1 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow Humboldt's Gift is a slice-of-life novel with undertones of dark comedy.

From the perspective of Charlie Citrine, a poet and essayist of considerable success, it examines life in America from the 1930s through the mid-1970s. Much of the novel consists of Charlie's memories of his childhood in Chicago and his days in Greenwich Village with his mentor, Von Humboldt Fleischer, who has already descended into madness and death at the time of the telling. Charlie is driven throughout the novel by memories and recriminations of Humboldt. Saul Bellow is generally recognized as one of the great 20th Century American writers and won the Nobel Prize for literature for this work. Humboldt's Gift begins with a brief review of Charlie's childhood in Chicago, when he first reads The Harlequin Ballads by New York poet Von Humboldt Fleischer. Charlie is so impressed by Humboldt's work that he borrows money from his teenage sweetheart and sets off to Greenwich Village to find and follow his new idol. Humboldt takes the young man under his wing, and they begin a life-long relationship that begins with the excitement of living as Marxists through the first years of the Cold War, decrying the establishment, cursing capitalism, drinking red wine and living the lives of poets and scholars. Flashing back to the present - that is, Charlie's present in the mid-1970s - the now-middle-aged man awakens in his Chicago apartment to the worst day of his life. His ex-wife is suing him, and the IRS is after him. Also, he has been receiving threatening phone calls from a petty Chicago mobster named Rinaldo Cantabile. When he goes down to street level, he discovers that someone has destroyed his new Mercedes with baseball bats and hammers, and he knows precisely who it is - Rinaldo Cantabile. Rinaldo has been threatening Charlie because he stopped payment on a check written to the mobster to cover a poker debt. Charlie stopped payment when his friend George Swiebel informed him that Rinaldo and his cousin were cheating at the game George hosted. Charlie calls Rinaldo and agrees to settle up, but Rinaldo demands payment in a public forum to satisfy his pride. He takes Charlie through several comedic episodes at various Chicago landmarks, finally accepting payment on a girder of a skyscraper under construction on a windy Chicago night. Rinaldo now declares himself Charlie's friend and haunts him through the next approximately twelve weeks, even following him to Europe. In the midst of mid-life crisis, Charlie is involved with Renata, a beautiful young woman with a voracious sexual appetite, deep knowledge of sensual delights, a love of expensive things and a longing to become Charlie's wife. Through flashbacks in Charlie's memory, the reader learns that Charlie was married to Denise and fathered two girl children with her. She has already taken much of the wealth he earned with a successful Broadway play that was turned into a movie, but she seems determined to take every thing he owns. After his marriage to Denise, Charlie falls in love with Demmie, who dies with her parents in a plane crash in a South American jungle. Charlie is obsessed with the nature of death, fully believing that the spirit does not perish when one dies. Throughout Humboldt's Gift, Charlie spends many hours contemplating this and other metaphysical questions. By the conclusion of the novel, Charlie has developed the habit of talking with and reading to the dead. Bellow artfully and humorously weaves this particular anomaly of Charlie's into a well-textured tapestry of a neurotic man growing old in America. Charlie is also dealing with the sexuality of an aging man, and the trauma and rite of passage associated with growing older. Being dumped in Madrid by his young lover devastates Charlie, but he emerges from the experience with a more mature, more settled attitude toward sexuality. Concurrent with these themes is the ever-present issue of struggle of artists to survive in a capitalist culture, which looks askance at serious writers and other artists as entertaining anomalies and cultural ornaments. While Charlie carries the main story line with his internal emotional and intellectual gymnastics, a host of secondary, minor and cameo characters add depth, breadth and countless witty insights into life in America, as defined in Chicago and New York.

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day is told in the first-person narration of an English butler named Stevens. In July 1956, Stevens decides to take a six- day road trip to the West Country of Englanda region to the west of Darlington Hall, the house in which Stevens resides and has worked as a butler for thirty-four years. Though the house was previously owned by the nowdeceased Lord Darlington, by 1956, it has come under the ownership of Mr. Farraday, an American gentleman. Stevens likes Mr. Farraday, but fails to interact well with him socially: Stevens is a circumspect, serious person and is not comfortable joking around in the manner Mr. Farraday prefers. Stevens terms this skill of casual conversation "bantering"; several times throughout the novel Stevens proclaims his desire to improve his bantering skill so that he can better please his current employer. The purpose of Stevens's road trip is to visit Miss Kenton, the former housekeeper of Darlington Hall who left twenty years earlier to get married. Stevens has received a letter from Miss Kenton, and believes that her letter hints that her marriage is failing and that she might like to return to her post as housekeeper. Ever since World War II has ended, it has been difficult to find enough people to staff large manor houses such as Darlington Hall. Much of the narrative is comprised of Stevens's memories of his work as a butler during and just after World War II. He describes the large, elaborate dinner parties and elegant, prominent personages who come to dine and stay at Darlington Hall in those times. It is gradually revealedlargely through other characters' interactions with Stevens, rather than his own admissionsthat Lord Darlington, due to his mistaken impression of the German agenda prior to World War II, sympathized with the Nazis. Darlington even arranged and hosted dinner parties between the German and British heads of state to help both sides come to a peaceful understanding. Stevens always maintains that Lord Darlington was a perfect gentleman, and that it is a shame his reputation has been soiled simply because he misunderstood the Nazis' true aims. During the trip Stevens also recounts stories of his contemporariesbutlers in other houses with whom he struck up friendships. Stevens's most notable relationship by far, however, is his long-term working relationship with Miss Kenton. Though Stevens never says so outright, it appears that he harbors repressed romantic feelings for Miss Kenton. Despite the fact that the two frequently disagree over various household affairs when they work together, the disagreements are childish in nature and mainly serve to illustrate the fact that the two care for each other. At the end of the novel, Miss Kenton admits to Stevens that her life may have turned out better if she had married him. After hearing these words, Stevens is extremely upset. However, he does not tell Miss Kentonwhose married name is Mrs. Bennhow he feels. Stevens and Miss Kenton part, and Stevens returns to Darlington Hall, his only new resolve being to perfect the art of bantering to please his new employer. As Salman Rushdie comments, The Remains of the Day is "a story both beautiful and cruel." It is a story primarily about regret: throughout his life, Stevens puts his absolute trust and devotion in a man who makes drastic mistakes. In the totality of his professional commitment, Stevens fails to pursue the one woman with whom he could have had a fulfilling and loving relationship. His prim mask of formality cuts him off from intimacy, companionship, and understanding.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike - Short Summary

The novel opens, aptly enough, with a basketball game being played by a few children on a street in Mt. Judge - the suburban home of our hero, Harry Angstrom. When Harry nicknamed "Rabbit" for his awkward looks - appears, he is wearing a business suit and is headed home. He was once the star athlete of his high school, a great basketball player prized by his team and his coach, Marty Tothero. Now he is twenty-six, stuck in an unhappy marriage and an unfulfilling job selling kitchen gadgets. He joins the game for a bit, and then continues on his way. At home, his newly pregnant wife, Janice, irritates him so much that when she sends him on an errand, Rabbit instinctively drives his car out of Mt. Judge and onto the interstate highway. He doesn't know where he's headed - he is only aware that he needs to escape. He makes it as far south as West Virginia before he finally turns around and heads home. Back in Mt. Judge, he joins Marty Tothero - now just as "washed-up" and as much of a "has-been" as Rabbit, having been fired years ago from his job at the high school due to a "scandal" - and hits the town with his former coach. He meets Ruth Leonard on a double date with Marty, and winds up spending the night with her in her apartment. He grows very affectionate of her, and, though Ruth's opinion of Rabbit fluctuates, the two live together for a solid two months. During that time, the young local minister, Jack Eccles, tries to do his part in saving Rabbit's marriage. Originally set on his trail by Janice's angry parents, Jack ends up befriending Rabbit and sincerely trying to help him become a better person. Rabbit more or less dismisses Jack's efforts, but when Janice finally goes into labor he hastily leaves Ruth and goes to the hospital. That night, after seeing Janice (and perhaps rediscovering his love for her), Rabbit feels as if he has started a new life. He thanks Eccles, and puts the affair with Ruth behind him. Things, however, rapidly go sour. The new baby girl - named Rebecca after Janice's mother cries nonstop, and Rabbit finds himself consumed with lust for his wife, who is now more or less incapable of having sex. One night, after Rabbit tries to make love to Janice only to have her snap at him - "I'm not your whore" - he walks out and wanders the town. Janice becomes wracked with fear and despair, certain that Rabbit has left her again, maybe for good this time. She drinks excessively throughout the ensuing day, and finally, in a drunken hysteria, accidentally drowns Rebecca in the bathtub. When Rabbit hears the news, he goes to the home of Janice's parents, where she is staying. He tells her it was his fault, and the two finally seem united in a true bond. After the funeral, however, Rabbit becomes filled with the sense that he finally understands everything - a sort of skewed religious awakening - and lashes out inexplicably at his wife: "Don't look at me...I didn't kill her." He then runs away, finally winding up back at Ruth's apartment. She is pregnant, and the father, it seems, is Rabbit. He is overjoyed that she has not aborted the baby, and insists that he would love to marry her. She delivers an ultimatum: divorce Janice, or she and the baby are "dead" to him. He agrees to these terms, and runs out to grab some food. Once outside the apartment, however, doubts immediately start to plague him. How can he divorce Janice? What is to become of their son - a two year-old boy named Nelson? It all proves too much for Rabbit. With "a kind of sweet panic growing lighter and quicker and quieter," he does what he has always done: he runs away.

Nice Work
Nice Work (1988) is a novel by British author David Lodge. It won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1988 and was also shortlisted for the Booker prize. In 1989 it was made into a four-part BBC television series starring Warren Clarke and Haydn Gwynne. The University of Birmingham served as the filming location of many of the scenes from this series. The book describes encounters between Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher specialising in the industrial novel and women's writing, and Vic Wilcox, the manager of an engineering firm. The relationship that develops between the unlikely pair reveals the weaknesses in each character. Robyn's academic position is precarious because of budget cuts. Vic has to deal with industrial politics at his firm. The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre, particularly referencing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of Robyn, who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable (in the minds of authors of industrial novels) of elevating the female to a serious social position. Robyn acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents and Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life. The story is set in the fictional city of Rummidge, a grey and dismal fictionalised Birmingham. It is part of the same series as the novels Changing Places, Small World, and Thinks .... In Nice Work, Philip Swallow is still head of the English Department from Small World and thus is Robyn Penrose's boss. Morris Zapp makes a cameo appearance in the last part of Nice Work, to add a plot twist where he tries to arrange for Robyn to have a job interview at his American university, Euphoric State (a fictionalized UC Berkeley), in order to stop his ex-wife from being a candidate for an open faculty position. Robyn Penrose makes a cameo appearance in Thinks ....

The story
The setting is the industrial heartland of Thatcherite Britain in the early 1980's. The managing director of an engineering company and a university lecturer are thrown together against their will. The Industry Year Shadow Scheme is a government initiative to help academic thinkers to understand the practical industries. Vic Wilcox is allocated Robyn Penrose from the University of Rummidge for a term (semester) and they do not get off to a good start, especially since Vic was expecting a man ("Robin"). She becomes a thorn in his side, particularly when she interferes with a human resourcing problem, resulting in industrial action. Gradually they come to appreciate each other's point of view and it becomes a case of opposites attracting one another. Vic has never met anyone like Robyn and he becomes somewhat infatuated with her after a business trip to Frankfurt, where her linguistic skills helps him to clinch an important business deal. They both need to sort out their lives and the repercussions of the Shadow Scheme help them to see things in a different way and make important decisions about their future.

Some characters
Vic Wilcox Some say that he tries to compensate for his short stature by his aggressive manner. Now in his early forties, Vic has worked his way up from humble beginnings, through Grammar School and an engineering apprenticeship to become Managing Director of Pringle and Sons Casting and General Engineering. He is proud of his achievements and firmly believes in British Industry, despite the increasingly hostile competition from other countries. He works and worries hard. His favourite motto is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. His favourite music is slow tempo, jazz-soul by female vocalists such as Jennifer Rush and Sade. Robyn Penrose In her early thirties, Robyn came from an academic background, her father being an academic historian. She wears loose dark clothes that do not make her body into an object of sexual attention. Rejecting Oxbridge she opted for the freer lifestyle offered by Sussex University where she met Charles. She is now a temporary lecturer at the University of Rummidge. Her specialism is the 19th.century industrial novel and the role of women in literature. Charles Robyn's longstanding boyfriend from their student days in Sussex. Always seemed to take his studies more seriously, although never such a promising academic as Robyn. Has landed a plum job as Lecturer in the Comparative Literature Department of the University of Suffolk but subsequently resigns to take up a job in the city as a merchant banker, moving in with Robyn's brother's girlfriend. Philip Swallow Now Dean of the Literature Faculty at the University of Rummidge. The adventurous character from Changing places and Small world has aged. He looks tired, careworn and slightly seedy. Suffers from high-frequency deafness and consequently tries to guess what people are saying to him, sometimes with bizarre results. Marion Russell Obliged to support herself at university and takes a succession of part-time jobs. Turns up as a kissogram for Vic when he is holding a works meeting at Pringles. Brian Everthorpe Marketing Director at Pringles. A big man with bushy sideboards and RAF-style moustache. Often late for work. His sense of humour is a little coarse. Is moonlighting with a sun-bed delivery service.

Review
A voyage of discovery for Robyn and Vic as they try to make sense of each others worlds. David Lodge cleverly uses the very substance of Robyn's literary teaching on the industrial novel as the basis for her own discovery of the sometimes harsh world of industry. By the end

of the book each is transformed into a more rounded and thoughtful person, using opportunities that present themselves to escape from the comfortable rut they are in at the start. Vic has already begun to realise that he is bored with his life. Although he is proud of his house-with-four-toilets, his status and his car with personalised number plates he is dissatisfied with his family. His wife is no longer physically attractive to him and they seem to have nothing of importance to talk about. He is in the throes of a mid-life crisis when Robyn comes along. A most unlikely person, Vic would have said, to have set his pulse racing. The author is able to use Robyn to develop a range of themes including literary semantics, feminism and a whole range of biases including race, class and gender. David Lodge has admitted that he was somewhat disillusioned with what was happening in literary theory, particularly the debate about structuralism versus deconstructionism. The Silk Cut advertisement allows the author, through Robyn, to explore the distinction between metaphor and metonymy. Vic, just an ordinary person, is overwhelmed by the imagery and is certainly most uncomfortable about the sexual connotations. He asks "Why can't you people take things at face value." Robyn believes that there is a strong link between the rise of the novel and of capitalism, hence the deconstruction of the classic novel in the 20th century reflects a terminal crisis in capitalism. She uses a range of 19th century English novels in her lectures and tutorials and David Lodge uses extracts from these same novels to preface each of the six sections of Nice work. They include Benjamin Disraeli's Sybil, or the two nations, Shirley by Charlotte Bronte and Hard times by Charles Dickens. David Lodge saw that these older works were trying to do what he, through Robyn and Vic, was also attempting, to recognise and do something about a divided society. The two protaganists come to realise that their main goals in life are not necessarily shared by others and, in fact, are quite alien to them. Robyn tells Charles that 99.9% of the population could not care less about their literary research and debate (their whole world). To Lodge, this is the power of fiction, to record and examine thoughts, new perspectives and consciousness. The factory scenes in Nice Work help to consolidate Robyn's feminist stance. It is a man's world, the few women on the shop floor seem to be sexless, or, rather, robbed of their sex. Brian Everthorpe is portrayed as a somewhat shallow ladies man (or so he would probably like to be described) and his idea for a girly calendar is ideal ammunition for Robyn in focusing on all that is wrong with the factory management. He is genuinely surprised when his plan for "... the usual sort of thing. Birds with boobs ... tasteful ... nothing crude" is met with anger from Robyn. She asks Vic if he is really proposing to advertise his products with a calendar that degrades women.

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

The narrator is a fertile woman living in the late twentieth century in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A religious group called the Sons of Jacob has recently overthrown the United States government. Our narrator has been arrested for being married to a divorced man, which is heretical. She and her husband, Luke, were arrested while trying to escape the country on fake passports. Their daughter was taken away from them, and given to an elite, childless family. Our narrator was sent to the Rachael and Leah Re-Education Center, which is known as the Red Center, to be trained for her new role in The Republic of Gilead. All Handmaids are trained at the Red Center, where they are brainwashed into submission to their new role by a group of women called Aunts. A Handmaid's role is to bear children for elite, childless families of The Republic. They must be pure, which means they cannot read or write or associate with other men or have desires of any kind. Their names are taken from them and they are tattooed with a number. They are taught to believe that the previous ills of society were their fault and that men are blameless. Our narrator is given the name Offred when she arrives at the home of her Commander, Fred. She spends much of her time waiting in her designated room. She wears the outfit of a Handmaid, which is modest and entirely red except for a white, winged bonnet. She discovers a message from the previous Handmaid carved into her closet, "Don't let the bastards grind you down." Offred avoids the Commander's Wife because she resents Offred's presence in her house. She sometimes talks with the Marthas in the house. Marthas are women whose role is to do housework. Offred goes shopping everyday accompanied by another Handmaid, Ofglen. This part of a Handmaid's routine is considered necessary exercise. Offred is afraid that Ofglen may be part of a spy contingent of the government called the Eyes. Everyone is dangerous if you are not a true believer. At one shop, a pregnant Handmaid enters. All the other women including Offred are jealous. If a Handmaid has a child, she will never be killed or exiled to the Colonies to do hard labor with the Unwomen (women who cannot or will not fulfill one of the prescribed roles for women in The Republic). Some tourists ask Offred and Ofglen if they are happy. They must respond positively or risk being found out and arrested. They visit the Wall of the prison, and view several men who were executed. Harsh censorship is one of the defining elements of Gileadean society. Offred cannot help the recurrent dreams and memories she has about her baby girl, husband, and mother. They may as well be dead. She herself feels like a ghost whose existence has become meaningless. One day, Offred is taken to the doctor for her monthly check-up. He says she is healthy and then offers to do her the service of impregnating her. She declines his offer, which is illegal, although she desperately wants a child. That night is the night of the Ceremony. The household assembles for the Commander to read to them from the Bible. The excerpt is about Abraham having a child with his wife's maid, which is the Biblical story upon which the Ceremony is based. Later the Commander has ceremonial sex with Offred and his Wife in his Wife's bed. Offred lies inert in between the infertile Wife's legs and the Commander mechanically inseminates her and leaves. While he does this, Offred thinks about her rebellious friend Moira, who escaped from the Red Center.

The next day, Offred attends the birth of a Handmaid's child. Many Handmaids attend to assist in the ceremony. The Wives have a party in another part of the house, and come up after the birth to claim the baby and name it. That evening, the Commander has arranged a private meeting with Offred in his study. She does not know what to expect and is cautious. They play Scrabble and he asks her for a kiss. In her bedroom later that night, she cannot suppress laughter over the simplicity of his desires. They continue to meet. He lets her read heretical magazines and brings her some lotion. She discovers that the previous Handmaid had frequented the study as well, and that she hung herself in her room. She begins to think of the Commander in a more complex way. The Ceremony becomes embarrassing. During a shopping trip, Offred lets Ofglen know that she is not a true believer. They are both relieved. Later Ofglen tells Offred that she is part of a secret information network, and that their codeword is Mayday. Offred does not gain hope though. She often considers killing herself. That day the Commander's Wife offers to arrange a meeting between Offred and the Commander's chauffeur, Nick. She suggests that the Commander may be sterile, which is heretical. Offred agrees. The next day Offred attends a Prayvaganza where a group wedding of decorated military men, Angels, and Daughters is performed. That night the Commander dresses Offred up in a gaudy costume and takes her to a secret club for the elite, called Jezebel's. There Offred is reunited with Moira, and hears the rest of the her story of escape and capture. Moira was being secretly transported along the Underground Femaleroad when she was captured and given the choice to work at Jezebel's as a whore or in the Colonies disposing of toxic waste. Offred and the Commander return home, after some uninspired sex. Serena knocks on Offred's door later that night and tells her to go to Nick's apartment above the garage. They have sex, but deny themselves any semblance of romance or intimacy. Offred visits Nick repeatedly afterwards. She is ashamed by her faithlessness to her husband Luke, but is compelled to indulge in the sole form of love available to her. In midsummer, all the women in the district are summoned to a Salvaging. All the Handmaids watch and symbolically consent to the execution of three women whose crimes are not announced. The salvaging is followed by a Particicution, in which a man who is condemned as a rapist is torn apart by a mob of Handmaids goaded to action by an Aunt. Ofglen knocks the man out on purpose to save him further pain. He was part of the Maydays and falsely accused of rape. Ofglen hangs herself after the ceremony when she sees an Eye van stop at her house. Offred is shocked when she hears this, but moreso when her Commander's Wife discovers the costume she wore to Jezebel's and sends her to her room to await punishment. Offred contemplates suicide, but an Eye van comes to take her away before she can take her life. Nick tells her that the Eyes are really part of Mayday and that she should trust them. She is powerless anyway and can only hope he is right. The Commander's wife curses her as she leaves. The main body of the tale is followed by an excerpt of a historian's speech, in which the speaker attempts to authenticate the Handmaid's Tale as a historical document. This part of the novel serves to provide some more details on the society in which Offred lived and gives the reader another perspective on her story and storytelling in general.

Catch 22 Captain Yossarian is an American bombardier stationed off the Italian coast during the final months of World War II. Paranoid and odd, Yossarian believes that everyone around him is trying to kill him. All Yossarian wants is to complete his tour of duty and be sent home. However, because the glory-seeking Colonel Cathcart continually raises the number of required missions, the men of the "fighting 256th squadron" must keep right on fighting. With a growing hatred of flying, Yossarian pleads with Doc Daneeka to ground him on the basis of insanity. Doc Daneeka replies that Yossarian's appeal is useless because, according to army regulation Catch-22, insane men who ask to be grounded prove themselves sane through a concern for personal safety. Truly crazy people are those who readily agree to fly more missions. The only way to be grounded is to ask for it. Yet this act demonstrates sanity and thus demands further flying. Crazy or not, Yossarian is stuck.

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The frantic bombardier employs alternative measures to avoid combat flights. Faking a liver condition, Yossarian checks into the hospital and passes time by censoring mail and forging "Washington Irving" to official army correspondence. Yossarian postpones the mission to Bologna when he stealthily moves the bomb line on the map of Italy. A sudden outbreak of diarrhea caused by poisoned sweet potatoes also delays the mission, much to the chagrin of Milo, the mess hall officer and entrepreneur responsible for a complex international trade syndicate in which everyone has a share. Hungry Joe has flown more combat tours of duty than anyone. Orders shipping him home are constantly unfulfilled and the ragged hero has frequent screaming nightmares. Yossarian is blamed for the loss of Kraft's plane over Ferrara because he flew over the target twice. Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn cover-up the disaster by awarding Yossarian a medal for bravery and promoting him to captain. Yossarian stands naked in formation to receive his medal. Still traumatized by Snowden's death over Avignon, Yossarian refuses to wear his gore-soaked uniform. Young Nately crashes in an emergency mission and Yossarian bears the news of his death to his beloved whore in Rome. Heartbroken and furious, she stalks Yossarian with animalistic rage and tries to murder him with a kitchen knife. Yossarian rebelliously refuses to fly more missions. Colonel Cathcart offers Yossarian a deal: Yossarian will be sent home if he promises to praise his commanding officers. Realizing that such a bargain would betray his fellow soldiers, Yossarian refuses to sell-out. The chaplain brings Yossarian the thrilling news that his former tent-mate, Orr, has washed ashore in Sweden after many weeks lost at sea. Yossarian realizes that Orr was not the blundering pilot that he pretended to be. Instead, Orr ingeniously rehearsed his escape with every planned crash-landing. In a rush of excitement, Yossarian decides to run away and join Orr in Sweden. Yossarian discovers that there is no such thing as Catch-22. However, it does not matter, because people believe in it anyway. He will not stick around and risk being killed in a war that is almost over. Yossarian escapes to Sweden, determined to stay alive.

Ulysses, James Joyce

Ulysses, a Modernist reconstruction of Homer's epic The Odyssey, was James Joyce's first epic-length novel. The Irish writer had already published a collection of short stories entitled Dubliners, as well as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the semi-autobiographical novella, whose protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, reappears in Ulysses. Immediately hailed as a work of genius, Ulysses is still considered to be the greatest of Joyce's literary accomplishments and his first two works anticipated what was to come in Ulysses. The novel was written over the span of several years, during which Joyce continued to live in selfimposed exile from his native Ireland. Ulysses was published in Paris in the year of 1922--the same year in which T. S. Eliot published his widely regarded poem, "The Waste Land." Within English literature, the "Modernist" tradition includes most of the British and American literary figures writing between the two world wars, and James Joyce is considered among the likes of T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf: standard-bearers who initiated the Modernist

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"revolution" against the Victorian "excesses of civilization." Even today, Ulysses is widely regarded as the most "revolutionary" literary efforts of the twentieth century if only for Joyce's "stream of consciousness" technique. In his efforts to create a modern hero, Joyce returned to classical myth only to deconstruct a Greek warrior into a parody of the "Wandering Jew." Joyce's hero, Leopold Bloom, must suffer the emotional traumas of betrayal and loss, while combating the anti-Semitism of 1904 Dublin. In place of Greek stoicism and power, Joyce set a flawed and endearing human being. And while Homer's The Odyssey only touched upon "epic," dignified themes, Joyce devoted considerably detailed passages to the most banal and taboo human activities: gluttony, defecation, urination, dementia, masturbation, voyeurism, alcoholism, sado-masochism and coprophilia-and most of these depictions included the hero, Bloom. Joyce saw Ulysses as the confluence of his two previous works. From Dubliners, Joyce borrowed the fatalistic and naturalistic depictions of a gritty, urban center. Ulysses is impressive for its geography alone, charting almost twenty hours of Dublin's street wandering, "bar-hopping" and marine commerce. Even though Joyce took alternate residences in Switzerland, Italy and France, he was able to paint Dublin from his almost perfect memory. While Leopold Bloom is the major character of the work, Joyce spends considerable time focusing on Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of his first work. It is through Stephen, that Joyce is able to debate the contentious religious and political issues that dominated the novella. Unsurprisingly, Joyce's portrays Dublin as the semi-complicit victim of Britain's aggression and the Roman Catholic Church's oppression. Joyce continues his argument as a non-conformist, that the Roman Catholic Church's structure facilitated corruption and more generally contributed to the alienation and rot of the human soul as opposed to its uplift. At the same time, the Irish population was governed by the British and kept under close watch. The British occupying force humiliated Irish patriots, and this permanent military presence was one of the principal obstacles on the path towards Irish "Home Rule." Despite Joyce's resentment towards Britain's colonial outlook, his most dramatic political evolution since Portrait, is his rejection of Ireland's nascent nationalist fervor. The patriots and zealots of Ulysses are invariably buffoons or villains. Frequently they are drunk, and their national agendas usually feature misogynist and anti-Semitic corollaries. Most notably, Joyce satirizes the campaigned "Renaissance" of the Irish language and we should remember that Ulysses accomplished the double act of establishing Joyce as the premier stylist of the English language while giving Ireland a national bard and epic. But Ulysses' ascension into the literary canon was not a simple one even though the novel sold well in Paris. Critics heralded Joyce's genius and wit, though the book's incredible opacity, numerous deceptions and tedious allusions were a source of contention. In Ulysses, Joyce attempted to replicate the thoughts and activities of genuine human beings, but Joyce's "outhouse humor" even drew criticism from literary familiars like Virginia Woolf. The allegedly "pornographic" novel was immediately banned in the United Kingdom as well as the United States. The frank sexuality of the "Penelope" episode and Bloom's sadomasochistic "hallucinations" in the "Circe" chapter elicited the strongest reactions. Despite the moral indignation, Ulysses was a smuggled commodity and Joyce's literary stature rose considerably among literary communities on both sides of the Atlantic. Nonetheless, it was well over a decade before a Random House court victory initiated the first American publications of the novel, which became available in Britain two years later.

Short Summary

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Joyce's novel is set in Dublin on the day of June 16, 1904 and the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, is a middle-aged Jew whose job as an advertisement canvasser forces him to travel throughout the city on a daily basis. While Bloom is Joyce's "Ulysses" character, the younger hero of the novel is Stephen Dedalus, the autobiographical character from Joyce's first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. While Joyce develops the character of the young student, most of the novel is focused on Bloom. Bloom's wife Molly is a singer and she is having an affair with her co-worker, Blazes Boylan, and early in the morning of June 16, Bloom learns that Molly intends to bring Boylan into their bed later that afternoon. The Blooms have a daughter named Milly (age 15) who is away, studying photography. Ten years ago, Molly gave birth to a son, Rudy, but he died when he was eleven days old and Bloom often thinks of the parallel between his dead son Rudy and his dead father Rudolph, who killed himself several years before. Stephen Dedalus is the central character of the novel's first three chapters, which constitute Part I of Ulysses. Dedalus is an academic and a schoolteacher and he has left Ireland for Paris but he was forced to return upon hearing news that his mother was gravely ill. The initial depictions of Stephen indicate that he is guilty because he has separated from the Catholic Church and refused to pray at the side of his mother's deathbed despite her pleading. Stephen has literary ambitions but his desire to write Ireland's first true epic is tempered by his fear that the island is too stultifying for him to be a success. Stephen lives in Martello Tower with Buck Mulligan and a British student, Haines, and Stephen's introverted personality prevents him from asserting himself. Instead, his friends patronize him and take advantage of him. The opening three chapters, "Telemachus," "Nestor" and "Proteus," track the early morning hours of Stephen Dedalus who eats breakfast, teaches at a school in Dalkey and wanders Sandymount Strand. The opening chapters of Part II ("Calypso" and "Lotus-Eaters") begin the day anew, charting the early morning rituals of Leopold Bloom, who must later attend the funeral of his friend, Paddy Dignam. In "Calypso" and "Lotus-Eaters," the reader learns that Bloom is a servile husband who prepares breakfast and runs errands on behalf of his wife Molly, who remains half-asleep. We also learn that Bloom is preoccupied with food and sex. He relishes eating a slightly burned kidney and has a penchant for voyeurism. The "Hades" chapter of Ulysses recounts the burial of Paddy Dignam in Glasnevin Cemetery and it is at this point that Joyce begins to develop his theme of Bloom as a Jewish outsider in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic society. Bloom's insecurities are only heightened by his foreknowledge of Molly's infidelity. Both Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus are set on a long winding tour of Dublin that occupies most of the afternoon and they continually cross paths before eventually meeting later that night. The afternoon chapters begin with "Aeolus" and conclude with Bloom's altercation with the Citizen in "The Cyclops." After Dignam's funeral, we get a more detailed view of Bloom's routine day. Bloom immediate heads for the downtown newspaper office-a building that is shared by three companies. Considering the frenetic pace of the news building, the employees' treatment of Bloom seems excessively rude and dismissive and Bloom's attempt to secure an easy advertisement renewal requires a trip to the National Library. Bloom's library visit in "Scylla and Charybdis" presents another occasion for him to talk to Stephen as their paths cross again but they continue on their separate paths, neither cognizant of the other. Bloom's suffers the afternoon, dreading his wife's adulterous act, scheduled for 4:30 pm. Joyce uses the "Wandering Rocks" chapter to mirror Bloom's desperation with the squalor of the city's

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poorest families before contrasting Bloom's unhappy solitude with the jovial and musical atmosphere of "The Sirens." Bloom simply shrugs off the prejudice of his acquaintances, accepts his solitude as his fate and even at this point, tries to ignore the serious problems in his marriage. Upon entering Kiernan's pub, late in the afternoon, Bloom is confronted by the Citizen, a halfblind patriot whose outspoken anti-Semitism forces Bloom to assert his identity, arguing that he can be a Jew and an Irish citizen, simultaneously. Citizen is quiet before resuming his offense. Having burdened the entire pub as a menacing drunk, Citizen focuses the brunt of his attack on Bloom, accusing him of "robbing widows and orphans," even as Bloom readies to leave, in order to visit the widow of Paddy Dignam. Bloom coolly replies to Citizen who becomes indignant when Bloom asserts that Christ, himself, was a Jew. This altercation is the first of the novel's two dramatic climaxes. When Bloom exits the pub, the raging drunk hurls a biscuit tin at his head, but Bloom escapes unharmed. Even as the Citizen's depressed faculties hindered him, he was blinded by the sun, guaranteeing Bloom's victory. The "Wandering

Jew" "ascends" into the heavens and the concluding prose of "The Cyclops" strongly suggests that Joyce modeled Bloom after Elijah who ascended immediately after completing his course. While Bloom's problems with Molly remain, his victory in Kiernan's pub anticipates his final transformation into Stephen's temporary paternal figure. As an Elijah, Bloom passes the "mantle" to Stephen Dedalus. The earliest chapter of night is "Nausicaa," which depicts Bloom as an incredibly solemn and tired man. As he walks the beach of Sandymount Strand we understand that the eclipsing evening corresponds to his aging and depressing loss of virility. Even though Bloom is only a middle-aged man with a fifteen-year old daughter, he bears the image of an elderly wanderer. A young woman named Gerty MacDowell is sitting within their range of mutual sight and as she is overcome with emotional longing and maternal love, she notices that Bloom is staring at her while he is conspicuously masturbating himself in his pocket. MacDowell seeks to offer Bloom a "refuge" and she abets his deed by displaying her undergarments in a coquettish manner. After masturbating, Bloom is enervated, complaining that Gerty has sapped the youth out of him. Joyce's deliberate narrative structure produces the interaction between Bloom and Dedalus right as Bloom contemplates the diminution of his own masculinity and youth. Bloom meets Dedalus in the National Maternity Hospital, unexpectedly, having arrived to visit Mrs. Mina Purefoy, who had been in labor for three days. Stephen had accompanied several friends to the Hospital, including Mulligan who has corrupted his friends into a loud table of young

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drunks. Bloom worries for Stephen's safety and he eventually accompanies the young man to "Nighttown," the red-light district where the "Circe" chapter is set. Undoubtedly, "Circe" is the most memorable chapter of the book: Bloom suffers "hallucinations" while walking on the street and they continue inside the brothel of Bella Cohen. Joyce's "Circe" employs Freudian theories of the subconscious, of repression and sexual desire. Bloom's hallucinations conflate feelings of religious guilt, acts of sado-masochism and the shame of being cuckolded by the popular ladies' man, Blazes Boylan. When Bloom re-emerges from his hallucinations, he finds that Stephen is completely vulnerable, having degenerated into a limp and intoxicated creature. It is unclear what is causing Stephen to jump around the room and half-climb the furniture until we see him smash his walking stick into the chandelier, resisting the ghost of his dead mother who has returned from the grave to use guilt in order to coerce Stephen into Catholicism. The scene becomes chaotic as Bloom assists Stephen out of Cohen's brothel. Stephen is alone after his friend Vincent Lynch forsakes him. It is Bloom who tends to Stephen when he passes out after a pugnacious British soldier delivers a heavy blow, aware that Stephen is incapable of defending himself. Bloom sees the development as an opportunity to forge a relationship with Stephen. Bloom succeeds in transporting Dedalus to the Cabman's Shelter for some coffee and they continue their conversations about love and music in Bloom's home at 7 Eccles Street. Despite Bloom's insistence, Stephen declines the offer to spend the night in his home and as the novel concludes, it seems likely that Stephen, like Bloom, must embark upon his own heroic quest. "Penelope," the final chapter of Ulysses, presents Molly's assessment of Bloom. Just as we come to understand how Bloom's lack of empathy largely motivated Molly's infidelity, we also come to understand that Molly truly loves her husband, independent of the question of their marriage.

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

Plot Overview

R obert Smith, an insurance agent in an unnamed Michigan town, leaps off the roof of Mercy Hospital wearing blue silk wings and claiming that he will fly to the opposite shore of Lake Superior. Mr. Smith plummets to his death. The next day, Ruth Foster Dead, the daughter of the first black doctor in town, gives birth to the first black child born in Mercy Hospital, Milkman Dead. Discovering at age four that humans cannot fly, young Milkman loses all interest in himself and others. He grows up nourished by the love of his mother and his aunt, Pilate. He is taken care of by his sisters, First Corinthians and Magdalene (called Lena), and adored by his lover and cousin, Hagar. Milkman does not reciprocate their kindness and grows up bored and privileged. In his lack of compassion, Milkman resembles his father, Macon Dead II, a ruthless landlord who pursues only the accumulation of wealth. Milkman is afflicted with a genetic malady, an emotional disease that has its origins in oppressions endured by past generations and passed on to future ones. Milkmans grandfather,

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Macon Dead, received his odd name when a drunk Union soldier erroneously filled out his documents (his grandfathers given name remains unknown to Milkman). Eventually, Macon was killed while defending his land. His two children, Macon Jr. and Pilate, were irreversibly scarred by witnessing the murder and became estranged from each other. Pilate has become a poor but strong and independent woman, the mother of a family that includes her daughter, Reba, and her granddaughter, Hagar. In contrast, Macon Jr. spends his time acquiring wealth. Both his family and his tenants revile him. By the time Milkman reaches the age of thirty-two, he feels stifled living with his parents and wants to escape to somewhere else. Macon Jr. informs Milkman that Pilate may have millions of dollars in gold wrapped in a green tarp suspended from the ceiling of her rundown shack. With the help of his best friend, Guitar Bains, whom he promises a share of the loot, Milkman robs Pilate. Inside the green tarp, Milkman and Guitar find only some rocks and a human skeleton. We later learn that the skeleton is that of Milkmans grandfather, Macon Dead I. Guitar is especially disappointed not to find the gold because he needs the funds to carry out his mission for the Seven Days, a secret society that avenges injustices committed against African-Americans by murdering innocent whites. Thinking that the gold might be in a cave near Macons old Pennsylvania farm, Milkman leaves his hometown in Michigan and heads south, promising Guitar a share of whatever gold he finds. Before he leaves, Milkman severs his romantic relationship with Hagar, who is driven mad by his rejection and tries to kill Milkman on multiple occasions. After arriving in Montour County, Pennsylvania, Milkman discovers that there is no gold to be found. He looks for his long-lost family history rather than for gold. Milkman meets Circe, an old midwife who helped deliver Macon Jr. and Pilate. Circe tells Milkman that Macons original name was Jake and that he was married to an Indian girl, Sing. Encouraged by his findings, Milkman heads south to Shalimar, his grandfathers ancestral home in Virginia. Milkman does not know that he is being followed by Guitar, who wants to
murder Milkman because he believes that Milkman has cheated him out of his share of the gold. While Milkman initially feels uncomfortable in Shalimars small-town atmosphere, he grows to love it as he uncovers more and more clues about his family history. Milkman finds that Jakes father, his greatgrandfather, was the legendary flying African, Solomon, who escaped slavery by flying back to Africa. Although Solomons flight was miraculous, it left a scar on his family that has lasted for generations. After an unsuccessful attempt to take Jake, his youngest son, with him on the flight, Solomon abandoned his wife, Ryna, and their twenty-one children. Unable to cope without a husband, Ryna went insane, leaving Jake to be raised by Heddy, an Indian woman whose daughter, Sing, he married. Milkmans findings give him profound joy and a sense of purpose. Milkman becomes a compassionate, responsible adult. After surviving an assassination attempt at Guitars hands, Milkman returns home to Michigan to tell Macon Jr. and Pilate about his discoveries. At home, he finds that Hagar has died of a broken heart and that the emotional problems plaguing his family have not gone away. Nevertheless, Milkman accompanies Pilate back to Shalimar, where they bury Jakes bones on Solomons Leap, the mountain from which Solomons flight to Africa began. Immediately after Jakes burial, Pilate is struck dead by a bullet that Guitar had intended for Milkman. Heartbroken over Pilates death but invigorated by his recent transformation, Milkman calls out Guitars name and leaps toward him. Themes Flight as a Means of Escape The epigraph to Song of SolomonThe fathers may soar / And the children may know their namesis the first reference to one of the novels most important themes. While flight can be an

16 escape from constricting circumstances, it also scars those who are left behind. Solomons flight allowed him to leave slavery in the Virginia cotton fields, but it also meant abandoning his wife, Ryna, with twenty-one children. While Milkmans flight from Michigan frees him from the dead environment of Not Doctor Street, his flight is also selfish because it causes Hagar to die of heartbreak. The novels epigraph attempts to break the connection between flight and abandonment. Because Pilate, as Milkman notes, is able to fly without ever lifting her feet off the ground, she has mastered flight, managing to be free of subjugation without leaving anyone behind. Morrisons extensive use of flying as a literal and not just metaphorical event pushes Song of Solomon toward the genre of magical realism. The novels characters accept human flight as natural. For instance, the observers of Robert Smiths flight encourage him rather than rush to prevent his leap, implying that they do not see his flight as a suicide attempt. Instead, the onlookers behave as though Smiths flight might be possible. Furthermore, the residents of Shalimar, Virginia, do not think that Solomons flight is a myth; they believe that the flight actually occurred. Morrisons novel belongs to the genre of magical realism because in it human flight is both possible and natural. For the long period of time during which Milkman doubts the possibility of human flight, he remains abnormal in the eyes of his community. Only when he begins to believe in the reality of flight does he cease to feel alienated. Abandoned Women /Mens repeated abandonment of women in Song of Solomon shows that the novels female characters suffer a double burden. Not only are women oppressed by racism, but they must also pay the price for mens freedom. Guitar tells Milkman that black men are the unacknowledged workhorses of humanity, but the novels events imply that black women more correctly fit this description. The scenes that describe womens abandonment show that in the novel, men bear responsibility only for themselves, but women are responsible for themselves, their families, and their communities. For instance, after suffering through slavery, Solomon flew home to Africa without warning anyone of his departure. But his wife, Ryna, who was also a slave, was forced to remain in Virginia to raise her twenty-one children alone. Also, after Guitars father is killed in a factory accident, Guitars grandmother has to raise him and his siblings. Although she is elderly and ill, she supports her children financially, intellectually, and emotionally. / The Alienating Effects of Racism

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov Plot Overview

In the novels foreword, the fictional John Ray, Jr., Ph.D., explains the strange story that will follow. According to Ray, he received the manuscript, entitled Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male, from the authors lawyer. The author himself, known by the pseudonym of Humbert Humbert (or H. H.), died in jail of coronary thrombosis while awaiting a trial. Ray asserts that while the authors actions are despicable, his writing remains beautiful and persuasive. He also indicates that the novel will become a favorite in psychiatric circles as well as encourage parents to raise better children in a better world. In the manuscript, Humbert relates his peaceful upbringing on the Riviera, where he encounters his first love, the twelve-year-old Annabel Leigh. Annabel and the thirteen-yearold Humbert never consummate their love, and Annabels death from typhus four months later haunts Humbert. Although Humbert goes on to a career as a teacher of English literature, he spends time in a mental institution and works a succession of odd jobs. Despite his marriage to an adult woman, which eventually fails, Humbert remains obsessed with sexually desirable and sexually aware young girls. These nymphets, as he calls them, remind him of Annabel, though he fails to find another like her. Eventually, Humbert comes to the United States and takes a room in the house of widow Charlotte Haze in a sleepy, suburban New

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England town. He becomes instantly infatuated with her twelve-year-old daughter Dolores, also known as Lolita. Humbert follows Lolitas moves constantly, occasionally flirts with her, and confides his pedophiliac longings to a journal. Meanwhile, Charlotte Haze, whom Humbert loathes, has fallen in love with him. When Charlotte sends Lolita off to summer camp, Humbert marries Charlotte in order to stay near his true love. Humbert wants to be alone with Lolita and even toys with the idea of killing Charlotte, but he cant go through with it. However, Charlotte finds his diary and, after learning that he hates her but loves her daughter, confronts him. Humbert denies everything, but Charlotte tells him she is leaving him and storms out of the house. At that moment, a car hits her and she dies instantly. Humbert goes to the summer camp and picks up Lolita. Only when they arrive at a motel does he tell her that Charlotte has died. In his account of events, Humbert claims that Lolita seduces him, rather than the other way around. The two drive across the country for nearly a year, during which time Humbert becomes increasingly obsessed with Lolita and she learns to manipulate him. When she engages in tantrums or refuses his advances, Humbert threatens to put her in an orphanage. At the same time, a strange man seems to take an interest in Humbert and Lolita and appears to be following them in their travels. Humbert eventually gets a job at Beardsley College somewhere in the Northeast, and Lolita enrolls in school. Her wish to socialize with boys her own age causes a strain in their relationship, and Humbert becomes more restrictive in his rules. Nonetheless, he allows her to appear in a school play. Lolita begins to behave secretively around Humbert, and he accuses her of being unfaithful and takes her away on another road trip. On the road, Humbert suspects that they are being followed. Lolita doesnt notice anything, and Humbert accuses her of conspiring with their stalker. Lolita becomes ill, and Humbert must take her to the hospital. However, when Humbert returns to get her, the nurses tell him that her uncle has already picked her up. Humbert flies into a rage, but then he calms himself and leaves the hospital, heartbroken and angry. For the next two years, Humbert searches for Lolita, unearthing clues about her kidnapper in order to exact his revenge. He halfheartedly takes up with a woman named Rita, but then he receives a note from Lolita, now married and pregnant, asking for money. Assuming that Lolita has married the man who had followed them on their travels, Humbert becomes determined to kill him. He finds Lolita, poor and pregnant at seventeen. Humbert realizes that Lolitas husband is not the man who kidnapped her from the hospital. When pressed, Lolita admits that Clare Quilty, a playwright whose presence has been felt from the beginning of the book, had taken her from the hospital. Lolita loved Quilty, but he kicked her out when she refused to participate in a child pornography orgy. Still devoted to Lolita, Humbert begs her to return to him. Lolita gently refuses. Humbert gives her 4,000 dollars and then departs. He tracks down Quilty at his house and shoots him multiple times, killing him. Humbert is arrested and put in jail, where he continues to write his memoir, stipulating that it can only be published upon Lolitas death. After Lolita dies in childbirth, Humbert dies of heart failure, and the manuscript is sent to John Ray, Jr., Ph.D

Animal Farm,George Orwell

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One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. Old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals inspired by his philosophy of Animalism plot a rebellion against Jones. Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall. Initially, the rebellion is a success: The animals complete the harvest and meet every Sunday to debate farm policy. The pigs, because of their intelligence, become the supervisors of the farm. Napoleon, however, proves to be a power-hungry leader who steals the cows' milk and a number of apples to feed himself and the other pigs. He also enlists the services of Squealer, a pig with the ability to persuade the other animals that the pigs are always moral and correct in their decisions. Later that fall, Jones and his men return to Animal Farm and attempt to retake it. Thanks to the tactics of Snowball, the animals defeat Jones in what thereafter becomes known as The Battle of the Cowshed. Winter arrives, and Mollie, a vain horse concerned only with ribbons and sugar, is lured off the farm by another human. Snowball begins drawing plans for a windmill, which will provide electricity and thereby give the animals more leisure time, but Napoleon vehemently opposes such a plan on the grounds that building the windmill will allow them less time for producing food. On the Sunday that the pigs offer the windmill to the animals for a vote, Napoleon summons a pack of ferocious dogs, who chase Snowball off the farm forever. Napoleon announces that there will be no further debates; he also tells them that the windmill will be built after all and lies that it was his own idea, stolen by Snowball. For the rest of the novel, Napoleon uses Snowball as a scapegoat on whom he blames all of the animals' hardships. Much of the next year is spent building the windmill. Boxer, an incredibly strong horse, proves himself to be the most valuable animal in this endeavor. Jones, meanwhile, forsakes the farm and moves to another part of the county. Contrary to the principles of Animalism, Napoleon hires a solicitor and begins trading with neighboring farms. When a storm topples the half-finished windmill, Napoleon predictably blames Snowball and orders the animals to begin rebuilding it. Napoleon's lust for power increases to the point where he becomes a totalitarian dictator, forcing "confessions" from innocent animals and having the dogs kill them in front of the entire farm. He and the pigs move into Jones' house and begin sleeping in beds (which Squealer excuses with his brand of twisted logic). The animals receive less and less food, while the pigs grow fatter. After the windmill is completed in August, Napoleon sells a pile of timber to Frederick, a neighboring farmer who pays for it with forged banknotes. Frederick and his men attack the farm and explode the windmill but are eventually defeated. As more of the Seven Commandments of Animalism are broken by the pigs, the language of the Commandments is revised: For example, after the pigs become drunk one night, the Commandment, "No animals shall drink alcohol" is changed to, "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess." Boxer again offers his strength to help build a new windmill, but when he collapses, exhausted, Napoleon sells the devoted horse to a knacker (a glue-boiler). Squealer tells the

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indignant animals that Boxer was actually taken to a veterinarian and died a peaceful death in a hospital a tale the animals believe. Years pass and Animal Farm expands its boundaries after Napoleon purchases two fields from another neighboring farmer, Pilkington. Life for all the animals (except the pigs) is harsh. Eventually, the pigs begin walking on their hind legs and take on many other qualities of their former human oppressors. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single law: "All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others." The novel ends with Pilkington sharing drinks with the pigs in Jones' house. Napoleon changes the name of the farm back to Manor Farm and quarrels with Pilkington during a card game in which both of them try to play the ace of spades. As other animals watch the scene from outside the window, they cannot tell the pigs from the humans.
Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne

The action covered in Tristram Shandy spans the years 1680-1766. Sterne obscures the story's underlying chronology, however, by rearranging the order of the various pieces of his tale. He also subordinates the basic plot framework by weaving together a number of different stories, as well as such disparate materials as essays, sermons, and legal documents. There are, nevertheless, two clearly discernible narrative lines in the book. The first is the plot sequence that includes Tristram's conception, birth, christening, and accidental circumcision. (This sequence extends somewhat further in Tristram's treatment of his "breeching," the problem of his education, and his first and second tours of France, but these events are handled less extensively and are not as central to the text.) It takes six volumes to cover this chain of events, although comparatively few pages are spent in actually advancing such a simple plot. The story occurs as a series of accidents, all of which seem calculated to confound Walter Shandy's hopes and expectations for his son. The manner of his conception is the first disaster, followed by the flattening of his nose at birth, a misunderstanding in which he is given the wrong name, and an accidental run-in with a falling window-sash. The catastrophes that befall Tristram are actually relatively trivial; only in the context of Walter Shandy's eccentric, pseudo-scientific theories do they become calamities. The second major plot consists of the fortunes of Tristram's Uncle Toby. Most of the details of this story are concentrated in the final third of the novel, although they are alluded to and developed in piecemeal fashion from the very beginning. Toby receives a wound to the groin while in the army, and it takes him four years to recover. When he is able to move around again, he retires to the country with the idea of constructing a scaled replica of the scene of the battle in which he was injured. He becomes obsessed with re-enacting those battles, as well as with the whole history and theory of fortification and defense. The Peace of Utrecht slows him down in these "hobby-horsical" activities, however, and it is during this lull that he falls under the spell of Widow Wadman. The novel ends with the long-promised account of their unfortunate affair.

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The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence The following entry presents criticism of Lawrence's novel The Rainbow. For information on Lawrence's complete career, see TCLC, Volumes 2 and 9. For discussion of Sons and Lovers, see TCLC, Volume 16; for discussion of Women in Love, see TCLC, Volume 33; for discussion of Lady Chatterley's Lover, see TCLC, Volume 48. An outstanding figure among twentieth-century modernist writers, Lawrence is known for his novels that explore the nature of self-fulfillment, relationships between men and women, and the conflicts that arise between individuals and society. The Rainbow (1915) was one of Lawrence's first novels to examine these themes, and is considered, along with its sequel Women in Love (1920), to be one of the writer's greatest works. An amalgamation of symbolic narrative, bildungsroman, and psychoanalytic novel, the work is seen as both Lawrence's prophetic vision of the possibility of renewal in society and a scathing critique of modern civilization. Plot and Major Characters The Rainbow opens with a description of the traditional, rural way of life in mid-nineteenth century England on Marsh Farm, the Brangwen family land situated near the Midlands town of Ilkeston. Tom Brangwen, a farmer ruled by his instincts rather than his intellect and marked by an inner emotional turmoil, marries Lydia Lensky, a Polish widow whose "foreignness" he finds particularly attractive. Their marriage, while loving, is characterized by a vague emotional detachment, punctuated by moments of fervent passion. When their child, the proud and somewhat aloof Anna, reaches adulthood she marries her cousin, Will Brangwen, a lace-designer whose frustrated artistic temperament soon becomes the defining aspect of his character. Their intensely sexual relationship mirrors in part that of Anna's parents, and like Tom and Lydia's is dominated by a constant struggle of wills. After a

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tumultuous first year of marriage their eldest daughter, Ursula, is born. She, like her father, is artistically sensitive and fascinated by the symbolism of Christianity. While still young she enters into a relationship with Anton Skrebensky, a young officer in the corps of engineers, who she learns does not share her ardent spirituality. Their affair temporarily ends when Ursula returns to teaching and Anton leaves to fight in the South African Boer War. In his absence Ursula has an abortive homosexual relationship with Winifred Inger, a fellow teacher, whom Ursula later convinces to marry her uncle, the younger Tom Brangwen, a manager at the colliery at Wiggiston. Accepting a teaching post at the Brinsley Street School, Ursula moves to Ilkeston, but her ordeals there and later at
Nottingham University College leave her disillusioned with modern education. When Anton returns, six years after his departure, he asks Ursula to marry him. The engagement ends in failure primarily because of Ursula's feeling that he lacks a passion to match her own. Soon after, Anton marries another woman and leaves for India. Subsequently learning that she is pregnant, Ursula discovers a renewed love for Anton and writes to him, asking for forgiveness. At the end of the novel she is nearly run down by a drove of galloping horses. Fearful for her safety, she escapes from danger by climbing a nearby tree. The incident causes her to miscarry the child. While ill Ursula receives a cable from Anton declaring that he has married, which serves as tacit proof that the relationship is over. Sitting at her window, Ursula then sees a rainbow that seems to sweep away the corruption of the world around her and afford the hope of regeneration in the future.

Major Themes
While no critical agreement exists as to the precise thematic structure of The Rainbow, the forces at work are generally seen as a conflict between masculine and feminine, played out within the contexts of a larger antagonism, that of the individual personality versus modern society. The male Brangwens, Tom and Will, represent the instinctual and spiritual sides of humanity; they contrast with the female Brangwens, who are prone to intellectualization and abstraction. The result of these consistently opposed forces is played out in the sexual relationships of the characters. In broader terms, The Rainbow also levels a critique against modern industrial society, which Lawrence dramatizes as destructive and dehumanizing. This commentary is apparent throughout the novel, and personified in the almost soulless characters of Ursula's uncle, the younger Tom Brangwen, and his wife Winifred Inger. Along with these issues is the problem of spiritual and emotional self-fulfillment that Lawrence addresses primarily in the character and actions of Ursula. As the representative of three generations of the Brangwen family, she symbolizes both an overall decline in the success of male/female relationships, andin her perception of the rainbow at the close of the novela hope for reconciliation, harmony, and fullness of being.

Critical Reception
The Rainbow was refused by Lawrence's publisher and appeared only after he had rewritten some passages and excised others that the new publisher considered too sexually explicit. Even in its revised form the novel was suppressed in England as obscene. After publication, the work met with some staunch criticism, especially in reaction to its style. Arnold Kettle has since written that the "intensity [of the writing] leads to an overwrought quality," while other

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commentators have leveled accusations of "emotional falsity" at the end of the novel, or simply of "bad writing." Likewise, many have observed that the quality of Lawrence's writing deteriorates in the second half of the novel. In more recent years, however, these assessments have been ignored or overturned by critics who emphasize the innovative nature of The Rainbow. In his oft-quoted letter to his publisher Edward Garnett, Lawrence wrote, "You mustn't look in my novel for the old stable ego of the character"; rather, Lawrence claimed to have been searching for a new way to express emotion. This new form has been hailed as revolutionary, but has also lead many critics to call The Rainbow ambiguous or imprecise, and left certain aspects of the novelparticularly Ursula's encounter with the horses and the appearance of the rainbow in later portions of the novelopen to multiple interpretations. The ensuing controversies over interpretation and a new-found approval for modernist experimentation have elevated The Rainbow from its initial notoriety to the level of a modern classic.

Waiting for Godot, Becket

Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, meet near a tree. They converse on various topics and reveal that they are waiting there for a man named Godot. While they wait, two other men enter. Pozzo is on his way to the market to sell his slave, Lucky. He pauses for a while to converse with Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking, and Pozzo and Lucky leave. After Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and tells Vladimir that he is a messenger from Godot. He tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming tonight, but that he will surely come tomorrow. Vladimir asks him some questions about Godot and the boy departs. After his departure, Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave, but they do not move as the curtain falls. The next night, Vladimir and Estragon again meet near the tree to wait for Godot. Lucky and Pozzo enter again, but this time Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. Pozzo does not remember meeting the two men the night before. They leave and Vladimir and Estragon continue to wait. Shortly after, the boy enters and once again tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming. He insists that he did not speak to Vladimir yesterday. After he leaves, Estragon and Vladimir decide to leave, but again they do not move as the curtain falls, ending the play. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , Edward Albee

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The play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is set on the campus of a small, New England university. It opens with the main characters, George and Martha coming home from a party at her father's house. The two of them clearly care deeply for each other, but events have turned their marriage into a nasty battle between two disenchanted, cynical enemies. Even though the pair arrives home at two o'clock in the morning, they are expecting guests: the new math professor and his wife. Of course, as it turns out, this new, young professor, Nick, actually works in the biology department. He and his wife, Honey, walk into a brutal social situation. In the first act, "Fun and Games," Martha and George try to fight and humiliate each other in new, inventive ways. As they peel away each other's pretenses and self-respect, George and Martha use Honey and Nick as pawns, transforming their guests into an audience to witness humiliation, into levers for creating jealousy, and into a means for expressing their own sides of their mutual story. In the second act, "Walpurgisnacht," these games get even nastier. The evening turns into a nightmare. George and Martha even attack Honey and Nick, attempting to force them to reveal their dirty secrets and true selves. Finally, in the last act, "The Exorcism," everyone's secrets have been revealed and purged. Honey and Nick go home, leaving Martha and George to try to rebuild their shattered marriage.

T.S. Eliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Summary
This poem, the earliest of Eliots major works, was completed in 1910 or 1911 but not published until 1915. It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern manovereducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. Prufrock, the poems speaker, seems to be addressing a potential lover, with whom he would like to force the moment to its crisis by somehow consummating their relationship. But Prufrock knows too much of life to dare an approach to the woman: In his mind he hears the comments others make about his inadequacies, and he chides himself for presuming emotional interaction could be possible at all. The poem moves from a series of fairly concrete (for Eliot) physical settingsa cityscape (the famous patient etherised upon a table) and several interiors (womens arms in the lamplight, coffee spoons, fireplaces)to a series of vague ocean images conveying Prufrocks emotional distance from the world as he comes to recognize his second-rate status (I am not Prince Hamlet). Prufrock is powerful for its range of intellectual reference and also for the vividness of character achieved.

Form
Prufrock is a variation on the dramatic monologue, a type of poem popular with Eliots predecessors. Dramatic monologues are similar to soliloquies in plays. Three things characterize the dramatic monologue, according to M.H. Abrams. First, they are the utterances of a specific individual (not the poet) at a specific moment in time. Secondly, the monologue is specifically directed at a listener or listeners whose presence is not directly

24

referenced but is merely suggested in the speakers words. Third, the primary focus is the development and revelation of the speakers character. Eliot modernizes the form by removing the implied listeners and focusing on Prufrocks interiority and isolation. The epigraph to this poem, from Dantes Inferno, describes Prufrocks ideal listener: one who is as lost as the speaker and will never betray to the world the content of Prufrocks present confessions. In the world Prufrock describes, though, no such sympathetic figure exists, and he must, therefore, be content with silent reflection. In its focus on character and its dramatic sensibility, Prufrock anticipates Eliots later, dramatic works. The rhyme scheme of this poem is irregular but not random. While sections of the poem may resemble free verse, in reality, Prufrock is a carefully structured amalgamation of poetic forms. The bits and pieces of rhyme become much more apparent when the poem is read aloud. One of the most prominent formal characteristics of this work is the use of refrains. Prufrocks continual return to the women [who] come and go / Talking of Michelangelo and his recurrent questionings (how should I presume?) and pessimistic appraisals (That is not it, at all.) both reference an earlier poetic tradition and help Eliot describe the consciousness of a modern, neurotic individual. Prufrocks obsessiveness is aesthetic, but it is also a sign of compulsiveness and isolation. Another important formal feature is the use of fragments of sonnet form, particularly at the poems conclusion. The three three-line stanzas are rhymed as the conclusion of a Petrarchan sonnet would be, but their pessimistic, antiromantic content, coupled with the despairing interjection, I do not think they (the mermaids) would sing to me, creates a contrast that comments bitterly on the bleakness of modernity.

Commentary
Prufrock displays the two most important characteristics of Eliots early poetry. First, it is strongly influenced by the French Symbolists, like Mallarm, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire, whom Eliot had been reading almost constantly while writing the poem. From the Symbolists, Eliot takes his sensuous language and eye for unnerving or anti-aesthetic detail that nevertheless contributes to the overall beauty of the poem (the yellow smoke and the haircovered arms of the women are two good examples of this). The Symbolists, too, privileged the same kind of individual Eliot creates with Prufrock: the moody, urban, isolated-yetsensitive thinker. However, whereas the Symbolists would have been more likely to make their speaker himself a poet or artist, Eliot chooses to make Prufrock an unacknowledged poet, a sort of artist for the common man. The second defining characteristic of this poem is its use of fragmentation and juxtaposition. Eliot sustained his interest in fragmentation and its applications throughout his career, and his use of the technique changes in important ways across his body of work: Here, the subjects undergoing fragmentation (and reassembly) are mental focus and certain sets of imagery; in The Waste Land, it is modern culture that splinters; in the Four Quartets we find the fragments of attempted philosophical systems. Eliots use of bits and pieces of formal structure suggests that fragmentation, although anxiety-provoking, is nevertheless productive; had he chosen to write in free verse, the poem would have seemed much more nihilistic. The kinds of imagery Eliot uses also suggest that something new can be made from the ruins: The series of hypothetical encounters at the poems center are iterated and discontinuous but nevertheless lead to a sort of epiphany (albeit a dark one) rather than just leading nowhere. Eliot also introduces an image that will recur in his later poetry, that of the scavenger. Prufrock thinks that he should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. Crabs are scavengers, garbage-eaters who live off refuse that makes its way to

25

the sea floor. Eliots discussions of his own poetic technique (see especially his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent) suggest that making something beautiful out of the refuse of modern life, as a crab sustains and nourishes itself on garbage, may, in fact, be the highest form of art. At the very least, this notion subverts romantic ideals about art; at best, it suggests that fragments may become reintegrated, that art may be in some way therapeutic for a broken modern world. In The Waste Land, crabs become rats, and the optimism disappears, but here Eliot seems to assert only the limitless potential of scavenging. Prufrock ends with the hero assigning himself a role in one of Shakespeares plays: While he is no Hamlet, he may yet be useful and important as an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress, start a scene or two... This implies that there is still a continuity between Shakespeares world and ours, that Hamlet is still relevant to us and that we are still part of a world that could produce something like Shakespeares plays. Implicit in this, of course, is the suggestion that Eliot, who has created an attendant lord, may now go on to create another Hamlet. While Prufrock ends with a devaluation of its hero, it exalts its creator. Or does it? The last line of the poem suggests otherwisethat when the world intrudes, when human voices wake us, the dream is shattered: we drown. With this single line, Eliot dismantles the romantic notion that poetic genius is all that is needed to triumph over the destructive, impersonal forces of the modern world. In reality, Eliot the poet is little better than his creation: He differs from Prufrock only by retaining a bit of hubris, which shows through from time to time. Eliots poetic creation, thus, mirrors Prufrocks soliloquy: Both are an expression of aesthetic ability and sensitivity that seems to have no place in the modern world. This realistic, anti-romantic outlook sets the stage for Eliots later works, including The Waste Land. Analysis of The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot was a British writer and poet. His work was often full of symbols, philosophies, and vivid images. One of his well-known works is the poem "The Waste Land." It is a sad poem about women, memories, nature, and the seasons. There are many references to death, decay, and dead things in this poem. The women are the main characters, and they describe nature and their past memories. One thing each of these women have in common is their sadness. All the women in the poem "The Waste Land" are completely different but seem to be cast from the same mould. The first woman is named Marie. She seems depressed because it is April. The fun Winter is gone, and she calls April "the cruelest month" in the first line of the poem. The line says: "APRIL is the cruellest month..." Marie also misses the warmth of Winter and the way it covered the earth in snow. This is in lines five and six of the poem, which read: "Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow..." She also describes memories of sledding with her royal cousin, and she wants Winter to stay. This is in lines 13 to 16. They say: "And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we

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went." Marie also mentions a corpse someone buried in a garden. She wonders if it will sprout, but she is not serious. This is from lines 71 to 73: "'That corpse you planted last year in your garden, 'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? 'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?" This only makes the sadness easier to see.

Lil is the second woman, and she is unhappy also. She hears a crying nightingale and is nervous in the cold. This woman hears strange noises, but it is only the wind. This passage is lines 111 and 117 to 120. These lines say: "'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me." And "'What is that noise?' The wind under the door. 'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?' Nothing again nothing." In lines 115-116 of the poem, it talks about "rats' alley, where the dead men lost their bones." The lines read: "I think we are in rats' alley Where the dead men lost their bones." This is not a nice image and proves the sadness of this passage. In addition, it seems like the woman will die soon. In line 112 someone else without a name asks, "Why do you never speak?" Before this the woman also says, "Stay with me," like she is afraid to be alone. Also, Lil does not take care of herself. According to line 157, which says, "(And her only thirty-one,) she is not old. Also, in line 145 she is supposed to get a new set of teeth, but she never gets them. This comes from lines 145 and 156, which say: "You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set," and "You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique." There is a sense of decay and death in both sections of this poem. The third woman is even stranger than the other two. From lines 236 to 242, She is bored, but she lets a man assault her. She does not resist, but she does not like it either. These lines read: "The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference." This is a disturbing part of the poem. And it is morbid, because it also talks about bones at the beginning. But in this section, the river is clean, but the Summer has gone, or died. This is in lines 177 to 179 and line 186, which read: "The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed." And "The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear." This passage is like other dead things in the poem. Also, it seems like the woman is dead, even though her body is still alive. If she were alive or concerned enough to care about what the man did to her, she would resist. However, she does not, and this is unnerving. The sadness and depression here tie her to the other women in the poem. In conclusion, everything in this poem is sad and dead. The people miss things that have passed or ended. They are also indifferent to what happens to them. The images and seasons are dark, cruel, and desolate. This is a hard poem to read because of the imagery and
the dead things. But it is clear that Marie, Lil, and the unnamed woman in it are sad. Different things make them so, but they have that sadness in common. Because of this, they all seem to be cast from the same mold.

The Second Coming

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de William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Leda and the Swan A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

William Butler Yeats? poem ? Leda and the Swan? is a hauntingly beautiful recreation of the Greek myth in which Zeus takes the form of a swan in order to

28 seduce Leda, who, as a result of this brutality becomes the mother of Helen of Troy? the woman who is credited with starting the Trojan War. Yeats? choice of employing the sonnet format (sometimes associated with romantic thoughts) in order to retell this story, along with other poetic techniques, allows the poem to go beyond the familiar story which has been told and retold many times. Within the realm of the storyline, this poem captures the moment during which Zeus, disguised as a swan, overwhelms and attacks a helpless young woman. During the first four lines of the poem, the speaker wastes no time in situating the reader as to what is occurring: A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. First of all, swans are not often associated with being birds of violence. One might envision a vulture attacking someone, but swans are thought of as birds of beauty and grace, and symbolize elegance and peacefulness. The action of the swan in the poem actions is the total opposite and one may find it ironic. This could imply the reason that Zeus chose this bird for his disguise: it would be easier to surprise and overwhelm Leda. Starting the poem with this instance of violence as Yeats chooses to, brings the reader immediately in on a moment of supreme horror. Throughout the poem, the compact nature of the lines, all in iambic pentameter, along with their rhyming endings, further escalate the fever pitch of the moment by swiftly moving along the reader. The ringing assonance of end words ? still? and ? bill? , ? caressed? and ? breast? all work to keep the reader riveted as to what is occurring here in the beginning. The next four lines capture the terror that Leda must feel as she is overwhelmed and virtually smothered by this living down comforter. Yet the speaker manages to incorporate a sensual aspect within the violent confines of the description. Amidst the violence of the rape as it is occurring, the speaker manages to convey confusion, and wonder at what it is that is actually overtaking Leda. The speaker wonders ? How can those terrified vague fingers push/The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?? At this point in the poem, it becomes clear with the descriptive language and imagery that this is much more than a random act of violence. Has it occurred to Leda just who is occupying the body of the swan? Is there more here than a rape scene? Since, as part of the myth it is known that Zeus is the one occupying the form of the swan, and since he is ? king of the gods? this could be interpreted as more of a divine intervention.. This is even more telling because Helen of Troy, the woman who launched 1000 ships because of her beauty? is the result of this ? union.? The following four lines (lines 9, 10, 11 & 12) go one step further. These lines refer to the overtaking of Troy by the Greeks, during which the gods all respectively played their part and personalities by taking their preferred sides. The speaker could be connecting the conception of Helen, whose eventual abduction from her husband, Menelaus, (brother of Agamemnon) began the Trojan War. In typical Shakespearean Sonnet format, the last two lines of the poem form a resolution of sorts. Here, the speaker is questioning what exactly, if anything, that Leda took from this attack. In a way, this leaves Leda with the upper hand. ? Did she put on his knowledge with his power/Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?? This statement questions what Leda might have gained from the attack. As a woman unable to fend off the overpowering nature of this attack, Leda had no say in the matter of this brutal rape. Yet the speaker seems to be questioning whether or not Leda left this scene a changed woman? perhaps even empowered? Again, one has to take into account the myth? this is not a typical act of violence from a man against a woman. Yeats has brought in the idea that the doing in of Troy was begun in this single act? the conception of Helen of Troy? which leads to an interesting

29 commentary on the unfolding of history and whether events as they occur are actually in our control or not!

Yeats' poem "The Second Coming," written in 1919 and published in 1921 in his collection of poems Michael Robartes and the Dancer, taps into the concept of the gyre and depicts the approach of a new world order. The gyre is one of Yeats' favorite motifs, the idea that history occurs in cycles, specifically cycles "twenty centuries" in length (Yeats, "The Second Coming" ln. 19). In this poem, Yeats predicts that the Christian era will soon give way apocalyptically to an era ruled by a godlike desert beast with the body of a lion and the head of a man (ln. 14). Critics have argued about the exact meaning of this image, but a close reading of the poem, combined with some simple genetic work, shows that Yeats saw the new order as a reign of terror haunted by war. "The Second Coming," in its entirety, is an astounding encapsulation of Yeats' idea of the gyre and his fears about the future of mankind; it is expertly woven with threads of prophetic literary reference and impressive poetic techniques. To begin, the gyre, a spiral or repeated circling motion, is a symbol and a concept that Yeats used repeatedly in his poetry and prose, and the poetics of "The Second Coming" illustrate the idea of the gyre. The repeated words in the poem enforce the idea of "spiral images" (Drake 131); words and phrases, such as "surely" and "is at hand" in lines 9 and 10, "turning" in line 1, "is loosed" in lines 4 and 5, and the very title, "Second Coming" in lines 10 and 11, are repeated, creating an onomatopoeic effect suggesting the repetitive movement of the gyre (Bornstein 203). Similarly, repetitious or paired images give the same effect, as Yeats seems to cycle through his "falcon" ("The Second Coming" ln. 2) to the "desert birds" (ln. 17), "the best lack[ing] all conviction" (ln. 7) to "the worst/...full of passionate intensity" (ln. 7-8), and his central images, the "rocking cradle" of Christ (ln. 20) to the "rough beast" (ln. 21). Other kinds of echoes, literary rather than poetic, emerge as well; Yeats connects "The Second Coming" with Shelley's Prometheus Unbound in lines 7 and 8, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity" (Drake 53), and even, Jeffares suggests, the Divine Comedy, by altering the "hawk" of an earlier draft to more closely resemble the "ample circuit" of a "falcon" described in Dante's masterpiece (A Commentary 241). Yeats surely made these allusions to borrow the literary scale of these prophetic masterpieces. But far more important in this respect is his borrowings from the Bible. Most central and obvious are the Second Coming of Christ described in Matthew 24 and the beast of the apocalypse from Revelations, but Purdy also notes "the vision chapters of Daniel (7-12)," "Isaiah's prophecy of the Day of the Lord (14.6-11, 19-22), 'old Ezekiel's cherubim' (10.1ff), and Jeremiah's denunciation of Isreal (2)" (75), not to mention Yeats' location of the beast's birth at Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ two thousand years ago (Jeffares, W. B. Yeats 38). The Bible is, of course, the western world's primary work of prophecy, and Yeats' use of its language gives his own work a tone of prophecy. The tool of Yeats' prophecy, crystallized in the "widening gyre" traced by the falcon, is a concept Yeats detailed at some length in a note to the poem in the first printing ("The Second Coming" ln. 1). To summarize, Yeats described an idea he claimed

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came from Michael Robartes that described the mind's evolution as a process of circling toward the wide end of an idealistic cone until, as he put it in the third line of "The Second Coming," "the center cannot hold" (Ellmann, A Commentary 239-40). At that point a revelation occurs, and the mind shifts to a new center, the narrow end of a cone of opposing idealism, inverted and superimposed on the first, with its narrow end at the center of the wide end of the first (240). This model, explained Yeats in his note, could also be used to describe human history; the world's gyre is shifted by a revelation every two thousand years (241). The results are evident in the upheaval caused by Christ's teaching, an upheaval two thousand years before that, and the frightening wars of Yeats' time (241). Based on these notes, it seems that Yeats' opposed gyres are in conflict, but neither is especially bad; each merely marks the coronation of "a new kind of god," as Jeffares puts it (W. B. Yeats 36). Some critics propagate this point of view. According to Donald Davie, "the poem says...that when the superhuman invades the human realm all that the human can say of it is that it is non-human: there can be no discriminating at such a time between subhuman and superhuman, between bestial and divine" (79). Under this point of view, the new world order that Yeats predicts in this poem is not by definition better or worse than the old Christian order; it is simply unfamiliar. As Stock describes it, "the only thing we [or the speaker] know of it for certain is that it will appear monstrous and terrifying to those whose traditions it supersedes" (187). So the monstrosity of the new order is merely a result of the viewer's being accustomed to the old order, having a similar effect as that of the Christian era's order on Tacitus, who, "more puzzled than hostile," ruled "that Christians were enemies of the human race" (186). The beast's order is monstrous for the same reasons that the Christ child's rocking cradle is a "nightmare" from the beast's own perspective (Yeats, "The Second Coming" ln. 20). Under this point of view, the "rough beast" of the poem takes on an identity very consistent with its physical description; it is "sphinx-like" (Ellman, Identity of Yeats 50). If it physically resembles a sphinx, "with lion body and the head of a man," it ought also to be like a sphinx in other ways (Yeats, "The Second Coming" 14). And if it is not a thing of evil, but a monster because it is foreign, then its foreignness is well expressed by its resemblance to a sphinx, since the sphinx, from Oedipus, is a riddler (Adams 143). So the monster, it would seem, is nothing more than an enigma, monstrous because it is unfamiliar. But the creature described is not quite so tame. The beast's eyes are "pitiless as the sun" (Yeats, "The Second Coming" ln. 15), and it is followed not by the (literally) noble falcon, but by "shadows" (already a dark and suggestive word choice) of "desert birds," certainly vultures, for no other bird makes such a prominent habit of reeling, as these birds are doing (17). And no self-respecting vulture would soar around a titanic beast simply because of its symbolic significance; vultures go where there is carrion. This beast is not only pitiless, but it leaves a wake of carnage. It is no passive but alien riddler; Yeats made it monstrous because it is a monster. If the poem itself is not enough to show Yeats' attitude toward the beast, some genetic background is enlightening. Yeats wrote in the introduction to The Resurrection that he "'began to imagine, as always at [his] left side just out of range of the sight, a brazen winged beast that [he] associated with laughing, ecstatic

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destruction'" (Jeffares, A Commentary 243). In a footnote, Yeats explained that this same "'brazen winged beast'...was 'afterwards described in [his] poem "The Second Coming"'" (243). The only reference to any sort of riddler here is in the fact that the monster laughs in the midst of its "'ecstatic destruction'" (243)! Many critics remark that this poem is deeply concerned with the grim drama of modern war, including World War I as well as the Russian Revolution and the Blackand-Tan War in Ireland, and Yeats himself described his poem as a reaction to "'the growing murderousness of the world'" to which these wars were alerting him (Jeffares, A Commentary 242); this concern with war marks "The Second Coming" as a modernist work (Abrams 119). One of Yeats' early manuscripts of "The Second Coming" actually makes direct reference to the Germans in Russia (Yeats, Michael Robartes 151). And, years after the poem was written and published, Yeats said in a letter that "The Second Coming" predicted "what is happening in Europe," World War II (Ellman, Yeats: the Man 278). Yeats' attitude toward this monster is clearly not ambivalence. Finally, it could be argued that the beast, the very "embodiment of the irrational destructiveness of all wars," is not an aspect of the new order, but merely a feature of the tumultuous transition, part of the revelation. But this argument is completely nullified by the final line, which makes clear that this terrible, bestial god of war does not merely usher in the new age, but "slouches toward Bethlehem to be born" into Christ's place; this beast is nothing less than the new world order Yeats prophesies in "The Second Coming" (Yeats, "The Second Coming" ln. 22). "The Second Coming" is not about ambivalence. It is not about looking forward to a new age, with new philosophies and new wonders. Purdy says that "Yeats resists coming to conclusions even when, given alternatives, choosing seems inevitable, and even when seeming to choose" (74). It seems he has left a riddle with "The Second Coming," and a conclusion that critics do not agree on, but the eventual answer seems clear. Yeats saw Europe, his world, wracked by inhumane warfare. And he feared that the beast was coming to claim its kingdom, right on time.

Sailing to Byzantium

Summary
The speaker, referring to the country that he has left, says that it is no country for old men: it is full of youth and life, with the young lying in one anothers arms, birds singing in the trees, and fish swimming in the waters. There, all summer long the world rings with the sensual music that makes the young neglect the old, whom the speaker describes as Monuments of unageing intellect. An old man, the speaker says, is a paltry thing, merely a tattered coat upon a stick, unless his soul can clap its hands and sing; and the only way for the soul to learn how to sing is to study monuments of its own magnificence. Therefore, the speaker has sailed the seas and come / To the holy city of Byzantium. The speaker addresses the sages standing in Gods holy fire / As in the gold mosaic of a wall, and asks them to be his souls singing-masters. He hopes they will consume his heart away, for his heart knows not what it isit is sick with desire / And fastened to a dying animal, and the speaker wishes to be gathered Into the artifice of eternity.

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The speaker says that once he has been taken out of the natural world, he will no longer take his bodily form from any natural thing, but rather will fashion himself as a singing bird made of hammered gold, such as Grecian goldsmiths make To keep a drowsy Emperor awake, or set upon a tree of gold to sing / To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Or what is past, or passing, or to come.

Form
The four eight-line stanzas of Sailing to Byzantium take a very old verse form: they are metered in iambic pentameter, and rhymed ABABABCC, two trios of alternating rhyme followed by a couplet.

Commentary
Sailing to Byzantium is one of Yeatss most inspired works, and one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century. Written in 1926 and included in Yeatss greatest single collection, 1928s The Tower, Sailing to Byzantium is Yeatss definitive statement about the agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital individual even when the heart is fastened to a dying animal (the body). Yeatss solution is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the sages in the citys famous gold mosaics (completed mainly during the sixth and seventh centuries) could become the singingmasters of his soul. He hopes the sages will appear in fire and take him away from his body into an existence outside time, where, like a great work of art, he could exist in the artifice of eternity. In the astonishing final stanza of the poem, he declares that once he is out of his body he will never again appear in the form of a natural thing; rather, he will become a golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past (what is past), the present (that which is passing), and the future (that which is to come). A fascination with the artificial as superior to the natural is one of Yeatss most prevalent themes. In a much earlier poem, 1899s The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart, the speaker expresses a longing to re-make the world in a casket of gold and thereby eliminate its ugliness and imperfection. Later, in 1914s The Dolls, the speaker writes of a group of dolls on a shelf, disgusted by the sight of a human baby. In each case, the artificial (the golden casket, the beautiful doll, the golden bird) is seen as perfect and unchanging, while the natural (the world, the human baby, the speakers body) is prone to ugliness and decay. What is more, the speaker sees deep spiritual truth (rather than simply aesthetic escape) in his assumption of artificiality; he wishes his soul to learn to sing, and transforming into a golden bird is the way to make it capable of doing so. Sailing to Byzantium is an endlessly interpretable poem, and suggests endlessly fascinating comparisons with other important poemspoems of travel, poems of age, poems of nature, poems featuring birds as symbols. (One of the most interesting is surely Keatss Ode to a Nightingale, to which this poem is in many ways a rebuttal: Keats writes of his nightingale, Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! / No hungry generations tread thee down; Yeats, in the first stanza of Sailing to Byzantium, refers to birds in the trees as those dying generations.) It is important to note that the poem is not autobiographical; Yeats did not travel to Byzantium (which was renamed Constantinople in the fourth century A.D., and later renamed Istanbul), but he did argue that, in the sixth century, it offered the ideal environment for the artist. The poem is about an imaginative journey, not an actual one.

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Introduction: Joyce and Homer

The plot and theme of James Joyce's Ulysses center on life as a journey. Joyce based the framework of his novel on the structure of one of the greatest and most influential works in world literature, The Odyssey, by Homer. In this epic poem of ancient Greece, Homer presented the journey of life as a heroic adventure. The protagonist of this epic tale, Odysseus (Roman name, Ulysses), encounters many perilsincluding giants, angry gods, and monstersduring his voyage home to Ithaca, Greece, after the Trojan War. In Joyce's 20th Century novel, the author also depicts life as a journey, in imitation of Homer. But Joyce presents this journey as humdrum, dreary, and uneventful. Joyce's Ulysses is a Jew of Hungarian origin, Leopold Bloom, who lives in Dublin, Ireland. His adventure consists of getting breakfast, feeding his cat, going to a funeral, doing legwork for his job, visiting pubs or restaurants, and thinking about his unfaithful wife. His activities parallel in some way the adventures of Homer's Ulysses. An example is Bloom's attendance at a funeral in a chapter entitled "Hades." This chapter parallels an episode in The Odyssey in which Ulysses visits Hades, the land of the dead (or Underworld) in Greek mythology. Bloom's unfaithful wife, Molly, represents the faithful wife of Ulysses, Penelope. A young aspiring writer, Stephen Dedalus, represents the son of Ulysses, Telemachus, who searches for his father. Although Dedalus is not Bloom's son, Dedalus nonetheless is depicted as searching for a father figure to replace his own drunken father.

Guide to Homer's Odyssey

If you are unfamiliar with The Odyssey, a plot summary and an analysis of the work appear on a page on this web site. Click here to go to the page.

Setting
The action in Joyce's novel takes place in Dublin, Ireland, and the shore east of Dublin on the Irish Sea. The entire story unfolds on June 16, 1904, except for a few hours on the morning of June 17. Joyce chose June 16 as the date for most of the action in the novel as a kind of commemoration of the day when he met his inamorata, Nora Barnacle.

Divisions of the Novel

Ulysses has three main sections, as follows: Section 1 (Chapters 1-3): The focus is on Stephen Dedalus, a young aspiring writer who has just returned from Paris. This section presents Stephen's life on a typical day in which he finds Dublin depressing. He is pessimistic about realizing his dream to become a published author. Section 2 (Chapters 4-15): The focus is on Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertising representative. This section presents his voyage through an ordinary day in Dublin. Joyce describes in detail both Dublin and Bloom, presenting his free-flowing thoughtsmany of them either about his unfaithful wife, Molly, or other women. Section 3 (Chapters 16-18): The focus is on Leopold, Stephen, and Molly. Bloom and Dedalus meet each other. Dedalus goes to Bloom's home and talks with him for several hours. The novel ends with a chapter on Molly. It consists of more than 30 pages occupied by seven sentences with no punctuation except for the period at the end of the novel.

The Chapters

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Telemachus: The narrator introduces Stephen Dedalus, representing Homer's Telemachus, along with friends of Dedalus. Nestor: Stephen teaches a lesson in Greek at a school where an elderly man, Garrett Deasy, is headmaster. Deasy represents The Odyssey's King Nestor of Pylos (or Plos), a wise advisor to the Greeks during the Trojan War. Telemachus visits Nestor in quest of information about his father, who has not returned from Troy. Joyce uses Deasy to parody The Odyssey, for Deasy is anything but wise. He even needs Stephen's help with a letter to the editor of The Evening Telepgraph on foot-and-mouth disease. Proteus: In Greek mythology, Proteus could change his physical form at will. In Joyce's novel, the language in the "Proteus" chapter exhibits many forms. Calypso: The narrator introduces Leopold Bloom, the protagonist, who is preparing breakfast in his home while his wife sleeps. In The Odyssey, Calypso is an immortal nymph and daughter of the Titan Atlas. She lives on an island on which she holds Ulysses as a love captive. Bloom's wife, Molly, represents Calypso in that she holds her husband captive in a marriage even though she is unfaithful to him. Lotus Eaters: This chapter centers in part on mind-altering substances and on religion (which Marx called "the opium of the people"). In The Odyssey, the crewmen from the ship of Ulysses eat lotus plants after they arrive on the northern coast of Africa (present-day Libya). They then lapse into euphoria. Hades: Leopold Bloom attends a funeral. His confrontation with death parallels the voyage of Ulysses into the Underworld. Aeolus: In The Odyssey, Aeolus was king of the winds and ruler of an island. He gives Ulysses a bag of winds to speed his ship on its journey. In Joyce's novel, the island of the winds is a newspaper office. Bloom and Dedalus are both there at the same time--Bloom to purchase an advertisement and Dedalus to submit Deasy's letter ("Nestor" chapter). In various conversations, there are references to wind. For example, Professor MacHugh says, "The tribune's words, howled and scattered to the four winds." Other references by different characters include the following: "Reaping the whirlwind," "Gone with the wind," "The sack of windy Troy, "Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when they get wind of a new opening," and "Enough of that inflated windbag." Lestrygonians (variant spellings: Laestrygonians, Laistrygones): The Lestrygonians were giants who ate many of Ulysses' men. In this chapter in Joyce's novel, eating also takes place: Bloom eats a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and drinks a glass of burgundy at Davy Byrne's pub. There are also references to cannibalism in a paragraph about food: Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham and his descendants mustered and bred there. Potted meats. What is home without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam's potted meat. Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be tough from exercise. Scylla and Charybdis: In The Odyssey, Scylla is a six-headed monster poised on a rock on one side of a strait. It eats men from the ship of Ulysses as it passes by. Charybdis is a whirlpool near the opposite side that will swallow the ship if it veers too close. At the National Library, Stephen discusses Shakespeare's relationship with his wife, claiming she was unfaithful. Her activity, he says, influenced Shakespeare's writing, notably in Hamlet. Dedalus's friends challenge his views (perhaps the way Scylla and Charybdis challenged Ulysses). Dedalus also challenges their views, like a a monster such as Scylla. Bloom is elsewhere in the library conducting research. Wandering Rocks: This chapter focuses on characters who wander through Dublin. Sirens: While Bloom dines in the Ormond Hotel, he ogles attractive barmaids representing the Sirens in The Odyssey. Cyclops: In a pub, a man called "the citizen" insults Bloom with anti-Semitic language. Because of his stupidity and blind prejudice, he parallels The Odyssey's cyclops, a one-eyed giant. Nausicca: In this chapter, Bloom encounters a lame young girl, Gerty MacDowell, who solicits him. She representsin a mundane, ordinary waythe beautiful maiden Nausicaa, who escorts Ulysses to the court of her father, Alcinous, the king of the Phaeacians. The lameness of Gerty may symbolize what Joyce believes is the lameness of organized religion. Oxen of the Sun: Bloom goes to the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street to check on his

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friend, Mrs. Mina Purefoy, who gives birth. There, he encounters Dedalus. Dedalus and Buck Mulligan are having a drink with medical students who are friends of Mulligan. The language Joyce uses in this chapter ranges from Old English to modern English as Joyce traces the English language from gestation to birth. A reference to oxen (which include domesticated cows and bulls) occurs in this chapter when discussions of a newspaper account (Deasy's letter) say that diseased cattle may have to be killed. " 'Tis all about Kerry cows that are to be butchered along of the plague," says a character named Frank. Also, a newly born calf is spoken of in the same paragraph in which the birth of a human is discussed: It should perhaps be stated that staggering bob in the vile parlance of our lowerclass licensed victuallers signifies the cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly dropped from its mother. In a recent public controversy with Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took place in the commons' hall of the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, of which, as is well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is the able and popular master, he is reported by eyewitnesses as having stated that once a woman has let the cat into the bag (an esthete's allusion, presumably, to one of the most complicated and marvellous of all nature's processes--the act of sexual congress) she must let it out again or give it life, as he phrased it, to save her own. At the risk of her own, was the telling rejoinder of his interlocutor, none the less effective for the moderate and measured tone in which it was delivered. Circe: Dedalus and Bloom visit a brothel operated by Bella Cohen, the parallel of The Odyssey's Circe, a sorceress-temptress. Eumaeus: Bloom and Dedalus go to a cabman's shelter to eat. There, they encounter a drunken sailor, D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe, who has traveled the world, like Ulysses, and is expected soon to reunite with his wife. Ithaca: Dedalus goes with Bloom to the latter's home, where they continue their conversation. In Homer's Odyssey, Ithaca is the home of Ulysses, to which he returns after many years at sea. Among the major events in this chapter are conversation and a urination scene in the back yard. Although Bloom invites Dedalus to stay for the night, Dedalus goes home. The chapter is written in the style of a Roman Catholic catechism. Penelope:This chapter enters the mind of Bloom's wife, Molly, and presents her thoughts in 24,195 words and only one punctuation mark, a period at the end of the chapter.

Characters
Leopold Bloom: Jewish advertising representative. Stephen Dedalus: Young aspiring writer. Marion Tweedy (Molly) Bloom: Wife of Leopold Bloom. Buck Mulligan: Irritating freind of Stephen Dedalus. Simom Dedalus: Father of Stephen. Garrett Deasy: School headmaster. Mina Purefoy: Woman undergoing labor; a friend of Bloom. Gerty MacDowell: Young girl who propositions Bloom. Blazes Boylan: Man having an affair with Bloom's wife. Haines: Oxford student visiting Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus. Richie Goulding: Stephen's Uncle. Mina Kennedy, Lydia Douce: barmaids. Lynch: Friend of Mulligan D.B. Murphy: Sailor. The Citizen: Man who insults Bloom with anti-Semitic remarks. Bella Cohen: Operator of a brothel. Priests, Newspapermen, Bar Patrons, Businessmen, Other Residents of Dublin

Plot Summary
Note: The following summary presents only the highlights of Joyce's long, complicated novel. The book is too vast and too complex to encapsulate all the significant details. .......At 8 a.m. on June 16, 1904, three young men go through their morning rituals in Martello Tower, just east of Dublin on the shore of Dublin Bay in the Irish Sea. They are Stephen Dedalus, an English teacher who would rather write for a living; Malachi Buck Mulligan, a medical student; and Haines, a visiting Oxford student. .......While shaving shortly after rising, Mulliganoutgoing and given to quips, taunts, and iconoclasm elevates his bowl of lather in mimicry of a priest at Mass, then makes the sign of the cross in a mock blessing of the tower, the countryside, and Dedalus (whom Mulligan sometimes refers to as Kinch), who is approaching him.

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.......Mulligan, in a playful mood, says its absurd that Dedalus has the name of an ancient Greek. (Dedalus, or Daedalus, was the Athenian architect who designed the famous Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete.) While lathering his face, he also says his own name, Malachi Mulligan, is absurd, noting that it has two dactyls. (A dactyl is a metrical foot with a long syllable followed by two short syllables.) Mulligan then observes: But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must go to Athens. .......Dedalus asks how long Haines, who annoys both of them, will be staying with them at the tower. Mulligan replies: God, isn't he dreadful? A ponderous Saxon. He thinks you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English. Bursting with money and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus; you have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. .......Dedalus complains that all night long Haines was raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther. When Mulligan borrows a handkerchief from Dedalus, he looks at the mucus on it and comments: The bard's [Dedaluss] noserag. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. You can almost taste it, can't you? Looking out at the bay, Mulligan uses the words of the poet Swinburne grey sweet motherto describe water and then words of his own: snotgreen sea. .......The word mother prompts Mulligan to scold Dedalus for refusing his mothers request for him to kneel down and pray for her when she was dying. At that, Dedalus begins musing about his mother: Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown grave-clothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the well-fed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. .......Dedalus then chides Mulligan: Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's death? Mulligan cant recall so Dedalus reminds him that when Bucks mother asked who was with him, he replied, O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead. Stephen says the remark offended him. .......Later downstairs, the two young men eat breakfast with Hainesbread, honey, tea, and eggs. An old woman comes in and pours milk from a can. After she and Mulligan talk for awhile, Dedalus feels a bit slighted that she ignores him, answering only to Mulligans loud voice. When its time to pay her, Mulligan comes up short and they wind up owing her two pence. He tells Dedalus to hurry out to your school kip and bring us back some money even though Dedalus is the one who pays the rent (12 quid a month) at the tower. .......As they finish breakfast, Mulligan suggests that they take a swim and continues to pick on Dedalus when he says, Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch? Turning to Haines, he adds, The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month. .......Outside, while the three young men walk along the beach, Haines asks Dedalus to discuss a theory about Shakespeares play Hamlet, referred to earlier by Mulligan. Mulligan interrupts and says, He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father. He turns to Stephen and says, O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father! (Shade of Kinch the elder is a reference to the ghost of old King Hamlet, who appears on the battlements of Elsinore Castle in Hamlet. Japhet is a reference to Japheth, one of Noahs sons in the Bible.) .......Stephen parts company with the other two, but they all agree to meet at a bar, the Ship, later on. Stephen gives them the key to the tower and goes away feeling isolated by Bucks earlier taunts. .......Stephen teaches a lesson in ancient Greek literature to spoiled rich kids at a school like the one Joyce taught at (Clifton School in Dalkey), thinks again about his mother, and receives his pay from the headmaster, Garett Deasy, an anti-Semite who pretends to be a scholar. He asks Stephen to help him get a letter published in The Evening Telegraph on foot-and-mouth disease, which afflicts cattle and other cloven-footed animals. The letter is poorly written. Shortly after 11, Stephen walks along Sandymount beach, annoyed that he must take Deasys letter to the newspaper. He sits down and edits it, then thinks about visiting his mothers relatives but decides against that idea after realizing his father would disapprove. He muses about life in a kind of philosophical soliloquywith his thoughts coming partly in bits and pieces of foreign languages, including French, Latin, German, and Italian that focus on his college days, his shortage of money, the depressing atmosphere of Dublin that militates against his dream of becoming a great writer, and his father, who is given to drinking bouts.

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He then decides not to meet Mulligan and Haines at the bar at 12:30 as planned. .......The scene changes and the time reverts back to 8 a.m., when the novels protagonistLeopold Bloom, an advertising representativeserves milk to his cat and prepares breakfast at his home at 7 Eccles Street. Customarily, he serves breakfast in bed to his wife of 16 years, Molly (Marion Tweedy Bloom), making sure her tea and toast are just the way she likes them. He reads a letter from his 15year-old daughter, Milly, who is away studying photography and has a boyfriend who may try to take advantage of her. The letter brings back memories of his other child, Rudy, who died when he was 11 days old, and of his father, Rudolph, who committed suicide. The following passage later in the novel describes events surrounding the death of Blooms father: The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, where Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, at some hour unstated, in consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite) selfadministered in the form of a neuralgic liniment composed of 2 parts of aconite liniment to 1 of chloroform liniment (purchased by him at 10.20 a.m. on the morning of 27 June 1886 at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17 Church street, Ennis) after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at 3.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 27 June 1886 a new boater straw hat, extra smart (after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at the hour and in the place aforesaid, the toxin aforesaid), at the general drapery store of James Cullen, 4 Main street, Ennis. .......Bloom interrupts his preparations to go to the butchers shop for a pork kidney hell fry for himself. He then returns and serves breakfast to Molly, a professional singer of only modest talent, while his pork kidney burns on the stove. When he returns to the kitchen, he eats and enjoys the kidney. Bloom treats Molly well even though he knows she is having an affair with Blazes Boylan, who is arranging a series of concert performances for her, and hasnt had relations with Leopold for years. .......After leaving home, Bloom sits through part of a mass at a Roman Catholic Church, then attends the funeral of his friend, Paddy Dignam. On the way to the church, he rides in a carriage with Simon Dedalus, Stephen's father, and two others. They make make small talk about death and about a tramline. It is a "paltry funeral," the narration says: "coach and three carriages. It's all the same. Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead. Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out." .......During the funeral, presided over by Father Coffey, Bloom thinks about the gas that corpses fill up with: What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you're a doner. Afterward, he stops by The Evening Telegraph to arrange for the printing of an advertisement. There, he crosses paths with Stephen Dedalus, although they do not speak to each other. Later, Bloom continues his odyssey through Dublin, first stopping for a cheese sandwich at a pub, then at the National Library to research newspaper documents relating to the publication of the ad at the newspaper. Again, he crosses paths with Stephen Dedalus, who is there with Buck Mulligan and others discussing Shakespeare. .......In the afternoon, Bloom has a lunch of liver and cods' roes at the Ormond Hotel. With him is Richie Goulding, Stephen's uncle. A lively group of othersincluding Stephen's father, Simonsings at a piano while Bloom eyes two attractive barmaids, Mina Kennedy and Lydia Douce. He just misses seeing Blazes Boylan, who is leaving the same hotel to rendezvous with Bloom's wife, Molly, at 4:30. At another pub, Barney Kiernans, a drunken man identified by the narrator as "the citizen" insults Bloom with anti-Semitic taunts. Bloom defends himself, and another man, Martin, joins the fray. Here is the dialogue: Bloom --Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.

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Martin --He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead. The Citizen --Whose God? says the citizen. Bloom --Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me. When Bloom leaves, the drunk hurls a tin container at him. So Bloom becomes an outcast who, like so many other Jews before him and like Ulysses in Homers Odyssey, must endure a diaspora. .......In the evening, Bloom slips his hand into his pocket when he observes young Gerty MacDowell, "as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see," the narrator says of her. She propositions him and reveals her underwear. But Bloom has already spent himself and ignores her. .......At around 10 o'clock, the wanderer next visits the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street to check on the condition of his friend, Mrs. Mina Purefoy, who has been in labor for three days. For the third time, he crosses paths with Stephen Dedalus, who is drinking with Buck Mulligan and his friends. Bloom is disappointed to see that the son of his friend, Simon Dedalus, is allowing alcohol and questionable companions divert him from gainful intellectual pursuits. After Mrs. Purefoy has her child, Bloom follows Stephen and his friends to a pub, Burke's, where Stephen boozes on absinthe. Bloom then continues to follow when Stephen and one of the young menLynch, a medical studentvisit a brothel. The experience makes Bloom think of Boylan and Molly together. Stephen has a disturbing thought of his own: He imagines he sees his dead mother asking him to pray for him, as she did before she died. .......Out on the street, drunk, Stephen gets into a fight with two soldiers. After one of the soldiers, knocks Stephen down, Bloom comes to his aid as a crowd watches and policemen come to the scene. One of the soldiers, Private Carr, steps forward and tells one of the policemen that Stephen insulted his girlfriend. Bloom, however, defends Stephen, saying, " You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness. Constable, take his regimental number." Another man, Corny Kelleher, says he knows Bloom and says he won money at the races thanks to a tip Bloom gave him on a horse named Throwaway. The police disperse the crowd and agree to forget the incident, and Bloom shakes the hands of both policemen, saying, "Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you. We don't want any scandal, you understand. Father [Simon Dedalus] is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand." One of the policemen, referred to as the "Second Watch," confirms that he will not have to report the incident, saying, "It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station." .......Bloom and Dedalus then go to a cabman's shelter to get something to eat. There, they encounter a drunken sailor, D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe, who has traveled the world, like Ulysses. He tells Bloom and Dedalus: I've circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and North America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. GOSPODI POMILYOU. That's how the Russians prays. Murphy also presents this picture of his travels: I seen a Chinese one time . . . that had little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup . . . the chinks does. Later, while Bloom converses with Dedalus, the subjects of violence, hatred, and prejudice come up, and Bloom says, "I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due instalments plan. It's a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular, in the next house so to speak." People tend to accuse Jews of creating trouble, Bloom says, adding, " Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when

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the inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. .......Eventually, Bloom takes Stephen home with him. He has to break in because he has forgotten the key. After he serves cocoa to Stephen, they talk about science, art, and Judaism. Bloom asks Stephen to stay at his residence, but Stephen rejects his offer and leaves. .......After Bloom goes to bed, Molly remains awake. She muses about Blazes Boylan and her younger days. Her thoughts then shift to food, wine, sex, other married couples (including a husband who goes to bed with his boots on), her singing of Gounod's "Ave Maria," war, soldiers passing in review, bullfighting, and Stephenhow it would be if he did stay at the Bloom home. She also recalls the days when she met Leopold. The passage that ends the novel focuses on acceptance of her husband: the old windows of the posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Themes
Every human goes on a journey, just as the mythical Odysseus (Roman name, Ulysses) did in his heroic adventures in Homers Odyssey. But in the real life of modern man, this journey is generally humdrum and uneventful, as in Joyce's Ulysses, rather than heroic. The novel presents many other themes, or sub-themes. Examples are the following: Infidelity (Molly Bloom and Blazes Boylan) Guilt (Stephen Dedalus and His Mother) Anti-Semitism (The Citizen Insulting Bloom) The Influence of Shakespeare (Dedalus and His Shakespeare Theory) Sexual Temptation (Bloom Ogling Gerty Macdowell and Others) The Cycles of Life From Birth to Death (Mina Purefoy's and the Death of Paddy Dignam) Religion as a Nefarious Influence (Numerous References and Allusions) Camaraderie (Bar Scenes, Bloom and Dedalus)

Dates of Publication
Magazine: Between 1918 and 1920, several installments appeared in The Little Review, a U.S publication, but American authorities banned publication of additional installments, declaring the book obscene. Book: After Sylvia Beach, owner of a Parisian bookstore called Shakespeare & Co., agreed to sponsor publication of the novel, the first copies were placed on sale on February 2, 1922, Joyce's birthday. On August 7, 1934, an American appeals court ruled in favor of publication of the complete novel by Random House.

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.

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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 characters 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. (See the last paragraph of the plot summary for an example.) These thought portrayals expose a characters memories, fantasies, apprehensions, fixations, ambitions, rational and irrational ideas, and so on. In the last chapter of the novel, consisting of eight long paragraphs, Joyce omits punctuation entirely in order to mimic the uninterrupted flow of naked thoughts. Joyce also uses numerous sentences and phrases from Latin, French, German, Spanish, Russian (transliterated), Italian, and other languages. In addition, he uses refined language, vulgar language, slang and demotic dialogue, gibberish, coined words such as noctambules for night walkers (noctural ambulators) and circumjacent for surrounding closely, passages in all-capital letters, unpunctuated sentences, and abbreviations (such as H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K. C. B., M. P, J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S. I. Another technique he uses is to combine two words into one to create a single adjective and sometimes a noun. Examples are the following: dangerouslooking, hocuspocus, fifenotes, jogjaunty, deepmoved, muchtreasured, dogbiscuits, snotgreen, rosegardens, shrilldeep, canarybird, freefly, allimportant, gigglegold, candleflame, and grassplots.He also writes one chapter in the format of a stage play, another in the format of a Roman Catholic catechism, and another in language ranging from Old English to modern English. At times, he includes poetry, like the following triplet written in capital letters: BEHOLD THE MANSION REARED BY DEDAL JACK SEE THE MALT STORED IN MANY A REFLUENT SACK, IN THE PROUD CIRQUE OF JACKJOHN'S BIVOUAC. Repetition also occurs frequently, as in the following passage: Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody. Joyce's bag of tricks also includes the following passage that associates members of a wedding with trees, in response a barroom discussion about the necessity to preserve the forests: The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty DeweyMosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes in the same tone, a dainty MOTIF of plume rose being worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ

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with his wellknown ability and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking arrangement of WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE at the conclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre IN HORTO after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a playful crossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest. 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. But, of course, Joyce's world is mundane Dublin, reductio ad absurdam. These devices also enable Joyce to show the world what a clever fellow he is. However, at times, his language games and obscure allusions, many of which he admittedly designed to confound "the college professors," mar the novel, and many readers abandon it after plowing through a chapter or two.

Is Stream of Consciousness a Flawed Technique?

Stream of consciousness (described above) attempts to present the unedited, uncensored, freeflowing thoughts of a person. However, Joyce and other writers who use this technique do so with forethought and calculation. They are creating the thoughts of fictitious characters, not brain-scanning the thoughts of real humans. The thoughts these writers present to the reader are shaped to the theme of a literary work or the mindset of its characters. Consequently, one may argue, they are not really presenting true stream of consciousness.

Structure
The structure of Ulysses parallels symbolically the structure of Homers 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 Homers work lasts ten years, whereas the journey in Joyces work lasts about 18 hours. The main characters in Ulysses also parallel the main characters in The Odyssey. Thus, Joyces Leopold Bloom becomes Homers 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. Joyces characters are ordinary and unheroic in contrast to Homers extraordinary and heroic characters. For an analysis and summary of Homers Odyssey, click here.

Sources
Besides passages entirely of his own invention, Joyce based the content of Ulysses mainly on episodes from his own life, on episodes in Homers Odyssey, and on Shakespearean characters and dialogue. In terms of style, Joyce imitated the stream-of-consciousness method as pioneered by other writers, notably douard Dujardin (1861-1949).

Assessment of the Novel

Opinions of the novel range across the spectrum. Some readers insist that Ulysses is a superior novel, a tour de force marking a turning point in modern literature. Others insist that it is an inferior novel, an extremely boring work featuring long passages with a chaos of strange words that are a penance to read and a hell to fathom. There can be no gainsaying, though, that Joyce has been highly influential. Through stream of consciousnessand through sometimes manipulation of languagehe allows readers to view the complicated, perplexing, and sometimes irrational workings of the human mind. His display of this technique inspired later writers to use it in their own literary works. Unfortunately, because of its mission and its experimental nature, Ulysses tasks the reader like no other novel before it, making him plod through jungles of obscure symbols, perplexing allusions, and boring portraits of ordinary Dublin life. Admirers of Joyce acknowledge that the novel is difficult. Passages like the following (part of a chapter in which Joyce writes in various idioms that evolved during the development of the English language) make it so:

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A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes, calmly, hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom's wave (her heaving embon) red rose rose slowly sank red rose. Heartbeats: her breath: breath that is life. And all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair. Since its publication, many scholars, distinguished writers, and average readers have exalted Ulysses as a work of enormous significance and brilliance. Probably just as many scholars, distinguished writers, and average readers have dismissed it as an unremittingly dull, tedious, and tiresome worka waste of time. The verdict: The novel needs another century or two to ferment, marinate, or whatever literary works do when they go through the "test of time" (as literary tastes change and standards evolve) to reveal itself in all of its fullness to an unbiased judge. This much can be said for certain about the novel: Except in academia, not many people read Ulysses. Those who do decide to have a go at the thick, allusion-laden, language-bending tome frequently put it down after reading a few chapters, never again to pick it up.

Mockery of Religion
In Ulysses, Joyce relentlessly mocks the Roman Catholic Church and its rites and pokes fun at the Jesuits, an order of Roman Catholic priests who educated him, nurturing his writing talent and sparking his curiosity and imagination. A devout Catholic when he was growing up, Joyce abandoned his faith as a young adult because he felt oppressed by its strict rules of morality and because he resented its influence on Irish society. His ridicule of the Jesuits and his childhood religion, rarely executed with subtlety and nuance, comes across as petty and self-indulgent.

Fascinating Fact
The name Shakespeare occurs 50 times in Ulysses. References to Shakespeare by another name, as well as to his works and style, occur hundreds of other times. It may well be that Joyce wanted to be another Shakespeare in stature. If so, his hope outran his talent.

Study Questions and Essay Topics

Do you agree with some critics that Ulysses is one of the greatest novels ever written? Or do you agree with other critics that it is mostly balderdash? Whatever your view is, write an argumentative essay defending your position. Include in your essay the views of at least three authoritative sources to support your position. In addition, include the views of at least three authoritative sources that hold the opposing position, then attempt to refute their views. What is the most important message in the novel? Write an informative essay explaining the structure of the novel. Write an informative essay comparing and contrasting the events in Joyce's novel with the events in Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses faced censorship when it was published in the U.S. in The Little Review. Would you ever support banning a literary work, a speech, an advertisement, a television program, a movie, etc.? Examples: an advertisement for pornography in a daily newspaper, a scheduled speech at a university that advocates a racist point of view, a TV news program showing terrorists torturing a captive American soldier, an essay published in the U.S. that advocates the violent overthrow of the American government, a top-secret government document that identifies by name covert American intelligence agents in foreign countries, a magazine article that explains in detail how to construct an atomic bomb.

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The Caretaker Summary | Act 1 Summary

The setting for this play is a single room cluttered by junk. The mess includes paint buckets, boxes, vases, a kitchen sink, and a gas stove that doesn't work, with the statue of the Buddha on top of it. A bucket hangs from the ceiling to catch drips when it rains. The room also has two beds. The house is being renovated and is unoccupied except for this room. Aston, a man in his early thirties, lives here. He brings home an old tramp, Davies, who has been fired from a job he held for only a week. Davies was thrown out, because he refused to do the work required of him. He felt that he wasn't being treated in the way he deserved, which seems to be the story of his life. He never gets the respect he feels he deserves. Aston intervened between him and the employer, who was ready to hit Davies, and brought him to this cluttered room. Davies is very sensitive to the possibility that Blacks live next door. Davies complains that he has left a bag of his belongings at the restaurant and that he needs a pair of shoes. He says that he went to a monastery to try to get a donation; but instead of giving him shoes, they gave him a meal and chased him off. Aston has a pair under his bed that he offers, but Davies complains that they don't fit. Aston promises to try to find him another pair. Davies needs to get to Sidcup to get his papers. He says that his real name is Jenkins; Davies is an assumed name. He says he can't get his insurance card stamped, because he doesn't have his papers with his real name on them. There is some indication, later in the story, that he might have stolen the insurance card. Davies says that he has several. Aston offers to let Davies sleep in the second bed, until he is able to make it on his own, and gives him some money. They clear away the accumulated furniture and junk, so Davies can get to the bed. In the morning, Aston asks why he was making groaning and jabbering noises, but Davies insists that he doesn't do that. It must have been the Blacks next door, he says. Aston goes out, leaving Davies with a key to the room and the front door. Alone, Davies explores the contents of the room, boxes and chests. Suddenly, Aston's brother Mick, who is in his early twenties, is in the room. He forces Davies to lie on the floor, while he looks the room over.

Interpretation In his 1960 book review of The Caretaker, fellow English playwright John Arden writes: "Taken purely at its face value this play is a study of the unexpected strength of family ties against an intruder."[7] As Arden states, family relationships are one of the main thematic concerns of the play. Another prevalent theme is the characters' inability to communicate productively with one another.[citation needed] The play depends more on dialogue than on action; however, though there are fleeting moments in which each of them does seem to reach some understanding with the other, more often, they avoid communicating with one another as a result of their own psychological insecurities and self-concerns.
[citation needed]

The theme of isolation appears to result from the characters' inability to communicate with one another, and the characters' own insularity seems to exacerbate their difficulty communicating with others.[citation needed]

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As the characters also engage in deceiving one another and themselves, deception and self-deception are motifs, and certain deceptive phrases and self-deceptive strategies recur as refrains throughout the dialogue. Davies uses an assumed name and has convinced himself that he is really going to resolve his problems relating to his lack of identity papers, even though he appears too lazy to take any such responsibility for his own actions and blames his inaction on everyone but himself. Aston believes that his dream of building a shed will eventually reach fruition, despite his mental disability. Mick believes that his ambitions for a successful career outweigh his responsibility to care for his mentally-damaged brother. In the end however all three men are deceiving themselves. Their lives may continue on beyond the end of the play just as they are at the beginning and throughout it. The deceit and isolation in the play lead to a world where time, place, identity, and language are ambiguous and fluid.[citation needed]