Short summary of great novels

[Asalbanoo]

Hamlet


Hamlet starts with soldiers changing the guard outside of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. The new guards have brought along a scholar named Horatio because they claim to have seen a ghost. Horatio is skeptical of their story until the ghost actually appears. He then tries to speak to it, but the ghost remains silent until it stalks away.

Horatio tells the guards that the ghost was dressed the same way Old Hamlet (the former King of Denmark and Hamlet's father) was dressed when he defeated King Fortinbras of Norway. He further tells them that young Fortinbras, the son, has gathered together an army to attack Denmark. At this point the ghost reappears and Horatio again begs it to speak to him. The ghost seems about to say something but at that moment a cock crows and the ghost vanishes. The guards and Horatio decide to tell Hamlet what they have seen.

King Claudius, who is Hamlet's uncle and who assumed the throne after Hamlet's father died, is in the castle. He has recently married Queen Gertrude, who is Hamlet's mother and the widow to Old Hamlet. Claudius is worried about the fact that young Fortinbras has raised an army against Denmark, and so he sends out messengers to the uncle of young Fortinbras asking him to stop his nephew. Claudius then turns to Laertes, the son of Polonius, and asks him why he requested an audience. Laertes asks the king for permission to return to France, which he is granted.

Claudius finally turns his attention to Hamlet, who is standing in black robes of mourning for his father. He tells Hamlet that it is unnatural for a man to mourn for such a long period of time. Queen Gertrude agrees, and asks Hamlet to wear normal clothes again. Both the king and queen then beg Hamlet to stay with them at the castle rather than return to his studies in Wittenberg. Hamlet agrees to stay, and both his mother and uncle rush out of the palace to celebrate their new wedding.

Horatio arrives with the guards and tells Hamlet that they have seen his father's ghost. Hamlet is extremely interested in this, and informs them that he will join them for the watch that night.

Laertes is finishing his packing and is also giving his sister Ophelia some brotherly advice before he leaves. He warns her to watch out for Hamlet whom he has seen wooing her. Laertes tells Ophelia to ignore Hamlet's overtures towards her until he is made king, at which point if he still wants to marry her then she should consent. Polonius arrives and orders his son to hurry up and get to the ship. Polonius then gives Laertes some fatherly advice, telling him to behave himself in France. Laertes departs, leaving Ophelia with Polonius. Polonius then turns to her and asks what has been going on between her and Hamlet. She tells him that Hamlet has professed his love to her, but Polonius only laughs and calls her ignorant. He then orders her to avoid Hamlet and to not believe his protestations of love. Ophelia promises to obey her father.

Hamlet, Horatio and a guard meet outside to see whether the ghost will appear. It soon arrives and silently beckons Hamlet to follow it. Hamlet pushes away Horatio, who is trying to hold him back, and runs after the ghost. The guard tells Horatio that they had better follow Hamlet and make sure he is alright.

The ghost finally stops and turns to Hamlet. He tells Hamlet that he is the ghost of Old Hamlet, who has come to tell his son the truth about how he died. He tells Hamlet that he was sitting in the garden one day, asleep in his chair, when Claudius came up to him and poured poison into his ear. He was killed immediately, and because he was not allowed to confess his sins, he is now suffering in Purgatory. The ghost of Old Hamlet then orders his son to seek revenge for this foul crime before departing.

Hamlet is confused about whether to believe the ghost or not, but he makes Horatio and the guard swear to never reveal what they have seen. He decides that he will pretend to be mad in order to fool Claudius and Gertrude until he is able to know whether Claudius really killed his father or not.

Polonius sends his servant Reynaldo to France in order to spy on Laertes. He order Reynaldo to ask the other Danes what sort of reputation Laertes has in order to make sure his son is behaving. Reynaldo promises to do this and leaves for France. Ophelia enters looking extremely frightened and informs her father that Hamlet has gone mad. She tells him that Hamlet entered the room where she was sewing and took her wrist. After staring into her eyes for a long while he walked out of the room without ever taking his eyes off of her. Polonius concludes that Hamlet must have gone mad because he ordered Ophelia to reject Hamlet's affections.

Claudius and Gertrude have invited two friends of Hamlet to come and spy on Hamlet. They are aware that Hamlet is acting strangely and want the friends to figure out what the problem is. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, eager to please King Claudius, agree to try and find out what is wrong with Hamlet. They leave, and Polonius enters with news that the messengers are back from Norway. Claudius tells him to bring the messengers in.

The messengers inform Claudius that after they arrived, the uncle of Fortinbras sent his nephew a summons. Young Fortinbras obeyed, and the uncle chastised him for attempting to attack Denmark. Fortinbras apologized for his behavior and received an annual allowance from his uncle as a token of goodwill. Further, the uncle gave Fortinbras permission to attack Poland. Since Fortinbras would have to march through Denmark in order to reach Poland, the uncle sent Claudius a letter asking for safe passage. Claudius, overjoyed by this news, assents to give permission.

Polonius then tells him that he knows the reason for Hamlet's madness. He reads Claudius and Gertrude one of the letters Hamlet sent to Ophelia in which Hamlet professes his love for her. Claudius is not entirely convinced, and so he and Polonius agree to set up a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia that they will be able to spy on.

Hamlet enters the room and cuts their plotting short. Polonius asks the king and queen to leave him alone with their son, to which they assent. Polonius then tries to talk to Hamlet, who, feigning madness, calls him a fishmonger and asks him if he has a daughter. Hamlet continues to insult Polonius until Polonius finally gives up in frustration.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive and Hamlet recognizes them. He greets them warmly and asks what brings them to Denmark. They only give an ambiguous answer, from which Hamlet infers that Claudius asked them to come. Hamlet then reveals to them that he has been very melancholic lately, and gives that as the reason he has been acting mad. They try to cheer him up by telling him some actors arrived with them on their ship. Hamlet is overjoyed to hear this news, and he immediately goes to find the actors.

He succeeds in finding the players and asks them to perform a speech from Dido and Aeneas for him. One of them agrees and performs the part where Priam, the father of Aeneas, is killed. He then continues with the part where Hecuba, Priam's wife, sees her husband being murdered and lets out a cry that rouses even the gods. Hamlet tells him it is enough when Polonius begs the actor to stop. He then asks the actors if they can perform the murder of Gonzago as well some extra lines that he will write for them. They agree and leave to rehearse their parts. Hamlet meanwhile has compared the murder of Priam to his own father's murder and has become outraged with Claudius, whom he hopes to reveal as the murderer through the play that he asked the actors to perform that night.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Claudius and Gertrude that they really do not know what the matter with Hamlet is. They can only say that he seems distracted, but that the arrival of the actors made him happier. Polonius then tells Claudius that Hamlet is putting on a play that night and requested that they attend. Claudius agrees to go.

Polonius hears Hamlet coming and he and Claudius quickly made Ophelia stand in clear view while they hide themselves. Hamlet enters and gives his "To be or not to be; that is the question" (3.1.58) speech. He stops when he sees Ophelia and goes over to speak with her. Hamlet rudely tells her that he never loved her and orders her to go to a nunnery. After he leaves, Claudius tells Polonius that Hamlet does not seem to be mad because of Ophelia, but Polonius still believes that she is the real reason for his melancholic madness.

Hamlet puts on a play called The Mousetrap for Claudius and Gertrude, as well as other attendants in the castle. The play involves a king who is murdered by his nephew while sleeping in the garden. As the nephew pours poison into the king's ears, King Claudius becomes so outraged that he stands up, thereby forcing the play to end. He orders light to be shone on him and stalks angrily out of the room.

Hamlet is delighted by this and is convinced that the ghost was telling the truth. Horatio agrees with him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern then arrive and tell Hamlet that his mother wants to see him in her private chambers immediately. Polonius soon arrives with the same news. Hamlet sends them all away and plans to reveal what he knows to his mother in order to see if she was part of the plot to kill his father.

Claudius, overcome with emotion, prays to heaven to forgive him his sin. He admits to committing the murder of his brother. Hamlet enters silently with his sword and is about to kill Claudius when he realizes that Claudius is praying. Since that would mean that Claudius would be absolved of his sins if he died right then, Hamlet stops and decides to wait until he can kill Claudius when his "soul may be as damned and black as hell" (3.3.94-95).

Hamlet then goes to see his mother. He immediately insults her for having married Claudius so soon after his father's death. She gets scared and calls for help, causing Polonius (who is hidden behind a curtain spying on them) to make a sound. Hamlet pulls out his dagger and kills Polonius through the curtain, but he is disappointed when her realizes it is not the king. Hamlet then shows his mother two pictures of both Claudius and Old Hamlet, comparing them for her. She is almost at the point where she believes him when the ghost appears and Hamlet starts to speak to it. Gertrude, unable to see the ghost, concludes that Hamlet must be truly mad and starts to agree with everything he says in order to get him out of her room.

Claudius, once Gertrude tells him what has happened, orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to prepare to take Hamlet with them to England. He then orders the body of Polonius to be found since Hamlet has hidden it. Hamlet eventually reveals the location of the body and then leaves the castle that night.

While traveling away from Elsinore, Hamlet encounters Fortinbras' army. Fortinbras has just send Claudius a message telling him that the Norwegian army is there and requesting safe passage. Hamlet asks one of the captains what part of Poland they are attacking. The captain refuses to reveal the exact location, and there remains the possibility that Denmark is the true target, although this is not revealed in the play.

Ophelia has meanwhile gone mad at the death of her father. Horatio tries to take care of her, but finally asks Gertrude to help him. Claudius and Gertrude order Horatio to keep an eye on her. Soon thereafter Laertes arrives with a mob. He has returned from France once he learned of Polonius' death and is intent on killing the murderer of his father. Claudius calms him down and tells him that Hamlet is the murderer, and since Hamlet has been sent to England there is no one there to kill. Laertes then sees Ophelia, who fails to recognize him and instead gives him a flower.

Hamlet sends letters back to Denmark. He tells Horatio that the ship was attacked by pirates and that he managed to escape in the process by joining the pirates for a short while as their prisoner. He also tells Horatio that he sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on to England, but that he will be returning shortly. Claudius also receives a letter from Hamlet informing him that Hamlet will soon return home. Claudius immediately plots a way to kill Hamlet by having Laertes fight him in a fencing match. Laertes decides to put poison on the tip of his rapier so that any small scratch will kill Hamlet, and Claudius tells him he will also poison a cup of wine and give it to Hamlet as a backup measure. At that moment Gertrude enters and tells the men that Ophelia has drowned herself in a brook. She and Claudius follow Laertes, who is once more grief-stricken.

Hamlet and Horatio come across two gravediggers who are digging a fresh grave. They are engaged in wordplay until one of the men sends the other away to fetch him some liquor. Hamlet watches as the remaining man tosses up skulls and sings while he works. He finally approaches the man and asks who the one skull belonged to. The gravedigger tells him it was Yorick's, a court fool whom Hamlet knew from his youth. Hamlet is shaken by the skull and ponders the fact that all of them return to the earth. He and Horatio are forced to run and hide when Laertes, Claudius and Gertrude arrive with the coffin.

They place the coffin into the ground, but the priest refuses to say any prayers for the dead because Ophelia committed suicide rather then die a natural death. Laertes argues with him, but finally gives up and jumps into the grave in grief. Hamlet, when he realizes who is dead, comes out of hiding and also jumps into the grave. Laertes grabs him by the throat and Claudius is forced to order the other men to intervene and separate them.

Back in the castle Hamlet tells Horatio that before he got off the ship he stole the letters Claudius had given to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The letters asked the English king to kill Hamlet. Hamlet, furious at this betrayal, wrote new letters in which he asked the king to kill the messengers, namely Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

A lord named Osric enters the room and informs Hamlet that Laertes has challenged him to a fencing match. Claudius has bet Laertes that he cannot defeat Hamlet by more than three hits during twelve engagements. Hamlet agrees to the dual even though Horatio tells him he cannot win. They enter the match room, and Claudius announces that if Hamlet scores a hit during the first, second, or third bout, then he will drop a valuable pearl into a cup of wine and give it to Hamlet.

Laertes and Hamlet choose their foils and proceed to fight. Hamlet scores a hit which Osric upholds, and Claudius drops his pearl into some wine which he offers to Hamlet. Hamlet, excited by the match, refuses to drink it and asks for the next round. They fight again, and Hamlet wins the next hit as well. Gertrude, thrilled at how well her son is fighting, takes the cup of wine from Claudius and drinks it to celebrate Hamlet's hit. Claudius turns pale when he realizes that she has drunk the poisoned wine, but he says nothing.

They fight again, and Laertes slashes Hamlet out of turn with his poisoned foil, causing Hamlet to bleed. Hamlet is infuriated and attacks him viciously, causing him to drop the foil. Hamlet gets both rapiers and accidentally tosses his rapier over to Laertes. He then slashes Laertes with the poisoned foil, drawing blood as well. They stop fighting when they realize that Queen Gertrude is lying on the ground.

Gertrude realizes that she has been poisoned and tells Hamlet that it was the drink. She dies, and Laertes tells Hamlet that he too is going to die from the poisoned tip. Hamlet, even more furious than before, slashes Claudius with the poisoned tip. He then takes the wine chalice and forces the poison into Claudius' mouth until Claudius falls dead onto the ground. Laertes is also on the ground at this point and he forgives Hamlet for killing Polonius before he too dies.

Hamlet sees Horatio about to drink the remaining poisoned wine and orders him to stop. He tells Horatio that only he can tell the people what really happened and thus reveal the truth. Osric comes in at that moment and informs them that Fortinbras and some ambassadors from England have arrived. Hamlet's final words are to give Fortinbras his vote to become the next King of Denmark.

Fortinbras arrives and looks over the scene of dead bodies. The ambassadors also enter the room and inform Horatio that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been put to death. Horatio asks Fortinbras to order the bodies placed in the public view so that he can tell the people what happened. Fortinbras' final act is to order his soldiers to give Hamlet a military salute by firing their guns

[Asalbanoo]

Wuthering Heights is a novel that is told in a series of narratives, which are themselves told to the narrator, a gentleman named Lockwood. Lockwood rents a fine house and park called Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire, and gradually learns more and more about the histories of two local families. This is what he learns from a housekeeper, Ellen Dean, who had been with one of the two families for all of her life:

In around 1760, a gentleman-farmer named Earnshaw went from his farm, Wuthering Heights, to Liverpool on a business trip. He found there a little boy who looked like a gypsy who had apparently been abandoned on the streets, and brought the child home with him, to join his own family of his wife, his son Hindley, his daughter Catherine, a manservant named Joseph and the little maid, Ellen. He named the boy Heathcliff after a son of his who had died. All the other members of the household were opposed to the introduction of a strange boy, except for Catherine, who was a little younger than Heathcliff and became fast friends with him. Hindley in particular felt as though Heathcliff had supplanted his place, although he was several years older, and the true son and heir. Hindley bullied Heathcliff when he could, and Heathcliff used his influence over Earnshaw to get his way. Heathcliff was a strange, silent boy, who appeared not to mind the blows he received from Hindley, although he was in fact very vindictive. Earnshaw's wife died. Hindley was sent away to college in a last attempt to turn him into a worthy son, and to ease pressures at home.

After some years, Earnshaw's health declined and he grew increasingly alienated from his family: in his peevish old age he believed that everyone disliked Heathcliff, because he liked him. He did not like his daughter Catherine's charming and mischievous ways. Finally he died, and Catherine and Heathcliff were very grieved, but consoled each other with thoughts of heaven.

Hindley returned, now around twenty years old ­ Heathcliff was about twelve and Catherine was eleven. He was married to a young woman named Frances, to the surprise of everyone at Wuthering Heights. Hindley used his new power to reduce Heathcliff to the level of a servant, although Heathcliff and Catherine continued their intimacy. Catherine taught Heathcliff her lessons, and would join him in the fields, or they would run away to the moors all day to play, never minding their punishments afterward.

One day they ran down to the Grange, a more civilized house where the Lintons lived with their children Edgar (13) and Isabella (11). They despised the spoiled, delicate Linton children, and made faces and yelled at them through the window. The Lintons called for help and the wilder children fled, but Catherine was caught by a bulldog, and they were brought inside. When the Lintons found out that the girl was Miss Earnshaw, they took good care of her and threw Heathcliff out.

Catherine stayed at the Grange for 5 weeks, and came home dressed and acting like a proper young lady, to the delight of Hindley and his wife, and to Heathcliff's sorrow (he felt as though she had moved beyond him). In the next few years, Catherine struggled to maintain her relationship with Heathcliff, and to socialize with the elegant Linton children.

Frances gave birth to a son, Hareton, and died soon after of tuberculosis. Hindley gave into wild despair and alcoholism, and the household fell into chaos. Heathcliff was harshly treated, and came to hate Hindley more and more. Edgar Linton fell in love with Catherine, who was attracted by what he represented, although she loved Heathcliff much more seriously. They became engaged, and Heathcliff ran away. Catherine fell ill after looking for Heathcliff all night in a storm, and went to the Grange to get better. The older Lintons caught her fever and died of it. Edgar and Catherine were married when she was 18 or 19.

They lived fairly harmoniously together for almost a year ­ then Heathcliff returned. He had mysteriously acquired gentlemanly manners, education, and some money. Catherine was overjoyed to see him; Edgar considerably less so. Heathcliff stayed at Wuthering Heights, where he gradually gained financial control by paying Hindley's gambling debts. Heathcliff's relationship with the Linton household became more and more strained as Edgar became extremely unhappy with the situation. Finally there was a violent quarrel: Heathcliff left the Grange to avoid being thrown out by Edgar's servants, Catherine was angry at both of the men, and Edgar was furious at Heathcliff and displeased by his wife's behavior. Catherine shut herself in her room for several days. In the mean time, Heathcliff eloped with Isabella (who was struck by his romantic appearance) by way of revenge on Edgar. Edgar could not forgive his sister's betrayal of him, and didn't try to stop the marriage. Catherine became extremely ill, feverish and delirious, and nearly died ­ though she was carefully tended by Edgar once he found out her condition.

A few months later, Catherine was still very delicate, and looked as though she would probably die. She was pregnant. Heathcliff and Isabella returned to Wuthering Heights, and Isabella wrote to Ellen to describe how brutally she was mistreated by her savage husband, and how much she regretted her marriage. Ellen went to visit them, to see if she could improve Isabella's situation. She told them about Catherine's condition, and Heathcliff asked to see her.

A few days later, Heathcliff came to the Grange while Edgar was at church. He had a passionate reunion with Catherine, in which they forgave each other as much as possible for their mutual betrayals. Catherine fainted, Edgar came back, and Heathcliff left. Catherine died that night after giving birth to a daughter. Edgar was terribly grieved and Heathcliff wildly so ­ he begged Catherine's ghost to haunt him. A few days later Hindley tried to murder Heathcliff, but Heathcliff almost murdered him instead. Isabella escaped from Wuthering Heights and went to live close to London, where she gave birth to a son, Linton. Hindley died a few months after his sister Catherine.

Catherine and Edgar's daughter, Catherine, grew to be a beloved and charming child. She was brought up entirely within the confines of the Grange, and was entirely unaware of the existence of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, or her cousin Hareton there. Once she found the farmhouse while exploring the moors, and was upset to think that such an ignorant rustic as Hareton could be related to her. Ellen told her she could not return there.

Isabella died when Linton was about 12 years old, and Edgar went to fetch him to the Grange. Linton was a peevish and effeminate boy, but Catherine was pleased to have a playmate. That very day, however, Heathcliff sent Joseph to fetch his son to Wuthering Heights, and when Catherine woke up the next morning her cousin was gone. Though sad at first, she soon got over it, and continued her happy childhood.

On her sixteenth birthday, Catherine and Ellen strayed onto Heathcliff's lands, and he invited them into Wuthering Heights to see Linton. Catherine was pleased to renew her acquaintance, and Heathcliff was eager to promote a romance between the two cousins, so as to ensure himself of Edgar's land when he died. When they returned home, Edgar forbade her to continue visiting there, and said that Heathcliff was an evil man. Catherine then began a secret correspondence with Linton, which became an exchange of love letters. Ellen found out, and put an end to it.

Edgar became ill. Heathcliff asked Catherine to return to Wuthering Heights because Linton was breaking his heart for her. She did so, and found Linton to be a bullying invalid, but not without charm. Ellen fell ill as well and was unable to prevent Catherine from visiting Wuthering Heights every day. She felt obliged to help Linton, and despised Hareton for being clumsy and illiterate. Ellen told Edgar about the visits when she found out, and he forbade Catherine to go any more.

Edgar was in poor health and didn't know about Linton's equally bad health and bad character, so he thought it would be good for Catherine to marry him ­ since Linton and not Catherine would inherit the Grange, most likely. A system was fixed up in which Linton and Catherine met outside. Linton was increasingly ill, and seemed to be terrified of something ­ his father was forcing him to court Catherine. Heathcliff feared Linton would die before Edgar did, so eventually he all but kidnapped Catherine and Ellen, and told them Catherine couldn't go home to see her dying father until she married Linton. Catherine did marry Linton, and escaped in time to see Edgar before he died.

After Edgar's funeral (he was buried next to his wife) Heathcliff fetched Catherine to Wuthering Heights to take care of Linton, who was dying, and to free up the Grange so he could rent it out (to Lockwood, in fact). He told Ellen that he was still obsessed by his beloved Catherine, and had gone to gaze at her long-dead body when her coffin was uncovered by the digging of Edgar's grave.

Catherine had to care of Linton alone, and when he died, she maintained an unfriendly attitude to the household: Heathcliff, Hareton (who was in love with her), and Zillah, the housekeeper. As time passed, however, she became lonely enough to seek Hareton's company, and began teaching him to read.

This is around the time of Lockwood's time at the Grange. He left the area for several months, and when he returned, he found out that while he was gone:

Heathcliff began to act more and more strangely, and became incapable of concentrating on the world around him, as though Catherine's ghost wouldn't let him. He all but stopped eating and sleeping, and Ellen found him dead one morning, with a savage smile on his face. He was buried next to Catherine, as he had wished. Hareton grieved for him, but was too happy with the younger Catherine to be inconsolable. When the novel ends, they plan to marry and move to the Grange.

[Asalbanoo]

Pride and Prejudice is set primarily in the county of Hertfordshire, about 50 miles outside of London. The novel opens at with a conversation at Longbourn, the Bennet's estate, about the arrival of Mr. Bingley, "a single man of large fortune," to Netherfield Park, a nearby estate. Mrs. Bennet, whose obsession is to find husbands for her daughters, sees Mr. Bingley as a potential suitor. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five children: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.

The Bennets' first acquaintance with Mr. Bingley and his companions is at the Meryton Ball. Mr. Bingley takes a liking to Jane and is judged by the townspeople to be perfectly amiable and agreeable. Mr. Bingley's friend Mr. Darcy, however, snubs Elizabeth and is considered to be proud and disagreeable because of his reserve and his refusal to dance. Bingley's sisters are judged to be amiable by Jane but Elizabeth finds them to be arrogant.

After further interactions, it becomes evident that Jane and Bingley have a preference for one another, although Bingley's partiality is more obvious than Jane's because she is universally cheerful and amiable. Charlotte Lucas, a close friend of Elizabeth with more pragmatic views on marriage, recommends that Jane make her regard for Bingley more obvious. At the same time, Mr. Darcy begins to admire Elizabeth, captivated by her fine eyes and lively wit.

When Jane is invited for dinner at Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet refuses to provide her with a carriage, hoping that because it is supposed to rain Jane will be forced to spend the night. However, because Jane gets caught in the rain, she falls ill and is forced to stay at Netherfield until she recovers. Upon hearing that Jane is ill, Elizabeth walks to Netherfield in order to go nurse her sister. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst (Bingley's sisters) are scandalized that Elizabeth walked so far alone in the mud. Seeing that Jane would like Elizabeth to stay with her, Bingley's sisters invite Elizabeth to remain at Netherfield until Jane recovers.

During her stay at Netherfield, Elizabeth increasingly gains the admiration of Mr. Darcy. She is blind to his partiality, however, and continues to think him a most proud and haughty man because of the judgment she made of him when he snubbed her at the ball. Miss Bingley, who is obviously trying to gain the admiration of Mr. Darcy, is extremely jealous of Elizabeth and tries to prevent Mr. Darcy from admiring her by making rude references to the poor manners of Elizabeth's mother and younger sisters and to her lower class relatives. When Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters come to visit Jane, Elizabeth is mortified by their foolishness and complete lack of manners. Bingley's admiration for Jane continues unabated and is evident in his genuine solicitude for her recovery. After Jane recovers, she returns home with Elizabeth.

A militia regiment is stationed at the nearby town of Meryton, where Mrs. Bennet's sister Mrs. Phillips lives. Mrs. Phillips is just as foolish as Mrs. Bennet. Lydia and Kitty love to go to Meryton to visit with their aunt and socialize with the militia's officers.

Mr. Collins, a cousin of Mr. Bennet who is in line to inherit Longbourn because the estate has been entailed away from the female line, writes a letter stating his intention to visit. When he arrives, he makes it clear that he hopes to find a suitable wife among the Miss Bennets. Mr. Collins is a clergyman, and his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (who is also Darcy's aunt), has suggested that he find a wife, and he hopes to lessen the hardship of the entailment by marrying one of Mr. Bennet's daughters. Mr. Collins is a silly man who speaks in long, pompous speeches and always has an air of solemn formality.

When the Miss Bennets and Mr. Collins go for a walk to Meryton, they are introduced to an officer in the regiment named Mr. Wickham. They also run into Mr. Darcy, and when Darcy and Wickham meet both seem to be extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Wickham immediately shows a partiality for Elizabeth and they speak at length. Wickham tells Elizabeth that the reason for the mutual embarrassment when he and Darcy met is that Darcy's father had promised that Wickham, his godson, should be given a good living after his death, but that Darcy had failed to fulfill his father's dying wishes and had left Wickham to support himself. Elizabeth, already predisposed to think badly of Darcy, does not question Wickham's account. When Elizabeth tells Jane Wickham's story Jane refuses think badly of either Wickham or Darcy and assumes there must be some misunderstanding.

As promised, Bingley hosts a ball at Netherfield. He and Jane stay together the whole evening, and their mutual attachment becomes increasingly obvious. Mrs. Bennet speaks of their marriage as imminent over dinner, within earshot of Mr. Bingley's friend Mr. Darcy. Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance with her and she inadvertently accepts. She does not enjoy it and cannot understand why he asked her. Mr. Collins pays particularly close attention to Elizabeth at the ball, and even reserves the first two dances with her.

The next day Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth. She refuses him, and after a while Mr. Collins comes to understand that her refusal is sincere, not just a trick of female coquetry. Mrs. Bennet is extremely angry at Elizabeth for not accepting, but Mr. Bennet is glad. Mr. Collins shifts his attentions to Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas. He proposes to Charlotte and she accepts. Elizabeth is disappointed in her friend for agreeing to marry such a silly man simply to obtain financial security.

Bingley goes to London for business and shortly after he leaves his sisters and Darcy go to London as well. He had planned to return quickly to Netherfield, but Caroline Bingley writes to Jane and tells her that Bingley will almost definitely not return for about six months. Caroline also tells Jane that the family hopes Bingley will marry Darcy's younger sister Georgiana and unite the fortunes of the two families. Jane is heartbroken, thinking that Bingley must not really be attached to her. Elizabeth thinks that Darcy and Bingley's sisters somehow managed to convince Bingley to stay in London rather than returning to Netherfield to propose to Jane.

Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Elizabeth's aunt and uncle, come to Longbourn to visit. They invite Jane to come and spend some time with them in London, hoping that the time away will help to cheer her up. Elizabeth also hopes that Jane will run into Bingley while in London. Mrs. Gardiner, after observing Elizabeth and Wickham together, warns Elizabeth against the imprudence of a marriage to Wickham because of his poor financial situation, and advises Elizabeth not to encourage his attentions so much.

While in London Jane is treated very rudely by Caroline Bingley and comes to realize that she is not a sincere friend. She assumes that Mr. Bingley knows she is in London, and decides that he must no longer be partial to her since she does not hear from him at all.

Wickham suddenly transfers his attentions from Elizabeth to Miss King, who has recently acquired 10,000 pounds from an inheritance.

Along with Sir William Lucas and Maria Lucas (Charlotte's father and younger sister) Elizabeth goes to visit Charlotte (now Mrs. Collins) at her new home in Kent. On their way they stop to see the Gardiners. Upon hearing of Wickham's change of affections, Mrs. Gardiner is critical, but Elizabeth defends him.

While staying with the Collinses, Elizabeth and the others are often invited to dine at Rosings, the large estate of Mr. Collins' patroness Lady Catherine. Lady Catherine is completely arrogant and domineering. After Elizabeth has been at the Parsonage for a fortnight, Mr. Darcy and his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam visit Rosings. Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam get along very well. Darcy also seems to be paying a lot of attention to Elizabeth, and often visits her and Charlotte at the Parsonage along with Colonel Fitzwilliam. He also purposely meets her very frequently on her usual walking route through the park.

While walking one day with Elizabeth, Colonel Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth how Darcy recently saved a close friend from an imprudent marriage. Elizabeth concludes from this comment that it must have been Darcy's advice which convinced Bingley not to propose to Jane. She becomes so angry and upset that she gets a terrible headache and decides not to go to Rosings for dinner. While she is alone at the Parsonage, Darcy pays a visit. He tells her that in spite of all his efforts to avoid it because of her low family connections, he has fallen in love with her and wants to marry her. Elizabeth is shocked. She rudely refuses and rebukes him for the ungentlemanlike manner in which he proposed, as well as for preventing the marriage of Bingley and Jane and for ill-treating Wickham. Darcy is shocked because he had assumed she would accept.

The next day Darcy finds Elizabeth and hands her a letter then quickly leaves. The letter contains an explanation of his reasons for advising Bingley not to marry Jane and for his actions toward Wickham. He had prevented Bingley from proposing to Jane because it did not seem to him that Jane was truly attached to Bingley. Wickham was Darcy's father's god-son. Before his death, Darcy's father had asked Darcy to provide Wickham with a living if Wickham were to decide to enter the clergy. Wickham, however, did not want to enter the clergy. He asked Darcy for 3,000 pounds, purportedly for law school, and agreed not to ask for any more. Darcy gave Wickham the money and he squandered it all on dissolute living, then came back and told Darcy he would like to enter the clergy if he could have the living promised to him. Darcy refused. Later, with the help of her governess Miss Younge, Wickham got Darcy's younger sister Georgiana to fall in love with him and agree to an elopement, in order to revenge himself on Mr. Darcy and get Miss Darcy's fortune. Fortunately, Darcy found out and intervened at the last minute.

After reading these explanations in the letter Elizabeth's first reaction is disbelief, but after reflecting upon and slowly rereading the letter, she begins to see that Darcy is telling the truth and that she was only inclined to believe Wickham's story because he had flattered her with his attentions, while she was inclined to think ill of Darcy because he had wounded her pride on their first meeting.

Soon afterwards, Elizabeth returns home from her stay with the Collinses and Jane returns home from her stay with the Gardiners. When they return their mother and sisters are upset because the regiment stationed in Meryton will soon be leaving, depriving them of most of their amusement. Lydia receives an offer from Mrs. Forster, Colonel Forster's wife, to accompany her to Brighton, where the regiment will be going. Elizabeth advises her father not to allow Lydia to go, thinking that such a trip could lead to serious misconduct on Lydia's part because of the flirtatiousness and frivolity of her character and her complete lack of a sense of propriety. However, Mr. Bennet does not heed Elizabeth's advice.

Elizabeth goes on vacation with the Gardiners. Their first stop is in the area of Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate. The Gardiners want to take a tour, and having found out that Mr. Darcy is away, Elizabeth agrees. During their tour of the estate the housekeeper tells them about how kind and good-natured Darcy is. Elizabeth is impressed by this praise, and also thinks of how amazing it would be to be the mistress of such an estate. During their tour of the gardens Elizabeth and the Gardiners run into Mr. Darcy, who has returned early from his trip. Darcy is extremely cordial to both Elizabeth and the Gardiners and tells Elizabeth that he wants her to meet his sister Georgiana as soon as she arrives.

Darcy and Georgiana pay a visit to Elizabeth and the Gardiners at their inn on the very morning of Georgiana's arrival. Bingley comes to visit as well. It is clear that he still has a regard for Jane. Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth return their civilities by calling at Pemberley to visit Georgiana. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst are there as well, and they thinly conceal their displeasure at seeing Elizabeth.

One morning Elizabeth receives a letter from Jane announcing that Lydia has eloped with Wickham, and that they fear Wickham does not actually intend to marry her. Jane asks Elizabeth to return home immediately. Darcy comes to the door just after Elizabeth has received the news. She explains to him what has happened. He feels partially to blame for not having exposed Wickham's character publicly.

Elizabeth and the Gardiners depart for Longbourn immediately. Mrs. Bennet is in hysterics and the entire burden of keeping the household together in this moment of crisis has fallen on Jane's shoulders. They find out from Colonel Forster that Wickham has over 1,000 pounds of gambling debts and nearly that much owed to merchants. The next day Mr. Gardiner goes to join Mr. Bennet in London to help him search for Lydia. After many days of fruitless searches Mr. Bennet returns home and leaves the search in Mr. Gardiner's hands.

Soon a letter arrives from Mr. Gardiner explaining that Lydia and Wickham have been found and that Wickham will marry Lydia if Mr. Bennet provides her with her equal share of his wealth. Knowing that, with his debts, Wickham would never have agreed to marry Lydia for so little money, Mr. Bennet thinks that Mr. Gardiner must have paid off Wickham's debts for him.

After their marriage Lydia and Wickham come to visit Longbourn. Lydia is completely shameless and not the least bit remorseful for her conduct. Mrs. Bennet is very happy to have one of her daughters married.

Elizabeth hears from Lydia that Darcy was present at the wedding. She writes to her aunt to ask her why he was there. She responds explaining that it was Darcy who had found Lydia and Wickham and who had negotiated with Wickham to get him to marry her. Mrs. Gardiner thinks that Darcy did this out of love for Elizabeth.

Bingley and Mr. Darcy return to Netherfield Park. They call at Longbourn frequently. After several days Bingley proposes to Jane. She accepts and all are very happy.

In the meantime Darcy has gone on a short business trip to London. While he is gone Lady Catherine comes to Longbourn and asks to speak with Elizabeth. Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth that she has heard Darcy is going to propose to her and attempts to forbid Elizabeth to accept the proposal. Elizabeth refuses to make any promises. Lady Catherine leaves in a huff.

Darcy returns from his business trip. While he and Elizabeth are walking he tells her that his affection for her is the same as when he last proposed, and asks her if her disposition toward him has changed. She says that it has, and that she would be happy to accept his proposal. They speak about how they have been changed since the last proposal. Darcy realized he had been wrong to act so proudly and place so much emphasis on class differences. Elizabeth realized that she had been wrong to judge Darcy prematurely and to allow her judgment to be affected by her vanity.

Both couples marry. Elizabeth and Darcy go to live in Pemberley. Jane and Bingley, after living in Netherfield for a year, decide to move to an estate near Pemberley. Kitty begins to spend most of her time with her two sisters, and her education and character begin to improve. Mary remains at home keeping her mother company. Mr. Bennet is very happy that his two oldest daughters have married so happily. Mrs. Bennet is glad that her daughters have married so prosperously.

[Asalbanoo]

Animal Farm is set on an English farm named Manor Farm, owned by Mr. Jones. The fable-like story concerns the rebellion of the farm animals, and is told entirely from their point of view. The story opens with Mr. Jones stumbling into bed, unable to lock up the farm properly after a night of excessive whisky drinking. Old Major, the venerable and well-respected pig, has called all the animals together for a meeting to take place after Mr. Jones has gone to bed, and they gather outside the big barn on the farm. Old Major tells them all that he had a miraculous dream last night, in which he saw his approaching death, and also understood more clearly the life of animals. He wants to impart his realizations to the rest of the animals while he still can, as well as rouse them to take the action that he has come to feel is necessary.

Old Major points out to the animals that the cause of their miserable existences is the tyranny of Man, who is a lazy, incompetent creature who steals the fruits of animals' labor for his own benefit. Old Major describes his vision of an England where animals could live in peaceful and plentiful coexistence with each other, free from the cruel tyranny of Man. He exhorts the animals to band together to defeat their common enemy, and teaches them all "Beasts of England," the song which becomes their revolutionary anthem and battle cry. The animals are greatly moved by Old Major's speech, and rally around the rebellion idea, singing "Beasts of England" until Mr. Jones is roused from his sleep and fires a shot into the air, quieting the animals to sleep.

Three days later, Old Major dies and is buried. His revolutionary fervor lives on, and the animals begin to flesh in the revolutionary ideology with which they will overthrow Mr. Jones. Two of the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, emerge as the leaders of the animals. Another pig named Squealer is also prominent for his persuasive speaking ability. These three pigs create a system of tenets and name it "Animalism," and begin imparting it to the rest of the animals, often simplifying and slowly reasoning with the less-intelligent animals such as the Sheep, or the frivolous animals, like Mollie the white mare.

Revolution comes earlier than anyone expected, when Mr. Jones gets so drunk that he is unable to go feed the animals. After a day and a half without food, the hungry animals finally riot and break into the feeding area themselves, prompting Mr. Jones and his field hands to come outside. The animals attack them with a vengeance, and the men flee, leaving Manor Farm to the animals. Mrs. Jones wakes up during the commotion, and when she discovers what has happened, she runs off with a suitcase of clothes herself. The animals rejoice, walking over the farm to examine their property, and celebrate with extra rations of food. The next morning, Snowball repaints the sign reading "Manor Farm" to say "Animal Farm," and he and Napoleon introduce the animals to The Seven Commandments, which form the tenets of their "Animalism":

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

No animal shall wear clothes.

No animal shall sleep in a bed.

No animal shall drink alcohol.

No animal shall kill another animal.

All animals are created equal.

The cows by this time need milking, so the pigs manage to milk them. Several of the animals want some of the milk for themselves, but Napoleon distracts them, saying that they have more important things to attend to and that he will take care of it. Later that day, the animals notice that the milk had disappeared.

The Animalism regime begins very promisingly, with all the animals working industriously to improve the farm, and enjoying the feeling of self-governance and "animal pride" which their regime produces. The animals observe a flag-raising ritual on Sundays, which is a day of rest for them. Snowball forms an array of committees aimed at social improvements, education, training, and the like. The education program achieves the greatest success. Boxer the horse becomes the most admired of all the animals for his zealous devotion to the cause and his personal motto "I will work harder". After the discovery that the stupider animals could not learn the Seven Commandments, Snowball reduces the tenets down to the maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad," which even the sheep can memorize, and bleat for hours on end. After the apple harvest, the pigs announce that they will reserve all the apples and milk for themselves, to fuel their strenuous efforts to manage the farm. The other animals reluctantly acquiesce.

News of the rebellion at Animal Farm spreads quickly to the rest of the animals in England, all of whom learn the words to "Beasts of England". Mr. Jones gathers some townsmen and attempts to reclaim his farm, but the animals successfully defend it. Snowball and Boxer are given medals for their courageous fighting. Soon thereafter, Mollie runs off to work pulling a dogcart for a man who feeds her sugar lumps, and she is never spoken of again. When winter comes, Snowball begins talking of a plan to build a windmill to increase the productivity of the farm. Napoleon, who by this times disagrees with Snowball about almost everything, is bitterly opposed, and the animals become divided into two camps of supporters. During a debate, Napoleon whistles for nine large dogs that he has trained, and they attack Snowball and drive him off the farm. Napoleon becomes the single leader of the animals, and announces that they will go through with the windmill scheme after all.

The animals begin working like slaves to complete the harvest and build the windmill. When Napoleon announces that Animal Farm will begin trading with the men who run nearby farms, the animals think they remember Old Major speaking against evil human habits such as trade. Squealer convinces the animals that they are only imagining it. The pigs then move into the farmhouse, and Squealer again convinces that animals that they are only imagining the earlier rules against sleeping in beds. Some of the animals go to check the Fourth Commandment, and discover that it now reads "No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets". The windmill is destroyed in a storm, and Napoleon blames it on Snowball, and places a reward on his head.

A hard winter comes, and the animals face near-starvation. Napoleon announces that the hens will have to give up their eggs to be sold for money to buy grain. The hens refuse at first, but Napoleon cuts off their food rations until they relent, after nine of them have died from starvation. Soon after, Napoleon announces that an attempted rebellion has been discovered, and has several of the farm animals executed. The remaining animals react with fear and horror, and huddle around Clover the mare for comfort. She reminds them of Old Major's glorious speech and leads them all in "Beast of England," which prompts Napoleon to forbid the singing of the song.

The animals discover that after the executions, another commandment is different from how they remembered it; the Sixth Commandment now reads "No animal shall kill another animal without cause". Napoleon has a long poem praising his leadership painted on the side of the barn. The farm is again attacked by neighboring farmers, who the animals repel, but only with great difficulty. Napoleon celebrates the victory by drinking lots of whisky, and the Fifth Commandment soon reads "No animal shall drink alcohol in excess". Boxer's injury sustained in the attack is slow-healing.

Rations continue to be reduced for the animals, except for the pigs, who are allowed to wear green ribbons on Sundays, drink beer daily, and actually seem to be gaining weight. Boxer falls ill and Napoleon promises to send him to a hospital, but the animals read the sign of the truck as he is hauled away and discover that he is being taken to the butcher's. Squealer eventually convinces the animals that they are mistaken.

Years pass, and many of the older animals die off. Squealer assumes a position of power, and learns to walk upright. He teaches the sheep to change their chant to "Four legs good, two legs better," and the Seven Commandments are replaced with a single commandment: "All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others". The pigs invite the neighboring farmer to dinner to inspect the efficiency of Animal Farm, and the men congratulate the pigs on their achievements, noting that the animals at Animal Farm did more work and required less food than any farm in the county. As the animal watch the dinner proceedings through the window, they realize with horror that they can no longer tell the pigs' faces from the human ones.

[Asalbanoo]

Ten years have passed since the fall of Troy, and the Greek hero Odysseus still has not returned to his kingdom in Ithaca. A large and rowdy mob of suitors who have overrun Odysseus’s palace and pillaged his land continue to court his wife, Penelope. She has remained faithful to Odysseus. Prince Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, wants desperately to throw them out but does not have the confidence or experience to fight them. One of the suitors, Antinous, plans to assassinate the young prince, eliminating the only opposition to their dominion over the palace.
Unknown to the suitors, Odysseus is still alive. The beautiful nymph Calypso, possessed by love for him, has imprisoned him on her island, Ogygia. He longs to return to his wife and son, but he has no ship or crew to help him escape. While the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus debate Odysseus’s future, Athena, Odysseus’s strongest supporter among the gods, resolves to help Telemachus. Disguised as a friend of the prince’s grandfather, Laertes, she convinces the prince to call a meeting of the assembly at which he reproaches the suitors. Athena also prepares him for a great journey to Pylos and Sparta, where the kings Nestor and Menelaus, Odysseus’s companions during the war, inform him that Odysseus is alive and trapped on Calypso’s island. Telemachus makes plans to return home, while, back in Ithaca, Antinous and the other suitors prepare an ambush to kill him when he reaches port.
On Mount Olympus, Zeus sends Hermes to rescue Odysseus from Calypso. Hermes persuades Calypso to let Odysseus build a ship and leave. The homesick hero sets sail, but when Poseidon, god of the sea, finds him sailing home, he sends a storm to wreck Odysseus’s ship. Poseidon has harbored a bitter grudge against Odysseus since the hero blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, earlier in his travels. Athena intervenes to save Odysseus from Poseidon’s wrath, and the beleaguered king lands at Scheria, home of the Phaeacians. Nausicaa, the Phaeacian princess, shows him to the royal palace, and Odysseus receives a warm welcome from the king and queen. When he identifies himself as Odysseus, his hosts, who have heard of his exploits at Troy, are stunned. They promise to give him safe passage to Ithaca, but first they beg to hear the story of his adventures.
Odysseus spends the night describing the fantastic chain of events leading up to his arrival on Calypso’s island. He recounts his trip to the Land of the Lotus Eaters, his battle with Polyphemus the Cyclops, his love affair with the witch-goddess Circe, his temptation by the deadly Sirens, his journey into Hades to consult the prophet Tiresias, and his fight with the sea monster Scylla. When he finishes his story, the Phaeacians return Odysseus to Ithaca, where he seeks out the hut of his faithful swineherd, Eumaeus. Though Athena has disguised Odysseus as a beggar, Eumaeus warmly receives and nourishes him in the hut. He soon encounters Telemachus, who has returned from Pylos and Sparta despite the suitors’ ambush, and reveals to him his true identity. Odysseus and Telemachus devise a plan to massacre the suitors and regain control of Ithaca.
When Odysseus arrives at the palace the next day, still disguised as a beggar, he endures abuse and insults from the suitors. The only person who recognizes him is his old nurse, Eurycleia, but she swears not to disclose his secret. Penelope takes an interest in this strange beggar, suspecting that he might be her long-lost husband. Quite crafty herself, Penelope organizes an archery contest the following day and promises to marry any man who can string Odysseus’s great bow and fire an arrow through a row of twelve axes—a feat that only Odysseus has ever been able to accomplish. At the contest, each suitor tries to string the bow and fails. Odysseus steps up to the bow and, with little effort, fires an arrow through all twelve axes. He then turns the bow on the suitors. He and Telemachus, assisted by a few faithful servants, kill every last suitor.
Odysseus reveals himself to the entire palace and reunites with his loving Penelope. He travels to the outskirts of Ithaca to see his aging father, Laertes. They come under attack from the vengeful family members of the dead suitors, but Laertes, reinvigorated by his son’s return, successfully kills Antinous’s father and puts a stop to the attack. Zeus dispatches Athena to restore peace. With his power secure and his family reunited, Odysseus’s long ordeal comes to an end

[Asalbanoo]

The Cherry Orchard describes the lives of a group of Russians, in the wake of the Liberation of the serfs. The action takes place over the course of five or six months, but the histories of the characters are so complex that in many ways, the play begins years earlier.

The play opens in May, inside the cherry orchard estate; friends, neighbors, and servants are preparing for the long-awaited return of Madame Ranevsky, the mistress of the house, and her daughter Anya. Madame Ranevsky has two daughters. She had fled the cherry orchard five years before, after the deaths of her husband and young son. She is now returning from France, where her abusive lover had robbed and abandoned her. She has accrued great debts during her absence.

Lopakhin begins by telling the story of his own success: born a serf, he has managed to make himself a fortune. Another former serf, Firs, readies the house during Lopakhin's speeches. Firs has maintained the same post he always has, despite the Liberation. Dunyasha confesses a potential romance between she and Ephikhodof, but no one is interested.

Finally, Madame Ranevsky returns. Her friends and family are overjoyed to see her. Act I introduces many subplots: a romance between the tutor Trophimof and Anya, another hopeful romance between her sister Barbara and wealthy Lopakhin, a love triangle between the servants Dunyasha, Yasha, and Ephikhodof, the debt of the neighbor Pishtchik, the class struggles of Lopakhin and Firs, the isolation of Charlotte, etc. The main intrigue of the play, however, hinges on Madame Ranevsky's debt. Neither she nor her brother Gayef have money to pay the mortgage on the cherry orchard estate, and unless they find a solution, the state will be auctioned off in August.

Lopakhin suggests that Madame Ranevsky build villas on the estate. She can lease them and use the money to pay the mortgage. Madame Ranevsky and Gayef object to the idea, and prefer to work something out on their own. However, as spring passes into summer, Madame Ranevsky only finds herself more in debt, with no solution in sight. Strange romances between Anya and Trophimof and Dunyasha and Yasha continue, while nothing develops between Lopakhin and Barbara and Dunyasha and Ephikhodof. Firs' health is declining. Madame Ranevsky is receiving letters from her lover, and Gayef begins to consider a job at a bank. Pishtchik takes out loans from Madame Ranevsky, whose own funds are dwindling away to nothing.

On the night of the auction, no solution has arrived. Madame Ranevsky holds a ball. Charlotte performs, and guests and servants alike dance. Madame Ranevsky and Trophimof have a serious conversation about Madame Ranevsky's extravagance; not only does she continue to run up debts, but she is now considering returning to her abusive lover in France. Madame Ranevsky is nervous about the outcome of the auction; she is still hoping for a miracle.

Finally Gayef and Lopakhin return: Lopakhin has bought the cherry orchard. Barbara is furious, and Madame Ranevsky is devastated. Lopakhin, however, cannot hide his happiness: he has bought the estate where his family lived as serfs. Ironically, he encourages the party to continue, even though the hosts are no longer in the mood to celebrate.

Act IV shows Madame Ranevsky leaving the cherry orchard for the last time. Lopakhin has bought champagne, but no one except the uppity servant Yasha will drink it. Lopakhin and Trophimof share a tender farewell: Trophimof will return to the university. Charlotte complains that she no longer has a position; Ephikhodof has a new position with Lopakhin. Pishtchik is able to pay off some of his debts. Gayef has a job at a bank, Barbara a position as a housekeeper, and Yasha will stay on with Madame Ranevsky, who is returning to France. Many characters try to confirm that Firs has been sent to the hospital. Lopakhin misses his last chance with Barbara, and Dunyasha cries that Yasha is leaving.

Madame Ranevsky and Gayef share a nostalgic moment alone before leaving on a relatively optimistic note. In the last moment, we hear axes cutting down the orchard, and Firs stumbles on to stage, forgotten, locked in the house. He lies down to rest and presumably dies.

[Asalbanoo]

Lieutenant Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver with the Italian army during World War I, takes a winter leave from the front. When he returns, he meets and quickly falls in love with Catherine Barkley, an English nurse's aide in the town's British hospital. She mourns the death of her fiancé from the war last year, and she eagerly enters the pleasurable diversion the game of love offers with Henry. Henry, too, is revived by love after the horror he has seen of war.

Henry's knee is badly wounded during an artillery bombardment, and he is sent to a hospital in Milan for an operation. Catherine transfers to his hospital and helps him recuperate from the surgery. They spend all their free time together, and their love deepens as they gradually acknowledge that they stand alone against the cruel world. Before Henry returns to the front, Catherine reveals she is pregnant. They are both pleased with this, however, and cannot wait to see each other again.

Back at the front, the Germans and Austrians break through the Italian line, and the Italians are forced to make a lengthy retreat. Henry travels with some other drivers, two Italian engineering sergeants, and two Italian girls. When the sergeants abandon the drivers when their car gets stuck, Henry shoots one of them, and another driver finishes him off. Later, the trigger-happy Italian rear guard mistakenly shoots one of the Italian drivers. One of the drivers deserts the group, choosing to be taken prisoner rather than face potential death. At a bridge over a flooded river, the corrupt Italian military singles out Henry as a lieutenant and accuses him of treachery leading to the Italian defeat. Knowing he will be executed, Henry jumps into the river and escapes with the current.

Henry manages to get out of the fast-moving river and jump a train to Milan. He thinks he has made a "separate peace" and is no longer attached to the military. He finds Catherine in the town of Stresa and, prior to Henry's arrest for desertion, the two make a daring nighttime escape by a borrowed boat to Switzerland. They enjoy an idyllic, isolated life that winter in the Swiss town of Montreux, spending time outdoors and preparing for the arrival of their baby; Henry is not completely without guilt, however, for abandoning his friends at the front.

They move to the town of Lausanne in the spring to be close to its hospital, and Catherine soon goes into labor. The pregnancy is lengthy and painful, and the baby, delivered through a Caesarean, is stillborn. Catherine dies soon after of multiple hemorrhages with Henry by her side. He tries to say goodbye to her, but it is like saying goodbye to a statue, and he walks back to his hotel room in the rain

[Asalbanoo]

Ten-year-old orphan Jane Eyre lives unhappily with her wealthy, cruel cousins and aunt at Gateshead. Her only salvation from her daily humiliations, such as being locked up in a "red-room" (where she thinks she sees her beloved uncle's ghost), is the kindly servant, Bessie. Jane is spared further mistreatment from the Reed family when she is sent off to school at Lowood, but there, under the hypocritical Evangelicalism of the headmaster, Mr. Brocklehurst, she suffers further privations in the austere environment. She befriends Helen Burns, who upholds a doctrine of Christian forgiveness and tolerance, and is taken under the wing of the superintendent, Miss Temple. An outbreak of typhus alerts benefactors to the school's terrible conditions, Mr. Brocklehurst is replaced, and Jane excels as a student for six years and as a teacher for two.

Jane finds employment as a governess at the estate of Thornfield for a little girl, Adèle. After much waiting, Jane finally meets her employer, Edward Rochester, a brooding, detached man who seems to have a dark past. Other oddities around Thornfield include the occasional demonic laugh Jane hears emanating from the third-story attic. Rochester always attributes it to Grace Poole, the seamstress who works up there, but Jane is never fully convinced, and the fire she has to put out one night in Rochester's bedroom plants further doubts.

Meanwhile, Jane develops an attraction for Rochester, not based on looks (both are considered plain) but on their intellectual communion. However, the higher social standing of the beautiful Miss Ingram seemingly vaults her above Jane. Though Rochester flirts with the idea of marrying Miss Ingram, he is aware of her financial ambitions for marriage. An old acquaintance of Rochester's, Richard Mason, visits Thornfield and is severely injured from an attack‹apparently from Grace‹in the middle of the night in the attic. Jane, baffled by the circumstances, tends to him, and Rochester confesses to her that he made an error in the past that he hopes to overturn by marrying Miss Ingram. He says that he has another governess position for Jane lined up elsewhere.

Jane returns to Gateshead for a while to see the dying Mrs. Reed. When she returns to Thornfield, Rochester says he knows Miss Ingram is after him only for his money, and he asks Jane to marry him. Jane accepts, but a month later, Mason and a solicitor, Mr. Briggs, interrupt the ceremony by revealing that Rochester already has a wife: Bertha Mason, Mason's sister, a lunatic who is kept in the attic in Thornfield. Rochester confesses his past misdeeds to Jane. In his youth he needed to marry the wealthy Bertha for money, but was unaware of her family's history of madness, and over time she became an incorrigible, dangerous part of his life which only imprisonment could solve. Despite his protests that he loves Jane, she cannot agree to marry him because of his previous marriage, and leaves Thornfield.

Jane arrives at the desolate crossroads of Whitcross and is reduced to begging for food. Fortunately, the Rivers siblings‹St. John, Diana, and Mary‹take her into their home at Moor House. She develops great affection for the ladies, while the stoically religious St. John is harder to get close to, and happily teaches at St. John's school. Jane learns that she has inherited a vast fortune from her uncle, and that the Rivers siblings are her cousins. She divides it among her new family and phases out her teaching duties.

St. John is going to go on missionary work in India and repeatedly asks Jane to accompany him as his wife; she refuses, since it would mean compromising her capacity for passion in a loveless marriage. Instead, she is drawn to thoughts of Rochester and, one day, after experiencing a mystical connection with him, seeks him out at Thornfield. She discovers that the estate has been burned down by Bertha, who died in the fire, and that Rochester, who was blinded in the incident, lives nearby. He is overjoyed when she locates him, and relates his side of the mystical connection Jane had. He and Jane marry and enjoy life together, and he regains his sight in one eye. Diana and Mary both marry, while St. John continues his unmarried proselytizing in India.

[Asalbanoo]

The Republic itself is nothing at the start of Plato's most famous and influential book. It does not exist. Not only does it not exist in actuality, but it does not exist in theory either. It must be built. It architect will be Socrates, the fictional persona Plato creates for himself. In the first episode Socrates encounters some acquaintances during the festival of Bendis. His reputation for good conversation already well-established, Socrates is approached by some dilettante philosopher acquaintances and drawn into a dialogue. The discussion quickly moves to justice thanks to Socrates. The other philosophers, including Thrasymachus, Polermarchus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus enthusiastically consent to such a worthy topic. However, it is unlikely at this point that any of these philosophers‹save Socrates, of course‹anticipates the ambition and enormity of their undertaking.

In Book I, Socrates entertains two distinct definitions of justice. The first is provided by Polermarchus, who suggests that justice is "doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies." The definition, which is a version of conventionally morality, is considered. Very soon though, its faults are clearly apparent. It is far to relative to serve as a formulation of the justice. Moreover, its individual terms are vulnerable; that is to say, how does one know who is a friend and who an enemy? And are not friends as much as enemies capable of evil? And when a friend acts wickedly, should he not be punished? And next, what does it mean that an action is good or bad? The perils of giving credence to false appearances is introduced early on as a major theme. It will be dealt with at length in the succeeding books. Thus surely an idea as noble as justice will not stand on such precarious ground. Socrates is dissatisfied. A second definition, offered by Thrasymachus, endorses tyranny. "Obedience to the interest of the stronger," is likewise mined for its value, shown to be deficient, and discarded. Tyranny, Socrates demonstrates employing several analogies, inevitably results in the fragmentation of the soul. Benevolent rule, on the other hand, ensures a harmonious life for both man and State. Justice is its means and good is its end. That "justice is the excellence of the soul" is Socrates' main conclusion. But there are too many presumptions. Although his auditors have troubled refuting his claims, Socrates knows he has been too vague and that should they truly wish to investigate the question of justice, he will have to be more specific. Book I ends with yet another question. Is the just life more pleasurable, more rewarding than the unjust? Rather all at once the philosophers have inundated themselves. But the first book has succeeded in one major way. It has established the territory of the over-arching argument of the entire work;

The philosophers continue the debate in Book II by introducing a new definition that belongs more to political philosophy than pure philosophy: that justice is a legally enforced compromise devised for the mutual protection of citizens of a state. In other words, justice is a fabrication of the State that prevents citizens from harming one another. Socrates is certainly up to the challenge. He dislikes the idea that justice does not exists naturally, but that it must be externally and superficially imposed to discourage unjust behavior. Adeimantus' mentioning of the State seems fortuitous, but it is as if Socrates has been waiting for it all along. Uncertain whether they can arrive at an acceptable definition of justice any other way, Socrates proposes they construct a State of which they approve, and see if they might not find justice lurking in it somewhere. This State is arises, Socrates says, "out of the needs of mankind." And the immense project of building a State from its very foundation has officially commenced. Basic necessities are addressed first, then the primitive division of labor, followed by the rudiments of education. Within the ideal State, Socrates maintains, there will be no need for "bad fictions," or manipulative poetics in general, since education must be perfectly moral.

The arts in education are primarily dealt with in Book III. Socrates concludes his attack on the "libelous poetry" that portrays his beloved virtues in so many negative lights. It is not of use to the State. Or if it is to be of use, it must be stringently didactic and partake of none of the indulgence and rhapsody common to their tradition and to contemporary poets as well. Even Homer is indicted. Instead the citizens of the state, at this early stage they are generically named guardians, are to be nourished only on literature‹broadly termed Œmusic' by Socrates‹clearly illustrating courage, wisdom, temperance, and virtue (just behavior). The second part of education, gymnasium, consists mostly of the physical training of the citizens. At this point Socrates' State needs rulers. Who better to rule than the best and most patriotic citizens produced by the rigorous education apparatus. These very select few are now more strictly called the guardians, while non-guardians remain citizens. The guardians will be the rulers. The book closes with the Phoenician myth, which Socrates feels would serve as effective mythical explanation for their State. Through the myth citizens are told they are made of a certain mix of metals, gold and silver, iron and brass, etc. They are born like this and are to take the requisite social station because of it. However, should a citizen of gold or silver be born to parents of an inferior metal, he will rise socially as is just; and the rule will also function in the reverse situation. The myth provides the State with an accessible, allegorical illustration of its stable, hierarchical social organization.

In Book IV the happiness of the guardians, so strenuously trained, is questioned. Socrates takes the objections of his auditors in due stride, reminding them of their original premise: that the State is to be for the good of the many and not the few. Their State has grown larger in the meantime, and is beginning to divide its labors. Defense and security against neighbors and foreign invasion enter the debate. But surely, Socrates says, the education, military and otherwise, that the citizens have garnered, coupled with their love for the State and their solidarity, will repel or outwit all challenges. Believing that what they have created thus far is a perfect State, the philosopher once again seek out justice. Socrates suggests they proceed by a process of elimination among the four virtues. He defines courage, temperance, and wisdom, but must digress before attaining justice. The digression yields the three principles of the soul: reason, passion, and appetite. When these exist in harmony, Socrates concludes, there is justice. It is a provisional definition.

The philosophers agreement at the end of Book IV to discuss the various corrupt forms of government is, however, interrupted by an accusation of laziness. Thrasymachus voices his dissatisfaction with Socrates who, he says, has purposely avoided speaking of the more practical concerns of the State. The objection blossoms into the section on matrimony. Encompassing matrimony, family, and community, Socrates elucidates his very scientific, very futuristic plan for population control and the right breeding of the human animal. The strong reproduce more often than the weak. Likewise weak offspring are disposed of or hidden away someplace unnamed. Socrates has bucked two of what he calls three "waves." The third and greatest is the question of whether their possibility is realizable in any way. Socrates' response is mostly negative. However, there is one method by which the States they see around them might become ideal States. That is, if philosophers become kings or, more likely, if kings take up the study of philosophy. Hence the famous term philosopher-kings. But this in turn begs the query: what is the philosopher? This leads Socrates into another complicated idea, an inchoate version of the Theory of Forms. Manifestations, appearances, likenesses, opinions‹none of them are Reality; they are merely shadows. Only the Forms, the ideals that lie behind are truth. And the philosopher seeks above all else knowledge of these Forms.

Yet another accusation from the gallery directs Socrates' inquiry in the beginning of Book VI. Adeimantus believes the guardians they have created are monsters. On the contrary, Socrates defends, their nobility and worth are beyond question, drawing on the parable of the pilot and his crew as an illustration. The parable opposes the wants of the majority with the authority of the truly fit leader. The multitudes, Socrates explains, do not know what is best for them. They are to be ruled by one especially suited and trained to this end, and for the good of all. Socrates is obliged then to develop the relationship between the guardians and philosophy. Guardians, he says, cease to be guardians when they abandon the truth, be minority or otherwise. The final section of Book VI includes a series of wonderfully vivid and intelligible figures or metaphors that help clarify somewhat the Theory of Forms and the good. Visibility, vision, and light are analogous to knowledge, the knower, and that which makes knowing possible, the good. The good is symbolized by sunlight, the vital means by which the sun not only sheds light on the world but nourishes that world. Philosophy is a love of the light, an attempt to perceive and understand it in all its metaphorical manifestations. Everything else belongs to the world of the manifold, of shadows. Finally the dialectic is the only way to ascend, as upon a staircase of ideas, to the luminous good.

Book VII is dominated by the Allegory of the Cave. One of the most enduring images perhaps in the history of western philosophy, the dim cave plays host to a group of prisoners, chained in such a way that they cannot move their heads, stare at a wall all day. Thanks to a small fire, the prisoners see the shadows of their captors projected on the wall. Having always been in the cave, they believe the shadows are true; likewise, the echoed voices they hear, they also believe to be true. Then one day a certain prisoner is released. The secrets of the cave are disclosed to him, and he is lead up into the sunlight, which blinds his unaccustomed eyes. The third part of the allegory has the Œenlightened' prisoner, who has looked upon, contemplated, and adjusted to the true light of the sun, must return to the cave. There he finds his new eyes ill-suited for cave life and is cruelly mocked by the other prisoners. A summary of the life course of the guardians, the allegory moralizes dutiful rule for the common good. The guardians must give up the beauty and peace of the light to help their fellow men, the majority of whom dwell in abject darkness. But who would make such a sacrifice? Given their education‹which is now expanded even further‹Socrates is confidant the guardians would. After all they spend the first fifty years of their life training for the opportunity and, as they would considered it, their honor.

Socrates asks permission to backtrack a little at the opening of Book VIII in order to analyze the forms of corrupt governments. This way they can also look at the individuals inhabiting them, thus cutting away the grist so that only the meat, the just man, may remain. There are four principle defective forms: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Aristocracy's (the republic) degeneration into timocracy occurs as a kind of hypothetical fluke, an error in population control. The timocracy is a government based primarily on honor not justice, and the timocratic man is torn between his philosophical ancestors and new, ingratiating contemporaries who flatter his vanity. Oligarchy arises when wealth becomes the standard. The State separates into two distinct and distant classes‹rich and poor. And the timocrat embodies the old, honorable ways in competition with avarice. After a revolution in which the rulers are overthrown by the discontented poor, democracy, the most liberal and various State appears. The democratic representative is ruled by appetites that hold sway well above reason or honor. The final dissolution into the worst and most wicked form of government, tyranny, is the result of democracy's supposed virtue: freedom. But is in excess and, after another revolution, a new ruler, the tyrant ascends. He has no unlimited freedom and thus no morals. He feels off the State, taxes his people, protects himself with mercenaries, and destroys any threat to this power. The book's most miserable character, the tyrant is antithetical to the guardian; he is injustice incarnate.

Book IX sees Socrates deal with the figure of the tyrant in more depth. This is a necessary digression, since by evaluating the life of the tyrant, his pleasures and pains, they may have a better idea of what constitutes the unjust life. Eventually they will use what they learn from the tyrant to compare his life with the philosopher's. The tyrant begins as the champion of the people, promising to release them from debt. By the end of his reign, however, he has taxed them into poverty and enslaved them. Then, in an unexpected turn, the tyrant, for a while master of all men himself becomes a slave to all men. He is governed by insatiable appetites, is threatened on all sides and at every moment by betrayal and assassination, and can never leave his land for fear of being deposed. The portrait is rather dismal; what would seem to be absolute freedom is in reality absolute slavery. Book IX concludes with the re-introduction of the question: does the unjust man who is perceived as just in public live better or worse than the just man perceived as unjust? A discussion of the nature of pleasure ensues and the base pleasures are distinguished from the noble and, in fact, more enjoyable. Ultimately, Socrates answers, in the long run, injustice enjoys much less, if at all, and must inevitably reveal itself and be shunned or cast out. The finale, and really the end of the State as such, is Socrates assertion that whether or not the ideal State becomes a reality, the philosopher must always live as though it were real inside him.

The final book of The Republic, "The Recompense of Life," telescopes into two main points. First is the issue of imitative poetry. Here Socrates offers his conclusive assessment of the poetic arts. Homer, he apologizes, must, except for those parts portraying nobility and right behavior in famous men and gods, be left out of the State. He may even have to be translated from verse to prose, in order that the musicality of the language not seduce any citizens. Second comes the true recompense of life, which actually occurs in the afterlife. Although the just man reaps great rewards in mortal life, it is in his immortality, or the immortality of his soul, where he is truly paid his due. The gods receive the just man, who has aspired all along to emulate them, as a quasi-equal. And enfin, The Republic closes with Socrates' colorful narration of the tale of Er the hero. It is a long description of an afterlife, in which all those virtues that Socrates has worked so diligently to expose and defend are given their proper place. Souls are shown in eternal recurrence, moving up and down from the heavens to earth and back again (with the wicked spending thousand year stints in hell).

[Asalbanoo]

Polyneices and Eteocles, two brothers leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war, have both been killed in battle. Creon, new ruler of Thebes, has declared that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices disgraced. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites, and it will lay unburied to be the food of carrion animals. Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead brothers, and they are now the last children of the ill-fated Oedipus. In the opening of the play, Antigone brings Ismene outside the city gates late at night for a secret meeting: Antigone wants to bury Polyneices' body, in defiance of Creon's edict. Ismene refuses to help her, fearing the death penalty, and she is unable to dissuade Antigone from going to do the deed by herself.

Creon enters, along with the Chorus of Theban elders. He seeks their support in the days to come, and in particular their support for his edict regarding Polyneices' body. The Chorus pledges their support. A Sentry enters, reporting fearfully that the body has been buried. A furious Creon orders the Sentry to find the culprit or face death himself. The Sentry leaves, but after a short absence he returns, bringing Antigone with him. Creon questions her, and she does not deny what she has done. She argues unflinchingly with Creon about the morality of the edict and the morality of what she has done. Creon grows angrier, and, thinking Ismene must have helped her, summons the girl. Ismene tries to confess falsely to the crime, seeking to die with her sister, but Antigone will have none of it. Creon orders that the two women be temporarily locked up inside.

Haemon, Creon's son and Antigone's fiancé, enters to pledge allegiance of his father. He initially seems willing to obey Creon. But when Haemon tries gently to persuade his father to spare Antigone, the discussion deteriorates and the two men are soon bitterly insulting each other. Haemon leaves, vowing to never see Creon again.

Creon decides to spare Ismene but to imprison Antigone in a cave. She is brought out of the house, and she bewails her fate and defends her actions one last time. She is taken away, with the Chorus expressing great sorrow because of what is going to happen to her.

Teiresias, the blind prophet, enters. He warns Creon that the gods side with Antigone. Creon accuses Teiresias of being corrupt, and Teiresias responds that because of Creon's mistakes, he will lose one child for the crimes of leaving Polyneices unburied and putting Antigone into the earth. All of Greece will despise him, and the sacrificial offerings of Thebes will not be accepted by the gods.

The Chorus, terrified, asks Creon to take their advice. He assents, and they tell him that he should bury Polyneices and free Antigone. Creon, shaken, agrees to do it. He leaves with a retinue of men to help him right his previous mistakes. The Chorus delivers a choral ode on/to the god Dionysis, and then a Messenger enters. He tells them that Haemon has killed himself. Eurydice, Creon's wife and Haemon's mother, enters and asks the Messenger to tell her everything. The Messenger reports that Haemon and Antigone have both taken their own lives. Eurydice disappears into the palace.

Creon enters, carrying Haemon's body. He understands that his own actions have caused these events. A Second Messenger arrives to tell Creon and the Chorus that Eurydice has killed herself. With her last breath, she cursed her husband. Creon blames himself for everything that has happened, and, a broken man, he asks his servants to help him inside. The order he valued so much has been protected, and he is still the king, but he has acted against the gods and lost his child and his wife. The Chorus closes by saying that the gods punish the proud, but punishment brings wisdom.

[Asalbanoo]

There is an old fisherman, Santiago, in Cuba who has gone eighty-four days without a catch. He is "thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck,...and his hands had deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert" (10). Santiago's lack of success, though, does not destroy his spirit, as his "cheerful and undefeated" eyes show (10). He has a single friend, a boy named Manolin, who helped him during the first forty days of his dryspell. After forty days, though, Manolin's parents decide the old man is unlucky and order their son to join another boat. Despite this, though, the boy helps the old man to bring in his empty boat every day.

Santiago tells Manolin that tomorrow he will go out far in the Gulf to fish. The two gather Santiago's things from his boat and go to the old man's house. His house is very simple with a bed, table, and chair on a dirt floor. The two friends speak for a while, then Manolin leaves briefly to get food. Santiago falls asleep.

When Manolin returns, he wakes Santiago. The two eat the food the boy has brought. During the course of the meal, the boy realizes the squalor in which the old man lives and reminds himself to bring the old man a shirt, shoes, a jacket, and a blanket for the coming winter. Manolin and Santiago talk baseball for a while, and the boy then leaves to be woken in the morning by the old man. Santiago sleeps.

Santiago dreams of Africa, where he traveled as a shipmate in his youth. "He lived along that coast now every night and in his dreams he head the surf roar and saw the native boats come riding through it....He dreamed of places now and lions on the beach" (24). The old man wakes and retrieves the boy from his house. The two take the old man's supplies from his shack to his boat and enjoy coffee at an early morning place that serves fisherman. The boy leaves to fetch the sardines for the old man. When he returns, he wishes the old man luck, and Santiago goes out to sea.

Santiago leaves shore early in the morning, before sunrise. "He knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the ocean" (28). Soon, Santiago rows over the Œgreat well,' a sudden drop of seven hundred fathoms were shrimp, bait fish, and squid congregate. Moving along, Santiago spots flying fish and birds, expressing great sympathy for the latter. As he queries, "Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel...." (29).

Santiago keeps pressing out, past the great well where he has been recently unsuccessful. Santiago sees a man-of-war bird overhead and notices that the bird has spied something in the water. The old man follows rows near the bird, and drops his own lines into the area, hoping to capture the fish the bird has seen. There is a large school of dolphin traveling fast, too fast for either the bird or Santiago to capture. Santiago moves on, hoping to catch a stray or perhaps even discover a marlin tracking the school. He catches a small tuna after not too long and then feels a bite on one of his deeper lines.

The first bite is hard, and the stick to which the line is connected drops sharply. The next tug is more tentative, but Santiago knows exactly what it is. "One hundred fathoms down a marlin was eating the sardines that covered the point and the shank of the hook where the hand-forged hook projected from the head of the small tuna" (41). Encouraged by a bite at so deep a depth so far out in the Gulf, Santiago reasons that the fish much be very large.

The marlin nibbles around the hook for some time, refusing to take the bait fully. Santiago speaks aloud, as if to cajole the fish into accepting the bait. He says, "Come on....Make another turn. Just smell them. Aren't they lovely? Eat them good now and then there is the tuna. Hard and cold and lovely. Don't be shy fish. Eat them" (42). After many false bites, the marlin finally takes the tuna and pulls out a great length of line.

Santiago waits a bit for the marlin to swallow the hook and then pulls hard on the line to bring the marlin up to the surface. The fish is strong, though, and does not come up. Instead, he swims away, dragging the old man and his skiff along behind. Santiago wishes he had Manolin with him to help.

As the sun goes down, the marlin continues on in the same direction, and Santiago loses sight of land altogether. Expressing his resolve, Santiago says, "Fish,...I'll stay with you until I am dead" (52). He expresses ambivalence over whether he wants the fish to jump, wanting to end the struggle as quickly as possible but worrying that the hook might slip out of the fish's mouth. Echoing his former resolve though with less certainty, Santiago says, "Fish,...I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends" (54).

A small bird land on the boat, and while Santiago is speaking to the bird, the marlin lurches forward and pulls the old man down, cutting his hand. Lowering his hand to water to clean it, Santiago notices that the marlin has slowed down. He decides to eat a tuna he has caught in order to give him strength for his ordeal. As he is cutting the fish, though, his left hand cramps. "What kind of hand is that," Santiago says, "Cramp then if you want. Make yourself into a claw. It will do you no good" (58). The old man eats the tuna, hoping it will renew his strength and help release his hand.

Just then, the marlin comes out of the water quickly and descends into the water again. Santiago is amazed by its size, two feet longer than the skiff. He realizes that the marlin could destroy the boat if he wanted to and says, "...[T]hank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able" (63). Santiago says prayers to assuage his worried heart, and settles into the chase once again.

As the sun sets, Santiago thinks back to triumphs of his past in order to give himself more confidence in the present. He remembers a great arm-wrestling match he had at a tavern in Casablanca. It had lasted a full day and a night, but Santiago, El Campeon (The Champion) as he was known then, eventually won. "He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for fishing" (70). He tried to wrestle with his left hand but it was a traitor then as it had been now.

Recalling his exhaustion, Santiago decides that he must sleep some if he is to kill the marlin. He cuts up the dolphin he has caught to prevent spoiling, and eats some of it before contriving a way to sleep. Santiago wraps the line around himself and leans against the bow to anchor himself, leaving his left hand on the rope to wake him if the marlin lurches. Soon, the old man is asleep, dreaming of a school of porpoises, his village house, and finally of the lions of his youth on the African beach.

Santiago is awoken by the line rushing furiously through his right hand. The marlin leaps out of the water and it is all the old man can do to hold onto the line, now cutting his hand badly and dragging him down to the bottom of the skiff. Santiago finds his balance, though, and realizes that the marlin has filled the air sacks on his back and cannot go deep to die. The marlin will circle and then the endgame will begin.

At sunrise, the marlin begins a large circle. Santiago holds the line strongly, pulling it in slowly as the marlin goes round. At the third turn, Santiago sees the fish and is amazed by its size. He readies the harpoon and pulls the line in more. The marlin tries desperately to pull away. Santiago, no longer able to speak for lack of water, thinks, "You are killing me, fish....But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills you" (92). This marlin continues to circle, coming closer and pulling out. At last it is next to the skiff, and Santiago drove his harpoon into the marlin's chest.

"Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty" (94). It crashed into the sea, blinding Santiago with a shower of sea spray. With the glimpse of vision he had, Santiago saw the slain beast laying on its back, crimson blood disseminating into the azure water. Seeing his prize, Santiago says, "I am a tired old man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and now I must do the slave work" (95).

Having killed the Marlin, Santiago lashes its body alongside his skiff. He pulls a line through the marlin's gills and out its mouth, keeping its head near the bow. "I want to see him, he thought, and to touch and to feel him. He is my fortune, he thought" (95). Having secured the marlin to the skiff, Santiago draws the sail and lets the trade wind push him toward the southwest.

An hour after Santiago killed the marlin, a mako shark appears. It had followed the trail of blood the slain marlin left in its wake. As the shark approaches the boat, Santiago prepares his harpoon, hoping to kill the shark before it tears apart the marlin. "The shark's head was out of water and his back was coming out and the old man could hear the noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish when he rammed the harpoon down onto the shark's head" (102). The dead shark slowly sinks into the deep ocean water.

Two hours later, two shovel-nosed sharks arrive at the skiff. After losing his harpoon to the mako, Santiago fastens his knife to the end of the oar and now wields this against the sharks. He kills the first shark easily, but while he does this, the other shark is ripping at the marlin underneath the boat. Santiago lets go of the sheet to swing broadside and reveal the shark underneath. After some struggle, he kills this shark as well.

Santiago apologizes to the fish for the mutilation he has suffered. He admits, "I shouldn't have gone out so far, fish....Neither for you nor for me. I am sorry, fish" (110). Tired and losing hope, Santiago sits and waits for the next attacker, a single shovel-nosed shark. The old man succeeds in killing the fish but breaks his knife blade in the process.

More sharks appear at sunset and Santiago only has a club with which to beat them away. He does not kill the sharks, but damages them enough to prevent their return. Santiago then looks forward to nightfall as he will be able to see the lights of Havana, guiding him back to land. He regrets not having cleaved off the marlin's sword to use as a weapon when he had the knife and apologizes again to the fish. At around ten o'clock, he sees the light of Havana and steers toward it.

In the night, the sharks return. "[B]y midnight he fought and this time he knew the fight was useless. They came in a pack and he could only see the lines in the water their fins made and their phosphorescence as they threw themselves on the fish" (118). He clubs desperately at the fish, but the club was soon taken away by a shark. Santiago grabs the tiller and attacks the sharks until the tiller breaks. "That was the last shark of the pack that came. There was nothing more for them to eat" (119).

Santiago "sailed lightly now and he had no thoughts nor any feelings of any kind" (119). He concentrates purely on steering homewards and ignored the sharks that came to gnaw on the marlin's bones. When he arrives at the harbor, everyone was asleep. Santiago steps out of the boat, carrying the mast back to his shack. "He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder and looked at the road" (121). When he finally arose, he had to sit five times before reaching home. Arriving at his shack, Santiago collapsed on his bed and fell asleep.

Manolin arrives at the shack while Santiago is still asleep. The boy leaves quickly to get some coffee for Santiago, crying on his way to the Terrace. Manolin sees fisherman gathered around the skiff, measuring the marlin at eighteen feet long. When Manolin returns to the shack, Santiago is awake. The two speak for a while, and Manolin says, "Now we will fish together again," To which Santiago replies, "No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore" (125). Manolin objects, "The hell with luck....I'll bring the luck with me" (125). Santiago acquiesces and Manolin leaves to fetch food and a shirt.

That afternoon there are tourists on the Terrace. A female tourist sees the skeleton of the marlin moving in the tide. Not recognizing the skeleton, she asks the waiter what it is. He responds in broken English "eshark," thinking she wants to know what happened. She comments to her partner that she didn't know sharks had such beautiful tails. Meanwhile, back in Santiago's shack, the old man "was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about lions" (127).

[Asalbanoo]

Milton's epic poem opens on the fiery lake of hell, where Satan and his army of fallen angels find themselves chained. Satan and his leutenant Beelzebub get up from the lake and yell to the others to rise and join them. Music plays and banners fly as the army of rebel angels comes to attention, tormented and defeated but faithful to their general. They create a great and terrible temple, perched on a volcano top, and Satan calls a council there to decide on their course of action.

The fallen angels give various suggestions. Finally, Beelzebub suggests that they take the battle to a new battlefield, a place called earth where, it is rumoured, God has created a new being called man. Man is not as powerful as the angels, but he is God's chosen favorite among his creations. Beelzebub suggests that they seek revenge against God by seducing man to their corrupted side. Satan volunteers to explore this new place himself and find out more about man so that he may corrupt him. His fallen army unanimously agrees by banging on their swords.

Satan takes off to the gates of hell, guarded by his daughter, Sin, and their horrible son, Death. Sin agrees to open the gates for her creator (and rapist), knowing that she will follow him and reign with him in whatever kingdom he conquers. Satan then travels through chaos, and finally arrives at earth, connected to heaven by a golden chain.

God witnesses all of this and points out Satan's journey to his Son. God tells his Son that, indeed, Satan will corrupt God's favorite creation, man. His Son offers to die a mortal death to bring man back into the grace and light of God. God agrees and tells how his Son will be born to a virgin. God then makes his Son the king of man, son of both man and God.

Meanwhile, Satan disguises himself as a handsome cherub in order to get by the angel Uriel who is guarding earth. Uriel is impressed that an angel would come all the way from heaven to witness God's creation, and points the Garden of Eden out to Satan. Satan makes his way into the Garden and is in awe at the beauty of Eden and of the handsome couple of Adam and Eve. For a moment, he deeply regrets his fall from grace. This feeling soon turns, however, to hatred.

Uriel, however, has realized that he has been fooled by Satan and tells the angel Gabriel as much. Gabriel finds Satan in the Garden and sends him away.

God, seeing how things are going, sends Raphael to warn Adam and Eve about Satan. Raphael goes down to the Garden and is invited for dinner by Adam and Eve. While there, he narrates how Satan came to fall and the subsequent battle that was held in heaven. Satan first sin was pride, when he took issue with the fact that he had to bow down to the Son. Satan was one of the top angels in heaven and did not understand why he should bow. Satan called a council and convinced many of the angels who were beneath him to join in fighting God.

A tremendous, cosmic three-day battle ensued between Satan's forces and God's forces. On the first day, Satan's forces were beaten back by the army led by the archangels Michael and Gabriel. On the second day, Satan seemed to gain ground by constructing artillery, literally cannons, and turning them against the good forces. On the third day, however, the Son faced Satan's army alone and they quickly retreat, falling through a hole in heaven's fabric and cascading down to hell.

This is the reason, Raphael explains, that God created man: to replace the empty space that the fallen angels have left in heaven. Raphael then tells of how God created man and all the universe in seven days. Adam himself remembers the moment he was created and, as well, how he came to ask God for a companion, Eve. Raphael leaves.

The next morning, Eve insists on working separately from Adam. Satan, in the form of serpent, finds her working alone and starts to flatter her. Eve asks where he learned to speak, and Satan shows her the Tree of Knowledge. Although Eve knows that this was the one tree God had forbidden that they eat from, she is told by Satan that this is only because God knows she will become a goddess herself. Eve eats the fruit and then decides to share it with Adam.

Adam, clearly, is upset that Eve disobeyed God, but he cannot imagine a life without her so he eats the apple as well. They both, then, satiate their new-born lust in the bushes and wake up ashamed, knowing now the difference from good and evil (and, therefore, being able to choose evil). They spend the afternoon blaming each other for their fall.

God sends the Son down to judge the two disobediant creatures. The Son condemns Eve, and all of womankind, to painful childbirths and submission to her husband. He condemns Adam to a life of a painful battle with nature and hard work at getting food from the ground. He condemns the serpent to always crawl on the ground on its belly, always at the heel of Eve's sons.

Satan, in the meantime, returns to hell victorious. On the way, he meets Sin and Death, who have built a bridge from hell to earth, to mankind, whom they will now reign over. When Satan arrives in hell, however, he finds his fallen compatriots not cheering as he had wished, but hissing. The reason behind the horrible hissing soon becomes clear: all of the fallen angels are being transformed into ugly monsters and terrible reptiles. Even Satan finds himself turning into a horrible snake.

Adam and Eve, after bitterly blaming each other, finally decide to turn to God and ask for forgiveness. God hears them and agrees with his Son that he will not lose mankind completely to Sin, Death and Satan. Instead, he will send his son as a man to earth to sacrifice himself and, in so doing, conquer the evil trinity.

Michael is sent by God to escort Adam and Eve out of the Garden. Before he does, however, he tells Adam what will become of mankind unitl the Son comes down to earth. The history of mankind (actually the history of the Jewish people as narrated in the Hebrew Bible) will be a series of falls from grace and acceptance back by God, from Noah and the Flood to the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people.

Adam is thankful that the Son will come down and right what he and Eve have done wrong. He holds Eve's hand as they are escorted out of the Garden.

[Asalbanoo]

One July day in St. Petersburg, a poor young man slips out of his apartment and goes out. He is Rodion Romanych Raskolnikov, a former student, and he is preoccupied with something. He arrives at the apartment of Alyona Ivanovna, a pawnbroker, where he is attempting a trial of the unknown deed obsessing him.

He has pawned something to this woman a month before, and now pawns an old watch for much less than he had hoped to get. As the woman gets her money, he watches and listens very carefully, storing up details in his memory. He leaves after vaguely mentioning that he may come back soon with another pledge.

Tormented, he wanders down the street, mentally at war with himself. He happens upon a tavern, where he stops to eat and drink something, and feels better after doing so. There, he meets Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a retired official and a drunkard. Marmeladov pours out his life story to Raskolnikov, telling about his consumptive wife Katerina Ivanovna, his three small children, and his oldest daughter Sofya (Sonya), who has had to prostitute herself to earn money for the family. Marmeladov himself had recently acquired a position, but almost immediately lost it through his alcoholism. He has been away from home for five days, having stolen his salary money and spent it all on drink.

Marmeladov asks Raskolnikov to take him home. Rodion does so, and witnesses how Katerina Ivanovna falls on her husband and drags him about by his hair. She kicks Raskolnikov out, assuming him to be a drinking partner of her husband's. As he leaves, he places a handful of change on their windowsill unnoticed. Outside, he regrets this action, but knows he cannot go back to get the money.

The next day, he awakens feeling unrested. Nastasya, the landlady's servant, comes in with some tea for him, as well as leftovers from the previous day's meal (since he is behind on his rent, the landlady has stopped sending his dinner up to him). She also tells him that he has received a letter. Agitated, he sends her to get it, and orders her out of the room so he can read it.

The letter is from his mother, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, and mostly concerns his sister Avdotya Romanovna, or Dunya. Dunya had been working as a governess in the house of the Svidrigailov family, but the husband's unfortunate attraction to her led the wife to kick Dunya out on the assumption that the girl had initiated the attraction. Marfa Petrovna, the wife, then proceeded to sully Dunya's reputation about town, until Svidrigailov himself came forward with evidence of Dunya's purity and innocence. At that point, Marfa Petrovna had completely reversed herself, and gone about restoring Dunya's honor with comic zeal. She had also arranged for a relation of hers, one Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, to meet Dunya, and this gentleman had become engaged to Dunya. Following Luzhin, Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dunya would be coming to Petersburg shortly, and are very much looking forward to seeing Rodion.

Rodya goes out to walk around and think. Though his mother puts a positive spin on everything, it is clear that Luzhin does not love Dunya and is not worthy of her, and that Dunya knows this but has resolved to marry him to materially benefit her family. Rodya, disgusted and angered, refuses to accept this self-sacrifice; but after resolving to stop the engagement, he immediately questions his own "right" to get involved.

Raskolnikov realizes that he had been automatically on his way to see Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin, his only friend from university. He decides he will see Razumikhin the day after "that," i.e. the unknown deed. He wanders about and ends up falling asleep by the side of the road. He dreams about watching a group of peasants beating an old nag viciously until the poor horse collapses and dies.

He awakens in a sweat, profoundly thankful that it was only a dream. He rethinks "that," and suddenly concludes that he could never do it. Feeling better, renewed, he heads for home. However, he takes a detour through the Haymarket. There, he overhears a conversation between Lizaveta Ivanovna, the pawnbroker's half-sister, and a couple of tradespeople. It turns out that Lizaveta will be out on business the following evening. Raskolnikov is suddenly possessed with the fact that Alyona Ivanovna will definitely be alone at a time he knows of‹that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He goes home and falls into a long, strange, troubled sleep. He wakes up in the evening, and fears he may have missed his chance. He immediately bustles about, making his preparations: the deed that has been obsessing him is the murder and robbery of the pawnbroker. He plans to retain complete control over his reason and will, and thereby commit the perfect crime, and perhaps use the fruits of it (i.e. the stolen goods) to help others.

Raskolnikov makes his way to Alyona Ivanovna's. He enters on the pretext of having a new pledge for her. As she struggles with the deliberately difficult knots, he takes out his axe and hits her on the head with it until she dies.

Nerve-wracked, he fumbles about before finally unlocking a trunk full of goods. As he is stuffing his pockets, he hears a footstep. Frozen, he realizes in panic that someone has come in. Grabbing the axe, he rushes out into the room. There stands Lizaveta, staring at the body of her half-sister. Rodya rushes at her and kills her with the axe as well.

Hearing people outside, Raskolnikov hooks the door-latch and crouches behind it, listening. The visitors, suspecting something wrong, run to get help. Quietly Rodya slips out of the apartment and manages to leave the building and return home unnoticed, though he is practically collapsing.

After a fitful sleep punctuated by moments of frenzied activity, Rodya is awakened by Nastasya coming in with the caretaker, who hands him a summons to go to the police station. Panicked, he wonders why he has been summoned, and despite his clear illness, he gets up to go.

His nerves are frayed, but when he gets to the station he finds that he has been called to make a payment on a promissory note he had written long ago for his landlady. Relieved, he writes a statement of his promise to pay, directed by the clerk. However, the chief of police Nikodim Fomich and his assistant Ilya Petrovich are talking about the murders, and Raskolnikov faints.

He recovers to find them all looking at him strangely. Ilya Petrovich starts to ask him where he was the previous night. Nikodim Fomich reproaches Ilya Petrovich and Raskolnikov is dismissed.

Rodya returns home, where he makes sure his apartment has not been searched, and gathers up all the stolen goods from where he had hidden them. He goes out and ends up hiding them beneath a stone in a deserted courtyard.

He drops in on Razumikhin, who is utterly astonished to see him. However, Raskolnikov leaves almost as soon as he has arrived, throwing Razumikhin into indignant frustration.

Rodya returns home and goes to bed. The next morning he falls unconscious, at last succumbing to an illness that had been coming on for quite some time.

When he at last comes to, Razumikhin is there, having tended him through his illness, and Rodya receives 35 roubles from his mother, who has borrowed it on the security of her pension. Razumikhin, who has befriended practically everyone in Rodya's life by this point, has recovered Rodya's promissory note and takes some of the money to buy him new (actually second-hand) clothes.

Dr. Zossimov checks on Rodya, and while he is there he and Razumikhin start talking about the murders. Razumikhin has gotten to know Zamyotov, the clerk at the police station, and they are hoping to absolve the current suspect, Nikolai Dementiev, who had been working as a painter in the house at the time of the crime. Raskolnikov is tortured by all this.

Amidst the discussion, Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, Dunya's fiancé, enters. He has come to call on Rodion, but the visit ends disastrously in a quarrel, with Rodya kicking him out.

Rodya orders everyone else to leave, and after he is alone he gets up and goes out. After wandering aimlessly, he enters the Crystal Palace tavern, where he encounters Zamyotov. He engages in a mind-game with the clerk, taunting him and leading him to believe that he was the murderer‹before pulling him up short and accusing him of believing it. He exits, leaving Zamyotov convinced that Rodya cannot possibly be the murderer.

On his way out, Rodya runs into Razumikhin, who is enraged at his irresponsible disappearance, especially as he is ill. They argue, but in the end Razumikhin invites him to a party he is having that evening. Rodya walks off. Razumikhin, frustrated, goes in to talk to Zamyotov.

Rodya wanders about, considers jumping into the river, then turns to go to the police station. On his way, however, he passes Alyona Ivanovna's house. Inexplicably impelled, he goes in to the apartment, where workmen are renovating the place. He scares them by asking about the blood and ringing the doorbell incessantly just to hear the sound. They all go downstairs, and there is much discussion about taking this madman to the police, which he agrees with. But in the end he is ordered off the premises.

In doubt as to whether he should go, he hesitates in the street. He spots a commotion and approaches it. It turns out that Marmeladov, drunk, has been run over by a carriage. Rodya takes charge and conveys Marmeladov to his apartment. They send for a doctor and a priest. Sonya is also sent for, and Marmeladov, after begging forgiveness, dies in her arms. Rodya gives Katerina Ivanovna all of his money, everything he has left from what his mother had sent him, for the funeral, and leaves.

He feels renewed. On his way home, he stops at Razumikhin's. Razumikhin, who has had a lot to drink, walks him home. They open the door to find Rodya's sister and mother there. Overcome, Rodya passes out. He recovers to demand that Dunya break off her engagement with Luzhin, and is generally rude and sullen. Razumikhin is indignant, and takes the ladies under his wing. He escorts them home and, having been immediately smitten with the beautiful Dunya, promises to return twice to report on Rodya's state. Despite the ladies' doubts about his abilities, he carries out his promises to the full.

The next day he is embarrassed as he recalls his drunken behavior, but when he goes to see the women they are not only kind but grateful. They ask him all sorts of questions about Rodya. They also show him a letter they had received from Luzhin that morning, requesting a meeting at 8:00 pm, and demanding that Rodya not be present. They go to see Rodya and find him with Zossimov. Rodya is strange and somehow distant, and the meeting is tense. Rodya tells Dunya that she must choose between him and Luzhin. She asks him and Razumikhin to be present at the meeting at 8:00.

Sonya, who has been mentioned disparagingly in Luzhin's letter, enters the room. She and Rodya are both somehow embarrassed, but he seats her next to his mother and sister, introducing them. His family leaves shortly thereafter. Rodya bids Sonya wait, takes Razumikhin aside to ask him about going to see Porfiry Petrovich (a relation of Razumikhin's and the investigator assigned to the murder case), and they all walk out together. Rodya promises to call on Sonya later, and asks her address. They part on the street. A stranger who has heard Sonya address Rodya by name follows her home, and is surprised to find that he lives next door to her.

Rodya enters Porfiry Petrovich's apartment in high humor, but is startled to see Zamyotov there as well. The conversation does not go very well; Rodya quickly loses his grip on his composure in the face of Porfiry's inscrutability. Porfiry, who is very interested in psychology, mentions an article Rodya had written entitled "On Crime," in which he explores the criminal psychology and introduces his own theory. This theory states that humanity is divided into the masses and the leaders, the "extraordinary" men who have great ideas and something new to say. Rodya argues that if such men find it necessary to commit crimes in the pursuit of their ideas, they have the right to do so in their own consciences.

Porfiry invites him to his office the next day. Rodya and Razumikhin leave to go meet with Dunya and her mother. As they approach, Rodya suddenly tells Razumikhin that he has something to do, but will catch up with them later. He hastens back to his flat, checks to see if he has left any evidence in his room, then wanders out. Outside, the caretaker points out a tradesman who had been asking after Rodya. The tradesman, still there, looks at Rodya and walks away without a word. Rodya catches up with him and asks his business. The man calls him a murderer, and disappears without explanation.

Weak, Rodya returns to his room and lies down. His thoughts swirl around this unknown man who seems to know everything. He reflects on his failure in committing the crime‹he has proved not to be an "extraordinary" man but a "louse." He falls asleep and has tormented dreams. He awakens to find a stranger in his room. The man introduces himself as Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov.

After some strange conversation, Rodya demands to know the man's business. He replies that he has come to offer Dunya 10,000 roubles to break off her engagement with Luzhin. Indignant at first, Rodya at last consents to pass on the message to her. On his way out, Svidrigailov informs Rodya that Marfa Petrovna, who had died recently, has left Dunya 3,000 roubles in her will.

Razumikhin comes to get Rodya, and they head for their meeting. On the way Rodya entrusts his family to Razumikhin's care. At the meeting, Dunya announces that she wishes Luzhin and Rodya to reconcile. Luzhin, however, refuses, and it is not long before another quarrel erupts and Dunya, angered and insulted, breaks off the engagement and kicks him out. Luzhin departs, seething with hatred for Rodya and nourishing the hope that he may be able to reconcile yet with Dunya and her mother.

Everyone is joyful, especially at Marfa Petrovna's bequest to Dunya, and they start planning for the future. Rodya, however, abruptly leaves, requesting to be left alone. Razumikhin chases after him. Rodya once more entrusts his family to Razumikhin's care, and they exchange a long look in the hallway, through which Rodya seems to transmit his horrible secret to Razumikhin.

Rodya immediately goes to Sonya. He torments her, yet also kisses her foot. He wonders how she has managed to keep her soul untainted, and learns that her unshakeable faith in God has preserved her. Suspecting that she is a "holy fool," he asks her to read him the story of Lazarus from the Bible. After she does so, he promises to tell her who killed Lizaveta if he comes back the next day, and departs. On the other side of the door sits Svidrigailov, who has been listening with great interest to the entire conversation.

The next morning, Rodya goes to Porfiry Petrovich's office. Again, the conversation goes badly, as Rodya is unable to read Porfiry. It is a game of psychological cat and mouse, and Porfiry uses thinly-veiled references to Rodya's own behavior to point out that human nature is on the investigator's side, because it will eventually lead the criminal to break down. Frustrated by Porfiry's repeated attempts to catch him up with lies, Rodya erupts in fear and indignation. As he is leaving, Nikolai Dementiev, the house-painter who has been under suspicion in the murder case, bursts in, falls on his knees, and intones a confession, throwing Porfiry off in a way that cheers Raskolnikov.

Rodya goes home for a little while, then gets up to go to Marmeladov's memorial meal. At his door, he encounters the tradesman who had accused him of being a murderer. The man asks forgiveness for his suspicion. He leaves Rodya a new man, refreshed by the fact that Porfiry now has not a single thing to make his suspicions stick.

Luzhin, upset at losing Dunya, concocts a plan to discredit Raskolnikov to his family by framing and slandering Sonya, and thereby return into Dunya's good graces. Before Marmeladov's memorial meal, Luzhin calls Sonya in, and gives her 10 roubles out of a large stack of money he has been counting, in the presence of his roommate, Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov.

Sonya then goes to the meal, where Rodya sits with Katerina Ivanovna and a host of other rather unpleasant guests. The meal goes badly, and is on the point of breaking out into a fight when Luzhin enters. He accuses Sonya of having stolen 100 roubles from him. She denies it, but a search turns up the money in her pocket. Before the police can be called, however, Lebezyatnikov, who has been watching, announces that Luzhin had planted the money on Sonya without her knowing. Rodya steps forward to explain Luzhin's probable motivation. Luzhin escapes before he suffers at the hands of the company. Chaos ensues: Sonya runs home hysterically, the landlady kicks the Marmeladovs out, and Katerina Ivanovna goes out to seek justice.

Rodya goes to Sonya's place and confesses his crime to her. She is horrified, incredulous at first, but in the end she hears his explanations and sees his torment. She tells him that he must confess his crime to the world. He resists this idea, though he knows he will eventually be imprisoned.

Lebezyatnikov comes in to tell them that Katerina Ivanovna has gone mad and is making her children sing in the streets for money. Sonya runs out. Rodya goes home. Unexpectedly, Dunya comes in. She tells him that Razumikhin had told her that Rodya is under suspicion for murder, and that she is there for him if he needs her. After she leaves, he goes out again, and encounters Lebezyatnikov, who takes him to where Katerina Ivanovna and her children are.

Katerina Ivanovna is nearly raving, and her children are terrified. She refuses to go back to the apartment. The children try to run away, and in chasing them she collapses. In the final stages of her consumption, she is taken to Sonya's apartment, where she dies.

Svidrigailov tells Rodya that he will provide for her children, and then drops a few quotes to show Rodya that he had been eavesdropping on Rodya's confession to Sonya. Terrified, Rodya plunges into a time of vagueness, wandering about aimlessly. One day Razumikhin comes into his room to vent his indignation at Rodya's treatment of his family. As he leaves, Rodya commends the ladies to Razumikhin's care, and even mentions that Dunya may love him already. Razumikhin leaves, elated, but pokes his head back in to tell Rodya that the painter Nikolai confessed to the murders; Porfiry himself told Razumikhin all about it.

Rodya, unburdened by this unexpected news, is about to go out and find Svidrigailov when Porfiry comes in. They sit down. Porfiry tells Rodya that he knows he is guilty, and that he should turn himself in. He exhorts Rodya not to give up on life, because he has his whole life before him. After telling him that he will probably arrest him within two days, Porfiry takes his leave of Rodion, wishing him well.

Rodya leaves in search of Svidrigailov. He finds him in a tavern. He tells Svidrigailov point-blank that if he plans to blackmail Dunya with his knowledge of Rodya's secret, Rodya will kill him.

Svidrigailov, rather drunk, talks about Marfa Petrovna and his attempted seduction of Dunya. He also tells Rodion about his new 16-year-old fiancée. Rodya, disgusted by him, gets up to go. They both leave at about the same time. Rodya follows Svidrigailov for a little while before he is convinced that Svidrigailov has no plans to meet Dunya that day. He leaves him.

Almost immediately, Dunya enters the picture, indeed to meet with Svidrigailov, who has sent her a letter mentioning Rodya's secret and promising to provide proof. He takes her to his apartment, ostensibly to provide proof but really to blackmail her. Too late, she finds herself locked in the room with him. She has brought a gun, however, and threatens to shoot him if he comes near her. In the end, she drops the gun and he, touched by this, drops his threatening demeanor. When he establishes that she can never love him, he tells her to leave quickly. He leaves his apartment, spends the remainder of the day wandering about and settling his affairs, and shoots himself the next morning.

Later that day, Rodya goes to see his mother for the last time before turning himself in. He then hurries home, where he finds Dunya waiting for him. He takes leave of her and goes to Sonya. She gives him a cross. He rushes out rudely, not even saying goodbye to her, impatient to get it over with, even though he can't understand why he should go, because he still does not see his act as a crime.

He goes to the station, with Sonya following him. He finds out that Svidrigailov is dead, and, stunned, leaves without confessing; but Sonya is waiting for him, and he goes back upstairs and confesses.

Rodya is exiled to Siberia, where Sonya follows him. Dunya marries Razumikhin. Pulcheria Alexandrovna dies. Sonya writes to the Razumikhins about Rodya. He is unsociable and hated by his fellow prisoners. He falls ill. At the end of his illness, Sonya herself is ill, and he misses her. When she recovers, she goes to him, and he at last repents truly, falling at her feet and weeping. Having finally recognized his sin, he is resurrected‹able to love Sonya and look forward to his life with her.

[love-to-learn]

Dear Asalbanoo,

It's a while I have been trying to spare some time to read some of these novels but as I'm always short of time, I didn't succeed.
Now I'm happy to have the chance to read their summaries. it's perfect, keep going.
I have seen some of the films based on these novels but books also have their own attraction.

Cheers

[Asalbanoo]

The narrator, Jake Barnes, describes Robert Cohn, a rich Jew who graduated from Princeton with low self-esteem, had an unsuccessful marriage, lost most of his inheritance, and moved to Paris with an exploitative woman, Frances, to write a novel. Jake plays tennis with him. Cohn sold his novel in America and returned with arrogance and a craving for adventure. He frequently imposes on Jake.
One night, Jake picks up a girl, Georgette, and turns down her sexual advances, explaining he is "sick." They end up at a dancing-club, where Jake sees the beautiful and independent Lady Ashley, known to him as Brett. He eventually leaves with her; they have had a romantic relationship in the past, and though they kiss, Brett does not want to go through "'that hell again.'" They briefly discuss Jake's physical condition, which appears to be impotence. They meet one of Brett's friends, Count Mippipopolous. Jake makes plans to see her tomorrow. In his bed, he cries when thinking about Brett, and is woken when Brett drunkenly comes up. She invites him to go out with her and the count for dinner tomorrow, kisses him, and leaves.
The next day, Cohn asks Jake about Brett; he explains she's getting a divorce now and is going to marry Mike Campbell, who is currently in Scotland. Cohn admits he's falling in love with her. Jake says he met her while he was in a hospital during the war; she was a volunteer nurse and had married the man whose name she took, Ashley. Later, after Brett blows off a date with Jake, Frances humiliates Cohn in front of Jake. Jake leaves, unable to stand it.
Brett shows up with the count. Brett joins Jake in his room, and Jake says he loves her. Brett sends the count out for champagne. Jake asks Brett if they could live together, but she says they couldn't, as she would "tromper" (be unfaithful to, or elude) him. She says she is going away from him tomorrow, to San Sebastian, until Mike comes back. The count returns and shows his scars on his stomach and back from arrow wounds in various wars. They go to a club. Brett tells Jake about Mike, then tells Jake she is "'so miserable.'" They take the count's car to her hotel, but Brett doesn't want Jake to come up with her. They kiss at her door, but Brett pushes him away before leaving.
Jake does not see Brett until she returns from San Sebastian, nor does he see Cohn, who takes a trip to the country. He works hard in preparation for his trip at the end of June to Spain with Bill Gorton. Bill arrives in Paris, and they run into Brett, just back from her trip. That night, they meet up with Brett and Mike. Brett introduces Mike as an "'undischarged bankrupt'"; he explains that his ex-partner "'did me in.'" Mike is very drunk and possessive of Brett.
Jake receives a letter from the vacationing Cohn, who is eager to go on the fishing trip with Jake and Bill. Jake writes him and gives him instructions for where to meet them in Spain. Mike also asks if Jake would mind if they accompanied him to Spain, and Jake says it's fine. When Mike leaves, Brett tells Jake that it might be "'rough'" on Cohn to accompany them, as she went to San Sebastian with him. Bill and Jake take a train to Bayonne and meet Cohn that night.
Jake, Bill, and Cohn hire a car and drive to Pamplona. They discuss Brett and Mike; Cohn bets Bill that they won't arrive. At night, Jake and Cohn go to meet Brett and Mike's train; they are not on it. Cohn tells Bill not to worry about the bet. Jake receives a telegram from Brett and Mike; they've stopped over in San Sebastian. They make plans to leave tomorrow; if Brett and Mike get in later, they can follow them. The next day, Cohn says he won't be leaving with them. He explains that he is supposed to meet Brett and Mike in San Sebastian, as he had suggested it to Brett. Bill and Jake share information about Cohn and Brett, and decide they're better off without him and take a bus to Burguete for fishing.
Bill and Jake bond while fishing, and meet an Englishman named Harris at their inn. One day, Jake receives a letter from Mike; Brett passed out on the train, so they decided to recuperate in San Sebastian with old friends. He says they are going to Pamplona. Jake and Bill take a bus to Pamplona. They talk to the head of the hotel, Montoya, and learn about the bull-fights for the next couple of days. Montoya believes he and Jake are true, passionate "aficionados" of bull-fighting. The good bull-fighters stay at Montoya's hotel. Jake describes the "unloadings" of the bull-fights to Bill: they release the bulls from their corrals, and they chase and gore steers, young oxen castrated before sexual maturity. The purpose is to calm down the bulls and prevent them from fighting each other. Jake and Bill find Brett, Mike, and Cohn, and they watch the bulls unloaded. One steer is gored and excluded, while the other befriends the bulls. Brett is fascinated. Later, Mike says Cohn follows Brett around like a steer and that he is not wanted. Bill leads Cohn away. While Mike knows Brett has affairs -- she tells him -- he finds Cohn pathetic. Later, everyone has a pleasant dinner together, pretending nothing happened. Jake has a rough night, tormenting himself with thoughts of Brett. Pamplona gets ready the next two days for the fiesta.
The fiesta explodes at noontime on Sunday. While some people are at mass, as San Fermin is also a religious festival, music, dancing, and drinking fill the streets.
Wearing wreaths of garlic, dancers chant around Brett in a circle. They do the same to Bill and Jake. Afterwards, they seat Brett on a cask from which they draw wine, and give her a wreath of garlic. Jake, Bill, and Mike share food and drink with the Spaniards. Jake wakes the next morning to the rocket announcing the release of the bulls. He watches from the balcony. Men run down the street to the bull-ring, chased by bulls.
Jake and his friends go to the bull-fight that afternoon. Jake gives some advice to Brett about watching the fight; she is nervous about what will happen when the bull attacks the horse. Jake returns to the hotel for his wine-skin, where Montoya briefly introduces him to Pedro Romero, an extremely good-looking young bull-fighter. Jack finds the fight good, as Romero is a "real" bull-fighter. Later, Mike points out and Brett admits that she could not stop staring at Romero. Romero dominates the second day of fighting. Jake explains to Brett why Romero is so skilled a matador. Mike jokes that Brett is falling in love with Romero.
At dinner in the hotel, Romero invites Jake to his table. They discuss bull-fighting. Jake introduces him to his friends, and Brett flirts with Romero; Mike, drunk and disorderly, makes disparaging comments to Romero and, when he leaves, to Cohn. Later, Brett tells Cohn to leave her and Jake alone. She admits she has fallen in love with Romero and cannot help it. She feels she has to do something, as she has lost her self-respect with the way Mike and Cohn are around her. She asks Jake to help her through this, and they find Romero in the café with other bull-fighters. Romero joins them. Jake leaves with an excuse, but he makes it clear it is to leave Romero and Brett alone. When he returns later, they are gone.
Jake reunites with Mike, Bill, and Cohn. Mike says that Brett has gone off with Romero. Cohn asks Jake if it's true, and when he receives no answer, calls Jake a "'pimp.'" They fight, and Cohn beats up Jake and Mike. Later, at the hotel, Bill tells Jake that Cohn wants to see him. Jake reluctantly goes to Cohn's room. Cohn is crying and begs Jake's forgiveness, and says he'll be leaving in the morning. He says he can't take the way Brett treats him like a stranger, after they had lived together in San Sebastian. Jake says goodbye to him.
Jakes wakes and goes to the bull-ring to watch the bulls run in. A bull gores one man in the back. Jake reads about the man in the paper the next day, and the town has a funeral for him the day after that. Jake describes how Romero killed the bull the afternoon of the funeral. Its ear was cut off and given to Romero, who gave it to Brett. She discarded the ear in her hotel room's drawer. Bill and Mike tell Jake that after Cohn beat up him and Mike, he found Brett in Romero's room and beat up Romero badly. When he tried to apologize to Romero, the bull-fighter hit Cohn in the face, and then threatened to kill him if he weren't out of town by the morning. Brett told Cohn off until he cried. Brett is now taking care of Romero. Mike also relates Brett's unhappy relationship with the Englishman Lord Ashley (from whom she received her title).
It is the last day of the fiesta. Brett tells Jake and Bill at the café that Romero is badly hurt and won't leave his room, though he is still going to fight. Mike angrily tips over the table. Brett leaves with Jake. She tells him she is happy, and asks him to go to the fight with her. After lunch, Jake, Bill, and Brett sit ring-side at the fight. Three matadors are there -- Romero, Marcial, and Belmonte. Belmonte, a legend who recently came out retirement, renowned for working close to the bull and gravely endangering himself, goes first and is very good, but not as good as he used to be, and the crowd turns against him. Romero is elegant in the "quite," in which the bull charges all three matadors. With his own bull, whose vision is impaired, Romero works to make the match exciting, but the crowd does not understand the situation, and believes he is afraid. He brilliantly handles the last bull, the one that gored the man the other day. His brother cuts the ear off the bull and hands it to Romero, who gives it to Brett. That night, Mike tells Jake that Brett left with Romero on the train.
The fiesta is over the next morning. The men split up, and Jake ends up in San Sebastian. He spends several relaxing days there until he receives a telegram from Brett in Madrid, saying she is in trouble and asking him to come to her hotel. He arrives in Madrid on the overnight train. Brett is happy to see him and kisses him, and says she made Romero leave yesterday. He wanted to marry her so that she "'couldn't go away from him.'" Ultimately, she feels she could have lived with him had she not seen it would be bad for him. Brett cries, and Jake holds her. She says she is returning to Mike. They get train tickets for that night, and later go for a taxi ride through Madrid. Brett laments that she and Jake could have had "'such a damned good time together.'" Jake replies, "'YesŠIsn't it pretty to think so?'"

[Asalbanoo]

THE NARRATOR, AN AIRPLANE PILOT, crashes in the Sahara desert. The crash badly damages his airplane and leaves the narrator with very little food or water. As he is worrying over his predicament, he is approached by the little prince, a very serious little blond boy who asks the narrator to draw him a sheep. The narrator obliges, and the two become friends. The pilot learns that the little prince comes from a small planet that the little prince calls Asteroid 325 but that people on Earth call Asteroid B-612. The little prince took great care of this planet, preventing any bad seeds from growing and making sure it was never overrun by baobab trees. One day, a mysterious rose sprouted on the planet and the little prince fell in love with it. But when he caught the rose in a lie one day, he decided that he could not trust her anymore. He grew lonely and decided to leave. Despite a last-minute reconciliation with the rose, the prince set out to explore other planets and cure his loneliness.
While journeying, the narrator tells us, the little prince passes by neighboring asteroids and encounters for the first time the strange, narrow-minded world of grown-ups. On the first six planets the little prince visits, he meets a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographer, all of whom live alone and are overly consumed by their chosen occupations. Such strange behavior both amuses and perturbs the little prince. He does not understand their need to order people around, to be admired, and to own everything. With the exception of the lamplighter, whose dogged faithfulness he admires, the little prince does not think much of the adults he visits, and he does not learn anything useful. However, he learns from the geographer that flowers do not last forever, and he begins to miss the rose he has left behind.
At the geographer’s suggestion, the little prince visits Earth, but he lands in the middle of the desert and cannot find any humans. Instead, he meets a snake who speaks in riddles and hints darkly that its lethal poison can send the little prince back to the heavens if he so wishes. The little prince ignores the offer and continues his explorations, stopping to talk to a three-petaled flower and to climb the tallest mountain he can find, where he confuses the echo of his voice for conversation. Eventually, the little prince finds a rose garden, which surprises and depresses him—his rose had told him that she was the only one of her kind.
The prince befriends a fox, who teaches him that the important things in life are visible only to the heart, that his time away from the rose makes the rose more special to him, and that love makes a person responsible for the beings that one loves. The little prince realizes that, even though there are many roses, his love for his rose makes her unique and that he is therefore responsible for her. Despite this revelation, he still feels very lonely because he is so far away from his rose. The prince ends his story by describing his encounters with two men, a railway switchman and a salesclerk.
It is now the narrator’s eighth day in the desert, and at the prince’s suggestion, they set off to find a well. The water feeds their hearts as much as their bodies, and the two share a moment of bliss as they agree that too many people do not see what is truly important in life. The little prince’s mind, however, is fixed on returning to his rose, and he begins making plans with the snake to head back to his planet. The narrator is able to fix his plane on the day before the one-year anniversary of the prince’s arrival on Earth, and he walks sadly with his friend out to the place the prince landed. The snake bites the prince, who falls noiselessly to the sand.
The narrator takes comfort when he cannot find the prince’s body the next day and is confident that the prince has returned to his asteroid. The narrator is also comforted by the stars, in which he now hears the tinkling of his friend’s laughter. Often, however, he grows sad and wonders if the sheep he drew has eaten the prince’s rose. The narrator concludes by showing his readers a drawing of the desert landscape and by asking us to stop for a while under the stars if we are ever in the area and to let the narrator know immediately if the little prince has returned.

[Asalbanoo]

John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the specific story of the Joad family in order to illustrate the hardship and oppression suffered by migrant laborers during the Great Depression. It is an explicitly political tract that champions collectivist action by the lower classes over expressions of individualist self-interest and chastises corporate and banking elites for shortsighted policies meant to maximize profit even while forcing farmers into destitution and even starvation.
The novel begins with the description of the conditions in Dust Bowl Oklahoma that ruined the crops and instigated massive foreclosures on farmland. No specific characters emerge initially, a technique that Steinbeck will return to several times in the book, juxtaposing descriptions of events in a larger social context with those more specific to the Joad family.
Tom Joad, a man not yet thirty, approaches a diner dressed in spotless, somewhat formal clothing. He hitches a ride with a truck driver at the diner, who presses Tom for information until Tom finally reveals that he was just released from McAlester prison, where he served four years for murdering a man during a fight. Steinbeck follows this with an interlude describing a turtle crossing the road, which he uses as a metaphor for the struggles of the working class.
On his travels home, Tom meets his former preacher, Jim Casy, a talkative man gripped by doubts over religious teachings and the presence of sin. He gave up the ministry after realizing that he found little wrong with the sexual liaisons he had with women in his congregation. Casy espouses the view that what is holy in human nature comes not from a distant god, but from the people themselves. Steinbeck contrasts Tom's return with the arrival of bank representatives to evict the tenant farmers and the tractors to farm the land. He raises the possibility of a working class insurrection, but cannot find an effective target for collective action.
When Tom and Casy reach the Joad's house, it has been deserted. Muley Graves, a local elderly man who may not be sane, tells them that the Joads have been evicted, and now stay with Uncle John. Muley's own family has left to find work in California, but Muley decided to stay himself. That night, since they are trespassing on the property now owned by the bank, the three are forced to hide from the police who might arrest them.
Steinbeck follows this with a description of the tactics that car dealers use to exploit impoverished customers. They find that they can make a greater profit by selling damaged jalopies than by selling dependable new cars.
Tom Joad finds the rest of his family staying with Uncle John, a morose man prone to depression after the death of his wife several years before. His mother is a strong, sturdy woman who is the moral center of family life. His brother, Noah, may have been brain damaged during childbirth, while his sister, Rose of Sharon (called Rosasharn by the family) is recently married and pregnant. Her husband, Connie Rivers, has dreams of studying radios. Tom's younger brother, Al, is only sixteen and has the concerns befitting that age. This is followed by a more general description of the sale of items by impoverished families who intend to leave Oklahoma for California, as the Joads expect to do.
The Joads plan to go to California based on flyers they found advertising work in the fields there. These flyers, as Steinbeck will soon reveal, are fraudulent advertisements meant to draw more workers than necessary and drive down wages. Jim Casy asks to accompany the Joads to California so that he can work with people in the fields rather than preach at them. Before the family leaves, Grampa Joad refuses to go, but the family gives him medicine that knocks him unconscious and takes him with them. The subsequent chapters describes the vacant houses that remain after the Oklahoma farmers leave for work elsewhere, as well as the conditions on Route 66, the highway that stretches from Oklahoma to Bakersfield, California.
Almost immediately into the journey, the Joad family loses two members. The first victim is the family dog, which is run over during their first stop. The second is Grampa Joad, who dies of a stroke. The Wilson family helps the Joads when Grampa dies, and the two families decide to make the journey to California together. Steinbeck follows this with a larger statement about the growing of a collective consciousness among the working class, who shift their perceptions from "I" to "we."
The Wilson's car soon breaks down, and Tom and Casy consider separating from the rest of the family temporarily to fix the car, but Ma Joad refuses to let the family break apart even temporarily. Tom and Al do find the necessary part to fix the car at a junkyard, where the one-eyed man who watches over the junkyard complains about his boss and threatens to murder him. Before the Joads set out on their journey again, they find a man returning from California who tells them that there is no work there, and the promises of work in the flyers are a fraud.
The Joads and Wilsons reach California, where they are immediately subjected to intimidation by police officers who derisively call them and other migrant laborers "Okies." At the first camp where they stay, Granma becomes quite ill, but receives some comfort from proselytizing Jehovites who merely annoy Ma Joad. The police force them out of the camp, but the Wilsons choose the possibility of arrest instead, since Sairy Wilson is too sick to continue. The next time that the police stop the Joads on their travels, Ma Joad forces them to let them pass without inspection. She does this to hide from the police the fact that Granma has died.
Steinbeck follows this with a description of the history of California, which he frames as one marked by oppression and slavery. However, he predicts an imminent revolution, for the people there have been deprived to such a great degree that they must take what they need in order to survive.
At the next camp where the Joads stay on their search for work, they learn about Weedpatch, a government camp where the residents do not face harassment by police officers and have access to amenities including baths and toilets. When more police officers attempt to start a fight with Tom and several other migrant workers, Tom trips him and Casy knocks him unconscious. To prevent Tom from taking the blame, for he would be sent back to jail for violating his parole, Casy accepts responsibility for the crime and is taken away to jail. The rest of the family begins to break apart as well. Uncle John leaves to get drunk, Noah decides to leave society altogether and live alone in the woodlands, and Connie abandons his pregnant wife. Before they must move on, Tom does retrieve Uncle John, who is still consumed with guilt over his wife's death. They head north toward the government camp.
At the government camp, the Joads are shocked to find how well the other residents treat them and how efficiently this society ¬ in which the camp leaders are elected by the residents ¬ functions. Tom even finds work the next day, but the contractor, Mr. Thomas, warns him that there will be trouble at the dance at Weedpatch that weekend. Since the police can only enter the camp if there is trouble, they intend to plant intruders there who will instigate violence.
The Joads settle into a comfortable existence at the government camp, and during the dance that Saturday, Tom and several other residents defuse the situation, preventing the police from taking control of the camp. Nevertheless, after a month in Weedpatch none of the Joads have found steady work and realize that they must continue on their journey. They arrive at Hooper Ranch, where the entire family picks peaches. The wages they receive are higher than normal, for they are breaking a strike. Tom finds out that the leader of the labor force that is organizing the strike is Jim Casy. After his time in prison, Casy realized that he must fight for collective action by the working class against the wealthy ruling class. Tom, Casy and the other strike leaders get into a fight with strike breakers, and one of them murders Casy with a pick handle. Tom struggles with the man and wrests away the weapon. He, in turn, kills the man who murdered Casy, and barely escapes capture by the police.
Although Tom wishes to leave the family to spare them from taking responsibility for him, the Joads nevertheless decide to leave Hooper Ranch for a location where Tom can be safe. They reach cotton fields up north, where Tom hides in the woods while the family stays in a boxcar. Although the family attempts to keep Tom's identity and location a secret, young Ruthie Winfield reveals it during a fight with another child. When Ma tells Tom about this, he decides to leave the family and go off alone, determined to fight for the cause for which Casy died, and vows to return to his family one day.
The raining season arrived almost immediately after Tom left the family, causing massive flooding. The Joads are caught in a dangerous situation: they cannot escape the flooding because Rose of Sharon suddenly goes into labor. While other families evacuate the camp near the rapidly rising creek, the Joads remain and attempt to stop the flood waters. Without the aid of others, the Joads are unsuccessful, and they must seek refuge on the top of their car. Rose of Sharon delivers a stillborn child that Uncle John sends in a box down the creek. The family eventually reaches higher ground and finds a barn for shelter. Inside the barn is a starving man and his young son. Steinbeck ends the novel with Rose of Sharon, barely recovered from the delivery, breastfeeding the dying man to nurse him back to health.

[Asalbanoo]

This novel traces three days in the life of Robert Jordan, an American Spanish professor who has volunteered to fight for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. Jordan is a dynamite expert, and is ordered by General Golz, a Russian leader of the International Brigades, to bomb a bridge as part of their offensive against the Fascists. Golz is only interested in the offensive as a means of practicing his military tactics and he is cynical about its success in the hands of the Spanish peasants.
Anselmo, an old guide, brings Jordan through the woods to the hideout, an abandoned cave, of the men who will help him complete his mission. The guerillas that Jordan encounters obviously do not want to be involved in the war any longer. They meet Agustin in the woods, visibly relieved to see them because he has forgotten the password to their lair. The gypsy Rafael, despite being the guard, is only interested in cracking jokes. He tells Jordan about Kashkin, the previous foreign dynamite expert who, ironically, killed himself after being wounded during their last mission, the explosion of a train. The most cynical and despondent guerilla, however, is Pablo, their leader. Despite being a courageous man before, Pablo now wants only to return to his village to raise the horses he gained as spoils of war. Many conflicts arise between Pablo and Jordan, as the Pablo resents that a foreigner is interfering in a matter that can risk his own life and those of his band.
There are also two women at the camp: Pilar, who is Pablo's wife, and Maria, a girl they rescued from the train carrying prisoners of war. Despite her cropped hair, which was shaved during her interment by the Fascists and the obvious psychological damage wrought upon her, she is beautiful. Pilar is an ugly woman, but celebrated for her bravery. Since Pablo "went bad" and lost the courage and zeal he displayed at the beginning of the war, Pilar maintains the unity of his band. Pilar is a gypsy and, upon introductions, reads Jordan's palm. The future she foretells there, but will not reveal, is grim.
Pablo's cowardice soon makes him relinquish power to Pilar, his bold wife. Pablo announces that he is against blowing up the bridge, but Pilar backs Robert Jordan and the men follow her lead. After the confrontation, Rafael tells Jordan that he should have killed Pablo, and that he would have had the support of the guerillas. Jordan reasons that, unprovoked, this would be assassination. As Pablo continues to insult and cause trouble of Jordan throughout the novel, Jordan wonders if he made the right decision.
After the confrontation with Pablo, during the night after the first day, Jordan makes love to Maria when she comes to his makeshift bed outside the cave. The nineteen-year-old girl, who has been raped and orphaned, has fallen quickly and madly in love with Jordan. She believes that her love will purify her from past atrocities committed to her. Jordan returns her feelings, as he has gazed upon her all day with a lump in his throat. He celebrates finding, for the first time, happiness in unity with another individual.
Jordan's newfound love, however, is overshadowed by the many obstacles he must face to complete his mission. The appearance of enemy planes, for one, heighten tension at the camp because either they are planning an attack of their own, or have gotten wind of the Loyalist offensive. So too, when Maria, Pilar and Jordan journey up the mountain to the guerilla leader El Sordo's camp, he reminds them of how dangerous the bridge mission is. He agrees to help them, but as they leave camp it begins to snow. Now, the enemy could be able to follow El Sordo's tracks to the bridge.
The only person who really encourages Jordan is Anselmo, who he finds loyally waiting in his post, despite the storm, for Jordan to dismiss him. Besides being a loyal soldier who is committed to the Cause, Anselmo is distinguished as a true humanitarian. He is preoccupied not with the thought of losing his own life during the attack on the bridge, but rather fears that Jordan will order him to kill another human being. He sees the enemy not as evil Fascists, as do the others, but as poor countrymen like themselves.
Pablo again makes trouble for Jordan on the second day, when he baits him about his relationship with Maria. Jordan tries to goad him into fighting, as this would be an appropriate time to kill him for the sake of the mission. Pablo refuses to be baited, however, and later resumes a cooperative mood. Jordan trusts him less than ever, and grows increasingly worrisome about the success of the mission. Thus, Jordan feels his time is limited, which is evidenced by his urgent need to make love to Maria.
The next morning, Jordan is awakened by the sounds of an approaching enemy horseman. Jordan shoots the soldier, and the camp frantically scrambles to arm themselves with a machine gun that did not even come with directions. Tension mounts as Fascist troops pass by the camp. Jordan acts as the example of level-headedness for his men, as Agustin wants to kill the passing soldiers. Then, sounds come from El Sordo's. His camp is attacked and bombed, and they all are killed. Primitivo urges Jordan to help El Sordo, but Jordan knows that the bridge mission must be his priority, even over the lives of his comrades. Thus, the guerillas remain undiscovered for the time being. The fighting between El Sordo and the Fascists, led by Lieutenant Berrendo, show how neither side really wants to fight or die. Jordan sends a young guerilla, to General Golz with news of El Sordo's defeat and a request that the offensive be cancelled.
The last night before the attack is very eventful. Maria is inflicted by pain, so the couple discusses their future and their luck in finding each other. Jordan, however, thinks that being unable to make love is a bad omen. Indeed, his presentiment comes true when Pilar wakes him with the news that Pablo, ever treacherous, has fled with some dynamite.
Jordan is worried now that his plan won't work. Jordan does not have enough men and Pablo stole the equipment he needed to blow the bridge correctly. It is highly unlikely that the attack will be postponed, even if Andres does deliver the message to General Golz. Pablo returns that morning accompanied by five extra men and their horses, claiming that he is not a coward after all and will help blow the bridge.
The apathy and inefficiency of the Loyalist army stalls Andres, and the message does not reach General Golz in time. The bridge bombing must proceed. At the bridge, Jordan orders Anselmo to kill the sentry, which he tearfully accomplishes. Then they dynamite the bridge, and Anselmo is killed by a falling rock. In the ensuing fighting, the only guerillas who survive are Pablo, Pilar, Maria, Primitivo and Agustin . Jordan is hit by a shell as they escape on horseback and is unable to escape. He tells Maria that they will always be one person, and refuses to be shot out of mercy. His comrades give him a machine gun so that he can defend himself from the approaching enemy. Jordan fights pain and suicidal thoughts with the hope that he can buy time for the fleeing guerillas. The novel closes here, as Jordan awaits his certain death on the pine-covered ground he appeared on in the first scene.

[Asalbanoo]

Anna Karenina, considered by many critics to be Tolstoy's finest achievement, is one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century. Tolstoy imbues the simple tale of a love affair with rich portraits of Russian high society, politics, and religion.
As the book opens, Prince Stephen Oblonsky, known as Stiva, is arguing with his wife, Dolly: he has had an affair with their children's governess, and she is threatening to leave him. He is happy that his sister, Anna Karenina, will be coming the next day to visit and smooth things over between himself and Dolly. Anna is married to a distinguished official in St. Petersburg, and moves in the highest circles of Russian Society with the reputation of a charming woman.
That same day, Oblonsky runs into his friend Constantine Levin, who has just arrived from his country estate. Levin is in town to see Oblonsky's sister-in-law, Kitty Shcherbatskaya, for Levin is rather smitten with the eighteen-year-old girl. Oblonsky suggests a meeting with Levin later that evening at the park where Kitty ice-skates.
Levin goes to the park. He skates with Kitty and flirts with her boldly, but she sends him mixed signals. At dinner with Oblonsky that night, Levin learns that he has a rival for Kitty's affections: Count Alexis Kirilovich Vronsky. And indeed, when Levin proposes to Kitty, but she rejects him in the hopes that Vronsky will make his proposal soon.
When Oblonsky goes to the railway station to meet Anna the next morning, he runs into Vronsky, who is waiting for his mother to get off the same train. It turns out that Anna and Vronsky's mother were seatmates in the same compartment, and his mother is quite taken with Anna. So is Vronsky, at once, charmed by Anna's spirit and vitality. Before they leave the station, a railroad guard is run over and killed by a passing train. At the urgings of Anna, Vronsky leaves 200 roubles for the guard's widow.
Anna ably convinces Dolly not to leave Oblonsky. At a ball the next night, Kitty notices that Vronsky is distracted and inattentive to her. The source of this inattention becomes clear when she watched Vronsky waltz with Anna. The two of them are completely smitten, and Kitty's heart is shattered. She realizes that her hopes are shot; Vronsky never wanted to marry her.
Levin goes to see his elder brother Nicholas, who is sickly and lives in depraved conditions. Disgusted with the entire trip, Levin leaves Moscow. Anna leaves the same day as Levin, on the train for St. Petersburg. During a brief stop, Vronsky emerges on the platform and tells her that he is in love with her and will follow her to St. Petersburg. Anna claims that this is impossible and tries to resume her life, but she is constantly displeased with everything.
Kitty Shcherbatskaya's heartache manifests itself in physical symptoms. Her family decides to take her to a spa in Germany to recover.
Upon her return to St. Petersburg, Anna begins circulating more frequently in the circles where she is sure to meet Vronsky. Anna tells herself that she simply enjoys the attention, but soon she admits to herself that his feelings constitute the whole passion of her present existence. Their behavior quickly escalates into the realm of the Socially Unacceptable. Karenin is a man vitally concerned with external appearances, and it is for this reason that he confronts Anna. She disregards his concern, and the couple swiftly withdraws from each other. Vronsky and Anna consummate their love and Anna says, "Everything is finished. I have nothing but you now. Remember that."
Meanwhile, Levin prepares his estate for the arrival of spring. Unlike many estate owners, Levin delights in doing heavy labor on his estate. Oblonsky comes to visit his estate to sell one of his forests to a local dealer named Ryabinin at a serious loss. Before he leaves, Oblonsky tells Levin that Kitty is ill and that Vronsky has left Moscow in pursuit of Anna.
In Petersburg, Vronsky and Anna's affair is rapidly becoming common knowledge. Petersburg Society is waiting eagerly for Anna's downfall, and Vronsky's family is becoming concerned that this affair is distracting him from progressing in his career. In the midst of all this concern, Vronsky is preparing to ride in a horse race. Right before the race, Vronsky visits Anna. She tells him that she is pregnant. Vronsky then hurries to the race. Anna and her husband both attend the race, but sit separately in the stands. Vronsky's horse falls and breaks her back, though he himself is unhurt.
At the race, Karenin watches as Anna reacts physically when Vronsky falls. He confronts her about her affair, with more strength this time. Anna confesses her feelings for Vronsky and says that she hates Karenin. Karenin demands that she observe "external conditions of propriety" until he can protect himself, presumably through a divorce.
At the German spa, Kitty makes the acquaintance of Varenka, a pious young woman. Kitty tries to imitate her sense of deep spirituality and tries to be charitable like the girl. She fails to achieve the same type of understanding with the less fortunate as Varenka has, but comes to a greater understanding of herself by the time she leaves the spa. Meanwhile, Dolly and the children move to their country estate to save money while Oblonsky is in St. Petersburg. Levin visits them, and Dolly suggests that he propose to Kitty again. The suggestion embarrasses Levin. But when he glimpses Kitty a few days later, he realizes that he still loves her.
Karenin decides that the only option is to force Anna to break off relations with Vronsky and stay with him. Outwardly at least, this will preserve the status quo. The same morning, Vronsky receives a visit from his friend Serpukhovskoy, who offers him the chance to jump-start his career by leaving the regiment, Vronsky refuses because it will take him away from Anna.
Levin attempts to avoid thoughts of Kitty, who is staying with Dolly less than twenty miles away. He develops a "theory" of economic labor that involves cooperative labor and ownership. He attempts to implement this theory on his farm, but the peasants respond with far less enthusiasm than Levin does. At the end of September, Levin receives a surprise visit from his consumptive brother Nicholas. Nicholas is emaciated and obviously very sick; his death is imminent. After Nicholas leaves, Levin sinks into moroseness. He begins seeing death everywhere and is depressed about his own soul.
The Karenins are living together in a state of tension. Anna continues to see Vronsky outside the house. One night, the two men meet each other as Vronsky rushes in to see Anna. This is the first night Vronsky notes that Anna's jealous fits make her less attractive to him. Anna tells him of a nightmare she had concerning a dirty old peasant. Vronsky had the same nightmare and is horrified. Karenin confronts Anna again. Faced with her implacable resolve, he tells her that he intends to begin divorce proceedings.
During a dinner party at the Oblonskys', Levin and Kitty reunite and find a new interest in each other. Kitty hints that she would accept if Levin were to propose to her again. This he does, and they begin planning their marriage.
Anna lies close to death after giving birth to Vronsky's daughter. Vronsky is in an outer room, weeping. Seeing Anna in her agitated state stirs Karenin to forgiveness. Weeping freely, he forgives both her and Vronsky in a state of great joy and happiness. Karenin shames Vronsky by saying that no matter how the two of them humiliate him, Karenin will not leave Anna. Devastated by Karenin's nobility, Vronsky goes home and attempts suicide by shooting himself with a revolver. The bullet misses his heart, and he recuperates with the help of his sister-in-law. As she recovers, Anna remains awed by her husband's generous feelings, but she still feels stifled. Oblonsky, sensing the torture of the situation, visits Karenin and encourages him to begin divorce proceedings again. In an emotional moment, Karenin agrees. Upon hearing this news, Vronsky immediately abandons his military duties and rushes to the Karenins' house. But though Anna is elated to see him, she will not accept Karenin's offer of a divorce.
Levin and Kitty have a wonderful marriage despite Levin's concern about his agnoticism. The conversations of the other guests about the failed marriages they are in or that they know of add a sober note to the proceedings.
Anna and Vronsky leave Russia and travel in Italy. Vronsky has a new interest in painting and has begun a portrait of Anna. He abandons this interest when he meets a famous painter named Mikhailov. Mikhailov's superior dedication to the craft, along with his superior portrait of Anna, do a great deal to undermine Vronsky's confidence. They decide to return to Russia.
Levin is disillusioned that his marriage seems to consist of petty quarrels that he had once laughed at in other married couples. Things do not begin to go smoothly until Levin receives news that his brother, Nicholas, is on the verge of death in Moscow. Kitty goes along and takes care of the dying man with great care and tenderness. Levin gains a new appreciation for her. Kitty announces her pregnancy soon after Nicholas dies.
Karenin suffers under the humiliations of public opinion and a stagnated career. His only friend is Countess Lydia Ivanovna, who encourages him to join her in her brand of emotional Christianity. When they return to St. Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky are greeted with the unfortunate news that they have been outcast from high society, especially Anna. Still, Anna tests this by attending the opera. Anna creates a scene and is insulted by members of society. Anna blames him for her social position, making it necessary for him to soothe her with constant assurance of his love. They move to his country estate.
Many people visit the Levins at their estate that summer. Varenka and Koznyshev have a brief romance that ends when Koznyshev is too shy to propose. Oblonsky arrives with Vasenka Veslovsky, a handsome young playboy, who proceeds to flirt inappropriately with Kitty. Levin, who already feels insecure about his relationship to Kitty, fears adultery and throws Veslovsky out.
One day, Dolly goes to visit Anna at Vronsky's country estate. Though at first she is impressed by the luxury Anna and Vronsky live in, and of Anna's vitality, she soon becomes uncomfortable. They have had to consort with lower classes of people and are surrounded by hangers-on. Plus, Anna is in decline: she refuses to accept Karenin's offer of a divorce, she cares little for her daughter, takes morphia in order to sleep, and uses birth control for fear that Vronsky will lose interest in her if she becomes pregnant again.
Anna is increasingly paranoid and dependent on Vronsky. When he attends elections in Moscow and stays one day later than planned, she tricks him into returning. Vronsky feels increasingly stifled by her demands. At last she agrees to write Karenin for a divorce and the couple moves to Moscow.
The Levins are also in Moscow, awaiting the birth of their first child. Levin is uncomfortable in the city but does the best he can. Under Oblonsky's influence, Levin not only makes peace with Vronsky but also agrees to visit Anna, whom he has never met. Levin is completely charmed by Anna. When he returns home, Kitty is furious that he went to see Anna and can see the change in him. He stays up late comforting Kitty and assuring her of his love. Meanwhile, Anna's hold over Vronsky is crumbling; they typically greet each other with hostility. She has not heard from Karenin about her request for a divorce, and this makes their relations still more tense. That night, Kitty goes into labor. The birth takes 22 hours and Levin prays for the first time in years. When his son is born, Levin experiences a feeling of profound joy and happiness.
Oblonsky visits Karenin to press him about divorcing Anna. Karenin reacts with great emotion and claims that his Christianity will not allow him to do such a thing. Meanwhile, relations between Anna and Vronsky continue to sour. Anna grows more jealous, and Vronsky goes colder and more distant. Vronsky spends more time out of the house, and his mother encourages him to marry the young Princess Sorokin. They quarrel that night and then again the next morning; Vronsky leaves in disgust. Anna takes a dose of morphia and writes Vronsky a note begging his forgiveness and pleading with him to return at once. Then, despairing, she goes to visit Dolly.
The next several chapters take place mostly in Anna's head. She goes to see Dolly, but Kitty is there. The two sisters react to Anna awkwardly, and they have little to talk about. She leaves and returns home, where she finds everything and everyone repulsive. Desperate to see Vronsky, she leaves for the Nizhni train station. On the way to the train station, Anna is in a terrifying mental state. To her, everything is despicable and the world is full of ugliness, misery and hate. Overwhelmed, she gets off the train after one stop. She runs into Vronsky's coachman, who gives her a cold note from Vronsky. Insane with misery, she wanders along the platform. Suddenly, she remembers the porter who died the first day she met Vronsky, and decides what she must do. She descends onto the tracks and waits for the oncoming train. She dies begging God for forgiveness, and her last vision is of the peasant from her dream.
Two years later, there is a great movement of Russian sympathy towards the Slavic peoples ruled by the Serbs. When Levin's half-brother Koznyshev goes to the train station to head to Levin's country estate, there are several groups of men who are volunteering to fight with the Slavs. One of those volunteers is Vronsky. The volunteer movement is Vronsky's only hope; he has been a wreck since Anna's death. The fight has given him something to be interested in. Alexis Karenin has taken Vronsky's daughter, and Vronsky is unable to get her back. Vronsky has aged many years and acts as though he is living in a mental prison.
The Levins' home is a portrait of domesticity and happy, effective labor. Levin is tortured by religious doubts and spiritual strivings, and these matters are so clearly troubling to him that even Kitty has begun to question what is going on in her husband's head. Levin's basic question, as he puts it, is this: "If I don't accept the answers given by Christianity to the questions of my life, what answers do I accept?" He wonders about his moment of prayer during Kitty's labor and constantly questions and tortures himself about his doubts. At times it becomes so bad that he wishes to kill himself. He attempts to distract himself with his family and farm duties, and in this he is moderately successful.
He experiences an epiphany in a conversation with a peasant named Theodore. He realizes that he has already been living for God. By appreciating his family and his workers, and dedicating himself to the well-being of others around him, he is behaving the way God wishes him to. He is reinforced in this belief when a tremendous thunderstorm strikes and he rushes to look for Kitty and the baby in the woods. While he hunts for them, lightening strikes a tree in front of him. The tree is scorched and tumbles in front of him. When he finds them a moment later, unhurt, he is overcome with relief. The experience renews his belief in God. Later that night, Levin reflects once more on the nature of his questions, and decides that his belief in God belongs to him alone, and that he has no right to remark on others' relationships with the Lord. Kitty comes in and asks him what he is thinking about, but he demurs to talk to her about it. It is a personal matter, he realizes, one that may not affect his external life but that will make all the difference to his inner peace.

[Asalbanoo]

novel, which takes place during the Great Depression, begins beside the Salinas River near Soledad, California, where two migrant workers, Lennie Small and George Milton, are walking on their way to a nearby ranch. They had recently escaped from a farm near Weed where Lennie, a mentally deficient yet docile man, was wrongly accused of rape when he touched a woman to feel her soft dress. George is his physical opposite, a small man with defined features. George scolds Lennie for playing with a dead mouse and warns him not to speak when they arrive at their new place of employment. When Lennie complains about not having ketchup for the beans they eat for dinner, George becomes angry, telling Lennie that he would be better off if he didn't have to travel with his retarded friend. George soon delineates his dream: he and Lennie will raise enough money to buy a patch of land, where they will have a small farm with a vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch. The rabbit hutch is the only detail of the plan that Lennie consistently remembers. George tells Lennie that, if he gets into trouble as he did in Weed, he should return to the brush near the river and wait for George to find him.
When George and Lennie reach the bunkhouse at the farm where they will work, an old man named Candy shows them their beds and tells them that the boss was angry that they didn't show up the night before. George and Lennie were late because the bus driver who brought them near Soledad dropped them off several miles away from the ranch. The boss questions George and Lennie and finds them suspicious because George speaks for Lennie. He cannot understand why George would travel with Lennie until he explains that Lennie is his cousin. After the boss leaves, his son, Curley, enters the bunkhouse looking for the boss. Curley is a short man who hates larger men out of jealousy and insecurity, and has a new wife who everyone suspects is unfaithful. His wife visits the bunkhouse later that night searching for Curley, and flirts with the other men. Later, Curley returns looking for his wife, and confronts George in an attempt to start a fight.
After a day of work, the men return to the bunkhouse. Slim, whose dog had a new litter of puppies, gives Lennie one of them. George admits to Slim that he and Lennie escaped lynching when Lennie was accused of rape. Carlson complains about Candy's dog, a decrepit creature that barely survives. He offers to shoot the dog, and after repeated complaints, Candy relents, despite his obvious wish to keep the dog. George complains about 'tarts' such as Curley's Wife, and when the other men suggest that they visit a whorehouse the next night, George says that he prefers the company of whores, since there is no chance of danger. When George tells Lennie the story about the house that they will have, Candy says that he knows about an available house that they could have if the three men pooled their money. Curley searches for his wife once more, and fights Lennie when he suspects that Lennie is laughing at him. Curley punches Lennie several times, but Lennie does not fight back until George gives him permission. He crushes Curley's hand, and does not stop until George tells him to do so.
While the other men are at the whorehouse, Lennie goes to visit Crooks, the black stable buck. Crooks is rude and contemptuous toward Lennie until he realizes that Lennie has no ill intent. Crooks makes Lennie realize how alone and isolated he would be if George would abandon Lennie. Candy also visits the two men, for they are the only ones left at the ranch. They discuss the plan for a small farm, and even Crooks shows some interest. Curley's Wife sees the three men and, when Crooks tells her that she is not supposed to be in his room, she upbraids them as useless cripples and even threatens Crooks with lynching. However, she reveals that, as the only woman on the ranch, she is lonely.
The next morning, when Lennie is playing with his new puppy, he accidentally kills it when he bounces it too hard. Curley's Wife finds him in the barn with the dead puppy, and when she allows him to feel how soft her hair is, he handles her too forcefully. When she screams, Lennie covers her mouth and, as she tries to struggle free from his grasp, he snaps her neck. When Lennie escapes the ranch, Candy and George find the body and immediately realize that Lennie killed her. Candy alerts the other men, and Curley forms a party to search for Lennie. Curley intends to murder him. In the interim, George steals Carlson's gun, leading the other men to think that Lennie actually took it before he escaped.
George, who points Curley and the other men in the wrong direction, finds Lennie in the brush where he told him to go at the beginning of the novel. Lennie has been having hallucinations of a giant rabbit and his Aunt Clara; they warn Lennie that George will be angry at him for killing Curley's Wife and that he has lost the possibility of having a house with a rabbit hutch. George begins to tell Lennie about their plans for a house and the rabbit hutch when he shoots Lennie in the back of the head with Carlson's gun. Upon hearing this, the other men find George and Lennie. George tells them that Lennie had stolen the gun and he shot Lennie when he got the gun back from him.

[Asalbanoo]

The Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's poem, the Divine Comedy, which chronicles Dante's journey to God, and is made up of the Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise). The poems are quite short: it would take about as long to read the whole Inferno as it would to read the detailed canto summaries and analyses, although they might be helpful for understanding Dante's difficult language. In the Inferno, Dante starts on ground level and works his way downward; he goes all the way through the earth and Hell and ends up at the base of the mountain of Purgatory on the other side. On the top of Purgatory there is the terrestial paradise (the garden of Eden), and after that he works his way through the celestial spheres. The plot of the Divine Comedy is thus very simple: it is the narrative of Dante's journey towards redemption. The Inferno is generally thought to be the best and most interesting part, which may be a result of its inverse structure: the moral plot is less visible because Dante descends into Hell. God is almost totally absent, and Dante, not excessively constrained by piety, feels free to make Hell colorful and lively, which is not necessarily the case in the Paradiso.
The Inferno begins when Dante, in the middle of his life, is lost in a metaphorical dark wood ¬ that is, sin. He sees a sunlit hill but it unable to climb it because three wild beasts frighten him back (these symbolize different sins). Fortunately he then meets the spirit of the Roman epic poet Virgil, who says that he has been sent by Beatrice to lead him to salvation. (Beatrice was the spirit of a woman Dante loved very much, who had died years before.) However, Virgil says, they must go through Hell to get there. Dante is a little frightened, but is encouraged by the thought that Beatrice is looking over him.
First Dante and Virgil go through the space outside Hell in the underworld, where the neutral spirits, who were neither good nor bad, are left to bewail their fate ¬ neither Heaven nor Hell will accept them. Then they come to the Acheron, an infernal river, where the boatman Charon ferries the damned souls into Hell. An earthquake leaves Dante unconscious, and when he wakes up they are in the first circle of Hell, Limbo.
In Limbo there are the virtuous non-Christians: ancient Greek and Roman heroes, philosophers, and so forth. There are also some worthy Arabs, and the virtuous Jews of the Old Testament were there until Christ took them to Heaven. Dante is pleased to find himself accepted as an equal by the great classical poets. The spirits in Limbo are not tormented: they live in green meadows with a gentle sadness. Virgil was one of them.
They passed to the second circle, where the demon Minos judged the sinners and assigned them their place in Hell. In the second circle the lustful were punished by having their spirits blown about by an unceasing wind. Dante spoke with the spirit of Francesca da' Rimini, who had fallen unhappily in love with her husband's younger brother. He felt so sorry for her that he fainted from grief.
When Dante awoke they were in the third circle, where the gluttons were punished. After Virgil pacified the doglike demon Cerberus, they saw where the gluttons lay in the mud, tormented by a heavy, cold rain. One of them, Ciacco, predicted the political future of Florence for Dante.
In the fourth circle they had to pass the demon Plutus, who praised Satan. There the avaricious and the prodigal rolled weights around in opposite directions, berating each other for their sins. They came to the Styx, where the wrathful and the sullen were tormented. The wrathful fought in the muddy water and the sullen sank beneath it and lamented in gurgling voices. The boatman Phleygas resentfully ferried them across, passing the wrathful shade of Filippo Argenti, who tried to attack Dante.
They then came to the walls of the city of Dis, but the fallen angels inside barred their way. Fortunately a messenger from heaven came to their aid and opened the gates, then left.
The sixth circle held heretics, who were imprisoned in red-hot sepulchers. Dante spoke with Farinata, a great-hearted Epicurean who predicted Dante's exile from Florence. He also met Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, the father of his friend Guido. They passed the tomb of a heretical pope.
They came to a stinking valley. Taking a moment to get used to the stench, Virgil explained to Dante the structure of Hell. It was cone shaped and was made up of increasingly tight circles. In Dis they would see the punishments of the violent, the fraudulent, and traitors. These were more serious sins than those of the earlier circles, which resulted from human weakness and overindulgence.
In the first ring of the seventh circle they passed the Minotaur and met a group of centaurs, who shot the sinners who tried to escape with their arrows. The first ring was made up of the violent against others: tyrants and murderers. These were tormented in a river of boiling blood: the Phlegethon.
In the second ring they found a black forest full of twisted trees. These were suicides: Dante spoke to one after seeing a broken twig bleed. The suicide was Pier della Vigna, who had committed suicide while wrongfully imprisoned by his patron. They were interrupted by two souls dashing through the forest, chased by black hounds. These were those who had been violent to their own possessions: those who had squandered their goods.
In the third ring there were the violent against God: blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers. These were punished by having to sit or walk around on flaming sand under a rain of fire. Dante spoke affectionately with one sodomite, Ser Brunetto, who had been something of a mentor for him when he was alive. Thre other Florentines, also people Dante respected, asked him news about the city, and he said that it was doing badly.
Virgil called up the monster Geryon, who symbolized fraud, from the eighth circle, while Dante spoke with some usurers. Geryon took Dante and Virgil down to the eigth circle on a terrifying ride. The eigth circle was Malebolge, and was formed of ten different enclosures in which different kinds of fraud were punished.
In the first, Dante saw naked sinners being whipped by demons. He recognized one of them as Venedico Caccianemico, who had sold his sister to a lustful Marquis. He also saw Jason. These were panders and seducers: people who used fraud in matters of love.
In the second, flatterers were mired in a stew of human excrement.
In the third, the simonists were punished by being stuck upside down in rock with their feet on fire. Notably, Dante spoke with Pope Nicholas III there, who predicted that the current pope would also be damned for that sin. Dante was very unsympathetic.
In the fourth enclosure, diviners, astrologers, and magicians were punished by having their heads on backwards. Dante was sad to see such a distortion of humanity, but Virgil hardened his heart.
In the fifth, barrators were flung into a lake of hot pitch, and were guarded by devils, the Malebranche. Dante was frightened to see a devil come with an official from Lucca and throw him in. Virgil convinced the Malebranche that they should be allowed to pass unharmed, and they were given an escort of demons. As they were passing along, one sinner did not dive into the pitch fast enough and was caught by a devil. Through trickery he managed to get away unharmed, however, and two devils fell into the pitch, while Dante and Virgil discreetly left.
Eventually pursued by irate devils, Dante and Virgil quickly went to safety in the sixth pouch of Malebolge, where hypocrites were made to wear heavy lead robes. They included two Jovial Friars, dishonest leaders of Florence.
They had a hard time reaching the seventh enclosure, where thieves were bitten by serpents, and then transformed into serpents themselves. Dante saw some famous thieves change shapes in this way. One of them predicted political misfortune for Dante.
In the eighth pouch, fraudulent counselors were aflame. Dante learned the story of Ulysses' death, and heard the bitter tale of Guido da Montefeltro, who had been tricked into advising the pope to massacre some people, thinking that his soul was protected by a papal absolution.
Dante was horrified by the gore in the ninth pouch, where sowers of scandal and schism were maimed by a devil with a sword. Among them he saw the founder of Islam and his nephew, and also the leader of a contemporary heretical order.
In the tenth pouch there were three groups of falsifiers. The falsifiers of metals (alchemists) were plagued by a disease like leprosy. Dante spoke with two of them, who energetically scratched their scabs off. The second group was made up of those who impersonated other people, like Gianni Schicci and Myrrha. These were insane. There were also counterfeiters and liars.
Moving on to the ninth circle, Dante was frightened by a loud bugle blast. What he thought was a city with towers turned out to be a number of giants, including Nimrod and those who had rebelled against the Olympians. A comparatively blameless giant helped Dante and Virgil into the pit of the ninth circle.
In the first ring of the ninth circle, Dante saw sinners frozen into ice (the circle was a frozen lake). These were traitors against their kin, including two brothers who had murdered each other. The second ring, where sinners were deeper in the ice, held those who betrayed their parties and their homelands. Dante tormented one of these, Bocca, to make him confess his name.
Two sinners were frozen close together, with one eating the other's head. Dante learned that the cannibal was Count Ugolino, who had been starved to death with his innocent children by the Archbishop Ruggieri.
Dante spoke with some other sinners in the third ring, who had assassinated their guests. He learnt to his surprise that it was possible for a soul to be in Hell when its body was still living.
In the fourth ring, traitors against their benefactors were totally covered in ice. Finally, at the bottom of Hell, Dante saw the gigantic figure of Lucifer, who ground up Judas, Brutus, and Cassius in his three mouths. Virgil and Dante climbed on Lucifer all the way through the center of the earth and to the other side, where they finally emerged in the southern hemisphere.

[Asalbanoo]

AS A FLUTE MELODY PLAYS, Willy Loman returns to his home in Brooklyn one night, exhausted from a failed sales trip. His wife, Linda, tries to persuade him to ask his boss, Howard Wagner, to let him work in New York so that he won’t have to travel. Willy says that he will talk to Howard the next day. Willy complains that Biff, his older son who has come back home to visit, has yet to make something of himself. Linda scolds Willy for being so critical, and Willy goes to the kitchen for a snack.
As Willy talks to himself in the kitchen, Biff and his younger brother, Happy, who is also visiting, reminisce about their adolescence and discuss their father’s babbling, which often includes criticism of Biff’s failure to live up to Willy’s expectations. As Biff and Happy, dissatisfied with their lives, fantasize about buying a ranch out West, Willy becomes immersed in a daydream. He praises his sons, now younger, who are washing his car. The young Biff, a high school football star, and the young Happy appear. They interact affectionately with their father, who has just returned from a business trip. Willy confides in Biff and Happy that he is going to open his own business one day, bigger than that owned by his neighbor, Charley. Charley’s son, Bernard, enters looking for Biff, who must study for math class in order to avoid failing. Willy points out to his sons that although Bernard is smart, he is not “well liked,” which will hurt him in the long run.
A younger Linda enters, and the boys leave to do some chores. Willy boasts of a phenomenally successful sales trip, but Linda coaxes him into revealing that his trip was actually only meagerly successful. Willy complains that he soon won’t be able to make all of the payments on their appliances and car. He complains that people don’t like him and that he’s not good at his job. As Linda consoles him, he hears the laughter of his mistress. He approaches The Woman, who is still laughing, and engages in another reminiscent daydream. Willy and The Woman flirt, and she thanks him for giving him stockings.
The Woman disappears, and Willy fades back into his prior daydream, in the kitchen. Linda, now mending stockings, reassures him. He scolds her mending and orders her to throw the stockings out. Bernard bursts in, again looking for Biff. Linda reminds Willy that Biff has to return a football that he stole, and she adds that Biff is too rough with the neighborhood girls. Willy hears The Woman laugh and explodes at Bernard and Linda. Both leave, and though the daydream ends, Willy continues to mutter to himself. The older Happy comes downstairs and tries to quiet Willy. Agitated, Willy shouts his regret about not going to Alaska with his brother, Ben, who eventually found a diamond mine in Africa and became rich. Charley, having heard the commotion, enters. Happy goes off to bed, and Willy and Charley begin to play cards. Charley offers Willy a job, but Willy, insulted, refuses it. As they argue, Willy imagines that Ben enters. Willy accidentally calls Charley Ben. Ben inspects Willy’s house and tells him that he has to catch a train soon to look at properties in Alaska. As Willy talks to Ben about the prospect of going to Alaska, Charley, seeing no one there, gets confused and questions Willy. Willy yells at Charley, who leaves. The younger Linda enters and Ben meets her. Willy asks Ben impatiently about his life. Ben recounts his travels and talks about their father. As Ben is about to leave, Willy daydreams further, and Charley and Bernard rush in to tell him that Biff and Happy are stealing lumber. Although Ben eventually leaves, Willy continues to talk to him.
Back in the present, the older Linda enters to find Willy outside. Biff and Happy come downstairs and discuss Willy’s condition with their mother. Linda scolds Biff for judging Willy harshly. Biff tells her that he knows Willy is a fake, but he refuses to elaborate. Linda mentions that Willy has tried to commit suicide. Happy grows angry and rebukes Biff for his failure in the business world. Willy enters and yells at Biff. Happy intervenes and eventually proposes that he and Biff go into the sporting goods business together. Willy immediately brightens and gives Biff a host of tips about asking for a loan from one of Biff’s old employers, Bill Oliver. After more arguing and reconciliation, everyone finally goes to bed.
Act II opens with Willy enjoying the breakfast that Linda has made for him. Willy ponders the bright-seeming future before getting angry again about his expensive appliances. Linda informs Willy that Biff and Happy are taking him out to dinner that night. Excited, Willy announces that he is going to make Howard Wagner give him a New York job. The phone rings, and Linda chats with Biff, reminding him to be nice to his father at the restaurant that night.
As the lights fade on Linda, they come up on Howard playing with a wire recorder in his office. Willy tries to broach the subject of working in New York, but Howard interrupts him and makes him listen to his kids and wife on the wire recorder. When Willy finally gets a word in, Howard rejects his plea. Willy launches into a lengthy recalling of how a legendary salesman named Dave Singleman inspired him to go into sales. Howard leaves and Willy gets angry. Howard soon re-enters and tells Willy to take some time off. Howard leaves and Ben enters, inviting Willy to join him in Alaska. The younger Linda enters and reminds Willy of his sons and job. The young Biff enters, and Willy praises Biff’s prospects and the fact that he is well liked.
Ben leaves and Bernard rushes in, eagerly awaiting Biff’s big football game. Willy speaks optimistically to Biff about the game. Charley enters and teases Willy about the game. As Willy chases Charley off, the lights rise on a different part of the stage. Willy continues yelling from offstage, and Jenny, Charley’s secretary, asks a grown-up Bernard to quiet him down. Willy enters and prattles on about a “very big deal” that Biff is working on. Daunted by Bernard’s success (he mentions to Willy that he is going to Washington to fight a case), Willy asks Bernard why Biff turned out to be such a failure. Bernard asks Willy what happened in Boston that made Biff decide not to go to summer school. Willy defensively tells Bernard not to blame him.
Charley enters and sees Bernard off. When Willy asks for more money than Charley usually loans him, Charley again offers Willy a job. Willy again refuses and eventually tells Charley that he was fired. Charley scolds Willy for always needing to be liked and angrily gives him the money. Calling Charley his only friend, Willy exits on the verge of tears.
At Frank’s Chop House, Happy helps Stanley, a waiter, prepare a table. They ogle and chat up a girl, Miss Forsythe, who enters the restaurant. Biff enters, and Happy introduces him to Miss Forsythe, continuing to flirt with her. Miss Forsythe, a call girl, leaves to telephone another call girl (at Happy’s request), and Biff spills out that he waited six hours for Bill Oliver and Oliver didn’t even recognize him. Upset at his father’s unrelenting misconception that he, Biff, was a salesman for Oliver, Biff plans to relieve Willy of his illusions. Willy enters, and Biff tries gently, at first, to tell him what happened at Oliver’s office. Willy blurts out that he was fired. Stunned, Biff again tries to let Willy down easily. Happy cuts in with remarks suggesting Biff’s success, and Willy eagerly awaits the good news.
Biff finally explodes at Willy for being unwilling to listen. The young Bernard runs in shouting for Linda, and Biff, Happy, and Willy start to argue. As Biff explains what happened, their conversation recedes into the background. The young Bernard tells Linda that Biff failed math. The restaurant conversation comes back into focus and Willy criticizes Biff for failing math. Willy then hears the voice of the hotel operator in Boston and shouts that he is not in his room. Biff scrambles to quiet Willy and claims that Oliver is talking to his partner about giving Biff the money. Willy’s renewed interest and probing questions irk Biff more, and he screams at Willy. Willy hears The Woman laugh and he shouts back at Biff, hitting him and staggering. Miss Forsythe enters with another call girl, Letta. Biff helps Willy to the washroom and, finding Happy flirting with the girls, argues with him about Willy. Biff storms out, and Happy follows with the girls.
Willy and The Woman enter, dressing themselves and flirting. The door knocks and Willy hurries The Woman into the bathroom. Willy answers the door; the young Biff enters and tells Willy that he failed math. Willy tries to usher him out of the room, but Biff imitates his math teacher’s lisp, which elicits laughter from Willy and The Woman. Willy tries to cover up his indiscretion, but Biff refuses to believe his stories and storms out, dejected, calling Willy a “phony little fake.” Back in the restaurant, Stanley helps Willy up. Willy asks him where he can find a seed store. Stanley gives him directions to one, and Willy hurries off.
The light comes up on the Loman kitchen, where Happy enters looking for Willy. He moves into the living room and sees Linda. Biff comes inside and Linda scolds the boys and slaps away the flowers in Happy’s hand. She yells at them for abandoning Willy. Happy attempts to appease her, but Biff goes in search of Willy. He finds Willy planting seeds in the garden with a flashlight. Willy is consulting Ben about a $20,000 proposition. Biff approaches him to say goodbye and tries to bring him inside. Willy moves into the house, followed by Biff, and becomes angry again about Biff’s failure. Happy tries to calm Biff, but Biff and Willy erupt in fury at each other. Biff starts to sob, which touches Willy. Everyone goes to bed except Willy, who renews his conversation with Ben, elated at how great Biff will be with $20,000 of insurance money. Linda soon calls out for Willy but gets no response. Biff and Happy listen as well. They hear Willy’s car speed away.
In the requiem, Linda and Happy stand in shock after Willy’s poorly attended funeral. Biff states that Willy had the wrong dreams. Charley defends Willy as a victim of his profession. Ready to leave, Biff invites Happy to go back out West with him. Happy declares that he will stick it out in New York to validate Willy’s death. Linda asks Willy for forgiveness for being unable to cry. She begins to sob, repeating “We’re free. . . .” All exit, and the flute melody is heard as the curtain falls.

[Asalbanoo]

The famous lines introducing Meursault's mother open the novel. He is not sure whether she had died today or yesterday since the telegram was not specific. Furthermore he does not really think it matters. He asks for two days off and takes the bus to the home he had put his mother in when he could no longer afford to take care of her. He sleeps on the way there. At the home, Meursault meets the director and the caretaker and is taken to see his mother. He chooses not to look at her and sits by her side as friends come to mourn during the night. He chats with the caretaker, naps, smokes, and has some coffee. In the morning, the funeral procession walks the hour into town for the ceremony. The sun is scorching and Meursault feels more oppressed by the heat than sad over his mother's death. Her fiancé Thomas Pérez however is in tears and must struggle to keep up by taking shortcuts. After the funeral, Meursault catches the bus home and looks forward to sleeping twelve hours.
He wakes up the next day and realizes that it is a weekend and is not surprised his boss was annoyed. He gets up late and then decides to go to the beach where he loves to swim. Once there he sees a woman he used to be attracted to at work, Marie Cardona. They are instantly attracted and agree to see a movie later that night. Marie is surprised to hear that Meursault's mother died only yesterday. That night they see a comedy and go back to Meursault's. She is gone the next morning before Meursault gets up. He remembers that he hates Sundays because they are boring so he takes a nap. Finally he gets up, makes lunch and settles on the balcony to watch people pass. Different crowds move by throughout the day including families, soccer fans, and moviegoers. He eats dinner standing up, watches some more, and then moves inside when it gets colder and darker.
A work day follows. His boss, trying to be kind, asks about his mother but is relieved when Meursault says his mother was about sixty when she died. Meursault has a great deal of work to do before lunch. On the break, he and Emmanuel jump onto a moving fire truck. Meursault eats lunch, takes a nap, and returns to work. Arriving home after work, he runs into Salamano and his dog and thinks of the routine the ridiculous pair always follow. Meursault sees Raymond next who invites him over for dinner. They talk about Raymond's fight with an Arab and then, his cheating girlfriend. He asks Meursault to write a letter to her for him to make her feel bad about what she did. Then he can punish her when she comes back to him. Meursault agrees to write the letter because he is there and Raymond seems to like it very much and says they are pals.
Meursault works hard the following week and attends the movies twice with Emmanuel. On Saturday he sees Marie and they go swimming. He admires her beauty. They frolic in the water and then hurry back to the apartment to have ---. She stays for the morning and asks if he loves her. He says no. They are interrupted by the loud fight between Raymond and his girlfriend. They go watch as Raymond is beating the woman but Meursault does not want to call the police since he does not like them. The cops break it up, slapping Raymond when he will not remove a cigarette from his mouth. Marie and Meursault make lunch but Marie no longer has much of an appetite. After Marie leaves, Raymond comes over and they agree the woman received her punishment. They go out to drink and play pool. They meet Salamano on the way back. He has lost his dog and is upset. Meursault suggests that he check the pound where he could pay a fee for the dog. Salamano is outraged at the idea of paying. He later gets the rest of the details on the pound from Meursault and then goes home. Meursault can hear him crying. He thinks of Maman and goes to bed without dinner.
Meursault receives a call from Raymond at the office which annoys. He is invited by Raymond to bring Marie to his friend's house and told that an Arab relative of Raymond's woman has been following Raymond. Soon after, Meursault's boss offers him a job where he would be transferred to Paris. Meursault admits he is happy enough where he is and the boss berates his lack of ambition. That evening he sees Marie who asks if he will marry her. Meursault says he will if she wants but still says he does not love her. Marie still wants to marry him. She is excited about the prospect of Paris but he thinks it is dirty. Meursault eats dinner alone at Céleste's until he is joined by a jerky robot-like woman. He follows her when she leaves but loses interest. Back at the building, he finds Salamano waiting. His dog was not at the pound and he tells Meursault stories about him and the dog. He does not want another. He also mentions that he is sorry about Maman and understands why he put her in a home though many neighbors do not.
Marie has difficulty waking Meursault on the day they are to join Raymond and his friend. Once outside they see a group of Arabs, like Raymond had mentioned, across the street. They get on the bus for the beach and are not followed. The cottage belongs to Masson and his Parisian wife whom Marie befriends. Meursault is struck by the idea of getting married. Marie and Mersault enjoy swimming together. Meursault then naps on the beach before playing in the water more with Marie. He devours his lunch and then takes a walk with the other men. They run into two Arabs on the beach and Raymond and Masson fight them. Raymond gets cut and needs to be stitched. When they return, he takes off down the beach again. Meursault follows him though he wanted to be left alone. They find the Arab but Meursault convinces Raymond to give him his gun. Nothing happens and the men walk back. Meursault is affected by the sun and heat and goes back onto the beach. He finds himself near the Arab again and is drawn closer. With the heat and glare of the knife, Meursault shoots the gun once and then four more times, killing the Arab.
Part Two of the novel takes place after Meursault's arrest. He is taken to prison and held there. The magistrate gives him a lawyer although Meursault does not think it is necessary. He is taken into an interrogation room with a single lamp like in books he has read. It seems like a game but the magistrate is reasonable. His lawyer visits him the next day and is disturbed that he will not agree to say that he repressed his natural feelings on the day of Maman's funeral. Meursault considers stopping him to explain but is too lazy. The magistrate calls him again and is bothered by the part in his testimony where he hesitated before firing the last four shots. As Meursault cannot explain why, the magistrate takes out a crucifix and attempts to make Meursault repent so God will forgive him. Meursault does not follow his reasoning nor does he believe in God. Frustrating the magistrate further, Meursault says he is more annoyed than sorry about the crime he has committed. Their discussions after this time are more cordial and Meursault remembers little else he enjoyed as much as these moments between him and the magistrate.
The same eleven months spent talking to the magistrate are also lived daily in the prison. Meursault does not like to talk about this much. Marie visits him once and the visiting room is very crowded, bright, loud, and hot. Meursault finds it hard to concentrate on their conversation, picking up pieces of the mostly Arab conversations around. Marie looks beautiful and Meursault looks at her body more than he listens to her voice. Meursault is hot and dizzy. He almost leaves but wants to take advantage of Marie being there. Soon after she visits, he receives a letter from Marie saying she is not allowed to visit any longer because she is not his wife. Still this time is not so hard for Meursault. He has free man thoughts and urges for awhile, such as the desire to go swimming, but these only last for a few months. He realizes that he can get used to anything. The first months are especially hard because of his desire for women and cigarettes. Women's faces fill his room with desire but they also help to pass the time. He chews on pieces of wood to get over smoking and realizes that the only way to really punish him is by taking away these freedoms. The main problem he faces is killing time. To combat time, he catalogs every item in his apartment gaining more and more detail each time he visualizes its entirety. He learns to sleep two thirds of the day . He finds a scrap of a newspaper crime story about a tragic Czech family and reads it over every day. These items and his memory allow him to ease time. He loses a sense of all but yesterday and today. Meursault realizes that he has even begun talking aloud to himself and that his reflection refuses to smile, but he is not at all unhappy.
The year until the next summer passes quickly and it is time for Meursault's trial. At the courthouse, people cram into to see a spectacle and Meursault realizes that it is he. He feels as if he is being judged. The room is very hot and Meursault feels dizzy. The press has built up his story making the interest and crowds larger than expected. One young reporter in particular examines Meursault thoroughly and the robot woman is also seen in the audience watching intently. His examination is first and he agrees with the judge's reading of his statement. He is irritated by the questions on Maman. After a break, the prosecution's witness are called. The director and caretaker of the home testify on Meursault's lack of sympathy toward his mother at the funeral. Pérez testifies that he could neither see Meursault cry or not cry through his own tears. The defense is then called and Céleste is the first witness. He states that the murder was bad luck. Marie testifies about the day they met following Maman's burial which is turned by the prosecution into a dubious liaison too close to his mother's death. Masson states that Meursault is an honest man and Salamano pleads with the jury to understand. Raymond is the last witness and testifies that Meursault was at the beach by chance and the Arab had hated Raymond. The prosecutor says Meursault is on trial for burying Maman with a crime in his heart. Meursault leaves the courthouse and smells the summer air. He remembers the days when he was happy, noting that his path could have gone either way.
The lawyer's summations follow the next day and Meursault is interested to see what they will say about him. As both speeches are very long, Meursault finds it difficult to pay attention. The prosecutor seems to dwell on his crime being premeditated. Meursault finds the recreation of events plausible and sees how he could be thought of as Raymond's accomplice. Meursault notes how odd it is that his intelligence is used against him. The prosecutor then spends a long time on Meursault's treatment of Maman. Meursault admits to himself that the prosecutor is correct that he is not able to show remorse. The prosecutor ends by declaring that Meursault's soul is empty and that he is a monster who has paved the way for the parricide trial following. Meursault replies that he had no intention of killing the Arab. When asked why he did it, he does not know and can only blurt out that it was because of the sun. The defense lawyer's summation is not as skilled Meursault finds, especially since he does not address Maman's funeral. Meursault does not like how his lawyer replaces his name with "I" and feels further excluded from the entire process. The pointlessness of the trial depresses him and he wishes he could go sleep. Meursault is made to wait in another room as the jury decides and pronounces the verdict. He is brought in for the sentencing and hears that he is going to be decapitated in the name of the French people. He has nothing to say.
In his prison cell, Meursault denies the chaplain three times. He wishes he had paid more attention to executions so that he could think of one possibility where the criminal had escaped the inevitability of the process. He finds the absoluteness of the situation to be arrogant. He remembers Maman's story of his father going to an execution and now understands why. He wishes that he could visit all of the executions from now on. This wish is too painful though since there is such little chance of his freedom. He imagines new penal codes which would allow the condemned to have one chance in ten of escaping his fate. He realizes that his concept of the guillotine has always been skewed. The two things he thinks about most though are dawn and his appeal. Meursault knows that the executioners would come right before dawn so he waits up every night. Although he knows everyone will die, the thought of his appeal is maddening. He must convince himself of its impossibility in order to introduce to himself the chance of a pardon, which when faced rationally, gives him an hour of calm.
He thinks of Marie for the first time in a while at such a moment and the chaplain comes in. Asked why he has refused him, Meursault answers that he does not believe in God. Meursault tries to convince the chaplain that he has little time to devote to other thoughts and the chaplain's words do not interest him. The chaplain is surprised to learn that Meursault truly believes there is nothing after death. He points out that every sufferer has found the face of God in the prison stones. Meursault has looked only for Marie and not found her. The chaplain refuses to accept Meursault's behavior. Meursault snaps, yelling at him that he does wish for another life but one where he could remember the present one. He attacks the chaplain as the one who is dead inside, waiting for something after life. Meursault realizes that he has been right all along. He had lived his life one way but it did not matter and no one's life, death, or love made a difference to him. Every life is worth the same and all are privileged.. The guards tear the chaplain away and Meursault falls asleep. When he wakes, it is night. The sirens blast just before dawn and Meursault thinks of Maman. He understands her need to live life all over again, explaining why she took a fiancé so close to death. No one has a right to cry over her. He opens himself to the indifference of the world and finds it to be a brother. He is happy. To feel less alone, he only hopes that a crowd of haters will welcome him at his execution

[Asalbanoo]

Mr. Gradgrind is a man of "facts and calculations." He identifies a student, called Girl number twenty, who replies that her name is Sissy Jupe. Gradgrind corrects her that her name is Cecilia regardless of what her father calls her. Jupe's father is involved in a horse-riding circus and this is not respectable‹in Gradgrind's opinion. He advises Cecilia to refer to her father as a "farrier" (the person who shoes a horse) or perhaps, a "veterinary surgeon." Sissy Jupe is a slow learner, among the group of stragglers who admit that they would dare to carpet a room with representations of flowers because she is "fond" of them. Sissy is taught that she must not "fancy" and that she is "to be in all things regulated and governed by fact."
Mr. Josiah Bounderby is Mr. Gradgrind's closest friend, and just like Gradgrind he is a man "perfectly devoid of sentiment." Bounderby is very wealthy from his trade as a banker, a merchant and a manufacturer among other things. He has an imposing figure and his entire body is oversized, swelled and overweight. He calls himself a "self-made man" and he always tells his friends (the Gradgrinds, primarily) stories of how he grew up in the most wretched conditions. Mrs. Gradgrind has a very emotional temperament and she usually faints whenever Mr. Bounderby tells his horror stories of being born in a ditch or having lived the first ten years of his life as a vagabond.
Mr. Gradgrind is at first hesitant but he soon agrees with Bounderby that Cecilia must be removed from the school so that she might not infect the other students with her ideas. He and Bounderby find Sissy and proceed towards the public-house where she lives to deliver the news. Looking through the room, Sissy finds that the trunk is empty and she is suddenly fearful. The other members of the performing group also live in the public house and they try to explain to Sissy that her father has abandoned her. He has not left out of ill will, but because he thinks that she will have a better life without him as her guardian. It was with this intention that he had her enrolled in Mr. Gradgrind's school. Mr. Bounderby is morally enraged that a man would actually desert his own daughter. She has no other family in the world.
This certainly changes Mr. Gradgrind's plans‹as he had originally come to the public house with the intention of dismissing Jupe from the school. Despite Bounderby's opinion, Gradgrind does not think it is in good taste to abandon Sissy after she has already been abandoned. Gradgrind gives her a choice to make on the spot: either she can stay with the Sleary performing group, remain in Pegasus's Arms and never return to his school, or she can leave Sleary's company, live with the Gradgrinds and attend school. If she chooses this option, of course, she is forbidden to have extended contact with the performers‹though they are the only people that she knows. It is a difficult decision for Sissy to make but at the urging of Josephine Sleary, Sissy chooses to leave Pegasus's Arms and join the Gradgrinds.
The town library was sometimes the source of Gradgrind's dismay‹when readers opted for literature rather than geometry and drama instead of statistics. This sort of existence has become unbearable for the young Gradgrinds. Tom tells his sister: "I am sick of my life, Loo. I hate it altogether." He and Louisa are both sulking in their room and Tom insists that Louisa is the only person in his life who is capable of making him happy. Everyone else has fallen under the sway of dullness but Louisa has managed to keep a spark of the interesting alive.
The story turns to the workers of Coketown, a group of laborers known as "the Hands." Among them lived a decent man named Stephen Blackpool. He is forty but he looks much older and has had a hard life. In fact, those who know him have nicknamed him "Old Stephen." Stephen has very little as far as intelligence or social graces and he is very simply defined as "good power-loom weaver, and a man of perfect integrity." After his long hours in the factory, once the lights and bells are shut down, he looks for his friend Rachael. On this night, he cannot find her but just when he is convinced that he has missed her, she appears.
Rachael is also a laborer, she is thirty-five years old and she is a gentle, caring person. They have been friends for many years and Stephen takes consolation in this. Whenever his life seems unbearable, Stephen knows that Rachael will make him feel better. She repeatedly advises him that when life is as unpleasant as theirs, it is better not to think about it at all. They walk together towards the part of town where they both live. Here, the houses are extremely small and dirty. Stephen does not even live in a house‹he lives in a small room above a shop. He tries best to keep things as orderly as possible and he is always courteous in regards to the woman who rents the small room to him.
It seems that this night is full of bad luck for Stephen. He enters his room and he stumbles against a wretched figure that frightens him. A drunk and disabled woman is in his room and she is apparently someone that he knows. As the chapter ends, she laughs at Stephen scornfully. She has returned from some part of the past to ruin his life and give him even more to worry about. She passes out in a drunken stupor and Stephen is left to his misery.
Mr. Gradgrind prepares to have his serious discussion with Louisa, who insists upon remaining dispassionate throughout the entire encounter. Gradgrind tells his daughter that she is the subject of a marriage proposal‹and Louisa does not respond. Gradgrind expects Louisa to convey some emotion, but she is entirely stoic and reminds Gradgrind that her upbringing has prevented her from knowing what emotions to express.
Gradgrind explains that it is Mr. Bounderby who has made the marriage proposal and Louisa refrains from registering any emotional response. When her father asks her what she intends to do, Louisa turns the question back to him and asks him what he thinks she ought to do. Gradgrind looks at the situation analytically and dismisses the fact of Bounderby being fifty years old. The marriage has little to do with love and is simply a matter of "tangible Fact." In the end, the decision is for Louisa to make. But as she does not see that any opportunity will bring her happiness she realizes that it does not matter what she does. She continually repeats the phrase "what does it matter?" and this frustrates Mr. Gradgrind.
In the end, Louisa is still emotionless and she replies: "I am satisfied to accept his proposal." Mr. Gradgrind is very pleased and he kisses his daughter on the forehead. When Mrs. Gradgrind hears the news she is happy but then she works herself into a fit and soon passes out. Sissy Jupe is present and she is, perhaps, the only one who is able to sense the difference in Louisa. Louisa keeps herself at a distance and is "impassive, proud and cold." Sissy feels a mixture of wonder, pity and sorrow for Louisa.
Mr. Gradgrind is hiring the stranger, Mr. James Harthouse, as an instructor in his school. He will be one of many who are trained in logic and statistics and eager to help relieve children of their imaginations. James Harthouse is the younger brother of a member of Parliament and as he has become an adult, he has failed to find a vocation or even a steady hobby to fill his hours. After trying several other things, Harthouse decided that he might as well give statistics a try and so he had himself coached and instructed in various philosophies.
Meanwhile, Tom Gradgrind has become quite wayward despite the rigors of his education and he is incredibly hypocritical and disrespectful. He makes no effort to hide his disdain for Mr. Bounderby even as he fascinated by Mr. Harthouse's flashy clothes and he befriends him for this largely superficial reason. Tom very quickly becomes a pawn of Mr. Harthouse. After a little alcohol and some tobacco, Tom is loose-lipped and uninhibited in his criticism of Mr. Bounderby. At one point, Tom goes as far as to say that he is the only person that Louisa cares about and that it is only for his well-being that she agreed to marry Mr. Bounderby. Without realizing it, Tom is laying the seeds for a potential affair between Harthouse and his sister. As Harthouse becomes more enrapt with Louisa, Tom offers more and more secrets until he finally falls into a stupor.
Stephen Blackpool is in the company of Mr. Bounderby, Louisa, Mr. Harthouse and Tom. Mr. Bounderby intends to make an example of Stephen and present him to Mr. Harthouse as a sort of specimen of the lower classes. Bounderby does not appreciate Stephen's criticism and on a whim he decides to repay Stephen's loyalty by accusing him of being disloyal. He goes as far as to say that Stephen has betrayed both his employer and his fellow employees and he caps his argument off by firing Stephen "for a novelty."
Mrs. Sparsit watches from her post at the bank and then when the timing is right she hastily makes her way to the country-house and sure enough she finds Louisa and James sitting in a garden together. He confesses his love but Louisa remains resistant. He implores her to at least commit to seeing him but she refuses. He suggests a change of venue and the entire time, Mrs. Sparsit, hidden behind the shrubs, gloats to herself that the two young people have no idea that they are being watched.
Harthouse leaves and Louisa soon follows. Mrs. Sparsit assumes that Louisa has eloped and that they have a planned meeting-place and so she trails Louisa as best as she can. It is raining and Mrs. Sparsit is already dirty and muddy from hiding and crawling through the bush. Sparsit follows Louisa to the train station and thinks that Louisa has hired a coachman to get her to Coketown faster but after a few moments Sparsit sees that she is incorrect. Louisa has boarded some train. "I have lost her" is Mrs. Sparsit's exclamation of defeat and frustration.
Mrs. Sparsit is still stirring up trouble. All of her running back and forth in the nighttime rain has caused her to get a violent cold but this does not stop her from completing her mission. She went as far as London to find Mr. Bounderby and confront him with the news of Louisa's conversation in the garden, and her flight from the country house‹presumably, to continue her romantic affair. After giving the news, Mrs. Sparsit collapses in an incredibly theatrical display. Bounderby brings her back to Coketown and he carries her along with him to Stone Lodge, where he intends to confront Mr. Gradgrind (unaware that Louisa is also at Stone Lodge).
Mrs. Sparsit's story is presented and Mr. Gradgrind confesses that he is already aware of these details and that Louisa has preserved her honor by returning to her father's house when she did not know how to defend herself from temptation on her own. Mrs. Sparsit is now considered in the worst light for she has cast aspersions and criticized Louisa without due cause. She can do little more than utter an apology and begin crying profusely as she is sent back to town.
Louisa and her father are both convinced that Tom is involved in a bank theft and Louisa correctly suspects that after she left Stephen's room, Tom made some sort of false offer to Stephen, in her name, encouraging him to loiter outside of the bank. Mr. Gradgrind agrees that Tom has probably done this, knowing that Stephen planned to leave town and would be the most logical suspect.
In this moment of despair, again it is Sissy who has orchestrated a plan for deliverance and rescue. She could easily see that Tom was guilty and she sent him to Mr. Sleary and her old friends who were only a few towns away. Tom said that he had very little money and did not know who could hide him and this was the most reasonable solution as Sissy had read of the circus in the paper just the day before. It is also favorable that the town is only a few hours from the port of Liverpool and Mr. Gradgrind hopes that he might be able to get his son passage on a ship that will send him far away from shame and punishment.

[Asalbanoo]

Chapter 1:
The narrator, Gene, returns to the Devon School in New Hampshire, where he was a student with his friend Phineas 15 years ago, just as World War II began.
The narrative shifts back 15 years, to Gene's days with Phineas. On their first attempt to jump off a huge tree into the river, Phineas, being the daredevil, goes first‹and Gene is the only one who follows. Gene is normally a conservative, conformist type person, but around Phineas, he consents to break the rules more often.
Chapter 2:
Finny is an anomaly at Devon; he is a good student and athlete, but also a charming, likeable rule-breaker. The substitute headmaster, Mr. Patch-Withers, gives a tea for their class. Mrs. Patch-Withers notices that Finny has used the school tie as his belt, which is a heavy offense. Finny concocts some nonsense excuse, at which Mr. Patch-Withers is taken by surprise, and does not punish Finny.
Finny and Gene come up with the idea for a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session," a group for exciting and dangerous things. Gene goes onto the diving limb with Finny, and loses his balance; Finny stops Gene from falling, and Gene soon realizes that his friend saved his life.
Chapter 3:
Some of Finny and Gene's friends begin to join their new club. Finny makes up a game called "blitzball," sort of a variation on rugby and football; the game is a hit that summer.
Finny casually and easily breaks a school swimming record; Finny also refuses to do it again and have it count. Finny proposes that they go to the beach, which means big trouble if they are caught; Gene decides to go along. That night, Finny admits that he considers Gene his best friend, which touches Gene deeply; but somehow Gene can't say the same thing.
Chapter 4:
Finny mocks Gene's scholarly ambition, and Gene begins to believe that Finny is trying to come out ahead. Finny is the best in the school in athletics; Gene knows that he can be the best in academics, if Finny wouldn't take up so much of his time. Gene finds it hard to compete with Finny, but continues to improve.
When Finny asks Gene to come see a friend jump from their tree the night before exams, Gene vehemently objects. Gene thinks this is Finny's way of trying to sabotage his grades. Finny says he thought that Gene never needed to study. Gene, somewhat appeased, goes to the jumping tree with Finny.
Gene and Finny decide to do jump off the tree together. Once they are on the tree, Gene "jostles" the limb, and Finny loses his balance and falls; Gene seems unconcerned for his friend.
Chapter 5:
Gene learns that one of Finny's legs had been "shattered" in the fall; Gene grows very guilty about the accident. At last, Gene is allowed to visit Finny in the infirmary. Gene learns that Finny will no longer be able to play sports; Gene cannot believe the news. Gene gets ready to tell Finny the truth; but, he doesn't get the chance, and soon, Finny is sent home to recuperate.
Summer Session ends, and Gene returns home. Finally, he has to go back to Devon; on his way, he goes to Finny's house to see how he is doing. Finny seems weak, like an invalid. Gene tells Finny that he caused the accident, and Finny denies this confession.
Chapter 6:
Gene is finally back at school, without Finny. Gene got the same room he had during the summer, but no new roommate.
Gene goes to crew practice, which is run by Quackenbush, the uniformly disliked crew captain. Quackenbush immediately challenges him; they have a fight, and both tumble into the water. Gene then quits.
Finny calls Gene long-distance because he was worried that Gene would replace him, though Gene won't. Finny is relieved. When Gene tells Finny that he isn't participating in sports, Finny gets upset; he tells Gene that Gene has to participate for him, and Gene decides to grant Finny this request.
Chapter 7:
Brinker Hadley starts accusing Gene of arranging Finny's accident in order to get a room to himself. Brinker's accusations, though out of nowhere, trouble Gene a great deal.
Fall passes, and the war remains distant. The first snow falls, and soon Gene and the boys spend a miserable day at the railroad yard, shoveling snow. Soon, enlistment fever hits a few of the boys, especially Brinker and Gene. Gene feels that enlisting will give him a sense of purpose. But, then he goes back to his room, and finds Finny there; suddenly, he has a purpose to stay at Devon again.
Chapter 8:
Gene is surprised at Finny's sudden return; Finny looks well again. Gene is happy that Finny is back; however, he is still paralyzed by guilt. Brinker reintroduces his insinuations about Gene causing Finny's accident, but Finny doesn't want to think about it. Finny is not pleased with the idea that Gene might enlist; Gene immediately brushes aside any talk of him enlisting , reassuring Finny.
Finny is upset because Gene isn't doing sports like he promised; Finny goes off on a rant about how the war was designed to keep people in their place. Gene doesn't believe him, and asks Finny how he knows all this stuff that nobody else does; Finny then says "because I've suffered," opening another big, painful can of worms (109).
Finny and Gene never talk about Finny's little show of bitterness again. Finny says he wants to coach Gene for the 1944 Olympics; Gene knows there won't be any Olympics due to the war. Gene learns to be a little more skeptical of how the teachers manipulate the war to try and get the boys to behave.
Gene and Finny keep training, doing long runs in the morning; Gene thinks he can't do them, until one morning he just amazes himself and it comes naturally to him, just as it did with Finny before.
Chapter 9:
Leper is convinced by a video of American ski troops that he must enlist; Leper leaves a school week later, the first of Gene's class to enlist. Leper becomes a symbol of the war for the boys; he is the fantastic liason between them and the newspaper reports they read everyday. Phineas pulls away from his friends because of their fascination with the war. Finny tries to draw Gene away with him, into Finny's little world where war and enlistment do not exist.
Finny decides to organize the first winter carnival at Devon, so that there's something fun to do outside; Gene is persuaded to help. The carnival comes; Brinker has obtained some hard cider, snow sculptures have been made, and prizes are all set up. Finny is definitely cheered up by the whole little festival, and the other boys are happy for the break.
Then, a telegram comes for them from Leper; he says he has "escaped" from the army; Finny and Gene are shocked, and are determined to find Leper.
Chapter 10:
Gene goes to see Leper at his home in Vermont, and Leper is very different. Leper accuses Gene of causing Finny's accident, and reveals that he left the service because he was about to be discharged for mental health reasons. Gene gets angry and attacks Leper for his comments, then apologizes and is too embarrassed to leave immediately. After lunch, Leper and Gene go for a walk, and Gene sees that Leper really has cracked up. Leper talks nonsense, and somehow it affects Gene, who runs away from Leper.
Chapter 11:
Gene is finally back at school, and gets caught in a snowball fight. Brinker finally gets the truth about Leper out of Gene; Finny reveals that he's finished with his fake-war pretense. Devon again becomes swept up by the war and patriotism.
Brinker confronts Gene again about Finny's accident, and says they should get everything into the open, which Gene disagrees with. Later that night, Brinker drags Gene and Finny to the First Building. Brinker is holding some kind of inquiry into the accident; Brinker brings Leper, who was at the scene of the accident, out to speak. When Leper says that Gene did indeed push Finny, Finny freaks out and runs from the room. He falls on the marble steps outside, and re-breaks his leg.
Chapter 12:
The others rush out to help Finny; someone goes to fetch Dr. Stanpole. Finny is driven by Dr. Stanpole to the infirmary. Gene decides to go to the infirmary and see how Finny is. Finny is angry at Gene, and falls out of his bed while trying to get up and come at him; Gene says he's sorry, and leaves.
Rather than going home, Gene walks around the stadium and the gym; he is in a strange sort of reverie, where he feels like a spirit, and everything around him is vibrant and full of meaning. Gene goes to the infirmary to take some of Finny's things; Finny asks Gene if he had made him fall out of the tree because Gene hated him. Gene reassures him that it was some blind unexplainable thing that made him do it, and it had nothing to do with hate or any ill-will against Finny. Finny says he believes Gene, and they finally reach closure with that issue.
When Gene returns to the Infirmary to see Finny after his operation, he meets Dr. Stanpole. Dr. Stanpole sits him down and tells him that Finny died during the operation. Gene is too shocked to even think about it, and cannot cry because he feels like he died too, along with his friend.
Chapter 13:
It is June, and Devon gives use of the Far Common to the war effort. Brinker and Gene watch the troops and jeeps and equipment being brought in, for a Parachute Rigger's School being made there; Brinker brings up Leper, which Gene tells him not to talk about. Gene says that no one blames him for what happened to Finny, although he blames himself.
Gene is introduced to Brinker's dad, and says that he has joined the Navy. Brinker has joined the Coast Guard, probably part of his scheme to stay out of battle. Brinker's dad is very gung-ho about the military, and gives the boys a speech about having a good military record, and how people will respect them based on what they did for the war. Brinker obviously doesn't agree.
Gene then talks about Finny, and his experience in the war; how Finny was the only person he knew whose character was safe from being corrupted by the war, and how his friendship with Finny prepared him for his own experience. In lieu of Finny, he has finally adopted Finny's way of looking at things, and some of Finny's personality and rebelliousness. Finny means a lot to him and still influences him, and Gene is finally able to appreciate his friend for all that he was, and make peace with him.

[Asalbanoo]

Great Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmith's family, who has good luck and great expectations, and then loses both his luck and his expectations. Through this rise and fall, however, Pip learns how to find happiness. He learns the meaning of friendship and the meaning of love and, of course, becomes a better person for it.
The story opens with the narrator, Pip, who introduces himself and describes a much younger Pip staring at the gravestones of his parents. This tiny, shivering bundle of a boy is suddenly terrified by a man dressed in a prison uniform. The man tells Pip that if he wants to live, he'll go down to his house and bring him back some food and a file for the shackle on his leg.
Pip runs home to his sister, Mrs. Joe Gragery, and his adoptive father, Joe Gragery. Mrs. Joe is a loud, angry, nagging woman who constantly reminds Pip and her husband Joe of the difficulties she has gone through to raise Pip and take care of the house. Pip finds solace from these rages in Joe, who is more his equal than a paternal figure, and they are united under a common oppression.
Pip steals food and a pork pie from the pantry shelf and a file from Joe's forge and brings them back to the escaped convict the next morning. Soon thereafter, Pip watches the man get caught by soldiers and the whole event soon disappears from his young mind.
Mrs. Joe comes home one evening, quite excited, and proclaims that Pip is going to "play" for Miss Havisham, "a rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house."
Pip is brought to Miss Havisham's place, a mansion called the "Satis House," where sunshine never enters. He meets a girl about his age, Estella, "who was very pretty and seemed very proud." Pip instantly falls in love with her and will love her the rest of the story. He then meets Miss Havisham, a willowy, yellowed old woman dressed in an old wedding gown. Miss Havisham seems most happy when Estella insults Pip's coarse hands and his thick boots as they play.
Pip is insulted, but thinks there is something wrong with him. He vows to change, to become uncommon, and to become a gentleman.
Pip continues to visit Estella and Miss Havisham for eight months and learns more about their strange life. Miss Havisham brings him into a great banquet hall where a table is set with food and large wedding cake. But the food and the cake are years old, untouched except by a vast array of rats, beetles and spiders which crawl freely through the room. Her relatives all come to see her on the same day of the year: her birthday and wedding day, the day when the cake was set out and the clocks were stopped many years before; i.e. the day Miss Havisham stopped living.
Pip begins to dream what life would be like if he were a gentleman and wealthy. This dream ends when Miss Havisham asks Pip to bring Joe to visit her, in order that he may start his indenture as a blacksmith. Miss Havisham gives Joe twenty five pounds for Pip's service to her and says good-bye.
Pip explains his misery to his readers: he is ashamed of his home, ashamed of his trade. He wants to be uncommon, he wants to be a gentleman. He wants to be a part of the environment that he had a small taste of at the Manor House.
Early in his indenture, Mrs. Joe is found lying unconscious, knocked senseless by some unknown assailant. She has suffered some serious brain damage, having lost much of voice, her hearing, and her memory. Furthermore, her "temper was greatly improved, and she was patient." To help with the housework and to take care of Mrs. Joe, Biddy, a young orphan friend of Pip's, moves into the house.
The years pass quickly. It is the fourth year of Pip's apprenticeship and he is sitting with Joe at the pub when they are approached by a stranger. Pip recognizes him, and his "smell of soap," as a man he had once run into at Miss Havisham's house years before.
Back at the house, the man, Jaggers, explains that Pip now has "great expectations." He is to be given a large monthly stipend, administered by Jaggers who is a lawyer. The benefactor, however, does not want to be known and is to remain a mystery.
Pip spends an uncomfortable evening with Biddy and Joe, then retires to bed. There, despite having all his dreams come true, he finds himself feeling very lonely. Pip visits Miss Havisham who hints subtly that she is his unknown sponsor.
Pip goes to live in London and meets Wemmick, Jagger's square-mouth clerk. Wemmick brings Pip to Bernard's Inn, where Pip will live for the next five years with Matthew Pocket's son Herbert, a cheerful young gentleman that becomes one of Pip's best friends. From Herbert, Pips finds out that Miss Havisham adopted Estella and raised her to wreak revenge on the male gender by making them fall in love with her, and then breaking their hearts.
Pip is invited to dinner at Wemmick's whose slogan seems to be "Office is one thing, private life is another." Indeed, Wemmick has a fantastical private life. Although he lives in a small cottage, the cottage has been modified to look a bit like a castle, complete with moat, drawbridge, and a firing cannon.
The next day, Jaggers himself invites Pip and friends to dinner. Pip, on Wemmick's suggestion, looks carefully at Jagger's servant woman -- a "tigress" according to Wemmick. She is about forty, and seems to regard Jaggers with a mix of fear and duty.
Pip journeys back to the Satis House to see Miss Havisham and Estella, who is now older and so much more beautiful that he doesn't recognize her at first. Facing her now, he slips back "into the coarse and common voice" of his youth and she, in return, treats him like the boy he used to be. Pip sees something strikingly familiar in Estella's face. He can't quite place the look, but an expression on her face reminds him of someone.
Pip stays away from Joe and Biddy's house and the forge, but walks around town, enjoying the admiring looks he gets from his past neighbors.
Soon thereafter, a letter for Pip announces the death of Mrs. Joe Gragery. Pip returns home again to attend the funeral. Later, Joe and Pip sit comfortably by the fire like times of old. Biddy insinuates that Pip will not be returning soon as he promises and he leaves insulted. Back in London, Pip asks Wemmick for advice on how to give Herbert some of his yearly stipend anonymously.
Narrator Pip describes his relationship to Estella while she lived in the city: "I suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me," he says. Pip finds out that Drummle, the most repulsive of his acquaintances, has begun courting Estella.
Years go by and Pip is still living the same wasteful life of a wealthy young man in the city. A rough sea-worn man of sixty comes to Pip's home on a stormy night soon after Pip's twenty-fourth birthday. Pip invites him in, treats him with courteous disdain, but then begins to recognize him as the convict that he fed in the marshes when he was a child. The man, Magwitch, reveals that he is Pip's benefactor. Since the day that Pip helped him, he swore to himself that every cent he earned would go to Pip.
"I've made a gentleman out of you," the man exclaims. Pip is horrified. All of his expectations are demolished. There is no grand design by Miss Havisham to make Pip happy and rich, living in harmonious marriage to Estella.
The convict tells Pip that he has come back to see him under threat of his life, since the law will execute him if they find him in England. Pip is disgusted with him, but wants to protect him and make sure he isn't found and put to death. Herbert and Pip decide that Pip will try and convince Magwitch to leave England with him.
Magwitch tells them the story of his life. From a very young age, he was alone and got into trouble. In one of his brief stints actually out of jail, Magwitch met a young well-to-do gentleman named Compeyson who had his hand in everything illegal: swindling, forgery, and other white collar crime. Compeyson recruited Magwitch to do his dirty work and landed Magwitch into trouble with the law. Magwitch hates the man. Herbert passes a note to Pip telling him that Compeyson was the name of the man who left Miss Havisham on her wedding day.
Pip goes back to Satis House and finds Miss Havisham and Estella in the same banquet room. Pip breaks down and confesses his love for Estella. Estella tells him straight that she is incapable of love -- she has warned him of as much before -- and she will soon be married to Drummle.
Back in London, Wemmick tells Pip things he has learned from the prisoners at Newgate. Pip is being watched, he says, and may be in some danger. As well, Compeyson has made his presence known in London. Wemmick has already warned Herbert as well. Heeding the warning, Herbert has hidden Magwitch in his fiancé Clara's house.
Pip has dinner with Jaggers and Wemmick at Jaggers' home. During the dinner, Pip finally realizes the similarities between Estella and Jaggers' servant woman. Jaggers' servant woman is Estella's mother!
On their way home together, Wemmick tells the story of Jaggers' servant woman. It was Jaggers' first big break-through case, the case that made him. He was defending this woman in a case where she was accused of killing another woman by strangulation. The woman was also said to have killed her own child, a girl, at about the same time as the murder.
Miss Havisham asks Pip to come visit her. He finds her again sitting by the fire, but this time she looks very lonely. Pip tells her how he was giving some of his money to help Herbert with his future, but now must stop since he himself is no longer taking money from his benefactor. Miss Havisham wants to help, and she gives Pip nine hundred pounds to help Herbert out. She then asks Pip for forgiveness. Pip tells her she is already forgiven and that he needs too much forgiving himself not to be able to forgive others.
Pip goes for a walk around the garden then comes back to find Miss Havisham on fire! Pip puts the fire out, burning himself badly in the process. The doctors come and announce that she will live.
Pip goes home and Herbert takes care of his burns. Herbert has been spending some time with Magwitch at Clara's and has been told the whole Magwitch story. Magwitch was the husband of Jaggers' servant woman, the Tigress. The woman had come to Magwitch on the day she murdered the other woman and told him she was going to kill their child and that Magwitch would never see her. And Magwitch never did. Pip puts is all together and tells Herbert that Magwitch is Estella's father.
It is time to escape with Magwitch. Herbert and Pip get up the next morning and start rowing down the river, picking up Magwitch at the preappointed time. They are within a few feet of a steamer that they hope to board when another boat pulls alongside to stop them. In the confusion, Pip sees Compeyson leading the other boat, but the steamer is on top of them. The steamer crushes Pip's boat, Compeyson and Magwitch disappear under water, and Pip and Herbert find themselves in a police boat of sorts. Magwitch finally comes up from the water. He and Compeyson wrestled for a while, but Magwitch had let him go and he is presumably drowned. Once again, Magwitch is shackled and arrested.
Magwitch is in jail and quite ill. Pip attends to the ailing Magwitch daily in prison. Pip whispers to him one day that the daughter he thought was dead is quite alive. "She is a lady and very beautiful," Pip says. "And I love her." Magwitch gives up the ghost.
Pip falls into a fever for nearly a month. Creditors and Joe fall in and out of his dreams and his reality. Finally, he regains his senses and sees that, indeed, Joe has been there the whole time, nursing him back to health. Joe tells him that Miss Havisham died during his illness, that she left Estella nearly all, and Matthew Pocket a great deal. Joe slips away one morning leaving only a note. Pip discovers that Joe has paid off all his debtors.
Pip is committed to returning to Joe, asking for forgiveness for everything he has done, and to ask Biddy to marry him. Pip goes to Joe and indeed finds happiness -- but the happiness is Joe and Biddy's. It is their wedding day. Pip wishes them well, truly, and asks them for their forgiveness in all his actions. They happily give it.
Pip goes to work for Herbert's' firm and lives with the now married Clara and Herbert. Within a year, he becomes a partner. He pays off his debts and works hard.
Eleven years later, Pip returns from his work overseas. He visits Joe and Biddy and meets their son, a little Pip, sitting by the fire with Joe just like Pip himself did years ago. Pip tells Biddy that he is quite the settled old bachelor, living with Clara and Herbert and he thinks he will never marry. Nevertheless, he goes to the Satis House that night to think once again of the girl who got away. And there he meets Estella. Drummle treated her roughly and recently died. She tells Pip that she has learned the feeling of heartbreak the hard way and now seeks his forgiveness for what she did to him. The two walk out of the garden hand in hand, and Pip "saw the shadow of no parting from her."

[Asalbanoo]

Jane Austen's Emma is a novel of courtship. Like all of Austen's novels, it centers around the marriage plot: who will marry whom? For what reasons will they marry? Love, practicality, or necessity? At the center of the story is the title character, Emma Woodhouse, a heiress who lives with her widowed father at their estate, Hartfield. At the beginning of the novel, she is a self-satisfied young woman who feels no particular need to marry, for she is in the rather unique condition of not needing a husband to supply her fortune.
At the beginning of the novel, Emma's governess, Miss Taylor, has just married Mr. Weston, a wealthy man who owns Randalls, a nearby estate. The Westons, the Woodhouses, and Mr. Knightly (who owns the estate Donwell Abbey) are at the top of Highbury society. Mr. Weston had been married earlier. When his previous wife died, he sent their one child (Frank Churchill) to be raised by her brother and his wife, for the now-wealthy Mr. Weston could not at that time provide for the boy.
Without Miss Taylor as a companion, Emma adopts the orphan Harriet Smith as a protégé. Harriet lives at a nearby boarding school where she was raised, and knows nothing of her parents. Emma advises the innocent Harriet in virtually all things, including the people with whom she should interact. She suggests that Harriet not spend time with the Martins, a local family of farmers whose son, Robert, is interested in Harriet. Instead, Emma plans to play matchmaker for Harriet and Mr. Elton, the vicar of the church in Highbury. Emma seems to have some success in her attempts to bring together Harriet Smith and Mr. Elton. The three spend a good deal of leisure time together and he seems receptive to all of Emma's suggestions.
The friendship between Emma and Harriet does little good for either of them, however. Harriet indulges Emma's worst qualities, giving her opportunity to meddle and serving only to flatter her. Emma in turn fills Harriet Smith with grand pretensions that do not suit her low situation in society. When Robert Martin proposes to Harriet, she rejects him based on Emma's advice, thinking that he is too common. Mr. Knightly criticizes Emma's matchmaking, since he thinks that the dependable Robert Martin is Harriet's superior, for while he is respectable, she is from uncertain origins.
Emma's sister, Isabella, and her husband, Mr. John Knightly, visit Highbury, and Emma uses their visit as an opportunity to reconcile with Mr. Knightly after their argument over Harriet.
The Westons hold a party on Christmas Eve for the members of Highbury society. Harriet Smith, however, becomes ill and cannot attend. During the party, Mr. Elton focuses his attention solely on Emma. When they travel home by carriage from the party, Mr. Elton professes his adoration for Emma, and dismisses the idea that he would ever marry Harriet Smith, whom he feels is too common for him. Mr. Elton obviously intends to move up in society, and is interested in Emma primarily for her social status and wealth. Shortly after Emma rejects Mr. Elton, he leaves Highbury for a stay in Bath. Emma breaks the bad news to Harriet Smith.
As of this time, Frank Churchill has not yet visited his father and his new wife at Randalls, which has caused some concern. Emma, without having met the young man, decides that he must certainly be a good suitor for her, since he is of appropriate age and breeding. Another character who occupies Emma's thoughts is Jane Fairfax, the granddaughter of Mrs. Bates, an impoverished widow whose husband was the former vicar, and the niece of Miss Bates, a chattering spinster who lives with her mother. Jane is equal to Emma in every respect (beauty, education, talents) except for status, and provokes some jealousy in Emma. Jane will soon visit her family in Highbury, for the wealthy family who brought her up after her parents had died has gone on vacation. There is some indication that Jane might be involved with Mr. Dixon, a married man, but this is only idle gossip.
Mr. Elton returns from Bath with news that he is engaged to a Miss Augusta Hawkins. This news, along with an awkward meeting with the Martins, greatly embarrasses poor Harriet Smith.
Frank Churchill finally visits the Westons, and Emma is pleased to find that he lives up to her expectations, even though Mr. Knightly disapproves of him. Emma and Frank begin to spend time together, yet he seems somewhat insubstantial and immature. He makes a day trip to London for no other reason than to get his hair cut. Soon afterward, Jane Fairfax receives a pianoforte from London, and Emma assumes that it was sent to her by Mr. Dixon. As Frank and Emma spend more time together, Mr. Knightly becomes somewhat jealous, while Emma in turn becomes jealous as she suspects that Mr. Knightly might be in love with her rival Jane Fairfax.
Frank Churchill must abruptly leave Randalls when he learns that his aunt is unwell. His aunt is an insufferable woman, proud and vain, and she exercises great authority over her nephew. Thinking that Frank was ready to profess his love for her, she convinces herself that she is in love with Frank, but is unsure how to tell that she actually loves him. Finally, she realizes that she must not be in love with him, for she is as happy with him absent as she is with him present.
Mr. Elton brings his new wife back to Highbury. She is a vapid name-dropper, who compares everything to the supposedly grand lifestyle of her relatives, the Sucklings and addresses her new peers in Highbury with a startling lack of formality. Emma takes an instant dislike to her, and upon realizing this, Mrs. Elton takes a dislike to Emma.
When Frank Churchill returns, he and Emma sponsor a ball at the Crown Inn. During this ball, Mr. Elton openly snubs Harriet Smith, but she is saved from his social slight by Mr. Knightly, who graciously dances with her. After the ball, when Harriet and her companions are walking home, they are assaulted by a group of gipsies, but Frank Churchill saves the girl, a situation which becomes the talk of Highbury. This leads Emma to believe that Frank Churchill, whom Emma is sure she does not love, would be a suitable match for Harriet. When discussing what happened the next morning, Harriet does admit that she has some feelings for the man who saved her the night before ¬ yet she does not explicitly name Frank. Thanks to this new infatuation, Harriet finally gets over Mr. Elton.
At an outing at Box Hill, Frank Churchill, whose recent behavior had been questionable, proposes a game for entertaining Emma, and during this game Emma makes a rude comment to Miss Bates. Afterwards, Mr. Knightly severely scolds Emma for doing so, since Miss Bates is a poor woman who deserves Emma's pity and compassion, and not her scorn and derision. When Emma goes to visit Miss Bates the next day to apologize, she learns that Jane Fairfax has taken ill. She was preparing to leave for Maple Grove to become a governess for a family, a situation that she earlier compared to the slave trade. Emma now begins to pity Jane Fairfax, for she realizes that the only reason that Jane must enter into a profession is her social status. Otherwise, she would be as highly regarded as Emma herself.
There is shocking news for Emma when Mrs. Churchill dies. Freed from his overbearing aunt, Frank reveals to the Westons that he has been secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. Mr. Knightly begins to show a greater romantic interest in Emma, but when she attempts to break the bad news to Harriet Smith about Frank Churchill's engagement (the second heartbreak for Harriet), Emma learns that Harriet in fact had fallen for Mr. Knightly, who saved her socially at the Crown Inn ball. Emma now realizes that she is the only one who can marry Mr. Knightly, and that she has done Harriet a great disservice by making her think that she can aspire to such unreasonable heights.
Mr. Knightly soon professes his love for Emma, and they plan to marry. Yet there are two obstacles: first, if Emma were to marry she would have to leave her father, who dotes on her; second, she must break the news to Harriet Smith. Emma and Mr. Knightly decide that, when they marry, he should move to Hartfield, for Mr. Woodhouse cannot be left alone and would not bear moving to Donwell Abbey. Harriet takes the news about Mr. Knightly well, and soon after she reunites with Robert Martin. The wrongheaded aspirations that Emma instilled in Harriet are now gone, and she becomes engaged to her original and most appropriate suitor. She even learns of her parentage: her father is a respectable tradesman.
The novel concludes with marriage: between Robert Martin and Harriet Smith, Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, and between Mr. Knightly and Emma Woodhouse, who has grown to accept the possibility of submitting some degree of her independence to a husband.

[Asalbanoo]

Act 1: The play takes place in Scotland. Duncan, the king of Scotland, is at war with the king of Norway, and as the play opens, he learns of Macbeth's bravery in battle against a Scot who sided with Norway. At the same time, he hears of the treachery of the Thane of Cawdor, who was arrested. Duncan decides to give the title of Thane of Cawdor to Macbeth.
Macbeth and Banquo, traveling home from the battle, meet three witches, who predict that Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and king of Scotland, and that Banquo will be the father of kings. The witches disappear, and Macbeth and Banquo meet up with two nobles who inform them of Macbeth's new title. Hearing this, Macbeth begins to contemplate murdering Duncan in order to realize the witches' second prophecy.
Macbeth and Banquo meet up with Duncan, who tells them he is going to pay Macbeth a visit at his home at Inverness. Macbeth rides ahead to prepare his household. Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth informing her of the witches' prophesy and Macbeth's subsequent new title. A servant appears and tells her of Duncan's approach. Energized, she invokes supernatural powers to strip her of her feminine softness and prepare her to murder Duncan. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, Lady Macbeth tells him that she will take care of all the details of Duncan's murder.
Duncan arrives at Inverness, and Lady Macbeth greets him. Macbeth fails to appear, and Lady Macbeth goes to find him. He is in his room, contemplating the weighty and evil step of killing Duncan. Lady Macbeth taunts him, telling him he will only be a man when he kills Duncan, and that she herself has less softness in her character than he does. She then tells him her plan for the murder, and Macbeth accepts it: they will kill him while his drunken bodyguards sleep, then plant incriminating evidence on the bodyguards.
Act 2: Macbeth has a vision of a bloody dagger floating before him and leading him to Duncan's room. When he hears Lady Macbeth ring the bell to signal the completion of her preparations, Macbeth follows through with his part of the plan and leaves for Duncan's room.
Lady Macbeth waits for Macbeth to finish killing Duncan. Macbeth enters, still carrying the bloody daggers. Lady Macbeth again chastises him for his weak-mindedness and plants them on the bodyguards herself. As she does so, Macbeth imagines that he hears a voice saying "Macbeth will sleep no more." Lady Macbeth returns and assures Macbeth that "a little water clears us of this deed."
At the gate the porter pretends that he is guarding the door to hell. The thanes knock at the gate, and Macduff discovers Duncan's body when he goes in to wake him up. Macbeth kills the two bodyguards, supposedly in a fit of grief and rage, when they are discovered with the bloody daggers. Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain, fearing that their lives are in danger, flee to England and Ireland; their flight brings them under suspicion of conspiring in Duncan's death, and Macbeth is crowned king of Scotland.
Act 3: Macbeth hires two murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance in an attempt to thwart the witches' prophesy that Banquo will father kings. Lady Macbeth does not know of his plans, and he will not tell her. A third murderer joins the other two on the heath, and the three men kill Banquo. Fleance, however, escapes.
Macbeth throws a feast on the same night that Banquo is murdered, and Banquo's ghost appears to him, sending him into a frenzy of terror. Lady Macbeth attempts to cover up for his odd behavior, but the party ends up dissolving as the thanes begin to question Macbeth's sanity. Macbeth decides that he must revisit the witches to hear more of the future.
Meanwhile, Macbeth's thanes begin to turn from him, and Macduff meets Malcolm in England to prepare an army to march on Scotland.
Act 4: The witches show Macbeth three apparitions that tell Macbeth to fear no man born of woman, and warn him that he will only fall when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane castle. Macbeth takes this as a prophecy that he is infallible. When he asks the witches if their prophesy about Banquo will come true, they show him a procession of eight kings, all of whom look like Banquo, the last holding a mirror to signify the reign of James I, the Stuart king for whom Shakespeare wrote this play.
Malcolm tests Macduff's loyalty by confessing to multiple sins and ambitions. When Macduff proves loyal to him, the two plan the strategy they will use in attacking Macbeth. Meanwhile, Macbeth murders Macduff's wife, whom he has deserted, along with all his children.
Act 5: Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and reveals her guilt to a watching doctor as she dreams that she cannot wash the stain of blood from her hands. Macbeth is too preoccupied with battle preparations to pay much attention to her dreams, and is angry when the doctor says he cannot cure her. As the castle is attacked, Lady Macbeth dies (perhaps by her own hand). When Macbeth hears of her death, he comments that she should have died at a different time, and muses on the meaninglessness of life. However, he reassures himself by remembering the witches' predictions that he will only fall when two seemingly impossible things occur.
Meanwhile, the English army has reached Birnam Wood, and in order to disguise their numbers, Malcolm instructs each man to cut a branch from a tree and hold it in front of him as they march on Dunsinane. Witnessing this, Macbeth's servant reports that he has seen something impossible ¬ Birnam Wood seems to be moving toward the castle. Macbeth is shaken but goes out to fight nonetheless. During the battle outside the castle walls, Macbeth kills Young Siward, the English general's brave son. Macduff then challenges Macbeth. As they fight, Macduff reveals that he was not "born of woman" but was "untimely ripped" from his mother's womb. Macbeth is stunned but refuses to yield to Macduff. Macduff kills him and cuts off his head. Malcolm is proclaimed the new king of Scotland.

[Asalbanoo]

Robinson Crusoe is a youth of about eighteen years old who resides in Hull, England. Although his father wishes him to become a lawyer, Crusoe dreams of going on sea voyages. He disregards the fact that his two older brothers are gone because of their need for adventure. His father cautions that a middle-class existence is the most stable. Robinson ignores him. When his parents refuse to let him take at least one journey, he runs away with a friend and secures free passage to London. Misfortune begins immediately, in the form of rough weather. The ship is forced to land at Yarmouth. When Crusoe's friend learns the circumstances under which he left his family, he becomes angry and tells him that he should have never come to the sea. They part, and Crusoe makes his way to London via land. He thinks briefly about going home, but cannot stand to be humiliated. He manages to find another voyage headed to Guiana. Once there, he wants to become a trader. On the way, the ship is attacked by Turkish pirates, who bring the crew and passengers into the Moorish port of Sallee. Robinson is made a slave. For two years he plans an escape. An opportunity is presented when he is sent out with two Moorish youths to go fishing. Crusoe throws one overboard, and tells the other one, called Xury, that he may stay if he is faithful. They anchor on what appears to be uninhabited land. Soon they see that black people live there. These natives are very friendly to Crusoe and Xury. At one point, the two see a Portuguese ship in the distance. They manage to paddle after it and get the attention of those on board. The captain is kind and says he will take them aboard for free and bring them to Brazil.
Robinson goes to Brazil and leaves Xury with the captain. The captain and a widow in England are Crusoe's financial guardians. In the new country, Robinson observes that much wealth comes from plantations. He resolves to buy one for himself. After a few years, he has some partners, and they are all doing very well financially. Crusoe is presented with a new proposition: to begin a trading business. These men want to trade slaves, and they want Robinson to be the master of the tradepost. Although he knows he has enough money, Crusoe decides to make the voyage. A terrible shipwreck occurs and Robinson is the only survivor. He manages to make it to the shore of an island.
Robinson remains on the island for twenty-seven years. He is able to take many provisions from the ship. In that time, he recreates his English life, building homes, necessities, learning how to cook, raise goats and crops. He is at first very miserable, but embraces religion as a balm for his unhappiness. He is able to convince himself that he lives a much better life here than he did in Europe--much more simple, much less wicked. He comes to appreciate his sovereignty over the entire island. One time he tries to use a boat to explore the rest of the island, but he is almost swept away, and does not make the attempt again. He has pets whom he treats as subjects. There is no appearance of man until about 15 years into his stay. He sees a footprint, and later observes cannibalistic savages eating prisoners. They don't live on the island; they come in canoes from a mainland not too far away. Robinson is filled with outrage, and resolves to save the prisoners the next time these savages appear. Some years later they return. Using his guns, Crusoe scares them away and saves a young savage whom he names Friday.
Friday is extremely grateful and becomes Robinson's devoted servant. He learns some English and takes on the Christian religion. For some years the two live happily. Then, another ship of savages arrives with three prisoners. Together Crusoe and Friday are able to save two of them. One is a Spaniard; the other is Friday's father. Their reunion is very joyous. Both have come from the mainland close by. After a few months, they leave to bring back the rest of the Spaniard's men. Crusoe is happy that his island is being peopled. Before the Spaniard and Friday's father can return, a boat of European men comes ashore. There are three prisoners. While most of the men are exploring the island, Crusoe learns from one that he is the captain of a ship whose crew mutinied. Robinson says he will help them as long as they leave the authority of the island in his hands, and as long as they promise to take Friday and himself to England for free. The agreement is made. Together this little army manages to capture the rest of the crew and retake the captain's ship. Friday and Robinson are taken to England. Even though Crusoe has been gone thirty-five years, he finds that his plantations have done well and he is very wealthy. He gives money to the Portuguese captain and the widow who were so kind to him. He returns to the English countryside and settles there, marrying and having three children. When his wife dies, he once more goes to the sea.

[Asalbanoo]

A hunger artist who professionally fasts in a cage has come on hard times. People think he cheats by sneaking food; his manager limits his fasting to forty days even though the hunger artist believes he can last longer; and he remains unsatisfied, even when the public leaves his performances happily.
Without notice, the audience deserts the hunger artist. A European tour fails to drum up interest, and the hunger artist hires himself out to a circus. However, people only watch him because he is near the animals, not because they are interested in him. He remains neglected until one day an overseer asks him if he is still fasting. The hunger artist asks for forgiveness and explains that people should not admire his fasting; he simply could never find any food he liked, but if he had, he would have eaten it. With that, he dies. The circus replaces him in his cage with a panther. Everyone is fascinated by the vitality of the panther, and they never want to move away.

[Asalbanoo]

Alonso Quixana is an older gentleman who lives in La Mancha, in the Spanish countryside. He has read many of the books of chivalry and as a result, he has lost his wits, and he decides to roam the country as a knight-errant named Don Quixote de La Mancha. Neither his niece nor his housekeeper can stop him from riding his old horse, Rocinante, out into the country. Quixote's first sally ends quickly. He insists on having an innkeeper knight him into the chivalric order. Quixote believes that the inn is a castle. Returning home for clothes and money, Quixote is beaten and left for dead. A commoner rescues Quixote and brings him home.
The niece and housekeeper deliberate with two of Quixote's friends, the priest and barber, and they decide to destroy Quixote's library, burning many of the books of chivalry. These books are the culprit. When Quixote recovers, he asks for his books and his niece tells him that the sage Muñaton has taken them. Quixote believes it was the sage Friston, his mortal foe. Having found a squire, a common peasant named Sancho Panza, Quixote leaves yet again. This second sally provides the story for the rest of Book I. Panza quickly realizes that his master is mad, but the squire hopes that Quixote will make good on his promise to name Sancho as the Governor of an island. Quixote attacks a windmill, believing it to be a giant, destroying his lance in the process. Indeed, Quixote gets involved in several altercations and violent disputes while traveling on the road.
There is a peaceful and pastoral interlude when Quixote joins the goatherds who mourn the death of their friend Chrysostom, a poet who died of a broken heart. Continuing on the road with Sancho, Quixote has a run in with some horse-breeders and he is beaten so badly that Sancho has to quickly get the knight to an inn. Quixote perceives the inn to be a castle, yet again. Quixote believes the innkeeper's daughter to be a beautiful princess who has promised to come to his bed during the knight. Later that night, Quixote ends up caressing Maritornes: the half-blind, hunchbacked servant girl. Her lover, a mule carrier, is enraged and the carrier beats Quixote when he realizes that his lover, Maritornes, is struggling to get away from Quixote. In the darkness a brawl ensues, including Sancho, Maritornes, the innkeeper, the mule carrier and Quixote‹who quickly passes out. An officer of the Holy Brotherhood enters the room, having heard the commotion, and he fears that Quixote is dead.
Quixote is not dead. When he revives, he asks for the ingredients so that he might prepare for himself the "true balsam of Fierabras." He prepares the balsam, vomits, passes out, and wakes up feeling better. Sancho drinks the balsam and nearly dies. The next day, knight and squire leave the inn without paying. Quixote believes it to be an enchanted castle and he is offended by the suggestion that he should pay. Sancho does not escape as easily as Quixote does. Indeed, the squire is tossed in a blanket and his bags are stolen. In an arc of violence, Quixote murders some sheep, loses some teeth, steals a barber's basin (believing it to be Mambrino's helmet) and sets free a chain of galley-slaves who repay the knight's kindness with bruises.
Quixote befriends Cardenio, The Ragged Knight of the Sorry Countenance, who mourns the fact that his true love, Lucinda, has married another man: Don Fernando. Cardenio has gone mad with grief, running half-naked through the hills of Sierra Morena. Quixote imitates Cardenio, pining for his beloved lady, Dulcinea del Toboso. Quixote sends Sancho with a letter to deliver to Dulcinea but instead Sancho finds the barber and priest and leads them to Quixote.
With the help of Dorotea, a woman who has been deceived by Don Fernando, the priest and barber make plans to trick Don Quixote into coming home. Dorotea pretends to be the Princess Micomicona, desperately in need of Quixote's assistance. The final chapters of the novel combine romantic intrigue with the comedy of errors surrounding Don Quixote. Dorotea is reunited with Don Fernando and Cardenio is reunited with Lucinda. This takes place at the same inn which Quixote visited earlier (where was boxed by Maritornes' lover). Numerous guests arrive at the inn, as long-lost brothers are reunited, two other pairs of lovers are blessed and Don Quixote is almost arrested. The Holy Brotherhood has an arrest for Quixote's arrest on account of his "setting at liberty" a "group of galley-slaves." The priest begs for the officer to have mercy on Quixote because the knight is insane. The officer assents; Quixote is locked in a cage and carted home. Quixote believes the cage to be an enchantment, but when it is clear that he is going home he does not fight back. Of course, in Book II, Quixote goes out on his third and final sally, so Book I is not resolved. [LEFT]

[Asalbanoo]

April Seventh, 1928: Benjy accompanies Luster as he searches for a quarter to go to the circus that night. At the same time he relives memories of his youth, most of which have to do with Caddy. He remembers, for example, the night his grandmother (Damuddy) died, when Caddy climbed a tree to look in the parlor windows, showing her siblings her muddy drawers. He also remembers her precocious sexuality, which led to her pregnancy and marriage, taking her out of his life. He can smell the change in Caddy; when she is young and pure she smells like trees to him, and when she begins to have --- she no longer smells like trees. He has a specific order to the day's events, and when Luster interrupts this order, he howls.
June Second, 1910: this section follows the events of the last day of Quentin's life, as he makes meticulous preparations for his suicide. He puts on clean clothes and packs all his belongings, then buys two flat irons to weight himself down with and heads out of town (he is attending Harvard at the time). He arrives in a little riverside town and meets up with a small immigrant girl, who follows him around until her brother finds them and accuses him of kidnapping her. He also runs into his friends, who are in town for a picnic. He ends up getting into a fight with one of them when he confuses his rantings on women with those of Dalton Ames, the boy who got his sister pregnant. He returns to Cambridge to clean his clothes, then heads back out to the same town to drown himself in the river. Throughout the day he is haunted by memories of Caddy, especially of her affair with Dalton Ames, her pregnancy, and her marriage to Herbert Head.
April Sixth, 1928: this section follows Jason through his day as he deals with Quentin, Caddy's illegitimate daughter, who skips school and sleeps around. He takes her to school but then sees her skipping later with one of the musicians who is in town for the circus. Furious, he chases the two of them out of town but loses them when they let the air out of his tires. At the same time he is dealing with the finances of his life. He loses $200 in the stock market, and also receives a $200 check from Caddy for Quentin's upkeep. He cashes this check, then makes out a fake check for his mother to burn. He resents Quentin as the symbol of the job he was deprived of when Caddy divorced Herbert Head. We discover that he has embezzled thousands of dollars from Caddy, money that should have been Quentin's.
April Eighth, 1928: This section continues to follow Jason while also following Dilsey through her day. It is Easter Sunday, and Dilsey takes her family and Benjy to church and is powerfully affected by Reverend Shegog's sermon. She proclaims that she has seen the beginning and the end, the first and the last. At the same time, Jason wakes to discover that Quentin has run away and has taken the money he was saving in a strongbox in his room, $7,000 in total. Caroline is sure that Quentin has committed suicide like her namesake, but Jason drives out of town trying to find her. He meets up with the traveling circus in the next town, but is forcibly driven away by some circus workers. The owner of the circus tells him that Quentin and her boyfriend have left town. He returns to Jackson. At the end of the section, Luster is taking Benjy to the graveyard. When Luster takes a wrong turn, Benjy starts to howl, and Jason, who has just returned to town, stops the carriage and turns it the right way.

[Asalbanoo]

Author's Note: One Hundred Years of Solitude is not a typical novel in that there is no single plot and no single timeline. The author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has crucial thematic reasons for the unusual construction of the novel. It is his intention to show that history moves not only in cycles but also in circles. For this reason, there is no single main character in focus, nor does the novel follow a regular timeline. In his quest to show how history moves in circles, Marquez gives virtually every member of the Buendia family one of the following names: (men) Jose Arcadio, Aureliano (women) Ursula, Amaranta, Remedios. This can sometimes be confusing to the reader, which is, after all, the point. In an effort to make matters less confusing, Marquez has included a family tree at the beginning of the book, and he uses a slight variation on these names for each different character.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is both the history of Macondo, a small town in an unnamed region of South America, and the town's founders, the Buendia family. The book follows seven generations of the Buendias and the rise and fall of Macondo. The family patriarch, Jose Arcadio Buendia, founded the town with his wife, Ursula Iguaran. Because Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran were cousins, they have a fear of bearing children with pig's tails; this fear will linger over the book.
Jose Arcadio Buendia is an intrepid, curious man with a flair for exploration and the sciences. He delves into one scientific quest after another and eventually loses his senses, forcing the men of the town to tie him to a tree. Both his strengths and weaknesses are exhibited in the Buendia men throughout the novel, starting with his sons Jose Arcadio and Aureliano. Jose Arcadio inherits his father's massive strength and implusiveness; Aureliano inherits his strong ethical sense and his solitary intensity. Both these men go to their own extremes: Jose Arcadio becomes the ultimate macho and dies mysteriously after usurping lands; Aureliano (known in the novel as Colonel Aureliano Buendia) becomes one of the greatest and most notorious rebels in the country during an extended period of civil war. Macondo, once an innocent paradise, becomes acquainted with the outside world during the period of civil war. It is during this period that death and bloodshed first comes to Macondo's door; the town remains linked to the outside world because of the fame of Colonel Aureliano Buendia.
In contrast to her husband, Ursula Iguaran is fiercely practical and possessed of much common sense. She is energetic, tenacious (she lives so long that she loses track of her age) and spends her life looking after the family line. Unfortunately none of the female Buendias match her fortitude: Amaranta, her daughter, is tenacious only in personal bitterness while her great-great-granddaughters Renata Remedios and Amaranta Ursula are possessed of her energy but none of her common sense. The failure of the next generations to be possessed of their ancestors' strength of character causes the family to falter as history and modernity storm Macondo.
After the civil war, foreign imperialism comes in with devastating effects. White capitalists come to Macondo and seem to usurp God's powers with their ability to change the seasons and the water flow. They set up a banana plantation that exploits the residents of Macondo; when the workers organize and strike, they are all systematically killed in a government-sponsored massacre. One of the Buendias, Jose Arcadio Segundo, was a major organizer and could not face the world after this event.
For Macondo, too, the banana massacre brings major change. Rains begin the night of the massacre and do not stop for almost five years; washing away the banana plantation and leaving Macondo in a state of desperation. The impoverished town loses its importance and its modernity; from then on, the town exists in a state of regression. For the Buendias, also, the rains signal the quickening speed of their downward spiral. The older members of the family are lost in nostalgia; the younger ones are lost in debauchery and solitary isolation. As the town is abandoned, the last members of the family succumb to incestuous desire and birth a child with a pig's tail. At the very end of the book, it is revealed that the history of the Buendias has been ordained since the beginning, and that they will never have a second chance.

[Asalbanoo]

Part I sets up the misery of Winston's world before he outwardly expresses any sort of rebellion.
Winston Smith is living in London, chief city of Airstrip One (formerly known as England), in the superstate of Oceania. It is‹he thinks‹1984.
Oceania is a totalitarian state dominated by the principles of Ingsoc (English Socialism) and ruled by an ominous organization known simply as the Party. Oceania and the two other world superstates, Eurasia and Eastasia, are involved in a continuous war over the remaining world, and constantly shift alliances. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that the war is largely an illusion, and that the three superstates maintain this illusion for their mutual benefit. It serves their shared purpose of holding onto absolute power over their respective peoples. Much of the warfare, in fact, is inflicted by these governments upon their own citizens.
Oceanic society is hierarchical and oligarchic. At the bottom‹where the vast majority of the population lies‹are the "proles" or proletariat, the working classes who are uneducated and largely left alone by the government except when it is necessary to tap into mass patriotism or political participation. Above the proles is the Outer Party, less privileged members of the Party who spend their time keeping the wheels of the Party machine well-oiled and running smoothly. These people are systematically brainwashed from a young age and are kept under constant surveillance by ubiquitous "telescreens" (which can receive and transmit visual and aural impulses simultaneously) and the ominous Thought Police. Above the Outer Party are the Inner Party members, who enjoy the fruits of power and production, and whose sole aim is to perpetuate power for the Party, forever. At the very top of the pyramid is Big Brother, the embodiment of the Party, a "face" and glorified persona which it is easier to love than an abstract collective organization.
On this April day, Winston has left the Ministry of Truth, where he works in the Records Department, to take his lunch break at home, because he wishes to write in his diary‹a compromising activity and a compromising possession to begin with. Yet, despite his fears, he is overwhelmed with the need to impose some sanity upon his world. Winston is a rebel at heart, a heretic who does not subscribe to Party doctrines or beliefs.
After reflecting on the day's events, notably the event which inspired him to begin the diary on this day, Winston is startled by a knock on the door. Could it be the Thought Police already?
Fortunately, it is only his neighbor Mrs. Parsons, asking him to help her unclog her kitchen sink drain. He does, and after being briefly tormented by her children‹dangerous little demons already brainwashed by the Party and certain to turn on their parents one day‹he returns to his flat.
Winston's diary and his dreams and memories of the past are all testament to his need to anchor himself in the past, believing it to be more sane than the world he lives in now. The description of his dreams and memories gradually unfolds the developments which have led to the current world order.
Winston's job at the fraudulently-named Ministry of Truth involves the daily rewriting of history: he corrects "errors" and "misprints" in past articles in order to make the Party appear infallible and constant‹always correct in its predictions, always at war with one enemy. Currently the enemy is Eurasia, and it follows (according to the Party) that it has always been Eurasia, though Winston knows this to be untrue.
Despite his horror at the Party's destruction of the past, Winston enjoys his part in it, taking pleasure in using his imagination in rewriting Big Brother's speeches and such.
It becomes apparent, through a painstaking unfolding of detail, that the standards of living in Oceania are barely tolerable. For the majority of the population, goods are scarce, and everything is ugly and tastes horrible. Depressed, Winston wonders if the past were better. Once upon a time, did people enjoy marriage, was --- pleasurable, were there enough goods to go around? He recalls his own dismal marriage to Katharine, a frigid woman so inculcated with Party doctrine that she hates --- but insists upon it once a week as "our duty to the Party."
Winston feels that the only hope lies in the proles, if they wake up one day and realize that they are not living the kind of life they could be. But will they wake up?
Tormented by memories and searching for answers, Winston walks aimlessly through a prole area. He tries to talk to an old man about the past, but can't seem to get anywhere. Eventually, he finds himself in front of the antique shop where he had bought the diary. He enters, starts to chat with Mr. Charrington (the proprietor), and wanders through the quaint antiques. He buys a beautiful glass paperweight. Mr. Charrington talks to him some more and shows him an upstairs room furnished with old furniture. There is no telescreen in this room, amazing Winston, and inspiring him to consider renting this room as a hiding place‹though he immediately dismisses the idea as lunacy. Still, enchanted, he resolves to come back sometime.
Upon leaving the shop, he is startled to see a girl with dark hair who works in his Ministry. There is no reason for her to be in this area, and he deduces she must have been following him. Terrified, he hurries home and tries to write in his diary, but cannot.
The second part of the book traces hopeful events.
It opens with a startling encounter with the girl with dark hair. They pass one another in a corridor. She trips and falls on her injured arm; Winston helps her up. As he does, she slips him a note. He is surprised but tries not to show it. When he finally reads it, he is astonished to see that it says, "I love you."
Knocked for a loop, but forgetting all his previous fear and hatred of her, Winston tries to figure out how they can meet. After a few days, they finally manage to exchange some words in the canteen, and meet later that evening in Victory Square (once, apparently, Trafalgar Square). There, the girl discreetly gives him directions to a meeting place where they will rendezvous on Sunday afternoon.
Sunday afternoon rolls around, and Winston and the girl, Julia, meet out in the countryside. He is surprised and delighted to find that she detests the Party and goes out of her way to be as "corrupt" as possible. They spend a pleasant time together, and make love.
Winston and Julia start to meet clandestinely in the streets to "talk by instalments," as Julia calls it; private meetings are rare and difficult to coordinate. But they do manage once more that month. They talk as much as they can and get to know one another's personalities and histories.
Finally, the pressures and troubles of arranging meetings induce them to take the risky step of renting Mr. Charrington's upstairs room. In this room, they start to act like a married couple‹Julia puts on makeup and plans to get a dress, so she can feel like a woman, while Winston enjoys the sensation of privacy and the novelty of being able to lie in bed with your loved one and talk as much (or as little) as you want about whatever you wish. As time passes, they grow closer and talk about escaping together, though they know it is impossible.
At about this time, O'Brien‹an Inner Party member for whom Winston feels an inexplicable reverence, and some sort of bond‹suddenly makes an overture, presenting Winston with his address. This seems to be a sign. Winston and Julia go to O'Brien's flat together. There they are inducted into the Brotherhood, a legendary underground anti-Party organization founded by Emmanuel Goldstein, a former Party member. O'Brien gives them instructions and details on what to expect and what not to expect.
Here Hate Week intervenes. Months and weeks of preparation are nothing to the flurry the Ministry of Truth is cast into when suddenly, at the climax of Hate Week, it is made known that Oceania is at war with Eastasia rather than Eurasia. Winston and Julia and all their co-workers are thrown into a 90-hour-stretch of correcting old newspapers, since it must be made to appear that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Winston has received the book, the bible of the Brotherhood written by Emmanuel Goldstein, but has not had time to read it until his work at the Ministry finally finishes. All workers are given the rest of the day off, and he and Julia head separately for their upstairs room.
There Winston reads a good deal about what he already knows. Julia comes in, and after they make love he settles down to read the book to her. She falls asleep, and shortly after he realizes this, he closes the book and goes to sleep too.
When they awaken, the old-fashioned clock says 8:30, but various hints indicate that it is 8:30 a.m., not p.m. as Winston and Julia suppose. They stand together, looking out at the world, feeling how beautiful it is, feeling hopeful that the future will be all right even though they will not live to see it.
Suddenly they hear a voice and jump apart. There has been a telescreen in the room, behind a picture hanging over the bed. Winston and Julia have been caught. Helpless, they are taken away by the Thought Police, their momentary glimpse of happiness shattered.
Part III recounts the downfall of Winston and Julia.
After being held in a common prison for a while, Winston is transferred to the Ministry of Love. He sits in his cell, starving, thirsty, tortured by fear, waiting for he does not know what. As he waits, people come in and out, including Ampleforth, the poet from his department, and Parsons, who has been denounced by his seven-year-old daughter. Other people he does not know come in, and through them he hears about "Room 101," which seems to terrify everyone. He thinks longingly of being smuggled a razor blade by the Brotherhood, though he knows he probably wouldn't use it.
At last the door opens and, to his utter shock, Winston sees O'Brien come in. His assumption is that O'Brien has been captured; but it turns out that O'Brien was never a member of the Brotherhood, and that the whole thing had been a trap.
Winston is tortured and interrogated for a seemingly endless time. Somehow he feels that O'Brien is behind it all, directing the entire process with a twisted kind of love. Finally he finds himself alone with O'Brien, who tells him he is insane and that they are to work together to cure him. Winston's discussions with O'Brien dwell on the nature of the past and reality, and reveal much about the Party's approach to those concepts. They also uncover a good deal in O'Brien's personality, which is a puzzling and intricate one. Perhaps most importantly, the discussions finally answer Winston's former question, "WHY?" The Party, O'Brien explains with a lunatic intensity, seeks absolute power, for power's own sake. This is why it does what it does; and its quest will shape the world into an even more nightmarish one than it already is.
Winston cannot argue; every time he does, he is faced with obstinate logical fallacy, a completely different system of reasoning which runs counter to all reason. His final attempt to argue with O'Brien ends in O'Brien showing Winston himself in the mirror. Winston is beyond horrified to see that he has turned into a sickly, disgusting sack of bones, beaten into a new face.
After this, Winston submits to his re-education. He is no longer beaten; he is fed at regular intervals; he is allowed to sleep (though the lights, of course, never go out). He seems to be making "progress," but underneath he is still holding onto the last remaining kernel of himself and his humanity: his love for Julia.
This comes out when, in the midst of a dream, Winston cries aloud, "Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!"
This thoughtcrime is his undoing. He is taken to Room 101, where he is threatened with the possibility of being eaten alive by rats. Insane with panic and terror, he screams that they should do it to Julia, not him. Physically he is saved by this betrayal; but it has wiped away the last trace of his humanity and his ability to hold himself up with any sort of pride.
The end of the book finds Winston a shell of a man, completely succumbed to the Party. He and Julia no longer love each other; after Room 101, this is impossible for both of them. He is essentially waiting for his death. As he sits in the Chestnut Tree Cafe, musing distractedly (but never rebelliously) on the wreck of his life, word comes over the telescreen that Oceania has won a major victory against Eurasia (with which it is back at war) and that she now has complete control over Africa. Winston is just as triumphantly excited as everyone else, and he gazes up at the portrait of Big Brother with new understanding. At last, he loves Big Brother.

[Asalbanoo]

While The Great Gatsby is a highly specific portrait of American society during the Roaring Twenties, its story is also one that has been told hundreds of times, and is perhaps as old as America itself: a man claws his way from rags to riches, only to find that his wealth cannot afford him the privileges enjoyed by those born into the upper class. The central character is Jay Gatsby, a wealthy New Yorker of indeterminate occupation. Gatsby is primarily known for the lavish parties he throws each weekend at his ostentatious Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is suspected of being involved in illegal bootlegging and other underworld activities.
The narrator, Nick Carraway, is Gatsby's neighbor in West Egg. Nick is a young man from a prominent Midwestern family. Educated at Yale, he has come to New York to enter the bond business. In some sense, the novel is Nick's memoir, his unique view of the events of the summer of 1922; as such, his impressions and observations necessarily color the narrative as a whole. For the most part, he plays only a peripheral role in the events of the novel; he prefers to remain a passive observer.
Upon arriving in New York, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The Buchanans live in the posh Long Island district of East Egg; Nick, like Gatsby, resides in nearby West Egg, a less fashionable area looked down upon by those who live in East Egg. West Egg is home to the nouveau riche, people who lack established social connections, and who tend to vulgarly flaunt their wealth. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan graduated from Yale, and comes from a privileged Midwestern family. Tom is a former football player, a brutal bully obsessed with the preservation of class boundaries. Daisy, by contrast, is an almost ghostlike young woman who affects an air of sophisticated boredom. At the Buchanans's, Nick meets Jordan Baker, a beautiful young woman with a cold, cynical manner. The two later become romantically involved.
Jordan tells Nick that Tom has been having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, a woman who lives in the valley of ashes, ¬ an industrial wasteland outside of New York City. After visiting Tom and Daisy, Nick goes home to West Egg; there, he sees Gatsby gazing at a mysterious green light across the bay. Gatsby stretches his arms out toward the light, as though to catch and hold it.
Tom Buchanan takes Nick into New York, and on the way they stop at the garage owned by George Wilson. Wilson is the husband of Myrtle, with whom Tom has been having an affair. Tom tells Myrtle to join them later in the city. Nearby, on an enormous billboard, a pair of bespectacled blue eyes stares down at the barren landscape. These eyes once served as an advertisement; now, they brood over all that occurs in the valley of ashes.
In the city, Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to the apartment in Morningside Heights at which he maintains his affair. There, they have a lurid party with Myrtle's sister, Catherine, and an abrasive couple named McKee. They gossip about Gatsby; Catherine says that he is somehow related to Kaiser Wilhelm, the much-despised ruler of Germany during World War I. The more she drinks, the more aggressive Myrtle becomes; she begins taunting Tom about Daisy, and he reacts by breaking her nose. The party, unsurprisingly, comes to an abrupt end.
Nick Carraway attends a party at Gatsby's mansion, where he runs into Jordan Baker. At the party, few of the attendees know Gatsby; even fewer were formally invited. Before the party, Nick himself had never met Gatsby: he is a strikingly handsome, slightly dandified young man who affects an English accent. Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan Baker alone; after talking with Gatsby for quite a long time, she tells Nick that she has learned some remarkable news. She cannot yet share it with him, however.
Some time later, Gatsby visits Nick's home and invites him to lunch. At this point in the novel, Gatsby's origins are unclear. He claims to come from a wealthy San Francisco family, and says that he was educated at Oxford after serving in the Great War (during which he received a number of decorations). At lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to his business associate, Meyer Wolfsheim. Wolfhsheim is a notorious criminal; many believe that he is responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series.
Gatsby mysteriously avoids the Buchanans. Later, Jordan Baker explains the reason for Gatsby's anxiety: he had been in love with Daisy Buchanan when they met in Louisville before the war. Jordan subtly intimates that he is still in love with her, and she with him.
Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a meeting between himself and Daisy. Gatsby has meticulously planned their meeting: he gives Daisy a carefully rehearsed tour of his mansion, and is desperate to exhibit his wealth and possessions. Gatsby is wooden and mannered during this initial meeting; his dearest dreams have been of this moment, and so the actual reunion is bound to disappoint. Despite this, the love between Gatsby and Daisy is revived, and the two begin an affair.
Eventually, Nick learns the true story of Gatsby's past. He was born James Gatz in North Dakota, but had his name legally changed at the age of seventeen. The gold baron Dan Cody served as Gatsby's mentor until his death. Though Gatsby inherited nothing of Cody's fortune, it was from him that Gatsby was first introduced to world of wealth, power, and privilege.
While out horseback riding, Tom Buchanan happens upon Gatsby's mansion. There he meets both Nick and Gatsby, to whom he takes an immediate dislike. To Tom, Gatsby is part of the "new rich," and thus poses a danger to the old order that Tom holds dear. Despite this, he accompanies Daisy to Gatsby's next party; there, he is exceedingly rude and condescending toward Gatsby. Nick realizes that Gatsby wants Daisy to renounce her husband and her marriage; in this way, they can recover the years they have lost since they first parted. Gatsby's great flaw is that his great love of Daisy is a kind of worship, and that he fails to see her flaws. He believes that he can undo the past, and forgets that Daisy's essentially small-minded and cowardly nature was what initially caused their separation.
After his reunion with Daisy, Gatsby ceases to throw his elaborate parties. The only reason he threw such parties was the chance that Daisy (or someone who knew her) might attend. Daisy invites Gatsby, Nick and Jordan to lunch at her house. In an attempt to make Tom jealous, and to exact revenge for his affair, Daisy is highly indiscreet about her relationship with Gatsby. She even tells Gatsby that she loves him while Tom is in earshot.
Although Tom is himself having an affair, he is furious at the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into the city: there, in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, Tom and Gatsby have a bitter confrontation. Tom denounces Gatsby for his low birth, and reveals to Daisy that Gatsby's fortune has been made through illegal activities. Daisy's real allegiance is to Tom: when Gatsby begs her to say that she does not love her husband, she refuses him. Tom permits Gatsby to drive Daisy back to East Egg; in this way, he displays his contempt for Gatsby, as well as his faith in his wife's complete subjection.
On the trip back to East Egg, Gatsby allows Daisy to drive in order to calm her ragged nerves. Passing Wilson's garage, Daisy swerves to avoid another car and ends up hitting Myrtle; she is killed instantly. Nick advises Gatsby to leave town until the situation calms. Gatsby, however, refuses to leave: he remains in order to ensure that Daisy is safe. George Wilson, driven nearly mad by the death of his wife, is desperate to find her killer. Tom Buchanan tells him that Gatsby was the driver of the fatal car. Wilson, who has decided that the driver of the car must also have been Myrtle's lover, shoots Gatsby before committing suicide himself.
After the murder, the Buchanans leave town to distance themselves from the violence for which they are responsible. Nick is left to organize Gatsby's funeral, but finds that few people cared for Gatsby. Only Meyer Wolfsheim shows a modicum of grief, and few people attend the funeral. Nick seeks out Gatsby's father, Henry Gatz, and brings him to New York for the funeral. From Henry, Nick learns the full scope of Gatsby's visions of greatness and his dreams of self-improvement.
Thoroughly disgusted with life in New York, Nick decides to return to the Midwest. Before his departure, Nick sees Tom Buchanan once more. Tom tries to elicit Nick's sympathy; he believes that all of his actions were thoroughly justified, and he wants Nick to agree.
Nick muses that Gatsby, alone among the people of his acquaintance, strove to transform his dreams into reality; it is this that makes him "great." Nick also believes, however, that the time for such grand aspirations is over: greed and dishonesty have irrevocably corrupted both the American Dream and the dreams of individual Americans.

[Asalbanoo]

Alice is sitting with her sister outdoors when she spies a White Rabbit with a pocket watch. Fascinated by the sight, she follows the rabbit down the hole. She falls for a long time, and finds herself in a long hallway full of doors. There is also a key on the table, which unlocks a tiny door; through this door, she spies a beautiful garden. She longs to get there, but the door is too small. Soon, she finds a drink with a note that asks her to drink it. There is later a cake with a note that tells her to eat; Alice uses both, but she cannot seem to get a handle on things, and is always either too large to get through the door or too small to reach the key.
While she is tiny, she slips and falls into a pool of water. She realizes that this little sea is made of tears she cried while a giant. She swims to shore with a number of animals, most notably a sensitive mouse, but manages to offend everyone by talking about her cat's ability to catch birds and mice. Left alone, she goes on through the wood and runs into the White Rabbit. He mistakes her for his maid and sends her to fetch some things from his house. While in the White Rabbit's home, she drinks another potion and becomes too huge to get out through the door. She eventually finds a little cake which, when eaten, makes her small again.
In the wood again, she comes across a Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom. He gives her some valuable advice, as well as a valuable tool: the two sides of the mushroom, which can make Alice grow larger and smaller as she wishes. The first time she uses them, she stretches her body out tremendously. While stretched out, she pokes her head into the branches of a tree and meets a Pigeon. The Pigeon is convinced that Alice is a serpent, and though Alice tries to reason with her the Pigeon tells her to be off.
Alice gets herself down to normal proportions and continues her trek through the woods. In a clearing she comes across a little house and shrinks herself down enough to get inside. It is the house of the Duchess; the Duchess and the Cook are battling fiercely, and they seem unconcerned about the safety of the baby that the Duchess is nursing. Alice takes the baby with her, but the child turns into a pig and trots off into the woods. Alice next meets the Cheshire cat (who was sitting in the Duchess's house, but said nothing). The Cheshire cat helps her to find her way through the woods, but he warns her that everyone she meets will be mad.
Alice goes to the March Hare's house, where she is treated to a Mad Tea Party. Present are the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse. Ever since Time stopped working for the Hatter, it has always been six o'clock; it is therefore always teatime. The creatures of the Mad Tea Party are some of the must argumentative in all of Wonderland. Alice leaves them and finds a tree with a door in it: when she looks through the door, she spies the door-lined hallway from the beginning of her adventures. This time, she is prepared, and she manages to get to the lovely garden that she saw earlier. She walks on through, and finds herself in the garden of the Queen of Hearts. There, three gardeners (with bodies shaped like playing cards) are painting the roses red. If the Queen finds out that they planted white roses, she'll have them beheaded. The Queen herself soon arrives, and she does order their execution; Alice helps to hide them in a large flowerpot.
The Queen invites Alice to play croquet, which is a very difficult game in Wonderland, as the balls and mallets are live animals. The game is interrupted by the appearance of the Cheshire cat, whom the King of Hearts immediately dislikes.
The Queen takes Alice to the Gryphon, who in turn takes Alice to the Mock Turtle. The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle tell Alice bizarre stories about their school under the sea. The Mock Turtles sings a melancholy song about turtle soup, and soon afterward the Gryphon drags Alice off to see the trial of the Knave of Hearts.
The Knave of Hearts has been accused of stealing the tarts of the Queen of Hearts, but the evidence against him is very bad. Alice is appalled by the ridiculous proceedings. She also begins to grow larger. She is soon called to the witness stand; by this time she has grown to giant size. She refuses to be intimidated by the bad logic of the court and the bluster of the King and Queen of Hearts. Suddenly, the cards all rise up and attack her, at which point she wakes up. Her adventures in Wonderland have all been a fantastic dream.

[Asalbanoo]

A Doll's House traces the awakening of Nora Helmer from her unexamined life of domestic comfort. Ruled her whole life by either her father or her husband, Nora must question the foundation of everything she believes in when her marriage is put to the test. Having borrowed money from a man of ill-repute named Krogstad by forging her father's signature, she was able to pay for a trip to Italy to save her sick husband's life (he was unaware of his condition and the loan, believing that the money came from Nora's father). Since then, she has had to contrive ways to pay back her loan, growing particularly concerned with money.
When the play opens, it is Christmas Eve and we find out that Torvald has just been promoted to manager of the bank, where he will receive a big raise. Nora is thrilled because she thinks that she will finally be able to pay off the loan and be rid of it. Her happiness, however, is marred when an angry Krogstad approaches her. He has just learned that his position at the bank has been promised to Mrs. Linde, an old school friend of Nora's who has recently arrived in town in search of work, and tells Nora that he will reveal her secret if she does not persuade her husband to let him keep his position. Nora tries to convince Torvald, using all of her feminine tricks that he encourages, but is unsuccessful. Torvald tells her that Krogstad's morally corrupt nature is too repulsive to him, and impossible to work with. Nora becomes very worried.
The next day, Nora is nervously moving about the house, afraid that Krogstad will appear at any minute. Luckily for her sake, she has the preparations for a big costume ball that will take place the next night, to preoccupy her. She converses with a concerned Mrs. Linde while Mrs. Linde repairs her dress. When Torvald returns from the bank, where he has been taking care of business, she again takes up her pleas on behalf of Krogstad. This time, Torvald not only refuses, but also sends off the notice of termination that he has already prepared for Krogstad, reassuring a scared Nora that he will take upon himself any bad things that befall them as a result. Nora is extremely moved by this comment and begins to consider the possibility of this episode transforming their marriage for the better as well as the possibility of suicide. Meanwhile, she converses and flirts with a very willing Dr. Rank. Learning that he is rapidly dying, she takes up an intimate conversation that culminates in him professing his love just before she is able to ask him for a favor (to help her with her problem). His words stop her and she steers the conversation back to safer grounds. Their talk is interrupted by the announcement of Krogstad. Nora asks Dr. Rank to leave and has Krogstad brought in. Her loaner asks tells her that he has had a change of heart and that, though he will keep the bond, he will not reveal her to the public. Instead, he wants to give Torvald a note explaining the matter so that Torvald will be pressed to help Krogstad rehabilitate himself. Nora protests Torvald's involvement, but Krogstad drops the letter in Torvald's letterbox anyway, much to Nora's horror. Nora exclaims aloud that she and Torvald are lost. However, she still tries to use her charms to prevent Torvald from reading the letter, luring him away from business by begging him to help her with her tarantella for the next night's ball. He agrees to put off business until after the tarantella is over.
The next night, before Torvald and Nora return from the ball, Mrs. Linde and Krogstad, old lovers, reunite in the Helmer's living room. Mrs. Linde asks to take care of Krogstad and his children and to help him become the better man that he knows he is capable of becoming. The Helmers return from the ball as Mrs. Linde is leaving (Krogstad has already left), Torvald nearly dragging Nora into the room. Alone, Torvald tells Nora how much he desires her but is interrupted by Dr. Rank. The Doctor, unbeknownst to Torvald, has come by to say his final farewells, as he covertly explains to Nora. After he leaves, Nora is able to deter Torvald from pursuing her anymore by reminding him of the ugliness of death that has just come between them (Nora having revealed Dr. Rank's secret) and, seeing that Torvald has collected his letters, resigns herself to committing suicide. As she is leaving, though, Torvald stops her. He has just read Krogstad's letter and is enraged by its contents, accusing Nora of ruining his life. He pretty much tells her that he plans on forsaking her, contrary to his earlier claim that he would take on everything himself. During his tirade, he is interrupted by the maid bearing another note from Krogstad (addressed to Nora). Torvald reads it and becomes overjoyed‹Krogstad has had a change of heart and has sent back the bond. Torvald quickly tells Nora that it is all over, that he has forgiven her, and that her pathetic attempt to help him has only made her more endearing than ever. Nora, seeing Torvald's true character for the first time, sits her husband down to tell him that she is leaving him. After protestations from Torvald, she explains that he does not love her and, after tonight, she does not love him. She tells him that, given the suffocating life she has led until now, she owes it to herself to become fully independent and to explore her own character and the world for herself. As she leaves, she reveals to Torvald that she was hoping that they would be able to unite in real wedlock, but that she has lost all hope. The play ends with the door slamming on her way out.

[Asalbanoo]

The play opens in Dalarna, a province of Sweden, in 1624 during the Thirty Year's War. The Swedish army is recruiting for a campaign in Poland. Mother Courage runs a canteen wagon that follows the army and sells the soldiers drink and items of clothing. A Recruiting Officer and a Sergeant are trying to find troops for the Swedish Army. They see Eilif, one of Mother Courage's sons, and try to recruit him. When Mother Courage prevents them, the Sergeant feigns interest in one of her belts. While she negotiates with him, the Recruiting Officer pulls Eilif away from her and signs him up for the army.
Mother Courage follows the army into Poland, accompanied by her younger son Swiss Cheese and her mute daughter Kattrin. She enters the Commander's tent and tries to sell the Cook a capon for dinner. The Cook haggles with her over the price. Suddenly she overhears her son's voice talking with the Commander. Eilif is being honored for having killed some peasants and stolen their cattle. She manages to sell her bird to the Cook for a high sum and then sees her son again. Eilif embraces her, but she boxes him and tells him that the next time he encounters peasants he should surrender when they surround him (instead of fighting and killing them all).
Three years later Mother Courage is still with the regiment. The Catholic Army attacks and wins, forcing her to switch flags. Swiss Cheese, who has become the payroll master for the army, foolishly hides the money box in her wagon. The Chaplain of the Protestant regiment joins Mother Courage and pretends to be a Catholic. After several days he and Mother Courage leave to conduct business. Swiss Cheese decides that he should hide the money box somewhere else, but when he does so Catholic spies watch him carefully. They arrest him and bring him back to Mother Courage, who has returned to her wagon and discovered that Swiss Cheese has left. She realizes that his life is in danger and pretends not to know him.
They take Swiss Cheese away to interrogate him. Yvette Pottier, a prostitute in the army, arrives with a Colonel in tow. Mother Courage gets Yvette to buy her wagon for a large sum of money. She then sends Yvette to the Catholics in the hopes that she can bribe one of the soldiers to release Swiss Cheese. However, she bargains too long and Yvette returns to the wagon and tells her that Swiss Cheese is dead, with eleven bullet holes in him. The soldiers bring his body to Mother Courage, who must again deny knowing the man.
She then goes to complain to a sergeant about the way the troops ruined her goods and charged her a fine for nothing. While in the tent waiting to complain, a soldier arrives who has been cheated out of his reward. He tells her that his sergeant kept the reward money and spent it on whores and alcohol. Mother Courage explains to him that unless his anger is "long", he might as well capitulate and realize that his spirit has already been broken and that there is nothing he can do about it. She succeeds in convincing him to give up his anger, but realizes that her own complaint is just as worthless. She leaves without complaining.
Mother Courage is in a small town where the war is being fought. Several peasants need bandages but she refuses to give them any. The Chaplain, who is still with her, forcefully enters her wagon and rips up some good shirts for bandages.
The Commander of the regiment eventually gets killed and the soldiers spend the day drinking instead of attending his funeral. The Chaplain tells Mother Courage that the war will not end and that she should add more supplies while they are still cheap. As a result, she sends Kattrin into the town to buy supplies. Kattrin returns with lots of goods, but with a nasty scar on her face where she was hurt on the way home. Mother Courage patches up her daughter but tells the Chaplain that it is doubtful Kattrin will ever be able to marry now.
Unfortunately for Mother Courage, peace does in fact arrive, meaning that she is financially ruined. She is, however, happy that she will get to see Eilif again. The Cook from earlier in the play arrives and he gets into an argument with the Chaplain, where both men vie for Mother Courage's favor. The Cook suggests that Mother Courage should sell her goods before the prices drop too much due to the peace. Yvette Pottier shows up again and she and Mother Courage go to sell the goods.
Eilif is brought onstage in chains. He tells the Chaplain and the Cook that he killed some peasants again in order to take their cattle, but since it was during peacetime, he got arrested. He does not get to see his mother, and the Chaplain accompanies him to be executed. Mother Courage arrives back soon thereafter with the news that the war has actually started again, but that they did not know it. The Cook does not tell her that Eilif has been executed.
The Cook remains with the wagon for two years until he receives a letter that his mother has died and left him a small inn to take care of. He tries to get Mother Courage to accompany him, but since he refuses to take Kattrin along, she turns him down. While he is eating in a parsonage, she dumps his stuff on the ground and drives off with Kattrin.
Two years later Mother Courage is near the town of Halle, in which she is buying goods for her wagon. Kattrin remains with the wagon near a farmhouse. Some soldiers arrive from the Catholic army and seize the peasants in the farmhouse along with Kattrin. They force one of the peasants to lead them silently into town. The remaining peasants go up on the roof and realize that the army is going to slaughter the townspeople. They kneel to pray, and Kattrin stays behind them and listens. During the prayer she suddenly goes and gets a drum out of the wagon and climbs up on the roof. She starts beating the drum and pulls the ladder up with her to prevent them from stopping her.
Her noise brings back the soldiers. They first try to bribe her down by offering to protect her mother. Next they threaten to shoot her. She refuses to stop beating the drum even when they get a gun and aim at her. Kattrin beats louder and harder until they shoot her down. However, the noise that she made successfully wakes up the town and allows it to defend its walls and to use its cannon.
The next day Mother Courage pays the peasants to bury her daughter. She then says that she must get back into business. Hearing a regiment pass by, she harnesses herself to the front of the wagon and pulls the wagon offstage

[Asalbanoo]

Absalom, Absalom! is the story of a legend and the people who tell it over and over again. In September 1909, 20-year-old Quentin Compson goes to visit Rosa Coldfield, an older woman in his hometown of Jefferson, Mississippi. Miss Rosa has summoned him to listen to her version of the legend of Thomas Sutpen. That same night, Quentin goes over the story again with his father, Mr. Compson, who tells the story from a different perspective. Five months later, when he goes to Harvard, he reinvents the story with his roommate, Shreve.
In 1833, Thomas Sutpen came to Jefferson and built, without any help but his own wild, superhuman will, an enormous mansion on 100 acres that he swindled from an Indian tribe. With a band of foreign slaves and a French architect, he raises the house and cultivates a plantation. Within a few years he is one of the richest single planters in the county, and he marries the daughter of a local merchant (Rosa's older sister) and has a son and daughter, Henry and Judith. The two children grow up with privilege yet the knowledge that the town resents and despises their father. Henry goes to the University of Mississippi in 1859, and becomes friends with a worldly older student named Charles Bon. He brings Bon home for Christmas and holidays, and soon it is assumed that Bon will marry Judith. But Sutpen recognizes Bon as his own son--the son he abandoned when he discovered that his first wife had black blood. He follows Bon to New Orleans to be sure of this fact, then tells Henry that they cannot be married because Bon is actually Judith's half-brother. Henry refuses to believe his father and will not abandon his friend. They quarrel; Henry repudiates his birthright and leaves. For four years, while the Civil War rages, Henry tries to convince himself that Charles Bon and Judith can be married even if it means incest. He has almost justified it to himself when Sutpen (a colonel for the Confederate Army) calls his son to his tent and tells him that Charles Bon must not marry Judith. Not only is he Judith and Henry's half-brother, but Charles Bon also has black blood.
This information repulses Henry in a way that even incest does not. When Charles Bon insists on marrying Judith anyway, goading Henry to do something about it, Henry shoots Charles Bon as they walk up to the gates of Sutpen's Hundred. Then he disappears. Sutpen returns home after the war to a ruined dynasty and a devastated plantation. Determined to start over again, he first tries to marry Rosa Coldfield, then takes up with Milly, the 15-year-old granddaughter of a poor white squatter on his property. Increasingly impoverished and alcoholic, Sutpen insults Milly after she bears his child. Furious, her grandfather kills Sutpen that very day in 1869.
After she tells Quentin her version of the story, Rosa asks him to accompany her to Sutpen's Hundred, where Clytie (Sutpen's daughter with a slave woman; she is now in her late 60s) still lives. Clytie has been hiding Henry Sutpen there for four years while he waits to die. Quentin and Rosa discover this when they go to the estate after midnight. Rosa returns to the house three months later with an ambulance for Henry, and Clytie sets fire to the house, killing herself and Henry. No one remains of Sutpen's dynasty but Jim Bond, a mentally-impaired man of mixed blood. [LEFT]

[Asalbanoo]

The novel opens with a Prologue describing the depressed state of the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the novel. He is an invisible man, he proclaims, and has taken to living unknown underground, sucking electricity from the state of New York into his many light bulbs that he has hung in his lair. The novel is to be the story of how he came to be in this position.
As a young boy, the narrator overhears the last words of his dying grandfather, whose message lingers with him through high school. He is struck with this idea when he is asked to give his college oration to the town's most honored white men. At the fancy ballroom where he attends the occasion, he is ushered into the battle royal with the other boys hired for the evening's entertainment. First however the boys are brought into the room where a naked woman dances. The boys are next blindfolded and pitted against each other in a boxing ring. After several fights, only the narrator and the largest boy, Tatlock, remain and they are told they must fight each other for a prize.
The next stage requires the boys to grab for gold coins on a rug which turns out to be electrified. The narrator is finally allowed to give his oration and is awarded a scholarship to a renowned black college. At college, he is first faced with the disillusionment which will overcome him by the end. The memory is painful as he relates the day he was given the honor of driving an old white trustee, Mr. Norton, around the campus. The drive goes smoothly for a while although Mr. Norton's questions surprise the narrator. Norton sees every student at the college as part of his fate. He also welcomes a chance to explore parts of the surrounding town . Mistakenly, the narrator drives Norton into a poor district of black sharecroppers and Norton is intrigued by a disgraced member of the community, Jim Trueblood, who is rumored to have impregnated both his wife and daughter. Trueblood gives a long description of the dream which made him commit the act of incest and resulted in his wife trying to kill him. After this episode, Norton feels faint and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day brothel in order to find whisky to revive him. Mental patients visiting the bar unfortunately rise up against their attendant, trapping the narrator and Norton in the middle of the fight. Falling unconscious, Norton is revived by a former doctor who speaks to him of the narrator's invisibility. Thinking the doctor insane, he and the narrator finally return to the college where the narrator is punished for his treatment of Mr. Norton. The college president, Dr. Bledsoe, relates to the narrator that he should have only showed the trustee what the college would have wanted him to see. The narrator is expelled and sent to New York with seven sealed letters to wealthy employers with the promise that he can return as a paying student in the fall. Though stunned, the narrator decides to take advantage of the opportunity to work for an important person in New York City.
Arriving in Harlem, he is dazed but excited. He rents a room at the Men's House in Harlem and sets out the next morning to start handing out his letters. That process goes smoothly although he is only able to give the letters to secretaries and is told the employers will contact him. After not hearing anything, the narrator becomes suspicious of the secretaries and holds the last letter back, asking first to meet with the employer, Mr. Emerson, upon which he could personally give him the letter. The narrator's efforts are once more interceded, though, as Mr. Emerson's son takes the letter from him at the office and attempts to talk him out of returning to the college or speaking to his father. Finally, the son finally shows the narrator the letter from Dr. Bledsoe which the narrator had been told not to look at. The narrator is horrified to read what is written. Bledsoe writes explicitly to the employers that the narrator will never be allowed back to the school and asks them to see to it in the meantime that he will not be able to return to school as a paying student. Disillusioned, the narrator leaves the office utterly humiliated and terribly angry. He decides to take a job at a paint factory in order to be able to plan out his revenge on Dr. Bledsoe.
The idea of revenge is jumbled during the one long day he spends working at the paint plant. His boss, Mr. Kimbro, is very brusque and demanding, putting the narrator immediately on the job with very few instructions and the order not to ask questions. When the narrator mixes the wrong ingredient into the paint because he is afraid to ask Kimbro, he is fired from that job and handed to another boss, Mr. Brockway, who works as the engineer of sorts. Brockway is paranoid that the narrator is trying to take his job and is thus quite irritable toward him, asking him many questions about his past. They get along agreeably enough until after the narrator returns from retrieving his lunch. In the lockerroom he had run into what he thinks is a union meeting, though we later realize it was a Brotherhood meeting, and it had delayed him. He explains this to Brockway who explodes in anger at his participation in a union and attacks him, refusing to listen to the narrator's explanation. The narrator feels the tension snap inside him and fights off Mr. Brockway. Because of their inattention to the gauges in the room, the tanks burst from the pressure and the narrator is covered in white paint and knocked unconscious.
He swims in and out of consciousness for what seems like days in a plant factory, surrounded by doctors who speak of lobotomies and tests which they would not try on him if he had been a white Harvard student. Desperately clutching consciousness at one point, he is asked his name but is unable to remember it. Finally, the doctors release him from the tubes and machines, saying that he has been saved though he never really knows from what. He is brought to the hospital director before he can leave, where he is told that he can no longer work at the plant but will receive ample compensation. Still foggy, he stumbles back toward the Men's House where he is relieved on his way by a strong, motherly woman named Mary Rambo. The narrator hesitantly agrees to let her take him back to her house where he can rest and revive his spirits. She feeds him and also offers him a place to stay before he returns to the Men's House. Returning to the house after his hospital stay and lowly employment, he feels inferior and realizes he can no longer reside there. After offending a man he first believes is Bledsoe, he is thrown out of the House and takes Mary up on her offer.
Able to pay rent with his compensation money, the narrator lives with Mary for a while in relative quiet. Once the winter comes to New York, the narrator feels restless and takes to wandering streets, still filled with rage toward Bledsoe. After reconnecting with his own identity by eating southern yams sold on the street, he is drawn to an eviction where an old black couple is being thrown out into the cold. A crowd has formed around the defenseless couple who shriek and cry out against the injustice. The scene of dispossession strikes the narrator to the core and he begins to speak to the crowd after the couple is denied the chance to go inside their home and pray. His emotions clashing, he stands in front of the crowd calming them and forming their chaos into an ordered rage. Once the crowd rushes the house, the narrator runs to escape lest the police come after him. Running over rooftops, he is followed by a short man who later approaches him on the street. The man introduces himself as Brother Jack and praises the narrator on his moving oration. He offers him a job with the Brotherhood, taking advantage of his speaking skills. Brushing aside the offer, the narrator later reproaches himself for not getting more details about the job when he is in such debt to Mary. He decides to accept the job in order to pay back Mary, but must stop living with her once he is accepted into the Brotherhood. His first glimpse into the organization is at the party/meeting they bring him to at the Chthonian Hotel. The upscale, mostly white crowd makes him uncomfortable but they all appear friendly and praise his action at the eviction. Brother Jack explains to the narrator that his role will be one of leading the community of Harlem in line with the Brotherhood's teachings, in the manner of Booker T. Washington. Secretly, the narrator vows to follow the example set by the college's founder instead.
The narrator leaves Mary's house the next day. In his room that morning, he finds a piggy bank in his room shaped offensively like a black man with overly exaggerated features. After breaking it by accident, he attempts to get rid of it but cannot. He is then sent to Brother Hambro for training, given a new apartment, and a new name. After completing training, the Brothers call him down to Harlem and he is shown the office where he will work, along with Brother Tarp and Brother Clifton, the handsome youth leader. He quickly becomes accustomed to his new work, relishing the ability to inspire the community around him. He and Clifton meet up with Ras the Exhorter, who competes with them for the community's support and chastises them for being traitors to their African race. The two groups fight until the narrator leads them away. Still the narrator feels secure and powerful in his position until he receives an ominous note warning him to move slowly and carefully. Alarmed, he questions Brother Tarp to see if he has any enemies. Tarp reassures him and opens up to him, relating painful parts of his past and giving to him a broken link he has saved from breaking away from a chain gang after nineteen years. Brother Wrestrum also visits on the day of the mystery note, and incites suspicion with the narrator because he seems meddlesome. His idea for a Brotherhood emblem is overshadowed by his attack on the inherently symbolic message of Tarp's chain link. The narrator agrees to be interviewed by a Harlem publication after trying to get them to speak to Clifton.
Weeks later, the narrator is called by the Brotherhood committee to an urgent meeting where he is charged by Wrestrum for attempting to overshadow and dominate the Brotherhood, naming some unknown plot against the Brotherhood and using the article the narrator was interviewed for as evidence. Until the accusations are cleared, the narrator moves downtown to speak on the Woman Question. Frustrated by the move but willing to try it, he meets a married woman who seduces him. The affair stays with him though he does not see her again, as he is frightened that the Brotherhood will find out and use it against him. Soon he is summoned to another emergency meeting which alerts him to Clifton's disappearance and reinstates him in Harlem. Returning to his old post, he finds that much is changed in the short time he has been gone. Tarp and Brother Maceo are gone as well and the spirit in the district is much subdued, as many of the people feel that the Brotherhood has let them down. Realizing he is now out of the Brotherhood loop, he plans to revive the neighborhood sentiment on his own. By chance, he finds Clifton further uptown where Clifton has become a street seller of a dancing, paper Sambo doll. Disgusted and intrigued, the narrator watches the performance and the police chase which follows, ending in the unnecessary killing of Clifton.
He decides to hold a funeral which can serve to unite the community of Harlem around a fallen hero of sorts. Though successful, the Brotherhood is outraged and meets him back in his office, at which point Jack angrily reveals that he has not been hired to think. They order that he continue in the district and send him to Hambro in order to understand the new, less aggressive program.
Thoroughly changed by Clifton's fate and the recent events, the narrator feels very angry toward the Brotherhood and walks around the neighborhood to think. He notices that the district is much more stirred by Clifton's shooting than he had presumed and he is drawn in by Ras to explain the Brotherhood's limited action following the murder. He defends their position and then moves away to buy a disguise so he will not be harmed by any of Ras's men. Surprisingly, due to dark green glasses and a wide hat, people begin to approach him and refer to him as Rinehart. He is able to go unnoticed by Ras but is constantly noticed by others as Rinehart, by lovers and zoot-suiters. Going back to a bar he normally frequented, he is still mistaken for Rinehart and is almost swept along into a fight with Brother Maceo. Later, on the way to Hambro's, the narrator uncovers a church where Rinehart is a reverend. His many identities and obvious manipulation of people's faith disturbs the narrator greatly and he approaches Hambro even more cynical than the Brotherhood left him. Hambro attempts to indoctrinate him into the new program, describing the scientific logistics, but to no avail. The narrator feels he can finally see how the Brotherhood and so many organizations in his life have swindled and manipulated their constituents. Resolved to attack the Brotherhood from the inside, he plans to "yes" the white men to death, referencing his grandfather, and to find a woman whom he can seduce into giving him inside information.
He chooses Sybil as she is vulnerable and married to an important brother, however she surprises him by wanting him to rape her. He escapes the situation when he is called uptown to Harlem for a crisis, although she attempts to tag along. A riot is in action and the narrator is swept along with it, nearly shot, and aids in the arson of an apartment building. The climax of the riot occurs when Ras rides through on a black horse dressed as a chieftain and wants the narrator hanged. Running from Ras' goons, the narrator falls down a manhole and realizes that he must live underground for awhile. The Epilogue is his resolution to reemerge into the world of social responsibility.

[Asalbanoo]

Madame Bovary opens during Charles Bovary’s childhood. An outcast in his new school, Charles does not fit in, and he suffers ridicule. As he grows older, we learn that he is fairly dull and lacks talent in his chosen profession, medicine. Charles becomes a poor doctor who does not earn much respect from his peers. His mother remains very influential in his life decisions; she pushes him into medicine and persuades him to marry a widow. The widow dies soon after the wedding, leaving Charles much less money than he expected.
Soon after his first wife’s death, Charles falls in love with Emma, the daughter of one of his patients. After much time, Charles finally asks her father for Emma’s hand in marriage. An elaborate ceremony takes place. After marrying, Charles and Emma move to Tostes, where Charles sets up his meager practice. Unfortunately, Emma soon finds herself disillusioned with her country life, having aspirations of greater romance and luxury. After Emma and Charles attend a ball thrown by a wealthy nobleman, she becomes obsessed with the idea of living a more elaborate and sophisticated existence. Eventually her obsession takes over, sending her into a depressive state. During this period of illness, Emma becomes pregnant and Charles decides to move to a new area with the hope of improving Emma’s health and realizing a positive future for his family.
Charles establishes his new practice in Yonville. Homais, the town pharmacist, considers himself an expert on all subjects and greatly enjoys pontificating to excess. Emma and Charles also meet Leon, a law clerk bored with rural life. Emma finds many similarities between herself and Leon, foreshadowing their eventual affair. In Yonville Emma gives birth to a daughter, Berthe. She is disappointed not to have borne a son, and her sadness persists. During this time romantic feelings develop between Emma and Leon, but as soon as Emma becomes aware of his feelings, she develops a powerful sense of guilt. To counteract this overwhelming emotion, she devotes herself to acting as an excellent mother and wife. Observing Emma’s efforts, Leon believes his love will forever be unrequited, so he leaves for Paris to study law. Upon his departure, Emma again falls into a state of severe depression.
Soon after Leon moves away, Emma and Charles attend an agricultural fair where Rodolphe, a wealthy neighbor, declares his love to Emma with the goal of simply seducing her. The two begin a passionate affair, and Emma is often careless with her behavior. However, Charles does not suspect anything, believing his wife loves him dearly, while truly she is disgusted by his lack of success and class. In an attempt to boost his professional reputation, Charles and Homais attempt an experimental surgery to treat the club-footed man Hippolyte. Emma encourages this project, believing it will lead to Charles’s fame and therefore a more luxurious and extravagant life. But the treatment is disastrous and, sadly, another doctor must be brought in to amputate the leg. Wallowing in Charles’s constant failures and mediocrity, Emma renews her passion for Rodolphe, even borrowing money to buy him extravagant gifts. Eventually, Emma suggests that she and Rodolphe begin a new life together, but Rodolphe only has only viewed Emma as a conquest and entertainment. Therefore, in a letter delivered on the scheduled day of their rendezvous, he refuses to elope and ends the relationship. Heartbroken after believing Rodolphe truly loved her, Emma falls into a terrible illness, barely escaping death.
In attempting to heal Emma’s mysterious illness and pay off her debts, Charles falls into financial trouble. Despite the expense, he takes Emma to an opera in Rouen, a nearby city, believing the trip will enliven her spirits. While in Rouen, Emma and Charles happen to run into Leon. The old romantic feelings between Emma and Leon are quickly rekindled and emboldened in the aftermath of her experience with Rodolphe, so Emma soon begins an affair with Leon. Under the guise of taking piano lessons, Emma repeatedly travels to Rouen to meet Leon. Meanwhile, she falls deeply indebted to the moneylender Lheureux and grows careless in her adulterous behavior to the point where she is almost discovered many times.
Soon Emma grows bored with Leon because he is afraid to take risks to show his love for her. Emma grows increasingly demanding; meanwhile, her debts mount. Lheureux soon orders seizure of Emma’s property, and terrified that Charles will discover her secrets, Emma grows frantic. She appeals to anyone she can think of for loans, including Leon, the town’s businessmen, and even Rodolphe. Upon her offer of prostitution, Rodolphe refuses to help her and Emma grows truly mortified. Aware of the impending revelations of dishonest behavior, Emma sees no option but to remove herself from the world. She commits suicide by eating arsenic, dying an agonizing and painful death.
At first, Charles idealizes the memory of his wife. But he eventually discovers her letters and keepsakes from Rodolphe and Leon, and finally he confronts the truth of her infidelity. Having grown into an antisocial hermit, Charles dies alone in his garden of an apparent heart attack. Berthe, now an orphan, is sent to work in a cotton mill.

[Asalbanoo]

The Canterbury Tales begins with the introduction of each of the pilgrims making their journey to Canterbury to the shrine of Thomas a Becket. These pilgrims include a Knight, his son the Squire, the Knight's Yeoman, a Prioress, a Second Nun, a Monk, a Friar, a Merchant, a Clerk, a Man of Law, a Franklin, a Weaver, a Dyer, a Carpenter, a Tapestry-Maker, a Haberdasher, a Cook, a Shipman, a Physician, a Parson, a Miller, a Manciple, a Reeve, a Summoner, a Pardoner, the Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself. These travelers, who stop at the Tabard Inn, decide to tell stories to pass their time on the way to Canterbury. The Host of the Tabard Inn sets the rules for the tales. Each of the pilgrims will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two stories on the return trip. The Host will decide the best of the tales. They decide to draw lots to see who will tell the first tale, and the Knight receives the honor.
The Knight's Tale is a tale about two knights, Arcite and Palamon, who are captured in battle and imprisoned in Athens under the order of King Theseus. While imprisoned in a tower, both see Emelye, the sister of Queen Hippolyta, and fall instantly in love with her. Both knights eventually leave prison separately: a friend of Arcite begs Theseus to release him, while Palamon later escapes. Arcite returns to the Athenian court disguised as a servant, and when Palamon escapes he suddenly finds Arcite. They fight over Emelye, but their fight is stopped when Theseus finds them. Theseus sets the rules for a duel between the two knights for Emelye's affection, and each raise an army for a battle a year from that date. Before the battle, Arcite prays to Mars for victory in battle, Emelye prays to Diana that she may marry happily, and Palamon prays to Venus to have Emelye as his wife. All three gods hear their prayers and argue over whose should get precedence, but Saturn decides to mediate. During their battle, Arcite indeed is victorious, but as soon as he is crowned victor, an earthquake occurs that kills him. Before he dies, he reconciles with Palamon and tells him that he deserves to marry Emelye. Palamon and Emelye marry.
When the Knight finishes his tale, everybody is pleased with its honorable qualities, but the drunken Miller insists that he shall tell the next tale. The Miller's Tale is a comic table in which Nicholas, a student who lives with John the carpenter and his much younger wife, Alison, begins an affair with Alison. Another man, the courtly romantic Absolon, also falls in love with Alison. Nicholas contrives to spend a day with Alison by telling John that a flood equal to Noah's flood will come soon, and the only way that he, Nicholas and Alison will survive is by staying in separate kneading tubs placed on the roof of houses, out of sight of all. While John remained in this kneading tub, Nicholas and Alison left to have ---, but were interrupted by Absolon, who demanded a kiss from Alison. She told him to close his eyes and he would receive a kiss. He did so, and she pulled down her pants so that he could kiss her nether region. The humiliated Absolon got a hot iron from a blacksmith and returned to Alison. This time, Nicholas tried the same trick, and Absolon burned him on the ass. Nicholas shouted for water, awakening John, who was asleep on the roof. He fell off the roof, hurting himself, and all were humiliated.
The pilgrims laughed heartily at this tale, but Oswald the Reeve took offense, thinking that the Miller meant to disparage older men. In response, The Reeve's Tale told the story of a dishonest Miller, Symkyn, who repeatedly cheated his clients, which included the college at Cambridge. Two Cambridge students, Aleyn and John, went to the miller to buy meal and corn, but while they were occupied Symkyn let their horses run free and stole their corn. They were forced to stay with Symkyn for the night. That night, Aleyn seduced the miller's daughter, Molly, while John seduced the miller's wife. When Aleyn told John of his exploits, Symkyn overheard and fought with him. The miller's wife hit Symkyn over the head with a staff, knocking him unconscious, and the two students escaped with the corn that Symkyn had stolen.
The Cook's Tale was intended to follow the Reeve's Tale, but this tale only exists as an incomplete fragment of no more than fifty lines. Following this tale is the Man of Law's Tale. The Man of Law's Tale tells the story of Constance, the daughter of a Roman emperor who becomes engaged to the Sultan of Syria on the condition that he converts to Christianity. Angered by his order to convert his country from Islam, the mother of the Sultan assassinates her son and Constance barely escapes. She is sent on a ship that lands in Britain, where she is taken in by the warden of a nearby castle and his wife, Dame Hermengild. Both of them soon convert to Christianity upon meeting her. A young knight fell in love with Constance, but when she refused him, he murdered Dame Hermengild and attempted to frame Constance. However, when King Alla made the knight swear on the Bible that Constance murdered Hermengild, his eyes burst. Constance marries King Alla and they have a son, Mauritius, who is born when Alla is at war in Scotland. Lady Donegild contrives to have Constance banished by intercepting the letters between Alla and Constance and replacing them with false ones. Constance is thus sent away again, and on her voyage her ship comes across a Roman ship. A senator returns her to Rome, where nobody realizes that she is the daughter of the emperor. Eventually, King Alla makes a pilgrimage to Rome, where he meets Constance once more, and the Roman emperor realizes that Mauritius is his grandson and names him heir to the throne.
The Wife of Bath begins her tale with a long dissertation on marriage in which she recounts each of her five husbands. Her first several husbands were old men whom she would hector into providing for her, using guilt and refusal of sexual favors. However, the final two husbands were younger men, more difficult to handle. The final husband, Jankin, was a twenty-year-old, half the Wife of Bath's age. He was more difficult to handle, for he refused to let the Wife of Bath dominate him and read literature that proposed that women be submissive. When she tore a page out of one of his books, Jankin struck her, causing her to be deaf in one ear. However, he felt so guilty at his actions that from that point in the marriage, he was totally submissive to her and the two remained happy. The Wife of Bath's Tale is itself a story of marriage dynamic. It tells the tale of a knight who, as punishment for raping a young woman, is sentenced to death. However, he is spared by the queen, who will grant him freedom if he can answer the question "what do women want?" The knight cannot find a satisfactory answer until he meets an old crone, who promises to tell him the answer if he marries her. He agrees, and receives his freedom when he tells the queen that women want sovereignty over their husbands. However, the knight is dissatisfied that he must marry the old, low-born hag. She therefore tells him that he can have her as a wife either old and ugly yet submissive, or young and beautiful yet dominant. He chooses to have her as a young woman, and although she had authority in marriage the two were completely happy from that point.
The Friar asks to tell the next tale, and asks for pardon from the Summoner, for he will tell a tale that exposes the fraud of that profession. The Friar's Tale tells about a wicked summoner who, while delivering summons for the church court, comes across a traveling yeoman who eventually reveals himself to be the devil himself. The two share trade secrets, and the devil tells him that they will meet again in hell if the summoner continues to pursue his trade. The summoner visits an old woman and issues her a summons, then offers to accept a bribe as a payment to prevent her excommunication. The old woman believes that she is without sin and curses the summoner. The devil then appears and casts the summoner into hell.
The Summoner was enraged by the Friar's Tale. Before he begins his tale, he tells a short anecdote: a friar visited hell and was surprised to see that there were no other friars. The angel who was with him then lifted up Satan's tail and thousands of friars swarmed out from his ass. The Summoner's Tale is an equally vitriolic attack on friars. It tells of a friar who stays with an innkeeper and his wife and bothers them about not contributing enough to the church and not attending recently. When the innkeeper tells him that he was not recently in church because he has been ill and his infant daughter recently died, the friar attempted to placate him and then asked for donations once more. Thomas the innkeeper promised to give the friar a 'gift,' and gives him a loud fart.
The Clerk, an Oxford student who has remained quiet throughout the journey, tells the next tale on the orders of the Host. The Clerk's Tale tells about Walter, an Italian marquis who finally decides to take a wife after the people of his province object to his longtime status as a bachelor. Walter marries Griselde, a low-born but amazingly virtuous woman whom everybody loves. However, Walter decides to test her devotion. When their first child, a daughter, is born, Walter tells her that his people are unhappy and wish for the child's death. He takes away the child, presumably to be murdered, but instead sends it to his sister to be raised. He does the same with their next child, a son. Finally, Walter tells Griselde that the pope demands that he divorce her. He sends her away from his home completely naked, for she had no belongings when she entered his house. Each of these tragedies Griselde accepts with great patience. Walter soon decides to make amends, and sends for his two children. He tells Griselde that he will marry again, and introduces her to the presumed bride, whom he then reveals is their daughter. The family is reunited once more. The Clerk ends with the advice that women should strive to be as steadfast as Griselde, even if facing such adversity is unlikely and perhaps impossible.
The Merchant praises Griselde for her steadfast character, but claims that his wife is far different from the virtuous woman of the Clerk's story. He instead tells a tale of an unfaithful wife. The Merchant's Tale tells a story of January, an elderly blind knight who decides to marry a young woman, despite the objections of his brother, Placebo. January marries the young and beautiful May, who soon becomes dissatisfied with his constant sexual attention to her and decides to have an affair with his squire, Damian. When January and May are in their garden, May sneaks away to have --- with Damian. The gods Pluto and Proserpina come upon Damian and May and restore January's sight so that he may see what his wife is doing. When January sees what is occurring, May tells him not to believe his eyes, and he believes her.
The Squire tells the next tale, which is incomplete. The Squire's Tale begins with a mysterious knight arriving at the court of Tartary. This knight gives King Cambyuskan a mechanical horse that can transport him anywhere around the globe and return him within a day and gives Canacee, the daughter of Cambyuskan, a mirror that can discern honesty and a ring that allows the wearer to know the language of animals and the healing properties of all herbs. Canacee uses this ring to aid a bird who has been rejected in love, but the abruptly ends.
The Franklin's Tale that follows tells of the marriage between the knight Arviragus and his wife, Dorigen. When Arviragus travels on a military expedition, Dorigen laments his absence and fears that, when he returns, his ship will be wrecked upon the rocks off the shore. A young man, Aurelius, falls in love with her, but she refuses to return his favors. She agrees to have an affair with Aurelius only on the condition that he find a way to remove the rocks from the shore, a task she believes impossible. Aurelius pays a scholar who creates the illusion that the rocks have disappeared, while Arviragus returns. Dorigen admits to her husband the promise that she has made, and Arviragus tells her that she must fulfill that promise. He sends her to have an affair with Aurelius, but he realizes the pain that it would cause Dorigen and does not make her fulfill the promise. The student in turn absolves Aurelius of his debt. The tale ends with the question: which of these men behaved most honorably?
The Physician's Tale that follows tells of Virginius, a respected Roman knight whose daughter, Virginia, was an incomparable beauty. Appius, the judge who governed his town, lusted after Virginia and collaborated with Claudius, who claimed in court that Virginia was his slave and Virginius had stolen her. Appius orders that Virginia be handed over to him. Virginius, knowing that Appius and Claudius did this in order to rape his daughter, instead gave her a choice between death or dishonor. She chooses death, and Virginius chops off his daughter's head, which he brings to Appius and Claudius. The people were so shocked by this that they realized that Appius and Claudius were frauds. Appius was jailed and committed suicide, while Claudius was banished.
The Pardoner prefaces his tale with an elaborate confession about the nature of his profession. He tells the secrets of his trade, including the sale of useless items as saints' relics, and admits that his job is not to turn people away from sin, but rather to frighten them to such a degree that they pay for pardons. The Pardoner's Tale concerns three rioters who search for Death to vanquish him. They find an old man who tells them that they may find Death under a nearby tree, but under this tree they only find a large fortune. Two of the rioters send the third into town to purchase food and drink for the night, for they intend to escape with their fortune, and while he is gone they plan to murder him. The third rioter poisons the drink, intending to take all of the money for himself. When he returns, the two rioters stab him, then drink the poisoned wine and die themselves. The three rioters thus find Death in the form of avarice. The Pardoner ends his tale with a diatribe against sin, imploring the travelers to pay him for pardons, but the Host confronts him.
The next story, The Shipman's Tale, is the story of a thrifty merchant who demands that his wife repay a one hundred franc debt that she owed him. The dissatisfied wife complained about this to Dan John, a monk who stayed with him, and he agrees to pay her the sum if she has an affair with him. She consents to this, and Dan John procures the one hundred francs by borrowing it from the merchant himself. However, the merchant realizes that he has been paid with money that he had lent to the monk. The wife therefore tells him that she can repay the debt to her husband in bed.
The Prioress' Tale tells the story of a young Christian child who lived in a town in Asia that was dominated by a vicious Jewish population. When the child learned Alma redemptoris, a song praising the Virgin Mary, he traveled home from school singing this. The Jews, angry at his behavior, took the child and slit his throat, leaving him in a cesspool to die. The boy's mother searched frantically for her son. When she found him, he was not yet dead, for the Virgin Mary had placed a grain on his tongue that would allow him to speak until it was removed. When this was removed, the boy passed on to heaven. The story ends with a lament for the young boy and a curse for the Jews who perpetrated the heinous crime.
Chaucer himself tells the next tape, The Tale of Sir Thopas, a florid and fantastical poem in rhyming couplets that serves only to annoy the other pilgrims. The Host interrupts Chaucer shortly into this tale, and tells him to tell another. Chaucer then tells The Tale of Melibee, one of the few tales that is in prose format. This tale tells about Melibee, a powerful ruler whose enemies rape his wife, Prudence, and nearly murder his daughter, Sophie. When deciding whether to declare war on his enemies, Prudence advises him to remain merciful, and they engage in a long debate over the appropriate course of action. Melibee finally gives his enemies the option: they can receive a sentence either from him or from his wife. They submit to Melibee's judgment, and he intends to disinherit and banish the perpetrators. However, he submits to his wife's plea for mercy.
The Monk's Tale is not a narrative tale at all, but instead an account of various historical and literary figures who experience a fall from grace. These include Adam, Samson, Hercules, King Pedro of Spain, Bernabo Visconti, Nero, Julius Caesar, and Croesus. The Knights interrupts the Monk's Tale, finding his listing of historical tragedies monotonous and depressing.
The Nun's Priest's Tale tells the story of the rooster Chanticleer and the hen Pertelote. Chanticleer was ill one night and had a disturbing dream that he was chased by a fox. He feared this dream was prophetic, but Pertelote assured him that his dream merely stemmed from his illness and that he should find herbs to cure himself. Chanticleer insists that dreams are signifiers, but finally agrees with his wife. When he searches for herbs, Chanticleer is indeed chased by a fox, but is saved when Pertelote squawks, alerting the woman who owns the farm where the two fowl live and causing her to chase the fox away.
Chaucer follows this with The Second Nun's Tale. This tale is a biography of Saint Cecilia, who converts her husband and brother to Christianity during the time of the Roman empire, when Christian beliefs were illegal. Her brother and husband are executed for their beliefs, and she herself is cut three times with a sword during her execution, but does not immediately die. Rather, she lingers on for several more days, during which time she orders that her property be distributed to the poor. Upon her death Pope Urban declared her a saint.
After the Second Nun finishes her tale, a Canon (alchemist) and his Yeoman join the band of travelers. The Canon had heard how they were telling tales, and wished to join them. The Yeoman speaks incessantly about the Canon, telling fantastical stories about his work, but this annoys the Canon, who suddenly departs. The Yeoman therefore decides to tell a tale himself. The Canon's Yeoman's Tale is a story of the work of a canon and the means by which they defraud people by making them think that they can duplicate money.
The Host tells the Cook to tell the next tale, but he is too drunk to coherently tell one. The Manciple therefore tells his story. The Manciple's Tale is the story of how Phoebus, when he assumed mortal form, was a jealous husband. He monitored his wife closely, fearing that she would be unfaithful. Phoebus had a white crow that could speak the language of humans and could sing beautiful. When the white crow learns that Phoebus' wife was unfaithful, Phoebus plucks him and curses the crow. According to the Manciple, this explains why crows are black and can only sing in an unpleasant tone.
The Parson tells the final tale. The Parson's Tale is not a narrative tale at all, however, but rather an extended sermon on the nature of sin and the three parts necessary for forgiveness: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. The tale gives examples of the seven deadly sins and explains them, and also details what is necessary for redemption. Chaucer ends the tales with a retraction, asking those who were offended by the tales to blame his rough manner and lack of education, for his intentions were not immoral, while asking those who found something redeemable in the tales to give credit to Christ.

[Asalbanoo]

The novel begins with the handsome young sailor Edmond Dantes. He has just returned from a journey aboard the Pharaon. The Pharaon's shipowner, M. Morrel, rushes out to meet the ship. He finds that the captain has died en route, and Dantes has assumed the post with admirable skill. He thus plans to make Dantes officially the next captain of the ship.
Dantes future is thus promising. His father's financial situation as well as his own will be greatly ameliorated. In addition, Dantes has plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes who has awaited his return from sea with great anxiety and love.
Dantes will not get the chance to realize his bright future, however. His success has earned him three conspiring enemies. They write a letter falsely incriminating him in a Bonapartist plot (the royalists are currently in power). These three enemies are Danglars, Fernand Mondego, and Caderousse. Danglars will become captain of the Pharaon once Dantes is removed, Fernand aspires to win Mercedes' love, and Caderousse is a jealous neighbor of Dantes.
Perhaps the conspiracy would not have been so successful had not the denunciation fallen into the hands of the public prosecutor, Monsieur de Villefort. This man has nothing personal against Dantes, however, he has Dantes incarcerated as a most dangerous criminal. His policy against Bonapartists must be extremely vigilant in order to counter the reputation of his father. His father is a known Bonapartist, and Villefort is paranoid that this fact shall hurt his career among the ruling royalists. Thus, he throws Dantes, an innocent man, into the Chateau D'If.
Political regimes change, yet Dantes is forgotten. M. Morrel attempts to have him freed, yet to no avail. In prison, Dantes loses hope and decides to starve himself to death. Thankfully, the prisoner in the next cell was building a tunnel to escape. Miscalculations bring the Abbe Faria, to Dantes cell instead of freedom. The two become friends, and the learned Abbe teaches Dantes all his vast knowledge of literature, the sciences and languages. The Abbe also reveals to Dantes the location of an immense treasure on the Isle of Monte Cristo. He hopes Dantes will retrieve this treasure should he escape. When the Abbe dies, Dantes replaces his body with the Abbe's. The Abbe's body bag is thrown into the sea. Dantes is free at last, after fourteen years of imprisonment. Dantes is saved from the sea by Italian smugglers.
Dantes' only reason for living now is to have vengeance upon those who threw his life away. He becomes a smuggler for a time, and finally has the opportunity to retrieve the treasure spoken of by Abbe Faria. He shall use this treasure to calculate the downfall of the four men who imprisoned him. Dantes', now the Count of Monte Cristo, shall calculate his revenge over the next10 years. He has already waited fourteen years, thus he has learned the virtue of patience. These men deserve to suffer. Their downfall shall be all the more destructive if his revenge is not brash, but calculated. Over the next ten years, Monte Cristo conditions himself, and learns of all the details of his enemies past. He also amasses a circle of servants who are forever indebted to him. Using his immense fortune he buys back freedom of men such as Peppino. Luigi Vampa, the great Italian bandit is also indebted to the Count. These men owe the Count their lives, and will prove indispensable to the Count's plans for revenge.
Before exacting revenge, however, the Count rewards the one family that remained true to him. He saves the Morrel firm from financial disaster by providing a diamond and a new ship to the family anonymously.
The count is now ready to exact revenge. He understands his duty to act as divine justice. When the Count is ready to enter Parisien society, and to destroy his enemies, he does so through contact with Albert de Morcerf. This is the son of Count de Morcerf, a new title given to the very same Fernand Mondego who conspired against Dantes. By winning Albert's trust he is introduced to all his former enemies, including Danglars, Count de Morcerf, and Monsieur de Villefort. These men are at the center of social and political life in Paris and are very rich. Monte Cristo's arrival in Paris causes a great stir, for his fortune is immense. None of his enemies recognize him however. In fact, they are all eager to associate with this great man. Mercedes, now the Countess de Morcerf, recognizes him, yet she does not reveal his identity to anyone.
The Count of Monte Cristo also disguises himself as an Abbe and returns to find Caderousse still a poor man. He gives Caderousse a diamond, yet he knows this shall not bring Caderousse happiness. Caderousse's greed is far too great. The diamond is part of Caderousse's slow punishment. First, Caderousse kills a jeweler, his wife, and is then thrown into prison. The Count, disguised as a Lord Wilmore, later helps Caderousse escape from prison. Caderousse then attempts to rob the count, still not knowing that it is Dantes. During this robbery attempt, Caderousse is murdered by his accomplice, Benedetto. As Caderousse is dying, the Count whispers his identity in Caderousse's ear. Caderousse then cries out to God.
Fernand Mondego became a military hero and had married Mercedes who had given up hope to ever see Dantes again. Mercedes was unaware of the treachery of her husband. They have a fortune, and exist in Parisien society as the Count and Countess de Morcerf. The Count destroys Morcerf by revealing his military treachery to all of Parisien society. Monte Cristo had bought Haydee as a slave. This girl was once the daughter of Ali Pasha who was betrayed by Morcerf. She testifies that the Count sold her into slavery. Her father had been the Count de Morcerf's benefactor. Morcerf had killed her father, surrendered her father's Greek City to the Turks, and sold his wife and daughter into slavery. When this news is revealed to Paris, the Count de Morcerf is thus ruined. His wife and son flee, and he shoots himself.
Monsieur de Villefort had married twice. He has one daughter by his first wife and a son by his second wife. Valentine is his daughter. The Count destroys de Villefort by introducing Andrea Calvacanti into society. Benedetto, alias Calvacanti, is the son of Monsieur de Villefort and Madame Danglars. Long ago, Villefort had attempted to bury the newborn baby alive, but Bertuccio, now Monte Cristo's servant had dug the baby up and saved it. Villefort's crime is revealed in a court of law, since Calvacanti is on trial as an escaped convict. Villefort is thus destroyed. His wife as treacherous as he had also poisoned his entire family. Her motive was to gain a fortune for her son. The Count however, had saved Valentine, since Maximilien Morrel, the son of M. Morrel was in love with her. Villefort goes insane.
Danglars had become a rich banker. He has a wife and daughter. His wife is of noble birth, yet when Danglars married her, her repute as a woman was suspect. The Count destroys Danglars by opening credit with him for six million francs. Right when Danglars needs this money, the Count also takes a receipt for five million francs from him to cash. Danglars can no longer uphold his firm. He follows Danglars to Italy, once Danglars flees Paris. (Danglars has been alienated from his wife for years, and his daughter runs off, as a result of a failed marriage contract to Andrea Calvacanti. Monte Cristo had also arranged this failed enterprise. Danglars thus had no reason to stay in Paris.) Danglars tries to redeem his five million francs from Monte Cristo's firm in Italy. Once he does this, Monte Cristo's bandits follow him, and they destroy him financially by holding him captive and requiring him to pay vast sums of money to survive on a little food. Danglars is left with nothing and his hair turns white during his brief captivity with the Monte Cristo's bandits. Monte Cristo does not fail to inform Danglars his true identity.
Thus, the Count's revenge is now complete. He has succeeded in his quest for slow revenge. His enemies have suffered for their sins. He has one last meeting with Mercedes. Mercedes shall lead a life of prayer in a convent, for her son has gone to rebuild his future in the army.
The Count of Monte Cristo had assumed the role of Providence by destroying all that had been built by his enemies during his long years of imprisonment. He must now leave. After leaving much of his belongings to Maximilien Morrel and Valentine, to whom he wishes eternal love and happiness, he leaves aboard a ship with Haydee his own new love

[Asalbanoo]

The novel opens with Hester being led to the scaffold where she is to be publicly shamed for having committed adultery. Hester is forced to wear the letter "A" on her gown at all times. She has stitched a large scarlet "A" onto her dress with gold thread, giving the letter an air of elegance.
Hester carries Pearl, her daughter, with her. On the scaffold she if asked to reveal the name of Pearl's father, but she refuses. In the crowd Hester recognizes her husband from Amsterdam, Roger Chillingworth.
Chillingworth visits Hester after she is returned to the prison. He tells her that he will find out who the man was, and that he will read the truth on the man's heart. He then forces her to promise never to reveal his true identity.
Hester moves into a cottage bordering the woods. She and Pearl live there in relative solitude. Hester earns her money by doing stitchwork for local dignitaries, but often spends her time helping the poor and sick. Pearl grows up to be wild, in the sense that she refuses to obey her mother.
Roger Chillingworth earns a reputation as being a good physician. He uses his reputation to get transferred into the same home as Arthur Dimmesdale, an ailing minister. Chillingworth eventually discovers that Dimmesdale is the true father of Pearl, at which point he spends his every moment trying to torment the minister.
One night Dimmesdale is so overcome with shame about hiding his secret that he walks to the scaffold where Hester was publicly humiliated. He stands on the scaffold and imagines the whole town watching him with a letter emblazoned on his chest. While standing there, Hester and Pearl arrive. He asks them to stand with him, which they do. Pearl then asks him to stand with her the next day at noon.
When a meteor illuminates the three people standing on the scaffold, they see Roger Chillingworth watching them. Dimmesdale tells Hester that he is terrified of Chillingworth, who offers to take Dimmesdale home. Hester realizes that Chillingworth is slowly killing Dimmesdale, and that she has to help him.
A few weeks later Hester sees Chillingworth picking herbs in the woods. She tells him that she is going to reveal the fact that he is her husband to Dimmesdale. He tells her that Providence is now in charge of their fates, and that she may do as she sees fit.
Hester takes Pearl into the woods where they wait for Dimmesdale to arrive. He is surprised to see them, but confesses to Hester that he is desperate for a friend who knows his secret. She comforts him and tells him Chillingworth's true identity. He is furious, but allows her to convince him that they should run away together. He finally agrees, and returns to town with more energy than he has ever shown before.
Hester finds a ship which will carry all three of them, and it works out that the ship is due to sail the day after Dimmesdale gives his Election Sermon. However, during the day of the sermon, Chillingworth gets the ship's captain to agree to take him on board as well. Hester does not know how to get out of this dilemma.
Dimmesdale gives his Election Sermon, and it receives the highest accolades of any preaching he has ever performed. He then unexpectedly walks to the scaffold and stands on it, in full view of the gathered masses. Dimmesdale calls Hester and Pearl to come to him. Chillingworth tries to stop him, but Dimmesdale laughs and tells him that he cannot win.
Hester and Pearl join Dimmesdale on the scaffold. Dimmesdale then tells the people that he is also a sinner like Hester, and that he should have assumed his rightful place by her side over seven years earlier. He then rips open his shirt to reveal a scarlet letter on his flesh. Dimmesdale falls to his knees and dies while on the scaffold.
Hester and Pearl leave the town for a while, and several years later Hester returns. No one hears from Pearl again, but it is assumed that she gets married and has children in Europe. Hester never removes her scarlet letter, and when she passes away she is buried in Kings' Chapel.

[Asalbanoo]

[LEFT]Joyce's novel is set in Dublin on the day of June 16, 1904 and the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, is a middle-aged Jew whose job as an advertisement canvasser forces him to travel throughout the city on a daily basis. While Bloom is Joyce's "Ulysses" character, the younger hero of the novel is Stephen Dedalus, the autobiographical character from Joyce's first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. While Joyce develops the character of the young student, most of the novel is focused on Bloom.
Bloom's wife Molly is a singer and she is having an affair with her co-worker, Blazes Boylan, and early in the morning of June 16, Bloom learns that Molly intends to bring Boylan into their bed later that afternoon. The Blooms have a daughter named Milly (age 15) who is away, studying photography. Ten years ago, Molly gave birth to a son, Rudy, but he died when he was eleven days old and Bloom often thinks of the parallel between his dead son Rudy and his dead father Rudolph, who killed himself several years before.
Stephen Dedalus is the central character of the novel's first three chapters, which constitute Part I of Ulysses. Dedalus is an academic and a schoolteacher and he has left Ireland for Paris but he was forced to return upon hearing news that his mother was gravely ill. The initial depictions of Stephen indicate that he is guilty because he has separated from the Catholic Church and refused to pray at the side of his mother's deathbed despite her pleading. Stephen has literary ambitions but his desire to write Ireland's first true epic is tempered by his fear that the island is too stultifying for him to be a success. Stephen lives in Martello Tower with Buck Mulligan and a British student, Haines, and Stephen's introverted personality prevents him from asserting himself. Instead, his friends patronize him and take advantage of him.
The opening three chapters, "Telemachus," "Nestor" and "Proteus," track the early morning hours of Stephen Dedalus who eats breakfast, teaches at a school in Dalkey and wanders Sandymount Strand. The opening chapters of Part II ("Calypso" and "Lotus-Eaters") begin the day anew, charting the early morning rituals of Leopold Bloom, who must later attend the funeral of his friend, Paddy Dignam. In "Calypso" and "Lotus-Eaters," the reader learns that Bloom is a servile husband who prepares breakfast and runs errands on behalf of his wife Molly, who remains half-asleep. We also learn that Bloom is preoccupied with food and ---. He relishes eating a slightly burned kidney and has a penchant for voyeurism.
The "Hades" chapter of Ulysses recounts the burial of Paddy Dignam in Glasnevin Cemetery and it is at this point that Joyce begins to develop his theme of Bloom as a Jewish outsider in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic society. Bloom's insecurities are only heightened by his foreknowledge of Molly's infidelity. Both Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus are set on a long winding tour of Dublin that occupies most of the afternoon and they continually cross paths before eventually meeting later that night. The afternoon chapters begin with "Aeolus" and conclude with Bloom's altercation with the Citizen in "The Cyclops."
After Dignam's funeral, we get a more detailed view of Bloom's routine day. Bloom immediate heads for the downtown newspaper office-a building that is shared by three companies. Considering the frenetic pace of the news building, the employees' treatment of Bloom seems excessively rude and dismissive and Bloom's attempt to secure an easy advertisement renewal requires a trip to the National Library. Bloom's library visit in "Scylla and Charybdis" presents another occasion for him to talk to Stephen as their paths cross again but they continue on their separate paths, neither cognizant of the other. Bloom's suffers the afternoon, dreading his wife's adulterous act, scheduled for 4:30 pm. Joyce uses the "Wandering Rocks" chapter to mirror Bloom's desperation with the squalor of the city's poorest families before contrasting Bloom's unhappy solitude with the jovial and musical atmosphere of "The Sirens." Bloom simply shrugs off the prejudice of his acquaintances, accepts his solitude as his fate and even at this point, tries to ignore the serious problems in his marriage.
Upon entering Kiernan's pub, late in the afternoon, Bloom is confronted by the Citizen, a half-blind patriot whose outspoken anti-Semitism forces Bloom to assert his identity, arguing that he can be a Jew and an Irish citizen, simultaneously. Citizen is quiet before resuming his offense. Having burdened the entire pub as a menacing drunk, Citizen focuses the brunt of his attack on Bloom, accusing him of "robbing widows and orphans," even as Bloom readies to leave, in order to visit the widow of Paddy Dignam. Bloom coolly replies to Citizen who becomes indignant when Bloom asserts that Christ, himself, was a Jew. This altercation is the first of the novel's two dramatic climaxes. When Bloom exits the pub, the raging drunk hurls a biscuit tin at his head, but Bloom escapes unharmed. Even as the Citizen's depressed faculties hindered him, he was blinded by the sun, guaranteeing Bloom's victory. The "Wandering Jew" "ascends" into the heavens and the concluding prose of "The Cyclops" strongly suggests that Joyce modeled Bloom after Elijah who ascended immediately after completing his course. While Bloom's problems with Molly remain, his victory in Kiernan's pub anticipates his final transformation into Stephen's temporary paternal figure. As an Elijah, Bloom passes the "mantle" to Stephen Dedalus.
The earliest chapter of night is "Nausicaa," which depicts Bloom as an incredibly solemn and tired man. As he walks the beach of Sandymount Strand we understand that the eclipsing evening corresponds to his aging and depressing loss of virility. Even though Bloom is only a middle-aged man with a fifteen-year old daughter, he bears the image of an elderly wanderer. A young woman named Gerty MacDowell is sitting within their range of mutual sight and as she is overcome with emotional longing and maternal love, she notices that Bloom is staring at her while he is conspicuously masturbating himself in his pocket. MacDowell seeks to offer Bloom a "refuge" and she abets his deed by displaying her undergarments in a coquettish manner. After masturbating, Bloom is enervated, complaining that Gerty has sapped the youth out of him.
Joyce's deliberate narrative structure produces the interaction between Bloom and Dedalus right as Bloom contemplates the diminution of his own masculinity and youth. Bloom meets Dedalus in the National Maternity Hospital, unexpectedly, having arrived to visit Mrs. Mina Purefoy, who had been in labor for three days. Stephen had accompanied several friends to the Hospital, including Mulligan who has corrupted his friends into a loud table of young drunks. Bloom worries for Stephen's safety and he eventually accompanies the young man to "Nighttown," the red-light district where the "Circe" chapter is set. Undoubtedly, "Circe" is the most memorable chapter of the book: Bloom suffers "hallucinations" while walking on the street and they continue inside the brothel of Bella Cohen. Joyce's "Circe" employs Freudian theories of the subconscious, of repression and sexual desire. Bloom's hallucinations conflate feelings of religious guilt, acts of sado-masochism and the shame of being cuckolded by the popular ladies' man, Blazes Boylan.
When Bloom re-emerges from his hallucinations, he finds that Stephen is completely vulnerable, having degenerated into a limp and intoxicated creature. It is unclear what is causing Stephen to jump around the room and half-climb the furniture until we see him smash his walking stick into the chandelier, resisting the ghost of his dead mother who has returned from the grave to use guilt in order to coerce Stephen into Catholicism. The scene becomes chaotic as Bloom assists Stephen out of Cohen's brothel. Stephen is alone after his friend Vincent Lynch forsakes him. It is Bloom who tends to Stephen when he passes out after a pugnacious British soldier delivers a heavy blow, aware that Stephen is incapable of defending himself. Bloom sees the development as an opportunity to forge a relationship with Stephen. Bloom succeeds in transporting Dedalus to the Cabman's Shelter for some coffee and they continue their conversations about love and music in Bloom's home at 7 Eccles Street. Despite Bloom's insistence, Stephen declines the offer to spend the night in his home and as the novel concludes, it seems likely that Stephen, like Bloom, must embark upon his own heroic quest. "Penelope," the final chapter of Ulysses, presents Molly's assessment of Bloom. Just as we come to understand how Bloom's lack of empathy largely motivated Molly's infidelity, we also come to understand that Molly truly loves her husband, independent of the question of their marriage.

[Asalbanoo]

The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel that consists almost entirely of letters written by Werther to his friend Wilhelm, begins with the title character in a jubilant mood after having just escaped from a sticky romantic situation with a woman named Leonora. Werther has settled in a rural town, determined to spend some time painting, sketching, and taking excursions around the countryside. Werther does not accomplish much work, preferring to admire the easy lifestyle of the peasant class, which reminds him of the ancient "patriarchal life" found in the Bible. Werther makes the acquaintance of many of the local peasants, including two peasant brothers, Hans and Philip, and a country lad who is in love with the widow who employs him.
Werther finds Wahlheim, a village a short distance away from his town, to be the most charming place in the countryside. This estimation increases a hundredfold when he meets the village bailiff's daughter, Lotte, at a dance. Their interaction is immediately striking - they are both enthusiasts of the new sentimental style of literature, represented by Goldsmith and Klopstock, as well as ancient writers like Homer and Ossian. Lotte, however, is engaged to an upstanding man, Albert. Werther must satisfy himself with friendship alone.
In the coming weeks, Werther grows more and more impressed with Lotte, cherishing her unique charm and insight as she uncomplainingly carries the burden of motherhood. She is the eldest of eight children, and assumed the responsibility of caring for her siblings after her mother's death. However, Albert returns, and Werther must meet the man who has Lotte's heart. After determining that he will leave, Werther instead stays, forming a friendship with Albert, who he finds to be both intelligent and open-minded, though much more sensible than the romantic Werther.
Upon Albert's arrival, however, Werther grows increasingly infatuated with Lotte. He can't resist feeling that Lotte would be happier with him; they are both initiates in the intense, subjective emotionalism of Sturm und Drang, and Albert is not. However, the faithful Lotte has no intention of leaving her fiancé, and Werther determines, at Wilhelm's recommendation, to take an official court position rather than remain in an impossible triangle. He leaves Wahlheim without informing Albert or Lotte of his plan.
Werther's official position, however, is a great disappointment to him. He clashes with his employer, the envoy, who is as meticulous and cerebral as Werther is spontaneous and emotional. Werther also loathes the social scene of his new job, in which the aristocratic class rules over all, though he cultivates rewarding friendships with two aristocrats, Count C and Fräulein von B. The positive aspect of his job crumbles, however, when the aristocratic class, including Fräulein von B, snubs Werther at one of Count C's parties. Humiliated, Werther resigns from his position, moving with another friend, Prince ---, to the Prince's country estates. This situation, too, is short-lived, as Werther finds himself irrevocably drawn back to Wahlheim and Lotte.
When Werther returns to Wahlheim, he discovers that his infatuation with Lotte has only grown stronger during the separation. As Lotte later suggests, it seems that the impossibility of his possessing her is what feeds his obsession. Albert and Werther become increasingly estranged, and Lotte is caught in the middle. Also, the countryside has taken a turn away from the idyllic: Hans is dead, and the country lad's tale of love has ended in murder. Meanwhile, Werther meets Heinrich, a former employee of Lotte's father's, who was driven mad by an unrequited passion for her. Werther feels increasingly hopeless.
Three days before Christmas of 1772, in an attempt to salvage what is left of their relationship, Lotte orders Werther not to visit her until Christmas Eve, when he will be just another friend. Werther decides that he cannot live on such terms with Lotte, electing instead to kill himself. He pays Lotte a final visit, during which he forces a kiss and is ordered never to see her again.
At home, alone, Werther writes Lotte a letter. He asks her for Albert's hunting pistols, and she sends them to him. Then, with a calmness hitherto unknown to his restless soul, Werther shoots himself in the head. He lingers until the morning; Lotte, Albert and Lotte's brothers and sisters watch him die. At the novel's end, Werther is buried without a church service. Lotte's own life is in jeopardy as well; she is driven to desperate grief by Werther's action.

[Asalbanoo]

Breakfast at Tiffany's documents the year-long friendship of a New York writer, whose name is never mentioned, with his neighbor Holly Golightly. The story is presented as the writer's recollections approximately twelve years after the conclusion of the friendship. Reminded of Holly by a visit with another old friend, Joe Bell, who is in possession of a photograph of an African carving that resembles Holly, the narrator relates that he occupied the same upper East-side brownstone as Holly over ten years ago. Shortly after he moves in, he notices Holly late one summer night when she loses her key and rings another tenant, I.Y. Yunioshi, to let her into the building, causing a commotion. He describes her as just under nineteen years old, thin and chicly dressed with a boyish haircut. When Holly begins ringing the narrator to let her into the building late at night, he is intrigued. He enjoys observing Holly at trendy restaurants and night clubs around town, and often watches her feeding her nameless cat or playing country songs on her guitar from his fire escape window. He even takes note of her trash, which contains numerous love letters from overseas soldiers.
In September, Holly visits the narrator's apartment in the middle of the night after one of her lovers turns vicious in bed. The two converse and Holly reveals that she has been paying weekly visits to Sally Tomato, a notorious gangster who is incarcerated in Sing Sing prison. Tomato’s lawyer, O’Shaughnessey, pays Holly $100 per visit to convey "the weather report" - encrypted messages - between the two men. The narrator reads Holly one of his short stories, which she finds uninteresting, and the two fall asleep on his bed. She leaves abruptly when he asks her why she is crying in the middle of her sleep.
Despite this hostile exchange, Holly and the narrator reconcile, and she invites him to a party at her apartment. There, the narrator meets O.J. Berman, a Hollywood agent who relates the story of his unsuccessful attempts to make Holly the teenage runaway into Holly the movie starlet. The narrator also meets Rusty Trawler, a millionaire famous for his checkered family past who appears to be conducting an affair with Holly, and Mag Wildwood, an eccentric model who drunkenly insults Holly and passes out on the living room floor. Holly is upset with the narrator for not seeing Mag home safely, but he continues to observe Holly from a distance. He takes particular notice when Mag moves into Holly's apartment and often sees the two women leaving the apartment in the evenings accompanied by Rusty Trawler and Jose Yberra-Jaegar, a Brazilian politician to whom Mag is engaged.
Holly and the narrator reconcile when he shares with her the exciting news that his first short story has been published. While she feels that he should be more commercially ambitious as a writer, she nevertheless takes him out to celebrate. The two spend a day at Central Park, where they exchange stories about their childhoods, the narrator noticing that Holly's story is a fabrication. They later shoplift Halloween masks from Woolworth's. Shortly thereafter, the narrator spots Holly entering the public library. Following her inside, he observes that she is consulting books about the politics and geography of Brazil. Despite the deceptions and secrets that seem to trouble Holly's relationships with others, the two become close. On Christmas Eve, the narrator and Holly exchange gifts: he presents her with a St. Christopher's medal from Tiffany's, her favorite New York landmark, and she gives him an antique bird cage she knew he had admired, making him promise that he will never use it to imprison a "living thing."
Holly's inner circle crumbles in February, when Mag suspects Holly of having an affair with Jose on a group trip to the Florida keys. Upon her return, she and the narrator argue and she suggests his writing "means nothing" and is un-sellable. Protective of his artistic integrity and offended by Holly's crass commercialism, the narrator doesn't speak to Holly until later that spring, when the arrival of Doc Golightly sparks his sympathy for his former friend. Doc Golightly asks the narrator for help with his search for Holly, and reveals that he is Holly's husband. He tells the narrator the story of their marriage in Tulip, Texas, which occurred when Holly was only fourteen after she and her brother, Fred, escaped the cruel foster family they were placed with following their parents' death. Doc further informs the narrator that Holly's real name is Lulamae Barnes, and that she ran away from Doc and his extended family despite his willingness to indulge her often expensive demands. The narrator seems to re-unite Doc and Holly successfully, but Doc returns to Texas the next morning.
When the narrator reads that Rusty Trawler has married Mag Wildwood, he rushes home to tell Holly. He finds Holly's apartment in an uproar, the sound of breaking glass emanating from behind the front door. Joined by Jose and a doctor, the narrator enters her apartment to see Holly sick with grief and rage. Jose reveals to the narrator that earlier that morning, Holly received a telegram informing her of her brother Fred's death in the war. Over the next few months, the narrator watches Holly transform into a domestic homebody as her romance with Jose dominates her life. She furnishes her apartment, learns to cook, and gains weight. Over one of her home-cooked meals, Holly confesses to the narrator that she is pregnant, and that she expects to marry Jose and live with him in Brazil. This wish becomes reality, and on September 30, the narrator is despondent to learn that Holly is leaving for Brazil the following week. She invites him to join her on a horseback ride through Central Park. The pair are enjoying their ride when the narrator's horse is deliberately provoked by a group of young boys. The horse gallops off wildly into New York traffic, and is finally halted by Holly and a mounted police officer. The narrator passes out in shock. Holly takes him back to his apartment and bathes him.
However, they are soon interrupted by the intrusion of their neighbor, Sapphia Spanella, who is accompanied by two police officers. The officers arrest Holly on charges of conspiracy with Sally Tomato and O’Shaughnessy. The arrest is publicized in all the major papers, and with the exception of O.J. Berman, who hires her a top lawyer, Holly's society friends are largely unwilling to help her. The narrator visits Holly in the hospital, where she is recovering from a miscarriage induced by her vigorous horseback riding on the day of the arrest. He brings her a letter from Jose, in which he notifies her that, because of his political reputation, he is unwilling to continue their relationship. An upset Holly confides to the narrator that she is nonetheless planning on skipping out on bail and escaping to Brazil. She asks the narrator to aid her in the escape.
That Saturday, the narrator collects a few of Holly's belongings, including her cat, and brings them to Joe's bar, where Holly is waiting. Joe calls a taxi, and the narrator accompanies Holly on the drive. She asks the driver to stop in Spanish Harlem, where she leaves her cat on the street. The narrator chastises Holly, who is soon overcome with grief and jumps out of the taxi to search for the cat, who is nowhere to be found. The narrator promises Holly he will return to the neighborhood to search for her cat, and Holly leaves. While the authorities soon trace Holly's flight to Rio, Sally Tomato's death in Sing Sing makes her indictment unnecessary. Aside from a single postcard from Buenos Aires, the narrator never hears from Holly again. However, keeping his promise, he finds Holly's cat, now safely at home in a Spanish Harlem apartment.

[Asalbanoo]

e rime of the ancient marine
An Ancient Mariner, unnaturally old and skinny, with deeply-tanned skin and a “glittering eye”, stops a Wedding Guest who is on his way to a wedding reception with two companions. He tries to resist the Ancient Mariner, who compels him to sit and listen to his woeful tale. The Ancient Mariner tells his tale, largely interrupted save for the sounds from the wedding reception and the Wedding Guest’s fearsome interjections. One day when he was younger, the Ancient Mariner set sail with two hundred other sailors from his native land. The day was sunny and clear, and all were in good cheer until the ship reached the equator. Suddenly, a terrible storm hit and drove the ship southwards into a “rime” - a strange, icy patch of ocean. The towering, echoing “rime” was bewildering and impenetrable, and also desolate until an Albatross appeared out of the mist. No sooner than the sailors fed it did the ice break and they were able to steer through. As long as the Albatross flew alongside the ship and the sailors treated it kindly, a good wind carried them and a mist followed. One day, however, the Ancient Mariner shot and killed the Albatross on impulse.
Suddenly the wind and mist ceased, and the ship was stagnant on the ocean. The other sailors alternately blamed the Ancient Mariner for making the wind die and praised him for making the strange mist disappear. Then things began to go awry. The sun became blindingly hot, and there was no drinkable water amidst the salty ocean, which tossed with terrifying creatures. The sailors went dumb from their thirst and sunburned lips. They hung the Albatross around the Ancient Mariner’s neck as a symbol of his sin. After a painful while, a ship appeared on the horizon, and the Ancient Mariner bit his arm and sucked the blood so he could cry out to the other sailors. The ship was strange: it sailed without wind, and when it crossed in front of the sun, its stark masts seemed to imprison the sun. When the ship neared, the Ancient Mariner could see that it was a ghost ship manned by Death, in the form of a man, and Life-in-Death, in the form of a beautiful, naked woman. They were gambling for the Ancient Mariner’s soul. Life-in-Death won the Ancient Mariner’s soul, and the other sailors were left to Death. The sky went black immediately as the ghost ship sped away. Suddenly all of the sailors cursed the Ancient Mariner with their eyes and dropped dead on the deck. Their souls zoomed out of their bodies, each taunting the Ancient Mariner with a sound like that of his crossbow. Their corpses miraculously refused to rot; they stared at him unrelentingly, cursing him with their eyes.
The Ancient Mariner drifted on the ocean in this company, unable to pray. One night he noticed some beautiful water-snakes frolicking at the ship’s prow in the icy moonlight. Watching the creatures brought him unprecedented joy, and he blessed them without meaning to. When he was finally able to pray, the Albatross fell from his neck and sank into the sea. He could finally sleep, and dreamed of water. When he awoke, it was raining, and an awesome thunderstorm began. He drank his fill, and the ship began to sail in lieu of wind. Then the dead sailors suddenly arose and sailed the ship without speaking. They sang heavenly music, which the ship’s sails continued when they had stopped. Once the ship reached the equator again, the ship jolted, causing the Ancient Mariner to fall unconscious. In his swoon, he heard two voices discussing his fate. They said he would continue to be punished for killing the Albatross, who was loved by a spirit. Then they disappeared. When the Ancient Mariner awoke, the dead sailors were grouped together, all cursing him with their eyes once again. Suddenly, however, they disappeared as well. The Ancient Mariner was not relieved, because he realized that he was doomed to be haunted by them forever.
The wind picked up, and the Ancient Mariner spotted his native country’s shore. Then bright angels appeared standing over every corpse and waved silently to the shore, serving as beacons to guide the ship home. The Ancient Mariner was overjoyed to see a Pilot, his boy, and a Hermit rowing a small boat out to the ship. He planned to ask the Hermit to absolve him of his sin. Just as the rescuers reached the ship, it sank suddenly and created a vortex in the water. The rescuers were able to pull the Ancient Mariner from the water, but thought he was dead. When he abruptly came to and began to row the boat, the Pilot and Pilot’s Boy lost their minds. The spooked Hermit asked the Ancient Mariner what kind of man he was. It was then that the Ancient Mariner learned of his curse; he would be destined to tell his tale to others from beginning to end when an agonizing, physical urge struck him. After he related his tale to the Hermit, he felt normal again.
The Ancient Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that he wanders from country to country, and has a special instinct that tells him to whom he must tell his story. After he tells it, he is temporarily relieved of his agony. The Ancient Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that better than any merriment is the company of others in prayer. He says that the best way to become close with God is to respect all of His creatures, because He loves them all. Then he vanishes. Instead of joining the wedding reception, the Wedding Guest walks home, stunned. We are told that he awakes the next day “sadder and…wiser” for having heard the Ancient Mariner’s tale.

[Asalbanoo]

The Communist Manifesto opens with the famous words "The history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles," and proceeds in the next 41 pages to single-mindedly elaborate this proposition (79). In section 1, "Bourgeois and Proletarians," Marx delineates his vision of history, focusing on the development and eventual destruction of the bourgeoisie, the dominant class of his day. Before the bourgeoisie rose to prominence, society was organized according to a feudal order run by aristocratic landowners and corporate guilds. With the discovery of America and the subsequent expansion of economic markets, a new class arose, a manufacturing class, which took control of international and domestic trade by producing goods more efficiently than the closed guilds. With their growing economic powers, this class began to gain political power, destroying the vestiges of the old feudal society which sought to restrict their ambition. According to Marx, the French Revolution was the most decisive instance of this form of bourgeois self-determination. Indeed, Marx thought bourgeois control so pervasive that he claimed that "the executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie" (82).
This bourgeois ascendancy has, though, created a new social class which labor in the new bourgeois industries. This class, the proletariat, "wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live," are the necessary consequence of bourgeois modes of production (79). As bourgeois industries expand and increase their own capital, the ranks of the proletariat swell as other classes of society, artisans and small business owners, cannot compete with the bourgeois capitalists. Additionally, the development of bourgeois industries causes a proportional deterioration in the condition of the proletariat. This deterioration, which can be slowed but not stopped, creates within the proletariat a revolutionary element which will eventually destroy their bourgeois oppressors. As Marx says, "What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable" (94).
In Chapter 2, "Proletariats and Communists," Marx elaborates the social changes communists hope to effect on behalf of the proletariat. Marx notes firstly that the interests of communists do not differ from the interests of the proletariat as a class; they seek only to develop a class consciousness in the proletariat, a necessary condition of eventual proletariat emancipation. The primary objective of communists and the revolutionary proletariat is the abolition of private property, for it is this that keeps them enslaved. Bourgeois economics, i.e., capitalism, requires that the owners of the means of production compensate workers only enough to ensure their mere physical subsistence and reproduction. In other words, the existence of bourgeois property, or capital as Marx calls it, relies on its radically unequal distribution. The only way the proletariat can free itself from bourgeois exploitation is to abolish capitalism. In achieving this goal, the proletariat will destroy all remnants of bourgeois culture which act to perpetuate, if even implicitly, their misery. This includes family organization, religion, morality, jurisprudence, etc. Culture is but the result of specific material/economic conditions and has no life independent of these. The result of this struggle will be "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the development of all" (104).
Chapter 3, "Socialist and Communist Literature," encompasses Marx's discussion of the relationship between his movement and previous or contemporaneous socialist movements. In this chapter he repudiates these other movements for not fully understanding the significance of the proletarian struggle. They all suffer from at least one of 3 problems: 1) They look to previous modes of social organization for a solution to present difficulties. 2) They deny the inherent class character of the existing conflict. 3) They do not recognize that violent revolution on the part of the proletariat is the only way to eradicate the conditions of oppression. Only the Marxist communists truly appreciate the historical movement in which the antagonism between the proletariat and bourgeois is the final act.
The final chapter, "Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Opposition Parties," announces the communist intention to "everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things" (120). The communist contribution to this ongoing revolutionary discourse will be the raising of the property question, for any revolutionary movement which does not address this question cannot successfully rescue people from oppression. As Marx thunders in conclusion, "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!" (121).

[Asalbanoo]

The Communist Manifesto opens with the famous words "The history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles," and proceeds in the next 41 pages to single-mindedly elaborate this proposition (79). In section 1, "Bourgeois and Proletarians," Marx delineates his vision of history, focusing on the development and eventual destruction of the bourgeoisie, the dominant class of his day. Before the bourgeoisie rose to prominence, society was organized according to a feudal order run by aristocratic landowners and corporate guilds. With the discovery of America and the subsequent expansion of economic markets, a new class arose, a manufacturing class, which took control of international and domestic trade by producing goods more efficiently than the closed guilds. With their growing economic powers, this class began to gain political power, destroying the vestiges of the old feudal society which sought to restrict their ambition. According to Marx, the French Revolution was the most decisive instance of this form of bourgeois self-determination. Indeed, Marx thought bourgeois control so pervasive that he claimed that "the executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie" (82).
This bourgeois ascendancy has, though, created a new social class which labor in the new bourgeois industries. This class, the proletariat, "wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live," are the necessary consequence of bourgeois modes of production (79). As bourgeois industries expand and increase their own capital, the ranks of the proletariat swell as other classes of society, artisans and small business owners, cannot compete with the bourgeois capitalists. Additionally, the development of bourgeois industries causes a proportional deterioration in the condition of the proletariat. This deterioration, which can be slowed but not stopped, creates within the proletariat a revolutionary element which will eventually destroy their bourgeois oppressors. As Marx says, "What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable" (94).
In Chapter 2, "Proletariats and Communists," Marx elaborates the social changes communists hope to effect on behalf of the proletariat. Marx notes firstly that the interests of communists do not differ from the interests of the proletariat as a class; they seek only to develop a class consciousness in the proletariat, a necessary condition of eventual proletariat emancipation. The primary objective of communists and the revolutionary proletariat is the abolition of private property, for it is this that keeps them enslaved. Bourgeois economics, i.e., capitalism, requires that the owners of the means of production compensate workers only enough to ensure their mere physical subsistence and reproduction. In other words, the existence of bourgeois property, or capital as Marx calls it, relies on its radically unequal distribution. The only way the proletariat can free itself from bourgeois exploitation is to abolish capitalism. In achieving this goal, the proletariat will destroy all remnants of bourgeois culture which act to perpetuate, if even implicitly, their misery. This includes family organization, religion, morality, jurisprudence, etc. Culture is but the result of specific material/economic conditions and has no life independent of these. The result of this struggle will be "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the development of all" (104).
Chapter 3, "Socialist and Communist Literature," encompasses Marx's discussion of the relationship between his movement and previous or contemporaneous socialist movements. In this chapter he repudiates these other movements for not fully understanding the significance of the proletarian struggle. They all suffer from at least one of 3 problems: 1) They look to previous modes of social organization for a solution to present difficulties. 2) They deny the inherent class character of the existing conflict. 3) They do not recognize that violent revolution on the part of the proletariat is the only way to eradicate the conditions of oppression. Only the Marxist communists truly appreciate the historical movement in which the antagonism between the proletariat and bourgeois is the final act.
The final chapter, "Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Opposition Parties," announces the communist intention to "everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things" (120). The communist contribution to this ongoing revolutionary discourse will be the raising of the property question, for any revolutionary movement which does not address this question cannot successfully rescue people from oppression. As Marx thunders in conclusion, "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!" (121).

[Asalbanoo]

Stephen Kumalo, the pastor at the village of Ndotsheni in the Ixopo region of South Africa, receives a letter from the Reverend Theophilus Msimangu that requests that he go to Johannesburg to rescue his sister, Gertrude, who is very ill. In order to undertake the journey, Kumalo must use the money intended to be used to send his son, Absalom, to St. Chad's for his education. Absalom had gone to Johannesburg himself, and has not been heard from since. When a friend of Stephen Kumalo takes him to the train station to Johannesburg, he requests that Kumalo give a letter to the daughter of Sibeko, who now works for the Smith family in Johannesburg.
When Kumalo reaches Johannesburg, he waits in line for a bus and is tricked by a young man whom Kumalo gives money to buy a ticket for him. Kumalo finally arrives at the Mission House, where Msimangu arranges for him to stay in the house of Mrs. Lithebe. Msimangu tells Kumalo that Gertrude's husband has not returned from the mines where he was recruited to work, and now Gertrude has "many husbands" and was sent to jail for making bootlegged liquor and working as a prostitute. Msimangu also tells Kumalo that Kumalo's brother John is no longer a carpenter, and now works as a politician. The two men visit Gertrude in the Claremont district of Johannesburg. Kumalo chastises Gertrude for her behavior and for not considering her young son, and tells her brother that John Kumalo will know where his son, Absalom, lives in Johannesburg. Kumalo takes Gertrude and the young child back to the house of Mrs. Lithebe.
Stephen Kumalo goes to visit his brother John, who tells him that his wife has left him and that he is now living with another woman. John claims that he is more free in Johannesburg, for he is no longer subject to the chief and he has his own business. John tells his brother that his son and Absalom had a room together in Alexandra and they were working at the Doornfontein Textiles Company. At Doornfontein, Kumalo learns that Absalom was staying with a Mrs. Ndlela in Sophiatown. Mrs. Ndlela gives him a forwarding address, care of Mrs. Mkize in Alexandra. She also tells Kumalo that she did not like Absalom's friends.
Because of a bus boycott in Alexandra, Msimangu and Kumalo must walk to Alexandra. They reach the house of Mrs. Mkize, who seems obviously afraid and claim that Absalom has been away from the house for nearly a year. Msimangu tells Kumalo to take a walk to get a drink, and while he is gone interrogates Mrs. Mkize. He tells her that no harm will come to her from whatever he tells her, so she admits that they should talk to the taxi driver Hlabeni. From this taxi driver, they learn that Absalom went to Orlando to live amongst the squatters in Shanty Town. On the way back to the Mission House, Msimangu and Kumalo see a white man driving black passengers, and Kumalo smiles at the white man's sense of social justice, while Msimangu claims that the kindness beats him.
Kumalo goes to Shanty Town with Msimangu, where they meet Mrs. Hlatshwayos, who tells them that Absalom stayed with her until the magistrate sent him to the reformatory. At the reformatory, a white man who works there informs them that Absalom left the reformatory early because of good behavior and that he is now in Pimville, ready to marry a girl whom he got pregnant. At Pimville, they meet the girl, who admits that Absalom went to Springs on Saturday and has not yet returned. Msimangu warns him that he can do nothing about the girl, but Kumalo says that the girl's child will be his grandchild and that he is obligated. Kumalo learns from the white man at the reformatory that Absalom has not been at work this week.
While the white man at the reformatory undertakes a search for Absalom, Kumalo accompanies Msimangu to Ezenzeleni, the place of the blind, where he will hold a service. At dinner, they learn of the murder of Arthur Jarvis, a renowned city engineer who was the President of the African Boys' Club and the son of James Jarvis of Carisbrooke. Arthur Jarvis was renowned for his interest in social problems and for his efforts for the welfare of the non-European sections of the community. It is eventually acknowledged that Absalom Kumalo is suspected of the murder of Arthur Jarvis, and Kumalo wonders how he failed with his son.
Stephen Kumalo tells John about his son's involvement in the murder of Arthur Jarvis, and the two visit the prison together, since John knows that his son was friends with Absalom and thus a possible accomplice. At the prisoner, Kumalo finds his son, and interrogates him about the various facts of the case. Absalom claims that he shot Arthur Jarvis merely because he was frightened, but did not intend to kill him. John Kumalo claims that there is no proof that his son, who was involved in the robbery with Absalom and another friend, Johannes Pafuri, was involved.
The young white man from the reformatory visits Mrs. Lithebe's house in order to talk to Kumalo about a lawyer, because he does not trust John and thinks that he will attempt to place all of the blame on Absalom. He warns Kumalo that no matter what happens his son will be severely punished. The next day, Kumalo visits the pregnant girl in Pimville and tells her what happened to Absalom. He interrogates her, asking whether she really wants to become part of their family and whether she wants another husband. Kumalo eventually becomes convinced that the girl will come with him and live a quiet life in rural Ixopo.
The girl returns with them to the house of Mrs. Lithebe. Unlike Gertrude, the girl enjoys being there, while Gertrude behaves carelessly and dislikes living there. Kumalo visits Absalom in prison again and attempts to arrange a marriage between his son and the girl. He learns that John Kumalo's son (also named John) and the other suspect, Johannes Pafuri, have placed the blame entirely on Absalom. Father Vincent, a white pastor, introduces Kumalo to the lawyer Mr. Carmichael, who will take the case pro deo.
The second section of the novel takes the perspective of James Jarvis, the father of the murdered Arthur Jarvis. James Jarvis learns from the police captain van Jaarsveld that his son has been murdered and that there is a plane waiting at Pietermaritzburg that can take him to Johannesburg. Jarvis tells his wife Margaret as he arranges to make the journey to Johannesburg. When they arrive, Jarvis meets John Harrison, the brother of Mary, the wife of the late Arthur Jarvis. He tells them that Mary and her children have taken the news poorly, and that the police have been combing the plantations on Parkwold Ridge. Jarvis also learns that his son had been writing a paper on "The Truth About Native Crime" and admits to John that he and his son did not agree on the question of native crime. Arthur Jarvis had been learning Afrikaans and considered learning Sesuto, perhaps to help him stand as a Member of Parliament in the next election. Jarvis wonders why this crime happened to his son, of all people, and laments that he never learned more about his son.
During the funeral service at Parkwold Church for Arthur Jarvis, James Jarvis experiences several firsts. The service is the first time that Jarvis attends church with black people, and it is also the first time that he shakes hands with one. Jarvis, wishing to learn more about his son, asks John Harrison to take him to the Boys' Club in Claremont where his son did a great deal of community service work. Jarvis soon learns that Richard Mpiring, the servant at Arthur's house, was able to identify one of the culprits as a former servant. Jarvis reads through his son's manuscript, and is touched by his son's criticisms of South Africa as a nation that claims to be Christian yet practices few of the Christian ideals.
During the trial, the defendants (Absalom Kumalo, John Kumalo and Johannes Pafuri) are each asked their plea. They each plead not guilty, but Absalom does so only because he cannot plead guilty to culpable homicide. Absalom testifies that Johannes hit Mpiring in the back with an iron bar, and that he shot Arthur Jarvis simply because of fear. The prosecutor asks Absalom why he carried a loaded gun when he did not actually intend to use it, but Absalom cannot give a satisfactory answer. After court is adjourned for the day, Stephen Kumalo exits the courtroom with Msimangu, Gertrude and Mrs. Lithebe. He trembles when he sees James Jarvis, wondering how he can look at the man whose son Absalom murdered.
Upon returning to his son's home, Jarvis finds another work, "Private Essays on the Evolution of a South African," in which Arthur wrote that it is difficult to be a South African and that, although his parents gave him a great deal, they sheltered him from the actual South Africa. In this paper, Arthur Jarvis wrote that he dedicates himself to South Africa because he cannot deny the part of himself that is a South African.
James and Margaret Jarvis visit the home of Barbara Smith, one of Margaret's nieces. While they are visiting there, Stephen Kumalo visits with the letter from Sibeko. When Jarvis sees him, Stephen Kumalo trembles and nearly falls ill. Jarvis comforts him, and asks what is wrong. Kumalo admits that there is a heavy thing between then, and finally tells him that it was his son who murdered Arthur Jarvis. Jarvis tells Kumalo that there is no anger in him. Kumalo and Jarvis learn from the Smith daughter that Sibeko's daughter was fired because she started to brew liquor in her room, and that she does not know nor care where the girl is now. When translating Smith's words into Zulu, Jarvis leaves out the part that she does not care where the girl is. When Kumalo leaves respectfully, Jarvis admits to his wife that he is disturbed because of something that came out of the past.
During a meeting in the public square, John Kumalo gives a speech demanding greater reparations for blacks in South Africa, but despite the possibility that he may cause unrest and even riots, John Kumalo restrains himself, for he does not want to be arrested, simply out of the discomfort that it may cause. Jarvis is also at the rally, and listens as John Kumalo speaks.
Mrs. Lithebe and Gertrude argue over Gertrude's behavior, for Mrs. Lithebe believes that Gertrude associates with the wrong type of people and warns her not to hurt her brother any further. Gertrude finally suggests that she wants to become a nun, and although Mrs. Lithebe is happy at the change in Gertrude, she asks her to think of the small boy. Gertrude finally asks the pregnant girl if she would take care of her son if she were to become a nun, and the girl eagerly agrees.
The judge issues a guilty verdict int eh case for Absalom Kumalo, but finds no legitimate evidence that John Kumalo and Johannes Pafuri were present and thus finds them not guilty. The judge finds no mitigating circumstances, and sentences Absalom to death by hanging. When the court is dismissed, the young white man from the reformatory leaves court with Kumalo, thus breaking tradition and exiting along with the black men, an action that is not taken lightly.
Father Vincent performs a wedding ceremony at the prison, marrying Absalom and the pregnant girl. After returning from prison, Kumalo visits his brother's shop and they argue when Stephen suggests that he may have some reason to be bitter toward his brother. Wishing to harm his brother, Stephen suggests that there may be someone in his household who wants to betray him. When John laments having such a friend, Stephen says that Absalom had friends who betrayed him. John throws Stephen out of his shop and shouts at him in the street. Stephen feels ashamed for provoking his brother, for he only wished to tell his brother how power corrupts and that a man who fights for justice must be pure.
Before Jarvis leaves, he gives John Harrison a letter requesting that John continue Arthur's work, and includes a check for ten thousand dollars asking him to start the Arthur Jarvis club. Before Kumalo leaves, Msimangu hosts a party at Mrs. Lithebe's home in which he praises her for her kindness. Before they leave, Msimangu tells Kumalo that he is giving up all his worldly possessions and gives Kumalo money for all of the new duties he has taken up. Before departing for home, Kumalo finds that Gertrude has left, presumably to become a nun.
Stephen Kumalo returns home and tells his wife the verdict and the sentence. He learns that the area where they live has suffered from a drought for a month. Kumalo gives his first sermon since his return, in which beseeches God to give them ran and prays for Africa. Kumalo wonders whether he can remain as pastor considering his family. Kumalo decides that he must speak to the chief and the headmaster of the school about the state of Ndotsheni. When Kumalo speaks to the chief, the chief offers little help. Kumalo suggests that they should try to keep as many people as possible in Ndotsheni. When he returns home, a small white boy visits Kumalo and wishes to learn some words in Zulu. The boy asks for milk, which prompts Kumalo to tell him about the drought and about how small children are dying from it. The boy vows to visit Kumalo again. After dinner, Kumalo's friend asks if a small white boy visited him today, and tells him that he has milk to distribute to the small children. The milk is presumably a gift from the Jarvis estate.
Kumalo receives letters from Johannesburg, including one from Absalom to his wife and parents, one from Msimangu, and one from Mr. Carmichael. Carmichael writes that there will be no mercy for Absalom, and that he will be hanged on the fifteenth of the month. Kumalo's wife suggests that Kumalo distribute milk to the children in order to distract him from the pain. Kumalo sees Jarvis, who meets with the magistrate and the chief. Although Kumalo cannot hear their discussion, they appear to be discussing an important matter and use sticks to discuss their plans. Jarvis remains after the others leave. As a storm approaches, Jarvis and Kumalo remain in the church together. Jarvis learns that there will be no mercy for Absalom.
The small white boy returns to the house to learn Zulu, and meets Gertrude's child and Kumalo's wife. When he leaves, Kumalo goes to the church and meets Napoleon Letsitsi, the new agricultural demonstrator. He says that Jarvis has sent him to teach farming in Ndotsheni, and tells Kumalo that there will be a dam so that the cattle always have water to drink and thus produce milk.
Kumalo's friend tells Kumalo that Mrs. Jarvis is dead, and Kumalo writes a letter of condolence to James Jarvis, despite the worry that she might have died of grief and that a letter might be inappropriate. When the Bishop visits Kumalo, he suggests that Kumalo retire as pastor, but Kumalo says that if he were to retire his post and leave Ndotsheni, he would die. The Bishop says that he must leave because Jarvis lives nearby, but when the Bishop learns that Jarvis is sending milk for the children, he agrees that Kumalo can remain as pastor.
A new sense of excitement overcomes the valley concerning the new developments. On the day that Absalom is to be executed, Kumalo decides to go up on the mountain, as he had done in various other times of crisis in his life. On his journey to the mountain, Kumalo sees Jarvis, who tells him that he is moving to Johannesburg to live with his daughter-in-law and her children. While on the mountain, Kumalo thinks of various reasons to give thanks, such as Msimangu, the young man from the reformatory, Mrs. Lithebe, Father Vincent, his wife and friend. He wonders why Jarvis has been so kind despite their history, but he also thinks of those who are suffeirng and wonders when South Africa will become emancipated from fear and bondage.

[amanofnoname]

[
B]The Catcher in the Rye[/B]
The Catcher in the Rye is a novel by J.D. Salinger. First published in the US in 1951, the novel remains controversial to this day for its liberal profanity and portrayal of sexuality and teenage angst; it was the thirteenth most frequently challenged book of the 1990s according to the American Library Association.

The novel has become one of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, and a common part of high school curricula in many English-speaking countries, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year, with total sales of more than 60 million.

The novel's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, has become an icon for teenage alienation and fear. Written in the first person, The Catcher in the Rye relates Holden's experiences in New York City in the days following
his expulsion from Pencey Prep, a college preparatory school.

Holden Caulfield is the protagonist and narrator of the story. Holden is a sixteen year old[3] with a bit of grey hair making him look more mature, who has just been expelled (for academic failure) from a school called Pencey Prep. He is intelligent and sensitive, but Holden narrates in a cynical and jaded voice. He finds the hypocrisy and ugliness of the world around him almost unbearable, and through his cynicism he tries to protect himself from the pain and disappointment of the adult world. However, the criticisms that Holden aims at people around him are also aimed at himself. He is uncomfortable with his own weaknesses, and at times displays the exact phoniness, meanness, and superficiality of the people he says he despises. Holden fails to view himself as the child that he is

[amanofnoname]

Hi, dear friends.
The Catcher in the Rye by D.J. Salinger is one of the best novels in American literature, its genre is Bildungsroman (coming of-age novel). Salinger, in this novel, draws a contrast between the childhood and adulthood. Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden (the protagonist) invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty.
.I do want you to read this novel,I'm sure you will not regret it
While reading the novel, you'll laugh because of the language used by the protagonist, but having finished it, you'll admire the novelist for the great theme he espoused in the novel

[amanofnoname]

[
B]The Catcher in the Rye[/B]
By: J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield. Holden is not specific about his location while he’s telling the story, but he makes it clear that he is undergoing treatment in a mental hospital or sanatorium. The events he narrates take place in the few days between the end of the fall school term and Christmas, when Holden is sixteen years old.
Holden’s story begins on the Saturday following the end of classes at the Pencey prep school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. Pencey is Holden’s fourth school; he has already failed out of three others. At Pencey, he has failed four out of five of his classes and has received notice that he is being expelled, but he is not scheduled to return home to Manhattan until Wednesday. He visits his elderly history teacher, Spencer, to say goodbye, but when Spencer tries to reprimand him for his poor academic performance, Holden becomes annoyed.
Back in the dormitory, Holden is further irritated by his unhygienic neighbor, Ackley, and by his own roommate, Stradlater. Stradlater spends the evening on a date with Jane Gallagher, a girl whom Holden used to date and whom he still admires. During the course of the evening, Holden grows increasingly nervous about Stradlater’s taking Jane out, and when Stradlater returns, Holden questions him insistently about whether he tried to have --- with her. Stradlater teases Holden, who flies into a rage and attacks Stradlater. Stradlater pins Holden down and bloodies his nose. Holden decides that he’s had enough of Pencey and will go to Manhattan three days early, stay in a hotel, and not tell his parents that he is back.
On the train to New York, Holden meets the mother of one of his fellow Pencey students. Though he thinks this student is a complete “bastard,” he tells the woman made-up stories about how shy her son is and how well respected he is at school. When he arrives at Penn Station, he goes into a phone booth and considers calling several people, but for various reasons he decides against it. He gets in a cab and asks the cab driver where the ducks in Central Park go when the lagoon freezes, but his question annoys the driver. Holden has the cab take him to the Edmont Hotel, where he checks himself in.
From his room at the Edmont, Holden can see into the rooms of some of the guests in the opposite wing. He observes a man putting on silk stockings, high heels, a bra, a corset, and an evening gown. He also sees a man and a woman in another room taking turns spitting mouthfuls of their drinks into each other’s faces and laughing hysterically. He interprets the couple’s behavior as a form of sexual play and is both upset and aroused by it. After smoking a couple of cigarettes, he calls Faith Cavendish, a woman he has never met but whose number he got from an acquaintance at Princeton. Holden thinks he remembers hearing that she used to be a stripper, and he believes he can persuade her to have --- with him. He calls her, and though she is at first annoyed to be called at such a late hour by a complete stranger, she eventually suggests that they meet the next day. Holden doesn’t want to wait that long and winds up hanging up without arranging a meeting.
Holden goes downstairs to the Lavender Room and sits at a table, but the waiter realizes he’s a minor and refuses to serve him. He flirts with three women in their thirties, who seem like they’re from out of town and are mostly interested in catching a glimpse of a celebrity. Nevertheless, Holden dances with them and feels that he is “half in love” with the blonde one after seeing how well she dances. After making some wisecracks about his age, they leave, letting him pay their entire tab.
As Holden goes out to the lobby, he starts to think about Jane Gallagher and, in a flashback, recounts how he got to know her. They met while spending a summer vacation in Maine, played golf and checkers, and held hands at the movies. One afternoon, during a game of checkers, her stepfather came onto the porch where they were playing, and when he left Jane began to cry. Holden had moved to sit beside her and kissed her all over her face, but she wouldn’t let him kiss her on the mouth. That was the closest they came to “necking.”
Holden leaves the Edmont and takes a cab to Ernie’s jazz club in Greenwich Village. Again, he asks the cab driver where the ducks in Central Park go in the winter, and this cabbie is even more irritable than the first one. Holden sits alone at a table in Ernie’s and observes the other patrons with distaste. He runs into Lillian Simmons, one of his older brother’s former girlfriends, who invites him to sit with her and her date. Holden says he has to meet someone, leaves, and walks back to the Edmont.
Maurice, the elevator operator at the Edmont, offers to send a prostitute to Holden’s room for five dollars, and Holden agrees. A young woman, identifying herself as “Sunny,” arrives at his door. She pulls off her dress, but Holden starts to feel “peculiar” and tries to make conversation with her. He claims that he recently underwent a spinal operation and isn’t sufficiently -recovered to have --- with her, but he offers to pay her anyway. She sits on his lap and talks dirty to him, but he insists on paying her five dollars and showing her the door. Sunny returns with Maurice, who demands another five dollars from Holden. When Holden refuses to pay, Maurice punches him in the stomach and leaves him on the floor, while Sunny takes five dollars from his wallet. Holden goes to bed.
He wakes up at ten o’clock on Sunday and calls Sally Hayes, an attractive girl whom he has dated in the past. They arrange to meet for a matinee showing of a Broadway play. He eats breakfast at a sandwich bar, where he converses with two nuns about Romeo and Juliet. He gives the nuns ten dollars. He tries to telephone Jane Gallagher, but her mother answers the phone, and he hangs up. He takes a cab to Central Park to look for his younger sister, Phoebe, but she isn’t there. He helps one of Phoebe’s schoolmates tighten her skate, and the girl tells him that Phoebe might be in the Museum of Natural History. Though he knows that Phoebe’s class wouldn’t be at the museum on a Sunday, he goes there anyway, but when he gets there he decides not to go in and instead takes a cab to the Biltmore Hotel to meet Sally.
Holden and Sally go to the play, and Holden is annoyed that Sally talks with a boy she knows from Andover afterward. At Sally’s suggestion, they go to Radio City to ice skate. They both skate poorly and decide to get a table instead. Holden tries to explain to Sally why he is unhappy at school, and actually urges her to run away with him to Massachusetts or Vermont and live in a cabin. When she refuses, he calls her a “pain in the ass” and laughs at her when she reacts angrily. She refuses to listen to his apologies and leaves.
Holden calls Jane again, but there is no answer. He calls Carl Luce, a young man who had been Holden’s student advisor at the Whooton School and who is now a student at Columbia University. Luce arranges to meet him for a drink after dinner, and Holden goes to a movie at Radio City to kill time. Holden and Luce meet at the Wicker Bar in the Seton Hotel. At Whooton, Luce had spoken frankly with some of the boys about ---, and Holden tries to draw him into a conversation about it once more. Luce grows irritated by Holden’s juvenile remarks about homosexuals and about Luce’s Chinese girlfriend, and he makes an excuse to leave early. Holden continues to drink Scotch and listen to the pianist and singer.
Quite drunk, Holden telephones Sally Hayes and babbles about their Christmas Eve plans. Then he goes to the lagoon in Central Park, where he used to watch the ducks as a child. It takes him a long time to find it, and by the time he does, he is freezing cold. He then decides to sneak into his own apartment building and wake his sister, Phoebe. He is forced to admit to Phoebe that he was kicked out of school, which makes her mad at him. When he tries to explain why he hates school, she accuses him of not liking anything. He tells her his fantasy of being “the catcher in the rye,” a person who catches little children as they are about to fall off of a cliff. Phoebe tells him that he has misremembered the poem that he took the image from: Robert Burns’s poem says “if a body meet a body, coming through the rye,” not “catch a body.”
Holden calls his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who tells Holden he can come to his apartment. Mr. Antolini asks Holden about his expulsion and tries to counsel him about his future. Holden can’t hide his sleepiness, and Mr. Antolini puts him to bed on the couch. Holden awakens to find Mr. Antolini stroking his forehead. Thinking that Mr. Antolini is making a homosexual overture, Holden hastily excuses himself and leaves, sleeping for a few hours on a bench at Grand Central Station.
Holden goes to Phoebe’s school and sends her a note saying that he is leaving home for good and that she should meet him at lunchtime at the museum. When Phoebe arrives, she is carrying a suitcase full of clothes, and she asks Holden to take her with him. He refuses angrily, and she cries and then refuses to speak to him. Knowing she will follow him, he walks to the zoo, and then takes her across the park to a carousel. He buys her a ticket and watches her ride it. It starts to rain heavily, but Holden is so happy watching his sister ride the carousel that he is close to tears.
Holden ends his narrative here, telling the reader that he is not going to tell the story of how he went home and got “sick.” He plans to go to a new school in the fall and is cautiously optimistic about his future

[amanofnoname]

[
Lord of the Flies

By: William Golding
In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group.
Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death.
At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting.
When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror, that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid. The littlest boys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group.
Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them.
The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.
Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.
The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s glasses in the process. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s stronghold in an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears.
Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. The officer’s ship noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.

[amanofnoname]

Heart of Darkness
By: Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness centers around Marlow, an introspective sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz, reputed to be an idealistic man of great abilities. Marlow takes a job as a riverboat captain with the Company, a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality in the Company’s stations. The native inhabitants of the region have been forced into the Company’s service, and they suffer terribly from overwork and ill treatment at the hands of the Company’s agents. The cruelty and squalor of imperial enterprise contrasts sharply with the impassive and majestic jungle that surrounds the white man’s settlements, making them appear to be tiny islands amidst a vast darkness.
Marlow arrives at the Central Station, run by the general manager, an unwholesome, conspiratorial character. He finds that his steamship has been sunk and spends several months waiting for parts to repair it. His interest in Kurtz grows during this period. The manager and his favorite, the brickmaker, seem to fear Kurtz as a threat to their position. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all the more costly. Marlow eventually gets the parts he needs to repair his ship, and he and the manager set out with a few agents (whom Marlow calls pilgrims because of their strange habit of carrying long, wooden staves wherever they go) and a crew of cannibals on a long, difficult voyage up the river. The dense jungle and the oppressive silence make everyone aboard a little jumpy, and the occasional glimpse of a native village or the sound of drums work the pilgrims into a frenzy.
Marlow and his crew come across a hut with stacked firewood, together with a note saying that the wood is for them but that they should approach cautiously. Shortly after the steamer has taken on the firewood, it is surrounded by a dense fog. When the fog clears, the ship is attacked by an unseen band of natives, who fire arrows from the safety of the forest. The African helmsman is killed before Marlow frightens the natives away with the ship’s steam whistle. Not long after, Marlow and his companions arrive at Kurtz’s Inner Station, expecting to find him dead, but a half-crazed Russian trader, who meets them as they come ashore, assures them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood. The Russian claims that Kurtz has enlarged his mind and cannot be subjected to the same moral judgments as normal people. Apparently, Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of ivory. The collection of severed heads adorning the fence posts around the station attests to his “methods.” The pilgrims bring Kurtz out of the station-house on a stretcher, and a large group of native warriors pours out of the forest and surrounds them. Kurtz speaks to them, and the natives disappear into the woods.
The manager brings Kurtz, who is quite ill, aboard the steamer. A beautiful native woman, apparently Kurtz’s mistress, appears on the shore and stares out at the ship. The Russian implies that she is somehow involved with Kurtz and has caused trouble before through her influence over him. The Russian reveals to Marlow, after swearing him to secrecy, that Kurtz had ordered the attack on the steamer to make them believe he was dead in order that they might turn back and leave him to his plans. The Russian then leaves by canoe, fearing the displeasure of the manager. Kurtz disappears in the night, and Marlow goes out in search of him, finding him crawling on all fours toward the native camp. Marlow stops him and convinces him to return to the ship. They set off down the river the next morning, but Kurtz’s health is failing fast.
Marlow listens to Kurtz talk while he pilots the ship, and Kurtz entrusts Marlow with a packet of personal documents, including an eloquent pamphlet on civilizing the savages which ends with a scrawled message that says, “Exterminate all the brutes!” The steamer breaks down, and they have to stop for repairs. Kurtz dies, uttering his last words—“The horror! The horror!”—in the presence of the confused Marlow. Marlow falls ill soon after and barely survives. Eventually he returns to Europe and goes to see Kurtz’s Intended (his fiancée). She is still in mourning, even though it has been over a year since Kurtz’s death, and she praises him as a paragon of virtue and achievement. She asks what his last words were, but Marlow cannot bring himself to shatter her illusions with the truth. Instead, he tells her that Kurtz’s last word was her name.

[amanofnoname]

The Age of Innocence
By: Edith Whatron
Newland Archer couldn't be more pleased with his recent engagement to the beautiful debutante May Welland. However, his world is thrown upside down by the sensational arrival of May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska. Recently returned to America after separating from her husband, a philandering Polish count, Countess Olenska shocks the staid New York aristocracy with her revealing clothes, carefree manners, and rumors of adultery. Because the Countess's family, headed by the powerful Mrs. Manson Mingott, have chosen to reintroduce her into good society, Archer and May feel it necessary to befriend her.
As Archer comes to better know the Countess, he begins to appreciate her unconventional views on New York society. Meanwhile, Archer becomes increasingly disillusioned with his new fianceé, May. He begins to see her as the manufactured product of her class: polite, innocent, and utterly devoid of personal opinion and sense of self.
The Countess Olenska soon announces her intention of divorcing her husband. While Archer supports her desire for freedom, he feels compelled to act on behalf of the Mingott family and persuade Ellen to remain married. At a friend's cottage near Hudson, Archer realizes that he is in love with Ellen. He abruptly leaves the next day for Florida, where he is reunited with May and her parents, who are there on vacation. There, he presses May to shorten their engagement. May becomes suspicious and asks him if his hurry to get married is prompted by the fear that he is marrying the wrong person. Archer reassures May that he is in love with her. Back in New York, Archer calls on Ellen, and Archer admits that he is in love with her. Just then, a telegram arrives from May, announcing that her parents have pushed forward the wedding date.
After their wedding and honeymoon in Europe, Archer and May settle down to married life in New York. Over time, Archer's memory of Ellen fades to a wistful image. But on vacation in Newport, he is reunited with her, and Ellen promises not to return to Europe as long as she and Newland do not act upon their love for each other. Back in New York, Archer learns that Count Olenski wants his wife to return to him and that Ellen has refused. After the stroke of her grandmother, Ellen returns to New York to care for her. She and Archer agree to consummate their affair. But suddenly, Ellen announces her intention to return to Europe. May throws a farewell party for Ellen, and after the guests leave, May announces to Archer that she is pregnant and that she told Ellen her news two weeks earlier.

Twenty-five years pass. In that time, the Archers have had three children and May has died from pneumonia. Now Archer's son convinces him to travel to France. There, they arrange to visit the Countess Olenska at her Paris apartment. However, at the last minute Archer sends his son alone to visit her, content instead to live with his memories of the past
.