Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label American Literature

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Summary

 The Scarlet Letter, novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. It is considered a masterpiece of American literature and a classic moral study. 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 wedlock. 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 his 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 min

The Oldman and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway Summary

 SETTING  The narrative takes place in the 1940s. Although the opening and closing scenes take place on land in a small Cuban fishing village, the dominant setting is the Gulf Stream of the beach of Cuba. Hemingway believes the sea to be the last great unexplored area on earth, and this work travels deeply into the nature of this mysterious setting.  Plot summary        The Old Man and the Sea is the story of a battle between an old fisherman and a large marlin. The novel opens with the fisherman, who is named Santiago who spent 84 days in the sea without catching a fish. In fact, he is so unlucky that his young learner, Manolin, was forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and was ordered to fish with more successful and lucky fishermen. However, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, carrying his fishing gear, getting him food and discussing American baseball and his favorite player Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out i

Daddy by Sylvia Plath Summary

 This poem is a very strong expression of resentment against the male domination of women and also the violence of all kinds for which man is responsible. The speaker expresses her rage against her 'daddy', but daddy himself is a symbol of male. As well as a symbol of more general agents and forces like science and reason, violence and war, the German and theirs Hitler, and all other “inhuman” agents of oppression in the world. The speaker is also a symbol of female and the creative force, humility, love and humanity in general. This poem can also be analyzed from a psychological point of view. It is the outpour of a neurotic anger through the channel of creative art, or poetry. It is a kind of therapy. The poem is also significant for its assonance, allusion and images. Though it is slightly autobiographical, the poem must be interpreted symbolically and psychologically without limiting it to the poetess’s life and experiences also. The poem begins with the angry attack on dad

Because I could not stop for death by Emily Dickinson Summary

 Dickinson’s poems deal with death again and again, and it is never quite the same in any poem. In “Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death personified. He is no frightening, or even intimidating, reaper, but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The speaker feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage, she just sees it as an act of kindness, as she was too busy to find time for him. It is this kindness, this individual attention to her—it is emphasized in the first stanza that the carriage holds just the two of them, doubly so because of the internal rhyme in “held” and “ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up on her life and what it contained. This is explicitly stated, as it is “For His Civility” that she puts away her “labor” and her “leisure,” which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another alliterative word—her life. Indeed, the next stanza shows the life is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is contra

Raven by Edgar Allan Poe Summary

  In this poem the familiar theme of grief occasioned by the death of a beautiful woman is skillfully applied. Poe believed that the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the best poetical topic in the world. In the poem, the presentation of :he subject is indefinite and vague and Poe does it with a purpose. The incantatory technique that he applies in the poem attenuates the subject of the poem. The deliberate indefinitiveness and the melodious attention of the subject matter are mended to induce an exhilarated feeling of unearthliness.  The scene is a chamber where a weary student who has lost his beloved is half reaming of his mistress on a stormy night. To alleviate his grief, he is reading a ook. Disturbed by a tapping sound, the young scholar opens the door thinking that someone has knocked it. As there is no one standing outside, he closes the door and continues to read the book. When he hears the knocking sound again, he locates the spot at the window lattice. He opens t

The Art of Fiction by Henry James Summary

 Henry James one of the greatest American literary minds was an innovator of psychological realism. The essay “The Art of Fiction” was written in reply to a lecture by the Victorian novelist and the historian Walter Besant. Defining the term fiction. Henry James discusses his own principle and technique of novel. According to James Flaubert were the novelist’s novelist and Flaubert especially for novelists like Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford, became a fountain head. James disliked like vision of the world that he found in Flaubert, Balzac and Zola.  “The Art of Fiction” is a reply to Walter Besant’s lecture the Royal Institution on the art of fiction. Henry James compares the English Novels of olden times with the more recent ones. He says that older ones were expressions of artistic faith. Art liver upon discussion, exchange of views and comparison of standpoints. He says that successful application of any art is a delightful spectacle- but theory too is interesting. The only reaso

Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson summary

     Emerson starts his essay with three quotations. The first is a Latin epigram which can be translated as “Ask no questions outside”. This means we should find answer to all our problems from our own hearts. The next is a Quatrain composed by Emerson. It says that a man should be guided by himself and good or evil comes to him only through his own acts. The third is quoted from “Honest Man’s Fortune” by Beaumont and Fletcher. It says man gets dynamism by being brought up by such ferocious creatures like the she-wolf, hawk and fox.                                     Self-reliance is obedience to the Over-soul. It is actually God reliance. Emerson felt that man must surrender himself fully and act in accordance with the instincts of his soul. Through these instincts are the same as those forces that govern the physical universe.                                     The doctrine of self-reliance is a consequence of the Protestantism inherited by Emerson. Emerson to define his idea of s

SELF RELIANCE BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON - A Brief Summary and Critical Analysis

  The essay self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson   What were the influences for Emerson?  A series of tragic events in his early years force Emerson to look for self Reliance within himself. The first tragedy struck when his father - a unitarian priest who died when Emerson was just eight years old, tragedy struck him second time when his first wife died of tuberculosis, he also lost his son to Scarlet fever. These persons losses made him explore other domains in life. These influences were seen through British like S.T. Coleridge where his work ‘Aids of Reflection’ gave him better understanding about religion and the reality of life. Even Thomas Carlyle the British historian helped him to combine Philosophy and Theology with literature. On the other hand Immanuel Kant the German philosopher taught him the importance of intuition. While William Wordsworth the British romantic poet helps him to understand nature better, does the company of these pioneers revolutionized Emerson greatly.

THE TRANSCENDENTALIST GROUP

    Before we begin with this essay, we need to go back to the time in America gained its Independence which is in the year 4 July 1776 . After gaining Independence it's interesting to see how America established itself as a strong nation. This growth was initiated with the industrialization in North America even in the south cotton, agriculture flourished and modern means of transportation started in the form of network of railways, across the length and breadth of the country, as a consequence trade flourished.   With technology there was a revolution in the printing press leading to the publication of penny papers which would cheap affordable newspapers that help to improve the mass communication throughout the country consequently, promoting education. However social domains for still being ignored, these issues were most noticeable in the period before the civil war that is 1820 - 1860 the period is referred to as the Antebellum period.   Thus this period initiate