Short summary of great novels

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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.