Tom Jones

Squire Allworthy lives in retirement in the country with his sister Bridget. Returning
from a visit to London, he is surprised upon entering his room to find an infant lying on
his bed. His discovery causes astonishment and consternation in the household. The
squire is a childless widower. The next day, Bridget and the squire inquire in the
community to discover the babys mother. Their suspicions are shortly fixed upon Jenny
Jones, who spent many hours in the squires home while nursing Bridget through a long
illness. The worthy squire sends for the girl and in his gentle manner reprimands her for
her wicked behavior, assuring her, however, that the baby will remain in his home under
the best of care. Fearing malicious gossip in the neighborhood, Squire Allworthy sends
Jenny away.
Jenny was a servant in the house of a schoolmaster, Mr. Partridge, who educated the
young woman during her four years in his house. Jennys comely face made Mrs.
Partridge jealous of her. Neighborhood gossip soon convinced Mrs. Partridge that her
husband is the father of Jennys son, whereupon Squire Allworthy calls the
schoolmaster before him and talks to him at great length concerning morality. Mr.
Partridge, deprived of his school, his income, and his wife, also leaves the country.
Shortly afterward, Captain Blifil wins the heart of Bridget. Eight months after their
marriage, Bridget has a son. The squire thinks it would be advisable to rear the baby
and his sisters child together. The boy is named Jones, for his mother.
Squire Allworthy becomes exceedingly fond of the foundling. Captain Blifil dies during
his sons infancy, and Master Blifil grows up as Squire Allworthys acknowledged heir.
Otherwise, he remains on even terms with the foundling, so far as opportunities for
advancement are concerned. Tom, however, is such a mischievous lad that he has only
one friend among the servants, the gamekeeper, Black George, an indolent man with a
large family. Mr. Thwackum and Mr. Square, who consider Tom a wicked soul, are hired
to instruct the lads. Toms many deceptions are always discovered through the
combined efforts of Mr. Thwackum, Mr. Square, and Master Blifil, who dislikes Tom more
and more as he grows older. It is assumed by all that Mrs. Blifil would dislike Tom, but
at times she seems to show greater affection for him than for her own son. In turn, the
compassionate squire takes Master Blifil to his heart and becomes censorious of Tom.
Mr. Western, who lives on a neighboring estate, has a daughter whom he loves more
than anyone else in the world. Sophia has a tender fondness for Tom because of a deed
of kindness he performed for her when they were still children. At the age of twenty,
Master Blifil becomes a favorite with the young ladies, while Tom is considered a
ruffian by all but Mr. Western, who admires his ability to hunt. Tom spends many
evenings at the Western home, with every opportunity to see Sophia, for whom his
affections are increasing daily. One afternoon, Tom has the good fortune to be nearby
when Sophias horse runs away. When Tom attempts to rescue her, he breaks his arm.
He is removed to Mr. Westerns house, where he receives medical care and remains to
recover from his hurt. One day, he and Sophia have occasion to be alone in the garden,
where they exchange confessions of love.
Squire Allworthy becomes mortally ill. The doctor assumes that he is dying and sends
for the squires relatives. With his servants and family gathered around him, the squire
announces the disposal of his wealth, giving generously to Tom. Tom is the only one
satisfied with his portion; his only concern is the impending death of his foster father
and benefactor. On the way home from London to see the squire, Mrs. Blifil dies
suddenly. When the squire is pronounced out of danger, Toms joy is so great that he
becomes drunk through toasting the squires health, and he quarrels with young Blifil.
Sophias aunt, Mrs. Western, perceives the interest her niece shows in Blifil. Wishing to
conceal her affection for Tom, Sophia gives Blifil the greater part of her attention when
she is with the two young men. Informed by his sister of Sophias conduct, Mr. Western
suggests to Squire Allworthy that a match be arranged between Blifil and Sophia. When
Mrs. Western tells the young woman of the proposed match, Sophia thinks that Mrs.
Western is referring to Tom, and she immediately discloses her passion for the
foundling. It is unthinkable, however, that Mr. Western, much as he likes Tom, would
ever allow his daughter to marry a man without a family and a fortune, and Mrs.
Western forces Sophia to receive Blifil under the threat of exposing the womans real
affection for Tom. Sophia meets Tom secretly in the garden, and the two lovers vow
constancy. Mr. Western discovers them and goes immediately to Squire Allworthy with
his knowledge.
Aware of his advantage, Blifil tells the squire that on the day he was near death, Tom
was out drinking and singing. The squire feels that he forgave Tom many wrongs, but
this show of unconcern for the squires health infuriates the good man. He sends for
Tom, reproaches him, and banishes him from his house.
With the help of Black George, the gamekeeper, and Mrs. Honour, Sophias maid, Tom
and Sophia are able to exchange love letters. When Sophia is confined to her room
because she refuses to marry Blifil, she bribes her maid to flee with her from her
fathers house. Tom, setting out to seek his fortune, goes to an inn with a small
company of soldiers. A fight follows in which he is severely injured, and a barber is
summoned to treat his wound. When Tom tells the barber his story, the man surprisingly
reveals himself to be Partridge, the schoolmaster, banished years before because he
was suspected of being Toms father. When Tom is well enough to travel, the two men
set out together on foot.
Before they go far, they hear screams of distress and come upon a woman struggling
with a soldier who beguiled her to a lonely spot. Promising to take her to a place of
safety, Tom accompanies the unfortunate woman to the nearby village of Upton, where
the landlady of the inn refuses to receive them because of the womans torn and
disheveled clothing. When the landlady hears the true story of the womans misfortune
and is assured that the woman is the lady of Captain Waters, a well-known officer, she
relents. Mrs. Waters invites Tom to dine with her so that she can thank him properly for
her rescue.
Meanwhile, a lady and her maid arrive at the inn and proceed to their rooms. They are
followed, several hours later, by an angry gentleman in pursuit of his wife. Learning
from the chambermaid that there is a woman resembling his wife in the inn, he bursts
into Mrs. Waterss chambers, only to confront Tom. At his intrusion, Mrs. Waters begins
to scream. Abashed, the gentleman identifies himself as Mr. Fitzpatrick and retreats
with apologies. Shortly after this disturbance subsides, Sophia and Mrs. Honour arrive
at the inn. When Partridge unknowingly reveals Toms relationship with Mrs. Waters and
the embarrassing situation that Mr. Fitzpatrick discloses, Sophia, grieved by Toms
fickleness, decides to continue on her way. Before leaving the inn, however, she has
Mrs. Honour place on Toms empty bed a muff that she knows he will recognize as hers.
Soon after setting out, Sophia overtakes Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who arrived at the inn early
the previous evening and who fled during the disturbance caused by her husband. Mrs.
Fitzpatrick is Sophias cousin, and they decide to go on to London together. In London,
Sophia proceeds to the home of Lady Bellaston, who is known to her through Mrs.
Western. Lady Bellaston is sympathetic with Sophias reasons for running away.
Unable to overtake Sophia, Tom and Partridge follow her to London, where Tom takes
lodgings in the home of Mrs. Miller, whom Squire Allworthy patronizes on his visits to
the city. The landlady has two daughters, Nancy and Betty, and a lodger, Mr.
Nightingale, who is obviously in love with Nancy. Tom finds congenial residence with
Mrs. Miller, and he becomes friends with Mr. Nightingale. Partridge is still with Tom in
the hope of future advancement. Repeated visits to Lady Bellaston and Mrs. Fitzpatrick
finally give Tom the opportunity to meet Sophia during an intermission at a play. There,
Tom is able to allay Sophias doubts as to his love for her. During his stay with the
Millers, Tom learns that Mr. Nightingales father objects to his marrying Nancy. Through
the kindness of his heart, Tom persuades the elder Nightingale to permit the marriage,
to Mrs. Millers great delight.
Mr. Western learns of Sophias whereabouts from Mrs. Fitzpatrick. He comes to London
and takes Sophia from Lady Bellastons house to his own lodgings. When Mrs. Honour
brings the news to Tom, he is in despair. Penniless, he cannot hope to marry Sophia,
and now his beloved is in the hands of her father once more. Then Partridge brings
news that Squire Allworthy is coming to London and is bringing with him Master Blifil to
marry Sophia. In his distress, Tom goes to see Mrs. Fitzpatrick but encounters her
jealous husband on her doorstep. In the duel that follows, Tom wounds Mr. Fitzpatrick
and is carried off to jail.
There he is visited by Partridge, the friends he made in London, and Mrs. Waters, who
has been traveling with Mr. Fitzpatrick since their meeting in Upton. When Partridge
and Mrs. Waters meet in Toms cell, Partridge recognizes her as Jenny, Toms reputed
mother. Horrified, he reveals his knowledge to everyone, including Squire Allworthy,
who by that time has arrived in London with Blifil.
In Mrs. Millers lodgings, so many people praise Toms goodness and kindness that
Squire Allworthy almost makes up his mind to relent in his attitude toward the
foundling when news of his conduct with Mrs. Waters reaches his ears. Fortunately,
however, the cloud is soon dispelled by Mrs. Waters herself, who assures the squire that
Tom is no son of hers but the child of his sister Bridget and a student whom the squire
befriended. Toms true father died before his sons birth, and Bridget concealed her
shame by putting the baby on her brothers bed upon his return from a long visit to
London. Later, she paid Jenny liberally to let suspicion fall upon her former maid.
Squire Allworthy also learns that Bridget claimed Tom as her son in a letter written
before her death, a letter Blifil probably destroyed. There is further proof that Blifil
plotted to have Tom hanged for murder. Mr. Fitzpatrick, however, did not die, and he
recovers sufficiently to acknowledge himself the aggressor in the duel; Tom is released
from prison.
Upon these disclosures of Blifils villainy, Squire Allworthy dismisses Blifil and makes
Tom his heir. Once Toms proper station is revealed, Mr. Western withdraws all
objections to his suit. Reunited, Tom and Sophia are married and retire to Mr. Westerns
estate in the country.

Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist is born in the lying-in room of a parochial workhouse about seventy-five
miles north of London. His mother, whose name is unknown, is found later unconscious
by the roadside, exhausted by a long journey on foot; she dies leaving a locket and a
ring as the only tokens of her childs identity. These tokens are stolen by old Sally, a
pauper present at her death.
Oliver owes his name to Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle and a bullying official of the
workhouse, who always names his unknown orphans in the order of an alphabetical
system he had devised. Twist is the name between Swubble and Unwin on Bumbles
list. An offered reward of ten pounds fails to discover Olivers parentage, and he is sent
to a nearby poor farm, where he passes his early childhood in neglect and near
starvation. At the age of nine, he is moved back to the workhouse. Always hungry, he
asks one day for a second serving of porridge. The scandalized authorities put him in
solitary confinement and post a bill offering five pounds to someone who will take him
away from the parish.
Oliver is apprenticed to Sowerberry, a casket maker, to learn a trade. Sowerberry
employs little Oliver, dressed in miniature mourning clothing, as an attendant at
childrens funerals. Another Sowerberry employee, Noah Claypole, often teases Oliver
about his parentage. One day, goaded beyond endurance, Oliver fiercely attacks
Claypole and is subsequently locked in the cellar by Mrs. Sowerberry. When Sowerberry
releases Oliver one night, he bundle up his meager belongings and starts out for
London.
In a London suburb, Oliver, worn out from walking and weak from hunger, meets Jack
Dawkins, a sharp-witted slum gamin. Known as the Artful Dodger, Dawkins offers Oliver
lodgings in the city, and Oliver soon finds himself in the middle of a gang of young
thieves led by a miserly old Jew, Fagin. Oliver is trained as a pickpocket. On his first
mission, he is caught and taken to the police station. There he is rescued by kindly Mr.
Brownlow, the man whose pocket Oliver is accused of having picked. Mr. Brownlow, his
gruff friend, Grimwig, and the old housekeeper, Mrs. Bedwin, care for the sickly Oliver,
marveling at the resemblance of the boy to a portrait of a young lady in Mr. Brownlows
possession. Once he recuperates, Oliver is given some books and money to take to a
bookseller. Grimwig wagers that Oliver will not return. Fagin and his gang had been on
constant lookout for the boys appearance. Oliver is intercepted by Nancy, a young
street girl associated with the gang, and falls into Fagins clutches again.
Bumble, in London on parochial business, sees Mr. Brownlows advertisement for word
leading to Olivers recovery. Hoping to profit, Bumble hastens to Mr. Brownlow and
reports that Oliver is incorrigible. Mr. Brownlow thereupon refuses to have Olivers
name mentioned in his presence.
During Olivers absence, Fagins gang had been studying a house in Chertsey, west of
London, in preparation for breaking into it at night. When the time comes, Oliver, much
to his horror, is forced to participate. He and Bill Sikes, a brutal young member of the
gang, meet the housebreaker, Toby Crackit, and in the dark of early morning they pry
open a small window of the house. Oliver, being the smallest, is the first to enter, but he
is determined to warn the occupants. The thieves are discovered, and the trio flees;
Oliver, however, is wounded by gunshot.
In fleeing, Sikes throws the wounded Oliver into a ditch and covers him with a cape.
Toby Crackit returns and reports to Fagin, who, as it turns out, is more interested than
ever in Oliver after a conversation he had had with Monks. Nancy overhears them
talking about Olivers parentage and Monks expressing his wish to have the boy made a
felon.
Oliver crawls feebly back to the house into which he had gone the night before, where
he is taken in by the owner Mrs. Maylie and Rose, her adopted daughter. Olivers story
arouses their sympathy, and he is saved from police investigation by Dr. Losberne, a
friend of the Maylies. Upon his recovery, the boy goes with the doctor to find Mr.
Brownlow, but it is learned that the old gentleman, his friend, Grimwig, and Mrs.
Bedwin had gone to the West Indies.
Bumble is meanwhile courting the widow Corney. During one of their conversations,
Mrs. Corney had been called out to attend the death of old Sally, who had attended the
death of Olivers mother. After old Sally died, Mrs. Corney removed a pawn ticket from
her hand. In Mrs. Corneys absence, Bumble appraised her property to his satisfaction,
and when she returned, he proposed marriage.
The Maylies move to the country, where Oliver reads and takes long walks. During this
holiday, Rose Maylie falls sick and nearly dies. Harry Maylie, Mrs. Maylies son, who is
in love with Rose, joins the group. Harry asks Rose to marry him, but Rose refuses on
the grounds that she cannot marry him unless she discovers who she is and unless he
mends his ways. One night, Oliver is frightened when he sees Fagin and Monks peering
through the study window.
Bumble discovers that married life with the former Mrs. Corney is not all happiness, for
she dominates him completely. When Monks goes to the workhouse seeking
information about Oliver, he meets with Mr. and Mrs. Bumble and learns that Mrs.
Bumble redeemed a locket and a wedding ring with the pawn ticket she had recovered
from old Sally. Monks buys the trinkets from Mrs. Bumble and throws them into the
river. Nancy overhears Monks telling Fagin that he had disposed of the proofs of Olivers
parentage. After drugging Bill Sikes, whom she had been nursing to recovery from
gunshot wounds received in the ill-fated venture at Chertsey, she goes to see Rose
Maylie, whose name and address she had overheard in the conversation between Fagin
and Monks.
Nancy tells Rose everything she had heard concerning Oliver. Rose is unable to
understand fully the various connections of the plot nor can she see Monkss
connection with Oliver. She offers the miserable girl the protection of her own home,
but Nancy refuses; she knows that she could never leave Bill Sikes. The two young
women agree on a time and place for a later meeting. Rose and Oliver call on Mr.
Brownlow, whom Oliver had glimpsed in the street. The reunion of the boy, Mr.
Brownlow, and Mrs. Bedwin is a joyous one. Even old Grimwig gruffly expresses his
pleasure at seeing Oliver again. Rose tells Mr. Brownlow Nancys story.
Noah Claypole and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys maidservant, run away from the casket
maker and arrive in London. They then go to the public house where Fagin and his gang
frequently meet. Fagin flatters Noah into his employ; his job is to steal small coins from
children on household errands.
At the time agreed upon for her appointment with Rose Maylie, Nancy is unable to leave
the demanding Bill Sikes. Fagin notices Nancys impatience and decides that she has
tired of Sikes and has another lover. Fagin hates Sikes because of the younger mans
power over the gang, and he sees this situation as an opportunity to rid himself of
Sikes. Fagin sets Noah on Nancys trail.
The following week, Nancy is freed with the aid of Fagin. She goes to Rose and Mr.
Brownlow and reveals to them the haunts of all the gang except Sikes. Noah overhears
all this and secretly tells Fagin, who in turn tells Sikes. In his rage, Sikes brutally
murders Nancy, never knowing that the girl had been faithful to him. He flees, pursued
by the vision of Nancys staring dead eyes. Frantic with fear, he even tries to kill his
dog, whose presence could betray him. The dog runs away.
Monks is apprehended and confesses to Mr. Brownlow the plot against Oliver. Olivers
father, Edward Leeford, had married a woman older than himself. Their son, Edward
Leeford, is the man now known as Monks. After several years of unhappiness, the
couple had separated; Monks and his mother remained on the Continent and Mr.
Leeford returned to England. Later, Leeford met a retired naval officer with two
daughters, one three years old, the other seventeen. Leeford fell in love with the older
daughter and contracted to marry the girl, but before the marriage could be performed,
he was called to Rome, where an old friend had died. On the way to Rome, he stopped
at the house of Mr. Brownlow, his best friend, and left a portrait of his betrothed. He
himself fell sick in Rome and died, and his first wife seized his papers. Leefords young
wife-to-be was pregnant; when she heard of Leefords death, she ran away to hide her
pregnancy. Her father died soon afterward, and the younger sister was eventually
adopted by Mrs. Maylie.
Rose was consequently Olivers aunt. Monks had gone on to live a dissolute life, going
to the West Indies when his mother died. Mr. Brownlow had gone in search of him there,
but by then Monks had already returned to England to track down his young half
brother, whose part of his fathers settlement he wishes to keep for himself. It was
Monks who had offered the reward at the workhouse for information about Olivers
parentage, and it was Monks who had paid Fagin to see that the boy remained with the
gang as a common thief.
After Fagin and the Artful Dodger are seized, Bill Sikes and the remainder of the gang
meet on Jacobs Island in the Thames River. They intend to stay there in a deserted
house until the hunt dies down. Sikess dog, however, leads their pursuers to the
hideout. Sikes hangs himself accidentally with the rope he was using as a means of
escape. The other thieves are captured. Fagin is hanged publicly at Newgate after he
had revealed to Oliver the location of papers concerning his heritage, which Monks had
entrusted to him for safekeeping.
Harry Maylie becomes a minister and marries Rose Maylie. Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver
and takes up residence near the church of the Reverend Harry Maylie. Mr. and Mrs.
Bumble lose their parochial positions and become inmates of the workhouse that once
had been their domain. Monks is allowed to retain his share of his fathers property, and
he moves to the United States; eventually he dies in prison. Olivers years of hardship
and unhappiness are at an end.

Pride and Prejudice

The chief business of Mrs. Bennets life is to find suitable husbands for her five
daughters. Consequently, she is elated when she hears that nearby Netherfield Park
has been let to a Mr. Bingley, a gentleman from the north of England. Gossip reports
him to be a rich and eligible young bachelor. Mr. Bingleys first public appearance in the
neighborhood is at a ball. With him are his two sisters, the husband of the older, and Mr.
Darcy, Bingleys friend.
Bingley is an immediate success in local society, and he and Jane, the oldest Bennet
daughter, a pretty girl of sweet and gentle disposition, are attracted to each other at
once. His friend, Darcy, however, seems cold and extremely proud and creates a bad
impression. In particular, he insults Elizabeth Bennet, a girl of spirit and intelligence
and her fathers favorite, by refusing to dance with her when she is sitting down for
lack of a partner; he says in her hearing that he is in no mood to prefer young ladies
slighted by other men. On later occasions, however, he begins to admire Elizabeth in
spite of himself, and at one party she has the satisfaction of refusing him a dance.
Janes romance with Bingley flourishes quietly, aided by family calls, dinners, and balls.
His sisters pretend great fondness for Jane, who believes them completely sincere.
Elizabeth is more critical and discerning; she suspects them of hypocrisy, and quite
rightly, for they make great fun of Janes relations, especially her vulgar, garrulous
mother and her two ill-bred officer-mad younger sisters. Miss Caroline Bingley, who is
eager to marry Darcy and shrewdly aware of his growing admiration for Elizabeth, is
especially loud in her ridicule of the Bennet family. Elizabeth herself becomes
Carolines particular target when she walks three miles through muddy pastures to
visit Jane when she falls ill at Netherfield Park. Until Jane is able to be moved home,
Elizabeth stays to nurse her. During her visit, Elizabeth receives enough attention from
Darcy to make Caroline Bingley long sincerely for Janes recovery. Her fears are not ill-
founded. Darcy admits to himself that he would be in some danger from the charm of
Elizabeth, if it were not for her inferior family connections.
Elizabeth acquires a new admirer in Mr. Collins, a ridiculously pompous clergyman and
a distant cousin of the Bennets, who will someday inherit Mr. Bennets property
because that gentleman has no male heir. Mr. Collinss patron, Lady Catherine de
Bourgh, urged him to marry, and he, always obsequiously obedient to her wishes,
hastens to comply. Thinking to alleviate the hardship caused the Bennet sisters by the
entail that gave their fathers property to him, Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth. Much
to her mothers displeasure and her fathers relief, she firmly and promptly rejects him.
He almost immediately transfers his affections to Elizabeths best friend, Charlotte
Lucas, who, being twenty-seven years old and somewhat homely, accepts at once.
During Mr. Collinss visit and on one of their many walks to Meryton, the younger
Bennet sisters, Kitty and Lydia, meet a delightful young officer, Mr. Wickham, who is
stationed with the regiment there. Outwardly charming, he becomes a favorite among
all the ladies, including Elizabeth. She is willing to believe the story that he had been
cheated out of an inheritance left to him by Darcys father, who had been his godfather.
Her belief in Darcys arrogant and grasping nature deepens when Wickham does not
come to a ball given by the Bingleys, a dance at which Darcy is present.
Soon after the ball, the entire Bingley party suddenly leaves Netherfield Park. They
depart with no intention of returning, as Caroline writes Jane in a short farewell note,
in which she hints that Bingley might soon become engaged to Darcys sister. Jane
believes that her friend, Caroline, is trying gently to tell her that her brother loves
elsewhere and that she must cease to hope. Elizabeth, however, is sure of a plot by
Darcy and Caroline to separate Bingley and Jane. She persuades Jane that Bingley
does love her and that he will return to Hertfordshire before the winter is over. Jane
almost believes her, until she receives a letter from Caroline assuring her that they are
all settled in London for the winter. Even after Jane tells her this news, Elizabeth
remains convinced of Bingleys affection for her sister and deplores the lack of
resolution that makes him putty in the hands of his scheming friend.
About that time, Mrs. Bennets sister, Mrs. Gardiner, an amiable and intelligent woman
with a great deal of affection for her two oldest nieces, arrives for a Christmas visit.
She suggests to the Bennets that Jane return to London with her for a rest and change
of scene and so it is understood between Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth to renew her
acquaintance with Bingley. Elizabeth is not hopeful for the success of the plan and
points out that proud Darcy would never let his friend call on Jane in the unfashionable
London street on which the Gardiners live. Jane accepts the invitation, however, and
she and Mrs. Gardiner set out for London.
The time draws near for the wedding of Elizabeths friend Charlotte Lucas, who asks
Elizabeth to visit her in Kent. Despite feeling that there can be little pleasure in such a
visit, Elizabeth promises to do so. She does not approve of Charlottes marrying simply
for the sake of an establishment, and since she does not sympathize with her friends
decision, she thinks their days of real intimacy are over. As March approaches, however,
she finds herself eager to see her friend, and she sets out with pleasure on the journey
with Charlottes father and sister. On their way, the party stops in London to see the
Gardiners and Jane. Elizabeth finds her sister well and outwardly serene; she had not
seen Bingley and his sisters had paid only one call. Elizabeth is sure Bingley had not
been told of Janes presence in London and blames Darcy for keeping it from him.
Soon after arriving at the Collinss home, the whole party is honored, as Mr. Collins
repeatedly assures them, by a dinner invitation from Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Elizabeth finds her to be a haughty, ill-mannered woman, and her daughter thin, sickly,
and shy. Lady Catherine is extremely fond of inquiring into the affairs of others and
giving them unsolicited advice. Elizabeth turns off her meddling questions with cool
indirectness and sees from the effect that she is probably the first who has ever dared
do so.
Soon after Elizabeths arrival, Darcy comes to visit his aunt and cousin. He calls
frequently at the parsonage, and he and Elizabeth resume their conversational fencing
matches, which culminate in a sudden and unexpected proposal of marriage; he
couches his proposal, however, in such proud, even unwilling, terms that Elizabeth not
only refuses him but is able to do so indignantly. When he requests her reason for her
emphatic rejection, she mentions his part in separating Bingley and Jane, as well as his
mistreatment of Wickham, whereupon he leaves abruptly. The next day, he brings a
long letter in which he answers her charges. He does not deny his part in separating
Jane and Bingley but gives as his reasons the improprieties of Mrs. Bennet and her
younger daughters and also his sincere belief that Jane does not love Bingley. As for
his alleged mistreatment of Wickham, he writes that he has in reality acted most
generously toward Wickham, who is an unprincipled liar, and has repaid his kindness by
attempting to elope with Darcys young sister. At first incensed at the tone of the letter,
Elizabeth is gradually forced to acknowledge the justice of some of what he wrote; she
regrets having judged him so harshly but is relieved not to see him again before
returning home.
There, she finds her younger sisters clamoring to go to Brighton, where the regiment
formerly stationed at Meryton had been ordered. When an invitation comes to Lydia
from a young officers wife, Lydia is allowed to accept it over Elizabeths protests.
Elizabeth is asked by the Gardiners to go with them on a tour that will take them into
Derbyshire, Darcys home county. She accepts, reasoning that she is not very likely to
meet Darcy merely by going into his county. While they are there, however, Mrs.
Gardiner decides they should visit Pemberley, Darcys home. Elizabeth makes several
excuses, but her aunt insists. Only when she learns that the Darcy family is not in
residence does Elizabeth consent to go along.
At Pemberley, an unexpected and embarrassing meeting takes place between Elizabeth
and Darcy. He is more polite than Elizabeth has ever known him to be, and he asks
permission for his sister to call upon her. The call is duly paid and returned, but the
pleasant intercourse between the Darcys and Elizabeths party is suddenly cut short
when a letter from Jane informs Elizabeth that Lydia has run away with Wickham.
Elizabeth tells Darcy what had happened, and she and the Gardiners leave for home at
once. After several days, the runaway couple is located and a marriage arranged
between them. When Lydia comes home as heedless as ever, she tells Elizabeth that
Darcy had attended her wedding. Suspecting the truth, Elizabeth learns from Mrs.
Gardiner that it was indeed Darcy who brought about the marriage by giving Wickham
money.
Soon after Lydia and Wickham leave, Bingley returns to Netherfield Park, accompanied
by Darcy. Elizabeth, now much more favorably inclined toward him, hopes his coming
means that he still loves her, but he gives no sign. Bingley and Jane, on the other hand,
are still obviously in love with each other, and they soon became engaged, to the great
satisfaction of Mrs. Bennet. Soon afterward, Lady Catherine pays the Bennets an
unexpected call. She hears rumors that Darcy is engaged to Elizabeth. Hoping to marry
her own daughter to Darcy, she had come to order Elizabeth not to accept the proposal.
The spirited girl is not to be intimidated by the bullying Lady Catherine and coolly
refuses to promise not to marry Darcy, even though she is regretfully far from certain
that she will have the opportunity to do so again. However, she does not have long to
wonder.
Lady Catherine, unluckily for her own purpose, repeats to Darcy the substance of her
conversation with Elizabeth, and he knows Elizabeth well enough to surmise that her
feelings toward him must have greatly changed. He immediately returns to Netherfield
Park, and he and Elizabeth became engaged. Pride has been humbled and prejudice
dissolved.

The Mill on the Floss

Dorlcote Mill stands on the banks of the River Floss near the village of St. Oggs.
Owned by the ambitious Mr. Tulliver, the mill provides a good living for the Tulliver
family, but Mr. Tulliver dreams of the day when his son Tom will achieve a higher station
in life. Mrs. Tullivers sisters, who had married well, criticize Mr. Tullivers unseemly
ambition and openly predict the day when his air castles will bring himself and his
family to ruin. Aunt Glegg is the richest of the sisters and holds a note on his property.
After he quarrels with her over his plans for Toms education, Mr. Tulliver determines to
borrow the money and repay her.
Tom has inherited the placid arrogance of his mothers relatives; for him, life is not
difficult. He is resolved to be fair in all of his dealings and to deliver punishment to
whomever deserves it. His sister Maggie grows up with an imagination that surpasses
her understanding. Her aunts predict she will come to a bad end because she is
tomboyish, dark-skinned, dreamy, and indifferent to their commands. Frightened by her
lack of success in attempting to please her brother Tom, her cousin Lucy, and her
mother and aunts, Maggie runs away, determined to live with the gypsies, but she is
glad enough to return. Her father scolds her mother and Tom for abusing her. Her
mother is sure Maggie will come to a bad end because of the way Mr. Tulliver humors
her.
Toms troubles begin when his father sends him to study at Mr. Stellings school. Having
little interest in spelling, grammar, or Latin, Tom wishes he were back at the mill,
where he can dream of someday riding a horse like his fathers and giving orders to
people around him. Mr. Stelling is convinced that Tom is not just obstinate but stupid.
Returning home for the Christmas holidays, Tom learns that Philip Wakem, son of a
lawyer who is his fathers enemy, is also to enter Mr. Stellings school.
Philip is disabled; Tom, therefore, cannot beat him up. Philip can draw, and he knows
Latin and Greek. After they overcome their initial reserve, the two boys become useful
to each other. Philip admires Toms arrogance and self-possession, and Tom needs
Philip to help him in his studies, but their fathers quarrel keeps a gulf between them.
When Maggie visits Tom, she meets Philip, and the two become close friends. After
Maggie is sent away to school with her cousin, Lucy, Mr. Tulliver becomes involved in a
lawsuit. Because Mr. Wakem defends the opposition, Mr. Tulliver says his children
should have as little as possible to do with Philip. Mr. Tulliver loses his suit and stands
to lose all of his property as well. To pay off Aunt Glegg, he borrowed money on his
household furnishings. Now he hopes Aunt Pullet will lend him the money to pay the
debt against which those furnishings stand forfeit. He can no longer afford to keep
Maggie and Tom in school. When he learns that Mr. Wakem had bought up his debts, the
discovery brings on a stroke. Tom makes Maggie promise never to speak to Philip
Wakem again. Mrs. Tulliver weeps because her household possessions are to be put up
for sale at auction. In the ruin that follows, Tom and Maggie reject the scornful offers of
help from their aunts.
Bob Jakin, a country brute with whom Tom had fought as a boy, turns up to offer Tom
partnership with him in a venture where Toms education will help Bobs native
business shrewdness. Because both of them are without capital, Tom takes a job in a
warehouse for the time being and studies bookkeeping at night.
Mr. Wakem buys the mill but permits Mr. Tulliver to act as its manager for wages. It is
Wakems plan eventually to turn the mill over to his son. Not knowing what else to do,
Tulliver stays on as an employee of his enemy, but he asks Tom to sign a statement in
the Bible that he will wish the Wakems evil as long as he lives. Against Maggies
entreaties, Tom signs his name. Finally, Aunt Glegg gives Tom money, which he invests
with Bob Jakin. Slowly, Tom begins to accumulate funds to pay off his fathers debts.
Meanwhile, Maggie and Philip have been meeting secretly in the glades near the mill.
One day, he asks her if she loves him. She puts him off. Later, at a family gathering, she
shows feeling for Philip in a manner that arouses Toms suspicions. He makes her
swear on the Bible not to have anything more to do with Philip, and then he looks for
Philip and orders him to stay away from his sister. Shortly afterward, Tom shows his
father his profits. The next day, Mr. Tulliver thrashes Mr. Wakem and then suffers
another stroke, from which he never recovers.
Two years later, Maggie, now a teacher, visits her cousin, Lucy Deane, who is also
entertaining young Stephen Guest in her home. One difficulty Lucy foresees is that
Philip, who is friendly with both her and Stephen, might leave during Maggies visit.
Stephen had already decided that Lucy is to be his choice for a wife, but he and Maggie
are attracted to each other at first sight. Blind to what is happening, Lucy is pleased
that her cousin Maggie and her friend Stephen are becoming good friends.
Maggie asks Toms permission to see Philip at a party that Lucy is giving. Tom replies
that if Maggie should ever consider Philip as a lover, she must expect never to see her
brother again. Tom stands by his oath to his father. He feels his dignity as a Tulliver, and
he believes that Maggie is apt to follow the inclination of the moment without giving
consideration to the outcome. He is right. Lacking the iron will that characterizes so
many of her relatives, Maggie loves easily and without restraint.
When Philip learns that Lucys father has promised to try to buy back the mill for Tom,
he hopes to persuade his father to sell the mill. Philip is sure that in return Tom will
forget his old hatred.
Stephen Guest tries to kiss Maggie at a dance. She evades him, and the next day
avoids Philip as well. She feels she owes it to Lucy not to allow Stephen to fall in love
with her, and she feels that she owes it to her brother not to marry Philip. She lets
herself be carried along by the tide. Her relatives will not let her go back to teaching,
for Toms good luck continues and he has repossessed his fathers mill. Both Stephen
and Philip want her to marry them, neither knowing about the others suit. Certainly,
Lucy does not suspect Stephens growing indifference to her.
One day, Stephen takes Maggie boating and tries to convince her to run away with him
and be married. She refuses. Then the tide carries them beyond the reach of shore, and
they are forced to spend the night in the boat.
Maggie dares the wrath and judgment of her relatives when she returns and attempts
to explain to Lucy and the others what had happened. They refuse to listen to her. Tom
turns her away from the mill house, with the word that he will send her money but that
he never wishes to see her again. Mrs. Tulliver resolves to go with Maggie, and Bob
Jakin takes them in. One by one, people desert Maggie, and she slowly begins to realize
the meaning of ostracism. Only Aunt Glegg and Lucy offer sympathy. Stephen writes to
her in agony of spirit, as does Philip. Maggie wants to be by herself. She wonders if
there could be love for her without pain for others.
That autumn a terrible flood ravages St. Oggs. Maggie knows that Tom is at the mill,
and she attempts to reach him in a boat. The two are reunited, and Tom takes over the
rowing of the boat. The full force of the flood, however, overwhelms them and they
drown, together at the end as they had been when they were children.

Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is an orphan whose parents died when she was a baby, at which time she
passed into the care of Mrs. Reed of Gateshead Hall. Mrs. Reeds husband, now dead,
was the brother of Jane Eyres mother; on his deathbed, he directed his wife to look
after the orphan as after her own three children. At Gateshead Hall, Jane experiences
ten years of neglect and abuse. One day, a cousin knocks her to the floor. When she
fights back, Mrs. Reed punishes her by sending her to the gloomy room where Mr. Reed
died. There Jane loses consciousness, and the conflict causes a dangerous illness from
which she is nursed slowly back to health by sympathetic Bessie Leaven, the
Gateshead Hall nurse.
No longer wishing to keep her unwanted charge in the house, Mrs. Reed makes
arrangements for Janes admission to Lowood School. Early one morning, Jane leaves
Gateshead Hall without farewells and is driven fifty miles by stage to Lowood, her
humble possessions in a trunk beside her.
At Lowood, Jane is a diligent student and well liked by her superiors, especially by Miss
Temple, one of the teachers, who refuses to accept without proof Mrs. Reeds low
estimate of Janes character. During the period of Janes schooldays at Lowood, an
epidemic of fever that causes many deaths among the girls leads to an investigation,
after which there are improvements at the institution. At the end of her studies, Jane is
retained as a teacher but she grows weary of her life at Lowood and advertises for a
position as a governess. She is engaged by Mrs. Fairfax, housekeeper at Thornfield,
near Millcote.
At Thornfield, the new governess has only one pupil, Adele Varens, a ward of Janes
employer, Mr. Edward Rochester. From Mrs. Fairfax, Jane learns that Mr. Rochester
travels much and seldom comes to Thornfield. Jane is pleased with the quiet country
life, with the beautiful old house and gardens, the book-filled library, and her own
comfortable room.
While she is out walking one afternoon, Jane meets Mr. Rochester for the first time,
going to his aid after his horse throws him. She finds her employer a somber, moody
man, quick to change in his manner and brusque in his speech. He commends her work
with Adele, however, and confides that the girl is the daughter of a French dancer who
deceived him and deserted her daughter. Jane feels that this experience alone cannot
account for Mr. Rochesters moody nature.
Mysterious happenings at Thornfield puzzle Jane. Alarmed by a strange noise one night,
she finds Mr. Rochesters door open and his bed on fire. When she attempts to arouse
the household, he commands her to keep quiet about the whole affair. She learns that
Thornfield has a strange tenant, a woman who laughs like a maniac and stays in rooms
on the third floor of the house. Jane believes that this woman is Grace Poole, a
seamstress employed by Mr. Rochester.
Mr. Rochester attends many parties in the neighborhood, where he is obviously paying
court to Blanche Ingram, daughter of Lady Ingram. One day, the inhabitants of
Thornfield are informed that Mr. Rochester is bringing a party of house guests home
with him. The fashionable Miss Ingram is among the party. During the house party, Mr.
Rochester calls Jane to the drawing room, where the guests treat her with the disdain
they think her humble position deserves. To herself, Jane already confessed her
interest in her employer, but it seems to her that he is interested only in Blanche. One
evening, while Mr. Rochester is away from home, the guests play charades. At the
conclusion of the game, a Gypsy fortune-teller appears to read the palms of the lady
guests. During her interview with the Gypsy, Jane discovers that the so-called fortune-
teller is Mr. Rochester in disguise. While the guests are still at Thornfield, a stranger
named Mason arrives to see Mr. Rochester on business. That night, Mason is
mysteriously wounded by the inhabitant of the third floor. The injured man is taken
away secretly before daylight.
One day, Robert Leaven comes from Gateshead to tell Jane that Mrs. Reed, now on her
deathbed, asks to see her former ward. Jane returns to her aunts home. The dying
woman gives Jane a letter, dated three years earlier, from John Eyre in Madeira, who
asked that his niece be sent to him for adoption. Mrs. Reed confesses that she wrote
back informing him that Jane died in the epidemic at Lowood. The sin of keeping the
news of her relatives from Jane news that would have meant relatives, adoption, and
an inheritance becomes a burden on the conscience of the dying woman.
Jane goes back to Thornfield, which she now looks on as her home. One night in the
garden, Rochester embraces her and proposes marriage. Jane accepts and makes
plans for a quiet ceremony in the village church. She also writes to her uncle in
Madeira, explaining Mrs. Reeds deception and telling him she is to marry Rochester.
Shortly before the date set for the wedding, Jane has a harrowing experience,
awakening to find a strange, repulsive-looking woman in her room. The intruder tries on
Janes wedding veil and then rips it to shreds. Rochester tries to persuade Jane that
the whole incident is in her imagination, but in the morning she finds the torn veil in her
room. When she and Mr. Rochester are saying their vows at the church, a stranger
speaks up and declares the existence of an impediment to the marriage. He presents a
document, signed by the Mr. Mason who was wounded during his visit to Thornfield,
which states that Edward Fairfax Rochester married Bertha Mason, Mr. Masons sister,
in Spanish Town, Jamaica, fifteen years earlier. Rochester admits the fact and then
conducts the party to the third-story chamber at Thornfield. There they find the
attendant Grace Poole and her charge, Bertha Rochester, a raving maniac. Bertha was
the woman Jane saw in her room.
Jane feels that she must leave Thornfield at once. She notifies Rochester and leaves
early the next morning, using all of her small store of money for the coach fare. Two
days later, she sets down on the north midland moors. Starving, she begs for food.
Finally, she is befriended by the Reverend St. John Rivers and his sisters, Mary and
Diana, who take Jane in and nurse her back to health. Assuming the name of Jane
Elliot, she refuses to divulge any of her history except her connection with the Lowood
institution. St. John Rivers eventually finds a place for her as mistress in a girls
school.
Shortly afterward, St. John Rivers receives word from his family solicitor that John
Eyre died in Madeira, leaving Jane a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. Because Jane
disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the lawyer is trying to locate her
through the next of kin, St. John Rivers. Janes identity is revealed through her
connection with Lowood School, and she learns, to her surprise, that St. John Rivers
and his sisters are really her cousins. She insists on sharing her inheritance with them.
When St. John Rivers decides to go to India as a missionary, he asks Jane to go with
him as his wife not because he loves her, as he frankly admits, but because he
admires her and wants her services as his assistant. Jane feels indebted to him for his
kindness and aid, but she hesitates and asks for time to reflect.
One night, while St. John Rivers is awaiting her decision, she dreams that Rochester is
calling her name. The next day, she returns to Thornfield by coach. She finds the
mansion gutted a burned and blackened ruin. Neighbors tell her that the fire broke
out one stormy night, set by the madwoman, who died while Rochester was trying to
rescue her from the roof of the blazing house. Rochester was blinded during the fire
and now lives at Ferndean, a lonely farm some miles away. Jane goes to him at once
and shortly after marries him. Two years later, Rochester regains the sight of one eye,
so that he is able to see his new child when it is placed in his arms.

Wuthering Heights
In 1801, Mr. Lockwood becomes a tenant at Thrushcross Grange, an old farm owned by
a Mr. Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights. In the early days of his tenancy, he makes two
calls on his landlord. On his first visit, he meets Heathcliff, an abrupt, unsocial man
who is surrounded by a pack of snarling, barking dogs. When he goes to Wuthering
Heights a second time, he meets the other members of the strange household: a rude,
unkempt but handsome young man named Hareton Earnshaw and a pretty young
woman who is the widow of Heathcliffs son.
During his visit, snow begins to fall. It covers the moor paths and makes travel
impossible for a stranger in that bleak countryside. Heathcliff refuses to let one of the
servants go with him as a guide but says that if he stays the night he can share
Haretons bed or that of Joseph, a sour, canting old servant. When Mr. Lockwood tries
to borrow Josephs lantern for the homeward journey, the old fellow sets the dogs on
him, to the amusement of Hareton and Heathcliff. The visitor is finally rescued by
Zillah, the cook, who hides him in an unused chamber of the house.
That night, Mr. Lockwood has a strange dream. Thinking that a branch is rattling
against the window, he breaks the glass in his attempt to unhook the casement. As he
reaches out to break off the fir branch outside, his fingers close on a small ice-cold
hand, and a weeping voice begs to be let in. The unseen presence says that her name is
Catherine Linton, and she tries to force a way through the broken casement; Mr.
Lockwood screams.
Heathcliff appears in a state of great excitement and savagely orders Mr. Lockwood out
of the room. Then he throws himself upon the bed by the shattered pane and begs the
spirit to come in out of the dark and the storm. The voice is, however, heard no more
only the hiss of swirling snow and the wailing of a cold wind that blows out the
smoking candle.
The housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange, Ellen Dean, is able to satisfy part of Mr.
Lockwoods curiosity about the happenings of that night and the strange household at
Wuthering Heights, for she lived at Wuthering Heights as a child. Her story of the
Earnshaws, Lintons, and Heathcliffs begins years before, when old Mr. Earnshaw was
living at Wuthering Heights with his wife and two children, Hindley and Catherine.
Once, on a trip to Liverpool, Mr. Earnshaw found a starving and homeless orphan, a
ragged, dirty, urchin, dark as a Gypsy, whom he brought back with him to Wuthering
Heights and christened Heathcliff a name that was to serve the fourteen-year-old boy
as both a given and a surname. Gradually, the orphan began to usurp the affections of
Mr. Earnshaw, whose health was failing. Wuthering Heights became riddled with petty
jealousies; old Joseph, the servant, augmented the bickering, and Catherine was much
too fond of Heathcliff. At last, Hindley was sent away to school. A short time later, Mr.
Earnshaw died.
When Hindley returned home for his fathers funeral, he brought a wife with him. As the
new master of Wuthering Heights, he revenged himself on Heathcliff by treating him
like a servant. Catherine became a wild and undisciplined hoyden who continued to be
fond of Heathcliff.
One night, Catherine and Heathcliff tramped through the moors to Thrushcross Grange,
where they spied on their neighbors, the Lintons. Attacked by a watchdog, Catherine
was taken into the house and stayed there as a guest for five weeks until she was able
to walk again. During that time, she became intimate with the pleasant family of
Thrushcross Grange, Mr. and Mrs. Linton and their two children, Edgar and Isabella.
Afterward, the Lintons visited frequently at Wuthering Heights. As a result of Hindleys
ill-treatment and the arrogance of Edgar and Isabella, Heathcliff became jealous and
morose. He vowed revenge on Hindley, whom he hated with all of his savage nature.
The next summer, Hindleys consumptive wife, Frances, gave birth to a son, Hareton
Earnshaw, and shortly thereafter she died. In his grief, Hindley became desperate,
ferocious, and degenerate. In the meantime, Catherine and Edgar became sweethearts.
The girl confided to Ellen that she really loved Heathcliff, but she felt it would be
degrading for her to marry the penniless orphan. Heathcliff, who overheard this
conversation, disappeared the same night and did not return for many years. Edgar and
Catherine married and lived at Thrushcross Grange with Ellen as their housekeeper.
There the pair lived happily until the return of Heathcliff, who was greatly improved in
manners and in appearance. He accepted Hindleys invitation to live at Wuthering
Heights, an invitation extended because Hindley found in Heathcliff a companion for
card-playing and drinking, and because he hoped to recoup his own dwindling fortune
from Heathcliffs pockets.
Isabella began to show a strong attraction to Heathcliff, much to the dismay of Edgar
and Catherine. One night, Edgar and Heathcliff had a quarrel. Soon afterward,
Heathcliff eloped with Isabella, obviously marrying her only to avenge himself and
provoke Edgar. Catherine, an expectant mother, underwent a serious illness. When
Isabella and Heathcliff returned to Wuthering Heights, Edgar refused to recognize his
sister and forbade Heathcliff to enter his house. Despite this restriction, Heathcliff
managed to have a meeting with Catherine. Partly as a result of this meeting, she gave
birth to a girl, named Catherine Linton, prematurely; a few hours later, mother
Catherine died.
Isabella found life with Heathcliff unbearable and she left him, going to London, where
a few months later her child, Linton, was born. After Hindleys death, Heathcliff the
guest became the master of Wuthering Heights, for Hindley mortgaged his estate to
him. Hareton, the natural heir, was reduced to dependency on his fathers enemy.
When Isabella died, twelve years after leaving Heathcliff, her brother took her sickly
child to live at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff soon heard of the childs arrival and
demanded that Linton be sent to Wuthering Heights to live with his father. Young
Catherine once visited Wuthering Heights and met her cousin Linton. Her father tried to
keep her in ignorance about the tenants of the place, but Heathcliff let it be known that
he wished the two children to be married. About the time that Edgar Linton became
seriously ill, Heathcliff persuaded Cathy to visit her little cousin, who was also in
extremely bad health. Upon her arrival, Cathy was imprisoned for five days at
Wuthering Heights and forced to marry her sickly cousin Linton before she was allowed
to go home to see her father. Although she was able to return to Thrushcross Grange
before her fathers death, there was not enough time for Edgar Linton to alter his will.
Thus his land and fortune went indirectly to Heathcliff. Weak, sickly Linton Heathcliff
died soon after, leaving Cathy a widow and dependent on Heathcliff.
Mr. Lockwood went back to London in the spring without seeing Wuthering Heights or
its people again. Traveling in the region the next autumn, he had a fancy to revisit
Wuthering Heights. There, he found Catherine and Hareton in possession. From Ellen,
he heard that Heathcliff died three months earlier, after deliberately starving himself
for four days. He was a broken man, still disturbed by memories of the beautiful young
Catherine Earnshaw. His death freed Catherine Heathcliff and Hareton from his tyranny,
and Catherine was now teaching the ignorant boy to read and improving his rude
manners.
Mr. Lockwood went to see Heathcliffs grave. It was next to Catherine Earnshaws, on
whose other side lay her husband. They lay under their three headstones: Catherines in
the middle, weather-discolored and half-buried, Edgars partly moss-grown, Heathcliffs
still bare. In the surrounding countryside, there was a legend that they slept unquietly
after their stormy, passionate lives. Shepherds and travelers at night claimed that they
saw Catherine and Heathcliff roaming the dark moors as they did so often many years
earlier.

The Mayor of Casterbridge

On a late summer afternoon in the early nineteenth century, a young farm couple with
their baby arrives on foot at the village of Weydon-Priors. A fair is in progress. The
couple, tired and dusty, enters a refreshment tent where the husband proceeds to get
so drunk that he offers his wife and child for sale. A sailor, a stranger in the village,
buys the wife, Susan, and the child, Elizabeth-Jane, for five guineas. The young woman
tears off her wedding ring and throws it in her drunken husbands face; then, carrying
her child, she follows the sailor out of the tent.
When he awakes sober the next morning, Michael Henchard, the young farmer, realizes
what he has done. After taking an oath not to touch liquor for twenty years, he
searches many months for his wife and child. In a western seaport, he is told that three
persons answering his description emigrated a short time before. He gives up his
search and wanders on until he comes to the town of Casterbridge. There, he decides
to seek his fortune.
The sailor, Richard Newson, convinces Susan Henchard that she has no moral
obligations to the husband who sold her and her child. He marries her and moves with
his new family to Canada. Later, they return to England. Eventually, Susan learns that
her marriage to Newson is illegal, but before she can remedy the situation Newson is
lost at sea. Susan and her attractive eighteen-year-old daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, return
to Weydon-Priors. There, they hear that Henchard has gone to Casterbridge.
Henchard has become a prosperous grain merchant and the mayor of Casterbridge.
When Susan and her daughter arrive in the town, they hear that Henchard has sold
some bad grain to bakers and that restitution is expected. Donald Farfrae, a young
Scots corn expert who is passing through Casterbridge, hears of Henchards
predicament and tells him a method for partially restoring the grain. Farfrae so
impresses Henchard and the people of the town that they prevail on him to remain.
Farfrae becomes Henchards manager.
When Susan and Henchard meet, they decide that Susan and Elizabeth-Jane should
take lodgings and that Henchard will begin to pay court to Susan. Henchard admits to
young Farfrae that he has been philandering with a young woman from Jersey named
Lucetta le Sueur. He asks Farfrae to meet Lucetta and prevent her from coming to
Casterbridge.
Henchard and Susan are married. Elizabeth-Jane develops into a beautiful young
woman for whom Donald Farfrae feels a growing attraction. Henchard wants Elizabeth-
Jane to take his name, but Susan refuses his request, much to his mystification. He
notices that Elizabeth-Jane does not possess any of his personal traits.
Henchard and Farfrae fall out over Henchards harsh treatment of a simpleminded
employee. Farfrae has surpassed Henchard in popularity in Casterbridge. The break
between the two men becomes complete when a country dance sponsored by Farfrae
draws all the towns populace, leaving Henchards competing dance unattended.
Anticipating his dismissal, Farfrae sets up his own establishment but refuses to take
any of Henchards business away from him. Henchard refuses to allow Elizabeth-Jane
and Farfrae to see each other.
Henchard receives a letter from Lucetta saying she plans to pass through Casterbridge
to pick up her love letters. When Lucetta fails to keep the appointment, Henchard puts
the letters in his safe. Susan falls sick and writes a letter for Henchard, to be opened
on the day that Elizabeth-Jane is married. Soon afterward, she dies, and Henchard tells
the girl that he is her real father. Looking for some documents to corroborate his story,
he finds the letter his wife had left in his keeping for Elizabeth-Jane. Unable to resist,
Henchard reads Susans letter; he learns that Elizabeth-Jane is really the daughter of
Newson and Susan and that his own daughter died in infancy. His wifes reluctance to
have the girl take his name is explained, and Henchards attitude toward Elizabeth-Jane
becomes distant and cold.
One day, Elizabeth-Jane meets a strange woman at the village graveyard. The woman is
Lucetta Templeman, formerly Lucetta le Sueur, who has inherited property in
Casterbridge from a rich aunt named Templeman. She employs Elizabeth-Jane to make
it convenient for Henchard, her old lover, to call on her.
Young Farfrae comes to see Elizabeth-Jane, who is away at the time. He and Miss
Templeman are immediately attracted to each other, and Lucetta refuses to see
Henchard any more. Elizabeth-Jane overhears Henchard berate Lucetta under his
breath for refusing to admit him to her house; she becomes even more uncomfortable
when she sees that Farfrae has succumbed to Lucettas charms.
Henchard is now determined to ruin Farfrae. Advised by a weather prophet that the
weather will be bad during the harvest, he buys grain heavily. When the weather stays
fair, Henchard is almost ruined by low grain prices. Farfrae is able to buy grain cheap,
and, when the weather turns bad late in the harvest and prices go up, Farfrae becomes
wealthy.
In the meantime, Farfrae has continued his courtship of Lucetta. When Henchard
threatens to expose Lucettas past unless she marries him, Lucetta agrees to his
demand. However, an old woman discloses to the village that Henchard is the man who
years earlier sold his wife and child. Lucetta is ashamed and leaves town. On the day of
her return, Henchard rescues her and Elizabeth-Jane from an enraged bull. He asks
Lucetta to give evidence of their engagement to a creditor. Lucetta confesses that in
her absence she and Farfrae have been married. Utterly frustrated, Henchard again
threatens to expose her. When Elizabeth-Jane learns of the marriage, she leaves
Lucettas service.
The news that Henchard once sold his wife and child to a sailor spreads through the
village. Henchards creditors close in, and he becomes a recluse. Henchard and
Elizabeth-Jane are reconciled during his illness. Upon his recovery, he hires out to
Farfrae as a common laborer.
Henchards oath expires, and he begins to drink heavily. Farfrae plans to set up
Henchard and Elizabeth-Jane in a small seed shop, but the project does not materialize
because of a misunderstanding. Despite Lucettas desire to leave the village, Farfrae
becomes mayor of Casterbridge.
Jopp, a former employee of Henchard, knows of Lucettas past, because he lived in
Jersey before coming to Casterbridge. He uses this information to blackmail his way
into Farfraes employ. Henchard finally takes pity on Lucetta and gives Jopp the love
letters to return to her. Before delivering them, Jopp reads the letters aloud in an inn.
When royalty visits Casterbridge, Henchard wishes to regain his old stature in the
village and forces himself among the receiving dignitaries. Farfrae pushes him aside.
Later, during a fight in a warehouse loft, Henchard has Farfrae at his mercy, but the
younger man shames Henchard by telling him to go ahead and kill him.
The townspeople are excited over the letters they have heard read and devise a
mummery employing effigies of Henchard and Lucetta riding back to back on a donkey.
Farfraes friends arrange for him to be absent from the village during the mummers
parade, but Lucetta sees it and is horrified. She dies of a miscarriage that night.
Richard Newson turns out not to have been lost after all. He comes to Casterbridge in
search of Susan and Elizabeth-Jane. There, he meets Henchard, who sends him away,
telling him that both Susan and Elizabeth-Jane are dead.
Elizabeth-Jane joins Henchard in his poverty. They open a seed shop and begin to
prosper again in a modest way. Farfrae, to Henchards dismay, begins to pay court to
Elizabeth-Jane again, and they plan to marry soon. Newson returns, having realized that
he was duped. Henchard leaves town but returns for the marriage festivities, bringing
with him a goldfinch as a wedding present. When he sees that Newson has completely
replaced him as Elizabeth-Janes father, he sadly goes away. Newson is restless and
departs for the sea again after Farfrae and his daughter are settled. Henchard pines
away and dies, ironically, in the secret care of the simpleminded old man whom he
once mistreated.

Sons and Lovers

Walter Morel, a coal miner, was a handsome, dashing young man when Gertrude
married him. After a few years of marriage, however, he proves to be an irresponsible
breadwinner and a drunkard, and his wife hates him for what he once meant to her and
for what he is now. Her only solace lies in her children William, Annie, Paul, and
Arthur for she leans heavily upon them for companionship and lives in their
happiness. She is a good parent, and her children love her. The oldest son, William, is
successful in his work, but he longs to go to London, where he has promise of a better
job. After he leaves, Mrs. Morel turns to Paul for the companionship and love she found
in William.
Paul, who likes to paint, is more sensitive than his brothers and sister and is closer to
Mrs. Morel than any of the others. William brings a young woman named Lily home to
visit, but it is apparent that she is not the right kind of woman for him; she is too
shallow and self-centered. Before long, William becomes aware of that fact, but he
resigns himself to keeping the promise he made to his fianc.
When William becomes ill, Mrs. Morel goes to London to nurse her son and is with him
there when he dies. Home once more after burying her first son, Mrs. Morel cannot
bring herself out of her sorrow. Not until Paul becomes sick does she realize that her
duty lies with the living rather than with the dead. After this realization, she centers all
of her attention upon Paul. The two other children are capable of carrying on their
affairs without the constant attention that Paul demands.
At sixteen years of age, Paul goes to visit some friends of Mrs. Morel. The Leiverses are
a warmhearted family, and Paul easily gains the friendship of the Leivers children.
Fifteen-year-old Miriam Leivers is a strange girl, but her inner charm attracts Paul. Mrs.
Morel, like many others, does not care for Miriam. Paul goes to work at a stocking mill,
where he is successful in his social relationships and in his work. He continues to
draw. Miriam watches over his work and, with quiet understanding, offers judgment
concerning his success or failure. Mrs. Morel senses that someday her son will become
famous for his art.
By the time Miriam and Paul grow into their twenties, Paul realizes that Miriam loves
him deeply and that he loves her; for some reason, however, he cannot bring himself to
touch her. Through Miriam, he meets Clara Dawes. For a long while, Mrs. Morel was
urging him to give up Miriam, and Paul tries to tell Miriam that it is over between them.
He does not want to marry her, but he feels that he does belong to her. He cannot make
up his mind.
Clara is separated from her husband, Baxter Dawes. Although she is five years Pauls
senior, Clara is a beautiful woman whose loveliness charms him. Although she becomes
his mistress, she refuses to divorce her husband and marry Paul. Sometimes Paul
wonders whether he could bring himself to marry Clara if she were free. She is not
what he wants. His mother is the only woman to whom he can turn for complete
understanding and love, for Miriam tries to possess him and Clara maintains a barrier
against him. Paul continues to devote much of his time and attention to making his
mother happy. Annie marries and goes to live with her husband near the Morel home,
and Arthur marries a childhood friend; the couple has a son six months after their
wedding.
Baxter resents Pauls relationship with his wife. Once he accosts Paul in a tavern and
threatens him. Paul knows that he cannot fight with Baxter, but he continues to see
Clara.
Paul enters pictures in local exhibits and wins four prizes. With encouragement from
Mrs. Morel, he continues to paint. He wants to go abroad, but he cannot leave his
mother. He begins to see Miriam again. When she yields herself to him, his passion is
ruthless and savage. Their relationship, however, is still unsatisfactory, and he turns
again to Clara.
Miriam knows about his love affair with Clara, but Miriam feels that Paul will tire of his
mistress and come back to her. Paul stays with Clara, however, because he finds in her
an outlet for his unknown desires. His life is in great conflict. Meanwhile, Paul is
earning enough money to give his mother the material possessions her husband failed
to provide. Mr. Morel stays on with his wife and son, but he is no longer accepted as a
father or a husband.
One day, it is revealed that Mrs. Morel has cancer and is beyond any help except that of
morphine and then death. During the following months, Mrs. Morel declines rapidly. Paul
is tortured by his mothers pain. Annie and Paul marvel at her resistance to death and
wish that it would come, to end her suffering. Paul dreads such a catastrophe in his
life, although he knows it must come eventually. He turns to Clara for comfort, but she
fails to make him forget his misery. While visiting his mother at the hospital, Paul finds
Baxter recovering from an attack of typhoid fever. For a long time, Paul sensed that
Clara wants to return to Dawes, and now, out of pity for Baxter, he brings about a
reconciliation between the husband and wife.
When Mrs. Morels suffering mounts to a torturing degree, Annie and Paul decide that
anything would be better than to let her live in agony. One night, Paul gives her an
overdose of morphine, and Mrs. Morel dies the next day.
Left alone, Paul is lost. He feels that his own life ended with the death of his mother.
Clara, to whom he turned before, returned to Dawes. Because they cannot bear to stay
in the house without Mrs. Morel, Paul and his father part and each takes different
lodgings.
For a while, Paul wanders helplessly, trying to find some purpose in his life. Then he
thinks of Miriam, to whom he once belonged. He returns to her, but with the renewed
association, he realizes more than ever that she is not what he wants. Once he thought
of going abroad; now he wants to join his mother in death. Leaving Miriam for the last
time, he feels trapped and lost in his own indecision, but he also feels that he is free
from Miriam after many years of passion and regret.
His mothers death is too great a sorrow for Paul to cast off immediately. After a
lengthy inner struggle, he is able to see that she will always be with him and that he
does not need to die to join her. With his newfound courage, he sets out to make his
own life anew.
To the Lighthouse
Mrs. Ramsay promises James, her six-year-old son, that if the next day is fair he will be
taken on a visit to the lighthouse they can see from the window of their summer home
on the Isle of Skye. James, the youngest of Mrs. Ramsays eight children, is his
mothers favorite. The father of the family is a professor of philosophy whose students
believe is inspiring and one of the foremost metaphysicians of the early twentieth
century, but his own children, particularly the youngest, do not like him because he
makes sarcastic remarks.
Several guests are visiting the Ramsays at the time. There is young Mr. Tansley,
Ramsays student, who also is unpopular with the children because he seems to delight
in their discomfiture. Tansley is mildly in love with his host, despite her being fifty
years old and having eight children. Another guest is Lily Briscoe, who is painting a
picture of the cottage with Mrs. Ramsay and little James seated in front of it. There is
old Mr. Carmichael, a neer-do-well who amuses the Ramsay youngsters with his white
beard and a mustache tinged with yellow. Another guest is William Bankes, an aging
widower. Prue, the prettiest of the Ramsay daughters, is there too.
The afternoon goes by slowly. Mrs. Ramsay goes to the village to call on a sick woman.
She spends several hours knitting stockings for the lighthouse keepers child, whom
they are planning to visit. Many people wonder how the Ramsays, particularly the wife,
manages to be so hospitable and charitable, for they are not rich. Mr. Ramsay cannot
possibly be making a fortune by expounding English philosophy to students or by
publishing books on metaphysics.
Mr. Carmichael, pretending to read, has actually fallen asleep early after lunch. The
children, except for James, who is busy cutting pictures out of a catalog, busy
themselves in a game of cricket. Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Tansley pass the time in a
pointless conversation. Miss Briscoe has made only a daub or two of paint on her
canvas. For some reason, the lines of the scene refuse to come clear in her painting.
She then goes for a walk with Mr. Bankes along the shore.
Even the dinner goes by slowly. The only occasion of interest to the children, which is
one of tension to their mother, comes when Mr. Carmichael asks the maid for a second
bowl of soup, thereby angering his host, who likes to have meals dispatched promptly.
As soon as the children have finished, their mother sends the younger ones to bed. Mrs.
Ramsay hopes that Mr. Bankes will marry Lily Briscoe. Lily always gets seasick, so it is
questionable whether she will want to accompany them in the small sailboat if they
should go to the lighthouse the following day. Mrs. Ramsay also thinks about the fifty
pounds needed to make some necessary repairs on the house.
After dinner, Mrs. Ramsay goes upstairs to the nursery. James has a boars skull that
his sister detests. Whenever Camilla tries to remove it from the wall and her sight, he
bursts into a frenzy of screaming. Mrs. Ramsay wraps the boars skull in her shawl.
Afterward, she goes downstairs and joins her husband in the library, where they sit
throughout the evening. Mrs. Ramsay knits, while Mr. Ramsay reads. Before they go to
bed, they agree that the trip for the next day will have to be canceled. The night has
turned stormy.
Night follows night. The trip to the lighthouse is never made that summer, and the
Ramsays do not return to their summer home for some years. In the meantime, Mrs.
Ramsay dies quietly in her sleep. Her daughter, Prue, gets married and later dies in
childbirth. World War I begins. Andrew Ramsay enlists and is sent to France, where he
is killed by an exploding shell.
Time passes. The wallpaper in the house comes loose from the walls, and books
mildew. In the kitchen, a cup is occasionally knocked down and broken by old Mrs.
McNab, who comes to look after the house from time to time. In the garden, the roses
and the annual flowers grow wild or die.
Mr. Carmichael publishes a volume of poems during the war. About the time his book
appears, daffodils and violets bloom on the Isle of Skye. Mrs. McNab looks longingly at
a warm cloak left in a closet. She wishes the cloak belonged to her.
At last, the war ends. Mrs. McNab receives a telegram requesting that the house be put
in order. For several days, the housekeeper works, aided by two cleaning women. When
the Ramsays arrive, the cottage is in order once more. Several visitors come again to
share a summer at the cottage. Lily Briscoe returns for a quiet vacation. Mr.
Carmichael, the successful poet, also arrives.
One morning, Lily Briscoe comes down to breakfast and wonders at the quiet that
greets her. No one had been down ahead of her, although she expected that Mr. Ramsay
and the two youngest children, James and Camilla, would have eaten early and
departed for the long-postponed sail to the lighthouse, to which the youngsters had not
been looking forward with joyful anticipation. Very shortly, the three straggle down; all
had slept past the time they had intended to arise. After a swift breakfast, they
disappear toward the shore. Lily Briscoe watches them go. She sets up her canvas with
the intention of once again trying to paint her picture of the cottage.
The children never really liked their father; he had taken too little time to understand
them. He is short and sharp when they do things that seem foolish to him, although
these actions are perfectly comprehensible to his son and daughter. James, especially,
expects to be blamed caustically and pointlessly if the crossing is slow or not
satisfactory in some other way, for he has been delegated to handle the sheets and the
tiller of the boat.
Mr. Ramsay goes down to the beach with his offspring, each carrying a paper parcel to
take to the keepers of the lighthouse. They soon set sail and point the prow of the
sailboat toward the black-and-white-striped pillar of the lighthouse in the hazy
distance. Mr. Ramsay sits in the middle of the boat, along with an old fisherman and his
son. They are to take over the boat in case of an emergency, for Mr. Ramsay has little
trust in James as a reliable seaman. James himself sits in the stern, nerves tingling
lest his father look up from his book and indulge in unnecessary and hateful criticism.
His nervous tension, however, is needless, for within a few hours the little party
reaches the lighthouse and, wonderful to relate, Mr. Ramsay springs ashore like a
youngster, smiles back at his children, and praises his son for his seamanship.

The Heart of the Matter

Major Scobie is chief of police in a British West African district. Over the past fifteen
years, he has built up a reputation for honesty, but he learns that, in spite of his labors,
he is to be passed over for the district commissionership in favor of a younger man.
Those fifteen long years now seem to him to have been too long and filled with too
much work. Worse than his own disappointment is the disappointment of his wife. Mrs.
Scobie needs the encouragement that a rise in official position would have given her to
compensate for the loss of her only child some years before and for her unpopularity
among the official families of the district.
A love for literature, especially poetry, sets Mrs. Scobie apart from the other officials
and their wives. Once the difference was discerned, the other Britishers came to
distrust and dislike her. They even pity her husband. Indeed, the Scobies are not much
happier than people imagine them to be. Mrs. Scobie hates her life, and her husband
dislikes having to make her face it realistically; both of them drink. When she finds that
her husband is not going to become district commissioner, Mrs. Scobie insists that he
send her to the Cape Colony for a holiday, even though German submarines are
torpedoing many vessels at the time.
Scobie cannot afford the expense of a trip to the Cape Colony. Indeed, he already gave
up part of his life insurance to pay for a previous such excursion. After trying
unsuccessfully to borrow money from the banks, he seeks out Yusef, a Syrian
merchant, who agrees to lend him the money at 4 percent interest. Scobie knows that
any dealings he has with Yusef will place him under a cloud, because the British
officials are aware that many of the Syrians activities are illegal. He even ships
industrial diamonds to the Nazis. Pressed by his wifes apparent need to escape the
boredom of the rainy season in the coast colony, however, Scobie finally takes the
chance that he can keep clear of Yusefs entanglements, even though he knows that
the Syrian hates him for the reputation of integrity he has built up during the past
fifteen years.
To add to Scobies difficulties, he learns that Wilson, a man supposedly sent out on a
clerkship with a trading company, is actually an undercover agent working for the
government on the problem of diamond smuggling. This fact poses a series of problems
for the police chief. Scobie has been given no official notice of Wilsons true activities;
Wilson has fallen in love with Scobies wife; and Mrs. Scobie once bloodied Wilsons
nose and permitted her husband to see her admirer crying. Any one of these facts
would have made Scobie uneasy; all three in combination make him painfully aware
that Wilson must hate him, as in fact he does.
Shortly after his wifes departure, a series of events begins to break down Major
Scobies trust in his own honesty and the reputation he has built up for himself. When a
Portuguese liner is searched upon its arrival in port, Scobie finds a suspicious letter in
the captains cabin. Instead of turning in the letter, he burns it after the captain
assures him that the letter was only a personal message to his daughter in Germany. A
few weeks later, Yusef begins to be very friendly toward Scobie. Gossip reports that
Scobie has met and talked with the Syrian on several occasions, in addition to having
borrowed money from the suspected smuggler.
One day, word comes that the French have rescued the crew and passengers of a
torpedoed British vessel. Scobie is with the party who meets the rescued people at the
border between the French and British colonies. Among the victims is a young bride of
only a few months whose husband has been killed in the war. While she recuperates
from her exposure in a lifeboat and then waits for a ship to return her to England, she
and Scobie fall in love. For a time, they are extremely careful in their conduct until one
day Mrs. Rolt, the rescued woman, belittles Scobie because of his caution. To prove his
daring as well as his love, Scobie sends her a letter, but it is intercepted by Yusefs
agents. In payment for return of the letter, Scobie is forced to help Yusef smuggle some
gems out of the colony. Wilson, Scobies enemy, suspects Scobies role in the
smuggling, but he can prove nothing.
Mrs. Rolt pleads with Scobie to prove his love for her by divorcing his wife and marrying
her. Scobie, a Roman Catholic, tries to convince her that his faith and his conscience
will not permit him to do so. To complicate matters, Mrs. Scobie cables that she is
already on a ship on her way back home from Cape Town. Scobie does not know which
way to turn. On her return, Mrs. Scobie nags him to take Communion with her. Unable to
receive absolution because he refuses to promise to give up adultery, Scobie takes the
sacrament of Communion anyway, rather than admit to his wife what has happened. He
realizes that, according to his faith, his action will damn his soul.
The worry over his sins, his uneasiness about his job, the problem of Yusef (including a
murder that Yusef has had committed for him), and the nagging of both his wife and
Mrs. Rolt all contribute to a turmoil in Scobies mind. He does not know which way to
turn: The church, a haven for many, is forbidden to him because of his sins and his
temperament.
In searching for a way out of his predicament, Scobie remembers what he was told by a
doctor shortly after an official investigation of a suicide. The doctor told Scobie that
the best way to commit suicide is to feign angina and then take an overdose of evipan,
a drug prescribed for angina. Scobie carefully makes plans to take his life in that way,
because he wants his wife to have his insurance money for her support after she
returns to England. After studying the symptoms of angina, Scobie goes to a doctor,
who diagnoses Scobies trouble from the symptoms he relates. Scobie knows that his
pretended heart condition will soon be common knowledge in the colony. Ironically,
Scobie is told that he had been reconsidered for the commissionership of the colony
after all, but that he cannot be given the post because of his illness. The news makes
little difference to Scobie, for he has already made up his mind to commit suicide.
To make his death appear convincing, Scobie fills his diary with entries tracing the
progress of his heart condition. One evening, he takes his overdose of evipan, his only
solution to difficulties that have become more than he can bear. He dies, and only one
or two people even suspect the truth. One of these is Mrs. Scobie, who had complained
to the priest after he refused to give Scobie absolution. The priest, knowing of Scobies
virtues as well as his sins, cries out to her that no one can call Scobie wicked or
damned, for no one knows the scope of Gods mercy.

Lord of the Flies

An airplane evacuating a group of British schoolboys from a war zone crashes on a
Pacific island, killing all the adults aboard. Two of the surviving boys, Ralph and a boy
nicknamed Piggy, find a conch shell and use it as a horn to summon the other
survivors, including the members of a boys choir headed by Jack Merridew. An election
is held to decide on a leader. Jack has the choir members grudging support, but Ralph
possesses the conch and is elected chief. Jack and his choir become hunters.
Later, Ralph calls an assembly to set rules. The first rule is that holding the conch gives
one the right to speak. A young boy about six years old asks what will be done about
the snake-thing he has seen. Ralph insists that no such thing exists and changes the
subject to the possibility of rescue. He orders the boys to make a fire atop the
mountain to signal rescuers. Jack volunteers his choir to keep the fire going. Using
Piggys glasses to focus the suns rays on some fuel, they light a fire. It leaps out of
control, and in the resulting confusion, the boy who had asked about the snake-thing
disappears. He is not seen again.
Jack, obsessed with the desire to kill a wild pig, and Ralph, who wants to erect
shelters, are often at odds, dividing the boys allegiance. One day, Ralph spots the
smoke from a ship out at sea. Looking up at the mountaintop, he discovers that the
boys signal fire has gone out. Desperately, he and Simon claw their way up the
mountainside, but they are too late to start the fire again in time for the passing ship to
see it. Below, they see Jack and his hunters (who should have been tending the fire)
carrying the carcass of a pig. Jack is ecstatic, exclaiming over the spilled blood. When
Ralph admonishes him for letting the fire die, Jack lashes out, breaking a lens of
Piggys glasses.
Meanwhile, a veiled fear has begun to spread, especially among the youngest boys, the
littluns, of something that haunts the night. At an assembly, Ralph tries to insist that
the rules be followed and the fire kept burning, but discussion turns to the beast, and
the gathering soon degenerates into chaos, with Jack refusing to abide by Ralphs
rules.
One day, a victim of the air war being fought overhead falls from the sky in a parachute.
He lies against the rocks, dead, buffeted by the wind. Sam and Eric (twin brothers later
dubbed Samneric) are tending the signal fire when they see the corpse, and they run
back to camp, screaming that they have seen the beast. Leaving Piggy to watch the
littluns, Jack and Ralph go to search the far end of the island, thinking the beast might
live there, but find nothing.
Night falls, and Jack challenges Ralph to accompany him up the mountain in the
darkness to seek the beast. At the top of the mountain, near the place where the boys
have built their fire, they see a dark shape and, when the wind blows, a skeletal face.
They flee in terror. Back at the base camp, Jack seizes the conch and speaks out
against Ralph, asking the boys to vote, by a show of hands, to reject him as chief. When
the boys refuse, Jack goes off by himself.
Believing that the beast is guarding the mountain, the boys agree to Piggys suggestion
that they build a signal fire on the rocks near their bathing pool. As they work, however,
several of the older boys slip off to follow Jack. With this new band of hunters, Jack
pursues a sow caught feeding her litter. Running the sow down, the boys fall on her in a
frenzy and kill her. Then, as an offering to the beast, they mount the pigs severed head
on a stake.
Unbeknown to Jack and his band, Simon, hidden beneath some vines, has witnessed
their ritual. When the other boys leave, Simon has a silent conversation with the pigs
head the Lord of the Flies during which it seems to reveal to him that the beast
is actually something within the boys themselves. Jack and his followers, smeared with
body paint, burst into Ralphs camp, and Jack invites everyone to join his band and
feast on roast pig.
Meanwhile, Simon inches his way to the mountaintop, where he discovers the dead
parachutist. All the other boys, including Ralph and Piggy, have gone to Jacks camp to
eat the pig. Under the threat of a downpour, they begin to dance and chant, miming the
killing of the sow. Suddenly, Simon bursts into their circle, trying to tell them of his
discovery. The boys, maddened by the chanting, attack and kill him, thinking him the
beast.
Ralph and Piggy return to their camp. Only Sam and Eric and the littluns remain with
them, and all deny to themselves as well as to one another any responsibility for
the killing of Simon. Later, Jack and two of his hunters attack them. Ralph and Eric
fight viciously, but in the end, Jack and his party make off with Piggys glasses, which
they need to light a fire of their own.
When Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric go to Jacks lair to demand the return of the glasses,
Jacks followers seize Samneric, and Ralph and Jack fight until Piggy, holding the
conch, demands a chance to speak. As Piggy speaks, drawing a line between savagery
and order, Roger, standing watch on a cliff overhead, sets loose a boulder that crashes
down on the boys, smashes the conch, and crushes Piggys skull. Alone now, Ralph
runs; he is pursued by Jack and his followers, who are hurling spears, but he manages
to escape.
Later, Ralph creeps back to the encampment and discovers that Samneric, threatened
with torture or worse, have become part of Jacks tribe. They tell Ralph that Jack has
sharpened a stick at both ends and will hunt him down.
In the morning, Ralph is discovered and forced out of his hiding place. Pursued, he
manages to wound two of the boys, but when he attempts to hide again, the hunters
light a fire to smoke him out. The chase becomes a frantic fight for life that ends when
Ralph suddenly comes upon a uniformed naval officer whose cutter is moored on the
beach. We saw your smoke, the officer says, grinning at what he presumes to be a
boys game of war.
The Golden Notebook
A woman writer struggling toward living an authentic life in the modern world is the
focus of action for this complex novel. As the novel opens, Anna Freeman Wulf has
written a commercially successful novel based on her experiences as a young woman
during World War II in South Central Africa, in a country called Southern Rhodesia. Now
living in London on the royalties from this novel, Anna cares for her thirteen-year-old
daughter, Janet. In her role as mother, Anna finds emotional stability and meaning;
some of the best scenes in the book involve Anna and her daughter. Meanwhile, Anna
writes continually in her notebooks to explore the larger meaning of her life and of her
writing.
Anna keeps four separate notebooks; the entries in these notebooks occupy more than
three-quarters of the total novel, and they are responsible for the complex structure of
the book. The blue notebook is a diary of the daily events of her life; the red notebook
is concerned with politics; the black notebook is concerned with her previous life in
Africa and with her professional life as a writer; and the yellow notebook is for initial
drafts and ideas for stories. Entries from all four notebooks are interspersed among the
sections of ongoing action of the fictional present, the summer of 1957. Those sections
by themselves constitute a short novel in which the dramatic interest revolves around
Annas life and her relationship with her friend, Molly Jacobs. A few years earlier, Anna
and her daughter Janet had shared a house with Molly and her son, Tommy; Anna now
lives a half mile away, but the two women maintain their close friendship.
The nature of this friendship is one of the central subjects of the novel: Both women
are divorced, and both are committed to rearing a child while living a life which is
outside the traditional boundaries of society. They are both members of the Communist
Party of Great Britain, and both believe in the nonmaterialistic values of a life-style
which leaves them open to experiences in the world. Both women sense that their
friendship is one of the key factors which enables them to survive in this life-style.
One central event in the Free Women sections is the attempted suicide of Tommy,
which leaves him blind. In part, Anna and Molly blame themselves for the incident, and
Tommy plays upon this guilt, controlling their lives in a manner which they deeply
resent but feel powerless to change. The notebook entries enable Anna to explore this
suicide attempt from a number of perspectives. In her blue notebooks, her diary, she re-
creates her relationship with Tommy and analyzes it directly. In her yellow notebook,
she is in the process of writing a novel called The Shadow of the Third. Although Anna
is never able to finish this novel, progress on it is important to her own development as
a person. In this novel, the protagonist, a writer named Ella, is writing a novel about a
young man who commits suicide. Anna is able to explore her thoughts on the actual
suicide attempt by Tommy through the fictional suicide in her character Ellas novel.
This situation is only one of the many parallels between Annas life and the fictional life
of her protagonist Ella. Like Anna in her relationship with Molly, Ella lives with another
woman, Julia. The mutual support which the women find in this friendship is a parallel
development of the sisterhood theme explored in the relationship between Anna and
Molly in the Free Women sections. Another parallel is also crucial to Annas
development toward living an authentic life; like Anna, the fictional Ella falls deeply in
love with a man who finally leaves her after their intense relationship. After her lover
leaves her, Ella feels herself changing in ways which she cannot control. She becomes
less self-confident, less mentally independent. In writing Ellas story, Anna discovers
that she herself has been more profoundly affected by her lovers leaving her than she
previously realized. Like Ella, after the loss of her lover, Anna becomes depressed and
loses her feeling of self-confident independence.
Long passages of the blue notebook, Annas diary, involve a rigorous selfanalysis,
which leads to the self-knowledge Anna must have to live a meaningful life. One of the
most important areas of that self-knowledge evolves from Annas recognition that she
is not experiencing the events in her life with sufficient emotion she is closed off
from her own feelings. She therefore places herself under the care of a psychoanalyst,
Mrs. Marks, or Mother Sugar, as Anna calls her. Mrs. Marks tells Anna that she is
suffering from a writers block, which keeps Anna from doing her best work. Although
Anna denies this conclusion at the time, she does sense that her life is fragmented,
and that she is not emotionally free to feel as she should.
The action moves toward a climax when Anna rents a room in her flat to an American
writer, Saul Green. The two writers engage in an intense love affair which emotionally
transforms Anna. She moves through a painful psychological barrier as her old
fragmented life dies with symptoms that indicate she is undergoing a nervous
breakdown until a new self emerges that is capable of writing. In that breakdown,
Anna experiences powerful visions of the world, and of her place in the world, which
are Iyrically compelling. Symbolically, her transformation is completed when she
moves from writing in the four separate notebooks an indication of her fragmented
life to writing in one notebook, the golden notebook, which contains the essence of
her now-integrated self.
The Characters
One of the most completely realized characters in modern literature, Anna Wulf
represents the New Woman. Although she believes that she is emotionally fulfilled in a
love relationship with a man, she does not rely on a man for her position in the larger
society. Doris Lessings achievement is in tracing the development of such a woman
from her early twenties to her midthirties. Part of that development is an honest
portrayal of the characters sexual identity. As a young woman, Anna was not fulfilled
sexually in her relationship with a young Communist in Africa. It is only after she has
moved to London and has established a relationship with Michael, the lover who
eventually leaves her, that she feels sexually fulfilled. Significantly, it is after Michael
has left her that she feels her identity undergoing a crisis.
In addition to having a lasting, meaningful relationship with a man, Anna feels the need
to make a commitment which will give meaning to her life. Joining the Communist
Party is one attempt at making that kind of commitment. A sensitive, highly intelligent
woman, Anna longs to bring social justice to the world, and she believes that the
Communist Party is the most effective avenue toward achieving that goal. As a girl in
South Central Africa, she witnessed the terrible results of racial discrimination, and
she wants to do something to change it.
Yet Anna discovers that the Communist Party is not finally the avenue she must follow;
it contains inner paradoxes which will not allow her the freedom to experience a more
subjective, individual meaning a meaning she believes she must develop in order to
live an authentic life. It is only in her writing, in her art, that she can achieve that
sense of meaning. When she turns to the golden notebook, she begins to write the
Free Women sections of the novel, and thus moves toward the possibility of an
integrated, meaningful life.
Annas relationship with Molly Jacobs allows Lessing to explore the concept of
sisterhood, which in the novel becomes a necessary aspect of the New Woman. Both
women derive mutual support from their relationship; it enables them to face the
loneliness of being without men, to endure the resentment of those people who fear
nontraditional life-styles, and to survive the emotional blows of life such as Tommys
suicide attempt. Through it all, the two women communicate their inner lives to each
other as they share in the bonds of friendship.
Lessings insight into the sisterhood relationship between modern women is matched
by her exploration of the relationship a woman has with a man. Although the male
characters are all viewed through the eyes of Anna, they have the kind of depth and
complexity which makes them alive for the reader. The character Michael, Annas lover
in London, fulfills Annas emotional needs; it is only after he leaves her that she
realizes how essential he was to her independence. And it is only after her relationship
with Saul Green, the neurotic American writer, that Anna is able to break through to a
rich emotional and creative life.
The African setting in the black notebook presents a different cast of characters, both
colonials and young English servicemen who are stationed there for the war. Willi
Rodde is a German refugee who leads the local Communist Party which Anna joins, and
he is Annas unsatisfying lover; Paul Blackenhurst is a young flier from the British upper
classes with whom Anna falls in love. Lessings Iyrical treatment of the African
landscape contains some of the best writing in the novel.
Annas novel, The Shadow of the Third, presents yet another gallery of characters in
the London setting. Although Anna and her protagonist Ella share many characteristics,
Ella is a distinct character in her own right. Her lover, Paul Tanner, is a doctor who is
married and has a family, and, like the character Paul Blackenhurst in the African
setting, he is a witty, charming man.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner

n a reform school for delinquent youths, Smith, the streetwise son of working-class
parents from Nottingham, is chosen to train and compete for a coveted long-distance
running award. He is selected, he states, because of his build (he is long and skinny)
and because his constant running from the police has made him an appropriate
candidate.
Arising before dawn for a five-mile practice run through the countryside, Smith
experiences a freedom of thought that allows him to confirm his philosophy of life and
his perceptions of society.
Through self-revelation, Smith learns about himself: He evaluates his life on the street
and in Borstal, weighs his options, and decides on the meaning of an honest life.
Running affords him this opportunity: It makes me think so good that I learn even
better than when Im on my bed at night. His conclusions are strong: He is, and will
always be, an Out-law, pursued by societys In-laws, who are forever looking to
inform the authorities about his unlawful actions.
Smith draws definitive lines in this societal war. He is dedicated to the life of an Out-
law; for Smith, life according to the laws and values of society is not a worthwhile
existence. Along with this confirmation is Smiths decision that, despite his abilities, he
will lose the race. As winner of the Borstal Blue Ribbon Prize Cup for Long-Distance
Cross Country Running (All England), he would merely be the vehicle through which the
Borstal governor would achieve glory and recognition.
Smith considers the attention to his well-being an act of hypocrisy by the governor,
whose only intent is to mark the progress of the one he has chosen to win the much-
desired award. In fact, Smith feels that he is spoken to as though he were the
governors prize racehorse, which only strengthens his resolve: Ill lose that race,
because Im not a race horse at all. . . . Im a human being and Ive got . . . bloody life
inside me.
It is this sense of aliveness that Smith appreciates and vows to uphold, rather than
become what he considers dead from the toe nails up, like any In-law. Moreover, his
idea of a valuable, honest life simply does not conform to that of society. Honesty is
not, Smith relates, a cosy six pounds a week job. Rather, it is being true to oneself
and ones principles. It is dishonest, Smith has learned, to live life comfortably, without
concern. It is dishonest to win a race that symbolizes the type of honesty Smith
rejects.
As he ends his morning course, Smith recounts the events that led him to Borstal. Out
on a winter night with a friend, he espies a bakery with its window opened barely
enough to allow them entry. They steal a money box, the contents of which they decide
to hide outside Smiths house in a drainage pipe and spend leisurely. Within a few days,
a police officer arrives to inquire about the stolen money but is deterred by lack of
proof of Smiths guilt. After many days of accusation, Smith is certain that the police
officer is about to abandon his investigation. One rainy day, however, during yet another
interrogation, money starts to fall out of the drainpipe. Smith is arrested and sent to
Borstal in Essex.
As the day of the race arrives, Smith remains committed to his plan to sabotage the
win, despite the governors hint that on his release from Borstal Smith might receive
assistance in making his living as a runner. The race begins, and Smith easily takes the
lead. As his thoughts overtake him, he is motivated by the memory of his fathers death
(from a painful cancer, at home, without medical intervention) to stand firm in his
principles. Despite an annoyance in his left arm that causes some discomfort, Smith
nears the finish line favored to win.
At this point, he slows his pace down almost to a halt, enabling the runner behind him
to overtake his lead. As the crowd cries for him to run the last hundred yards to win,
Smith completes the course in second place.
In the aftermath of the race, his privileges removed, Smith is relegated to perform
chores of the most menial nature, a response that he predicted would follow his act of
defiance. In this manner, Smith endures his final six months in Borstal, all the while
planning his next lawless act. The story ends on a note of further resistance: Smith
entrusts the account of his Borstal experience to a neighborhood friend, who will seek
its publication on Smiths next arrest.