Moll Flanders is a story about the fall and rise of a beautiful woman who was born in Newgate Prison.

Because of her determination to be someone other than a servant, and because of her great greed, she sought to marry a wealthy man. She married some with money and some without. One of her husbands, she learned to her horror, was her brother, by whom she had several children. Her fear of poverty led her to commit many criminal acts. However, even when she had obtained a large store of cash and goods, she continued stealing. Her ingenious disguises helped her evade prison for many years, in spite of the fact that a number of her accomplices were caught and hanged or transported to the colonies. Moll's heart hardened as she continued to escape arrest. Greed drove her on until she became known as the richest thief in London. Her "governess," who was at one time Moll's midwife, became her partner-in-crime and guided her criminal activities. She later grew penitent and devout and remained Moll's loyal friend for many years. When Moll became less cautious, she was finally captured and taken to Newgate Prison where she was taunted by the other prisoners. Moll repented momentarily as she confessed her crimes to her spiritual adviser, a minister sent by the governess. Because of his intervention, Moll's death sentence was commuted to transportation to the American colonies. While in prison Moll reencountered Jemmy, a highwayman who was her most recent living husband. She persuaded him to join her on the ship transporting convicts to the colonies. This they accomplished and settled in Maryland, where they became successful plantation owners in about a year's time. In Virginia, Moll's former husband-brother was living with one of their sons. Moll was anxious to receive her inheritance from her mother's estate and to meet her son, but was equally reluctant to confront her brother. Everything turned out all right for Moll: she was able to get her inheritance, she was able to avoid her brother, and she met her son, who proved to be devoted and fair. At the age of almost seventy, Moll returned with Jemmy to London, here they planned to live out their lives in repentance for their criminal activities.

European literature in the 18th century [edit]

European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama and novels) produced in Europe during this period. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 Robinson Crusoe is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary novel, the sentimental novel, histories, the gothic novel and thelibertine novel. 18th Century Europe started in the Age of Enlightenment and gradually moved towards Romanticism. In the visual arts, it was the period of Neoclassicism.

Neoclassicism (from Greek neos, Latin classicus and Greek - ismos)

[1]

is the name

given to Western movements in thedecorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music,

and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, latterly competing with Romanticism. In architecture the style continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and into the 21st.

What is the difference between the Victorian and modern age literature?
Answer: Victorian literature was written in England during the "Victorian era" which was from 1832-1901. Victorian literature mostly focused on the strict social, political, and sexual conservatism of the time. Some famous Victorian authors are Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, Charles Dickens, and William Thackeray. Modern age literature (modernism) was during the 1890's through the 1940's. The literature focused on moving towards modern Western ideas, religion, social conventions, and morality. Some famous modern age authors are William Faulkner, Scott Fizgerald, and Joseph Conrad. So I suppose the main difference is that Victorian literature focused on the culture in which they were already in while Modern age focused on the ideas of the West and the future.

Modernism

Modernist literature flourished in the first half of the 20th century. Its defining principle is subjectivity -- a universal omniscient narrator no longer existed to explain events. All writing comes from individual perspectives and requires interpretation by the reader. Furthermore, modernist literature developed an interest in language and its processes as evidenced in works like James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake" or Virginia Woolf's "The Waves." As with surrealism, modernist aesthetics were generally pessimistic because of the carnage of WWI.
The 20th century marked the period when the novel really became self-reverential - ie., when writers wrote novels for the purpose of exploring themselves and their world. In the 20th century, many novelists wrote for the sake of writing, and they became more self-referential and obscure as a result. They experimented with form (James Joyce, Nabokov, Faulkner), or wrote to push the envelope and to prove a point (DH Lawrence and obscenity), or to change society (Upton Sinclair, Erich Maria Remarque).

Heart of Darkness begins on the deck of the Nellie, a British ship anchored on the coast of the Thames. The anonymous narrator, the Director of Companies, the Accountant, and Marlow sit in silence. Marlow begins telling the three men about a time he journeyed in a steamboat up the Congo River. For the rest of the novel (with only minor interruptions), Marlow narrates his tale.

As a young man, Marlow desires to visit Africa and pilot a steamboat on the Congo River. After learning of the Company a large ivory-trading firm working out of the Congo Marlow applies for and received a post. He left Europe in a French steamer. At the Company's Outer Station in the Congo, Marlow witnesses scenes of brutality, chaos, and waste. Marlow speaks with an Accountant, whose spotless dress and uptight demeanor fascinate him. Marlow first learns from the Accountant of Kurtz a "remarkable" agent working in the interior. Marlow leaves the Outer Station on a 200mile trek across Africa, and eventually reaches the Company's Central Station, where he learns that the steamboat he is supposed to pilot up the Congo was wrecked at the bottom of the river. Frustrated, Marlow learns that he has to wait at the Central Station until his boat is repaired. Marlow then meets the Company's Manager, who told him more about Kurtz. According to the Manager, Kurtz is supposedly ill, and the Manager feigns great concern over Kurtz's health although Marlow later suspects that the Manager wrecked his steamboat on purpose to keep supplies from getting to Kurtz. Marlow also meets the Brickmaker, a man whose position seems unnecessary, because he doesn't have all the materials for making bricks. After three weeks, a band of traders called The Eldorado Exploring Expedition led by the Manager's uncle arrives. One night, as Marlow is lying on the deck of his salvaged steamboat, he overhears the Manager and his uncle talk about Kurtz. Marlow concludes that the Manager fears that Kurtz is trying to steal his job. His uncle, however, told him to have faith in the power of the jungle to "do away" with Kurtz. Marlow's boat is finally repaired, and he leaves the Central Station (accompanied by the Manager, some agents, and a crew of cannibals) to bring relief to Kurtz. Approximately fifty miles below Kurtz's Inner Station, they find a hut of reeds, a woodpile and an English book titled An Inquiry into some Points of Seamanship. As it crept toward Kurtz, Marlow's steamboat is attacked by a shower of arrows. The Whites fire rifles into the jungle while Marlow tries to navigate the boat. A native helmsman is killed by a large spear and thrown overboard. Assuming that the same natives who are attacking them have already attacked the Inner Station, Marlow feels disappointed now that he will never get the chance to speak to Kurtz. Marlow reaches the Inner Station and notices Kurtz's building through his telescope there is no fence, but a series of posts ornamented with "balls" that Marlow later learns were natives' heads. A Russian trader and disciple of Kurtz, called "The Harlequin" by Marlow, approaches the steamboat and tells Marlow that Kurtz is still alive. Marlow learns that the hut they previously saw is the Harlequin's. The Harlequin speaks enthusiastically of Kurtz's wisdom, saying, "This man has enlarged my mind." Marlow learns from him that the steamboat was attacked because the natives did not want Kurtz to be taken away. Suddenly, Marlow sees a group of native men coming toward him, carrying Kurtz on a stretcher; Kurtz is taken inside a hut, where Marlow approaches him and gives him some letters. Marlow notices that Kurtz is frail, sick, and

bald. After leaving the hut, Marlow sees a "wild and gorgeous" native woman approach the steamer; the Harlequin hints to Marlow that the woman is Kurtz's Mistress. Marlow then hears Kurtz chiding the Manager from behind a curtain: "Save me! save the ivory, you mean." The Harlequin, fearing what might happen when Kurtz is taken on board the steamboat, asks Marlow for some tobacco and rifle cartridges; he then leaves in a canoe. At midnight that same night, Marlow awakens to the sound of a big drum. He inspects Kurtz's cabin, only to discover that he is not there. Marlow runs outside and finds a trail running through the grass and realizes that Kurtz is escaping by crawling away on all fours. When he comes upon Kurtz, Kurtz warns him to run, but Marlow helped Kurtz to his feet and carried him back to the cabin. The next day, Marlow, his crew, and Kurtz leave the Inner Station. As they move farther away from the Inner Station, Kurtz's health deteriorates; at one point, the steamboat breaks down and Kurtz gives Marlow a packet of letters and a photograph for safe-keeping, fearing that the Manager will take them. Marlow complies. One night after the breakdown, Marlow approaches Kurtz, who is lying in the pilothouse on his stretcher "waiting for death." After trying to reassure Kurtz that he is not going to die, Marlow hears Kurtz whisper his final words: "The horror! The horror!" The next day, Kurtz is buried offshore in a muddy hole. After returning to Europe, Marlow again visits Brussels and finds himself unable to relate to the sheltered Europeans around him. A Company official approaches Marlow and asks for the packet of papers to which Kurtz had entrusted him. Marlow refuses, but he does give the official a copy of Kurtz's report to The Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs with Kurtz's chilling postscript ("Exterminate all the brutes!") torn off. He learns that Kurtz's mother had died after being nursed by Kurtz's "Intended," or fiance. Marlow's final duty to Kurtz is to visit his Intended and deliver Kurtz's letters (and her portrait) to her. When he meets her, at her house, she is dressed in mourning and still greatly upset by Kurtz's death. Marlow lets slip that he was with Kurtz when he died, and the Intended asks him to repeat Kurtz's last words Marlow lies to her and says, "The last word he pronounced was your name." The Intended states that she "knew" Kurtz would have said such a thing, and Marlow leaves, disgusted by his lie yet unable to prevent himself from telling it. The anonymous narrator on board the Nellie then resumes his narrative. The Director of Companies makes an innocuous remark about the tide, and the narrator looks out at the overcast sky and the Thames which seems to him to lead "into the heart of an immense darkness."

Tristram ShandyBy Laurence SterneBook Summary

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Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy is narrated by the title character in a series of digressions and interruptions that purportedly show the "life and opinions" part of the novel's full title of Tristram. Composed of nine "Books" originally published between 1759-1767, the novel has more to do with Shandy family members and their foibles and history than it seemingly does with Tristram himself. However, it is through Tristram's relating the actions, beliefs, and opinions of his family members primarily his father, Walter Shandy, and his paternal Uncle Toby that the reader gets a clearer picture of Tristram's character. Books 1-6 revolve around Tristram's conception (the novel begins the evening of his conception); his birth (with a smashed nose that supposedly bodes ill warnings for his future); his mistaken naming (according to his father prior to Tristram's birth, "Tristram" is the worst possible name for a child); and his circumcision (while urinating out a window, the window falls). However, these events actually take up very little of these first six books' action. Instead, the narration is continuously interrupted by stories, diatribes, and opinions concerning family history, Walter Shandy's hypotheses and theories, and Uncle Toby's penchant for military fortifications to the point that readers today might easily become frustrated with Tristram's inability to get to the point (which, ironically, is the point Tristram is relating his "life and opinions," and they come to him in a disjointed fashion). Book 7 concerns an older Tristram traveling in France for health reasons. The book seems isolated from the story that precedes and follows it. Books 8 and 9 revolve around Uncle Toby's affair with the Widow Wadman, who is concerned about Uncle Toby's supposed groin injury and seeks to find out just how injured his groin is. Again, as in earlier books in the novel, numerous digressions and interruptions are spread throughout these two books, and Tristram through his mother, Mrs. Shandy, finally asks, "What is all this story about?"
The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sensibility, was a fashion in both poetry and prose fiction beginning in the eighteenth century in reaction to the rationalism of the Augustan Age. Sentimental novels relied on emotional response, both from their readers and characters. Among the most famous sentimental novels in English are Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67), Sentimental Journey (1768), Henry Brooke's The Fool of Quality (1765-70), Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling (1771) and Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (1800). Continental examples are Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Julie, or the New Heloise, his autobiography The Confessions (1764-70) and Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). American examples are Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World (1850), while the "death of Little Eva in Harriet Beecher
[2]

Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)" is also an example of this sensibility.

[3]

Tobias Smollett tried to imply

a darker underside to the "cult of sensibility" in his The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771). Another example of this type of novel is Frances Burney's Evelina (1778), wherein the heroine, while naturally good, in part for being country-raised, hones her politeness when, while visiting London, she is educated into propriety. This novel also is the beginning of "romantic comedy", though it is most appropriately labeled a conduct novel and a forerunner of the female Bildungsroman in the English tradition exemplified by later writers such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bront, and George Eliot.
[4]

Lord of the FliesBy William GoldingBook Summary

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Lord of the Flies explores the dark side of humanity, the savagery that underlies even the most civilized human beings. William Golding intended this novel as a tragic parody of children's adventure tales, illustrating humankind's intrinsic evil nature. He presents the reader with a chronology of events leading a group of young boys from hope to disaster as they attempt to survive their uncivilized, unsupervised, isolated environment until rescued. In the midst of a nuclear war, a group of British boys find themselves stranded without adult supervision on a tropical island. The group is roughly divided into the "littluns," boys around the age of six, and the "biguns," who are between the ages of ten and twelve. Initially, the boys attempt to form a culture similar to the one they left behind. They elect a leader, Ralph, who, with the advice and support of Piggy (the intellectual of the group), strives to establish rules for housing and sanitation. Ralph also makes a signal fire the group's first priority, hoping that a passing ship will see the smoke signal and rescue them. A major challenge to Ralph's leadership is Jack, who also wants to lead. Jack commands a group of choirboys-turned-hunters who sacrifice the duty of tending the fire so that they can participate in the hunts. Jack draws the other boys slowly away from Ralph's influence because of their natural attraction to and inclination toward the adventurous hunting activities symbolizing violence and evil. The conflict between Jack and Ralph and the forces of savagery and civilization that they represent is exacerbated by the boys' literal fear of a mythical beast roaming the island. One night, an aerial battle occurs above the island, and a casualty of the battle floats down with his opened parachute, ultimately coming to rest on the mountaintop. Breezes occasionally inflate the parachute, making the body appear to sit up and then sink forward again. This sight panics the boys as they mistake the dead body for the beast they fear. In a reaction to this panic, Jack forms a splinter group that is eventually joined by all but a few of the boys. The boys who join Jack are enticed by the protection Jack's ferocity seems to provide, as well as by the prospect of playing the role of savages: putting on camouflaging face paint, hunting, and

performing ritualistic tribal dances. Eventually, Jack's group actually slaughters a sow and, as an offering to the beast, puts the sow's head on a stick. Of all the boys, only the mystic Simon has the courage to discover the true identity of the beast sighted on the mountain. After witnessing the death of the sow and the gift made of her head to the beast, Simon begins to hallucinate, and the staked sow's head becomes the Lord of the Flies, imparting to Simon what he has already suspected: The beast is not an animal on the loose but is hidden in each boy's psyche. Weakened by his horrific vision, Simon loses consciousness. Recovering later that evening, he struggles to the mountaintop and finds that the beast is only a dead pilot/soldier. Attempting to bring the news to the other boys, he stumbles into the tribal frenzy of their dance. Perceiving him as the beast, the boys beat him to death. Soon only three of the older boys, including Piggy, are still in Ralph's camp. Jack's group steals Piggy's glasses to start its cooking fires, leaving Ralph unable to maintain his signal fire. When Ralph and his small group approach Jack's tribe to request the return of the glasses, one of Jack's hunters releases a huge boulder on Piggy, killing him. The tribe captures the other two biguns prisoners, leaving Ralph on his own. The tribe undertakes a manhunt to track down and kill Ralph, and they start a fire to smoke him out of one of his hiding places, creating an island-wide forest fire. A passing ship sees the smoke from the fire, and a British naval officer arrives on the beach just in time to save Ralph from certain death at the hands of the schoolboys turned savages.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManBy James

JoyceBook Summary
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The novel begins with Stephen Dedalus' first memories, when he was about three years old. The fragmented lines are from a childhood story and a nursery song, and are linked with family associations, sensory perceptions, and pieces of conversation. In this opening scene, Joyce is presenting to us the genesis of a future artist's perception and interpretation of the world. Moving from Stephen's infancy to his early days at Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit boarding school for boys, Joyce focuses on three key incidents which significantly affect Stephen's personality. First, Stephen is pushed into an open cesspool by a bullying classmate, and, subsequently, he develops a fever which confines him to the school infirmary; here, he begins to discern that he is "different," that he is an outsider. Later, when he is probably six years old, Stephen returns home to celebrate Christmas dinner with his family and is invited, for the first time, to sit with the adults at the

dinner table. This extraordinarily happy occasion is marred by a heated political argument between Stephen's old nurse, Dante Riordan, and a dinner guest, Mr. Casey, leaving Stephen confused about the issues of religion and politics in the adult world. On returning to school, Stephen accidentally breaks his glasses and is unable to complete his classwork. He is unjustly humiliated and punished by the cruel prefect of studies, but after receiving encouragement from a friend, Stephen bravely (if fearfully) goes to the rector of the school and obtains justice. The success of this meeting instills in him a healthy self-confidence and ennobles him, for a moment, in the eyes of his classmates. After a brief summer vacation at his home in Blackrock, Stephen learns that his father's financial reversals make it impossible to return to Clongowes Wood; instead, he is enrolled in a less prestigious Jesuit day school, Belvedere College. Here, he develops a distinguished reputation as an award-winning essay writer and a fine actor in his school play. Despite these accomplishments, however, Stephen feels increasingly alienated from his schoolmates because of his growing religious skepticism and his deep interest in literature and writing. This feeling of isolation is intensified during a trip with his father to Cork, where he learns more about his father's weaknesses. Stephen becomes increasingly repelled by the dead-end realities of Dublin life. Frustrated by his loss of faith in the Catholic Church, in his family situation, and in his cultural bonds, Stephen seeks to "appease the fierce longings of his heart." After wandering through the city's brothel district, he finds momentary solace with a Dublin prostitute. He is fourteen years old, and this is his first sexual experience. After a period of "sinful living," Stephen attends an intense three-day spiritual retreat. During that time, he is overwhelmed by guilt and remorse; he believes that Father Arnall is speaking directly to him. Panicking, he seeks out a kindly old Capuchin priest, pledges moral reform, and rededicates himself to a life of purity and devotion. He fills his days with fervent prayers and takes part in as many religious services as he can. Noticing Stephen's exceedingly pious behavior, the director of the school arranges a meeting to encourage Stephen to consider entering the priesthood. At first, Stephen is flattered, fascinated by the possibilities of the clerical life, but increasingly he is tormented by carnal desires. He finally realizes that his "inherent sinful nature" makes it necessary for him to reject a religious vocation. Having made this discovery about himself, Stephen decides to enroll in the university, where he hopes to shape his destiny as an artist. This decision is immediately followed by a climactic "epiphany": he sees a girl wading in the sea; to Stephen, she embodies the attraction, the promise, and the abandon which he wishes to experience in life. It is at this moment that Stephen understands that he can only hope to gain this experience through a life of artistic expression. Shortly thereafter, Stephen begins a new life as a young man in search of his own values and his own credo. In comparison with the other college students, Stephen often

seems anti-social and more concerned with pursuing his own interests than supporting the causes of others. Even Stephen himself realizes that unlike most of his friends, he is unusually introspective. He is not the typical devil-may-care university student; he rejects the typical blind patriotic blather, and although he continues to respect the Catholic faith, he no longer believes that its tenets should govern his life. Through conversations with friends and a dean of studies, Stephen eventually develops his own aesthetic theory of art, based on the philosophies of Aristotle and Aquinas. Simultaneously, he concludes that if he is ever going to find his artistic soul, he must sever all bonds of faith, family, and country. He must leave Dublin and go abroad to "forge" his soul's "uncreated conscience."

Pride and PrejudiceBy Jane AustenCritical EssaysWomen's Roles

in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain
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The importance of marriage in the lives of Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters may be difficult for modern readers to understand. Young women today have a variety of options open to them regarding their future they can marry, of course, but they can also go to college, follow any career path that may interest them, and live on their own, independent of relatives or chaperones. Young women of Austen's day did not have these advantages. Although the daughters of the middle and upper class could be sent to school, their education there consisted more of becoming "accomplished" than it did of expanding their academic knowledge. Additionally, women in early nineteenthcentury Britain were not allowed in higher education, so private tutors, governesses, and private schools were the extent of structured education open to them. Naturally, a young woman like Elizabeth Bennet with a lively, inquisitive mind would have been able to further her education independently through reading. Elizabeth indicates as much to Lady Catherine, describing education for her and her sisters as being unstructured but accessible: "such of us as wished to learn, never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle certainly might." In discussing a woman's accomplishments, Darcy also comments that a really commendable woman will improve "her mind by extensive reading." A woman's formal education was limited because her job opportunities were limited and vice versa. Society could not conceive of a woman entering a profession such as medicine or the law and therefore did not offer her the chance to do so. In fact, middleand upper-class women had few avenues open to them for a secure future. If unmarried, they would remain dependent upon their relatives, living with or receiving a small income from their fathers, brothers, or other relations who could afford to support them. In Elizabeth's case, she is dependent upon her father while he is living and she is

unmarried, but because of the entail and the fact that she has no brothers, her situation could become quite desperate when he dies. She and her mother and sisters would be forced to rely upon the charity of their relatives, such as Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and even Mr. Collins. Such a position would be extremely distasteful and humiliating. Other options available to a gently bred young woman who needs to support herself would be to take a position as a governess or a lady's companion. Both jobs allowed a woman to earn a living without sacrificing her social position. However, the working conditions of these jobs were often unpleasant and degrading. Governesses might be preyed upon by the men in the family for which they worked, while lady's companions, such as Miss De Bourgh's companion, Mrs. Jenkinson, might be treated poorly by their employers and given menial tasks to attend to. Any other form of employment a woman could take was considered unacceptable and would most likely irrevocably harm her social standing. An unmarried woman's social standing would also be harmed by her living alone, outside of the sphere of her family's influence. If a single woman who had never been married was not living with her family, she should at least be living with a suitable chaperone. Therefore, when the Bennet daughters travel in Pride and Prejudice, they always stay in the company of a relative or a respectable married woman. Jane visits the Gardiners, Elizabeth stays with the now-married Charlotte, Elizabeth later travels with the Gardiners, and Lydia goes to Brighton as the guest of Mrs. Forster. When Lydia runs away with Wickham, however, her reputation and social standing are ruined by the fact that she lived with him alone and unwed for two weeks. Only marriage can save her from being rejected by her social sphere, and only marriage can save her family's reputation as well, unless they disowned her. Consequently, Darcy's efforts to find Wickham and Lydia and to buy Wickham's marriage to Lydia quite literally saves not only Lydia's reputation, but the whole Bennet family as well. Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Love Pride and Prejudice contains one of the most cherished love stories in English literature: the courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. As in any good love story, the lovers must elude and overcome numerous stumbling blocks, beginning with the tensions caused by the lovers own personal qualities. Elizabeths pride makes her misjudge Darcy on the basis of a poor first impression, while Darcys prejudice against Elizabeths poor social standing blinds him, for a time, to her many virtues. (Of course, one could also say that Elizabeth is guilty of prejudice and Darcy of pridethe title cuts both ways.) Austen, meanwhile, poses countless smaller obstacles to the realization of the love between Elizabeth and Darcy, including Lady Catherines attempt to control her nephew, Miss Bingleys snobbery, Mrs. Bennets idiocy, and Wickhams deceit. In each case, anxieties about social connections, or the desire for better social connections, interfere with the workings of love. Darcy and Elizabeths realization of a mutual and tender love seems to imply that Austen views love as something independent of these social forces, as something that can be captured if only an individual is able to escape the warping effects of hierarchical society. Austen does sound some more realist (or, one could say, cynical) notes about love, using the character of Charlotte Lucas, who marries the buffoon Mr. Collins for his money, to demonstrate that the heart does not always dictate marriage. Yet with her

central characters, Austen suggests that true love is a force separate from society and one that can conquer even the most difficult of circumstances. Reputation Pride and Prejudice depicts a society in which a womans reputation is of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside the social norms makes her vulnerable to ostracism. This theme appears in the novel, when Elizabeth walks to Netherfield and arrives with muddy skirts, to the shock of the reputationconscious Miss Bingley and her friends. At other points, the ill-mannered, ridiculous behavior of Mrs. Bennet gives her a bad reputation with the more refined (and snobbish) Darcys and Bingleys. Austen pokes gentle fun at the snobs in these examples, but later in the novel, when Lydia elopes with Wickham and lives with him out of wedlock, the author treats reputation as a very serious matter. By becoming Wickhams lover without benefit of marriage, Lydia clearly places herself outside the social pale, and her disgrace threatens the entire Bennet family. The fact that Lydias judgment, however terrible, would likely have condemned the other Bennet sisters to marriageless lives seems grossly unfair. Why should Elizabeths reputation suffer along with Lydias? Darcys intervention on the Bennets behalf thus becomes all the more generous, but some readers might resent that such an intervention was necessary at all. If Darcys money had failed to convince Wickham to marry Lydia, would Darcy have still married Elizabeth? Does his transcendence of prejudice extend that far? The happy ending of Pride and Prejudice is certainly emotionally satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the theme of reputation, and the importance placed on reputation, unexplored. One can ask of Pride and Prejudice, to what extent does it critique social structures, and to what extent does it simply accept their inevitability? Class The theme of class is related to reputation, in that both reflect the strictly regimented nature of life for the middle and upper classes in Regency England. The lines of class are strictly drawn. While the Bennets, who are middle class, may socialize with the upper-class Bingleys and Darcys, they are clearly their social inferiors and are treated as such. Austen satirizes this kind of class-consciousness, particularly in the character of Mr. Collins, who spends most of his time toadying to his upper-class patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Though Mr. Collins offers an extreme example, he is not the only one to hold such views. His conception of the importance of class is shared, among others, by Mr. Darcy, who believes in the dignity of his lineage; Miss Bingley, who dislikes anyone not as socially accepted as she is; and Wickham, who will do anything he can to get enough money to raise himself into a higher station. Mr. Collinss views are merely the most extreme and obvious. The satire directed at Mr. Collins is therefore also more subtly directed at the entire social hierarchy and the conception of all those within it at its correctness, in complete disregard of other, more worthy virtues. Through the Darcy-Elizabeth and Bingley-Jane marriages, Austen shows the power of love and happiness to overcome class boundaries and prejudices, thereby implying that such prejudices are hollow, unfeeling, and unproductive. Of course, this whole discussion of class must be made with the understanding that Austen herself is often criticized as being a classist: she doesnt really represent anyone from the lower classes; those servants she does portray are generally happy with their lot. Austen does criticize class structure but only a limited slice of that structure. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes. Courtship In a sense, Pride and Prejudice is the story of two courtshipsthose between Darcy and Elizabeth and between Bingley and Jane. Within this broad structure appear other, smaller courtships: Mr. Collinss aborted wooing of Elizabeth, followed by his successful wooing of Charlotte Lucas; Miss Bingley s unsuccessful attempt to attract Darcy; Wickhams pursuit first of Elizabeth, then of the never-seen Miss King, and finally of Lydia. Courtship therefore takes on a profound, if often unspoken, importance in the novel. Marriage is the ultimate goal, courtship constitutes the real working-out of love. Courtship becomes a sort of forge of a persons personality, and each courtship becomes a microcosm for different sorts of love (or different ways to abuse love as a means to social advancement).

Journeys Nearly every scene in Pride and Prejudice takes place indoors, and the action centers around the Bennet home in the small village of Longbourn. Nevertheless, journeys even short onesfunction repeatedly as catalysts for change in the novel. Elizabeths first journey, by which she intends simply to visit Charlotte and Mr. Collins, brings her into contact with Mr. Darcy, and leads to his first proposal. Her second journey takes her to Derby and Pemberley, where she fans the growing flame of her affection for Darcy. The third journey, meanwhile, sends various people in pursuit of Wickham and Lydia, and the journey ends with Darcy tracking them down and saving the Bennet family honor, in the process demonstrating his continued devotion to Elizabeth.

Tess of the d'UrbervillesBy Thomas HardyBook Summary

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Tess Durbeyfield is a 16-year-old simple country girl, the eldest daughter of John and Joan Durbeyfield. In a chance meeting with Parson Tringham along the road one night, John Durbeyfield discovers that he is the descendent of the d'Urbervilles, an ancient, monied family who had land holdings as far back as William the Conqueror in 1066. Upon this discovery, the financially strapped Durbeyfield family learns of a nearby "relative," and John and his wife Joan send Tess to "claim kin" in order to alleviate their impoverished condition. While visiting the d'Urbervilles at The Slopes, Tess meets Alec d'Urberville, who finds himself attracted to Tess. Alec arranges for Tess to become the caretaker for his blind mother's poultry, and Tess moves to The Slopes to take up the position. While in residence at the d'Urbervilles, Alec seduces and rapes Tess. Tess returns home, gives birth to a son, Sorrow, the product of the rape, and works as a field worker on nearby farms. Sorrow becomes ill and dies in infancy, leaving Tess devastated at her loss. Tess makes another journey away from home to nearby Talbothays Dairy to become a milkmaid to a good-natured dairyman, Mr. Crick. There she meets and falls in love with a travelling farmer's apprentice, Angel Clare. She tries to resist Angel's pleas for her hand in marriage but eventually marries Angel. He does not know Tess' past, although she has tried on several occasions to tell him. After the wedding, Tess and Angel confess their pasts to each other. Tess forgives Angel for his past indiscretions, but Angel cannot forgive Tess for having a child with another man. Angel suggests that the two split up, with Angel going to Brazil for a year and Tess going back home. Tess agrees and returns to her parent's house. Tess eventually leaves home again for work in another town at Flintcomb-Ash farm, where the working conditions are very harsh. Tess is reunited with some of her friends from Talbothays, and they all settle in at Flintcomb to the hard work routine. Tess is determined to see Angel's family in nearby Emminster but loses her nerve at the last minute. On her return to Flintcomb, Tess sees Alec again, now a practicing evangelical minister, preaching to the folks in the countryside. When Alec sees Tess, he is struck dumb and leaves his position to pursue her. Alec follows her to Flintcomb, asking her to marry him. Tess refuses in the strongest terms, but Alec is persistent.

Tess returns home to find her mother recovering from her illness, but her father, John, dies suddenly from an unknown ailment. The burden of her family's welfare falls on Tess' shoulders. Destitute now and homeless (they have been evicted from their cottage), the Durbeyfields have nowhere to go. Tess knows that she cannot resist Alec's money and the comforts her family can use. Furthermore, Alec insists that Angel will never return and has abandoned her an idea that Tess has already come to believe herself. In the meantime, Angel returns from Brazil to look for Tess and to begin his own farm in England. When Angel finds Tess' family, Joan informs him that Tess has gone to Sandbourne, a fashionable seaside resort in the south of England. Angel finds Tess there, living as an upper-class lady with Alec d'Urberville. In the meeting with Angel, Tess asks him to leave and not return for her. Angel does leave, resigned that he had judged Tess too harshly and returned too late. After her meeting with Angel, Tess confronts Alec and accuses him of lying to her about Angel. In a fit of anger and fury, Tess stabs Alec through the heart with a carving knife, killing him. Tess finds Angel to tell him of the deed. Angel has trouble believing Tess' story but welcomes her back. The two travel the countryside via back roads to avoid detection. Their plan is to make for a port and leave the country as soon as possible. They spend a week in a vacant house, reunited in bliss for a short time. They are discovered, however, and the trail ends at Stonehenge, the ancient pagan monument, when the police arrest Tess and take her away. Before she is executed for her crime, Tess has Angel promise to marry her sister Liza Lu once she is gone. Angel agrees and he, along with Liza Lu, witnesses a black flag raised in the city of Wintoncester, signifying that Tess' death sentence has been carried out. The two, Angel and Liza Lu, leave together, and the tragic tale of Tess ends. Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Injustice of Existence Unfairness dominates the lives of Tess and her family to such an extent that it begins to seem like a general aspect of human existence in Tess of the dUrbervilles. Tess does not mean to kill Prince, but she is punished anyway, just as she is unfairly punished for her own rape by Alec. Nor is there justice waiting in heaven. Christianity teaches that there is compensation in the afterlife for unhappiness suffered in this life, but the only devout Christian encountered in the novel may be the reverend, Mr. Clare, who seems more or less content in his life anyway. For others in their misery, Christianity offers little solace of heavenly justice. Mrs. Durbeyfield never mentions otherworldly rewards. The converted Alec preaches heavenly justice for earthly sinners, but his faith seems shallow and insincere. Generally, the moral atmosphere of the novel is not Christian justice at all, but pagan injustice. The forces that rule human life are absolutely unpredictable and not necessarily well-disposed to us. The pre-Christian rituals practiced by the farm workers at the opening of the novel, and Tesss final rest at Stonehenge at the end, remind us of a world where the gods are not just and fair, but whimsical and uncaring. When the narrator concludes the novel with the statement that Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals (in the Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess,

we are reminded that justice must be put in ironic quotation marks, since it is not really just at all. What passes for Justice is in fact one of the pagan gods enjoying a bit of sport, or a frivolo us game. Changing Ideas of Social Class in Victorian England Tess of the dUrbervillespresents complex pictures of both the importance of social class in nineteenth-century England and the difficulty of defining class in any simple way. Certainly the Durbeyfields are a powerful emblem of the way in which class is no longer evaluated in Victorian times as it would have been in the Middle Ages that is, by blood alone, with no attention paid to fortune or worldly success. Indubitably the Durbeyfields have purity of blood, yet for the parson and nearly everyone else in the novel, this fact amounts to nothing more than a piece of genealogical trivia. In the Victorian context, cash matters more than lineage, which explains how Simon Stokes, Alecs father, was smoothly able to use his large fortune to purchase a lustrous family name and transform his clan into the StokedUrbervilles. The dUrbervilles pass for what the Durbeyfields truly areauthentic nobilitysimply because definitions of class have changed. The issue of class confusion even affects the Clare clan, whose most promising son, Angel, is intent on becoming a farmer and marrying a milkmaid, thus bypassing the traditional privileges of a Cambridge education and a parsonage. His willingness to work side by side with the farm laborers helps endear him to Tess, and their acquaintance would not have been possible if he were a more traditional and elitist aristocrat. Thus, the three main characters in the Angel-Tess-Alec triangle are all strongly marked by confusion regarding their respective social classes, an issue that is one of the main concerns of the novel. Men Dominating Women One of the recurrent themes of the novel is the way in which men can dominate women, exerting a power over them linked primarily to their maleness. Sometimes this command is purposeful, in the mans full knowledge of his exploitation, as when Alec acknowledges how bad he is for seducing Tess for his own momentary pleasure. Alecs act of abuse, the most life-altering event that Tess experiences in the novel, is clearly the most serious instance of male domination over a female. But there are other, less blatant examples of womens passivity toward dominant men. When, after Angel reveals that he prefers Tess, Tesss friend Retty attemp ts suicide and her friend Marian becomes an alcoholic, which makes their earlier schoolgirl-type crushes on Angel seem disturbing. This devotion is not merely fanciful love, but unhealthy obsession. These girls appear utterly dominated by a desire for a man who, we are told explicitly, does not even realize that they are interested in him. This sort of unconscious male domination of women is perhaps even more unsettling than Alecs outward and self -conscious cruelty. Even Angels love for Tess, as pure and gentle as it seems, dominates her in an unhealthy way. Angel substitutes an idealized picture of Tesss country purity for the real -life woman that he continually refuses to get to know. When Angel calls Tess names like Daughter of Nature and Artemis, we feel that he may be denying her true self in favor of a mental image that he prefers. Thus, her identity and experiences are suppressed, albeit unknowingly. This pattern of male domination is finally reversed with Tesss murder of Alec, in which, for th e first time in the novel, a woman takes active steps against a man. Of course, this act only leads to even greater suppression of a woman by men, when the crowd of male police officers arrest Tess at Stonehenge. Nevertheless, for just a moment, the accepted pattern of submissive women bowing to dominant men is interrupted, and Tesss act seems heroic. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes. Birds Images of birds recur throughout the novel, evoking or contradicting their traditional spiritual association with a higher realm of transcendence. Both the Christian dove of peace and the Romantic songbirds of Keats and Shelley, which symbolize sublime heights, lead us to expect that birds will have positive meaning in this novel. Tess occasionally hears birdcalls on her frequent hikes across the countryside; their free expressiveness stands in stark contrast to Tesss silent and constrained existence as a wronged and disgrac ed girl. When Tess goes to work for Mrs. dUrberville, she is surprised to find that the old womans pet finches are frequently released to fly free throughout the room. These birds offer images of hope and liberation. Yet there is irony attached to birds as well, making us doubt whether these images of hope and freedom are illusory. Mrs. dUrbervilles birds leave little white spots on the upholstery, which presumably some servantperhaps Tess herselfwill have to clean. It may be that freedom for

one creature entails hardship for another, just as Alecs free enjoyment of Tesss body leads her to a lifetime of suffering. In the end, when Tess encounters the pheasants maimed by hunters and lying in agony, birds no longer seem free, but rather oppressed and submissive. These pheasants are no Romantic songbirds hovering far above the Earththey are victims of earthly violence, condemned to suffer down below and never fly again. The Book of Genesis The Genesis story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is evoked repeatedly throughout Tess of the dUrbervilles, giving the novel a broader metaphysical and philosophical dimension. The roles of Eve and the serpent in paradise are clearly delineated: Angel is the noble Adam newly born, while Tess is the indecisive and troubled Eve. When Tess gazes upon Angel in Chapter XXVII, she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might have regarded Adam. Alec, with his open avowal that he is bad to the bone, is the conniving Satan. He seduces Tess under a tree, giving her sexual knowledge in return for her lost innocence. The very name of the forest where this seduction occurs, the Chase, suggests how Eve will be chased from Eden for her sins. This guilt, which will never be erased, is known in Christian theology as the original sin that all humans have inherited. Just as John Durbeyfield is told in Chapter I that you dont live anywhere, and his family is evicted after his death at the end of the novel, their homelessness evokes the human exile from Eden. Original sin suggests that humans have fallen from their once great status to a lower station in life, just as the dUrbervilles have devolved into the modern Durbeyfields. This Story of the Fallor of the Pure Drop, to recall the name of a pub in Tesss home villageis much more than a social fall. It is an explanation of how all of us humansnot only Tessnever quite seem to live up to our expectations, and are never able to inhabit the places of grandeur we feel we deserve. Variant Names The transformation of the dUrbervilles into the Durbeyfields is one example of the common phenomenon of renaming, or variant naming, in the novel. Names matter in this novel. Tess knows and accepts that she is a lowly Durbeyfield, but part of her still believes, as her parents also believe, that her aristocratic original name should be restored. John Durbeyfield goes a step further than Tess, and actually renames himself Sir John, as his tombstone epitaph shows. Another character who renames himself is Simon Stokes, Alecs father, who pu rchased a family tree and made himself Simon Stoke-dUrberville. The question raised by all these cases of name changing, whether successful or merely imagined, is the extent to which an altered name brings with it an altered identity. Alec acts notoriously ungentlemanly throughout the novel, but by the end, when he appears at the dUrberville family vault, his lordly and commanding bearing make him seem almost deserving of the name his father has bought, like a spoiled medieval nobleman. Hardys interest in name changes makes reality itself seem changeable according to whims of human perspective. The village of Blakemore, as we are reminded twice in Chapters I and II, is also known as Blackmoor, and indeed Hardy famously renames the southern English country side as Wessex. He imposes a fictional map on a real place, with names altered correspondingly. Reality may not be as solid as the names people confer upon it. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Prince When Tess dozes off in the wagon and loses control, the resulting death of the Durbeyfield horse, Prince, spurs Tess to seek aid from the dUrbervilles, setting the events of the novel in motion. The horses demise is thus a powerful pl ot motivator, and its name a potent symbol of Tesss own claims to aristocracy. Like the horse, Tess herself bears a high-class name, but is doomed to a lowly life of physical labor. Interestingly, Princes death occurs right after Tess dreams of ancient knights, having just heard the news that her family is aristocratic. Moreover, the horse is pierced by the forward-jutting piece of metal on a mail coach, which is reminiscent of a wound one might receive in a medieval joust. In an odd way, Tesss dream of medieval glory comes true, and her horse dies a heroic death. Yet her dream of meeting a prince while she kills her own Prince, and with him her familys only means of financial sustenance, is a tragic foreshadowing of her own story. The death of the horse symbolizes the sacrifice of real-world goods, such as a useful animal or even her own honor, through excessive fantasizing about a better world.

The dUrberville Family Vault A double-edged symbol of both the majestic grandeur and the lifeless hollowness of the aristocratic family name that the Durbeyfields learn they possess, the dUrberville family vault represents both the glory of life and the end of life. Since Tess herself moves from passivity to active murder by the end of the novel, attaining a kind of personal grandeur even as she brings death to others and to herself, the double symbolism of the vault makes it a powerful site for the culminating meeting between Alec and Tess. Alec brings Tess both his lofty name and, indirectly, her own death later; it is natural that he meets her in the vault in dUrberville Aisle, where she reads her own name inscribed in stone and feels the presence of death. Yet the vault that sounds so glamorous when rhapsodized over by John Durbeyfield in Chapter I seems, by the end, strangely hollow and meaningless. When Alec stomps on the floor of the vault, it produces only a hollow echo, as if its basic emptiness is a complement to its visual grandeur. When Tess is executed, her ancestors are said to snooze on in their crypts, as if uncaring even about the fate of a member of their own majestic family. Perhaps the secret of the family crypt is that its grandiosity is ultimately meaningless. Brazil Rather surprising for a novel that seems set so solidly in rural England, the narration shifts very briefly to Brazil when Angel takes leave of Tess and heads off to establish a career in farming. Even more exotic for a Victorian English reader than America or Australia, Brazil is the country in which Robinson Crusoe made his fortune and it seems to promise a better life far from the humdrum familiar world. Brazil is thus more than a geographical entity on the map in this novel: it symbolizes a fantasyland, a place where dreams come true. As Angels name suggests, he is a lofty visionary who lacks some experience with the real world, despite all his mechanical know-how in farm management. He may be able to milk cows, but he does not yet know how to tell the difference between an exotic dream and an everyday reality, so inevitably his experience in the imagined dream world of Brazil is a disaster that he barely survives. His fiasco teaches him that ideals do not exist in life, and this lesson helps him reevaluate his disappointment with Tesss imperfections, her failure to incarnate th e ideal he expected her to be. For Angel, Brazil symbolizes the impossibility of ideals, but also forgiveness and acceptance of life in spite of those disappointed ideals.

Thomas Hardy's Tragic Stories

Thomas Hardy, one of the few Victorian tragic prose writers, undoubtedly draws from the tradition of AristotelianGreek tragedy. Nevertheless, our thesis expresses skepticism in the precision and alacrity with which Hardy is equated with tragedy and conventional tragic form. In a postShakespearean nineteenth-century world, writers were acquainted with two tragic traditions: Greek and Christian. The Greek tragic tradition is founded upon the ritual feasting of Dionysus (or the Roman version, Bacchus); the Christian mystery play tradition is rooted in the Passion of Christ. Both traditions bind themselves inextricably to forces larger than themselves - either to gods and goddesses, or to the Holy Trinity - and structure their plays around the rituals inherent in these traditions. Hardy's own novels comprise elements of both Greek and Christian tragic conventions, thus eliciting great difficulty in delineating a specific tragic form that is Thomas Hardy's. One can argue that Shakespeare was the most influential literary figure in Hardy's life - setting, plot, and themes all have their nativities in Shakespearean plays. Nonetheless, while Shakespeare's own tragedies adhere to the tradition of Seneca and to the medieval morality and mystery play conventions, it seems that Hardy paradoxically structures his tragic form on a preChristian, and even pre-Aristotelian tragic mode. He reformulates his tragedies based on the idea of the Immanent Will, even while he incorporates, so tenaciously, the tragic elements of his predecessors: Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, the mystery play tradition, and, of course, Shakespeare. Hardy, therefore, is a figure who stands on the abyss of modern tragedy even while he plants himself firmly in the embrace of his literary antecedents. Perplexity surrounding Hardy and tragedy is compounded when we consider that he was neither atheist nor religious, and ascribed to the school of meliorism, whose basic tenet was to improve the world through the sympathetic balance of optimism and pessimism, love and loathing, and happiness and pain; indeed, sympathy typifies Hardy's perspective on the world, and we must extend this perspective to his own meliorist vision of tragedy. For Hardy, the tragic stage is none other than Nature herself, and this natural stage ultimately consumes the very characters that he

places upon it. If we peer closely into the world of Edgon Heath, the stage that comprises, in some form or another, Hardy's three major novels - The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles - we see that the protagonist of each story unites with this mysterious entity by each novel's denouement. Tess of the d'Urbervilles is the perfect testament to Hardy's balance of Greek and Christian tragic traditions, and is the proper culmination of his three major novels. Alec d'Urberville and Angel Clare, the embodiments of Dionysian feasting and Christian communion, respectively, are two characters with whom Tess, a mystical pre-Dionysian and pre-Christian figure, is constantly in conflict. In throwing herself across Stonehenge, Tess clambers for a mystical past that defines Hardy's own tragic essence. Hardy paradoxically implodes conventional elements of tragedy and begins to reconfigure tragedy into an entirely new form; complicating the newness of his tragic form is the fact that he hearkens back to a mysterious world of pre-tragedy. Thus, we have Hardy's tragic mystery. Some quotes on tragedy from The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy

Vanity FairBy William Makepeace ThackerayBook Summary

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Amelia Sedley, of good family, and Rebecca Sharp, an orphan, leave Miss Pinkerton's academy on Chiswick Mall to live out their lives in Vanity Fair the world of social climbing and search for wealth. Amelia does not esteem the values of Vanity Fair; Rebecca cares for nothing else. Rebecca first attempts to enter the sacred domain of Vanity Fair by inducing Joseph Sedley, Amelia's brother, to marry her. George Osborne, however, foils this plan; he intends to marry Amelia and does not want a governess for a sister-in-law. Rebecca takes a position as governess at Queen's Crawley, and marries Rawdon Crawley, second son of Sir Pitt Crawley. Because of his marriage, Rawdon's rich aunt disinherits him. First introduced as a friend of George Osborne, William Dobbin becomes the instrument for getting George to marry Amelia, after George's father has forbidden the marriage on account of the Sedley's loss of fortune. Because of George's marriage, old Osborne disinherits him. Both young couples endeavor to live without sufficient funds. George dies at Waterloo. Amelia would have starved but for William Dobbin's anonymous contribution to her welfare. Joseph goes back to his post in India, claiming such valor at Waterloo that he earns the nickname "Waterloo Sedley." Actually he fled at the sound of the cannon. Both Rebecca and Amelia give birth to sons. Rebecca claims she will make Rawdon's fortune, but actually she hides much of her loot, obtained from admiring gentlemen. When she becomes the favorite of the great Lord Steyne, she accumulates both money and diamonds. In the meantime innocent Rawdon draws closer to Lady Jane, wife of Rawdon's older brother, Pitt, who has inherited from the rich aunt.

When Rawdon discovers Rebecca in her treachery, he is convinced that money means more to her than he or the son whom she has always hated. He refuses to see her again and takes a post in Coventry Island, where he dies of yellow fever. Because her parents are starving and she can neither provide for them nor give little Georgy what she thinks he needs, Amelia gives up her son to his grandfather Osborne. William Dobbin comes back from the service, reconciles old Osborne to Amelia, whereat Osborne makes a will leaving Georgy half of his fortune and providing for Amelia. Rebecca, having lost the respectability of a husband, wanders in Europe for a couple of years and finally meets Joseph, Georgy, Amelia, and William on the Continent. Rebecca sets about to finish what she started to do at the first of the book that is, to ensnare Joseph. She does not marry him, but she takes all his money and he dies in terror of her, the implication being that she has, at least, hastened his death. At the end of the book Rebecca has the money necessary to live in Vanity Fair; she appears to be respectable. William has won Amelia. Rebecca has been the one who jolted Amelia into recognition that George, her first love, wasn't worthy. Little Rawdon, upon the death of his uncle Pitt and his cousin Pitt, becomes the heir of Queen's Crawley. Little George, through the kindness of Dobbin, has lost his distorted values obtained in Vanity Fair. The reader feels that these young persons of the third generation will be better people than their predecessors in Vanity Fair.

The Picture of Dorian GrayBy Oscar WildeBook Summary

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In his London studio, artist Basil Hallward puts the finishing touches on his latest portrait, that of a young man. Although Lord Henry, who is visiting with Basil, asks about the young man's identity, Basil declines to answer, noting his preference for secrecy. Basil never intends to exhibit the painting, because if he did, it would bare the deepest feelings in his soul. However, Basil lets slip that the subject of the portrait is Dorian Gray, who shortly thereafter pays the two men a house call. Lord Henry immediately begins to influence Dorian, suggesting that he should treasure and guard his youth and beauty while he has them, because they will soon fade. Terrified of aging, Dorian wishes he could trade his soul to stay as young as he looks in the portrait; a short while later, he again wishes that he could stay young while the image in the painting aged. The portrait thus begins to take on a life-like existence; in fact, Basil's threat to burn the portrait is likened to "murder" and Basil prefers the company of the portrait to the real Dorian. Dorian falls in love with a young actress, Sibyl Vane, a woman he barely knows. She plays a different woman at each night's performance, earning the label of "genius" from

Dorian, who is as smitten with her acting more than with her personality. They become engaged, much to the surprise of Lord Henry and Basil. The sweet, wholesome Sibyl discusses her engagement with her family. Because her mother is indebted to the theatre manager, Mr. Isaacs, for fifty pounds, she is against the marriage unless Dorian is wealthy; they do not know that he is. Sibyl's angry brother, James, is leaving for Australia, but he vows to kill Dorian if he wrongs his sister in any way. James also confronts his mother about gossip he has heard that his mother and deceased father never married, which Mrs. Vane admits is true. Dorian attends a performance of Sibyl's with Lord Henry and Basil, but the performance is terrible. Sibyl tells Dorian she can no longer act, because he has shown her a beautiful reality. Dorian is disgusted by her poor acting, because her performances were what drew him to her; he dismisses her and returns home. To his surprise, the portrait shows marks of cruelty around the mouth, lines that do not show on Dorian's face. He begins to suspect that his wish is coming true, so he vows to be good so that both he and the portrait can remain young. He, therefore, intends to apologize to Sibyl the next day and makes to marry her after all. However, he is too late: Sibyl commits suicide at the theatre that night. Dorian first feels responsibility for her death, but then views it both as wonderful entertainment and a selfish act on her part. Lord Henry tries to keep Dorian's name out of the scandal. Dorian and Lord Henry spend the evening at the opera. The next morning, Basil arrives and expresses concern for Dorian, given the events of the previous day. Dorian, however, is completely unconcerned about Sibyl or her family; he wants to talk only of happy subjects. The next day, he covers his portrait and moves it to the attic, to which Dorian has the only key. He then settles in to read a yellow book sent by Lord Henry; the book becomes Dorian's blueprint for life. Several years pass, and Dorian lives a hedonistic life according to the guidelines established by Lord Henry and the yellow book. While the face in the portrait has turned ugly, Dorian remains young, beautiful, and innocent. People talk about Dorian's "madness of pleasure" and his dreadful influence on the people around him, but that is of no consequence to him. Finally, when he is thirty-eight years old, Dorian shows the portrait to Basil, who begs Dorian to repent of his sin and ask that the wish be revoked. Instead, Dorian kills Basil and hides his body. Blackmailing his old friend Alan Campbell, Dorian is able to dispose of Basil's body. An hour later, Dorian attends a party, but is bored and distracted. He then heads for an opium den and, out on the street, meets Sibyl's younger brother, who has been waiting for an opportunity to harm Dorian for nearly twenty years. Dorian makes a case for mistaken identity when he claims to have the face of a twenty-year-old and cannot be the man James is looking for. A woman in the street reveals that Dorian "sold himself to the devil for a pretty face," so James again pursues Dorian.

At his country estate one week later, Dorian entertains guests but believes James in hunting him. Dorian soon learns, however, that a man accidentally killed in a hunting accident is James, and so he feels safe. The novel concludes six months later. Dorian and Lord Henry dine, and talk turns serious Dorian talks of Basil, and Lord Henry reflects on a sermon he heard the previous Sunday while walking in the park. Lord Henry also inquires about the secret of Dorian's youth, which Dorian dismisses. Dorian then asks Lord Henry never to give the yellow book to anyone else. That evening, while Dorian examines the portrait, he decides to destroy it with the knife used to murder Basil. Soon after, Dorian's servants and a police officer find an old, ugly man lying dead on the ground in front of a portrait of a young and innocent Dorian.
"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan from the early 19th century, ''l'art pour l'art'', and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. Such works are sometimes described as "autotelic", from the Greek autoteles, complete in itself, a concept that has been expanded to embrace "inner -directed" or "self-motivated" human beings. Oscar Wilde did not invent Aestheticism, but he was a

dramatic leader in promoting the movement near the end of the nineteenth century. Wilde was especially influenced as a college student by the works of the English poet and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne and the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The English essayist Walter Pater, an advocate of "art for art's sake," helped to form Wilde's humanistic aesthetics in which he was more concerned with the individual, the self, than with popular movements like Industrialism or Capitalism. Art was not meant to instruct and should not concern itself with social, moral, or political guidance. Like Baudelaire, Wilde advocated freedom from moral restraint and the limitations of society. This point of view contradicted Victorian convention in which the arts were supposed to be spiritually uplifting and instructive. Wilde went a step further and stated that the artist's life was even more important than any work that he produced; his life was to be his most important body of work.
The Idea of Art for Arts Sake, its Origin and its Adaption in England All art is quite useless (Wilde: 1985, 22). This short statement of Oscar Wilde in his Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray(1890) expresses one of the central aspects of the idea of Art for Arts Sake: art shall have no other aim than being art and it should be protected from subordination to any moral, didactic, social or political purpose. Art should be an end in itself and have no specific use in terms of the utilitarian philosophers.

Wuthering HeightsBy Emily BrontBook Summary

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Wuthering Heights opens with Lockwood, a tenant of Heathcliff's, visiting the home of his landlord. A subsequent visit to Wuthering Heights yields an accident and a curious supernatural encounter, which pique Lockwood's curiosity. Back at Thrushcross Grange and recuperating from his illness, Lockwood begs Nelly Dean, a servant who grew up in Wuthering Heights and now cares for Thrushcross Grange, to tell him of the history of Heathcliff. Nelly narrates the main plot line of Wuthering Heights. Mr. Earnshaw, a Yorkshire Farmer and owner of Wuthering Heights, brings home an orphan from Liverpool. The boy is named Heathcliff and is raised with the Earnshaw children, Hindley and Catherine. Catherine loves Heathcliff but Hindley hates him because Heathcliff has replaced Hindley in Mr. Earnshaw's affection. After Mr. Earnshaw's death, Hindley does what he can to destroy Heathcliff, but Catherine and Heathcliff grow up playing wildly on the moors, oblivious of anything or anyone else until they encounter the Lintons. Edgar and Isabella Linton live at Thrushcross Grange and are the complete opposites of Heathcliff and Catherine. The Lintons welcome Catherine into their home but shun Heathcliff. Treated as an outsider once again, Heathcliff begins to think about revenge. Catherine, at first, splits her time between Heathcliff and Edgar, but soon she spends more time with Edgar, which makes Heathcliff jealous. When Heathcliff overhears Catherine tell Nelly that she can never marry him (Heathcliff), he leaves Wuthering Heights and is gone for three years. While he is gone, Catherine continues to court and ends up marrying Edgar. Their happiness is short-lived because they are from two different worlds, and their relationship is strained further when Heathcliff returns. Relationships are complicated even more as Heathcliff winds up living with his enemy, Hindley (and Hindley's son, Hareton), at Wuthering Heights and marries Isabella, Edgar's sister. Soon after Heathcliff's marriage, Catherine gives birth to Edgar's daughter, Cathy, and dies. Heathcliff vows revenge and does not care who he hurts while executing it. He desires to gain control of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange and to destroy everything Edgar Linton holds dear. In order to exact his revenge, Heathcliff must wait 17 years. Finally, he forces Cathy to marry his son, Linton. By this time he has control of the Heights and with Edgar's death, he has control of the Grange. Through all of this, though, the ghost of Catherine haunts Heathcliff. What he truly desires more than anything else is to be reunited with his soul mate. At the end of the novel, Heathcliff and Catherine are united in death, and Hareton and Cathy are going to be united in marriage.

Major Themes
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Of the major themes in Wuthering Heights, the nature of love both romantic and brotherly but, oddly enough, not erotic applies to the principal characters as well as the minor ones. Every relationship in the text is strained at one point or another. Bront's exploration of love is best discussed in the context of good versus evil (which is another way of saying love versus hate). Although the polarities between good and evil are easily understood, the differences are not that easily applied to the characters and their actions. The most important relationship is the one between Heathcliff and Catherine. The nature of their love seems to go beyond the kind of love most people know. In fact, it is as if their love is beyond this world, belonging on a spiritual plane that supercedes anything available to everyone else on Earth. Their love seems to be born out of their rebellion and not merely a sexual desire. They both, however, do not fully understand the nature of their love, for they betray one another: Each of them marry a person whom they know they do not love as much as they love each other. Contrasting the capacity for love is the ability to hate. And Heathcliff hates with a vengeance. Heathcliff initially focuses his hate toward Hindley, then to Edgar, and then to a certain extent, to Catherine. Because of his hate, Heathcliff resorts to what is another major theme in Wuthering Heights revenge. Hate and revenge intertwine with selfishness to reveal the conflicting emotions that drive people to do things that are not particularly nice or rationale. Some choices are regretted while others are relished. These emotions make the majority of the characters in Wuthering Heights well rounded and more than just traditional stereotypes. Instead of symbolizing a particular emotion, characters symbolize real people with real, oftentimes not-so-nice emotions. Every character has at least one redeeming trait or action with which the reader can empathize. This empathy is a result of the complex nature of the characters and results in a depiction of life in the Victorian Era, a time when people behaved very similarly to the way they do today.