NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

THE
SCARLETT LETTER
- 17th century Boston where the action of the novel takes place : people believe in devils, witches and a
jealous intervening God (Puritan New England).
- His novel focuses on Hester’s punishment, suffering and psychological endurance.
- Hawthorne was fascinated by the problem of guilt and forgiveness: the unpardonable sin = the violation
of another soul for finding out how it would react --> Roger Chillingworth is his ide of unpardonable
sinner.
- One major part of his criticism of puritan thinking is society’s insistence on seeing human beings nearly as
emblems --> Pearl is a living emblem of her mother’s sin.
Both the mother and the community expect the child to show signs of sinful origins --> her violent temper
and questions are seen as bondage to the Devil.
- Hawthorne’s introduction of symbols is affected : he takes advantage of puritan’s habit of interpreting
the smallest signs as expressions of the will of God.
- He exemplifies how the puritan society magnifies a person’s sin.

THE SCARLETT LETTER. PLOT.

The novel is set in a village in Puritan New England. The main character is Hester Prynne, a young woman
who has borne a child out of adultery. Hester believes herself a widow, but her husband, Roger Chillingworth,
arrives in New England very much alive and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to wear the scarlet
letter A on her dress as punishment for her adultery. After Hester refuses to name her lover, Chillingworth
becomes obsessed with finding the man’s identity. When he learns that the man in question is Arthur Dimmesdale,
a saintly young minister who is the leader of those exhorting her to name the child’s father, Chillingworth proceeds
to torment him. Stricken by guilt, Dimmesdale becomes increasingly ill. Hester herself is revealed to be a self-
reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for committing adultery with the minister; she feels that their act
was consecrated by their deep love for each other. Although she is initially scorned, over time her compassion and
dignity silence many of her critics.

In the end, Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniacal pursuit of revenge. Dimmesdale is
broken by his own sense of guilt, and he publicly confesses his adultery before dying in Hester’s arms. Only Hester
can face the future bravely, as she prepares to begin a new life with her daughter, Pearl, in Europe. Years later
Hester returns to New England, where she continues to wear the scarlet letter. After her death she is buried next
to Dimmesdale, and their joint tombstone is inscribed with “ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES.”
HERMAN MELVILLE. MOBY DICK.
- Decisive step in his life: shipping the Acushnet --> his experience of living with Typee natives made the
substance of his first book, Typee . + Omoo --> based on the experience from the Hawaiian islands.
- These two books show Melville as a skillful character drawer and dialogue writer, a talented story-teller.
- 1851: Moby Dick was published.. The novel is designed to provide information about the great American
whaling industry; while it expresses the restlessness of the American spirit.
The story focuses on the 3 day chase of the White Whale by the ship of Captain Ahab and an inevitable
disaster caused by his obsession: the whale kills Ahab.
- Ahab and the whale are symbolic primal pattern of the conflict between men and nature. Ahab’s voyage
--> blasphemous departure from the values of the land.
- His characters have scriptural names (Ishmael, Ahab, Elijah, Gabriel).
- Ahab : tragic hero who’s striving to understand human condition . he tried to challenge the whale
(symbol of blind physical energy) but is defeated because natural order can’t be disturbed.
- Freudian interpretation: Moby Dick --> embodiment of the strict conscious of New England Puritanism; a
projection of Melville’s own Superego. Ahab symbolises a balanced and sensible rationalism that is the
ego.
- Moby Dick may seem difficult to read because of intertexts (Shakespeare, the Bible, Greek/Roman
literature, philosophy, politics and history.

- His novels are the best testimony of the seriousness with which he accepted human knowledge as the
province of fiction.

MOBY DICK. PLOT.

Moby Dick famously begins with the narratorial invocation “Call me Ishmael.” The narrator, like
his biblical counterpart, is an outcast. Ishmael, who turns to the sea for meaning, relays to the audience
the final voyage of the Pequod, a whaling vessel. Amid a story of tribulation, beauty, and madness, the
reader is introduced to a number of characters, many of whom have names with religious resonance. The
ship’s captain is Ahab, who Ishmael and his friend Queequeg soon learn is losing his mind. Starbuck,
Ahab’s first-mate, recognizes this problem too, and is the only one throughout the novel to voice his
disapproval of Ahab’s increasingly obsessive behavior. This nature of Ahab’s obsession is first revealed to
Ishmael and Queequeg after the Pequod’s owners, Peleg and Bildad, explain to them that Ahab is still
recovering from an encounter with a large whale that resulted in the loss of his leg. That whale’s name is
Moby Dick. The Pequod sets sail, and the crew is soon informed that this journey will be unlike their other
whaling missions: this time, despite the reluctance of Starbuck, Ahab intends to hunt and kill the beastly
Moby Dick no matter the cost.

Ahab and the crew continue their eventful journey and encounter a number of obstacles along
the way. Queequeg falls ill, which prompts a coffin to be built in anticipation of the worst. After he
recovers, the coffin becomes a replacement lifeboat that eventually saves Ishmael’s life. Ahab receives a
prophecy from a crew member informing him of his future death, which he ignores. Moby Dick is spotted
and, over the course of three days, engages violently with Ahab and the Pequod until the whale destroys
the ship, killing everyone except Ishmael. Ishmael survives by floating on Queequeg’s coffin until he is
picked up by another ship, the Rachel. The novel consists of 135 chapters, in which narrative and
essayistic portions intermingle, as well as an epilogue and front matter.
EDGAR ALLAN POE. TALL TALE
HEART.
- Brief fiction (Europe: Merimee, Balzac; America: Irving, Hawthorne). He wrote about 70 short stories.
- the most prominent features of his fiction: mood of horror mingled with mystery, elements from gothic
tales with subtle introspections of abnormal psychologies.
- His heroines are all alike: reflection of his mother and wife
- Strong point: symbolism. His short stories are characterized by symmetry and unity, concentrated effect,
realism and symbolism. He rejects crude naturalism.

TALL TALE HEART. PLOT.

Poe’s tale of murder and terror, told by a nameless homicidal madman, influenced later stream-
of-consciousness fiction and helped secure the author’s reputation as master of the macabre. The
narrator relates with relish his murder and dismemberment of an old man. Poe’s revelation of the
narrator’s madness is a classic study in psychopathology. As his victim quakes with fear, the narrator says,
“I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.”

Before killing the old man, the narrator is maddened by what he believes to be his victim’s loud
heartbeats. After he commits the murder, the police arrive, having been summoned by a neighbour who
heard a scream. While he is talking to the police, the narrator believes he can hear the corpse’s heart still
beating, and he hysterically confesses his crime.
EMILY DICKINSON. BECAUSE I
COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH.
- Most outstanding of America’s women poets.
- The spelling and punctuation of her poems are highly individual : her cavalier use of the capitals and
dashes.
- She didn’t use regular rhythms and often neglected the rules of grammar to create an unusual rhyme/
thought. Her poems have humour, wit and lively idedas.
- Her best poems are timeless, aphoristic, metaphysical expression of the joy and sorrow of human
existence. She translated ordinary daytoday experience into moments of startling beauty.
- Notable: puritan aesthetics, theme of renunciation – predominantly mystical and psychological.
- Her vision of death = rest and reward; the figure of God – the personification of Death; interchangeable
with love.

B ECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH

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SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS –
MARK TWAIN. HUCKLEBERRY
FINN.
- Two novels of childhood: The adventures of Tom Sawyer The adventures of Tom Sawyer and The
adventures of Huckleberry Finn. – children and their lives are presented with a power of understanding
that reminds us of Dickens.
- Twain’s heroes are different: charming little men whose only wish is to experience new adventures.
- The description of the world Tom and Huck live in gives Twain the opportunity of satirising certain
institutions – school and the system of teaching.
- Their episodes are meant to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves. Huck and
Tom’s world, mean and corrupt, is opposed to their personal life, imagination which enables them to
create another world in which to find refuge.
- The adventures of huckleberry finn is more profound in its character delineation and description.
- Adventures of tom sawyer is a masterpiece by virtue of permanent common laces about nostalgic
boyhood experience.
- Twain makes references to contemporary society (although it speaks of past times)
- Criticises monarchy and reframes democracy
- He was praised for his simplicity and informality of phrase

H UCKLEBERRY FINN . P LOT .

Huck runs away from his abusive father and, with his companion, the runaway slave Jim, makes a
long and frequently interrupted voyage down the Mississippi River on a raft. During the journey Huck
encounters a variety of characters and types in whom the book memorably portrays almost every class
living on or along the river.

As a result of these experiences, Huck overcomes conventional racial prejudices and learns to
respect and love Jim. The book’s pages are dotted with idyllic descriptions of the great river and the
surrounding forests, and Huck’s good nature and unconscious humour permeate the whole. But a thread
that runs through adventure after adventure is that of human cruelty, which shows itself both in the acts
of individuals and in their unthinking acceptance of such institutions as slavery. The natural goodness of
Huck is continually contrasted with the effects of a corrupt society.
SCOTT FITZGERALD. THE GREAT
GATSBY.
- The character of Daisy contain aspects of Ginevra and Zelda
- The great gatsby – his great masterpiece – wasn’t popular until after his death.
- His collection also consists of many short stories , and today he is remembered mainly for his novels.
- If he would have finished The love of the last tycoon it would have been his greatest novel
- The heroes of his five novels are variations upon a simgle person with a set of moods and attitudes that
change little from book to book.
- Fitzgerald’s novels are enactments of the American dream expressed in love affairs and worldly
ambitions.
- His techniques and writing style were traditional.

THE GREAT GATSBY . PLOT .

The narrator, Nick Carraway, is a young Yale graduate who works as a bond broker in
Manhattan. He rents a house at West Egg on Long Island across the water from his cousin, Daisy. His
neighbour there is the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire from the Midwest who lives the high
life from the profits of his minor criminal activities.

Gatsby’s infamous parties are attended by many guests who do not know their host. Nick
becomes cynically fascinated and transfixed by Gatsby, and their friendship nurtures many confidences.
Carraway learns that Gatsby and Daisy had been in love, but that Daisy had not waited for him to return
from the war and had married another

. Nick arranges a meeting between the two, and Daisy finds herself impressed by the change in
Gatsby’s fortunes. Daisy’s husband Tom, himself already involved in an affair with the garage-owner’s
wife Myrtle, becomes jealous of Gatsby’s attentions to his wife. Then Myrtle is killed in an accident, and
Tom tells Myrtle’s husband that Gatsby is responsible. Through it all, Nick watches as Gatsby is betrayed
by his own dreams, which have been nurtured by a meretricious society.
WILLIAM FAULKNER. THE SOUND
AND THE FURY.
- 1929: the sound and the fury, technically his most brilliant book but which confused and alienated many
readers.
- although each one of his novels is an independent work the same characters and places are taken up
again and qagain offering the image of a saga of life and history.
- his characters are moronic, demented or perverted.
- his style becomes irrritating because of its prolixity and apparent formlessness.
- believer of triumph of human idealism.

THE SOUND AND THE FURY . P LOT .

Life “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” This quotation,
from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, forms the basis of this masterpiece by Faulkner. This haunting tale is set in
Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, in the early 20th century. It describes the decay
and fall of the aristocratic Compson family—and, implicitly, of an entire social order—from four different
points of view.

The first three sections are presented from the perspectives of the three Compson sons: Benjy,
an “idiot” with disjointed memories; Quentin, a suicidal Harvard freshman; and Jason, the eldest.

Each section is focused primarily on a sister who has married and left home. The fourth section
comments on the other three as the Compsons’ domestic servants, whose chief virtue is their endurance,
reveal the family’s moral decline.

With The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner for the first time incorporated several challenging and
sophisticated stylistic techniques, including interior monologues and stream-of-consciousness narrative.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY. A
FAREWELL TO ARMS.
- The greatest realist of 20th century American fiction.
- Also wrote many short stories; the most famous name in these is that of Nick Adams, which appears in 7
of the 14 stories.
- His work severely disables the myth of the autonomous male individual. His characters are authoritative
men.
- A Farewell to arms is a distinguished war novel based on his service in Italy.
- It shows the civilization disjointed by war, following the story of lieutenant Frederic Henry, who falls in
love with an English nurses’ aid . they run away and live an idyllic life until their baby and her die.
- The final chapter when Henry tries to say goodbye to her and walks back to his hotel room in the rain is
the best sample of hemingway’s mastery of his writing style.
- Interested in several themes: the qualities of the common soldier, the relationship of the soldier to the
military pulse and the peasant to his ruler, the conflict between private lives and public duty.
- His most enduring theme : the death of love – whether for a person or for a country.
- He is considered a master of dialogue: the way his characters speak is more important than what they say.

A FAREWELL TO ARMS . PLOT .

While working with the Italian ambulance service during World War I, the American lieutenant Frederick
Henry falls in love with the English nurse Catherine Barkley, who tends him during his recuperation after
he is wounded.

She becomes pregnant but refuses to marry him, and he returns to his post. Henry deserts during the
Italians’ retreat after the Battle of Caporetto, and the reunited couple flee Italy by crossing the border
into Switzerland. There, however, Catherine and her baby die during childbirth, leaving Henry desolate.