D.

BIBLIOGRAFIE
a. Roman
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaids Tale or The Edible Woman
Bellow, Saul: Humbolds Gift or Seize The Day
Heller, Joseph: Catch 22
Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Remains of the Day
Joyce, James: Ulysses
Lawrence, D. H.: Women in Love or The Rainbow
Lodge, David: Nice Work
Morrison, Toni: Beloved or Song of Solomon
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: 1984 or Animal Farm
Sterne, Laurence: Tristram Shandy
Updike, John: The Centaur or Rabbit, Run
b. Teatru
Albee, Edward: Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Beckett Samuel: Waiting for Godot
Pinter, Harold: The Caretaker
c. Poezie
Eliot, T. S. The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock; The Waste Land
Yeats, W. B. Sailing to Byzantium, Leda and the Swan, The Second Coming
Bibliografie critic obligatorie
Bradbury, Malcolm. The Modern American Novel, Second edition, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992
_____ The Modern British Novel, London: Secker and Warburg, 1993
Clinescu, Matei. Cele cinci fee ale modernitii, Bucureti: Univers 1996
Daiches, David: A Critical History of English Literature 1969, vol. 4
Elliott, Emory (gen. ed.).The Columbia Literary History of the United
States, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988
Ford, Boris: The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, 1983, vol. 7 8
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Oxford Univ. Press
1994
Stevenson, Randall. The British Novel Since the Thirties. London: B. T. Batsford, 1986;
Iai: Institutul European, 1993.


THE HANDMAIDS TALE
Margaret Atwood
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Womens Bodies as Political Instruments
Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically decreased birthrates, the
states entire structure, with its religious trappings and rigid political hierarchy, is built around a
single goal: control of reproduction. The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete
control of womens bodies through their political subjugation. Women cannot vote, hold property or
jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or independent and
thereby undermine their husbands or the state.
Despite all of Gileads pro-women rhetoric, such subjugation creates a society in which women are
treated as subhuman. They are reduced to their fertility, treated as nothing more than a set of
ovaries and a womb. In one of the novels key scenes, Offred lies in the bath and reflects that, before
Gilead, she considered her body an instrument of her desires; now, she is just a mound of flesh
surrounding a womb that must be filled in order to make her useful. Gilead seeks to deprive women
of their individuality in order to make them docile carriers of the next generation.

Language as a Tool of Power
Gilead creates an official vocabulary that ignores and warps reality in order to serve the needs of the
new societys elite. Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles.
Whereas men are defined by their military rank, women are defined solely by their gender roles as
Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. Stripping them of permanent individual names strips them of their
individuality, or tries to. Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the
terms Unwomen and Unbabies. Blacks and Jews are defined by biblical terms (Children of Ham
and Sons of Jacob, respectively) that set them apart from the rest of society, making their
persecution easier. There are prescribed greetings for personal encounters, and to fail to offer the
correct greetings is to fall under suspicion of disloyalty. Specially created terms define the rituals of
Gilead, such as Prayvaganzas, Salvagings, and Particicutions. Dystopian novels about the
dangers of totalitarian society frequently explore the connection between a states repression of its
subjects and its perversion of language (Newspeak in George Orwells 1984 is the most famous
example), and The Handmaids Tale carries on this tradition. Gilead maintains its control over
womens bodies by maintaining control over names.

The Causes of Complacency
In a totalitarian state, Atwood suggests, people will endure oppression willingly as long as they
receive some slight amount of power or freedom. Offred remembers her mother saying that it is
truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. Offreds
complacency after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the truth of this insight. Her situation
restricts her horribly compared to the freedom her former life allowed, but her relationship with Nick
allows her to reclaim the tiniest fragment of her former existence. The physical affection and
companionship become compensation that make the restrictions almost bearable. Offred seems
suddenly so content that she does not say yes when Ofglen asks her to gather information about the
Commander.

Women in general support Gileads existence by willingly participating in it, serving as agents of the
totalitarian state. While a woman like Serena Joy has no power in the world of men, she exercises
authority within her own household and seems to delight in her tyranny over Offred. She jealously
guards what little power she has and wields it eagerly. In a similar way, the women known as Aunts,
especially Aunt Lydia, act as willing agents of the Gileadean state. They indoctrinate other women
into the ruling ideology, keep a close eye out for rebellion, and generally serve the same function for
Gilead that the Jewish police did under Nazi rule.

Atwoods message is bleak. At the same time as she condemns Offred, Serena Joy, the Aunts, and
even Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if those women mustered strength and
stopped complying, they would likely fail to make a difference. In Gilead the tiny rebellions of
resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of luck rather than
resistance.


Motif
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform
the texts major themes.
Rape and Sexual Violence
Sexual violence, particularly against women, pervades The Handmaids Tale. The prevalence of rape
and pornography in the pre-Gilead world justified to the founders their establishment of the new
order. The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protected in Gilead, that they are
treated with respect and kept safe from violence. Certainly, the official penalty for rape is terrible: in
one scene, the Handmaids tear apart with their bare hands a supposed rapist (actually a member of
the resistance). Yet, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as
we see at Jezebels, the club that provides the Commanders with a ready stable of prostitutes to
service the male elite. Most important, sexual violence is apparent in the central institution of the
novel, the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders.

Religious Terms Used for Political Purposes
Gilead is a theocracya government in which there is no separation between state and religion
and its official vocabulary incorporates religious terminology and biblical references. Domestic
servants are called Marthas in reference to a domestic character in the New Testament; the local
police are Guardians of the Faith; soldiers are Angels; and the Commanders are officially
Commanders of the Faithful. All the stores have biblical names: Loaves and Fishes, All Flesh, Milk
and Honey. Even the automobiles have biblical names like Behemoth, Whirlwind, and Chariot. Using
religious terminology to describe people, ranks, and businesses whitewashes political skullduggery in
pious language. It provides an ever-present reminder that the founders of Gilead insist they act on
the authority of the Bible itself. Politics and religion sleep in the same bed in Gilead, where the
slogan God is a National Resource predominates.

Similarities between Reactionary and Feminist Ideologies
Although The Handmaids Tale offers a specifically feminist critique of the reactionary attitudes
toward women that hold sway in Gilead, Atwood occasionally draws similarities between the
architects of Gilead and radical feminists such as Offreds mother. Both groups claim to protect
women from sexual violence, and both show themselves willing to restrict free speech in order to
accomplish this goal. Offred recalls a scene in which her mother and other feminists burn porn
magazines. Like the founders of Gilead, these feminists ban some expressions of sexuality. Gilead
also uses the feminist rhetoric of female solidarity and sisterhood to its own advantage. These
points of similarity imply the existence of a dark side of feminist rhetoric. Despite Atwoods gentle
criticism of the feminist left, her real target is the religious right.


Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
The center of Gileads power, where Offred lives, is never explicitly identified, but a number of clues
mark it as the town of Cambridge. Cambridge, its neighboring city of Boston, and Massachusetts as a
whole were centers for Americas first religious and intolerant societythe Puritan New England of
the seventeenth century. Atwood reminds us of this history with the ancient Puritan church that
Offred and Ofglen visit early in the novel, which Gilead has turned into a museum. The choice of
Cambridge as a setting symbolizes the direct link between the Puritans and their spiritual heirs in
Gilead. Both groups dealt harshly with religious, sexual, or political deviation.

Harvard University
Gilead has transformed Harvards buildings into a detention center run by the Eyes, Gileads secret
police. Bodies of executed dissidents hang from the Wall that runs around the college, and Salvagings
(mass executions) take place in Harvard Yard, on the steps of the library. Harvard becomes a symbol
of the inverted world that Gilead has created: a place that was founded to pursue knowledge and
truth becomes a seat of oppression, torture, and the denial of every principle for which a university is
supposed to stand.

The Handmaids Red Habits
The red color of the costumes worn by the Handmaids symbolizes fertility, which is the castes
primary function. Red suggests the blood of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the same time,
however, red is also a traditional marker of sexual sin, hearkening back to the scarlet letter worn by
the adulterous Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthornes tale of Puritan ideology. While the
Handmaids reproductive role supposedly finds its justification in the Bible, in some sense they
commit adultery by having sex with their Commanders, who are married men. The wives, who often
call the Handmaids sluts, feel the pain of this sanctioned adultery. The Handmaids red garments,
then, also symbolize the ambiguous sinfulness of the Handmaids position in Gilead.

A Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a document on which old writing has been scratched out, often leaving traces, and
new writing put in its place; it can also be a document consisting of many layers of writing simply
piled one on top of another. Offred describes the Red Center as a palimpsest, but the word actually
symbolizes all of Gilead. The old world has been erased and replaced, but only partially, by a new
order. Remnants of the pre-Gilead days continue to infuse the new world.

The Eyes
The Eyes of God are Gileads secret police. Both their name and their insignia, a winged eye,
symbolize the eternal watchfulness of God and the totalitarian state. In Gileads theocracy, the eye of
God and of the state are assumed to be one and the same.

SEIZE THE DAY
Saul Bellow
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols
Themes
The Predicament of Modern Man
Seize the day is a reflection of the times in which it was written. The novel was written in a post-war
world. WWII created several factors that serve as a backdrop to Wilhelm's isolation in the novel, an
isolation that represents the feeling of many during the time period.

First and foremost, war creates dissolution and in many cases dislocation because of forced
immigration. During the war many people, Jews especially, were escaping the Germans and, thus,
fleeing, when they could. Also, American troop and other members of the alliance were disillusioned
to see that such horrors could exist. Finally, and in opposition to the above, the war had a positive
effect of creating an economic boom. There was also a surge in technological interest in America. The
reasons for this serge are two-fold: America was rich and America was involved in a post-WWII cold
war with the Soviet Union, since the countries competed technologically. It is in this world that a man
like Tommy Wilhelm is lost.
Tommy is an idealist surrounded by the pressures of the outside world. He is isolated and, thus, is
forced to turn inward. The urban landscape is the symbol that furthers his isolation, for he is always
"alone in a crowd." Bellow wants the reader to understand this isolation and thus has almost the
entire novel take place within Wilhelm's head. We experience the back and forth of uncertainty, the
wavering of watery thoughts, the sadness and frustration of being that person that is "alone in the
crowd."
This isolation and inner struggle is the predicament of modernity. Bellow would not be the only
modern master to touch up the subject. For instance, T.S. Eliot had written The Wasteland in which
he discusses many of the same subjects as Bellow, albeit in a very different fashion and style. Eliot
discusses the "unreal city" which can be compared to the city that Wilhelm feels so uncomfortable
within. Eliot also claims that there are many "dead" within the crowds. This symbolic death points to
the fact that the modern man seems only to be going through the motions of things. Wilhelm, for
instance, at the beginning of the novel, is like a character seemingly dead, both in appearance and in
the way he claims he will simply go about the actions of his day. Other similarities between The
Wasteland and Seize the Day include the images of "drowning" and "water." Both writers used these
images to illustrate a person drowning in life.
Seize the Day is not a regular day in the life of the modern man because it is a "day of reckoning," a
day in which someone that is truly dead will give the protagonist a jolt of life. Unlike many modern
masterpieces, Bellow has chosen a positive ending for his novel. He has also allowed his protagonist
connections with the modern world. In Times Square, for example, Wilhelm had felt connected to
the "larger body" of humanity. Furthermore, Bellow complicates the predicament of modernity by
adding a very human and positive element. Bellow seems to be saying that the predicament of
modern man goes far beyond the typical pessimism, cynicism, and isolation because it has the
potential of reaching understanding and love.

The Internal Life of a Human Being
The critic Julius R. Raper, in an essay entitled "Running Contrary Ways," wrote that Saul Bellow's
writing marked the end of a tradition of "close-mouthed straight-forwardness," a substituted it with
"a confessional literature that feels no shame in being introspective and self indulgent." Bellow is not
afraid to have his character talk about feeling and emotions. The way in which he achieves this shift
from the sparse Hemingway style that had prevailed to his own is that he takes the reader "inside"
the head and emotions of the characters. This shift in style was often called a shift from the "Gentile"
literature that dominated to a more hyphenated American style. However, it is important to
remember that although Bellow does address the subject of the Jewish-American, he had considered
himself "American" writer, not a "Jewish" writer or a "Jewish-American" writer, perhaps because the
immigrant experience is so much a part of America itself.
Moreover, the fact that Bellows moves the action inward helps achieve a stylistic feat. However, style
is not its only achievement. This internal world becomes complicated and points to the complicated
state of the human being. The device helps to outline the role of psychology in the novel, for instance
and also helps to pose characters in concordance or dissonance with each other. For example,
Wilhelm does not understand the inner life of his father and his thoughts, but he is attracted to the
way in which the eccentric Dr. Tamkin thinks.

In short, the internal life of the protagonist allows Bellow to illustrate a world of wavering emotion
that would not have been possible otherwise. Being inside the protagonist places the reader in the
same position. It gives the reader an understanding of the problems Wilhelm faces, what makes him
angry, what makes him frustrated, sad, and lonely. Therefore, throughout the book, the reader has
accompanied Wilhelm in his frustrations and in his burdened feelings. In the end, we are also
released and reborn in much the same way as Tommy. The reason is both because of literary
catharsis and also because the reader has been following Tommy and has no other choice but to join
him.


Motifs
Psychology
Throughout the entire novel, the idea of psychology is present as both an illuminating force and one
that is to be mocked. Bellow presents this motif through both the characters' names, because they
are all the names of famous psychologists, and through the character of Dr. Tamkin, the self-
professed psychologist. Furthermore, one of the biggest struggles in the novel is a Freudian one: the
Oedipal hatred Tommy holds for his father. However, the character that personifies Bellow's
commentary on psychology is Dr. Tamkin.
Dr. Tamkin is both a character that, like the motif of psychology itself, serves as the perfect subject of
parody and capable of illumination and truth. He talks about the conflict between the true soul and
the pretender soul that is burdened by the forces and demands of the outside world. Bellow does
seriously address the issues of the internal world of the human being. However, because Bellow
makes fun of Tamkin constantly, it is important to remember that the field of psychology is a part of
that problematic "external" world.

Naturalism (the animal)
Almost every chapter in the novel has an animalistic reference. Tommy calls both himself and his
father an ass, a bear, and other names. Tommy was also once called "Velvel," by his grandfather
(Velvel means wolf). This motif serves many purposes. It may serve to illustrate man's animalist
natural tendencies and the internal instincts of a person. It may serve also to show the struggle
between naturalism and the mechanical world, a topic that is satirized in Tamkin's poem. And, it may
be taken one reference at a time. For example, the fact that Tommy had been called "wolf" can point
to his loneliness and his need to "howl."

The City (The Urban Landscape)
The city serves to create the background of crowds and technology in Tommy's world. It serves to
illustrate his disjunction with the outside/external world, the world that surrounds him. The city is
mentioned at many points throughout the novel: Tommy is constantly claiming his hatred toward it.
He would much rather live in the country, as he is unaccustomed to it. However, there are moments
when he finds himself at one with the crowds of the city. Thus, this urban landscape can both serve
as the dark backdrop of Tommy's life, the very symbol of what he is trying to escape, or it can be a
force that allows him to feel solidarity with his fellow man.

Symbols
Water
Water is one of the most important symbols in the book. It is present in every chapter and serves
different purposes at different points in the novel. Water because it can be both an unstable element
as well as a dangerous one, is used by Bellow to show that his protagonist is seemingly drowning.
Water is also unstable and, thus, all of the water imagery points to the fact that nothing is certain
and that Wilhelm lives in this world of uncertainty. The "water" is present from the beginning when
Tommy seems to be descending into an underwater world that suffocates him. However, in the end,
the water turns into a beautiful symbol of rebirth. The tears Tommy cries are tears that, ironically,
bring him out of his drowning state.

Clothing
Clothes are pointed to throughout the novel in the descriptions of characters. It appears as a symbol
from the beginning when Tommy is discussing clothing with Rubin, the newspaperman at the hotel,
they talk about the clothes they are wearing. This is important because it points to the significance of
appearances in the novel. Tommy is constantly putting on "layers," trying out roles and is constantly
trying to conceal his true self.

Olive
Olive is the woman that Tommy loves. She is the woman he wants to marry but cannot because his
wife will not grant him a divorce. His thoughts are constantly drifting toward he and his need for her
is shown to the reader by the end of the novel. She signifies love, therefore. The importance of her
name is what makes her a "symbol." The name Olive can refer to the symbolic Olive tree that
signifies peace. Moreover, this would mean that it is "love," in the end is what brings "peace."

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
Kazuo Ishiguro
As Salman Rushdie comments, The Remains of the Day is "a story both beautiful and cruel." It is a
story primarily about regret: throughout his life, Stevens puts his absolute trust and devotion in a
man who makes drastic mistakes. In the totality of his professional commitment, Stevens fails to
pursue the one woman with whom he could have had a fulfilling and loving relationship. His prim
mask of formality cuts him off from intimacy, companionship, and understanding.
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols
Themes
Dignity and Greatness
The compound qualities of "dignity" and "greatness" pervade Stevens's thoughts throughout The
Remains of the Day. Early in the novel, Stevens discusses the qualities that make a butler "great,"
claiming that "dignity" is the essential ingredient of greatness. He illustrates the concept with a
number of examples, finally concluding that dignity "has to do crucially with a butler's ability not to
abandon the professional being he inhabits." Stevens develops this exclusively professional mindset
only too well. Because he always dons the mask of an imperturbable butler, he necessarily denies
and therefore leaves unexpressedhis own personal feelings and beliefs. Stevens's pursuit of dignity
in his professional life completely takes over his personal life as well. By suppressing his individuality
in this manner, he never achieves true intimacy with another person. The fact that his view of dignity
is so misguided is sad; we can tell that Stevens has wanted great things, but that he has gone about
attaining them the wrong way.

Regret
Although Stevens never overtly discusses what he thinks "regret" may mean, it becomes clear, when
he breaks down and cries at the end of the novel, that he wishes he had acted differently with regard
to Miss Kenton and Lord Darlington. The tone of the novel is often wistful or nostalgic for the past; as
the story goes on, the tone deepens into one of regret as Stevens reevaluates his past actions and
decisions, and finds them unwise. Miss Kenton also openly says at the end of the novel that she often
regrets the choices she has made in her own life. The overwhelming sadness of the ending is only
slightly lifted by Stevens's resolve to perfect the art of banteringit seems a meager consolation
considering the irreparable losses he has experienced in life.

Loss
Literal and figurative loss abounds for almost every character in The Remains of the Day. Stevens
loses his father, Miss Kenton, and eventually his hope of convincing Miss Kenton to return to
Darlington Hall. Miss Kenton loses her aunt, her only relative; and loses Stevens when she leaves to
marry a man she does not love. Lord Darlington loses two friends, Herr Bremann and Sir David
Cardinal, and his godson, Reginald Cardinal, when they die. Furthermore, Darlington loses his
reputation and some degree of his own sanity by the end of his life. Reginald Cardinal loses his father
to death and his godfather, Lord Darlington, to Nazi brainwashing. There are both literal and
figurative deaths: deaths of loved ones, and figurative deaths of dreams and ideals.

Motifs
Bantering
Bantering provides an element of lightness and humor in the narrative, yet it is still one that
ultimately demonstrates the degree to which Stevens has become an anachronism. Stevens
repeatedly tells of various failed attempts at bantering, and muses over why Americans like his new
employer, Mr. Farraday, like to speak in such a casual and seemingly meaningless manner. By the
end of the novel, Stevens cedes that perhaps bantering can be a way to exhibit warmth, and he
resolves to try again with renewed zeal. The fact that Stevens uses the word "bantering" instead of
"joking around" or "sense of humor" in itself shows how old-fashioned and formal he is.

Stevens's Rhetorical Manner
A recurrent structural motif in the novel is the rhetorical method Stevens uses to make his points. His
primary manner of discussing a new topic is to pose a question and then answer it himself,
incorporating into his answers a number of responses to anticipated counter-arguments. As rhetoric
is a form of art and debate closely associated with England, this mode of discourse lends the novel
greater authority as one firmly grounded in English culture and tradition. The rhetorical mode of
discourse is intended to convince its audience; indeed, particularly in the early parts of the narrative,
Stevens often succeeds in conveying the illusion that he fully understands all sides of the issues he
discusses. As the novel progresses, however, we realize there are whole realms he has failed to
consider, rendering many of his assumptions and arguments much weaker than they initially appear.

Symbols
The English Landscape
The most notable symbols in The Remains of the Day are associated with people and events, not with
objects and colors. The English landscape that Stevens admires near the beginning of his road trip is
one such significant symbol, as we see that Stevens applies the same standards of greatness to the
landscape as he does to himself. He feels that English landscape is beautiful due to its restraint, calm,
and lack of spectaclethe same qualities Stevens successfully cultivates in his own life as a butler
aspiring to "greatness." By the end of the novel, however, Stevens is no longer certain that he has
been wise to adhere to these values so rigidly, to the exclusion open- mindedness, individuality, and
love.

Stevens's Father Searching on the Steps
Stevens and Miss Kenton watch Stevens's father, after his fall on the steps, practicing going up and
down the steps. The elder Stevens searches the ground surrounding the steps "as though," Miss
Kenton writes in her letter, "he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there." The action
of searching for something that is irretrievably lost is an apt symbol for Stevens's road trip, and
indeed his life as a whole. Just as his father keeps his eyes trained on the ground, Stevens keeps
thinking over memories in his head as though they will give him some clue as to how his values led
him astray in life.
Giffen and Co.
The silver polish company in Mursden that is closing down is a symbol for the obsolescence of
Stevens's profession. Indeed, the butler is also almost entirely obsolete by 1956. It is significant that
Stevens knows all about the quality of the silver polish, the houses in which it was used, and so on
though he knows an incredible amount of detail about all things related to the maintenance of a
great household, his knowledge is no longer nearly as important as it once was. There is no longer
the demand that there once was in England for either silver polish or butlers; they are a part of a
bygone era.
CATCH-22
Joseph Heller
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Absolute Power of Bureaucracy
One of the most terrifying aspects of Catch-22 is the fact that the lives and deaths of the men in
Yossarians squadron are governed not by their own decisions concerning dangerous risks but by the
decisions of an impersonal, frightening bureaucracy. The men must risk their lives even when they
know that their missions are useless, as when they are forced to keep flying combat missions late in
the novel even after they learn that the Allies have essentially won the war. The bureaucrats are
absolutely deaf to any attempts that the men make to reason with them logically; they defy logic at
every turn. Major Major, for example, will see people in his office only when he is not there, and Doc
Daneeka wont ground Yossarian for insanity because Yossarians desire to be grounded reveals that
he must be sane.
Several scenes of interrogation add to the bureaucracys frustrating refusal to listen to reason. In one
such scene, Scheisskopf interrogates Clevinger but will not let Clevinger state his innocence because
he is too busy correcting Clevingers way of speaking. In another such scene, the chaplain is taken
into a cellar and accused of a crime, but the men interrogating him do not know what the crime is
they hope to find out by interrogating him. In these and other instances, Yossarians companions
learn that what they do and say has very little effect on what happens to them. All they can do is
learn to navigate their way through the bureaucracy, using its illogical rules to their own advantage
whenever possible.

Loss of Religious Faith
Even the chaplain begins to doubt his faith in God by the end of Catch-22. His disillusionment stems
in part from Colonel Cathcarts constant attempts to use the outward manifestations of religion to
further his own ambition. Hellers treatment of the subject of God is most focused in the
Thanksgiving discussion between Yossarian and Scheisskopfs wife. Both are atheists: Mrs.
Scheisskopf does not believe in a just and loving God, whereas the God in whom Yossarian does not
believe is a bumbling fool. Yossarian points out that no truly good, omniscient God would have
created phlegm and tooth decay, let alone human suffering. Yossarian has experienced so many
terrible things that he cannot believe in a God who would create such a wide array of options when it
comes to pain and death. But the loss of faith in God does not mean a world without morals for the
characters. Instead, it means a world in which each man must make his own moralsas Yossarian
does when he chooses to desert the army rather than betray his squadron.

The Impotence of Language
In the first chapter of Catch-22, we see Yossarian randomly deleting words from the letters that he is
required to censor while he is in the hospital. At first, this act seems terrible: the letters are the
mens only way of communicating with loved ones at home, and Yossarian is destroying that line of
communication. As we learn more about Yossarians world, however, we see that the military
bureaucracy has taken the communicative power out of language. As Snowden dies in the back of
the plane, all that Yossarian can think of to say is there, there, over and over. He knows his words
have no power to comfort Snowden, but he does not know what else to do. Faced with the realities
of death and the absurdity of its circumstances, language seems unable to communicate any sort of
reassurance.
While language has no power to comfort in the novel, it does have the power to circumvent logic and
trap the squadron in an inescapable prison of bureaucracy. Catch-22 itself is nothing but a bunch of
words strung together to circumvent logic and keep Yossarian flying missions. Catch-22 even contains
a clause that makes it illegal to read Catch-22, demonstrating how absolutely powerful the concept
of Catch-22 is. Yossarian knows that since it is nothing but words, Catch-22 does not really exist, but
within the framework of the bureaucratic military, he has no choice but to accept the illogical prison
in which these words place him.

The Inevitability of Death
Yossarians one goalto stay alive or die tryingis based on the assumption that he must ultimately
fail. He believes that Snowdens gory death revealed a secret: that man is, ultimately, garbage. The
specter of death haunts Yossarian constantly, in forms ranging from the dead man in his tent to his
memories of Snowden. Furthermore, Yossarian is always visualizing his own death and is absolutely
flabbergasted by the total number of ways in which it is possible for a human being to die. But
Yossarians awareness of the inevitability of death is not entirely negative: it gives him a sense of how
precious life is, after all, and he vows to live for as long as possible. He also lives more fully than he
would without his constant consciousness of lifes frailty. He falls in love constantly and passionately,
and he laments every second that he cannot spend enjoying the good things in the world.

Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform
the texts major themes.
Catch-22
One version of Catch-22 keeps Yossarian flying combat mission after combat mission: Doc Daneeka
cannot ground him for insanity unless he asks, but if he asks to be grounded, then he must be sane.
In this sense, Catch-22 is a piece of circular reasoning that keeps Yossarian trapped in a paradox that
determines whether he lives or dies, even though it is made only of words. But Catch-22 has many
other permutations, most notably in the final, general principle stated by the old Italian woman in
the ruined brothel: they have a right to do anything we cant stop them from doing. This
description of Catch-22 proves what Yossarian has known all along: Catch-22 does not really exist. It
is just a name made up for an illogical argument that justifies what is really going on. Behind Catch-
22 stands an unswerving principle: might makes right.

Catch-22 also manifests itself even when it is not explicitly named. Both the doctor and the chaplain
have been caught up in their own versions of Catch-22, since war drastically undermines the
premises of their professions and yet calls upon them to practice those professions in the name of
war. Even Hellers style is in a way a Catch-22; the dialogue leaps haphazardly from one comment to
another, often arriving at a point exactly opposite of that which the person speaking is trying to
express.

Number of Missions
Colonel Cathcart wants to be promoted to general; to gain promotion, he constantly raises the
number of missions that the men are required to fly before they can be discharged. The number of
missions increases as time goes on, providing us with one of the few ways we have of keeping track
of the chronology of Catch-22. The number of missions is also the primary trap from which the men
in the squadron are unable to escape: each time Hungry Joe completes his missions or Yossarian
comes near completing them, the number is raised yet again. The utter futility of trying to get out of
the system the honest way, by flying the required number of missions, is what prompts Orr and
Yossarian to seek alternative methods of escape.

Washington Irving
First signed as a forgery by Yossarian in the hospital, the name Washington Irving (or Irving
Washington) is soon adopted by Major Major, who signs the name because the paperwork with
Irvings name on it never comes back to him. Washington Irving is a figment of the imagination who
is, in a sense, the perfect person to deal with bureaucracy: because he does not exist, he is ideally
suited to the meaningless shuffle of paperwork.

Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Chocolate-Covered Cotton
Aided by Yossarian, Milo comes up with the idea of selling chocolate-covered cotton to the
government after he discovers that there is a glut of cotton in the market and that he cannot sell his
own cotton. Milos product hides the lack of substance beneath an enticing exterior, showing the
way in which bureaucracy can be fooled by appearances and is unable to measure actual substance
or real merit.

The Soldier in White
The soldier in white, a bandage-wrapped, faceless, nameless body that lies in the hospital in the first
chapter of the novel, represents the way the army treats men as interchangeable objects. When,
months after his death, he is replaced by another, identical soldier in white, everyone assumes it is
the same person.

Aerial Photographs
When the men go on bombing missions, they often later learn that the real purpose of the mission
was either to make an explosion that would be beautiful when it showed up on aerial photographs or
to clear out foliage so that better aerial photography will be possible. The photographs themselves,
then, stand for the way in which the dehumanization of warin this case, the detachment of the
upper levels of military bureaucracy from the tragedy of warallows for its horrors to be seen
merely for their aesthetic effects.
ULYSSES
James Joyce
Joyce began writing Ulysses in 1914, and when World War I broke out he moved his family to Zurich,
Switzerland, where he continued work on the novel.
Ulysses has become particularly famous for Joyces stylistic innovations. In Portrait, Joyce first
attempted the technique of interior monologue, or stream-of-consciousness. He also experimented
with shifting stylethe narrative voice of Portrait changes stylistically as Stephen matures. In
Ulysses, Joyce uses interior monologue extensively, and instead of employing one narrative voice,
Joyce radically shifts narrative style with each new episode of the novel.
Like Eliot and many other Modernist writers, Joyce wrote in self-imposed exile in cosmopolitan
Europe. In spite of this fact, all of his work is strongly tied to Irish political and cultural history, and
Ulysses must also be seen in an Irish context. Joyces novel was written during the years of the Irish
bid for independence from Britain. After a bloody civil war, the Irish Free State was officially
formedduring the same year that Ulysses was published. Even in 1904, Ireland had experienced the
failure of several home rule bills that would have granted the island a measure of political
independence within Great Britain. The failure of these bills is linked to the downfall of the Irish
member of Parliament, Charles Stewart Parnell, who was once referred to as Irelands Uncrowned
King, and was publicly persecuted by the Irish church and people in 1889 for conducting a long-term
affair with a married woman, Kitty OShea. Joyce saw this persecution as an hypocritical betrayal by
the Irish that ruined Irelands chances for a peaceful independence.

Accordingly, Ulysses depicts the Irish citizens of 1904, especially Stephen Dedalus, as involved in
tangled conceptions of their own Irishness, and complex relationships with various authorities and
institutions specific to their time and place: the British empire, Irish nationalism, the Roman Catholic
church, and the Irish Literary Revival.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Quest for Paternity
At its most basic level, Ulysses is a book about Stephens search for a symbolic father and Blooms
search for a son. In this respect, the plot of Ulysses parallels Telemachuss search for Odysseus, and
vice versa, in The Odyssey. Blooms search for a son stems at least in part from his need to reinforce
his identity and heritage through progeny. Stephen already has a biological father, Simon Dedalus,
but considers him a father only in flesh. Stephen feels that his own ability to mature and become a
father himself (of art or children) is restricted by Simons criticism and lack of understanding. Thus
Stephens search involves finding a symbolic father who will, in turn, allow Stephen himself to be a
father. Both men, in truth, are searching for paternity as a way to reinforce their own identities.
Stephen is more conscious of his quest for paternity than Bloom, and he mentally recurs to several
important motifs with which to understand paternity. Stephens thinking about the Holy Trinity
involves, on the one hand, Church doctrines that uphold the unity of the Father and the Son and, on
the other hand, the writings of heretics that challenge this doctrine by arguing that God created the
rest of the Trinity, concluding that each subsequent creation is inherently different. Stephens second
motif involves his Hamlet theory, which seeks to prove that Shakespeare represented himself
through the ghost-father in Hamlet, but alsothrough his translation of his life into artbecame the
father of his own father, of his life, and of all his race. The Holy Trinity and Hamlet motifs reinforce
our sense of Stephens and Blooms parallel quests for paternity. These quests seem to end in
Blooms kitchen, with Bloom recognizing the future in Stephen and Stephen recognizing the past
in Bloom. Though united as father and son in this moment, the men will soon part ways, and their
paternity quests will undoubtedly continue, for Ulysses demonstrates that the quest for paternity is a
search for a lasting manifestation of self.

The Remorse of Conscience
The phrase agenbite of inwit, a religious term meaning remorse of conscience, comes to Stephens
mind again and again in Ulysses. Stephen associates the phrase with his guilt over his mothers
deathhe suspects that he may have killed her by refusing to kneel and pray at her sickbed when
she asked. The theme of remorse runs through Ulysses to address the feelings associated with
modern breaks with family and tradition. Bloom, too, has guilty feelings about his father because he
no longer observes certain traditions his father observed, such as keeping kosher. Episode Fifteen,
Circe, dramatizes this remorse as Blooms Sins of the Past rise up and confront him one by one.
Ulysses juxtaposes characters who experience remorse with characters who do not, such as Buck
Mulligan, who shamelessly refers to Stephens mother as beastly dead, and Simon Dedalus, who
mourns his late wife but does not regret his treatment of her. Though remorse of conscience can
have a repressive, paralyzing effect, as in Stephens case, it is also vaguely positive. A self-conscious
awareness of the past, even the sins of the past, helps constitute an individual as an ethical being in
the present.

Compassion as Heroic
In nearly all senses, the notion of Leopold Bloom as an epic hero is laughablehis job, talents, family
relations, public relations, and private actions all suggest his utter ordinariness. It is only Blooms
extraordinary capacity for sympathy and compassion that allows him an unironic heroism in the
course of the novel. Blooms fluid ability to empathize with such a wide variety of beingscats, birds,
dogs, dead men, vicious men, blind men, old ladies, a woman in labor, the poor, and so onis the
modern-day equivalent to Odysseuss capacity to adapt to a wide variety of challenges. Blooms
compassion often dictates the course of his day and the novel, as when he stops at the river Liffey to
feed the gulls or at the hospital to check on Mrs. Purefoy. There is a network of symbols in Ulysses
that present Bloom as Irelands savior, and his message is, at a basic level, to love. He is juxtaposed
with Stephen, who would also be Irelands savior but is lacking in compassion. Bloom returns home,
faces evidence of his cuckold status, and slays his competitionnot with arrows, but with a
refocused perspective that is available only through his fluid capacity for empathy.

Parallax, or the Need for Multiple Perspectives
Parallax is an astronomical term that Bloom encounters in his reading and that arises repeatedly
through the course of the novel. It refers to the difference of position of one object when seen from
two different vantage points. These differing viewpoints can be collated to better approximate the
position of the object. As a novel, Ulysses uses a similar tactic. Three main charactersStephen,
Bloom, and Mollyand a subset of narrative techniques that affect our perception of events and
characters combine to demonstrate the fallibility of one single perspective. Our understanding of
particular characters and events must be continually revised as we consider further perspectives. The
most obvious example is Mollys past love life. Though we can construct a judgment of Molly as a
loose woman from the testimonies of various characters in the novelBloom, Lenehan, Dixon, and
so onthis judgment must be revised with the integration of Mollys own final testimony.

Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the
texts major themes.


Lightness and Darkness
The traditional associations of light with good and dark with bad are upended in Ulysses, in which the
two protagonists are dressed in mourning black, and the more menacing characters are associated
with light and brightness. This reversal arises in part as a reaction to Mr. Deasys anti-Semitic
judgment that Jews have sinned against the light. Deasy himself is associated with the brightness
of coins, representing wealth without spirituality. Blazes Boylan, Blooms nemesis, is associated
with brightness through his name and his flashy behavior, again suggesting surface without
substance. Blooms and Stephens dark colors suggest a variety of associations: Jewishness, anarchy,
outsider/wanderer status. Furthermore, Throwaway, the dark horse, wins the Gold Cup Horserace.

The Home Usurped
While Odysseus is away from Ithaca in The Odyssey, his household is usurped by would-be suitors of
his wife, Penelope. This motif translates directly to Ulysses and provides a connection between
Stephen and Bloom. Stephen pays the rent for the Martello tower, where he, Buck, and Haines are
staying. Bucks demand of the house key is thus a usurpation of Stephens household rights, and
Stephen recognizes this and refuses to return to the tower. Stephen mentally dramatizes this
usurpation as a replay of Claudiuss usurpation of Gertrude and the throne in Hamlet. Meanwhile,
Blooms home has been usurped by Blazes Boylan, who comes and goes at will and has sex with
Molly in Blooms absence. Stephens and Blooms lack of house keys throughout Ulysses symbolizes
these usurpations.

The East
The motif of the East appears mainly in Blooms thoughts. For Bloom, the East is a place of exoticism,
representing the promise of a paradisiacal existence. Blooms hazy conception of this faraway land
arises from a network of connections: the planters companies (such as Agendeth Netaim), which
suggest newly fertile and potentially profitable homes; Zionist movements for a homeland; Molly and
her childhood in Gibraltar; narcotics; and erotics. For Bloom and the reader, the East becomes the
imaginative space where hopes can be realized. The only place where Molly, Stephen, and Bloom all
meet is in their parallel dreams of each other the night before, dreams that seem to be set in an
Eastern locale.

Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Plumtrees Potted Meat
In Episode Five, Bloom reads an ad in his newspaper: What is home without / Plumtrees Potted
Meat? / Incomplete. / With it an abode of bliss. Blooms conscious reaction is his belief that the ad
is poorly placeddirectly below the obituaries, suggesting an infelicitous relation between dead
bodies and potted meat. On a subconscious level, however, the figure of Plumtrees Potted Meat
comes to stand for Blooms anxieties about Boylans usurpation of his wife and home. The image of
meat inside a pot crudely suggests the sexual relation between Boylan and Molly. The wording of the
ad further suggests, less concretely, Blooms masculine anxietieshe worries that he is not the head
of an abode of bliss but rather a servant in a home incomplete. The connection between
Plumtrees meat and Blooms anxieties about Mollys unhappiness and infidelity is driven home when
Bloom finds crumbs of the potted meat that Boylan and Molly shared earlier in his own bed.

The Gold Cup Horserace
The afternoons Gold Cup Horserace and the bets placed on it provide much of the public drama in
Ulysses, though it happens offstage. In Episode Five, Bantam Lyons mistakenly thinks that Bloom has
tipped him off to the horse Throwaway, the dark horse with a long-shot chance. Throwaway
does end up winning the race, notably ousting Sceptre, the horse with the phallic name, on which
Lenehan and Boylan have bet. This underdog victory represents Blooms eventual unshowy triumph
over Boylan, to win the Gold Cup of Mollys heart.

Stephens Latin Quarter Hat
Stephen deliberately conceives of his Latin Quarter hat as a symbol. The Latin Quarter is a student
district in Paris, and Stephen hopes to suggest his exiled, anti-establishment status while back in
Ireland. He also refers to the hat as his Hamlet hat, tipping us off to the intentional brooding and
artistic connotations of the head gear. Yet Stephen cannot always control his own hat as a symbol,
especially in the eyes of others. Through the eyes of others, it comes to signify Stephens mock
priest-liness and provinciality.

Blooms Potato Talisman
In Episode Fifteen, Blooms potato functions like Odysseuss use of moly in Circes denit serves to
protect him from enchantment, enchantments to which Bloom succumbs when he briefly gives it
over to Zoe Higgins. The potato, old and shriveled now, is an heirloom from Blooms mother, Ellen.
As an organic product that is both fruit and root but is now shriveled, it gestures toward Blooms
anxieties about fertility and his family line. Most important, however, is the potatos connection to
IrelandBlooms potato talisman stands for his frequently overlooked maternal Irish heritage.
The Rainbow
The Rainbow is a 1915 novel by British author D. H. Lawrence. It follows three generations of the
Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire,[2] particularly focusing on the individual's struggle to
growth and fulfilment within the confining strictures of English social life.
Plot[edit]
The Rainbow tells the story of three generations of the Brangwen family, a farm/ labouring dynasty
who live in the East Midlands of England near Nottingham. The book spans a period of roughly 65
years from the 1840s to 1905, and shows how the love relationships of the Brangwens change
against the backdrop of the increasing industrialisation of Britain. The first central character, Tom
Brangwen, is a farmer whose experience of the world does not stretch beyond Nottinghamshire;
while the last, Ursula, his granddaughter, studies at University and becomes a teacher in the
progressively urbanised, capitalist and industrial world that would become our modern experience.

The book starts with a description of the Brangwen dynasty, then deals with how Tom Brangwen,
one of several brothers, fell in love with a Polish refugee, Lydia. The next part of the book deals with
Lydia's daughter by her first husband, Anna, and her destructive, battle-riven relationship with her
husband, Will, the son of one of Tom's brothers. The last and most extended part of the book, and
also probably the most famous, then deals with Will and Anna's daughter, Ursula, and her struggle to
find fulfilment for her passionate, spiritual and sensual nature against the confines of the increasingly
materialist and conformist society around her. She experiences a lesbian relationship with a teacher,
and a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with Anton Skrebensky, a British soldier of Polish
ancestry. At the end of the book, having failed to find her fulfilment in Skrebensky, she has a vision of
a rainbow towering over the Earth, promising a new dawn for humanity:

"She saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture, the old, brittle corruption of houses and
factories swept away, the world built up in a living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-arching heave
Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence published in 1920. It is a sequel to his
earlier novel The Rainbow (1915), and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters,
Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich,
an industrialist. Lawrence contrasts this pair with the love that develops between Ursula and Rupert
Birkin, an alienated intellectual who articulates many opinions associated with the author. The
emotional relationships thus established are given further depth and tension by an intense
psychological and physical attraction between Gerald and Rupert. The novel ranges over the whole of
British society before the time of the First World War and eventually ends high up in the snows of the
Tyrolean Alps. Ursula's character draws on Lawrence's wife Frieda, and Gudrun on Katherine
Mansfield, while Rupert Birkin has elements of Lawrence himself, and Gerald Crich of Mansfield's
husband, John Middleton Murry.[1]
As with most of Lawrence's works, Women in Love caused controversy over its sexual subject matter.
One early reviewer said of it, "I do not claim to be a literary critic, but I know dirt when I smell it, and
here is dirt in heapsfestering, putrid heaps which smell to high Heaven."[2] It also later stirred
criticism for its portrayal of love, denounced as chauvinistic and centred upon the phallus by Simone
de Beauvoir in The Second Sex.[3] n."
Nice Work (1988) is a novel by British author David Lodge. It won the Sunday Express Book of the
Year award in 1988 and was also shortlisted for the Booker prize. In 1989 it was made into a four-
part BBC television series directed by Christopher Menaul and starring Warren Clarke and Haydn
Gwynne. The University of Birmingham served as the filming location of many of the scenes from this
series.

Plot summary[edit]
The book describes encounters between Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher specialising in
the industrial novel and women's writing, and Vic Wilcox, the manager of an engineering firm. The
relationship that develops between the unlikely pair reveals the weaknesses in each character.
Robyn's academic position is precarious because of budget cuts. Vic has to deal with industrial
politics at his firm.
The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre, particularly referencing North and South by
Elizabeth Gaskell. This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of
Robyn, who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable (in the
minds of authors of industrial novels) of elevating the female to a serious social position. Robyn
acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents and
Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a
romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life.
The story is set in the fictional city of Rummidge, a grey and dismal fictionalised Birmingham. It is
part of the same series as the novels Changing Places, Small World, and Thinks .... In Nice Work,
Philip Swallow is still head of the English Department from Small World and thus is Robyn Penrose's
boss. Morris Zapp makes a cameo appearance in the last part of Nice Work, to add a plot twist where
he tries to arrange for Robyn to have a job interview at his American university, Euphoric State (a
fictionalized UC Berkeley), in order to stop his ex-wife from being a candidate for an open faculty
position. Robyn Penrose makes a cameo appearance in Thinks
BELOVED
Toni Morrison
Set during the Reconstruction era in 1873, Beloved centers on the powers of memory and history.
For the former slaves in the novel, the past is a burden that they desperately and willfully try to
forget. Yet for Sethe, the protagonist of the novel, memories of slavery are inescapable. They
continue to haunt her, literally, in the spirit of her deceased daughter. Eighteen years earlier, Sethe
had murdered this daughter in order to save her from a life of slavery. Morrison borrowed the event
from the real story of Margaret Garner, who, like Sethe, escaped from slavery in Kentucky and
murdered her child when slave catchers caught up with her in Ohio. Beloved straddles the line
between fiction and history; from the experiences of a single family, Morrison creates a powerful
commentary on the psychological and historical legacy of slavery.

Part of Morrisons project in Beloved is to recuperate a history that had been lost to the ravages of
forced silences and willed forgetfulness. Morrison writes Sethes story with the voices of a people
who historically have been denied the power of language. Beloved also contains a didactic element.
From Sethes experience, we learn that before a stable future can be created, we must confront and
understand the ghosts of the past. Morrison suggests that, like Sethe, contemporary American
readers must confront the history of slavery in order to address its legacy, which manifests itself in
ongoing racial discrimination and discord.
THEMES Slaverys destruction of identity; the importance of community solidarity; the powers and
limits of language
MOTIFS The supernatural; allusions to Christianity
SYMBOLS The color red; trees; the tin tobacco box
SONG OF SOLOMON
Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon, Morrisons third novel, was popular with both critics and readers. In 1978, the
novel won the National Critics Circle Award and the Letters Award. 570,000 paperback copies are
currently in print. Morrisons carreer continued its meteoric rise, and in 1988 she won a Pulitzer Prize
for her novel Beloved. In 1993, Toni Morrison joined the exclusive ranks of the worlds premier
writers when she became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature.
Morrisons fiction does not fit well into a single category. It blends themes of race and class, coming-
of-age stories, and mythical and realistic genres. Some critics classify Morrison as magical realist in
the vein of Gabriel Garca Mrquez. However, others claim that she is a black classicist, an heir to
nineteenth century European novelists such as Gustave Flaubert and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Finally,
other scholars argue that African-American oral narratives, rather than European traditions, provide
the raw material for her work. Morrison draws on all of these styles to create a rich tapestry of
backgrounds and experiences for her distinctive characters.
Morrisons biography serves as rich source material for the literary characters in Song of Solomon.
Jake (also known as Macon Dead I) has experiences similar to those of Morrisons beloved
grandfather, John Solomon Willis. After losing his land and being forced to become a sharecropper,
Willis became disillusioned by the unfulfilled promises of the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham
Lincolns 1865 document freeing black slaves. The character Heddy may have been modeled after
Morrisons Native American great-grandmother. Guitar is a composite character, made up of
Morrisons family and friends whose lives were destroyed by racism. Milkmans journey to uncover
his roots can be compared to Morrisons own. Like Milkmans, Morrisons creative life began after
age thirty and has been grounded in the African-American experience.
THEMES Flight as a means of escape; abandoned women; the alienating effects of racism
MOTIFS Biblical allusions; names; singing
SYMBOLS Whiteness; artificial roses; gold


LOLITA
Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita also represents a classic example of postmodern literature. Postmodernism arose in the early
years of the twentieth century and represented, in part, a move away from the notion that a novel
should tell a realistic story from an objective perspective. Postmodern writers are primarily
interested in writing that evokes the fragmentary nature of experience and the complexity of
language. Humbert Humbert, the protagonist of Lolita, narrates the novel from a highly subjective
point of view, and he uses rich, sophisticated language to do so. Lolita contains a vast variety of
linguistic devices, including puns, multilingual expressions, artistic allusions, word patterns, and
references to other works. These devices followed from the then-popular idea that a novel was not a
fixed work of literature, but rather a more fluid, organic creation that was interconnected with other
media. Humberts elegant and sinuous prose, however, conceals a subversive intent. The beauty and
intensity of the language allow readers to remain sympathetic to the pedophile protagonist and
compel them to read further, despite the numerous distressing events within the novel.
Though Lolita is a fictional memoir, Nabokov actually shared many personality traits with his
protagonist Humbert Humbert. Both men were highly educated, academically oriented European
exiles who made their homes in America, and both possessed a compelling gift for language.
However, unlike the pedophiliac, delusional Humbert, Nabokov was a devoted family man who lived
a quiet, scholarly existence. Because of Lolitas success as a novel and as a film, Nabokov had the
funds to retire to Switzerland in 1960 and devote himself exclusively to writing until his death in
1977. A prolific author, Nabokovs other notable works include Speak, Memory: An Autobiography
Revisited (1951), Pnin (1957), Pale Fire (1962), and Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969 While
elements of Lolita lend themselves to film, and though the novel explicitly recognizes film as an
influence, neither film fully captures the complicated mix of acrobatic language, black comedy, and
tender romantic sentiment for which the novel had become famous. The novel has numerous
referencesfrom crude, lowbrow puns to highly obscure scholarly referencesand it encompasses a
vast array of human emotionfrom tragic to comic. None of these elements come through as
effectively on screen as they do in the book itself.
THEMES The power of language; the dispiriting incompatibility of European and American cultures;
the inadequacy of psychiatry; the alienation caused by exile
MOTIFS Butterflies; doubles; games
SYMBOLS The theater; prison





1984
George Orwell
1984 is one of Orwells best-crafted novels, and it remains one of the most powerful warnings ever
issued against the dangers of a totalitarian society. In Spain, Germany, and the Soviet Union, Orwell
had witnessed the danger of absolute political authority in an age of advanced technology. He
illustrated that peril harshly in 1984. Like Aldous Huxleys Brave New World (1932), 1984 is one of the
most famous novels of the negative utopian, or dystopian, genre. Unlike a utopian novel, in which
the writer aims to portray the perfect human society, a novel of negative utopia does the exact
opposite: it shows the worst human society imaginable, in an effort to convince readers to avoid any
path that might lead toward such societal degradation. In 1949, at the dawn of the nuclear age and
before the television had become a fixture in the family home, Orwells vision of a post-atomic
dictatorship in which every individual would be monitored ceaselessly by means of the telescreen
seemed terrifyingly possible. That Orwell postulated such a society a mere thirty-five years into the
future compounded this fear.
Of course, the world that Orwell envisioned in 1984 did not materialize. Rather than being
overwhelmed by totalitarianism, democracy ultimately won out in the Cold War, as seen in the fall of
the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Yet 1984 remains an
important novel, in part for the alarm it sounds against the abusive nature of authoritarian
governments, but even more so for its penetrating analysis of the psychology of power and the ways
that manipulations of language and history can be used as mechanisms of control.
THEMES The psychological, technological, physical, and social dangers of totalitarianism and
political authority; the importance of language in shaping human thought
MOTIFS Urban decay (London is falling apart under the Partys leadership); the idea of doublethink
(the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in ones mind at the same time and believe them both to
be true)
SYMBOLS The glass paperweight (Winstons desire to connect with the past); the red-armed prole
woman (the hope that the proles will ultimately rise up against the Party); the picture of St.
Clements Church (the past); the telescreens and the posters of Big Brother (the Partys constant
surveillance of its subjects); the phrase the place where there is no darkness (Winstons tendency
to mask his fatalism with false hope, as the place where there is no darkness turns out to be not a
paradise but a prison cell






ANIMAL FARM
George Orwell
A dystopian novel, 1984 attacks the idea of totalitarian communism (a political system in which one
ruling party plans and controls the collective social action of a state) by painting a terrifying picture of
a world in which personal freedom is nonexistent. Animal Farm, written in 1945, deals with similar
themes but in a shorter and somewhat simpler format. A fairy story in the style of Aesops fables, it
uses animals on an English farm to tell the history of Soviet communism. Certain animals are based
directly on Communist Party leaders: the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, for example, are figurations of
Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, respectively. Orwell uses the form of the fable for a number of
aesthetic and political reasons. To better understand these, it is helpful to know at least the
rudiments of Soviet history under Communist Party rule, beginning with the October Revolution of
1917.
In the Russia of 1917, it appeared that Marxs dreams were to become reality. After a politically
complicated civil war, Tsar Nicholas II, the monarch of Russia, was forced to abdicate the throne that
his family had held for three centuries. Vladimir Ilych Lenin, a Russian intellectual revolutionary,
seized power in the name of the Communist Party. The new regime took land and industry from
private control and put them under government supervision. This centralization of economic systems
constituted the first steps in restoring Russia to the prosperity it had known before World War I and
in modernizing the nations primitive infrastructure, including bringing electricity to the countryside.
After Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky jockeyed for control of the newly formed
Soviet Union. Stalin, a crafty and manipulative politician, soon banished Trotsky, an idealistic
proponent of international communism. Stalin then began to consolidate his power with brutal
intensity, killing or imprisoning his perceived political enemies and overseeing the purge of
approximately twenty million Soviet citizens.
THEMES The corruption of socialist ideals in the Soviet Union; the societal tendency toward class
stratification; the danger of a nave working class; the abuse of language as instrumental to the abuse
of power
MOTIFS Songs; state ritual
SYMBOLS Animal Farm; the barn; the windmill


TRISTRAM SHANDY
Laurence Sterne
The most striking formal and technical characteristics of Tristram Shandy are its unconventional time
scheme and its self-declared digressive-progressive style. Sterne, through his fictional author-
character Tristram, defiantly refuses to present events in their proper chronological order. Again and
again in the course of the novel Tristram defends his authorial right to move backward and forward
in time as he chooses. He also relies so heavily on digressions that plot elements recede into the
background; the novel is full of long essayistic passages remarking on what has transpired or, often,
on something else altogether. Tristram claims that his narrative is both digressive and progressive,
calling our attention to the way in which his authorial project is being advanced at the very moments
when he seems to have wandered farthest afield.
By fracturing the sequence of the stories he tells and interjecting them with chains of associated
ideas, memories, and anecdotes, Tristram allows thematic significance to emerge out of surprising
juxtapositions between seemingly unrelated events. The association of ideas is a major theme of the
work, however, and not just a structural principle. Part of the novel's self-critique stems from the
way the author often mocks the perverseness by which individuals associate and interpret events
based on their own private mental preoccupations. The author's own ideas and interpretations are
presumably just as singular, and so the novel remains above all a catalogue of the "opinions" of
Tristram Shandy.
Much of the subtlety of the novel comes from the layering of authorial voice that Sterne achieves by
making his protagonist the author of his own life story, and then presenting that story as the novel
itself. The fictional author's consciousness is the filter through which everything in the book passes.
Yet Sterne sometimes invites the reader to question the opinions and assumptions that Tristram
expresses, reminding us that Shandy is not a simple substitute for Sterne. One of the effects of this
technique is to draw the reader into an unusually active and participatory role. Tristram counts on his
audience to indulge his idiosyncrasies and verify his opinions; Sterne asks the reader to approach the
unfolding narrative with a more discriminating and critical judgment.

Rabbit, Run is a 1960 novel by John Updike. The novel depicts three months in the life of a 26-year-
old former high school basketball player named Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, and his attempts to escape
the constraints of his life. It spawned several sequels, including Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich and
Rabbit at Rest, as well as a related 2001 novella, Rabbit Remembered.
Updike has the unusual distinction of combining serious critical acclaim (although this has not been
universal) and scholarly appreciation with a steady popularity with the reading public. Among his
best-known novels are Couples (1968); The Witches of Eastwick (1984), which was made into a
popular movie; and the Rabbit series: Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit Is Rich
(1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1990). Much of Updikes fiction focuses on upper-middle-class suburban
life, usually in New England or the Northeast, and often centers on a marriage under stress owing to
the affairs of one or both of the partners. Updike has described his primary fictional concern as the
American small town, Protestant middle class; the Rabbit series perfectly highlights this concern,
as it traces the life of Harry Rabbit Angstrom, a suburban Pennsylvanian, from adolescence though
old age, one decade at a time. The series has been celebrated for its evocation of America in the
1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Updikes work has been shaped by his Christian faith and especially by the
work of the Protestant theologians Karl Barth and Sren Kierkegaard.

The Centaur is a novel by John Updike, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1963. It won the U.S. National
Book Award for Fiction. [1] In French translation it won the Prix du Meilleur Livre tranger (Best
Foreign Book Prize).
The story concerns George Caldwell, a school teacher, and his son Peter, outside of Alton (i.e.,
Reading), Pennsylvania. The novel explores the relationship between the depressive Caldwell and his
anxious son. George has largely given up on life; what glory he knew, as a football player and soldier
in World War I, has passed. He feels put upon by the school's principal, and he views his students as
hapless and uninterested in anything he has to teach them. Peter, meanwhile, is a budding aesthete
who idolizes Vermeer and dreams of becoming a painter in a big city, like New York. He has no
friends his age, and regularly worries that his peers might detect his psoriasis, which stains his skin
and flecks his clothes every season but summer. One thing George and Peter share is the desire to
get out, to escape their hometown. This masculine desire for escape appears in Updike's famed
"Rabbit" novels. Similarly, the novel's image of Peter's mother alone on an unfarmed farm is one we
later see in Updike's 1965 novel Of the Farm.
Like James Joyce in Ulysses, Updike drew on the myths of antiquity in an attempt to turn a modern
and common scene into something more profound, a meditation on life and man's relationship to
nature and eternity. George is both the Centaur Chiron and Prometheus (some readers might see
George's son Peter as Prometheus), Mr. Hummel, the automobile mechanic, is Hephaestus (AKA
Vulcan); and so forth. The novel's structure is unusual; the narrative shifts from present day (late
1940s) to retrospective (early 1960s), from describing the characters as George, Vera, and the rest, to
the Centaur, Venus, and so forth. It also is punctuated with a feverish dream scene and a newspaper
obituary of George. Near the end of the book, Updike includes two untranslated Greek sentences.
Their translation is as follows:
Having an incurable wound, he delivered himself into the cave. Wanting, and being unable,
to have an end, because he was immortal, [then with] Prometheus offering himself to Zeus to
become immortal for him, thus he died.
This quote is from Bibliotheca 2.5.4, and describes the death of Chiron.
The character of Peter is similar to Updike himself; both had schoolteacher fathers, lived in rural
Pennsylvania, were passionate about painting, and suffered from psoriasis.
Portions of the novel first appeared in Esquire and The New Yorker.