UNIVERSITY OF CHITTAGONG
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
Syllabus for M.A. Final Course in English
Session: 2009-2010
DISTRIBUTION OF MARKS
Total Marks : 600 marks
Written :
500 “
Tutorial :
50 “
Terminal : 25
“
Viva-Voce : 25 “
Course-Eng 501:
Shakespeare
Marks: 100
GROUP-A:
1. Hamlet:MNQI
2. Othello:AA
3. King
Lear:MNQI
GROUP-B:
4. A
Midsummer Night’s Dream:QBM
5. The
Tempest:SB
6. Measure
for Measure:QMB
GROUP-C:
7. King
Henry IV, parts I&II.:MHC
8. Sonnets:TSS
Course-Eng 502
Modern Continental Literature in Translation
Marks: 100
GROUP –A:
1. Baudelaire:MM Selected
Poems (Tr. by Joanna Richardson)
penguin Books.
Spleen (I have more memories than a
thousand years),
Spleen (When, like a lid, the low
and heavy sky),
Correspondences,
The Albatross,
You would be all creation’s
concubine,
The Cat (Come, lovely eat),
The Living Flame,
To a Crcole Woman,
The ghost,
Joyful Death.
2. Rilke:MM Selected
Poems The Duino Elegies: The
First Elegy and the Ninth Elegy
GROUP-B
3. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment:DM
4. Kalfa, A Hunger Artist (Tr. by Willa and Edwin Muir):MHC
GROUP-C
5. Ibsen, A Doll’s House (Tr. Rolf Fjelde): CMA
6. Pirandello. Six Characters in search of
an Author (Tr. By Edward Storer):QMB
Course – Eng 503
English Language Teaching
Marks 100
A. Theories in Second Language Acquisition
1. Nativist theories of SLA:SM
(i) General Characteristics
(ii) Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and
SLA
(iii) A critique of
language-specific nativist theories
2. Environmentalist Theories of SLA:SM
(i)General characteristics
(ii) Schumann’s Pidginization
Hypothesis and Acculturation Model
(iii)A critique of the Pidginization
Hypothesis and Acculturation Model
B. Research & Teaching Methodology:CMA
1. Interlanguage studies
(i) introduction
(ii) Contrastive analysis
(iii) Error analysis
(iv) Performance analysis
2.Explanation for differential success among
second language leaners:
(i) Age
(ii)Aptitude
(iii) Social- psychological factors: Motivation and Attitude
(iv) Personality
(v) Cognitive
(vi) Hemisphere specialization
(vii)
Learning Strategies
(viii)
Other Factors
3.Approach and Methods in Language Teaching
(i)Grammar-translation
Method
(ii)
Communicative Language Teaching
(iii) The
Audiolingual Method
(iv)The
Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching
(v)
Others.
4. Testing and Evaluation
C. Course and Material design:TSS
D. Syntax and morphology
(i) Articles
(ii) Tense
and aspects
(iii)
Prepositions
(iv)
Modals and Conditionals
(v)Affixation
–Derivation and inflections.
E. Discourse Analysis. Pragmatics and practical Stylistics:
MRU
(i) Speech
Acts and Conversational Maxims
(ii) The
analysis of literary discourse
(iii)
Teaching language through literature
Course –Eng 504(A):
Modern American Literature
GROUP-A
1. Whitman: Songs of Myself:TJB
2.Emily Dickinson: Selections:MM
(as in The Norton Anthology of American
Literature, 2 Edition)
3.Robert Frost: Selections: (as in The Norton Anthology of modern poetry
(ed.) Ellman, et. al)
4.William Carlos Williams:
Selections (as in The Norton Anthology of
Modern poetry I (ed.) Ellman, et. Al)
GROUP-B:
5.Melville: Moby Dick.:
6.Twain: The adventures of
Hucklebury Finn:ZC
7. F. Scott Fitzerald: The Great
Gatsby
8. Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
9. Toni Morrison: Beloved
GROUP-C:
10. O’Neill:
The Long Day’s Journey into Night
11. Edward Albee: The Zoo Story:JBS
12. A Miller: Death of a Salesman:RJ
Recommended Reading:
Or
Course- Eng 504(B)
Middle English Literature
Marks 100
Course-Eng 505(A)
Post Colonial and Post Modern Literature
I. Post Colonial Literature
1. Kipling - Kim:
2. Coetzee.J.M. - Life
and Times of Michael K:ZC
3. Chosh. Amitav - Shadow
Lines:ZC
II. Post Modern Literature
4. Vonnegut, Kurt: -Breakfast
of Champions:
5. Kundera, Milan -The
unbearable Lightness of Being:
6. Marquez, - Strange
Pilgrims:MRU
************************************************
A Synopsis of Whole Syllabus
UNIVERSITY OF CHITTAGONG
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
Syllabus for M.A. Final Course in English
Session: 2009-2010
DISTRIBUTION OF MARKS
Total Marks : 600 marks
Written :
500 “
Tutorial : 50
“
Terminal : 25 “
Viva-Voce : 25 “
Course-Eng 501:
Shakespeare
Marks: 100
GROUP-A:
1.
Hamlet:MNQ
The
Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, Claudius's brother
and Prince Hamlet's father, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his
wife Gertrude, the old king's widow
and Prince Hamlet's mother. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned
madness – from overwhelming sorrow to seething rage – and explores themes of
treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption and family.
Characters
1.
Hamlet
2.
Claudius
3. Gertrude
4. Polonius-Lord Chamberlain
5.
Ophelia-Dauther to Polonius
6. Horation-
Friend to Hamlet
7. Laertes-Son to
Polonius
8. Voltimand and
Cornelius-Courtiers
9. Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern-Courtiers, school friend to Hamlet.
10. Osric-a
Courtier
11. Marcellus-an
officer
12. Bernardo-an
officer
13. Francisco-a
soldier
14. Reynaldo-servant
to Polonius
15. Ghost of
Hamlet’s father
16.
Fortinbras-Prince of Norway
17.
Gravediggers-a A sexton, and a clown
2.
Othello:AA
The Tragedy
of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and
based on the Italian short story Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a
disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. The work
revolves around four central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army; his wife, Desdemona;
his lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted ensign, Iago.
Because of its varied and current themes of racism, love, jealousy, and
betrayal, Othello is still often performed in professional
and community theatres alike and has been the basis for numerous operatic,
film, and literary adaptations.
Characters
Othello, the Moor: A general in the Venetian military.
Desdemona, Othello's wife and daughter of Brabantio
Iago, Othello's ensign and Emilia's husband. Antagonist.
Cassio, Othello's lieutenant.
Emilia, Iago's wife and Desdemona's maidservant
Bianca, Cassio's lover
Brabantio, a Venetian senator, Gratiano's brother, and Desdemona's
father
Roderigo, a dissolute Venetian, in love with Desdemona
Duke
of Venice, or the "Doge"
Gratiano, Brabantio's brother
Lodovico, Brabantio's kinsman and Desdemona's cousin
Montano, Othello's Venetian predecessor in the government of
Cyprus
Clown, a servant
Officers,
Gentlemen, Messenger, Herald, Sailor, Attendants, Musicians, etc.
3.
King Lear:MNQI
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare.
The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his
estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery,
bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain,
a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king. It has been widely adapted for the stage and
motion pictures, and the role of Lear has been coveted and played by many of
the world's most accomplished actors.
Characters:
Lear, King of Britain
Goneril (sometimes written Gonerill orGonoril), eldest daughter of Lear
Regan, second daughter of Lear
Duke
of Cornwall, husband to Regan
Earl
of Gloucester (sometimes written
asGloster)
Earl
of Kent, often appearing under the guise
of Caius
Edgar, son of Gloucester
Edmund (sometimes written Edmond), illegitimate son of Gloucester
Oswald, steward to Goneril
Fool, Lear's fool or court jester (not his nephew, he calls
Lear nuncle in jest)
King
of France, suitor and later husband to
Cordelia
Duke
of Burgundy, suitor to Cordelia
Curan, a courtier
Old
man, tenant of Gloucester
A Doctor,
an Officer employed by Edmund, a Gentleman attending on Cordelia, a Herald,
Servants to Cornwall, Knights of Lear's Train, Officers, Messengers, Soldiers,
and Attendants
GROUP-B:
4.
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream:QBM
A Midsummer
Night's Dream is a play by William
Shakespeare. Believed to have
been written between 1590 and 1596, it portrays the events surrounding the
marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta.
These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six
amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit
the forest in which most of the play is set. The play, categorized as a Comedy,
is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed
across the world.
Characters
Theseus – Duke of Athens
Hippolyta – Queen of theAmazons, betrothed to Theseus
Philostrate – Master of the Revels
Egeus – father of Hermia, wants her to marry Demetrius
Hermia – in love with Lysander
Helena – in love with Demetrius
Lysander – in love with Hermia
Demetrius – in love with Hermia at first but later loves Helena
Oberon – Titania's husband and King of the Fairies
Titania – Oberon's wife and Queen of the Fairies
Robin
Goodfellow/Puck – servant to Oberon
Peaseblossom – fairy servant to Titania
Cobweb – fairy servant to Titania
Moth – fairy servant to Titania
Mustardseed – fairy servant to Titania
First
Fairy, Second Fairy
5.
The Tempest:SB
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by
many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a
remote island, where Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful
place using illusion and skilful manipulation. He conjures up a storm, the eponymous
tempest, to lure his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit King Alonso of
Naples to the island. There, his machinations bring about the revelation of
Antonio's low nature, the redemption of the King, and the marriage of Miranda
to Alonso's son, Ferdinand.
Characters:
Prospero, the
main character. The overthrown Duke of Milan. He now lives on an island and has
become a great sorcerer.
Miranda, Prospero's daughter, who then falls in love with the Prince of
Naples, Ferdinand.
Ariel, a mischievous spirit who does Prospero's bidding and is visible
only to him. He became Prospero's "slave" because he was saved by him from being
trapped in a tree by Sycorax.
Caliban, a
villainous island native, son of a witch named Sycorax, who ruled the island before Prospero arrived. He now
works as Prospero's slave but despises
him. Son of Sycorax, sorceress who was put
into exile and transferred to the island.
Alonso, King of Naples
Sebastian, Alonso's treacherous brother.
Antonio, Prospero's brother, who usurped his position as Duke of Milan. He
and Sebastian plot unsuccessfully to kill Alonso and his family so as
to come to the throne.
Ferdinand, Alonso's son. Falls in love with Miranda.
Gonzalo, a kindly Neapolitan courtier, who secretly provided Prospero and Miranda with food, water,
and books when they were pushed out to sea.
Adrian
and Francisco, lords.
Trinculo, the King's jester and friends with Stephano.
Stephano, the King's drunken steward and friend of Trinculo who
tries to help Caliban to overthrow his master
Boatswain
Master
of the ship
Iris, Ceres, and Juno, spirits and goddesses
6.
Measure for Measure:QMB
Measure for
Measure is a play
by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or
1604. It was (and continues to be) classified as comedy, but its mood defies
those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have
labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem
plays. Originally published
in theFirst Folio of 1623 (where it was first labelled as a
comedy), the play's first recorded performance was in 1604. The play deals with
the issues of mercy, justice, and truth and their relationship to pride and
humility: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall".
Characters:
Vincentio, The Duke, who also appears disguised as Friar Lodowick
Angelo, the Deputy, who rules in the Duke's absence
Escalus, an ancient lord
Claudio, a young gentleman
Lucio, a "fantastic", a foppish young nobleman
Two
gentlemen, friends to Lucio
The Provost, who runs the
prison
Thomas, a friar
Isabella, sister to Claudio
Mariana, betrothed to Angelo
Juliet, beloved of Claudio, pregnant with his child
Francisca, a nun.
Mistress
Overdone, a bawd
Peter, a friar
Elbow, a simple constable
Froth, a foolish gentleman of fourscore pound a year
a
clown, called Pompey
Abhorson, an executioner
Barnardine, a dissolute prisoner
a
Justice, friend of Escalus
Varrius (silent role), a friend of the Duke
GROUP-C:
7.
King Henry IV, parts
I&II.:MHC
Henry IV,
Part 1 is a history play by William
Shakespeare, believed to have
been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogydealing
with the successive reigns of Richard
II, Henry IV (two plays), and Henry
V. Henry IV, Part 1 depicts a span of history that begins with Hotspur's
battle at Homildon against the Douglas late in 1402 and ends with the defeat of the rebels at Shrewsbury in the middle of 1403. From the start it has been an extremely
popular play both with the public and the critics.Characters:
Of the
King's party
King Henry the Fourth – King of England; also known as "Bullingbrook"
or "Bolingbroke", after his place of birth in Bolingbroke, Lincolnshire. He is
also called "Lancaster" by Glendower, because he was Duke of Lancaster before becoming king
Henry, Prince of Wales – eldest son of Henry IV; nicknamed "Hal" or
"Harry", and is sometimes called "Harry Monmouth" after his
birthplace
John of Lancaster – represented in the play as the King's second son,
although he was actually the third; called "John" by Hal but has
"Lancaster" for a speech heading (confusingly, since Glendower refers
to Henry IV as "Lancaster")
Earl of Westmorland
Sir Walter Blunt
Rebels
Henry
Percy, Earl of Northumberland
Thomas
Percy, Earl of Worcester – Northumberland's
brother
Henry Percy – Northumberland's son, surnamed Hotspur
Edmund
Mortimer, Earl of March – Hotspur's
brother-in-law and Glendower's son-in-law
Owen
Glendower – leader of the Welsh rebels
Archibald,
Earl of Douglas – leader of the
Scottish rebels
Sir
Richard Vernon
Scroop,
Archbishop of York
Sir
Michael – a friend to the Archbishop of York
Lady Percy – Kate; Hotspur's wife and Mortimer's sister
Lady
Mortimer – Glendower's daughter and Mortimer's wife
Eastcheap
Sir John
Falstaff – a cowardly fat knight who befriends Prince Hal; a
fictional character, he was originally called "Oldcastle" and
distantly based on Sir John Oldcastle.King's Men actors who played the part of Falstaff included John Heminges, John Lowin, and Charles Hart.
Poins – also called Ned and Yedward
Bardolph
Peto
Mistress
Quickly – hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern, where Hal and his friends congregate
Francis – tapster
Vintner – tavern keeper
Gadshill
Two
Carriers
Ostler
Chamberlain
Sheriff
Travellers
Lords,
Officers, Drawers, Messengers, and Attendants
8. Sonnets:TSS
Course-Eng 502
Modern Continental Literature in Translation
Marks: 100
GROUP –A:
1. Baudelaire:MM Selected
Poems (Tr. by Joanna Richardson) penguin
Books.
Spleen (I have more memories than a
thousand years),
Spleen (When, like a lid, the low
and heavy sky),
Correspondences,
The Albatross,
You would be all creation’s
concubine,
The Cat (Come, lovely eat),
The Living Flame,
To a Crcole Woman,
The ghost,
Joyful Death.
2. Rilke:MM Selected
Poems The Duino Elegies: The
First Elegy and the Ninth Elegy
GROUP-B
3. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment:DM
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
It focuses on the mental anguish and moraldilemmas of Rodion
Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulouspawnbroker for her cash.
Characters:
Raskolnikov (Rodion) is the protagonist, and the novel focuses primarily on his
persepective. A 23-year-old man and former student, now destitute, Raskolnikov
is described in the novel as "exceptionally handsome, above the average in
height, slim, well built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair."
Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova variously called
Sonia (Sonya) and Sonechka, is the daughter of a drunk man named Semyon
Zakharovich Marmeladov, whom Raskolnikov meets in a tavern at the beginning of
the novel. She is often characterized as self-sacrificial, shy, and even
innocent despite the fact that she is compelled into prostitution to help her
family.
Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova (Авдотья Романовна Раскольникова) – Raskolnikov's
dominant and sympathetic sister, called Dunya, Dounia or Dunechka for short.
Pulkheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova Raskolnikov's relatively clueless, hopeful and loving mother. Following
Raskolnikov's sentence, she falls ill (mentally and physically) and eventually
dies. She hints in her dying stages that she is slightly more aware of her
son's fate, which was hidden from her by Dunya and Razumikhin.
Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin - Raskolnikov's loyal
friend. In terms of Razumikhin's contribution to Dostoyevsky's anti-radical
thematics, he is intended to represent something of a reconciliation of the
pervasive thematic conflict between faith and reason.
Praskovya Pavlovna Zarnitsyna a sickly girl who had died, and Praskovya Pavlovna had granted him
extensive credit on the basis of this engagement and a promissory note for 115
roubles.
Porfiry Petrovich – The detective in charge of solving the murders of Lizaveta and Alyona
Ivanovna, who, along with Sonya, moves Raskolnikov towards confession.
Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaïlov (Аркадий Иванович Свидригайлов) – Sensual, depraved,
and wealthy former employer and current pursuer of Dunya, Svidrigaïlov is
suspected of multiple acts of murder, and overhears Raskolnikov's confessions
to Sonya.
Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaïlova (Марфа Петровна Свидригайлова) – Arkady
Svidrigaïlov's deceased wife, whom he is suspected of having murdered, and who
he claims has visited him as a ghost. Her bequest of 3,000 rubles to Dunya
allows Dunya to reject Luzhin as a suitor.
Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova (Катерина Ивановна Мармеладова) – Semyon Marmeladov's consumptive and ill-tempered second wife, stepmother to Sonya. She
drives Sonya into prostitution in a fit of rage, but later regrets it, and
beats her children mercilessly, but works ferociously to improve their standard
of living. She is obsessed with demonstrating that slum life is far below her
station. Following Marmeladov's death, she uses Raskolnikov's money to hold a
funeral. She later succumbs to her illness. The character is partially based on Polina Suslova.
Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov (Семён Захарович Мармеладов) – Hopeless drunk who indulges in his own suffering, and father of Sonya.
Marmeladov could be seen as a Russian equivalent of the character of Micawber inCharles Dickens'
novel, David Copperfield.
Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin (Пётр Петрович Лужин) – A well-off lawyer who is
engaged to Raskolnikov's sister Dunya in the beginning of the novel. His
motives for the marriage are rather despicable, as he states more or less that
he chose her since she will be completely beholden to him financially.
Andrey Semyenovich Lebezyatnikov (Андрей Семёнович Лебезятников) – Luzhin's utopian socialist and feministroommate who witnesses his attempt to frame
Sonya and subsequently exposes him
Alyona Ivanovna (Алёна Ивановна) – Suspicious old pawnbroker who
hoards money and is merciless to her patrons. She is Raskolnikov's intended
target, who kills her in the beginning of the book.
Lizaveta Ivanovna (Лизавета Ивановна) – Alyona's handicapped, innocent
and submissive sister. Raskolnikov murders her when she walks in immediately
after Raskolnikov had killed Alyona. Lizaveta was a friend of Sonya.
Zosimov
(Зосимов) – A friend of Razumikhin and a doctor who cared for Raskolnikov
Nastasya Petrovna (Настасья Петровна) – Raskolnikov's landlady's
servant who often brings Raskolnikov food and drink
Nikodim Fomich (Никодим Фомич)– The amiable chief of police
Ilya "Gunpowder" Petrovich (Илья Петрович) – A police official and Fomich's
assistant
Alexander Grigorievich Zamyotov (Александр Григорьевич Заметов) – Head clerk at the
police station and friend to Razumikhin. Raskolnikov arouses Zamyotov's
suspicions by explaining how he, Raskolnikov, would have committed various
crimes, although Zamyotov later apologizes, believing, much to Raskolnikov's
amusement, that it was all a farce to expose how ridiculous the suspicions
were.
Nikolai Dementiev (Николай Дементьев) – A self-sacrificial painter and
sectarian who admits to the murder, since his sect holds it to be supremely
virtuous to suffer for another person's crime
Polina Mikhailovna Marmeladova (Полина Михайловна Мармеладова) – Ten-year-old
adopted daughter of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov and younger stepsister to
Sonya, sometimes known as Polechka
4.
Kalfa, A Hunger Artist (Tr. by Willa and Edwin Muir):MHC
"A Hunger
Artist" ("Ein Hungerkünstler") is a short story by Franz Kafkafirst published in Die neue Rundschau in 1922. The story was also included in
the collection A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler), the last book
Kafka prepared for publication, printed by Verlag Die Schmiedeafter Kafka's death. The protagonist, a hunger artist who experiences the decline in appreciation
of his craft, is an archetypical creation of Kafka: an individual marginalized
and victimized by society at large. The title of the story has been
translated also to "A Fasting Artist" and "A
Starvation Artist".
Major Characters
The Hunger Artist
The
key to the hunger artist’s character lies in his identity as a professional
faster, and at the center of his dedication to the perfection of his art is his
ambition to achieve something that no one has ever achieved before. The hunger
that the hunger artist willfully endures has a double meaning: it refers to his
vocation of fasting as well as his insatiable yearning to defy human
imagination by fasting indefinitely. Driven to renounce the nourishment that
the rest of humanity embraces, the hunger artist literally lives in
self-denial, forsaking comfort, companionship, and, most important, food, all
of which are necessary to survival. Thus, the hunger artist’s devotion to his
art constitutes a thinly masked death wish. Unwilling to respond to the needs
he has as a human being, let alone as a living thing, the hunger artist makes
death the culmination of his life’s work.
The
Impresario
The
impresario is part of a class of people who exploit art and artists for their
own personal gain. Though the impresario is the hunger artist’s “partner in an
unparalleled career,” a description that would suggest camaraderie between the
two men, he behaves for the most part as a parasite would, fattening himself on
the proceeds presumably given to the hunger artist for his performances. The
impresario finds sustenance by capitalizing on another man’s starvation. In
essence, the impresario commodifies the hunger artist’s suffering, when all the
hunger artist aspires to do is be recognized for his efforts and achievements.
The impresario’s career trajectory and business practices, when taken together,
further indicate his parasitic nature. Just as the parasite is most effective
when it does not drain its host completely, the impresario is most successful
for shepherding the hunger artist back from the brink of death at the end of
each performance. Finally, the impresario abandons his host when nourishment is
no longer available.
The Overseer
A circus manager who discovers the hunger artist dying in
his cage. The overseer hears the hunger artist’s final words, but he clearly
does not care whether he lives or dies. As soon as the hunger artist expires,
the overseer callously orders that his body be taken away and replaces him with
a panther.
GROUP-C
5. Ibsen, A Doll’s House (Tr. Rolf Fjelde): CMA
A
Doll's House (Norwegian: Et dukkehjem; also
translated as A Doll House) is a
three-act play in prose by the playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been
published earlier that month.
The
play was controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th
century marriage norms. Michael Meyer argues that the play's theme is not women's rights,
but rather "the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he
or she really is and to strive to become that person." In a speech given to the Norwegian
Women's Rights League in 1898, Ibsen
insisted that he "must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for
the women's rights movement," since he wrote "without any conscious
thought of making propaganda," his task having been "the description of humanity." The Swedish playwright August Strindberg attacked the play in his volume of short stories Getting Married(1884).
Characters:
TORVALD
HELMER.
NORA,
HIS WIFE.
DOCTOR
RANK.
MRS.
LINDE.
NILS
KROGSTAD
HELMER'S
THREE YOUNG CHILDREN.
ANNE,
THEIR NURSE.
A
HOUSEMAID.
A
PORTER.
6. Pirandello. Six Characters in search of
an Author (Tr. By Edward Storer):QMB
Six
Characters in Search of an Author (Italian: Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore) is a 1921 Italian play by Luigi Pirandello,
first performed in that same year. An absurdist metatheatrical play about the relationship between authors, their characters, and
theatre practitioners, it premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome to a mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of
"Manicomio!" ("Madhouse!"), though the reception improved
at subsequent performances — helped when Pirandello provided for the play's
third edition, published in 1925, a foreword clarifying its structure and
ideas.
The
play had its American premiere in 1922 on Broadway at the Princess Theatre, and was performed for over a year off-Broadway at the Martinique Theatre beginning in 1963.
Characters:
The Father - A fattish man in his fifties
with thin, reddish hair, a thick moustache, and piercing, blue oval eyes. Along
with the Step-Daughter, he is the Character who most fervently insists on the
staging of the Characters' drama.
The Step-Daughter - Dashing, impudent, and
beautiful. The Step-Daughter also seeks the realization of the Characters'
drama to revenge herself on her Father. She is seductive, exhibitionistic and
dangerously cruel, performing wildly to lure both the acting company and the
author who would give her life. She is obsessed with the spectacle of the
Characters' drama and that of her own self-image.
The Mother - Dressed in modest black and
a thick widow's veil. The Mother's face is "wax- like," and her eyes
always downcast. She bears the anguish of the Characters' drama, serving as its
horrified spectator. She is the consummate figure of grief. Particularly
agonizing to her is the aloofness of her estranged Son, whom she will approach
to no avail throughout the play.
The Son - A tall, severe man of
twenty-two. The Son appears contemptuous, supercilious, and humiliated by the
other Characters. Having been grown up in the country, he is estranged from his
family and, in his aloofness, will cause the elimination of the step-children
within the Characters' drama. Ironically, he ultimately appear as witness to
the two younger children's demise. His role as a character is his ashamed
refusal to participate in the spectacle. He protests to the Manager that he is
an unrealized character.
The Manager - Somewhat slow-witted and of
fiery temper. The Manager is largely a comic figure who agrees to play the role
of the Characters' author and realizing their drama. Throughout the play, he
remains committed to the vulgar notions of reality that the Characters,
particularly his double the Father, would trouble and bound to the conventions
of the stagecraft.
The Boy - Timid and wretched, the
fourteen-year-old Boy has been driven mute in his humiliation at having to
enter the new household on the Father's charity. As a result, he suffers the
Step-Daughter's contempt. He and the Child are "accessory figures" of
sorts to the Mother, functioning to keep her torture "actual."
Neither exist for themselves. He also wears the black of mourning.
he Child - A four-year-old girl dressed
in white who also does not speak. The Step-Daughter dotes on the Child out of
remorse and pity, particularly in light of what she perceives as the Mother's
neglect. Her role is that of the fallen innocent, the Characters' drama
demanding the elimination of the stepchildren and return to the original
household.
Madame Pace - The Step-Daughter's
exploitative Madame. Pace is a fat, older woman with "puffy oxygenated
hair." She is "rouged and powdered" and wears black silk with a
"comical elegance." A pair of scissors hangs from a silver chain at
her waist. Conjured out of nowhere in Act II, Pace is an apparition, her birth
an exercise in what the Father describes as the magic of the stage. In
translation, she speaks a comically broken English.
Leading Lady - A stereotypical star of the
stage, the Leading Lady bristles at the Characters' experiment. Petty and
egotistical, she will not support their laughter, protests their vulgar stage
tricks, and continually insists that she will deliver a performance superior to
theirs. She plays the role of the Step-Daughter.
Leading Man - Another haughty actor, the
Leading Man plays the role of the Father. At the beginning of the play, he
protests the absurdity of the Pirandello play. He also flirts with the
Step-Daughter.
Second Lady - The Second Lady plays the
role of the Mother.
Juvenile Lead - In the company's production, the Juvenile
Lead plays the role of the Son.
Prompter - The Prompter is an ever-present member of the
Crew who holds the book in the first rehearsal and attempts to record the
Characters' drama in shorthand.
Course – Eng 503
English Language Teaching
Marks 100
A. Theories in Second Language Acquisition
1. Nativist theories of SLA:SM
(i) General Characteristics
(ii) Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and
SLA
(iii) A critique of
language-specific nativist theories
2. Environmentalist Theories of SLA:SM
(i)General characteristics
(ii) Schumann’s Pidginization
Hypothesis and Acculturation Model
(iii)A critique of the Pidginization
Hypothesis and Acculturation Model
B. Research & Teaching Methodology:CMA
1. Interlanguage studies
(i) introduction
(ii) Contrastive analysis
(iii) Error analysis
(iv) Performance analysis
2.Explanation for differential success among
second language leaners:
(i) Age
(ii)Aptitude
(iii) Social- psychological factors: Motivation and Attitude
(iv) Personality
(v) Cognitive
(vi) Hemisphere specialization
(vii)
Learning Strategies
(viii)
Other Factors
3.Approach and Methods in Language Teaching
(i)Grammar-translation
Method
(ii)
Communicative Language Teaching
(iii) The
Audiolingual Method
(iv)The
Oral Approach and Situational Language Teaching
(v) Others.
4. Testing and Evaluation
C. Course and Material design:TSS
D. Syntax and morphology
(i) Articles
(ii) Tense
and aspects
(iii)
Prepositions
(iv) Modals
and Conditionals
(v)Affixation
–Derivation and inflections.
E. Discourse Analysis. Pragmatics and practical Stylistics:
MRU
(i) Speech
Acts and Conversational Maxims
(ii) The
analysis of literary discourse
(iii)
Teaching language through literature
Course –Eng 504(A):
Modern American Literature
GROUP-A
1. Whitman: Songs of Myself:TJB
2.Emily Dickinson: Selections:MM (as
in The Norton Anthology of American
Literature, 2 Edition)
3.Robert Frost: Selections: (as in The Norton Anthology of modern poetry
(ed.) Ellman, et. al)
4.William Carlos Williams:
Selections (as in The Norton Anthology of
Modern poetry I (ed.) Ellman, et. Al)
GROUP-B:
5.Melville: Moby Dick.:
Moby-Dick;
or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville,
first published in 1851. It is considered to be one of the Great American Novels and a treasure of world literature. The
story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his
voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded byCaptain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this
voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In
a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg,
which now drives Ahab to take revenge.
In Moby-Dick, Melville
employs stylized language, symbolism,
and themetaphor to explore numerous
complex themes. Through the journey of the main characters, the concepts of
class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all
examined, as the main characters speculate upon their personal beliefs and
their places in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his
descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the
narrative along with Shakespearean literary devices,
such as stage directions,
extended soliloquies, and asides. The book portrays destructive obsession and monomania, as
well as the assumption of anthropomorphism—projecting human instincts,
characteristics and motivations onto animals. Moby Dick is ruthless in
attacking the sailors who attempt to hunt and kill him, but it is Ahab who
invests Moby Dick's natural instincts with malignant and evil intentions. In
fact, it is not the whale but the crippled Ahab who alone possesses this
characteristic.
Moby-Dick has been classified as American Romanticism. It
was first published by Richard Bentley in London on October 18, 1851, in anexpurgated three-volume edition
titled The Whale, and
weeks later as a single volume, by New York City publisher Harper and Brothers as Moby-Dick; or,
The Whale on November 14, 1851. The book initially received
mixed reviews, but Moby-Dick is now considered part of the Western canon, and at the center of the canon of American novels.
"Moby-Dick"
begins with the line "Call me Ishmael."
According to the American Book Review's rating in 2011, this is one of the most
recognizable opening lines in Western literature.
Characters:
Ishmael
Elijah
Ahab
Captain
Boomer
Moby
Dick
Mates
Starbuck
Stubb
Flask
Harpooneers
Queequeg
Tashtego
Daggoo
Fedallah
Pip
Dough Boy
The crew as a
whole
6.Twain: The adventures of
Hucklebury Finn:ZC
Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent
editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December
1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels,
the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in thevernacular, characterized by local
color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry
"Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer.
The
book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before
the work was published,Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes,
particularly racism.
Perennially
popular with readers, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn has also been the
continued object of study by serious literary critics since its publication. It
was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more
controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial
stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger",
despite strong arguments that the protagonist, and the tenor of the book, is
anti-racist.
Characters:
Huckleberry Finn, a boy about thirteen or fourteen.
He has been brought up by his father, the town drunk, and has a hard time
fitting into society.
Widow
Douglas is the kind old lady who has taken him in after he and Tom come into
some money. She tries her best to civilize Huck, believing it is her Christian duty.
The
widow’s sister, a tough old spinster called Miss Watson, also lives with them.
She is pretty hard on Huck, causing him to resent her a good deal. Samuel Clemens may have drawn inspiration for her from several people he
knew in his life.
Jim, the widow's
big, mild-mannered slave to whom Huck becomes very close in the novel.
Tom Sawyer, Huck’s friend, the main character of
other Twain novels and the leader of the town boys in adventures, is "the
best fighter and the smartest kid in town".
Huck’s
father, "Pap" Finn, is the town drunk. He is often angry at Huck and
resents him getting any kind of education.
Mrs.
Judith Loftus seemingly plays a small part in the novel — being the kind
and perceptive woman whom Huck talks to in order to find out about the search
for Jim — but many critics believe her to be the best female character in
the novel.
The
Grangerfords, the prominent family of Col. Grangerford, takes Huck in until
most of them are killed in a feud with another family.
After the
Grangerfords, Huck and Jim take aboard two con artists who call themselves the
Duke and the King.
Joanna,
Mary Jane and Susan are the three young women whose wealthy uncle and caretaker
recently died.
When Huck
goes after Jim, he meets Tom's Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas Phelps. She is a
loving, but high-strung lady, and he a plodding old man.
Many
other characters play important but minimal roles in the many episodes that
make up the novel. They include slaves owned by the various families they meet,
supporting townspeople, rafts-men, a doctor and a steamboat captain.
7. F. Scott Fitzerald: The Great
Gatsby
The
Great Gatsby is a novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The story takes place in 1922, during the Roaring Twenties,
the post-World War I (WWI) prosperous
time in the United States.
Described as the "ironic tale of life on Long Island at a time when gin was the national drink and sex the
national obsession," it received critical acclaim. In it Mr. Fitzgerald was at
his best...his "ability to catch the flavor of a period, the fragrance of
a night, a snatch of old song". The book is widely regarded as a "Great American Novel"
and a literary classic, capturing the essence of an era and the post-war
"carefree madness" of a nation hungry for life. The Modern Library named it the second best English language novel of the 20th Century.
In a
1924 letter, Fitzgerald said, "the burden of The Great Gatsby was the loss of those illusions that give such color to the
world that you don't care whether things are true or false as long as they
partake of the magical glory."
Characters
Nick Carraway - The novel’s narrator, Nick
is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in
World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest,
tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant
for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of
Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his
next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he
facilitates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick’s eyes; his
thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.
Jay Gatsby - The title character and
protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a
Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every
Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he
made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born
James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him
dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. When he met Daisy while
training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her. Nick also
learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was
willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win
Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose
extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him
“great” nonetheless.
Daisy Buchanan - Nick’s cousin, and the woman
Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted
by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised
to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a
wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy
decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy
lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long
Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask
her pain at her husband’s constant infidelity.
Tom Buchanan - Daisy’s immensely wealthy
husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and
hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical
bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even
considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around
him. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but
when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes
outraged and forces a confrontation.
Jordan Baker - Daisy’s friend, a woman with
whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A
competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the
1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also
dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and
continually bends the truth.
Myrtle Wilson - Tom’s lover, whose lifeless
husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself
possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her
situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere
object of his desire.
George Wilson - Myrtle’s husband, the
lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of
ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with
Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable
to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited
love for women who love Tom.
Owl Eyes - The eccentric, bespectacled
drunk whom Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby’s mansion. Nick
finds Owl Eyes looking through Gatsby’s library, astonished that the books are
real.
Klipspringer - The shallow freeloader who seems almost to
live at Gatsby’s mansion, taking advantage of his host’s money. As soon as
Gatsby dies, Klipspringer disappears—he does not attend the funeral, but he
does call Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that he left at Gatsby’s mansion.
Meyer Wolfsheim - Gatsby’s friend, a prominent figure in
organized crime. Before the events of the novel take place, Wolfsheim helped
Gatsby to make his fortune bootlegging illegal liquor. His continued
acquaintance with Gatsby suggests that Gatsby is still involved in illegal
business.
8. Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms is a novel written by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian
campaign of World War I. The
book, published in 1929, is afirst-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as a Lieutenant("Tenente")
in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by
16th-century English dramatist George Peele.
A Farewell to Arms focuses on a romance between Henry and a British nurse,
Catherine Barkley, against the backdrop of World War I, cynical soldiers,
fighting and the displacement of populations. The publication of this, Hemingway's
bleakest novel, cemented his stature as a modern American writer, became his first best-seller, and is described by
biographer Michael Reynolds as "the premier American war novel from that
debacle [World War I]".
The novel was first adapted to stage by Laurence Stallings in 1930, then to film in
1932, with a 1957
remake.
Characters
Lieutenant Frederic Henry – An American who
volunteers for the Italian ambulance corps before the United States joins the
war. Various Italian characters also refer to him as “Tenente” (Lieutenant) or
“Federico” (Frederic). Henry is a classic Hemingway hero in that he is a stoic
who does his duty without complaint. Yet Henry also undergoes tremendous
development through the course of the novel. At the beginning of the novel, he
has never experienced true loss, believes that war is dreadful but necessary,
has a lust for adventure, drinking, and women, and sees Catherineas just another diversion.
As the stakes of the war intensify, however, he becomes deeply pessimistic
about the war and realizes that his love for Catherine is the only thing he is
willing to commit himself to.
Catherine Barkley – An English nurse in
Italy, she bears the spiritual scars of having lost her fiancé in the Battle of
the Somme. When she meets Henry,
she is ready to throw herself into a new relationship in order to escape the
loss of the old one, enlisting Henry to pretend that they are deeply in love
almost as soon as they meet. Emotionally damaged, she can never bring herself
to marry Henry, but wants to be with him in an idealized union apart from the
rest of the world. Through the constant understatements and deprecating humor
in her dialogue, even at moments of extreme danger such as the labor that goes
wrong, she reveals herself to be a stoic match for Henry, the female side of
the Hemingway hero, who does much and says little.
Rinaldi – A skilled surgeon, ladies’ man, and Henry’s best friend in the Italian
Army. His boastful rambunctious banter provides a counterpoint to Henry’s
reserved stoicism.
Helen Ferguson – An English nurse’s
aide and close friend to Catherine.
As Catherine and Henry’s
love affair becomes more consuming, Helen becomes concerned for her friend’s
emotional well-being. Though she is confident and competent, Helen is also
lonely.
The Priest – A military clergyman from a peasant community in northern
Italy. He endures endless jibes from the soldiers about his celibacy, but with
good humor. He and Henry have
several conversations about manhood, religion, and values.
The Major – Another officer serving in the town of Gorizia, he
delights in taunting the priest,
who he thinks is pathetic for not sleeping with women.
Count Greffi – A 94-year-old former diplomat, he is a father figure to Henry. He beats Henry at billiards
and engages him in a philosophical conversation about love and war.
Dr. Valentini – A capable, boisterous doctor who operates on Henry’s leg, providing a contrast
with the timid trio of doctors who wanted to wait six months before operating.
Ettore Moretti – A decorated
Italian-American war hero whom Henry finds
tedious.
The American Soldier – A fellow American
serving in the Italian army who purposely tries to magnify the severity of a
hernia he has in order to get out of combat.
Gordini, Passini, Manera, and Gavuzzi – Ambulance
drivers under Henry‘scommand.
Mrs. Walker – An overly anxious nurse at the hospital in Milan where Henry is taken to recuperate
from his injury.
Miss Gage – A young nurse at the hospital in Milan who is fond of Henry.
Miss Van Campen – The head nurse of the
hospital. She and Henry dislike
each other.
The Porter – An underling at the hospital. He works for tips.
The Barber – Hired by the Porter to
shave Henry, he nearly
ends up cutting Henry’s throat because he thinks Henry is an Austrian.
Crowell Rodgers – A young American
soldier who has injured himself while trying to remove the cap of a trench
mortar shell to keep as a souvenir.
Mr. Meyers – A shady fixer of horse races in Milan.
Gino – A patriotic Italian youth.
Bonello – A bloodthirsty ambulance driver who finishes off a man
that Henryhas shot,
and then jokes about it.
Aymo – An ambulance driver who is killed by friendly fire from
the panicked Italian rear guard during a disastrous retreat.
Piani – Another ambulance driver.
The Sergeants – Given a lift by Bonello during
the Italian retreat, they refuse to help when the vehicles become stuck. Henry and Bonello shoot one of
them.
The Lieutenant-Colonel – A dignified officer
who is executed by military police, in front of Henry, for some imagined treachery or cowardice during
the retreat.
The Proprietor – A man who serves Henry wine and then offers to
let Henry, clearly a fugitive at that time, hide in his house.
Ralph Simmons – An American opera singer, Simmons helps Henry after Henry
deserts from the Italian army.
Emilio – The bartender at
the hotel in Stresa where Henry is
reunited withCatherine. He
helps Henry and Catherine escape the military police.
Mr. and Mrs. Guttingen – The kind proprietors
of the chalet where Henry andCatherine live in Switzerland.
9. Toni Morrison: Beloved
Beloved is a novel by the American writer Toni Morrison,
published in 1987. Set during 1873 after the American Civil War (1861–1865), it is inspired by the story of an
African-American slave, Margaret Garner, who temporarily escaped slavery
during 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, afree state. A
posse arrived to retrieve her and her children under theFugitive Slave Act of 1850,
which gave slave owners the right to pursue slaves across state borders.
Margaret killed her two-year-old daughter rather than allow her to be
recaptured.
Beloved's main character, Sethe, kills her daughter and tries to kill
her other three children when a posse arrives in Ohio to return them to Sweet
Home, the plantation in Kentucky from which Sethe recently fled. A woman presumed
to be her daughter, called Beloved, returns years later to haunt Sethe's home
at 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati. The story opens with an introduction to the
ghost: "124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom."
The
novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. It was adapted during 1998 into a movie of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey. During 2006 a New York Times survey of writers
and literary critics ranked it as the best work of American fiction of the past
25 years.
The
book's epigraph reads "Sixty Million and more," dedicated to the
Africans and their descendants who died as a result of the Atlantic slave trade.
Characters:
Sethe - Sethe, the protagonist of Beloved, is a proud and independent woman who is
extremely devoted to her children. Though she barely knew her own mother,
Sethe’s motherly instincts are her most striking characteristic. Unwilling to
relinquish her children to the physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual
trauma she endured as a slave at Sweet Home, she attempts to murder them in an
act of motherly love and protection. She remains haunted by this and other
scarring events in her past, which she tries, in vain, to repress.
Denver - Sethe’s youngest child,
Denver is the most dynamic character in the novel. Though intelligent,
introspective, and sensitive, Denver has been stunted in her emotional growth
by years of relative isolation. Beloved’s increasing malevolence, however,
forces Denver to overcome her fear of the world beyond 124 and seek help from
the community. Her foray out into the town and her attempts to find permanent
work and possibly attend college mark the beginning of her fight for
independence and self-possession
Beloved - Beloved’s identity is
mysterious. The novel provides evidence that she could be an ordinary woman
traumatized by years of captivity, the ghost of Sethe’s mother, or, most
convincingly, the embodied spirit of Sethe’s murdered daughter. On an
allegorical level, Beloved represents the inescapable, horrible past of slavery
returned to haunt the present. Her presence, which grows increasingly
malevolent and parasitic as the novel progresses, ultimately serves as a
catalyst for Sethe’s, Paul D’s, and Denver’s respective processes of emotional
growth.
Paul D - The physical and emotional
brutality suffered by Paul D at Sweet Home and as part of a chain gang has
caused him to bury his feelings in the “rusted tobacco tin” of his heart. He
represses his painful memories and believes that the key to survival is not
becoming too attached to anything. At the same time, he seems to incite the
opening up of others’ hearts, and women in particular tend to confide in him.
Sethe welcomes him to 124, where he becomes her lover and the object of
Denver’s and Beloved’s jealousy. Though his union with Sethe provides him with
stability and allows him to come to terms with his past, Paul D continues to
doubt fundamental aspects of his identity, such as the source of his manhood
and his value as a person.
Baby Suggs - After Halle buys his mother,
Baby Suggs, her freedom, she travels to Cincinnati, where she becomes a source
of emotional and spiritual inspiration for the city’s black residents. She
holds religious gatherings at a place called the Clearing, where she teaches
her followers to love their voices, bodies, and minds. However, after Sethe’s
act of infanticide, Baby Suggs stops preaching and retreats to a sickbed to
die. Even so, Baby Suggs continues to be a source of inspiration long after her
death: in Part Three her memory motivates Denver to leave 124 and find help. It
is partially out of respect for Baby Suggs that the community responds to
Denver’s requests for support.
Stamp Paid - Like Baby Suggs, Stamp Paid
is considered by the community to be a figure of salvation, and he is welcomed
at every door in town. An agent of the Underground Railroad, he helps Sethe to
freedom and later saves Denver’s life. A grave sacrifice he made during his
enslavement has caused him to consider his emotional and moral debts to be paid
off for the rest of his life, which is why he decided to rename himself “Stamp
Paid.” Yet by the end of the book he realizes that he may still owe protection
and care to the residents of 124. Angered by the community’s neglect of Sethe,
Denver, and Paul D, Stamp begins to question the nature of a community’s
obligations to its members.
schoolteacher - Following Mr. Garner’s
death, schoolteacher takes charge of Sweet Home. Cold, sadistic, and vehemently
racist, schoolteacher replaces what he views as Garner’s too-soft approach with
an oppressive regime of rigid rules and punishment on the plantation.
Schoolteacher’s own habits are extremely ascetic: he eats little, sleeps less,
and works hard. His most insidious form of oppression is his “scientific”
scrutiny of the slaves, which involves asking questions, taking physical
measurements, and teaching lessons to his white pupils on the slaves’ “animal
characteristics.” The lower-case s of schoolteacher’s appellation may have an ironic meaning:
although he enjoys a position of extreme power over the slaves, they attribute
no worth to him.
Halle - Sethe’s husband and Baby
Suggs’s son, Halle is generous, kind, and sincere. He is very much alert to the
hypocrisies of the Garners’ “benevolent” form of slaveholding. Halle eventually
goes mad, presumably after witnessing schoolteacher’s nephews’ violation of
Sethe.
Lady Jones - Lady Jones, a light-skinned
black woman who loathes her blond hair, is convinced that everyone despises her
for being a woman of mixed race. Despite her feelings of alienation, she
maintains a strong sense of community obligation and teaches the
underprivileged children of Cincinnati in her home. She is skeptical of the
supernatural dimensions of Denver’s plea for assistance, but she nevertheless
helps to organize the community’s delivery of food to Sethe’s plagued
household.
Ella - Ella worked with Stamp Paid
on the Underground Railroad. Traumatized by the sexual brutality of a white
father and son who once held her captive, she believes, like Sethe, that the
past is best left buried. When it surfaces in the form of Beloved, Ella
organizes the women of the community to exorcise Beloved from 124.
Mr. and Mrs.
Garner - Mr.
and Mrs. Garner are the comparatively benevolent owners of Sweet Home. The
events at Sweet Home reveal, however, that the idea of benevolent slavery is a
contradiction in terms. The Garners’ paternalism and condescension are simply
watered-down versions of schoolteacher’s vicious racism.
Mr. and Miss
Bodwin -
Siblings Mr. and Miss Bodwin are white abolitionists who have played an active
role in winning Sethe’s freedom. Yet there is something disconcerting about the
Bodwins’ politics. Mr. Bodwin longs a little too eagerly for the “heady days”
of abolitionism, and Miss Bodwin demonstrates a condescending desire to
“experiment” on Denver by sending her to Oberlin College. The distasteful
figurine Denver sees in the Bodwins’ house, portraying a slave and displaying
the message “At Yo’ Service,” marks the limits and ironies of white involvement
in the struggle for racial equality. Nevertheless, the siblings are motivated
by good intentions, believing that “human life is holy, all of it.”
Amy Denver - A nurturing and
compassionate girl who works as an indentured servant, Amy is young, flighty,
talkative, and idealistic. She helps Sethe when she is ill during her escape
from Sweet Home, and when she sees Sethe’s wounds from being whipped, Amy says
that they resemble a tree. She later delivers baby Denver, whom Sethe names
after her.
Paul A, Paul
F, and Sixo -
Paul A and Paul F are the brothers of Paul D. They were slaves at Sweet Home
with him, Halle, Sethe, and, earlier, Baby Suggs. Sixo is another fellow slave.
Sixo and Paul A die during the escape from the plantation.
GROUP-C:
10.
O’Neill: The Long Day’s Journey
into Night
Long Day's
Journey into Night is a drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1941–42 but only published in 1956. The
play is widely considered to be his masterwork. O'Neill posthumously received
the 1957 Pulitzer
Prize for Drama for the work.
Characters:
James Tyrone,
Sr.
Mary Cavan Tyrone
James “Jamie”, Jr.
Edmund
Cathleen
Eugene Tyrone
Bridget
McGuire
Shaughnessy
Harker
Doctor Hardy
Smythe
The mistress
Mary's father
James's parents and siblings
11. Edward Albee: The Zoo Story:JBS
The
Zoo Story, originally titled Peter and Jerry,
is a one-act play by American playwright Edward Albee. His first play, it was written in 1958
and completed in just three weeks. The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness,
miscommunication as anathematization, social disparity and dehumanization in a
commercial world.
Initially
the play was rejected by New York producers. Albee first had it staged in
Europe, premiering in West Berlin at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt on September 28,
1959. In its first American staging, it was performed by the Provincetown Playhouse in 1960 and paired withSamuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. In this first American production, Peter and Jerry were
played byWilliam Daniels and George Maharis, respectively.
Characters:
Jerry
Peter
12. A Miller: Death of a Salesman:RJ
It was the
recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer
Prize for Drama and Tony Award
for Best Play. The play
premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742
performances, and has been revived on Broadway four times, winning three Tony
Awards for Best Revival.
Characters
William
"Willy" Loman: The salesman. He is 63 years old and very unstable,
tending to imagine events from the past as if they are real. He vacillates
between different perceptions of his life. Willy seems childlike and relies on
others for support. His first name, Willy, reflects this childlike aspect as
well as sounding like the question "Will he?" His last name gives the
feel of Willy's being a "low man," someone low on the social ladder
and unlikely to succeed; however, this popular interpretation of his last name
has been dismissed by Miller.
Linda
Loman:
Willy's wife. Linda is passively supportive and docile when Willy talks
unrealistically about hopes for the future, although she seems to have a good
knowledge of what is really going on. She chides her sons, particularly Happy,
for not helping Willy more, and supports Willy lovingly, despite the fact that
Willy sometimes treats her poorly, ignoring her opinions over those of others.
She is the first to realize Willy is contemplating suicide at the beginning of
the play, and urges Biff to make something of himself, while expecting Happy to
help Biff do so.
Biff
Loman:
Willy's older son. Biff was a football star with lots of potential in high
school, but failed math his senior year and dropped out of summer school due to
seeing Willy with another woman while visiting him in Boston. He goes between
going home to try to fulfill Willy's dream for him to be a businessman and
ignoring his father and going out West to be a farmhand where he is happiest.
He likes being outdoors and working with his hands yet wants to do something
worthwhile so Willy will be proud. Biff steals because he wants evidence of
success, even if it is false evidence, but overall Biff remains a realist, and
informs Willy that he is just a normal guy, and will not be a great man.
Harold
"Happy" Loman: Willy's younger son. He's lived in the shadow of his older
brother Biff most of his life and seems to be almost ignored, but he still
tries to be supportive towards his family. He has a very restless lifestyle as
a womanizer and dreams of moving beyond his current job as an assistant to the
assistant buyer at the local store, but is unfortunately willing to cheat a
little in order to do so, by taking bribes. He is always looking for approval
from his parents, but rarely gets any, and he even goes as far as to make
things up just for attention, such as telling his parents he is going to get
married. He tries often to keep his family's perceptions of each other positive
or "happy" by defending each of them during their many arguments, but
still has the most turbulent relationship with Linda, who looks down on him for
his lifestyle and apparent cheapness, despite him giving them money.
Charley: Willy's wisecracking yet
understanding neighbor. He pities Willy and frequently lends him money and
comes over to play cards with Willy, although Willy often treats him poorly.
Willy is jealous of him because his son is more successful than Willy's.
Charley offers Willy a job many times during visits to his office, yet Willy
declines every time, even after he loses his job as a salesman.
Bernard: Charley's son. In Willy's
flashbacks, he is a nerd, and Willy forces him to give Biff test answers. He
worships Biff and does anything for him. Later, he is a very successful lawyer,
married, and expecting a second son. These successes are of the very kind that
Willy wants for his sons, and in particular, Biff, making him contemplate where
he had gone wrong as a father.
Uncle
Ben:
Willy's older brother who became a diamond tycoon after a detour to Africa. He
is dead but Willy frequently speaks to him in his hallucinations of the past.
Ben frequently boasts, "when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and
when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich." He is Willy's
role model, although he is much older and has no real relationship with Willy,
preferring to assert his superiority over his younger brother. He represents
Willy's idea of the American Dream success story, and is shown coming by the Lomans' house
while on business trips to share stories.
Ms.
Francis: A
woman with whom Willy cheated on Linda.
Howard
Wagner:
Willy's boss. He was named by Willy, and yet he sees Willy as a liability for
the company and lets him go, ignoring all the years that Willy has given to the
company. Howard is extremely proud of his wealth, which is manifested in his
recording machine, and his family.
Jenny: Charley's secretary.
Stanley: A waiter at the restaurant who seems to be friends or
acquainted with Happy.
Miss
Forsythe: A call girl (prostitute) whom
Happy picks up at the restaurant. She is very pretty and claims she was on
several magazine covers. Happy lies to her, making himself and Biff look like
they are important and successful. (Happy claims that he attended West Point
and that Biff is a star football player.)
Letta: Miss Forsythe's friend; also a call girl.
Or
Course- Eng 504(B)
Middle English Literature
Marks 100
Course-Eng 505(A)
Post Colonial and Post Modern Literature
I. Post Colonial Literature
1. Kipling - Kim:
Kim is a picaresque novel by Nobel Prize-winning
English author Rudyard Kipling.
It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book
form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The story unfolds against the backdrop of The Great Game,
the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. It is set
after the Second Afghan War which ended in 1881, but before the Third, probably
in the period 1893–98. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of the
people, culture, and varied religions of India. "The book presents a vivid
picture of India, its teeming populations, religions, and superstitions, and
the life of the bazaars and the road."
In
1998, the Modern Library ranked Kim #78 on its list of the 100 best
English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel."
Characters:
Kimball
"Kim" O'Hara – is an orphan son
of an Irish soldier, the protagonist; "A poor white, the poorest of the
poor"
Teshoo
Lama – a Tibetan Lama, the former abbot of the Such-zen
monastery in the western Himalayas, on a spiritual journey
Colonel
Creighton – British Army officer, ethnologist and spy
Hurree
Chunder Mookherjee (Hurree Babu,
also the Babu) – a Bengali intelligence
operative working for the British; Kim's direct superior
the Woman of Shamlegh (Lispeth) who helps Kim and the Lama to evade the Russian
spies and return to the plains
Reverend
Arthur Bennett – the Church of
England chaplain of the Mavericks, the Irish regiment to which Kim's father
belonged
Father
Victor – the Roman Catholic chaplain of the Mavericks
Huneefa – a sorceress who performs a devil invocation ritual to
protect Kim
E.23 – a spy for the British whom Kim helps avoid capture
2. Coetzee.J.M. - Life
and Times of Michael K:ZC
Life &
Times of Michael K is a 1983 novel by South African-born writerJ. M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel
Prize in Literature for the year 2003. The book itself won the Booker Prize for 1983. The novel is a story of hare lipped, simple gardener Michael K, who makes an arduous journey
fromcivil war-ridden urban South Africa to his mother's rural birthplace,
duringapartheid era, in the 1970-80s.
Characters:
Michael
K (K)
Anna
K
The
Medical Officer
3. Chosh. Amitav - Shadow
Lines:ZC
The
Shadow Lines (1988) is a Sahitya Akademi Award-winning
novelby Indian-Bengali writer Amitav Ghosh. It
is a book that captures perspective of time and events, of lines that bring
people together and hold them apart, lines that are clearly visible from one
perspective and nonexistent from another. Lines that exist in the memory of
one, and therefore in another's imagination. A narrative built out of an
intricate, constantly crisscrossing web of memories of many people, it never
pretends to tell a story. Rather it invites the reader to invent one, out of
the memories of those involved, memories that hold mirrors of differing shades
to the same experience.
The
novel is set against the backdrop of historical events like Swadeshi movement, Second World War, Partition of India and Communal riots of 1963-64
in Dhaka and Calcutta.
The
novel brought its author the 1989 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, by the Sahitya Akademi,
India's National Academy of Letters.
·
Narrator – The
protagonist is a middle class boy who grows up in a middle-class family.
·
Tridib – He was the
son of Mayadebi, and so by relation he was the second uncle of Narrator.
·
Grandmother of
Narrator (Tha'mma) – She is the headmistress of girls school in Calcutta. She
is very strict, disciplined, hardworking, mentally strong and patient lady.
·
Ila – She is the
cousin of narrator. She lives in Stockwell, London. She is very good looking.
·
May – She is the
daughter of Prices family.
·
Nick – He is a good
looking blonde having long hair and wants to become a Chartered Accountant.In
the course of the novel he marries Ila.
II. Post Modern Literature
4. Vonnegut, Kurt: -Breakfast
of Champions:
Breakfast
of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a 1973 novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. Set in the fictional town of Midland City, it is the
story of "two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was
dying fast." One of these men, Dwayne Hoover, is a normal-looking but deeply
deranged Pontiac dealer and Burger Cheffranchise owner who becomes obsessed with the writings of the
other man, Kilgore
Trout, taking them for
literal truth. Trout, a largely unknownpulp science fiction writer who has appeared in several other
Vonnegut novels, looks like a crazy old man but is in fact relatively sane. As
the novel opens, Trout journeys toward Midland City to appear at a convention
where he is destined to meet Dwayne Hoover and unwittingly inspire him to run amok.
Characters:
Abe Cohen
The jeweler in
the cocktail lounge of the new Holiday Inn. When he sees Mary Alice Miller walk
through, he despises her "sexlessness and innocence and empty mind"
and says, "Pure tuna fish!"
Andy Lieber
The driver of the
Ford Galaxie in which Kilgore Trout hitchhikes. He is a
thirty-two year old, white, overweight traveling salesman, "obviously a
happy man" and a crazy driver. He has averaged twenty-two orgasms per
month over the past year, "far above the national average."
Bill
Bill is Kilgore Trout's parakeet.
Trout thinks that Bill will die a few moments before he does, and confides in
Bill that humanity deserves to die horribly.
In Chapter 3, there is an important
interaction between Trout and Bill, in which Trout opens the parakeet's cage so
Bill can fly to the window. Bill puts his shoulder against the glass, but when
Trout opens the window, Bill is scared and flies back into his cage.
Beatrice Keedsler
The Gothic novelist who attends the
arts festival in Midland City. In Chapter 18, she is introduced as she enters
the new Holiday Inn cocktail lounge with Rabo Karabekian. She grew up in
Midland City, and says she was "petrified of coming home after all these
years."
Bonnie MacMahon
The white cocktail waitress who
serves Dwayne Hoover at the new Holiday Inn cocktail lounge. They are longtime
acquaintances, and they have bought nine Pontiacs from him over the past
sixteen years. Bonnie makes the same joke every time she serves a customer a
martini: "Breakfast of Champions." She wears "octagonal, rimless
trifocals," and is "a horse-faced woman forty-two years old."
Her two goals in life are to earn
back all the money her husband lost by investing in a car wash, and to get
steel-belted radial tires for the front wheels of her car.
Bunny Hoover
Dwayne Hoover's homosexual son, who
plays the piano in the cocktail lounge of the new Holiday Inn. His real name is
George. He only eats raw fruits and vegetables, avoids the sunshine, and has no
"friends or lovers or pets." He lives on Skid Row, and his window
looks out to the old Opera House. He practices Transcendental Meditation, which
he learned from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It allows him to remove himself mentally
while he is playing the piano. When he told his father he wished he were a
woman, he was sent away to military school when he was only 10 years old. There
he had "eight years of uninterrupted sports, buggery and Fascism."
Celia Hoover
Dwayne's wife, who has committed
suicide by eating Drano. The description of her death uses the theme of humans
as machines: "Celia became a small volcano, since she was composed of the
same sorts of substances which commonly clogged drains."
She is likened to the narrator's
mother in Chapter 16, because both are "crazy as a bedbug,"
"beautiful in exotic ways," and both committed suicide. Also, neither
woman could stand to have her picture taken.
Cyprian Ukwende
The black intern at the County
Hospital. He earned a medical degree at Harvard and has been in Midland City
for a week. He is an Indaro, a Nigerian, an identity trait that is emphasized
each time he is mentioned in the story. He is pointedly different from American
blacks, since his relatives were not slaves and he feels "kinship only
with Indaros."
We are first introduced to him in
Chapter 6, because he is the only person with Mary Young while she dies. He is
staying in the new Holiday Inn, owned in part by Dwayne Hoover, until he can
find a cheap apartment in which to live. He also needs a woman, because he is
"so full of lust and jism all the time." In Chapter 11 we learn that
though he appears impassive, "behind his mask was a young man in the
terminal stages of nostalgia and lover's nuts."
Delmore Skag
A character in
one of Trout's novels. He is a scientist who discovers a way to reproduce
himself by mixing cells from his right hand with chicken soup. He hoped to
"force his country into making laws against excessively large
families," but instead, after he fathers hundreds and hundreds of
children, America passes laws against "possession by unmarried persons of
chicken soup."
Don Breedlove
A gas-conversion unit installer,
and the only person whom Dwayne hurt who deserved it, according to the
narrator. He raped Patty Keene in the parking lot of George Hickman Bannister
Memorial Fieldhouse.
Dwayne once sold him a Pontiac Ventura, and had made
adjustments and replaced parts because it wouldn't run right. But Breedlove had
painted, "This Car is a Lemon" all over the car. It turned out a
neighborhood kid had poured maple syrup in its gas tank.
He had been repairing a defective
gas oven in the kitchen of the new Holiday Inn during Dwayne's rampage. Dwayne
offers Breedlove his hand, and they shake; while Breedlove is led to believe
Dwayne is making a motion of friendship, Dwayne boxes him in the ear, causing
him to go deaf.
Don Miller
Mary Alice
Miller's father, who taught her to swim when she was eight months old and
forced her to swim for at least four hours every day since the age of three. At
the time Dwayne Hoover bursts outside after attacking three people in the new
Holiday Inn cocktail lounge, Don Miller is lying in his car with the seat back
flat, learning French on audio tape.
Dwayne Hoover
A "fabulously well-to-do"
Pontiac dealer, Hoover is also a "novice lunatic." A combination of
drug abuse and powerful ideas has brought him to the brink of madness. He reads
Trout's science-fiction and interprets it literally, believing that everyone
else in the world is a robot.
Dwayne was adopted, and his birth
parents are described as machines in Chapter 3: "Dwayne's real mother was
a spinster school teacher who wrote sentimental poetry and claimed to be
descended from Richard the Lion-Hearted, who was a king. His real father was an
itinerant typesetter... She was defective child-bearing machine. She destroyed
herself automatically while giving birth to Dwayne. The printer disappeared. He
was a disappearing machine." It is important to note that both Dwayne's
birth mother and his adoptive mother are described as destroying themselves,
one in childbirth and the other with pills. The speaker's mother killed
herself, as well.
We find out in Chapter 13 that he
was adopted by people who thought they couldn't have children, but who later did give birth to the
twins Lyle and Kyle.
Eddie Key
The driver of The Martha Simmons Memorial Mobile Disaster Unit when it picks up Dwayne Hoover and his victims. He is a
young, black, direct descendant of Francis Scott Key, and knows all about his
personal ancestry as he was the chosen member of his generation to memorize the
family history.
He can be seen as representing the
history of America as it interacts with the future, including all races since
his ancestors are white, black, and "Indians." As he drives the
emergency vehicle, he has "the feeling that he himself was a vehicle, and
that his eyes were windshields through which his progenitors could look, if
they wished to." In case Francis Scott Key is looking through at what has
become of America, Eddie focuses his eyes on the American flag stuck to the
windshield and murmurs, "Still wavin', man."
Eldon Robbins
A black male
dishwasher at the new Holiday Inn cocktail lounge. He recognizes Wayne Hoobler
outside near the trashcans, because he too has spent time in the Adult
Correctional Institution. He brings Wayne inside, gives him a meal, and shows
him the peephole through which the black dishwashers watch the white customers
in the cocktail lounge.
Eliot Rosewater
The eccentric millionaire who spent
$18,000 tracking down Trout so he can send him a fan letter. He leverages his
El Greco painting in an agreement with Fred T. Barry, to ensure that Trout will
be invited to the arts festival.
He accidentally killed his mother
in a boating accident when he was young. The narrator tells us, "I made
Rosewater an alcoholic in another book," but now he is sobered up thanks
to Alcoholics Anonymous. He has been having orgies with strangers in New York
City.
Francine Pefko
Dwayne's secretary and mistress.
She is described in Chapter 13 as "a war widow with lips like sofa pillows
and bright red hair," and in Chapter 15 as a "generous, voluptuous
woman." She is in love with Dwayne, and tells him so in Chapter 15 even
though they have made a pact not to speak about love.
Her husband, Robert Pefko, died in
Viet Nam. She had followed him to Midland City, where he worked on the
manufacture of a new "booby trap" to be used in the military.
Fred T. Barry
The chairman of
the arts festival in Midland City, who sends the invitation to Kilgore Trout.
The two men are exactly the same age. As Fred T. Barry grew older and happier,
he came to resemble "an ecstatic old Chinaman" more and more. He even
starts dressing like a Chinaman.
Gloria Browning
The white cashier
in the Service Department, who covers "The Nerve Center" (Francine
Pefko's desk) while Francine escapes to have sex with Dwayne Hoover. She is
twenty-five and has just had a hysterectomy after a botched abortion. The
father of the "destroyed fetus" was Don Breedlove, the same man who
had raped Patty Keene.
Harold Newcomb Wilbur
The bartender in
the new Holiday Inn cocktail lounge. He is the second most decorated veteran in
Midland City. When he stares at the narrator, the narrator decides to have him
receive a phone call from Ned Lingamon in prison.
Harry LeSabre
Dwayne's sales manager at the
Pontiac agency. He is the first person to notice Dwayne's strange behavior. He
is also a closeted transvestite, and worries that Dwayne knows his secret
because of implications he invents in Dwayne's meaningless rants.
He is well-to-do because he
invested wisely in the stock market, specifically in Xerox. He and his wife
Grace move to Maui after he erroneously worries that he will be fired for being
discovered as a transvestite.
Kazak
The Doberman
pinscher that attacks the narrator in the Epilogue. He has been taught that
"the Creator of the Universe wanted him to kill anything he could catch,
and eat it, too." Ironically, he ends up attacking the Creator of the
Universe, the narrator, as he loiters in front of the fence behind which the
dog is kept.
Khashdrahr Miasma
Cyprian Ukwende's
Bengali assistant, who is unhelpful on Martha.
He refuses to find shears to cut off Dwayne Hoover's shoes, which are coated in
plastic from Sugar Creek. He cannot tolerate criticism, and he has just been
criticized for amputating a black man's foot when the foot probably could have
been saved.
Kilgore Trout
Trout is a science-fiction writer,
a "nobody" who owns "doodley-squat." He feels as if he has
no impact on the world, and is introduced in Chapter 1 as supposing, or hoping,
he is dead. He works as an installer of aluminum combination storm windows and
screens, and at first nobody knows he is a writer. He is described in Chapter 2
as having no charm.
He will win the Nobel Prize for
Medicine in 1979.
Trout has been married three times,
as we find out in his Chapter 12 conversation with the Pyramid truck driver.
Each of his wifes had been "extraordinarily patient and loving and
beautiful. Each had been shriveled by his pessimism." He also has only one
son, who left home at the age of 14, and from whom Trout has never heard again.
Trout does know that he deserted in Viet Nam and joined the Viet Cong.
The narrator tells us that,
"Trout was the only character I ever created who had enough imagination to
suspect that he might be the creation of another human being."
Lottie Davis
Dwayne's black
servant. She was descended from slaves. She and Dwayne like each other, but
they don't talk much.
Lyle and Kyle Hoover
Dwayne Hoover's younger
stepbrothers who own Sacred Miracle Cave. They live in identical yellow ranch
houses on either side of the gift shop. The only difference in their
appearances is that Lyle had his nose broken at the Roller Derby in 1954.
They are exceedingly worried about
the fate of the Sacred Miracle Cave, since stinky bubbles the size of ping-pong
balls have been floating up from the polluted stream that runs through it.
Mary Alice Miller
The fifteen-year-old Women's Two
Hundred Meter Breast Stroke Champion of the World. She is the only
internationally famous person in Midland City, and is the Queen of the Festival
of the Arts. Her father taught her to swim when she was eight months old, and
made her swim at least four hours every day since she was three. When Bonnie
MacMahon tells Robo Karabekian Mary Alice's story, he insults her and causes
the spiritual climax of the book.
Her eyes are permanently inflamed,
and her father, Don Miller, is Chairman of the Parole Board at Shepherdstown.
The manager
The manager of
the pornographic movie house in Chapters 7 and 8 is also the ticket-taker,
bouncer, and janitor. He is attacked by what comes to be known as The Pluto Gang along with Kilgore Trout on Forty-second
Street. He says "God bless you" when Trout happens to sneeze, and
they form a temporary friendship that lasts until they are attacked. He has a
wife and two kids who don't know that he runs a pornographic theater. He was in
on the development of "a miraculous insulating material," which is
the same material of which Dwayne Hoover's house is made.
Mary Young
The oldest
inhabitant of Midland City, who is dying in the County Hospital in Chapter 6.
Her parents had been slaves in Kentucky. She is black, and she used to do the
laundry for Dwayne's family. The only person with her while she dies is Cyprian
Ukwende.
Milo Maritimo
The beautiful young desk clerk at
the new Holiday Inn, and also the homosexual grandson of Guillermo "Little
Willie" Maritimo, a "bodyguard of the notorious Chicago gangster, Al
Capone. He is also the nephew of the partners in the Maritimo Brothers
Construction Company, which is polluting Sugar Creek.
He has read all of Kilgore Trout's
work, which he borrowed from the personal library of Eliot Rosewater, and gives
Trout a surprisingly welcome greeting upon his arrival to the hotel.
The Narrator
The narrator inserts himself into
the story. He discusses how he invented each of the characters, and how he is
constantly deciding what happens to them.
He suspects that he has
schizophrenia, although he is not certain. What he does know is that, "I
was making myself hideously uncomfortable by not narrowing my attention to
details of life which were immediately important, and by refusing to believe
what my neighbors believed." This vague description is perhaps provided by
Vonnegut in order to point to the more obvious symptom the narrator exhibits:
interacting with characters in a fictional universe.
Ned Lingamon
The most
decorated veteran in Midland City. He calls Harold Newcomb Wilbur from prison,
where he is because he killed his own baby. His dead baby's name was Cynthia
Anne, and he killed her because she wouldn't stop crying.
Newbolt Simmons
A County
Commissioner of Public Safety, after whose wife the Martha Simmons Memorial Mobile Disaster
Unit is named.
His wife died of rabies after being bitten by a bat she was trying to save. He
and Dwayne were "drawn together for a while," because their wifes had
died strange deaths within a month of each other. Their friendship petered out,
but they still exchange Christmas cards.
Patty Keene
Dwayne's waitress at the Burger
Chef in Chapter 15, who believes she can convince Dwayne to help her
financially. She is a seventeen-year-old white girl, with blond hair and blue
eyes, working to pay off the hospital bills accrued by her father as he died of
colon cancer.
She was raped by Don Breedlove, but
never reported it to the police because she was preoccupied with her father's
illness at the time.
Phoebe Hurty
In the Preface,
Vonnegut dedicates Breakfast of Champions to Phoebe Hurty. She is impolite in a
graceful way, a quality which Vonnegut says he tries to imitate. She represents
the belief in a new American paradise that would come with prosperity after the
Great Depression.
The Pyramid truck driver
The driver of the
Pyramid truck that picks up Trout at the mouth of the Lincoln tunnel. His
interactions with Trout point to themes of the story, such as his opinion about
the destruction of the planet. His brother works in a factory making chemicals
for killing plants and trees in Viet Nam. The driver points out that "the
only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some
way," meaning that most jobs destroy the planet, and consequently
humankind.
Rabo Karabekian
The minimal painter who attends the
arts festival in Midland City. His painting, entitledThe Temptation of Saint
Anthony, was the first purchase for the permanent collection of the Mildred
Barry Memorial Center for the Arts, and cost $50,000.
He is, in the narrator's opinion,
"a vain and weak and trashy man." This is perhaps because his opinion
that all living things are beams of light, expressed in his painting, is so
contrary to the narrator's conviction that humans are machines.
Sparky
Sparky is Dwayne
Hoover's Labrador retriever. Because of a car accident in the past, he cannot
wag his tail. Unfortunately, this means other dogs don't know how friendly he
is, and he has to fight all the time.
Vernon Garr
A white mechanic
at Dwayne's Pontiac agency. His wife, Mary, is a schizophrenic who believes
that Vernon is trying to turn her brains into plutonium. Dwayne's previously
philanthropic nature is exemplified in a conversation he had with Vernon, in
which he shows concern for Vernon's wife's health.
Wayne Hoobler
Wayne Hoobler is introduced in
Chapter 11. He has just been paroled from the Adult Correctional Institution at
Shepherdstown, and feels as though he's free for the first time in his life,
since he has always been kept in "orphanages and youth shelters and
prisons of one sort or another." He believes that the planet is terrible,
and feels like he doesn't belong on it since he has no friends or relatives,
and is always being put in cages.
He comes looking for Dwayne Hoover
because he has seen advertisements for the Pontiac dealership and he wants to
work there. His idea of an ideal world is called Fairyland, a place he sees in
his dreams. The speaker points out how childish the name is. He believes that working for Dwayne will help
him achieve that Fairyland.
He misses prison, since now that he
is free he doesn't know what to do with himself. This is similar to what
happened to Bill, Trout's bird, when he freed it from its cage and it decided
to hop back inside because it was afraid of what was beyond the window. This
connection builds upon the theme of race, with black people being viewed as
animals thanks to the society in which they have been brought up.
Wayne also has excellent, white
teeth, thanks to the superb dental program available to prisoners at the Adult
Correctional Institution at Shepherdstown.
5. Kundera, Milan -The
unbearable Lightness of Being:
The
Unbearable Lightness of Being (Czech: Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí) is a 1984 existential novel by Milan Kundera, about two men, two women, a dog and their lives in the Prague Spring period of Czechoslovakhistory in 1968. Although written in 1982, the novel was not
published until two years later, in a French translation (as L'Insoutenable légèreté de l'être). The original Czech text was published the
following year.
Characters:
Tomas - The chief protagonist of the novel, a brilliant
Prague surgeon and intellectual. Having divorced early and lost contact with
his ex-wife and son, Tomas is a light-hearted womanizer who lives for his work
as a ctor. After falling in love with and marrying the emotionally needy
Tereza, Tomas finds himself trapped between the womanizing he cannot give up,
and his genuine love for his new wife. In a politically charged time, Tomas is
an independent thinker and hence objectionable to the Communist government, but
personally he would identify himself as apolitical. In many ways, especially
sexually, Tomas is "light," a libertine.
Tereza - Tomas's young wife. Tereza grew up in a small
Czech town, brought up in the vulgar and invasive presence of her mother. Seeking
escape from that small world, Tereza worships books, culture, and kindness.
Identifying Tomas as a kindred spirit and outsider, she falls in love instantly
and permanently. In Prague, Tomas's womanizing drives Tereza to the brink of
insanity. Although she attempts to understand her husband and his lifestyle and
cannot argue with him logically, Tereza is unable to be "light" about
her love or sexuality. She finds some fulfillment in her work as photographer,
especially during the Soviet tank occupation; she does dangerous and
politically dissident work as a photojournalist.
Sabina - Tomas's favorite mistress and closest friend. A
talented painter. Sabina betrays, successively, her father's home, her art
school, her lovers, and ultimately her country. Sabina is as beautiful and
original as her artwork; early in life, she identified ki tsch, or bad,
sentimental, insistently sunny propaganda art, and lives her life as an attack
on kitsch. She cares deeply for both Tomas and Tereza, even if she cannot understand
why Tomas would trade his freedom for domesticity. Ultimately her desire for
freedom leads Sabina to leave her love, Franz, and lose all contact with her
past. Sabina is the "lightest" character in the novel.
Franz - A Geneva professor and idealist. Sabina's
lover. Franz falls in love with Sabina, whom he (erroneously) considers a
liberal and romantically tragic Czech dissident. Sabina considers both of those
identities kitsch. He is tortured by the fact that he must betray his wife in
order to see Sabina. Ultimately he leaves his wife in what to him is an act of
courage, but to Sabina seems an unhappy and sentimental choice. Franz
identifies strongly with the European liberal left, loves parades and marches,
and idol izes his dead mother. Abandoned by Sabina, he finds solace in the arms
of a perfectly ordinary young student who loves him.
Simon - Tomas's son by his first wife. Simon is a
dreamer and always idealized his father, who did not wish to know him. After
the Prague Spring, a time of increased political and artistic freedom, Simon
joins a dissident group and regains contact with Tomas in a failed attempt to
win approval. Simon later turns to Christianity, and organizes the funeral of
Tomas and Tereza after their deaths.
Tereza's
mother - Tereza'a mother was considered an incredible
beauty in her youth. Doomed to a frustrating marriage by her pregnancy with
Tereza, and then consigned to continual disappointments in her romantic life,
Tereza's mother renounces youth and beauty for a harsh, shameless vulgarity
Tereza cannot stand. Tereza's relationship with her mother borders on hatred.
Marie-Claude - Franz's wife. A Geneva socialite. A vulgar and
pretentious woman, she forced Franz to marry her by threatening suicide. She
calmly allows Franz to move out but does not grant him a divorce, and after his
death reclaims his body.
Young student - Franz's mistress after Sabina leaves him. The
student loves Franz simply and naturally, and with her he finds true happiness.
She is never able to marry Franz or claim any rights after his death.
Tall engineer - The stranger with whom Tereza has an affair. A
mysterious character, he saves Tereza from a difficult situation early on,
seduces her, then vanishes. Some friends warn her he may have been a police
agent gathering potential blackmail material.
Chief surgeon - Tomas's boss. Important in that he tries to
save Tomas's career by encouraging him to sign a denouncement of the article
Tomas wrote in which he criticized the Czech Communists. The chief surgeon
respects Tomas deeply for his decision not to sign the denouncement, but does
not think to resign along with Tomas.
Editor with a
big chin - Political dissident and journalist
in some way involved with Tomas's original paper criticizing the Czech
Communists. This editor is also a friend of Tomas's son, Simon. Simon and the
editor with the big chin attempt to convince Tomas to join the ranks of
dissidents, and, like the police, want him to sign something.
6. Marquez, - Strange
Pilgrims:MRU
Strange
Pilgrims (original Spanish-language title: Doce cuentos
peregrinos)is a collection of twelve loosely-related short stories by the Nobel Prize winningColombian writer Gabriel
García Márquez.
Not published until 1992, the
stories that make up this collection were originally written during the
seventies and eighties. Each of the stories touches on the theme of
dislocation, and the strangeness of life in a foreign land, although quite what
"foreign" means is one of Mr. García Márquez's central questions in
this book. Mr. García Márquez himself spent some years as a virtual exile from
his native Colombia.
Stories:
1.
Bon Voyage, Mr
President (Buen Viaje, Señor Presidente)
2.
The Saint (La Santa)
3.
Sleeping Beauty and
the Airplane (El Avión de la Bella Durmiente)
4.
I Sell My Dreams (Me Alquilo para Soñar)
5.
"I Only Came to
Use the Phone" (Solo Vine a
Hablar por Teléfono)
6.
The Ghosts of August (Espantos de Agosto)
7.
María dos Prazeres
8.
Seventeen Poisoned
Englishmen (Diecisiete Ingleses Envenenados)
9.
Tramontana
10.
Miss Forbes's Summer
of Happiness (El Verano Feliz de la Señora Forbes)
11.
Light is Like Water (La Luz es como el Agua)
12.
The Trail of Your
Blood in the Snow (El Rastro de tu
Sangre en la Nieve)