Jesus's whereabouts, Braggioni is motivated by money rather than love or justice. In painting Braggioni as a Satan or Judas figure, Porter suggests that the internalization of religion and politics have similar hallmarks and aren't as incompatible as initially meets the eye. "Flowering Judas" may not be optimistic about either Catholicism or revolutionary politics, as both can be betrayed or corrupted by a figure like Braggioni. What is certain is that they both inform Laura's worldview and her work for the poor and imprisoned is an example of both Christian charity and revolutionary brotherhood, suggesting that one can hold dual loyalties to both religion and politics. The story works equally well as a religiously flavored parable and a socially perceptive view of Mexican politics. This is, after all, how Laura sees things, as her struggle with the town's rebels come to seem intractable from her rich grasp, and belief in, the sacred. - Theme: Misogyny and Femininity. Description: Laura, of "notorious virginity," seeks primacy and independence, but finds herself constrained by Braggioni's forwardness and privilege. Taken for granted by her students and hemmed in by Braggioni's sexual advances, she fears she will become a prisoner akin to Mrs. Braggioni. Misogyny on the part of her comrades means that Laura is seen more for her looks than her loyalty to the Zapatistas and other left-wing workers, foiling her attempts at attaining equality for all. "Flowering Judas" shows how misogyny—both culturally and on the individual personal level—creates a harmful environment in which women are not considered for their actions as much as they are for their looks. Laura's individuality is second to her sexuality in the eyes of Braggioni, and she feels herself becoming something less than human while she's around him. Braggioni even admits that all women are the same to him. After staring at Laura's breasts and speaking of her eyes, Braggioni tells her that "One woman is really as good as another for me, in the dark." This dehumanizing behavior is typical for Braggioni, and he acts as though he is paying her compliments when he forgives her for being a "gringa" or "gringita," a disparaging term for a white woman in Latin America or Spain. This is the lack of respect and the emphasis on feminine sexuality that a culture of misogyny has wrought. Braggioni makes it further clear that he thinks of all women as the same when he talks of trying to drown himself for the love of a girl in his youth, something he says he has made every other woman since then pay for. This is hatred of an entire gender that belies how Braggioni thinks of himself as a romantic troubadour, "a judge of women," or savvy seducer of young girls. Forced to fend off Braggioni nightly, Laura has been worn down. This constant intrusion disgusts her, even as she must depend on his money. Misogyny gains a great deal of its power from making women dependent on men, or dismissing their capabilities, just as Braggioni does here. Laura is contrasted with the long-suffering Mrs. Braggioni, who fights for the welfare of women who work in cigarette factories but feels ruined by her marriage. Mrs. Braggioni retains the spark of progressive zeal that has completely left her husband, and so she works in picket lines and gives speeches. However, she cannot "be brought to acknowledge the benefits of true liberty." Given the overarching structures of misogyny that imprison her, such freedom seems impossible, if not absurd. Braggioni waves off discussion of his wife by calling her an "instinctively virtuous woman" and says if she weren't, he would lock her up. The suggestion that a woman can only be virtuous or else expect imprisonment demonstrates gross misogyny on his part. But it is also something that Mrs. Braggioni has become accustomed to, and thus she cannot understand Laura's expectation of something better. And yet, Mrs. Braggioni appears to have something like love for her philandering husband, even as she cries at home constantly and laments her fate, which alarms Laura. Laura fears for her independence, which Braggioni has already taken steps to hamper. Mrs. Braggioni is the kind of woman that Laura dreads becoming, little more than prop for men. Outside of her interactions with Braggioni, Laura's gender hinders her mission in Mexico more generally, and she feels unsafe as she carries out her daily meetings and visits with prisoners. This reflects the specialized and limiting role misogyny forces women to abide by. Laura wants to be more than her sexuality or gender, but even men who share her political ends, like the Polish agitator, hope "to exploit what he believes is her secret sentimental preference for him," while the Romanian agitator "lies to her with an air of ingenuous candor, as if he were good friend and confidant." It is clear that no woman can be anything other than a woman in the eyes of the story's men. Laura feel unsafe at night, sure that she will be killed or mutilated. Her fear has almost become a part of her. Misogyny is partly the enforced threat of violence, and it is certain that any of these horrific ends really could happen to her. As a foreigner, Laura is something of a celebrity in town, but the locals can't understand what she's doing in Mexico, so she essentially becomes a subject of gossip or seen a prize to be won, as does the young Zapata soldier who tries to lift her out of her horse's saddle, but only succeeds in scaring the horse. The irony is that Laura is experienced on a horse, likely more so than this would-be "rude folk hero." The Zapata soldier goes on to declare his love for Laura and ignores her capability, just another would-be-suitor blind to Laura as anything but a woman. His childishness is underscored when Laura thinks to herself that she should send him a box of crayons. The limitations placed on a young girl abroad in Mexico are painfully apparent in the story, as again and again, the brilliant and sensitive Laura is reduced to her gender. Braggioni benefits from misogyny, both with his wife and Laura, whom he continues to pursue despite her lack of interest in him. Laura, meanwhile, has been left exhausted and has come to question herself due to the many barriers to her revolutionary work, which includes the very threat of danger she feels crossing the street. Unable to be accepted as a full comrade rather than an object of (often lascivious) attention, she feels her freedoms dissipating. In "Flowering Judas," Porter draws a vivid portrait of a woman being denied all that she deserves even as she soldiers on, with which Porter communicates the reality of misogyny, and how any one woman risks being dragged down by the narrow definition of what a woman can say, do, or be. Like many women prized only for their beauty, locals like Braggioni, completely overlook her mind or spirit. - Climax: Laura has a dream about Eugenio, who calls her a murderer. - Summary: "Flowering Judas" represents a snapshot of the life of a 22-year-old American woman named Laura, who has come to Mexico to aid the Socialist cause in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. As the story opens, Laura returns home to find her benefactor, Braggioni, waiting for her. Braggioni plays his guitar and sings off-key, with Laura as a reluctant audience. Braggioni pays for Laura's room and board and regularly attempts to seduce her, forcing Laura to politely refuse him night after night. Braggioni is an embittered former revolutionary who has succumbed to materialism and prides himself on his elegant clothing and the power that he exercises in the neighborhood. Laura fears that she will become like Braggioni, cynical and compromised. Meanwhile, Laura teaches at a school for indigenous children, attends union rallies, and visits political prisoners, for whom she smuggles letters, cigarettes, and narcotics. She also furtively prays at a ramshackle Catholic church, hoping not to be seen by her comrades who would make a scandal of it. Braggioni isn't the only man bewitched by Laura. When she visits the nearby town of Cuernavaca, a former captain in the Zapatista army tries to teach Laura how to ride a horse (despite her already having learned how to do so in Arizona), but only succeeds in scaring the steed. A ragged minstrel, head of the Typographers Union, sings outside Laura's house every evening until Laura's maid, Lupe, tells her that she must throw the blossoms of the Judas tree at him to make him go away (which, unbeknownst to Laura, only leads the boy on). Braggioni continues to enjoy his authority and manipulates two rival factions, those of the Polish agitator and the Roumanian agitator, off of each other. Braggioni shows Laura his silver ammunition belt and taunts her for her naiveté, telling her that "everything turns to dust in the hand, to gall on the tongue." Laura feels herself to be idealistic to a fault and "not at home in the world," and wonders if she will become like the long-suffering realist Mrs. Braggioni, who marches in picket lines and fights for the rights of the girls who work in the cigarette factory, but spends her nights crying for Braggioni, who returns from his philandering to placate her. At the conclusion of the story, Laura is wracked with guilt over the death of a prisoner named Eugenio who overdosed on pills Laura brought to him rather than wait for Braggioni to make a deal for his release. Braggioni writes off Eugenio as a fool that they are well rid of, but to Laura he represents a martyr possessed of the purity that she has otherwise found lacking in Mexico. She goes to sleep and dreams of the ghost of Eugenio, who calls her a murderer and says he has come to take her to death. He bids her to eat the flowers of the Judas tree, then tells her that it is his body and blood. The story ends with Laura awakening and trembling, afraid to go back to sleep.

- Genre: - Title: Flowers for Algernon - Point of view: - Setting: - Character: Charlie Gordon. Description: The protagonist and narrator of Flowers for Algernon, Charlie Gordon starts out as a kindhearted, mentally challenged man in his early 30s, who is then given an incredible chance to become a genius when he's selected for experimental brain surgery. After his IQ triples, Charlie must come to terms with his new life. He quickly discovers that his coworkers, who he thought were his friends, actually look down on him—a decision that shakes his faith in people. Charlie also strikes up a romance with his former teacher, Alice Kinnian—a romance that lasts most of the book, though it's disrupted at times by Charlie's traumatic childhood, which has made it difficult for him to experience sexual pleasure of any kind. As Charlie becomes internationally recognized for his brilliance, he shows his arrogance—arguably the very quality that led him to be selected for surgery in the first place. In spite of his pride, Charlie slowly learns emotional maturity, coming to terms with his family and with Alice. Tragically, Charlie loses his genius at the novels end and declines into intellectual disability once again. Yet he doesn't regret the time he spent as a genius—he's used his time to solve major scientific puzzles and perform research that he hopes will help millions of people one day. - Character: Alice Kinnian. Description: A young, beautiful woman who works as a teacher for mentally challenged adults, and is instrumental in choosing Charlie Gordon as the subject of Professor Nemur's brain surgery. Alice is intelligent but also kind—a rare combination in the novel. She's devoted her adult life to helping other people, and takes care of Charlie, even after he loses his genius and lapses into intellectual disability once again. Although Alice finds herself feeling attracted to Charlie once he becomes a genius, she's frustrated by his arrogance, and worries that they're moving too fast—she recognizes that Charlie has childhood issues that he needs to settle before he can pursue a mature relationship with anyone. Charlie and Alice enjoy a few moments of pure, mature love, but ultimately they're forced to end their love affair when Charlie loses his intelligence. - Character: Algernon. Description: Algernon is a mouse that becomes extremely intelligent after Professor Nemur performs experimental brain surgery on it. Algernon is the first animal to have its IQ artificially increased, just as Charlie is the first human being to have his IQ artificially increased. As such, Algernon is a symbol for Charlie's own mental growth and decline. Algernon's mastery of Nemur's puzzles, his frustration with the academic world, his desire for freedom, and his inevitable loss of intelligence anticipate Charlie's own experience. In the end, Algernon dies, a reminder of the incompleteness of all attempts to control one's own life and abilities. - Character: Professor Harold Nemur. Description: A talented but decidedly non-brilliant scientist, who pioneers an experimental brain surgery technique that allows patients to experience huge increases in IQ. Nemur is arrogant, egocentric, and jealous—the very embodiment of the limits of intelligence in terms of morality and wisdom. In spite of his academic training, Nemur is clueless about the most basic moral problems, and—confirming his emotional immaturity—often treats Charlie Gordon with condescension or (after Charlie's intelligence eclipses his own) outright resentment. Nevertheless, Keyes makes it clear that Nemur isn't a monster—his wife, Bertha Nemur, has put him under a lot of pressure, and he clearly has some sympathy for Charlie, even if it's limited by his own arrogance. - Character: Doctor Strauss. Description: A surgeon and therapist who works closely with Charlie Gordon during his transformation from mental disability to genius. In many ways, Strauss is a slightly friendlier version of Nemur: like Nemur, he's ambitious, conceited, and jealous, but he seems to have more self-awareness and humility than Nemur. Strauss conducts therapy sessions with Charlie Gordon, during which he helps Charlie identify the subconscious sources of his anxiety and insecurity. - Character: Rose Gordon (Charlie's mother). Description: Charlie Gordon's mother, and one of the most important influences on his life. Rose is a domineering, cruel mother who's obsessed with outward appearances. She spends years denying that Charlie is mentally disabled, despite all evidence to the contrary, and later, when she can't deny it any more, she sends Charlie to live with his uncle. Rose continues to wield great power over Charlie even after Charlie becomes a genius. Because Rose used to beat him as a child for showing any interest in women, Charlie later finds it difficult to form intimate relationships with Alice Kinnian. In general, it's suggested that Charlie's ambition and need for validation are partly the result of his mother's abusive and controlling attitude. - Character: Fay Lillman. Description: A young, attractive woman who lives in Charlie's apartment building. Fay represents the exact opposite of the scientific establishment that "creates" Charlie: she's casual, anti-intellectual, and intuitive. Although Charlie never feels love for Fay, he's highly attracted to her, not least because she's a welcome alternative to his academic pursuits. Fay recedes from view toward the end of the novel—when Charlie begins to lose his intelligence, she shuns him. - Character: Norma Gordon. Description: Charlie Gordon's younger sister. Norma, it's implied, is an intelligent, hardworking woman, who always resented Charlie for getting more attention and love than she did. In spite of her rocky relationship with Charlie, Norma seems eager to reunite with Charlie when he visits her—newly brilliant—in Brooklyn. In spite of her resentment, she always loved Charlie. - Character: Fanny Birden. Description: A worker at the bakery alongside Charlie Gordon—the only worker who doesn't sign the petition to have Charlie fired. While Fanny doesn't dislike or resent Charlie, she's suspicious of Charlie's operation, and cites the Biblical story of Adam and Eve as proof that humans are not meant to pursue knowledge. - Theme: Ignorance, Intelligence, and Happiness. Description: After Charlie Gordon has his surgery and begins to progress from mental disability to brilliance, he has an argument with one of his coworkers, Fanny Birden. Fanny tells Charlie that it was a sin for Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, because in doing so, they traded eternal happiness for knowledge. The apparent tradeoff between happiness and intelligence is one of the most important themes in Flowers for Algernon. As he becomes more and more intelligent, Charlie discovers problems he didn't even know he had, while also finding some new outlets for pleasure.At first, it seems that there really is a strict tradeoff between happiness and intelligence. As a mentally disabled employee of Mr. Donner's bakery, Charlie Gordon is extremely happy, and confident that he has many good friends. From the reader's perspective, however, it's apparent that Charlie's coworkers treat him horribly: they make fun of his stupidity, trip him, and force him to dance for their own cruel amusement. Blissfully unaware of the truth, Charlie (at least in the beginning) is by far the happiest character in the book, but paradoxically, no reader would trade places with him. Ignorance is bliss. And yet Charlie's bliss seems less "real" and less desirable than that of an intelligent person, since it's based on the delusion that Charlie's coworkers respect him. Keyes reinforces his point after Charlie becomes intelligent, and realizes, with a shock, that his coworkers, far from liking him, have always looked down on him. Charlie's newfound intelligence brings truth, but it doesn't bring him any joy—on the contrary, it reminds him how small and lonely his life really, whether he's a genius or not.Keyes complicates the idea that ignorance is bliss in two important ways. First, he shows that intelligence can also be bliss, if only from time to time. When Charlie becomes a genius, he throws himself into his research—there's enormous pleasure to be had in discovering things for himself. At the same time, Charlie's research doesn't bring him total happiness; as he admits, his desire to learn is like a torturous, unquenchable thirst. Despite the fact that Charlie's intellectual endeavors never bring him total happiness, he continues with them. This leads Keyes to his second important point: even if intelligence isn't always blissful, it's the "smart man's burden" to continue with one's studies, for the benefit of other people. Charlie senses that his research will never make him happy, but he also knows that he can help millions by pursuing his research—and this is a far stronger mandate than mere personal bliss can ever be.In the end, Keyes doesn't really refute the idea that ignorance is bliss: indeed, he shows that Charlie is at his happiest when he's mentally disabled, and at his most miserable when he's a genius. However, he questions whether bliss should be the only goal of the human race. As Charlie gets more and more intelligent, he becomes less happy—but this certainly doesn't mean that his life is a failure. Charlie makes the choice to use his intelligence to help other people. This choice is grounded in his sense of responsibility to his fellow humans. Moreover, Charlie's sense of responsibility would be utterly foreign to his blissfully ignorant self. This reminds us why Charlie is the hero of the novel, and also reiterates that there are good reasons to "leave the Garden of Eden." - Theme: Intelligence vs. Wisdom and Morality. Description: In Flowers for Algernon, Keyes establishes a tradeoff between intelligence and happiness, and at the same time makes a different point about the relationship between intelligence and wisdom. By the novel's midpoint Charlie Gordon is a genius: his brain holds a staggering amount of information about the world. And yet in spite of Charlie's vast knowledge and voracious reading, he finds himself incapable of handling the most basic "real-world" situations. The distinction between intelligence and wisdom is most apparent when Charlie confronts moral challenges. His knowledge of history and philosophy makes him successful and famous, but it doesn't teach him right from wrong—and it also doesn't help him take action to actually do the right thing. In general, then, Keyes uses Charlie's experiences to make a distinction between intelligence and wisdom, i.e., the ability to deal with real-world problems, especially moral problems.Keyes suggests that there need not be a direct relationship between intelligence and wisdom or morality. The characters with average or below-average intelligence often exemplify wisdom—an intuition about how things work, or about how to treat other people with respect. When he's mentally handicapped, Charlie instinctively sympathizes with other people, such as his coworkers, his sister Norma, and his friend Burt. Charlie even feels compassion for Algernon the mouse, who everyone else ignores—only Charlie can see the injustice of imprisoning Algernon and forcing him to solve endless mazes. Charlie—while he's mentally disabled—can also see very plainly that his mentor, Professor Nemur, is unhappy because he takes himself too seriously. Because he's never been able to gasp very much knowledge, Charlie listens to his instincts when dealing with other people. Ironically, his childlike wisdom allows him to grasp moral truths that more intelligent people cannot see.On the other hand, the novel's most intelligent characters are often clueless or indifferent when it comes to dealing with other people. When Charlie becomes a genius, he begins to look down on the mentally disabled, and smugly criticizes his colleagues for their narrow-mindedness. He also finds himself unable to handle the simplest moral dilemmas. When he discovers that his coworker, Gimpy, is stealing money from the bakery where they both work, Charlie realizes that—intellectually speaking—there's no "correct" answer to the problem: if Charlie reports Gimpy, he'll be putting a father out of work, and if he remains silent, he'll be enabling a thief. Even Charlie's mentor, Professor Nemur, doesn't have a good answer for Charlie—he dismisses the problem altogether. Intelligent people, Keyes suggests, are so used to relying on knowledge and science for the answers that they often forget about respect, humility, and morality—in short, wisdom and goodness.Does this mean that it's impossible to be both intelligent and wise/morally good? Keyes believes that it is possible to "marry" intelligence to wisdom and morality—it just requires a lot of trial and error. Although Charlie's intelligence initially makes him arrogant and oblivious to other people's feelings, he gradually acquires wisdom of his own. In the novel's climactic scene, he reunites with his mother, Rose Gordon, and his sister, Norma Gordon—the sources of most of his anger and insecurity. Charlie learns to do the right thing: love and forgive his family members in spite of the harm they've done him. In doing so, he gains wisdom through experience and grows in a way that he never could through knowledge or study alone.Although Flowers for Algernon seems to be about a mentally challenged man's struggle to gain and then keep his intelligence, it's really about his struggle to find wisdom. Keyes makes it clear that intelligent people are by no means always wise or good—on the contrary, they're often less so than their intellectual inferiors. After he becomes a genius, Charlie gains wisdom, but not because of his intelligence so much as his dedication, hard work, and willingness to try again. - Theme: Pride, Hubris, and the Tragic Hero. Description: From the very beginning, the readers of Flowers for Algernon are meant to identify with Charlie Gordon in one important respect: his pride and ambition. Charlie's pride—his desire for respect, intelligence, and prestige—is at the center of his character: without pride Professor Nemur would never have chosen him to undergo the operation that makes him a genius. And yet Charlie's pride is his greatest weakness as well as his greatest strength. Through pride, Charlie takes on the qualities of a tragic hero: a strong, ambitious man who tries to be great, and is punished by the universe for doing so.As with any tragic hero, Charlie rises to greatness through a combination of ambition, hard work, and incredible luck. He's chosen to have a miraculous operation because of his desire to "be smart," and after he has the operation, he throws himself into learning as much about the world as possible. Quickly, Charlie begins to "rise" in the world: he gets a better job, masters dozens of languages, writes concertos, and starts working on his own scholarly research. Even if this is a work of science fiction, Charlie's ambitions to better himself are instantly recognizable to the reader: Charlie wants to gain the admiration of the people around him (his coworkers and, later, his academic colleagues) and learn as much about life as possible.While Charlie is rising to greatness, his pride in himself is inspiring and heroic; when he achieves greatness, however, his pride becomes insufferable. Confident that his intelligence outstrips that of even the greatest scientists and professors on the planet, Charlie sneers at his colleagues and ungratefully ridicules Professor Nemur, the same man who made him a genius in the first place. Charlie's great flaw, we see, is his "hubris"—his extreme, selfish pride; i.e., the very thing that motivated him to become a genius in the first place.Because this is a tragedy, Charlie can't be allowed to stay on top. In the end, the laws of science punish him for his ascent to genius—not only pulling him back to his original state, but making him even less intelligent that he was initially. And yet surprisingly, Flowers for Algernon isn't just a cautionary tale about the dangers of being too arrogant. Even though we recognize Charlie's hubris as a personal flaw, we can't reject his pride and ambition altogether. Charlie's burden is that he achieves so much, and inspires us to do the same with our own lives, even though he's ultimately punished. Hubris may be a flaw, but it's also a quintessential human emotion—the desire for greater knowledge and respect—and for this reason, we respect Charlie as the tragic hero he is. - Theme: Cruelty and Bullying. Description: Flowers for Algernon studies the relationship between intelligent and unintelligent people, or more generally, between the powerful and the weak. Because Charlie Gordon travels between these two worlds—moving from mental disability to brilliance, and then back to mental disability again—he comes to see the ways in which people mock and bully their intellectual inferiors, partly out of cruelty, and partly out of insecurity.People of average intelligence bully the mentally disabled, Keyes suggests, because they want to remind themselves of their place in the "pecking order." At the bakery where Charlie works, Charlie's coworkers subject him to a series of cruel pranks and jokes that reinforce Charlie's stupidity, clumsiness, and gullibility. It's significant that Charlie's coworkers never, ever get tired of playing pranks on him (you'd think that after more than a decade, the joke would have gotten old). By teasing Charlie for his stupidity, Charlie's coworkers are effectively congratulating themselves for being smarter than Charlie—none of them are particularly intelligent, but at least they're not at the bottom of the barrel. This becomes clearer after Charlie becomes a genius. His former coworkers admit that they're ignoring him because they don't want a reminder of their own mental inferiority: they don't want to be around someone who makes them feel stupid.Much the same is true of Charlie's mentors, Professor Nemur and Doctor Strauss. Indeed, as Keyes portrays it, the entire academic community suffers from the same inferiority complex as Charlie's coworkers. When Nemur shows footage of Charlie before his operation, Nemur's colleagues laugh at Charlie's clumsiness. Then, when they meet Charlie as a genius, they shun him, one by one, because he's smarter than they are. Even Charlie himself starts to look down on his intellectual inferiors once he becomes intelligent—first his coworkers, and then his teacher and lover, Alice Kinnian. Disturbingly, Keyes suggests that human beings have a tendency to bully people who are weaker than they are, and fear those who are stronger.Thankfully, Keyes doesn't end his novel on such a pessimistic note. Even if humans have a natural tendency to be cruel to their inferiors, it's possible to replace this tendency with kindness and understanding. When Charlie returns to his job at the bakery, mentally disabled once again, his coworkers prove that they're less sadistic than they initially seemed. Not only do they accept Charlie once again, but they also refrain from teasing him anymore. It's possible to read Keyes's novel as a moral fable about the dangers of bullying. There's simply no sense in being cruel to those below us in the pecking order, because nobody's place in the pecking order is completely secure. - Theme: Love and Sexuality. Description: Arguably the biggest change that Charlie Gordon undergoes in Flowers for Algernon—even bigger than his rise from mental disability to genius—is the change in his romantic life. At the beginning of the novel, Charlie is completely ignorant of the opposite sex (he's assumed to be straight). He's never even kissed a girl, and from an early age his mother, Rose Gordon, has impressed upon him that he mustn't touch women. As he ages mentally, Charlie contemplates sex, his relationship with the opposite sex, and his relationship with his mother, maturing to the point where he can feel sincere, emotional love for another woman. In describing Charlie's sexual maturation, Keyes incorporates elements of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and allusions to the "free love" movement of the 1960s.Perhaps Keyes's most important point about love and sexuality is Freudian in nature: human sexuality begins with childhood experience. Even after Charlie Gordon becomes a genius, he's dominated by hallucinations of his childhood self—an internalized version of his sexual insecurities. As a child, Charlie's mother would spank and beat him for showing any interest in women. Keyes implies that Charlie's childhood experiences give him a permanent Oedipus complex: an aversion to having sex with women, caused by a fixation on a strong, domineering mother figure. Because he's still afraid of his mother's punishments, Charlie can't perform sexually with the women he meets after becoming a genius. In typical Freudian form, Charlie conquers his aversion to sex by first identifying the source of the problem—his mother's cruelty—and then reconnecting with his aging mother, who's suffering from dementia. It's only after Charlie visits his mother, symbolically "burying" her and closing the door on his Oedipus complex, that he succeeds in having a stable, mature relationship with Alice Kinnian, the love of his life.Although Freudian psychoanalysis has a clear influence on the novel's view of human sexuality, Keyes is equally influenced by the free love movement of the 1960s, which was in full force at the time when Flowers for Algernon was published (in the film version, released in 1968, Charlie actually joins the counterculture movement, smoking marijuana and riding motorbikes). Charlie experiments with a number of sexual partners during his sexual maturation, including women he meets in Central Park, and one bohemian woman—Fay Lillman—whom he knows to have other sexual partners. There's no expectation that Charlie remain loyal to any one of these sexual partners (indeed, at one point, Charlie argues for the value of polygamy)—on the contrary, Charlie moves from one encounter to the next, conquering his aversion to sex little by little. Keyes's view of sexuality was considered radically open at the time: a reflection of the new Sixties ethos that sexuality should be de-stigmatized and celebrated as a critical part of love and maturity. Indeed, Charlie learns how to love and respect women—that is, to have mature emotional relationships—partly because he has sex with women. During his first sexual encounters, Charlie is confused and even violent, reflecting his fear and ignorance of love. Gradually, however, Charlie progresses from physical love to emotional love, using each sexual encounter to fight his lifelong aversion to women.Flowers for Algernon provides a surprisingly frank look at love and sexuality. Although it's dated in some ways (Freud's influence on psychology has waned, and Keyes's descriptions of Charlie's earliest sexual encounters are guilty of the same problem as the sexual revolution itself: they trivialize and objectify women), Keyes's work continues to teach relevant lessons: first, that human sexuality begins in childhood, not adulthood; and second, that sexuality is an ongoing process, one which takes a great deal of practice and experimentation. Moreover, Keyes suggests that sex, far from being an incidental part of mature romantic love, is a key part of building a stable relationship with another person. - Climax: - Summary: The novel is made up of a series of progress reports written by a man named Charlie Gordon. As the novel begins, Charlie Gordon is mentally disabled, with an IQ of 68. He works at a bakery and attends classes at night to learn how to read and write. Because of Charlie's motivation, his teacher, Alice Kinnian, recommends him for a cutting-edge experimental surgery designed by Professor Harold Nemur and Doctor Strauss. Strauss and Nemur believe that they can greatly increase intelligence through this operation. They've already performed their surgery on a mouse named Algernon, who has become super-intelligent. Charlie competes with Algernon in mazes and other intelligence tests, and loses every time. Charlie undergoes the surgery, and is told that soon he'll have an IQ of 185. At first, Charlie doesn't feel intelligent at all. He continues working at the bakery, where his coworkers tease him and bully him for his clumsiness. In the evenings, Charlie continues meeting with Alice, who tells him to remain patient. Charlie begins to have vague flashbacks to his childhood—a period of time that he barely remembers. At work, Charlie slowly shows signs of increased intelligence. He becomes adept at mixing dough, and gets a raise for his efforts. He has wet dreams, which Dr. Strauss—who acts as his therapist—explains to him. Charlie also beats Algernon in intelligence tests. At the same time, he begins to have more frequent flashbacks: he remembers that his mother, Rose Gordon, would spank him for being bad, and that she vehemently denied that he was mentally challenged. He also had a sister named Norma Gordon, who hated Charlie for getting too much attention from their parents. Alice teaches Charlie grammar and encourages him to read, and Charlie quickly becomes more and more intelligent. He begins to alienate his coworkers, who resent him for being smarter than they are. Charlie also notices that Alice is very pretty, and he tries to pluck up the courage to ask her out. Charlie confronts an ethical dilemma when he discovers that his coworker Gimpy, who's always been gruff but kind to him, is stealing from the bakery. Charlie asks Professor Nemur for advice, but Nemur says that it's an unimportant issue. Alice urges Charlie to resolve the dilemma by exploring his own values and beliefs, and Charlie is able to convince Gimpy to stop stealing anymore. Encouraged by his discussions with Alice, Charlie asks Alice on a date. The date goes well, and Charlie decides that he's in love. Alice tells Charlie that he's being too hasty, however: although he's very intelligent now, he still has the emotional intelligence of a child. Alice and Charlie go on other dates, and Charlie slowly realizes that he's vastly more intelligent than Alice. Charlie is fired from his job at the bakery—his coworkers, furious with his new intelligence, sign a petition asking for his immediate dismissal. Charlie is hurt. The only coworker who doesn't sign the petition, Fanny Birden, says goodbye to Charlie, and warns him that it was a sin for Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Angry and upset, Charlie goes to Alice's apartment, where he tries and fails to be physically intimate with her. Charlie continues to work closely with Professor Nemur. He flies out to Chicago for a medical conference, where Nemur's discovery is supposed to be one of the highlights. At the conference, Charlie begins to resent Nemur's condescending attitude—although Charlie is now far more intelligent than Nemur, Nemur continues to regard him as a "guinea pig." Charlie embarrasses Nemur in front of his colleagues, and frees Algernon from his cage. Together, Charlie and Algernon leave Chicago, with Charlie resolving to live life on his own terms from now on. Back in New York, Charlie finds an apartment for himself. He meets women late at night and attempts to have sex with them, but he frightens them away. His fortunes improve after he meets his apartment neighbor, a strong, energetic woman named Fay Lillman. Fay is uninhibited, and tells Charlie that she'd like to have sex with him. Meanwhile, Charlie remembers an episode from his childhood in which his sister Norma became furious with him. Norma wanted to have a dog, but their father, Matt Gordon, refused to give her one unless she let Charlie play with it. Charlie has another vivid flashback of his mother spanking him after he accidentally embarrassed a girl at his school. Charlie visits his father, who now works in a barbershop in the Bronx. Matt doesn't recognize Charlie, and Charlie is unable to force himself to reveal his identity. Charlie decides to devote himself to studying neuroscience—in this way, he believes, he can help other mentally disabled people. At the same time, he launches a turbulent relationship with Fay. At first, Charlie can't have sex with Fay without experiencing traumatizing hallucinations in which he sees a younger version of himself—the "old Charlie." Over time, however, Charlie learns to be confortable around Fay. Charlie is then horrified to discover that Algernon's intelligence is vanishing—suggesting that the same might happen to him soon. Charlie reunites with Professor Nemur and begs for funding to research the issue. Nemur arranges for Charlie to pursue this research. In the meantime, Charlie visits the Warren State Home for the mentally ill—the home where Charlie might have to live if his hypothesis is proven correct and he loses his intelligence. Warren State is surprisingly pleasant, although Charlie is still terrified at returning to a state of mental disability. Charlie gets drunk and confronts Nemur and Strauss. Charlie tells them they're condescending and conceited, but comes to realize that he's become just as bad. Shortly after this confrontation, Charlie makes a breakthrough in his research: he concludes that Nemur's brain surgery will always be impermanent. In the long run, Charlie's own intelligence will disappear, and he'll become mentally disabled again. Algernon dies and Charlie buries his body and decorates the grave with flowers. Charlie tries to tie up loose ends before his loses his intelligence. He goes to visit his sister Norma, who still cares for their mother. Charlie's mother now suffers from dementia—while she recognizes Charlie, she seems to forget who he is from time to time. Norma, on the other hand, is a kind, bright woman, who's happy to reunite with Charlie. She tells Charlie that she's hated herself for years because of the way she treated him. Charlie is so moved by his conversation with Norma that he has to leave. He decides to forgive his mother for her cruelty—there's simply no point in hating her. Charlie's intelligence fades quickly. He becomes irritable, and Fay breaks off all ties with him. Alice continues to visit Charlie, although she's upset by his moodiness. One night, Charlie and Alice have sex, and Charlie feels that he's experiencing "something different"—a love few people find in a whole lifetime. Charlie loses all his intelligence and enters a state of mental disability once again. He returns to the bakery, and succeeds in getting his old job back. His coworkers, who formerly bullied him, now treat him with more respect. Nevertheless, Charlie decides that he can no longer be around his coworkers or Alice—he can't stand to talk to people who remember a time when he was a genius. He decides to go to the Warren State Home. In his final progress report, Charlie says goodbye to Alice, Professor Nemur, Doctor Strauss, and everyone else he's met since the experiment. In a postscript, he asks "someone" to put more flowers on Algernon's grave.

- Genre: Fiction (Short Story) - Title: Flyboys - Point of view: First-person - Setting: A small town in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington State - Character: Narrator. Description: The protagonist and narrator of "Flyboys" is an unnamed boy, likely in his pre-teen or early teen years. He is the current friend of classmate Clark, with whom he is designing a jet plane, and former best friend of Freddy. His relationship with Clark is defined by contrast; Clark is well-off, self-assured, and pragmatic, while the narrator is imaginative, delighted by stories of adventure, and eager to share his inspired (and perhaps foolish) ideas. The narrator admits that Clark gets frustrated by his lack of familiarity with actual design work and also views the narrator, correctly, as loose-lipped about their supposedly secret plans for the jet. His friendship with Freddy, on the other hand, is based on more commonality than the narrator would like to admit. He easily connects with Freddy's family, but he is also overwhelmed by the emotion and hardship they are constantly experiencing, worried it is somehow contagious. The narrator feels a lot of guilt for his failure to remain friends with Freddy in light of this, though he understands that his desire to run from Freddy's complicated home life is related to his own need to ignore his own personal family strife. Interestingly, the narrator's family is not included in the story, aside from a mention that they are on precarious ground and likely to move away soon. Instead of focusing on his own family—a sign that he would like to escape from his problems—the narrator spends his time assessing Clark and Freddy's families based on their class and adherence to social expectations. Over the course of the story, though, the narrator learns that things are not always how they appear, and that no one escapes from familial strife and tension. - Character: Clark. Description: Clark is the classmate and friend with whom the narrator is designing a plane. He is a pragmatic person who is deeply dedicated to realizing their vision, putting their end goal before his own instincts or feelings. He is nonjudgmental as well, both when he takes in Freddy's more modest home without the pity the narrator feels and when he accepts the narrator's request to leave Freddy out of the jet plane plans without comment. Clark's exceptional composure, wariness of getting mud on his clothes, and his self-assurance in formulating a plan to free the stuck truck can be taken as indicating his self-sufficiency, but it also points to his being burdened by expectations more fitting of an adult than a child. This is likely connected to the fact that Clark's family is largely absent; his mother is never home and his father travels for work. The narrator's perception of Clark's home-life is influenced by Clark's family's wealth and numerous possessions, many of which are tools that the boys use to create films or build contraptions. Because Clark's family appears wealthy and happy, the narrator does not question it. But Clark's usual calm is disturbed at the end of the story, when his fear over his mother's mood and reaction to his dirty clothing hints that things in what the narrator thought was a perfect household are far more volatile than the narrator realized. - Character: Freddy. Description: Freddy is a classmate of Clark and the narrator. He was formerly the narrator's best friend, and in the past the two boys would tell outrageous stories, go camping with Freddy's older brother Tanker, and spend hours making believe in the woods on Freddy's property. Freddy is far less fortunate than the other boys, both in wealth and luck. The narrator has seen Freddy's family endure constant hardship, ranging from cars constantly breaking down to Tanker's tragic death. Not long after Tanker's passing, Freddy also undergoes a severe asthma attack that lands him in the hospital. In the face of this struggle and grief, the narrator flees from Freddy's house one day and then completely abandons his friendship with Freddy, uncomfortable with the ever-present sadness. Even so, Freddy's home remains filled with the love of his mother and Ivan. Freddy too remains soft-spoken and kind, accepting the narrator's return without a grudge even after the narrator abandoned him. He is eager to please the narrator and Clark, happily recounting the story from the book he just read and proudly showing the other boys the pristine, dusted canopy he will give them, asking for nothing in return. Freddy has and continues to experience pain and trauma, but he lives through it, and continues to be open to and connect with others. - Character: Freddy's Mom. Description: Freddy's mom is a woman who has endured much hardship. Her family is not well-off, her son Tanker has died in a motorcycle accident, and her husband Ivan is unreliable. The narrator pities her, as he sees her trying to overcome her pain and failing to do so. Still, like Freddy, she tries her best to remain present and hopeful. She spends time with the boys when they are over, joking and listening to their stories with rapt attention. She is also the only present mother in the story, making sandwiches, putting out cookies, and neatly wrapping the narrator's dirty clothes in butcher paper. While, for the narrator, her life seems to suggest that things won't always work out—an idea he finds intolerable—within the broader story she serves as a model for what survival looks like, even when sadness is insurmountable. - Character: Tanker. Description: Tanker is Freddy's brother. Prior to the time of the story, Tanker died in a motorcycle accident, which has left Freddy's family burdened with grief. When Tanker was alive, he served as a positive male role model for Freddy and the narrator. He was the only one who could call Ivan out on his hair-brained schemes because Ivan had such a soft spot for his stepson. In fact, Tanker had a way of pulling not only his stepfather in, but everyone. The narrator has fond memories of Ivan taking him and Freddy on camping trips and how he used to carve woodland creatures into the wood of the dining table when he would regale them with stories about his life. In his tales, he would make embarrassing or difficult experiences seem vital, showing them how to be vulnerable in front of others. - Character: Ivan. Description: Ivan is Freddy's stepfather. In the story, Ivan often gets the family into trouble, engaging in foolish money-making attempts or illegally dumping garbage. He is not always brave, either—he runs away when Tanker dies, and he has been known to shirk responsibility. He fails his family, but he is never ill-intentioned, and he always comes back. The narrator sees Ivan as a screw-up, not recognizing how deeply Ivan cares for his stepsons and engages meaningfully with their friends. While Ivan may not be a model for success or stability, he is the only present father in the story. - Theme: Fear of Emotion. Description: In "Flyboys," the narrator is afraid of emotion. This is particularly evident in his reactions to Clark and Freddy: he's comfortable in Clark's big, empty house that's devoid of life and emotion, but he can't stand being in Freddy's house, because it feels so full of emotion—both good emotion (love and fun) and bad emotion (grief). The narrator is clearly more personally suited to being among Freddy's family, which shares his imaginative love of storytelling and his desire to play with language, but outweighing this sense of belonging is the narrator's inability to be around their big emotions. For instance, he's horrified by Freddy's mother's failure to overcome her grief over losing Tanker, and he panics when Freddy's stepfather Ivan nearly cries about the idea of selling Tanker's beat-up pickup. The narrator's fear of emotion results from his desire to repress his own family's strife. His family is largely absent from the story, but the narrator gives plenty of clues that his own house is full of uncomfortable emotion and is likely about to split apart. For this reason, being around other families' strong emotions makes him feel vulnerable and afraid—it's likely that he associates emotion with anger and instability, making him panic. The narrator's fear of stirring up his own vulnerable emotions explains his attraction to Clark, who he views as a pragmatic, objective person with a stable, lucky family. But it's also clear that choosing Clark over Freddy, while perhaps more comfortable, isn't serving the narrator—the friendship does nothing to change or help him cope with his awful home life, and the two boys don't share as deep an emotional connection as the narrator and Freddy did. In this way, it seems that the narrator's fear of emotion is stunting his growth to some degree. Eventually, he will need to cope with the emotions he's so desperate to repress. - Theme: Family and Class. Description: The narrator evaluates his current friend Clark and his former friend Freddy based more on their families' wealth than on their personal characteristics. From Clark's big house and the family photo albums showing boats and cars, the narrator gets a positive impression of Clark's family: he assumes that they are great, lucky people who have never been troubled by hardship. Freddy's family, on the other hand, is perpetually plagued by bad luck. They live in a small, dingy home, and Freddy's stepfather Ivan is often getting the family into financial and legal trouble. All of this leads the narrator to form a dim opinion of Freddy's family, seemingly feeling that they deserve their lot in life because they've made bad choices.  But the narrator's judgment of Clark and Freddy's families conspicuously overlooks one thing: love. While he notices that Clark's parents are never around, the narrator doesn't interpret this fact at all—rather than seeing their home as bizarrely devoid of love, care, and connection, he focuses on their wealth to make the assumption that everything is great in their family. Likewise, in forming a negative opinion of Freddy's family, the narrator overlooks how much they seem to love and care for one another, and how they've stuck by one another in the midst of horrible grief. But the story's ending shows how silly the narrator's assumptions have been. After he and Clark get their clothes muddy, Clark asks the narrator to come over for dinner—Clark knows that his mom will be furious about his clothes, and he wants the narrator there to buffer her anger. He dawdles on the walk home, showing how much he's dreading encountering his family, and he lingers outside for a moment trying to figure out based on the music that is playing whether or not his mother is in a good mood. All of this shows that Clark's wealth has no bearing on his family's happiness—despite having everything, his family still has problems of its own. This final revelation about Clark's fear of his mother's mood demonstrates that misfortune and pain are more universal than the narrator wants to believe, not simply a result of financial struggle. - Theme: Imagination, Rationality, and Escape. Description: The narrator and Clark are trying to build a plane, which seems—for both of them—like an attempt to escape the dreariness of their families. The narrator's family is implied to be on the brink of divorce, while Clark's home seems loveless and empty, and his mother has issues with anger. The plane's symbolism itself is one of escape: it's a machine on which they could fly away from their problems. But the actual process of designing and building it is another kind of escape, because they can immerse themselves in the project and forget their problems at home. A source of strife between Clark and the narrator is that their mental escapes are very different. Clark is obsessively rational, pragmatic, and closed-off, while the narrator is imaginative, passionate, and creative. The narrator is the idea man, whereas Clark is the workhorse, burying himself in logistics and details. The narrator knows that his own imaginative nature hasn't helped him escape the strife of his family, and his friendship with Clark seems to be based not on any particular affection between the boys, but on his subconscious belief that Clark's rationality has allowed him to escape family strife. (The narrator falsely believes that Clark's family is perfect.) Perhaps the narrator thinks that surrounding himself with rationality might help him escape, too. But the narrator is wrong that rationality is a way to escape emotion and strife—the story's ending reveals that Clark's family is troubled, too. Neither rationality nor imagination can allow someone to fully escape a difficult reality. There's no implied solution, but it's meaningful that the only time in the story when the narrator experiences true joy is with his former friend, Freddy, who embraces the narrator's imaginative, creative side. When the boys tell stories and play language games with idioms, the narrator seems finally happy and at ease. And while he doesn't choose to remain friends with Freddy, his logic seems faulty—his most credible "escape" from the bad feelings of his family life isn't enduring a joyless friendship with Clark, but embracing the moments of real happiness he feels with Freddy, even as they also bring pain. - Climax: Clark asks the narrator if they should include their classmate Freddy in their existing plans to design and build a jet plane, but the narrator requests that they exclude Freddy and keep their plans between the two of them. - Summary: Tobias Wolff's "Flyboys" tells the story of the narrator and his friend Clark's plans to build a plane. The project largely takes place in Clark's bedroom, where the boys spend weeks designing their aircraft. Clark does most of the actual drawing of the plans because he thinks the narrator works too slowly, which leaves the narrator on his own to roam the otherwise empty house. He grows jealous when looking at the family's photo albums, which gives him the impression that Clark has a lucky, happy family who lack nothing. The narrator returns to observe Clark's progress and considers the different strengths they bring to their project. While Clark is stubborn and particular, he is also willing to consider any idea that will make their design better. The narrator admits he takes advantage of this, bossing Clark around and throwing out wild ideas, believing in his own genius. When the design portion of their plane becomes boring, the boys begin discussing how they will construct it. Clark has a lead on a canopy they can use but won't tell the narrator where in case he reveals their secret to others. Instead, the narrator is forced to follow Clark through town after school until they approach a home that the narrator recognizes. It's the house of one of their classmates, Freddy, who the narrator used to be close friends with. When the boys go inside to talk to Freddy about the canopy, Clark is surprised to find the narrator knows Freddy and Freddy's mother so well. The narrator reflects to himself that very little has changed there, recalling both the happy times he spent there, as well as Freddy's family's lack of luck. In particular the narrator remembers how he couldn't bear the grief that filled Freddy's home after Freddy's older brother, Tanker, died in a motorcycle crash, and how he suddenly ran home and was too embarrassed to interact with Freddy again. Still, he now slips easily back into the word games he and Freddy used to play, and Freddy and the narrator animatedly exchange gruesome stories while Clark observes quietly, eating cookies. Freddy's stepfather Ivan then enters the kitchen where his wife and the boys are sitting, explaining that Tanker's old pickup truck has gotten stuck in the mud. The boys go outside to find the truck loaded with felled trees from the property, and the narrator mourns the loss of the woods that he and Freddy used to make believe in. Ivan asks them to unload the wood so the truck can be freed from the muck. Though his late stepson's truck no longer works well, Ivan nearly cries when considering selling it. Clark is hesitant to move so much wood and instead suggests they dig ruts and lay down wood to give the tires more purchase. Freddy and the narrator go to get shovels for the job, and as they do the narrator finds himself confessing that he believes his family will soon be moving. Freddy says he hopes they stay, but the two break into their word game, deflecting the emotional conversation. Back at the truck, Clark directs their efforts, at first trying not to get muddy, though he gives in to get the work done. Digging out the tires and wedging logs under the treads is difficult, but eventually, Ivan is able to drive the truck out of the mud, leaving the three boys caked up to their necks. Next they head to the barn, where Freddy shows them a pristine airplane canopy. It is smaller than the design accounted for, but the narrator believes with a few adjustments, their plane is as good as built. Afterwards, the narrator accepts Freddy's mom's offer to let them shower; Clark declines. The narrator and Clark then walk home, the narrator feeling empowered by wearing Tanker's old clothes. Clark is still covered in mud and asks the narrator to join him for dinner to offset how angry his mother will be about his dirty clothes. Clark also tells the narrator that Freddy asked to join their plane project while he was in the shower and asks his opinion, saying the narrator knows Freddy better than he does. The narrator agrees Freddy is great, but he'd prefer they keep the plane between the two of them. Clark agrees. They walk the rest of their way through town, and the narrator notices that Clark is taking more time than normal. When they get to Clark's front door, Clark pauses to hear what music is playing inside. Clark says, with relief, that the choice of music means his mother is in a good mood.

- Genre: Novel - Title: Foe - Point of view: Susan Barton is the novel's first-person narrator until the final section, which breaks with the straightforward narrative to hover more ambiguously between Susan's and Friday's perspectives. - Setting: A deserted island in the Atlantic; the various London residencies of author Daniel Defoe - Character: Susan Barton. Description: Susan Barton, an Englishwoman stranded on Cruso's island, is the narrator and protagonist of Foe. Upon being rescued and returning to London, Susan is desperate to profit off her narrative, and she outlines her island experiences in a series of letters to famed author Mr. Foe. But while Susan hopes to sell her story, she also wants to retain tremendous control over it, leaving out key details (mostly surrounding her relationship with her kidnapped daughter) and refusing to explore the internal life of Friday, her companion on the island and back in Europe. Over the course of the novel, Susan becomes more interested in the art of writing, and she tries to transform her monotonous days with Cruso into something more exciting and scandalous. In embracing the power of narrative, Susan (unwittingly) also begins to use this power in harmful ways: for example, by suggesting that Friday is a cannibal, she sews racist suspicions and obscures the horrors of slavery from the reader's view. Yet even as Susan uses her own narrative to elevate herself, ultimately, she is not a character at all in Mr. Foe's novel Robinson Crusoe—suggesting that just as she wrote Friday out of her story, Mr. Foe has done the same thing to her. - Character: Friday. Description: In both J. M. Coetzee's novel Foe and Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe, Friday is Cruso's manservant and primary companion. In both stories, the two spend years together eking out a life on their remote island—but the similarities end there. In Robinson Crusoe, Friday is depicted as an indigenous man—Cruso saves him from a group of cannibals, and the two become friends, with Friday telling Cruso about his past as a cannibal himself. Foe suggests a very different origin story for the two men. In Coetzee's version, Friday is a Black man, and Cruso is his enslaver—and even though they are the sole survivors of the wreck that destroys Cruso's slave ship, Cruso continues to view Friday as his servant. Most importantly, while Friday eventually learns some English in Defoe's version, the Friday of Foe has had his tongue violently cut out, rendering him unable to speak. Though Susan Barton never pays attention to Friday's inner life, preferring to be the sole storyteller of their time on the island, Friday does express himself in several ways throughout the text, whether painting, playing music, or drawing. Indeed, Mr. Foe believes that Friday—and the things his silence obscures—are the "heart of the story," even if Susan refuses to acknowledge it. - Character: Mr. Foe. Description: Mr. Foe based on the real author Daniel Defoe; historically, Foe lived and worked at the turn of the 18th century, making his living as a novelist, a journalist, and occasionally as a spy. Historically, Defoe was an intellectual leader, and due to his work on Robinson Crusoe, some consider him to be the father of the modern novel. But Defoe was also a controversial figure: the fictionalized Mr. Foe narrowly avoids arrest, but in real life, Defoe did spend some time in prison. Over the course of Foe, Mr. Foe forms a close and complicated bond with Susan Barton; he is interested in her story and attracted to her, but he is wary of her desire to leave out substantial chunks of her story. Foe is also critical of Susan's unwillingness to invest in Friday's perspective, seeing her refusal to share narrative power as a "slaver's stratagem." Ultimately, though, the book Robinson Crusoe reveals Mr. Foe to be guilty of nearly all the bad qualities he attributes to Susan: he, too, spreads racist rumors about Friday's cannibalism, and he writes Susan out of his narrative just as she writes all the inconvenient characters our of hers. - Character: Cruso. Description: Cruso is Robinson Crusoe, the famed adventurer at the heart of Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel of the same name. In both Foe and Robinson Crusoe, Cruso is an Englishman who gets stranded on a desert island, and in both stories, Cruso is an eager slave trader (who seems to feel no guilt about this practice). But whereas the Crusoe of Defoe's novel is resourceful, social, and deeply religious, the Cruso of Foe is gruff and silent, unwilling to engage meaningfully with either his servant Friday or Susan Barton. Even when Cruso does establish relationships, those relationships are largely transactional: he seems interested only in the tasks Friday can do, and though he and Susan have a brief sexual encounter, he shows no romantic interest in her. Only the terraces that Cruso builds on the island truly interest him, despite the fact that he has no crops to plant on them. Cruso's focus on these terraces demonstrate that he does care about his legacy and about being a productive member of whatever society he exists in. - Character: Young girl. Description: Though she claims to be Susan Barton's daughter (and to share her name), it is never clear who this girl actually is—or even who she actually believes herself to be. What is clear, though, is that the young girl really does feel connected to Susan, though Susan insists that Mr. Foe is simply manipulating the girl to feel this way. In some ways, then, the young girl is a human manifestation of what happens when the lines between narrative and reality get blurred: even she herself does not understand which of her relationships is real and which is manufactured. - Character: Amy. Description: Amy is the servant girl that the young girl claims used to work for Susan Barton (in the girl's version of events, Amy stayed on to raise her after her mother departed). It is unclear what aspects of Amy's life are true or made up, though Susan assesses quickly that Amy is not very bright. - Character: Mrs. Thrush. Description: Mrs. Thrush is Mr. Foe's maid at Stoke Newington, though she does not transition with him to his new Whitechapel house. When Susan comes to Stoke Newington in search of Foe, Mrs. Thrush is kind to her, though unable to help as she herself does not know where Foe has hidden. - Character: Wilkes. Description: Wilkes is the lead bailiff who takes up residence in Mr. Foe's house, hoping to arrest Foe as soon as he returns; in the 1700s, this was common practice for bailiffs, who were the primary arresting officers of the law. The novel portrays Wilkes and his unnamed companion as slovenly and unpleasant. - Theme: Storytelling and Power. Description: J. M. Coetzee's Foe imagines an origin story for Daniel Defoe's famous 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, about a white castaway named Crusoe and his Black manservant Friday. In Coetzee's version, the story is told to Defoe by Susan Barton, an English widow stranded on Cruso's island towards the end of his life. Upon her return to England, Susan insists that she is the only one who can tell the story of the castaways: Cruso has died, and Friday has had his tongue cut out and can no longer speak. But even though Susan is the sole narrator—both of the story and of Foe itself—it is clear that she is not telling a complete or unbiased tale. On the one hand, there are details Susan refuses to share, about her past in Brazil and her complex relationship with her daughter. And on the other hand, Susan begins to embellish new details, including an increasingly racist depiction of Friday. "I say he is a laundryman and he is a laundryman," Susan boasts of Friday, "I say he is a cannibal and he is a cannibal." In other words, because Susan is the person with the power to tell the story, she can also bend the facts of the story to her will.   But though Susan is the only speaking eyewitness to the events of the island, Defoe (or Mr. Foe, as Susan calls him) is the actual writer—and so poses a challenge to Susan's control of the narrative. If Susan takes pleasure in blurring the lines between fiction and reality, she is not so pleased that Foe intervenes not only in her story but in her real life. And because Foe has material resources and societal privileges Susan does not, his version of the story eventually triumphs; just as Susan turned Friday into a cannibal in her narrative, Foe can erase Susan entirely from his. In the relationships between Foe, Susan, and Friday, existing power structures—especially around race and gender—replicate themselves in the shifting narrative of this island. And ultimately, Foe shows that control and storytelling exist in a vicious circle: people in power get to narrate the lives of those who are less powerful than them, and by perpetuating the narratives that benefit them, they also perpetuate their power. - Theme: Enslavement, Silence, and Erasure. Description: J. M. Coetzee's Foe retells the story of Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe through the perspective of a white Englishwoman named Susan Barton, who was stranded on a desert island with Cruso. As Susan narrates both her time on the island and her return to London, her stories are filled with mentions of Friday, a young Black man who was the only other survivor of Cruso's shipwreck. Friday has mysteriously lost his tongue, and his silence is a source of both frustration and excitement for Susan; sometimes she is desperate for a conversation partner, while other times, Susan takes Friday's lack of speech as an excuse to order him around or invent tales about his history. Even though Friday is present in nearly every moment of Susan's story, the story never reveals anything about his life—only towards the end of the novel does Daniel Defoe (or Mr. Foe, as Susan calls him) point out that the ship Friday and Cruso were on was almost certainly a slave ship, that Cruso was probably a slave trader, and that hundreds of enslaved Black men and women were drowned in the wreckage. Susan's omission of this crucial detail is telling: by erasing the obvious purpose of Cruso's voyage, Susan also erases both the brutal fact of slavery and her own subjection of Friday. Furthermore, though Susan is baffled by the fact that Cruso never taught Friday to write in all their years together, she too is hesitant to hear Friday's actual perspective; she pushes back when Mr. Foe gives Friday writing lessons, and demeans the music and drawings with which Friday expresses himself. Friday is silenced both literally (by the slaveholders who cut out his tongue) and metaphorically (by Susan, who denies him expression, and therefore interiority, in her narrative)—even Susan admits that Friday's lack of voice in her story is a way to keep him bound to her orders, just as "it was a slaver's stratagem to rob Friday of his tongue." Friday's silence in Susan's tale thus exemplifies the way that historically, white authors have obscured the violent truth of slavery, an erasure that allowed enslavement to persist for centuries beyond Robinson Crusoe's publication. - Theme: Embellishment vs. Deception. Description: When Susan Barton, the narrator of J. M. Coetzee's novel Foe, tries to tell the story of her time on Robinson Cruso's island, she struggles to make the story interesting: after all, so much of her time there was monotonous, spent braving the elements in silence with Cruso and his servant Friday. So in an effort to entice her audience, Susan begins to embellish, comparing herself to a painter "selecting and composing and rendering particulars in order to body forth a pleasing fullness in his scene." When Susan first begins refining her narrative, she experiments with harmless modifications: condensing events so that there is less dull time in between or including more scandalous details from her own private life. But as she gets increasingly desperate for attention (and the material wealth and fame that it will bring), Susan also gets increasingly dishonest in her storytelling. She invents romantic and sexual feelings for Cruso in direct contrast to the disinterest in him she had earlier expressed, and she starts editing out any details about her life before the island that could be seen as shameful. Most frighteningly, when Susan's collaborator Mr. Foe suggests that adding some cannibalism could make the story more attention-grabbing, Susan begins to paint Friday as a cannibal, a lie that immediately makes Friday a subject of speculation and distaste in their London neighborhood. In Susan's journey from boring honesty to salacious fantasy, Foe reveals the difference between embellishment and deception—and shows that while honest narration might be less interesting, invention can create prejudice and enact harm. - Theme: Gender and Creation. Description: In Foe, J. M. Coetzee reimagines Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway and the lone female witness to Cruso's time on an abandoned island. When Susan returns to England in the early 1700s, she is desperate to have Mr. Foe—a famous London writer of adventure stories—write and publish Cruso's tale. But Foe is initially less interested in Cruso than he is in Susan's life before the island, which she spent searching for her kidnapped daughter in Bahia, Brazil. Susan is hesitant to share any details about her relationship with her daughter, but Foe is determined, even trying to convince Susan that a young girl she has never met before is her daughter—because he believes the story will be more satisfying if it ends with a reunion between mother and daughter. As Susan and Foe fight for creative control over Susan's story (and over the facts of Susan's family life), the gender norms of the era are confused and complicated. On the one hand, Susan insists that the young girl is not her daughter but is instead "father-born" by Mr. Foe, because she is a product of his scheming and imagination. On the other hand, Susan insists that she is the "father" of her story, while Mr. Foe is the mother; she "begets" it, but it is Mr. Foe's job to write it and (metaphorically) carry it to term. And while Susan remains financially and materially dependent on Mr. Foe, when the two begin a romantic relationship, Susan experiments with sexual dominance, explicitly equating her power in the bedroom with her power as a storyteller. In claiming creative control, Susan is therefore able to subvert the strict, misogynistic gender roles of her era, suggesting that artistic invention is a venue for women to seize agency denied to them in other realms of life. - Climax: Against Susan Barton's wishes to be the sole narrator of her time as a castaway, Mr. Foe tries to teach Susan's servant Friday to write. - Summary: It's the early 1700s, and Susan Barton, an Englishwoman, has just been stranded on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. Though she at first believes the island to be deserted, Susan quickly encounters an older white man named Cruso and his Black servant, Friday, the sole survivors of a long-ago shipwreck. Susan laments her bad fortune to an unnamed reader: after two years spent in Bahia, Brazil, trying to find her kidnapped daughter, she had at last booked passage on a ship back to Europe—only to have the ship's crew mutiny, killing the captain and casting her onto this island. Though Cruso and Friday have built a sturdy encampment, Susan has trouble adjusting to life on the island. Cruso is gruff and rarely speaks, and Friday never talks at all; to Susan's horror, she learns that he has had his tongue cut out under mysterious circumstances. Worst of all, the days are monotonous: the wind won't stop howling, and all Cruso and Friday ever do is build terraces on the island, even though they have no crops to plant on the terraces. After about a year, Cruso becomes deathly ill, getting feverish and delusional. For 12 days, Susan tends to Cruso while Friday distances himself, playing his flute non-stop. As Cruso's fever breaks, he and Susan have a single sexual encounter, which Susan engages in more out of pity than desire. While Cruso struggles to shake his illness, a passing British ship discovers the islanders. Susan is elated and jumps on board, but Friday is more hesitant (and Cruso, still not in his right mind, does not even realize they are being rescued). Susan takes the name Mrs. Cruso to avoid a scandal—but Cruso dies before the ship can arrive in England. Upon her arrival, Susan presents her castaway narrative to an author named Mr. Foe. In a series of letters, Susan asks Foe, a celebrated storyteller, for money to support herself and Friday; she has given Foe permission to turn her story into a book, which she hopes will bring fame and riches to them all. In her letters, Susan struggles to cope with Friday's silence, reflecting on the importance of storytelling and communication. She addresses Mr. Foe's questions about the island; he is particularly curious about whether or not Friday ever engaged in cannibalism, though Susan assures him no such thing happened. Susan stops hearing back from Mr. Foe, and she becomes increasingly anxious about how she will support herself and Friday. When she goes to Foe's house, she sees that two bailiffs have taken up residence, waiting to arrest Mr. Foe. Susan tries to learn about Foe's whereabouts from his maid Mrs. Thrush, but she is unsuccessful. April becomes May, and still there is no word from Mr. Foe. Eventually, Susan and Friday move into Foe's abandoned home, which soothes Susan spirits. In her letters, which are no longer dated, Susan muses that her life in England is just as boring and unchanging as her life on the island was. With little else to think about, Susan begins to enjoy being able to order Friday around so easily—his silence makes him submissive. A young girl has started silently watching Mr. Foe's house all day. At first, Susan assumes the girl is a messenger from either the bailiffs or Foe himself, but this proves not to be the case. To Susan's shock, the girl claims her name is also Susan Barton—she says she is Susan's long-lost daughter from Bahia. Susan is adamant that the girl is not her daughter, since she could never fail to recognize her daughter. Nevertheless, the young girl continues to insist that Susan is her mother, inventing a whole family backstory that has nothing in common with Susan's real life. Susan decides that Mr. Foe, wanting to add tension and resolution to her narrative, is responsible for this familial confusion, and she declares the girl "father-born." Susan begins to despair, tiring of her silent companion and her endless routines. Fearing that Mr. Foe is dead, Susan wonders if she can write her story herself. But now she begins to understand why Mr. Foe was so desperate for some form of invented excitement in the tale: there is so little to write about. To enliven her narrative, Susan pays new attention to the island's "mysteries"—Cruso's obsession with the terraces and the backstory of how Friday lost his tongue. Susan also recalls a long-ago morning when Friday paddled out onto the ocean and scattered petals near where his ship had been wrecked. Back in the house, Friday has started wearing Foe's robes and wigs and dancing wildly. In her letters to Foe, Susan starts to wonder if Friday really was a cannibal, and she even pictures him eating human flesh. One day, she finds a case of recorders, and she and Friday play music together—the same six-note song Friday played during Cruso's fever. But soon enough, Susan finds the song repetitive, and she tires even of that. More time passes, and Susan and Friday embark on a journey to Bristol. The journey is difficult: two traveling soldiers almost assault Susan, and no innkeeper will take them in because of their bedraggled appearance. Along the way, Susan sees a dead baby, and she thinks that Friday might want to eat the baby—or even devour Susan alive. When the pair arrives in Bristol, Susan tries to put Friday on a ship back to Africa (though she has no clue where he is actually from). But she sees that all the captains who offer to take Friday will sell him back into slavery, and so, dejected, she and Friday return to London. At long last, Susan and Friday reunite with Mr. Foe at his new London lodgings. Foe is working on the book, but he wants the focus to be on Susan's daughter and her time in Bahia. Susan refuses, even when Mr. Foe brings the young girl to his home, attempting once more to convince Susan that this is her daughter. Susan and Foe argue about who gets to pick and choose what goes in the book, and Susan realizes that "he has the last word who disposes over the greatest force." One night, Susan and Foe have sex, and it reminds Susan of her encounter with Cruso. Foe points out that the ship Cruso and Friday were on was almost certainly a slave ship— and that Cruso was likely a slaver. He says Friday was probably spreading petals on the water to honor the enslaved men and women lost to the shipwreck. Moreover, Foe sees Susan's unwillingness to understand Friday's perspective as "a slaver's stratagem," and he demands that she teach Friday how to write. Susan quickly grows frustrated, but Foe insists that Susan must teach Friday a new letter every day, and he gives Friday some of his own writing papers. Suddenly, Susan's linear narrative breaks down, and the story begins to flash back and forth between Daniel Defoe's house and the underwater skeleton of Cruso's ship. An unnamed narrator—is it Susan?—swims into the shipwreck, where she sees Friday sitting. The unnamed narrator notices that there is a scar around Friday's neck. The narrator forces Friday's mouth open, and a slow stream comes from his lips. "Soft and cold, dark and unending," the narrator reflects, "it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face."

- Genre: Gothic novel - Title: Frankenstein - Point of view: Frankenstein is told through a few layers of first person narratives. Walton is the primary narrator, who then recounts Victor's first-person narrative. In addition, Victor's narrative contains the monster's first person story as well as letters from other characters. - Setting: Switzerland, France, England, Scotland, and the North Pole in the 18th century - Character: Victor Frankenstein. Description: The oldest son in the Frankenstein family, the eventual husband of Elizabeth Lavenza, and the novel's protagonist and narrator of most of the story (he tells his story to Robert Walton, who relates it to the reader). From childhood, Victor has a thirst for knowledge and powerful ambition. These two traits lead him to study biology at university in Ingolstadt, where he eventually discovers the "secret of life" and then uses that knowledge to create his own living being. But Frankenstein is also prejudiced, and cannot stand his creation's ugliness. He thinks it a monster though in fact it's kind and loving. Victor's abandonment of his "monster" creates a cycle of guilt, anger, and destruction, in which first the monster takes vengeance upon Victor, and then Victor swears vengeance on the monster. In the end, Victor resembles the monster he hates far more than he would care to imagine. - Character: The Monster. Description: The hideous-looking creature that Victor Frankenstein creates (though the name "Frankenstein" has become associated with the monster, the monster is, in fact, nameless). Though the monster is originally kind and sensitive and wants nothing more than to be loved and accepted, it is surrounded by people who judge it as evil because of its terrible appearance. The monster is isolated and demonized by human society, and soon becomes embittered and enraged at his treatment. Eventually, the monster becomes a killer, not from a criminal thirst to hurt, but from a desire for revenge against Victor and all of humanity for rejecting him. - Character: Robert Walton. Description: An explorer who rescues Victor from the ice, hears his harrowing story, and sets it down on paper in letters to his sister, Margaret Saville. Walton's quest for knowledge in the North Pole parallels Victor's search for education and enlightenment at Ingolstadt. Because he parallels Victor in this way, Robert Walton is a "double" of Victor, whose actions, by mirroring or contrasting Victor's own, serve to highlight Victor's character and various themes in Frankenstein. - Character: Elizabeth Lavenza. Description: Victor's sister by adoption, and later his wife. Elizabeth is a stunningly beautiful and remarkably pure girl whom Victor's mother adopts. All the Frankensteins adore Elizabeth, and Victor quickly begins to "protect, love, and cherish" her. Eventually Victor and Elizabeth marry. Through all of it, Elizabeth remains gorgeous, pure, and passive. NOTE: In the first edition (1818) of Frankenstein, Elizabeth is Alphonse's niece and, therefore, Victor's cousin. In the revised 1831 edition, the Frankensteins adopt Elizabeth, as described above. - Character: De Lacey. Description: A blind old man who lives in exile with his children Felix and Agatha in a cottage and a forest. As a blind man, De Lacey can't perceive the monster's wretched appearance and therefore does not recoil in horror at his presence. He represents the goodness of human nature in the absence of prejudice. - Theme: Family, Society, Isolation. Description: In its preface, Frankenstein claims to be a novel that gives a flattering depiction of "domestic affection." That seems a strange claim in a novel full of murder, tragedy, and despair. But, in fact, all that tragedy, murder, and despair occur because of a lack of connection to either family or society. Put another way, the true evil in Frankenstein is not Victor or the monster, but isolation. When Victor becomes lost in his studies he removes himself from human society, and therefore loses sight of his responsibilities and the consequences of his actions. The monster turns vengeful not because it's evil, but because its isolation fills it with overwhelming hate and anger. And what is the monster's vengeance? To make Victor as isolated as it. Add it all up, and it becomes clear that Frankenstein sees isolation from family and society as the worst imaginable fate, and the cause of hatred, violence, and revenge. - Theme: Ambition and Fallibility. Description: Through Victor and Walton, Frankenstein portrays human beings as deeply ambitious, and yet also deeply flawed. Both Victor and Walton dream of transforming society and bringing glory to themselves through their scientific achievements. Yet their ambitions also make them fallible. Blinded by dreams of glory, they fail to consider the consequences of their actions. So while Victor turns himself into a god, a creator, by bringing his monster to life, this only highlights his fallibility when he is completely incapable of fulfilling the responsibilities that a creator has to its creation. Victor thinks he will be like a god, but ends up the father of a devil. Walton, at least, turns back from his quest to the North Pole before getting himself and his crew killed, but he does so with the angry conclusion that he has been robbed of glory. Neither Victor nor Walton ever escapes from their blinding ambitions, suggesting that all men, and particularly those who seek to raise themselves up in glory above the rest of society, are in fact rash and "unfashioned creatures" with "weak and faulty natures." - Theme: Romanticism and Nature. Description: Romantic writers portrayed nature as the greatest and most perfect force in the universe. They used words like "sublime" (as Mary Shelley herself does in describing Mont Blanc in Frankenstein) to convey the unfathomable power and flawlessness of the natural world. In contrast, Victor describes people as "half made up." The implication is clear: human beings, weighed down by petty concerns and countless flaws such as vanity and prejudice, pale in comparison to nature's perfection. It should come as no surprise, then, that crises and suffering result when, in Frankenstein, imperfect men disturb nature's perfection. Victor in his pride attempts to discover the "mysteries of creation," to "pioneer a new way" by penetrating the "citadel of nature." But just as a wave will take down even the strongest swimmer, nature prevails in the end and Victor is destroyed for his misguided attempt to manipulate its power. - Theme: Revenge. Description: The monster begins its life with a warm, open heart. But after it is abandoned and mistreated first by Victor and then by the De Lacey family, the monster turns to revenge. The monster's actions are understandable: it has been hurt by the unfair rejection of a humanity that cannot see past its own prejudices, and in turn wants to hurt those who hurt it. As the monster says when Felix attacks it and flees with the rest of the De Lacey family, "...feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom...[and] I bent my mind towards injury and death." But in taking revenge, two things happen to the monster. First, it ensures that it will never be accepted in human society. Second, because by taking revenge the monster eliminates any hope of ever joining human society, which is what it really wants, revenge becomes the only thing it has. As the monster puts it, revenge became "dearer than light or food." Revenge does not just consume the monster, however. It also consumes Victor, the victim of the monster's revenge. After the monster murders Victor's relatives, Victor vows a "great and signal revenge on [the monster's] cursed head." In a sense then, the very human desire for revenge transforms both Victor and the monster into true monsters that have no feelings or desires beyond destroying their foe. - Theme: Prejudice. Description: Frankenstein explores one of mankind's most persistent and destructive flaws: prejudice. Nearly every human character in the novel assumes that the monster must be dangerous based on its outward appearance, when in truth the monster is (originally) warm and open-hearted. Again and again the monster finds himself assaulted and rejected by entire villages and families despite his attempts to convey his benevolent intentions. The violence and prejudice he encounters convinces him of the "barbarity of man." That the only character who accepts the monster is a blind man, De Lacy, suggests that the monster is right: mankind is barbaric, and blinded by its own prejudice. - Theme: Lost Innocence. Description: Frankenstein presents many examples of the corruption of youthful innocence. The most obvious case of lost innocence involves Victor. A young man on the cusp of adulthood, Victor leaves for university with high hopes and lofty ambitions. He aims to explore "unknown powers" and enlighten all of humanity to the deepest "mysteries of creation," but his success and his pride brings an end to his innocence. He creates a monster that reflects back to him the many flaws inherent in his own species (an unquenchable thirst for love, a tendency toward violence, and a bloodthirsty need for justice and revenge) and in himself (prejudice based on appearance). And, in turn, Victor's cruel "un-innocent" behavior also destroys the monster's innocence. Victor and the monster's losses of innocence ultimately lead to the deaths of William, Justine, Elizabeth, and Clerval, four characters whom the novel portrays as uniquely gentle, kind, and, above all, innocent. Through these murders, Shelley suggests that innocence is fleeting, and will always be either lost or destroyed by the harsh reality of human nature. - Climax: The Monster's murder of Elizabeth Lavenza on her wedding night to Victor - Summary: Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, writes a letter to his sister, Margaret Saville, in which he says that his crew members recently discovered a man adrift at sea. The man, Victor Frankenstein, offered to tell Walton his story. Frankenstein has a perfect childhood in Switzerland, with a loving family that even adopted orphans in need, including the beautiful Elizabeth, who soon becomes Victor's closest friend, confidante, and love. Victor also has a caring and wonderful best friend, Henry Clerval. Just before Victor turns seventeen and goes to study at the University at Ingolstadt, his mother dies of scarlet fever. At Ingolstadt, Victor dives into "natural philosophy" with a passion, studying the secrets of life with such zeal that he even loses touch with his family. He soon rises to the top of his field, and suddenly, one night, discovers the secret of life. With visions of creating a new and noble race, Victor puts his knowledge to work. But when he animates his first creature, its appearance is so horrifying he abandons it. Victor hopes the monster has disappeared for ever, but some months later he receives word that his youngest brother, William, has been murdered. Though Victor sees the monster lingering at the site of the murder and is sure it did the deed, he fears no one will believe him and keeps silent. Justine Moritz, another adoptee in his family, has been falsely accused based of the crime. She is convicted and executed. Victor is consumed by guilt. To escape its tragedy, the Frankensteins go on vacation. Victor often hikes in the mountains, hoping to alleviate his suffering with the beauty of nature. One day the monster appears, and despite Victor's curses begs him incredibly eloquently to listen to its story. The monster describes his wretched life, full of suffering and rejection solely because of his horrifying appearance. (The monster also explains how he learned to read and speak so well.) The monster blames his rage on humanity's inability to perceive his inner goodness and his resulting total isolation. It demands that Victor, its creator who brought it into this wretched life, create a female monster to give it the love that no human ever will. Victor refuses at first, but then agrees. Back in Geneva, Victor's father expresses his wish that Victor marry Elizabeth. Victor says he first must travel to England. On the way to England, Victor meets up with Clerval. Soon, though, Victor leaves Clerval at the house of a friend in Scotland and moves to a remote island to make his second, female, monster. But one night Victor begins to worry that the female monster might turn out more destructive than the first. At the same moment, Victor sees the first monster watching him work through a window. The horrifying sight pushes Victor to destroy the female monster. The monster vows revenge, warning Victor that it will "be with him on [his] wedding night." Victor takes the remains of the female monster and dumps them in the ocean. But when he returns to shore, he is accused of a murder that was committed that same night. When Victor discovers that the victim is Clerval, he collapses and remains delusional for two months. When he wakes his father has arrived, and he is cleared of the criminal charges against him. Victor returns with his father to Geneva, and marries Elizabeth. But on his wedding night, the monster instead kills Elizabeth. Victor's father dies of grief soon thereafter. Now, all alone in the world, Victor dedicates himself solely to seeking revenge against the monster. He tracks the monster to the Arctic, but becomes trapped on breaking ice and is rescued by Walton's crew. Walton writes another series of letters to his sister. He tells her about his failure to reach the North Pole and to restore Victor, who died soon after his rescue. Walton's final letter describes his discovery of the monster grieving over Victor's corpse. He accuses the monster of having no remorse, but the monster says it has suffered more than anyone. With Victor dead, the monster has its revenge and plans to end its own life.

- Genre: Children's Fiction - Title: Frindle - Point of view: Third person omniscient - Setting: Westfield, New Hampshire - Character: Nick Allen. Description: Nick is the ten-year-old protagonist of the novel. He's known for his big ideas, which he often deploys to annoy his teachers and undermine their power. Fifth grade, however, presents new challenges for Nick, as Mrs. Granger knows all of his tricks to evade homework and stall class, like asking open-ended questions about what words mean. Nick takes seriously Mrs. Granger's resulting assignment to research the history of the dictionary and turns it around on her—his presentation on the dictionary lasts almost the entire length of the class. When Mrs. Granger explains that all English speakers create the language and decide what words mean, Nick decides to test this by renaming pens "frindles." Within a few days, "frindle" catches on at school and Nick manages to "ruin" the fifth grade class photo by convincing every kid in his class to say "frindle" and hold out a pen. When Mrs. Granger tries to get Nick to stop, he feigns innocence and insists he's just putting her lessons into action. He takes a similar stance when Mrs. Chatham, the principal, comes to talk to his parents about the "frindle" business at school. Nick soon finds that fame comes with a great deal of responsibility. He becomes quiet and withdrawn as people expect him to be witty and funny all the time, and Nick starts to fear his big ideas and drawing attention to himself. It's not until Mrs. Granger assures Nick that he did nothing wrong and compliments his ideas that he regains his confidence. Ten years later, "frindle" enters the dictionary, and Nick gets access to the secret account Mr. Allen set up for the royalty money. Nick generously chooses to set up a scholarship fund in Mrs. Granger's name, using his fame to meaningfully help others. - Character: Mrs. Granger. Description: Mrs. Granger, Nick's teacher, is the only fifth grade language arts teacher at Lincoln Elementary. She's a small older woman who only wears skirt suits, and she can "turn on" her eyes in such a way as to make students shrink. Mrs. Granger is known for assigning lots of homework and requires all her students to have a copy of her preferred dictionary so they can properly complete their homework. Rather than play along and allow Nick to sidetrack her, Mrs. Granger assigns Nick more homework so he can answer his questions about the dictionary for himself. This begins a battle of wills between the two as Nick tries to distract Mrs. Granger. However, Mrs. Granger only takes offense to the fact that Nick is trying to disrupt class; she's happy to talk about the dictionary, how words make it into the dictionary, and the rules governing the English language and how it changes. When Nick comes up with the idea to rename pens "frindles," Mrs. Granger is at first annoyed and angry. She reprimands Nick several times and keeps as many as 200 students for detention as punishment for using "frindle" instead of "pen." After a few weeks, Mrs. Granger writes Nick a letter that she promises to give to him after their battle concludes. At the end of the year, she compliments Nick on how he handled things and encourages him to continue coming up with big ideas and putting them into action. Ten years later, she sends Nick a copy of the first dictionary to include "frindle" and the letter she wrote. In it, she admits that she chose to play the villain so that Nick would keep fighting, and she says that Nick's invention is proof of how language grows and changes over time. - Character: Bud Lawrence. Description: A local businessman in Westfield. At the age of 19, Bud began buying fast-food restaurants in Westfield and before long became the richest man in town. He's always on the lookout for a new investment, and when he reads the "frindle" article in the paper, he knows it'll be a big money-maker. Bud promptly begins printing "frindle" on pens and selling them, and when CBS airs the "frindle" story on national news, he begins getting orders for shirts and other merchandise. However, when Bud's lawyer points out that they need to buy the rights to use "frindle" from the Allen family, Bud truly shows that he's a shrewd businessman. When he recognizes that the overwhelmed Mr. Allen just wants to make all the attention stop, Bud offers him a deal that will give Nick 30 percent of royalties and make it so the Allen family doesn't have to actively manage anything. - Character: Janet Fisk. Description: One of Nick's classmates. She lives in Nick's neighborhood and, like most of their classmates, thinks that Nick's schemes are amusing. Because of this, she doesn't hold it against him when Mrs. Avery wrongfully accuses her of making the bird noises that Nick is actually responsible for—and she thinks it's so funny, she joins Nick in tormenting their teacher. In fifth grade, Janet helps Nick come up with the idea to rename pens "frindles" when she finds a pen on their walk home one afternoon. She is one of the first of Nick's classmates who embraces the term, emphasizing the power of teamwork. - Character: Mrs. Chatham. Description: The principal of Lincoln Elementary School. She's a tall and broad woman whom Nick notes is as tall as his father, Mr. Allen. Mrs. Chatham only becomes involved in the "frindle" business when she's forced to stay after school one day and help Mrs. Granger manage the 200 students who earned detention by saying the word "frindle." Mrs. Chatham believes that the students are revolting and refusing to respect authority by using their new word instead of "pen," and more than anything, she's afraid that she and Mrs. Granger will lose their jobs and the school's tax money for letting the story get out. When Nick begins to think of the fight as a chess game, he refers to Mrs. Chatham as Mrs. Granger's queen. - Character: Mrs. Allen. Description: Nick's mother. It's implied that Mrs. Allen is the parent truly responsible for the "homework first" rule, which states that Nick and James must complete their homework before they can play. When Mrs. Chatham visits the Allen family to talk about "frindle" and to try to put a stop to the word, Mrs. Allen is annoyed. She thinks that "frindle" is just a harmless, childlike experiment in language and refuses to force Nick to stop. Mrs. Allen does want to make sure that Nick is being respectful, however. - Character: Mr. Allen. Description: Nick's dad. He owns a hardware store in Westfield, and though he's proud of Nick for inventing a new word, he also wants the madness and attention to stop. Because of this, Mr. Allen is willing to go along with Mrs. Chatham's insistence that Nick needs to stop (he only takes this back when Mrs. Allen makes him) and he's very happy to let local businessman Bud Lawrence handle all of the money—and keep 70 percent of the royalties—from frindle-branded merchandise. With the money, he sets up a secret savings trust for Nick to gain access of when he turns 21. - Character: Judy Morgan. Description: A reporter for The Westfield Gazette. She's intrigued when she hears about a revolt going on at Lincoln Elementary and conducts interviews with Mrs. Chatham, Mrs. Granger, and a group of students. Judy is very good at reading people; she perceptively recognizes that while Mrs. Chatham says it's all a silly prank, she's actually very annoyed and upset by all the attention. Though everything Judy writes in her article is true, her writing style is dramatic and sends the entire town into an uproar. - Character: Mrs. Avery. Description: Nick's fourth-grade teacher; he thought she looked like a hawk. Because of this, when Nick learned that some small birds can create high-pitched sounds that confuse birds of prey, he began making those noises during class. Mrs. Avery never figured out who made the noises, though she did wrongfully accuse Janet Fisk at one point. The narrator notes that Mrs. Avery simply learned to tune out the noise. - Character: Miss Deaver. Description: Nick's third grade teacher. She was a first-year teacher when she had Nick as a student, which made her particularly naïve and susceptible to his tricks: over the course of a week, he orchestrated the transformation of the classroom into a tropical paradise. She thought it was wonderful and praised him for his creativity until the administration put a stop to it and scolded her for losing control of her students. - Theme: Language. Description: Frindle tells the story of fifth grader Nick Allen, who is described as a boy who isn't a bad kid by any means, just one who has lots of ideas and enjoys putting them to work in ways that annoy his teachers. This leads Nick to begin a contest of wills with his dictionary-loving language arts teacher Mrs. Granger by deciding that pens should be known as "frindles," something that the entire school and eventually, the entire United States gets behind—everyone, that is, except for Mrs. Granger. As Nick and Mrs. Granger conduct their battle over the word, they both learn a very important lesson about language and the way that language functions, evolves, and exists in the public mind: essentially, language is a living thing that's constantly being shaped by the people who use it, not something static and unchanging. Within the first few days of school, Mrs. Granger makes a point to impress upon her students that language is something created by people for their use, not something arbitrary. When Nick asks why words mean what they do, Mrs. Granger explains that words possess particular meanings and connotations because people collectively decide over time that they should meaningfully signal those things. Mrs. Granger's explanation situates language first as something logical. To illustrate the logical nature of language, Mrs. Granger later describes the etymology of the word "pen," noting that it comes from the Latin word for "feather," because feathers were used to make quills, which was the primary writing instrument in ancient times. Though the etymology of the word "pen" does force Mrs. Granger to admit that language changes over time, she also makes the case that language changes slowly and that words aren't real, per se, until they make it into the dictionary, and in doing so become part of the official law of language. With this disclaimer, she attempts to show Nick that language does have rules—and important ones at that—even if those rules can technically be changed. The success of the word "frindle," and Mrs. Granger's reticence to embrace the word, shows that she sees changes to the English language as something that happens only in the past, rather than accepting that language continues to change even in the present. It only takes Nick a few weeks to come up with the idea to rename pens frindles, convince his class and then his school to use the word, and attract the attention of national media outlets that spread the word even further afield. Further, as "frindle" becomes more and more accepted, both Mrs. Granger and Nick eventually realize that the future of the world—and indeed, the trajectory of language as a whole—isn't something that they can control. Though it's easy to read Nick's insistences that he can't stop others from using the word as cheekiness calculated to annoy Mrs. Granger, he's also not wrong. "Frindle" takes on a life of its own, and there's nothing Nick or Mr. Granger can do to effectively help or hinder its spread once this happens. While the initial boom in popularity happens practically overnight, it still takes "frindle" ten years to make it into the dictionary and become an official, widely accepted word to refer to pens. Despite it taking so long, "frindle's" induction into the dictionary reinforces that language is everchanging —and will continue to adapt and grow as people come up with new ways to communicate with each other. - Theme: Power, Hierarchy, and Rules. Description: Though Nick insists he never meant to incite a war with his fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Granger, by renaming pens "frindles"—a name that sweeps the school, city, and then entire nation—this is exactly what he ends up doing. As the battle progresses, and as Nick emerges as the leader of the winning side, the novel interrogates the power structures that make Nick's win unlikely in the first place and that, ultimately are in place to discourage him and other likeminded students from challenging the hierarchy and rules of a conventional school setting. It's important to note that as a successful troublemaker, Nick begins the novel with a nuanced grasp of the power structure that organizes his school. He recognizes that the principal, Mrs. Chatham, is the most powerful individual at Lincoln Elementary, followed by the teachers (with experienced and notorious teachers like Mrs. Granger at the top of an associated but separate hierarchy) and finally, by the students themselves. Nick is able to pull off his pranks by manipulating this system and using it to his advantage. When he convinces Miss Deaver to turn their third grade classroom into a tropical paradise, he uses her status as an inexperienced first-year teacher to his advantage by preying on her gullibility and sense of wonder at the "creativity" of her students. Because of this, she is the one who gets in trouble with the principal for neglecting lesson plans and tracking sand all over the school, as it was her responsibility to control and teach her students. It's implied that Nick, on the other hand, gets away with his mischief—Miss Deaver should never have condoned his so-called creativity after all. Nick is also known for his ability to distract teachers at the end of class so they won't have the time to assign homework, a method that hinges on the engrained power structures of the school. Nick plays to his teachers' sense of superiority over their students and their joy (and perhaps pride) in having a captive audience to encourage them to talk about themselves or something else important to them. In other words, Nick is able to stroke his teachers' egos and make them feel important, while actually depriving them of their control over their classrooms. Nick's trickery almost always works, suggesting that while teachers may be sources of power and discipline, their power isn't absolute. It's not difficult for a bright, charismatic student to turn that power around and create a situation in which students can enjoy a higher status than the school ever intended them to. When Nick starts in on the "frindle" war with Mrs. Granger, two things initially stand in his way: first, Mrs. Granger is well aware of Nick's diversion tactics, and second, she casts herself not as a symbol of power, but as a mere enforcer of a power system set out by the education system and the dictionary respectively. By positioning herself in this way, Mrs. Granger acts as Nick's adversary, but not in a direct way. She uses her status as a teacher to punish students for using "frindle," but she also insists she's not engaging in this fight to simply suppress the antics of a naughty student. Rather, she wants to make Nick understand the importance of respecting established systems of power, like the dictionary and the formal education system. Mrs. Granger's letter to Nick—a letter she writes a few weeks into the war but doesn't send to him until "frindle" makes it into the dictionary ten years later—reveals that Mrs. Granger actually supported Nick's new word all along, but chose to continue in her role as Nick's adversary. She did this to ensure that he and other "frindle" proponents had someone to fight against, something she believes was necessary to preserve the momentum and eventually land "frindle" in the dictionary. With this, Mrs. Granger impresses upon Nick that while systems of power have their place, part of respecting those systems actually includes interrogating them, challenging them, and in some cases, changing them. This is why she writes that she asks her students to look up "frindle" on the first day of school—its inclusion in the dictionary shows that it's possible to change the rules, and that doing so isn't a bad thing at all. - Theme: Responsibility and Fame. Description: As the word "frindle" captures the imaginations of Nick's classmates and eventually, the imaginations of others across the nation, Nick finds himself thrust suddenly into the limelight. He finds the attention exciting at first, though it soon becomes difficult to manage the responsibility of having created an entirely new word. As Nick navigates the difficult landscape of being briefly famous, he's forced to decide what he should do with his fame. Ultimately, Nick's decisions suggest that being famous comes with a great deal of responsibility to give back and support one's community so that they too have access to the opportunities that allowed Nick to become famous in the first place. Though Nick is at first only a local hero among a few of his classmates for standing up to their fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Granger, in the space of a few weeks, Nick is suddenly giving interviews, appearing on television, and unbeknownst to him, earning money for his invention. The narrator notes that Nick has always enjoyed his status as a charismatic troublemaker and he's always gotten attention for it, but the amount of attention he earns for coining "frindle" as the new term for "pen" is something entirely new—and not something he finds easy to deal with. Nick discovers that because of his fame, people expect him to be witty and pushing the envelope all the time, something he finds unsustainable in the long run. This leads Nick to withdraw, become very quiet, and realize that fame comes with consequences. He recognizes, in other words, that his fame flattens him in the eyes of others into someone who is only a witty and charming troublemaker, not a complex individual. This realization that fame can have negative consequences makes Nick question some of the other ideas that he has, most notably his hunch that if he and all his classmates boycott the horrible cafeteria food, they'll be able to negotiate for more appetizing school lunches. Rather than see this as something doable and simple as he once might have, after his experiences promoting "frindle," Nick fears that he'll be punished or accused of stirring up trouble if he were to speak up about the cafeteria food and attract attention once again. This suggests that Nick recognizes that his actions have consequences, and that he needs to accept this if he wishes to organize and push back on established systems of power. However, when Mrs. Granger notices that Nick has become quiet and withdrawn, she counsels him to not let the discomfort he experienced as a result of his fame stop him from coming up with ideas and putting them out there. Essentially, she encourages him to accept the responsibility of his fame and use it for good, rather than letting it hobble him. Unbeknownst to Nick, his fame affects his family as well, first in a negative way and later, in a positive one. Nick's dad is completely overwhelmed by his son's sudden and widespread fame, so when the local businessman Bud Lawrence approaches him about buying the rights to "frindle" from Nick, Mr. Allen makes the problem go away as quickly as he can. Mr. Allen sets up a savings trust for Nick and arranges for Bud Lawrence's royalty payments to route directly to the account, rather than go through the family or require constant attention. It's important to note that the fact that Nick earns money from his invented word at all makes it clear that fame can be more than a burden—the account is set up so that, in the future, Nick will be able to reap the rewards of his fame, even if his father is bewildered by it all at first. When Nick turns 21 and assumes control of the account, however, his uses for the money demonstrate that he recognizes the importance of helping others learn the lessons that, eventually, led to his success. In addition to generously giving money to his family members, Nick sets up a million-dollar scholarship fund in Mrs. Granger's name. In doing so, Nick reinforces the novel's assertions that changing language is a communal effort and should therefore benefit the community, suggesting that fame is best when put to use to enact positive change and to meaningfully help others. - Theme: Leadership and Teamwork. Description: When Nick embarks on his quest to turn the made-up word "frindle" (meaning "pen") into a term accepted by the masses, he recognizes immediately that he cannot change the English language on his own. In making it clear that Nick is a leader but is, more than anything, a team player, Frindle focuses on the value of collective action and suggests that working together towards a common goal is one of the best and most successful ways to enact change. Even prior to the fifth grade, Nick discovers that his pranks are far more successful when he's able to bring in others to help him. For instance, he skillfully ropes his entire third grade class into making Miss Deaver's room a tropical island, and Janet Fisk is more than willing to help Nick torment Mrs. Avery with high-pitched bird noises in fourth grade. When it comes to making "frindle" take hold, Nick skillfully uses his charisma to gradually bring in supporters. He begins with a group of six students who all take an oath to only use "frindle" instead of "pen," and eventually expands this to the entire fifth grade class of 150 students. Because the students act collectively, Mrs. Granger's attempts to punish them morph into status symbols or rites of passage rather than remain true punishments. In this way, the students come to think of serving detention with her as a "badge of honor"—rather than signifying that a student misbehaved, serving detention instead connotes that a student is part of a larger movement. In other words, acting together offers Nick's classmates a way to find solidarity and support each other as they fight for their right to use "frindle" rather than "pen." This suggests that one of the major upsides of working as a team is this sense of camaraderie—which is strong enough to turn something intended to be a punishment into something positive. Nick and his classmates also find that there's safety and power in numbers. Eventually, parents and even the school administrators become annoyed that Mrs. Granger is keeping hundreds of children after school in detention. Soon she's forced to stop giving detention for the use of "frindle" at all, a turn of events that only happened because enough people got upset. One of the reasons that this prank in particular requires teamwork is because in order to change a word, buy-in from others is necessary. Simply deciding to call pens "frindles" as a solo act wouldn't have done much of anything, as language is something that connects people to each other and is predicated on a shared understanding of what words mean. Nick would've simply been unintelligible to everyone else had he not drawn in others to help him spread the word. This reinforces the communal aspect of language itself, as well as reinforces Nick's understanding of how teamwork and unity can bring about change. Notably, Nick takes what he learns about the power of community and applies it to other causes in the future. The narrator says that there are many things that Nick was able to change during his time as a student, but it offers only his successful bid to improve Westfield's cafeteria food as an example of what can be achieved through collective action. Though Frindle doesn't take the idea any further than that, it's worth noting that Nick is learning a valuable lesson that will continue to benefit him even as he enters adulthood. Teamwork, collective action, and unified protest have brought about all manner of changes throughout history, and have been essential elements of labor, suffrage, and civil rights movements worldwide. With this, Frindle becomes more than a lesson in language—Nick's organizing teaches young readers how to be active, engaged, and questioning citizens and makes it clear that when people work together towards a common goal, they'll be able to make real change in their communities. - Climax: The battle between Mrs. Granger and Nick ends with the inclusion of "frindle" in the dictionary - Summary: Nick Allen isn't a bad kid, but he does have lots of ideas and enjoys tormenting his teachers with them. In third grade, he convinced Miss Deaver to let the class turn the classroom into a tropical island. Then, in fourth grade, Nick learned that blackbirds make high-pitched noises to confuse birds of prey, and noticed that his teacher, Mrs. Avery, looked like a hawk. He and one of his classmates, Janet Fisk, made high-pitched bird noises all year long to annoy Mrs. Avery—and she never caught them. Entering fifth grade represents a turning point for Lincoln Elementary students. They no longer get recess, they get real letter grades, and they all get Mrs. Granger for language arts. Mrs. Granger has a reputation for being strict and assigning lots of homework, especially vocabulary homework. She also loves the dictionary. A few weeks before school begins, Nick's parents receive a letter from Mrs. Granger explaining that Nick needs to have access to a good dictionary for homework. Nick just groans. On the first day of school, Mrs. Granger starts things off with a vocabulary test. Right before the period ends, Nick decides to deploy the "teacher-stopper," a question designed to keep teachers from assigning homework. He asks Mrs. Granger where the words in the dictionaries come from. Rather than tell him, Mrs. Granger asks Nick to research it himself and present his findings to the class the next day. After school, Nick grudgingly does Mrs. Granger's vocabulary homework and then turns to his report. Nick looks up "dictionary" in both the adult and children's encyclopedias and then comes up with one of his big ideas. In Mrs. Granger's class the next day, Nick gives his presentation. Mrs. Granger loves it for the first eighteen minutes, but then she seems to understand that Nick is trying to drag his presentation out as long as possible. Finally, with ten minutes left in the period, she makes him stop. Nick doesn't stop there, however; he asks Mrs. Granger why words mean different things. Mrs. Granger explains that Nick and all other English speakers decide what words mean, and says that if everyone started to use a different word for something, it'd eventually end up in the dictionary. That afternoon, Nick and Janet walk home together. Janet finds a gold pen in the street, but Nick is lost in thought about what Mrs. Granger said about words and why they mean what they do. He remembers that when he was a toddler, his parents knew he wanted to listen to music when he said "gwagala." Nick is so absorbed that he bumps into Janet and sends her pen flying. He apologizes, and as he hands Janet the pen, he calls it a frindle. The next afternoon, he stops at a shop and asks the saleslady for a frindle. She doesn't understand what he wants until he points to a pen. However, after six days of having kids ask for "frindles," the lady knows what Janet wants when she asks for a frindle. Nick and his friends take an oath to only use "frindle" and never say "pen" again. The next day in Mrs. Granger's class, Nick and one of his friends make a show of Nick forgetting his frindle. The other kids laugh, but Mrs. Granger isn't amused. After class she asks Nick to not interrupt her with funny ideas. Nick looks innocent, insists he truly did forget his frindle, and promises to never forget his frindle again. Two days later, the school takes everyone's class photos. The fifth grade group photo is last. When the photographer asks the kids to say cheese, every child says "frindle!" and holds out a pen. Mrs. Granger is furious, but all the other kids at school think it's funny and start using "frindle." This leads Mrs. Granger to start giving kids detention for using "frindle," though detention with Mrs. Granger becomes a badge of honor rather than a punishment. After a week or so, Mrs. Granger declares that "frindle" has gone far enough, but Nick notes that he's just putting Mrs. Granger's lessons on language into practice in the real world. He's not swayed when Mrs. Granger points out that the word "pen" has a rich history that makes sense, but Mrs. Granger seems unsurprised by his reaction. She asks Nick to sign and date the back of an envelope containing a letter for him, which she promises to deliver when this whole thing is over. The next day, one of Nick's friends suggests that they get the entire class to individually ask Mrs. Granger for a frindle, reasoning that she can't keep everyone for detention. Mrs. Granger keeps 80 students that day and 200 the next. The principal, Mrs. Chatham, decides to visit Nick's parents to discuss the issue. Mrs. Chatham tells Mrs. and Mr. Allen her version of events, which is that the kids ruined the class photo and aren't respecting rules anymore. Mrs. Allen looks annoyed and states that the whole thing sounds like a gross overreaction to kids testing out a new word, but Mrs. Chatham says that they need to stop "frindle" for the same reason they need to keep children from using "ain't": standards. The adults are stumped when Nick points out that "ain't" is in the dictionary. Mrs. Allen repeats her point and soon, Mrs. Chatham leaves. Nick tells his parents that he never meant to be disrespectful and tells his dad that he can't make it stop—it's no longer just his word anymore. The next day, a reporter named Judy Morgan hears that there's a revolt going on at Lincoln Elementary. The secretary, Mrs. Freed, is immediately annoyed when Judy asks to speak to someone about the "frindle" business but shows her in to see Mrs. Chatham. Mrs. Chatham tells Judy that it's a silly prank and an overreaction, but Judy can tell that Mrs. Chatham doesn't want to actually talk about it. Judy then goes to speak to Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Granger seems convinced that "frindle" will fall out of fashion soon and shares that a boy named Nick Allen started the whole thing. As Judy heads out to the parking lot, she runs into a group of students who just finished serving detention with Mrs. Granger. They're all excited to be part of a movement, but tell Judy that Nick probably won't want to talk to her. The next day, Judy receives an envelope at work containing the fifth grade class picture. Someone wrote on the back which kid is Nick. On Thursday when The Westfield Gazette comes out, Judy's article about "frindle" is on the front page. The entire town is in an uproar. Kids in middle and high school start using the word, and Nick becomes a celebrity overnight. Bud Lawrence, a local businessman, begins selling pens with "frindle" printed on them and files a preliminary trademark on the word. A few days after the article comes out, Alice Lunderson, a CBS employee, reads Judy's article. It attracts the attention of the national CBS station in New York, and they give Alice permission to put together a piece for the evening news. Alice interviews Mrs. Granger, who insists that kids need to learn that language has rules, and then interviews the Allen family. Nick nervously explains that he was just testing out what he learned from Mrs. Granger and credits her for teaching him so much about words. After the segment airs, Nick is asked to give interviews on television and magazines. Bud Lawrence's sales pick up, though his lawyer explains to him that now that everyone in the country knows that Nick invented the word "frindle," they'll need to make a deal with the Allen family to use the word. When Bud asks Mr. Allen to come to his office to chat, he sees that getting the rights to the word will be easy: Mr. Allen is overwhelmed and wants all the attention to stop. Mr. Allen agrees to sign a contract giving Nick 30 percent of the profits from frindle-branded merchandise and accepts a check for 2,250 dollars, Nick's cut of proceeds from the first week. Mr. Allen sets up a secret savings trust for Nick. Bud deposits bigger and bigger checks into Nick's account and the city council votes to put a "frindle" sign up in town. Mrs. Granger continues to insist that kids use "pen," but they all refuse. Nick struggles to fully recover from his brush with fame. His ideas start to scare him a bit. When he learns about consumers, he thinks that he can use his new knowledge to get his classmates to boycott the cafeteria food until it improves, but he's too afraid of getting in trouble to tell anyone about it. He also thinks that Mrs. Granger forgot about the letter she wrote him. On the last day of school, he goes to ask her about it. She insists that the "frindle" thing isn't actually over yet, so he can't have the letter. She does tell him that she's actually proud of how he handled things and tells him to not be afraid of his big ideas. Mrs. Granger shakes Nick's hand and says she knows he'll do great things. This gives Nick the confidence to be proud of what he did. Two years later, he does convince students to boycott the cafeteria food, making Westfield's lunch program into the best in the state. Ten years later, Nick turns 21 and gets control of the "frindle" savings account. He gives money to his family and then tries to forget about it. He also receives a package from Mrs. Granger. The package contains a new edition of Webster's College Dictionary, which has an entry for "frindle." It also contains Mrs. Granger's letter. It says that she's actually excited about Nick's new word and that she's choosing to play the villain. She writes that she loves the dictionary because it remains relevant even as things change, and it too can change and adapt. Also in the box is Mrs. Granger's favorite pen, with a note saying "frindle" clipped to it. On Christmas morning, Mrs. Granger finds an official-looking envelope and a gift on her front porch. The envelope congratulates Mrs. Granger and explains that with a donation of one million dollars, a former student started a scholarship fund in her name. She thinks it must be a mistake, but turns to the gift. It contains a beautiful gold pen. The pen is engraved and says that Mrs. Granger can call the object whatever she wants. It's from Nick Allen.

- Genre: - Title: Fritz - Point of view: "Fritz" is recounted in the first person from the perspective of Jayanto's close friend, Shankar. - Setting: Bundi, Rajasthan, India - Character: Shankar. Description: Shankar is the story's narrator. He works as a teacher and is around 37 years old. Shankar has been planning a trip to Rajasthan with his childhood friend, Jayanto, for some time. Shankar agrees to visit Bundi with Jayanto but is puzzled by his friend's choice until Jayanto tells him he wants to see how modern Bundi compares to his childhood memories. A devoted friend, he spends a lot of time listening to Jayanto share memories from his childhood trips to Bundi, including the rather intriguing story of Fritz, a lifelike doll that Jayanto's uncle had gotten him from Switzerland. Shankar watches as his friend grows increasingly anxious throughout their trip and begins to worry that his memories are depressing him. One night, Jayanto wakes up terrified because he feels something walk across his chest. Shankar not only searches the room to find whatever it might have been, but he also tries to comfort his friend by telling him it was either a cat or a dream. The next day, while they are visiting the famous fort, Shankar sees that Jayanto is restless and agrees to go back to the circuit house with him even though he would rather stay at the fort. In the car, he asks Jayanto what is wrong, and Jayanto says he believes it was Fritz who had walked across his chest. Though Shankar finds this implausible, his concern for his friend motivates him to find a solution for his anxiety. He eventually convinces Jayanto to have the gardener dig up Fritz's burial spot, revealing a miniature human skeleton. - Character: Jayanto. Description: Jayanto is the story's protagonist. He works in the editorial department of a newspaper and is about 37 years old. Friends describe him as emotional. Jayanto has been planning a trip to Rajasthan with his childhood friend, Shankar, for some time. Though there are more popular destinations in the region, Jayanto convinces Shankar to go to Bundi. He admits on the train ride up that he had visited Bundi as a child and wants to see how it compares to his memories of it. After they arrive, Jayanto is anxious and withdrawn, and he tells Shankar that this trip is challenging his childhood perceptions of the place. Eventually, he tells Shankar the story of Fritz, a lifelike doll that one of his uncles had brought him from Switzerland. Jayanto had a lot of toys as a child but loved this doll the most. He would spend hours playing with it and talking to it and became so obsessed that his parents even warned him not to overdo it. When Shankar asks what happened to the doll, Jayanto tells him that he had brought it with him to Bundi and that it was destroyed by two stray dogs. That night, after telling the story, Jayanto is awakened by the sensation that something had walked across his chest. Though Shankar attempts to comfort him, he is barely able to sleep afterward. The next day he is obviously unwell, and he tells Shankar that he believes it was Fritz who had come in their room the night before. Jayanto concedes to Shankar's suggestion to dig up Fritz's burial spot, but when they do, instead of the doll they find a miniature human skeleton. - Theme: The Elusive Nature of Memory. Description: "Fritz" explores the elusive nature of memory. The two main characters, Shankar and Jayanto, are on a trip together in Bundi, Rajasthan. Out of many possible destinations in the region, they have chosen Bundi because Jayanto had visited it as a child and wants to see how it compares to his childhood memories. While they are there, Jayanto is able to recall more and more about his time there, and the act of remembering becomes the primary driver of the plot, propelling it toward its eerie conclusion. This remembering process particularly comes into focus around Fritz, a one-foot-long, incredibly lifelike figure of an old man that one of Jayanto's uncles had bought him in a small village in Switzerland. As a child, Jayanto had brought Fritz to Bundi, where it was destroyed by two stray dogs. This memory deeply haunts Jayanto, disturbing him to the point that he imagines Fritz coming (back) to life and walking across his chest while he sleeps. In an attempt to assuage Jayanto's fears and anxiety, Shankar arranges to dig up Fritz from his old burial spot. However, instead of the doll's remnants, they see a bare, doll-sized, human skeleton. As the story depicts it, then, memory is not simply the story one tells about the past, but rather serves as the past's entryway into the present. While back in Bundi as an adult, Jayanto's childhood memories of Fritz slowly trickle in. At first, this process is unconscious: strolling through the garden after tea, Jayanto suddenly recalls a deodar tree but is only able to connect its significance vaguely to "a European." The reader eventually learns that the European is, of course, Fritz, and the deodar tree marks the spot where Jayanto buried him after his untimely end. Indeed, the more Jayanto uncovers about his past, especially as it relates to Fritz, the more anxious and depressed he becomes. These altered mental and emotional states are linked to the disheartening realization that he had preserved a false image of his childhood in his mind. In the end, Fritz's true identity remains shrouded in mystery, and the reader is left with more questions than answers. In this way, the story suggests that human memory is not only unreliable, but it also has the capacity to fundamentally distort the truth about the past. - Theme: Friendship. Description: Shankar and Jayanto's relationship is central to the plot of "Fritz," which illustrates the critical role that friendship plays in working through difficult memories and emotions. Shankar and Jayanto have known each other since childhood, and despite having pursued different career paths (one is a teacher, and the other works for a newspaper), the two remain close friends. The intimacy of their bond is illustrated throughout the story, mostly through Shankar's many acts of generosity and compassion (for example, coming to Bundi with Jayanto in the first place, listening to Jayanto's stories about his childhood, and patiently comforting Jayanto through his depression and anxiety). Though the plot arguably centers around Jayanto's process of unearthing childhood memories (specifically those pertaining to the loss of his favorite doll, Fritz), the story is told from Shankar's point of view. And the fact that Jayanto's memories are recounted from the perspective of a good friend, and not that of a detached observer, suggests that true friendship forms the necessary context within which Jayanto can confront his painful past: in the end, it is thanks to Shankar's dedication to his friend that they unearth the spot where Fritz had been buried. In this light, the fact that Fritz's identity remains mysterious at the end of the story matters less than Shankar's role in helping his friend face his fears. Yet the fact that the two are friends and not merely strangers or acquaintances is more than a central thematic element of the story; it is also crucial for the formal and aesthetic development of the plot as it defines how the story is actually told. The nature of Shankar and Jayanto's friendship is part of the reason that Satyajit Ray is able to so effectively draw the reader into the storyline: by encouraging the reader to identity with Shankar's perspective—not only as a narrator but also as Jayanto's close friend—Ray ignites the reader's compassion for Jayanto. In this way, friendship becomes the filter through which the reader experiences Jayanto's story. - Theme: The Supernatural. Description: Satyajit Ray's literary works often incorporate elements of the supernatural, and "Fritz" is no different. In the story, the supernatural centers around Fritz, Jayanto's old doll, and Ray uses Fritz to interrogate the relationship between memory and reality. Jayanto loved Fritz and played with him all the time. He even brought it with him on a family trip to Bundi where, unfortunately, it was destroyed by a couple of stray dogs. Because Fritz was "a European," Jayanto believed a funeral to be the appropriate way to mark Fritz's untimely passing, so he buried the doll in the garden of the circuit house. Though the memory of Fritz's violent fate is at first difficult to recall, it soon becomes clear that it has deeply impacted Jayanto. Thirty-one years later, Jayanto is still so tormented by grief and guilt over what happened to Fritz that he believes the doll came to life, entered his room, and walked across his chest in the night. Later the next day, to get Jayanto's mind off this doll, Shankar suggests that they dig up the place where Fritz was buried. Yet when they finally unearth his spot, what they find is a perfectly intact human skeleton, and this utterly terrifying conclusion incites more questions than it does answers about who Fritz actually was. Thus the supernatural arises in moments of heightened fear and anxiety related to the untold story of Fritz's identity. And because the supernatural is always associated with such heightened emotional states, it not only contributes to the buildup of narrative tension and suspense, but it also illustrates how Jayanto's understanding of reality is impacted by these intense emotions. Through the mystery surrounding Fritz's true identity, then, Ray skillfully incorporates the supernatural to show how unresolved events from the past will quite literally haunt the present. In doing so, he suggests that at the core of Jayanto's fear and apprehension are childhood grief and guilt—feelings that can't be rationally understood or categorized. - Climax: Shankar and Jayanto convince the gardener to dig up the area where Fritz was buried and find a skeleton. - Summary: Shankar and Jayanto have recently arrived in Bundi and are having tea in the garden of the circuit house. The two have known each other since their school days and, in spite of the fact that they have embarked on different career paths, they remain close friends. They had been planning to take a trip together to Rajasthan for some time, and though there are other, more desirable destinations in the region, Jayanto insisted that they come to Bundi. Jayanto's desire to visit Bundi at first puzzles Shankar, but on the train up, Jayanto confesses that he had visited the town as a child and wishes to revisit it to see how it compares to his memories. Jayanto is an emotional person, and he has been quiet and pensive ever since they got to the circuit house. Shankar believes that the return of his childhood memories has caused him to feel depressed. During their conversation, Jayanto tells Shankar how much grander the circuit house seemed to him as a kid. Now that he is an adult, the place has lost a lot of its charm, and Jayanto remarks on the fact that those inaccuracies would have remained with him had he never decided to return. After tea, Shankar and Jayanto are strolling through the garden when, out of nowhere, Jayanto pauses and says the word "deodar." He begins searching for the tree and is delighted when he finds it where he expected it to be. When Shankar asks him why the tree matters to him so much, Jayanto cannot recall. Instead, he mentions "a European," and the two go on about their evening. Then, at dinner, Jayanto starts to remember more and more. He shows Shankar where his parents used to spend time and recalls the physical features of the old circuit house cook. Finally, he tells the story of Fritz, a lifelike doll that one of his uncles brought to him from Switzerland. Jayanto loved Fritz more than any of his other toys and would spend hours playing with the doll and talking to it. Shankar asks Jayanto what happened to Fritz, and Jayanto tells him that he had brought it with him to Bundi, where it was destroyed by a couple of stray dogs. Believing Fritz to be dead, Jayanto buried him directly into the ground at the foot of the deodar tree that he had seen earlier that day. That night, Shankar is woken up by a strange sound and sees Jayanto sitting up on his bed looking terrified. Jayanto tells Shankar that he felt something walk across his chest. Shankar tries to search the room to find it, believing it to be some kind of small animal, but finds nothing. Then, Jayanto shows Shankar some brown circular marks on his quilt. Shankar tries to reassure Jayanto by telling him that it could have been a cat and, after more attempts to comfort his friend, falls back asleep. It is clear the next morning that Jayanto has barely slept, but the two have already made plans to rent a car and go and visit the Fort of Bundi, which they had seen from afar the previous day while sightseeing. While they are out, more of Jayanto's memories return, and his joy and enthusiasm suggest that he has forgotten all about his doll. This reassures Shankar until about an hour later, when he finds Jayanto alone on a terrace and staring off into the distance. Jayanto asks Shankar if they can leave, and it becomes clear in the car that his anxiety is mounting. Shankar pleads with him to tell him what is going on, no matter how unbelievable it might be, so Jayanto tells him he believes it was Fritz who had come into their room the night before. Not wanting the memory of this doll to ruin his friend's vacation, Shankar convinces Jayanto to dig up Fritz's burial spot. Though Jayanto is hesitant at first, he eventually lets himself be persuaded. A little later, they spot the gardener, and Shankar approaches him and asks if he would do them the favor. Though there is at first no sign of the doll, the gardener keeps digging and eventually uncovers a pristine, twelve-inch-long, white human skeleton.

- Genre: Children's Fiction - Title: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - Point of view: First Person, Third Person - Setting: 1960s New York City (especially the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Greenwich, Connecticut - Character: Claudia Kincaid. Description: Claudia is the novel's protagonist and, at almost 12, the eldest of the four Kincaid children. Tired of her monotonous life in Greenwich, Connecticut and the responsibilities of life as the oldest sibling and only girl, Claudia decides she wants to run away to New York City, taking her second-youngest brother, Jamie, along with her. She will return home after the rest of her family has learned to appreciate her and her parents have stopped such "injustices" as making her do chores and giving her a meager allowance. The only problem is that Claudia hates being uncomfortable, so she chooses the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan as her hiding place. She also loves luxuries like hot fudge sundaes and long baths; she gets cranky when she's tired, cold, or sweaty. Claudia is a straight-A student and an ambitious girl, taking lots of extracurricular lessons like violin and art appreciation. Besides being intelligent and attentive to detail, she is a meticulous planner who spends weeks researching and preparing for running away. She's also creative and resourceful, like when she suggests that she and Jamie pack their musical instrument cases with extra clothing, or when she comes up with the idea to bathe in the museum restaurant's fountain. Claudia tends to correct Jamie's grammar in a teacherly way, provoking arguments. As their adventure goes on, however, the brother and sister bond, and they're good at working together despite their occasional fights. Claudia even stops correcting Jamie so much. Claudia is sensitive to beauty, instantly falling in love with the Metropolitan's new exhibit, the Angel statue. After seeing Angel and learning about the statue's mystery—was it carved by Michelangelo or not?—Claudia can't think about anything else. She senses that the statue holds a key to her own future as well. Claudia likes to feel that she can master any challenge, so when it looks like she and Jamie have failed to solve Angel's mystery by examining the statue and doing research, she's devastated—she doesn't want to return home the same old Claudia Kincaid. Then she has the idea to visit Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the statue's previous owner, to look for answers. There, she quickly comes up with a system allowing her and Jamie to search Mrs. Frankweiler's mixed-up files for clues. After visiting Mrs. Frankweiler, discovering that Michelangelo did, in fact, carve Angel becomes a precious secret that lets Claudia return home to her old life "different"—a step toward growing up. - Character: Jamie Kincaid. Description: Jamie is Claudia's younger brother. At nine years old, he is the second-youngest Kincaid sibling. Claudia chooses him to accompany her in running away because he's quiet, sometimes funny, and he hoards his money. He's "rich" because he saves his allowance and rarely buys anything. Plus, he gambles when he plays cards with his friend Bruce on the school bus and, because he cheats, he's saved up almost $25. Though Jamie doesn't seem to share Claudia's sense of "injustice" about their home life, he is adventurous and agrees to run with Claudia when she reveals her plan to him. Jamie is a clever kid with a precocious dry wit and lively imagination. He enjoys "complications" and even encourages Claudia to make their running-away scheme more complex; his proposed embellishments sometimes clash with Claudia's fussily detailed plans. Because he's so good at handling money, Claudia appoints him treasurer of their trip, a role Jamie relishes. In overseeing their budget, Jamie is especially strict about walking everywhere instead of spending money on bus fare and skipping expensive desserts. By the end of their adventure, however, Jamie has become a little less stingy, just as Claudia has stopped correcting Jamie's grammar so much. Though he and Claudia argue throughout their adventure, the siblings grow closer by the time they return home. - Character: Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Description: Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is a wealthy, eccentric 82-year-old widow and art collector and the story's narrator. In the first half of the novel, her identity and connection to the Kincaid kids remain something of a mystery. Then, after Claudia and Jamie visit the Angel exhibition, Claudia learns that Mrs. Frankweiler was Angel's previous owner. She enters the story personally when Claudia and Jamie travel to her estate in Farmington, Connecticut, seeking answers about Angel. Mrs. Frankweiler's house is filled with ornate furnishings, but her office looks more like a laboratory—and it's lined with filing cabinets whose organizational system only she can fathom. While doing "research" (its nature is never exactly described), she wears a white lab coat along with a baroque pearl necklace. She can be imposing and dramatic when a situation calls for it, and the Kincaid kids find her intimidating at first. But she quickly develops a fondness for the spirited kids and wins their trust by taking their adventure in the museum seriously—she doesn't call the police immediately and asks them thoughtful questions. She's also very perceptive, figuring out that Claudia insists on solving Angel's mystery because it turns out that running away didn't change her life as she'd hoped. She wants to help Claudia see the broader value of the adventure, showing that she cares about Claudia's development as a person. In addition, rather than just telling the kids whether Michelangelo carved Angel, she challenges them to find the answer for themselves by searching through her mixed-up filing cabinets. Once they find the Michelangelo sketch that confirms he carved the statue, she makes a deal with them. The sketch will be left to the kids in Mrs. Frankweiler's will, on two conditions: they have to keep the sketch a secret, and they have to tell her the story of their museum adventure. She correctly perceives that Jamie will keep the secret because of what the sketch will be worth to them someday, and Claudia will keep the secret for the sheer delight of having a secret, which will let her go home "different." She explains to the kids that secrets—like those she collects and stores in her files—make a person different "on the inside where it counts." Mrs. Frankweiler, who's childless, also expresses that she's always wanted the experience of being a mother, which later leads the kids to decide to "adopt" her as a grandmother, secretly visiting her whenever they can. - Character: Saxonberg. Description: Saxonberg has been Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's lawyer for 41 years. He doesn't appear in the story directly, but Mrs. Frankweiler addresses the account contained in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler to him as an explanation for the changes she wants made in her will (namely, to leave the Michelangelo angel sketch to the Kincaid children). Mrs. Frankweiler seems to enjoy giving Saxonberg a hard time—telling him he's boring, scolding him for never going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and insisting that he take her there for lunch someday. At the end of the novel, it's revealed that Saxonberg is the Kincaid kids' grandfather. There's a teasing note to Mrs. Frankweiler's correspondence with Saxonberg which suggests that as much as she pretends to find him annoying and frustrating, she's actually quite fond of him. - Theme: Growing Up. Description: Sixth-grader Claudia Kincaid, the protagonist of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, decides to run away from her monotonous suburban life to glamorous New York City. From the start, the narrator (Mrs. Frankweiler) observes that Claudia is simply tired of being "straight-A's Claudia Kincaid." Indeed, Claudia mostly thinks of running away as payback for her parents' expectations of her as the eldest sibling, finding these unfair. After she and her brother Jamie begin hiding in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, however, Claudia starts to forget about her childish reasons for running away. Claudia becomes obsessed with the Angel statue, a new museum acquisition, because it might have been carved by Michelangelo, but nobody knows for sure. Claudia feels she can't go home to "the same old thing" until she knows the truth about the sculpture's origins. Eventually, she realizes that what she's longing for is not simply independence from her parents, but a "way to be different." She senses that, somehow, the mystery of the angel statue is a key to helping her become "different." Only once she finds proof that Michelangelo carved Angel does Claudia feel she can go home "different." Even if life at home is "the same old thing," she's no longer the same person. Later, Mrs. Frankweiler remarks that understanding the adventure's true value will mean that Claudia is "tiptoeing into the grown-up world." Though the novel doesn't directly name the adventure's value, it suggests that growing up doesn't mean rejecting responsibility, but being brave enough to seek answers about the world and, in doing so, becoming connected to something bigger than oneself. - Theme: Adventure, Mystery, and Secrets. Description: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is filled with secrets—from the Kincaid kids' initial plan to run away from home, their elaborate scheme to stay hidden in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and later, eccentric art patron Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's "mixed-up" files containing a lifetime's worth of secrets. The biggest secret, though, revolves around the mysterious Angel sculpture on display at the Metropolitan. Soon after arriving at the museum, Claudia Kincaid's focus shifts from running away and hiding to solving the mystery of the sculpture's origins. The resolution to the mystery, she feels, will somehow be important for her future as well. After Claudia and her brother Jamie's attempts to prove that Michelangelo carved the statue end in disappointment, Claudia is devastated, deciding the entire museum adventure has been a waste of time. But after meeting Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and finding proof in a 400-year-old sketch that Michelangelo was the statue's artist, Claudia is unexpectedly overjoyed. Claudia is now happy to keep her findings a secret, not just because Mrs. Frankweiler will bequeath the sketch to her if she does, but because keeping the huge secret will let her return home "different." Perceptively, Mrs. Frankweiler points out that Claudia doesn't like adventure for its own sake; she likes the kind of adventure that secrets offer, because secrets change a person "inside where it counts." And even if Claudia doesn't get to stun the world by publicly solving the statue's mystery, this secret will let Claudia be "a heroine to herself." Through Claudia's runaway adventure and her efforts to solve the statue's mystery, the novel suggests that the best secrets are not the ones that are meant to shock or impress others, but those that help a person gain a sense of purpose and confidence in themselves. - Theme: Family. Description: Claudia Kincaid feels that her family doesn't appreciate her—she's forced to do chores that her younger brothers get out of, and she's always expected to be responsible and a role model. By running away for a while, she hopes to teach her family "a lesson in Claudia appreciation." Claudia initially chooses her nine-year-old brother Jamie as her running-away companion because he's "rich" (he's saved up almost $25 from gambling with a friend) and sometimes funny. Throughout their adventure, Claudia and Jamie squabble at the least provocation. Jamie is a tightfisted money manager and argues with Claudia over every penny spent. In turn, Claudia has a habit of picking on Jamie's informal grammar, getting them into needless quarrels. But their adventure also forces them to become a team. To an extent, their teamwork develops from simply spending more time together and having fun. When Claudia finds a fancy bed for them to sleep in at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she wins over Jamie by pointing out the bed's gruesome history (a murder allegedly took place in it). The narrator (Mrs. Frankweiler) observes that the two had "always spent more time with activities than they had with each other," but that their adventure is changing that by closing the distance between them. Indeed, Claudia and Jamie are forced to lean on each other's strengths more than they resent each other's weaknesses. Though Jamie finds Claudia too meticulous sometimes, he comes to appreciate her thoughtful plans that help them avoid discovery. And though Claudia grumbles when Jamie won't let her buy bus fare or dessert, she knows if it weren't for him, she would have run out of money long before the trip ended. Though the novel doesn't show their reunion with their family in detail, it's hinted that their appreciation for their parents—especially Claudia's—will be stronger after their adventure, too. Overall, the Kincaids' adventure suggests that although family members will always have to tolerate one another's weaknesses, it's important to encourage one another's strengths and support one another. - Theme: Independence, Capability, and Creativity. Description: In some ways, the Kincaids' running away from home and hiding in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is childish, and their motivations are decidedly mixed. Jamie, for instance, relishes the chance to wear sneakers instead of school shoes, and he wants to be free of schedules and the obligation to study and learn. And Claudia, for her part, seems oblivious to the fact that running away causes their parents a great deal of distress. In other ways, the Kincaids' adventure showcases how creative and capable kids can be: for example, Claudia anticipates that running away will require a lot of foresight and planning. She plans the best time for them to leave—music lesson day, so that they can pack their instrument cases with extra clothes and nobody will notice. Claudia even figures out how to outsmart adults, like dodging the museum guards during closing and opening. Even though Jamie is clearly less mature than Claudia, he is smarter with money and successfully stretches their meager budget for days. Finally, instead of giving up when their investigation doesn't reveal the angel sculpture's origins, Claudia insists they visit Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the statue's previous owner. And when Mrs. Frankweiler challenges the kids to find hidden evidence, they quickly figure out a system for searching her messy files. Thus, while the novel makes it clear that running away isn't a wise thing for children to do, it does suggest that if kids use their talents and work together, they can do amazing things. - Theme: Art, Beauty, and Wonder. Description: When hiding in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Claudia Kincaid decides she and her brother Jamie should devote themselves to learning everything they possibly can about the museum, choosing one gallery to explore each day. But her plan is quickly derailed when she falls in love with the newly exhibited Angel sculpture, deciding it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. After learning it might be an early work of Michelangelo, she insists on doing exhaustive research about the Italian Renaissance, and when they spot the impression of an "M" underneath the sculpture, Claudia is sure they've found proof. When it turns out that experts already knew about this evidence, Claudia is crushed, but she feels too connected to Angel to give up. She then decides to visit the statue's former owner, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, on a "hunch." Arguably, Claudia's determination to solve the mystery isn't logical—she's just a kid, not an art historian, after all. But by pursuing her love for the statue, Claudia eventually discovers its exciting history. Mrs. Frankweiler's refusal to sell her Michelangelo sketch—proof that he carved Angel—also seems irrational on the surface; she argues that experts would "make a science" of what she simply knows in her gut to be true. But through Claudia's and Mrs. Frankweiler's instinctive love for this work of art, the novel encourages readers not just to learn facts about art, but to embrace the wonder art can inspire. - Climax: Claudia Kincaid discovers the truth about the angel sculpture in Mrs. Frankweiler's files. - Summary: The novel begins with a note from Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler to her lawyer, Saxonberg, requesting that certain changes be made to her will. When Saxonberg reads the following account, she promises, he will understand why. Claudia Kincaid, almost 12, wants to run away from home. She hates being uncomfortable, though, so she chooses a beautiful place to hide: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Claudia is running away because of the "injustice" of having to do chores and be responsible for her three younger brothers. However, she decides she'll take along nine-year-old Jamie, the second youngest, because he's "rich" and reasonably quiet. In the meantime, Claudia has to save up enough for round-trip train fare. After her family has "learned a lesson in Claudia appreciation," she plans to return home. One Monday after school, Claudia reveals her detailed plan to Jamie. They will run away on Wednesday, music lesson day, so that they can pack extra clothes in their instrument cases without anyone knowing. Jamie agrees to the adventure, though at first, he doesn't want to tell Claudia how much money he's saved up—almost $25. He finally admits that he's earned this money by gambling with his friend Bruce; he always wins. According to plan, Claudia and Jamie stay on the school bus on Wednesday morning after the rest of the kids have gotten off. After the driver parks and leaves, the kids walk to the train station (Claudia stops to mail a note of explanation to their parents), quarreling on the way. They ride the train from suburban Greenwich, Connecticut to New York City. Jamie isn't thrilled when he learns they'll be hiding in the art museum, but when Claudia appoints him their official treasurer, he cheers up. When they arrive in New York, Jamie insists that they save money by walking to the museum instead of taking the bus or a taxi. Once there, they agree on a plan to hide during the museum's opening and closing (by ducking into bathroom stalls until the guards have left), and Claudia chooses an antique canopy bed for them to sleep in. Even though they keep arguing, the pair starts to feel like more of a team. The next morning, the kids hide their belongings—and themselves—until the museum opens. Then, starving, they leave the museum to buy a cheap lunch, and Claudia decides they should devote themselves to learning as much about art as they can—they'll choose a different gallery to study each day. Jamie chooses the Hall of the Italian Renaissance today, hoping Claudia will get bored and give up. But when they get there, they join a line of over 1,000 people waiting to see a new exhibit. There's even a New York Times photographer documenting the event. When they reach the front of the line, they see a small, graceful sculpture of an angel. Claudia thinks it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. The next morning, Claudia finds a copy of the Times and reads about the "Angel" statue, which might be one of Michelangelo's early works. It was recently purchased for just $225 from collector Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, who bought it in Bologna, Italy before the Second World War. Mrs. Frankweiler, a widow, lives alone on a Connecticut estate. Claudia decides that instead of trying to learn about the whole museum, they should dedicate themselves to learning about this statue and finding out whether Michelangelo really sculpted it. Claudia feels that solving this mystery is somehow important for her future. The next day, Saturday, Claudia insists on going to the library to research Michelangelo and the Italian Renaissance. The main thing the kids learn is that many of Michelangelo's works have been lost. That night in the museum, they narrowly avoid crossing paths with workers who are moving the angel statue. While taking baths in the museum's restaurant fountain, they pick up almost $3 in coins to supplement their disappearing budget. On Sunday, Jamie and Claudia study Angel before the museum opens. They notice the impression of an M on the velvet underneath the sculpture. Later, they look at books in the museum's bookstore and confirm that the "M" is Michelangelo's stonemason's mark. Sure they've found a critical clue, they plan to rent a post office box at Grand Central Station and send an anonymous letter to the museum, sharing their discovery. If the museum writes back asking for help, Claudia and Jamie can become heroes. The next day, the kids look for a visiting school group, hoping they can ask a random student to deliver their letter for them. To their shock, they overhear a group from their own school back in Greenwich. Jamie uses this opportunity to deliver the letter to the museum office himself, pretending he's part of the field trip. On Wednesday, Claudia and Jamie find a letter in their P.O. box—it's from the museum's Public Relations office. The polite letter thanks them for their tip, but informs them that the museum has known about the "M" for a long time, and it isn't conclusive evidence—it could mean that Michelangelo merely designed Angel but didn't carve it, or even that somebody else used Michelangelo's mark. After reading the letter, Claudia starts to cry. Jamie asks if this means they should go home, but Claudia says she can't—she's realized she wants to go home "different," and she can't do that without solving Angel's mystery. When Jamie insists on buying train tickets home, Claudia interjects that they should go to Farmington, Connecticut, instead. That's where Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler lives—and Claudia is sure she can answer their questions about the statue. Later, a taxi drops them off in front of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's sprawling mansion. At first the butler, Parks, won't admit them, but when they explain they're seeking answers about the Italian Renaissance, Parks finally leads them through antique-filled rooms and into Mrs. Frankweiler's surprising office. It resembles a laboratory and is filled with rows of filing cabinets. Mrs. Frankweiler is a surprise, too—she's an elderly lady wearing a lab coat and a baroque pearl necklace. When Mrs. Frankweiler finally turns around, she demands to know if they're the children missing from Greenwich. The kids are flabbergasted. She shows them several newspapers reporting their disappearance but promises not to call the police if they won't bore her with tedious questions. Jamie finally stammers that they're interested in Angel. Claudia says she can't return home until she knows the truth about the sculpture's origins. Mrs. Frankweiler says that's her secret and asks where the Kincaids have been hiding for the past week. When Claudia says that's their secret, Mrs. Frankweiler decides she likes these children. At lunch, before Claudia emerges from a leisurely bath, Jamie confesses to Mrs. Frankweiler that they'd been hiding in the museum. Later, after Claudia joins them, Mrs. Frankweiler suggests that Claudia doesn't want to go home because it turns out that running away didn't change anything: she still had to do all the planning and supervising, just like at home. Claudia admits she's right. She also says that Angel was her favorite part of running away, but she doesn't want to explain why—if Mrs. Frankweiler knows their secret, it will feel like the whole adventure is over. Mrs. Frankweiler points out that everything ends eventually. Upset, Claudia realizes Jamie already spilled their secret. Mrs. Frankweiler decides to help Claudia understand the value of their adventure—something that will help her grow up. She takes the children into her office and explains that the filing cabinets are filled with her "secrets." One of the cabinets contains the secret of Angel. She gives them one hour to find the relevant file. Claudia makes a list of categories related to Michelangelo and Angel, but after searching the cabinets for almost an hour, they haven't located the proper files. The kids start squabbling, and when Jamie says, "Oh, boloney," Claudia suddenly knows where to look. She looks for a folder labeled BOLOGNA—where Mrs. Frankweiler purchased the statue. Inside she finds a carefully preserved sketch of an angel, including Michelangelo's mark. She bursts into tears. Jamie wonders why Mrs. Frankweiler never sold the sketch. Mrs. Frankweiler explains that she's always known Michelangelo sculpted Angel, but she kept the proof to herself—she needed the secret more than she needed the money. However, Mrs. Frankweiler will give the sketch to the Kincaids in her will, on one condition: they have to tell her their story. She knows Jamie will keep the secret because of the money at stake, and Claudia will keep the secret because it will make her feel "different"—"on the inside, where it counts." Claudia and Jamie agree to record their story for Mrs. Frankweiler. The next morning, Sheldon the chauffeur drives them home. On the way, the kids decide to "adopt" Mrs. Frankweiler as their grandmother and to secretly visit her every time they save up enough money. Mrs. Frankweiler closes her written account for Saxonberg by insisting that Saxonberg take her to lunch at the Metropolitan's restaurant; she'll sign the revised will there. She hopes that Claudia and Jamie will visit her again and adds that she has another secret—that Saxonberg, her lawyer of 41 years, is the Kincaids' grandfather.

- Genre: Short Story, Realistic Fiction, Native American Fiction - Title: Future Home of the Living God - Point of view: First-Person and Second-Person - Setting: Minnesota - Character: Cedar Hawk Songmaker. Description: The protagonist and first-person narrator of the story, Cedar at birth was given up by her Native American birth mother, Mary Potts the Almost Senior, and adopted by wealthy white liberals, Alan and Sera Songmaker. It was Alan and Sera who gave Cedar, originally named Mary Potts like the rest of her female relatives, the overtly indigenous-sounding name "Cedar Hawk Songmaker." Torn between her indigenous roots and the affluent white culture of her adoptive parents, Cedar seems to fit into neither cultural group. She mentions several times that she has disappointed her adoptive parents—she seems to run in a dangerous circle of friends, who are all "dead or in jail," and the story centers around her presumably unexpected pregnancy (she never mentions a partner or anyone to support her through the process). Cedar seems to be ashamed of her choices and, consequently, isolates herself from her family. Although she feels negatively about the circumstances of her life, she views her pregnancy with a sort of reverence, and she is dedicated to being the best mother possible to her unborn child. This determination is what leads her to enter into contact with her previously estranged birth mother to learn about genetic diseases that may affect her child. Though Erdrich initially characterizes Cedar as misguided and unsuccessful, over the course of the story she gradually reveals Cedar's responsibility and willingness to learn. By the end of the story, Cedar seems terrified but ready to let both families—biological and adopted—back into her life. - Character: Mary Potts Almost Senior ("Sweetie"). Description: Cedar's birth mother, Mary Potts Almost Senior, or "Sweetie," as she is known to her family, is an indigenous woman reaching the late stages of her middle age. While she struggled with drug and sex addictions as a young woman, which caused her to give up Cedar as a baby, she has since recovered and is able to live a relatively healthy, stable life on the reservation where she lives with her mother, Mary Potts the Very Senior, and her daughter, Little Mary. In spite of the improvements to her own life, Sweetie deeply regrets having given up Cedar for adoption, and struggles to justify this choice to Cedar when she comes to visit. However, Erdrich doesn't paint Sweetie as the most competent of mothers; while she insists that her younger daughter, Little Mary, doesn't "fuck or do drugs," Cedar immediately notices that her younger sister is under the influence of drugs when they meet, and the young girl's room is littered with racy lingerie. Mary Potts Almost Senior is characterized as well-intentioned but a little delusional when it comes to parenting, and, more generally, as an older woman reckoning with the poor choices of her youth as she approaches old age. - Character: Little Mary. Description: Mary Potts Almost Senior's daughter and Cedar's younger sister. Although Mary Potts believes that her daughter doesn't use drugs, as she herself used to, Little Mary's drug use is clear to Cedar and to the reader. Little Mary self-describes her style as "Gothlolita"—a mix between a tough, Halloween-esque, punk look and an infantilizing, sexualized aesthetic (Cedar picks up the reference to the novel Lolita, though Little Mary hasn't heard of the book and only found the term "Gothlolita" on the internet). Little Mary's personality is similarly divided between the scary and the sweet. Initially, she is incredibly hostile towards Cedar when they meet, and clearly feels threatened by the arrival of an older sister she has never met. However, later in the story when she asks for Cedar's assistance in cleaning her filthy room, she reveals her vulnerability and her need for positive adult influences in her life. The story draws to a close with the two sisters wrapped in an embrace, both girls beginning to navigate the new and potentially scary territory of welcoming new family members into their lives. - Character: Mary Potts the Very Senior. Description: Cedar and Little Mary's grandmother and Mary Potts Almost Senior's mother, who is over a hundred years old. She is the only member of Cedar's birth family that Cedar initially warms to. With an old, wise, and comforting presence, Mary Potts the Very Senior is the one to let Cedar know that miscarriages are genetically passed down through the family, suggesting that Cedar does, in fact, have a high-risk pregnancy. The old woman's relationship to her family is both affectionate and distant; she doesn't seem to know about her granddaughter Little Mary's drug problem and seems interested, but relatively uninvested, in Cedar's sudden reappearance. At her age, she is on the precipice of death, after all, and seems to navigate family relationships with accordant detachment. - Character: Sera Songmaker. Description: Cedar's adoptive mother, a wealthy white liberal. Sera and her husband, Alan, hail from wealthy Minnesota robber barons. In what may be an attempt to compensate for the harm their ancestors have done to the land, Sera and Alan donated much of their inheritances to well-meaning but impotent liberal causes, which are now totally "defunct." In addition, Sera has a superficial interest in indigenous culture. At one point in the story, Cedar recalls one of Sera's many "self-invented" rituals that involved smudging sage and drinking wine. Depicted as a well-intentioned but somewhat silly white liberal, through Cedar's narrations readers view Sera as nonetheless a competent mother whom Cedar admires, and, consequently, regrets disappointing. - Character: Alan Songmaker. Description: Cedar's adoptive father and Sera's husband, who is also a wealthy white liberal. Alan's politics, personality, and background are not notably distinguished from those of his wife. However, there is a notable moment where Cedar says something that reminds her of him, and fondly remembers her childhood. Like Sera, then, Alan is characterized as a benevolent and well-intentioned, even if slightly ridiculous, parent. - Character: The Nurse. Description: The nurse who takes care of Cedar during her ultrasound appointment and encourages her to talk to her birth mother about possible genetic conditions that run in the family. She looks amused when Cedar reveals that her overtly indigenous-sounding name, Cedar Hawk Songmaker, was given to her by her white liberal adoptive parents. - Theme: Isolation vs. Interconnectedness with Family. Description: In "Living Home of a Future God," the narrator and protagonist, Cedar, must contact her birth mother for the first time because she is pregnant and needs information about genetic diseases that may run in the family. While initially Cedar seems to view her pregnancy as an opportunity to build a better future for herself and her unborn child, completely divorced from her family's past, over the course of the story she seems to open to integrating her estranged adoptive and birth families into her life in new ways. Importantly, Cedar's birth family is indigenous, and so reconnecting with her family isn't just about restoring individual relationships, but rather about connecting with an entire cultural and ethnic lineage that she hasn't recognized. Through demonstrating the tension between Cedar's desire to start her new family from scratch and her obligation to engage with her birth family for the sake of her unborn child, Erdrich illustrates the necessity of living interconnectedly with one's family. At the beginning of the story, Cedar's view of herself and of the life she will provide for her child is very future-oriented, isolated both from her family and from her past. Her adoptive parents are "alienated" from her, and she's "never answered" the single letter her birth mom sent her, demonstrating Cedar's desire to build a future that does not engage with her past. Immediately, readers notice that the story is written in second person, as Cedar is addressing her unborn child. This is an important choice, in part because it shows that the narrator is almost entirely oriented towards the future. She frames the present moment in the context of a life that hasn't even begun yet, rather than in the context of events and relationships from the past. In the first paragraph, Cedar boldly thinks, "I'll be a good mother even though I've fucked up everything so far." Here, she doesn't acknowledge how exactly she's "fucked up," and assumes she'll be able to build future without engaging with the mistakes and challenges of the past. Cedar is not the only one in the story who has isolated herself from her family. Cedar explains, "I was removed from my Potts mother because of our mutual addiction to a substance she loved more than me." In giving up her daughter for adoption, Mary Potts Almost Senior interrupted the family lineage—a rupture that would have been permanent were it not for Cedar's pregnancy. In addition, Cedar's adoptive parents, Sera and Alan Songmaker, have also isolated themselves from their pasts. They both come from wealthy parents—"legendary robber barons who scalped the Minnesota earth of ancient forests." Sera and Alan's left-leaning politics lead them to be ashamed of their family wealth, and so they donate much of their inheritance to charitable "causes now defunct," extricating themselves from their families' politics and the wealth they accrued through shady means. Both of these cases represent people who have broken from the legacies of their families, and consequently seem to have started anew with each generation. While Cedar at first resists acknowledging a connection to her birth family, she slowly begins to embrace them. Cedar originally sees her trip to visit her birth mother as only an obligation she has to protect the health of her child. She is resentful and resistant to acknowledging any connection she has to her birth mother. When Mary Potts Almost Senior tells Cedar that she looks like her, Cedar responds instantly that she "[does] not." Her resistance to admitting that she looks like her mother reflects her desire to maintain the ruptured family lineage and her disconnection from her birth family. Over the course of the visit, though, Cedar slowly warms to the family. The first hint of this warming is when she thinks that she's glad she didn't have "this mother and this family, except maybe this grandmother." It is significant that Cedar's favorite member of the family is the grandmother, the oldest person, as it suggests that Cedar is beginning to value the past rather than orient herself only toward the future. Towards the end of the story, Cedar's engagement with her family shifts from an obligatory, one-time visit to a deeper emotional engagement. When Cedar's adoptive parents arrive, invited by her birth mother, Cedar feels she is in the middle of "some sort of vertex" and "[goes] dizzy." Her negative reaction to having to confront her past both with her adoptive and birth family is to flee, but the only place to go is into her younger sister's room. In this moment, Erdrich demonstrates that engaging with family and recognizing interconnection is inescapable, no matter how much Cedar may want to avoid this obligation. The room into which Cedar escapes belongs to her younger sister, Little Mary, and is extraordinarily messy. Earlier in the story, Little Mary asked Cedar to help her clean it, but Cedar thought the mess was too much to handle. However, upon this second instance, Cedar resolves to help her sister clean up. This moment is important because it represents a shift in Cedar's relationship with her family. She could have just taken refuge in Little Mary's room without helping to clean, but her willingness to help out represents Cedar opening herself up to having a deeper relationship with her family, and an acknowledgement of their interconnectedness. Digging through the junk in Little Mary's room also serves as a metaphor for Cedar's willingness to dig through her past and understand her relationships to family. Even though it's messy, she is willing to face the challenges of acknowledging relationships with family. Over the course of the story, Cedar transforms from a woman who has little interest in connecting with her family to someone who is beginning to open to connecting with family in meaningful ways. By highlighting the ways in which Cedar develops towards a more integrated, interconnected understanding of family, Erdrich demonstrates, without sentimentality, not only the value but also the inevitability of family relationships. - Theme: Non-Belonging and Forging Individual Identity. Description: In "Future Home of the Living God," the narrator, Cedar Hawk Songmaker, grapples with a sense of her own identity. Descended from a working-class Native American mother and adopted by wealthy white liberal parents, Cedar has a sense of being caught between worlds and identities, unable to locate herself fully in either one of them. Through navigating her complicated heritage, Cedar is able to forge an individual identity not based on fitting in with one specific group, but on picking and choosing what to keep of her heritage and what to leave behind. Cedar lacks connection to her cultural roots. Her birth family is indigenous, and while her white adoptive parents, Sera and Alan, try to connect her with this heritage, their efforts are superficial and ultimately render her disconnected from her ethnicity. When Cedar is in the doctor's office, the nurse asks if she got her name from "her tribe." Cedar responds, saying, "My Indian name is Mary Potts." This exchange is ironic; even though Cedar is truly descended from an indigenous family, the name the nurse mistook to be "tribal" comes instead from her white adoptive parents, who are "Minnesota liberals," while the name Mary comes from Cedar's indigenous birth mother, who is also named Mary, along with her own mother and her second daughter. Cedar's adoptive parents, while they may have been trying to honor Cedar's heritage with her name, have not represented indigenous lineage in the same way Cedar's birth mother, who actually form part of that culture, has chosen to. This makes Cedar only partially connected to this part of her ancestry, fully belonging neither to indigenous culture nor to white, liberal culture. Cedar also references her adoptive parents' superficial engagement with indigenous ritual and tradition. While she was growing up, her adoptive mother invited her to participate in "many self-invented ceremonies" loosely based on indigenous culture. Although Cedar says that participating in these rituals are some "of the best memories of [her] life," she adds that this was all "before she disappointed" her adoptive parents. Cedar implies that while these rituals were fun when she was younger, they did not provide her with a sustainable source of support or even connection to her family, as traditions deeply rooted in a family's shared cultural background might. Cedar's adoptive and birth families also come from very different class backgrounds, and she is unable to locate herself within either group. One of the reasons Cedar's birth mother, Mary Potts Almost Senior, chose to give her up is that she didn't feel able to provide for a baby. She says she gave Cedar to "a good family, rich as hell," highlighting her desire for her daughter to have access to class privileges beyond what she can provide. Of course, Cedar's adoptive parents have given away their money to "causes now defunct" and are no longer "rich as hell" which perhaps has to do with Cedar's inability to fit in with extremely privileged circle. However, Cedar seems not to fit into the mold of a young adult raised by a white, liberal, upper-middle class family, either. Cedar mentions several times that she has disappointed her adoptive parents. She never states exactly why but does mention offhand in the beginning of the story that "all of her friends were in jail, or dead." This is not at all typical of people who run in wealthy, privileged social circles, and implies that Cedar may have been involved in illicit activity, particularly drug use. Although it is never clear whether Cedar abused drugs, if she were to have, she would have engaged with exactly the type of behavior her birth mother hoped to protect her from by giving her to a wealthier family. Even if not, she clearly has not taken advantage of the opportunities that class privilege could have offered her. Finally, Cedar also feels uncomfortable in the context of her birth family. When she meets her younger sister, Little Mary, Cedar feels "glad that [she] didn't have this mother and family" and "thinks of Alan and Sera and all that [they] share." That she immediately thinks this after observing the way she could have "turned out" had she stayed in this family and class background reveals that she is uncomfortable in these circumstances, and grateful for the privilege that she has. Ultimately, Cedar must develop an individual identity that draws from her various backgrounds without embracing all aspects of them. Because neither background can fully represent her, she must pick and choose what aspects of her lineage she will allow to form meaningful parts of her identity moving forward. In the same moment that she thinks to herself that she's glad not to have grown up around her birth family, Cedar adds "except maybe this grandmother," referring to Mary Potts the Very Senior. This is the first clear instance in the story of her willfully wishing to integrate some aspects of her birth family into her identity. The fact that she picks only the grandmother illustrates the selective way in which Cedar goes about constructing her identity—she isn't obliged to fully embrace either family, but chooses what she wants to keep. Additionally, in the last scene of the story, when Cedar is sorting through her younger sister's messy room, Little Mary asks Cedar what she will name her baby. Cedar holds up a "swatch of red boy-leg lace and [reads] the label," and then says "Victoria." The implication that Cedar read the name off of Little Mary's clothing is significant—it is through digging through the mess of her past that she will forge her future and what she will pass down to her child. Her choice of name is an act of individual decision-making, but it is still contextualized within family. The fact that the name itself is Victoria—and not Mary, the name of three generations of women in Cedar's birth family—also represents an overcoming. Cedar's "victory" will be emerging from the mess of tangled family relationships with a fully formed individual identity. - Theme: Growth and Age as Nonlinear. Description: In "Future Home of the Living God," both the main character, Cedar, and her younger sister, Little Mary, seem simultaneously childish and very adult. Both are preparing to make major transitions in life: Cedar is about to become a new mother, and Little Mary is a teenager on the cusp of adulthood. While it can be tempting to think of maturing as a linear process, Erdrich challenges assumptions about the trajectory of growth by showing readers characters who demonstrate traits of different maturity levels and stages of life all at once. As Cedar prepares for her visit to her birth mother's home, she makes several observations about herself and about time that set readers up to perceive time and maturing as nonlinear. When Cedar is leaving her adoptive parents' house, her "childhood training kicks in" and compels her to leave a note to her adoptive parents saying where she's gone. Since the story hinges on Cedar's pregnancy and coming transition to motherhood, it is jarring to witness her still bound by behaviors learned as a child. This challenges the idea that transitions between stages of life are definite and linear, and instead shows readers that Cedar's childhood self is present with her even as she prepares for this major transition as an adult woman. Later, Cedar similarly integrates aspects of the past with aspects of the present and future when she observes that on highways she always feels that she is going "backwards and forwards at the same time." This is important to recognize, as her sense of time on the highway parallels her destiny as a mother. She will not be able to become a mother herself—or at least not a good one—if she does not return to her birth mother to learn about genetic diseases they may have passed down. However, she still carries pain from feeling as a child that she was abandoned by her birth mother, and thus must revisit and face those childhood feelings before she can enter into motherhood. That the story revolves around Cedar's relationships with her biological mother and adoptive parents is also significant in itself, as it figures Cedar as a child rather than an adult. Even though Cedar is a fully fledged adult woman and is about to become a mother herself, she is also still somebody's daughter and child. Cedar's younger sister, Little Mary, is a rebellious teenager on the precipice of adulthood. Although she seems to struggle with addiction, and adopts infantilizing behavior, she also seeks to grow, and requests Cedar's help in the process. Many of Little Mary's fashion choices confuse and fascinate Cedar, as they represent both her younger sister's sexuality and her childishness. Little Mary describes her own style as "Gothlolita," referencing the titular character in the novel Lolita. Little Mary's infantilized sexuality represents immaturity and maturity at the same time—she engages in adult behaviors, like sex and dating, without having the emotional maturity or wisdom to navigate this territory properly. This speaks to her need to grow up, to develop the skills and knowledge she needs to handle making adult decisions. Because her growth process would include distancing herself from behaviors she is too old for (like wearing childish clothing) and those she is too young for (like sex, drugs, and drinking), Little Mary also exemplifies a trajectory of maturing that is nonlinear. Importantly, Cedar's role in Little Mary's life also speaks to a concept of aging or maturity that doesn't quite fit within a linear framework. Mary Potts Almost Senior, Cedar and Little Mary's mother, naively believes that her younger daughter doesn't engage in any bad behavior (although Cedar immediately realizes that Little Mary abuses drugs), Little Mary lacks the catalyst she needs in order to grow until Cedar comes along. This is represented by the scene at the end of the story, when Cedar helps her younger sister clean up her messy bedroom. In this instance, Cedar provides the moral guidance that Little Mary's own mother could not provide, in spite of being older and more experienced than Cedar herself. Thus, Cedar interrupts any concept that age is a hierarchy wherein with increased age one necessarily becomes wiser and more able to provide guidance. While Cedar and Little Mary represent the clearest examples of characters who demonstrate traits of different age groups and maturity levels, all of the characters in the story seem to represent their age in ways that are somewhat arbitrary. For instance, Cedar's birth mother is called Mary Potts Almost Senior, a name that necessarily makes readers wonder why she is "almost" senior, and who or what her age is measured in relation to. By creating characters whose behaviors incorporate characteristics of various age groups, Erdrich challenges the assumption the growth is linear and instead provides a more complex and realistic picture of age and maturity. - Climax: Cedar's adoptive parents arrive at her birth mother's home, overwhelming her. - Summary: Cedar Hawk Songmaker is pregnant, and the doctor thinks the baby may have inherited a serious genetic disease. For some expectant mothers, finding out about genetic conditions that run in the family is the matter of a simple phone call. But for Cedar, a Native American woman adopted into a white liberal family and estranged from her birth mother, things aren't so simple. Reestablishing contact with her family of origin means dealing with the lifetime of resentment she's felt towards her birth mother. The story begins with Cedar in the doctor's office for her first ultrasound. There, through her first-person narration, Cedar reveals to the readers that she is isolated from both her adoptive family and her birth family. She comments that most other women come to their ultrasound with a romantic partner or friends, but she's come alone, citing as a justification for that the fact that she has disappointed Alan and Sera Songmaker, her adoptive parents. Plus, all of her friends are in jail or dead. When the nurse asks her about history of family disease, Cedar reveals that she is adopted. Although she lies to the nurse and says that she is in contact with her birth family, she reveals to readers that in fact she has in her life only received one letter from her birth mother, which she never returned. Cedar returns to her adoptive parents' home, where she hasn't been in months, in order to find the letter on which her birth mother wrote her phone number. This causes her to feel nostalgic about Alan and Sera, from whom she has recently become estranged. When she speaks to her birth mother on the phone, she feels anxious, and is hurt when someone asks her birth mother who she's talking to on the phone and she replies "No one!" Already, Cedar's feelings of resentment are triggered, but she resolves to go anyhow. When she arrives at her birth mother's house on the reservation where she lives, Cedar is stunned by her birth mother, who has introduced herself as Mary Potts Almost Senior, or "Sweetie." She finds her birth mother beautiful and younger than she expected, but reacts negatively to being told that they look alike. Cedar enters the house and meets her grandmother, lovingly referred to as Mary Potts the Very Senior. Cedar then asks why she was given up, and whether there are genetic disease that run in the family. Mary Potts Almost Senior responds hesitatingly and awkwardly to the first question, and Cedar reacts with hostility. The discussion is interrupted by the arrival of Little Mary, the younger daughter Mary Potts Almost Senior didn't give up. Although Mary Potts Almost Senior insists that Little Mary doesn't "fuck or do drugs," Cedar immediately notices that her younger sister is extremely high, and feels grateful that she was raised with her adoptive parents instead of in her birth family. When Little Mary and Mary Potts Almost Senior leave the room, Cedar has time to speak with her grandmother, who at that point is the only member of her birth family that she's warmed up to. It is the grandmother who reveals not the specifics of any genetic diseases, but the fact that miscarriages are common in the family. After speaking with her grandmother, Cedar tucks her into bed, marveling at the woman's old age. Cedar then has a hostile discussion with Little Mary, who clearly resents and feels threatened by her. After they fight, Little Mary retreats into her room. Cedar then hears her adoptive father, Alan's voice. Realizing that Mary Potts Almost Senior must have called her adoptive parents to support her through the difficult process of meeting her birth family, Cedar feels overwhelmed to have so much family in one space, and to see her two worlds intersecting. She retreats into Little Mary's room, as she has nowhere else to run. There, Little Mary, rather than meeting her with hostility, asks Cedar to help her clean her messy bedroom. This gesture of vulnerability touches Cedar, who resolves to help her younger sister. As they clean the room together, the two sisters speak amicably with one another. When Little Mary wraps Cedar into an unexpected hug, Cedar begins to cry, knowing that she's entering uncharted territory by reconnecting with both of her families.

- Genre: Short Story, Comic Horror, Social Satire - Title: Gabriel-Ernest - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: Rural England - Character: Van Cheele. Description: Van Cheele, the protagonist of "Gabriel-Ernest," is a landowner, parish councillor, and justice of the peace who lives with his aunt in a large Victorian home. A self-styled naturalist, Van Cheele has a great but superficial love for nature. He keeps a stuffed bittern on display in his study and takes frequent observational strolls through his woods, not so much to understand nature "as to provide topics for conversation afterwards." When his friend Cunningham warns him of the "wild beast" in his woods, he is dismissive at first. As the truth about Gabriel-Ernest becomes clear—that, at sunset, he turns into a werewolf—Van Cheele attempts to stop him from eating any more children. His motivation, however, is self-interested, as he is driven by fear both for his reputation and personal safety; he is also driven by a powerful fear of the unknown. While Van Cheele is unable to save the Toop child from Gabriel-Ernest, he does stand up for what he believes to be the truth, refusing to support his aunt's Gabriel-Ernest memorial, indicating that the events of the story have shaken him out of his complacent and easy old life. - Character: Gabriel-Ernest (The Boy). Description: Gabriel-Ernest is a mysterious, wild boy living in Van Cheele's woods, who may or may not be a werewolf. Gabriel-Ernest tells Van Cheele that he hunts for "flesh" at night, including game and livestock, as well as "child-flesh." Bold and arrogant, he sneaks into Van Cheele's house the next morning and catches him off guard. Flustered and forced to come up with a story on the spot, Van Cheele tells his aunt that the boy has lost his memory, whereupon she insists on taking him in and gives him his name, "Gabriel-Ernest." The evidence for Gabriel-Ernest's lycanthropy is vague, though Gabriel-Ernest's cryptic comments do line up with Cunningham's claim to have watched him transform. Also, many animals and a child did go missing during the period in which Gabriel-Ernest claims to have been hunting. Ultimately, little is clear about Gabriel-Ernest himself, leading the other characters to project their hopes and fears onto this strange, naked boy—or werewolf. - Character: Cunningham. Description: Cunningham is an artist and friend of Van Cheele's. After visiting Van Cheele he claims to have seen a "wild beast" in the woods. Unlike the talkative Van Cheele, Cunningham is a man of relatively few words. As his choice of career would indicate, he is more given to understanding the world and expressing himself visually. This, along with his mother's death from "brain trouble," leads to some hesitation on his part about telling Van Cheele his story, as Cunningham seems to almost not believe himself. Of course, it is possible that in telling Van Cheele about Gabriel-Ernest's transformation into a wolf at sunset, Cunningham has been describing some kind of visual fantasy. The language he uses, calling the naked boy a "wild faun of Pagan myth," suggests an attitude that is more artistic than analytic. - Character: Miss Van Cheele. Description: Miss Van Cheele is Van Cheele's aunt, who lives with him on their estate. A doting, oblivious older woman, she is very fond of her nephew and encourages his superficial "naturalism." Keeping herself occupied with teaching Sunday school, Miss Van Cheele is very excited about the arrival of Gabriel-Ernest (whom she names), as she longs to see herself as a charitable patron. This leads her to ignore his strange behavior entirely, entrusting the Toop child to his care and eventually putting up a memorial to him in the local church. - Character: The Toop Child. Description: The Toop child is an unnamed, ungendered child who disappears along with Gabriel-Ernest. A member of Miss Van Cheele's Sunday school class, the Toop child is sent home with Gabriel-Ernest close to sunset, and they are both presumed drowned in the mill-race. If Gabriel-Ernest is indeed a werewolf, however, then it is more likely that he ate the Toop child. The Toop family, however, chooses to believe the first explanation, in no small part due to the fact that, as the story sarcastically puts it, they have 11 other children and are "decently resigned to [their] bereavement." - Theme: Appearances vs. Reality. Description: The relationship—and tension—between appearance and reality is a central theme in "Gabriel-Ernest," influencing both events and how characters react to them. The author suggests that not only can appearances be deceiving, but that people will go to great lengths to ignore evidence that things are not what they seem. Van Cheele, as the owner of his woods, is highly concerned with how they appear to others, and much less interested in the actual state of things. Rather than seeking to really understand what he sees on his regular walks, Van Cheele builds up a repository of facts for later conversations, giving himself the appearance of being a "great naturalist." His expectation that reality conform to its external appearance is an important part of why Cunningham's remark about the wild beast in his woods is so concerning to him. In fact, once Van Cheele considers that the woods may not be as tranquil as they appear, he realizes he has already noticed—and until now ignored—signs of disturbance: the lack of game, missing livestock, and the miller's lost child. Van Cheele tries his best to restore his sense of calm and convince himself that nothing is amiss, telling himself that Gabriel-Ernest's strange behavior and references to "child-flesh" are nothing but a sick joke. Miss Van Cheele, meanwhile, is so charmed by Gabriel-Ernest's story of memory loss that she overlooks strange and sinister clues and embraces him as a personal project and Sunday school helper, even ensuring he is remembered as a hero after he disappears. The lack of evidence other than Gabriel-Ernest's discarded clothes leaves room for her to believe that he drowned trying to save the Toop child, and not that he ate the child after transforming into a wolf (although it is not clear than Van Cheele ever told her his theory). Overall, the Van Cheeles' reactions to Gabriel-Ernest show how desperately people will suppress and distort reality in order to uphold appearances that make sense to them. - Theme: Social Status and Hypocrisy. Description: Closely intertwined with appearance and reality in "Gabriel-Ernest" are the themes of social status and hypocrisy. The efforts of the characters to protect their status and use it in self-serving ways lead almost directly to the story's tragic and arguably avoidable conclusion. The narrator tells readers that Van Cheele is not only a local landowner, but a "parish councillor and justice of the peace." Consequently, his primary concern upon encountering Gabriel-Ernest in the woods is not so much safety as his own reputation. Van Cheele is able to quickly dismiss the idea that Gabriel-Ernest actually ate the miller's baby, but is less confident that he could avoid the stigma that would come with public knowledge of the "savage," naked boy living in his woods. In particular, he fears that he will be held financially responsible for the missing livestock Gabriel-Ernest may have eaten, and so he avoids saying anything about his discovery until the boy arrives at his house. Van Cheele's aunt's ill-fated decisions are likewise motivated by an inverted but equally misguided awareness of social status, as she sees herself as a kind of philanthropist helping Gabriel-Ernest. The narrator ironically notes that "A naked homeless child appealed to Miss Van Cheele as warmly as a stray kitten or derelict puppy would have done." Fixated on this romantic idea, she avoids any close scrutiny of Gabriel-Ernest or his behavior, giving him access to the Toop child who subsequently disappears, and after his disappearance has him memorialized as a hero. Miss Van Cheele's feelings about Gabriel-Ernest have very little to do with observed reality, but rather her narcissistic desire to be the charitable patron of the "unknown boy." Both of the Van Cheeles' efforts to maintain a certain kind of social position—either protecting one's wealth or using it to appear morally superior—lead not only to hypocritical words and actions, but also to the Toop child's death. Though the Van Cheeles' out-of-touch concerns are humorous, the author uses them to make a more serious point, showing how preoccupation with status at the expense of honesty—to oneself or to others—has harmful consequences for society more broadly. - Theme: Wild vs. Domestic. Description: Set in the English countryside, "Gabriel-Ernest" takes place in a natural environment which has been heavily reshaped by human life. The mystery of Gabriel-Ernest suggests that while humans may like to believe they control nature, the line between wild and domestic is actually thin and unpredictable .In fact, the very idea of a werewolf suggests that the clear division between wild and domestic is a false binary, and challenges the idea that humans can neatly separate them. Until Gabriel-Ernest's arrival, Van Cheele sees the woods not as true wilderness, but a domesticated realm under his control. His stuffed bittern is emblematic of his relationship to nature. As the narrator sarcastically describes, Van Cheele's interest in the natural life of the woods is aimed at providing fodder for conversation, not "assisting contemporary science," and he is confident that there is nothing in the woods besides game and perhaps "A stray fox or two and some resident weasels. Nothing more formidable." While Van Cheele is disturbed by his encounter with Gabriel-Ernest in the woods, his life is truly upended when Gabriel-Ernest shows up inside his house the next day. Ironically, and much to Van Cheele's frustration, his aunt is utterly oblivious to Gabriel-Ernest's wild nature, giving him his prim and proper new name and setting him to work in her Sunday school class, of all places. This comedic sequence of events goes to show that the line between the wild and the domestic, so important to Van Cheele's worldview, is much less clearly defined than he thinks—and hopes—it is. What is clear, however, is that the sense of normalcy—and security—that Van Cheele took for granted before Gabriel-Ernest's appearance may never return. As the mystery in the woods shows, humans can never really claim to have total knowledge—and with it, total control—over nature. - Theme: Fear of the Unknown. Description: Fear of the unknown underlies many of Van Cheele's observations and deductions in "Gabriel-Ernest," leading him to conclusions that, while probable, cannot actually be proven as fact. By showing how fear of the unknown can motivate—and distort—reasoning, the author demonstrates the limits of human knowledge and control of the world. Van Cheele is presented as a man of knowledge, but a man who wants to possess knowledge, not a man who truly wants to learn. While the first appearance of Gabriel-Ernest is quite an "unexpected apparition," Van Cheele is most disturbed by the way that this naked boy's presence undermines his mastery of the woods and their contents. As he talks to Gabriel-Ernest, Van Cheele "began to have an irritated feeling that he was grappling with a problem that was eluding him," a foretaste of greater fears to come. When Gabriel-Ernest crosses the pool towards him moments later, he covers his throat "Almost instinctively." Van Cheele's inability to understand the boy feels like a primal threat, even though he can't prove that the boy intends to harm him. Unable to solve the mystery of the boy's presence and thereby quell his fear, Van Cheele is abnormally quiet that evening at dinner. The next day, however, "his cheerfulness partially return[s]," as he believes that consulting Cunningham about what he saw in the woods will resolve his doubts. Unfortunately for Van Cheele, hearing Cunningham's story only fills him with terror, leading him to uncharacteristically "[tear] off at top speed towards the station," hoping to stop Gabriel-Ernest in time. Far from being something he can master, preferably easily, the reality of the mystery proves to be something that Van Cheele may be powerless to even understand, let alone control. His changing emotional states show how Van Cheele's thinking is powered primarily by fear, not curiosity. When the cause of the Toop child's death is ambiguous, it is unclear just how much Van Cheele's fear of the unknown was justified, but his arrogance and pretense to understanding the world around him seem humbled by his encounter with Gabriel-Ernest—or have at least been depicted by Saki with pointed irony. - Climax: Van Cheele realizes that Gabriel-Ernest is a werewolf and attempts to reach him before sunset. - Summary: "Gabriel-Ernest" is set in the English countryside, in and around the woods belonging to local landowner and justice of the peace Van Cheele. Van Cheele's friend Cunningham's visit is concluding, and on the way to the train station he tells Van Cheele that there is a "wild beast" in his woods. Van Cheele is concerned with the state of his woods, but only a superficial level, and dismisses Cunningham's cryptic statement without much thought. On his walk through the woods that afternoon, however, he discovers a naked 16-year-old boy who claims to be living there, hunting for "flesh" at night, including "child-flesh." The boy disappears into the woods, leaving Van Cheele disturbed. Van Cheele remembers that local game, livestock, and even the miller's child recently went missing, but dismisses any connection to what he hopes was only the boy's twisted joke. He is also concerned for his own reputation, which could be damaged if it becomes known that there is a strange boy in his woods. Returning home for dinner with his aunt, Van Cheele is unusually quiet. The next morning, he resolves to go visit Cunningham and find out what he meant about a wild beast. Before he can do so, however, the boy appears in his own home. Caught off guard, Van Cheele tells his aunt that the boy has lost his memory. She insists on taking care of him, naming him Gabriel-Ernest, and setting him to work helping her teach her Sunday school class. Van Cheele travels to see Cunningham, who tells him what he saw: at sunset, a boy, presumably Gabriel-Ernest, was standing naked on the hillside. The moment the sun set, however, he was replaced by a wolf. Van Cheele hurries home as fast as he can. When he arrives, he learns that his aunt sent Gabriel-Ernest to take the Toop child home. Running after them, Van Cheele fails to get there before dark, hearing a scream as the sun sets. Only Gabriel-Ernest's clothes are found, leading some, including Van Cheele's aunt, to believe that the child fell into the mill-race and Gabriel-Ernest jumped in to save it, drowning in the process. Miss Van Cheele puts up a memorial to Gabriel-Ernest in their church, but Van Cheele refuses to support the memorial or believe this version of events.

- Genre: Short Story - Title: Games at Twilight - Point of view: Third Person - Setting: An unnamed city in India - Character: Ravi. Description: Ravi is the protagonist of "Games at Twilight." Ravi is one of the younger members of his family, illustrated by the fact that when Desai introduces him he is nervously picking his nose in fear of being caught by the older Raghu in a game of hide and seek. Ravi also laments the fact that he isn't very tall and knows that in comparison to Raghu's athleticism, he doesn't stand a chance at escaping him if he had to run from Raghu. Thus, Desai quickly establishes a distinct social hierarchy between Ravi and Raghu and illustrates Ravi's hopes of gaining greater status. When Ravi figures out that he can hide in the locked shed, he prides himself on his quick thinking and begins to dream of the glory that will come with his beating all of the other "older, bigger, luckier children." He is so rapt by this vision of victory that he both overcomes the fear he feels in the dark, creepy shed, and also forgets that he needs to reach the family's veranda in order to win the game. Ravi remains in the shed for what feels like hours, until he realizes that he could have run to the den much earlier. When he does so, tears streaming down his face at having waited so long, he realizes that his victory has been rendered hollow because the other children have completely forgotten about him and had finished the game of hide and seek a long time ago. Thus, Ravi is confronted with the reality of his own insignificance. His understanding is further heightened by the fact that the children are playing a game in which they are chanting about being dead. Ravi recognizes the irony in this and gains an understanding of how insignificance is connected to death. Desai implies that Ravi could be (or could have been) dead and no one would notice—a thought that contributes to his maturation and a loss of innocence at the end of the story. - Character: Raghu. Description: Raghu is the oldest child in Ravi's family and the "It" in the game of hide and seek. Raghu is described as being a "hirsute, hoarse-voiced football champion" and as having "long, hefty, hairy footballer legs." Thus, Raghu is established early on as a dominant force in the family—a sense which is only reinforced by the fact that he quickly takes down many of the other children in the game. He chases down Manu immediately after reaching his count of 100 and then walks around whistling to intimidate the other children, like Ravi. Ravi dreams of being able to win against Raghu because it would be so unusual an occurrence. Yet at the end of the game, Desai illustrates how the dynamics haven't shifted at all: as Ravi gushes over and over again that he won, Raghu tells him not to be a "fool" and pushes him aside. Thus, even though Ravi does actually win the game, his accomplishments are diminished by Raghu and by the fact that the other children had all completely forgotten about him while he was hiding. Thus, Raghu becomes another character who demonstrates how the game simply reinforces the existing social hierarchy in the group of children. - Character: Mira. Description: Mira is one of the children in Ravi's family. Mira is described as "motherly," and at the beginning of the story she stops a fight between the boys and figures out a game to determine who will be "It" in their game of hide and seek. At the end of the story, when Ravi emerges from his hiding spot, Mira tells him to stop crying and says him that if he wants to play in their singing game, he should get at the back of the line. The game of hide and seek both brings out and reinforces Mira's role as the mother figure of the group. - Character: Mother. Description: Ravi and some of the other children's mother lets the kids outside to play at the beginning of the story and watches them play at the end. When Ravi emerges from the shed in hysterics at the end of the story, his mother tries to calm him down and tells him not to be a baby. - Theme: Coming of Age, Glory, and Insignificance. Description: "Games at Twilight" focuses on a young Indian boy named Ravi who is playing hide and seek one afternoon with his siblings and cousins. When Ravi finds an ingenious hiding spot in a shed that only he is small enough to get into, he begins to dream of the glory that will come with winning the game, and he remains in the spot for what seems like hours. However, Ravi finally emerges from the shed to find that the other children have completely forgotten about him and have moved on to play other games, leaving Ravi overwhelmed by feelings of irrelevance. Ravi's experience with the game thus marks an aspect of his coming of age: Desai argues for the idea that childhood is characterized by fantasies of being special and achieving glory, while growing up forces children to accept the reality of their own insignificance. Initially, when Ravi is hiding, he dreams of the acclaim that he will garner when he wins the game, illustrating how children tend to conjure grand fantasies of glory even in something as simple as a single game of hide and seek. As the game begins, Ravi escapes from Raghu (an older boy in Ravi's family who is the seeker) by ducking into a locked shed just before Raghu sees him. Desai writes how Ravi "shivered with delight, with self-congratulation." To be able to outsmart Raghu fills Ravi with a deep sense of accomplishment, one that he had never known before as one of the youngest in the family. He fantasizes about having beaten Raghu, which he describes as "thrilling beyond imagination." With these reflections, Desai reveals the desire in children to have this glory, to dream about being the most special in a group. Ravi's fantasies grow as he hears more and more of the other children getting caught by Raghu. He thinks that "nothing more wonderful had ever happened" to him than to be the last one standing. Desai describes how he "smile[s] to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much victory, such laurels." He is merely playing a game of hide and seek, but the desire for glory leads him to exaggerate what that achievement means, as it takes on the proportions of a grand dream. Here, Ravi still has the innocence of believing that a simple achievement will make him lauded by the others. Ravi's dreams are quashed, however, when he finally emerges and touches the pillar in on the veranda (which serves as home base) what seems like hours later, only to discover that the other children have completely forgotten that he was still hiding. He is thus confronted not with glory but with a sense of insignificance which serves as a key point of maturation in Ravi's young life. When Ravi finally runs out to get to home base, the children are completely surprised to see him. As he shouts out over and over again that he won the game, Desai writes that "It took them a minute to grasp what he was saying, even who he was. They had quite forgotten him." Ravi is restored to reality in understanding that he has not earned glory. He took the game too seriously, and as a result, the children care very little about his winning a game from which they had moved on hours earlier. Ravi is deeply affected by this sense of being forgotten: the fact that he describes how the other kids forgot who he was is another exaggeration, one which illustrates the pain of the experience for Ravi as he fears not only being forgotten in the game but forgotten from the lives of his family members. Ravi's sense of insignificance is heightened by the fact that when he emerges, the children are playing a game and singing about being remembered when one is dead. Ravi remarks on the tragedy of this, saying that "he had wanted victory and triumph—not a funeral." Ravi feels "his heart go heavy and ache inside him unbearably." Through this, Desai equates insignificance with a kind of death. Ravi's maturation thus involves this comprehension that one day he will die and be completely forgotten, and this implies a loss of innocence as he moves past the fantasies of childhood and comprehends reality. At the beginning of the story, Ravi is a child who dreams of adulation from the other children; at the end of the story, Ravi lies face down on the grass, "silenced by a terrible sense of his insignificance." Desai illustrates how this journey mirrors a loss of innocence or a coming of age, as Ravi's childhood fantasies are curtailed by the mature recognition of the reality of a person's insignificance in the world. - Theme: Social Hierarchy. Description: While Desai introduces the story's central group of children as a kind of monolith when they are initially cooped up in their home, as soon as they start to play hide and seek outside and moderate themselves, each child takes on different roles within their group. As the dynamics among them are clarified, Desai illustrates how the group of children exhibit a strict social hierarchy that is difficult to transcend. Desai demonstrates how social politics begin even in childhood, and how the dynamics of children's games can both reinforce that social hierarchy and reflect how rigid it is. Desai sets up a social structure that the children follow from small descriptions of the kids, illustrating how size and age are integral to a child's role within their group. Desai's description of Raghu, who is the oldest, presents him as a kind of alpha male. Desai writes that other children are no match against "Raghu's long, hefty, hairy footballer legs." Raghu is picked as the "It," or the seeker of the group, and he intimidates and catches the other children. Thus, the game reinforces his role as a predatory top dog. The game also reinforces another child's role in the social hierarchy: Mira. She is described as "motherly," and when the boys begin to fight over who will be chosen as "It," she determines the means by which they will choose the person to become "It." Thus, the game brings out characteristics in her that reinforce her role as the mother of the group. Mira and Raghu are contrasted with Manu, who is described as "small" and uncertain of where to hide. He is immediately found by Raghu and starts to cry over losing—again, Desai exhibits how the structures in place within their group are reinforced by the game, because older children are shown to be dominant over younger ones. Ravi, the story's central figure, also understands his place in the social hierarchy as one of the younger members. Due to this, however, his win is easily dismissed, illustrating how difficult it is to for a younger child like Ravi to gain the kind of status that will allow him to rise above his accepted place in the group. Desai quickly establishes Ravi as one of the younger children. In contrast to Raghu's athleticism and long legs, Desai writes that Ravi doesn't have "much faith in his short legs." When he encounters a locked garage, he laments that he isn't tall enough to reach the key so that he can unlock it. These descriptions set up Ravi as an underdog and help to emphasize his deep desire to flip the dynamic. Ravi instead finds another place to hide: a locked shed into which only he is small enough to wriggle. This fuels his desire to win against "older, bigger, luckier children," as he has an opportunity to subvert their rigid social hierarchy. Yet the end of the game does not afford Ravi this chance. After what feels like hours to him, he emerges from the dark shed sobbing over having waited so long. He then declares himself the winner, only to discover that the other children have forgotten about him. Seeing him so upset, Raghu tells him not to be a "fool" and pushes him aside. Mira tells him to stop howling and says that if he wants to play the game they are currently playing, he can go to the end of the line—she places him there "firmly." Despite the fact Ravi won the game, the roles are exactly as they were prior to the start, emphasizing the insurmountable rigidity of social hierarchies. Even though Ravi is able to win the game of hide and seek, his victory is hollow because the other children grant him so little credit for it. Thus, Desai illustrates how children's status within a group is clear and relatively immutable. While games can appear to afford children opportunities to change that status, in reality they mostly end up reinforcing the hierarchy that already existed. - Theme: Safety vs. Fear. Description: While childhood can often be an idyllic time, it is not without its rollercoaster of emotions and fears. In "Games at Twilight," the protagonist, Ravi, constantly teeters between a sense of security and one of fear. As he plays a game of hide and seek, he yearns to rejoin his siblings and cousins in the sun, all the while growing more and more nervous in the dark and mysterious shed in which he chooses to hide. Through this wavering, Desai sets up two opposing environments that illustrate the same point: for children, safety is derived primarily from a sense of familiarity, in contrast to fear, which is prompted chiefly by the unknown. The "dark" and "spooky" shed in which Ravi hides becomes a deep source of fear for Ravi, as he does not know what could be lurking inside it. The darkness and strangeness of the shed sets up the idea that Ravi isn't afraid of any particular thing, but rather by the sheer unknowability of what could hurt him. Desai writes how Ravi is afraid to be in the shed, which smells of animals but also "less recognizable horrors." The fact that there is so little light—it only gets in through the "cracks along the door"—also incites fear. Both of these ideas illustrate how the shed is scary not necessarily for any specific reason other than that it is unfamiliar to Ravi, meaning that he doesn't know what perils might exist within it. At first, Ravi is too afraid to move in the shed, as he is worried that he might touch something he didn't want to touch. When he feels something tickle the back of his neck, he has to wait a long time before mustering the courage to see what it might be. When he feels it is a spider, he immediately squashes it. The spider is not terrifying to him; instead, it is the feeling of not knowing "how many more creatures were watching him, waiting to reach out and touch him." Thus, Desai establishes again the sense that not knowing what lies in the shed is more upsetting than the reality of what is actually in there. This idea becomes even more salient when Ravi encounters things that are more familiar. When he is able to see slightly better, he recognizes an old bathtub that had been discarded, and he sits inside it, feeling comforted by the fact that the object is familiar to him. Similarly, when he hears Raghu—an older boy who is the seeker in the game—bang on the shed with a stick, this actually makes him feel "protected." Even though Raghu is trying to intimidate him, knowing that someone from his family is out there gives Ravi a sense of safety in the midst of an unknown environment. Desai contrasts the fear prompted by the shed with the security of the world outside it. Through symbols like sunlight or the veranda (which acts as the children's home base for their game), Desai continues to correlate the idea of familiarity and clarity with safety. In contrast to the dark unknown of the shed, Ravi longs for "the sun, the light, the free spaces of the garden and the familiarity of his brothers, sisters, and cousins." Being able to see (and therefore know what lies in his surroundings) and being with people whom he knows affords him this sense of safety. Even though at any point he could return to them, the simple fact of being separated from that familiarity is scary for Ravi. And as the sunlight fades, he grows more and more worried about remaining in the shed, strengthening the idea that the light adds a sense of security and comfort when it is present. The veranda itself is another reinforcement of this idea that familiarity equates with safety. A white pillar on the veranda serves as the children's home base, the thing that confers safety in the game on the person who touches it. It is no coincidence, then, that this location is part of the family's house, as it represents a returning to the familiarity of home and family. When Ravi can't take remain in the shed anymore and realizes that he has to return to the veranda, he streaks to it as fast as he can, crying with despair at having waited so long but also gaining a sense of relief at returning safely. Together, these two primary environments of the story prove Desai's argument that fear is borne of a sense of the unknown, while safety is conferred by what is known and familiar. - Climax: Ravi wins the game of hide and seek, only to realize that the other children had forgotten he was still hiding. - Summary: One hot summer afternoon, a group of children convinces their mother to let them play outside, on the condition that they stay on the veranda of the house. When they decide to play hide and seek outside, they fight over who will be "It." One of the girls, Mira decides that they will play a game to determine who is It. This results in an older boy named Raghu becoming the It, and the kids all scatter to hide. Raghu quickly tracks down a smaller, younger boy named Manu, who becomes the first out. Another of the younger kids, Ravi, hides in a locked shed by sneaking through a small gap in the wall. He is excited by his ingenuity in getting into the shed, but he is also afraid of being in there. It is dark and smells like death and animals. At various points, he thinks that a snake might be brushing up against him, or that insects might be crawling on him or watching him. Raghu walks around, catching some of the other kids. He bangs on the shed with a stick, which both startles Ravi and makes him feel protected since Raghu is there. Ravi feels a tickle on the back of his neck and hesitates in terror before squashing a spider that's crawling on him. He stays frozen in place with his hand on his neck, feeling his legs grow tired as he looks around the shed. As Ravi's eyes grow more accustomed to the darkness, he sees old furniture all around him and decides to sit in a bathtub that he recognizes. As time wears on, Ravi contemplates getting caught by Raghu so that he can go back outside and be with the his siblings and cousins. But he is also excited at the idea of being the last kid who isn't caught, as he's never been victorious over all of the other older kids. He dreams about the glory and the triumph that he will experience when he emerges from the shed. It grows darker, and Ravi remains in the shed for what seems like hours. He wonders where the other children are, and whether the game is over—but he thinks that the game cannot be over without them having found him. Ravi then realizes that he could have slipped out and run to their home base (a white pillar on the veranda) much earlier, but he had been so satisfied with his hiding place that he had forgotten this is necessary to winning the game. He bursts through the crack in the shed and runs to the den, tears streaming down his face as he declares himself the winner of the game. The other children are stunned to see Ravi; they had completely forgotten about him. They had moved on to many other activities and games. Now, they are playing a game in which two children make a tunnel with their arms and the other children duck under it as they sing a rhyme about being remembered when they're dead. The children and their mother tell Ravi to stop crying and join the game, but he doesn't want to. Instead, he lays face down on the grass, feeling crushed by his own insignificance.

- Genre: - Title: Gathering Blue - Point of view: - Setting: - Character: Kira. Description: The young protagonist of Gathering Blue, Kira is a girl with a lame leg, who is probably around twelve years old and who excels at weaving. Throughout the novel, she's forced to fight to defend two strong instincts that, it often seems, no one else shares: creativity and compassion. When she lives in the village, Kira longs for the time and resources to exercise her creativity through weaving, but few people acknowledge that her fabrics and designs have any value. Kira is also horrified at the way the villagers hurt each other, both physically and mentally. When her mother, Katrina, dies and the Council of Elders brings Kira into the Edifice, she thinks that she's found a solution to both of her problems: the Council both encourages her artistry—putting her to work repairing the Singer's robe—and treats her and her friends well. In the end, however, Kira comes to see that the Council is secretly cruel and controlling, and that it uses its power to control creativity to sway its people's beliefs toward its own ends. Eventually, Kira, reunites with her father, Christopher, who Kira had believed was dead. Rather than leave the village with Christopher, though, Kira proves her bravery and maturity by choosing to remain in the Council's control while secretly using her creativity to undermine the Council's power. - Character: Matt. Description: A young, rambunctious boy, probably around seven, who lives in the Fen near the village. Matt is a close friend of Kira's. Though he affects swagger and strength, two qualities that make him try to emulate the village's hunters, Matt is a sensitive, compassionate boy, as shown by the way he cares for Branch, his dog, after Branch is crushed under a cart—indeed, aside from Kira, Matt is the most compassionate and sensitive character in the novel. At many points, Matt struggles between the influence of Kira, who encourages him to be polite and kind, and the influence of the villagers, who encourage him to be wild and violent. Ultimately, he seems to side with Kira: he comes to understand the idea of a gift, which Kira has been struggling to teach him, and agrees to escort Christopher back to his community, suggesting that Matt himself will be surrounded by kind, caring people. - Character: Christopher. Description: Katrina's husband and Kira's father. Kira believes Christopher to be dead until the last chapters of the book. In the village, Christopher was an excellent hunter and a charismatic leader, and he was supposed to join the Council of Guardians before Jamison stabbed him in the back and left him to die. Instead of succumbing to his wounds, Christopher found himself among a community of kind, compassionate people, all of whom had injuries or deformities of some kind—Christopher himself lost his eyesight after he was stabbed. Christopher cares deeply for his wife and daughter. Nevertheless, he understands when Kira explains that she must stay behind in the village instead of going with him to his new community. - Character: Thomas the Carver. Description: Kira's friend, and another orphaned artist who works for the Council of Guardians, Thomas is a talented wood carver who spends his days repairing the Singer's staff. Like Kira, Thomas is a compassionate person, though on many occasions, especially around Matt and Jo, his compassion seems far weaker than Kira's, perhaps because he's lived in the Council Edifice for longer. Also like Kira, Thomas derives much inspiration from a symbol of his artistic freedom—in his case, a carving he made as a child. Unlike Kira, however, Thomas feels like his long time in service to the Council has cost him the natural talent he had as a child. While he's more reluctant to disobey the Council than Kira, Thomas agrees to help her take care of Matt, Jo, and Christopher. - Character: Jamison. Description: The Council Guardian responsible for defending Kira in her suit with Vandara, Jamison appears to be a kind, respectful father figure giving Kira both safety and attention. As the novel progresses, though, it becomes clear to Kira that Jamison is a tyrannical, overbearing, violent man who only cares about Kira's ability to weave the Singer's robe and, by extension, help the Council to shift the outlook of the villagers in the way it desires. Eventually, it's revealed that Jamison was the man who stabbed Christopher in the back. - Character: The Singer. Description: An artist whose sole responsibility is to sing the day-long Ruin Song before the entire village at the annual Gathering. The Singer is highly respected in the village, though he lives a hard life, studying the Ruin Song throughout the year. As Kira discovers, the Singer is literally a prisoner of the Council of Guardians: he wears a heavy chain on his leg, and leaves a trail of blood wherever he walks. He wears a robe (repaired by Kira) and carries a staff (carved by Thomas), both of which represent the Ruin Song in pictorial form. - Character: Vandara. Description: A strong, cruel, petty, and possibly murderous woman who tries to have Kira dragged into the Field of the Living after Katrina dies. Vandara is an intimidating woman, and many of the other women in the village take their cues from her. She has a large scar on her face, which she claims she sustained in a fight with a wild beast, though it's later revealed that she got it after slipping on sharp rocks. - Character: Annabella. Description: An old woman who lives in the forest and teaches both Katrina and Kira the arts of weaving. Annabella is immensely old, and thus respected for her wisdom. Like Kira, she is kind to others, even those like Matt who are often perceived as obnoxious. She is the first to tell Kira that there are no beasts surrounding their village. She dies mysteriously soon after telling Kira this. - Character: Jo. Description: A young girl who is an excellent singer and who was abducted by the Council of Guardians and forced to life in the Edifice, studying music. Jo will become the future singer when the current Singer dies. When Kira discovers Jo's presence in the Council Edifice and begins to take care of her, Jo comes to regard Kira as a mother figure. - Character: Chief guardian. Description: An old, powerful man who, as the head of the Council, organizes the village's annual Gathering and presides over trials, including Kira's. The chief guardian seems to believe that women have no rights—at the end of Kira's trial he tells Vandara as much—but he also recognizes and wishes to control the power of art, and thus appoints Kira to weave the Gathering robe. While we are never certain of the chief guardian's name, Kira thinks that it might be Bartholomew—something with four syllables, indicating his age and supposed wisdom. - Character: Katrina's brother. Description: Kira's "uncle" (though the village doesn't use this term) is a callous, unfeeling man who drags his wife, Solora, to the Field of the Living after she dies in childbirth. He's shown to have no sympathy for Kira, though his lack of sympathy is a product of the village's general lack of compassion, not of any specific animosity. - Theme: Art and Creative Instinct. Description: Gathering Blue is set in a town that, long after a worldwide catastrophe called the Ruin, is primarily characterized by the struggle to survive. It is a world without art, a world in which the villagers see art as lacking any practical purpose, and therefore as being useless. The novel focuses, though, on three young artists: Kira, who excels at weaving, Thomas, who excels at carving wood, and Jo, who excels at singing. Through the experiences of these artists in a village without art, the novel comments on art and the creative instinct, as well as the way that art can be abused by the powerful and the requirements and responsibilities of art.In the novel, the "creative gift' is presented as almost mystical, something that no one—including the artists themselves—fully understands. Kira's develops her talent for weaving in part by practicing with her mother, Katrina, but for the most part her abilities require no education at all: she's born with them. Similarly, Thomas becomes a great wood carver without anyone to help him, and Jo learns to sing without any training whatsoever. Further, at times the artists' creativity gives them an almost magical power to see the future. We see this most clearly in Kira, who senses whether there is danger, or whether something important is going to happen, whenever she touches the cloth she wove as a child. In this way the novel seems to suggest that artists are in tune with the world and are able to represent and understand that world in profound and powerful ways.While the origin of artistic talent is presented as mysterious, the government of the village—the Council of Guardians—shows itself to be very adept at using art. The Council takes the three artists of the village from their uncomfortable circumstances and gives them comfortable lives in the Council Edifice. But the Council also gives them very specific, very controlled jobs for their art: to embroider the robe, carve the staff, and sing the Ruin Song that are the centerpieces of the village's annual Gathering. And further, the song and artifacts perform a very specific purpose at the Gathering: they describe the history of the world in such a way as to show an endless cycle of growth and decay that will teach the villagers that, since "Ruin" is inevitable and no real progress can be made, it's every man for himself. Put another way: the Council uses the artists it controls to produce art that influences the people it rules to act in a way that benefits the government. There is a name for art used in this sort of political way — propaganda.As the novel progresses, Kira and the other artists come to be unsatisfied with the "art" that they are being asked to produce. Part of this dissatisfaction comes from the fact that there is no actual creativity to their art: they are told what to do. Even when Kira is given the opportunity to design the undecorated part of the robe, it's clear that the Council is going to tell her what to weave. But such "controlled" art is also unsatisfying because it makes the art worse. Both Kira and Thomas come to feel that they have lost touch with their innate creativity when they are working for the Council. Thomas comments that the carving he made as a child was far more creative than anything he's done for the Council.Ultimately, Kira decides to take control of her art, and to weave the undecorated part of the robe according to her own creative instincts, not the orders of the Council. Kira realizes that art is powerful, but recognizes that it is most powerful when controlled by the artist herself, and when she decides to stay in the village rather than leave with her father she embraces the fact that through art an artist can share their own vision with the world and create change. - Theme: Self-Interest versus Compassion. Description: The people of the town in which Kira lives are marked by their anger, greed, and profound self-interest. Healthy villagers dispassionately drag the sick, dying, and deformed to die in the Field of the Living—it doesn't matter if the sick are the villagers' own family or friends. The villagers do this because resources are so scarce in the town that they are afraid that it costs too much time and food to nurse the sick back to health. The implication is that the villagers' behavior is a product of their environment: they can't afford to have feelings for the sick, because caring for them would cause other people to go hungry.This idea that behavior is a product of one's environment is supported also by characters that do act compassionately. Kira freely admits that she's kind and nurturing because she was born with a lame leg—if she'd been born healthy, she'd be no kinder than the other villagers. Even the village of "the wounded" that Matt discovers later in the book as he searches for a plant that can aid Kira in producing a blue dye is compassionate because it has to be: compassion and generosity are qualities that help the disabled people who live there survive.And yet as the novel continues, particularly after Kira's father, Christopher, returns to the town and reveals the secrets of the Council of Guardians and Jamison's selfish actions in particular, it becomes clear that the behavior of the townspeople is actually by design. The Council of Guardians has designed its story of history, with its cyclical rise and falls and lack of any real change of progress, precisely to create in the townspeople the sense that it makes no sense to act in any way other than selfishly. Such selfishness ensures the continued power of the Council, as it eliminates the possibility of the townspeople ever working together to try to create something better than they have. Similarly, a few characters in the novel show signs of innate compassion without any practical, environmental motives. Matt frees his dog, Branch, from underneath a cart, and nurses it back to health, and Kira's mother, Katrina, saves Kira from infanticide when Kira is a baby. Taken together, these examples suggest some people—and maybe all people—have the innate desire to love and care for others. The idea that people can be taught to access their innate feelings of compassion is a key part of Kira's decision to stay behind at the end of the novel. Kira wants to undermine the Council of Guardians by teaching her village "blue," which has been a symbol of love and compassion throughout the novel. Thus, Kira will use her skills as a weaver to weave blue threads into the robe and, it's suggested, teach the villagers to act out of love and compassion.Gathering Blue ends on a note of cautious optimism. It will be difficult for Kira to educate the stubborn, selfish village in compassionate behavior, but her experiences in the novel have convinced her that it's possible to do so, and therefore worth trying. - Theme: Power and Freedom. Description: It's clear from early on in Gathering Blue that the Council of Guardians wields a huge amount of power over the village. It presides over all trials, hosts the annual Gathering, and can expel anyone in the village at any time. What's unclear, at least until the end of the novel, is the source of the Council's great power. At any time, it would seem, the villagers could rise up and overthrow the Council—in fact, this seems like exactly the kind of wild, violent gesture the villagers specialize in.Throughout the book, the Council of Guardians uses psychology and manipulation to stay in power. By holding an annual Gathering, which every villager must attend, the Council subtly persuades the villagers to abide by their rule. The Ruin Song that's performed every year at the Gathering tells the story of the great civilizations of the past, with their tall buildings and powerful armies. By residing in the huge, imposing Council Edifice, and hosting the Gathering in the Edifice, the Council steals some of the respect the villagers feel for the civilizations of the past. In a different way, the Council encourages the villagers to accept their place in life. The Ruin Song describes how all civilizations inevitably die out, to be replaced by other civilizations. The pessimism of this song is so great that it teaches the villagers, from the time that they're children, to view their lives pessimistically, believe that no real change is possible, and therefore accept that's it every man for himself. With no alliances or friendships, the villagers are too weak to rise up against the Council.Another way the Council wages psychological war on the villagers is by spreading the myth of wild beasts. The villagers are told to be afraid of the wild beasts that surround the village. Partly because they're afraid of beasts, they don't help one another—in dangerous times, it's every man for himself. The Council clearly profits from the villager's fear and confusion. Indeed, when the Council learns that people don't believe in beasts, it has them killed.It's clear the Council stays in power by "persuading" the villagers to accept their rule—in essence, by frightening or intimidating them into submission. The Council controls people's freedom by controlling what they think, not what they do. A good example of this is Kira. Though she's summoned to live in the Council Edifice, she can—and often does—leave at any time. Yet she always returns—in part because she likes the life the Council provides her, but also because the Council has intimidated her into thinking that she must respect their wishes and continue working on the robe.Nevertheless, it's possible to achieve freedom simply by recognizing the source of power. At the end of the novel, Kira understands how the Council uses the Ruin Song and her robe to control the village. Yet she doesn't leave the village with her father; instead, she stays behind to alter the robe's message. Seemingly, Kira is as much of a slave as she was before—she's still working for the Council, after all. Yet Kira has gained freedom for herself—she's not intimidated by the Council anymore, and she'll work as a "secret agent," dismantling the Council's power from the inside. Because power consists of mental control as much as physical control, Lowry concludes, there is freedom simply in taking control of one's mind. - Theme: Pain and Maturity. Description: It's been noted that the characters in Lowry's children's books endure an unusual amount of pain and suffering. Gathering Blue is no exception: that Kira loses her mother isn't so remarkable (there are plenty of protagonists of children's books who are orphans, after all), but she has to drag her mother to a field and watch her corpse for four gruesome days. It's fair to say that Lowry seeks to explore the impact of pain: what people do with it, how they respond to it, and how they learn from it.Kira is hardly unique in her village—all the villagers have to deal with pain and suffering. Many of the adults lose their husbands or wives to sickness, and others are injured while hunting. When a villager endures a huge amount of pain—an injury or disease, for example—the other villagers drag him to the Field of the Living to succumb to his pain and die. When the pain is of a milder sort—for instance, when a child annoys its mother—the pain is immediately returned upon the person who causes it—the mother beats her child. In the former case, pain is ignored, swept under the rug; there is no point in trying to minimize another's pain, the villagers believe. In the latter case, the pain is reproduced in the short term (the child is beaten) and perpetuated in the long term (presumably the child grows up to beat its own children).At the core of the way the villagers deal with pain is a deep pessimism about the world: pain cannot be fought; it can only be ignored or passed on to someone else. This pessimism mirrors exactly the pessimism of the Ruin Song, which teaches the village that Ruin cannot be fought; it can only be accepted as an inevitability.The similarity between the pessimism of the villagers and the pessimism of the Ruin Song suggests that part of the role of art is to teach humans how to deal with pain. Thus, it's no coincidence that Kira, an artist, learns how to live with pain by transforming it into something new. Kira's mother teaches her that pain can make her stronger. We see many examples of this in the novel. When she first arrives in the hall of the Council Edifice, Kira is frightened and nervous. Yet the very nervousness and fear she feels teaches her to be calmer and more confident in the future. Thus, when she returns to the hall for the Gathering, she's not afraid at all, and even notes how much more mature she's grown. Similarly, Kira insists on making the difficult journey to Annabella's house, even though it's exhausting for her to walk with a lame leg. Her perseverance makes her stronger, and makes it easier for her to travel freely. In both cases, pain is a crucial part of growing up. By going though a painful experience, Kira teaches herself to deal with that experience, so that when she encounters it in the future, it causes her less pain.Transforming pain into experience is an almost artistic process: it requires Kira to see beauty and value in ugly things, thereby shaping them into something beautiful and valuable. Although Kira's ability to transform pain into experience is closely tied to her abilities as an artist, Lowry makes a much more general point: maturation is only possible with pain. Thus, children become adults by experiencing pain and learning how to deal with it. - Theme: Men, Women, and Gender Roles. Description: At many points, Kira notes that her society is strictly divided along gender lines. Women can only perform certain jobs and go certain places. Many of them work by gathering food for the village, and others spend their time weaving. Men, on the other hand, hunt for food for the village. On the day of a hunt, they brag and argue and fight with each other. This isn't a case of "separate but equal"; clearly the men have more power and freedom than the women of the village. We can see this when Vandara and Kira go to court before the Council of Guardians. There seem to be no women on the Council (whereas there are at least three men on it, including the chief guardian), and Vandara learns from the chief guardian that she has no rights, presumably because she's a woman. It's also mentioned many times that women aren't allowed to learn how to read.For the most part, Lowry doesn't suggest that there are any innate behavioral differences between the sexes. (On the few occasions when she does suggest this, she's being humorous—for instance, in the scene where Kira gets irritated at Thomas for being too interested in the construction work, and thinks that all men are the same). Men and women aren't born wanting to hunt or weave, respectively—the village teaches them to want to do these things. Matt's behavior in the second half of Gathering Blue suggests how the village tells men and women how to behave. Matt is a wild, rambunctious boy who, like most of his peers, wants to be a hunter. At one point, he finds himself a spear and joins the men as they prepare to hunt, observing and imitating all the typical behavior of men: fighting, bragging, etc. It's only because Kira and Thomas stop him that he doesn't participate in the hunt. Later, Matt shows that he's moved past the desire to hunt and fight. He brings Kira a gift—a blue cloth—and volunteers to take Kira's father, Christopher, back to his home.For the most part, masculinity as it's practiced in the village is a case of "monkey see, monkey do"—boys learn how to be men by imitating men. Nothing says that boys must grow up to be hunters and fighters—with the right guidance and education, their character can be more compassionate and mature. Perhaps the best way to fight gender roles while remaining in the village is to become an artist. As a weaver for the Council of Guardians, Kira has much more contact with men—Jamison, Thomas—than she has previously. Moreover, her contribution to the Gathering, the robe, isn't seen as inferior to Thomas's contribution, the staff. The only criterion for art is its quality—the gender of the artist doesn't matter.In the village of Gathering Blue, men are arrogant, violent, and controlling, while women are weaker and less educated. With education and art, this unfair, arbitrary arrangement can be changed. It's worth remembering that Lowry herself didn't begin her career as a writer until the age of 40, after she'd raised four children and completed a college degree and a Master's degree—she can testify firsthand to the importance of art and education for women. - Climax: - Summary: The novel begins with the death of Katrina, the mother of a girl named Kira. Kira lives in a village where the sick and weak are dragged off to die in the Field of the Living; after they die, someone is required to watch the spirit leave the dead body for the next four days. Katrina dies in her cott, or cottage, where she lived with Kira. Kira drags her dead mother to the Field and spends four days watching her spirit leave. Kira has a lame leg; when she was born, the villagers wanted to leave her in the Field to die, but Katrina insisted that she keep Kira, because she recognizes that her daughter is bright and good with her hands. Kira's father, Christopher, was supposed to serve on the Council of Guardians, the group that controls the village, but wild beasts killed him in a hunting accident before Kira was born. When she returns from the Field, Kira meets her friend Matt, a young, rambunctious child who lives in the Fen, a nearby area where the people are poorer and dirtier. Matt tells Kira that Vandara, a fearsome woman, wants to take the site of Kira's cott and use it to build a pen for young children, known as "tykes." When Kira returns to her cott, the women of the village, led by Vandara, confront her, carrying rocks and stones. Kira saves her own life by reminding them that the penalty for taking a life without the Council's approval is death. Vandara drops her rock, but tells Kira that she will bring her to court tomorrow. Kira wonders how she can convince the Council to let her stay in the village. She can't do much work, due to her lame leg, but she is an excellent weaver. The next day, a messenger summons Kira to the Council Edifice, where the Council of Elders holds a trial for Kira and Vandara. Kira has been to the Edifice before for the Gathering, an annual ceremony that every villager must attend. During the Gathering, the Singer sings a long Ruin Song, about the rise and fall of all the civilizations in history. At the trial, Vandara accuses Kira of being lazy and incapable of doing any work, and argues that she should be left to die in the Field of the Living. The chief guardian of the Council appoints Jamison, one of the younger guardians, to defend Kira. Jamison argues that Kira should be allowed to stay, both because she is the granddaughter of a former chief guardian and because she is an accomplished weaver. As Kira listens to Jamison, she clutches a cloth that she carries with her wherever she goes. Kira carries the cloth both because it reminds her that she is an excellent weaver and because it sometimes seems to speak to her—now, for instance, the cloth tells her that she need not worry. The Council decides that Kira will be taken to live in the Council Edifice and work as a weaver, a decision that infuriates Vandara. With Matt's help, Kira gathers her remaining possessions from her cott and moves into the Council Edifice. Matt brings her a pendant that belonged to her mother; Kira decides to wear it. In the Edifice, she meets a boy, Thomas the Carver, who carves the Singer's staff. Kira will repair the Singer's robe. Thomas explains that Kira can do whatever she likes, provided that she completes her work. At first, Kira dislikes her new home, since its running water and indoor plumbing are new to her, but gradually she comes to feel comfortable in the Edifice. In order to master the art of weaving completely, Kira will go to the cott of an old woman named Annabella, who also taught Katrina how to weave. With Matt, Kira goes to Annabella's house, where she begins to learn the names of the plants that can be used to dye threads. Annabella tells Kira that plants that produce the color blue can be found "yonder." Although the Council forbids women to learn how to read, Thomas helps Kira by writing down the names of the plants and their corresponding colors, and reading this information to Kira whenever she needs it. He also mentions that he's heard a child crying in the night, though neither he nor Kira know what to make of this. Kira studies the robe, and sees that it depicts an endless pattern of peace and destruction. Cities flourish, but then collapse in flames. She prefers the peaceful sections, woven in green and gold, to the violent sections, mostly woven in red and orange. She also wants to add blue to the robe, and wonders where she can find it. Thomas and Kira work on their projects, eating lunch together and gradually becoming friends. Thomas is also an orphan. His parents died mysteriously when he was a child, and he was taken to live in the Edifice. Like Kira, Thomas keeps a small object he made as a tyke: a beautiful wooden carving. Much like Kira's cloth, Thomas's carving tells him if he should expect danger or peace. Unlike Kira, however, Thomas views his carving as a symbol of knowledge and creativity that he's long since lost—Kira, by contrast, feels that her creativity and knowledge of weaving is still growing. On one of her visits to Annabella's cott, Annabella tells Kira that there actually aren't any wild beasts. Shortly thereafter, Kira and Thomas hear a child crying again; they decide to investigate where the noise is coming from, enlisting Matt and his dog, Branch, for help. On a lower floor of the Edifice, the four of them hear Jamison talking to a small child in an angry tone. Matt says that he recognizes the child, Jo, from the Fen—Jo is a highly gifted singer who mysteriously vanished. Shortly after this, Kira tells Jamison that Annabella told her there were no beasts; Jamison insists that Annabella is losing her wisdom. The next day, Kira learns that Annabella has died. She begins to grow suspicious of Jamison. Kira returns to the floor where she heard Jamison scold Jo. From behind a door, she talks to Jo and learns that Jo is being held in the Edifice against her will. When Kira explains this to Thomas, he's initially dismissive, but gradually, they both come to realize that the Council has taken them from their homes and forced them to use their artistic abilities for the Gathering. Thomas and Kira visit Jo, and Thomas uses a special key he carved to open Jo's door. Kira comforts Jo, and shows her how to tap on the ceiling if she's in any danger, thereby alerting Kira and Thomas. Kira also discovers that Matt has gone on a quest; when she and Thomas visit the Fen, they learn from Matt's brother that he's gone in search of blue for Kira. As the Gathering approaches, Jamison praises Kira for the repairs she's made to the Singer's robe. He shows her a blank area on the robe, and tells her that she will weave "the future" into this area, according to the Council's supervision. On the day of the Gathering, all the villagers enter the hall of the Council Edifice. Kira, Thomas, and Jo sit in special chairs. The Singer, wearing the robe Kira has repaired and holding the staff Thomas has been carving, begins to sing the lengthy Ruin Song. As he sings, Kira notices Matt crawling among the villagers. She also hears a metallic "clank," and sees something about the Singer that shocks her. After the end of the Gathering, Kira reunites with Matt, who tells her that he's brought her two gifts: one little, one big. The little gift is a small blue cloth, and the big gift turns out to be a blind, scarred man, wearing a blue shirt. The man reveals a pendant that matches the one Kira's mother wore, and explains that he is Christopher, Kira's father. During one hunt, Christopher explains, a rival clubbed Christopher in the head (making him permanently blind), stabbed him, and left him to die in the Field of the Living. A mysterious group of people carried Christopher away from the Field, took him to a new community, and nursed him back to health. In this new community, Christopher explains, almost everyone is disabled or wounded in some way; as a result, everyone is kind and gentle. Christopher decided not to return to his village because he assumed that his life would still be in danger. However, when Matt found him, he quickly deduced that Matt's friend, a weaver, must be Christopher's own daughter. Kira assures Christopher that his life is safe, since she has a friend, Jamison, on the Council of Guardians. Christopher reveals that it was Jamison who tried to kill him. Christopher makes plans to take Kira back to the new community he's joined, and then goes with Matt to rest in a safe place. That night, Kira remembers what she saw at the Gathering: a heavy chain around the Singer's leg. Kira realizes that she is a prisoner of the Council: the Council has kidnapped three artists—Kira, Jo, and Thomas—and killed the artists' parents, so that they can put the artists to work. By controlling what Kira, Jo, and Thomas create, the guardians effectively control the future: they control how villagers see the rest of the world, and thus how the villagers behave. At dawn, Christopher arrives at the Council Edifice, prepared to leave with Kira. Kira tells him that she's can't go with him—she must stay and weave the robe according to her own creative vision, instead of the Council's. Christopher is surprised, but accepts her decision, and says that Matt will lead him back instead. Before he leaves, he gives Kira woad, the plant that produces the color blue, and a handful of blue threads he pulled from his shirt. Kira returns to the Edifice, prepared to weave blue into the robe and certain that the future is in her hands.

- Genre: Middle-Grade Novel - Title: Ghost Boys - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Chicago - Character: Jerome Rogers. Description: Twelve-year-old Jerome Rogers is the protagonist and narrator of Ghost Boys. He resides in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood with his Ma, Pop, Grandma, and little sister Kim. A polite, well-meaning kid, he is bullied by fellow seventh-graders Eddie, Mike, and Snap. When the novel begins, a white police officer, Officer Moore, has just shot Jerome to death, mistaking the five-foot, 90-pound middle-schooler playing with a toy gun for a threatening adult with a real firearm. Through flashbacks, the novel reveals that on the day Jerome was shot, he made friends with a new kid at school, Carlos, who used the toy gun to scare off the bullies threatening him and Jerome. Carlos offered to lend the toy to Jerome for a day—and Jerome, despite knowing his parents wouldn't like it, accepted the toy because he wanted to misbehave and have fun for once. After Jerome's death, he remains haunting Chicago, though the only living person who can hear him is his killer's middle-schooler daughter, Sarah Moore. While haunting Chicago, Jerome also encounters the ghost of Emmett Till, a historical lynching victim brutally murdered in 1955 at age 14. By repeatedly discussing his death with Emmett and with Sarah, Jerome comes to realize that his shooting is part of a long historical pattern of racist violence against Black boys. He decides that his purpose in the afterlife is to inspire the living to make antiracist social change and to bear witness to the injustice of his own and other Black boys' deaths. At the novel's end, Jerome has decided to join Emmett in helping the ghosts of other murdered Black boys bear witness—and he directly addresses his readers, asking them to bear witness as well. - Character: Emmett Till. Description: Emmett Till in Ghost Boys is a representation of the historical 14-year-old African-American lynching victim from Chicago, who was murdered while visiting relatives in Mississippi by two white men after he spoke to one man's wife while she was working in a grocery store. Emmett begins mentoring Jerome Rogers's ghost after a white police officer, Officer Moore, mistakes the toy gun Jerome is holding for a real firearm and shoots him. As described in the novel, Emmett is Jerome's height, with very dark eyes and chipmunk cheeks. He first appears in the novel when he visits the Rogers family apartment during Jerome's wake, when Jerome has first begun to haunt his family. Emmett pops up several times at Jerome's house, at the hearing, and it's revealed that Officer Moore's daughter Sarah can see Emmett's ghost as well as his own. While Jerome is haunting Sarah's room and talking with her later that day, Emmett appears and shows them both thousands of ghosts of Black boys outside, all of whom died under circumstances similar to Jerome. Learning about Emmett's murder is vital to both Sarah and Jerome's development: it helps Sarah develop political consciousness and makes Jerome realize that his killing is part of a long history of violence against Black boys. At the novel's end, Jerome has resolved to bear witness and trigger the desire for antiracist change among the living in the same way that Emmett Till's ghost is doing. - Character: Sarah Moore. Description: A freckly white girl with blue eyes and brown hair, Sarah Moore is the middle-school-aged daughter of Officer Moore, who shoots Jerome Rogers to death after mistaking the toy gun in his hand for a real firearm. At the hearing to determine whether Officer Moore will face charges for killing Jerome, Sarah is the only person who can see Jerome's ghost. When Jerome—lonely haunting a living world where no one has been able to perceive him—starts visiting Sarah at home, she initially makes excuses for her father, but she is also shocked to see that, despite her father's claims that Jerome was threatening and looked like an adult, Jerome is just a kid the same height as she is. She apologizes to Jerome and suggests they become friends. She is even more shocked when the ghost of historical lynching victim Emmett Till appears during one of her and Jerome's conversations and shows them thousands of ghosts of Black boys killed in contexts similar to that of Jerome's death. After watching the video of Jerome's shooting—in which her father didn't ask Jerome to put his hands up or give Jerome first aid—Sarah is devastated. She is further devastated after researching Emmett Till's lynching. Sarah stops speaking to her father and creates a website to document racist murders of Black boys, hoping that public education will prevent more such murders from occurring. Eventually, Jerome tells Sarah to start talking to her father again and to teach him how not to fear Black boys out of prejudice. When Sarah and Jerome say goodbye, she promises never to let anyone forget him—and takes his advice, convincing her father to help her with her website project memorializing Jerome and others killed under similar circumstances. - Character: Officer Moore. Description: Sarah Moore's father, Officer Moore is a white police officer in Chicago. He has saved lives and been decorated for bravery—but one December, he responds to a 911 call and fatally shoots Jerome Rogers, a 12-year-old Black boy, after mistaking Jerome for an adult and his toy gun for a real firearm. Notably, Officer Moore fails to announce he and his partner are police and shoots Jerome in the back while Jerome is sprinting away. In addition, neither Officer Moore nor his partner attempt to give Jerome first aid while Jerome is dying. When Sarah, who can see Jerome's ghost, challenges Officer Moore's characterization of Jerome as threateningly adult-looking, pointing out that Jerome was her own age and height, Officer Moore storms away. During the hearing to determine whether he will be charged for killing Jerome, Officer Moore repeats, over and over, that Jerome put him "in fear for [his] life." Jerome eventually concludes that Officer Moore is telling the truth about having been afraid of him, despite Jerome's being a five-foot-tall 12-year-old, illustrating how irrational Officer Moore's racist fears of Black boys is. After the judge chooses not to press charges against Officer Moore, he falls into a depression and is implied to be drinking too much, perhaps to ignore the guilt he feels at having killed a child. For a while, Sarah stops speaking to her father and even tells Jerome that she hates him. Ultimately, however, Jerome encourages Sarah to talk to her father again and help him overcome his racist fear of Black boys. At the novel's end, Officer Moore has agreed to help Sarah with her website memorializing children, like Jerome, killed due to bigotry and fear. - Character: Carlos Rodríquez. Description: Carlos is a thin, tired-looking Mexican-American boy who often wears a hoodie. He transfers to Jerome's middle school from San Antonio because his mother is pregnant and his father took a higher-paying job in Chicago to support the growing family. On his first day at Jerome's school, their obtuse teacher Mr. Myers introduces him at the front of class, singling him out and making him a target for bullying. After Jerome takes pity on Carlos and greets him, Carlos asks to eat lunch with him and the boys decide to become friends. Shortly after, bullies Eddie, Mike, and Snap find the boys and begin beating them up—until Carlos pulls out a toy gun, scaring away the bullies by convincing them the gun is real. Overjoyed to have a friend, Carlos finds Jerome after school and insists that he borrow the toy gun for the day. When Jerome is shot by a white police officer, Officer Moore, who mistakes the toy for a real firearm, Carlos is wracked with guilt. He takes over walking Jerome's little sister Kim to and from school along with Jerome's Grandma and sets up a memory altar to Jerome in his bedroom. With encouragement from Kim and Jerome's forgiving ghost—which Carlos can sense, though not see—Carlos admits to his father and Jerome's Grandma that he gave Jerome the toy gun. At the novel's end, he has become like an older brother to Kim and a second grandson to Grandma, and his family is celebrating the Day of the Dead with Jerome's family at Jerome's grave. - Character: Grandma. Description: Grandmother to Jerome and Kim Rogers, Grandma cooks, cleans, and babysits her grandchildren to keep the Rogers household running smoothly while Jerome and Kim's parents, Ma and Pop, work long hours. As a young girl in the South, Grandma dropped out of grade school to babysit her little siblings. Though she now lives in Chicago, Grandma strongly identifies with Southern culture and religious beliefs. For example, she believes in ghosts, premonitory dreams, and in the magical significance of the number three. The day that Jerome is shot, she tells him she had a frightening dream about him and asks him to tell her three good things as a good-luck gesture. When a white police officer, Officer Moore, shoots Jerome after mistaking the toy gun he's holding for a real firearm, Grandma is the only member of the Moore family who can sense that Jerome's ghost is still with them—though she can't see or hear him. She tries to encourage Jerome to move on to the afterlife. Due to her fears over Kim's safety after Jerome is killed, Grandma begins walking her granddaughter to and from school every day. She is joined by Carlos, a new boy at Jerome's school who befriended him the day of his death, and eventually comes to see Carlos as a kind of second grandson. After Carlos sobbingly admits that he lent Jerome the toy gun that precipitated Officer Moore shooting Jerome, Grandma hugs him—and forgives Kim for not telling her either. At the novel's end, Grandma, Kim, and Carlos have become very close, and Carlos's and Jerome's families celebrate the Day of the Dead by picnicking together at Jerome's grave. - Character: Kim Rogers. Description: Kim Rogers, Jerome's little sister, is an intelligent, curious, opinionated grade-schooler. Though Jerome sometimes finds his sister's constant, curious questions annoying, he appreciates her belief in his potential and her decision not to tell their parents that bullies are targeting Jerome at school—both he and Kim believe their parents have enough to worry about already. Kim, who is much more popular than Jerome, is very happy when she meets Jerome's new friend Carlos—but when Carlos offers to lend Jerome his toy gun, Kim disapproves, telling Jerome that the toy would make Ma, Pop, and Grandma upset. Nevertheless, Kim gives into Jerome's tacit pleading and doesn't tell on him after he agrees to take the toy gun from Jerome—a decision she deeply regrets after a police officer, Officer Moore, shoots Jerome to death upon mistaking the toy for a real firearm. After Jerome's death, a guilt-stricken Carlos and a terrified, grieving Grandma begin walking Kim to and from school every day. Kim begins to look on Carlos as a new big brother, someone who cares for her and is capable of making her smile. She encourages Carlos to tell Grandma the truth about the toy gun and receives reassurance from Grandma after Grandma realizes Kim knew and didn't tell about the toy gun. At the novel's end, Kim is paying melancholy yet joyful homage to Jerome on the Day of the Dead with her own family and Carlos's. - Character: Ma Rogers. Description: Jerome and Kim's mother, Ma is ambitious for her children's education but also fearful for their safety in the dangerous, impoverished Chicago neighborhood where their family's apartment is located. She works long hours as a receptionist at a Holiday Inn while Grandma babysits Jerome and Kim after school. After Jerome is killed by a police officer, Officer Moore, who mistakes the toy gun he's holding for a real firearm, Ma is utterly devastated. Despite her strong religious faith, grief sends her into a numb, mechanical depression from which Jerome—haunting his family—fears she will never recover. Ultimately, however, emotional support from Grandma, Kim, and Jerome's friend Carlos help Ma and Pop enter a healthier stage of grief. - Character: Pop Rogers. Description: Jerome and Kim's father, Pa is a sanitation officer who works long hours to help support his family. Though not as vocally anxious about Jerome and Kim as his wife Ma or Grandma, he betrays his fear for their safety in the way he silently checks in on them early every morning before he leaves for work—and in the way he warned Jerome to be wary of police officers and white people when Jerome was a young child. After a white police officer, Officer Moore, shoots Jerome because he mistakes Jerome's toy gun for a real firearm, Pop at first demonstrates fiery, righteous anger at the injustice: he threatens to sue and challenges Officer Moore when Officer Moore claims that Jerome was a threatening presence. Yet after the judge at the preliminary hearing rules not to charge Officer Moore with a crime, Pop (like Ma) enters into a numb, mechanical depression that frightens Jerome as he haunts his family. Toward the novel's end, however, emotional support from Grandma, Kim, and Jerome's friend Carlos help Pop and Ma enter a healthier stage of grief. - Character: Eddie. Description: Eddie, a Dominican-American middle-schooler, is the ringleader of the bullies who target Jerome Rogers. Along with his friends Mike and Snap, he often insults Jerome verbally as well as beating him up. Though fluent in both English and Spanish, Eddie thinks it's uncool to speak Spanish outside the home and tries to talk inaudibly with his mother in Spanish when she visits the school on Parent Night. When a new kid, Carlos, moves to their school from San Antonio, Texas, Eddie rejects the attempts of well-meaning, obtuse teacher Mr. Myers to create common ground between the two kids as Spanish-speakers by denying that he speaks "Texas Spanish." Eddie, Mike, and Snap attempts to beat Carlos and Jerome up in the bathroom during lunch the day that Carlos arrives; when Carlos scares them off by pretending that his toy gun is a real firearm, Eddie is the only bully to wonder how Carlos got a gun through the school's metal detectors, revealing his intelligence. After Jerome is killed by a white police officer, Officer Moore, who also mistakes the toy gun that Carlos has lent Jerome for a real firearm, Eddie publicly reconciles with Carlos at school, loudly stating (in Spanish) his respect for Carlos's decision to take care of Jerome's little sister Kim, offering Kim condolences, and walking Kim to class with Carlos, Mike, and Snap. Eddie's development shows that school bullies are not fundamentally bad people but adolescents capable of growth and change. - Character: The Judge. Description: The judge at the preliminary hearing to determine whether Officer Moore will face criminal charges for shooting 12-year-old Jerome Rogers to death is a small woman who wears pink nail polish. She is very focused on maintaining order in the court during the hearing. Though she sees Jerome's death as tragic, she ultimately buys the defense lawyer's and Officer Moore's claims that Jerome's "realistic-looking" toy gun and the frightening dangers inherent to policing mean that Officer Moore shouldn't be charged with any criminal offense for killing an unarmed child. - Character: Ms. Penny. Description: Ms. Penny is the librarian at Sarah Moore's well-resourced middle school. Though she initially tries to dissuade Sarah from researching the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till on the grounds that it would be too disturbing for a child Sarah's age, she eventually decides that keeping Sarah ignorant isn't right. She shows Sarah an image of Emmett Till's brutalized corpse, furthering the growth of Sarah's antiracist political consciousness. - Theme: Progress, Storytelling, and Justice. Description: Ghost Boys follows the ghost of a 12-year-old Black boy, Jerome Rogers, in the months after a white police officer shoots Jerome while he's playing outside with a toy gun. By also telling the story of historical figure Emmett Till, a Black boy who was murdered by a lynch mob in 1955, the novel shows how the U.S. has made progress toward racial equality since Emmett Till's experience in the "Jim Crow" South—but not nearly enough progress. That is, while it is less common for white people in the U.S. to be consciously, unrepentantly, proudly racist now, the novel makes it clear that subconscious racism can and still does kill Black people. The only way to make more progress, Ghost Boys suggests, is to "bear witness" to Black victims of racist violence, sharing their stories so that everyone becomes consciously anti-racist. Ghost Boys makes this point through the parallel stories of its protagonist, a 12-year-old Black boy named Jerome Rogers, and the real historical figure Emmett Till. Emmett, who was murdered because he supposedly whistled at a white woman, mentions that his killers never repented of murdering him and were never charged with murder. Jerome, haunting Officer Moore's house, sees the man miserable and frequently drinking despite having avoided murder charges—and wonders whether Officer Moore's guilt counts as "progress." Ultimately, Jerome encourages Officer Moore's daughter Sarah—a middle-schooler, horrified by her father's actions, who is only living person able to see Jerome—to keep the story of his unjust killing alive so that more substantive progress can be made to end racist murders of Black children in the U.S. At the novel's end, Jerome also speaks directly to readers, ordering them to "bear witness" to prevent more murders. This ending emphasizes that Ghost Boys exists to uproot subconscious racism and encourage anti-racism through storytelling. - Theme: Racism and the Law. Description: Ghost Boys implicitly argues that while legally mandated racial discrimination has ended in the U.S., the U.S. legal system has remained racist because people enforce the law in racist ways. This argument is clearest in the novel's representations of Officer Moore, who shoots 12-year-old Black boy Jerome Rogers to death in Chicago, and of the judge who determines whether Officer Moore will be charged with a crime. Officer Moore claims that he is not racist. Yet when he responds to a 911 call about a boy or man with a gun, Officer Moore sees short, skinny, 12-year-old Jerome playing with a toy gun and perceives him as an adult man brandishing a deadly weapon at him, presumably due to racist stereotypes about dangerous Black men. Officer Moore shoots Jerome twice in the back as Jerome runs away from his police car—and even after he realizes that Jerome is a child, neither he nor his partner offers Jerome first aid. Officer Moore's killing of Jerome emphasizes that even when the law is "race neutral," law enforcement can fatally discriminate against Black people whom it is supposed to protect and serve. Meanwhile, the judge at Officer Moore's preliminary hearing decides not to bring charges against the officer. When she explains her reasoning, she refers to the toy Jerome was playing with as a "realistic-looking gun" and Jerome himself as a "young man," even though he was a short, 12-year-old seventh grader. The judge's wording reveals that she has accepted a racist narrative according to which a small Black boy playing outside can reasonably seem like an adult and a possibly fatal threat to an armed police officer. Thus, Ghost Boys emphasizes that the law cannot truly respect racial equality until the people who enforce the law are no longer influenced by racist stereotypes. - Theme: Childhood. Description: Ghost Boys represents childhood as an experience allowed to privileged children but denied to other children, especially boys of color. The novel's protagonist, a 12-year-old Black boy named Jerome Rogers, is rarely allowed to play outside because his parents fear the drive-by shootings that plague their impoverished, segregated Chicago neighborhood. When a new boy at Jerome's school, Carlos Rodríquez, offers to lend Jerome a toy gun as a kind of friendship gift, Jerome takes the toy even though he knows his Ma and Pop wouldn't like it. This minor, entirely ordinary childhood rebellion leads to a white policeman, Officer Moore, shooting Jerome to death after misperceiving him as an adult with a real gun. That Officer Moore sees short, 12-year-old Jerome as an adult—and kills Jerome because Jerome acted like a carefree child for once—shows how a racist culture refuses to see Black children as children and often cuts their childhoods short as a result. After Jerome's death, Carlos is wracked with guilt: his overwhelming remorse leads him to take on the quasi-adult responsibilities Jerome formerly shouldered for his younger sister Kim. Though Carlos is not morally responsible for Jerome's death—he lent his friend a toy, nothing more—his traumatized guilt steals some of his childhood innocence too. By contrast, Officer Moore's white daughter Sarah lives a peaceful existence in a safe neighborhood. As the novel progresses, she does learn about the history of racist murders of Black boys, but she is the one seeking out disturbing truths: she gives up childishness, but her childhood isn't stolen from her as it is stolen from Jerome and Carlos. Sarah's relatively sheltered existence shows how white, middle-class children are often given an opportunity to be children in a way that poor children of color often are not. - Theme: Fear. Description: Fear is a natural emotion that everyone feels sometimes—but because fear involves implicit belief about the world, Ghost Boys suggests that it is important for people to analyze their fear and overcome it if it is motivated by false, prejudiced beliefs. The novel's inciting incident is the death of Jerome Rogers, a 12-year-old Black boy who lives in a dangerous Chicago neighborhood. A white policeman, Officer Moore, shoots Jerome to death while Jerome is playing outside with a toy gun. Afterwards, at a preliminary hearing to determine whether Officer Moore will be charged with murder, Officer Moore testifies that he shot Jerome because he was "in fear for [his] life," having perceived short, skinny Jerome as a large, threatening adult man brandishing a deadly weapon at him. Jerome, haunting the hearing, at first believes that Officer Moore is lying. As he watches Officer Moore and listens to more of his testimony, however, Jerome comes to realize that Officer Moore is telling the truth: this armed, adult police officer with a gun really was afraid of a small Black boy with a toy. Yet while Officer Moore truly felt fear, his fear was based on implicit beliefs and misperceptions motivated by racist stereotypes: that Black children are more adult-like than other children, that Black men are inherently dangerous, and so on. Toward the novel's end, Officer Moore's daughter Sarah—horrified by her father's racist, fatal mistake—starts a website to spread accurate information about Black children murdered due to racist fear; she hopes that correcting people's false beliefs will make them less afraid and so reduce racist violence. Through Sarah's website, the novel suggests that perhaps the false implicit judgments that cause racist fear can be corrected through education and understanding. - Theme: Education. Description: In Ghost Boys, education might help build an anti-racist future—yet the novel shows how both disadvantaged and privileged children struggle to learn relevant lessons in school, though for different reasons. The novel's protagonist, a 12-year-old Black boy named Jerome Rogers, struggles to learn lessons relevant to his life because the school in his impoverished Chicago neighborhood lacks resources. His school doesn't have a librarian. While he would love to learn a foreign language, he only knows one or two Spanish words, which indicates that his school also lacks any foreign-language teachers. Moreover, Jerome spends a lot of his mental energy at school avoiding his bullies, Eddie, Mike, and Snap, who often beat him up on school property, another telling detail suggesting that the school can't afford to hire enough staff to supervise the students adequately. After a white policeman, Officer Moore, mistakes a toy gun in Jerome's hand for a real weapon and shoots him to death, Jerome meets the ghost of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy whose brutal 1955 lynching helped galvanize the Civil Rights movement—and readers learn that Jerome has never heard of him. This makes it clear that Jerome's school's history curriculum is seriously lacking. After Officer Moore's middle-school-aged daughter, Sarah, realizes she can see Jerome's ghost, Jerome learns that she hasn't been taught about Emmett Till or the Civil Rights Movement either. When Sarah seeks out Ms. Penny, the librarian at her relatively well-resourced school, for help researching Emmett Till, Ms. Penny at first tries to dissuade Sarah from educating herself on the grounds that Emmett Till's story is too upsetting for a middle-schooler—even though the story is directly relevant to Sarah's attempts at understanding why her father killed a child her own age. The novel's ending implies that Sarah's self-education about the racist murders of Black children in the U.S. will lead her to become an advocate for anti-racism as an adult—but the fact that she has to fight to learn about historically important racist violence in the U.S. shows how life-relevant lessons about racism are denied to privileged as well as disadvantaged schoolchildren, albeit for different reasons. - Climax: Jerome, talking to the ghost of Emmett Till, resolves to fight for peace in the afterlife. - Summary: Ghost Boys opens with a police officer standing over the dead body of 12-year-old Jerome Rogers and repeating saying, "It's a kid." Later, the Chicago Tribune publishes an article in which the police officer claims he had to shoot because Jerome had a gun. The novel then alternates between scenes on the day of the shooting and in the months after the shooting. The latter timeline follows Jerome's ghost as he haunts his family and attends the hearings that will determine whether Officer Moore, the white officer who shot and killed him, will face charges. On the morning of December 8, Jerome's Ma repeatedly instructs him to come directly home after school, while his Grandma tells him she had frightening dreams about him. Jerome comforts her. Then he walks his little sister Kim to school through their impoverished neighborhood. At school, Jerome's bullies Eddie, Mike, and Snap make threatening gestures. In class a bit later, Jerome's well-meaning but obtuse teacher Mr. Myers introduces a new student, Carlos, at the front of the class—singling Carlos out in a way that's likely to get him beaten up. Mr. Myers tells everyone that Carlos is bilingual, and Jerome, pitying the other boy, blurts out, "Hola." When Carlos sits next to Jerome, Eddie makes a threatening gesture at them. At lunch, Jerome shows Carlos how to hide in a bathroom stall while eating so bullies can't see him. While Jerome and Carlos eat in adjoining stalls, Carlos suggests that they become friends. Jerome hesitates—becoming friends would commit him to defending Carlos from bullies—but he ultimately agrees. Eddie, Mike, and Snap burst in and drag Carlos from his hiding place. When Carlos dares to defend himself, they knock him down and begin kicking him in the gut and head. Jerome, terrified, yells that he'll tell. The bullies threaten Jerome until Carlos pulls out a gun. This terrifies the bullies, and they leave the bathroom. After the bullies leave, Jerome tries to flee too—until Carlos tells him that the gun is just a plastic toy. The boys laugh hysterically. After school lets out, Carlos offers to lend Jerome the toy gun while Jerome is waiting outside for his little sister Kim. Kim arrives, sees the toy gun, and tells Jerome that their parents wouldn't want him to take it—but Jerome, wanting to misbehave and have fun for once, takes it. Jerome is playing with the gun outside when he's shot with no warning and dies. Following his death, Jerome haunts his family's apartment. His Grandma mournfully compares Jerome to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old lynching victim murdered in 1955, while his Pop compares him to Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old shot to death while playing with a toy gun by a Cleveland police officer in 2014. In his apartment kitchen, Jerome encounters the ghost of another Black boy. The ghost leaves shortly after, but when Jerome follows his family to church for his own funeral, the ghost appears again and warns him not to attend the service—his funeral will only distress him. On April 18, four months after Jerome's death, a preliminary hearing begins to determine whether the white police officer who shot him, Officer Moore, will face charges. Officer Moore claims that he feared for his life because Jerome had a gun. Jerome is asking himself why Officer Moore would lie when he notices Officer Moore's daughter (later revealed to be Sarah) pointing at him. Officer Moore says that Jerome was large, scary, and looked like an adult, and he repeats that he felt "threatened," provoking outrage from Pop and other people in attendance. In the tumult, Sarah sneaks up on Jerome and tells him that she can see him. Later, Jerome ghosts into Officer Moore's house and finds Sarah in an extremely pink bedroom. She tells Jerome she recognized him from a photo and says she's sorry. When she makes excuses for her father, she and Jerome have a disagreement about whether police officers are good. Then Sarah cries and asks how she can help Jerome. Officer Moore walks in and tells Sarah it's bedtime. Sarah asks her father whether Jerome was really 12. Though Officer Moore makes excuses, Sarah persists, pointing out that she and Jerome were the same age and height. Officer Moore storms off. Sarah asks whether her father made a mistake. Jerome tells her that there was no mistake: Officer Moore acted intentionally. Sarah insists that it must have been a mistake and suggests that she and Jerome become friends—despite vocal hesitation from Jerome, who thinks that a white girl befriending him is ridiculous. At the preliminary hearing on April 18, the prosecuting lawyer suggests that Officer Moore shot Jerome due to subconscious racial bias. Sarah, distressed, covers her ears—and Jerome sees the other ghost appear beside her. Later, visiting Sarah at her house, Jerome confirms his suspicion that she sees the other ghost too. Suddenly, the other ghost appears and walks Jerome to Sarah's window. Thousands of ghosts of Black boys are outside. Sarah, horrified, asks whether they were killed like Jerome. The other ghost says yes and reveals that he's Emmett Till. When Jerome asks whether he's the Emmett Till whom his Grandma mentioned, Emmett says that he was murdered in the South in 1955. When Jerome asks how Emmett died, Emmett replies that Jerome isn't ready to hear the whole story yet. On a later visit to Sarah's house, Jerome speculates to Sarah that Emmett was also murdered by a white man. Sarah mentions something about her parents not wanting her to "see" Jerome's shooting—and realizes that there may be video footage. Though Jerome warns her that she might not want to watch it, Sarah finds and plays the video. She is horrified to discover that her father neither gave Jerome a verbal warning before shooting him nor provided him with any first aid afterward. Jerome accompanies Sarah to school, where she skips class, hiding in the library because she can't stand how other students are praising her father for being a "good cop." When the librarian, Ms. Penny, approaches Sarah, Sarah asks for help researching Emmett Till. Ms. Penny argues that the Emmett Till case is too disturbing for a middle-schooler to research, but when Sarah persists, Ms. Penny agrees to show her a picture of Emmett Till's body. Jerome leaves, but he hears Sarah crying inconsolably behind him. On April 19, the second day of the hearing, Officer Moore repeats over and over that he was "in fear for [his] life"—and Jerome realizes that Officer Moore really was terrified of him, a skinny 12-year-old with a toy gun sprinting away from the police car. After a lunch break, the judge decides not to charge Officer Moore with any crime, citing the difficulties of policing and the "realistic-looking" toy gun Jerome was holding. Carlos and Grandma have started walking Kim to school in Jerome's place. After a while, Grandma lets Carlos walk Kim back without her supervision. Jerome, haunting them, notices how sad Carlos has become since Jerome's shooting. One day, Eddie, Mike, and Snap are waiting for Carlos and Kim at school. Jerome is terrified that the bullies will target Kim—but when Carlos fiercely asserts that Kim is his family, Eddie (who is Dominican-American) shakes his hand and says, "Bueno. Con respeto." Then he offers Kim condolences for her loss. After school that day, Carlos fashions makeshift drumsticks out of a tree branch and plays percussion on various objects, inspiring Kim to dance. Afterward, she tells him that he needs to inform Grandma of what happened. Seeing more and more ghost boys like him, Jerome realizes that the events around his death aren't just about him. He asks Emmett for the story of his death. Emmett explains how he was brutally murdered by two white men because he spoke to one man's wife, a cashier, directly—and because she misinterpreted his speech impediment as a wolf-whistle—while he was visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. Jerome howls out his feelings of injustice and grief—and all the other ghost boys join in. Emmett orders Jerome to "bear witness," listening respectfully to others' stories. Seasons pass. One day, Jerome is thinking about Carlos and teleports to Carlos's bedroom, where he discovers that Carlos has set up a small memorial altar to him. Wanting to help the miserable-looking Carlos, Jerome—focusing hard—manages to move a photo of himself on the altar. Carlos, picking up the photo, asks whether Jerome forgives him. Then Carlos's father comes in. Carlos confesses to his father what happened with the bullies and the toy gun. With his father's emotional support, he resolves to tell the truth to Jerome's Grandma too. From the window, Kim spots Carlos approaching, runs to meet him, and leads him into her apartment kitchen, where Grandma is preparing food. When Grandma says she wishes Jerome had invited Carlos over and asks whether Carlos was a "good friend," Carlos bursts into a confession about the toy gun. Carlos and Kim both start sobbing. Grandma embraces them. Jerome predicts that Carlos, Kim, and Grandma will take care of one another and of Ma and Pop. He decides his afterlife has just one remaining task. Jerome visits Sarah, who has stopped speaking to her father and begun spending all her time on her laptop. She explains that she is creating a website to memorialize Jerome and other victims of racist violence. When Jerome suggests that she talk to her father, she claims to hate her father and asks whether Jerome hates him too. Jerome says no, thinking about how his own family taught him hate was evil. He suggests that Sarah teach her father how to overcome his racist fear of Black boys. When Sarah admits she's afraid to talk to her father, Jerome tells her that everyone experiences fear. They say goodbye, and Sarah promises not to let anyone forget him. From outside Sarah's house, Jerome watches Sarah run down to her father on the sofa, accept a hug from him, and ask him to help her with her website teaching the public about victims of racist violence. Office Moore, unsteadily, agrees. On November 1, the Day of the Dead, Carlos's family and Jerome's have a picnic on Jerome's grave. Jerome and Emmett, watching them, have a conversation about change. Emmett asserts that the dead can't change the world—but living people who see the dead can, like the prosecutor who argued his murder case, Thurgood Marshall. Jerome thinks that Sarah, Kim, and Carlos are going to be change agents. At the novel's end, he directly addresses readers, asking them to "bear witness" so that stories like his won't need to be told anymore.

- Genre: Epistolary Novel - Title: Gilead - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Gilead, Iowa in 1956 - Character: Rev. John Ames. Description: John Ames, a 76-year-old minister in Gilead, Iowa, is the novel's protagonist. Gilead consists of John's letters to his nearly seven-year-old son, who will still be very young when John dies; John is already suffering from a chronic heart condition when the novel begins. John was born in 1880 in Kansas and subsequently spent most of his life in Gilead. In seminary, John married his childhood friend Louisa, who died after giving birth to their only child, Rebecca (who only lived a few hours herself). John spent the next several decades widowed and lonely, studying, writing sermons, and listening to baseball games on the radio. John has ministered to his congregation in Gilead for over 50 years now and is quietly dedicated to his congregants' well-being. John's predictable, solitary life completely changed when he married his wife, Lila, in his late sixties, then became a father unexpectedly. Lila walked into John's church one Sunday, and over the coming months as John helped Lila prepare for baptism, he fell passionately in love with her—though, in the end, Lila proposed to him. John struggles to accept the fact that he is rapidly declining after having found such joy, and that his son will never know what he was like in his prime. He also regrets having to leave behind the world whose beauty he cherishes, even though he expects heaven to be even better. John was shaped by his grandfather's passionate antislavery activism and his father's committed pacifism, as well as his brother Edward's intellectual integrity. Though John is fairly restrained about voicing his own convictions, he hints that he's a pacifist like his father. John struggles with his relationship with Jack Boughton, who is his best friend Boughton's son. He doesn't trust Jack due to his youthful misdeeds, seeing him as dishonorable and unable to change, and he fears that Jack might harm his family after John dies. Yet after Jack confides in John about his wife Della and their son Robert, John realizes that there is good in Jack and forgives him. He even offers Jack his blessing before Jack leaves Gilead. John's letters end shortly after this, implying that he dies soon after his 77th birthday. His letters close with reflections on the divine beauty in the world, even in ordinary Gilead, and a prayer that his son will have the courage to see that beauty and to live generously in response. - Character: John's Son (The Boy). Description: John and Lila's son is the recipient of the letters that make up Gilead. He is about seven years old when the novel begins, and his name is never revealed, since John always refers to him in the second person. He looks a lot like Lila, especially with his serious, proud facial expressions. He is a loner who mostly watches other kids from a distance, although he befriends Tobias and becomes fond of Jack Boughton. Otherwise, the boy seems to be a fairly typical child; John says that although his son is handsome and polite, it's his simple existence that he cherishes most. John tells his son that he is an expression of God's grace to him and a miracle, as he'd never expected to become a father again near the end of his life. - Character: Lila (John's Wife). Description: Lila is John's second wife and the mother of their son. Addressing his son, John usually refers to her as "your mother"; her name is only revealed when Jack addresses her as Lila late in the novel. Lila is more than 30 years younger than John and is 41 during the time of the novel. It's hinted that her life before meeting John was one of poverty and hardship, though she never talks about it, and John doesn't elaborate. John met Lila when she showed up in his church one rainy Sunday when he was 67. Lila didn't know anything about Christianity, but after attending church for a few weeks, she approached John about getting baptized. Sometime after her baptism, it was Lila's idea to marry John—she quietly suggested it one day after tending John's garden, and he agreed. Lila is a devoted wife and mother who worries constantly about their boy's upbringing. He describes her as having a "settled, habitual sadness," seriousness, and quiet dignity. She is self-conscious about her unrefined way of speaking and therefore tends to be reserved, though this leads people in the church to regard her as rather distant, and she makes an unconventional minister's wife. Perhaps because of her background, she is also quietly sympathetic to Jack Boughton's restlessness and religious doubts. - Character: John's Father. Description: John's father was also named the Reverend John Ames, and he, too, was a minister. He was married to Martha Turner Ames. He had a contentious relationship with his own father, John's grandfather, and their last words to each other were spoken in anger. John's father was always uncomfortable with his own father's focus on visions and the miraculous; he preferred to see such things as a reflection of his father's era and not something to worry about in the present day. After the Civil War, disgusted by his own father's preaching in support of the war, John attended a Quaker gathering for a while. Even after that, he remained a committed pacifist, and John dearly respected him and his preaching. John's father had a strained relationship with his son Edward due to the latter's atheism, but he seems to have grown more sympathetic to Edward in time. In retirement he moved to the Gulf Coast and, after John took over his position at the church, tried to persuade John to leave Gilead, too, to seek broader horizons. John implies that he and his father became estranged after he refused to leave Gilead. - Character: John's Grandfather. Description: John's grandfather, like John's father, was also named the Reverend John Ames, and he, too, was a minister. He was married to Margaret Todd Ames. He was borne in Maine and moved to Kansas in the 1830s, after experiencing a vision in which God told him to fight for the abolitionist cause there. Late in life, John's grandfather lived with John's family in Gilead but, restless and disillusioned, he returned to Kansas. His family was never certain what became of him until John and his father wandered the Kansas countryside and eventually located his grave. John thinks of his grandfather as some kind of strange saint—he interpreted some biblical commands quite literally, giving away anything his family owned to anyone who asked for it. He served as a chaplain during the Civil War and lost an eye in battle. John remembers that his grandfather always looked as if he'd just been struck by lightning, with wild hair and a piercing, one-eyed stare. Both John and his father always felt implicated in John's grandfather's violence in Kansas in various ways—John helped his father destroy his grandfather's old pistol, for example. But they respond to their guilt in different ways; while both men become pacifists, John's father becomes resentful of his father's radicalism and subsequent neglect of his family, while John is able to see both beauty and weakness in his grandfather's convictions. - Character: Jack (John Ames) Boughton. Description: Jack is Boughton's most beloved child and John's namesake. Knowing John might not have children, Boughton intended that Jack and John would have a kind of father-son relationship (Jack even called John "Papa" growing up). However, through much of the novel, John hints that he and Jack have a fraught relationship, though he doesn't explain why until near the end of the novel. He describes Jack as a "prodigal son," a lifelong troublemaker, and it bothers John to see how much Boughton loves him when Jack clearly doesn't deserve it. John eventually reveals that 20 years ago, in his youth, Jack had a relationship with a young woman and fathered her child. The woman's family was extremely poor, and the baby, whom Jack never acknowledged or offered to support, was brought up in squalid circumstances and ultimately died. Yet despite his anger at Jack's transgressions, John also perceives that there's a deep loneliness and sadness in Jack. At one point Jack admits to John that he's never been able to believe in God, though he doesn't necessarily disbelieve, either. Jack and Lila seem to understand each other instinctively. At the end of the novel, Jack reveals to John that he is married to Della, who is Black, and that they have a son together, Robert Boughton Miles. Because of anti-miscegenation laws in Missouri, their marriage isn't legal, and they are ultimately harassed out of their home in St. Louis. Though the novel doesn't reveal how, it's clear that Jack has changed for the better over the course of his life. However, he leaves Gilead in the end, after it's implied that Della breaks off their relationship; he never tells Boughton the whole truth about his life, and he doesn't know where he's headed next. Despite his ambivalence about Christianity, he willingly receives John's blessing before he goes. - Character: Rev. Robert Boughton. Description: Boughton is Gilead's retired Presbyterian minister, a widower, and John's lifelong best friend. John's main confidant throughout his life, Boughton came over regularly during John's solitary years so that they could work on their sermons together. Though he is younger than John, he suffers from terrible arthritis and rarely leaves home. His daughter Glory lives with him. Because Boughton has aged so much, John most often describes him in retrospect—in his younger days, he was a strong man and a gifted preacher. Nowadays he's severely stooped and sometimes cranky from the discomfort; his biggest enjoyment is his children (he has four daughters and four sons), especially his beloved son Jack. John sometimes envied Boughton's lively family life, and knowing that John might never have children, Boughton named Jack after John and intended for them to have a special relationship. However, Jack has mostly caused his father heartache and disgrace over the years. After Jack fathered a child in college, Boughton and his wife, in anguish, often visited the baby and her mother and offered support, but nothing seemed to help. Decades later, Jack returns to Gilead intending to tell his father about his marriage to Della and their son, but when he sees how frail his father has become, he changes his mind and confides in John instead. - Character: John's Mother (Martha Turner Ames). Description: John's mother was a minister's wife and homemaker. Overall, John writes less about the women in his family than the men, though it's clear he loved and respected his mother, and he recognizes the hardships she endured as a minister's wife living on the prairie. She was very serious about home health remedies, which could be tedious for John. She was a hardworking homemaker who occasionally fell asleep in front of the stove after taking some whiskey for her aches and pains, burning Sunday dinner in the process. She was also strong-willed and thrifty, capable of standing her ground when John's grandfather wanted to give away what little money the family had. She could have a wry sense of humor, playfully imitating John's grandfather on occasion. She and John's father retired to the Gulf Coast, partly for her health. - Character: John's Grandmother (Margaret Todd Ames). Description: John's grandmother was married to his fiery, unpredictable minister grandfather. She was very sick when her husband went off to fight in the Civil War, leaving her behind with many children. John's father always resented this. By the time the war ended, she was suffering greatly from cancer, but she still insisted on being carried to church when she learned that John's father had stopped attending. - Character: Louisa. Description: Louisa was John's first wife. They grew up together in Gilead and got married while John was in seminary. Louisa died soon after giving birth to her and John's only child, Rebecca. Though he loved her and looks forward to reuniting in heaven, John doesn't seem to remember her in great detail after 51 years and has stronger impressions of her as a child, when she loved jumping rope on the streets of Gilead. - Character: Edward Ames. Description: Edward is John's older brother, 10 years his senior. A philosophy professor trained in Germany, Edward became an atheist and introduced John to Feuerbach's writings in an attempt to jolt John out of his traditional Christian faith. Growing up, he'd been expected to follow his father into ministry, but after renouncing Christianity, he paid the church back for supporting his education. Edward's renunciation of the faith created a rift between him and his father, but his father eventually forgave him. - Character: Della Miles. Description: Della is Jack Boughton's wife. A young Black woman and prominent minister's daughter, she used to be a teacher in St. Louis, where she and Jack met by chance one day and befriended each other. Della's family doesn't approve of her relationship with Jack, especially her father, who believes that most white men are atheists. Nevertheless, she and Jack try to build a life together in St. Louis, flouting Missouri's laws against interracial marriage. It's incredibly difficult, and in the end, she chooses to let Jack go and to stay in Memphis with their son Robert and her family. - Theme: Life, Death, and Beauty. Description: Gilead is made up of 76-year-old John Ames's letters, an attempt to leave a record for his young son. On one level, John tries to prepare his son for his death, which will inevitably happen before the boy is very old. He comforts himself and his son with the belief that life after death is a state of being "more alive than I have ever been." And yet that doesn't mean one should be in a hurry to leave earthly life behind; John tells his son that although he looks forward to reuniting in heaven someday, he wants his son to live a long time and love this world. John seems to notice the world's beauty more, not less, as he prepares to die. That's partly because he has so much more to lose now, having come late to marriage and fatherhood. But all his life, he's noticed that beauty manifests unexpectedly in the most forsaken places, like when, around age 12, he notices an astonishing moonrise over the unkempt graveyard where his grandfather is buried. And shortly before he dies, John reflects that there is more beauty in the world than people typically notice—that's even true in Gilead, which looks like a worn-out, forgettably ordinary place on the surface. Yet if one has courage to see it, John believes, the whole world, including Gilead, burns with the "fire" of God's glory. Through John's reminiscences for his son, the novel suggests that life is about coming to terms with the world's transience. Yet it also hints that even fragile earthly beauty, because it's God's creation, transcends death in some mysterious way. - Theme: Christian Faith, Mystery, and Ministry. Description: John Ames comes from a long line of Christian ministers, including his father and grandfather, and he says that this vocation came naturally to him. Yet he doesn't take his duties for granted. He often muses on his work's "privileges"—like getting to bless other human beings, which he sees as affirming their God-given sacredness, a beautiful thing to experience. And even though John has never seriously doubted his beliefs the way other characters do (like his brother Edward and his namesake Jack Boughton, both skeptics), he also doesn't presume to fully understand faith. When his wife Lila first became a Christian, he was so awed by her faith's humble seriousness that when he baptized her, he felt like asking her to explain the sacrament's meaning. Similarly, John believes that attempts to rationally defend one's faith tend to backfire, because faith deals with realities that are beyond human categories and language. An example is the mystery of suffering, a constant undercurrent in John's life and ministry. While he acknowledges that he can't explain why people suffer and that suffering is never good in its own right, he has often witnessed how God draws near to suffering people, takes their side, and ennobles them through their sorrow. Through John's quietly faithful career, the novel suggests that the vocation of ministry—and even the Christian faith itself—is mainly about recognizing people's God-given value, accompanying them through life's struggles, and helping them ponder divine mysteries. - Theme: Memory, Vision, and Conviction. Description: John's letters are filled with memories he wants to pass down to his son. Often, these stories revolve around his family legacy of fervent convictions—his grandfather fought for the abolitionist cause in Kansas before the Civil War, and his father became a pacifist after the war. John's grandfather told him about literal visions he experienced, especially a vision of the Lord holding out chained arms to him and calling him to liberate the enslaved. At the end of his life, his grandfather's convictions alienated him from his family to such an extent that he left Gilead, seeing it (and his son's preaching) as apathetic. John's father, on the other hand, resented his father's all-consuming beliefs, which left no time or sympathy for his own family. Accordingly, John's father had little tolerance for talk of the miraculous, and he rejected his father's belief that violence—even in the anti-slavery cause—could be reconciled with Christianity. John himself often dwells on memories of his grandfather and struggles with this conflicted family legacy. Ultimately, John holds that both men held an overly narrow view of what a "vision" is. For one thing, he believes that while visions do exist, they can be more subtle (like baptizing an infant, or a childhood memory whose meaning deepens over time). For another, while he holds his own strong convictions (like opposition to war), he suggests that even the most admirable ethical commitments can blind a person to other concerns (like his grandfather's indifference to his own family's pain). John seems to want his son to value the Ames legacy, while understanding that deep convictions can be lived out in many different, equally meaningful ways. - Theme: Estrangement and Reconciliation. Description: Gilead is a story of strife between fathers and sons: John's grandfather and father fought bitterly over war and pacifism, John's best friend Boughton is estranged from his troubled son Jack, and John himself struggles to love Jack, who's a kind of honorary son to him. To deal with his regret over the estrangement with John's grandfather, John's father goes on a long, difficult pilgrimage through the Kansas countryside in search of John's grandfather's grave. Tending the grave and praying there seem to bring John's father a measure of real peace, but the reconciliation is limited since John's grandfather is dead. Meanwhile, Jack Boughton has caused his father, and John, much heartache over the years—especially when, 20 years ago, he had a child with a destitute young woman and abandoned both of them in squalid conditions, leading to the child's death. The whole situation colors John's perceptions of Jack's character, and he's convinced that Jack can never amount to anything good. But near the end of John's life, Jack reveals that he's married to a Black woman in St. Louis, and that they have a son together. For years, he's struggled to provide for them because of unjust anti-miscegenation laws, but he's hidden the truth for fear of hurting Boughton. Recognizing that Jack truly is a good man, John blesses him before he leaves Gilead, letting go of the resentment he's harbored for decades. John also believes that even though Boughton never learns his son's full story, he would completely forgive him regardless, because real love doesn't depend on the recipient being deserving. Through several generations of fraught father-son relationships, the novel suggests that even the closest human beings often don't fully understand one another, and yet when love is unconditional, those barriers can be overcome. - Theme: Loneliness and Love. Description: Most of John's life has been marked by loneliness, ever since his first wife and child died 50 years ago. He regards those lonely decades as his "dark time," a "long, bitter prayer." There's an added bitterness for John in that, as a minister, he spent much of his life guiding other people through milestones like births and marriages, yet those very experiences seemed closed off to him; he was even jealous of big, seemingly happy families like his friend Boughton's. In retrospect, however, he tells his son that he can be grateful for that darkness, because in its midst "a miracle was preparing," which he couldn't have known at the time. When Lila began coming to his church, John fell immediately (and, he thinks, foolishly) in love with her—a passion unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Yet when Lila asked him to marry her and they later had a son—whom John calls his "miracle"—a lifetime's worth of unlikely prayers were answered. The novel suggests that love is fundamentally gracious—that is, its seeds are often sown in the midst of sorrow, and it appears in unexpected, extravagant ways. - Climax: Jack Boughton reveals to John that he has a wife and son. - Summary: Gilead is made up of letters that 76-year-old Rev. John Ames writes for his young son to read after John dies. The letters are a mixture of John's memories, daily events in his life, and reflections on existence and faith in general. John begins by reflecting on the fact that he will miss this earthly life. When he was younger, widowed, and living alone, he didn't feel at home in the world. But now that he has a wife and son, he does. One of his biggest regrets is that because he remarried late in life, he hasn't done much to provide for the future, and that means he will leave his wife, Lila, and his son in a vulnerable position. John was born in 1880 in Kansas; both his father and his grandfather were also named John Ames, and both of them were ministers, too. Seventy-four of John's seventy-six years have been spent here in Gilead, Iowa. John recalls visiting his grandfather's grave in Kansas when he was 12 years old. His grandfather had left Gilead in his old age and returned to Kansas, where he'd once fought for the abolitionist cause in the tumultuous years before the Civil War. John's father and grandfather had parted angrily, and they'd never reconciled before the elder John Ames's death. That's why John's father felt compelled to visit his father's grave. John's journey with his father was arduous, dusty, and thirsty, but they eventually found the overgrown graveyard and cleaned it up as best they could. Then John's father prayed for God's forgiveness beside his father's grave. John never forgot the beautiful, simultaneous moonrise and sunset he witnessed during the prayer. While John was in seminary, he married a girl named Louisa with whom he'd grown up. Then they moved to Gilead, where John took over his father's position as minister. But Louisa soon died in childbirth, and their baby girl, Rebecca, lived for only a few hours. John reflects that the following decades were "like a long, bitter prayer." He wrote thousands of pages of sermons, and though he was lonely, he found purpose and solace in study. When John was 67, on a rainy Pentecost Sunday, his future wife Lila suddenly walked into his church and changed everything. John reminisces about his older brother, Edward, who became an atheist while studying for his doctorate in Germany. When Edward returned home, he tried to unsettle John's beliefs with skeptical literature, but it didn't work; John enjoyed the books and kept his faith. He tells his son that writers like the atheist philosopher Feuerbach aren't harmful, and that when people's beliefs are unsettled, it's usually because they went looking to have their faith shaken. Thinking about the stacks of old sermons around the house, John reflects that the sermon he's proudest of is one he never actually preached. During the deadly Spanish Flu outbreak, he wrote a sermon proclaiming that the flu was God's warning sign to people for fighting in World War I. But he ended up burning that sermon, believing it wouldn't do any good. While thinking about the poverty his wife and son will likely face after he dies, John recalls his strange, saintly grandfather, who freely gave away the family's possessions to anyone who needed them. John remembers his grandfather telling him about a vision he experienced as a teenager, telling him to go to Kansas to join the abolitionists. John remembers his grandfather like a restless Old Testament prophet who always looked as if he'd just been struck by lightning. Yet John's father never put stock in visions or the miraculous. John wants his son to know that he is a miracle to John—his simple existence. John thinks about the wonder of existence a lot these days, and he hopes his son will live for a long time and enjoy this world. Though heaven will be unimaginably wonderful and will last forever, somehow that makes this world's passing beauties even lovelier. John's best friend Boughton, Gilead's retired Presbyterian minister, is mostly housebound these days with crippling arthritis. One day Boughton's daughter Glory comes by to tell John that her brother Jack (John Ames Boughton, named for John) will be visiting from St. Louis soon. Even though Boughton intended for Jack to have a special relationship with John, who spent most of his life childless, John has always found Jack difficult. He has caused his family much grief, and John isn't sure what to tell his son about the man. John changes the subject to his grandfather's efforts to help Free Soilers establish the right to vote in Kansas in hopes of entering the Union as a free state. He also served with the Union Army during the Civil War and lost an eye in battle. John's father never liked to talk about those days, however. He recalls that after his grandfather's death, he helped his father destroy his grandfather's old pistol; its very existence disgusted his father. He remembers the rift that opened between his father and grandfather one day when his grandfather walked out on his son's preaching. His grandfather disdained his son's pacifism, while John's father found war repugnant and felt his father had abandoned the family to serve the abolitionist cause. After the Civil War, John's father had even left his grandfather's church and attended Quaker services instead. Looking back on it all, John thinks his grandfather's single-minded devotion to his cause was both his strength and his weakness. John tells his son about a memory from when John was a young child. His father was helping a group of people tear down a church that had been struck by lightning and burned. Everyone sang hymns as they worked in the warm rain. He remembers his father offering him a sooty biscuit to eat. The memory encapsulates both the hardship and joy of those poorer days. John recalls his father telling him about an experience when his father was a little boy. His father (John's grandfather) had ridden off with a group of men in the middle of the night and didn't say where he was going. John's father later found a limping soldier sitting in the church and surmised that his father had shot the man. When the man never returned, John's father assumed he had died, and he felt sickened by his complicity in keeping John's grandfather's secret. John struggles with what to tell his wife and son about Jack Boughton; he feels an obligation to warn them. The strain of worry is beginning to take a physical toll on him. One day, during a conversation on Boughton's front porch, John is especially exasperated by Jack's persistent questions about whether a person can be consigned to perdition; he feels like Jack is testing him and not taking him seriously. Lila, on the other hand, senses that Jack is unhappy and struggling. Unable to sleep, John decides it's time to write down Jack's story. He explains that when Jack was in college, he had a relationship with a very young, destitute girl, and their relationship resulted in a child. Jack refused to do anything to support the young woman or her child, and John deems it cruel that Jack told his parents about them. The Boughtons agonized over their sickly grandchild living in squalor, and they tried to support her materially, but it didn't help—the baby died of an infection at age three. In the 20 years since, John has never been able to forgive Jack for "squandering[] his fatherhood," or to believe that he will ever make anything of himself. Soon after, Jack asks to meet with John at the church. There, Jack admits that he's never been able to muster up any religious conviction; but it isn't clear that he wants to be persuaded of Christian beliefs, either. The conversation ends in frustration, and later John reflects that he's never found it effective to argue with skeptics, because it usually just reinforces their doubts. Besides, human categories can only stretch so far when speaking of ultimate truths. John realizes he hasn't yet told his son how he and Lila came together. After Lila unexpectedly showed up in church one Sunday, John couldn't stop thinking about her. Over the coming weeks, he even began writing sermons with her in mind. He'd never experienced this kind of passionate desire and distraction before, and especially given their age difference (Lila was about 30 years his junior), he felt incredibly foolish. Eventually, Lila approached him about getting baptized, so John instructed her in basic doctrine and later baptized her. In time, she also came to his house occasionally to tend his gardens. One day, when he asked her how he could repay her kindness, she said, "You ought to marry me." It was the most thrilling moment of John's life, and he agreed. One day Jack surprises John in his church study and shows him a picture: it's Jack with a Black woman and a young, light-skinned Black boy. They're Jack's wife and child. He's afraid Boughton is too fragile to receive this news, he explains, so he's telling John instead. He and Della have been together for eight years, but due to anti-miscegenation laws in Missouri and Della's father's disapproval, they've only lived together intermittently, and Jack has struggled to provide for his family. They managed to live in a racially mixed neighborhood in St. Louis for a while, but then John got in trouble with his boss, sent his wife and child back to her family in Tennessee, and came to Gilead to see if they could establish an easier life here. At this point, though, it's not even clear if Della wants to stay together. When Jack asks if he thinks a life in Gilead is possible for them, John doesn't know what to say. He embraces Jack and tells him, truthfully, that he's a good man. Days later, after learning that Della has rejected him, Jack prepares to leave Gilead for good, even though it's clear his father is near death. John walks to the bus stop with Jack and offers him God's blessing, which Jack humbly receives. John wishes Boughton could have witnessed that moment and knows his friend would have been delighted to meet Jack's son, Robert Boughton Miles. John reflects on God's beauty gloriously reflected in creation, even in forgotten, unassuming places like Gilead. In his final letter, he tells his son that he will pray that he will grow up to be brave and find a way to be useful—he'll pray, and then he'll sleep.

- Genre: Yiddish short story, allegorical fable, magical realism - Title: Gimpel the Fool - Point of view: First-Person Narrator - Setting: The town of Frampol in Poland - Character: Gimpel. Description: Gimpel is the narrator and protagonist of the story, and is characterized by his gullibility, gentleness, open-mindedness, kindness, and moral strength. A resident of the small Polish town of Frampol, he is orphaned early and raised by a sickly grandfather. When his grandfather dies, Gimpel starts work at the town bakery. The single significant fact about Gimpel for the people of Frampol is that he believes whatever he hears, however ridiculous—hence his nickname "Gimpel the Fool." However, his belief is actually more complex than his neighbors realize. First of all, he does not blindly accept everything; he actually doubts many of the stories he is told. Yet while he judges them to be highly unlikely, he cannot bring himself to dismiss them outright when he reflects that, theoretically, anything is possible. In this sense, more than being gullible, Gimpel is an extremely open person. Further, Gimpel is afraid to think or speak ill of any person unjustly. This is why, on the two occasions that he catches his wife Elka sleeping with another man, he ends up persuading himself that he must have imagined the sight. For even though he beheld the betrayal with his own eyes, the slight possibility that his own vision, and not Elka, has deceived him, keeps him from blaming Elka, since to him, the worst thing would be to do so unfairly. Moreover, Gimpel ultimately feels that even if Elka did cheat on him, she is still worthy of forgiveness. This is another major character trait: he is very forgiving, which goes hand in hand with how loving he is. Although Elka is cruel to him throughout their marriage, Gimpel loves her passionately. Although he has questions about the true paternity of his children, he adores and is extremely devoted to them all. He even feels intense affection and concern for their family's goat. Overall, while Gimpel is perceived by others as a pathetic simpleton, the story actually portrays him as a person of rare virtue. The story suggests that through his extreme trust, generosity of spirit, and capacity for love, Gimpel should be considered not a fool, but an unappreciated hero, a man of wisdom, and uniquely able to appreciate and trust in God and his creation. - Character: Elka. Description: Gimpel's wife, Elka, is a very tough woman, fond of shockingly vulgar language and getting her own way. She has already had several relationships before meeting Gimpel: two previous husbands (one who died and one from whom she is divorced) and, it is implied, numerous extra-marital affairs, including one that produced a bastard son, Yechiel, whom she claims is her younger brother. Although Gimpel is convinced to marry her on false pretenses and falls deeply in love with her, Elka ignores his affection and spends most of the time belittling and bullying him. The real anguish she causes him comes from her serial infidelity. Gimpel repeatedly catches her cheating, and while each time she manages to convince him that he has been mistaken—shamelessly taking advantage of his trustfulness—she ultimately admits on her deathbed that she really was unfaithful the whole time, a heartbreaking revelation for Gimpel. Looking at her dead face, Gimpel notices a smile, as if she were pleased or amused at having deceived him. Yet after her death Elka undergoes a sort of moral transformation, acting as conscience and guardian angel for Gimpel. When Gimpel sets in motion a plan to take revenge on the people of Frampol for the years of mockery and deception they've made him endure, it is the repentant ghost of his wife who redirects him to the path of goodness. Appearing in a dream, she warns that she is suffering greatly for her past misconduct and that he must not complete his evil deceit if he hopes for a place in Paradise. At this point, it seems like she is doomed for her own crimes, yet in Gimpel's old age he constantly has visions of her as a shining saint, comforting him, granting him the affection and kindness he always craved from her, and indicating that they will have a blissful afterlife together. While this may just be wishful dreaming on Gimpel's part, it also seems to be a suggestion from Singer that even a person as seemingly morally bankrupt as Elka is not beyond redemption. Her apparent presence in Paradise also fits in with the story's vision of the next world as a place in which all the evils and lies of earth will be simplified into goodness and truth. - Character: The Spirit of Evil. Description: Shortly after Elka's death, the story's main antagonist, The Spirit of Evil—a classic demon figure, with horns, pointy teeth, a tail, and a goatee—appears to Gimpel in his sleep and encourages him to get revenge at the people of Frampol for the years they've spent mocking and deceiving him. The Spirit suggests that Gimpel make a habit of urinating in the bread that he sells them. Not only does the Spirit propose a revenge plot, something quite foreign to Gimpel's nature, he also challenges some of Gimpel's fundamental and most cherished beliefs. When Gimpel asks whether the trick the Spirit recommends will in any way hurt his chances for the next life, the Spirit sneeringly replies that there is no afterlife. When Gimpel asks if there is a God, the Spirit matter-of-factly declares that there is no God, either. When Gimpel asks what does exist, the Spirit says, simply: "a thick mire"—basically, a giant swamp of nothingness. Everything is false, he insists, so it won't matter if Gimpel throws some more falsehood into the mix. This Spirit of Evil might equally be called the Spirit of Negation. While Gimpel is tempted by the Spirit's words, he ultimately rejects the Spirit's advice. By the end of the story, he articulates a philosophy that is the exact opposite of the nihilistic worldview the Spirit of Evil promotes. Instead of everything being false and fake, Gimpel comes to believe that in God's expansive universe everything is true and real, even the apparently imaginary or impossible. The Spirit of Evil's plea for deception becomes symbolic of faithlessness, of the attitude of the person who believes in nothing, whereas Gimpel's is that of the pious man of faith, who deems whatever he encounters a meaningful and sacred part of God's reality. For the Spirit of Evil, nothing matters. For Gimpel, everything matters immensely. - Character: The Rabbi. Description: The rabbi is the chief religious authority in Frampol. He is one of the few people in the town who shows kindness and respect to Gimpel, and Gimpel frequently turns to him for advice. It is the rabbi who tells Gimpel what ends up being something like the main message of the story: "better be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses paradise himself." The rabbi is also the person who orders that Gimpel divorce his wife, Elka, after he reports her for adultery. When Gimpel comes back with a new story, declaring that he had only imagined his wife's betrayal and he would like to get back together with Elka, the rabbi surprises him by organizing a council of rabbis from neighboring villages to discuss the matter. Nine months pass before they decide that Gimpel can return to his wife. While Gimpel does not relish the long wait, the rabbi's need for reflection and debate may actually be part of what attracts Gimpel to him and to the scholarly Jewish books he and his fellow rabbis study. Unlike the townspeople of Frampol, they do not consider it ridiculously simple to evaluate a story; they are sensitive to the many-sidedness of every situation and, like Gimpel, take unlikely possibilities seriously. - Character: The Apprentice. Description: While separated from Elka, Gimpel becomes friendly with an apprentice at the bakery. The apprentice lives near Elka and helps ferry food to her and the children, since the rabbi has forbidden Gimpel to visit them. Originally, Gimpel disliked the apprentice, who was not the most respectful to him, liking to have fun at his expense. But once they start seeing more of each other, Gimpel decides that the apprentice is actually a very pleasant and generous person, and that he must have judged him too quickly. Understandably, Gimpel feels deeply betrayed when, after finally being allowed to return home to Elka, he finds the apprentice in bed with her. What is worse still, later that night, after the apprentice has gone home, Elka insists to Gimpel that he imagined the whole thing. The next day, the apprentice assists with the gaslighting, opining that Gimpel must "have a screw loose." - Character: Yechiel. Description: Yechiel is Elka's bastard child, fathered by some unknown lover. He is already born when Gimpel first meets Elka, and Elka claims that he is her little brother. Yechiel and Gimpel do not get along, with Yechiel often physically attacking Gimpel, and the almost always gentle and unconfrontational Gimpel being tempted to fight back. Later in the story, when Gimpel returns from the puzzling errand Elka sends him on after he catches her in bed with the apprentice, Yechiel jumps out from behind the oven and strikes Gimpel hard on the back of the head. It seems possible that Elka planted him there. - Character: The "Premature" Son. Description: Four months after Gimpel and Elka's wedding, Elka gives birth to a baby boy. This greatly angers Gimpel, as he figures that there is no way he can be the father's child. Elka insists that the baby is just extremely premature, and she offers up, as support, a very implausible anecdote about her grandmother having borne a similarly premature child. Gimpel sees right through this. But as the days go on, she remains so adamant that she is telling the truth, that Gimpel starts to become persuaded that maybe the child really is his. He is helped by a talk with the school-master, who shares that Eve herself brought two children into the world almost immediately after conceiving them. Finally, Gimpel accepts the son as his own, and the two grow extremely close. The boy always wants to be in Gimpel's arms, and if he is feeling unwell, Gimpel is the only one who can soothe him. Sadly, at the end of Elka's life, she reveals that this child, along with the others, was not Gimpel's, but the child of one of her lovers, a confession that causes Gimpel deep grief. We never learn this child's name, but we know that it is the same as Gimpel's deceased father. - Character: The Daughter Born During Gimpel and Elka's Separation. Description: During the time that Gimpel and Elka are separated, while the rabbis discuss whether it would be appropriate for them to resume their marriage, Elka gives birth to a daughter, whom Gimpel names after Elka's deceased mother. After the rabbi tells Gimpel that it is alright for him to return home, the first thing Gimpel does is look in the crib to have a look at the new child. He falls in love with it at once. Unfortunately, like all the children Gimpel believes are his, this daughter is actually the product of one of her mother's affairs, as Gimpel learns just before Elka dies. - Character: The Rabbi's Daughter. Description: One day, after coming out of an uplifting meeting with the rabbi, Gimpel encounters the rabbi's daughter. She reminds Gimpel that he needs to kiss the wall. He is surprised, as he has never heard of such a necessity before. She insists that it is very important. He goes ahead and kisses the wall, and no sooner than he has done so, the rabbi's daughter starts laughing hysterically. Gimpel fell for her prank, and is disappointed that a person with such proximity to the kindness, wisdom, and piety of her father, the rabbi, should behave in this manner. Only moments before, her father had been telling Gimpel, that, no matter how much his neighbors make fun of him or call him a fool, he can take comfort in being a faithful and benevolent person, while the real fools are those who are mean-spirited and choose to cause embarrassment for others. The rabbi's own daughter, it would seem, is one of the fools. - Theme: Credulity as Wisdom and Holy Faith. Description: Since he was a child, the people of the town of Frampol have mocked Gimpel for being extremely gullible. However improbable a tale they tell him—the Czar has come to town, the moon has fallen down—he is "taken in" and accepts it. Even when Gimpel does feel skeptical about a story he has heard, the idea that it might be true makes him doubt himself, and he decides to believe, just in case. To his neighbors, this credulity of Gimpel's is a hilarious weakness, something to be mocked and exploited. Yet while being gullible may seem like a weakness, "Gimpel the Fool" suggests that it is actually Gimpel's strength by making clear that his inclination to trust, rather than doubt, even when trust seems totally undeserved, is actually a version of the religious person's trust in a God and afterlife for which there is no hard evidence. "Gimpel the Fool" portrays its protagonist's credulity as a kind of holy faith and a path to goodness, righteousness, and even wisdom. First of all, Gimpel's inclination to believe people reflects his innate kindness and generosity of spirit, while the "smarter" skeptics all around him show a distinct lack of kindness. Gimpel is always wary of doubting people, for fear that, if he is wrong, he will have cast a sort of shadow on their character unjustly. The rabbi tells him that it is better to be fooled all one's days than for a moment to cause embarrassment to someone else, reinforcing Gimpel's feeling that it is safer to trust people, because it would be worse to have doubted them and shamed them unfairly. The extreme concern for the well-being of other people at the root of this motive for a belief is a big part of what makes Gimpel such a virtuous, almost holy person. By contrast, those around Gimpel—his neighbors, his wife Elka, and The Spirit of Evil—who ridicule him for being so trustful, are themselves morally and spiritually impoverished by their own lack of faith. It's no accident that these other characters are both so adept at spotting lies and such competent deceivers themselves. It would not be easy to trick Wolf-Lieb the thief, Elka, or the Spirit of Evil, but that's because of their own familiarity with evil. Furthermore, while it pains Gimpel to be the cause of pain, these more world-wise people get a kick out of it. The townspeople love to see him fall for a prank; Elka dies with a smile on her face, as if she is proud of her trickery; and the Spirit of Evil certainly seems excited by the idea of making the villagers eat Gimpel's urine. Although the other characters regard Gimpel's credulity as a sign of stupidity, it actually endows him with a special kind of intellectual openness that grants him access to knowledge unavailable to his more narrow-minded neighbors. Early on, Gimpel cites an assertion from The Wisdom of the Holy Fathers (an important book of Jewish thought) that "everything is possible." This basic premise for evaluating situations makes Gimpel more open than those around him to improbable scenarios that others would simply dismiss. His alertness for unseen complexity is also shared by the Frampol rabbi and his fellow-rabbis, who scour Jewish scholarly literature to make sure they have considered from every light Gimpel's assertion that he must have imagined it when he caught his wife committing adultery. In a little-known passage, it turns out, Maimonides, a giant of Jewish thought seriously pondered the same (rather implausible) possibility. Furthermore, while many of the things Gimpel believes turn out to be false, his openness is largely validated when he leaves the town of Frampol to explore the world. Outside of the small, insular village, he discovers that many things that his neighbors would almost certainly reject as impossible "had actually come to pass." The townspeople who in Frampol had seemed so worldly-wise with their skepticism come to look like people whose outlook is limited by a kind of smug provincialism, an inability to believe in possibilities they have never seen, which, living in Frampol, is very little. Gimpel, meanwhile, becomes a worldly person who learns from experience that the world is so vast that many unlikely things do end up occurring. That he had faith in such things even before his travels is a proof of the innate wisdom of his impulse to believe. Gimpel's gullibility also has an important connection to his strong religious faith, since faith inherently relies on one's willingness to believe things without hard evidence. Multiple characters make explicit this tie to religious belief. When Gimpel reports to the rabbi, after being repeatedly deceived, that he's adopted a new policy of believing everything he hears, the rabbi declares, "Belief in itself is beneficial. It is written, a good man lives by his faith." Gimpel makes a similar comment while convincing himself that, against all evidence, his wife Elka has been faithful: "today it's your wife you won't believe; tomorrow it's God himself you won't take stock in." The Spirit of Evil follows this same logic in the opposite direction when he uses the frequent lying and trickery of people on earth to support the conclusion that even the convictions most sacred to Gimpel—the existence of God and the afterlife—are false, too. The Spirit likens the religious authorities, holy books, and other people of faith to swindlers, and in so doing shows the spiritual peril of doubt and negation. Ultimately, "Gimpel the Fool" suggests that the people of Frampol are wrong to view Gimpel's trustfulness as his great weakness. Instead, his belief makes him wiser, kinder, and more pious, while the villains of the story are those who are perpetually doubting, who are always skeptical, a habit directly connected to their faithlessness and evil-doing. - Theme: Punishment vs. Forgiveness. Description: Near the end of "Gimpel the Fool," Gimpel receives a crushing deathbed confession from his wife, Elka, that she has been cheating on him for years and that none of their six children are really his. Soon after this revelation, Gimpel is visited, in a dream, by the Spirit of Evil who proposes that Gimpel, a baker, urinate in the bread he will sell to the other villagers to eat the next day, thus deceiving them for a change. It is no accident that the story makes the Spirit of Evil, rather than Gimpel himself, the one to first have this idea. As the story portrays it, the desire to punish is evil. Although it might seem that Gimpel's revenge would be justified, as his neighbors have already caused him so much pain throughout his life, "Gimpel the Fool" suggests that the correct response to such harmful behavior is not revenge—fighting evil with evil—but forgiveness. Gimpel himself reflects at one point, "I wanted to be angry, but that's my misfortune exactly, I don't have it in me to be really angry." The story suggests that this trait is actually Gimpel's strength, his literal good fortune, the thing that prevents him from doing evil to others and ensures his own goodness now and in the afterlife. While it might seem natural for Gimpel to resent and crave vengeance against those who have wronged him, he realizes that doing evil—even in response to evil—is never justified. Early on, the rabbi cautions Gimpel never to be evil: "better to be a fool your days than for one hour to be evil […] he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses paradise himself." The endless mockery and degradation Gimpel suffers from his neighbors certainly meets this definition of evil. But the problem with the idea of punishing his neighbors for their cruelty is that it would require Gimpel to do evil, too. He would have to willfully bring pain and shame to them. Part of what makes Gimpel such a good person is his extreme reluctance to ever do this. Gimpel does momentarily succumb to the temptation to punish when the Spirit of Evil proposes his revenge scheme. But Elka visits him in a dream and reminds him that such a choice to hurt others is itself a crime, which may jeopardize his place in Paradise. Elka demands, "Because I was false, is everything false?" She calls upon Gimpel to be a beacon of goodness and honesty in a too often corrupt world, to do his part in saving the world from becoming entirely evil. This intervention inspires Gimpel to abandon his plan, a decision the story suggests is crucial for his fate in the next life. Gimpel is also keenly aware of how easy it is for people to make mistakes; therefore, he finds it difficult to judge them too harshly for doing so. For example, while Gimpel is dismayed to catch Elka cheating, he reasons that making mistakes is an inevitable part of the human condition: "there's bound to be a slip up sometimes. You can't live without errors." If messing up is something that everybody must, at times, do, Gimpel feels that they deserve forgiveness. Gimpel acknowledges that he himself does not always act rightly. His passion for Elka, for instance, has made him into a thief. He is so eager to please her he regularly steals from the bakery, including from the pots of food women bring in to warm in the over. Timidly he expresses a "hope [he] may be forgiven" for this. Just as he would like forgiveness for himself, he feels an imperative to forgive rather than inflict punishment on others. The only one with a right to judge and punish, as Gimpel sees it, is a perfect being—that is, God. Gimpel's forgiving attitude ultimately brings him much more satisfaction than revenge or punishment ever could. He is, by nature, not an angry or punishing person. Unlike many of the townspeople, or the Spirit of Evil, it brings him no satisfaction to make others suffer. What Gimpel likes best is to love people. He is miserable when he is apart from Elka, even though leaving her to fend for herself might be an effective way to punish her for her offenses. He always becomes happier whenever they reunite, even though those reunions usually involve her getting off the hook for bad behavior. Furthermore, because people are imperfect, love necessarily requires forgiveness. Gimpel understands throughout his marriage that getting to be with the person he adores requires that he tolerate her significant faults: he showers her with affection despite her constant harsh mockery. He decides to set aside feelings of resentment so that he can get the most out of his love for her. For Singer, the desire to punish evil is itself an evil. His hero Gimpel, therefore, sets aside the temptation to get back at those who have wronged him, concentrating instead on forgiveness and love. The story's moral calculus is complex, to be sure, but it suggests that as long as Gimpel continues to be generous to people rather than cruel, he will be happier in this life, and his prospects for the afterlife will be safe. - Theme: The Real vs. The Imaginary. Description: "Gimpel the Fool" can in many ways be taken as a critique of those who purposely distort the truth and deceive others—a kind of denunciation of the imaginary. Through much of the story, Gimpel has a difficult time establishing facts. His neighbors are constantly telling him tales which he takes as true, only to reveal moments later that they were entirely made-up. Meanwhile, Gimpel's own wife is able to get him to set aside the evidence of her infidelity that he witnesses with his own eyes and accept her implausible denials. Yet the story's ideas about the relationship between the real and the imaginary do not end there. An important dimension of the story is also its celebration of imagination. The story does this first through Gimpel's three dreams, one where he is visited by the Spirit of Evil and two where he encounters the spirit of his deceased wife, Elka. These dreams are as real to Gimpel as the rest of his life, and affect his behavior as much as anything else that he experiences. Second, while Gimpel initially struggles with the effort to discern the real from the imaginary, by the end of the story, he has himself become a traveling storyteller. Gimpel's transformation is based on a realization that the supposedly "real" world of the living is best understood as imaginary—anything you can make up is probably happening somewhere, or will happen at some point, in waking life or in dreams. And since the "real" world is imaginary, Gimpel, and the story itself, ultimately argue that it is only in the afterlife that people will first encounter what is actually true and real. Gimpel's dreams are integrated into the narrative so seamlessly and have such a direct effect on his subsequent actions that they feel as real as the story's "actual" events. Gimpel describes his encounter with the Spirit of Evil and the ghost of his wife not so much as the stuff of illusion, which one would expect from a dream, but as literal visits from other worlds. The line in the story between the real world and the imaginary world becomes blurred, since it is unclear whether these interactions are genuinely happening. Then, he immediately puts the advice he receives in these dreams into action. When the Spirit of Evil tells him to urinate in the bread, he obeys the instructions as soon as he awakens. When Elka warns him that such a deed will endanger his chances in the afterlife, he immediately abandons the plan. In the third dream (actually a recurring one), Elka has become a saint-like figure and promises Gimpel they will soon be together soon; he appears to be deeply reassured by her presence and her words, even when he wakes up. Gimpel's dreamworld feels so lifelike when he narrates it in part because he has come to believe that the life of the imagination should be considered as real as what takes place in the external world. By the end of the story, Gimpel still likely has moral qualms with others' intent to deceive when they lie, but he has an epiphany that there are "really no lies." What we think of as lies, to Gimpel, actually represent an important aspect of reality. For one thing, as Gimpel travels around the world, he observes that the world is so vast that all kinds of things that seem extremely unlikely, even impossible, actually do happen. Thus, when the imagination "invents" a "ridiculous" story, it may often be, Gimpel concludes, that the thing it describes really did happen somewhere, at some time, or that it will happen at some date in the future. Furthermore, when Gimpel says that "whatever doesn't really happen is dreamed at night," he is arguing that even if the events of dreams never "really" happen, they are, in a meaningful sense, "real." After all, they reflect our psychological reality, a whole world in which we spend so much of our lives. Meanwhile, in the final paragraphs of the story, Gimpel reveals that he has become a travelling storyteller who regularly recounts highly fanciful stories to people on his travels. This is evidence of how fully he has embraced the world of the imagination, the world of "lies," to entertain and enlighten. Gimpel also reaches the conclusion that what we call real life should itself probably be viewed as an imaginary or dreamlife, for it is a mere shadow of the afterlife, which he considers to be the actual real world. While Gimpel feels strongly that the world we live in is a large place with wide possibilities, he does accept that it is finite. He believes that it is just a fragment of the world to come, in which the truth of things will be revealed. Thus, for Gimpel, the "imaginary" has special validity because it goes beyond the limitations of our relatively shallow "reality." But an essential feature of the afterworld as Gimpel understands it is that its "truth" will be plain for all to see, no matter how complex or magnificent it may be. As a world essentially bathed in truth, Gimpel trusts that the afterlife is a place where "even Gimpel cannot be deceived." Over the course of the story Gimpel changes from being a person who struggles to get a handle on reality and views falsehood as the enemy to someone who sees the products of the human imagination, including dreams and lies, not as detracting from but actually helping to complete our picture of what reality is. Reality on earth, Gimpel believes, is small and insubstantial compared to the reality of the afterlife, and thus our openness to stories that inflate the boundaries of everyday life actually help our minds inch closer to what it will be like in the next world, where all things are real. Gimpel at the end of the story is eagerly awaiting his entry to that greater, truer world. - Climax: After Spirit of Evil persuades Gimpel to take revenge on the people of Frampol by urinating in the bread he will sell to them, the ghost of his wife Elka comes to him in a dream and urges him not to go through with the crime, prompting him instead, when he wakes up, to bury the bread. - Summary: As a child, Gimpel became known for being easy to fool, which is why his neighbors in Frampol call him "Gimpel the Fool." He works at the local bakery, and his customers and all of the villagers are constantly playing tricks on him, such as telling him that the Messiah has come. In such cases, Gimpel seldom completely believes those tricking him, but he figures that it might be possible and so who is he to judge. Gimpel finds the constant mockery tiresome and considers moving elsewhere, but just as he is about to leave, his fellow-villagers start encouraging him to marry a local woman, Elka, whom they swear would be an excellent match. She is a sharp-tongued, irritable woman rumored to have had many lovers and a bastard son (whom she claims is her younger brother), but, eventually, after much urging, Gimpel is persuaded to marry her. He is greatly disturbed when, four months later, she gives birth to a son whom, Gimpel realizes, another man must have fathered. But Elka, along with all of Gimpel's neighbors in Frampol, insist that the baby is simply premature. After a while, Gimpel accepts her story and the child as his own. He grows to love his wife and baby, and is more or less content with his lot until one day, he comes home from work early and finds Elka sleeping with another man. When Gimpel informs the village rabbi, he is told he must divorce her and cease to see her or their child. While apart from them, Gimpel thinks about how, when first confronted with the accusations, Elka repeatedly denied them. He becomes horrified by the idea that he might have imagined the man in her bed; shortly after, he returns to the rabbi to tell him he must have been mistaken and that he would like to go back to living with his wife. The rabbi explains that Gimpel's new version of the story will need to be discussed by a group of rabbis. While he is waiting for them to deliberate, Gimpel befriends an apprentice at the bakery. After nine months, the council of rabbis concludes that if Gimpel is really certain that he had hallucinated Elka's adultery, he may resume his life with her. Overjoyed, Gimpel returns home, but, to his horror, he finds her in bed with his friend, the apprentice. Elka, on awakening, tells Gimpel to go and check on their goat; when he comes back, the apprentice is gone, and in response to Gimpel's accusations, Elka tells him he has lost his mind. The next day, the apprentice also questions Gimpel's sanity. Confused, not wanting to be in the wrong, Gimpel decides to forget the whole thing. He lives happily for twenty years with Elka, becoming a wealthy baker and the father of several children, until Elka suddenly gets very sick. On her deathbed, she confesses that she lied to Gimpel throughout their marriage, that she had several affairs, and that none of the children are really Gimpel's. Gimpel feels deeply betrayed. One day, a short time later, The Spirit of Evil comes to Gimpel in a dream and persuades him to get revenge on his neighbors in Frampol for their years of deceiving him by urinating in the bread he sells. Under the Spirit's influence, he does urinate in some bread dough and bakes it. But then he has another vision, this time of the dead Elka, who reproaches him for trying to do evil to his neighbors and persuades him that he will not get his place in Paradise if he does not do the right thing this time. When he wakes up, Gimpel buries the bread he was going to use to trick the townspeople. Then he packs his things and leaves the town of Frampol forever. For years, Gimpel wanders Eastern Europe, becoming an itinerant traveling storyteller in the process. Good people support him as he travels, and he comes to believe that there's no such thing as a lie: that anything not happening now will either happen one day or in someone's dreams. He frequently dreams of Elka and looks forward to an afterlife where he can be reunited with her and where there is no such thing as deception.

- Genre: Novel, Historical Fiction, Bildungsroman - Title: Girl with a Pearl Earring - Point of view: First Person - Setting: Late 17th-century Delft, the Netherlands - Character: Griet. Description: At the beginning of the novel, Griet is a girl approaching marriageable age and living at home with her father, mother, and sister Agnes (her younger brother, Frans, is living away from home as an apprentice). Griet doesn't fear hard work and knows how to ingratiate herself with people like Maria Thins and Tanneke. And she knows to keep her distance and a wary eye on those untamable and unpredictable people who might pose a threat to her, like Catharina and Cornelia. She inherits a fine eye for detail and the value of art from her father. Like Vermeer, for whom she goes to work as a maid to support her family, she has poise, control, an artist's eye, and penetrating insight into the people around her. But she also has her mother's strict Protestant morality and sense of propriety. This is why she wears her distinctive cap, which covers her unruly hair and shields her face, helping her keep her thoughts and dreams private. These include her growing attraction to Vermeer, whose light-filled paintings and unique way of looking at the world impress her, and her jealousy of luxuries like Catharina's find clothing and jewelry. As Vermeer asks Griet to take on increasingly important tasks in the studio, she becomes bold enough to offer him direct advice on his work, thus demonstrating her own sensitivity and artistic eye. She is fiercely independent and fears being indebted to others, but it takes her a long time to realize that her independence is only possible outside of Vermeer's studio—with people like Pieter, the butcher's son who loves and respects her. To take control of her destiny, she accepts Pieter's proposal of marriage and his offer of stability and independence. With him she has two sons, Jan and Little Frans. - Character: Vermeer. Description: Johannes Vermeer is a painter and art dealer in Delft. He is married to Catharina and father to Maertge, Lisbeth, Cornelia, Aleydis, Johannes, and Franciscus. His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, manages his business affairs. His most important patrons are van Ruijven and his wife, although he also accepts commissions from well-to-do merchants like the family's baker. He paints light-filled, meticulously detailed, and elegant images of life in the 17th-century Netherlands. As the head of the Delft Artist's Guild, he hires Griet as a maid in part to help support her family after an accident deprives her father of his ability to work. Griet describes Vermeer as a tidy, quiet, and self-controlled man who likes silence and places his work above all other considerations, including his family. He has a way of looking at the world around him—sometimes outright, sometimes through the camera obscura he borrows from his friend van Leeuwenhoek—and then using his art to help viewers see the world in an entirely new way. Known for investing small, domestic moments (like his housekeeper Tanneke pouring milk into a pot) with an almost sacred sense of importance, Vermeer studies the world and the people around him carefully. Yet he has flaws: he holds himself aloof from his family; he values his work more than he values his wife, children, or Griet—despite how captivating he seems to find her. He likes to control people, even forcing Catharina to hand over her pearl earrings to Griet after his own death. In life, he lacks the courage to tell his wife the truth or to confront her when she is out of line; he sometimes visits the tavern and gets drunk to avoid domestic upheaval. Indeed, Catharina strongly implies to Griet that these excesses contribute to his early death at the age of 43. Lastly, it's worth noting that Johannes Vermeer existed in real life and was one of the most important Dutch painters in the 17th century, though Girl with the Pearl Earring provides a fictional glimpse at his life. - Character: Catharina. Description: Catharina is the daughter of Maria Thins and the wife of artist Johannes Vermeer. In Griet's eyes, she is the opposite of her husband: loud where he is quiet, perpetually frazzled where he is elegant, outgoing where he is reserved, unruly where he is controlled. Catharina wishes to be a grand lady—her father was a wealthy but violent and abusive man. Griet, Tanneke, and possibly even Maria Thins understand that having so many children represents Catharina's attempts to control Vermeer. She seems happiest when she's the center of attention, as at the birth feast for Franciscus, or when she gets to dress up visit important people like van Ruijven and his wife. Catharina fears and resents Griet in part because of standard beliefs about maids being untrustworthy thieves, in part because of the maid's growing intimacy with her husband. Griet certainly seems more compatible with Vermeer than Catharina. Catharina is heartbroken and enraged with betrayal when she discovers that Vermeer has painted an intimate portrait of Griet, especially because the painter has never asked his clumsy wife to sit as a model; indeed, he has barred her from the studio at almost all times except when he entertains his patrons there. By the time of his early death, Catharina has 11 living children, most of whom still rely on their mother's support. - Character: Cornelia. Description: Cornelia is the third child of Catharina and Vermeer. Described as a wild, ungovernable child, she takes the most after her mother. She comes to dislike to Griet, possibly because Griet slapped her for impertinence, possibly because she feels jealous as Griet gets close to Vermeer, who keeps his family members—including Cornelia—at arms' length. Cornelia instigates three plots against the maid—revealing her secret work in the attic helping Vermeer grind pigments, framing her for stealing Catharina's tortoiseshell combs, and revealing the secret portrait to her mother. She still lives at home at the time of her father's death, and she appears to have remained a wild, unkempt, and disrespectful girl. - Character: Maria Thins. Description: Maria Thins is Catharina's mother and Vermeer's mother-in-law. A shrewd, watchful woman with a sound head for business, she separated from her own abusive husband long before her daughter married the painter. She owns the house in which they live, takes care of Vermeer's business dealings, and seems to understand and appreciate his art more than her daughter does. She likes Griet's shrewd and observant nature. She reluctantly condones the help Griet provides to Vermeer in his studio and tries to shield her from van Ruijven's advances, although her loyalty clearly lies with her daughter. Maria Thins is the mistress whom Tanneke has served for half her life. - Character: Pieter. Description: Pieter, son of Pieter the Butcher, runs a stall selling meat at the Delft market with his father. When Griet begins to shop there on behalf of Catharina, he becomes interested in the pretty maid. When her family falls under quarantine, it's Pieter who brings her news, and after the quarantine is lifted, he begins to court Griet in earnest and ingratiate himself with her mother and father. He is kind, patient, and trusting towards Griet, but he also displays dogged determination when she expresses reluctance to accept his marriage proposal. Ultimately, she accepts and after their marriage they have two children, Jan and Little Frans. - Character: Tanneke. Description: Tanneke is Maria Thins's maid, who fulfils the role of housekeeper for Catharina and Vermeer, although she doesn't always do the best job with her duties. She has loyalty to these three above everyone else in the world. Despite her common, somewhat rough appearance, Vermeer used her as the model for one of his paintings, and she possesses a vanity that Griet uses to get on her good side. But when she sees that she or the family have been wronged, she can become mean and vindictive. - Character: Van Ruijven. Description: Van Ruijven is a wealthy and important citizen of Delft who, along with his wife, patronizes Vermeer. Despite his large art collection, Griet doesn't think that he truly understands or appreciates what makes Vermeer such a great painter. Van Ruijven is a selfish, lustful man who ruined the reputation of one of his own maids by impregnating her, and he drew attention to their affair by having Vermeer paint them together in a scene. He gropes and attempts to sexually assault Griet several times and commissions Vermeer to paint a portrait of her for him. - Character: Mother. Description: Griet's mother is an upright, conscientious Protestant woman. Her faith is important to her; she ensures that Griet will be able to leave Vermeer's Roman Catholic household once a week to attend Protestant church services. She wants Griet to be secure and to protect her reputation more than anything, which is why she encourages her daughter to accept Pieter's proposal. - Character: Father. Description: Griet's father was a master painter of Delft tiles, which earned him, Griet's mother, Griet, Frans, and Agnes a comfortable life as a middle-class artisan family. But when an accident costs him his sight, he can no longer work. Initially as sensitive to light as his daughter, Griet's father slowly becomes isolated and cut off by his blindness. Eventually, it makes him bitter and mean. He dies in the years after Griet marries Pieter. - Character: Pieter the Butcher. Description: Pieter the Butcher is the butcher patronized by Catharina. He runs his meat stall with his son, also named Pieter. Pieter the Butcher is a handsome, gregarious man with a loud voice and a tendency to joke with and tease Griet. Still, he helps protect Griet from van Ruijven at Franciscus's birth feast. - Character: Van Leeuwenhoek. Description: Van Leeuwenhoek is a friend of Vermeer's. He owns a camera obscura, which he frequently lends to the painter, and he dislikes Catharina because she once broke it. He is kind and gentlemanly to Griet, in contrast to both Vermeer and van Ruijven, and he later becomes the executor of Vermeer's will. - Character: Frans. Description: Frans is Griet's younger brother and the middle of her mother and father's three children—Agnes is younger than him. Soon after their father's accident, his parents apprentice him to another tile maker, where he finds the work hard and soul-crushing. Ultimately, after he is punished for attempting to seduce his master's wife, he runs away from the tile factory, never to be seen again. - Theme: The Power of Art. Description: Griet lives in Delft—in the Netherlands—during an era in which, as her mother says, art can be found everywhere and paintings can be purchased by the lowliest maid for just a few days' wages. But not everyone is as sensitive to the power of art as Griet. Vermeer's patron, van Ruijven, for instance, seems to value his collection's ability to telegraph wealth and status more than he cares about the paintings themselves. Still, Vermeer's works possess a sort of magic. On the surface, they depict small and everyday scenes, like a maid pouring milk into a pot. But his sensitivity to color, light, and the nuance of expression allows the paintings to show the world in a new and fresh light. Thus, using Vermeer as an example, the book shows how art can change the way a sensitive and alert viewer like Griet sees and understands the world around her and, by extension, how art can change the world.  Vermeer's domestic scenes represent a new worldview in which normal people have the same value as politically or religiously important figures like art patrons or Jesus. This parallels the book's focus on its middle-class protagonist, Griet. She lives at a moment in which the Protestant Reformation has broken the hegemonic power of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe and political and social changes are beginning to fuel a shift towards increasing power for people outside the elite classes. Indeed, part of Pieter's argument for why Griet should marry him relies on the idea that life as a businesswoman will give Griet power over her own destiny. Over the course of the book, especially as Vermeer paints her portrait, Griet learns harsh lessons about her place in the world, as she is often at the disposal of those more powerful than herself. But ultimately, she recognizes and takes ownership of her individual power when she leaves the Vermeer house and chooses the path she wants to take for her own future. In her small, individual life, then, the book provides an example of how art both records and causes change in the world. - Theme: Obligation, Mutual Support, and Personal Agency. Description: Although she quietly and without complaint fulfills most of her duties (to God, to her mother and father, to Vermeer), Griet also expresses distress over feeling obliged to return someone's favor. This includes a feeling of indebtedness to Pieter for bringing her news of her quarantined family during a plague outbreak, and to Vermeer for shielding her from one of Cornelia's plots. She also suspects that her family encourages Pieter's courtship in part because his father's thriving butcher shop offers the prospect of stability—and meat—that they otherwise lack. Griet believes she would be happier if she could avoid falling into anyone's debt. Interestingly, her portrait is even the product of a sort of double obligation: Griet's obligation to her employer, Vermeer, and Vermeer's obligation to his patron, van Ruijven. However, the book ultimately suggests that, in the real world, obligations themselves aren't necessarily the problem. They bind people together in functional units. Parents look after children when they're young, and then they receive support from those children when they're older. Patrons allow painters like Vermeer to explore new artistic forms of expression. Loyal maids like Tanneke can become important household members. Issues arise when people avoid their obligations (like Vermeer's distance from his family, his inability to protect Catharina from danger, and his unwillingness to be truthful) or when unscrupulous people use the power of obligation to get what they want, as when van Ruijven ruins his maid's reputation or when Vermeer forces Griet to pose and wear the pearl earrings for her portrait. In contrast, Pieter offers Griet a life of mutual responsibility as husband and wife and as co-owners of the butcher stall. And ultimately, Griet discovers a sense of safety and security when she agrees to this marriage. In her maturity, she invests in mutual relationships that give her the power to control her own life rather than allowing herself to be controlled by others. - Theme: Wildness and Restraint. Description: Before entering the Vermeers' home, Griet lives a life characterized by restraint: she eats simple food and hides her wild hair under a stiff white cap, always maintaining a sense of propriety. She is, in fact, hired for her job because of her ability to clean while keeping Vermeer's studio in exact order, as if nothing has been touched or moved. She likes people who share her sense of restraint, like Maria Thins—who adeptly keeps her thoughts private—and the pensive, dedicated Vermeer. Conversely, she dislikes or fears unrestrained people like the perpetually frantic Catharina, the ungovernable Cornelia, or the lustful van Ruijven. While she ends up as a subject in one of Vermeer's luminous and restrained portraits, though, chaos and disorder reign during her time in the Vermeer house. It's never clear why Catharina and Cornelia dislike her, yet they eventually drive her from the home. Despite refusing to act on her feelings for Vermeer and avoiding the lascivious attentions of van Ruijven, she ultimately succumbs to her own sexual desires with Pieter. As she grows up, Griet learns the painful lesson that she cannot impose order on the world around her, at least not beyond the walls of the studio and its carefully constructed environment. She can only impose order on her own life by making the choices that most closely align with her sense of order and morality. And this newfound ability to balance her own wild desires with a reasonable amount of restraint gives her a deep and enduring dignity that distinguishes her from the people around her. - Theme: Women's Roles. Description: When Griet arrives at Papists' Corner, she discovers a house dominated by women—Vermeer's mother-in-law Maria Thins, his wife Catharina, his four daughters, and the family housekeeper, Tanneke. But these women live in a male-dominated world, and none of them are allowed to forget it. Vermeer forbids Catharina, Tanneke, and the children from entering his studio. Van Leeuwenhoek holds a perpetual grudge against Catharina and demands that she stay out of his sight when he visits the house. Van Ruijven takes advantage of his own maids and expects to be able to the same with Griet. Perhaps the most pointed reminder of women's subjugated position in society hangs on the wall as Vermeer paints The Concert: a painting of a "procuress" (a woman who employs sex workers) arranging the price for a gentleman to enjoy time with one of her young ladies. Women, this painting says, are objects to be used and controlled by men. Vermeer literally turns Griet into an object for male pleasure when he paints her portrait instead of allowing van Ruijven to have sexual access to her. Through these and other situations, the book explores the way a patriarchal society limits women's autonomy. Still, the women in this world aren't totally powerless, even if social limitations force them into antisocial behavior. Sometimes they exercise power by turning on each other, as Catharina, Tanneke, and Cornelia torment Griet. Even Maria Thins's attempts to keep Griet out of van Ruijven's grasp involve deceit. And while the book shows Griet making some of her own choices, such as initiating sex with Pieter or accepting his proposal, she cannot, in the end, escape the confines of her society—she resorts to marriage in part to protect her reputation from the scandal of the painting. In this way, the book avoids anachronistically conferring more power on Griet than she would have had in her era. But it also explores the various ways that women and girls have always found ways to practice autonomy despite socially imposed limitations. - Theme: Sight and Insight. Description: Griet leaves her parents' house to go to work as a maid because the family needs her income after an accident deprives her father of his sight. In contrast to her blind father, Griet's new master, the painter Johannes Vermeer, paints images that show normal, everyday things, in a completely different light. Griet herself lies somewhere between the two, slower to catch on to subtleties than her master but nevertheless keenly observant of the world around her. Yet even though she can appreciate her master's work and proves to have an almost preternatural ability to judge a person's character with a single glance, Griet has her own oversights. As her experiences gradually illuminate them, the book shows how sight must be combined with insight or understanding to show the truth. Everyone in Delft can see the shape of its buildings against the blue and cloudy sky. But Vermeer paints this vista in a way that helps Griet and her father feel that they better understand the only home they've ever known. Insight requires more than simply opening one's eyes. In the case of Vermeer's paintings, it requires knowledge of how colors, light, and shade interact. In the case of Griet's infatuation with the painter, it requires not just seeing things like his disinterested attitude towards his family, but learning through experience that the only thing he truly cares about is his work. Light falls on everything—even Griet's father can feel the warmth of the sunlight—but a person's attention and focus limit (or expand) the extent to which they truly see and understand the world. - Climax: Catharina discovers the portrait of Griet wearing the pearl earrings. - Summary: In the spring of 1664, Griet chops vegetables in her family kitchen when her mother ushers in Catharina and Johannes Vermeer. Griet's father, formerly a master tile painter, has been blinded in an accident and can no longer work. With her younger brother, Frans, already bound to an apprenticeship, Griet must take work as a maid to support her parents and sister Agnes. The next morning, Griet crosses the city. She will live and work at Vermeer's house, allowed to visit home on Sundays. There, she becomes responsible for acquiring the Vermeer family's daily meat and doing laundry. Quick, perceptive Griet ingratiates herself with Tanneke, the housekeeper, and earns the respect of Catharina's shrewd mother, Maria Thins. But Griet distrusts Catharina and her unruly, mischievous daughter Cornelia. As she begins to clean the studio, Griet becomes enthralled with Vermeer's intimate and light-filled paintings. These contrast sharply with his disinterested attitude towards his family and aloof treatment of Griet. Over the summer, she meets his lascivious patron van Ruijven, plague strikes the city, and kills her sister Agnes. In the fall, the birth of the newest Vermeer child, Franciscus, momentarily distracts Griet from her grief. But then a long, cold winter sets in. Early in 1665, Griet looks over her shoulder as she washes the studio windows. Vermeer is studying her intently. Soon he asks her to assist him, first by running errands, then by grinding pigments. He arranges for her to sleep in the attic, which is only accessible through the studio. Their increasing intimacy causes strife in the household. Cornelia exposes Griet's secret work, and Tanneke and Catharina each begin to mistreat her. Still, Griet finds solace in the studio, becoming bolder in her efforts to help Vermeer. At the same time, Pieter, the son of Pieter the Butcher, begins to seriously court her. When Vermeer takes Catharina's jewelry and jewelry box to use as props for his latest work, she becomes upset over the idea of her things being left overnight in the studio with Griet. Cornelia hatches a plot to frame Griet for stealing Catharina's tortoiseshell combs. But when Griet explains the situation to Vermeer, he sides with the maid. Griet's evident importance to him softens Tanneke's and Catherine's mistreatment of her—after all, the whole household depends on his paintings for their support. But it also increases their resentment of her. In the fall of 1665, Maria Thins convinces van Ruijven to commission a large multi-subject painting. Van Ruijven wants Griet to model so that he can have physical access to her, but Maria and Vermeer conspire to shield her from his attention, at least directly. In exchange for keeping her out of the one painting, Vermeer promises van Ruijven a secret portrait of Griet. Initially horrified, Griet begins to treasure sitting for Vermeer. When he directs her to model while wearing Catharina's pearl earrings, she tries but can't refuse. No sooner is the portrait done than Cornelia reveals it to Catharina. Griet runs from the house and accepts Pieter's proposal of marriage. Ten years later, Tanneke summons Griet to the house. Vermeer has recently died, and Griet assumes Catharina intends to settle the family's account with the family's former butcher and his son, who's now her husband. Instead, she learns that Vermeer left instructions for Catharina to give Griet the pearl earrings. Knowing she can never wear them, Griet sells them to a pawnbroker.

- Genre: Short Fiction - Title: Girl - Point of view: Second-person - Setting: An unnamed Anglophone Caribbean island - Character: Mother. Description: The girl's mother is the main speaker in the story. Her authoritative voice, which offers the girl a list of guidelines on how to conduct herself, makes up the bulk of the story, with very few interruptions or protests coming from the girl. Mother tells the girl how to perform chores, how to cook and garden, what she ought to cook and garden, how to entertain, how to behave on Sundays, and how to love. Though readers are to understand that she is a Caribbean woman, her voice is not inflected by any particular dialect. Her tone is distant and impersonal, but grows more insistent when advising the girl against behaviors that could lead to her being viewed as a slut. - Character: Girl. Description: – Mother's daughter and the person toward whom Mother directs her advice. The girl is an adolescent, which compels her mother to offer her instructions on how to express her femininity and how to perform chores, alongside advice about how to cope with difficult moments in life. The girl interrupts the monologue only twice to refute the accusation that she sings benna, and to bring up the possibility of not being allowed to feel the bread. Her voice enters the narrative to refute Mother's untrue accusation about her singing, and to question the assumption that Mother's advice will be applicable in every circumstance. - Theme: Gender and Domesticity. Description: Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" opens with the speaker, Mother, instructing the eponymous girl, presumably her daughter, on how to perform household chores. Though neither character ever addresses the other in a manner that would establish the parent-child relationship, the reader understands the nature of their bond, due to the main speaker's instructive and scolding voice, as well as the secondary speaker's interruptions to question the primary speaker's instructions. The instructions detail the routine tasks of managing a household—tasks which the girl must learn in her transition to womanhood. Kincaid includes these lessons, passed down from mother to daughter, to demonstrate the way in which a girl's life is predetermined by gender. Two of the chores that a girl must learn are laundry and sewing. These responsibilities will ensure that her family is clean and presentable when they go out in public, placing her family's reputation squarely on her shoulders. As part of the routine, Mother tells the girl that the laundry is to be done every Monday and Tuesday, with specific methods on how to wash whites and colors. Mother also instructs her on how to find the right cotton fabric for a nice blouse, and how to hem a dress when she notices that the hem is coming down. This advice communicates the expectation that the girl will grow up to dress with feminine modesty, and that she will be able to make and take care of her own clothes, establishing domesticity as both a cultivated art, key in ensuring a good quality of life, and a routine drudgery. Instructions on how to iron a crease in her father's khakis prepare the girl for the day when she will be ironing creases in her own husband's shirts and pants. This advice is juxtaposed with instructions on how to hem a dress so that the girl will not look "like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming." With the juxtaposition of these pieces of advice, Mother simultaneously expresses the expectation that her daughter will dress according to gender norms, and that she will maintain enough modesty to find herself a husband. In the same way that the girl will be expected to look after her own appearance and that of her husband, she must also maintain the integrity of the interior of her home and its surrounds. Mother's instructions to her daughter on how to manage both interior and exterior domestic space show how women are expected to understand the natural world as well as they do their own homes. Mother shows the girl how to grow okra, but stresses the importance of cultivating it "far from the house," because the tree "harbors red ants." When growing dasheen, it is important to make sure that it gets enough water so that, when eaten, it will not cause the throat to itch. By ensuring the integrity of the garden, she also ensures the integrity of the home, keeping out pests and yielding good crops. Learning how to sweep is another aspect of maintaining the integrity of interior and exterior domestic spaces. Mother tells her daughter how to sweep "a corner," how to sweep "a whole house," and how to "sweep a yard." Women are responsible for eliminating dirt and messiness wherever they find it—even in the smallest spaces—or they risk being regarded as poor housekeepers. In the monologue, the list of chores (which is meticulous) is designed to make the girl's life easier—to tell her what she will need to know to keep her own house in order. However, the list is also constricting because it outlines a particular way to go about one's household duties. Through instruction, Mother makes it clear that the ability to perform these duties will determine the girl's worth as a woman. Thus, mother's advice is both helpful and limiting. It encourages self-sufficiency, but also makes a woman dependent on her family and her home to give her a sense of purpose and value. - Theme: Authenticity and Femininity. Description: To be "feminine" often means to embrace modesty, and to privilege good manners over honesty. The girl learns that a woman must be careful not to show too much of her body and not to talk to the wrong kinds of boys. She must know how to be friendly without being too friendly, and certainly not to the wrong people or at the wrong time. She must know how to eat without making it too obvious. She must also know which activities are permitted to her in public and which are not. Being a proper, feminine woman, according to Mother, means knowing the boundaries that a woman imposes on her self-expression so that she does not risk being misunderstood or maligned. However, those boundaries also disallow the genuine expression of the girl's identity. Mother's instructions, therefore, expose a tension between the expectations of femininity and the desire to be authentic. One example of a disjunction between authenticity and appearance comes when Mother teaches the girl how to smile. Mother explains that there are different smiles for people she does not like very much, people she does not like at all, and for people whom she likes "completely." This suggests to the girl that politeness means never revealing her true feelings about anyone, while it also limits the number of expressions and emotions that are available to the girl by mandating a smile (albeit different types of smiles) at all times. From this lesson, the girl is to understand that it is more important for women to be nice than to be authentic. It also suggests that other people's perceptions matter more than her feelings. Mother elevates social norms over authenticity. Her statement, "this is how to love a man," reinforces the implicit understanding that homosexuality is not an option for the girl, and the phrase "this is how" asserts that there are rigid norms that dictate how she should experience love. Instead of discovering her own ways of loving, Mother tells the girl to try a prescribed set of methods, and if those don't work Mother says that she should give up rather than figuring out what pleases her. This advice also intimates that the conventional ways of loving a man are just as—if not more important—than the feeling. In addition, Mother tells her daughter "how to bully a man" and shows her "how a man bullies you," enforcing the understanding that relations between the sexes are borne from conflict, though still with set rules for each to follow. Overall, Mother's advice implicitly tells the girl that her value lies in her ability to properly present herself, rather than in discovering and honoring who she really is. In Mother's conception of femininity, being a woman requires the denial of aspects of human existence, such as getting dirty or expressing one's true feelings. Femininity, the girl learns, requires repression and masking. Black femininity, specifically, requires the girl to embrace her identity in the right ways—she may wear a headwrap, for instance, but she may not expose her kinky-curly hair. She may sing benna, but not in Sunday school, which follows the more solemn rules of European churches. She may love, but she must love a man. To be feminine, or to be a "lady," is to know these standards and to live by them, regardless of what the girl would like to do. - Theme: Sexuality. Description: In "Girl," Mother's instructions are peppered with constant warnings and accusations about the girl becoming a slut. Ironically, this is never in the context of sex or promiscuity—instead, the behaviors that Mother suggests will lead to the girl becoming a slut are distinctly non-sexual, while her actual mentions of sexuality are relatively nonjudgmental. Although being a "slut" is apparently the worst thing that the girl could become, Mother does not shy away from giving her daughter pragmatic advice about sex itself; instead, she uses the word "slut" as a way to infuse everyday social transgressions or mistakes with the taint of sexuality, thereby making the girl afraid of falling short publicly in any way because of the shame it will bring her reputation. The everyday behaviors that Mother insists will make the girl a "slut" are notable in that they concern reputation and public appearance rather than sexuality. For example, Mother instructs the girl to "walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming," to "hem a dress when you see the hem coming down," and to behave in certain ways "in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't immediately recognize the slut I have warned you against becoming." Having a loose hem, walking the wrong way, or behaving improperly around strangers are behaviors that others would notice and that might negatively affect the girl's reputation. In other words, such behaviors might invite nasty gossip, and, as a woman, the girl's reputation is one of her only means of achieving respect or advancement. By framing these behaviors as sexual impropriety, rather than as a simple lapse in manners or an expression of individual personality, Mother teaches the girl to be afraid of the shame that her public presentation might invite. Ironically, though, Mother is not categorically against sex, and when she discusses sex, she does so relatively pragmatically and nonjudgmentally. For example, as part of teaching the girl recipes for traditional dishes and medicines, she tells the girl how to make a medicine to induce an abortion. She breezes right past this, placing it alongside other non-sexual recipes: "this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish…" This suggests that inducing an abortion is as normal an act as making dinner or treating a cold, which indicates that actual sex acts—so long as they're not publicly known (and this medicine might be used to prevent them from being publicly known)—are normal. Furthermore, Mother specifically explains sex to her daughter, saying "this is how to love a man, and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up." This explanation is pragmatic and not loaded with the shameful and accusatory language Mother uses when telling her daughter not to do anything in public that might make her seem like a "slut." Instead, as Mother actually explains sex to her daughter, she seems somewhat bewildered by it, giving what seems to be a formulaic explanation of sex and lacking ideas about sexuality beyond a few methods. This suggests that while female pleasure is perhaps not broadly understood or prioritized, sex is not something that is to be avoided. Therefore, Mother's advice suggests that the propriety of sexuality hinges on privacy. While any aspect of the girl's daily life in which she publicly falls short will be read through the lens of sexual impropriety, if the girl expresses her sexuality in private, her actions are normal, the consequences can be dealt with, and she should know what to do. - Theme: Caribbean Culture and Tradition. Description: Part of the girl's schooling in femininity involves learning the traditions of her West Indian culture: recipes, gardening advice, superstitions, and rules of propriety and self-presentation. "Girl" was published during the liberation of numerous Caribbean islands from European colonial powers and during the development of Postcolonial Studies. While many former colonial subjects were told by their colonizers that their culture was not important and that they lacked the authority to speak and write their own cultural narratives, Kincaid depicts the traditions in "Girl," not only to evoke the unique character of the Caribbean, but also to assert the value of customs that developed—not because of colonial rule—but, in spite of it. Food is perhaps the most important part of Caribbean tradition in the story. Mother teaches the girl how to cook pumpkin fritters and how to "soak salt fish overnight" before cooking it. Mother also introduces a list of foods—doukona, pepper pot, and bread pudding—which demonstrate their culinary traditions and native foods. Mother's instructions on how to cook prepare the girl for being a homemaker, but they also connect the girl to the foods that nourished and sustained those who came before her. Thus, the recipes are an intergenerational link between ancestors, mother and daughter, and future generations. In addition to food recipes, Mother also instructs the girl on how to prepare a concoction for inducing a miscarriage, or "a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child." Slavery and colonialism made black women the frequent victims of rape. Potions to terminate pregnancies were one of the few ways in which women could have some control over their own bodies. Her description of this recipe, as well as a recipe for a "good medicine for a cold," indicates that remedies are passed down, not only to help women learn how to nourish and care for their families, but also to help them learn self-care. They are examples, too, of the resilience and creativity of Black Caribbean women who had to provide their own healthcare, particularly during slavery. Just as the recipes in the story are derived from Caribbean folk wisdom and tradition, so are the superstitions and proverbs that Mother includes in her advice. Mother uses some of these proverbs and superstitions to offer moral lessons. For example, she mentions that the temptation to pick someone's flowers can lead you to "catch something"—this admonition is not merely a warning to avoid strange gardens, but also probably subtle advice to avoid relationships with men who are romantically-involved with other women. The warning not to "throw stones at blackbirds," for they might not be blackbirds at all, is a lesson on not judging everything by appearances. Mother also intersperses her speech with proverbs that are not unique to Caribbean culture, such as throwing back an undesirable fish so that "something bad won't fall on you" and "how to spit up in the air if you feel like it" and move quickly out of the way "so that it doesn't fall on you." This is a variation on the traditional adage, "Don't spit in the air, it will fall on you"—an expression designed to discourage self-defeatist behavior. The inclusion of these adages, which would be known to a wider audience, offsets the more culturally specific proverbs. They also remind readers that the Caribbean islands, which are defined by their relative smallness and their subordinate relationships to more powerful countries, have a unique history, but have also been influenced by cultural exchange. Mother's revision of the "Don't spit in the air" proverb is exemplary of the way in which Caribbean people can take an ordinary proverb and make it specific to their own culture. Mother's lessons on Caribbean culture illustrate the ways in which women have expressed creativity and agency, despite the oppressive histories of slavery and colonialism. The generational wisdom emphasizes responsibility, but also accepts that women can be vulnerable and flawed. - Theme: Class. Description: Like femininity and race, class is a key factor in determining what the girl's life will be and what will be expected of her. Kincaid never directly tells the reader that the girl is middle-class, but she implies through the advice that Mother gives that the family is middle-class and that maintaining this status is of vital importance to the girl's future. As with other aspects of her identity, the girl's class background determines what she can and cannot do, constricting her ability to express herself and suggesting that she should not do things that are outside the strict norms of her social class. Mother draws distinctions between the different types of men that the girl will encounter, and her distinctions are subtly class-based. Kincaid does not identify anyone specifically as lower-class or within the same class, but she delineates who they are based on how they ought to be treated. For example, Mother forbids the girl from talking to the "wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions." The specific instructions not to talk to these boys, even if they need help, suggests that they are unworthy of acknowledgement. Due to both poverty and their possible engagement in criminal activity, any association with them would risk being perceived as unclean or un-ladylike and would threaten the stability of the girl's class position. Mother's instructions on how to entertain are also based on middle-class standards and values, and seem explicitly designed to ensure that the girl's class status is clear to others. The girl should know how to set a table for breakfast and lunch, as well as how to prepare "dinner with an important guest," and "set a table for tea." Knowing how to set tables for several meals and occasions indicates, not only adherence to table manners (a possible class marker), but also the expectation that she will own certain items, such as a tea set and silverware, which would not be available to a poor woman. However, Mother says that there will also be instances in the girl's life in which she will not have enough to cover basic necessities. For these times, Mother shows her "how to make ends meet." This detail, along with the lessons on how to prepare food and clothes, tells the reader that the family does not have a lot of money, but they have enough to live with some comforts. It seems that Mother's emphasis on the importance of cultivating the appearance of being middle-class is meant to safeguard against falling from esteem during times when the girl cannot afford to maintain middle class norms. Kincaid illustrates class in the narrative through materialism and snobbery. Openness to everyone is akin to being a "slut," while knowing how to present one's home, particularly to "an important guest," during meals and teatimes is indicative of middle-class domesticity. The understanding that the girl will grow up to live in a house where she will have the means to eat—and, more importantly, serve—three meals a day creates the expectation that she will be middle-class. - Climax: Mother asks the girl if she is "really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread." - Summary: The speaker, whose voice is that of the titular girl's mother, begins her monologue with instructions on how to do laundry. According to mother there is a proper way and a proper day on which to wash whites ("on Monday" and "on the stone heap") and colors ("on Tuesday" and "on the clothesline to dry"). Mother also provides advice to the girl on how to maintain a proper appearance. She should not expose her "bare-head" to the sun and should be careful of how she walks, and she should also mind the length of her dress hems, to avoid appearing to be a "slut." It is especially important for the girl to be on her best behavior in Sunday school, where she is advised against singing benna. The remainder of Mother's advice includes mundane lessons on personal hygiene, cooking, gardening, tailoring, and entertaining, but also more significant lessons on how to terminate a pregnancy, how to budget, how to love—presumably, a man—and how to tolerate the failure of love. The story ends with Mother's insistence that the girl should always feel bread "to make sure it's fresh." The girl questions whether the baker would "let [her] feel the bread," which leads Mother to wonder if any of her advice matters since the girl will become "the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread."

- Genre: Fiction; Social Novel - Title: Go Set a Watchman - Point of view: Third person omniscient, mostly following Jean Louise - Setting: The fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1950s - Character: Jean Louise Finch. Description: The novel's main protagonist, an intelligent, stubborn, twenty-six-year-old woman from Maycomb, Alabama. Jean Louise, along with her brother Jem, was raised by her father Atticus and their black housekeeper Calpurnia. Growing up, Jean Louise was a rough tomboy who went by the nickname "Scout." She then attended a womens' college and now is trying to work as an artist in New York City. She idolizes her father and bases her conscience around the strong moral principles he taught her growing up. Jean Louise isn't afraid to speak her mind when she disagrees about something, and she still doesn't act like Aunt Alexandra's idea of a proper Southern lady. The novel is the story of her visit back to Maycomb from New York City, and her disillusionment with the changes in the town and the things she learns about her father and her likely husband-to-be, Hank Clinton. - Character: Atticus Finch. Description: The single father of Jean Louise and Jem, a respected small-town lawyer and member of the state legislature. At the time of the novel he is seventy-two and has bad rheumatoid arthritis in his hands and shoulders. Atticus raised his children to be independent, empathetic, and well-read, with strong moral principles. He takes Hank under his wing after Jem's death. Despite treating everyone with respect and previously defending a black man in court against the accusations of a white woman, Atticus opposes integration, especially integration enforced by the federal government, and is on the board of the Maycomb Citizens' Council. - Character: Henry Clinton (Hank). Description: Jean Louise's oldest friend and boyfriend, a young man who moved in next to the Finches when Jean Louise was growing up. Hank is a from a poor family and raised by a single mother, and has to work for everything he has. He becomes Atticus's apprentice in practicing law after Jem's death. Hank is in love with Jean Louise and is constantly asking her to marry him. - Theme: Disillusionment. Description: The central plot of Go Set a Watchman revolves around Jean Louise (Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird) returning home to Maycomb after years in New York City and becoming disillusioned with Henry "Hank" Clinton, her old friend and possible fiancé, and Atticus, her father. Most of this disillusionment focuses on Atticus. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus is a saintlike figure whom Scout and Jem idolize and depend upon. The character of Atticus is similar in Go Set a Watchman, in which he is idolized by Jean Louise as a child and into adulthood as a morally upright, courageous man who can find the good in everyone. But Jean Louise's idolization of her father is broken when she returns home as a twenty-six-year-old and finds her father to be a staunch segregationist—wanting blacks and whites to be kept "separate but equal." The great moment of disillusionment comes when Jean Louise sees Atticus and Hank, along with most of the men of Maycomb, at a "citizens' council" meeting alongside sadistic white supremacists and crooked politicians. Watching Atticus, from whom she had learned all her ideas about morality, acting as a part of something she sees as immoral is a painful experience for Jean Louise. She considers equality between people of all races to be a natural part of her principles, and assumes that Atticus feels the same—especially because she learned such principles from Atticus himself. Jean Louise becomes physically ill at his perceived betrayal, and she responds by lashing out at others.When Jean Louise talks to Uncle Jack the second time, however, he explains the importance of this painful disillusionment: Jean Louise had unwittingly elevated Atticus to a godlike status, and so in seeing his flaws she can now consider him a real human being. Before this, Jean Louise had been proud that her father wasn't like other fathers, but now she is forced to accept that he is still merely a mortal man. This experience of disillusionment is difficult, but Lee argues that is it valuable in order to truly recognize each other as worthwhile human beings. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout was disillusioned by seeing the racism at the heart of Maycomb. In Go Set a Watchman she must break her last remaining idol: Atticus. Both novels, however, conclude with the need to accept the basic dignity of all people, no matter how disappointing they might be.This disillusionment also extends to the "meta-textual level"—a level outside the story itself—as many readers who loved Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird might feel hurt and betrayed by his character in Go Set a Watchman, echoing the feelings of Jean Louise herself. The Atticus in Watchman is more realistic and human, especially considering his time and location, while the Atticus of Mockingbird is more idealized and unrealistic—a saintlike father seen through the eyes of a young girl and a nation looking for an example of pure moral goodness. Watchman was written before Mockingbird, but it is more cynical in its view of the kind of racist condescension that might lie behind even a seemingly pure and righteous man's actions. - Theme: Racism and Bigotry. Description: Jean Louise's disillusionment centers around the racism she discovers in Maycomb, and particularly in Atticus himself. In To Kill a Mockingbird, she experienced this to a certain degree with the citizens of Maycomb, but there she had Atticus to teach her about human dignity and to provide a good example. Now Jean Louise has grown up, but she is still "color blind" in the way Atticus raised her to be: she sees all people as equally valuable, and so she recognizes that "separate but equal" is wrong even while she disagrees with the Supreme Court's method of overthrowing it, and she is unable to empathize with her racist peers.The racism in Go Set a Watchman is systematic and political—no black characters play a major role in the novel—and involves the white citizens of Maycomb taking a stand against integration through the Maycomb Citizens' Council. At the citizens' council meeting we hear all kinds of hate speech and bigotry against blacks, which is then repeated in various degrees by Aunt Alexandra, Hester Sinclair, and Atticus. On the other hand, Uncle Jack accuses Jean Louise of being a bigot herself. She isn't racist, he acknowledges, but he argues that she is still unable to see and respect points of view other than her own. Jean Louise's "bigotry" against bigotry is, perhaps, not that convincing an argument, but Lee still makes the point that it is important to examine all our prejudices, even those against the prejudiced. In Mockingbird, the empathy Lee asked of her readers involved seeing minorities and recluses as equal and valuable, but in Watchman she asks something harder—to empathize with the bigots and racists and see them as multifaceted human beings—human beings with worth—as well. - Theme: Home and Belonging. Description: Go Set a Watchman portrays Jean Louise's homecoming to Maycomb after a long time away, so the idea of home and belonging is an important one in the novel. Much of the plot involves Jean Louise's memories of her past (scenes that would later be developed into To Kill a Mockingbird). Growing up, she felt out of place as a tomboy in a society that wants women to be "ladies." Because of this, her sense of home and belonging was built up mostly around the figures of Atticus, Jem, Calpurnia, and Dill. But years later, when Watchman takes place, Jem has died, Dill is in Europe, and Calpurnia is retired and distant. Jean Louise's disillusionment with Atticus then seems to shatter the last secure piece of home and belonging she had. In fact, once she feels that her family seems to have betrayed her she feels even more out of place in her home town: she cannot relate to the other women at her "Coffee," and even her old house has been torn down and replaced by an ice cream shop.After confronting Hank and Atticus, Jean Louise plans to flee Maycomb and never come back, but she is convinced otherwise by Uncle Jack. Jack then asks Jean Louise to consider coming to live in Maycomb again. She will never fully belong in New York, he argues, because she is inextricably tied to Maycomb and the South, and Jack suggests that the very fact that she disagrees with Maycomb's inhabitants means that she should try to convince them instead of just running away. It is left open what Jean Louise decides to do, but she ultimately accepts that Maycomb (and Atticus, Hank, and Alexandra) is her home, even when she finds it racist and small-minded. - Theme: Conscience and Principles. Description: The title of the book comes from a Bible verse read during a sermon at Jean Louise's church: "Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth." Uncle Jack then links the concept of "the watchman" to one's conscience: the idea of someone's innate knowledge of right and wrong, separate from society's influence. Jean Louise has always considered Atticus to be her moral compass, and the very definition of a "gentleman"—someone who is honorable, brave, polite, and kind—so when she becomes disillusioned with him she feels hopelessly lost. She then must try to find her own conscience and principles outside of Atticus, and "set a watchman" within herself.Jean Louise instinctively knows that Atticus, Hank, and the townspeople's stance on integration is morally wrong. Atticus has instilled strong principles in Jean Louise, strong enough to stand even when Atticus himself falls short of them. One of Jean Louise's important conflicts, then, is to reconcile her own conscience with her love for her family and friends. Ultimately she does find this possible, and though she "can't beat them, and can't join them," she can continue to love them even while considering them to be morally wrong. - Theme: Southern Politics and Society. Description: Much of the novel's conflict is related to the 1954 Supreme Court decision "Brown v. Board of Education," which declared state-sponsored segregation to be unconstitutional. This meant that all kinds of whites-only Southern institutions (like schools) suddenly had to include blacks, and many Southern whites resisted this change. These whites resented the federal government and Supreme Court imposing rules on them from the outside—an echo of one of the Civil War's main causes—and reacted in a backlash against both the Court and the black citizens the Court was trying to help. Lee then shows how Brown v. Board of Education played out in a small Alabama town like Maycomb. There is no racial violence portrayed, but the white men form a "citizens' council" to stand against integration, and the council meetings are full of racist hate-speech. In response Maycomb's blacks become distrustful and afraid of the whites. This is most poignantly shown by how Calpurnia distances herself from Jean Louise, whom she raised like her own child. There is no real political action shown in the novel, but Southern politics play out in casual, everyday conversation, as with the women at Jean Louise's "Coffee," who discuss the "Communist" Supreme Court, how the NAACP wants to "destroy the South," and make jokes about the stupidity of their black workers.As with To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman also involves lots of descriptions of society and daily life in a small Southern town. Lee relates the history of Maycomb County and gives backstories for many of the story's characters. The town's ugly, racist side always reveals itself in various ways, but Lee also spends lots of time describing more innocent subjects, like the unique personalities of Maycomb and the details of small-town life. - Theme: Mockingbird and Watchman. Description: Outside the text of the novel itself, the writing and publication of Go Set a Watchman is just as important as its content. It was written in 1957 and then reworked to become To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published three years later and became a Pulitzer Prize-winning, nationally-beloved novel. Go Set a Watchman was seemingly lost, until (as the story goes) Harper Lee's lawyer found the manuscript decades later and decided, with Lee's consent, to publish it unrevised. There was some controversy surrounding this decision—because of Lee's age, health, and previous declaration that she would never publish another book—whether she was actually capable of fully consenting to the publication of Watchman, but no conclusive proof has been found otherwise. Either way, Watchman is best read as both its own novel and as a first draft, the bones of what would become an American classic.On one level, the text shows how Lee's writing developed, as Watchman is scattered, disjointed, and often awkwardly written, compared to the focused and polished Mockingbird. Some passages (mostly descriptions of the citizens of Maycomb) are borrowed word-for-word from Watchman to Mockingbird, while other important facts are changed. The most notable of these is the trial of Tom Robinson. In Mockingbird the trial is the central conflict of the novel, ending with Tom being convicted, while in Watchman the trial is barely mentioned at all, and there it ended with Tom being acquitted.The biggest changes are in characterization, however, most notably regarding the figure of Atticus. It is implied in the novel that Atticus changes in his old age, but he is also written as a slightly different character in the two novels, and it can be argued that the Atticus of Mockingbird could never have realistically grown into the Atticus of Watchman. The change represents a development of the character (since Mockingbird was written after Watchman) but also a different worldview Lee is expressing. Her portrayal of Atticus in Watchman is more cynical and realistic—he is a good father and a morally principled man, but still supports segregation and holds some racist, condescending views—while the Atticus of Mockingbird is more idealized and unrealistic—a saintlike father seen through the eyes of his young daughter, and written to provide an example of white morality and justice even in the Jim Crow South. This theme doesn't lead to any cohesive conclusion, but it is vital for an informed reading of the novel, as Go Set a Watchman is almost impossible to read without also taking into account its publication history and the content of To Kill a Mockingbird. - Climax: Jean Louise's angry confrontation with Atticus - Summary: The twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch takes a train from her current home in New York City to visit her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama. As a girl in Maycomb, she was raised by her father, the lawyer Atticus Finch, who is now seventy-two and has rheumatoid arthritis. His sister Alexandra now lives with him, and his business apprentice is Henry "Hank" Clinton, Jean Louise's oldest friend and beau. Jean Louise's older brother Jem died years earlier. Hank picks up Jean Louise in Atticus's car. Hank repeats his earlier proposals of marriage and Jean Louise half-rejects them. They drive home and Jean Louise briefly discusses the Supreme Court decision "Brown v. Board of Education" with Atticus. Jean Louise suggests that she might marry Hank, but Alexandra disapproves. Hank takes Jean Louise on a date, and she reminisces about her childhood when she, Jem, and their friend Dill had a pretend religious revival and baptism. Hank and Jean Louise go swimming at Finches' Landing, which was once the family's estate but is now a hunting club. The next morning the family goes to church with Uncle Jack, an eccentric former doctor. At church Jack is horrified when the organist plays a tradition hymn differently. That afternoon Hank picks up Atticus for a "citizens' council" meeting at the town courthouse. Jean Louise finds a racist pamphlet called "The Black Plague" among her father's papers. Alexandra defends the tract. Jean Louise goes to the courthouse and sees that almost every man in town is there, including Hank and her father. Atticus introduces the meeting's speaker, whose speech (defending segregation) is full of racist invective and fearmongering. Jean Louise watches Atticus and Hank and feels physically sick. Jean Louise leaves and wanders through town, stopping at the ice cream shop where her childhood home in town used to stand. She gets an ice cream and then throws up, walks home, and falls asleep. Jean Louise has a flashback to when she was in sixth grade and thought that she was pregnant because a boy kissed her. She planned to kill herself to avoid bringing shame on her family, but was stopped by Hank at the last minute. In the present Jean Louise wakes up and avoids talking to anyone. She then learns that the Finches' old black housekeeper Calpurnia's grandson was driving drunk and killed a white man the night before. Atticus says he will defend him, but only to keep the NAACP off the case. Jean Louise goes to visit Calpurnia, who is cold and distant with her, which upsets Jean Louise greatly. Jean Louise returns home, where Aunt Alexandra holds a "Coffee" for the young women of Maycomb to visit her. Jean Louise doesn't fit in with any of them, and is repulsed by their racist gossip. She goes to visit Uncle Jack. She asks him about Atticus and Hank, and Jack gives her vague and convoluted arguments about the Civil War. Jean Louise is frustrated and leaves. She goes back to the ice cream shop and reminisces about a high school dance where Hank was her date. Jean Louise wore a pair of "false bosoms," which fell out and Hank threw away. The next morning the principle was furious to find them hanging over a memorial to Maycomb soldiers. Hank saved Jean Louise from punishment by forging confessions from every other girl in school. In the present Jean Louise finds Hank and tells him that she isn't going to marry him. Hank defends the citizens' council, saying that he has to go along with Maycomb's customs if he is to be respected and useful. Atticus arrives. He and Jean Louise discuss states' rights and the Supreme Court decision, and then Jean Louise angrily curses at her father for betraying her and letting her down. She storms out. Jean Louise drives home and packs her things, planning to leave Maycomb forever. Uncle Jack drives up and slaps Jean Louise in the face. They both have a drink, and Jack tells Jean Louise that she has now become her own person by allowing Atticus to be a human being with failings. He suggests that she move back to Maycomb. Jean Louise picks up Atticus from his office. He tells her he's proud of her, and she tells him that she loves him.

- Genre: Novel, Magical Realism - Title: God Help the Child - Point of view: First Person and Third Person - Setting: 2010s California - Character: Lula Ann "Bride" Bridewell. Description: - Character: Booker Starbern. Description: - Character: Sweetness. Description: - Character: Sofia Huxley. Description: - Character: Brooklyn. Description: - Character: Rain. Description: - Character: Queen. Description: - Character: Adam. Description: - Character: Steve. Description: - Character: Evelyn. Description: - Character: Salvatore "Sally" Ponti. Description: - Character: Louis. Description: - Character: Mr. Leigh. Description: - Theme: Inherited Trauma. Description: - Theme: Racism and Colorism. Description: - Theme: Child Abuse and Healing. Description: - Theme: Arrested Development and Unconditional Love. Description: - Climax: Bride finds Booker in Whiskey, California, after she has spent most of the novel searching for him. Initially, Bride and Booker fight, but they eventually resolve their differences and begin a relationship based on mutual love and trust. - Summary: As a child, Sweetness neglected and punished her daughter Lula Ann "Bride" Bridewell because she was born with darker skin than Sweetness or her husband Louis. Because Bride doesn't look like him, Louis is convinced Sweetness had sex with another man, resulting in the pregnancy, and he abandons the family. Sweetness explains that she treated Bride poorly as a child because she had to prepare Bride for the racism that she would inevitably face as a woman with darker skin. Sweetness also says that while some might think it's wrong to group people according to color, this is the only way for some people to maintain a modicum of dignity in a racist world. As an adult, Bride has become a successful executive at a cosmetics company, Sylvia Inc. She is about to launch her own line of makeup at Sylvia, Inc. for people of all complexions, from "ebony to lemonade to milk." The line is called YOU, GIRL. Bride drives a Jaguar and lives in an apartment in the city. Her boyfriend of six months, Booker Starbern, has just left her after he and Bride fought about Bride's plan to visit a convicted child molester, Sofia Huxley, who is about to be released after 15 years in prison. After the breakup, Bride drives her Jaguar to the prison with a gift basket of YOU, GIRL cosmetics and money. Bride recalls testifying against Sofia during her trial and helping send her to jail. Bride's testimony, though, was false—later, she admits to making it up to try and please her mother and win her love and affection. When Bride sees Sofia exiting the prison, Bride offers her a ride. Sofia declines and gets into a taxi. Bride follows Sofia to a motel and knocks on her door. When Sofia recognizes Bride, she beats her and throws her out of the motel room. Instead of going to the police, Bride calls her friend Brooklyn, who picks her up and brings her to a clinic. Bride's injuries put her out of work for the next few weeks. As she recovers, she notices that her body is changing: the holes of her ear piercings have closed up and her pubic hair has been "erased." While at home recovering, Bride receives an envelope addressed to Booker. When she opens it, she finds an invoice from a pawn shop for something that Booker left to be repaired. At the pawn shop, Bride finds Salvatore Ponti, who gives her Booker's repaired trumpet. Salvatore, who goes by Sally, also gives Bride another address for Booker, which is in Whiskey, California. Bride decides to go to California to find Booker. On the way to Whiskey, Bride's car careens off the road and runs into a tree. She becomes trapped in the wreckage. A young girl (Rain) comes to the car first and then returns with an older man. The man carries Bride to what seems like an old warehouse. At first, Bride is afraid of what the man might do to her. She learns, though, that the man, Steve, and his wife, Evelyn, are an activist couple. They don't have much money but are intent on helping people because it's the right thing to do. Bride also learns that Steve and Evelyn found Rain in a downpour after her mother kicked her out of the house. Rain later tells Bride that her mother had been sexually trafficking her. Bride takes about six weeks to recover at Steve and Evelyn's house. Rain and Bride form a close bond, and Rain misses Bride deeply once she leaves. When Bride arrives in Whiskey, she finds a woman named Queen at the address she has for Booker. Queen explains that she is Booker's aunt, and while Booker doesn't live there, he lives nearby. She gives Bride the address. Bride goes to Booker's house, and when they first see each other, they fight. Booker tells Bride to leave. Bride yells that Booker shouldn't have left in the first place and breaks a bottle over his head. Booker demands to know why Bride defended a known child molester. He explains that when he was a child, his brother Adam was sexually assaulted and murdered by a pedophile. Bride tells Booker that she falsely testified against Sofia and was trying to make things right when she visited her. Bride falls asleep. When she wakes up, she and Booker reconcile their differences. Meanwhile, Queen's house goes up in flames. By the time Booker and Bride arrive, a crowd has already gathered. Bride and Booker run into the house and drag out Queen's unconscious body. An ambulance takes her to the hospital. While Queen is recovering, Bride and Booker regularly visit and care for Queen. Queen seems to be recovering steadily, but a hospital-borne illness suddenly afflicts her. Queen rapidly declines before passing away. Booker stages an impromptu memorial for Queen, where he plays trumpet. Unsatisfied with his playing, he throws his trumpet into the river. When he gets back into Bride's Jaguar, she tells him that she is pregnant and that he is the father. Bride and Booker celebrate the pregnancy together. When Sweetness receives a letter from Bride telling her she is going to be a grandmother, she thinks about the mistakes she made in raising Bride. Sweetness predicts that while Bride might not make the same mistakes in raising her child, she will make mistakes of her own, and the child will bear the brunt of those errors.