LORD JIM

Joseph Conrad English novelist and short-story writer of Polish descent. During his lifetime
Conrad was admired for the richness of his prose and his renderings of dangerous life at sea and
in exotic places. To Conrad, the sea meant above all the tragedy of loneliness. A writer of complex
skill and striking insight, but above all of an intensely personal vision.

PUBLISHED
Lord Jim was originally published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to
November 1900. William Blackwood & Sons published the first novel form of Lord Jim in the UK
in 1900.

SUMMARY
Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim follows the events that determine the fate of Jim, a young British
seaman. Jim becomes first mate on the Patna, a ship full of pilgrims travelling to Mecca for the
hajj. When the ship begins taking in water and disaster is sure to follow, Jim joins his captain and
other crewmembers in abandoning the ship and its passengers. The crew is saved by a French
ship a few days later and soon learns that the Patna and its passengers were also rescued. The
crew’s reprehensible actions are exposed. As a trial ensues, Jim must come to terms with his past.
Enter Marlow, sea captain and narrator of Lord Jim as well as three of Conrad’s
other works (Heart of Darkness, Youth, and Chance). In spite of Jim’s moral
unsoundness, Marlow befriends him during the trial and learns the full story of
the Patna, which he relates to the reader.

BACKGROUND

The primary event of Lord Jim may have been based in part on an actual abandonment of a ship. On
July 17, 1880, S.S. Jeddah sailed for Penang and Jeddah from Singapore with 778 men, 147 women,
and 67 children on board. When the vessel began to leak, the crew abandoned the passengers, who
were also travelling to Mecca for the hajj. On August 8, 1880, a French steamship found Jeddah,
rescuing all of the pilgrims. An official inquiry followed, as it does in the novel.

THEMES

Major The major theme is that guilt is a very destructive force. Lord Jim centers around the decision
of Jim to jump out of the Patna. His guilt over the incident prevents him from having a settled life. His
weakness chases him throughout the novel, and he suffers from an obsession to regain his lost honor. It
is a story of guilt, punishment, and final redemption. The novel is developed around these ideas.

Minor A person needs to be realistic about himself/herself. Humans are weak and may fail at certain
points in their life. It is important to accept the failures and go forward. In the novel, Jim is a romantic,
longing, to the point of total distraction, to re-establish his honor. He needs to think in a balanced way
and not get carried away. Jim's constant feelings of guilt give him no peace. Excessive imagination
keeps Jim at war with himself. Jim is in spiritual agony and finally atones for his guilt by his death. If
he had been more realistic about his shortcomings, the tragedy might have been prevented.

MOOD

The Mood of the novel in the first half is one of gloom. The stories of the Patna, Jim's guilt, the trial,
the storm, and the darkness create a sinister atmosphere. In the second half of the book, the Mood in
Patusan becomes cheerful, as Jim defeats Sherif Ali, becomes the Bugi leader, and falls in love with
Jewel. In the final chapters, the Mood changes again to one of darkness and gloom as Conrad
introduces Brown and leads up to the impending and final tragedy.

QUOTES “You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.”
“Never test another man by your own weakness.”
 ULYSSES
James Joyce was an Irish, modernist writer who wrote in a ground-breaking style that was
known both for its complexity and explicit content. James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882 in
Dublin, Ireland

SUMMARY

Ulysses is ostensibly a modern reworking of The Odyssey. Its 18 chapters were each named after
an episode of Homer's epic. All of the action of the novel takes place in Dublin on a single day
(June 16, 1904). The three central characters—Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, a Jewish
advertising canvasser, and his wife, Molly Bloom—are intended to be modern counterparts of
Telemachus, Ulysses (Odysseus), and Penelope, and the events of the novel parallel the major
events in Odysseus’s journey home after the Trojan War. Occasionally illuminating, at other times
these allusions to the ancient work seem designed ironically to offset the often petty and sordid
concerns that take up much of Stephen’s and Bloom’s time and continually distract them from
their ambitions and aims. The book also conjures up a densely realized Dublin, full of details,
many of which are—presumably deliberately—either wrong or at least questionable. But all this
merely forms a backdrop to an exploration of the inner workings of the mind, which refuses to
acquiesce in the neatness and certainties of classical philosophy.

THEMES
1.In deeper level, Ulysses can be taken as the quest for the paternity. The two protagonists
Stephen and Bloom both have own search. Stephen is in search of a spiritual father and Bloom is
in quest of spiritual son.

2. The Remorse of Conscience: Stephen is haunted by his feeling of guilt over his mother,her
untimely death,and his ill treatment towards her. In the same manner, Bloom too repents over
his own negligence on the tradition.

3. Comparison as Hero -Though Bloom is un-heroic in most respects like his job, family relations,
private affairs, public relations and his simple deeds, but his compassion and a sympathy for
others make him the hero of the modern world.The essence of Bloom’s compassion is “to love”
all.

Dates of Publication Magazine: Between 1918 and 1920, several installments appeared in The
Little Review, a U.S publication Book: February 2, 1922, Joyce's birthday.

Type of Work

Ulysses is an experimental novel in the modernist tradition. It uses parody in its imitation of The
Odyssey. It also uses satire and burlesque in ridiculing religion, culture, literary movements, other
writers and their styles, and many other people, places, things, and ideas.

Style and Technique

The author writes in third-person point of view with frequent use of allusions, symbols, Jungian
archetypes, literary archetypes, pastiche, and the stream-of-consciousness technique, all of
which make the novel difficult to comprehend for even the most intelligent and informed
readers. In stream of consciousness, a term coined by American psychologist William James
(1842-1910), an author portrays a character’s continuing “stream" of thoughts as they occur,
regardless of whether they make sense or whether the next thought in a sequence relates to the
previous thought. These thought portrayals expose a character’s memories, fantasies,
apprehensions, fixations, ambitions, rational and irrational ideas, and so on.

At times, he includes poetry, Repetition,Epistolary,Catechism,Soliloquy

 All of these stylistic and technical devices, and many more, help Joyce to depict his world
as multifarious, like the motley-coated world of Homer's Odyssey, with all of its strange
peoples and unfamiliar climes.

Structure

The structure of Ulysses parallels symbolically the structure of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey.
In both works, a man goes on a journey, encountering a variety of people and situations along the
way. However, the journey in Homer’s work lasts ten years, whereas the journey in Joyce’s work
lasts about 18½ hours. The main characters in Ulysses also parallel the main characters in The
Odyssey. Thus, Joyce’s Leopold Bloom becomes Homer’s Odysseus (Roman name, Ulysses);
Stephen Dedalus becomes Telemachus, the son of Odysseus; Molly Bloom becomes Penelope, the
wife of Odysseus; and Blazes Boylan becomes a representative of all the suitors wooing Penelope.
Joyce’s characters are ordinary and unheroic in contrast to Homer’s extraordinary and heroic
characters.

QUOTES- History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

 THE POTRAIT OF A LADY

Henry James, OM ((1843-04-15)15 April 1843 – (1916-02-28)28 February 1916) was an

American author regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary
modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English
language.

SUMMARY-When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her

wealthy Aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to determine
her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. She then finds herself
irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond, who, beneath his veneer of charm and cultivation, is
cruelty itself. A story of intense poignancy, Isabel's tale of love and betrayal still resonates with
modern audiences.

THEMES

1.Independence
2.Identity
3.Women and Femininity -The Portrait of a Lady is not simply the portrait of one single woman –
instead, it reveals to us a whole range of different women, all of whom are emblematic of their
time, the late nineteenTH century.
4.Lies and Deceit (morality) -Honesty is kind of a problem in this book. Some people are just too
honest, while others aren’t honest enough.
5.Men and Masculinity-Just as Portrait of a Lady reveals a wide spectrum of womanhood, so, too,
does it show us a fascinating parade of different types of men. From the super-masculine to the
gently feminized, James pre...
5.Old World vs. New World -Henry James often addresses the difference between the "old
world," or European values and culture, and the "new world," or American values and culture..
6.Marriage and the Modern Woman-Women were expected to marry at this time, and they were
flaunting convention when they did not. While the concept of romantic love did exist in the late
19th century, it was still more common to marry for social status and wealth.

WRITING STYLE- Descriptive, detailed, and frank -The writing of Henry James is famously
descriptive, and this novel is no exception to the rule.This creates a rich, very real-feeling world,
through which we can easily imagine our characters moving.

GENRE- Coming-of-Age, Realism

 THE SOUND AND THE FURY
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford,
Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays.
Wikipedia
Born: 25 September 1897, New Albany, Mississippi, United States
Died: 6 July 1962, Byhalia, Mississippi, United States
Quotes The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past.

A Note on the Title

The title of The Sound and the Fury refers to a line from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth,
a Scottish general and nobleman, learns of his wife’s suicide and feels that his life is crumbling
into chaos.

(EXTRAA- Out, Out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5

When Macbeth learns of his wife's death, he cries out the above lines, which can be used as a clue to
the meaning of the novel or to the structure of the novel. Certainly Faulkner plays with the idea that life
is nothing but a shadow. The word shadow appears continually throughout Quentin's section, and it
also occurs frequently throughout the rest of the novel.

The implication that life is a shadow is used also by Faulkner to suggest that the actions performed by
modern man are only shadows when compared with the greater actions performed by men of the past
— that modern man is only a shadow of a being, imperfectly formed and inadequate to cope with the
problems of modern life. Man is forced to commit suicide, as Quentin does, and while performing this
destructive act, he sees his shadow rising up from the water beneath him. If man does not take his own
life, then he is either a materialist like Jason, who values nothing except money, or else he is an "idiot"
like Benjy, who can see only shadows of life.

If life "is [only] a tale! Told by an idiot," we then have our justification for having the first part of the
story told through the mind of thirty-three-year-old Benjy, for the story that Faulkner tells is indeed full
of all types of sound and fury.)

SUMMARY
The Sound and the Fury is set in Jefferson, Mississippi. The novel centers on the Compson family,
former Southern aristocrats who are struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its
reputation. Over the course of the 30 years or so related in the novel, the family falls into
financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them
die tragically.
The novel is separated into four distinct sections.

The first, is written from the perspective of Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, an intellectually disabled
33-year-old man. The characteristics of his impairment are not clear, but it is implied that he has
a learning disability. Benjy's section is characterized by a highly disjointed narrative style with
frequent chronological leaps.

The second section, focuses on Quentin Compson, Benjy's older brother, and the events leading
up to his suicide.
In the third section,Faulkner writes from the point of view of Jason, Quentin's cynical younger
brother.

In the fourth and final section, Faulkner introduces a third person omniscient point of view. The
last section primarily focuses on Dilsey, one of the Compsons' black servants. Jason is also a focus
in the section, but Faulkner presents glimpses of the thoughts and deeds of everyone in the
family.

WRITING STYLE
Faulkner exhibits considerable versatility in his writing style in the The Sound and the Fury. On
the one hand, he presents the thought patterns and modes of expression of three dissimilar
narrators–the first an imbecile, the second a sensitive college student, and the third a redneck
racist. On the other, he presents his own observations as the omniscient narrator of Chapter 4. In
addition, he writes dialogue in the Southern black idiom. Striking imagery characterizes the
narration, along with STREAM OF CONCIOUSNESS.

THEMES

Decline and Corruption -One of the overarching themes of the book is the decline of the Compson
family, which also acts as a symbol of the decline of the South itself. The family was once a model
of the wealthy, slave-owning Southern aristocracy before the Civil War. By the time of the novel,
however, the Compsons have lost most of their wealth and land, despite their feeble attempts to
halt their downward spiral.

Love Gone Wrong -The Sound and the Fury centers on the downfall of a family with roots in the
aristocratic Old South. The family falls to ruin for a variety of reasons, but the main one appears
to be the family's impaired or limited ability to express and share normal love.

Time in Turmoil -Faulkner deals with the concept of time in a unique way in The Sound and the
Fury. Benjy, the book’s first narrator, is mentally disabled and completely lacks a sense of time.
Faulkner creates the sensation of Benjy’s perceptions by shifting the narrative years backwards
or forwards mid-paragraph, as certain words and sensations remind Benjy of past experiences.
This allows Faulkner to make surprising and poignant connections between past and present
events

Rebellion.

Race and Class -The setting of The Sound and the Fury is Mississippi in the early 1900s, when
slavery was still a recent memory, and the Compson family has black live-in servants who are
basically slaves in all but technicality. Slavery ended with the Civil War in the 1860s, but African-
Americans remained as second-class citizens.

GENRE
Coming-of-Age, Family Drama, Romance, Modernism. The Sound and the Fury is a great big
stewing mix of family problems, rage, family problems, hurt, family problems, anger, and family
problems
 MIDNIGHTS CHILDREN
Salman Rushdie is one of the leading novelists of the twentieth century. His style
is often likened to magic realism, which mixes religion, fantasy, and mythology
into one composite reality.

SUMMARY
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is a 1981 magical realism novel revolving around India’s
independence. The novel is semi-autobiographical, though the main character and Rushdie
stand-in has magical powers. Midnight’s Children was critically acclaimed and won many literary
awards, including the Booker Prize and the special Booker of Bookers Prize, which
commemorated the award’s 25th anniversary.
The protagonist, Saleem Sinai,is born on August 15 th, 1947, at the exact moment India gains its
independence from Britain. Thirty years later, Saleem feels as if he is dying, so he decides to tell
the story of his life to his lover, Padma.

GENRE
Magical realism, histographic metafiction

STYLE

The technique of magical realism finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to
constructing the parallel to the country's history.[5] "Magic realism in relation to the post-
colonial and Midnight's Children," argues that the "narrative framework of Midnight's Children
consists of a tale – comprising his life story – which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be
Padma. This self-referential narrative (within a single paragraph Saleem refers to himself in the
first person: ″And I, wishing upon myself the curse of Nadir Khan." and the third: "'I tell you,'
Saleem cried, 'it is true. ...'") recalls indigenous Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally
recounted Arabian Nights.[5]

Rushdie's innovative use of magical realism allowed him to employ the nation-as-family
allegory and at the same time confound it with an impossible telepathy among a multitude of
children from a multitude of languages, cultures, regions and religions. No one genre dominates
the entire novel, however. It encompasses the comic and the tragic, the real, the surreal, and the
mythic.

THEMES
Although Midnight’s Children consistently exposes the idea of nationalism and nation as myth,
Rushdie implies that hope is to be found in the new generation of Indian people who, with the
benefit of hindsight and caution, will be able to generate a counter-myth of their country.

1.Post-Colonialism- The British used their influence to erase the customs of India and impose
their own culture and morality. The Indians, however, found it difficult to recall their own
culture. Many cast aside the “old ways” of polytheistic religion and ornate ceremonies, and
instead tried to veer the country to follow Western culture. Others tried to return to their
customs but were caught identity crisis. The shadow of the British Empire still clouded India’s
vision, making it difficult to move forward with their own identity.

2.The Unreliability of Oral Storytelling - Midnight’s Children is told entirely through the voice of
Saleem, who is recalling the mystical events of his life on his deathbed. He expects Padma, who
represents the readers, to completely believe the series of events that comprise his life, which is
difficult because his story is filled with supernatural occurrences set against a realistic world.
Saleem’s authority as a reliable narrator is undermined through both magical realism as well as
his admission of mixing up dates and events.

3.Mythology and the Epic Story- Hindu, Christian, Greek, and other religious mythologies are
Saleem’s props that lend credence to his elaborate tale of India’s creation.
4.Boundaries and Borders- From the moment that England breaks ties with India, India is given
autonomy and independence. In theory, this means that India should have finite, indisputable
borders. Midnight’s Children takes a different approach, saying that boundaries and borders are
often more blurred than one might think.

5.Racism and Sexism- Left over from colonialism is the idea that white skin is desirable and pure.
While the Western characters exhibit these ideas more prominently, the ideas seep through to
the Indian characters..

6.Class and Social Structure- It is impossible to overlook Saleem’s journey through India’s
different social structures. Saleem begins his life in an upper-middle class family, enjoying a
beautiful home and having enough money to be comfortable. Their wealth is created from their
capitalistic lifestyle, left over from British Imperialism. But as soon as Saleem’s parents split up,
his social standing is significantly lowered to the point where he, his mother, and his sister are
recognized as the needy relatives. Once India enters the war, Saleem loses all hopes of ever
belonging to “respectable” society and instead lives in the slums, spreading the word about how a
communist government would be more inclined to help the poor break free from their squalor.
All these different parts in Saleem’s life are representative of the vast differences in class and
social structures present in India.

QUOTES

We all owe death a life.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.

Because silence, too, has an echo, hollower and longer-lasting than the reverberations of any sound.
THE COLOR PURPLE
Set in the deep American South between the wars, it is the tale of Celie, a young
black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she
calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her
beloved sister Nettie and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets
the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker - a woman who has taken
charge of her own destiny. Gradually, Celie discovers the power and joy of her
own spirit, freeing her from her past and reuniting her with those she loves.

Although this book centers mainly on Celie and her life, it also focuses on the journeys of the other
women who are in her life including Shug, Nettie, Sophia, and Squeak, Harpo’s second wife. Together,
these women help one another discover the beauty in themselves and in life and by leaning on each
other, they gain the strength to overcome their oppressive men and live their lives their way.

THEMES

God and Spirituality

The first words written by Celie, the novel's protagonist, are "Dear God," and the novel ends with
a letter, the salutation of which reads, "Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples.
Dear Everything. Dear God." This encapsulates The Color Purple's relationship to religion and
spirituality: a transition from a belief in a single God, an old white man in a long beard, to a God
that exists all around.

Race and Racism

The novel takes place in two distinct settings—rural Georgia and a remote African village—both
suffused with problems of race and racism.

Men, Women, and Gender Roles

The novel is also an extended meditation on the nature of men, women, and their expected
gender roles. In the beginning, Celie is expected to serve her abusive father, and, later, her
husband Mr. _____, and Nettie, not wanting to do either, runs away. But Nettie sacrifices the job
generally reserved for women—motherhood—in order to educate herself and work for Samuel
and Corrine during their missionary labors in Africa.

Violence and Suffering

Violence and suffering in The Color Purple are typically depicted as part of a greater cycle of
tragedy taking place both on the family level and on a broader social scale. Celie is raped by her
stepfather and beaten for many years by her husband, only to have Shug Avery intervene on her
behalf. Sofia is nearly beaten to death by white police officers after pushing a white family; she
nearly dies in prison…

Self-Discovery

The novel is, ultimately, a journey of self-discovery for Celie, and for other characters. Celie
begins the novel as a passive, quiet young girl, perplexed by her own pregnancy, by her rape at
the hands of Pa, and her ill-treatment by Mr. _____. Slowly, after meeting Shug and seeing her
sister run away, Celie develops practical skills: she is a hard worker in the fields, she learns how
to manage a house,etc.
Purple Symbol Analysis

The novel, of course, is called The Color Purple, and though the color itself does
not appear in many places throughout the text, it is clear that purple is
associated with Celie, and with Celie's transformation from a young girl to a
mature woman.